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Having done both penitent engines and thunderfire cannons, I have to go with the thunderfire. Pinning is trivial. The thunderfire requires a lot of metal grinding just to get the pieces to fit together.

Metal Hive Tyrant..... scant minutes before completing this beast for my younger brother the fool knocks it on the floor...... now he has no Hive Tyrant.

I forgot about the old metal tree beard it's feet were rounded trying to get that thing to stay on a bas was a nightmare.

Penitent engine was easy, I've got three of them kicking about somewhere.

The thunderfire, I built one for a friend, that was a nightmare.
Another bad one was the Screaming Skull catapult.

 Redbeard wrote:
Having done both penitent engines and thunderfire cannons, I have to go with the thunderfire. Pinning is trivial. The thunderfire requires a lot of metal grinding just to get the pieces to fit together.

you didnt have to grind down your body pieces to get them to fit together? Lucky you.

I'm going to say the forge world greater daemon of slaanesh. On top of the normal mess you need to sort out on FW models (scrubbing release agent, sanding smooth areas to fit, rebending, filling bubbles, sawing off parts to pin) there's somewhere around 150 spikes that all need pinning or else they'll fall off. Oh, and the claws/hair? Yeah, that's all straight and needs bending into your own position... which you need to do almost at completion so it fits properly. I've never made one but before that model I'd never seen anyone almost throw Forge World resin across a room in rage. Nothing I've seen comes close.

Eyjio wrote:
I'm going to say the forge world greater daemon of slaanesh. On top of the normal mess you need to sort out on FW models (scrubbing release agent, sanding smooth areas to fit, rebending, filling bubbles, sawing off parts to pin) there's somewhere around 150 spikes that all need pinning or else they'll fall off. Oh, and the claws/hair? Yeah, that's all straight and needs bending into your own position... which you need to do almost at completion so it fits properly. I've never made one but before that model I'd never seen anyone almost throw Forge World resin across a room in rage. Nothing I've seen comes close.

I'll second this... SOOOOOOOOOO many little spikes, it's insane, and god forbid you drop one. A close second for me has to be the Forgeworld Elysian kits, the arms on those guys never line up correctly, and you end up sticking the tiny little bits to your fingers instead of the model (especially those shoulder pads). Every time I've added guardsmen to my army, I end up with fingers covered in superglue and having to greenstuff half of the shoulder connections because the arms don't fit right.

For me, the Penitent Engine. I planned on getting six. After two I just gave up. I've built super detailed gundam models in less time and with less frustration.

 Carnage43 wrote:
Space marine drop pods have a special place in my heart.....I will never buy a new one unassembled again. Trying to stick the 5 fins together and lining up the bottom plate and top engine thing while keeping all the doors lined up was a dark day in my model building career.

Never again.....

Huh, I had no problems keeping the fins together, or lining them up the button plate, and sticking the top engine in between them. Even without glue the fins stuck onto the base of the pod and the harnesses well. When I assembled the fins, I just put the engine against the first fin and put one of the fins opposite of the first fin in to hold the engine. Put the others on easily, pushed the engine back up, glued it, done. Very pretty pain-free.

Only thing that was annoying for me with the kit were the doors. Even a nanometer of extra plastic on the bottom sides of the doors meant they couldn't close properly/fully. Meh.

Pentinent engines and Exorcist tanks. First one because of how little contact is given to the amount needed. took me a lot of green stuff, pinning, and eventually gorilla glue. The Exorcist was up there as well. assembling the box the organist rode in, plus lining the missiles up and covering the gaps. then asking it nicely to stay together. Metal hive tyrant is bad as well, but I actually had a dremel at the time to help me out.

 Chaos Santa wrote:
Wow that more reply's then I thought this topic would get.

My vote if I had one would be the Necron Ghost Ark, I'm still not looking forward to getting more of those things, especially if you put all the people in it.

It was also my first model to fall off its flying base and break most of its guns off in one game.

I just recently fully magnetized a ghost ark. Each warrior has its own magnet. It can be a ghost ark or a doomsday cannon. Not one of those "cannon on top" doomsday cannons either. The only problem is the gauss is upside down when its a doomsday, but oh well.
It was a fun challenge, but I don't wan to do it again. I did enjoy assembling the model though.

I believe this is a model that requires 2 of those skimmer bases, the thing feels so wobbly!


Anything metal that is larger than a TDA is probably a horrible kit to put together.

I've been pretty spoiled since I play Tau, so all of our kits have been easy to put together, but I really hate Pathfinders! There's some poses (especially the unit leader if you want him talking on his headset) that are almost impossible to line up right if you don't have some way of tacking the model in place before you glue it.

And don't even get me started on my custom posed Riptide...trying to line up all the joints without some way to keep the model together without gluing it was a nightmare.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I always found that the metal Hive Tyrant was the worst model I had ever made, full of gaps, didn't fit properly and at the time, didn't know what pinning was so many a curse word was said that week.

True story.

My old metal Tyrant and Zoanthropes were both extremely frustrating.

The worst however, no doubt in my mind, was the metal Venomthrope. Curse you, GW, curse you!

Exergy wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
Having done both penitent engines and thunderfire cannons, I have to go with the thunderfire. Pinning is trivial. The thunderfire requires a lot of metal grinding just to get the pieces to fit together.

you didnt have to grind down your body pieces to get them to fit together? Lucky you.

I've built nine of them, not one came close to the amount of grinding that the thunderfire required. A couple of penitents needed some filing, but none needed power tools. I wouldn't have been able to build the thunderfire without my dremel.

Hmm. Metal venomthrope and tyrant are up there... of course, 4 tyrants would drive anyone crazy. One would have been enough.

The metal venomthrope took me 8 hours straight, counting drying time. I will build a scaffold for it next time.

Since almost everything mentioned being vehicles or mc, I'll say that I still try to put my metal Swooping Hawks together in a way that they don't fall apart at a glance.

Definitely metal thunderfire. I've built drop pods, penitents, ghost arks, and I have to say the TFC is just miserable. I don't think it can be done without pinning or some sort of two part epoxy.

I'm pretty spoiled model wise,playing Tau and just instead of using the Pathfinder Models, I would use Carbine Fire Warriors without shoulder pads, but I gotta say Crisis Suits.

The jetpacks NEVER set right for me EVER.

All these posts...and no one remembers metal Ghazghkul?

Nightmares, man. Nightmares. @_@

Actually he's not that bad, though his bloody horns tend to break off..

Another real pig, for me at least, was the old metal and plastic chaos pred...

 marv335 wrote:
Penitent engine was easy, I've got three of them kicking about somewhere.

Agreed, I have 4 and I have managed to build them without pinning them. A little green stuff helps a lot.

The old metal Skorne battle box. Holy crap that was entertaining. The metal gladiator and cyclops were pains in the arse!!!!!

Metal Bloodthirster...

It just... won't... STAY... TOGETHER....

As much as I love the Red Terror, he's a serious pain in the butt to build. his 4 giant scything talons are metal and heavy, the waist didn't fit right, and the tail he sits on is 3 pieces that attach very awkwardly. more often than not I ended up gluing the tail pieces or one of his scything talons to my finger instead of actually on the model.

On the plus side, for a short time I was able to reroll 1's to hit in close combat...

I must have broke six of my Necron warriors during construction. their arms are so freaking fragile.

My vote goes to the old Chaos Dread in metal.....That and the FW Incarnate elemental of fire made me weep to no end

Anything in metal .

 Peregrine wrote:
Anything finecast, because you will always have to re-sculpt half the model.

Gotta be the thunderfire cannon. That thing broke me.

The vampire lord on zombie dragon had me cursing to all the gods! The arms and sockets have to be perfect or it all falls apart, having managed to build it once it then collapsed on me and pretty much put me off of VC all together,

Eissel wrote:
All these posts...and no one remembers metal Ghazghkul?

Nightmares, man. Nightmares. @_@

That big metal behemoth is the best thing in metal I ever built. The notches held the arms easy and the legs to torso as well. Grabbed a second metal one when they were phased out to convert into a mega armored warboss. Even for metal, It was an easy process.