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.

The Character Creation rules from Crucible of Champions have leaked, and while I wait for my pre-order to arrive, I decided to give them a try.

Originally, I had this sword-and-shield marine as part of the Firstborn Legends Command Squad. But when I broke the banner bearer out to stick in a Homebrew unit, I had to reorganize and I wanted to keep him.

My first thought was to stick him with a melee-focused Deathwatch Veterans squad as the reorg had left me with a spare, but the only sword-and-shield marine character I could find to fill the open points was a Wolf Guard Battle Leader. The problem is, those units don't go together without me making one of my Datasheet clones and changing the attachment rules.

However, it was easy enough to take the Champion of the Chapter archetype in Crucible, slap a 4+ Invuln on him to represent the shield and give him the weapons he originally had when he was in the Command Squad. And since Crucible units can't take enhancements, the points cost worked out perfectly.

Since:

Champion of the Chapter gets to lead any Tacticus units (excluding Character and Fly)

Sternguard are Tacticus

Deathwatch Vets can be lead by any unit that can lead Sternguard

… this also solved the illegal attachment issue.

Then there's this character that I had from my Genestealer-Cult-Counts-As-Hive-Gangers list.

Originally I was using her as a Sanctus with Sniper Rifle, but I was able to make a Cult Guerrilla character with a Mining Laser, which I think is a much better fit for the parts I used while digital kitbashing.

I've also experimented with making Tau and Votann Crucible characters, and while it's wonderful to have official rules support for DIY mini builds, the limited number of Archetypes and Specialisms for each faction does put a bit of a crimp on what you can do.

For example, my Homebrew marines don't use librarians or dreadnoughts, so that's 2/3rds of the SM archetypes in the book that become useless to me.

My hope is that this is a trial balloon for something they're going to expand on in 11th Edition. More Archetypes would certainly make the system more useful.

Of course, if Games Workshop wanted to partner with a 3D Printed Miniatures service like Hero Forge, to make these options available as officially branded prints, that would be even better, but if they don't, these rules are a good start at returning to the kitbash culture of old.

If you'd like to see how these new Crucible characters fit in with the rest of my Homebrew, I'm going to link to the "Codex" for my Stormwolves, as well as a separate image gallery if you just want to see all the pixel art and 3D renders I've made for my chapter and their rogue trader void fleet allies without having to scroll past lore and sample Armylists.