I have had the joy of building these things over the weekend. I must say that the detail and workmanship (at least the ones that I got) are really good. You still have all of the wonderful things to do like snip them from the sprues and file the flash. Nothing new here.
Hive Guard
SIX metal parts and one medium sized 40mm base
Pretty well thought out design and fit without any problems. In fact, this was a breeze to put together. One side of the leg assembly supports most of the model and made it easy to glue together. It’s big and heavy but should pose no monumental problem for transport.
In summary: a heavy fig, kinda big, great detail, well designed, but a tad on the expensive side at $20 blister.
Pyrovore
SEVEN metal parts and one large sized 60mm base.
The fig from this box is well detailed and designed. After filing the flash and such, the parts fit just fine. The two hind legs fit to the body while the front to large legs give the fig great stability. The tail was kind of difficult to put into place but that may have been due to me gluing the fig on the base already.
To sum it up: Heavy, large, metal model. Well designed and detailed. At over $30, how bad do you need it?
Venomthrope
NINE metal parts and one medium sized 40mm base. Wow, where to start? It is about the height of a carnifex but still relatively small. Once you get it to stand up you need to figure out just how you want the tentacles to look. Being metal the bend quite easily. This is the detail part that I like over this already good-looking fig (in Tyranid terms anyway). It would be easy for a medium skilled modeler to wrap one of these appendages around some poor hapless guardsman for an awesome effect. You would probably want to use pins if you tried that, as these things are difficult to keep on the fig. The tentacles are so long that they are a heavy weight to keep up. I didn’t pin the arms but bent them in a way that makes the load easier to deal with. The two little hip protrusions are kind of a pain to glue in place but nothing real bad.
Summary: Detail is good and has plenty of potential for conversions and such. Unless pinned, the arms are most likely going to come off in transport. Good luck finding something to transport this thing in. I like the fig and knowing what an advantage having this in the army makes the $20 price palatable.
Now I gotta break open this box of Raveners
