(First seen by me on on YTTH. image Copyright, Games Workshop, and they can fucking keep it )
I like to balance the good with the bad, so let me first say what I think is right with this depressingly ugly model that was designed by sightless, mindless, tasteless morons. Do remember that these are the same demented troglodytes who brought you this slab-sided piece of shit literally, on a stick:
(image copyright Games Workshop and Forgeworld, and again, they may keep it)
Remember him? Cestus the Ram? With his shipping container hulls and nonsensical wings? He remembers you. How many people have plunked down 92 Pounds Sterling for one of these flying garbage trucks? Less than FW hoped for, I'll bet. You think there's going to be a stampede for Stormraven kits?
Actually, I think there will be, because unlike me, a majority of people won't care what it looks like, just that it exists.
Quick side trip to art school: which design more embraces the established Space Marine aesthetic?
Remember, their first production aircraft 40k design ( I chose to ignore the ancient Epic line, for purposes of this discussion) was this:
If you answered "the first one" to the above question, then give yourself a gold star. You're right. They belong together and were designed to look similar. Now, the Thunderhawk is still slab-sided, ugly, and has design features that were stuck on there by people who had no idea what they were doing, but at least it started as something halfway cohesive. Then that jerk came along and ruined it with the stub lascannon wings, the big dumb gun and those laughable gun mounts. He's the same guy with the lego collection who decided to build the Stormraven, and he used less than the 15 minutes he'd had for the first one. But, at least he had an eye on all the other Space Marine kits, unlike the drunken retarded troll who made the Cestus station wagon.
So, what do we do with this new kit?
Rip the wings and engines off and put them in a little pile next to you. Now rip the turret and hook thing off of the fuselage. Rip the lascannons off and put them in your pile. Chuck the turret. Chuck the hook thing. Keep the fuselage and its attendant bits and bobs and put them in your pile. See the pile of bits next to you? Keep them. They're good for that next thing you're going to build. Maybe it's a dropship, maybe it's not. Those other things? Maybe they're useful, maybe they're not. But for the bits you get for the money you're spending, you might as well go buy a Land Raider and some Valkyrie parts on eBay and carry on. You'll probably end up saving yourself some cash.
Happy Veterans Day, and to all of you who have served and are serving, thank you. If I ever meet you, beer's on me.
9 comments:
Cestus the Ram looks like the Playboy Playmate of the month next to that thing.
Your telling me that that's the best arts-fartsy Blood Angels can do?!
Wonderful rant, Sir!
I hate to ruin the spirit of the party, but I think that red thing is just fine- in fact, pretty damn perfect for a whole lotta blunt trouble in a death package.
Oh, come on... The Stormraven isn't that bad. I think the picture shows it at an awkward angle, it may be better in person. It may have great conversion potential too.
So you didn't like the flying cinder bloc...umm, I mean Arvus lighter either did you?
I'm not much of a 40k follower but I have to say, errr... I quite like the models above ! (please don't chainsaw me !)
Sigmar
my WFB blog
I am still on the fence about the Stormraven. I think the angle of the picture is bad for one. I want to see the kit in its entirety before I make a final decision.
I am leaning towards ugly at this time, but in the picture provided you can also see that it is on "stands" or feet or something. So I think the profile of it is somewhat raised.
At the very worst I think people will be able to combine some of the components here with say... a Land Raid or a Valkyrie (or all three!) and make some pretty amazing kit bashed models.
Again, I will wait to see more pics of it before deciding for myself though!
@Rich: at least they didn't put giant angel wings and an R2-D2 dome on it like they did the Aquila lander.
@ Da Masta Cheef: I actually did like the Arvus lighter; a lot, in fact. I thought it was solid design that had a lot going for it. In fact, many of the Imperial Guard aircraft are very well thought-out (Aquila notwithstanding...)
@Oni: You may be right, this all may be a case of seeing it at the wrong angle/light, just like in that episode of Seinfeld where the chick is ugly one minute and hot the next. It could, in fact, be longer and larger than the photo makes it seem. Maybe. As I said in the article, there are a lot of nice parts in there; they just don't make a good enough whole.
@ Sigmar: everyone's entitled to their opnions, and you have a right to like what you like. As long as you're an adult in the way you express them here, unlike....
@ Date, whose comment I deleted: if you can't be nice, then piss off.
Is is just me ... or did someone buy Sanguinor an etcha-sketch for Christmas, and he happened to 'quite like' the Eldar Grav tank.
That's how I read it anyhow. It's ugly, but kinda cool as well. It's not the container ship the other one is, but I'ts still a waste of design budget.
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