The new Wrath of the Soul-Forge King box comes with two new models: A larger Azrael with a new hat and a physical manifestation of Vashtorr, the newest player in the Great Game between the Gods of Chaos. If you’re looking for a review of Vashtorr, swing over to his article to see the larger of the two new models from this boxset. Azreal, on the other hand, is the latest of the marine characters to have gotten a Primaris refresh. Read on for our thoughts on this most recent of enbigginings.
Before we get stuck in, we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of Wrath of the Soul Forge King for review purposes.
The Model:
OK so, I don’t play Dark Angels, but our resident apologist hasn’t gotten brush to plastic, so I had a go at doing Azrael for my marines. I’ll be honest when saying I didn’t do the most impressive kitbash, but I was trying to mostly keep the model recognizable so I could give a reasonable opinion of what GW has given us.
Oh, and I’m lazy.
I’m sure that has nothing to do with it.
(Editors note:Â I’m not sure that a person who paints as much as Rockfish can ever be called lazy)
The Build:
Honestly, if you’ve built any other slightly fancy marine then this will be a familiar experience. There are a few mildly annoying pieces, like the foot in the robe, but nothing that you will remember once you’ve finished. As with any modern marine model you can expect good mold lines, with big chunky pieces that don’t leave you worried about breaking anything when you are going at them with a mold line remover with a single exception. Be gentle with the back banner on this guy, it’s got a believably scaled pole so you will need to be careful both when building and transporting the model that you don’t exert undue force on it, otherwise you are probably going to find it to be rather annoying to repair.
Getting past the simple mechanics of getting the guy together, I think you will find this kit to be a fantastic little collection of bits. While a lot of the main model is clearly Dark Angels without question, a good chunk of the pieces are actually pretty chapter nonspecific, I was particularly tempted to nick his gun for some other model as it’s a rather elegant combi-plasma. It wouldn’t take much work to make the backpack fit on another model either, chopping the banner off or swapping it for another would get away from DA in one quick step, and the sword would work on pretty much any marine character without any modification.
You may have noticed that GW did give you both a helmeted head and a bare one, along with accounting for either option with the watcher in the dark, the little guy gets either a helmet or a big ass sheath to haul around. This does lead to a scenario I find quite amusing as there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from giving both of them helmets, just in case you want Azrael to have a spare noggin protector.
The Painting:
I will be frank, this guy took way longer to paint then I was really expecting, with the number of random doodads and fancy iconography there is just a lot to touch upon. I think it probably took almost twice as long for me to paint as all of Vashtorr!
I will say that having the watcher on the base really didn’t help, I’m never really one for sub assemblies but this is such a simple one that I would definitely encourage it.
Rounding Up:
Are you a Dark Angels player? Then you are going to end up with this model at some point. Otherwise like any of the chapter specific characters you are only going to be grabbing them for conversions or to run your army as DA. The torso having the distinctive DA crest is going to make this probably not great value as a base, but if you are particularly attached to the weapons then its unlikely you will find a match anywhere else.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
