A Review - Agrax Earthshade

I got some Agrax Earthshade the other day from my new favourite Games Store, Triple Helix (fast shipping, great discount and good communication!) to try out in comparison to Devlan Mud (a firm favourite).

Got to say it works well! Not quite the same shade but will function perfectly as a replacement for most jobs.

Nice!

4Ground 28mm Detached House Assembly

This is not my first 4Ground building that I have bought and built and nor will it be the last.  The models are well made, well thought out and cohesive.  The ever increasing range covers a good number of periods and looks to continue to expand.  Even the price is ok; whilst they are not exactly cheap they are not in the same price strata as a lot of resin suppliers.

 
So everything is great. Ah well no, sadly not.  The instructions need some work.  Firstly there are some errors with the part labelling in the pictures, then the written dialogue trends towards scant.  The pictures are colour but they are far too small and sometimes the image appears to have been flipped.  This does prove confusing but with some looking ahead in the instructions and some dry fitting it’s manageable

 
On Sunday I built the 28mm Normandy detached house and an effort to ease the frustrations of others I have taken bigger pictures and added some additional description.  To help anyone who is in building the same model. Whilst the result is excellent I feel that I should have been able to do it in about 30% less time than I did.
 

I give it 8 out 10 sash windows

For those you that are thinking of building the Semi Detached house. below are some close up shots of areas that I found confusing

4Ground 15mm Terrace House Review

With all our games the look of the table is one of the important components of a satisfying game.  We have been dabbling with various manufacturers of 15mm terrain and will no doubt continue to do so but with our latest purchase we have found something rather special in the 4Ground product.

We all range in abilities and interest when it comes to scenery, I for one quite enjoy building and painting scenery but just can't fit it into my schedule, but we are all feeling the pinch especially with our time so we have tried a couple of prepainted buildings.

For £20 the three house terrace comes flat packed. You need to remove each component from the frame; this is easy to do by hand and whilst there is a small amount of cleaning up to do it is easily achieved with a sharp knife or a piece of sandpaper.  Assembly is simple and, as long as you read the instructions and look at the picture, easy to follow each stage.  The only section I found tricky was the two dormer windows in the roof which I used a dab of hot glue to fix, for the rest of the model I used PVA or white glue.  I recommend leaving some time between stages to allow the glue to dry.  Overall it took a hour to complete not including drying time.

Below are a few pictures of the completed project, the doors are supplied brown but I chose to paint and gloss these myself.  The posters on the building are supplied as part of the instructions and I fixed them to the building with some thinned PVA.  My only comment is that I would have liked some prepainted floors for the interior but this is really nitpicking.

Score: 10 out of 10 maison d'hôtes

Binx's Book Review Part 3

 

Welcome to another review, this time its 'The Primarchs' the 20th Horus Heresy book brought to you by the peeps over at Black Library.

This book consists of 4 stories, each focusing on a different Primarch, namely Fulgrim, Ferrus Manus, Lion El'Jonson and Alpharious/Omegon.

I'll cut to the chase on this review, I didn't enjoy this book. None of the stories really did anything for me, I could have given up reading it half way through the final story with the Alpha Legion but persevered to the end to give it a chance.

*WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW*

Fulgrim's story 'The Reflection Crack'd' by Graham McNeil is just, well, really odd, and doesn't really go anywhere, and I'm sure the torturing with a bit of South Park inspired anal probing wont do anything for most...

Nick Kyme's 'Feat of Iron' is next, and well it wasn't going to take much to improve from the first story, but he makes a good effort to make it worse! The Eldar make an appearance in this one and they steal the show, Nick gives some great descriptions in the combats featuring Howling Banshees. Again, once this story ends you do wonder why you bothered, but it is quite interesting seeing how the Eldar are trying to influence the Horus Heresy.

Thirdly we have Gav Thorpe with the imaginatively titled 'The Lion', and you know it must have been a good book when you cant remember what happened...

Finally we have Rob Sander's 'The Serpent Beneath' This is the best of the four tales, and has a nice twist at the end. I think the previous three stories had drained me by this point, so it took me longer than it should to get through this one. If you're going to have a look at this collection then start with this one, if you don't like it, then don't read the rest.

So the scores on the board...I'll give this 5 Primarchs out of 18. I've loved most of the Horus Heresy books but this one by far was the worst, yes even worse than Descent of Angels.

Finecast, a second look

You remember a little while back, Elliot give a very short and to the point review of Finecast...

Well now its my turn, I just purchased ten Dark Eldar Wracks, and Urien Rakarth, to get me one stage closer to 'finishing' my Dark Eldar at 1750 points. I was a little hesitant about buying them over the interwebs from an independent retailer , as I've heard many horror stories about having to return them and the hassle that goes along with it.

Anyway, my order turned up Friday, and I set about checking for casting errors. The Wracks appear to be faultless, yes there is the odd air bubble, but they wont take two seconds to get rid of with a brush of Liquid Green Stuff, so a big thumbs up for them, 10 models and no defects.

Urien on the other hand, well he had no chin! I didn't take a picture of this, I admit it, I forgot. Anyway I called up my local GW and advised of this problem, and they agreed I could swap it for one in the store, which I did. This model was much better, his missing chin had been replaced with one that Jimmy Hill would have been proud of but a quick snip and tidy with a knife and he's done.

Urien Rakarth, built and ready to go.

Now Finecast itself.
Yes there is a lot of flash, which you'll see below, but most of it just falls off with a light brush with a knife, so is a lot less scary than it looks. Mould lines are minimal and once again are very easy to remove, much easier than on metal models of old. The actual building is easier too, with the parts joining with a minimal amount of super glue, even the larger parts hold in place in seconds and there is no worry about the weight of an arm or weapon pulling the joint apart as Finecast is extremely light. This lightness takes a bit of getting used to, as does the bendyness of some of the bits.

Five Wracks, straight out of the box.

So in conclusion, Finecast so far seems to be a good thing, yes you do have to spend a little longer inspecting your models for defects and there is a lot more flash to get rid of, but the detail on the models does look a lot more crisper, and ease in which they go together is a bonus for those of us who just don't like / cant be arsed with pinning.

Binx's Book Review Episode 2

 

This time I review 'Know no Fear' by Dan Abnett, the 19th book in the Black Libraries Horus Heresy series.

Covering the period immediately before, during and after the Battle of Calth from the Ultramarines point of view, Mr Abnett truly immerses you in the massive scale of the atrocities carried out by the Word Bearers.

Familiar names such as Erebus and Kor Phaeron make a return to the series and with 4 pages of Dramatis Personae (compared to the usual two) there are plenty of characters to love and to hate.

Following the intense execution and almost eradication of the 13th legion, from the field reports of Roboute Guilliman and his Ultramarines, you get a sense of how close they come to becoming extinct. There are  very few testimonies from the Word Bearers themselves so it is a very one sided book, but written so well that you never feel as if you are missing out on any of the action.

Not wanting to spoil it for anyone who is yet to read it, I wont go into too much detail of how the attack comes to be, but the sheer scale is something that has never been recorded in a Horus Heresy novel yet and doesn't tie up all the loose ends, making you want to read more and Im sure the Black Library writes wont let us down.

Having given Deliverance Lost 16 Primarchs out of 18, my review of Gav Thorpe's novel set the bar very high. So for 'Know no Fear' I will give another 16 out of 18. It could have scored higher, but it is not perfect and with such a huge host of characters to follow there were some times where I had to back track to remember who was doing what. That's probably Dan Abnett's fault, but because I was only reading it in 40 minute sections on my lunch break at work.

Finally to please our resident Ultra Smurf player, Jonno, a quick quote from the book....

They say you should always kill them. Ultramarines. If you do make one your enemy, do not allow him to live. Do not spare him. Leave an Ultramarine alive, and you leave room for retribution. Only when he is dead are you safe from harm. That is what they say.