Horus Heresy – Land Raider Spartan Assault Tank
Last of our Horus Heresy Age of Darkness detail reviews, covers after the regular Infantry and the Contemptor Dreadnought, the mighty Land Raider Spartan. The kit is not yet available on its own and currently only available as part of the Age of Darkness starter set.
This is not the first time a Land Raider Spartan is available in (or at least made from) plastic. Actually the first one, was a conversion based upon the Rogue Trader era Land Raider kit, combined with plastic card and parts from the old Space Marine Rhino. It was introduced as part of the Modelling Workshop section of White Dwarf 119, by no other than Tony Cottrell (former head of Forge World and designer of an incredible amount of kits) back in 1989!
Horus Heresy – Contemptor Dreadnought
We move the size class a bit, covered the infantry already, now it is time for the walking tombs, the Contemptor Dreadnought from the Horus Heresy Age of Darkness boxed set.
The classic dreadnought we know from the 90s is classified as Castraferrum Pattern Mark V Dreadnought, with the variants that were released by Forge World as Mark IV with slightly slender / less bulky proportions. But the Contemptor Dreadnought is actually something picked up from the era of Rogue Trader and reconnected with the lore for the Horus Heresy.
Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness Infantry
After covering the content of the Horus Heresy - Age of Darkness boxed set in our unboxing, I'll cover the plastic kits in three reviews - the Infantry, the Contemptor Dreadnought and the Land Raider Spartan. Beginning today with the Space Marines on foot.
You can find all the pictures of the content in the unboxing, but we're going to build some miniatures from the different sprues of the Legion Space Marines in Mark VI armour, the Praetors and Terminators in Cataphractii armour.
Bolt Action – SdKfz 250/11 Ausf. A
We've covered multiple variants of the Sd.Kfz 251 on here already, with the regular 251/1 Ausf. D, 251/16 Flammpanzerwagen and 251/7 Pionierwagen. And thanks to Jürgen from Warlord Games, he sent me a pre-production copy of some of the new Sd.Kfz. 250 Ausf. A (Alte) kit, from their trade meetup in Nottingham.
So far, the Sd.Kfz. 250 was available as a resin kit and now got an update and turned into a multi-variant plastic kit that is now available from Warlord Games directly and their trade network. The final kit obviously comes with a proper packaging, decals and all the additional content you're used to. In my case, I got the base sprue and the one to build the /11 variant leichter Schützenpanzerwagen mit einer 2,8-cm-schweren Panzerbüchse 41.
Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness Unboxing
I was there the day Horus slew the Emperor. This is how the first book of the Horus Heresy novels starts. And it sets the tone for the entire narrative. With me already being in Horus Heresy mood through the audiobooks, I was really excited about the way they introduced 2.0 on Warhammer Fest, and they kept firing on all cylinders pumping content on all legions, integrating content creators and painters and really keeping it visible.
And with today, I can finally join in talking about the new Age of Darkness kit (RRP 225 EUR / 180 GBP), that is on pre-order since today and I received a bit earlier to have time to prepare my coverage. Thanks to Games Workshop for providing me with a copy.
The content of the new starter set for Horus Heresy is a lot, so I'm going to split it across a few articles to not overload one article with too much information and pictures. This one is mostly about the unboxing and I'll go into detail in the upcoming posts on the kits themself.
Adeptus Titanicus – Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan
In January Games Workshop announced a new titan for Adeptus Titanicus - the Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan. After about 4 months the kit is available via Forge World and today, we have the chance to see it in our review.
The Dire Wolf is a variation of the Warhound Titan and available in two variants, one with a Neutron-Laser and one with a Volcano Cannon.
Bolt Action – British & Inter-Allied Commandos
With the two D-Day sector books that cover a lot of special operations, the need for British and Inter-Allied Commandos is certainly there. And Warlord Games delivered for this demand.
The first Commandos kit that was released around 2011, was based on the regular British infantry, with a recut of a part of the sprue. We did a review back then and you can not only see how far Warlord Games has progressed over the last decade, but our reviews as well (that was pre-bilingual coverage, so you'll only find the German one online).
Bolt Action Campaign D-Day US Sectors
In early 2021 Warlord Games picked up D-Day again and supplementing D-Day British and Canadian sectors campaign book with the US Sectors.
With 160 pages and a RRP of 20 GBP (roughly 25 EUR) Campaign D-Day: US Sectors marks the third and final instalment of Warlord Games D-Day trilogy. While the British and Commonwealth forces landed in Gold, Sword and Juno pushed towards Caen, the US Americans did so on the beaches Omaha and Utah and moved towards west and south from there, beginning with Carentan and further liberating the coast line and attacking armed forces along the Atlantikwall. The US-Sector book covers the actions of the US forces in the summer after D-Day, until August / September 1944.
Bolt Action Campaign D-Day British & Canadian Sectors
Warlord started the deep dive on D-Day with the campaign supplement of the same name - D-Day Overlord. But that is not all, the sectors receive more love, starting with the British & Canadian Sectors in this supplement and the US sectors in the next one, already released by the time this review went online.
Both, the British & Canadian and US D-Day sector books close the gap between the landing and the further actions around the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Market Garden. Because even after the successful landing in Normandy, the further operations were intense tasks, to bring in more troops, defeat counter attacks and fortify the bridgehead in Northern France.
Adeptus Titanicus – Warmaster Iconoclast
The variant of the Warmaster Titan, the Iconoclast with different weaponry was released in Winter '21, and actually the first of the Adeptus Titanicus plastic kits, that I didn't cover as a review - until now!
The Warmaster keeps it very similar to the Warlord Titan, where only a single sprue is swapped to cover the alternative variant of the titan. And for that reason, this is more of an add-on along with some further add-ons, to the initial review of the Warmaster variant with the plasma destructors. As well as making use of my newly access to 3d printing.
The kit wasn't supplied by the manufacturer this time, but more of a casual chance at a trade, and I added a few bits that I found online (more in detail below). The RRP of the Warmaster is now 130 EUR since April '22 (compared to 125 EUR when it was released last year) and it covers four large sprues, an oval base, decals, a rather unflattering black and white assembly instruction, along with the cards and terminals made from card board, covering the rules and information for gameplay.
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