Warhammer 40,000 Ork Killa Kans review

Ork Killa Kans are the cartier replica smaller brethren of the Ork Deff Dread but instead of an Ork pilot they are controlled by their smaller Gretchin cousins.

They are a heavy support choice in a Warhammer 40,000 Ork army and can be fielded in squadrons of 1-3 Kans.

First impressions

When the new Ork Killa Kan boxed set arrived at Big Orbit Games we were immediately impressed, the new plastic miniatures are a vast improvement on the old metal models and it was clear that it was possible to produce a host of very different looking Kans for your Ork army, click sprue thumbnails for larger image.

The pro’s

Well, on getting stuck in to the kit our first impressions seem to have been correct. The new models are extremely characterful and are much more believable than the previous Killa Kan model which, I for one, couldn’t actually imagine was capable of walking.

However, the new Killa Kans models not only look great but it is clear that a large amount of thought has gone into making the kit hugely interchangeable. Essentially it appears that feet, legs, body, arms, claws, weapons, engine, shoulders, front panel/spikes & accessories are all interchangeable meaning the amount of variety that can be built into your Kans is virtually limitless, in our opinion by far the most flexible kit made by Games Workshop to date.

The new boxed set features a total of 4 different weapons for you to kit out your Kans with, these are a scorcha, a rokkit launcha, a big shoota & a grotzooka. This is two more than the old kit which just featured just a scorcha & rokkit launcha.

Finally the Killa Kan kit was surprisingly easy to work with, even though the the models are highly detailed and very modular in nature our first Kan was built in no time at all (see photo).

The con’s

For all that we love these new models there are some negatives and they generally revolve around the weapons that form part of the kit.

Firstly there is no kustom mega-blasta, this is now the only weapon available for a Killa Kan that doesn’t form part of the kit. Personally I would always choose a Rokkit Launcha for my Killa Kans rather than a Kustom Mega-Blasta but it seems an odd omission.

Secondly, for me the biggest issue with the kit, is the fact that it contains 3 Killa Kan models but only one of each weapon, this means that if buying a single box all your Kans will be armed differently, bar conversions. Killa Kans come in squadrons of up to 3 models, in Warhammer 40,000 vehicles that are part of the same squadron must all fire at the same target. So it is generally best to equip all models in a squadron for the same purpose, broadly this would be either anti-personal (with a scorcha, big shoota or grotzooka) or anti-tank (with a rokkit launcha), this isn’t possible with the 3 Kan boxed set.

It would possibly be unreasonable to expect 3 of each weapon in the kit but  this is the only solution I can think of. Maybe if the weapons were made a little less elaborate and instead of being integrated into the weapon arm they were instead mounted on separate multi-purpose weapon arms the extra plastic required to do this could have been kept to a minimum, however this may have negatively affected the appearance of the model. As it is I guess the best we can hope for is that a Killa Kan weapons sprue will be released by Games Workshop at some point in the future. Otherwise to field a squadron of 3 similarly armed Killa Kans is going to cost £81 (RRP)…

The final gripe is that the Kans come in boxes of three, this seems to be a bit of a trend with Games Workshop kits porting from metal to plastic at the moment (this previously happened with the Tyranid Ravener) and it’s annoying that you can’t buy just one of these models any more.

Summary

The new Killa Kan models are some of the finest looking bits of plastic that Games Workshop have ever produced.

The only thing that stops this kit getting a 10 out of 10 are the issues with actually integrating them into your Ork army due to the issue with the weapons that are found in the kit, meaning we can only give this new kit an…

Overall score: 8/10