It’s been a long time since I’ve reviewed and action figure. Global pandemic, raising a kid, day job, what can I say?
Well, today I’m taking a look at an action figure that, for me, is almost 30 years in the making. The McFarlane Toys Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines Primaris Assault Intercessor 7″ Figure! Warhammer 40k is having a bit of a renaissance with a brand new line of comics from Marvel, Bandai releasing high-end figures, and now McFarlane releasing $30 figures for the proletariat!
You can pick up the Ultramarines Primaris Assault Intercessor 7″ Figure in stock at the following fine e-tailers!
I dabbled in modeling and painting Warhammer 40k miniatures when I was a kid in the 90s. Whenever my parents would take me back to the homeland of England, my grand parents would buy me a squad and some paints and I’d sit in my grandfather’s office and paint them during rainy, boring afternoons. It was great. I loved picking the colors, the patience it took to get the colors applied just right, learning new techniques. Great fun.
I never really had more than one or two friends back stateside who played and the models were exorbitantly expensive at the time. Back then, the game wasn’t widespread in the United States and they were expensive to import.
My army was always the Space Marines. I was probably drawn to them by my pre-existing love of the Aliens franchise, Star Wars, and other sci fi depicting gritty space soldiers. I loved the illustrations in the different codices and the H.R. Giger-esque depiction of the Emperor and other modified super-soldiers. The Space Marine anatomy and armor was always this special blend of 90s era over-the-top caricature of awesome. Where Deadpool and Marvel comics had pouches and giant guns in their comics during the 90s, Warhammer 40k Space Marines had monsterous slabs as shoulder pauldrons, massive calves and helmets that surely gave the soldier 10% visibility at best. It was a ridiculous portrayal of futuristic soldiers and I loved it.
Of course, this was all fine because the miniature models were stagnant and didn’t need to move in that armor. Other than decided what angle to glue to shoulder to the body, most of the time your had few options for poses for your marines. Anyway, before I get too far into articulation, let’s jump into the review.
Packaging
Old Intercessor marine here (I’m gonna call him “Indy!”) comes in the effective McFarlane Toys window box with franchise specific graphics. Giant Warhammer 40k logo emblazoned on the front, that lovely unsettling H.R. Giger-esque biomechanical art I was talking about on one side panel, and a great close-up shot of the figure on the other side panel. Cross-marketing for the Necron soldier is on the back. IF you want to keep this guy in the box, you can do so and see basically the entire figure fairly easily with little in the way.
Now, if you want to remove him from the box and be able to put him back, you can do so, but there is going to be some damage to the packaging. Like all McFarlane Toys releases nowadays he has a base that is blister packed to the backing board and a fair amount of plastic tie downs that will need to be cut. In fact, because this marine is such a beefy boy, he had probably 3 or 4 more tie downs than a normal McFarlane release. Honestly, this figure is hefty.
Sculpt
If you are familiar with Ultramarine “anatomy” this is going to look familiar to you and all the nooks and crannies that you ruined your eyesight trying to paint on your miniatures are here in glorious blown up proportions. In fact, some of the less defined aspects of the miniatures are equally less defined on this larger 7 inch scale. That’s a nostalgic little element for me, but also a missed opportunity to add more detail in this new medium. For example, look at the skull signet on the forehead of the figure. When painting these miniatures as a kid, I always though that skull looked more like a blob with two eyes than a skull and that holds true on the blown up figure. Same with the cross emblem on his forearm. Maybe it was intentional to stay true to the source, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I’m nit-picking an update that wasn’t contemplated during production. I don’t know.
All in all, this is an impressive representation of a classic character that all Warhammer 40k fans will recognize.
Paint
Painting is as integral a part of the Warhammer 40k hobby as playing or collecting. Every Warhammer 40k fan has painted at least one model to lesser or greater success and many are opinionated about the methods they prefer. In light of that fact, when it comes to paint, McFarlane were always going to be critiqued no matter which way they went with it. If they kept it simple (like they ended up doing), many would bemoan the lost opportunity to add more detail, weathering, battle damage, shadows and shading. Painting a simple panel of armor blue is often a multi-step process for the well-seasoned Warhammer 40k painter, so a simple flat Ultramarine Blue would not be sufficient in their eyes. However, if McFarlane went complex with shading, weathering, and battle damage, there probably would have been gripes about the method and style chosen. Much better to leave those decisions up to the final owner of the figure. Let them paint it themselves. In fact, cases of the Ultramarine and Necron figure came with an incentive DIY paintless figure to do just that. Of course, without paying exorbitant ebay prices for that DIY figure, you can repaint this one and probably have a hoot doing it! I will likely do so myself.
Having said all that, the paint applications are simple, yet effective. Matte black undersuit with an Ultramarine blue set of armor, Blood Angels red helmet and gold trim. The chapter and other symbols that would be water slides on miniatures are neat and crisp and a pleasure to see on this large scale. To reproduce other chapters in repainting, I bet tank waterslides would work for this scale.
Add some weathering, shading, and battle damage to your liking and this figure will pop! Having said that, he doesn’t look bad at all without custom paint.
Articulation
OK, here is what we were all waiting to see. What does the Ultramarine physiology do on a real like, articulated action figure?
Well, it’s about as limited as you would expect, but there are a surprising amount of poses possible. His head is on a ball joint which does relatively little as the helmet has nowhere to go in that color. So, you have probably less than 1 degree of tilt up and down, but of course 360 degrees of rotation. His shoulders are on a ball and swivel that allows him to raise his arms all the way above his head and actually get his arm up to about a 90 degree with his torso. This is made possible by the little joint between the shoulder pauldron and the shoulder itself that moves the pauldron out of the way as you articulate the arm. Indy here has a double elbow that is limited only by the forearm armor meeting the pauldron, and swiveling wrist joints.
Indy has a ball joint in the upper torso between the chest armor and the stomach allowing for small amounts of ab crunch and massive amounts of swivel. He has hip joints that move out fairly wide, and the two faulds are rubbery and move out of the way to a decent degree. He has thigh swivel, a double knee, and a forward and back pivoting foot.
Now, is this guy a ninja? Not at all. But, you can get him into various commanding poses. Also, with the two tanks on the end of his ankles, he is stable and doesn’t entirely need that base that McFarlane packs in. Did I mention this guy is heft? Honestly, probably a pound/pound and a quarter. So, he is substantial and does get knocked over very easily.
Accessories
Indy comes with a bolt pistol and chainsword. The bolt pistol fits in both his left and right hand, but it’s obviously meant for his right, with the trigger finger extended. Indy’s left hand is a firm, hard piece of plastic that will not open any further than sculpted. It’s a lucky thing that the handle of the chainsword is rubbery or else you would absolutely not be able to get it into his hand without breaking either the hand or the sword. That’s probably my only gripe about this figure: how hard it is to place that sword in his hand.
You can pick up the Ultramarines Primaris Assault Intercessor 7″ Figure in stock at the following fine e-tailers!
