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.

I recently was curious and looked up Nagash , the supposedly dreaded GW model that even makes GW fans cry about.

But i dont understand , what exactly about it makes people hate it? It looks just the same as other GW sculpt?

I personaly don't see anything wrong with it, exept that it does look realy out dated by the newer models they have made. That's probably what all the comotion is about, but personaly there isn't anything wrong with it.

Well, I won't pick on the sculpt since it is older than most people on this forum lol, but what I can pick on is the style.

I think people don't like it because it looks too Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas, as opposed to scary as kak king of all evil dead. Should look a bit more like Death and a bit less like Beetlejuice. Lol

It's goofy and the size of an Eldar Avatar.

MajorTom11 wrote:
I think people don't like it because it looks too Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas, as opposed to scary as kak king of all evil dead. Should look a bit more like Death and a bit less like Beetlejuice. Lol

This and the fact that it doesnt look evil enough or look like a vampire. Neither does it make me think "eek! skeleton vampire!"

Personally, I've been laughing at that model ever since I started this hobby, and back then it was still a proper in-production mini I think.

The whole mini is ridiculous. But there's one word that pushes it over the top- skullz.

They just went way overboard on the skulls. The dunce cap is covered in skulls. The staff is covered in skulls. The tip of the staff has a perfectly ordinary bat -oh wait it has a skull head for no reason. And of course, Nagash's head itself is a skull. A skull with oh-so-cute chubby little cheeks you just want to pinch them whose a big boy? You're a big boy! Yes you are! Yes you are!

Ahem, sorry. If you took all the skulls off, the model would be improved to being merely silly. He'd still be a giant skeleton with a cone-hat as big as his torso and shoulder pads as wide as his legs are long. But add on the skulls (because apparently we aren't able to figure out that a guy with a skull for a head might be a necromancer unless he decorates everything in skulls. Or maybe he's just really bored, and he's spending his immortal nights in some kind of arts and crafts DIY decorative hobby course, but the only materials he has to work with are a hot-glue gun and skullz.) and it goes to comical.

Now to be fair, GW has produced a lot of stinkers over the years. Many that are worse than this (Razorgor anyone?) What gives Nagash legs as the empodiment of crappy sculpting is that he is supposed to be the most evil thing in the Warhammer world. He basically invented necromancy and vampires, didn't he? He almost cast a spell that would have literally killed everything in the entire world. And he looks a bit like a clown. Not a scary clown mind, just the regular variety.

Put him beside Belakor or Archaeon too... One of these things is not like the other lol.

Just to re-iterate my first point, he looks a lot like this style wise for me -



and should look more like this dude but even more evil

Because it's an objectively terrible model, and Gary Morley is generally considered a terrible sculptor.

Johira, you are forgetting the batarangs for throwing his dunce cap against his enemies!

And the Purple , Medical Authorities have proven that to much purple produces impotence or cancer or something really horrible like your face falling off.

M.

Gary Morley sculpt. 'nuff said.

Blitza da warboy wrote: and doesnt look like a vampire or make me think "eek! skeleton vampire!"

Considering Nagash is a Liche and not a Vampire, why would you WANT him to make you think Vampire, skeletal or otherwise?

It's the old pimp hat and pimp cane sculpting that GW had way back. I guarantee you if you were able to see his shoes they'd be platform shoes with goldfish swimming around in them.

Generalstoner wrote:It's the old pimp hat and pimp cane sculpting that GW had way back. I guarantee you if you were able to see his shoes they'd be platform shoes with goldfish swimming around in them.

You CAN see his shoes. See that little black triangular shape on the bottom left of the model poking out of the skirt?

De gustibus non disputantum est.

LunaHound wrote:
I recently was curious and looked up Nagash , the supposedly dreaded GW model that even makes GW fans cry about.

But i dont understand , what exactly about it makes people hate it? It looks just the same as other GW sculpt?

I own this model. Its a sad model. The main issue is proportions. He is sculpted such that his arms are as long as his legs, his waist is too small, and his head too big. The poorly thought out hat/helmet just accentuate and worsen the problem of proportions. That said, his face is lacking, the sculptor obviously knows how to sculpt skulls, he put them all over this model. But the head its self is rather poor. It looks like a skull trying to do a Marlon Brando impersonation... jowls. Additionally its rather expressionless. Plenty of skull heads have been done with a more significant look of emotion. Next the pose is rather weak, its looks like Nagash is unsure of which weapon he wants to use. He should have been with his staff planted and sword pointing or sword pointing and sword at his side, instead he just kinda stares in a position that looks dull.

Platuan4th wrote:

Blitza da warboy wrote: and doesnt look like a vampire or make me think "eek! skeleton vampire!"

Considering Nagash is a Liche and not a Vampire, why would you WANT him to make you think Vampire, skeletal or otherwise?

i didnt know much about him and since he was in the collectors part of the vampire counts i assumed that he was that. but know i know! (and he costs 30 freakin canadian dollars too! O_O)

LunaHound wrote:
It looks just the same as other GW sculpt?]

You better get your eyes checked.

Le Grognard wrote:Gary Morley sculpt. 'nuff said.

That's a little harsh. The frustrating thing about Morley wasn't that his sculpts were universally terrible... they weren't. He turned out some beautiful sculpts in his time with GW. And the bad ones were generally bad more for awkward posing than technical sculpting skill.


The problem with Nagash is largely down to his head... The rest of the model is pretty much in keeping with the range at the time of it's release. The head is just awful, and looks like it was taken from a cheap novelty statue.

According to Morley in an interview years ago, the head it was supposed to have was better, but whoever was approving the sculpts at the time didn't like it (to scary or somesuch thing) and asked for something different for comparison. Morley says he sculpted the skull head badly deliberately, thinking that they would see how silly it was and opt for the original head... but the plan backfired, and the mini was accepted with the wooden voodoo head that we've all come to deride so much.

Morley did some other undead stuff at that time and much of it is very good. I know he did Krell, which I think is great, and I think he did the resculpt of the Lichemaster at that same time and that model is bloody great!

Blitza da warboy wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

Blitza da warboy wrote: and doesnt look like a vampire or make me think "eek! skeleton vampire!"

Considering Nagash is a Liche and not a Vampire, why would you WANT him to make you think Vampire, skeletal or otherwise?

i didnt know much about him and since he was in the collectors part of the vampire counts i assumed that he was that. but know i know! (and he costs 30 freakin canadian dollars too! O_O)

You can get him cheap on eBay, I had mine painted quite nicely for £5 a while back.


I like Nagash, I think he's plain goofy fun. They should not have removed him from the game, give him a new sculpt but his loss was as great as the Skaven Doomwheel. Fortunately they've seen sense and returned the most iconic Skaven piece back to their army. Nagash is great, I love his wacky OTT appearance.

He looks like a clown.

And not in a good way.

Why is Nagash massive anyway?

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:He looks like a clown.

And not in a good way.

Why is Nagash massive anyway?

Maybe he was an Ogre xD

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:He looks like a clown.

And not in a good way.

Why is Nagash massive anyway?

It was during his period of solitude within cripple peak. The warpstone he snuffed, ate and mined morphed his body for decades. His skin rotted away, his eyes spilled out, replaced with glowing light spheres etc. He was said to has grown to near 14ft tall or so.

cheers.

Any source on the grown to 14 foot tall info Master Xaltarx?

I don't recall it from previous army books (back when all undead was combined) that was the source material when the model was done.... but I'd happily to be proven old and dottery.

Lunahound... no.

Just no.

I like the model, but now its in my hand, it does have a couple of...shall we say issues?

As much as people dislike the face, surely you would dislike the armour more? Its all... silly and curvy, and not enough detail. However, this guy has some real life savers. His book for example is beautifully sculpted. His hands (ungloved) are well detailed. His face (you may hate it, but..) Actually does have alot of intricate little things that make me love it so.

All in all, this guy isn't THAT bad.

I really want that Morely annecdote to be true > apocryphal Insaniak
brilliant!

I remember the interview, thats what he said about Nagash, that theother head was so much better.. He also stated that he was given only 4 weeks to sculpt the Dark Eldar plastic warriors, from start to finish. Or that 4 weeks after he started, they needed to be churning them out to be put into the 3rd ed starter box.

It is a true story

the story on the Nagash, model... is this;

It was my first big Multi-part mini I had ever attempted. and it certainly
went through many versions in sculpting. (In those days concept drawing
were very sketchy and I had very little input.) But only one version ever made it to the
moulds. However, there are two head versions the original head was based
on the design that i was given, a more Zombie looking type. And that was the one
that my design manager and I (at the time) prefered. But at that time all miniatures
had to be approved not only by the design studio, but also by the sales management.

This is where it came un-stuck! They did'nt like it, and prefered to have a Skull,...?
Much to my dislike. Now because of release dates and schedules I had one day to put it 'right'. So preffering the original I went ahead and made the alternative. Now, I never thought for one moment thought that they would approve the (laughing clown) skull and would revert back to the original.
The Joke back-fired. And to my horror it was approved and they released it!

Throughout my time at GW I know i made some sculpts that I was not that happy with.
But, Nagash has been the one model that Haunted me all through my time there.
(AND IT STILL DOES!)
And vowed that I would re-make before I left. However, that was never to be.

I am working on my own version but will prolly not see the light of day until next year. Stands approx 70mm tall and will be cast in around 20 parts.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161113&page=2

and, for the record, some of his sculpts were indeed gorgeous.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Any source on the grown to 14 foot tall info Master Xaltarx?

I don't recall it from previous army books (back when all undead was combined) that was the source material when the model was done.... but I'd happily to be proven old and dottery.

Lunahound... no.

Just no.

It was in the undead army book back before they made vampire counts; just one book. I owned that model and loved the staff; somebody stole it along with the rest of my undead army while I was in asia.

I have never been able to know what is Nagash exactly. The mini was designed before the vampire/mummy break of the Undead army book, so it was some kind of confusing mixture of elements. Now, having developed the Tomb Kings army with the Egyptian theme I think he should look like MajorTom11 says.

The mini is like a bobble head version of Skeletor. When I arrived to WFB (4th-5th ed), I loved all the big minis. But Nagash. That mini wasn't the kind of mini wich makes you say "wow I want to make an army leaded by this guy!".