Warhammer 40K 11th Edition has finally broken cover and is charging straight for us ahead of a June release date, chainsword raised.
Following months of speculation, the Warhammer AdeptiCon 2026 livestream has given us our first look at the revitalized wargame – and it launches with a massive box set called "Armageddon," featuring Blood Angels Space Marines vs. Orks. In terms of how it plays, Warhammer 40K 11th Edition features tweaked rules based on streamlining and community feedback rather than a dramatic overhaul. Chief amongst these is the fact that existing army books (AKA Codexes) will still be valid in this new version of the game until a new, overhauled one eventually turns up.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. As a case in point, the dreaded circular objective markers are dead – they're being replaced by actual terrain pieces like a bunker, relic, or shrine. (When this news was revealed live at AdeptiCon, the crowd roared with approval.) Similarly, 70 new detachments are roaring straight into battle. The type of match you play will be based on your chosen detachment, which remind me of systems seen in some of the best board games. This ties into an effort for Warhammer 40K 11th Edition to provide a more "unified experience" with a rich, immersive narrative regardless of how you play, or the size of your game.
We won't be able to pre-order Warhammer 40K Armageddon for a little while yet, but when it does go up for grabs, I'd keep an eye on Miniature Market in the US and Wayland Games in the UK. While you can obviously pick the box up from Games Workshop itself, those indie retailers typically provide a 10-20% discount on all Warhammer products. That makes them my go-to when grabbing new miniatures.
And oh boy, but there's more. There's no more Stratagem stacking, combat has been "cleaned up" with changes to the likes of disembarking (you can now get stuck into combat right away, albeit with battleshock), and units stay hidden at the start of a match. There's even a faster system for assigning wounds, so you shouldn't have to deal with as much standing around before getting to the good stuff. When combined with more flexibility for who you pick while charging, melee is about to become more satisfying.
As for the Armageddon box itself, this is going to please both greenskin and Marine fans alike. For starters, a long-awaited revision of the Ork Boyz set is included, a new Intercessor kit is on the way (which does a better job of letting you represent different armor-types, justified in-lore as Primaris Marines needing to make scrappy battlefield upgrades) and a much-needed reboot of what seems to be jump pack-wielding Vanguard Veterans. Speaking of jump packs, these Marines appear to be led by a holier-than-thou Chaplain who can take to the skies as well.
Even though models haven't been shown off for anything other than a new Intercessor and Ork Boy, it's safe to assume that most fighters from the trailer (which you can see here) will find their way into the Armageddon box. That's certainly been the case for the last few editions, so I don't see why it wouldn't be true now.
This box set will drop in June alongside Warhammer 40K 11th Edition itself. A host of standard starter sets will presumably follow afterward, but if the past is any indication, these won't include certain miniatures from Armageddon. If you want 'em, you'll need to grab Armageddon before it sells out. What those miniatures will be remains to be seen, of course, so we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for more info when it breaks cover over the next couple of months.
As for further details on the Armageddon box set and what it contains, this will apparently be shown off in a live unboxing in the not-so-distant future. As soon as we know more, I'll shout about it here. In the meantime, don't miss our guide to everything we know about 11th Edition so far.
- See all Warhammer 40,000 deals at Amazon
For more tabletop goodness, don't miss the best tabletop RPGs or the best card games.
