Carrera Revell The Lich King World of Warcraft (03515) 1:16

[Mike]

The Lich King World of Warcraft (03515)

1:16 Carrera Revell

 

 

Telepathic leader of The Scourge, the Lich King was created by Kil'jaeden the Deceiver from an Orc’s spirit, later betraying him and merging with a human spirit, with more complex skulduggery yet to come through the many iterations of the game over the years.  He controlled The Scourge, an army of the Undead, via his Helm of Domination, which bears a passing resemblance to the one worn by Sauron in the totally unrelated Lord of The Rings. Sacrilege, I know.  He was sent to the mythical world of Azeroth, landing in a place called Northend, experimenting with his psychic powers, and spreading the Undead plague through the local populace.  His task was to weaken Azeroth in preparation for the arrival of the Burning Legion, who as the name suggests aren’t a very nice group of Demons and corrupted races that take great delight in destruction and death.  He is a recurrent antagonist in the lore of World of Warcraft, taking different forms with varying nefarious goals before he was defeated, his crown taken by a good-spirited Highlord of the Knights of the Ebon Blade, Bolvar Fordragon, who took his crown and became the new Lich King.  Nothing goes to plan however, and as the game is an ongoing series with many, many players, it’s only natural that the baddies will get a few lucky breaks now and then, just to keep the story alive.  No-one likes to play a game where everything is fine.

 

 

The Kit

This is a new tooling from Carrera Revell, and is part of a licensing deal with World of Warcraft (WoW) that should see more kits released in due course, one that we know of being the Orc Thrall, a toothy green gentleman with massive shoulder-armour.  The kit arrives in one of Revell’s new sturdy top-opening boxes with a captive lid that sometimes tries to trap your hands thanks to gravity and the memory of cardboard hinges.  This is a Gift Set boxing, and inside are two sprues plus two separate parts in grey styrene, a bag containing nine thumb-pots of acrylic paint, a 12.5g bottle of Revell Contacta Professional adhesive, and a #2 Revell branded paintbrush that would have benefitted from a cover on its bristles to help keep them in shape.  In fairness however, a little water and brush soap saw the bristles all pointing in the right direction within a few seconds.  The package is completed by a small decal sheet, a Health & Safety leaflet, and the instruction booklet that is printed on matt paper in colour, with a painting profile on the inside back cover.  Detail is good, apart from a few difficult ejector-pin marks on the textured interior of the King’s cloak, although it’s possible they won’t be seen once the model is completed.

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the important helmet, fitting five parts around the central face section, which is protected by a pair of huge cheek-guards beneath the multi-spiked helm’s crown.  Coloured diagrams show the location and alignment of parts to ensure correct assembly, using a different colour per section of the whole, putting it aside for a while.  The body is a two-part core that incorporates the upper arms, neck and upper legs, with detail painting needed before the armour and other assemblies are layered over it.  The cuirass around the upper torso is first to be plugged into the large holes in the chest, fitting front and back plates, with detail painting instructions given in scrap diagrams around the instruction step, which is a common theme.  Protective armour around the midriff and groin is in a similar two-part assembly that also fits in holes in the body, with a long, flowing cloth covering the centre, extending past his knees, followed by adding extra “dragon scales” armour sections around his biceps, and elbow couters behind that plug into square sockets.  The gauntlets have vambraces moulded-in, the outer armour strapped into position on belts that are moulded into the two-part forearms, as is the hand armour.  One half of his sword arm is moulded to the weapon, adding the other half of the forearm and hand to grip the sword’s hilt, and an extra horned skull that wraps around the rain-guard and protective quillions.  The outer armour of the gauntlet is applied to the back of the forearm when it and the other arm are fitted to the upper arms, one per side if that’s not too obvious a statement.

 

 

The King’s legs are covered in unarmoured fur that has the straps for the knee armour moulded in, plus two tabs for location later.  Each leg is made from four quadrants to allow better representation of the fur, again showing detail painting as they are made, then mounting them on the torso, and fitting armour caps over the exposed toe-box of his boots.  The jambeau armour has an additional horn fixed to the skull’s head that mounts on the lugs on the shins, the upper legs protected by skeletal cuisse plates that slide into sockets in the thighs, which have the retention straps moulded-in.  Every king needs a cape, which is supplied as a single textured part that has a few problematic ejector-pin marks on the inner surface, predominantly around the edges.  They will be difficult to fill and match the texture around them, so test-fit to check whether they are worth the effort to fill.

 

 

Each pauldron has a different design, the left shoulder having a double ridged plate that has five spikes added between, one of which is blunt, possibly damaged.  A scrap diagram shows the pauldron from the side in red in a cut-away style, so that the angle of the spikes can be seen easily.  It is mounted on the figure with a spacer below it, on a large flat peg that should give it good grip, fitting the head first, which locates on two keyed slots in the top of the open neck.  The right pauldron has a gruesome skull on the outer face, and fits with a spacer underneath it, then both pauldrons have a circular palette fitted to the lower edge, which again have a skull in the centre, just to emphasise the fact that he’s a bad guy.

 

The final task is to mount the King on a base, which is made from a tapered oval surround that has a flat top plate with two holes to locate the figure’s feet in the centre area.  A separate name plate is included along with a pair of decals that say “Lich King” in WoW-style text.  There is a shallow sink mark down the centre of the plate due to the moulded-in triangular support in the middle, so take a moment to add some filler and flat it down before you launch into painting and decaling.  The choice of a separate placard seems an odd one, and if you are so minded, you could always cut a portion from the back edge to mate it to the front of the base, taking care to mount it centrally.

 

 

Markings

The two decals offer a nameplate from both sides, as above, and detail-painting is called out in Revell codes throughout the booklet, with a final large diagram at the rear.  The colour letter codes refer to the guide at the front of the instructions, which includes some mixed colours, which are supplied as pre-mixed pots with the kit to save you the trouble of having to mix them yourself.  From the box you can build the following:

 

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.

 

 

Conclusion

Any WoW aficionado worth their salt will probably realise by now that I’ve not played the game myself, although I did coincidentally re-watch the Warcraft film only yesterday, but there was no Lich King to be seen in that one.  Detail is good on the model, and at 1:16 the figure is a good size without being too large or small, with only the cape’s ejector-pin marks a possible issue.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit

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