[EmbraCraig]

Plenty of folk are aware that Mr. Dandy announced a while ago that they'd be producing a group of various barricade sets. Xenos 40k players all over rejoiced, since they're looked great as Aegis line alternatives for various races across of 40k, and also came with a 4 gun turret to match the sets. Personally, I've went for the Mechanoid set for my Tau.

Various flavours of them can be bought on Mr. Dandy's website, priced at $44 (US) for a length of barricade and a quad gun:
http://www.mrdandy.com/wargamma-linked-barricades/

I've had these on pre-order for a while now (since shortly after the new Tau Codex), and after more than a couple of production delays, Mr. Dandy have finally been able to start shipping them. I've just finished my first unpacking of the barricade set, so thought I'd share a bit with everyone.

Everything arrived pretty quickly once I'd got the shipping email - took about a week to get from the US to me in Scotland. The whole lot was packed up in a jiffy bag, and once I opened it up, I was greeted with what appeared to be a fish supper:

Unwrapping the paper, inside was a good amount of bubble-wrap:

And inside that are all the parts in a couple of zippy bags:

So packaging is all functional and sensible, if unremarkable. Everything seems to have got to me from across the pond without any breakages, so no complaints here.

Taking the main pieces out of the bag first of all, we have the wall pieces. Everything is cast in nice, solid, grey resin. The main walls consist of 12 taller shield sections (roughly 26mm to the lower part of the shield, 40mm to the top), and 4 connecting walls (22mm in the low part of the wall, and about 25mm at the edges, about 36mm wide). First a view from the front:

There's a bit more detail on the reverse:

And a few close up shots of the pieces. There's a fair amount of very thin flash from the mould lines, but nothing too unusual. Plenty of gating pieces to be removed, but none of them look like they'll be too hard work.

First up a couple of the shield pieces:

And one of the walls:

(from a dry fit, the wall pieces seem to fit snugly into a little groove on the edge of the shields - should allow them to sit at anything from a straight wall to roughly a 45 degree angle).

A few additional pics of what look to be the messiest pieces - this is 99% very thin flashing, though, and nothing I'm too disappointed at:

Overall, I'm satisfied - there's not a huge amount of detail on the wall sections, but enough for it to look decent, and what there is has been cast crisply. Things that should be straight seem to be straight, with no obvious warping that'll need to be fixed.

Next up is the gun turret - the main block of this was loose with the wall sections, with the parts for the 4 guns in their own little bag:

The main foot of the turret is 1 piece, as is each of the 4 guns. A simple 3 piece assembly joins them all together (the circular piece at the bottom and the one in the centre are the same - one goes each side of the bulkier piece on the left to allow the guns to attach):

Again, the detail seems crisp, and other than the papery flashing these pieces don't look like they'll need anything too serious in the way of clean-up.

Overall, first impressions are good - everything looks as I expected it to, seems nicely cast and looks like it'll clean up and go together easily enough. One thing I wont be terribly sure about until I get things clipped off of the gates and put roughly together is how they scale (26mm to the lower part of the shield sections is a bit taller than I was expecting). I'll make a follow up post with more pictures of how they look standing up next to some Tau when I get that far with them. I wont bother with assembly pictures presuming that everything goes smoothly (and I've no reason to think that it wont).

I wont bother with a rating or anything, but I'll say that at this point, I'm happy with what I've received for the price.

 

[Dave T Hobbit]

A thorough series of pictures.

 

[EmbraCraig]

A thorough series of pictures.

Cheers - I wanted to try to give a decent look since there isn't much out there about them yet (other than that they exist). I'll hopefully get time to clean them up and put some together tonight or tomorrow, so I'll get some follow up photos done then.

 

[EmbraCraig]

Ok, now that I've got them cleaned up and stuck together then I've got part 2 of some pictures... I decided to put together the walls as straight sections rather than angling the shields. They all cleaned up easily enough assembly was pretty simple. All together you end up with a good lot of walls for your guys to hide behind:

And some pictures with some less than half painted Tau for an idea of scale. In general, they fit pretty well (except for some of the crouching or kneeling models, but that's always going to happen).

In total, you get about 30 inches of barricades when they're all adjacent, so pretty much spot on with the length of the Aegis defence line.

Got to say, now that I've got them mostly cleaned up and put together, I think they look really good. Need to do some straightening up of the guns on the quad gun turret, but other than that they're ready to go. The barricades fit in really well with the Tau look, although I might put together a new top for the gun with some actual Tau weapons since the guns don't the style so well.

At $44 a set, they're a bit more expensive than an Aegis line from GW, but for the money you get some chunky bits of resin - the barricades are about 6mm thick, so they look like substantial fortifications. Add to that the fact that they've got options suitable for most of the Xenos races in the game, and I'd say they're worth the cash.

If you want a look at the other sets, then you can get them direct from Mr. Dandy's homepage at:
http://www.mrdandy.com/wargamma-linked-barricades/

 

[Ddraig Cymry]

Nicely done! Plan on painting them?

 

[EmbraCraig]

Nicely done! Plan on painting them?

When I get around to the rest of my Tau getting done then they'll get painted to go with them, but that'll be a while probably. For now the whole lot are getting blasted with one of the army painter sprays, but that'll be as far as it goes for the immediate future.