Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Maybe a similar question has been asked before, but I couldn't find such a thread.
Lately I find the new models aren't separated in bits very logically. A couple of years ago you had heads, torso's, arms, legs and weapons and gear. Occasionally some hands too, but all easy for swapping and converting.
I bought the AOS box the other day and man, those model parts are difficult to use for conversion work. I mean, an arm and a piece of the torso, a complete leg on one side + half a leg on the other...?
Blightkings: front- and backsides, some with (half) an arm, others with just one leg...?

Why would GW make the parts/sprues that way? I cannot imagine it's just to create more dynamic poses.....
I'd think separating the parts in heads, torso's, arms etc. would be easier for them, and cheaper.

It's a starter set. The models are designed to be easy to assemble while still cramming as much detail on them as possible.

It's a design choice GW have gone with in the last few starters, and not a sign of anything to do with the normal range.

It might also have something to do with spru layout. If you think in terms of CAD design and efficiency, its like a jigsaw puzzle trying to cram as much into as little space as possible.

While there have certainly been kits that are tougher to convert lately (the monopose characters, those Blood Angel termies etc), I think that's simply because GW wishes to cram in a certain amount of detail on the default models, even if it compromises convertibility. They can only advertise what the models look like under default conditions, not what they could look like in the hands of a skilled converter.

The mere fact that they're less generic, and less easy to convert is just a bonus.
Black reach - Orks arms moved and heads could be swapped.

Space marines - mono posed, but bland, paint up as you like.
Terminators and dreadnought arms move.

Dark Vengeance - Chaos marines fixed pose, Hell brute fixed pose, cultists fixed pose.

Dark Angels - Terminator arms move slightly, all others fixed pose.
All chapter markings molded in.
All by accident. Absolutely not part of a plan.

If you want to convert a piece hard enough, it can be done

Muahahaha All part of the plan. Yes. YES! Do you hear the voices too?

But seriously,

a) It's a starter box with the units advertised as such. The box comes with Models A through E and are to be used with the (provided) corresponding rules.

b) Have you even looked at the sprues that come from outside the starter box?

c) What has been said so far. Sprue layout, detail per model, etc. Just compare the efficiency of the old sprues vs new ones.

It's for dynamics as well as ease of assembly. Plastic technology has gotten sharper but otherwise hasn't changed much since they first went down that path with the RTB01 marines back in 86 or 87. Sure, they were modular, lots of accessories, and you sure got alot of them (considering how big the boxes were) but... come on, they looked a bit pants in the cold light of day. I view them very nostalgically, but that's all it is. They all looked like they were taking a poo.

One of the issues in plastic is undercuts. Avoid them at all costs. The other is seam lines from where the molds join. Now, back in the mists of time the molds were created from actually sculpted models, from what I recall of the process, so there was a practical limit there, too. Detail just wasn't captured as well as current plastic technology, either.

While the all-plastic box sets sold well, plastic was generally reserved for the most basic units. Imperial Guard troops, Space Marine troops, Squat troops, and so on. Otherwise, you mostly had plastic accessory sprues for metal models; arms, guns, that sort of thing. Anybody else remembering gluing plastic to metal? Always fun to basically touch one of those models and watch the backpacks, arms, head fall off in one go... This was down to expense, however. Plastic production was HUGELY expensive back then. To break even you basically had to guarantee selling a huge amount of the kits, and making a profit was something that only really happened after a good period of sales already. So it was kept to the basics, stuff everyone needed.

As GW started moving everything to plastic about four or five years ago, thanks to the digital modelling methods they were starting to use, they really started to cram items onto the sprues. There's hardly any space on most of them now. However, one of things the digital modelling also allowed was much more dynamic posing that can then be carved up to avoid the undercuts and so on. One of the other things the current kits seem to be doing well is actually hiding mold lines under other bits. So some of these new kits are becoming very monopose, but what a pose! They can even end up minimising mold line clean-up. Personally, when I look at the RTB01 marines and the current crop of kits, it's actually pretty impressive. It isn't a conspiracy. They're genuinely just trying to make the best models they can, in plastic, which is an unforgiving medium. I love other manufacturers too, but GW seem to be doing their best for me to avoid having to try and remove mold lines from the centre-line of a models face, for example, and for that I'm pretty grateful.

Is GW making the sprues more compact, yup.
Are they making the models harder to convert, of course they are. You would have to be naive to think otherwise.
Every time a bit seller on Ebay, breaks a starter set, and sells the bits for converting.
Thats another model sale lost to GW.
How many people used a modified black reach dreadnought, instead of buying a boxed one.

Why do you think base sizes/shapes are changing.

Thanks for the replies!
Yeah, I can certainly understand GW trying to put as many parts/models on a sprue as possible.

Wow. Conspiracy theories abound!

Starter boxes (and there is only 1 for each game...) are designed for people who are starting (go figure). So the models are designed to be easy to assemble and get playing with, as opposed to customizability.

It was so with Black Reach, Isle of Blood and Dark Vengeance, too. A lot of people testing the waters will not want to build 10+ piece troops.

 loki old fart wrote:

Every time a bit seller on Ebay, breaks a starter set, and sells the bits for converting.
Thats another model sale lost to GW..

Maybe.

Alternatively, it's a sale that GW wouldn't have made anyway because that customer thought the standard kit was too expensive...


The 'bits sellers hurt sales' argument is not as black and white as it seems on the surface. Not every player who buys an extra missile launcher from eBay would have gone out and bought a full tactical box for that one weapon if the bits option wasn't available. I'd go as far as to guess that most players wouldn't do that... going by past experience, and the sharp decline in proxy models that I encountered when bits selling because an established thing.

Or its infact a sale that GW has made anyway because the bits seller isnt pirating the goods and still purchased from GW wether direct or via a 3rd party stockist.

The bits seller argument is null and void. All GW bits sold came from a kit bought from GW. And could only possibly be an increase of sales. Vs the modeler just not bothering because of needing to buy 2,3 4 kits to get a part out of each.

It's not hard to convert if you have a knife and enough Green Stuff. I've managed to convert the Lord Relictor into an Inquisitor and the Liberators into Sicarians, and plan to convert the angels into Scout Sentinels. You just need an imagination + the right tools for the job.

XmarvX40k wrote:
Or its infact a sale that GW has made anyway because the bits seller isnt pirating the goods and still purchased from GW wether direct or via a 3rd party stockist.

The bits seller argument is null and void. All GW bits sold came from a kit bought from GW. And could only possibly be an increase of sales. Vs the modeler just not bothering because of needing to buy 2,3 4 kits to get a part out of each.

It's not quite that simple.

Without bits sellers, anyone who wants, say, a multimelta or gravcannon marine has to buy a devastator box. So 5 players wanting heavy weapons means, potentially, 5 devastator boxes sold.

Enter the bits seller. He buys a single devastator box, and those 5 players each just buy the single heavy weapon that they wanted. End result is only 1 box sold instead of 5.

So, looked at on a superficial level, the bits seller appears to be having a direct negative impact on sales.

But, as I said, that relies on the assumption that those 5 players all would have actually bought the full box if the individual bits weren't available. Some would potentially have just made do without it, or traded for it, or bought it second hand, if the bits weren't available.

It also overlooks the other things that the players buy as a result of being able to tailor their armies exactly the way they want them... Projects that they might have simply written off as impractical if they had to, say, buy 40 of the same kit just for that one particular torso that they want to use.

The sale GW makes from a starter or battle force box, is not as great as the profit made from selling those items individually.
Which is why the savings made from buying them has decreased.

Molding the army design into the shoulder pads,reduces the possibility, of people buying them for other armies. Thus increasing sales of the other armies kits.
The greater detail on new models helps them sell into a market place flooded with old stock, and reduces the use of third party conversion bits.
GW used to encourage people to make scenery. Now they encourage you to buy it from them.
They used to encourage kit bashing (looted wagons anyone), when people used non GW vehicles, they're moving away from that too.

Over the past few years a lot of game companies are in my opinion trying to do way too much with models - too much ornamentation, too many 'dynamic' poses. None of which really help practically. Sure, individual models can look stunning, but when you're looking at a unit of 10, or 20, you don't see all that detail much. And it adds a lot of time to painting. Complex designs don't really help with customisation either.

I think the optimum was hit with the old (Perry sculpted) Mordheim plastic gangs (later re-released as Empire Free Company). Those had everything you might want and could simply be made fairly dynamic, without being over-detailed and difficult to convert.

Everyone's trying to be 'original' or 'arty' purely for the sake of being original or arty, and it's really not a necessity. I think we'll see a shift back to customisation at the consumer (player/painter) end over the next few years and more models that are simpler to put together in very large numbers of variations.

@winterdyne - I think it's also because the "extraordinary models" don't really have much in the way of extraordinary costs associated to sculpting, and only a little more in the way of tooling, but command very high prices. It's not exclusive to GW; other companies do it too.

You're absolutely right that when they're ranked up, the details and dynamic poses are lost (though there is a balance between that, and having a samey feeling).

I'm pretty happy with where standard (non character) space marines are, and the amount of customization allowed (a lot) versus the paint time and the way they look as a unit, when posed well.

Let's not forget that the 2E 40K box had monopose grots and Ork boyz with one arm on a vertical swivel. I think we can put the tinfoil away

Yeah, I went through the same process with the Dark Vengeance set. Those models are designed to be snap-fit pieces, so they only go together a certain way. Check the Liberators boxed set and see if they're more customizable in that format. If those aren't, maybe then it's time to panic a little.

You can convert anything if you put your mind to it. It's not a tinfoil hat conspiracy but, just their way of making a starter set easier to assemble for beginners. Also eye candy means a lot trying to sell starter sets hence the look.

 Lord Corellia wrote:
Yeah, I went through the same process with the Dark Vengeance set. Those models are designed to be snap-fit pieces, so they only go together a certain way. Check the Liberators boxed set and see if they're more customizable in that format. If those aren't, maybe then it's time to panic a little.

Those are actually super-customizable. 2 part legs, shoulder pads, 2 part chest, arms/weapon choices, etc.