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I have been assembling marines for a while now but I cannot glue the arms right to save my life on my tactical squads. They either come out looking really funny with a huge gap between the shoulder and chest piece, or their left arm that holds the boltgun ends holding the clip of the boltgun. How the heck does GW do it so well? help please!!

It does suck, but try a big ball of blue tack. Stick the marine torso in the middle of the blue tack so you've got a bunch of the tack all around the torso. Then you can dry-fit the arms using the blue tack to stabilize the position. Once happy with the position, glue one of the arms and let it set completely before gluing the other. Heck once you've got the arms positioned in the blue tack you could probably glue the bolter into position on both hands, let that cure, then you're set to attach both arms to the torso. If you're not sure what blue tack is... it's this stuff

Like JWMarines suggests, it's all about assembly order. You generally want pieces with the most positioning choices and the most impact on the final model glued last so you can precisely adjust them to fit the parts you have less control over. I don't qualify as an expert, but here's what I do...

1) Glue the legs to the base (no choices there!).
2) Blutac the torso onto the base and the head onto the torso at some reasonable angles. Blutac the arms onto the torso and the bolter onto the arms.
3) At this point you've got a gooey, fragile mess. But with a light touch you can fiddle with the parts to see what poses make sense. If you don't like the way it looks, try a different pair of arms. Once you're happy, take note of how the right (gun) arm is oriented with respect to the torso.
4) Take off the bolter and glue the right arm in place. If it's easier, detach the torso from the legs to do this.
5) Reattach the bolter with blutac and glue the left arm in place. Try to make sure the blutac is as thin as possible so that the bolter's alignment will be correct later. (I prime and paint the bolter separately to get better access to the chest, then attach it when I'm almost done painting. If you don't care about that, then glue on the bolter before you glue the left arm.)
6) Glue the torso to the legs.
7) (I also do the backpack and shoulder pads separately. If you want them included with the rest, glue on the backpack and then the pads.)
8) Glue the head to the torso.

it's a pain in the ass. if you think tactical squads are bad never try grey knights.

crossbody pieces can be very unforgiving.

one major thing the others might have missed. use the parts that are designed to go together, if you try fitting two of the wrong arms they will NEVER go together properly.

yes, we need to look at the instructions unfortunetly. and dont clip all of your bits off into a giant big pile cause you will be pretty much royally screwed if you do that.

If you have the arms clipped off already there are 3 separate sets one has rectangles on the forearm guards another has 2 circle And I believe the third has nothing. You need to match them together correctly to get them to fit. Also after the arms are glued on do not glue the gun in place until after you are done painting so that you can paint behind it.

kb305 wrote:
it's a pain in the ass. if you think tactical squads are bad never try grey knights.

crossbody pieces can be very unforgiving.

Don't remind me... I thought psycannons were a paint, and then I started making my halberds... never again. Falchions for the rest of my life.

For tactical marines, I've always had luck putting the right arm on first, and then I normally have enough leeway with the left one to make it work well enough.

Jeff Newton has the right of it. Many people miss the fact that there are specific sets of arms that are meant to go together. If you keep the sets intact, they will line up perfectly.

kb305 wrote:
it's a pain in the ass. if you think tactical squads are bad never try grey knights.

crossbody pieces can be very unforgiving.

one major thing the others might have missed. use the parts that are designed to go together, if you try fitting two of the wrong arms they will NEVER go together properly.

yes, we need to look at the instructions unfortunetly. and dont clip all of your bits off into a giant big pile cause you will be pretty much royally screwed if you do that.

Your point about using the right sets of parts is key here. What I do is clip both arms off together and keep them attached to the piece of sprue that connects them. Then when you go to assemble a dude you have a set of arms that goes together guaranteed, you just need to clip and clean the arms then assemble.

Three arm combinations. 'Two holes' which gives a pose with the weapon pointed up slightly. 'Three lines' which gives a pose with the weapon pointing sideways and 'zigzag', which is like 'three lines' except that the weapon is held out from the body more.

Remove pistol grip from bolter.
Glue torso halves together.
Once dry file or cut off flashing so that area where arms attach are flat.
Attach torso to legs, mainly because they're convenient to hold.
Making sure you have a matching set of arms, attach the right arm.
Before the glue sets place the bolter on the right arm to check it's pointing where you want it and adjust position of arm if you need to. You might want to carefully hold the left arm in position to check the fit though this shouldn't be necessary.
When glue is set pick up left arm and attach.
Before glue sets place bolter over both arms and move left arm until a good fit results.
If you are using superglue then you will need to put the bolter into the left arm first and hold it in place with blu-tac or your fingers while you attach the arm as you want have time to wiggle it around later before the glue sets.
These steps all assume that the bolter will be added after the main body of the marine has been painted as it's easier to paint the chest and back of the bolter when the bolter is still separate..
The bolter or other weapon can be glued on at any stage if you're not worried about painting behind the bolter.
Gluing it to the right hand after attaching the right arm is one way. Just check before the glue dries that it will fit into the left hand when the left arm is later glued in place.