Warhammer 40k: The Road to Armageddon – Unboxing The New 11th Edition Starter
Or, How to Waste a Weekend Like a Professional by Unboxing a 40k Starter!
I lied, a weekend as pleasantly self-indulgent as the one I just had is never a waste. Armageddon is finally upon us, and the time for planning has come to an end. Campaign war gaming isn’t just about the game itself. At its heart, it’s a way to spend time sharing your love of the hobby with others. The launch of an edition is a great excuse to do just that.
What’s in the Box?
Okay, we’ve all known what’s in the box for months now. That didn’t stop me and my buddy Justin from barreling down to our local shop, Warhammer Tacoma Place, to snag our pre-orders. Shout out to Steve, one of the best GW shop staffers I’ve ever met!
Cracking open Armageddon would be a demanding task. So, our next stop was to snag enough barbacoa tacos and mango raspados to power us through the afternoon. Nourishing tacos in hand, we returned to my dining room. There we set about stuffing our faces and eyeing our box sets.
I’d also bought a copy of Jude Reid’s tie-in novel, Armageddon: Season of Fire but more on that later. First things first, there was a giant box of sprues and more to dig into. I open a lot of gaming boxes. But there’s nothing quite like that big box feeling with an edition launch set, is there? Even as Justin and I opened our sets, other friends were arriving. Fellow Warlord from this series, Randi, rolled in to collect the Ork half of my set. She was soon followed by our club-mates Lars and Buford. Beers were opened along with box sets and I set about building my Space Marines.
Not a single die was rolled all afternoon but great times were had! We talked about our hopes for the edition, oohed and ahhed over the new minis, and generally had a blast just reveling in the fun of miniatures gamers sharing their enthusiasm.
The Marines were a joy to assemble and I knocked out my half of the box set in short order. As the afternoon wound down I handed off the Orks to Randi who eagerly scurried home to build her Gretchin. With everyone departed I settled in for the evening to dig into the Operation Imperator campaign book.
Operation Imperator
I’m really impressed with this book, folks. Not a single rule mars this collection of maps, surveys, and essays. It perfectly sets the scene for the Fourth Armageddon war. It’s a beautiful and immersive collection of lore that lays out the setting with enough detail to be inspiring but leaves enough creative blank spaces for you to fill in. There’s plenty of room to create your own armies, characters, and gaming campaigns.
All of this is accompanied by miniatures photography and illustrations of the various livery of both Ork and Space Marine forces currently present on Armageddon. I’m really pleased to see such an emphasis on some of the more obscure Space Marine chapters, as well. The whole book really makes you feel like Armageddon is there just for you to leave your own mark upon its storied wastelands. With Operation Imperator greedily devoured, I went to bed but my Warhammer weekend wasn’t over.
Sunday morning arrived and with it my one real responsibility for the weekend: doing battle with the encroaching Himalayan blackberry vines in the backyard. As aggressive a foe as any Ork or Tyranid these must be hacked back throughout the summer here in the Pacific Northwest. A couple of hours of thorny personal combat later, I could get back to my very mature adult priorities: painting a Space Marine.
With everything already assembled I was ready to hit them with a quick white primer and then an airbrushed base coat of Mephiston Red. Shockingly, my airbrush was entirely cooperative for a change and I got it all done in less than half an hour!
I decided that I wanted to do a proof of concept test for my scheme and chose the sergeant from the Intercessor Squad as my guinea pig. As much as I’d have loved to jump right into batch painting I knew I should take it slow and work through the scheme on a single model. Over the next few nights I worked to take this one model all the way to completion, including basing and waterslide transfers to ensure I’d have a good handle on the process for the rest of the army. And here he is!
I’m really pleased with how everything came out. I managed to achieve a classic ‘90s Citadel era red thanks to Duncan’s tutorial as a base. From there I brought in my own more contemporary touches like pale gold embellishments. This model was a blast to paint and I cannot wait to dig into the rest of the army now. Next, I’ll paint the rest of the Intercessor Squad. My priorities will be the contents of the new Combat Patrol: Assault Force models over the next few weeks.
More Progress
Next week I’ll be back to check in with all three of our other Warlords as we make our way across the dusty plains of Armageddon. In the meantime, here’s a look at Randi’s first Gretchin. He’s just waiting to stab my Blood Angels sergeant in the ankle…
Season of Fire
Modeling aside, that Sunday I also started reading Armageddon: Season of Fire. I’ve read a lot of Warhammer novels over the years. They range in quality from excellent works of science fiction and fantasy to…uh…well, to books I have definitely read. So, there’s always a bit of trepidation when cracking a new one, sight unseen.
So, dear reader, I am pleased to report that Armageddon: Season of Fire is excellent! My following notes are brief and spoiler-free but I liked this book enough that maybe I’ll write more soon. It’s a fantastic collection of three thematically linked stories set in the near-past and present of Armageddon’s narrative. An Astra Militarum engineer, a Battle Sister, and a Blood Angels Space Marine each take center stage in their own stories.
Reid does a fantastic job at telling these tales in ways that deliver all the action and bleak outcomes that a 40k novel demands without sacrificing compelling characterizations and satisfying thematic explorations. The book deserves a lot more word count than I can get into here, but suffice to say that Armageddon: Season of Fire is a primo 40k novel and a perfect summer read.
How did you celebrate the arrival of 11th edition?
