White Dwarf 393. September 2012.

Right, finally GW launch the 6th edition 40k box set, dubbed Dark Vengeance, so I'm expecting plenty of Marine versus Chaos goodness in this badboy. Let's dive right in and see what Kendrick and co have put together for us this month!

New Releases - As you'd imagine this leads with Dark Vengeance, the replacement for Assault on Black Reach. There's the main feature, the limited edition £65 set which comes with all the usual rulers, templates, dice and mini rulebook. It also has Chaos Marines and Dark Angels. Now for that price you get a huge amount of amazing minis. I have to say I love all of them, possibly the cultists are my favourite just because they remind me of Necromunda and Genestealer Cults. The DA characters look awesome too. I ordered this at midnight and have got an agonising wait till next saturday to go pick it up.
Also for only forty notes you can have a carry case specially designed to carry the starter models. I'm sorry but if you buy this you're crazy. Just get a KR multicase!

In other releases they've put out some cool Sternguard weapon options, BA and Eldar finecast along with some Bretonnians so the square-basers don't feel too left out. Oh and btw there's some LotR if anyone cares.

On the Black Library front Dark Vengeance the novel and audio book are out. This threw me a bit as it's priced at 12 quid when the Black Reach one was under a fiver, that's some major inflation.

Dark Vengeance - An introduction to the starter, with small insights into the war that the starter missions are based around. Chaos is represented by the Crimson Slaughter but I can't see what company the DA belong to. Jervis chips in with how important the forging of the narrative was to the development of the set. There's not a lot of detail in this article, it's mostly a glossy blurb for what's hopefully coming later on.

The Hellfire Stone - This delves into the Dark Vengeance conflict, called the Battle for Bane's Landing, and what the armies are fighting over. Something called the Hellfire Stone. There's an extract from the novel which was really cool, I love extracts and sneak peeks as it really gets the imagination firing.

'Eavy Metal - Just in case you haven't seen enough photos of the same 49 miniatures in the previous 35 pages here's two more pages of them. This time there's a few detail close-ups and some alternate paint schemes of the Chosen. I liked this a lot as I want to do a Nurgle army but wasn't sure how they'd look in anything other than red.

The Battle of Bane's Landing - A look into the mission booklet and a mini one page report on each one. They seem really imaginative, and the first one is even a single player scenario for the chaos player. It's great to see what we're going to be getting ahead of time without giving the whole thing away. I'm looking forward to playing through these, even if it's only the once. This kind of structure really reminds me of the Dreadfleet campaign which reminds me I really should get on with painting that, it's almost been out a year! Again there's way too many photos of the same models, only this time they're battling on the usual WD terrain.

Painting Showcase - A look at what the studio guys have done with their minis. There's a nice blue/green chaos army. A really cool shot of Andrew's Chosen and cultist painted white to fit in with his awesome Death Guard. This bit was way too short, I'd much rather have seen more in this section and just lose the 'eavy metal article all together.

Space Marine Modelling Workshop - Four pages of small marine pics showing what you can do with a bit of kitbashing. Cool but really it's just an advert (which follows and is another damn double-pager).

Armies on Parade - Space Wolves from an obviously talented chap called Joseph Oliver. He used the excellent FW Imperial Strongpoint board, and the only negative I can see from his entire army was that his bases don't match the RoB board! Expecting only the usual 2 pages I flipped over expecting an advert for some wolves but found even more shots of his army, including the lovely Caestus Assault Ram. I wasn't expecting that!

Citadel Hall of Fame - It's the turn of the Slann Mage-Priest which is a cool model but they didn't show the older version to give a look into the history of it. Opportunity missed but you gotta love the lizzy lizards.

Standard Bearer - Jervis returns to tell us that thinking about things is a good thing. That's about it really.

Forge World - Sadly no spoilers for the upcoming necron / minataurs IA book or the pant-wettingly exciting Horus Heresy book. Instead we get a seriously impressive look at Phil Stutcinskas' deceivingly named Red Scorpions. They're grey and yellow and look sweet.

Ancient rivals - So the square-basers get their time right at the end with some shots of Chris Peach's Vampire Counts and duncan rhodes' Bretonnians. Neither have gone for the huge monsters/kits and they both look nice, but what is that adding to my hobby? Please tell me how they painted them and why they did it!

Well there you have it. Plenty of Dark Vengeance, with varying degrees of information/glossing over stuff. Although this issue seems to be packed with 40k awesomeness when you scratch the surface you kind of realise there's nothing underneath to sink your teeth into. At all. There's not a single rule or scenario or stat line but there are 21 photos of the hellbrute. Yes it's cool but it's not that fucking cool. Hmm that sentence fills me with deja-vu. Guess I'll end here and give out the score, a whopping 3/10. Sad Warllama!