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I was just thinking about the imagination GW have as they're 40K models in my mind are getting a little bit samey. I feel that they could be so much better. It also takes them a long time for new releases and the new nids for an example look great but they still look too similar to the ones already out there. Creativity is the spice of life and I feel that they are holding back, the sky is the limit! I do enjoy completing 40K models and they do have a lot of stunning models, just want a little more especially since I'm spending my pennies on them.

Why not try buying models from other companies?

I do but i'm not talking about them I just want GW to up their game.

It's all down to the customer. As long as people keep rewarding lazy rules writing, uninspired model design, slightly underhanded corporate behaviour etc with money, which is categorically the only thing GW cares about (apparently even more so than most, many companies at least appear to pay lip service to maintaining a good relationship with and retaining their long term customers,) then why would they change?

Absolutely the ONLY thing that will cause GW to deviate from their current methods will be if their sales start to toilet.

You should try thinking up some original ideas and make conversions out of them.

You're new to this hobby I assume DarkHero?

The Tyranids are gradually all being conformed to minor twists of three main variations on one basic design template. I think it works well for a force that supposedly is all creatures from one enormous genetic mother ship. You could expect them all to have some basic similarities in the same way that all dinosaurs have something in common.

That is only one army. GW produce about 10 others with different design concepts, if you want a different look and feel.

 DarkHero wrote:
I was just thinking about the imagination GW have as they're 40K models in my mind are getting a little bit samey. I feel that they could be so much better. It also takes them a long time for new releases and the new nids for an example look great but they still look too similar to the ones already out there. Creativity is the spice of life and I feel that they are holding back, the sky is the limit! I do enjoy completing 40K models and they do have a lot of stunning models, just want a little more especially since I'm spending my pennies on them.

GW has become pretty risk adverse, which seems to me to have led to a lot of stagnation. Now, GW is shaking things up a bit at the moment, but this seems to be more in line with trying to wring more revenue/profit out of extant customers through various shenanigans and a drive to find 'creative' ways to increasingly monetize existing assets, such as pushing out digital releases cobbled together from extant material.

GW knows that paying customers like the current art style, so I expect that they are reluctant to rock the boat and risk having something received badly. Annecdotally, GW's customer base is shrinking, so I expect that GW doesn't want to speed the pace of desertion. But that is pretty much what is starting to happen anyway. GW's releases have been incredibly formulaic of late with every army getting a big, splashy new expensive kit that is supported by powerful game rules. Kits have been reworked into multi-unit option plastic box sets with an increased price tag, packed with an extra sprue of bits that are going to be pretty much useless once you build whatever unit type you bought the box to make. The artistic style is locked in the early 90s even as GW's access to new production techniques would allow it to push the aesthetic envelope.

Right now GW is not terribly cool, or sexy, or unique, or even high quality when it comes to many of the products such as the game rules. The product range is shrinking, the game is becoming a convoluted mess, more and more products are going direct only, prices keep going up for the most part, and GW is terrified to try something genuinely new. It aint a rosy picture.

@weeble1000: Rather grimdark isn't it? Or is that a bit too meta...

Maybe they need to stop drinking the Kool-aid.

I have to agree, I find their models are becoming increasingly more cartoony and world of warcraft like (sharp angular features, ridiculous proportions (beyond the already exaggerated ones they've been giving us for decades now), etc.), even the studio paintjobs are reflecting this and not at all what I want. Beyond that, they seem to have been constrained by size (most likely the size of their injection molders) as they have been designing models to squeeze into limited proportions/sprue sizes for the past couple years and as a result we end up with squat/bloated looking sculpts (like most of the available flyers).

Well maybe. In my view GW have always been cartoony and ridiculously proportioned, at least since the late 1980s anyway, as far as 40K and WHFB are concerned.

I assumed the "brick" stylings of the SM and IG fliers were done to fit the normal Imperial aesthetic.

It's a bit harder to explain away the godawful new Tau flier, but lots of other recent stuff -- like the Necrons and DE -- is excellent, so maybe they didn't put their best designer on that one model.

I agree with the OP.

It is terrible that a company does not hand my hobby to me on a plate.

I mean it's not like I can use the interwebz - yeah like that exists outside of sci-fi novels! - to browse the catalogues of numerous figure manufacturers in various scales to find the figures I like. Heck! you'll tell me next that there are other rulesets, and that many of them are free - but I'll be damned if I can work out how to type "wargame rules" into a search engine - not that the intertubes exists outside sci-fi novels.

And if only industrial chemists would pull their figure out and invent plasticard, greenstuff - and similar putties - glues, paints, and other products that I could use to create things that I want. And it's not like there are figure companies who will pay good money to cast up the things I make, using my imagination, if what I make is any good.

And it's not like those same companies will pay me for artwork and designs that can be turned into figures and products - and even if they do there is no way to send them the designs.

No, it is far better to invite others to join in the hopelessness, sit in the corner sipping a Cherry B through a straw, and observe how uninspiring everything is in my hobby.

You wasted minutes of your life typing that, and several seconds of mine reading it.

Congratulations.

That;s the spirit, keep up the negativity....

In my opinion one of the biggest problems with GWs recent releases is the CAD sculpting.

These days they can take an existing template, tweak it in what's probably no longer than a couple of days, and have an entirely 'new' model ready to go. Problem is they cut some very obvious corners.

Look at the cultists in DV, there are 2 sets in that box that are just mirror images of each other that have been tweaked. Then there is the DA flier that was clearly just an afternoons work with a stormtalon template and the big lord of skulls thing has bloodcrusher heads mounted on it. Why? Because CAD makes that easier to do than to add real details.

 marielle wrote:
That;s the spirit, keep up the negativity....

The irony is strong with this one.

 DarkHero wrote:
I was just thinking about the imagination GW have as they're 40K models in my mind are getting a little bit samey. I feel that they could be so much better. It also takes them a long time for new releases and the new nids for an example look great but they still look too similar to the ones already out there. Creativity is the spice of life and I feel that they are holding back, the sky is the limit! I do enjoy completing 40K models and they do have a lot of stunning models, just want a little more especially since I'm spending my pennies on them.

Look around at other manufacturers. Even if you stick with GW, there's no harm in starting up another game. There's a lot of good choices out there. Want smaller scale models and bigger battles? Try Dropzone Commander. Want steampunk naval battles? Dry Dystopian Wars. Space battles? Firestorm Armada. Victorian horror skirmish game? Malifaux. Manga sci fi skirmish game? Infinity. Large scale 28mm battles? Kings of War and Warpath.

That's just scratching the surface. There's plenty more out there. Kingdom Death: Monster, Sedition Wars, DUST, Flames of War, Deadzone, and more.

Personally, I can heartily recommend Infinity. The models are gorgeous, being a skirmish game it's relatively cheap (a box of models generally costs half of what you'd pay from GW and will usually take up about half of an army in points), and the rules are awesome for having small scale cinematic games..

I am not a fan of a lot of GW models. I use 3rd party models for everything (except some special weapons and vehicles as i dont mind many of those) but overall i avoid GW models at every corner.

I just find the amount of detail on them very poor when compared to other companies many of whom a cheaper!

So i just play 40k with non GW models. Same goes for fantasy. Cost me 150 to get a nearly 3000point army for fantasy from warlord miniatures (empire), from GW it would cost me well over 700 without rules books.

I think people are going off at a tangent here a bit.

The OP has stated elsewhere he doesn't play yet, but just paints and models.

ITT the point he seems to be making pretty clearly in the OP is that GW are very definitely playing it safe with their new model releases and not really innovating or trying new ideas.

Personally, I agree, and started a thread last year based on broadly the same assertion. Creative industries and shareholders don't really make great bedfellows, as one needs the opportunity to fail when pushing things, while the needs of the other are almost diametrically opposed. Hence you get the current status quo with GW which, the odd hit aside, consists of rehashing old concepts or modifying them in very safe ways, as guaranteed "average sales" are much better for the shareholders than the chance of "high sales" with a risk of "low sales."

 azreal13 wrote:
I think people are going off at a tangent here a bit.

The OP has stated elsewhere he doesn't play yet, but just paints and models.

Still no reason he can't branch out into other manufacturers. With my previous comment about Infinity, CB have stated a good portion of their sales are from people who simply paint models.

WAIT! HOLD UP JUST ONE SECOND!

GW has an imagination?

GW hamstrung itself with their move to plastic kits. The molds are much more expensive to produce, so you will see new kits being released that are less risky in terms of sales potential.

 snurl wrote:
GW hamstrung itself with their move to plastic kits. The molds are much more expensive to produce, so you will see new kits being released that are less risky in terms of sales potential.

Fancy that GW has the nerve to use plastic, shame on them.

 snurl wrote:
GW hamstrung itself with their move to plastic kits. The molds are much more expensive to produce, so you will see new kits being released that are less risky in terms of sales potential.

In terms of quality i wish they would produce resin like other companies do. End result is far superior.

You could always create your own universe, Your own concepts and your own designs. Thats what I have been doing, and people literally begged me to write a short novel. (Which I am in the process of making.

BUT!

GW does this because they do not like their long term customers, they only want money to survive, they believe they are the greatest of the wargames. They think they are the superior ones here. They will keep putting their heads in the clouds until someone tells them otherwise. (I.E privateer press starts owning them in sales.)

Do not expect much from GW they are basically that kid that sits in the back of a college course and think they know more than the professor and try to prove that just because they are rich they are always right.

If you're wanting more original ideas and models you'll probably have to look elsewhere besides GW. Places like Victoria Lamb, Kromlech, Max Mini, etc. all make great "not 40k" minis if you're just wanting more variety for the game.

If you're willing to look at systems besides 40k, the amount of variety out there is staggering be it rules, background, or models.

 marielle wrote:
I agree with the OP.

It is terrible that a company does not hand my hobby to me on a plate.

I mean it's not like I can use the interwebz - yeah like that exists outside of sci-fi novels! - to browse the catalogues of numerous figure manufacturers in various scales to find the figures I like. Heck! you'll tell me next that there are other rulesets, and that many of them are free - but I'll be damned if I can work out how to type "wargame rules" into a search engine - not that the intertubes exists outside sci-fi novels.

And if only industrial chemists would pull their figure out and invent plasticard, greenstuff - and similar putties - glues, paints, and other products that I could use to create things that I want. And it's not like there are figure companies who will pay good money to cast up the things I make, using my imagination, if what I make is any good.

And it's not like those same companies will pay me for artwork and designs that can be turned into figures and products - and even if they do there is no way to send them the designs.

No, it is far better to invite others to join in the hopelessness, sit in the corner sipping a Cherry B through a straw, and observe how uninspiring everything is in my hobby.

 Achaylus72 wrote:

 snurl wrote:
GW hamstrung itself with their move to plastic kits. The molds are much more expensive to produce, so you will see new kits being released that are less risky in terms of sales potential.

Fancy that GW has the nerve to use plastic, shame on them.

Allow me to explain further if you will. Making a rubber mold for lead figures can be done in less than an afternoon very cheaply. Thats why you used to see unreleased miniatures and small-batch count figures for store openings and tournaments. Staff only models and a few direct only figures come to mind too. And a few odd figures that someone thought might look cool. GW used to list these in the Troll magazine and WD for sale. If figures didn't sell well they never got mass-produced and any loss was minimal. You just can't do that with plastic. So to answer the OP, GW's plastic kits have to pass muster with the studio and bean counters before they ever become kits at all.

No I am not anti-Plastic, I actually like them. But when they release a kit be ready for it to stick around for a long time before it gets revisited.

 DarkHero wrote:
I do but i'm not talking about them I just want GW to up their game.

Don't we all.

 snurl wrote:
GW hamstrung itself with their move to plastic kits. The molds are much more expensive to produce, so you will see new kits being released that are less risky in terms of sales potential.

I have to agree with this as an IG collector. The metal regiments available for 2nd Ed were an attempt to show the diversity of the Guard, but have "evolved" into the plastic Cadians which, to be fair, probably do represent a "standard" Guardsman. The Vostroyans were an interesting attempt to add something new to the mix. Then again you could say even the metal sets didn't show imagination with "Rambo in Space", "WWII Eastern Front in Space" and so on.

Nowadays to scratch the IG itch, its off to Victoria's Miniatures or Curious Constructs...and that is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm curious to see if there are any new infantry are being or will be planned alongside the next IG Codex.