Warhammer Forge Newsletter #8

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Kanluwen**

Forge World wrote:Hi there,
As the dust settles from Games Day France, this week’s newsletter brings you two more exciting releases for Empire and Chaos players: the notorious Captain Van Der Kraal and the Manann’s Blades Command group, and the brutal Chaos Siege Giant. We also have an update to our Events pages regarding Games Day Chicago 2011.
Captain Van Der Kraal and Manann’s Blades Command Group

Pirate, mercenary, smuggler, gallows thief, Captain Edvard Van Der Kraal has been many things in his life, almost all of them disreputable. He has cheated Morr a great many times over the years, fighting against the dark-mist kindred of the Cursed Marshes and emerging victorious; raiding Norsca with fire and sword; even surviving being shipwrecked on the infamous Vampire Coast of Lustria and returning to tell the tale. Despite his ruthlessness, he is a man of his word which makes him rare indeed and much sought after as a mercenary. The Manann’s Blades Command, designed by Steve Whitehead, comprises three complete miniatures: Captain Van Der Kraal himself along with a Standard Bearer and Musician, and is available to order now for immediate despatch.
Full rules for this nefarious soldier of fortune and his ruthless followers will feature in the forthcoming Warhammer Forge book Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos.

Chaos Siege Giant

The Sorcerer-Smiths of the Chaos Dwarfs have long been aware of the battlefield potential of a captured Giant, and have been unable to resist the urge to ‘improve’ on the creature’s natural strengths. The most common result of this is the Siege Giant, a mutilated, half-insane creature made proof against attack by layer upon layer of iron and bronze plates nailed deep into the creature’s flesh and even directly to its massive skeleton. Weapons such as immense hooked blades are spliced directly onto the Giant’s truncated arms to enable it to scale or tear down fortifications and slaughter the largest monsters. The beast is also fitted with scaling hooks and chains, enabling its dead carcass to be used as a scaling platform should it fall.

The Chaos Siege Giant, designed by Keith Robertson, is a complete resin and plastic kit that makes a barbaric centrepiece to any Warriors of Chaos army. It is available to order now for immediate despatch, and experimental rules for this terrifying behemoth are available to download now, taken from the forthcoming Warhammer Forge book Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos.

Warhammer Forge at Forge World Events

Games Day Chicago – 24th July 2011
Forge World will soon be returning to the U.S. for Games Day Chicago 2011, held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Centre. Forge World model designers Will Hayes and Mark Bedford will be accompanying our intrepid sales team and a huge selection of the Forge World and Warhammer Forge range, including all our recent releases and the hugely popular Show Only MkIII Armoured Boarding Marine and Chaos Dwarf Hellsmith.

We are now accepting reservation orders for Games Day Chicago, and this is the best way of ensuring that we will have exactly the models you’re looking for, packed up and waiting for you to pay for on the day.
To place a reservation order, please send an e-mail entitled ‘Games Day Chicago Reservation’ to fwreservations@games-workshop.co.uk, making sure to provide your full name and a list of the items you’d like to reserve.
You can also phone the Forge World Customer Service team on 011 44 115 916 8177.

Thanks,
Ead Brown
Forge World Customer Service Manager

I'm digging Van Der Kraal. He has a walrus emblazoned on his freaking cuirass. How can you not dig that?

**LunaHound**

Dumb looking Chaos Giant to go with dumb looking Chaos Ogres. Big dissapointment

**knighthaunter**

The giant is meh in my opinion i wish he was not so obviously based on the plastic one though.

**agnosto**

Yeah, it looks like a walking turd.....and giants suck anyway.

**Murdock129**

Personally I like the Giant, it's clearly just an upgrade kit put on a regular GW giant, and sold together meaning I don't have to buy two different things if I wanted one, which I do.

Van Der Kraal is a very cool model, my only gripe being he is part of an annoying squad of 'upgraded' models which demand you buy a box of empire swordsmen just for the swords to finish them. I'll probably buy him to use as a regular Empire champion personally

**Da Boss**

I don't understand how having big choppy blades put where your hands used to be makes you better at fighting. Surely they could have just made a honkin' great enchanted greatsword and a huge suit of full plate for the giant? I would have bought that, regardless of the damn price.

The empire dude on the other hand is the coolest empire hero I have ever seen.

**AgeOfEgos**

Empire hero has a lot of character.

Chaos Giant looks like a bad conversion.

**Worglock**

Chaos giant is fine.

Still rather have a Nurgle upgrade kit for Warriors and one for Marauders.

**Agamemnon2**

Da Boss wrote:I don't understand how having big choppy blades put where your hands used to be makes you better at fighting. Surely they could have just made a honkin' great enchanted greatsword and a huge suit of full plate for the giant? I would have bought that, regardless of the damn price.

I don't know about fighting in specific, they'd probably be useless for that, but what you could do with them is tear down things like buildings and even stone walls. Sort of like a demolition attachment, as it were.

**Kanluwen**

Agamemnon2 wrote:
Da Boss wrote:I don't understand how having big choppy blades put where your hands used to be makes you better at fighting. Surely they could have just made a honkin' great enchanted greatsword and a huge suit of full plate for the giant? I would have bought that, regardless of the damn price.

I don't know about fighting in specific, they'd probably be useless for that, but what you could do with them is tear down things like buildings and even stone walls. Sort of like a demolition attachment, as it were.

Exactly.

I particularly like the description of the Siege Giant in that "Weapons such as immense hooked blades are spliced directly onto the Giant’s truncated arms to enable it to scale or tear down fortifications and slaughter the largest monsters. The beast is also fitted with scaling hooks and chains, enabling its dead carcass to be used as a scaling platform should it fall. "

The idea of Chaos Dwarfs and Marauders swarming over a dead Siege Giant holding onto it to climb walls is too awesome.

**Earthbeard**

And with the Plastic Giant's new improved pricing, it really isn't that much more for this guy.

Tempted to get one, even though I never use Giants.

**Goliath**

Hmmmmm.... I'm suddenly tempted to enter a WHFB regiment at golden demon this year....

**Mortif**

I really like the Captain, does his left leg end in a foot? Doesn't that make him a mutant? Not up to date on a lot of the fluff/lore but I thought he would be killed on sight my most Sigmarites?

**Platuan4th**

Mortif wrote:I really like the Captain, does his left leg end in a foot? Doesn't that make him a mutant? Not up to date on a lot of the fluff/lore but I thought he would be killed on sight my most Sigmarites?

It's a stylized pegleg. The foot and leg are the same color as the kneeskull. It's much easier to see in the unpainted pics from other angles.

**Raxor**

Murdock129 wrote:Van Der Kraal is a very cool model, my only gripe being he is part of an annoying squad of 'upgraded' models which demand you buy a box of empire swordsmen just for the swords to finish them. I'll probably buy him to use as a regular Empire champion personally

Really? Because I could have sworn the magic of the internet let you buy their arms alone from reputable sellers all over the world...

**Empchild**

Nice Empire, but I must be one of the few who likes the Giant. I see the potential for it at Demon is why.

**Murdock129**

Raxor wrote:Really? Because I could have sworn the magic of the internet let you buy their arms alone from reputable sellers all over the world...

Ah, touche

@Empchild, personally I think it looks like it could be easily converted into a Nurgle daemon

**Valhallan42nd**

I love the pegleg.

**Odins Beard**

I think he has mannan on his curias not a walrus

**Kanluwen**

Odins Beard wrote:I think he has mannan on his curias not a walrus

Silence!

He is the Walrus!

Also: I didn't notice the pegleg originally. I like it.
It's bronze, looking like a sea hawk's talon in fact.

**Da Boss**

I dunno, I think the likelyhood is that the hooks will come out of the arms before the wall falls down. I mean, couldn't he have just as easily pulled the wall down with his hands? Or climbed it...with his hands?

Not to piss on anyone's cornflakes of course. The model just doesn't do it for me.

**Worglock**

Da Boss wrote:I dunno, I think the likelyhood is that the hooks will come out of the arms before the wall falls down. I mean, couldn't he have just as easily pulled the wall down with his hands? Or climbed it...with his hands?

Not to piss on anyone's cornflakes of course. The model just doesn't do it for me.

Yes. And Bad man the Chaos Lord could just fly over the castle walls on his dragon and kill every last

in the room.

There's a certain amount of suspension of disbelief when you're dealing with fantastic monsters, demonic gods, and powerful wizards.

**Da Boss**

I agree, but for some reason mine always trips up on the basic stuff though. I have similar problems with many of PP's sculpts. I don't have trouble accepting that magic happens in the WFB world, and I don't have trouble with rule of cool. But basic stuff like that disrupts my suspension of disbelief like a bucket of cold water at 4am. I also think if you were going to do a Chaos Dwarf giant, you're missing a great chance to do a giant in full plate with an enchanted greatsword!

**Kanluwen**

Da Boss wrote:I agree, but for some reason mine always trips up on the basic stuff though. I have similar problems with many of PP's sculpts. I don't have trouble accepting that magic happens in the WFB world, and I don't have trouble with rule of cool. But basic stuff like that disrupts my suspension of disbelief like a bucket of cold water at 4am. I also think if you were going to do a Chaos Dwarf giant, you're missing a great chance to do a giant in full plate with an enchanted greatsword!

And if it were a generic Chaos Dwarf Giant, I'd agree.

But pretty clearly it says the role of the giant in its title.
'Siege Giant'.

**Da Boss**

yeah but come on, it's in the Chaos Dwarf book. They could have easily given the giant his own battering ram or something and called him the seige giant. Colour me unimpressed by him, though the idea of a dead giant as a scaling ladder is pretty grimdark.

**Worglock**

Da Boss wrote:I agree, but for some reason mine always trips up on the basic stuff though. I have similar problems with many of PP's sculpts. I don't have trouble accepting that magic happens in the WFB world, and I don't have trouble with rule of cool. But basic stuff like that disrupts my suspension of disbelief like a bucket of cold water at 4am. I also think if you were going to do a Chaos Dwarf giant, you're missing a great chance to do a giant in full plate with an enchanted greatsword!

I think it's much more Chaos Dwarfy to go and saw his hands off and give him weird metal claws. Especially with the Chaos Dwarves being the evil tech-magic guys. I could easily picture Chaos Dwarves as a kind of "Cyber-Mordor" if they went more in depth on them.

**vitki**

Worglock wrote: I could easily picture Chaos Dwarves as a kind of "Cyber-Mordor" if they went more in depth on them.

You took the words out of my mouth. It may just be the way the plates are painted, but this looks like a Mordor Troll torso with the giant bits on either end.

Haven't devided if that is a bad thing or not.

**MikeMcSomething**

Kanluwen wrote:
Da Boss wrote:I agree, but for some reason mine always trips up on the basic stuff though. I have similar problems with many of PP's sculpts. I don't have trouble accepting that magic happens in the WFB world, and I don't have trouble with rule of cool. But basic stuff like that disrupts my suspension of disbelief like a bucket of cold water at 4am. I also think if you were going to do a Chaos Dwarf giant, you're missing a great chance to do a giant in full plate with an enchanted greatsword!

And if it were a generic Chaos Dwarf Giant, I'd agree.

But pretty clearly it says the role of the giant in its title.
'Siege Giant'.

This post reads like "Giants in fullplate with swords are automatically, due to some unknown laws of the fantasy universe I'm carrying around in my head, completely unsuited to being siege giants (but hookhands mcwhatever is perfect for the job) and you, Da Boss, should have known that from the get-go"

I understand that when GW doesn't need to be white-knighted for a few seconds at a time you frequently fill those rare moments by posting random ripostes just for the sake of typing them but this one sticks out as a bit odd. Why would a fullplate giant (read: a model that would be cool enough to make people that weren't already going to buy the model anyway, go out and buy it) somehow be a bad thing? Or be excluded from the "siege" role? How is a "Generic Chaos Dwarf" giant something that would make sense in fullplate but when the word "Siege" comes into play the trope snaps right back to "Naked ethiopian warhammer giant conversion #1205234"? I'm genuinely curious.

**Kanluwen**

MikeMcSomething wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Da Boss wrote:I agree, but for some reason mine always trips up on the basic stuff though. I have similar problems with many of PP's sculpts. I don't have trouble accepting that magic happens in the WFB world, and I don't have trouble with rule of cool. But basic stuff like that disrupts my suspension of disbelief like a bucket of cold water at 4am. I also think if you were going to do a Chaos Dwarf giant, you're missing a great chance to do a giant in full plate with an enchanted greatsword!

And if it were a generic Chaos Dwarf Giant, I'd agree.

But pretty clearly it says the role of the giant in its title.
'Siege Giant'.

This post reads like "Giants in fullplate with swords are automatically, due to some unknown laws of the fantasy universe I'm carrying around in my head, completely unsuited to being siege giants (but hookhands mcwhatever is perfect for the job) and you, Da Boss, should have known that from the get-go"

I understand that when GW doesn't need to be white-knighted for a few seconds at a time you frequently fill those rare moments by posting random ripostes just for the sake of typing them but this one sticks out as a bit odd.

Oh look. A witty remark. Your caustic tones sear at my soul. But for the fun of it...

Why would a fullplate giant (read: a model that would be cool enough to make people that weren't already going to buy the model anyway, go out and buy it) somehow be a bad thing?

Did I say it was a bad thing? No, I didn't. I said that I'd suggest you try reading a post before attempting a snappy comeback.

Or be excluded from the "siege" role?

Probably for the same reason you didn't see people bringing down walls during the middle ages by whacking them with swords. Swords are going to blunt before walls do, even if it's a giant sword being swung at it. Hooks make minor sense in that the giant is going to be the height of the wall and can 'tear' them down if the wall's weakened up a bit by repeated impacts.
And like it says in the description: it also ensures that if the giant dies, the body can still be used for the besieging army to get up the wall. Just ensure the hooks mate up with the wall's parapets and boom, you got yourself a nifty little way in.

How is a "Generic Chaos Dwarf" giant something that would make sense in fullplate

First off: this isn't "a generic Chaos Dwarf Giant". It's explicitly named "Chaos Siege Giant". Will it be something showcased in the Chaos Dwarf book? Yes.
Secondly: Chaos Dwarfs (hell, Chaos in general) aren't exactly known for the 'best treatment' of things like giants. Giants are simply slaves to them, same with anything that isn't of their warband or race. A fully equipped in platemail armor giant wielding a gorgeously crafted greatsword?
That seems like something that you'd see on a 'gladiator' giant or some kind of giant that has been proven to be some kind of enormous(no pun intended) asset to the general that fields them. I don't expect to see a 'generic Chaos Dwarf giant' to be wearing full plate either to be honest. I'd love to see it, but I don't expect it because it doesn't really fit the fluff of Chaos Dwarfs or Chaos in general to armor up slave beasts.

I could maybe see the 'fullplate giant' in a mercenary contingent or something of that nature. But not really in Chaos, and not really as a siege giant for the Chaos faction.

but when the word "Siege" comes into play the trope snaps right back to "Naked ethiopian warhammer giant conversion #1205234"? I'm genuinely curious.

Sorry, which Forge World are we talking about here? The one where this is their first giant conversion kit? I'm guessing you're meaning more that it looks like someone could have converted it, which I'll agree.

Does it look like it's a conversion? Yes.
Would it have been cool to see some kind of 'monster hunter' giant wielding a greatsword and shield, with full plate to go toe to toe with things like Emperor Dragons? Feth yes it would have.

But that's not what this is. That's guaranteed to never have been what this would be.

I mean, there should have been a blatantly obvious reason why in my OP I mentioned the Captain as looking fantastic and nothing about the Giant. The Giant isn't something that's 'fantastic'. It's generic, it's something that's been shown in the artwork before, etc. The Captain is something new and pretty exciting.

**Red_Zeke**

Erm. Why can't I figure out what is going on with the Manan's Blades musician?