Imperial City photos

As requested some Q&D pictures of the Imperial City terrain pieces I built last night. Click on the images to view larger versions.



Most of them still need to have some addition bitz added to them to add a bit more detail to them but they are structurally fine...IMO mind you. One of the buildings would be considered a "corner piece" but that was really a choice on my part as I still ahve enough additional panels adn pieces to expand that if I so chose to do so.

Finally a look at the larger basillica building next to a Space Marine Razorback for scale. As well a look at the building panels adn sections left over after building the seven pieces.

Imperial City comments

This isn't a review per se since I am going to try to get out of the habit of reviewing products that I purchase myself in order to allow some level of objectivity to remain when I review gaming products.

That said, last night Zach came over with the Imperial City box that we have split. First impression: weight. The box is very heavy and its loaded from top to bottom with sprues. The box is the same size as the boxes used to contain the WFB and 40K army sets and there is not really any room in the box for more sprues.

All of the sprues are made from the same plastic that GW uses for its plastic miniatures but since most of the sprues have pieces larger and thicker than any seen in a plastic sprue previously they have far more heft than any GW plastic sprue you may have seen before.

The box contains, IIRC, 8 x Accessory, 8 x Sanctum, 6 x Basilica and 6 x Manufactorum sprues. The Manufactorum sprues are problematic if you are going to split the boxes since it takes two sprues to create a single set of pipes that you may have seen on some of the pictures online. So if each of you takes three sprues then one of you have to give up a set of pipe components to allow the other to create a full set of pipe elements.

Each sprue contains enough material to make a small building and you can combine two or more sprues to build massive structures. The box is advertised as allowing you to build 10 buildings but in a probable first for GW this is an actual understatement. You can create 10 *large* buildings from the Imperial City box but Zach and I were able to easily put together 14 buildings with a mixture of sizes. So it all depends on your personal tastes in terrain. I built a mix of small and large buildings from the sprues I had and came out with seven buildings all of differing sizes and complexities.

The building components themselves are very well done and I didn't run into any issues assembling the buildings. Everything fit together properly though it was sometimes tricky to build multi-storey buildings as there are no guides to indicate there panels need to fit together properly when stacking them top to bottom instead of side to side.

The panels all glued together quickly and easily and we didn't need to wash the sprues in advance. Assembling a building starting with the corner sections and then building out was quite simple and actually quite fun.

It was very simple to put the building panels together to create walls and while the instructions in the box were helpful in some instances it would have been more useful if the instructions had some details on how the GW team put together some of the more complex buildings they show.

The most immediate concern about the buildings is their iconography. Most buildings are littered with skulls. There is not a lot of debate about whether this is a 40K product based solely on the prominence of skulls on the buildings. In fact the basilica sprues contains an archway panel that has a window filled with skulls. If you've ever complained about the pre-eminence of the skull as a 40K design element this one panel is GW's "one finger salute" to you.

If you are going to use the buildings for more than 40K you may want to either examine ways to paint the buildings to minimize the appearance of the skulls or perhaps just pass on the product. I plan to paint the buildings in a rough stone and weathered urban scheme and then paint a lot of the non-skull features to try to push the skulls into the background. That may not work for you and it might be an idea to examine the sprues or some assembled buildings before you make a purchase.

If you are looking for some nice generic sci-fi urban terrain then this probably isn't for you. If you think GW has already gone overboard in their use of the skull as a design feature then this is really not a product for you. If you can deal with the obvious 40K theme of the terrain then the box makes a considerable amount of terrain for the price and with some appropriate painting will make some very nice baroque urban terrain for your table.

Hordes photos

So first up is Baldur and the Woldwarden. Baldur's left had is a bit botched but I'm satisfied with how the rest of him came out. The Woldwarden towers over Baldur and you can see that the right arm is positioned nicely in mid-attack. Its a very dynamic sculpt and the miniature really does look as if it was assembled from stones, twine and wood.



I'm not as happy with Hoarlock but that may be that I didn't take as much time with the miniature as I should have in order to get it done before the new Hordes miniatures arrived. I didn't put the scroll on the base as I really don't like the way it looks. The Dire Troll is a brute and has some really great detail on the miniature. The underside of his hands have a wonderful amount of wrinkling and lining that maek the hands look quite realistic. In fact to me they are the most striking part of the model.



The Dire Troll isn't as high as the Woldwarden but it is twice the weight and even in the pose it is in (curled and twisted into a ball full of rage) its still a pretty big miniature.

Both of the minis were very well done and I'm quite happy with them both and looking forward to painting them.

Dire Trolls and Woldwardens

The new Warbeasts for Hordes were in today at my FLGS. None of the troops arrived so I'll have to wait for the Scattergunners and the Wolves of Orboros. Not that I mind since I am painting up some Long Gunners and Stormblades for my Cygnar force.

The Woldwarden went together very easily and the model has a very dynamic pose. The Dire Troll has been a bit more difficult to put together but only because the green stuff I am using to bond the upper and lower torse together wasn't curing as quick as I would have thought. Time to open a new pack.

The Dire Troll has almost no seams on any of the parts and I was actually able to put all of it together, with the above exception, with glue.

Pictures later after I get the Dire Troll on its base

Hordes finished

Well I actually managed to finish painting all of my Hordes miniatures before the next wave hit the stores. Baldur and Hoarlock were finished and based today. I'll get some pictures of them up tomorrow. One thing I did do is to leave the scroll off of Hoarlock's base. The more I painted it the more I got used to, and liked, the miniature without the scroll. I am thinking of taking it and using it on the Dire Troll Mauler as an accessory.

Now if I can only keep up the pace with the rest of the Hordes releases.

Starter sets painted

So I finally have all four of my starter sets painted. Two Hordes and two Warmachine.





Kelly Kim painted the Cygnar and Trollblood sets and I painted the Khador and Circle sets.

So now I have the minis necessary to demo both games if need be.

Hordes giveaway

Want to get the Legion of Everblight Blighted Archers Unit Box before it ships?

TGN is running a contest to win a free boxed set or blister of miniatures from Privateer Press.

Hordes Circle starter finished

I managed to finish the Circle of Orboros starter today. I did a quick job on the three Warbeasts and spent a bit more time on Kaya but she was also somewhat rushed. Still I'm quite satisfied with the results. The Argus was a bit more problematic o paint than I thought it would be due to the small spaces between the armour plates on its head and neck. Some of them are perhaps a bit too close to paint accurately. At least for me...



The Warbeasts and Kaya's armour were all drybrushed. The rest of Kaya was painted with traditional methods and I also started to use thinner and matte medium in the paint when I was doing blending. It makes an amazing difference. The paint flows better and is more translucent so its much easier to build up layers of highlights on the miniature without overdoing the colour and making the highlights too stark.

Her skin is a bit of a screw-up as I started to work with a Game Colour range pant but then quickly realised that it was too loose to use to paint highlights on her fingers. I had to go to using another set of colours from the Model Colour range and so the blending isn't as good and the detail in her hands isn't the best.

This is the third starter set I have assembled and painted (two Hordes and one Warmachine) and I am going to get a Cygnar starter finished so I can apply for Press Ganger status and start to do some demos locally. I've actually been doing demos and some people actually think I am a Press Ganger so I figured that it might be a good idea to make it official. :-)

One thing I did learn from painting up these miniatures so quickly is that my "quick" method of painting still gives me an acceptable gaming standard so I may be able to actually keep up with Hordes releases and still not have to worry about the quality of my painting.

When will the insanity end

So the latest White Dwarf comes in the mail today and I see that they have a series of new releases that list the US and Canadian prices. Despite recent price rationalizations at GW Canada and the change in the exchange rate many of the products listed have ridiculous Canadian prices.

Is there really any reason that some Canadian products are 40-50% more than the US prices? The Imperial Sector boxed set is 40% higher than the US price. Why? The Urban Basing kit is a stupefying 60% higher than the US price.

Is GW Canada trying to make us all shop at The Warstore?

Warhammer Fantasy

One of the messageboards I frequent is the primary haunt for a group of local WFB players. One of the recent threads concerned an event put on by another gamer known for rather "cheesy" armies.

This topic generated quite a few comments by some people who derided some of the more beardy armies that this particular fellow had used in the past and it made me wonder about WFB and why it seems to be plagued by this problem.

Now in my experience when two gamers get together to play WFB and they are not focusing on trying to win at all costs the game can be quite fun (too many rules arguments for my taste though). But due to level of flexibility and options in each of the WFB army books the game can quite easily lead to power-gaming and people building armies that are simply built to destroy your opponent.

This isn't a problem limited to WFB. You can do this in almost any game. But Games Workshop games seem more prone to this sort of thing given the companies focus on selling models and not on actually selling good rules. Any company that gives away rulebooks as a way to continue sales of a line of miniatures, as GW did with their Specialist Games range, is giving everyone a good clue as to what the companies actual priorities are.

So are GW games doomed? Is there no way to balance them (or no desire to balance them) so that this sort of cheesy army building is a thing of the past?

I'm not too sure to be honest. Solid rules come from people who are interested in building a solid gameplay experience and I can't see that this is a priority for GW. Churning out regular army updates and new armies to maintain their sales levels is a priority.