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If DKoK were originally just a color change for Steel Legion models, why not do the reverse? Just use DKoK plastics for your Steel Legion and paint them appropriately. It may not be a 100% match but it seems to be a better option than buying the old, expensive metal models that GW is offering.

 Breotan wrote:
If DKoK were originally just a color change for Steel Legion models, why not do the reverse? Just use DKoK plastics for your Steel Legion and paint them appropriately. It may not be a 100% match but it seems to be a better option than buying the old, expensive metal models that GW is offering.

I use Krieg as my Vet Squads.

Or rather I did but then GW felt the need to eliminate Vets.

 Breotan wrote:
If DKoK were originally just a color change for Steel Legion models, why not do the reverse? Just use DKoK plastics for your Steel Legion and paint them appropriately. It may not be a 100% match but it seems to be a better option than buying the old, expensive metal models that GW is offering.

Eh, I prefer the aesthetic of the Steel Legion over the DKoK (there are significant differences, from the helmets to the gloves to the boots to the coats... Really they share gasmasks and long coats and basically nothing else), even though the DKoK are newer designs. I have both, and they don't look like they are from the same regiment IMO.

So I can see why people (incl. myself) want the originals, but those prices are higher than expected. I am thinking I will learn how to cast up my own from the ones I have.

The daftest thing about it is it makes such poor economic sense. If they were a touch cheaper, they would have had so many people say, "well I might as well..." and pick up a platoon to make a quick 1k force.

I had a quick look through some social media tags and I've yet to see anyone say they want to pick them up.

Will GW pay attention to that and learn from it is the question.. answers on a postcard.

 Olthannon wrote:
The daftest thing about it is it makes such poor economic sense. If they were a touch cheaper, they would have had so many people say, "well I might as well..." and pick up a platoon to make a quick 1k force.

I had a quick look through some social media tags and I've yet to see anyone say they want to pick them up.

Will GW pay attention to that and learn from it is the question.. answers on a postcard.

It's like someone in sales has done a very literal calculation based on the amount of personnel hours to procure metal, find the moulds, produce the figures, package them plus, based on that, we MUST make X% profit.

I'm old. If I wanted Steel Legion, I would have bought them on initial release.

This is not making me want to buy them now and, as a mortgage free Imperial Guard collector with a decent budget, I should be a cash cow.

GW are seeing what the market will bear. If 3D printing is now at a tipping pooint, they want to know about it.
And GW's only way to 'learn' is to do it with price points.

Nearly went and splashed £300+ on these kits. Then decided I'll give myself till Friday to make a decision on them... Decided against it.

There are some specific models I really like and want, but I can't justify £19 on a commissar that I may really like as a model, but looks poor compared to modern counterpart models.

May still buy a heavy bolter as that is a really nice kit and I could add it to my steel legion squad.

The 3D printing apocalypse is already upon us, but it's the small garage makers that are suffering and disappearing.

The smaller manufacturers will go next.

market leaders last of all.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The 3D printing apocalypse is already upon us, but it's the small garage makers that are suffering and disappearing.

The smaller manufacturers will go next.

market leaders last of all.

For me at least price is a driving factor. At $1-2 per model like WGA offers I wouldn't be saving that much by printing my own in resin. At $5+ per model it starts to become a lot more appealing.

Also the smaller guys, particularly garage operations, seem to be having an easier time pivoting to digital sculpting and releasing STLs.

GW's in a position of both being unwilling to acknowledge 3D printing exists and also setting prices and service in a way that encourages 3D printed alternatives. If there is a 3D print apocalypse coming, I wouldn't put money on GW being the last man standing without some serious changes to their business model.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The 3D printing apocalypse is already upon us, but it's the small garage makers that are suffering and disappearing.

The smaller manufacturers will go next.

market leaders last of all.

Well most garage guys are historicals selling to an old crowd, so their market is kinda dying out...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Nearly went and splashed £300+ on these kits. Then decided I'll give myself till Friday to make a decision on them... Decided against it.

There are some specific models I really like and want, but I can't justify £19 on a commissar that I may really like as a model, but looks poor compared to modern counterpart models.

May still buy a heavy bolter as that is a really nice kit and I could add it to my steel legion squad.

I would have been up for some heavy weapon squads as I have infantry. Maybe some special weapons. But at that price? Such a shame.

Interestingly, both the Commissar and the mega bundle have now been removed from the AusGW site. I wonder why.

They're gone off the UK site, too - which is odd, as I thought people had until Monday morning to order them, if they were going to.

I wonder if something happened to the Commissar mould? Maybe it got damaged during this run of casts or they got it out of storage to start the run and realised it was borked.

i've seen reports of folk already receiving deliveries including the commissar, so they had a bunch cast up in advance, so i wouldn't be surprised if the mould has now failed

 Psychopomp wrote:

 Skywave wrote:
Instead of the 550$ or-so I would have to spent on GW stuff (for barely 500pts of guards)...

If that's $550 USD, then that's approaching Elegoo Saturn 2 money - an 8K mono printer with a print bed big enough for a squad and a half or a small tank all in one run. Just saying...

That was 550$ CAD, but yeah, even then I could have a bough a regular 3D printer, resin, files and still be cheaper! I already have a Mars 2 pro, so I just got the files and went at it.

I already printed about 500pts of infantry (which is what that 550$ would've got me) with tons of extras and stuff that didn't exist (medic, comm, melta gun, plasma pistol, some extra visual variant like some armored chest and camo helmet and female head, etc)

Haven't got around to build them all yet but yeah, definitely the way to go for stuff like that.

How long do the sort of Metal/Resin moulds that GW use generally last?

So I just wanted to inform everyone that this might not be a true made to order.

I was needing a few things mainly the lascannon's, so decided to purchase the platoon deal (£110) on Thursday.

Well low and behold it arrived this morning to my surprise. So either they had a load of stuff laying around or they managed to cast it up before the MTO ended (which i doubt).

Has anyone heard of this happening before?

I'm glad i don't have to wait 6 months but it makes me feel the increased price is 100% not justified in the slightest...
I mean it's slightly cheaper than ebay costs which was why i folded and i already had a fair few steel legion models (just no lascannon's).

EDIT : added two gallery pictures showing the Platoon box and contents.

Yes, it's happened every time. They do a preemptive casting and then everything beyond it is Made to Order.

Someone over in the Loot group emailed GW and apparently the mini was withdrawn from sale, as they had a lot of complaints that the mini you receive, isnt the mini pictured. Like it was pointed out earlier in this thread that it was a staff members conversion.

 The Ferret wrote:
I'm glad i don't have to wait 6 months but it makes me feel the increased price is 100% not justified in the slightest...
I mean it's slightly cheaper than ebay costs which was why i folded and i already had a fair few steel legion models (just no lascannon's).

Disregarding for a moment that the justification for the stupid high prices isn't production cost but that people will pay the price, material volume and work time is the same whether it's put in before, during or after the made to order window.

That GW is confident in their sales to preemptively cast up a number of models so they can fulfill early purchases right away is one of the unmitigated upsides to this.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The 3D printing apocalypse is already upon us, but it's the small garage makers that are suffering and disappearing.

The smaller manufacturers will go next.

market leaders last of all.

Last of all will be the indie 3d sculptors as soon as AI starts generating high quality STLs from text prompts.

This tech is already in the early stages of development by nvidia and other companies, and the rate of progress is at the point where 3D modelling could cease to be a profession in a decade.

There will come a time when we can casually shout at our 3d printer "Josef, print steel legion, heavy bolter, but riding a 12-legged unicorn, painted tartan, clear 60mm round base" and have something ready for the gaming table an hour later.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Yes, it's happened every time. They do a preemptive casting and then everything beyond it is Made to Order.

Ah thanks for the clarification. I was unsure if this was common, I've made a few MTO orders before and always got them a few months after (even when purchasing on the first day).

My imagination for a second thought "hey maybe they found a pallet etc of Steel Legion tucked away" and decided to make a quick buck off it.

I’ve had mixed results with the made to order stuff. One order arrived two days after I ordered it, meanwhile I’m still waiting on a fellbeast I ordered at the start of February.

 Original Timmy wrote:
Someone over in the Loot group emailed GW and apparently the mini was withdrawn from sale, as they had a lot of complaints that the mini you receive, isnt the mini pictured. Like it was pointed out earlier in this thread that it was a staff members conversion.

...you'd think it wouldn't be hard to make sure you're showing the miniature you're actually casting, wouldn't you?

 Tamereth wrote:
I’ve had mixed results with the made to order stuff. One order arrived two days after I ordered it, meanwhile I’m still waiting on a fellbeast I ordered at the start of February.

I'm still waiting for that batch too!
I'm also still waiting for the Breaking of the Fellowship I ordered on the 2nd of the October last year. As of today, that's 6 months since ordering, so their 180 days shipping window has now elapsed. They're about to get an email inquiring as to why my order is still pending.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Original Timmy wrote:
Someone over in the Loot group emailed GW and apparently the mini was withdrawn from sale, as they had a lot of complaints that the mini you receive, isnt the mini pictured. Like it was pointed out earlier in this thread that it was a staff members conversion.

...you'd think it wouldn't be hard to make sure you're showing the miniature you're actually casting, wouldn't you?

Hard? No. But expensive. You have to cast one up, pay for the material, the dude doing the casting, then you need to pay the painter for the time it takes to paint it up, because you can't just give it a black wash like it's the Nineties all over again, then the photographer to get a picture, and finally some CGI wizard to give it that GW approved white background and made to order logo.

Who's going to pay for all that? The customers? Come on. GW is selling these models almost at cost. Where's all that money supposed to come from?

 Geifer wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Original Timmy wrote:
Someone over in the Loot group emailed GW and apparently the mini was withdrawn from sale, as they had a lot of complaints that the mini you receive, isnt the mini pictured. Like it was pointed out earlier in this thread that it was a staff members conversion.

...you'd think it wouldn't be hard to make sure you're showing the miniature you're actually casting, wouldn't you?

Hard? No. But expensive. You have to cast one up, pay for the material, the dude doing the casting, then you need to pay the painter for the time it takes to paint it up, because you can't just give it a black wash like it's the Nineties all over again, then the photographer to get a picture, and finally some CGI wizard to give it that GW approved white background and made to order logo.

Who's going to pay for all that? The customers? Come on. GW is selling these models almost at cost. Where's all that money supposed to come from?

Even worse - imagine if they'd had to take the correct arm off one of the Commissars from the last MTO batch they did a few weeks ago, and just stick that on and paint that up. Imagine how much that technical expertise would cost!

 Geifer wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Original Timmy wrote:
Someone over in the Loot group emailed GW and apparently the mini was withdrawn from sale, as they had a lot of complaints that the mini you receive, isnt the mini pictured. Like it was pointed out earlier in this thread that it was a staff members conversion.

...you'd think it wouldn't be hard to make sure you're showing the miniature you're actually casting, wouldn't you?

Hard? No. But expensive. You have to cast one up, pay for the material, the dude doing the casting, then you need to pay the painter for the time it takes to paint it up, because you can't just give it a black wash like it's the Nineties all over again, then the photographer to get a picture, and finally some CGI wizard to give it that GW approved white background and made to order logo.

Who's going to pay for all that? The customers? Come on. GW is selling these models almost at cost. Where's all that money supposed to come from?

...I think my sarcasm detector just exploded.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The 3D printing apocalypse is already upon us, but it's the small garage makers that are suffering and disappearing.

The smaller manufacturers will go next.

market leaders last of all.

You do realize historicals is at the largest its ever been?

 Tamereth wrote:
I’ve had mixed results with the made to order stuff. One order arrived two days after I ordered it, meanwhile I’m still waiting on a fellbeast I ordered at the start of February.

One way to check if your model was actually made to order is to turn off the lights and hold it in your hands.

You should see a faint glow and feel the warmth of the forge. If not then you should return it for a refund.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlackoCatto wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The 3D printing apocalypse is already upon us, but it's the small garage makers that are suffering and disappearing.

The smaller manufacturers will go next.

market leaders last of all.

You do realize historicals is at the largest its ever been?

I'd actually not heard that. Hope it's true.