So as I'm writing this. I'm remembering mny more details of the open day. I was hoping originally that I could do this all in one article, but it looks more like three or four now.
Anyway, on to the more specific products, starting with Vigilus Defiant. This looks like an exciting book, its the first one of an ongoing product line in two ways. Firstly, it's book one in the Vigilus setting, there are more coming although we were not told how many. Second, once the Vigilus story has been told, GW are continuing this product line with different world/factions/stories. Now not all factions with be present in the Vigilus story arc, they've decided to really improve the narrative content of these books, comparing them to the Imperial Armour campaign books. As part of this they have decided to focus on factions that they can easily integrate into each story. The choice of not including all factions stemmed from the Medusa V campaign (from just before I was playing 40k properly), were all the factions had a reason to be there, but it felt very forced and 'unreal'. Choosing to leave factions out helps make a much more solid narrative, (The term 'real' was used many times during the seminar, all of which had to be taken in context of the 40k narrative. Another recurring point was that the galaxy is a very big place, and the scope of this is often lost when looking at a galactic map.)
From the Community site previews it is known that Calgar has returned, as a Primaris marine no less, with two body guards to face the Black Legion led by Haarken Worldclaimer, all of which will be receiving new rules in this book. The background of the traditional marine to Primaris process has been fleshed out, and apparently its a gruesome process. When asked if this means will other marines undergo the same process (Dante and Grey Knights were named) the answer was that it can potentially happen to any marine, but nothing is confirmed as this is very much lead by the designers. Although Grey Knights are not expected soon as there are no models currently in development. The armour Calgar is wearing is not Gravis, but his current armour modified to meet the specification of a Primaris marine. Nothing was said about the changes to Calgar's rules, or the rules of Worldclaimer, I'm guessing its an extra wound and attack for Calgar at least.
Some rule additions were touched on though. Specialist Detachments. These sound really interesting. All of what we were told the host recited from memory, but they work by using a stratagem to upgrade the detachment to a certain specialism, and then a further stratagem to upgrade units in that detachment. So for example, there will be a Ravenwing specialist detachment, you take an outrider detachment and fill it with what ever units you feel like, as you normally would. You then use a stratagem to make it a Ravenwing outrider detachment, and then a second stratagem to activate the bonuses on the specific units. Questions were asked about if these are 8th edition's answer to formations, and answer was mutli-layered. They are designed to be much more open, and with more downsides. So its not just take these units and gain these bonuses with no downsides, the cost to doing this is command points, and by association limiting army construction to some degree. Additionally only Ravenwing unit in the 'Ravenwing detachment' will gain bonuses, you can't do it to other units. The other thing about these detachment is that the design team didn't want to be handing these out for everything and everyone, they wanted them to be lodged in background. So for example the Ravenwing as a fighting force operates differently to a normal 2nd chapter, so is a good candidate for a specialist detachment. These detachments aren't only for the story of Vigilus Defiant, they can be used in any of the three ways to play. The some of the other detachments mentioned:-
Anyway, on to the more specific products, starting with Vigilus Defiant. This looks like an exciting book, its the first one of an ongoing product line in two ways. Firstly, it's book one in the Vigilus setting, there are more coming although we were not told how many. Second, once the Vigilus story has been told, GW are continuing this product line with different world/factions/stories. Now not all factions with be present in the Vigilus story arc, they've decided to really improve the narrative content of these books, comparing them to the Imperial Armour campaign books. As part of this they have decided to focus on factions that they can easily integrate into each story. The choice of not including all factions stemmed from the Medusa V campaign (from just before I was playing 40k properly), were all the factions had a reason to be there, but it felt very forced and 'unreal'. Choosing to leave factions out helps make a much more solid narrative, (The term 'real' was used many times during the seminar, all of which had to be taken in context of the 40k narrative. Another recurring point was that the galaxy is a very big place, and the scope of this is often lost when looking at a galactic map.)
From the Community site previews it is known that Calgar has returned, as a Primaris marine no less, with two body guards to face the Black Legion led by Haarken Worldclaimer, all of which will be receiving new rules in this book. The background of the traditional marine to Primaris process has been fleshed out, and apparently its a gruesome process. When asked if this means will other marines undergo the same process (Dante and Grey Knights were named) the answer was that it can potentially happen to any marine, but nothing is confirmed as this is very much lead by the designers. Although Grey Knights are not expected soon as there are no models currently in development. The armour Calgar is wearing is not Gravis, but his current armour modified to meet the specification of a Primaris marine. Nothing was said about the changes to Calgar's rules, or the rules of Worldclaimer, I'm guessing its an extra wound and attack for Calgar at least.
Some rule additions were touched on though. Specialist Detachments. These sound really interesting. All of what we were told the host recited from memory, but they work by using a stratagem to upgrade the detachment to a certain specialism, and then a further stratagem to upgrade units in that detachment. So for example, there will be a Ravenwing specialist detachment, you take an outrider detachment and fill it with what ever units you feel like, as you normally would. You then use a stratagem to make it a Ravenwing outrider detachment, and then a second stratagem to activate the bonuses on the specific units. Questions were asked about if these are 8th edition's answer to formations, and answer was mutli-layered. They are designed to be much more open, and with more downsides. So its not just take these units and gain these bonuses with no downsides, the cost to doing this is command points, and by association limiting army construction to some degree. Additionally only Ravenwing unit in the 'Ravenwing detachment' will gain bonuses, you can't do it to other units. The other thing about these detachment is that the design team didn't want to be handing these out for everything and everyone, they wanted them to be lodged in background. So for example the Ravenwing as a fighting force operates differently to a normal 2nd chapter, so is a good candidate for a specialist detachment. These detachments aren't only for the story of Vigilus Defiant, they can be used in any of the three ways to play. The some of the other detachments mentioned:-
- Indomitus Crusade Veterans, Kastelan Robots
- Aeldari Windhost
- Stompa (including warlord traits), Speedfreaks
There are a few more which I can't remember, all of which sounded pretty cool.
As mentioned earlier this is book one in the Vigilus narrative, there was no mention of how many books it will be other than that it will be more than one, but I think we're looking at three. Once this campaign is finished there will be more and not all campaigns will span more than one book. It's important to remember that this isn't the new way of updating armies now that almost every army has an 8th Ed codex, codexes will remain the main source of this, the campaign books are a cool way of adding little bits here or there. (In fact, we were told that there are more than one codex on the release schedule, so there are more coming after Genestealers but that's all we were told. They may be full new factions or a redux of exciting codex, he didn't say but he did have a cheeky smile when he told us, he seem excited himself about it .)
That's about all I can remember about Vigilus Defiant, it's the next step in 40k, its exciting me, and its out before Christmas. Thanks for reading,
Ste
