Island of Blood First Impressions

Posted by gbprime on 6. September 2010 22:39

One trip to my local game shop later, Isle of Blood is now in hand.  I fended off my kids as best I could to open it during dinner and started gawking at the minis instantly.  My first impression is that the pics on the web I have seen do not do the set justice.

It's the detail in the miniatures.  I knew I was buying a set where the plastics have limited posing, but the troops are far better than I expected.  The Lothern Sea Guard are quite highly detailed, packed with equipment, and just LOOK like elite troops.  Likewise, the well equipped Ellyrian Reavers actually have 4 different poses, and for 5 models, that's pretty good.  Even the clanrats are exceptional, having just as much detail and SIXTEEN separate poses.

Character-wise, the models are pretty darn good as well.  The Moulder and Warlock Engineer look positively evil and have a lot of detail packed onto their small frames.  And the High Elf Mage... oh my lord the high elf mage.  He comes in 3 peices... back of torso w/ cloak, front of torso, and head/chest/staff.  The result is a dynamic mini with DEPTH to it, rising into the air in the midst of a spell effect (instead of just on top of it as in previous mage versions).

The two army commanders deserve special note.  They too are awesomely detailed, but are oddly infuriating to a modelling and conversion gamer such as myself.  There is only ONE way to assemble them.  The skaven warlord comes in two peices... his front torso and arms w/ weapons, and... the rest of him.  You basically clip on his breastplate and arms.  The only modification possible would be a forearm/weapon swap. 

But even that meager swap is a lot more conversion potential than the griffon rider.  The griffon comes in 7 peices and is a great model, but the rider's lower leg and upper arm on each side of his body are molded to the two halves of the griffon itself, along with bits of cloak and flowing ribbon.  The rider's torso and the other half of his cloak fit in between these halves.  Assemble it any other way, and the prince's arms are floating in the wrong locations.  Yes, you could chop off the arms and flowing cloak, and make a saddle out of greenstuff, but you'd still have to make any substitute rider match up to the lower legs that are molded to the griffon's feathers.  It's a bit disappointing, and I'd rather have seen a rider you peg onto the griffon, or even legs and waist molded to the griffon with a totally separate upper torso, making conversions easier.

Woes about the commander models aside, this set is awesome.  Highly detailed minis and the all-important mini rulebook make this a set worth owning.  Even if you trade away the minis (I'm trading Ranillon rats and receiving his elves), the value of the tradebait that comes with the rulebook is well worth it.  (The Ebay buy-it-now for the Elf Griffon Rider is currently varying between 15 to 21 bucks.)

And for gamers like me, whose small kids nick his range sticks and blast templates... bonus.  =)