Warhammer 40,000 – JoyToy Imperial Fists Mk III Legionary

This JoyToy model has been on my wishlist for quite some time. Not the Legionary, a Breacher to be honest, but availability is an issue and prices vary quite a bit, so I pulled the trigger on a regular Imperial Fists Tactical Legionary in Mk III armour instead.

This is not my first larger-scale Warhammer figurine. I own a Funko Pop, a McFarlane Primaris Space Marine in the creator's variant (so you can paint it yourself), and an Ultramarine from the old Weta Workshop / Sideshow Collectible collaboration. And now one of JoyToy's, in 1/18 scale!

JoyToy is a Chinese collectibles manufacturer, founded back in 2015, and they've built their name on highly articulated, pre-painted 1/18 scale sci-fi and mecha action figures. Since 2021 they've held an official licence from Games Workshop, so we're talking about roughly five years now of JoyToy putting out proper Warhammer action figures. It started with a handful of Space Marines and has since grown into a massive range covering Primarchs, vehicles, Chaos Space Marines, Necrons, and most recently their first Age of Sigmar figures with the Blacktalons.

As I mostly collect regular tabletop miniatures and Lego, this is a bit of a side step, so I might not be familiar with all the proper terms for these. The Tactical Legionary comes with a bit less gear than some of the other figures available; it has a Phobos-pattern boltgun, four pairs of different hands, a holstered bolt pistol and a separate backpack. I paid roughly 30 EUR including shipping for this one. The Breacher costs about 60-80 EUR and comes with a breacher shield, bolt pistol, special weapon and an empty holster on top. There are further poses and variants for Sergeants or different weapons as well.

Pricing is honestly all over the place. There's an official MSRP from China, but most eBay listings I found actually ship from France, while on Amazon the offers come straight from China, with delivery times of up to three months. So it pays off to check where a listing is actually shipping from before you order.

The JoyToy figures are multi-jointed and can be placed in different poses. For stability, they come with a clear, flat round base that slots into one of the feet (both feet have a groove for the insert).

The hands can be swapped and are held in place with a ball joint. As mentioned above, there are four different left and right hands, ranging from pointing fingers and clenched fists to hands holding items.

I've seen online that some of the figures had repaints or updated paint jobs during their production run. In this case, I noticed that the decal on the shoulder pad is simply too small for a proper unit identifier.

Some pieces have options, like being able to remove the magazine from the bolter. A few hand grenades would have been a nice addition.

And to give you an idea of the scale, here is the model next to its Horus Heresy counterpart in 32mm, as well as the Sideshow Collectible, the Funko Pop, and a Black Series Stormtrooper of the First Order.

I really like how you can pose them, which gave me a lot of room to toy around with the figure and do some shenanigans.

Conclusion

These are fun. I've seen people playing Kill Team with these, or going totally bonkers and building smaller army projects out of them. As a collectible, these are great fun: they come pre-painted, this one actually costs less than a Horus Heresy Praetor, and I can simply put him on a shelf. The range even covers larger items like vehicles, named characters, and Primarchs.

Availability is an issue, and it seems some people aren't happy with the paint job. I have to say the first one bothers me more than the latter. As a wargamer, I can easily touch up the paint, add a wash or some weathering to bring out more depth in the model. But as a present that you can use straight out of the box, this is a great item, for example for people who enjoy the story but don't take part in the model-building side of the hobby.

I'd love to get my hands on one of the Imperial Fists Despoilers or Breachers, and maybe one of the Terminators. A bit of a shame that they're sold out.

Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy are brands by Games Workshop. This is a licensed product by JoyToy.