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I am in the process of rebuilding my Tau Army after taking a break due to family and job obligations.

I have noticed something about similar weapons in GWs models, why are all vehicle mounted weapons about 2 to 3 times the size of the ground mounted weapon.  I game terms these weapons are no more powerful than the ground versions, some of the best examples of this are, Burst Cannons for the TAU, you have 3 different sizes, vehicle, battle suit and stealth suit; heavy flamers , the diffence between the vehicle mounted heavy flamer and the one carried by a terminator; heavy bolters, look at the difference between the one carried by a devistor and one mounted on a tank; and finally laz cannons, once again, they come in at least 3 even four different sizesdepending on where you look.

Does this bother anyone else, or is it just me coming from a scale modeling background.

Moderators if this rant belongs elsewhere, please feel free to move it.

28mm 'heroic' scale has always meant weird proportions, especially for weapons and vehicles. This is why people who want to convert historical kits to 40k go bananas: technically they're 1/56, but 1/48 fits better, except for the guns which are 1/16 and the hatches which are 1/35. It's done for effect: actually, a lot of weapons are coming back into line: the IG lascannon (tripod mount) is, if anything, BIGGER than the LR mounted version.

I stopped worrying about it a long time ago. If I let it get to me, I'd be freaking out about the freakishly huge hands all my valhallans have.

If you think thats bad, look at minis from the same list over time. IG lascannons era valhalla were closer today's heavy stubber in size. The new Vostroyans are considerably bigger than older minis (without the hats).

Coming from a scale modeling background as well, it somewhat bothered me at first. But, mind you, this was back in 2ed, where anatomical proportions were completely off kilter. How about SMs with GIANT hands? Or IG with biceps larger than their heads? Orks with knobbly little legs and giant "senior citizen" sunglasses?

GW has improved in the scale department though...the old bolters were hideously large and unwieldy, even in the hands of a SM. Granted, vehicle-mounted weapons are a little bigger however not by much. The Hvy Stubber is about the same size as it was in Necromunda. The pintle storm bolter is just about the same size as those carried by Termies. The Leman Russ' weapons are the same size as non-vehicle weapons (except the battlecannon, of course).

it could be worse...

The biggest thing that bothers me about scale is the chaos stuff. Archaon, huge body, peanut head. Crom, huge body, peanut head. On all these figures I wind up replacing the head with something more appropriate.

The model that I use for the Lord in my CSM force is the dual axe weilding Chaos Champion. And yet again, head replacement. It drives me friggin nuts that if you were to scale the body to the head the person would not be wearing the armor so much as driving it like a machine from their happy little pilot cockpit that lives in the chest armor.

One of the absolute worst cases of this can be seen in the otherwise beautiful artwork of the leader of the ultramarines sitting on his throne in Codex: Space Marines. HORRIFIC!!!

And when it comes to WFB my chaos warriors and marauders look like freakish giants next to the core units of other human armies. Yeah, yeah, sure... the taint of chaos, super strong northmen and all that. At least a bit of perspective would be nice.

Yeah, it seems GW has this strange dichotomy: odd numbered editions of 40k have pretty solid sculpting for their day (with plenty of RT-era stuff still holding up well to todays standards), while even numbered editions sculpting... leaves something to be desired. That illustration you mention is indeed an excellent example of the current team's awful lack of anatomy and proportion. Not to mention that strange phallus envy that seems to be going on with the massively oversized weapons (both firearms and cannons).

Posted By vitalis on 01/26/2007 2:21 PM
The biggest thing that bothers me about scale is the chaos stuff. Archaon, huge body, peanut head. Crom, huge body, peanut head. On all these figures I wind up replacing the head with something more appropriate.

The model that I use for the Lord in my CSM force is the dual axe weilding Chaos Champion. And yet again, head replacement. It drives me friggin nuts that if you were to scale the body to the head the person would not be wearing the armor so much as driving it like a machine from their happy little pilot cockpit that lives in the chest armor.

One of the absolute worst cases of this can be seen in the otherwise beautiful artwork of the leader of the ultramarines sitting on his throne in Codex: Space Marines. HORRIFIC!!!

And when it comes to WFB my chaos warriors and marauders look like freakish giants next to the core units of other human armies. Yeah, yeah, sure... the taint of chaos, super strong northmen and all that. At least a bit of perspective would be nice.

Well, perhaps it's a mutant created by space marined geneseed.... Howelse does anything pretending to be human fit into Terminator armor?

The large body/small head thing is meant to make the model look more powerful and threatening.  This is because in mammals the opposite proportions (small body/large head) are characteristic of infants.

As far as weapons were concerned:



Saying that the firstv thing I did with my Tau was to convert the Devilfish and Hammerhead burst cannon with spare ones from crisis suits.
I can see the stealthsuit burst cannon being a different size, it has to have stealth technology built into the weapon. So the Earth cast have to engineer it differently.

Tau are not the biggest sufferers of out of scale syndrome. Guard are. You look at the monster guns on a Russ.
I want to replace the guns on the Russes I bought (second hand) with Cadian heavy weapons sprue weapons.

Although GW go over the top with supersizing their vehicle mounted guns there is some historical precedent. Vehicle mounted weapons can have gun sleeves on them to protect them that an infantryman cant bother with, also you can afford to mount a heavier machine gun - which while more potent is in many ways no more or less a heavy stubber than the man portable types.

If you really want out of scale weapons look no further than the Titans. A baneblade has a plethora of standard sized armament, hernce the nive seperate weapons systems. A warlord titan only has four, all supersized. However the oldest versions of the epic rules quantified these monster guns as equivalent to four ordinary guns of their type. So the vast cannon are directly equal to four hand held autocannon and the huge cylindrical missile barrage launchers are directly equal to four ordinary squad missile launchers. As each of these weapons was bigger than a tank, its easy to see how much more you could get with multiple standard weapons.

Andy Chambers was forward thinking enough to see that this needed somec explanation and described titan versions of 4x weapons as being heavily armoured filled with multiply redundant part, are self depairing and have huge ammo silos.
This makes sense - up to a point - when you consider that the fluff behind the lascannon gives it only one shot per charge battery, and the space marine lascannon backpack has power for six shots only before the marine has to retire from the field to seek a recharge. Just long enough for a game of 40K.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 01/27/2007 3:04 AM
The large body/small head thing is meant to make the model look more powerful and threatening.  This is because in mammals the opposite proportions (small body/large head) are characteristic of infants.

Remember that the body is armoured, while many 40K heroes have naked heads. So the head on a terminator is going to look small no matter what.

Marines are genetically engineered and upmuscled. This will increas the body size, but as the head is (more or less) skin over a skull it will grow far less even if you allow for the surgical inclusion of black carapace armoured coating over the skull itself.

 

Both together would easily acount for the disproportion for Abaddon.

 

 

Keep in mind that, along with proportion tricks necessary to make any sculpture aesthetically pleasing?read about Michaelangelo's David to get a good handle on this?the models also need to be designed for convenience. If GW vehicles were scaled realistically the chassis would be enormous and the weapons would be small and delicate, making them hard to transport and very prone to breakage.

supabeast: Speaking of proportion tricks, aesthetically pleasing and Michaelangelo's David...

You mean to tell me that space marines don't have big muscle heads? Yeah right - they can scream 10x harder than the average guardsman!

I don't mind the varying size between infantry and vehicle weapons...

The thing that I've always puzzled at is the size of the infatry relative to their transport. Are 10 Space Marines going to fit in a Rhino? No. No way. 12 Tau in a Devilfish? Again, no.

Sure they will. Remember that most of the figures have them spread out in big, imposing positions (ie: legs spread apart, arms outstretched & waving about). Compare this to modern AFV's, they are very, very cramped but an M113 APC can still carry 11 personell plus the track's driver & commander yet it is very small. I wish I had saved the pics, but Mike Majors did a wonderful conversion using the original Rhino kit that had a full interior and fit 10 seated marines plus two crew inside, and that kit is quite a bit smaller than the current one.

 

 

Goddam GW and their offscale models. You don't see other companies screwing their customers with offscale models. Every year we get a scale adjustment, and its all due to GW's selfishness. I'm going to sit back and watch GW go down the toilet for their mistakes in making heads and hands and weapons the wrong sizes.

Watch....you'll see everyone goto Privateer Press.

Does the Warstore carry any figures in scale for 40K?

No. Because he eats babies.

The scale issue is just one of the reasons why i really love Forgeworld troopers and tanks kits.

Forgeworld infantry are much much better proportioned and sculpted correctly. You look at a Kreig Trooper and he is realistic, not only in terms of uniform and detial in the sculpt/cast but in dimensions and anatomically. The hands are much smaller and finer than standard plastic GW, as are the weapons. It's also a similar story with the tanks. When i just got my Armageddon basilisk and my Shadowsword (which finally arrived but with the wrong components so i have to get my volcano cannon posted to me!!!) the vehicles are much better scale and the cannons are no way as big and crazy as standard plastic tanks.

The main reason I think that GW has to make things heroic is that with current plastic casting its difficult perhaps to get the hands etc as small as you can with the resin process? Although havinfg said that Infinity troopers from Corvus belli (which are all white metal) have fantastic hands and weapons and are much more in proportion.

The scale issue really puts me off plastic GW releases these days and just makes them look like toys. Now that i've gone FW and Corvus Belli I doubt I'll ever be going back. Hold a Cadian next to a Kriegsman or a plastic Russ next to the Krieg Mars Alpha Russ and theres no comparisson in quality.

Posted By Gundammecha on 01/29/2007 1:11 AM

the vehicles are much better scale and the cannons are no way as big and crazy as standard plastic tanks.

Oh really?

hohoho

Well of course with some exceptions.

However if you look at the Krieg Vanquisher with the Mars Alpha Hull it does look more like a real battle tank. Most tanks have long barrels. Look at the Challenger or the Abrams, these both have longer cannons than the standard GW Russ "stubby" battle cannon.

 

 

Alright so the Vanquisher cannon is very long, but there is a background reason for this and it makes sense.

 

I'm talking specifically about general dimensions of most weapons fits, these are better than standard plastics.

 

 

The weapons on these two russ's are much better. The AutoCannons look decent and even the pintle heavy stubber and the Hull Heavy Bolter look more "right" than the huge plastic ones on sponsons etc.

 

Posted By Gundammecha on 01/29/2007 1:11 AM

The main reason I think that GW has to make things heroic is that with current plastic casting its difficult perhaps to get the hands etc as small as you can with the resin process? Although havinfg said that Infinity troopers from Corvus belli (which are all white metal) have fantastic hands and weapons and are much more in proportion.

While I haven't held the Corvus Belli troopers you mention, I do know GW is capable of doing finely detailed plastics, just take a look at their LotR line of plastic figures, they just choose not to do so with their 40k and WHFB lines. My guess is to produce finer detail and correct proportions it somehow is more work or costly for them and by continuing to cut corners they can get away with it for now. Seems just like another example of the institutionalized laziness and lack of clear standards and organization.

I also don't buy the "they're chunky because they are gaming peices" bull the GW apologists like to come up with. Again, I point to the LotR line and ask why do they have such fine details, especially for infantry figures that have much less surface area than the big (and blandly detailed) vehicles? It again folds back into the laziness bit, they don't detail them as their target customer, 12 year olds, don't know the difference and are unlikely to care.

Tamiya's 1/48 scale WWII plastic soldiers have very few mold lines, if any, and fine, to-scale details, and while they're certainly display pieces, no one's accused them of being too fragile to game with; in fact, some historical gamers use the figs for 28-40mm skirmish.

I think it's more of a chosen aesthetic: this is the 'GW look', in the same way that Reaper, Foundry, Rackham and Privateer Press all have particular 'looks' to their figs. Certainly that look has evolved and, when certain sculptors are employed (e.g. the Perry twins, Goodwin) finer details are enhanced over meat-hands and skulz&chains, but that's the GW aesthetic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it really doesn't.

>... chosen aesthetic ...

Agree.
It's a cleverly chosen path that makes GW minis stand out from many other - making it harder to use non-GW stuff.
I, personally, like the GW chunkyness (except when they overdo it Catachan-style).

We all know that all weapons in the far future is way bigger than those of today, some overheat one in six uses, most have an effective range of less than 50 meters - and many are painted with bright colours (often even yellow/black-striped).