I realize not everybody plays Dark Legion, but they should . Reading about those figures from what the guys here told me didn't do these massive monsters justice.

Karak is practically as big as an 80's era He-Man action figure. If the Ice Golem weren’t crouching he would be even taller than Karak! I loved how big the Gommorian Hammer and Golgotha was when I first saw them but these two new acquisitions blow them away. The details are sweet! I'm so glad I picked them up! The powers and abilities of these two are incredible and mesh together well! Give Karak flight and then after moving him on the second activation, then use summon golem and it's like you get to sling shot the Incredible Hulk right into the middle of your enemies. I never did get to use any ice terrain tokens but freezing enemies is great! Also the two figures come with a bunch of tokens, cards and markers. Wow I can't wait to go back to the store tomorrow for some more mayhem. One of the owners of my LGS wants to learn.

Sounds awesome dude. Can't wait to recieve my own golem and karak! I'll let you know of my own first impressions when they arrive.

Playing a 8/8/8 game against my brother today btw. Algeroth (me) vs. Brotherhood. And as you say.. gotta love the demon factions! But when my Vulkan is arriving I'll be brave enough to take on the demons myself.

Yup, I can't wait to get my hands on some Ilian goodness myself... Thanks for the "review", Cybortrucker !

It's great to hear you say this things about the Ilian minis, Cyborgtrucker! Me, as a Brotherdood player, wanna purchase Karak (when he comes to Spain, of course) to play my inquisitors of the "dark side".

Thanks for the review, Cyborg. And good luck with your battle, Nighthawk! Some kind of battle report and/or photos would be sweet, don't you think?

Ok I do have one question about Karak's history. One of his abiliies, or is it a power? Anyways he can buy Brotherhood non-uniques for his force. Why? I'm mean what does it represent. Is there a story behin it? I took everything out of the package but didn't read the back of the box. No little story book or anything inside. Just curious.

Well... Originally, Karak was supposed to be the first templar invoked by Ilian, Mistress of the Void. But in Ultimate Warzone, Karak's background changed a bit, and it was revealed that he was formerly an important member of the Brotherhood who betrayed and gave his soul to Ilian. The mistress of the Void then gave him a new body... So I suppose the Brotherhood troopers he can use are turncoats like him !

Textual from Ultimate Warzone:

"Over a thousand years ago, the alluring call of Ilian found its way to a troubled spirit, a man of purity whose soul was weary of the carnage and depredations of the Dark Legion. This dedicated servant of the Light, a Kepper of the Art named Karak, became seduced by the promises of the Dark Mistress who visited the powerful man in his dreams, aided by her brother Muawijhe. After years of careful seduction and manipulation, Karak crossed over and slew his own attendants. Following a killing spree of epic scale, the destruction of two major churches and being wounded critically, Karak was finally cornered in the Tower of Commerce on Luna. There in a sealed room, Karak fled into the Void. Believing him dead, the Brotherhood erased all records of his existance and sealed the embarrassing matter. His name is now all bur forgotten."

Paptimus it's right, the man was a Brotherhood man, a Keeper of the Art itself. In fact, the tubes in the back of Karak are a bizarre version of the Brotherhood's Power Stabilizer. I suppose Karak can manipulate the minds and souls of weak Brotherhood members, or summon dead brotherhood soldiers from the grave, who knows. The fact is Karak can fight along Brotherhood members, and for me it's fine, and very ironic.

I have to agree with you! The two models were released at a store in Burbank, which is not my local gaming store, but one in the area; he was selling them for 10.99 and I bought two of each.

Karak reallya packs a powerful punch; the Ice Golem can just mow dudes down, man!

Thanks for the info it's nice to have some background now for him when people ask.

No problem, perhaps the lack of this Mutant Chronicles edition it's the poor background information. Yes, you know Mitch Hunter it's a Capitol VIP, and you know he is a Free Marine and his equipment, but... Well, I'm a little liar at this point, at the news of the FFG web there are some articles kind of explaining the background of the units.

Ya know I used to be really cautionary when Vulkan Battlesuits entered the battlefield. But once you drop an ice token on one and really it's not that hard with Freezing Wind . I'm thinking at least a 75% chance of dropping one on any model and it gets even easier the closer you are. So now you have an ice token on a model. It now suffers from slower movement and it does less damage. BUT WAIT ! The best is yet to come!! Now you play Shattering Blow on the nippy little model and it is destroyed. Poof, scrapped Vulkan Battlesuit. You do have to be in base-to-base contact to perform Shattering Blow , but it only takes a figure with one Ilian symbol on the stat card to play. Wow, Yikes and Shazam!

I'm expecting all armies to start getting weird and wacky cool powers but that combo is pretty vicious.

Haha, Shattering Blow is so brutal. I love the ice golems.

With all of the cards and tokens, it almost sounds like each figure is like it's own scenario or something along those lines. I'm curious to see whether or not that trend continues for the other single packed figures.

My Ice Golem and Karak just arrived and here are some of my first impressions.

Positive:

Minis : I guess "minis" is a wrong term here. These guys are almost just as big as the old Mercurian Maculator in Warzone and even the Pretorian Behemoth. HUGE and very powerful minis in the game.

Plastic : Seems much stronger/harder than the first releases. Small things sticking out aren't bendable and I guess that has got to do with the other minis being much softer i.e. some brotherhood swords are bent like a banana. Karak and the Golem also feels a bit heavier, this might be because of the different plastic being used.

Painting : Much better than the first releases. Way more details and everything looks more solid. I'm most disappointed with the Golem though. It just looks way more Cyan than on the pictures. As with every pre-painted figures out there, they will all look better if you have some painting skills and are willing to repaint them. And I might do that myself with the Golem. Though I would think that these are some of the best pre-painted figs out there at the moment.

Tokens : You've just got to love the tokens! FFG shines on these and you can see that they got their **** together on this aspect. Also Karak's tent is 4(!) hexes big and it is just like a Tide Of Iron cardboard token. Which for me confirms the obvious that we'll be getting a kick ass map pack in March/April. 6 map pieces for $20 cannot be something other than high quality cardboard.

Box : I have to compliment FFG for always showing the minis beforehand. As in the starter and other war packs, it's see through, which make you able to carefully examine the minis. These are big pieces, and they are just as tall as the warpack releases, except not being as wide. Also, it's still called Mutant Chronicles: Collectible Miniatures Game on the box.. but this might be because these are old boxes? Karak and Golem is MC03 and MC04 so they are old in terms of having been planned at least.

Cards : High quality, just like the Tide Of Iron cards.

Negative:

1: Karak's cape is blocking the wound token slots on both sides. There is no way for me to bend the cape either withouth breaking something. So we'll just have to lay the wound tokens on the base. Not a major problem, but this makes it less "perfect" IMO.

Overall:

8/10. Near perfect. If FFG keeps releasing minis like this it'll be a matter of time until people start picking this up and actually giving it a shot. I would love an Imperial/Ilian box set being released next year, with a rulebook that would include new rules as well as a tightening of the old rules (removing errors etc). Also, I'm not sure if I would want to many minis in this boxset (or anyone at all). Just tokens, map packs and cards. So that we have a pure box for tokens, rules and so on, using the space. Again, just a personal preference.

Nice review, Nighthawk, thanks for posting it. I also noticed the problem with not being able to fit wound tokens on Karak's base, but I'll take an amazing looking model over that any day. These guys are very impressive, which is why I'm pushing my local store to get some of these in.