I’ve been after a Macrocarid Explorator model for quite a long time, after all when you look at the rules your basically getting a Land Raider with much better options for less points base. Normally I am quite happy to hold off and wait to get any new releases. however, with an upcoming Horus Heresy tournament which I’ll be attending in December that I will be taking my Mechanicum to, this is a new addition that I just had to have. I placed my pre-order with Forgeworld and waited eagerly for my shiney now toy to arrive…

Now I’m not usually the fastest when it comes to completing projects and being extremely busy with life outside of the hobby (learning Chinese, building a house, planning a wedding etc…) I knew going into this that it was going to be tight getting the Macrocarid Explorator finished by the 17th and ready for the tabletop. I picked up my package from the post office on the way to work on Monday morning.

Like an excited little girl I couldn’t wait to get it home and ended up opening the box at work, although not before scratching off the product name and sharing it in our hobby chat on FB (it’s going to be my little secret weapon after all). Once opened I checked that there were no missing components and that the model was a good cast. Spying a basin in the work kitchen I filled it with some warm water and Fairy Liquid and allowed the parts to soak for a good 5-10 minutes. Admittedly I had planned ahead for this and brought along a toothbrush that I then used to gently scrub the model, removing the mold release from the resin.

Always Wash your Forgeworld Models

Washing your models is always a hugely important stage when dealing with products from Forgeworld, yes it’s tedious but it stops your models from falling apart and more importantly avoids your paint from just flaking off. Generally I will wash a model twice, not usually every part but after your initial wash and once the model has been allowed to dry you will still be able to see/feel the areas that still have some mold release stubbornly clinging to the resin. You can identify these areas fairly easily, they will look shiney under the light and feel a little greasy to the touch.

Following the initial wash I laid all the parts in the box on a bed of kitchen roll to absorb the water for the rest of my time at work.

Assembling the Macrocarid Explorator

Once back home I assembled the Macrocarid Explorator, making sure not to glue the weapon options in place and keeping the main body in three main parts. This will make it a lot easier when it comes to painting the model, I also left off the little grill that goes on top of the engine housing off for the same reason. With all the mold lines filed and the parts assembled I set about base coating the Explorator with trusty ol’ Citadel Chaos Black Spray Paint from Games Workshop. It’s expensive but I haven’t found a cheaper alternative that does the job quite to the same standard yet, and on a £90 (plus postage) tank I’ll stick with what’s reliable.

First Impressions

After getting hands on with the tank, my first impressions is that it is much bigger than I initially expected. I thought it would be noticeably smaller than the Triaros Armoured Conveyer. Although when placed side by side it is much wider and only a little shorter in length, giving it quite the big foot print on the battlefield. I’ll need to do a comparison against a Land Raider but I believe that it’s slightly bigger.

Quality of Model Sculpt

I really like the sculpt and there are noticeable improvements over it and previous Forgeworld kits, however there are still a few niggley things that I’m not too keen about. The gates where the resin runs into the mold for the most part are placed in areas that will be hidden once the model is assembled or won’t be too noticeable. That is, all except the gates for either wheel section which come right in at the raised edge towards the top rear of these sections. This resulted in some misaligned armour trims that need to be filed down to bring them back in line, upsetting my OCD as suddenly the trim on these areas are noticeably thinner once they have been ‘fixed’.

Instructions from Forgeworld

The instruction booklet is actually pretty helpful, Forgeworld used to have a bit of a reputation for their instructions being a little vague or not accurately showing how to assemble specific parts. It’s good to see that they are getting better at this (at least with the bigger models) and the accompanying instructions are getting better and better.

More Input!

So that’s our first Hobby Progress article in the bag, hope you guys liked it, feel free to get in touch and let us know what you think, either in the comments below or via email. Once we get a bit more settled we plan on releasing these pretty regularly as well as painting tutorials, conversion tips, battle reports etc.