Hot on the heels of the Space Wolves tenth edition army boxed set come the release of a number of kits – most of which are for Space Wolves – rounding out their lineup of tenth edition releases. Specifically, in this upcoming release we’re talking about:
- Logan Grimnar
- Arjac Rockfist
- Wolf Guard Terminators
- Njal Stormcaller
Before we dive in to these new kits – how they look, assemble, and how to paint them – we’d like to thank Games Workshop for sending us preview copies of these models for review purposes.
Wolf Guard Terminators
From the start of second edition, Space Wolves have had some of the game’s most distinct terminators. For those counting at home, this is the third release of a Wolf Guard Terminator kit, giving us a larger, more intimidating version of the models to replace the 2009 release (which still holds up pretty well, all things considered).
TheChirurgeon: The new Wolf Guard Terminators are an interesting batch. The models look great – great size and posing, and I love the axes and shields – and they have the right amount of doodads, but hoo boy are there a lot of parts for these given how static their poses are and how few options you get. That said, once I got them assembled, they painted up very quickly and easily using the method I’d put together for painting my friend SD47’s Space Wolves. They straddle the line well between “looking obviously like Space Wolf units” and “not being covered in too many things.”
Keewa: I agree with Rob; at a certain point, while putting them together, I asked myself “Are they just designing these kits as jigsaw puzzles for the kind of perverts who like the smell of Tamiya Extra Thin?” There’s no way these guys need to be like 20 pieces each; that’s completely crackerjack. They look fine, like Rob says, they’re obviously Space Wolves, but they’re not completely drowning in fur, teeth, and runestones. I chose the storm bolters because I already did some shields for my Headtakers, and – while I’m whinging – why haven’t GW figured out a way to make a gun part with recessed barrels already? 20 parts and one of them can’t be a little gun-barrel piece?
Cronch: This kit comes with an absolute bevy of excellent unhelmeted heads, something like 13 to use across the five Terminators. They’re all super characterful, long beards and wizened faces clearly conveying that these are the real hardened elite of the Rout. That said, my nostalgia button is really pressed in particular by the tiny metal Wolf Guard Terminators of 2nd ed, so I opted to build this kit all with helmets in homage. As the others have noted, they’re a lot of pieces, but they do go together well, and I enjoyed painting them up (as with all Terminators, they’re a cornucopia of delightful sharp edges, plus some weird piping on the back of the legs). I particularly enjoy that the unit leader is standing a little taller than the rest, he feels truly large.
Logan Grimnar
The Chapter Master of the Space Wolves, Logan Grimnar’s third model incarnation takes him back off his Stormrider sled and puts him on foot – or rather, on a large pile of rocks and an 80mm base.
TheChirurgeon: Assembly for Logan was incredibly easy – the only weird part is that his face/head/necklace bit go on after the big wolf pelt – and I didn’t have any trouble with him or his wolves. That said, Logan’s base is huge, to the point that it’s kind of silly. Like I get you want him to be on the level of other armies’ top guys, but it’s weird that he stands taller than Lion El’Jonson in that regard. The big base is definitely a play advantage, though – it makes his +1 to CP costs aura that much more useful when he can throw it out across a greater area.
The wolves sit on his base in some weird spots, and there’s enough big underside of his wolf pelt that I think you 100% want to paint this guy in subassemblies. I went with the wolves and Grimnar separate to his base and didn’t regret it. I thin that’s probably the way to do it, since the way his mantle constructs makes it a little weird to paint in parts. You could wait to glue his head in, however. If there’s one part I don’t like on this model, it’s his face – the hair falling over his left eye makes dotting that eye a total pain in the ass. Final model looks great, though.
Keewa: I wish he still had his Santa’s sleigh, I know, I know, it’s ridiculous, it’s absurd, but that’s so… cool! They’ve traded this fun piece for, wait for it, a guy striding forward purposefully in extra tricked-out Terminator armour accompanied by two little guys/wolves. It’s basically the same pose as Lion El’Jonson! Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine pose, but it loses most of the sparkle when you can see that kind of (unconscious?) recycling going on. That said, he looks great in his splendour – a great centrepiece model for the Wolves (until Leman Russ reappears from wherever the hell he’s gotten to), and he goes together very easily with some weird quirks (why is the arm of the big pelt attached to his head piece instead of its own piece? I appreciate this is only a problem for idiots like me who paint their heads separately) although it’s absolutely critical to paint this in subassemblies (cloak, body, wolves, terrain) because there’s really no way you’re going to be able to reach everything once it’s glued together, be warned!
A choice of face options would have been nice (scowling, yelling, helmeted), but then none of these characters have any face options, so it’s whatever.
Cronch: What a model. I adore Logan’s new incarnation, he’s truly huge. As somebody said to me when he was revealed, he looks like the design studio got 90% of the way to designing a new Leman Russ then decided to make him Logan instead. He’s got his definitely fine and not chaotic axe, some wolves that are no longer obliged to pull a sled, and another of the same wolves draped across his shoulders. The detail is superb across the model, and I’m really looking forward to what some competition painters do with him. I opted to paint him in subassemblies, tacking the square plug on his foot to a separate base, and painting each wolf separately too. The wolves each have a bit of rock attached, and one thing I noticed was that these parts were quite a tight fit into the main base rock. Once everything was primed and painted, I had to spend a bit of time shaving off layers in some key spots to make them fit again. You may be better off priming the whole base in one piece, including wolves, then separating the pieces afterwards.
Arjac Rockfist
An update of a finecast model released in 2009 with the fifth edition set, Arjac Rockfist gives the Space Wolves another Terminator character to work with. Arjac in particular is known for being a Thor analog for the chapter, with a thunder hammer he can throw around. His ability to do this gives us the only dual option kit of the new wolf characters when it comes to posing, as Arjac can come in either a throwing or static pose.
TheChirurgeon: For the record, you’re a coward if you don’t do the “throwing the axe pose” on your Arjac. This guy went together well and matches the other Wolf Guard Terminator units well – much more naturally than Grimnar, anyways. He feels appropriately heroic, and I like that he’s actually light on pelts and fur tassels compared to those. His shield is a bit more serious visually and the runes and pitting on his armor were both nice touches and easy to paint.
Keewa: I’m a coward, I did his holding-the-hammer pose because I (probably correctly) assumed that everyone else would have done the hammer throwing, and I wanted to be different like the cheeky monkey I am.
I like this model, it’s solid and sturdy, but he’s not super interesting, he’s a Terminator captain. He does fit in well with the other terminators, and his armour is extra dinged-up, which I like, I don’t know a great deal about Space Wolves capital L Lore, but he doesn’t feel to me like some kind of legendary hero of great renown, but rather that he’s just Some Guy.
Cronch: I too am a coward, because of what I know about myself rather than what I assume other people will do. The hammer throw pose is, undoubtedly, the cooler of the two. A teleporting hammer that gets thrown around is just objectively cool, and the sculptors did a great job to pose the model so that it conveys a throw without requiring a magnetically levitating hammer. What this means though is that the hammer sticks out quite far, attached by a conveniently-located strap. In other words, if you’re a clumsy moron like me it can be filed immediately under “highly breakable”. In recent years GW have put a lot more effort into ensuring that fragile details are actually cleverly strengthened, so it may actually be fine, but I decided not to test myself.
That aside, Arjac still rules in his less dynamic pose too. He’s solid, slightly larger than the regular terminators, and his armour has had a lot more wear and tear, a joy to paint. The face is also fantastic, and of the three characters he has the most easily subassemblied head (it even has a handy locating lug). I think for that reason I went much further on this one than with Logan or Njal, and I’m pleased with the result!
Njal Stormcaller
The other update of a 2009 Finecast model here is Njal Stormcaller, who has gone back to power armor after a brief stint as a Terminator.
TheChirurgeon: Njal was definitely the most complicated assembly of the Space Wolves for me – they’ve modeled him with a lot of floating rocks for a cool psychic/energy/Dragonball Z effect and it looks great, but it does mean he’s surrounded by fiddly rock bits with small contact points to snap off or accidentally break during assembly and transport. On a similar note, the psyber raven gives me similar levels of the heebie-jeebies and I don’t think there will ever be a point where I don’t fear snapping that thing off Njal’s model. At least it’s in plastic and not finecast now.
Keewa: Now this is a cool guy. His armour with all the runes in it? Rockin’. His cyber-birdie friend? Fantastic. The floating rocks? An awesome display of how far sculpting has come. His pose? Well… that’s actually quite boring. He’s standing still, holding his staff two-handed in front of his face. More like Njall Poledancer, am I right? I would much prefer it if his pose were more open and he were one-handing the staff, preferably pointing it at something. The previous Finecast model is somehow much more dynamic, he looks feral, he looks angry – fully in his battle rage. The new one is kind of passively standing still. I get that he’s trying to intone some kind of battle spell, but he looks more like he’s hiding behind his stick. He’s got some cool runes engraved into his chestplate. Are you ever going to see them? No, because his chest is completely blocked by his cross-body arm pose, what a shame.
The pose is the only problem, the detail is great (I tried glowing runes on his armour, learn from my mistakes, unless you’re more skilled than me, don’t do this.) Also, his beard and face is the same piece as his right vambrace, which is just, why guys? Why do you hate me so?
Cronch: Another really fantastic character resculpt, Njal’s model communicates a sense of power. I do agree with Rob about the psyber-raven – if Arjac’s hammer is “highly breakable” then the raven can only be classed as “actively attempting to detach itself from the model”. Still, the rest of the model is solid and it doesn’t stick out too far from the base. Njal’s armour and staff are covered in well-defined runes, but in the end I decided to black them out rather than going for a glow effect. I quite like the idea that they’re ritualistic scribings, rather than direct magical conduits. The model was good fun to paint – unlike the other two, Njal still has some of a regular cloak attached, which is always a fun area to spend some time on on character models.
Njal also has a wolf on his head (Space Wolves really must be one of the most consistent design languages out there), but it’s not as big as Logan’s, presumably because he’s not as important.
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