Unboxing the Fire Eaters

    As soon as the rules came out these guys, I wanted two units.  Trolls has a weird thing with the point cost of 8 and 16.  In ADR, that's super cool.  I noticed first with Champions vs. Long Riders.  LR w/ Horthol is 16pts, and so is Champs w/ UA and Hero.  This can be replaced with 2 units of Warders really easily.  Now with the HWM, it can be replaced with Warders - Highwaymen.  The Fire Eaters step into that circle too now at 4pts.  2x Fire Eaters is six models instead of 5 Warders.  This is really good for us with the new ADR rules.  It's very easy to standardize your battlegroup and tarpit then fill your army up with 8pt options and swap them out as needed.  My Jarl list, for example, can have 2x Warders, 2x Fire Eaters, Highwaymen and solos.  Feralgeist and Fellcaller, Pendrake and Runebearer, or better yet, min KSB w/UA.  Whatever.  Completely changes up the army after you know the enemy caster.  This is pretty powerful for Trolls where infantry is our bread and butter.  Madrak2, Jarl, Grim2, everyone will run 2x Warders the same way, and that will be an ARM skew.  Don't need an ARM skew?  Highwaymen/Fire eaters.  Now we have a completely different list.  I like it a lot.

  So, anyways, I saw their rules, and their rules are awesome.  People don't want to bring a Pyre, but you're already bringing a pyre for a damage buff.  People don't want to waste his shot, but mine rarely shoots.  He buffs a warder and runs around.  Now he's firing a shot at this unit, buffing a warder, and resuming his business.  Not a big deal.  But if you're bringing a 5pt Pyre already, just bring 2.  8pts for 6 models is pretty reasonable in trolls where 8pts usually gets us 5 Warders.  I think they're perfect.  

  That's the preamble.  I've got them.  They showed up Thursday with a Slag, Pendrake, Kriel Warriors, Bone Grinders, second unit of Warders (Apparently that's a thing), my AOE keys and a receipt from Discount games who mailed it a day before the Fire Eaters released.  Pretty legit.  Right away, the box displays an impossible standard of painting and dares you to try.  The box is the little one like the light warbeasts ship in.  Probably the most expensive small box Trollbloods has.  As far as painting goes, I'm super excited to give it my own shot, and I'm eagerly awaiting Arizona Troll's rendition on the forums.  These will be specifically difficult because of the area effect lighting that the flames generate.  I think it's possible to do without an airbrush, but I'm really glad I have mine.

  Bunch of little pieces.  PP is getting brave with their plastics these days, and these are very well done.  

  I assembled my Warders in the same evening as these guys, so I may be overly appreciative of these dudes, but I'm not seeing molding much.  This cape as a small gate issue on the bottom right of the cape, but all the seams are on the edges as they should be.  

  That's really all I'm finding though, just fill port issues, and they're in easily accessed areas of the model.  There's not fitting a tiny sanding tool in there to get it down.

  This is the pyg.  Probably the least impressive of the three.  He's still cool, but you feel like he's the tagalong to the party.  One of the dude's little brothers that won't go away or something.

  This is the worst seam I've found I think, running down the side of our tagalong.  It's easily cleaned though, 

  This guy's billowing fire.  He's a little more complicated, but here's his pieces.  The hands are seperate, the little whelp holding the torch is his own piece, and there's a keg and his head.

  Best for last.  I love this sculpt.  He's almost got the Indiana Jones torch looking thing going on and I really like it.  I'd be tempted to use the base of this guy for a Borka1 or Madrak2 conversion.  Borka1 is probably better suited, but I'm a sucker for flowing coats, and this guys does it beautifully.  He comes with both hands separate, his head, the keg on his back, and two little pieces that slot in on his back.  

  Overall though, they're pretty simple to put together and I love the models.  Super excited to paint these.  

    Overall though, these guys are solid, easy to assemble and great looking models.  I think they're going to be awesome hits in the field and I'm excited to see them go.  

  I've got two batreps to put online with my ADR lists.  I'm also painting two Krakens for commission, and they'll get on here at some point.  We're through the worst of the winter here and things are starting to get a little less busy, so hopefully we'll see more of the blog.  Hopefully you guys are enjoying your weekend and we'll see you around.

  

  

50pts Thagrosh1 (Legion) vs. Borka2 (Trollblood)

I have two ADR lists I really need to try out before my tournament in a week and a half. 80% of the units I need for Grim2 is in the mail... so... I played what I wanted to last week, and I really like Borka2.

My opponent is my friend that plays Legion, and he's breaking out Bethayne and Thags1 for ADR. Normally, my drop would be Jarl w/ Long Riders, but that list also has Fire Eaters for ADR, and they're not even released yet (Wednesday!). I really like Borka2, and I don't know what he looks like against Legion based on first hand experience. So that's what we rolled with.

My opponent'sI list looks like:

Thagrosh1
*Zuriel
*Carnivean
*Scythean
*Blight Wasps
Spawning Vessel
Blackfrost Shard
Striders w/ UA
Maximus
Shepherd
Shepherd

Pretty simple. My opponent had a bunch of new stuff and wanted to play it. I've not played against the wasps yet, or Maximus, so that was going to be a treat. He's got ways to deal with infantry spam between Striders, Wasps and Zuriel. Maybe not a Grissel1 tier infantry spam, but definitely a unit or two. Then of course there's three solid heavies in the list, four if you count Thags bringing back his favorite one. Happily, I have snacking, so I'm not terribly worried.

Borka2
*Runebearer
*Rok
*Mulg
*Axer
*Axer
*Bouncer
Whelps
Max Highwaymen
Min KSB w/UA

I love this list. Borka2 brings an ability to me to play the game, all game through. When I push the button on the clock, I'm still holding my dice because I have 6 countercharges available to me, and all but one of them have reach, and he compensates by having a spray that ignores EVERYTHING on my team (except KSB, but they're in the back). Building Borka2 lists is a game of bringing as many beasts as possible for countercharges, and debating what the best tarpit unit is. For me, it's Highwaymen. Fenns or Kriels are a major consideration, but HWM are 8pts, and go to DEF16 with Borka's Snow Shroud spell. That's pretty decent. In this case, Striders had hunter, so DEF16 didn't happen, but in most other cases, it's an issue. On top of that, they bring a lot of ranged attacks, and CRAs into stationary beasts are always cool. Especially ARM17 Legion ones. The KSB is great because it means that basically every beast is ARM20. It's not a 3M list, but it's definitely got some ARM to it. The kicker is getting there without getting hit by something else en-route, and doing it on any other turn but feat turn. Quite frankly, Borka2 is a blast to play, and I think he has a higher skill cap than one would think simply because of Battlecharged. The feat is killer too. Most of the time, it just turns out to be a turn where I don't get attacked much. However, if timed correctly, (e.g., I get first turn), it can force some pretty challenging questions.

I won the rolloff, and elected to go first, because of that. I'm ok with second, but it usually forces me to feat defensively with Borka2. My HWM get split up, beasts on all sides, and my lights on the flanks. Unpacking this mess and allowing countercharges simultaneously is a nightmare I haven't figured out yet.



My stuff moves up. Because the Striders have Hunter, I opt not to cast Snow Shroud, and I do nothing but fill the stone with fury and run with Borka2. He only runs about 11 inches up because I don't want to find out that there's a Legion trick I don't know about with Zuriel. A full CRA is possible from the Striders, but Borka will be ARM20 under the stone, so I'm pretty sure he can't be one-shotted. I basically baiting my opponent into giving Mulg an extra 4'' move on my turn.

HWM move up, and my beasts push as hard as they can forward. I effectively box Rok in unfortunately, but my KSB gets up there and pops aura. Everything but two HWM way out on the left flank.

My opponent opens the ball with the Striders who move up and CRA in two man groups into the HWM. He seriously considered the CRA option into Borka, but felt like he would accomplish more killing HWM. Oddly enough, he didn't, rolling snake eyes twice, and only forcing one tough before reforming back. The Scythean gets Draconic Blessing, Fog of War comes up, and everything pushes forward, with the Wasps really getting out near the front.



Having gone first, I'm a decent range up the board for the scenario (Close Quarters, incidentally). I feel like I'm in a decent position to push up into my opponent's face and cause problems feating. I want to get Borka into range of dominating on my next turn, and I want to deal with Maximus before he gets in my face. I also need to set up charge lanes for my beasts to countercharge.

What happens is I lead off with my Highwaymen. I get them going, but I'm out of range on the right for Maximus. I've got three or four in range of the Wasps though, and I need hard eights to hit without CRAing. The Striders are DEF17 with everything considered. I decide to stick with the Wasps, and go for hard eights. I crank the next couple of attack rolls and my Highwaymen kill two of them. I hit the one in the center of the group of Striders, but I only hit him once, and leave him for Borka.

Then my Axer on the right casts his animus on himself for 2, and charges Maximus for a third fury, needing a 7 to hit. That doesn't happen, and the Axer sits there full on fury and glares at the pig.

Borka feats, casts Battle Charged, and assaults the closest Wasp, boosts to hit, hits and kills the Wasp and all three Striders around it. He's now sitting way up the board, pretty much alone, and out of control range of the two left light warbeasts. They proceed to walk into control range, Mulg and Rok run. I can't get Rok into a decent position, but Mulg is set up with a pretty clear lane forward. The KSB ends up packed around Rok, getting the aura to most of the army. The Runebearer minifeats and gets Snow Shroud onto the Highwaymen so they can be a part of the feat.

This leaves Borka stealthed at DEF14, ARM20 with 2 transfers.






So, my beasts and more importantly, my caster, are wide open, but under the feat they only get one melee attack before they're stationary. Also, because I have Mulg, I have protective fit. For every bit of damage, Mulg is going to move 4''.

Draconic Blessing gets upkept, Fog of War goes away. Maximus charges in and hits the Axer for pretty decent damage. I think one spiral goes down. Then Max becomes Stationary.

The last wasp charges in, staying out of melee range of Borka, and charges Mulg, wedging into the left corner. This activates the Bouncer's countercharge. He charges, needing a 7, and misses. Between the wasp and the KSB on the right, Mulg can't move forward. This sucks.

Striders move in to shoot at Highwaymen, and the Axer on the left charges, missing. He engages about four of them though. The rest shoot at Highwaymen, but sitting at ARM16, only kill a couple of them.

Thags pushes in hard and tosses an obliteration at Borka, but because he's stealth, it deviates and kills one KSB guy and that's it. He forgets to use his spray and activates the pot. They push past Thags and pop a Stinger. It charges Borka, cranks the damage roll and does 10 boxes. I transfer to the bouncer. Mulg seethingly changes facing slightly.

The Carnivean assaults. The spray misses Borka, but hits two KSB and a Highwayman, and the Stinger. Kills the Highwayman, and both KSB, clearing up Mulg. Also kills the Stinger, giving another fury to Thags, bringing him up to four. The melee strike hits Borka for good damage and he transfers to the axer on the left. Now he's stationary too.

The Scythean decides to go in after Mulg and block him from Thags. He hits Mulg once for good damage, goes stationary, and Mulg drops a whelp in front of him trying to block a charge lane from Zuriel who has yet to activate.

Zuriel goes, moves in within an inch of the whelp and sprays everything. He's down 1 RAT because of the whelp, which he misses with his first spray. He boosts to hit on Borka, and hits. Fails to break ARM at -8. He sprays again, and gets three boxes of damage. And the whelp lives.

The Blackfrost shard move up and stealth.




So it worked. Blocking in Mulg just almost got me. I can either walk away from this and probably kill both the Scythean and Carnivean, then dominate for two, or I can try to clear a path to Thags and let Mulg do his thing. I'm pretty sure I can get to Thags by removing just two of the Spawning Vessel's acolytes, so I decide to see how that goes first. I drop all upkeeps, pull in all the fury I can. The Axer that Maximus hit eats the whelp he popped, and rolls a 5 for d3 boxes to heal. Mulg leaves the whelp he spawned alive because Zuriel at -1MAT/RAT is funny to me.

The Highwaymen activate, open fire and kill the two acolytes easily. They shoot the Striders and I think miss most of them. The Axer moves in and threshers, killing the one Blackfrost Shard he could reach, two more acolytes, and calls it a day. The Bouncer smushes the wasp. KSB moves up, pops aura for +1STR

Rok assaults in and misses Thags, but gets close enough to Primal Mulg. Mulg walks around the pot and starts swinging at Thags needing 5s to hit. He can reach with his mace, but not his fist. I swing 6 times, missing once on snake eyes. Thags uses all four transfers, killing the Carnivean and hurting both other heavies pretty severely. Mulg was rolling at PS19 -2 because of Thagrosh, +1 from the stone, +2 from Primal, so altogether +4 on Thags (I think). Every time he hit was at least 7 damage, if not 10 to 14. The carnivean dieing fed back two damage to Thags, but Mulg is out now. I think about running Borka for it, but realize that with the Carnivean gone, Borka's easily in range of walking around everything and reaching Thags. SPD7 cav casters with reach are awesome. So Borka moves up, boosts to hit, hits, does damage. Buys, boosts, does trip ones. Last attack, buys, boosts, and puts Thags in the ground.



Thoughts on the game:

1. I've been really wanting to throw Borka2 to the wolves like that and see what happens. Usually I'm trying to answer questions, and Borka2 actually poses some very serious ones. Things went bad when he boxed Mulg. Things went much better when he cleared Mulg off. The key mistakes in that were A) Obviously clearing Mulg B) Not spraying with Thags (he forgot to) and C) Not leaving room for the Scythean to hit him. Borka was down 3 boxes. One good solid melee hit from a heavy would have sealed it. Granted, the Bouncer missing the average roll needed to hit the wasp kinda stunk, but meh.

2. I have to figure out how to unpack this list. Rok is actually one of my key models because of his spray, and not having him close enough to the front line to really ever get it off on the countercharge hurt. The obstacle on the right kind of limited me, but it's still something I need to take into account. Unpacking this list is something I almost need to do on an empty table three or four times and figure it out before taking it into the field.

Overall, it was a fun game, and could have very easily gone either way. My dice were hot pretty early on (RAT5 POW10 trolls should not be one-shotting 5 box Legion wasps under Fog of War). They tried to abandon me later in the game, but held out. Borka2 is easily one of the most fun casters in Trolls to play. I can't say that he's as competitive an option as Madrak2, but I'm certainly a long ways from the skepticism I had when he first came out. Between his feat and countercharge, he poses some serios problems. An ARM20 warbeast skew that plays on your opponent's turn almost as much as it does on yours is awesome, and watching a player try to work out the order of activations in his head when he's trying to do anything to your list is hilarious. A single countercharge from you can ruin anything, everything, and a single countercharge could move your favorite warbeast into range of Ghetorix. It's a tight game to play and I really enjoy it.

Hope you enjoyed the read! I've got an ADR masters here in a few weeks, I'm taking Jarl and Grim2. We'll see how that goes.

In other news, I got my PG status, so I'm excited about that.  I'm also somehow now a commission painter, and I have two Krakens to assemble and paint in the next couple of weeks.  I'm not a huge Cryx fan, but I'm looking forward to these.  I think.  And hey, Gargs again!  Another Mt. King to paint.  I'm excited.  I'll buy Zapdos for my wife too, but mainly so I can beg her to let me paint that guy too.

Borka2 painted

And back to our regularly scheduled Trollbloods.  I bulked up the sides of the bear's head and added a hump just before the saddle, trying to go for more of a grizzly look.  Pictures are still phone pics, still getting packed into the house.

I got to put him on the table weekend before last.  Cryx w/ Scaverous.  I ran two Axers, Rok, Mulg, a Bouncer and full Highwaymen.  KSB, Whelps and Runebearer in there too.  Not an ideal matchup for Borka2, but countercharge is pretty ridiculous.  The Highwaymen actually didn't do a lot for me since A) They can't touch stealth, and B) My opponent left them on the other side of the board.  They did great against other stuff, but mainly they tarpitted, and every once in awhile, CRAed against something hi-DEF.  The key moments in the game were Tartarus charging into a perfect thresher zone, only to be countercharged and one-shotted by Borka2.  Rok primaled and killed Deathjack with ease.  Um, an Axer and Rok both killed multiple banes on the countercharge, on my opponent's turn... Yeah.  So, I don't think Borka2 is super competitive yet, but he's hella fun to play.  Countercharge is only reason to play him I think.  The feat helps protect a lot on the way end, but Countercharge is pretty handy when you have 6 models on the table that you have to gamble against for a single charge.  2 Axers to thresher, Borka and Rok to assault.  On top of that, with the KSB in play, Borka2 is DEF14/ARM20, and with Mulg gets to walk up and beat things up every time you try to break that ARM20 number.  The one chance my opponent really had to mess Borka up, he had to spend his stack tking things around Mulg so Protective Fit didn't win me the game.  The assassination attempt failed, and Rok ate Scaverous, but it was a good shot.  I really like his model, and I enjoy playing him.

  I don't know if I can fit him into my 2 list matchup, but if I get bored with Madrak2... maybe.  The thing right now though is that I have Madrak2, Jarl, and Grim2.  Obviously, that's not going to work in a 2 list, and what happens is that Jarl and Madrak2 go, and I just hope that I don't land Cryx, and if I do, it's not one or two specific players and I can handle it with Jarl.  Generally, Madrak2 handles Khador, Skorne, Menoth (Except Harby), Trolls, Convergence and anything that looks like I'm facing high ARM or dudespam   Jarl handles Cygnar, Legion, Circle, Cryx.  I don't ever see Ret in my meta, but probably Jarl gets them too.  Jarl mainly comes along because Cygnar outshoots Grim2, and wipes out Madrak2 long before he shows up.  With Borka2, that's not going to happen, and he can handle most of the same stuff Madrak2 can, and Grim2 can get what's left in the cracks while at the same time dominating Cryx.  So we'll see...

  I'm also super excited that I got 3rd place in a 12 contestant tournament, so... strategic advice from me is hilarious.

  Hey, exciting things:

  Dynamo is assembled, based, and awaiting basecoat, and.... that's probably it for awhile until I've got my den built.  I broke the guns off of my Cyclone, and I'm going to grab a hammer from a friend or a bits store and make a second Ironclad.  I have two minutemen now, the two Ironclads, Dynamo...  And Kraye.  Plus stuff.  It's going to be fun for like, two weeks, and then I'll be mad I have no good medium based infantry, and be back to trolls.

  So yeah.  There's the update.  Look forward to painted Highwaymen... and stuff.

5 Painters I like right now - January edition

  The idea of a monthly  5 Painters piece kinda went out the window when October showed up and my favorite 5 were the same ones in September.  The last month has been really good though, so pull up your reference folder and be ready to save images.

1.  TorkaThor.  I've never heard of this guy, but he posted some holiday work that is absolutely wonderful.  His thread is here.

2.  Kommander_Redfinger.  He's got a couple of threads, including some Khador I believe.  However, his Granite Trolls are by far my favorite, for completely unbiased reasons.  This army specifically is for Trevor with Chainattack, and Trevor has some fine taste in comissioned artwork.  This thread is here.

  

3.  Jolly Roger Studio.  This is a collaboration of artists, so the thread has multiple contributors to it as they complete projects together.  They have a very definitive artstyle shared between them, and it's some of the best cohesiveness between a set of artists that I've seen in the miniature painting realm of things.  They have a Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/JollyRogerStudio, and a website, www.jollyrogerstudio.org.

4.  UnlimitedColor

  I didn't find this guy on PrivateerPress, but rather on CoolMiniOrNot.  He's got two models there that I noticed, but none more than his Mammoth.  The red is brilliant, and he's paid a lot of attention to detail.  As if that wasn't enough, he added even more.  Not only are the tattoos fantastic on the mammoth, the intricate detailing everywhere where there wasn't originally is very well done.  Having never owned or painted a Mammoth, I had to go find pictures to see if that detail was already modeled or if he had freehanded it.  He freehanded it, and it looks fanastic.  His website is here.

5.  BadHouse.  I really like a lot of the Convergence models, and there's a few (like Axis) that I'm probably going to pick up at some point for the sole purpose of painting.  So it's exciting for me to see well painted Convergence, and there's been a few champions out there.  Most people stay with the traditional silver/blue, but a couple of have gone off the beaten path.  BadHouse is the second Orange Convergence I've seen, and his thread is brand new.  Definitely enjoying this and I'm excited to keep up with it.  That thread is here.  I don't think he's the most technically proficient, and talented painter in this list, and his colossal has a couple of issues I see, but everything else is pretty awesome.

  Besides, the title is 5 Painters I like right now.  Not the 5 best painters in existence, or 5 painters I think you might like.  

Honorable mention.  Found this guy Monday morning.  GuitaRasmus.  Typical trollblood quandry on the forums these days, wants to play trolls for the big guys, but that's not how you play trolls.  So he's doing Legion instead, but he's doing it in style.  He's only got one completed sculpt, and unpainted at that, but it shows a lot of promise.  This thread just went up, and it's here.  He also has a blog that I'll be subscribing to, though it appears to be mostly 40k stuff.  That's ok.  I don't miss playing 40k, but I do love a well-painted Space Marine.  The blog is here.

  So that's that. I've got Borka2 painted, and will be posted shortly along with the Croak hunter that I was given for Secret Santa.  I got two games in over the weekend against Scaverous, and used Highwaymen both times, and that was fun.  My brother bought me Dynamo, so I grabbed a second Minuteman, and based them both yesterday. It appears that I'll be playing Cygnar in the near future, at least a few times.  Probably just Kraye.  Otherwise, the moving is settling down, so hopefully this will start picking up speed again.  Enjoy your new years!

Warpborn Alpha - Secret Santa

  We're moved into the house.  I've unpacked my Cygnar, Circle, Khador and what little I have of Menoth from the 2 Player box on a shelf in my very uncompleted den.  It's not much progress, but the more important aspects of the house are coming along nicely.

  In the midst of that move though, the Secret Santa we had in our local group started getting near it's deadline (Being Christmas, but most of us aren't going to see anyone after this last Saturday until new years).  The online random generator landed me a guy that just joined the group, bringing Circle and he wanted either a Warpborn Alpha, or something else.  A Wilder I think.  I chose the Warpborn for purely painting reasons, and picked it up a couple of weeks ago.

  Then I lost it.

  So now I've bought two.  When I find the first one, that's great because my Wife will play it.  The model is kind of a pain to assemble, but it's pretty cool when it's done, and I don't mind how it turned out.  Pardon the photo setup.  Again, I haven't had a chance to really do much in my "studio", so this is straight up, unedited pictures shot from my phone outside.

  Soon enough I'll be back into it full swing and we'll see some more updates.  For now, enjoy your holidays!  Merry Christmas.

Unboxing the Highwaymen and assembly

  They're here!  I preordered them two weeks ago, but wasn't able to pick them up till today.  My wife and I just finished moving, so the next week will be unpacking, and then what renovation is left.  It's be a crazy two months, and I haven't been able to hit the tables very much at all.  It was a nice break then today when I got the chance to put together these guys.  

  There's been some bad rep on these dudes as far as the models go.  I'm not a huge worryer when it comes to flashing and sculpts.  The only models I worry about that on are usually casters or models I want to put into a painting competition, like the Mt. King or Janissa.  So I've got a ton of pictures, and some heads up for the assembly.  Let's roll through them.

  

  This box is packed.

  Seems like all of the bodies are in the first bag here, and arms/heads/most bits in the other.

  Right off the bat, I love these torsos.  These look fantastic.  I don't see a whole lot of flash issues outside of what's there for the slot on the base.  There's a few exceptions, but these really don't look bad.

 
  There's a little bit on the sash for this one that's kind of rough.  The next one is by far the worse on the bodies.

  For starters, the leg nearest the camera sucks, but the worse part is the kilt right in front.  That seam runs across the flat of the cloth, and has nearly no access it.  A sanding stick is pretty much your only option for that area.

  All your bodies here.  Three main sculpts and the leader.  One of the clothes goes to the Leader, and the other three go to the sculpts at the top.  There's also three little kneepads that I've already glued in this picture, and they go to the same upper three models.

  

  And pandora's box.  This is a lot of pieces for a PP kit.  I haven't seen this many bits since I played Space Marines, but it's not nearly that bad.  All told, I think there's 81 pieces in the box not counting bases.  That's a lot compared to say, the Fenns.  This is also where the worse flashing is.  You'll see that there's two holsters and a bandolier for each model as well.

  All of the arms have that seam, and that same port spot on the upper side of the shoulder where the resin came in.  Kind of a pain, but meh.  The worse ones are the dudes with hankerchiefs.  The seams run up either side of the face and are pretty evident.  The hats also have a port in the side that doesn't come out very well.  It's pretty much going to be a notch in the hat no matter what.

  So now, trying to put pieces together.  For the three standing straight up male sculpts, you'll need the hats, the heads with pegs on top, and the arms with sleeves all the way down to the gloves.  That's the first sculpt.

  The lady sculpt is pretty simple.  The female head, bodie, and the skinny armys with no gloves, some wrist wraps and a patch on the elbows.

  The third sculpt is the dude ducking down for cover.  It comes with four sets of arms and four heads.  Two sets are rolled up sleeves, the other two are bare arms completely.  The heads are the two with hoods and the two males with the bandanas.  

  The right bare arm for this sculpt specifically.  These arms all have a visible port that doesn't hide very well against the model, as seen below.  You also get to see that seam again.

  Last, but most certainly not least, the leader.  This is a beautiful model, lots of detail, exquisite cloak.  I really like how this one turned out.  

  You can see this is where his cloak covers.  It's sculpted as well, allowing you do use a different head for your leader and ignore the cloak altogether if you so choose.  A nice motion from PPress.

  Then we have this.  Ten bandoliers and twenty holsters (ten right, ten left).  Each set of ten is identical, and the bandoliers are all flat.  You will either have to warm them up and bend them to the curvature of the figure, or just bend them by force.  I chose the latter.

  Assembling them was kind of a pain.  Everything really went together pretty well though.  The holsters were what got my fingers glued together, but they turned out ok.  The biggest complaint I had was on the male sculpt with a cowboy, the way the arm sockets are constructed you don't have a choice but to do the gun up in the air stance.  I think this model specifically would look pretty slick hip shooting, but he's got the celebratory firing guns heavenwards stance instead.

  Overall impressions are that these sculpts are awesome.  The biggest complaints are:

1.  The hooded head flash lines on either side of the face.

2.  The flash line right in the middle of the kilt on the first male model sculpt.

3.  Little to no pose options on the arm sockets.  Since these guys aren't holding two handed weapons, I think they could have given us a lot more headroom to pose these armsockets how we wanted, but unless you've got grey stuff handy, you're stuck with what you got.

4.  The little bandolier and holster pieces.  The holsters I think I get, they wouldn't have come out of a mold very well.  The bandolier I don't understand, and I think it's an unnecessarily small piece to fight with.

  Positive comments:

  1.  Going to say it again.  Beautiful sculpts.  Lots of crisp detail for resin.  Lots of straps, ropes, flowing kilts, and a fantastic leader model.

  2.  Female sculpt.  I personally don't buy all of the "pp is being sexist" crap I see on the forums, but it's still kinda cool to see a female sculpt in some of these models.

  

  I got everything assembled, but not based.  I'll base them later.  For now, the sculpts are assembled and below.

  Female Sculpt 1:

 
  Male Sculpt 1:

  Male Sculpt 2:

  Leader Sculpt with Bouncer for comparison:

  

  Group Shot:

  Overall, I'm super excited for this unit, both for their rules and their models, and I'm really looking forward to getting them on the table proper.  Hopefully this post has given you a glimpse of what you've got coming when you pick up a box or two of these guys.

  Otherwise, I'm moving into my house.  I have these guys to paint up, and I've bought a Bouncer, a Winter Troll, and Borka2 (Thank you miniaturemarket), both beasts for him specifically.  Although Calandra can use the winter troll.  Borka2 is going to get a grizzly bear mod I hope, and I'm going to sculpt a bit on the winter troll too, having seen someone else mess with theirs to good return.  But that's all happening after I get settled into the house, which will be a few weeks yet.  Looking forward to it.  Enjoy your holidays!