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 Snord wrote:
How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

The price tag has been totally designed with a modern new look!

 Snord wrote:
How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

No clue

 Snord wrote:
It’s an appealing model - nice to see something that’s not bristling with weapons. But I don’t do FW vehicles. How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

before it used 40K logos and markings on the box/bags. now it's Horus Heresy.

only half joking, because that's probably it. it was originally marketed as a 40K vehicle to go with the imperial armor books, they're now going to be marketing it primarily as a HH unit.

I'm not seeing this announcement as anything else than further evidence pointing to the possibility that Solax Auxilia will be the mystery army mentioned in the roadmap. Kinda obvious, first we get the new Baneblade pict and now this new colourscheme, which just happens to match the SA colourscheme from Legions Imperialis

But I'm still going to buy an Arvus when it re-releases, its a classic model. I'd prefer it to be plastic but whatever. If you dont want to buy one, that's cool

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Snord wrote:
How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

No clue

Didn’t it used to have a heavy bolter?

It's always been unarmed, the previous set of 30k rules gave it access to some weapons to fend for itself.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Snord wrote:
How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

No clue

I found this. Looks like they upgraded it to HD

That's quite the glow-up...do I really need two of them??

 Kanluwen wrote:
And that opportunity was instead squandered on simply redoing the resin kit.

You mean not squandered on a plastic kit. After discontinuing a bunch of kits in favor of lower-quality plastic copies it's good to see GW finally just repairing the molds and putting the original back into production.


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 BrookM wrote:
One would hope for a more assembly friendly retool of the model, the FW designers know that most of their flyers are utter pieces of garbage when it comes to assembly.

Really? It's been a while since I've built one but all of mine, Arvus included, were incredibly easy to build. The resin/plastic hybrids like the Storm Eagle were notoriously bad but the all-resin stuff is easy.


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 Snord wrote:
It’s an appealing model - nice to see something that’s not bristling with weapons. But I don’t do FW vehicles. How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

My guess is the "refresh" is a mold repair. It went OOP for a while without any last chance to buy notice so there was probably an issue with the molds and/or master model. Repair the master, rebuild the molds, maybe do some tweaks to how the parts are split up or arranged on the sprue so it casts better, etc.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
And that opportunity was instead squandered on simply redoing the resin kit.

You mean not squandered on a plastic kit. After discontinuing a bunch of kits in favor of lower-quality plastic copies it's good to see GW finally just repairing the molds and putting the original back into production.


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 BrookM wrote:
One would hope for a more assembly friendly retool of the model, the FW designers know that most of their flyers are utter pieces of garbage when it comes to assembly.

Really? It's been a while since I've built one but all of mine, Arvus included, were incredibly easy to build. The resin/plastic hybrids like the Storm Eagle were notoriously bad but the all-resin stuff is easy.


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 Snord wrote:
It’s an appealing model - nice to see something that’s not bristling with weapons. But I don’t do FW vehicles. How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

My guess is the "refresh" is a mold repair. It went OOP for a while without any last chance to buy notice so there was probably an issue with the molds and/or master model. Repair the master, rebuild the molds, maybe do some tweaks to how the parts are split up or arranged on the sprue so it casts better, etc.

Agreed with both your points RE good to see resin molds being refreshed rather than downgraded( ) to plastic, and FW resin flyers not being difficult to build.

I think that the Arvus has been upgraded rather than a simple refresh, the spoilered image posted by xttz shows some significant differences

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
I think that the Arvus has been upgraded rather than a simple refresh, the spoilered image posted by xttz shows some significant differences

That's just photo quality and painting. The rivet holes are on the old model as well, they're just less prominently shaded on the old image and the poor photo quality blurs them out. The only difference I can see between the two is that the cylinder with the lens bit on it is a bit thicker and less prone to breaking than the one on the old kit.

Edit: and looking back at the article image the wing lights may be slightly larger.

The rivet holes on the new version seem much more pronounced, it looks like more than just shading.

Either way, I'm very tempted to get another

 xttz wrote:

I'd guess that this being 'retooled' means it's been done with an updated Epic-scale version in mind... possibly in plastic. Currently it's the only confirmed Solar Auxillia transport in that scale.

My understanding is they start with the 28mm design before doing the 8mm version, so... This.

How old was the Arvus kit? Vraks? Anphelion? Could be that it was redone in CAD to match the more recent models.

Staying in resin is fine, there are a lot of other kits that need the upgrade to plastic and commisurate reduction in weight and price first. The Xiphon and Lightning would be good starts for fliers.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
How old was the Arvus kit? Vraks? Anphelion?

Anphelion IIRC. It was in the book, don't know if it was out before that.

Could be that it was redone in CAD to match the more recent models.

Highly doubt it. The images look virtually identical to the original kit so there would be no real point to redoing it via CAD model, just remake the molds from the physical master. And TBH the whole "do it at 28mm first" thing is highly overstated. You really can't translate between scales like that. An Epic-scale model is not just a 28mm model scaled down, almost the entire model has to be rebuilt. At best you're reusing a couple hours worth of work for a very rough sketch of the basic shapes. The only real benefit would be the ability to see how the 28mm version looks so you don't end up repeating the classic Epic models and making stuff that looks ok at Epic scale but awful at 28mm.

The images are not the same, you can see the difference in detail placement.

 HudsonD wrote:
The images are not the same, you can see the difference in detail placement.

Where do you see a difference? Looking at the side by side images xttz posted the only difference, after accounting for differences in camera angle and photo quality, is that the extended rod bit with a lens on it is a bit thicker on the new kit (probably to keep it from breaking). And the only difference I can find in the full-size picture, other than the rear landing gear being attached in the wrong spot, is that maybe the wing lights are slightly larger.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 HudsonD wrote:
The images are not the same, you can see the difference in detail placement.

Where do you see a difference? Looking at the side by side images xttz posted the only difference, after accounting for differences in camera angle and photo quality, is that the extended rod bit with a lens on it is a bit thicker on the new kit (probably to keep it from breaking). And the only difference I can find in the full-size picture, other than the rear landing gear being attached in the wrong spot, is that maybe the wing lights are slightly larger.

This photo?

 xttz wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Snord wrote:
How has it been refreshed (apart from a new paint job)?

No clue

I found this. Looks like they upgraded it to HD

Spoiler:

That's pretty clearly a different sculpt. For starters, the old one didn't have indented rivets... but everything else is different too (the casing of the gun is heftier and now has some sort of cabling, the sensors suite is different, thicker and more detailed... the list goes on, just on that snippet). Same main design, different sculpt.

 Albertorius wrote:
For starters, the old one didn't have indented rivets...

Yes it did. They just aren't shaded in the comparison image and the poor photo quality isn't showing them. You can see a better image of the old model here with the rivets more clearly visible:

but everything else is different too. Same main design, different sculpt.

It really isn't. I've been looking at them side by side and there is hardly any difference. What exactly do you think has changed?


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 Albertorius wrote:
(the casing of the gun is heftier and now has some sort of cabling

What "gun" is that? The Arvus has no weapons of any kind, on either version.

the sensors suite is different, thicker and more detailed...

Look closer. The painting style is different but if you look closely at the details there's no difference except that one minor bit.

There are lots of difference if you bother to look at it.
Here are a few :

You can see the angles and lengths of the panel lines are completely different. The detailing is different, I could go on and on. It's pretty obvious.

Edited for the pic.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
For starters, the old one didn't have indented rivets...

Yes it did. They just aren't shaded in the comparison image and the poor photo quality isn't showing them. You can see a better image of the old model here with the rivets more clearly visible:

Hm... yeah, you seem to be right on that one. The side panels do have indented rivets.

but everything else is different too. Same main design, different sculpt.

It really isn't. I've been looking at them side by side and there is hardly any difference. What exactly do you think has changed?


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 Albertorius wrote:
(the casing of the gun is heftier and now has some sort of cabling

What "gun" is that? The Arvus has no weapons of any kind, on either version.

You got me there. The "whatever thingie" that's under the nose. It has some sort of cabling that seems to not exist in the old sculpt.

the sensors suite is different, thicker and more detailed...

Look closer. The painting style is different but if you look closely at the details there's no difference except that one minor bit.

The main sensor boom still looks thicker to me.

And yeah, there's also some dimensional rejiggering. But you're right on the indented rivets.

 Albertorius wrote:
You got me there. The "whatever thingie" that's under the nose. It has some sort of cabling that seems to not exist in the old sculpt.

That half-circle cable hanging down from it? That's on the original version, it's just not visible in that specific image. Here's one that shows it (second from the top):

The main sensor boom still looks thicker to me.

That's the bit I think is different. It was a break-prone part on the original and it wouldn't have taken much work to clip it and replace it with a thicker rod. And TBH if the master model being damaged was the reason it went OOP for a while I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the broken pieces GW had to repair. But that's a pretty tiny change best explained by reworking the existing master and/or molds, not a whole new resculpt of the kit.

Thanks Hudson!

They are clearly two different models.

Edit: Or it could just be the angle?

It does actually state in the article that this is a retooled model, so there will be some small changes but I suspect the way it goes together, gate positions etc, will also be different.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
Edit: Or it could just be the angle?

Yes, all of this is just the angle and the picture of the new model being squished horizontally a bit to fit the page dimensions. All of the rivet holes are there on the old model, all of the panel lines follow the same path.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
For starters, the old one didn't have indented rivets...

Yes it did. They just aren't shaded in the comparison image and the poor photo quality isn't showing them. You can see a better image of the old model here with the rivets more clearly visible:

The old one had indented rivets, but it looks like they've redone them. Some of the rivets are in slightly different places, and by my eye the rivets on the new one look deeper and more pronounced (maybe they're just painted darker, but I reckon they are actually deeper).

For example, the 3 rivets on the panel above the "TAXI FARE" writing in the pic you posted, they don't exist on the new sculpt.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
For example, the 3 rivets on the panel above the "TAXI FARE" writing in the pic you posted, they don't exist on the new sculpt.

You got me on that one, they're faint as hell on the old model but they do exist and not all of them ended up on the new one. I wonder if it's just a case of the old ones being so shallow that after a couple generations of remaking molds they weren't casting properly and GW re-cutting the holes on the master. Given how exactly everything else lines up I'm still not believing it's a whole new CAD rebuild of everything but there is at least that change.

I imagine they needed to remake the masters so decided to tweak the CAD a bit at the same time.

Let’s hope the new ones don’t come covered in 3D printing lines like their AI equivalents, lol.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I imagine they needed to remake the masters so decided to tweak the CAD a bit at the same time.

Let’s hope the new ones don’t come covered in 3D printing lines like their AI equivalents, lol.

Doubt it. The Arvus is from long before the era of CAD and 3d printing. Unless they completely remade the model from zero (unlikely given how close the details match) it won't be touching digital at all.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I imagine they needed to remake the masters so decided to tweak the CAD a bit at the same time.

Let’s hope the new ones don’t come covered in 3D printing lines like their AI equivalents, lol.

Doubt it. The Arvus is from long before the era of CAD and 3d printing. Unless they completely remade the model from zero (unlikely given how close the details match) it won't be touching digital at all.

They already made a digital version for Aeronautica Imperialis. This new version will be a digital design based on that. There's really no point updating or repairing older physical masters at his point; the work of producing a refreshed digital design is not that great, especially when some of the assets already exist for the smaller scale version. Creating a digital version means that new masters and moulds can be produced in perpetuity, so the quality of the production version will be easier to maintain, and it also opens up the possibility of plastic in future, as has just happened with the Knight Lancer, so it's a worthwhile investment, even if the model is deliberately almost identical to the previous version.