Age of Sigmar: Balewind Vortex Review
BY JACK RAYNER
As all tabletop gamers know, terrain is a key part in taking us to galaxies far away, to ancient and magical kingdoms, and to historical points in time.
Terrain helps set the scene and creates worlds from our imagination and realise them on the tabletop and, with this in mind, Games Workshop has produced two kits that are reasonably priced. Plus, will transport you into the world of Age of Sigmar! The best thing is it can be put together and painted in a few hours.
I have to admit, I do really enjoy building and making terrain and, saying that, I have had my eyes on the Magewrath Throne and the Balewind Vortex for a while now. The idea of pre-cut ready to build terrain set interested me so I was looking forward to putting these together and getting some paint on them to see how they look.
Today, my focus is the Balewind Vortex.
As I had an hour or two, I thought I would have a go at getting one of these ready for the table top. I chose to start with the Balewind Vortex.
The kit comes in 4 parts and is made out of hard plastic. It's also worth noting that this is manufactured in China rather than the UK so this could be why this kit is priced very competitively.
The quality of the plastic is good but it does need a bit of clean up around the edges as some areas have some rough areas from the plastic being cut in manufacture. This can be easily dealt with a mould line remover or scalpel but do be careful if you do use one of these!
The spirit smoke fitted together easily but I would recommend using a bit of Green Stuff or Games Workshop Liquid Green stuff to fill in some of the gaps.
On the back of the box is a handy paint guide which gives you all the paints you need - always handy if you want to match the cover photo.
I sprayed the spirit smoke with The Army Painter Matt White and the two obsidian stones The Army Painter Matt Black.
I attached the soul wind part to my Citadel Paint Handle as it doesn't really stand up by itself and I did not want to glue it onto the base before I painted it.
I wanted a ghostly look and quick so I used Nihilakh Oxide and then dry brushed it over with Praxeti White dry paint.
The two obsidian stones were first dry brushed with Ice blue and then I painted all the metal areas with Leadbelcher.
Next up was washing all the metal areas and stonework with Drakenhof Nightshade and painting the skulls on the base with Bleached Bone and a wash of Agrax Earthshade.
After an hour or two, the Balewind Vortex was ready for the table top!
As you can see with little effort you can get a fantastic result. You can definitely go to town on this and do all sorts of paint schemes.
For the price, this is a great kit easy to build and very easy to paint so this could be a great entry point for a new gamer wanting to enter the world of Age of Sigmar and add some terrain for their gaming table.
I’m very much looking forward to building the Magewrath Throne!
Catch you next time.
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