Mini-Review: Shrine Luminor

 

Here's something a bit different - a large piece of plastic by Games Workshop. Terrain. It's the Shrine Luminor.

I got this because I have next to no Elves terrain. As a wargaming terrain piece it's a bit useless (I'm sure it has some very useful special rules in Age of Sigmar). It's over-blown, it looks like something you'd see in Las Vegas rather than Lord of the Rings. And still! I dig the thing on some level. 

Assembly

....was rather fun. Although you must be prepared for some gap-filling, especially around the "belt" of the big flying rock and the insides of the big temple-like arch on top. The way the people who draw digital models for GW made putting that rock together a rather intresting exercise. It's genuinely fun to see this huge thing comes together one part at a time. 

And once it's put together it IS big. Doesn't block line of sight on the table in any way, but it is big. 

Of course the first thing that jumps to mind about this model (well, maybe the third thing that jumps to mind) is how to store it without snapping the delicate bits. In the end I kept the little bits that connect the flying island with the ground separate and did not glue them on. That's the little pond as well as the rock that holds the thing in the back. To be honest, the pond can be glued on without a problem; those waterfalls certainly aren't prone to snapping. 

The back.

Looks pretty snazzy all set up, right? Note the multitude of more or less natural looking bonsais on this. 

I also kept the gate on top separate, so I can use it as a piece of terrain by itself. There technically is an option to basically keep the big rock part split horizontally so you can put it on the ground as a rock with the gate thing on top and the lower half of the rock placed on the table upside for use as a ...well, a big rock. Which is pretty smart actually, but the waterfall bits end a bit short for that. 

Apart from that this would mean keeping the waterfalls separate fom the main body of the rock, which means you'll have gaps in the waterfalls where you don't want them - in the upper front. Also: I got rocks. It's unlikely I'd ever want to put this on a table in a non-flying-island-way.

Painting

I decided that being subtle about the paintjob on a piece like this won't work, so I went as colourful as I can without going too ga-ga. So just some grey rock, piercingly-blue water and something resembling white marble, with a warm hue and a bunch of blue to give it some more colour. It's not a lot unlike the GW studio paintjob, but a bit brighter and more pompous.

It never looks quite natural, but it probably doesn't have to, because it's an elven thing and such.

Funny, but the photos make the blue pop out rather stronger than it does in real life. There's more shading to the blue in real life.

EUR 55,00 won't buy you taste, but it'll buy you this. Which actually isn't a too horrible price for a thing that size. Given that you like it visually of course.

Hope you found this article interesting!