Wyrd GenCon Previews

I thought today I'd take a break from the Tale of 3 Painters updates and have a look at some of the previews that Wyrd have been releasing prior to GenCon 2012 and the Book 4 launch.

As you may or may not know Book 4 – Storm of Shadows – introduces us to a new faction, the Ten Thunders, as well as swelling the ranks of the established factions. There is undoubtedly a far eastern theme running through a lot of what we've seen so far and this is most welcome.

Some of the things that have caught my eye in particular are the new Ten Thunders models. Misaki has now been upgraded from an Outcast minion to a Ten Thunders master and her crew set looks fantastic. The supporting box sets also look superb and with the introduction of plastic rather than metal models, this is set to be a benchmark year for Wyrd.

I love the way that the Ten Thunders characters revealed so far have taken the Far East theme and then put a definite Malifaux twist on them creating sexy, nightmarish models that tug at the inner gamer and scream out to be bought, regardless of which factions you currently collect.

Even the more traditional looking models, such as the archers above, look excellent and have very dynamic poses. It's almost as if someone read all my criticisms of model posing in the past and decided to counter them.

Within the last 24hrs Nathan has released images of some of the pages from the actual book, showing rules and stats for some of these new models. I'm very pleased to see that the standard of illustrations this year looks to have topped Book 3 and would appear at this stage to be a more polished release all round.

However, at the end of the day I am a Guild player and my eye is always drawn to things that my authoritarian faction masters can use. The addition of the Riflemen above is very exciting – the look fits in well with what has gone before and the rules and stats are very appealing too.

The preview of limited edition models is always exciting and when I saw Miss Terious (alternative female Death Marshall) and Santana Ortega (an alternative model for Santiago Ortega) I got very excited. Unfortunately the very nature of limited edition models is that they're not always easy to get hold of.

Santana is only available to Wyrd Henchmen, which I am not, though I expect to see an appearance on Ebay soon. Miss T is free when you spend $100 or more over GenCon weekend so I could blow some money or again wait for her to appear on Ebay. They look a little too similar for my liking, however, they both follow the visual pattern set by Perdita, of sexy gun-toting outlaw, so I'm in!

Finally, for The Guild, we saw the sneak peak above. The image file is named 'Mr Bugs Bunny' so make of that what you will. Another mounted character is always welcome.

I have to say that I am really looking forward to the releases this year. Last time round the excitement grew to fever pitch but I was so disappointed by some of the model sculpts that I haven't purchased that much from Book 3, or indeed used any Avatars yet. This year everything just seems so much sexier. I'll hold my hand up and say that I'm a sucker for shinies at the best of times, but I've been impressed with 90+ % of what I've seen so far, regardless of which faction the models are from.

The prospect of spending $100 to get Miss Terious doesn't seem quite so much of a stretch as it did last year, I might actually be able to find $100 worth of stuff I actually want – though my wife would beat me within an inch of my life if I did. Regardless, I've feeling very positive above this year's releases and Book 4. It looks like a return to form for Wyrd (in my eyes) – just the antidote needed to combat my Malifaux slump.

To see more of the Wyrd previews visit their forums…

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