Forge World Elysian Drop Troops Command Squad by MOBILEHQ

For the first post, I found this excellent review of the Forge World Elysian Drop Troops Command Squad at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ejmsmith99/photoreview.html.
The pics and review are from MobileHQ, a poster on Dakkadakka.com.


Official Forge World Page: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_ELYSIAN_DROP_TROOPS.html

And so, without furthur ado, here is the article.


COMMAND SQUAD with Grav Chutes (£24)

Initial Impressions:
My order was despatched very quickly and I recieved it only two days after having ordered it. I was highly pleased with this and surprised by how light it was. The whole box probably weighed less than 500g (That's about 1lb for you Yanks I think). Opening the box did not take me very long at all :) inside were my miniatures (yay!) along with bases, instructions and forgeworld catalogue.

Contents:
The Command Squad consists of one of each of eight sprues (nine with the grav chutes) these are labelled A, D, E, F, G, H, T, U (and AA). I'll go through each of these with pics over the next few pages. It should be noted that there is very little flash at all on these (see small trails between torsos in picture below) and they are very easy to clean up with a few minor mold lines needing a modelling knife.
Sprue A:

From left to right, holds all five torsos for the squad (two of these are hunched forward - I'm guessing for running and carrying poses) and three are upright. There are only these two types of torso - there are no variations between them other than the hunching (I guess that's why they call it a "Uniform" though). Lastly, there is a Lasgun being held upright (i.e. no need for a supporting left arm - could be used to provide a pointing Lt. with a lasgun rather than the laspistol). My guess would be that this is the standard torso sprue for the Elysians and when you buy a full 10 man squad you get two of them. I would go on to speculate that for the 6 man squads a sixth torso is provided on one of the other sprues - but we'll find out in good time.

Sprue A reverse shot

Sprue D:

From Left to Right: Voxcaster head (with fragile arial), Voxcaster, Right arm throwing grenade, Left Pointy arm (again with the fragile...), Left Hand holding Demo Charge and two pairs of standing legs. A little more flash on this sprue than some of the others. No real problem though as it's not really connected to the models... I was happy to get the demo charge with this set as it was not mentioned on the website (must be another standard sprue - 1 new demo charge for my bitz box).

Sprue D reverse shot
Sprue E:

Standard leg sprue I'm guessing. From Left to right: kneeling while leaning back legs, running legs (will be a pain to stick to a base without pinning), braced standing legs and normal kneeling legs. I was a little disappointed to have two pairs of kneeling legs (I know, I know - people have been crying out for these) as I prefer to have the option of having squads all standing up and saving the kneelers for heavy weapons. Mind you, once I get some heavy weapons I'm sure I may have some standing legs spare...
Sprue E reverse shot

Sprue F:

Excluding the five water bottles, from Left to Right: Shouting head (I'll use for my Lt.) Grimacing head, Impassive Head, another Grimacing head (same as before as far as I can tell - hard lives these Elysians must lead) and a Sneering Head ('cos they're elite don't you know). I like the heads - they have obviously paid extra attention to these as a focal point for the model and despite the fact that the helmets are all the same ("Uniform" again, these guys don't mess about with chin straps undone like the Cadians - they've obviously seen Starship Troopers) the faces are different enough to ensure some variation.

Sprue G:

OK worst shot of the lot here. It's only the shoulderpads though so you aren't missing much. Lots of flash on this one but then they are tiny...

Sprue H:

Bit of a bad angle on this shot too. What you are seeing there are sheathed combat knives interspersed with grenades-and-ammo-packs (I think you are meant to snip the sprue between them before sticking them on ;-) )

Sprue T:
From Left to Right: Lasgun arm and corresponding supporting arm, second Lasgun arm and corresponding supporting arm, (gap - see below), Meltagun and two supporting arms (I'm not that fond of the way the right arm seems to cradle the handle rather than holding it - you'll see what I mean when you see the pics of my squad so far), Lt. shoulderpad - With Skull and Wings IG symbol (nice touch - teeny-tiny though). The gap is from where a lasgun arm (shown just below the sprue in the picture) has been removed. I think it came this way on purpose as the instructions have a big cross through the part (I guess it is for another set - nice of them to still chuck in in though).

Sprue T reverse shot - sorry for the blurry

Sprue U (above)
Left to Right: Right hand Laspistol arm, left hand with clenched fist, laspistol holster (empty - of course, he's holding the laspistol), monocular (telescope basically), two bipod legs for the melta (a touch flimsy - more that they are going to drop off than snap though), medpack with blanket, ammo pack, pouches.

And lastly Sprue AA (above)
Grav Chutes (if you buy 'em - saves you £4 if you don't) there were 6 of these but as per Sprue T I think they cut it off to show that you don't need it for the kit (does make me wonder why they didn't do that for the demo charge though... ). I like the grav chutes. Some people don't. I feel they add some balance to the model and that they fit the tech level quite well. They don't look too wimpy because they are not meant to be jump packs - just to slow a fall (that's my take on them anyway).

Conclusions:
Well, were they worth £24? I'd have to say yes - just about. The level of detail on them is amazing. No plastic Games Workshop model comes close in my opinion and probably none of the metal either. Of course, you save yourself 20% just by dropping the grav chutes so that is worth thinking about. Will I be buying more? definately. Can't decide between a squad or a sentinal. Probably should go with the squad if I want to get a viable force done any time soon but I really like the design of the sentinal... really. You're still reading? ...or did you just skip to the end? If you are, you might like to check out my progress with these guys here.