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How do!

A repository thread for your thoughts on given kits. A chance to discuss our experiences and perhaps pass on tips relating to the kits.

Astartes Spartans

Really nice kit with the unit’s full suite of options. Extra bonus points for that including four Pintel Mounted Multi-Meltas that can be used for Rhinos.

Downside is some of the sponson weapon bits are super fragile. Now of course working in this scale fragile comes with the territory. But exacerbating things is the tips of the barrels have a flow channel. If you use clippers carelessly like I first did? You’ll bend the barrel and probably break it. So here, better to use a fresh blade on your hobby knife to free that piece from the sprue.

Astartes Legion Support

Lots of bits to the Dreadnoughts. I didn’t find them too fiddly to assemble thankfully. But, I think if they’d reduced those bits, they probably could’ve squeezed in weapon options for the Rapiers at least. But they didn’t. And at least once you’re finished assembly, you’ve a completely empty sprue. It’s an odd consolation where I’d have preferred options, but at least I’m not left with extra Dreadnought legs, I guess.

I managea to cut barrels fine but start with barrel, not main part. I have found that work on these.

Be super careful of these on support boxes. Spartans barrel or two lost wouldn't have been issue as i don't spam same anyway. Support you don't have spares.

Leviathan legs i had no trouble. Deredeos settling legs on pose was funny enough hardest step for me on all 4 boxes.

Sa support last stint on rapiers got mixed up tracks of rapiers. Had fun time figuring out which was which side lol. 3 box of support in 1 go rough. Was all boggley eye at the end

Deredeo legs were an odd one. I got them right first time, but it really didn’t feel like I got them right.

I’d recommend getting them on the base as soon as possible. Then let your glue set, because you need a bit of pressure to mount the Deredeo torso on its legs.

Tarantulas are an absolute doddle, especially the Lascannon ones.

Rapiers confused me, because I had the tracks backwards.

Couldn't put to base fast since they need painted separately. Different primer colour(black base, white models) and the way i paint bases involve lotsa drybrushing. Too messy with model in it.

But assembled more stuff while waiting legs to settle to allow push.

Made "screwup" gluing torsos to legs before noticing torsos are weapon specific so now all weapons have same leg pose. Bleargh. Well did follow instructions but now attack of clones...

Leviathans split even

Put you dreads legs on a piece of doublesided tape on top a popstickle.

I'm now getting around to my Drop Pods. OMG there are so many parts. One sprue might not seem like a lot, but I bought two boxes and clipping & cleaning four sprues (40 doors and 40 structure panels) worth is a serious chore.

I still need to decide how many regular pods to make and how many to build with the deathwind missiles.

Sure, I'll bite.

Land Raider Proteus kit: Absolutely hated the way they put those sprue gates on the side hull pieces. Very challenging to clean up between those track links due to their concaved shape. Also, care must be taken when guing the lascannon sponsons together, capillary based glue such as Mr Hobby SP eats through to your finger and spoils the plastic surface if you are not very careful with your finger positioning.

Drop Pods - Fantastic kit. I feel like a watchmaker putting those tiny things together. The central gubbins need thorrough cleaning in order to build completely flush. Caution when clipping the pod doors though!

Astartes Support - I hate the fact that there are no weapon spares for Deredeos nor Leviathans. Deredeo Torsos look the same on first glance but are actually different ones for the Plasmas/ACs. The Rapier has one nasty sprue gate which is a PITA to clean properly, positioned centrally in the bottom plate front arc. Same deal as with the LRP track link gates, my cleaning tools didnt seem to fit anywhere..

Astartes infantry - Not a fan how they Missile Launchers are supposed to assemble, very fiddly trying to get them launchers to sit in the tiny keys of those models

Rhinos and Predators - not a fan of the side armour pieces cutting. The end result looks easily seamy and might require filling, or you run the risk of glue spillage, usually one or the other.

All in all, I find LI kits to be much more challenging to build properly than 28mil stuff. I usually make at lest one build mistake for evey new model.. Almost feels like frying pancakes, you know, the first couple pancakes from the pan end up kind of meh, you only get those perfect ones at the very end when you've already fried several of em

Still there is something very satisfying about building these epic scale minis..

With the new Legions stuff when comparing to previous Epics, I almost feel like I do when you're watching a movie version of a favourite book - rather than getting annoyed at the things that have changed, you're better off just accepting it for how it is. You then enjoy it more that way.

So it's not got simple rules, it's not abstract, the minis are multi-piece and more expensive - so the reasons the original games were such a success are not there. But, it's got a hell of a lot more people playing at this scale than would otherwise have even known of Epic scale's existence, and that can only be a good thing.

I’m intrigued to see the Sprues for the Legion Fast Attack. Used to be the Landspeeders were two pieces (main hull, engine block) and the Bikers were a single piece.

Given we get a fair amount of playing pieces out of this kit, I’m hopeful they won’t be overly fiddly. But given at least some of the Bike and Jetbike riders have close combat weapons sticking out to the side (perpendicular I think?) I suspect at least two or three pieces each.

Also it’s not clear if the light speeders have weapon options or not.

Looking forward to the Fast Attack box... but whoever decided that Leviathan dreadnought legs should be in 3 pieces per leg needs taking out and shot.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Looking forward to the Fast Attack box... but whoever decided that Leviathan dreadnought legs should be in 3 pieces per leg needs taking out and shot.

Addendum - over squeezing in weapon options for the Rapier Carriers.

I have to say the Leman Russ tanks is far and away the best kit I've assembled so far. Low piece count, good tooling with few mould lines. No complaints.

The worst one by far is the SA support box with the turrets and batteries. Too many pieces for minis I generally care very little about.

May do a full breakdown of the SA kits as I've gotten most of them.

Put together a squad of Kratos tanks yesterday, found them an absolute joy to work on.

My only single gripe is that I wish they’d provided spare turrets like with the other SM tanks that would have allowed me to build both load outs. Was a pretty packed sprue in fairness though.

I’ve found the main guns sit in the turrets quite nicely, with enough grip that they don’t easily fall out.

Yeah I did consider leaving them loose. In the end I glued them though and went for 2 battle cannons, with las cannon secondary weapons, and 2 melts cannons with heavy bolter secondary weapons. That was I can zip them up into range to do damage and mitigate the chances they get charged.

Woo! Got my Legion Fast Attack!

Models look to be nice, straightforward builds. But? It comes with two sizes of base…and hasn’t really explained which unit goes on which.

Seems the Bikes and Jetbikes go on the bigger ones.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Woo! Got my Legion Fast Attack!

Models look to be nice, straightforward builds. But? It comes with two sizes of base…and hasn’t really explained which unit goes on which.

Seems the Bikes and Jetbikes go on the bigger ones.

Judging by the pictures on the gw site, its bikes/jetbikes on 32mm and speeders on 25mm.

Yeah, went with that and it feels about right. The Outriders would feel super crammed in on the 25mm.




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Anyways. First impressions time!

A very nice kit. Nothing is overly fiddly, and the riders sit on their respective bikes quite nicely.

Best of all? The Outrider Bikes have fully sculpted, round wheels. They glued down just fine, and one should be able to have them doing Wheelies and Stoppies if that’s your jam.

Glued everything to bases in the end, as I’m not sure I can be arsed with painting sticks etc.

The landspeeder and javelings are on 25 the bikes and jetbikes on 32mm, thinking on puting only 2 bikes on the base. those are some fine modek the landspeeder is not my cup of thee.

You could easily get away with two bikes to a base.

But…based on available Detachments, there may not be much point.

An Outrider squadron caps out at 6 bases. And so far, only three Detachments allow us to field Outriders, with only one Vanguard slot in each.

Of course, that changes if you’re only buying a single box, where the 12 models can be stretched to 6 bases.

Started putting my fast attack box together today, lovely models, and go together really easily.

They forgot to put bases in my box though, so they’re sending out another set! GW customer service is bloody great I have to say.

Thinking of painting them all up as White Scars and always fielding them as a separate formation to my blood angels. Not sure yet though.

Putting together the Marine Support box and although the finished articles look lovely, thought the Leviathan Dreadnoughts were not a good design. The two body halves don't fit flush, needing some scraping and sanding to get them to line up. And why the legs in three pieces (which again took some work to get a clean finish), when the Deredeo legs on the sprue are single piece?
It's like the needless complexity and bloat of the game has spread out from the rulebook and into the kits

Paying £30 for a box, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a production quality of a Tamiya kit costing half the amount.

Xiphons assembled. Not a new kit of course, but new to me.

Not at all fiddly, and nicely engineered so you can’t put the wrong part in the wrong place easily. Also a completely clean sprue once assembled, which is oddly pleasing.

Pound for point, a pretty efficient boxed set!)

Aye, the Aeronautica era kits were all gorgeous to build. Very little clean up at all.

I built some Arvus Lighters semi-recently. Lovely kit to throw together.

Didn’t finish painting them yesterday, as when it was metallics o’clock when a migraine struck. And it’s bloody difficult to paint when there’s a chunk of your vision missing.

Put together some of the Land Raiders and they are a nice little kit, perhaps too many bits but the end result if very good.

One issue is with the instructions, which are all over the place. Mis-numbering for a number of the pieces once you have put the hull together, and even an entire additional step that you don't need to do (they must have changed the design and decided the front track wheel should be cast with the hull side piece). Fortunately the kit is straightforward, and having made other tanks you could work out which side to fit which gun cupola etc. I did wonder whether I should bother writing to them to let them know so it can be corrected before their next production run?

Sounds like it was originally an adaptation of the Spartan kit, as that has the front wheel as separate pieces - presumably to allow some design space for the Cerberus and Typhon?


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Fire Raptor!

As with all the AI originating kits I’ve built, a pleasure to work with. Perhaps a smidge over designed, there’s at least nothing too fiddly, and goes together very nicely.

I’m particularly impressed that the ball turrets just sort of…sit in their sockets. Snuggly enough that careful in-game handling shouldn’t see them fall out, with minimal risk of breaking barrels when you want to take them out.

I had some mates that added magnets into those sockets and they've worked out really nicely if you are insane enough to work with magnets at this scale.

I've magnetised the turrets on my Kratos tanks, but yes indeed doing it for sponsors is a little crazy The guys I play with don't do WYSIWYG for the tank loadouts and just state armaments before the game, but I know of people that do and so being able to tailor your army and swap between loadouts (at least for the side sponsors) does make sense in that respect.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sounds like it was originally an adaptation of the Spartan kit, as that has the front wheel as separate pieces - presumably to allow some design space for the Cerberus and Typhon?

That might be, but not a standard you expect from GW. I've been making plastic kits in some form or another for probably about 30 years now and don't think I have ever come across mistakes like that, and that's including throwaway £5 Matchbox and Airfix stuff..

Just finished prepping the content of the starter box to paint over lunch.

Overall, I am very impressed. The last time I built anything Warhammer related at this scale was Epic 40K... Wow how thinks have moved on.

Some comments though.
- I feel that with the posing of some of the space marine tac troops, they could have pulled the bolter closer to the body to avoid the large infill between the bolter and body on some of them. The Auxilia handled this way better.
- I wish that GW would embrace the fact that people would like to magnetize. I have magnetized all of the Warhounds weapons, but it was not straight forward.
- On the infantry. They did a great job at having the gates attach to the bottom of the mini which allows me to paint on the sprue. It would have been even better if the minies were organized on the sprue in squads. I get that there is sprue packing software involved in the layout, but it would just be a nice 'ease of life' kind of thing if someone had juggled things around a little.
- Why do all the tanks allow for all the turret options except the Lemun Russ

Very impressive though.