Two deadlines landed this morning: the Made to Order Ork window shut at 8am, and the Sunday Preview turned up to tell us Warhammer Tone Pro finally has a pre-order date. It also told us nothing else, which is a story in itself — there are no new miniatures going up this Saturday.
Warhammer Community · 4 Oct
Tone Pro has a pre-order date at last, and it's the only thing going up this Saturday
The Sunday Preview was handed over entirely to Warhammer Tone Pro. Games Workshop's wording is that the range is “available to pre-order next week” — which makes it Saturday 10 October, the same date the trade solicitations have carried for a fortnight — ahead of the 24 October release GW announced back in September. The line-up is as previewed: 30 colours split into five numbered tones each for 150 paints in 12ml dropper bottles, a Shading Medium, a Blending Medium and a set of curved-tip drybrushes. No miniatures, no books, no boxed games. That was the whole preview.
Our take: after three weeks of everyone — us included, at one point — getting the demo weekend confused with a release, it is a relief to have the dates nailed down: pre-order Saturday, in your hands a fortnight later. The more interesting detail is what the Sunday Preview didn't contain. A Saturday with no new plastic at all is rare, and it lines up exactly with GW confirming there's no fourth codex until 2027. The autumn run is over and the next thing on the calendar is Christmas. On the paints themselves: GW has confirmed there is no complete set, so 150 individual pots is a shopping decision rather than a purchase, and the figures circulating are US retailer listings rather than UK RRP. We'll have ours priced properly when pre-orders open.
Warhammer Community · 26 Sep
That's the Made to Order Orks gone — the window shut at 8am this morning
Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub, Zodgrod Wortsnagga, Ghazghkull Thraka, the Goff Rockers, Mad Dok Grotsnik, Boss Zagstruk and the Deff Dread came off the order books at 8am UK time today, after nine days. If you ordered, dispatch is quoted at up to 180 days, so expect those boxes in the spring rather than this side of Christmas. If you didn't, there is no extension and no waiting list.
Our take: we went on about this one more than any single story this autumn and we're not apologising for it, because the deadline was real and the kits genuinely go away. Made to Order runs don't come back on a schedule — some of these had been off sale the better part of a decade. The plus side of missing it: nothing in that list is a competitive requirement. Ghazghkull has a current plastic kit, and the rest are nostalgia pieces. You've lost the chance to own them, not the chance to play Orks properly.
Tabletop Battles · 3 Oct
The people who've read all three 11th Edition codexes say Custodes is the best of them
Tabletop Battles put four reviewers through Codex: Adeptus Custodes and came out unanimous, with one of them calling it their favourite of the three books 11th Edition has produced so far. The praise is for the statlines — a basic Custodian now sits at Toughness 7 to 8 with five or six wounds, which is roughly where a Space Marine captain used to live — and for the six ka'tahs, which work in phases other than combat and give the army defensive options it has never had. Sisters of Silence are split off onto their own Anathema Psykana keyword. The complaints: tracking ka'tah states across a dozen units is real mental bookkeeping, Emperor's Chosen overshadows several of the thirteen detachments, and the jetbikes look like a future points problem.
Our take: one line in that review matters more than the verdict if you're about to spend money. Most Custodes infantry units now cap at two or three models. If you've got an existing collection built around five-model squads — Allarus Terminators especially — you are suddenly holding spares rather than an army, and the sensible move is to work out what you actually need before adding to the pile. That cuts the other way too: the smaller unit sizes mean a playable Custodes force is a genuinely small number of boxes. The Combat Patrol remains the honest starting point.
Spikey Bits · 1 Oct
Twelve days on from the Korean lead notice on Chaos Black, Games Workshop still hasn't said a word
South Korea's environment ministry listed Citadel Chaos Black spray in a safety investigation of 2,213 household chemicals published on 23 September, under notification DA26-15-0002, having detected lead in it. What Korea has not published is how much, how it tested, or which batches it checked. The cans name the UK as country of origin. There is no UK, EU or worldwide recall, and Games Workshop and Warhammer Community have said nothing at all.
Our take: “lead was detected” and “this is lead paint” are not the same claim, and anyone telling you to bin your cans is ahead of the evidence. But twelve days of silence from a company that posts something every single morning is its own answer to a different question. A one-paragraph statement saying which production runs Korea tested and whether UK stock comes off them would cost GW nothing and settle it. Until then we'll keep putting it on the schedule page under what nobody knows, because that's what it is. Practical advice unchanged, and the same as it was before any of this: spray outdoors or in a booth, wear a mask, don't sand primer dry.
Spikey Bits · 2 Oct
Crisis Suits walked through a five-tank Guard list in the New York Open final
The first big event since the Emboldened Astartes balance update went in. Evan Tomchin took T'au to 5–0 and the title, beating a five-tank Astra Militarum list 100–78 in the final with a battlesuit-heavy build. Maxwell Lawrence also finished 5–0 with Adeptus Mechanicus without ever meeting him. Imperial Guard, Mechanicus and T'au all showed up near the top, which is a better spread than the week's noise about Marines would suggest.
Our take: interesting that the first undefeated lists after a balance update built entirely around buffing power armour came from two factions that don't wear any. Mobile firepower beat a static gunline, which is the lesson 11th Edition keeps teaching with its terrain-as-objectives rules — you cannot hold ground you can't walk onto. Expect more Crisis teams at the next few events and Guard players hunting for screens. Worth remembering before you read too much into one weekend: this is five rounds at one tournament, three days after a points file that rewrote every list in the game.
Warhammer Community · 29 Sep
Rumour Engine: a very dandy feather, and nobody has a clue
This fortnight's teaser is an ornate plume — fine, flowing, clearly a decorative accessory rather than part of a creature. GW's own copy: “Is it a bird? Well, it might have been at some point, but now it looks like a very dandy accessory. Who from across the worlds of Warhammer would have such a decoration?”
Our take: a feathered plume narrows it down to roughly half the settings GW publishes. Empire state troops, Cities of Sigmar, a Hedonite of Slaanesh, an Old World pistolier, a Seraphon skink headdress, a Blood Bowl team — take your pick. The one honest observation is that “dandy” is doing a lot of work in that sentence and GW rarely picks a word for nothing. Our standing position on Rumour Engine stands: enjoy it as a parlour game, and if you see somebody attach a release date to a feather, close the tab.
Warhammer Community · 1 Oct
Space Marine 2 opens year three with a free update, and an Apothecary class is on the way
The anniversary update is live. Free for everyone: a one-handed thunder hammer across several classes, a rebuilt Tactical skill tree, a new Crucible mode with difficulty-modifying Penances and Lamenters armour as the reward, and Chaos Space Marines as a playable faction in Siege mode across two sectors to begin with. The Space Wolves Champion and Exorcists cosmetic packs are paid, individually or through Season Pass 3. GW says year three brings new weapons, new operations and an entirely new Apothecary class.
Our take: two years on and the bulk of a substantial content drop is still free, which is not how most live-service games have aged. Playable Chaos is the headline and the Apothecary is the thing to watch — a support class in a game built on three aggressive ones changes how squads work. Nothing here sells a plastic kit, but a fair few people have walked into the hobby through this game, and if that's you, the Combat Patrol boxes are where the tabletop version starts.
Also worth a look
- GW's own pick of the best Custodes detachment stacks, straight from the studio Warhammer Community
- The full Big Autumn Preview Q&A — the one with the “no more codexes until 2027” line in it Warhammer Community
- Orks go a perfect 5–0 at the Wars on the Shore GT — the list, in full Spikey Bits
- Only in Death: 40,000 Ways to Die — GW's new animated short, free to watch Warhammer Community
- Warriors of Chaos armies from the studio painters, for Old World players Warhammer Community
- The art of Terra and the Custodes, if you want the painting reference Warhammer Community
Keep track of what's coming: this week's pre-orders, the 40K 11th Edition schedule and the Age of Sigmar battletome roadmap.
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