Review - Blight Wheel Miniatures

I've been amassing a lot of bits and pieces for my adeptus mechanicus genestealer cult of late, and with the huge amount of small companies providing a cornucopia of choice for miniatures and conversion parts, I thought a post or two on my experiences with them might be of use. The first of these is Blight Wheel Miniatures.

Blight Wheel do a pretty huge amount of sci-fi models and conversion parts, and for someone interested in anything cyborg or adeptus mechanicus related, they have a lot of choice. The war bot in particular is a great  model. I have noticed though, that there can be an issue with stock. I've been waiting on the bionic arms and servo arms to become available for a couple of months now, to no avail. Maybe it's a low restock and I've been missing them.

I did however order some bionic arms with weapons, Sino russia Torsos 01 and Torso kit 04 Composite armour for the Contagii. Delivery time was pretty reasonable.

Composite Armour Torsos

Sino Russian Torsos

The torsos were both good quality, with plenty of detail. They fit well with other 28mm ranges. A couple of the Sino Russian torsos were miscast, bit once I contacted Blight Wheel and sent on some photos of the affected components they sent me some replacements right away. The Sino Russian in particular are very useful for adeptus mechanicus conversions. I can recommend these pretty heartily.

bionic arms with weapons

The same can't really be said for these. The resin is pretty brittle on the set I received, and there was a lot of flash and a fair few bubbles. I soldiered on with one arm, and after a lot of clean-up and a little green stuff it turned out okay. The larger flamer type weapon was so warped as to be pretty much unusable though. However, I may have gotten a bad casting. As I mentioned Blight Wheel are good at sending replacements, so I wouldn't let this put you off completely. Caveat emptor for certain though.

Right now it seems the company is closed for holidays, so a lot of the items are unavailable. Once they open up again do take a look at the range if you're looking for that certain arm/head/torso, there's a lot to choose from.

Genestealer Cult - Altered Hybrid

After what seems like an eternity, I've finally gotten a model of the painting desk. This unfortunate fellow has been lounging about half finished for weeks. My stumbling block, apart from a general lack of painting mojo, was what kind of right arm to give him. I must have tried five or six different options. In the end though, I went back to the gun arm. I guess he must have a hand attachment for when he's not hosing unbelievers with high velocity rounds.

He joins the hybrid squad, leaving me with another six hybrids to assemble and paint. Next up will be a larger 2nd generation toting a meltagun. Before that though, the fimir are about to get a pool to paddle in.

KnaveCon 4

If you're going, see you there tomorrow!

Metal Beards - Kashan Vra Chosen Review

When the Titan Forge Kickstarter for the Metal Beards kicked off I was interested, but when the Kashan Vra, or chaos dwarves to you and me appeared, I was all in. I'd seen some of their other ranges, Drakskull's Menace being a firm favourite. Undead greenskins? You bet. These guys do snazzy miniatures.

My own particular take on the chaos dwarves features the original spiky stunties, and the Kashan Vra fit very nicely with that look. The Chosen are essentially fireborn, and the steampunk, gears and evil approach Titan Forge were taking suited me a lot better than the chained fire elemental look Forge World have gone with. I don't dislike the Forge World fireborn as such, but I do like these lads a lot better. The kickstarter wasn't that cheap, three Chosen costing about £23 at KS prices, so God knows what they'll cost at retail. It should be noted though, that you do get a resin scenic base for that too. So, let's see what you get.

As you can see, these models require a fair bit of assembly. Even the troopers come in a huge amount of parts, so these models do require a bit of hobby mojo to put together. The resin is crisp, though there are some bubbles and the odd bit of thick flash, but generally they are great quality. The resin isn't brittle, though I did see a phenomenal amount of mold bits in the scenic bases. The mold attrition rate must be pretty high. The only issue I saw with the parts are the shoulders do not fit that flush with the main body. There may be some minor gap filling required for the arms to fit snugly.There is also a huge gate at the top of the shoulder pad which will take some patience to trim. Small potatoes really.

Here's is our boy hastily blu-tacked together.

There's a shed-load of detail on this guy. Pipes, gears, pistons, a Victorian engineers worst nightmare. Get that metal-painting-fu ready.He just about sits on a 40mm x 40mm base. I'd reckon painting the arms and head separately and then pinning them on would be a good idea, hence the concern over the arms not fitting flush. Once I've hacked off the gates (you cans see one jutting out of the right shoulder pad on the second picture) I'll get a better idea of the fit.

With some minor conversion, this guy and the 'good dwarf' version would make superb squat armoured suits. There are two heads for this particular version, the head you see above, and the burning skull head, below, which looks pretty great. OSL FTW.

I'll be building a unit of eight fireborn, so six of these lads and two groovy unit fillers should do the trick. The basing theme is an abandoned and ruined city, so plenty of scope for nice filler pieces.

Along with the chosen I got some of the Kashan Vra war machines, which oddly enough fit in nicely with the chaos dwarf machines. I'll pop up a review of those next, once I figure out where all the bits go.

You can see an earlier review on the Metal Beards basic trooper here.

Nagash Returned

Since my last post, the internet has imploded with pictures of the big fellow and his attendant releases. Normally I wouldn't post about something that's going to be released in a few days, but I'm a bit of a fan of Nagash and the undead in general, and there seems to be big changes in the warhammer world and indeed how the game is played. Whether this is as part of a campaign in the book, or in general, I don't know.

First off, when I saw the initial sasquatch of Nagash, I was unimpressed. I should know better by now, but hey, I was excited. Things were said.

However, this the appearance of the new images I have to say I am happy to change my mind. He's magnificent. The floating ghosts bearing him up are excellent. He's going to be a nightmare to transport though. Battlefoam are probably already working on the 'tomb of Nagash' transport case. His rules are pretty good, but boy is he expensive at 1,000 points. Here's the White Dwarf rules.

I was surprised to see Nagash gets his own army book. The cover seems to show Nagash shouting. 'HEY. I GOT MY OWN ARMY BOOK! DID YOU GET YOUR OWN ARMY BOOK? NO? THAT'S RIGHT, BECAUSE YOU SUCK! HA HA HA! ALSO! CHECK OUT MY NEW HAT!' Proper order in my opinion. Still, the 'undead legion' army lists seems to be a combination of Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts, with a spate of new releases coming in alongside Nagash. One of the two books in the set is pure background. This is kind of a must-have for me, it looks so tasty. Mmm, Nagash flavoured... 

I hear Kislev is gone. That's kind of big, and I'm not sure I'm digging it. There's a lot of Kislev armies out there crying little lead tears. I have the ice queen here somewhere. That must be where the sobbing is coming from. From BoLS:

 He looks smug there on the cover, don't he?

Warhammer, The End Times is noted to contain new rules that change the way a game of Warhammer can be played. It is not a new edition.

• Warhammer: Nagash - 2 hardback books in a slip case. €65
• Book 1: 296 page fluff book detailing the return of Nagash and events that affect every Warhammer race.
• Book 2: 96 page book containing rules for Nagash, new miniatures, the Lore of Undeath, Undead Legion, fighting underground and more apparently.
• Nagash - no mention of him being a dual kit, rules are included in the box. €85(!!)
• Magic Cards
• Nagash Novel

What the background in the WD tell us: 

• I hope you didn't like Kislev, because there is no longer a Kislev. 
• Archaon's advance has been stalled by Vlad under the order of Nagash (the Empire was in major trouble). 
• Nagash goes fighting to unite the Tomb Kings and VC (one of the scenario pictured in WD translate into "the Fall of Settra").

Regarding miniatures/rules:

• Nagash is magnificent, and very very tall thanks to his flying posture (he is supported by a bunch of souls). 
• But he's not that massive overall, I have no idea how he managed to reach the 85€ pricetag. 
• Not a dual kit. 
• No other models that week, but the ones serving under him are hinted at the end of WD for the week after (so I suppose Vlad and that Arkhan dude, note that I know the WFB lore very poorly).
•  As people expected, the new magic lore appear to work like Demonology for 40k (except with undead). 
• Rules are changing with that extension, 50% lords for example. 

That's some big stuff. Kislev gone? It's highlighted and in bold, so it must be true. Settra possibly dead? As far as rules go 50% on lords? Yipes. There are a lot of other new undead releases, which spells bad times for my finances. I think Christmas is sorted. The new kits seem to fall under a few dual or even triple kits.

• Spirit Hosts
• Morghast with VC/TK alternate
• Monster kit that produces Neferata/Mannfred/Arkhan.

So it looks like four new kits all in all, and these new kits look bloody nice. An undead monster stuffed to the gills with skulls is about the most GW thing I've ever seen. Not entirely sure on the Morghasts yet, they're a bit action figurey, but I'll reserve final judgement until I see them up close. The spirit host are great. Finally, a decent spirit host set. Mannfred is hilarious. His pose implies he's shouting something along the lines of 'Suck it, b****tttches!' to all and sundry.

Mannfred. He's doing well for himself, isn't he?

Neferata

Spirit Host (Finally!)

Morghast Harbingers

Arkhan

There is a new lore too, the lore of undeath. New cards are going on sale alongside Nagash and the book. Seems he can pick pretty much whatever the hell spells he likes. There's a novel, and possibly a commemorative mug. There may be a parade. Actually, that would be quite the parade. Judge Death would probably be the commentator. 'Here issss the man himseelllff, loooking dazsssling in hisss amazssssinggg neeww hat. Whaaat a classss act. Now ovverr to Juudge Mortisss who is coming to usss from the foot of the black pyramid ffflooattt..."

Sorry. Nagash is my Justin Beiber. 

Anyway, here's the release schedule, better get some of that bone coloured paint before it's all sold out.

The Return of Nagash

I've had a bit of a hobby sabbatical over the last few weeks. I think the amount of projects I dearly want to work on versus almost zero time to work on them temporarily killed my hobby mojo entirely. I think my funk is about played out now though, and normal services will shortly resume. The bit of news I saw on BolS yesterday certainly piqued my interest.

Rumours go along the lines of a new model for Nagash, three new kits for Nurgle and a new clampack, new vampire counts, tomb kings, skaven, chaos and dark elf releases as well as new models for Thanquol and boneripper. Also, some new fantasy terrain. Some of these releases seem to be part of the end times campaign. This might be a new book along the lines of Triumph and Treachery, but with a pile of new model rules and releases. Yehaaa I say to that. According to BoLS:

There had been talk for almost a year now that GW is looking to radically shake up the status quo in Warhammer Fantasy, and a myriad of theories about exactly what that meant. The return of perhaps the biggest baddie of them all in the Old World would be a step in that direction.

All this is very exciting, more so with the deluge of 40k of late. We've not had a sniff of fantasy since the wood elf release. I'm very keen on this, new models, rules and such not dependant on an army book release. Here's hoping it's all true. It does seem like a lot of new models, but the rumours point to a big shake up for WFB, so who knows?

Top of the heap here is Nagash. We can't pass by a potential new release for him in the mountain without further comment. I'm a big fan of the over-lich, but there has never been a decent model for the lord of the undead. The only version of him we have is the frankly ridiculous Gary Morley model. I won't go too much further into how bad this model is, the internet is full enough of hate already. We'll just look at this for a second:

Oh God... I'd forgotten. I can't... I can't hold back the tears...

Aaaand move on. Good God.

Anyway.

Jesus. Sorry, I can't seem to look away. It's... sorry. I'm done now. We'll talk about the new version.

...

I mean, look at the arms. The proportions. That f&*king hat. The staff? With the skull bat/crow? Those goddam shoulder pads?! What in the seven hells were GW thinking? I've seen beautifully painted versions of this, as master painters attempt to beat some dignity into this model. It just can't be done. Okay. Sorry. Deep breath. All done now.

Deeeeep breaths.

So, can you imagine a new version of this guy, with 21st century technology? A new kit, with lots of tasty options? If the concept is worthy, it could be one of the most amazing kits GW have ever done. But there's a lot of expectation here. Here's hoping the ghost of bobo is laid to rest once and for all.

BroCon 2014

Magos Kurgan (me), Captain Jameson (Just John), Inquisitor Verhoeven (Cheetor) and Zardork (theottovonbismark) for the traditional group shot.

Last weekend myself, Cheetor, theottovonbismark and Just John converged on BroCon. This follows on from our game at KnaveCon. We played two games, the first using the Pulp Alley rules, and the second using 2nd edition 40k rules. Both were highly entertaining, but the Pulp Alley game, set in the madness of Rogue Trader 40k, Get to the Chopper, was genuinely hilarious. Usually a good game was one or two memorable events, but there were several times during this game that tears were welling I was laughing that hard.

For the first game we all picked a small team to investigate the rapidly irradiating jungle for the key that opened the door of the ship waiting in the compound. With Inquisitors, Ratli - I mean Leprechans, moustachioed orks and genestealer hybrids, there was plenty of Rogue Trader variety going on.

Smell the Oldhammer

 Uncanny radiation from perilium deposits exposed by recent seismic activity (see “Inquisitor – The Ragna Rock” for details) has caused the dead of the Northern Polar continent of Krellborn IX to rise and attack the living. Being suddenly surrounded by homicidal cadavers has brought the individual agendas of the various factions currently in the area to an abrupt end. Escape is the only thing on our heroes minds and the only reliable route out is by air.
 

The local wildlife is also aware that death is creeping up. Driven as before an eruption or forest fire, the colourful and hostile local predators are also panicked and aggressive. Therefore the likes of enraged Death-Ferrets, Bouncers, Face-Eaters and more will have to be factored into any plan.

The single available shuttlecraft in the area appears undamaged, but access to the vehicle is restricted. Remains of the prior owners of “The Chopper” surround the local Leprechan agri-science outpost. Hopefully those remains will also be the location of the key cards that allow access to and control of the vehicle. There is only one way to find out…

The Magos and his retinue creep forward.

Zardork spies the compound in the distance while taking fire from crack-shot Leprechans.

The Helga prepares for lift-off.

The finest moustache in 40k makes it's way through the jungle.

Bedlam on the landing pad as the scuffle for keys gets nasty.

Inquisitor Verhoeven finds that getting over a chain link fence appears to be the greatest challenge of his career.

For a more detailed report on the desperate dash for the shuttle, you can read it here on Sho3box, Cheetor's blog.

In our second game, the sensei and their followers face off against each other, highlander style, and, of course, there can be only one. With some jaw-dropping ruthlessness, the sensei butcher each other while making half-hearted noises about making common cause until the end. After several turns of such carnage, sensei Ramirez emerges to claim the prize. Cheetor has a more detailed report coming for this game also.

Both games went very well indeed, and already the O'Hammerers move to plan their next outing. Several ideas are fermenting, but there may be an electronux involved...

The sensei move through the jungle to claim the holy ground.

Otto twirls his moustache while considering his next dastardly move.

Ramirez battles his final opponent.