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Warmachine/Hordes: January Releases Unboxed

6 Minute Read
Jan 19 2014

It’s that time again. Let’s see what January had in store from Privateer Press.  So many pretty pictures!!!

Let’s do plastic kits first. The Retribution get new resculpted plastic Houseguard Riflemen this month.

Here’s everything you’ll find in the box.

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A close-up of one of the Riflemen.

And another. There is some flash on these guys as usual. It doesn’t seem to run over too much detail so it should be easy enough to clean.

The back of one of our Riflemen.

And here are some of the other bits.

I’ll finish off with the leader.

Looking at these guys, I can’t help but notice that Privateer chose to go with an entirely new kit with these guys, as opposed to adding rifle arms to the Houseguard Halberdier set. This is contrary to what they’ve done for Cygnar’s Storm Infantry, Khador’s Winter Guard Units, the Protectorate’s Exemplar units, every Convergence unit so far, and pretty much everything else that’s presented an opportunity to reduce tooling costs for separate units. Does this change mean anything? Don’t know. But I still thought it was worth mentioning.

 And speaking of units that share parts with others, here are the new Eradicators.

And of course, all their pieces.

Since they share so many parts with the Reciprocator unit, I’ll just link you to the unboxing article for those guys. So go check out that article if you haven’t already. Now lets check out the pieces that are unique to the Eradicators.

The Eradicators have these cool stabby shields.

Which of course transform into a closed version that grant the unit a different bonus. While they’re nowhere near as ornate as the Reciprocators spears, I do believe I like the overall look of this unit more.

Oh and these guys also have new forearms to stick those shields in.

Of all of this months units, this was the one I was most curious about. Maybe it’s just me, but Banes just seem to exemplify Cryx in a way no other unit does for it’s own faction. These had to be done right.

Here are all the pieces.

So how do they hold up?

I honestly think these are the highest quality plastic unit Privateer has made so far.  The detail is great and the mold lines have been easy to clean. That’s right – I’ve already started cleaning these guys up and it’s been going pretty smoothly. Although I feel I can pretty much say I’m an expert at cleaning this kind of plastic after all the kits I’ve been through. After dealing with the Trollblood Warder and Champ kits I could probably handle anything.

Here is the leader body.

And here is one of the torsos.

A back view of a torso and “legs” joined together. I still think it’s odd that there’s nothing to glue the back spikes into but the metal banes were the same way.

Here’s an axe.

The shoulderpads got the worst of the mould-lines, but as they run all around the edge and don’t obscure any detail, they should clean up fast.

Here’s one of their back spikes.

I tried to get a decent shot of the head, but I just couldn’t cut it. Here’s my best failed attempt. See it as prrof that I tried rather than as a decent representation of the quality.

And just to prove to you that these guys are the real deal, here’s the new plastic leader beside the old metal one. I primed them so you couldn’t tell them apart. Can you figure out which is the plastic one? Remember you can always click to zoom in. Right click and hit view image if this isn’t working.

Ok, you should be able to figure out which is which based on the difference in shoulders and right arm. The only place the detail doesn’t quite measure up is in the face. But the loss is minimal enough that I’m happy to accept it in exchange for the $35 reduction in price on these guys. I think they’re a huge win.

Oh and my box came with these 10 extra back spikes. Wherever shall I put them?

That’s it for this months plastics. In addition to their Eradicators, the convergence got themselves some new orbs.

Behold the Elimination Servitors.

Close-up.

And another close-up.

Here’s Retribution’s other new toy for the month. Releasing the Houseguard Thane alongside the Bane Thralls just feels like an insult. This guy will let those Riflemen I just showed you ignore Stealth.

Last up it’s Raluk Moorclaw. A few lucky folks have had this guy since last years Gencon, but he’s finally available now for all of us.

~And that’s January! Check back soon as I hope to have December’s releases before too long. Yes I know December comes before January, but the post office makes mistakes during the holidays and packages get delayed.

Ben Williams
Author: Ben Williams
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