Review: White Dwarf 387

So a new issue of White Dwarf and some more new releases. This time I felt there was even more focus on the new releases, which I'm not particularly fond of. But the new stuff is really cool and really needed and this time around it's WH40k with Space Wolves and Tyranids.

New releases
Takes up a large portion of the magazine, as I wrote earlier there's mostly Wh40k stuff but also a long waited for release in Finecast, the Chaos Hellcannon! Well I believe many want this even if the quality of the Finecast can be discussed. The old model where huge in metal and a pain in the arse to build from what I have heard, the model is still huge and exactly the same in looks as before but the lighter material should make it a lot easier to build. Also a new paint job on it in this issue and it looks really good. It didn't went up in retail price either which is how it should be.

Then to the big releases for 40k. Space Wolves finally got some Thunderwolf Cavalry except Canis Wolfborn. And they look really nice to, I much prefer these wolves over the old Canis Wolfborn one. Also a new Finecast Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf and a special character called Arjac Rockfist both looking really nice. And speaking of wolves, there's some more. Fenrisian Wolf pack in a multi part plastic kit, I'm most excited for these as I see the potential of turning them into Fantasy wolves for my Goblins, because these wolves looks so much better than the old dated ones in fantasy.

The Nids also got some much needed reinforcements in the Tyrannofex/Tervigon kit and the Hive Tyrant/Swarmlord kit so you can now make a Tyrant with wings without any major conversions! Great stuff indeed and I feel a little urge to buy some Nid stuff but I don't have money or time for that right now.

There's also quite a lot of old models for both Space Puppies and Tyranids remade in Finecast.

Hobby
There's not much hobby stuff but there's a little guide how and when to use the new glues that GW is also releasing and many nice pictures of different staff members Tyranid armies with different colour schemes. There's also painting tutorials on how to paint a Hive fleet behemoth Tervigon and a SW Thunderwolf Cavalry model.

Rules and other things
 There's not much but there are the third part of Civil War featuring the elves, brettonians and daemons, a nice read as the first ones but I feel it would have been interesting if there were more fluff regarding these Civil Wars. Other than that there where a Tale of four gamers for LOTR (love these "tales") and among the last pages all of the slayer sword winners and a Vampire Counts gallery. Some really impressive work there as always from the Golden Demon.

This issue was quite good with many nice pictures but other than that not much useful stuff in terms of rules, fluff etc. Now I'm looking forward seeing the next issue, because maybe they will be showing all the new Empire stuff!

Rating: 3 out of 5

Empire Update: Mortar and crew finished!

Yes the third artillery piece is finished, this time it's a Mortar. Sadly I don't have enough wheels for my next Mortar and Helblaster Volley Gun, need to get them somewhere if you have a idea of where to get them It would be much appreciated. Anyway now to this model, as I have done with the first two cannons I have the round base with some terrain on. Will show you how I make them when I start to finish the Helstorm Rocket Battery.

Also something is different with the crew, I have a dwarf in there! I figured as Ostermark is close to the dwarfen stronghold of Karak Kadrin there should be some dwarfs in Ostermark as well. So this Imperial Dwarf is helping the crew out. Just made some minor conversion on him, cut away some of the helmet and but on a hat from the Greatswords kit and remade some of the helmet underneath with green stuff. I think this makes him look more imperial, don't you think? Happy with how it turned out and now I will focus on painting more Halberdiers and the Elector Count on a Griffon, want him to be finished before the new Griffon kit arrives the 7th of April (rumours now seems to confirm this is the release date for Empire!!), because otherwise I will just buy the new one and this one will never get finished.

Warriors of Chaos: Kit bashing

I know I haven't been doing much chaos work lately. I have a load of Marauders that need some paint and I haven't finished my Warrior unit or the War hounds yet. So  what do I do? I buy some more Chaos stuff and don't paint it! Well I will paint it eventually and some of it quite soon even. The biggest reason I bought these new things though is because I needed some bitz. So what have  I bought then.

 A Manticore! I know a lot of people really dislike this sculpt, but I actually quite like it. Sure the pose is a little bit strange but I really like the head and how big the whole model is. But I didn't bought this kit to get an awesome new monster but mainly to get the the bitz to the really great looking riders, and especially the Sorcerer Lord which I will try to convert to have on foot or disc. Still thinking of how I want to do this, first thought was to magnetize the body and legs from a warrior and the original rider legs to switch from foot to mounting the Manticore or maybe even a Horse. Don't know how I think it looks though, looks a little bit odd and my second option may be better. And that is to cut up the original riders legs and make them look like he is walking or standing instead.

I think most people like this kit and so do I, but I didn't buy it for the Horsemen, that just a bonus. I bought it because all the spare heads in the kit. And I will use them to fill out my marauders on foot, because that kit have a very limited set of heads and I'm not particularly fond of the look of them. So these new heads will be a great addition I will probably even buy one more Horsemen kit to get more heads.

Haven't come so far with these yet but I will finish these up as soon as possible. Will make the command I have some Beastman parts I may use to convert some of them men for a more bestial look. Lastly some pictures of one half of the Sorceror Lord and with normal Warrior legs, not glued or anything just put them together to see how it looks. I'm a bit unsure, maybe I have to cut up the rider legs and reposition them.

That's all for now, next update is an Empire one again as my Mortar and crew is soon finished.

Review: Vampire Counts Army Book

A little late with a review now maybe but now I have had an good read trough the book and I must say that GW continues doing really nice Army Books this edition. First of all it's hardback as the other 8th edition books and this makes the books pricier than before. But I for one don't mind that when the books are such better quality and they will probably last a lot longer.

One thing thing that strikes me though when looking at the book is the cover art. Which I'm not particularly fond of at all. Sure the cover looks a little bit retro which is nice but the vampire looks more like a cartoon figure and not that menacing like the rest of the book. That's not a huge deal though as all the rest of the artwork in the book looks really nice, some old used ones but quite a lot of new ones as well.

So what about the content then, the fluff from the older books are still there and there aren't many changes. There are of course some new fluff regarding the new units and also a new story with Mannfred Von Carstein. He now understand that he can't overthrow the throne in the Empire when they always are backed up by the Dwarfs and Elves when any huge threats to world is attacking (like Archaon in Storm of Chaos). So he plans to destroy the relations between them and starts with the Dwarfs and High Elves. Not a long story but well written and I hope they expand it in the future.

Rulewise I can't comment to much as I haven't played with or against them yet. But the rules looks really solid, and a lot more balanced than the 7th ed. book. For example now there's actually a choice between the main core infantry blocks. Skeletons are a lot cheaper than before, ghouls are still great but more expensive than the other choices and you can actually take Zombies now! They now have s 3 and t4 and cheaper and when using Invocation you get 2 d6 + wizard level back. So now I have to build all the Mantic Zombies and paint them :P.

The new units looks nice and should have a place in many armies. The rules for them seems nice as well, and I'm particularly interested in the Vargheists and a Mortis Engine. Won't go more into to detail than this into the rules but everything looks solid and balanced and only time will tell how they will compete against the other armies.Most seems to like the book and the new rules, not overpowered like the old one but strong and balanced exactly like every army book should be. The 8th ed. books have been great so far and this book is no exception, just hope GW continues on this route doing great and quite balanced books.

Rating: 4 out of 5

News: Space Rats! or 8th race or Veer-myn

Got the Mantic Newsletter yesterday showing the first pics of the 8th race in Warpath! And like one of my many Internet aliases (SpaceCowboy is usually taken) it's Space Rats. Or Veer-myn as they so cleverly are called. Anyhow they look really promising and Warpath is really shapen up with the new races not seen in the other sci-fi games out there. Also like what Iv'e seen from the Corporation army, and more is to come for both these armies.

More info at the mantic blog, and also check out the new Space Hulk clone game; Project Pandora.

Empire Update: Halberdier Command group

As you may have seen on my Twitter me and my family (especially my little daughter :( ) have been ill, and therefore I haven't been able to update much lately. Also a couple of days ago my computer crashed and I can't get it to work anymore! I have formatted the hard drive and I try to install a fresh copy of windows, and I't won't install. So now I'm working with an old laptop I found at home, think I have to buy a new PC asap, anyhow on to some warhammer stuff. I have managed to paint a little and I have now finished my Command group for the Halberdier unit. More soldiers and a little unitfiller is soon finished as well and I will show them as well soon. The pictures aren't looking that great I'm afraid got to bright, but they have to do for now. As always c & c is always welcome.

Empire Update: Swordsmen horde and five Halberdiers done!

Another Empire update, still painting these like crazy and even though I do that the progress still is going slow because I'm don't paint that fast. But at least there's some progress and here's what I've done this time. 

My Swordsmen horde unit is repainted and done. And I really like these large units and I think the adding of the yellow colour makes the unit look much better and more it looks more like The Empire. As you may have been notice there's one missing in the back row so this unit is now 39 models. Will of course add the last one and after that maybe even ten more to make it a unit of fifty. But That's in the future, I have some other things to get done like the....

The Halberdiers! Adding five fresh ones to the unit making them a fourteen strong unit. So still some more to go before they are finished. Will try to make the command group for them next time, and maybe one of those unit fillers that I like :P As always c &c are always welcome, see you next time.

Orc and Goblins Update: Second Black Orc Test model

I wasn't totally happy with how the first test model went, a little to bright and as one of the members on Da Warpath forum pointed out he looked like he belonged to Wisconsin NFL team Packers. Nothing against the Packers but I didn't want my Blorcs to look like an Fotbal team so I changed the colour scheme a little. A little hard do to tell which one looks the best because of the difference in looks with the new plastic kit and the old metal ones. Actually never realised this before but they look really different, just hope they mix well when they are all in the same unit.

Have actually bought some more stuff from Wayland games and some from Ebay really cheap, so now I have even more models to paint :P

That's all for now, next time it's an Empire Update again.

Review: White Dwarf 386

Another review of the latest White Dwarf, and I've waited to do this because I don't really know what to write about it. First of all, the focus of this issue is LOTR which haven't been the focus for a long time. This is in line with quite a few new releases for the system. Like Watcher in the Water, Dweller in the Dark, Great beast of Gorgoth and new cav, commanders etc. for Easterlings, Ghondor, Rohan, Dwarfs, Mordor, Isengard etc. A lot of stuff and most of it looks really great but I can't get too excited as I don't play or paint LOTR. (Although I have the first Fellowship minis and the first starter box). Also there's new books coming for the system which from what I can understand is like armybooks for the different armies, but here they are called sourcebooks.

So a lot of stuff for LOTR, not much for Fantasy but they continue what they started last issus with rules for Civil War games, also there's an release for yet another tower, this time it's Deathknell Watch which is an ancient Tower used as a kind of signal post. Like the fires in the LOTR movies, but instead of fires this time is an giant skeleton making signals with their arms. There's a scenario with rules for this tower and I really like the look of it, not to expensive either.

There are also some really nice stuff for 40k with an Special Edition Crimson Fists Space Marine from the cover of the first edition of 40k, Rouge Trader. Looks really nice and there's some more stuff about how the miniatures have evolved over the years.The biggest thing is not what's in the magazine though when it comes to 40k it's actually on the spine of the magazine, putted together with the WD 386 you can see an image of what really looks like an Dark Angel. So now the rumours of 6th edition and Dark Angels, Chaos Space Marines and The Fallen is circulating like crazy. And it actually looks like DA and maybe even Fallen will be in the Starter Set. Looks like there will be some 40k purchases for me this year anyway :). Really exciting and this spine thingie GW does is great!

Not any hugely interesting stuff for me, but the spine thing and some other bits and bobs makes me rate this WD as follows.

Rating: 3 out of 5

 

 The last pic of the spines is taken from Bell of lost Souls, showing a part of a Dark Angel Space Marine. Said to be in the next WH40k starter box! More info about this here and here.