It's been awhile since I mentioned Warhammer+. GW's subscription service that includes a TVshow/animation app and a separate set of game tool type apps. Frankly, not much has changed. There are a few more animations than there were in 2022 - but not that many. In 2022 I noted there were 10 episodes of Hammer and Bolter, for example. That's their traditional animation series about various random topics. Some of them are really good. Now, 3 1/2 years later there are 16. Not exactly prolific there are they? There are some more lore shows - available for free on many YouTube channels these days, even if not "official" GW takes. The games have all moved to new editions since launch and the apps were suitably revised. So ... sure. It's fine.
The big new thing recently was "Kill Lupercal", a CGI animated "series" - all of 3 episodes - which was hyped up as this an awesome new production. Set near the end of the Horus Heresy it's all about a titan battle group that heads out in less than optimal condition and ends up on a mission to take out the Warmaster Horus Lupercal. The concept is fine and the animation looks good. The problem is the execution.
The whole thing is made up of three 15 minute segments:
- Part 1 is the extremely drawn-out build up of the titan being repaired and various discussions of it's condition and what can be fixed and the Mechanicus doing Mechanicus things ... it's a bunch of standing around and talking and it takes half of the episode before out titan actually walks. They get out of the hanger, shoot up some traitor marines, and then at the end they encounter a lone mysterious titan. That's it, that's 1/3 of our story done.
- Part 2 is a discussion with the mystery titan, getting the other tians in the group introduced and lined up, and then everyone heads off to kill Horus. There is a fight with some superheavy tanks and then more discussion about what they should do.
- Part 3 finally gets to the point of the exercise and we get a real fight against traitor titans and the resolution of the whole Horus thing. This one is pretty good.
This show is analogous to Warhammer+ as a whole: too little too slowly and often focused on the wrong things.
While the individual shows are better about this, the multi-episode series tend to plod along, especially at the beginning. I'm usually a fan of the gearing-up sequence in a movie or show but there are limits. They also need to realize that most of the people paying for this service are already invested in the 40K universe - they're not newbies. You don't need to explain what sisters of battle, or titans, or for goodness sake Space Marines are - we know. We want to see them doing stuff, not a lore-dump about what they are supposed to be doing. Some of this stuff feels like a cutscene intro to a videogame we're never going to play - let's get to the point, especially if we're going to have less than an hour to work through this story! We don't need minutes and minutes of characters standing around talking about auspex readings and how bad things are and what the Emperor would want - it's 40k! How about we have those conversations while we're jumping into the action?
Besides the shows being slow, their rate of production is terribly slow. Under the "Animations" banner on the site there are 12 entries:
- Astartes existed before this was a thing so it doesn't really count as a W+ production
- Angels of Death was their first CGI series and is still the best. Extra points for Blood Angels. It's from 2021.
- Hammer and Bolter was also a year 1 effort and has actually added some new episodes over the years - not many, but some.
- The Exodite is another 3-part CGI series that takes a while to get going and runs 30-something minutes total. Again it looks good but there just isn't that much there. Points for being Tau vs. Eldar and Imperials. It's from 2022.
- Interrogator is a 9-part series using traditional animation that has 15-20 minute episodes and ends up being around an hour and a half total. It's black and white too and a pretty serious dive into the grim dark civilian life of 40K. It's decent and it's from 2022.
- Blacktalon is a 6-part series using traditional animation set in the Age of Sigmar worlds. There are 20+ minute episodes and so you get an actual story here. It's from 2023.
- Pariah Nexus is a 3-part CGI series from 2023 and is one of the better offerings. It ends up being a little over an hour of story.
- Iron Within is a 30-minute CGI one-shot with guard and dark eldar and chaos marines that's more buildup than action. I think it's supposed to be more "horror" than action but ... we all know what the dark eldar are about, and we all know what chaos marines are about so you're not going to surprise anyone with the various bad things that happen. Even the title spoils what could have been one interesting wrinkle. I was disappointed with this one. It's from 2023.
- Broken Lance is a 30-minute CGI one-shot about a knight household. Once it gets going it's not bad. It's from 2024.
- The Enemy Without is a 5-minute glorified CGI trailer about the deathwatch and I'm not even sure what the point of it really is. It does at least get right to the action, so there is that. This one is from 2024.
- The Tithes is a 3-part CGI series from 2024 that totals up to about an hour. There is some interesting variety here.
- Then Kill Lupercal is the lone entry from 2025
So the output has not been great. Nor has it been consistent with formats and story lengths jumping all over the place. Some of this stuff is interesting and even good but there is just not that much of it. Someone could subscribe for a month and watch everything without breaking a sweat.
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| I really like this one |
The rest of the offerings are battle reports, painting guides, lore videos, and pretty much the kind of thing you can find all over YouTube and the rest of the internet. I would not pay a subscription fee for these.
I suspect that most people pay a sub here for the 40K and AoS apps - those are actually handy and useful for building an army and playing some games and encourage one to maintain it. There are alternatives there as well.
There is an annual miniature that's free to subscribers and those are usually pretty cool and this is the only way to get them. Not sure I would pay just for that but it's one benefit to sticking with it.
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| Also very cool |
For now I will be continuing my own subscription here, despite my problems with the service. I do use the apps, I do like some of the shows, and I keep hoping it will get better. We will see.
