Scions can fly now! We are taking a look at the new Tempestus Aquilons from the Hivestorm boxed set. Many thanks to Games Workshop for providing an advanced review copy.
Detail and Assembly
As the kind of sicko who actually ran the Tempestus Scions formations in 6th edition, I know a thing or two about these gothic’d-up Stormtroopers. Now, over a decade after the release of those models, we’ve got a new set of grav-chute wearing Scions: the Tempestus Aquilons.
The first thing you’ll notice on pulling out the sprues is that they are absolutely packed. I was expecting this to be a two-sprue situation of five dudes each, but this is instead a full squad spread across three sprues. There’s a full set of helmeted and bare heads available to customize your squad. I wish there were more masked but unhelmed heads in here and a more obvious helmet option for the sergeant, but I do like both beret heads a lot. The other heads are solid too, and should mix and match nicely with others across the Astra Militarum range.
Fortunately, the pieces that make up each of these models are closely arranged on the sprues, with minimal time spent hunting for a specific bit. Each body is four to give pieces, usually consisting of two halves of the body, two separate legs, and a fiddly little pipe that connects to their bellies. These legs are almost all perched atop some piece of Hero Rubble™ which are an innovation over Hero Rocks of the past. Radiators, air conditioners, HVAC piping and more adorn these bases, and I hope to see these bits replicated on the rooftops of terrain kits in the future. Arms are often two to three pieces each as well, and the backpacks that each squad member wears are a simple two half affair. Unfortunately, those backpacks all had a pretty bad seam down the middle, curious since the rest of the kit fit together remarkably flush. This even happened on the sergeant’s backpack, which is slightly different, with a little targeter cowl up top. The benefit of these seemingly over-engineered bodies and weapons are that they hide seams well, and lend these models a sense of three dimensionality. This is also where I’ll say that the mold lines were nonexistent on most pieces, with only a few that I even noticed.
The servo-sentry was what I looked forward to most in this set, and I’m pleased to say its three weapon options are easy to swap without magnets or glue. They held on with friction just fine, but I imagine with use that would start to deteriorate. It would be an extremely simple model to magnetize, however.
There’s a fair few extra details you can add here – rolled up cables that assumedly would connect their guns to their power packs, grenades, and knives. I left these off mine, as I could tell painting these models would already be a lot of work. I even snipped the cable off the one dude with a cabled lasgun, as painting around those cables was my least favorite part of the Kasrkin kit.
Much like the Death Korps Veterans kit, there are a few weapon options which share a single piece. These are predictably the (Space Marine pistol sized) melta and plasma carbines, but more frustratingly the sergeant’s hot-shot laspistol. It’s the same piece as the gunfighter’s right-handed laspistol and the instructions don’t mark out this fact, so my gunfighter gets a bolt pistol now. Said instructions also omit a few options that I believe will be in the standalone release of this kit and its place as a 40k unit, which are largely more hot-shot lasgun arms and a set holding a detached magazine.
A Note on Compatibility
When I realized I’d used the only right handed laspistol in the set, I went through my previous Tempestus Scions bits to see if there were any suitable replacements. There weren’t really, but it gave me the opportunity to test fit a few pieces. It might be subtle, but the older arms are distinctly chunkier and less proportional than the new ones, as was the style of the time. The old heads also are bigger and have a differently sized ball and socket fitting, which lends a bobblehead effect. Those older Scions models have aged more gracefully than many kits of their era, but kitbashing the two sets might result in some funky proportions. This new kit’s heads have a similar size and fitting to those on modern Astra Militarum kits though, so if you want a cool beret head for your Cadian Castellan or want to perform other headswaps, you should be good to go.
Painting
I was not able to get any of these models fully painted in time for publication, as they are, to be brief, a lot. Each model is festooned in details and doodads, with dials, cables, belts, trim, lenses, distinct facemasks, and more. This is absolutely the next level from the older Tempestus Scions kit, which was extremely detailed for an Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard set of its era. The detailing is distinctive and incredibly well sculpted, with repeating motifs like the gothic arches on their jump packs and the cowling of the little turret, or the dagger shapes that make up the trim on their pauldrons.
Were I to offer any additional advice on painting these models, it would be to paint their backpacks separately as subassemblies. With the fine details and size of these models, it’s less “painting around the backpack” and more “stabbing your brush into a nook and hoping for the best”. I think models this detailed deserve some love and care. I also wished I left the heads off during my painting, as it was often hard to get around the big guns and backpacks alike.
SRM: I do quite like these models, even if, from assembly to painting, they represent no small amount of work for just ten infantry models and their little turret pal. The details are sharp, the poses are great, the options are plentiful, and their aesthetic is distinctive and unmistakably Warhammer. I just wish they had a second right handed laspistol, and that I’d left the backpacks off before painting. Anything you can do to make painting these models easier will pay huge dividends.
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