Of the 25 miniatures in the Orks Combat Patrol, 24 were brand new on the set’s release, including 20 new Ork Boyz, three Deffkoptas, and a Warboss in mega-armour. The Deff Dread isn’t a new sculpt, but is as shooty and stompy as ever. New to playing Tyranids and worried that your prized Tyranid Prime might be a little fragile? Psychostatic Veil gives the Terror of Vardenghast a 4+ invulnerable save, and makes it harder to target at range or hit in melee. After you’ve got some games under your belt, you can try turning it into a nimble buff piece with the Secretion Goad Enhancement, offering increased Armour Penetration to other units – perhaps your Termagant swarm. Glorious, venomous revenge! While Chaos Space Marines are limited to a single Chaos Lord per Detachment, the World Eaters aren’t subject to such petty jealousy. They can field as many beast-bound Lords as their HQ slots allow, meaning you can muster the complete contents of two Combat Patrols – all without needing to spend any Command points on the new Heroic Support Stratagem.

Every faction’s army rules will remain largely the same – Tyranids retain Shadow in the Warp and Synapse , for example – but each Combat Patrol features Enhancements unique to this game mode to let you tweak your WARLORD and try out new strategies. Combat Patrol: Necrons is an elite contingent of living metal warriors with a burning desire to return the galaxy to a state of cold stasis, including 10 Necron Warriors, three Skorpekh Destroyers, a Canoptek Doomstalker, and three Canoptek Scarab Swarms, all ready to do battle under the command of the implacable Necron Overlord Amonhotekh. Over at Warhammer TV, the second explosive episode of Pariah Nexus stomps into view with glowing red eyes and fetching green armour. Citadel Colour Masterclass continues their series of Pariah Nexus-themed tutorials with an invaluable guide to painting freehand flame effects, and Loremasters peers into the mysterious ways of the Necron Deathmarks. Why Deathmarks, you ask? Oh, no reason… Scorched Earth , on the other hand, is a four-objective mission that offers 5 points for controlling one or more objectives, and another 5 for holding more than your opponent does. In addition to introducing this common method of scoring the primary objective, if there are two or more objectives left on the board, you can choose one of them you control (so long as it’s not the one closest to your DZ, anyway) and remove it from the board, scoring yourself a nifty 10 point bonus and limiting the options for scoring on future turns.With flat three damage which also has -2 AP, this guy can bring the pain. Plus if you give him Speed of the Primarch he’ll always fight first in the fight phase. By giving him Angel Exemplar for 1cp you’ll be able have an additional Warlord Trait as well, so why not give him Gift of Foresight to allow him to re-roll one hit roll, wound roll and save roll each turn? The daemonic onslaught intensifies, with a Combat Patrol set focused on Khorne. Get the blood flowing with this hefty collection of 34 miniatures, which can be built to reach a Power Level of up to 33 and get you gaming straight away. This Combat Patrol-sized force is led by a fearsome Bloodmaster, ably supported by three Bloodcrushers mounted on Juggernauts, 10 slavering Flesh Hounds, and 20 Bloodletters – making a spectacular basis for a Khornate horde. Despite this, comparatively few of these warriors exist in the galaxy, organised into Chapters of no more than 1,000 Space Marines. Each Chapter is a self-sufficient brotherhood with a distinct culture and identity, and even colour schemes for their armour and vehicles – like the royal blue and gold of the Ultramarines and the deep crimson of the Blood Angels. Over the millennia since their inception they’ve earned accolades across a thousand worlds and their foes have rightly come to fear them. The core principle is simple – each Combat Patrol has been given a full set of self-contained rules that define it on the table. This includes datasheets, but also secondary objectives, faction rules, Enhancements, and Stratagems, all flavoured to match that force’s narrative – and balanced against every other Combat Patrol.*

Overall, unless you need these models because you missed out on that box release, it’s not worth buying this box as the value is far lower than the cost of this box on the secondary market. Personally, I would have rather GW swapped out the Infernus Marines for the Sternguard and just made this a “First Company” box or something. Now that would have been an interesting Combat Patrol!

This boxed set provides you with all the units you need to get started or build on an existing force of Adeptus Astartes. The contents of this set have been specifically chosen to provide you with an ideal Space Marines force for Combat Patrol-sized games – approximately 25 Power Level's worth of miniatures. The new edition of Warhammer 40,000 is rapidly incoming, and it’s an exciting time for fans of endless warfare in the 41st Millennium. Over the last few weeks, you’ve learned a bit about how Chapter Approved games offer matched play missions and different victory conditions in the new edition, so it’s time for the next of the flagship game modes – Combat Patrol.