Warlord, Hordes and Spartan news

The biggest nerd news of the last couple weeks is Warlord Games announcement of a new set of WWII rules.

Not the biggest shock in the world, especially with Warlords vast Bolt Action range of miniatures.  Perhaps the most surprising thing about the release is their decision to join with another company to produce the rules.  After the success's of Black Powder and Hail Caesar, Warlord must have been tempted to try this alone.


However, the joint venture with Osprey really makes these rules a great prospect.  Now I'm assuming that as Osprey will be publishing, the books will follow their Field of Glory/Renaissance/Force on Force template of a hardback rulebook and smaller, softback supplements.  This format is something Osprey have become very proficient in; each release since the original FoG rulebook has improved on the previous one.


The books will presumably have access to the vast library of images and artwork from Osprey's back catalogue which can only be a good thing.  Lastly, in my opinion, Osprey have never been a company to take the piss with the amount and frequency of supplements they print.  So hopefully we won't see an endless stream of unnecessary supplement books simply to generate £$£ (I'm looking at you Flames of War!)


Meanwhile, Privateer Press are busy preparing us for the next Hordes book, Domination, with two new Epic Warlocks, Vayl and Hexeris:

Vayl, Consul of Everblight

Lord Arbiter Hexeris 

Massive improvements on the original, Primal sculpts.  Considering all the movement phase shenanigans she gets upto, Vayl always looked surprisingly static.  Here there's much more fluidity and dynamism to her.  Hexeris looks suitably malevolent, but I think he could have been given a little more variety compared to the original. 


Now what we really need to see are the Hordes Battle Engines (the Circle Celestial Fulcrum looks a bit meh to me.)


Spartan Games have posted up some images of their upcoming Capital Class flyers for Dystopian Wars:

Kingdom of Britannia Eagle Class War Rotor

Initially, I thought this looked a bit of a mess; the hull looked too bulky and the propellers seem pathetically tiny.  However, after looking at it for a little longer, the Eagle does grow on you.  It has a certain "plucky British gumption overpowers the laws of physics" feel to it; bloated, ungainly. . . armed to the teeth!

Empire of the Blazing Sun Tsukuyomi War Gyro

This guy looks the place though, kind of an amalgam of the Nakatsu Cruiser and the Inari Scout Gyro.  It also has plenty of character with all those gyros and turrets.  Certainly looking forward to seeing this in the flesh (resin.)


And also from Spartan are the first of their new sculpts for Uncharted Seas: 

Human Condor Flagship

Great looking new design there, very "Age of Sail" - I'd love to see how this would look with some rigging and webbing.  I've never been that interested in Uncharted Seas, but with all the resculpts being released, I might have a closer look.  Considering it's one of the cheapest games out there to get into, that shouldn't be too hard.


So there we go, some news from the last couple weeks and a few comments.  Love to know what everyone else thinks. . .