Wednesday, 19 February 2014

Warzone Ressurection Dark Legion - first impressions

I've had these for a while now but it wasn't until last week that I've finally put all of them together. I thought I'd take some pics and show my Kickstarter Dark Legion stuff here.
Before I begin, let me stress one thing. They may look messy with all that green stuff on them but that's the way I work. I always fill in all the recesses, even the tiniest ones, with GS and once it's dry I then follow by applying some LGS to make it look as smooth as possible. That's why it may seem like large areas are covered with GS.
Another important thing that I want to write about before moving on refers to working with resin in general. It's a soft material so while working on removing mold lines you need to be extra careful not to cut too deeply. The good thing is that it bends easily if you put it into hot water for a few seconds. After that you have a short while to get the limb/element of a miniature into the desired shape and then you can put it into cold water. Quick and easy but it offers great potential for conversions.
And last but not least - use Super Glue as it works best with resin.


I'll start with the Undead Legionnaires as they're my favorites from the whole bunch. I really like the feel of hopelessness about them. They look like human shells barely on their feet but still, by some impulse, stumbling towards the battlefield. Their clothes are torn, and their armor is battle-worn.
There are five different heads and sets of limbs so it's fairly easy to create 10 unique miniatures. The level of detail is very impressive. You can see in the picture above that each of them looks significantly different. 


Next up are the Necrobeast Riders. Don't remember them from the original Warzone but once I saw Necromutaants riding dinosaur-like creatures, I knew I had to get them. They're quite big but easy to put together since all the pieces fit nicely. The heads are different than the ones available for regular Necromutants, which is a nice thing. The only thing that bugs me a little is that the beasts look... friendly. But that should be gone once I start adding battle damage, gore and corrosion to their armor.


Golgotha is cast in a slightly different type of resin. It's softer but seems to be holding the detail even better than the bluish and grayish ones. I expected a challenge but putting the miniature together has proven very easy with just a few barely visible mold lines I filed down.
She is much taller than a regular Legionnaire (as seen in the picture above) but I guess that's to be expected from a unique character.



Praetorian Stalkers were deadly in the first edition. They worked very efficiently in pairs so I was a little surprised that now they came in a trio.
The details on their faces and armor are top-notch. Really well-defined armor plates with ferocious facial expressions. Unfortunately, their weapons are devoid of any detail. I just wonder, why go through all the trouble of designing and producing such intricate patterns on the armor and then ruin it by adding a weapon that looks way too plain. Another issue was they way their torsos were attached to the sprue. Cutting them away and later on, fitting them to legs, was quite tricky. I'll need to add more texture to the weapons (LGS and Typhus Corrosion). Not a big problem but I just think it could have been avoided.


The Razide (left in the pic) looks mean and totally bad ass. The way he holds his large weapon with confidence shows well what kind of strength is he capable of. His massive arms stand in a bit of contrast to his legs but overall I really like this miniature.

Alakhai's blade was a problem as it had snapped off while the parcel with minis was being sent to me. I had to pin it to the pommel. I also applied some LGS to get the texture on the blade. Alakhai's face is nicely designed with the mean smile and three horns. His torso and mask seem a bit too flat and I'm just not sure about the way his cloak is designed. My guess is that the creator intended it to look as if wind was blowing hard but I don't really care for the final effect. The minis is OK but I'd much rather prefer one based on Paul Bonner's original artwork.


Finally, the Necromutants. They were the first minis I put together. I speed pained them, using dry pigments and GW's Typus Corrosion and Ryza Rust for corrosion effects. 
They're much larger than the Legionnaires and their weapons are also bigger. That's OK, as far as I remember they are supposed to be oversized humans. Each head is different and the sets of arms make it possible to create five unique models. I had some trouble with attaching torsos to their legs but later on I just thought that they're supposed to look a bit bent.



Last but not least, Hatamoto. I guess he's the special Kickstarter-unique miniature. Very nice, dynamic pose and some nice elements (banners, great design or armor). He seems a bit smooth compared to crisp detail on Golgotha but it's a very nice miniature anyway. Judging by the artwork in rulebook, Mishima models will be a true treat for hobbyists.

To sum up, I'm very happy with the overall quality. There are some elements that I'd like to see improved and Paul Bonner's artworks still remain the ultimate awesomeness but Prodos Games has managed to bring out the original Warzone spirit in these miniatures.






4 comments:

  1. Really great and interesting post, and I love how the necro mutants turned out. The dirty and corroded look on them is great and something I need to get better on painting. Working on my Bauhaus atm which you have have seen on fb or my blog (shameless plug: http://diceandbrush.blogspot.com/).

    Have a lot of the new Dark Legion stuff waiting after my Bauhaus (along with a lot more WZ:R minis) and this was a great inspiration! So thanks and hope you post up more WZ:R stuff soon.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by and I'm glad you enjoyed reading my post. I'll definitely check out your blog, thanks for letting me know about it.

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  2. Very nice choice of colours on the necromutants. Great work they look awesome.

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    1. Thanks mate, I painted them a while ago and they've already been sold on ebay. I may pick up some WZ stuff for painting in the future though as it looks like the quality of the minis is constantly improving.

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