For Christmas, I bit the bullet and ordered Forgefather Vulkan He’stan for Mason’s army from GW. It’s a direct only model (don’t get me started on that topic) and tough to come up with any other way. I couldn’t find any up for trade on Bartertown and neither WarStore nor my LGS could get it in due to the direct only status. Oh well. Since this is a Salamanders army, he’s a must have. (And for most other Space Marines armies. Again, don’t get me started.)
It’s a fairly well done model. Actually having it in hand helps as there is only one angle ever shown by GW. Having built it now and looked it over, I might just try my hand at scratch-building one at some point. I’m confident that I could make something more dynamic at the very least. The pose is pretty flat. I’ve tried to help it out a bit by bending the streamers on the spears to a more natural flowing position. Not much else I can do without breaking out the saw. For a $20 direct only model I had hoped for more. GW, disappointment is thy name.
For those who have followed me for a long time the basing will look familiar. It’s the same method that I used on my Project Rainy Day army. Since these are winter themed models and Mason loved the snow that I did on those it was a natural (and easy) way to go. I did a how-to on these way back on the BrushThralls blog during the build of PRD. I’ll see if I can dig that up and repost it here for a formal tutorial of sorts.
So this is the start of the army. I’ve decided that I’ll build up a 500 point force ofr each of us so we can get to playing and learning the rules. That will be posted as it occurs.