Difficulty of 40K model kits?

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**SneakyTheDragon**

Today I received my "Start Collecting" box of Necrons. The infantry and scarabs were quite easy to assemble. (Except matching up the arms to guns on the warriors. x.x ) However, the Triarch Stalker was such a pain to put together. It felt like some of the instructions for putting the cockpit and pilot together were in reverse order. I struggled to get the pilot in his seat and then attach the seat to the cockpit. Finally when the seat fell out entirely, I just glued the pilot to it and slid the seat into the cockpit. 100% easier.

I also managed to glue a couple of small pieces to my fingers. It feels like these kits are made for people with fingers more deft than mine.

Are all of the vehicle kits hard to put together? Or was this just a special case? For example the Monolith looks fairly simple, but the Ghost Ark looks complicated as heck. Anyone have experience with these?

**Galas**

Sister of Silence. I'm incapable of gluing the arm to the blade without ruining the fingers of the model with glue. They are so small and slender!

Some kits are harder to assemble than others. Orks, Dwarfs, Space Marines, etc... they all are really easy.

If you have problem with Necrons don't try to put together a Skitarii Dragoon. Thats vietnam.

**ncshooter426**

Marine stuff = easy.
Dark eldar = masochist mode.

Most models are on the easier spectrum, some models just need a bit of anger, glue and a heat gun. Always follow your gut - if
something just won't go together right, try it a different way. Sometimes instructions are wrong.

**Retrogamer0001**

Land Raider kit is a nightmare if everything isn't perfectly aligned - the top part of the hull won't sit right if anything is even a millimeter off. Stormraven is similar.

**mew28**

Imperial knight was the hardest model I put together. The one part for the leg called for the wronge part number I spent a good 20 min trying to make it fit.

**BrianDavion**

the defiler was my bane, hated that model, I was almost relived that it was a complete peice of crap in 6th and 7th so I had no temptation to buy one

**attackdrone**

ncshooter426 wrote:
Dark eldar = masochist mode.

I definitely draw more blood with my Dark Eldar pointy bits than my exacto knife during assembly, and I wouldn't have it any other way!

**NivlacSupreme**

Custodes don't even have instructions for one of the guardian spears.

**JimOnMars**

Galas wrote:
Orks, Dwarfs, Space Marines, etc... they all are really easy.

Except the Trukk. It's very easy to make the cab 1 micron too small and then nothing fits into it.

**captain bloody fists**

I'm just going to leave this here.... i've done six of these and i'm never going to do another.

**vyse.04**

If you have a problem with pieces sticking to your fingers, try plastic glue. IMO it is much cleaner and easy to work with, although you will no longer have the option to freeze and "break" parts should you decide to swap things around.

It takes a bit longer to hold, but I've found that to be a good thing when dealing with finicky things like limbs. Excess can be wiped off with a damp cotton swab, whereas super glue tends to dry with a different texture. Just make sure you go back to super glue when working with resin.

**Lord Perversor**

Just going to add the Yncarne here.

Not really hard to build but some pieces are a pain to find the right spot, or glue properly as i feel it's gonna break if i dare to breath near.

**thekerrick**

Besides the old metal Hive Tyrant, the hardest plastic model I put together ever was the Skitarii Dragoon. They have you gluing individual tubing into the legs. Its a lesson in futility. Tweezers and gel control glue got me through that. Oh I almost forgot! The D thirster axe absolutely DOES NOT FIT with the arms and its a known problem. That was a nightmare.

But yes, GW kits can get complicated and hard. The necrons are about middle of the road difficulty. Most of the older kits are easier (some exceptions) but the newer kits tend to have much more small parts. You will learn the small tricks to get through it and will get better.

Keep at it! I suggest tweezers sometimes. Always dry fit parts first as well. One thing i learned to do is shave off inside plastics. Meaning you can trim plastic down if its not a part that will be seen to make parts fit.

**Thargrim**

When it comes to plastic vehicles the plastic cement is the way to go. I will say I have found some of the more outdated kits to be a pain, like necron warriors and eldar guardians. Simply because of the excess flash, more cleaning work and stuff. I haven't done any vehicles in a while...last time I did a rhino it wasn't too hard though.

I did manage to cut myself twice building dark imperium, despite it being real easy to assemble. Tbh I was able to open the cut and look in it.

**MarsNZ**

Defiler/Soulgrinder legs were the only real headache. Most GW kits are designed so that pre-teens with deficit attention can handle them.

**ZergSmasher**

Yeah, as far as being a pain some older kits, as the poster above mentioned, are a real PITA due to mold lines and bad fits. I'm thinking of Bloodletters, Kroot Carnivores, Chaos Space Marines, Khorne Berzerkers, and the older model of Land Speeders. Thankfully the newer Speeders are much easier. The problem with the Land Raider kit is that the top hull part is often warped (known problem) so it's hard to get it to sit right. I ultimately had to settle for "good enough" with mine.

To me, most of the kits I've worked with are not too bad in difficulty, but they do take some time to put together. Like 15 minutes to put a single Space Marine, Fire Warrior, etc. together completely from clipping parts off the sprue, cleaning up mold lines, drilling out weapon barrels if necessary, and gluing the parts together. But, on the bright side, I can probably put a Rhino chassis together in my sleep.

**Slayer-Fan123**

The Triarch Stalker was a dick to put together.

**Sgt. Cortez**

Problem of some of the newer kits is that they are actually monopose but you don't see it right away. Immortals for example - all of them need a specific arm, there's no variety allowed, at least if you want the cables to fit right.

**Klowny**

Triarch stalker wasnt anywhere near as bad as a Ghost ark, I will never build one again.

**Stormonu**

If you paint any of the vehicles unassembled, it's best to scrape the paint at the joins - that extra mm or two at the joint often makes the model not fit properly.

The model that surprised me for difficulty was the Drop Pod - namely the interior. Model goes together easy enough if you model it closed, but trying to fit the 10-man interior into it leads to vises and eventually hammers to get the damn thing to all fit together.

The monolith kit isn't an overly difficult, but it's not as easy as it appears - any slight twist while gluing and the whole thing flattens itself like a pancake.

**jhe90**

SOS.

You will work to make that arm fit.
They are TINY.

Triampharate of impirium has its challenges over basic models. All the big ones so but you just gotta dry for, file, and then make sure everything just follows instructions

Also sub assembly is a handy skill to have.

**Dach**

Yeah - ghost/dday ark - try to prefit everything. If you are not attentive enough it`s easy to get wrong.
Warriors limbs - every limb goes with every gun - I don`t think I have two warriors in same pose thanks to that. That kit is kinda necron hazing.
Wait till you get lychguards/praetorians kit - if you decide for sword and shield or pistol and blade options - you will be ok with tweezers - it`s just alot of parts. But! Beware of twohanded options - go by instructions reverently - because you have 4 points to glue at the same time, and each rod goes to it`s own set of limbs. Trick there is to glue right/left limb to the rod - than it gets not much harder than a warrior.

**minisnatcher**

well I have had a nightmare with a heldrake where those wings are attached with only tiny bitz...

But all by all 40k plastic kits are easy compared to metal models where you would need pinning when it gets big, green stuff corrections, filing if it does not fit, putting weight on your base so it does not top... etc

**Purifier**

Everything in the Ad-Mech series is tiny thin mechandrites. Screw it all.

**SneakyTheDragon**

Klowny wrote:
Triarch stalker wasnt anywhere near as bad as a Ghost ark, I will never build one again.

Noooo. The Ghost Ark is one of the things I think I need. x.x

**Breng77**

I find GW minis to be pretty easy to assemble as far as miniatures go.

**SneakyTheDragon**

Dach wrote:
Yeah - ghost/dday ark - try to prefit everything. If you are not attentive enough it`s easy to get wrong.
Warriors limbs - every limb goes with every gun - I don`t think I have two warriors in same pose thanks to that. That kit is kinda necron hazing.
Wait till you get lychguards/praetorians kit - if you decide for sword and shield or pistol and blade options - you will be ok with tweezers - it`s just alot of parts. But! Beware of twohanded options - go by instructions reverently - because you have 4 points to glue at the same time, and each rod goes to it`s own set of limbs. Trick there is to glue right/left limb to the rod - than it gets not much harder than a warrior.

The warrior limbs were actually tricky since they require three different points of contact and glue on each point. I had to glue the wrist part of the gun first, then try to fit the arms into the shoulders all while maintaining three points.

The Triarch Stalker made me furious, though. Really glad it's finished.

**buddha**

Skitarii sprues we're designed by Satan himself. Small breakable parts; check. Each model has specific arm, torso, leg combo that isn't interchangeable; check. Those specific non interchangeable parts on different sprues; check.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Klowny wrote:
Triarch stalker wasnt anywhere near as bad as a Ghost ark, I will never build one again.

Gotta disagree with that. The Ark was time consuming, yeah, but the Stalker is more fiddly.

**Captain Joystick**

The rhino's top plate is supposed to fit flush with the side plates to create the impression that its got cowling over each of the four corners. In practice, the panels never, ever line up correctly.

The land raider IIRC, has the same problem, with an added bonus with its central engine block being easy to misalign and discover only much, much later.

Tau vehicles have a lot of flowing smooth surfaces that, on the kit itself, are marred by big seam lines that take a lot of work to fix. And anything they have that has a prominent vent on it has cowling around it that one's in two parts that never align either.

I've had plenty of instructions mislabel parts (dry-fit everything, kids!) but more egregious is when I've had parts left over I can't fathom what to do with. In AoS, the Kurnoth Hunters come with parts to build three in very specific poses, and four sets of scythes.

I wouldn't describe any of these kits as particularly difficult though, just troublesome. In that respect they don't hold a candle to the old metal walker kits: few parts, incredibly simple to assemble, except that hole is too small for that peg due to warping, or that giant chunk of metal is expected to sit extended with only a few mm of surface area contact, hours of drilling and pinning.