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Karol wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I definitely feel that GW's models have moved further and further away from being game-friendly.

.

In fact I would even go as far as saying that GW makes their own models look worse then they really are by adding some of the cool effects to the models. Maybe they look cool if you paint the models well or paint the models at all, but they don't if you aren't that much of a painter.

This is a very good point. I was quite surprised that Deathguard were in the previous starter set, with all their pustules, tumours, and other gribbly bits those are very intimidating to paint right out of the gate.
And as you say a lot of the stuff on the new Necrons is quite challenging, like the stealing-life-essence whatever.
Looks amazing when painted by a professional painter, and makes for a lot of character in a diorama. But it's really not something a newbie wants to be painting and carrying around.
And so new players are driven to Space Marines not just because they're the poster boys, but because the models are something they can do justice even at their skill level.
I suspect this is deliberate, although Blade Guard perhaps question that notion, I imagine that's more an attempt to sell Primaris to people preferring the more grimdark aesthetic of 'Firstborn'.

Klickor wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Klickor wrote:
Even if marines are popular and sells a lot it isn't in the interest of GW if the game becomes Horus Heresy 2. Just look at tournament attendance from before Covid and compare it to 6+ months earlier. Lots of events had up to 50% drop in numbers. Like 30% (including me) dropped from the last tournament my club held in February.

I didn't drop because of the power level of marines since I play BA and we had just gotten huge improvements in CA and PA. But I didn't look forward to play 3 games against IH and 2 against RG/WS/IF. Most of those I know that dropped had a marine army or at least access to one so if they wanted to they could play marines. In the summer before there were 0 codex marines in the 3 events I played in and only 2 blood angels players and 1 space wolf player so the game thrived here when Xenos and other imperials werent the NPC factions.

Those that want marine Vs marine already have another game to play. I don't know any marine player iRL who isn't suffering from primaris fatigue at this point.

But your issue isn't the speed or volume of releases, it's because people are flocking to the "best" rules expecting to win more. Yes the marine book is/was very good, but if all people care about is the easiest wins then they don't care what army they play with/against, or how new the models are.

The second anyone uses tournament attendance or results to attack volume of model releases, they're unrelated. Balance =/= release schedule.

I dont think it would have been so bad if the other factions got a lot of new models and marines only had an OP codex. Then people could get excited about new armies and models for those and just ignore the competetive meta for a while. But if all they get is more and more marine models and nothing to their other armies then they just lose motivation and feel like its a marine vs marine arms race. Doesnt help that in the last 16 months we have had 2 marine codex, 8 marine supplements and I think at least 2 or maybe even 3 of the Psychic awakening books were mostly marines as well. So all you see is more and more marines on the horizon.

16 months of constant marine releases and there are still Dark Angels, maybe Black Templars as well, for book releases left. We are still waiting for a number more of marine kits as well. Eradicators, Bladeguard Veterans, Heavy Intercessors and Suppressors. Almost forgot the new speeders that are coming some time soon too.

At least Necrons are getting a boost in popularity due to the new models and rules. It is weird that Primaris is getting their FIFTH(fourth kit) troop unit when firstborns had ~2 for decades. Primaris have HQ and Troop choices enough for 3 whole factions at this point. Wouldnt be out of place at all if it werent for Primaris being the newest faction and being a sub faction of the already largest faction so they didnt really need that anything that quickly. Halving the amount of Primaris would still make it an effort for the marine player to keep up and divert resources that could be used to increase interest in the other factions.

I disagree, if you're entering a competitive event people will take any little edge rules wise they can, marines are widely available even without new releases so when the top codex is marines you will see vastly more marines in competitive events. Some of the more casual players might want to play with their new shiny models for faction X, but any serious gamers will lean into the strongest rules.

That is of course ignoring the fact that there shouldn't be an OP codex. In an ideal world all armies would have similar power levels and a varied release structure.

The rest of your post is a mix of threads of thought, the perception of marines swamping the release schedule is tricky as they can release those supplements and kits all in 1 month, it doesn't change how many kits they release and more importantly you then get a lovely 2-3 month gap of no 40k instead. They handled PA badly, but for everyone including marines as because they were a stopgap to turn over some revenue while 9th hits.

Other armies need more units certainly, no arguments and on the whole I agree with what you're saying, it's just I think there are multiple trains of thought in there that make up 1 cohesive issue instead.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I definitely feel that GW's models have moved further and further away from being game-friendly.

It's the irony that even back in the day when GW very explicitly insisted they made "models, not games" their models were far more suited to gaming pieces than they are today.

Kits with limited to no poseability are great if you want a display piece, they're naff if you're going to want several boxes to build an army.
Kits with extremely dynamic, very spindly, detail also look great as a display piece. They're not so great if they take up an entire hardcase to themselves and break from a withering glare.
Pretty much every kit GW puts out nowadays suffers from one or both of those issues.

This is very true.

There also seem to be an increasing number of models with very awkward limb attachments. For example, instead of having individual arms as separate pieces, you'll instead have the upper-arm moulded to the torso and then the lower part of the arm will be a separate piece.

As you can imagine, this is something of a pain when it comes to conversions.

And yes, I realise that you can just cut the entire arm off with a blade or saw. However (and maybe I'm alone in this), when I'm making a conversion I'll often want to try different arms on the model and see how they look (some might not fit at all or might look wrong with the model's pose etc.). Hence, I'd prefer not to ruin a model by cutting off one of its arms, only to then discover that said arm wouldn't work for my purposes after all.

Not Online!!! wrote:
R&h very much are supposed to be a core faction.
And yes GW has dropped core factions and units options just in favour of bolter porn or is the thinnening of DE imagined?
There are more fething Lieutenants than certain armies have units as a whole. That is a issue, end of story because these take up unnecessary rules release slots AND are an insult torwards SM players and non SM players because feth buying 3- diffrent loudout lieutenants when a singular fething set could do it. Meanwhile the non SM player get's less and less production capability alocated.

They're a core faction in the fluff, the range however was not, nor were the rules. They were made by FW hen they operated independently from the main studio, but you know that as well as I do.

Chopping some wargear options out because there isn't a model isn't the same as dropping a core faction, they've not done that since squats.

I feel from your language you're taking the lieutenants thing a little too personally, yes there are too many, yes they should have used the resources on other stuff. But you cannot conclusively state they've avoided anything else to make lieutenants, they don't take up "rules release slots" purely for lieutenants, I think you're channelling far too much emotional investment into the lieutenant count.

Dudeface wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:
I dont think 3d printing is the main challenge to GWs dominant position. Their mainstream design direction, lack of proper game design and unreasonable pricing model will push away enthusiasts and leave the market wide open to another wargame product with more heart and a more fair buisness model. Some other company will make compelling and affordable plastic miniatures with an actuall fun game attached to it and then GW will have dug their own grave too deep to compete. That's my theory at least.

Eventually giants fall.

That sums up what people have said for best part of 2 decades. I remember when Mantic launched and Ronnie was going to save the day by being freed from the shackles of GW and it would be amazing because the armies would be so cheap in comparison, but you weren't forced to use their minis. They've not toppled GW yet, or even got near.

This is a false sense of security. Like people living next to a dormant volcano or population in a country that has endured 100 years of peace. Gw not being outcompeted in the past is not a freepass. Looking at their current sutuation it seems they are arrogant with pricing strategy and lack the actual artistry and soul they used to have. It's like looking at the late roman empire, slowly degrading without taking the proper counter actions. They are not creative like they used to be and their time is ending soon I think.

 vipoid wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
However (and maybe I'm alone in this), when I'm making a conversion I'll often want to try different arms on the model and see how they look (some might not fit at all or might look wrong with the model's pose etc.). Hence, I'd prefer not to ruin a model by cutting off one of its arms, only to then discover that said arm wouldn't work for my purposes after all.

You're definitely not alone in this.
Although I don't do much conversion work, 40k is expensive enough without buying kits for nothing but parts.

I think it's a valid point about lieutenants though.
The studio only has a finite amount of time to design things, objectively every second they put into modelling and producing a Lieutenant is something they haven't put towards other characters or kits which are perhaps more in need.
I really dislike the obsession with Lieutenants, the models are bland and pretty much just alternate posings of existing kits (I'm pretty sure this is deliberate as they can double as sergeants so people keep buying after they've already got two Lieutenants).

Dudeface wrote:

I feel from your language you're taking the lieutenants thing a little too personally, yes there are too many, yes they should have used the resources on other stuff. But you cannot conclusively state they've avoided anything else to make lieutenants, they don't take up "rules release slots" purely for lieutenants, I think you're channelling far too much emotional investment into the lieutenant count.

I think Lieutenants just stand out as one of the most egregious examples not just of Marine favouritism but of the sheer waste that's permitted for Marines, whilst other armies are expected to survive on table scraps.

There is absolutely no reason why Primaris needed 17 different lieutenant models. This is something that could have been done simply by having one, maybe two models and just including alternative wargear options.

And while it's technically possible that GW could have spent the time and energy spent making those Primaris lieutenants just picking their collective noses, it's far more likely that that time would have been used on other projects instead.

That said, if you would prefer me not to put all the blame on the lieutenants, then I am happy to blame Primaris as a whole. However much one likes the concept, giving Marines - already the best-supported army in the game by far - what amounts to a whole new army was something that should have been done *after* other codices were given the models that they've needed for years or even decades. Dark Eldar have lost the majority of their characters and HQ options and received 0 new ones throughout the entirety of 8th. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to make even a single new DE HQ (and no, I don't count Drazhar because he already existed - whereas Skyboard Archons, Jetbike haemonculi, Dracons, Vect etc. don't even exist in Legends).

Most of the Eldar sculpts are old enough to drink, yet only two of them were updated, and then at a prohibitively high cost. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to update more than 2 Eldar models.

If GW had bothered to throw some bones to Xeno factions *first*, I doubt anyone would give a damn how many Primaris Lieutenants they made afterwards. I doubt anyone would care all that much about Marines constantly being in the spotlight if they at least felt their own faction was in a reasonable place. Instead, what we've seen is more and more attention being given to Marines, whilst already-neglected factions are left to stagnate.

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

I feel from your language you're taking the lieutenants thing a little too personally, yes there are too many, yes they should have used the resources on other stuff. But you cannot conclusively state they've avoided anything else to make lieutenants, they don't take up "rules release slots" purely for lieutenants, I think you're channelling far too much emotional investment into the lieutenant count.

I think Lieutenants just stand out as one of the most egregious examples not just of Marine favouritism but of the sheer waste that's permitted for Marines, whilst other armies are expected to survive on table scraps.

There is absolutely no reason why Primaris needed 17 different lieutenant models. This is something that could have been done simply by having one, maybe two models and just including alternative wargear options.

And while it's technically possible that GW could have spent the time and energy spent making those Primaris lieutenants just picking their collective noses, it's far more likely that that time would have been used on other projects instead.

That said, if you would prefer me not to put all the blame on the lieutenants, then I am happy to blame Primaris as a whole. However much one likes the concept, giving Marines - already the best-supported army in the game by far - what amounts to a whole new army was something that should have been done *after* other codices were given the models that they've needed for years or even decades. Dark Eldar have lost the majority of their characters and HQ options and received 0 new ones throughout the entirety of 8th. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to make even a single new DE HQ (and no, I don't count Drazhar because he already existed - whereas Skyboard Archons, Jetbike haemonculi, Dracons, Vect etc. don't even exist in Legends).

Most of the Eldar sculpts are old enough to drink, yet only two of them were updated, and then at a prohibitively high cost. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to update more than 2 Eldar models.

If GW had bothered to throw some bones to Xeno factions *first*, I doubt anyone would give a damn how many Primaris Lieutenants they made afterwards. I doubt anyone would care all that much about Marines constantly being in the spotlight if they at least felt their own faction was in a reasonable place. Instead, what we've seen is more and more attention being given to Marines, whilst already-neglected factions are left to stagnate.

Yeah that makes some sense, either dump them in en mass after some other updates are out etc. or just hold off for a while. I also get they wanted some shiny new fellas for the 8th release, same for 9th, although they could have stood to hold off on the phobos wave, or even just on the extras alongside the 9th release.

There is also nothing wrong with having emotions about your hobby or interests.

But GW obviously will not be doing anything to change how they manage releases, and I think expecting them to change is just gonna lead to disappointment.

GW considers Xenos players second class. Once you accept that it is a lot easier to deal with all of this because you never expect them to give you anything and are never disappointed or frustrated.

Dudeface wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
R&h very much are supposed to be a core faction.
And yes GW has dropped core factions and units options just in favour of bolter porn or is the thinnening of DE imagined?
There are more fething Lieutenants than certain armies have units as a whole. That is a issue, end of story because these take up unnecessary rules release slots AND are an insult torwards SM players and non SM players because feth buying 3- diffrent loudout lieutenants when a singular fething set could do it. Meanwhile the non SM player get's less and less production capability alocated.

They're a core faction in the fluff, the range however was not, nor were the rules. They were made by FW hen they operated independently from the main studio, but you know that as well as I do.

Wrong, read any IA.

Chopping some wargear options out because there isn't a model isn't the same as dropping a core faction, they've not done that since squats.

So it is acceptable that we got 17 diffrent lieutnants and a brandspanking new SM biker chaplain primaris TM whilest at the same time every other faction lost the bike option more or less.

I feel from your language you're taking the lieutenants thing a little too personally, yes there are too many, yes they should have used the resources on other stuff. But you cannot conclusively state they've avoided anything else to make lieutenants, they don't take up "rules release slots" purely for lieutenants, I think you're channelling far too much emotional investment into the lieutenant count.

Oh the lieutnants are just the pinacle. They are just the salt in the wound.
Heck the corresponding wave of Primaris outnumbered the Necrons, and you know what, necrons won't really see anything new this edition anymore, Unlike primaris, for their next big update in 2-3 editions later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:


That said, if you would prefer me not to put all the blame on the lieutenants, then I am happy to blame Primaris as a whole. However much one likes the concept, giving Marines - already the best-supported army in the game by far - what amounts to a whole new army was something that should have been done *after* other codices were given the models that they've needed for years or even decades. Dark Eldar have lost the majority of their characters and HQ options and received 0 new ones throughout the entirety of 8th. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to make even a single new DE HQ (and no, I don't count Drazhar because he already existed - whereas Skyboard Archons, Jetbike haemonculi, Dracons, Vect etc. don't even exist in Legends).

Most of the Eldar sculpts are old enough to drink, yet only two of them were updated, and then at a prohibitively high cost. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to update more than 2 Eldar models.

If GW had bothered to throw some bones to Xeno factions *first*, I doubt anyone would give a damn how many Primaris Lieutenants they made afterwards. I doubt anyone would care all that much about Marines constantly being in the spotlight if they at least felt their own faction was in a reasonable place. Instead, what we've seen is more and more attention being given to Marines, whilst already-neglected factions are left to stagnate.

sadly there is only the possibility to exalt once.

On the Primaris Lieutenants thing, I'm sure I read somewhere that they were done as an exercise for the design team to get started sculpting the new Primaris range - and the people who make such decisions liked what was produced so much that they decided to just sell them all... It was kind of annoying as a non Marines collector but nothing sinister...

 vipoid wrote:

That said, if you would prefer me not to put all the blame on the lieutenants, then I am happy to blame Primaris as a whole. However much one likes the concept, giving Marines - already the best-supported army in the game by far - what amounts to a whole new army was something that should have been done *after* other codices were given the models that they've needed for years or even decades. Dark Eldar have lost the majority of their characters and HQ options and received 0 new ones throughout the entirety of 8th. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to make even a single new DE HQ (and no, I don't count Drazhar because he already existed - whereas Skyboard Archons, Jetbike haemonculi, Dracons, Vect etc. don't even exist in Legends).

Most of the Eldar sculpts are old enough to drink, yet only two of them were updated, and then at a prohibitively high cost. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to update more than 2 Eldar models.

If GW had bothered to throw some bones to Xeno factions *first*, I doubt anyone would give a damn how many Primaris Lieutenants they made afterwards. I doubt anyone would care all that much about Marines constantly being in the spotlight if they at least felt their own faction was in a reasonable place. Instead, what we've seen is more and more attention being given to Marines, whilst already-neglected factions are left to stagnate.

Yeah, it is something I still have to be amazed at that after all this time, after FOUR EDITIONS, the guy, the "Imotekh the Stormlord" "Eldrad Ulthuan" "Ghazghkull" of the Dark Eldar faction STILL HAS NO RULES AND NO MODEL.

Every single bit of dark eldar fluff seems to revolve around him, even now, he's been killed and resurrected and leading the dark eldar off this way and that way and we STILL HAVE NO GOD DAMN MODEL FOR HIM? after all this time, it's incredible.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
R&h very much are supposed to be a core faction.
And yes GW has dropped core factions and units options just in favour of bolter porn or is the thinnening of DE imagined?
There are more fething Lieutenants than certain armies have units as a whole. That is a issue, end of story because these take up unnecessary rules release slots AND are an insult torwards SM players and non SM players because feth buying 3- diffrent loudout lieutenants when a singular fething set could do it. Meanwhile the non SM player get's less and less production capability alocated.

They're a core faction in the fluff, the range however was not, nor were the rules. They were made by FW hen they operated independently from the main studio, but you know that as well as I do.

Wrong, read any IA.

Chopping some wargear options out because there isn't a model isn't the same as dropping a core faction, they've not done that since squats.

So it is acceptable that we got 17 diffrent lieutnants and a brandspanking new SM biker chaplain primaris TM whilest at the same time every other faction lost the bike option more or less.

I feel from your language you're taking the lieutenants thing a little too personally, yes there are too many, yes they should have used the resources on other stuff. But you cannot conclusively state they've avoided anything else to make lieutenants, they don't take up "rules release slots" purely for lieutenants, I think you're channelling far too much emotional investment into the lieutenant count.

Oh the lieutnants are just the pinacle. They are just the salt in the wound.
Heck the corresponding wave of Primaris outnumbered the Necrons, and you know what, necrons won't really see anything new this edition anymore, Unlike primaris, for their next big update in 2-3 editions later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:


That said, if you would prefer me not to put all the blame on the lieutenants, then I am happy to blame Primaris as a whole. However much one likes the concept, giving Marines - already the best-supported army in the game by far - what amounts to a whole new army was something that should have been done *after* other codices were given the models that they've needed for years or even decades. Dark Eldar have lost the majority of their characters and HQ options and received 0 new ones throughout the entirety of 8th. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to make even a single new DE HQ (and no, I don't count Drazhar because he already existed - whereas Skyboard Archons, Jetbike haemonculi, Dracons, Vect etc. don't even exist in Legends).

Most of the Eldar sculpts are old enough to drink, yet only two of them were updated, and then at a prohibitively high cost. There existed the time and resources to give Marines a whole new range, but not to update more than 2 Eldar models.

If GW had bothered to throw some bones to Xeno factions *first*, I doubt anyone would give a damn how many Primaris Lieutenants they made afterwards. I doubt anyone would care all that much about Marines constantly being in the spotlight if they at least felt their own faction was in a reasonable place. Instead, what we've seen is more and more attention being given to Marines, whilst already-neglected factions are left to stagnate.

sadly there is only the possibility to exalt once.

IA 5, written by Warwick Kinrade (not a member of the GW rules team).

"This book is not a stand alone supplement... You will need the following codexes: Imperial Guard... Chaos space marines"

"the following army list is a variation on the Imperial Guard Codex list"

Sounds like a supplement and not a core faction.

Is it acceptable that there have been 17 lieutenants? One definition for acceptable is: "able to be tolerated or allowed." I can tolerate it, nobody is disallowing GW from making them so yes it is I guess, but that's subjective mostly. I lost my jugger lord with the option culling, I'm not going to cry because a different army got a mounted character, it has no impact on me.

Maybe necrons will, maybe they won't see more stuff, maybe marines won't, who knows. I'm still waiting for these much prophesised "next wave of marines by easter" people love to proclaim will happen, 4 months to go.

Seriously though, it's not nice what happened to R&H, it'll maybe pave the way for a new plastic army which would be grand. People don't like to lose options, but there's really no point being bitter about it and if you find primaris releases unacceptable, do something about it, getting angry at me won't stop lieutenant 18 being made.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crispy78 wrote:
On the Primaris Lieutenants thing, I'm sure I read somewhere that they were done as an exercise for the design team to get started sculpting the new Primaris range - and the people who make such decisions liked what was produced so much that they decided to just sell them all... It was kind of annoying as a non Marines collector but nothing sinister...

Stop being reasonable!

In fairness to all the Primaris Lieutenants and stuff, if they did that sort of thing to Tyranids (my favourite army) or even to Orks, it would be pretty disheartening. Replacing a SM army with the latest models is so much easier than a 'horde' army.

The biker character thing would be less aggravating if it wasn't for the fact that loyalists still have a datasheet in their codex for a generic "captain on bike" despite the only available model being White Scars specific, so "no model no rules" isn't even enforced equally in that case for loyalists compared to other factions.

As for R&H, IA13 contained a full army list, from infantry and characters to artillery, tanks, aircraft, and even LOWs, no additional codex required. But sure, let's go back all the way to 5th edition and ignore more recent examples.

Nurglitch wrote:
In fairness to all the Primaris Lieutenants and stuff, if they did that sort of thing to Tyranids (my favourite army) or even to Orks, it would be pretty disheartening. Replacing a SM army with the latest models is so much easier than a 'horde' army.

....why? I have ancient old minis for most of my factions that I still use in the game. Half my harlequins are rogue trader, I have rogue trader/2nd/3rd ed era eldar (some of the models still current ) and I have rogue trader orks and gretchins.

If GW released Primagaunts or Primorks you'd realistically just do...you know, what every player that's not a spoiled-as-feth tantrum throwing marine fanbaby does: use the models you already have as the new improved unit.

MAYBE you have to, once in 25-30 years, decide in your head that a Harlequin with a Powerfist is now a Harlequin with a Harlequin's Caress?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
The biker character thing would be less aggravating if it wasn't for the fact that loyalists still have a datasheet in their codex for a generic "captain on bike" despite the only available model being White Scars specific, so "no model no rules" isn't even enforced equally in that case for loyalists compared to other factions.

As for R&H, IA13 contained a full army list, from infantry and characters to artillery, tanks, aircraft, and even LOWs, no additional codex required. But sure, let's go back all the way to 5th edition and ignore more recent examples.

I was asked to check "any IA book".

But the point is I can't walk into GW and buy renegades and heretics models, they're not a core supported army. Krieg get a bit of a pass by virtue of being a supplement of an existing army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
In fairness to all the Primaris Lieutenants and stuff, if they did that sort of thing to Tyranids (my favourite army) or even to Orks, it would be pretty disheartening. Replacing a SM army with the latest models is so much easier than a 'horde' army.

....why? I have ancient old minis for most of my factions that I still use in the game. Half my harlequins are rogue trader, I have rogue trader/2nd/3rd ed era eldar (some of the models still current ) and I have rogue trader orks and gretchins.

If GW released Primagaunts or Primorks you'd realistically just do...you know, what every player that's not a spoiled-as-feth tantrum throwing marine fanbaby does: use the models you already have as the new improved unit.

MAYBE you have to, once in 25-30 years, decide in your head that a Harlequin with a Powerfist is now a Harlequin with a Harlequin's Caress?

Bit harder passing off a terminator as a heavy intercessor at an event though isn't it.

Dudeface wrote:


Bit harder passing off a terminator as a heavy intercessor at an event though isn't it.

only if you're also running terminators in your army.

oh lets ignore that events are the minority of games being played.

Removed - don't be rude

While I am mentally able to parse what you wrote, can I have some of what you're smoking please? Gotta admit I'd be happy with manlet marines going away.

Crispy78 wrote:
On the Primaris Lieutenants thing, I'm sure I read somewhere that they were done as an exercise for the design team to get started sculpting the new Primaris range - and the people who make such decisions liked what was produced so much that they decided to just sell them all... It was kind of annoying as a non Marines collector but nothing sinister...

I don't think anyone suggested it was sinister. The issue is how space marines have come to dominate the thoughts of GW executives, whilst other factions aren't even considered.

Indeed, I can quite understand someone saying - "You know, the design team has put a lot of effort into these prototype Primaris sculpts and frankly they all look absolutely splendid. What if we just made all of them into models?"

The problem is that apparently no one replied with - "Well that's a great idea but perhaps we should hold off on it for a while? After all, there are a lot of non-Marine factions that are still in dire need of new sculpts. If we instead throw out seventeen different Primaris Lieutenants, it will feel like a slap in the face to players of factions that have been waiting years or even decades for new or updated models."

As I said before, I doubt anyone would have complained about the stupid number of Primaris Lieutenants if GW had only bothered to address model deficiencies in other factions first.

Instead, it seems no one at GW even considered how releasing 17 different Primaris lieutenants would look, when other factions have been neglected for years or even removed from the game entirely. This is the real issue.

Not Online!!! wrote:
R&h very much are supposed to be a core faction.
And yes GW has dropped core factions and units options just in favour of bolter porn or is the thinnening of DE imagined?
There are more fething Lieutenants than certain armies have units as a whole. That is a issue, end of story because these take up unnecessary rules release slots AND are an insult torwards SM players and non SM players because feth buying 3- diffrent loudout lieutenants when a singular fething set could do it. Meanwhile the non SM player get's less and less production capability alocated.

R&H where a Forgeworld faction for ages, and yet rarely saw any real play. I sincerely hope the studio releases something proper for them since they already did a bunch of work with BSF to make stuff, but I won't be holding my breath.

I have to wonder about the actual success of some of different Primaris LT's too.

Like, yeah, Marines are the most popular army and they sell loads, but considering how practically everyone gets a free LT from some battlebox or starter set how well do the individual ones actually do? Especially when compared to a new type of Drukhari character that you're basically guaranteed to have every Drukhari player buying?

Maybe that's why you're starting to see all these different character models coming for different armies now. Like, of course every Sisters player is going to be buying that Palatine so they have some variety in their HQ choices. But who's gonna need another LT since everyone basically got DI, Indomitus and Shadowspear?

 Bosskelot wrote:
I have to wonder about the actual success of some of different Primaris LT's too.

Like, yeah, Marines are the most popular army and they sell loads, but considering how practically everyone gets a free LT from some battlebox or starter set how well do the individual ones actually do? Especially when compared to a new type of Drukhari character that you're basically guaranteed to have every Drukhari player buying?

Maybe that's why you're starting to see all these different character models coming for different armies now. Like, of course every Sisters player is going to be buying that Palatine so they have some variety in their HQ choices. But who's gonna need another LT since everyone basically got DI, Indomitus and Shadowspear?

I mean by the numbers I think most of them were marketed mostly as "exclusives" for store openings and events and such.

Honestly I feel like a lot of the LTs were made as test sculpts to dial in certain ideas, so they're less taking the place of something else and more a prototype for different units.

I'm not sure I really buy the prototyping idea - if they're good enough for sale why not just include them as one of the poses in the kits that they're experimenting for?
Plus actually producing the moulds and boxes is a significant cost.
So it's not a trivial thing to produce these kits at all, even if the design itself is complete.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Honestly I feel like a lot of the LTs were made as test sculpts to dial in certain ideas, so they're less taking the place of something else and more a prototype for different units.

Its cool that you feel that way but we dont' actually have any evidence that that is the case. Besides maybe 1 or 2, all these lieutenants were either event models or were sold as box set incentives, but we don't actually know that GW just had Skippy the Intern Who Wasn't Doing Anything Else spend the time sculpting them instead of sculpting a more useful for the overall game character model.

Again: stormcast don't get 15 variations of the same character sculpt while other AOS factions play with 3rd ed era finecast. Every faction in AOS besides the Fantasy Nostalgia Factions gets new plastic character kits.

From what I understand, yes, it is true. The Lts were repurposed from the designs that the design team made early on for the new Primaris range. However, those designs weren't actually finished or fully rendered. A lot of additional work was required to complete the design, create a functional 3d model that could be used for moulding, and manufacture the moulds. Majority of work was still left to do, since the originals weren't intended for sale.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I'm not sure I really buy the prototyping idea - if they're good enough for sale why not just include them as one of the poses in the kits that they're experimenting for?
Plus actually producing the moulds and boxes is a significant cost.
So it's not a trivial thing to produce these kits at all, even if the design itself is complete.

GW seems to be recycling their prototypes a lot. Warhammer Underworlds originally took prototypes of AoS minis for each faction after all.

If they're just producing a model from something that started as essentially concept art, I think that's a little different.
What I mainly intended by that comment was that I didn't believe the Lieutenants were prototypes and therefore minimal effort to put out. As a lot of effort goes into converting them into sprue designs and then boxsets on a store shelf.