Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34 Review

We’re back with another up-close and personal look at Warhammer 40,000: Imperium’s latest delivery. This month, buyers can expect to get their hands on a few new shade paints, as well as some terrain and a single Adeptus Mechanicus miniature. Premium subscribers, however, will find their delivery comes with quite a lot more…

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Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34 Review – Introduction

After the mix-ups I had with Delivery 7 and Delivery 8, we’re back on track again with Delivery 9 arriving in record time.

Those of you who regularly follow this segment will know my Delivery 7 didn’t turn up until after Delivery 8. I had to chase Hachette to try and find out what had happened to the missing delivery, but it did eventually arrive.

It transpires that the address associated with my account was wrong, and had been input as some strange fusion of the address of my own personal bunker and the address of FauxHammer Towers. How did I not notice sooner? Well, every month my deliveries arrived with the last few lines of my address blocked out with marker pen and re-added correctly by hand. Someone had been correcting my address at some point in the delivery process. However, it looks like last month they didn’t manage to for whatever reason.

Either way, after a few calls to Hachette’s helpline, the issue was resolved and I’d barely finished writing up Delivery 7 when Delivery 9 – this instalment – arrived on my doorstep. I’d assume that this happened because once the various issues with my account were sorted out, either Hachette moved me onto an earlier delivery schedule, or the delivery itself was no-longer being held up in a distribution centre whilst some poor soul tried to figure out where I actually lived.

I’d like to just take this opportunity to reemphasize to readers that if you have an issue with your Imperium subscription, you must call Hachette. Hachette’s email service can be a little hit and miss, so you’re far more likely to get your issues resolved quickly if you ring them up.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34 Review: Contents

So, on with Delivery 9. Here’s the sum-total of what regular subscribers can expect with this delivery can be seem below.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review All

There’s not actually masses of stuff in this delivery, but as we’ll cover in the Price and Availability section at the bottom of this article, what there is included is on reasonably high value – but more on that in a moment.

The Magazines: Issues 31-34

Let’s kick things off with a quick whistle-stop tour of what people can expect to find in their magazines. As ever, we’ll keep this relatively brief and detail-free so as not to spoil anything for those of you who like to read these cover to cover.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 31 Cover

Issue 31 has a distinctly red feel to its first few couple of pages, thanks to proliferation of information about the Adeptus Mechanicus – who have very much stolen the spotlight over the last few issues. There are also a few sides about the Blood Angels Space Marines.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 31 Inside 2
Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 31 Inside 1

The latter half of the magazine, that focuses on rules and playing the Warhammer 40,000 game, gives players a crash-course in the Movement Phase. There’s also a character sheet-type thing for the scenery that comes with this issue, which, again, seems a little bizarre to me.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 32 Cover

The Adeptus Memchanicus domination continues into Issue 32, as does the distinctly red feel to the magazines.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 32 Inside 1
Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 32 Inside 2

There’s lots of lore about the Age of Strife and the Warhammer 40,000’s “magic-users” – or psykers, as they are known in the 40K universe. There are also rules for the Adeptus Mechanicus units subscribers will have received so far, particularly for the Kataphron Destroyer that arrives with this issue.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 33 Cover

That distinct AdMech red glow in replaced in Issue 33 in favour of the colour green as Necrons take the centre-stage again – for a little, at least, until they’re promptly thrown off their pedestal by everyone’s favourite krumperz of da far future – Orks.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 33 Inside 1
Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 33 Inside 2

The Necron section also has a few sides of info about the C’tan, which will appeal to anyone super into their lore.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 33 Foldout

Issue 33 also comes with a double-sided fold-out about the Dark Gods of the Forty-First Millennium, which features background info on Chaos as well as some jaw-dropping artwork and miniatures.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 34 Cover

Issue 34 is all about walls ‘n’ stuff. Between a section on the Imperial Fists, who are well known as being big fans of walls, fences, and other structures designed to keep people and/or things out of places, there’s also a painting guide for the couple of bits of scenery that have come with this Issue and Issue 31.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 34 Inside 1
Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Issue 34 Inside 2

If that wasn’t enough scenery-related stuff for you, there’s also a mission at the back of the magazine that’s designed to get players thinking about using terrain features in their battles.

Miniatures

This month the section on plastic is going to be a little bit brief, I’m afraid. Delivery 9 isn’t the most miniature-heavy of deliveries for regular non-premium subscribers, so folks might be a tad disappointed with this month’s offering.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Scenery

Issues 31 and 34 come with the bits of terrain you can see above. This is the Battlezone: Manufactorum – Sub-cloister and Storage Fane, which made its first appearance as part of the Command Edition Warhammer 40,000 Starter Set (which also happens to be one of my first ever reviews for FauxHammer.com).

Over the two years that have elapsed since I received the Command Edition, I can’t say that the apathy I feel towards terrain pieces has changed all that much. I always intend to paint the terrain I get in these deliveries, but in reality I’d much rather spend my time painting tiny figures instead.

That said, though, these are some decent bits of terrain. There’s a lot of detail on them, as well as a lot of texture, which means that these pieces of scenery really lend themselves to techniques such as heavy washing, heavy drybrushing and lots of airbrushing, so it shouldn’t actually take you too long to get these ready for the tabletop should you wish to get some colour on them.

They’re also very easy to build, with the smaller walls consisting of two components each and their larger ones being made up of no more than five parts. I think I had all this built in about ten minutes.

The Kataphron Destroyer, who comes with issue 32, is a different story.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Kataphron Destroyer

For what is a relatively modest-sized miniature, the Kataphron Destroyer is made up of an enormous amount of parts and comes on a sprue absolutely heaving with bits. I actually found it to be an extremely gratifying and very fulfilling build, neither too complex nor too fiddly. Perhaps this was because I did it after the terrain, which was so easy to put together it barely required any thought.

Either way, once assembled the Kataphron Destroyer is a nice little model. Overflowing with details and really unique to look at, this is a figure that will excite painters the world over. Definitely one to look forward to.

One very important thing to note with this Destroyer is that there are a couple of little pieces on the sprue that you will need to set aside for use in later builds, so don’t toss the leftovers into a corner and forget about them just yet.

Paints and Hobby Tools

There are two shade paints included in this delivery, both of which come with Issue 33. One pot of Reikland Fleshshade and one pot of Cryptek Armourshade Gloss.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Shade Paints

Citadel catches a lot of heat from hobbyists, and I’ve never really been completely sure why. From the perspective of someone who’s still a relative newcomer to the hobby, but one who has done everything they can to immerse themselves in the community, as far as I can tell, the vitriol occasionally slung towards Citadel paints is largely due to the fact these are Games Workshop products and people love to hate on Big Ol’ GW.

In my humble opinion, though, this is largely unjustified. Citadel’s paints range is just as good as many others. Some of their paints are great (I’ve never had a bad Base paint, their Contrast Paint range is excellent, and the vast majority of their non-metallic Layer paints are also good) and some of them aren’t so good (Liberator Gold and Auric Armour Gold, for example), just like any other range.

What Citadel’s range does very well, though, is that it makes painting accessible. It’s colour system of base colour, shade wash, highlight and fine highlight offers inexperienced or unconfident painters a paint-by-numbers approach to their miniatures, and the Contrast Paints range makes painting even easier for the totally new – or totally uninterested – whilst also being versatile enough to appeal to more experienced painters.

Reikland Fleshshade is another example of a great Citadel product. At its core, Reikland Fleshshade is designed specifically to help people paint White and paler skin tones by settling into the recessed detail on a face. It can, and often is, used as a wash over all kinds of colours. On the picture below, of a Lord-Imperatant and his trusty Gryph-hound, I used Reikland Fleshshade to add tone to the skin on the model’s face, whilst I used Reikland Fleshshade Gloss to shade his golden armour. It’s a great product, and that it comes in both a glossy and non-glossy version helps make it all the more versatile.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Reikland Fleshshade Example

Cryptek Armourshade Gloss isn’t quite as versatile as Reikland Fleshshade because, for one, it only comes as a gloss. The paint was released in-sync with the re-launch of the Necron range that came with the release of Warhammer 40,000’s Ninth Edition, and is designed to facilitate the shift from the classic silvered steel Necron aesthetic to the coppery shades of the Szarekhan Dynasty. You can see it at work on all the brown plates on the miniature below.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Cryptek Armourshade Gloss Example

Whilst Canoptek Armourshade Gloss won’t have quite as many applications as Reikland Fleshshade, it’s an absolutely vital paint for any Szarekhan Dynasty Necron player and/or collector, who will need it to make sure their ancient murderbots look as ancient and murdery as possible.

Ultimately, though, these shade paints are two excellent inclusions that will prove useful to any painter, and will allow the less experienced and less confident hobbyists to begin grappling with more intermediate techniques and up their painting game.

Premium Kit 2

So, as I said at the start of this article, premium subscribers will be delighted to discover that Delivery 9 comes with their second of four premium kits.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Premium Issue Box

And this time, it’s all about the hungriest, gribbliest, most H. R. Geiger-inspired Warhammer 40,000 faction out there: the Tyranids.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Premium Issue Cover

Just like with the Chaos Space Marine kit we received a few months back, the Tyranid kit comes with its own extra-thick magazine dedicated to the faction in its entirely. Crammed with all the background info collectors will need to whet their their galaxy-sized appetites for sweet, sweet biomass, as well as the building and painting guides for the figures included in the box, this monster mag, has everything an aspiring collector needs to get started with their new Tyranids.

One thing that all the Tyranid miniatures that come with Premium Kit 2 have in common is that they are very easy to put together. Each figure – that’s 1 Broodlord, 8 Genestealers and 12 Termagants, who also have a little Swarm miniature with them – are made up of only a few components each, so don’t require too much effort to assemble.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Premium Issue Broodlord

The Broodlord – pictured above – looks cool. He’s large, menacing, and towers over the other miniatures in the kit. He’s very similar to the Genestealer Patriarch that can be purchased as part of the Broodcoven – but I imagine that’s a deliberate stylistic choice given the relationship between the two factions.

After the Broodlord, we have 8 Genestealers. Like the Broodlord before them, they’re made up of relatively few components: a leg glued to a torso, then a head, and four individual arms. The arms can be a bit of a pain, so take your time lining them up and making sure each one is set in place before moving on to the next.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Premium Issue Genestealers

The instructions that come in the Tyranid Premium Issue direct you to glue what it calls “extended carapaces” over the backs/shoulders of the Genestealers. A quick Google, however, shows me that a lot of examples of Genestealers that one may have seem when on their jollies around the ‘net do not have these pauldron-like appendages on their backs.

And I honestly wish mine didn’t.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Premium Issue Genestealer Carapace

Having glued them on, I absolutely hate how they look an honestly wish I’d just left them be instead of following the guide to the letter.

So, the second time around, when the Termagant build guide directed me to glue on a bunch of extra sacs, scales and other gribbly bits onto my dozen little intergalactic dinosaur insects, I didn’t.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Premium Issue Termagants

Premium Kit 2 comes with no fewer than 4 Gaunts Upgrade Sprues. A quick look through GW’s webstore suggests these can’t be purchased anymore. These sprues are covered in optional extras for the Termaganuts as well as alternate weapons for them – though you don’t have to use them, like I didn’t.

The only thing I used the Upgrade Sprues for was for the extra tadpole gribblies on the little Swarm. Because why not.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9 Review Premium Issue Swarm

And that’s everyone. I have to say, I’m not blown away with the miniatures that come with the kit. Like, they’re pretty cool, but they don’t make me want to go out and buy more Tyranid miniatures. I have to say, though, this isn’t totally the Tyranids’ fault.

It’s actually more down to how high the standard has been set recently by more modern Warhammer releases. Over the last couple of years, GW have consistently churned out some of the best miniatures in the world with every release they’ve put out. This year alone, we’ve had new Eldar, new Chaos Space Marines, a host of new 40K Kill Teams, and a scattering of new figures across the Age of Sigmar range, the quality of which have been, frankly, second to none.

This makes older miniatures, like the Tyranid miniatures included in this kit (the dates stamped on the some of the sprues read “2004”), seem a little dull in comparison. The Tyranid range has been in need of a facelift for quite some time, and with the release of the Parasite of Mortrex a few weeks ago, there may well be one on the cards.

I don’t want to give people the impression this kit isn’t worth it because, as we’ll see in a moment, the value on offer here is excellent. These guys just aren’t quite what I was hoping for.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34 Review – Price and Availability

It’s that time of the review where we show you a bunch of tables full of numbers You can find all this information – and much, much more – over on our Warhammer 40,000: Imperium Contents List page.

Issue no.Issue Price (GBP)Total Value (GBP)Total Savings (GBP)
31£8.99£17.50£8.51
32£8.99£11.67£2.68
33£8.99£9.50£0.51
34£8.99£17.50£8.51
TOTALS£35.96£56.17£20.21

Here’s the info again for all our friends in the US.

Issue no.Issue Price (USD)Total Value (USD)Total Savings (USD)
31$13.95$30.00$16.05
32$13.95$19.34$5.39
33$13.95$15.60$1.65
34$13.95$30.00$16.05
TOTALS$47.80$94.94$39.14

So, in spite of there not being all that much included with Delivery 9, the savings on offer are still pretty decent. The contents err on the side of filler, but the value is still on point.

Once again, for the premium kit that comes with this delivery for all you premium subscribers, I’m going to pinch the table from our Premium Sets Savings Breakdown. This way, you can see how much money you’re getting off with each of the premium kits. They’re all fairly similar in their pricing and value.

Premium Kit NumberCostValueSaving
Premium Kit 1 – Chaos Space Marines£36-£40£62.50£22.50 – £26.50
Premium Kit 2 – Tyranids£32-£40£67.50£27.50 – £35.50
Premium Kit 3 – T’au Empire£34-£40£67.50£27.50 – £33.50
Premium Kit 4 – Orks£34-£40£67.75£27.75 – £33.75
Total£136 – £160£265.25£105.25 – £129.25

The Tyranid miniatures might not be the most mind-blowing, but with around £30 saved on them, this is value that can’t be argued with.

Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34 Review – Final Thoughts

ProsCons
Good value
Decent shade paints
Only one miniature and a couple of bits of terrain

Delivery 9 is a bit of a mixed one. On the one hand, it’s a bit spartan with some fairly plain bits of terrain and only one miniature for the regular subscribers. It may be a little bit filler-y for some people, but the savings on offer shouldn’t be overlooked – and neither should the opportunity to reinforce your hobby arsenal with a few good shade paints.

The add-ons for premium subscribers tell much the same story: the miniatures are alright, but the savings are, once again, what carries the worth of the kit.

So not perfect, but not terrible. An adequate, okayish delivery that with neither under- nor over-whelm.

Yeah, that seems fair: Delivery 9 will leave recipients feeling perfectly whelmed.

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Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34
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Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34

VoltorRWH

Rob has spent most of the last 20 years playing World of Warcraft and writing stories set in made-up worlds. At some point, he also managed to get a Master's degree by writing about Medieval zombies.

One thought on “Warhammer 40,000 Imperium Delivery 9: Issues 31-34 Review

  • April 29, 2022 at 9:22 am
    Permalink

    With issue 34 reviled, we are at the 42,5% of imperium. The time for me to buy 10 maernus calgar only for having my victrix bladeguard!

    May convert marneus into a gravis interceptor squad, and use the gauntlet for my vanguard veteran…

    Reply

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