New Year, new faction - time to dive into the hobby side of the Explorer's Society. I will be painting two sets of the Apex keyword (neither for myself though) in the next couple of weeks. The bases were made with Milliput and I added texture by pressing other pre-cast sand/rocky themed resin bases into the putty.
Let's start with what's inside Lord Cooper's box. First off the man himself. Fairly easy to assemble and despite rather static pose there's a lot of detail on this miniature. He looks like a steampunk version of Safari hunter and I plan to use various shades of brown while working on him.
Model 9, his henchman, is probably the most flimsy one of the whole batch. The main issue are his throwing knives. The hilts are so this that it's too easy to actually break them while cutting away from the plastic sprue they're attached to. I'd recommend placing a few tissues or something fairly thick and soft below them while gently cutting the pieces out with a hobby knife by gradually applying pressure from above. The skull on its base is not part of the box.
The Hunting dogs - Ullr and Artemis. Nothing complex about them, the pieces go together pretty well and they aren't complicated at all.
Three runaways, Cooper's totems. These guys want to get out from the field or die trying. Both options are great for the player controlling this crew. Having read his background story, I expected a bit more variety here, maybe some dapper dandy type unfortunate enough to make a "once in a lifetime" deal with Cooper's minions, but I'm overall rather pleased with the quality of the trio. They all look like they've had enough of their host's hospitality and will do anything they can to survive and the sculpts capture this very well.
On the hunt is a box that offers some valuable expansions into Cooper's core crew. The Vatagi Huntsmen have to be my favorites of the whole lot. So full of character, these nasty guys coming from cold Russia look really imposing and the detail level is top-notch.
Crypsis Corps, Cooper's expert snipers, are the other two minis from that box. They certainly have a unique look, nothing like these two in the whole Malifaux range. Thick cloaks and imposing rifles make them look quite menacing.
Overall, I must admit the level of quality of Wyrd models continues to improve over the years (and I have been observing that from 1st edition when they were cast in pewter ). There is pretty much no need to use Green stuff or any other putty as the pieces fit together perfectly. The only places where I felt an extra layer of putty would help keep the texture coherent were the coats and some parts of hounds. Other than that they're all pretty much ready for painting right after assembly.
My only issue (and not a big one) with these are the bases. Wyrd has switched to using the ones with deeper indentation in the middle (on the left in the picture below). These used to be flat. It causes two problems.
First of all, the plastic base inserts don't fit very well as they're too small. As you can see in the picture below, there is some space around the inserts. Yes, it can be filled with any type of modelling putty and no, you don't have to use the inserts (one for Cooper, one for the sniper) as they can easily bo put on any kind of base. However, if there is an option to use them, it would be great if they added at least one old base with flat top, as the inserts fit perfectly there (pic on the right below).
The other issue I have is that I typically glue small neodymium magnets below the base as I store and transport my minis in my old trusted metal A-Case. The new versions of Wyrd bases don't have enough space below them for a magnet so I will need to buy some extra round 30mm magnetic stickers wo work around that.
Please note that neither of the "problems" above is a serious one and both come from my personal hobby preferences. I can strongly recommend these minis to all who enjoy collecting/playing Malifaux or want to start doing so (both from the gaming and the hobby perspective).
