Wyrd releases at Gencon 2013

It’s time once again for the annual joy that is Gencon but just how much joy will there be this year from Wyrd?

Historically I’ve always looked forward to Gencon for the pre-release models and, more importantly, the exclusive Nightmare Edition sculpts of existing models.  In the past we have seen the truly epic NE Chompy and the fantastic NE Dead Justice crew, both were above and beyond the quality of the original sculpts with Chompy regularly going for in excess of £100 on eBay.  Last year was a bit of a disappointment for me with the release of the Hanging Tree.  To me this always appeared to be some kind of vanity project for Wyrd and seemed to be an odd choice of what to make.  Fair enough making resser minions, a lot of people would use them but a terrain piece, really?!  It’s widely acknowledged that very few people use the special terrain rules, so much so that they’re not even in m2e.

Due to the disappointment of last year that many people were quite vocal about, I had high hopes for this year.  People that listen to SST, follow this blog or follow me on Twitter will be all too aware that I’ve not been anticipating the release of m2e so I’ll just skip over that.  The thing that attracted me to Wyrd in the first place was the miniatures so that is what I was most anticipating.

On offer this year is a nightmare edition of the Tara box set for $80 (picture here).

This to me seems like a really strange choice for the NE models.  I always saw the NE models as a way to bring fresh sculpts out for older models that could maybe do with a bit of a lift but the standard Tara box isn’t even out yet!  I don’t know if this is a business decision based on selling a crew box that is not available any other way to try and force up the sales figures for the NE model (this would be understandable following the low sales of last year’s hanging tree).

I’ve noticed that a lot of people have commented on the high price of the box, although I agree that $80 (roughly £55) for a crew starter is insane, I also get that plastic moulds are expensive to make and limited runs have to be reflected in the price.  Although £55 is a lot for a box, people regularly pay double that for Chompy showing that people will meet that sort of cost if the model is nice enough.  And that brings me onto the sculpts, I may need to think for a while about how to put this politely.

I have to say, I’m not a fan of the sculpts.  I’m not a big fan of the Wyrd plastics in general, I usually like the sculpts but am massively put off by how fragile some of them are (my Yan Lo box has never even left my house and 4 have already broken).  When I saw the Tara box I was shocked at how little I liked the sculpts.  For all their faults, the Wyrd plastics have almost all been dynamic sculpts and that box just seems to me to be quite far off the mark.  The NE sculpts have always been a number of steps ahead of the standard sculpts and that box seems a number of steps behind the other box sets (if that is the superior one I’d hate to see the standard version!).

Next up is the Justice box set (picture here).  I’m a big fan of Lady J and the Guild so was really looking forward to this one, was being the operative word.

Let’s first look at the previous version of this box which were amongst the oldest and most out of date models in the Malifaux range.  Lady J was an ok sculpt but by no means the best in the Guild, let alone in the whole range.  Although this model didn’t particularly excite me, I also didn’t particularly dislike it (it was the 2^nd mini I painted after a 10-12 year hobby break so my paintjob really doesn’t help the sculpt at all!).  Next up is the Judge who caused me much misery in my early Malifaux days, getting his sword hand to stay attached for a whole game was always a challenge.  The sculpt is ok, it has definitely been surpassed by later models though (the Dead Justice version of him is awesome).  I know the Death Marshals are a bit of a marmite model, you either love them or hate them, and surprisingly I’m in the love column on this one.  Although it is rare that I would use them in a game (they’re the same cost as a witchling after all!) but I really like the sculpts and how much they relate to the fluff.

Now let’s take a look at the new version.  Starting with Lady J, I actually really like this sculpt.  I do have concerns that the artistic style is not what I would associate with Malifaux but that is pretty much true across the board now (the Viks are a great example of this).  The Judge I don’t really have an opinion on either way, it’s a very different look for him but not necessarily a bad one.  The Scales of Justice is a pretty nice sculpt, I’m a big fan of the original model but the new one doesn’t appear any worse or better.  So far I’m not particularly excited or offended by what’s on offer, then we come to the Death Marshals.

Bugger!

I really don’t know where to begin with what I think is wrong with these.  It looks to me that someone has made a bunch of Ghost Rider models and then tried to fit them into Malifaux somehow.  I could rant for hours about my concerns with these models such as fitting them into a case, etc but I’m just going to leave it at that.

Next up are a number of new games that, until recently, we knew nothing about.  We have;

Jetpack Unicorn

Showdown

Artifice

Through the Breach

Did you spot the odd one out there?  That’s right, Through the Breach (the Malifaux RPG) will not be at Gencon.  I may well be viewing this wrong but it seems odd to me that Wyrd are taking 3 produced and previously unheard of games but are not taking the one that people paid for a year ago through Kickstarter.  I appreciate that an RPG must take time to develop but this just doesn’t sit right with me.

I’ll be interested to see what else comes out over the next few weeks because at the moment it’s looking like my search for something to suck me back through the breach will continue at least a while longer (it is very much starting to feel like I’m flogging a dead horse though).