The Butcher. UNLEASHED!

Finally, I have received it.

So I came back to find a modestly sized package waiting for me. From PP no less. What else could it be but...The BUTCHER.

First off, the box containing the diorama and the miniature and everything. It could be better. It's made out of Pinewood which is okay-ish as a wood I guess (this is my personal furniture industry bias showing through) but certainly, not a great wood or anything. I do have an issue with the fact that the burning process they used to indent the logo onto the box wasn't completely even on mine, you can see there's a bit of texture missing on the right side of the logo. Also, it was actually fairly hard to pull out the lid of the box. Just didn't have any good handholds on it. But other than , it's satisfactory. I mean, who really cares that much about the box when the Butcher is waiting.

Opening the box, you find the CERTIFICATE of AUTHENCITY signed by Matt Wilson himself. And then the print right below it.

Mine's 359/1000. The paper quality is decent but not very thick, which is a pity. I generally feel they could have used higher grade paper for the certs and the print. Anyway, after you remove them, there are two thick layers of foam; almost battlefoam type of hard-density foam, that protect the contents of the box.

And what nice looking contents they are. First, the Butcher and his arguses/argii? are packed seperately into small plastic bags for your convenience. Then there's the cards, which are placed to one side, the limited edition coin and the diorama base. I'll say the foam that they used to pack the stuff in is very sturdy and very nice. It's not scratchy at all like a lot of casing foam is, but if anything, it feels more like the foam you'd use when packing stereo equipment I guess. From the feel of it, I'd say it's pretty thick and durable.

 

So what about the coins? I'm going to have to say I like the coins. They have a decent solid weight and the engraving is pretty nice. I have no idea what I'm going to use them for other than just for display, but again, still pretty nice. 

Then there's the diorama base. Well, it's certainly not made out of plastic like a few people were speculating early on. It's made out of resin, and it's fairly solid. It's pretty big, bigger than my gun carriage at least in terms of volume. And it's all one solid piece. Earlier on, when the first shots of this came out, I speculated that Butcher3 would probably end up defending some vital Khadoran fortress in Warmachine Vengeance and this diorama seems to indicate as much. Notice the bullet holes/war scars/rubble on it. Only issue I have is that the Khadoran flag doesn't fit nicely into the hole they left for it. I'll probably have to glue that to make sure it's sturdy. 

And then there's the butcher himself. As you can see, the model comes in a few parts but overall it's not very complicated to assemble. The only real parts I had trouble figuring out where they went were the accessories sprue; with the horn. But a quick google search turned up this image. 

Other than that, fairly easy to assemble. I haven't glued mine yet but I did test-fit the parts together. There are places where you'll probably have to green stuff it to prevent cracks from showing; the place where the cloak and front go together is one of those places, but generally, it fits together pretty decently. 

The arguses are also pretty simple. They're mostly one body except for 2 of their legs, 1 head and their tails. It's pretty easy to tell which leg and head goes where thanks to them using different connecter shapes/indentations to indicate which. 

So overall conclusion? I like the coin, the box could have been better but it is okay for its purposes. The certs could have used higher quality paper (or at least thicker card stock). The diorama is pretty good and the models are nice.