Spartacus: Blood and Sand actor passes away in Australia at the age of 39.

Very sad news to report tonight, as we've learned that Andy Whitfield, the star of Spartacus: Blood and Sand has died. Whitfield was 39.

Whitfield lost his battle with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma on Sunday in Sydney, Australia. The Associated Press reports that his wife, Vashti, issued a statement which reads, "On a beautiful sunny Sydney spring morning, surrounded by his family, in the arms of his loving wife, our beautiful young warrior Andy Whitfield lost his 18 month battle with lymphoma cancer. He passed peacefully surrounded by love. Thank you to all his fans whose love and support have help carry him to this point. He will be remembered as the inspiring, courageous and gentle man, father and husband he was."

Whitfield was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma after the first season of Spartacus, initially causing a delay in production on Season 2 – during which the prequel, Gods of the Arena, was filmed. During this time, Whitfield had responded well to treatment and his cancer had gone into remission and he was expected to return for the second season, Spartacus: Vengeance, and even promoted the series at San Diego Comic-Con in 2010.

Unfortunately, shortly after Comic-Con came the word that his cancer had returned, and he was forced to drop out of the series completely. He was replaced in Spartacus: Vengeance – which is debuting in 2012 — by Liam McIntyre.

Speaking to the press about taking on the role of Spartacus this summer, McIntyre had tremendous praise for Whitfield, noting, "He's gotten in contact with me. I mean, just think, this guy had a dream gig and then he's met with this tragic circumstance and he still has the strength of character to call me and wish me good luck and give me tips on how to get through the grueling schedule."

Starz, the network behind Spartacus, released the following statement:

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our dear friend and colleague, Andy Whitfield. We were fortunate to have worked with Andy in Spartacus and came to know that the man who played a champion on-screen was also a champion in his own life. Andy was an inspiration to all of us as he faced this very personal battle with courage, strength and grace. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time. He will live on in the hearts of his family, friends and fans."

Spartacus creator/executive producer Steven DeKnight wrote on Twitter, "No words to express the depth of such a loss. You will be deeply missed, my brother."

OK, I'll start this off with a little history of my gaming time with Games Workshop products… 

I started playing games workshop games way back in the VERY early 90's, when I was a wee snapper of 12 and my parents took us to Toy's R Us and we got Hero Quest and Space Crusade (on special offer mind you, my parents were skin flints like that), then I found a gamer group in my school who played Space Marine (Epic to those nowadays) and the very first Games Workshop miniature I ever built and painted in fun Airfix paints (sorry GW) was an Imperator Titan (oh yeah boy!)

Since those long years past, I have built many armies and painted a few more for myself and for others, I am a proud Son of Leman Russ and my Space Wolves have won me a few good games in my time, but I also play a beardy World Eater Chaos army too…

So this leads me to 2010, and after many years sating my bloodlust for Space Marines in Dawn of War 1, but not as much in Dawn of War 2 (as I like building armies), we have THQ announcing Space Marine, a Gears of War style third person shooter/hack and slash and much geeky joy was had following it and how it was coming along…

So here we are, September 9th 2011 and its released…  I was at my local GAME store in Cheltenham and ready to buy it, but fuck you GAME, I am NOT paying £39.99 for it, so off for breakfast I went and waited for my other gaming store Game On to get a copy in and so they did, and for a more reasonable price too (again, screw you GAME) and skipping back home ready to install it!

Gotta love my internet connection, downloaded and installed in less than 45minutes on Steam and I was in the campaign on Normal…  God damn this is a beautiful game!  As I said, I started on Normal as I had played the demo, so I knew what I was doing and knew the controls already and damn, I AM A SPACE MARINE! 

True to THQ's press releases, this has a fantactic story, it looks exactly as you would think it does when you read a Black Library book and imagine what you are reading!  You can see models and terrain you have seen on gaming boards up and down the land and in Games Workshop stores every where and even the NPC design and models in game look exactly like they do in a hobby centre…  But that could also be one of the major criticisms against Space Marine…  there are only 6 Ork designs in the game, you see the same Ork, but a million times…  Same with the Chaos Marines in the campaign, they are all generic Black Legion and all adorned the same, even the Loyalist marines you see in game, all bar the three main characters (the one you play and the two that follow you through), all the marines are the same skin and colour scheme…  what would have been cooler would have let the game randomly generate the skins…  other games do it, why can't this?

Now, Multiplayer…  Its awesome…  if you can actually play through the lag of course, which I apparently can't…   and no, its not graphics Lag, my machine is old, but not THAT old, but even Xbox and PS3 players are complaining about it on the official forums, so yeah theres an issue there for sure!  But ignoring that, the customiser is made available to you at lvl 4 and the lvl'ing system for multiplayer makes one of the same mistakes that games like CoD and Battlefield do nowadays in Multiplayer, and lump all players at the same lvl in together, meaning newbies at lvl 1 are getting hammered by lvl 20's with all the awesome Killing Blow power ups (yes, Killing blow!  theres also Teleport Homers and other "Wargear" fromt eh 40k rulebook too, which is actually pretty cool from a fans perspective), but on the flipside, when you are killed, you get the chance to copy the loadout of the guy that killed you, so yes, you can go hunting for the guy that pwn'ed you with his own gear 😀

I love this game, I knew I would love it before I bought it and I am still enjoying it now (hell, theres a few things in it that I intend to convert for my armies for the tabletop daddy to this, like teh Chaos Space Marine lord, if Games day wasn;t in two weeks, I reckopn we'd be seeing a few conversions of him appearing at Games Day for sure!), but it has its faults, it needs polishing still and the netcode for multiplayer needs a lot of work!

Should you buy this game?  certainly!

Should you pay full price for it at GAME?  hell no!  even the elite armours are not worth £10 more than anywhere else (and more than likely they will be DLC soon anyway)

also remember, the Exterminatus (Survival) four player co-op addon is coming next month and hopefully with some great netcode fixes too…

There is also a petition on the official forums for dedicated servers, but thats happened for LOADS of games and bugger has happened, so I don't hold out much hope for themm, so you shouldn't either…

Graphics:  9/10 (even using the same models a billion times doesn;t drop this score)

Presentation: 8/10 (the collectors edition looked awesome, but not worth £80, sorry, and the normal version only has discs and a usermanual of 8 pages)

Value:  7.5/10 (the campaign is a solid 8 hours of game play, which is what I expected, the multiplayer is great, but the lag ruins it)

Overall: 8/10  (Get it, your games collection will be stronger for it!)

Adventurers will be tested like never before in 4.3 as they take on Deathwing and his minions, emerging with powerful new treasures. Please enjoy this preview of the warlock tier 13 set, as well as a visual guide to tiers 1 through 12 for Transmogrification purposes.

Warlock – Faceless Shroud

A set with the flavor of the Old Gods about it – General Vezax from the Ulduar raid was a reference point. Any warlock tier is a great opportunity to bring a dark and warped aesthetic to player gear and this set was especially ripe for the treatment.

Replacing the caster’s face with writhing tentacles was the ‘hook’ I started the concept with and built out from there. We always try to include numerous points of illumination into a tier set as it helps to tie the various armour pieces together – whether that be glowing gemstones, fiery runes or, as in this case, bulging otherworldly eyes!

Warlock Tiers 1-12

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.3, we’ll be unlocking an additional set of Alliance mounts. We recognize that when players undertake a faction change to the worgen race, there are no Gilneas faction mounts to exchange for their original faction mounts. Players who do so see their total number of mounts decrease.

With the patch, we’ll be adding Gilneas faction mounts to the stables of Azeroth. Alliance characters with exalted Gilneas reputation will now be able to claim these additional mounts to add to their own stables (and achievement numbers).

Click on the images below for a preview of what’s coming:

We hope you’ll visit the new Gilneas faction mount vendor to pick out a steed to call your own.

Adventurers will be tested like never before in 4.3 as they take on Deathwing and his minions, emerging with powerful new treasures. Please enjoy this preview of the warrior tier 13 set, as well as a visual guide to tiers 1 through 12 for Transmogrification purposes.

Warrior – Colossal Dragonplate

A simple concept – let’s make a Warrior Tier that looks like Deathwing! Gnarled dragon horn and angular elementium plating with burning fire behind it were the key ingredients.

The shoulder pads and helmets are uniquely modeled for each set, and that gives us great opportunities to create eye-catching silhouettes. In this instance, the sweeping horn shapes ensure a powerfully brutal-looking set for warriors.

Warrior Tiers 1-12