Review: Unboxing the Necron Tesseract Vault

This week Tale of Painters will be covering the apocalypse release and giving you first hand hobbyist reviews of some of the products. In this instalment we unbox a Necron Tesseract Vault. 

In the first picture we get a nice front box shot. This box is exactly the same size as the Dark Vengeance boxed game. The back of the box shows that this kit makes 3 different units: a Tesseract Vault or an Obelisk and Transcendent C’tan. Interestingly, the C’tan is not your average run of the mill C’tan. He has his own profile in the Apocalypse Book. He’s over 400pts and is a Gargantuan Creature. 

The box artwork is all new. Citadel are no longer using photoshopped scenic pictures. Instead all the new products feature the same grim dark background. The box is also a thicker corrugated card and features a tabbed opening at either end. 

Inside the box is the more usual “cereal box” card tray that slides out. The packaging is really attractive. Ok, so it’s going to end up in the recycling bin, but you can really see Games Workshop have put in the effort here. It really helps add to the feel of luxury product but they’re still not in the realms of Apple luxury product packaging.

Inside the box you have five large sprues, instructions, transfers, small and large flying stands. 

These are front and back sprue shots of the Canoptek Sentinel and Transcendent C’tan. There is lots of movement in these pieces from the tendrils of the Sentinel to the energy that the C’tan is giving off. This movement really helps this slab sided model come to life. 

These are front and back sprue shots of a corner. The corners really remind me of ‘old skool’ citadel plastic kits that relied on symmetry to produce cost effect kits. They only need two injection molds to produce all five sprues. This doesn’t detract from the Tesseract vault which still looks great opened up with all that interior detail on the walls and the flowing movement from the Sentinel and C’tan.

You also get a total of forty Scarabs to decorate the models with. Now before you get excited and think “wow, I can easily make a swarm of ten Scarab bases with that”, it’s important to point out that there are two sizes of Scarab and both are smaller then the Scarabs included in the Necron Warrior box set. Four of these smaller Scarabs are not going to cover a 40mm base. You’re going to want to use a minimum of six. Personally I think they’d look great clambering over the larger Scarabs from the Necron Warrior set. 

Conclusion:

£95 is a lot of money for a model. Is it justifiable? Well that’s up to each individual wether or not they part with their hard earnt cash. Personally, when compared to Forgeworld it’s fantastic value for money considering the number of pieces and options. I think the model is littered with lovely little design touches and covered in details such as tiny Scarabs swarming around the interior of the Canoptek Leaches or the living metal pieces you can add to represent the C’tan pulling the Vault apart as it tries to break its bonds. It’s a really well thought out kit and I’ve seen nothing like it before in the hobby so I’m really excited to paint it. 

Don’t forget to check out our review of the Apocalypse Rulebook here. 

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