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Typhus, without a doubt. Whilst the newer sculpt is much better from a technical standpoint, the other one just displayed that intimidation factor and the exemplified the bulwark and indomitable nature of the Death Guard.

Now, my two issues with the new sculpt are easily fixable. The swarm of flies is optional and the goofy pose is easy to remedy (yes, I own the new one and have done it. Makes him a decent mini all of a sudden...), but you shouldn't really have to reposition literally every limb and have bits on hand just to correct GW's weird flailing pose they have him in.

Agree on the old metap daemon prince model. I think the OG plastic saurus are better than the current ones, too.

Previous version of marneus calgar.

The one that came with the honour guard champion and ancient.

Regal, powerful and imposing as opposed to looking like he’s an 80s action cartoon hero flexing his guns! (And by which I mean his biceps not his underslung bolters of course)

How could I forget as well, the OG Logan Grimnar.

Even discounting the Santa sleigh, the new one is just 2d and awful, just look at the face and see how goofy it is compared to the old one. The old one? It just oozed power. He had ostentation, but not too much, and he was running at you full pelt. No other Termie mini at the time was like that- they were all plodding a mthodical, then you have Grimnar in a full sprint in Termi armour, like this guy is not someone to mess with.

Honourable mention goes also the the Terminator Captain from 3rd (can you guess I really really like Terminators so have some strong opinions about them? ), who is just... perfect. I love that mini in some ways I can't quite put into words.

Metal painboy with grot orderly. I just like the look that is halfway between a surgeon and a butcher, the new one with his swiss army knife claw and dumb grin looks silly, and not the orky kind of silly.

 TonyH122 wrote:
It will never be topped.

Spoiler:

Also this one. Took me years to finally get one second hand and it's the only model to date that I ever stripped the paint off just to paint it myself.

I’ll support the Metal Daemon Prince.

Not only a fantastic sculpt, for for a metal model of its size and dimensions it went together like an absolute dream. Sure you could pin it for extra strength, but you didn’t need to.

I had a few for my Iron Warriors, so I could represent multiple Gifts from battle to battle. Favourite was a conversion mounting the torso on a Defiler’s legs. That was some time before the Soulgrinder came out. And yes, I am therefore claiming, without any evidence and frankly unearned confidence I therefore invented the Soul Grinder!

Ye' Olde' Tyranid Screamer Killer from the 90s. It all went down hill after that one...

Honourable mentions go to the 3rd edition Banshees and Reapers. They were my jam.

Another vote for the metal daemon prince. Its aspect and pose were just on point, and they even managed to incorporate 40k specific elements like the backpack, the twisted armour and the daemon bolter. The plastic successor was a disappointment on every level, despite the modularity.

I've been thinking about how to "fix" him for the current model scale and my first idea was to keep the upper body as is and put it on a sturdier set of legs, but I haven't found a suitable pair yet.

So despite this being my own thread, I’m not entirely sure if this counts as “never been bettered”, as it’s more “just the best version we’ve received over the years, and it’s pretty much perfect.

And it’s the plastic Wraithlord. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it did add some decorative bells and whistles. Plus, it’s plastic!

I'm going to go with "Everything GW designed in plastic between late 5e through 7e."

The sad part about this one is, it is 100% completely within GW's power to go back to this style, it would offer a compelling alternative to basically every competing medium, especially 3d printing (because it is a PITA to assemble 3d printed models as parts, uses more resin, and makes it take roughly 3x as much time to print the same number of models) and keep keen modelers more likely to stay within the GW ecosystem because people obviously found the 'bits-box' style of army construction interesting and creatively satisfying.

Creating dynamic poses via different leg and torso poses is perfectly possible, even EASIER than the way GW sets up their sprues now in order to key them for non-compatibility - there's no reason you cant include some kneeling legs, some running legs, some jumping legs etc within your kits and allow for classic GW kit-bashing.

What's frustrating is that, seemingly in response to the existence of third party parts and in an extreme shortsighted move, GW has decided to actively remove cross-kit compatibility and the bits-box design philosophy. New kits like the new CSM and new Ork Kommando kits have purposefully keyed shoulders and heads, seemingly just to remove or at least make more inconvenient swapping bits out from other boxes and using them in place of the poses presented in the instructions.

I can't tell you how many times i've felt like i've gained extra value out of a GW kit by re-using a spare bit that I had not used in the construction of that kit. The slick cognis lascannons and autocannons from the Adeptus Mechanicus Ironstriders I purchased made perfect spare heavy weapons for my laying-down Vostroyan Heavy Bolter models. my Kabalite warriors and Wyches use mixed legs from either kit to allow for more dynamically running kabalites with distinct gun positions and more standing wyches posed holding trophies or fighting in place.

Now, it seems, the choice before me is to either buy a monopose GW ranger kit for 55$ - or 3d print a monopose aeterni sniper set for 55c. If the GW set offered superior customization - if I could have additional heads to make my rangers either hooded or hoodless, helmeted or helmetless, customize the charms, customise the poses, give me a couple of pieces of included terrain for built-in basing material that I could use OPTIONALLY instead of mandatory tactical rocks, then its entirely possible that I never would have made the large capital and time investment into the printer in the first place.

But as it stands I have spent the 150$ and I have spent the 100 hours and I am now capable of grabbing a model of an Arbite Enforcer and a model of a GSC Acolyte and meshmixing them together digitally to make a hybrid arbite model - and GW's models are now all built with keyed joins to make that exact option in the physical world more inconvenient for me as someone who likes unusual model creations.

The DE kits are a bit of a bad example there as they, much like the SM kits (incidentally also designed by Jes Goodwin) are all designed to be cross compatible. Said plastic kits were also compatible with the metal Archon on the previous page, all having the same joins in the arms, waists and heads.

 Jidmah wrote:
Metal painboy with grot orderly. I just like the look that is halfway between a surgeon and a butcher, the new one with his swiss army knife claw and dumb grin looks silly, and not the orky kind of silly.

 TonyH122 wrote:
It will never be topped.

Spoiler:

Also this one. Took me years to finally get one second hand and it's the only model to date that I ever stripped the paint off just to paint it myself.

I built one for a friend back in 5th, thou he wanted it to have wings so adding METAL Bloodthirster wings to it took awhile (Also took a mask from that Chaos Crab Dread to give him a mask, accidental Daemon Prince Jason Voorhees) had to extend the back of his base just to keep him standing. Had it stored with my army for 5ish years as he lost the rest of his army in a move (Not a big loss he barely had a 1K army), but I gave it back last year... I herd it was getting a new paint job a few months ago.

+1 to old Typhus.

Also, since we now have successors to compare, the old Boyz kit is better than the new one.
And to break the rules in the same way as Mad Doc did himself, I don't think GW will ever do a better nobz kit than the current one, it has all the options, is cross compatible, the nobz look really cool and it is also rather cheap. Yes, you could put even more ranged weapons in there, but, looking at the new Boyz, GW never will and would instead cut on options if they ever renew that kit.
I think I also prefer the older 4th/5th edition Nurgle Daemons to the new ones, the Nurglings had many different designs, the Plague Bearers were rather creepy than goofy and even the old beast, despite being an overall ugly model, at least it was an evil looking slug and not... Whatever new one is (though admittedly the new one looks closer to the fluff description). I guess I'm just not that keen on GW sticking only to the carneval side of Nurgle with their recent models.

The forge world hive tyrants. I don't think any tyranid model has ever been as good. Way better than the more beetley look of the standard model.

 vipoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The Vampire. Nothing has ever been as cool as that, and nothing will ever be cooler.

Vampire?

The Eldar Thunderhawk-equivalent.

Already mentioned:

Karskin
3e Storm Troopers
5e Archon
CSM Daemon Prince
Metal Daemonettes

Mine:

Metal Company Commander
CSM Lord with plasma pistol/axe
Commissar with bolt pistol
Archaon (both on foot and horse)
Grimgor Ironhide
Metal Ironbreakers (although I do like the plastics)

Yarrick, Creed and Kell haven't been discontinued yet, but they'll be put onto the list when they do go.

If you make me narrow it down to one... probably Karskin.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The Vampire. Nothing has ever been as cool as that, and nothing will ever be cooler.

Vampire?

The Eldar Thunderhawk-equivalent.

Oh that looks fantastic.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So despite this being my own thread, I’m not entirely sure if this counts as “never been bettered”, as it’s more “just the best version we’ve received over the years, and it’s pretty much perfect.

And it’s the plastic Wraithlord. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it did add some decorative bells and whistles. Plus, it’s plastic!

I still have the one from 2nd. I guess it´s nickname was "Walking Head".

Big seconds to the following:
Kasrkin
Demon Prince
Diaz Daemonettes
Metal Scouts
Metal Dwarf Elites

I think that GW actually hit it's prime as a designer of metal models in the early 00s, as seen by many of the choices on this list. Crack open the citadel catalogue from 2004-05, and nearly every army has at least one or two amazing metal figs that still hold their own against plastics. http://www.solegends.com/citcat2004us/index.htm

things like:
3rd /4th edition era Striking Scorpions
OG C'tan
XV15 Stealth Armor
and so much of the metal IG range

pretty much the only 40k armies that are universally better now are Orks and Tyranids,.

 vipoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The Vampire. Nothing has ever been as cool as that, and nothing will ever be cooler.

Vampire?

Eldar plane from FW.

SamusDrake wrote:
Ye' Olde' Tyranid Screamer Killer from the 90s. It all went down hill after that one...

Honourable mentions go to the 3rd edition Banshees and Reapers. They were my jam.

Beat me to it! My all time favorite model. I still have 2. It didn't need a fancy name like Carnifex. Nope. What's it do? It screams and kills. Sold. It's original description was something like.. "Picture a 3 story office buidling screaming and running at you with razor claws."

This High Elf noble from 7th edition was easily one of the best models in the High Elf range.



Also a huge fan of Al'rahem because he just looks like a stone cold bad ass.




Also if I can I'd put forward the entire Vostroyan range, because there is nothing close to how good they look. Excellent mix of the futuristic and archaic, perfect for 40k.

 Polonius wrote:


I think that GW actually hit it's prime as a designer of metal models in the early 00s, as seen by many of the choices on this list. Crack open the citadel catalogue from 2004-05, and nearly every army has at least one or two amazing metal figs that still hold their own against plastics. http://www.solegends.com/citcat2004us/index.htm

Mesbg is filled with metal models from the early and mid 00s to the point you can easily build entire armies of only metal models from their range if you look for second hand models. Too bad half the metals have been replaced with "Fine"cast since so many of them are good sculpts. I must have bought over 200 metal lotr mini from that era in the last year and I will not stop until I have all of them.

There are a lot of wonky metal models from the 90s but before they stopped doing the metals altogether it really feels like they managed to do the most with the material. Both in sculpting and casting there are a lot of good metals from that era. Especially in Lotr it is surprising how many models that were cast in a single piece and still look amazing 20 years later. The perry twins really worked magic back then.

GW's metal models have had high points going back honestly almost to the beginning, but they were still wildly inconsistent. I'm not into the 80s oldhammer vibe, and a lot of the 90s stuff can be a bit too goofy/disproportionate, but there are 30 year old sculpts that absolutely hold up. Nearly all the rogue trade eldar models, at least after the first few years, are rock solid. You can put an RT era warlock on the table it it fits in 100% today.

Fantasy, of course, had all kinds of exceptional models starting in the mid 90s. ranges like the Dark Elves, High elves, dwarves, and chaos demons were choice. by the later 90s, you have gems like the Dogs of War and Mordheim, which are basically still high water marks.

I loved the old metal Hive Tyrant and the old metal lictor of the same era. For the record, I loved the metal Screamer Killer Carnifex too, and the three made a great trifecta...

But the plastic carnies are so much bigger and more versatile, and such great models, that I prefer them to the screamer.

 BertBert wrote:
Another vote for the metal daemon prince. Its aspect and pose were just on point, and they even managed to incorporate 40k specific elements like the backpack, the twisted armour and the daemon bolter. The plastic successor was a disappointment on every level, despite the modularity.

I've been thinking about how to "fix" him for the current model scale and my first idea was to keep the upper body as is and put it on a sturdier set of legs, but I haven't found a suitable pair yet.

You don't really need to fix him though, he is pretty much the exact same size as the plastic one. If you want, I can provide a picture of the two next to each other.

 Jidmah wrote:


If you want, I can provide a picture of the two next to each other.

That would be much appreciated!

SamusDrake wrote:
Ye' Olde' Tyranid Screamer Killer from the 90s. It all went down hill after that one...

Honourable mentions go to the 3rd edition Banshees and Reapers. They were my jam.

Indeed, this is why I only run screamer killers to this day.

Honourable mention... the original Eldar wave serpent from epic. Utterly bonkers, but just soooo...alien.

Why limit yourself to the Epic version when you could get one at 28mm?

Uh, can I nominate literally all of Necromunda?