Good morning/afternoon/eveening everyone!
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It's not often that I get to play with the latest releases as soon as they become available, but I was commissioned to paint the new Slaves To Darkness army box while they were still on pre-order. As these are brand new models, and will eventually all be released in individual boxes, I thought it would be a good idea to share my thoughts on the new models in the set.
CHOSEN
The core of the new set is a unit of 10 Chosen which, to the uninitiated, are Chaos Warriors plus. The unit of 10 consists of two identical sprues of 5. These sprues include alternate build to give a unit leader, musician and standard bearer (which can be a flag or an icon and includes options for the four chaos powers and chaos undivided.) As far as actually putting them together, it's actually quite a straightforward process, with little to caue any problems. There's a couple of minor issues with the assembly- the lack of locator pins in the shoulders makes attaching the big pauldrons a little finicky and the instuctions don't make it clear that all the pairs of arms are interchangeable. If you follow the instructions to the letter, it gives the impression that ony one pair would fit with each body, but it's not the case. That opens up more options than first meets the eye. The locater pins in the necks are annoying too, meaning that you can only have the heads looking in one of two directions, unless you trim the pegs off. The torsos are assembled in two parts with each leg separate but these leg/torso combinations can only be assembled one way, which limits the options. A couple more torso options would've been nice. One final issue is that the leader model has a tactical rock and, as the sprues are doubled up, it means that you're always going to have a second model standing on a tactical rock (albeit a small one). It's a shame there isn't an alternative leg option for the non-hero. Still, all these are minor criticisms and there are enough options to keep the unit looking fairly individual and any criticisms fall away once you've got the models assembled and ready to paint. When you have them assembled, the first thing you realise is how big they are. These models are easily a match for the biggest Stormcast Eternals and, with their two-handed heavy weapons, they make for seriously imposing models.
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OGROID THERIDONS
The Ogroid Theridons are basically age of Sigmar Mintaurs and what magnificent beasts they are. Truly monstrous creature, these are probably the best minotaur-type creature GW have ever produced. In the set you get three, which can be built as standard troopers or as a leader, musician and standard bearer. There's also weapons variants but, frankly, why would you ever build minotaurs with anything other than axes...? The models are filled with details: trophies, cloth and armour details, but not overloaded, leaving loads of space for the painter to play with. Criticisms? Well, there's couple of clunky joins, especially where the arms join at the shoulders, that need a litttle playing with, but these are mostly covered up with the shoulder armour so you could get away without having to do anything with them. Other than that (and the usual criticisms of GW's instructions being a little vague in places) I really can't find much to complain about.
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DAEMON PRINCE
The centerpiece of this set is the all-new Daemon Prince, and what an absolute monster he is! This model comes on one and a half sprues and gives options for weapons, wings, different heads and iconography for the four powers and Chaos undivided, and parts to make a 40k variant. So far, so good, and I only have a couple of minor criticisms to throw into the mix, and none of them are to do with the sculpt itself. There's the usual couple of points where it would have been useful to have locator pegs and a couple of places whre an alternate view in the instuctions would have halped make the build easier but, mostly, it went together without a hitch. My main criticism is of the sprues themselves. As I said, the model comes on one big sprue and one half sprue and, once built, you are left with a lot of leftover bits. I'm not complaining about having more options available, that's a really good thing but I think they've missed a trick by not having the 40k bits on a separate sprue. If you look at my pictures below, of the bits left on the sprues after assembly, you an see that, had they kept the wings and trophy rack to one sprue, and left off the 40k elements, they could have added more options for the AoS version of the kit on the wings sprue, and then had loads of extra options on the 40k sprue. Then when they eventually release the model individually, they could still have it as a one and a half sprue box, but have separate versions for 40k and AoS. Still, these criticisms don't affect the look of the final miniature once it's assembled. It's a stunning kit, loaded (but not overloaded) with detail and I suspect it's going to be a popular choice with Golden Demon entrants. One last little thing: I really like the way that you don't need to sub-assemble this monster for painting. There's no bits that you won't be able to get to woth a brush once it's assemble, meaning there's no need to have any headless, wingless Daemon Princes running around on tabletops if you want to play before you get the chance to paint.
So, there you have it, my thoughts on these three new kits. The Citadel designers have knocked these way out of the park and chaos generals are not going to be disappointed with them. There's loads of scope for the painter to play with them and I can see there being some incredible paint jobs on these in the future. Can't wait to get them painted myself, and I'll be sharing some stage-by-stage tutorials of them once I've got them done.
Thanks for reading!
Stu
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