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I like the look of the new Spryers gang a great deal, and don't mind the interchangeable parts....though I do think maybe separate chest pieces would be cool. One thing I don't like is the studio painting them to look like one homogeneous, unified group. They are crazy nobles.....they need crazy individualized paint schemes.

I am hoping they have a spider like head with a bunch of eyes and "mandibles" kind of like the concept of the Malcadon mini way back when.

On the plus side, these new Spyrers are disappointing enough designs that the fact they're out of scale with my collection isn't a problem...

Given the rest of the Necromunda range, I had been expecting new Spyrers to be fantastic. Was really not expecting a bunch of practically identical models. And the fact they've leant into that by also painting them all the same is just a weird choice.

Steve May, the sculptor involved in the Spyrer project (stevepaintsandsculpts), posted his opinion on the Orrus,

"Getting to redesign the old Orrus Spyrer was a great project. They are such an iconic part of the original Necromunda, despite the models being s bit goofy.
Looking forward to seeing better photos of these, because I'm sure the paint job is better in real life. I envisioned them being more knightly, painted in house coloures (quartered or halved in bold garish block coloures). I feel this makes them look too much like Van Saar personally.
Design wise, these were a very long process. The original concepts were really not appropriate for Necromunda and couldn't practically be made into physical miniatures, so I had to design them completely from scratch.
These were one of my 'trainee' projects, and I'm very happy with how they turned out. There are a lot of options in the kit (some of which I have a feeling that may have been removed after I left, but we will see) so I hope they show them off properly. The backs of the models look very different to the fronts!
The caryatid was an idea I had to put in the kit because there was a big space on the frame. The idea for him was that he was pointing with his wing, which you can sort of see in the pic.
Disappointed he doesn't have the swirls painted on him, because I agreed not to sculpt them on, so they could be a paint effect."

I read somewhere that the torsos were changed. Also agree on the colour scheme, it ties them in a bit with the Van Saar (maybe they also worked on the suits? Not sure of the backstory) but honestly I think that they should've gone another way.

Interesting tidbit on the "alien" design of the armour, especially as it doesn't really tie in with any of the known races.

The real interesting tidbit is the sculptor churn. This artist's trainee project is barely just coming out and they've already left GW. Must be an absolute gakshow in there.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
The real interesting tidbit is the sculptor churn. This artist's trainee project is barely just coming out and they've already left GW. Must be an absolute gakshow in there.

That doesn't really follow. This is only one case.

Also GW seems to do a lot of short term contracts now, so whilst this might be their Training project in terms of learning how to work with GW; how to sculpt in their style; how to work for plastic casting in the design and so forth; it doesn't mean the sculptor had a long term contract. It might just be a short term one that GW will reach out too or offer work up too. Since GW gets to use the training model anyway GW doesn't lose out on training someone up even for part time work.

Not so much a terrible place to work, but a pretty poorly paid place to work by all accounts

so you get a lot of folk moving on after only a few years (especially as many of them have moved away from friends and family to live in Nottingham)

 Overread wrote:
Also GW seems to do a lot of short term contracts now, so whilst this might be their Training project in terms of learning how to work with GW; how to sculpt in their style; how to work for plastic casting in the design and so forth; it doesn't mean the sculptor had a long term contract. It might just be a short term one that GW will reach out too or offer work up too. Since GW gets to use the training model anyway GW doesn't lose out on training someone up even for part time work.

Not aware of any evidence of the use of short-term contracts for miniature designers and it doesn't seem to be the case in this instance either, since Steve May has described working on a significant number of models. I think the fact it was a "trainee" model just indicates he made it a while ago before deciding to leave.

I was reading it as a trainee for specialist games? Since he worked on a whole lot of models and was tutored by the Perry twins some years ago while working for GW (this from his own insta). But doing regular sculpting then (he talks about the 3d ups), or maybe it spent a lot of time in the archives since he mentioned that other people worked on it.

They probably keep the senior designers like Jes, while others come and go after a few years. I think the guy who did many of their cool buildings (Ray Dranfeld) is one such case (could be wrong on this one)

GW have always had a certain amount of sculptor churn, because their training is good but their pay is rubbish. There are a lot of ex-GW sculptors in the industry.

 insaniak wrote:
On the plus side, these new Spyrers are disappointing enough designs that the fact they're out of scale with my collection isn't a problem...

Given the rest of the Necromunda range, I had been expecting new Spyrers to be fantastic. Was really not expecting a bunch of practically identical models. And the fact they've leant into that by also painting them all the same is just a weird choice.

Yeah I wondered about that myself.
I like it for armies, but this is a small gang of elite individuals. Identical paintjobs are weird from a setting perspective.

But for a promo shot perspective, its asinine. It makes the kit look even more limited (and two of them are already on the same tactical rock, not that tactical rocks even make sense with the necromunda bases, and a third is also roughly in the same pose). No idea what thought process went into trying to sell these minis with this photograph.

Voss wrote:
I like it for armies, but this is a small gang of elite individuals. Identical paintjobs are weird from a setting perspective.

But for a promo shot perspective, its asinine. It makes the kit look even more limited (and two of them are already on the same tactical rock, not that tactical rocks even make sense with the necromunda bases, and a third is also roughly in the same pose). No idea what thought process went into trying to sell these minis with this photograph.

Yeah, with the really busy armor styling, the coloring makes them visually indistinct. The green is lovely, but at a glance they just all look the same. If they had gone with, say, the green for the Orrus, dark grey for the Yeld, a deep red for the Malcadon and a blue for the Jakara, the fact that all of the armor is the same wouldn't have been as apparent.

Even better would have been to paint them up like crusading knights in fancy, individual schemes using house colors, as the sculptor said he expected.

Greenfield wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
The real interesting tidbit is the sculptor churn. This artist's trainee project is barely just coming out and they've already left GW. Must be an absolute gakshow in there.

That doesn't really follow. This is only one case.

It is not, there's been quite a few examples of it. The Tomb king bone dragon is another example.

 insaniak wrote:

Voss wrote:
I like it for armies, but this is a small gang of elite individuals. Identical paintjobs are weird from a setting perspective.

But for a promo shot perspective, its asinine. It makes the kit look even more limited (and two of them are already on the same tactical rock, not that tactical rocks even make sense with the necromunda bases, and a third is also roughly in the same pose). No idea what thought process went into trying to sell these minis with this photograph.

Yeah, with the really busy armor styling, the coloring makes them visually indistinct. The green is lovely, but at a glance they just all look the same. If they had gone with, say, the green for the Orrus, dark grey for the Yeld, a deep red for the Malcadon and a blue for the Jakara, the fact that all of the armor is the same wouldn't have been as apparent.

Even better would have been to paint them up like crusading knights in fancy, individual schemes using house colors, as the sculptor said he expected.

Yeah, I think that a different paint scheme would have helped a lot. I think the sculptor was right on the money and that these would look cool in really garish personal livery.

Yeah gotta say all the first comments saying it all looks too samey, my first thought was well I think they all looked close ish back then, it was the colours that really differentiated them from looking the same.

The originals were absolutely not visually similar. The Malcadon had his ribbed suit, whole the Yeld was more of a synthskin look. The Orrus and Jakara were similar in that they both had armour plates over a bodysuit, but the the Orrus was bulkier and the styling of the armour on both was different.

Vs these, where it's all the same armour just with different accessories. Aside from being harder to identify, it also makes them look mass produced, rather than individual, custom crafted suits.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Greenfield wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
The real interesting tidbit is the sculptor churn. This artist's trainee project is barely just coming out and they've already left GW. Must be an absolute gakshow in there.

That doesn't really follow. This is only one case.

It is not, there's been quite a few examples of it. The Tomb king bone dragon is another example.

It's not another example, it's the same guy.

The very first sculpt he made for Forge World was Vunder Gorvos, who was released on 17th September 2022

The first release he made for Forge World was Klovis the Redeemer and Deacon Malkev who came out on 13th November 2021

Per his Instagram, his final day working for Forge World/Specialist Games/Games Workshop was 20th April 2023

The final project he worked on before his departure was the plastic Solar Auxilia Veletaris

The only thing I can see that he has said regarding his departure is that it wasn't the right environment for him, and every subsequent release he worked on has either been partially resculpted, or presented to the public without regard to his intent (Hibou Khan is much busier with more detail that he submitted, paintjobs that misunderstand what he was going for, his plastic designs have a lot of options stripped off of them and are assembled in suboptimal ways), so the only thing I can read into there is that he prefers to actually have proper control over what he creates and what happens with them (he doesn't believe the Bone Dragon is aesthetically or thematically suitable for Tomb Kings, and the designs he submitted as per his obligation to work on it ended up being covered up anyway by the contributions of other sculptors).

The peek behind the curtain of designs being submitted and spending several years in limbo before seeing a release is interesting, but a part of me feels we've always known the sculpting to released product pipeline was never First In, First Out (or at least hasn't been for decades)

there where two more a patriarch and a matriarch. one had some mechanical tentacles
and the other wielded a chainblade deathreaper thingy.

Think I'll just grab some assassins as conversion bases for my Spyrers. I might keep the Orrus as is, the others aren't really setting the world on fire for me.

 skeleton wrote:
there where two more a patriarch and a matriarch. one had some mechanical tentacles
and the other wielded a chainblade deathreaper thingy.

I have a feeling we'll see them as named resin releases.

Maybe the matriarch will be redone as Haera leveling up with the story.

Given my previously stated opinions on Newcromunda it feels like kicking someone while they're down, but count me unimpressed. The Spryers definitely feel like cool figures that aren't Spryers.

And as everyone has said, they really don't feel like unique,specialized, bespoke suits crafted for the nobility. They just look like another gang, possibly something advanced from Van Saar.

With the ever increasing creep in overdesigned gang gear, I was wondering how they were going to take it to the next level to represent heirloom archeotech predator suits. Incredibly underwhelmed with the answer.

I love the new Spyrers - but have trouble choosing which Turbo Dork paint to use for the ”alien metal”-parts. Any suggestions?

Thinking about this some more, if they were going to go the identical suit route, it would have been better if they went with more options... Select a base suit of either the agile or tank type, and give them a broad mix-and-match armory, with the original archetypes becoming just a fluff name for those particular loadouts.

Sorry for what is probably a dumb question, but are all those Spyrers included in the new box, or are they a separate purchase?

The Orrus is packaged with a bunch of Van Saar and Genestealer Cultists in the new Hive Secundus box, and the other four are a single plastic kit.

 insaniak wrote:
Thinking about this some more, if they were going to go the identical suit route, it would have been better if they went with more options... Select a base suit of either the agile or tank type, and give them a broad mix-and-match armory, with the original archetypes becoming just a fluff name for those particular loadouts.

I think that would have been a pretty good idea myself. Maybe add in a few new weapon options/wargear options. That way you would have more flexibility when building your own spoiled rich kid death machine.

It kind of dawned on me too how happy I am with the choice of a plastic kit, not because it is perfect by any means (I would have preferred a few more bits to make the archetypes a bit more unique- but overall I'm pretty fond of it), but because if they didn't do a plastic box they would likely have done all of the archetypes as a single resin miniature that is 40 bucks a piece with no options and would be much more of a pain to convert/kitbash.

So, is it a requirement for you to get your feet cut off to be a Spyrer?

I wouldn't expect so. The reverse 'knee' is the ankle joint, and their feet are in the lower 'leg' section - they're walking on tip-toes.