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Dead Man’s Hand Redux

I’ve like the rules for Dead Man’s Hand from Great Escape Games even though I certainly have not played it enough.

We will be getting a new edition in 2024.

Dead Man’s Hand was released in 2013 and has seen eight print-runs, a hearty miniature range and our first few plastic kits. And we have a lot more planned for the game, the building range and Dead Man’s Hand miniatures.

The big news is that Dead Man’s Hand will see a new edition released in 2024. Dead Man’s Hand Redux will be released as a new starter set complete with plastic miniatures and plastic terrain. Over the following few weeks we will talk more about the details, but the biggest bit is that the starter set will come with full size plastic buildings, detailed inside and out and with removable roofs for full access gameplay.

Dead Man’s Hand Redux is the same game, but with an updated deck, new faction builds, new scenes, expanded rules and an easy pick-up campaign system. We will also have new factions, such as Texas Rangers, The Family, Pioneers and several more.

And more plastic sets planned. A lot more.

So, what happens next? At the end of October, we will launch a Kickstarter project for Dead Man’s Hand Redux and invite you all to come and join the campaign; we have a lot of great stretch goals planned. For those of you who already play Dead Man’s Hand, old and new, please continue to play and enjoy the first edition.

After successfully participating in the Car Wars Kickstarter I am tempted to participate in this one.

Legion Imperialis Batte Report

In the next issue of White Dwarf there will be an early battle report for Legions Imperialis.

From the cover:

Blood Angels take on the Death Guard in our first Legions Imperialis battle report.

The Warhammer Community website says

…and you can whet your appetite for the upcoming Legions Imperialis in an early battle report.

This will be an issue of White Dwarf I will get when it comes out.

Now what does this tell us about the release date for Legions Imperialis? Well, not anything concrete, but I wonder if this means we might see Legions Imperialis before November? If not then in November?

An alternate SR-N1 Hovercraft

Back in January I wrote a piece about an idea I had for an alternate Desert Storm set in 1959.

The re-release of the Fairey Rotodyne reminded me of an idea I had for an alternative history background for gaming. The basic premise was a Desert Storm background but with 1950s tanks, aircraft, helicopters and VTOL craft like the Fairey Rotodyne.

My premise was that the British armed forced faced with a new threat would make use of aircraft such as the Fairey Rotodyne.

I was reminded of this article following the announcement from Airfix that they are going to re-release their 1/72nd scale model of the SR-N1 Hovercraft.

Debuted in 1960, it hasn’t been seen in the range since the 1980s.

The SR-N1 was the first practical hovercraft and demonstrated the potential of air-cushioned transport.

On 11 June 1959, the SR.N1 performed its first flight in front of the public. The SR.N1 participated in the test programme for four years prior to its retirement, by which point it had served its purpose in successfully validating the concept and further hovercraft had been developed.

Now I actually remember building the Airfix kit, but I painted it up as a military version. I think it was all over black to be used by special forces.

Airfix on their site talk about the military application of the SR-N1.

The SR-N1 Hovercraft is an experimental machine with space for the pilot and his observer, although on demonstration it has carried 20 fully equipped soldiers.

If I was to go down the Desert Storm 1959 idea, then I think I would get some SR-N1 hovercraft (well at least one) and build it as a troop carrier, or an armed version.

Legions Imperialis Rumours

The initial plan was that Legions Imperialis would be released in August. However the most recent post on the Warhammer Community site, as mentioned on this blog, was that the release will be delayed until later in the year.

Why was there a delay? Well as you might have guessed the internet is rife with rumours.

One of the strongest of the Internet rumours is that the rulebook needed to be reprinted due to an inappropriate quote. Though we don’t really know the details it probably was a paraphrased quote from World War Two.

Other rumours talk about warehouse and computing problems. There is also speculation that there are shipping delays.

Of course we will probably never know the truth.

Still looking forward to getting my copy of Legions Imperialis.

Legions Imperialis Delayed

The initial plan was that Legions Imperialis would be released in August. However the most recent post on the Warhammer Community site on the new Solar Auxilia Support models there is (hidden away at the bottom) a statement on the release date.

While we had initially hoped to release Legions Imperialis in August, the release date will now be a little later in the year. Don’t worry – you’ll be commanding a tiny legion of troops to victory very soon.

Well that is disappointing, after all the exciting previews we’ve seen over the last few weeks.

The phrase later in the year means that we may not even see this release until December, though I suspect it might be November.

Epic Size Comparisons

Over on the Warhammer Community site is an interesting article comparing the new Legions Imperialis miniatures with Epic miniatures of old.

The new Legions Imperialis models are much bigger than the Epic versions. This probably means that it will be challenging to use any Epic models alongside the new ones. Many of the models were pretty much underscale anyway.

One mistake in the article is that they mention plastic Leman Russ tanks

On the left is an adorable family photo, depicting three generations of the Leman Russ. At the front in green is an old metal version from the Space Marine-era in the mid 90s, joined by a plastic model (we think) from Epic Armageddon. The new Legions Imperialis Leman Russ kit also builds Leman Russ Vanquishers, pictured on the right with a smaller plastic version below it.

These plastic models were in fact resin models from Forge World. Here they are advertised in the Forge World catalogue.

I had a few, but as they didn’t match the metal Epic 40000 models I had, so I sold them on eBay.

New models for Legions Imperialis revealed

So after the accidental reveal, yesterday we saw the official reveal of some new models for Legion Imperialis.

As well as the Rhino and Baneblade we saw yesterday, we also have the Kratos.

The Kratos is a staple of Space Marine armoured companies, and one of the heaviest tanks available to the Legions Astartes.

We also have the Solar Auxilia Banelade.

….the iconic superheavy tank hits the battlefield in detachments of up to six, with a kit that can be used to create Baneblades or Hellhammers, alongside a huge range of hull, sponson, and cupola options.

We also have the Deimos pattern Rhino.

These are nice models that have potential for conversions. In the day I did a fair few Epic 40K conversions.

Also in the photos are a couple of Arvus flyers.

We’ve seen these before in Aeronautica Imperialis.

New Terrain for Legions Imperialis

Over on the Warhammer Community site they have previewed some exciting new terrain for Legions Imperialis.

The new Civitas Imperialis City Road Tiles look excellent and was the kind of thing that Forge World use to sell in resin.

These are (smaller and in) plastic. I really like these. You get six in a pack allowing you to have a 3’ x 2’ gaming area. So you would need four packs for the standard 6’ x 4’ gaming table.

In the past we may have seen Forge World produce extra specialist tiles to add to the standard tiles. This time, I don’t think we will, which will be a pity.

We also have some new ruins, which look great.

These Civitas Imperialis Ruins remind me of the Epic 40000 ruins that came with that game.

We are also going to have the Manufactorum Imperialis and Civitas Imperialis terrain sets re-released as well.

Really like the level of support that Legions Imperialis is getting. Wondering what other stuff we might see. Will we see more terrain? Will we see some supporting terrain from Forge World? We will have to wait and see.

First look at the sprues

Over on the Warhammer Community site they are discussing the design of the new models for Legions Imperialis. It also means we get a first look at the sprues.

The sprues show that the model tanks have a fair few parts (along the same lines as the Aeronautica Imperialis aircraft models).

When asked about the challenges of designing the models, Daren from The Design Studio said:

There is a little compromise between accurately representing the details of the larger kit, and making something that people will enjoy putting together, painting, and playing with. By necessity certain aspects have to change, for technical and aesthetic reasons. You can’t expect people to make a six-part Tactical Space Marine in a game that can require hundreds to play, so simple infantry are the way forward.

Despite the number of parts I am still looking forward to the release of Legions Imperialis.

Legiones Astartes Support

We are now starting to see some of the other models that will be released for Legion Imperialis.

Over on Warhammer Community they are showing off the contents of the Legiones Astartes Support box.

In the box you get four Leviathan Dreadnoughts, four Deredeo Dreadnoughts, four Rapier batteries with crew, and four Tarantula Batteries.

This box is packed with heavy firepower. Leviathan Dreadnoughts are some of the toughest units to crack below Knight-scale, and are more than capable of messing up heavy tanks with their mix of weaponry. They’re joined by Deredeo Dreadnoughts, which are absolutely stacked with devastating long-range armaments.

The Legiones Astartes Support box also adds Rapier Batteries to this selection of Dreadnought death-dealers. These semi-automated carriages are used when Legions need to rapidly deploy ordnance that is too heavy for even Legionaries to carry unaided, trundling into terrain unfriendly to tanks. Tarantula Sentry Batteries armed with lascannons or Hyperios air-defence launchers are generally deployed as point-defence weapons, but are often dropped in ahead of the main Legion battleline as disposable assets, where they exact a heavy toll on advancing opponents.

These are all plastic models and all look very nice. I do wonder how fiddly they will be to put together.