#but then again a chao costs the same amount as mini figures of other characters so they would probably never consider that

[sonknuxadow]

did some minor customization to one of my neutral chao figures so cream could have cheese with her if anyone cares

[flowing-paint]

Dark Imperium

So I finally gave in. I jumped on the Warhammer 40k 8th edition bandwagon. It was faster and easier than I thought though. I still have some mixed feelings about it but overall I’m glad that I did it.

Games Workshop products are known for two things: 1) they probably are the best sculptures around with the finest details 2) they are insanely expensive. Notice I did not say overpriced 'cause you get what you pay for but still, they cost you an arm and a leg. This is the main reason that was holding me back from diving directly in. This and the fluff which I am not really sure I will ever be able to fully embrace. I mean, a fascist Roman empire in the far future? Duh...!

Anyway... how did I end up starting collecting Warhammer 40k do you ask? I was drinking a beer in Kobe Chinatown with my good board gamer friend when he described me a "Dark Imperium" unboxing he saw and how cool those miniatures looked. As a long-time tabletop wargamer, I knew what he was talking about and that’s probably why I was instantly sold. Also, why I should not decide to buy stuff when semi-drunk: the last thing I know is that I went back with a sense of urgency to scan the whole eBay for the cheapest Dark Imperium deal available. I found a pretty solid deal so I asked my friend how was he feeling about that and I got a weird and certainly unexpected answer: I’m going to London next week, I’ll take care of it. And he sure did. He came back to Japan with a big bag full of presents:

Dark Imperium starter box

1 extra rulebook

2 measuring tapes (GW original)

All for half the price you can get for just the starter box in this overpriced country. I have to admit, this was a great Christmas present.

The miniatures

I am pretty sure you all know about the Dark Imperium contents but the other day when I was trying to get a full list of the miniatures in the box I wasn’t able to find one in the first Google search page so I’ll make one. Let’s see what you get in the Dark Imperium box.

Primaris Space Marines

1 Captain

2 Lieutenants

1 Ancient

10 Intercessors

3 Interceptors

5 Hellblasters

Death Guard

1 Lord of Contagion

1 Noxious Blightbringer

1 Malignant Plaguecaster

7 Plague Marins

1 Foetid Bloat-drone

20 Poxwalkers

You get a total of 53 miniatures which is probably a lot even if I feel like the rulebook covers a big portion of the cost. As usual with GW starter sets you also get unique characters and they probably add a lot of value to the box anyway.

All the miniatures you get are provided in the new GW scale which means they are 32 mm. Roughly. Of course, according to GW’s official take on the matter, the new Primaris marines were bred to be bigger and stronger than ever but this doesn’t explain why the dudes in the Death Guard grew accordingly. Maybe the power of Nurgle? Or the power of the new GW board members trying to drive new blood in the game? I don’t care: the new sculpts are exceptionally good. Like good good good... they look easy to paint with abundant but still fairly large details and with some reasonable color scheme suggestion that can make painting them a breeze, even for beginners. In twenty years I’ve seen miniatures from all the possible sources, old GW, Reaper, Fantasy Flight games, Megacon Games, etc. etc. and the level these new minis reached is amazing. I can imagine that painting them will be a lot of fun. Not to mention that this box contains a figure that is probably one of the best GW miniatures ever: the Lord of Contagion.

The factions

As you can see in the previous section, the two factions that come in the box are the Primaris Space Marines and the Death Guard. Splitting between two friends we had to decide which faction to go with but we both agreed it could be better for him to stick to the marines: first, he likes the looks best and second, they’re easier to paint for a beginner. So I got to pick up the Death guard because models are more complex and you may agree with me that they may represent a fair challenge even for an experienced painter.

Wandering around the internet to see the whole army points you get, I found this thread on Reddit where they did some calculations: like all GW starter sets, the good guys are slightly overpowered, with the Space Marines scoring around 100 points of overhead in respect to the Death Guard. I don’t mind losing games so I don’t care that much but I saw the very same thing in the Age of Sigmar starter set where the Stormcast are way more powerful than the Korne dudes. In addition to this issue, the total points seem to be pretty low (don’t even know on which base I am saying this but bear with me) so we both decided to add some extra units to pump up the fun a little bit: you don’t get a super-powerful army from a starter set. As far as I know, my friend bought some Reavers, a Librarian and a bunch of the Space Marine Heroes (Japan limited edition) so he now has something like 4 or 5 HQs to choose from together with some ranks. I will describe my additions in the details below.

The rulebook

The last time I had a full (physical) rulebook from Games Workshop was back in the days of Warhammer Fantasy Battles 4th edition. I also had two army books (one for my Lizardmen and one for my Dark Elves armies). All the books were that kind of softcover with the glue binding on the side. I’m not a librarian so I don’t know the appropriate term to describe them. On the contrary, the new 40k 8th edition rulebook is hardcover and packed full of gorgeous imagery and fluff. It reminds me the special edition of the Mercs 2.0 rulebook. As per new GW policy, they tend not to show you drawings or renderings but more dioramas with full armies on display: case in point, the AoS books with lots of army photography but almost no drawings. I guess this way the result turns out cheaper for them. The WH40k 8th edition book, however, is packed of full-page (kickass) drawings up to the level that it feels very much the same as the old-school GW manuals but with a more high-quality look and feel. In a couple words? Fucking awesome. It’s so good that I went through it a few times and I still have to get a glimpse at the rules. Enough said.

Death Guard reinforcements

As my friend started buying a lot of additional figures I had to do the same. I did it my way, though. As usual, the first addition I did was some crap I found on the eBay (almost) for free. The auction was for 5 old Plague Marines and 5 old Chaos Space Marines (all painted). The price was more than fair as they turned out around 1$ per unit. I wanted them as test models anyway. I also got 10 Tyranid gargoyles for the same price, so good deal overall.

With such an ugly paint job, the idea was to strip them and make a tutorial out of the process, unfortunately, they were painted with some sort of metallic enamel and the paint did not fall off completely even after immersion in pure ethanol. I just primed on top of the old crappy colors and used them as test models. I had the insane idea to use pre-heresy Death Guard colors, a scheme that unfortunately involves a lot of white in the process and you all know how difficult is to paint a smooth white if you are not using an airbrush. So, God knows I needed some testing before hitting the road with the bigger new models. Talking about bigger models: the eBay dudes are 2nd edition figures so take a look what happens if you place them side by side with the new ones! I’m gonna call them my “baby plague marines” ‘cause they’re tiny!

The big boy in the pic is another of the reinforcements I got (together with some Poxwalkers), just a normal “push fit” easy to build plague marine. Despite being of different size, they will probably work well together on the battlefield as my friend is not terribly WYSIWYG but the style is still quite different. I was however surprised to see how the new sculpts are a straight evolution from the old ones: they have very similar features and you effectively feel like you are painting the same faction. Even after twenty years. I guess that showcasing the same colors and being slightly loose on the weapons etc. will do it. You can see the color scheme I chose in the picture below.

You have way more possibilities to get out some kickass effects on new models but the overall look-and-feel should be close to this one. It makes me feel good to see that even in this test stage it looks way better than the green metallic dude so I just cannot wait to paint my first new-era plague marine.

The last piece I bought is, again, another somewhat strange addition: Typhus. One of the named characters in the army. If you head to the GW page or Google for him, you can find many pictures and that’s exactly what I did. The only problem here is that the new sculpt looks super cartoonish and it’s simply not credible as a man-killing soulless machine. I do think the new sculpture is gorgeous, don’t take me wrong, but it doesn’t match the whole Death Guard look: I mean, he has smoke coming out with big mosquitoes and a Nurgling hugging him! Naah... I’ll pass on this sculpt. What do you guys think about him?

I still had to do something to add this dude to my army so I just headed to the Forgeworld page and grabbed the Horus Heresy special edition Character.

Oooh, yeah! Now we’re talking. This is what I call “Death Guard” look! Even for WYSIWYG purposes, he counts exactly as his future-self but with that badass factor that blows my mind. They also cost exactly the same amount of money so this one was a no-brainer: I pulled the trigger in the fraction of a second and the model is now flying over Russia, eastbound. Cannot wait to put my hands on him!

Ok, I wrote enough words on this. It’s time to get some paint flowing and see what I can do with a new model and my pre-heresy color scheme. I can already see a step-by-step tutorial coming in the future on how to paint Death Guard in these colors. You guys let me know what you think and stay tuned for the updates!

... game on!