Disclaimer: I bought this kit as part of a business deal when I sold Collapse Industries some of my wooden round plinths at CMON Expo 2015.

When I went to my very first CMON Expo in 2015 I took along theremaining stock of wooden plinths I had unsuccessfully tried to sell for a few years. At first I was just giving them away to some of the event coordinators and class teachers, but then someone from the Collapse booth approached me and asked if they were for sale. The next day I was able to sell off the entire remainder of my stock, which was a relief as I didn’t want to haul those bases back home. Part of the deal was a preorder of their forthcoming Viking themed miniature.

Parts List: Body Right Arm Left Arm Head – Viking Helmet Head – Helmet w/ Gas Mask Axe Shield Longship Prow Dragon’s Head Left Hull Section Right Hull Section Wooden Seat Longship Bottom

Concept art was all I had to work with, but it was striking enough that I really wanted that kit. The quality and detail of the other figures they had for sale gave me reason to trust this Norseman would be just as good.

After a couple of months I got the announcement email that the Norseman was being released. When the package arrived I was surprised to discover that he was wearing modern tactical gear and had a head option with an assault gas mask. Apparently I had missed those details from the concept art, but I was not disappointed.

This piece has been in my backlog for quite some time, but I’m glad to finally be able to bring it out for a review.

Overall this is a very high quality resin kit. The details are crisp with very few mold lines, but there are some issues to be aware of.

The ship’s hull sections both had very large sprue on the bottom, which were easy to remove. I just scored the edge and was able to snap the piece away with minimal effort. However, the bottom edge was very ragged. I did a good bit of cleanup, but never reached the point of a fully flush fit between the pieces that make up the boat. Part of this is because I reached a point that seemed good enough and I felt that trying to work the material any more would lead me into more problems.

You can see that the fit isn’t terrible, but will require some putty work. I’m not worried about this along the bottom edge as I am planning on adding some water effects.

When assembling the boat I recommend starting with the prow. It’s the central point that all the other pieces connect to. After affixing one side of the hull, I had to work down the seat piece to get it to fit well and glued it to the hull section already in place. Then, I added on the other side of the vessel.

The dragon’s head was the first time I encountered any bubbles in the resin. Thankfully they weren’t on any of the major details, but there was one under the chin and another at the back of the head. I love the look of this detail and it fit in place very easily.

The Norseman has his own challenges in assembly. First, the sprue on the feet was incredibly thick and required careful trimming with my sprue cutters. There was also some excess resin where the boots connected to the sprue, so I had to file them back into the proper shape.

The head was easy to attach to the body. I prefer the version with the gas mask, possibly because I’ve been playing a lot of The Division since the Survival patch.

The arms were the challenging part. The slots on the body where the arms should fit were completely covered with resin. I wasn’t able to salvage them at all. So, I ended up clipping the tabs off of the arms. Then I had to take a lot of material off of the body where the arms should attach just to get rid of the excess resin that was in the way. After about 20 minutes of careful work I was only able to get a rough fit, but it was good enough that I glued the arms in place before filling the gaps with greenstuff and resculpting the sleeves. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

The final pieces: the shield and axe, were simple to prep. The shield slots easily into the back, but there are 2 different orientations where the body’s slot will accept the shield tab. One of them looks better than the other, so make sure you test thoroughly before glueing the shield in place.

I was very happy to see that the boat base has a slot for the hilt of the axe, making it very easy to complete the assembly.

Even though the Norseman is posed statically, the fullness of the figure and the incredible detail keeps this from being a negative thing. My only major complaint with this kit is that the interior of the boat is so empty. I wish there were some pieces of kit on the seat; something to break up the negative space.

The price of this kit is a remarkable deal. The overall quality, combined with the scale of the piece, means a great value at the 1:35 scale. Even though it had some challenges to put together, I love this kit. In fact I like it so much that it’s going to be one of my competition pieces for the CMON Expo next year. The Norseman Cometh is a miniature that I highly recommend.

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