Review: Kromlech Armoured Orc SMG Squad

Regardless of the extremely rapid release cycle that Games Workshop has instituted as of late, the Ork codex is still a fairly new addition to the latest line-up of codices for Warhammer 40.000.
Lack of codex power aside, the orks are one of the most fun and customizeable armies in the setting and pretty much any inconsistency can be explained with the strangeness of Ork behavior.
This review should have been out a month ago, but issues with my computer, crashes and general tech hell, did almost kill it.
Perhaps you'll notice, that all the images are from the Kromlech website. Well, the images I took crashed and burned in "The great crash", so all image credit of course, goes to Kromlech.

Kromlech is one of the top 3rd party producers of everything orky, and for this little review we are taking a closer look at some armored brutes, which will work perfectly for truly 'ard boyz.
The Armored Orc smg squad includes nine armored Orks armed with, surprise, a smg, and some heavy armor plates thrown randomly across their bodies in prefect Ork DIY fashion.

The set contains enough heads and extra face plates, to  assemble a varied squad, despite the fact, that the poses are pretty much given, with no great options to change the poses around.
Like most, if not all, Kromlech products, they are cast in resin, so be sure to give them a good wash(the soap and water kind), before trying to glue them together.
The sculpts are pretty clean, with few mold-lines in need of removal, which makes prepping them for painting a breeze.

The Kromlech Orks do have that typical GW ape-like hunched appearance, which makes them fit an existing Ork force nicely, while still retaining enough character to stand out.
In general the models are nice with adequate detail, without going overboard, which wouldn't fit a simple Ork trooper.

The "nob" or leader of the squad is a fine sculpt too, but I find him a bit too limited with regards to wargear and poses. You are in for some conversion work if you want to field multiple versions of him.
Luckily the standard Games Workshop parts, will fit just perfect.
The thing is though, and this is very subjective, I don't get the same creative vibe from these as I get from almost every other Kromlech model. They are great models, but not pushing the envelope when it comes to creativity and I feel they lack some of the silliness of the other Orks from the range like the greatcoats or the clanking destroyers.

So, do you need to get some armored Orks?
It depends on your force I guess. They are too cost prohibitive to field an entire force(for most of us anyway), but as I said earlier, they work perfectly as 'ard boyz who take the 'ard part seriously.

Should you need some 'ardy Orks, you can get a squad of 10(including a nob) for 37.99 Euros or you local equivalent at the friendly folks over at Kromlech .

Read More

Review: Kromlech Clanking destroyers Or These are the robots you are looking for

This is the first in what will be a series of reviews of Kromlech products, and in this review we'll take a look at some of the rather special miniatures from Kromlech, the clanking destroyers.

Kromlech is a Polish company which excels in making some of the best 3rd party ork bits and miniatures out there and you could do worse than check out their webpage and be amazed.

It's all right, I'll wait till you return....

Back again?

Great, then lets continue.

As you might know the 40k ork fluff contains some rumblings about orks who were so unfortunate as to have crossed paths with a particularly mad painboy and hence transformed into cybernetic monstrosities.

The destroyers seemed to fit the theme perfectly, so I was anxious to take a look at the lovely Clanking destroyers from Kromlech.

The reviewed kit is a multi part resin kit and as always when working with resin, be sure to wash the parts, before trying to paint and glue.

If you've never worked with resin before and are thinking about skipping the above step, dont! Glue and paint simply wont stick until the parts have had a good washing.

The great thing about the way kromlech designed the clanking destroyers, is that there is not a set way to assemble them. You get 5 heads, torsos, legs and different arms which can be assembled at your hearts content.

The parts require very little cleaning and the mold lines are manageable.
In general I had very few problems getting the models ready to paint and the casts seems to be of very high quality.
No matter how clean a cast, there will always be a little cleaning, but with the dull part out of the way, it is time to take a look at some possible uses for the clanking destroyers.

This obviously gives you a ton of options for customizing, not only with regards to the Clankers but as shown below, the parts also fits regular GW Orks perfectly. The little cute guy below, was put together with random parts, chosen by my wife, and they all fit together perfectly.

 

 

In other words, you should be able to assemble a pretty unique bunch of minis with the supplied parts.

They look incredibly "orky" and the name is perfect, it is easy to imagine some mad Mek/Painboy clanking random parts together for the greater glory of Mork(or Gork), with little rhyme or reason and these bad boyz clanking off to the battlefield.

Converging on conversions
The models and all the possible combinations of parts, would make for a great group of cyber-orks or ork robots, but that would be only half the fun.

As shown below, most of the parts fits perfectly on your standard 40k orks and they sure spice up some otherwise pretty dull models, so you are not in any way limited in you choice of parts or models. Besides, who doesn't like giant cyborg chainsaws?

Actually, I suspect I will be buying some Clanking destroyers, just for the parts and variety they provide and spread random Cybork orks throughout my army. It is a great way to get a little variaty in an othervise pretty similar looking army.

As I might have alluded to, I think Kromlech have hit home with the clankers. 

The models go together well, have tons of soul and will fit any ork army perfectly either as standalone models or as bits for your regular orks.

Read More

Initial thoughts: Reaper paints

Just received a shipment of paints from Reaper and painted up a couple of Orks, just to get a feel for how the paint handled.

Far from being a full fledged review(that comes later), this little piece is just my initial thoughts on the paint so far, so please don't expect informations on every little detail.

So let's get to it shall we.

• The paints float so nice and smooth
• The HD paints have a stupid name but great coverage!
• They seem to dry a little faster than I am used to from Vallejo, GW and The Army Painter
• In general the coverage is good, even the non-hd paints
• The paints dry to a very matte finish, again more than I am used to.
• When using a wet palette and not doing blendings, the paints really don't need to be thinned much
• The triads are nice and user friendly "feature"

So far I have only painted or started painting a few minis, using the Reaper paints, but they have made a positive first impression.

Expect a longer and more detail real review soon:-)

How do you find the paints?

Read More

Kromlech initial thoughts and why you shouldn't be like me

With all this excitement about the coming Ork release, it is only fitting, that we have 4 kromlech reviews coming!

Initial thoughts:
I am an idiot. Dont be me, dont be an idiot; do remember to clean the resin, before trying to glue and paint...

Kromlech miniatures has tons of soul

Kromlech produces great sculpts

More info in the coming reviews.

Read More

Teaser: Upcoming review teaser: Kromlech Clanking Detroyers

Read More

Review: The Army Painter Warpaint/inks and colour primers

In this review, we'll take a look at the paint range from the Danish company The Army Painter. They were kind enough to send me some samples to test out, so a big -Thank You- to them.

The Army Painter has a pretty small selection of paints and shades, numbering about 42(geek points right there), which makes perfect sense considering the approach the company has to painting and their system of painting.

In a previous review I covered the Quickshade part of that system, but just to recap; the point of the paint system is that you paint on some base colours, dip in Quickshade, base and be done with it.

Regardless of that, the range of colours is pretty solid and for most projects you won't miss many nuances of colours.

They do however, have a nifty little guide to mixing paints and the resulting colours which is a nice touch. The guide is pretty limited though and a few extra shades would have nice.

The paints comes in 18 ml dropper bottles, which I find extremely handy and the lids are colour coded, which makes it easy to distinguish metalics(black Lid)  from regular paints(white lid) and inks/washes(red lid).

They do need a good shake however, as some of the paints have a tendency to seperate a bit.

Coverage

In general the warpaints cover quite nicely, but seem a bit more opaque than other brands of paints. That aside, they do cover very well in a few coats and thin nicely.

As you might know, red, green and yellow can be somewhat problematic colours with regards to coverage, but in recent years most of the competition have made great strides in making them much easier to use with excellent coverage even on a black undercoat. Dont expect such performance from the warpaints though.

To get a good red, it takes several layers and a light undercoat. I tried painting red on a black undercoat, and after 4 layers(thinned) I still wasn't happy with the result.

Be prepared to prep before painting red

What I did instead, was using “Uniform grey” as a basecoat and the result was very pleasing. The reds are intense and I especially love the “Chaotic red”, which is a very dark, brownish red. Throw in a drop of “Oak Brown” and a drop of “Dragon Red” and you got the perfect colour for painting Blood Ravens.

Green and yellow can be problematic too,but using either a white or grey undercoat they do cover decently though not as well as the other colours in the range. They do produce very pleasing results, as the ork below shows, just remember to use a lighter undercoat.

Greenskin for greenskins

All in all, I really like the paints and the resulting sharp and vibrant colours.

Colours, colours everywhere

As said before, the range is pretty small compared to other brands, but they do cover all the bases and excel in some areas.

The metallics are very smooth, cover well and are a plain joy to use. They are pretty limited however, with 3 shades of steel, 1 gold and 1 bronze, leaving all the shades of gold and bronze up to your mixing skills.

The Warpaint range includes 7 inks(Picture below) and they are all fantastic to work with!

They seem to be less messy than the GW shades while producing better result when dry. I cant quite pinpoint the reason, but the surface tension seems to be higher compared to GW shade, which might have something to do with it.

The Dark tone ink resembles the old Devlan mud and is one of the best and most versatile inks in the box. Strong tone is more like Nuln oil, very black and soft tone is perfect for those subtle shadows.

I am painting a small Ork army atm in which case I use about three different inks on a single model; strong, dark and green tone inks and they have performed perfectly.
The other tones of inks work great too, if you need a specific colour af shades.

All in all it is a great range of inks on par and in some cases better, than what you might know from GW, which is no mean feat, since The Army Painter inks are considerably cheaper.

My only complaint is that there is no ink for fleshtones, which is a strange omission, considering the otherwise impressive range.

Painted using only warpaint

Spraying the spray

Armypainter has built up quite a reputation for the colored primers and covers a wide range of colors.

Armypainter was kind enough to send a couple of those my way; Leather brown, Angel Green and Plate Mail metal.

Leather brown

The trick of the colour primers is that they are a 100% color match to the warpaints range. Naturally I had to test that claim and primed up some Doom Eagles scouts and bikes(Plate Mail metal) and some Orks(Leather brown). The spray was easy to use, covered well without obscuring detail and when painting up the models the 100% match claim turned out to be 100% true.

Of course, if you own an airbrush you wont need colored primers, but for the rest of us, they are great timesavers.

Platemail Metal

Summing it up

When all is said and done The Army Painter has a great range of paints, especially if you use their system of applying base colours and dipping, but even if you hate dipping with a passion, their warpaints are still a great buy.

I have worked extensively with the warpaints, inks and primers and it has been a joy. They do act sligthly different than GW paints, but not worse, just different.

In my humble opinion The Army Painter has struck a near perfect balance between quality, options and cost, the paints are great, the price is even greater and the range is decent.

Each warpaint cost 2.5 Euro/2.99 Dollars and they have some great prices on a mega paint set, which gives you all the warpaints and inks.

When painting loads of these guys, price matter;-)

Please let me know, if you liked the review and if you want some specific informations about the warpaints.

You can buy the paints directly from The Army Painter

Read More

Teaser: Upcoming Kromlech Mecha Armor Orc Review

Brace yourselves

A review is coming!

Read More