Beastmen art & wallpaper; Empire; New Hobby Centre

Unless you've been hiding in a particularly dark, dense wood for the last month or so, you'll know that this weekend the new Beastmen are launched. To keep you going until then we've added Beastmen: Art of the Warherds to the Astronomican, which takes a look at some of the seminal pieces of Beastmen artwork from over the years. It also has a wallpaper featuring the artwork from the cover of the new army book for you to download.

The forces of the Empire and the Beastmen have a long-standing enmity and the two would like nothing better than to annihilate each other once and for all. Rich Packer is the Warhammer World store manager and a fanatical Empire collector. Yesterday he invited me round to his home to look at his huge Empire collection. Rich has been busy modelling additional units of Empire soldiers in preparation for the coming war with the Beastmen. I found them and the rest of his collection sat proudly in cabinets in his lounge.

Rich has been collecting the Empire for 10 years and has three cabinets full of them. Although Rich enjoys tournaments and competitive gaming his real passion is the background and story behind an army. The leader of his Empire army is Heinrich Lowen who began life as a character Rich used in Advanced Heroquest. All of Rich's characters and units have some history behind them and he records their trials and tribulations in the form of short stories. He then uses these as inspiration when it comes to expanding the army.

This Archer is one of a unit Rich has been working on this week and typifies his approach to assembling Empire models - he tips his bitz box onto a table and then scours it for just the right components. This means that few of his models have more than a single component from any one kit and is one of the reasons his army is so unique.

Rich modelled this Battle Standard Bearer specifically for use against the Beastmen and like the rest of his models there was a story in Rich's head when he was making him. 'I wanted a standard bearer who was a hardened warrior in his own right. The horns on top of the banner are from a Minotaur he slew in a previous battle and the great weapon on his back is the sword I imagine he lopped them off with'.

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  This Dragon is still a work in progress and will be used to carry Karl Franz into battle. Rich has converted it by cutting of the front claws and replacing them with claws cut from a Great Eagle. Notice the dead Vampire model on the base.

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  This unit caught my eye because of the way Rich has assembled the front rank with their swords lowered ready to thrust, and the rear rank with theirs raised ready to cut down enemies. You often see this sort of thing with units of spear-armed warriors but rarely with other units.

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  These are just two of the 19 war machines Rich has in his collection. Notice the stack of handguns on the base of the nearest Helblaster; Rich told me 'obviously they need to have weapon nearby in case the Helblaster malfunctions'. Click on the image to see them from the front. Spot the crewman covering his ears.

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  Rich converted these Alcatani Fellowship Pikemen into halberdiers by cutting the end off the pikes and adding the plastic halberd heads from the Empire State Troops kit. Click on the image for a closer look at this unit and some of the others it shares a shelf with.