UNBELIEVABLE
I never thought the day would actually come, to be honest.
Finally, once and for all, the Navy has infantry models.
The chances are that if you are reading this you will already know most of the details or if you really care and this is the first you've heard of it you'll be hotly Googling. Suffice it to say I'll be milking this massively epic milestone for many a blog post to come. So whatever you want to know you'll find all records and resources for it here. But today is an overview and a reaction.
These are Armsmen, the unit is called Breachers, and they are basically Jez Goodwin's voidsmen design. The squad is built for the Kill Team platform but Games Workshop has released rules for the unit which allow you to also deploy them to the traditional Warhammer 40,000 tabletop. So, there are no bones about it. This is finally a Navy infantry that can stand toe to toe with Space Marines, Imperial Guard, xenos, you name it. At least on paper.
This release brings with it a handful of new artwork, and a smidgen of lore. The lore is perhaps slightly disappointing, at least for me personally. Although there are some nice little features for the Kill Team game, the new lore casts a shadow over the identity and broader possibilities of this faction for the Warhammer 40,000 table.
All in all the unit is faithful to Jez Goodwin's CLASSIC designs that have adorned the pages of this blog for many a year, with only a very few deviations or omissions. The main one I noticed was the lack of a boarding gaff, replaced with an axe. Why you would use an axe on bulkheads, I don't know. In exchange we get the "C.A.T." drone, and a hurt locker demolitions specialist, and yes quite a few variations on the theme. In some ways it echoes the Elucidian Starstriders, and more obviously the basic format of Kill Teams.
However, there is enough here in lore and models to churn out units that are more like "squads" for Warhammer 40,000 itself. That is clearly the overall strategy of Games Workshop now when bringing out new models to the market. We finally got plastic Death Korps of Krieg for Warhammer 40,000 but you have to fork out some even harder cash than you would have for Cadians, and buy them in their Kill Team format. They need a bit of work to get them to run as an army of 100 infantry men. The same is almost true of the Navy Breachers.
The Breachers are a specialist unit, they don't represent all armsmen or voidsmen. According to the rules adaptation to Warhammer 40,000 these are a Troops slot. The problem there though is that GW decided to give them a new faction name.
Instead of making them the same faction as Valkyries and Officers of the Fleet (Imperial Navy), GW in their infinite wisdom decided to assign this unit to the new faction called Navis Imperialis, so no flyers for you!
This also means that as great as it is to have a Troops slot for the WH40K tabletop, you cannot have your own HQ choice. So you can't really create an army or detachment out of the Navy Breachers anyway. Not yet, and not without some homebrew rules.
I suppose that will have to be my next major project here then. I've had a homebrew codex for Naval Infantry for years, full of lore and rules ideas mainly based off of scions and Elysians but now we have something real to build around.
Finally, once and for all, the Navy has infantry models.
The chances are that if you are reading this you will already know most of the details or if you really care and this is the first you've heard of it you'll be hotly Googling. Suffice it to say I'll be milking this massively epic milestone for many a blog post to come. So whatever you want to know you'll find all records and resources for it here. But today is an overview and a reaction.
These are Armsmen, the unit is called Breachers, and they are basically Jez Goodwin's voidsmen design. The squad is built for the Kill Team platform but Games Workshop has released rules for the unit which allow you to also deploy them to the traditional Warhammer 40,000 tabletop. So, there are no bones about it. This is finally a Navy infantry that can stand toe to toe with Space Marines, Imperial Guard, xenos, you name it. At least on paper.
This release brings with it a handful of new artwork, and a smidgen of lore. The lore is perhaps slightly disappointing, at least for me personally. Although there are some nice little features for the Kill Team game, the new lore casts a shadow over the identity and broader possibilities of this faction for the Warhammer 40,000 table.
All in all the unit is faithful to Jez Goodwin's CLASSIC designs that have adorned the pages of this blog for many a year, with only a very few deviations or omissions. The main one I noticed was the lack of a boarding gaff, replaced with an axe. Why you would use an axe on bulkheads, I don't know. In exchange we get the "C.A.T." drone, and a hurt locker demolitions specialist, and yes quite a few variations on the theme. In some ways it echoes the Elucidian Starstriders, and more obviously the basic format of Kill Teams.
However, there is enough here in lore and models to churn out units that are more like "squads" for Warhammer 40,000 itself. That is clearly the overall strategy of Games Workshop now when bringing out new models to the market. We finally got plastic Death Korps of Krieg for Warhammer 40,000 but you have to fork out some even harder cash than you would have for Cadians, and buy them in their Kill Team format. They need a bit of work to get them to run as an army of 100 infantry men. The same is almost true of the Navy Breachers.
The Breachers are a specialist unit, they don't represent all armsmen or voidsmen. According to the rules adaptation to Warhammer 40,000 these are a Troops slot. The problem there though is that GW decided to give them a new faction name.
I suppose that will have to be my next major project here then. I've had a homebrew codex for Naval Infantry for years, full of lore and rules ideas mainly based off of scions and Elysians but now we have something real to build around.
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