Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters

Last Updated on July 15, 2020 by FauxHammer

Fabius Bile, The Spider, The Premogenitor (whatever all that means), here’s a Chaos Space Marine Apothecary in a jacket made of skin. Let’s have a look at the new model and how we can approach painting him in our Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters

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Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters – Why Review a model?

So, a few people have messaged me asking why we don’t review the bord games – well the answer is simple – I don’t play the games.

Some people seem shocked by this, offensively so. If you fall into that category, take a few seconds to get over it and read-on. Deep Breaths, count to 10 – we’ll get through this.

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….

..

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Better?

Other than a few learning experiences here and there, I’ve never really played a miniatures wargame in my life. (The Internet “SO WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE RUNNING A SITE ABOUT MINIATURES!!!!”)

Dude, chill out, we’re all friends here!

The site here is intended as a different take on the miniatures hobby it’s a site focused on painting. So, now that i;m getting Indomitus to review, I ask myself, what can I review about a boxed game?

Well, put simply, the models.

I had this idea whilst I was sat building almost 300 Space Marines over a 4 week period.

Yeah that happened…

So, as I’m now committed to reviewing the upcoming Lumineth realm Lords and we’ll now be getting a little thing you may have heard of Warhammer 40,000 Indomitus just for review – I need to find a way to cover them for the miniature painters of this world.

This is the kind of approach I want to take with those reviews too – essentially the focus is the modelling side of this hobby.

So consider this post as me cutting my teeth on model reviews. I’d really like to hear your feedback. Does this approach have value to you as a miniature painter? Any improvements you’d like to see?

Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters – Sculpt

Fabius Bile means a lot to me, as a young-un. This was the best model I had ever painted. I’d love to show you but it was actually stolen from me one day when I was at a Games Workshop store – The store was packed and I took in a ton of models. The staff were checking them out and a few people were peering over my shoulder at them, picking them up to have a closer look

At some point later that day I realised he’d gone missing and I cried all the way home.

Now he’s back and he’s bigger than ever!

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Fabius Bile Complete

I have to say, I love this sculpt – it really is a testament to a good chaos model when it’s imposing in bare plastic – the silhouette is just amazing. But I have no idea who the sculptor is? Games Workshop used to tell us outright, but since some of those classic modellers used that to build a springboard to launch their own companies. GW has clamped down on individual promotion.

That said, like many, I was not a fan of the face when I first saw the painted model – I’m not a fan of many face sculpts recently, bar Ragnar. Its started with Guilliman but the style GW seem to be going with their Post Primaris (PP seems appropriate) 40k line is just a bit on the over exagerated cartoony side.

Don’t get me started on the Tor Garadon face which is directly comparable to Sarge in the movie Toy Soldiers

Looking at the model now in bare plastic, I can see the cartoonishness comes from the paint job more than the sculpt (not that it’s a bad paint job, it’s just that the ‘Eavy Metal aims for making an impact in box art rather than realism.

This would really suit some Grimdark.

Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters – The Sprue

The single sprue comes with all the parts to Build the Fabius Bile model along with his mate the Surgeon Acolyte who has a semi-scenic base.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Sprue Front

This is the part of the review I wanted to go into detail on, the considerations which have been made to the modelling process.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Sprue Gates

I’ve highlighted the parts above with various colours.

Green parts are easy to cut off and require little care or attention.

Amber pieces require some caution and are normally on rounded surfaces which will need to be filed, sanded and scraped flat afterwards.

Red is the caution areas. parts which are very close to other parts and I would not recommend trying to cut these areas directly from the sprue. Instead, leave some of the sprue on and trim down afterwards with a hobby-knife.

Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters – Build

Completely ignoring the manual which has you glue in the legs to the front half of the body before attaching the back – I want to break this down to sub-assemblies based on the colours he’ll be painted. Legs – Purple, Body -Fleshtones.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Mould Lines 1 - Body

I’m nice that this model connects together along with the natural gaps in Fabius’ skin cloak. the mould line however is a frustration running along the outside of his left side. This will be really visible when primed so that needs dealing with.

On the right side, it is mostly covered, more so once he’s built. The mould line neatly follows the glue join, but there is still some slight clean-up to do

The legs will nicely fit in the model after he’s build which again gives us a good approach for sub-assemblies. we can also attack the interior of that cloak much easier with them out of the way.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Mould Lines 2 - Legs

On the mould lines side of things, this runs right down the centre of the boot. over a part which comes to a sharp point anyway, This needs to be filed away at angles or there is a risk to losing that pointed edge.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Mould Lines 3 - Legs

The back is more annoying, the cable detail is a nice touch however this leaves a mould line to clean within it. The Citadel Mould Line remove is not getting in here. so it’s a fine shave with a hobby-knife or it’s getting left.

His tool pouch also fits seamlessly within the cloak

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Mould Lines 3 - Legs

This is part is quite necesary to fit to the model before painting, trying to clean up any glue for these parts afterward would be tricky.

His hands and weapons are some of the hardest parts with a mould line all the way down the Xyclos Needler and the Rod of Torment.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Mould Lines 5 - Hands

The Rod is easy enough to clean up but the Needler is a pain, due to all of the raised tubes. Again this a tip of a hobby-knife job as the citadel mould line remover is just too large to get into these details.

The Backpack (the Chirurgeon) is the hardest part to build. there are multiple fine details which need careful attention

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Mould Lines 5 - Hands

The skulls have mould gates right above the jaw-line which need to be cut away and then smoothed down – tricky. Both the needle and the drill are similar in that they need to be trimmed and have the mould line removed from a curved surface. The drill itself is very small and has a mould line running across the blades – not fun.

These parts are really small and fragile. Just by clipping off the overflow gate, the cable (shown below) just snapped.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Mould Lines 7 - Backpack Damage

Yay – Not. I hate repairing these parts. Plastic Glue, Sanding, risk of other parts snapping.

As for the Surgeon Acolyte, he is pretty much built in just 4 components with little need for sub-assemblies.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Surgeon Acolyte

The join goes right over his cloak, so, unfortunately, this means gap filling.

There are several methods to this, personally, I prefer an initial fill with Tamiya Extra Fine as the glue then some Mr Hobby dissolved putty before sanding with Flory Mini Sanding Sticks (or some Wet & Dry).

The base itself is separate and he can be added afterwards, making the painting of each part nice and simple.

Also, what the heck is the thing that he’s pulling out of that poor Space Marine’s neck?

Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters – Sub Assemblies

The model can be broken down as follows if you wish to go this far.

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Sub Assemblies

The complete picture of Fabius Bile shown at the top of this post – (and below) is built with nothing more than Blue Tack – it breaks down really well.

Many models nowadays almost require you to build the top and bottom in one piece before painting. Being able to separate the legs and arms makes it much easier to paint these parts in their respective colours without impacting the rest.

The shoulder pads being separate from the arms is a nice touch, a quick kitbash and you can swap these out for something more faction specific without issue.

Even the backpack is a smart design as the arms can be pushed on with little more than compression.

If you want to break this down into those components above the two parts you need to be conscious of are the left shoulder pad and pump on the chest because of the tubes which connect these parts

Fabius Bile Sprue Review - Fabius Bile & Surgeon Acolyte Complete

The pump on his chest also connects to pipes on his back from under his left arm. There’s a decision here, Wither build this up before painting which restricts access to the cloak beneath. or try to deal with this afterwards – very risky mid-paint-job.

I’m leaning toward having the pump glued to the shoulder pad pipe and leaving the pipes under his arm until after -these will be mostly obscured by the arm and the Xyclos Needler anyway.

Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters – Final Thoughts

It is an incredible model and a huge improvement from the original in every way.

With all his detailed parts – it can be fiddly to build, so chuck out your seam scraper and use a hobby knife, especially on the detailed parts. Just be gentle and don’t do what I did and break him.

There are a few conversion options here, quite easily with the arms and backpack. But with the head being so closely moulded to the body – You will need some sculpting experience to replace that part.

It’s an incredibly fun model and I am super excited to get on with painting him.

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(Affiliate links will result in compensation to the site on qualifying purchases)

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FauxHammer

Self-appointed Editor in chief of FauxHammer.com - But I need to thank the team for existing and therefore enabling me to give myself role - without them, I'm just a nerd with a computer and a plastic addiction.

11 thoughts on “Fabius Bile Review for Miniature Painters

  • July 15, 2020 at 6:11 pm
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    Nice break down, I have set this model aside for now until my model building skills have improved. Also great insight to help with sub assemblies ????.

    Reply
  • July 15, 2020 at 6:23 pm
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    Thanks Gary, I wasn;t sure about putting this out as I wasn;t clear on whether wpeople would see the value, but your comments are encouraging.

    Reply
  • July 16, 2020 at 10:09 am
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    Brilliant
    Enjoyed reading it

    Reply
  • July 16, 2020 at 12:57 pm
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    Definitely useful and interesting, for me. I have the model but I still need to assemble it

    Reply
  • July 16, 2020 at 3:29 pm
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    Certainly helps me, I’m at the stage of trying to get as many tips as I can ??

    Reply
  • July 22, 2020 at 7:24 pm
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    This is something i wish i had for Ghazghkull, top job. Will you be doing the Indomitus box too?

    Reply
    • July 22, 2020 at 7:26 pm
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      Yep, getting started on it in the morning. would you really want me to do a sprue breakdown like this for every Model?

      I think that would break me lol

      Reply
  • July 23, 2020 at 1:26 pm
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    Maybe not a sprue break down for every model, but the sub assemblies would be really helpful.

    One of the big issues i have with GW models right now is it is not always obvious how a part sits with another part, some of the curves are very subtle in the way they connect, so i am never sure if i can assemble x and y without it affecting z.

    Reply
  • November 9, 2020 at 11:14 am
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    Brilliant! Good pics of small parts, good detail on your experience. Great for me as I can see great value for scavenging parts for Necromunda

    Reply
  • March 7, 2021 at 3:48 pm
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    The thing being pulled out of the marine’s neck is his geneseed organ. Fabius steals them to make new space marines.

    Reply
  • January 24, 2022 at 10:56 pm
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    An interesting tidbit for anyone interested:
    Fabius’ head and chest are all one solid piece of plastic, nothing hollow in there. So, if you’re like me and hate his hair, you can fully file them down and get him to a nice, clean-shaven head.

    Reply

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