Hail and well-met, fellow Crusaders, it is once again time for us to look at what's new in the world of Eternal Crusade. Lots of things to talk about this week, good news for Ork players, the revelation of the winner of the Eldar fifth sub- faction vote, and some changes to the Founder's Program and the store, so let's dive right in.
On last Friday's Eternal Crusade twitch show, the Behaviour developer team revealed the winner of the Founder's vote for the fifth Eldar sub-faction. In case you missed it, the devs gave the Founders the chance to choose from three new Craftworlds, Mymeara, Yme-Loc, and the eventual winner, Altansar. Those who were following the vote closely predicted this a few weeks ago, as Altansar got off to a very solid start, and the other two factions never really closed the gap.
Altansar, if you recall, is the Craftworld that was trapped in the Warp for ten thousand years, and was only recently “rescued” from the Warp, by the Dark Reaper Phoenix Lord, Maugen Ra. Now, the inhabitants of Altansar speak only in whispers, and they never remove their helmets in public. All-in-all I think Altansar has a ton of story potential, and will really fit in well with the fiction surrounding Eternal Crusade. Plus, Maugen Ra could turn up now, and that, in itself, is really cool.
Also revealed on Friday's twitch was a bunch of news about the Orks, which must have come as both a relief and a glimpse of a greener future for fans of the 40K hooligans, as not a lot of Ork-y news has been forthcoming until now.
First up, the leader of the Ork faction was identified as Skarblitz Dur Dreg Fangrippa, a new character created by Behaviour's Ivan Mulkeen, specifically for Eternal Crusade. Skarblitz is a Bad Moon, and if you look closely at the picture, you can see that his power klaw is actually torn off what look's to be a Space Wolf Dreadnought. In fact, Skarblitz seems to have issues with the Space Wolves in general, as much of his outfits accouterments appear to have been previously owned by members of the Space Wolf chapter.
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As a loyal Space Wolf myself, this gets my blood up a bit, in anticipation of the many avenging acts I must now undertake to recover the honor and pride of my Chapter. That is one fine looking Ork WarBoss, I have to admit, I wonder if Games Workshop might sculpt that model someday (hint, hint)? There's not a lot of information available for Skarblitz just yet, but there are some short stories by Graham McNeill that are coming in the near future that should flesh that out a good bit.
Next up, we have the Founder's vote for the fifth Ork faction, and this one is going to be a no-brainer I am afraid. The two options that have been given are the Blood Axes (WINNERS!) and the Snakebites.
The Blood Axes were the first Orks to encounter the Imperioum, and as a result they have “picked up”, almost literally, a lot of Imperial culture and ideology. The Blood Axes use tactics they learned from watching Imperial troops, they will retreat if things aren't going their way. They occasionally trade with other races, rather than throw down with them every time they meet them. These traits have marked them out from their fellow Orks as being rather un-orky, and the other clans don't trust them very much.
The Snakebites are like the rednecks of the Ork clans, they still cling to the old ways, they wear leather armor and paint themselves like the savage Ork tribes of old. While I would go so far as to call them feral, they are pretty backward, and prefer the tried and true technologies to the newfangled more “flash” ones.
I don't think this vote will be close at all, the Blood Axes look awesome, they wear cast-off Imperial gear with camo patterns and the whole nine yards. The Snakebites are primitive and use bone weapons still. This vote starts on the 15th of April, and I predict a more than two to one landslide victory for the Blood Axes.
Finally, we come to the Founders changes, and these are not unexpected. The Dawn of the Imperium, Xenos and Pioneer packs are going away. The Dawn of the Imperium and the Xenos packs were never intended to be around forever, they were a sort of enticement for those of us that want MAXIMUM value for a serious investment, and their time has come. The Pioneer pack, it turns out, has not been as popular as was once hoped, so that one is going away as well.
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Also, the Founder gifts, the pistol and combat knife that was given to each Founder as a sort of “thank you”, are also going away. These also were meant to be limited items, and probably should have been removed a few months ago, being a sort of reward for the earliest backers. Well, finally they are gone as well, purportedly to make room for even more really cool items that we will all have to collect for our little Space Mans.
And so this week’s articles comes to a close. As always, I want to direct you guys to the official Behaviour Eternal Crusade website, particularly the forums. They are very active, and there are all sorts of discussions going on there every day where you can learn up-to-the-moment news about the development of Eternal Crusade, and even get to voice your opinions on the direction the game is moving, and make the occasional suggestion.
