Games Workshop previewed a new Warhammer 40k Astra Militarum character model on Monday, the Cadian Castellan. It kicks off what the firm’s calling “month-long celebration of humanity’s finest”, with the promise of more Astra Militarum reveals coming each week in October.
Shown off via GW’s Warhammer Community site on Monday, the new Cadian Castellan HQ unit follows on from the grand unveiling of the upcoming Astra Militarum army set, Commissar, Heavy Weapons Teams, and more during Saturday’s Warhammer Day preview livestream.
There’s no definite release date or pricing for these new Imperial Guard kits yet, but it’s no big leap to infer that the month of previews will wrap up with pre-orders for the Astra Militarum army set. We’d expect the new Castellan kit to follow in short order, along with the rest of the updated Guard model range.
Despite the name suggesting a more junior commander, GW assures us that any Astra Militarum force can benefit from the Castellan’s tactical acumen. Castellans have an aura ability that grants core Astra Militarum units “re-rolls”, though the WarCom article doesn’t specify exactly which dice are going to be re-rolled – probably not charge rolls. Still, any kind of aura-based reroll is something new for the old dependable guard.
Castellans can also issue two orders per turn, “encouraging units to hit harder, pin down foes, and surge across the battlefield in mass human waves”, GW says. The first and last of those descriptions sound like the existing ‘Bring it down!‘ and ‘Move! Move! Move!‘ orders, but the ability to pin down enemies could be something brand new.
Monday’s WarCom article shows several painted Castellan models built from different components, and GW claims the kit is “tremendously versatile”.
The article shows us two different heads, one with a peaked cap and another with a bionic eye, and promises two more. Between the reveal video and preview pictures, we can tell the kit comes with a bolt pistol, chainsword, plasma-pistol, power sword, boltgun, or pointy finger – and apparently a power fist is also available.
The first Cadian Castellan model was the special character Ursarkar E. Creed, the Lord Commander of all Imperial forces on Cadia. Creed appeared in 2003’s Codex: Eye of Terror campaign supplement, and met his end when Abaddon the Despoiler finally broke the planet Cadia during the events of Gathering Storm: Fall of Cadia.
We’ve already seen preview images of a brand new named character model, Creed’s daughter, Ursula, who has taken up her father’s mantle as Lord Castellan – no doubt there are further details to be revealed about just how she’ll play on the tabletop.