New Books and Armies - Three Things I Am Excited About

It's hard to count the number of sleeps until a highly anticipated release when you have no idea when it will be out. Alas, I try to count them all the same. Here are the things I am currently losing sleep over;

1. Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos

This was released to attendees of Games Day this year and should be available online in the next few weeks. I've been looking forward to it all year, even though it will not be in its original form that Rick Priestley had set out (a series of books, each covering a different Chaos god). The highlights for me are the Nuln content and the Chaos list which combines Beastmen, Warriors, and Daemons. Chaos Dwarfs are worth a look too. Most of all I am looking forward to using it for a club campaign I have been wanting to run for a long time now.

What's nice is that it will utilise the Scrolls of Binding rules from Storm of Magic, which means I can actually use the amazing models I get from Warhammer Forge in games with people hesitant of playing outside GW sanctioned rulesets.

Also on the shopping list is the Amethyst wizard on the Carmine Dragon, Magisterix Elspeth von Draken.





2. Monstrous Arcana

The second Warhammer Forge book has also been alluded to! This will be an extended bestiary which will also utilise the Storm of Magic Scrolls of Binding. It will be accompanied by a huge range of monster models, including elemental creatures for each wind of magic. For those that like big monsters, this will be choice!

Hopefully they also include a campaign in here too. Definitely on my wish list - I'm a sucker for nice books! After this there is supposed to be another Tamurkhan-style book detailing a clash between good and evil, though not Chaos this time.



3. Warhammer Army Releases for 2012

Grain of salt time - these are rumours, albeit from regularly reliable sources. It turns out the next few army releases will not be Bretonnia and Wood Elves as it has been assumed, but Empire, Vampire Counts and Dwarves.

Rumoured model releases for Empire include warrior priests for most of the Empire's gods, a war altar/war wagon set, the re-inclusion of halflings, and monstrous cavalry in the form of demigryph riders.

I'm very excited by this. I like that the warrior priests are a viable alternative to wizards. In the latest White Dwarf they released rules for a Priest of Morr in the Garden of Morr scenario, who can channel the winds of magic. Really looking forward to the other unique priests, and possibly multiple ways of loading out the war altar for the different gods.

The demigryph riders will be great. I have the Theodore Bruckner model, and it seems like I will get to use him as a champion for this unit - perfect, as he is very difficult to fit into a list as a special character. While not everyone's cup of tea, I think Bruckner's model is great and I look forward to seeing what GW can produce.

I am nervous about a reduction in magic items though, as per the latest army releases. The Empire has a wealth of cool items to help it even the odds against different armies, and I would hate to see many of them go. My favourites are of course Van Horstmann's Speculum and Aldred's Casket of Sorcery, among several others!

For Vampire Counts I have heard of a new plastic Black Coach set, and new plastic Black Knights. This follows on the back of the rules published in a recent White Dwarf, which is supposed to have been a stop-gap until the new army book.

It's been a huge year for Warhammer Fantasy, definitely more than enough to keep me interested in the hobby for the forseeable future.