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This just refers to the look and sculpt of a model, for cheesiness, ugliness, cheapness, bad posing or for whatever other reason.

Knights
I can't shake the kiddy-feeling when looking at these. I find the whole idea of having larger and larger models very debatable, but this is an absolute overload of size and weapon porn. Even lore wise, it all feels a bit as if it was pasted on top of the 40k universe way too thickly and quickly. They seem to be doing well though, seeing more and more of these at my local store.

Centurions
The missing aesthetic link between Terminators and Dreadnoughts. There was no need for them, Space Marines, Terminators and Dreadnoughts satisfied the need for square shaped, walking ceramite monsters sufficiently and the whole design feels very immature to me.

Grey Knights
I've warmed up a bit to them, but when they came out I got that necron-y feeling of "Here's a ridiculously powerful army with flattering, testosterone-infused lore that you can get game ready with three colors".

Khorne Berzerkers
These ones for me have the most missed potential. I like everything about them, lore, color scheme, armor etc., except the freaking posing. I get that they can't wait to get their hands all bloody and sticky, but half of them look like they're slipping on banana peels.

Alarielle the Everqueen
Total overload. There's nothing for the eye to hold on to, with components that by themselves would look great, they're just mashed together in a large huge mess.

Contemptor Dreadnoughts
Maybe the single ugliest model of recent times. The tall legs, the neat joint attachments, the almost ball shaped torso, the lurking head, nothing feels right to me about this one. Feels more '50s sci-fi than 40k.

(Dark) Eldar
As a whole. I just can't get with the helmets and the strong contrasted colors from the '80s. Regarding the DE, I feel that the lore is incredibly strong and captivating and while the models do better than the Eldar, they still lack that gaunt and slender spikiness that I'd like for them, for which I feel the new Sylvaneth, especially Revenants are a beautiful example.


Obviously that's like, my opinion. I'm aware that several of the above get lots of love and that's a good thing.

If I'm honest...about 60% of the current model range. I fully understand it though, GW appeals to people starting around 12-14 years of age so the models are becoming more and more "turn it to 11" caricatures of things which could be cool, or used to be cool.

A good example is the Techmarine

We started with this in Rogue Trader...literally a spanner wielding Marine with sweet goggles.


Not amazing, but we get it...simple, small sculpts.

Then we went to 2nd edition:


Pretty cool update. Lots of character, stands out on the table, has some cool stuff along with that crazy backpack arm.

And then we go fully absurd...


When I see something like the last version I immediately stray from considering spending money. It's just comical overload of an attempt at styling. I'd have much preferred an update to the 2nd edition model. There is such a thing as "too much"

We won't even mention the travesty that is the Wulfen.

Necrons. I have seen them painted well but I can't help but think of them as the 'lets paint an army this weekend' army.

Pretty much any model where the figure has wrist, shoulder and leg armor, and then a bare stomach, chest and/or neck.
I'm sure the local wildlife will have difficulty eating your well protected shoulders after you bleed to death from that gut-shot.

Do bear in mind with the Berserkers that, if I remember rightly, they're from the 1990s. Ancient sculpts.

I don't mind the Knights as they were a thing back when in Epic, and they've done a good job recreating the 'look'.

Centurions, though, do bug me. The artwork of them looks cool enough but the models are awful. Like the old box dreadnoughts, they literally cannot walk forwards.

I don't know, Knights look fine I guess and they have been around since epic (wasn't aware of that), but they still feel like a way of reintroducing the titan-trope into the game from another angle, working the testosterone pump even harder.
At the scale of 40k the appeal is completely lost on me.
It might be the hipster/snob in me, but the way the hype gets bought into just annoys me, that's entirely my own problem, though.

Wulfen yes, definitely. Lost potential there too, I feel, in terms of styling. A few notches lower could have done the trick but as it was mentioned, entry age is about half as my own, so they need stuff that's somehow still visually rooted in action figures.

So yes, I agree with the problem of overstyling, although in the specific case of the Techmarine I have to admit that I still find the current state still pretty awesome. Observing the evolution itself does give pause, however.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh right, forgot to mention, Kastelan Robots... wtf happened there...

Tau battlesuits
Heldrakes
Forgefiends and maulerfiends
Centurions

Wraithknights (To big compared to anything else in the Eldar army. It looks off on the tabletop)
The entire Tau line (The models are just ugly.)
Anything Warmachine/Hordes that is in their horrible, horrible plastic.

Grumpy, interesting point on the Wraithknight -- I was planning on buying one for my 2nd edition Eldar army and converting it to the old Revenant titan because it's so large.

I feel like this thread cannot continue without the worst sculpted figures I've seen in the history of the company (let alone...other games). The most absurdly stupid things to creep into the game:



Chaos forces, as expected are comically over the top, but that's been their aesthetic for at least 10 years now and is just getting more and more obtuse (particularly if you look at the AoS offerings).


This is borderline bad...


This is freakin' atrocious.

As we progress with computer sculpts I get the feeling you have far more people who are technically good with computer/3D sculpting modeling, but have never been to an art school or learned anything about actual art/sculpting.

I've never much cared for the Chaos aesthetic - as I grow older, I have an appreciation that often the creepier/scarier stuff is the stuff you don't see, the subdued, rusty, lovecraftian vibe stuff. I don't need blood, skulls, spikes, and more spikes to tell me someone's a bad guy.

Even when you use the over-the-top death's head style motif, I'd rather it be portrayed in a functional/useful way. I laugh when I look at a figure covered in spikes and think 'How does he sit on a horse...or ride in a Rhino...or walk through a doorway...or sit down...". This kind of absurdist design takes me straight out of the story/atmosphere.

Taurox.

Stupid, stupid little track things with zero suspension or give.
WHY BREAK UP YOUR TRACK UNITS IF THEY CAN'T MOVE ANYWAY.

The old Tyranid models. They aren't even charming in a goofy retro sort of way like the beakie marines. They are just bad.

The Taurox isn't so bad once you show it a little... Finesse. Wheel conversions are a good start. I've been tempted to develop one into a Griffon, similar to the SDKFz-250 mortar carriers..

I love the taurox with wheel conversions, but vanilla it just makes me want to locate and punch its designer

Female models.

Except Heroines in Sensible Shoes. Those kick ass.

Where are my scantily clad, sexily posed males? Not simply barbarians going RAWR I HAS MUSKELS - enough of those already.

I don't care about boobs. I have boobs. I want my fine skinned, athletic man sculpts.

hasslefree or warlord games

Edit: these are suggestions to the above, not models that annoy me

I'm with you on the contemptor dreadnoughts. Any space marines with Mark 1-3 armor kinda feels....wrong, which is why I never got into Heresy models as much. Also, the Pilgrim-looking Inquisitors/Witch Hunters. Not sure what a blunderbuss is doing in the 41st millenium, even if it is a "space blunderbuss" -- you're not scaring anyone in a world of bolters and melta guns with your turkey shooter, and the Pilgrim hat finishes off all remaining remnants of intimidation.

 He_Man_Russ wrote:

Khorne Berzerkers
These ones for me have the most missed potential. I like everything about them, lore, color scheme, armor etc., except the freaking posing. I get that they can't wait to get their hands all bloody and sticky, but half of them look like they're slipping on banana peels.
.

In fairness, this is in part user error. It is possible to create poses with these guys where their momentum looks balanced.

That said, they are designed so you can't just stick the parts together and end up with a nice looking model. When ever I use berserker legs in my models I spend like 5 minutes running around and thinking about how my body is moving before I can stick the model together!

Blood Angels Captain Karlaen. The guy has so much potential and is just so badly posed it's almost impossible to make him look good. I think I've seen a grand total one one decent conversion where he had dual lightning claws and didn't look like a complete dork.

To me, some of the bad ones are:
Chaos Furies
Vespid Stingwings
Dark Eldar Talos Pain Engine
Dark Eldar Khymerae
Contemptor Dreadnought

Finally, the worst offender, Logan Grimnar playing Santa Claus:

This model is just bad from concept to execution. I can suspend my disbelief over TWC, but this...no, just no.

I'm not a huge fan of Centurions, but I don't hate them either. As for Wulfen, I think the models are actually okay apart from the ugly heads. I have a friend who replaced the heads with helmeted heads, and they do look somewhat better. If I end up picking some up, I'll probably put regular Space Wolf heads on them (with the beards and everything).

Ogre Yhetti's, blahhhhh!

And a lot of the Fyreslavers models... they look like babies with mohawks/..... they need some armor.

Any model with poorly defined trim which is common on older marine models (mostly CSM currently). Makes for a frustrating painting session.

Hmm... I'll have to add Santa Claus to my list. That's probably the most ridiculous 40k model I've ever seen

PossumCraft wrote:
hasslefree or warlord games

Edit: these are suggestions to the above, not models that annoy me

Thanks, but, not to belabor the point too much more, but yeah, no. I've seen those lines, and others, and the absolutely none of the males compare to the females. Which is sad, but reality.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled thread etc.

This is such a cosmically terrible model.

I actually like a bunch of the ones that have been hit in this thread. Grimnar, Centurions, some of the others. I agree on the Wulfen, though. They have a lot of potential, too, but the terrible poses killed 'em. Especially the wolverine looking one with the twin frost claws. If that exact same model was taken and reposed into a standard fighting stance, it would look a million times better

Tau - the lot of them. Just don't like the aesthetic. Devoid of any real character.
SoB - their faces. woeful sculpting but i get they are ancient so we'll just ignore them. They're used to it!
Space Wolves, in their entireity. Loathe them. The above Santa Grimnar though is beyond ugly and stupid.
Not a fan of the Kastellan or the electro priests. Just sits sideways and three steps into the crapper to the rest of the Mech aesthetic to me. Gamewise the Kas are pretty good but I'll just make my own rather than those robbie the robot sculpts.

Those Space Marine chapters that take their general theme which is super cool and slather it all over themselves. Space Wolves and Blood Angels to be specific. As for other models, non-Cadians need to be redone, seeing as they're all ancient sculpts.

Working on FFG models that are PVC plastic. Horrible, shallow details and no consistency between casts. So frustrating.

Will be refusing to paint any of these ever again.

The new Eldar Harlequins. They're over-dynamic, which requires a lot of attention to detail when assembling them to make all the action lines work, and some of the arm options look like they're for specific torso pieces

Moving away from GW sculpts, I nominate Finari, Female Justicar from Reaper. She's a Werner Klocke sculpt, so she has his idiosyncratic face. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to paint that face that doesn't look terrible.

The Helbrute has always looked a bit wrong to me. I honestly don't know how to best fix it, but,there's just something not quite there.

Most Imperial and Chaos Flyers also look awful in my opinion - too stubby and aerodynamically a joke. At least the Eldar ones look like they might actually be able to fly (if unstably so).

Most of the Tau just looks wrong to me, and I'm part of the never generation of younger wargamers they were supposed to appeal to.