Contemptor Kevin's Combat Patrol Issue 46 Review

Issue 46 of Combat Patrol is a Paint Issue, which is a good breather between 10 more Ork Boyz and three Ork Deffkoptas in the next three issues. We also get some narrative materials, gaming materials, and a surprisingly in-depth article on a core element of miniature painting. So how does the magazine hold up?

As always, thank you to Goonhammer and Hachette for the opportunity to review these magazines and materials.

Narrative Materials

We get some new narrative materials in this issue, but it's only two pages: We get "Brutal but Kunnin'", which is all about Orks making loud noises, foul smells, giant dust clouds, and smashing forward to unleash violence, destruction, and all-consuming brutality. Each Ork is motivated by the desire to get "a piece of the action", not survival, and accordingly will use some low kunnin' to try and find some way to ensure they fight. We are given various examples of ways that Ork models are brutal (with a bit of kunnin'): We get Beastboss on Squigosaur (who are deadly weapons or fearsome mounts), Meganobz (bigger, shootier, stompier, or more bashy than the previous contraptions that they replace, and Ork Gretchin (with a Runtherder that bullies Gretchin, which in turn bully the Snotlings).

Credit: SRM

Hobby Materials

This issue gives us two layer paints: Knight Questor Flesh and Stormhost Silver. Knight Questor Flesh is a brighter brown (with a smidge of purple) designed to serve as a highlight color for leather or for darker skin tones. It's a good, solid color that I would probably use more of except I just mix a brown with my ProAcryl Bright Shadow Flesh for that tone. Nothing against Knight Questor Flesh, the ProAcryl bottle has just been more handy. The other paint is Stormhost Silver, which is a fantastic very bright silver to highlight Leadbelcher or to use as a drybrush paint as long as it's mixed well. The problem, as regular readers of this website know, is that GW pots are not always great for keeping paints mixed, and the way the lids work makes them worse at this over time. It's why I've largely stopped using Stormhost and switched to ProAcryl Silver. This is a shame because Stormhost is a really good bright silver when it works.

The paint guide for this issue is a guide to edge highlighting: it shows the technique, and points out which paints to use to edge highlight the models from this Magazine and crucially where to put the edge highlights. It goes through all the various paints released so far for highlighting. So you can see where on the capes, armour, and skin to put the edge highlights. This is enormously helpful for new hobbyists who may be confused as to how highlighting/edge highlight works in the Citadel/'Eavy Metal style paint system.

A fine example of edge highlighting. Raven Guard Repulsor Executioner. Credit: Dan Boyd

Gaming Materials

The mission from this issue is "Only War", where the goal is to destroy the enemy army and secure strategic sites. This is a Dawn of War deployment 44x60 mission that is supposed to have objective markers, but the issue doesn't specify where the objective markers are located. This is supposedly a "teach you to play Warhammer 40K 10th edition" mission, with player-placed objectives (though the magazine and the Core Rulebook does not specify this), which is not something that actually extended to competitive 40K.

We then get the rules for the Aeldari Combat Patrol rules (with enhancements, stratagems, and secondary objectives) and the Chaos Space Marine explanation of Dark Pacts.

Aeldari Rangers (photo courtesy of Musterkrux)

The Final Verdict

This issue feels like the thinnest issue of Combat Patrol magazine yet. We get two layer paints: both very good layer paints that I don't mind, even if I no longer really use GW metallic paints. But there's only two pages of narrative materials, and the gaming sections don't feel all that innovative or interesting. While it's necessary as part of the subscription for a new hobbyist, I don't think a veteran hobbyist needs to concern themselves with this issue if they aren't already in the monthly package.

Until next time Combat Patrolers!

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