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Let's not call it an exaggeration, let's call it a lie. Because it's either that or blistering ignorance.

Well I was trying to be diplomatic you see ...

Plus, there's always the chance I've missed something. You always want to leave room for being wrong in any discussion right? Wouldn't be the first time I missed something everyone else had seen ... but yeah, at least with the info I HAVE seen, while the 'cron release is big, it's certainly not "the biggest xenos release we've ever seen". I could see feeling that way if you started the game in 8th, but otherwise ... yeah ... not so much ...

Tycho wrote:

Love how an opposing opinion is rubbished as “white knighting” in an attempt to discredit. Not particularly arguing in good faith, there, just throwing something in to have a dig, and weirdly implying being salty is correct/cool when it’s just one option. Always find it weird to see posted.

It's not so much that it's an opposing opinion that makes it white knighting. It's when someone literally distorts the actual fact that make it so. There's a lot of mental gymnastics happening in chaosx0mega's post. We've all seen the release numbers. Over the last few years Primaris have severely outpaced every other faction with multiple factions going years with nothing at all, but posts like his seem to want to fall back on pointing to a single release someone got a while back or on exaggerations like "the biggest xenos release we've ever seen" to imply that, somehow, one army getting releases every few weeks for years while some armies literally go years with nothing is ok.

One:
The numbers that we've seen for Marines posted in this thread for releases? They're pretty trash. It counts multibuild kits as units and models, rather than one or the other. It counts LE/event models the same way as well. And then it rolls up the subfaction releases into the same list.

Two:
Are you really going to argue that this Necron release isn't a large one? Because this isn't stuff staggered across multiple years/months like the Dark Eldar range revamp was. I genuinely cannot think of a Xenos faction that has seen this big of a release in one go.
Even the Tau Empire being added to the game wasn't this big. This is several new types of Destroyers(Hexmark, Lokhust, Ophydian), a new Monolith, new Flayed Ones, new Crypteks(Chrono and Psychomancers), new Canoptek walker(the Doomstalker), the scenery bit, the Silent King, Void Dragon Shard, and potentially the solo release of the new Warrior/Scarab and Skorpekh Destroyer kits(both of which are complete kits that could be done as ETB branded setups), the new Overlord, Royal Warden, and the 'missing frame' which was Skorpekh Destroyer Lord, Plasmancer, Cryptothralls, and a Canoptek Reanimator.

By my count?
Necrons are getting 11 kits within the next few months. With another 4 presently only having been available via Indomitus(Plasmancer, SDL, Cryptothralls, Reanimator frame) and four(Overlord, Royal Warden, Warriors, Skorpekh Destroyers) having been available via Indomitus and now in the starter sets.
That brings the total up to 15.

Marines are seeing a similar number certainly, but that doesn't take away from the Necron release being a fairly large one.

Are you really going to argue that this Necron release isn't a large one?

Kan - I've literally said in every single solitary post "this is a big release"

Tycho wrote:

Are you really going to argue that this Necron release isn't a large one?

Kan - I've literally said in every single solitary post "this is a big release"

Yes, and you cut the next part out of what I said.

That I genuinely cannot think of any release this large that wasn't broken up across months or years.
Genestealer Cult, at launch? The Broodcoven box, Iconward, Neophytes, Acolytes, and Rockgrinders.
It took the next iteration of the book for them to get expanded further with the bikers, Ridgerunners, Aberrants(which initially came with Overkill) and the 7(!) characters.

Tau when launched way back when?
Pathfinders, Crisis Suits, Fire Warriors, Ethereals, Devilfish, Hammerheads, Broadsides, Kroot, Krootox, Kroothounds, Shapers, Farsight, and Stealth Suits.
Harlequins, when splintered into their own faction, were 6 kits or so.

I can think of similar releases back in the distant past. Not quite matching the numbers, admittedly - but then GW didn't have two factories back then. However, the releases were certainly of a similar impact in terms of proportion - that is, how much support they got next to what attention other factions generally got at the time.

Specifically - I'm thinking of the initial Tyranids revamp - must have been 3rd ed? And the release of Dark Eldar when they first appeared, which was DEFINITELY 3rd, they were brand new with the starter box.

The fact that it's been so long without a similar level of upgrade since, combined with that extra factory, is part of what makes me hopeful for other Xenos armies getting similar upgrades next year. But, as has already been mentioned by others, time will tell.

Tyranids got two big revamps.

3rd edition was a major reworking for Tyranids, its also when we first started to get floating zoanthropes; heroic/unique models (Old One Eye - Red Terror*); ravenors and more.

However it was swiftly followed by 4th edition which was another massive update, this time a lot of models shifting not just in design, but also into plastics. We lost a few, we gained a lot. This was, from memory, also when we started to get GW really glutting codex with heroes and unit options and weapons that weren't modelled for a very long time (sometimes never).

Tyranids got several other big releases over time and honestly right now are in a very good place overall. There's a few outliers in finecast (lictors/pyrovore, biovore) which can be sold with a few duel plastic kits very quickly. There's also old model ideas (eg the shrieks) that could make an appearance; and many of us would love new gaunts; or just a head upgrade set cause that's the only really bad thing about them.

Overall Tyranids are model wise in a very solid spot; lots of modern kits; lots of variety and options and a very good scope of options to put onto the table. Sure there are extras to have and who knows perhaps GW will move some heirodules or malanthrope over from FW.
But they don't "need" a huge revamp.


Eldar and Orks are, from my guess, two armies that perhaps need the biggest single massive model updates. Imperial guard could also honestly benefit as well; though they've a very solid core, many of their core models are quite ancient. Though I think its also masked a bit because some (like the leman russ) have had modest updates over the years which have improved the model, but not changed appearance much so its harder to spot.

*who we still have today

Tyranids are one of the most complete ranges in 40k. Most of the range is plastic.

Eldar still have a few models kicking around from the RT days, and some of their original Aspect Warriors. And that Avatar... yikes.

 Super Ready wrote:
I can think of similar releases back in the distant past. Not quite matching the numbers, admittedly - but then GW didn't have two factories back then. However, the releases were certainly of a similar impact in terms of proportion - that is, how much support they got next to what attention other factions generally got at the time.

Specifically - I'm thinking of the initial Tyranids revamp - must have been 3rd ed? And the release of Dark Eldar when they first appeared, which was DEFINITELY 3rd, they were brand new with the starter box.

IIRC, the Dark Eldar revamp in 5th was on a similar scale.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Tyranids are one of the most complete ranges in 40k. Most of the range is plastic.

Eldar still have a few models kicking around from the RT days, and some of their original Aspect Warriors. And that Avatar... yikes.

Hey now. That's the good Avatar. Remember the 'tall' one on the 25mm base?

I do remember that, but that was before even 2nd Ed.

Yeah, the 2nd edition Avatar is still one of my all-time favourite GW models. I have three of them downstairs,sadly waiting to be built. I'm not sure why.

Tycho wrote:


Except that, traditionally, when a new army (a truly new army - one that's never been seen before) has been released - it lasts a month or two and everything is out. When Dark Eldar were released in 3rd, did we see 2 or 3 straight years of multiple Dark Eldar releases? When Necrons were released at the tail of 2nd, was it a constant release schedule deep into 4th edition? What about 'nids? No. How about if we look at the Tau release in 3rd. Surely, as they were at the time, the most unique army, then their release schedule lasted years right? Nope. None of this happened. Each of these armies was released in a span of a few months (sometimes less) and then left alone in some cases for a decade. Necrons were updated in 3rd in a major way and not touched again until 5th. Dark Eldar were released over a few month period and then not touched until 5th. Nids have seen sporadic updates but nothing constant.

You can't compare the release model of 10-20+ years ago with the release model today. None of the factions since 7th have been the way you described. Custodes, GSC, Admech, Harlequins, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, etc have all been drip fed over time.

Primaris, who really AREN'T a "new army" were introduced in 8th and have had a pretty steady trail of releases that is unprecedented for any other army.

They absolutely are. You aren't meant to mix them with Firstborn, the rules actively penalize you for doing so.

Primaris, who really AREN'T a "new army" were introduced in 8th and have had a pretty steady trail of releases that is unprecedented for any other army. Even if I were to agree w/you that they are a truly "new" army, show me any other army that was brand new and saw this many releases, this constantly over the course of this many months/years.

If we accept the idea that Primaris are a replacement for Firstborn then this is an unfair comparison, as you would expect Primaris, as a new army, to require a level of support equal to the legacy army that it is replacing. Beyond that, Primaris have 40 units including those unreleased and minor variations (assault and heavy intercessors, 3 types of Storm Speeder) by my count. 15 of those are new to this edition, and many of them are unreleased, so in order to keep things balanced and fair they don't count, as one would expect other factions to receive further support over the course of 9th. This brings Primaris to a total of 25 units. Not including their one forgeworld unit.

Genestealer Cults have 28.
Admech have 30.

It's not. Where did you get that from?

It is. Necrons are getting 23 new or resculpted units by my count, including illuminor and indomitus, and thats just what we onow of, weve bern told theres even more. Thats almost as many units as the Primaris had total prior to 9e, and more than the next largest wave - Dark Eldar - had, which was 20
.

chaos0xomega wrote:
They absolutely are. You aren't meant to mix them with Firstborn, the rules actively penalize you for doing so.

What am I missing here? Only penalising I can think of is transport limitations, and it's not like you can't take Rhinos AND Impulsors.

 Super Ready wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
They absolutely are. You aren't meant to mix them with Firstborn, the rules actively penalize you for doing so.

What am I missing here? Only penalising I can think of is transport limitations, and it's not like you can't take Rhinos AND Impulsors.

If he stretches any further he might dislocate something..

What stretching? I've provided some actual numbers which is more than what "the opposition" has done.

Admittedly saying that "the rules actively penalize you" is an exaggeration, it would be more accurate to say that the rules disincentivize you from mixing Firstborn and Primaris - I can't speak for 9th ed, but the Vigilus detachments certainly stuck to the idea of "pure" forces, the inability to cross mount units between transports, various abilities/strategems that incentivize homogeneity, etc. Its not as severe as the disincentives towards running mixed chapters, but its still there.

 insaniak wrote:
Yeah, the 2nd edition Avatar is still one of my all-time favourite GW models. I have three of them downstairs,sadly waiting to be built. I'm not sure why.

Lol. I wound up in that same situation at some point.
Such a great model, too!

 insaniak wrote:
Yeah, the 2nd edition Avatar is still one of my all-time favourite GW models. I have three of them downstairs,sadly waiting to be built. I'm not sure why.

It just hasn't aged well.

I so want them to do to it what they did to the Greater Daemons. An Avatar with a few weapon options (big sword, a spear, something else... a glaive? Halberd?) would be amazing.

Yeah, not going to lie - while I think the current crop of Greater Daemons are stupidly large, a similar plastic resculpt of the Avatar with multiple weapon options would undoubtedly be drool-worthy.

If they go there I want a Nightbringer as well.

But really I find those models to be too big for my taste on the table.

chaos0xomega wrote:
What stretching? I've provided some actual numbers which is more than what "the opposition" has done.

Admittedly saying that "the rules actively penalize you" is an exaggeration, it would be more accurate to say that the rules disincentivize you from mixing Firstborn and Primaris - I can't speak for 9th ed, but the Vigilus detachments certainly stuck to the idea of "pure" forces, the inability to cross mount units between transports, various abilities/strategems that incentivize homogeneity, etc. Its not as severe as the disincentives towards running mixed chapters, but its still there.

I was purely referring to this assertion..

I get the sentiment. However 9th certainly seems to bridge that gap and even in 8th. But you still have/had an eye watering ridiculous pool of options allowing you to mix and match like T1 drop pods, old skool dreads with infiltrating dreads, old skool characters and so on.. the only real drawback is the transport crossover maybe but its more of a side grade then any sort of up or downgrade when your army rules are that good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
Yeah, not going to lie - while I think the current crop of Greater Daemons are stupidly large, a similar plastic resculpt of the Avatar with multiple weapon options would undoubtedly be drool-worthy.

Id be happy with a 1:1 FW to plastic avatar.. That is a gorgeous beats.
Been eyeing one up on FW for ages. Shame they dont make the spear version anymore.

You can't compare the release model of 10-20+ years ago with the release model today. None of the factions since 7th have been the way you described. Custodes, GSC, Admech, Harlequins, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, etc have all been drip fed over time.

EXCEPT Primaris. Who have had an unprecedented and constant release stream. I still don't get how so many people refuse to see that? You don't even have to agree that it's bad, but it is a fact ...

And I get it - as long as we don't count what happened in the past, ignore the last 12-18 months of releases, AND stick to only comparing releases during the Sept/Oct timeline, then yes - it's balanced because Crons are getting a big release along side (yet another) Primaris release ... Fair enough.

Admittedly, as I said before, I think I'm in the "Loud Minority" here as the Primaris train has, up to this point lead to pretty impressive profits, but seriously, you can't tell me the release schedule is "ok" when you see the Primaris releases from the start of 8th to now, and understand that in the face of other armies essentially being eliminated from the game, and armies like DE who have had two or three new books since 5th, but have LOST models in almost every one, or DG who got nothing for 3 years while Marines got 2 codexes and a feth load of supplement support. Go back and read the forums from March/April time frame. You'll see me saying Marines will be one of the first two books in 9th and a ton of people talking about how silly that would be, and how they'd never do that as "They JUST got their second book and they've had constant releases all the way through 8th." And um. Here we are. Marines will be the first or second book. And also, if you include the supplements, probably the 3-5 books ,,,

Long term, that's not good for the health of the game. Hopefully they get it out of their system and armies like CWE and DE, etc, can get some love.

It just hasn't aged well.

I so want them to do to it what they did to the Greater Daemons. An Avatar with a few weapon options (big sword, a spear, something else... a glaive? Halberd?) would be amazing.

Leave my Avatar alone! It's perfect!

I haven't actually played CWE since 4th, but I still have my square base metal Avatar. First model I ever painted where I really felt like it was actually half-way decent. Can't deny it though - would LOVE to see them give it similar treatment to what some of the Greater Demons got!

 Kanluwen wrote:
Are you really going to argue that this Necron release isn't a large one?

Nobody's arguing that. They're arguing against it being the biggest xeno release ever.

I think there has to be a middle ground here right?

Part of what my original post was trying to address was the fact that blind releases stir resentment and cynicism, especially when combined with highly asymmetric faction releases, as we've seen with Primaris.

GW could help solve a lot of the negativity that has built up in the community by just tipping their hand a little about what they have in store. Lack of transparency and sunshine causes all kinds of problems in many walks of life, and raises suspicions in your partners (here your customers). That's all. At the moment GW are most honest in their comedic moments, when they admit to issues in an askance kind of way (eg Primaris LTs, Cawl hammering the Primaris button, etc). They need to double down on that good intention of being reflexive and open, and move away from their hush hush behaviour, and that will bring the community with them.

 grouchoben wrote:

Part of what my original post was trying to address was the fact that blind releases stir resentment and cynicism, especially when combined with highly asymmetric faction releases, as we've seen with Primaris.

GW could help solve a lot of the negativity that has built up in the community by just tipping their hand a little about what they have in store. Lack of transparency and sunshine causes all kinds of problems in many walks of life, and raises suspicions in your partners (here your customers). That's all. At the moment GW are most honest in their comedic moments, when they admit to issues in an askance kind of way (eg Primaris LTs, Cawl hammering the Primaris button, etc). They need to double down on that good intention of being reflexive and open, and move away from their hush hush behaviour, and that will bring the community with them.

The issue is that blind releases also avoid the period of time where sales drop off because something's being re-released or re-worked - and bean-counters hate that, and would encourage active deception of customers, let alone lying by omission, to avoid it. That's what caused a big part of the problem with Mk III Warmahordes, though; players didn't want an entirely new edition dropped on them with little warning. This lack of satisfaction is harder to measure, however, so corporate types who are big on analytics tend to have a blind spot for it. The Disney Star Wars films had aspects of this as well.

Yeah I agree Hecaton, it's a balancing act. I think that, handled in the right way, you could provide more transparency without actually listing what models will soon be redundant.

A calander full of thing like "2021: Imperial Guard reinforcements", with a sketch of design philosophies and an hq reveal, for example, would do wonders for community morale, and would actually encourage people on the fence about a faction in particular, and the health of the game in general. There are an awful lot of people in that position right now.

I guess GW will get to all of our armies in due time. It's just a matter of whether or not it's going to be soon enough. Their choice of prioritization for model and rules overhauls are... interesting, I suppose. Some players that have been neglected for decades itching for a game that caters to them I reckon are a simple alternate tabletop game away from being snatched away, and with that dwindling of preciously already scarce diversity goes the rest of the game. The constant marine releases really feels like they are quickly burning out their niche in the market for a quick buck in my opinion. Hopefully they have a game plan to eventually only release the occasional upgrade blister, doodad, or even collectors/limited release special models like a hero or sergeant or something. So they can work on giving our prevailing heroes some interesting and worthy adversaries besides the other heroes.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned so far is the third-party aspect (apologies if I've skipped over it). The Chapterhouse case showed GW didn't have the grip on their IP they thought they had, and if they show off design sketches too soon there's the possibility someone copy them and get them to market first - look at how many other companies suddenly started doing SoBs...

the issue isn't the show off, but rather, the fact that GW simply does not tell if a rework, rules design , etc is in the works for a faction.

Not Online!!! wrote:
the issue isn't the show off, but rather, the fact that GW simply does not tell if a rework, rules design , etc is in the works for a faction.

In theory chances are that there's a rework for every current faction in the pipeline at some stage of development. Tyranids likely have those models we want in plastic at some stage of the development process; rules reworks are likely on the cards etc... It's a continual cycle so GW has to choose a shut-off point otherwise we'd all be waiting for things all the time.

 Overread wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
the issue isn't the show off, but rather, the fact that GW simply does not tell if a rework, rules design , etc is in the works for a faction.

In theory chances are that there's a rework for every current faction in the pipeline at some stage of development. Tyranids likely have those models we want in plastic at some stage of the development process; rules reworks are likely on the cards etc... It's a continual cycle so GW has to choose a shut-off point otherwise we'd all be waiting for things all the time.

GW yet again failed at even that, they were responsible for factions like elysians and R&H, atleast one of which is lorewise massivly important, the other technically aswell.
These players don0t know if there will ever be a substitute for their faction.
A simple yes or no would suffice to limit the bad PR the simplefact of their inexsitence sofar created.