Bonus Goatboy: Belisarius Cawl Crazy Model!
Goatboy here again and I have to talk about the man in red – and silver- with a million arms, Belisarius Cawl.
As usual – I build and paint a ton of stuff at any given time. I got lucky enough to have the Imperial Gang o’ Jerks from the latest Fall of Cadia set. I’ve decided to review them one at a time as I build/paint/curse them. I went ahead and started Cawl as it was one of the 3 I really wanted to paint. The Saint isn’t in my normal wheel house of painting and Greyfax is one of the 3 I actually wanted to do. Up next after this should be the Saint as I have spent some time trying to figure out how best to base her and stop her bouncing.
Will break each review into the Build, Paint, and Overall sections. The build is pretty obvious as I go into how hard it was, any weird things I saw, and hints on how to better complete this model. The paint delves into the painting thoughts and ideas on how best to get the model to the table top. Overall is more of a value thought on the model.
Build
Cawl is a rather complicated model that isn’t too hard to build. He has a ton of parts but everything fits very well. In fact it is pretty easy to see how things go from looking at the picture of the model. There are a few questionable parts in the build – mostly with this rather large hips and butt area. One of the piece’s pictures just looks odd but thankfully the shape of the item is easy to sorta lay in the recess and push around till it fits. The parts are kind of small so it makes it hard to really do a good job cleaning each tiny little robot baby arm. That is one of the issues with a model this complicated and the injection molded plastic. There are a few mold lines and making sure you get rid of the bad ones and still keep the detail can be a bit tough. A big piece of advice is to just not glue on that one servo skull that comes out of the models back (part 26 up there). I broke it as building, then reglued it and once I started painting it cut it off. It doesn’t fit into the overall model shape and will most likely be the first thing to break on the model. Just use the Servo skull for some other conversion.
Duncans advice of leaving the guy in 3 parts to paint is the best one to take too. Almost all the other bits are pretty easy to get to so you can easily just build it as a chest, axe arm, and disco bootie legs. He fits really well on his base and as it is a much larger then his body, it actually does a good job of keeping his extremities far enough away from the edges to hopefully let this guy not get to banged up on the table top.
Overall this model is pretty dang amazing with a pretty easy build that looks complicated, a crap ton of detail, and for the most part a design/build style that is easy to figure out even without the instructions and just a picture of him on the model box.
4.75 out of 5 Servo Skulls
Paint
This model looks like a hot mess of forms but in reality it is a heck of lot easier to paint than other models. In reality the model is really only 3 colors – the Red of the Robes, the metal colors you want to do, and finally whatever lighting sources you want to produce. Sure there is a small bit of “skin” but it is so insignificant it really shouldn’t count as a “big” section of paint. The best way to look at this model is to figure out what kind of metal you want – and what tones you want to produce in there as it is the majority of the model. I personally went pretty basic utilizing a darker silver and then some golds to help break apart the model. You have to be careful as there are a ton of small parts so when painting it use a soft brush and just go slow building up the metallic colors.
The red is also very easy as everything that’s red is easy to get to and very simple to paint. I am sure most players have a red they like to do and based on how you want to get this done just follow the lines and forms to find the shading. Even the random cables that protrude through the holes of the robe are simple to get too. All the forms, folds, and metallic bits are also easy to wash and this model does not take too long to paint. Again – pick the OSL you want to do, make sure to be careful not to overload him with lightning, and just be smart about your washes to ensure a rather spectacular model on the table top.
4.5 out of 5 Disco Servo Skulls
Check out his back – removed that dumb servo skulls – it falls off so easily.
Value
Here is the weird part of this as you can’t buy this guy separately. As a whole the boxed set is a pretty good deal – you get 5 rather awesome models that if sold separately would be a rather expensive purchase. Looking at some of the other character releases you could see this model hitting the 45-50 dollar mark as he is bigger then Ahriman/Kharn and a heck of a lot more involved. Of course if you just want him he is obviously more expensive as you have to find a way to off load the other models. He does seem to be a good buy for the Mechanicum armies as he replaces the Tech Priest Arcmagos guy in most formations.
Heck the packaging itself is also pretty dang awesome as you get a bad ass print, a nice looking set of 2 boxes, and a really detailed instruction packet. This isn’t just a simple release and from the package itself to the models themselves this feels very special. Kudos to GW for bringing something new and fresh to the game that blows away most other figures in the gaming industry with a price that isn’t completely nutty.
5 out of 5 Drunken Servo Skulls – there is no way you can’t get your value out of this box by selling parts of this to your friends if you don’t want the others.
Up next we’ll get the rest of the characters, a Magnus review, and most likely some 3rd party stuff coming down the pipeline.
~What Gathering Storm Mini are you the most impressed with?
