The Sale Of The Century…………………………………………….

I have been thinking of adding another force to my Warzone Resurrection collection for sometime now, I was torn between either the Imperial or Bauhaus forces. Now I am more of a gamer that goes for models I like, rather than their rules or how power full they are! Now when I played Warzone back in the 2nd edition my choice of force was Bauhaus, and again it was down to the fact that I liked the models, this time however I really like the look of the Imperial models. However about a week ago an auction appeared on E-bay for a Bauhaus force, I worked it out and it came in at just over £200 rrp. Their had been a flurry of early bids but nothing that pushed it above £15, and I was sitting on the fence as their was only one picture.

Now the picture did not show how good the paint job was, and the thing that was bugging me was if the paint job was crap would I be able to strip them? I had some left over “resin” sprue’s from a couple of models I had been working on, and set about giving them the crappiest paint job I could! The end result was very poor (nice thick layers of paint), Once it was dry (I left it a good few hours), I chucked it in my pot of Fairy Power Spray and left it for a few hours. When I returned I grabbed a brush and gave it a scrub………………………………………..

To my surprise the resin stayed “firm” with no loss of detail, a few “stray” bits of paint were left behind but nothing major.

I took the plunge and place a bid and won for the sum of £48.99! Which netted me the following

5x Vulkans

3x Juggernauts

10x Mortant

10x Hussars

5x Rangers 

2x Drachen 

1x Duval

1x Max Steiner 

2x Vorreiters

And this morning they turned up. I took the 3 Juggernauts and placed them in the power spray and left them to soak for a few hours. I took them out a little while ago and cleaned them up with a brush, their was a lot of paint on the models but the have cleaned up really well. Their is the usual bit of paint here and their but apart from that they have turned out fine.

I will make a start on the others tomorrow, while I am waiting for AvP to be delivered. Yes I have my tracking info and delivery is  for Friday the 3rd.

Kickstarters………………….

Its been nearly two weeks since my last post, and due to me going back into hospital for a few days last week not much has happened.

Kickstarter wise things seem to be going very slowly.

All quite On The Martian Front, has been very quite with shipping beginning last Friday the 17th of October, with international shipments going out first this time, not going to hold my breath with get this before mid to late November.

TableScapes, Updates have been coming pretty fast over the past few weeks , with the Uk shipment being handled (the container arrived at mantic on the 16th of october). We will have to see how this pans out as Mantic have 2 Ks projects shipping now (more of that later).

Incursion, updates have been few and far between with the guys not having much to share apart from the problems they are having with panda games manufacturing I am still looking forward to this but don`t expect it before April next year (my guess ).

Deadzone, having received my missing items from wave 2 last week, it now falls for the 3rd and final wave containing the plastic enforcers and forge guard. due end of October, likely mid November.

Mars Attacks!, once again Mantic have failed. The main boxed set has been on sale now for 4 to 6 weeks, do I have any thing from my pledge, No. Why not? well for some strange reason no one at mantic noticed that the Martian big stompy robot, had 2 of the same leg. So Mantic decided to hold all the orders that had the BSR in it until replacements turned up. Shipping was meant to be done by the 31st of October, but is now stated as early to mid November. I am going for late November to mid December after the fiasco that was Deadzone wave 1. Its also worth noting that I went through the email that I received from Mantic telling me what I had pledged for, and to my surprise their were a few items missing from it that I knew I had ordered. I contacted Sarah at Mantic and she emailed me my order details (and a handy pledge graphic) the details she had and I had both had items missing. But i will have to wait and see if this has been rectified when it arrives!

Shadows of Brimstone, so after waiting nearly a year for the pledge manger (yes a year) the 1st wave has started to arrive to backers well some in the states and a to the lucky people who have picked up their copies at conventions. A few have even started showing up on eBay (no surprises their) their is how ever no news of what is going on with EU shipments, who is shipping them, when are they going to start shipping. Overall very disappointed with FFP over this, and at this rate wave 1 will turn up early next year.

Alien vs Predator, the guys at Prodos have been doing their best to keep backers up to date with news (they have been quite the past few weeks) shipping is stated for December, but I can see it dragging on until early next year, which is a shame as many people are getting itchy feet now!

Zombicide  S3, no real news on this nothing is due until February 2015.

My order from Prodos turned up last week, taking nearly 20 days from ordering to arriving. Unfortunately my painting light has died in spectacular fashion, with part of the plastic casing falling off exposing the wires inside right below the switch. It has served me well for nearly 3 years looks like its time to get a new one!

A my wife’s cousin has asked me to paint some lego figures in to various batman villains namely killer Croc, Clayface, Solomon Grundy, and Bane, I have picked up some figures from eBay and will have to see how this turns out.

The Dark Legion Arrives…………………………..

Using some funds from the sale of some more models on eBay, I decided to add some reinforcements to my Dark Legion starter set that I purchased a few weeks ago. I was going to pick up either the Imperial or Bauhaus starter sets but changed my mind at the last moment and went for the  Dark Legion.

In the end I went for,

Valpurgius,

Golgotha,

Alakhai The Cunning, No picture as I forgot to take any pictures!

Necromutants x 2, 

Praetorian Stalkers (ranged),

Praetorian Behemoth, 

I also picked up, Praetorian Stalkers (close combat), Necrobeast Riders x 2, and a Razide.

As you can see they are quite a mixed bunch some have next to no “flash” while others have quite a bit. Their are also very few “mold” lines, in fact the worst was on the Praetorian Behemoth left foot (a quick file and it had gone). Overall again top quality from Prodos, my only complaint would be with the cards that are used with the game. They are Place in the Plastic “clam” shell packaging with the model, which leads to the the cards getting scuffed. A very minor thing but worth bearing in mind.

I also picked up the main Rule book (which I am reading my way through now). On the same day that I ordered the Dark Legion stuff I also place an order direct with Prodos for the Nephrite Of Algeroth model, and the templates and counters for the game. All the Dark Legion stuff turned up 2 days later, the stuff from Prodos has only just gone to the “preparation” stage of picking and packing.

How Things Have Changed………………………….

Way back in the mists of time, when I was younger (and healthier).

Wargames miniatures were made from Lead with a few being made from plastic.

Resin models were just starting to come on the market, and fell in to two types. Rock hard or brittle. The rock hard ones were very hard to work with. And the brittle ones were very fragile, their was no happy medium between the two. Both types were sometimes very sticky to touch!

As I have said before I have been War gaming for just over 25 years and have seen many company’s rise and fall, some were good and some were bad. But through out that time one company has pushed the boundaries out of the way many times, with that company being Games Workshop.

They were the first company that I know to replace Lead with White Metal. With White Metal being harder than Lead, and with lead miniatures being banned in some country’s in the mid 90’s.

They were also the first company to push Plastic models up to the stage they are now. I would never have thought about a multi part plastic space marine mounted on a wolf 25 years ago! But now days they are in the shops along with tons of other plastic kits.

Games Workshop had phased out metal miniatures and replaced them with Finecast resin models. Which we were told would be better than the metal models, holding crisper details, being lighter, easier to convert. However Finecast quickly gained the name Failcast, models were covered with air bubbles, parts not formed properly, horrible “flash”lines, the list goes on. I did however buy quite a few Finecast  models, and to be fair most of them were near perfect. The only ones that need major work were the 9 Nazgul from Lord Of The Rings, with 3 needing new swords, 2 needing the bottoms of their robes filling, and 1 needing a re-sculpt of his head!

Finecast is now being phased out and replaced with multi part plastics.

But what has this got to do with anything, well the other day I came across Warzone: Resurrection from Prodos Games. Now back in the mid 90’s I came across a board game called Blood Berets which was set in the Mutant Chronicles universe. Me and my friend James played the game to death, and looked into it a bit more and found out that they did a wargame. We hunted high and low but never found a copy, in those days the internet would have been fantastic. Time past and we carried on with 40K 2nd edition.

Then around 1999 with the internet beginning to surface I came across a website called Target Games who were going to release Warzone 2nd edition. Their were no pictures on the site but from what I read it was the same setting, and I ordered on blind faith. Some weeks later it turned up and was what I was looking for. As time past I got a few other into Warzone and my Bauhaus force grew. I played many games but then one dark day Target Games closed its doors and Warzone died a horrible death. From the ashes of the UK side of the company rose I-kore miniatures, But that is another story. Warzone was dead but its fans kept it alive via the internet and some years later a new version was printed but again it died a horrible death.

My Bauhaus army was sold off on various forums, and I never thought much about Warzone. Until the other day!

I was looking through eBay the other day when I came across the Dark Legion starter set for £25.00. I had a look and found out that it was made buy Prodos Games who are making the AvP game (which I backed on Kickstarter). The models in the Dark Legion starter set are made from the same resin that the AvP models are going to be made from.

I took the plunge and ordered the set, which turned up yesterday. Inside the box were 7 resin sprues, a deck of 75 cards and 2 D20 dice (the rules can be found on-line)

As for the models well all I can say is wow, their are a few mould lines and very little “flash”. I was however worried about the positions of a few of the connecting “lugs” from the sprue to the arms but when the models are put together you cannot notice them as they are hidden between the arm and armpit area.

As you can see from the pictures you get one large model a Razhide.

2 of each sprue (so 10 models) of Undead Legionnaires.

And 2 Necro Mutant squad commanders. It took me about 2 hours to put all 13 models together, I have not based them yet as I am not sure how I am going to base them. Overall they are great model the details are nice a crisp and the poses are very good and when stuck together their are next to no gaps that needed to be filled. I did find that a quick file over any flat areas produced a better bond with the super glue.

Will I purchases any more? yes I will, I will either pick up another starter set (Bauhaus or Imperial) or add to the Dark Legion.

Looks like I need to get hold of the rule book now………………