Rocco the massive Orc finally arrived

Nearly after 7 months after Rocco's Indiegogo campaign finished, I have finally received my copy of Rocco, a giant bad-ass Orc boss and his monster ride. I have seen plenty of unboxings and comments about this campaign and many were negative, so I wanted to chime in and show you what it is so you can form your own opinon.

First things first, the sculpt by the talented Allan Carrasco is nothing short of amazing, with a very detailed Rocco head and body. The star of the show however is the beast itself, with a level of detail I had not seen before. Just look at those claws or face, make the Fantasy plastic dragons cry (and let me clarify I love those, I own a metal Wood Elf Dragon, a plastic Mercenary Elves and a plastic High Elves so I know them well).

One of the perks of the campaign was the banner, which is a nice boon and bane all in one. At least it is a boon for those of us not very gifted at freehand but hey, I'm sure we can all produce something half decent if we put enough thought to it. This painted example by JBT himself is a good example; the banner looks good but it is simple enough than most of us can do something similar. Allright enough digression, let's get to the unboxing:

This is what you got with the campaign: Rocco + monster ride, a banner for Rocco and 3 additional miniatures: Tahar Ama the barbarian, Carmina an Elf-woman with a banner, and Helmut that is a nice little cyber punk miniature. In addition comes printed version of the artwork , which unfortunately is not signed by the authors as promised. The paper is also bent due to the packaging but this is not something that matters a lot to me...

This is Rocco with shield, lance and horns. The bits at the top right are the 2 halves of the rock in which the beast is sitting on, and below the 2 main parts of the monster's body. There are no mold lines at all, and the level of crispness of the details are superlative. Absolutely top-notch.

These are the beasts' head, arms, legs, horns and mount. Again compare to your standard plastic dragon, which is not much more expensive by the way.

This is the banner perk, a nice detailed banner with some hanging skulls as decoration! you could really use this one in a Fantasy army.

And now onto the extra miniatures! Helmut here is a little man/robot, reminds me of some robots you encounter in Final Fantasy XIII. It could be used as a Mechanicum conversion too.

Carmina wears an armor alike to Elrond's Elves host at the very begginning of in the Lord of the Rings, and has another banner.

And finally Tahar Ama, a barbarian girl with an axe. All the 3 perks are nice miniatures and whilst I wouldn't have bought those on their own, I'm happy to have them around.

All in all this campaign has taken 7 months to deliver the stuff, which is unusual for crowdfunding campaings. 75€ for all of this including shipping is I think a more than fair price, especially considering how great the main sculpt is. Whether you want something different to paint, or are looking for alternate Fantasy models, these will not let you down. Look forward to see my progress in some weeks time... thanks for reading!

-Albert

Eldar Fire Prism showcase

Greetings! After sitting for a while packed in a box (I moved home) I finally managed to complete this Ulthwé Fire Prism. Oh boy this is a beautiful kit! It has all the elegant, alien lines of the Eldar and adds an incredible turret. If that isn't a big gun, I don't know what it is! Of course game-wise Prisms are still a good option; with 3 fire modes and a 60" range there is always something the Prism can deal with. 

The turret and weapon options are fully magnetised so I can convert it to a Night Spinner or a Wave Serpent with the help of a FW turret. Unfortunately, the Night Spinner parts are still lost in some of the (many) boxes that had to be unpacked yet. Oh well.

I'm pretty pleased with the color scheme, the lightning blue parts mesh well with the Eldar aesthetic and give a pulsing sense of energy. You might notice the gems are not yet painted - I will just batch-paint them all in the future, when that dreaded day comes. For now I just basecoated where I wanted the gems to be.

The back of the Prism replaces the normal Serpent door for what seem batteries or generators, and fit very well with the overall energy theme.

The gunner cockpit - all the pilots in my Eldar army are painted in this blue/greenish scheme, like they're lit by displays.

The bottom of the turret has more lightning, and you can see in the main body the different sources. I wanted it to be throbbing with energy, but not so much to make it look blue. I think I got a good balance here with the gunship still being black for the most part.

The turret without the guns - you can see where the magnets are, with the paint scrapping due to the usage. Magnetizing this kit is not only good in terms of game options, but it is a must if you plan to move it around and keep it in one piece.

It only has one Ulthwé mark on this side of the hull; I might add a Prism symbol on the other side, and that's about it. This model is so elegant that doesn't deserve to be covered in decals!

And this is where the magnets are placed. The GW designers didn't make it as easy as it could have been, but it is doable nonetheless and very recommendable. Just keep in min the Prism itself is rather long and you will need a larger magnet for this one; I think this one has a 8mm diameter.

And that's it. Hope you liked it!

Eldar Fire Prism and Falcon WIP

Hello everybody and happy new M2.014! hope the gods of the warp have been kind and brought some nice presents for all (I mean this in a nice way!).

My self-present was the amazing Eldar Ghost Warriors box, with nothing less that 1 Wraithknight, 2 Wraithlords and 15 Wraithguard! I will paint all of them in due time with my own version of the Ulthwé Craftworld, that is essentially Black/Blue with a few bone accents.

Here are some work in progress shots of the Fire Prism and Falcon that I have been working on of lately. I need to finish the highlights, paint the gems, add a few decals and add a nice satin varnish on top. Hope you like them!

The hull was primed black, then painted with a dark Grey/blue tone from Vallejo. Afterwards I added some light grey to create a subtle highlight above the engines and the cockpit.

The blue hues are present everywhere there is a grid or exhaust of any kind, to represent the energy emanating from it.

 Some blue areas have received a dilluted black/purple filter. This is done to smooth the transitions and to give a slightly different hue to some areas.

I use 3 different highlight colors, depending on the area. The darkest is a medium grey and the lighter is Pale Witch skin (or something like that) from GW, which is a sort of marble white. For the blue areas I mostly use GW's Blue Horror, from the Edge line.

 The left hull has some highlighting work whilst the right hull has just been airbrushed. It will make a huge difference in the final look. Don't be afraid of trying very clear highlights, just make sure the paing is watered down and applied as thin as possible.

And that's all for know. I hope you liked them, feel free to post any comments or questions!

Black Library jumps the shark... again

With Macragge's Honour. A 100-page graphic novel that costs 95€ (almost 1€ per page!) and that will be shipped after 10 weeks.

There is nothing wrong with Limited or Luxury editions, as long as there is a standard edition that most customers will buy. Loyal customers like me who have printed copies of most of the Horus Heresy books.

And there is nothing wrong with claiming a high price when the value is right, but 1€ per page and 2.5 months to ship it? warp travel is faster than that!

Something that I recommend though is watchning the promo video with Dan Abnett and Neil Roberts. At least until someone posts a PDF for all to read, until and if BL eventually releases a normal, reasonal, affordable copy. Because let's get this straight, that is what most customers will do and not because they like piracy, but because that is the only option GW is leaving.

Apologies for the rant but please allow me to use this small and remote corner in the net to express my frustration at what GW is trying to pull this time.

Anyone feeling the same? I'd also like to see if anyone is actually interested in purchasing this version.

Something special in Indiegogo

If you follow the Golden Demons and the myriad of artists that participate, you might have heard the names of Allan Carrasco and Jérémie Bonamant. They have teamed up for a indiegogo campaign to produce a massive mounted globin figure, and given the impressive results of their collaborations so far, this is going to be a good one.

I'm not particularly interested in fantasy figures but I want to try out something different. I know some people only want to buy models they will use afterwards, and I can see the logic in that. I suppose in an open-minded, friendly group you can always play by the rules of something else, but obviously it will be harder to use in tournaments and the like even as a counts-as. For some others more interested in the artistic side of things this is not a problem at all. I'm torn somewhere in between, and while I like to be able to field my stuff, I could also go for something that I can't if it's good enough. And I think this will be :) In any case this is the Indiegogo campaign should you be interested:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rocco-the-most-massive-mounted-orc-in-54mm-ever/x/5410318

See some of their previous work and you'll understand why I'm so excited about this:

This is friggin' badass Orc and no mistake!

This Minotaur puts Bloodthirster to shame

A pirate ogyn

Eldar Fire Dragons Showcase

Howdy! today I bring some classic Fire Dragons for my new Eldar army. I really like these models, I think they epitomize most of what is Eldar - slender and graceful yet with a sense of power, and they look utterly alien which I like as well.

This is the Fire Dragon Exarch. I opted for the fusion gun because that's what I will be using in games, and also because the hobbyist in me didn't want the firepike to cover all the details in the body :)



The Wave Serpent in the back is their assigned transport. Same as the Dragons it is still missing the gems... so many of those! I will show it some other day, for now I will just anticipate I wanted do something different and show Eldar are the Children of the Stars so I painted a nebulae and stars all over it ^^ yes I might have jumped the shark on this one.

Some notes on the painting

The models were painted with airbrush, using a similar method to my Blood Angels:

• Basecoat with Vallejo's Red Brown primer.
• I then created some pre-lights by lightly airbrushing a soft grey from a zenital angle. This makes the next red coat to have some color modulation. It's a very simple and effective technique.
• For the body I applied some tones of red, Italian Red from  Vallejo comes to mind, to which I added a small part of yellow to get a more orange tone.
• The helmet was painted Yellow obviously.

Then it is a matter of adding the shadows with controlled strokes of either a very dilluted dark red paint, or a less dilluted wash. The lights were added with watered down light oranges, yellows and white. The Citadel Edge paints are great for this work (in general).

The guns were painted light grey and then washed with brown, then cleared it a little bit. The weapons link visually the Fire Dragons with the rest of Eldars (Guarians and Avengers mainly) due to the bone color of their weapons. Notice how the muzzle of the weapons has a scorched look, this can be achieved with purple and red glazes.

The bases are the awesome Urban Streets rubble from Secret Weapon Miniatures. The rest of Eldar models use a different base though. I went for this choice to fit with the Exarch model that is stepping on some tank residues.

Here's some more pictures, hope you like them! Feel free to post any comments or feedback.

Shadows Of Treachery Review

Shadows of Treachery is the latest Horus Heresy short story antology that Black Library has released. Unlike Age of Darkness, Shadows of Treachery feels much more solid and consistent; this is not only to a very solid roster of authors, but especially because it mainly focuses on 2 Legions, their Primarchs and First Captains, a similar timeframe and related events. In this case, it is the Imperial Fists and the Night Lords. 

Up to now, the Imperial Fists main contribution to the story so far was picking up the survivors of the Einsenstein after their escape from the Isstvan system, bringing the news to Terra and start fortifying the defences. The Imperial Fists were also in charge of retrieving as many supplies as possible from Mars when the civil war broke out in the Red Planet. It is also known what it was Rogal Dorn who organized the disastrous counter-attack that ended up with the dropsite massacre.

As for the Night Lords, we have had brief references of their skirmishes with the Dark Angels in some remote region of space, and I believe play an important role in the recent Vulkan lives, which I haven't read yet.

So what about this compilation? I was a bit disappointed with Tales of Heresy and Age of Darkess but given the roster of authors is top notch - Abnett, McNeill and Dembski-Bowden amongst other- and that the Legacy Edition was available, I went for it. See below a short review of each story.

The Crimson Fist by John French

This is the largest story in the book, almost a mini novel on its own. The Crimson Fist explains what happened to the Imperial Fists force dispatched by Rogal Dorn to support the other loyalist Legions in the fight in Isstvan V. About 20% of the Legion, which was a huge fleet in that time, was sent to Isstvan and did not participate in the dropsite massacre; we finally get to know their fate. Not that I want to spoil anything but the cover we can already see Imperial Fists with assault gear fighting Astartes of the +++CENSORED+++ legion. It might also ring a bell if you saw this amazing diorama from Games Day ...

In the story we get to know a little bit more about the impenetrable Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists' First Captain Sigismund (who had previously appeared saving some bacon in Mechanicum). On the other side we find out the origin of the bodyguards of the Primarch of the +++CENSORED+++ legion and get to know more of their efficient way of fighting. All in all an enjoyable read, if yet its final is not very imaginative.

The Dark King by Graham McNeill

The Night Lords are arguably of one the Legions that have spent less time in the spotlight (pun intended) and finally get some much deserved love, although they are still to get a full novell of their own. In the meantime, The Dark King preludes the origins of their Primarch Konrad Kurze in a similar fashion as other Primarchs have had mentions of their first steps in their worlds of adoption in their novels; think of Fulgrim or Perturabo but with some more detail.

I don't know much about the Night Lords lore and fluff but suffice to say, this story has a quite different flavour to those of other more normal Primarchs; Kurze arrives to Nostromo after being dispersed from Terra to find a violent hive society, and after sometime surviving by eating different types of meat (hint: there are no cows in the hives) decides to put some order on his on way, which is terror. This is where we see hints that things were not allright in the Night Lords legion many years before the Heresy, same as we saw in Fulgrim, Angel Exterminatus or A Thousand Sons, and rather than the Heresy was made possible because most of the traitor Legions were already hiding something. It is these little tidbits of information that together add a much needed sense to the overall story.

The Lightning Tower by Dan Abnett

Can the mighty, imprenetable, hard as a rock Rogal Dorn feel fear? if it's not fear, let's just call it a very deep concern. This short story is bolter porn-free and revolves around a conversation of Rogal Dorn and the Sigillite in Terra, where they discuss the origins of that fear. What can it be so grave, so daunting, so horrible that can affect Rogal Dorn? The Night Haunter is part of this conversation and we learn that Dorn and Kurze had some issues in the past, but is it Kurze the reason of the fear?

The Kaban Project by Graham McNeill

The second short story of Mr. McNeill explains the origins of that sentient machine that attacked Dalia Cyphera and her friends in the novel Mechanicum. Although this was not a part that deserved much explanation, it is very nice to have a complementary story around Mechanicum, for this is one of the finest Horus Heresy novels to date, and one that - time will tell - could be recalled in the future as the origin of a new Mechanicum army. The story itself isn't that great but again, those that enjoyed Mechanicum will be interested. Hopefully we'll get some more stories on the Knights next time?

Raven’s Flight by Gav Thorpe

In the context of the Horus Heresy storyline, one of the big questions marks so far is how could there be any survivors from Isstvan V, and especially how Corax got away. Well this short story sheds some light about it. Personnally I feel it gives a too simplistic explanation and that it could have been more developed but to be fair, it is only a short story and it's best to get a (simple) answer that no answer at all, IMO.


Death of a Silversmith by Graham McNeill

This is really a filler that adds nothing to the general storyline. A very short story on the Luna Wolves and a character we had not heard about in a long time...

Prince of Crows by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
The second story of the Night Lords and one that I found very interesting; after a series of skirmishes with the Dark Angels, the Lion manages to ambush the Night Lords and in leaves Kurze badly wounded after fighting him. The remnants of the Night Lords ships flee and it is up to their First Captain Jago Sevatar to take the control. To do so will have to fight the inherent treachery of his Legion if he wants to strike back at the First Legion. 

Conclusion

Whilst the previous Horus Heresy compilations so far have been somewhat disappointing, this book feels much more solid and consistent. it sheds some light around details or secondary affairs far from the main action that some might find interesting, and definetely gives much more context to the Imperial Fists and Night Lords. If you are not interested in neither the details or those Legions and just want to see the story advance, I would probably recommend to skip this lecture. Otherwise it makes for a pleasant distraction (I read it one story at a time while going to work in the train) and the Legacy Edition at 10.5€ is definetely a great value. Verdict: 3/5

Have you read this book? what do you think?