I have been tempted to write something about the new Fulgrim sculpt since it was first revealed at Christmas but couldn’t quite find enough to say to make it worthy of a post. However, oddly, today’s reveal of Daemon Primarch Angron for the Horus Heresy has surprisingly helped me find what I want to say!

But before Angron, back to Fulgrim!

There were lots of reactions to the 40k Fulgrim reveal! A lot of them around how different he looks to the Horus Heresy sculpt we had already seen.

I love the Horus Heresy Fulgrim Transfigured miniature. It captures all the best elements of the sometimes contradictory artwork of the Daemon Primarch. Now of course, through the nature of chaos his form isn’t constant and we are told regularly in the Horus Heresy novels about how Fulgrim changes his form to suit his whims once he has ascended but still – when it comes to the miniature, the sculptor has the unenviable task of trying to distil all of that into one moment, one pose. In the case of Fulgrim Transfigured, I think they did an incredible job.

Now I love the Horus Heresy Daemonic Fulgrim, but, I really love the Warhammer 40k Fulgrim!

I was asked about this on Instagram and my answer then still applies now. I love that when Fulgrim first transcends mortality, his form is the corruption of something beautiful into something monstrous. The tragedy of his abandoning everything that he once valued in his pursuit of perfection is captured in the evil serpent of ancient and biblical myth spliced with the vitruvian man.

By the time we get to the Warhammer 40,000 setting and 10,000 years have elapsed (plus more and/or less on account of the warp being warpy) Fulgrim’s corruption has gone much further. His own idea of beauty has become so corrupted that the form he now takes is Fulgrim’s idea of beauty – being one with a Chaos god will warp your psyche after all! There’s the slightest hint left there of the man he used to be and that’s the real horror here. The complete surrender of everything that made Fulgrim, Fulgrim. All in the name of perfection. I love it!

I’ve mentioned before how much I love the Fabius Bile trilogy. The third book adds a couple of interesting snippets to this transformation based on the reflections of those in the IIIrd Legion on their Primarch. This is a spoiler warning! Stop scrolling if you don’y want to get any hints about what happens in these! (not much of a spoiler really, but I’d rather want to warn you all the same!)

Scroll down to continue.

On how Fulgrim has changed – Narvo Quin and Savona:
“He was… much changed… The less time he spent amongst us the less of him there was. Instead there was something else. Something .. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“He is one with the Dark Prince. His thoughts are Slaanesh’s thoughts. His deeds Slaanesh’s deeds. He is a sliver of a god, wearing a man’s face.”

Father and Son:
‘Fulgrim hesitated. For a moment, his monstrousness receded, and Fabius saw a glimmer of the man he had been.’

Wonder if Josh Reynolds had seen the new mini?:
‘Fulgrim’s smile was wider than his face.’

I’m properly excited to get my hands on the new Fulgrim in all his monstrous glory!

Soooo… I can justify the changes in Fulgrim and so too could Games Workshop. But there’s an elephant in the room with us and its name is Angron…

Games Workshop could pull off the Fulgrim sculpts looking so different with the Chronology of both their releases and what we’ve seen of the character in the background lore and artwork in both settings. The issue is, Angron has already been pictured looking uncannily like his 40k sculpt in the Horus Heresy setting. We’ve been told he had the Black Blade before the Siege of Terra. So where has this new one come from? Where does he fit in? Is this from Angron’s experimental era where he decided to try a form somewhere between his new existence and his old? Now again, with Fulgrim it feels totally acceptable that he’d do something like this. Angron has become a shard of the God of Bloodthirsty Rage, it doesn’t quite feel like he’d be dabbling with new looks here and there.

That’s not to take anything away from the sculpt, it is a lovely mini but where the strange disconnect between the settings and studios felt explainable with the Fulgrim mini it really just doesn’t feel right here with Angron. Which makes me wonder if they just got lucky with Fulgrim…

The rumour we keep hearing is that they want to differentiate their settings and separate out the sales for each of them. Which makes sense in some ways, although feels like it ignores one of the fundamental truths of wargamers – if there’s alternative minis we’ll grab them to make our army feel unique and/or to kitbash something new! They must realise that half of the Underworlds warbands they sell aren’t to players of that game but Age of Sigmar fans who love the characterful sculpts that go with these little warbands. They must realise that Horus Heresy fans don’t love the humble Rhino as much as the sales might suggest and that when 40k Rhinos were completely out of stock everywhere we all decided to experiment with those lovely round hatches! They should have just made a new World Eaters unit and bundled it up with plastic Angron as a Horus Heresy set and let World Eaters players use the Angron they’re going to want. The actual Horus Heresy sculpt is lovely, but as with Fulgrim, resin wings like that are scary to game with!