The Painting Bunkerc y

Hello everyone,

Today the newly released Forge World Imperial Armour Volume One – Second Edition arrived at my place.  I was pretty pumped to get it as its been a long time coming, since 6th Ed 40k came out, coupled with the age of a few of the other Imperial Armour publications available that have some pretty ancient rules, some of them dating back to 3rd Ed.  Can I say, this book doesn’t disappoint.

Forge World Imperial Armour Volume One – Second Edition is divided into 9 sections.

• Imperial Guard Armoured Vehicles
• Imperial Guard Super-heavy Vehicles
• Imperial Guard Artillery
• Imperial Guard Support Vehicles
• Munitions of the Imperium
• Imperial Guard Armoured Battle Group List
• Imperial Guard Tank Aces
• Imperial Guard Camouflage & Vehicle Markings
• Apocalypse Rules Appendix

First up is the Imperial Guard Armoured Vehicles.  This has all the usual vehicles you’d expect to see, and some that we haven’t heard of for some time.  So all of the Leman Russ Battle Tank variants are detailed, along with some fantastic background information and the usual high quality photoshopped pictures we’ve come to expect from Forge World publications.  There are also several pages dedicated to each Leman Russ variants paint schemes, which is a nice touch if you’re struggling to decided what you want your tanks to look like.

Some of the other, more obscure Imperial Guard tanks which have been brought up to speed is the Destroyer Tank Hunter, Centaur Carrier & Salamander recon tank.

Next up is the Super-heavy section.  There is nothing really new here if you’ve been getting the Imperial Armour – Apocalypse updates recently published.  However this does consolidate them all into one book and has some awesome reference material contained within.

The Imperial Guard Artillery section is interesting.  It has everything you’d expect to see such as the Ordnance Batteries (Basilisk, Griffon ect) however it also has the new Sabre Gun Platforms, Heavy Mortar & Quad launcher (the old Thud Gun).

I found the Imperial Guard Support Vehicles section full of some long forgotten vehicles and some updates on a few increasingly popular vehicles such as the Hades Breaching Drill.  I liked the new rules for the Atlas Recovery Tank & Trojan Support Vehicle.  The Atlas basically allows an Enginseer to do two repairs in a turn (with re-rolls) and the Trojan is a transport option for an Enginseer with his Servitor body guard.  It also gives one tank within proximity the Preferred Enemy (everyone) special rule.

Munitions of the Imperium is just a fluff section with some interesting cut away pictures of the different Battle Cannon rounds on offer.

Imperial Guard armoured Battle Group Army List.  Wow!  Its been too long that this Army List has been absent from 40k.  Its back, and back with a vengeance.  I don’t know were to start with this, as there is so much goodness in this army list its difficult to just start, but lets start at the top.  HQ.

There are several HQ choices available, depending on how you’d like to shape your army list.  So you can have a Leman Russ Battle Tank (of any variant) an Armoured Fist Company Commander, or a Salamander recon vehicle.  Some interesting features of this section include specific orders for the Leman Russ tank commander, and a new Warlord trait table too.  One other thing which is interesting is that you can give special ammunition to the Leman Russ tank commander.  Some of them are pretty nasty indeed…

The Elites section doesn’t have anything too new.  We have the Commissar Tank, Destroyer tank squadrons, but now you can have an Atlas, deep striking Storm Troopers (in a Chimera) and Tech-Priest.  A Tech-Priest, in a Trojan supported by an Atlas is a massive force multiplier and adds some serious survivability to your tanks.

Troops.  Yep, Leman Russ tank squadrons, and Siege tank squadrons can take and hold objectives now.  Try moving 3 Leman Russ’s off that objective…  Tough.  There are the usual Armoured Fist Squads and Veteran Armoured Fist squads, and interestingly the Sergeant can only take a Power Sword.  Chimeras get a good going over too.  You can now take Auto Cannons in the turrets or twin linked heavy bolters.  Ouch.

Fast attack is pretty straight forward, with Sentinels, Vendetta’s & Vultures at your disposal.  Only one squadron of the flyers is available though.  New additions to this section include the Tauros.

Finally Heavy support.  You get all the usual ordnance tanks, but now you can take Armoured Fist Heavy Weapons Squads mounted in a Chimera (missile launchers can take flak missiles)  There are also Cyclops available as well as the Thunderbolt, Lightning & Avenger.

Overall, this army list was worth the price of the book alone.  Its thorough, well laid out and caters for many different army builds depending on your collection or theme.  Being a pretty serious Imperial Guard player, I’m eager to roll out my tanks and kick some ass with them.  Nice.

The final three sections of Forge World Imperial Armour Volume One – Second Edition deals with getting the Tank Ace’s special characters brought into line with 6th Ed, along with the Apocalypse rule sections.  The Camouflage & Vehicle Markings section is a nice addition and similar to the one in the First Edition of this book.

Forge World Imperial Armour Volume One – Second Edition is a great addition to your Imperial Armour library and well worth the investment.  If all I got out of it was the army list, I would have been happy, but the background material, pictures and reference material all make it a solid addition.

Thanks for dropping in

John Sutton, Brisbane, Qld