Here's a video showing the Khorgorath and Bloodstoker assembly. They are pretty straightforward, and have minimal cleanup needed to make them work. The Khorgorath has a couple joints that should be filled before painting, but otherwise its easy to assemble. I've been really impressed with the Chaos models in this set... they are a step ahead for sure, and quite impessive. I'm not as much of a fan of the forces of Sigmar, but they are ok too.
I've added some side by side shots with my Helbrute below since there has been some talk that they are very similar. That's sort of true, but they are very different models. I don't really see any commonality other then general size and a similar pose.
Here's my unboxing video showing the contents of the Age of Sigmar Warhammer starter set. Probably not much new in there, so I'll add some thoughts and opinions below.
First off, its a nicely packaged starter. Much more of a starter than previous GW offerings, in that you can actually play full games with the models and rules supplied. The previous ones were sort of half baked in my opinion, because you needed the army books to play the full game, and didn't really have enough models to have a proper force. This one seems different in that sense, so is more catered towards the first time gamer than the long time neck beard.
As for the sprues, of course the details are amazing and all of that, but the thing I've noticed is that the good and evil guys are totally separate on the sprues. You can easily split the box without clipping anything. The sprues are either completely one side or are divided down the middle and can be snapped in half. This is a great design, and will make splitting with friends that much easier.
In terms of the new faction (Sigmarines), I can't say that I'm thrilled by them. I don't particularly like painting space marines, and that's what these guys feel like. One of thing things I like about fantasy are the troops and their smaller scale, so these guys are basically the opposite of that. I'm also not keen on the round bases, but we'll have to see how that works out with game play. I'm not about to rebase all of my guys yet, but maybe I will if I get indications that the round bases are the way to go in the long run.
For me one of the key things about a gaming system is that it is supported and living. This means an active player community and new releases. I think the approach GW has taken will allow give them the opportunity to have successful releases for a long time, and allow the game to flourish. Sure, it needs some sort of mass battle set of advanced rules, but that's secondary to having a game that can support continual releases and a large catalog of miniatures. Maybe Kings of War will be the competitive rule set for tournaments. Maybe GW will release something even better. Who knows. All I care is that Fantasy remains profitable so GW keeps producing models.
Here's a video showing how these guys assemble. The detail on the mini's is amazing, but that's to be expected these days. The mold lines are very minimal, so just a little scraping is necessary. I can't wait to get started on painting these guys.
For some reason my pictures of the finished models didn't upload automatically, so I'll add another post tomorrow with those.
Here's another showcase video, this time of Lamartes, guardian of the lost. I painted this guy when he came out with the old codex, and really spent a lot of time on the details. I think I like how the lenses in his eyes turned out the most.
Here's a showcase video for a Knight I painted when they first came out. I'm tempted to get some of the forgeworld ones to go along with this an make a Knight army, but I have way too much stuff in my to-do pile to make a purchase like that.
Here's a quick showcase video to go along with the one I made that explains how it was done. A fun model with a relatively easy conversion that makes this update work.
I caved and picked up a troupe box yesterday... I had wanted to wait until the full release came out before picking anything up, but these things are trickling out so slowly that I pulled the trigger. I'd like to put together a small band to complement my Dark Eldar, so I'll probably pick up a transport and character to go with these guys. I'm also considering the idea of converting wyches into Harlequins... might be a decent conversion project. The basic idea would be to put masks on heads and use Harlequin arms.
Here's a video showing some of the steps and tips for assembling the Smaug model. Its basically a large forgeworld dragon with all the problems associated with that. The fit is generally good, but because I need to leave the wings off for painting I needed to spend some extra time on him.
This guy is huge... he doesn't fit on any of my shelves properly, so either the base is going to stick out, or I'm going to have to find somewhere else for him. Looking forward to painting him, but am not sure how much time I'll have over the holidays (I'm also working on finishing my basement).
I picked up my Smaug at the local GW today (along with the new White Dwarf) and here's the unboxing. I'm going to continue with an assembly walk through and painting video as well... hopefully I'll have enough time over the Christmas holidays.
Anyway, first impressions are good for this model. There are no visible mold lines, and the casting is pretty much flawless. We'll see how well the different parts fit, but so far the warnings about expert modeling skills seem over blown... those are needed to fill in bubbles on finecast.
Some size comparison Pics and unboxing video below...
Here's a quick look at the new Plastic Archon model that came out with the Dark Eldar release... I've wanted to open him up and assemble earlier, but haven't had the time.
I'm not a huge fan of this model due to the statuesque pose, but the detail is pretty cool. I left his head and trophy rack off for painting, but assembled everything else. I suppose you could make a case for leaving off his cape, but I didn't want to deal with any gaps on his shoulders.
I'm not sure when this guy will get painted up, but here's a look at him compared to the finecast crap version I painted a little while back. Unboxing and assembly video after the break.
Here's a look at the new Spacewolf flyer... its a pretty cool transport, but I'm not sure I'm sold on the whole frost cannon thing. I'm going to paint it up to go with my bloodclaws to replace the land raider that I had been using (ineffectively) for them.
Its a decent looking kit, but most of the space wolf icons are built into it, so if you wanted to use it for something else it would take a bit of work. The second video shows how I assembled it for painting.
Here's a tutorial, or walk through on how I made 4 Mek Gunz from the Ork Mek Gun and Ork Trukk boxes. The basic idea is simple, use the Trukk wheels and bits to make gun carriages. I built the Tracktor kannon straight out of the box, and the other three are kitbashes... if you wanted you could mix and match all 4. I'd also recommend using other bits in your collection, but I refrained in the video to keep it simple... with the exception of the Kannon and Zapp gun from the Battle Wagon kit (I figure most Ork collectors will have one or two of those lying around.
Video after the break and pictures below. Any questions? ask away...
Here's the full assembly video for the Meganobz. I wasn't sure if I was going to magnetize things when I started out, but by the end I basically magnetized every option. All of the hand weapons can be exchanged without magnets, but things like the Kombi options and Mek gear needed magnets. I'll post some more detailed pics of magnet placement shortly.
Here's a video showing how the new Mek Gun assembles up. I have plans to kitbash the left over bits and a trukk to make some more guns for a whole battery. More pics after the break.
I was surprised how big this thing is... much larger than my old 2nd edition tracktor kannon and pulsa rokkit. Also, I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of magnetization options. I'm a bit disappointed by the guards on it too... the lack of options means if you have 5 of these side by side they are going to look pretty similar, which isn't what you're looking for with Orks.
It also isn't really compatible with the Kannon, zapp gun or lobba from the battle wagon kit. We'll have to see how my kit bash looks next to this.
Here's the results of my Flash Gitz/Nobz frankenstein project. When the Flash Gitz box came out they were being marketed in the White Dwarf to be interchangable... so I thought I'd give it a try. The first issue is that most of the Flash Gitz bodies have a much wider stance, and don't really fit on a 25mm base. So, I only used the narrow stance Flash Gitz bodies, but used all of the Flash Gitz chests to make the Freebooter nobz.
On the Flash gitz side, the nob chests fit fine with some minor modifications. I was able to get some neat snazz gun poses that were slightly different than the normal Flash Gitz, although not really enough to break up the monotony of that kit.
I left arms off of most of the nobz to wait for the new codex to land... I don't want to build of a mob only to find out that they weren't kitted out correctly.
Here's the assembly video of the new Shokk Attack Gun. I'm in the process of painting it up now, so that should be posted before the next round of releases come out this weekend. Man, its gone from famine to feast with Ork releases...
Wow... that took much longer than I expected. I embarked on an assembly and magnetization tutorial, and ended up with a video almost an hour long. It turns out there isn't much magnetization needed on this. There are some shared parts for the gun, and you can do a sort of hybrid version that lets you swap out the main bits. I had intended to make a short and concise video showing how to swap them out, but in the end I'll have to do a blog post with some screen shots.
Anyway, this is an impressive kit when assembled. Its 6" tall, and as you can see below, not as tall as a stompa, but still quite large. I've also compared it to a land raider and mega-dread below.
The assembly video goes through the whole process, start to finish, showing which parts I left off for better access during painting. There are some tips along the way, so if this is the sort of thing that interests you, you can watch it while you assemble yours (pausing between steps to catch up).
I hope to have it painted soon, but this thing is large, so I'm not sure how long that will take...
Well, these have been sitting in my to-do pile for quite some time, but with the new Stronghold Assault book I thought I should get in gear. Now that there are rules I can see these getting a lot more use.
Anyway, below are three videos, one for each of the core Wall of Martyrs pieces; Imperial Defense line, Imperial Bunker and Imperial Defense Emplacement.
All done and painted. Here are some of the finished pics as well as a video tutorial on how I got there. Feel free to post questions in the comments and I will address them here.
Here's the follow up to the unboxing where I show how the assembly goes for the new Ork flyer. I also show the 1:48 scale model I plan on using to make a second flyer with all the extra bits.
