Deadzone Plague Murderbirds

In Wave 1 of my Warpath kickstarter came these gorgeous (and infuriating) metal Plague Murderbirds.

Gorgeous because- well, look at them. Plague ridden winged death. Great sculpts of varying sizes that incorporate pieces of scenery in a clever way. There’s a whole lot of metal in these miniatures and this is where the infuriating part comes in. The smaller flocks of Murderbirds are very fiddly to assemble. Still, with a bit of perseverance, you can do it. To help, the last section of this blog post is a guide to assembling your Murderbirds.

Skipping ahead a bit, here’s how mine look now they’ve been assembled, based and painted:

No, the Murderbirds above aren’t wearing lipstick. I decided to try and paint one Murder (?) of Murderbirds to look as if it had just pecked somebody to death, but I don’t think the blood works somehow and they look a bit… meh. Ah, well, I’m happy enough with the others 🙂

These Murderbirds perched on a corner of ruined building are my favourite of the five sculpts.

Right, as promised above, to help you assemble your own Murderbirds more easily, here’s an impromptu “The Other One’s Murderbird Assembly Guide”.

Firstly, here’s how you want to be grouping the various components ahead of sticking any superglue on them. First up, the large Murderbird in mid flight has the more ‘eagle-like’ of the two heads. There’s two separate tail-feathers (I thought they were small wings at first) and a quick dry fitting easily shows which tail-feathers go on this beastie.

The Murderbird perched on the ammo crate has the more vulture-like of the two heads and the two large wings.

The two wall sections fit together with these three Murderbird pieces.

And now for the fiddly pieces. there’s two separate ‘flocks’ of smaller Murderbirds, which you’ll want to group like this:

And this.

The first two, large Murderbirds above are quite easy to assemble, but I’d recommend the first thing you do be to get the one that’s in flight and widen the socket that the flying base fits into. I assembled mine first, later realising the socket was too narrow for the flying base to fit and when filing it so it was wider, snapped off the wings I’d just glued in place. Grr.

Once you’re happy the vertical piece of the flying base will fit in the socket, glue ‘im together , I recommend pinning the wings in place. Add the tail feathers last or else you might push them off whilst gluing the wings on. He’ll end up like this:

You’ll notice what look like two metal washers amongst all the pieces in this kit. These are designed to fit in the circular depression inside a standard round Deadzone/Warpath plastic base, so you have the option of basing the Murderbirds on these rather than the clear plastic flight bases.

The vulture headed Murderbird perched on the ammo crate is easy enough to assemble. Again, pin the wings on first, then add the head and lastly the tailfeathers. That way there’s less you’ll knock off a piece you’ve just glued on. Here he is assembled:

Now for my favourite bit; the ruined cornerpiece with Murderbirds perched on it. I found it best to glue these two birds to the top of one side of the cornerpiece first (apologies for the blurry photo) :

And then glue this solitary chap to the top of the other side.

Then you can glue the two cornerpieces together. Having the toppers already in place just makes things easier. Then you just have the Murderbird that’s taking flight to glue into place  – definitely worth pining or else he’ll drop off the first time you transport this piece anywhere (or sneeze in its general direction).

Here’s how the finished piece looks:

Next are the two small flocks of Murderbirds in flight. Don’t even think about trying to just glue these together. I tried several times and they just kept falling apart. Trust me; pinning supported by green stuff or millput is the way to go with these and even then, it’s fiddly work. I’ve broken mine down into two sub assembles like this.

Which I’ve then assembled to get these finished pieces:

I’m going to base the flock above using one of the small metal bases, sat inside a standard round Mantic base,which will be more in keeping with the size of the miniature than the clear base used above.

My Number One piece of advice regarding the Murderbirds and in particular the two small flocks? Patience. Allow time for glue and green stuff to dry, preferably overnight, before coming back to finish them off. It’ll save you a few grey hairs/pulling some hairs out.

Now that Deadzone 3rd Edition has been announced, it would seem that we’re going to be getting new resin Murderbirds. It’ll be interesting to see if these are new sculpts too and what base size they’re officially going to be.  I look forward to finding out more.

Thanks for reading! 🙂