Games Workshop has revealed two revamped unit kits for Warhammer: The Old World, unruly bands of Chaos Marauders and stampeding Marauder Horsemen. Natives of the icy land of Norsca and the even more northerly Chaos wastes, these redesigned kits have one major difference from the ones that they’re replacing – they’re dressed for cold weather, not a body-building contest.
The outgoing Chaos marauder kits were over twenty years old, and despite the narrative that they were northern raiders, all the minis were dressed in loin cloths and leather harnesses like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first Conan: The Barbarian movie. The updated Marauders have more in common with the wildlings and hill tribes of Game of Thrones, with warriors clad in layered furs and ragged cloaks.
The models will first be available in the Chaos Marauders Army Reinforcement Set, which GW revealed on the Warhammer Community website on Monday. This will contain 40 Marauders and 10 Marauder horsemen, with enough command models to build up to six separate units. There’s no word on when the set will be available or what it will cost, but comparable battalion box sets retail for $195 / £115.
Chaos Marauders are the cheap horde infantry and light cavalry of the otherwise elite Warriors of Chaos Warhammer: The Old World faction. If you want to make these scruffy hooligans the focus of an army, you could use the Sea Wolves Army of Infamy from the Chaos Warriors Arcan Journal, which which is heavy on Marauders and adds unique units like Skin Wolves or the Gargantuan Chaos Spawn.
Games Workshop has also revealed the new Arcane Journal: The Razing of Westerland, which goes in depth on the Marauders. This adds “new rules for the four Cults of Chaos, Chaotic Traits, a Lore of the Shadowlands, plus new Artefacts of the Shadowlands”, plus rules to incorporate the Marauders in the Path to Glory campaign added in Arcane Journal: The War of Settra’s Fury.
Even if these miniatures don’t float your longship, they’re still noteworthy. When GW started re-releasing twenty year old kits for The Old World there was some scepticism about how much it was willing to invest in the game, especially when better equivalent kits existed for Age of Sigmar. The new Chaos Marauders are the first total redesign of an old Warhammer Fantasy kit exclusively for The Old World. We can only commiserate with anyone who bought the older kits before the new ones were announced.
Are you considering adding these to your Chaos Warriors army? What about using them to bulk up an Age of Sigmar collection? Or do you remember when there was no such thing as a Marauder, just Chaos Thugs? We’d love to chat in the official Wargamer Discord community.