Reviewing and converting Chaos Bikers

Kit review

Disappointingly boring. Given their very specific weapon options in the codex, I expected all that to be in the box. Instead, there are 3 identical sprues to build the 3 bikers. This means they will all have the same chest, backpack, front plate, and a choice of two heads. If you assemble yours, make sure to mix it up using any other chaos marines kit, or at least that's what I did. You also need to do that for the weapons.

Conversion & magnetization

I assembled the champion first, using only options from the kit. I also glued in his bike combi bolters, as he cannot replace them. I also needed to see where they fit, as the instructions are lackluster.

Rubric Marines kit review

I know the kit isn't new... but it is new to me.

Review: Mantic plastic models

With the weather turning cold, I couldn't spray prime any more models, so I turned to assembling instead.

The first batch was a heap of undead from Mantic. I don't remember when and where did I get them, but most likely for DnD. Too bad that the party is already level 6... but that never stopped a cool model to be used :D

Assembly: 9/10. Most pieces are easy to cut off the sprue, except the legs that have bases attached. I had to break out a heavy-duty cutter as the snippers did not fit between the base and sprue. Mold lines were easy to get rid of, and most of them were aligned to breaks in the armor anyway.

Poseability: 7/10. I don't know if that's how they come out of the box, but I got 10 ghouls and 10 zombies, each as a set of duplicated sprues of 2 models each. This would normally mean a very limited set of poses. However, the legs and torsos are separate pieces, and can be easily rotated for some sick contorsions. The ghouls have an interesting way of assembly, with the arms having grasping hands, but additional hand options available. I chopped off a few hands and glued on other weapon options, which was easy to do.

The zombies have a cool thing in that, if you assemble the models with regular legs and torsos, you get 10 models. However, there are additional pieces where a torso would burst out of the ground, and torso replacements that are just a piece of spinal chord jutting out. By using all of them, I got some additional models.

The skeletons are also very fun to assemble. Again, legs and torsos are separate pieces, although the legs are copy-pasted, with only a couple of variants on the 10-man sprue. Some torsos are set, with arms and head already in place, but others are missing right arms or heads. I, of course, took the chance to put on the most characterful heads - a raven picking at leftovers, an axe embedded in the skull.

Miscellaneous: 10/10. We have a solid amount of bits left. The ghouls have a lot of weapon options, both right- and left-handed, including this fantasy power glove thingy. There are also some pockets filled with body parts that I couldn't fit anywhere on the models, but I already have an idea for them.

The skeletons leave lots of leftover swords and spears. As I mounted the most chipped swords and broken spears on the models, I can use the remainder for any fantasy miniatures. Also there's this sick skeletal rat, for which, again, I already have an idea in mind.

Overall: another solid 5/7.

Blue Horrors finished - review time!

Finally, the two entire boxes of Blue & Brimstone Horrors are finished. I haven't done large squads end-to-end in some time, and this was an excellent reminder of the ups and downs of assembly line painting. Doing this saves a lot of paint (especially when painting smaller details such as dagger blades), but boy is it a chore to do Glorious Gold on 20 Blue Horrors.

Anyway, working with these kits inspired a little rant. Here's my rating.

Miniature size: 10/10. I don't apreciate GW's miniature scale creeping ever upwards. Knight Titans are fine, but Greater Daemons don't need to be that size. (Especially if their stats are nowhere near. Want huge daemons? Make them worth it. Make them Lord of Wars. Something.) Primaris Marines are fine on 32mm bases, but why on earth would regular marines and lesser daemons need larger bases?! And why, oh why, do regular Plague Marines, who are still 1 wound models, need to be twice the size of the old kits? Given the above, I was very pleasantly surprized that Blue Horror miniatures, and especially Brimstones, are exactly that - miniatures. They're teeny-tiny daemons. Awesome. Love it.

Pink Horror and Malignant Plaguecaster for scale:

Poses & poseability: 4/10. Brimstones aren't even multipart. The two little guys on a base are a single piece of plastic. I at least expected Blue Horrors to feel like the Pink Horror kit, with interchangeable heads and arms with extra options. But no. Now, they do have a lot more dynamic poses, so I see how that requires a trade-off. And we already get 20 miniatures in a box, so there might not be room for extra parts. Still, it was very strange to cut the pieces off the sprues, then trying to randomly fit them together, only to fail and resort to the actual assembly guide, to discover that several models are effectively mono-pose. I tried to diverge from the assembly guide wherever possible, resulting in several weird poses. Oh well.

Mono-pose blue horrors:

Painting: 8/10. Brimstones were very fun to paint. They are effectively a single surface, with just some eyes and teeth for details, leaving plenty of room for gradients. Blue Horrors are more traditional, in that they have more details other than skin. In fact, they have way too many details cramped unto those tiny models, sometimes resulting in missteps and corrections.

With the saltiness of the assembly and golden jewels rapidly fading, I can honestly say that I liked this kit and give it a solid 5/7.