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Metal is almost impossible to convert or magnetize though, painted models are easier to be scratched even if you handle them with care, and an army full of metal has significant weight to deal with. Plastic all the way.

IMHO best GW is 2000-2015.

 Blackie wrote:
Metal is almost impossible to convert or magnetize though, painted models are easier to be scratched even if you handle them with care, and an army full of metal has significant weight to deal with. Plastic all the way.

IMHO best GW is 2000-2015.

One doesn't know pain unless one played 1st edition Necromunda WYSIWYG!


Also I have to disagree, the period when I was having most fun with the hobby and it was all new and wondrous to *me* is clearly peak GW.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
I dislike the new kits how they come together, I had a lot more enjoyment from the older ones and wish the trends would have gone towards better more freedom oriented models as opposed to his more mono pose hybrid approach.

Which of the new kits have you built?

A good deal of them, but this trend was already taking hold with say the ad mech kits and new storm trooper models for guard for instance. They weren't built fully connected like some but certain legs went with certain arms and certain weapons needed certain legs and arms otherwise the model would look a bit crazy. Which ended up with a real build by number kind of approach as opposed to say the 4th, 5th edition marine kits in plastic which was just here are the pieces, do your thing. Some said they didn't alter up the models much, I did and it made putting them together a bit more relaxed for me at least, felt more creative and less I need these legs with this gun and these arms with this exact torso or it'll come out looking stupid. For example with the storm trooper kit, all the plasmas are the same one arm cradling the plasma gun and one hand pointing, just out of the box you'd need to get other plasmas from other areas to change the look really any at all or you have a bunch of dudes pointing holding a plasma like a baby.

As long as the kits are plastic, I din't mind that much. I guess GW got fed up with people having derpy looking armies because they couldn't be arsed to pose them nicely. Best poses often used to require some parts cutting and greenstuffing anyways.

Every modeller should get good cutting tools and learn how to convert plastics. It's really not that hard as long as you have the right tools for it.

I use my Dark Imperium monopose plastics to practice forced shoulder pad and weapon swaps. While I still aint all that good with green stuff, I can get by.

What sucks however is when GW makes models that are hard to convert, like attaching cloaks on things or hands gripping weapons in a way that is impossible to cut cleanly.

Dai wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
In some ways I prefer the old monopose metals. They are practically indestructable if they are one piece, which most of them are. And I find them satisfying to hand.

Absolutely. Every fool know early-mid 90's GW is best GW.

All of my recent plastics have weights (50 fils coins for 25mm and 1 Dirham coin for 32mm) to make them heftier (and base heavy).

Personally I WAY prefer the multi pose metal/plastic bodies and separate arms, weapons, packs and paldrons (and heads for the full plastics). However I have come to the conclusion that I'm mostly putting them in only a few poses, standing and shooting, using a tool or walking. I prefer the shooting or getting into action poses so most of them are that. Even if I've kitbashed the hell out of the models by mixing WH40K, WHFB, aftermarket producers, other game system models, whatever, they all end up looking fairly close. Especially my "boring" units like Tac Marines (or the Old as the hill over-the-shoulder Devastators).

I was rather anti the ETB style "monopose" until I bought a 3 pack and built/painted them. They make pretty decent models. I'm happy enough with them.

The current Marine kit is way up there on the multi-pose / interchangeability matrix and the Primaris kits are very much at the other end of the scale. I own a lot of both, including several "my dude" characters converted from basic Firstborn, and I just cannot overlook how much better the Primaris look whenever I have both types in the same army. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

 Blackie wrote:
Metal is almost impossible to convert or magnetize though, painted models are easier to be scratched even if you handle them with care, and an army full of metal has significant weight to deal with. Plastic all the way.

Converting - harder, and depends greatly upon what exactly you're doing. And what tools you're using. A simple head, hand/weapon swap or building a combi-weapon, etc? Not that difficult. Removing and replacing a Guardsmans plasma gun? Considerably harder. (why would I do that? Because I liked the pose the plasma gunner was in....)

Magnetizing - you're not doing it right then.

Paint chipping/scratching - you aren't base coating & sealing things correctly.

Weight issues? Yes, depending upon what exactly you've got in your case(s) you can tell instantly which case has a metal army in it. But unless you've developed a 5 pound lifting limit or have become old & decrepit....

 AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
I dislike the new kits how they come together, I had a lot more enjoyment from the older ones and wish the trends would have gone towards better more freedom oriented models as opposed to his more mono pose hybrid approach.

Which of the new kits have you built?

A good deal of them, but this trend was already taking hold with say the ad mech kits and new storm trooper models for guard for instance. They weren't built fully connected like some but certain legs went with certain arms and certain weapons needed certain legs and arms otherwise the model would look a bit crazy. Which ended up with a real build by number kind of approach as opposed to say the 4th, 5th edition marine kits in plastic which was just here are the pieces, do your thing. Some said they didn't alter up the models much, I did and it made putting them together a bit more relaxed for me at least, felt more creative and less I need these legs with this gun and these arms with this exact torso or it'll come out looking stupid. For example with the storm trooper kit, all the plasmas are the same one arm cradling the plasma gun and one hand pointing, just out of the box you'd need to get other plasmas from other areas to change the look really any at all or you have a bunch of dudes pointing holding a plasma like a baby.

See, here's the reason I disagree with that somewhat.

For starters, even the old U-hand kits had that exact same "if you don't use this arm with that arm it's gonna look stupid" pairing thing going on. Check out the assembly instructions for the 2015 tactical marines that you just mentioned: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerInstructions/comments/6xt3lr/space_marine_tactical_squad_2015_imgur/

The trade off for me, and the reason I'm basically OK with the current trend of torso+legs together is because the old-style kits to maintain compatibility had to have basically EXACTLY the same static leg pose, which was always a weird horse-riding stance that basically gave you nothing, because no real living human being has ever stood in that pose, it's not a real thing. My very first sets of space marines I ended up chopping up the legs just to try and get something, anything different.

So far, the most monopose kit I've made many times was the Idoneth Namarti Thralls - the box comes with 10 figures, 8 of which have 2 set poses and 2 of which have only one, and I ended up building the box 4 times. Theoretically I should have had 50% exact copies, but it was actually much easier to make new and interesting poses starting from a set of figures where one of them's posed going for an overhand swing, one of them is stabbing his blade downward in a finishing move type thing, one of them is walking forward, one of them is holding a sword up above his head, one of them is sweeping an axe sideways, as opposed to a set where by default everyone is standing in a horse riding stance with their arms sticking out to the side. Also, the fact that 50% of the models were women and 50% were men made it that much easier to achieve variety, because I'm not trying to make 40 copies of what could be the exact same dude distinct.

I was able to use the spare weapon arms and bits I got from all the other idoneth kits and pretty easily have 40 differently posed thralls. I wasn't able to get 20 meaningfully different poses, not even close, out of the fully multipart Thousand Sons rubric kit, because there's just only so many ways that basically identical looking robotic dudes can hold guns in both hands.

The monopose thing isn't such an issue when you're talking about regular rifle infantry.
Because there is a limited number of ways a model can hold their gun across their chest.

The problem comes in units with one-handed weapons.
Assault Marines, Banshees, etc.
For these there's a wide variety of poses you can build, if you're given the opportunity.
Instead, GW takes the opportunity to build monopose models with incredibly dynamic poses that stick out like a sore thumb when every 5th model across an army is doing the same backflip.

Practicaly my whole army is metal, only the rhinos are plastic, and I never had problems with my army weight, and I go to the store either with a bus or on a bike, only way I can imagine something having weight problems with an army is if they have some sort of 300+ metal model horde army, but then you just get a canvas bag instead of a plastic one or a two tool boxs to carry stuff around.

ccs wrote:

Converting - harder, and depends greatly upon what exactly you're doing. And what tools you're using. A simple head, hand/weapon swap or building a combi-weapon, etc? Not that difficult. Removing and replacing a Guardsmans plasma gun? Considerably harder. (why would I do that? Because I liked the pose the plasma gunner was in....)

Why? Because I can't stand duplicates. Even my 180 boyz are different someway. I'm not familiar with metal guardsmen but I hated how metal sisters with special/weapons looked like, aka all identical.

ccs wrote:

Magnetizing - you're not doing it right then.

I use cheap hand drills for magnetize models. Perfect for plastic miniatures, but metal models are extremely harder to drill. You'd need more expensive tools, and at that point I'd rather buy more models for the same price than a better hand drill and the magnets.

ccs wrote:

Paint chipping/scratching - you aren't base coating & sealing things correctly.

Sealing things no, I hate those products. With plastic models I never needed them and I haven't scratched a single one yet in over 20 years. Can't say the same for metal models.

ccs wrote:

Weight issues? Yes, depending upon what exactly you've got in your case(s) you can tell instantly which case has a metal army in it. But unless you've developed a 5 pound lifting limit or have become old & decrepit....

I have 500+ infantry models and 50+ vehicles, stored in a dozen boxes. 3-4 of those boxes are stored in a bigger box. I'll probably add more before I die. If they all were metal I'd powerlift everytime I handle one of the bigger boxes to pick up the models I need . And I'm a body builder!

Of course if you just have a box with 4 vehicles and 40 models there's no real issue of weight if the entire army is metal.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The monopose thing isn't such an issue when you're talking about regular rifle infantry.
Because there is a limited number of ways a model can hold their gun across their chest.

The problem comes in units with one-handed weapons.
Assault Marines, Banshees, etc.
For these there's a wide variety of poses you can build, if you're given the opportunity.
Instead, GW takes the opportunity to build monopose models with incredibly dynamic poses that stick out like a sore thumb when every 5th model across an army is doing the same backflip.

I guess what I'm saying is, I've built a ton of both Namarti Thralls and Wyches, the first of which is a new-style limited pose box and the second is a golden age of customizability 5th edition kit with swappable torsos heads etc.

I definitely feel like I can get more distinct, interesting poses out of the thralls than the wyches, because all my wyches except 1 in each box have to be running with one leg up and one leg on the ground, and there's just only so many ways you can have the model run and be doing a distinct thing. Also, most of the arm poses are fairly generic "arm crooked at elbow, held close to side" because they have to make sure every bit fits every torso configuration. Also, all the wyches have to have the same body size and shape, while with the thralls I've got a mix of more and less muscular models. You can use Kabalite legs to make standing wyches, but the kabalite armor is significantly different looking so it ends up looking odd, and it's also extremely static looking.

If I hadn't gotten my army in a swap, I'd probably have mixed in Thralls and Reavers to make even more distinct poses, as the Reavers are all in kind of evasive jumpy stances.

I have 40 thralls and 30 wyches, and it's much much easier to find a fairly similar looking pair of wyches than it is a pair of thralls.

 Blackie wrote:

ccs wrote:

Magnetizing - you're not doing it right then.

I use cheap hand drills for magnetize models. Perfect for plastic miniatures, but metal models are extremely harder to drill. You'd need more expensive tools, and at that point I'd rather buy more models for the same price than a better hand drill and the magnets.

Use cheap tools, get poor results....
That said? My "more expensive" tool of choice? A low end rechargeable Black & Decker drill/screw shooter (and a standard Walmart quality case of bits) who's main purpose in life is as a general household tool. Just so happens to work well when I've got a hobby project.

 Blackie wrote:

ccs wrote:

Paint chipping/scratching - you aren't base coating & sealing things correctly.

Sealing things no, I hate those products. With plastic models I never needed them and I haven't scratched a single one yet in over 20 years. Can't say the same for metal models.

As I said, you're not doing it correctly.

 Blackie wrote:

ccs wrote:

Weight issues? Yes, depending upon what exactly you've got in your case(s) you can tell instantly which case has a metal army in it. But unless you've developed a 5 pound lifting limit or have become old & decrepit....

I have 500+ infantry models and 50+ vehicles, stored in a dozen boxes. 3-4 of those boxes are stored in a bigger box. I'll probably add more before I die. If they all were metal I'd powerlift everytime I handle one of the bigger boxes to pick up the models I need . And I'm a body builder!

Well I was really only referring to transport. You pick up my Fyreslayer/Kahrodon Overlords (AoS) case? The case weighs more than the two armies it contains. You pick up my SW case for 40k & you'll know you're lugging metal around. You pick up my case of WWII German 15mm stuff & your 1st thought will be "WTF...Does he have an actual Panzer in there?"(that one does exceed a 5lb lift restriction)
Like I said, depends what's in your cases.
And storage at home depends upon sooo many factors. Me? I'd never have to box things like you do.

If you need to put a lot of effort into preparing metal models to prevent them from chipping, I think it's safe to say that they have problems with chipping.
Same for tools, a typical household electrical drill is *huge* compared to my hobby hand drill and will make fine work much harder. Additionally, metal is much heavier so requires pinning on most joints (lining up pins is painful) and much larger magnets than plastic requires if you want to magnetise them, large enough that they may not fit in the space given.
I don't think it's actually a debate that plastic is a much more user friendly material. No one is arguing metal is absolutely unworkable, just that it's more difficult and complex.

the_scotsman wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The monopose thing isn't such an issue when you're talking about regular rifle infantry.
Because there is a limited number of ways a model can hold their gun across their chest.

The problem comes in units with one-handed weapons.
Assault Marines, Banshees, etc.
For these there's a wide variety of poses you can build, if you're given the opportunity.
Instead, GW takes the opportunity to build monopose models with incredibly dynamic poses that stick out like a sore thumb when every 5th model across an army is doing the same backflip.

I guess what I'm saying is, I've built a ton of both Namarti Thralls and Wyches, the first of which is a new-style limited pose box and the second is a golden age of customizability 5th edition kit with swappable torsos heads etc.

I definitely feel like I can get more distinct, interesting poses out of the thralls than the wyches, because all my wyches except 1 in each box have to be running with one leg up and one leg on the ground, and there's just only so many ways you can have the model run and be doing a distinct thing. Also, most of the arm poses are fairly generic "arm crooked at elbow, held close to side" because they have to make sure every bit fits every torso configuration. Also, all the wyches have to have the same body size and shape, while with the thralls I've got a mix of more and less muscular models. You can use Kabalite legs to make standing wyches, but the kabalite armor is significantly different looking so it ends up looking odd, and it's also extremely static looking.

If I hadn't gotten my army in a swap, I'd probably have mixed in Thralls and Reavers to make even more distinct poses, as the Reavers are all in kind of evasive jumpy stances.

I have 40 thralls and 30 wyches, and it's much much easier to find a fairly similar looking pair of wyches than it is a pair of thralls.

TBH this just sounds like Wyches aren't a good multi-part kit.
If all their arms and legs are in the same pose, that's not the ideal at all.
The last generation of Firstborn kits are what I would consider ideal, such as the Assault Marines. They had moved away from the ridiculous squatting pose and their arms had interesting poses that allowed for a variety of poses.
Not all kits were ideal though, I assembled my Vanguard Veterans with Lightning Claws and despite them having 4 separate pairs of claws, every pair was in the same pose (or a mirror image of that pose). The kit would have been better with a greater range of claw poses.

I dislike mono-pose kits in general. For special characters they are fine, but for a line of infantry they can get tiresome, ESPECIALLY if the poses are unusually dynamic. Then they simply look ridiculous.

Take this with a grain of salt; I used to bend metal models (even metal terminators) at least a little just to give them a slightly different pose.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
I dislike the new kits how they come together, I had a lot more enjoyment from the older ones and wish the trends would have gone towards better more freedom oriented models as opposed to his more mono pose hybrid approach.

Which of the new kits have you built?

A good deal of them, but this trend was already taking hold with say the ad mech kits and new storm trooper models for guard for instance. They weren't built fully connected like some but certain legs went with certain arms and certain weapons needed certain legs and arms otherwise the model would look a bit crazy. Which ended up with a real build by number kind of approach as opposed to say the 4th, 5th edition marine kits in plastic which was just here are the pieces, do your thing. Some said they didn't alter up the models much, I did and it made putting them together a bit more relaxed for me at least, felt more creative and less I need these legs with this gun and these arms with this exact torso or it'll come out looking stupid. For example with the storm trooper kit, all the plasmas are the same one arm cradling the plasma gun and one hand pointing, just out of the box you'd need to get other plasmas from other areas to change the look really any at all, or you have a bunch of dudes pointing holding a plasma like a baby.

Yeah, the Tempestus Scion kit is pretty bad for that. Especially the plasma guy. I decided that for my Imperial Guard kill team that I was going to try and use as many Scion parts as I could. That involved a lot of cutting and green stuff and still didn't look all that good. I tried to kitbash in some marine plasma guns because I wasn't going to buy several kits. I never could manage something that looked right, so I gave up. I will say the Scion models have a much better socket at the neck that the Guardsmen models (which are just as bad for mono-poses IMO) have.

I can't remember much about the Skitarii or Sicarians. I only built 20 and 5 respectively of them again for Kill Team. I suppose I would give them a pass due to the long coats which probably either would have to look overly round to allow turning or kinda dumb in the final product. Kinda like the new Death Guard which by their very nature have to be pretty mono-pose or be obvious where the lines of movement options are on the model. Besides, they are cyborg, practically robot foot soldiers, they don't need much variation.

By and large, I like the way the new models are cut. GW when to some effort to cut up the parts to make it easy to hide joint lines and sprue gates. So I think it is less them trying to cutout 3rd part stuff and more attempting to make pleasing models. All the new marines still have the same neck joint, the shoulder pads are still the same size and the backpack can be made to fit very easily. And with space marines a lot of converting can still be hidden under a shoulder pad. The biggest issue I have had is sometimes the parts take some manipulating in the dry fit stage just to see how they actually go together. I am still rather impressed with the Age of Sigmar Warcry models. Which admittedly are too spindly in many places for wargaming models. But I can argue with how good the final sculpts look even if they are very, very mono-pose.

I do not miss the interchangeability of older marine sculpts front plates and legs. It seemed like to me you gave up a lot for surface level detail, and in the end had even more models with the exact same pose by the nature of the core parts being exactly the same. However, I have not ever built regular loyalist space marines. Just 30k, Chaos and Grey Knights ones. I think the final model's appearance is well worth loosing that. And it has been mentioned quite a bit already, but they are plastic so if you truly want unique models it really isn't that (or at least as) hard to convert or kitbash something. Sure, Primaris marines don't have weapon options, that's kinda a thing about them. Chaos space marines still have most if not all of theirs (Chosen still can't have Lighting Claws save the champion right?). Tempestus Scions have a bunch (though can be tough in my experience to kitbash) still. Even Skitarii have three special weapons, to regular weapons and two wargear options. All of the above is way more than Ork Boyz, Tau Fire Warriors and Necron Warriors (which doubled weapon options in 9th) have. I am sticking to Troops because most armies still have to have a bunch of them and they are the units I know best across the factions.

Metal is almost impossible to convert or magnetize though, painted models are easier to be scratched even if you handle them with care, and an army full of metal has significant weight to deal with. Plastic all the way.

I started in the hobby as a pre-teen. I did not have issues with any of this. I see people complain all the time that their metal models chip and loose paint. I don't get this. I could not have been more careless with transporting my metal models as a kid. Chuck 'em in a backpack and take my bike to my friend's house. It was exceedingly rare that anything chipped. Are you all not priming and sealing? I always cleaned my metal models back then too (before priming). Don't know if that was even necessary, but just trying to think what I might have done differently. I literally have models 20+ years old with undamaged paint. They're not all well painted mind you, but painted and unchipped? Yes.

Far as converting metal - it's not that bad if you understand what tools you need. Sometimes, I actually prefer it to plastic. A decent dremel and some pins are really all you need. It's not that different to plastic in some ways.

EDIT:

SAFTEY GLASSES. You need a dremel and SAFTEY GLASSES. lol

 kirotheavenger wrote:
If you need to put a lot of effort into preparing metal models to prevent them from chipping, I think it's safe to say that they have problems with chipping.

No, the problem is the person who takes shortcuts/skips steps. Whatever your mediums that'll result in poor results.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Same for tools, a typical household electrical drill is *huge* compared to my hobby hand drill and will make fine work much harder.

As I said, MY go to tool is my general B&D shooter. I get fine results with it for the majority of my minis needs. But I've been wielding power tools for decades, so it might just be that this thing is an extension of my arm at this point.... I'm a surgeon with this thing. But I am stocked with other tools more suited for finer work if I need.
You should use the tools that give YOU the best results. But if you insist upon using something ill suited for a task & it doesn't work/doesn't work well? That failure/difficulty is on you.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Additionally, metal is much heavier so requires pinning on most joints (lining up pins is painful) and much larger magnets than plastic requires if you want to magnetise them, large enough that they may not fit in the space given.

Just a learned skill for pinning. And there's an incredible array of magnets of assorted sizes & strengths available. If you want it, you can find a magnet that will work for anything GWs ever made (even that all metal Thunderhawk).

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't think it's actually a debate that plastic is a much more user friendly material. No one is arguing metal is absolutely unworkable, just that it's more difficult and complex.

No, that's pretty much the claim. People who lack skill, skip steps, don't use proper tools & then get poor results claim metal to be an unsuitable material.
Similar claims get made about resin (though to be fair, not all resin is created equally....)

ccs wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I started the game when most things were monopose metal models.

You were lucky if you had 5 distinct sculpts, and if you wanted to change something you had to modify it yourself. Many times we had to create our own units because GW made a profile for something but didn't have a model.

People these days should consider themselves lucky to have the number of options available to them.

Amen.
I read these rants about mono-pose models, lack of options, etc and laugh.
I started building Guard regiments in 2e. Cadians, Catachans, Mordians, Tallarn, etc etc etc. I have hundreds of the same mono-pose solid metal guys per regiment I've built. And for reasons yet unclear GW never made all of the special/heavy weapons for all of the regiments. Or in some cases did so long after my forces were built... So if I wanted a missing special weapon in a squad at the time? I had to learn how to mod solid metal....
And these children cry about modding plastic.

That's really the argument you're going for here? "Things could be worse"?

I think we should demand that things get better, not be grateful that they aren't as bad as they were Back In The Day. This sort of attitude does not make you come across as a hardened veteran of the days of yore, but as a smug gatekeeper. One can be nostalgic of the things they used to like while also acknowledging that those things kinda sucked, objectively speaking, and that you just didn't know any better. When things improve, it doesn't mean that you should be satisfied; rather, it's a reminder that there is always room for improvement. ALWAYS.

I'm firmly on team "GW has shown in the recent past that they can do better".

.

-Guardsman- wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I started the game when most things were monopose metal models.

You were lucky if you had 5 distinct sculpts, and if you wanted to change something you had to modify it yourself. Many times we had to create our own units because GW made a profile for something but didn't have a model.

People these days should consider themselves lucky to have the number of options available to them.

Amen.
I read these rants about mono-pose models, lack of options, etc and laugh.
I started building Guard regiments in 2e. Cadians, Catachans, Mordians, Tallarn, etc etc etc. I have hundreds of the same mono-pose solid metal guys per regiment I've built. And for reasons yet unclear GW never made all of the special/heavy weapons for all of the regiments. Or in some cases did so long after my forces were built... So if I wanted a missing special weapon in a squad at the time? I had to learn how to mod solid metal....
And these children cry about modding plastic.

That's really the argument you're going for here? "Things could be worse"?

I think we should demand that things get better, not be grateful that they aren't as bad as they were Back In The Day. This sort of attitude does not make you come across as a hardened veteran of the days of yore, but as a smug gatekeeper. One can be nostalgic of the things they used to like while also acknowledging that those things kinda sucked, objectively speaking, and that you just didn't know any better. When things improve, it doesn't mean that you should be satisfied; rather, it's a reminder that there is always room for improvement. ALWAYS.

I'm firmly on team "GW has shown in the recent past that they can do better".

.

Sure, the problem I'm having is when people just complain "Stuff is just Monopose These Days!" when they don't really provide a ton of points of comparison.

Often, the later fifth edition kits are held up as a gold standard of model flexibility - and since I have a large collection of 5th ed era Dark Eldar, that's typically what I use as a point of comparison.

But as you can see from the response up above, that just results in the goalpost moving from them to something else, such as Assault marines, which I would argue are only a really great kit because of their compatibility with other marine kits. End of the day you could only make that kit ~3 times by itself before you started to make models that look almost exactly the same. Because marines are marines, you can get them really unique and interesting by kitbashing, but I don't really buy that the ability to rotate the model at the waist gives you that much of a massive improvement over a modern kit like for example Primaris Reivers, the current thing closest to assault marines that exists right now. The number of weapon and pistol arm poses in the Reivers kit is actually more than you got in the preceding assault marine kit.

Assault marines: 5 chainswords on the sprue. 3 chainswords in fairly neutral poses, holding the sword fairly close to the body with a crooked elbow, 1 chainsword held across the body getting ready for a swing, and 1 chainsword held out away from the body.

Reivers: 7 knives on the sprue per 5 guys. 2 in neutral poses held out, 2 across the body, 2 held backhand, 1 being pulled from the sheath. Same deal with pistols: in fact, you can have a model in the Reiver kit actually aiming and firing a pistol properly, which is perhaps a GW first.

A lot of the variety is a result of multiple kits. All the kits have limits in where the arms go and how that interacts with the legs. A lot of the monopose nature with Primaris is just a result of limited kits. The Assault marines provide some dynamic legs that you'll start see turned into more dynamic intercessors for example.

I never claimed that every kit in 2000-2015 was the golden age, so I don't consider I've ever moved any goal posts.
I said that I prefer multi-pose kits, of which Assault Marines are a good example.
Reivers are also a good example going by your explanation, I don't know I don't have the kit.

But Banshees are a horrible example, they're effectively monopose and their overly dynamic poses make that extremely obvious.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I never claimed that every kit in 2000-2015 was the golden age, so I don't consider I've ever moved any goal posts.
I said that I prefer multi-pose kits, of which Assault Marines are a good example.
Reivers are also a good example going by your explanation, I don't know I don't have the kit.

But Banshees are a horrible example, they're effectively monopose and their overly dynamic poses make that extremely obvious.

I really really really do not see how Assault Marines are a good, non-monopose kit with lots of variety and Howling Banshees are a bad, monopose kit with no variety. There are 5 chainswords in the assault marine kit, and 7 power swords in the howling banshee kit, and it seems like the swords include more meaningfully different arm pose options than the assault marines' chainswords. There are 5 bolt pistols vs 6 shuriken pistols. All the howling banshees are running. All the assault marines are running. It just comes down to: you can choose which model has which chainsword/power sword, you can choose which model has which pistol, you can swap and pivot the heads, and you can choose the custom sergeant weaponry.

Unless you get into the fact that you can take bits from other marine kits and swap them in to assault marines, and you can't do that with Howling Banshees - because of how Eldar are designed with their entirely unique suits of aspect armor - then I'm really not getting it here.

I’m a fan of the multi kits where there are separate limbs and torso; but the new dynamic mono pose kits are nice too when you only need 1 of, these kits are great for characters and small elite units. Multi kits should be for troops and high # units. There is a place for both kits.

Of course, because I am a crazy person I do have multiple different types of aspect warrior as STL files rigged up in blender. I have INFINITE POWER now! I can have a ninja kicking warp spider, I can have a jumping warp spider, I can have a sprinting warp spider, I can have an aiming warp spider, bwahahahahahaha!

Eventually I will have achieved the full multiposeable aspect warrior dream, but currently I just have Dire Avengers, Dark Reapers and Warp Spiders rigged up and Rangers, Swooping Hawks, and Striking Scorpions on deck.

Recently I put together a squad of Kroot, and a squad of primaris intercessors.

The latter were definitely easier to put together and honestly, just as rewarding. As much as I love my kroot, I found the putting together rather frustrating and was longing for a more solid fit.

That's really the argument you're going for here? "Things could be worse"?

The argument isn't "things could be worse". The argument is "things have been better than they ever have been, and we should be thankful for that."

This sort of attitude does not make you come across as a hardened veteran of the days of yore, but as a smug gatekeeper.

Good, somebody needs to be.

I will say, that the plastic Intersessors are a heck of a lot nicer looking kit than the older tactical marines. Besides the fact that the torso is attached to the legs, they have just as much possibility and customization.

I don't miss older kits for the current stuff we have, which is really quite nice.

the_scotsman wrote:

mrFickle wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm kind of of two minds here.

1) A large, large fraction of the units in the game in "the good old days" were actually only 2-3 poses of completely 100% monopose metal miniatures.Usually these were characters and elite units you were expected to have 5-10 models of total.

2) In actual fact the "no rules maaan we just give you a bunch of torsos and legs and guns and arms" type kits actually had very little practical support for posing unless you took a knife to them. Just recently I looked into getting some Dire Avengers and just couldn't stomach another squad of 100% Pooping While Standing Up leg guys all holding their guns in the same hand.

GW's current kits for "Elite Units" - i.e. generally replacing kits with 2-3 totally monopose poses - tend to have between 3 and 10 potential poses, and often have freely swappable heads and random bits or some other degree of assembly freedom. Generally, that's not 10 poses with the same weapons, but it's still generally either on par or better than the finecast it's replacing when it comes to pose variety.

The big change for "Troop Units" Tends to be the fusion of legs and torso. GW 100% has stepped away from the ball join or flat join torso that you can rotate as you like for most of their kits. Usually, not always but usually, a troop kit will still have freely swappable arms, heads, and backpacks/shoulderpads if applicable.

This is even true in the much-maligned new csm kit. I've built this kit - the assembly instructions show you "you can build this guy with a plasma gun, or a bolter, or a chainsword and bolt pistol!" but you can take any of those options and put them on any other guy as well, the torsos are all the same width. There's a couple examples of bolter arm sets where the little ammo box might not attach to exactly the right spot on the torso on some of the legs but the rest are swappable.

There was a totally mono-pose version of the kit released in a limited edition box or something? Maybe you got that? https://imgur.com/a/zeMR6aG

^Is that the kit you have?

Nah it’s a squad from one of the start collecting boxes

Ah, that explains it.

GW has started a trend of making totally monopose, as in one way to build them only, models to put in various discount starter sets. The unit of Chaos Space Marines from the SC box is not only monopose, it's actually weirdly UNIQUE monopose - for example you MUST build that squad with an autocannon, and you don't get an autocannon in the multipart CSM kit.

The marines from that half of the set are the same way (Start Collecting: Phobos Primaris Marines or somesuch). They've done this for a while, starting with I think the board game "Deathwatch Overkill" which is how they launched both Deathwatch and GSC in 7th edition.

Weirdly they also have a habit of including units in those monopose sets and taking a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally long time (if ever) to release those units in a mpk. Genestealer Aberrants, for example, took like 3 years to come out as a multipose kit, and you actually could not make the poses that you got in the original monopose sprue.

And there units in those kits you can’t buy separately, like the venom crawlers

the_scotsman wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I never claimed that every kit in 2000-2015 was the golden age, so I don't consider I've ever moved any goal posts.
I said that I prefer multi-pose kits, of which Assault Marines are a good example.
Reivers are also a good example going by your explanation, I don't know I don't have the kit.

But Banshees are a horrible example, they're effectively monopose and their overly dynamic poses make that extremely obvious.

I really really really do not see how Assault Marines are a good, non-monopose kit with lots of variety and Howling Banshees are a bad, monopose kit with no variety. There are 5 chainswords in the assault marine kit, and 7 power swords in the howling banshee kit, and it seems like the swords include more meaningfully different arm pose options than the assault marines' chainswords. There are 5 bolt pistols vs 6 shuriken pistols. All the howling banshees are running. All the assault marines are running. It just comes down to: you can choose which model has which chainsword/power sword, you can choose which model has which pistol, you can swap and pivot the heads, and you can choose the custom sergeant weaponry.

Unless you get into the fact that you can take bits from other marine kits and swap them in to assault marines, and you can't do that with Howling Banshees - because of how Eldar are designed with their entirely unique suits of aspect armor - then I'm really not getting it here.

The Assault Marine kit comes with Chainswords, Flamers, Plasma Pistols, Bolt Pistols, Power Axe, Power Fist, options for Jump Packs and non-Jump Packs, Grav Pistol, Eviscerator, Thunder Hammer, Power Sword, Meltabomb, Combat Shield and a number of decorative tidbits.

It was also cross compatible with basically EVERY OTHER PA MARINE KIT dating back over two decades. I could take any of those weapons and jump packs and stick it on a 2nd ed metal model with minimal effort.

The environment in older codexes also allowed more options on the various marine units, particularly characters.

So you have a wealth of options in individual kits, which were directly interchangeable with hundreds of other models and kits, and which usually had the in-game options to use said equipment as well. An absolute feast of easy interchangeability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big Mac wrote:
I’m a fan of the multi kits where there are separate limbs and torso; but the new dynamic mono pose kits are nice too when you only need 1 of, these kits are great for characters and small elite units. Multi kits should be for troops and high # units. There is a place for both kits.

I agree that there's a place for more monopose models too. Especially for distinctive, small number elite sorts of units. I think the old metal Aspect Warriors are just perfect, for example.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

The trade off for me, and the reason I'm basically OK with the current trend of torso+legs together is because the old-style kits to maintain compatibility had to have basically EXACTLY the same static leg pose, which was always a weird horse-riding stance that basically gave you nothing, because no real living human being has ever stood in that pose, it's not a real thing. My very first sets of space marines I ended up chopping up the legs just to try and get something, anything different.

They really didn't have the same leg poses since the kits were cross compatible. There was the kneeling version and the running/jumping versions and the "heroic stance" version as well as the generic "tactical stance" legs. And I really don't see any issue with the "tactical stance", it's basically the same as the CS:GO logo. Bracing for firing or advancing or whatever.