Review: Anvil Industry Exo Lord (Space Marine compatible) Bits and Weapons

Following up our review of Anvil Industry’s brilliant Trench Fighter and Regiments Infantry range, today we have a look at their Exo Lords Armoury: fondly designed Space Marine compatible resin bits and weapons. We have combi-weapons, heavy weapons, chain axes, muzzle flashes, and more – after the jump.

The Exo Lord range is a vast range of over 100 Space Marine compatible items such as ranged weapons, various close combat weapons (sometimes with two-handed options), equipment like spare magazines, scopes, pouches, heads, as well as numerous various armour and body parts (posable bionic arms for example!). Just as we noticed in our Trench Fighter review, the bits are expertly cast in resin, with almost no mould lines or bubbles. They arrive in neat transparent ziplock plastic bags.

In this review we can only take a glimpse of what Anvil Industry has to offer, but here is a selection of bits we found most cool and useful.

Quake Cannon (Grav Guns)

One of the most popular weapon choices in 7th Edition was the almighty grav gun. Because of their popularity, acquiring additional grav guns at bits shops usually didn’t come cheap, and they were often sold out. Anvil Industry’s quake cannon is competitively priced at £1.25, with a discount available for 10 or more guns. The design is pretty decent, probably the best third-party grav design I’ve seen. I didn’t have a spare grav gun to compare, but you can see that the proportions match other Space Marine guns well:

Lance Carbine (Combi-Weapon)

The lance carbine comes with a choice of four weapon attachments, three types of magazines and an optional scope.  There is a flamethrower, a fusion gun (melta gun), a quake cannon (grav gun), and an ion rifle (plasma gun) attachment.

The only design I’m not so fond of is the ion rifle. In comparison to GW’s plasma gun there are less visible cooling ribs, and the casing is quite boxy. Somehow it reminds me more of a Volkite weapon. The big seller though is the design of attachments – they come with moulded slots for rare-earth magnets, which are available at Anvil Industry for a small surcharge. This allows you to change the attachments between each game, very handy for tailoring your list to varying opponents.

Here is an assembled lance carbine with fusion gun attachment:

Negotiator Anti-Material Rifle (Sniper Rifle)

The Anti-Material Rifle is Anvil Industry’s take on a sniper rifle, but would also work as stalker pattern boltgun. Again, you are spoiled with assembly choices: three barrels (silencer, muzzle break, CBQ short version), three different magazines, optional scope and tripod. The barrels change the appearance of the gun a lot, and I guess the silencer and short version are the most Astartes/Imperial looking pieces. They would make a great weapon choices for Legion Recon squads, as Forge World’s sniper rifle design is pretty odd in my opinion.

Here is an assembled rifle on a model completely made from Exo Lord pieces:

Frag Launcher

Frag Cannons are a popular choice for Deathwatch Kill teams, but the box comes only with one, and bits shops are often sold out. Anvil Industry’s Frag Launcher comes with arms, an optional barrel extender, two choices of magazines, a backpack, an ammo belt that can be attached to either the backpack or the gun.

Again plenty of modelling options, the design of the weapon itself is somewhat between the Frag Cannon from the Deathwatch Overkill box and the one from the Deathwatch Kill Team kit. I’m not a fan of the backpack, as compared to other heavy weapons’ backpacks from GW, I think it is a bit too boxy and blunt, but fortunately, the gun is self-sustaining, so the backpack is optional.

Here is an assembled Frag Launcher with box magazine but without barrel extender:

Autocannons

These are comparable to Forge World’s Kalibrax pattern Autocannons, but feature box magazines and some details typical for the Exo Lord range, such as the rig on top of the grip. They would work well for Space Marine Legion squads. They also come a bit cheaper than FW’s offering, with 2 autocannons for £4 or 10 for £18, compared to 5 Kalibrax Autocannons for £13 (though you have to keep in mind that FW provides specific backpacks, while Anvil Industry doesn’t).

Here is an assembled autocannon on a model completely made from Exo Lords pieces:

Chain Axes

There are loads of close combat choices in the Exo Lord range, but we’ll take an exemplary look at these ones. Chain axes are the go-to choice for Word Bearer Legion squads. They are nicely detailed and you can choose between left- and right-handed ones. One pack comprised five axes with hands attached, one axe without a hand and one hand with a shaft. You could attach the spare axe to backpacks, belts, or bikes, or, with some modelling skills, combine it with the shaft with the hand attached and arm a sixth model.

Exo Lord Mechanical Arm Conversion set

This set comes with a back pack, four servo arms and a wrench/axe hand. It makes a nice servo harness, turning regular Marines or Legionnaires into Techmarines. Combine it with Devastator legs and the torso and head from the Stormtalon kit and you’re golden.

Here are some examples for assembled harnesses:

Muzzle Flashes

Apart from cool weapons and power armour compatible bits, Anvil Industry has these cool SFX effect pieces as well. Muzzle flashes come in two sizes. Small comes with ten different sculpts, medium with five. The small flashes are perfect for Boltguns, while the medium ones fit heavy weapons such as Heavy Bolters, Autocannons, Missile Launchers and the like. The pieces require careful pinning to attach them to muzzles, as they would snap off easily otherwise.

Spent Ammo Casings

This handy little sprue is a great way to add some details to your bases and terrain features. It comes with 9 pistol calibre casings, 3 pistol calibre casing piles, 9 rifle calibre casings, 3 rifle calibre casing piles, 6 shotgun cartridges, 1 shotgun shell pouch, 2 larger empty shells. The reference piece to the right comes from the Devastator sprue.

Wax Seals and Parchments

Here we have an assortment of purity seals. The sculpts are very detailed. Even the script is recessed detail, and can be painted with a dark wash quick and easy. As you can see, the style and level of detail are very different from the purity seals you usually find in Space Marine kits, so I wouldn’t mix both on a single model or unit.

Conclusion

Over the years, Anvil Industry has built up an extensive range, going from strength to strength with every new release. Casting and design are excellent and more than up there with other third party bitz studios such as Kromlech, Puppetswar and the like. The value for money is decent, especially considering there is volume discount available for each product.

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