So, 11th Edition for Warhammer 40K was announced. While we don't have full details, I'd say it's looking like it could be the best of all possible outcomes for my Homebrewing efforts.

As my Homebrew Space Marine Chapter, the Stormwolves, is closely allied with a Rogue Trader fleet, having multiple Detachments in a single Armylist will be a wonderful new tool for representing Joint Operations of Marines and Voidship Troopers. No more having to settle for what I could make do with what I could cobble together from Imperial Agent rules.

Even for pure-Marine Army Lists, since I've been pulling counts-as rules from different Chapters, this is still potentially a boon for that. While I do have my own fully Homebrew rules that essentially say "change out any Chapter keywords for Stormwolves", having an option to just mash two native Detachments together means I wouldn't have to rely on my own meager attempts at rulecraft.

And then there's the tease of "over 70 new and updated Detachments". While that's a bit of weasel wording by lumping new and updated together, any new Detachments would potentially give me rules to mine for inspiration for my Stormwolves.

Finally, as someone whose Homebrew lore leans heavily on the split between Firstborn and Primaris Marines, the fact that the new edition doesn't invalidate the 10E codexes means I still have Firstborn Datasheets to work with.

Not that I'm not still wary that old units will be fully phased out at some point in the future; the refresh of the Intercessor kit where Primaris Marines are now sporting armor that pulls parts from Marks previous to Mk X is a clear sign that eventually they want everything to be Primaris at some point in the future. But for now, Tactical Squads and the venerable Rhino APC will still be around at least through 12E.

From a lore standpoint, it wouldn't be hard to drop the Firstborn sections of the Stormwolves, but I'm glad I don't have to drop that hammer just yet.

As I've described in the past, Firstborn Marines play key roles in my homebrew Chapter, as there is one company's worth that form the command structure "Control", and another company or two that are a series of geneseed purification experiments, "Bloodstorm".

My homebrew rules for the various types of Bloodstorm pull their counts-as rules from various sources, such as pre-codex Grey Hunters, Death Company Marines with Boltguns, and also Proteus Kill Team.

That last one has always been a bit awkward to use, as it's Imperial Agents Legends only; GW knew it was especially clunky from having Firstborn, Bikers, and Termies all in the same unit. I only use the Firstborn but, because they're Agents and not Astartes, there are limits in what armylists I can put them in.

I was using the Proteus Kill Team list to represent the 40K version of a 30K Breacher Squad, so I went ahead and did up a custom datasheet based on Proteus, stripping out the bikes and termies, and adding in some of the classic Breacher weapons options.

Now if I want to, I can drop these straight into a Stormwolves armylist (but I don't have to rewrite the older lists either, as the way I use them are functionally the same & I didn't change the points cost).

I'm also still on my 40K ship modeling kick, which means I also have an Adeptus Mechanicus Forgeship that I digibashed together.

So, I had a bad day today, and don't want to elaborate on that here.

However, I've been able to distract myself from that, because Games Workshop has updated the Warhammer 40K 10E Rules PDFs again.

So, 40K Fan-Animator-Turned-Officially-on-GW's-Payroll-Animator Syama Pederson uploaded a teaser trailer for the next chapter of his Astartes project, which we can assume he's now free to work on after having advised the production of the Warhammer 40K episode of Amazon's Secret Level streaming series.

This time around, it's going to be a story about the Deathwatch Marines, with the teaser showing snippets of backstory for each of the Marines that will be featured in the Deathwatch Kill Team. Included is a Marine from Syama's own homebrew chapter, the Retributors, who were the focus of the original Astartes animations. The release date for this next installment is in 2026, and it's likely to be paywalled behind the Warhammer+ subscription service.

Since my own homebrew chapter often uses Deathwatch as their "counts-as" rules I figured it would be a good time to do an update. After the armylist adjustments I made when Munitorum Field Manual v2.0 dropped earlier this month, I realized that if I made sure that my Chapter's unique characters only appeared in a single sample armylist, then technically, I could merge all the lists into a multi-detachment mega-list that would fully represent all aspects of my homebrew.

It would be a 9,485 Point monstrosity, and I would have to come up with new squad names for the spots where I had re-used them, but I went ahead and did it anyway. Had to drop the Inquisitor from the Agents of the Imperium list, making it the third time now that I've retooled that specific one.

And really, this is just a good excuse for me to post some more of the digital kitbashing concept renders I've come up with for my Stormwolves "Codex".

But if you want to see all the visual assets and loredumps I've put together for the Stormwolves, there's this Google Doc:

The previews for the 10E Space Wolf Codex are starting to trickle in, and I have mixed feelings so far. Seeing them preview a mini with a single lightning claw feels good, since I use that extensively in my homebrew lists. There have only been grainy, low-res images of the datasheets, but it looks like this gets counted as a power weapon in the rules, which matches one of my own takes on it.

It looks like Grey Hunters are going to be losing special weapons options, which is unfortunate, as I have at least one legacy mini with plasma gun and chainsword that really isn't represented by any other unit datasheets. I'm hoping that the existing Index version of the datasheet shows up in Legends, renamed.

There are going to be a lot fewer codex datasheets than what's available in the index, but as long as they show up in Legends, I won't be too disappointed. In fact, units going to Legends actually helps me, as it insulates my lists from points changes every time they rebalance the game.

Having said all that, I have been doing some prep work for the new codex, to better realize my Stormwolves as the homebrew chapter that they are. Rather than wait for GW to give rules for making a proper Imperial Soup list, I decided to do up a custom Datasheet to unlock armylist building rules that exactly fit my needs.

So, the Astra Militarum Codex is in circulation. And Games Workshop is going to Games Workshop as always; with print errors so bad that they've given various 40K news outlets previews of the "Day 1" digital rules patch and the points the units will be assigned in the next Munitoram Field Manual, to quell the unrest.

Because of this, I have a good idea of what adjustments I'm going to be making to the one sample Astra Militarum armylist for my homebrew chapter that represents their supporting Rogue Trader Fleet Void Trooper allies, with a few Marines peppered in from the Imperial Agents list. But I'm going to wait for the errata document and the new points to get officially published by GW before I make any real changes.

But yes, the new Combat Engineers will probably be added (even at their updated-to-a-nonbroken points cost), as yet another Counts-As rules for my Rogue Trader's elite personal guard. With the 4+ armour save, shotguns, and a separate token mini that goes boom really nice, how could I not? They're almost a perfect match for the Imperial Navy Breachers in my other lists. And since that unit's only special weapon option is a flamer, I had an excuse to make this:

I also finally hit upon just the right color and shading for the metallic "blue steel" that's supposed to be the base of the color scheme for both my "Control" and "Bloodstorm" Marines, as shown on the two marines at the beginning of this post.

But since I don't have any new or updated sample armylists to post about, I figured I'd do some director's commentary about the Homebrew Chapter itself, that I may end up rolling into my "Codex" document at some point.

Yesterday's Grotmas Drop from Games Workshop took a step towards correcting the Disaster that was the Agents of the Imperium Codex, by issuing a new Index PDF for the Deathwatch. They've got a shiny new Space Marine Detachment again and a whole host of new Datasheets with the Adeptus Astartes keyword added back in.

This means that even if you'd rather use one of the other Codex Space Marine Detachments, you can still choose Deathwatch as your included chapter, which is a lot less restrictive than trying to ally in the Imperial Agents versions of the same Datasheets. This suits me fine, as I had been using the Vanguard Spearhead Detachment with added Deathwatch Units as rules proxy for my Homebrew Chapter, the Stormwolves.

I can now switch my Firstborn Marine command squad "Control" back to being represented by Deathwatch Veterans; when the Imperial Agents Codex initially fucked it all up, I had to use Sternguard to conserve Allied Unit slots.

Deathwatch Veterans in the new Index have a slightly different set of loadout options than the original 10E Index, so I can't have a full Squad of Combi-Weapons anymore, but there's now statlines for Stalker-Pattern Boltguns and Deathwatch Shotguns, which I rather enjoy the idea of getting to mix in. And since it's a mix, I don't have an excuse for not throwing in a Thunderhamer for that extra bit of melee oomf.

(One of these days I'll actually paint that mini. The Lightning Claw is made of Dark Eldar Knives from the 3E box set, if that's any indication of when I started working on the conversion. Back when taking a Single Lightning Claw was an allowed option.)

Of course, because it's GW, there's still a bit of weirdness. There's now Deathwatch Index and Imperial Agent Legends versions of most of the Kill Teams, both existing at the same time. Except for Proteus, for some unknown reason.

Proteus was basically the same as Deathwatch Veterans anyway, except with a wider loadout selection and the ability to roll in Bikers, Jump Pack Marines, and Terminators. And you can't ally it in as an Imperial Agent Legends Unit because of a rule that says you can't mix Index Deathwatch with IA Deathwatch.

Except for Kill Team Cassius, which is explicitly allowed, even though that unit is only in Legends. Why they didn't copy that single unit over to the new Index is beyond me. As is, sure, you could include Kill Team Cassius, but because they lack the Adeptus Astartes Keyword, they're not going to benefit from the new Detachment's Army Rule (or any of the Marine Codex Detachments' either) and won't be able to use Armor of Contempt or any of the Codex Stratagems. Maybe when they update the Legends Datasheets, they'll add the needed Keyword in.

I am a bit bummed out about them excluding Proteus for apparently no good reason, as I had been planning on using its loadout option for Firstborn Marine with Boltgun and Astartes Shield to make a Stormwolves Bloodstorm Breaching Team to augment the Intercessor-loadout Stygian Wolves Boarding Crews I had previously detailed out in my Homebrew Fluff. Since Proteus is still in Legends and Legends is "Casual & Narrative Play: ask your opponent if they're ok with it" I feel that's a way around the "Don't Mix the two types of Deathwatch" clause, so I may develop the fluff further anyway.

They also came up with a whole new Kill Team, Talonstrike, for all your modern Primaris Jump Pack options. Great that Deathwatch gets something brand new, but my list doesn't use Jump Pack Primaris, and I'm not inclined to start.

The important thing for building a theoretical army list for my Homebrew Chapter is that the Spectrus Kill Teams are back. This lets me get 6 Helix Adepts on the board at one time. Unlike the original Deathwatch Index, I can no longer get 6 out of a total of 30 Phobos Marines, as the squad size for Spectrus is now locked to 10; 6/45 will have to do.

To absorb this extra points cost for the larger squads, I eliminated the Eliminators from my roster, since now I can just drop the Snipers and Las-Fusils right into the Spectrus squads. They also made it so that taking the Instigator Bolt Carbine gets you the same Move-After-Shoot that you'd get for taking it in an Eliminator Squad, which is a nice bonus. With the extra bodies, there's no reason now not to explore all the loadouts.

The new Detachment did clamp down on what Astartes Units can't be taken when you take Deathwatch — the loophole that I had used in previous versions of the list to bring in a Land Speeder Storm and Sniper Scouts from Legends has been closed. I could argue that because I'm not using the new detachment, but a Marine Codex Detachment with the new Datasheets, that the looser Codex wording of the restriction still applies. But honestly, I needed to reclaim the Points anyway, and having so many Phobos Marines on the table is basically Scouts-But-Cooler.

Another change the new Deathwatch Index brought was being able to stick my Control Squad back in the Damocles Command RH1NO again. This also meant that my Bloodstorm Squad could take their old Relic Razorback as dedicated transport as well. (I did switch it from Twin Assault Cannon to Twin Lascannon, since my Homebrew Chapter was partially made for hunting other Marines if the need would arise; I just have to get around to updating my 3D Render to match.)

The Repulsor Executioner was dropped; lore-wise it never was a good fit anyway. Didn't have the spare points to bring back my old-school Whirlwind, but my plan to use the Hunter rules from Legends for it was a bit munchkiny, so maybe that's for the best.

Since I had plenty of more space for allied Imperial Agent units now (as long as they weren't IA DW), I swapped out the Voids(wo)men-At-Arms that had been a Free Ally slot choice due to taking a Voidfarers unit (Rogue Trader Entourage) for something with more shotguns instead of lasguns. Since I already had Imperial Navy Breachers, I'm using a Vigilant Squad as a rules proxy for the Voidswomen. Using an Arbites unit still fits with the idea of the 1st Selene Contingent being the Rogue Trader's personal Elite Guard, as they would be in charge of Shipboard Security. And they also make up for the lack of SM Scouts as while some of the stats are different, the Toughness Save is the same, and shotguns are a classic Scout Weapon.

One last tweak was splitting my Phobos Lieutenant and Phobos Captain into different units again, as after some of my cuts, I had enough points to give the Captain back his Execute and Redeploy Enhancement. This means even more Move-After-Shoot units, which makes me happy. I even had 15 points left over after that so I put a Ghostweave Cloak on my Apothecary on Bike Helix Keeper, just in case he loses his two bodyguard bikers.

I tagged this as Update #1 for December, since there's a couple other things that could impact my list building. First, there was a New Officio Assassinorum Detachment that dropped today, and a lot of the Stratagems in there apply some to all Imperial Agent Units, with extra bonuses for the assassins. I'm considering looking at what kind of a list I could put together under that. Might shoot for a 1K point list, since I bumped up my sample Astra Militarum / Imperial Agents list to 2K recently.

Second, GW has said to expect improvements for Codex Space Marines; supposedly this is to balance out the fact that the Divergent Chapters get all the Codex toys plus extras. Since I'm using a Codex Detachment, this may have implications for my Stormwolves.

The Astra Militarum got their Grotmas 2024 Detachment today, Bridgehead Strike. It had too many fun rules that fit my Rogue Trader Expeditionary Force 2K armylist even better than the Index Detachment, so I reshuffled some units and swapped out for the new Enhancements. Here's a link to my updated Homebrew "Codex" of Lore and Sample armylists for my Stormwolves Marines and their supporting Rogue Trader Fleet.

And while I have lots of images in that document, for those who aren't clicking through, i'm going to share some of the more recently added ones here as well.