Yesterday we showed off an incredible cinematic trailer for the new edition of Kill Team, and today we’re lifting the lid on a bounty of new releases for Warhammer 40,000, so join us as we kick things off at Warhammer TV from 6 pm (BST).
Missed the stream? Don’t worry, we’ve got all the new details right here, including announcements for:
A new era of Kill Team, complete with a stunning boxed set
The next Warhammer 40,000 campaign book
The final wave of this year’s Ork releases, including something called a “Kill Rig”
A teaser trailer featuring a certain Chapter of very crusade-y Space Marines
Stick with us and find out everything that’s coming to a tabletop near you soon.
Prepare to enter a new era of tactical skirmish combat in the 41st Millennium. Kill Team has been redesigned from the ground up with all-new rules to provide the most intense skirmish tabletop experience ever. This massive redesign deserves an incredible launch box – check out what you get in Kill Team: Octarius.
Straight out of the box there are two full kill teams, ready to do battle at dangerously close quarters on a battlefield full of Ork terrain. The new core book, and the ruleset contained within, represents a total reimagining of how combat on this scale should operate in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Over the coming weeks we’ll be taking a deep dive on this incredible, innovative new ruleset with insight from the creative team behind the best Warhammer 40,000 skirmish game ever!
The kill teams themselves are incredible. If you caught yesterday’s trailer you may have a pretty good idea of who they are already, but let’s take a closer look, starting with the Veteran Guardsmen of the Death Korps of Krieg.
A whole squad of Death Korps of Krieg in plastic? Yes, it’s finally happening in Kill Team: Octarius. Life is nasty, brutish, and short in the ranks of the Death Korps, but their preferred style of attritional warfare ensures that those who do survive pick up a dizzying array of skills along the way. Disciplined, determined, and with a complete disregard for their own mortality, the veterans of Krieg make ideal candidates for the harshest missions their commanding officers can find.
They’ll need every ounce of skill and courage they can muster, as the Orks aren’t about to miss a good scrap – and these cunning Kommandos know better than anyone how to ambush unsuspecting prey.
Derided by their fellow greenskins for their sneaky, grot-like ways, Kommandos look for any opportunity to put their unique skills to good use, and they delight in close-range carnage. This is the first time Kommandos have appeared as a plastic kit, and they’re the most characterful Kommandos we’ve seen yet. We love the nods to classic special-ops archetypes, like the Ork who loves his knives, and the heavy gunner who looks like he’s about to empty his ammo reserves into the jungle at the slightest noise. This kill team proves that ‘80s action movies would have clearly been better with a squig or two in them.
Each of these kill teams is packed with options to customise them to your liking, including loadouts allowing them to be used in your games of Warhammer 40,000.
The operatives might be the stars of the show, but as veterans of Kill Team are aware, the terrain is often just as important as those who fight amongst it. The Octarius Sector in particular is littered with ramshackle greenskin settlements, providing all kinds of walls, barricades, and vantage points for a canny operative to exploit. It’s awesome to see a whole battlefield of all-plastic xenos terrain (and so much of it!)
Excited to get your hands on Kill Team: Octarius? You won’t have to wait long – pre-orders will be available in August, and you’ll want to keep an eye out as the boxed set is available only while stocks last (don’t worry if you miss it though, as all of the models will be available on their own shortly after). In the meantime, stay tuned to Warhammer Community for more in-depth looks at Kill Team: Octarius as we get closer to pre-order day.
Octarius had been the centre of a sprawling Ork empire for thousands of years until the machinations of a rogue Inquisitor sent Hive Fleet Leviathan crashing into it in the forlorn hope of mutual destruction. This spiralling conflict now threatens to draw in forces from across the galaxy as the Orks and Tyranids bloody themselves against one another and war spills out into surrounding regions of space.
This is the setting for the next major Warhammer 40,000 narrative expansion – War Zone Octarius.
War Zone Octarius Book 1: Rising Tide is the next major narrative supplement for Warhammer 40,000, covering the formation of the Cordon Impenetra and the Imperium’s desperate attempts to keep the war contained. Octarius is packed full of both lore and rules for the armies involved, including new Armies of Renown and Codex Supplements.
With the xenos hordes threatening to break out into Imperial space, a monumental war effort is underway, aiming to prevent any one side from becoming too powerful.
You can see from these battle scenes why Octarius is so appealing to the Orks – a titanic throw-down is only a planet or two away, which means plenty of opportunities for aspiring Warbosses keen to prove their mettle in a scrap.
Speaking of Orks – we know this is the moment many of you have been waiting for...
The Orks are rampaging, and an almighty Waaagh! is gathering momentum across the sector. The Beast Snaggas in particular are having the time of their lives hunting down all manner of ferocious behemoths spawned by Hive Fleet Leviathan. Now the Snaggas are ready to break out their biggest weapons to crush Tyranids and Imperials alike.
We’ve heard rumours of giant war machines, and now the Kill Rig is bursting onto the front lines.
Towed by a mountainous tramplasquig and home to a wide-eyed Wurrboy, the Kill Rig is a true engine of destruction that ploughs through infantry and vehicles alike. By amplifying the psyker’s Waaagh! energy through a contraption known as the wurrtower, its Beast Snagga pilots can blast crackling lances of pure Orky power at their foes.
Despite their reverence for the oracular nature of the Wurrboys, certain Beast Snaggas are loath to have such a volatile creature riding with them. Instead, they fit extra decks and grab handles to transport hollering mobs of their clanmates into battle, transforming their vehicle into a Hunta Rig.
When enough Beast Snaggas come together to form an army of their own, or at least assert dominance over mobs of ‘lesser’ Boyz, they are led into battle by a hulking Beastboss.
Decked in the spoils of their greatest kills and rippling with muscle, scar tissue, and bad attitude, Beastbosses lead from the front lines and look for the biggest, meanest prey they can find to bring down with their klaws.
Any Warboss worth his salt knows that getting a good overview of the battlefield is an excellent way to find the best fights. Taking the severed head of a Gargant as their boss hut is not only a symbol of status, it also provides a convenient forward command centre from which to yell at the Boyz.
Meanwhile, tales of the Great White Squig and its legendarily stubborn rider are rife among the Beast Snagga tribes, who revere Mozgrod Skragbad as the toughest in the entire sector. He more than lives up to his reputation, as this long-suffering Beastboss has weathered the endless savagery of his toothy companion, Big Chompa.
As you might expect from such a dangerous-looking beast, Mozrog and Big Chompa are a force of nature in close combat. While he’s fully capable of commanding his Beast Snagga underlings like any Beastboss, Mozrog’s no-nonsense approach makes him an especially good spearhead for a massed charge of Squighog Boyz.
If you aren’t leading a Snakebite horde, but still fancy barrelling your boss head-first into the enemy atop a monstrous squig, this kit can also build a Beastboss on Squigosaur.
Of course, no matter how many shiny rigs and vicious squigs you might bring along, a Waaagh! just isn’t complete without green seas of Boyz. Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted a few unfamiliar faces on the back of the Gaunt’s Ghosts box, and the new Boyz on the block are finally ready for their day in the sun.
Last but not least, a group of enterprising Mekboyz have been working day and night and are at long last proud to unveil their mighty new Deffkoptas.* Hideously dangerous even by the standards of ordinarily ramshackle Ork vehicles, the sheer noise and speed they can achieve makes them popular among the most daring Boyz.
Coupled with the rest of the Beast Snaggas we saw during Warhammer Fest Online, now’s a very good time to be green in the 41st Millennium. In fact, with a new codex, new Boyz, and a near-endless swarm of Tyranids to fight, this might just be the best year ever for the Orks.
A New Crusade Dawns
With so many Orks on the way, the Imperium is going to need some expert xenos-killers on hand to keep them in check. Perhaps the Adeptus Astartes can lend one of their most famous Chapters to the war effort?
In fact, the moment a crusade was mentioned, they came running as fast as they could. You’ll have to stay tuned for more information, though, so keep an eye on Warhammer Community for signs of black-armoured Space Marines in the sector.
That’s only the first wave of releases as the Octarius Sector teeters on the brink of apocalyptic war. If you want to keep up to date with everything coming soon to the 41st Millennium, sign up to the Warhammer 40,000 newsletter now and get the latest updates delivered directly to your inbox. Meanwhile, let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram what you’re looking forward to the most, and especially who you plan to bring to the Kill Team tabletops.
* Claims that they simply found and renovated a set of plans from the legendary conflict on Black Reach were met with much protest.