Well, got some more work done on my 3 Blight Drones. These are beautiful models (beautifully rotten, gross, and decayed that is – Papa Nurgle would be proud). The one thing to keep in mind is that even though they are gorgeous models, they’re a little tricky to assemble. Not the worst I’ve ever seen (I’m looking at you, pewter Tyranid Zoanthrope), but a little tricky. I’ll go into some of the gotchas below.
The 3 blight drones I have on my work bench getting some attention. At this point the majority of the pieces have been assembled. Lots of flash clean-up on these guys and whatnot. I’ve found that almost every part needs to be pinned – the back of the body to the front, the two gun pieces to the very front channel, and the rotors to the main body, all needed to be pinned. The hoses from the rotors to the body I did not pin, as they are a bit fiddly. I just used a small blob of green stuff on the rotor part to fix the tube, then as I slid the rotor part onto the main body (again, with a pin), the tube had to be repositioned to find it’s mated hole on the body.
The smaller set of guns is particularly fiddly. I found that the smaller gun parts actually broke in the bag or broke during cleaning. The good news is that this is easily fixed with pinning, or replacing the rod on the lower gun with a simple paper clip as pin. I’ll use green stuff to add the end piece to the rod after the whole thing’s assembled. Pay very close attention to the tubes along the body – haven’t decided if I’m going to try to remove all the flash between the tube and the bodies – I’ve already sliced off a few smaller, fiddlier tubes in the process of cleaning out flash. In these cases, I plan on using 0.042″ guitar string to “replace” the more delicate tubing.
And (my first!) YouTube video of these guys, assembled on my work bench:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp2iGObB-a4&feature=youtu.be
Looks cool, Gerg! The difficulty in assembling is something I’ve experienced from FW as well, especially on the larger models (the wings on the Avenger were an absolute bitch on one side).
You’re probably right. All the larger FW models I’ve had definitely had to be pinned and had fiddly, thin parts on them. The whole reason I converted my Necrosius Sorcerer model was because his force halberd was so thin and fragile I didn’t want it breaking on me. I think with the incredible details and fine parts you get with FW (and thus incredible looking models) you pay a premium, that being fragility. Being in resin doesn’t help either, but if the part has any thickness to it you’re going to be just fine.
Ya, FW is definetly fiddly (I busted a pulse laser on an Eldar hornet this morning trying to wo0rk it into shape), and I think FW considers anyone buying their kits to have a more advanced skill set. Personally, I’ve had the worst trouble with Eldar gun barrels (being long and narrow). I had a bugger of a time painting my FW inquisitor because they put so much scrolling onto him. Nice model, but my eye could barely even discern where to paint!