Kill Team: Shadowvaults brings modern plastic re-sculpts of old fan favorite Kasrkin back to 40k. These first released (in white metal) back in 4th edition before eventually vanishing and being replaced by Tempestus Scions, which filled the same role but were never quite there thematically. The new plastics perfectly carry on the appearance of the old models, with better proportions and dynamism. They’re about half a head taller, so I don’t think I’d mix them inside the same squad, but you can definitely mix them in the same army.
This is a complete set of ten unique sculpts – no duplicated sprue of five here! All but one of the poses are great – there’s one hunched over running pose that I think doesn’t quiiiiite work, but it’s not bad enough to actually matter. It also comes with two of each special weapon (other than the sniper rifle), each with a slightly different set of arms. This is where my only real complaint about the set lies – if you want to use them in Kill Team and aren’t just buying for your 40k army, it’s fairly easy to make an illegal squad. You must read the composition rules in the rulebook first rather than relying on the instruction manual, as you’re only allowed to take one of each weapon (to a maximum of four total, including the sniper rifle).
That said, having the extra special weapons is perfect for 40k players, making these great Scion replacements that look much better with Cadian troops (especially the newly announced resculpts). The torsos are all built with nearly flat shoulders, just a slight vertical line/seam to help align arms, so you can mostly put any arm set on any body. The only concern is whether hoses clip the body, which a few lasgun arm and body combinations will, but plasma/melta/grenade won’t have that problem. You can easily build multiple squads without ending up with duplicate poses.
There are 26 heads included in the kit, 10 of which are fully enclosed, and the rest a combination of helmeted and helmetless, both male and female. My favorite is the one I used on my sergeant (and I expect many other people will do the same) with the gas mask hanging off the helmet.
These paint up like an absolute dream. While I’d recommend keeping the heads separate while painting to make getting the uniform collar easier, you can definitely fully assemble them and still get in there. There’s enough detail that nothing gets boring and you can easily paint them with contrast if you’d like, but not so much going on that it turns into tedium.
I guess I have one other semi-complaint: they’re on the new 28.5mm bases, so I don’t have a pile of resin bases in my base bin and had to use texture paint. These bases do look a ton better, so I mostly just need to wait for my purchasing habits to catch up with me.
Liam: One blessed relief with this kit is that while it’s as packed with stuff as you’d expect from a modern GW plastic, it’s laid out fairly sensibly with components grouped more or less together on the sprues. I was building some Kommandos recently, from back in the first Kill Team 2.0 box, and was reminded of just what a chore that is with bits spread out all across the three sprues in the kit with no clear way to tell where anything is. No such issues here, thankfully.
Beyond that, my thoughts are much the same as Jack’s; this is a great kit with a bunch of cool options and it does a fantastic job of bringing Kasrkin into the new world of GW plastics. They’re detailed but not busy, and give you lots of flexibility; my straightforward scheme was easy to rattle through, but someone taking these on as a painting project can spend plenty of time on them and really bring them to life.
As a side note, also in the box is a new Cadian transfer sheet, distinct from the standard Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard one that has been around for a while, and which should serve you well for sprucing up your Guard units.
