Games Workshop

Attack on the Barrow Downs Boxed set Price £20.00

Reviewed by Steve Crofts

First thoughts

Well the box is the same as usual from GW, colourful and full of pictures. Inside the usual plastic carton which holds the figures and other parts to the models including bases.

The figures

Hmm mixed thoughts on these, as some had very little flash and others had bucket loads.

After taking much care and time to clean them off it was out with the super glue to stick on the separate arms that three of the wights have. These were a pain to fit as the holes in the figures were too large for the nodule on the separate arm so filling with modelling putty was also needed.

As there are only three variants of the wights I took it upon myself to change their pose slightly by bending an arm here and there to make subtle differences.

Detail on the wights is superb and well sculptured, it looked even better once the undercoat was on and I couldn’t wait to get started!

The movement on the wights was good although the lack of variety of poses is quite apparent and I must say I felt a shame.

Tom Bombadil and Goldberry.

These two had a slight amount of flash but nowhere near as much as some barrow wights which was quite a relief!

Tom himself is a very nice model and is in what looks like a , "well I’ll have to have a think on this one", type pose. Creases and folds are well supplied on this model and I just love the long feather in his hat!

Goldberry is also very nicely modelled in a walking pose, shielding a candle. Again beautifully detailed with jewellery and an ornamental belt around her waist and a nice tiara type head band.

She has a long flowing gown and looks the part. Again her facial details and clothing details are all well captured and helps make the job of painting a lot easier.

The Hobbits, these are depicted in their burial shrouds, old ones, which a few had tears in.

Detail e.g. folds ect... were well defined and a couple of them do have jewellery on, they are all laid out and do resemble "Lawrence of Arabia", well that’s what sprung to my mind when I first looked at them!

The only problem I found with the hobbits was the fact that they had a round plastic base to go on and sitting one on a base I thought looked a little ridiculous as its head and feet over hung and looked like it was floating partially in mid air so I decided to base them on my own home made bases, these looked better than the ones supplied.

Painting

I would be lying if I said that I’d not enjoyed painting these miniatures, they are all very nice and each figure has its own merits.

A good finish can be achieved with a little extra fine work on the various bits and pieces of the individual figures, and as I said before with the wights, as there are only three variants in the pack I decided to use different colours for the suits of Armour that the wights were wearing.

Conclusion

A very nice set of figures that do benefit from extra time spent on each for that extra nice finish.

I did have to spend a decent amount of time cleaning up the miniatures in preparation to the undercoat, but once done it was worth the effort. It does surprise me that smaller manufacturers can produce figures with very little flash or mould lines, yet a big firm like GW can't, why is this I wonder?

There are a total of twelve figures in the set but I do feel the £20.00 price ticket very over priced and that £12.00 for the set would be more nearer the mark!

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