First Strike Review (and a look at the Primaris release)

First Strike is a new starter set available for Warhammer 40,000 eighth edition. It is something of a first as there has never been such a small or cheap starter set available for 40k before. Usually you get the option of the main box set containing two good size forces and all the accouterments you need to play as well as a rule book or just the rulebook on its own. With the release of eighth we have been spoilt with four choices.

First is Dark Imperium the main two player starter set which contains the new Primaris Marines and the Death Guard, the second time that the starter has contained two power armoured forces, the first being the previous edition's (sixth and seventh) Dark Vengeance. To accompany that you have a hard back rule book. Released alongside First Strike is Know No Fear, a paired down version of Dark Imperium that contains a soft backed rule book containing the main and advanced rules of the game and most but not all of the miniatures included in Dark Imperium. First Strike is the final option for getting started.

First Strike comes packed in a rather neat little box. It is about the same size as a standard infantry box but twice as deep. This is very compact for a starter set and has been designed this way to fit into the FSDUs that are being rolled out to independent retailers to go in bricks and mortar stores. Each unit is able to comfortably hold the full range of eighth edition starter products.

Games Workshop has been getting fancy with their boxes of late. If you have purchased one of the Triumvirate boxes you will have seen how fancy they are with artwork printed all over the inner tray. Here this takes on a practical purpose as the tray for First Strike's box has been printed to look like Imperial Containers, making the tray a ready made piece of terrain. This method has been repeated with Know No Fear as well as the Age of Sigmar mini starter set.

I was impressed with how neatly everything fit in the box. There is a lot in there too. Four sprues of miniatures, bases, a measuring stick, dice, books, unit cards and a game mat.

Once its all out you can really see how impressive this set is. As a product it is a complete starter, providing a gaming area and terrain to play on as well as the miniatures. All of which (bar the minis once you've painted them) can go straight back in the box for storage which you will want to do to keep the mat and scenery nice.

As a veteran gamer you might not get much use out of First Strike as it was intended. Indeed, I bought the box mainly for the miniatures which individually would have cost £40.00 whereas this box costs £25.00! I get that its only a saving relative to the prices GW has set themselves but when you take in everything here, It's still a good deal.

Do you remember what it was like being a noob? There was nothing like this. If you wanted to get into the game it was expensive, as it still is, but when we were younger cash was even harder to come by that it is now, even with bills and such. £25.00 is a really good price to introduce new players to the game. 

That is actually all it is, an introduction. The rules in this box are only the core rules, with the more advanced rules that do appear being specific to the models and missions in the box. If you want the full rules you will need to pick one of the other three options that accompany this kit.

But that's not a bad thing. If you tried it and didn't like it, then you haven't sunk £95.00 into a large box of miniatures you are never going to use again. If you do want to go further then either Dark Imperium or Know No Fear is a great upgrade as the units in the box, especially the Death Guard units can integrate into the forces present in the larger box. In fact the Death Guard Plague Marines in First Strike will upgrade the Death Guard in the larger boxes to a full ten man squad with most of its options, only really missing an icon. That's why this is probably going to be the top seller out of the four beginner products.

A word on the Death Guard (Allen will review the Primaris). Even though they are push fit models, they are the best GW has ever done. Usually you can tell straight away that a model is push fit as it has an awkward pose and appears to be less detailed than the true plastic versions of the same troops. These are indistinguishable in quality from the miniatures in Dark Imperium. A real step forward in GW's production quality.

Another thing to note is that they are all slotta models! I've not seen new slotta models since the Assault on Black Reach starter set for fifth edition.

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Yep slotta bases! man that takes me back... very cool and essential to the no-glue Easy build concept being presented here!

Like Lee says, First Strike serves as a brilliant intro to 40K. Compact, yet still containing everything you need to dip your toes in to the game. Lee has adroitly covered most of the box so I’ll talk about the rest.

The Primaris marines come on blue plastic sprues, I presume that they are of the same quality as the normal grey plastic but they are a bit shinier so it is hard to see if the sharpness of the detail is the same. I couldn’t discern any major differences. You can easily cut off the ‘easybuild’ pegs to get more variety out of the poses but in all honesty it ends up looking a bit awkward. They have been designed a certain way, messing with that with the parts you have doesn’t go as well as you would think it would. Certainly if you were to use other parts, say from the multipart plastic kits that are coming out I think you would garner better results. I’ll be filling in those leg greaves with Greenstuff though, the below picture has ensured that.....

The Reivers are actually the poorer models in the set in my opinion, the Primaris Intercessors come off quite a bit better, this is probably largely due to the fact that they are markedly different to those that have come in the Dark Imperium box set, well two are at least. One is holding an Auspex which is pretty cool and the sergeant is also a nice dynamically posed figure. I swapped out my Nurgle with a pal for more Primaris and will likely convert the second sergeant into a lieutenant as I hate having identical figures and it would be a little hard to convert up. With an irremovable helmet clipped to his belt you can’t even do an easy head swap. Oh well i’m sure the MPPK will come with a multitude of parts for conversions. (edit - it does! 24 heads in fact!)

In addition to the models you get two snazzy books, I’ll get to those in just a sec but you do also get a couple of other bits not mentioned yet, one is a range ruler, a cut down version of the ruler you get in Dark Imperium and rendering the measuring tool made available for purchase utterly redundant (honestly who makes a measuring tool out of bendy soft rubber ?) There are of course dice, kind of necessary for playing the game, sadly these are not the really nice ones from Dark Imperium and are instead bog standard game dice. You also get cards with the contained models rules but these are MASSIVELY stripped down and in the scheme of things of no use outside the First Strike scenarios. 

Speaking of which,

First Strike comes with two books, one is basically the core rules so no need to explore that here. It is JUST the core rules though, no army building rules advanced rules or deployment maps/missions. Great for carrying round to games though.

the other book, titled 'read this first' really does serve as an intro the the world of Warhammer 40,000
with 9 pages of fluff. a half dozen pages of hobby material, including a painting guide so basic i'm not sure it deserves the name and then the 4 scenarios that make up the game, each one introducing more rules and models till you use the lot in the final battle. It's a really great way to get someone to learn the game, it's hard to imagine being a TOTAL novice but it seems really accessible. There are also more than a few adverts for other GW products. Strangely enough!

So that is First Strike, a pretty decent and affordable starter, scaling up you get Know no Fear which is a stripped down version of Dark Imperium at 50 notes.  This new idea of multiple entry point starters is a really good one from GW. Top marks there. First Strike really feels like a starter taste though and you are not getting the full experience by any means. 

Time to look at the other Primaris releases (this has delayed the article a few times, sorry about that)

So along side all this we got a couple of clampack characters, coming in at almost the cost of a full squad  (at present) they are certainly quite expensive and in my opinion the Captain is rendered redundant by the far superior ‘birthday’ limited edition available from GW stores on their anniversary. Still, the Librarian looked really nice so I grabbed that.

And you know what? It is a phenomenally well designed and engineered model. GW really are absolutely at the top of the pile here and it was a dream to assemble, of course the trade off is convertibility and I would say that you would find it very difficult to make a second model look distinct. then again at the the price GW are asking for these who could AFFORD more than one?!

Reivers, £35 quid for 10 might seem like a lot but if you are paying £10 for three Easy-build versions then the price doesn't seem that bad! Add in the discount for a third party retailer such as Wayland Games and it will drop below 30 quid and start to look a bit more reasonable. There are also a BUCKET load of parts to this kit and in the end despite being a price you would balk at for a squad it actually works out better value than the 'value' sets people are raving about. Odd how that works eh?

Aggressors: Now these at £30 for three models I am having a LOT more trouble justifying. A tenner a model, minimal options and spare parts, and just not that great looking in the first place, (imo) they are a hard sell. Given the option i'd pay the extra fiver and go for the ten Reivers every time. The Aggressors seem to have been priced purely to be cheaper than the reviled Centurions which they are clearly meant to replace. 

On top of that we also have the Redemptor Dreadnought, at £40 it seems much better priced to me. Now I have seen better pictures I feel that I understand the model much better and to be honest... I'm really digging it. I think the price is good (Twice the size of a normal dread and only 25% more) and I'll definitely be picking one up. Huge and stompy, I want to compare one to an Imperial Knight!

this keeps getting delayed as more stuff is reviewed. this is the last of it thankfully!

Ok so the last couple of Primaris releases.

Apothecary, quite nice, not sure he should be standing on his brothers corpse but the little details are really nice. The flasks round his neck containing the progenoid glands, the lenses in front of his face, it’s a nice job, lots of character. I’ll probably grab one of these.

The chaplain is also quite nice, a lot more dynamic if perhaps a little too interrogator like for me, his Crozius has also been downgraded to a mere stick, not so keen on that. Looks a bit like a baton. He’s half the sprues of the apothecary for the same price too, not cool.

And lets not forget that the four released characters are collectively  practically the same price as the ENTIRE of the Dark Imperium box. Insanity.

Something else that is insanity?  £30 quid for 3 Inceptors. Utter madness, they aren’t nice models in the first place  (IMO) and they don’t even come with that many parts. Those new flying bases are rubbish too. Might just be worth mixing with a cheap squad from DI to get the most out of it and end up with two squads for about £40.00. 

Better is 35 for 10 Intercessors, (the hell blasters are the same price), Ok it’s a lot of money for a ten man squad but the models are undeniably bigger and better and you get 3 variants of weapon which can be used throughout the entire squad and 24 heads! 12 bare and 12 helmeted, and who doesn’t like more head?(snigger). I think the concerning thing is that I just said £35.00, a 40% (ish) markup is perfectly justified. I feel dirty now.

50 quid for your Repulsor grav tank. Doesn’t seem too bad, there is quite a lot to it. Lots of guns certainly. Given that the LR is roughly the same price and similarly sized models from AOS cost a LOT more I don’t think it’s too bad.

And that’s the Primaris release. (at least the first wave) Total cost to get one of each box? A Staggering  £345. I mean that really is a LOT of money for 42 infantry models a tank and a dreadnought. This is the price of the new Scale. Some armies are about to get HORRIFICALLY expensive.

In general I think the Aggressors, Inceptors and Characters are probably the raw deals here. The Dread and 10 man squads seem OK for the amount of bits you get, the Tank is so, so.  I’m not surprised by any of the prices overall, they are much in line with AOS.  

Next up, (presumably) will  be the Deathguard. I’d expect a similar release there, we already know a tank is coming, Typhus, a terminator box, a Plague Marine box, I imagine a multipart pox walker kit, and a clam pack for each of the existing characters in Dark Imperium too (Sorcerer, Noxious Blightbringer and Lord of Contagion) Oh and a great big flying bloke called Mortarion.

Of course, we’ll review those when they arrive....

Conclave of Har Horus Heresy Book Review: Praetorian of Dorn by John French

It seems to have been an age but finally the action in the Horus Heresy has reached Sol. Nearly 50 books in and we are finally approaching  the end phase, the pieces are moving into position and some minor retcons aside we are ready for the final battle. But while we have been treated to tales aplenty featuring the Shattered Legions and the other legions slowly making their way to Terra to defend the Emperor (though Guilliman looks a bit suspect at the moment – surely he could have made it back too?, After all Sangunius has to depart so why does the Avenging Son not go with him?) we still have not seen much of what is happening back on Holy Terra itself.

To be fair this is probably because most of it has been destroying and rebuilding the Homeworld in preparation for Horus’s final assault and some shorts aside that would not make for particularly exciting reading. Nonetheless Dorn and his Legion are a big part of the closing stages of the Horus Heresy and it seems only right that we check in on them....

Just as they are attacked from within by a small force of Alpha Legion operatives.

Yep, those sneaky sons of Alpharius strike at Holy Terra itself. That said, it’s less of an actual attack and more of a ‘look what we could do if we wanted to’ designed to distract Dorn. And it works, although Dorn himself doesn’t get too involved in the hunt for the Alpha Legion and instead assigns Archamus his chief Huscarl ‘the Praetorian of Dorn’ to take whatever resources he needs and hunt down the traitor elements wherever in the solar system they may be.  Of course this is the Alpha Legion that we are talking about and they never make things that simple.

The narrative switches repeatedly between the hunters and the hunted, showing the hunters attempts to track down their quarry even as we see the traitors going about their objectives.  Archamus puts together his team to carry out his Primarchs orders and capture the elusive Alpha Legion operatives and this is where the majority of the book focuses although there are a few flashbacks for the Archamus and the lead Alpha Legionnaire Silonius that add a little exposition and character development suggesting, as always for the Alpha Legion that all is not as it seems.

In fact intrigue and mystery, as you might expect, is a large part of the book with the side effect that the reader can feel a little out of the loop as leaps in reasoning and logic are made that we just cannot quite rationalise. It can make the book a little hard to follow as events occur seemingly with little rhyme or reason. This can be a little jarring and does unfortunately detract from the reading experience, though you are never left completely lost sometimes things can be just a little too vague.

That said, I really do enjoy John French’s writing, he has a way with words that I imagine a sculptor has with clay and at times his writing borders on the romantic such is the elegance that he uses in his prose. In many ways it almost has a classical element to it, avoiding the ponderous overly descriptive format that many authors can fall into the trap of using whilst simultaneously not making the text so basic that it becomes mindless bolter porn.

The book also does a decent job on highlighting two legions which have had scant attention paid to them over the course of the Heresy, whilst by no means as neglected as some, it’s nice to see the fists and Alpha Legion get some time in the spotlight and some good work is done on them here.

However, even though there are some excellent highlights and very important events at the back end of the book (these are spoiler free reviews so I won’t say what, even though most people probably know) It’s hard to say that Praetorian of Dorn is an essential read. Certainly it feels like the narrative could have done with a little more tightening and refining as the path the story takes is at times bumpy and uneven. It’s a shame because if as much skill had been applied to construction of the tale itself as to the craft of the text and writing we could have been looking at a classic.

In the end though, despite some decent characterisation and great action this is just another filler book, and whilst it will certainly fit in the upper half of the series in terms of quality it does come across as little more than another diversion, another obstacle placed between us and the main event. Horus’s long awaited assault on Terra and confrontation with the Emperor.