New Warhammer 40,000 Edition announced!

[Evil Eye]

Kinda lame honestly, this is supposed to be a creative hobby, pre-painted models seems kinda counter to the point*. Not to mention it'll drive the prices up even further. Terrain looks decent sculptwise but if I get any I'll be stripping it and painting it myself.

 

*Yes I am aware of the old pre-painted foam terrain, but "basic drybrush over black on foam pieces" is a bit less egregious than "fully detailed and finished plastic terrain".

[Blindhamster]

Personally, I’m not opposed to the idea. I’ve never got round to painting much of my terrain and I have quite a bit. Finding time for painting my actual models is challenging enough

[Joe]

Believe Archon also started putting out pre-painted terrain recently(?), so this sort of tracks.

[Antarius]

38 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Kinda lame honestly, this is supposed to be a creative hobby, pre-painted models seems kinda counter to the point*. Not to mention it'll drive the prices up even further. Terrain looks decent sculptwise but if I get any I'll be stripping it and painting it myself.

 

*Yes I am aware of the old pre-painted foam terrain, but "basic drybrush over black on foam pieces" is a bit less egregious than "fully detailed and finished plastic terrain".

That's pretty much how I feel about it. I mean, it's nice for the people who actually want it, but I really hope they put out an unpainted version too.

[Ming the Merciless]

3 hours ago, Mogger351 said:

An assembled pic has now appeared, they resemble the suggested GW terrain layouts very closely...

Totally out of scale with their chaos marines...

[Lord Marshal]

Some details on the Dominatus narrative deck.

 

Quote

This handy deck is a completely new way to run Warhammer campaigns, tying your games together in an exciting narrative while keeping the bookkeeping to a minimum. You get a copy in the Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon launch box, and it’ll also be available separately, alongside the Core Rules and Combat Patrol Companion books and the Chapter Approved Mission deck.

The basics

At its core, the deck is themed around the conflict on Armageddon, but it can represent all kinds of campaigns involving any of the factions you want to play, so don’t worry if the only green on your xenos antagonists comes from a gauss flayer. Players are split up into two or three alliances – Liberators, Oppressors and optionally Raiders – who fight several games across three campaign phases, hoping to bolster their chances of victory in a final climactic battle. 

 

Dominating the battlefield and seizing control of key territory in each phase will put you on the road to victory, but it’s not the only thing to fight for. Each player will have their own Agenda to complete during their games, and the number of times each alliance achieves these goals will have a big impact on the narrative conclusion.

Step 1: Start the campaign

Once you’ve got your players together and arranged them into roughly equal alliances, you’re ready to launch right into Phase 1 by rolling a D6 to find out which of the phase’s three locations you’ll be fighting over. Each location has a bonus that applies to whoever controls it – more on that later – as well as a set of war zone rules that affect all battles fought that phase.

 

 

Then, you’ll have your players read their assigned alliance’s Briefing card. There’s one of these for each phase, and it sets out the narrative situation for your forces and determines which Agenda players will tackle based on their and their opponent’s Force Dispositions.

 

Step 2: Play the first mission

A standard Dominatus campaign will have all players using 2,000-point Strike Force armies and creating games using the Chapter Approved Mission deck – with one major difference. Each player will have the option of following an Agenda instead of a normal Primary Mission, replacing their objectives with a thematic task unique to their alliance.

 

 

Succeeding at the conditions on the card grants an Agenda Achieved card, and these will be tallied up at the end of the campaign phase. Otherwise, games play out as normal, keeping in mind the special war zone rules from the Location card.

 

Whoever wins the battle will get to draw a Battle Honour card, while the other player gets a Battle Skill card instead. Both give your army a useful boost to bestow on a chosen unit for the rest of the campaign, such as more OC, weapon abilities or redeployment tricks, so those who succumb to the will of the dice gods in the first phase don’t need to worry about falling behind.

 

 

Once the first game is over, it’s on to the next, with a new opponent and new Agendas to complete. A typical Dominatus campaign will have two battles in Phases 1 and 2, plus a single decisive battle in Phase 3, giving you plenty of time to fit it into a two-day weekend or weekday event. 

Step 3: End the phase

Once everyone has finished their second game, the pounding of guns ceases (momentarily) and everyone gathers to find out which alliance claimed victory. This is where the cards earned after each game come in – whichever alliance obtained the most Battle Honour cards takes control of the location and gains its location bonus for the rest of the campaign. Then, whichever alliance holds the most Agenda Achieved cards is in ascendancy, and gets one of their alliance’s powerful Relic cards.

 

By turning over the Briefing card, you can now find out the narrative impact of your efforts. There are three levels of success on each card, and an alliance gets one point for either controlling the phase’s location or being in ascendency.* Do well, and your side will sweep the sands of Armageddon like the wrath of the God-Emperor/Gork/Mork. Do poorly, and a lot of Grots and Guardsmen aren’t making it back.

Step 4: Again!

When all players have reflected on the ramifications of their actions, the next phase begins in the same way as before. New location, new Briefing card, new Agendas. By the time you get to the single epic battle that makes up Phase 3, you’ll have a bunch of unit upgrades under your belt. The best part is, you won’t even have to track anything on a sheet or app – it’s all in the cards you pick up after each game. 

 

And that’s it! Your forces have saved/ravaged/pillaged Armageddon, and the campaign is over. Mix up the armies, factions and alliances, and you can run through another campaign with entirely different locations and Agendas to tackle, or expand it out with more players and games per phase.

 

You can have your first shot at a Dominatus campaign with the deck included in the Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon launch box, alongside the Core Rules book and Chapter Approved deck you’ll need to play. It’s a great package bundle to get started in the new edition, and that’s even before we get to the awesome Ork and Space Marine miniatures that headline the box. 

* If you get both, good for you! You’ve got big shoes to fill in the next phase. 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 01:57 PM by Lord Marshal

[Orange Knight]

Sorry to go back to the terrain and ignore the new narrative pack (which actually looks pretty cool).

I've been chatting to some friends - one of them knows a lot about 3rd party, pre-painted terrain sets and has ordered many over the years. He thinks this is absolutely legit, and the pics show all the signs of the kind of finish and graininess that you'd expect to see on this kind of product.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:30 PM by Orange Knight

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, Antarius said:

That's pretty much how I feel about it. I mean, it's nice for the people who actually want it, but I really hope they put out an unpainted version too.

 

Worst case you can prime over the factory paint job.

[Indy Techwisp]

18 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

Worst case you can prime over the factory paint job.

 

People tend to already do that with prepainted stuff in other hobbies, but at the end of the day it's your call.

[Orange Knight]

I find it amusing that people turn their nose up at this, or try to talk it down. For one, like everything else, it's completely optional.

 

Also, if I see entire tables of terrain painted like this, they will look better than 90% of the tables I've played on over the past 30 years.

 

I have some nice gaming mats and terrain that I've painted myself for personal use in games I arrange, but most people really don't make anywhere close to the same effort with terrain as they do with their actual army models.

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:38 PM by Orange Knight

[Crimson Longinus]

4 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I find it amusing that people turn their nose up at this, or try to talk it down. For one, like everything else, it's completely optional.

 

Also, if I see entire tables of terrain painted like this, it will look better than 90% of the tables I've played on over the past 30 years.

 

I have some nice gaming mats and terrain that I've painted myself for personal use in games I arrange, but most people really don't make anywhere close to the same effort with terrain as do with their actual army models.

 

It ceases to be optional once they start to do all of their terrain like this and we must pay for crappy colours we don’t want. 
 

What’s next? All marines will be sold as prepainted as Ultramarines?

[Mogger351]

28 minutes ago, Crimson Longinus said:

It ceases to be optional once they start to do all of their terrain like this and we must pay for crappy colours we don’t want. 
 

What’s next? All marines will be sold as prepainted as Ultramarines?

Do you already buy GW terrain?

If yes, do you paint all your terrain?

If no, how is this new product a negative?

 

If you don't buy GW and don't paint it, it might still be appealing.

 

If you buy gw and paint it anyway, if its no more expensive, then you just... paint it anyway? Still not a negative.

 

If you buy outside GW and do paint it all, then no, these likely arent for you.

 

What they are for is avoiding the below.

Spoiler

 

 

[jaxom]

I’m confused. Between 3rd party terrain-specialist companies and making your own; why does it matter what GW decides when producing their brand of mission terrain?

 

Personally, I think of it like the GW brand glue. It exists and I don’t use it because I prefer other brands. 

[MoriyaSchism]

This just seems like a way to excuse another price hike. I'll pass on this painted terrain nonsense. 

[DemonGSides]

4 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

Personally, I’m not opposed to the idea. I’ve never got round to painting much of my terrain and I have quite a bit. Finding time for painting my actual models is challenging enough

 

Yeah I totally would understand someone being against pre painted models (tho entire industries exist to help people bridge the gap between the idea of Warhammer and having a full painted army and frankly that's a good thing), but I can't understand why some one would be against painted terrain. That's just gatekeeping for the sake of it at that point. 

 

Never doubt a WH fan's ability to look down their nose at their fellow hobbyists for asinine reasons. It feels like it's about the only reason half of them still engage; anything to try to dunk on someone.  Truly baffling. 

Edited Wednesday at 05:27 PM by DemonGSides

[Evil Eye]

Realistically, if someone isn't interested in putting any effort into the painting/modelling side of a painting/modelling based hobby, then that hobby probably isn't for them, and attempting to accommodate them will only dilute the experience for the already-established base. It'd be like bringing store-bought cakes to a baking group; yes it lowers the barrier to entry but it completely defeats the point of the hobby.

[Orange Knight]

1 hour ago, Crimson Longinus said:

What’s next? All marines will be sold as prepainted as Ultramarines?

 

Lol don't give them ideas.

 

But in all seriousness, I think GW will refrain from ever selling pre painted army models.

 

If they did, they would be hurting their own hobby supply sales. Macragge Blue sales can finance the defence budget of a small nation lol.

 

[sitnam]

4 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Realistically, if someone isn't interested in putting any effort into the painting/modelling side of a painting/modelling based hobby, then that hobby probably isn't for them, and attempting to accommodate them will only dilute the experience for the already-established base. It'd be like bringing store-bought cakes to a baking group; yes it lowers the barrier to entry but it completely defeats the point of the hobby.

 

There is just a huge difference between painting actual miniatures for your army, and terrain. The painting/modelling side of the hobby is my primary engagement, and I despise painting terrain. I painted about half of the terrain for a Warcry box, and I hated the process so much it's one of the only projects I've left half complete

[Lord Marshal]

1 hour ago, Crimson Longinus said:

It ceases to be optional once they start to do all of their terrain like this and we must pay for crappy colours we don’t want. 
 

What’s next? All marines will be sold as prepainted as Ultramarines?

 

Most GW terrain is already absurdly expensive; probably why it's so rarely kept in long-term circulation. My suspicion is they'll already have factored that into the price, so I can't see it being much more expensive than it is now. Maybe I'm giving GW too much credit with that, but they're also a company who have shown they're willing to bend a bit on price in the long-term interests of normalising something (see also them giving out a lot of Gallowdark terrain to TOs during Into The Dark seasons of Kill Team). 

[Blindhamster]

23 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Realistically, if someone isn't interested in putting any effort into the painting/modelling side of a painting/modelling based hobby, then that hobby probably isn't for them, and attempting to accommodate them will only dilute the experience for the already-established base. It'd be like bringing store-bought cakes to a baking group; yes it lowers the barrier to entry but it completely defeats the point of the hobby.

honestly the worst take ever. So incredibly gatekeepy that it’s painful. Good to know that in your view I shouldn’t bother with the hobby because I don’t find painting scenery appealing. Even though I’ve sculpted and converted my own models for the best part of 3 decades.

 

as others said, there’s a big difference between working on the models and working on the terrain, this is realistically no different to using the rollout gaming mats with designs on them. 
 

 

[gaurdian31]

44 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Realistically, if someone isn't interested in putting any effort into the painting/modelling side of a painting/modelling based hobby, then that hobby probably isn't for them, and attempting to accommodate them will only dilute the experience for the already-established base. It'd be like bringing store-bought cakes to a baking group; yes it lowers the barrier to entry but it completely defeats the point of the hobby.

So my friend who likes playing the game and is into the lore but doesn't like modelling or painting should just give up the hobby or is doing the hobby wrong?

[Antarius]

I think maybe this is being blown a little out of proportion? It's not like there's a horde of people saying prepainted terrain is the end of the hobby and that people who consider buying it should be chucked out of the hobby.

Personally, I prefer painting my own terrain kits and it'd be annoying enough to have an extra layer of poorly applied primer + paint to contend with that, unless it was a piece of terrain I really, really wanted, it'd probably mean a pass from me; hence my wish that they also put out an unpainted version (which I think is probably 50/50 whether they'll do it or not).

It's also honestly a little weird to me, to actively not want to build and paint terrain; it's genuinely one of the most fun things about the hobby and I think most of the time I actually prefer it to painting models. So in that sense, I'm a little wary that it might mean some people never realise how cool that part of the hobby is, if this becomes the new standard. But I'm not a "the sky is falling"-kinda guy, so I'm not exceedingly worried about that yet.

Like I said, it's nice that it's there for the people who want it. But obviously, people who dislike the idea will say so, just like people will say when a new model or ruleset isn't what they'd prefer to see. That's usually not a huge problem, so I'd say this probably isn't either.

Edited Wednesday at 06:29 PM by Antarius

[Blindhamster]

5 minutes ago, Antarius said:

It also a little weird to me, to actively not want to build and paint terrain; it's genuinely one of the most fun things about the hobby and I think most of the time I actually prefer it to painting models. So in that sense, I'm a little wary that it might mean some people never realise how cool that part of the hobby is, if this becomes the new standard. But I'm not a "the sky is falling"-kinda guy, so I'm not exceedingly worried about that.

3d printed scenery is alright, plastic kit scenery sucks, I’m super anal about stuff like mold lines and scenery tends to have a lot AND be worse quality plastic, the result is it’s tedious and unenjoyable to me. I would rather spend my hobby time which is limited with 3 kids ranging from 10 months to 11 years, full time job, hobbies like running and roleplaying on top. 
 

hopefully they do come both as painted and unpainted options, but honestly for unpainted stuff I think I’d generally prefer 3d printed stuff these days. 
 

regardless, I don’t have issues with people saying they want unpainted, I do take umbrage at people suggesting if you don’t want to paint your own scenery you shouldn’t be in the hobby (which, to be clear, you haven’t said)

Edited Wednesday at 06:27 PM by Blindhamster

[Evil Eye]

27 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

So incredibly gatekeepy that it’s painful.

So now expecting any standard of engagement with the primary focus of a creative hobby is "gatekeeping" and thus bad. OK, good to know.

 

30 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

this is realistically no different to using the rollout gaming mats with designs on them. 

Honestly I don't like those either. They're fine but they always struck me as lazy and aesthetically inferior to a properly modelled board. Which is part of my complaint here, actually; the factory paint job looks pretty bad, assuming this is real.

[Bouargh]

Painted or not these pieces of terrain looks good. Quite good/good enough in most cases. I could make my day with it, should I need/want more terrain...