Sunday 18 March 2012

Tyranid Finecast Lash Whip + Bonesword Review

Unnoticed by many it seems except for a few nid fans, the recent release of wolves and tyranids also saw the release finally of official lash whips and bone swords packs from games workshop in finecast.


Finecast makes me nervous, I have had far too many failcasts to feel confident in it however, as part of a recent project to make some nids of my very own, I have decided to purchase some of these new finecast Tyranid warrior weapons to try and make my own prime.

The weapons themselves come in 2 different flavours:

Boneswords pack -


And a lashwhips and boneswords pack -


As this is mainly for a Prime project, I decided on the whips and swords pack, which it I can make a set of boneswords and a lashwhip and bonesword set that can be magnetised to suit my list/mood.

The item itself comes in a standard clamshell packet, containing 3 sprues (1 sword and 1 whip on each) and as I opened the box i was filled with dread as to if they would be failcast or not... Thankfully upon checking all 3, they did seem to be fine.  Good solid resin without any holes in it like you can often find in many finecast whips and weapons (dark eldar for me was a bit of a disgrace for this).

I Have to say I was pleasantly surprised with them, they look the part and also seem pretty cool on the models.


Here they are stripped from their sprue with magnets applied to the joints so I can switch weapons as needed:


Finally some shots on my WIP warrior prime



The annoying thing about these weapon packs is that they are direct order only so no cheeky money off by getting them from a reseller or FLGS.  Also at £12 each they are extremely expensive for what in essence is only just a few weapons that should have been included with the Tyranid warrior box set in the first place in plastic.

One thing to note I will say is after seeing how non fail these sculpts seemed to be, I assembled a hive guard that I had also ordered, this was pretty good quality as well with barely a single bubble, could it be? is games workshop improving their latest batches of finecast? or is it all just complete luck? time will tell.

Boneswords and lashwhips can be found in the bitz section of the nid army list on the games workshop website.