The new 10th Edition Space Marines release gave us a solid clue as to when Legions Imperialis will release and it is soon™!
Legions Imperialis was supposed to be released back in August, but obviously, that didn’t happen. We’ve heard rumors as to why, and most of them point toward printing issues with the actual rulebook. From the sounds of it Games Workshop had the whole starter set ready; it’s just the book we’re waiting on.
GW sends most of its printing to China, and if there are mistakes, it can take a long time to get everything back to them and then shipped out to customers. Luckily, GW recently reprinted the Leviathan Mission Cards index cards, due to an error, so now we have an idea of when LI will actually be released!
Big Clues To When GW Will Actually Release Legions Imperialis
Let’s start with the rumors about why LI has been delayed, then get into the time frames. The rumors come from Reddit (and have since been deleted).
It goes without saying that these are all rumors from the comment section of the post, so take them with as much salt as you need. This could make sense if you believe the book was very poorly printed, but GW left their influencers with the miniatures so they could still paint the models and get them ready to show off when the box is actually released.
I’m pretty sure that the only copies out there are the ones that were sent out to YouTube painters in advance copies of the box set. They were all supposed to be retracted because of the appalling number of errors, and a reprint is being done now. This is why the game has been delayed by several months.
Yes, I’ve heard it from several different sources now, including commission painters who post in my FB Group were sent advance copies of the game. They were allowed to keep the models etc to build & paint, but were told they had to return the rulebooks. It was kind of implied (but not outright said) that if they didn’t return them, they would not be sent any other advance stuff in the future.
However, if the book was really that bad, GW wouldn’t want any pictures taken to show the differences or have any of those books floating around in the wild. That may already be why the images were removed already.
Just that the first rumour that came out about the book was that it contained real political group/words that would create a shits storm if it came out. That was why we’re reprinting it.
It’s just rumour mill spinning madly without any real evidence.
It’s not confirmed but if it’s a print issue then it’s more likely an issue with the actual quality of the print. GW has had issues with printing for some years now, which is done in China unlike the rest of the manufacturing hence why a reprint takes so long.
This might be a much more likely idea, as the book was just not printed well overall all, and not due to errors with the rules, etc. Games Workshop does source books from China, as well as in countries like the US, UK, etc., so for reprints, perhaps they would have to receive the correctly printed books again from China or run an emergency reprint closer to their distribution hub in the UK.
That way, they would be able to get them shipped out to their warehouses worldwide in the shortest amount of time possible to perhaps still make the holiday sales season!
A Clue! 10th Edition Leviathan Mission Cards Reprinted
Up for delivery on October 7th are the reprinted mission cards from Leviathan, as there were reportedly marked cards that made it an issue to play competitively with this deck. This happened back at the end of June, with the release of 10th Edition.
This means the reprint took about three months to return to store shelves. So from that, it may be safe to assume GW started the reprint immediately once they realized the issue with the decks, as these are the only 10th Edition mission cards out there sold seperately.
From that now we have a time frame on how fast they can get a product back to market after discovering an error.
So When Will LI Come Out Then?
While we had initially hoped to release Legions Imperialis in August, the release date will now be a little later in the year. Don’t worry – you’ll be commanding a tiny legion of troops to victory very soon.
They released this statement in August when the game was supposed to be released. The first question is, how early before the release did they discover the rumored error with the rulebooks? Assuming they did about 3-4 weeks before the release, they could have easily had the books reprinted in early August.
So, if you consider the same timeframe as the Leviathan cards reprints, we could have about 3-4 months from early August until Legions Imperialis actually hits shelves.
That could put the time frame for release as soon as late October or early November. However, this is a much bigger product than the cards, which could even be pushed back to December.
That being said we all know GW likes to do a colossal release right around Black Friday, and with this being pushed back, it would probably make the most sense for this to drop now for Black Friday this year on November 24th, 2023.
So keep an eye on that date unless GW somehow surprises everyone with lightning-fast logistics and drops it even earlier than that!
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Joined: 2019
Socials: @paschbass
Bio: Dark Eldar Dracon and Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the third edition in 1998. He also loves camping because you can only paint so much! He joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been our lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his Ad Mech models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
