My new IG stuff has arrived, and I've been having a dig around the sprues. No pics at the moment, but I'll try to post some this evening if anyone is interested.

The Valkyrie is a nice kit, good and solid and has 4 crew - pilot and navigator (bottom half moulded into seats, torso arms and head separate), and 2 door gunners (one piece body with kneepads and heavier body armour than the cadians, separate head and arms, in standing position). The gunners were a nice surprise, wasn't expecting them as I'd seen nothing about them being included in the kit in the rumours. Heads wise I would have preferred the pilot/navigator to have similar heads to the FW kit, but the face masks are much bulkier (although you do get 3 heads, so expect plenty of spares to pop up on bits sites which would be useful for stormtroopers). The gunner heads are, imo, nicer - one with a mask+helmet (looks like the baneblade crew masked head but with the addition of a helmet), and one with no mask+helmet, these might end up as my pilot/navigator heads instead. From a glance over the parts it looks pretty close to the FW kit, although there is no seating in the passenger bay (the FW kit has one with a ceiling mounted scissor frame that can be fixed either folded up to the ceiling or lowered onto the floor).

The command squad has a lot of nice pieces, but is a little lacking in left arms - for instance, 4 of the weapons need a straight arm holding a handle (like the flamer in the cadian squad sprues) but you only get 2 of those arms. The power weapon arm is bionic, so either you'll have a lot of officers with bionics or a bit of converting to do. Most of the arms have insignia - all the special weapons have one, as does the fist and chainsword with sgt stripes. There are only 2 lasguns, 1 separate and one slung from a single shoulder, so excess weapons from the cadian troops are likely a must to flesh out squads. On the whole the parts are very nice, plenty of heads and torsos but only 5 pairs of legs to go with them. As expected there is only one of each part other than duplicated legs and the tassles for the standard (you get 2 tassles, one for each of the two standards included).

i wouldnt mind some pics of the command Sq, hmmm, been looking, might have to order some soon, made a FW DKOK order last month so need a slight break

Elvis

Command Squads: I really messed up here. Well not messed up, but missed out.

Having bought the metal 6 man (including injured guy on floor) metal boxset previously I was thinking that I might only need one command squad boxset at best.

While waiting for the new stuff to land though, I started making lists when the copy of the dex appeared. I realised I didn't have anywhere near the number of plasma and melta special weapon guys I needed, so bought the blisters that have one of each in. Just under £7 a go IIRC.

Now I have the command squad I have realised, that if I had bought the command squad boxsets I could have made the same number of special wepaons, and more, if I have bought the Cmd Sq boxes instead.

When u combine the command box with a normal infantry box u can make a sniper, a heavy flamer dude, more normal flamer dudes and gren launchers, and lots of officers/sgts with every combo u can think of.

i'm not happy and will be buying another command squad at least now.

Posted up some pics here http://www.ageofstrife.com/gallery/Spack153 including close up pics of the heads and weapons.

What size is the valkyrie base?

120mm x 90mm

it looks circular? Or is one of those the height?

It's oval.

Putting my Valkyries together as we speak...very nice kit. Progress is slow as I've painted the interior
(Cockpit, main compartment, Gunners), but I tend to be slowish as I build all the sub-assemblies first, then stick it all together in a flurry at the end.

With the Command squad I'm going to try and make Al'Rahem out of it, plus the CO, Medic, HF, Plasma & Melta guys.

Spack wrote:It's oval.

dan kindly tagged an order onto the end of his for me and I'm now the porud owner of a shadowsword box, codex and new valkyrie. I noted on the bottom of the base that the date is 2006 - that means it's been in existance for 3 years and we've all been struggling to mount FW flyers all this time!? WTF???

Valkyrie is great - although i'm not looking forward to matching the paint to my completed FW one....

Herne wrote: I noted on the bottom of the base that the date is 2006 - that means it's been in existance for 3 years and we've all been struggling to mount FW flyers all this time!? WTF???

Maybe that's the new price after the next price increase and they just forgot to put the decimal point in?
Congrats on your acquisitions, looking forward to seeing them painted!

TW

Herne wrote:....... I noted on the bottom of the base that the date is 2006 - that means it's been in existance for 3 years and we've all been struggling to mount FW flyers all this time!? WTF???

Spoke to a GW manager on the issue today - apparently the base is the one supplied with the large metal LOTR dragon, which they've ported over. explains why the acryllic 'stick' has two plastic 'lugs' that have no slots to go into on the base.

Herne wrote:Spoke to a GW manager on the issue today - apparently the base is the one supplied with the large metal LOTR dragon, which they've ported over. explains why the acryllic 'stick' has two plastic 'lugs' that have no slots to go into on the base.

You can also buy the base separately - I have one ready to use for my Ku'Gath replacement (when I get round to scratch building him...). Its direct only, AFAIK, and costs £2.45 IIRC.

@ Dan: off topic, but is that base too big to be used in the Objective Marker comp? (feel free to reply in either thread)

I have a spare after a mail-order error, and I am wondering what to do with it.

~ Tim

Herne wrote:explains why the acryllic 'stick' has two plastic 'lugs' that have no slots to go into on the base.

I've realised those aren't lugs for connecting to anything - they're the mould pour vents, so are supposed to be removed anyway just like the sprue is with standard plastic kits. I might well be reinforcing my base with small screws put in from underneath to help stop the stand from breaking off the base.

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:@ Dan: off topic, but is that base too big to be used in the Objective Marker comp? (feel free to reply in either thread)

I have a spare after a mail-order error, and I am wondering what to do with it.

Feel free to use it. There is no limitation, after all, other than what would be considered reasonable for a base. That large oval base is the same size on it's longest diameter as a CD/DVD, and is smaller on the other diameter, so wouldn't be a problem even if the competition was restricted to a max size of a CD/DVD.

Spack wrote:

Herne wrote:explains why the acryllic 'stick' has two plastic 'lugs' that have no slots to go into on the base.

I've realised those aren't lugs for connecting to anything - they're the mould pour vents, so are supposed to be removed anyway just like the sprue is with standard plastic kits.

Ah! Hadn't looked that closely at the stick yet. Makes sense now.