Leviathon Box Review

[mattblowers]

I started building the Levi box last night. I love the finished models. I'm just curious to how others are finding the box.

What I love:
-simplicity: the models are really easy to build. The psychophage took less that 30 minutes to build including scraping mold lines which are very minimal and in places that lessen their impact.
-Screamer-killer: overall I love the model. It's massive and feels appropriately chonky
-Prime: OK, changing my tune on this one a bit, I like him much better in person than I thought I would
-SM Dread: great model, very easy to build, fastest of the 4 models I built so far
-building: since everything is mono pose today anyway, I like having the bits and bobs modeled in rather than finicky bit to assemble

What I don't love:
- I like the psychophage overall but it's a bit spider looking for my tastes. I don't care for that aesthetic move. We have always called them "space bugs" but they have been more of dinasaur aesthetic. It even has a little stinger on the rear bulbous segment. I hope that doesn't continue
- I like the simplicity, however getting the models to actually fit together can be a challenge. If you just push fit some parts don't go together and leave a crack between segments. If you use plastic glue you have to be careful as some hole are not vented and if you get too much glue it will hydro-lock and no amount of force can make them go together.
-Not new to the box, but for the love of god why does every new model come with scenery attached to the base? In this case though you can't not include them as they are modeled to the bodies
-the Psychophage billowing smoke. I HATE, HATE, DOUBLE HATE, LOATH ENTIRELY it. The clip off nicely but then you are left with vent stacks that are solid on top. OK, fine if they were coming out all vents, then it's a me problem. Problem is the back few rows of vents are just flat topped. In comparison the 'fex vents are nicely modeled. I don't get it.
- be careful when clipping out models, are few have the pins attached to the sprue and it's very easy to clip it off and then putting together becomes much harder. Look closely.
- Prime's wings: The model is growing on me but the wings are just terrible. Two problems: 1) they are thick as (please do not swear), these wings could never grant flight, 2) why the hell are they in the bottom sockets? Shrikes, gargoyles, flying hive tyrants, harpy/hive crone ALL have their wings connected close to the shoulder (ya know like things that fly), the Prime: they come out of his liver/pancreas!! WTF GW?! Maybe that's why his stats are bad: he can't fight because he keeps getting tangled up in his wings, even building the model the wings get in the way of assembling the scytals.

[gman25639]

I actually really like the spidery look of the Psychophage. The Tyranids are the perfect predators and the Hive Mind could and should definitely be able to come up with other body types besides dinosaur and snake. Be careful with the Von Ryan's Leapers, at least one of them is attached to the sprue by the tip of its tail spike qnd I accidentally clipped it blunt and had to use a bit of greenstuff to make it pointy again.

[Bohxim]

I'm also a fan of the more spidey look. Which is also why I'm looking forward to the biovores

[dkng]

I don’t like the snap-fit as it gives you zero chance of assembling the models in poses you like unless you cut them and use green stuff. At the least the arms should be good old ball-and-socket so you can have some models with arms stretched and some with folded etc. For hordes like Terms it’s absolutely perfect though. Just having let’s say three units of VRLs, all of them identical, can be a bit dull. You can’t even have their heads turned in different directions, damn it.

[mattblowers]

Jul 27, 2023 16:00:05 GMT dkng said:

I don’t like the snap-fit as it gives you zero chance of assembling the models in poses you like unless you cut them and use green stuff. At the least the arms should be good old ball-and-socket so you can have some models with arms stretched and some with folded etc. For hordes like Terms it’s absolutely perfect though. Just having let’s say three units of VRLs, all of them identical, can be a bit dull. You can’t even have their heads turned in different directions, damn it.

To be fair all the new kits are very monoposed that require extensive reworking to change the pose. The models are great though.

[infornography]

I like it for the most part. I'm not generally a fan of monopose, but for a starter set like this, it makes sense.

Some tips.
If you clip around the tip of the pegs to make them spear shaped, you will end up with fewer gaps. That gives somewhere for the air (and possibly glue) to go so it doesn't just compress at the end. Plus it makes lining it up easier because if you can just get the pointy end in, the rest slides easy. You do HAVE to use glue if you do this though because they won't hold as fast as they do with the whole peg. I planned to use glue anyway, but yeah...

Also don't glue the pegs, glue the other places things are touching but leave the pegs unglued as much as possible.

Lastly, if the model has an unconnected doodad that goes into one of the base holes, put that on the base BEFORE you put the model on. It is so much harder to put those on with the model in place.

Designwise, I largely agree with what has been said. I'm not a huge fan of the Psychophage's aesthetics, but I do like its battlefield role. Providing an FNP aura is huge and it chews through psykers so it definitely is worth the cost of admission. If you choose to clip its smoke, I've seen a kitbash where they put the smoke coming out of the SK's mouth like a gloopy mess of bioplasma. It looked great! Worth considering, especially if you have two and you want them to look more different from one another.

The Neurogaunts were fun to build. Super easy and cute.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Building
For the most part, I really enjoyed building the models.
Snap fit felt super nostalgic to me and it was easy to see where parts should go and how they should hook together.
I did run into issues with extra sprue nubs creating gaps between seems and had to be careful about removing all sprue nub (and cutting into the model).
Arm positioning was an issue for me. I found that the arms on the prime could rotate and finding the correct position was an issue.
I did clip a connection point when meaning to clip a nub and had to glue it instead.

Models
I really like the models.
The psychophages legs remind me of the tfexes long front legs.
The primes wings appear thick due to them being folded down, IMO.
I'm not as much of a fan of the basing material on the bases as it could go against my basing scheme of jungle/swamp bases.

Painting
About halfway through painting the big and some of the medium sized models. The carapace is taking me forever on the leapers and primes due to the amount of details. It's going to look awesome when done however! When the first pass of models is done, only 1.5 more boxes of leviathan to go...

[dkng]

Jul 27, 2023 16:33:13 GMT mattblowers said:

Jul 27, 2023 16:00:05 GMT dkng said:

I don’t like the snap-fit as it gives you zero chance of assembling the models in poses you like unless you cut them and use green stuff. At the least the arms should be good old ball-and-socket so you can have some models with arms stretched and some with folded etc. For hordes like Terms it’s absolutely perfect though. Just having let’s say three units of VRLs, all of them identical, can be a bit dull. You can’t even have their heads turned in different directions, damn it.

To be fair all the new kits are very monoposed that require extensive reworking to change the pose. The models are great though.

Yes they are great! The details and overall design is fantastic. It’s the monoposing that really annoys me.

[yoritomo]

Jul 27, 2023 16:00:05 GMT dkng said:

I don’t like the snap-fit as it gives you zero chance of assembling the models in poses you like unless you cut them and use green stuff. At the least the arms should be good old ball-and-socket so you can have some models with arms stretched and some with folded etc. For hordes like Terms it’s absolutely perfect though. Just having let’s say three units of VRLs, all of them identical, can be a bit dull. You can’t even have their heads turned in different directions, damn it.

I don’t have a problem with a push fit model. I have a problem with the second push fit model.

For example; I traded my marines for a second set of tyranids. The first set of bids I built per the instructions and was pretty happy with the results. On the second set I built the prime as is and was disappointed to have an identical model. I want to say the same thing about the neurotyrant, but there nothing to repose other than the spindly arms you never notice (I was half tempted to leave them off as they are more trouble than they are worth). The psychophage fits into the same as the neurotyrant. Yeah, he has bigger arms that you could repose, but in the end they are all going to be on the ground so reposing is meh. The screamer killer is getting magnetized there’s no way I’m getting another identical copy of him.

I also don’t mind the troops choices being snap fit. Anything that makes 100 of the same model easier to build or paint is fine by me. Strangely the Von Ryan leapers fint into this category. I wouldn’t mind throwing 20 of them on the table for fun if I could get my hands on them.

[nbmraptor]

Jul 27, 2023 12:45:50 GMT mattblowers said:

- Prime's wings: The model is growing on me but the wings are just terrible. Two problems: 1) they are thick as (please do not swear), these wings could never grant flight, 2) why the hell are they in the bottom sockets? Shrikes, gargoyles, flying hive tyrants, harpy/hive crone ALL have their wings connected close to the shoulder (ya know like things that fly), the Prime: they come out of his liver/pancreas!! WTF GW?! Maybe that's why his stats are bad: he can't fight because he keeps getting tangled up in his wings, even building the model the wings get in the way of assembling the scytals.

I also did not like the primes wings being the middle limbs. For mine, I actually swapped the wings and the scytals, a bit of cutting and greenstuff, and now he fits with the rest of my flying nids

[riverzora]

I like the middle-limb wings. More like a traditional fantasy dragon and the same as the third edition Gargoyles which were the first flying Tyranids I owned. But I do see why people would prefer them in the top slots - I much prefer the middle.

[BattleMetalChris]

I found if you only glue one side of a pin, it avoids the hydro-lock, as the air can flow out the non-glued side.

[mattblowers]

Jul 29, 2023 21:48:21 GMT riverzora said:

I like the middle-limb wings. More like a traditional fantasy dragon and the same as the third edition Gargoyles which were the first flying Tyranids I owned. But I do see why people would prefer them in the top slots - I much prefer the middle.

If you go old enough gargoyles you get the fleshlight guns. I hated those too.

[mattblowers]

Aug 1, 2023 12:21:16 GMT BattleMetalChris said:

I found if you only glue one side of a pin, it avoids the hydro-lock, as the air can flow out the non-glued side.

A single swipe of Tamiya extra thin works well too.

[murderfiesta]

Flying bases and the awkward shapes and general fragility of winged creatures have kept me off the Gargoyle train for as long as they've been around. If anything, the 2nd edition Gargoyles are the easiest to work with and actually fit in a carrying case :/