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I have to admit that I do rather like the way its going right now, whilst it is a tad obvious at least everything is being brought into 6th at a nice pace.

I must say I am very happy with warhammer releases lately, the speed will help balance if all books can be upgraded in 6th ed or at least most of them, I loved most of the tau release and all of the Eldar release, especially the wraithknight.

IMHO, rules aside, I think that the current releases are more -inconsistent- than bland. There are some fantastic models in each range, and some downright silly looking models as well. From a modelling standpoint, GW's newest releases seem to suffer from poor enforcement of a "style bible". The last 40k releases that had a very unified feel to them were Dark Eldar and Necrons. The new Chaos range, while unified in their NEW style, with lots of raised banding on the armor departs heavily from the existing range and is symptomatic of GW's strategy of "fill every empty spot with detail whether it makes sense or not". The Dark Angels range, was largely consistent with the old range, with the exception of the new vehicles, which stand out a lot. IMHO, GW would have been much better off to put out a DA upgrade sprue to bring all the old vehicles in line with the new design direction of extra-church/shrine look, or make the new vehicles less church/shrine looking.

The Tau and Eldar releases suffer from poor adherence to a centralized style bible. I feel the Tau in particular suffer from having 1/2 the range having smooth organic lines (Vehicles, Stealth Suits) and everything else being old school battletech boxy (Battlesuits, Riptide). GW had a chance to unify the feel of the range and it was squandered. The riptide in particular feels like a wasted opportunity as I feel GW's design teams gave it poor general proportions and tried to hide it by covering it in (nonsensical and mostly flat) detail.

With the Eldar, I feel the new flyer is brilliant (if a bit lacking in hull detail - wot... no spirit stones???) - but the Wraith Knight again, suffers from strange proportion problems - both it and the riptide have extremely short arms when compared with the length of the legs. The barrel chest and small head IMHO is a poor departure from all other Eldar walkers in terms of unified style. The spirit seer feels phoned-in and a throwback to the silly dancing Necromunda farseer on which it appears to be based. It looks extra terrible next to the new character model and plastic farseer which are both of high quality.

silvu wrote:
I have to admit that I do rather like the way its going right now, whilst it is a tad obvious at least everything is being brought into 6th at a nice pace.

If they keep it up and do all armies, I'd tend to agree. Hopefully GW won't stop and leave some armies in the cold.

silvu wrote:
Hopefully GW won't stop and leave some armies in the cold.

Right, because that never happened before

A lot of the new releases look cool, but the magic is gone for me. Gone are the days of saving for weeks to get a greater demon and finding something even cooler on the shelves and being pumped about it.

 keezus wrote:
IMHO, rules aside, I think that the current releases are more -inconsistent- than bland. There are some fantastic models in each range, and some downright silly looking models as well. From a modelling standpoint, GW's newest releases seem to suffer from poor enforcement of a "style bible". The last 40k releases that had a very unified feel to them were Dark Eldar and Necrons. The new Chaos range, while unified in their NEW style, with lots of raised banding on the armor departs heavily from the existing range and is symptomatic of GW's strategy of "fill every empty spot with detail whether it makes sense or not". The Dark Angels range, was largely consistent with the old range, with the exception of the new vehicles, which stand out a lot. IMHO, GW would have been much better off to put out a DA upgrade sprue to bring all the old vehicles in line with the new design direction of extra-church/shrine look, or make the new vehicles less church/shrine looking.

The Tau and Eldar releases suffer from poor adherence to a centralized style bible. I feel the Tau in particular suffer from having 1/2 the range having smooth organic lines (Vehicles, Stealth Suits) and everything else being old school battletech boxy (Battlesuits, Riptide). GW had a chance to unify the feel of the range and it was squandered. The riptide in particular feels like a wasted opportunity as I feel GW's design teams gave it poor general proportions and tried to hide it by covering it in (nonsensical and mostly flat) detail.

With the Eldar, I feel the new flyer is brilliant (if a bit lacking in hull detail - wot... no spirit stones???) - but the Wraith Knight again, suffers from strange proportion problems - both it and the riptide have extremely short arms when compared with the length of the legs. The barrel chest and small head IMHO is a poor departure from all other Eldar walkers in terms of unified style. The spirit seer feels phoned-in and a throwback to the silly dancing Necromunda farseer on which it appears to be based. It looks extra terrible next to the new character model and plastic farseer which are both of high quality.

Exalted.

Not all of the latest releases have been 'bad' per say, but most have left me wondering if the sculptors have taken more than glance at the existing lines, way too much of the new stuff looks entirely out of place when compared with the rest of that faction's range.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Bookwrack wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

I like vanilla ice cream.

Oh! Oh! Can we now have whoever that donkey-cave was who got crimes-against-humanity level offended about using 'vanilla' to mean 'plain' (cause the vanilla bean is actually an amazing and exotic flavor, and anyone using it to mean commonplace or regular is WRONG!!!!!!) come to this thread and lead us to another epic derail to ward off potential blandness?

Possibly because in some foods Vanilla is the base flavor to which other flavors are added?

But a nice French vanilla, with little flecks of the vanilla bean, and maybe a hint of rum....

As I have said - I have little to no problem with bland - but too many recent *cough* Chaos *cough, cough* miniatures weren't 'bland' they were 'bad', and not in a good way.

The high elf releases? A trifle bland, but aside from the kite being dragged by an eagle? Not bad at all.

The horse archers were very nice.

The Skaven in the IoB box... managed to be both bland and bad. Way too obvious that a bunch of pre-designed pieces were cobbled together to make miniatures.

The Auld Grump, at least the elves have escaped the Island of the Huge Hands....

I liked WoC release they had, it was cool and very chaos-y without being boring. Bland gives a faction a uniformity with High Elves that is good, they are a uniform army.

Yes the codexes are getting so bland (to me) in the terms of game mechanics. The whole concept of 6th EDrules and the recent codexs are so mind numbing (game mechanics wise) once you break down how things work. I'm rather insulted on how dumb downed things are with the entire setup.

There is, I think something called codex fatigue/ information overload. So much material has been put out in such a short time that I believe certain people hare having a difficult time in digesting all of the information/synergy of one codex before another one arrives. Some people might be getting that "eh" feeling about "another codex" so soon.

Just a thought or two

From a post just started in the news & rumour section:

Firstly, the exodite dragon riders, court of the young king, smaller avatar etc appears to have been rumour only.

Once again fans getting all kinds of excited about the prospect of a new codex, and the kind of opportunity that represents to do something new. I mean, after all the Eldar have been around since the beginning of the game, and even now there are a new range of books from BL fleshing them out even more. Undoubtedly there was massive potential there to make people really excited about this release, beyond just reminding fans of the codex's existence + add a bit of codex-creep to make them more powerful.

Instead they just get a new plastic kit, add a hardcover, swap some of the background and stories around, change a few stats; job done. I suppose you could say bland, but the phrase 'dull as dishwater' also springs to mind. It's all just re-treading the same ground covered many times before.

Out of curiosity what was the last codex/army book that had any significant changes/additions in fluff from the book before it?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Out of curiosity what was the last codex/army book that had any significant changes/additions in fluff from the book before it?

The necrons got a whole re-boot, IIRC. Not sure if there is one more recent then that.

And before that Grey Knights.

i agree with the first post, getting bland, and leaving me trying to figure out why 8th edition warhammer player were left with old books for over a year before a new book

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And before that Grey Knights.

...sadly...

 Pacific wrote:
Once again fans getting all kinds of excited about the prospect of a new codex, and the kind of opportunity that represents to do something new. I mean, after all the Eldar have been around since the beginning of the game, and even now there are a new range of books from BL fleshing them out even more. Undoubtedly there was massive potential there to make people really excited about this release, beyond just reminding fans of the codex's existence + add a bit of codex-creep to make them more powerful.

Instead they just get a new plastic kit, add a hardcover, swap some of the background and stories around, change a few stats; job done. I suppose you could say bland, but the phrase 'dull as dishwater' also springs to mind. It's all just re-treading the same ground covered many times before.

To be fair, this is one of the reasons GW wanted to clamp down on rumours. When a codex is well underway, they know what they're including. It's not changing. When someone jumps on Warseer and say 'yo dawgs, Eldar be gettin Exodites again!' and the rumour community starts getting all excited, it's a bit late in the day to go add exodites to the book. Especially when you consider the actual trustworthy rumour guys like hastings had been saying, long before the Eldar rumours started up, that the first half dozen 6th edition codices were done and in storage ready to release before 5th had even ended.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Once again fans getting all kinds of excited about the prospect of a new codex, and the kind of opportunity that represents to do something new. I mean, after all the Eldar have been around since the beginning of the game, and even now there are a new range of books from BL fleshing them out even more. Undoubtedly there was massive potential there to make people really excited about this release, beyond just reminding fans of the codex's existence + add a bit of codex-creep to make them more powerful.

Instead they just get a new plastic kit, add a hardcover, swap some of the background and stories around, change a few stats; job done. I suppose you could say bland, but the phrase 'dull as dishwater' also springs to mind. It's all just re-treading the same ground covered many times before.

To be fair, this is one of the reasons GW wanted to clamp down on rumours. When a codex is well underway, they know what they're including. It's not changing. When someone jumps on Warseer and say 'yo dawgs, Eldar be gettin Exodites again!' and the rumour community starts getting all excited, it's a bit late in the day to go add exodites to the book. Especially when you consider the actual trustworthy rumour guys like hastings had been saying, long before the Eldar rumours started up, that the first half dozen 6th edition codices were done and in storage ready to release before 5th had even ended.

If only there was a way for GW to get feedback from their customers so they could find out what people want beforehand and include it

 jonolikespie wrote:

If only there was a way for GW to get feedback from their customers so they could find out what people want beforehand and include it

I used to think like that, until i realized that practically no one I've ever encountered knows how to design something for a wargame that isn't some how broken.

edit: GW doesn't need feedback from us, as we don't want them to be a business.

Of course they (should) want feed back from us. Play-testing is what the community tends to be great at. I've been doing play-testing for over two years now and it's both fun to be involved in and, if you have developers that trust you, a great way to improve games and catch problems before they go to print.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Once again fans getting all kinds of excited about the prospect of a new codex, and the kind of opportunity that represents to do something new. I mean, after all the Eldar have been around since the beginning of the game, and even now there are a new range of books from BL fleshing them out even more. Undoubtedly there was massive potential there to make people really excited about this release, beyond just reminding fans of the codex's existence + add a bit of codex-creep to make them more powerful.

Instead they just get a new plastic kit, add a hardcover, swap some of the background and stories around, change a few stats; job done. I suppose you could say bland, but the phrase 'dull as dishwater' also springs to mind. It's all just re-treading the same ground covered many times before.

To be fair, this is one of the reasons GW wanted to clamp down on rumours. When a codex is well underway, they know what they're including. It's not changing. When someone jumps on Warseer and say 'yo dawgs, Eldar be gettin Exodites again!' and the rumour community starts getting all excited, it's a bit late in the day to go add exodites to the book. Especially when you consider the actual trustworthy rumour guys like hastings had been saying, long before the Eldar rumours started up, that the first half dozen 6th edition codices were done and in storage ready to release before 5th had even ended.

If only there was a way for GW to get feedback from their customers so they could find out what people want beforehand and include it

I'm not saying GW are good at communication. I'm just saying it's a bit rich blaming GW for, say, something like Exodites not being in the Eldar codex when the community make themselves expect it, and hype it up.

General rule with rumours is always that they're rumours. Once your start hyping yourself up for a release based on rumour, you only have yourself to blame when it doesn't pan out.

Sure, GW could communicate better. But they don't. That doesn't mean what unreliable rumour spreaders are any more trustworthy. Most of the time, it's one post wonders who start a rumour and never show up again. Gamers are pretty easy to troll that way.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Of course they (should) want feed back from us. Play-testing is what the community tends to be great at. I've been doing play-testing for over two years now and it's both fun to be involved in and, if you have developers that trust you, a great way to improve games and catch problems before they go to print.

I'll grant you that...as long as warhammer isn't the game in question. Story background has corrupted too many people to have unbiased decision making just regular wargamers. Just as an example if I were to be a playtester back when necrons dropped, then mindshackle would have been thrown out (how does mindslave tyranids get bugged?) post haste, as would wraiths, reanimation protocols, etc etc. Funnily enough, the rule of cool is NOT cool when it comes to rules.

As someone who writes rules professionally I can say that yes, the rule of cool can apply to rules. You talk of various Necron things that you would have "thrown out". That's ludicrous.

You only "throw out" concepts that simply aren't working and cannot work no matter how much you try. The problems you cite (Wraiths are a problem? The whole unit? You'd just get rid of 'em?) are things you deal with by balancing them as best you can and testing those changes. 100% balance is impossible, but a "perfect imbalance" is quite obtainable.

That's what testing is for.

 rapterz wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

If only there was a way for GW to get feedback from their customers so they could find out what people want beforehand and include it

I used to think like that, until i realized that practically no one I've ever encountered knows how to design something for a wargame that isn't some how broken.

edit: GW doesn't need feedback from us, as we don't want them to be a business.

I'm not talking about GW accepting rules put forward by fans, I'm talking about them noticing that people really wanted new eldar jetbikes and making them instead of- ok the eldar release wasn't that bad. Better example: I heard a lot of people wanting a resculpt of the basic chaos marine box when they were redone to bring them in line with the DV stuff, instead we got dino bots no one asked for.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Of course they (should) want feed back from us. Play-testing is what the community tends to be great at. I've been doing play-testing for over two years now and it's both fun to be involved in and, if you have developers that trust you, a great way to improve games and catch problems before they go to print.

Agreed - I'm helping playtest (and proof-read) an upcoming RPG at the moment, and spotting problems (then persuading the designer that they are problems) s quite rewarding.

The occasional feeling that he's changing things to spite me is entirely co-incidental, I assure you

 -Loki- wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Once again fans getting all kinds of excited about the prospect of a new codex, and the kind of opportunity that represents to do something new. I mean, after all the Eldar have been around since the beginning of the game, and even now there are a new range of books from BL fleshing them out even more. Undoubtedly there was massive potential there to make people really excited about this release, beyond just reminding fans of the codex's existence + add a bit of codex-creep to make them more powerful.

Instead they just get a new plastic kit, add a hardcover, swap some of the background and stories around, change a few stats; job done. I suppose you could say bland, but the phrase 'dull as dishwater' also springs to mind. It's all just re-treading the same ground covered many times before.

To be fair, this is one of the reasons GW wanted to clamp down on rumours. When a codex is well underway, they know what they're including. It's not changing. When someone jumps on Warseer and say 'yo dawgs, Eldar be gettin Exodites again!' and the rumour community starts getting all excited, it's a bit late in the day to go add exodites to the book. Especially when you consider the actual trustworthy rumour guys like hastings had been saying, long before the Eldar rumours started up, that the first half dozen 6th edition codices were done and in storage ready to release before 5th had even ended.

If only there was a way for GW to get feedback from their customers so they could find out what people want beforehand and include it

I'm not saying GW are good at communication. I'm just saying it's a bit rich blaming GW for, say, something like Exodites not being in the Eldar codex when the community make themselves expect it, and hype it up.

I'm not blaming GW for that; my point was that to use the exodites, the Demiurg, other wild rumours as an illustration of what GW is not doing. i.e. coming up with anything exciting or different for a new release.

That the fans (and to be honest anyone with 10 seconds of thought) could come up with so many ideas, and absolutely none of it makes it into the new cycle of releases, I think speaks volumes about where the company is at these days; i.e. the cutting back, the re-treading of old ground and conservatism, and in general complete dirth of imagination.

Personally I like the Tau and the Eldar, so I would have to say no, but obviously its a very subjective point, what's pretty to one fan is ugly to another.

Liking them doesn't make them not bland though. I really like the Wraithknight, but I acknowledge that it was the path of least resistance for GW to make one (take Wraithlord, scale up 100%). They could have done so much more, yet didn't.

I think we always see the community shine when it comes to the more mundane GW releases.

This sublime Heldrake conversion for example.
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?355906-Marshalfaust-takes-on-the-Heldrake/page2



I think the Wraithknight will become more apparent as a less bland kit after people have got their hands on it... hopefully.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
(take Wraithlord, scale up 100%).

Ironically I'd like it a lot more if they literally did take the wraithlord and up-scale it, lol. It would fix everything I dislike about the wraithknight: the back vanes would look better (they just look weird and way too "knobby" on the wraithknight), the head would be larger, and the chest would be a little smaller.

I mean normally I'm all for more realistically-proportioned models, so it's strange that I'm suggesting GW make a model with a tiny body and a big head but it's the look I'm used to for Eldar wraith constructs, so...

Whoa... how was that Heldrake made? What bits?

I think it's just the Heldrake kit with some forgefiend bits. There are some more pics on the Warseer link.