What's New Today ... This Week's New Pre-Orders!

From today the new Fire Warriors box is out in Games Workshop stores and independent stockists, as well as the Infiltration Cadre Burning Dawn and the Shadow Force Solaq... But that's not all, because this week there are loads more new kits available to pre-order!

Here we go ...

The Mantle of Heroes...

The battlesuit is one of the Tau Empire's most iconic pieces of wargear, a huge armoured suit that can turn a humble Fire Warrior into a mighty hero of the Tau Empire. Armed with the most powerful weaponry his race can devise and kitted out with a suite of high-tech upgrades, a battlesuit pilot can take on anything the galaxy can throw at him and not just survive but emerge triumphant. Today, then, is a good day, for we have not one but two new battlesuit kits available to pre-order: the XV8 Crisis Battlesuits and the Tau Commander.

The new commander set has two options: The Coldstar on the left, amd the Enforcer on the right...

The Tau Commander can be built in two ways: wearing the classic XV85 Enforcer armour or the new XV86 Coldstar armour. This new upgrade for Tau Commanders enables them to zoom across the battlefield like an aircraft and even take on other flyers in mid-air with their high-yield burst cannon and missile pod. As you'd expect, the kit comes with loads of weapon and assemble options, which we'll be taking a closer look at next week.

The XV8 Crisis Battlesuit’s greatest strength lies in mobility and ranged firepower -- it is the XV8's role to get to the right place, at the right time and eliminate the right targets.

The XV8 Crisis Battlesuits are a revamp of another classic kit. The models are all-new designs, complete with new construction options, such as iridium armour, and a range of poses in the arms and legs that make them incredibly dynamic. They come with an arsenal of weapons and wargear, too, plus six drones to accompany them into battle. You can see more of this great kit in White Dwarf 91, out today.

Wow, so dynamic... much options ... extras!

Personally this is my favorite release of this week: the box  contains everything needed to build three XV8 Crisis Battlesuits, with six accompanying drones. There’s an impressive level of customisation available, with ball fittings allowing unprecedented posability. One miniature can be optionally assembled as a Shas’vre, with special head and chest plate, and there’s a prodigious amount of advanced Tau weaponry in the box: four plasma rifles, three flamers, four fusion blasters, four burst cannons, three missile pods and three shield generators. The six accompanying drones can each be built as gun, shield or marker variants and an assortment of battlesuit electronics systems are included. One model in the kit can even be built as the new, experimental Iridium-class XV8-02 Crisis Battlesuit - distinguishable by its thicker armour and aggressive appearance. Huge variety!

I', quite happy to see this set also includes the flying stems wich we can use for taking-of/flying/landing positions in the battlesuits, just like the battlesuit in the center... Also, the bonding knife for the team leader is super! 152 components are included in total, with three Citadel 50mm Round bases (!!!) and three Citadel small Flying bases.

The "New" Codex and More...

But that's not all! Also available to pre-order this week is a new edition of Codex: Tau Empire, which includes all the new units such as the Stormsurge and the Ghostkeel, plus new colour profiles, background information and miniatures galleries.

It's your choise now...

Today also heralds the release of War Zone Damocles: Kauyon, the next instalment in the ongoing war for the Damocles Gulf. If you're a fan of the Tau or the Imperium you'll definitely need this double-set of hardback books. If you're not? You'll want them anyway, because they're packed with loads of great new background, missions, artwork and pictures of beautifully painted Citadel miniatures. Remember the Shield of Baal series that came out towards the end of last year? Kauyon is like that, but even bigger and cooler. It's got the Tau in it for a start!

Also available are three sets of datacards for the Tau Empire, Raven Guard and White Scars, plus a Tau Empire painting guide and a new Black Library novel focusing on the red-armoured renegade himself, Commander Farsight. But that's not everything for today, next post will be about the new formations and oh boy... just saty tunned for my nest message.

Thank you for your time and until the next publication

Joaquim de Oliveira

This publication was only possible thanks to:

GamesWorkshop.com

What's to Come... The "New" Tau Codex Crisis and Much More!

And so ends another week , but for players of Tau Empire , although the next week seems to be the last regarding the new releases of both Tau miniatures and books , things are only heating up ... Checkout the rumors that are flowing this morning about what may be the final wave of Tau models to be released, the Battlesuits!

Crisis averted, White Dwarf's here!

Soo, what's comming up? Lets see:

• Commander (apparently with a drone) – 40€, 30£, 50$
• Crisis Battelsuits (3 suits + 6 drones) – 60€, 45£, 75$
• Drones (2 drones) – 9€, 7.7£, 12$
• Warzone Damocles: Kauyon (campaign book) – 60€, 45£, 74$
• Codex Tau (128p) – 39€, 30£, 49.5$
• Tau cards, Raven Guard! cards, also White Scars cards!! for some reason – each 10.5€, 8£, 13.5$

So from that it looks like we know the White Scars will once again be part of the Damocles operation. It looks like that this set of books will be similar to the Shield of Baal books that came out to supplement the campaign boxes as well? Here’s hoping for some new Astartes rules for fighting the blue xenos, AND maybe to make the Raven Guard soar high again!

                                           

READY THE CASH CANNON!

And, as an extra, checkout the new rumors for the Tau and Astartes that have been spotted about what may be some very nice rules mechanics!

• Commander is 85pts base. Coldstar has no particular rules compared to a Crisis so no +1T ... sorry. The high yield canon is crap (or should I say crap for that model), 18″ S5 AP5 Assault6 Twin-Linked.
• Crisis suits kit contain 4 of each weapon (except only 3 missiles). Iridium armor is still in the Codex, you can build one of such suits per kit (it's the red one we saw in the pictures?).
• Kauyon’s pictures show two formations: the awesome Shadowstrike Kill Team (2-4 Scouts + 1-5 Vanguards, you chose to fail or succeed reserve rolls for the Vanguards, they don’t scatter within 9″ of the scouts, they can charge the turn they DS) and Pinion Battle Demi-Company (like a demi company but with scouts that help reserves by accompanying other units to allow them to do a flank attack and can give ignore cover to an unit with 9″)
• Codex pictures show 80pts Devilfish and 44pts Pathfinders (minimum unit size of 4)

Apart for counting as a Flying Monstrous Creatre, it´s sad to hear about Coldstar, although I think we should reserve judgement until we get the true rules in the codex (particullary the special rules, and signature systems!). On the other hand I'm really excited with the new crisis design... man, so dynamic!

And for the Ravens? More assaulting from deep strike mechanics, and a new demi-company? That’s pretty saucy. I’m sure Raven Guard players will be estatic, however I wonder if that offer will extend to the normal Codex Space Marine chapters as well? Good guy Games Workshop seems to be including more options in the their kits as well. Nice to see the ability to field units without purchasing extra bits to do it. Gosh, maybe that was their plan all along? Perhaps especially in view of what is about to come by Forgeworld ...

From the shadows we strike ... what's left in your bank account!

The New Codex "Crisis"...

Usually I don't care much to rumors in the warhammer universe ... except when they come accompanied with images that seem minimally legitimate ... wich happened this week with the "new" Codex ... but honestly it's all very confusing ...

Via BOLS:

"Latest word says GW is putting out a bunch of new campaign and warzone books along with the “optional” Tau Codex. Here’s the details:

Readers have noted in the upcoming White Dwarf product list there a bunch of new Tau books are coming out.

For a while now, there have been rumors swirling that 40K codices may become less and less important, with alternative routes to getting current rules becoming available. Well take a look at what some folks are saying about next week’s releases:

Then we got the details on the Tau codex via the new White Dwarf:
via Gamerstrust.de 10-20-2015"

The Tau Empire is so young and innovative that they haven't changed the cover of their own codex...

I’m so confused right now… there will be four (4) items in print coming up, correct? They are:

– Codex: Tau Empire

– Operation Shadowtalon (Raven Guard)

– Burning Dawn (Tau)

– War Zone Damocles: Kauyon (campaign book)
And according to these rumors, here's the deal:

• If you already have a 6th edition Codex: Tau Empire, you just need War Zone Damocles: Kauyon.
• If you get War Zone Damocles: Kauyon, you get rules for both Tau (for the new units and Hunter Contingent) and Space Marines (Formations) plus new Fluff.
• If you get the new Codex: Tau Empire, you get everything that’s in the old Codex plus all the Tau stuff from War Zone Damocles: Kauyon (including the new Fluff?)
• If you get either Operation Shadowtalon or Burning Dawn, you get some scenario-specific fluff and a formation or two, but that has nothing to do with the real new rules/formations.

No sure if trying to be consumer friendly... or just suck all of our money as usual.

So under this piece of news, the New Tau codex seems identical to the old one except for the newly released units and formations, all of which are in the War Zone Damocles: Kauyon campaign book. It’s said to be be not so much a “new codex” as a “reprint” with all the new items collated together.

Honestly strikes me as odd that GW is thinking about their customers' savings ... it's usually the other way ...And, since we're discussing Tau books... what's going to happen to the Farsight Enclaves Supplement?? Maybe there is a explanation:

Via BOLS:

"Well that’s an interesting turn of events. I can see GW doing this to avoid the sticky situation that occurred with the Leviathan campaign last year which resulted in a handful of new Tyranid models that have difficult to access rules (which I’m sure negatively affect sales). I bet we will see this type of thing rolled out with future codices. I’m looking at you Tyranids and Chaos Marines!"

I hope that in the coming days this issue be clarified ... until then, leave your wallet alone!

In Other News:

The Warhammer TV crew are planning their Christmas advent calendar and they'd like your help. If you have a suggestion for a painting tutorial that you'd like Emma and Duncan to tackle, then send them an email. You never know, your suggestion might be one of the ones featured in the run-up to Christmas.

Thank you for your time and until the next publication

Joaquim de Oliveira

This publication was only possible thanks to:

GamesWorkshop.com,

ForgeWorld and

BOLS (part1, 2, 3, 4 and 5)