As always a big shout-out to Games Workshop for providing early preview copies of the Leagues of Votann kits.
You already knew what everything here does by this point, and may have even played with proxies, but now it’s time for the rest of the Votann range to reach people’s eager hands! Games Workshop has decided to drop the entire range at once, including the patrol, which is a bit unusual for them and is a most unfortunate occurrence for people’s wallets.
Without further ado let’s get into the models themselves.
Sagitaur
Rockfish – One of the first things you will realize about this model is its tiny, while images of it might make you think its pretty substantial its more comparable in size to a rhino or maybe smaller.
Build wise this is a fine little kit, nothing particularly dramatic stays in my memory as being a issue. The sprue is crisp and new, so nothing will be too bad in the way of mold lines, and the pieces go together about how you would expect.
I highly appreciate how easy it was to magnetize, with each gun being a completely self contained part without any overlapping pieces and attaching via a simple peg. You could probably get away without using any magnets and just leave the turrets loose if you wanted honestly.
Shane – I really like how modular this kit is, it is a bunch of pieces but it allows for a bunch of kit bashing opportunities. I think there is a ton that can be done conversion wise for those that want to make it truly unique.
Bair – This was a really cool little kit. I don’t usually paint stuff inside of glass canopies but the little robot was just too cool not to so gave it a shot. The weapons are super easy to magnetise too, in the hole on the vehicle I just used a 1x2mm magnet and on the bottom of the weapon mounting a 5×2 which is more than enough to hold them in place. I’m basing my army on snowy mountain type bases and wanted this to match, so stuck it on a 120x90mm oval that I had laying around – it doesn’t really add to its footprint much at all so don’t expect to run into issues game-wise and it just looks a lot better than sitting flat in my army.
Brôkhyr Thunderkyn
Rockfish – Lil angry dudes with ones choice of heavy fire power! While I can’t say I was initially sold on these models with their funny little stilts, they have kind of grown on me.
These weren’t actually that great to assemble as they have quite a number of pieces that sometimes invoke odd contortions while getting them to stay in place. They also commit two cardinal sins for me, the first being that the instructions fail to mention that you need to put the robot head in before putting the torsos, if you don’t catch this it locks you out of the best head! The other is more minor in that the two shoulder pads attach via a precarious little flat point meaning that getting them to stay is a pain in the ass.
Now this is something I basically never do myself, but if you are the sort to magnetize infantry this kit is probably one of the best opportunities I have seen in a while. Each gun is a self contained piece like in the Sagitaur and they attach at the wrists with a simple peg where both sides have a good chunk of plastic. It should be reasonably simple to just expand the peg mount and hollow out the wrists to get a small magnet in there.
Corrode – I only got as far as building these, and didn’t manage to paint them. I built the first one and observed to Rockfish that they were a great kit that went together surprisingly easily; then I did the second and it was a total pain. The main thing to be aware of is the cages that fit over the shoulders; they need to be placed quite precisely for all the contact points to join up with each other and you have to connect them together at the back, to the back, and then to the over-the-shoulder part all at the same time. Take care!
Otherwise these are a great kit, and I’m looking forward to getting mine painted up.
Brôkhyr Iron-master
Rockfish – I don’t have quite as much to say about this fellow, the model itself is nice enough and he has a cute little robot cohort but there isn’t anything too surprising here. The build is straightforward and there aren’t any options to worry about, although a head swap should be pretty simple if you so desire.
Corrode – Another I built but didn’t paint yet, and echoing Rockfish there’s not much to say except that it’s a nice and easy build. One cute feature is that there’s a couple of different head options, and the goggles are a separate piece so they can be left off entirely, raised as Rockfish has done here, or lowered over the eyes to be “in use.”
Einhyr Hearthguard
Shane – I love this these models look, but I did have a few minor issues during assembly. Both weapon arms have half of a hand, with the weapon being the other half, and I when I say half I mean split down the middle, where the palm is attached to the weapon or arm. Which is a little weird and made my brain hurt when I was trying to figure out how to magnetize them. Also each arm has a cable that is super tiny, most of which are separate pieces from the arm/weapon, which wasn’t bad, just tedious. Overall this kit is awesome, just some things to think about ahead of time.
Grimnyr
Bair – I really, really hate flying stands with a passion. These are similar to how I’ve done my Kharadron Overlords army using thick cork torn apart to create mountainous looking terrain to give the “correct” height to the flying models. The Grimnyr is easily the coolest Votann model there is: space dwarf wizard. It goes together like a charm, has a nice female face if you want (I just wanted Gandalf vibes) but otherwise no alternate parts. The two flying buddies are surprisingly only two pieces each so without any cutting there isn’t any kind of pose-ability, but they’re so small and simple there’s not a whole lot you’d want to pose anyways.
Cthonian Beserks
Axe-wielding psycho dwarfs! A bit like the Hearthguard, these are mostly nice models and easy enough to build, but I didn’t love the backpack and cables which are a bit fiddly to get together. They’re also a little bit of a pest to paint just because there’s a lot of different details and different textures all crammed together. At least they’re 30ppm now so you only have to do a few!
Einhyr Champion
Also getting a separate release this month is the Einhyr Champion, already seen in the Army Set.
Hekaton Land Fortress
Rounding out the releases is the biggest boy of them all – the Hekaton Land Fortress. Build wise it’s much the same as the Sagitaur, which makes sense since aesthetically the two are very similar – a nice clean kit that your friends will love seeing as magna-rails blast them to bits.
