Joined
·
147 Posts
Greetings, all. I was able to get my hands on an Island of Blood box a couple weeks ahead of time, and thought I would use the advance copy to give everyone here at Heresy a heads-up on what's good and what's not-so-good in the box. I think that most FLGS's have copies, so you can probably peruse them and make up your own minds, but if you're curious (and I was before I got my hands on one), here's my thoughts:
The Miniatures
I'll start here because we all know that this is what drives the decision to purchase or not when you're already a seasoned vet. GW has truly outdone itself with IoB- the minatures are absolutely stunning, and they haven't been the least bit stingy. The only mini in the entire box that I feel they could have done a better job on is maybe the Skaven Warlock Engineer, but at least they did a fine job in tooling up that mini with cool wargear, so it's a minor flaw. The Swordmasters, Seaguard, and Reavers are all absolutely perfect. I am not as crazy about the mage as I thought I would be, but it's still a great model. The Clanrats all look individual-ized, and extremely sinister. Lots of wicked looking knives, bared fangs, and wide-eyed lunacy in those units. Super, super cool.
Two minor comments regarding assembly of the miniatures: first off, make sure that when you get your copy, you assemble the elves one at a time. The reason is that the Reavers' bodies and heads are carefully matched, and won't go together correctly if you mix and match them. Learn from my mistake there. :grin: Secondly, there is definitely a technique to getting the figures into their slottabases. If you try to just press them in, with the surfaces flush to one another, you will have to apply so much force to get them to snap in that you'll either end up breaking a mini or you'll wear out your fingers in about 15 minutes. Instead, start at the back of the mini; kinda push the back corner of the stand into the base, then rock the miniature forward into place. Especially with the Clanrats, as their stands are EXTREMELY tight fits in a slottabase. Good luck!
The Rulebook
I was pretty amazed to see just how small GW was able to shrink the rules. I mean you get the entire rule section from the BRB, plus the bestiary, plus the magic items list, plus the lores section all in a package that is about the size of a single sheet of paper folded in half. That's a tidy package. Other than that- it's identical to the BRB; full color throughout, all the diagrams, even Mat Ward's much-appreciated humor is intact throughout.
The Accessories
Standard stuff that GW has been putting in the starter boxes for years now: a bag of 6 dice plus scatter/artillery dice; an undyed-but-still-opaque-why-the-hell-can't-they-make-them-transparent-plastic template set, and two of the long red coffee stirrers. Movement trays would have been a nice add here (a single bag of the standard GW trays offer more than you need for every single model in the IoB box) since there is no way little Johnny is going to enjoy playing this game having to move 40 Clanrats every turn without them.
The Starter Book
Had to save this for last because it is, in a phrase, absolute rubbish. In fact, let me do a favor to everyone out there who has ever assembled minis and played a single game of Warhammer in their lives: throw this away and don't ever read it. Better yet, if you can con some sucker out there into buying this for even a buck on eBay, then do it.
Here's what GW had the opportunity to do with this book but didn't: put in a set of short scenarios, introducing new players to the game's mechanics in gradual, logical ascention. You know: battle one is infantry v. infantry; battle two introduces magic; battle three is the Royale with cheese where all the models get involved. Nothing even mildly resembling that here. You get a page on "How to assemble miniatures." You get two pages of "This is how we deployed our models in the studio so that we could make a pretty picture in the center of this book" faux battle report. Then. . . wait for it. . . you get about eight pages of ADVERTISEMENT. "Here's all the OTHER stuff you should buy to have really cool battles!" Definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth because you can easily have really fun battles using only the models in the box!!
Overall, I'd give IoB four out of five stars; even with the lame-o starter book, the minis really are that good. You can't make anything even resembling a legal army with the HE minis (which even further begs the question of why they didn't explain that in the starter book), but that's another minor comment. I think that GW will probably sell a bunch of these to veteran gamers, but any newcomers to the hobby that buy IoB are probably going to be very frustrated. They have basically been told "Here's a pile of miniatures. Here's 100 pages of rules. Enjoy yourself once you've sorted that out on your own." I kinda wish, for newbie's sake, that they had done a better job with that.
Otherwise, go get it!
The Miniatures
I'll start here because we all know that this is what drives the decision to purchase or not when you're already a seasoned vet. GW has truly outdone itself with IoB- the minatures are absolutely stunning, and they haven't been the least bit stingy. The only mini in the entire box that I feel they could have done a better job on is maybe the Skaven Warlock Engineer, but at least they did a fine job in tooling up that mini with cool wargear, so it's a minor flaw. The Swordmasters, Seaguard, and Reavers are all absolutely perfect. I am not as crazy about the mage as I thought I would be, but it's still a great model. The Clanrats all look individual-ized, and extremely sinister. Lots of wicked looking knives, bared fangs, and wide-eyed lunacy in those units. Super, super cool.
Two minor comments regarding assembly of the miniatures: first off, make sure that when you get your copy, you assemble the elves one at a time. The reason is that the Reavers' bodies and heads are carefully matched, and won't go together correctly if you mix and match them. Learn from my mistake there. :grin: Secondly, there is definitely a technique to getting the figures into their slottabases. If you try to just press them in, with the surfaces flush to one another, you will have to apply so much force to get them to snap in that you'll either end up breaking a mini or you'll wear out your fingers in about 15 minutes. Instead, start at the back of the mini; kinda push the back corner of the stand into the base, then rock the miniature forward into place. Especially with the Clanrats, as their stands are EXTREMELY tight fits in a slottabase. Good luck!
The Rulebook
I was pretty amazed to see just how small GW was able to shrink the rules. I mean you get the entire rule section from the BRB, plus the bestiary, plus the magic items list, plus the lores section all in a package that is about the size of a single sheet of paper folded in half. That's a tidy package. Other than that- it's identical to the BRB; full color throughout, all the diagrams, even Mat Ward's much-appreciated humor is intact throughout.
The Accessories
Standard stuff that GW has been putting in the starter boxes for years now: a bag of 6 dice plus scatter/artillery dice; an undyed-but-still-opaque-why-the-hell-can't-they-make-them-transparent-plastic template set, and two of the long red coffee stirrers. Movement trays would have been a nice add here (a single bag of the standard GW trays offer more than you need for every single model in the IoB box) since there is no way little Johnny is going to enjoy playing this game having to move 40 Clanrats every turn without them.
The Starter Book
Had to save this for last because it is, in a phrase, absolute rubbish. In fact, let me do a favor to everyone out there who has ever assembled minis and played a single game of Warhammer in their lives: throw this away and don't ever read it. Better yet, if you can con some sucker out there into buying this for even a buck on eBay, then do it.
Here's what GW had the opportunity to do with this book but didn't: put in a set of short scenarios, introducing new players to the game's mechanics in gradual, logical ascention. You know: battle one is infantry v. infantry; battle two introduces magic; battle three is the Royale with cheese where all the models get involved. Nothing even mildly resembling that here. You get a page on "How to assemble miniatures." You get two pages of "This is how we deployed our models in the studio so that we could make a pretty picture in the center of this book" faux battle report. Then. . . wait for it. . . you get about eight pages of ADVERTISEMENT. "Here's all the OTHER stuff you should buy to have really cool battles!" Definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth because you can easily have really fun battles using only the models in the box!!
Overall, I'd give IoB four out of five stars; even with the lame-o starter book, the minis really are that good. You can't make anything even resembling a legal army with the HE minis (which even further begs the question of why they didn't explain that in the starter book), but that's another minor comment. I think that GW will probably sell a bunch of these to veteran gamers, but any newcomers to the hobby that buy IoB are probably going to be very frustrated. They have basically been told "Here's a pile of miniatures. Here's 100 pages of rules. Enjoy yourself once you've sorted that out on your own." I kinda wish, for newbie's sake, that they had done a better job with that.
Otherwise, go get it!
