Killzone Upgrade: Shrine Statue

I'm always on the lookout for terrain and other stuff for my Sisters of Battle, so when I got an email from Games Workshop back in July to say that the Shrine Statue would be made available on a temporary basis, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough. Of course GW themselves operate on a different timeline...

 

One of the annoyances in ordering stuff for delivery to our local Games Workshop WARHAMMER store is that the company gives you no idea when your stuff has arrived. After waiting four months I decided on a whim to check the order status on my Warhammer account... was I ever surprised to see that the order had been delivered two weeks before. They certainly kept that to themselves.

So off I went on Thursday night to the Warhammer store to pick up my goodie, assembled it on Friday night, and painted it on Saturday. It's a pretty neat terrain piece and is certainly impressively large, I guess that explains the $50CAD price tag (not unreasonable for a GW kit nowadays I s'pose). But it was pretty easy to put together.

As for paint, I hit the Internet for ideas and found a chap on Reddit who helpfully explained how he painted his model in one day. "That'll suit me down to the ground," I thought. The formula was to spray undercoat the statue part with Wraithbone spraypaint, apply some Seraphim Sepia shade, then drybrush back up with Wraithbone. I certainly wasn't up for paying $30 for a can of spraypaint that I'd use once, so I undercoated with Krylon satin white and brushed on the Wraithbone. I left the "statue part" separate from the base and painted each separately for ease of access. The base part I attached to a 3" round base and sprayed black, then painted the skulls with Celestra Grey, then Wraithbone. I washed both the statue and the skulls with Seraphim Sepia then drybrushed back up with Wraithbone, done.

I drybrushed the base bit with Dark Rubber and Mechanicus Standard Grey, then painted the brass bits Retributor Armour washed Agrax Earthshade. The candles were painted Khorne Red, then highlighted Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet. The flames were painted Corax White then Imperial Fist contrast paint. Looks OK I reckon.

Here's the piece alongside the giant Sisters Cathedral, I think it'll fit in nicely on an urban table for the Sisters - the next outing I have planned for them is a game vs Orks for New Year's Day. I managed to pick up a used copy of the 5th Edition Ork Codex on the weekend so that should do.

Lastly... a bit of a Warhammer rant. I was surprised but not surprised to see some shrinkflation on the GW paint front. Wash pots were 24ml but now are down to 18ml. Was there a corresponding 25% reduction in price? I think you know the answer.

Cheers!

So How's GW Doing With Adeptus Titianicus?

Photo visualization of GW's rollout plan to support the new Adeptus Titanicus.

So, I've been painting quite a lot of 19th century/Franco-Prussian War stuff for a while - and loving it - but it's fun to take a break.  I thought it might be fun to look again at my Adeptus Titanicus collection, and work on some improvements...that would start with some new weapons for the Titans, or maybe a couple of the new Cerastus Knights...this pointless rant is the product instead...

Many fans of the Horus Heresy, 30k and Epic were very excited to see Games Worksop's re-launch of Adeptus Titanicus last year.  Certainly I was. Anxious, yes. But on the whole, good stuff.  The new models are really striking, great kits.  The rules are excellent, a reminder that GW can really put excellent rules out there.  The game looks cool, and is great fun.

But there was also a lot of trepidation for many fans - there certainly was for me. The new scale, the eye-watering prices, all limiting the audience of the game.  And GW itself seemed to be half-assing it when it came to getting the game out there in the first place. The combo of models and weapons in the original box was a let-down (only one weapon load-out for the Warlords, etc). The game itself seemed to take forever to get to market. GW only seemed to be releasing this game because some unseen power was forcing them too, and doing the bare minimum needed to support it.

But hey, once it got out there, if would be out there!GW would surely get behind the game, muster its formidable marketing and product release engine, and get things moving, right? Right?

Let's see how that has been going...

Late last year, there was the fiasco where they tried to force you to purchase an entirely new Warlord Titan just to get some of the new weapons for the Warlord Titan kits.  This episode inspired one of their most tone-deaf responses to fan furor I have seen from them - and with GW's standards in this regard, that is saying something.

Wow - that spin will make you dizzy...

But hey, give them some credit, right? They did listen (after getting ventilated online, but still), and pledge to make the new weapon sprues available separately.  It did happen - a month or more later than promised - but it did happen, so you wouldn't have to purchase an entirely new Warlord Titan just to get a broader weapon load-out for the new models in your collection.  Great, right? Except...

If only I could some new weapons for my Warlord Titans...

Hope you got em' while you could!

Hey - maybe I can try those new Cerastus Knights while I'm waiting for new weapons for my Titans? That seems like fun! I just need those command terminals to run them in the game...oh...too bad this has been the case for two months or so now:

Only the temporary lasts...

Well, at least Forge World is releasing more weapons! That has to be good news, right? I mean, the exchange rate conversions are pirate-level, and I dislike working with resin, and the quality control at Forge World is bonky at times, but they are nice guys and will certainly stock the new weapons for my Warlord Titans, right?  I can't wait to work on these while the other stuff gets stocked up...

Oh rats...maybe I can get that other one...?

Nope...

For f*ck sakes, GW - are you guys serious about this or not?

It's not like there are no models out there or anything. The original Warlord (and the "new" one) are out there, so are the Reavers and Warhounds. And you can fill you boots with terrain (at least for now).  But the funny word "Titanicus" is in the title of the game for a reason - the game is built around the Titans.  Nobody is running around wishing they would release Adeptus Terrainicus. The different weapon load-outs of the Titans are an integral part of the enjoyment of the game.  Somehow it's been almost a year and you still can't get a full suite of weapons yet...I'll paint the buildings and stuff at some point, but I want to work on the Titans...stop trying to make me buy more super-expensive Titan models just to get more weapons. 

I'm sure there are a lot of good people trying to do the best they can. It's just a hobby. These are first-world problems. And in business, stuff happens, right? But maybe you could divert 5% of the energy used to issue new deamonic whackadoodle stuff and actually get your act together on Adeptus Titanicus?

And so, back to the 19th Century for now!

Kickstarter - I STILL just DON'T care

Figures on the way ASAP I'm SURE....

As the Kickstarter panhandling continues to pile up on TMP, I was going to mount another theraputic vent, further to this guest post I shared on Curt's blog recently.  But this Gawker story underlines the superflous absurdity of Kickstarter perfectly, and why I can't wait for the trend to flame out and leave the hobby alone....so why double up? Go read the Gawker story instead, and keep it in mind the next time you see a panhandling Kickstarter project appear as some kind of legitimate "news", as though it will really happen, on TMP.