Chaos Warp Talons Assemble!

Moratorium on purchasing any more 40K minis notwithstanding, a friend of mine brought me a shwanky new box of Chaos Space Marine Raptors for my birthday, a truly generous gift. So I busted the box open yesterday and here is what I found...

I told myself some time ago that I was going to put a moratorium on buying new Games Workshop minis and I've since stuck to it. I haven't been playing 40K lately as I've been focused on my role-playing ventures. I also balked at the $75 price tag for the 6th edition rule book. I'm not going to pontificate about that, I promise.

But here I was with a box of five plastic Chaos Space Marines which could be assembled as raptors or warp talons. Looking over the sprues I could see that these models were typical of the new plastics coming out of GW in the last couple years. The level of detail in the sculpts is excellent really and in my opinion some of the best in the business. All the parts are more Chaos-y than ever with spikes, horns, and other sharp things sticking out all over the place. The effect makes the models look quite menacing as opposed to cartoonish. The bodies come with legs attached in various comic-book action poses. They each also include a little bit of scenery molded to one foot to attach them to their base and still look like they are flying. Someone who wanted to remove that to put the models on some sort of flying base would not have much trouble getting the bits of scenery off.

I was also pleased to note that there were enough parts to assemble the models any way that the army book would let you field them. I remember the bad old days when if you wanted all your Khorne Berserkers to have chain axes (a legal option in the rules) you were out of luck. The box came with twelve berserkers but only six chain axes. Those days are gone, thankfully. Having all the options in the box also means that once you're done assembling, you'll have a fair sized pile of parts left over which you can save for other projects.

Looking over the new CSM codex I decided that I wanted to assemble my guys as Warp Talons. Five angry guys with lightning claws, jet packs, and the mark of the blood god? Yes please. According to the book, warp talons have clawed feet while raptors do not. Color me surprised when I looked at the sprue and found the models had separate little toe pieces so you could differentiate. The warp talons also have some sort of weird flangy thing on their jet packs. Those were included too as little add-on parts. The models went together very well. The parts fit nicely with minimal gaps.
Once I was done assembling, I had a pile of shooty arms, close combat weapons, assorted pistols and assault weapons, and extra heads left over. These parts looked quite compatible with other chaos space marine kits so they went in the pile of conversion parts.

My only gripe, and this really is my only one, is there didn't seem to be too many special parts to differentiate the unit champion from the rank and file. All the new chaos stuff is so ornate and spiky that the old approach of just adding more spikes and decor doesn't really work. There were a couple heads that were less ornate than the others which I suppose would work but I didn't like those. I could differentiate the champ with the paint job which is likely what I will do.

But that's another article. Happy painting!