Power Armoured Beard

Hey there, folks.

I have some photos for you today. Just a couple of shots of the Warriors of Chaos I’m working on. I really do love these models, possibly some of my favourite fantasy battle stuff.

As usual I tried to go for a quick but interesting paint scheme. Quick paint schemes are the best because you don’t get bored halfway through painting a huge army! I chose Tin Bitz (Citadel) / Tinny Tin (Game Colour) as the main colour as I just love the way it looks and its really easy to work with. I’ve tried to add a little bit of weathering to areas of the models.

On a separate note, today I finally got to get my hands on the latest Black Box sent out by Games Workshop at work. For those of you that aren’t aware, the Black Box is a selection of preview models sent out to certain game stores a month or so before the models are actually released. This time we received the new Orc and Goblins army book, a unit of Savage Orc Boys and the Arachnarok Spider.

First things first, I glued the spider together. This thing is huge. In fact here’s a slightly blurry photo taken from my mobile phone http://plixi.com/p/77614231 Luckily it’s a really well designed kit. Everything goes together without too much fuss, there are nice square pegs on some of the legs to shop them being a possible nightmare, and even when I was putting it together and thought “oh no, there’s an awful gap here” usually the next piece I glued on completely disguised the gap! My opinion may change when I finally attach the goblin riders to the top, but only time will tell!

Then I moved onto the Savage Orcs. You can get some really cool poses out of these chaps, although I have noticed that their arm joints are more like the Ogre Kingdom fixed joints than the other Orc kits which possess flat joints. This, plus the fact that the torso and legs come in one piece, could make any possible conversions a bit more challenging. The other thing to be aware of when assembling these is if you aren’t careful how you position them on the base they could cause problems with ranking up, with various limbs stuck out at all angles. Other than that the models have nice character and look like they are ready to give enemies a damn good thumping.

I haven’t had a good read of the army book yet but one thing sticks out like a sore thumb. It has 32 less magic items in it than the previous book! That’s right, we are down to 8(!) magic items. This is pretty shocking and may turn some people off, but I had some good discussions with various friends about this and a few opinions popped up.

1. There are many decent magic items in the main rule book. Maybe the designers are hoping players will consider these a bit more.

2. The magic items that are left are pretty kick ass. There’s also the consideration that some of the other army books have too many magic items. Sure, it’s good to have options but if people are always going to plump for the same old choices, and other items get forgotten for not being worth the points etc, then what’s the point even even printing them? Maybe the designers are thinking “all killer and no filler”?

3. Possibly some of the cool effects granted from certain magic items have become racial/unit abilities, making the game more about what units you choose than what tasty item you give a hero?

We shall see in time how the book pans out, but so far I’ve heard 99% positive feedback. The book, now hardback, is rather nice though and I’ve already pre-ordered mine.

I hear the Tomb Kings will be the next army for a refresh. I’m really interested in what the old dusty bones will get. I’ve heard rumours of a large sphinx creature? But more importantly, I’d quite like a new Ogre Kingdoms book after that please!

xBevisx