So, got most of the stuff I had on order, so time to start building! My favorite part of the hobby, aside from playing. I decided to start with the Night Raptors component of my Raptors squad, as I figured that a five man, mostly stock group would be an easy intro. I was wrong. 

The Horus Heresy Night Raptors are pretty clearly old FW design- mostly in the fact that the leg/torso/pauldrons are all one piece and the shoulder/arm connections are all different (both in where the connection is- one is at the wrist, most are mid-upper arm and in that each mating pair has a different locking connector). Useful I guess, given the fact that there were never instructions for this set so it is mostly intuitive on how to put together, but annoying for me. I was originally intending to use both of the two-handed Nostraman chainglaives on these guys, giving me more options for putting a one-handed chainglaive on someone else if I felt like it, but the weird arm connections put me off. I have a pretty bad relationship with two-handed weapons already and didn't want to screw around with trying to match up, cut correctly, and glue together the chainglaive arms to the Raptor shoulders. So I just decided to use the one-handed chainglaives instead (aside from one put aside for Lord Carrow). It worked alright, as there were several non-skin trophy arms that I could easily chop off the hands and convert properly.

Overall, the kit is....decent. I think it was annoying to me because I'm used to modern GW/FW kits in which it is super easy to convert due to having standard flat shoulder connections or at least connections that aren't this random. I'm glad I got them, they are good looking models (and really glad I could snag more Night Raptor heads!), but I'm also glad that I don't have more than the five to do.

Sarran Narvok, Raptor Huntmaster

Remaining Night Raptor element of the Virex Clade

And next up, the MkII element of the Raptors. Tomorrow, hopefully.

And the nice 1mm chain I found from Michael's that should work perfectly for conversions. I am super happy about this, as it took quite a bit of searching and holding up a bunch of jewelry chains in the store to compare to a model I had brought to find them. I have no doubt I looked like a weirdo, as it was a spur of the moment thing and I had just woken up so was in random gym clothes and bed head. Anyway, more tomorrow.