New Plastic Mark III Marines for GW's "Age of Darkness"

Reinforcements for The Warmaster! New Mark III plated plastic Space Marines from GW.

Well, it's been a...month, give or take, since posting anything, but you know, the usual excuses, work, travel, blah blah. Who cares, right? The important thing is I finally have some stuff to post. This is a veteran tactical squad wearing Mark III plate and the colours of the XVI Legion Astartes, the noble Sons of Horus! These are multi-part plastic figures from GW's new "Age of Darkness" range, the long-awaited - and slightly feared - new "take" on a popular subject, that being the Mark III Space Marines of the Horus Heresy setting.

Old vs. new...a Forge World Mark III marine on the left, and the Sergeant from the new plastic sprue on the right.

Why "feared"? Well, it is replacing a very popular segment of the previous Horus Heresy figure lineup. The previous generation of Mark III models - released first in resin by Forge World - were, in a word, awesome. Their ominous, proto-dark-age look and feel aligned so perfectly with the setting of both the "Great Crusade" and the subsequent Horus Heresy. The rimmed armour plates and assorted bits of gilding that make them somewhat formal, but the rivets, the segmented plates, the deep-seated helmet lenses hunkered behind the thick grill of an ominous helmet...the only "enlightenment" to reasonably expect from these fellows will be the flash of bolt gun fire as your society is "brought into compliance".

View from the front...

Rear details...no more overlapping armour segments :(

GW then released plastic version of the figures, which were faithful to the look and feel of the originals from Forge World. This brought the average gamer a chance to fill the table Mark III-plated Space Marines for a real "Age of Darkness" look! I love the look of this armour, and the original plastic Mark III kit is one of the best GW has put out.

Veteran Tactical Squads can choose from an assortment of special and heavy weapons, with one available per-five Marines in the squad.

Fast forward to this year, and news breaks of a "new" Mark III kit. Trepidation fills the air. Even as the new "Age of Darkness" sets have been, in general, a home run, we have also seen evidence that a spirit of artiste-types who insist on fixing that which is not broken has been loosed to run amok within the design studio. These are the same people who "fixed" the new Mark VI models to make them taller, thought making the studded shoulder plate into a two-piece kit was a GREAT idea, and decided a kafka-esque system for the use of special and heavy weapons with the new figures is JUST WHAT WE NEED...so what would these hipster sculptors do the beloved Mark III?

Well, as you can see...quite a lot. It's not all bad, far from it in fact. Of course, your tastes may vary. But let's cover some of it, and you can judge for yourself, hopefully assisted by the photos of this first new squad.

Another view of the officer. I should have put something on that breastplate...maybe for the next one.

Maybe we'll start with what is the same or similar to what came before? Well, the new-look Mark III retains, IMO, a sense of proto-medieval armoured appearance. There are extra edged plates on the arms, thighs and legs. There are big, chunky and ornate knee plates and elbow plates - although these are not circles as on the old kits. In a very general way, these new sculpts do, IMO, capture the "spirit", such as it is, of the old Mark III. 

If you have custom heads or custom embossed shoulder plates from older Mark III kits, these will work on the new plastic kits. So that is useful too. But it also where the compatibility immediately ends...

Melta gunner and vox-caster.

If you are as nutty a fan of the 30k setting as I am, there are a lot of important differences between new and old...so lets run through some differences that stood out to me.

Start with the height and proportions of the new models. The new Mark III match the new Mark VI in terms of height and proportion, with the same net effects. The heads on the new ones are actually smaller than the heads of the previous figures, even as the new figures overall stand taller than the older generation ones. This is annoying, but give the sculptors their due - I find the proportions are also more sensible on the new ones - not that the previous ones were bad - but I do find the length of the legs, the size of torso etc all look a little more "correct" on the newer sculpts. 

Group photo one more time...

All of us have our own quirks when it comes to mixing models of different styles etc, but FWIW I would say you could not mix new plastic Mark IIIs and old plastic and resin Mark IIIs in the same units, but it would hardly be an issue to include squads of both generations in the same army. YMMV.

Let's move along...assembly on these new ones is such that conversions will be very difficult. Any unique/legion specific marines which made use of previous plastic Mark III bits (like, for example, the Templar Brethern of the Imperial Fists) will require expert modelling. Basically, if you want to convert the figure, you need to build the entire leg/torso assembly, then carefully start cutting. I've seen it done online, so it is not impossible, but you need caution, patience and modelling talent...I am not blessed with any of those attributes myself...

The armour is still segmented, but the segments don't overlap, which is too bad...the slightly cleaner look is, in contrast to the previous Mark III, a step backwards...but not the end of the world.  

The new boltgun...it's "chonky"! I rather like the look of it, but it is different in a notable way from the prior styles, and if you want to use old bolt guns, you'll need to source some hands and, as above, be pretty crafty and careful. As with the new Mark VI kits, specific bolt guns are matched to specific pairs of arms.

Speaking of the boltguns, that is a good segue to move to the general "weapons ecosystem" - basically, these new Mark III figures share, and fit, the same accessories, special weapons and heavy weapons as the new Mark VI models. The bracing hand is sculpted directly on the weapon, and you need to carefully match specific sets of hands with specific weapons. You get used to it pretty quickly with boltguns, but it gets downright Byzantine when trying to equip them with heavy or special weapons - be SURE to save your instructions.  

It's an "attention to detail" of sorts...these are the spare vambraces needed to convert the Mark VI arms in the special and heavy weapon kits to match the look of the Mark III troops.

This is a particular challenge for the new Mark III marines, as they come with an ENTIRE SET OF VAMBRACES so you can make use of the otherwise Mark VI arms in the special weapon boxes. This is...so mindlessly complicated? I mean, it makes sense to take steps to have your new Mark III kits match the new special weapon sets, but here I am not so much being critical of the Mark III kits as I am being critical of the decision made at the outset to even require a whole new special weapon/heavy weapon ecosystem at all. Particularly when you see that an outcome is the need to expend a fair bit of space on the sprues for spare vambraces you only require if you are doing special weapon/heavy weapon marines.

Who did this make sense to in the GW studio when they approved all of this? It is not the end of the world...and, from a certain point of view, evidence of great commitment to help your new Mark III's work for all bits...but this is also evidence of what must have been considerable resources invested in solving a problem that wasn't a problem until they made it one. How to the shareholders of this company not lose their minds on this kind of stuff? I digress...

Let's look at another sore point from the previous Mark III kits - the backpack! Is the backpack still hell to put together? Well...not quite. Fans of the previous plastic Mark IIIs will no doubt recall much swearing, wondering how and why it made sense for the power packs on the back to be two pieces, creating an awful seam along the exhaust vents that was very hard to manage. Now, it's one piece...but be warned, it is not a clean cut from the frame. They seem to have achieved this one-piece result by including a bunch of extra cables on the power packs. Obtaining a "clean" backpack is still a challenge - although one without glue.

Last, but DEFINITELY not least, I will touch now on what I see to be the biggest change on these new Mark III figures...the helmets. As you see, the figure designer has opted for spiked helmets. For someone totally new to this game and setting, you might see this and go "hmm, OK, whatever, seems to add to the ominous ambience".  But many, many fans of the game see that specific feature and immediately think "Death Guard" - after all, this manner of helmet spike is a common feature of the Death Guard's Heresy-era imagery and you see it in the custom bits the Forge World/GW sculptors designed for that Legion. To include helmet spikes on the new Mark IIIs is, IMO, an odd design choice here, given this context.

"Let's cook it for the Warmaster!"

With that said, one can easily remove the helmet spikes, or just use custom helmets sourced from Forge World/GW or 3D printed options. All the same...I just don't get this design decision. Again, I wish more adults were keeping an eye on the hipster artistes in the studio...

Covering fire, anyone?

So, on balance, if you are new the game and setting and don't care about any of the above well, first, welcome! And second, you will enjoy these kits. They look cool. They are fun to paint. They seem like the ominous, scary "older brothers" to all the guys running around in Mark VI armour.

If, on the other hand, you are a dork like me, you may have some reservations with these kits...but that said, I still enjoyed them, and will certainly be assembling more of them in the months ahead! 

Speaking of the months ahead...

On The Move Again

Our home in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, during its brief time on the market...

So, this is happening. With the pandemic now in the rear view mirror, I need to be in the same city as my office, and so we will be moving to Toronto. The move is likely to take place in late January of next year...so it won't be the best time for painting, but there will always be stuff to paint, and I hope to find new folks to game with even while keeping in touch with friends.

That's all for now, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!