Arcane Fulcrums

I don't spend more on Games Workshop products than I have too, but I fully love playing Warhammer, and have developed a - sometimes begrudging - love for some of their models.  Sadly I just cannot justify the ludicrous expense of much of their product. 

The new Storm of Magic supplement is a temptation that looks like staying on the shelves of the FLGS on the grounds of crippling expense as a result.  The expansion book, lavish as it undeniably is, and the scenery devices proposed for play come to some £80; more probably than I've spent on Warhammer items all year, and close to four times what I've spent on specific GW product. 

Of course, you could use anything for the scenery, I know that, any regular on the blog would know that!  But I still fancied having a go at these models, and so when the LWGC got a set for it's own use, after they'd sat unpainted for a couple of weeks, I took it upon myself to sort them out.

Firstly I tackled the Dreadfire Portal and Eternity Stair.

One of my Dogs of War mages for scale.  The first point to make is that I didn't assemble the models, Craig did, and I can well believe him when he says they were an absolute bi-aatch to build.  The fit of some of the parts is obviously best described as vague, and whilst very well detailed, they are as a result quite thick.  It is a simple fact that in our selection several key parts were simply warped.  Dished if you prefer, but undeniably only loosely correlating in shape to intent.

As for Craig not adding the Scythes to the Portal; well he'll have to explain that himself.

As for painting, well, I kept things simple and over a black undercoat went for lots of overbrushed highlighting and a few picked out details, including hundreds (seemingly) of skulls.  More on them later.

Thereafter I painted  the Magewrath Throne and Balewind Vortex.

Physically the Magewrath Throne is the largest of all the models, and so suffers worst from the problems already mentioned.  The picture below shows some of the massive gaps the model presents you with:

 Rather better is the vortex, my favourite of the lot.  I went for a light purple vortex, in line with Craig's original intention.

These second two models used gold metallics rather than iron, and looked better for it too.

GW's obsession with skulls is well in evidence here as usual.  For GW Gothic fantasy = SKULLS!  Several possible conclusions can be drawn from this:

• In the Warhammer world, the human skull is the single most durable object in existence, being formed of a unique matter called Skuluminium, which is tougher than diamond.  Unfortunately it can be put to no other purpose being impossible to forge or otherwise utilise, they rather serve as decoration, and occasionally serve as load bearing walls.  Or,
• The human race is incredibly lax about body disposal.  Presumably this extends to other objects, and at some stage GW will produce a huge range of scenery featuring lost bicycle and fridges dumped in troll lairs to reflect this.  Or,
• Games Workshops designers are infantile adolescents who spend all day listening to Iron Maiden and haven't met any girls yet.  They still believe nothing is cool unless it has a pile of skulls involved.

I'll let you be the judge of which is most likely.

Anyway.  These were fun to paint, but I'm glad I didn't need to build them.  I don't see a need to invest in any for myself either, but as they are now part of the permanent collection of my gaming venue, I shan't need to either.  Neat eh?