Sometimes I just love the mailman

Well this morning I had the luck of running into the mailman the second I was about to leave to work at the university. After thanking the rather friendly gentleman (I think I may be the sole person keeping the local post office in business) I quickly went inside to open the rather oddly shaped package. I did remember I was expecting some old Incubi I traded with a guy in France, but surely this box did not fit the describtion.

A few hobbyknife cuts later I found, to my joy, a Forgeworld order I place quite a long time ago contain some etched brass, a new weapon kit and the Imperial Armour IX. Naturally I arrived late at work, a flat tire helped to make it even worse. But I really didn't care all that much as I had lab babysitting duty, so in between running experiments I could spend some time reading the new book.

Being already familiar with a fair amount of the general background of the Badab Wars, I decided to start with the Chapter info section. In this first book we get about half of the Chapters involved in the incident, most of them from the loyalist side. In fact in the first volume only the Astral Claws and the Lamenters pass by, while the 'Imperium' gets the Fire Hawks, Marines Errant, Red Scorpions, Fire Angels, Raptors (Huzzahs, love these guys), the Novamarines and the Howling Griffons. Regardless of the imbalance between good and evil, which is unavoidable given background on the involved forces, I've thoroughly enjoyed this section.

I was particularly impressed to find tons of little references to other conflicts, races and characters. Just to name a few we have Periclitor the Foresworn, the Sanctified, Vandire, the Corinth Crusade and the Lok'Krol. Save for the continual, Chapter X has been on the verge of destruction numerous times, I've really enjoyed the book so far. This weekend I'll be going through the rest of the story as well as the rules sections. I already had a quick look at the latter and I have to say the Tyrant's Legion armylist looks very interesting for other purposes as well (Alpha Legion) and boy, oh boy, Sevrin Loth could be extremely effective in the hands of the right player with his super amour and three psychic powers a turn!

And there are the etched brass sheets, one for conversion guide purposes (Inquisition) the other (Raven Guard) for a future army. Well what can I say about these, just look at the pictures below the detailing is absolutely amazing (the base is a standard infantry model base). So for a fairly limited price even an utterly unexperienced gamer will be able to add tons and tons of character to their miniatures:

And then there is, of course, the mandatory impulse buy which happends every time I get some FW-related stuff. I'm certain I'll find great use for them, but do I need them? I don't think I even care anymore, these old style weapons are just way too cool to worry about stuff like logic!