H.B.M.C. wrote:
The CHS debacle was basically the tag line from the Aliens vs Predator movie: "Whoever wins, we lose."

We had hoped that this would mean GW would make models for all the units that had languished without one. Instead we got the opposite, with them just dumping the things that didn't have miniatures. And this has of course led to the stupid Adjective Nounverb naming conventions, the increasingly obnoxious wargear limitations, and the less customisation and more-monopose miniature design.

CHS may not exist anymore, but GW's customers were the ones that lost out in that legal battle.

tneva82 wrote:
But gw gets actual model in first. That's the goal for gw. Ensure 3rd party doesn't flood market with alternative first

 Hellebore wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
But gw gets actual model in first. That's the goal for gw. Ensure 3rd party doesn't flood market with alternative first

Sure, but the market is sustaining competition for basic stuff, like guardsmen and Eldar aspect warriors.

Being able to pivot quickly to sell a model that doesn't exist is fine, but unless preventing this puts them out of business it's not doing much. That very narrow business model wasn't the life blood of the 3rd party sector

BrianDavion wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
But gw gets actual model in first. That's the goal for gw. Ensure 3rd party doesn't flood market with alternative first

Sure, but the market is sustaining competition for basic stuff, like guardsmen and Eldar aspect warriors.

Being able to pivot quickly to sell a model that doesn't exist is fine, but unless preventing this puts them out of business it's not doing much. That very narrow business model wasn't the life blood of the 3rd party sector

90% of the third party market are upgrade bits etc. salamander shoulder pads, space wolf capes etc.

 Grimtuff wrote:
I loved it, and still do. 40k seems to be this aberration now, with hobbyists needing their hands held for every little thing (which in turn bleeds into other games when they realise they are on their own and the entitled rants come along...), even down to whether their paints are "official".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
I loved it, and still do. 40k seems to be this aberration now, with hobbyists needing their hands held for every little thing (which in turn bleeds into other games when they realise they are on their own and the entitled rants come along...), even down to whether their paints are "official".

I don't think calling it hand-holding is fair.

I can shove a Thunderhammer on my Outrider Sergeant right now. It wouldn't take any effort at all beyond removing the part from the sprue and cleaning the mould lines off. But the rules for Outriders don't allow Sergeants with Thunderhammers (yet... or ever - we don't know!). So I don't need to be hand-held and told what I can and cannot use. I need GW to be freer with their rules and let me make what I want to make.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
I loved it, and still do. 40k seems to be this aberration now, with hobbyists needing their hands held for every little thing (which in turn bleeds into other games when they realise they are on their own and the entitled rants come along...), even down to whether their paints are "official".

I don't think calling it hand-holding is fair.

I can shove a Thunderhammer on my Outrider Sergeant right now. It wouldn't take any effort at all beyond removing the part from the sprue and cleaning the mould lines off. But the rules for Outriders don't allow Sergeants with Thunderhammers (yet... or ever - we don't know!). So I don't need to be hand-held and told what I can and cannot use. I need GW to be freer with their rules and let me make what I want to make.

Sorry, should have clarified a bit. I'm not referring to you or I, that have been in this hobby for a while and know this stuff and what GW frankly should be doing and playing to their strengths. I'm referring to how a newer hobbyist perceives the hobby and how it colours their whole perception going forward of how "things should be" (yes yes, given my previous sentence. But it's true) in the greater hobby. Converting and scracthbuilding are like alien concepts to them (so much so the latter term is frequently misused by someone kitbashing something), because no one taught them it was a thing when in the GW sphere. I've seen it too many times on places like Reddit etc.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
I loved it, and still do. 40k seems to be this aberration now, with hobbyists needing their hands held for every little thing (which in turn bleeds into other games when they realise they are on their own and the entitled rants come along...), even down to whether their paints are "official".

I don't think calling it hand-holding is fair.

I can shove a Thunderhammer on my Outrider Sergeant right now. It wouldn't take any effort at all beyond removing the part from the sprue and cleaning the mould lines off. But the rules for Outriders don't allow Sergeants with Thunderhammers (yet... or ever - we don't know!). So I don't need to be hand-held and told what I can and cannot use. I need GW to be freer with their rules and let me make what I want to make.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

I can shove a Thunderhammer on my Outrider Sergeant right now. It wouldn't take any effort at all beyond removing the part from the sprue and cleaning the mould lines off. But the rules for Outriders don't allow Sergeants with Thunderhammers (yet... or ever - we don't know!). So I don't need to be hand-held and told what I can and cannot use. I need GW to be freer with their rules and let me make what I want to make.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
I loved it, and still do. 40k seems to be this aberration now, with hobbyists needing their hands held for every little thing (which in turn bleeds into other games when they realise they are on their own and the entitled rants come along...), even down to whether their paints are "official".

I don't think calling it hand-holding is fair.

I can shove a Thunderhammer on my Outrider Sergeant right now. It wouldn't take any effort at all beyond removing the part from the sprue and cleaning the mould lines off. But the rules for Outriders don't allow Sergeants with Thunderhammers (yet... or ever - we don't know!). So I don't need to be hand-held and told what I can and cannot use. I need GW to be freer with their rules and let me make what I want to make.

I believe Grimtuff is talking about things like the thread in Painting right now where a newer player is complaining how the Nobz box only comes with 4 choppas when the rules allow for 5 and there is a chorus or people agreeing that this is an insurmountable obstacle.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Sorry, should have clarified a bit. I'm not referring to you or I, that have been in this hobby for a while and know this stuff and what GW frankly should be doing and playing to their strengths. I'm referring to how a newer hobbyist perceives the hobby and how it colours their whole perception going forward of how "things should be" (yes yes, given my previous sentence. But it's true) in the greater hobby. Converting and scracthbuilding are like alien concepts to them (so much so the latter term is frequently misused by someone kitbashing something), because no one taught them it was a thing when in the GW sphere. I've seen it too many times on places like Reddit etc.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Thing is, as much as I apply Hanlon's Razor to the decisions GW makes, the efforts to slowly weed out customisation, both form a rules and especially from a miniature perspective are, I suspect, 100% intentional. Minis didn't become less kitbashable (if that's a word) by accident.

 alextroy wrote:
One of the issues is there is no happy medium that GW can choose. On on hand, people are unhappy because they can’t do easy kitbashes/conversions because the rules don’t support them. On the other hand, please lose their because there is only one chaincannon in the Havock kit and there are not enough chainswords in the Chaos Terminator box to are the whole squad. I can’t imagine an easier conversion in all of 40K than making a random melee weapon are into a chainsword, but people complain about that whenever a ‘what is in the kit’ discussion happens.

 catbarf wrote:
Last I checked, Tempestus Scions have a relic which replaces a boltgun... but Scions can't take boltguns, despite them being available to regular Guard infantry sergeants, because there isn't one in the Scion kit. I find NMNR quite annoying.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Last I checked, Tempestus Scions have a relic which replaces a boltgun... but Scions can't take boltguns, despite them being available to regular Guard infantry sergeants, because there isn't one in the Scion kit. I find NMNR quite annoying.

Isn't that for a Commissar, who can take a Bolter?

 catbarf wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
One of the issues is there is no happy medium that GW can choose. On on hand, people are unhappy because they can’t do easy kitbashes/conversions because the rules don’t support them. On the other hand, please lose their because there is only one chaincannon in the Havock kit and there are not enough chainswords in the Chaos Terminator box to are the whole squad. I can’t imagine an easier conversion in all of 40K than making a random melee weapon are into a chainsword, but people complain about that whenever a ‘what is in the kit’ discussion happens.

Those seem like two related but different things to me. What people generally lament with NMNR is the loss of options that could be used to characterize an army, are present on older versions of a model (a bunch of my Stormtrooper sergeants have boltguns), or are thematically fitting and logical but not supported in the rules. These aren't things that the units outright need, but give them potential secondary roles (eg Drukhari Archons with Blasters) or just add character.

 alextroy wrote:
One of the issues is there is no happy medium that GW can choose. On on hand, people are unhappy because they can’t do easy kitbashes/conversions because the rules don’t support them. On the other hand, please lose their because there is only one chaincannon in the Havock kit and there are not enough chainswords in the Chaos Terminator box to are the whole squad. I can’t imagine an easier conversion in all of 40K than making a random melee weapon are into a chainsword, but people complain about that whenever a ‘what is in the kit’ discussion happens.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
One of the issues is there is no happy medium that GW can choose. On on hand, people are unhappy because they can’t do easy kitbashes/conversions because the rules don’t support them. On the other hand, please lose their because there is only one chaincannon in the Havock kit and there are not enough chainswords in the Chaos Terminator box to are the whole squad. I can’t imagine an easier conversion in all of 40K than making a random melee weapon are into a chainsword, but people complain about that whenever a ‘what is in the kit’ discussion happens.

And don't forget the third faction, people who will with a straight face say "why am I paying for all these bitz I won't use, GW should only put 1 option in the box"

 Nevelon wrote:
He can have a powerfist, but only if he takes a plasma pistol with it. .

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
One of the issues is there is no happy medium that GW can choose. On on hand, people are unhappy because they can’t do easy kitbashes/conversions because the rules don’t support them. On the other hand, please lose their because there is only one chaincannon in the Havock kit and there are not enough chainswords in the Chaos Terminator box to are the whole squad. I can’t imagine an easier conversion in all of 40K than making a random melee weapon are into a chainsword, but people complain about that whenever a ‘what is in the kit’ discussion happens.

And don't forget the third faction, people who will with a straight face say "why am I paying for all these bitz I won't use, GW should only put 1 option in the box"

Well I usually see that applied towards dual kits, where the extra bitz are half of a completely different (and often comparatively underpowered) unit, rather than an upgrade sprue that has all the wargear options.

Happy medium? How about designing sprues so that all the bodies were on one and all the wargear options on another. 10 marines come with a sprue of 10 bolters, a sprue of 10 chainswords and bolt pistols, and a sprue of each special weapon. For something like Devestators or Havocs, sell the bodies separately (at reduced cost!) from the wargear completely; have online bundles (Havocs with 4 missile launchers and champion upgrade sprue; havocs with four lascannons and champion upgrade sprue; etc. etc.).

macluvin wrote:
Space marines still have captains on bike... chaos doesn’t have their bike lord...

 Sherrypie wrote:
I loathe the stifling of creative freedom. In general, the cool thing would be to have general rules for different types of units that could then be modelled by the customers as specifically as they please, instead of shoving out everything that isn't already represented by hyperspecific Adjective NounVerber models. Ruleswriters should write lists and factions with gameplay in mind, keeping each faction distinct with strengths and weaknesses, putting up categories to which models can then be slotted in as they come. Most of those should just come through upgrade lists (say, CSM Raptors as base and Warp Talons as an upgrade for them). Proper lists, with lots of options and funky combinations to make your armies actually Your Dudes.

Same applies to the relation between models and art. Artists should interpret the background as they wish (under the studio leader's general vision), from which the sculptors and hobbyists could then take inspiration from, not the other way round.

Basically, bring everything to the style and level of CSM 3.5 and let the players benefit from the huge range of bits and bobs GW produces. Throw wild concepts out there.

Convert everything, if you can. Have fun and revel in the fact that this is your art, this is your game, no-one on Earth has exactly the same as what you have done.

 Hellebore wrote:
You know what really stifles creative freedom?

So called true line of sight. An abstract LOS allows for conversions free if 'modelling for advantage'.

Forthewolftime wrote:
And yet, with the NMNR they are doing in 40k,
in AOS they are going the complete opposite route with the Anvil of Apotheosis character builder. Intended only for casual play, mind you, but a character builder nonetheless.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Forthewolftime wrote:
And yet, with the NMNR they are doing in 40k,
in AOS they are going the complete opposite route with the Anvil of Apotheosis character builder. Intended only for casual play, mind you, but a character builder nonetheless.

But that's a single thing that will last 1 year tops. Outside that, NMNR applies far more heavyhandedly to AoS than it does to 40k. I'm not sure there is even one upgrade option in the whole game that doesn't come in the box, to the point that even model count is hard locked to what comes in the box or multiples of the box.

 Sherrypie wrote:
I loathe the stifling of creative freedom. In general, the cool thing would be to have general rules for different types of units that could then be modelled by the customers as specifically as they please, instead of shoving out everything that isn't already represented by hyperspecific Adjective NounVerber models. Ruleswriters should write lists and factions with gameplay in mind, keeping each faction distinct with strengths and weaknesses, putting up categories to which models can then be slotted in as they come. Most of those should just come through upgrade lists (say, CSM Raptors as base and Warp Talons as an upgrade for them). Proper lists, with lots of options and funky combinations to make your armies actually Your Dudes.

Same applies to the relation between models and art. Artists should interpret the background as they wish (under the studio leader's general vision), from which the sculptors and hobbyists could then take inspiration from, not the other way round.

Basically, bring everything to the style and level of CSM 3.5 and let the players benefit from the huge range of bits and bobs GW produces. Throw wild concepts out there.

Convert everything, if you can. Have fun and revel in the fact that this is your art, this is your game, no-one on Earth has exactly the same as what you have done.