So I have been proper rubbish, rubbish in the sense that for a couple of months I have had an absolute hall of Forge World Resin, in the guise of Pre Heresy World Eaters. Quite laterally the entire army is resin, All be it for one drop pod, That as of Games day, I have thrown to the side, and am now waiting for the Dread Claw Drop Pod to act as my army's Deep Striking assault crafts. So I guess I should start with exactly what I have purchased over the last few months.
So here goes.
2X 30 man MKIII Iron armour sets including weapons and command upgrades.
1X 30 man MKIV Legion armour set including weapons and command upgrades.
1 X 20 man Tartarus pattern Terminators set, with special weapon set, storm bolters, and power Axe's
2 X Fellblade super heavy Tanks.
1 X Legion Glaive super heavy Tank.
2 X Spartan Assault Tanks.
2 X Land Raider Proteus
6 X MKI Demios Pattern Rhinos
2 X Cestus Assualt rams
1 X Scicaran Battle Tank
1 X Warhound Mars Pattern Titan, (to replace the second hand one i brought, and just don't have the time to fix it up)
Yes I know............... a lot of resin
So where did I start, Well i hate painting space marines with a passion, so I forced my self to start on the bulk of the troops. after doing the first two sets of 5 marines, i had the technique to get them done fast, but without dropping to much quality from the paint Job. I can probably now do 5 marines in 4 hours. so not that long at all. so I did 40 to start with, enough to play most games, well more than enough, but there are 20 more of the MKIII armour left to do, and the MKIV's are being used for a second project that will explain in a bit.
Next on the update can only be described as a Beast. The Fellblade. The tank is Huge, to my knowledge its the biggest Tank that you can get. It even dwarfs the Shadow Sword in the size compartment. And when your rubbling through the volcanic Ash on Istvaan III, size matters.
Here's a size comparison with a Demios Pattern Rhino.
I went for it with the first of the Fellblades, I think it took me 3 or 4 day on and off to get it done. Lots of masking up, lots of weathering, and in total 6 different layers of clear coat.
The Rust effect, I created using a Mixture of Orange Rust from the Forge World weathering Powder set and Burnt Umber and Light red from the Vallejo Model Air set. The effect is Gained from sponging on White over the blue to give the worn off paint effect, then I use the rust mixture, and combine both brush and sponge, sponging to give feathered edges and larger flat areas, and the Brush to achieve hard edges over detailed areas. After that I hit those areas with Bolt gun metal again using both sponge and brush. I think the effect can out OK, i could of made it more realistic by using the dremel to create small holes in those areas that have rusted through, But in the 41st Millennium, Ceremite plating probably doesn't even rust, but it gave it that " I have actually been to war" look.
After I did the rust effect I hit it with a mix of Agrax Earth shade, and Nuln Oil 75% Agrax 25% Nuln. And covered the Tank on it completely, And then taking off the excess with Que Tips. This weathered the white and toned it down a lot, and also blended in the "rust" with the paint work on the tank.
Since that first lot of Pictures where taken I have given the tank 2 more coats of Clear varnish, Before hitting it with Black Soot Weathering Powder, again from the Forge World set. Black soot is basically the closest thing I could get the the grayish black sands of the Istvaan system planets. That are covered in dark volcanic ash from Melania of volcanic activity, And you can take that as fact as I got it From Ben Counter, after moaning to him about a lack of description, I mean how is one supposed to base there models without this info eh?
Below is the weathers Track, its got a heavy dusting of Black Soot, and them clear coated, The pics below that are of the sides and the mud and ash sticking to the lower sections of the tanks hull.
Next Up a few WIP. First of all the Awesome looking tank, the Sicaran. Will be ordering a few of these. The tank was very simple to build and had no issues hardly needed any cleaning up either, the joys of buying a model that hasn't had many cast yet.
Also on the Tank theme is one of the Land Raider Armoured Proteus tanks. All i have done so far is Pin it all together and undercoated it. then i will be taking it apart again to paint. as there are some parts that are un reachable via air brush or paint brush.
And then we get to my special weapon Termies. Only 5 Special weapon termies, And will be distributed probably among two groups of 10. This is where the Cestus Assault rams come into play, there is nothing more World Eaterish than ramming tons of Ceramite craft into the side of something and pouring a loud of White and Blue termies with daddy issues in.
And that About wraps it up for my world Eaters thus far. I will start doing regular updates on them If and when I actually do some more painting. I have decided to hang up the air brush for a little wile and get back to enjoying the game, as well as the many other non GW games I have been buying up lately. Mars Attacks anyone? :P
OK less of a review more of a small rant. Yeah the book looks great stunning cover, Black chrome edged pages, and a use full feature of having 3 different coloured Ribbons to mark some of the pages you refer to the most, in my case the first few pages of How To Play The Game.
But there is a LARGE flaw in this rule Book. Apart from the fact it £30 the same cost of a fully fledged Hard cover Codex. And that's important. GW charge us £30 for a Hard back Codex that has had Brand new rules written loads of Fluff and stunning new Artwork. This Rule book however is nothing more than the Tiny rulebook you get in dark vengeance. This would not be that bad I could of been happy with that if it wasn't for the fact that GW are so Bloody Lazy they could not even be bothered to update the Book with the latest FAQ. They have literally just wrapped cardboard around the Dark Vengeance Rule book added some Ribbons to it. And charged the same price as a fully fledged Codex. More full me for buying it, But it does look rather nice sat on the shelf Next to Betrayal And Massacre.
Yes, I know I did not do a review of Dreadball Ultimate. BUT to be fair I could not wait to play it. As soon as it turned up I glued the teams together and roped my other half into playing it with me. (She is a mean ork) After half my team being killed by my darling Girl Friends Orks, I was hooked, and went straight for the air brush to paint up my first team.
The 'UPPER CITY SLICKERS' yeah i always did suck at teams names.
I also went slightly out of my comfort Zone, and decided to paint of Digital numbers instead of paying the £1.99 for the transfers, that's like 2 forge world shoulder pads i could buy with the saving.
Not to bad for my first touch of free hand, I'm at that point now where I even use my airbrush to lip the shoulder pads with gold now. so using a brush is a new thing for me. Any way they cam out looking pretty cool.
As far as starter sets go, they are great thing, they enable people to pick up a game, and play right out of the box, in most cases. Granted there is normally some assembly that is involved. But for the most part everything you need is right there. And then we Have Drop Zone Commander, the game its self has been out for a wile, but with small starter army's set at around £70 each. Not many people went out to purchase it. you where looking at around £200 just to get started. The main reason for this being the Models where expensive to manufacture being made of Metal, or Resin in some cases. But now Hawk Wargames have brought out a new line of Plastic Miniatures for the game, same great detail even on the 10mm scale, But by doing the plastic sets they are able to decrease the price a lot. (take note GW, when reducing the cost of your manufacturing, this means you CAN in fact reduce the price of your miniatures rather than increasing them)
And because of Hawk Wargames newly cheaper model line, They where able to produce a starter set.
If you ever wanted to know just what Dropzone commander is about you don't have to look much further than the stunning box art, Also as trivial as it may be, the box is not a normal slide the top off sort of box but more of a hinged lid one, and this makes life easier.
The Back of the Box shows most of what is includes in the 2 player starter set.
Inside the Box you fined the Full size A4 155 page full colour rule book. It includes all the rules that you need to get started, and lists all the units available for each army and there respective rules, and points costs. We also get Nice artwork throughout, and even a gallery of guest painters, that have painted up both scenery and models.
We also get quick reference sheets for the army's included in the box, Plus a quick start guide to get you into the action faster. These are full colour Card sheets, and are a really nice addition to the box set.
Also one thing I'm not used to seeing as of late, with all the forge world i have been building is instructions for the different models in the game. its worth taking a look as some parts fit in different places to allow the drop ships to carry the different APC's and tanks.
We also get some nice Card Stock, including objective markers, blast/landing zone templates, as well as an Arc of fire template. Its worth considering buying the Perspex set of templates for £9.50. as all though the card is thick, it does not seem as hard wearing as say the card items you get in X-Wing. But as a starter set it gets you playing until you want to go out and get the decent templates.
Next up we have the Army's and first of all the Scourge. The Scourge are an alien race, And there is fluff and background included in the book, for you to learn all about the Scourges invasion of Earth. The army consists of a 500 point list, including 3 Drop Ships the Marauders, 3 Hunter tanks, 3 Reaper tanks, 2 Invader APC's (although you do get an extra one on the sprue) And 30 Warriors. This makes up 3 Battle groups.
As you can see from the picture below the Drop ship actually do carry the tanks and the APC's giving the Game a more active feel.
The detail although only 10mm Scale, is very high especially on the scourge. The models are made of plastic, so you can actually use Plastic glue instead of superglue, So you can be assured a decent join between the components.
These are the Scourge troops as you can probably guess there is not that much detail, but there is enough, to make an effective looking troop, when painted.
Next up we have the UCM Army consisting of the same sort of units as the Scourge did the UCM army contains, 3 Condor drop ships, 3 Sabre tanks, 3 Rapier tanks, 2 Bear APC's and 30 legionnaires.
Again as with the Scourge the drop ships can carry the APC's and Tank's into battle pictures below is a Condor carrying two Bear APC's
Also (and I love this) they provide enough dice to play the game without having to keep re rolling dice, and the addition of a small little tape measure rather than a red whippy stick also adds to the ease and completion of a rather nice starter set.
Also in the Box you Get two, huge Posters. But wile these are nice posters, what really counts is on the other side.
Flipping the two posters over gives you a very high quality printed Battle field to play DZC on. But they did not stop there.
Also included are 10 Full colour ready cut, ready folded Buildings, all 10 are different from one another, and are just the icing on the cake for this brilliant Starter set. The building can either be glued together, for a more permanent scenery of if space is tight can be left unglued and folded flat and stored away. This gives you a 4' X 3' fully built city scape to fight in. Pictured below is just Half of what you get.
Now i want to mention a few extras that Hawk provides on there website. You can add to the look of the building's by way of purchasing a bag of resin pieces, that can be painted up and glued, or magnetised to the card buildings ( my personal choice) And these include Lobbys for the building and fun details like the airconditioning, and air vents for the roofs. All os the card building are actual copies of Real resin building that where originally made for the game. However I am unsure if you are able to buy them. But wile on the subject of Building, If you so happen to have a decent printer. then you can also download all the building you want off of the Hawk wargaming website, print them out and build them. The building on the site are a perfect match for these ones, so you can stack a few on top of each other for huge skyscrapers, or just riddle the city setting with building. Also available on the website to download, are quick reference sheets for all the army's, A Army builder software for you to work out your army roster and even the road sections. although for the cost of a set of printer cartridges nowadays, you may as well buy the city scenery set for £30, £25 from Wayland Games. and this includes enough square card pieces to create a 6' X 4' city scape with 20 buildings. its also worth mentioning that both the poster layout and the card layout options, all have the ability to create multiple roadways, by turning the pieces around.
All in all this is the best starter set i have seen by far, retailing at £55 from most places. there is no reason not to grab one. Just invite a few friend and save the world.
