Sunday, May 31, 2015

Execution Force: Eversor assassin conversion

The future belongs to the mad.

Somewhere between the Skitarii, Eldar, Imperial Knights, and Cult Mechanicus, Games Workshop released the stand alone game Execution Force to showcase new plastic versions of Jes Goodwin’s classic Imperial Assassin sculpts from the mid 90s. Although the metal models have held up really well over the years, I was still excited to hear that plastic versions were being released, as it would allow the designs to be updated a bit and put them in the more conversion-oriented plastic.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Skitarii: Progress Report

Servants of the Machine God assemble.

Games Workshop continues its relentless release schedule, having just finished the Eldar and the Imperial Knights, it is about to complete releasing a set of kits for the new Cult Mechanicus, just a few months after the Mechanicum entered the scene through the Skitarii. Despite our excitement for these new Mechanicum models, we work pretty slowly at Between the Bolter and Me, and are still hard at work finishing our Skitarii. So before the internet floods with new Cult Mechanium models and conversions (and we break down and buy some too), we decided it was a good time to show everyone the progress that we have made with the Skitarii, namely how the Rangers and Infiltrators are coming together, in addition to the Inquisitorial operative, Beltran Destrieux.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Roboute Guilliman: the Avenging Son Impressions

‘A capacity for the theoretical is admirable, but a stomach for the practical is priceless.’

As the dust settles from the grand reopening of Warhammer World last weekend, there is a lot to be excited about. The excitement primarily stems from the models that Forge World unveiled, including the long awaited, and utterly cyclopean, Warlord Titan!  But this post is focusing on another God of War that was revealed to the world this weekend. Although only a fraction of the size of the Warlord, this next model is no less mighty, perfectly defining the Emperor’s noble ambitions at the onset of the Great Crusade. I am speaking of course of the next primarch from Forge World, Roboute Guilliman the Avenging Son of the XIII Legion (thanks Recalcitrant Daze for the excellent pictures from the event!).

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Warhammer Visions Review: A magazine for hobbyists

The new Warhammer Visions!
It has been years since I have had a subscription to Games Workshop’s monthly hobby magazine, White Dwarf. I have many fond memories of coming home from school and excitedly finding the next issue of White Dwarf waiting to be explored. I feel that the magazine played a critical role in driving my enthusiasm for the hobby during my early years, at times where I did not have the money to build armies, and times without the wellspring that is the internet.  The magazine offered countless pictures of painted models, including people's’ conversions (they even had pages at the back of each issue showing the parts of each new release to encourage conversions). Slowly however, White Dwarf shifted further and further away from the modeling and background centric focus, replacing the cool conversions and background stories with more advertisements. And eventually I stopped the subscription entirely. As many of you know, this scheme of releasing a monthly issue of White Dwarf was heavily modified over a year ago. Instead of releasing a single magazine, they shifted to releasing two magazines, a small weekly White Dwarf issue, and a larger monthly issue called Visions. While the smaller White Dwarf has been somewhat successful, having a good mix of both gaming and hobby content (including the rules for new releases), the larger picture-centered Visions has not received much attention or praise (I only purchased an issue or two). This month (May 2015) marks the release of a newly formatted Visions, with an increase in the size of the printed pages, back to the size of a standard magazine. I decided now would be a good time to give the magazine another chance and give my thoughts about it. Also, the cover of the magazine showed a battleline of Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii, promising lots of high quality and detailed pictures of the new model range released by Games Workshop.