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What, in your opinions, are the most horrible miniatures in the current wargame ranges? Whether it's the concept, the sculpting, the pose, or better still all three, please share! Please include pictures for our collective amusement. Models must still be in production, not Oldhammer or Middlehammer - we've all seen Clown Nagash and Sister Dialogous. (which I'll admit I still google from time to time when I need a laugh!)

I nominate the Goliath 'Zerker. The Necromunda range has, for the most part, been mind-blowingly good. In fact I liked the Goliath gangers so much I'm converting a whole army out of them. But this guy is just a blobby mess. It's so shockingly sloppy that I honestly thought he was a converted action figure at first sight. Furthermore, the company has made countless great sculpts of warped / overly muscled creatures over the years, so how a sculpt as rubbishy as this gets approved is beyond me.

P.S. Miniaturse from any range, not specifically Games Workshop (though Gods know they do know how to reliably churn out the occasional stinker).

There are a lot of minis in the Craftworld Eldar line that I personally dislike. There are a lot of sculpts that I can tell you for a fact where in 2nd edition(the power the internet lent me this knowledge), and there is one sculpt in particular that I really dislike, it's the guardian squad, the guns just look off and the unhelmeted heads don't help either. This is just my opinion.

The admech horses and fliers. Also the boat thing. As gw becomes less stylized and more generic scifi there are many new releases that I dislike, with every new one seeming worse than the last.

The simple concept of a Goliath 'zerker rubs me up the wrong way. Makes me think of how every army or faction had to have big toys like fantasy monstrous cav shoved into their theme, in case someone might start crying or worse, go about with extra money in their wallet.

I haven't kept up with any minis lately, but Geifer's project log made me go look at the current AS repentia models.



Ayaiyaiyaiyai... I don't know if it's an attempt to sculpt a more mature lady, or the paintjob, or both (along with some kind of truscaling making her look pinheaded?) but she looks like a cross between Grayson Perry and Dave Bautista. GW still can't do female faces.

I don't know what it is, but the new canoptek reanimator just looks awful to me

I know it's a great model and people love it, but the thing really doesn't do it for me- alas I've only seen them in pictures and on sprue, so maybe my opinion will change.

Pretty much anything from the Ossiarch Bonereapers. Goofy, comical, undead/constructs. I think them just being in the AoS system has made me like it less.

So so many in the GW range. They have this habit at the moment of making well sculpted minis from a technical standpoint but the posing is absolutely the drizzling gaks. Case in point- Typhus.

Anything from anyone where the mini is only connected to the base by a tiny strip of plastic so that the pose can be "dynamic"

I don't care about dynamic, i want something that won't break when i so much as breathe on it

 amazingturtles wrote:
Anything from anyone where the mini is only connected to the base by a tiny strip of plastic so that the pose can be "dynamic"

I don't care about dynamic, i want something that won't break when i so much as breathe on it

That wrecks my head too. I haven't had much problems with base connections, but I remember my displeasure at having to remove a fair bit of decorative extremeties from space wolves, on account of them being fragile enough that they got bent trying to remove it from the sprue. The wolf guard terminator assault cannon was a particular culprit. A design oversight, and a pain in the proverbial ass.

True! When I started out in this hobby I ended up with a few pre-killed hormagaunts.

for me its a tie between the Bladeguard Ancient & Judiciar.


but that Goliath zerker is utterly horrid.

Aesthetically? Emo-Shrike. The old Shrike, whatever people want to say about it, was at least very obviously "Imperial Space Marine", not "emotionally vulnerable cyberpunk anime character". There's a time and place for the latter, but Shrike was not it.

Conceptually? AdMech cavalry. Cavalry in general outside of Daemons & Orks for the most part, but the AdMech Cavalry was especially silly, just like Rough Riders and Thunderwoofs.

Wulfen.

Good God what were they thinking.

MegaDombro wrote:
Pretty much anything from the Ossiarch Bonereapers. Goofy, comical, undead/constructs. I think them just being in the AoS system has made me like it less.

I can definitely see this. Personally, I think they're perfect for the setting (along with iron sky dwarves and eel-riding soulless elves) as they're Nagash's petty response/copy to Stormcast.


For me, it's new Typhus. He just feels too goofy/lighthearded. Dark Imperium Plaguecaster is a close second (thank Nurgle for the Heroes alt sculpt!).


Honorable mention to every character model needing to be posing/leaping with some ruin sculpted on, especially Troupes and both Blood of the Phoenix heroes.

 Dr. What wrote:


Honorable mention to every character model needing to be posing/leaping with some ruin sculpted on, especially Troupes and both Blood of the Phoenix heroes.

To be fair with the Harlies, that is a feature and not a bug (though it has bled into loads of other GW minis as a result). I learned this from chatting with Jes Goodwin at Games Day one year, when they were first redesigned in metal it was a conscious choice to not have any of the minis be touching the ground and have them all be attached to the base by their ribbons. Now that works for all of the normal Harlies that can be flipping around, but not the Death Jester. The DJ ended up on a ruin to follow the same theme.

the necromunda floating fat blob thing. cant remember the name, but it looks like someone threw a blob of green stuff at a bits box.

The Captain in Gravis armour from Dark Imperium. He looks like one of the Yolk folk from the dizzy computer game series.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
the necromunda floating fat blob thing. cant remember the name, but it looks like someone threw a blob of green stuff at a bits box.

Hard disagree. I have Ortrumm and he's actually a very well done piece in hand.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 amazingturtles wrote:
Anything from anyone where the mini is only connected to the base by a tiny strip of plastic so that the pose can be "dynamic"

I don't care about dynamic, i want something that won't break when i so much as breathe on it

That wrecks my head too. I haven't had much problems with base connections, but I remember my displeasure at having to remove a fair bit of decorative extremeties from space wolves, on account of them being fragile enough that they got bent trying to remove it from the sprue. The wolf guard terminator assault cannon was a particular culprit. A design oversight, and a pain in the proverbial ass.

Oh yeah. Tiny things attached to the sprue in such a way that it's almost impossible to detach them without like...a doll surgeons tools or something. Those are a curse.

I hate the new Zoat.

How recent is recent? Do the original plastic Basilians count? Those were just hilariously bad, and the story behind their creation would have made for a great sitcom episode.

Also, do we count minis that are awful on purpose to appeal to Oldhammer players? For example, the new Victoria Minis Ogryns are just cringingly, embarrassingly bad, but by design because it hits some customers(‘ wallets) right in the nostalgia button.

Racerguy180 wrote:
for me its a tie between the Bladeguard Ancient & Judiciar.


but that Goliath zerker is utterly horrid.

I like the Judiciar, but whoever signed off on his head should have gone to specsavers.

Huh. I actually like his helmet.
I'm more confused why he and the Bladeguard Ancient didn't bother with right shoulder pauldrons, and why iron halos were passed around like candy.

BobtheInquistor wrote:Also, do we count minis that are awful on purpose to appeal to Oldhammer players? For example, the new Victoria Minis Ogryns are just cringingly, embarrassingly bad, but by design because it hits some customers(‘ wallets) right in the nostalgia button.

Eh. They actually look really well done from a sculpting point of view. Its just a matter of a subjective 'does the aesthetic appeal to you?'

'Worst miniature' seems like an issue when there are details missing, or something just fails in execution, leaving blobby, vague or unrecognizable bits. (which the Goliath... thing... definitely has all of the above)


----
I'm surprised the razorgor or clown Nagash haven't come up yet.

But personally? The plastic beastman Minotaurs. I don't know what happened with this kit- I was excited by the idea of plastic, but the blobby, overabundant 'muscles' that seemed to be replicating over their bodies like pustules and fake-looking hair patches make the kit just an utter failure.

Voss wrote:
Huh. I actually like his helmet.
I'm more confused why he and the Bladeguard Ancient didn't bother with right shoulder pauldrons, and why iron halos were passed around like candy.

I was not fond of the Judicars helm. Luckily headswaps are easy.


I assume that he’s got his shoulder pad off because he doesn’t want anything to interfere with his sword arm. Same reason he’s shrugged out of the sleeve of his coat. The ancient probably is missing his because he’s always got his arm raised on the banner, and it would get awkward. (I honestly didn’t notice he was missing his until you mentioned it)

I took a knife to the iron halos on the bladeguard and the Lt. Left the ones on the captain and the chaplain. Ancient also got to keep his halo, it’s not necessarily iron.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
the necromunda floating fat blob thing. cant remember the name, but it looks like someone threw a blob of green stuff at a bits box.

For some reason Forgeworld has wound up with a few (one?) people doing the painting who are not as skilled as the rest of the general display model team. That or their style is markedly different.

For whatever the reason that model and a few others really stand out as having a lower grade of painting quality which directly impacts their potential appeal as a model.




Personally I dislike to nominate models as "worst sculpt" unless its something I've actually held in my hands and seen as a model with my own eyes. As oppose to purely going to by photographs. The problem is photos lie - they can hide subtle elements just by the angle of the shot; a bit of perspective distortion can skew relative scales of parts; a bad paint job might hide otherwise solid detailing; a very good paint job can make a rather bland model appear far more detailed etc.... Seeing the model in reality can change your impression quite markedly even if its not a model you own yourself.

Voss wrote:
I'm surprised the razorgor or clown Nagash haven't come up yet.

"Clown" Nagash would probably fail the "recent" aspect - unless the plastic floaty dude is also known as "clown Nagash".

The Repulsive and its offspring land here for me, along with the... Inceptors (I think? jump pack dudes from DI?) and the Suppressors. You don't spray a tank with glue and roll it in the spare bits box, you make sure you design suitable mounting points for flight stands, and the combination of heavy weapons and jump/jet packs is facepalmingly bad.

Definitely the Wulfen. They look more look like refugees from Necromundia (at least in the way GW paints them).
I liked the old range better. They looked more "wolfy".

Many will disagree with this one, but This is purely a personal assessment. I liked the older Dark Eldar Incubi better. They had distinctive helmets and pole-arms.
The new Incubi range look too much like Chaos bloodletters.

Cmon guys... the new wierd cow head helmet elfs aesthetic from AOS?
Those things make me wanna throw up.

Mierce has made some dubious asthetic decisions too.. lol

Well if we're going with non-GW minis too...

Gonna go for Andrei Malakov (full Warcaster version), it's just so... bland. Nothing about the mini screams "Warcaster" like the other minis. He's just standing there, with his gun pointing out.

There's a reason I converted mine from the jr version kitbashed with the classic Cadian colonel mini (and a Commissar hat).

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Also, do we count minis that are awful on purpose to appeal to Oldhammer players?

Please do! With pictures if possible. I get a real hoot out of them!