Chilvers Industries

More Imperial Fists

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Painting yellow is hard, it took around 10 test pieces to get the base colour and wash right.

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The Eavy Metal tutorials are woefully terrible when it comes to painting yellow, either starting with the spray that’s too light or the base yellow that’s too dark. The trick is Yriel Yellow as the base with Agrax Earthshade in the crevices.

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Of course the brutal truth of this army is that now Games Workshop have “changed” Space Marines to the new Primaris true scale the older versions don’t look that great when standing side by side. I suspect they will be making the old sculpts end of life over the next few years.

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On the brighter side we have a new gloss version of Agrax Earthshade which in theory might make the painting easier if anyone wanted to try this out themselves.IMG_3062

There are painting mistakes here. I probably shouldn’t have done the transfers on the inside of the cloak. and the loin cloth needs to to be cleaned up. He also could have done with the highlights the rest of the squad are missing.IMG_3140.jpg

Not bad for a unit with no highlights on the yellow.

Imperial Fists – Part 1

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Note to self: Don’t burn yourself out on your own blog.
Never mind, I’m back now. Have a space marine or five.
The moustache on this guy was pure whimsy on my part.
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Note, no squad markings as I couldn’t decide between tactical or devastator squad:
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I’m quite fond of the squad number on the lower leg, probably impractical from battlefield purposes but it does fit with the 40k vibe.
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The veteran sergeants helmet really breaks the colours up. The Imperial Fists logo is a transfer cut slightly at 10 and 2 o’clock to conform to the shape of the shoulder pad.
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Sternguard shoulder pads on the vet means he can be added to almost any squad type without looking out of place.
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The blue gradient was created on photoshop and printed out to use as backdrop for the photo. I wanted the retro Eavy Metal photo look but by accident the blue and dark yellow face each other on the colour wheel so really make the figures pop out.
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Any questions about the colours used, transfers, colour theory or whatever else you have just pop something in the comments and i’ll get back to you.

Missionary with Plasma Gun

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One of my favourite miniatures of all time just got reprinted, the “Missionary with Plasma Gun”. This beauty was sculpted by Brian Nelson in around 1997/98 to accompany the first Sisters of Battle Codex. Although you wouldn’t have guessed it unless you were around back then (or unless you guessed from the colour scheme).

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I thought I’d put the miniature in perspective with other miniatures available at that time

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I’m being overly harsh of course, with any release there were highs and lows, this brought us some fantastic other miniatures like:

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The plastic moulding at GW hadn’t shown its full potential so you still had models like this in the second edition boxed set.

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I think this might be the very first example of a standard bearer type model with a sculpted standard rather than the stick that GW expected you to wrap in paperork_perso_ghaz_2

I like the way that the models isn’t crowded with detail and so things like the eyepatch, the chainsword slung on the back and the general gait of the figure showing how heavy that plasma gun is for a normal human to carry one handed really stand out.

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The whole “downtrodden look while holding extremely powerful weapons” reminds me of this guy

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Should we be worried about the Battle for Vedros?

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No matter which way you slice it we are currently experiencing a pretty good time for wargaming so why should we be worried?
Not much has been made of the Battle for Vedros after its initial release, if you aren’t aware, Games Workshop has repackaged a number of kits including snap fit Space Marines and Orks and sold them to toy and game shops to cater to a 8-12 year old audience.
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It seems like a harmless venture, Workshop is trying to open up a new market using its existing IP and pre existing plastic moulds and selling them to toy shops who then sell onwards takes up virtually no resources and won’t disrupt the good work they are currently doing with large boxed games and releases.
It was probably an easy sell when it was presented at the board meeting as the toy market is a much larger pool of money to jump into than the miniature wargame market which GW has locked down pretty tightly over the years (this chart is pretty old but I suspect its still valid in showing the plateau that a big business in a small pool hits).
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This is where my problems come in, the toy market is in fact so much larger than the miniature wargaming market that Games Workshop could easily dive right in if they see significant success.
The money they make here will not see its way into the core business.
Ok, this is speculation on my point and if their staff see a massive pay bonus in the next year and hobby centers start to look like the amazing works of art they could easily become I will happily print this page out and eat it in penance but generally companies don’t let a plateauing part of their business eat up profits from a booming one.
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Where would this money go?
Workshop does invest some of that back into its stores but sadly around £15m of it goes into dividends on the shares held by their stakeholders. Only 60%+ of them are publicly disclosed and with the exception of Tom Kirby they are all investment companies.
Is the Battle for Vedros even a success?
Its going to be difficult to say until after Christmas but all Workshop has to do is sell the products to retail chains at Toy and Gaming convention to make a short term profit. If over 200 GAME stores are buying them for about $500 each thats $100,000+ or thanks to the way the UK economy works £100,000. If those stores go on to sell the products and come back for more then Games Workshop will have their runaway success.
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But I want to buy the Battle for Vedros for someone I know?
Remember that none of these kits are new, its all been available in Games Workshop stores for ages and those 400+ stores and the rest of the FLGS are the things that need to be protected because without them this hobby goes into a death spiral that it’s not going to pull out of.
Get a grip you fool you’re panicking, Games Workshop will never abandon its core business.
Probably not, but if you cast you mind back to the discontinuing of the original specialist games range or the rush to capitalise on the Lord of the Rings phenomenon they are certainly capable of grasping a money maker with both hands.
In conclusion it’s probably nothing to worry about for now but if the results of this experiment are good then it does bode ill for the future of company who can and will kill off perceived unprofitable lines.