Combat Patrol issue 54 adds final Hearthkyn sprue and paint guide

Combat Patrol issue 54 is the point where the Hearthkyn Warriors stop feeling like a stalled project and start looking like a finished unit. The magazine delivers the third and final sprue for the kit, then backs it up with a paint guide that shows a believable way to get the Kin onto the table, not just boxed-art polish. At £9.99 for 24 pages, it has real utility for anyone building Leagues of Votann rather than just collecting the magazine for the lore.

The biggest hobby gain is obvious: this issue completes the Hearthkyn Warriors frame by frame. Hachette’s product page says issue 54 is the final frame of the unit, and that matters because the extra plastic brings the remaining heads, wargear options, and the parts needed to finish the squad cleanly. If you already own the earlier instalments, this is the issue that turns a partial build into a full unit without hunting for missing components or improvising with kitbashes.

The paint section is the other reason to pay attention. Instead of treating the Kin as a generic parade of box art, the magazine walks through a proper tabletop scheme starting with Averland Sunset over a black undercoat, then moving through basecoats, shaded sections, and highlights in a clear step-by-step sequence. That is the sort of instruction Combat Patrol does best: it gives you a repeatable process you can carry across an entire squad, which is far more useful than a single showpiece model when you are trying to get an army moving. The practical value here is simple enough. It cuts the guesswork, and it gives the Hearthkyn a finish that looks coherent on the board.

Issue 54 also folds in more than just sprues and paint recipes. It adds a new scenario against a horde of rampaging Orks, new battles for the narrative campaign, and background material on the Leagues of Votann and their technology. That lore fits the faction cleanly: Warhammer Community describes the Leagues as autonomous kindreds in the galaxy’s core, guided by ancient Ancestor Cores called Votann, with the Kin framed as a clone race of manufactured biological specialists. Taken together with the wider Combat Patrol setup, a 90-issue subscription built around nine complete Combat Patrols, issue 54 feels less like filler and more like a checkpoint. For Hearthkyn collectors, it is the moment the box finally closes.