With the release of the Maelstrom supplement, Games Workshop have also released a host of new kits, finally giving us an updated Huron Blackheart model and some kits exclusive to the Red Corsairs. If you've wanted models representing the more recent renegade warbands of Chaos converts, these new kits are everything you've been asking for. In this article we'll review the new kits and talk about what it's like to assemble and paint them.

Before we do that however, we'd like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with preview copies of these models for review purposes.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Huron Blackheart and the Masters of the Maelstrom

TheChirurgeon: This is a beefy kit - it's basically six and a half characters, and most of them have a ton of detail on them. This kit took me a good two weeks to paint and then some, and Huron wasn't even the most intensive part of the kit.

Keewa: First let me say how much I enjoy the name of this kit, “Huron Blackheart and the Masters of the Maelstrom”, I’m sure they played some incredible psychedelic rock at the Hammersmith Apollo in 1971. The kit has the big man himself, plus a coterie of five weirdos (and a dog).

Credit: Keewa

Leading the band we have Huron Blackheart, erstwhile leader of the Astral Claws, Tyrant of Badab. This model is… well, I’m disappointed, unfortunately, he’s a cool big space marine leader with a really stupid-looking head and no helmeted option. With his big, wide grinning mouth he looks like Wallace, it’s awful. While I was painting it, I kept noticing that grin and going “oh god this head is so bad” and it really bummed me out. He does have a cool mutated space monkey on his base though, with boggly eyes and a lolling tongue, he’s a pretty neat little fella.

When painting this Mr Blackheart esq., you’re really going to want to leave the cape off - normally I’d say you should leave capes off but in this case, definitely leave it off.

TheChirurgeon: I agree wholeheartedly - I kept Huron off his base and basically did him in three parts: Huron, his base, and Hamadrya, the little gribbly psychic monster that hangs around him. Hamadrya is attached to a piece of rock that glues onto the larger rock and would obscure part of Huron's leg, making it harder to paint than I wanted.

This made painting him a lot easier, and I also painted his body before throwing on his backpack. I liked his face/head more than most, though I do see the "Wallace and Gromit" smile on it. He went together pretty easily, all things considered. Getting at the underside of his cape wasn't a problem - it sits far enough off his back that as long as he isn't glued to his base, the underside is easy to reach.

Credit: Keewa

Keewa: The next band member is the very creepy Garreon the Corpsemaster, an Apothecary-type who doesn’t seem all that interested in doing healing or any of that altruistic stuff, with his evil mad-scientist face and his various needles and probes, including the kind of syringe that would make a horse run and hide, and a big Doctor Octopus style arm with blades and big poker. This guy is fun - he’s very over-the-top in a kind of Fabius Bile way, and the base is a little diorama standing over a Red Corsair who got completely legless, the fallen gentleman reaching up to grab the leather apron while the big space marine boot holds his other arm down.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

TheChirurgeon: I love this model - he's a ton of fun to paint, and the storytelling on the model is immaculate. He's got an insane number of little details which makes him take forever to finish, but he's my favorite model in the set. Watch out for his surgical tools, though - the needle came broken off mine on the left arm and I couldn't find it - it's a very tiny bit.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Keewa: After that comes the enigmatic, creepy skeleton man with the very Star Wars name of “Katar Garrix”. He has an enormous bearded power-axe, he looks kinda like a Chaplain with his black armour and skull-helmet, I guess he’s meant to be some kind of executioner? There’s not a whole lot to say about him, he’s creepy, he’s covered in heads (including a big ork head on a hook, gnarly) - the handle of his power axe is made of wood, which is a fun detail, but other than that he’s really just A Guy who’sdoomed to be overshadowed by his more interesting friends.

TheChirurgeon: This was the simplest of the set to paint, and I was very much happy to have him as a reprieve. There isn't much going on with him, just a dude in black armor and a skull head.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

TheChirurgeon: On the other hand, the Sorcerer Garlon Souleater is the right mix of detail and plain surfaces, and was one of my favorite models to paint in the set. While Garreon tended to drag a little when I had to paint lots of little vials, this guy painted up fast and I'm really happy with how easy it was to do some OSL on him in that hand. Great model and I can see doing conversions of this guy to make standard Red Corsairs Sorcerers. Or I could if they were worth fielding, anyways.

Keewa: Garlon Souleater is your average Chaos Sorcerer type with a staff, a robe, and a reaching magic-spell hand - he’s pretty generic, honestly.

Credit: Keewa

Keewa: On keys, we have Captain Sargotta, a cool-lookin’ naval lady with a cyber peg-leg, in a long coat, standing on a floating platform with a bunch of computers on it - the podium is a bit difficult to put together in my experience, spindly bits abound. She looks so cool, I’m a big fan.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

TheChirurgeon: I really enjoyed this model as well. I recommend painting her separately from her floating platform, so you aren't trying to fit a brush between her and it. The contact points on here are pretty easy to hit and neither part is very complicated.

Credit: Keewa

Keewa: The Enforcer (name unknown) rounds out the merry band, probably the coolest model in the whole batch, a freakin’ Tarellian Dog Soldier, an awesome crocodile dog lady with a big shotgun and some rad alien power armour and claw - she’s also wearing an armoured tank top and shorts, presumably because she’s stylish as fuck and her reptilian aspect really scratches that fantasy Lizardmen itch. GW, you must make a whole unit of these guys - they will make so much money. Accompanying The Enforcer is her friendly six-eyed dog, Plunder - because every dog soldier needs a dog.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

TheChirurgeon: This one was also pretty fun, and the dog in particular paints up fast. Not a lot of notes here - it's a pretty uncomplicated model that's easy to assemble and doesn't have a lot of crazy stuff going on.

Reave-Captain

Credit: Keewa

Keewa: Yarr, me hearties! The pirate captain that immediately leaps to mind when I hear Red Corsairs, a swashbuckler of the high seas (of space), one of his bare heads even has an eyepatch! He has a few other options, he can be armed with either a cutlass-style power sword or a power mace, with either a plasma pistol (with a bayonet blade), or a plundered space marine medal in his other hand - you have the choice of two bandoliers across his chest, I chose the one with a few more looted trophies, a Sisters of Battle Fleur-de-Lis, more medals, an Aquila, that sort of thing. He’s got a great fur-lined cape, and sculpted Red Corsairs hand on his shin-pad, and to top all that swag off, he’s standing defiant and mocking on a big damaged Imperial Aquila, what a guy, yo ho ho and a bottle of Amasec. I love this guy.

TheChirurgeon: It's worth noting that you can assemble this guy with pistol + maul, but it definitely feels like you aren't quite supposed to do that when you're gluing him together. As with Huron, I'd recommend not gluing this guy to the base before you paint him, just to make it possible to get in under that cape with a brush.

Red Corsair Raiders

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

TheChirurgeon: These are some chunky lads. They're larger even than Chosen, though not by much, and clearly bigger than Legionaries. The kit here is loaded with extra details like heads, shoulder pads, and weapons, giving you a ton of options to work with if you want to do conversions on other models like your legionaries. On that note, they all come with bothers and close combat weapons by default, so it might be worth it to put more bolters on them and save the chainsword/pistol hands for your Legionary/Chosen conversions.

I had a ton of bits left over after assembling the unit, as you can see in the sprue pics above. There are a ton of amazing bits here, and the kit also works extremely well with older marine kits - a lot of these parts match the aesthetic of older Mk6 and Mk7 armor kits from 7th edition. I ended up using a mix of parts from this and the upgrade kits to make these bikes:

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I'm absolutely buying more of these guys - they're insanely good models with a lot of great details and they paint up fast due a lack of trim and chaos details.

Credit: Keewa

Keewa: Your basic Red Corsairs guys. My favourite aspect of these guys is that they’re very light on the Chaos iconography and general frippery - their aesthetic is much more utilitarian, with armour that’s generally quite plain with a MK3-inspired brutality to it. They can be built either with rifles or with pistols and a variety of close-combat weapons (fists, chainswords, and chain-axes - the leader gets a sword that’s like a smaller, straighter version of the cutlass of the Reave-Captain, and the option to take a pistol or a hand-flamer in the other hand). There’s also an arm that’s tossing a smoke grenade, which is very fun and flavourful for a bunch of pirate raiders. I don’t really like building models with weapons across their bodies, so with the exception of a Melta, I chose all close combat weapons. Each raider comes with a pauldron featuring a moulded version of the Red Corsairs icon on it, which is very nice, but might limit the kit’s appeal to people interested in using these models in a force of a different legion. Honestly, I would like Chaos Space Marines a lot more if they were more like these guys, renegades and rebels, and less like the ultra-hyper trim-laden Evil Laugh aesthetic of the other CSM, but I guess that’s what people vibe with.

Red Corsairs Upgrades

TheChirurgeon: The upgrades kit is what you'd expect - lots of shoulder pads, some chainswords, and some heads. They're great bits, and good for converting both standard Chaos Space Marine kits and, suprisingly, older marine kits and Heresy kits for use. While I was building my Terminators I found that I could get a better match on the Red Corsairs aesthetic mixing in loyalist marine bits like storm bolters and Power Fists. I ended up using MkIII shoulder pads as well to do some of my marine shoulder pads, matching the less spiky trim of the new Raiders kit.

If you have a ton of old bits lying around from 6th-7th edition - notably helmets, shoulder pads, and arms - you can really make use of them here, adding some character to your army in a way that will perfectly supplement this upgrade kit. That said, the upgrade kit is also critical, because those mailed fist shoulder pads are amazing to have. I plan on buying at least four.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I also ended up making a Red Corsairs Rhino using a Deimos Rhino and a Chaos Rhino upgrade kit and again, I think it works very well here for the kind of "Warhammer 35k" vibe the Red Corsairs have. The transfer sheet is also very good, with lots of large skulls and runes on it. I don't plan on using it, but there are some really neat things here I ended up using as inspiration for freehand.

In short, these kits are amazing, and provide a wonderfully different take on the Chaos aesthetic that I think we've needed for a while. Huron and his crew act as a great centerpiece for the army, and I look forward to seeing what the community does with these kits.

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