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Voss wrote:
Yeah, not sold on the LT or the swords bros (the poses and the grips on some of the weapons are just weird, and the cloaks are laughable).

Really nice looking bits pack, however. (Though I'm not sold on the sheer quantity of scout bits).

If the Crusader squad has bolt pistol/ccw and bolter options for the scouts, the upgrade kit seems to cover swapping them to shotguns.

I had to create an account just to share my thought about that new BT upgrade sprue.

The easiest way to judge that sprue is to put it next to the current one and remember what said upgrade sprue is suposed to be about: Turning your standard marines into "chapter" marines by giving them bits that carry the appopriate iconography and iconic elements of said chapter.

The current one has 5 different chest piece that alone will drastically change the look of your mini, 3 of them with tabards, the rest with the Maltese cross on the chest.

It contains a lot more weapons with their iconic chains, which again are more than enough to change the look of the minis, and it also contains way more weapon types like a power fist, sword and axe.

It contains the cool knightly helmets you are expecting when thinking about the BT (I don't understand for the love of me why GW thought what people wanted when they thought about BT was more bareheads that most of the playerbase avoid like the plague because they aren't skilled enough to paint them properly, and why they are so scared of giving more custom helmets to the primaris while at the same time banning 3rd party bits).

So to resume: The old kit contained head, torso and weapons that all where very visually distinct and could alone turn a standard marine into a black Templar.

The new sprue contains none of that. Generic unhelmeted heads, NO WEAPONS (outside of a relic and the scouts see later on that post), and ofc no chest piece.

Basically you are expected to have your generic marines look like BT just because of the shoulderpads and a small handful of doodads...

And even there, the old sprue contains contains more doodads and more variety in its shoulder pads.

Again, I feel like this needs to be repeated: That new upgrade sprue DOESN'T even contain a SINGLE chained weapon, which are their most well known and iconic trait. Same for their other iconic bit, the tabard. How exactly is that acceptable?

And last but not least, it also contained vehicle bits (remember when that was a thing?! welp not anymore biatch!).
Would it have been a good time to roll out some cool Dread and Primaris vehicles bits like the old sprue to make them look cool?
Naaaaah.

On the other hand what that new sprue does is what every other primaris upgrade sprues have done, giving us the most generic shouldpad possible rather than a bunch of unique ones.

It also bloated its content with a bunch of STANDARD weapons for the Neophytes/Scouts including stuff like a grenade throwing arm, a bolter and the shotguns...
All things that SHOULD be part of the Neophyte sprue and don't bear ANY BT iconography.

Btw, why would you need to put wargear options on a BT upgrade sprue... for a BT exclusive unit? It's not as if we they just released new scouts and the neophytes were the only ones using shotguns, we are talking about the neophytes from the crusader squad sprue, ie a 100% black Templar unit.
Wtf is up with that? I'll tell you what's up. The Neophyte sprue will come with a bunch of missing gear that GW just randomly pushed on the upgrade sprue.

The result is a BT upgrade sprue that has a third of its content is the missing wargear of a BT unit... and none of it is even BT marked, and said unit is NOT a standard space marine.

So, since the upgrade sprue clearly doesn't have what you really need to turn your standard marines into "chapter" marines, what is the other obvious choice?
Buying some Crusader sprues right?

Except... half the sprue is made of scouts (ie not your regular marines), which seems to me like a very deliberate choice from GW to force you to pay for scouts when you would just want some marines.

"but that's how the BT crusader works dood"
So what about the existing Initiate squad made up only of marines as an elite unit then?

Unless GW just decided to remove that unit from the codex, how are we supposed to build that? With the upgrade sprue? That doesn't contain anything useful oustide of some very blend shoulder pad?

It's still amazing when compared to the absolutely no efforet ass-tastic upgrade sprues every other chapter got.

By the way, [HN], your chosen username completely feths up the quote system/code tags in this board software. I'd probably message the Admins to see if they can remove the square brackets from your username.

HN wrote:
... NO WEAPONS (outside of a relic and the scouts see later on that post), and ofc no chest piece.

That's because of the way GW now designs their minis. You can't have generic weapon arms and torso fronts as modern GW models are are designed like jigsaw puzzles, where their torso might contain half their arm, part of their left thigh, and all of their right leg. GW have increased the 'dynamic' posing of their models by eliminating much of the options we once had. This is why the old pack wouldn't work with the new models, and why the new pack is mostly heads and random bits and bobs.

HN wrote:
That new upgrade sprue DOESN'T even contain a SINGLE chained weapon, which are their most well known and iconic trait. Same for their other iconic bit, the tabard. How exactly is that acceptable?

Because they're all on the Cruader/Sword Brethren sprues, we presume.

HN wrote:
And last but not least, it also contained vehicle bits (remember when that was a thing?! welp not anymore biatch!). Would it have been a good time to roll out some cool Dread and Primaris vehicles bits like the old sprue to make them look cool?
Naaaaah.

It's been a long time since the BT vehicle accessory sprue was made, but I seem to recall that even back then it was seen as something of a financial gamble for GW - a bunch of big plastic plates for their vehicles that only a scant few players would ever need. This might explain why latter vehicle upgrades became icons you attach, rather than big slabs of plastic.

Screw it i'm gonna say it, imagine being such an entitled Marine player you complain about the Black Templar upgrade sprue after Blood Angels got this.

I mean, there literally is a vehicle upgrade, in the form of that flamer. Looks like the unsheathed sword is also meant to adorn a tank, like what the SoB got. Plus you can easily use a lot of the bits on vehicles and dreadnoughts. Candles, bone totems, purity seals, etc. Is it as good as a dedicated vehicle upgrade sprue? Of course not, but it's not like you can't customize a vehicle/dreadnought with what you get in that set

I have to say, BT new upgrade sprue has less chest pieces and tabards and weapons because... now BT have actual sword brothers, inithiates and neophytes kits.

 GaroRobe wrote:
I mean, there literally is a vehicle upgrade, in the form of that flamer. Looks like the unsheathed sword is also meant to adorn a tank, like what the SoB got. Plus you can easily use a lot of the bits on vehicles and dreadnoughts. Candles, bone totems, purity seals, etc. Is it as good as a dedicated vehicle upgrade sprue? Of course not, but it's not like you can't customize a vehicle/dreadnought with what you get in that set

That unsheathed sword would look perfectly on the front armour of a Redemptor, don't you think? Probably could put the candles on top, slap some of the icons somewhere. Maybe the giant book too.

Also, I'm pretty sure the new upgrade sprue is meant to go with the Crusaders and Sword Brethren squad, instead of replacing them.

Yeah, the bare heads are lame.

Goose LeChance wrote:
Yeah, the bare heads are lame.

Depends on how many heads come with the Crusade/Sword Brethren kit.

I don't like Mk.IV Marines, so by extension I really don't like Primaris Marine heads as they're just a newer Mk.IV helmet. I've been giving some of my Primaris guys the Crusader helms from both the Company Champion and the BT sprue.

I was hoping the new BT sprue would be chock full of them, but sadly no. I hope there are tons of spares on the new kits.

Voss wrote:
Yeah, not sold on the LT or the swords bros (the poses and the grips on some of the weapons are just weird, and the cloaks are laughable).

Really nice looking bits pack, however. (Though I'm not sold on the sheer quantity of scout bits).

Robes on top of stylized Mk X Gravis Armor was probably not the best choice. They look almost comically bulky.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Screw it i'm gonna say it, imagine being such an entitled Marine player you complain about the Black Templar upgrade sprue after Blood Angels got this.

Bruh moment: the first Space Wolves upgrade sprue was better than the Primaris one.

Seriously, I rather run old Wolves with copypasted loadouts rather than Primaris Wolves of almost any kind.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
Yeah, the bare heads are lame.

Depends on how many heads come with the Crusade/Sword Brethren kit.

I don't like Mk.IV Marines, so by extension I really don't like Primaris Marine heads as they're just a newer Mk.IV helmet. I've been giving some of my Primaris guys the Crusader helms from both the Company Champion and the BT sprue.

I was hoping the new BT sprue would be chock full of them, but sadly no. I hope there are tons of spares on the new kits.

Yeah, can't go wrong with more helmet designs. They should sell an entire sprue of alternate helmets tbh.

 CMLR wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Screw it i'm gonna say it, imagine being such an entitled Marine player you complain about the Black Templar upgrade sprue after Blood Angels got this.

Bruh moment: the first Space Wolves upgrade sprue was better than the Primaris one.

Is there a single Chapter Upgrade sprue worse than the Primaris one? Or at least on the same level?

The thing that really made them superlame for me was the garbage, copy-pasted generic helmets. I mean seriously, compare the old Upgrade Sprue helmets to new ones.

 alextroy wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah, not sold on the LT or the swords bros (the poses and the grips on some of the weapons are just weird, and the cloaks are laughable).

Really nice looking bits pack, however. (Though I'm not sold on the sheer quantity of scout bits).

Robes on top of stylized Mk X Gravis Armor was probably not the best choice. They look almost comically bulky.

They're not wearing Gravis, it's just customised Tacticus.

As someone that loves helmets. YEAH.

Why do you keep giving us fugly bare heads GW?! Give us cool and sick helmet designs, please!

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

Is there a single Chapter Upgrade sprue worse than the Primaris one? Or at least on the same level?

Maybe BT themselves now?

And the WS one.

I don't even play blood angels and I'm still mad that the primaris BA upgrade sprue just gave vanilla weapon options. Oooh a bolter and chainsword without any blood drops? (Yeah, chainsword primaris were a few months away, but what a kick in the face)

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
It's still amazing when compared to the absolutely no efforet ass-tastic upgrade sprues every other chapter got.

Talk about running after GW while they are lower the bar.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Screw it i'm gonna say it, imagine being such an entitled Marine player you complain about the Black Templar upgrade sprue after Blood Angels got this.

Oof… ofc you are the kind of people to use words like “entitled” when talking aobut customer/corporation relationship.. Aight I guess that’s the queue to just ignore you then, since you clearly don’t have anything insightful to say. That kind of whataboutism is just mindbogglingly stupid, what you are doing is just helping GW pushing the bare lower and lower.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
By the way, [HN], your chosen username completely feths up the quote system/code tags in this board software. I'd probably message the Admins to see if they can remove the square brackets from your username.

That’s unfortunate… I’ll see what I can do about that.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That's because of the way GW now designs their minis. You can't have generic weapon arms and torso fronts as modern GW models are are designed like jigsaw puzzles, where their torso might contain half their arm, part of their left thigh, and all of their right leg. GW have increased the 'dynamic' posing of their models by eliminating much of the options we once had. This is why the old pack wouldn't work with the new models, and why the new pack is mostly heads and random bits and bobs.

I’m sadly fully aware of the god awful direction GW is dragging their minies with the rise of monoposes that extremely damages the hobby potential of the minies for a marginal gain in “dynamism”, but that’s really a problem of their own making. Having generic chest plates as separate pieces would have been pretty easy to do, even with their monopose stuff, and yet they decided to cut yet another corner and here we are now.
And while it explains the lack of torsos, it doesn’t explains the total lack of weapons.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because they're all on the Cruader/Sword Brethren sprues, we presume.

I’ll be quoting myself here
Except... half the sprue is made of scouts (ie not your regular marines), which seems to me like a very deliberate choice from GW to force you to pay for scouts when you would just want some marines.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's been a long time since the BT vehicle accessory sprue was made, but I seem to recall that even back then it was seen as something of a financial gamble for GW - a bunch of big plastic plates for their vehicles that only a scant few players would ever need. This might explain why latter vehicle upgrades became icons you attach, rather than big slabs of plastic.

The cost of plastic was never, EVER a factor in the price of production or sell for the sprues, I know it, you know it, everyone knows it.
The only real reason here is simple, it’s the same than why the primaris upgrade sprues have generic and bland shoulderpads compared to the firstborn ones (it’s very stricking when comparing blood angles, dark angles or even ultramarines to their new versions): Why bother? People will buy it anyway.
Just shrugging and dropping an excuse for it doesn’t help.

 GaroRobe wrote:
I mean, there literally is a vehicle upgrade, in the form of that flamer. Looks like the unsheathed sword is also meant to adorn a tank, like what the SoB got. Plus you can easily use a lot of the bits on vehicles and dreadnoughts. Candles, bone totems, purity seals, etc. Is it as good as a dedicated vehicle upgrade sprue? Of course not, but it's not like you can't customize a vehicle/dreadnought with what you get in that set

You mean the Multimelta?
But that’s not really what I mean by vehicle upgrades and I hope you know it.
And just because I can glue any part of the sprue, including the sprue frame itself to a vehicle doesn’t mean it’s a good alternative to actual real part made for vehicles.

 Galas wrote:
I have to say, BT new upgrade sprue has less chest pieces and tabards and weapons because... now BT have actual sword brothers, inithiates and neophytes kits.

Yeah, but as I said, to get thos bits you’ll have to buy a box that has half its contain in the form of scouts that you don’t really care.

 CMLR wrote:
Bruh moment: the first Space Wolves upgrade sprue was better than the Primaris one.

It’s sadly the case for all the primaris upgrade kits, they are all without exception noticeably worse than the old one.

Goose LeChance wrote:
Yeah, can't go wrong with more helmet designs. They should sell an entire sprue of alternate helmets tbh.

So like… an “upgrade sprue”?
Oh wait, they decided to slap a bunch of bareheads in there instead.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, something else I've noticed with that update that is pretty funny:

The minis that has been received the best are the character based on the old MG design, and the one in particular that most people seems to find the best of the lot is literally based on one of the most famous and seminal piece of Blanche's art for warhammer.

It's as if... as if the people at GW today couldn't come even remotely close to what the people at their spot were doing 2 decades ago.

I imagine GW's first attempt at a "Head Sprue" would just be 12 screaming bald heads. And you'd get two of the same sprue.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 GaroRobe wrote:
I mean, there literally is a vehicle upgrade, in the form of that flamer. Looks like the unsheathed sword is also meant to adorn a tank, like what the SoB got. Plus you can easily use a lot of the bits on vehicles and dreadnoughts. Candles, bone totems, purity seals, etc. Is it as good as a dedicated vehicle upgrade sprue? Of course not, but it's not like you can't customize a vehicle/dreadnought with what you get in that set

That unsheathed sword would look perfectly on the front armour of a Redemptor, don't you think? Probably could put the candles on top, slap some of the icons somewhere. Maybe the giant book too.

Also, I'm pretty sure the new upgrade sprue is meant to go with the Crusaders and Sword Brethren squad, instead of replacing them.

Looks like 5 templar crosses with flat backs for vehicles, mounted sword, and a pintle multimelta all specifically for vehicles, and the purity seals, bones, candles, lanterns, and book all look vehicle compatible.

Other notes. Crusader helmets relic looks both cool and like a he-man character at the same time.
Decal sheet in the upgrade set is different to the one in the army box and potentially unit boxes.
Looks like 3 chained chainswords, 3 chained assault bolters, 4 chained bolt pistols, axe and sword with chains per sprue in the crusader kit, all with the normal flat shoulder mount.
Sword brethren add chained weapons 2 pistols, 2 chain swords, power sword, maul, axe, thunder hammer, flame and plasma pistols, and excessively a chained pair of lightning claws.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I imagine GW's first attempt at a "Head Sprue" would just be 12 screaming bald heads. And you'd get two of the same sprue.

It's so accurate it actually hurts.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah, not sold on the LT or the swords bros (the poses and the grips on some of the weapons are just weird, and the cloaks are laughable).

Really nice looking bits pack, however. (Though I'm not sold on the sheer quantity of scout bits).

If the Crusader squad has bolt pistol/ccw and bolter options for the scouts, the upgrade kit seems to cover swapping them to shotguns.

Yeah, see... that's bad. The kit should contain the unit's weapon options. They shouldn't be eating space in a completely different kit.

 GaroRobe wrote:
I don't even play blood angels and I'm still mad that the primaris BA upgrade sprue just gave vanilla weapon options. Oooh a bolter and chainsword without any blood drops? (Yeah, chainsword primaris were a few months away, but what a kick in the face)

Generic knife and chainsword for the Lemon's Wolves. Out of all the Chapters.

Sallies barely managed to dodge it.

Then you got IF, IH, RG and WS and you got Cegorach'd.

[quote=[HN] 800235 11231079 null]

 CMLR wrote:
Bruh moment: the first Space Wolves upgrade sprue was better than the Primaris one.

It’s sadly the case for all the primaris upgrade kits, they are all without exception noticeably worse than the old one.

Voss wrote:

Yeah, see... that's bad. The kit should contain the unit's weapon options. They shouldn't be eating space in a completely different kit.

I find mindblowing and frankly sad that this fact seems not not bother many people around here tbh.

 GaroRobe wrote:
I don't even play blood angels and I'm still mad that the primaris BA upgrade sprue just gave vanilla weapon options. Oooh a bolter and chainsword without any blood drops? (Yeah, chainsword primaris were a few months away, but what a kick in the face)

After seeing how GW frankly rushed the job for the otehr factions I decided to stock pile the current upgrade sprue for the BT, and I frankly dont regret.

 CMLR wrote:
No. See: WS.

TBF, that was just a "bike upgrade" sprue, not a full one... but yeah, it was pretty limited and bad.

 CMLR wrote:
[HN], your nickname is troublesome for quoting.

I know I've tried to reach the mods to change that.

Voss wrote:

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah, not sold on the LT or the swords bros (the poses and the grips on some of the weapons are just weird, and the cloaks are laughable).

Really nice looking bits pack, however. (Though I'm not sold on the sheer quantity of scout bits).

If the Crusader squad has bolt pistol/ccw and bolter options for the scouts, the upgrade kit seems to cover swapping them to shotguns.

Yeah, see... that's bad. The kit should contain the unit's weapon options. They shouldn't be eating space in a completely different kit.

[quote=[HN] 800235 11231132 null]
I find mindblowing and frankly sad that this fact seems not not bother many people around here tbh.

Goose LeChance wrote:

Just be glad you haven't been called a Black Knight yet

Is that even a thing?
Hot damn, looks like the fanboys are getting creative with their attacks these days.

Anyway, I literally just dropped here a couple of hours ago, so there's still plenty of time for some very sad individual to throw some pretty hilarious attempt at insults my way for pointing out what is just very basic facts at this point, I'll take that as some cute badge of honor to show during my girl scout sleepovers.

It's not very creative, TBH. They should be calling us Dark Knights.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
Other notes. Crusader helmets relic looks both cool and like a he-man character at the same time.

I think it's a Black Templar-i-fied version of this helmet from the Ven Dread kit.

The sad part is that 3rd parties like Forge of Mars got the design for crusader helmet just right, like the kind of stuff we saw on some artworks back in the old BT codex days.


This is the kind of stuff I was expecting to get on the upgrade sprue... or the templar sprue... or the sword breathren sprue... But instead we got one that looks derpy and is supposed to be a relic on the ugprade sprue (did nobody told them that upgrade sprues are something people are probably going to want multiple of?) and one that looks kinda like it... but with eyes that looks strangely cartoony in their implementation, as alternative helmet for the high marshal.

Never was a fan of that helmet. What, Iron Armor not good enough for you loyalists??