Miniature Review - Forgeworld Event Only Enforcer

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 June 1, 2012
Overall Rating: 4.5/ 5

Plans For July

Well it's July...already (!) and I have a few things beginning to mount up on my hobby desk so I figured I'd put together a quick preview of things to come:

1. Forgeworld Empire Manann's Blades

It was my birthday in June (the 10th for those looking to mark it in their calendar!) and one present from my lovely other half was the new FW Empire command group for the Manann's Blades swordsmen.

They really are lovely figures and some of the best cast quality I have seen from Forgeworld - minimal clean up and crisp, clean detail. Excellent!


2. Forgeworld Event Only Chaos Dwarf Hellsmith

A treat to myself for my birthday, I picked this one up from eBay for the cheapest I have seen him go. What I like about this figure is the fact that it maintains the key style elements of the original Chaos Dwarfs, combined with some more modern Chaos style ques.

Unfortunately, as this guy is probably a bit too small and unimposing to make a good Golden Demon Fantasy Single entry, he's probably not too high on the priority list at the moment. That said, I am keen to get paint on him as he looks nice and "easy" to paint.


3. Storm of Magic "Pimp My Wizard" Contest

PDH from Dakka Dakka's P&M forum has put together a little friendly invitation only contest ("Pimp My Wizard 40k!") to convert one of the new Storm of Chaos plastic wizards into a 40k character and I was invited to take part.

As I was intending on picking up one of the figures anyway for exactly this purpose, I duly accepted his invite and placed my order for this figure last weekend:

Again, another very nice looking kit with bags of conversion potential!


4. Suffer Not The Heretic Project

Finally, I will be continuing with my Inquisition Warband models I have been working on of late. I finished the sculpting and conversion work on the Inquisitor below the other day and have begun applying basecoats. Hopefully I will get at least the bulk of the paintjob done before the model above arrives!


Busy month ahead!

Suffer Not The Heretic (Part II)

Well, I figured it was about time to reveal the figure from the teaser image I had posted previously. I managed to finish the paintjob on this guy last weekend but have only just got round to taking pics - as usual, they are far from perfect!

Regular readers may recognise the base model from an old conversion job of a Rogue Trader. I was looking at the figure a while back and realised that I could do a much better job now - plus, a Rogue Trader would be a perfect addition to the Inquisitor warband I'm building!



Finally, my finecast Dark Eldar Archon has undergone some serious conversion work already, and while far from finished, I figured I'd share a pic of my progress. This conversion work would have been almost impossible to reasonably achieve if the figure was metal since large areas were cut into and carved.

Still lots more work to do, but you can expect to see this guy again soon!

Suffer Not The Heretic - New Project

Bit of a teaser this blog post, but I've been working on something "new" (yes, I know...) that has been sparking my hobby muse.

I don't want to show too much yet (there are probably enough clues to get you thinking anyway!) so I'll leave you all with this picture:

Why I Hate Metal Mini's + On The Workbench

I hate metal miniatures. There is nothing more frustratingly time consuming than preparing a metal miniature for painting.

With resin and plastic you can remove mould lines, flash and imperfections relatively quickly with a scalpel and files/sand paper. With metals though, it not only takes much longer to remove these, since the material is much stronger and more brittle, but you also have to put up with pitting on almost all surfaces.

Yes, sometimes resin miniatures get spots where the finish is a little rough and pitted, but with metals it tends to be all over the figure. Very annoying!

There is a couple of ways to deal with this:


Sanding

Sanding pitted and rough surfaces with fine grit wet/dry paper (starting with 800 and finishing with 1000+) is a good starting point for cleaning up the surfaces of a metal miniature. For tighter nooks and crannies, you can cut small strips and glue them to pieces of wire or cocktail sticks to get in at them.

However, sanding will only go so far to clean up a metal miniature. Often the pitting involves both raised bumps and recesses, so unless you want to spend forever sanding a couple of mm off the entire model, you are going to need to do some filling too...


Milliput

Milliput is a two part epoxy putty that is water soluble, meaning it can be diluted to create a milky solution that can be applied with a brush and used to fill small recesses. Larger mould shift line recesses can also be filled with it as, while still fresh, it can be worked into shape and smoothed flush with the mini. It can then be filed to a smooth finish once cured. The only downfall is that it takes a couple of hours to fully cure and can take a while to ensure all gaps have been filled flush.


Mr Surfacer

Mr Surfacer comes as a grey liquid in a jar which cures in about 15 minutes to a plastic like finish. It can be applied neat from the jar to fill bigger gaps, or thinned (using Mr Colour Thinner) to create a more fluid mixture which can be painted on to fill smaller, shallower recesses. Mr Surfacer (1000 or 1200) can also be thinned and used as a primer through an airbrush, leaving a smooth finish.


One of the main benefits of this product is that no sanding is necessary on the finish as it is self levelling. Of course, if you aren't covering the entire surface, you will likely still have a small seam where the edge of the dried Mr Surfacer meets the metal surface of the model. In these instances, some light sanding with wet dry will be all that's needed.


On the Workbench

Why this outburst of hatred towards metal miniatures? Well, recently I decided to start working on an Inquisitor scale Eversor Assassin miniature from Games Workshop which I've had lying around since last year.


A nice sculpt, though with a horrendous amount of mould lines, mould shift, flash and pitting. The armour plating in particular required a lot of work to get it back to it's smooth shapes and hard edges. I also chose to remove all of the protruding injector type things from the armour plates. Partly to allow me to get them smooth and in shape again, partly because they were badly cast and would have required a lot of work to get back to their intended state and partly because I just think it looks cooler and more fitting of a sleek, deadly assassin.

All in all, I've spent about 3 days on and off just cleaning this miniature up and re-sculpting, detailing and filling areas to get it ready for paint.

Urgh!