Annual review of 2018, preview of 2019
Yet another year on the chaosbunker and with 2019, we're heading towards the 10th year of this blog and my 23rd year in the hobby. Chaosbunker continued with the bilingual content, offering the articles in both English and German. And similar to last year, this year was quite busy, again, both in wargaming and private life.
Adeptus Titanicus – Warlord Battle Titan
The final part of my Adeptus Titanicus coverage is this "double feature" of the Warlord Battle Titan, one variant with volcano cannons and one with plasma annihilator and power claw.
The Warlord - currently - marks the heaviest of the available battle titans for Adeptus Titanicus, is only outclassed by the even larger Emperor Class Titan. Even though the Reaver and Warhound are much smaller and less material consuming to produce, the Warlord Titan is the most numerous of the Imperial battle titans. And they are kept in service for millenniums, some date back to the Great Crusade or even the Dark Ages of Technology. There are / were several patterns and marks of the Warlord Titan. The original mark of the Warlord covered a beetle like carapace and that design was kept from the first edition until the late 80s and can be found in first plastic model of the Warlord Titan. It was succeeded by a more bulky carapace variant, that was available for a brief amount of time, as Epic 40.000 was already developed and Space Marine was about to get pulled. This variant is strongly influenced by the early artwork of the Warlord Titan. In the late 90s, a Mark 3 (Epic 40k) variant of the Warlord Titan, that was classified as a Lucius pattern of the Warlord, and was available as a multi part metal kit. The newest incarnation is called Mars Alpha Pattern and produced by Forge World for 28mm as a resin kit and by Games Workshop as a 6/8mm plastic kit.
Adeptus Titanicus – Reaver Battle Titan
The second titan of the Adeptus Titanicus coverage is the Reaver Battle Titan,
The Reaver counts as an medium class battle titan, almost twice as tall as a Warhound but still a lot leaner and smaller as a Warlord. Similar to the Warhound and Warlord, the Reaver has different produced patterns, but more dominantly different Marks of its design. The design of the Reaver is quite consistent, did not change that much during the decades, "just" more modern. A Lucius Pattern was produced by Forge World for Epic 40k in the late 90s, but that is a relatively unknown fact. It is more commonly know for the different Marks of the Mars Pattern. A Reaver is commanded by a Princeps and between 2 to 5 Moderati (Primus, Steersman, Navigator, Sensorius, Oratorius), along with an extended crew of multiple servitors and such. Models of the Reaver were available in different Marks for a long time and in the lore it is mentioned, that it might even pre-date the Warlord Titan.
Adeptus Titanicus – Warhound Scout Titans
Let's begin with the Titans. The first review will cover the duo of Warhound Scout Titans, the smallest of the Imperial Titans.
There are multiple patterns of the Warhound Titan, produced on Forge Worlds among others like Mars or the now destroyed Gryphonne IV. The here shown Warhound pattern is the Mars Pattern, depending on how you count the Mark III. It is the first time that the Mars pattern is produced in 6-8mm scale. A Warhound has a crew of 4 (a Princeps, a Tactical Moderati, a Weapons Moderati and a Techpriest Enginseer) along with multiple servitors and servo skulls.
Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress
Back in 1989, Games Workshop teamed up with Hasbro / MB and released with Heroquest - a fantasy board game with miniatures. For many this was the beginning of their wargaming hobby. Due to the fact, that it was a board game and sold as such in toy stores and not "just" comic book and gaming stores, the game reached a much broader audience. 2 years after they stopped producing Heroquest in 1993, a derivative - Warhammer Quest - was introduced. Still using the Citadel Miniatures but featuring now modular floor tiles instead of a fixed board, the game was a success and received a lot of additional content in form of supplements, articles in White Dwarf and Citadel Journal. And now, with Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress Games Workshop continues the more than 20 year old brand and expands it for the first time into the universe of Warhammer 40,000 (as Space Crusade etc. are games of their own).
It comes a bit as a surprise, as we already had quite a lot of boxed sets this year by Games Workshop, just last month the one-off Speed Freeks, the month before that the Rogue Trader expansion for Kill Team. But here it is, a massive dungeon crawler just before Christmas.
Warhammer 40,000 – Speed Freeks
As part of Orktober, Games Workshop delivers a stand-alone boxed set of orkish racing - Speed Freeks! It was already announced back in August on Warhammer Fest Europe and there were rumours about a revival of Gorka Morka, so now we know what these were about.
Game Envy Hobby Holder painting handle
Back in 2017 Game Envy started a Kickstarter for a new paint handle and collected almost 90.000 USD with their crowdfunding campaign. The 3d printed prototypes are replaced by a final injection moulded product and I'm testing one today in this review.
I got the Hobby Holder along with a handle mod. This sets you back 20 USD for the holder, 6 for the handle mod and additional shipping (~10 USD to Europe). My kit came with a button, a strip of blu tack and 5 bottle caps.
Heer46 Carro Armato P43 Bis
Following the Krupp-Steyr Waffenträger from Tuesday, today we unpack and build the Armato P43 Bis by Heer46.
This is another tank from the resin series produced in cooperation with Rubicon Models. The Armato P43 was an Italian heavy tank that was developed by FIAT and Ansaldo, but never left the draft stage. The sources why the development stopped are not clear, some say the design was dropped in favour of the lighter P26/40 tank, but it is likely that the resources were just not available after the armistice of Italy with the Allies in 1943 and the Axis had other things valued higher than Italian tank development. Only two mock ups were build, but as mentioned before not further progressed. The tank was intended to weigh around 30 tons and have a 420-430 hp diesel V12 engine. The name Carro Armato P43 stands for armoured vehicle, P for pesante - Italian for heavy - and the number '43 most likely standing for the development year.
Heer46 Krupp-Steyr Waffenträger
There is a new range of 1:56 scale resin kits produced by Heer46 in cooperation with Rubicon Models, as an addition to Rubicon extensive plastic range. One of the vehicles offered as part of this assortment is the Krupp-Steyr Waffenträger.
Among the several Waffenträger (and their blueprint / papertank / prototypes) the Krupp Steyr Waffenträger is one of the less known vehicles. And like many of his kind, this tank destroyer never actually saw service. Only a similar concept of this Waffenträger, known as the Ardelt project was produced and can be seen nowadays in the Kubinka tank museum in Russia. Two wooden models and one trial Waffenträger were produced in 1944, that had a chassis constructed by Steyr mainly using parts from the RSO (Raupenschlepper Ost), and armed with an 8,8 cm KwK 43. This was the base for the model we see here. Due to the turret, and in combination with a small mobile ramp, the firing arch of this Waffenträger was amazing versatile. As this is a rather special vehicle, there aren't that many further information available. Most may know the Waffenträger from games likes Warthunder or World of Tanks.
Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault
In Summer I've already covered with Shadespire the initial start of the Warhammer Underworlds series, now in autumn the next wave for Nightvault is released.
With the release of the Nightvault starter box, the competitive board game goes into its second season. The content is similar to the previous starter box, you receive two warbands, rules, tokens, dice, cards and two boards with hex fields, for 50 EUR. The game is fast paced, so you can play a match in 30-45 minutes and competitive matches are usually decided by the best out of 3 matches in a row. The included warbands come as usual for the Underworlds range in pre-coloured plastic and are push-fit (so you do not need glue to assemble the miniatures). All in all, a self-containing set, focused on competitive players and newcomers to the miniature (board) game hobby alike.