It's not often we get a really good look at what makes the Necrons tick. To be fair the background and varied levels of sentience of the Necrons has changed quite a lot over the years since they were first introduced. It wasn't until Gathering Storm and the character of Lord Trazyn that we had a really well developed Necron of the modern era. Rather than being the two dimensional ominous robotic overlords, we now get ancient sentient beings whose spirit is now trapped in this metallic form, with all the emotions that would probably bring up of the millions of years you'd been dealing with it. Necron characters were now explorers, warlords, librarians, collectors - a much more varied pool to draw from - which makes the newer vision of the Necrons much more interesting and builds nicely into "Severed" by Nate Crowley.

"Severed" is part of the Novella Series 2 set and benefits from this newer archetype in the form of Nemesor Zahndrekh. Zahndrekh is a warlord with supreme tactical knowledge - a tactical knowledge teamed with a very eccentic personality which lives somewhere between now and his past victories. For the reader these past victors give a great insight into the Necrontyr, but for the other main character in the story, these victories are a form of torture. Have you ever had someone tell you the same story, maybe more than twice? Well imagine being the only other "living" being around that boring storyteller - enter Zahndrekh's long suffering Vargard, Obyron, his bodyguard and equally sentient offsider who has spent millions of years at the side of his very chatty and seemingly oblivious master.

If you're a Necron fan, this will fill in some gaps for you - the relationship of dynastic heads with each other, the relationship between a Stormlord and their vassals, the levels of sentience in the ranks of the Necrons and the feelings of Necrons about each other - such as the complicated view of Destroyers. We also see the Necrons at war, the power of the Nemesors (as not only characters but also as warriors) and how much politics goes on between the master and servant, but also volatile with the dynastic heads vying for power and the favour of the Stormlord. 

The story itself is has a really great for the first half with lots of background and pieces of information for the Necron fan, while the second half then gets down into the minutia of war, with lines of supply and tactics taking centrefield. 

"Severed" is a thoroughly worthy read with great characters and a look into a xenos race that often gets stereotyped as Terminator 2 rip-offs, when they are obviously so much more. Here's hoping this is the start of more adventures with these characters, because their development in "Severed" deserves so much more. Nate Crowley does an amazing job balancing humour, action and a courtly intrigue - so much so that this is a great place to start developing the Necrons further, especially Zahndrekh, who is not only hilarious but shows us a side to the Necrontyr we don't see often.

If not for some pacing issues towards the end it would have been full marks - so four Necrons out of 5

As you may know, from time to time we buy new stuff we have seen so we can review it and pass that info on to you and bases seem to always be a popular one. We all want to add more character to our models, especially special units or characters. Well the other week we came across Unreal Wargaming online and thought we'd do a small order to sample the quality - and we have to say WOW! Not only was the international postage to Australia quite quick, the quality of the product is just amazing - to the point where I'm seriously considering rebasing all my 60+ War Hounds Legion on these bases! So lets dive in...

Logically the best place to do a sample order is the 32mm bases for your troops - we ordered the 32mm Urban Rubble Bases Set 2 (10). The detail on these is amazing - pipes, girders, pieces of metal all mixed in with bricks and rocks to create a very random but also flat-enough surface for minis. The detail is also crisp, but not so crisp that the corners seem fragile, these are solid bases and beautifully executed! As I said above, these may become the bases for my War Hounds now.

We also ordered two larger character bases. Some character bases seem so large and ungainly that they almost overshadow the miniature themselves - hello Forge World, are you listening? These however provide enough surface area and detail, but don't detract from the model in scale.
On the left we have the 40mm Urban Rubble Character Base 1 and on the right 40mm Urban Rubble Character Base 2. Both of these are simple but have nice little touches to them. Unreal Wargaming do have more elaborate bases, but for our purposes, this seemed to fit. 

Unreal Wargaming have a tonne of other bases in various sizes including the new 170mm and 120mm Knight and Flyer bases! They are super cool.
Honestly we are pleasantly surprised and impressed by Unreal Wargaming and their products, so if you're in the market for bases or scenery, look them up ans sample their wares.
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++ This Review Was Not Paid For By A Third Party And Is The Unpaid Opinion of Beardy Hammer ++ 

Today we have a review from Steven, loyal servant of the Omnissiah and mini buying fiend! In a flurry of excitement and too many Imperial Credits, he leapt on the Eisenhorn model from Games Workshop. Here are his thoughts, displayed to you as a plaintiff cry into the Warp.

Black Library hit the big 2-0 this year, and to celebrate, they’ve released some shiny goodies through Games Workshop. They’ve taken one of 40k’s well known characters and have turned him into tabletop form. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, The Emperor himself…no? Ok, is it Ibram Gaunt and his Ghosts? No? Ciaphas Cain? No? Well it can’t be Papa Smurf, he already has two models…
Oh right, it’s Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn.
Eisenhorn is an Inquistor for the Holy Inquistion who starts of his career as an Amalathian (the Emperor is good and the Warp is evil), but slowly changes his views be Xanthism (impure Inquistors who use the Warp as a tool). If you haven’t read the Eisenhorn books by Dan Abnett, we strongly suggest them as a good read, though ++ PLOT SPOILER ++ don’t get too attached to the side characters (RIP Fischig).
Let’s start our review of the redeeming part of the Eisenhorn model... and that’s the box.

With the popularity of Necromunda, Zone Mortalis in the Horus Heresy, Star Saga, and even Space Hulk, the need for some really good terrain that is modular and also not too expensive has been missing for some time. Where Forge World make their own resin tiles, they can be inflexible and are also very expensive if you want to make a large board, so there needs to be another way!
Thankfully, OverDose Terrain Studio have come up with a great MDF alternative which is cheap & quick to build!
We purchased a number of the corridor sets from Scorched Earth Store (who make these under license from the Israeli designers) on Etsy to test them out, and final product has to be the most straight forward build and quality product we've seen for a while.

We bought the Corridor Corner, the Corridor Straight with Door and the Corridor Junction.
They are all flat packed and who sheets of MDF per set. The instructions don't have pictures, and are really car guidelines rather than actual instructions.
From unpacking to the section being finished took about half an hour and was really easy.

The finished section is nicely detailed, with thin panel lines on the walls and hexagonal patterning on the floor. There are also holes in the supports in the corners for 1/8 magnets
The above pictures only have the wall panels dry-fitted in, and as you can see they are snug - a good sign this has been well designed. 

The first thing that impressed me about the finished section was the size of it. As you can see above, the walls are close to 3-men high which if you want to use dreadnoughts or even large Tyranid creatures, would be excellent. In comparison to the Forge World Zone Mortalis tiles, the walls are almost twice the height giving you a real feel of enclosure.  

As you can tell, we're impressed with these sets - really impressed!
Ideally this weekend we'll be able to give them a coat of Rustoleum (to seal the MDF or the paint just soaks into the wood) and then get some paint on them.
From what we have seen of the rest of the range, the ability of the OverDose Terrain Studios product is super flexible allowing you to add rooms behind doors, or corridors, basically whatever you like!
If you like your dungeon crawler games, or are part of the large Zone Mortalis community amongst the 30K crew, then these are well worth your while.
There may be other sellers in your area, but for us Scorched Earth did the trick nicely.

Been a little while since we did a Shapeways review, but this product seemed so cool it needed to be done. Shapeways itself is quite expensive if you're out of the US as postage can be a beast - but when the free postage week was around, then we knew it was time to add to the Great Crusade bitz for out War Hounds Legion with Plokoone's Thunder Raptors Shoulder Pads.
Like most mini bitz from Shapeways, these are made in Frosted Extreme Detail which gives good crisp details without much if any surface texture. We've bought many detailed shoulder on Shapeways, many from Pop Goes The Monkey, and Plokoone's differ in that the detail on the shoulders is not as high making it look a more to scale. PGTM's do vary in height - the Heresy-era Dark Angels and Consecrators ones are perfect but the War Hounds ones are a little too high for scale.
The pictures below should give you a good idea of the detail on the Thunder Raptors Shoulder Pads which is very very crisp - the Raptor Imperialis is TINY and so so perfect. Just have a look at that detail!
At $17.95 for ten, these are pretty cheap - if you don't count the postage - so I'm very pleased with this purchase. The Shapeways 3D printing I personally don't like as much as the resin that Master Crafted use, but these will be perfect in an army from the Great Crusade to the Horus Heresy!

Well this is a bit exciting - we have a guest book review by a devoted slave to the Mechanicum, master of the ambitious kitbash and regular follower of Beardy Hammer, Steven Grimson-Smith. Apart from a potentially unhealthy love for the Omnissiah, Steven also has a rather sizeable Custodes army - so who better to review Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor's Legion than he?!
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One of Black Library’s newest offerings, is Watchers of The Throne: The Emporer’s Legion. Written by Chris Wraight, the same author who brought us Leman Russ: The Great Wolf, The Battle of The Fang and The Carrion Throne, the story starts just before the Fall of Cadia.

Black Library is surprisingly mum about the details of what the novel is actually about though, the blurb on the website just simply states:
“The Custodian Guard have stood watch over the Emperor's Palace on Terra since the foundation of the Imperium. Charged with protecting the Master of Mankind from all threats, within and without, their fearsome resolve is renowned throughout the galaxy, and their golden armour is the last thing that a would-be assassin or saboteur will ever see. Alongside the Null-maidens of the Sisters of Silence, who are anathema to psykers and sorcerers alike, there is no threat to the Golden Throne that they alone cannot vanquish... until now.”

Well then…that just about sums everything we already knew about the famed Talons of the Emperor, I think I’ve read more descriptive paragraphs in the subject lines of emails!
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The story focuses around three main characters. With each chapter, the narrator role rotates between the three characters, offering different perspectives of the same events. Our characters are Alexi Lev Tieron, the Chancellor of the Imperial Court and Tannau Aleya, a null maiden of the Sisters of Silence, and some Custodes Shield-Captain guy named Valerian, who has nothing interesting of note, besides the fact he’s a Custode.
Each character has their own story arc and reasons to fight for the Imperium.
Alexi is fighting to unite the Council of Terra to overturn the laws set down by Roboute Guilliman and allow for the Custodes to be released to turn the tide against the forces of Chaos.
Tannau Aleya is fighting because she hates Chaos. And to avenge her Sisterhood which was destroyed by Chaos. And because she hates the Imperium for forgetting about the Sisters of Silence. And because she hates the Custodes.
And Valerian the Custode guy? Well he’s fighting because he’s a Custode.
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The first half of the book is a little slow, and mostly focuses around Alexi’s efforts to unite the Council of Terra together. It’s interesting to see how politics in the 41st millennium works, but let’s face it, we’re just waiting for the grimdark to come screaming in and wreck the joint.

Halfway through the book, just as we’re about to find out if the Council is united on overturning Guilliman’s laws, a cry goes up, “Cadia has fallen!”. It’s at this point that the galaxy goes to hell in a handbasket…literally. If you’ve read the 40k rulebook, “Fall of Cadia”, then you’ll know it goes. The 13th Black Crusade blows Cadia to pieces, the Eye of Terror grows and splits the Imperium in half, and most importantly, the Astronomican goes dark. For thirty-odd days, the Imperium ceases to exist.

During this month of darkness, the Custodes place a long distance call to Titan and ask the Grey Knights what was going on, and to ask if they have any spare lightbulbs to plug into the Astronomican. The Grey Knights are ever so helpful, and tell them to go to a particular point on Luna. It’s around this time, that you’ll remember the events of Rise of the Primarch. Guilliman arrives with several armies worth of Space Marines, Imperial Guard, a living Saint, a bunch of xenos and are being chased by the Thousand Sons.
You can almost hear the Benny Hill theme song playing in the background.

We jump forward a few days, to the time where Guilliman has locked himself in the Throne room and the High Lords are bickering like small kids, worried that all their power is going to be taken away from them by the last surviving son of the Emperor. The bickering is rudely interrupted by our Custode friend who is taking a walk with some Grey Knights and kicking the butts of one of the many new Chaos cults that have appeared on Terra. It’s here that things get a little Khorne-y and the second Battle of the Lion’s Gate begins.
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The battle plays out like any other standard 40k battle, the defenders are grossly overpowered by the forces of Khorne and struggle to hold back the crimson tide. There’s a fairly epic paragraph of the gates of the Imperial Palace opening and releasing a golden tide of Custodes and crashing into the forces of evil. The battle ends with the Lion’s Gate being destroyed, Guilliman being hailed a hero, and over 2,000 Custodes dead. Yes, you read that right, 2,000 Custodes die in this rather short battle. It’s a bit crazy when you remember that only 3 Custodes died during the Battle of Ullanor, let’s hope there’s enough room on the Emperor’s armour to inscribe the names of these 2,000 Custodes.

Jumping forward a little further, our generic Custodes hero realises that the forces of Chaos are actually working on a secret plan to cut all the major warp routes that the Imperium use to travel to and from Terra. Seven out of the eight routes have already been cut by the time our brave Custode and bad-ass Sister raise an army (of 40) and break all the rules and skip school for the day to go play hero and defend a planet by themselves.
They arrive in time to stop a Black Legion ship from launching one of the left over pillars from Cadia into the planet cutting the last stable route from Terra. The 40 Custodes and Sisters sells their lives dearly and manage to hold out long enough for the rest of the forces of Terra to play catch up.
The book closes with the Imperium declaring the saved planet as the new gateway (Cadia Mark II anyone?) and the launch of the Indomitus Crusade.
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So our final thoughts on the book.
We were told that this book would offer our first insight into how the Custodes and Sisters of Silence will work in the 42nd Millennia. They function the same as they did in the 31st Millennia, albeit with more fury.
If you’re a fan of the Talons of the Emperor, we’d definitely recommend this book to you and give it a solid
8.5/10 stars.

The Citadel Paint App was originally greeted with ​some skepticism as a potential platform for their painting videos hosted by Duncan Personality Vacuum. Originally these videos were great, lots of tips and new stuff to learn especially from someone with so much skill, but in recent times these videos have become pretty repetitive - I mean how many times do we need to be taught how to paint blue!?
Anyway, the Citadel Paint App is now out, and we had a good look this morning... and are pleasantly surprised at what a potentially excellent resource this could be if curated well.
So lets take a bit of a tour of what you get on day of release..

Verdict
Overall we are surprised how good this app is. To be fair most Games Workshop apps are pretty poor and not attractive at all, but this one really hist it out of the park! Simply being able to pick a colour, then narrow that down to what shade of that colour you want, and then telling you what you need is amazing!
This isn't the only way to use the paints by the way, you can invent your own ways to achieve colours, but it's certainly a good start and a very good guide.
The ability to also break down a painted model and show you the colours by example is also very good. Tzaangor flesh? Here it is! Bronze on a Kharadron ship? Here that is too!
For us, the Paint by Colour and Paint By Miniature are the best parts of the app. For beginners, the Get Started is great, or even if you want a refresher.
As a hobbyists who stands in front of the paint rack trying to work out what I already have, the Wishlist and Inventory is also really good! What's really interesting is that the wishlist is not attached to the Games Workshop webstore at all - it is purely a list. In fact going through this app, there is no point where it sends you to the webstore, which is pretty amazing as pretty much all the previous GW apps are for exactly that.
This actually seems to be a service for hobbyists.
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Kudos to Games Workshop for coming up with this app. It's going to be very handy!

It seems like just the other week we were talking about White Dwarf - and in fact it was - that was the delayed June issue of White Dwarf, and this time we are looking at the July issue!
The July issue sports the same image that has been floating around for a number of the new 8th Edition releases - the valiant Ultramarine Captain (love the personal heraldry on the pauldron BTW) going toe to toe with some Plague Marines.
The image itself is probably a bit misleading, because even though last issue was packed to the brim with Warhammer 40K stuff, this issue does have some more general content for the hobbyist also - but don't be too fooled, 40K is the undoubted cash cow right now!
Sadly there is no Blood Bowl supplement this month, nor are there too many exclusive rules. The format that the White Dwarf Monthly launched with of having the exclusive rules all together has gone now, and if you're looking for them then it's a scouting job to find them.
++ More From The Inside After The Jump ++

This issue marks the 40th anniversary of the White Dwarf magazine - the monthly (and sometimes weekly) hobby magazine from Games Workshop.
It also marks the first issue of this incarnation of White Dwarf that we're not recommending you buy!
I know that's kind of a big statement for the opening of a review, so let me give you a bit of context.
As we may have told you, White Dwarf in the Beardy Hammer dungeon first appeared in 1989 with issue 120.
Since that time subscriptions have come and gone and then many years without any bought at all. I give you that piece of history so you know that we are actually quite invested in White Dwarf - and still this issue is a bore!
If Games Workshop really wanted to celebrate the 40th anniversary, then maybe an Apocrypha White Dwarf where they could have actually paid homage to the publication with a real insight from the creators and maybe some samples of the amazing articles that have influenced us for so many years, not a collection of tiny pictures and self congratulation. I know we would have bought an Apocrypha White Dwarf as it's a bit of nostalgia - like all the Apocrypha - but White Dwarf magazine is a hobby magazine for the hobbyist and gamer not the forum for whatever this was. Sure there is a Battle Report,. some cool minis, an interview with John Blanche, some new rules and a neat Illuminations - but there is absolutely nothing new in the way of miniature releases, a rehash of the Kharadrons, and a look at an old diorama at Warhammer World. 
Overall pretty disappointing for something we've been waiting a month for!
This whole issue reminds me of the White Dwarf of old when it went bad and FFS - print something of substance in the letters section not this navel gazing!
++ Now, that being said - there's images and more to be said after the jump ++

You may have seen our various adventures through the world of terrain, which can be expensive and time consuming - but what if we told you a trick you could buy pretty easily and was cheap for what you get?!
Look no further, Fellow Traveler, for today Beardy Hammer has a pretty cool little product we think you'll like - if the kids don't get to it first!
So scatter terrain; boxes, barrels etc is all over the place, but we were looking around on line the other week and found this... (left)
Not a bad looking barrel, right? well the keen-eyed observer might recognise it as... LEGO!

Well to be fair it's not real Lego, it's from a Chinese company called Si-Dan Toys and many of the aftermarket Lego dealers sell them as well as custom modern weapons to pimp out your mini-figures.
Now I hear you say "Lego is expensive" and yes it is, but one of these barrels will set you back between $1 and $1.40 - not bad - but it doesn't start life looking like this, you get to customise it! Woo, go hobby!

SO this is how they come (above) with the typical Lego-compatible hole in the bottom. There are two main varieties - one with liquid and one without liquid. The liquid is removable but actually looks really cool.
As you can see, this does look a bit plastic at first, so I just took some sandpaper and sanded the thick mould line around the centre off, then gave it a wash and applied the undercoat.
Paint to your desire, we went with the military green and a blue top as many of these sorts of barrels have blue tops in Australia, so why the frakk not?!
Too much work? Well you will be happy to know that it can also come with a design if you so wish (above).
Glosscote it, dullcoate it, weather and I guess you could count that as done! Might try that actually...

So here it is, pretty much to scale. You wouldn't spot it as being Lego-compatible necessarily and for the price you could pick up a fair few for not much at all.
Also, if you really wanted, you could take the lid off, stack them and make some columns... just a thought.

Look - I know it's a bit of a cardinal sin to say such a thing, but this Guilliman miniature is just FUGLY! We've waited for Primarch (arguably Guilliman is logical considering how popular Ultramarines are and the great story-arc that will occur when he crowns himself Emperor) for how many years now - and they trot out this?! The miniature itself is over-adorned, yes, it could be a little large, yes, but that head. That beaten up out of proportion, no neck head is just not good enough. I mean you see the beautiful Dark Eldar heads and the others that GW have produced in the last few years - this looks like it's been moulded by a ten year old out of clay with paddle pop sticks!
Now I know that's a strong way to start a White Dwarf review... but honestly it's such a crying shame!
Right, so back to the text... White Dwarf March 2017 is out and about. We got our hands on advance copy, so here's a look under it's skirt, so to speak.
++ MORE AFTER THE JUMP ++

As you may have read previously, we have been experimenting with MDF terrain. Last week it was the Miniature Scenery Power Generator which came up well & this week it's the Miniature Scenery Auto Shop.
In Australia we call an "Auto Shop" a "Garage", thus the large word "Garage" over the roller door of this surprisingly large structure - and it is sizeable!
When we first saw the picture of this we hadn't quite thought of the dimensions, but this structure fits two full 10 man squads comfortably - even the size of the stairs and walkways easily fits the larger 40mm bases used by models such at Terminators or Thallax..
Another nice addition was the detail on every surface; tiles on the floor and then a riveted metal plate look to the roof of the garage itself.

As you may know, this is done by the gentle application of a 2B lead pencil to the raised edges. Here you can see I used it extensively on the stairs and also around the lip of the doorway. On the metal roof It's also used around the edges of the plates on on the surfaces. The 2B is used so that it's only really noticeable when the light is on it at a certain angle. Some modelers use 4B so that it's much more subtle also.
The power unit on the side of the building was done as if totally rusted. Not entirely sold on this, but it's okay. The surface was abit plain so I added these storage boxes we found on eBay. They're resin and really nice, but the grey one has lots of little bubbles in the lid, so don't look too closely!
The only thing I'm not sure about this is the roller door. It's well done and can be built so it's partially or full up, the paint job just doesn't do it justice. 

Originally I must be honest and wasn't sure about the $35 price tag - BUT once I started building it and then realised the amount of detail and the sheer size of it, the Miniature Scenery Auto Shop is well worth the money. As a centrepiece for terrain, an objective or a defend-able location, the Miniature Scenery Auto Shop is really great and ultimately flexible. Many stars out of five!

Age of $igmar got a bit of a bad wrap at launch because of it's ridiculous prices, but 2017 has seen a rethink of the pricing with the Tzeentch releases being generally very well priced and this week seeing the new jumbo-sized Stormcast Eternal sets hitting the shelves. They're much better value, 100% more troops for sometimes only 20% more or less - and boy are the staff in store pushing hard on Stormcast!
This week also saw the release of a box so small you could blink and miss it - it's the loyal companions of the Stormcast Eternals - the Gryph-Hounds, who can be fielded as a companion beast or in it's own 'pack'.
Pricing on these are competitive; 6 miniatures for $40 AUD, which again falls into this new price point.
Apart from the small box, the next thing you'll notice are the awesome colour schemes on the box - it's as painter's dream with both dramatic and more traditional schemes.

Before we get to the minis, the instructions are in the new format of the Age of $igmar releases, with the stats in multiple languages and greyscale and colour how-to instructions.
Interesting to see that if you take a Gryph-Hound as a "companion" it doubles it's attacks to 4 attacks if it's within 3" of it's assigned character model. 

There are 3 unique miniatures in the set, but two sprues of each to get your 6 miniatures.
The moulding is very nice - crisp and deep - exactly what you would expect from Games Workshop (unless it's the crappy scenic bases).Included in the set are heads to make 6 standard Gryph-Hounds and also 2 heads if you want to make Alphas, the big dogs of the Gryph-Hound packs.  

You may have noticed in recent years, Games Workshop have generally done quite well hiding join lines on their completed models - from straps to hiding them in muscles joins - they've done a really good job. This was going to be harder for these guys. They have a kine straight down their back but they have tried to hide them in the feathers around their necks, so that shouldn't be too much a a trial to clean up.
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Overall these are nice little models, just a bit smaller than a GW standard horse (not those big Chaos ones - they're huge!). At this price and being so interesting to look at, this is a great buy.

We've recently (and not so recently) been exploring the world of MDF terrain. There's a tonne of it out there, and some of the most interesting and certainly most detailed comes from an Australian manufacturer, Miniature Scenery.
They have a number of different genres including fantasy, sci-fi, Eldar-esque, vehicles, ​and some great cityscape terrain called Battle Grounds.
Today we're going to show the product we bought to test out their kits, the Power Generator!

The first thing to say about these kits is that they are detailed and a little fiddly, but if you follow the instructions they turn out a treat. This entire kit comes on one packed MDF sheet which is also engraved with surface detail. I sprayed both sides of the sheet black before assembly to avoid intricate painting after assembly - it's like an onion of detail - have a look at the underside of the finished kit (below left).
The Power Generator is built in two symmetrical halves which you then obviously glue together - you can see the back side of one of the halves (below right) with it's multiple angles and locking pins.

Once it's together there is a slight join down the middle of the two halves (below left) which you could fill and sand if you saw fit, or leave as a feature. There are surface details like scoring as well as a vent on one side and an aerial on the other. It has a feeling of Tau about it really, but would suit any battlefield I'm sure.
Previous experience with MDF shows that the sharp lines around the edges make it look a bit fake, so once dry I sanded the edges of the entire kit to round them off a bit - you can see where the black spray has worn off leaving the MDF exposed (below centre). I quite like the effect and regret having to paint it!
There are arcs of energy in the middle of the Power Generator (below right) so I left the front plat off to make it easier to paint later on.

All up this took about 2 hours to make, leave to dry and sand which is pretty good for a very detailed kit.
Frankly I really like this. It was a bit of work at first, but once you hit your stride, you're away.
I'd really like to build more of their kits and have ordered some Battle Ground road plates and a few buildings from their Sci-Fi range to test them out.

The last shot on their instruction sheet (which unfortunately are all online only) shows this row of Power Generators together which is an awesome look for a Battle of Hoth-style Star Wars battle, but would be a bit of work - ultimately rewarding as this was a joy to make and have in the growing scenery collection.

I got some paint on it!! Yes the weekend gave me the opportunity to get some hobby done, and this was it.
In a way I really liked the very charred and worn black undercoat, but this scheme will fit better with the rest of the scenery I'm planning. You may also notice I cut out the lightning bolts from the generator. I wanted this to look dormant, so the lightning didn't really fit. Here's a War Hound for scale!
​Probably a bit more work to do, but overall it's come up well as an experiment.

White Dwarf - back in our hands early, like Slaanesh designed it. Praise be!
This month sees the start of Gathering Storm II, which sees the Biel-Tan Eldar Craftworld take the place of Cadia on the chopping block of the Gridmark! As this is a review of the White Dwarf, not a spoiler-fest, suffice to say that some things are revealed, and others are left. To out mind the balance between backstory of the characters is good, not overloading and making you want more. Tell you what though, the Eldar have so much angst it could be a teen anime. The Dark Eldar have always been a bit emo, but the Eldar themselves are all drama drama drama, and the level of infighting is really interesting and logical considering the way their civilization was torn asunder.
Apart from Gathering Storm, there's also new terrain for Eldar themed boards, more on the Tzeentch minis, A Tale of Four Warlords draws to a close with four great looking armies, plus multiple painting a modelling tutorials and more.
++ More After The Jump ++

The Tzeentch releases from games Workshop have been hitting thick and fast, and it's not just the Tzaangors that are bolstering the forces of the Chaos God, there are human acolytes for The Changer Of Ways too - the Kairic Acolytes.
We first saw these guys, like the Tzaangor, in the Silver Tower boxed game. At the time more cannon fodder for the heroes to slaughter as they made their way through the game, Games Workshop have now released a box of 20 plastic multi-part (not to be confused with multi-pose) minis.
++ More After The Jump ++

If you're reading this now, then this review was actually written on the 26th of January, not the 7th of January when the issue was released. Games Workshop are still stuffing up the subscription, so I'm getting these quite late. here's hoping they'll have it sorted by February. On with the review...
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When this first hit the shelves, Cadia was a well fleshed out rumour, but none of us really knew what was going to happen.
**SPOILER ALERT**
Cadia dies! Yes the War World is no more... so this issue was the beginning of all that. Released the week before Gathering Storm: Fall of Cadia here we get to see the  Triumvirate for the first time. It's also the preview of some of the Tzeentch releases, Gangs of Commorragh, the iron Hill Dwarves from The Hobbit plus more on Blood Bowl, which since it's release has gone a bit quiet, as is the Games Workshop way! Want to see more?
++ More After The Jump ++

As the cover suggests, this issue launches the new Blood Bowl game with a thumping rush pass!
(I made a sporting reference - please write down this time and date for later generations).