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I'm loving the new vet kits and the tactical squad, so many more options than before, people can knock GW all they want but there is a lot of stuff in these boxes, these are some of the best kits I have seen for a while and the prices dont seem as bad as I thought they would be.
Apart from the two HQ's, £18 for a single plastic mini ? That one takes the **** in my book.

 bubber wrote:
I remember years back when GW really started getting into producing plastic models & sited that plastics would lead to cheaper minis. Maybe that was the original motivation but it seems to have been lost along the way.
Probably due to old duffers like me that still have the original Lib models in lead & not really needing replacements & therefore having to increase the proffit margins to make up for fewer sales. But then I don't work in marketing.

I'm an old duffer like yourself (albeit one who ended up parting company with all his minis when I left 10 years ago) but I totally understand where you're coming from.

Know what would convince you to part company with your cash for another Libby to replace the one you have?

A really awesome sculpt of a Librarian

But GW doesn't take many risks these days, so they don't deviate from what they know works, at least well enough for their purposes.

I made the same point with the Eldar release, it is why we got a Wraithknight and not a new Avatar (FW toe stepping aside, a better example would be a model without a FW equivalent, but meh)

A replacement kit has to be sufficiently good to persuade those who own an original model to replace it, a new kit doesn't have those pressures.

I think that the fact that the only updated replacement kit we've gotten in some time is the hugely ubiquitous Tac Squad supports this theory.

 azreal13 wrote:


But GW doesn't take many risks these days, so they don't deviate from what they know works, at least well enough for their purposes.

I made the same point with the Eldar release, it is why we got a Wraithknight and not a new Avatar (FW toe stepping aside, a better example would be a model without a FW equivalent, but meh)

Wait? What?

So things like the Wraithknight or the Centurions are "not taking many risks", but Forge World phoning in save bets like an Eldar Avatar or the gazillionth variant Space Marine for the Horus Heresy is?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


But GW doesn't take many risks these days, so they don't deviate from what they know works, at least well enough for their purposes.

I made the same point with the Eldar release, it is why we got a Wraithknight and not a new Avatar (FW toe stepping aside, a better example would be a model without a FW equivalent, but meh)

Wait? What?

So things like the Wraithknight or the Centurions are "not taking many risks", but Forge World phoning in save bets like an Eldar Avatar or the gazillionth variant Space Marine for the Horus Heresy is?

Way to misunderstand my point, dude!

Just to clarify, it is easier to keep churning out the shiny, which means all your customers might buy it, than revisit something, when if you don't do a good enough job to get people excited, people may choose to hang on to what they have.

How many Eldar players owned a Wraithknight before the new codex hit? Compare that to how many owned an Avatar.

I wonder if it would be possible to get a fairly good resolution copy of one of the LE covers, print it onto some nice glossy paper, plastic duskjacket, then pass your own standard codex off as the expensive one?

 azreal13 wrote:


Way to misunderstand my point, dude!

Is it?

Did you or did you not just say that GW breaking new grounds with things like Wraithknights or Centurions isn't taking any risks? If those releases aren't the things you'd consider taking risks by stepping out of the established 40K comfort zone, what would've been?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:


How many Eldar players owned a Wraithknight before the new codex hit? Compare that to how many owned an Avatar.

Or Wraithguard? Or a Farseer? Or, ya know, goddman Tactical Marines!!!

JeneralJoe117 wrote:

 NickTheButcher wrote:
Is the sticker shock on these all that surprising?

Did people really believe that prices would go down or that the kits would be cheap? In the time I've played this game, the prices have always been ridiculous. Did I miss somewhere in the past where this was a cheap hobby?

It's always been an expensive hobby, but this is the first time I've ever winced when I opened the prices. £18 for a single character model is ridiculous, that used to buy you a tactical squad when I first started with GW.

Honestly, you guys sound like old men complaining how much the Beano is now.

But how comes this is the first time you've ever winced once opening up the prices? I mean, £18 is about twice as much I'd pay for that lump of plastic[b], no matter how detailed it is. Add to that the Captain looks EXACTLY like the one from AOBR which you can get for several pounds on the internet.

Edit: Just realised how hypocritical I am. Sorry.

 azreal13 wrote:

Just to clarify, it is easier to keep churning out the shiny, which means all your customers might buy it, than revisit something, when if you don't do a good enough job to get people excited, people may choose to hang on to what they have.

How many Eldar players owned a Wraithknight before the new codex hit? Compare that to how many owned an Avatar.

Umm, what? This release has gazillionth new variant of
-Tactical marines
-Power armour captain
-Librarian
-Sternguard
-Vanguard

So I dunno, if that is not "revisiting something", then what is?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


Way to misunderstand my point, dude!

Is it?

Did you or did you not just say that GW breaking new grounds with things like Wraithknights or Centurions isn't taking any risks? If those releases aren't the things you'd consider taking risks by stepping out of the established 40K comfort zone, what would've been?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:


How many Eldar players owned a Wraithknight before the new codex hit? Compare that to how many owned an Avatar.

Or Wraithguard? Or a Farseer? Or, ya know, goddman Tactical Marines!!!

It is.

His point was that it is a safer bet, financially, for GW to release new kits which nobody owns old versions of -which will sell based on a myriad of reasons from the increasingly rare "that's a genuinely fantastic model" all the way to "the rules for that are awesome"-, than it is to release newer versions of old kits which have to rely entirely on a combination of quality and the subjective appreciation of their existing customers to make sales.

 Yodhrin wrote:
, than it is to release newer versions of old kits which have to rely entirely on a combination of quality and the subjective appreciation of their existing customers to make sales.

If that is the argument, he willfully neglected the recent releases of things like Wraithguard, Farseers, Pathfinders, Broadsides, and.. in the new Space Marines release, pretty much everything except Centurions and the new Tanks, most famously a re-making of the Tactical Marines, easily the most-sold GW kit ever that literally nobody who has ever been in touch with GW will ever truly "need" outside from the aesthetic appreciation of the minor updates done to this kit.

Indeed, following this logic, there is literally nothing (!) in the GW range - 40k or Fantasy or Specialist Games - that would incur a "greater risk" than re-doing Tactical Marines.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


Way to misunderstand my point, dude!

Is it?

Did you or did you not just say that GW breaking new grounds with things like Wraithknights or Centurions isn't taking any risks? If those releases aren't the things you'd consider taking risks by stepping out of the established 40K comfort zone, what would've been?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:


How many Eldar players owned a Wraithknight before the new codex hit? Compare that to how many owned an Avatar.

Or Wraithguard? Or a Farseer? Or, ya know, goddman Tactical Marines!!!

Why not do new Jetbikes for the Eldar release? People seem to be desperate for them?

"Because there's already a jetbike model that'll do, here, have a new flier"

No, I don't think a giant robot or anything labelled Space Marine is taking any sort of risk, not really.

Neither is a single sprue, mono pose HQ with a massive mark up.

Ok, I might have to concede slightly on the Wraith-whatevers, but even then, they took a popular unit, and made it more affordable (while no doubt maintaining their margin at the very least)

Look, say what you like, we are of course, discussing largely subjective things here, but I find each successive GW release, probably since Dark Eldar, which were so nice they convinced me not to just pick up the odd model to paint, as had been my intention when restarting the hobby, but to collect a whole army again, to be progressively more populated with daft, childish stuff that is so clearly aimed at the tween gamer it makes me squint, because that is GW's comfort zone and they seem very much set on taking the path of least resistance and just making the easy money, rather than pushing things forward.

Forge World, on the other hand, consistently make things I find interesting. This shows that GW clearly have the talent in house to shake things up, but they still seem to have two very different styles for the two divisions. While, even as a SM player, I think they are guilty of focusing too hard on the Marine side, I guess because the HH project has got away from them a bit, if they plan on as many releases for each book, its going to get silly, they are still making new and interesting looking models, even for the most common or garden GW factions.

The disappointment with the Librarian is that it doesn't come with any extra options like the Empire Wizard Kit or the Space Marine Commander Kit.

it is a nice model but not £18 nice.

Oh, and I think we can discount any material transition, GW have made no secret of wanting to be an all plastic manufacturing company, so anything that moved from metal or Finecast to plastic is as much about their wants and needs and likely any benefit to the consumer is at best only a factor and at worst merely a side effect.

A little bit of goal moving I'll put my hands up to, but when I saw the list that Zwei put up, it jumped out at me.

 azreal13 wrote:


Why not do new Jetbikes for the Eldar release? People seem to be desperate for them?

"Because there's already a jetbike model that'll do, here, have a new flier"

No, I don't think a giant robot or anything labelled Space Marine is taking any sort of risk, not really.

Neither is a single sprue, mono pose HQ with a massive mark up.

Dude. Now you are cherry picking.

New models like the Wraithknight or Centurions aren't a risk?

But re-doing old models like the Farseer or Tac Marines isn't a risk either?

But a new mono-pose Avatar (which is pretty much a giant robot too, well a golem-type robot I guess) would've qualified for being risky?

Jeez.

If you group the models they didn't make (old or new) into "risky" and those they did make (old or new, including the plastic-to-plastic Tac Marines) into "not risky", the whole argument is a tautology.

Don't know if anyone has noticed yet but the iBook version actually has an army builder in it for the SM digital dex.

Nifty idea but think a little late with the idea considering some of the other army builder products on the market

Time to move on from that, everyone.

Understood Alph, I'm going to start a thread in discussions, as I think it might have legs, kindly keep an eye in case it just devolves into

"GW are rubbish!"
"No they're not!"

 SickSix wrote:

 Hedgehog wrote:
Can anyone tell if the Stalker and Hunter guns share any pieces in common?

I'm wondering if you can make both and simply swap the guns and top plates...

You can make both from what I can tell of the sprue pics.

That's what I think too.

That is pretty nice if true - being able to assemble both and choose which one to field, or even do both if you've got a spare rhino chassis knocking about, would be handy.

I'm thinking a HK missile might be a good idea on these - that way you can still shoot something at normal BS even if there isn't a flyer or skimmer around.

 Void_walker wrote:
Don't know if anyone has noticed yet but the iBook version actually has an army builder in it for the SM digital dex.

Nifty idea but think a little late with the idea considering some of the other army builder products on the market

Wait what now.....The ibook ones might start coming with an army builder......Well damn that is handy as hell, especially if they do the rules pop up functionality

The ITunes store has the new painting guide for Space Marines: Tactical Marines.

It was free when I saw it. The only chapters are UM, White Scars, Iron Hands, and Imperial Fists with single page entries for Black Templars, Brazen Claws, and Invaders.

EDIT: The separate painting guides for the new vehicles, Sternguard, Vanguard, and Centurions are $2.99 USD.

There is also a 204 page painting guide for Space Marines that costs $21.99 USD and is available on 7 September. It appears to include all of the contents of the smaller guides.

I am interested to see what their army builder looks like.

I will still use Battlescribe because I can use it on my phone, and I prefer physical books. (well really I don't feel like dropping $400 on an ipad)

The new kits make wish I had waited before starting my deathwatch marines, ill have to pick up a few of those fancy weapons and torsos.

 Void_walker wrote:
Don't know if anyone has noticed yet but the iBook version actually has an army builder in it for the SM digital dex.

Nifty idea but think a little late with the idea considering some of the other army builder products on the market

Whoa. Just... whoa. GW have been dragging their feet on a whole slew of issues for years, and this year it seems like they've turned around and gone, "You know what, let's just DO it." While there's still a lot of room for quibbling, this edition has seen the release of e-Rules, with rules pop-ups, 360 views, automatically updated FAQs and now an army builder? And now they're releasing the books in Kindle and Mobi formats as well through the Black Library site. And these versions are becoming cheaper than the printed version. I never thought I'd see it, but I have to take my hat off to them, they've done a great job.

Oh wait, they're a different company that got outsourced this job, aren't they? Well kudos to them, then, whoever they are.

As for leaving it a little late, I think the convenience of just being able to click on it and make an army list from your own iCodex with links to the right up-to-date rules built in will be a huge boost. And hey, it comes with the codex so why wouldn't you use it if you're going to get one anyway?

Also Itunes takes a flat 30% of any sales thats why it is more expensive than the kindle versions. But you get additional functionality from it so trade offs.

 Leth wrote:
Also Itunes takes a flat 30% of any sales thats why it is more expensive than the kindle versions. But you get additional functionality from it so trade offs.

Almost all of which functionality can be replicated quite readily by using embedded Flash in the epub versions, but we likely won't see that because then there's be no reason for people to buy the more expensive Apple version.

Except that the apple version is very limited in the number of people that can buy it, versus the number of people who could buy the android version.

I know that my tablet has a hardtime with pdfs as it is, and any additional functionality would render it nearly useless.

With Ipads you have a fixed set of hardware, other pdf/epub readers not so much.

Well that is the pic of their army builder. Big copy of the dex is 104 in Oz and gives you pretty much all the extras that is coming out so painting guides and alternate mission books 1 and 2. So not bad value really

That looks really cool if only I had an iPad. Nice to see some of the new options.

Is it wrong that I looked at the army builder screenshot and thought:

HFs on Tacs? No beacon option for the pod?

It does look very slick though. But it needs to be accurate, and the output options will make or break it IMHO. If it gets good reviews, I might spring for it. But I do prefer the old fashioned paper codex. Features like this are real value added though, for the digital versions. If I want 360s, I can hit GWs website. Dakka has plenty of painting guides. But an up to date army builder, without any hoop jumping, is something real. Sure, I can (and do) use army builder and battlescribe, but have issues with them both. Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

This would definitely pique my interest for an iPad version of the Codex.