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So, I was looking through both the Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus books, and noticed something really disheartening in the art. It's all nicely drawn, created by people with a lot of skill and talent. But what I noticed was that it all features the exact same character, all taken directly from the models, even down to the wires hanging from the techpriest's mask! It suddenly became weird seeing the exact same figures appear in every piece of artwork and it soon became obvious that artists must of been told to replicate exactly what they see in the model range instead of applying any of their own creativity or knowledge of the setting. I remember seeing a piece of artwork in the old Daemon Hunters book of a pair of henchmen and an inquisitor hunting down what look to be a heretical magos and his cybernetically-enhanced minions. One of the henchmen was an old grizzled priest, his skull visibly augmented with metal plates, ragged beard hanging from his chin, old checkered robes marked with purity seals and wielding a particularly viscous looking spiked hammer. Next to him, cowering behind a wall seems to be some form of servitor, possibly a lexmechanic, wires pouring out of his skull as he seems to be inserting long mechanical fingers into holes in his shoulder plate, doing who knows what. The inquisitor is clad in hefty artificer armour, with the Inquisitorial 'I' emblazoned on her forehead and clutching what looks to be a heavily modified lasgun. None of these characters have a model. In both Admech books, it's mostly just paintings of the models in action poses.

This extends past the artwork; older books used to have painting and modeling sections which had painting guides, lovely conversions made by GW staff (I particularly remember the section in the old Daemon and Witch Hunters books), a wide array of different paint jobs by different hobbyists with their own varying styles and a section at the end showcasing Golden Daemon and Open Day models. What we have now is a bunch of (only seven for both Skitarii and Cult) colour schemes, a bunch of photos all of the same models, all by 'Eavy Metal, and then some close ups of the exact same models. It feels a lot less like a showcase of creativity and talent and a lot more like an advertisement.

Whilst I realise this is a pretty small and insignificant problem to most people, this is honestly saddening to me. What really cemented my interest in 40K was all of the strange and wonderful artwork and models made by people who obviously cared about their craft (not to put down the artists who did work for the recent codexes; this is a criticism of GW, not them.) 40K is now more polished, precise and almost completely lacking in the character that made it appealing to me in the first place.

Sorry for that little rant. What do you guys think?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/649959.page

I'll comment to this thread instead of the other one because I think the topic is slightly different.

Right now we're in a Golden Age for Games Workshop products. Release times, advancing stories, superior model quality, novels that are the most compelling well written francise based serials, and artwork pouring out everywhere. It's a great time to be in the hobby.

With that said, back in the days of the old codices you had this awesome pencil drawn pieces of grizzend scribes with mechanical eyes working at a desk with piles of parchment lit by a candle on top of a skull with cherubs and servo-skulls floating around. The perfect mesh of gothic fantasy with a sic fi twist. Blanche drew some amazing disturbing pictures that really helped you get the feel of the oppressive future, and by in large that's gone in lieu of the new artwork which does tend to illustrate the current model line and does have the feel of being designed to drive sales. So I agree with you, the older artwork certainly inspired more imagination and conveyed more feeling. But I don't think it's lost any flavor, I think it is shifting point of views.

The old artwork was really illustrating more of the culture of the 41st millenium, where the new artwork is trying to achieve what battles look like in the distant future. I think both have a place and both are very inspirational. The inside cover of the Blood Angels codex is very impressive as you can feel the dread of an ork battle.

The other thing is when you look at past codices you see less an less art, the newer books have a TON more, and actually have less pictures of "what's on sale". In fact the old books actually had GW advertisements in the back. The full color photographs an paintings are really awesome, but you're right in that they lack the doodles in the margins that they used to have.

Books are more "clean" than they once were, but there's more to them than ever. So I don't think its losing flavor, I think it's the same salty, rancid meat tase with just a hint of chocolate that it's always been, the delivery is different and I keep wanting more.

Black library has released some art books, like the space marine battles, visions of heresy, and though they are a bit pricey any fancier of the 2D art will find that they are really great buys, I find myself scanning them a lot. The art is still there and it's just as good, and in some cases better, as it has been in the past. The flavor is most certainly still there.

Marmax wrote:
I'll comment to this thread instead of the other one because I think the topic is slightly different.

Right now we're in a Golden Age for Games Workshop products. Release times, advancing stories, superior model quality, novels that are the most compelling well written francise based serials, and artwork pouring out everywhere. It's a great time to be in the hobby.

That might be a wee bit subjective. Price, even adjusted for inflation, is through the roof. Rules support is effectively nonexistent. Technical quality of the models is great but often increasingly looks like stuff from Warmahordes or like something out of a Videogame (often with weird polygon issues to boot thanks to the ways plastics versus metal works, the plastic Daemon Prince being a prime example). Novel quality, to me at least, has dropped dramatically, I haven't read a new 40k book in years whereas I routinely used to go through 6-10 a year. Artwork is great on a technical level, but is increasingly feeling more appropriate from something like Blizzard or League of Legends or the like.

Books are more "clean" than they once were, but there's more to them than ever.

Hrm, that's debatable. A lot of the older books had much more, and much better, background material, particularly on the faction as a whole rather than on individual units. If I'm going to grab a GW Codex to just pick up and read, it's certainly not going to be anything from the last ~five or so years, it's much more likely to be something 4E or 2E.

Really the novel quality you think has dropped? The Horus Heresy novels (granted my opinion) are fantastic, did you read the sundering series, I tore through those as fast as they came out. If it's not what you like its not what you like.

But the price has increased not just for inflation but for product too, the new plastic models have far more detail and posability than anything before, it's just more costly to produce.

Though we've seen fewer FAQ's in the last few years it's not as if GW doesn't support it's range. With the faster release schedule new models and rules are being added to lines (tyranids for instance), data slates and supplements are being run every month, and white dwarf still releases rules and formations. And for clarification rules GW customer service will actually take your calls. There is rule support. Give any other game that has better than GW.

And I think you're looking through nostalgic glasses on older codices. 3rd Ed blood angel codex was 20 pages, and the only fluff in it was in the back for special characters. They've gotten better through the years resulting in 7th Ed codex having 112 pages and 40 pages of fluff (not counting the fluff on the unit entries).

Angels of Darkness (2nd Ed BA/DA book) was really just a pamphlet. And really no background material.

But hey if it's not your thing it's not your thing.

I personally stopped reading HH books several years ago, couldn't even finish Battle for the Abyss. To me at least, both the quality and content of the writing started going way down, they were increasingly less compelling and interesting. That may just be me, but I don't know anyone else in my gaming group that still follows them anymore either.

while yes, GW does have a customer service line for rules, they're the same people that handle missing packages and miscasts, you're going to get a different answer each time you call in, and most of them don't know the rules particularly well either. (most of them probably don't even play the game)

Meanwhile they've massively switched gears with their army design philosophy and left a whole bunch of armies rather flat footed, six months into a a new edition. As for all the dataslates and formations, it's nearly impossible to keep track of them all, and *legally* obtaining them is not always easy, such as the Exalted Court of House Terryn. A lot of these are also just rules vehicles for web bundles that amount to "free special rules for buying X model combination!)

I've got Angels of Death (2E) right here, it certainly wasn't a pamphlet, it's 123 pages, and is absolutely packed with fluff, from minor things like company badges to details on color schemes and background reasons for them, unit by unit descriptions, chapter organization, banner depictions, characters, fluff blurbs and random quotes, on top of "Eavy Metal paintjobs and actual fully exploded model pictures.

You know I actually thought the opposite with the new Harlequin book and models. The book was interestingly designed, I loved the diagrams of the many color scheme ideas, I thought the art was super cool and the Triupe kit absolutely blew me away with just how DIFFERENT I could make every model.

I don't have any cult mech stuff but by and large was super happy with the harlequin release.

Marmax wrote:
Right now we're in a Golden Age for Games Workshop products.

To the OP: are you just talking about the skitarii dex or where would you place your "starting point"?

I think it's a case of people having a bad taste in their mouth after the release of Skitarii/Admech. Here were two armies that are from the same organization, have very similar color schemes, weapons, and playstyles, and a very similar aesthetic to their models, and GW decides to double their profit by splitting them in half and selling them separately. Come on GW, we all know you're hungry form money, but that's a douche move. Not that they care. /rant

While I'm no old timer, I can safely say that I think that the recent direction GW's art is going in is really good. I love all the art from the new Eldar and Dark Eldar codexes, and I can assure you they did not skimp out on the lore in those books. The Necrons, Harlequins, and Eldar books have all had painting sections in them showing the different ways of painting the units. Sure a lot of the art was old art recolorized, but the color and art is still good. I think the new CG art fits some armies (Tau, DE, Eldar) better than others. John Blanche's work is classic, but the game has moved on since then and others have added their interpretations of the 40k universe.

At the end of the day, GW has admitted that they are a company that sells models, and treats the rules as a secondary concern or as a means of selling more models. With their release schedule, I'd be very surprised if anybody even had the time to update FAQ's; they're probably too busy writing next month's codex!

The main thing is that Skitarii and Admech are new army releases, and simply haven't had the time to digest with the players and build up a following and canon in terms of art and lore in book form.

I actually thought AdMech was very creative and different from the existing armies. I liked the art and the aesthetic, even though I'm normally more of a "futuristic sleek look and clean lines" kind of guy than steampunk-ish. My idea of a perfect jetfighter is a Crimson Hunter or a Xipher Interceptor.

The new Harlequins were fantastic, too, and the new Bloodthirster was awesome. Some of the 2015 models are definitely out of the ballpark, in my opinion. Other models are less exciting. But that's not really different from any other year.

I get where TheNewBlood and Marmax are coming from: the furious release cadence is AWESOME for people who like seeing new models. I'd be very happy with a release cadence of 50 kits per year, because that allows us to see a mxi of refreshed kits (like the ASM, you don't have to buy), rules-enhanced kits (like Windriders), brand new units (like Skitarii), and upgraded kits (like IK). Plus, there's something new to look at every week, even though 95% of it won't be for whatever faction I'm working on.

I am also happy about meta fluidity in the sense that introducing new units have the possibility of disrupting the meta. I think this is a good thing, as it keeps it interesting, though I do understand why some people do not -- I fully understand the desire to choose something, model it, and have it successfully played for a long time knowing what it will remain "great" for a long time. That's just not me, as I love to try out (and play against) new stuff.

I don't think anyone has a problem with fast releases in and of itself. I absolutely love that they finally came out with AdMech. The problem is that it very much feels like they're just throwing everything and the kitchen sink out there in an exceedingly haphazard manner with many releases appearing to show little thought or effort, with a changing design philosophy every six months, through four or five different sales channels and no central "repository", and unnecessarily breaking releases up that should have been combined in the case of the AdMech stuff. As with most GW stuff, good idea, poor execution.

Likewise, nobody has a problem with awesome new models, but when they're often 2x the price of what they're replacing (Bloodthirster, Scions), or cost more than existing Forgeworld equivalents (Magos Dominus, Scions again), the cost simply becomes not simply prohibitive, but infuriating. I mean, the new Bloodthirster is amazing, but for 2x the price, I'm not ditching my metal BT any time soon to run out and buy one, and it's certainly a stretch to say the new plastic Scions are so much more amazing over the old Kasrkin.

40k's also not really a game that really should have a "meta" in the sense of MTG or League of Legends or the like to be disrupted. Yes it always has a meta, any game will, but constant disruption is far more harmful than helpful typically given the nature of the game. It's one thing when a game takes 5-35 minutes and you can get half a dozen games in a day and 200 games a month isn't impossible at all, and you can play it almost anywhere, but it's another when it routinely takes 150 minutes, with most players only getting 12-50 games a year in and even the most hardcore and experienced players aren't usually getting more more than 150 games a year in, while most players typically need to go to a special location like a game store to get in a game (where there is table space and terrain) or buy/build/store terrain and provide table space themselves (adding additional cost) . The number of games most people play, particularly if they're not playing against the same opponent over and over, is not going to be sufficient to "wear out" a meta any faster than an edition changes over.

Likewise, as noted, building and painting a unit only for it to be complete crap has a whole lot more wasted investment and cost in a game like 40k than MTG or LoL, and when it takes a player months or years to build an army (as opposed to simply generating the cash for an MTG deck or simply a couple weeks of play to fully level a LoL account) it makes a meta shift very painful.

After reading this thread, I'd rather agree with Vaktathi. High cadence of releases is a great thing but, what if the rules and the customer experience behind this is non-existent? We end up playing against stuff which has not even been tested on the TT, with the balance consequences we all know.

But the price has increased not just for inflation but for product too, the new plastic models have far more detail and posability than anything before, it's just more costly to produce.

Maybe you should check the price tag of the latest Sanguinary Priest, which completly struck me the first time I saw it. It's just a guy in a power armour... Oh yes he's detailled, but c'mon.

That reminds me of another thing related to that.

There comes a point where more detail, or at least the kind of detail GW is going for, isn't really desirable. There's detail, and then there's ornate. These aren't necessarily the same thing. For some things, that's nice, but not so much for others. Ornateness often simply complicates a model in a way that does nothing to benefit it when viewed from tabletop distance, and increases the time and difficulty of painting the model.

Despite being almost twice the cost of the old Kasrkin, the ne Scions are not any more detailed than the older kit, and certainly don't have the level of detail of the ironically cheaper FW DKoK Grenadiers. What they are is more ornate. The problem is that this isn't really a unit hat needed to be ornate, it simply complicates painting them.

Likewise with the new Sanguinary priest, he's simply a very ornate model, but there's nothing ultra detailed about him that you can't find on much older, much cheaper models, except maybe the slight ornamentation around the gorget (which you can't see from anything but point blank distance anyway).

 Vaktathi wrote:
I personally stopped reading HH books several years ago, couldn't even finish Battle for the Abyss. To me at least, both the quality and content of the writing started going way down, they were increasingly less compelling and interesting. That may just be me, but I don't know anyone else in my gaming group that still follows them anymore either.

while yes, GW does have a customer service line for rules, they're the same people that handle missing packages and miscasts, you're going to get a different answer each time you call in, and most of them don't know the rules particularly well either. (most of them probably don't even play the game)

Meanwhile they've massively switched gears with their army design philosophy and left a whole bunch of armies rather flat footed, six months into a a new edition. As for all the dataslates and formations, it's nearly impossible to keep track of them all, and *legally* obtaining them is not always easy, such as the Exalted Court of House Terryn. A lot of these are also just rules vehicles for web bundles that amount to "free special rules for buying X model combination!)

I've got Angels of Death (2E) right here, it certainly wasn't a pamphlet, it's 123 pages, and is absolutely packed with fluff, from minor things like company badges to details on color schemes and background reasons for them, unit by unit descriptions, chapter organization, banner depictions, characters, fluff blurbs and random quotes, on top of "Eavy Metal paintjobs and actual fully exploded model pictures.

So you stopped reading HH at the undisputed worst book in the series. There are some great books out there post BFTA. There is a very active and vocal community that is still following, sharing and enjoying the HH series. The fact that Black Library has days completely devoted to it and meeting the authors, which sell out quickly and draw people from around the world says a lot as well. There ARE problems with the series. In my mind mainly around the way the books are being distributed now, but it is alive and going strong.

Agree with you on the web bundle rules thing - it's a pretty lame way to distribute them. I imagine we will see some consolidation of them at some point into a book or digital format.

Everything you just described about the Angels of Death (2E) book, which covers two chapters by the way, is still present in the books being release right now. Take a look at the new Eldar book and there is a TON of information in that book including some phenomenal new pieces of artwork. I'm anxious to see what the Space Marine Codex looks like...

40K has become dry and old. The truth is by keeping the Grimdark at 40K for so long most if not everything is the same story retold and retold and retold and retold again. Really the only way to make it new and interesting is to forget the 40K name and move the story line forward into 41K.

 Vaktathi wrote:

There comes a point where more detail, or at least the kind of detail GW is going for, isn't really desirable. There's detail, and then there's ornate. These aren't necessarily the same thing. For some things, that's nice, but not so much for others. Ornateness often simply complicates a model in a way that does nothing to benefit it when viewed from tabletop distance, and increases the time and difficulty of painting the model.

One of the beautiful things about 40k is that it offers both ornate and clean models.

For space marines, it's all about heraldry, squad markings, and iconography. I still remember my first chapter banner was a 100 hour project. For marines, the more successful the soldier, the more the bling. Imperial knights, ditto.

If that isn't your thing, there are plenty of other aesthetics to choose from -- eldar, tau, etc.

I don't see how models being expensive, or even the most extreme balance issues have anything to do with flavor, but it certainly has lots to do with why some people may not like 40k and gw. But we should not confuse the issues.

On your final topic, I don't really see the relevance of game length to its funness. Why is a short game better (or worse)? It's just different. Whether I play 50 5 hour games or 250 1 hour games or a thousand 15 minute games -- I think it is just preference what you prefer. Personally, 5 hours is a perfect game length for me, though mostly this is because I play for around 10 hour stretches; the odd 8 hour game is cool, but mot every one. I happen to like epic feeling battles, which a small skirmish game doesn't give me.

 thesilverback wrote:
40K has become dry and old. The truth is by keeping the Grimdark at 40K for so long most if not everything is the same story retold and retold and retold and retold again. Really the only way to make it new and interesting is to forget the 40K name and move the story line forward into 41K.

Couldn't disagree with this more.

 cvtuttle wrote:


So you stopped reading HH at the undisputed worst book in the series. There are some great books out there post BFTA.

The preceding books didn't do much for me either, after Flight of the Eisenstein they just steadily lost my interest.

I forgot I did also read Prospero Burns and A Thousand Sons, I was thinking for some reason they were before BFTA, and I wasn't impressed with either, all that happened was deepen my dislike of Space Wolves as a faction due to their increasingly contradictory and hypocritical nature.

There is a very active and vocal community that is still following, sharing and enjoying the HH series.

That may be, and I don't hold any ill will towards the people that like them, but I just haven't found them to be compelling enough to continue into book #twentysomething, and everyone I know that was into the series originally has stopped following it as well.

Everything you just described about the Angels of Death (2E) book, which covers two chapters by the way, is still present in the books being release right now. Take a look at the new Eldar book and there is a TON of information in that book including some phenomenal new pieces of artwork. I'm anxious to see what the Space Marine Codex looks like...

There's a lot more "white space" in the newer books, less of the cool little illustrations and quotes, dioramas are composed entirely of GW retail terrain of Imperial city ruins instead of cool studio scratchbuilt stuff portraying a variety of settings, etc, the older books just have a much more immersive feel to them. I can't even claim rose-tinted hindsight, I never played 2E.

 Talys wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

There comes a point where more detail, or at least the kind of detail GW is going for, isn't really desirable. There's detail, and then there's ornate. These aren't necessarily the same thing. For some things, that's nice, but not so much for others. Ornateness often simply complicates a model in a way that does nothing to benefit it when viewed from tabletop distance, and increases the time and difficulty of painting the model.

One of the beautiful things about 40k is that it offers both ornate and clean models.

For space marines, it's all about heraldry, squad markings, and iconography. I still remember my first chapter banner was a 100 hour project. For marines, the more successful the soldier, the more the bling. Imperial knights, ditto.

To some degree sure, I'm not arguing against that. However, my point was that a lot of the stuff we're seeing isn't that much better than stuff we have seen previously (just far more expensive), and a lot of the newer kits are throwing on more "stuff" onto the models just for its own sake in many ways, it makes the model too busy and drives up the cost for something most people can't paint properly and nobody can appreciate from a tabletop distance in many instances.

A lot of the stuff you mention, heraldry, squad markings, iconography, is also often not stuff that typically needs or should be built into the model. Every one of my guardsmen and tanks for instance has regimental heraldry and squad markings, but it's not something that needed to be built into the model, and usually looks much better when personalized, at least in my opinion.

LIkewise, at least in terms of IG, a lot of the cool stuff that you could use to accesorize to add flavor and interest to the models is no longer included with the kits, IG tanks used to come with all sorts of extra track link, stowage, tools, lasgun/rucksack bits, etc that now you have to pay $15 extra to get

More to the point, in terms of just "flavor", a lot of the newer stuff, particularly with chaos seemingly more than anything else, looks increasingly...videogame-ey. This guy is a prime example. His torso has that weird stretched texture look of many videogame models, and the wings have that characteristic "lots of angles instead of a curve" look of a polygonal videogame model, much like this guy (these actually look *very* similar....) while this guy looks significantly more "40k" to me.

On your final topic, I don't really see the relevance of game length to its funness.

That's not at all a correlation I was attempting to impart in any way, shape or form. The point was that any sort of "need" to "shake up the meta' is rather silly when your average player is, due to the fundamental nature of the game, only getting a few dozen games in a year (with possibly over a dozen different factions), and may only get as many games in during a 4 year edition as players of games where meta shifts are far more relevant may get in in a single month.

Addressing balance issues is one thing, but "shaking up the meta" just for its own sake every four months when such realities are in place is rather counterproductive when your average player may only get a dozen or so games in during that period, hardly enough for a metagame to get stale.

 Vaktathi wrote:

I forgot I did also read Prospero Burns and A Thousand Sons, I was thinking for some reason they were before BFTA, and I wasn't impressed with either, all that happened was deepen my dislike of Space Wolves as a faction due to their increasingly contradictory and hypocritical nature.

If you didn't like those two books - then this series is really not your cup of tea. I don't mean that offensively. But they (imho) are great examples of how good this series can be. To date - my favorite novel in the series so far though is Know No Fear... but I might be biased as an Ultramarine and Word Bearers player.

In my not really that humble opinion, the newest artwork in recent codieces is awful, pathetic, cartoony, characterless and cheap like a bad cgi pics for low budget videogame. Soon starcraft will be more grimdark than 40k, it's almost like GW made the artwork resemble their kiddie colorful minis painting schemes instead of doing the opposite like they should.

I'm not buying a single 7th edition codex and I'm closer than ever to straight GW hate. Killing the business of flgs s didnt do it, chapterhouse or space marine case didnt do it, prices didnt do it, heck even crap rules and forge the narrative didnt do it for me but it appears that the borked artwork just can.

 cvtuttle wrote:

 thesilverback wrote:
40K has become dry and old. The truth is by keeping the Grimdark at 40K for so long most if not everything is the same story retold and retold and retold and retold again. Really the only way to make it new and interesting is to forget the 40K name and move the story line forward into 41K.

Couldn't disagree with this more.

Yes it's not a mothafething piece of gak feth face book or comic, it doesnt need advancing storyline to make it interesting because the audience is bored. Read a book ffs.

Not to mention he wants grimdark out of 40k lol, Mass Effect is that way.

One of the beautiful things about 40k is that it offers both ornate and clean models.

As an IG player I have access to clean ugly units, cartoon versions of WWI and WWII tanks probably clean too and ugly a bit ornated models. The new storm troopers look horrible compering to old cadian ones. And while we had some interesting models for HQs those were removed from the IG codex.

Makumba wrote:

One of the beautiful things about 40k is that it offers both ornate and clean models.

As an IG player I have access to clean ugly units, cartoon versions of WWI and WWII tanks probably clean too and ugly a bit ornated models. The new storm troopers look horrible compering to old cadian ones. And while we had some interesting models for HQs those were removed from the IG codex.

It's really a shame they got rid of the old storm troopers. They were dope.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
In my not really that humble opinion, the newest artwork in recent codieces is awful, pathetic, cartoony, characterless and cheap like a bad cgi pics for low budget videogame. Soon starcraft will be more grimdark than 40k, it's almost like GW made the artwork resemble their kiddie colorful minis painting schemes instead of doing the opposite like they should.

I'm not buying a single 7th edition codex and I'm closer than ever to straight GW hate. Killing the business of flgs s didnt do it, chapterhouse or space marine case didnt do it, prices didnt do it, heck even crap rules and forge the narrative didnt do it for me but it appears that the borked artwork just can.

Personally, I think some of the recent art is the -best- they've had in years. I frequently flip through my Eldar and Harlequin codexes just to look at it, because I think for the most part, it's a vast improvement.

ANYTHING is better than Blanche's old art and is an -improvement-, in my opinion. His art was never really 'grimdark' to me - it was simply messy and silly-looking. I found myself frequently wishing I could tear those pages from my books and burn them.

 Sir Arun wrote:

Marmax wrote:
Right now we're in a Golden Age for Games Workshop products.

To the OP: are you just talking about the skitarii dex or where would you place your "starting point"?

We have plastic kits a plenty for every army (SISTERS DON'T COUNT) even assassin models have their own plastic sprues now, every army has supplement books, we have painting guides for EVERYTHING, they even upload painting videos on their Youtube channel. White Dwarf is available in a more accessible format, you can buy the issue that has the topic you like instead of the whole month's worth for an appropriately lower price, they've released better tools than they had, better paint than they had, better technical paint, more accessories, more scenery, campaigns, expansion books, and almost none of this was available as of 4 years ago.

And that's of course leaving out the fact that Ad Mech actually has a codex now.

Why is the fact that *plastic* in and of itself is more widespread now a good thing?

Not saying it's a bad thing, but I don't see what's so great about it either. They're much more expensive than older metal/finecast equivalents, not really any more detailed, have to often either add additional parts or deal with awkward smear-ey undercuts, Having plastic kits was great when plastic meant stuff was cheaper, but such is no longer the case. GW's new plastic characters for example are typically as much as, if not more than, FW"s resin equivalents and often twice what their metal equivalents were six or seven years ago.

Likewise, WD being more accessible doesn't mean much when the overwhelmingly vast majority of its content isn't any better. It's just a preview pamphlet for the next week's releases. Most of their tools and accessories are still of lower or at best equal quality to far cheaper alternatives.

Yes, they have more terrain kits than they used to, but they've also removed anything that isn't an offiical kit from any sort or representation, leading to increasingly one-dimensional looking battlefields and dioramas, with scratchbuilt and more traditional foliage terrain becoming increasingly absent in favor of ubiquitous Imperial ruins.

@quaterdime

We have plastic kits a plenty for every army (SISTERS DON'T COUNT) even assassin models have their own plastic sprues now, every army has supplement books, we have painting guides for EVERYTHING, they even upload painting videos on their Youtube channel. White Dwarf is available in a more accessible format, you can buy the issue that has the topic you like instead of the whole month's worth for an appropriately lower price, they've released better tools than they had, better paint than they had, better technical paint, more accessories, more scenery, campaigns, expansion books, and almost none of this was available as of 4 years ago.

And that's of course leaving out the fact that Ad Mech actually has a codex now

Some of the things you said are true, but the generalization of "official stuff" is just, IMO, a way to make people buy what they need exclusively from GW. There was a time when Codexes and WD were full of conversions & DIY scenery pieces made by Eavy Metal enhusiasts. Now, creativity is locked in a buy-what-you need logic; if you want a forest, GW will not show you how to scratchbuild one, they will give you the nearest store adress/a direct link to their ridiculously priced Citadel wood. You can always say it's normal because it's a company and companies are supposed to get money but don't be like it has always be like this. GW has change for the worst.

Regardin plastic kits, I suggest you to see what's on the miniature market and compare it to GW models, particularly vehicules. I buy my infantry to GW cause there's no choice and I want them customized and special. I strictly never buy new sealed inbox IG tanks because what we're talking about here is a 1/48 plastic kit with not that much parts and not that much details for the price of a 1/35 super-amazing hundred of parts and impressively precise and complex historical model.

I understood how fethed up were IG vehicules prices when I bought a 55€ 1/35 Dragon Flak 32 88mm german cannon to figure my Earthshaker Batteries. For this price, you can get 1,3 Leman Russ (or, it's amusing 0.5 FW Artillery Carriage) and trust me, there is no point comparing the quality of the cast.

Hmm no, I find there is starting to be more flavour than ever. And we probably have Genestealer Cults and the like coming aswell.

 Quarterdime wrote:
SISTERS DON'T COUNT

Why?

I would like them just to advance the storyline so we can see what happens when the Emperor finally bites it. I mean if he reincarnates like some people say then maybe forgeworld will make a model for him and GW will give him rules as he won't be stuck on his Life support toilet. If he doesn't reincarnate then you have space marines fighting the fight of their lives as they struggle just to keep the imperium together, and heresy everywhere as the non-believers rise up in revolution against their cult overlords and maybe some of the space marines chapters will even go on to question what they were fighting for in the first place if the Emperor isn't really a god. Sounds to me like they could very easily make it even darker for humanity but are choosing not to..

 Mort wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
In my not really that humble opinion, the newest artwork in recent codieces is awful, pathetic, cartoony, characterless and cheap like a bad cgi pics for low budget videogame. Soon starcraft will be more grimdark than 40k, it's almost like GW made the artwork resemble their kiddie colorful minis painting schemes instead of doing the opposite like they should.

I'm not buying a single 7th edition codex and I'm closer than ever to straight GW hate. Killing the business of flgs s didnt do it, chapterhouse or space marine case didnt do it, prices didnt do it, heck even crap rules and forge the narrative didnt do it for me but it appears that the borked artwork just can.

Personally, I think some of the recent art is the -best- they've had in years. I frequently flip through my Eldar and Harlequin codexes just to look at it, because I think for the most part, it's a vast improvement.

ANYTHING is better than Blanche's old art and is an -improvement-, in my opinion. His art was never really 'grimdark' to me - it was simply messy and silly-looking. I found myself frequently wishing I could tear those pages from my books and burn them.

I'm not really about Blanche but just 4/ 5/ early 6 edition art or old art coloured vs new 7th edition stuff. Still Blanche even if you dislike his style was one of the guys who set the tone for the universe. Comparing his artwork to the 7th edition one is like comparing his painting to official studio paintjobs, one has character and the other has clean colours.

But let's take craftworld eldar dex, I had an occasion to flip through it recently. There is a pic of wraitblades/ wraithguard under wraith host section, they are red, fight orks and the one on the front has an axe. I think it was one of the more recent artworks and I found it just awful. There is another pic of wraithguard/ blades but older in the same dex, this time Iyanden standing in the snow and it is beautiful, just like the next picture of Iyanden wraithlord. Then you can go back and check the obviously new art depicting SaimHann vs Ultramarine battle where marines look dumb, grit looks clean, postprocess is worse than what I do to my games with sweetfx and it would fit more as a budget pc game loading screen than gw codex artwork.

It works like clockwork imo, the newer the artwork the more pathetic it is.