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*takes a deep breath of glue while assembling awesome monopose kommadoz*

Considering the game I play the most is Underworlds, and all those kits are push-fit, I'd certainly keep buying them lol. I enjoy building any complexity of kits, I find it enjoyable regardless of how many parts there are.

The current primaris kits I find are fantastic, and I'm certainly 100% happy if they keep along that route. I find body+legs sculpts look better than those with separate body to legs anyway.

I love the Monopose Space Marines. Such greater detail and stuff like armpits and flexes in the waist and all that. Models go together and look good. And I still convert stuff when I want. Head swaps, arm swaps, weapon swaps, whatever. Plenty good.

I’m less thrilled with it for the Necrons. They didn’t really gain much from it, as they still have the same ball and socket joints with no real detail, they just are locked into specific poses. More criminally they don’t even let you turn their heads.

So yeah, if you’re cutting back on modularity to increase detail and aesthetics, great, but if you’re not gaining details from it I’d rather they didn’t.

See, this is the kind of setup that just makes it impossible for me to vote.

There are different degrees of monoposing present in current kits, and if that's not obvious to everyone, I really don't know what to say.

If you said "everything would be monopose" and by monopose you meant

"new ork boyz kit/buggies kit, you get a grand total of ZERO TO FOUR extra pieces beyond what's required to make the kit EXACTLY like it shows on the box, you CANNOT modify any miniature from the box without cutting into them and filling gaps with greenstuff, Choppa A cannot be swapped with Choppa B because Choppa A attaches to the wrist of an arm built into Torso A and Choppa B attaches to the elbow of a bicep built into Torso B"

then yeah. I'd never buy any kit more than once, pretty much ever. I'm not paying those prices to have a duplicated unit - no way no how.

If you meant "Everything is swappable except the torso and legs are joined, maybe you have to take the hobby knife you just used to de-sprue and slice off a bit of auto-positioning on the join if you want to make a pose that wasn't 'designed as intended' and you get at least a few extra heads, a few extra weapons, a few extra accessories in every kit" then I'd happily keep buying GW. By and large, the new 'intended poses' are things that simply were not achievable using the old-style fully modular kits.

To use examples from the new Kommandos:

-I can decide that I'm a person with very loose WYSIWYG standards who doesn't mind minor wargear inconsistencies, and I can build one of my kommandos with a pistol in each hand and an extra pistol on each hip (for when the first two pistols run out of ammo) because helpfully, unlike older kits, this kit comes with a mix of right and left arm versions of all the basic weapons. Neat!

-I can decide that the shirtless ork with the tooth necklaces will look cool like an end of predator/end of rambo shirtless action movie hero covered in mud and blood, and I can give him the left and right hand choppas that are bare arms with more brutal looking axes, and the bare head

-...but unlike older kits, I can also have the option for a kommando holding his slugga in both hands, looking like he's sneaking up on someone. That's an intended pose, and I probably wouldn't build multiple kommandos with that pose, but it's a cool as hell pose and I'm glad I have the ability to build a model in that pose because it would have taken a hell of a lot of effort, cutting, and greenstuff to do that with a slugga out of the old boyz kit.

If GW wants to include distinctive poses, like the 'sister pulling a grenade pin with her teeth' or the 'reiver holding his pistol stabilized with his knife hand' then that's fantastic, and actually improves the kits.....aaaas long as you have another option for a more neutrally posed model instead. The way they did it with the Sisters kit is actually the best way to do it - the designer-intended build for the 'dynamic poses' of regular sisters are the alternates for the heavy weapon sisters, so you're unlikely to actually want to end up with multiple grenade-pin-pulling sisters when you build your army unless you're for some reason building zero heavy weapon sisters and you don't want any retributors with 4x of the same weapon in your army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

ccs wrote:

Bago wrote:
I have no problem with most of the modern kits and think, you can adjust even the dynamic poses with kitbashes and stuff so they dont all look the same. The one thing, I am really annoyed by though is the Plasmagun in the Scions kit. There is NO easy way, to have any variety in your plasma gunners whatsoever. They all will be pointing and keeping the plasma gun casual at their side.

THAT depends upon your modeling skills.
Maybe all of your Scion plasma gunners will look alike, but mine would not.

But it does highlight the problem with "dynamic posing" pretty starkly.

Except that your crowd always just fething equates everything as if it's all perfectly equal.

Scion Plasmagun that has to be at his side? CSM rocket launcher guy who MUST be holding a knife out with his other hand? Annoying as feth. These are weapons people are GOING to want to have multiple of, and GW locks them into a specific pose.

Sisters special weapons, which can be swapped in and substituted for any of the seven two-handed weapon holding sisters torsos?

How can people say that both these things are equivalently 'monopose'?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Huron black heart wrote:
Whilst I agree that I liked being able to pose the minis in different ways, and with different weapon load outs of my choice, I also agree the current range of models are far superior and more dynamic.
What I wish is that GW could mesh their current high quality minis with the ability to be fully pose able. Or at the very least for troops or units you'll likely use multiples of.
I suspect the reason they don't do this is as ever down to money.

I mean, it's pretty tough to compare kits like Deathwatch Veterans to kits like Chaos Space Marine Havocs and not see that there was vastly more you could do with the former than the latter while the latter costs 55$ and the former 38$. Same sprue count, the DW Vet kit is just like 50% more dense and with the Havoc kit GW made such fun decisions as:

-no spare shoulder pads! Sorry! just ten of those in the kit for you!
-One spare head - choose wisely kids!
-4 heavy weapons, I get that, but the Deathwatch kit includes 2 heavy weapons and 2 Honkin' model-height storm shields and 2 two-handed thunder hammers

They just decided to put more on the sprue for the deathwatch, and charged more for the chaos marines. There's no other 'alternate explanation' for that, they very very clearly just tried harder to prioritize giving the player options for how to build their models when it came to the deathwatch vets, who have 5 helmeted and 7 helmetless heads, twenty-two shoulderpads for 5 guys, left and right hand versions of the various basic melee weapons and bolters, a caped torso back that also comes with a regular torso back if you dont want to use the big cape, multiples of a couple of the optional weapons, etc.

As long as the monopose kits are plastic, I can work with that. I do however 100% prefer non-monopose kits because that means bits. And GW kits have historically been pretty good about bits being comparable across a range (space marine, guard, etc). Sure, rifle arms may be preset in position, but i can swap heads, have them standing or crouching, change torsos for armor, etc. Having collected a ton of warmachine, you learn to hate the metal monopose with no options at all. Soooooo boring to build. Why I keep coming back to GW. So, in summary:
posable > monpose
monpose w/ optional parts > pure monopose
plastic monopose > metal monopose

drbored wrote:
If I told you there was a 0% chance that we would never see anything more customizable than the above kits, would you still support the company by buying the product?

My primary faction is sisters, so i'm not sure i'd notice any change. For most of my time in the hobby my units have largely consisted of the same twelve pewter models repeated over and over with a little variation for the squad leader.

Crimson wrote:Because you choose to use this absurd and misleading definition of 'monopose', I will to say I'd gladly buy such models. The primaris marine line and SoB line are the best models I have ever worked with, they're an absolute delight to build and customise and I can't wait to see the new BT primaris kits to add more options for kitbashing. The legs ant torso being one piece doesn't bother me at all, I prefer it. Abdomen and hips of older marine models alwys looked terrible if you ried to twist them more than couple of degrees. As an artist the anatomical awkwardness bothered me a lot. With the joint setup the dynamics of the torso and legs flow naturally, making the miniature look natural and cohesive. And as there actually are a lot of different bodies to choose from, and you can completely change the look with arm and leg poses, there really won't be duplicates.

The issue here really is the bizarre effort going on Dakka to redefine 'monopose' to mean 'has no ball joint on the waist.' This is not what it means, nor what it has ever meant. Before the primaris were a thing and certain people needed to invent all sort of excuses for hating on them, were the Skitarii or GSC models ever referred as 'monopose'? I certainly don't think they were generally understood to be such. This fetishization of the hip joint is just odd and trying to intentionally distort the meanings of words is annoying and makes discussion impossible. I am sure a lot of people wouldn't be that thrilled if all models were actual monopose, i.e. like the new ork boyz (though as addition such are fine too) but truing to lump highly customisable models like primaris and SoB full kits with that is absurd. They're certainly far closer to the customisability of the old marines than the complete staticness of the new ork boyz.

GW actually currently produces monopose and multipose versions of many models. There are monopose primaris marines and SoB in certain starter kits, then there are multipose versions in separate kits. These words serve a purpose and are useful for conveying information, but if we redefine the words so that multipose models are referred as 'monopose' too, then we can no longer communicate this difference.

Absolutely this - I can't vote in this poll, because monopose is so poorly defined (or rather, the definition being used here is baffling) and so my answers wouldn't fit this.

Primaris Marines aren't monopose because they don't have a ball joint waist. And if we're going to complain about "you need to use X part with Y part" kind of design, does this mean that the 30k plastic Space Marines are monopose, because of specific arm combinations?

Actual monopose models? Sure, I don't like that on mass infantry or things you'd be expected to have multiple of. But Primaris aren't monopose.

Not gonna quote but Hbmc gets a fat exalt.

Hero, my thoughts - at least plastic is easier to cut, but… do we really need to? No… that is a choice that someone else made that also neglects both the strengths of plastic and of modern computer aided design… GW could make multipose magnetisable magic. Instead they make my life harder, and the appeal of third party minis stronger,

Are the current cadian troops monopose, under this definition?

The torso is a flat join, and if you rotate it away from 'straight forward' it's misaligned, so unless you want to greenstuff to correct that the torso only goes together one way, and the arms are paired.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeff white wrote:
Not gonna quote but Hbmc gets a fat exalt.

Hero, my thoughts - at least plastic is easier to cut, but… do we really need to? No… that is a choice that someone else made that also neglects both the strengths of plastic and of modern computer aided design… GW could make multipose magnetisable magic. Instead they make my life harder, and the appeal of third party minis stronger,

I certainly couldn't help but think as I was building my Adeptus Titanicus Reaver Titan, where every single joint can be posed basically in any position possible and every weapon is easily magnetized....

"Every kit GW makes could be this but they playin'."

I'm having trouble with this because of the examples provided. I don't know much about the Intercessor, SoB, or Plague Marine kits, because those aren't armies I play. But I know the CSM kit. I've yet to find a combination of arms and body that doesn't work. I haven't tried everything, admittedly, but I have mixed them with arms from both the Havoc and Raptor/Warp Talons kit without problems. What combinations don't work? I'd like to give it a try.

I hate the intercessors. If I can't customize the figure, than do not force me to assemble a monopose. Just produce the complete model ala green army men. Don't make me jump through hoops.

General Hobbs wrote:


I hate the intercessors. If I can't customize the figure, than do not force me to assemble a monopose. Just produce the complete model ala green army men. Don't make me jump through hoops.

This is spot on. More time for painting…

I really liked how Riptides went together. Essentially they're fully posable, buy small tabs restrict them to the default pose.
This makes them very easy to assembled in a set way, but you can easily cut off those tabs and built them however you want.

Such a style with every limb segment being separate only really works well on a model where there's no flowing detail crossing armour plates. No capes, purity seals, dangling dohickies or anything. Any of that and it won't fit the parts properly in any way except the way it was sculpted to.

General Hobbs wrote:I hate the intercessors. If I can't customize the figure, than do not force me to assemble a monopose.

But you can customise Intercessors? The only thing they don't have, compared to older Tacticals, is the ball-socket joint at the waist - is that the only customisation that matters?

I wouldn't mind, personally. Barely any of my purchases remain completely unaltered, so nothing would change.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I'm having trouble with this because of the examples provided. I don't know much about the Intercessor, SoB, or Plague Marine kits, because those aren't armies I play. But I know the CSM kit. I've yet to find a combination of arms and body that doesn't work. I haven't tried everything, admittedly, but I have mixed them with arms from both the Havoc and Raptor/Warp Talons kit without problems. What combinations don't work? I'd like to give it a try.

If you have spare arms from other kits, they do work, but there are some irritating details I found personally with the new CSM kit that basically mean my CSM army is going to include 1 of the new kits and the rest of my marines are going to be alternate 3d printed versions which also fit the aesthetic of my subfaction a lot better (as still cruel and monstrous but cleaner as they're supposedly 'perfection obsessed' and with more slaaneshi mutations than the generic horns/spikes)

1) non-swappable chest plates when it would have been incredibly easy to just universalize the join right above the power armor 'belt' for all the ones that don't include tabards.

2) only one available right arm in a very distinguishable pose for the missile launcher. They could easily have included a more neutral 'arm stabilizing the missile launcher' arm in either the havoc kit or csm kit, but chose not to - all rocket launcher armed CSMs will either be holding a knife out, or holding a spare rocket out

3) the 'jumping off a rock at an angle' torso seems like it'd be pretty darn distinctive regardless of how you built it.

4) the inclusion of only 6 chainswords/pistols in a kit that can theoretically be built purely as a melee unit is quite annoying

Otherwise, though, the basic chaos space marines kit is honestly the best one out of all the new chaos kits. Certainly better than 'zero spare options' havocs and terminators that have to have zany weaponry and only come with 1 of the basic loadout.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I really liked how Riptides went together. Essentially they're fully posable, buy small tabs restrict them to the default pose.
This makes them very easy to assembled in a set way, but you can easily cut off those tabs and built them however you want.

Such a style with every limb segment being separate only really works well on a model where there's no flowing detail crossing armour plates. No capes, purity seals, dangling dohickies or anything. Any of that and it won't fit the parts properly in any way except the way it was sculpted to.

The Ironstrider kit is another recent example of this done well (as well as, as I said, the excellent Titanicus titans)

I've already moved on for the most part. Since metal and resin have superior detail to plastic, the advantages of plastic are:

Price
Modularity
Ease of Assembly

GW falls short in all three. Most of the new stuff is tedious to build because they're cut up like jigsaw puzzles; lots of pieces, lots of mold lines, lots of seams. All that work just to get a monopose model that looks the same as everyone else. GW might as well make them single piece because it would save a lot of time and effort.

By contrast building a Frostgrave/Stargrave/Oathmark kit is simple and rewarding. The end result is something that feels very personalised and dynamic. "My dudes" as people keep saying.

It's sad because GW used to be good at this. Compare the Mordheim Humans to Blissbarb Archers or NuZombies and it's like they've gone backwards in evolution.

Yeah, it's...it's really tricky, and difficult to see what they gained, here.

I mean the level of detail, it's...its so astonishingly....like they're basically the same....

They could give the humans that same detail now without sacrificing the modularity.

I know that this is a taste thing, but detail isn't always a good thing. A lot of people at my store disliked how overloaded some of the newer GW models are comparing to the older stuff. I for example would have Castellan Crow, not have the flame effect on his sword.

Goose LeChance wrote:
They could give the humans that same detail now without sacrificing the modularity.

Could you show us where the "cuts" would be on that Blissbarb model?

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I'm having trouble with this because of the examples provided. I don't know much about the Intercessor, SoB, or Plague Marine kits, because those aren't armies I play. But I know the CSM kit. I've yet to find a combination of arms and body that doesn't work. I haven't tried everything, admittedly, but I have mixed them with arms from both the Havoc and Raptor/Warp Talons kit without problems. What combinations don't work? I'd like to give it a try.

If you have spare arms from other kits, they do work, but there are some irritating details I found personally with the new CSM kit that basically mean my CSM army is going to include 1 of the new kits and the rest of my marines are going to be alternate 3d printed versions which also fit the aesthetic of my subfaction a lot better (as still cruel and monstrous but cleaner as they're supposedly 'perfection obsessed' and with more slaaneshi mutations than the generic horns/spikes)

1) non-swappable chest plates when it would have been incredibly easy to just universalize the join right above the power armor 'belt' for all the ones that don't include tabards.

2) only one available right arm in a very distinguishable pose for the missile launcher. They could easily have included a more neutral 'arm stabilizing the missile launcher' arm in either the havoc kit or csm kit, but chose not to - all rocket launcher armed CSMs will either be holding a knife out, or holding a spare rocket out

3) the 'jumping off a rock at an angle' torso seems like it'd be pretty darn distinctive regardless of how you built it.

4) the inclusion of only 6 chainswords/pistols in a kit that can theoretically be built purely as a melee unit is quite annoying

Otherwise, though, the basic chaos space marines kit is honestly the best one out of all the new chaos kits. Certainly better than 'zero spare options' havocs and terminators that have to have zany weaponry and only come with 1 of the basic loadout.

Can't disagree with any of this. The missile launcher arm designs are just odd. The lack of enough basic equipment for an entire squad is aggravating. But most of all I find the fact that gw, once again, decided to make all CSM look like Black Legion infuriating. Lots of Terror Squad heads and custom shoulder pads helps, but still "too much bling". But they do still have options. Unlike, as you point out, Havocs and Terminators. Which is one of the reasons I use Cataphractii and Tartaros for my Terminators.

Karol wrote:
I know that this is a taste thing, but detail isn't always a good thing. A lot of people at my store disliked how overloaded some of the newer GW models are comparing to the older stuff. I for example would have Castellan Crow, not have the flame effect on his sword.

I agree with you, detail isn't always better.

And the fact remains: Metal and Resin does detail better than plastic anyway.

Goose LeChance wrote:
Most of the new stuff is tedious to build because they're cut up like jigsaw puzzles; lots of pieces, lots of mold lines, lots of seams. All that work just to get a monopose model that looks the same as everyone else. GW might as well make them single piece because it would save a lot of time and effort.

These are just lies, though.

A jigsaw puzzle assembly is often 3-4 pieces, and a typical old model could be legs, torso, head, left arm, right arm, gun.

Jigsaw puzzle assemblies *hide* seams. Nearly every old kit had a visible seam at, for example, the shoulder (often disguised by shoulder pads, or something like every Ork on the field wearing a perfectly tailored and fitted tank top)

Current GW kits have far fewer mold lines than old kits.

What's the last new kit you actually held in your hands and built yourself, Goose LeChance?

Goose LeChance wrote:
They could give the humans that same detail now without sacrificing the modularity.

In options maybe, not in poses. You can't have fancy poses and mix-and-match sprues, or the poses make no sense and the muscles don't line up. It was not an issue with early models with low detail, but it's much more noticeable with higher definition sculpts.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I'm having trouble with this because of the examples provided. I don't know much about the Intercessor, SoB, or Plague Marine kits, because those aren't armies I play. But I know the CSM kit. I've yet to find a combination of arms and body that doesn't work. I haven't tried everything, admittedly, but I have mixed them with arms from both the Havoc and Raptor/Warp Talons kit without problems. What combinations don't work? I'd like to give it a try.

If you have spare arms from other kits, they do work, but there are some irritating details I found personally with the new CSM kit that basically mean my CSM army is going to include 1 of the new kits and the rest of my marines are going to be alternate 3d printed versions which also fit the aesthetic of my subfaction a lot better (as still cruel and monstrous but cleaner as they're supposedly 'perfection obsessed' and with more slaaneshi mutations than the generic horns/spikes)

1) non-swappable chest plates when it would have been incredibly easy to just universalize the join right above the power armor 'belt' for all the ones that don't include tabards.

2) only one available right arm in a very distinguishable pose for the missile launcher. They could easily have included a more neutral 'arm stabilizing the missile launcher' arm in either the havoc kit or csm kit, but chose not to - all rocket launcher armed CSMs will either be holding a knife out, or holding a spare rocket out

3) the 'jumping off a rock at an angle' torso seems like it'd be pretty darn distinctive regardless of how you built it.

4) the inclusion of only 6 chainswords/pistols in a kit that can theoretically be built purely as a melee unit is quite annoying

Otherwise, though, the basic chaos space marines kit is honestly the best one out of all the new chaos kits. Certainly better than 'zero spare options' havocs and terminators that have to have zany weaponry and only come with 1 of the basic loadout.

Can't disagree with any of this. The missile launcher arm designs are just odd. The lack of enough basic equipment for an entire squad is aggravating. But most of all I find the fact that gw, once again, decided to make all CSM look like Black Legion infuriating. Lots of Terror Squad heads and custom shoulder pads helps, but still "too much bling". But they do still have options. Unlike, as you point out, Havocs and Terminators. Which is one of the reasons I use Cataphractii and Tartaros for my Terminators.

...I mean once again I have to point out that the variations between military units in a totalitarian empire that views any deviance from tradition heresy would probably be relatively slight, yet we have had I believe 8 different full plastic kits for bolter-armed loyalist firstborn marines, not even counting the *technically distinct* boltgun armed primaris units....

And usually not even an upgrade sprue available for such factions as:

-a bunch of alien mutants who try to foment revolutions in ANY human working-class society, nope, they allllllllllllllllllllllllllllll look like miners, SPECIFICALLY miners and NOTHING else ever
-a bunch of crazy fungus hooligans who pop up out of the ground, grab *whatever they can find* and try to use it to smash and destroy anyone nearby
-insane, decadent dilettantes from a millennia old ancient empire known for hedonistically indulging in extreme body modification, nope all those guys look the same
-warp-mutated marines scattered across time and space who could be recent renegades or barely recognizable gibbering mutants




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Altruizine wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
Most of the new stuff is tedious to build because they're cut up like jigsaw puzzles; lots of pieces, lots of mold lines, lots of seams. All that work just to get a monopose model that looks the same as everyone else. GW might as well make them single piece because it would save a lot of time and effort.

Jigsaw puzzle assemblies *hide* seams. Nearly every old kit had a visible seam at, for example, the shoulder (often disguised by shoulder pads, or something like every Ork on the field wearing a perfectly tailored and fitted tank top)

....which the new boyz still do, they just don't have the modularity to make up for the doofy shirts. becuase "it's tradition" now apparently.

Cronch wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
They could give the humans that same detail now without sacrificing the modularity.

In options maybe, not in poses. You can't have fancy poses and mix-and-match sprues, or the poses make no sense and the muscles don't line up. It was not an issue with early models with low detail, but it's much more noticeable with higher definition sculpts.

Yeah, I mean, we had dynamic poses before, it's not like the detail is better in plastic. Why can't we just go back to beautiful models like this?

 the_scotsman wrote:

Cronch wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
They could give the humans that same detail now without sacrificing the modularity.

In options maybe, not in poses. You can't have fancy poses and mix-and-match sprues, or the poses make no sense and the muscles don't line up. It was not an issue with early models with low detail, but it's much more noticeable with higher definition sculpts.

Yeah, I mean, we had dynamic poses before, it's not like the detail is better in plastic. Why can't we just go back to beautiful models like this?

I suppose you're being facetuous, of course but I'll just point out that I love that mini .

But GW did make lovely, dynamic models in metal:



And Infinity is a thing and all.

 Altruizine wrote:

What's the last new kit you actually held in your hands and built yourself, Goose LeChance?

I try not to buy things I don't like, so very few to be honest. I threw my half finished "easy to assemble" Necrons from Indomitus back in the box because they were boring and tedious to assemble.

 Altruizine wrote:

These are just lies, though.

A jigsaw puzzle assembly is often 3-4 pieces, and a typical old model could be legs, torso, head, left arm, right arm, gun.

Jigsaw puzzle assemblies *hide* seams. Nearly every old kit had a visible seam at, for example, the shoulder (often disguised by shoulder pads, or something like every Ork on the field wearing a perfectly tailored and fitted tank top)

Any model where parts are cut in half, like the torsos, will have seam lines. Orlocks for example have seams running down the entire sides of their bodies because of this. As far as mold lines go; More pieces=More mold lines. It's a myth that modern sculpts hide mold lines better. New GW kits take much more time for me to clean and prep.

Seam lines are unavoidable unless they're single piece miniatures, and I'd rather have them in the armpit than across the entire body/face/legs/crotch or whatever.

Not in my experience. I just put together the Dominion box and the orlocks you're talking about and it took about three hours total with minimum cleanup. Didn't see any seams on the orlocks you're talking about.