Friday 28 March 2014

Militarum Tempestus Pre-Order Deal from Kirton Games & Curious Constructs


The Militarum Tempestus Scions & Taurox are now on pre-order from Kirton Games!

Kirton Games offers a 10% discount from RRP making these kits £18.90 and £26.10 respectively, but on top of that you get FREE UK SHIPPING, meaning that is it, you pay nothing extra!

However, on top of that, for every £10.00 you spend pre-ordering items from Kirton Games between now and midnight on Friday 4th April you'll also receive a £2.00 Discount Coupon to use in the Curious Constructs store! Spend £20.00 you get £4.00 off, spend £50.00 you get £10.00 off etc.

All you need to do is order as normal from Kirton Games, and make sure you are a registered customer on the Curious Constructs webstore to receive your discount coupons.

It means you'll get your hands on these fantastic new kits at an excellent discounted price, quickly, and also have some extra savings on something from Curious Constructs, such as the head swaps discussed in my earlier post! ;)


Wednesday 26 March 2014

£20 Voucher Giveaway from Kirton Games

 

Kirton Games is giving away £20 in Vouchers!


There are four £5.00 vouchers on offer to anyone who likes Kirton Games on Facebook, the target was 200 likes, thats now been surpassed so the draw will happen very soon! If you'd like to have a chance at a voucher, hop on over and like the page now (no making your cup of tea will wait)!

https://www.facebook.com/kirtongames



Scions = Praetorian Life Guards. Here's How!

Remember these chaps?


I love the idea of the elite of the Praetorian Imperial Guard, the Life Guards, I forget when I first came up with the idea, but it certainly goes back to the very earliest days of this blog (now in its 8th year!). They were always modelled on the House Hold Cavalry, dismounted from their horses, but intended to operate from Chimera transports.

I always threatened to do a kit for them in line with my Cavalry conversion kits, and I did make some progress towards that with the Curious Constructs Life Guard Heads and Torso's... but now I may not need to.

Unless you've been living in a cave you'll probably have seen the new Scions, Games Workshops new plastic Storm Troopers! The first time I saw these models, my jaw dropped a little.

Nice and ornate Carapace Armour, check.

Helguns, check.

Multipart plastic, check.


All that is missing here are the heads, now my current Curious Construct Life Guard heads won't fit as far as I can tell, but looking back at the original conversion I did, and at this fantastic Squad of Cavalry the good Colonel Ackland put together (shown below), and the answer is pretty clear.


Oh yes, I shall have my shiny new Life Guards - watch this space, I've sculpting some new heads for Curious Constructs right now, because I want these guys (excuse my dodgy photo editing) in my Praetorian Imperial Guard yesterday!



Tuesday 25 March 2014

Discounted Leman Russ on offer from Kirton Games



This week Kirton Games has the venerable Astr... Imperial Guard Leman Russ Battletank as its Deal of the Week - no prizes for guessing whose idea that was! 

This deal is a saving of £4.50 from the RRP, but as usual you get Kirton Games FREE UK Shipping, so £26.50 is it, there are no extras! That overal makes itcheaper then Dark Sphere (£30.58), Wayland (£28.05) and many other online retailers - or at least the ones who won't take weeks and weeks to ship you your models. We always deliver within no more then 10 working days!

HTTP://WWW.KIRTONGAMES.COM

Monday 24 March 2014

Thursday 20 March 2014

Female Imperial Guard...

This morning I was doing the rounds of the forums, on the Imperial Guard Message Board I came across a new thread from Brother Vinni's Studio. 'Female Jungle Fighters'. Awesome thinks I.

Opening the thread I was disappointed though... (NSFW)


First of all the sculpts are fantastic in my opinion, I've got nothing critical to say about them technically, the quality is quite easily comparable against many major producers. You can also see quite clearly just where the sculptor was aiming, Female Brigade, Jungle Fighters, Lasguns, advertising on dedicated Imperial Guard forum... oh yeah Female Catachans! But... shirtless? It's just needless, and does'nt fit in at all with Imperial Guard, in my mind, at all.

I appreciate there is a demographic who will love them, and as collectors pieces, yeah fair enough thats another matter. But as Imperial Guard proxies to me its just, well why? I'm certainly not a prude, but I just don't get it. Add vests and at least longer shorts and they'd be fantastic, but as is, I could'nt ever imagine using them. I think I'd be somewhat ashamed!

Games Workshop have done the odd model release over the years, a couple in Shaeffer's Last Chancers, Warrior Woman and Rocket Girl, there was also one of the metal Tanith First and Only, the female Commissar, and the Catachan Grenade Launcher. 

Am I missing any? 

However, until a few months ago that was more or less it (though I seem to remember the Starship Troopers game may have had some?).

Aside from Brother Vinni's offering there are two more which technically appear very promising and sit in different places on the spectrum in terms of what I'm going to say is acceptability. Controversial?

The first to appear were from the Raging Heroes - Toughest Girls of the Galaxy, a kickstarter campaign, though they are still yet to ship as I understand it. The campaign was a massive hit raking in nearly $700k from supporters. I did'nt buy in myself as I was'nt fond of the post-apoc artwork concepts. 

However, looking at the models now, I actually quite like at least some of them. They of course would'nt fit into my own current armies sure, but while they are certainly sexualised they feel much more acceptable, these sit squarely in the middle of the scale to me. 

They have a very post-apoc vibe going, somewhat Tank Girl or Mad Max in my mind. In fact, perhaps this distinctive look, rather then trying to fit in with an established Guard range is a strength that helps as well. Of course they are not simply Imperial Guard in this case, but would obviously make a nice army none the less.


The other new offering is from Victoria Miniatures. Without a doubt these are my favourites, why? Well the picture should give it away really.


They actually look like real soldiers! These are not sexualised at all, sitting firmly on the other end of the scale from where we started. You have female troops in combat fatiques, body armour (without the massive breast plates of the likes of the Sisters of Battle), and mostly helmets. These fit right in with the aesthetic of the Imperial Guard and are fantastic looking sculpts as you'd expect. I can't imagine anyone even blinking to these being put down on the table other then to acknowledge the fact that they are female and awesome sculpts. They fit in as part of a growing miniature range in their own right in terms of style, though that is of course inspired heavily by the original metal Cadians, crossed with the current plastic incarnation. I'd very happily add these to my own collection, they dont quite fit though, so I'll be waiting for a Dress Uniformed range from Vic!

So where do you sit in all of this? Am I over reacting to Brother Vinni's release or do you agree that they're just too much? Do you think the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy are fine, or perhaps are even they a bit much? Or do you prefer Victoria's offering - or think that they are just too plain with not enough curves?

Tuesday 18 March 2014

More New Weapons from Curious Constructs

The last of the new weapons designed by Jake for Curious Constructs, this time we have the Laserlock Pistol on the right, designed to match the Laserlock Rifles, and my favourite of all the pistols, the Plasmalock Pistol on the left!


That just leaves the Renegades to go.

Friday 14 March 2014

More previews from Curious Constructs

Another set of pictures of soon to be releases bits from Curious Constructs, again designed by Jake aka Faolan. This time we have that most essential of accessories for any self respecting rifleman, the Bayonet, there was no way this was going to be missed off from the Laserlock Rifles. Also while we're talking about weapons which are up close and personal we have the Chainsabre!


Wednesday 12 March 2014

Plastic Valhallans Spotted!/?

So in the new Imperial Knight codex there's a picture of a red Knight with some Valhallans. It's been photoshopped to look painted, but the knight is obviously a posed model. The Valhallan you can see clearly doesn't match any of these http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Ice_Warriors_of_Valhalla


Are the guard really painted in? Or is it a prototype greatcoat plastic guard? Col. Gravis himself says the lasgun matches the newer plastic ones over the old mid-nineties ones. He's got an eye for detail!

Whilst we obviously can't reproduce the whole image here, here's a corner of it.

Tinfoil hats on and over to you -



What do you think? It looks like it's on a slotta base to me!

(Should you like to have a look in the codex yourself, here's a cheeky link to it on the Kirton Games webstore: http://kirtongames.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=674)

Backstory:
Valhallans gone http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/valhallan-imperial-guard-sad-news.html
Valhallans rumoured (see comments): http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/all-you-have-to-do-is-make-it-and-we.html

cheers
Tim

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Pistol Previews from Curious Constructs

Another preview for Curious Constructs, this time the first five of the seven different Pistol designs which have been put together by Jake. As with the rifles these have just gone off to the casters for production moulding and should be in the store in the next couple of weeks.


Sunday 9 March 2014

Astra Militarum? It's still the Guard to me! Thoughts, questions and more.

I'm not going to moan about the change in name to our beloved Imperial Guard, I'm sure I speak for many of us who'll continue to call them Guard, and somehow I cant imagine they'll cease to be Imperial Guardsmen! I'm not sure if I like the change or not, but I do understand, I think, the widely suggested reason to enable Games Workshop to better protect their IP, well sort of anyway!

I'm not going to repost the images which have surfaced now, as an independent retailer I'm forbidden from doing so as part of the trade agreement, and you've probably seen them already anyway - if not check out Dakka or one of the multitude of places on facebook they have appeared.

What I'm really interested in is the Militarum Tempestus and the associated kits, and the when.

First up the leaked release date for the Militarum Tempestus stuff is apparently the 5th of April, we know its Chaos this coming weekend (15th March), and we can be reasonably expect more Chaos the following weekend (22nd March). That leaves an unknown in the 29th of March, but with the leaked Astra Militarum codex cover also doing the rounds, is that going to come in there, core codex first, or is it further down the line as with other recent releases? There is speculation on what other kits will be released, namely Ogryns, an Artillery kit (i.e. upgraded Basilisk etc), but there are plenty of other rumors depending on who you believe.

Storm Trooper plastics have been talked about for ages of course, but that seems to be what the Tempestus release contains, certainly the Scions look like Storm Troopers, and the name Militarum Tempestus has been broken down to indicate being a Storm Trooper codex, all well and good. But this does seem to indicate they might be taken out of the core Guard codex, which strikes me as weird - why do I say they may be out? Well because while the Taurox says its for both armies, the Scions are purely for the Militarum Tempestus... Thats a big change, not definately a bad one, but it removes a long standing Guard unit.

The other thing here is when you read the snippet of visible text on the Scions leaked picture 'Tempestus Scions are a brotherhood of cold hearted killers who operate outside...'.

That does'nt sound like Storm Troopers, so what is going on here?

The kit itself for the Scions is a beauty, my Praetorians are going to welcome them, a quick head swap will give me the Life Guard's I've always wanted with little additional work, so I'm happy about the models, if indeed they are Storm Troopers, or what is replacing them.

I've only mentioned the Taurox in passing, I'm still unsure about it, at first glance I hated it. But I'm finding my opinion of this unconventional (by Guard standards) vehicle is softening, I'm growing to perhaps like it - but we'll see!

So come on then, what are your thoughts on the change in name? When do you think we'll get the core codex and who do you believe when it comes to what other kits we'll be getting? What do you think of the whole Militarum Tempestus thing, Storm Troopers, not Storm Troopers? And of course the models! Happy with the direction things are going? Rant, rave, love, hate, I'm interested to hear the thoughts of my fellow Guard players on just what we're seeing here!

Saturday 8 March 2014

Laserlock Rifles, Sniper Rifles and more!

Well if you liked the Firing Line preview, you might appreciate the Laserlock Rifles which Jake Schneider designed also being available seperately, but also alongside a Sniper variant, a Grenade Launcher and an as yet unnamed heavy blaster! These will all be heading off for production molding on Monday, should be in store within a couple of weeks.



Still more to come!


Friday 7 March 2014

Praetorian Firing Line Sculpt for Curious Constructs

One of the things which perhaps is an iconic idea of the Imperial Guard, and of Praetorians (and Mordians) specifically is the idea of perfectly drawn up ranks of Guardsmen, presenting arms and giving volley fire. The original Praetorian range included the two figures you needed to do this, but of course no longer being in production (and only otherwise available at the massive second hand prices), assuming you can find enough of the right models is a little... limiting.

Its such a cool concept though and demands doing - so thats exactly what I'm doing.



I finished the torso some time ago, but only just got the masters back from the caster, I'm now going to get on with doing the legs (standing and kneeling), and some Sergeant components to go with them! I'm aiming to get these finished for release in April through Curious Constructs. Will drop in some more pics as the sculpts progress.

I've got lots of other bits to preview which should be on sale at the end of this month as well, the masters for these all came back, so now its straight back to the casters for production! The wheel is turning slowly after all the delays the artillery kits caused, but now I'm getting back in my stride!

Saturday 1 March 2014

Kirton Games - Unboxing the Imperial Knight

I'm weak, I could'nt resist but to pick up a Knight! I've always loved the concept, and still have some of the old Epic models in my collection, despite having very little else!

I've never done one of these unboxing video's before, so it might be a little bit... poor.... so let me know what you think?