Sicaran Relic Battle Tank: Kit review and some advice?

[Kaldoth]

Posted this in the Chaos forum and I figured I'd throw this bad boy up here as well:

 

Got a Sicaran kit from FW in the mail. Have to say its one of the cooler models I've built, but by the warp was this kit a pain in the rear as far as patching up goes.

 

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c206/Kaldoth/IMG_20150428_180403657.jpg

 

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c206/Kaldoth/IMG_20150428_180524869_HDR1.jpg

 

In case any of you would like to add one of these to your army, a couple of observations:

 

- The sides of the tank, to include the tracks, are one massive piece which makes building this thing very easy. However, there are two injection points on the back side, one that flows right onto the flat part (covered with plasticard) and one right into the tracks (green stuff). I was pretty darn careful sawing and filing through these, but it still took quite a bit of fixing up and resculpting to make it look pretty. The back of the tracks also have a slight inward curve the closer to the injection points they get, so be prepared to either cover it with green stuff/milliput to fill in the concave angle, or paint it up muddy (my plan).

 

- Lots of air holes towards the front of the tracks, right behind where I've put the spiked plates. Nothing a little green stuff cant fill, but tedious. Also air holes in the track links in the rear by the injection points.

 

- Unholy warp does this kit take quite a bit of shimming. There are huuuuuuuge gaps in between the sides and the hull, as well as the main hull portion (driver's vision block/heavy bolter part) and that front piece that looks like a "V." I looked at other WIP photos online and it seems to be pretty common with this kit. Expect to cut a lot of plasticard and smooth with GS if you don't want there to be gaps.

 

- The side sponsons (unpictured) aren't exactly the best built if you actually want them to move. There is a sensor head and a cable that run into the top and bottom of either the lascannon or heavy bolter (depending on which one you want to use) that are supposed to hold it in place. They definitely don't stand up to the rotation of the sponsons, even with gentle pressure. Expect to either do some pinning, or if you're like me and you don't like your pieces moving anyway, just glue them together and call it a day.

 

- Gun barrels will likely be warped. Be veeeeeery careful when bending them back into place, and I would get them a little warmer than you normally would when bending resin. I ran one of them under hot tap water for a good minute (my usual trick) to get it to bend back into shape and it still snapped. I'm guessing its because these are pretty thick compared to most barrels. The second one I soaked in a container of hot water for about three minutes and it bent just fine.

 

Now, I've just got to figure out how I'm going to represent dozer blades with that weird front slope :rolleyes: I've done some pretty minor chaotic additions to it, but it just doesn't look like an ancient, evil rolling death wagon like its described in IA 13. I'm trying to avoid the standard spike racks on the top, as the turret wouldn't be able to rotate around. Any suggestions on the dozer blades or making it look more Chaos-y? Its for an Iron Warriors force, so I'm trying to stay away from the daemonic and lean more towards the psychotic evil side of Chaos. The plasticard in the back is a major concern, as I know even though I was very tedious with it, after paint it will still obviously be a patch job -_-

 

Cheers,

 

-Kal