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Why do you think GW never made more of the Aspect Warriors in plastic?

I mean they have Dire Avengers, but then they've had Dire Avengers since I started the hobby back in 3rd edition and we've had multiple waves of Eldar models since then. I mean we've seen all the tanks get redone, rangers, all the Wraith units, new jetbikes and even a full Harlequin faction. So they're obviously a very popular army and get a lot of attention. This isn't SoB we're talking about; this is a mainstream faction.

Just not their core infantry. Everything else is new and shiny except that. Literally, they've done almost everything except plastic aspect warriors.

Yes, I know, strictly speaking they are elites choices and not troops like Guardians or even Jetbikes. But to all intents and purposes Aspect Warriors are a huge part of the Eldar army and I do consider them as too important to be left with ugly metal or finecast models from mid 2000. This is pretty obvious in how many formations are built around these outdated finecast units. I don't go anywhere near metal models and that does stop me considering collecting the army since I would want to focus on the Aspect Warrior side and not on the Lyandan, San Hein, Altaioc and Ulthwe units that are strongly supported modelwise.

The only reason I've not gotten that army going. If they do a Biel Tan book with an Aspect revamp I'm all in.

 Eldarain wrote:
The only reason I've not gotten that army going. If they do a Biel Tan book with an Aspect revamp I'm all in.

Oh the same, I'd go for a full Swordwind army. Its not that I wouldn't buy other stuff. Its just that I feel I wouldn't want to buy metal models which could very well get updated someday.

“All the tanks redone” ? The basic Falcon chassis is unchanged since it came out late 2nd IIRC.

I think all the aspects went through 3 or more metal sculpts each, with the last ones transitioning to finecast. So it’s not like they haven’t been updated. Just never to plastic.

One thing that might be holding them back is GW’s obsession with duel kits. They want you to be able to build multiple units out of the same box. But how are they going to do that with aspects? You either have a lot of spare bits, or can’t do it. It’s not just a head/weapon swap.

I think it could be made to work if they put their minds to it.

Banshee/hawks - both are light armor, dynamic poses
Scorpions/fire dragons - similar armor
Spiders/reapers - heavyer/clunkier

The lack of plastics is stopping me from picking up a lot of Eldar units. I got some finecast Fire Dragons, and was disappointed. I’d be in for 2-3 boxes of assorted plastic aspects if they released them.

Eldar get a lot of flack for overpowered rules, but their model line is horribly out of date. Except a lot of the new broken stuff. Go figure.

Nah I reckon it would be

Howling Banshee/Striking Scorpians - Straight head swap and Banshee become multi gender unit.

Dark Reapers/Fire Dragons

Warp Spiders probably its own unit because the weapons are just too distinct.

I think Reapers and Spiders could share a box. Both holding big two handed cannon.

Swooping hawks and Fire Dragons could work as both use rifle type weapons.

Both would just need backpacks for the one type in each.

^The problem there is that Hawks and Banshees both use Aspect Armour whilst the other Aspects all use Heavy Aspect Armour, it would be nice for some sort of visual differentiator between them.

I think they could do it, but it would take some work. To an Eldar aficionado each form of aspect warrior armour is unique, but they could probably sacrifice a bit of that into a pair of versions, particularly if add-on sprues were heavily laden.

The Eldar still have an old line by comparison to many of the other races. However a lot of their older sculpts are so good they're pretty future proof. I've sourced an entire 2nd edition Eldar army in metal from eBay in the past year and the models hold up fine for me personally, but I understand the difficult prospect that puts on a lot of players who want to start Eldar.

Eldar have benefited from a large number of fantastic sculpts. While they haven't changed too much in aesthetic (if we skip the mid-year aspect warriors which were freakin' heinous...and they then reverted back to the Jes Goodwin aesthetic) they're still fieldable outside of being made in terrible resin.

The cynic in me is curious if $42-odd for five or six resin figures for a powerful, popular army is a simple business decision. The Eldar are always popular, and have always been powerful, so maybe keeping the price high with few models is a strict business decision. I'd love to be proved wrong. I was pretty shocked when they decided to do an entire Harlequin line in plastic before addressing some of the Eldar kits.

Laziness?

More seriously they don't want to do them as eight individual plastic kits and can't decide what to trim down to get reusable parts (or which Aspect deserves redoing first). Best-case scenario, as far as I can tell, gets us down to five kits (Banshees/Hawks, Dragons/Reapers, Scorpions/Spiders, Spears, Avengers (or Avengers/Guardians, possibly)), that's pushing the size of the release quite a bit considering the proportion of character blisters/vehicles to infantry that GW tends to stick to.

Also some of these as dual kits are a bit of a stretch, honestly. Banshees/Hawks particularly would have to have completely different torsos as well as different arms.

 Imateria wrote:
^The problem there is that Hawks and Banshees both use Aspect Armour whilst the other Aspects all use Heavy Aspect Armour, it would be nice for some sort of visual differentiator between them.

Could easily include additional armor panels. Sweet resource for bits for Eldar players too.

I seem to remember reading (perhaps in a WD) that GW didn't feel they could do the aspects justice in plastic, back around with the switch to finecast. If that was ever the truth, GW is clearly past that time.

The kits don't have to be dual kit - guardians and dire avengers aren't, and many of the ork & marine kits are not either.

If they were to do dual kits though, I would think dire avengers/swooping hawks would be a good dual kit, as would striking scorpions/fire dragons. It might be a good time for them to redesign the looks of the aspects once again to make them more distinct from each other, while still being unified as eldar (I'm sure, also, that the predator look of Kanduras is wearing old at GW, for example).

Also, they could always do NEW aspects as well - like they did with Tau Fire Warriors/Breechers and CSM Warp Talons/Raptors.

Of all the kits, though, I think Warp Spiders are in the most dire need of a redesign.

 Stormonu wrote:
I seem to remember reading (perhaps in a WD) that GW didn't feel they could do the aspects justice in plastic, back around with the switch to finecast. If that was ever the truth, GW is clearly past that time.

The kits don't have to be dual kit - guardians and dire avengers aren't, and many of the ork & marine kits are not either.

If they were to do dual kits though, I would think dire avengers/swooping hawks would be a good dual kit, as would striking scorpions/fire dragons. It might be a good time for them to redesign the looks of the aspects once again to make them more distinct from each other, while still being unified as eldar (I'm sure, also, that the predator look of Kanduras is wearing old at GW, for example).

Also, they could always do NEW aspects as well - like they did with Tau Fire Warriors/Breechers and CSM Warp Talons/Raptors.

Of all the kits, though, I think Warp Spiders are in the most dire need of a redesign.

I feel like a dual-kit would just be used as an excuse to up the price of the kit. Not that they wouldn't up the price anyway...

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of dual-kits between exisitng aspects. I feel like you would sacrifice a lot of specific poses and details trying to design such a thing. Although if you were to do such a thing, an avenger/dragon dual kit would probably be really easy.

I also really like the idea of "variant aspects" like melee dragons or banshees that all wield triskele or something... though that would likely be difficult to balance in most cases. I once saw an idea for a "warp mantis" that was essentially a Drazhar-inspired dark eldar variant of the warp spider with a pair of mantis-style power blades...

I suspect the reason we haven't seen plastic eldar is that they were one of the first lines to get overhauled in finecast when finecast became a thing. Then, they didn't sell super well because 5th and 6th edition focused more on vehicles and plastic wraith guard (hooray for plastic wraith guard!). 7th edition has put a ton of emphasis on jetbikes (notice the new bikes came out along with a bunch of starter sets/battleforce that included jetbikes in an edition where jetbikes shape the meta). So basically, they pumped out all these finecast models relatively recently and needed to sell them. Even after the finecast supplies started to dwindle, they probably felt they should redo the sculpts if they were going to switch to plastic, but the last two books have focused on non-aspect units in the form of wave serpents, wraith guard, and jetbikes. Aspect warriors are pretty good right now, but they obviously aren't being marketed as hard as jetbikes.

Prediction: The next eldar codex focuses heavily on either aspect warriors or on guardians (and warlocks?) as these are all models that could stand to be updated and haven't had a huge sales push in a while. THough I rather like our current model range.

Yeah, I can`t believe they have not been updated. Besides finecast being awful, the sculpts IMO are pretty bad at this point compared to the rest of the army. Warp Spiders and Swooping Hawks in particular look very bad.

They are such a core part of the race that it is mind boggling that they haven`t been updated. And not just the aspect warriors but the Phoenix Lords as well. Jain Zar for instance looks TERRIBLE.

I`m kind of surprised that with the new series of Phoenix Lord novels there hasn`t been any announcement of updated aspect warriors/Phoenix Lord models.

I was fortunate enough to get the current Aspect Warriors in metal when the 5th ed Army Box came out (with ltd edition Autarch and Codex). I like working with metal models. I like the weight of them. Plastic is superior I agree and I'm sure we'll be getting an update soon. GW seems anxious to phase out their finecast line. I'm proud to say I have absolutely NO finecast in my Eldar army (I do have FW resin kits but those are quite different as you know).

And I know how some of you feel. I would have had a Dark Eldar army long ago but I want Incubi, and they are all finecast.

I would LOVE a dual Scorpion/Spider box...

OK I understand it seems unrealist (and surely is) but let me explain : I remember an illustration of two exarques of both aspect adopting a insect/infiltration pose and I think it is a big common point of both aspect.

SO a scorpion/spider dual box would be great to give us unusual pose

I would gladly sell my soul for plastic Aspect Warriors.

Not sure how the ruinous powers would feel about that, but I'm hoping a deal's a deal regardless of my motivations...

What are you guys talking about? All my Aspect warriors are plastic models from GW:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fZAnC2Uc1a8/V4qYhKU_B3I/AAAAAAAABVU/iQ8cxDJGoz0Z1KnFH_twWaSGu2zAFlNlwCLcB/s1600/children%2Bof%2BKhaine.jpg
and:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TpH6H5Fnl6M/WBt7i7uPBYI/AAAAAAAABZI/0lHCWSAV4R4cxiTcZXJDIgQsPcv3PqT6ACLcB/s1600/Scorpion%2BExarch.jpg
and:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Scy_XpIo6ek/VQ7pcK2exdI/AAAAAAAABKI/q6FkxzNR_2c/s1600/Fire%2BDragons.jpg
and finally:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1wtgIWLfZYM/V4EzKZcRF5I/AAAAAAAABVA/qI04xva45esImSEYbwLtoHxzJtjQBp9yQCLcB/s1600/Warp%2BSpiders.jpg

That avatar is pretty great.

The warp spiders haven't had an update since 2nd ed.
Those ARE the same sculpts - even if the material changed [*spits* finecast].

Avengers, Banshees, Hawks, reapers, scorpions have all been resculpted at least 3 times, some more than that. Wraithguard got redone in plastics. Jetbikes got redone.

This only leaves shining spears and spiders to get redone (Spears are comparatively easy, add on to the jetbike kit).
Spiders share some aspects with reapers (the only major aspect with a 2 handed AND servo assisted gun and a 2-option box for them and reapers is the best option.

"Leftover bits" is a problem for all of their "2 units options" boxes anyway and this obviously hasn't stopped them.

I used to think doing dual kits would have been good. Hawks/Banshees, Dragons/Reapers, Scorpion/Spiders etc.
But recently GW has moved away from this in favor of one-build kits that have weapon options.

 n0t_u wrote:
That avatar is pretty great.

Thanx! He hasn't seen a game since 6th ed unfortunately

-

While I have zero problem with 2nd ed. metals (skip the god-awful 3rd/4th resculpt which was so bad even GW said "piss on that" and re-did them back to the 2nd ed. aesthetic) I can only assume GW will release plastic Aspect Warriors now as I've painted 200+ figures in 2016, the majority being metal aspect warriors.

The aspect warriors should be redesigned. They should all be the same with different helmets, weapons and back packs.

Maybe some gear for their belts. Their armour is just guardian armour with a few extra do-dads.

Sell 5 in a box. 3 or 4 different boxes with different builds.

Shining Spears and the other non-foot aspects can just be dropped.

Then a plastic Avatar and Warlocks and all will be well.

I do think they should be redesigned but I don't think it will be dual kits. In order to differentiate the aspects enough they would end up with almost enough plastic to make both aspects from one box and people would just convert guardians costing gw money. Also it would probably be the same amount of effort designing the parts so they work with one body as it would be to just make 2 entirely different sculpts.

 roflmajog wrote:
I do think they should be redesigned but I don't think it will be dual kits. In order to differentiate the aspects enough they would end up with almost enough plastic to make both aspects from one box and people would just convert guardians costing gw money. Also it would probably be the same amount of effort designing the parts so they work with one body as it would be to just make 2 entirely different sculpts.

It would be on the design side, but the tooling side of things would be a good deal more expensive with 2 kits rather than a single kit that does two units. You'd have to make two completely separate molds rather than just one, and I'd be willing to bet that designing those molds is a good part of their production costs...

I'd love to see dual-kit Aspect Warriors. Lots of bits for me to do conversions with

The current kits are missing options, and they don't list what they come with.
I've avoided fiddling with the Finecast Dark Reapers (2 options) and Warp Spiders (single 'option') I got.
Plastic Aspect Warriors would get me phasing out the metals I have at the mo.

 Galef wrote:
What are you guys talking about? All my Aspect warriors are plastic models from GW:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fZAnC2Uc1a8/V4qYhKU_B3I/AAAAAAAABVU/iQ8cxDJGoz0Z1KnFH_twWaSGu2zAFlNlwCLcB/s1600/children%2Bof%2BKhaine.jpg
and:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TpH6H5Fnl6M/WBt7i7uPBYI/AAAAAAAABZI/0lHCWSAV4R4cxiTcZXJDIgQsPcv3PqT6ACLcB/s1600/Scorpion%2BExarch.jpg
and:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Scy_XpIo6ek/VQ7pcK2exdI/AAAAAAAABKI/q6FkxzNR_2c/s1600/Fire%2BDragons.jpg
and finally:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1wtgIWLfZYM/V4EzKZcRF5I/AAAAAAAABVA/qI04xva45esImSEYbwLtoHxzJtjQBp9yQCLcB/s1600/Warp%2BSpiders.jpg

these were really fun to look at! The sure variety to the elven ranges gives such great opportunity for kit bash!

 Galef wrote:
What are you guys talking about? All my Aspect warriors are plastic models from GW:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fZAnC2Uc1a8/V4qYhKU_B3I/AAAAAAAABVU/iQ8cxDJGoz0Z1KnFH_twWaSGu2zAFlNlwCLcB/s1600/children%2Bof%2BKhaine.jpg
and:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TpH6H5Fnl6M/WBt7i7uPBYI/AAAAAAAABZI/0lHCWSAV4R4cxiTcZXJDIgQsPcv3PqT6ACLcB/s1600/Scorpion%2BExarch.jpg
and:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Scy_XpIo6ek/VQ7pcK2exdI/AAAAAAAABKI/q6FkxzNR_2c/s1600/Fire%2BDragons.jpg
and finally:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1wtgIWLfZYM/V4EzKZcRF5I/AAAAAAAABVA/qI04xva45esImSEYbwLtoHxzJtjQBp9yQCLcB/s1600/Warp%2BSpiders.jpg

I love the Hawks and Spiders, excellent conversions there, your Scorpions look like really good stand ins for Incubi though.

 Galef wrote:
What are you guys talking about? All my Aspect warriors are plastic models from GW:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fZAnC2Uc1a8/V4qYhKU_B3I/AAAAAAAABVU/iQ8cxDJGoz0Z1KnFH_twWaSGu2zAFlNlwCLcB/s1600/children%2Bof%2BKhaine.jpg
and:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TpH6H5Fnl6M/WBt7i7uPBYI/AAAAAAAABZI/0lHCWSAV4R4cxiTcZXJDIgQsPcv3PqT6ACLcB/s1600/Scorpion%2BExarch.jpg
and:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Scy_XpIo6ek/VQ7pcK2exdI/AAAAAAAABKI/q6FkxzNR_2c/s1600/Fire%2BDragons.jpg
and finally:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1wtgIWLfZYM/V4EzKZcRF5I/AAAAAAAABVA/qI04xva45esImSEYbwLtoHxzJtjQBp9yQCLcB/s1600/Warp%2BSpiders.jpg

Very nice indeed !
Except maybe the Dire Avenger, everything else is great, well done

 Elbows wrote:
I've sourced an entire 2nd edition Eldar army in metal from eBay in the past year and the models hold up fine for me personally

where's the puke emoticon when you need one ?

That said, the newer metals aren't half bad. What I really miss is poseability, of which finecast gives a bit, when you don't get bubbles (I personally haven't ever seen a finecast bubble lol).

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Why do you think GW never made more of the Aspect Warriors in plastic?

I mean they have Dire Avengers, but then they've had Dire Avengers since I started the hobby back in 3rd edition and we've had multiple waves of Eldar models since then. I mean we've seen all the tanks get redone, rangers, all the Wraith units, new jetbikes and even a full Harlequin faction. So they're obviously a very popular army and get a lot of attention. This isn't SoB we're talking about; this is a mainstream faction.

Just not their core infantry. Everything else is new and shiny except that. Literally, they've done almost everything except plastic aspect warriors.

Yes, I know, strictly speaking they are elites choices and not troops like Guardians or even Jetbikes. But to all intents and purposes Aspect Warriors are a huge part of the Eldar army and I do consider them as too important to be left with ugly metal or finecast models from mid 2000. This is pretty obvious in how many formations are built around these outdated finecast units. I don't go anywhere near metal models and that does stop me considering collecting the army since I would want to focus on the Aspect Warrior side and not on the Lyandan, San Hein, Altaioc and Ulthwe units that are strongly supported modelwise.

Few possible reasons:

a) they didn't think they sell well enough to justify multiple sprues
b) they have only set number of releases per codex release so it was plastic striking scorpions or something. This delayed jetbikes for example btw. They had been ready for like decade but for example got pushed back because of wraithguard. So GW goes "hmm. do we release plastic howling banshees or wraithknight...Wraithknight! It's new unit altogether!"

Without some very creative dual boxing and changing of design aspects having all aspects in plastic might be more releases for eldar than one cycle has to begin with for them. At best no other releases like another big centerpiece model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DeffDred wrote:
The aspect warriors should be redesigned. They should all be the same with different helmets, weapons and back packs.

Uuh no thanks. Sure that makes cheaper for GW but makes for more dull looking army for players. Pretty sad turn of events for company that boasts to be maker of best miniatures in the world...