Warhammer 40,000 pre-orders bring Ciaphas Cain minis and new Guard vehicles

Games Workshop turned its June 27 Warhammer 40,000 pre-orders into an army-building shopping list, with four battleforces, new Astra Militarum vehicles, and Ciaphas Cain and Ferik Jurgen all going up together. If you are choosing where to spend first, the battleforces are the real value play, while Cain and the vehicles are the sharper add-ons for players already in the Guard ecosystem.

The Astra Militarum Platoon is the cleanest launch-window pickup for anyone starting or expanding an Imperial army. It packs a Commissar, a Cadian Command Squad, 10 Cadian Shock Troops, a Field Ordnance Battery, a Basilisk, and a Rogal Dorn battle tank, which gives you a usable core plus heavy support in one box. Warhammer Community framed these battleforces as a “new edition, new army” project, and that pitch holds up here: you are buying a foundation, not a pile of random sprues.

The other three boxes lean into the same logic with different armies. The Necron Host brings a Catacomb Command Barge, 20 Necron Warriors, five Flayed Ones, three Ophydian Destroyers with a Plasmacyte, a Canoptek Doomstalker, and six Scarab Swarms. The Chaos Space Marines Warband includes a Lord Discordant, 10 Legionaries, 20 Chaos Cultists, a Venomcrawler, and two Obliterators, with the Legionaries and Cultists able to be split into smaller squads for list building. The Tyranid Swarm goes wide rather than tall, with a Hive Tyrant, a Lictor, three Tyranid Warriors, three Von Ryan’s Leapers, 10 Hormagaunts, 10 Termagants, and two Ripper Swarms, and the Hive Tyrant can also be built as a Swarmlord or a winged Hive Tyrant.

For Guard players who do not want another full box, the standout character release is Ciaphas Cain and Ferik Jurgen. The pair can be built on one base or two, which makes the kit feel more like a small diorama than a standard character release, and Cain’s rules will be added to the Astra Militarum Faction Pack on the Warhammer 40,000 downloads page soon. Sandy Mitchell said he had been writing Cain for around a quarter of a century, and that long run matters, because the character’s stories started with Fight or Flight in 2002 and For The Emperor in 2003.

The same wave also adds the Hippogriff AFV and Centaur RSV, both first previewed on April 16. The Hippogriff can mount a vigilator cannon, chiron gatling cannon, melta cannon, or heavy lascannon, while the Centaur is pitched as transport for squads or heavy weapons teams. Commissar Graves already rides a modified Centaur called Vigilance, so these are not throwaway side releases, they are practical Guard support pieces that fit the army as it exists now. The catch is the same one that hangs over the battleforces: the Cain kit is available while stocks last and may come back later, which makes the launch window the moment to move if one of these boxes is already on your wish list.