Warhammer Twitch Previews - Summer Skirmish

Games Workshop certainly is leaning into their skirmish games of late. And I can’t blame them, these smaller teams/warbands/gangs have a shorter development cycle compared to having to re-do and rebalance whole armies in Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar. Allows them to pump out new miniatures like there’s no tomorrow. So much so in fact that they have a day dedicated to all the new stuff coming up for their skirmish games like Kill Team and Warcry. 

Warcry: Heart of Ghur

First up is a new box set for a new edition of Warcry, this is Games Workshop afterall so of course there would be a box set. I don’t know much about Warcry, from what I can gather it is about various Chaos warbands battling it out for favour/recognition from Archaon. I could be wrong. In any case, this new edition moves the setting out of the Chaos wastes and to the forests of Ghur.

One of the included factions in Heart of Ghur we have seen teased before: the Horns of Hashut. These followers of the god Hashut were previewed way back during Warhammer Fest. Not much else to say here, although I can see these guys making for some nice cultists for Warhammer 40,000. A lot of them are dual wielding weapons so it would be a fairly simple hand swap to a las pistol or something. Why am I considering these guys for conversions?

Because the other faction is, at long last, a Nurgle warband. The Rotmire Creed are a lovely bunch of diseased idiots that I would love to own. I absolutely love their look. Their weapons are blowpipes and animal horns attached to the end of sticks, the Age of Sigmar equivalent of a board with a nail in it. Some of them have stilts for navigating the swamp that they live in as well, love the little touches like that. Oh yes, I definitely want these guys. 

The terrain is worth noting as well. At last we have something that isn’t just ruins of some kind. These creepy trees look like the perfect home for a Nurgle-worshipping bunch of swamp dwellers. And honestly, given that I’m gathering forest and swamp terrain for an upcoming project makes this box really tempting. We’ll have to see how it’s priced I suppose. 

Necromunda - Goliath Maulers

The Goliath gang are getting some bikes that are, frankly, Ork level ridiculous. The front wheel is basically a giant meat grinder. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But if it looked a bit more ramshackle it would be an Ork vehicle and if it had some spikes it would be a Chaos unit. Not helped by the fact the rider has a metal mohawk. And by metal mohawk I don’t mean a particularly radical looking hair do, I mean an actual chunk of metal bolted to his skull. 

Warhammer Underworlds: Nethermaze - Hexbane’s Hunters

Forget Space Marines, just about every Twitch Preview these days is showing off another upcoming warband for Warhammer Underworlds. This week’s new warband is Hexbane’s Hunters. They are a group of witch hunters that have entered the depths of Ulgu to… hunt witches I guess. These guys do look very cool, they share the same aesthetic as the witch hunters in the Cursed City board game. I especially love the guy with the crossbow, whose bolt has a damn bomb attached to it. And of course, the warband comes with two doggies. Games Workshop has really cottoned onto the fact people love an animal companion. Will I get this warband purely for the dogs? Maybe. 

Blood Bowl - Kara Temple Harpies

I keep forgetting that Blood Bowl is one of the few things still left in the Warhammer Fantasy Old World. Otherwise, we would have three Stormcast Eternal teams by now.

In any case, these Amazons look great to be honest. Much has been said of Games Workshop’s inability to sculpt female faces, but these actually look pretty good. Then again, having them all in helmets that only show the very front of their faces works well in the sculptor's favour. But if there is one thing that Games Workshop can sculpt very well it’s muscular bodies. Because these Amazons are straight up swole. And honestly, dressed sensibly. An all female team from a hot climate could have gone very differently. 

Kill Team - Into the Dark

Last but not least, we have the next Kill Team box set, which are getting a bit like Warhammer Underworld’s releases. They sure are churning them out. Not that I’m complaining, most of the Kill Team releases have been top notch. The Kill Team: Moroch box set being the only one so far for me that didn’t wow me. 

If Moroch was a bit of a let down then this box more than makes up for it. I, like a lot of people, was very surprised at the teams in this box. The promotional material definitely had Space Hulk vibes going on, so most people were expecting Genestealers and/or Terminators. But it isn’t. 

The first team is the Imperial Navy Breachers. Like Space Marine Breachers from the Horus Heresy, they specialise in boarding actions and in owning oversized shields. Kill Team is great for this kind of thing, there is no way we would see Imperial Navy Breachers for Warhammer 40,000 but for Kill Team they make perfect sense. Like the Corsair Kill Team from the Nachmund box set. Here’s hoping Kill Team continues to shine a light on these smaller factions and units. Either way, these are nice models and I can see myself getting some depending, they’d make a nice companion to my Elucidian Starstriders. 

The second Kill Team is the Kroot. People have been calling for a Kroot Kill Team, or at least some more up to date models, for a while now. And I can’t say I blame them, I purged those god awful metal Kroot Hounds and Krootox from my collection a long time ago. Like the Imperial Navy Breachers they only showed off a few models but so far they look great. The Shaper in particular looks like a nod to the old model with his Pulse Rifle. And it will be interesting to see what the gun-crossbow thing does as well. I might grab these at some stage, at the moment the Kroot contingent of my Tau force consists of about eighteen Kroot Carnivores and a Great Knarloc (humble brag).