Reviewed by Marc Farrimond

The Imperial Fists have long been one of the most talked about Chapters in the 11 year history of Warhammer 40,000 and have even made it into print in the past in the form of the excellent Space Marines novel by Ian Watson. Its taken a long time for Games Workshop to come up with anything for the Fists but now just as the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 looms towards us like a charging rhino, we get the latest in the limited edition boxed sets. The first of these limited sets was released earlier this year in the form of the Praetorian XXIV Imperial Guard (as seen at last years Games Day!). The Fists boxed set gives the player a ready made 1500pt army all ready to paint and use. None of the miniatures in the set are new as such but are old miniatures that have been re-designed by some of the new sculptors on the design team (including artist supreme Mike McVey.) and the addition of extra shoulder pads and icons for the bikes makes them unique.

So what do you get for your money? Well the box contains, a complete Tactical squad, a Terminator squad and a Bike squadron. Throw in a Captain, Chaplain and an Epistolary and there you have your 1500 point force. When you add up all the individual prices of the box, it works out that your saving yourself over £15 pounds ( or getting the characters for free in effect) as well as getting the all new extra bits. The box also contains a sample 1500 point army list written by Gav Thorpe, which details just how these Supremacy Forces are used in battle and also gives the army profile. I have to admit to being a little disappointed at not having a more detailed view of the Imperial Fists, still there is always 3^rd Edition in a few weeks time!

There really isn't much that I can say about the miniatures as most of them have been covered in the past on Gamers Web and aren’t new, but the new pads are great. The box contains 8 shoulder pads for the Tactical Squad, and 5 metal arms for the Terminators, a metal banner pole for the Terminator Sgt and some small discs with the Fist icon emblazoned on them for the bikes, all this plus metal chain fists and Imperial Codexes and that's your lot.

I was expecting a few sheets of waterslide decals, but the box only contains one small sheet that is enough for the five Marines that don't have the shoulder icons, and the back banners are basically nothing more than the already available Marine banners, with an Imperial Fist icon instead of the Ultramarine emblem. But even with the lack of new material I found the set great value for money.

Painting the Imperial Fists is something of a challenge as the main colour scheme is yellow which is notorious for being hard to paint. I found that painting the base coat with an airbrush was the easiest way to get around this, and then just highlighting and shading afterwards. Although the set is meant to be the Imperial Fists, there is no reason at all why you cant use them as any other Chapter and the infamous Crimson Fists work so well with this set it is frightening. I got hold of two boxes for my own Space Marine army and painted on of them as the Imperial Fists and the other as the Crimson Fists. As many player of the original Rouge Trader will no doubt remember, the cover of that long lamented game featured a last stand by the Crimson Fists against an overwhelming force of Orks on the distant planet of Rynns World (also the cover of the rule book in the second edition!) and although only a chapter of the second founding and not considered by many to be a mainstream force, the Crimson Fists have built up something of a following all over the world.

I took a long look at my freshly painted squads and it was then that I decided to repaint my entire force in Crimson Fists colours. I recently spoke to Jervis Johnson at Euro Gen Con and he told me that a Crimson Fist Codex was highly likely! So that was that and I have now begun the hardius task of repainting my entire Marine force, not an easy task as I have almost a complete Chapter myself. Once my army is finished I will post pictures of it here on Gamers Web as well as my own version of the Crimson Fists history and special characters. All in all the Imperial Fists Supremacy Force is a great way to start off in the hobby and an excellent way to build up those Space Marine armies. Well worth a look, if only for the new shoulder pads.

Marc

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