After featuring in the recent Games Workshop preview featuring new characters for each of the First Founding Chapters, Vulkan He’stan has been given the Primaris treatment and returns to our tables, embiggened. In this article we’ll share our thoughts on the new model – from assembly to painting.
We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of this kit for review purposes.
First Impressions
The Forgefather of the Salamanders is a monopose miniature that comes on a single sprue, with the option to don a helm or go without. The latter probably is not doing wonders for his skin routine with all the open flames. It’s a rather busy model, which befits a Chapter Master, so allow extra time to give him the attention he deserves. If you come from the Edna school of thought, it wouldn’t be too difficult forgo the integrated cape if you had some suitable decorated shoulder pads to hand.
Soggy: While the old Vulkan model is from fifth edition and predates the Forgeworld Pyroclast models from 2014 (which haven’t dated well), I do like the connections between the two: donning drakenscale, flame motifs and equipped with under-arm flame projectors. I’ve recently started up the eighteenth for Horus Heresy, and am looking forward to using this mini as whatever I need: Centurion, Praetor, Herald or Champion.
Rockfish: I’ll admit I do find the model weirdly busy, it’s not toooo much but I feel like they felt a need to get everything in on one captain-sized model, which is maybe a touch too much. Other than that minor complaint, it’s still a nice model which captures the motif of being a Salamanders character well. You’ll have a bit of ‘unique hero model’ effect, bringing him with anything else marines, as he is so dripping with chapter-specific details and iconography that you’ll be hard pressed to get the rest of your army even halfway there. It’s hardly a bad thing for a special character to stand out, but you might feel like your army could use a new type of upgrade sprue or three!
Forging the Forgefather
Soggy: The model is a straightforward build with no gotyas that I came across. It’s also friendly to working in subassemblies – almost essential really with the bloody cape in the way. To make the model more Heresy appropriate I made two minor tweaks: removing the slightly over the top flame on the base and changing the vents on the backpack to those from MkIII armour by lopping off the existing ones. While he’s a tad tall compared to some of the now short-kings in the Heresy range, it’s only right that an officer should stand out on the tabletop.
Rockfish: This was a bit of a surreal model to build, if I’ll be honest, it went together too easily for how weird most of the pieces are. There’s a lot of very odd cuts and shapes to all the pieces that make you think it’s going to be gross, even one of the underfoot rocks is multi-part part for example, but somehow, other than a few minor things like the arm not settling in perfectly on first try, it kinda just worked? While I’m not sure my mental health would appreciate being regularly subjected to eldritch constructs if this style of build continues, my free time and hands enjoy how pleasant a build it was, given the model detail level!
Soggy: I’ve been putting together plastic Mechanicum kits recently, so maybe I’m not the best judge of how easy kits should be to put together at the moment…
Paint to Ceramite
Rockfish: I am one of the resident fully-assembled-models-only deviants within the ranks of painters here at GH, which makes me well-equipped to talk to what is probably a more average experience amongst normal hobbyists. I can’t say I will be quite as glowing as the build side of things, unfortunately. I’d only put this as a fine model to paint; the spear is a bit too close to the cloak to get good access to the back side, and the flames wreck your ability to get in there from the underside. Plus, there is a bit of a theme here of a lot of the cool mechanical details like pipes for the flamer and spare ammo being under things in weird, awkward ways. It’s all manageable and hardly the worst GW has done, but somewhat disappointing given how great the model is otherwise and how minor adjustments to positioning or pose could have done a lot.
Soggy: Painting this model without subassemblies seems like an easy way to do your head in with all the overlapping parts. While the model has loads of cute details, I honestly kind of got turned off on it all – although that said I was going through some IRL stuff while I was painting this up so maybe my mind was elsewhere.
Vulkan Lives!
It’s not very often the Salamanders get some love in the form of new releases and we’re here for it. While not the most adventurous of the new releases, we’re glad to see Vulkan reborn. It’s a solid kit that’s easy to assemble and worth picking up if you’re going to be running the new Forgefather’s Seekers Detachment.
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