The Lictor. A fearsome slayer of man and beast in the lore… Wasted points on the tabletop? At least, that’s what I was told by the game store owner in late 2008, when I proudly presented the Tyranids Lictor kit I had plucked from the shelf of the store.

“You should get something different” he told me, “Lictors aren’t very good.” Now, I was extremely new to the hobby at this point, having only built my Assault on Black Reach box set weeks before. I know what you’re thinking. Why, if I had both Orks and Space Marines at home, would I be looking at Tyranids? Because, they were cool of course. Who wouldn’t want to play with a gestalt intelligence bent on the annihilation of all life in the galaxy?

I know the guy’s heart was in the right place, trying to not have a new player get discouraged. When a model that you have poured time and effort into gets blapped out of existence before it can do anything, it hurts your very soul. That being said, the rule should always be:

Build what you like, because rules change, but models you love are always going to be models you love. – Michael Scott, Wayne Gretzky, Someone else

Now, many years later (the actual number isn’t important, for the sake of my sanity) I have gotten my claws into one of the newly minted Lictor kits, and I am excited. This kit review is a little short of pictures, because, well. I built all three Lictors I bought within the space of a couple hours. I actually forgot I was supposed to stop and take some more pictures of things in progress. So, it’s gonna be a bit wordy-er.. wordier?

Initial Impressions

It’s gorgeous, Absolutely gorgeous. It’s just the bees knees on the sprue. The detail they’re pulling into the moulds these days is staggering.

The Lictor’s single-sprue layout is pretty effective at delivering a lot of customization in a very small sprue package. The Lictor’s signature talons are broken into five pieces, with the two joints being swappable to get different degrees of opening. This is awesome to see, since we’re not locked into specific talon configurations. Given the size of the talons, they’re also great candidates for magnetizing them so you can swap them in and out for different angles/positions.

However, I kinda wish they had been as flexible with the legs. Why are there no knee joints GW? Do you hate knees? Did someone with knees take your lunch money as child causing you to develop an intense hatred of all things with bendable knees? For a $60 MSRP kit (in Goose Bucks) I wish at least one set of the legs could have been made into two parts for flexibility of posing.

Construction Thoughts

The kit is POINTY.

I have lost count of how many minor pokes and prods have been delivered during the course of construction, but it’s a lot. That kind of sharpness really helps to sell the hard edges of the bio-weaponry that’s equipped so this is less a con than it might sound.

Everything in this kit is solidly designed, fits well and doesn’t have any major mating issues. Though, the placement of a few sprue links could have been better considered. The face tentacles have a sprue mating point on them and they are very fragile, so cleaning any excess sprue material off of it is a job for a steady hand, a sharp knife and the kind of steely eyed determination that comes from decades of work in the bomb squad. I know I accidentally gave my Lictor a missing tentacle with a little bit too much pressure. We try to make him feel like “it’s no big deal” and “we don’t notice it at all” and “it looks very natural”

But we do. We all notice.

On The Origins of Talons

I’d also like to point out, that the Lictor talon love-in I had earlier was completely justified upon constructing the miniature. The arms slotted together into a few very aesthetically pleasing and lethal looking poses. I’d actually like to say that all Tyranid arms should have the same flexibility as the Lictors do. (I’m looking at you the same 10 poses of Hormagaunts!).

The Lictor’s legs were good enough, but solid piece legs are very limiting if you wanted to do something more… unique. The way they’re moulded it’d be a big undertaking to change them. Which means I was left with either slicing them up and hoping my greenstuff skills were up to the task… or just accepting that several of my Lictors would end up looking like they were preparing for a 100m dash at the Olympics.

Fun fact. Lictors did attempt to attend one of the Olympics, however they were disqualified for eviscerating half the competition.

Final Thoughts

I haven’t finished painting up the Lictors yet, from what I’ve experienced thus far, there are a few really frustrating bits to get a brush to. Otherwise they’re good examples of current generation Tyranid models. Lots of fun to build, gorgeous to look at and only mildly sanity draining to paint. I’ll update this post once I finish painting them up so you can see what a below average Goose can do when painting a Lictor.

*HONK*