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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Hard disagree. The 28mm version is an excellent design (other than the standard problem of guard tanks having no ground clearance or suspension) and the not-Epic version is a good match. And TBH the classic guard Basilisk/Medusa design wouldn't be a great option, either you have tiny and awkward to paint crew on the loading platform or the model looks empty and unfinished. The enclosed SA version dodges that issue nicely.

It is of course entirely a matter of personal opinion. I am fine with WW1-style suspension and vertical armour plates - I just don’t buy that a heavy artillery weapon can be mounted on one side like this. And there’s nothing about the design that tries to sell the idea that it’s workable, or even necessary. The Basilisk / Medusa configuration is far better (and having some crew would be a plus, not a minus).

It's definitely a personal thing, the closed cabs can look cool, but I like the extra modelling opportunities you get with an open cab even though it's a bit more work. It's a way to differentiate 30k from 40k too, as they had enough marines to use them for the really mundane stuff like loading artillery shells and carrying out garrison duties, so it's fun to show that sort of stuff. These are proxy artillery minis for the same, but give some idea (artillery about to be killed at the top!)

 Pacific wrote:
It's definitely a personal thing, the closed cabs can look cool, but I like the extra modelling opportunities you get with an open cab even though it's a bit more work.

I agree at 28mm scale, open gun platforms are great for cool modeling stuff. But I don't think the crew would really work at Epic scale. We've already seen how the tank commanders are out of scale with the rest of the tank just to make it possible to build and paint them, try to do that with artillery crew and it would be a hopeless mess.

A seperately-purchasable sprue with crew (and open platform) would probably be a good idea for those wanting to take the extra effort. So long as the base model is done in a way that you could easily fit the open platform instead of the closed version.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
It's definitely a personal thing, the closed cabs can look cool, but I like the extra modelling opportunities you get with an open cab even though it's a bit more work.

I agree at 28mm scale, open gun platforms are great for cool modeling stuff. But I don't think the crew would really work at Epic scale. We've already seen how the tank commanders are out of scale with the rest of the tank just to make it possible to build and paint them, try to do that with artillery crew and it would be a hopeless mess.

I... kinda disagree, personally:



Didn't feel like a mess to me, at the time.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
It's definitely a personal thing, the closed cabs can look cool, but I like the extra modelling opportunities you get with an open cab even though it's a bit more work.

I agree at 28mm scale, open gun platforms are great for cool modeling stuff. But I don't think the crew would really work at Epic scale. We've already seen how the tank commanders are out of scale with the rest of the tank just to make it possible to build and paint them, try to do that with artillery crew and it would be a hopeless mess.

...? Pacific just showed you their crew at 6 mm?

I've got some open-topped Epic scale Basilisks too:



All of them have crew inside:

 Albertorius wrote:
I... kinda disagree, personally:

Are those 3d printed or injection molded plastic? I know you can get true-scale infantry crew on high quality printed miniatures but when you look at what GW is doing with the LI infantry and tank commanders relative to the tanks the scale isn't quite the same. I don't know if it's for ease of painting or because true-scale crew would be too fragile to cut off the sprue and assemble, especially if they required multiple pieces to avoid undercuts, but there seems to be a choice to make them larger than true scale. So take those crew examples, scale up the infantry by 25% or so, reduce them to poses that work with single-piece plastic, and suddenly they don't look so great. They're packed into a space that is too small to hold them properly and reduced to awkward standing idle poses.

(And that also applies to the models themselves. Things like the thin walls on the crew compartment can be 3d printed or cast in resin but they may be below the minimum feature size for injection molded plastic. If you have to double the thickness of the walls then that's even less space available for crew.)

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I... kinda disagree, personally:

Are those 3d printed or injection molded plastic? I know you can get true-scale infantry crew on high quality printed miniatures but when you look at what GW is doing with the LI infantry and tank commanders relative to the tanks the scale isn't quite the same. I don't know if it's for ease of painting or because true-scale crew would be too fragile to cut off the sprue and assemble, especially if they required multiple pieces to avoid undercuts, but there seems to be a choice to make them larger than true scale. So take those crew examples, scale up the infantry by 25% or so, reduce them to poses that work with single-piece plastic, and suddenly they don't look so great. They're packed into a space that is too small to hold them properly and reduced to awkward standing idle poses.

(And that also applies to the models themselves. Things like the thin walls on the crew compartment can be 3d printed or cast in resin but they may be below the minimum feature size for injection molded plastic. If you have to double the thickness of the walls then that's even less space available for crew.)

They are, admittedly, 3d printed, at home, by me, using a crappy ass regular resin on a multiple generations old printer.

That said, absolutely none of the parts I printed there are thinner than what GW is already doing for Aeronautica Imperialis (most of the AI planes' wings are thinner than those walls), and the crew is really easy to do as a single piece.... I have a fair number of plastic crews at that scale from other manufacturers. It's not really complicated at all.

EDIT: Ok, real life example time: These are one of the above Basilisks and an AI Thunderbolt wing... which is by no means the thinnest one from AI... the Eldar crafts have wings that ar probably half as thin, but it's a decent enough example of what GW is already doing:



So I would say that part thickness would absolutely not be an issue whatsoever.

Yeah, no. GW and other manufacturers have absolutely no problems making pieces that look just fine at that scale. Just look at AI or AT models and their plentiful little bits like shield generators, machine guns and other greebles much smaller than an infantryman.

6 mm artillery crews can be made without any problems, both on and around their guns. Here's another expert example painted by VonKriegStudio, models being metal casts from Vanguard minis.

If some of the examples above don't indicate that crew at 6-8mm can work, I am not sure what else can be said sorry! Saying you don't like the look of it is fine, but a blanket "no it just isn't possible" is not correct. GW have made a design decision with these initial releases to have closed cabs, but I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if further kits added crews or even if ForgeWorld did something. Because lots of other producers have done it.

Somewhat cruder than the above examples, here is another shot. These are metal miniatures from Vanguard, so you could easily get even finer detail from plastic or resin.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
A seperately-purchasable sprue with crew (and open platform) would probably be a good idea for those wanting to take the extra effort. So long as the base model is done in a way that you could easily fit the open platform instead of the closed version.

This is quite a common option with generic plastic kits, and could probably work pretty well with this sort of thing too I think.

As for plastics, if I can make original plastic Epic guardsmen from the early 90's look fine as gunners on modern AI plastic ground assets or my titans carapace guns, shame on GW if they couldn't do better today

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I... kinda disagree, personally:

Are those 3d printed or injection molded plastic? I know you can get true-scale infantry crew on high quality printed miniatures but when you look at what GW is doing with the LI infantry and tank commanders relative to the tanks the scale isn't quite the same. I don't know if it's for ease of painting or because true-scale crew would be too fragile to cut off the sprue and assemble, especially if they required multiple pieces to avoid undercuts, but there seems to be a choice to make them larger than true scale. So take those crew examples, scale up the infantry by 25% or so, reduce them to poses that work with single-piece plastic, and suddenly they don't look so great. They're packed into a space that is too small to hold them properly and reduced to awkward standing idle poses.

(And that also applies to the models themselves. Things like the thin walls on the crew compartment can be 3d printed or cast in resin but they may be below the minimum feature size for injection molded plastic. If you have to double the thickness of the walls then that's even less space available for crew.)

Yeah, no, GW could definitely make it work. I look at the tiny little ~5mm Gretchin gunners in the AI Eavy Bommer models, they can definitely do what people with cheap 50 micron 3D printers like me can do.

The reason they've done it is because for whatever reason FW decided many years ago to make Solar Auxilia Basilisks based on the Leman Russ chassis without an exposed crew.

Did Chimeras not exist in 30k or something? I thought Leman Russes were supposed to be rare during the HH.

Anyway, I'm personally not a fan of it, but it is what it is; an existing design they just downscaled.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The reason they've done it is because for whatever reason FW decided many years ago to make Solar Auxilia Basilisks based on the Leman Russ chassis without an exposed crew.

The lore reason is that the Solar Auxilia fight in hazardous environments or even just space itself. Their wargear and tactics were heavily influenced by the soldiers of the Saturnyne Ordo and they were most often used in engagements where regular Army forces couldn't prevail such as in the void or Death Worlds.
The Leman Russ is a tougher tank and easy enough to modify.
The IRL reason is to sell more models, obviously.

Did Chimeras not exist in 30k or something? I thought Leman Russes were supposed to be rare during the HH.

It's contentious because some HH books have Chimeras and some don't.
As for the Russ, it wasn't rare but very widespread as it was the replacement for the Malcador. The Wolves discovered the STC and the Imperium realised it was massively cheaper to produce the Russ compared to the Malcador for what was basically the same result. Malcadors only saw action during the Heresy for the same reason the Legions were still equipping their new Marines with Mk2 Power Armour, everyone needed every scrap of equipment they could lay their hands on.

Any update on release date yet?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah, no, GW could definitely make it work. I look at the tiny little ~5mm Gretchin gunners in the AI Eavy Bommer models, they can definitely do what people with cheap 50 micron 3D printers like me can do.

I don't have that kit so I'll have to trust you on that one. Maybe GW is capable of doing it. But looking at the LI models shown so far it doesn't seem like they're using that full potential, and crew built to the scale and detail quality of the tank commander models would be disappointing.

That might be so, but I fully expect they will do crew for Legion Basilisks and the like, given that the FW model has it.

Still waiting to see more Malcador tanks in Legion colours…

VAYASEN wrote:
Any update on release date yet?

September.

Last we heard was that Legions was intended for August but has been delayed to the following month. No specific date has yet been given.

SamusDrake wrote:

VAYASEN wrote:
Any update on release date yet?

September.

Last we heard was that Legions was intended for August but has been delayed to the following month. No specific date has yet been given.

Thanks. I noticed it was August then they said 'not August' but hadnt seen that September was referenced anywhere.

Me neither and if they had to reprint book feels oddly early.

It hasn't, really. Folks are speculating that it wouldn't take very long, but GW hasn't confirmed anything.

They haven't said anything about September and the community prediction as far as I saw until now is late October/November

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah, no, GW could definitely make it work. I look at the tiny little ~5mm Gretchin gunners in the AI Eavy Bommer models, they can definitely do what people with cheap 50 micron 3D printers like me can do.

I don't have that kit so I'll have to trust you on that one. Maybe GW is capable of doing it. But looking at the LI models shown so far it doesn't seem like they're using that full potential, and crew built to the scale and detail quality of the tank commander models would be disappointing.

GW are providing pictures that are very zoomed in, so the details look a bit chunky, but it is of the level or better than people are producing with cheap 3D printers like mine. Maybe people with 20 micron printers can create something better.

But when you see the models on the table top, they're going to look pretty detailed, it's just when you take an 8mm tall model and expand it to 100mm tall on your computer monitor the necessary chunkiness really stands out.

 Matrindur wrote:
They haven't said anything about September and the community prediction as far as I saw until now is late October/November

Once again Warhammer Community previously reported that Legions would have to be delayed from August until the following month. September is the month after August.

I'd have to dig around( pretty sure it was the last week of last month, and at the end of a Thursday model reveal article ), but they have stated this. If its no longer there then they have edited the article since...

EDIT: Here it is...

While we had initially hoped to release Legions Imperialis in August, the release date will now be a little later in the year. Don’t worry – you’ll be commanding a tiny legion of troops to victory very soon.

Yes, thats been changed. It previously said the following month.

?

If it was changed, the change was made almost immediately after the announcement went up. I've only seen it say "this year", and all early discussion here was based around the idea that it said "later this year".

SamusDrake wrote:

 Matrindur wrote:
They haven't said anything about September and the community prediction as far as I saw until now is late October/November

Once again Warhammer Community previously reported that Legions would have to be delayed from August until the following month. September is the month after August.

I'd have to dig around( pretty sure it was the last week of last month, and at the end of a Thursday model reveal article ), but they have stated this. If its no longer there then they have edited the article since...

EDIT: Here it is...

While we had initially hoped to release Legions Imperialis in August, the release date will now be a little later in the year. Don’t worry – you’ll be commanding a tiny legion of troops to victory very soon.

Yes, thats been changed. It previously said the following month.

If it's been changed, can one note prove that with the wayback machine/screenshots? I was perhaps late to the article but to me it always said later in the year. I can't think a re-print would be that fast, oct/nov feels more like it imo.

xttz wrote:https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/08/03/heresy-thursday-fire-support-and-remote-control-bombs-for-the-solar-auxilia/

New solar models, but the release of Epic has been delayed

While we had initially hoped to release Legions Imperialis in August, the release date will now be a little later in the year. Don’t worry – you’ll be commanding a tiny legion of troops to victory very soon.

SamusDrake wrote:

 Matrindur wrote:
They haven't said anything about September and the community prediction as far as I saw until now is late October/November

Once again Warhammer Community previously reported that Legions would have to be delayed from August until the following month. September is the month after August.

I'd have to dig around( pretty sure it was the last week of last month, and at the end of a Thursday model reveal article ), but they have stated this. If its no longer there then they have edited the article since...

EDIT: Here it is...

While we had initially hoped to release Legions Imperialis in August, the release date will now be a little later in the year. Don’t worry – you’ll be commanding a tiny legion of troops to victory very soon.

Yes, thats been changed. It previously said the following month.

Here is a quote from this thread a few minutes after the announcement which already says later this year not next month so if it was changed is happened within a few minutes after it was posted and was only a mistake.
And I was looking at the article myself back then right when it was posted and I'm very sure it never said anything about following month. If you want to look it up yourself its on page 86

Also just to make sure no bad faith here, just want to clear up any misunderstandings

Eumerin wrote:
?

If it was changed, the change was made almost immediately after the announcement went up. I've only seen it say "this year", and all early discussion here was based around the idea that it said "later this year".

It happens.

There was an article a while ago showing classic artwork where they said "and is that a titan in the background? whats that then?" and as soon as I reported back on the Titanicus thread, they removed it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:

If it's been changed, can one note prove that with the wayback machine/screenshots? I was perhaps late to the article but to me it always said later in the year. I can't think a re-print would be that fast, oct/nov feels more like it imo.

Excuse me while I jump into my DeLorean.

SamusDrake wrote:

 Matrindur wrote:
They haven't said anything about September and the community prediction as far as I saw until now is late October/November

Once again Warhammer Community previously reported that Legions would have to be delayed from August until the following month. September is the month after August.

I'd have to dig around( pretty sure it was the last week of last month, and at the end of a Thursday model reveal article ), but they have stated this. If its no longer there then they have edited the article since...

EDIT: Here it is...

While we had initially hoped to release Legions Imperialis in August, the release date will now be a little later in the year. Don’t worry – you’ll be commanding a tiny legion of troops to victory very soon.

Yes, thats been changed. It previously said the following month.

Was quite fast change. I read that on date it was put and was little later then.

 Matrindur wrote:

Here is a quote from this thread on the day of that announcement which already says later this year not next month so if it was changed is happened within a few minutes after it was posted and was only a mistake.
And I was looking at the article myself back then right when it was posted and I'm very sure it never said anything about following month. If you want to look it up yourself its on page 86

I've already quoted it so obviously I found the article.

Anyway, "a little later in the year" is now the official word, so fair enough.