View from the storm

Of course, the Riftforged Orcs have more than the new plastic kit.  There are some cool new resin models as well.

One of the new heroes is the Stormcaller, the riftforged version of a godspeaker.  Of course you have the option to take it mounted - but instead of a gore it comes on a Manticore!

The model comes on six spruelettes

The body of the Manticore, which, unfortunately, has the Stormcaller legs and torso molded onto it (somewhat limiting the re-use for other heroes - though that is more from the torso than the legs, as the legs would probably be reusable).

Then the rear legs

The scorpion tail

The forelegs, and right arm of the Stormcaller

The Manticore upper jaw, stormcaller right arm, head, and airplane pole top.

The last one has the pole and the cape

Putting the model together is fairly straightforward.  Unfortunately the quality on these resin models is a little less than I have seen before.  Specifically, I have found a LOT of bubbles.  None of these are obvious while on the spruelettes, but removing the pieces seems to often leave a bubble behind.  For this model there were two larger ones, on the back of the neck of the stormcaller, and in the crotch of the manticore (well, that is assuming that Mantic is not going the Mierce Miniatures route (if you haven't seen any of these excellent models (some of the best monsters), they tend to be a wee bit too anatomically correct for my tastes).

I started with the rear legs, with no issues.  However the left fore-paw does not fit - you either have to trim the armor plate, or cut a groove into the leg joint for it to fit.  I chose to carve out a bit of the joint.

Unfortunately it seems that this leg is also just a little short - on my model it does not reach the base when the rear feet are flat.

I found a small pebble I was able to put under the foot to wedge it up and keep the model balanced.

The right fore-leg (which is raised), has the notch cut out of it to account for the armor, so fits much easier.

Overall there were still some small gaps that may need to be filled before painting.

Also, I have found that some of the spikes are a bit delicate and broke off when I was cleaning the flash between them - but that is just battle damage!

One last thing to watch is the upper jaw.  The tab fits loosely, and as such it is possible to give the manticore a very lop-sided expression - not very appropriate for this army.  I had to pop it back off and re-glue it to get it placed correctly.

The rest is easy, tail, arms and head.  I don't care for the staff top, (which has a very tiny connection and I expect I will have to eventually pin it back on) because I don't see the intended hammer, I see an airplane.  (You are welcome, as now I expect you can't un-see it either).

Overall even with the issues, it is a beautiful model.

There is also a regiment of Thunderseers in the mega-army box - the giant cyclops that can see the future.

The Thunderseers come on even more spruelettes.

'Small' hammerheads.  These are a case of bubble issues - when I cut the vent off the bottom vent (where the sprue is attached), two of the three pieces had a bubble left.

'Large' hammerheads

Arm and Hammer (in case you need some personal care products)

Right arms

Left arms

One last left arm

Heads.

Then the three bodies

Assembly isn't hard, except for determining which arms and head fit which body.  Unfortunately it seems that the arms only fit specific bodies.

I started off by pairing the arms - one pair is 'bare', a second pair has straps on the upper arm, the last pair has straps on the wrists.

When looking at the arms, you can see that the right arm with the band on the upper part does not have a shoulder - and there is one body (R1500110) with the shoulder molded on - so these arms fit here.  (Of course if you don't want to pair up your arms, you may be able to move several of these).

Then looking at the others, one of the left shoulders has an angle on the joint (instead of flat), that matches body R1500109

This leaves the last pair of arms for body R1500108.  The interesting part is that the joint on the body is NOT fully flat, there is an odd shaped piece carved out of it - that perfectly matches the remaining right arm (almost like it was designed that way :-) ).

The heads are will fit on any body, but it does seem that some fit better than others.  Body R1500108 has the collar, so it seemed to fit the smaller head.  (I don't really care for this face -  he looks (at best) 'confused').

The other two heads did not seem to fit inside the collar.  They both fit the remaining bodies, but one of them is angled to the right, so fits the pose for R1500110

Leaving the other head for the last body.  Looking at the pictures on the box it seems like they put the smaller head on this body, but the bigger one didn't seem to fit in the collar.

The two types of hammer heads appear to be identical, and fit the ends of the handles very loosely.  So if you are looking at a variety for units, you can swap the hammer heads around (so if you had two units, one could have all large heads, and the other all small ones, or just change each model to have 2 of one type, or one of each).

This is a monstrous infantry unit, so it uses 50mm bases, making plenty of room for the models.

Now I'm looking forward to the February releases, with the Helstrikers (winged Manticores) and Ambarox (a new monster).

Because it is all fun and games . . .