Warhammer Conquest – PartworkReview by Jonathan Aird

've been somewhat surprised at just how little I've seen about this fairly new partwork from Hachette which allows the reader to build up, bit by bit, a pair of armies -- Space Marines and Chaos -- for the Warhammer 40k universe. Maybe it's been big on Games

Workshop forums, but I don't really follow any of those. Warhammer Conquest is a weekly partwork consisting of a magazine, one or more Warhammer 40K figures and some other accessories -- which retails at £7.99. This means that some weeks it is a real bargain. For example, one issue contained a scenery sprue for an Imperial Transport Pod and various barrels and bits and bobs. This usually sells as three such sprues for £30, so the issue that featured the single sprue was offering a nice 20% discount. There’s a bit of reading matter thrown in with the magazine giving new scenarios, painting tips and a drip-feed of the

WH40K rules. The launch issue was, naturally, a real tempter -- three Spacemarine figures, three paints and a paint brush all for the princely sum of £1.99 (in the shops -- it's the full price of £7.99 for online purchase).

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Issue 2 was almost as good, with some Chaos figures, a bunch of dice and some more paint, this time for £4.99 (again only in the shops). There was also a small cardboard playing area included -- described slightly grandly as a Battle Mat … well, ok, I suppose it sort of is -- which is bound to be useful for other games as well.

Looking through the Online store (here: https://hachettepartworks.com/warhammer-40000-conquest ) there are several Sold Out issues, and not too surprisingly these tend to be the issues where a £15 large figure was included with the magazine -- which meant it was being sold at virtually half price! Some issues seem rather less tempting -- apparently there have been a couple which have just included paints, enough to still make the cover price worthwhile but perhaps not so attractive to anyone who already has a box of paints at their disposal. To be fair, the partwork has been quite clever when it comes to paints and painting -- at each release the figures can be completed to a basic standard with the paints so far supplied, and as new paints come along there are short "how to" articles on using these new colours to improve on these basic paint jobs. That's quite a clever way to keep the novice gamer up to a steady painting rate -- at most a few figures per week is probably not too many to manage especially when fired up with enthusiasm for a new hobby!

Warhammer Conquest is certainly a part work that I'll continue to keep an eye out for -- and when the figures and/or discount are tempting then I'll continue to pick it up. Additional SF scenery is always useful, so that's what I'm hoping for in particular.