Well the new Chaos Codex is here (it rules), but that means that there isn't much point in having the rumours here. lol. So instead there is some infomation and pictures of the new plastic Cadians, which sound amazing. I got the rumours from Leeman Russ over at the Maelstrom Crew (who got them from Jack on Dakka Dakka, who talked to Brian Nelson, who sculpted them). The pictures are from sheep again over at the Maelstrom Crew, who again swiped them from Dakka Dakka (originally posted by MtHackenslash). Well here you go...

A quickie for those lazy people out there:
Brian wasn’t very sure of what was going into each box
But there will be:
- 5 troopers to one sprue
- One box will have 4 sprues, so basically a box of 20
- All the heavy weapons will be plastic and they all will be in one box (a very big surprise for me) the heavy weapons would also be a bit more dynamic like SL
- The only plastic special weapons are flamers and grenade launchers, the meltagun and plasmagun will be in metal
- They will be a few metal blisters as well, Brian said that there might be some officers, but told me not to quote him on this
- There will be a new vehicle sprue

What was there:
There were two 3-ups of a cadian, with another 3-up which split up into the various components
The photos that Brian brang along include
- Sergeant
- 2 Troopers
- Com-Link trooper
- Flamer Trooper
- Grenade Launcher Trooper

A new look:
When I meet Brian Nelson the sculpting god, I was shaking and squeaking like a school girl. When I saw the 3-up cadians on the table I didn’t really know what to say. When I started talking to Brian (who really is a great guy) he best described the cadians as “well a mate of mine picked them up and straight away he said it was a cadian, but when he picked up an original cadian, he said it is and it isnt”.

A long time ago…
Well first off, the cadians are done, Brian worked on them from january to late august. I asked Brian why there was a new look and he said that they wanted a more modern and near futuristic guard. From my opinion, they have moved away from the WWII theme and the overall look does not draw anything distinct from existing armies (tallarn, valhallans). They look a bit more hi-tech, like that futurist hi-tech soldier bust from another company (I can’t remember what company and I can’t find it).

The faceless grunt:
The faces are quite nice actually, there is the serg’s head screaming orders, the others in various emotions and actions. These faces have a lot of personality. Most of the heads come with helmets, but some, like the serg’s has short hair. Brian said that the heads were supposed to be interchangeable with the other kits, he said he tested them with the catachans and mordhiem kits (he said they look really good as old vets).

Headgear:
The helmet is kind of strange when I saw it. Brian said he kept the 3 part design of the helmet, the two bulges on the sides and a bigger pack at the back. But these helmets look very different, the sides and back is stretched down to the bottom of the cheek, as if Shogun like in appearance. They kind of have a roman legionnaire feel to them. To me they look like the WWI german stormtroopers (like in the Osprey books, the one about the flak jackets). They DO NOT look like WWII helmets, okay?
About those original 3 packs on the helmet, Brian said it was an idea from a friend that the helmets were meant to contain microphones and radios for each man in the squad, so they are kinda bumped up in the tech industry. Another thing that was kept was the imperial eagle on the helmet, it looked kind of big to me.
A thing about the kit, as mentioned above, one head comes without a helmet and there will be empty helmets, so you could hang them onto belts or on tanks.
PS. The helmets even have chin straps.

See my vest…
Now to the armour. The armour plate dosen’t look like the old extra apron look. It is a one piece no nonsense piece of body armour. It even has bits extruding on the chest, think batman’s suit but more square (for the nice DC comics chest). On the back it has a little notch hanging out, kinda like the tau fire warriors back, but more simple. Lastly, when I was mucking around with the 3-up, the head had only a few positions of rotation, it also depends on the configuration of the feet and stance, but Brian pointed out that the shirt has a high collar, so there is some limitation.
Note: Most of the parts are all flat surfaces, so each part lines up neatly, Brian said they had to do this because of the moulding process, so the cut where the arms are supposed to be glued on are very straight.

My shoulder pad, or what squad I am in…
The shoulder pad is not like the old, bent piece of rectangular metal. It looks pretty much like the one on the space marine scout, it is round and small, it is also moulded onto the arm. A reason for the change was that it was too difficult to do the same armour shoulder plate in the plastic process as it warps. (Brian really, really loves to talk about the moulding process, I normally couldn’t get him to stop). Because of this problem the shoulder pads had to change.

George Kastanza has beautiful hands…
The arms are like the old design, but the sleeves come right up to the wrists. The hands have a lot of detail, like of the fingers and the knuckles, much better than the catachans. From the 3-up, the lasgun was already on the arm, and the left fingers were also already attached. Brian said he designed them so they fit well but with a small amount of freedom.

Never leave home without your las rifle…
I noticed Brian never said lasgun, he always said las rifle (political reason?). Btu the las rifle looks much more stock like. It is thicker than the mainstream one I think. It also has a very simple imperial eagle on it, kinda like the marines are higher up and get better designs of the weapons, but since the las rifle is like the AK-47 of many armies, it is kept simple, cheap and easy to produce. Much like the simple flak jacket.
A very, very interesting little detail is that the las rifle has a mount under the barrel for a bayonet, it has the little extruding bit that goes into the hilt of the bayonet!!!!!

My legs, my legs are so sexy…
The legs come in a few poses, like running and the usual stand back and shoot. The boots have changed too, they are mid cut, and have a big cover at the front, with the straps on the side.

That annoying Dragon 1/6th guy, “look at all my beautiful equipment...”
The basic pack is bayonet, water bottle and one cartridge of power cell for the las rifle. The bayonet is long and rectangular, and even has a strap on the sheath, just in case it falls out. There are even empty bayonet sheaths too. The water bottle looks a bit different but is more or less the same. Now to the ammo pouch, it covers half of the cartridge, and you can see some of it (very nice touch). The mentioned three things come in a mixed combo, so the order is swapped around for a little variety. There are also grenades, which come in two’s, they even have a safety pin and a striker lever.

The photos:
I asked Brian very nicely if I could take photos, I was about to bolt down to the nearest 7-11 to get a camera, but he very kindly turned me down, and I said I was cool with that. ARE YOU?

Serg
At first glance the serg really, really looks like a scout. He had a chain sword in he’s left hand and a laspistol in he’s right hand. In that photo, he really looked like one of those metal running scouts. Now a very, very cool feature is that he’s laspistol is entirely new. It looks like a bolt pistol because it has the magazine in front of the handle, which is straight down, but the receiver is at an angle.
Now remember how I said that the serg was helmet-less, well he even has a mouth piece and a little antenna next to he’s ears. Very neat.

Troopers:
One point: in the normal scale, Brian did a trooper standing upright, and he had a sleeping bag/poncho on he’s back, I don’t know if that would make the final cut.
Trooper one was very generic, it had a bayonet on the las rifle. He also had he’s helmet chin strap off.
Trooper two was throwing a hand grenade in he’s right hand, something very cool was that even the safety pin was gone!!!!!!

Com-link trooper
This guy was kinda weird when I saw him, you’d feel sorry for how much crap he has to bring along. He has a very big pack, twice the size of the catachan one. He had all these gadgets on the pack, he had a big speaker (Brian said so that the colonel could give out orders), a simple rotating radar dish (Brian copied *well he kinda coughed* the idea from the rotating radar dish from the SM vehicles). The radar dish is just a small ring at a small angle. There is also a big antenna on top of he’s helmet. The com-link trooper also has a lot of head gear and devices on he’s ear and a microphone near he’s mouth.

Special Weapons or OMG!
Flamer
At first glance, you would say heavy flamer, it looks huge, Brian said he wanted to make it different to the marine’s version and that it would be very heavy for a trooper. But it really looks like a heavy flamer, which BTW Brian said he stripped it down and made it shorter. Brian also mentioned a few times when he asked people about flamers, everyone said fuel tanks. So the poor bloke now carries two fuel tanks (with two bone crosses and a skull on it, meaning danger), and it has one hose connecting up to it. The trooper also has a strap on he’s shoulder to hold it up, representing how bloody heavy it is.

Grenade Launcher
Again there is the very heavy look, there is a strap on the soldier’s shoulder too. The grenade launcher looks pretty much like the SL one but a bit bigger. It even had a horizontal handle for the left hand. Another very interesting touch is that it has a grenade pouch, which is a round disc inside a fabric casing hanging from the belt of the trooper. Looks very much like the Russian PPsch sub-machinegun.

Jerry’s Final Thoughts…
After writing all of this, I know it’s a bit rough but I wanted to post it up as soon as possible. I’m just so tired now. At first the Cadians did look a little weird, which was mostly due to the helmet, the other parts were very good though. If anyone copies this and posts it on another site, just acknowledge it came from dakka dakka, still the best sourse for news and rumours. And what better way to finish off is what AMA once said, and I quote “Save those pennies.”

Miscellaneous stuff
- Brian Nelson was not in charge of the imagery for the lizardmen, he was only involved at the beginning for the design process, but it was very brief.

- I saw the saurus (hand weapon and shield) but he kinda looked tall and skinny, the metal temple guard is just a bigger version of the saurus’, the version that was there was holding a spear and a shield, it even had a little dagger under its armpit behind the shield. The saurus also has a little piece of armour hanging from its chest, kinda like a little copper plate with a lizard face on it.

- There are no immediate plans for the orcs, but he would really like to do more stuff. He even gave a little story that when he joined GW, no one was sculpting orcs so they let him do it. He’s first fig was very bad but the second was much better.

- Dave Gallagher was also a very nice bloke. He works at home now. I asked a question for Gonads was that “do all the GW employees lick their paint brushes, and is that why they lose their hair?’ and Dave started pointing at he’s head. Another question was “what do the Nottingham taxi drivers call the GW headquarters? “ and the answer is, the Reichstag of course!