REVIEW: Space Marines Sprues in Detail
Today let’s look in detail at the Tactical and Sternguard sprues from the new plastic kits. These will be the bread and butter for hobbyists for years to come.
Tactical Squad sprues:
Now the old Tactical Squad sprues for comparison:
Sternguard sprues:
What a difference 10 years makes. I think overall Games Workshop hit the ball out of the park on these.
For the Tactical Squad, GW had to walk a fine line. Too little change and why bother. Too much and they compete with the Sternguard. Its been a decade and manufacturing techniques have improved, and this is THE KIT that defines Space Marines. It is also almost certainly going to be fastest moving kit for years to come. They HAD to get it right. So we got more of everything, without going overboard and over-blinging the standard marines.
Their armor is still very clean and unadorned, but we get more of everything. More heads, TONS more special weapons, a cleanup of the missile launcher to match the Devs, and a lot of very subtle nuanced new poses and bits such as the marine loading his clip (my favorite). We also get more variety for the older marks of armor with 2 (I think) beakies, more chestplate variety, and more early mark legs.
The Sternguard I think is where the real magic happens. We have never seen this level of bling and fancy over the top bits in plastic before. I fully expect that that standard Space Marine player will probably use a Sternguard kit for every 4-5 tacticals just to give his personal army some character.
And WOW what a set of bits the Sternguard kit gives us. From the tabards, to the special bolters, and more combis than you can shake a stick it. You get the powerfist, powersword, and the chainfist, and that oh so sexy heavy flamer (and a heavy bolter just for fun)! Then just when you think you’re all good, you get all those crazy shoulder pads.
Yes there are certainly some overt cash-grabs in this release like we see in every GW release these days (Centurions, Plastic characters), but right here in the Tactical and Sternguard kits – I think GW made the right call. They didn’t price the kits in the stratosphere and gave every modeler and converter a lot of just amazing raw material to work with to keep us all happy gamers for years to come.
Remember – a happy Space Marine community keeps the lights on at Games Workshop.
So are you happy? What’s your take on these two kits?
