Commutatus: AdMech Transport from Micro Arts

I stumbled across this the other day for the first time and I am truly impressed. As a big fan of their Iron Brotherhood line, I think MAS has knocked another one out of the park with this model. While strictly not a conversion, this falls into the commutatus line due to its non-GW nature.

It looks to be about the same footprint as a Chimera and includes a rear hatch just like the chimera's single access point. I will be ordering one of these guys shortly and will let you all know how the model turns out in person.

Question, would you be confused if I ran this as the chimera transport for my AdMech company command squad alongside GW's chimeras used to transport my regular IG troops?

Exemplum: Temptations of a Well-Painted Army

GW has an excellent blog post here about a guy from Poland with a gorgeous marine army. Over the years, I have resisted playing a strictly power armor list. The closest I came to running marines was a Deathwing list that represented a short period of infatuation with terminators.

But when I see stuff like this, I sit back and think how cool would it be to have a small, elite force of very well painted miniatures that are an excellent representation of their background and visual aesthetic. For me, it would be robed, warrior monks backed up by fanatical chaplains who completely eschew any use of warp-tainted powers.

My kudos go out to Michal but getting picked by GW for a blog spot but also for putting together a truly stellar army.

Indicium: Spearhead Rules for 40k Now Online

PDF rules for Spearhead are now available here. As an avowed non-subscriber of White Dwarf, I missed this expansion almost completely. I did snag some of the JPGs and downloadable content made available at the time but never actually got into the game.

So I am curious, what do people think about Spearhead? A day after I complain about the lack of hobby content, GW makes this available to all and for "free".

To me, the gesture is a good one, but the ruleset is a pretty blatant attempt to get folks to Buy More Stuff. I wouldn't have a problem with this if a) GW still sold those Apocalypse box sets and b) they had released the Spearhead PDF a month or so after the White Dwarf issue.

At this point, I think the Spearhead thing is gone and done with. I am not sure that most folks will even realize that the rules are available as PDF (hence this post) and that people will be unwilling to play with such a radically altered force organization. The latter is due to the tournament mentality (more on that in another post) but the former falls squarely on GW's slender shoulders.

I certainly don't mind the push to sell models. However, the way to do that is to produce more hobby content like Spearhead and make it available immediately online.

Thoughts?

Advocatus: GW Wants You (to spend money)

So GW has seen fit to post this monstrosity on their blog site. I am not really sure what the expected reaction is meant to be... are we supposed to want to build this thing, to just ooh and aah over it, or what?!

The MSRP for the kits used add up to well in excess of 400 USD. Why would you even bother posting something like this?! I can't see any hobbyist their right mind wanting to build this thing (of course, no hobbyist is truly ever of sound mind) and even if they did would they spend that much hard earned cash on it.

I would actually like to see GW providing suggestions for kit-bashing that are actually affordable (or at least leverage the meager bitz selection available through their site). I realize that the days of actual hobby content, either online or in White Dwarf, are long gone. But I do sometimes find the content posted on the blog vaguely offensive. It's like the little rich kid thumbing his nose at you when he gets his shiny new, rending pony and you are stuck with your 2x4, home built rocking horse.

What do folks out on the interwebs think? Am I being too sensitive? Should I just stop frequenting their site?