Monday, December 3, 2018

Sandstorm Wars Review--Part 1

"And when the Plague God show favors upon those humans that flock to his cults, he sometimes bestows upon them mutations to make the cultists resemble the Plague Marines who's aid they pray for. Even though they look like the dreaded heretic Astartes, they are not. But they do posses greater strength and resilience then regular humans."

-Excerpt from the Reports of Inquisitor Corrigan, 3 226 765.M38

A VERY large cultist heavy weapon trooper


I will shill ANYTHING! Just kidding, I had actually intended to do two reviews, one on these models and one on the brushes I used for them--but as my mother always said, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." So I'll just be reviewing these models. A big thanks to the guys at Sandstorm Miniatures for contacting me last week about reviewing some models from their Kickstarter. They sent me some models from the Chosen and the Cult. I decided to break this review into two parts. I can't review models if I haven't painted them and I thought it would be faster to do it this way. As I write this, there are only 5 days left in their Kickstarter so I wanted to make sure something got posted while you could still pledge. I also wanted to be upfront that I am an avowed "warhammer guy," so I am reviewing these models through that lens and not through the eyes of their game (Sorry guys!).


I painted these guys up in the same manner I've been using for my previous Death Guard. So no need to go through that again. The Chosen models come in resin (the Cult were metal). There was not very much clean up necessary, although I did find it helpful to run an airbrush cleaning brush through the gaps under the arms to remove the flash I couldn't reach with a knife.

The Cult's Magister

There is a reason I decided these would be cultists and not plague marines themselves, and it goes to what I like most about these models. I'm a sucker from incorrect proportions. It's why I'll fight anyone who doesn't recognize Aly Morrison as the greatest sculptor ever! In other words, the size of their heads indicate that these are not Astartes, but bloated, corpulent humans (at least to me). However, the rest of the model scales pretty well with the current range of Plague Marines. 


The only real knock I could find is that there was a completely flat spot, you can see where I fixed it in the above picture--where the slime is coming out from his arm and onto the staff. On the other side the texture was already there, but on this side, it was smooth. But even my meager sculpting skills could easily match the texture there, so no harm done. 


I also chose to make a slight conversion on this model as well. I looked at the pose and just felt that he needed a large, rusty blade on his gun. So I added that with a piece of plastic card. This model was both the most simple and the most fun to paint due to his crazy proportions. They both fit the warhammer world and convey the disgustingness of a plague god.


Finally, Sandstorm sent me one other Chosen model. And this one was probably my favorite of the bunch. However, he's not up on the kickstarter yet and there were no instructions. I think this is how he's assembled but I'm not entirely sure. Plus, due to his size, I'm planning on some pretty significant conversions anyway!

The Lego brick is not part of the Kickstarter 😉
I hope to get the review of the Cult up this week, but they are not completely painted yet. I have a day job, and my employer acts like they're the boss of me for some reason--they even get angry if I just don't show up, can you believe it! So anyway, if you like any of their models, go pledge to the Kickstarter while you can!

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