On Friday, just as the Warhammer Big Autumn Preview was winding down, Games Workshop brought out the big guns – brand new models for the Legion of the Damned. There’s much to be said about these mysterious and ethereal Space Marines, but for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t been stewing in the hobby for a long time, the short version is this – they’re angry ghosts who are always on fire.
The new Legion of the Damned kits will debut in Warhammer 40k Kill Team: Armageddon, the next big box release for the tactical skirmish game. They’re paired up against an mob of Ork Nobz and their weedy gretchin accomplices, and they’ll do battle against the background of new Kill Zone Armageddon terrain.
The new Legion of the Damned models are, if you’ll permit me to be poetic, freaking sick. The new kit is packed with references to the various earlier models and pieces of art that have represented them, and they’re wearing a motley mixture of different power armor, including Mk VII and Mk VI.
GW has confirmed that the Legion will have rules in 40k, though not where those will show up. In Kill Team there are several models with special roles, including a Legionnaire ancient equipped with a flaming skeleton banner, a gunner with a meltagun, and an incinerator with a heavy flamer. The overall effect is absolutely freaking metal.
The Nob mob was revealed in the run up to the new Ork Codex release. In 40k they’re a bit of a melee and ranged blender unit, but in Kill Team they’ll function a little differently. See, every Nob in the mob thinks they’re the boss, and their rules will give each one main character energy. A pair of gretchin – which are just tokens in 40k – will here provide some much needed extra activations for the elite Kill Team.
The new Kill Zone Armageddon terain is rather tasty. The most basic items in it are pieces of ruined Frontieris terrain – smashed up versions of earlier boxy Kill Team bits – but there’s plenty of very interesting new stuff, including a ruined Rogal Dorn, a wrecked Redemptor Dreadnought – with a removable sarcophagus for a rescue mission objective – and two bunkers that models can fit inside (admittedly, not many models, given the size of the combatants).
The Legion of the Damned have been part of 40k lore since 1988, and they’ve had model kits on and off ever since. These apparitions appear without warning during seemingly hopeless battles, often coming to the aid of other loyalist Space Marine chapters, smiting the Emperor’s enemies and then disappearing without a trace. And at the current moment in the lore, there are few places where Space Marines need more help than the war world of Armageddon…
If you want to dive into the lore for the Legion of the Damned, I wrote up a comprehensive guide covering every major theory for what they actually are since their first write up in White Dwarf magazine.
Source: Wargamer
