Hey Dark Heresy fans!

I just uploaded the first preview for our upcoming book, Creatures Anathema .

Check out the Bronze Malifect!

Awesome! I am so excited for this book. Keep the previews coming!

Very nice! for some reason I always associated CA with biological creatures, I'm more than glad to be proven wrong.

Tech-heresies are the best kind of heresies

Well done! I'm so exited I could puke! As a G.M. I can't wait to spring this beauty on my poor unsuspecting P.C.'s

Muhaha....

I think it can use some more arms. A lot more.

Hugs for all!

For some reason I wasn't especially psyched about Creatures anathema, but now I am. Curse your effective Advertising techniques!

'armful! A very well armed beastie. I've got to hand it to you FFG boys, you've gone out on a limb here, but that's a handy concept.

(I'll get me coat...)

I love this thing. Really good. And unless I'm mistaken that's the first bit of FFG art for DH I've seen placed in the context of an accompanying rules article by FFG...and not only is it a great piece of art, it works nicely in the context of the setting. A lot of the reviews of DotDG have moaned about the use of art from the ancient GW back catalogue: it's fantastic to see brand new art created solely for the new FFG book.

I'm now starting to get really excited about not only this book but the whole future of the line - DH looks to be in safe hands, wooohooo!

Right.

Come on.

<BARGE...SHOVE...ELBOW>

Make room at the table for the cynical naysayer...there's far too many positive waves floating about here...

OK. I posted this over at DR but i thought i'd sully the waters by posting it here too...

<GRUMBLE>

Nice heads up Ross.

Um.

Wow.

Thats a strange decision to give the Bronze Malifects grappling attacks though eh?

I mean the grapple rules are seriously broken aren't they? (dicussed here vidzup.com/forum/index.php ).

RAW, this thing grapples EVERY PC in range TWICE each turn . The PCs are forced to take a full action to resist/break out of one of these attacks (opposing its SB 8 ), while it is able to continue to attack them while grappling them .

Thats one dead party of acolytes right there surely? Vicious.

Either that or they'll be wise to its ability and 'nuke it from orbit', negating its main attack and making it a 'non-threat'...

Are you planning to revisit and fix the grapple rules?

I mean, as a GM i'd never use such a 'kill or be killed' opponent - its Kobyashi Maru isn't it?

Still, the picture's very pretty. Reminds me of one of Urza's Artifacts from Magic tG...

Ahh...thats better....i have brought balance to the force...

Honestly, Luddite, you're such a "glass is half empty" person! Or maybe even a "glass is half empty, its gone flat and there's a wasp in it, too" person!

Come now, Ludd. It's not too hard to put down. It's only got 20 wounds, a TB of 6 and 4 armour...

Er..

Perhaps Malleus Minoris is an underestimation of it's lethality? I like it, though, and the data-slate report on the third page even more. Definitely a challenge for more experienced acolyte cells, or at least ones who're packing more than Las and SP weaponry.

Aye you're right Lightbringer, but don't you love me for it?!

Someone's got to balance out all these positive waves...

CA is looking like its going to be VERY good doesn't it? And given that its pretty much ignoring most of the established and well know protagonists, its also a genuine mystery. I can't wait to see what manner of wierdness and gribbly goodness Ross and the FFG bods are going to fill the pages with...

Add that to the excerpt I saw from CA at HeroCon and it just looks too awesome to be true.

And I can vouch for Ross here, he loves his Tech Heresy.

What an awesome treat, Ross !!! Thanks a lot for this preview, which I find being more than your regular kind of preview actually: the artwork is great, the content terrific, but most of all, giving us a handout in advance... Good job guys, I'm so looking forward to purchasing Creatures Anathema now.

That thing has cell wipe written all over it. Of course, Ludd, if it fails a grapple, the non-grappled parties can disengage and blast the thing. I think it'd only be deadly to an entire cell if freakishly lucky, or if they're complete morons.

This is why you need someone on point...

Talking about the preview:
It does not make me that exicted. It is more of a "downer" for me.
- the first thing unleashed here is a pure comabt thing. While it is a GOOD combat thing, I hoped the book would contain some material of "basic imperial animals", like the Grox. Not coming with combat stats or adventure seeds, but with some "back-drop info" to give the world more of a feeling .
- If the picture-two-text-ratio shown here (2 pages of text, 1 page of picture) is the norm, I am disappointed. Visuals ARE good. But "quarter-page-pictures" are enough for me to "get the picture".

Talking about this creature:
These are a lot of attacks. "Two against every opponent". "One attack against a grappled opponent".

A most interesting creation, superb picture and especially enjoyed the deposition

thanks and look forward to more...........

The attack vs. each combatant might a tad much, though I do like the mood of the critter.

I like the art and can't wait till we meet the Genestealer...

I read it as : it tries to grapple the opponent, if it does, it tries to stab them. Also, the thing isn't particularly fast, and has no ranged attacks, and isn't spectacularly smart. It may take a while, but spreading out and laying into the thing from a distance will probably confuse it enough that it won't know who to concentrate on. Plus, it can be targeted with psychic powers, led easily into traps, and generally avoided fairly easily.

Of course, if you are determined to go after the thing in hand to hand combat and only try to kill it using the method it is best at, you probably deserve to get throttled.

Also, sweet artwork, I can't wait to see what the rest of the book looks like. As much as I love GW art, I'm realllly tired of there being 5 new pictures in each book they put out and the rest being recycled. I'm hoping FFG continues the trend of having Uderzo all over their books, he has been doing mind blowing stuff for Privateer and I would love to see him do some epic craziness for 40k, and not just character art.

Also, Karl Kopinski, I don't think he works for GW anymore, sooooo, freelance that boy!

Santiago said:

Now *THAT* will have party wipe written all over it. Lightening fast, spectacularly skilled, intelligent, and able to rip through armour and flesh in the blink of an eye. Commonly occurs in massive numbers. Yeuch.

Luckily for the Calixis Sector, I doubt there are large numbers of genestealers in any one place...if there were an invasion imminent, then perhaps, but I would veture to guess that most 'stealer activity is pretty limited, even if dangerous and terrifying.

I can understand that "unique" opponents need to be in the book. But i hope that dark eldar, eldar, grox, ambulls, namely the big names in 40k are not the exception in the final product. I would be rather disappointed if all the book contains are "new players"....

Honestly, Luddite, your criticisms are all legitimate ones. Personally I like this monster. Yeah it's a beast, but it's meant to be. Dark Heresy is, at it's core a horror game and if your players aren't dreading every monster encounter, you're doing something wrong.

Ikkaan said:

We already have grox.

Gregorius21778 said:

We've seen three pages so far. Just because the preview is a nasty combatant doesn't inherently mean that every creature will exist solely for battle and nothing else.

Beyond that, everyone "dreading" that it'll contain nothing but new creatures, with no regard or mention of established races (something I couldn't care less about, frankly - I know what the established races are, and can quite easily write up my own rules for them to a standard that I find satisfactory, and I imagine many of you are similarly capable of such a mundane feat of GMsmanship)... should read the previous news post about Creatures Anathema...

The first paragraph contains the following information: "For the first part, we recruited some writers who knew the setting well and had some very creative ideas for creatures appropriate to the Calixian extent. For the second, we scoured the Warhammer 40,000 setting for those creatures that were fan favorites (such as the Lictor and Genestealer), classic to the setting (such as the Ambull and Enslaver), and interesting to encounter beyond just another gunfight (the Eldar and the Orks, among others)."

Indeed, the cover art is of a Tyranid Lictor, so I think we can safely assume that there'll be a mix of established and new creatures.