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Does anyone else find it the most frustrating part about assembling your army?

I always file the models down, dry fit them before glueing.. and from land raiders, to now my new Razorwing, the things just never seem to fit right! Me and my girlfriend say squeezing the two sides together and you could still see the damn thing trying to flex and bust apart!

Or is this just me >.>

It can be a chore, but man is the finished product a treat!

Some vehicle kits are quite frustrating, the Rhino hull vehicles never seem to fit entirely quite right. The older Chimera/Leman Russ kits were also highly annoying with tons of road wheels that had to be fit *just so* and were thereafter invisible. Most newer vehicle kits aren't so bad.

That said, honestly, fitting guns to basic infantry is often a chore, and nothing is worse than complex metal kits like the older Oblits, and especially the metal Thunderfire cannon.

Also, DKoK Grenadiers and their power cables...truly infuriating.

I love fiddling with vehicles, I almost never have any issues with them. The worst experience I had with assembling vehicles was assembling multiple Rhinos/Razorbacks, using Red Scorpion doors and front from from Forge World. Jesus Christ that was a pain in the arse.

Yeah they look sweet.. just a pain! The worst model I remember gluing would have been...forge world bile trolls. Trying to get those guys to fit in base contact wound me up no end.

I've never had problems with troops thank god

Hit and miss with me. I find DE Raiders a massive pain in the ass but there are also infantry which are too fiddly for my liking as well.

In the last month I've assembled 10 IG tanks and they've all been a good fit, pretty easy to follow and come out to a high standard. The only complaint is the Baneblade tracks don't have single links between some longer links so you end up with the tracks not looking quite right when they wrap around the wheels. Other than that minor annoyance I'm pretty damn impressed after 15 years since last assembling IG vehicles - they were awful back then.

Also should note it's stupid easy to magnetise and swap configurations. Hats off to you, GW.

Nope.

For me the biggest pain is any model that is holding anything in two hands.

Tank tracks.

I found drop pounds are way more easier to assemble when you don't put in the crew harnesses.

Oh man, my very first brand new 40k purchase was for my Guard from FW. This was when it was cheaper to buy a select few plastic kits off them then going through GW proper.

I ordered 7 Russes and 5 Chimeras.

And assembled them all in one sitting. I don't know how, but I'll chalk up part of it from being high on glue.

I can't do anything like now, but I don't mind putting vehicles together. If anything its the finicky infantry that always frustrates me.

Imperial Guard tanks go togethet beautifully but marine tanks are so fiddly. Try putting a land raider togethet without gaps.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Imperial Guard tanks go togethet beautifully but marine tanks are so fiddly. Try putting a land raider togethet without gaps.

The new Guard ones do.

The old ones with the road wheels, not so much.

The new kits with the teeth for the tracks was a godsend.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Some vehicle kits are quite frustrating, the Rhino hull vehicles never seem to fit entirely quite right. The older Chimera/Leman Russ kits were also highly annoying with tons of road wheels that had to be fit *just so* and were thereafter invisible. Most newer vehicle kits aren't so bad.

I've never understood why people complained about the old Leman Russes. I've assembled a couple of them and they are easy. You just lay one side of the track assembly flat, position the road wheels and then put the other side of the track assembly on top of it. Never had an issue lining them up.

Because they included all the road wheels, if you wanted to do a conversion with exposed road wheels, you could do that.

Anyway, yeah, vehicles are time consuming. Lots of parts and no matter how good the kit is you're always going to have seams that you need to deal with once you've finished assembling and fixing those usually takes me as long as building the actual kit did in the first place.

Some of the vehicles are a pain in the.....
One of the s i come across more often is fitting guns and arms onto the guys. I just dont have enough hands. Seems you need a hand to hold the right arm, a hand to hold the left arm, another hand to hold the gun to the arm and sometimes another to hold the gun to the other hand as well.... oops, the glue dried on the shoulders so hafta re=apply, now its all stick to my fingers instead of the body.....

 Blacksails wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Imperial Guard tanks go togethet beautifully but marine tanks are so fiddly. Try putting a land raider togethet without gaps.

The new Guard ones do.

The old ones with the road wheels, not so much.

The new kits with the teeth for the tracks was a godsend.

Ah, yes. I am grateful I started playing Guard after 5th ed dropped. I could only imagine the joys of putting together a tank company with kits like that.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Tank tracks.

Ah yes, those Fidly peaces of plastic...
I don't mind it... but it can be annoying and frustrating in parts.

The freaking tiny ass treads on LR can **** me off to no end. Otherwise? All good.

 Vaktathi wrote:

That said, honestly, fitting guns to basic infantry is often a chore, and nothing is worse than complex metal kits like the older Oblits, and especially the metal Thunderfire cannon.

I assembled 4 metal oblits...

I like the look, but was so damn frustrated during the build I nearly gave up.

Meh. Vehicle Kits nowadays aren't bad. Do I need to remind anyone of 3rd edition Land Speeders?

Oh man, old school chimeras were a nightmare "now just magically assemble these 14 wheels so that they all simultaneously fit into 14 separate slots."

Any vehicle with metal pieces was awful too, the Talos (not really a vehicle tho) with its heavy metal class and pin sized joints that you had to glue. Land raider crusader with six metal bolters per sponson, that was rough.

Ive assembled some real stinkers over the years (Metal Bloodthirster, HE MAKES YOU BLEED) but the most frustrating one ive assembled multiple times are drop pods and Valkyries. We all know about the guestimation of pod assembly, but i always found the Valk kit to be juuuust out of sync with its other parts, like how the cockpit dosent have defined zones to slot in, or how the cockpit canopies have to be jammed in to fit, etc. The new kits are much much better. Stuff like Tauroxes, Knights, and Wyverns just slide into place and everything has a nicely fitted s lot for it to go in, its great! All i can saw is that it seems to be getting better, not worse.

 TheSilo wrote:
Oh man, old school chimeras were a nightmare "now just magically assemble these 14 wheels so that they all simultaneously fit into 14 separate slots."

I must be the only person who figured out how to do this pretty much straight away

I've assembled quite a few 40k models.

You mention issues with the Razorwing .. I'd take that one back. I've put two of those together with zero issues. I'd say the DE plastic kits are easily the best for fit and finish across their entire line.

The only problem models (other than FW) I've run into were a couple of storm ravens and one of my land raiders. I ended up taking those kits back and trying again. The next set were much better.

Sometimes the plastic warps. Either because they were pulled off the machine too soon or something happened in shipping (too hot for too long). You have a choice to either try hot water to get the plastic to loosen up so you can reshape it or simply return the kit. Although it's pretty easy to reshape resin, I've always had a hard time reshaping large plastic pieces - I just can't seem to find the right temp.

The truth is we pay an incredible amount of money for these kits. So, if the parts aren't lining up then you should just take it back to the store as defective. Incidentally, this is good reason to buy locally instead of through the GW web store.

About 6 months or so ago, I started working in a factory that produces plastic products. Never before thought of how the cooling proccesses and all can warp the stuff.
I'd say DEFINATELY keep the packaging till your done and if there is a packer sticker or slip or number in or on the package, keep it as well because it shows which person packaged it. That way, they can take that and go back to check other items this person packed. If it was a case of them just being lazy and not paying attention, they can take measures to ensure that a closer eye is paid to it from that person.

Penitent Engine was by far the WORST thing I've ever put together. Pinning wasn't just suggested, it was required just to keep the thing together. Ball and socket joints for long, heavy metal arms.

I loved the models but after two had said 'enough' and never got my full squadron of 3.

Wave Serpents and similar were tough to do well, as the sides don't close properly. I had to jam them in piles of books, as clamps failed to stay put.

I have an old-style Chimera to build, and I'm dreading it.

to the OP,
While I've always enjoyed building them, early on, I did find some various kits to be a bit frustrating. However, it got much better once I stopped using superglue.

A good thin (consistency of water) plastic solvent glue can make it much easier to glue these kind of things together especially where you need to glue part of the seam, then hold it in place and flex-to-fit subsequent sections. The bond is stronger and usually bonds faster than superglue.

Of course Plastic solvent bonds are permanent, but if you do it right the first time, that's ok.

One other tip, if you want to avoid fogging of windshields, use elmers (PVA) or a specialized canopy glue that can be found at model shops.

Assembling IG vehicles is really easy, compared to the pain in the ass of removing mold lines from 150 cadian flashlighters. The only problem comes from that I want to assemble my vehicles so that I can build all possible combinations from each box and swap to the one I need (mostly using magnets). There are a couple of parts that are just not built for this (like the manticore/deathstrike launch pad difference or the incompatibility of LR and LR demo).

I find that vehicles are easier and less tedious than doing a platoon of Imperial Guard Infantry. The Heavy Weapons Teams are the biggest pains to assemble. All of the mould lines to be deflashed. You have to prefit just about every piece before you glue it all together. Needless to say some of my first Heavy Weapons Teams are kind of stinkers.