The new Codex isn’t the only thing out for World Eaters next week – in addition to the new book there’s also a new range of releases, including an update for one of the oldest plastic kits in the 40k range. Today we’ll be reviewing every new kit releasing for the army, covering each of the following:’

• Angron
• Lord Invocatus/Chaos Lord on Juggernaut
• Eightbound/Exalted Eightbound
• Khorne Berzerkers
• Jakhals

Before we get started we’d like to thank Games Workshop for sending preview copies of the new kits for review purposes.

Angron

Let’s start with the Primarch. Angron is the third Daemon Primarch to get a model, and he’s got just about as much mass as Mortarion or Magnus, but in a more compact package and with fewer spindly bits. Angron comes on two large sprues with a large round base, sized the same as the one you’ll get with Mortarion or Magnus. In terms of options there’s really just one here – he comes with an alternate “closed jaw” option you can put on him. Really, the options here are to just leave parts of Angron on the sprue, which we’ll talk about in a moment.

Assembly

The largest part of Angron’s model are his wings, and there’s really no way to magnetize them – they’re fully built into the assembly of his upper torso, with attached rings which form part of the torso and act as the contact points for Angron’s arms.

Generally, there’s really only one place to feasibly magnetize Angron, and that’s to his base. I did this by putting magnets in the pegs of his feet and then in the rocks those slot into, in order to potentially be able to remove the base for easier use of transport. This was a mistake, as it ultimately didn’t matter much and the model well overhangs the base in most meaningful respects.

I mentioned that your options for Angron essentially boil down to what you decide you don’t want to use on the model. Angron’s chest and neck armor, plus his shoulder pads – these can all be left off the model to create a more “sun’s out, guns out” look that I honestly think might look better. The plugs for the armor/carapace have been cleverly used as contact points for the armor here, and the body underneath is fully detailed.

If you go this route, the only thing to note is that the back armor is still going to be there, and in my opinion that part didn’t look great against the rest of the model. Angron’s arms can also be assembled without the shoulder pads and that may be a better look, though I was so happy with how I painted the shoulder pads I realy wanted them on the model.

Size Comparisons

Size-wise, Angron is a little bit more compact than Magnus or Mortarion, and as a result likely to be quite a bit easier to hide on some tables. While he’s just as big a pain in the ass to transport from a width standpoint, he’s got a bit more compact profile since his wings aren’t flared out dramatically.

In terms of sub-assemblies, I built Agron’s torso and legs and painted his arms and armor separately. This worked out fine, but I ended up having some trouble getting to the lower parts between his wings during the painting process. Were I to do it again I might consider painting the wings before gluing them on, though I’m still pretty happy with the result.

Lord Invocatus/Lord on Juggernaut

Lord Invocatus is the other named character new to Codex: World Eaters, and he comes as part of a dual kit that can build either Invocatus or a more generic World Eaters Lord on Juggernaut. The kit’s Juggernaut comes with alternate legs for the two characters – the Invocatus build is leaping off some rocks and sits higher up off the base than the Chaos Lord version, and both builds are slightly taller and larger than a Bloodcrusher Juggernaut in that regard. The Juggernaut has three head build options to pick from and two collars.

Invocatus is a pretty straightforward build, though note that if you want to paint the model with him as a separate piece, you’ll need to leave off one of his legs; his and the Juggalords’ legs “hook in” to the sides of the Juggernaut, meaning that once they’re glued on you won’t be able to push the model down onto the saddle without breaking one of the legs off.

One of the coolest things about this kit is that Invocatus and the Chaos Lord are completely separate models – they share zero components, so you will always have an extra model to work with if you build this kit. That means that if you want to build both you can avoid buying a second Invocatus by mounting your Chaos Lord on a Bloodcrusher Juggernaut – you can pretty easily make the head and collar fit without much cutting and modifying, but the legs won’t fit the Bloodcrusher Juggernauts. On the whole this is a teeny bit smaller than it would have been using the standard kit, but note that the Juggalord sits a tiny bit lower than Invocatus. The Juggalord comes with two pairs of arms, so you can give him either a chainaxe or a chainsword on one side and a plasma pistol or having him holding the Juggernaut’s ring on the other. Neither makes a difference rules-wise.

Eightbound/Exalted Eightbound

The Eightbound are basically the World Eaters’ possessed options, and they come in two flavors, both of which can be built with this kit. The Exalted Eightbound are the more elite version, which come in units of 3 (so a single box will set you to rights), while the regular Eightbound come in units of 3-6 and you’ll likely want 15-18 in your World Eaters armies when you play, so get ready to buy a lot of these boxes.

The kit itself is pretty easy to build, with alternate arms, heads, and torso armor (plus feet for one dude) for the Exalted. As with Angron, this is a kit you can build sans armor without losing much – the Eightbound are pretty jacked and below their armor les a fully sculpted set of rippling muscles. And once I saw the armor from the kits, I immediately got a few ideas about why you might just build them shirtless…

These guys are big. Like, Terminator big. In fact, I was immediately struck by how you might be able to use their shoulder pads on a Terminator to make some easy World Eaters Terminator conversions. So that was immediately what I set out to do with the three unused shoulder pads I had left over from the kit.

The size here is perfect, though you do have to trim down the shoulder on the terminator arms a bit to fit the pad over the Terminator’s shoulder, which isn’t ideal but it’s not a hard project. Size-wise these guys are notably larger than a standard Berzerker and even a bit taller than CSM Possessed, though if you used the latter as stand-ins I think it’d be mostly OK as long as you gave them all the same weapon.

You get quite a few extra bits to work with from the kit regardless of how you build it; you’ll have three extra shoulder pads, a few extra arms, some extra heads, and some feet bits and chest plates. Of these the shoulder pads are the most useful for conversions but you can likely find uses for all of it.

Khorne Berzerkers

The new plastic Berzerkers are finally here and let me tell you: This kit is a delight. Pretty much everything goes together really easily and nicely, and the only parts that are anything resembling a chore are the double-handed weapons and there’s only so much you can do about those anyways.

The biggest, most important detail here is that the arms have flat joins.

Anyone who ever assembled older marine models knows why this rules – it basically means any arm can go on any model, no more putzing around with specific numbers to get 4% more dynamic poses. The heads, shoulder pads, and backpacks are also all interchangeable, making this the most modular CSM kit we’ve gotten since Rubric Marines.

When the first images of these guys came out there was some general grousing from the community about how they look the same as regular Chaos Marines but 1. They’re different enough, and 2. Being similar is a big plus in my book – I’ve already converted up Berzerkers from the standard CSM kit and it’s good that they don’t look so out of place with the new kits. These new Berzerkers are a bit broader all things considered, but look great next to the existing marines.

Jakhals

The Jakhals were probably the kit I liked the least in the new set. They’re very pretty models, but they’re quite a bit more fiddly than the new marines and have a few too many parts for a 7ppm unit for my taste. The kit itself is loaded with detail, and the Jakhals come on 28mm bases which feel more appropriate for their bulkier frames.

The weirdest part about the Jakhals are their backpacks, which are supposed to semi-slot into holes in the backs of some models rather than sit on top of plastic bits and those joins were generally a big pain in the ass, especially on the Dishonoured (who sits on the lone 40mm base in the kit).

These guys come with several interchangeable head options and hands so you can easily build 3-4 boxes and not have any duplicate models. This is also an excellent place to sub in Necromunda Corpse Grinders, who fit the mood and aesthetic pretty much perfectly.

Final Thoughts

Overall I really like these kits. Angron is easily my favorite of the bunch but I’m also a big fan of the new Berzerkers and already planning to convert and paint 10 World Eaters Terminators using bitz from the new kits. They’re great kits and it’s absolutely awesome to finally have good plastic Berzerkers on the same level as Plague Marines and Rubrics.

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