Chapter House Storm Raven Kit Review

I bought a storm raven a few weeks ago and ordered the Chapter House true-scale kit to go with it.  Once they both arrived I started to put it together.  There wasn't any warping and no flashing issues with the kit but the bottom plate did have some jagged edges where the sprue had been (I assume) snapped off.  Minor issue and you can't really tell since you don't look bottom up on the model. 

It would be an easy fix but like I said, not a big deal.  The pieces were very clearly made from plasticard sheets glued onto one another.  I tried to capture a shot of this below but because of this there were a few spots where there were gaps.  The originals should have been greenstuffed before CH cast them as there were gaps in the sheets.  Most of them were covered by the engines but still bugged me.  I didn't bother to put the dreadnought grappler on as it was really flimsy and I think could have been better executed.  Though even if it was designed 'perfect' I wouldn't have magnetized a dreadnought to attach anyway so again, nothing I really cared about. 

Assembly was a piece of cake and everything fit very snug which is the most important thing for me.  I could have easily made this myself but it would have taken time to get the dimensions right and would have been a pain in the butt.  I did have to cut the top vent from the original storm raven so that it would sit flush on the rear extension (very minor 2 minute job) but again nothing to bother.  I don't think you can expect to buy 3rd party items and not have a little work involved.  My biggest problem with this kit isn't even the kit itself.  I had just assembled it the day before the Storm Eagle was announced and after an $80 storm raven and a $30 CH kit ($20 + $9 shipping) is pretty close to the storm eagle which looks amazing.

I'd rather use one of those and proxy it as a storm raven.  I think this is a pretty expensive kit for what it is but it was well built.  It definately fixes the ugly storm raven and I'm happy with the product overall but I won't be buying another one for the simple fact that the original model + mod costs nearly as much as a storm eagle which is a vasty nicer model.  If you like the storm raven though nothing here should hold you back from buying the CH kit aside from cost if that is prohibitive.
 I'll paint this up to match my blood angels and will have no regrets that I bought the CH kit, just a regret that I didn't buy a storm eagle instead of this whole thing which is nothing against CH.  As an aside, I put the hurricane sponsons onto the CH kit which fit really well actually (had to trim the sponson housing a little) which lets the doors still look like they function.  Maybe someday I'll have a storm raven, storm eagle and a caestus for each of my armies.  That would be sweet!

Painted up here: http://theambit.blogspot.ca/2012/06/blood-angels-storm-raven-w-chapterhouse.html