[WFB/40k] How about we talk about this Warhammer thing?

Radical suggestion for RGMW these days, to be sure, possibly
particularly for me in recent days. And so it is that I've visited the
GW site for the first time in goodness knows how long to see some new
releases to comment about (although, needless to say, they include
nothing new for Epic Chaos):

First up - they're back. And I still haven't seen the new Codex to
know what they actually do. My impressions of the Harlequins weren't
so great from the preview shots I'd seen, but I'm starting to have a
change of heart about some of them and there are figures here I hadn't
seen before. Of the boxed set contents I'm underwhelmed by the fusion
pistolier (they're calling it a fusion blaster? Does that mean it's a
Tau meltagun?) waving his sword around and the troupe master (why only
one pose for each of the character models?), but I'm a fan of the
rest, including both with the Harlequin's Kiss. The Shadowseer's
pretty anonymous. I really like the Death Jester, actually - the
clownish death mask really does look quite creepy. Don't know about
the high collar - he seems to be auditioning for the von Carsteins.

With the Harlies, are there actually any old-time non-Squat figures
left to bring back? This almost feels like the conclusion of a 20-year
waiting game (yes, this year is 40k's 20th anniversary, I believe).
For the first time in nearly that long GW shops are stocking a 40k
range that includes Inquisitors, Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle
(okay, they're more recent) and now Eldar Harlequins among others.
There's even a Genestealer Patriarch of sorts. Bring back IG Beastmen
and we might just be there.

And with that backlog cleared, *then* they can bring back the Squats,
sorry <Ranter mode> BRING BACK THE SQUATS!...</Ranter mode>

No other news Eldarwise, save that the new packaging for the Guardian
box is finally here - the delay hasn't bothered me since I'm not
collecting at the moment (and have plenty of Guardians back home). No
surprises whatsoever - a heavy platform and 10 Guardians, but it's
good to get a basic squad unit with all the options at long last.
Plasticise the Warlock and throw one in and we'll be all set. When's
the Megaforce coming out again?

Hmm, wait. There are more Eldar? No, hang on, these are ... *Dark*
Eldar? What are Dark Eldar? Actually it's just another repackaging job
- ten Wyches from a more or less random assortment of the current
range, annoyingly including one of each special weapon type rather
than two blasters, replacing the current five-set with shredder. You
know, I never had a problem with these models at the time when others
were slamming them, but boy do they look dated these days. Nothing new
here, it's just worthy of comment that for some strange reason as it
starts to repackage its 40k range into squad boxes it's started with a
race that's been forgotten so long it's effectively extinct, and a
squad that already has a squad box for that matter.

Okay, the Dark Angels are old hat, but I haven't actually commented on
the jetbiker, so here I will.

He seems ... overdone, I think is the word. The basic bike I rather
like; okay so it is a BFG ripoff and they probably should have filed
away the torpedo tubes before using the old component, but while it
looks nothing like a Space Marine vehicle I like it as it is. But
who's meant to be reading that book he has facing away from him
redundantly on top of it (strange that the air speed is causing his
cloak to billow out but the pages of his book are steadfastly
unruffled)? But again the cloak's on the over-the-top side, and the
dynamism of the billowing cloak doesn't sit all that well with what is
otherwise a completely static pose.

The Eldar may not have a Megaforce yet, but the Orcs and Dwarfs do.
Being interested in getting the BfSP pass and building up the
attendant armies I could be quite interested in these.

Dwarfs: New Miners are another long-delayed release. The 3rd Ed. ones
have been dreadfully outdated and pretty dismal figures since, well,
since they were first released, actually. Which means scraping
together a lot of 8-somes from the BfSP set or waiting on these. Shame
the picture is too small to make them out well, but they seem at least
as capable as the BfSP ones and so an improvement on the ones
presently on general release. For an army like Dwarfs, a set that
contains 100 infantry and two war machines (and a cart) looks a pretty
good deal on the face of it, especially with GW's latest every-set-can-
be-built-as-either-X-or-Y model. The strange numbers on the Dwarf side
in the BfSP set makes this a bit odd as a complement to it (52
Warriors, 28 Miners...), but with characters, 50 gunners, three
artillery pieces and a decent bulk of core close combat infantry it's
a solid start and a good defensive firebase.

Orcs and Goblins: From the looks of it the new plastics do a good job
of cloning the current metal Black Orcs, the good ones with two-handed
weapons rather than the older Robo-Orcs. And it's not a unit I suppose
you can complain about for its inclusion in an army set. But just how
desperate is GW to shift Spider Riders these days? They're in the
boxed set, they're in the Battalion, they're here. GW, please. That
alone is a disincentive for me to pick this up - the blurb on the
store itself states that this is meant to complement the boxed set, so
why duplicate what's already in there when I'd rather have Wolf
Riders, say, with a unit of Spiders already to hand? The rest is
serviceable - you get enough Orcs (Black and otherwise) to give a bit
of punch to the lightweights of the boxed set, so by that measure it's
a good complement, and there are a few excess Gobbos thrown in in case
you need them. I'm just pissed that, since GW presumably wants players
to start with the box, upgrade with the Army and, one supposes,
supplement with Batallions, they seem intent on drowning us in a
plague of spiders. With Dwarfs it's okay - they don't have a huge base
of plastic sets to begin with, the core infantry boxes are always
useful, and you can never have too many big guns. But there's enough
variety in the sets that GW could put in an O&G army or batallion set
that they don't need to duplicate everything, especially surplus
specialist units that you'll only ever want one or two of.

With GW rounding its 16-strong sets to 20s in these boxes, I'll admit
that you more than break even even if you don't use the Spiders
(bought separately, two Orc heroes - 12 pounds, 32 Orcs - 36 pounds,
20 Night Goblins - 18 pounds, 3 Fanatics - 8 pounds, 10 Spider Riders
- 18 pounds, 16 Black Orcs - presumably 18 pounds and a chariot - 15
pounds, actually make this set a good deal, netting you the equivalent
of a free squad box and 12 extra Orcs), I just don't like having
surplus models I won't use, and simply for theme reasons where are the
vanilla Goblins of any sort?

Phil

Personally, I think the Hop-Splat gun would be great to see again. The
orks have always been a comic-relief element of the game, and the Hop-
Splat was a perfect example of that.

Then again, the liabilities of the weapons of other races have been
thankfully written out (missile launchers used to explode on
catastrophic failure, etc.), so I guess the Hop-Splat would bee a bit
out of place.

Oh, and the Orks used to have real vehicles, too.