Thursday, February 6, 2014

Bits Review - SpellCrow

Time for a bit of a review.

As part of my decision to build a Chaos army I made two decisions; first it was going to be thematic and walker heavy to start, and second that it was going to try and look great.  So for the second point, that meant a lot of conversions/kitbashing and some third party bits.


One of the best places I've found for the very specific bits I wanted was SpellCrow, I think I found them through a Dark Future Gaming conversion article on building a better noise marine.  The dragon/salamander range of bits was going to fit perfectly into the Dragon Warriors look that I was going for.  I was going to start with a small order of bits and see what I thought of them and then likely go back for more as I expanded the army in the future.  So I was browsing just before Christmas and they had a nice little offer where if you got 4 kits you got a 5th for free; I thought this was a great opportunity.  So I knew I was going to need probably 3 sets of the Dragon Melting Guns, and was going to grab a set of the Dragon Tabards to help make the Chaos Marines look more like Chosen.  With the opportunity of the free kit, I knew I had some Chaos Terminators that were short shoulder pads because of some other Obliterator conversions, so I grabbed a set of the Dragon Knight Heavy Shoulder Pads.



The company is based in Poland, so I knew they weren't going to show up right away, and I think the total time was about 3 weeks.  They showed up last week, and I was extra impressed.  Not only did I get everything I ordered, but there was also a small bag labelled Freebies.  It contained a couple of their Dragon Torsos, and 2 of their Gravity Guns.  I'm sure these were left overs from bad cast sets, but I always like when a company does stuff like this.  Even more, it could just be dumb luck, but I'm more inclined to say it was smart business sense and marketing that I received samples of torsos I'd be likely to buy in the future, and probably the very high demand Gravity Guns that I showcased to others who are doing Marines.  For the 4-15 dollars a piece that they want on E-bay, the 5.80 Eu(approx $9) for the four pack is a great deal.

So on to the actual bits.



First up the Dragon Tabards.  They are nice quality, maybe a touch long for a normal set of marines but easily enough trimmed.  They are obviously built more for a Terminator and would look great.


Dragon Meltaguns.  These were the primary reason I was going to order from them.  A normal Meltagun is going for $4+ on Ebay, and were going to look fairly plain.  Since I was going to be melta heavy, needing 12-15 in the end, that wasn't looking promising.  This was a great alternative, with each gun costing half that at about $2.25.  The guns themselves are a little oversized, but do the job wonderfully.


Dragon Heavy Shoulder Pads were a nice little bonus, and I have to say they are the bits I am the most pleased with.  They have a nice shape that make them stand out, and a good amount of detail while maintaining a certain simplicity.


Dragon Torsos were bits I was considering originally, but there were two things holding me back.  First is they look more like torsos layered in scaled robes, which isn't quite what I wanted.  Second, there are no matching legs, I'd end up with highly detailed torsos without matching legs.


Gravity Guns aren't something I'm overly familiar with; I'm aware of how they work in general, but wasn't so familiar with the look.  So I took a quick look for the bits on E-bay and was surprised at how dead on these looked.   I'd say this is where you should look for the Grav Gun conversions.