Last Weeks Games: Painting Word Bears, Building Project Pandora and Beating ZombiU.

This week’s was interesting. I beat ZombiU, and while I will talk about that later, much of what I want to say about it was covered in my Backlog Beatdown review. So for this week, I’ll be talking a bit more about my hobby projects:

Had a fine old time
painting this one!

The first and most important thing to examine is the Warhammer 40K Start Collecting! Chaos Space Marine boxed set that I finally finished on Sunday. I bought it back in April/May, and having finished painting the Chaos Space Marine Terminator Lord, I’ve now painted everything in the box. I’m not a very fast painter; it can be months between painting sessions, however over the last few weeks I’ve managed to find some time to go in to Warlords 'n' Wizards in Netherton and spend an hour or so painting. Doing little bits and pieces at a time when it’s convenient yields many more results than painting on those few hours I have to very deliberately set aside when I’m at home! Who knew?

This is my fifth Chaos Space Marine army – I love Chaos in 40K – and for this one I used the Word Bearers colour scheme. My mate Dave started a collection of Ultramarines at about the same time, so I painted them up as their sworn enemies, hence the Terminator Lord having an Ultramarine helmet on display and – from the advice from Steve from Warlords – the head of a Tyranid of Hive Fleet Behemoth. Dave’s taken a break from war games for a while, so I won’t be playing against him any time soon, but I’ve now got some Word Bearers to show for it. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of doing a force full of religious nut-jobs, so I ran with the Word Bearers legion and I hope to add to them in the future.

The whole boxed set was a joy to paint.

I’d like to give a shout out to the videos I used as a guide to painting the miniatures; I’m not a strong intuitive painter, and having a guide is pretty much the only way I learn. So thanks to The War Gamer for the vast majority of the help I received with the painting, and to Warhammer TV for the fiddly but crucial parts.

Elsewhere, I opened my Project Pandora: Grim Cargo boxed set and built all the Corporation models. I bought this game a couple of months ago. If you don’t know, it’s a dungeon crawler set in futuristic space, published by Mantic Games. It’s concerned with the battle between the Veer-min, rat-like creatures stealing secret cargo, and the Corporation soldiers defending it. I haven’t played the game yet since the models require some assembly, and unfortunately there’s no assembly guide included in the game. The Corporation models weren’t exactly challenging to build, but it was fiddly when it came to attaching the arms. The fit of some of my models suggests a certain set of guns are supposed to fit a certain set of left arms, however the game gives no indication of what arm goes with what guns, and the parts look identical. So some of my corporation guys look very odd indeed! Also, the models are plastic resin rather than full plastic, and required the use of super glue rather than the usual poly-cement.

Yeah. It got me.

Now, ZombiU… Some of my previous blogs may have given the impression that I wasn’t enjoying the game, but I actually had a decent time with it once the story got going. There were several parts where I got careless and rushed into an area full of zombies, woefully under-prepared, and one or two well-paced jump scares that managed to startle me. Very few times when I’m playing games these days do I find myself thinking: “Yeah, you got me. Well played.” ZombiU managed it, so well done! As I mentioned in my review, I beat the game but got the bad ending, as I didn’t manage to reach the helicopter before dying, but I checked the good ending on Youtube and it’s not much better, so I doubt I’ll be rushing through the game again in order to get it. I might play the Survivor mode at some point though.

Dark Vengeance: Wow, I didn't see that coming!

So, Games Workshop have come up with their new boxed set for 40K...

I had hoped to bring a picture to you at this point but all I'm getting from Blogger is Invalid Server Response so google it if you're interested.

Hmm, pulled out a lot of stops with this one, I see! OK first point straight off the bat: I think the models look fantastic. I really do. There's been several releases over the last four years where Games Workshop have made their one-off models to go in boxed sets like these something quite spectacular; the detail on the Space Hulk models was awesome, and the ships in Dreadfleet looked very good, conceptually at least, even if the game turned out to be a huge let-down. But putting them in the boxed set for 40K was actually a really good idea. Compare it to Black Reach, which had some exclusive models in there, but with the exception of the Deffkoptas there was nothing in that box that you couldn't get in one of the currently exisiting boxes, except for the Dreadnought and that only needed converting, and you see what I mean - THESE are the models you're going to get in THIS box.

I was also surprised, as regular readers of my blog (both of you) will know, to see Chaos Space Marines in the boxed set. As Chaos are fundementally similar to Space Marines in many ways, it wouldn't exactly make for an interesting battle if both armies appeared in the boxed set, having to do the same things to shoot, wound, assault etc... but they've made a good job of getting around that, as I'll discuss in a minute. I was convinced it was going to be one of the Xenos armies, but while we're here, you might as well enjoy it. Dark Angels, of course, appeared on the cover of the new Paint Sets and the Rulebook, so it shouldn't be news to anyone that they appeared in Dark Vengeance.

So what models are they? Take a look at the video...

http://youtu.be/hG70lTjCZZA

Rather than go through each unit one by one, which would be little more than a running commentary on the video and would bore myself and all my readers who'd probably only get as far as the second paragraph, I'm just going to give you a run through my first impressions.

What I like about Dark Vengeance

• Thematically, I'm expecting a lot of depth to this. All the boxed sets up until now have been Space Marines vs Xenos army, straightforward good guys vs bad guys, all well and good. But simply by changing the Space Marine chapter to Dark Angels, and throwing Chaos Space Marines in there, we've got an army that's essentially good but will act ruthlessly to persue their goals, and a villianous army based on betrayal, so there's a lot more going on here than simply Alien vs Man.
• The models are gorgeous. I doubt there'll be much flexibility in their assembly - that's never the point of boxed sets - but the fact that they've put a lot of character into even the Tactical Marines means that they'll be a joy to paint and will look great on the gaming table. They really do capture the essence of what it means to be a Space Marine, or a follower of Chaos.
• The Chaos models were a bit of a curveball for reasons I mentioned above. However, watch the video again and see what they've got in there. Chosen! As far as I know there have never been specific models for Chosen Chaos Space Marines before, then they go and put this lot out. I am a fan of what's happening right now. Chaos Cultists, there's a distinct feeling of "about fucking time!" Cultists have long been under the radar in 40K. They appear in the Imperial Armour books, and are used quite heavily in some of the novels, but there's never been specific models for them before now so they've had to be converted from Imperial Guard if you wanted to use them; they've certainly not appeared in the Chaos Codex before now. This will be a welcome addition to the armies of Chaos, though I am a little concerned with how, if at all, they will interfere with my army lists when they release the new Chaos Codex. Which they'll have to do because even without the cultists you've got the Helbrute. This I think is going to replace the Chaos Dreadnought, and not a moment too soon. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all works; it's kind of ironic that the Chaos Lord in there is just about the least interesting model for me, though his epic design more than makes up for it.
• Where Chaos have their new models, there is a lot of variety in the Dark Angels side of things. Tactical Marines, Deathwing Terminators, Ravenwing Bikes, a Commander and a Librarian, it surpasses (just) Black Reach in the variety of models on offer here.

However, there's always stuff to pick holes in...

What I don't like about Dark Vengeance

• I don't want to turn this into a rant about the crass marketing tactics that Games Workshop often employ, but you are going to need A LOT of paints to paint this set properly. Unless you really know what you're doing with mixing colours, a Hobby Starter Set won't be enough any more. The Dark Angels alone have 4 different colours of armour, and that's before you start painting weapons and faces. The amount of detail on the Chaos models won't be easy to paint properly either. Now I'm not going to have too much of a problem with this, because I've got most of the paints and I'm confident enough in my painting now to be able to do a barely passable job on most of these models. But for a box that purports to be the entry into the hobby, there's a lot of complexity in the painting going on that might be just a little too much for a 10 year old kid getting into the hobby for the first time. Apart from anything else, you're going to have to drop a lot of money on paints...
• Still no terrain! What's the matter with you? Wargames need terrain and that isn't being provided in the boxed set! The opportunities for a new piece of terrain to go with this lot were there and they haven't taken it. Again for a full hobbyist, this won't be a problem as most will either have their own terrain already or will play in a place that has, but for someone looking for a game to play at home...
• The price, that was always going to come up in the end. When Black Reach first came out I remember selling it for £40. Games Workshop are asking for £65 for the limited edition with a couple of other models in there, which they may drop down to £60 when they're all gone, I don't know. But the fact remains that they're expecting me to pay £25 more for this game than I did for the last one. I do consider this quite harsh!

But of course the main issue here is, am I going to buy it?

Probably.

But not yet. There's not a lot of money around at the moment. Basically because I work for DPA and I'm paid on supply, I only get paid at the end of the month for the work I did in the previous one. Which in August is nothing. Which is what they'll pay me. So I'm expected to survive from now until the end of October on whatever they're paying me for July, which won't be a lot because I didn't work the whole month. I will therefore almost certainly miss the limited edition, not that I'm particularly fussed about that. I'm a gamer first and painter second, though you wouldn't know it for how much of both of those things I do in proportion to the other, so extra HQ choices and more stuff for me to paint is not going to sell it for me.

On the other hand those Chaos models are great and there will be a guide in the book that tells me how to use them; I'd love to get my hands on that, even if it will all be in the new Chaos Codex, who knows when that's going to be? Sooner than I thought, most likely, because of the new models, but we will see. I've got a birthday coming up, so...

So, overall pleased with my first impressions for the boxed set. Probably not going to go for the rest of the stuff that goes with it though. Dice and Tape Measures I have, a figure case would be a complete waste of money as they will all happily fit in a regular one after a bit of work with scissors, and the game tie-in novels invariably turn out to be rubbish.

Let me know what you think....