First Impressions - Cryx Army Deal

I mentioned recently about taking the plunge and buying a Cryx army from Privateer Press's Summer Sale store. It was a great deal - 25 points and a free rulebook. I'll admit that, having ordered the thing, I was a little anxious this week about the possibility of losing all my savings to a big customs bill. It seems HMRI may have been asleep when my box arrived in the UK though as it was delivered today and no extra charges :)

So, I've been totally free to enjoy the contents. And there is a lot in there too.

As well as the plastic Cryx Battlegroup, you get, in metal, a Skarlock thrall, a Warwitch Siren, and a Necrosurgeon and Stitch Thralls. I also got a boxed set of five Mechanithralls and two more blister packs, each with two more metal Mechanithralls. Although that and a really nicely put together softback copy of Warmachine Prime MKII.

As I really have no idea what use the metal mini's will actually be in a Cryx army yet, I have been able to indulge my phobia of metal mini's and dived straight into the plastic starter set.

In comparison to GW product, assembly is generally easier and faster with PP's plastics. Each model-type comes in its own plastic baggie, already clipped from the sprues. There is a little cleanup necessary before you can begin gluing though. Some of this is to file down some fairly obvious marks where pieces appear to have been yanked off their sprue, rather than carefully clipped. There is also more flash around some of the smaller details, teeth, claws and such, than I am used to seeing on comparable GW models. But this is easy to trim off and, considering the fact the parts come bagged and ready-clipped, the PP models are easier and quicker to put together than a GW model.

Apparently other miniatures games are available.

That said, I have had some problems this evening making glue, well, glue things together. The plastic PP uses is different to GW's. It feels more like a traditional toy manufacturer's plastic, its glossy, almost as if it needs to be washed before assembly. I used GW's thin plastic glue, Humbrol Poly Cement, and Loctite Powerflex superglue. The latter was used largely out of frustration when certain parts just didn't seem to want to stay stuck together using the other glues. The plastic glues do seem to work - eventually - but, for the jaws of the Bonejacks and the blades on Deneghra's back in particular, sometimes I just needed something guaranteed to stick hard and fast.

Anybody knocks this guys jaw off, I knock your jaw off

One other slight anomaly I found when putting the models together was that the smaller jacks all come with slotted bases - slots they just don't need. I have greenstuffed those gaps up now, but, let me tell you, it is not easy getting that thin strip in there, underneath the jack and between its legs, when you're worried about the thing falling because it was so hard to glue them down. My pro-tip here - fill the gaps before you stick the model down :)

It kinda looks like they're taking a leak down there...

All in all, a nice evening's work to put together the beginnings of my Cryx force. Now I just have to decide whether I should have sprung for the P3 paint set to go with them when I was at the Wayland warehouse yesterday....