Review: Arachnarok

So, I was at the GW-store with Lifter to even out my grown-up-points after buying a wrist brace for my carpal tunnel (too much WoW). The first thing I saw when entering the store, apart from the gaggle of teens spilling paints all over one table (no I'm not exaggerating) was the Spider. I had to have the Spider. I have absolutely -no- idea when I'll get the time to paint it, or what to do with it. But I had to have the Spider!

Once I plucked it from the shelf I heard one of the redshirts behind me saying "You need two!" and I knew it was time for "The hard sell". Now I usually like to play along a little, it's like a game. But now I actually had a real question for the dude in red shirt. How poseable is the spider? I hadn't read any proper reviews before entering the store and I was kinda worried that the legs would be unipose in order for the Spider to enable paint spilling teens to build it.

Well, the red shirt said "You can pose it pretty much as you want. The body is fixed though." and showed me the one in the glass cabinet, talking about branches or something that it could stand on. I guess it was answer enough and I said thanks and went for the Grey Knights codex, talking with Lifter about codex creep and stuff. We looked at the codex, said "OMGLOL" and paid for the Spider (after a lot of "Do you have glue?" and stuff that didn't end until Lifter tried to sell the cashier the dice with "Do you really have this color of dice? You need two cubes!")

Aaaaanyhow, the idea I had in mind was to make the Spider look like it was posed to strike. A little like this mouse spider.

Legs spread, ready to strike.

Now, lets get to the point. The spider is -not- poseable at all. The legs slot in to the body with square notches leaving no room at all for any deviations from what you see on the official pictures. I guess the red shirt was just as clueless as ever. And I was gullible enough to take his answer as fact.

If you're a little handy with the greenstuff it will be no biggie filing away the notches and making the legs like you want them. I decided not to, but instead to build it and get a feel for how the actual model worked. Spider #2 will be like I want it.

It's one really well designed model. The legs slot in perfectly with the body, and the rearmost legs even has notches on the rear part of the body to give them a little more stability. The same goes for almost every other part of the Spider that, after some fiddling, almost clicked in place. Instructions are "OK". 3D-renders like in most of the new kits. Still not as fiddly and confusing as some of the 1/35 scale model instructions. I swear that some of the manufacturers take pride in making near unreadable instructions!

In the box you get two sprues, one for the goblin howdah (that I didn't use) and one for the Spider itself.

As you can see from the picture. This is one HUGE model. Just as big as the 1:35 scale Dragon Models PzKpfw IV I'm building. Although with about 200 fewer parts.

You will need some modelling putty for the spider, such as the Vallejo 401 or green stuff, since there are some really nasty and visible joins. Most noticed on the head part and rear of the body. It's nothing major though. Nowhere near the amount of filling you had to do on the oldschool killa-kanz (oh the horror).

So there it is. The Arachnarok. I'd say it's good value for your money. Even more if you play with square bases. Painting this will be a treat. Tons of details and it's almost like it's designed to be drybrushed and still look awesome.

Check back in a year or so to read the "Arachnarøk, painted" post! :)