Ten Thunders / Arcanists Dual Faction

Mei Feng is our Arcanist / Ten Thunders Dual faction master from Book 4. This is the first of the currently (Gencon) released crews that I grabbed some pictures of prior to completely painting all the models. I am having fun playing Mei Feng, and am exploring how she works as a 10T Master. Overall, I have to say that I believe she is stronger as an Arcanist master with how she works. This is not swaying me from using her as 10T, and playing around with different crew builds for her.

Mei comes in with her trusty totem, the Emberling. Some who have followed this blog for a while might know that I enjoy painting up burning and fire based models. This goes a fair way back to my Eldar Avatar model, and the Balrog I grabbed from the Lord of the Rings line to practice painting the burning cracked skin theme. The Emberling was no different, as he is really the fire from inside a train engines furnace, come to life and jumped out into the open. Mei herself is a fantastic action piece, coming with the broken lumber she is kicking her way through. This actually made it a bit tough to put her on a base, as the broken lumber just did not fit well with the placid sand zen gardens I have on my other bases. No worries, I still liked the broken wood so just based her alone with that. I ended up painting up the wood first, then going back and adding Mei Feng to the lumber and painting her after.

Mei is all about the constructs, and brought some new robot friends along with her. The big add for Arcanists and for Mei Feng is the Rail Golem. This was a great model to put together and I am really happy with how he assembled and painted up. This guy is a beast on the table and is a large model, filling in both play wise and table presence wise as a center piece model. The Wyrd Asian base insert worked really well for basing this guy and he was much easier to paint up that I expected. It was a fair amount of metalics, followed by wash then touching up the wood and other details on the model. He assembled very easily as well, with all the pieces clearly popping into play. I think the girder in his hands was the only challenge, as it has a hand on one side which actually affixed to the model on the upraised hand, then slides into the lower hand which is not affixed to the girder.

Mei Feng's box set released with her, the Emberling, then three Rail Workers as her base starter. On both the Wyrd boards and the Podcast I am on record as not being a big fan of the Rail Workers. I will be painting them up despite not being a fan, but thats because I am a competitionist. They are not on the fast track, although they are sitting on my paint tray currently and are getting a little bit of work here and there. I finished up one of them to try out in my lists, as seen here. I figure one is enough to show they just do not stand up to alternatives, and if I find something to be different I already have the other two getting painted up. This ends up being a game play situation more than a model situation. The models look pretty good overall, and are full of character with their modifications.

The last set of the Storm of Shadows arcanist models I have painted up are the Metal Gamin. These three little guys are a lot of fun in game, although I am only fielding 1 at a time currently. They are little protection pieces with some decent utility and also work as tremendous tar pits within the crew. Being constructs, they provide a nice jump point for some of Mei Feng's abilities. I like the models overall, and they were very easy to paint, with some metallics and washes. The Thickset guy to the right was the first piece of art I saw for the Gamin, and I loved it. Overall he is probably my favorite of the three, although the other two have grown on me. The Gardener guy with the little tree was something I thought was cool, and the tree from the Wyrd Asian accessories kit was a nice fit for his base. The lizard looking guy was not something I was a fan of when I saw the sculpt. I was heavily reminded of the Skink's from GW's Warhammer Fantasy Lizardman line. After getting some paint on him I was much happier with how he looked and now have him in my case as an alternative to the heavy set guy. Going with some green wash on the brass coloring set him apart into a mechanical construct from the more organic lizard creature I kept seeing when I looked at him.

So whats missing? I have not gotten Willie painted up yet, but he is incoming. Willie is a crazy guy with a wheel barrow of dynamite, so he should be a lot of fun to paint up and the models I have seen are great looking models. I also have the additional 2 Rail Workers to paint, although I expect they will go straight to the display case.