WD392 Gives us an in-depth look at the new box; to be honest, the whole magazine is just an ad for the new box. There's a lot being said on-line about how White Dwarf went from being a great hobby magazine to now: just a catalog.... and that is true (and exemplified with this issue). I bought this one anyway, and it's probably going to save me about a hundred bucks.
Lets look at what you get in the Dark Vengeance box:
CHAOS
I'm a big Nurgle fan, so obviously the Chaos models are the ones I'm most interested in. We get a Squad of Chosen, a HellBrute, and some Chaos Cultists. These are all new.Chosen: We have never had an actual plastic Chosen kit before, and these new sculpts look fantastic! Hands down, they are the highlight of the box. Very little would need to be done to make these look Nurgley; you could probably get convincing results with just a good paint job and no converting at all (a rare thing for followers of Grandpa Nurgle). Of all the things that come with the Dark Vengeance set, this squad is what tempts me the most. I'll still probably end up getting these guys off a bits site after the fact.
HellBrute: This is what they've given us to replace the hideous metal chaos dreadnought. Not bad, not bad at all. 'Tragic that it took this long to come out with something, but what I see here in the magazine looks good. It's push-fit, so it'll take some extra work sawing and reconstructing to do any re-posing of this guy... which means most armies, despite the chaos power they are loyal to, are all going to have very similar looking HellBrutes. That's fine, if that were the only strike against it, that would be a non-issue... it's still tones better than that old ugly metal dread. However, new information has come to light, we now have pictures of him from the back.... and the news is not good:
Chaos Cultists: I'm really glad these guys are in the game. I'm glad they look like a Necromundia Hive Gang. There's 10 different sculpts, and you get doubles of most of them. Of those sculpts, I like about 3 of them. I can hear the old timers getting wound-up about how spoiled we are these days, and how back in the old days you'd be thrilled to have half that many sculpts and blah blah blah. They're not bad, but not great; we've seen better. The Forge World Chaos Renegades are amazing.
DARK ANGELS
...are boring. The Space Hulk Blood Angel terminators were far more dynamic than their DA brothers. I know this actualy suits the austere DA fluff, but they seem dull and uninteresting to me. I've even bought the DA veterans kit to convert into plague marines in the past, but these days there's nothing in this part of the box that I'm after.
Predictions
Chosen: There will be a new Chaos Chosen box from GW, in FineCast.Honestly, there's nothing wrong with the Dark Vengance Chosen, it would just suck if that was the only way you could get some. I'm pretty sure that a new FineCast box will show up in the catalog once the 6th edition Chaos Space Marine codex drops.
HellBrute: We will get Plastic PlagueBrutes.
There are 5 or 6 plastic variations of the Space Marine Dread, not counting the Black Reach push-fit version, if that is anything to go by... I'll wait for a real HellBrute kit to come out (Preferably a Nurgle specific one).
Chaos Cultists: There will be a new plastic box of Chaos Cultists.
GW can do better. I hope we get to see it. Few things can express the Grim Dark Gothic fluff of 40K like chaos cultists do. I'm sure there are a lot of Imperial Guard players who'd love some more "normal sized", non-space marine models to convert too.
So to sum up, here's why I won't be getting the box: Before I got the magazine, I was ready to put my money down for a pre-order. Thanks to White Dwarf though, I've gotten up close and personal with the models, and there isn't a large enough percentage of them that I really want, for me to justify the purchase. All I need are the Chosen, and the Chosen each have to be veteran individuals. So even if I traded the Dark Angel Models away for more chaos stuff, I'd just end up with models I don't want doubles of.
I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a fluff junkie, and I am going to buy the big book, so the small rulebook argument is out too.
I guess I can just take it easy and keep working away on my Plague Bearers for now.