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Will There Be Any Big Surprises? I’m Not Sure

I’m looking forward to WarhammerFest this year for two reasons. The first is because I’m always excited to see new products and games, but the second is because WarhammerFest 2022 will mark the one-year anniversary of The Wargame Explorer. WarhammerFest 2021 was the first thing this website covered, so it’s exciting to see it come around again.

What Are My Predictions For WarhammerFest 2022?

My first big prediction is that I don’t really think there’s going to be anything that stuns us. We know that the big news is the Horus Heresy boxed set, but that has been leaked for so long, and they’ve done so many reveals, that it seems like there’s very little we don’t know about it. From the leaks we know that there’s going to be 40 Mark VI Space Marines, 10 Terminators, 1 Contemptor Dreadnought, 1 Land Raider Spartan, and 2 Praetors. We even kinda “know” the price. The rumor is that this box is coming in at £240, which will probably be $300 USD.

So we know about the Horus Heresy. Unless there’s some other news.

(All of this said, there’s a big article on Warhammer Community about the boxed set, and the WarhammerFest technically doesn’t include May 7th, the day of the Horus Heresy release, so who knows if that’s going to be the Big Reveal.)

And, just based on last year’s WarhammerFest, I don’t think we’re going to see a second BIG reveal. All of that said, here are my predictions for WarhammerFest 2022:

Warhammer 40k Predictions 2022

We know that there’s going to be Squats, or Legions of Votann. And, just based on the banners that we see in the teaser trailer, I don’t know if we’re going to see anything else particularly new. I’ve given my wish list for what I hope to see from the Legions of Votann, but if I were to guess about WarhammerFest, I’d bet we’re going to see troops, an HQ, and a vehicle.

For troops, I think we’re just going to get more of the same as what we’ve seen in that original Squat. I don’t think there’s reason to believe that the Hearthkyn Warrior represents anything other than the basic combat troop. (I do want to say that I’m pretty happy with the stats that were revealed for the Hearthkyn Warrior. I like the WS, BS, S, and T. It’s going to perform about as well as a Space Marine in battle, but be a little easier to kill with 1 Wound and a 4+ Save. That all sounds like I’d want it.)

I am encouraged by the term “Hearthkyn” because it implies that there might be a Hearthguard, which is what I want to see in the HQ. And the picture that we got of the Squats in their armor, which looked very Terminatoresque, makes me think we’ll be seeing some form of ExoArmor. There’s even a hint in the art that we might be getting Living Ancestors.

Now, aside from the Leagues of Votann…

I have been saying for some time that I expect to see World Eaters coming, and there appear to be leaks that are pointing in that direction. I really WANT to see Angron coming with the World Eaters, but I can’t say that I’m particularly convinced that any of them will be coming this spring. The main thing that is making me think that we will see some amount of Chaos is this image from the thumbnail of the video. I have no clue what bizarre beast this is, but if I had to guess I’d say… Chaos Possessed?

So what if they announce just a few new Chaos units, but not a full army list for World Eaters. What if–and I realize this might be asking a big much–they just release brand new Khorne Berzerkers? And then we have to wait for a while before they get around to launching the entire World Eaters list (and Angron)?

That would be cool.

Age of Sigmar Predictions 2022

This seems pretty obvious in subject matter, though I’m not sure what form it’s going to take. In the teaser banners there’s not just one but two Sylvaneth banners. Does this mean that one of them is going to be a big new boxed set and the other is going to be a Battletome? That could very well be it. It could also mean, however, that one of them is going to be an Age of Sigmar release and the other is going to be a Warcry release. (Or, heck, it could be a Sylvaneth Black Library novel.)

Generally speaking, nothing happens in Age of Sigmar unless there are two opponents, and I can’t tell from the banners who the other opponent would be unless it’s… Chaos? I don’t really know.

What I am NOT wanting is an entirely new faction, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. What I would LOVE to see is a revamp of the app to solve some of the vexing problems it’s been having lately. But I really have no idea when it comes to Age of Sigmar.

Necromunda Predictions 2022

I think that in Necromunda we have some pretty obvious releases. There’s an Ash Wastes logo on a banner, and that’s a good place to start. It seems strange that they would expand to more gangs so quickly after they announced the preorders of the Starter Set, but it also seems weird to expand the existing gangs and not include the expansions in the Starter Set. So I don’t know. If I had to guess, we’re getting another gang, and possibly another terrain set.

Kill Team Predictions 2022

This is where it gets interesting. We have long seen the Rumour Engine pics and heard the discussions that we may be seeing Imperial Guard, and that makes sense, especially because some of the rumors look like Kasrkin. They would make an excellent Kill Team, and I’m always in favor of bringing more flavor back into the Imperial Guard regiments. The thing that makes me wonder if there’s something else hiding under the surface (which we may see in the Warhammer 40k reveals) is that there appeared to be a Rough Riders lance in a Rumour Engine, and that doesn’t seem to be a Kill Team thing. So will we see more Imperial Guard in the 40k releases? Or is that lance a red herring?

But the other symbol that has me more perplexed is this weird banner that appears to be a Chaos symbol, but instead of being an eight-pointed star, it’s got a skull and bones for some of the points. What I think that is, and what I hope I’m right about, is Traitor Guard. It has been so long since we have been teased with Traitor Guard, and the closest thing we ever got to them was in the Blackstone Fortress game and expansions. I would love to see a box of Traitor Guard.

(Can we talk about how good all of the Kill Team boxes are? I bought the original Kill Team 2.0 box–Veteran Guardsmen vs Ork Kommandos–and they were great. But I also bought an additional box of the Veteran Guardsmen because I want a Death Korps of Krieg army, and then I bought the Kill Team T’au Pathfinders, and they were great, too. I think that these Kill Team boxes–for ALL the major problems that the current Kill Team has–are really great, flavorful models.)

Black Library Predictions 2022

I have no clue about what Black Library books we’re going to get, except my half-hearted thought about a Sylvaneth book. No idea.

Warcry Predictions 2022

I think that we’re going to see a new version of Warcry coming out in the near future, a total revamp ala Kill Team 2.0. I know a lot of people are unhappy about that because Warcry is a pretty darn good game and it’d be a shame to mess it up. I personally don’t think that we’re going to see a full launch of that at this WarhammerFest 2022, but I do think we may see a tease.

And… I think that’s it.

I’m pretty excited overall, even though I’m tempering my expectations. With them placing such a big emphasis on Horus Heresy it would be weird to have something huge from one of the other games to come in and overshadow it. I think we’re going to see a lot of small, but cool stuff. Interesting things–probably things I haven’t even given a second thought to–but cool nonetheless.

Anyway, I’ll be covering it in real-time here on the site. Follow me here or on Twitter to get updates as more information comes in.

Thanks!