Hey up, went to Warhammer World yesterday for a GCN meet and managed to have a good look at IA10. Suffice to say Carchardons are going to probably become very popular.

Sons of medusa are a literal offshoot of the Iron Hands having seceeded from them in M35. They are even more hardline Mechanicus than the iron hands themselves following prophecies which have been noticed through flickerings in the Astronomican as Mars passes through Terra's orbit. they get a giant Cyborg Master of the forge who allows you to upgrade your Devastators to have FNP so long as their moddeled appropriately

Exorcists have sub cults within them essentially like the Thousand sons in the Graham McNeil novel. They are also at odds with the Ordo Hereticus for their forbidden knowledge regarding Daemons. The Special character comes equipped with a Thunder hammer that auto wounds psykers and daemons, is immune to psychic powers 50% of the time and I believe allows combat tactics to be replaced with fearless.

Salamanders get a funky dreadnought which was built by Vulkan and a duelling captain who comes with 2 power swords (i think) andhas no chapter tactics rules.

Minotaurs are essentially the High lords of Terra shock and awe weapon. They go in and take on anyone even other Marine chapters on a regular basis. Bit of fluff where they beat on two feuding Astartes Chapters. One retreats but the other is mauled nearly to the point of extinction being an Ultramarine2nd founding several other UM sucessors swear a blood vengeance on the Minotaurs. Special Character is a chapter master with a power spear that can function as a bright lance for one shot.

Mantis warriors have a duelling librarian with his own special psychic power and allows for infiltrate.

Star Phantoms just prior to Badab war have lost their homeworld through a Hrud migration. They have a fascination with Death and particularly the idiom: "Only in death does duty end". The special Character Androcles, who takes out Huron, is captain of the 9th and allows you to take Devastators as Elites as well as Heavy

The mystery terminator in IA9? Well he's the Carchardons Chapter master armed with lightning claws and a chainfist which he can split his attacks between. Originally a conversion piece he looks to be released at the end of january, the forgeworld boys have been looking at the blogposts on the internet and have been amused that just because the picture is green tinted everyone is jumping at him being a mantis warrior or one of the sons of medusa. there are no plans to release Mk1 Termie armour with IA10 but its on the to do list. Chapter tactics wise he allows you to replace combat tactics with Furious charge however afterwards if the unit destroys another in close combat it becomes subject to rage. Fluffwise the carchardons are a crusade type fleet however they are constantly crusading and essentially "living off the land" not coming back in for resupply and are essentially the Imperial boogeyman. Fluff also suggests that the Raven Guard are their progenitors and that the founders were the monsters created by Corax in an effort to rebuild the Ravens after Istvaan V.

You also get a siege SM army which can take Ironclads and siege dreadnoughts as troops. Squadrons of predators, vindicators and whirlwinds. You have to take a compulsory Master of the seige who comes with Artificer armour. Further more to offset the power gamey elements of the list (You can take Achilles as Heavy Support...) the army has to take a special siege objective which it must claim otherwise can only ever draw.

Poster is A1 size, sorry for the poor quality, taken on my phone. One side The Chapters involved in the conflict and the other is the stable warp routes through the Maelstrom area. Should be up for preorder soon and shipping on 10th January.

This looks like a lot of stupid changes for the sake of stupid changes.

IA9 was OK. Maybe the writing will make this better than it sounds.

Well yes the word "suggestion" is pretty much all of what it is. It only suggests Raven Guard as the Carcharodon geneseed that the Inquisition recovers has Genetic markers of similar points to that of the Ravens. There is no definitive answer to which they come from but their skin is pale white and the older the Marine gets the more black their Iris becomes eventually subsuming the pupil as well. Theres nothing to confirm that they are the monsters from the Raven Guard, it just suggests... Also they apparently don't play nice with others either. I'm not sure if any of you have read any of the other Imperial Armour books but when they do Space Marine profile pictures usually it says something like:

Brother Argentum, 19 confirmed kills, cited for marksmanship honour

With the Carcharodons (Interestingly a megalithic shark not Greek) their profile say

Unknown battle brother: Pict image captured

Oh one last thing about them the Chapter Master Character? he allows Bolters to be replaced with CCW's

Also The Sons of Medusa special character is a Master of the forge type with a Mephiston esque statline. This is due to all of the bionics he has modified himself with over the years becoming a Giant-Freaking-Cyborg with a servo harness and some other gubbins. I'm surprised more people haven't picked up on the fact that he grants Devastator marines feel no pain for free so long as their suitably bionicy looking as being the travesty of cheese opposed to whether the Carchardons are Raven Guard sucessors or not.

I did also get a look at the Executioners who happen to be an Imperial fists successor if my memory serves. They have a barabarian look about them to deliberately mislead their foes. Their led mainly by their Chaplains who are essentially tallyman, your going to have to forgive me if I get this wrong I was more bothered by the Carcharodons at this point due to the general coolness of them. they should be getting a Reclusiarch and a Chapter master Character.

The book itself has Huron on the front of it, in his Terminator armour and should be coming in a slip case like the Vraks book with an Inquisitional sealed report look about it. Theres going to be some Battlefleet gothic stuff as well to represent the Badab system space war, which is nice to see. Some very cool looking technical specs on Power armour as well.

Further more I had a nice long long chat with the Forgeworld boys and they love just taking a small but incredibly deep slice of the 40k fluff cake, I mean just look at the raid on Kastorel-Novem, cookie if anyone can find that fluff reference (Hint: Its in the BRB). I was speaking to the Author of the books Alan Bligh and he has done a hell of a lot of research into the Badab war and everything in it is taken from canonical sources including the renaming of the Space Sharks to the Carcharodons. The Forgeworld boys also want to do some Mk8 and Mk7 (Yeah, I know you get it as plastic...)power armour further down the line to complete off the set of armour as well

The siege list is nice. Ironclad and siege dreadnaughts in a squad of 3 as troop that act independent, mantlets for tactical squads that let ypu rerolls failed armoured saves agaijst shooting attacks.
An assault squad with dedicated land raider who can all take combat shields and meltabombs
The siege master gives tank hunters or furious charge to one squad and can reroll reserve rolls in a battle mission.