"40k: Are they all a P.I.T.A. to assemble?" Topic

I picked up a box of 40k Tau dirt cheap to use as practice minis – working on my technique and all. Just assembled my first model today. Never mind the number of parts. But getting the two arms that hold the rifle to "connect" – man what a pain. Dry fitting the parts fit individually, but when putting two arms and a torso all together, not so much.

If I were a kid and this were my first model, it sure might be my last!

Yes, they are all a royal pain to assemble!

Plastics in general suffer from poor joinery strategies. 3d printing alleviates the pose/assembly limitations plastic and pewter casting processes require. One day printing your own custom creations will be more commonplace. And no one will believe we put up with such assembly aggravations.

Wait until you find out that the model you just assembled used up the parts you need for the other poses you wanted!

Games Workshop long ago came up with the ability to create really intricate models in super dynamic poses with lots of tiny fiddly bits. The effect is stunning models and in the hands of an expert can look amazing.

But often the instructions aren't clear, the models are hard to put together, and once on the table are prone to breakage due to very fine, very intricate and very breakable bits sticking out.

They do have a very small number of easy to build models, and these days my skill level is far above when I was a teenager just slapping together a regiment of simple skeletons (way back when they shipped their very first plastic boxes in the mid-80s).

However Extra Crispy is right- for beginners, these are probably a nightmare to craft without knowledgeable instruction.

Reminds me of when I was a pre-teen and model ship and aircraft builder. I used to build those old Lindberg motorized models with the electrical motor that you had to put together. My mom inspected industrial generators for her job and when I couldn't figure out how to put it together… well, I enlisted her help. After an hour of beating our collective heads against a wall, she exclaimed 'What kind of #@&$! sells these to kids?'

You go mom! We finally figured it out, and it did work- barely. The HMS Hood made a strange noise when I started it up, but the propeller did spin. Looking back, knowing what I know now, I probably could have figured it out and got it together better, but as a kid, it was a mess.

I think of that experience when I look at modern GW kits.

link

They are getting progressively better, believe it or not!
The older Necrons were even worse, to the extent that they had separate neck pieces. They would fall apart when you so much as breathed on them. But the new Necron versions are a joy to put together, and they don't even need glue. The Space Marines that came with them the same.

How soon until the Tau get the same re-engineering is anybodies guess.

Worst had to be the Khemri Blood Bowl team. They took the plastic Khemri mummies, and then cast them in metal. 8 parts per figure. It was bad enough trying to glue plastic together, but metal? With superglue??
Whatever omodhaun came up with that should have been fired.

"It was bad enough trying to glue plastic together, but metal? With superglue??"

Epoxy.

I used to scoff at those who have difficulty in assembling plastic figures. I literally have decades of experience and had far more successes than failures. Until…

Recently a box of russians and germans were purchased from the Bolt action range of plastics. The pieces of the germans practically jumped off the sprues and assembled themselves into very individual and interesting poses. The Russians went kicking and screaming into barely acceptable collections of anatomy and equipment.

The Russians seem to pre-date the German box so the assumption is that the design of the kits were better thought out in terms of how stuff should be actually glued together. The main problem is that some parts just don't work well together, even if they were designed to. (I'm talking about YOU -arms attempting to hold weapons!!!!)

Well you can only make so much lemonade. All of the really cool poses are just what I could get away with and the mundane cookie cutter looking figures were the true successes. All of whom were testimony to the powers of extremely vile curse words.

Despite the knock out blows to the ego, I still enjoy plastic multipose figures but learned to really look at the sprue photos before forking over the cash.

No, they're not.
The difficulty may vary wildly, but I've never had one that difficult to assemble.
Not that I've never had an utterly "insanifying" plastic kit, but it's not usually "a few pieces to make a figure" but "324 components to make a tank smaller than my hand, plus photoetch".

"If I were a kid and this were my first model, it sure might be my last!" Kids need serious upgrading these days. I've read of a guy who taught his 9yo daughter to hand-solder model railway pointwork. Not wiring the points up – constructing them.

Also there are beginner GW kits available which have far smaller component counts. They're also more difficult to kustomize, but them's the breaks.

I've found GW models annoying, but I've yet to find a plastic kit manufacture that couldn't elicit that response from me with at least one aspect of their product. From my limited experience GW's kits do seem to have improved over time. Half my problems these days arise from liquid cements that seem to bond way slower than they used to.

I don't know if this a 'thing' but I have come across multi-part figures in boxed game with no instructions, but the rules did point you in the direction of the the website… I have to say I was unimpressed by this.

I only have two arms, two hands.
If a model requires that you glue two arms to a torso and then add a weapon to the open hands, it is stupidly designed. As noted, I do not have three hands, preferably 4.
Give me one piece metal any day.

Ugh, Necros and 'Nids. I learned how to drill holes for pins to make some of them work and not fall apart every time we played.