C'tan Construction Review

C'tan Construction review

This is a quick review of the C'tan figures "Nightbringer" & "The Deceiver" from Games Workshop.
I've recently bought both of these miniatures as well as constructing and painted one for a local store.

The Nightbringer:

In total six sections comprise this figure - Base, Lower body, Torso, Left arm, Right Arm & Scythe.
On both of the models completed there was no flash and little evidence of moulding lines, so usually present on GW's recent moudlings.

Lower body and Base fitted together with minor filing to the lower body locating stub.However in order to get the base to sit level a serious amount of flat filing had to be done. Fortunatly this did not damage any of the detail surfaces.

Attaching the torso to the lower body requires a considerable amount of filler as there is a serious gap in the fit. My own version needed three pins to ensure a strong fit as well as Enough Green stuff to fill a 4mm gap at the front of the figure. (And yes I did measure it out of curiousity). Fortunatley this is in an area which follows the folds of cloth so it is easily sculpted to blend in.

Attaching the arms:
For the store version both arms attached strongly without the need for pinning (surprise) but on my own figure both were a very loose fit and required pinning. This still did not reinforce the join very well and in the end I was forced to use green stuff as bolth filling and bonding agent.

Fitting the scythe, This is a nightmare. The scythe present very little surface area for connection to the shaft of the weapon. On my own figure I drilled for very fine brass rod and ended up drilling through the body of the blade. (****) Drilling into the shaft presented it's own problems as there is zero tolerance for error. I managed to get enough purchase on the shaft to allow adhesion and filled in the hole in the blade with green stuff.



The Deceiver:
There are ten pieces in this model, Senic base, Crystal base, Body, Sash, Head, Left Arm, Right Arm, Left Horns & Right Horns. Moulding lines were present on this figure but judicious use of a sharp blade and fine wet & dry paper removed the traces.

Fitting the figure to the stand was simplicity although the figure does lean off the vertical. The crystal base needs to be attached to the bottom of the figure and there is a gap between the crystal's sash and the body sash.which needed to be filled. (In hindsight this section could be left off the figure for less experienced modellers.)

The sash section fitted to the centre of the body very well, there are locating lugs and it only goes in one way which is easily identifiable. However there was still a noticable gap which had to be filled by green stuff.

Both arms needed to be pinned as there is not a lot of surface area in which to gain adhesion. Both needed a small amout of green stuff to fill minor gaps.

The head needed both sets of horns drilling and pinning before placing on the neck which also needed a small pin and no filler. The horns themselves needed the most work on removing moulding lines.


Both of these figures have been primed and are now awaiting painting. (However I'm looking at an alternative to GW's colour scheme's as both seem rather bland to me.

In my opinion both of these figures are very finely sculpted but the transition to the mould's have caused problems. Experienced modellers will be able to cope with the difficulty of these figures but new starters may need some help and encouragement as the fit without pinning and filling will cause some dissapointment.
When they are painted I will put them up on CMON for review.