Buteo's Musings

In an attempt to post regularly I will be starting a series of posts where I share what I find interesting in the hobby world and maybe some WIPs of stuff I'm working on.

Betrayal at Calth Thoughts

As many people know Betrayal of Calth has been released with the highly anticipated plastic 30k space marines.  You get a lot of bang for your buck as you get 30 MKIV Marines, 5 Cataphratii Termies, 1 Contemptor Dreadnought, 1 Chaplain and 1 Terminator Preator.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with everything but it's a lot of good stuff.  I didn't get it for the game so I'm not going to speculate if it's going to be good or not but will share some thoughts about the minis in the box.

Good:

• Plastic Marines!  This can not be understated as this will make the 30k world more accessible and allow me to indulge in units I normally wouldn't due to cost.
• Special Weapons.  You get some heavy bolters, missile launchers, plasma guns, melta guns, flamers and some close combat weapons.  This will be great for making veteran squads.
• Terminator Special Weapons.  I don't need to buy additional Cataphratii special weapon packs to get the weapons I want.  Now I can have 15 total Cataphratii with various weapons so I can have versatile army list options.

Neutral:

• Special Characters.  They look great but not very convertible.  Since I only have one copy of the box I don't know if I want to change them.  I like to have a copy of the original and a copy to convert.  Might buy another box or get the characters off Ebay.

Bad:

• All the MKIV marine shave the squat "I'm going to shoot you" pose, which I'm not a fan of.  I want to mix it up with some walking legs to add visual variety to units.
• Contemptor Dreadnought's pose is too static.  This is probably due to the fact it can only be on a single sprue.  The arms can be magnetized one particular way (full arm) and not interchangeable with how I magnetize the resin contemptor dread (forearm) I have.  

Works in Progress

I've been somewhat proactive about getting in an hour or two of hobby time a day.  I'm getting motivated again so I need to keep at it before it disappears again.  Primarily I've been working on my commitment for this month, my centurian chaplain.  I've got it shaded and now need to clean up the colours and do some highlights.  Not sure about how this mini will turn out but i'll see how it goes.  Maybe a little too dark in some places and too bright in others?

On the slow burning assembly side I've been assembling my Spartan Land Raider and this was before the tracks came molded onto the model. I must saw the tracks were terrible due to how resin cures.  All the pieces where a little too big and some way to big.  Lots of filing and cutting to make it look OK.  I hide the worse of the work underneath the tank, for both sides I essentially had to remove a track section to make it fit.  Here's a picture of it with some terminators I assembled a few months ago.