Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I don't understand a $30 mono pose kit. I understand less the people that would buy it.

Sigged

Yeah, just compare it to Empire Wizards. Two models with tons of options.... versus one SM Librarian with no options. I don't get it.

 eohall wrote:
Even before this monopose plastic trend, it seemed almost criminal to me that incredible plastic HQ kits like the Empire General don't have 40k analogues. Imagine being able to make a foot or bike SM captain from one box with tons of great bits? It nearly beggars the imagination.

THAT would be worth $30 for a single dude: If you got all the bells and whistles to make him basically however you want: It could include things like all five types of combi-weapons (Storm Bolter, Plasma, Flamer, Melta, Grav), Thunder Shield or w/e that one thing is called, Relic Blade, a big-ass chainsword (Teeth of Terra or w/e it's called), a jump pack, a bike, 2x claws, and a variety of heads.

Instead you get... one different head, and everything else is identical.

 heartserenade wrote:
Yeah, just compare it to Empire Wizards. Two models with tons of options.... versus one SM Librarian with no options. I don't get it.

GW doesn't raise the prices for all their models in one go, which is why we have the above, and also a Dwarf powerful troop unit unit costing twice as much as the equivalent for Skaven.

So Michelangelo's David would have been better if it was posable?

PapaSoul wrote:
So Michelangelo's David would have been better if it was posable?

I don't see why not

PapaSoul wrote:
So Michelangelo's David would have been better if it was posable?

Yes. Then you could actually see his facial expression as people would not be then confused at the size of his ding dong.

 Grimtuff wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:
So Michelangelo's David would have been better if it was posable?

Yes. Then you could actually see his facial expression as people would not be then confused at the size of his ding dong.

I don't think he realised a multipose David would probably also have a massive multiposeable wang

PapaSoul wrote:
So Michelangelo's David would have been better if it was posable?

Of course! It's be so much easier to convert/kitbash!

Still, I suppose you only need one per army, it's not like you're building squads of them...

PapaSoul wrote:
So Michelangelo's David would have been better if it was posable?

I always wanted to get Mickey's David with various 'weapon' options.

Lol, all of the responses to that were fantastic, Kudos!

I thought of this thread today after spending 2 hours gluing Catachans together.

There's posers then theres taking it too far. Those old skeletons? The pewter hormagaunts? How bout the plastic clan dwarfs that specific heads and bodies went together?

Those Catachans are terrible! Rather then having an arm with weapon attached, they decided they'd give you the gunstock attached to an arm and a full lasgun. You get to clip each lascannon to size then glue it to the arm, and with you third arm you can attach the Catachan's second arm. I'm still trying to figure out which arms are the flamer arms!

Im sorry but for rank and file guys, having legs, torso, head, two arms and a gun (with other attachable bobbins) is a little too much. Especially when your doing 100s. I'l take the orcs from Black Reach and a bucket to carry them. Thats posable enough, and they survive a trip to and from the store without regluing anything.

Too many pieces isn't better.

These are not rank and file guys they are special characters like SM captains.

The main reason I can think of for this move in manufacturing (which is what GW is: manufacturing with a tacked on front-end retail store) is due to the progression in technology and the cost-benefit analysis.

You only need a small mold plate (which is far less of an initial investment than one or two medium sized molds) so that saves on the upfront cost. The sprue would most likely be designed in the way it is (strange breaks, only fits together in one way) as a result of the CAD programs which take the 3d render and cut it up in the most efficient way to fit in the sprue. As we've seen recently whilst this saves space it makes larger sprues an absolutely nightmare to navigate for new entrants into the HHHobby. Whilst they probably could fit it for some of the models, the larger models like the Beastman Bray-Shaman would be impossible to fit inside that sprue area if it was down to arms/legs/body/head/base. Not saying this is good, but with their self-imposed size restrictions on the one-sprue characters, it's the best that they could possibly do.

I don't know if there's any savings on the plastic clam pack over the standard cardboard box, but they'd take up a lot less room and cost less for transport. So overall they'd have much less to make up for with these packs then they would with either the poseable HQ/hero/lord choices or any regular troop set.

The only one that I've bought more than one of was the Runelord/smith kit, which was because they actually have the biggest potential for conversions (easy to replace hands, 2 options of heads etc) and if they were able to just cram more onto the sprue it would actually make them half viable, but as it stands: not a fan of the whole ordeal.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
These are not rank and file guys they are special characters like SM captains.

meaning what??

 44Ronin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
These are not rank and file guys they are special characters like SM captains.

meaning what??

Meaning there was a period when special characters came with different options (The old chaos lorde comes to mind). Even in Metal they had separate arms and sometimes head options.
I don't know if this is another GW attempt to kill 3rd suppliers from making parts, But for me it has the opposite effect.

 44Ronin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
These are not rank and file guys they are special characters like SM captains.

meaning what??

Phydox was making the point that monopose models are a good idea because it is tiresome to have to assemble dozens of multi-part models for rank and file infantry.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
These are not rank and file guys they are special characters like SM captains.

meaning what??

Phydox was making the point that monopose models are a good idea because it is tiresome to have to assemble dozens of multi-part models for rank and file infantry.

For some - others, myself included, vastly prefer the poseable, multi-part models, whether they are for characters or rank and file.

*EDIT* I especially liked the original plastic multi-part Empire plastics

The Auld Grump

 Peregrine wrote:
When the alternative is probably making a monopose finecast model I'm not going to complain. At least a monopose plastic model is probably going to be cast correctly and won't bend/break as soon as I look at it too hard.

I'm enjoying plastics, I came into the 40K Universe where the majority of models were mono-pose metal miniatures. Producing metals in a spin caster is time consuming, and eventually the mold loses details as more models are made from it. Eventually you have to make a new mold.

The old mono-pose metals are a favorite of mine, yet they are difficult to cut up with a jeweler's saw even. Cutting up the plastic models is much easier. Plastic kit production is much much faster in the injection mold machines as compared to a spin caster. I won't miss Finecast! Although I have limited experience with it.

Really though, I think a single figure kit should be like the multi-part Space Marine tactical Marine, load of posses, and options.

The Finecast range won't be missed by me, that's for sure. The problem was that I have very limited conversion skills and wanting an Ork Warboss with Powerclaw, 'Eavy Armour, Ammo Runt and Boss Pole was not exactly an easy thing to do. Sure it would've been bad on the table but I wanted the option to do so. Many of my models spend their time sitting on a shelf somewhere as a display item. Weapon options and general variety in wargear is, IMO, important. I've bought about 4 or 5 of the SM Captain kit with all the wargear and bitz and whilst I was expecting a tiny bit more, was perfectly satisfied with what I had.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
These are not rank and file guys they are special characters like SM captains.

meaning what??

Phydox was making the point that monopose models are a good idea because it is tiresome to have to assemble dozens of multi-part models for rank and file infantry.

Really? Just buy these, you don't even have to paint them!

Believe it or not, those make great painting practice figures for beginners.
I got my mini-painting start painting old MARX figures, similar to the figures in your photo, back in the "60s.

Something to remember is GW trialled monopose plastics in Fantasy, and there it made perfect sense. Fantasy has no WYSIWIG requirement, and Fantasy gamers have gotten used to this. When characters have options that cover multiple enchanted shields, talismans, different types of weapons, books, scepters, crowns... Any semblance of WYSIWIG is right out the window.

In that situation, a dynamically posed, badass looking single pose character is much more preferable to a multipart kit that ends up looking pretty samey due to arms and heads needing to fit a common body. Compare the (actually very well made) Empire Battle Wizards to the Vampire Counts Necromancer. You can see the duplicated body across the kit, with a few different details to mark the different schools, like hands holding a ball, or the same left arm holding a staff with different heads, toilet paper hanging off their neck, etc. But the details are very flat because of the limitations of everything working with a common body. The Necromancer, however, has a much more dynamic pose, even though it's the same 'stepping forward' pose. It has more layered details, and better depth to the details due to the layers (like the cloak). Overall just a much nicer model because of the set pose and no options. In a game like Fantasy, this makes more sense, because it really doesn't matter what you equip him with, he doesn't have to reflect it.

This isn't reserved for plastics - the Infinity range is a good example. Squad boxes have two duplicate bodies (in one case, one duplicate body done 4 times), with arms made to make them look different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just looks like the same model with a different gun. Sometimes it makes no sense (like the Sekban holding a pistol but still with both pistols in holsters at his hips).

The problem of bringing this type of character to 40k is purely down to 40k's WYSIWIG rules (either official or expected by the community at large) and the wealth of options available. In a situation like Fantasy, a Space Marine captain with a bolter could sub for a captain with a bolt pistol, plasma pistol, combi bolter, storm bolter or even pair of lightning claws. Games Workshop designed the 40k single pose plastic around the Fantasy character ideals. The smarter thing to do would have been to make them nicely dynamically posed, but leave the actual weapon slots blank, with weapons that could fit there if you wanted to.

Basically they took the lessons they learned from Fantasy, and incorrectly applied them to a range of 40k models.

The conspiracy theories against bits sellers and third party manufacturers in this thread are fething loony. GW's just doing them to replace old metals single pose miniatures, and they're posed the same way to reflect that. Plastic is cheaper to cast, and they can probably fit multiple character sprues on a single mold, which saves on cost. Yeah, it isn't what we want exactly, but it's not metal or Finecast. If you don't like an option on the model, convert it. It's plastic. It's not generally hard. You can't do much about the pose all the time, but weapon and head swaps are pretty easy, and in plastic they're stupid simple most of the time.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
These are not rank and file guys they are special characters like SM captains.

meaning what??

Phydox was making the point that monopose models are a good idea because it is tiresome to have to assemble dozens of multi-part models for rank and file infantry.

He'd hate this then



Yep, thats a multipart 6mm epic scale space marine...

 Brother SRM wrote:
The conspiracy theories against bits sellers and third party manufacturers in this thread are fething loony. GW's just doing them to replace old metals single pose miniatures, and they're posed the same way to reflect that. Plastic is cheaper to cast, and they can probably fit multiple character sprues on a single mold, which saves on cost. Yeah, it isn't what we want exactly, but it's not metal or Finecast. If you don't like an option on the model, convert it. It's plastic. It's not generally hard. You can't do much about the pose all the time, but weapon and head swaps are pretty easy, and in plastic they're stupid simple most of the time.

If it's cheaper why does it cost $30 for something with no extra bits?

Exactly. You seen the cost of that Nurgle Herald? Costs almost as much as a box of 10 of his closest buddies. That's highway robbery.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Brother SRM wrote:
The conspiracy theories against bits sellers and third party manufacturers in this thread are fething loony. GW's just doing them to replace old metals single pose miniatures, and they're posed the same way to reflect that. Plastic is cheaper to cast, and they can probably fit multiple character sprues on a single mold, which saves on cost. Yeah, it isn't what we want exactly, but it's not metal or Finecast. If you don't like an option on the model, convert it. It's plastic. It's not generally hard. You can't do much about the pose all the time, but weapon and head swaps are pretty easy, and in plastic they're stupid simple most of the time.

If it's cheaper why does it cost $30 for something with no extra bits?

He never said it was cheaper for us.

It's all about the profit margin...

It reminds me of the single sprue Commander and Libarian. At first when I saw them. Oh cool so like the old school commander set for the space marines where you are given a bunch of things.

But now its like 30$... For a single model. That is plastic. Its not even that great of a pose.

I think with a multipart kit gives alot of options. I usually save my bits for later dates and plan them out.

 Asherian Command wrote:
I think with a multipart kit gives alot of options.

That's the issue, really. Multipose kits have far more static posing (unless you put a lot of work into them), but are built to incorporate many bits, which they tend to have on the sprue or are compatible with the rest of the range. Single pose kits allow the sculptors to dictate the posing, without the restriction of requiring each arm, gun, sword or other bit to be able to fit well, which allows a lot more interesting overall models.

There's a market for both, I just don't think 40k is the right market for single pose models. At least, single pose models with hard to change weapons. The new Ork warboss is an example of a good multipart plastic character.