Unboxing the Death Guard Miasmic Malignifier

 

Whats in the box? Here we review the contents of the Miasmic Malignifier! 

A great sculpt with tons of detail and a welcome addition to the Death Guard to help defeat the Space Marines.

Ghazghkull Thraka unboxing - whats in the box!

 

Take a look inside the box of Ghazghkull Thraka, lets unbox and review/see what the contents of this ork giant are!

Falling out of love with GamesWorkshop

Ok, so I've been back on the plastic crack for around 18 months now and I still love building, painting and playing  Warhammer 40k. Don't think that will ever change, however, recent events have made me look closer at my dealer and I didn't like what I started to see.

Paints:

It wasn't till I bought a batch of Vallejo paints that I realised how bad GW's paint were. Initially, I thought it was because my paints were old, like 10years+ old but then I bought some new pots of the same colours to top up my stock and found no difference in the quality. On the plus side, they can really last if you don't use em and look after them.

Lets be clear though, my issue isn't with the paint so much as it is with the design of the pots and a quick Google about this issue will show you that I'm not on my own. When you start using other brands you really do notice the issues with them.

You would think a business that has been around since the 80's and has changed the design of it's pots 3 or 4 times (off the top of my head) would actually have a design that really works. Instead, they have a design that keeps you coming back for more. Why? Those big open pots of 'painting from the pot' encouragement. I didn't realise how much paint I was actually wasting, even with a wet palette, when using the GW pots and how much it dries out if you paint directly from the pot. Yes, I know painting from the pot is a big "no!no!" but sometimes I'm lazy lol. Fortunately, Vallejo paints encourage me not to! lol

Businesses and products can have differences, it's what makes the economy go round. So what's the problem? Well I guess my issue with it all is that GW clearly doesn't listen to their customer fan base. As I previously said, a quick Google search came back with a flood of posts and articles around this subject so if they did listen, they would certainly know about this issue. The only conclusion I can draw from this, is that GW want it this way for whatever reason, perhaps to get you (and particularly people starting out) to buy more pots quicker than you would with other brands.

Space Marines:

It's all about the Space Marines and some Necrons (but mainly Space Marines). Really GW, there are other factions in your game that hasn't seen any much needed attention in many many years. Obviously, Space Marines are the cash cow.

#PaintingWarhammer:

This one has always baffled me. A quick search on Instagram brought back 1.7 million results for the hashtag #PaintingWarhammer. Yes, I know you need to tag @WarhammerOfficial as well now but really? GW can't be a little proactive in showing off what their customer base does with their products? There are some old products on the GW website that have no customer photos along side them and then there are others which have loads. Guess it's just down to flavour of the month.

Armies On Parade:

Armies On Parade moved online this year due to the pandemic so here was an ideal opportunity to reach out to what is a MASSIVE community and encourage more people to get involved and also show some appreciation to it's fan base. 

Instead, the first part of the hour long Twitch event was spent showing of the works of their own staff. Was this really necessary? All power to the guys that did these great pieces of work, they are fantastic and I don't mind saying that I would love to be as talented and on this level but isn't this about your fan base? Shouldn't this have been about engaging with your customers?

The whole thing (even with covid in mind) was poorly done. It should have been an ideal time to make a better online presentation of it all. Even if it is only for one year, it wouldn't be too much trouble to knock up a webpage to display all the thousands of entries you've received to at least give some recognition. I can say this because I'm a web application developer by trade, this isn't a coding issue, just a bandwidth issue. They have armiesonparade.com so it's not like they don't have a place to put it but even this domain wasn't well advertised, I simply stumbled across it whilst writing this.

The physical stores:

I quickly stopped using the local GW Store for one simple reason. They never had what I wanted in stock. They were helpful enough and willing to order whatever I wanted but let's face facts; it's much easier and cheaper to order from an independent stockist online so why would I bother to order via the store?

The App:

This is the biggest head scratcher of them all, so poorly rolled out I'm amazed it's still available. Don't get me wrong, I actually wondered from the start (when I began playing again), why GW didn't have an app of it's own for 40k. With so many rules around the game and the building of armies it was screaming for an app.

When it finally came out I was excited to see what it had to offer and the answer was, not much. The contents of books I had to pay for initially anyways, the core rules which were free online already (and initially linked to a google drive pdf!) and the main part of it, the BattleForge option, was not available.

After a massive delay it was added. Slow and full of bugs.

The age of pencils is over according to the release statement. News Flash for you GW, it was over about 20/25years ago, nice to see you're finally catching up. Really can't see me paying a monthly sub of that price for something I'll rarely use when I need to buy the book anyways.  Personally don't see the point of the book if I just use the app and vice versa. I'm sure the army builder will be really handy for creating your armies but I'd rather do it manually or use a 'certain piece of freeware'. 

At £3.99 a month and twice as much as the AoS version, what are you really getting for your money? Honestly, just a different way of doing something you've already shelled out cash for. Their subscription model is clearly set up to avoid the charges that come with adding the app to both Google Play and the Apple App Store. You have to wonder if the Wh40k app will disappear like the recent Fortnite game did at some point in the future?

The simple answer to all this would have to been to make the app a mobile responsive web application so it wouldn't need to go up on either Google Play or the Apple App Store. One code base. I really don't see what the advantage is over it being an app, if your offline, you can't log into the app anyways so it can't be for the offline capabilities. With it's response times, I'm pretty sure it's calling an external data source for the info.

Does your IT Director actually have any experience with this kind of thing or is he just a mate from down the pub who can code a bit of HTML?

Finally:

On the up side, other businesses like Vallejo, will take advantage of GW's short falls and I dare say at some point a new product will come out that will take the mantle from GW. There are some positives to GW and some things they do really well but that's not what this post is about.

GamesWorkshop will always be my first love but just like in life, as you grow, someone new will come along and steal my heart if you don't show some love back. Relationships are a two way street.

Necrons - DeathMarks

 

Keeping busy through Covid Lockdown with these Deathmarks. When I originally bought the immortals box I didn't fancy doing them as Deathmarks. Since 9th Edition though I've hard they are really good. Having not played them in 8th I can't really comment on the changes which are eligibly good.

Can't wait to try them out, 36" range (even though they are Heavy 1) and can teleport in. Quick paint job and they are ready, not my best work but just wanted them ready even though I got plenty of time, I'm so impatient lol.  

So what next for my Necrons? Got to be the Hexmark destroyer!

Primaris Invictor Tactical Warsuit

UPDATE: 

Primaris invictor tactical warsuit all ready for action

WIP Primaris Invictor Tactical Warsuit. Whats everyone else working on?

More Necrons...

 

Procrastination over, I've made a start on my outstanding Necrons. That and I've finally bought a squad of Deathmarks from the guys over at Rogue Wargaming that I'm eager to make a start on and have tabletop ready for when lockdown finally ends. Having already got a Royal warden from the Indomitus boxset, this Recruit Edition one I've done slightly different and raised him up on the base. Some last minute touch ups to do before I call him done.

Wolf Guard Terminators

 So whilst I've been busy with The Silent King, the other twin has been busy with his Space Wolves. Namely the Wolf Guard Terminators:

The kit comes with multiple options, so I reckon you could probably create another squad easy from the spares with troll of Ebay to find some Terminator main bodies. He's done a great job on them in my opinion. Check out his unboxing and follow up video below:

Painting The Silent King

 So much of yesterday was spent painting The Silent King model. I'm loving the whole kit. Some places are proving awkward to get to when painting but I'm glad I've kept a lot of it apart.

The gold I'm using is just Balthasar Gold and on Szarekh it just seems too deep a colour so I need to try and lighten him somehow. May try some washes of silver to bring the depth down. I think my next investment really needs to be in some new paints lol

Looking forward to getting this whole mini complete and playing him on the battlefield!

No game day today (grrr covid restrictions!)

So Covid strikes again and we are now in the UK Tier 2 bracket with the whole of England going into full lockdown from Thursday 5th November. This means no game today, just as my Necrons were doing so well lol

In the meantime, I bit the bullet and bought The Silent King. After reading his datasheet in the codex I couldn't not get him lol Must say though, that he is fiddley in places to fit together and trying to paint him if he's totally put together would be a nightmare so I would recommend leaving some parts off to paint first.

Gonna take me sometime to paint but it is coming together nicely:

My stacks of paint pots isn't that extensive, so as much as I would like to paint it in the same colours as GW's images, I'm pretty limited to what I have. You could argue that I should buy the right paints but right now I think my wife would divorce me if I spent any more this month (my primary hard drive dying on me didn't help either lol).

I'm even using a ye olde paint pot for the glowy green lol.

Ok, so my video equipment isn't that good but you can check my short unboxing & build video below (remember to like and subscribe please):

Blood Bowl: Champions Of Death

 It's Halloween!

Seemed like a good reason to show off my Blood Bowl Champions of Death Team!

Haven't lost a game with them yet!

Space Wolves

 Well can't show off my mini's without showing off some of the other twin's stuff! He recently decided to play with something other than his Death Guard and with Indomitus' release he went full on Space Wolves. Much of his army started off with the Space Marines half of the Indomitus set but he has since expanded his army with a drop pod, Wolf Guard, Terminators, Inceptors and more.

Blood Angels

 Well after displaying my Necrons, it's only fitting that I put up my blood angels too. This is where it started for me, back in the late 80's. When I first started playing I only knew of the Blood Angels chapter, how things have changed! Some of these are old but I like to think my painting quality has progressed lol For full disclosure I was in and out of the hobby over the years and back full time on it in the last 12 months

My Aggressors, probably the first unit I considered I had painted "neat" and without having the codex at the time, I did them all as Sergeants lol I know better now, like how I have also done the actual Sergeant as a flamer rather bolter. This doesn't work in 9th (not sure it was strictly valid in 8th lol) as they all need to have the same weapon type. At some point I will get another unit so I can have a unit of each weapon type, at which point I'll probably paint over the shoulders of two of them lol

My first tank. This Baal Predator came with the starter box for Blood Angels and when I painted it I wanted the "fresh out of the factory" look lol This is another of my 'go back to' models which at some point I will do more work on to make it look battle scarred.

The Sanguinary Guard, enjoyed painting these, simple because they wasn't overly difficult to paint after a base coat of gold. Enjoy playing them as well, they are a nice break from the normal BAs.

My Terminators are a mix of Space Marine Heroes and those (I think) I got from the Battle of Macragge box set back in the day.

Match Day: Necrons Vs Space Wolves - Incursion - Objective Game

 So this morning was game day! I took my Necron army (1125 points) for an Incursion game against the other twin's Space Wolves army (1110 points).

He's learning fast to take out my C'tan Shard of the Nightbringer early, taking advantage of the max 3 wounds lost per phase by utilising the psychic phase, shooting phase and the fight phase!

Fortunately it finished on a draw!

He brought along the new Primaris FireStrike Servo-Turret and the new Hammerfall Bunker, proving to be a thorn in my side at range.

Necrons

 I bought the starter set for Necrons before Indomitus and glad I did now. Initially, I was loosing every game I played with them. Now with the new codex, that's changed, the C'tan Shard of the Nightbringer is now a must have in any game for me, even at 350 points.

There's still a few units that I need (want!) to bolster my army but as it stands I'm pretty happy with what I have:

Illuminor Szeras had to be the most challenging to build and paint (fiddley mini!), whereas the Nightbringer had to be the easiest lol Granted, the warriors can get boring repeating the same old again and again but I'm up to 50 of them so don't think I'll need anymore.

It's not all of them, hopefully once my Armies on Parade is finished I'll have some better images of them all!