Imperium is a weekly hobby magazine from Hachette Partworks. In this 90-week series, our intrepid magazine-receiver will be reviewing each individual issue, its included models, and gaming materials. A Premium subscription was provided to Goonhammer for review purposes. 

This week is our last issue about the Redemptor Dreadnought. I generally give mine names like “Brother Thiccums” or “Gunk Chunkems” or, should I ever get a Brutalis Dreadnought, “Bunk Punchems.” Unsurprisingly, I’ve been diagnosed with at least one Brain Problem.

The Magazine

We open with a pair of profiles on Space Wolves heroes – Arjac Rockfist and Harald Deathwolf. Arjac was a blacksmith, but now he’s Thor. He has a teleporting hammer called Foehammer, which is another name for Glamdring from Tolkien’s work. It’s all a tapestry and everything is a remix. Harald Deathwolf leads The Deathwolves; packs of Fenrisian wolves and Marines on Thunderwolves who wolf wolf wolves lupine wolf wolves wolfery canid wulf wolfgang. Wolf.

Following this wolf word salad is an article on Tyranid weapons. These are gross. They’ve got guns made of rotting meat that shoot maggots, launch tubes for giant fleas, living weapons that excrete poison spines, and then some more conventional stabby bits. It’s all very Creepy Crawlers and would delight any 12 year old while disgusting their siblings and parents.

It’s been a few weeks since the last installment, but we’re at what is probably the conclusion to the Obolis and Lirac story. When we were last on Forgeworld Metalica, Typhus had infected the Fabricator General of Metalica with the Nemesis Wurm, a very literal computer virus. The virus has gone to work, absolutely ruining the planet, infecting the people and machinery, and rendering House Raven’s home world of Kolossi uninhabitable. Typhus has since peaced out, and Metalica is doomed to a slow death at the hands of this inescapable virus. I disagree; I thought Hardwired… to Self-Destruct was a pretty good album, but I’ll admit it’s no Ride the Lightning.

We get more fiction this week with Eternal Duty (emphasis theirs), a short story about a Marine getting interned in a Dreadnought. Any time these stories branch away from bolter porn I’m a happy ‘ham, and this week is one of the best in Imperium‘s run. The story begins with an Ultramarine fighting the forces of the Black Legion, fighting hard but ultimately succumbing to his injuries. What follows are two pages of body horror and religious ceremony as the character is interred in a Dreadnought – all in first person. Accompanying this is some banger old Jes Goodwin art, and a final page where the Marine returns to the battlefield in his machine tomb. This story rules.

Lastly we get a short piece on Holy Terra and a Genestealer Cult uprising that took place there. This was all the Shadow Throne stuff from 2021, where a gaggle of hopelessly outclassed Genestealer Cultists got stomped by the Adeptus Custodes. Trajann Valoris, the best of the best of the best (potentially, of the best) put down the uprising, as he is tasked with defending the Sol System itself. All this is accompanied with a little map of the palace on Terra, which is at least the size of one continent. The basement’s North Africa.

The Hobby Materials

We have a paint guide for our Redemptor this week, closing out hobby coverage on our extremely thicc friend. The advice is largely good and the tutorial is well photographed, with helpful and specific tips to paint each detail. I disagree with a few aspects, however. Their approach is to paint the body and arms as one subassembly, and the legs as another. Personally, I’d rather have the body attached to the legs and paint the arms as separate pieces, as they get in the way more. Second, they want to paint the model blue and wash the whole dang thing with Nuln Oil before tidying back up. That’s going to use a lot of paint, take a while to dry, and leave either some gnarly tide marks or brushstrokes from layering the paint again. I’d rather just wash the recesses and rivets and not worry about painting your whole blue robot blue twice. Lastly, their paintjob could use more contrast and an invitation to give the model more personality. This would have been a cool place to introduce transfers, or invite painters to paint a kneepad red or white – anything to break up that big expanse of blue. Even the coils of the plasma cannon are blue, when I think red, pink, or green would really liven them up. The guide will get you a pleasant looking Dreadnought, I just think it’s a rich canvas to leave so sparsely adorned.

The Gaming Materials

This week we go to an Imperial recruiting world for War on Djalla. This feral world is loyal to the Imperium and is prime ground for recruitment, and the Imperials want to keep it that way. Necron Destroyer Cults emphatically do not want this, and would rather kill every living thing on Djalla’s remaining populated continent. They’re also tasked to wipe out any trace of the Imperial faith, which is represented in this week’s mission. 5 objectives represent Imperial idols, and the Necron player must take a secondary objective where they destroy these with an Action. It would be a challenge to max this one out, but easy to score at least 9 points with it. It’s not a bad mission, and is otherwise a standard 1,2, more objective situation with diagonal deployment.

Final Verdict 88/90:

Despite my goofums about the Space Wolf stuff early on and my nipticks with the painting article, this issue is genuinely one of the best we’ve gotten. The short story about a Dreadnought internment is extremely cool, breaking the Murder Death Kill template that most stories in Imperium follow. This issue also concludes our Redemptor journey with the third sprue and base of that kit, so we can finally build the thing with last issue’s instructions. Redemptors are lovely models with rules that have been good more often than not, and buying one through Imperium saves you like 30 bucks. With just 2 more issues to go, I’m glad we’re still riding high.

See you next issue, warhams.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want weekly updates on when articles like this one go out? Subscribe to our newsletter.