Wrath of Kings was a game I bought into partially for the models, and partially because I have a friend who was very excited about the game. Thankfully, by this point we had already been through the frenzy and initial disappointment of the Relic Knights Kickstarter, so our ambitions were tempered. I was able to settle on a single faction that I thought looked cool, and spend a pretty reasonable amount of money to get (almost) everything in the faction. My friend was a bit more ambitious (I think he ended up with 3 factions), but that's still a far cry from the money we poured into Relic Knights.
I'd been occupied with other hobby projects up until recently, so the box 'o goodies sat for awhile. After finishing my first batch of mercenary painting models, however, I decided it'd be nice to take a break from painting and assemble some stuff. Part of that has been getting my Convergence up and running, and the rest of the time I've spent putting together enough Wrath of Kings models to actually play a game.
Join me after the break for pictures of some of the models I've assembled, thoughts about the models, and some gut reactions about the game as a whole.
One interesting thing about Wrath of Kings is how the models are packaged. The models come in the usual boxes, but within that box is a big, sealed plastic bag. In that plastic bag are smaller sealed plastic bags, each of which contain all the parts for that one model. I've seen similar packaging approaches before (I feel like the early PP plastics were set up roughly similarly), but never like this.
I actually like it quite a bit, as its very easy to keep all of the models separate prior to assembly, and easily tackle one model at a time if you want to. It does, however, make each bag a bit of a chore to sort through if it comes with a lot of different models (such as the starter boxes). The bases are also in a separate bag (all mixed together) which isn't a big deal, but it is a bit of a bother having to fish out the models, then sort out the bases.
Something that kind of threw me for a loop: the bases are heavily recessed, I'm assuming to allow for inserts without the models all being extra tall (which I can appreciate). The downside to this is that all of the models are kind of standing in a "base trench" until I fill it out with...something. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the bases (didn't spring for the inserts during the KS as I was trying to keep the cost down) but I'll figure something out for the far off future when I actually paint these things. The upside is that, for all but a couple of models, just gluing them into the base like normal isn't an issue. It isn't much of an assembly/play inhibitor, but it is a different approach to the hobby side of things.
The models themselves were very easy to assemble. Some of the models - such as the Iron Lotus Warriors - come in one piece, most come in a few pieces (i.e. two arms and another accessory), and a few come in five or six pieces (leaders, some of The Wrath). All of the assembly is easy due to the heavily keyed parts; you can't help but put each piece in the correct spot. The keying is also well designed in that it naturally gives most of the model parts a decent sized peg to work with, so you're not dealing with "flat on flat" joins as with other models (or similarly tricky attachments).
Model quality is pretty high, especially considering this is the initial release of these models. Plastic models can oftentimes have excessive flash, along with obnoxious mold lines (which can combo up with poor model cutting decisions) that make them a big pain to clean. The Wrath of Kings models I've worked with so far are well on the "good" side of that scale: mold lines are present, but light and easily cleaned. Whomever was in charge of planning the production of the Shael Han models did a good job of making sure the mold line areas were in low impact spots, for the most part (the one-piece nature of the Iron Lotus Warrior models makes some of them a bit of a pain to clean).
Related to that: the number of actual model mis-casts/hiccups has been low. At worst, I've run into a few parts that were slightly offset in the mold, and a couple of bubbles. However, none of these were bad enough to actually ruin that part of the model (easy enough to clean up, at worst do some light repair work with putty) and the number of times I've run into that across the 20+ models I've assembled is very few (two or three spots, give or take). It's overall well within what I'd call an "acceptable" range, and it's honestly better than I expected for an initial production run of plastic models.
At present, I've assembled one of every kind of model except for the characters, and the Shael Han monster model (Fulung Devourer). While those models will certainly be more complicated, they don't seem to be so complicated that they're going to go against any observations I've made so far. I'd expect them to be more of a pain to assemble, as a trade off for having a cooler model sitting there when you're finished.
The level of detail on the models is about what I expected: pretty good for plastics. The Wrath of Kings model line sits somewhere between Warmachine and Malifaux in terms of model design: the models are definitely busier than something like Malifaux (which tends to let "natural" design shine) but they're also not nearly as overblown and overly detailed as Warmachine models tend to be. The plastic itself is of sufficient quality to give the models fairly crisp, recognizable details, so they should paint up well. Of all the plastic model lines I've worked with so far, I'd probably place the Wrath of Kings models below Malifaux, but above everything else (with the caveat that I haven't worked with any of PP's more recent plastics, and they're also switching plastic mediums to something more effective than what they've been using).
The visual style and design of the model line is consistent, though it may not be everyone's cup of tea. There's an odd semi-steampunk vibe that floats throughout Wrath of Kings, which is actually one of the things I like about the Shael Han models. It is odd, however, because it's almost like proto-steampunk; early efforts at robots, engines, mechanical augmentation, etc. How much of that shows up varies wildly based on faction, but when it does show up its something that sets Wrath of Kings apart from other, similar games.
Wrath of Kings is also a model line that isn't afraid to dip it's toes into...racier models. The Iron Lotus Warriors illustrate this point perfectly: each of these warrior women is wearing what appears to be barely a dress, and not much of one at that. The Leader model for them is sporting the classiest of accessories: the boob belt. The Big Sister models aren't much better, as they're walking around essentially naked, with only boob cups and some cloth to preserve their "modesty". I'm not really a fan of that aesthetic design approach, though at least there is some parity in that the Dragon Legionaires are all running around without pants.
One thing that helps with these models is that they aren't particularly salacious, unlike the way some models are designed in other games (Relic Knights being the most obvious example). Although some of these models are still designed to be titillating (the female "demonic/possessed" models in every faction are sparsely covered and I don't think it's to entice, but models like the Iron Lotus Warriors are definitely supposed to be "sexy ladies"), none of them give the impression of being designed as - forgive the bluntness - wank fodder. These models are coming from a design that is arguably flawed - why can't the "hot ladies" still have armor and look cool? - but the intention seems a few steps away from trying to sell models based purely on the cheesecake factor.
All that said, to any ascribing model designers out there: women wear pants too. Many of them do, in fact. Please reference the Malifaux and, to a lesser extent, Warmachine line for examples of female models that still look "attractive" without walking around dressed like cheap hookers. I shouldn't have to struggle to find a female model in your line that I wouldn't be ashamed to show my wife.
Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase, at least from a modelling standpoint. The plastics are of high quality, the sculpts are good-to-great throughout (no lame models that I've found so far), and they were very easy and pleasant to put together. On a long enough timeline, I could definitely see painting some of these models up (as with all Kickstarters, I ended up with probably many more models than I'll ever use for this game due to stretch goals) and enjoying it.
The next test is going to be to see how the game plays. I have enough assembled for a (rough) skirmish force, so I should be getting some test games in with my friend once he gets his models together. My beta impressions of the game were very mixed: the core mechanics of the game are fine and fun, but the model balance and scenarios were seriously out of whack. The big concern for me is that those two factors - model balance and scenario design - are unfortunately something I've never seen a Kickstarter game get right on its first try. Which in turn usually hurts how much our group ends up playing hte game. We'll see though; the beta feedback certainly resulted in some solid changes (the Dragon Legionaires, for example, were hilariously bad in the beta).
I'd say that if you're interested in the Shael Han Wrath of Kings models from a modelling perspective, they're a pretty good investment (especially since the prices aren't too high for each of the boxed sets). I can't yet speak to how much fun they are to play - I need some table time for that - but mechanically the army is interesting with it's interlocking sets of buffs based on other models and proximity. I'll be sure to post up impressions after I get a few games in.
Until then, thanks very much for reading!
Join me after the break for pictures of some of the models I've assembled, thoughts about the models, and some gut reactions about the game as a whole.
One interesting thing about Wrath of Kings is how the models are packaged. The models come in the usual boxes, but within that box is a big, sealed plastic bag. In that plastic bag are smaller sealed plastic bags, each of which contain all the parts for that one model. I've seen similar packaging approaches before (I feel like the early PP plastics were set up roughly similarly), but never like this.
I actually like it quite a bit, as its very easy to keep all of the models separate prior to assembly, and easily tackle one model at a time if you want to. It does, however, make each bag a bit of a chore to sort through if it comes with a lot of different models (such as the starter boxes). The bases are also in a separate bag (all mixed together) which isn't a big deal, but it is a bit of a bother having to fish out the models, then sort out the bases.
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| Dragon Legionaries and Dragon Legion Keeper |
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| The Wrath and Big Sister |
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| Iron Lotus and Black Lotus |
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| Shield of Taelfan and Hammer of Heaven |
At present, I've assembled one of every kind of model except for the characters, and the Shael Han monster model (Fulung Devourer). While those models will certainly be more complicated, they don't seem to be so complicated that they're going to go against any observations I've made so far. I'd expect them to be more of a pain to assemble, as a trade off for having a cooler model sitting there when you're finished.
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| Studio Fulung Devourer |
The visual style and design of the model line is consistent, though it may not be everyone's cup of tea. There's an odd semi-steampunk vibe that floats throughout Wrath of Kings, which is actually one of the things I like about the Shael Han models. It is odd, however, because it's almost like proto-steampunk; early efforts at robots, engines, mechanical augmentation, etc. How much of that shows up varies wildly based on faction, but when it does show up its something that sets Wrath of Kings apart from other, similar games.
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| Warchild studio model Steampunk oni at it's finest |
One thing that helps with these models is that they aren't particularly salacious, unlike the way some models are designed in other games (Relic Knights being the most obvious example). Although some of these models are still designed to be titillating (the female "demonic/possessed" models in every faction are sparsely covered and I don't think it's to entice, but models like the Iron Lotus Warriors are definitely supposed to be "sexy ladies"), none of them give the impression of being designed as - forgive the bluntness - wank fodder. These models are coming from a design that is arguably flawed - why can't the "hot ladies" still have armor and look cool? - but the intention seems a few steps away from trying to sell models based purely on the cheesecake factor.
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| Black Lotus studio model Good execution of a low class design |
Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase, at least from a modelling standpoint. The plastics are of high quality, the sculpts are good-to-great throughout (no lame models that I've found so far), and they were very easy and pleasant to put together. On a long enough timeline, I could definitely see painting some of these models up (as with all Kickstarters, I ended up with probably many more models than I'll ever use for this game due to stretch goals) and enjoying it.
The next test is going to be to see how the game plays. I have enough assembled for a (rough) skirmish force, so I should be getting some test games in with my friend once he gets his models together. My beta impressions of the game were very mixed: the core mechanics of the game are fine and fun, but the model balance and scenarios were seriously out of whack. The big concern for me is that those two factors - model balance and scenario design - are unfortunately something I've never seen a Kickstarter game get right on its first try. Which in turn usually hurts how much our group ends up playing hte game. We'll see though; the beta feedback certainly resulted in some solid changes (the Dragon Legionaires, for example, were hilariously bad in the beta).
I'd say that if you're interested in the Shael Han Wrath of Kings models from a modelling perspective, they're a pretty good investment (especially since the prices aren't too high for each of the boxed sets). I can't yet speak to how much fun they are to play - I need some table time for that - but mechanically the army is interesting with it's interlocking sets of buffs based on other models and proximity. I'll be sure to post up impressions after I get a few games in.
Until then, thanks very much for reading!
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