Ever Get the Feeling You’ve Been Cheated?

by | Sep 22, 2012

I know it's been a while since I've posted, I've been waiting and anticipating the new Chaos models and codex. Well, we've seen the first big rush now, preorders are up, previews from the newly re-designed White Dwarf are up, and we're starting to see what the new Chaos stuff is shaping up as. Which basically seems to be Dinobots. 

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the flier. It has the look of the Warhammer dragons, only mechanical and with more metallic trim! I never liked the aesthetic of those, and I don't really like the look of this. It doesn't FIT with my conception of Chaos, which is probably biased, but oh well. It's called the Heldrake (get it, Hell, but only one 'L' because we're cool and edgy and read about Norse mythology once, and 'drake' which is totally dragon sounding (it's also what you call a male duck.)) It yours for just twenty-eight dollars short of a C-note. Not including the CHAOS tax, of course. I guess the thing has guns, but where I actually sort of fell in love when I saw the Valkyrie model (GUNSHIP - hooray!) This makes me think that 40K really is FANTASY...NOW IN SPACE!


SO FAR AWAY/WE REACH FOR THE STARS/THROUGH THE FIRE AND THE FLAMES/WE CARRY ON!
So we also have the Grimlock variants, The Forgefiend and the Maulerfiend, which look a lot like juggernauts with long necks and assault cannons or plasma or something. They're only $66 bucks a piece, so you should definitely buy two and glue them with sub-optimal weapons load outs when you get them, so you can buy more. Seriously, SIXTY-SIX dollars? That's a 360 game right there, amigos. They sort of, just vaguely, have a kind of Warmachine vibe to them. Kwinky-dink? I think not. 


GRIMLOCK NO LIKE EMPEROR! SMASH LOYALISTS! RAWR!
Actually, these models aren't really that bad. You know, I was really hurting for warmachines and walkers, what with Defilers, Dreadnoughts, Hellbrutes, blah blah blah. Eh. Might be cool. Still, I'm not sure how these 'fit' with a Chaos army. Are they playing up the Daemon Engine thing? Seems like it. 

Then we come to the codex. Full of everything you need to play Chaos using the new rules. It's now hardcover, costs about 2/3 of what the big hardbound rulebook does...alright, hold on, time out. FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS for a book that was printed and bound in China, and uses recycled art on the cover. My role-playing books rarely cost that much. Compare this to Tome of Fate, a book that has nearly twice the pages, in full color, loads of background and fluff AND COSTS LESS. At first, I was going to skip all the models I didn't like, maybe picking one up eventually to do some converting and such. "I'll just pick up the codex," says I, "it can't be any more than the Fantasy books, and those are pretty nice." Well, it is. OK, so the fantasy ones are only about $5 cheaper but jeez. 


The limited edition is hand-scribed in the blood of Games Workshop employees. Bonus Phil Kelly toenail clipping in every thousandth copy!

I don't usually bitch about prices - 40K is a luxury hobby for manchildren like me to indulge their hobby and gaming skills, I GET that. I wouldn't have a blog about it if I didn't enjoy it. But honestly, at this point, being underwhelmed by the first wave and not really giving too much of a fuck if the rules are good or not when I hate the model aesthetics, I'm unlikely to drop my latest cash haul on a bunch of new plastic. And these prices are just rubbish at this point. EVERY other gaming system out there seems like a better buy. 

Let me say this - the Dark Vengeance models were GREAT. Loved the cultists, Even liked the Hellbrute, silly tentacle mouths and all. The Chosen looked nice, even with duplicates. Why couldn't they have just run with that? 

I don't now. 40K is just getting far too silly for me, and it was silly to begin with. Maybe I'll do Imperial Guard, so I can have some semi-serious tanks and gunships and infantry to push around. Maybe I'll just chuck this all together and do Flames of War, or Napoleonics. I'm serious. Before I got into 40K, I used to build military models - it was a hell of a lot easier to explain on first dates. Will I finally give up on 40K, and enter the world of full-fledged adulthood? Well, doubtful, but stay tuned.