Macrocosm – Malignancy New Releases

by | Sep 2, 2015

I've gotten to be quite a fan of the Macrocosm line of miniatures over the last while. Macrocosm leans heavily on the Rogue Trader era for inspiration, often taking long abandoned but still well loved factions such as the Squats and the Genestealer Cult and giving them a new lease of life. The range is growing extremely rapidly, with their current Kickstarter (funded and approaching the first stretch goal at the time of writing) giving us two more factions and new units for the existing factions. I've been lucky enough to be involved with designing the concepts some of the new models, and there are some very cool things coming.

Today, however, I'm going to look at some of the new Malignancy releases. First up, the Malformed Host Special Weapons set.

Malignancy Host with flamer

The Malignancy are a Godsend for anyone building a genestealer cult. Beforehand, anyone assembling a cult faced quite a job finding components, sculpting, converting and so on. Now, I love all that, but many do not. For those folks, these guys are the very thing. Even with my love of conversion, a ready-to-paint specialist like our flamer-toting friend above is too much to resist. There are several special and heavy weapons available. Like most Malignancy models, this guy is pleasantly chunky, and a nice clean cast. They are larger than you expect, in a good way. A huge amount of miniatures now are designed with 3d packages, and many are indeed technically excellent, this guy has the hand-sculpted individuality and charm which is so common in so many sculpts of the 1980s, and so rings my bell.

Malignancy Host with plasma gun
This host is much the same as the flamer, clean and well cast. None of the models in the images are cleaned up, they are straight out of the pack. I like the masks they are wearing too, more common on the 2nd wave Malignancy releases. 

Malignancy Infested Og
Next up, the Malignancy infested Og. This guy is big. You could pour him into a sock and cosh someone to death with him, no trouble. It's a 40mm base for this guy at least. Anything less than that and it's topple time. Again, a nice clean sculpt with very little cleanup. I would recommend pinning the hell out of him though, and maybe painting the gun separately. There are three head options, one hooded and masked and two hooded. The hooded heads remind me of medieval grotesques. I'm going to have a lot of fun painting those faces.

Infected Og Heads
I like the idea of infested Ogs, it gives the Malignancy some big guys, and something new and interesting for cult players. Here's a scale shot with a Primogen.

"Hey! Hey ugly!! This way!"
Finally we have two Primogen Hosts, the middle management of the Malignancy. These aren't new releases, but I hadn't reviewed them before, so here they are. They make good squad leaders, or could even function as the elusive Hierarch in a genestealer cult. Once again, they are clean casts with lots of nice detail. Bags, pouches, canteens, chitin covered third arm...

Oops. Little blurry on the front shot there. 
Forward, my swollen-headed brethren!
So, for devotees of the cult we have such rarities as leaders, specialists and hulking infected abhumans. For Malignancy players a growing range of horrific alien-infested nutters. Initially I was interested in this range for my own genestealer cult, but as they variety of models increases I am getting more and more curious about the Macrocosm universe and rule system, which is free, I might add. 

If you're intrigued, give the Macrocosm Kickstarter a look, there's never been a better time get some Macrocosm goodies for the Malignancy, the Diggers, or the new factions, the 3rd Race (mech battlesuits) or the Grem (well-equipped and very serious greenskins).