Horus Heresy – Land Raider Spartan Assault Tank
Last of our Horus Heresy Age of Darkness detail reviews, covers after the regular Infantry and the Contemptor Dreadnought, the mighty Land Raider Spartan. The kit is not yet available on its own and currently only available as part of the Age of Darkness starter set.
This is not the first time a Land Raider Spartan is available in (or at least made from) plastic. Actually the first one, was a conversion based upon the Rogue Trader era Land Raider kit, combined with plastic card and parts from the old Space Marine Rhino. It was introduced as part of the Modelling Workshop section of White Dwarf 119, by no other than Tony Cottrell (former head of Forge World and designer of an incredible amount of kits) back in 1989!
Horus Heresy – Contemptor Dreadnought
We move the size class a bit, covered the infantry already, now it is time for the walking tombs, the Contemptor Dreadnought from the Horus Heresy Age of Darkness boxed set.
The classic dreadnought we know from the 90s is classified as Castraferrum Pattern Mark V Dreadnought, with the variants that were released by Forge World as Mark IV with slightly slender / less bulky proportions. But the Contemptor Dreadnought is actually something picked up from the era of Rogue Trader and reconnected with the lore for the Horus Heresy.
Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness Infantry
After covering the content of the Horus Heresy - Age of Darkness boxed set in our unboxing, I'll cover the plastic kits in three reviews - the Infantry, the Contemptor Dreadnought and the Land Raider Spartan. Beginning today with the Space Marines on foot.
You can find all the pictures of the content in the unboxing, but we're going to build some miniatures from the different sprues of the Legion Space Marines in Mark VI armour, the Praetors and Terminators in Cataphractii armour.
Bolt Action – SdKfz 250/11 Ausf. A
We've covered multiple variants of the Sd.Kfz 251 on here already, with the regular 251/1 Ausf. D, 251/16 Flammpanzerwagen and 251/7 Pionierwagen. And thanks to Jürgen from Warlord Games, he sent me a pre-production copy of some of the new Sd.Kfz. 250 Ausf. A (Alte) kit, from their trade meetup in Nottingham.
So far, the Sd.Kfz. 250 was available as a resin kit and now got an update and turned into a multi-variant plastic kit that is now available from Warlord Games directly and their trade network. The final kit obviously comes with a proper packaging, decals and all the additional content you're used to. In my case, I got the base sprue and the one to build the /11 variant leichter Schützenpanzerwagen mit einer 2,8-cm-schweren Panzerbüchse 41.
Heavy Field Car – Steyr 1500A for the DAK
With the first supply drop this year back in february of the Rubicon novelties, I did not only get my hands on some reinforcement for the British with the Morris C8 and a QF-25, but a nice heavy field car (at least that's the matching entry on EasyArmy) for my Afrikakorps as well with a Steyr 1500A/01.
Bolt Action – British & Inter-Allied Commandos
With the two D-Day sector books that cover a lot of special operations, the need for British and Inter-Allied Commandos is certainly there. And Warlord Games delivered for this demand.
The first Commandos kit that was released around 2011, was based on the regular British infantry, with a recut of a part of the sprue. We did a review back then and you can not only see how far Warlord Games has progressed over the last decade, but our reviews as well (that was pre-bilingual coverage, so you'll only find the German one online).
Adeptus Titanicus – Warmaster Iconoclast
The variant of the Warmaster Titan, the Iconoclast with different weaponry was released in Winter '21, and actually the first of the Adeptus Titanicus plastic kits, that I didn't cover as a review - until now!
The Warmaster keeps it very similar to the Warlord Titan, where only a single sprue is swapped to cover the alternative variant of the titan. And for that reason, this is more of an add-on along with some further add-ons, to the initial review of the Warmaster variant with the plasma destructors. As well as making use of my newly access to 3d printing.
The kit wasn't supplied by the manufacturer this time, but more of a casual chance at a trade, and I added a few bits that I found online (more in detail below). The RRP of the Warmaster is now 130 EUR since April '22 (compared to 125 EUR when it was released last year) and it covers four large sprues, an oval base, decals, a rather unflattering black and white assembly instruction, along with the cards and terminals made from card board, covering the rules and information for gameplay.
Frostgrave – Knights
One of the first boxes that came along with the second edition of Frostgrave was the new kit for Knights. But it covers a lot more than just knights, but let's take a closer look into this new plastic set.
Unlike the other troop kits, we have had so far, this just covers 10 models instead of 20, but the sprues and layout are similar to the latest male and female Wizards. You get two sprues of the new unit and a base sprue with 10 round bases with a 25mm diameter. The kit is 15 GBP instead of 20 GBP for the other plastic kits of 20 miniatures.
Warhammer 40,000 – Battlezone: Fronteris – STC Hab-Bunker and Stockades
Let's look into the final plastic kit of the Nachmund bundle, the Fronteris STC Hab-Bunker and Stockades.
With a price tag of 65 EUR or 50 GBP (~60 EUR) it is the most expensive of the three "new" (the STC Hab-Bunker is a re-release from the Sector Fronteris) plastic kits from the extended Fronteris range. Like the others, the Hab-Bunker and Stockades don't cover the rules for Warhammer 40,000 with the instructions, but the terrain traits and additional Narrative Play abilities are part of the War Zone Nachmund: Vigilus Alone campaign supplement that is available separately for 42,50 EUR.
Necromunda – Guild Hall
This one has been travelling my mind for a while. The idea of a octagon terrain piece, using the Sector range, already came along, when I build the Basilicanum from the Sector Imperialis range, as well as the Battle Sanctum from the Adepta Sororitas.
So, when I saw these pieces on the tables of one of the White Dwarf battle reports (this one mostly stayed in my head due to the railway waggons) and the magnificent table build by Shinnentai (only found him on Facebook and Twitter), I felt I needed this in my underhive terrain section as well.