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The Cadian kits are fine for conversions imho; they take headswaps very well.

 Gert wrote:

If they're so one-note then they can be an upgrade sprue. The updated Cadians work as a good basepoint for Steel Legion, Tallarn and a more updated Mordian look.

We've seen updated Tallarn. They look closer to updated Steel Legion than they do Cadians.

And no, Steel Legion don't look like Cadians.

With the Catachan and Krieg models that's 6 Regiments with GW kits that also doesn't bloat the Guard range to silly proportions.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight, because having distinctive units as a buildable option is for suckers.

Want Mordian Rough Riders? Use the upgrade sprue to swap the heads.

That would be daft, since the rules are for ATTILAN Rough Riders, not just "Rough Riders".
Just like how the Death Riders for DKoK aren't "generics".

Want Steel Legion Heavy Weapons? Head swap and paint your models appropriately.

Again, we've seen updated Steel Legion.

The weird rules change where the Regiments with models got individual profiles is weird and isn't applied equally.

Correct, because not every Regiment has models available in plastic. We saw units for Attilans, Catachans, Cadians, and Death Korps--with Death Korps having a few more coming via FW & Legends.

Not "the standard", but certainly close to it.

No, GW was explicit in the 8th Ed Codex (I don't know about 9th cos I dropped out prior to Guard coming out) that the Cadian pattern of gear was used by many other Regiments as the Cadians were the exemplars of the Imperial Guard.

Codex: Astra Militarum 8th Edition pg 29 wrote:
The drilled precision and Ardent Resolve of Cadia's regiments have been emulated across countless Imperial worlds, with many Militarum Regimentos receiving training from Cadian infantry and tank officers. Cadian-derived tactics and uniforms are therefore seen upon battlefields throughout the galaxy.

Assuming that's what you mean? The thing about there literally being ties between Cadians and those regiments?

There would be local cultural trappings and Regimental colours but the base gear was the same because Cadian models are the generic base point for the Guard and have been for some time now.

Yeah, see this seems like you're blending things together. There's always been lore that the Cadian "pattern" of gear was pretty widespread, and there was always lore that Cadians themselves were just as widespread.

Just because you don't want it to be the case doesn't make it so.

Why would I not want it to be the case? I love Cadians. I'm down for MORE Cadian models! Cadian Snipers! Cadian Ogryn! Cadian Ratlings! Cadian dirtbike scouts!

But fluff aside? Read the Infantry Squad's options. There's a bunch of options missing from the Cadian kit that are standard for the Infantry Squad kit. No Heavy Weapon Team on sprue, no Sniper Rifle for Special Weapons, no Boltgun, Plasma Pistol, or Power Weapon options for the Sergeants.
And the Infantry Squad's Sergeant can't take the drum-fed autogun.

My guy, whenever a kit is made to represent the "Infantry Squad", it has never ever come with the full suite of options.

Never said it did. But also, back in those days they didn't have unique versions of the infantry squads with unique loadouts.

Most special weapons are sold separately like with the Cadians, Catachans, Vostroyans, Steel Legion, and if you couldn't get the weapons separately then no special weapons for you.

Most special weapons were sold separately. But the boxes for Steel Legion and Vostroyans each included a HWT.

Heavy Weapon teams haven't been included in an Infantry box since the move to plastic and those that remained metal had the heavy choices separated.

My guy, they literally sold Brood Brother boxes with an included Heavy Weapon Team.

What you missed in your desire to prove me wrong is that while yeah, they certainly did do things differently back in the day...

This ain't then. This is the Age of No Model, No Rules. So either we're going to see at some point, a generic "Infantry Squad" kit which includes these missing options, or it's going to effectively be Legends'd. Right now, they've placeholdered it with Cadians for the unit entry...but man, what a great opportunity to either start selling some "bundle boxes" that are overpriced or to introduce an additional sprue for each of the unique regiments to make it so they build either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
The Cadian kits are fine for conversions imho; they take headswaps very well.

Spoiler:

Time for a huge bugbear of a rant:
I really dislike how they chose to do the "officer" rankings again. One would think that the higher the rank, the more hangers-on you'd have right?

It feels like the Castellan should have been the "Company Commander" while the Command Squad should have been the Castellan!

Hopefully down the road this kind of silly crap gets addressed, or Castellans gets a Lone Operative version.

I don't agree that current cadians ould be perfect bases to make other regiments. Maybe fine to convert stuff, but if you are to make different regiment on a single boxe the sprue would be 40 km square to incorporate all you need and grossly overpriced if you intend to pay bills.

I'm all for upgrade kits however. GW could mimic anvil industries selection for example and have set of cadian arms/set of cadian weapons/ set of cadians heavy weapon, set of tallarn bodies yadee yadee ya. Easier to mix match for kitbashing.

^Heh. Overpriced only because that's how GW would price it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

My guy, they literally sold Brood Brother boxes with an included Heavy Weapon Team.

Yeah that Brood Brothers box was a pretty great kit. It had the HWT, plus the Cult upgrade sprue so you weren't using the fat-helmet Cadian heads. They looked great, and I sometimes wish I had bought another couple boxes of them before they dissapeared.

Anvil can do that because their Regiments range is the flagship product.
Same with Victoria Miniatures.
They largely dedicate their resources into 28mm human scale models while GW has that as just one of the game factions for 40k.
GW can't do what Anvil or Victoria or any other 3rd party can do because dedicating that amount of resources to Guard is not a good business decision.

I can't know, I haven't got any data to do the maths. That'd be the coolest option nonetheless I think, at least on our end.

 Gert wrote:
Anvil can do that because their Regiments range is the flagship product.
Same with Victoria Miniatures.
They largely dedicate their resources into 28mm human scale models while GW has that as just one of the game factions for 40k.
GW can't do what Anvil or Victoria or any other 3rd party can do because dedicating that amount of resources to Guard is not a good business decision.

Er... they could and did in the past. The difference is due to material. It probably wouldn't be affordable in hard plastic, but it works for resin/metal/3D print services. When GW mostly produced metal models, you could order individual parts from the entire back catalogue. That wouldn't work anywhere near as well with hard plastic as the sprues need chopping up. See the mark up bits sellers have to cover this.

I do agree the profit margins are definitely lower, but I wouldn't say its unprofitable in the correct material.

I don't think it would be unprofitable, it just probably doesn't look as profitable as selling another SM kit, or whatever. Plastic is cheap, and the quantities that GW deals in are already inherently magnatudes higher than most other outlets.

It's the personnel requirement that killed it. It just isn't feasible.

 Haighus wrote:

Er... they could and did in the past. The difference is due to material. It probably wouldn't be affordable in hard plastic, but it works for resin/metal/3D print services. When GW mostly produced metal models, you could order individual parts from the entire back catalogue. That wouldn't work anywhere near as well with hard plastic as the sprues need chopping up. See the mark up bits sellers have to cover this.

I do agree the profit margins are definitely lower, but I wouldn't say its unprofitable in the correct material.

GW did it in the past when the entire 40k range was easily half, if not a a third, of the size it is today and when single pose metal miniatures were the order of the day rather than soft plastic multipart kits.
GW isn't going to go back 20 years to metal minis or produce a 3d printing service so for the terms that would be required for GW to produce 7 or 8 kits per Infantry unit, it would be an unprofitable decision.

Personally I'd like them to go "deep" with Guard.

Cadians are decently fleshed out at this point and aside from a token new unit kit every so often (Cadian rough riders on motorcycles, cadian special weapon teams, whatever) they don't need much attention.

I imagine there is a Catachan rework in the works as we've had a few catachan character minis released and GW has said they usually do minis in batches, even if theres only a one-off character being released there are probably more minis sharing that aesthetic waiting to be released. Given the release of the Gaunts Ghosts kit, I can imagine the Catachan rework also pulling double-duty as Tanith First and Only. The two regiments are stylistically very similar, the big difference would basically be headswaps and probably add on cloak pieces or something. Maybe they do them as separate kits. Maybe they don't do Tanith at all. Who knows, but Catachans are definitely coming and I expect they will have their own infantry squad, command squad, and heavy weapon squads at a minimum, plus likely some bespoke catachan special unit ala the kasrkin and/or a heavy unit like the field ordnance batteries.

Then Death Korps need that same treatment - give me Death Korps heavy weapons, a command squad, and a grenadier and/or engineer kit. Also Death Riders. Also field ordnance batteries!

(or maybe they release upgrade sprues that have bits for converting field ordnance batteries to look more regiment appropriate??)

And then I want that treatment for Attilans... I like the aesthetic. Catachans, Death Korps - whatever. Thats fan service IMO. They gotta do it because thats what fans expect. Attilans though, thats a new thing, and they established it as a truly grimdark looking aesthetic that draws from history without being defined by it - a lot like the Vostroyans but in plastic. I'd like Attilan infantry, or an attilan horse-artillery unit. Attilan command squads and mounted officers for sure. Let me build an Attilan army.

And then? Yeah, give me plastic vostroyans, mordians too (though I'd prefer Praetorians). Valhallans and Tallarn can come too, and sure Armageddon Steel Legion, Savlar Chem Dogs, Elysians, whatever. But I think its better that GW commit to the 4 (5 including Gaunts Ghosts/Tanith) regiments it currently has represented in plastic and reasonably flesh them out with modern kits covering the variety of units needed to build a uniform army first, rather than inundating us with one-off kits representing a dozen different regiments that result in us building hodge-podge armies without cohesive visual identity.

For once, savlar chemdogs are probably easier to convert!

I've always felt catachan were a little outdated, in concept, as in, in 40k post unsubtle humour from 2nd edition, the literal full Rambo army is a bit... Off. Not that it bothers me too much, after all I like 2nd squats despite the sale issue, but I never quite understand why they remained the fleshed out alternative for so long while other regiment faded away. Guess they selled better!

Though, trust me, if I had had the better income of a working man when I started 40k, I probably would have gone for Valhalla army at the time, instead of cadians because I could only afford second hand. Happy with my cadians though!

The DKoK are a good basis for Savlar Chem Dogs.
All you'd really need is some of the more human GSC heads and some gubbins/trinkets to represent the looting they do.