Design Question

[Valkyrion]

You know the power armoured drill - in 1998 you buy a box set of marines, you shave their legs and glue them to the base. You glue two halves of the chest together, attach a head and back pack and all thats left is Bolter or Chainsword? Aquila or star?

That remains true for 20 years - one set of legs, front and back chest piece, arms, head. (shoulder pads for flavour)

 

Almost everything on the internet feels like a criticism these days so I'll caveat this by shouting out loud - THIS IS NOT A CRITICISM!

 

With that said, why do you have to glue the shin pads on Primaris Intercessors? Why aren't the legs one piece, like upscaled MKVII?  What benefit is there in the design stage to take the shins off? With shoulder pads you have the icons, with hands you have the weapons, so why are the shins a separate piece? 

 

Equally - the core set easy to build skorpekhs were easier to build by cutting them up than following the instructions  - so why is the head-attached-to arm-attached-to weapon easier to sprue up than; head. Arm. Weapon.?

 

How does it work?

[Ryltar Thamior]

In a word: CAD 

 

Which, to be fair and sure, has enabled some rather stunning releases in recent years - and some pretty good easy-to-build ones as well. You can compare some of the modern AoS blood reavers to the old Chaos Marauders as an example - what used to be flat shoulder-to-arm joins that just looked a bit odd and unrealistic if you didn't cover them - have now become near seamless much more 'organic' fits between shoulder-muscle and back; with quite an array of different arms fitting into a given socket - something that wasn't previously easily possible without computer assisted design. 

 

However, some of the time I get the sense that the designers are being a bit clever for their own - by which I mean our - good. A good example of which being some of the Necromunda range. Because while yes, yes the kits DO look phenomenal, and will build any of the array of in-the-instructions designs pretty well - they're a lot harder to convert some of the time; making use of downright fiddly head-and-neck conjoint sub-assemblies that are a pain to actually convert / kitbash with. What used to be as simple, for making use of , say , Greatsword heads on Cadian torsos as .. doing just that - has become a difficult endeavour of either hand-building a neck, or cutting and splicing the extant neck pieces on both neck and head down to some acceptable midway and hoping things still look in proportion. 

As applies the Primaris kits - it's worth noting that the Hellblasters , which if memory serves were released slightly later than the Intercessors (although I might be wrong about that) , have single-part legs (well .. two legs each, at any rate, but no greaves being glued on ); although this may be the result of their generally wider stances and those thigh-plates making such an arrangement possible. 

I say this, because the likely reason for the leg sub-assemblies on the Intercessors ... is probably to avoid some of the undercuts that occurred on the easy-to-build ones behind the knees and such. Which isn't necessarily a fully satisfying answer, as one would have thought that simply having the legs themselves separate (as in, the individual legs being apart from one another on the sprue) rather than separate and multi-part should have been enough to avoid this as it is on the Hellblaster sprue, unless there's something odd about the angle of some of them or something? 

We saw something kinda similar with the Mk.III power armour kit as well, and for broadly the same reason. 

It's *possible* that somebody had the bright idea of doing them like this , so that in future somebody (whether GW or FW) could do 'upgrade sprues' comprised of chapter-specific greaves+kneepads ... which would be rather cool in some ways, I guess, although I suspect I'm giving GW rather too much credit for forward-thinking on this one 

The decision to make *all* Astartes weapons 'hands on' is also rather infuriating - I truescale *everything*, and the downside of the hands being pre-moulded means that you're locked in to the torso size and positioning they'd go with. Whereas with the Mk.III plastics, for instance, the open left hand not being attached to the bolter makes things *far* easier. A perhaps related gripe is the arms of intercessors not actually going that well on hellblaster torsos, other intercessor torsos, except for the ones that they're 'meant' for - even on what's theoretically a multipart free-build kit :/ 

All up, the easy-to-build approach has produced some great and dynamic poses for individual miniatures - and it's a regret of mine that I didn't pick up another Dark Imperium or something just for the Primaris therein , for precisely that reason (it uh .. it starts to get difficult to make all the multipart Primaris look individual after awhile due to the five poses per box for the base model prior to arms etc. .. ) , and I would suggest that some of the more .. curious pieces there where a head, part of a gun, etc. are one piece, and the body is made up of several others, or whatever, is in order to get that kind of dynamic posing all on a sprue . Something which probably also speeds up the design to release stream considerably as it's now possible simply on a computer screen to tell how to piece a miniature apart to place it on a sprue , rather than painstakingly doing it by hand as in the (really) old days. 

The multipart Primaris kits are definitely a lot harder to do 'badly' with than the really old Tactical Squad boxes ... although I would also say that they're somewaht more difficult to really do exceptionally 'well' with, either.

Whether that trade-off is worth it is, of course, up to you. 

[Valkyrion]

Great answer, thanks very much.

[Elzender]

As Ryltar mentioned at some point, I kinda expected it to be due to upcoming upgrade sprues that contained specific shins+kneepads, be it Chapter-specific or for generic veterans with scrolls, campaign/crusade badges and other details. I am honestly kinda bummed that it never happened, as otherwise that separation looks kinda pointless given that it's clear that they can make full legs (even if separated one from the other).

 

As for the other examples, I honestly have no idea. After seeing the Chaos Chosen of the Dark Vengeance boxset, little can surprise me in the way of overcomplicated bits separation.

[sarabando]

personally i think the chapterhouse ruling had something to do with it, by moving away from easily kitbashable minis they make 3rd party bits makers jobs a lot harder.

[Burni]

A side benefit is that the Intercessors have virtually no mould lines visible whereas the Hellblaster legs need some old school level clean up.

[Rik Lightstar]

As Burni mentioned it eliminates the mould lines from the greaves.

 

Additionally it allows different leg/foot/ankle positions without creating overhanging detail which can't be done with plastic injection moulding, waist and hip detail can also be improved and it lets the pieces be aligned differently on the sprues which makes casting better for some parts.

 

Rik

[Greywing]

... they make 3rd party bits makers jobs a lot harder.

I don't have any inside information, of course, but I strongly suspect this is the beginning, middle, and end of the true answer to the OP question.