Dark Imperium, Week Two

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 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.

Dark Imperium

Well, it’s been about five years since the last Warhammer 40K starter set.  A bunch of us from the Atomic Warlords site sat around this weekend with some rum, the new Dark Imperium set, and a few of the index books. We had many thoughts. Most of them positive.

Marcus was going to talk about the revised game mechanics over at Atomic Warlords. Very short version—they’ve moved 40K a lot toward Age of Sigmar.  Not all that way, but if you’re somebody who really loathes those game mechanics, you’re not going to be happy with the grim dark future...

I wanted to talk about the value, though.  I know a ton of people have already broken it down in different ways. I juat wanted to do a nice, simple "how much does this save us" sort of view...

We’ve got two HQ units (the Primaris Captain and the Lord of Contagion).  Going off the average clamshell prices for single figs, it wouldn’t be outrageous to say these would be $30 to $35 each.  GW’s been getting slightly better about pricing, though, and there’s some online retailers who offer nice discounts, so let’s say they’re only going to cost $25 each-- $50 for the two of them.

There’s two more character figs for the Plague Marines, so there’s another $50.  There are three more Primaris characters, too, but Marcus pointed out it wouldn’t be surprising to see them as some kind of command squad.  Let’s conservatively call them $40 altogether.

There’s also that Foetid Bloat-Drone. It’s dreadnaught sized, so I don’t have trouble believing it could be a $35 or $40 set once we get one with options.  We’ll call it $35.

At this point, we’re already over the box set’s price tag of $160.  We haven’t even added in the three five-man Primaris squads, or the jump troops, or the Plague Marine squad, or that twenty-man PoxWalker squad (probably another $40,easy).  Heck there’s a full-sized, hardcover rulebook, which sells for $60 on its own.

Also, something we realized late Sunday night.  This is a very complete, balanced set.  It’s two actual, viable armies that are pretty fairly matched, not a couple random things that look good individually but don’t really match up (y’know, like a bunch of cultists vs Dark Angels terminators...).

This set is a freakin’ amazing value, even using my very conservative prices.  Half price on everything, if not more.  Split the box with someone, Chaos and Primaris, and get an army for $80.  Heck, let them keep the rulebook, haggle a bit, and get your half for $60 (heck, GW’s giving the basic rules away for free).  That’s maybe a third what you’d pay for either set.  Literally 66% off!

If you don’t have a ton of money to spend (been there, believe me) but really want to get into the game... this might be worth saving up for.

A Shameful Moment of Self-Promotion

             Hey, so sorry.  I know I haven’t done much here in months but... I need to take a minute to make a sales pitch.

            It’s kinda how I make my living.

            I’ve got a short story collection coming out from Audible.com next week—Dead Men Can’t Complain.  It’s a bunch of short stories that I’ve had published in various places over the years, plus a trio of all new ones that have never been seen (or heard) before. Most of them are stand-alones, although you may find hints to a few things I’ve written in the past (or may be planning for the future).  It’s an Audible exclusive—no print, no ebook, no special kanji edition—it’s audiobook only. 

            Because they wanted to publish it and they do fantastic work, that’s why! 

            You can pick it up using your Audible credits (if you’re a member) or straight through Amazon.  And one of the great things about audiobooks—you can listen to them while you build and paint.

            Hint-hint.

Pathetic Fill In Post

As you may have noticed, there’s been little forward motion on the Destroyer.  Not from lack of interest.  Just trying to juggle a few dozen things, like the edits I’ve mentioned (they’re extensive) and SDCC plans (I’m doing a few things down there this year, too) and my other blog and some doctor stuff (boring). 

And, yeah, in all fairness, building a few other, non-paperhammery things.  My lovely lady and I have really been enjoying Age of Sigmar, so I’ve been putting together some more bits-bin-Skaven for her and a big horde of zombies for me (also collected, for the most part, from random bitz bins parts).  I don’t get to play that often, so this kind of gets my focus at times.

(I may also do a post in the near future about a really simple Ogre Tyrant conversion I did)

I’m going to try to get some more work done on the Destroyer before I head down to SDCC—and get it posted.  I just wanted to let you know it hasn’t been forgotten.

Halloween 40,000

Wanted to do a quick post today to help make up for the long absence.

So, if you bought a Games Workshop demon set it usually comes with multiple bases. Round ones for 40K, square for Fantasy.  I ended up with a large base this way, and there were a few more that I found in the bits bins.  And one day an idea for a scenery piece started tickling the back of my mind.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a fair-sized army of Plague Zombies (almost 140 of them).  The zombie sprue comes with a tombstone you can use for... well, anything. I’ve picked some out of the bitz bins, too, so I have a lot of them.  I also have a fair number of the plastic tombstones from the old skeleton set.  And even a handful of metal ones I picked up at Games Day many years ago, back when GW would bring the “wall of bitz” with them.  And when they had Games Day.

So... large bases.  Tombstones.  Halloween.  Anyone see where I’m going with this?  Even in the grim darkness of the future, bodies get buried somewhere.

I spaced out the tombstones so they were wide enough to fit a 25mm base between them side to side.  A 40mm base can fit between them front to back.  This gives me a lot of flexibility as far as where models can be placed on the scenery piece.  I took some old, flat Epic bases, cut and shaved them down a bit, and put them in front of some of the stones . These are going to be my fresh graves that haven’t settled yet.

Helpful Hint—I used different tombstones to sell the idea of an older, public graveyard.  By the same token, using all the same tombstone would really sell this as a military graveyard, like the Cadian one Dan Abnett wrote about in his Eisenhorn books.

I did two bases “horizontally” and one “vertically.”  I can now use them as sides to mark out a larger area as a “graveyard” for purposes of special rules, area effects, and so on.  I’m hoping to find another big base somewhere for another vertical piece, just so I can make a solid square (or rectangle, as the case may be).

Helpful Hint—If you happen to be an Age of Sigmar player (especially a cheap one like me), three or four of these bases and a simple statue are a fine “counts as” for a Garden of Morr.  Instant big scenery piece with free special rules. Can’t beat that. 

I glued some dirt to the fresh graves. Just enough to give them a different texture from the rest of the piece.  And at this point they’re ready to be primed and painted.  Quick graveyard scenery from leftover bases and bits.

Happy Halloween.

Plague Zombies

So, I’ve been insanely busy and done very, very little with Paperhammer or even just general Warhammer 40K stuff.  Those Ogryns were supposed to be done months ago, and I’d actually wanted to get back to basics and build a paperhammer tank.  To be honest, I really don’t even have time to post now, but I’m about to do some more shameless pandering and I figured I should at least make it worth your while...

My book, Ex-Patriots, was re-released by Broadway Books this week. Check it out.  Superheroes, zombies, mad scientists, super-soldiers... it’s got pretty much everything.  And a ton of people think it’s actually good.  You can even get it in audiobook form, which means you can listen to it while you’re building little toy soldiers and zombies.

Resident Evil 40,000

Hey, speaking of the shambling undead...

This is an easy little tip for zombies.  I use it for my plague zombies in 40K, but it would work fine for Fantasy zombies, too.  I started my plague zombie collection way back during the Eye of Terror campaign.  Under the current rules (with Typhus) I’ve got about four solid squads of them, plus one little group of zombie specialists who I just set loose as distractions.  To help keep them straight when they’re in big mobs, I have zombified Catachans, zombified Asgardian Rangers, the citizens of Hive Romero led by the Seven Dwarves of Nurgle, and the Tanith Last and Final.

The zombie Tanith are what sparked this post.  I think it’s safe to say one of the defining elements of the Tanith, visually, are their camo-cloaks.  Now, one of the standard zombies has a little bit of a shredded cape on his back, but it’s really short and doesn’t really sell the big, sweeping cloaks the First and Only are described as having.

So, here’s an easy way to expand them a bit.

Get any little bit of thin plastic.  I used some 1/4” strips I already had, but this would work with just about anything.  Cut up some blister packs, plastic signs, soda bottles, plastic jars... whatever.

However you get it, cut some pieces that are about 1/4” by 3/4” long.  The length doesn’t have to be exact, and as you go along you may try some different lengths for variety.  Once you have your pieces, cut them diagonally, corner to corner.

Take these long, thin triangles and cut up the short end.  You’re trying to make them look a bit frayed.  I usually make three or four length-wise swipes with my knife, then maybe hit it from the end to make the gouges stand out.

There are two ways to glue them on.  The simplest way is just glue them to each side.  The thin end goes at the top, and I try to place them so they seem to flow naturally off the shoulders.

Apologies, by the way, for all the glare from the white plastic.  It's rough with my setup to get a good balance between the white and the light gray.

For variety, on some of them I glue one of the triangles in from the edge a bit.  This makes them look like big wrinkles or folds in the material.  When I do this, I sand the thin end down a bit so it flows up into the top of the cloak better.

And that’s it.  Bigger zombie cloaks just like that.  A green base with a few colors on top of it and I’ve got a really distinct group of the undead.

I'm going to be at a couple of horror conventions over the next few weekends, but starting next month, I swear... the Ogryns get some ripper guns, some urban scenery, and a way to make very cheap and distinctive Stormtroopers.