Toxic Shock

The Toxicrene, a beast of deadly poisons, horrific assault potency and fear for anyone unfortunate enough to be in its way, including the aspiring hobbyist! I was going to post this a while ago but kept forgetting.  Why?  Simple, I wanted this model out of my mind.



The Toxicrene is a glorious bit of kit.  It looks incredible and has rules to back up its looks.  There's no reason I know of not to take one in a list, they're brutal.  Sure they can kill themselves with their ranged attack, but that doesn't stop people taking plasma weapons.  Also, if  you're daft enough to put the template close enough that it can scatter onto the firing model then you should just put the dice down and step away from the table :)

Why do I want it out of my mind then?

Its a truly horrific kit to work with.  Really.  I love building, converting and painting and love a challenge (Marines aren't a challenge really are they).  But the Toxicrene was an utter nightmare, it stretched my patience to its limit and made me not want to hobby, considering this is the ONLY model to ever achieve that in 20+ years of hobbying it should give you a sense of how much I hated it.

So what are the problems then?

Best part of the model and its not actually part of the model

• In order to paint it you can't attach it to the base.  If you build it onto the base you won't be able to paint the underside.  It's a big base and a fat model so the angle of attack is so shallow you can't get a brush in.  Ironically considering the hell I went through with the model, the base was one of the best I've ever done and an awful lot of fun to make.
• You have to build it in awkward sub-assemblies.  If you don't you get the same issue as with the base, it's so monumentally huge for a standard (non-FW or LoW) model that its own components block the brush, making it a chore to keep track of where everything fits together and which bits need which colour.
• The posing is an issue.  Because this is a dual kit with the Maleceptor, there are a number of parts that are specific to each kit, most prominently the tentacles and scything talons.  Their placement affects the pose of the model itself as the tentacles actually angle slightly downwards, which isn't shown in the promotional material.  This means that you've really got make sure you use the "rearing up" legs for the Toxicrene rather than the "about to pounce" legs the Maleceptor is designed to use.  I didn't make this determination until it was far to late and ended up with a model that rested on its tentacles rather than its front legs, hence the large rock pile on the base which I used to get it posed right.  You can see in the first picture up top how the tentacles are level with the table despite the pose of the model, and there is almost no clearance between the tentacles and table even with the height built into the base.
• The disconnect between details. The head is the case in point for this.  Look at it, it's gloriously detailed with the classic ridged carapace look we've come to know and love.  Now look at its back carapace, smooth rolling lines, curves and NO ridges.  It just feels like the person sculpting the head didn't know what the body looked like or vice versa.
• Those tentacles are huuuuge.  Says it all really.  They take a lot of paint, have way more detail than they need and were just plain annoying to finish.

Now don't get me wrong, its a beautiful model and looks good when its done but its such a massive ballache it's a toss up whether or not its worth the effort.  I did learn a lot from it though; prioritising sub-assemblies, blending (horrible!), posing, dry fitting everything first and so on.

Alun keeps telling me I need to build this and the Flyrant an army and i'd like to in a perfect world.  Sadly the Toxicrene has, for the forseeable future, killed any interest I had in doing that.  That could change, but it would take a lot for that to happen.