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Being used to large models like Crisis Suits, marines of all kinds, big, moose-sized Obliterators and various tanks, I find myself intimidated by the little delicate vixens that are the wyche models. AoBR and BfM marines are good starters for us with meat hook fingers and low dexterity. I figure a ton of folks must be stumbling into little mistakes;

"Oh, I shoulda clipped it from this side ..."
and
*snap* "Gosh-darn-it! ... I guess this'll be a one-legged wyche"

... kinds of revelations.

Care to share? Anything I can learn to *not* mangle my fresh box of wyches and their raider would be great.

And I plan to use the razorflail upgrade, as tempting as the hydra-gs look ....

Don't clip so close to the parts. Leave a little stub of sprue on them and clean up with a hobby knife.
Get a cutting mat if you don't have one.

Go slow. Patience is a virtue here. Rush it and you'd be better off just flushing your money down the crapper.

If you have made kroot before, you should be fine. Just be careful and look for a natural place to clip the plastic. For bodies, places like the hips, lower torsos, and where you glue the arms to the bodies are all good places to clip fragile things from the spurce.

Biggest suggestion I can give for any DE units is to make sure you clip off of the sprue so there is a little extra plastic on the pieces. Use a hobby/exacto knife and carefully then scrape off the extra left on the bit. First box of Warriors I attempted to cut close, was a much bigger pain.

Also, I would actually recommend having a pair of tweasers handy when doing the Raider. The spikes on the hull actually have to be applied individually, and its a nightmare even for those of us with smaller fingers and decent dexterity to apply.

The only real problem I had with wyches were the pauldrons that are attached to the front torsos bitz.

They're very thin so they bend and break easily; disconnect the pauldron after you cut all the other parts attached to the chest bit.

I have one pauldronless wych, but she came out fine thankfully.

asimo77 wrote:The only real problem I had with wyches were the pauldrons that are attached to the front torsos bitz.

This is the left shoulder-pad? I agree it is really thin and it was my main first concern ...

asimo77 wrote:They're very thin so they bend and break easily; disconnect the pauldron after you cut all the other parts attached to the chest bit.

I have one pauldronless wych, but she came out fine thankfully.

Remove it or cut it last as I remove the torso bit from the sprue? Could you elaborate?

Ok this might be a bit hard to explain:

The torso piece is attached to the sprue on three places: One by the pauldron, one on the side (where you glue the arms), and one on the bottom where the ball joint is.

Cut the attachment at the ball joint and side first, then go for the pauldron. This makes it easier to avoid bending or breaking the pauldron.

You could also go for the pauldron attachment second, whatever works for you. I find that if you attempt to remove the chest by starting with the pauldron it usually bends.

Hopefully that was more clear.

Don't clip at all, just cut things with a hobby knife and clean up the mess. If you do come upon a piece that you've broken all you have to do is green stuff over the mess.^^

Wyrmalla wrote:Don't clip at all, just cut things with a hobby knife and clean up the mess. If you do come upon a piece that you've broken all you have to do is green stuff over the mess.^^

Yeah green stuff is very handy. In essence with some glue and green stuff you can repair just about anything. Use a knife to remove the bits from the sprue but I always use a nail clipper to get rid of excess plastic afterwards. The nail clipper is suprisingly the most useful tool in my arsenal.

The girls are assembled, with only two pauldrons getting slightly damaged; their pointy-tips are a little blunted.

Wyrmalla wrote:Don't clip at all, just cut things with a hobby knife and clean up the mess. If you do come upon a piece that you've broken all you have to do is green stuff over the mess.^^

Good advice, Wyrmalla. The hobby knife did work best.

I'd definitely say though, that using the hobby knife on the pauldrons *first* prevented bending, not second as suggested here:

asimo77 wrote:They're very thin so they bend and break easily; disconnect the pauldron after you cut all the other parts attached to the chest bit.

By cutting it last, the weight of the torso is now bearing on the pauldron and those were the two that got messed up.

So, I switched to cutting it first. This took any weight and ... tortion (if that's the right word) off of it. The rest of the pauldrons turned out fine. Once not tied to the sprue, it didn't matter if I clipped the round bottom and right armpit.

other items:

1. On the delicate CCW knives I didn't just cut straight down: sprue flat on the cutting-board knife downward, but instead laterally, tracing along the knife's blade, from the tip toward the hilt, with a minimum of scraping after. *Very* slow and careful.
2. Their slots are too narrow for the 'slotta bases'; not a big deal to get around (just gotta hold the leg in place 'til the glue settled) but I'm wondering if this a new trend. I haven't bought any new slotted models in ... at least a year.

And lastly a matter of aesthetic opinion: Are their long neck collars supposed to be protection from decapitation? Or just current fashion?

I usually just try to hack the wyches out of the sprue with the hobby knife
and wittle the leftover sprue off the model.
its worked quite well

Brothererekose wrote:The girls are assembled, with only two pauldrons getting slightly damaged; their pointy-tips are a little blunted.

Wyrmalla wrote:Don't clip at all, just cut things with a hobby knife and clean up the mess. If you do come upon a piece that you've broken all you have to do is green stuff over the mess.^^

Good advice, Wyrmalla. The hobby knife did work best.

I'd definitely say though, that using the hobby knife on the pauldrons *first* prevented bending, not second as suggested here:

asimo77 wrote:They're very thin so they bend and break easily; disconnect the pauldron after you cut all the other parts attached to the chest bit.

By cutting it last, the weight of the torso is now bearing on the pauldron and those were the two that got messed up.

So, I switched to cutting it first. This took any weight and ... tortion (if that's the right word) off of it. The rest of the pauldrons turned out fine. Once not tied to the sprue, it didn't matter if I clipped the round bottom and right armpit.

other items:

1. On the delicate CCW knives I didn't just cut straight down: sprue flat on the cutting-board knife downward, but instead laterally, tracing along the knife's blade, from the tip toward the hilt, with a minimum of scraping after. *Very* slow and careful.
2. Their slots are too narrow for the 'slotta bases'; not a big deal to get around (just gotta hold the leg in place 'til the glue settled) but I'm wondering if this a new trend. I haven't bought any new slotted models in ... at least a year.

And lastly a matter of aesthetic opinion: Are their long neck collars supposed to be protection from decapitation? Or just current fashion?

Hmm, that's interesting. I only have one messed up pauldron and it's because I tried cutting that first. The rest of the time I went for the pauldron second or third. I guess it comes down to what you personally feel comfortable with.

What I do with delicate models is that I neither clip nor cut the out of the sprue, as both methods can place stress on the parts. Instead, I take my miniature saw and saw them off, which lets me work much gentler. And since I have a very fine knife-type sawblade, it fits where clippers can never go.