Vampuary is Go - New Vampire Counts Deluge

Wellity wellity wellity. It looks like the new vampire counts pics have hit a little before I was expecting. Here's what we got. But first, a word on the cover.

What the hell?

As Paul from Hobby Horse put so well,  GW have never really hit the nail on the head with their vampire characters. This appears to have transferred onto the cover of the new book. While I am super happy to be getting a new book, the emo-haired nutter on the front cover does not do it for me, with a cloak red riding hood would kill for. But enough of that, for where the cover sucks a bag of balls, the miniatures, for the most part, do not.

The Mortis Engine/Coven Throne.This looks a bit an the fantastic side. Like, Willy Wonka fantastic. (Which is a good thing) I am loving the whole ethereal section, with the whirling spirits and ghosts and such. I was worried about the large model release, but no longer. Fantastic. The bits in this kit will be very handy, quite apart from the model itself. This will be one I'll be looking forward to getting my hands on. Not tooo sure about the female vamp couch thing, but we'll see. It does also look a bit top-heavy, but I'll have to get my hands on the sprues to see. 

The new black knights/hex wraiths. All I can say about the black knights is about damn time. After at least fifteen years of waiting, they don't disappoint. Excellent. Nice mounts, (at last!) very characterful, love the armour and the slenderness of the models. The hex wraiths, well, they look pretty sweet, too, whatever the hell they are. Again, looks like a lot of tasty tasty bits in this kit. One please, barman!

Have you noticed the army of the barrow comment on the black knight page? What's this now?

Now, the oddest new addition, the vargheist/crypt horror kits. Jury is out on these lads. I think I like the vargheist, and they are a conversion away from a decent vargulf. I can see a unit of these boys (I'm assuming monstrous infantry) would look cool.

The crypt horrors though. Mmm. I was hoping for some kind of stitched together zombie golems. I guess GW thought they might have some competition from the myriad of companies who have released large undead models of this kind. They aren't blowing me away at first glance. I may yet assemble a unit of large undead from models I already have to represent these lads. As ghoul unit fillers though, maybe

And onto the characters. The new plastic wight king, just awesome of the sauce variety. Definitely on my list. As for the finecast releases, Krell looks good. There's something weird going on with his helmet, but I can't make it out from the angle of the photo. AS for Isabella, well, meh. She's a nice model, but not my cup of blood-flavoured tea. Added to this finecast scares me. It scares me deep down in my soul, with it's melty, bubbly, where's that guy's face gone failnosity. Krell might be my first, but if he's a finecast mutant, count me out of any more finecastery folks.

Overall, I a very happy fellow. I'm aching to see the rules for all this new shiny stuff, and the rules for the old faithful. Roll on January 14th.