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That goes along with the culture somewhat too, with our technology, its ability to produce, and our increased consumerism, (aswell as some more negative facets like potentially shorter attention spans) has definitely made us more likely to just want something good to go straight from the box as it were, and less likely than we were back in the day to be intuitive and make things ourselves. (obviously not true for everyone, there are plenty of folks using their initiative and creativity to make things) but in general the demand is for more and more products that are ready to go right away, and the supply develops in the way it does due to this.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
I don't understand it at all. Greater customization would likely make people buy MORE kits, in order to get the bits that would help them make their miniatures truly unique. Instead, GW is hellbent on making nothing but single-pose models from now on.

Is it a matter of protecting their intellectual property, or something like that? Do they feel that customized models undermine their brand? Are they afraid of mediocre kitbashes giving a wrong impression to customers?

Someone already said so, but this.

There was a ruling that said that if they don't make a model for it, they don't get to exercise copyright over it. The whole no-model no-rules thing is a direct fallout from that case, because GW needs to do so or risk losing their copyright.
As an additional observation, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm lead to believe that if you don't make efforts to protect your copyright [read: sue users using it without permission] you can end up losing the copyright too.

I wonder if a better option than wiping loads of stuff out of the rules would have been to adapt the wording of some of their kits and expand their additional options?

Take all the Space Marine Biker characters for example: If they did the base SM Biker kit as a bundle with the Command Squad box, or even just the SM Commander on foot kit, wouldn't that account for most of the options? I'm still lost as to how some kitbashes are bad, but some are required, how they eliminate some options from rules because the kits don't come with them, then keep rules for units that don't have kits, or can't possibly make from the official kits.

As to selling us more kits for kitbashing preferred options? I've absolutely done this. I have a squad of Sternguard still on the sprue because it made more sense to buy the whole kit than a few of the bits I wanted for one model at a time. I'd be willing to bet there are even some kits that sell as much for the basis of making into something else than keeping as they are.

craggy wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
I don't understand it at all. Greater customization would likely make people buy MORE kits, in order to get the bits that would help them make their miniatures truly unique. Instead, GW is hellbent on making nothing but single-pose models from now on.

Is it a matter of protecting their intellectual property, or something like that? Do they feel that customized models undermine their brand? Are they afraid of mediocre kitbashes giving a wrong impression to customers?

Someone already said so, but this.

There was a ruling that said that if they don't make a model for it, they don't get to exercise copyright over it. The whole no-model no-rules thing is a direct fallout from that case, because GW needs to do so or risk losing their copyright.
As an additional observation, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm lead to believe that if you don't make efforts to protect your copyright [read: sue users using it without permission] you can end up losing the copyright too.

I wonder if a better option than wiping loads of stuff out of the rules would have been to adapt the wording of some of their kits and expand their additional options?

Take all the Space Marine Biker characters for example: If they did the base SM Biker kit as a bundle with the Command Squad box, or even just the SM Commander on foot kit, wouldn't that account for most of the options?

This was not the problem, it was all about models with only Artworks available and GW thought with the Artwork in the book no one else is allowed to make a model for it.

A SM on Bike with different weapons, without a dedicated kit but available from the kit was not an issue

This is just the usual GW reaction to anything that is not like they assumed.
We had the same with Fan-Fiction years before that, as GW was surprised by the fact that UK Copyright is not the same as German Copyright and people writing fan-fiction own it (as it is their work) and not GW.
The reaction was to remove and forbid all fan made content to protect their IP.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
I don't understand it at all. Greater customization would likely make people buy MORE kits, in order to get the bits that would help them make their miniatures truly unique. Instead, GW is hellbent on making nothing but single-pose models from now on.

Is it a matter of protecting their intellectual property, or something like that? Do they feel that customized models undermine their brand? Are they afraid of mediocre kitbashes giving a wrong impression to customers?

In what way to they discourage customization? They do the exact opposite. There are articles in every white dwarf and all over the community site about customization.

Why they are making more single pose models is a different question. Probably because they can make better looking models that way.

I would have to disagree with regards to community website.Since I have returned to the hobby over a year and a bit ago, the only thing I see on community website is stock GW painted models being showcased, very rarely get guests present alternative paint DYI paint schemes. I do not recall seeing a single "how to kitbash" article. Maybe I have selective memory but I have been a regular on the community website and unless I'm doing it wrong, I have not seen a single article on how to convert anything..

I cannot speak for the WD as I don't buy because the content seems to me to precisely lack this.. Mainly pages of "showcase" armies painted in GW style.

 Argive wrote:


I would have to disagree with regards to community website.Since I have returned to the hobby over a year and a bit ago, the only thing I see on community website is stock GW painted models being showcased, very rarely get guests present alternative paint DYI paint schemes. I do not recall seeing a single "how to kitbash" article. Maybe I have selective memory but I have been a regular on the community website and unless I'm doing it wrong, I have not seen a single article on how to convert anything..

I cannot speak for the WD as I don't buy because the content seems to me to precisely lack this.. Mainly pages of "showcase" armies painted in GW style.

Just a quick glance shows an article literally called kitbash:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/11/29/inquisitorial-kitbashgw-homepage-post-2/

I did a search for Conversion, conversions, kit bash, and kitbash on the community website and didn't get any results..

However you are right, doing a google search revealed another article from April 2019 regarding the new chaos space marine conversions and another one for AOS cities of sigmar in OCt 2019.
So I guess that's 2-3 articles a year on the community website? Lets be generous and say they do 4 a year.

I do recall the AOS one now and almost falling off my chair with GW advertising customizing their kits..

 Argive wrote:
I did a search for Conversion, conversions, kit bash, and kitbash on the community website and didn't get any results..

However you are right, doing a google search revealed another article from April 2019 regarding the new chaos space marine conversions and another one for AOS cities of sigmar in OCt 2019.
So I guess that's 2-3 articles a year on the community website? Lets be generous and say they do 4 a year.

I do recall the AOS one now and almost falling off my chair with GW advertising customizing their kits..

There are just two from last month.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/01/16/from-the-mind-of-mengel-nurgle-chaos-warriors/

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/01/14/robin-lundkvists-gargantous-bonehostgw-homepage-post-4/

edit. Three

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/01/15/build-your-own-bounty-huntergw-homepage-post-3fw-homepage-post-4/

damn, my search fu is weak! When I type in any of the keywords into the search thing on the community I didn't get anything.. weird.

 Argive wrote:
damn, my search fu is weak! When I type in any of the keywords into the search thing on the community I didn't get anything.. weird.

I'm having the same issue, to be honest. Driving me nuts when I'm trying to find some older articles I reference.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:

I am waiting for the new videos on how to airbrush to dry-up and be redone when they go to sell their own airbrush.
I was told this was a primer only brush so it does not count as much:

It was a rebadged Badger spraybrush, which is (from my understanding) considered to be a different thing to an airbrush.

@ silent25 how did you find those btw ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Argive wrote:
damn, my search fu is weak! When I type in any of the keywords into the search thing on the community I didn't get anything.. weird.

I'm having the same issue, to be honest. Driving me nuts when I'm trying to find some older articles I reference.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:

I am waiting for the new videos on how to airbrush to dry-up and be redone when they go to sell their own airbrush.
I was told this was a primer only brush so it does not count as much:

It was a rebadged Badger spraybrush, which is (from my understanding) considered to be a different thing to an airbrush.

Pretty sure its a syphon feed spray gun and that's a different thing to an airbrush.

 Argive wrote:
@ silent25 how did you find those btw ?

No Google-fu, just basic checking back at the last month or so of entries. A bit easier on a computer than a smartphone. I check it regularly and when you said there weren't any articles, I felt that wasn't right.

But White Dwarf has a lot of conversion articles/highlights. Blanchitsu is the best example of this. John Blanche's stuff is crazy and inspirational. Check out the Inquisitor28 section of the AmmoBunker forum just to see how crazy the stuff is. Blanche posts stuff there along with a number of other amazing converters. GW has photographed a lot of the conversion the guys made in those forums and put them in White Dwarf.

I see so you actually scrolled through he article history. And here I was trying to use a search :p

Thank you I will check them out.