these days, I leave my hobby moods roaming freely. I guess it would be better to keep concentrating on one project and finish it before starting a new one, but, honestly, I have that enough at work, so I decided to not enforce any structure in my hobby. The result is of course disastrous! I have so many untouched sprues and bits lying around that I just open some box and I immediately have the strong urge to build the first model/sprue I see!
So my apologies to anybody who is visiting my blog to check for updates on my Necromunda, Khorne, Necron or Zombicide projects!!! I promise that I will come back to those projects because eventually I finish all projects, but it might take some time...
Anyway, so here some results of these roamings:
Ahriman and Typhus
I have always loved these two guys, in particular their sculpts! Absolute classics which made it well through the years. Only, that with the recent move to "true-scale" for Space Marines they became a bit too small maybe? Therefore, I was very happy when GW decided to update the models to the new standards. I was even happier to see that GW kept the design close to the originals, in particular for Ahriman!
So let's check Ahriman out first with some comparison:
As you can see in the above pic, Ahriman indeed did not change too much and I love almost all of the "improvements" they did, starting from the more dynamic pose (he is now leaning forward giving him a really threatening aura), the left hand summoning some devastating spell, the spell book at his hip.
Finally, he became a little bit bigger (although he has always been a big boy).
He is now actually taller than a Primaris (if you would correct for his leaning pose):
This makes me as a "true-scale" fanatic extremely happy!
The only downside, is that the new Rubricae, aka Thousand Sons, are not true-scale but rather classic Space Marine size, so that Ahriman is significantly bigger. I guess he kept growing in the last ten thousand years, while the Rubricae as automata of course did not ;-) Anyway not his fault.
Then, we have Typhus, the feared Host of the Destroyer Hive, and one of Nurgle's most favoured sons:
First of all, I did not finish building the new model yet because I really do not like the new pose. It somehow gives an exaggerated, more comic-like vibe to Typhus. This is a pity, in particular because I loved the pose of the old sculpt which was simple but somehow threatening in a calm way (as one would expect from a Death Guard). So, a slight conversion is in order to fix the pose.
Apart from that, the other biggest change is that Typhus exchanged his nicely customized Indomitus pattern Terminator Armour, to an older model, namely a Cataphractii Pattern! Only exception is his helmet which apparently still is fine. Not sure what happened?! Maybe the Indomitus got too damaged, stolen by fans, or just too rusty? Or maybe, Typhus has some sense of fashion and wanted to follow the trend?
The Indomitus pattern seems to be pretty out these days, heretics and loyalists alike grab again their older Cataphractii and Tartaros patterns, or change to the new and fancy Mark X Gravis design, if they can (see Marneus, and probably Lysander will follow soon?).
The true reason is probably that Typhus realised that he could not have an Indomitus because it was only issued to the Legions AFTER Grandfather Nurgle fused him with his armour. So he secretly switched back to the Cataphractii that he should be wearing according to fluff... ;-)
Too bad because, I like the particular Indomitus he was wearing quite a lot, in particular the "hood" and back parts, but also the shoulder pads.
Anyway, also his Cataphractii is quite "customised" and still comes with a cute Nurgling to caress the belly.
He also kept his Scythe, the Manreaper, which stayed pretty much the same over the years, only that the continuous high levels of humidity bended it more, clearly:
The clear advantage, and decisive element, of the new design, is that now he is bigger, much bigger! True-scale big even?
And just for laughs, let's compare to the poor classical Space Marines:
Before I leave you, one more thing:
In another box of mine I found these sprues:
The Noctilith Crown
What an impressive piece of scenery! So much Chaos, I had to buy and build this one even if I do not play anymore these days. Just as backdrop for the miniatures in the cabinet, it is already worth it!
At first, I was slightly disappointed because the sprues were not manufactured in Nottingham but in China, which used to have a huge effect on the quality of the details.
But I am happy to report that the Chaos Gate looks good. It seems that GW managed to improve the quality lately as the following pic tries to show:
Sorry, it is a bit hard to see despite my best efforts, but take my word for it that the crispness is not yet the same as for the Nottingham sprues but definitely better than before.
Cheers!
