What's in the Box: Soul Wars
By Toby & Simon
Soul Wars is upon us having been released at the weekend, we were lucky enough to get a copy so we could crack it open and play with it to see what the future of Age of Sigmar has in store for us.
The first thing that hits you is the stunning new artwork all over the box, books, cards and accessories. Itâs something Games Workshop has always been good at but, this time, itâs clearly head and shoulders above the previous releases. There is also a lot in this box; rules and reference cards aside there is what seems like a ton of plastic to enjoy!
At this point we split the box between two of us in the office and went our separate ways with a faction each. I (Toby) took the Undead, and my colleague Simon took the Stormcast Eternals.
The Undead - Toby
The whole box has push fit models inside to make assembly quick and easy for new players to get into the game. While the push fit works fine you do have to put quite a bit of force behind some of the parts which, when assembling the wispy Undead models, made me feel a little nervous. For an experienced hobbyist, none of the Undead models will pose any issues - just make sure to clean up all of the sprue joins as these will interfere with the final fit. Once pushed together, you do get some join lines and, for that reason, I recommend you glue them anyway. Something like Tamiya Extra Thin Cement dabbed onto the join after you push them together will help to blend the line together.
The sprues are easy to clip out despite the thin nature of some of the parts and the way the miniatures have been split and cut is very clever. One warning - watch out for the heads! They are tiny and if you drop one they are very hard to find (especially on brown carpet).
Once they are together you can truly appreciate how cool these new models look, I cannot wait for some more to be released for this army and they sit very nicely with the existing miniatures like Nagash.
Next step is to get some paint on them, I have chimp hands when it comes to painting so hopefully the detail on them speaks for itself and can cope with a good ol' drybrush!
Stormcast Eternals - Simon
When Soul Wars arrived I was ready to swipe the gribbly Nighthaunts, however, Toby beat me to it (damn you, Toby). I donât usually go for clean looking miniatures but the Stormcast Eternals are quite nice looking so I didn't mind too much.
I am not a big wargamer, I tend to play board games, however, I have recently started playing Wild West Exodus and Star Wars Legions so Age of Sigmar is all a little new to me.
Not to echo what Toby has said too much, but the models were quite easy to put together, I had no real issues. One of the models did not go together perfectly, so I use a little glue to help and then used glue on future models despite them being snap fit. Note: Take extra care when clipping and fitting together the Sequitor Prim and the Castingators, they have some fragile bits on them which could snap off easily.
While I think the idea of snap-fit is good for beginners, quite a few experienced gamers have already told me they plan to clip off the snap-fit pegs and just glue the models as they normally would.
The models look great when assembled and I am looking forward to painting them, however maybe not in the traditional style :). I think my Stormcast Eternals are going to look a little more grungy & beaten up!
Models aside what is the rest of the box like? The look and feel of everything in the box is amazing; the sleeve, cards and rulebooks all look stunning.
Having given the âStart Here bookâ & âCore Rulebookâ a quick read, the game seems pretty straightforward to start playing. The Core Book is going to take much more time to read, but read it I will! The bonus being that the artwork and painted minis in the book make me want to get started straight away.
I had no plans to play AOS, but that's what's going to happen! Toby and I are going to get some paint onto the minis and get playing.
