Saturday, 7 November 2015

Positive Things: The Utter Shamelessness of Mantic Games

This is not a Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer-Prophet. It is not mounted on a Lammasu. It is, in fact, an Abyssal Dwarf Iron-Caster on a Great Winged Halfbreed.

Yeah, it's a Chaos Dwarf on a Lammasu. The model comes from Mantic Games and will be released on the 25th of this month, just slightly too late for me to ask for it for my birthday. I discovered this range on a recent trip up to London and a charming gaming store called Dark Sphere in Lambeth.
On the one hand the models, the plastics in particular, are not up to Games Workshop's standards. On the plus side, there are plastics in this range, the character models look amazing and they aren't at ridiculous Forge World prices. I have wanted a Chaos Dwarf army for years, ever since the Hellcannon was released and I found out there was such a thing.
I love how they work as a concept: how the positive aspects of the Dwarf race have been twisted into something sinister and malicious. I like the practically heretical notion of Dwarfs and Greenskins fighting side by side. I like the bizarre war machines. I like the sheer bizarre touch of half-Dwarf half horse centaurs and I really don't want to think about how that happened.

Chaos Dwarfs are a wonderful idea that GW never really supported. The original incarnation of the army had terrible models and a flimsy White Dwarf Presents army book. The Forge World version is prohibitively expensive and prone to all the flaws of Forge World resin. I'm glad that someone saw enough mileage in the concept to create a proper plastic range, albeit one with some serious flaws.

Recently I've been working on Empire, Lizardmen and various Elves, it has been too long since I've had a project based on good, old-fashioned villainy. I do so like being the bad guy. 

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