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 kodos wrote:
because those are old models build in a different way with interchangeable parts in mind

same way as the old Orks were designed to fit the fantasy stuff

GW changed the model design from easy interchangeable parts to more unique builds were bits cannot be used on different models without cutting or Green Stuff

This is only actually true some of the time. Plenty of bits in the new kits are designed to be fully-swappable. GW basically has 3 model design philosophies:

1) fully monopose - characters, ork buggies, starter kit guys

2) limited-pose - each model in the box can actually be only built in 1-3 distinct poses with MAYBE 1 hot-swappable component typically heads. Kits like Aberrants is what I'm talking about here, typically this is the more intricate/beefier elite models where they figure at most you'll need a couple of boxes of dudes.

3) hot-swappable arms, heads, and accessories - basically the same as the old-style kits except that they basically always remove the hip rotation as a source of customization to make more varied body poses.

People have a tendency to forget something, though: Almost ALL elite units that ended up as category "2" extremely limited poses used to be true monopose metal/finecrap models precisely because the anticipated sales volume did not justify the creation of a full, multisprue kit.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

If you're the market leader, act like it - don't throw your toys out of the pram about someone making a little money around the edges of your product.

This is how a market leader acts.
Car manufacturers patent special designs of nuts and spanners specifically so that no one can repair their vehicles except them (and those that spend big bucks on their tools).

Tell that to all the companies that make parts "compatible with" a given vehicle - car companies were the prime example during the Chapterhouse case of how a sensible company approaches this. No matter how much after-market crap someone buys to stick on their car, they've still had to buy your car in the first place... sound familiar?

And yes, I appreciate that full sculpts are a different kettle of fish.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I can easily see why GW wouldn't want to just release a pack of melta guns to fix this solution.
Why would I buy a pack of Space Marine meltaguns that I'd have to cut and convert to fit my Guard squad, and that probably still won't look quite right, when for the same price I can hope on over to Victoria or Anvil or similar and buy a pack of 'fusion guns' specifically designed to be compatible with my Guard squad, thereby requiring no conversion and giving a better end look anyway.

That pack is an example of something that is currently produced. I agree that it wouldn't be the ideal way to produce an IG Meltagun pack (or packs) - but you've got the CAD files for the appropriate arms on a computer somewhere. Copy, paste, and add the appropriate sprue framework around them. Do the same with plasma and sniper rifles, and people can buy a box of Cadians and one of these add-ons (or a command squad, or whatever) and be sorted.

As you're making it convenient for them by having everything under one roof (assuming pricing wasn't too stupid, which may be where this falls down ), it removes the need to go look for 3rd party bits or bits sellers.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Additionally, got a newbie entering into the hobby, "you're expected to convert your own stuff" is a big hurdle. Nowadays dads building model tanks with their kids is getting a lot rarer, for a lot of new players the idea of building your own tools is a weird concept. The idea that not only do you have to build them yourself, but you need to buy more parts and convert them yourself will seem like a significant barrier.

I think there is a fairly substantial design between "take two [officially] designed compatible kits and kitbash" that GW approves of, and "taking incompatible bits/kits and cutting/converting them to fit" that they don't approve.
Hence Intercessors get options only present in Primaris Upgrade Kits. But nothing beyond that.

Again, if you make the add-ons in-house - and ideally directly compatible with the kits you're already selling - you're not really converting as such.

I'm still not clear on how we go from 'there are options in the codex beyond what is in the kit, but the kit can be built as instructed and is fully legal' to 'new players are forced to buy four boxes for every unit and convert their models to have a playable force'.

It's only true if the configurations you can build with a single kit are so atrocious that they're unplayable... in which case it sounds like the right solution is to address that in the rules, rather than just lock out all other options.

Good point, Catbarf.

GW's reaction to "trap options" is simply to remove all the options, rather than actually work towards balance.

I suppose from that perspective, it worked. Now the trap options exist in the form of units, subfactions, stratagems, crusade rules, and all sorts of other places. But at least it's not unit wargear.

I agree, but that's not typically how it's presented to newbies.

"Plasmaguns are the best choice, you want the whole squad with plasmaguns"
"Don't bother with flamers, flamers are terrible, if you're taking that unit you want plasmaguns".
"So buy that box, then buy an upgrade sprue just to get the options you actually want..."
That sort of thing.

It's obviously not a total deterrent and many newbies either don't experience that or ignore it, but it is there.

At the end of the day, GW doesn't want you buying 3rd party bits, because they know that people generally spend the same amount of money on the hobby. So every £10 you spend on 3rd party bits is £10 that doesn't go towards a new GW box.

Limiting codex options is the quickest and easiest way for them to curtail that, whilst also reducing potential hurdles for new comers.
I don't mean to justify it, from our perspective as more dedicated players it's a purely anti-player move. Even from the newbie's perspective it's the laziest way to solve the problem.
About the only party that truly wins from this practice is the shareholders.

They clearly want you to build models for variety rather than pick the best option and spam it

Wayniac wrote:
They clearly want you to build models for variety rather than pick the best option and spam it

Because, as we all know, nothing says "I'm a serious military force!" like an eclectic collection of mismatched weapons that all perform a different mission set mashed together into a single tactical unit!

It's why an American squad is usually a single jeep, one man with a grenade launcher, one man with a flamethrower, one man with two knives, one man with a big flail, one man with a 9mm and a knife, the sergeant who can choose between an ATGM or a single .45, and like 2 people with the standard issue M4. Though one of them has a scope.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
They clearly want you to build models for variety rather than pick the best option and spam it

Because, as we all know, nothing says "I'm a serious military force!" like an eclectic collection of mismatched weapons that all perform a different mission set mashed together into a single tactical unit!

It's why an American squad is usually a single jeep, one man with a grenade launcher, one man with a flamethrower, one man with two knives, one man with a big flail, one man with a 9mm and a knife, the sergeant who can choose between an ATGM or a single .45, and like 2 people with the standard issue M4. Though one of them has a scope.

To be fair, that is often how it gets portrayed in film and tv.

Aash wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
They clearly want you to build models for variety rather than pick the best option and spam it

Because, as we all know, nothing says "I'm a serious military force!" like an eclectic collection of mismatched weapons that all perform a different mission set mashed together into a single tactical unit!

It's why an American squad is usually a single jeep, one man with a grenade launcher, one man with a flamethrower, one man with two knives, one man with a big flail, one man with a 9mm and a knife, the sergeant who can choose between an ATGM or a single .45, and like 2 people with the standard issue M4. Though one of them has a scope.

To be fair, that is often how it gets portrayed in film and tv.

Yeah, TIL that Warhammer armies accurately reflect a futuristic fighting force, rather than a weird anachronistic WW2 style combined arms ground combat army based 100% on movies and TV rather than historical reality.

That's why there's fething officers on the battlefield locking lightsabers with one another instead of hundreds of miles away using communicators.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, TIL that Warhammer armies accurately reflect a futuristic fighting force, rather than a weird anachronistic WW2 style combined arms ground combat army based 100% on movies and TV rather than historical reality.

That's why there's fething officers on the battlefield locking lightsabers with one another instead of hundreds of miles away using communicators.

To be fair, they used to be able to actually be pretty "realistic" as far as the setting goes.

You could in fact play an Imperial Guard army organized around a real-life platoon (well, Company), that stuck its CO in the back and let him use a vox to distribute his leadership to his squads without ever coming out of his bunker/command track/whatever.

The fact that 40k is no longer like that is part of the problem, at least for people that cared about that sort of thing.

Not sure if your target audience are people who like to be realistic about their military stuff with covers like these for your starter boxes..

a_typical_hero wrote:
Not sure if your target audience are people who like to be realistic about their military stuff with covers like these for your starter boxes..

Spoiler:

Well, there's a reason I don't play Space Marines. The Imperial Guard and Imperial Armor cover art was usually a good bit more sensible (e.g.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I agree, but that's not typically how it's presented to newbies.

"Plasmaguns are the best choice, you want the whole squad with plasmaguns"
"Don't bother with flamers, flamers are terrible, if you're taking that unit you want plasmaguns".
"So buy that box, then buy an upgrade sprue just to get the options you actually want..."
That sort of thing.

It's obviously not a total deterrent and many newbies either don't experience that or ignore it, but it is there.

If only there was another option, like putting enough of the different weapons in the kit that you don't need to look elsewhere to make even a minimum squad with the same loadout.

 vipoid wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I agree, but that's not typically how it's presented to newbies.

"Plasmaguns are the best choice, you want the whole squad with plasmaguns"
"Don't bother with flamers, flamers are terrible, if you're taking that unit you want plasmaguns".
"So buy that box, then buy an upgrade sprue just to get the options you actually want..."
That sort of thing.

It's obviously not a total deterrent and many newbies either don't experience that or ignore it, but it is there.

If only there was another option, like putting enough of the different weapons in the kit that you don't need to look elsewhere to make even a minimum squad with the same loadout.

Updating kits to reflect the rules is expensive. Updating rules to match the kit is cheap. I wonder why they made the choice they did?

Not to mention they just updated the Cadian Infantry Squad kit to include everything except the Heavy Weapons team. I’ve mostly noticed salt about the increased cost of the kit, not thanks for all the options.

kirotheavenger wrote:"Plasmaguns are the best choice, you want the whole squad with plasmaguns"
"Don't bother with flamers, flamers are terrible, if you're taking that unit you want plasmaguns".
"So buy that box, then buy an upgrade sprue just to get the options you actually want..."
That sort of thing.

I totally get that, I've certainly done it myself.

What I'm saying is just that you would think this would prompt the designers to look at how the game functions and think about what needs to be done to make the optimal unit composition more closely align with what the model/fluff unit composition suggests.

Just nuking all those options certainly is a solution, but it's not the only solution.

Unit1126PLL wrote:Because, as we all know, nothing says "I'm a serious military force!" like an eclectic collection of mismatched weapons that all perform a different mission set mashed together into a single tactical unit!

It's why an American squad is usually a single jeep, one man with a grenade launcher, one man with a flamethrower, one man with two knives, one man with a big flail, one man with a 9mm and a knife, the sergeant who can choose between an ATGM or a single .45, and like 2 people with the standard issue M4. Though one of them has a scope.

I mean... tying in with the above, if you look at an actual US Army infantry squad, only two out of the nine guys are basic riflemen, and the squad has a mix of SAWs, grenadiers, and both magnified and non-magnified optics on their M4s.

But there are practical real-world reasons for such a composition, which 40K doesn't do a good job of replicating. The disparate weapon types come together to function greater than the sum of their parts. In 40K, such a setup is strictly less optimal than spamming just SAWs or just grenade launchers and making sure everyone has the same optic (rifle type).

Wayniac wrote:
They clearly want you to build models for variety rather than pick the best option and spam it

Which is more varied, 3 Skitarii squads with one of each different gun upgrade, or 3 squads with that each have 3 of one of the choices?

Yes, both are less varied than 3 squads all with 3 of the same gun and some folks would/will/did run them that way.

A lot of the units hit with this have been Troops, which you would usually buy more than one box of anyways. Whereas you might only want one unit of Scourges but that unit escaped "attention". If everyone actually is on the same page and this is all "intended", its still seems really half assed.

 catbarf wrote:
I mean... tying in with the above, if you look at an actual US Army infantry squad, only two out of the nine guys are basic riflemen, and the squad has a mix of SAWs, grenadiers, and both magnified and non-magnified optics on their M4s.

But there are practical real-world reasons for such a composition, which 40K doesn't do a good job of replicating. The disparate weapon types come together to function greater than the sum of their parts. In 40K, such a setup is strictly less optimal than spamming just SAWs or just grenade launchers and making sure everyone has the same optic (rifle type).

At the scale of 40k, this is a 9 man squad with 4 special weapons - 2 Grenade Launchers and 2 Stubbers (for example; however you want to count the SAWs). It's not a hodgepodge mix, but rather two separate teams with exactly the same gear between them and a single squad leader. If the Plague Marines entry looked like this, it'd be much more sensible.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
At the scale of 40k, this is a 9 man squad with 4 special weapons - 2 Grenade Launchers and 2 Stubbers (for example; however you want to count the SAWs). It's not a hodgepodge mix, but rather two separate teams with exactly the same gear between them and a single squad leader. If the Plague Marines entry looked like this, it'd be much more sensible.

I guess I'm just saying that 40K has always had a problem with giving you a reason to take 2 GLs and 2 Stubbers if you have the option to take 4 of one or the other. They have to put these heavy restrictions in because the game mechanics don't implicitly give you reasons to mix- and when taking a mix is almost always worse than spamming one type, you get these feels-bad situations where you're incentivized to hoard bits or buy multiple kits to get the 'right' setup.

If taking the mix of weapons that comes in the box were tactically viable, then it would be fine to have duplicate weapons be an option that isn't in the box.

 catbarf wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
At the scale of 40k, this is a 9 man squad with 4 special weapons - 2 Grenade Launchers and 2 Stubbers (for example; however you want to count the SAWs). It's not a hodgepodge mix, but rather two separate teams with exactly the same gear between them and a single squad leader. If the Plague Marines entry looked like this, it'd be much more sensible.

I guess I'm just saying that 40K has always had a problem with giving you a reason to take 2 GLs and 2 Stubbers if you have the option to take 4 of one or the other. They have to put these heavy restrictions in because the game mechanics don't implicitly give you reasons to mix- and when taking a mix is almost always worse than spamming one type, you get these feels-bad situations where you're incentivized to hoard bits or buy multiple kits to get the 'right' setup.

If taking the mix of weapons that comes in the box were tactically viable, then it would be fine to have duplicate weapons be an option that isn't in the box.

Oh, yes. I see your point. Other games do actually do this much better, but they typically have more ways for units to interact with the game than just murder.

F.E. Suppressive fire necessitates an MG but has good utility. The need to fire flares (f.e. to illuminate things in a night-fight) or project grenades (f.e. smoke grenades) further than they can be thrown makes the launcher useful - but I don't need to list these for you.

Easiest thing to do is just continue using the "illegal" loadouts & play with people who don't care. I understand that it may not be viable for some players(tourney and tourney adjacent), but as long as you continue to support GW by giving them $€£¥, they have ZERO incentive to change.

Sucks, but follow GW blindly or get left behind.

If you stop giving GW your money it doesn't matter either because the number of new players that will seems to be only growing. Just look at last year. GW had huge sales, and that is with production and supply problems.

Racerguy180 wrote:
Easiest thing to do is just continue using the "illegal" loadouts & play with people who don't care.

if you have a group that does not care, you can go that far and just use the models for a different game, as the loadout not matching the rules won't be a problem

I feel the need to re-post this from the 'State of 40k' thread. It was about how GW minis have gone from multi-part, multi-post, multi-option kits to what we have today, but it applies equally to the weapon options within said kits:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
When I first pointed it out the usual suspects said I was wrong, I was crazy, and that nothing had changed. Then when it became too obvious to ignore "You're wrong!" became "So what?" with all the usual excuses (ie. "They're not that posable now, so it's not that big a difference!"). Then it moved onto "We like it because they're dynamic!" or "The old ones were bad anyway!". At the moment it's "No options and nonposable is actually better for everyone/the game/etc.!".

Pretty soon the next step is "You should be thankful there are even options at all!".

Judging by this thread, we're still at the "actually better for the game" stage.

I am entirely, 100% confident it's an attempt to kill off the third party market for bitz and 3d printed parts.

It certainly isn't there to make things simpler - just look at Plague Marines. I've been playing them for years and that thing still makes me scratch my head, as well as making coherency and model removal much more irritating to work out as they all have different things.

I get they may want to make it so you can make the best squad you can straight from the box - but they did it via adding a complexity in an edition already quite complex - especially for brand new players.

I don't think anyone's actually arguing it's better for the game.

People have just been explaining why GW did it, which is that it's easy for GW to do and better for new players.
Obviously we're all agreed it's far from the optimum solution and isn't better for us established folk.

 alextroy wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I agree, but that's not typically how it's presented to newbies.

"Plasmaguns are the best choice, you want the whole squad with plasmaguns"
"Don't bother with flamers, flamers are terrible, if you're taking that unit you want plasmaguns".
"So buy that box, then buy an upgrade sprue just to get the options you actually want..."
That sort of thing.

It's obviously not a total deterrent and many newbies either don't experience that or ignore it, but it is there.

If only there was another option, like putting enough of the different weapons in the kit that you don't need to look elsewhere to make even a minimum squad with the same loadout.

Updating kits to reflect the rules is expensive. Updating rules to match the kit is cheap. I wonder why they made the choice they did?

Not to mention they just updated the Cadian Infantry Squad kit to include everything except the Heavy Weapons team. I’ve mostly noticed salt about the increased cost of the kit, not thanks for all the options.

?? Of course, thank you GW for charging us 11 more dollars for the same squad that has only gone up in cost for its entire long life so far. You are correct we should be kissing their booty for the gift of being able to pay more and still perhaps losing access to the heavies in our troop squads. What amazing charitable folks they are. The gift of being ripped off, how could I not have seen it already ? So yeah, I don't thank them for the options as they didn't give it as a gift you are paying plenty for it and it means little to nothing to a vet player of guard as you can't even buy the upgrades sprues on their own. Thanks GW, real class act there. For the cost of the cadian infantry squad they might as well have just made a new kit you'd be paying about the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I feel the need to re-post this from the 'State of 40k' thread. It was about how GW minis have gone from multi-part, multi-post, multi-option kits to what we have today, but it applies equally to the weapon options within said kits:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
When I first pointed it out the usual suspects said I was wrong, I was crazy, and that nothing had changed. Then when it became too obvious to ignore "You're wrong!" became "So what?" with all the usual excuses (ie. "They're not that posable now, so it's not that big a difference!"). Then it moved onto "We like it because they're dynamic!" or "The old ones were bad anyway!". At the moment it's "No options and nonposable is actually better for everyone/the game/etc.!".

Pretty soon the next step is "You should be thankful there are even options at all!".

Judging by this thread, we're still at the "actually better for the game" stage.

My first quoted post above yours is already on the " You should be grateful for any options plebs" camp. So there you go, some of us have reached that point already and it'll only grow I bet ya.


I'm waiting for " It's so much easier on new players as they don't need to think for even one second about unit options, way more beginner friendly, GW is genius, brilliant ! Options are lame, only shameful old grognards like choices. I for one welcome are new no option overlords.

Oh yeah man. Totes beginner friendly.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Oh yeah man. Totes beginner friendly.

Honestly, while it's probably the least elegant way to write those rules, they aren't particularly difficult to understand.

 Jidmah wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Oh yeah man. Totes beginner friendly.

Honestly, while it's probably the least elegant way to write those rules, they aren't particularly difficult to understand.

No, just time consuming and annoying.

Which is detrimental for beginners.

It's beneficial to beginners because they'll never get told that their Plague Marine box wasn't good enough, and they now need to buy or convert (presumably after buying bits as well).

Clearly GW thinks that that's a bigger hurdle than slightly convoluted wording. Which I'd tend to agree with, you can just build your models according to the instructions and need'nt bother even attempting to navigate the options because you'll assemble the kit in a legal loadout.