UK Games Day 2012 : Pt I Forge World Seminar

Wall Art definitely not by Neil Roberts!

Just a rough and ready post tonight as I'm on my chin straps following a very long but fruitful excursion to this years Games Day and what a great day it was. I'm very glad to report that the GW renaissance continues, they once again appear to have listened and taken note, the whole event was a big improvement.

But more of that in another post, my buddy Will and I took a whole ton of Pics which I plan to start posting tomorrow once they've gone through the quality control of slightly less tired eyes; for today I bring you news from the Forge World Seminar that we attended, hosted by Tony Cotrell & Alan Bligh.

These are the notes I took and a few, rather poor photos using my phone of some of the slides shown during the seminar; fear not though, as most of what was shown here was also in the Design Team Cabinets and they'll be the in the next post (the product of a better camera).

Dominating proceedings was of course the Heresy...(yes, yes I'll be getting to that bit in a minute), but Tony and Alan were both at pains to point out that development and production of 40k related products will not be put on a back burner as it were and that the design team had been and is continuing to expand to better work on both eras of the game.

To back this assertion, there were two Imperial Armour Books announced, the first being the 2nd Edition of IA Volume One (Imperial Guard) featuring all the current FW Imperial Guard vehicles with updated rules for 6th Edition.

The second was IA Volume Twelve 'The Fall of Orpheus', which details the invasion of an entire Sector by Necron Forces and judging by some of the miniatures on display they will be brining some new hardware to the fight; they also among other things decide to put out a Sun! Other forces featuring in the book will be the Minotaurs Chapter and the Death Korps of Krieg.

Necron Tesseract Ark

Necron Night Shroud

Necron Sentry Pylon

There will be a lot more scenery (boards etc...) in Hollow Cast being produced which will be themed and released alongside the campaign books; I think that falls to Blake Spence and I did see a rough work in progress which had the look of some kind of Necron instillation.

The figure for Bran Redmaw that we saw at GD 2011 didn't quite cut the mustard and has been knocked back and will remain in development hell (my words) for the foreseeable.

There will be a Warlord Titan, but I'll cover that in the Heresy section, speaking of which...

The Heresy!

Volume Two is titled 'Massacre' and will cover part one of the Isstvan V campaign (FW are in this for the long haul guys n gals) It will feature forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Word Bearers and the Night Lords.

Later books will cover the war on Mars and Calth, but will not be tied to order and progression of the Black Library novels.

The next main character miniatures will be Loken and Abaddon (by Simon Egan?); the WIP appearing as a dual between the two and only Abaddon was finished

There will be many more characters as the Heresy progresses, obviously all the Primarchs and of course The Emperor (oh happy joy), also some characters not featured in the Black Library books, specific to the FW campaign books to add a different perspective.

There may be some scope for event only collectables of (so far) non combat characters, Malcador for example.

Primarchs who become Daemons and change noticeably as the Heresy progresses will also get new figure.

Sons of Horus Justaerin Terminators

Sons of Horus Justaerin Terminators.

Sisters of Silence and Custodes will be produced but are not likely until FW covers the attack on Prospero.

Legion specific Contemptor Dreds.

Robots will be coming, for Mechanicus and some Legions.

Knights may well make a return although probably not in Vol Two.

Possibility of new Titan variants for the Heresy as way back in the day when Titans were first thought up, it was always envisioned that there were a multitude of variants operated by the Imperium. However FW need to make a Warlord before they start on new types.

No plans for a Stormbird and current thinking among FW and BL teams is that there is no definitive design for one, rather it is a broad class of Space Marine transport craft.

The Thallax

Finally there was a fragment of a sneak peek at a new Mechanicus warrior, named the 'Thallax' it was just a torso alongside a Marine for scale, described as a brain and spinal cord encased in a type of battle suit a bit like a Drednought but about the size of a Terminator or Ogryn.

So that's it for now, a very interesting seminar thanks to Mr Bligh, Mr Cotrell and the promise of great things to come. Check back for more Games Day Coverage including picture posts of the FW Design stands, some Golden Demon entries and a review of the day.