Infantry may not be the stars of Warmachine, but that doesn’t make them any less important. From screening high priority targets to overwhelming a foe with sheer numbers, infantry plays a critical role, especially in the armies of Cryx. Today, I’m taking a look at the Satyxis Raiders.
IN SHORT: Fast and deadly, Satyxis Raiders will eviscerate enemies hiding behind their shields and fry a warcaster’s brain right through their warjack!
STRENGTHS: Raiders are fast! Smoking fast! With SPD 7 and Advanced Deploy, they can easily be the first line of Cryx infantry to crash into the enemy’s ranks. Reach on their Lacerators gives them a total threat range of 12”, which goes up to 14” with Raider Captain support! Damn!
Raiders are well armed, too. In addition to Reach, their Lacerators come with Chain Weapon, Critical Knockdown, and Feedback. Chain Weapon allows them to ignore Bucklers, Shields, and Shield Wall. Critical Knockdown is a nice bonus if you get lucky, but Feedback is where it’s at.
With Feedback, every time a Raider damages a warjack, its controller suffers 1 point of damage. This is a great tactic for softening up a warcaster for an assassination run or deal the final blow.
Last, but not least, Raiders have Combined Melee for added hitting power and accuracy when they need it. Given that each Raider comes with two attacks, one from the Lacerator and a basic P+S 8 hit from their horns, Raiders can sacrifice non-Lacerator attacks to power-up other Raiders’ Lacerators.
WEAKNESSES: With DEF 14 and ARM 12, Raiders do not take hits well. They have a good chance of hitting first and hitting hard, but that counterattack is going to eat them alive. Add to that their living CMD 8 models, and these girls can break at the worst possible moment.
While fast, Raiders do not have Pathfinder, but their attachment, the Raider Sea Witch, can fix this. In fact, a lot of issues with the Raiders are solved by taking a Raider Sea Witch.
Also, while the Lacerator has great special rules, its hitting power is a mild P+S 9. In order to threaten many warjack targets, Raiders need to use their Combined Melee, get the charge, and/or use Power Swell from their attachment, the Raider Sea Witch.
And speaking of warjacks, Raiders love cutting into warcasters one hit box at a time. Against Hordes armies, the Feedback on their Lacerators is completely useless.
SYNERGIES: Raider. Sea. Witch.
Seriously, this is one awesome unit attachment. For 2 points, the unit gets Pathfinder, Force Barrier (+2 DEF against ranged attack rolls and blast damage immunity), and Power Swell (once per game, get an additional die on melee damage rolls during that activation). For 2 points! Take her. Seriously, just take her. Even the model looks cool.
.
The Raider Captain is another option worth considering. Her main synergy is Desperate Pace [Satyxis Raiders]. The Captain targets a Satyxis Raider unit in command range, and that unit gets +2” movement during its activation that turn! Raiders are fast, and the Raider Captain makes them even faster!
Against a Warmachine opponent, Skarre loves taking a group of Satyxis Raiders to double-up the Feedback damage with her spell, Backlash. This can make each damaging hit against a warjack do 2 points instead of 1. With this, even the mightiest warcaster can fall in a hurry!
Lich Lord Asphyxious can use a similar tactic by sending Raiders in to bang up some warjacks. Then, after your opponent has slaughter them, call them back for Feedback seconds!
Asphyxious the Hellbringer also has a neat combo. Raiders with a Sea Witch are DEF 16 against ranged attacks. Add in Ashen Veil, and they’re DEF 18. Now we’re talking!
JUST FOR FUN: Sometimes, just running the Raiders forward can be enough to really mess with an opponent’s plans, engaging their shooters and giving the meat of your army time to close.
So how far into the map can Raiders get right out of the gate?
That’s 6” for Advanced Deploy, 14” from the run, 2” from Reach, and an extra 2” from Desperate Pace. All totaled, that’s 24”! Did I mention Raiders are fast?
SUMMARY: Satyxis Raiders are fast, deadly, and versatile. They’re solid against Hordes and incredible against Warmachine. Raiders are an excellent addition to many Cryx forces. Even better, many of their weaknesses are taken care of with the simple addition of a Raider Sea Witch.
Check out the complete list of Warmachine and Hordes articles here.
***
Note: Holo Writing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and, as such, may earn a small commission from any product purchased through an affiliate link on this blog.
Blog
Warhammer 40K: Dark Eldar Army
Presenting my Warhammer 40K Dark Eldar army.
While not being quite as filled with conversions as my other armies, I did enjoy painting this army quite a bit. I’m not a very good painter, but a simple layered drybrush technique served me quite well with this army. I’m particularly happy with how the Incubi capes came out.
As for conversions, I had fun coming up with some substitutes for what was available at the time. Remember this guy?
While a nutty model, it just wasn’t my style. Instead of using the stock model, my kabal had a captured Hive Tyrant and Wraithlord under their command.
The Hive Tyrant used the old-old metal kit. I added some mechanical bits and guns to make it seem like the Dark Eldar had it under control somehow, and also to represent the Talos’ guns. I remember reading a passage in the old codex where Dark Eldar would even capture Tyranid Genestealers, so I figured going a step further made sense. As for why it has screaming faces coming out of it … the old Talos fluff had something in it where victims became a part of it. You can see a guy stuck at the bottom of the turret in the original model. So, yeah, screaming faces on a Hive Tyrant. Not my best idea, but I think it looks cool. 🙂
For the heads, I cut Dark Eldar warrior faces off and molded them to the Hive Tyrant with green stuff. I also added Space Marine missile launcher parts to its legs to give it “thrusters” so it could, with a little imagination, hover around.
The other Talos in my Dark Eldar army is more straightforward. Talos and Eldar Wraithlord stats aren’t too far removed, so I figured a captured and mutilated Wraithlord would work pretty well. I even threw in one of the original Talos arms. The scars are a simple green stuff sculpt.
I also had fun making the sybarites to lead the huge mobs of Warriors. This one is my favorite. The double-blade uses a gun grip with two knife blades glued on to the sides.
Check out the complete list of Warhammer 40K articles here.
Blue Exorcist, Volumes 1-2 by Kazue Kato – Manga Review
Occasionally a manga comes along that makes me squee with glee every time a new volume is released. Though I’ve only read the first two volumes, I can tell that Blue Exorcist is going to be one of those manga.
Volume 1 introduces Rin Okumura, a well-meaning but short-tempered teen who has been raised by Father Fujimoto, a high-ranking exorcist, in place of the father he has never known. When a sharp argument between the two causes Father Fujimoto to drop his spiritual guard, Rin finds out why his father has been so absent: The lapse causes Father Fujimoto to be possessed by the demon lord Satan, who reveals that Rin is, in fact, a son of Satan (skip to the end of the review for more on that), and can possess all the demon powers that come with it when he unsheathes the magic sword that contains them. Generally, it’s not a good thing to be the son of the devil in the presence of exorcists, so Rin finds his life in mortal danger. Rather than run, though, he makes a rather unexpected decision. Feeling himself responsible for Father Fujimoto’s death, and determined to defeat Satan, he decides to become an exorcist. He is thus allowed to enter True Cross Academy, the training ground for exorcists, under the watch of eccentric Academy president Mephisto Pheles, who has plans of his own for Rin’s powers. In Volume 2, Rin meets his classmates and begins preparing for the Exwire Examination, the passing of which is his first step to becoming an exorcist. His successes are varied—He’s not an enthusiastic student, preferring field work to studying, and his snap-quick temper sometimes gets him into trouble with other equally hot-tempered students. However, he does form enough alliances to have help when powerful demons attack the school. Perhaps most importantly, though, he learns of the Blue Night, a night 16 years ago on which powerful exorcists around the world died after exploding into blue flame—the same blue flame that is the mark of Satan, and that identifies Rin as his son.
Blue Exorcist reads like a direct successor of D.Gray-Man and Soul Eater, two other familiar demon-hunting manga. It combines the quirky-cast-of-exorcists model found in the first with the bizarre artistic flair of the second, and then one-ups them both by featuring a surprisingly complex set of character relationships, and stellar art to boot.
The basic story of the series is, unfortunately, very familiar: boy-looking-for-his-place-in-the-world-gains-magic-powers-and-goes-to-school-to-learn-to-use-them. But the abovementioned good points easily make up for this. While the individual character types (for the main characters, at least) are about as familiar as the story type, the ways in which they interact are interestingly plotted. In Volume 1, for example, Rin’s high-powered abilities and his twin brother Yukio’s weakness around bullies would lead readers to expect Rin to be Yukio’s constant protector. (Rin got all of Dad’s demon powers, leaving Yukio with nothing but brains and a cute, squishy face.) However, the story works in such a way that Yukio ends up being Rin’s defender and even his teacher at the Academy…while at the same time knowing that he’ll be responsible for destroying Rin if his demon powers get out of control.
Most of the individually interesting character types are introduced in Volume 2, which sets up most of the supporting cast. These characters are also made of clever combinations of traits, my favorite being Ryuji Suguro, the class muscle who also happens to be a really intelligent student, and another favorite being Izumo Kamiki, an initially manipulative girl who, instead of spending a whole series figuring out that It’s Bad to Manipulate Friends!, learns it early, and then uses the damage caused by her actions as the driving force behind her future choices. For me, the only uninteresting character is Shiemi Moriyama, whose main goal at True Cross Academy seems to be to make friends and be adorably shy while doing it, but even she serves an eventual purpose in Volume 2, which is more than I can say of other manga characters who exist only to be The Cute One. And by the end of the second volume, Shiemi does become legitimately endearing. That said, this is one of the few manga in which I’ve found all of the characters appealing on some level.
Equally as appealing as the characters is the art. Kazue Kato uses a smart balance of simple character-focused frames and immensely detailed setting-focused frames, throwing in the occasional detailed character shot, too, for extra spice. It’s a clever, practical way to produce art that is both dynamic to look at for the readers and turned in on time for the comic’s editor (always a concern for these deadline-driven series), and it works well here. And then there are the covers. Blue Exorcist is a series that I considered buying for the covers alone, even before I read the actual books. Kato has a brilliant sense of color and character design, and when I tried to think of other manga covers to compare these to, I couldn’t. They are truly in a class all their own. The character designs themselves are worth some mention, too, not merely because they’re great, but because they’re also pleasantly varied. The absurd and clownish (and even iconic) design for Mephisto Pheles is one of the most memorable character designs that I’ve seen in recent manga. A series full of character designs like his, though, could have become overwhelming to look at, which is why I consider it a good choice on the part of the artist that most other characters in the series were rendered in fairly normal clothing—normal for a manga, anyway. The variety of face designs is commendable in this series, too. Many manga suffer from having too many characters that are simple variations on one basic character design, rendering them all basically indistinguishable. Everyone in Blue Exorcist is unique and recognizable.
The series’ only real problem, if it can be called one, is this: Some readers may be uncomfortable with the fact that the series’ protagonist is the son of Satan. However, as most anime/manga fans will already know, this isn’t intended to be a religious statement. In anime and manga, priests regularly wield ridiculous guns (Trigun, and virtually every manga involving a priest), nuns blow up things with abandon (Chrono Crusade), bible verses have magical power (Le Chevalier D’Eon and also this series) and the Vatican possesses an airship force and employs vampire-eating-vampires (Trinity Blood). In short, Japan’s take on Christianity, in its comics, at least, is pretty much like America’s take on Greek and Roman Mythology: We entertain ourselves with the parts we like and then add explosions to the rest.
For those who can jump this latter hurdle, Blue Exorcist comes highly recommended. If you like D. Gray-Man, Soul Eater, or shonen manga in general, this is a definite title to try.
The Dragons of Jupiter: Cover Art Complete!
The worst enemy in war is family.
Brothers Kaneda and Ryu Kusanagi once fought side by side to defeat Caesar, a rogue machine intelligence that almost enslaved humanity. They succeeded, but Kaneda was forever changed and began to see all artificial life as dangerous.
Now Kaneda seeks to destroy Matriarch, his creator and the last true thinking machine. He and his Crusaders will stop at nothing to achieve her death even if it means destroying Europa, the moon of Jupiter he once called home.
However, Ryu and his fellow Dragons stand against Kaneda and will do whatever it takes to protect their way of life. The two brothers are set to collide in a battle that will shake the great powers of the solar system and force both men to question what they believe in.
Robert Chew, a.k.a. CrazyAsian1, has completed the cover art. What is there to say? It looks fantastic! The artwork will wrap around the book, providing a fully illustrated front and back.
The cover features a formation of Crusaders, elite heavy infantry that serve as the novel’s antagonists. Don’t they look absolutely badass? Their idea of “light” weaponry is a Gatling gun. 🙂 Robert’s armor and weapon designs are incredible.
A lone Dragon waits on the back cover, outnumbered and outgunned, but fighting to the bitter end. Robert Chew added a cloaking effect to the Dragon, illustrating their impressive stealth abilities.
It won’t be much longer now. The interior layout is proceeding smoothly, and the formatting of the cover text has already started. Once we know the spine’s thickness precisely, we can zero in the design for the cover.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Dragons of Jupiter!
Coming soon to Amazon.com in Print and E-Book!
Heck, yeah!
Subscribe to the Holo Writing Newsletter to receive updates on our current and future books.
Warmachine Tactics – Cryx: Bane Knights vs. Bane Thralls
VS.
IN SHORT: Cryx is a faction spoiled for awesome infantry. At the high end of our impressive arsenal sit the Banes. Powerful, feared weapon masters through and through, the Banes can lay waste to enemy armies, and are made even more dangerous when accompanied by Bane Lord Tartarus.
WHY BANES? Banes are weapon masters. With P+S 11 attacks and 4 damage dice on the charge, they hit hard. That by itself is bad enough, but they’re also undead. It doesn’t matter how many casualties they take, they’re going after your opponent until every last Bane has been dropped.
That’s a good thing because they’re not the fastest infantry in the Cryx arsenal. In a faction that often emphasizes speed, the base Bane SPD of 5 can seem underwhelming. However, that SPD 5 is actually misleading because Banes can benefit from the impressive abilities of Bane Lord Tartarus. In fact, Tartarus is a huge reason to take Banes, in and of himself.
All Banes can benefit from Tartarus’s ability to Curse an enemy model or unit. Banes attacking a Cursed model get +2 attack rolls and +2” movement on the charge (including Tartarus himself). Oh, and there’s no roll to hit for Curse. It’s point-and-click simple to use.
Jacob Holo: Tartarus Curses your Gun Mages.
H.P. Holo: Don’t you have to roll to hit or something?
Jacob Holo: Nope.
H.P. Holo: What? This Tartarus guy is a real jerk.
Jacob Holo: He gets that a lot.
That +2” is pretty good by itself, but where it gets absolutely insane is when Tartarus uses Death Toll. When Tartarus kills a living model, he creates a small-based Bane that appears within 3” of him and in unit cohesion of a friendly Bane unit. This can be a unit that has not activated yet. So not only can these new Banes appear right in your enemy’s face, but they can still benefit from Curse AND activate that very same turn! That’s just sick!
On top of that, Bane Lord Tartarus has Thresher and Reach, so he has the capacity crank out quite a few extra models. He’s pricy as a 4 point solo, but you definitely get what you pay for.
There are two types of Banes: Knights and Thralls. Both have strengths and weaknesses. But which is better? Let’s take a look, shall we?
BANE KNIGHT STRENGTHS: Knights are great at bypassing obstacles and penalizing your opponents. Ghostly is a fantastic ability that allows them to speed through terrain, walk through walls, and ignore free strikes. Thralls can’t do that without a warcaster’s support.
Vengeance acts as both an offensive and a defensive ability. Offensively, extra attacks are always nice. Defensively, it discourages piecemeal attacks. Killing one Knight results in all other Knights getting a free 3” move and a free attack. That is not a good exchange for your opponent! When Thralls take casualties, they just take them.
On top of this, Knights have Reach. Reach combined with a Vengeance move can give Knights a 4.5” threat range advantage over Thralls. When factoring in how they ignore terrain, this can be huge!
As a nice little bonus, Knight also have +1 ARM over Thralls, giving them a little extra durability.
BANE THRALL STRENGTHS: Two words, Dark Shroud. I absolutely love this ability! Bane Thralls are walking debuffs. They don’t even have to hit their opponents. Just engaging them in melee drops their ARM by 2, and there is no defense against this ability!
Not only does this make Thralls hit harder than Knights, but it also acts as a force multiplier. Any other model attacking the same target benefits from the Bane’s Dark Shroud. Cryx debuffs make everything better, and Thralls are debuffs.
Bane Thralls also come with Stealth, which helps mitigate their losses on the approach. They can also gain Tough through a powerful unit attachment, granting them even more durability. An opponent may be able to bypass one of these defenses, but probably not both, and not for the whole unit. Even better, the attachment officer has Dead Rise, which will allow knocked down survivors of Tough rolls to stand up for free in the maintenance phase. Overall, Thralls have more staying power than Knights for this reason, even with the Knights’ ARM advantage.
Finally, Thralls are cheaper. Even with a max unit and the attachment, they only cost 1 point more than Knights, and that set up comes with two extra Banes.
VERDICT: It is almost never a bad idea to put Banes in a Cryx army. Both Knights and Thralls can pull a lot of weight in an army list, and both are very valid choices. For me, it comes down to personal taste.
And my preferred choice is … Bane Thralls!
Bane Thralls are my absolute favorite Cryx infantry. They are the go-to models when I’m up against a tough opponent or I want to try something new, but still have a solid fallback. They consistently perform well in game after game after game.
It’s a close call, because both Thralls and Knights are fantastic units. But the Thralls edge out the Knights because of Dark Shroud. I’m a big fan of force multipliers, and Thralls perform that function nicely.
Check out the complete list of Warmachine and Hordes articles here.
Foundling by D. M. Cornish – Book Review
Rossamund Bookchild is a foundling boy with a girl’s name. This name was given to him by the paper pinned to his blanket when he was left on the front stoop of Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls, and it has tormented him ever since. As the object of frequent jibes and bullying fists, he eagerly looks forward to the day when he can leave the foundlingery and enter the navy, and thus a life full of adventure on the high seas. His dreams are dashed, though, when he is chosen to be a simple lamplighter. The hopelessly boring life that he anticipates, though, ends up being anything but (at least for the moment), as he is abducted, rescued, and then forced into service by one of the most famous monster hunters on the Half-Continent.
Foundling is the first in the interchangeably titled Monster Blood Tattoo/The Foundling’s Tale trilogy by Australian author D. M. Cornish. (This trilogy was titled Monster Blood Tattoo for its first American release but didn’t do very well, which prompted the publishers to change the name to the more benign and significantly less interesting The Foundling’s Tale.) Because of the depth the author has built into its world, the trilogy has been compared to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a classic renowned (and notorious) for the level of detail put into the cultures that populate the setting. This is a deceptive comparison at first, as there is nothing remotely epic about the storyline, nor any high-stakes goal that has to be reached (nothing on the level of Destroy-This-Ring-or-The-World-Will-End!, anyway). It’s just a kid running into trouble as he travels to a distant city. The deeper into the story one reads, however, the more sense these comparisons begin to make.
Cornish is a detailed creator; his dark, pre-industrial, monster-ridden world of the Half-Continent is among the better-realized in modern YA fantasy. The majority of his detail, though, is devoted to the culture of his monster-hunters and the alchemy-like magic surrounding them. These monster-hunters are not born magicians but people who, for example, employ a violent form of chemistry to dispatch monster threats or even have extra organs sewn inside their bodies to attain near-magical powers. Half the fun of reading this novel is simply relishing in its morbid world-building.
The novel’s main strength, however, ends up causing some of weak points, too. Early on, I felt so overwhelmed by the intricacy of novel’s world that I had to stop reading for a while, just to get it all organized in my head, and even after I picked it back up, there were multiple times when I thought, “GRRRRGH! When is something going to HAPPEN?” So much energy is spent introducing the reader to the mechanics of the world that its plot and pacing suffer significantly, at least at the beginning. Once I hit the middle of the book, I read voraciously to the end and was disappointed to discover that the last hundred pages of my book were actually not story, but appendices about the world of the novel (another similarity shared with Tolkien, who was a huge fan of super-detailed appendices).
All this said, this is not a novel for casual fantasy readers. This is a novel for readers who have read the popular fantasy novels and are ready to graduate to the deeper cuts. This is a novel for the readers who are okay with a little bit of slowness because the setting in which the slowness happens is just that awesome.
Warhammer 40K: Chaos Daemons Tzeentch Pink Horror Conversions
Presenting my Warhammer 40K Chaos Daemons Tzeentch Pink Horror Conversions.
Modeling the Tzeentch pink horrors was the best part of making this army. Every model is unique.
With the plenty of Chaos spawn and space marine parts at my disposal, along with plenty of green stuff, I let my imagination run wild. Wherever possible, I tried to emphasize how this weird, chaotic flesh was bursting out of the space marines. The best part is, no matter how crazy the conversion, it felt right at home in a Chaos Daemons army. I had a lot a fun making these guys.
Check out the complete list of Warhammer 40K articles here.
Warhammer 40K: Chaos Daemons Tzeentch Herald Conversions
Presenting my Warhammer 40K Chaos Daemons Tzeentch Herald Conversions.
With the chaotic nature of a Chaos Daemons army, it’s hard to go wrong with something absolutely crazy. My Tzeentch heralds are no exception to this. Two of the heralds are basically a lot of spare bits stuck into a central glob of green stuff. Really, nothing too special there in terms of modeling. However, Smiley is a different story.
In order to make Smiley, I started with a rough frame built from pieces of sprue. I then began layering green stuff on top of that until I had the outline of a very chaotic face. Since this is a Tzeentch herald, I decided to add plenty of guns to the model to represent the model’s arcane firepower. It’s teeth are bolters, and its eyes are lascannon barrels. The weapons on the sides came from a dreadnought.
If nothing else, he/she/it certainly gets a lot of comments from my fellow gamers.
Check out the complete list of Warhammer 40K articles here.
Warhammer 40K: Chaos Daemons Army
Presenting my Warhammer 40K “count as” Chaos Daemons Tzeentch army, with 95% conversions.
My Chaos Daemons army is easily the craziest modeling project I’ve ever embarked upon. All but one model in the entire army have some sort of conversion work, and many involved extensive conversions. The theme behind the army is a space marine force gone horribly wrong. It’s what happens to space marines when they pass their expiration dates. I wanted the chaotic elements to look like they were exploding out of space marine armor, which involved a lot of Chaos spawn kits, as well as a friend’s Dark Angels army.
Yes, that’s right. I purchased a friend’s Dark Angels army for the sole purpose of mutilating them beyond recognition. After dunking them in Pine-Sol, I began plucking off limbs and cutting them up with a hobby saw. Mix in copious amounts of green stuff, and you can clearly see the results.
I purchased 3 daemon princes for this army. The wings went to my Tyranids so that I could have flying hive tyrants. That left me with a lot of spare daemon arms with really cool weapons. But what to do with them? I decided to use them as Khorne bloodletters. The imagery of these giant arms growing out of space marine halves is pretty ridiculous, so it suits me just fine.
The Nurgle plaguebearers were the simpliest conversions. I used mostly-whole space marines with some green slimy tendrils coming out and green fluid leaking out of the armor. And there they were. A pack of plaguebearers. Nothing to it.
With all the Chaos spawn kits I went through, I had a lot of spawn torsos I wasn’t using. I put the torsos on top of inverted Space Marine jump packs and build them into my Tzeentch flamers. Ridiculous, I know, but that’s just how I roll with this army.
My Tzeentch screamers were made with the stock Tzeentch pink horror kits, minus the arms and legs. The only tricky parts here were drilling the holes for the flying bases and filing down a few knobs on the models where the legs are supposed to attach.
But, my favorite parts of the army are the Tzeentch Heralds and the Tzeentch Pink Horrors. I had a lot of fun coming up with some really crazy conversions.
Check out the complete list of Warhammer 40K articles here.
Romeo and Juliet: The War by Stan Lee, etc. – Graphic Novel Review
Comic adaptations of Shakespeare are hardly new, but in my experience, rarely are they well-done enough to be appreciated outside of a “Here, read this comic because you’re having trouble with the Shakespearean language in the play” context. Of the several that I’ve attempted, only a few have been books that I’ve reread for their entertainment value. Most of the others I haven’t been able to finish, and all of those left me with exasperated groans in my throat, just waiting to be unleashed when I came upon the next Shakespeare comic.
In fact, that is exactly what happened when I came upon this comic. When I first saw a thumbnail of Romeo and Juliet: The War, my reaction was *EXAGGERATED SIGH-GRUMBLE*, “Does the world really need another futuristic Romeo and Juliet ripoff?” The fact that it was Romeo and Juliet made it worse. Generally I hate stories that feature protagonists being both in love and stupid at the same time, which is what Romeo and Juliet is, at its heart. Oh, the original has all that iambic pentametered loveliness, too, but I can get that in every other Shakespearean work, many of which are far more interesting than this one.
Key to my exasperation with this book was the fact that I was looking at a thumbnail that was the size of, well, a thumbnail.
Then, one day, I came upon the actual cover in person, which sent me into fits of fangirlish glee:
This version of Shakespeare’s classic sets the familiar story in the far future, making both families consist of cybernetically- or genetically- enhanced supersoldiers, and then having them duke it out in a wondrous spread of futuristic glowing lights and shiny metal that makes the book look like a printed cousin of the Mass Effect games (which is not a bad thing because even the loading screens are fun to look at in Mass Effect games.)
Romeo and Juliet: The War is not simply a slapdash adaptation of a classic made for SparkNotes purposes, either. (Not to hate on SparkNotes, by the way. The SparkNotes graphic novel version of Hamlet is one of my favorite Shakespeare-inspired comics.) It’s an impressively crafted work, and despite all the crazy technological changes, the basic story is still intact. I wouldn’t recommend reading in lieu of the original if you’re reading it for class, as you’ll end up answering questions like “Why were the Montagues and Capulets enemies?” with “Because they were such awesomely superpowered soldiers that they defeated everyone else in the world, leaving only themselves to fight!” (which, FYI, is not the Shakespearean reason). However, as a complement to the original text, it’s pretty good. Some changes are made to certain minor points in the plot, but—dare I say it?—these changes actually improve upon Shakespeare’s story, or at the very least make it more dramatic reading.
Basic accuracy is the least of this book’s good points, though. All of the other good points rest in its art. The art in this comic is not merely pleasant to look at. Everything about it is expertly accomplished, from the dynamic panel layout, to the characterful color design, to the wondrous and colossal scale of it all. The book makes frequent use of detailed full-page and multi-page spreads, and more than once I found myself stopping in the middle of reading simply to gawp at what was on the page before me. This is a graphic novel that comes very close to reaching the height of Capital A Art.
The only truly disappointing part of the book, for me, was the lack of an author or artist’s note in the back, as I was genuinely curious to know what happened to make this unexpected bit of awesomeness come about. The only extras included are some pieces of concept art, which are cool, but not as interesting as a look into the writer’s and artist’s minds would have been. I also had a problem with Romeo’s hair, which being the shaggy mop that seems to appear on every stylish teen boy’s head these days is going to look dated as soon as we’re out of the 2010s. But that’s just me being picky because there’s nothing else to complain about.
Warhammer 40K: Space Wolves Wolf Guard Conversions
Presenting my Warhammer 40K “count as” Space Wolves wolf guard conversions.
The wolf guard conversions form the meat of this army, and they take a lot of forms. The large size of the terminator bases, as well as the models themselves, presented a lot of opportunities for some really dynamic poses and interesting bases. I used two Imperial Guard Cadian shock troop kits for victims, and tried to put in a lot of variety.
I modeled most of this army over a friend’s house while he worked on his Blood Angels. A few times, I showed him what I was working on.
***
“Do you think this is too extreme?” I asked.
He looked up at my latest creation and burst out laughing.
“Too much?”
He shook his head. “Naaahhhhh.”
Check out the complete list of Warhammer 40K articles here.
Warhammer 40K: Space Wolves Vindicator Conversions
Presenting my Warhammer 40K “count as” Space Wolves vindicator conversions.
What do you get when you cross 3 Space Marine vindicator kits, spare Cadians, a lot of green stuff, and an overactive imagination? Something like this!
Each vindicator kit comes with a cannon shell. I took one, built up a plume of green stuff, and attached it to the cannon. That gave one of the vindicators a nice, “I’m firing!!!” action pose. On another shell, I used a Chaos spawn tentacle and had it grab hold from the back of the vindicator. I also added various blue glowy things oozing their way out of the vehicle, reinforcing the sense that not all was as it seems with these machines. And just because that wasn’t ridiculous enough, I added some poor victims being pulled in and eaten.
As usual, I had a big glob of green stuff left over. So I put it to good use. The grotesque “ball” is not attached to the vehicle. It’s one of my objective markers for this army, which normally gets some interesting comments from fellow players.
Check out the complete list of Warhammer 40K articles here.