Review: Wrath of the Soul Forge King

In the third chapter in the Arks of Omen saga, Vashtorr the Arkifane lays siege to the Rock. To follow along the narrative, Games Workshop is releasing a new Battlebox that includes Vashtorr and a brand new miniature for Supreme Master Azrael of the Dark Angels. In this review, we unbox Wrath of the Soul Forge King and take a closer look at the two new models.

Wrath of the Soul Forge King, the new Dark Angels / Chaos Space Marines battlebox, will be available for preorder starting Saturday, March 11, 2023, and go on sale one week after.

The contents of the box are as follows:

• Supreme Grand Master Azrael
• 10 Primaris Intercessors
• 2 Dark Angels Primaris upgrade sprues
• 5 Deathwing Terminators (can also be built as Deathwing Command Squad or Deathwing Knights)
• 1 Sheet of Dark Angels transfers
• Vashtorr the Arkifane
• 1 Venomcrawler
• 2 Obliterators
• 10 Chaos Cultists
• a 24 pages lore and rule booklet with points and datasheets for the models included
• an assembly guide

Vashtorr the Arkifane review

Half machine, half Daemon, Vashtorr is a demigod from the Soul Forges that seeks true apotheosis within the Chaos pantheon. His design draws heavily from the Daemon Engine aesthetics, fusing flesh with unholy machinery and armour. Whereas other Greater Daemons or Daemon Princes are bulky and swollen, Vashtorr is lanky and stooped. His armour hangs like an apron in front of his body and his weapons are typical blacksmith’s tools, metallic wings extruding from his hunched back.

Vashtorr is spread over two medium size sprues and comes on an 80mm round base. The model is completely monopose with no alternate building or posing options, or any optional bitz. What you see is what you get. This is a bit of a bummer, as the sprues have quite a lot of empty space between the wings. However, as he has a fully sculpted body, you can choose to leave off the body armour.

Supreme Grand Master Azrael review

The latest iconic Firstborn Space Marine character to cross the Rubicon Primaris, Supreme Grand Master Azrael’s new model is very true to the classic 90s Jes Goodwin sculpt. Azrael comes on a small sprue and a round 50mm base.

You can choose to assemble the model with a bare head, and the Watcher in the Dark carrying Azrael’s Lion helmet, or donning the Lion helmet, with the Watcher carrying a sword hilt instead. Azrael’s face sculpt is amazing and very characterful, and looks even better in person than on the ‘Eavy Metal paint job. The banner is also fully sculpted with sharp details.

The other stuff

On the Dark Angels side, you will find 10 Intercessors, of which every Primaris collector probably already has hundreds, but at least there are two upgrade sprues to supply all models with Dark Angels shoulder pads, as well as a transfer sheet. The Firstborn Deathwing Terminators don’t really match the Primaris models scale and seem like the odd choice, at least the models are currently a pretty competitive choice.

As a retinue for Vashtorr, there is the sprue from the former Shadowspear or Start Collecting Chaos Space Marine box, which contains the monopose Venomcrawler and Obliterators. By now, these are only available at a wickedly expensive price on games-workshop.com, so it is good to see them once again available in a box set. The Cultists are the new close combat models that we have reviewed here, they’re also pretty monopose. Of course, it would have been even more thematic if Games Workshop had taken the opportunity to finally release a complete unit of the Heretek Cultists from Blackstone Fortress instead.

Value

Despite the recycling of older models, Wrath of the Soul Forge King has quite attractive value. Vashtorr and Azrael sure won’t be cheap once they’ll become available separately (I’m guessing Vashtorr will have a similar price as the plastic Avatar of Khaine). With an RRP of £130 / 170 € / $210, I estimate that you save 40 to 50% compared to the individual price, which is really quite good for a battlebox.

You can make this box an even better deal by shopping from our partner stores Wayland Games, Element Games, Firestorm Games, and Taschengelddieb, which offer additional discounts of up to 20% over RRP.

Games Workshop has delivery problems for quite a while now, especially with their popular large box sets. Things seem to be getting better, but it could well happen that Wrath of the Soul Forge King sells out quickly. Please don’t fall into FOMO, but don’t think too long either.

I hope you found this review helpful, feel free to leave a reaction or comment below, or post your questions here or discuss on our Discord channel.