Comic: Warhammer 40,000: Damnation Crusade
Chaos forces are digging something in a planet, and a force of the Black Templar Space Marines is sent to stop them; A new recruit is gathered in a planet to join the Black Templars; An ancient Dreadnought is awakened to participate in the neverending wars against Chaos.
These are the main story plots of Damnation Crusade, a 6 numbers comic book settled in the Warhammer 40.000 universe.
While not bad, the plots switch a lot, which combined with different artists for each issue of the comic means sometimes chaos identifying characters, until somebody calls them for their name and you reassociate them.
The story... is not deep, not long, nothing impressive nor too elaborated. It didn't engaged me much.
The drawings are fine, some quite detailed and cool, others just fine. Also varies with the artist.
Overall, recommended only if found cheap.
Tags: Comic Book Warhammer 40000
6th Ed. of Warhammer 40.000 will feature Dark Angels
Well, if all the latest rumors were not enough to confirm that 6th edition of Warhammer 40.000 (that everybody points for mid-year) would be Chaos versus Dark Angel Space Marines, now we have some kind of proof:
If you look at the paint kit for WH40k, the miniatures look clearly Dark Angels!
Last edition basic kit was Ultramarines (as the game box then had depicted in the cover), so changing the army to one less known (but still on the "big list") for me is a the final sign that they will come in the near new edition.
I love DAs. They were my first army, I have dozens of miniatures both painted and pending painting, I've read all the books and have two codexes (2nd edition and 4/5th edition).
I fell in love with them not only because of their dark knight feeling (if only were for that I could have chosen Black Templars), but because I like the concept of having a dark secret, inner circles, an endless hunting for the fallen, the unclear but tragic ending of their home planet and primarch, the mysterious Cypher...
And of course, their great Deathwing company (I have all the story in PDF), simply the best Space Hulk theme that Games Workshop has created.
But I also fear the new money-based policies of GW. Even lower points cost to enforce buying more miniatures for the same points army? All new cool models done in Finecast with the huge pile of fails it has? More huge buildings that I cannot almost store at home?
I don't play much, but checking my old points list (from 2nd ed) the difference is abysmal. I can simply ignore the new rules and use the 5th edition ones (as I won't ever go to a tournament).
I can also simply skip buying the new buildings, as I've done in the past.
But with Finecast sometimes you cannot avoid it, as new minis don't have any metal counterpart. I've suffered small bubbles and imperfections in the few Dark Eldar Finecast minis I have, and I can simply return the new ones if have defects, but I directly don't like to buy a defective material product.
It's a matter of principles, I wouldn't buy a defective car or computer, so why I have to do it with miniatures?
My hope is that they just move to finecast all metal Dark Angel minis (I already got the ones I want in metal) and not add many new ones. And my pocket will be happier too :)
Original source of the paint kit image
Tags: Miniatures Warhammer 40000
Where to buy Games Workshop miniatures online
Many people loves Warhammer and/or Warhammer 40.000, but GW has been increasingly rising prices up to the point of making it an elite hobby, at least if you want to keep with it more than one or two years and then move on.
But we are lucky that internet allows also to break barriers and access multiple shopping alternatives.
I am going to mention a small list of online shops where I have at least once bought something, explaining in my opinion the good and bad aspects.
Maelstrom Games (Closed, alternative can be Wayland Games)
The good: Really competitive prices (my favourite shop). Deals and special offers. Free shipping with small shopping cart.
The bad: Small stock on some items. Slow restocking. Limited catalog of products.
The good: You can find virtually anything. From really good deals, to nicely painted full armies, to old goodies like really old boxed games, books or miniatures.
The bad: I am not a fanatic of eBay because I have friends who had bad shopping experiences, so my advice is to stick to good reputation people, well known bloggers, or those announcing at websites like BoLS.
Miniatures Hobby
The good: Insanely cheap. Free shipping with small shopping cart. Cheap Forge World item clones. A few no longer available metal miniatures.
The bad: Resin is low quality (specially in thin areas). Molding lines and general cleaning work needed. No instructions, no box... just pieces. Really slow delivery.
The good: Really old treasures can be found here. 100% reliable (unlike eBay). Some items are real deals.
The bad: Very limited catalog. 1-item stock most of the times. Delivery quite slow (3-4 weeks to Spain, and not free!).
The good: Free standard shipping. Exclusive online-only old models. Best customer support (fast, efficient, solving your problems*).
The bad: Same price as physical stores. No discounts, no special web offers, no extras. Delivery times are also slow (at least in Spain, around 2 weeks).
The good: Exclusive official side-factory of GW for normal/non-finecast resin miniatures. Titans, conversion kits, uncommon miniatures (alongside the Imperial Armor codex-like manuals). Some of the miniatures are awesome. Quality is much better than Finecast.
The bad: Price ranges from expensive to insanely expensive. Some miniatures have shopping tricks (like buying separately the two arms) that make them even more expensive.
I also love visiting physical independent stores. Some might have the normal prices (same as GW website), but others usually have discounts or interesting offers, not mentioning maybe one or two no longer available relics.
Also if you want to avoid Finecast, some will probably still have metal minis.
And lastly, ask your friends if they play WH/WH40k if they have some minis they don't want. You might get a positive reply and be able to negotiate a reasonable amount!
Feel free to add more shop recommendations in the comments, indicating where have you bought from to give a hint of delivery locations.
(To avoid being flagged as spam please keep a limit of two or three web links maximum per comment, sorry)
* I had two different problems (a missing sprue from one item, and a delivery problem) and in quick phone calls they took note and fixed it really fast and easily for me.
Very interesting info from ex-GW employees
Reddit has a section called "IAMA" in which actual and former employees of all kind of jobs talk about them. In this case, an ex trades sales representative who worked for severeal years at Games Workshop has given lots of interesting answers.
I'm going to do a small list of the most interesting points because the thread is huge and quite long read, but has some gems inside, and also other former employees (like a casting manager) added info and answered questions.
Italic parts are comments from me, the rest are some of the employee answers summarized.
- Price jumps and high prices are because miniatures are not a non-necessary commodity, and because people can pay for those prices.
They are also high so that initially you cannot buy everything and you will come back next month for more. - High prices also serve as entry point: GW doesn't wants everyone to play, they want it to be a "prestige game".
- Blood Bowl or Gorka Morka were great for players but terrible for sales, as the basic boxes had almost everything needed (so you wouldn't spend over time more money). That's why they don't reappear.
(but now that we've seen Space Hulk and Man'O War/Dreadfleet, maybe as limited reeditions...) - The goal is to keep you in a cycle of perpetually buying your army, by generating the need to have the new things that come out.
- About how plastic models are created:
- Original plan for the 6th Warhammer Fantasy edition was to launch one army book per month. It didn't worked and now development cycles are longer.
- GW's policy is not to release information farther than one month out. They doen't want you saving your money until next month, they want you to spend it every month.
Also if you know that race X will be renewed in Y months , there's no reason for you to buy now instead of saving for the new models.
(apart from buying metal minis before they go finecast) - GW and the stores do not want competitive players/tournaments. They want to run introductory leages, have new players, people spending in upgrading armies, but not playing just for winning.
- Armies are not perfectly balanced. There are "nukes" (too strong units), and GW does almost only internal testing of codexes.
- Gaming in-house (inter-staff) is way different than local gaming clubs. In-house want to play and have a great narrative, at stores/tournaments pleople play to win.
- Prices are not set by manufacturing costs, but for "play value". Their value to a gamer is where the price point is set, rather than what they cost to manufacture. This is the "goblin index". This is why plastic Terminators are only 5$ less than metal Terminators (while they are much cheaper to manufacture).
Employees paid minis by metal gram stock price instead. - Space marines make up roughly 12% of sales, and all of the other races make up roughly 2% each, but that's lumping Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, etc. all in one big bunch.
40k and Fantasy actually split right down the middle in terms of actual sales. Popularity, may tend towards 40k in your area, but overall, both are really equally popular, according to the actual sales figures. - The company LOVES and listens to the online community.
(Or so he says...) - You get paid less than you would elsewhere (working at GW), as they have a steady stream of young fans who would just LOVE to take your job. The turnover rate was pretty high.
- GW isn't really afraid of any other company. For one thing, no other line can sustain an entire store on its own, unlike the GW retail outlets.
- The move to Finecast was due more to the rising costs of metal than anything else.
While they were not able to lower the costs of Finecast models, the cost of resin is much more stable than metal so, hopefully, this will keep price increases in check and make them less frequent. - In his opinion the company has suffered a bit for losing so many dedicated, experienced folks.
Masters for plastics used to be made as "3-ups", 3x larger then the finished model.
They then use resin castings of those 3ups to make a layout of the mold in clay, contouring the mold lines where they need them to follow the edges of the model so there are no undercuts.
Then they make a resin "mold" of the layout. Then they do the same for the other side of the mold.
The resin mold they just made from the 3ups is then used on a machine called a pantograph engraver. The moldaker uses a stylus, which is attached to a flexible arm to follow the cavities of each part, on the other side of the machine there is an engraver removing metal from the aluminum or steel block. The mechanical arm that connects the molddmakers' stylus and engraver can be set to reduce the size to whatever you need, so when the stylus moves 3", the engraver will only move 1" for example.
Book Review: Ultramarines 5: Courage and Honor
Fifth book of the Ultramarines, once again Uriel Ventris will fight foes, but this time new ones. After being restored as an Ultramarine and captain of the fourth chapter, the misterous Tau race seem to be attacking Pavonis, an old known of Uriel (they saved the planet in the past, in the first book of the series).
The planet is also suffering severe imperial monitoring of all areas and activities, there is still civil unrest and povertry, and the balance of the planet seems still too fragile.
As in previous books, the pacing is nice, switching between multiple sub-plots that slowly progress towards a common junction and conclussion.
The Tau are portaited ok, but as it is a race I don't fancy much (aliens with Japanese looking mechs, meh) the book was not as engaging as others.
One problem in this book is an excess of humanization for some characters. We're talking a bout a millennium of war, death and destruction, an era where only the strong or the evil persist. Military forces are either almost brainwashed or fear-driven (Imperial guard + Comissars).
And then some characters are too human and think too much, when they should just do it "for the Emperor". If you read the book you will understand what I mean. It smells to much to be credible.
The battles are well narrated, has the usual plot changes, deceipts and surprises, but here Uriel acts just like a clever Space Marine captain instead of someone who went through a lot of "uncommon experiences" and terrible foes. You could change the names of characters or the SM chapter and nobody would notice.
It feels like the second Matrix movie. Not much plot, no story advancement... almost nothing except some spectacle with known characters (and not so much, as there are lots of secondary characters).
Tags: Books Warhammer 40000
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