GW Customer Service to The Rescue!

Like so many of us, it can take me months, sometimes years, to get started on a purchased miniature.  Indeed, it’s often be said that the whole industry would collapse if people built and painted everything before purchasing more shiny things.  While this habit is an intrinsic part of many of our hobbies, sometimes it can potentially bite you in the arse.

Last Saturday after finishing my Bloodletters, I thought I’d make a start on the Finecast Dark Eldar Succubus I purchased about a year ago.  When I bought it, I did performed a cursory examination of the contents before moving onto whatever it was I was working on at the time (these, I think).  Evidently this was not enough, since when I opened the blister pack I discovered this:

I’m fairly certain she’s supposed to have a cheekbone on her right side too.

 

Looks like her tailor cut away some of her robes. I’m pretty sure he’s dead now.

 

Hip armour? Who needs hip armour!

This discovery presented me with a couple of problems.  While I was reasonably confident I’d bought it within the last year, the new GW website that had appeared in the interim meant that I couldn’t check for my order number.  Secondly this particlar model has been superseded with a plastic version.  Nevertheless I decided to chance my arm and fire off an email.  I was pleasantly surprised with their response.

Click to enbiggen

While I was half-hoping they’d send me out one of the new plastic Succubus models, I can’t really complain.  Plus now it’ll only cost me £30.50 to try and win a Golden Ticket 😉

 

The Primogenitor Returns

Now that my glue and Green Stuff supplies are replenished, I’ve been able to spend a bit of time this afternoon assembling my Finecast Fabius Bile.

I was very impressed how easily this went together. Pruning all the flash took a little under an hour and only a couple of parts (The Rod of Torment and the vials on top of The Chirurgeon) needed straightening with my wife’s hair dryer. Everything fit together perfectly without any joins needing Green Stuff and it was fully assembled in a little over twenty minutes.

This model has definitely been improved by the recasting in Finecast. The detail’s crisp, there are no air bubbles, and nothing needed pinning.

Can’t wait to start painting it 🙂

Khârn The Betrayer

Somewhat later than I’d anticipated but I’ve finally finished Khârn.

 

As is clear, I stuck fairly close to the classic Khârn look but darkened the tone slightly to fit with my Berserkers.  I thoroughly enjoyed painting this chap, I’m really looking forward to adding more of his mates to my army.

Khârn you dig it?

I’d say that’ll be the last Khârn-related pun but you know I’l lying 😉 Anyway, today I started work on the first character for my Chaos Marines and it had to be Khârn. While my Heralds of Desolation are (more or less) a Chaos Undivided mob, I love the background of the former Warhound Legion Captain not to use him.

As you can see, I’ve only just begun construction but thus far I’m impressed. Some people don’t know that this model first appeared in 1995 during the prime of the game’s second edition, while many models have been quite righty superseded, I think that this sculpt stands the test of time.

Finecast has definitely given the old boy a new lease of life. Many do complain about the far too frequent casting errors and yes this model was not perfect, there was a medium sized bubble on the torso but nothing that couldn’t been repaired with some Green Stuff and some patience. That said, the details were crisp and there was only a small amount of flash to clean.

I’m somewhat busy tonight so full assembly will have to wait for tomorrow. Can I get it ready for Miniature Monday?

Yes I Khârn!

(Still not sorry!)

Hitting a Brick Wall

That’s it. I knew that this was going to happen eventually but I’m officially stuck. You see, today marks a dubious record for me as it’s been exactly four weeks since I’ve picked up a paintbrush, dice or craft knife and I’m not sure how to start again thanks to all the part-finished projects I’ve temporarily abandoned.

I’ll get my excuses out of the way. This summer has been extraordinarily busy, at work our annual audit took longer than expected not to mention I’m both breaking in new staff and have just finished a massive office relocation at incredibly short notice. At home my wife and I have had to complete her application for permanent settlement in the UK, believe it or not this has taken us over three months to finish, we only just posted it yesterday! There have also been weddings, a funeral, birthdays, the Edinburgh festivals, hospital appointments and this is just what I can remember. In truth I feel that my feet haven’t hit the ground since early June!

On the hobby front I have the following outstanding:

1. A half-painted Dark Eldar Venom
2. A half-painted Dark Eldar Wych Squad
3. An unpainted old metal Dark Eldar Wych Squad
4. A half-painted Finecast Commissar Yarrick
5. 20 Unassembled Imperial Sector sprues
6. An unpainted metal Dark Eldar Incubi Squad
7. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Archon
8. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Succubus
9. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Haemonculus
10. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Lhamaean
11. An unassembled Dark Eldar Razorwing
12. An unassembled Dark Eldar Ravager
13. A part-assembled Chaos Space Marine Predator
14. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Lord
15. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Squad
16. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Squad
17. A half-completed Assault on Black Reach Dreadnought I’m converting for my Chaos Marine army.
18. Two sprues of Battletech Battlemechs that I’ve had since 1996
19. 14 Inner Sphere Battletech Battlemechs I’d like to repaint
20. 18 unpainted Bretonnian Knights of The Realm
21. 15 unassembled Bretonnian Men-At-Arms
22. 40 unpainted Bretonnian Peasant Bowmen
23. 10 unpainted Bretonnian K nights Errant
24. 1 unassembled Bretonnian Lord with Great Weapon
25. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Paladin with Battle Standard
26. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Pegasus Knight
27. 1 half-painted Deathknell Watch

So, what do I do? Thus far I have always prided myself on my ability to not jump on the new army / game bandwagon every time something exciting is released, all my 40K armies have been gestating for many years (and I have the out of date Codexes to prove it!) but I think it’s obvious that my enthusiasm and ambition have slowly got the better of me.

I’ve attempted to prioritise my hobby time based on upcoming games but since most of my regular opponents have been similarly busy this really hasn’t been effective. It’s impossible to go with what I like the most since that’s part of what’s got me into this state in the first place!

I think that the best thing for me to do is to bloody finish something as soon as is humanly possible and luckily I have this coming Sunday free to do just that. But what do I attempt to finish?

Watch this space…

Chaos Rising

The tubes have been alive with whisperings from The Warp of late and after much speculation GW has today released this:

Other sites have been somewhat more forthcoming with The One Ring releasing this image apparently showing what shiny whatnots will  be released next month.

The general consensus is that a new Chaos Codex is due in August/September with sites like Bell of Lost Souls gleefully disseminating potential details.

I can’t wait, my Chaos Marines force has been slowly stagnating in various to-do piles for the better part of two years.  Indeed my only post thus far has been my first ever one where I sketched out some of their basic background, and quite a bit of it has changed since then!
Let’s hope that the first 6th Edition Codex sets a good standard for the rest to follow.

 

A Better Tomorrow?

Us gamers can be an opinionated lot some of the time and, on occasion, have many choice things to say about the dreaded C word.

Change.

More often than not this involves a degree of criticism focussed towards a certain Nottingham-based monopoly (or more specifically, Matt Ward) and often it’s well thought out and fair.

It therefore comes as no surprise that GW’s move away from White Metal to its ‘superior’ replacement, Finecast, has provoked a strong response from seemingly everyone.

In this matter I’m taking the coward’s way out, I’m still undecided. Certainly I can see the benefits, the two miniatures I’ve bought thus far have had no discernable flaws and I’ve always hated assembling metal models. Nevertheless I’m going to shy away from the cost aspect since this I feel transcends simply a debate about quality, however one can’t ignore the many complaints from the community regarding the high number of unacceptable miscasts. Today I happened across this article on the Blood of Kittens site which I feel is worth looking at. While this only gives one gamer’s perspective I feel that we can all relate to his frustration.

So where does this leave us? I really don’t know, whether we like it or not, metal prices and the increase in computer-aided design mean that the era of metal minis is drawing to an end. Will GW improve Finecast? Of course it will, but probably over time so don’t anyone hold their breath. Will other companies learn from GW’s errors? I sincerely hope so.