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Well. What you believe is pretty much irrelevant.,

With the amount of work needed to have a functional FW resin part (cleaning, mold lines, heat gun for warped parts) I hardly see how it qualifies as a premium product that we have to pay extra for. And I don't know what FW resin can do that CAD plastic cannot do, when I see the latests kits released by GW it doesn't feel like FW is more "detailed" anymore. I admit I don't know much about the intricates of the question, just my opinion. Fortunately there's not much incentive on buying FW.

 Aaranis wrote:
And I don't know what FW resin can do that CAD plastic cannot do

Release models with a much lower breakeven point. It is seriously expensive to make a plastic injection mold, especially when you consider something like a knight needs big frames.

What's a breakeven point ? And yes I've been told resin molds where significantly cheaper to build than plastic ones.

 Aaranis wrote:
With the amount of work needed to have a functional FW resin part (cleaning, mold lines, heat gun for warped parts) I hardly see how it qualifies as a premium product that we have to pay extra for. And I don't know what FW resin can do that CAD plastic cannot do, when I see the latests kits released by GW it doesn't feel like FW is more "detailed" anymore. I admit I don't know much about the intricates of the question, just my opinion. Fortunately there's not much incentive on buying FW.

It's really a minute difference at this point as CAD design has gotten very good with a lot of automation in the software that detects plastic flow which allows the designers to really push the details rather than prioritizing flow over design. Essentially all plastic molded models need to conform to a minimum draft (angle) so that the plastic can come out of the mold. Minimum is 1.5-2%, but usually to be safe it's 3 or 4%. That means you need to design around this limitation.

However, this isn't the case with silicone molds. You can have undercuts in the mold and since the mold itself is silicone (not metal like the plastic molds), it can flex a bit and you can prioritize design over draft angle considerations. If you've gotten any forgeworld models, you'll probably notice they have noticeably fewer parts. This is because the mold can flex which allows for more flexibility in the design. The plastic models that have a ton of detail often are split into tons of pieces.

A great example is Death Korps of Krieg models. There's no way they could get the gasmasks on the troopers to work well in plastic unless they either changed the design, reduced the detail, or made the head as multiple parts. As of now, the model has a deep undercut around the collar, details inside that undercut, a breathing tube that loops onto itself. 100% impossible as 1 part in plastic.

A great easy to see example of draft on plastic parts on GW stuff are any guns that have a bunch of holes in the barrel like the multi-melta. The ones near the middle are angled correctly, but as they approach the top (the edge of the piece), their angle starts to look funny. You can see it on quite a few models on the edges if you know what you're looking for. Detail fades or warps. This is because they need to keep the draft and need to remove the detail. GW is really good at designing around it though.

 Aaranis wrote:
What's a breakeven point ?

There point where amount of money made by sales is higher than the the cost of the investment to make the model in the first place. Basically how many models they need to sell before they start making a profit. Due to the high startup costs of plastic, the number is much higher than with resin miniatures.

SirWeeble wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
With the amount of work needed to have a functional FW resin part (cleaning, mold lines, heat gun for warped parts) I hardly see how it qualifies as a premium product that we have to pay extra for. And I don't know what FW resin can do that CAD plastic cannot do, when I see the latests kits released by GW it doesn't feel like FW is more "detailed" anymore. I admit I don't know much about the intricates of the question, just my opinion. Fortunately there's not much incentive on buying FW.

It's really a minute difference at this point as CAD design has gotten very good with a lot of automation in the software that detects plastic flow which allows the designers to really push the details rather than prioritizing flow over design. Essentially all plastic molded models need to conform to a minimum draft (angle) so that the plastic can come out of the mold. Minimum is 1.5-2%, but usually to be safe it's 3 or 4%. That means you need to design around this limitation.

However, this isn't the case with silicone molds. You can have undercuts in the mold and since the mold itself is silicone (not metal like the plastic molds), it can flex a bit and you can prioritize design over draft angle considerations. If you've gotten any forgeworld models, you'll probably notice they have noticeably fewer parts. This is because the mold can flex which allows for more flexibility in the design. The plastic models that have a ton of detail often are split into tons of pieces.

A great example is Death Korps of Krieg models. There's no way they could get the gasmasks on the troopers to work well in plastic unless they either changed the design, reduced the detail, or made the head as multiple parts. As of now, the model has a deep undercut around the collar, details inside that undercut, a breathing tube that loops onto itself. 100% impossible as 1 part in plastic.

A great easy to see example of draft on plastic parts on GW stuff are any guns that have a bunch of holes in the barrel like the multi-melta. The ones near the middle are angled correctly, but as they approach the top (the edge of the piece), their angle starts to look funny. You can see it on quite a few models on the edges if you know what you're looking for. Detail fades or warps. This is because they need to keep the draft and need to remove the detail. GW is really good at designing around it though.

I wasn't aware of the technical issues with molding, thanks for all the info ! I don't think I understood everything though, is the draft/angle a way for the plastic to go out of the model part of the sprue to continue flowing towards another part and so on ?

Redemption wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
What's a breakeven point ?

There point where amount of money made by sales is higher than the the cost of the investment to make the model in the first place. Basically how many models they need to sell before they start making a profit. Due to the high startup costs of plastic, the number is much higher than with resin miniatures.

Ah I didn't know that word in English, but yes I've heard it was something like a quarter of the cost of plastic molds for a resin mold.

 Aaranis wrote:
Ah I didn't know that word in English, but yes I've heard it was something like a quarter of the cost of plastic molds for a resin mold.

Oh much more than 4 times. The guy that owns Dreamforge once disclosed the tooling of the plastic injection molds for the Leviathan kit - which is about knight sized - exceeded $100.000.

 Aaranis wrote:

I wasn't aware of the technical issues with molding, thanks for all the info ! I don't think I understood everything though, is the draft/angle a way for the plastic to go out of the model part of the sprue to continue flowing towards another part and so on ?

Draft is the angle of the sides of the mold/model.

For example: imagine you have a perfect cube you want to be made into a plastic mold. In order to make a one-part mold, you'd have a sheet of metal with a perfect cube cut into it with 90 degree angles (which would be 0% draft). This would not work in a metal mold because it would get stuck when it needs to be removed. You'd need to make the angles of the sides of the cube slant outward so that the deepest recessed part of the cube is smaller than the opening. This would obviously distort the cube.

So in this example, you have a few options. Obviously, you'd at least need a 2 part mold. With this you could make it a less-perfect cube and split the cube down the center and angle those walls by 2% or so. Alternatively, you could rotate the cube 45-degrees on 2 axes so you end up with the sides being at 45-degree angles rather than 90 degree angles. Obviously the 2nd choice is better, but if this cube had other design elements on the top and bottom, it would be better to distort the cube. It's fairly simple considerations for a cube shape, but gets incrementally more complicated with more complex designs.

Those considerations can be somewhat ignored for silicone molds as long as the model is 'generally' mold friendly. Plastic 'rules' actually are a benefit to silicone molds because they prevent wear and tear during removal, thus extend the life of the mold. However, there is a lot more flexibility which lets you retain the artist's vision and prioritize it over technical requirements.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


Wish list

Spoiler:

-Onagers get squadron rules
-Metallica trait affects heavy weapons minimum, ideally pistols as well
-jezzail can be taken in addition to tazer lance on Dragoons
-arquebus can now move and fire
-skitarii alpha HQ
-some sort of reason for servitors to exist
-the canticle where on a 6 enemy units in combat with us take mortal wounds dies in a fire and we get something useful instead
-completely revamp our relics so I have a reason to take something other than the phosphoenix, the mask, and the pimp cane of repair
-Dominus get some sort of improved invuln option and a points decrease. If you really want to spoil me let us reroll 1's in combat as well

I'm sure there are plenty more but that's off the top of my head

I'm on my knees for the Onager squads. This. Please.

Something else good would have to happen other than just Onager Squads because they are a little bit on the pricey side though they are well rounded.

Their bases are also ridiculously enormous which I hate.

 ph34r wrote:
Something else good would have to happen other than just Onager Squads because they are a little bit on the pricey side though they are well rounded.

Their bases are also ridiculously enormous which I hate.

Fun fact, they're exactly the same size as the large blast template from previous editions. I guess it's nice for it's emanatus and broad spectrum auras but good Lord they're tricky to fit between terrain sometimes

 ph34r wrote:
Something else good would have to happen other than just Onager Squads because they are a little bit on the pricey side though they are well rounded.

Their bases are also ridiculously enormous which I hate.

Really? I like their bases. Makes it easy to defend... well, anything.

They make excellent roadblocks for our Robots. It's so funny to see a Nid player try to break through a wall of Crawler and/or Dragoon to tie up your Robots.

 lash92 wrote:
They make excellent roadblocks for our Robots. It's so funny to see a Nid player try to break through a wall of Crawler and/or Dragoon to tie up your Robots.

The nice thing about Crawlers is that you can move them around without any penalty to shooting. They're like moving moats for your castles.

SirWeeble wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:

I wasn't aware of the technical issues with molding, thanks for all the info ! I don't think I understood everything though, is the draft/angle a way for the plastic to go out of the model part of the sprue to continue flowing towards another part and so on ?

Draft is the angle of the sides of the mold/model.

For example: imagine you have a perfect cube you want to be made into a plastic mold. In order to make a one-part mold, you'd have a sheet of metal with a perfect cube cut into it with 90 degree angles (which would be 0% draft). This would not work in a metal mold because it would get stuck when it needs to be removed. You'd need to make the angles of the sides of the cube slant outward so that the deepest recessed part of the cube is smaller than the opening. This would obviously distort the cube.

So in this example, you have a few options. Obviously, you'd at least need a 2 part mold. With this you could make it a less-perfect cube and split the cube down the center and angle those walls by 2% or so. Alternatively, you could rotate the cube 45-degrees on 2 axes so you end up with the sides being at 45-degree angles rather than 90 degree angles. Obviously the 2nd choice is better, but if this cube had other design elements on the top and bottom, it would be better to distort the cube. It's fairly simple considerations for a cube shape, but gets incrementally more complicated with more complex designs.

Those considerations can be somewhat ignored for silicone molds as long as the model is 'generally' mold friendly. Plastic 'rules' actually are a benefit to silicone molds because they prevent wear and tear during removal, thus extend the life of the mold. However, there is a lot more flexibility which lets you retain the artist's vision and prioritize it over technical requirements.

Thanks for all the info, it's much clearer now.

As for Onagers, if we could have more than three I could see myself playing with 3 Beamers and 1-2 Lasers if I had the models.

Suzuteo wrote:

 lash92 wrote:
They make excellent roadblocks for our Robots. It's so funny to see a Nid player try to break through a wall of Crawler and/or Dragoon to tie up your Robots.

The nice thing about Crawlers is that you can move them around without any penalty to shooting. They're like moving moats for your castles.

Yup, plus they are quite durable for their points. And I just like the Icarus loadout. It's useful against nearly every army in my local meta and if it should happen that I'm lacking dedicated targets then they are okayish at killing Infantry / Heavy in fatty due to high number of shots good strength, AP and multi dmg (except the Gatling part of course)

Suzuteo wrote:

 lash92 wrote:
They make excellent roadblocks for our Robots. It's so funny to see a Nid player try to break through a wall of Crawler and/or Dragoon to tie up your Robots.

The nice thing about Crawlers is that you can move them around without any penalty to shooting. They're like moving moats for your castles.

Which would be valuable if they were good in CC or had short range weapons. However makes very little difference to a 48" gun.

Hey guys! Long time since I came to dakka, but hey happy to be back in the salt mines!

So, was browsing bell of lost souls yesterday and decided I didn't have enough carcinogenics in my diet, and read the comment section. Noticed that a lot of people are saying that mechanicus is a garbage force, which is odd because since eighth edition dropped I pretty much won every game I played with them aside from a practice one against a tourney list. Maybe it's because I bring a knight with me during every battle, but so far my mechanicus has been pulling all the weight in my games and overwhelms the enemy with firepower. Just wondering where this sentiment is coming from, as admech is fun to play against everything aside from the cheesiest of pox walker spams

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Hey guys! Long time since I came to dakka, but hey happy to be back in the salt mines!

So, was browsing bell of lost souls yesterday and decided I didn't have enough carcinogenics in my diet, and read the comment section. Noticed that a lot of people are saying that mechanicus is a garbage force, which is odd because since eighth edition dropped I pretty much won every game I played with them aside from a practice one against a tourney list. Maybe it's because I bring a knight with me during every battle, but so far my mechanicus has been pulling all the weight in my games and overwhelms the enemy with firepower. Just wondering where this sentiment is coming from, as admech is fun to play against everything aside from the cheesiest of pox walker spams

Hi, welcome back to Dakka then

Well it certainly depends what kind of lists you're facing and what you're playing with. I had good success with my AdMech at first, except against some armies when more optimised (DG for example), but with the codex creep I can't keep up with my current collection.

You have to understand that online, most people seem to have only the most competitive mindset at all times to judge armies, which is logical in itself, it is in tournaments that we see the most optimised lists of each codex, used by the best players. Tournament results are an easy way to see which armies are good and which are bad, because the top players have likely done the work of Mathammering and playtesting the best combos.

In my opinion though too many people assume everyone is playing at this level, and it leads to people asking for advice for their army online just to see loads of people telling him to shelf his army for 8th because it sucks all the way, because of said tournament results. In fact it depends heavily on your local meta and the average mindset of the players you're facing.

There's also the problem of blurry frontiers between "casual" and "optimised", some might innocently want to play lots of really good units (or army as a whole) because they like the theme, visuals and gameplay of these units, and find out when playing that their list is really strong despite them wanting to play "casual". It works the other way, you want to run a full Deathwing army for its theme, and find out it's terrible against a well-written list.

I've had really hard times having fun with my AdMech and DA lately because of all these new codices that are just stronger, solely because I only have two Kastelans, which are my favourite unit fluff-wise, and because they're the best our codex has to offer. Sadly it condemns us to only a few builds if we want to offer a challenge to say T'au, Aeldari or Nurgle armies.

It comes from simply compareing units. Guard are more survivable with higher damage output than vanguard and dont come with useless/overpriced HQ taxs.

Executioner russes do more damage than neutronagas since they can fire twice. However they arn't good enough to see a lot of play.

When most players use the phrase good they mean optimised choices.

Vanguard arn"t the optimised choice so they are not good. However that doesn't mean they are terrible especially in a 3rd detatchment.

Hoplites are solid for their pts. Kastelans are not strong unless you all out buff them which doesnt leave a lot of flexabilities pts wise and priests died when you could no longer reliably deliver them.

While infiltrators and ruststalkers dont really do their job for their pts

If I had to sum up the fundamental problems with AdMech:
1) Limited model selection
2) Extremely poor internal synergy
3) Useless relics
4) Only one HQ choice that comes in three sizes
5) Cost inefficient infantry

Basically, there aren't enough choices to field a flexible and competitive 2000 point army consisting entire of AdMech. Unless you count Mechanicus Knights, I guess.

Here's hoping CA gives us more tools to use. I actually would not mind playing AdMech + solo Knight + Guard.

 Aaranis wrote:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Hey guys! Long time since I came to dakka, but hey happy to be back in the salt mines!

So, was browsing bell of lost souls yesterday and decided I didn't have enough carcinogenics in my diet, and read the comment section. Noticed that a lot of people are saying that mechanicus is a garbage force, which is odd because since eighth edition dropped I pretty much won every game I played with them aside from a practice one against a tourney list. Maybe it's because I bring a knight with me during every battle, but so far my mechanicus has been pulling all the weight in my games and overwhelms the enemy with firepower. Just wondering where this sentiment is coming from, as admech is fun to play against everything aside from the cheesiest of pox walker spams

Hi, welcome back to Dakka then

Well it certainly depends what kind of lists you're facing and what you're playing with. I had good success with my AdMech at first, except against some armies when more optimised (DG for example), but with the codex creep I can't keep up with my current collection.

You have to understand that online, most people seem to have only the most competitive mindset at all times to judge armies, which is logical in itself, it is in tournaments that we see the most optimised lists of each codex, used by the best players. Tournament results are an easy way to see which armies are good and which are bad, because the top players have likely done the work of Mathammering and playtesting the best combos.

In my opinion though too many people assume everyone is playing at this level, and it leads to people asking for advice for their army online just to see loads of people telling him to shelf his army for 8th because it sucks all the way, because of said tournament results. In fact it depends heavily on your local meta and the average mindset of the players you're facing.

There's also the problem of blurry frontiers between "casual" and "optimised", some might innocently want to play lots of really good units (or army as a whole) because they like the theme, visuals and gameplay of these units, and find out when playing that their list is really strong despite them wanting to play "casual". It works the other way, you want to run a full Deathwing army for its theme, and find out it's terrible against a well-written list.

I've had really hard times having fun with my AdMech and DA lately because of all these new codices that are just stronger, solely because I only have two Kastelans, which are my favourite unit fluff-wise, and because they're the best our codex has to offer. Sadly it condemns us to only a few builds if we want to offer a challenge to say T'au, Aeldari or Nurgle armies.

Yea, I understand. People want to win tournaments, especially on BoLs, but I am quite happy to play local games and gave fun there! I did notice that mechanicus came in the top 10 in a tournament last week or so, which makes me a little happy. I havn't played in a few weeks, but I can definatly see the codex creep making it's presence known, as usual. Hopefully the game will even out a bit more come chapter approved, but I am excited to play none-the-less.

The comparisons to guard is rather interesting though, And I agree that guard tanks and vehicles are usually just better in terms of firepower. However, I had a lot of success running naked squads of vanguard as cannon fodder / bubble wrap, only giving them an auxpex for ignoring cover. It's a neat trick and I honestly don't expect them to do much other than die horribly to protect my guns. The only other way I run them is as a deep striking squad with tripple plasma and omni-spex, and alongside some electropriests they help kill just about whatever they look at when combined with the extra BS strategem and re-rolling one canticle It can help finish off what my neutron lasers dont kill. honestly, the basic gun on the vanguard is good on it's own in my oppinion, and works better when you have 30 shots rather than just 21.

Skitarii Vanguard should really be 7 points like Rangers are.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Skitarii Vanguard should really be 7 points like Rangers are.

Should rangers then be 6? Vanguard are definitely a small cut above rangers, given their debuff aura and better weapons. Would be nice if Rangers’ rifles got something like -1AP at more than half range to make their gun worth a damn and symergise with the arquebus and their general role as snipers (though the arquebus needs D3 shots or a massive points drop).

Pomguo wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Skitarii Vanguard should really be 7 points like Rangers are.

Should rangers then be 6? Vanguard are definitely a small cut above rangers, given their debuff aura and better weapons. Would be nice if Rangers’ rifles got something like -1AP at more than half range to make their gun worth a damn and symergise with the arquebus and their general role as snipers (though the arquebus needs D3 shots or a massive points drop).

honestly, I can count on my fingers how many times the vanguard debuf actually worked for me. Usually because It doesn't trigger instant death like in 7th, and because I dont really have too many CCW units that can capitalize. I think they should be lower in points, but not too low as they are basically stromtroppers without the hellfire guns.

Pomguo wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Skitarii Vanguard should really be 7 points like Rangers are.

Should rangers then be 6? Vanguard are definitely a small cut above rangers, given their debuff aura and better weapons. Would be nice if Rangers’ rifles got something like -1AP at more than half range to make their gun worth a damn and symergise with the arquebus and their general role as snipers (though the arquebus needs D3 shots or a massive points drop).

That debuff aura isn't exactly the greatest tool ever, and both weapons have their advantages.

They really should be the same price.

Pomguo wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Skitarii Vanguard should really be 7 points like Rangers are.

Should rangers then be 6? Vanguard are definitely a small cut above rangers, given their debuff aura and better weapons. Would be nice if Rangers’ rifles got something like -1AP at more than half range to make their gun worth a damn and symergise with the arquebus and their general role as snipers (though the arquebus needs D3 shots or a massive points drop).

I actually think both should be 6. You need to realize that there are very few synergies in AdMech for infantry, so a single Catachan is actually stronger than a single Skitarii when fielded alongside Straken and Mini Priest.

I mean, seriously, look at this comparison:

HQ - 75
1x Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken

Elite - 35
1x Ministorum Priest - Laspistol, Autogun, Chainsword

Troop - 120
10x Infantry - 9x Lasgun, Laspistol, Chainsword
10x Infantry - 9x Lasgun, Laspistol, Chainsword
10x Infantry - 9x Lasgun, Laspistol, Chainsword

vs.

10x Skitarii Vanguard - 10x Radium Carbine
10x Skitarii Vanguard - 10x Radium Carbine
10x Skitarii Ranger - 10x Galvanic Rifle

And this isn't even taking into account the Mortar and Bolter options. Not to mention Psyker support and much more flexibility in orders. Who in their right mind would take the Skitarii? Sergeants have FIVE S4 attacks?!

Also the order which let's you move and advance instead of shooting is so incredible powerful.
I feel like in the whole imperium there are 2 troop choices really worth taking: Guard infantry and marine scouts.

Yeah. Move Move Move is great. We have to pay 1 CP and take Stygies to get a single 9" move on turn one. I think all Skitarii should just get that for free. It would be the 7E scout move.

Honestly, thinking about how many cooler tricks we had in 7E just makes me a bit mad.