GW Models No Longer Modular

[The Last Roman]

Does anyone know why some GW models are no longer modular? For example, some of the new Chaos Terminators and Havocs are cast with their legs attached to their bodies. This means that  you can't swap legs & torsos between models. It also means that you can't use the Forge World Berzerker torsos on the new miniatures.

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Does anyone know if you can you complain to GW about this sort of nonsense? Not that it would make a difference.

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Edited June 26, 2022 by Captain Idaho
Off topic elements removed

[Arkhanist]

To part answer your first question, it's become very common for GW over the last few years to combine the torsos and legs in new kits in order to create more "dynamic" poses out the box. This trend is often referred to as 'monopose', even if limited arm/head posing is still possible. It is definitely not universally popular as it requires significiant extra work to mix kits and/or not have repeated identical models, but GW don't appear to be changing course. You can always email GW customer services to give them your feedback; the exact address will vary based on country, but will be something like uk.custserv@gwplc.com - or you can just use that one. GW do definitely take note of feedback, but are fairly notorious for not disclosing how much it impacts - or not - on their future plans.

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Grotsmasha
Removed Off Topic Content

[Captain Idaho]

This topic is clearly for the discussion of Modular models, extending to kitbashing logically and how GW have or haven't moved away from that.

Discussion on why you might not follow GW anymore regarding their inclusion policies isn't relevant to this topic or part of the forum, as such I've removed such comments.

[Doghouse]

I think it's for a number of reasons. Firstly I think the move was to restrict the use of third party bits, secondly it means they can reduce kits to multiples of the same sprue which cuts down on production and allows them to chuck the odd sprue into themed sets such as Kill Team. Lastly I think it's for newer modellers, the idea being that they can make dramatically posed models without having a lot of knowledge of making kits and still get a good result.

Having said all that I still do not like it and to be honest as long as it sells it's going to carry on.

[Captain Idaho]

I must say I wish GW went back to their modular design and used their creativity and technology advances to improve on them. Feels like a couple steps backwards.

And when I used to build kits as a youngling I'd just cut what I wanted out of a sprue and whack them together. Now I need to follow instructions and hunt for pieces that match on sprues that seemingly have no order - I certainly wouldn't say GW have made their kits more beginner friendly.

But alas, GW have made their choices on this one...

Edited June 26, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[Arkhanist]

I'm probably an outlier in that I don't actually mind it - when I started, it was literal monopose pewter models cast in one or two parts - reposing or kitbashing was Serious Business. I literally used a soldering iron in a couple of cases!

So taking a jeweller's saw or craft knife to dice up soft plastic is not a huge deal for me; and I find the dynamic posing is actually a quite useful starting point in some cases (better than the old marine half-squat!) but I can definitely imagine if you've only know the modular design era it's a bit of a backwards step, and for horde armies it does add unnecessary slog.

[Gederas]

38 minutes ago, Arkhanist said:

I'm probably an outlier in that I don't actually mind it - when I started, it was literal monopose pewter models cast in one or two parts - reposing or kitbashing was Serious Business. I literally used a soldering iron in a couple of cases!

So taking a jeweller's saw or craft knife to dice up soft plastic is not a huge deal for me; and I find the dynamic posing is actually a quite useful starting point in some cases (better than the old marine half-squat!) but I can definitely imagine if you've only know the modular design era it's a bit of a backwards step, and for horde armies it does add unnecessary slog.

It also helps that, to be perfectly honest: The fully separate torsos didn't add as much as people said. Because you could really only do a few poses that won't look incredibly unnatural....

[appiah4]

11 hours ago, Gederas said:

It also helps that, to be perfectly honest: The fully separate torsos didn't add as much as people said. Because you could really only do a few poses that won't look incredibly unnatural....

But you could switch legs, which could definitely and completely change a model.  You can't now.  There is absolutely no justifiable reason for this aside from the ones that benefit GW.

[sarabando]

im not a fan of it, the fact you can mix all of the 3rd edition onwards plastic marines was such a great part of their army. But with these changes its not stopping me converting but it does make it harder. 

The real complaint i have is how they cut character minis, with 1/3 of a torso being carved out or the back of a hand etc this really does feel like they are doing it to spite kitbashers. 

[Valkyrion]

The old way allowed you mix and match completely . 
You could glue the torsos together and freely mix chaos, space wolves, raptors, blood angels, normal marines, berzerkers, thousand sons et al knowing that whichever torso you picked would fit on any legs, with any back pack, with any arms and shoulder pads and heads. 

Things like running a Blood Angels successor where you didn't necessarily want all your squads to look like SGV of other chapters would let you use a fancy pair of legs with a normal torso, or vice versa. Traitor versions of loyalists were easily done. 

Things like Chaos Chosen, or Sword Brethren could be done the new way, but I'd have liked it if they kept the design of the older squads for your basic troops.

[Captain Idaho]

Also, you didn't need much pivot in a torso to give a radically different look.

 

GW will release a more modular kit one day and say it's revolutionary and a great step forwards.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I honestly don't understand the dislike for the present status quo.

Take the 30k infantry models for example, with the Mk3 and MK4 boxes, (and I grant the MK3s are a little better) I basically get slight variations on the theme of squat leg stances, one size and shape of torsos and my 'posability' comes from misaligning the legs and torsos so the models don't actually look like they are connected at the waist, with the groin facing one way, and the abs another. No matter how many marines I build, all I have are slight variations on that standard theme in terms of body stance. Yes all of the arms are cross-compatible, but it doesn't add much to the underlying chassis.

Compare this with the Intercessor body range as it presently stands. The practice of creating each body to be a unique and dynamic pose, with the whole body aligning into a naturalistic stance gives a far better starting point to add all of the other components, (arms, heads and shoulder pads) and everything being compatible means that I have a wide range of very different poses to build upon: I have the standard 5 bodies from the multipart kit, the more static, but different poses from Dark Imperium, (admittedly the worst ones of the bunch, but still adding variety), the 5 assault intercessor bodies from the easy to build frame from Indomitus, the 5 bodies from the full assault intercessor kit, the bodies from the Hellblaster kit and all of the limited edition sculpts.

And all of the kits are fully modular, just the other day I used the spare assault bolter arms from the Crusader Squad frame to make running intercessors using a spare Indomitus frame. 

Its also mind boggling just now the same body pose can be combined with a completely different set of arms and heads to create a completely different flow to the same starting pose, take the Crusader Squad box for instance, the kit only has 3 base initiate poses, with each having different set arm options, such as the ranged and melee choices, yet when the first pics were released, people couldn't even agree that the base bodies were shared.

I can see why people are miffed right now about the new Mk6 bodies being the same 5 repeated, but that frame is a remarkable achievement for how many unique bodied they got on one medium frame, and when one considers that we're likely to get plastic breacher and assault squads going forwards, each with more unique base poses, the range is going to look great in no time.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Brother Adelard

[Gederas]

15 hours ago, appiah5 said:

But you could switch legs, which could definitely and completely change a model.  You can't now.  There is absolutely no justifiable reason for this aside from the ones that benefit GW.

You mean the ones that, for the longest time, only had two or three leg poses? Because only the most recent separate leg/torso kits had more than three leg poses

Edited June 27, 2022 by Gederas

[techsoldaten]

One idea about why monopose has become a thing: spotting forgeries.

If something does not have the right pose, it's not a GW product. Allows them to police tournaments and avoid promoting a model that isn't theirs.

We live in an age of 3D printers. Protecting your IP can't happen just in a courtroom.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 6/25/2022 at 10:15 AM, The Last Roman said:

Does anyone know why some GW models are no longer modular? For example, some of the new Chaos Terminators and Havocs are cast with their legs attached to their bodies. This means that  you can't swap legs & torsos between models. It also means that you can't use the Forge World Berzerker torsos on the new miniatures.

<p>

Does anyone know if you can you complain to GW about this sort of nonsense? Not that it would make a difference.

<p>

There’s gotta be a contact us link somewhere on their website send an email and complain.

[MegaVolt87]

3 hours ago, techsoldaten said:

One idea about why monopose has become a thing: spotting forgeries.

If something does not have the right pose, it's not a GW product. Allows them to police tournaments and avoid promoting a model that isn't theirs.

We live in an age of 3D printers. Protecting your IP can't happen just in a courtroom.

 

Thats going to catch a lot of false positives then. People have been going Fabius Bile style butchering, pinning and re-sculpting new GW kits to get pose ability into them. Its entirely doable if you have the skill set. 

[appiah4]

5 hours ago, Gederas said:

You mean the ones that, for the longest time, only had two or three leg poses? Because only the most recent separate leg/torso kits had more than three leg poses

This is pure bull:cuss. The GW back catalog is full of squat, straight, walking, running, kneeling legs. From all kinds of armor marks. With all kinds of decorations and chapter markings. The lies people tell to justify GW is astounding.

Edited June 28, 2022 by appiah5

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

As opposed to the current catalog of squat, straight, walking, running, kneeling legs? with different types of armor marks and decorations? (just not the old ones..which is already kind of false with the new heresy stuff)
I have rose tinted glasses from all the way back in 3rd but just looking again at the basic marine box from 3rd, starter set, DV, and the big apocolypse box set and I see the same handful of poses are there.

On 6/26/2022 at 12:50 PM, Gederas said:

It also helps that, to be perfectly honest: The fully separate torsos didn't add as much as people said. Because you could really only do a few poses that won't look incredibly unnatural....

 

10 hours ago, Brother Adelard said:

I basically get slight variations on the theme of squat leg stances, one size and shape of torsos and my 'posability' comes from misaligning the legs and torsos so the models don't actually look like they are connected at the waist, with the groin facing one way, and the abs another. No matter how many marines I build, all I have are slight variations on that standard theme in terms of body stance. Yes all of the arms are cross-compatible, but it doesn't add much to the underlying chassis.

^^^^ THIS^^^^

Aside from the select few who butcher a model and build it up with greenstuff almost all of my experience with "multipose" is a handful of somewhat realistic poses and then a bunch of "custom" models who's flow and alignment is off with w/e cool weapon was found in the bits box. 

With the new kits I find that even though I get annoyed with the legs and torso being together if I'm kitbashing the final model generally looks to be in more of a natural pose and flows better if that makes sense. Sure I cant adjust the torso to w/e yoga pose I want but aside from that nothing's really changed in how I can pose/kitbash a model, I just pay more attention to the poses on the box to give me an idea of how I want the character to look.

TLDR: new kits are slightly less posable than the old kits but the new kits contain enough options to not really make me see to much of a difference

 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

There may have been more separate leg poses, but there was only ever one torso 'pose' and that's not how torsos actually work. 

If I twist at the waist, my whole body twists, I don't just have my legs face one way and my core continue to face forwards. The problem with space marine poses is they looked too much like that prototype Iron Man suit Hammer industries made in Iron Man 2:

This is why modern space marine models are far superior, the bodies are dynamic, and there are infinite variations on that theme using the wholly modular arm and head components across the range. 

[appiah4]

You do realize that when your body twists, the breastplate you wear on it does not?  Please refer to medieval plate armor animations rather than people in fabric clothes.

17 minutes ago, Mechanicus Tech-Support said:

I have rose tinted glasses from all the way back in 3rd but just looking again at the basic marine box from 3rd, starter set, DV, and the big apocolypse box set and I see the same handful of poses are there.

 

Oh yes, let's only refer that what is relevant to our discussion and not to what is actually out there.

Have you ever actually browsed the bitz catalogue of a decent bitz site, like bitsbox.co.uk?  Just run a search for space marine legs.  You will be enlightened.

It's really amazing that people can pretend boxes like Deathwatch Kill Team do not exist just to justify arguments.

Edited June 28, 2022 by appiah5

[Sword Brother Adelard]

But space marines don't wear medieval plate armour, just look at the new Mk6 marines, they have cables that twist with the pose. Intercessors have an abdominal plate that moves independently of the chest plate and Phobos armour has fibre bundle abdominal muscle sections that twist with the pose. (Also, plates aside, the fact that the belt buckle on the old plastics is on the torso means that any twist at the waist doesn't follow the trunk.)

If we then look at other modern models, the advantages are even clearer, particularly on models where there is cloth in the mix, like the sisters models, and the Tabards on the Black Templar range, where we've gone from having just three Tabarded torsos, which didn't match the majority of the leg poses, to having a range of flowing sword brother and initiate poses.

For me, the lack of dynamism in the old poses is really jarring, and why I don't want any of the old Mk3 or MK4 plastics in my Heresy army, they just look like statues in comparison with modern plastics.

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Brother Adelard

[sarabando]

10 hours ago, Gederas said:

You mean the ones that, for the longest time, only had two or three leg poses? Because only the most recent separate leg/torso kits had more than three leg poses

except you know... the tactical squad...assault marines...bikers.....characters...devastators....vanguard.....sternguard............. most of these kits have been out in some form since 3rd edition.  

The big issue here is that mk6 marines having 5 poses is fine if youre playing a game of 40k where you may have 20 of them in your army because thats what your list needs at a minimum. But if you are playing 30k and you could quite easily have 60+ of them it becomes far too obvious. 

 

I will agree that the squat pose is limiting and id love a set of walking, standing idle, running, climbing etc legs. but as an avid kitbasher these combi torso/l;egs are a step backwards. 

 

[Chaplain Killmer]

Maybe some measures to block the 3rd party might be a thing - but the main reason could be the software that is used to break down the model for the casting process. You can see how unconventional the parts are now fitting togehter and thats coming most likely from that. I guess thats leading to a more monopose result.

[firestorm40k]

So, trying to look at this objectively, how about a comparison between older (Firstborn) Marine kits, and the newer Primaris ones? 

Firstly, here's the sprues from the Tactical Squad kit (that have legs on):

So there are 10 legs - different in subtle ways, but if you don't account for slight differences (e.g. Armour marks, armour panelling details), there are 5 pairs - advancing on right foot, advancing on left foot, standing. But still, enough variation in details to say you're getting 10 different enough legs. 

Compare that with the Intercessor kit - 2 different sprues with legs across them, four sprues in total to make 10 miniatures:

These are clearly designed to fit on to the torsos in specific ways, so you are limited. The variation comes in the arm options, weapons, heads and other accessories you can give to the miniatures. 

Clearly, more variation is possible with the Tactical Squad kit, due to the various combinations with the different torsos. Essentially though, you're building 7 Marines with Boltguns a Sgt and 2 Gunners - at a distance they're going to look very similar to other Tactical Squads, as will the Intercessors. 

But where the Tactical Squad kit has a further advantage over the Intercessors, in terms of customisation, is its compatibility with other kits - namely, the Assault Squad, Devestators, Vanguard Veterans and Company Command. So, if you want a running Tactical Squad, instead of them standing/advancing and firing, use the Assault Squad kit with Tactical Squad arms. (The Assault Squad kit has torsos with and without that clasps for Jump Packs). 

It's worth pointing out that running Intercessors are possible - I presume you can use the Assault Intercessor bodies with the regular Intercessor arms. So in that regard, you could increase the variety of the poses in your Intercessor squads, mixing bodies from the two kits. 

You might also argue that Primaris kits don't need to mix up torsos, as they are only wearing one Mark of armour - unlike Firstborn, where they might be equipped with armour made up of components from various marks that their chapter may have access to. 

Aside from the argument that there are only so many angles you can position a torso that looks natural, where being able to mix and match legs and torsos between kits is useful is when you want to convert command units/characters, elite units (such as Veterans) or squad leaders. There is far, far greater scope for this with the older kits. 

I guess an advantage of the newer kits is that it is quicker and in some cases easier to build your line squads; some people are happy for a certain amount of repetition for squads in there army, so these kits are fine for them. 

Others prefer to make every single model unique - the new kits do make this more difficult. 

We can only speculate on GW's reasons for moving away from having separate torsos - perhaps they consider it makes kits quicker/easier to build, perhaps its easier to design sprue layouts, perhaps it makes sprues easier to produce? These sort of decisions are rarely communicated to their customer base. 

Ultimately, as others have said in this thread, if anyone wants GW to move back to separate torsos in their kits, then it's best to communicate this to them. Perhaps if they get sufficient feedback then they'll acknowledge and change their approach to kit design. 

[Halandaar]

I think that the old kits, while "posable", only really had a relatively small amount of ways you could pose them that didn't look ridiculous, and even among those many didn't hold up to close scrutiny (why is the Marine's navel above his hip?!). The newer ones with the combined leg and torso generally look a lot more natural, with the cabling twisted appropriately to match the pose and so on.

What has been lost, which is a shame, is the ability to easily mix parts from different kits together to create new things, but I can't see an easy way around that which doesn't simply revert to the old way things were designed.