Tuesday, January 13, 2015

From Box to Table: The Brotherhood Starter Box from Warzone Resurrection

Okay, so...why not just a regular unboxing article? To be perfectly honest, it's because GMort covers most of the same games we do, and his Unboxed series is just too good to try to follow. Seriously, go read them. On top of that, Johan also does an amazing job with unboxings on his blog as well. Instead, I wanted to take a slightly different track, and discuss models going literally from sprue to table ready. Today we're going to look at the Brotherhood Starter Box for Warzone: Resurrection from Prodos Games. 





This is one of the boxes that changed the most from the original Kickstarter release.  The original compliment (if I remember correctly) was ten troopers, one Judicator, and one model of the Cardinal, the leader of the Brotherhood.  With the revamp of the game to larger point sizes, it made more sense to not include singular personalities in the starter boxes (even though I personally found having the extra singular models never went to waste, giving my bodies to base special custom characters on, or worse case, statues).  The redux of the box still has the Judicator and ten trooper,s although the sculpts have all been redone.  In place of Cardinal Dominic, you have two Inquisitors- which can be used as upgraded squad leaders for the Troopers, a unit unto themselves, or Lord or Warlord choices- so a lot of options there.  

The paint schemes you see on these guys are not mine, as this body was also a commission.  Just like the last one, the bases are unaddressed aside from black sand, so the client can paint them to match his table. 

You'll have to forgive the unpainted nature of the original models, but I wanted to include them to show the contrast of how much better the new guys are.   First of all, we have the troopers.  Now, I kinda liked the original guys- very stylized armor, and had the hallmarks I expected for someone like myself who was familiar with the old game to recognize the pedigree.  And then I saw the new ones.  They took everything the originals had and turned it up to eleven.  Smoother, cleaner, more detailed, and easier to assemble- instead of each arm being a separate piece, the upper arms are attached to the body, and the lower arms are y-mounted with the gun.  Quick, simple, and beautiful.  

The inquisitors, while not part of the original box, I did have some to compare to.  Not that it's really much of a comparison.  The old ones always looked a little weedy to me- not much the image of armor under the robes. The new ones, however, were spot on.  Spot on.  Really smooth, and these guys look like they mean business.  You get two different sculpts in the box.    

Paint scheme was chosen by the client.  Models were primed black, then all the red sections were undercoated white to allow the greatest contrast.  The black is three parts black, one part Army Painter deep blue- a combination I normally use for black, as "near-black" allows for much better shading and contrast.  The line edge on the armor is a 1:1 mix instead.  The warm metallics were a  four or six step process, using several layers of Vallejo warm metals (bronze, brass, golds) to bring up a deep textured gold tone.  The steel metals were simple Army Painter plate mail washed in P3 Armor wash- which is one of the most wonderful washes ever for aging used and probably well oiled metals.  I will probably go back in and do the lenses in the helmets either a light blue for glass of a glowing color, after I see which way the client prefers.

All in all, this is a really solid kit.  If you're playing Brotherhood, the most limiting factor to this kit is a Standard game can only have one squad of up to three judicators, so beyond three starters is a waste- so long as you magnetize the arm on the Judicator, since it can either have a sword-and-gatling combo, or paired gatlings.  It also has two head options, which is nice.  If you're playing Capitol, Bauhaus, or Imperial you can field a unit of Troopers with your force... but unless you're planning on expanding to also play Brotherhood, you probably want to avoid the box set and just get the Trooper and Valkyrie units directly.  However, these are really solid models that demonstrate the technical details in the Warzone line, and the really solid models that have come out from Prodos since the Kickstarter resolved.



Don't forget to check back later this week for more information about our upcoming Warzone: Resurrection campaign, Hidden Agendas, as voted on by our readers! 

See you on the other side of the table,
The Second Class Elitist

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