Armageddon Steel Legion returning.

[sitnam]

40 minutes ago, roryokane said:

Those MP-40s lascarbines are bit too on the nose for me

 

Oh those are my favorite part. Las-SMGs need to be a thing

[FarFromSam]

Great news.  This has to be the best time to be a war gamer.   Congrats to Steel Legion players.  I love that they made us squirm.  Revenge for leaks? 

[LSM]

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Someone pointed out on Instagram they’ve done away with the Steel Legion icon in favor of an A design. 

 

[Marshal Rohr]

2 hours ago, EmprahsStrongestGuardsman said:

 

The concept art pic looks like various different IG regiment designs jumbled up together randomly, eg on the left you got a cadian helmet with armageddon gas mask, krieg back pack, generic longish coat, body armour and shoulder pads (krieg??), arms with greatcoat cuffs rather than gloves (krieg), etc.

The middle left has more of an armageddon helmet, while the middle right has a sort of ushanka-shaped valhallan hat. The right guy looks more or less like a krieg, but he has a sort of armageddon-style torso with the eqpmnt straps. 

The legs on all of them don't really look like anything to me, but I'm not 100% on every design element of the newer kits tbh.

 

I really don't know what the purpose of this image is, is it really concept art for steel legion when so many of the design elements are from other regiments?

It’s literally a spectrum between the products they make on each end and becoming a mix of both in the middle. 

[MoriyaSchism]

9 hours ago, Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla said:

 

I'm shocked by how awful all these look. They look nothing like the Steel Legion, not a single helmet variant resembles the fallschirmjäger style helmet present on the originals or the Fedayeen style officer's helmet. Some of these images look like they are trying to draw concept art with the idea of using already existing bits from the 40K range to create a replacement. Look at the first from the left on the second image. There you can see the tiny breastplate from the Arbites kill team, the shoulder armour and backpack from the new Kriegers, the new Cadian helmet and knee-pads, the coat from the new Commissars. Some of the other designs also feature bits from already existing products as well. This is pure laziness. If you told me these were G.I. Joe Cobra style Guard proxies I would believe you. 
 

1 hour ago, EmprahsStrongestGuardsman said:

Looks like a starfleet badge. 

I can totally see that. It's so lame. 

I really don't know why they are doing this instead of just going back to the old Jes Goodwin universal guard template he was working on. They even hinted at it with one of the Necromunda military attache models. There was a character that had the helmet from these two drawings.

 

[TheTuninator]

7 hours ago, apologist said:

As a Steel Legion enthusiast and collector, I largely bit my tongue when we saw we were going back to Armageddon but weren't getting SL models – cathartic as complaining on the noosphere can be, it rarely improves things! However, now there are some actual rumours about new Steel Legion, I've gotta say that I'm cautiously excited.

 

 

Metal conversion work is fun... but it gets wearing after a while.

 

I do agree with @Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla that the sketches aren't quite hitting the spot for me at the mo. A bit of an 'uncanny valley' not-quite-Steel Legion, but perhaps they'll grow on me.

 

Of the four options below, the second in from the left is what I'm hoping for. 

 

 

The great joy of the Armageddon setting, of course, is that there are lots of Steel Legion armies, and I think it'd be entirely appropriate to use any new models as (say) the forces of Armageddon Prime, and the old ones as those from Secundus – but equally, I rather relish the idea of the new design literally being the same forces but a few centuries onward. If GW are going to advance the storyline, I'd rather they did something solid with it.

 

 

Either way, rules come and go, background can be personalised and re-interpreted, history can be refought, but cool models are forever and more options is always good :)

 

I think it's the lack of big over-the-sleeve gloves, combined with a too-long coat, which make the design feel off. They look much closer to Krieg than Steel Legion normally did. If the final version has the classic gloves and a shorter overcoat, it'll look a lot closer to what we remember. 

 

I'm not too worried, since concept art changes a lot, and I'm sure the sculptors will also have input to say "hey guys, these are coming out too close to Krieg, how can we make them look more like the old sculpts?" 

Edited March 26 by TheTuninator

[Marshal Rohr]

7 minutes ago, MoriyaSchism said:

I'm shocked by how awful all these look. They look nothing like the Steel Legion, not a single helmet variant resembles the fallschirmjäger style helmet present on the originals or the Fedayeen style officer's helmet. Some of these images look like they are trying to draw concept art with the idea of using already existing bits from the 40K range to create a replacement. Look at the first from the left on the second image. There you can see the tiny breastplate from the Arbites kill team, the shoulder armour and backpack from the new Kriegers, the new Cadian helmet and knee-pads, the coat from the new Commissars. Some of the other designs also feature bits from already existing products as well. This is pure laziness. If you told me these were G.I. Joe Cobra style Guard proxies I would believe you. 
 

I can totally see that. It's so lame. 

I really don't know why they are doing this instead of just going back to the old Jes Goodwin universal guard template he was working on. They even hinted at it with one of the Necromunda military attache models. There was a character that had the helmet from these two drawings.

 

Universal Guard would be a dream come true. It’s the space marine principle, it’s proven to work. 

[Lord Marshal]

So now they're coming, all those youtubers who were definitely 100% big Steel Legion fans like they pinky promised despite never mentioning them before the Yarrick trailer are going to run out and make sure these sell out within the first day, right?

 

Right?

 

Genuinely happy for the actual Steel Legion fans though.

 

Edited March 26 by Lord Marshal

[Antarius]

So, I gather that Krieg looks nothing like Steel Legion and now neither does Steel Legion? At least we're not going to run out of things to complain about, I guess.

[Corswain]

I honestly thought we would see Catachan get a refresh before the Steel Legion. 

 

It wouldn't surprise me if there were some serious redesigns. As much as a few of us will know and notice the differences, new Steel Legion will likely need to have enough changes made to distinguish them from Krieg for the majority of consumers - Two trenchcoat and gasmask wearing subfractions will likely just compete for sales rather than attract different customers.

[DemonGSides]

37 minutes ago, Corswain said:

I honestly thought we would see Catachan get a refresh before the Steel Legion.

 

I think we are going to, just that no one raised enough hell to get them announced 3 years early.

[Nephaston]

37 minutes ago, Corswain said:

I honestly thought we would see Catachan get a refresh before the Steel Legion. 

Seeing as these are implied to be two years out Catachans might just hit in the meantime. Catachan players aren't screeching all over the Net so there is no need to placate them back into civility with concept art.

[TheTuninator]

1 hour ago, Corswain said:

I honestly thought we would see Catachan get a refresh before the Steel Legion. 

 

It wouldn't surprise me if there were some serious redesigns. As much as a few of us will know and notice the differences, new Steel Legion will likely need to have enough changes made to distinguish them from Krieg for the majority of consumers - Two trenchcoat and gasmask wearing subfractions will likely just compete for sales rather than attract different customers.

TBH, I think the classic Steel Legion look is already recognizably different from Krieg enough that this isn't a huge issue.

 

Remember, the game has like 50 different flavors of Space Marine all wearing the same armor. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Catachans have to be in this Nemesis game type hunting Exodites with a big saurian monster. They’re probably right on top of us but after the new edition. 
 

 

Edit: previous post got flagged

[Laurence]

6 hours ago, LSM said:

 

"You think this letter on my head stands for Cadia?"

[Mmmmm Napalm]

I think the concept sketches look nice and at the end of the day we're just going to have to wait till the miniatures are shown off. If they turn out well, they have the potential to be my favorite guard plastics so far, even beating out Kasrkin and Krieg. I also think the Armageddon A is kinda neat cause its styled to look a bit like a bullet casing. 

[Corswain]

2 hours ago, TheTuninator said:

TBH, I think the classic Steel Legion look is already recognizably different from Krieg enough that this isn't a huge issue.

 

Remember, the game has like 50 different flavors of Space Marine all wearing the same armor. 

Some truth to that but from a sales perspective a Raven Guard Intercessor is the same kit as a Blood Angels Intercessor so it's one kit appealing to two customers. The question is whether a Death Corps of Krieg kit and a Steel Legion kit are going to attract two different customers or force one customer to choose?

The answer is a bit of both but if there are more customers (especially new customers) and dollars to be gained by changing up the design then there is no doubt in my mind that that is what GW will do.

 

[Hfran Morkai]

4 hours ago, Nephaston said:

Seeing as these are implied to be two years out Catachans might just hit in the meantime. Catachan players aren't screeching all over the Net so there is no need to placate them back into civility with concept art.

 

Catachan collectors didn't have an animation set on Catachan, not featuring Catachans but Cadians and Kriegers. 

 

Even if Catachan are more recent and got round to having plastics. I think Catachan will drop first, especially given the special minis they got.

[Nephaston]

2 hours ago, Corswain said:

Some truth to that but from a sales perspective a Raven Guard Intercessor is the same kit as a Blood Angels Intercessor so it's one kit appealing to two customers. The question is whether a Death Corps of Krieg kit and a Steel Legion kit are going to attract two different customers or force one customer to choose?

I'm gonna assume that, in the grand scheme of things, subfactions only really matter for loyalist marines and, to a smaller extent, chaos marines. The former retained subfaction keywords and associated mechanics, and both have sufficient book and kit support at probably sufficient amounts to permit a certain amount of gray area as to which Intercessor goes to which Chapter, or whether a Defiler is a cult Defiler or an undivided Defiler.

 

Guard kits, however, are always Guard sales for now, and seem to make enough sales to just keep expanding. I would bet the average Guard player has zero qualms about just getting mixed regiments or even an army per regiment.

[ShibeKing]

Already collect Cadians and Krieg... hell yeah I'll start collecting Steel Legion. I'm definitely a mixed regiment fan and this announcement just makes me want more. Lord have mercy on my wallet if we get Vostroyans one day too.

 

Maybe we'll also get an update to the Chimera transport once the Steel Legion get a refresh?

[Magos Takatus]

I am happy to see Steel Legion are on the cards. I was a fan of them back in the day and though I prefer Krieg more these days it's good to see they are at least in the concept stage as of 2025. The fact that they are happy to release post-it-note concept art of the regiment shows that they are listening and are willing to communicate. As much as I'd like to have seen more refined concept art over the rough sketches, I still think it's a good start. It looks like they are trying to give them a more 40k vibe and tone down the more historical references.

 

As MoriyaSchism posted, I would have preferred this guy:

 

However, part of me thinks a more stylistically unique regiment would have been more interesting. Vostroyans are pretty awesome, and though not my cup of tea Catachans are pretty popular. That doesn't mean I wouldn't be happy to see Steel Legion. While Krieg and Steel Legion have some similarities at a glance, their thematic play styles are very different. Seeing a Krieg army loaded up on Chimeras would be weird to me, but for Steel Legion? Essential.

[Mogger351]

From random poster on reddit:

 

Quote

Throwing some light on recent steel legion events (no tinfoil)

 

Okay, this was told to me this morning from a friend within gw, I wont specify what he does to not put his job in danger, so you can take this with a grain of salt but I would expect him to know about this situation. This is a throwaway secondary account that does not belong to said friend. Again rumours are rumours, dont trust anything, yaddayadda etc.

 

Apparently GW have been working on the new edition for years and everything they release is usually planned ahead in excruciating detail from concept to 3D to painting to production. This was different. They knew the new edition would be on Armageddon, but were not sure if the steel legion would be there at the start. It was decided to keep it ambiguous and plan for a mid-edition release instead. Some early quick and dirty drawings of new steel legion were made at the start of 2025 (very likely the ones they showed or from that batch if I had to guess, which are legally datemarked as copyright 2025) for either an "ork hunters" kill team or an upgrade sprue (this is most likely what Valrak leaked some time ago).

 

Those early 2025 drawings have been worked on and off for months and there are already unposed 3D models of the final version for the base troopers of steel legion. Showing concept drawings was not planned, what was planned was a simpler teaser just implying Steel Legion was coming. The community response forced them to release something more than a teaser and so that presentation was put together before Adepticon. The reason the second weapon drawings are datemarked copyright 2026 is because those are the final sketches for the weapons that are on the 3D models. At the event, multiple early sketches for infantry were shown instead of final versions to avoid potential STL makers making models of them and keep some of the mystery for the actual release. Upgrade sprue idea got thrown out around last summer and focus was put on an "ork hunters" kill team which would include either all Steel Legionnaires or a mix of various regiments. There was a plan to decide what to do with the "scope of the release" (either a full steel legion kill team, a mixed regiment kill team or a full release is my guess) by gauging the response of the community at the end of last year.

 

Marketing team's current strategy is to play into community reactions and attitudes, sometimes making fun or inciting outrage intentionally for engagement (see the self-aware Ultramarines videos they made around the Victrix and Titus releases). The painting guide video was the setup for it this time, followed by the teaser at Adepticon. What they didn't expect was the massive reaction, and the teaser got changed into a short concept presentation to show some of the development work.

 

That's my best try to summarize the whole thing. Again feel free to be skeptical, but this does explain the situation pretty thoroughly and it explains why all there was about steel legion was a single vague leak about "ork hunters".

 

*TLDR; All of this was a clever marketing ploy by GW, Alpharius runs the company.*

 

[Orange Knight]

Good news but it feels like a video game announcement. Here's some concept art, see you in 2 years.

 

Also, I do like Steel Legion but they are... the lesser of the trenchcoat regiments.


We joke about Marines having lots of redundant models, but now the Guard will have myriad variants of Guardsmen and what not.... Imo they should have found a way to do all this via upgrade sprues...

 

[sarabando]

last time we saw concept art like this it was kislev..... just saying. 

[Joe]

To be fair, we also saw Cathay shortly after and... that's come out, and then some. Kislev's always been a when, not if. Or another example would be when we were being teased with Adepta Sororitas, World Eaters, etc. As those had concept art, followed by renders, then the full reveal.

 

Also just realised the logo has a fourth element - it's also a hive city!