It’s Thursday, so Games Workshop has unveiled a fresh new Warhammer The Horus Heresy mini for fans of its civil war-based prequel game to ogle – but the Dark Emissary’s most distinctive trait is that he’s obviously, and unashamedly, really, really annoyed with you.
Revealed via GW’s Warhammer Community site on Thursday afternoon, the new Dark Emissary is a Forge World resin single character mini for the traitor Space Marine legions in games of Warhammer: The Horus Heresy.
A traitor specific variant of the Astartes Consul, the Dark Emissary had rules in the Liber Hereticus sourcebook, published in 2022, but it had no dedicated model of its own until now.
GW says it’s “coming to pre-order soon”, but as usual gives no release date or window, and no indication of price – but, based on pricing for the other Consul characters, we’d make an educated estimate at $43 / £32.50.
A class of traitor legionary encountered only rarely in the Horus Heresy novels, GW describes these Dark Emissaries are a kind of of inquisition or secret police to ensure “unflinching obedience” in Warmaster Horus Lupercal‘s ranks, composed of “specialised Consuls who acted as his watchful eyes and ambassadors across the galaxy”.
Thursday’s article makes clear they’re also empowered to execute anyone in the traitor 40k primarchs‘ armies who they see “display seditious intentions” – and, judging by his face, we reckon he sees seditious intentions just about everywhere.
Besides his razor-sharp cheekbones and face-meltingly focused, judgemental stare, the Dark Emissary is armed with a “Staff of Dark Authority”, which is mainly for scaring folks straight, but can also be used for execution in a pinch due to having Murderous Strike 6+.
This means if you roll a 6 to wound, the target model is killed outright – something that normally only happens if you successfully wound with a weapon that has strength twice as high as the target’s toughness. Potent stuff if you roll well.
Just exactly what we did for him to look upon us with such unmitigated, pitiless disdain, we’re not quite sure – but nevertheless, we’d better get out of his way.
In the meantime, you can keep up with the latest, er, EPIC 30k news by reading our Warhammer Legions Imperialis review and grab some hobby tips for its new tiny models with our Legions Imperialis build guide. If you need some teenier scenery, we’ve also collected some great Legions Imperials terrain options.