The Twitch chat was already scrolling at lightspeed before the stream even flickered to life. At 7:30 pm sharp, the cameras inside Warhammer World in Nottingham cut through the smoke machines and revealed Adam and Eddie at the helm of the first major preview of 2026. Within seconds, 42 k viewers ballooned past 60 k, and every time Eddie lifted a new box from beneath the desk the counter jumped again. This wasn’t a polite drip-feed of rumors—Games Workshop came out swinging with faction-wide overhauls, a brand-new 40K campaign arc, and plastic that will reshape army lists from Custodes to Corsairs. If you blinked, you missed half the headline bombs.
Chaos Gets Its Sea Legs—Red Corsairs and Iron Warriors Sail Into 2026
The first miniature tray held a diorama that looked plucked from a heavy-metal album cover: beaked helms, chain-axes, and a crimson sail jutting from a corrupted Rhino chassis. The Red Corsairs, long relegated to lore snippets and a 2019 White Dwarf index, are getting a full range refresh complete with dual-kit Havocs, a new Huron Blackheart sculpt, and—most shocking—a modular “Reaver Titan” frame that can be built as either a corrupted Warhound or a bespoke Corsair Knight. Designers on stream called the engineering “the most complex sliding-mold we’ve ever green-lit,” which, translated from Nottingham-speak, means clear a 12-inch cube on your display shelf.
But the real mic-drop came during the post-reveal Q&A when studio painter Maxime Pastorello casually mentioned that the Iron Warriors would follow “hot on the Corsairs’ heels.” Cue another 5 k viewers. No models were shown, but the slide teased hazard-striped shoulder pads under a silhouette labeled Q3 2026. Veteran tournament players immediately started theory-crafting what a new Warsmith and updated Daemon Engines could do to the current meta that’s already reeling from the recent Knights codex. My take: if the Iron Warriors keep their old Iron Within, Iron Without rule but layer on the new Armor-penetration mechanics we saw in the Titus expansion, we’re looking at the next gatekeeper list—cheap, durable, and able to mulch Marines on a 2+.
Maelstrom: Lair of the Tyrant—The 500 Worlds Saga Keeps Rolling
After the Chaos bombshell, the stream pivoted to narrative. A cinematic trailer—rendered in the same engine Netflix uses for its animated series—showed Ultramarines 2nd Company drop-podding onto a shattered shrine world while a Hive Fleet tendril coiled in low orbit. Voice-over from a very Titus-sounding captain proclaimed, “We hold the Lair of the Tyrant, or the Maelstrom swallows Ultramar whole.” Cue the new campaign book: Maelstrom: Lair of the Tyrant, slated for April, continuing the 500 Worlds story line that began with the Titus expansion late last year.
Studio manager Stu Black said the book will ship alongside a boxed set called Shadow of the Kraken containing 27 new miniatures: a plastic Captain Titus with swappable helmeted/ unhelmeted heads, a new Tyranid Prime, and—finally—multi-part Assault Centurions framed against a backdrop of crashed Imperial navy fighters. The real twist is the optional Maelstrom Zone rule that randomizes game-wide buffs each battle round. On paper it sounds like the old Cities of Death cards dialed up to eleven; in practice it could flatten net-listed armies that rely on predictable turn-one alpha strikes. I watched four play-test clips during the stream and every single game flipped on a mid-game Maelstrom roll that granted every unit within 6″ of an objective Feel No Pain 5+. Expect the ITC circuits to debate whether the deck becomes mandatory or gets banned outright.
Custodes Tide of Gold—Plastic Achillus, Galatus, and a Grav-Tank to Make Guard Players Weep
Last but nowhere near least, Adam wheeled out a golden pedestal that could’ve doubled as a Destiny 2 relic. Atop it sat the forthcoming Custodes Battle Group, and the plastic engineering on display made the prior Chaos reveals feel almost quaint. The star is the Caladius Annihilator Grav-tank, a long, sleek anti-grav hull mounting the twin neutronium cascade projector—a weapon profile we’ve never seen on tabletop. Stats flashed on screen: Heavy 6, Strength 9, AP –4, Damage 3, and—here’s the kicker—each unsaved wound spills into D3 additional mortal wounds on a 4+. Against a T-shirt squad that’s overkill, but park it on a fire lane against Gravis or Terminators and the math-hammer quickly gets obscene.
Infantry options scale just as hard. The new Contemptor Dreadnought frame is dual-kit, letting you build either the spear-toting Achillus (think close-combat can-opener with a 3-damage sweep) or the shield-bearing Galatus that can bodyguard nearby Characters and reroll saves if it stands in terrain. Meanwhile, the Custodian Sentinels swap the traditional guardian spear for a sentinel warblade and praesidium shield, giving Custodes a troop slot that actually wants to sit on objectives instead of hero-hunting. The unit champion even gets a miniaturized version of the Emperor’s sword pattern—because why not.
What impressed me most was the price slide: the entire Battle Group will retail for £135, undercutting last year’s Adeptus Custodes: Watchers of the Gate by roughly twenty quid while adding more plastic. If that trend continues, 2026 might be the year GW finally flips the script on its “Australia-tax” reputation. Competitive implication: Custodes now have an artillery platform that out-ranges most Guard tanks and an elite troop that laughs at anti-infantry fire. If you’re heading to LVO this February, maybe leave the Knight list at home.
The Emperor’s Shield Wall Evolves—Custodes Tanks That Outrun Flyers
While the chat was still digesting traitor sails, Eddie flipped the foam tray labelled “Aquila 9-Secure” and revealed the most over-engineered land vehicle I’ve seen since the Tau’s R’varna. The new Caladius Annihilator Grav-tank is a plastic redesign of the long-out-of-print resin beast, but this time it ships with a twin neutronium cascade projector—a weapon profile that, on stream, was clocked at S10 AP-4 D3+3. Translation: it evaporates Gravis armour on the hit roll of a two and still has enough punch to bracket a Reaver Titan. The kit also bundles an alternate turret for the classic Arachnus blaze-cannon, so competitive players can choose between anti-tank alpha-strike or horde-clearing flamer saturation.
Under the hood, the grav-plating rule has been rewritten. Instead of the old “hover-only” restriction, the tank can now fly-over terrain under 6″ without counting vertical distance, effectively giving it a 20″ threat range that out-paces most enemy flyers. In play-test footage (briefly shown to influencers after the public feed) a trio of Annihilators circled a ruin, fired, and retreated behind LOS in the same move—Imperial Knights players are already calling for an FAQ.
Adam confirmed the kit slides into the upcoming Custodes Battle Group box alongside three Contemptor variants and five Sentinels—elite infantry wielding praesidium shields that can Bodyguard characters on a 2+. Expect the bundle in May, with individual kits dropping June. Shelf price rumour floating around the showroom floor: £140 for the group, £45 per grav-tank. Golden boys, pick your overtime shifts now.
Maelstrom: Lair of the Tyrant—Campaign Book That Rewrites the Map
Next slide lit up a warp-torn sector map that looked suspiciously like the old Eye of Terror stomping grounds, but redrawn with current Warp-rift logic. The 2026 narrative arc, titled “Maelstrom: Lair of the Tyrant”, picks up where 500 Worlds / Titus left off. According to narrative designer Nate Crowley, the storyline will be told across three campaign supplements—each one unlocking “Sector Assault” missions that plug straight into the 40k app and Crusade decks.
The first book, Eye of Terror, lands in late March and contains:
- A Zone Mortalis ruleset for boarding actions inside daemon-forges.
- Requisition trees that let Chaos players corrupt planets tile-by-tile; Imperium factions can attempt Reclamations, creating a tug-of-war visible on the official galactic map.
- Crusade relics that evolve mid-campaign—GW’s answer to the old Mighty Empires tiles, but tracked server-side so the state persists between stores.
Crunch hunters will care about the Stratagem refresh: every faction receives two new army-wide Stratagems that only function while fighting inside the Eye. Example shown on stream—“Unholy Reversion” (1 CP) lets a Heretic Astartes unit roll back a single destroyed model on a 4+, a clear nod to the Red Corsair durability theme.
Because GW is treating the books as living documents, mission outcomes reported via the app will influence future FAQs. Think of it as a community-driven End Times, but without blowing up the setting. If you want your local store’s name in the next campaign book, start logging those wins.
Age of Sigmar’s Necroquake 2.0—Undead Fleet Rises from the Brimstone Sea
Forty-K got the limelight first, but the Age of Sigmar segment delivered the most jaw-dropping diorama: a cursed fleet breaching the Brimstone Sea, skeleton crews manning barnacle-encrusted cannon that fire Nagashite soul-flame. The new faction, codenamed “Dreadfleet Revenants”, resurrects the 2011 Dreadfleet ships as modular plastic kits compatible with Age of Sigmar’s skirmish and full battle modes. Each vessel sits on a 3″ transparent flight stand, allowing true naval movement over terrain, while a keyword—Seawraith—grants ethereal movement through models under 10 wounds.
Rules designer Paul Foley confirmed the fleet plays like a hybrid of Ossiarch and Idoneth: you harvest souls to raise new ships mid-battle, but must beach your flagship to contest objectives. Early alpha stats showed a ghostly Man-o-War at 190 pts, 14 wounds, save 4+ that ignores rend -1, and a 5+ Deathless Horde roll—tougher than Black Coach, cheaper than a Stardrake. Competitive players predicting a ship-spam meta the moment the Battletome drops Q2.
Lore-wise, the fleet is led by Captain Rengrave (yes, the old Vampire Coast character) re-imagined as a Mortarch-level hero who can summon sea-storms that count as endless spells. Expect tie-in fiction from Black Library author David Annandale and a Legends of the Ages animated trailer within weeks. If you ever wanted to field undead galleons on a 60″ board, 2026 is your year.
Final Analysis—Why 2026 Could Outshine the 2020 Boom
Three hours after the stream, the official Warhammer-Community page still buckled under traffic. The takeaway is clear: GW isn’t just refreshing kits; it’s re-architecting how we engage with the hobby. Red Corsairs and Iron Warriors finally break the “only loyalists get big boxes” cycle, while Custodes tanks push power-creep into low-orbit. Layer on a persistent campaign system and undead armadas and you have a release cadence that mirrors modern games-as-a-service titles—only the DLC is tangible plastic you can paint at 2 a.m.
From a tech standpoint, the integration of app-tracked outcomes, modular vehicle frames, and digital mission packs shows Nottingham has learned from Warhammer+’s shaky launch. If the servers hold and the balance team keeps the day-one FAQ cycle humming, 2026 might eclipse the pandemic-era surge. My advice: magnetise your Contemptors, reserve shelf depth for ghost ships, and keep an eye on that Eye of Terror map—because your win-loss record could literally rewrite the next page of the setting’s history.
