Hellbrutes (part 2)

Nurgle Hellbrutes (2 of 3)

I got some more super-detailing done on Ol' Smokey here, and, as promised; a pic of his pack-mate.

I have a 3rd Hellbrute, another DV push-fit model, but what I really want is an old ForgeWorld Nurgle Dreadnought. We'll see what happens.

Better pictures/ close-ups to follow soon.

Hellbrute WIP

Nurgle Hellbrute 

I grabbed this push-fit Dark Vengeance Hellbrute on the cheap from ebay, just so I could mess him up. I did a foot and an arm swap but mostly I was challenging myself by trying to make the back of this model look good; but in the end, I wasn't really that inspired to do much else with him, and he sat on a shelf for a good long while. Then the Hellbrute Dataslate came out.... and work began anew.

Man, oh man!  Deep-striking Hellbrutes into the heart of the enemy? That thought just put a big ol' smile on my face. I knew I needed a Hellbrute Mayhem Pack in my army: that meant I needed to get this guy Nurgle'd up + done, and he'd also need 2 friends.

So I bought the new Hellbrute box. Not a bad kit, ('certainly it looked better from behind than the DV version) but not very inspiring. I got distracted by something else, lost interest and so Ol' Smokey here and the Mayhem Pack project were shelved.

Recently, however, I've been bitten by the hobby bug again, and I cleared my workbench of all other diversions to focus on getting the 'Pack completed. I really love daemon engines, but this kit just didn't seem Nurgley enough for me, and it really didn't scream "tortured soul trapped inside a daemon engine against their will" either: something had to be done. I tried playing with adding a plague bearer face over the horned "mouth" opening on the model, and I liked the personality it instantly gave the kit, but the scale was all wrong. Then it hit me; Plague Toads! I got out the green stuff I started globbing it on, and I have to say, for the first time in a long time, I am really, really excited about this hobby again!

I'm committing to getting at least 2 of the 3 'Brutes done by the end of August. I'll post more pictures as this progresses.

How White Dwarf talked me out of the Box Set

Everybody is excited, and rushing to pre-order the new Dark Vengeance box. Seduced by the promise of shiny new push-fit plastics. Not me; White Dwarf talked me out of it.

WD392 Gives us an in-depth look at the new box; to be honest, the whole magazine is just an ad for the new box. There's a lot being said on-line about how White Dwarf went from being a great hobby magazine to now: just a catalog.... and that is true (and exemplified with this issue). I bought this one anyway, and it's probably going to save me about a hundred bucks.

Lets look at what you get in the Dark Vengeance box:






CHAOS

I'm a big Nurgle fan, so obviously the Chaos models are the ones I'm most interested in. We get a Squad of Chosen, a HellBrute, and some Chaos Cultists. These are all new.




Chosen: We have never had an actual plastic Chosen kit before, and these new sculpts look fantastic! Hands down, they are the highlight of the box. Very little would need to be done to make these look Nurgley; you could probably get convincing results with just a good paint job and no converting at all (a rare thing for followers of Grandpa Nurgle). Of all the things that come with the Dark Vengeance set, this squad is what tempts me the most. I'll still probably end up getting these guys off a bits site after the fact.


 HellBrute: This is what they've given us to replace the hideous metal chaos dreadnought. Not bad, not bad at all. 'Tragic that it took this long to come out with something, but what I see here in the magazine looks good. It's push-fit, so it'll take some extra work sawing and reconstructing to do any re-posing of this guy... which means most armies, despite the chaos power they are loyal to, are all going to have very similar looking HellBrutes. That's fine, if that were the only strike against it, that would be a non-issue... it's still tones better than that old ugly metal dread. However, new information has come to light, we now have pictures of him from the back.... and the news is not good:

I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about it, but this model just looks unfinished.

Chaos Cultists: I'm really glad these guys are in the game. I'm glad they look like a Necromundia Hive Gang. There's 10 different sculpts, and you get doubles of most of them. Of those sculpts, I like about 3 of them. I can hear the old timers getting wound-up about how spoiled we are these days, and how back in the old days you'd be thrilled to have half that many sculpts and blah blah blah. They're not bad, but not great; we've seen better. The Forge World Chaos Renegades are amazing.

 







DARK ANGELS

...are boring. The Space Hulk Blood Angel terminators were far more dynamic than their DA brothers. I know this actualy suits the austere DA fluff, but they seem dull and uninteresting to me. I've even bought the DA veterans kit to convert into plague marines in the past, but these days there's nothing in this part of the box that I'm after.


Predictions

Chosen: There will be a new Chaos Chosen box from GW, in FineCast.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with the Dark Vengance Chosen, it would just suck if that was the only way you could get some. I'm pretty sure that a new FineCast box will show up in the catalog once the 6th edition Chaos Space Marine codex drops.

 HellBrute: We will get Plastic PlagueBrutes.

There are 5 or 6 plastic variations of the Space Marine Dread, not counting the Black Reach push-fit version, if that is anything to go by... I'll wait for a real HellBrute kit to come out (Preferably a Nurgle specific one).

Chaos Cultists: There will be a new plastic box of Chaos Cultists.

GW can do better. I hope we get to see it. Few things can express the Grim Dark Gothic fluff of 40K like chaos cultists do. I'm sure there are a lot of Imperial Guard players who'd love some more "normal sized", non-space marine models to convert too.

So to sum up, here's why I won't be getting the box: Before I got the magazine, I was ready to put my money down for a pre-order. Thanks to White Dwarf though, I've gotten up close and personal with the models, and there isn't a large enough percentage of them that I really want, for me to justify the purchase. All I need are the Chosen, and the Chosen each have to be veteran individuals. So even if I traded the Dark Angel Models away for more chaos stuff, I'd just end up with models I don't want doubles of.

I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a fluff junkie, and I am going to buy the big book, so the small rulebook argument is out too.

I guess I can just take it easy and keep working away on my Plague Bearers for now.

Leaked Brute pics

The written description of this thing didn't get me very excited. I've never really gone in for the Chaos dreads in the past; the GW metal one was such a gross sculpt, and FW models were too rich for my blood. But this gentleman here... this plastic beauty has me itching to convert him for papa Nurgle (and to buy the starter box).

Hell Brute