Recently I purchased the Draiggoth model from Mierce Miniatures and I shall give my thoughts upon the miniature as well as a bit of a step by step of how I painted him.
Building
When he arrived in good old Mierce space saving fashion I was like a kid at Christmas. I took all the pieces out of of the bag and looked for any dreaded miscasts and breakages that may of occurred during their time in the hands of the postman.
After a good luck the only miscasts I found on important places were three of the side spikes on the side of his tail and a spike on the lower jaw was missing. There were a few of the pin plugs on the joints that had filled in but these were easily worked around as all the affected areas still had another one. This was very good overall on such a large model I feared far worse.
After cleaning up the casting sprues and the small number of mould lines I set about to put this big beastie together. I first took to assembling the head/neck which with a bit of trimming went together fine though I was a little overzealous with some of the trimming around the neck frill but this was easily fixed with a bit of greenstuff. When it came to the arm that supports the Draiggoths weight when cutting the claws from the sprue be very careful as what appears to be a small piece of sprue is actually a pin that slots into the fingers so don’t cut these off else you will need to pin these as the contact area if very small and will have a high chance of snapping if not done. The last major thing to take into account is the horns, due to there being no instructions it can be easy to not know which ones to go where. The way for them to be attached is that number one (the numbers are on the sprues) go on the dragons right most horn and they move over in order. I did find swapping three and four made them fit better so make sure they fit properly before gluing.
As you can see there were a few gaps but nothing that a whip around with greenstuff would not fix. Most of these were most likely made by be being over/under zealous with the knife to trim bits down so a lot of these gaps could be minimised or avoided all together. After the greenstuff cured I sprayed it black and was ready to get this big boy painted.
Painting
I started with a Mephiston Red base coat for where the red would be followed by a layer of Evils Suns before applying a wash of Carraburg Crimson. After the wash dried I gave everywhere a drybrush of Evil Suns, followed by a 3/1 of Evil Suns and Flash Gitz Yellow missing the wing and tail membrane. The last red layer was a 1/1 of the same colours which was only then applied to the back scales.
For the underbelly the first layer was Rakarth Flesh, a wash of Reikland Fleshshade followed by drybrushing Rakarth and mixes of Rakarth and Pallid Wych Flesh up to pure Pallid Wych Flesh.
The tongue was a simple Xereus Purple base with highlights of Genestealer Purple and a wash half way with Druchii Violet. The final touches were Abbaddon Black with Eshin Grey drybrush on the spine spikes and a simple Flash Gitz Yellow on the eyes with Abbaddon Black pupil.
Here he is in all his glory:
Final Thoughts
So in the end I loved every second building and painting this guy and would thoroughly recommend anyone to get him. It isn’t a kit for a newbie to the hobby or with little experience with big kits. Washing the kit beforehand is a must as the resin mould release agent is highly likely to have remained on the model (though not as obviously as Forgeworld kits) and although I personally did not use any pinning I would recommend it simply for that little bit extra strength in the joints. The price of the model at £95 after the discount could easily discourage someone from purchasing the Draiggoth but I can say without a doubt it is worth every penny both in terms of cast and sculpting quality, the head of the dragon is easily higher than the old Bloodthirsters head. If you're debating between Forgeworld and Mierce for a centrepiece dragon, I think this is where Mierce goes past the Forgeworld equivalent without a shadow of a doubt. It's an amazing centrepiece in any force you want to include it in whether for Darklands, Age of Sigmar or any other fantasy system.
Thank you again for reading and soon I will be writing an article on my initial thoughts for a tournament called The Maul which will be multisystem including Darklands.