Rumours: Matt Ward working on Tyranid update for 2013

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Ben Jackson

Rumours are rife that Matt Ward is working on the new Codex or White Dwarf update for the Tyranids. (he’s got to be working on something). The new update is expected towards the end of 2013. Any details on rules are patchy but we are hearing Synapse may grant Eternal Warrior again and changes are going to be made to instinctive behaviour. There is only rumours of two new units at present one being an anti air flying monster, which will also have the options for making a Harpy. There is also said to be a new even bigger Lictor style Monsteress Creature and across the board point reductions for nearly all units in the army.

New plastics

We also hear of new plastic versions of a lot of the finecast kits that will make a number of different units e.g.

warriors/lictors
zoanthropes/venomthropes/raveners
biovores/pyrovores
tyrant guard/hive guard

Also they may be some plastic wings for the shrikes, a new plastic model for the Tyranid Prime and there is even a little noise that Termagants may get an update. Some of the finecast lines that don’t make it to plastic may be sold in multiple model sets e.g. 3 lictors in a box (that’s just an example).

While sixth edition has defiantly given Tyranids some boosts, it’s also left them behind so it’s good news they will see some upgrades and have instinctive behaviour fixed. The one thing missing from this list is a plastic spore pods kit???

ChapterMasters.com One year on

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Ben Jackson

ChapterMasters.com will be a year old next week. Over the last year we have brought you lots of pictures, a few videos, news on new products, 40k trivia, reports from Games Day and Throne of Skulls, ramblings from my brain, a campaign and the every popular rumours.

As part of looking back on the last 12 months, I though I’d share a count down of our most popular posts.

5: The old Space Wolves Page (2020 views)

http://chaptermasters.com/Spacewolves.htm

4: The old Ultramarines Pages (alsmost 5000 views)

http://chaptermasters.com/ultramarines.htm

3: The new ChapterMasters home page (5250 views)

http://chaptermasters.com/

2: The old ChapterMasters homepage (6250)

http://archive.chaptermasters.com/index.html

1: And the most popular page? With over 6600 views.

It’s the the page I’m looking at right now the chaptermasters administration pages. Lets see if you can beat me next year;)

Ben’s Favourite post

My favour post is our Most popular you tube Video, a Dark Eldar Razor wing that really does hover.

You can let us know what you have though of the site this year but voting in the poll below or commenting below (to prevent spam only registered users can comment).

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I must also thank our sponsor http://www.seadoak.com without their support this site would not be possible. Not only have they paid for my time, but they have also provided our web hosting, development and support.

I would also like to thank you for the 54,000 visits we’ve had in the last year. If it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t be able to get any sponsorship and keep this site running. I’d particularly like to thank those of your who keep coming back to check for updates.

You can subscribe to be notified when we post new content on twitter https://twitter.com/ChapterMasters and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/chapter.masters

What to do when White Dwarf is an expensive advert

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Jon

For me the December White Dwarf was a complete miss. I’m not saying it was bad, it just failed to have any content that justified me handing over my nice picture of the queen as well as a 50p coin. I’m not a White Dwarf subscriber as there are a few issues I don’t want, however on the rare occasion I don’t buy one it is leaves a hole in my life (and a weight in my pocket). There are a few way’s I’ve learnt to deal with this over the years.

Spoof Review: January White Dwarf 2013

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Ben Jackson

As I didn’t review last month’s white dwarf, I thought I’d have a go at January’s instead. Here is the cover image according to pazio.com. I don’t know why I was expecting them to use the cover from codex Dark Angels? I guess this art work is in the codex somewhere, but probably in black and white.

The first thing I actually noticed about this white dwarf was the page count. Not really much thicker than “old white dwarf” It looks like the beady one has not eating all the mince pies over the Christmas period. As expected the issue is dominated by this months releases. With Dark Angels being released this month this promised to be a great issue for 40k players; and it is. There’s a nice write up on Codex Dark Angels from author Jeremy Vetock (not Matt Ward). Who explains a little bit about the dark clouds that surrounds the Dark Angels reputation as well as why they use so many plasma weapons.

New Units

The new flyers don’t disappoint apart from not having any transport capacity. I really like the new veteran style bikers and their bikes, which are like the ones on Dark Vengeance. I was still hoping jetbikes would make a return to the ranks of the Space Marines, but Sammual is still on the only man who get’s one. I can still hope for a White Dwarf update!

New Models

You still can now buy a plastic box set of Dark Angel Terminators with out having to buy an upgrade sprue to convert them. And who was expecting a new Tacical Squad for the space marines this month, maybe next month? I’m glad to see the Deathwing terminators box set is not just a rehash of the bits you got on the old upgrade sprue (which is still available to direct order). Or Dark Vengeance for that matter. It’s more like the Grey Knight Terminator set with all sorts of extras you don’t get in a normal Terminator box. The one casualty of this new release is the old Death Wing metal terminators, which hasn’t been available for a few weeks now. A lot of the old Metal Dark Angels have now been released in Finecast.

The Battle report is a stonker! They have put Chaos up against the Dark Angels. Given both are 6th Edition codex’s and have flyers and access to flack missiles It was sure to be an interesting game. I won’t spoil the outcome, but it’s well worth a read.

Jervis managed to get away from his normal one thought coulomb and wrote about the way Games Worksop are now trying to be more balanced across their releases, sighting the inclusion of some new models for the Hobbit as well as new Dark Angels this month.

Again I didn’t see the point in Jeremy’s coloumb. I’m personally finding having both Jeremy and Jervis writing about nothing in particular abit of a muchness. However Blanjitsu was as always a great diversion from the main corporate push. I’ve been very critical of his art in the past but I think he now add’s a very important roll in the hobby and hope he never reties.

The rest of the issue is taken up with some Warhammer conversions and article on Which Warhammer General is he best. There’ also a small section on the White Dwarf teams every growing armies.

As always there is the latest from Forge World and Black Library including the the new Betrayal book ( I always like looking through these pages even if it’s just a recap on what Forge Wolrd released last month).

So there you go another review from me without actually having seen the White Dwarf in question. I wonder how much of this will be correct?

£200 for a single model anyone?

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Ben Jackson

Just how much is too much when it comes to 40k models? £200 may seem like an awful lot of money for one painted model, but when you think about it it’s not rally that bad. How many hours does it take you to paint a Space Marine Captain? I’d normally spend about 2 days on a Captain, 3 for a special model. That’s between 14 and 21 hours, if i could charge £200 to paint one, I’d still only be earning £9 to £14 per hour. The heavy metal team are known to spend a week on a model, so at £200 that’s £5.40 per hour. You can earn more per hours working behind a bar. Heavy Metal models don’t appear on ebay very often but if you’d like to own something very special this Christmas, bidding starts at £200.