Warhammer 40K Miniatures
review by Alapai
The Commander Shadowsun box
Warhammer 40K is a miniature strategy game set in the grim darkness of the far future. The Commander Shadowsun box contains figures for a T’au army in Warhammer 40K. It contains both Shadowsun herself as well as two drones. As a leader in the T’au Fire Caste, she should be pretty helpful to a T’au army. This is irrelevant to me however, as this is just a review of the models in the box.
From left to right: Box, sprues, assembly instructions and bases
The first thing I want to mention is that Shadowsun has different weapon options that can be applied. These are listed on the back of the instructions with symbols depicting what they are and what they can do. As I am not well versed in playing Warhammer 40K, it was alien to me and I could not tell what they were saying. The instructions were clear on what components you needed to put together to make the two different guns she wields, but not what those guns were.
Unless you already know going in, what the weapon choices are aren't shown on the box, the instructions or the stats
By looking up images of the previous edition’s box for the model (which was unchanged, just in a more modern box), I could see that one of them was a High-energy Fusion Blaster and the other was a Dispersed Fusion Blaster which allowed me to then search for those and learn more about what the blasters did. Ultimately, as I’m not playing the game, the choice is less important, but for someone new to the game, it wouldn’t be all that easy to tell the guns apart without anything on or in the box telling you how they worked.
The previous edition's box was how I finally found what the different Fusion Blasters were
Something I will say for Games Workshop’s models is that the instructions are generally pretty easy to follow. They have easy-to-interpret steps that have numbered pieces listed on the sprues so it’s easy to tell how to build the model. One thing I messed up on was the head. She has three different options for heads: helmeted, half-helmeted and helmet-less. I wanted to make her helmet-less, but I accidentally cut off the peg that attaches to the body, so I was able to use the half-helmeted look instead. Because the two different ponytails for half-helmeted and helmet-less slot into a similar slot, I was able to attach the longer hair that I wanted to the half-helmeted head to the body.
Shadowsun's pieces cut off the sprue, as well as the assembled upper body and lower body
Fully assembled Shadowsun
The drones were also pretty easy to assemble. One thing I’d probably do a little differently is clear out a little of the plastic that the flight stem fits into on the base, as they aren’t fully flush in a way that I’d like. They still are pretty sturdy with the glue attaching them, but they could be better.
Drone pieces cut off the sprue, as well as the assembled drones
Fully assembled Shadowsun and drones
Since the T’au wear mech-suits and have a “futuristic” look to them, I wanted to paint them in a stylized way. My choice was to try and paint them reminiscent of the Hyperion Corporation from Borderlands 2, although with less of the “used-tech” aesthetic that Borderlands 2 utilizes. Basically, putting Shadowsun and the drones in bright Yellow metal with some black highlights.
Fully painted and assembled drones
To get the metallic yellow look on the drones, I mixed Citadel’s Phalanx Yellow Layer Paint with Vallejo’s Metal Medium. The Metal Medium basically is a clear paint with sparkles in it so, when mixed with a color paint, makes that color shiny.
Primed Shadowsun and Shadowsun in the middle of applying Phalanx Yellow on top of Bold Titanium White
For Shadowsun, I decided to use the Turbo Dork paints to paint the metals of her suit and the guns. For the basic metallic color Turbo Dork paints, they recommend painting on top of a similar color in order to get the most vibrant metal. So for Shadowsun, I put Monument Hobbies’ Pro Acryl Bold Titanium White on top of the primer to have a light base, then used Phalanx Yellow and Pro Acryl Sky Blue to cover her armor and weapons, followed by Turbo Dork’s Pucker and Dork paints to make them metallic. While both the drones and Shadowsun have a metallic look, Shadowsun with the Turbo Dork paint looks more metallic at a glance and I really like what they paints do.
Shadowsun with Turbo Dork's Pucker
I’d say the trickiest thing about painting Shadowsun is that there are a lot of nooks and crannies that while not necessarily visible from a distance can be frustrating to try and paint when you are looking up close and you have to try and manuever a brush around other parts. While the armor isn’t super complex, there are enough bits and bobs that you have to paint around stuff when getting to inner parts of the armor, like between her actual arms and the mechanical arms maneuvering the guns.
Fully painted Shadowsun, front and back
If you are looking to build and paint a model, Games Workshop has some good looking models that more recently (within the past few years at least) have had some good dynamic posing and have a good amount of detail. One thing to look out for though is that when they make a box set, if it consists of multiple models that exist separately (like a Combat Patrol, Spearhead or Battleforce), they just take the individual components and shove everything in there. For example, the T’au Retaliation Cadre consists of 4 different kits (the T’au Commander, Riptide, Ghosteel and Broadside) and has 4 different instruction pamphlets, each of which helps you to build one of the mechs and one or two drones, but they don’t make which sprue goes to which models super obvious (as the sprues normally don’t have to say what they’re a part of). While GW does have some hefty prices for some pieces of plastic, their models are generally of a high quality and you then have game pieces for a popular game, so there is value beyond just the enjoyment of assembling, painting and showcasing the model.
Finished Shadowsun and her drones
Warhammer 40K miniatures (including Commander Shadowsun) are available now from our webstore.
