This one’s been on the top of my pile for awhile now. When GW announced the Rapier kit was going to be put out in plastic, and showed images of the new crew minis, I knew I needed it!
I’m a big fan of the old resin Laser Destroyer Rapier. I managed to find one already built and primed at one of Grognard Game’s garage sales awhile back. I painted it over the summer for Dice Dojo’s final Horus Heresy 2nd Edition narrative day. It didn’t do a whole lot against the Mechanicum armies and World Eaters that I faced, but damn it looks cool. And I only paid like $15 for it. They were really fun to paint and weather up for a gritty look.
Since I’m waiting for a new airbrush to arrive before I continue working on my bunch of tanks for Heresy, I decided to build the new plastic Rapier kit. The kit comes with three sprues, one for the crew minis (which are so cool), and one for each weapon option.
The kit only has pieces to build two gun carriages, but I managed to find an stl somewhere to print a carriage to build the quad launchers with. I printed them on my Ender 3 a month or two ago. They turned out decent. I’m planning on running these with phosphex shells at some point.
First up were the crew members, who are kitted out with auspex scanners, binoculars, and other neat looking targeting computer things. They also have these super cool holstered Bolters, which I didn’t even notice until I started building them. Damn these look super cool. Can we get more unique bits and weird stuff like this please GW?
The 4 crew members went together pretty easy, with some of the smaller parts being kinda fiddly. It’s hard to tell what Armor Mark they’re wearing, but they seem like specialized MkIV plate? Either way they’re really cool looking, and each of these guys could easily be used as various Master of Signals, Techmarines, Optae, Delegatus, etc. The kneeling dude is just. . . . so so cool. After sticking these little guys on some blue tac and bases I moved onto the Rapiers themselves.
The Rapiers themselves came together even quicker, with minimal mold lines and not much filing away the gates. If anything it took longer for me to clean and trim all of the supports from my fdm printed gun carriages. The treads on the carriages were like the miniature (lol) version of the bigger vehicle tank treads.
The 3d printed gun carriages fit the remaining Quad Launchers really well. They’re missing the armor plate that fits over the front of the tracks, like the Laser Destroyers have, but I think all painted up they’ll look cool.
Final Thoughts
I was looking forward to building this kit for a long time, and it lived up to my expectations. The new Heresy kits have been great. Really crisp details, well laid out sprues, and everything fits together really well. It was awesome getting to build all 4 of the options in the box thanks to the 3d-printed carriage too. These are great models, and I can’t wait to get some paint on them.
Build Soundtrack: Peter Gabriel’s So, my Youtube Mix which is mostly Bad Bunny and Rosalia atm
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