Warhammer – The Big Summer Preview Show 2025 Part 1

The Big Summer Preview Show was held on Friday of the Warhammer Open Tacoma weekend. And this certainly deserves the name BIG Summer PREVIEW, as this was not just a few teasers but a proper motherlode of upcoming releases. And they started the preview just like we do our podcast - what did you recently hobby did you do?

We're going to go through the announcements not in chronological order, but split into the Grim Dark of Warhammer 40k and 30k in part 1 and the Warhammer Fantasy systems in part 2.

The major announcement for Warhammer 40k are new Leagues of Votann miniatures. A huge update, the largest update since the initial army release of the Leagues of Votann.

Multiple new characters, among them a named character, who is the lone survivor / veteran of a hive war Buri Aegnirssen, similar to the Tyrannic War Veterans of the Ultramarines. A Memnyr Strategyst, and I have the strong feeling that the map is another easter egg of the Nottingham city area. Pretty wild is the mad scientist, Arkanyst Evaluator, with an experimental Votann-style "Zappgun".

But there are not only characters, but units as well. There are Ironkin Steeljacks that look very similar to the Kastelan Robots of the Mechanicus. A new skimmer attack vehicle, the Kapricus Carrier, larger than the Hernkyn Pioneers but smaller than the Hekaton Land Fortress. And a proper throwback to the Mole Launchers from Rogue Trader are the Cthonian Earthshakers. These do not have anything to do with the former Sons of Horus homeworld, but from the meaning of the word - being in the underworld / underground.

The League of Votann will receive a new Combat Patrol and a new Codex.

And that is not all for Warhammer 40,000, there will be 5 (!) new or "at least" updated Space Marine Characters who crossed the Primaris Rubicon.

• Vulkan He'stan, Forgefather of the Salamanders
• Darnath Lysander, Imperial Fists Terminator Captain now in Indomitus Scale
• Caanok Var, Iron Hands Captain of the Avernii Clan (their 1st company)
• Aethon Shaan, Raven Guard Chapter Master, with three head options (!)
• Suboden Khan, First Captain of the White Scars on Grav-bike, he will be part of the Combat Patrol first and later released separately

And there will be Combat Patrols for Iron Hands, Imperial Fists, Raven Guard and Salamanders. All of them come with new or updated decal sheets, in case of the Imperial Fists it will incl. the Crimons Fists and successor chapters iconography as well.

But that is not all of the Space Marine goodies, as JoyToy will release a life-sized Ultramarine Primaris Lieutenant Titus’ Mk X Helmet, with optional Helmet Stand, and you can already pre-order it. Including the stand and a T-Shirt it is priced 159 EUR and to be honest, that is cheaper than I expected and less than some cosplay helmets cost in the past.

To get back to the miniatures, the final preview of the evening showed a new upcoming Warhammer Kill Team expansion, introducing a new Kill Zone - a Tomb World.

Inside this boxed set of the same name, with new Necron Scenery, that is strongly influenced by the Into the Dark sets and reminds you of a Borg Cube, we have the Canoptek Circle, the Unsleeping Necron Sentinels of the Tomb World, against the original Kill Team - a new Death Watch Kill Team in Primaris armour, with 10 (!) miniatures per box and a huge amount of chapter specific shoulder pads.

With the upcoming release of Warhammer The Horus Heresy Saturnine, the preview covered some of the just teased content, showing us the new Mk II Assault Squad in plastic with lots of chain axes and a new Journal Tactica, The Forges of Saturn, that will cover a lots of upgrades to th Saturnine units (gifts by Vulkan), for example a Saturnine Command Squad, a Centurion in Saturnine Armour and two Legion specific upgrades, the Phraetus Anointed Conclave of the Word Bears and Arcana Upgrade for Thousand Sons in Saturnine Armour.

No updates or sights of the Breachers or Fellblade at this point, nor updated Cataphractii Terminators of which there was a leak of the new design.

Within the sci-fi releases, the topic that I was the most looking forward, where the previews for Legions Imperialis. These exclusively covered Legiones Astartes tanks, and a lot of them - yet not the ones I expected, as my money was on the super heavies like the Fellblade as we got the new design for the larger scale and I expected them to go hand in hand for Horus Heresy and Legions Imperialis.

Not only do we get based upon the Rhino chassis boxes of 8 tanks each of the Whirldwind and Scorpius Missile Tank Squadrons (8 tanks in total, but 4 of each variant) and Vindicator Siege Tank Squadron (8 per box), but two new sets based upon the Land Raider Spartan chassis with the Typhon Heavy Siege Tank Squadron (4 per box) and Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer Squadron (4 per box). And to my big suprise we will see the Mastodon Super-Heavy Assault Transport (2 per box) in plastic! I really hope that I'll be able to show you these in upcoming reviews.

There will be a new book, the Liber Strategia, that will cover all these new units along with the info on all those released so far. Quite similar to the compendiums we've seen for Titanicus. There will be a token set in plastic, along with three card decks for the Legiones Astartes, Solar Auxilia and (Dark) Mechanicum. No new units for the later two. Which is a bit sad.

And something that was rumoured so far, but a logic conclusion - the Horus Heresy storyline will be continued by the Black Library with the next chapter - The Scouring - Ashes of the Imperium. These are the stories after the Siege of Terra, when the Horus Heresy has ended, the Emperor was mortally wounded and they will be narrated within a new series of books by multiple authors.