A new narrative supplement for Warhammer 40k, Crusade: Nachmund Gauntlet, is packed with art and lore featuring Night Lords Chaos Space Marine units that either don’t have model kits, or have kits that are years out of date. It’s a tantalizing hint at what might be in the future for Chaos Space Marine releases – new jump troops, and updated Chaos drop pods.
At the moment this is just speculation: we’re basing these assertions purely on art, and our understanding of Games Workshop’s release strategy for Warhammer 40k. We’re not privy to any insider knowledge, though Games Workshop did give us an early PDF copy of Crusade: Nachmund Gauntlet to pore over.
Said PDF copy is covered in anti-piracy watermarks, so we can’t really reproduce any art here that isn’t available elsewhere online. So if you want to peek inside, check out Guerilla Miniature Games’ video review:
Crusade: Nachmund Gauntlet features two double-page illustrations (one of them also used on the cover), and an in-page close up, of Chaos Raptors and Warp Talons, none of which match up to their current models. That’s noteworthy because most current 40k art depicts units and characters as close as possible to their tabletop miniatures.
The marines in the art are all members of the Night Lords Chaos Space Marine legion, equipped with bat-winged helmets. They are equipped with a chaos corrupted version of a Mk VI power armor jump pack, which last featured on the 2002 metal Raptor kit. The current plastic Raptors use a corrupted version of a Mk II, III, or V jump pack (they’re all very similar designs).
Admittedly, not all 40k art matches up with models. The ninth edition Warhammer 40k codex cover for Adeptus Mechanicus shows a totally unique tech priest; unique units often appear as blurry images in the periphery of large battle scenes; and artwork that represents the 40k Chaos gods or similarly all-encompassing and abstract threats cannot possibly match a tabletop model.
But none of these exceptions are likely to confuse newcomers about existing model kits. The Raptors and Warp Talons depicted in Nachmund Gauntlet do; they’ve got the same weapon loadout, but a very different aesthetic to the current models. The book even uses an old piece of Raptor art with the Mk VI jump pack as a page watermark, but not any current depictions of the jump troops.
The book contains photographs of converted models using the current Raptors kit and the Night Lords upgrade sprue found in the Nemesis Claw Kill Team squad. This may indicate that the Night Lords in the art are just supposed to inspire conversions; the book does also feature converted models for a new Dark Angels successor Space Marine chapter, and we’re not speculating about new models for them.
However, the existing Raptors and Warp Talons models are some of the oldest kits in the Chaos Space Marines. And GW has devoted a lot of effort to updating old kits in the last three years, with Aeldari and Astra Militarum benefitting particularly.
Games Workshop has also released a new Chaos Space Marine subfaction in the four most recent editions of 40k. With the Emperor’s Children launching as a standalone army soon, all four of the god-aligned Chaos legions have their own model ranges. GW has to pick another legion if it wants to repeat the trick for 11th edition, which we expect to arrive in summer 2026.
The fact that the Night Lords already have a Kill Team makes them a good candidate for a further model range expansion. The Kroot Farseeker Kinband for Kill Team was a prelude to a whole Kroot subfaction in the T’au Empire codex; likewise, the starter set for Kill Team second edition contained Death Korps of Krieg veterans that recently been joined by a cohort of other Krieg units in the latest Astra Militarum codex.
Does Nachmund Gauntlet hint at any more potential Chaos Space Marine models? Maybe. The war for the Nachmund Gauntlet features many orbital drop assaults by the Chaos Space Marines, and there’s art showing a formation of Dreadclaw drop pods.
This art seems to be based on a resin Chaos dreadclaw with four talons that Forge World used to make, and not the five taloned Anvillus pattern dreadclaw that is currently on sale for games of Horus Heresy.
Dreadclaws have been part of Chaos Space Marine lore for a long time. Unlike the fire-and-forget drop pods used by loyalist marines, Dreadclaws are capable of powered flight, which makes them much easier to recover after a battle – very useful for the traitors’ raiding tactics. They’d offer something different on the tabletop compared to Marines’ more static drop pods.
At the moment this is all just wishful thinking on our part. Still, we’re not the only ones who’re thinking along these lines: the excellent folks at Tabletop Tactics have had some very similar speculations:
We hope that we’re right! The Night Lords are an enjoyably appalling legion, and they star in some of the best Warhammer 40k books. They’re the disastrous protagonists of Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Night Lords trilogy, the over the top villains of Robbie MacNiven’s Red Tithe, and – to pick just one of the great Horus Heresy books you’ll find them in – incredibly devious bastards in Guy Haley’s Pharos.
Source: Wargamer
