Goonhammer Reviews: The New Chaos Defiler, Mutilators, and Kravek Morne Kits

Chaos wasn't the only faction to get new models with the Eye of Terror campaign release, but their models were definitely the flashiest. In this review we're looking at the new models, how the kits go together, and what you need to know about assembling them.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with preview copies of these models for review purposes.

Kravek Morne

Kravek Morne. Credit: Corrode

This model was pretty straightforward to assemble and paint. He doesn't come with the full hero rock you see up there - I added that myself, along with some skulls from my skulls box. The only parts that are concerning are the mechatendrils, and the one behind the hammer arm has an extra contact point to attach to, making it a bit more stable than it looks.

His back sports to sockets for connecting the mechatendrils and these work pretty fine though they're looser than I'd like in terms of how they slot in, so you can get a lot more flexibility on the angles than I'd like.

Compared to the recent update to Cataphractii, Morne is substantially more hefty, to the point that I think he kind of makes those models look small and silly. That's a shame, because I'd have loved to use them or more parts of them for doing Iron Warriors Terminators. I still might, but it's hard to stay on that particular plan when I know there's an upgrade kit coming with Terminator shoulder pads for Indomitor pattern armor.

Mutilators

Credit: Thomas "Goatboy" Reidy

The new Mutilators are a bit taller and bulkier than the Obliterators, but aesthetically they match up pretty well. These models have some flexibility in assembly but not a ton - you have a couple of potential extra heads, and the arms all end with a hex-shaped peg that makes the weapon hands interchangeable.

Otherwise they're a trio of monopose models and they go together relatively easily, though there is some weirdness to them as they're mostly hollow. This means you end up assembling around a large central cavity, the putting the back on top of that.

Having different hand options is good because I think you need to put the ball and chain on a raised arm or it looks droopy and stupid.

The Defiler

Credit: Thomas "Goatboy" Reidy

OK this is the big one in this release. The Defiler is a massive kit - it comes with that 160mm base - and is an incredibly complicated build. Right out of the gate, it has two different torsos to pick from, each of which twists in a different direction. This thing has a ton of different build options and building one is a project. The one area I was really disappointed with the kit was when I had to glue on the torso. This uses a square peg that seems easy to magnetize. The problem is that there are four pistons which connect the top and bottom halves of the defiler, so if you want to magnetize the model you have to leave those off it.

The square peg from the bottom half of the defiler

The square hole in the top half of the Defiler

That was untenable for me, so I just went ahead and caved and glued the top half to the bottom half.

The legs on the Defiler are a real project. The standard build for them isn't bad, but you will want to track which leg number is which. If you want to go more freeform with them you can, and the instructions show you how to do that, basically by clipping off the tags on the legs. If you're going to do that, have a plan to fit the model to the base right away, because getting all the legs aligned at the right height is a going to be a challenge.

The big opportunity to magnetize this kit is on the arms. They have large ball-and socket joints that'd take magnets easy, similar to a Forgefiend. The gun arms themselves have a real easy hex peg-and-socket construction that can take multiple weapons. They won't all look right, but if you wanted to hot swap the flamer for the lascannon, that option is easy to do without glue.

In addition to the dozen or so head options the model also comes with a variety of alternate plates, so you have a bunch of different ways you can build it. Putting multiples in the same army with different aesthetics won't be a problem. This is one of the coolest kits I've seen them release in a long time and I only had a little trouble assembling the torso during construction - everything else was pretty smooth. Just make sure you dry fit things first.

Final Thoughts

These are some great kits. Kravek Morne was my favorite of the bunch from a build-paint perspective, but the Defiler is the most interesting and varied kit of the bunch; he's just a big project and will take a long time to paint. I'm not necessarily looking forward to building and painting six of them, but I'm not dreading it either - the kit is that good.

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