So what was my first FAILcost model?

The Emperor's Champion:

Ya know, of all of the pix of this mini on GW's website, none had the wicked bend in the sword that mine did. True, while this type of resin is far more pliable than FW's resin, the sword snapped with little effort! I was able to glue it and due to it's light weight it should be fine (so long as you don't look at the blade and its relative angle compared to the hilt). ...sigh... Once again, GW's marketing blitz is just that. I once had this mini in metal & don't recall any issue with the sword arm.

So, was this worth $15+ 'FAILcost' price tag?

No.

That said there are very few metal minis that I want/need for my armies. Rather they need either bulk or vehicles which means blessed plastic!

Anyways as you can see it's certainly not painted in BT colors. In the FAQ for the Renegade army list update PDF Both can be found here) is 'Arkos the Faithless', the Alpha Legion lord that put the hurt on the DA & later fell to their successors, though not w/o taking some with him. In the IA5's original list the Alpha Legion come with the 'We're in disguise' sidebar which suggests using loyalist SM's painted in Alpha Legion colors. Which is exactly what I did. It's not one of my better paint jobs, but is good enough I figure. I had painted the Alphas before i started using washes again, so Arkos has minimal inking done to remain consistent with the others, could be why he looks a little bland to me. He's equipped with a combi-melta & the 'Dark Blade' demon weapon which is a black power weapon that confers as +2 to his strength. Thus I'm sure you can understand where I figured an Emperor's Champion with an added combi-melta would fit the bill nicely.

Arkos got his battlefield debut this past weekend vs the accursed SW and it's always fun to counter-charge them (an ability of Arkos' that he gives to the Alpha legion squad he's attached to)! Indeed he cut a bloody swath through the SW before taking a krak missile to the face! In truth, all of the damage was really done by the allies of the Purge marines (the Purge meanwhile acted as little more than tar pit units). The greater demon likewise went on a rampage paying for himself several times over, and the Blood Eagles 'plasma death' havoc squad performed two perfect 'deploy/rapid fire/get back in the rhino & drive away' maneuvers taking down several Grey Hunters and half a dozen or so WG termies!

The game ended in a draw as there were no troops left on either side to hold any objectives @ game's end. However I had a good portion of my army left, all of which was converging on the lone surviving Long Fang w/ML that was hunkered down in the corner & refusing to die.