We are taking a look at the new Vespid Stingwings from the Kill Team Hivestorm box. Many thanks to Games Workshop for providing us an advanced copy for review.
Thundercloud: Having assembled them, they’re an easy build. There are strong arguments for leaving the wings separate until after painting, and since the weapon arms cross the body on the majority of models, for leaving the gun+arms separate as well, but the models go together easily.
The trickiest model is the Longsting, and I’d recommend putting the head on before the rail rifle arm because of how tight the fit is, along with dry fitting the pieces. The wings can be mixed and matched between models, as can the heads to some extent. With some trimming you can mix the gun arm pairs with different bodies, but you may be straying into needing to gap fill or use an appropriate pair of wings to cover a multitude of sins.
On painting them I’d advise not to undercoat black if you are going to paint them a bright colour, as four coats of Trollslayer Orange later I was still unhappy with the finish. The models take very well to contrast over a white primer, and it’s an easy way to get them table ready.
CYRAC: The Vespid are pretty much model-locked when it comes to loadouts and are a little fiddly to build, but I echo leaving the wings off till last and then building them on as I did with mine to get more varied wing poses, such as I did with my leader. The miniatures also take contrast exceedingly well, which is how I did my green Vespid with no edge highlighting too!
Jack: The Vespid were pretty straightforward to build, though it did feel like they have a lot of parts. I’d third keeping the wings off until after painting; I didn’t and found they blocked quite a bit on some models. My biggest complaint is about the bases – while I get the need to use hero rocks for dynamic posing, six of the eleven bases have skulls on them. Why are we always fighting on a battlefield covered in corpses so old they’ve been stripped down to bare bone?
Sky Serpent: I’m a massive fan of minor Xenos races and despite their allegiance to the T’au, the Vespids are a phenomenal new entry into the Liber Xenologis and a massive glow up on their previous rendition.
I found the models relatively simple to build and are well spread out over their respective sprues, I would echo Thundercloud’s idea on painting the wings seperately, especially if they are a different colour to the body.
Vespids LOVE Contrast paint, it’s like they are made for it. Spray them a light colour and then hit them with your favourite Contrast (or alternative) paint.
I honestly think you can build and paint a whole Kill Team of these in day.
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