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I still haven't finished painting my Prince Uther's Dragon Company from their original release. Not sure if I'm going to get round to it, if I'm honest! And I think I may have mislaid the shields at some stage...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To the dubious credit of such ancient models, at least once build the Vyper and Falcon chassis don’t necessarily look their age.

They still need a refresh of course.

They have held up really well.

While the detail is softer then modern kits, that kinda fits their aesthetic, so it’s not jarring. The pilots are a little dated and don’t match the range.

The sprues are a big give away. So much wasted space. They could probably put all the bits to make a duel kit with a WS on the Falcon spure and not even break a sweat. Getting the FP/NS stuff onto the same sprue count might even be doable, to get all the grav tanks into one box, but that might be stretching it.

The one thing with the Vyper (and the old bikes) is that they always felt like the engine/body of the vehicle was just kind of "missing" from the sculpt. I'd love a modern take on the Vyper just to bring it up to modern standards.


Also isn't the static artillery platform for Eldar also fairly old/out of sync with the updated infantry and models?

Kinda? The Guardian crew bridge the gap between the two plastic kits. Certainly they don’t look entirely out of place.

 Overread wrote:
The one thing with the Vyper (and the old bikes) is that they always felt like the engine/body of the vehicle was just kind of "missing" from the sculpt. I'd love a modern take on the Vyper just to bring it up to modern standards.


Also isn't the static artillery platform for Eldar also fairly old/out of sync with the updated infantry and models?

They came out in 5th. I don’t own any to check, but glancing at pics puts them at “close enough”

It’s not leather jackets and chainmail mesh armor.

 Hellebore wrote:
Basilisk launched Feb 1996
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/White_Dwarf_194_(UK)

Chimera launched June 1995
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/White_Dwarf_186_(UK)

Leman Russ launched October 1994
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/White_Dwarf_178_(UK)


I know they did some recutting of the Russ and Chimera, but did they completely redo the sprues? The designs were completely unchanged from the 'clearly 3-uped in plasticard' original models...


Karandras is the oldest model that has a datasheet now though.

The Leman Russ recut was actually a much more significant change than you'd think. In addition to more crisp details of the 2009 recut, some pieces were merged with the hull instead of being separate. The biggest changes in my opinion are that the old hull had the turret offset to the left, while the new one has the turret centered. The size of the turret ring is also different. It used to be the same size as the Predator, Razorback, and Land Raider front mount. Also the same as one of the Ork Battlewagon turrets I believe. Now it's smaller. Kind of a pity there. The universal turret size made conversions a snap. The weapons were all updated to modern look/scale, the turret is slightly larger, and the hull under the driver viewport is different.

I stumbled upon this site which breaks down all the changes that happened to the LR over the years. https://apologentsia.blogspot.com/2024/06/inload-history-of-leman-russ-battle.html

I must not have been paying attention for the 2009 one.

It is mind boggling that they didn't try to do any redesign for the LR at that point given it was a complete retool - it is way too boxy and basic IMO and could have done with a slim down and perhaps a track design change so it doesn't go all the way to ground. What a wasted opportunity.

Leman Russ and Chimaera shapes are way too iconic to really change, plus at the time there were a ton of upgrade and conversion bits from FW that were based on the existing designs.


On topic of old kits, the Tau Devilfish/Hammerhead is still clunking around from 3rd edition, as are the Necron Destroyers

Necron Destroyers surprised me because GW updated almost everything else main-army in their line and added a new kind of destroyer and yet left the old destroyer kit and destroyer lord up.

It's kind of similar to how almost everything in Tyranids got updated and then they threw out that winged warrior leader and then never updated the Warrior kit to have, you know, wings. Or released a winged shriek separate kit.

It's almost like there's an internal policy to always leave at least 1 core kit (not a named hero) in an "old" state for the "next update"

Ezekiel, Grand Master of Librarians was originally released in 1995 (IIRC). He's the last metal marine.

Though he (and the properly-scaled Azrael) did get a revamp at some point to add the sculpted metal back banners, though I have no idea when that happened.

beast_gts wrote:
Ezekiel, Grand Master of Librarians was originally released in 1995 (IIRC). He's the last metal marine.

They need their own epic guitar riff to commemorate that.