Sunday, June 6, 2010

Product review: New Fire Prism / Night Spinner kit

Games Workshop has released spearhead now. This is one of the few free expansions they have done in their history. Granted to play a spearhead game you need tanks. So Really it is a good marketing ploy. The new kits recently released give us the Maticore / deathstrike launcher and new Leman Russ kit for the Imperial Guard and a new Fire Prism for the Eldar which also makes the tank which will be the topic for this article. The Night Spinner.
The Night spinner is armed with Twin Linked Doom Reaver cannons. With a 12”-72” range this gives the Eldar some nice Artillery that is mobile. Strength 6 than is also rending with a large blast template is also very nice. The fact that the target counts as moving through difficult and dangerous terrain the next time they move is a big perk. Now I know this is going to come up. Does this literally mean the next time a unit moves or does it mean the next turn. Granted it impedes movement either way but, if it is as the rules literally say this is pretty powerful. Once I use this baby in a couple battles I will give a full review on it.

The Kit itself is an improvement. The new turret is nice and very sleek looking. The Fire Prism has more of a menacing look to it now. The sprues come with all the vehicle upgrades on it now, which is very nice. It will be interesting to see how often you can find this new sprue for sale separately, as the rest of the kit is the standard falcon. It would be nice to be able to upgrade my old Fire Prisms and keep the old turrets for some Eldar fortress terrain projects.

I do have some complaints though about the fitment of some of the parts. The new rear door leaves a rather wide gap at the bottom where it meets the hull. This is also present on the lower hull up near the cockpit. Other than this it is a nice kit and the parts fit nicely.

You are going to have to be careful with the assembly of the turret. I recommend using as little Glue as possible and assembling a majority of the moving parts separate first and allowing them to dry before final assembly of the turret. My guns will not move due to my haste, not to mention an almost empty glue bottle with a bad tip exploding onto the model. If doing the fire prism you are going to want to use plastic glue for the cannon assembly after it has been primed and painted. This will prevent fogging of the crystal pieces.

I didn't think I was going to like the new Fire Prism design but as I look at the kit and some more pictures I think it is an improvement or at very least something different. The lines and how the turret flows is nice. The Night Spinner is very nice looking. It adds more area and edges for highlighting. The profile also looks very streamlined. I may have to see if I can convert some Falcons using the new turret design. If you can't tell I do really like the new turret. I also really like the fact they put all the vehicle upgrades on the sprue. I am going to be on the hunt on Ebay and such for the new sprues.

As it stands The tank is in primer and I will be painting it this week for combat duty. I will also be testing 1750 point lists using it for the GW Store Tournament round 2 coming up on the 19th.

So I like the new kit it would be worth picking up one or two or finding the new sprue to retro fit your existing tanks.

Later in the week We will see part three of the series on aspect warriors. This week we will be covering Dark Reapers.

Until then....

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!

2 comments:

  1. Nice Write-up. Did you ever get the jetseers from Chapterhouse?

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  2. I should be seeing the Jetbike council this week So i may even do a review instead of a battle report saturday or sunday

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