First thing's first
When you're clipping plastics from this sprue, please be careful and take your time. There are two big reasons for this:There are some seriously delicate pieces in this box. It feels weird to say this about a space marine box, but there are some connections that are simply paper thin. While it's impressive and appreciated see such precision molding, it translates to some tense moments trying to liberate said piece from its sprue. Do yourself a favor and use a sharp blade to weaken all the joints before any clipping occurs. When, not if, the multiple joins to the sprue begin to pull against each other, you have a much better chance of walking away with a whole piece.
The other reason to take your time in the clipping stage is to make sure you didn't miss anything. These sprues are jam packed; I doubled checked my work and still missed two purity seals. Every last chunk of space, no matter how minuscule, has been given a little something.
Help me out here guys
Which brings me to my major complaint with this box. Can someone please explain why, with so many options that could have been fleshed out, Games Workshop chose to put out a whopping 8 storm bolter arms for 5 guys? The worst part is there are only 5 ammo clips, ensuring you end up with 3 useless storm bolters. I understand some of the arm poses had to be switched up to allow for the multiple two-handed grips, but this seems a wasteful and less-than-elegant solution.NOTE
Be extremely careful when test fitting your arms for two handed weapons. The difference in angle for these storm bolter arms are very subtle, but they can make things infinitely more difficult for you down the road, especially if you paint your model in pieces before assembly.
Personally, I can think of at least 3 other pieces that were not included in this box that I would have loved to see over some extra storm bolter arms: a backpack banner, more helmets, and enough halberds to equip the box.
Minor griping aside, this is a beautiful offering, one GW can be proud of. You can create three different squad types with a single box, which creates serious value. This also opens up the door for plastic librarians in normal space marine forces; expect the justicar model to be a hot seller on your local bitz ordering site for the next year. Do yourself a favor and get the whole box. This box is a fantastic resource for plastic honor guard in a vanilla space marine army; relic blades, knight helms, and wrist mounted weaponry that could easily convert to a number of special characters or elite infantry.
You're definitely going to want to bring your bits box with you on this journey though. While it may be well and good to reuse the shoulder pads over and over, you're going to get sick of the same 5 pairs of legs with the same 5 bits of gold lettering stamped in them. Fortunately, there are a variety of great plastic boxes out there that you could draw on to add some unique and memorable flavor to your grey knight force.
