While looking through the galleries on coolminiornot.com today I came across a rather pleasant, if unexpected surprise.
Upon seeing the piece "Imperial Guard Ace" by artist MoMinis, entered at this year's Golden Demon Germany (and a worthy finalist), I was instantly reminded of a converted Imperial Guardsman I had made back in 2009:
My model was also a finalist at Golden Demon UK in 2010, so I guess these two models have even more in common!
Looking at my miniature now, I would have taken longer over the paintjob and base if I could start again. Both were quite rushed from a desire to finish the miniature before I moved to my current home and from simply having worked on the conversion for too long. A problem I find frustratingly common!
Warhammer 40,000 Dark Vengence - 6th edition (2012)
So what have I been up to lately? Well, aside from trying to finish up a few entries for this year's Golden Demon, I have been eyeing up the new Dark Vengence 40k boxed set (which you can get for a pretty nifty 10% discount at Wayland Games).
The new models look great and it is hard to believe they are "snap fit" models. The hobby has come a long way from the old starter sets I can remember receiving for christmas in my youth.
Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition boxed set (1993)
It's funny, because I have seen people complaining about the presence of a few duplicates in the new set. It just shows how high the expectation level is these days thanks to the improved quality of all boxed sets GW produce.
The old sets used to include only around 5-8 versions of a model, no characters, no vehicles. Now we get spoiled with properly structured forces, including characters, dreadnoughts, bikes and multiple unit types per force.
Changed days indeed!
I'm already planning some minor conversions for the Chaos chosen and Hellbrute so can't wait for the new boxed set to arrive.
Got anything special planned for your own set? How do you plan to paint up the chaos models (still torn on a legion to choose myself, so ideas are welcome)?
As anyone who is a regular at Games Workshop events and is a fan of Forgeworld miniatures will know, GW's resin specialists have, for the past few years now, released special "event only" miniatures on an annual basis.
Last year saw the event only Warhammer Forge Chaos Dwarf hero an Warhammer 40k Boarding Space Marine, while 2012 sees the Warhammer Forge Skin Wolf (Chaos) and Warhammer 40k Imperial Enforcer. It is the later of this years models which will be the focus of this review.
While I have yet to attend a GW event this year, I did manage to pick up one of the many event only models available on eBay. While you may find that you have to over-pay to pick one up, I got mine for £18 including postage - not too bad when you consider the model costs £12 new at an event (which would also have associated costs in attending).
First Thoughts
The first thing of note about this years event only models are that they come in a new packaging format for Forgeworld. It seems that the new Finecast style plastic blisters are also being used to package these figures. I'm not sure if this is something that is being rolled out across the Forgeworld range, but it is a bit of a welcome change.
Previously Forgeworld models came packaged in small jiffy bags - great for seeing the parts through because you could carefully manipulate the parts to see them from all sides, but they didn't offer any protection from breakages while transporting/storing. Not great for the often fragile, brittle parts typical of resin kits.
I knew the minute I saw the first pictures released of the Imperial Enforcer model that I would wind up purchasing one and on doing so, I was not disappointed. I have always had a preference for Imperial figures and a great fondness for anything related to Necromunda/Inquisitor - models that have a strong character in their own right without a supporting army. This guy definitely ticks that box.
Contents
So what do you get for your £12 (or £18 in my case)?
The model consists of 3 pieces. The enforcers body, head and a cyber mastiff.
Quality of Sculpts / Detail
As with most of Forgeworld's products, the sculpting quality on both miniatures in this set is top notch, full of crisp, intricate details. The enforcer's body has a number of small imperial icons and some finely detailed chain elements, including a pair of handcuffs.
I can't say I'm a big fan of the way the boots have been designed. The soles/heels look too tacked on to the rest of the boot, almost like an after-thought modification to "space" them up to look more 40k. A minor criticism though.
The head has a sullen eyed veteran appearance - a somewhat common trait of Forgeworld bare human heads. It actually reminds me a lot of Inquisitor Eisenhorn too and would be an ideal choice of head for such a conversion.
Finally, the cyber mastiff is a large, but exquisitely sculpted beast. The anatomy is very realistic looking, even for a cybernetically modified, gene-enhanced dog! The face is a pleasant change from the usual aggressive snarling that is common for most wargames miniature beasts and hounds. There is also some really nice detail for the cybernetic enhancements.
Pose
The posing of the model is more relaxed than the typical 40k miniature posing offered in GW's main ranges, yet still interesting and characterful. He has a sort of "investigative stride" look, with shock maul held low in his right hand and some sort of auspex/communicator device in his right.
The cyber mastiff's pose has a similar feel, as though master and beast are investigating some sort of incident. He also has a nice loping, single minded stride going on.
Casting Quality
This kit instantly ranks amongst the best quality of casting I have seen from Forgeworld. A few small mold lines, bits of flash and sprue vents, but nothing you wouldn't expect on any miniature. The details have all been cast fully and crisply, with no softening of detail that can sometimes be present in resin kits and which used to be a common issue with some Forgeworld kits in the past.
The worst area for mold lines appears to be the tops of the boots on the enforcer's body. This seems to be quite a common location for deep inset mold lines (as opposed to raised mold lines common on plastic kits), but nothing a little putty and sanding can't sort.
One thing I would say is that the miniatures feel very greasy all over, clearly having a goo coating of mold lubrication, meaning they will need a good wash and light scrub in some warm soapy water - something worth doing to all miniatures before applying paint, but particularly important on resin models.
Summary
Overall, this is a great kit. The models are nicely posed, work well together and are finely detailed and cast. As a personal opinion, there aren't enough of these "non-battlefield" miniatures that flesh out the background of the game and are a common focus of Black Library novels, making this a welcome addition to the GW range.
The only real criticism I have is the previously mentioned styling of the boots. A small criticism though of an otherwise brilliant kit.
If you plan on attending a GW event this year and you are a fan of both 40k and Imperial miniatures, then I strongly recommend taking the time to pick this kit up. If you don't intend to visit an event, then you could always do what I did and pick one up on eBay as there appears to always be plenty going.
Forgeworld Event Only Imperial Enforcer
Reviewed by CMDante on
Overall Rating: 4.5/
5
I have had the fantastic Brian Nelson plastic Nurgle Lord model from Games Workshop sitting on my painting desk for a few months now, partially assembled and waiting for some attention. The problem was, I knew I wanted to convert him - I can't seem to not convert a model these days - but I didn't know what I wanted to do to him and was hesitant to start cutting him up only to regret it.
Anyway, I had some extra time off from work over the Easter weekend last week and I decided to just sit down and work on some models since I had been in a bit of a lull of late. Shrugging off my earlier hesitations, I decided to start working on the Nurgle Lord figure, despite the absence of a clear idea in my head for how the finished piece should look.
While this is quite unusual for me, the process was quite liberating as I wasn't frustrating myself by trying to work too precisely towards an image in my head.
The end result of a few hours work is what you can see below. I clipped off the horns on the shoulder pad and turned them into disease ridden pustules. I added the crow from the Empire General kit, with a little conversion and tidying up, to return some height and attention to the area and also to create some visual lines through what is otherwise quite a 2D pose.
The head received the most sculpting work to create a hideous face, half covered by a helmet with horn bursting through. The rest of the work composed of adding some rivet detail to flat armour plates (rivets always catch rust well so they would help work some contrast in when it came time to paint) and to tidy up areas of soft detail due to the limitations of plastic casting.
All in all, I am pretty pleased with how he has turned out. While not radically different from the original sculpt (I don't think he needed to be anyway - the original is was an instant classic) he is different enough to be unique, which is what I was going for.
I used a mix of ProCreate and Milliput putties (about 50:50) for the face/helmet sculpting, ProCreate on its own for the horn and Milliput for the armour plate fixes.
All in, not bad for a few hours work I think. I will be painting him up in the coming weeks. I picked up a few of the new GW paints to test them out so will try to provide my thoughts on these two in the next few posts as I work on the model.
As usual, feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
As I mentioned in my last post, I had used a number of products and techniques which were new to me on my Ultramarines Contemptor Dreadnought. Among these were the AK Interactive Streaking Grime and Rust Streak products.
The Streaking products are all enamel based paints, but much more diluted than regular enamels. This means that, once applied, they can be worked further with a brush moistened with white spirit. Using a flat brush and up and down brushing motions, you can quickly and easily create the kinds of weather markings typically seen on vehicle armour plates as a result of rain and rust - as can be seen in the following pictures:
As you can see, this example was produced rather quickly and roughly to demonstrate the products and the technique. On an actual model, with a little more care, the results look more like this:
The main strength of these products is the ability to continue to tweak and alter the effect even after it has dried by going back in with a brush that has been moistened with white spirit. By doing this you can knock the effect back if you have done too much, or make streaks longer etc.
If you are looking to pick some up, in the UK I would recommend Scale Model Shop. As I was running around in trying to get my entry finished in the run up to Games Day, I made a couple of orders for necessary items and they arrived within 2 days of ordering - top service!
Back from a week off after Games Day and have finally got around to taking some decent pictures of my main entry for Golden Demon 2011 which took Bronze in the Warhammer 40k Vehicle Category.
This is the first vehicle (let alone large model) I have painted in around 10+ years so it was a much bigger challenge than I had at first considered - particularly given that I had 2 weeks from clean up and assembly to finished and mounted on it's plinth (using rare earth magnets)!
Next year I hope to do a few more entries well in advance so that I don't feel so rushed and under pressure. Having left it until the last minute, there are a few things I know I could do better/more on which may have helped improve the final placing, but I am definitely still very pleased to have taken Bronze for the second year running (and my second year entering) given the quality of competition.
I tried a lot of new things on this model (a risky strategy on a competition entry when under time pressure) and was pretty pleased with the results. I don't have the time or energy for a full write up on them right now, but expect to see posts on using enamels, AK Interactive Streaking Grime, making icicles and making your own decals in the not too distant future.
Just ordered one of the new Contemptor Patter Dreadnoughts from Forgeworld and I have to say, it looks like one awesome kit.
I haven't really been excited by Space Marines of late. The only SM kit in the last 4-5 years that I've purchased and put together being the FWRaven Guard Captain Korvydae that I bought at Games Day UK last year and finished back in February.
However, this kit I most definitely am excited about. I think it's in part because it looks like a really big marine, part because it looks like a really big robot (I love Transformers btw) and part because it looks like a very flexible, pose-able kit with a great silhouette.
At the moment the weapon options are limited to power fists (which look very nice) and a twin linked lascannon (cool, but I'm less sure about how it fits with the kit as a whole). I've opted for the dual power fists.
Fortunately the weapon options won't be limited to just those mentioned above. Recent pictures from Games Day Chicago show some very nice looking additional weapons, including twin assault cannons, conversion beamer and cyclone missile launcher, and a slight variation on the body.
In general, the quality of releases from Forgeworld lately have been excellent and I'm definitely looking forward to a lot of the upcoming releases. In the meantime, it's back to the work desk for me to get cracking on some Golden Demon entries!
I've been using Photoshop more often at work recently and decided to do some practice during my lunch hour on a few techniques I don't get to use so often. Here's the result!
