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So my friend was talking to me about his IG army and how in the new codex it suggests ways you can create some regiments out of gw peices. He was pretty excited for this as he hates having the basic few models as guardsmen. However, he soon worked out it could cost upwards of £50-100 just for one 10 man squad?! Does GW really expect us to buy this stuff? Or do they expect us to already have the bits or ask for them from other players? (Because the avarge players doesn't play that many factions at once and some of these bits are needed to complete a model so i doubt people will just give them up) Even If you went to alternative bits companies their stocks are random and could take you many many months to create that dream regiment of yours! So really gw has just wasted their time with what was probably a genuine attempt to encourage customisable units but ended up looking, to me and my friend, like an old GW cash grab attempt from players who spend more money on 40k than I earn a year.

Why didn't GW just bring out a box of bits ready for you to make your own gaurds using their suggestions?

No, of course not. That's why they just show the finished models without telling you where their parts come from. It's more just: "if you have some bits and think you can combine them into something cool, then go for it and call it a regiment"

It's only a suggestion. If it's going to cost too much for yourself, don't do it.

I don't think they expect it but I doubt they would say anything other than - here are other models we sell that you could use. I think its at least positive that they are encouraging conversions.

I do wish they had done the same for Rough Riders as there is vast amounts of cross compatibility/conversion with all the various creature riders they already make.

Be a good WD article maybe.....

I’ve already sent an email to the community team asking a couple of questions because of this. I worked out, for the infantry portion of my army my idea would cost upwards of £700… (and thats with using another store to get discount on the GW kits!)

The questions I asked were around GW events and what their stance on things like head or leg swaps were. If they come back saying even things like head swaps aren’t allowed at their events I’ll be camping bitz sites for months I think. If they are somewhat ok with a head here or there etc, then I’ll prob get heads and legs from 3rd party sites and other bits from boxes/bitz sites.

My point to them was £700+ = 80 guardsmen but then 1000’s of bitz after that are completely usless. (i.e. if you take a set of legs from one kit what are you going to do with the rest of the legless kit?), unless you want to try to mash the other kits together in the hope that it works and is reasonable. I’d possibly be buying 2 boxes of neophytes for nothing more than their heads, for example.

If they come back and say "100% our kits only" then i'd prob have them as an independent event army only, or just forget about the concept completely.

How about buying one box of neophytes and recasting the head? It's not that hard.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
How about buying one box of neophytes and recasting the head? It's not that hard.

It's also frowned upon and can get you kicked out of many stores. It's also borderline illegal.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
How about buying one box of neophytes and recasting the head? It's not that hard.

Never thought about it. Wouldn't know how either etc.

Might be an option if im honest - will need to look into it, but i'm very wary of trying it.

Point him to Victoria miniatures or anvil industries for a more reasonable option.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
How about buying one box of neophytes and recasting the head? It's not that hard.

or heck, just gettin the upgrade sprue, which comes with 10 heads because it was packaged specifically with an IG cadian box to make conversions with.

This whole thread is ridiculous. People getting on GW about not showing any kitbashes anymore and whining how they only show the official models. GW makes a whole page of kitbashes - people immediately start crying about how ridiculous it is that GW "Expects" them to buy 3 kits and mush them together.

Like, what?

In my bits box right now, I have 30 Skitarii ranger heads, because I built vanguard with my kits and they come with all the ranger gear. I have 30 skitarii ranger rifles for those bits and bobs if i want them. I have 2 sets of the awesome looking, much more to scale autocannons and lascannons that come in the Balistarii kit because I built dragoons (I tell a lie, I've used all those for conversions already, they just make such nice looking HWTs), I have GSC autoguns aplenty which come along with the GSC arms/shoulders if I want those.

That leaves me at the point of needing to buy one kit for legs and torsos if I want to build a few converted guard squads.

Yeah, the shown conversions would be expensive if you literally went out and bought the kit just for the conversion bit, but for the most part if you have a kit like the skitarii or the gsc that has a bunch of extra heads/weapons/arms/whatever you can just go to ebay or miniswap and find people looking to offload the extras they had after building the kit.

I used the spare heads from my Scions boxes to turn AM infantry into a vets squad.
It is very basic, and even that needed some filing-down to fit, but use what you have left over.
If you want to make a specific army of a certain style, it will cost a lot more.

But, you're left with more kits to make other models from. If you mix Skitarii with AM to make an AM army, you also bought a Skitarii army. Sell it on, or use that too.

 Skinnereal wrote:
But, you're left with more kits to make other models from. If you mix Skitarii with AM to make an AM army, you also bought a Skitarii army. Sell it on, or use that too.

Wouldn't you be without several key components of the Skitarii, making them look horrible?

GW doesn't expect you to do anything, short of buy their models.

There are plenty of people with the budget to make a full army of crazy converted minis, and then have them pro-painted etc. It's not impossible. It's just showing what you can do, if you choose to.

I would rather talk about the kitbashing opportunities presented to us here. Skitarii Vanguard heads on Scion armoured torsos for heavy infantry, Scion heads on GS cult bodies for light infantry (I'm quite interested in that myself).

Look around the place for inspiration. See this Hunter from Destiny:



I think that's a good start for a light infantry regiment. What parts would you use to make that? Skitarii Ranger heads on Cadian bodies?

Having said all this, I understand how things can get very expensive for us. Maybe the solution is for gw to sell us the combined parts? Just like they did with the GS cults by combining the Cadian and Neophytes together into one box?

 Trickstick wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
But, you're left with more kits to make other models from. If you mix Skitarii with AM to make an AM army, you also bought a Skitarii army. Sell it on, or use that too.

Wouldn't you be without several key components of the Skitarii, making them look horrible?

Not if you used the heads or the guns, you get both in the box.

If you use the hooded heads and rifles/arms that come on the rifles, you still have a full box of skitarii vanguard for instance.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
But, you're left with more kits to make other models from. If you mix Skitarii with AM to make an AM army, you also bought a Skitarii army. Sell it on, or use that too.

Wouldn't you be without several key components of the Skitarii, making them look horrible?

You'll also have the rest of the other kit you started converting to begin with. You'll only use 1 body (legs and torso), 2 arms and a head. There are at least an equal amount of each on most boxes.

It would be real nice if they're going to keep encouraging these if they'd let us buy individual sprues rather than having to buy entire boxes. But other than that, it's really just a way to use spare parts to make unique looking armies, or really go hog and spend a lot on one.

The models in the book are literally just cool toys someone in the studio bashed together over a lunch break. They're not anticipating anyone will actually go and put together full regiments of them.

It does seem there would be a market for generic upgrade kits for Guardsmen. Alternate heads, capes/overcoats, perhaps different chest plates and weapon variants.
I like some of the suggested schemes but it would be damn expensive to build a force this way, particularly an infantry heavy force

 Huron black heart wrote:
It does seem there would be a market for generic upgrade kits for Guardsmen. Alternate heads, capes/overcoats, perhaps different chest plates and weapon variants.
I like some of the suggested schemes but it would be damn expensive to build a force this way, particularly an infantry heavy force

The marines always got it with alternative shoulder pads and the like. I can't help but be a little bitter.

 Corrode wrote:
The models in the book are literally just cool toys someone in the studio bashed together over a lunch break. They're not anticipating anyone will actually go and put together full regiments of them.

You know someone will though. Would be nice to see a chem dog force.

 lolman1c wrote:
Does GW really expect us to convert IG models using their suggestions?

No, Mr Bond, they expect you to die.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
[big image]

Well that looks like a potential First and Only, if I ever saw one.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
The marines always got it with alternative shoulder pads and the like. I can't help but be a little bitter.

If you mean third party parts, there are plenty of cool heads out there. My personal favourites are puppetswar.eu. Loads of different heads, like boonie hats!

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
It does seem there would be a market for generic upgrade kits for Guardsmen. Alternate heads, capes/overcoats, perhaps different chest plates and weapon variants.
I like some of the suggested schemes but it would be damn expensive to build a force this way, particularly an infantry heavy force

The marines always got it with alternative shoulder pads and the like. I can't help but be a little bitter.

Imagination goes a long way for conversions!!

During the Black Gobbo era they frequently posted up conversion articles where the bitz would be hilariously expensive to buy individually (and at times cost more than even a FW equivallent). This is no surprise since conversion by themselves should be considered to be first and foremost for the art of it, not any cost-saving measures (although most people use it for the latter now).

Plus you will get that one or two nutter who scour the bitz sites for the relevent pieces and actually assemble a whole regiment of them. It's happened before and it will happen again. The entire concept of Exodite Eldar basically relies on it.

 lolman1c wrote:

 von Hohenstein wrote:
How about buying one box of neophytes and recasting the head? It's not that hard.

It's also frowned upon and can get you kicked out of many stores. It's also borderline illegal.

Is it though? Even for personal use? I don't know about the law in UK, but that wouldn't even rise to a civil matter here AFAIK, and certainly not a criminal one. IANAL but I doubt anything less than an actual counterfeiting operation would be.

Recasts, in any context, is a grey area. And generally not one we like discussing here due to potential legal ramifications.

Personal use tends to be a fallacy that people made up to make themselves feel better, mostly used for video games. Yes, it's illegal, regardless of whether you get caught and face a suit or not.

They don't expect it, but GW would love for you to throw some more money at them for their incredibly overpriced kits to use with their incredibly poor rules.

 troa wrote:
Personal use tends to be a fallacy that people made up to make themselves feel better, mostly used for video games. Yes, it's illegal, regardless of whether you get caught and face a suit or not.

Can you cite some case law (or something to that effect)? I'm pretty sure you could make physical castings of a game disc all day long without breaking any laws.

Buy from one of several excellent third party manufacturers for conversion bits. Victoria Miniatures is where I get my not-Mordians from. There's also kilts, and kilts are badass.