Oh my, Eternal Hunt is actually two years old now — and has been for a week, to tell you the truth: I just missed posting this last week, although I have to say that showing you a new model just seemed more important than celebrating myself

Seriously, though: Who would have thought that this blog would actually survive for two years? That I would manage to publish 195 posts (this one included), 94 of them during this last year? That the blog would manage to attract about 183,000 views and a sizeable crowd of followers? Not me, that much is for certain!

Not to bore you with numbers, but I am really proud of the fact that the number of views has actually tripled, compared with last year, and that attracting 10,000 views a month, something that seemed like a one-off success last year, has now become an almost regular occurence — nuts!

Indeed, I could go on all day about how awesome this blog is, of course, but I would only be tooting my own whistle and reiterate huge swathes of my look back at 2013, and you can just as well read that part yourself, if you are that way inclined.

For now, let me take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you reading my pointless ramblings week for week! Being able to post my stuff here and in my various threads and getting feedback has become and integral part of my hobby experience, and one that I wouldn’t want to miss. I am especially thankful to those of you following this blog or commenting (regularly), because it’s the discussion with fellow hobbyists that has made my hobby life what it is today and has given me many cool ideas for my various ongoing projects.

Chief among these is my beloved World Eaters army for 40k, Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, which continues to be a project that gets my creative juices flowing:

If you have looked at this blog before, you should already know these guys. And if you don’t, well, what are you waiting for: Go read up on them!

Beyond this army, there are many bigger and smaller projects, from various smaller armies (like my Traitor Guard or kitbashed Custodes) to my INQ28 models and all kinds of stuff in between, my productivity has certainly profited a lot from getting in contact with many talented hobbyists and from getting your feedback here and on my various threads. So this is certainly something I would like to continue!

At the same time, I also realise that making time for blogging can become a bit of a challenge from time to time: There are times when RL issues take over (and rightly so: this is a hobby, after all) and getting some new content up in time seems like a slog. At the end of last year, for instance, I really needed to take a break after a couple of pretty stressful months, and blogging wasn’t exactly my foremost interest.

But then the strangest thing happened: Through a number of smaller projects, I rediscovered my motivation (as well as parts of my painting modjo), and some recent developments in the hobby have also managed to pique my interest. So while I cannot promise you that there won’t be times when I take small breaks every now and then, cutting back on the number of posts when necessary, I can safely say that this blog is something that I want to keep working on!

So, to dispense with the self-referential stuff, do I have something for you to look at? You bet!

Last year, I celebrated my blog’s birthday by showing you a real blast from the past, namely my very first 40k (or rather, Space Crusade) models. This year, let’s do something slightly similar: To begin with, here’s what might be one of my very first models altogether. A partially painted HeroQuest barbarian. Behold it and weep:

Yeah, I really didn’t know what I was doing, did I? My only excuse is that I realised it even back then and stopped painting, never finishing the model. This was a stain upon my honour as a hobbyist, of course, so a while ago, I went back to finish the job: The thick coat of piggy pink was (mostly) stripped away and I gave the model a second try. Here’s the result:

Granted, the model was too thickly covered in the dregs of that dreadful pink to be completely salvaged, but I am still reasonably happy with the result. What’s more, I still have a second, completely unpainted, Barbarian, so there is still hope.

In any case, painting that old model gave me an appetite for working on even more HeroQuest models, and so I tried to speedpaint some of them, trying to finish each model in no more than an hour. So here’s an Orc I painted sometime during the mid to late 90s:

And here’s a similar model, painted fairly recently:

You all know how it goes, though: Once you get started, it’s hard to stop, so I then painted a Goblin:

I realised that these models are actually quite a lot of fun to paint, and if you’re trying to keep each paintjob below the hour mark, it’s a short and sweet romp for each model, and the results are still pretty convincing, don’t you think?

Before I knew it, I had moved on to the undead, painting a skeleton…

…a zombie…

…and a mummy in relatively short order:

The mummy was especially interesting, because the model was basecoated using GW Rakarth Flesh and then merely painted by using different washes for the bandages and skin and slight drybrushing afterwards.

Revisiting those old models has really given me a new appreciation for their design: They are almost unbelievably characterful, especially given their age and single-piece nature. And there’s that hugely nostalgic feeling, of course, related with HeroQuest being my (and many hobbyists’) entry to the hobby — I am pretty sure there’s a sizeable Totally Worth It article in there somewhere….

For now, painting these has mainly been a fun exercise, but the models are also a look at what may or may not become a full-blown project. Don’t hold your breath, but like many hobbyists, I would love to own a completely painted HeroQuest set, and seeing how I still have a mostly complete boxed set in my possession, it seems like an actual possibility. And even the missing parts didn’t end up being a problem — fellow hobbyist Alexander was actually awesome enough to send me the HeroQuest Chaos Sorcerer model (possibly the coolest model in the box, and, invariably, the first one to be lost) — yet another example of the amazing things that happen when you start blogging.

Which nicely leads us back to the beginning: Maintaining this blog as a part of my hobby life has become a very interesting and enriching experience, and I hope you’ll all stick around for the coming twelve months! As always, feel free to contribute feedback, criticism or any idea you might want to share! I would love to hear from you! On a semi-serious note, I am also accepting bitz donations, of course (doesn’t hurt to try, you know… ).

Here’s to the next year! Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

First of all, let me apologise for posting an incomplete version of this post a couple of hours ago — I didn’t pay attention and messed up. However, what better incentive to finally finish that post, right? So here goes:

I surely took my own sweet time to finally get around to talking about this kit! But while the internet was already abuzz with all kinds of unboxing videos, sprue diagrams and what have you, I did want to take it a bit slower, carefully looking at the kit and waiting for the first builds and conversions to appear. But when it comes to Imperial Knights, some pretty sweet content has begun to appear online over the last few days, so I guess the time is right!

I’ll gladly admit that my jaw pretty much hit the floor when I first saw the Imperial Knight: Once again, as they did with the Lord of Skulls, GW have taken a model from the days of Epic (or, indeed, Adeptus Titannicus) and brought it over to the 28mm scale — and what  model it is!

I have gone on record stating that the 40k universe feels really unique to me. Sure, there’s a number of possible inspirations for the setting, but no other IP mixes medieval, renaissance and futuristic elements with quite so much aplomb! The Imperial Knight is a perfect example of that in that it is clearly both a futuristic walker and a wildly eclectic, medieval looking machine. It also really does look like a knight!

The model also clearly improves on the older versions of the model, keeping hallmarks of GW’s classic titans (the spindly arms carrying comparatively huge weapons, the hunched over look with the head emerging from the chest,…) while bringing it all in line with the more recent design.

I can still remember one of the first pieces of 4ok artwork I saw while browsing through the instruction manual for Space Crusade: It was a battle scene focusing on what must have been a Knight Titan, with Space Marines scurrying antlike between its legs. I can remember my wonder at that piece of artwork, specifically at the strangely medieval banners and heraldic elements adorning the huge robot-thing. Looking at the new Knight recalls that moment and provides the best possible kind of nostalgia: I remember the older Knight models not as they actually looked but as they should have looked.

The kit is also full of amazing details: The heraldic plate on the right shoulder, the banner between the legs or the hatch leading to the cockpit, all of these are great little touches. The chainsword is a bit of a no-brainer, because it’s so iconic of the GW titans, but the weapons for the other arm are really nice as well.

The different faceplates have got to me my favourite elements, however: It actually took me a while to realise that all of them use the same basic head construction and merely function as masks, but they are all great: From suitably knightly to creepily skeletal, there is much to like about the designs — even using the bare head without any masks on top is a cool option, leading to a suitably inhuman AdMech look:

The model is also really interesting in the way it uses heraldic elements: Much has been said about the various decal sheets for the Knight, but while I am feeling mostly apathetic about decals in the first place, the Imperial Knight is a stunning example of what can be achieved once the decals are basically turned up to eleven:

On the other hand, I was surprised to see that the Knight also works with relatively simple colour schemes. In fact, one of my favourite Knights so far has one of the simplest colour schemes:

Already, people all over the internet are coming up with visually stunning Imperial Knights, and it will be fun to see what can be done with the model over the coming weeks and months.

One last thing that I love about the Imperial Knight is not so much the model itself but the lore surrounding it: The Imperial Knights are, at the same time, a perfect embodiment of the 40k universe and yet also avatars of something even more archaic and medieval: The whole culture surrounding them is really interesting, and the concept of knight world and knightly households is not only very interesting but also hasn’t been done to death — a much needed breath of fresh air, so to speak!

There are also the possible myteries surrounding those huge warmachines: How does the Throne Mechanicum work? What does the cockpit of a Knight look like? Is it your classic mech cockpit with lots of screens and HUDs? Is it a steampunk extravaganza, complete with analogue gauges, brass piping and an upholstered pilot chair? Could it be more like an amniotic tank, with the pilot floating suspended in liquid (the top hatch does have something sinister, doesn’t it?)? It’s fun to imagine all kinds of stories about the Knight, and to explore the parts you cannot see as well — is it any wonder that there are enterprising hobbyists endeavouring to fill the gaps, so to speak? And to great effect, I might add!

While we are on the subject of other hobbyists, let me point you towards several really useful resources for all your Imperial Knight discussion needs:

• First, a supremely useful series of posts on Tale of Painters, discussing the kit and its various properties (one and two)
• Then you should definitely check out JeffTibbet’s thread over at The Bolter and Chainsword, where Jeff builds a Knight from the ground up with an enviable amount of perfectionism and attention to detail — highly recommended!
• For those who want to delve into the history of Imperial Knights and their models, this thread should be an awesome resource as well.

So, isn’t there anything bad about the kit?

As much as I love the model – and love it unequivocally, I might add – I once again feel that I am not exactly comfortable with the direction of the game as a whole: Sure, the Knight is amazing, and everybody and their cousin want one. It stands to reason that it should be given workable rules, because what use is a toy we don’t get to play with, right? But entire Knight armies consisting of multiple of these beasts? What role does that leave for the average infantryman?

I do of course realise that I sound a bit like a broken record here, but I think it needs to be pointed out that we are now basically playing with action figures, scale wise. This is both good and bad: Good because we get to use stuff that only ever had a place in Epic before, and this is very much like our children’s dreams come true, right? Bad because there’s this constant danger that any game below the Apocalypse level could end up more or less devalued.

Then there’s the fact that we should also consider alterntives to the Imperial Knight: I already mentioned Dreamforge Games‘ excellent models at an earlier date, and they are certainly first on my list of possible alternatives for a Knight model:

Leviathan Crusader by Dreamforge Games

Leviathan Mortis by Dreamforge Games

The great thing about the DFG models is their almost ridiculously high amount of articulation, poseability and cutomisability: You can basically get these guys to look any way you want, and this is certainly the one area where the GW model falls a little flat. There’s also the fact that the Leviathans are available in loyalist and chaotic flavours, as evident from the images above. Plus they certainly provide some amazing value for the money. Strong contenders for the Imperial Knight, surely?

The one problem seems to be their size: There’s a pretty helpful side-by-side comparison of the Knight Titan and 15 mm Leviathan Crusader here on YouTube. The gist of it is that the 15mm is about 2 inches shorter than the Knight, while the bigger 28mm version is about two inches taller. So either will not be the same height as the “official” Knight kit. That’s certainly not the only important consideration here, but it does make a difference. Meanwhile, the bigger, 28mm Crusader would certainly make for a brilliant alternative to a Warhound Titan.

And you know what: You can call me crazy, but maybe we wouldn’t even have the Imperial Knight today if it hadn’t been for the Dreamforge Games models meeting with such positive feedback last year.

The good news is that, in this particular case, you, my dear readers, can have your cake and eat it too: While I might be endeavouring to build a chaos knight using the Imperial Knight kit at some point in the near future, fellow hobbyist Chris Harman has the Dreamforge Games angle covered — and knowing his conversions so far, we’ll definitely be in for a treat!
So, before I wind up this rambling post, let me take a look at some of the conversions that have begun to crop up all over the blogosphere. It probably won’t astound you that my main interest lies in seeing the Imperial Knight suitably desecrated and brought into the service of the ruinous powers — rules and allie matrices be damned! Fortunately enough, some fellow chaos worshippers have already done some truly spectacular work:

• First up, Insane Psychopath’s conversion, making heavy use of a WFB warshrine of chaos — and to great effect, I might add!
• Then there’s the ever-inspirational GuitaRasmus, with a more twisted vision. That head is just amazing, isn’t it?
• Another – fairly straightforward but still absolutely awesome – conversion comes from greg0985: I thought the skull mask was a no-brainer for a chaos knight conversion, but this model seriously made me reconsider that…
• And finally, there is this beauty, courtesy of Troy, that left me almost speechless: Troy also made good use of the warshrine bitz, but the red and gold really sold me on what clearly seems to be a Khornate Knight.

And there’s that most elusive and expensive of kitbashes: Combining the Lord of Skulls and Imperial Knight kits to make a truly enormous Khornate walker — many are theorising about such a conversion at the moment, but none have tried it so far. Maybe it’s the price tag? At 200 Euros, such a conversion certainly wouldn’t come cheap. Maybe it’s the fact that the kitbash would leave you with two leftover halves without much use for either — although some have pointed out that a Knight upper body and Lord of Skulls undercarriage could be combined in order to build a Kaban Machine. Anyway, sooner or later, somebody will take the plunge…

The Lord of Skulls was admittedly a bit of an acquired taste: While it stayed true to its roots in several old Epic models and nicely managed to transport them to the 2st century, it was too goofy for some and was thus derisively called the “Skulldozer”. The Imperial Knight tries the same, but with vastly more success and to near unanimous excitement. And rightly so: From a design perspective, it’s an amazing model. It has set the hobby scene abuzz with a thousand possibilities, and there’s no small amount of anticipation: Whatever may be next?

For now, let’s be happy with the Imperial Knight we got. It’s a stunning piece. Great job, GW!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Work abounds this week, so in place of a larger, well-considered update, let me just hit you with a jumbled mess of disparate things, if it’s all the same to you ;-) Most of them are related to my World Eaters, though, if that is any consolation…

1. In search of a past…

“No. No! Not the sarcophagus… Khorne damn you, you disloyal curs, just kill me! JUST KILL ME!”
- Khalos the Ravager, last words prior to Helbrute internment

I added some final touches to the Helbrute model you saw in my last update, but the changes are nearly invisible at this point, which is always a sure sign of the model being finished. And while I am pretty happy with how this big guy has turned out, there’s the problem of tieing him into my army’s background:

You see, I try to come up with a background for any squad or bigger model I use, and a Helbrute/Dreadnought is certainly big and impressive enough to warrant his own name and story, right? Well, therein lies the problem:
One of the defining factors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt is that its members cling to their martial honour, in spite of suffering from the bite of the Butcher’s Nails and the steady degradation of their sanity over time. For them, apart from periods when they are “lost to the nails” during battle, the thought of permanently devolving into mindless beasts is the ultimate horror. And in order to slow down the inevitable decline of the company, those physically or psychologically corrupted beyond redemption are organised into separate suicide squads, to die in a last blaze of glory before their corruption spreads to their brethren.

Roughly the same goes for the company’s Ancients, of course: So the last two Dreadnoughts I built for my army exemplify opposite ends of this spectrum, with Khoron the Undying remaining mostly sane, in spite of his millennia of internment in an ironform (with the danger of finally succumbing still always present), while Marax the Fallen was already forever lost to the nails prior to being transformed, so for him the internment was an eternal punishment, and his function is to act as a reminder to his brothers what their fate will be if they permanently give in to madness and anger.

So far, so good, right? But now I have this third Dreadnought/Helbrute that is visibly mutated and corrupted and seems just as angry as Marax, if not moreso. So where does he come in? How do I explain him as a character? And what will be his name?

I agree that this is not really a huge problem, and I will certainly present the model proudly alongside all the others, even without any background or justification. But as someone for whom the background of an army is an inseparable part of the whole project, this does bug me — so in case you have any suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them!

2. Reborn in Blood

The most terrible fate (at least from a hobby perspective) recently befell fellow hobbyist Legatho: A fallen tree crashed into his garden shed during a hailstorm, where most of his various hobby materials were stored, and almost all of his models were lost in the deluge (check out his Ammobunker thread for the whole story, complete with cringe-inducing photos). Seeing the results of that catastrophe made me realise that I wanted to help, and so, a couple of other guys and me each sent Legatho some bitz in order to help him rebuild his bitzbox, Here’s the box of assorted stuff I sent on its way to France :

And then the most awesome thing happened: I had also included a converted World Eater in the package, a model that, for one reason or another, I had never bothered to paint: I just thought it might be a nice personal touch to send along something World Eater-ly, along with the other stuff.
Well, it turned out that this was the first model Legatho chose to paint following his personal hobby Armageddon. Take a look:

He also made some fitting additions to the model, like the Ogre gut plate and some additional skulls and chains. And I particularly like the spears on the base, since they closely echo the basing motif I used for my own model for Lord Captain Lorimar.

The best thing, though, is that Legatho included a small plaque on the base as a further shout out:

That one really made me smile! All in all, I really couldn’t be any happier with the outcome: I think Legatho really managed to do the model justice with his paintjob, plus it was great to be able to help out a fellow hobbyist! And I really love the thought that a “goodwill ambassador” from Khorne’s Eternal Hunt  now resides in France. Way to go, brother-slaughterer ;-)

The best thing, however, is that Legatho seems very motivated to keep building and painting models, and I think that’s really admirable! I am not sure my own hobby mojo would have recovered from a hit like that, but there you have it! Anyway, helping out felt good anyway, but as you can see, I also got an awesome hobby moment out of it as well!

Oh, and while we’re at it, be sure to take a look at Legatho’s thread and blog and leave a comment or two. Somebody who rebounds from such a hobby catastrophe so easily certainly deserves some recognition, plus there are some really cool kitbashes on show — all the more precious for the knowledge that they have been permanently lost…

3. Some new recruits

It goes without saying that I haven’t been completely idle, either: After the tour de force of painting the Helbrute model in a rather short amount of time, however, I needed to take it slow and engaged in some kitbashing in order to relax. So let me show you some of my latest smaller conversion projects:

First up, there’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while: I’ve repeatedly been tossing around ideas for a squad of World Eaters Havocs (to represent the classic “Teeth of Khorne” and add some versatile firepower to my army). I found myself thinking about the squad members just armed with a regular bolter (and used as ablative wounds): I wanted to make them slightly more interesting, and when I sifted through my bitzbox in search of inspiration, I found myself looking at some WFB chaos warrior shields: What if I built the ablative wounds guys to resemble breacher marines, only post-heresy?

Anyway, I messed around a bit, and here’s what I came up with:

Just a very early WIP, nothing’s glued together yet, but for some reason, I really like this guy — maybe this approach warrants some further exploration? In any case, I’ll hold off on this until it’s clear whether we are getting the rumoured new Havoc kit anytime soon or not. But it’s an interesting experiment nevertheless, don’t you think?

I also built yet another gladiator: I wanted to have at least one model in the squad wield a meteor hammer, a weapon appearing  in the recent World Eaters fluff and featured as an equipment option in Forgeworld’s World Eaters Rampager squad. Oh, and Imagine my surprise when I found out that it is also an actual chinese weapon!

Anyway, I wanted to kitbash a gladiator wielding a meteor hammer, so I tried to achieve a fairly close representation of both the FW look and the actual historical source. Here’s what I came up with:

Once again, the feedback on the forums proved invaluable, with fellow hobbyists El Diablo and MasterBuilder offering some extremely useful feedback on the model’s head and making me think about a way of making the meteor hammer even more accurate.

After a bit of additional cleanup work, here’s the finished build for the gladiator:

I am quite pleased with this guy, plus I think I managed to build a pretty close approximation of FW’s “official” meteor hammer! I did cave in, though, and used a FW resin head — it just looked too good.

Expect the remaining three gladiators to see some colours sooner rather than later ;-)

So yeah, that’s pretty much it for today: Just some smaller projects for now, although I can assure you that bigger things are on the way! It goes without saying that I’d love to hear any feedback you might have!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

This week, Eternal Hunt hit the 200,000 views mark, less than nine months after attaing 100,000 views. Now this is certainly not world record material, but I am still immensely proud that a blog describing my pottering away at my various hobby projects has managed to attract so many visitors! So thanks to all those who have taken an interest so far, especially those of you who regularly comment or are even following this blog! You guys often provide me with the motivation I need to tackle the next project on my list, plus you provide some nifty ideas every so often. Cheers for that! ;-)

As for this blog’s high points over the last nine months, my retrospect of Year Two is still fairly recent, so I’ll just point  towards it for all the dates and facts. What’s far more interesting, though, is how I decided to celebrate this event:

Because what better way to celebrate than to get a nice present for myself, as a reward for all the hard work, right? Relax, though: There’ll be something interesting for you as well. So what is this about?

Some of you may remember when I posted about fellow hobbyist AgnostosTheos building 30k versions of two of my World Eaters characters a while back. This was pretty cool, because his World Eaters army is easily one of my favourite Heresy-era representations of my chosen legion.

Now imagine my dismay when AT recently announced that he would be selling his amazing collection of World Eaters — what terrible news! I, for one, would have loved to see further additions to this force, and maybe even some more 30k versions of characters from Khorne’s Eternal Hunt.

However, and I almost feel guilty for admitting it, this also provided me with the chance as well as the obligation to purchase the 30k versions that already existed.

Now I normally have pretty strict rules when it comes to buying painted models or commissioning people: I don’t usually do it, period.

I have various reasons for this: I don’t want to let other people do the work that actually constitutes a sizeable part of the hobby for me, reluctant as I sometimes am to take up a paintbrush. I also have the creeping suspicion that once I start to commission people like the Spiky Rat Pack, for instance, to build and paint some of their amazing models for me, I’ll never stop until all my money’s gone.

And there’s also the fact that it’s really an all or nothing choice: Either you only buy single pieces and end up with them looking markedly different from the rest of your army, or you commission an entire army, pay through your teeth and actually have no hobby activities left to do yourself — apart from the playing, admittedly, but that has never been the greatest draw for me.

So, to make a long story short: While I usually lack any impulse control when it comes to buying little plastic men, I have so far managed not to buy fully painted ones, at least.

I made an exception this time, however, because the thought of somebody else owing AT’s Heresy-era versions of “my” characters was pretty much unbearable to me.
And due to the fact that I have zero interest in assembling a 30k World Eaters force, it seemed a safe enough endeavour to buy a couple of AgnostosTheos’s models without running the risk of becoming addicted to yet another army. So I made him an offer that he could have – but didn’t – refuse and purchased four models, all in all, along with some supremely useful resin bitz and an almost complete sheet of World Eaters decals. While the latter two will become very useful for my work on Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, it goes without saying that the painted models were definitely the stars of the show. Here are three of them:

From left to right, we have a model representing Marax the Fallen in the days before his internment into a Dreadnought, a World Eaters officer based on the WFB plastic Chaos Lord, and Khoron the Undying, once again before being interred into an ironform. Let’s take a closer look:

First up, Marax the Fallen, in both his 30k and 40k incarnations:

The twin lightning claws on both models make for a pretty clear recurring element, and the blood spatters all over 30k Marax’s armour and face show that this warrior was dangerously unhinged, even before becoming a dreadnought.

Then there’s Khoron the Undying in both versions:

Although blood spattered, Marax seems less feral and uncontrollable than his brother. His patrician features are also a nice and subtle way of representing his function as a figure of respect among the warriors of the 4th assault company. In the 41st millenium, this face has forever been replaced with the brazen skull mask of a dreadnought, however.

Actually having these guys in my hands to display them alongside each other is a really awesome feeling, you know ;-)

And then there’s the unnamed World Eaters officer: While the model wasn’t based on any of my characters, the fact that it uses the same base model as my own Dark Apostle makes it fun to imagine that it might represent a younger Huntmaster Stian Gul:

Plus the model was actually a steal, so what choice did I have? My favourite part has got to be the way AT used etched brass parts to add World Eaters iconograpgy to the medieval looking armour.

There is actually one more model I purchased from AgnostosTheos, although one I am not prepared to show you just yet. It will also need some final touches to complete it. As a little teaser, let me just show you the weapons I intend to use for this mysterious warrior:

Maybe that should give some of you a clue as to the character this model will represent…

All in all, not only was this a great occasion to add some texture to my force, but it also serves as a very suitable celebration for my blog reaching 200,000 views. I really couldn’t be any happier with these guys:

While we’re on the subject, though, be sure to check out AgnostosTheos’s WIP thread and Flickr gallery: Though the various models may have found new homes, they remain one of the coolest 30k World Eaters armies, and those links allow you to check them out in their entirety — highly rec0mmended!

So a very warm thank you to AgnostosTheos for letting me have these models for a quite reasonable price! And thanks to you for reading this and taking an interest! To the next 200,000!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Don’t worry, a detailed look at the whole Astra Militarum release is still forthcoming in the near future, but seeing how everyone (myself included) seems to be all over the new Tempestus Scions at the moment, let us put the cart before the horse for once, so to speak, and allow me to share my first hands on experiences with the kit. We’ll also take a look at options for building Stormtroopers for your IG (or Traitor Guard) force in general, and I dear it’ll be a rather wordy post, all things considered. I am also fairly confident you’ll get a few ideas out of the deal, though, so bear with me here!

Let me start by saying that the Tempestus Scions are an amazing kit, regarding both the quality of the sculpt and the amount of bitz and options you get. I have been asking myself for a long time why so few of the actual IG models (the fantastically eclectic Vostroyans notwithstanding) actually channel the anachronistic design elements that permeate the rest of the 40k universe, but with the Tempestus Scions, the combination of high tech and baroque, sometimes even medieval, elements is finally available in model form. I won’t get into this part any further, since it will probably play a pretty big role in my upcoming review of the Astra Militarum release. Suffice it to say for now  that I am all for more ostentatiousness and baroqueness in the IG catalogue!

Beyond the exciting design, though, the kit also provides an extremely versatile and extensive toolbox for building five excellent models. And the kit is full of opportunities right though the gate, enabling you to build elite soldiers for your Guard regiment as well as Inquisitorial Stormtroopers of any stripe and even Traitor Guard — because the decorative armour trim adorning all the Scions’ armour plates make it really easy to turn these guys to chaos.

Indeed, my current plan is to turn at least four of the models into the beginnings of a squad of elite soldiers for my detachment of Traitor Guard,  although I will probably use one model and some of the amazing Tempestor Prime bitz to buy an Inquisitor/Imperial Noble/senior IG officer/whatever…

That’s a plan for the near future, however. For now, let’s do some experiments in order to explore the kit in more detail!

I. Initial kitbashing

Taking inspiration from Jeff Vader’s recent experimentation with different head swaps on the Tempestus Scions, I did something similar, collecting various heads from my bitzbox and trying them on my first Scion test model, in order to see how they would change the overall look and feel of the model. Now don’t get me wrong, the whopping seventeen heads that come with the kit are just as amazing as the rest of the parts. But I still wanted to see how a mere head swap might turn one of the models into very different characters.

I filed my findings into several different categories. Just click for bigger pictures, by the way:

Experiment I: Inquisitorial types

I wanted to explore several options for creating shadowy and/or hi-tech-y Stormtroopers. My first experiment was to use a leftover head from Inquisitor Coteaz I still had lying around, and not only was it a great fit, but the resulting model is quite similar to the Sergeant of the Kasrkin models, don’t you think? I am seriously considering using that head for my Scion-based Inquisitor.

I also tried two robed DA heads, and while Marine heads tend to be a bit clunky when used on non-marine bodies, these might actually work (although it would be necessary to shave down the neck portion, which I didn’t do for my experiments). The sergeant from Jeff Vader’s wonderful squad of Tempestus Scions uses one of these heads as well, by the way, so you don’t need to rely on my word alone!
Oh, and I also like the faceless SpecOps look of the fourth head (a Valkyrie pilot head, I guess? Just bought it via ebay some time ago).

Experiment II: Medieval types

There’s quite a bit of overlap with the Inquisitorial types on these, although I wanted to see how to make the Scions look even more archaic and medieval. I mostly used Bretonnian heads during this attempt.

I actually really like the Brodie-helmet like look of models on the left! These might look great for a fire-and-brimstone Hereticus retinue (or in a particularly medieval IG regiment). The helmets do interfere with the antenna and sensor array on the shoulders, however, so some cutting might be in oder if you want to take this route. The knight helmet was mainly a joke, as was the shaved down berzerker helmet on the right (just the thing if you’re going for the old “Boba Fett” look, though).

Experiment III: IG veterans

I think that using various heads from the IG, WFB Empire or even Space Marine catalogues could be a great options of making the Scions look less like freshly-pressed parade ground soldiers and more like hard-boiled veterans from some of the more colourful regiments of the Astra Militarum.

I particularly like the one with the wolf scout head on the far right ;-)

Experiments IV and V: Traitors and Renegades

Ahhh, now we’re talking: I tried various chaotic heads in order to make the Scion model look like a Traitor Guard soldier: Like I said, the trim on their body armour makes them equally viable for chaos, if you ask me. I did already shave off some of the beautiful IG iconography, too. Anyway, here’s my first set of traitor experiments:

As you can see, slightly shaved down WFB chaos warrior helmets will work, as will heads from the plastic cultists.

I tried even more heads, though:

I really liked one of Jeff Vader’s experiments, where he used a head from the WFB Marauder Horsemen, and indeed, those heads work brilliantly on the Scion bodies: They are instantly recognisable as chaotic, but they still seem orderly enough so as not to damage the elite soldier look. My absolute favourite has to be the head from the Dark Vengeance cultist champ, though: While it may look slightly goofy on virtually any other model, here it instantly transforms a Scion into a warrior of the Blood Pact – BAM!

I didn’t limit myself to trying different heads, however, I also did a couple of smaller experiments involving different body parts:

For those of you who might be thinking of using the scions as a base for (Dark) AdMech Skitarii conversions, the following pictures might be helpful as well:

You can combine the scion torsos with flagellant legs:

For the real Skitarii look, you would probably need to replace the bare feet with something suitably tech-y and bulky (Necron feet, perhaps?). And you’d need to either add a cowl sculpted from GS or use the AdMech-styled cultist head.

As an alternative for making Skitarii (or, indeed, trenchcoat scions), you could use the legs from that very cultist:

While the legs may seem to be a bit on the thin side, the trenchcoat idea is nevertheless pretty interesting, because you end up with something only one step away from one of my favourite pieces of IG artwork by none other than the great Jes Goodwin.

One last early kitbashing idea: I just had to try and combine one of the masked Scion heads with the helmet of a Bretonnian Man-at-arms, again creating something resembling a futuristic Brodie helmet/gas mask combo:

The resulting model basically looks like a more detailed, more baroque GW version of one of my beloved Warzone 2nd edition starter minis:

Might be a useful idea for IG as well as Inquisitorial Stormtroopers or Traitor Guard, though…

2. Playing around with Tempestus Scion bitz

Interestingly enough, the first mostly finished model to come out of my purchase of the Tempestus Scions wasn’t even a Tempestus Scion: I used the voxcaster bitz from the new kit to salvage a FW Vraksian Militia torso I had seriously damaged during another conversion, and thanks to the new bitz, I was able to build a traitor soldier with voxcaster:

Even though he uses Chaos Marauder legs and a FW torso, he should still work well enough as a squad member for my chaos elites. He looks good enough next to my test model, at least:

On a semi-related note, the idea of this guy making prank calls during battle really cracks me up: I imagine nothing will mess with your battle logistics like someone calling in the middle of an offensive demanding to speak to Commissar I.P. Freely…  :-)

Anyway, back to the traitors: As it happens, I have some Vraksian torsos lying around (courtesy of fellow hobbyist PDH) and I think I will use more Marauder legs and a couple of bitz from the Scion kit to transform them into further models for the elite squad:

Again, they should work well enough from a scale perspective:

So, not only are the Tempestus Scions themselves great for different conversions, but the amount of extra bitz will also be really useful in converting even more models, both for my Traitor Guard and, I imagine, the odd INQ28 model. On a related note, make sure to check out little brother’s scion conversions over at his Ammobunker thread: His models are a great proof of concept for how easy it is to make the Tempestus Scions into traitors with just a minor influx of bitz! And Adam Wier has some very interesting ideas about slightly modifying the stock models as well.

I imagine that the coming weeks will bring a cornucopia of inspiring Scion conversions, so you actually might want to leave your sprues untouched for now… ;-)

3. Alternatives

So, once again, I am really happy with the Tempestus Scions and the conversion and kitbashing options they provide. But my love for the kit notwithstanding, let me discuss yet another source for possible Stormtroopers. As you will see, this is clearly not a case of favouring one kit (or manufacturer) over the other, but rather an attempt at outlining several, partly interlocking approaches for building just the Stormtroopers and elite soldiers you need:

Quite some time ago, I participated in a Kickstarter to make some of Mark Mondragon’s designs available in glorious plastic. The kits coming out of this Kickstarter, namely the different plastic Titans and the Eisenkern Stormtroopers, were one of my favourite hobby releases in 2013, as some may recall. And it’s the latter of the two I would like to talk about:

The Eisenkern Stromtroopers provide an alternate set of models for your Imperial Guard. Granted, these are not GW models, so you won’t be able to use them in any GW events or GW stores, but the models are still definitely nice enough to showcase them here! As a matter of fact, I was already feeling bad for not making the time to talk about them in more detail earlier, but now it turns out that the opportunity to discuss them back to back with the new Tempestus Scions is just the perfect way of taking a closer look at the kit. So let’s look at both kits, shall we:

On their own, the Eisenkern Stormtroopers provide a kit for making very cool looking elite soldiers with a very distinct WWII vibe. Incidentally, the background of the Eisenkern faction basically has them as “Germans IN SPACE!” (and the name certainly is a dead giveaway…). My personal reason for supporting their creation in plastic was that they really reminded me of the Wolf Brigade in Jin-Roh, but those designs were of course based on historical German uniforms again, so it’s a bit of a circular argument.

Anyway, the kit comes with so many options for customisation that it’s almost ridiculous, and these options are further multiplied if you decide to purchase an additional set of conversion and equipment bitz, giving you lots and lots of different weapons, heads, hands and various gear. Therefore, the humble test model pictured above is really just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s a scale comparison with the Tempestus Scions:

As you can see, both models are more or less of the same height: The Eisenkern Stormtrooper is ever so slightly taller, yet less bulky than the Tempestus Scion. From a structural perspective, there are quite a few parallels, though, ranging from the body armour and rebreather helmets to the power plant-like section on the model’s back.

The overall look is still ever so slightly different, though: Where the Tempestus Scions are full-out baroque and grimdark, the Eisenkern models are more hi-tech, albeit with a clear retro element.

But let’s look at some more scale pictures, this time with a “regular” IG model, a cultist and an Astartes as additional parts of the comparison:

As you can see, both Stormtrooper models nicely fit into the gap between “regular” humans and Astartes: While both are basically just as tall as a regular Marine, the added bulkiness still nicely separates the Astartes from the unaugmented models.

One obvious problem with the Eisenkern models lies in the slightly more realistic (and less “heroic”) proportions when compared to GW kits. While this certainly isn’t a shortcoming per se, it can become a bit of a problem when trying to combine the Eisenkern models with GW bitz.

For instance, where the Tempestus Scion bodies will happily accept even Marine heads with a bit of cutting, even fairly slender heads like the wolf scout head pictured below will look slightly too clunky on an Eisenkern Trooper:

That said, some heads work better than others: I have collected some cases where the GW heads worked reasonably well below:

In any case, the important thing to keep in mind here is that these parts certainly weren’t designed to be mixed, so the fact that it still works out in some cases should be treated more like a bonus — but more on that in a minute.

The main problem from a design perspective is that the Eisenkern Stormtroopers are far less useful for “classic” chaos than the Tempestus Scions, because the smooth lines are not nearly baroque and archaic enough for your average traitor guard, whereas the extra decoration on the Scions makes them very chaos-y right out of the box. The common Eisenkern Stormtrooper fares less well when combined with chaos bitz.

But, again, this is obviously not really a fault of the kit itself: It wasn’t even designed to allow for shenanigans like that.

The big surprise, then, is that the Eisenkern Stormtroopers work amazingly well with the Tempestus Scion heads:

The beret heads from the Scions are perfect for Eisenkern officers — and actually much better than the somewhat generic bare heads that come with the Eisenkern kit (one of the few failings of an otherwise brilliant kit, I might add).

The same goes for the helmeted Scion heads:

And finally, the beret head with gas mask, one of the coolest heads in the kit anyway, is pretty much the perfect officer head for an Eisenkern Stormtrooper. Take a look:

Quite a nice reward for the adventurous kitbasher, don’t you think? Plus this information might be interesting both for those who are contemplating a purchase of the Eisenkern Stormtroopers as well as those who already own the kit and want to tie it in with their IG army: Just get some Tempestus Scion heads, and you’re golden ;-)

Another interesting fact: Female Eisenkern models will eventually be available, filling a  gap GW’s catalogue has mostly refused to address so far: Here’s a regular Eisenkern trooper next to Kickstarter exclusive model Ada:

So which one should you choose?

I’ll be honest with you, I couldn’t even tell you which kit is the better one, because a) both are awesome and b) which is better for you depends on what you are looking for: Both kits are great and, in their respective ways, provide great value for the money. The best possible approach would be to ask yourself what kind of Stormtrooper you are looking for and make your decision from there (or, of course, to just buy a box of each):

Do you want your Stormtroopers visually in line with the eclectic, sometimes outlandish and anachronistic 40k universe? Do you love the little medieval and renaissance touches and are looking for colourful models that channel this particular part of the setting? Then the Tempestus Scions are your thing.

Do you want slightly more futuristic, tactical looking troopers without too many baroque design elements but a noticeable retro feel and tons and tons of options (you can actually use the accessory sprue to build models conversing in SWAT-like sign language, for crying out loud!)? Great, the Eisenkern Stormtroopers are the kit for you.

But even if you come down on either side of this argument, the other kit would still be an awesome purchase. And, owning both kits, I am perfecly sure that I am going to have lots of fun with both types of models.

In the end, it’s really all about being aware of all the options, and that’s what this post is about too: Describing more options for you. In any case, you way want to check out the Dreamforge Games website — chances are, you’ll find something to like there. At the same time, I cannot recomment the Tempestus Scions enough: They are an amazing kit and quite reasonably priced for GW’s standards.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. And I really hope that this post has given you food for though and ideas for possible conversions or kitbashes instead of confusing you. If you have any thoughts or questions about either of the kits (or about my first rough conversion attempts), I’d be happy to hear them in the comments section.

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

With the first leaked pictures of the coming Wood Elves release already making the round, I am confident we can consider the Imperial Guard …erm Astra Militarum release completed for now. So what better time to take a fairly comprehensive look at the new kits and the various conversion opportunities they bring, right?

As per my usual approach, this post will focus on the models to the near exclusion of all rules-related stuff. However, let me make one small exception, because the release of the Codex Astra Militarum seems to introduce a rather dubious element: It looks like, as of this book, GW will be using universal naming conventions for all of the various units, even across several languages. What this means is that the English unit names will be used, even in a rulebook that has otherwise been fully translated into German, French, Spanish or what have you. Now this shouldn’t be such a big thing, right? After all, games between 40k aficionados are already a gobbledygook of different languages anyway, so what’s the big difference? Besides, there are certainly sensible reasons for this decision: There will be no disconnect between the translated hardcopy rulebooks and the digital supplements only released in English, for instance. And yet. And still…

I realise that this need only concern non-native speakers of English to begin with, and then a blog written in English may not be the perfect venue for a criticism like this. But GW have always gone through quite some trouble to produce fully translated books in the past. Sure, the Blood Angels were always the Blood Angels, the Leman Russ was always the Leman Russ. But this new approach just leads to books that seem awkward chimerics, lost somewhere in limbo between the original English and the different language version. It reads terribly, to tell you the truth, and while it may make lots of sense, both from a business and rules perspective, this development actually makes me consider getting all my 40k related books in English from now on — I’d rather have the whole book in English than being served snippets of it at every turn. And I don’t suffer horrible prose style.

Anyway, excuse the minor rant: Moving on to the models now!

Officio Prefectus Commissar

I think I am not the only person happy about a commissar model being available in plastic at long last, and the Ordo Prefectus Commissar is definitely a fine specimen to boot: Suitably grizzled and gnarly, this guy looks every part the discipliary officer one might have expected. One interesting thing about the model is that its pose is more dynamic than what we are used to from past commissar models. This dynamism leads to a rather striking silhouette, though:

The face is another really strong point, looking suitably lined and pinched for a veteran commissar! In fact, the one thing I am not completely sold on is the saber: It seems a bit too clunky for once, and there’s also the fact that the blade tapering to a point as much as it does seems slightly wrong, for some reason: I think I would have preferred a more slender saber in the style of the DKOK commissars.

A closer look at the sprue for the model, however, reveals that not only should it be possible to replace the saber without a hitch, but further modifications to the modelt by way of using a different head or change the equipment in the right hand should be really easy, too:

This makes the commissar model even more useful: Having a plastic commissar is already pretty cool in and of itself, but being able to use him for all kinds of INQ28 kitbashes makes the purchase of the model even more tempting, the slightly inflated price tag notwithstanding. Definitely one of the high points of the release for me!

Hydra/Wyvern

I have never made much of a secret of my general lack of interest in tanks, so it may not surprise you that the Hydra/Wyvern kit didn’t exactly set my heart aflutter. Based on the same undercarriage as the trusty Chimera, these tanks are not exactly visually exciting, at least if you’re not a tank nut.

For tanks like this, the one thing that usually interests me are the little touches used to individualise the vehicle, and I am happy to see that GW have included a suitable crew of gunners for once:

If anything, this is where the character of the piece comes from, if you ask me! On a semi-related note, I always thought it was a shame that the Basilisk loading crew was only available as a set of semi-obscure, OOP metal bitz.

Where the Hydra is mainly used for AA duties, as it seems, you can also assemble the tank as a Wyvern and use it for anti-infantry work:

Again, what can I say? Another chimera-based tank? I certainly won’t go wild over this. I will say that the gunner models and various cogitator arrays that come with the kit might be fairly interesting for a variety of conversions, even though the overall model leaves me rather cold. Sorry!

Taurox Prime/Taurox

Quite the opposite for this vehicle though, but I am getting ahead of myself. A better place to start would be to point out that this is obviously that one divisive kit that every self-respecting GW release needs! Already, the Taurox has emerged as the one kit that many, many people love to hate, probably due to its somewhat unconventional design…

…which, in all honesty, really isn’t just as preposterous as many people seem to believe, pointing to several real-world sources, ranging from some rather gimmicky German WWII vehicles or armoured transports used by the English Army during the 70s and 80s to the modern MRAP. As a matter of fact, those influences make for a nice bit of realism that become all the more striking when combined with the hallmark heraldic and baroque elements of the 40k universe! The seeming clash between these elements enhances the model for me instead of ruining it.

If anything, the model instantly becomes less interesting when you leave off the extra bling and use it to create a standard Taurox:

But that’s just my opinion, of course. If nothing else, however, the Taurox provides a much needed breath of fresh air in a setting where nearly all of the tanks seem to be based on the same two or three basic kits. I’ll admit I’ve been waiting for a kit like this for ages, in order to be able to build a slightly more interesting vehicle for my Traitor Guard, and the Taurox perfectly fits the bill. Again, this is clearly a matter of personal preference, but I really like the design!

Beyond questions of personal taste, I think we can all agree that the production values are ridiculously high, with lots and lots of customisation options and even an entirely sculpted interior:

I am really looking forward to what all the crazy converters and kitbashers will do with this kit! Commissar Molotov recently pointed me towards an amazingly thorough thread outlining lots and lots of possible Taurox conversions, so even if you don’t like the model out of the box, there’s nothing stopping you from modifying it to your heart’s content, but more on that later!

All in all, this is one of the more exciting parts of the release for me!

Tempestus Scions

Now these are definitely the stars of the show for me! Which, in all fairness, shouldn’t be much of a surprise considering my rather extensive recent experimenation with the kit. Still, let me explain why I love these guys so much:

One thing that always baffled me was how much of the potential coolness of the Imperial Guard went mostly unused: When I was still a newcomer to 40k, the Guard mainly seemed to be a mashup of pretty much every histrocial military force: Red Army (Valhallans), Germans (DKOK), American Troops during the Vietnam War (Catachans),… the list goes on and on. Then there were some slightly more futuristic elements thrown in (the Cadians would be a good example). And the tanks were mostly based on various WWI and WWII designs.

And while I can see the appeal of an army like that, it was only when the more colourful regiments began to emerge that the Guard really came into its own for me: I love the idea of thousands of years of military history mashed together, but why should it run along the lines delineated by the 20th century? Why not more hi-tech soldiers in overblown 19th century garb (like the brilliantly eclectic Vostroyans)?  Why not more WWI Trenchers with noticeable medieval influences (I am looking at you, Aexe Cardinal)? The more Gaunt’s Ghosts novels I read, the more it felt like the actual models on offer were failing to address the possible coolness of regiments hailing from a million worlds.

Now the Scions are finally fulfilling at least a part of that promise: They are clearly hi-tech soldiers, but with a very noticeable baroque, maybe even medieval feel:

There are design cues from many different centuries in their armour and equipment, which not only makes for stunning models but also perfectly channels the look and feel of the 40k universe.

The other really great thing about the kit is the amount of equipment options and bitz you get: Whether you want to assemble a brilliantly ostentatious command squad or just some – only slightly less impressive – “standard” Stormtroopers, it’s all there in the kit:

And finally, as I myself have tried to prove, the kit is also brilliantly versatile, because the barqoue design makes sure that these guys will be useful for all kinds of conversions:

They can become your elite Imperial soldiers, sure. But it’s also easy enough to imagine them as AdMech Skitarii with a bit of work. Or they could be your faceless Traitor Guard elites. The kit really allows for all these different options with only a minimum of modification.

In short, it has taken GW ages to finally release a plastic Stormtrooper kit, but the result is definitely worth the wait!

Ogryns/Bullgryns/Nork Dedogg

These guys are the other slightly divisive kit to come out of this release, with many people already hating them with a passion. In all fairness, running against a kit like the Tempestus Scions seems like a pretty dire prospect on the best of days, but are the new Ogryns really that bad? Let’s take a closer look:

One really amazing feature of the kit is that it can actually be assembled in four different variants, and that alone deserves a round of applause. So let’s address each of those variants in turn, shall we? First up, the bread and butter option: The kit will give you three bog standard Ogryns:

I think these are getting some flak due to the somewhat …nonplussed facial expressions on some of the heads. But let’s not forget that Ogryns aren’t exactly rocket scientists. So maybe the faces are a pretty good fit, after all? The good thing is that, even if you don’t like the Ogryn heads, you can always use some of the extra heads that come with the kit, but more on that in a minute. For now, let me just point out that I really like the screaming head with the aquila brand on its brow!

Beyond that, these guys look more or less like you would expect standard Ogryns to look: There are the sleeveless shirts, the crude armour plates and the robust (and somewhat improbable) Ogryn gun. Certainly not the most exciting models in the world, but a great replacement both for the old metal/Finecast Ogryns and for the option of having to work with those extremely static WFB Ogre bulls!

Oh, one thing I really love is how these guys are using gasoline cans as canteens — what a brilliant little touch! ;-)

There’s also the option of assembling your Ogryns as Bullgryns, heavily armoured giants protecting the less robust part of your army. And these can, in turn, be armed in two different ways. The first option is to equip them with a combination of grenadier gauntlets and slab shields:

The armoured bodies themselves look rather cool, and I really like the tank treads used as some kind of heavy duty loincloth! The slab shields have some rather nice touches (for instance, the spikes at the bottom to ram them into the ground, and the fact that the three shields in the squads were designed to look like they interlock to form a makeshift defense line). My problem with them, however, is that they look slightly too busy with the Imperial iconography, the sculpted chevrons and all the additional lines: There’s just too much going on, from a visual perspective. I would have preferred a more restrained approach, something similar to the elements of the Aegis Defense Line, for example.

The grenadier fists may be my least favourite part of the kit, because while the idea itself may be awesome, they just look goofy: Maybe they should have been designed to look less hi-tech? Maybe shoulder-mounted panzerfausts would have been cooler? Whatever it is, that element just doesn’t work for me. So in my opinion, this loadout would need some work to make it look really cool.

The one part of the Bullgryns I love unecquivocally, however, are the heads. Well, maybe apart from the bearded one…

“I say! Apparently, they are letting all kinds of riff raff join the fighting these days, old boy!”

…but even that has a kind of corny charm. Maybe the beard’s an attempt at emulating the finesse and elegance of a high-ranking officer by the slightly more refined Ogryn squad leader ?

The gas mask  heads are absolutely amazing, though, especially the one with the goggles:

Not only are these your readily apparant solution if you don’t like the standard Ogryn heads, but they would also work great for a DKOK or Steel Legion sinpired force! Or for traitor Ogryns — there’s just something sinister about those gas masks, you know…

As for the Bullgryns themselves, I much prefer the second equipment option for them: battle mauls and suppression shields:

These seem far less awkward and actually nicely complement the Bullgryns’ lumbering poses. Again, I think it would be really fun to transform these into a squad of hulking traitor berserkers! But then, I have some very fond memories of building traitor Ogryns, so I might be biased…

The final option would be to assemble one of your Ogryns as the special character Nork Dedogg, trusty Ogryn bodyguard extraordinaire:

And, like the whole kit, this guy is just one more case of love it or hate it.

Let’s start with the good part: He really looks like an elite Ogryn, which was probably the whole point. There’s also an inherent goofiness about the model that certainly was a deliberate choice on the designers’ part, but much of the goofiness has been stripped away from the Imperial Guard over the last years, leaving this guy a little stranded, so to speak.

My main gripe with the model from a design perspective is that his armour, intended as an updgraded version of the Bullgryn equipment, looks quite unlike every other armour in the IG catalogue: The decorative trim actually makes it resemble chaos armour more than anything else. Plus that goofy vox skull with the commissar cap needs to go, in my opinion.

That said, I cannot help looking at Norg from a chaos player’s perspective, and see him as great conversion fodder for a traitor ogryn: The armour would need precious little work to suitably chaos-i-fy it, and just imagine a gas mask or crudely implanted vox grill instead of that cigar-smoking grin. Very promising!

In any case, I really love the fact that the option to build a special character from extra bitz included in a kit has now made it to 40k as well! I’m all for more plastic characters, and having them as some kind of bonus in a regular kit really rocks!

All in all, there are some slightly goofy elements in the Ogryn/Bullgryn kit, but maybe that’s at least partially due to the fact that Ogryns are in fact rather goofy in and of themselves. That said, I think it’s also a kit with lots of promise — and maybe the models would actually look much cooler with less colourful, grittier paintjobs?

Conversion opportunities

While some of the new kits are already really awesome as they are, the possible conversion options are probably the best part of this whole release for me, so let me share a couple of observations and ideas:

The Tempestus Scions really take the cake here, because they are just amazing, both as a kit and as a toolbox for all kinds of conversions. My own experiments have shown that it’s very easy to use scion bitz for all kinds of craziness, be it to build specialists from more colourful Guard regiments or,  indeed, elite soldiers for your Traitor Guard. Another excellent example for the kit’s versatility would be Jeff Vader’s wonderful Primaris Psyker that just uses a couple of bitz from the Tempestus Scions to make a wonderfully characterful miniature. And don’t even get me started on all the possible uses for INQ28 related conversions: Those scions could be Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, or the bitz could be used to accessorise your Inquisitorial agents, or even your Inquisitors. The scions could even be turned into Arbites, with a bit of work. And whatever approach you choose,  the remaining extra bitz will prove helpful for a myriad of conversion projects.

For me, the Tempestus Scions are easily one of the best kits GW have released in a while, and if you’re at all interested in INQ28 conversions or kitbashes, they are pretty much a compulsory purchase. The fact that they are pretty reasonably priced – considering the amount of stuff you get in the kit – helps, of course!

And while many people online already love to hate the Taurox, the same goes for that kit: I can easily see the Taurox being transformed into a transport for Ogryns (just make it look more like a mobile cage than a mere APC), a civilian or industrial vehicle for games of INQ28 or Necromunda, a traitor APC heavily reminiscent of Dave Taylor’s amazing Blood Pact lorries and half-tracks or even something as exotic as a modern Genestealer limo. The thread I linked above is basically just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the possible conversions, and seeing all the crazy vehicles coming out of this kit will be a very special treat — trust me! As for my own detachment of Traitor Guard, I can easily see myself picking up a Taurox kit: The prospect of building and painting it certainly excites me far more than any old Chimera ever could!

Then there’s the Commissar — another really nice model to serve as conversion fodder: PDH already pointed out some time ago that this guy would be a great base model for a fairly easy Rogue Trader conversion, and I am sure the model would fare just as well as any kind of high-ranking officer or even as an Inquisitor (preferrably one with ties to the Ordo Militum).

But there’s more: Just add an Ork power claw and he could become a pretty cool Commissar Yarrick stand in. Or replace his bionic arm and face and turn him into a plastic model for Ibram Gaunt. Long story short, I imagine this model will be extremely popular with converters in general and INQ28 aficionados in particular, and I certainly intend to pick one up at some point.

And even the Ogryns are quite interesting from a conversion standpoint: Like I said earlier, turning these into a squad of sinister, crudely augmented and/or mutated traitor ogryns or big mutants should be quite a bit of fun! Indeed, if I didn’t already own an entire squad of converted traitor ogryns, I am pretts sure I would already have picked up a box of the new guys.

In fact, and this is just brilliant if you ask me, this release is just as interesting for Traitor Guard players at it is for actual Guard players: Until now, building suitably impressive traitors and renegades (without falling back on Forgeworld’s – admittedly wonderful – Vraksian Renegade Militia) was always a bit of a challenge. The new kits should make this quite a bit easier and more interesting, and I applaud GW for that!

So what about the release as a whole? It probably won’t surprise you that I’ll call this a strong release. The Tempestus Scions alone would probably be enough to carry the day here, but I love how nearly all of the new kits (the slightly underwhelming Chimera-based tanks notwithstanding) seem to have multiple possible uses and allow for lots and lots of neat conversions. The release has certainly re-invigorated my interest in the Traitor Guard side of my chaos army, so don’t be surprised if you see some projects towards that effect in the future!

So what about you? Are you as happy with the potential conversion projects as I am, or were you underwhelmed by the new Astra Militarum release? Are you already planning a couple of conversions yourself, perchance? I’d be happy to hear any ideas and impressions you might have in the comments section.

Now, if you’ll excuse me: I still need to wring the last possible drops of conversion fun from that Tempestus Scion kit ;-)

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Whoa, what a day: Imagine my utter amazement as I browsed through the latest issue of Warhammer:Visions today, only to turn the page and see this:

Seems like my dear Legion is really going places, eh? Anyway, it probably won’t come as a surprise to you that being featured in an official GW publication – and in Blanchitsu, no less – is really a hobby dream come true for me! And the whole story of Legion has been one chain of awesome moments, ever since PDH was nice enough to get me involved! Read all about our favourite AdMech monstrosity here, in case you’re not yet in the know.

Anyway, a huge, huge thank you to John Blanche for featuring my model in his wonderful column! And to Peter, of course, without whom none of this would have happened! This is so amazing! I might as well quit the hobby now, because I’m not sure how exactly I will ever surpass this…NUTS!

In other news, two people nominated me for a Liebster Award on the same day: Thanks a lot to Henry South and Jimmy Grill!

In case you’re not familiar with the Liebster Award, it’s basically a friendly kind of Ponzi Scheme, with the single goal of giving readers the opportunity to discover new and interesting blogs. So not only am I happy to receive this nomination, but I’ll also happily help to spread the word:

As per the rules of the award, I am required to…

• tell you eleven truths about me
• answer eleven questions posed by the person who nominated my blog
• nominate eleven blogs for a Liebster Award
• pose eleven questions of my own, to be answered by my eleven nominees

So, without further ado, here we go:

Eleven Truths:

1. I am supremely lazy, which often proves to be a challenge in this hobby, especially while painting, and also unbelievably impatient when working on models, which has ruined more than one pretty cool paintjob or conversion, because I just couldn’t wait until everything was dry.

2. The GW kit I have purchased the most often is the plastic Chaos Lord in Terminator armour: I could always build another one of these.

3. My “grownup” reasons for picking up blogging were to teach myself stuff about blogging software and to keep practicing my English: Both missions accomplished, I suppose ;)

4. Fairly surprisingly for a devout follower of Khorne, I am not into Heavy Metal.

5. I still believe that the Police are the greatest band on the planet!

6. I love everything written by Neil Gaiman

7. If you try to interest me in a new tabletop game, make sure I am excited by the actual models: I am terrible with rules and forget them as quickly as I learn them, so the models have to be awesome enough to capture my interest.

8. I am a huge videogame nerd and have a pretty big collection of game systems.

9. Believe it or not, I have never been to an English speaking country – although I plan on remedying that sooner rather than later.

10. I love being complimented on my models (who doesn’t?), and I will sometimes feel awful when a model I am extremely proud of doesn’t get a lot of feedback online.

11. I am not actually a scientist ;)

Eleven blogs:

Since I know that several of my favourite blogs have already received a Liebster Award, they will be missing from the following list. That said, these eleven blogs are amazing and definitely deserve more traffic. So, in no particular order…:

1. Le blog dè Kouzes:  some of the most stunning kitbashes and paintjobs you will ever see. Definitely worth learning French for ;-)

2. Die Würfelwiese: the blog of an extremely talented, fellow German hobbyist. Just check out his magnificent Tallarns!

3. K.M.B. Some of the best World Eaters kitbashes and conversions on the net. I just wish AMaximus would update more often…

4. Beneath the Mire: Great content from a group of bloggers, especially noteworthy for Drone21c’s wonderful INQ28 models.

5. CerxiS World: Another fellow German’s blog, and some of the best Alpha Legion models and miniature photography you’ll ever see!

6. Thenickeninja’s blog: Amazing Blood Bowl conversions and the best underhive terrain in existence, period.

7. Miniature Tim: A very talented and friendly artist, and a pleasantly levelheaded and costructive take on our favourite hobby.

8. Tarvick the Artisan: wonderful conversions and inspiring paintjobs — what’s not to like?

9. Ex Profundis: Wonderfully creepy stuff by Bruticus and meade, masters of the bizarre. Dark Mechanicus craziness galore!

10. Eldritch Epistles: A wonderful look at models from the olden days. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

11. Mordian 7th: One of the most productive hobbyists you’ll ever see: The pace at which Mordian7th finishes great armies has to be seen to be believed!

Eleven answers…

…although, seeing how two people nominated me on the same day, I think it’s only fair to answer both sets of questions. Plus I love interview-ish stuff like this, since it makes me feel like a true rock star ;-) So here goes:

Eleven Answers (questions by Henry South):

1) Your most satisfying moment while painting.

Quite a while ago, I started following an approach for quickly achiving great results while painting as laid down by Steve Buddle : Paint the base colours, then generously apply washes, then go away and let them dry, then come back to the model and apply any highlights and details you want. This seems common sense now, but back then, it looked like witchcraft to me. Anyway, after applying all the base colours, the model looked so terrible that I could have screamed. Then I slapped on the washes, already considering the model a lost cause. When I returned to it after a few hours, I found the model completely transformed by the washes, which gave me a huge kick and really changed my approach to painting: I’ve been using that technique ever since (although I still feel terrible right before the washes come out ;) ).

2) Your worst painting disaster.

Saving up a lot of allowance money during my youth in order to be able to buy a Dark Eldar Raider, then finding out I hated painting it and ending up with a paintjob that was less than exciting – scared me away from painting vehicles for more than a decade, I suppose.
3) Can you “cheat” while painting. And is it wrong if you can?

Hmm, I guess you can cheat by only painting areas that will be clearly visible on the finished model and leave the hard to see parts mostly untouched, by that doesn’t work for me because I will always know that when I look at the model ;-) The other possible kind of “cheating” is to use shortcuts and easy recipes for creating reasonably good versions of effects that would need many, many working steps otherwise, but that’s not really cheating and I’m doing it all the time ;-)
Oh, and you can of course try to make your models look even better by taking really good photos of them, but again, that’s what you should be doing anyway, so can this really be considered cheating in the first place.

4) The one tip you would tell yourself when you started painting

Don’t try to slavishly follow the ‘Eavy Metal approach to painting: You’ll never be able to paint like that anyway – at least not at first. Find a technique that you’re comfortable with and go for a nice, clean paintjob. All else must follow. Don’t try to force it!

5) How do you get over your painting block?

- by stepping away from the model I am working on for a while, returning with a fresh perspective later
- by painting something completely different from what I am currently working on
- by painting something that I know will be fun (followers of Nurgle usually work like a charm)
- by looking at other people’s inspiring stuff until I get that itch for painting again

6) Pub garden or trendy winebar?

Pub Garden all the way. But then, I am not a great wine aficionado anyway, so yeah…

7) Which Chaos god would you sell your soul to?

Khorne. Definitely Khorne. My soul belongs to him ever since I painted my first chaos warrior, so it would have to be him. I am probably the least aggressive and brutal person you will ever meet, and I would likely suck in a fight, but there’s always the reassuring knowledge that Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it flows.

8) Who do you blame for getting you into miniture painting?

Hmm, I suppose it was a combination of my fascination with the painted models on the back of the HeroQuest mission booklet and the gentle urgings of a childhood friend who had already started to paint his own HeroQuest models (using terrible enamel colours and markers, no less).

9) What hobby would you be doing if you didn’t do this?

Hmm, I think I am somehow juggling all the nerd hobbies that interest me (videogames, RPGs, tabletop wargaming) at the same time, so I suppose this hobby doesn’t prevent me from any other hobby. Maybe if I wasn’t spending so much time cutting up little plastic men, I’d be free to do something grownup like learning another language or finding a cure for cancer, though. We might never find out ;-)

10) Chocolate or jellybeans?

Tough call. Though I really like jellybeans, I’ll have to say chocolate, though, because it forms the base for so many awesome things. Why does it have to be one or the other again?

11) What do you listen to while painting?

I usually have my ITunes on shuffle while painting, since I have a fairly extensive musical collection. That said, chances are there’ll be something indy rock-ish in the playlist, with the odd, tacky 80s pop number thrown in for variety ;)

Eleven Answers (questions by Jimmy Grill)

1) If you could wish for one thing except more wishes, what would that be?

Robust health for me and those close to me, I suppose, because health is so very important for our lives, but something we all tend to take for granted until it’s no longer there.

2) What was the first miniature you painted?

A HeroQuest Zombie: I gave him bright blue skin and bright yellow eyes…and then stopped painting because it looked utterly ridiculous. Still have that model lying around somewhere, come to think of it…

3) What was the best miniature released last year?

Hmm, I’ll have to say the Lord of Skulls: I realise many people hate it, but it really blew me away and I think it really pushed the envelope and paved the way for a number of really impressive releases (the Imperial Knight, for example).

 4) What was the latest movie you watched in the cinema?

Huh, the second Hobbit film, I believe. It has been ages since I went to the cinema – and I didn’t even think it was that good a film either – too much CGI and silly acrobatics, even for my taste.

5) Would you rather die now or live forever?

Both seem like pretty bleak prospects, when you think about it. Can’t choose one, they are both horrible ;)

6) Whom do you consider the worse geek, yourself or the hobbyists around you?

Aha, that’s a bit of a Catch 22 there, isn’t it? Of course I could easily name people who are worse geeks than me, but then, is there anything geekier than taking comfort in the fact that others are worse geeks? ;-)

7) The discontinued GW game you wish GW would bring back the most?

Hmm, this would be a neck and neck between Necromunda, Mordheim and Inquisitor. Each of these would be brilliant, especially with new models. All things considered, I’d have to say Inquisitor, though: at the 28mm scale, please ;)

8) How many DVDs would the internet take up if you removed all the porn?

Loads. Don’t forget all the Lolcat videos and borderline retarded selfies, though! It’s not all porn, you know ;)

9) In how many years will tabletop miniatures be 3d holograms?

Hopefully never:  Where’s the fun and artistry in using 3d holograms? I like obsessing over little plastic figures far too much to find such a prospect interesting.

10) If John Blanche and H.R. Giger had a child together, what would it look like?

Like something not even a mother could love. I am guessing lots of nipples, augmetic implants and a dashing renaissance costume.

11) I accidently the box. Is this bad?

I don’t understand the question, so I guess it might be…

And finally, eleven questions for my nominees:

1) Warhammer 40k or Warhammer Fantasy Battles? And why?

2) Who’s your favourite miniature sculptor?

3) What’s your best hint for painting (“Thin your paints!” doesn’t count!)

4) Who’s your favourite author?

5) What’s your favourite Traitor Legion?

6) Which Ordo of the Inquisition would you belong to?

7) Which army would you never start and why?

8) Which is the most important part of the hobby for you?

9) Your favourite band or musician?

10) Which is the most spectacular conversion/kitbash you would like to do, provided you had the bitz?

11) What was the best moment in your hobby life?

So yeah, what a day! Make sure to check out the blogs I nominated! Have a great weekend! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Right, sorry for the late update, and for getting ages to get back to any comments — work is crazy at the moment. Please bear with me, while I try not to lose my mind ;-)

Anyway, let me show you another batch of (fairly) recently kitbashed models from the wonderful world of INQ28: Maybe due to the recent release of the new Astra Militarum Codex, this update will mainly be featuring characters with a bit of an IG background.

With one notable exception, however: In a bit of an addendum to my last post, I have come up with two possible retainers to Brother-Sergeant Auriga, my true scale Marine:

1. An Astartes’s Servants

First up, I’ve had this little guy in my bitzbox for ages now:

But while I love cherubim – they’re such an ironic part of what makes 40k interesting – I never got around to finding an actual use for the model: That bolter the little guy is lugging around didn’t seem like such a good match for any of my Inquisitors, and I didn’t want to chop it off for fear of permanently ruining the model.

Brother Sergeant Auriga, however, is a Space Marine. And by virtue of being a Space Marine, he would own and wield a bolter, right? Well, so much the better, because now he has a servant to carry the weapon for him, at least when it’s not actually required on the battlefield, but rather as a “sign of office”, as it were. And it really fits my idea of the Golden Legion that they would not be above a bit of ostentatiousness like this.

Once I had seen the Marine and cherub together, there was no stopping me, and so I started working on yet another retainer for Brother Auriga: My original plan had been to have options for both a bare head and a helmeted one, but then I really liked the idea of having a chapter serf carry the Brother-Sergeant’s helmet. Here’s an early mockup:

These three really look great together, if you ask me:

At the same time, this growing retinue illustrates a bit of a challenge I am facing at the moment: My problem, if you can call it a problem at all, seems to be that some of the models I have recently built seem to warrant further retainers and familiars, just because it’s such a great way of further exploring them as characters. You’ll be seeing another example of this in a minute, and while building some additional models (for additional narrative texture) is a blast, I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to finish all of these… Then again, as long as it’s fun, it certainly can’t be all bad, can it?

Anyway, moving on to the Astra Militarum guys:

II. The Rank And File

I suppose some of you will still be remembering my kitbashed Trencher, right? Well, messing around with a Dark Vengeance chaos cultist and an Eisenkern Stormtrooper head lead to a model that might be a playfellow for him (or maybe a soldier of the opposing army?). Take a look:

Then there’s a special ops trooper I built, heavily inspired by one of Commissar Molotov’s conversions:

This guy was built by combining two sets of Cadian legs (you’ll quickly see the area where the conversion still needs some evening out) and adding some bitz from the Tempestus Scions (nothing says “elite soldier” quite like a beret worn in combat, right? ;) I also added some bitz to the lasgun, in order to make it look like a custom model:

III. Ordo Militum?!

I have also begun to mess around with the Tempestor Prime bitz, creating a model that could become a high-ranking Guard officer, or maybe even an Inquisitor with strong ties to the Ordo Militum? Take a look:

This model is not yet finished, of course. For now, the most involved change to the base model was to add the saber of the plastic Ordo Prefectus Commissar — which I think fits this model rather better than the model it originally came from. I’m also not yet sure whether I like it better held vertically or horizontally:

Thoughts?

Speaking of the Ordo Prefectus Commissar, I have begun to turn him into an agent of the Ordos:

I quickly realised that the model had a bit of a “gunslinger” vibe going on, so I experimented with different weapons setups (and added a head with a bionic eye that seems to support the character’s targeting prowess:

As for the actual weapons, the plasma pistol seemed a little too clunky for me, and while I liked the Dark Eldar pistol well enough for its sleek silhouette, it just seemed too xenos for a military man like this — it would probably be ideal if one were to build a Rogue Trader from this base model, however. Just sayin’…

In the end, I opted for a custom weapon, kitbashed from a Dark Eldar fusion pistol and a strut from a GK backpack:

I am reasonably pleased with the outcome, because it looks clunky enough to qualify as Imperial, but could also conceivably have xenos origins. In any case, it has a bit of the classic, retro-futuristic “SCIENCE!” look, don’t you think?

Another fun experiment was to use some different legs on the model:

In this case, I tried some legs from the Eisenkern Stormtroopers, and while the result might look a little off, I think it might be an avenue of conversion that definitely warrants further exploration.

For this particular model, though, I am going to keep the standard legs:

So who is this guy? I think he’s looking a bit too ostentatious to be a “regular” gunslinger. He might be an actual Inquisitor, but there’s a cockiness in his pose and expression that makes me think he might make a better Interrogator — maybe a servant of the Ordo Militum Inquisitor above?

IV. An Officer And A Gentleman…

There’s one last set of models I would like to show you, and these are another example of my recent fancy when it comes to going off on a tangent in order to kitbash some “spin off” miniatures, so to speak. But let’s start at the beginning:

A rather long while ago, fellow hobbyist and all around great guy PDH let me have a tank commander commissar from the FW DKOK Commissar set — on the condition that I would use it for a conversion.

Well, it took me ages to finally come up with a conversion opportunity for the model – mostly because the tank commander is lacking the legs below the knee, for obvious reasons – but when the Tempestus Scions appeared upon the scene, I finally had my solution (and a way to give this guy new legs). Take a look:

As you can see, I just added in the lower legs of a Tempestus Scion — which worked like a charm, with only minimal cutting and GS’ing involved! In order to make the model look more like a noble and austere character, I also replaced the DKOK gas mask with a bare head (from the Empire Knights’ White Wolves sprue, of all places…). On a related note, I did keep the commissar head perfectly intact, in order to be able to use it in a future conversion:

Anyway, when I posted the DKOK conversion on my Ammobunker thread, fellow hobbyist Logan pointed out that the model reminded him of a painting of Karl Franz of Austria. And then it hit me: This guy actually looks like he is posing for a portrait, isn’t he?

I actually embraced this effect, and in order to further emphasise it, I added a servo-skull and a small plinth on his base, making the “portrait look” even stronger:

And then I finally lost my mind when DexterKong suggested I built a small diorama showing the officer’s portrait being painted by an Imperial artist. And I really loved that idea! So I began to plan accordingly (wanting to build the diorama, but also endeavouring to keep the models useable individually).

Anyway, for the painter, I chose an Imperial acolyte I had picked up during a bitz swap some time ago:

This seems to be everybody’s favourite model from back when Codex: Daemonhunters was released, but on my copy, the eye section of the face was unfortunately rather miscast/damaged, leaving him without eyes and giving him an ugly splotch of metal over the upper half of his face. So, as you can see above, I added a new bionic eye to him, in order to repair the model.

It works rather well, I think, and the strange “welt” running over his right eye now looks more like a cable feeding into his bionic eye — how very 40k, to replace and eye and thereby fething up the other one, right? Especially on a painter!

Because this guy will be serving as a “painting servitor”, or as an augmeticised master painter, for that matter. I think he will be commanding a coterie of servo-skulls, that are taking care of the actual painting, while he is making preparatory sketches and adjusting the skulls’ work.

The servo skulls will be darting around a suitably grimdark easel. I have already started building it:

Ironically enough, one of the servo skull diceholders that were released alongside 6th edition served as the main recource for building the easel. I added some parts from an old model truck kit, as well as some cabling and an Imperial aquila. And, like I said, a couple of servo-skulls will be floating around the completed easel:

I am currently using a CD as a makeshift base for the diorama, figuring out the basic composition before starting on the actual build:

So this will be a scene depicting a powerful Lord Militant of the Astra Militarum having his portrait taken by an augmeticised master painter of the 41st millennium and his coterie of servo-skull assistents — is this utterly brilliant or completely idiotic? Or a little bit of both? I’ll let you be the judges of that…

Anyway, so much for the Astra Militarum side of things for now! See you all next week, when I am going to show you the third batch of my current INQ28 kitbashing results. Until then, feel free to let me know any suggestions and feedback you might have!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I realise that the next release is already rolling – or rather stomping, as it were – around, but let’s still take a moment for a look back at a release that has been sligthly overshadowed by the advent of the 7th edition: Today I would like to talk about the new Wood Elves.

Almost exactly one year after a sizeable High Elves release and about eight months after a rather spectacular relaunch/redesign of the Dark Elves, the Wood Elves are the final elven faction in WFB to receive an update. And after many fears that the army might be going the way of the dodo (or, indeed, the Squats), I guess seeing an update must have been a pretty huge relief for Wood Elf players! But what about the models themselves? Are they any good? Will they be able to keep up with the revamped Dark Elves? And what about the conversion potential?

A newcomer to the world of Warhammer might question the need for three distinct elven factions, but in all honesty, I’ve always felt that GW has done a pretty good job of visually distinguishing these armies from one another so far: The High Elves are an orderly, clean and highly stylised army with lots of bright colours and elegant lines. The Dark Elves are no less elegant, but they function as a dark mirror of their High Elf brethren, spiky and sinister, yet with a depraved sense of beauty. So what about the Wood Elves?

As all Warhammer Elves, they do certainly have a healthy dose of Tolkien in them, and at their worst, they are very reminiscent of the archetypal image you’d have of the Elves of Lothlórien — all the more so after seeing the Lord of the Rings films. But there’s also something wild and untamed about them, and that’s where it gets interesting: Their symbiotic relationship with the forest of Athel Loren goes beyond the usual tree-hugging tropes, recalling instead the capricious and often dangerous nature of faeries and spirits in folk tales, with myths like the Wild Hunt thrown in for good measure. In fact, when at their best, GW’s Wood Elves remind me of what might be one of my favourite illustrated books ever, the 1970s classic Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee (on a related note, hobby prodigy Jeff Vader’s beautifully illustrated book Nordiska Väsen seems very reminiscent of the Brian Froud’s work at times — I’ll definitely have to pick up a copy at some point!).

Anyway, while I am not the owner of a Wood Elf army, I was nevertheless happy to see that wild, ultimately slightly alien, element brought to the fore with models like the plastic Dryads and the strange faeries crawling over various Wood Elf models, adorning their bases etc, because this influence from classic mythology is what ultimately transforms the Wood Elves into something more interesting than just “pointy eared guys wearing green”.

So, in order to find out whether the new release actually manages to embrace those rather interesting elements, let’s take a look at the actual models, shall we?

Araloth

What would a new GW release be without at least one new clamshell plastic character? For the Wood Elves, Araloth fulfils this role, and he is another beautiful miniature. What really gets me every time with these mono-pose plastic models is the amount of depth and three-dimensionality GW manages to get out of them (albeit at the cost of customisability).

Araloth is a great example of this, and he also hits all the right cues for a Wood Elf character: Flowing clothes, check. Antlered helmet giving him a slightly mystical appearance, check. He even has a bird. God, how I love birds on Wood Elf models ;-)

At the same time, a look at the sprue reveals that Araloth is indeed quite a bit more modular than one would have expected, so a couple of conversions with this model as a base would definitely be an option — but more on that later.

All in all, a competent Wood Elf character with some very nice visual touches. Nothing more, but also nothing less.

Eternal Guard/Wildwood Rangers

The first combi-kit to come out of this release gives us two types of elite infantry.

First up, the Eternal Guard: These look more ostentatious and formal than the Glade Guard, which only seems appropriate. At the same time, they share clear similarities, both with their less armoured and regimented Wood Elf kin as well as with other elven infantry: A couple of visual elements like the basic helmet and shield shapes still hint at a common cultural heritage with the High Elves and Dark Elves.

All in all, these are well made models, similar enough to other elven infantry to read as the same species, but still with enough clearly Wood-Elven flourishes to make them visually distinct. Good job!

The kit can alternatly be assembled to make a unit of Wildwood Rangers, leading to a slightly different outcome:

While using the same base models, the Wildwood Rangers are distinguished by their cowled heads and their two-handed glaives. The hoods once again recall some of the heads in the Glade Guard kit, which strengthens the visual consistency across the army, while the glaives are a really nice touch. As an aside, while it seems that these are used pretty much exactly like the Dark Eldar Incubi’s Klaives, the Rangers’ weapons somehow seem a tad more plausible to me…

All in all, the cowls and equipment lead to a somewhat more shadowy, mystical look, which I guess was the whole point. If I have one gripe, it’s the fact that the unit champion looks somewhat less impressive than I would have liked:

All in all, this looks like a pretty versatile kit for two types of elite infantry. Both options seem equally interesting from a visual standpoint, and the kit should provide some rather interesting conversion bitz — but we’ll be getting to that…

Wild Riders/Sisters of the Thorn

Another combi-kit, this cavalry clearly embraces the mystical, faerie-like aspect of the Wood Elves. This is evident in the magical deer serving as their mounts (it seems that these can become Steeds of Kurnous or Steeds of Isha, simply by virtue of a different paintjob) as well as in the riders, whose design makes it delightfully ambiguous whether they are/were regular Wood Elves or are rather something more ethereal, like spirits of the forest.

The male Wild Riders carry forward a kind of beautiful, yet subtly sinister helmet design seen before on a certain Glade Lord model, and indeed their helmets might be one of my favourite things about the models. I also really like their capes, covered in ivy and briars, and the deer make for some rather dyamic posing, with the champion’s pose possibly my favourite:

All in all, these models embody rather nicely what is interesting and original about the Wood Elves — with the Wild Hunt connotations obviously turned up to eleven on these guys.

The bad news is that, precisely as has been the case with the last elven male/female combi-kit, the girls definitely get the short end of the stick once more. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a look at the Sisters of the Thorn first:

The magical deer stay the same, so no objections there. However, I think that from a design standpoint, these models are really far inferior to their male counterparts — which is just a shame! Maybe it’s just me, but the models have that “She-Ra, Princess of Power” look that makes it really hard to take them seriously. And, once again, the faces (the part that will make or break a female model for me) just seem like something from really bad 80s’ fantasy art.

Then there are those spears on the models’ backs: Maybe they were supposed to recall butterfly wings, underlining the faerie motif, and maybe they weren’t –whatever they were supposed to do, it  just doesn’t work, if you ask me.

You’d think that, after the female portion of the last “equal opportunities” combi-kit turned out pretty lacklustre, GW would have learned their lesson and make it work this time around. But once again, the female models just look slightly goofy. A crying shame and definitely the weakest part of the release for me! Come on, GW! Give us some well-made female faces already. I know your designers are up to it!

Treeman / Treeman Ancient / Durthu

Can I just say, right off the bat, that I really dislike the older Treeman models: The old, early 90s metal models may have a corny charm today, but they were pretty terrible. And the slightly updated Treeman released along the last batch of Wood Elves was just neither here nor there: He didn’t have the goofiness of the older “Look, I am a walking tree” models, but ended up looking like a strange cross between a tree and an alien-dinosaur…thing in return. So a new Treeman kit was overdue, and it makes a lot of sense that GW chose this particular unit type as their “huge” kit for this release.

The kit gives us three alternate builds, which is pretty cool. All three Treeman variants look a lot like bigger Dryads, as can be seen in this comparison:

Now I really think the Dryads are a brilliant (and hugely underappreciated) plastic kit, so it won’t surprise you to learn that I am a fan of the overall new Treeman design: I think even the (comparatively) lowly standard Treeman looks like a awe-inspiring mythical creature, with its wooden, masklike face a great chance for painters to bring out the eerie quality of the sculpt. I am not perfectly sold on that slightly strange vine whip, to be honest, because it almost looks like something you’d see on a Tyranid model, but at the very least, it’s an interesting idea.

The Treeman Ancient uses the same kit and base model to give us a pretty different looking character:

What I really like about this guy is that he does indeed look like a more senior Treeman and also like an object of worship, with a carefully braided beard and loincloth, huge “antlers” growing from the branches on his head, and a rather different, more proactive pose.

And finally, there’s also the Treeman named character, Durthu:

This guy’s background is that he has been terribly damaged and deeply scarred, both in body and soul, and has become a pretty angry guy as a consequence. And it definitely shows, from the damaged and partly caved-in face to the lots and lots of skulls woven into the ivy hanging from Durthu’s limbs and into his branches. The branches on the model’s head also nicely add to its dynamism, and there’s also the huge (yet elegant) sword, of course.

All in all, I think the Treeman kit is a rather great success: It will produce a standout piece, no matter which configuration you choose. But the truly stunning fact is the amount of customisability evident in the kit, with the finished models sharing a clear common heritage but still looking fairly distinct. Take a look:

Seeing these guys in a row like that, it also seems to me like Treemen get progressively more pissed off the more ancient they get — which actually makes a lot of sense, considering they get to see more and more damage done to their forest over the course of their long lives! However, this also makes for a pretty neat bit of visual storytelling over the different configurations of the kit!

An honourable mention must also go to the myriad of forest spirits you get as conversion bitz in the Treeman kit. The three-eyed owl, partcularly, continues the wonderful tradition of awesome birds hidden away in Wood Elf kits:

If there is one negative aspect about these new Treemen, it’s that, well, to be honest, they don’t look all that much like actual trees. But one need look no further than the old metal Treemen to see that GW made a good call here: I’d rather have a stunning model than a biologically accurate one. And these are not Tolkien’s Ents, but rather more visceral, for lack of a better word, Treemen that seem perfectly at home in the dark world of Warhammer. In any case, the Treeman kit is certainly one of the high points of the release for me!

Conversion options

Figuring out a way of using new bits and kits in various conversion and kitbashing projects  is obviously always my favourite part of any new release, so let’s look at the possible conversion options this time around:

First of all, it shouldn’t surprise you that players of elven or Eldar armies should get the most out of this release when it comes to useful bitz. Let me share just a couple of quick ideas with you:

To begin with, a fairly straightforward observation: I suppose the Eternal Guard could be transformed into pretty good High Elf spearmen with a bit of work and a change of shields — Lord knows the High Elves need some better spearmen…

Then there’s the Wildwood Rangers, with their shadowy, cowled look. I think their design would make them perfect as base models for kitbashed plastic Dark Elf Assassins, in case you don’t want to use Shadowblade multiple times. Come to think of it, the same qualities also make sure they are really promising conversion fodder for INQ28 Death Cultists, assassins or the like.

Aralor, as all clamshell plastic characters, will doubtlessly be at the centre of many, many conversions. While I have not yet figured out a cool way of making him into an INQ28 character, I am fairly confident one of my fellow hobbyists will blow me away with their imagination — Jeff Vader, Spiky Rats, PDH, anyone? He could of course be used as a base model for a rather interesting Farseer conversion, that much is certain…

In fact, this leads me to the two most promising conversion projects I can think of regarding this release:

The first one probably isn’t all that original to begin with: If someone were to build a characterful Eldar Exodite army, I believe some of the new models would be perfect conversion fodder for that: Just take some of the new infantry kits, some Eldar Guardians and happily kitbash away! For the more adventurous spirits, wouldn’t Durthu make a promising start for a truly stunning Exodite Avatar? Just sayin’…

The other option is to use parts from this release in a Dark Eldar army project: I can really see the stylised plant motif work enormously well with a Dark Eldar Kabal. Just keep in mind that the Dark Eldar have a depraved kind of elegance that should work exceptionally well with floral motifs ;-) And there’s also the fact that poisons feature prominently in Dark Eldar culture, so a bit of poison ivy here and there would look doubly at home.

All in all, this feels like a relatively small, but rather focused release to me. More models would have been nice, but the stuff we get is very well done, both in concept and execution. The only true disappointment is the lack of quality in the Sisters of the Thorn (well, and maybe a lack of plastic Wardancers), but this still seems like a rather strong release to me! It’s just a shame that it seems to have been rather overshadowed by all of the 7th edition shenanigans…

Another thing I realised: One of my main criticisms regarding the new Dwarf models was that, while pretty cool, the new models looked so different from some of the older kits in the catalogue that using armies composed of older and newer models might create a bit of a jarring contrast. No such contrast is evident in the Wood Elf kits — quite the opposite, actually: Not only will Wood Elf players be able to use older and newer models together without creating any visual “continuity errors”, but the new models also seem to have been created with the old models very much in mind, continuing much of the earlier design paradigms or even further developing them. Thumbs up for that!

One final question: Where does that leave this release in comparion with the High Elves and Dark Elves? If cou ask me, smack dab in the middle: The new Wood Elves obviously cannot compare with the Dark Elves release, because for the latter almost the entire line of models was spectacularly redesigned from scratch. However, both the Wood Elves release as well as their overall catalogue of models seem slightly more interesting to me than the High Elf offerings. Sure, there are standout kits in the High Elf catalogue that are some of the best models available for WFB, but their release not only contained some slightly wonky models, but also failed to address the parts that actually needed addressing (the hopelessly overaged core troops, for one). Plus the overall level of quality seems more even for the Wood Elf line of models, whereas the High Elves are held back by some pretty old (and rather clunky) kits.

So yeah, if you ask me, Dark Elves come in first, with Wood Elves on a safe second and High Elves bringing up the rear.

So, what do you think of the new models? Were you as pleasantly surprised as me, or are you rather disappointed? Have any cool ideas for possible conversions or kitbashes? Want to vent your anger? I’d love to hear any feedback you might have in the comments section!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone, just a smallish update for today: Even though the combination of a couple of days off and a massive bitz drop (courtesy of several fellow hobbyists) should have provided the perfect circumstances for a rather productive building and painting spree, the exceptionally warm weather has managed to throw a monkey wrench into the works, so to speak: It’s so warm outside that my modelling putty isn’t holding together at all (or too well, in places), my paint is drying on the brush, and even typing this already makes me break a sweat. Awesome, huh?

Well, fortunately, it’s not all bad: I’ve soldiered on regardless, so you can expect a more substantial look at my current projects in the near future. For now, let me just share two models I have recently painted:

First up, speaking of monkey wrenches reminds me of monkey, and maybe you’ll recall this little guy:

I already told you that PeeDee, named for none other than PDH, would be next on the painting table — and indeed he was! Here’s the finished model for you:

Even though it’s a very small model, I still took my time painting it, and I think it was well worth the effort. Since PeeDee is the favourite pet of Rogue Trader Iskander Gagarin, I felt that bright and vibrant colours were the right choice for his little uniform — Rogue Traders do like to show off, after all ;-)

The thing I am really pleased with is PeeDee’s face, though, complete with a pupil in his right eye. This may have been the first and only well executed pupil I have painted for about a decade, so I am really stupidly happy with it — and good thing I gave PeeDee a bionic left eye, because otherwise I would have had to paint two eyes and make sure the pupils were correctly lined up. And, as we all know, that way madness lies…

All in all, though PeeDee’s only a familiar on par with a servo-skull or psyber-eagle, I couldn’t be any happier with the paintjob — and painting this little guy was a blast, too!

And it goes without saying that, even though PeeDee may be small, he certainly isn’t too small for a few lines of background ;-)

PeeDee the Monkey

Many Rogue Traders like to flaunt their wealth, dressing in the finest clothes and carrying priceless artifacts. Iskander Gagarin is no exception to this rule, always cutting a dashing figure in his sharply cut uniforms and rare furs, armed with weapons that are either highly exotic or priceless family heirlooms. However, one of Gagarin’s favourite trophies is a living being: A small, excessively augmeticised monkey going by the name of PeeDee. This small creature is a highly complex familiar, possessed of an uncanny intelligence and capable of completing complex tasks that would baffle any servitor. Usually dressed in the same vibrant colours as his master, PeeDee isa sign of the Rogue Trader’s wealth and taste, but also a highly useful retainer in his own right. Indeeed, creating a familiar of such complexity is a task for the brightest minds amongs the Genetors and Magi Biologis of the Adeptus Mechanicus. And, as a matter of fact,  it is rumoured that Gagarin won his favourite pet during a protracted game of Regicide against a particularly eccentric member of that secretive order…

So yeah, so much for PeeDee the Monkey! Like I said, I am really happy with the finished model, and I hope that PDH, as his namesake, likes him as well ;-) After all, he was the one to give me the model in the first place. Thanks again, mate!

The other model I would like to show you today is a bit of a departure from my usual projects: Some of you might remember my various forays into the world of Blood Bowl, prompted by my colleague Annie (whose wonderful Lustria Team I also featured on this blog).

Anyway, Annie has been hard at work on a truly stunning new team, full of clever conversions and great models, for a while now. The team will be pirate-themed, and I certainly hope that I’ll be able to share it with you, once it is finished.

Now when Annie’s birthday recently came up, it was absolutely clear to me that I would have to build a model for her team, codenamed the Piratz, so I gathered up all the slightly pirate-y bitz I had and tried to come up with something. Unfortunately, I had already scoured my bitzbox for anything looking like it might fit a pirate team earlier in order to provide her with a small bitz collection. As a consequence, I really had to make ends meet this time around, but in the end I came up with this model, intended to serve as a cheerleader for the Piratz:

Nothing too fancy, as you’ll agree: Some WFB Empire bitz gave me the right base to work from, and adding a Marauder head, a peg leg and some suitable weapons were enough to come up with a fairly convincing pirate. While painting the model, I tried to channel all the fond memories I had of the Pirates of the Carribean films ;-)

Anyway, I only had two evenings to build and paint this model, so I was a bit pressed for time. In the end, though, I managed to finish the model in time. Take a look:

I used a fairly limited palette of colours, making sure the model looked unkempt enough to read as a pirate. Still, going for lighter and more vibrant colours was a nice bit of contrast when compared to my usual, darker painting style.

I wanted the flag carried by the pirate to do double duty as both a variation of the venerable Jolly Roger and also work as a banner supporting the team. So here’s what I came up with:

While the motto on the front of the flag needed to be freehanded, one of my chaos decal sheets luckily provided me with a suitable skull! As you can see, I also built a suitable base for the model, in line with the bases Annie is building for her team. Let’s take a closer look at that part of the model:

What would a true pirate be without a drink, right? ;-)

One thing that is a bit of a recurring visual motif in Annie’s team is that each model features a rat — hence the name Piratz, I suppose. Anyway, it was clear that I would have to do the same, so I used one of the venerable old HeroQuest rats for that role. Take a look at the rat in its hidey hole:

Definitely not award-winning stuff, but Annie was still very happy with her new cheerleader. And I can already imagine this jolly guy waving that flag of his and singing bawdy songs as my own Orkheim Ultraz are pounded into the ground by the Piratz. We shall see…

So yeah, that’s it for today. Let it not be said that the head totally killed my productivity ;-) And like I said, stay tuned for some serious WIP action very soon! :-)

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Last Saturday marked my 33rd birthday, and among other fleeting moments of introspection befitting such an occasion, the date made me realise that I’ve been in the business of messing around with little plastic men for about 20 years now — which seems pretty unreal, to tell you the truth. But instead of getting all sentimental and contemplative on you, let me take this opportunity to present you with a “blast from the past”, as it were, granting you a look at my very first army for Warhammer 40k — an army that, in many ways, started it all.

Before we do that, though, take a moment to marvel at the birthday image shown above which Annie sent me, totally making my day in the process: Not only did she put most of her Blood Bowl models to work on wishing me a happy birthday, but the picture also hints at some finished (or near finished) models for her new Piratz team — very awesome, and definitely something to look forward to! So, once again, thanks so much for the amazing surprise! :-)

So yeah, back to the past. Before we take a look at this venerable project of mine, let me give you a little background, okay?

It was October 1998, and a new edition of Warhammer 40k had just been released. 2nd edition had been straining to accomodate hobbyists growing armies for a while, but in the end the rather cumbersome ruleset that had originally been designed for skirmishes, above all else, finally gave out. 3rd edition, then, brought some thorough streamlining to the system, and even then, this turned to be a bit of a divisive direction.

Back then, though, I didn’t know anything about this: I had gotten into WFB a while earlier, raising my first tabletop army ever. But even then, I realised that 40k called out to me, maybe even more than WFB did: I had been in love with what little of the setting I had been able to grasp from the butchered German version of Space Crusade, and a weekend spent blazing through the wonderful books from the 2nd edition starter box sold me on the setting.

So the new edition arrived at a time where I was contemplating a closer look at the 40k universe anyway. I eagerly gobbled up all the information about this new version of 40k, discussed in detail on the pages of (German) WD 34. Possibly even more important than any rules changes was the giveaway miniature the issue came with: A brand new plastic Dark Eldar warrior, the first representative of a completely new faction for 40k, and also the model that would launch my very first 40k army, pictured below: The Kabal of the Black Sun.

In all fairness, it’s a rather boring army in many ways, because, like so many other first armies, it was build on what I could afford to buy from my weekly allowance at the time. So the army was assembled piecemeal, whenever I could afford to drop a bit of pocket money into my growing collection of spiky, pointy eared Space pirates.

This clearly reflects in the somewhat lopsided army composition: Lots and lots of plastic warriors (because these were the easiest to get hold of and delivered quite a bit of modeling bang for the buck), a couple of metal models (bought one at a time, except for the squad of Wyches), a squad of jetbikes (a rather expensive combi-kit back then, so I had to save up in order to be able to buy it) and, lastly, a Raider (the biggest purchase in pure monetary terms, and also possibly the most disappointing: I really only bought this model because it seemed to be absolutely compulsory for running a Dark Eldar army, but I was never all that fond of it, and it shows in the shoddy paintjob).

Anyway, even then, this army wasn’t really collected as a fighting force supposed to win any games (which, fittingly, it didn’t), but rather as an ongoing attempt at creating something cool. And while pretty much all of the models are horribly outdated – especially when compared to their modern counterparts – and while I am fully conscious of the technical shortcomings of my painting (which was even worse back then, if you can believe it…), I still think there are quite a few things to be proud of in this army, so let us take a closer look at some of the squads and individual models:

First up, one of my warrior squads. This one was supposed to serve as some kind of honour squad for my Archon, if the situation demanded it:

In hindsight, I do of course realise that the true Stars of the show in the 3rd edition release were the multipart plastic Space Marines — as evidenced by the fact that it took a whopping 15 years for the kit to be substantially redesigned, and even then, today’s Space Marines still follow the basic recipe laid down by the 1998 release. The Dark Eldar Kabalite warriors were merely the byproduct of this process, and while they did help to pave the way towards a future of wonderful plastic kits to come, their first incarnation was probably a bit lacklustre even back then: The sprue only held the bare minimun of parts, with only a single special weapon and not much extra bitz to speak of: If you wanted different special weapons or more interesting squad leaders, you had to buy additional (metal) models — or you had to get creative!

And that’s exactly why I’ll always be indebted to those venerable plastic Xenos: It was both because they looked so samey and because they were so easy to convert, that I discovered how immensely fun it was to kitbash and convert plastic miniatures — still my favourite hobby activity today!

I can say without any hyperbole that I really went to town on the unassuming Kabalite Warriors sprue, creating an endless stream of conversions from it: running Kabalite warriors, more impressive Sybarites — I even used it to build a squad of Mandraks, because there weren’t any official models available for them back then. I also discovered the joys of kitbashing! For instance, this guy is a conversion I was enormously proud of for a very long time:

Not even brain surgery, really: I just cut off the blades from a couple of Dark Eldar weapons and glued them to an old Craftworld Eldar power fist (that old CC weapons sprue was the best!), creating a very sinister and Dark Eldar-ish bladed gauntlet:

This seemed like such an enormously fiddly conversion back then, but it filled me with a nearly unprecedented sense of achievement. And it also taught me something else: That converting each and every model in a given army in order to make each model special was a very worthy endeavour indeed! So where I had mostly been content to assemble the models by the book for my Warriors of Chaos army, the Dark Eldar taught me to be more adventurous, to try and push the envelope on my hobby projects!

But even I arrived at a point where I had burned myself out on the plastic Dark Eldar warriors and started to look for other resources. My eyes fell on the – then brand new – Eldar Guardians, and so I built a huge squad of kitbashed, bigger and meaner Kabalite warriors:

Again, none of these conversions are all that spectacular. But they surely felt that way back then — with detailed multipart plastic kits available for the first time!

Here’s the Sybarite for the squad of “Not Guardians”:

To tell you the truth, even in spite of all its obvious failings, I am still rather happy with the model’s slightly sinister elegance, even now.

Let me take this chance to address the paintjobs for a minute here: As you can see, I chose a very simple approach for my Dark Eldar: They were undercoated in black, then the armour plates were simply coated in gloss varnish, giving the models a slightly insectile look. The details were painted in gold and silver. Turquoise served as a spot colour (a habit I still keep up today ;-)) And while such a bare bones approach to painting might no longer fly today, I still think that this army made me realise that simple, striking colour schemes are the way to go. Sure, none of the models are anything to write home about from a painting perspective, but they still manage to look rather coherent and striking as a collection. At least until you get closer to them… Also take note of the classic 90s basing recipe: Goblin Green and green flock FTW! ;-)

But back to the models themselves: My experience with these plactic kits even made me slightly more adventurous when it came to filling up the lack of official Dark Eldar models with my own creations. For instance, I added a Dark Eldar bit to an old Dark Elf plastic Sorceress in order to create a subcommander for my Dark Eldar:

And while we’re on the subject of army commanders: The – rather limited – collection of (metal) characters and specialists was, of course, the other thing that defined the Dark Eldar back then. These models created some much needed variety and also seemed so cool in those days. Not all of them have managed to age all that gracefully, but I suppose that’s a given. Anyway, let us take a closer look at that side of my army:

First up, my Archon. I used GW’s stock Archon model which is very much a product of its time, of course, with huge shoulder pads and an almost ridiculous headdress (and I am still not sure whether I like the flayed face…), but I think it’s also a pretty apt representation of the Dark Eldar’s essence: The model is spiky and undeniably evil, but it also has this sinister, slightly depraved elegance. It’s also important to remember that this particular niche didn’t exist in 40k back then (because the Slaaneshi Chaos Space Marine models were far too bulky and out there to truly register as elegant). Plus I do have a soft spot for this guy!

The lances glued to the model’s back were originally intended as a trophy rack. I would have added a new trophy for each defeated enemy. A neat concept, but, alas, it never came to that: I never defeated a single enemy, for one. And looking back now, it was probably for the best, because the quality of the bitz back then would probably have made the trophy rack look absolutely hideous!

There’s also this model, a Sybarite for the Kabalite warriors:

And, to be honest with you, this may be one of my favourite tabletop models ever, and one that I still love. Sure, it looks to big and bulky when stood next to the regular Kabalite Warriors. Sure, the thickness of the various blades and the model’s claws harken back to a different period of casting. And yes, the pose is a bit clichéd. But it’s still an all-time favourite of mine, because it perfectly embodies what the Dark Eldar are about. It’s really a shame that this guy looks even bulkier when placed to the new (2010) Dark Eldar, because he would be an essential addition to any pointy eared army, otherwise. Oh yes, for the record: I am none to happy with the crappy blending on the claw ;-)

Of all the models in the old Dark Eldar catalogue, I think it’s the Haemonculi that have best managed to hold up by modern standards. In fact, if I were to start a Dark Eldar army today, I would seriously consider using them as “regular” Haemonculi, with the floating, multi-limbed new Haemonculi only used as elders or army commanders. Anyway, take a look:

First up, the older version of Urien Rakarth. I am still reasonably happy with my paintjob — especially so since the model was actually repainted at one point to bring it more in line with my Kabal’s colour scheme.

And here’s his colleague, a regular Haemonculus (insofar as the term “regular” can be applied to these guys):

This model was also pretty much the first instance of really stepping outside my comfort zone during painting. It may not look like much now, but painting the face by highlighting the prominent areas in ever more delicate layers of paint really showed me that there might be more to painting than just doing the bare minimum. Sure, I could probably do much better today, but it still started here.

I actually own the third unique Haemonculus sculpt as well, although I haven’t painted the model yet. Perhaps I should, though, because these guys would probably work equally well in a radical INQ28 retinue…

All in all, the Haemonculi were one of the most original and new concepts about the Dark Eldar back when they were released, and it’s cool to see that these models still hold up — at least in my opinion.

Another model that I am still rather fond of is the older incarnation of Lelith Hesperax:

Sure, there is much to be said for the much more restrained, modern version of the model, but I cannot help feeling fond of the sci-fi dominatrix look of the old model. Plus this model holds a special place in my heart for the challenge it presented painting-wise: Getting the contrast between the spiky armour and the softer, organic shapes of the unarmoured parts just so was quite a challenge for someone only used to painting bulky Chaos Warriors — and probably especially difficult for any lad still mired in the late afterpains of puberty ;-)

Alas, her accompanying retinue of Wyches has not fared quite as well:

Again, the are just a little too 90s, with their unbelievably big hair and clunky, retro-futuristic musical performer design — especially when compared to their gorgeous modern incarnation. They are still good fun, of course, but in a slightly corny way. Still, these guys and girls make me scratch my head in wonder at how I managed to paint all those tiny pupils back then — this seems to be one of the things I have actually managed to unlearn since those simpler days…maybe it’s the onset of middle age?

We all know the rest of the original story, of course: The Dark Eldar went through a pretty rough patch, being kept at arms length by GW for a very long amount of time. It took until an – admittedly spectacular – relaunch in 2010 to finally update the army, and even though that relaunch was one of the factors getting me back into the hobby after a longer hiatus, it didn’t see me return to the army: Although I did try to continue where I had left off, I realised that my heart was no longer in it, despite the amazing new models. So I turned to the forces of chaos instead, my other great hobby love. And you know the rest (or can at least read up on it on this blog in case you don’t).

In the larger scheme of things, however, this army is still immensely important for my personal hobby life, not only because it was my first 40k army, but mostly because it managed to teach me so many important lessons that are still helpful today. Granted, many of my growing pains of my hobbyist are clearly evident in the models themselves. But the army was instrumental as a means of departing from the slavish adherence to the pretty pictures on the boxes in many ways, and for that alone, it marks an important step in my personal hobby history.

So yeah, the things you think about in the aftermath of your birthday, right? ;-)
Anyway, I hope this little blast from the past has been as enjoyable for you as collecting my thoughts on the matter has been for me! It goes without saying that I would love to hear any feedback you might have!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

This week, I spent a couple of days on a seaside vacation, visiting one of the Frisian islands and having an all around great time. Like last time, I had all these great plans for getting creative stuff done while on vacation — like preparing a blog post or two. And exactly like last time, I did precisely nothing, save for eating, sleeping, reading, and messing around with the panorama function of my phone’s camera. Sorry folks, there’ll be a real update soon ;)

Until then, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Right, I do of course realise that I am a bit behind on my stuff — even as I write this, we are already seeing the next release rolling around. But man, this breakneck pace is just too fast for me to keep up ;) Seriously, though: The latest release for what is referred to as “The End Times” in WFB surely warrants a closer look, even if I have taken my own sweet time to finally get around to it…

By the look of it, The End Times will be receiving a chain of books that are less centered around single armies and more around greater factions and the accompanying campaign — not unlike the various Forgeworld publications, come to think of it… It’s also very interesting to see that GW seems to be using the End Times scenario as an opportunity to introduce several things into the WFB world that a number of very vocal 40k fans have been clamoring for for years, such as…

• significantly advancing the timeline and general background of WFB…
• …while introducing a big narrative event that seems like it will shape the future of the setting
• murdering quite a few darlings along the way

Whether GW are using WFB as a testbed for these changes due to its lower popularity compared to 40k or even because, as some suspect, the setting is in a terminal state anyway, seems hard to ascertain at this point. I am reasonably sure that WFB isn’treally going anywhere, even if it sells less stuff than 40k, but given GW’s track record and reluctance to advance their settings’ narrative beyond a certain point, this new development does seem pretty astonishing. In any case, it’ll be interesting to see where we go from here, what the WFB setting will look like afterwards, and what implications these new developments will have for 40k…

For now, let’s focus on the first slew of modeld accompanying the release, because these are quite something. And what better way to start than with the return of one of GW’s most notorious characters…

Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead

Boy, did this model come out of the left field when it was released! Plus I can’t help feeling the release of a new Nagash model (and a gigantic one, at that) as a bit of an “Up yours” towards all of the endless bickering about the old Nagash:

Alright, confession time: I know that the old Nagash is a staple of countless “most horrible models ever released” lists on the Internet, but here’s the thing: Once upon the time, I really loved this guy to bits! He was actually one of the first (non-HeroQuest) GW models I owned, and the very first big model I ever tried my hand at! Unfortunately, the model was taken apart (and partially stripped) a long time ago, or this would have been the perfect time to show him to you. A shame, really ;)

In any case, the vintage Nagash may not seem like much if judged by the standards of 2014 (or 2000, for that matter), but I think it’s important to remember that this used to be the basic design approach for many of GW’s bigger models at that time, and there was a time when this model seemed like such a cool thing — at least to me.

Anyway, GW chose the model that probably gets ridiculed the most in online discussions and re-imagined it as this:

It’s such an enormous piece that I’m really not sure where to start. Maybe with Nagash’s size, because this guy is huge — as evidenced by the diminutive skeleton warrior in the lower left corner… I understand Nagash gets prime billing as the Warhammer world’s biggest villain in the new book, and the model’s size and stature definitely match that importance.

What I like most about the model, after giving it a bit of thought, is how it basically keeps all the different elements of the classic miniature: The hat, sword, staff and various details from the old model are still there:

All of these have been thorougly redesigned, but they still hark back to their earlier incarnations, which I like very much! Instead of pretending the earlier Nagash model simply didn’t happen, GW’s designers have re-imagined it in a stunning way while remaining true to the original source, and I love that approach! The other great thing about the model – and an element that carries over to most of the models in this release – is how Nagash is hovering in mid-air, borne aloft by a host of tortured spirits:

There are things about the model I am not entirely sold on, however:

The first of those is the strange collection if twisted spines emerging from Nagash’s back: I see what they were trying to do here, adding the spines in order to give him a more imposing silhouette, presumably. Still, that element just seems slightly iffy to me — maybe some skeletal wings would have been a better idea?

The second thing that seems a bit much for me is the enormous hat:

Seriously, this guy looks like Movie Skeletor on speed! In conjunction with the rest of the armour, the hat just seems a bit too video gamey for my taste (I’ll be coming back to this concern later).

As a matter of fact, make no mistake: While the new Nagash has been heavily redesigned and modernised, his look remains fairly eclectic. I am happy enough with it, but the question remains whether future generations will look upon him as kindly — just remember what happened to the model’s earlier incarnation…

That said, this is a stunning model and a fitting centrepiece, both for any undead army and for this release. Nagash really looks like the immense villain the background paints him as, and the model itself is certainly at the cutting edge of plastic miniature design. Will everybody like his look? No, probably not. But personal preferences notwithstanding, the model itself stands as an achievement (and I applaud GW for engineering a comeback like this for one of their most-maligned models!).

Mortarchs of Death

If the enormous model for Nagash wasn’t an indication that GW meant business, this combi-kit at least will clue you in to the situation: The Mortarch kit gives you the opportunity to build one of Nagash’s closest lieutenants, each of them based on established characters from the Undead background (in fact, one of my favourite parts of this release is how GW brought back these classic characters, turning them into a Quirky Miniboss Squad for Nagash).
And while their mount will always use the same base components, the kit offers a whopping three completely different riders, along with some serious customisation options for the mount itself. Wow! Let’s take a closer look:

Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night

This is probably my favourite of the bunch for a couple of reasons: First of all, I have always loved the last incarnation of Mannfred, and this new version is closely based upon that appearance, spiky armour, batlike visage and all:

Mannfred’s weapons are also pretty awesome, even if wielding a scythe and longsword at the same time seems to be a bit much. But the design of the weapons is very cool, giving them an ethereal, very sinister aspect (and making them into very interesting conversion bitz…):

Mannfred’s mount, the dread abyssal Ashigaroth, is an enormous beast with a batlike countenance that seems like an escalated version of it’s master’s face. Strangely enough, it also reminds me a lot of the last couple of incarnations of Final Fantasy’s poster dragon god, Bahamuth. Anyway, the beast looks great (as an aside, I also really like the combination of blackened bones and red hot skulls used for the paintjob!).

Oh, and extra kudos to Mannfred for being pretty much the only guy in Nagash’s inner circle without one of those enormous hats ;)

Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament

Aw, man, this guy adds quite a bit of nostalgia to the whole release: Arkhan already had a – somewhat clunky but still pretty awesome – model in the olden days, complete with ostentatious chariot and all. This new incarnation turns the bling up to eleven, though. And seeing a classic character brought back and upgraded like that does bring a tear of nostalgia to my eye!

The model itself is also really nice: Arkhan looks like the quintessential undead sorcerer lord, and the Khemri style even makes him look like a slightly smaller (somewhat less improbable) version of Nagash himself:

His hat, while still pretty big, seems to be somewhat more realistically scaled than that of his boss. I also really like the ostentatious (and very clearly Khemrian) armour that is also repeated on his mount! The one thing that I don’t like about Arkhan is his tattered cloak, precisely because it seems so tattered that it’s utterly improbable. I mean, it seems as if the designer really, really, wanted to make this cape as tattered as it could be, and he ended up overdoing it a little.

Arkhan’s dread abyssal, Azarak, has a slightly more skeletal, less batlike head than Mannfred’s Ashigaroth. The Bahamut look is still there to an extent, but I think this would also make a fantastic head for a Greater Daemon, Daemon Prince, Heldrake,…erm, sorry, moving on!

Neferata, Mortarch of Blood

Being  the equal-opportunities employer he is, Nagash brings back another classic character: Neferata the Vampire Queen. Those of you who still remember the old model might agree with me that it was terrible: Neferata looked like she had slinked away from a the set of a 50s Hollywood movie about with lots of mummies in ancient Egypt. But what about the new incarnation?

Well, there’s good stuff and there’s bad stuff: On the positive side, I love how Neferata is riding side saddle: Such a wonderfully elegant little touch! Just because you’re riding a hulking undead monstrosity doesn’t mean you get to imperil your modesty, right?

I also love how that sense of elegance seems to pervade the entire model, also covering the armour design and the abyssal’s bearding. Good job, GW!

I have two main problems with the model, though: The smaller of the two is the look of Neferata’s weapon: It seems like it cannot quite decide whether it wants to be a staff or a glaive of some sort, settling into a strange limbo between the two that ultimately makes it look somewhat goofy and ineffectual (although, in all fairness, it would probably easy enough to remedy this by swapping in a new blade).

My main gripe with the model is the head, or rather, the hat: Out of all the models (and out of all the really impressive hats) in this release, Neferata’s headwear somehow seems the most ridiculous to me, may due to the slightly awkward looking, dangling spines, maybe because it actually draws away attention from her face:

As a matter of fact, designing her head like that almost seems like a bit of a cop out on GW’s part: I, for one, would much have preferred a beautiful female face with flowing hair, something closer to the vampires from the Coven Throne. That said, maybe a different paintjob would go a long way here? Anyway, the head seems like a bit of a missed chance, if you ask me.

Neferata’s mount, the dread abyssal Nagadron, again picks up some of the visual cues of its rider. It also gets yet another unique head, this time with an armour plate covering its eyes — a very nice and sinister touch, if you ask me.

Speaking of which, let’s take a closer look at the abyssal and its various variants:

Generally speaking, I really like how the abyssal seems like a suitably apocalyptic mount for an important and utterly evil character! Being a devout follower of Khorne, I also buy into the idea of having a beast whose skeletal form is filled to the brim with skulls — I mean, come on, this is Warhammer, after all ;)

I love all three heads that come with the kit and think that they are doing a great job of tying together the abyssals and respective Mortarchs:

And finally, I like the rather elegant way the abyssal is attached to its base via a combination of its tail and the ubiquitous skeletal spirits — that is really clever design right there!

A small gripe is the abyssal’s slightly awkward leg pose — although it seems like that is to be expected with a four-legged, wingless (!) creature designed to be floating in mid-air. But maybe it’s precisely the lack of wings that proves to be a bit of a visual deficiency here, making it hard to imagine how this beast would actually look in motion.

But by and large, the Mortarch kit is very impressive indeed — maybe even more impressive than Nagash, as a matter of fact! While the latter has the shock and awe tactics on his side, the Mortarch kit seems like a brilliant and expansive toolbox, both for creating an imposing centrepiece for an undead army and as a great source of conversion fodder — maybe my favourite part of this release!

Morghast Archai/ Morghast Harbingers

These guys definitely add something new to the undead armies: A daemonic, skeletal footsoldier for the Nagash’s armies. Both variants of the kit are reasonably similar, and both share many design elements with the abyssals, like the skeletal body structure and the heaps of skulls inside the skeletal bodies.

So let’s take a closer look at the kit’s two variants:

Morghast Archai

The Morghast Archai are Nagash’s elite guard, and – fittingly enough – their helmeted heads and glaive weapons give them a somewhat more official, regimented look

One of the best parts of the models are their two-handed glaives…

These are just wonderfully creepy and threatening, with their look halfway between ethereal and organic.

My gut feeling is that their armour and helmets somehow give these a slightly egyptian/Khemrian look: They would look right at home in a Tomb Kings army (and are a slightly more awkward fit for the Vampire Counts).

Morghast Harbingers

I actually like these better than the Archai, because it somehow feels like the lack of ornamental helmets makes them look less like some kind of temple guard, and more like actual individuals — does that make any sense? I also like the sense of dynamism created by the twin swords setup:

There’s also something wonderfully creepy and evil about the rather unnatural looking heads.

And again, I expect the weapons to become really popular with converters, because they would just make for very nice Daemon weapons. We’ll see…

The tattered wings are a bit of an acquired taste…once again, the objective seems to have been to make them as tattered as humanly possible. And while  I do like the way the Morghast are attached to their bases by way of ghostly apparitions…

…the leg poses of the models just seem a bit awkward to me. This is less of a problem for the Harbingers, in my opinion, since their slightly more dynamic poses make the legs seem more believable, but the Archai just seem ever so slightly awkward, hovering in mid-air like that…

Such minor gripes notwithstanding, I can see this kit become rather popular, simply by the amount of conversion fodder it offers for various armies — but we’ll be getting to that in a minute!

Spirit Host

Now these guys may be the least obviously spectacular part of the release, but they are certainly no slouch! The Spirit Host is cleverly engineered to seem ethereal, but also give the model’s a fair bit of presence. And similar spirits do appear in everykit of this release, making for a nice bit of visual consistency.
Actually, you’ve got to wonder whether, having used these ghosts in pretty much all of the other kits, GW designers finally decided that it was only fair to give these guys their own little spot in the limelight…

Anyway, these make for very effective and evil looking ghosts! And my absolute favourite part has to be how the ghosts of the spirit host emerge from tortured skeletons:

That’s just an excellent little touch right there!

Conversion options:

So, time to deal with my favourite subject: How useful will these new kits be for converters and kitbashers? Allow me to share some early ideas with you:

Interestingly enough, my conversion ideas mostly deal with Nagash’s followers and not so much with the big man…skeleton…thing. Maybe the model is still too huge and intimidating in my mind for it to actually register as conversion fodder? The two spontaneous ideas I came up with were to either use Nagash as the base for a conversion of Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard, in his ascended form. Or he could be turned into a new and terrible C’Tan by a crafty Necron player? In any case, seeing what converters come up with for this model will surely be interesting!

Anyway, looking at the entire release, the big winner when it comes to conversion options seems to be …40k chaos, surprisingly enough. Now maybe I am not exactly neutral in this regard, seeing how chaos armies seem to be one of my main areas of interest, but the options just seem too good to ignore. Let me just list a few off the top of my head:

The Mortarch kit seems to be a treasure chest of conversion bitz: the abyssal could be converted into a Greater Daemon, a Maulerfiend or even into a mount for a chaos lord, a Heldrake — you name it! Likewise, part of it could be mixed with existing daemon engine and/or daemon kits in order to create new and terrible monstrosities. Even the leftover heads from the Mortarch kit alone would be great little bitz to play around with…

Oh, and wouldn’t you agree that Mannfred’s head would look great on a Chaos Lord — especially on a Night Lord?

The Morghast seem to provide an almost ridiculously versatile resource for chaos armies, the possible uses of the kit including but not limited to…

• Daemon Princes: Even on their own, the Morghast could make for fairly convincing Daemon Princes: the slightly Khemrian/Egyptian look of the Archai would make them ideal for Tzeentchian Daemon Princes, while the amount of skulls stored in their bodies would also make them a nice fit for Khorne. They could even conceivably be used to represent Nurglite daemons, if one were to focus less on a visceral, slimy and mouldering approach and more on a skeletal, reaper-like aspect. Only Slaanesh seems to be left out in the cold a bit (don’t fret, though: The new Dark Eldar release will provide you with all the toys you need).
• Obliterators/Mutilators: For those (like me) who don’t like the stock Obliterator/Mutilator models one bit, the Morghast might be a very interesting alternative: Just check out VonKessler’s gorgeous Thousand Sons Oblitz, based on Morghast models: I think those are really just the tip of the iceberg!
• Parts of the Morghast models should also be supremely useful for chaos players: I expect to see those evil looking swords and glaives all over chaos armies before long, and both the skeletal body pieces as well as the mounds of skulls forming the Morghast’s inner workings should become really popular with chaos players!

This may be a somewhat far fetched idea, but what about using the Spirit Host as chaos spawn in a Thousand Sons army? Just imagine the swirling souls of destroyed Rubric Marines (or, alternately, their victims) filling the same role as the usual, boring mutated creepy crawlys. Or maybe those spirits are the Thousand Sons’ familiars? Anyway, it would be a nice change to see these new models used instead of the same old spawn models…
Another faction that I can see profiting from the new kits are the Necrons: The Khemrian look of many of the new models might make it possible to use their wargear and decoration on Necron models (who are, after all, often referred to as “Tomb Kings IN SPACE!”)  to great effect. Arkhan might make a stunning Phaeron with a bit of work (and an influx of mechanical skeleton bitz. And, like I said, Nagash could be an interesting base model for a new and terrible C’Tan…

And finally, there’s the wonderful world of INQ28, of course: It shouldn’t surprise you that I think some parts of the release would be really useful for INQ28 as well, both because of my love of the setting as well as the wide scope of the game:

• again, the Morghast variants would make for interesting daemons or daemon princes — even moreso in the INQ28 setting, where undivided daemons are still an actual thing…
• the Spirit Host could be used as unbound daemonhosts, or they could be turned into familiars for chaos magi — the possibilities are probably endless.
• I think Neferata might make a cool Matriarch for a Death Cult, enormous hat and all.
• And maybe, just maybe, Mannfred could be turned into a (ultra-)radical Inquisitor with a bit of work?

All in all, this release was certainly designed to blow WFB players away, and it seems like it mostly suceeded. One thing I think we can all agree upon is that the sheer size and complexity of GW’s recent plastic kits gets ever more baffling.

What I love about all of the new models is how certain elements are used to tie the various kits together from a visual standpoint: The ghostly apparitions resembling the models from the Spirit Host appear on all of the models in some shape or form. The armour based on fused bone. The skulls making up the interior of many of the undead creatures. And yes, even the huge hats ;) Additionally, it’s fascinating how GW’s designers have managed to make these new undead models fit both the Vampire Counts’ and Tomb Kings’ look and feel, while also imbuing them with an identity of their own. These factors are quite impressive and a big design achievement, in my opinion.

However, at the same time, I do have one overarching gripe with the new models, and that is what I would like to call their “WOW-ness” . What I mean by that is that parts of the new models seem so over the top that they wouldn’t look out of place in a PC game such as World of Warcraft or Diablo — and seeing how Blizzard’s own Warcraft universe owes GW more than a bit of inspiration, it seems pretty ironic that GW’s designers would now, in turn, produce something that seems at least partially inspired by designs from World of Warcraft…

Nevertheless, it still seems like a rather strong release, both for the actual kits and for the new conversion options they bring to the table. It just seems like a hearty portion of videogame design sensibilities have been added to the WFB universe — at least to the undead factions.

I hope the next books/releases for the End Times will keep up the effort to revitalise existing armies while adding something new and special to them. For instance, there are rumours floating around about a coming End Times book focusing on chaos and giving various classic characters – Archaon, Arbaal, Valnir,… the Mortarch treatment — and even though I don’t play WFB anymore, the sheer prospect at seeing some of the iconic chaos characters revisited that way has me very excited indeed!

So, what do you think about this release? Did you love it or hate it? Did you feel a resemblance to WoW designs as well, and were you happy with that? And would you like to share your own conversion ideas for the new kits? I’d be happy to hear from you in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Late last week, the most wonderful thing happened to me: While browsing through the stuff at my FLGS, I found out that the owner was currently selling two huge lots of assorted miniatures and bitz: One of those lots came from a former hobbyist who wanted to get rid of the last part of his collection, while the reason for the other lot being sold was, sadly enough, its owner having passed away. Anyway, the owner of my FLGS found himself in the (temporary) possession of two huge piles of models — and it shouldn’t surprise you that I was very eager to have a look at all of that stuff.

This provided me with one huge moving box and several smaller shoeboxes of stuff to sift through, which was already brilliant fun in itself: With the internet so full of collectors, professional sellers and general information as to the worth and availability of miniatures these days, finding such a hoard of stuff has become increasingly unlikely, and so the simple act of digging through the piles of models alone was an experience to savour! Most of the models came from WFB, but there was such a mass of different models (and factions) present that it took quite a bit of discipline not to just buy the whole thing outright.

Anyway, I tried to reign myself in and only dragged away about a shoebox’s worth of stuff. And whether or not my haul was all that spectacular surely lies in the eye of the beholder. But I went home utterly content, I can tell you that much ;)

Anyway, let’s take a look at the best parts of my haul (and also at the provisional ideas I have for this stuff), alright?

First up, tucked away in a plastic bag labeled “Vikings” was most of the dwarf army from the WFB “Battle for Skull Pass” boxed set from a few years back:

While some of the regular models are missing, all the special characters, standard bearers, champions and musicians are still accounted for. Plus there are also the little additional bitz and bobs and terrain pieces. I basically picked this up as a bonus, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might already have a new home for these guys (Michael, if you’re reading this: Make sure to bring a big enough suitcase, when you’re in the area again, okay? ;) ).

I also picked up two more pieces from the same boxed set:

One, the plastic troll accompanying the Night Goblin army:

This was actually one of the high points of the purchase for me, because this guy will look perfect as a troll player for my orcish Blood Bowl team, the Orkheim Ultraz  — as a matter of fact, you can already see the first parts of his Blood Bowl gear in the picture above. Nothing’s glued together yet, but I already like where this is going!

Two, this strange shaman’s tent/tree trunk hut:

This might come in handy for my Blood Bowl team or for the Mordheim Orc warband I’ve been planning for a while. Come to think of it, including terrain pieces like this in the starter boxes was a really neat touch! They should do that again!

Upon closer examination, it becomes obvious that the sculpts and level of detail for starter box minis have increased dramatically since these models were released. But I still like them well enough, and finding them all together like this without a hassle certainly was a nice surprise!

While we are on the subject of greenskins, I also bought this assortment of brilliant goblins and snotlings:

These are part of the still available Doom Diver Catapult — as a matter of fact, pretty much the whole catapult was included in the deal, although the greenskins themselves are definitely the stars of the show! Again, these will probably be used for Mordheim or Blood Bowl (the winged goblin would be perfect for the latter…).

Like I said, most of the stuff available was from WFB, but I did manage to find a 40k treat or two. First up, a small pile of Tyranid nuts and bolts that, while not all that impressive in and of itself, will come in handy for a future INQ28 project of mine…

And there’s this lovely OOP Eldar Warlock from the 90s, sculpted by Jes Goodwin. It’s trange: Even though I have always loved Jes’ Eldar models to bits, I have never owned any of them, so picking this guy up was an absolute no-brainer:

And, last but not least, a lucky find at the bottom of a box of bitz: Exactly half a Delphan Gruss model from Inquisitor:

This guy may actually become my first (and, quite possibly, only) foray into the world of Inq54 — just watch this space ;)

And as for the WFB universe, there are some final highlights to share:

First up, this guy (from one of the old WFB mercenary regiments, if I recall correctly):

I keep racking my brain for a way to make this guy into an INQ28 character — maybe a member of a particularly archaic Astra Militarum regiment? I am very open to suggestions ;)

Then there are three of the 6th (?) edition metal chaos knights:

Pictured here is their champion, but I also purchased a standard bearer and an additional knight. While I don’t have any actual plans for these, I just had to pick them up due to nostalgia:  I loved them so much back when they were released, but they were completely unaffordable to me. I just bought the riders, btw, because there is no more room for those terrible, generic 90s plastic horses in my life. But as you can see, the new chaos knight horses work like a treat with the older metal models.

And finally, another lucky discovery:

The Dark Emissary from the Albion campaign. This guy was re-released in Finecast a while back and is still available. But finding him in a pile of shoddily painted Hormagaunts was still a rather nice surprise!

I’ll spare you the piles of Catachan, Night Goblin and generic Space Marine bitz that were also part of the bundle: Much of this stuff will come in handy sooner or later, but it lacks the appeal of the highlights shown above ;)

In addition to the models, I also picked up some older 40k related books:

From left to right: The 40k 3rd and 4th edition big rulebooks (believe it or not, I have never owned those until now), one of the hallowed Chapter Approved compendiums (containing wonderful but somewhat outdated Index Astartes articles on the creation of Space Marines, Dreadnoughts, Librarians and on various chapters and legions: Dark Angels, Emperor’s Children, Iron Warriors, White Scars & Flesh Tearers) and Codex: Witch Hunters (obviously a must for any fan of the Inquisition).

All of these are in excellent condition, and I suspect the old 40k source books will merit a more detailed writeup in the not too distant future…

So yeah, quite a haul! I am immensely pleased, both with the stuff I did and didn’t buy: By sheer force of will, I resisted the urge to just grab the whole, enormous box — although my restraint made me miss a mint 2002 Games Day Chaos Champion which my colleague Annie later picked up (*sigh*). And I did find a 1998 Games Day Female Commissar, but pointed it out to the owner of my FLGS, since I knew that, as an avid IG player, he would probably be extremely interested in the model — I was right :)

But even beyond the stuff I purchased (at a very good – albeit not unreasonable – price, by the way), digging through the various strata of the boxes served as a trip down memory lane. Before long, me and the owner of the store were exchanging old hobby tales and thinking back on innocent days long past. Good times ;)

Anyway, so much for a very nice, hobby-related surprise! And wherever the original owners of these models may be now (in this world or in the warp), they may rest assured that their lead and plastic have found a good home with me!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

The 2010 Dark Eldar release was possibly one of the most spectacular GW releases ever. After basically fumbling every attempt at handling the Dark Eldar for over a decade, GW managed to entirely redesign an entire army, putting it on the map as one of the most beautiful and visually arresting factions in 40k, while also keeping all that had been cool about the army to begin with. Whatever they pay Jes Goodwin over at GW, it cannot possibly ever be enough…

The release also brought me back to the hobby, albeit in a rather roundabout way — Dark Eldar had been my first 40k army, after all! And even though I eventually settled on revisiting my World Eaters instead, it was the first look at the new Dark Eldar that rekindled my interest in little plastic men — the release was just that good!

All of this makes for a pretty tough act to follow, yet here we are, four years later, with another helping of Dark Eldar. In all fairness, this release doesn’t constitute another dramatic revamp, but rather serves to fill out the existing army with some of the kits yet missing from the lineup. But it is may just be the curse of the Dark Eldar now that any release will always be compared to that legendary offering of ’10.

This release also brings a new Codex — which, by the look of it, already gets hotly debated all over the internet. But instead of shouting over the din, let’s rather focus on the models, because we’re all here for the plastic crack anyway, right? ;)

So, as has become a treasured custom here at Eternal Hunt, allow me to walk you through the various parts of this release and to share my impressions about the models as well as a couple of ideas for possible kitbashes and conversions. Here goes:

Voidraven Bomber

This kit seems to be marketed as the big thing about this release — and indeed, DE players have been without a kit to represent the bigger of their two fliers for the last four years. Here it is now, the Voidraven — quite a beast!

Probably the biggest pitfall for GW’s designers to avoid was the danger of ending up with a model looking like a bigger version of the Razorwing, and they seem to have been very aware of this particular problem. Because, while the Voidraven clearly takes quite a few design cues from its smaller brother, it is still immediately recognisable as its own thing. This is mostly due to its “double cockpit”, and element that manages to give it a very distinct look and silhouette, while also immediately communicating the idea that this is a bomber rather than a quick fighter aircraft. Plus the model’s silhouette also recalls real-world cutting edge bombers, only with a serrated, sinister twist:

In any case, the cockpit not only defines the model’s silhouette, but also serves as one of its key visual features: I really like the idea of the gunner being surrounded by glass panes, the better to see his enemies at all times. The HUD elements molded into the clear plastic canopy have appeared on other (Dark) Eldar vehicles before, but are really taken up to eleven here: I love it as a concept, although I’d probably suffer a heart attack if I actually had to paint these finicky details ;)

The rest of the model basically adheres to the design cues laid down by the Razorwing: This is very obviously a vicious looking, serrated Dark Eldar aircraft — no doubt about it.

The model also comes with the results of GW’s attempt at designing an evil looking bomb — and boy did they succeed with that! By adding a hideous, organic spine to the thing, it really ended up looking quite disturbing: You don’t want that thing anywhere near or army — or, for that matter, yourself:

You better believe that this is one dirty bomb! Just look at the thing!

It’s certainly a great kit, all in all, and if it fails to utterly blow me away, then that is not due to lack of quality, but rather due to my general lack of interest in vehicles. Moving on.

Dark Eldar Wracks

Okay, this is where it gets far more interesting: When the Wracks were first released as during the second wave of the Dark Eldar revamp, GW finally delivered on the torturer archetype they had introduced with the Grotesques over a decade earlier. We all know what came next: The Grotesques were promoted to rather more monstrous creatures, while the newly created Wracks moved into the Grotesque slot — but the important part was that the new Wrack models were truly glorious! The only caveat to these models was that they were only available in Finecast.

Well, no longer, because enterprising sadists and torturers all over thh Webway are now free to field the glorious new plastic Wracks.

Apart from the material, the Wracks‘ design was already pretty much perfect as it was, so Steve Buddle made a good call by basically re-envisioning the existing models as a more versatile plastic kit without changing the overall aesthetics. He also added a ton of customisation options along the way, creating what may just be my new favourite Dark Eldar infantry kit. I mean, just look at these guys:

Maybe my favourite part about the models are the slowly advancig legs: While the Wracks certainly share some of the other Dark Eldar’s elegance, their poses make it clear that they slowly but purposefully stride forward, making them all the more sinister and threatening!

Some of the weapons are also truly something to behold: I really love the hideous, curved twin blades held by the Acothyst in this picture:

Or the creepily sinister scissor hand that also comes with the kit:

Of course, there is a bit of silliness as well: One of the heads in the kit has a little friend:

But even if you – like me – are not a big fan of this particular element, it’s all cool! The kit has so many heads and weapons that you can get rid of whatever you don’t like! Speaking of extra bitz, GW even included some additional bitz to make sure your vehicles could be piloted by Wracks as well:

Although I suppose driving (or hitting anything) with those maks on must be quite a daunting task…

Seriously, though: The kit seems to be a great toybox that allows you to tailor your own wracks to your needs and aesthetic preferences! I only have two minor issues with the kit:

One, the transfer to plastic and modularity of the kit creates a new problem too: The arms of the models can now end up having a slightly tacked-on look. This is only a minor problem, and one that should be easy enough to address by carefully aligning the arms and sanding off a bit of plastic where necessary — and this problem is merely the price of poseability.

The second concern is the amount of models you get: The Wrack kit certainly fills a role similar to that of the Kabalite Warrior and Wych kits, yet it only gives you five models, compared to the ten that come with the other kits. Maybe that’s the price for the amount of options you get, but at the end of the day, it could be seen as a bit less bang for the buck.

But those are really minor quibbles! All things considered, it’s really awesome to have three distinct kinds of foot soldiers for a DE army now, with each of the kits following the same system and being fully compatible.  And the Wracks provide a great kit, chock full of conversion options — definitely the high point of the release for me!

We also get three new plastic HQ models, with each of them serving as one of the Dark Eldar generic HQ options, so let’s take a closer look at those as well:

Dark Eldar Haemonculus

The Haemonculi have always owed a huge debt of inspiration to Clive Barker’s Cenobites, and the new plastic Haemonculus makes the visual connection even more obvious, in some ways (just check out the way his cloak seems to be sewn to his very chest). At the same time, the model also seems to serve as a remix of several elements already seen on earlier models: The sewn on face and weapons seem rather reminsicent of Urien Rakarth, for example.

At the same time, the new Haemonculus seems somewhat more flamboyant, for lack of a better word, than his Finecast predecessor: He has more bare skin on show, for one, and there’s the flowing hair. To be honest, I did prefer the slim, leather-clad form of the Finecast Haemonculus to this new guy, but that may just be a matter of preference. And in any case, the Urien Rakarth model still hews pretty close to that design, while the new plastic model seems to represent a slightly different kind of “artist”. So while I personally prefer the older model, the added variety is still appreciated!

There are still one or two areas about the model I am not completely sold on, however. The way the skin-cloak falls seems a little messy when compared to the overall composition of the model. And the curved dagger seems surprisingly clunky when compared to some of the rather disturbing surgical implements wielded by the Haemonculus.

A look at the sprue reveals that more involved conversions using this kit as a base would be slightly tricky, but certainly not impossible:

All in all, it’s a solid model. If I am sounding slightly disappointed, that is mostly due to the fact that I had high hopes for the concept of a plastic Haemonculus and was looking forward to using it for a particular conversion project. As it stands, the new model is nice enough — but working with the Urien Rakarth model seems like the better way.

Dark Eldar Archon

This guy replaces a model that was arguably one of the more iconic parts of the 2010 revamp: The Archon released along with that wave, with his daemon face helmet and hideously organic husk blade, really encapsulated the Dark Eldar’s visual change to a more baroque (and also more visceral) design.

When it comes to equipment and basic constituent parts, the new Archon model seems to mirror his predecessor pretty closely: We get the same basic armour design, almost the same weapons and also a cloak (although this one is made from tanned skin — nice touch…).

Let me address the elephant in the room right away: I think this new Archon model falls flat when compared to the earlier version, and that is mostly due to the pose. Oh, I certainly see what they were trying to do here — the Archon is shown in full magnificent bastard mode, and those arms are certainly a clever bit of engineering. No doubt about that.

But there are a couple of problems for me: First of all, the pose doesn’t look relaxed and natural, it looks like this guy is trying too hard. And what were they thinking when they added that rock to the base: That element makes the pigeon-toed stance even worse! And then there’s the face:

Again, I get the basic idea: The Archon is supposed to be wearing an arrogant smirk — but this guy just looks like a doofus, trying his darnedest to seem like a tough cookie.

The other problem with this pose and composition is that it gets really awkward once you end up with two of these in the same army or on the same table: Now you’ve got two of those prancing idiots facing off in a posing contest. What a horrible thought! Anyway, I think a generic HQ model might be better served with a slightly more neutral pose!

Now don’t get me wrong: There are parts of the model I really like: The stitched together skin cape, the trophy rack (why does it punch through the cape, though? That doesn’t make sense…) — those are great touches. But the pose and face really ruin the stock model for me — why on earth didn’t they include a helmeted head? The older version had two to choose from, for crying out loud…

The really good news is that all that is horrible about the model should be quite easily remedied by a bit of kitbashing: The Archon is advertised as being fully compatible with the different DE plastic kits, and a closer look at the sprue reveals that this is no understatement:

It looks like the arms could simply be swapped out for basically any DE arm in existence. The head, likewise, would be easy enough to replace (and good riddance!). As a matter of fact, it might even be possible to replace the legs with a regular set of Kabalite Warrior or Wych legs.

So, all’s well that ends well, then? Yes and no: As a stock  model, the Archon is the worst part of the release for me. It’s also a pretty poor replacement for the 2010 Archon. It can be used as a base for a great Archon model, no doubt about that. But one could argue that it’s equally possible to kitbash an awesome Archon without this kit altogether. Just off the top of my head, Picta Mortis’ amazing Archon conversion is far more awesome, and it doesn’t use a single component from the new model.

One last thing that strikes me as slightly odd: This new Archon seems to be designed to look very similar to the guy depicted on the 2010 edition of the codex while the new codex shows a character who is the spitting image of …the 2010 Archon model — is that some kind of hidden message or trolling on GW’s part?

Dark Eldar Succubus

Okay, now we’re talking! Like the Archon, the new plastic Succubus seems to be a re-envisioning of its earlier Finecast version, but the transition ended up beeing a much smoother one with this lady! I love the fact that the model is now pictured in running pose (which seems more apt for a Wych), and several flowing elements about the model support the sense of movement and dynamism.

I have to say I also really like the glaive!

At the same time, the model shares the Archon’s flexibility, so swapping in a new head or alternate arms would be really easy, as a look at the sprue reveals:

All in all, the new plastic Succubus may not be a revolutionary revamp: Rather a re-envisioning of the earlier model that actually manages to improve on the original — at least in my opinion. Good job!

Conversion options:

No review on this blog would be complete without a look at the conversion options that the new kits bring, so let’s get right down to it:

Dark Eldar players are obviously the big winners, because they now have even more highly versatile plastic kits at their disposal: Almost the entire army is available in plastic now, with all of the kits perfectly in line with the current design, and all of them fully compatible and, in some cases, interlocking. Not only does this make the Dark Eldar one of the most stunning armies from a visual standpoint, it also pretty much turns them into a kitbasher’s dream! So yeah, good for you, Dark Eldar players! ;)

Looking beyond this army, however, there are certainly quite a few areas where some of the new kits could become pretty useful as well:

The Wracks are very much the jack-of-all-trades in this respect: For instance, they could be used as a wide variety of different cultists, among them Death cultists (or rather, torture cultists, as it were) Imperial traitors, renegade medics (!), Slaaneshi cultists — the sky is really the limit here! All it takes is some shaving down of the DE-like characteristics and some external bitz, and you’re golden! In fact, these could even become a very interesting base for very sinister Genestealer cultists with a bit of work — just sayin’…

But the forces of the Imperium may also profit from these: Just imagine an added brass etch =][= added on top of the wrack’s facemask, and you have a pretty serviceable Inquisitorial torturer! In fact, I think we can be fairly confident that the enterprising INQ28 scene will come up with all kinds of uses for these bad boys.

One last idea: Imagine a radical Genetor of the Adeptus Mechanicus, having made a name for himself as an expert flesh-crafter. Or even a Heretek of the Dark Mechanicus pursuing a similar career: Maybe some suitably twisted followers of these magi could also be built using the Wrack kit? Interesting thought, isn’t it?

The Haemonculus seems nearly as interesting for conversions: Like the Wracks, he could be turned into a flesh-crafting member of the Dark Mechanicus with a couple of changes. The dangling feet also remind me of a Daemonhost — or a rogue Psyker for a force of Traitor Guard, or as a character in games of INQ28 — once again, I am pretty sure that the INQ28 scene won’t disappoint when it comes to finding creative uses for this guy!

And, finally, the Succubus seems like an interesting base model as well. Maybe she could be turned into a lithe Imperial assassin? A Death Cultist? Or an Inquisitor’s beautiful and deadly operative? Again, due to the models being avaiable in plastic, it should only take a bit of kitbashing and a small cut here and there to truly change their overall look!

So, what’s the verdict about this release? All in all, I am inclined to call it a solid offering. This certainly doesn’t revolutionise the Dark Eldar catalogue like the prior release, but that was never the point. Rather, this release builds on the fantastic foundation laid down by the 2010 redesign and fills out a some of the few remaining gaps in the army’s catalogue.

Speaking of which, some of the gaps that still remain are maybe my biggest gripe with this release: Sure, I would have loved to see an Inccubi/Trueborn combi-kit in glorious plastic — but the Wracks were really the more essential infantry kit to be released. So far so good. But no model for Asdrubael Vect? Or any other of the named characters? That seems like a bit of a missed opportunity, especially since most of these characters have been dropped from the codex altogether! I mean, Dark Eldar players have gone without a model for Keradruakh for more than 15 years — why drop him now?

Even if some (any) of these characters should eventually get patched back into the army via an additional supplement, this does seem like a bit of a dick move on GW’s part. But I guess hobbyists can just never be happy, myself included ;)

Again, this seems like a solid, middle of the road release. But that’s just my take on it: How do you feel about the new Dark Eldar? Any opinions you’d like to share? Any conversion idea? I’d be happy to hear from you in the comments section!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone, even though I am crazy busy this week, I just wanted to let you know that last week, my dear blog, Eternal Hunt, finally reached 300,000 views last week. While that number may still not qualify as all that impressive, I am still rather proud of this achievement — who would have expected that amount of traffic back when I started this blog with a measly post back in 2012? Certainly not me!

I mean, seriously, 300,000 views: Even after subtracting all the times I’ve hit F5 myself, that’s still quite a lot. And it’s not only the number that I am proud of, but also the amount of great hobby moments that are inextricably linked with this blog!

So to all those who keep reading this stuff, who comment, who follow this blog, who keep sending me bitz and suffer my atrociously punny post titles: Thank you so much! You rock!

And I’m not even the only one who’s happy: Here’s what the members of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt did to celebrate when I told them the news:

Happy hunting, guys! You’ve earned it! Looks like a orbital bombardment may be in order…

So, like I said, I am really busy at the moment, and I regret not having time for a beefier update — but don’t fret, more substantial content is on the way: I am currently preparing a thorough writeup about the ins and outs of the End Times Nurgle release that will go up next week, at the latest. And it goes without saying that I have been tirelessly cutting up little plastic men, so expect some news on that front as well.

Until then, though, thank you so much for frequenting my little corner of the interwebz! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Right, before Christmas is finally upon us next week, let’s fit in one last review for this year, shall we?

Linked together with the Tyranid release by way of the Shield of Baal:Deathstorm boxed set, we get another round of Blood Angels models before the year is out. Now the Blood Angels are one of the chapters that have already seen a rather substantial (and very good) dedicated release at an earlier point, providing us, among other things, with rather gorgeous kits for the Death Company and Sanguinary Guard, respectively, plus a very versatile Dreadnought kit. The new release, therefore, serves to nicely round out the Blood Angels’ catalogue — but does it stack up to the quality of the earlier release? Let’s find out! And let us also look at all the delightful conversion options — for the last time this year! ;)

The first thing that quickly becomes obvious with this release is that the various new kits make pretty heavy use of existing resources, such as the Tactical Marine kit, the Sternguard and even the Space Hulk BA Terminators, recombining and changing around elements from either to create some new toys for our Blood Angels. This “recycling” of existing assets is neither difficult to spot, nor – I would argue – such a big secret to begin with. And it doesn’t have to be a bad thing either. But while GW have been content to release slightly touched up single characters so far, this is one of the first time this happens on such a scale — with both good and bad consequences, but we’ll be getting to that in a minute. Let’s take a closer look at each of the kits in turn:

Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest

Alright, this is an interesting piece, both because it’s the most original (as in “freshly sculpted”) part of this release and because it’s also the first time that we get a plastic version of the Blood Angels’ very own brand of priests/apothecaries. So what do we have here?

The model clearly takes some cues from the vintage Brother Corbulo, with certain elements (such as the face and the skull chalice) clearly resembling that character. At the same time, the design of the armour clearly calls back to the Sanguinary Guard (and, by extension, to the vintage models for Commander Dante and Captain Tycho). The addition of flowing robes (an element mostly seen on Dark Angels models so far) provides a nice and individual touch to the model, and the many trinkets dangling from his armour serve as a great reminder of his status.

One thing I really love about the model is the highly ostentatious chain sword — such a beautiful, yet menacing weapon! And though it’s hard to make out in the official pictures, the face is also a bit more interesting than your standard, unhelmeted Blood Angels head (more on those later…).

A look at the sprue reveals that it should really be easy enough to swap in all kinds of Marine parts for smaller or bigger conversions. And using the arms, the backpack or the head on different models should also be really easy:

Space Marines seem to make for pretty good clamshell characters, since the way their armour goes together makes the resulting model stay pretty versatile, in spite of being single pose.

All in all, this guy is basically one of the high points of the release for me — and definitely the most interesting of the new kits from a converter’s perspective! Very nice!

Blood Angels Librarian in Terminator armour

This model clearly takes some cues from the Librarian that came with Space Hulk (the double headed psy-axe is a dead giveaway), although I like the new model’s dynamic pose better than the really statuesque Space Hulk Librarian. The model also seems to resemble GW’s older metal/Finecast Terminator Librarian — to the point that it was initially pretty hard to decide whether this was a new model or a kitbash when the first, fuzzy pictures of this release emerged.

And again, this is an excellent character, continuing the trend of strong clamshell plastic characters for the Space Marines! It should also be reasonably easy to convert this guy with an influx of external bitz, and for all the same reasons I mentioned above:

I only have two minor gripes with the model: One, the position of the head seems ever so slightly strange, even though it makes sense in context. But the way the model goes together means that the head is basically locked at that precise angle, unless you invest more time and create a more involved conversion.

By the same token, I realise that this guy is part of the Blood Angels release, but wouldn’t a generic Librarian have made more sense? Sure, the two or three BA icons should be easy enough to get rid of, but this makes it all the more strange that GW didn’t just release this guy as a vanilla model — he would have been quite a bit more useful that way…

All in all, it’s a pretty strong model, though.

Blood Angels Tactical Squad

Okay, here’s where the “recycling” process I mentioned above hits full swing, because the Blood Angels Tactical Squad is basically a mashup of the recent “vanilla” tactical kit, the Sternguard kit and some Death Company and Sanguinary Guard bitz thrown in for flavour. It’s easy enough to spot a multitude of familiar bitz, so this is really pretty obvious.

Among the new parts are a few pretty nice head variants, by the look of it. I really like the helmet of the Marine on the right, for example:

Interestingly enough, the “BA-ification” really falls flat on some of the parts. For instance, the rebreather head was possibly one of the coolest bitz from the tactical kit, but looks pretty silly with an added BA hairdo added on top:

In fact, can I just say that I am really not a big fan of the one Blood Angels hairstyle we get? Seriously, I see what they were going for, but that kind of hairstyle just ends up looking pretty daft when combined with a Marine’s somewhat exaggerated features — and it’s the only type of hair we get for our Blood Angels, for crying out loud. Instead of making them look like classical statures, they just seem like pampered children with that stupid hair — but maybe that’s just me.

Beyond such nitpicking, however, I think this is a rock-solid kit. Does it bring something new to the table? No, because it’s mostly a mashup of pre-existing assets. But that is actually its strong suit: It gives Blood Angels players an updated troop box with all the recent weapon options and some nice bitz thrown in for flavour and decoration. Certainly a nonessential purchase if you already have 3,000 points of Marines knocking about, but a very useful resource for starting a new army!

So, great for (new) BA players, everyone else may pass.

Blood Angels Assault Terminators

As with the “vanilla” Assault Terminators, these guys come in two flavours and can be armed with either twin lightning claws or thunder hammers and storm shields. Let’s look at both variants in turn:

I am a huge fan of Lightning Claws, but the LC Termies get the short end of the stick, if you ask me: Maybe I’ve just never realised this before, but loyalist lightning claws seem to have a way of jutting out of their gauntlets at a slightly strange angle, taking away some of the dynamism. This is especially obvious on the more dynamically posed models:

Just look at the model on the left: It looks like the claws should really be curved inwards, in order to better underline the model’s composition, but there they are, straight and clunky — has this been as noticeable on the generic assault Terminators as well, I wonder?

The Terminators with thunder hammer fare far better, at least in my opinion:

There’s just something wonderfully massive and threatening about Terminators armed with the old hammer/shield combo. Plus I really like the champion, with his added armour plates and robe:

Both variants profit from beautifully detailed armour and lots and lots of BA trinkets that really make them look like the chapter’s elite first company. It’s also very obvious that huge parts of this kit have been heavily inspired by (and reused from) the Space Hulk Terminators — just look at the small armour plates on the thunder hammer sergeant, for example. But that in itself is really a good thing, because it allows players to field Terminators that are visually on par with the truly excellent Space Hulk models without having to pay over-inflated ebay prices for the original models.

There is one substantial problem however: You pay for this opportunity by way of a serious reduction in modeling flexibility! A look at the sprue reveals that the bodies are constructed pretty much like those of snap-fit Terminators: Each Terminator’s legs and torso are one piece, with the chestplate and head also fused together. The arms and shoulder pads are separate parts — but the fact remains that these Terminators are a huge step back from the versatility we know!

Granted, if you like to build your models by the book, this shouldn’t even be such a big problem to begin with, but if you’re an avid converter and kitbasher, like me, this seems somewhat worrying, because we end up with a multi part kit that is severely less flexible than some of the kits we know and love. If this is only limited to one kit, it becomes a bit of a non-issue, since you are free to get the regular, more flexible Terminators. But one has to wonder what ramifications this may have for future releases…

Bonus Content: First Captain Karlaen

During my release of the Tyranid second wave, I threw in a look at the Spawn of Cryptus, seeing how Shield of Baal: Deathstorm was basically released back to back with the new kits. So let’s do the same for the Blood Angels character from the same kit, Captain Karlaen.

At first glance, what we have here is a massive Blood Angels Captain wearing suitably ornate Terminator armour, purposefully striding forward — so far so good, right?

The problem is that Karlaen suffers from exactly the same problem as the Spawn af Cryptus, although it’s even more pronounced here:
Where the Spawn of Cryptus was a more or less straightforward “remix” of the Space Hulk Broodlord (with most of the strengths of the original model being kept intact),  Karlaen tries something a little more adventurous in that the model seemingly attempts to incorporate elements from two different sources. Just compare the picture above with this…

…and this:

It looks like the model for Karlaen is a hybrid between these two Space Hulk models — and the bad news is: It’s decidedly less interesting and imposing than either of them. Now this wouldn’t be much of a problem if Karlaen were any old Termie, but he is supposed to be the Blood Angels’ first captain — their most accomplished warrior and commander,  second only to Lord Commander Dante — and he ends up looking like an okay-ish kitbash made from two superior Space Hulk models. And again with the stupid hair — sorry GW, not nearly good enough!

Conversion options:

It goes without saying that this release has really been tailored towards Blood Angels players first and foremost, with the amount of BA iconograpgy present really making conversions and kitbashes  beyond Blood Angels and their successor chapters slightly more complicated. That said, I still have a few simple ideas for conversions using the new kits.

• The most obvious point is that many bitz from this release should make very nice additions to BA players’ bitzbox, allowing them to introduce even more flavour and ornamentation into their armies — and that’s always a good thing!
• By the same token, some of the bitz should be equally useful in other Space Marine armies — I am especially thinking of stuff like heads, armour plates or cool weapons. Come to think of it, some of those swords should look pretty cool on INQ28 characters as well.
• It should be easy enough to convert the Terminator Librarian to represent a Librarian from a different chapter — just shave off some of the iconography and you’re there. But then again, that’s why the model should have come in vanilla flavour in the first place ;)
• The ostentatiousness of BA armour makes these kits a really good source for bitz when it comes to something as eccentric as, say, kitbashing a Legio Custodes army: So far, I’ve made ample use of BA bitz for that project, and I imagine some of the new bitz will come in handy as well, sooner or later.
• Finally, the Sanguinary Priest has to be the most interesting part of this release when it comes to conversions: He could be used as a great base for a suitably impressive BA character — or even for a plastic Mephisto conversion? And I think he would make a pretty awesome Inquisitor with a bit of work — in fact, I’ve recently purchased the model in pursuit of exactly such a conversion, so watch this space… ;)

All in all, this is certainly a solid  release, even if it’s mostly useful for BA players. Where most of the other releases this year tried to bring something new to the table, this release wave for the Blood Angels mainly focuses on refining and rounding out the existing catalogue — which is an equally viable approach, I might add! But the models are looking great and the amount of bitz we can get out of the new kits should be a pretty big help to those with BA and BA successor armies.

The general direction of the release does outline one thing that does have possible ramifications for the future that are both good and a little worrying:

In the age of digital sculpting, it is obviously possible to re-use assets and, what’s more, to recombine them with other kits in order to quickly generate custom kits for different chapters — and that is certainly a great option, because it opens up the possibility for all kinds of conversions and customisations: We are already pretty close to having dedicated troop boxes for most of the first founding legions, but this becomes even more interesting when you think about Traitor Legions, Eldar Craftworlds or what have you.

On the other hand, a possible pitfall of such a way of design seems to be the threat of kits that are far less flexible: The clamshell characters are an example of this, albeit not an egregious one — it’s still fairly easy to use them for kitbashing and converting. At the same time, however, the multi part Space Marine kits have always been among the most flexible and versatile kits produced by GW, and seeing a Terminator kit that gets rid of a substantial chunk of flexibility like that does seem a little worrying — at least to a passionate kitbasher like me…

It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here, to say the least!

So, what’s your take on the new models? And do you have any conversion ideas of your own to share? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A very merry Christmas to all the readers of this blog, to all commenters and to all my hobby buddies out there! I hope you’re having a great time with your families, friends and loved ones! Don’t forget to sneak in some hobby time, though! ;)

Oh, and don’t forget: I’ll be seeing you soon for this year’s Eternal Hunt Awards, so stay tuned!

Alright, everyone, it is that time of year again! So on the last day of 2014, let us commence a look back at the year and talk about this year’s Eternal Hunt Awards! And what better way to start than to talk about 2014’s outstanding archievements by fellow hobbyists, right?

Hobby blog of the year

Interestingly enough, choosing winners for this category really becomes harder and harder as we go along, mostly because most of last year’s winners just keep on producing outstanding content (yes, Jeff Vader, I am looking at you — among others ;) ). That said, in the interest of keeping things fresh. I’ve limited my choice to blogs that have not yet been among the winners. So, with that out of the way, whose blog was the most awesome this year? Let’s find out!

1st place: Le blog dé Kouzes

Confession time: My French has become horribly rusty over the last few years, which is really a shame. But every once in a while, something makes me want to brush up on the language, and this year’s winner is very much a reason to learn French:

The four Kouzes provide a relentless stream of quality content, ranging from extremely helpful tutorials to absolutely breathtaking army projects. And every once in a while, they’ll run competitions that invariably draw the most talented hobbyists from the French speaking hobby community (and well beyond).

Meanwhile, their own projects really remain the star of the show here: Be it Morbäck’s absolutely stunning Plaguebones (or his equally wonderful Gretchin Army), Théo’agonie’s unbelievably creepy Dark Eldar or what have you: These guys are so insanely talented that I always feel the need to read through their every post — albeit at a glacially slow pace, more often than not ;)

So whether or not you know any French, make sure to head over to this fantastic blog as soon as possible — if all else fails, there’s always Google Translate, you know ;)

2nd place: thenickeninja’s blog

There are many things to love about the blog of swedish hobbyist thenickeninja, but let me just point out two of them: His absolutely amazing work for Blood Bowl – just check out his gorgeous Voodorcs – and his stunning underhive terrain — the latter one may just be the best tabletop terrain in existence, period.

Looking at these terrain projects always leaves me equal parts inspired and dejected at the fact that I’ll never be able to come up with something nearly as ingenious as this.

So definitely check out thenickeninja’s blog at your earliest convenience — I promise you’ll hunger for Necromunda and INQ28 afterwards, and that’s always a good thing!

3rd place: Between the Bolter and Me

Another confession: I am as guilty as anyone at regularly falling victim to the “pretty picture syndrome”, scrolling past carefully written paragraphs of excellent text in order to get at the delicious pictures of models. This is a terrible habit, to be sure, and it is therefore all the more astounding that this year’s third place has managed to capture me with a combination of things to look at and things to read through. time and time again:

The Brothers Wier maintain an excellent balance between showcasing cool conversions and kitbashes, providing helpful tutorials and taking detailed and insightful looks at new releases as well as certain developments in this hobby of ours. Their articles never disappoint and manage to be rewarding — with or without any pictures. A very well put together blog, and another hearty recommendation — make sure to check out Between the Bolter And Me!

Best models of the year

The level of quality when it comes to hobbyists’ creations is really quite off the charts by now — it’s almost unbelievable how many quality projects, logs, blogs and galleries can be found online! But even in this Golden Age of creativity, there are some that rise above the crowd. So let me present you some of the best pieces of 2014:

Red Corsairs by Kari Hernesniemi

Red Corsairs by Kari Hernesniemi

Kari and Okki, the Spiky Rat Pack, are common household names whenever I talk about my favourite blogs and hobbyists — and for a good reason, because their creations just tend to blow me away. This year, Kari does it yet again with some wonderful, true scale Red Corsairs that are a perfect embodiment of what Chaos Space Marines should be.

Truth be told, the Red Corsairs have often felt a little gimmicky to me – a strange mésalliance of traitors lacking the flair of the “true” Traitor Legions. Well, no longer, because Kari’s wonderful models are Blanchian and pirate-y and utterly badass at the same time, showing a chapter that has managed to become as corrupted in a mere century when others needed ten millennia for the same feat. Those models are just perfect — amazing job!

Check out Kari’s post about his Red Corsairs here.

Red Corsair by Kari Hernesniemi

Inquisitor De Lorme by Steifer

Inquisitor De Lorme by Steifer

A simply wonderful piece, marrying Blanchian design sensibilities with a dash of the Venetian Carnival: De Lorme is just pitch perfect in execution, a character that is equal parts majestic and ostentatious on the one hand, and sinister and more than a little deranged on the other. The whole achievement becomes even more stunning when you consider that Steifer sculpted huge parts of the model from scratch — all in all, this may just be my favourite Inquisitor this year!

Read more about Inquisitor De Lorme on Steifer’s blog here: The model is further enriched by seeing all the thought and care that went into its creation!

Inquisitor De Lorme by Steifer

Death Cult Assassin by MonkeyBallistic

Death Cult Assassin by MomkeyBallistic

The sheer elegance and perfection of this model leaves me almost speechless — suffice to say that this may just be the definite Death Cultist model, period. Based on a Witch Elf, this model is a perfectly realised interpretation of the archetype created by such characters as Severina and Sevora Devout (of INQ54 fame) — yet it even manages to improve upon those models: absolutely marvelous work!

Check out MonkeyBallistic’s blog here.
Mounted Champion of Nurgle by PDH

Nurglite Campion by PDH

Hugely talented hobbyist and all around great guy PDH absolutely delivers once again with a Champion of Nurgle on his daemonic steed, perfectly nailing down the diseased, festering look we would expect of a chosen of the grandfather — while totally blowing the official Magghot Lords out of the water at the same time! Seriously, GW should just have cast this model and be done with it, if you ask me!

Peter’s paintjob on this piece is also truly something to behold — especially the way he managed to capture the look and texture of a slug on the daemonic steed’s body. Is it any wonder this bad boy made it into a recent issue of Warhammer:Visions?

What finally elevates this amazing piece to legendary status is that the template for it was created by employing the highly arcane and eclectic random tables in the old Realm of Chaos books. Thumbs up, Peter: job’s a good ‘un ;)

Check out PDH’s excellent RoC log here.

Nurglite Campion by PDH

Nurglite Maulerfiend by Morbäck

Nurglite Maulerfiend by Morbäck

Ah, there I was just mouthing off about not being all too fond of the new magghot models, and along comes Morbäck and shuts me right up with his absolutely stellar magghot-based Maulerfiend conversion: an excellent creation that is being copied in Nurglite armies around the globe as we speak ;)

I have already stated my love for Morbäck’s Plaguebones earlier in this article, and I am all too happy to reiterate this point: This army is definitely and unmistakably Nurglite at first glance, yet quite unlike every other Nurgle army out there. And it really has it all: The brilliant kitbashes as well as the flawless (and especially disgusting) paintjobs. Morbäck’s Maulerfiend really serves as an avatar of the whole army project in a nutshell, and so it definitely belongs on this list!

Check out Morbäck’s excellent Plaguebones here.

Honorary mention: skrundle87 and John Stiening

This list just wouldn’t be complete without a shoutout to skrundle87’s and John Stiening’s excellent Imperial Knight models. While both models couldn’t be any more different from one another, they were truly invaluable to me when I converted my own Imperial Knight earlier this year:

Skrundle’s Daemon Knight provided me with so many excellent ideas to …erm borrow, and it stands as one of the best chaotic Knight conversions I have seen so far.

Daemon Knight by skrundle87

And John’s absolutely stunning Knight interiors provided the kick in the behind I needed to step up my game and create a cockpit for my own Knight instead of just glueing that carapace shut. The rest of the model is absolutely fabulous as well, of course!

Imperial Knight by John Stiening

So a huge thank you to both of you guys! I can only recommend visiting skrundle’s and John’s respective blogs and be amazed!

But wait, there’s more!

There’s so much more to tell you, but precious little time left tonight. So let’s take some time off, celebrating the advent of the new year, and I’ll be seeing you soon with the next installment of the 2014 Eternal Hunt Awards, talking about my favourite armies and hobbyists of 2014. Until then, party on!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A happy new year to you, dear readers, and welcome back to the 2014 Eternal Hunt Awards! Today’s instalment will once again deal with the achievements of fellow hobbyists, both because there was just so much cool stuff to show off and because I was just too lazy to write it all down in one go last time ;)

Army/warband of the year

Single models are all well and good, but it’s the creation of entire armies or warbands that gobbles up so many of our hobby hours — and by the same token, seeing an excellently realised army, a gorgeous Killteam or an awesome Inquisitorial retinue can probably inspire us like few things can. So which creations were the best in 2014? Allow me to share my findings with you:

1st place: Navigatorial Household by weirdingway

Navigator household by weirdingway

Even though all entries in this category are breathtaking works of art in their own right, there is little discussion about which army stood a head above the crowd this year: weirdingway’s Navigatorial household explores a woefully underdeveloped part of the 40k background in the most stunning way imaginable, taking cues from David Lynch’s version of Dune and producing a collection of models that is equal parts eclectic, wholly original and balls to the wall amazing. It also perfectly embodies what Warhammer 40k is about: the grimdarkness, the eclecticism, the madness and the opulence, all rolled into one fantastic project!

It’s hard to pick favourites from a collection this inspired, yet I instantly remember weirdingway’s model for the head of his navigatorial household — and quite a head it is, if you’ll excuse the pun:

Novator bei weirdingway

By all accounts, this idea shouldn’t work: It should come across as goofy and ridiculous — but while it may even be both of these things, weirdingway’s work transforms the concept into a fantastic model that looks like it has stepped right out of the 41st millennium. Amazing!

But standout pieces like this are not the only thing that make weirdingway’s project so great. In fact, the lowly retainers and footmen of the Navigators are just as stunning:

Navigator Household by weirdingway

Navigator Household by weirdingway

Each of them is a perfect little island of 40k: They are elegant and ostentatious, yet also frayed around the edges and quite unhinged. Is it any wonder that these guys have inspired me to build my own Navigator warband right away?

There were many amazing projects in 2014, but weirdingway just takes the cake! A veritable triumph!

Check out weirdingway’s spectacular ongoing WIP thread here.

2nd place: Mr. Poom’s Heresy era World Eaters

Heresy era World Eaters by Mr. Poom

Well, you didn’t think we’d get through this without at least one World Eaters army, did you? ;) In all fairness, I did choose one of the most spectacular specimens for you, and certainly the best Heresy era World Eaters in existence: Mr. Poom’s version of the World Eaters’ 8th company.

Many feel drawn to the XII legion in its Heresy era incarnation, yet there are quite a few pitfalls along the way: The legion’s trademark colours of white and blue are hard to do well, and so most hobbyists end up covering their World Eaters in so much gore and battle damage that it almost overwhelms the senses (and certainly overpowers the miniatures in question). Mr. Poom’s army, by contrast, maintains a perfect balance between lush painting and gritty weathering — all while being full of excellent kitbashes and conversions that are completely organic and seamless.

Just take a look at this picture featuring  some of our favourite protagonist’s from Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s excellent book Betrayer, such as a wonderful, converted Khargos Bloodspitter, the ill-fated Librarian Esca, and of course: Eight Captain Kharn himself:

Heresy era World Eaters by Mr. Poom

All in all, this is a marvelous army — and it’s also the best reason for never starting a Heresy era World Eaters force, because Mr. Poom has basically accomplished perfection in this field. Little point in trying to one-up that ;)

Check out Mr. Poom’s ongoing army log here or his wonderful Flickr gallery.

Pre Heresy World Eaters by Mr. Poom

3rd place: McGibs’ Bloody Beasties of Khorne

Chaos Bull by McGibs

I have only discovered this army fairly recently, but it shot straight to the top echelon of my favourite Khornate armies: McGibs has created a collection of unbelievably original and inspired kitbashes and provides wonderfully lush and visceral paintjobs to match. Case in point: That Chaos Bull above is very possibly the best Khornate Maulerfiend I have seen so far (I want one!). Or we could talk about what may just be the best conversion of GW’s fairly recent plastic Ogryns in existence, his Obliterators:

Chaos Obliterators by McGibs

Do you need any more reasons to check out this army and instantly fall in love with it? How about the fact that some of the models were inspired by creatures from Diablo and the original Doom? The videogame nerd in me rejoices!

But seriously, this is an amazing collection, and a very original one at that! Do yourself a favour and check out McGibs’ highly inspirational army log here!

Hobbyist of the year

Gorgeous armies and warbands are not the most important thing in our hobby: The hobbyists are. They are keeping the hobby alive. They are forming a community that manages to inspire and captivate. Sure, they also produce a lot of noise about pricing shenanigans and torunament level play — but it’s easy enough to tune that out, whenever it gest overwhelming ;)

Meanwhile, there are those who deserve a moment of recognition for their contribution to the hobby in general and my personal hobby life in particular. So here’s to them:

1st place: DexterKong

Who could I put in first place but my good buddy Dexter? We’ve been shooting e-mails back and forth all year, discussing Khornate conversion projects or even fleshing out our own sector of imperial space for INQ28. Throwing ideas at Dexter and getting them back in a much improved form is never dull, plus the guy can also draw up some mean character illustrations! And that’s not even talking about his usually stellar contributions to the various painting and converting contests at Throneofskulls.com. So cheers, buddy! You really deserve this small award! And let’s keep doing this, alright?

Unfortunately, Dexter has been a little lax with his blogging for a while — so your best chance to actually catch a glimpse of this reclusive guy would probably be the Contest section over at Throneofskulls.com, where he regularly works his magic ;)

2nd place: Flint13

Ah yes, everyone’s favourite riot grrrl ;) Flint’s contributions are certainly one reason why The Bolter & Chainsword is such an egaging and fun forum right now: Be it her staggering output of steadily improving, excellent models, her equally impressive background vignettes, her unwavering motivation and good cheer or her role in starting a rather active and rewarding thread of World Eaters aficionados, Flint is very much the heart and soul of the place right now, at least for me. She also called me warlord once, and that has to count for something, right? So yeah, congrats Flint! Here’s to another frantic year, eh?

Like I said, Flint is *VERY* active over at The Bolter & Chainsword, and all of her stuff is usually very interesting and also quite amusing. I recommend checking out her ongoing WIP thread to get started ;)

3rd place: Legatho

Another very well deserved award, not only because Legatho managed to rebound from a hobby tragedy that I do not think I could have survived (read the full story here), but because he also stayed (relatively) cheerful and productive through the whole ordeal and went right back to producing some wicked kitbashes and conversions. Plus I was genuinely moved when he painted a model I had converted as a small tribute to my World Eaters. Cheers, for that, mon ami ;)

Check out Legatho’s WIP thread over at the Ammobunker and don’t forget to pay your respects to the excellent models that were lost in the deluge — it still hurts to actually think about that…

Honorary mention: Jeff Tibbetts

Those of you who already know Jeff may think of him as “the guy with the amazing Imperial Knight log”. And those who do not yet know Jeff, should check out his blog or his ongoing thread on The Bolter & Chainsword as soon as possible, because Jeff’s work on his Imperial Knight is truly something to behold: His work shows an attention to detail and a dedication that we should all strive to emulate — if only to fail miserably. Speaking of which, I will certainly try to adapt some of Jeff’s excellent recipes when finally painting my own Knight. Will I be as perfectionis about it as Jeff? Heck no, I’ll be cutting all kinds of corners, like I always do. But even then, I’ll only be able to get it just so because Jeff blazed the trail!

Thanks to all these excellent people for their army projects, their blogs and plogs — and their being an inspiration to people like me, who sometimes just need a pretty picture to look at and a kick in the butt to finally rekindle their motivation. Cheers, guys! You rock!

So the hobbyists definitely pulled their weight in 2014 — but what about the industry? What were the best releases and the biggest disappointments? Which developments were great or not so great? Let’s find out in the third part of the 2014 Eternal Hunt Awards — coming your way soon ;)

Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!