So, spent the weekend putting some of the Dark Imperium
models together. Let’s go over a couple
observations and impressions, from the modeling and customizing point of view
First observation... A complaint I had with the DarkVengeance set was that all of the Space Marines were firmly Dark Angels. All the iconography was sculpted on the
models—sometimes quite a bit of it. It
was gorgeous, no question, but it was also a lot of work if you wanted
to use them for anything else. Despite
the prominent display of Ultramarines colors and heraldry on the box and promo pics, Dark
Imperium avoids that issue, and the Primaris look fantastic without being
pinned down to any particular Chapter. Which
is cool, because I plan on using them with my Relictors.
Of course, the flipside to this is that the opposing team
is... well, 100% Nurgle. There’s not a
single model here that’s even vaguely something else. Which is great if you
have a Death Guard army, or have been wanting one (it is a full army,
after all), but otherwise... it’s a bit limiting.
Past that...
Another DV issue was that many of the models (especially the Chaos Chosen) went together
in really bizarre ways. Heads and arms
would be a single piece connected by the trim on a shoulderpad. Legs would be split lengthwise through the
kneecap. It was almost as if GW went out
of their way to cut the models in the most bizarre ways possible.
The Dark Imperium models go together in much more basic
standard patterns. Heads and arms are separate on a lot of the models—standard
connection points, although it’s worth pointing out that the arms tend to be
complete-with-shoulder pad, just in case you had clever ideas. This means there’s a bunch of easy tweaks to
do that can customize the army without resorting to cuts or filing or putty.
The simplest one is head swaps within the set.
Many of these models have separate heads, and they all use the standard
neck-ball that Space Marines of all types have used for the past... what,
almost twenty years? I swapped the heads
of these two Plague Marines and didn’t have to cut or trim a single thing.
Also, because of that standard socket, most older head would fit on these models, too (and without too much of a scale problem). Yeah, it wouldn’t make much sense for a Primaris to wear a Mk 7 helmet, but it’d be simple to work a lot more bare heads into the army to give them a less straight-out-of-the-box look. I bet some of the Space Wolves unhelmeted heads would look good, too. Or if the Plague Marines look a little too Nurgley for your particular army, it would be easy enough to swap in some regular Chaos Marine heads to bring them down a notch.
Helpful Hint—I’d perhaps avoid heads with bionic implants for Primaris soldiers. After all, they’ve been in so few battles at this point, how many of them would have lots of replacement parts...?
The simplest one is head swaps within the set.
Many of these models have separate heads, and they all use the standard
neck-ball that Space Marines of all types have used for the past... what,
almost twenty years? I swapped the heads
of these two Plague Marines and didn’t have to cut or trim a single thing. Also, because of that standard socket, most older head would fit on these models, too (and without too much of a scale problem). Yeah, it wouldn’t make much sense for a Primaris to wear a Mk 7 helmet, but it’d be simple to work a lot more bare heads into the army to give them a less straight-out-of-the-box look. I bet some of the Space Wolves unhelmeted heads would look good, too. Or if the Plague Marines look a little too Nurgley for your particular army, it would be easy enough to swap in some regular Chaos Marine heads to bring them down a notch.
Helpful Hint—I’d perhaps avoid heads with bionic implants for Primaris soldiers. After all, they’ve been in so few battles at this point, how many of them would have lots of replacement parts...?
The PoxWalkers worried me a little. There’s ten variants (two of each in the
set), and they all have pretty extreme horns. Silly as it may sound, they’re so
extreme that it actually makes them all very distinctive. It felt obvious they were repeating
poses/models within the squad (to me, anyway). So I shaved off a few of the
horns and spikes. It helped break them up a bit, and it also helped to inch the
whole squad a little closer to my existing plague zombies.
Worth noting—I tried to make those cuts as smooth as
possible, and I saved all the horns and spikes.
We’ll see how the final rules (and squad sizes) shape up for PoxWalkers
when that new codex comes out in the hopefully-near future, and then I might
move some of the spikes and some old skeleton horns over onto my zombies
so they all look good together.
Also, one last thing to consider. All the Primaris Marines wear Mk X
armor. Every one of them. Which really means the only difference
between the troops, the sergeants, and the lieutenants is the paint jobs. Want to give all those guys helmets? Just trade with friends and give that guy a red helmet. Want to use that unhelmeted Lieutenant as
another sergeant? Done! Silly as it may sound, the uniformity gives
us a bit more space to mix and match
Is there a lot of room for making this model into that? Well, we may need to see the full
Primaris book before knowing that for sure.
But there’s definitely lots of conversion and cutomizing possibilities within
this set.
Next time, I may show off a few of them.
Next time, I may show off a few of them.
