The release schedule look back.

WOW, what a past few months these have been. GW has been on a rampage of releases and it's almost a bit of a relief to have this week being hobby tools. It gives the community a break just to draw breath before we get set into Wood Elves. Let's look back at what has come to us.

Dwarves were, quite simply, fantastic. A big wave release that stoked the fires of the Fantasy community back into life. A lot of players down at my local store have started a dwarf army, or have set out to update their old one. The Longbeards/Ironbreakers were by far the best kit of the waves, and it took weeks for them to be restocked on the shelves (everytime the order would come in, they would be sold out immediately). Gameplay wise, Organ Guns became one of the most hilarious kits out there. Plus, having easily accessible ld10 is pretty ridiculous. Anyway, we can only hope that Wood Elves will be as brilliant a release as them (not too sure they will judging by the rumours).

After our wallets recovered from the Dwarf release, it was time for GW to deal a more direct blow to us. The march of the Imperial Knights! Honestly, when they were first released I must have read dozens of comments by people complaining about them. However, now that we are a month in, most people have accepted them for what they are. I can't help but consider that Scions were released as a means to counter the knights. You can read up on the "drop melta Scions" here.Tau, of course, have it easy in that they can just deepstrike Fusion suits, or Railgun you. The 4+ invul shield is good, but can't be facing everywhere. My local GW is swarming with them, however not for gaming reasons, but rather for painting. The locals took it on themselves to almost have a mini competition between themselves in converting and airbrushing them up. Just what GW wanted! Personally, I like that they released them, it is an indication towards the rumoured "update" to this edition. Having Super Heavies as a core codex means they will need to have the proper rules setup in the rulebook.

Guard. Well I can honestly say that I am glad they got updated. Again, it means we are that much closer to Dark Eldar being done! The Scion models are insanely good, and they will certainly help to bump GW sales in a huge fashion. I am yet to meet a single Guard player who hasn't purchased at least two boxes of them. Spicerack got four! Anyway, I don't think we will be seeing many of the new transports, simply because they are completely rubbish on the field, but I don't need to keep saying that. The proper guard release seems to be "letting down" players, but I'm not entirely sure why. They were already a good codex, so they could only stay the same (which they basically have in terms of power) or go down. 

I think as a general comment it is fair to say that the expectations of the community have been raised considerably. We are starting to get so used to the weekly releases, that we almost get annoyed when something "good" doesn't come out. Remember the old days of not seeing a codex release for six months? NO ONE wants that back. So as I said at the beginning, having a hobby tools week is a refreshing reminder that we can't always be hungry for the latest unit release. GW has become a monstrous corporate beast that is releasing models like crazy, and we can only hope that this doesn't stop anytime soon. We are in the "golden age" of the hobby, and we can only look to the future with gratification. Wood Elves are "rumoured" to be next, so let's hope that it is a great release! Some of the rumours sound disappointing, but I'll hold my opinions until next week (when we hopefully get the WD confirmations).

- Out.