Daemon Prince in Plastic

It’s true the flesh is weak, or is it the mind is weak, either way I gave in and bought the new plastic Daemon Prince without giving it the once over either online or perusing the current White Dwarf. Normally the latest issue of White Dwarf would be in my clammy paws last Thursday of the month, despite reservations over quality, however as a strict W40K fan I cannot justify buying the magazine if it contains nothing of interest to me: last issue nothing, this issue a background article on Chaos Daemons and a How to Play Chaos Daemons. I will probably pick up a copy on EBay in a month or three.

So I have my Daemon Prince out of the box and I am surprised at the lack of options on the sprue, I realise that the kit is two years old (so the internet tells me) but I was hoping for more options for each of the four Chaos Powers, well any options would be an improvement.

Contents are: one set of legs that are similar to the old WFB Daemon Prince legs. I understand that GW did not want to have two sets of legs as people could build two Daemon Princes from the kit, but more armoured greaves than the two provided, perhaps looking vaguely power armoured. Instead we have decidedly WFB looking greaves to go over the chicken legs provided, what happened to the muscle? We have three heads to choose, horns pointing up, horns pointing sideways and horns pointing down. I will avoid the horny devil joke. We have a tail and three body segments, a generic (re: naked) back and a power armoured (W40K) and a naked (WFB) front.

Arms get their own paragraph as we have seven to choose. I do like the pair of Chaos Space Marine looking claws, well armoured and very talon looking. Next we have three right hand containing, sword, bigger sword and axe. All are okay and definitely usable or convertible. The last arm is a lefty and unfortunately it is empty, I would have preferred an additional arm with say a sword for a lefty and an empty right hand just to shake-up the look of the figure. I think a conversion is on the way…

Other bits we get are a pair of wings, Chaos Space Marine backpack exhausts or generic spikes to insert into the back of the Daemon Prince. As well as the aforementioned greaves we get two armoured tabards, one each for W40K and WFB. We also provided are a pair of Chaos Space Marine shoulder pads and a WFB shoulder guard with chaos horn. Last and but least a set of generic chaos spikes, or an Iron Halo effect.

So having sucked in my disappointment what do I think? Well whilst I know GW can and have done better there are enough parts here for me to play with to build a pair of Daemon Princes. My initial Daemon Prince will be a regular fellow with all the Chaos Space Marine parts that I can lay my hands on, so will include W40K torso, generic back, Chaos Space Marine arms and shoulder pads, with regular legs and W40K tabard. Instead of Chaos Space Marine backpack vents I will take the spikes and de-horn one of the heads, or do something with the WFB horn. This will be a Flawless Host Daemon Prince as it seems appropriate to have a Daemon Prince lead a small warband of them.

The second Daemon Prince will use most of the remaining parts, I am hoping to make a Daemon Prince with a serpentine body, so will be using tail and naked WFB torso. I want an old style three-armed beast so will be using both sword arms and the left arm will be converted to hold a sword. I will be adding wings and anything WFB based even though I will be using the Daemon Prince in W40K.
Now where did I put that greenstuff..?