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Woe to you all! A plague has come to reap its terrible harvest, and its harvest is… awesome plastic Warhammer characters from Games Workshop!
Followers of Play Unplugged may have seen in a recent VLOG that I painted a 1,000 point Warriors of Chaos army as a part of my gaming group’s “Night of Terror” Halloween gaming festivities. The highlight of the entire project was getting to build and paint this amazing plastic sculpt.
As a long time miniature painter and collector, I have had the opportunity to watch the evolution of Games Workshop’s plastic miniatures from the early and basic single and multi-part Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Squats (oops… just pushed their eventual rerelease back another ten years), Dark Elves, Beastmen and more, to the slick, high quality, hyper detailed, multi-part kits of today. I can honestly say that the miniatures (taken as a whole) just keep getting better. This new blister is a great example, giving credence to some gamer’s claims that GW is the “King of Plastics”.
This Nurgle Chaos Lord is part of a new line of plastic hero miniatures packed in blisters for use in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle game. Their sales and packaging philosophy differs from the way characters have been sold to this point. Traditionally, characters were usually a single pewter figure in a blister or box (depending on size), or (introduced later) a two character multipart plastic box set.
These new characters, include the likes of a Saurus Oldblood, a Necromancer, and others, and are a bit of a hybrid between the two design philosophies. These are multipart plastic kits in a blister. Effectively, they have the ease of preparation and assembly of a plastic kit, but share some of the limitations of the pewter and Finecast blisters.
The Nurgle Chaos Lord is a highly detailed kit that truly captures the imagery of the chaos god of plagues and disease. His flesh is bloated, saggy, and lovingly (well at least by Nurgle standards) dotted with buboes, pustules, and cysts. One nice touch is the gaping hole in the stomach, complete with exposed intestines. It’s a running theme with many Nurgle demons and is welcome here, and helps to emphasize the undying nature of the chaos god’s servants. The pitted, desiccated axe completes the figures portrait of decay.
The actual sprue is extremely well designed. Assembly was a snap, requiring only a brief back-scraping with a hobby knife to remove some extremely fine mold lines and a little polystyrene cement to glue the parts together. The molded base is a great new feature in these plastic character kits and means that your special characters will have a special molded base. If you feel that the base doesn’t match your basing scheme, fear not, as you can easily replace it with one that better matches your force.
Though this kit is truly excellent, there is room for improvement. The kit lacks both pose-ability and options for additional weapons. Any customizability you will add to this miniature will be in the form of a conversion and will require a certain degree of hobby expertise.
The Breakdown
Positives
+ Highly detailed and elegantly sculpted
+ Easy to assemble
+ Custom base
Negatives
- High price
- Lack of pose-ability/customizability
Is Games Workshop truly the “King of Plastic”? Though I’m not prepared to make a judgment in that regard, one could point to this excellent character kit as evidence in their favor. Though it lacks customizability, the overall sculpting quality and ease of assembly makes this one a winner, and a must have for any aspiring daemon prince. $13.25 is a lot to spend on one plastic miniature. I can understand if some gamers balk at it, but if you can afford it, the Nurgle Chaos Lord will be an awesome addition to your force.
If you love tabletop gaming, be sure to check out our Board Game Piki, which lets you compare a wide variety of board games to find the one that best suits your interests.
