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This was brought up in the Dumbest Unit thread, so I thought it might be a bit of fun:

What are your worst models in terms of portability?

Can be official or conversions.

Mine would probably be this joy:


Nagash was also brought up in the other thread.



Any others that are frustrating to transport (safely)?

Heirophant Bio Titan has to be up there, surely?

Not just spindly, but resin to boot.

Heirophant is pretty bad, but you don't use them too often so it's less of an issue. Flyrants or the Tyranid spore-pod are more common and a pain.

Back in the day? The first DE Raider/Ravagers. Big models with lots of points to catch on things, plus having 6+ in an army was pretty common.

Full scale titans.

I'm trying to figure out how you would travel with a Warlord titan... do you have to buy it an extra seat next to you and tell everyone it's your therapy pet?

Since Nagash is here I'm gonna assume Fantasy is allowed. My Chaos War Mammoth is not very portable, or the entirely metal Egrimm Van Horstmann on chaos dragon

Probably the double giant squig miniature.

So I'm actually going to go the non-standard way here. Everyone is going to point out the BIG things and the super big things

I'm going to highlight one of my favourite models

Daughters of Khaine Khinerai



They look freaking awesome and I own a whole bunch of them -- and they wobble. Those tails are thin and hold all the weight of most of the winged model. They wobble just moving the base across a table let alone in transport.
Makes them hard to transport in anything that isn't foam as even if you use magnets; those contact points on the base are tiny and going to come under strain the whole time.

 Overread wrote:


I'm going to highlight one of my favourite models

Daughters of Khaine Khinerai

Yes, true, they made me remember the all-round impractical Tyranid range from 2nd ed 40K, especially the hormagaunts and gargoyles. I'm sure they were fun to transport.

Who can forget Lord Swirly Gak the Human Chandelier!



Sisters on Parade is generally OK, except for the half dozen cherubs mounting on tiny bits of scrolling.



Seriously, every single GW designer should have to haul an entire army across town by subway before they greenlight a model. At least make them modular so they can be taken apart!

Oh and special award for the best looking and least practical model ever!



I mean, for Mordheim, YES! but for a rank and file mass battle game?

I am going to nominate the Primaris Inceptors. Big bulky models being held up on the flying stem with the tiniest, thinnest piece of plastic in history.

Any big old metal models like the C'Tan Nighbringer or Deceiver. Even with metal pins I am fixing those regularly. But on the other hand that's true for many metal models, I have quite a few Banshees where the weapons broke off with the hands. With plastic and plastic glue you at least have a chance to fix it.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Full scale titans.

I'm trying to figure out how you would travel with a Warlord titan... do you have to buy it an extra seat next to you and tell everyone it's your therapy pet?

Those have been designed in countries where you don't need planes for travel. In UK and most European countries only the most debauched people fly when you can just drive or take a train. In the time it takes to drive to the nearest airport, check in, wait, fly, land and then get your luggage I have driven to most places in my country with a titan on the back seat.

That I own?
It's easily my LE metal Thunderhawk. It comes off the shelf once per edition. Mostly to prove that it's not just a display piece.
It's not that it's too huge (the FW resin one is actually bigger, as are any Titan) or such. It's that it weighs about as much as a boat anchor & despite a crazy amount of brass rod pinning it together is relatively fragile.
It's a real pita to haul around.
It's also 100% not able to be placed on the table using a flight stand. Because if it ever fell over it'd crush models, scenery, & certainly crack apart.

But the de-facto winner of this thread is a model I don't own. Because it's not only impractical transport & game with, it's even impractical store/display.
What could it be???
The Tau Manta.
It's all FW resin. It's got a 3ft wingspan. And it weighs in at 27lbs
Go ahead. Haul that to the shop & try and put it on a table.

On a much smaller scale of impractical? Try building a Dragon rider army for AoS. 1 isn't too bad. But 5 or 6 + the two character dragons....
Dragons in flight are tall, long, & wide.
No matter how you do it they each take up considerable real-estate in your preferred method of transport. (something I did not consider when I made the force because "Ooh, DRAGONs!"

 Overread wrote:
Daughters of Khaine Khinerai
[image snipped]
They look freaking awesome and I own a whole bunch of them -- and they wobble. Those tails are thin and hold all the weight of most of the winged model. They wobble just moving the base across a table let alone in transport.
Makes them hard to transport in anything that isn't foam as even if you use magnets; those contact points on the base are tiny and going to come under strain the whole time.

On the bounce/wobble front, I'll also offer up the Necron Ophydian Destroyers:


Similar sort of issue to the Khinerai, I imagine - using the tail as a contact point for the base, but with a fairly hefty upper torso. The wobble factor made them not even that fun to paint, as I had to work around it while working on them.

I think I've got a second unit to do from a Combat Patrol (or Boarding Party) - might have to see if it is practical to paint them with the torso off the tail, or if that is a build impossibility.

In my collection it's probably the plague drones. They're pretty big models, they have wings (which I magnetized but it means I have to build them all every time I unpack them), they have spindly legs, they're top-heavy and you could have up to 18 of them (I stopped at 6).

Probably the Tesseract Vault. It's offensively large but also strangely fragile with the weight of the four sections held up by struts that aren't the strongest. Thankfully it's so large you often can't physically use it on the tabletop because it doesn't fit anywhere. It's also not very good, so you never see it nowadays.

I nominate the 3rd ed zoanthrope, especially before I figured out I had to pin metal models. A ginormous blob of pewter for a head, covered in another thick slab of pewter for the armor plates, and all of that connected to its spindly body by a flat area at the base of its neck of no more than 5mm x 5mm (~1/5th of an inch?). Clenched cheeks every time I unpacked it when playing a game at a friend's house.

Can't seem to get images working from mobile, but here's a link to get the point across (not mine). The last image shows the connection point, it's where the neck meets the chest/back plates
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/1gsjo0u/my_old_tyranid_zoanthrope_from_mid_00s_the_im_not/

shortymcnostrill wrote:
I nominate the 3rd ed zoanthrope, especially before I figured out I had to pin metal models. A ginormous blob of pewter for a head, covered in another thick slab of pewter for the armor plates, and all of that connected to its spindly body by a flat area at the base of its neck of no more than 5mm x 5mm (~1/5th of an inch?). Clenched cheeks every time I unpacked it when playing a game at a friend's house.

Can't seem to get images working from mobile, but here's a link to get the point across (not mine). The last image shows the connection point, it's where the neck meets the chest/back plates
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/1gsjo0u/my_old_tyranid_zoanthrope_from_mid_00s_the_im_not/

Yeah, I feel your pain. Back in the day I bits ordered (when that was still a thing) a 3rd ed Give Tyrant head to put on a Zoanthrope body to make that one special character.

From my personal collection.

Wood Elf dragon:

The wings are plastic, but the rest is metal. Small contact points, odd angles, lots of metal. And put together before I learned how to pin.

Mortarchs:

Massive chunk of plastic held up by his tail. Snapped once and I pinned it. Wobbles if you look at it funny.

Most of the Nighthaunt range from AoS is the same. They are an army composed entirely of swirly stuff.

Winged hive tyrant, gargs

The tyrant is huge, massive wingspan, balanced on her tail. At least solidly constructed. I still don’t know how I’m going to transport the gargs. I use magnetic trays for the rest of my army, but they are on flight stands which I did mag the tops/bodies for so they come off, but not the bases.

Some of the other minis I have an issue with have already been mentioned. Flight stems, triumph.

Honorable mention to things like the stormraven, with has it’s own KR foam box, and drop pods, where each one takes 1/4th of one. While I have the foam to pack them and get them to the FLGS they take up an inordinate amount of space in the case.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
I nominate the 3rd ed zoanthrope, especially before I figured out I had to pin metal models. A ginormous blob of pewter for a head, covered in another thick slab of pewter for the armor plates, and all of that connected to its spindly body by a flat area at the base of its neck of no more than 5mm x 5mm (~1/5th of an inch?). Clenched cheeks every time I unpacked it when playing a game at a friend's house.

Can't seem to get images working from mobile, but here's a link to get the point across (not mine). The last image shows the connection point, it's where the neck meets the chest/back plates
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/1gsjo0u/my_old_tyranid_zoanthrope_from_mid_00s_the_im_not/

r.

ccs wrote:
That I own?
It's easily my LE metal Thunderhawk. It comes off the shelf once per edition. Mostly to prove that it's not just a display piece.
It's not that it's too huge (the FW resin one is actually bigger, as are any Titan) or such. It's that it weighs about as much as a boat anchor & despite a crazy amount of brass rod pinning it together is relatively fragile.
It's a real pita to haul around.
It's also 100% not able to be placed on the table using a flight stand. Because if it ever fell over it'd crush models, scenery, & certainly crack apart.

Pics or it didn't happen.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Seriously, every single GW designer should have to haul an entire army across town by subway before they greenlight a model. At least make them modular so they can be taken apart!

I do think this is a very good idea. You'd certainly think it would be possible to make parts detachable (like the cherubs above).

Looking at this thread, it certainly seems like something is needed to remind GW designers that these models are supposed to be transported and used on tabletops - not just left in display cases.

ccs wrote:

But the de-facto winner of this thread is a model I don't own. Because it's not only impractical transport & game with, it's even impractical store/display.
What could it be???
The Tau Manta.
It's all FW resin. It's got a 3ft wingspan. And it weighs in at 27lbs
Go ahead. Haul that to the shop & try and put it on a table.

Wait, 27lb?

That's nuts.

Tyranids generally seems bad for this.

I'm glad I've got a Toxicrene but never been brave enough to take it to a store.

The entire Sylvaneth range.

Treelords have these stupid vines that with catch and snap at a whim.

Dryads are just a barrel of monkeys. You can't pick up one without grabbing 8 of its friends in a chain.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Daughters of Khaine Khinerai
[image snipped]
They look freaking awesome and I own a whole bunch of them -- and they wobble. Those tails are thin and hold all the weight of most of the winged model. They wobble just moving the base across a table let alone in transport.
Makes them hard to transport in anything that isn't foam as even if you use magnets; those contact points on the base are tiny and going to come under strain the whole time.

On the bounce/wobble front, I'll also offer up the Necron Ophydian Destroyers:


Similar sort of issue to the Khinerai, I imagine - using the tail as a contact point for the base, but with a fairly hefty upper torso. The wobble factor made them not even that fun to paint, as I had to work around it while working on them.

I think I've got a second unit to do from a Combat Patrol (or Boarding Party) - might have to see if it is practical to paint them with the torso off the tail, or if that is a build impossibility.

ophidians was going to be my shout. a lot of necrons have issues of being spindly and weird, but these guys especially, for their base size, feel egregious


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:
The entire Sylvaneth range.

Treelords have these stupid vines that with catch and snap at a whim.

Dryads are just a barrel of monkeys. You can't pick up one without grabbing 8 of its friends in a chain.

also a good shout. any time my dryads go into storage, they come out with far less limbs than they went in with. oh, and they all lean way too far off their bases, for some reason

 vipoid wrote:

ccs wrote:

But the de-facto winner of this thread is a model I don't own. Because it's not only impractical transport & game with, it's even impractical store/display.
What could it be???
The Tau Manta.
It's all FW resin. It's got a 3ft wingspan. And it weighs in at 27lbs
Go ahead. Haul that to the shop & try and put it on a table.

Wait, 27lb?

That's nuts.

This thing? https://www.warhammer.com/en-CA/shop/Tau-Manta
"This enormous aircraft measures almost 25" long and over 30" wide,"
"On the upper deck you'll find forty-eight seated Fire Warriors and six docked Gun Drones, overseen by a seated T'au Ethereal. The lower deck contains eight rail-docked Crisis Battlesuits and four Devilfish transports"
"This kit includes 320 resin components and 418 plastic components. It also includes 8x Citadel 40mm Round Bases, 16x small flying bases, 4x large flying bases, 48x long flying stems, and 8x short flying stems."
That lot weighs enough, even without the Manta the sit inside.

The original lead Thunderhawk ad had a note "you must be crazy or American to buy this" I think it applies to the Manta as well.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

ccs wrote:

But the de-facto winner of this thread is a model I don't own. Because it's not only impractical transport & game with, it's even impractical store/display.
What could it be???
The Tau Manta.
It's all FW resin. It's got a 3ft wingspan. And it weighs in at 27lbs
Go ahead. Haul that to the shop & try and put it on a table.

Wait, 27lb?

That's nuts.

This thing? https://www.warhammer.com/en-CA/shop/Tau-Manta
"This enormous aircraft measures almost 25" long and over 30" wide,"
"On the upper deck you'll find forty-eight seated Fire Warriors and six docked Gun Drones, overseen by a seated T'au Ethereal. The lower deck contains eight rail-docked Crisis Battlesuits and four Devilfish transports"
"This kit includes 320 resin components and 418 plastic components. It also includes 8x Citadel 40mm Round Bases, 16x small flying bases, 4x large flying bases, 48x long flying stems, and 8x short flying stems."
That lot weighs enough, even without the Manta the sit inside.

wait. does the manta kit also come with all the other kits mentioned there? as in, you buy a manga, and also get fire warriors, crisis battlesuits, etc? or am i reading this wrong

You read right.
Getting into Tau? Buy a Manta as a Getting Started
The Fire Warriors are seated, but the suits and tanks are straight off the shelf.

 Skinnereal wrote:
You read right.
Getting into Tau? Buy a Manta as a Getting Started
The Fire Warriors are seated, but the suits and tanks are straight off the shelf.

good lord. that's insane

While perhaps not as un-portable as other models listed, I will say, the genestealers from the 3rd/4th edition space hulk boxes, while beautiful, are bad game pieces and are not very portable, several of the ones I have, have broken, and one was even totally un-salvagable from the break it had so I am missing one genestealer from my set at this point.