So... The World Championships of Warhammer Preview

(please note that none of the pictures in this post feature my miniatures nor are the pictures my own. They have all been lifted from the Warhammer Community page or are screenshots from the Preview videos and are all ©2025 Games Workshop. They are posted here without their permission for the purposes of review) 

Last evening was The World Championships of Warhammer Preview which featured sections on the new Warhammer Quest game being released in the uncertain, but not-to-distant future... and a bunch of the new Maggotkin of Nurgle models that will be released along with the new Maggotkin of Nugle Battletome - likely in the first quarter of 2026. As well as a new Path to Glory campaign book. 

I think the thing I am MOST excited about is the new Path to Glory campaign book!!

This campaign book tracks the war in Thyria - one of the continents in Ghyran, the Realm of Life... y'know... where the Sylvaneth and the Maggotkin of Nurgle have been fighting for CENTURIES since the dawn of the Age of Chaos! The two very armies I am currently working on for myself and Amanda! 

The preview suggests it will let us "add a verdant twist to games", which I'm guessing is going to mean more interactive terrain (killer trees, etc!). There are going to be a pile of new battleplans and new battle scar tables and Paths that Heroes and Units can gon on..  (Path of the Thyrian Druids and Path of the Sacrifice Master for Heroes, and Path of the Weald-born or Path of the Foresters for non-Hero units) and new heroic traits, artefacts of power, spell lore and prayer lores... 

There was a whole section of the Preview dedicated to the new Warhammer Quest game

I am also very excited about THIS!

I've thoroughly enjoyed playing through Shadows Over Hammerhal and the two Cursed City campaigns with Amanda and Finnegan over the last year and a bit. I just hope this is released soon enough that I can get all the miniatures painted before we finish up Night Wars! 

(mind you, if everyone DIES trying to take down Carmilla DuSang, it might be over sooner than I anticipated!)

(Wait... I haven't posted the game report of the last game yet! Whoopsie! SPOILERS!!) 

I was initially very disappointed about the idea of the modular tile-based maps being replaced by a book of smaller paper maps... It's giving me really Warhammer-Underworlds-skirmishy vibes, rather than Dungeon Crawl, like ALL THE OTHER WARHAMMER QUEST GAMES!? 

But looking at the pictures and thinking back to Blackstone Fortress... the encounter areas, for the most part, weren't THAT much bigger (and often smaller!) than these paper maps are going to be... Going on a mission (or journey) involved creating a small deck of encounter cards which would either be a challenge (something you just dealt with outside of combat) or an encounter, in which case you were given a little map to set up and a hostile group or two to fight there... I imagine this will probably be the same sort of thing... and... that could work. 

The Nurgle miniatures included in the box are all pretty cool. At least SOME of them should be useable in regular Age of Sigmar... though I was pretty disapointed to note that only eight Pestigors are included... and in regular age of sigmar they are going to be fielded in units of TEN... it's worse than the zombies in Cursed city... at least there they gave you ten, so all you needed to do was find one other person that also had Cursed City that also played Age of Sigmar and you could split a box of 20 zombies, to each have a unit of 20 that you need to field them in Age of Sigmar... 

They are really cool-looking miniatures, but what are you to do with eight Pestigors... other than ALWAYS field an understrength unit (that you still have to expend the same number of points to field as a full strength unit!?? find FIVE other Warhammer Quest Darkwater owners that all play Nurgle armies that would be willing to split a box of Pestigors five ways...!?

Hopefully one of the Free Minature-of-the-Months this next year will be a Pestigor and that way I'll be able to pick up a ninth... just need a friend to go and get one (that's willing to pass it along to me! so I can fill out a tenth!) 

The heroes in this new set are... okay... none of them really stand out as super interesting or exciting like some of the Cursed City heroes are! Maybe there'll be a tie-in novel that gets me a bit more jazzed about the setting and characters like the Cursed City one did! 

As for the new Nurgle miniatures for Age of Sigmar... 

There is Festus the Leechlord... apparently a character from a long way back... I'm less interested in this one. If I want to play with a BIG BAD BOI, I'll just dig out the Great Unclean One! 

The Putrid Blightkings are getting new models and... I'm pretty "meh" about these. I don't HATE them or anything. I just really like the old models... and these ones... aren't wowwing me in a way that says - "YES! THESE ARE SO MUCH BETTER!?" 

There is a new cavalry unit called Sloven Knights. I'm guessing it's just the three. would look cool as guards for my Harbinger of Decay... 

Pestigors are back. They were a thing back in Warhammer Fantasy and are now finally just getting models for Age of Sigmar... I think... they look fun. 

Another new unit called Rotswords... I'm guessing these will cheaper (in terms of points) and more numerous than Putrid Blightkings..?  A lighter infantry alternative... but not Rotmire Creed light...? 

I'm going to guess that there will probably be a release box set that will include the new Putrid Blight Lords, Rotswords, Sloven Knights, and Pestigors along with a special edition of the Battletome and unit cards for a significantly discounted price... and I'll probably buy one of THOSE!!

I have my doubts that it will include Festus.. because I imagine he's going ot be a rather expensive model on his own... I feel like those don't get included in launch boxes. But then, Launch Boxes DO often include a hero of some kind... and I didn't see any mention of any OTHER heroes... so...? 

There is also a new Spearhead...

Spearhead: Bubonic Cell

I keep telling myself NO MORE SPEARHEADS... I have so many still to paint and I'd rather play more Narrative games and kind of move away from Spearhead... - though it IS an easy-to-set-up, quick-to-play kind of game, so I haven't completely given up on it... AND I only have ONE of the five units that is included in it... and if I were to try and buy the other four units individually they would cost me $40 MORE than just buying the Spearhead on it's own and getting a bonus copy of the unit I already have... They're such good deals... 

BUT WHEN WILL THIS ALL COME OUT?!

Is it going to totally wreck my plans of painting far more than I've purchased this year?!

To answer the second question first... I don't think so...? 

If I had to hazard a guess at when these are all going to come out, I'd say Warhammer Quest: Darkwater will probably show up in the Sunday Preorder Preview a week from tomorrow and be in stores on Saturday, 6 December 2025... 

The rest of it... ALL the new Nurgle minis and the new Path to Glory book... I'd guess that will all be in the New Year - probably January...? Maybe February... but I have a feeling it will all be in January!  

Even having bought the Shudderblight Cyst Battleforce box and Great Unclean One a few weeks back, I am still "in the black" in most categories... (having painted more than I've purchased!) I am planning to pick up the Outcast Spitegrove Sylvaneth Battleforce box in a few weeks, which will add two larger beasties and twenty-five foot - but they are SUPER easy and quick to paint, so I feel like I'm not going to have any trouble getting those painted up before the end of the year and staying ahead of myself! Which will still leave me 10 ahead (assuming I DON'T get any of the Nurgle or Helsmith stuff done in the next THREE WEEKS before I pick up the Battleforce Box!) 

(there HAS been some disruption in the painting this past week and there will probably be continued disruption over the next week and we have very suddenly decided to swap contents of some rooms around, including the room where my painting station currently resides... and there hasn't been a 100% for sure decision made about where that is ultimately going to end up!?) 

There are FOURTY-NINE models in Warhammer Quest: Darkwater... but some of those are terribly small (treasure tokens) and/or easy to paint minions... I feel like I can knock those all out pretty quickly as well - Should have most of the month of December to do that! - and I'll be highly motivated to do so!!

If there is a Launch box with four or five units and a battletome at a significant discount I'll for sure pick that up... If there isn't...? The new units (along with the new Spearhead) can all wait! I don't NEED any more Nurgle stuff. Once I've finished painting everything I own, I'll have over 2250 points! Everything I acquire from this point on, are just "extra options" and/or "for funsies" because I like the models! 

(I've also been eyeing up some WW2 infantry units that I have - they are also very quick and easy to paint up... if I need to get the numbers up by the end of the year!!)

I think they only things I'm going to be behind on are Vehicles/Monsters and maybe the Endless Spells... largely because I bought far too many tanks in the first quarter - expecially that order of TEN 3-D printed tanks. If I hadn't picked those up, I might have stayed ahead (not saying I regret that decision... because they were a crazy good deal and I WILL get them done at some point and then I'll be able to have some really fun big tank battles in the desert!!)