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Maybe this is a stupid question, but its something thats been on my mind for a long time.

Lets say I want to make a Chaos Space Marine army with a Havoc squad, equipped with 4 reaper autocannons. This is a fairly common use for them. In order to obtain four reaper autocannons, I'd either have to buy 4 havoc squads from GW to get the one that is in each box or hunt them down on a bits store or on ebay.

Lets say I want to take a helbrute with a plasma cannon and a power maul. There is no model for that. I'd have to proxy a Forge World traitor dreadnought or something, which isnt really a helbrute, its a dreadnought.

Lets say I want to take a Chaos Lord on a bike with the black mace. I'd have to put in enormous effort to make this work or throw $100 at Blue Table Painting or someone else to make one for me.

I see situations like this everywhere. Why are the models not out there for all of these different loadouts?

they tend to make rules around the models, then add in extra options just for lols, or because it'd be practical/cool. Plus there could be problems fitting everything on the mould, making fiddly bits fit on, etc.

And with charector models, there are zillions of combinations. Realistically they can't make models for them all...i'd rather they had a complex array of wargear for characters rather than going 'well the model only has a plasma pistol and chainsword so that's all he can take'.

For your first point, games workshop has this weird belief that players dont want to outfit their squads uniformly.

For your second point... I dunno. They hate money?

 changerofways wrote:
Why are the models not out there for all of these different loadouts?

They have finite resources, and tooling is expensive. It's better to make kits that cover most situations and sell them, financially, than to cut tooling for kits and loadouts that may not earn back the cost of the mold.

They can always do rubber molds later and release them as packs in Finecast if there is sufficient demand; so it's win/win for everyone*.

*except you, if you had to buy the model or parts in Finecast, you took it in the shorts and lost

 changerofways wrote:
Lets say I want to take a helbrute with a plasma cannon and a power maul. There is no model for that. I'd have to proxy a Forge World traitor dreadnought or something, which isnt really a helbrute, its a dreadnought.

Why are there still people out there that can't see that these two are one and the same?

 Wilytank wrote:

 changerofways wrote:
Lets say I want to take a helbrute with a plasma cannon and a power maul. There is no model for that. I'd have to proxy a Forge World traitor dreadnought or something, which isnt really a helbrute, its a dreadnought.

Why are there still people out there that can't see that these two are one and the same?

I thought they were different, my bad. Thanks for helping me out

I see what is being said and I agree that there are too many loadouts for GW to make a profit by making a model for every possible loadout, but there are some things like helbrutes that just have no options and I find it frustrating that conversions are so necessary

I just want a weapons blister pack or something.

Option blisters would be nice but we all know GW hates money.

They do have FW who does carry weapon packs. and there are some FC ones around.

Well, if you want a specific loadout, you can always use GW's extensive, awesome and entirely comprehensive bitz mail order service to get exactly the miniature you want.

Look at third party companies is the most practical advice I can offer, they usually have the bitz you're after that GW can't be bothered to sell.

 Wilytank wrote:
Why are there still people out there that can't see that these two are one and the same?

Are they actually the same? I don't have the 6th edition CSM codex but they seem to pretty clearly be different creatures even if they equip and play identically. The Hellbrutes look like biomechanical monsters made possible by Warp magic, like Obliterators, whereas Dreadnoughts are merely very large power armor with a partial human being as the piloting intelligence - but nothing magical about them, or even biomechanical.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Look at third party companies is the most practical advice I can offer, they usually have the bitz you're after that GW can't be bothered to sell.

In this specific case - Reaper Autocannons - you might want to consider Anvil Industry's Widowmaker SAW. Cut off the tip, add a pair of 1/8th" styrene tubing tips, call it a day.

Exo-Lord Autocannons would also work well with the same effort; replacing the tips.

GW knows people will buy the 4 kits, so you can have 4 auto cannons. They think it will make more sales.

Does it really work? I guess it does, because they still keep doing it for alot of their kits.

No, that isnt why theey do it.

There are what, 5 weapons choices for a Havoc unit? So some people may want 4 of X, another 4 of Y, and so on. In order to satisfy EVERYONE, using your "give us 4 of each!!" method, they have to provide 20 weapons, 16 of which will go to waste - in the base, simple case.

So that is likely a whole new sprue, adding what, 50% to the box? So are you willing to pay for that extra sprue, or are you expecting it for free? Are you willing to pay more as they can carry less stock of the same item (bigger box takes up more shelf space, means less stock can be carried, increasing the cost of retail)?

DIdnt think so.

If you really want 4 autocannon havocs, then buy 5 auto canno from FW, a set of MKIII Iron armour (as it is the best ) and find a spare pair of chainsword and boltpistol arms for the champ, and youre done. Total cost, including postage in UK, is about the same as the base havoc set.

GW dont hate money; people just dont always understand retail costs.

Talking of Dreadnought kits, is the only way to get the stock C:SM dread still from the OOP 5th-ed starter set, AoBR?
If there a non-FW way to get a Multi-melta arm for a Dreadnought?

You know what? I could live with certain types of equipment not seen on the models or certain shortages (like that assault cannon for havocs).

What I really find strange is the utter and complete lack of certain units where your ONLY choice is to build something yourself:

* Flash gitz (that one finecast is just a single model and rather ugly)
* Chosen CSM (Afaik you only get them in the starter pack so far and maybe not everyone wants to spend 90€ on 5 infantry models without options)
* The hellbrute / Chaos dreadnought (same as chosen)
* probably tons of stuff from the alternative IA army lists like Slasha Mobz and other things i don't know about.

And it's not even like they are new or something. Flash gitz are in the codex for the last two editions at least.

 Ouze wrote:

Are they actually the same? I don't have the 6th edition CSM codex but they seem to pretty clearly be different creatures even if they equip and play identically. The Hellbrutes look like biomechanical monsters made possible by Warp magic, like Obliterators, whereas Dreadnoughts are merely very large power armor with a partial human being as the piloting intelligence - but nothing magical about them, or even biomechanical.

The helbrute is just a dread made more "chaotic". They are still both chaos walkers and have the same weapon options and kit out. The name was changed to make it less like just a cookie cutter replacement for the SM dread IMHO. Either way the models are interchangable. I have 4 different types of models filling in as helbrutes in my chaos marine armies which helps add to the chaotic feel for me plus also have a contemptor in my slaaneshi army as well. Either way, though, dreads or helbrutes are chaos walker units, with similar weapon kit outs so opponents should be able to figure it out just fine. I always envisioned chaos dreads the same way as chaos marines: They become one with their armor/walker and are less a pilot in a box and more a conjoined unit that is self aware. That is what helps me not have a problem using dreads and helbrutes interchangably.

Skriker

 Kosake wrote:
You know what? I could live with certain types of equipment not seen on the models or certain shortages (like that assault cannon for havocs).

What I really find strange is the utter and complete lack of certain units where your ONLY choice is to build something yourself:

* Flash gitz (that one finecast is just a single model and rather ugly)
* Chosen CSM (Afaik you only get them in the starter pack so far and maybe not everyone wants to spend 90€ on 5 infantry models without options)
* The hellbrute / Chaos dreadnought (same as chosen)
* probably tons of stuff from the alternative IA army lists like Slasha Mobz and other things i don't know about.

And it's not even like they are new or something. Flash gitz are in the codex for the last two editions at least.

Well the models you are talking about they do have modeld for they are just not easilly accessible or lack variety or a mixture of both

Things like the harpy or a decent chunk of DE special characters don't even have models accessible anywhere bar conversions or possibly 3rd party models.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
No, that isnt why theey do it.

There are what, 5 weapons choices for a Havoc unit? So some people may want 4 of X, another 4 of Y, and so on. In order to satisfy EVERYONE, using your "give us 4 of each!!" method, they have to provide 20 weapons, 16 of which will go to waste - in the base, simple case.

Or provide them in plastic like space marine devastators and IG heavy weapon platoons which provide multiples of the different weapon options in a single box. Heck for the IG they include 3 heavy bolters, 3 lascannon, 3 autocannon, 3 mortars and 3 missile launchers in each box so that the builder can set up any combination of weapons for their squads from 3 of a single weapon to magnetizing the mounts and weapons to be able to have 125 different kit outs available to that one squad of heavy weapon guardsman. Besides, nothing ever goes to waste. It goes in the bitz box and comes out again to use on something else. I converted the multimelta on one of the helbrutes I have to a twinlinked autocannon by using multiple extra IG autocannon for parts. I've converted multiple 1/35 scale italian tanks into the 3 hell hound variants using plenty of extra IG heavy weapon parts. So the kit just keeps on giving. Yes it would be expensive to include multiples of each weapon in a metal kit, but in plastic it is no big deal.

Skriker

 Skriker wrote:
125 different kit outs available to that one squad of heavy weapon guardsman.

I agree with your point, but I have a problem with your math.
That calculation would only be true if:

Heavy Bolter - Heavy Bolter - Mortar

was not the same as

Mortar - Heavy Bolter - Heavy Bolter

Which, let's be fair, is exactly the same setup.

It's considerably less than 125 kit outs.
The math is also much much more complicated than 5*5*5, so I'm not gonna actually do the math.

 Kosake wrote:


And it's not even like they are new or something. Flash gitz are in the codex for the last two editions at least.

Flash gitz have been around a lot longer than that.

As for the chaos minis, chosen don't have a special set because they don't really need it. You can start with those in the DV box, but then make more out of any chaos marine plastics without difficulty. What used to make these situations less painful was that you could easily order full sprues from plastic kits or metal bitz from any kit direct from GW, but you can't do that anymore with a few exceptions. Gone are the days where you opened up the listing to any plastic kit and picked a sprue and added it to your cart. :(

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Purifier wrote:

I agree with your point, but I have a problem with your math.
That calculation would only be true if:

Heavy Bolter - Heavy Bolter - Mortar

was not the same as

Mortar - Heavy Bolter - Heavy Bolter

Which, let's be fair, is exactly the same setup.

It's considerably less than 125 kit outs.
The math is also much much more complicated than 5*5*5, so I'm not gonna actually do the math.

Doh! You are absolutely right...too little sleep of late...hahahahahaha.... More like around 35-40 different kit outs...

Skriker

Look on the bright side, at least you have actually have the weapon option in the kit, and kits for the models.

The "correct" answer becomes clear when you come to understand and fully embrace the following rules about Games Workshop:

1. The artists creating the models simply don't speak with the rules authors. Nor are rules authors allowed in the modeling area as this would be a breach of security.

2. Rules authors don't play the game. If any happen to appear in a picture within WD, it was purely because they were walking by.

4. Production Engineers (those people that do sprue layouts) also don't speak with Rule authors. Those guys are too busy moving the universe forward and must not be bothered.

5. Play testers, when used, are routinely ignored. If they knew anything about game development they'd be Rules authors, not play testers.

6.a Third parties - regardless of business benefit - are evil.

6.b Even if those third parties are selling GW stuff.

7. Soliciting and/or acting on customer feedback is a firable offense.

8. Please don't inquire about item "3"; GW sent a C&D letter with regards to it's contents and I don't have free legal representation.

9. GW doesn't waste money on non-essential things like Consistency and Quality Assurance testing.

10. Sales is responsible for delivering all rule publications to the printer. This is to allow "tweaks" based on sales targets.

If we skip past the "GW is evil" rants and head over to the First Law of Economic Incentives we find that it is cheaper to write rules than to produce models, which means GW is going to release new rules more often than it is going to release new models. From this we can conclude that there's a time lag between when the new rules giving you this shiny new option come out and when you'll have official parts to represent that shiny new option on your models because there will be one or two different kits for a model in the time it takes for there to be six different iterations of its Codex with different options in each one.

Shorthand: You're pretty much out of luck. Find or trade for conversion parts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Purifier wrote:

 Skriker wrote:
125 different kit outs available to that one squad of heavy weapon guardsman.

I agree with your point, but I have a problem with your math.
That calculation would only be true if:

Heavy Bolter - Heavy Bolter - Mortar

was not the same as

Mortar - Heavy Bolter - Heavy Bolter

Which, let's be fair, is exactly the same setup.

It's considerably less than 125 kit outs.
The math is also much much more complicated than 5*5*5, so I'm not gonna actually do the math.

This is in point of fact a fascinating subject fairly important to the study of probability, the difference is that between a combination and a permutation. In a combination the order of the set does not matter (so heavy bolter/missile launcher/heavy bolter is the same as missile launcher/heavy bolter/heavy bolter), in a permutation the order does matter (so the two sets are different). I will not go into the details of exactly how this works here because it's pretty long and complicated (a good explanation can be found at http://www.mathsisfun.com/combinatorics/combinations-permutations.html for those who are interested) but the formula for the number of possible sets of K elements from a set of size N where order does not matter and where repeated elements are permitted is (N + K - 1)! / (K! * (N - 1)!), in our case this is 7! / (3! * 4!) = 5040/144 = 35.