Wrathmongers & Skullreapers Now Up For Warhammer Pre-Order
March 6, 2015 by brennon
Games Workshop have put up the new pre-orders for both the Warhammer Fantasy Wrathmongers and Skullreapers that we saw earlier in the week. These new Khorne models seem to have been met with a bit of laughter and some love too. I think I'm on the side of love...
The Wrathmongers are some pretty awesome hammer wielding, chain lashing demons of awesomeness with blood red skin and a bit of an angry attitude problem. Well, maybe that's putting it a bit tamely. I think these are very cool and despite the YMCA poses I think they look great.
The Skullreapers are more in keeping with the style you might have seen from 90's Games Workshop and they also have a bit of the Chaos Space Marine about them too which is interesting. I think these are cool too and I love the idea of painting them up with really pale skin and bright red armour as a contrast. A bit Skorne like but I think it works.
The End Times: Archaon is also out for pre-order and comes in it's standard guise as a big Hardback Book and Limited Edition ready to bring the forces of Chaos to the tabletop and probably ruin the Old World for ever. It will be interesting to see whether or not humanity destroys Archaon or will evil reign supreme and send humanity and the rest of the forces of Order into a post-apocalyptic world?
There's also a very cool sounding Art Book within the Limited Edition that I wouldn't mind have a look at. I bet it's got some great scenes within it and would make a neat coffee table book.
What do you think of the new releases (once again) and are you looking forward to the final End Times book?
Let us know!
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Better quality pictures
Just means they still look really awful in higher definition
Am trying not to laugh.
On the other hand it is quite good fun to turn them round on the 360 and pretend they are Geoff Capes in Cosplay
Geoff Capes in bondage gear wearing a gimp mask…..shudder…..
google “the man whose arms exploded” not only will you not be disappointed but you will discover their inspiration for the muscle bound YMCA village people of khorne.
There is a precedent for that…
http://www.wearmoi.co.uk/acatalog/gallery5.html
@chibi you have a way with words that makes me grin
The Wrathmongers remind me of the Doomseeker Dwarve Slayers….love them. I can understand what the guy with the Y pose is doing….the old double conker to the noggin strike….but does look a bit crap. Perhaps the fancy horned helmet makes it look worse….
Skullreapers are nice too but perhaps too much bling. Leaving the backbanners off may alleviate this nicely.
If I actually cared what happens to Warhammer Fantasy then these miniatures would make me very sad. They look more like a nail in the coffin than the promise of a revival. End Times indeed.
Got it, they are marshalling aircraft on a chaos aircraft carrier!
Then you must make sure you paint the proper colours on the breastplates: purple for the ‘grapes’ dumping bitumen on people, and yellow for anyone about to be shot from a catapult 🙂 .
They have an incredible amount of detail for plastics. Each part on its own is great but … somehow they just look stupid. Maybe it’s just an unlucky series of photos and painting, but they somehow look terrible. The movement and poses just don’t work, plus the muscle+armour combo didn’t work once sculpted.
Now sure how they f*cked this up. Another OOOOH DYNAMIC! syndrome which messed up these models. Had they just been standing in a standard “ready for battle” pose they would be amazing. Instead they’re dancing around like somethin’ precious. And those chains WILL break btw.
@poosh
For a while GW designs have suffered from including lots of details, but at the expense of the whole.
@erastus
I think it is rather sad tbh
Like seeing a once great talent now reduced to an old soak tinkling away on an out of tune upright for drinks in a seedy bar. 🙁
Am wondering if they are trying too hard, not hard enough or simply don’t care what the heck the models look like because it is the end of term, so to speak
If this is GW’s response to calls for better, less cartoonish mini’s, it is the equivalent of flipping all of us ‘the bird.’ Seems even the loyalists have fallen silent.
It does make me wonder whether the current sculpting team are to scratch on the CAD sculpting. The weird poses and the overload of detail suggest they’re still getting the hang of it. As they don’t tend to publicise their hiring and firing it’s hard to know whether they’ve been bringing in CAD sculpting specialists or switching their current team over. That Michael Perry sculpted Smaug digitally suggests some of the latter is going on. If that’s what’s happening in most cases then unless GW are giving them a lot of time off to learn how to do it then… Read more »
I did wonder that, but also could be time constraints – melding elements and fine tools work on muscle joints is from my limited understanding the time consuming aspect, so are they being given x time then signed off?
These models are very similar to the 40K Chosen models in the 40K starter set in terms of detail and aesthetic. The only different is the choice and design of the weapons; and the poses (i.e. badly done dynamic poses).
I don’t know how GW could mess this up. They have years of experience in making this type of model.
I know Aragorn Marks worked on some of the Chaos models in DV. He has previous experience of digital sculpting but he left last year.
@chibi I think GW have actually suffered from a lack of detail in many of their models in fact, from the Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Dwarf new waves ranges to their newer Tyranids and Harlequins – all released, 2013-14-15 to the point that they are just toys rather than miniatures (pieces of art, is this not the distinction?). I can’t recall any GW models with too much *unnecessary* detail which ruined the whole: only models with bad details (i.e. the details were not unnecessary but badly executed) These models are not suffering from too much detail, they have some outstanding… Read more »
*excluding the icons on the back which seem weird an unnecessary.
@poosh I think you are absolutely right, the individual parts do look fine, but just look awful when assembled. I find it interesting the number of times I hear people say that the minis in DV or whatever the Fantasy starter box is called, are some of GW’s best work, because those minis are monopose. I’d go so far as to say that most of the best plastic minis around today from all kinds of manufacturers are either monopose, or have quite limited posing options. Making posable miniatures really isn’t easy and it’s often done badly and not just by… Read more »
Those are some bad looking models.
No……..they are just…..no……*walks away shaking head*
You know the more I look at these the more I wonder if it’s the choice of colours and the very clean look that has ruined these models. The Skaven Stormfiends looked rather nasty on the web but after putting them together I quite like them in the flesh so to speak. The big trouble is though that until we find out if there is a move to round bases I’m rather loathed to make any more investments into GW fantasy (but I will when the rumours and facts settle down into the truth).
You might be right – perhaps if you went with a darker, more metallic colour pallet and avoided the whole red skin thing the models would be more effective.
That said, you would still need to do something about some of the more ill advised posing chocies seen in the photos revealed thus far, but there might be options in the box that let you avoid any situation where your Wrathmongers look like they are part of the worlds most violent dance troupe and/or are seconds away from killing themselves with those impractical chain hammer things of theirs.
I think you are right. I actually think the heads should be swapped between the two types. I think a flesh coloured bald slyer type berzerker and a khorne helmed warrior. Just need to avoid picking out all the symbols, leave some same colour as the armour. Think if its done like that could end up with some pretty nice elite.
Looking in to it….looks like there are ten different torsos for five figure….so can perhaps avoid the more extreme poses…..
How do we fix it…
@cpauls1 By using variant parts available as options in the kit and a more muted paint scheme……!
Buy not buying them or buying doom reavers from PP 😛
I’m absolutely gobsmacked. How bad do the miniatures have to get before people move on?
I’ve said I quite like the kit. I’m looking forward to modelling these plastics they have a lot of potential and I’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of them. I can’t think of a better reason to buy them. I think @cpauls1 …..a tad immature if you expect people to have the same tastes and/or not enjoy something because you don’t. Also, why move on from a hobby space I love? I spend a bit of everyday collecting and painting minis from lots of companies. Trying new games and wasting far too much money on kickstarters. Its a very… Read more »
Oh, dear. I didn’t think you were serious. Very well. It’s going to be tough, but I will try to laugh at these from a distance 🙂 .
Thanks to you lot, I now cannot even look at that one Wrathmonger model without hearing The Village People…
I hope you are pleased with yourselves, you gits. 😉
I never said village people but those that did should be justly proud 🙂 GW needs to release a champion called something Jungmann 😛
I wonder how many ways you could pose these guys. I like them, they look deadly flailing around like madmen, which is what crazed Knorne worshiping warriors should be like.
I do wonder if the heavy chest plate / icon is throwing off the movement through the torso. Making the body seem very still in comparison.
What confused me though, if anyone else read the blurb on the book, is that Caradyran is now the incarnate of fire. What happened to the slayer king?
God knows but seems the studios high elf crush has returned to degrade the fluff even further. Tyrion back as well, should have let him die. Looking forward to it and desperately hoping its better than thanquol
Yeah I thought Tyrion dying was great for the story. It was a classic tragedy story. The noble hero, overcome with grief turns to darkness with the aim of doing good but becomes everything he hates. He needed to die so that the elves could move on and get out of the constant fighting between them. How is he going to come back as well. “Hey guys! I’m good now, see, I’m all light and stuff. Sorry about my spat earlier. I was angry, my kid just died to resurrect a giant bone dude so I picked up a wickedly… Read more »
I think the dude in the bottom left hand corner has his chest plate bolted to his nipples That would throw my movement off, I can tell you! lol The armour design combined with the exaggerated musculature give the impression that walking would be difficult, let alone swinging wildly. A good sculpture could capture the potential for frenzy with the figure in repose. Also what makes a figure dynamic is the rhythm that is created by relationship of the parts to each other. It can be quite subtle to achieve dynamism One of the problems I have with these figures,… Read more »
lol, maybe that’s what they’re flailing about for. Their armour pinches and crimps in all the wrong places and their shifting around trying to get it settle. Like a wedgy but they’re too embarrassed to flick it out
I wonder how many channels those skullreapers get. Can’t help your combat abilities to be walking around with the equivalent of the SETI project on your back.
Haha the price on these .. hillarious in its own right
Never ceases to amaze
70 quid the pair.
Shadows of Brimstone
Imperial Assault
The Great War KS
you get the idea.
WHF always suffers when they try to pose models like this. Not sure if the pose and ultra goofyness of these models is whats most depressing, or the fact that once again GW along side FW seem to think only Khorne and Nurgle exist in the chaos pantheon.
Gods forbid we make Tzeentch units, they would probably require too much skill to sculpt, and Slaanesh might just offend all those soccer moms with 12 year olds who buy the starter kits and play the game twice.
Its the fact the models are heroic scale with short stumpy legs or just generaly badly proportioned, the built in “chubbyness” doesnt mix well with gracious movement
Ordered the book, but I’m not really fond of these models or the nurgle models released with the glotkin. Bloodthirster last week was amazing looking through.
Khorne Skullreapers look like they are carrying evil lollypops.
So these are the Lollypop Men.
It’s so that demonic school kids can safely cross the highway to Hell
What ever happened to making models compact for ranking? I don’t want to bash any sculptor that worked on this as I know they get told what they should look like, but the lineup above doesn’t impress me. sometime less detail is better.
You’re making some assumptions there about Warhammer 9th :p
I’ll wager these types of models will always be fielded in skirmish formation come 9th.
There’s just too much stuff on those models, it would take me a whole month just to paint one.