We drink to our youth to the days come and gone, For the age of oppression is now nearly done...
This set is a great start for a Stormcloak army in the elder scrolls: call to arms game, included is 1 x Yrsarald Thrice Pierced, Stormcloak Commander, 1 x Ralof, Warrior of the Resistance, 3 x Stormcloak Soldier with Greatswords. Recreated faithfully from the daring escape from Helgen in the opening of elder scrolls v: Skyrim. The models come on sprue containing the models, with 5 bases and an instruction sheet for building. This set will take you back to your first moments of resistance to the empire and bringing freedom from the Aldmeri Dominion to the incredible Region of Skyrim.
Assembly:
The sprue is nicely labelled, each model part has a unique letter and number assigned to it, E.g. A4. That links back to the instruction sheet for easy refence of where each part goes, like most miniature games. It is recommended to use hobby/model cutters to remove these parts from the sprue, then use a hobby knife to clean the excess of the models and remove Mold lines. These models have been well designed with lots of details so extra care is recommend whilst doing this to avoid damaging the detail. The glue I recommend for the kit depends on the version. If you get the plastic kit as include in the combined starter set; I recommend plastic glue since this kit is made of plastic miniatures. If you get the resin version, then super glue is required as plastic glues don’t work well with resin.  You may also like to get a thin piece of string to tie around the bow ends to create a string effect for Ralofs bow.
Painting:
Start with a basecoat spray to cover the whole miniatures, this will help attach a layer of paint to the plastic that we will allow paint to stick to the miniature, without a basecoat it is a lot harder to get paint to stick and can result in a loss of details. When spraying be careful not to over spray as these models have lots of detailed parts that can be lost by too much paint, especially with the fine details like metal chainmail patterns in the armour. Models in this kit have very clear sections like the blue cloth, fur undersuit and metal chainmail/helmets. these are mostly fabric textures making them Ideal for speed/contrast paints. A brown/leather colour speed/contrast paint can do most of the fur and leather in one go, followed by a tan for the skin, most of the model is done. Then a metallic paint for the chainmail and steel weapons etc., then after nice light blue applied to the cloth/tabards these miniatures would be ready to a nice tabletop standard. Other are great for these miniatures, techniques like non-metallic-metals style of painting for swords and helmets and gradient style of wet blending are also brilliant for these models. Even slap chop will work excellently for these models due to the large, padded areas it will give a great lighting contrast on the under armour. Whatever way you want to paint, these models will be a true pleasure to paint for fan of the stormcloaks.
Gameplay:
The rules and game cards for these miniatures can be found in Elder Scrolls Call to Arms: Core Rules Box Set. There you will find the adversary cards: 1 x Yrsarald Thrice Pierced, Stormcloak Commander, 1 x Ralof, Warrior of the Resistance, 3 x Stormcloak Soldier with Greatswords, and the hero cards: 1 x Yrsarald Thrice Pierced, Stormcloak Commander, 1 x Ralof, Warrior of the Resistance. The adversary’s when not in a player's party act on their own and act depending on a dice role or set response listed in the rule books. The have 5 main responses each with represented with its own letter AMOFD.  A-attack, M-move, O-objective, F-fall back, D-defend.  This means they can act differently every time they activate dictated by their unique stormcloak action card and can provide a unique challenge for the player if they are using them as npc characters. The main use of this starter set is using the stormcloaks as a player-controlled faction with either hero, this means they are controlled by a player and can be used in the player’s party. They have the main faction of stormcloak so can be used as a champion (party leader) in that faction or as a regular party member of the stormcloaks. This makes for great re-playability as you can switch between the two easily and with their well-mixed stats allow them to be useful additions in any stormcock party you might want to use. Ralof is particularly unique as He an archer and use the shooting mechanics allowing a simple way to add some range to any stormcloak list.
The Difference between the Resin/plastic kits:
Which material is better I will leave up to you decide. However, they are notable differences with the kit depending on which version you are getting. If you are getting the plastic kit, at the time of writing is available at almost half the price and is the version included in the starter box. The resin kit however has slightly finer details and comes with 5 scenic bases instead of the plain versions in the plastic kit. Which version I recommend depends heavily on if you want the scenic bases or not. However, in this case I don’t think the extra 5 scenic bases justify such a cost difference.
