On Monday, Wizards of the Coast gave a behind-the-scenes look into its collaboration with Games Workshop on the upcoming MTG Warhammer 40k crossover. While Wizards showed off a whole gallery-full of MTG card art from the upcoming 40k Commander decks in a video, Games Workshop, over at Warhammer Community, revealed five new cards from the set, including Noise Marine and Be’Lakor, the Dark Master.
In Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Bridging Worlds’ video, which discussed how the collaboration came about, several Wizards’ staff point to similarities between Magic: The Gathering and Warhammer 40k that made the crossover a natural fit. Ovidio Cartagena, Senior Art Director at WotC points out that “a lot of the best fantasy art made is Magic: The Gathering. A lot of the other best fantasy art is done by Games Workshop”.
And artwork really seemed to be the focus of this video – though it did also show us the (already rather leaked) face commanders for each Warhammer deck. Art piece upon art piece was shown off by Wizards, as well as the card names associated with each work.
This gave us a pretty good look at what will appear in the Warhammer 40k Commander decks. In the video, we see what looks to be a Saga titled the Horus Heresy, for instance (anyone familiar with the 54-book Horus Heresy series will know that’s an apt name for it), and Warhammer versions of existing Magic cards make their appearance too. We spotted card names such as Mortify, Gilded Lotus, Reliquary Tower, and obviously there’s going to be all of the basic lands.
Then there are the famous Warhammer 40k characters you’d expect to see, like Belisarius Cawl, and infamous creatures like the Great Unclean One. Famous catchphrases and events, like Blood for the Blood God and Exterminatus, also seem to be the basis for many cards.
Meanwhile, Warhammer Community delivered the first batch of spoilers in the ‘spoiler season’ for the Warhammer 40k Universes Beyond decks, showing off five cards, one from each deck, and one extra Ruinous Powers card.
Whereas previous MTG dabblings into other franchises like The Walking Dead and Stranger Things Secret Lairs, or the upcoming Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who cards, have generally revolved around big film and TV franchises, this collab brings together two companies that operate in the same nerdy, tabletop gaming world.
Naturally, Games Workshop wasn’t gonna let Wizards play with its toys unless they laid down the lore first, and Warhammer Community assures the crossover “involved substantial input from the Warhammer 40,000 design studio, ensuring every last detail matched the Warhammer hobby you know and love. “
The MTG Warhammer 40k decks are releasing on October 7, along with Secret Lairs coming October 17 featuring other facets of Warhammer, from Blood Bowl to Age of Sigmar. We’re expecting many spoilers for each deck throughout the week.