The myth that is Finecast

Ok, so about 6 months ago, Finecast hit the shelves and the internet was instantly awash with complaints about the quality, with air bubbles apparently all over the place and even whole pieces of missing or unsalvagable, to the point where many people are put off buying Finecast because of worries over quality control

Of course, unless you've been a hermit these last 6 months, you probably already know all about this

I would like to make quite a sweeping statement:

The internet has blown this problem out of all proportion.

To date I have bought 4 Finecast models, a female Vampire Lord, two Ogre Kingdoms Gorgers and this guy:




Not one of these models has had so much as a single blemish (the nick in the shoulder pad you can see is down to me not being careful enough with the clippers) and I can honestly say these have been some of the best quality GW models I have ever bought, in terms of quality of sculpts, crispness of detail and ease to paint and build

Also, none of my gaming friends have ever had a problem with a Finecast model either, sharing my views on the quality.

Of course, these ravings on the internet have to come from somewhere, so I've been thinking and all I can suggest is this:

Any model manufacturer, no matter how big or small will occasionally make mistakes, whether it be a missing sprue in a boxed set, or bubbles in the casting, etc. For example, the very first box of GW product I bought, way back when I was eleven, was a box of Chaos Space Marines. They'd been mispacked so I only got half the marines i paid for. The manager of my local GW was quite happy to exchange them for a full box and let me keep the mispackaged box, as they couldn't sell them on for obvious reasons, but not before noting down the details he needed to warn head office of the problem.

The point i'm making is that there will ALWAYS be mistakes that slip through quality control. It's an inevitability. problem is, with the internet being a vital tool in spreading the word about Finecast, the most vocal group will always be the ones who are complaining. Always. It's human nature. People are more inclined to say 'this was terrible!' than 'actually, this model was brilliant, no problems with it at all', so we only end up hearing one side of the story.

As a little final point, I've had more problems with Forge World casts since the release of Finecast (a grand total of one problem, with some armour kits i got) than any GW product.

I suppose what this post is really saying is, don't believe the internet doomsayers and give Finecast a chance.

Allas Hyron

In the flesh at last.

I've finally got round to building a model for my Dark Elf character who I've been using in games and writing stories about for the last two years.



Unfortunately he's also the same model who took a Asur longbow to the chest in my last Mordheim game and died outright

May his WFB career be longer than his Mordheim one.

Too many distractions!

Well it's not called the Wandering Mind for nothing...

So I picked up my copy of the new Necron codex yesterday, along with a plastic Zombie Dragon kit and Trazyn the Infinite.

My hobby time over the next couple of weeks will probably be taken up with crafting a Necron test list based around Trazyn and a Shard of the Void Dragon (the Zombie Dragon).

I'm also in the process of painting up a few test models for my Space Wolves, using a recipe recommended to me by Odinsport and re-booting my Dark Elf Corsair army, so I should hopefully show those soon, however my painting and modelling time has been cut down drastically by uni deadlines and the fact that my cat decided to give birth to a litter of kittens under my hobby desk.

Gaming-wise I actually managed to get a game of Mordheim in the other day. It was good fun. I was up against a High Elf warband, 3 Empire ones and Witch Hunters, with me playing Dark Elves.

My secret mission was to put five of the High Elves out of action, which I failed at spectacularly. My Corsair henchmen got slaughtered as we poured out of a building, hoping to catch the Asur in a pincer movement, then before my heroes could pile in, the High Elf leader raised his longbow and took out my Highborn with a single shot! To add insult to injury, it was the same character my Highborn had been taking pot-shots at all game with his crossbow pistol and the Highborn died outright after the game. Curses!

All in all not the greatest of results, but at least i got a game in and after the post-battle looting I could afford to hire myself a new hero, a Beastmaster this time, with a whip to put the fear into those damnable hounds the Witch Hunter play insists on bringing. Come here little doggies, i want you to meet my Cold One Beast Hound...

Everything must go! (again)

That's right, Khorneguy's having another sale.

As a student, I'm far too skint for hobby stuff and looking over my finances, i've found that my little splurge at Games Day cleared out my hobby fund completely, severely hampering my progress on my Space Wolves.

I've figured my best way forward is to sort through and sell the mountain of old and half finished projects I have in a bid to raise money for my newer projects.

So here we go...

Obviously I'm looking for cash for these, but I would be open to trades for Space Wolf items too.

Email me at: rickyjoy9@yahoo.co.uk, if you're interested in anything.

The painted stuff can be easily stripped before sending if you're after unpainted.

Here's a list of what I have so far. I'll add (a lot) more as I sort through what I've got over the next few days.

10 Zombies, built but unpainted £7
4 Assault Marines, painted £5
30 Ork Slugga Boyz, painted £20
1 classic Iron Hand Straken, painted - £4
1 Ork Weirdboy - painted and converted (head swap) - £5
1 Ork Stompa - built, converted and painted - £45
3 Space Hulk Genestealers - unpainted

Current Edition Codices/Army Books - £10 each

CSM Codex
Ork Codex
Tyranid Codex
Eldar Codex
Space Marine Codex
Planetstrike
Skaven Army Book
Empire Army Book

Out of print Army Books £5 each

7th ed Orcs & Goblins book
6th ed Dark Elf Army Book
6th Ed Hordes of Chaos Army Book
6th Ed Lizardmen Army Book

Warhammer 7th Ed Rulebook - near Mint condition - £20
Warhammer 8th Edition Rulebook £30
40k Mini Rulebook - £7
Chapter Approved 2003 - £10

The Killing Ground by Graham McNeill - £4
Heroes of the Space Marines - £4
Eisenhorn Omnibus by Dan Abnett- £6
Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium omnibus by Sandy Mitchell- £6
Signed hardback copy of Blood Pact by Dan Abnett - £15

Various back issues of WD dating back to 2003 - pm me for issue numbers - 75p an issue or 3 for £2

Postage will be worked out per item

There you go guys, go nuts, it's going to be helping me out a lot

Bjorn the Contemptor WIP

Here's a little preview WIP of my Bjorn the Fell-handed based on the Contemptor chassis.

The way I see it, Bjorn really should be in one of these anyway, seeing as he dates from the time of the Heresy, plus it looks really powerful and imposing - just the way Bjorn should be.

I need to sculpt some details to make him more 'wolfy' (the string of Green Stuff round his neck is going to be his Wolf Tooth Necklace), but on the whole I'm pleased with how he's shaping up so far. By the way, in case you're wondering his claws were made from DE Corsair blades and smoothed out with liquid Green Stuff (an awesome product).

Let me know what you guys think

A new saga begins...

So begins the tale of Wolf Lord Rylak Foestrider and the Great Company of Tra...

After months of proxying lists and fine-tuning my army composition, i have finally started building my Space Wolves force properly, seeing as it's been in the works ever since the latest codex came out.

Each and every model will have its own name and backstory, which I'll present to you when I post them up, along with their ongoing sagas (to be added to after particularly spectacular feats in-game)

I'm really excited about this project and I aim to have it finished by about June-July time next year, just in time to enter them into next years Armies on Parade at GD UK 2012.

So here's what I've been building so far...


Olyek Dragonfoe, my Rune Priest, based off the Forge World Boarding Marine and various SW bits, with the spear shaft coming from a chaos knight



Baldric Greymane, slayer of the Bloodtithe and member of the Grey Hunter pack 'The White Wolves'.


I painted guy this a while back as a tester model, but I'm not really happy with the way his armour turned out. I've still yet to find a nice grey recipe that works for my wolves. If anyone's got a good one, let me know.

And finally, we have Alrik Thunderslayer, a member of another of my Grey Hunter packs.



I love the old mk's of power armour and will be using them in combination with the SW bitz pack throughout my force, not quite making them pre-heresy, but having that sort of vibe.

So what do you guys think so far?

Next time I should have some pics of my Bjorn and Thunderwolves ready to show you

Broadening the Mind

I'm currently in the process of launching the Khorneguy's Commissions page and generally overhauling the blog in generally, so there may be a few issues in layout or even accessing The Wandering Mind next couple days.

Just bear with me and I should have all of it sorted by the end of the week at the very latest

Is anyone else sick of Dreadfleet?

It's nearly a week since Games Day and I, like I'm sure many others have, logged on to the GW website to get a look at the pics from Games Day and all the lovely hobby goodness and craziness that I might have missed on sunday featured in 'What's New Today', as they do every year.

But no, instead I'm confronted with some coverage of it in mondays post, then tuesday they were back to their constant coverage of Dreadfleet, with no mention of Games Day what so ever.

Thanks GW

Ok, Sarcasm doesn't translate well to blog posts

Anyway...

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice enough game and I get that they've got to get people interested in it, but only having a passing coverage of their premier event on their own website?

Really not good GW. At least chuck us a couple of photos of interesting thing or models from GD a day, at the end of the post after the Dreadfleet stuff.

But no, nothing.

Personally I think it's because of the organisational hell they had and they don't want people to see how ridiculously overcrowded it was.

Either that or the GD stuff will come flooding out on monday after Dreadfleet's out there. Or maybe not, they'll just start showing people playing Dreadfleet or people's painted ships, etc, trying to milk the should've-been-Man O' War cash cow for everything it's worth, having already milked our GD money out of us.

*I* probably have more coverage of GD on my blog than GW has - and i broke my camera 9am Sunday!

Grrr...

Ok rant over. Normal service will be resumed shortly

Post Games Day Recovery

Games Day made me ill.

It always does. I don't know what it is about it, whether it's the 10,000 geeks packed into the same space, the constant noise or my usual all-nighter the day before, but it does. My voice went round about 11am Sunday and still hasn't returned and i've got the flue from hell.

I lost yesterday completely, falling asleep as soon as I got back 10pm Sunday night and waking up 11am this morning. Not good, especially as I was due in Uni yesterday.

But all in all it was worth it. Yeah, i know people complained about the queues, but as long as you weren't fussy what time of day you got your stuff, it wasn't so bad.

I managed to bag the following




- Forgeworld Boarding Marine

- Contemptor Dreadnought with Kheres-Pattern Assault Cannon and Power Fist

- Salvations Reach, unsigned unfortunately, due to the queues, but a damn good read nonetheless. I've been forcing myself to keep putting it down to get some uni work done.

- The Outcast Dead, again unsigned.

- and finally, a single Scout Marine from the Rites of Initiation. Rather handy, as I've been trying to work out the best way to make my Wolf Scout with Mark of the Wulfen without having to buy an entire Scouts box


I also struck up a few interesting conversations. I went to the Warseer meet-up, saw Harry and co. They seem nice sorts, but i mainly ended up talking to the guy who goes by the name ChaosAstartes about the nature of Khorne and martial honour.

I also went out to smoke and got chatting to a fellow Space Wolves player about Thunderwolves conversions (Bloodcrushers are the way to go!) and the Sons of Russ in general.

Plus I got to be sarcastic to Matt Ward and STILL get his autograph

So all in all I'd rate this Games Day 7/10. Next time GW, sort the queues!

Right now GD's out the way, back to my projects. My question to you is, where next? Thousand Sons or Space Wolves?

Ok on the coach on the way back from GD UK. So the plan for pics completely backfired. The camera packed up the moment I went to take a picture of that gorgeous drop pod outside. Instead i will try and put together my recollections.

- First of all I spoke to Jervis Johnson. We had a talk about the lack of army-specific magic items in 8th ed fantasy and he said it was to make it easier to control balance between army books. I tactfully 'forgot' to mention the Ogre Kingdoms Hellheart

- Next was Matt Ward. I tried subtle sarcasm by say 'I really like how you've made the most elite army in 40k even more powerful and elite'. Either he's used to this kind of thing or it went way over his head. I would've spoke to more of the team but a crowd was building by then and i wanted to beat the scrum to Forge World.

- Both new Forgeworld and Warhammer Forge books were on display, with IA11 featuring guard and Space Wolves fighting Eldar. there's a range of Eldar Corsair army lists to draw your army list from, including the Shadow Spectres.

Bram Redmaw is being released. A rather taSty model i must say, but they kept pretty tight lipped about the possiblity of further releases, namely Thunderwolves. They claimed anything from maybe to not even in the distant pipeline, depending on the designer I spoek to. The GW design team kept mysteriously quiet about this too, almost like they weren't allowed to say anything...

- Warhammer Forge was interesting. Apparently they're going to focus on the 'tech and cogs' side of things, being more interested in magic and beasts.

- There will be Elementals for all main BRB lores. For now they're keeping them as bound monsters for Storm of Magic, mainly because of worries of balance and points-cost issues if they had wizards being able to summon them in normal games.

The Fire one will be a pillar of flame with dragons coming out the top and the Metal one will be an orb of metal with carvinal mask-esque faces coming out of it

- No Dark Elf stuff is planned at Warhammer Forge, as they've yet to have an inspiring-enough idea for them

- Warlord Titans are a definate possibility, with the new Phantom Titan being about as tall as a Warlord would be

- The queue for sales was ridiculously long, with Forgeworld, Black Library and mainstream GW sales being crammed into a tiny area, resulting in extreme congetsion, with people queuing through the gaming area and waits of over two hours to buy anything. GW, if you're reading, bad call...

- No mention of future releases from GW, nothing was even forthcoming about next months releases

- There was however a massive WoTR display board witht he Battle of Five Armies. Interestingly, there was an unfamiliar Bear model on one corner of the board (future Beorn release anyone?)

- Specialist Games models and Rulebooks were on sale for the first time at GW that i can remember in my three years of attending Games Day

Right, I'm going to get some sleep. I'll post more as it occurs to me