Is GW making it harder to kitbash on purpose?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Admittedly a lot of the new models have much better poses than their older counterparts.

however the way they are putting torso and waist together and then having nubs for specific arms and legs to attach to seems to make it much harder to do casual kitbashes.

for example I just got the gravis captain, and was considering using the chainsword for another model, but it only has half an arm meant specifically to attach to the other half molded on to the torso…

[Grotsmasha]

I agree that there is a little more effort required to kitbash / convert the primaris line vs. the older firstborn kits, but I haven't found anything I've thought of that I haven't been able to make work.

For example, that Gravis Captain, both the Chainsword and Powersword have the forearm piece, meaning it's not unique and can be damaged on the chainsword piece. I'd recommend trimming the arm back to just the sword and hand / wrist as this will make it compatible with the largest range of models.

[Rik Lightstar]

The most basic of "Kitbashes" where for example you swap arms between kits are a bit more demanding than they used to be.

However for most kits a pair of clippers and a hobby knife opens up a very broad range of conversions with Marines. The "soft armour" sections of marine models have always been the ideal place for cuts and remain so, it's easy to clip or trim the nubs and plugs off for full arm swaps. Head swaps are as easy as they've ever been, just needing the peg snipping off.

The only real barrier to light conversions with the newer marines tends to be the torso and legs being a single piece or 2 pieces that fit together in a very specific way. But they do give a reasonable range of poses that can be switched between. Swapping, replacing and reposing legs has never been particularly easy beyond the pairs of legs as supplied, a bit of work and practice with some putty lets you do these too though.

The balance has recently tipped in favour of dynamic posing over flexibility of the kits, but we're still in a far better place than the days of metal or even FineCast models.

Rik

[Evil Eye]

I feel like a lot of the complaints regarding lack of kitbash-ability are somewhat overstated. The actual parts layout for even the weirdest kits aren't awful, and are kind of irrelevant once you realize that once you have it assembled to a certain degree, you effectively have the same conversion process as other low-part-count models such as metal or resin. Except being plastic, and being made of more parts to begin with, it's actually easier as you can more easily leave off/swap parts (heads notably) that would otherwise be part of the sculpt, to say nothing of modifying and gluing the parts. Metal is of course a pig to cut or modify, and whilst finecast is arguably easier to modify (being better to cut and much easier to bend or reshape), well, it's finecast, which means even if you miraculously got a good cast, you're at the mercy of the endless little gates and supports and vents to remove WITHOUT damaging the resin.

There's also the issue that a lot of more poseable models look a bit silly in most of the poses unattainable by the newer minis. The exceptions being Tyranids due to being completely inhuman and having poseability "baked in" to their basic design language, and to some degree the Dark Eldar (specifically Wyches) as due to being more suited to dynamic poses than, say, Space Marines and also just being really well designed in classic Jes Goodwin fashion.

Some kits are definitely harder to convert than others- the Sisters kit is annoyingly restrictive, whilst the Plague Marine kit is extremely customizable- but I don't feel like kitbashing is super hard now. The desire to kitbash is getting killed off by the "no model no rules" nonsense though, which does suck.

[Helias_Tancred]

At first I felt they were.

However as I collected more primaris model kits, and built up a healthy collection of extra primaris bits (especially from the assault intercessor, and blade guard kits) I started to realize this wasn't true.

I've been able to pull off some decent kit-bashes with the primaris models, especially that standard captain holding the assault bolt rifle and sword in a somewhat Captain Morgan pose. The Dark Angel Captain Lazarus is another good one, along with most of the primaris HQ models too ... And there have been other unit kits that give you options, especially the standard intercessors and assault variant models.

IMO GW's space marine sculpts are getting much better and a side-effect of it is not the limitless and easy amount of kit-bashing that we experienced with the firstborn kits. But you can still pull off some solid kit-bashes. If you increase your carving skill and green stuff skill you can really make incredible kit-bashes that just weren't an option with the old firstborn kits.

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Helias Tancred

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Part of me agrees, But I am not a good converter but I managed to make this guy. So if I can I think everyone can :P

[Majkhel]

My experiences are similar to Helias Tancred's.

To be fair we have now access to soooo many tools and tutorials I believe that even a complete newbie can successfully attempt some serious kitbashing involving cutting and gluing only. Then we have modelling putties...

It's in our minds only

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

This doesn’t have to do with the models themselves, but the rules, and lack variety in loadouts.

however I acknowledge that the new gravis captain may be signaling some new stuff for the future.

[Helias_Tancred]

37 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

This doesn’t have to do with the models themselves, but the rules, and lack variety in loadouts.

however I acknowledge that the new gravis captain may be signaling some new stuff for the future.

 

Well that's a whole new thread if we're talking rules and variety in load-outs. 

No, they haven't caught up to the flexibility of the firstborn marine product line in those terms. I will say this though, they came out with the primaris captain holding a sword and plasma pistol for that Euro GW 40k mag, and then shortly after the rules were updated to allow that as a legal load-out choice. I remain more optimistic that new sculpts will drive rules because of that.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Helias Tancred

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, Helias Tancred said:

 

Well that's a whole new thread if we're talking rules and variety in load-outs. 

No, they haven't caught up to the flexibility of the firstborn marine product line in those terms. I will say this though, they came out with the primaris captain holding a sword and plasma pistol for that Euro GW 40k mag, and then shortly after the rules were updated to allow that as a legal load-out choice. I remain more optimistic that new sculpts will drive rules because of that.

Yeah, between these two models and the joy toy model I’m hoping some more variety will be available in this next wave of releases

[Helias_Tancred]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Yeah, between these two models and the joy toy model I’m hoping some more variety will be available in this next wave of releases

Yeah. I really think as time goes on they will make the primaris line more customizable in terms of weapon choices and load-outs because that is something that marine players have come to expect over decades of playing the faction. GW is, however,  arrogant/foolish enough to poo poo on that established faction norm, but since its the best-selling faction for 40k and sales ultimately decides GW's course of action I strongly believe they will open up primaris models to more choices as the range grows.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Helias Tancred

[Grotsmasha]

Ever since Chapterhouse, it's been models first, rules 2nd/same time.

[Xenith]

No, they're making it easier to build their models by adding additional connection/positioning lugs that are easily shaved off. New backpacks fit straight and are 1000% better than the previous circle only fitting, arm lugs are awesome and ensure a perfect fit so I can leave the bolter arm off to paint separately without having to glue the whole thing then break the arm off.

As before, you can't just slap any part on any part and have it look good - there are just more individual pieces now, instead of identical bolter x10, identical torso x10 like we see with the mk IV box. 

[Cactus]

On 8/23/2022 at 11:49 AM, Xenith said:

As before, you can't just slap any part on any part and have it look good - there are just more individual pieces now, instead of identical bolter x10, identical torso x10 like we see with the mk IV box. 

Well actually... I've been building MkIV marines today and there are at least 4 different torsos. You have to count the rivets to see the difference though so your point still stands.

[Xenith]

Haha, true, built a squad last week and there's also the skull one I think? All of which gets covered by the bolter...

[Orange Knight]

I think GW are slowly taking away any reason to kitbash wargear into kits, as they are creating a paradigm in which all available options are included in the kit when you buy it. I think the Intercessors might be one of the few relatively recent exceptions, as they added some additional Sgt wargear options after the kit was released.

I think the Chaos codex is a good indicator of the direction they will take in the next Astartes codex.

As kits become less modular, they will be harder to convert, but not by much. Even in this topic we can see a good example of a kitbashed model from different kits. It will simply be done more for cosmetic reasons, as opposed to anything linked to equipment.

[Halandaar]

On 8/16/2022 at 6:21 AM, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

for example I just got the gravis captain, and was considering using the chainsword for another model, but it only has half an arm meant specifically to attach to the other half molded on to the torso…

So cut the Chainsword hand off at the wrist and attach it to a new arm. Feels like kitbash 101 to me, hardly an indictment of GWs current design approach.

[Slave to Darkness]

Whilst it may be harder for those who grew up in the glory days of multi pose minis that you can swap between kits its nothing like trying to hack up a lead/white metal mini like we had to back in the day. Id say its more annoying that difficult these days. 

 

Also whats the difference between kitbashing and converting? I have always seen kitbashing as using stock bits and mixing them up, converting involves cutting, trimming, sculpting etc. So technically OP is right, it is harder to 'kitbash' because as people have said above 'trim this part', to me thats converting. 

[Halandaar]

18 hours ago, Slave to Darkness said:

converting involves cutting, trimming...

I mean if we're going by that logic, assembling any GW mini at all is now "converting" because you have to cut smaller components from a larger sprue and trim off mould lines.

Removing the hand is a single cut; less than it takes to remove the chainsword piece from the sprue in the first place. Some people I guess would rather whine about it than simply engage their brain for 2 seconds to make the cool kitbash, sorry, conversion that they want.

[Grotsmasha]

18 hours ago, Slave to Darkness said:

I have always seen kitbashing as using stock bits and mixing them up, converting involves cutting, trimming, sculpting etc.

Yeah kit-bashing is using multiple kits to make a unit/model without altering the pieces, converting is altering the pieces, or adding things like sculpting putties like greenstuff etc.

[Khornestar]

Most of the points I’d have added were already made well by others. Taking a step back from WYSIWYG is also a solution for converting/kitbashing but comes with obvious drawbacks.

I’ve seen some discussion that GW also designs modern sprues with some consideration for making them harder to recast at high quality using silicone molds. Certain details and such are fiddly enough in plastic, and guaranteed to break in resin. Not sure I really buy into this explanation, though. People who buy recasts are unlikely to care much if a little obscure detail breaks, and I’ve seen recasts of modern kits that are 80-100% as good in terms of quality. 
 

 

[Brother Tyler]

Even though the modern sculpts are more difficult to kit-bash than the old multi-part ones, effective converting is still fairly easy and achievable by the vast majority of hobbyists using basic tools and only a modicum of time and effort.

Compare this to the days of yore when most models, especially the characters, were made of metal and required considerable skill and effort. Most hobbyists had great difficulty pulling off conversions such as those seen in Dok Butcha's articles.

While I miss the ease and versatility of kit-bashing/converting the multi-part models, I think that the modern models provide us with an end-result that includes much better visual aesthetics. I'm more than happy to invest a little extra time and effort into kit-bashing/converting these models.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

In my experience with the newer style of model engineering, glue the parts that you want to remove together first and then come in with the blades.

[Lord_Ikka]

12 hours ago, Khornestar said:

I’ve seen some discussion that GW also designs modern sprues with some consideration for making them harder to recast at high quality using silicone molds. Certain details and such are fiddly enough in plastic, and guaranteed to break in resin. Not sure I really buy into this explanation, though. People who buy recasts are unlikely to care much if a little obscure detail breaks, and I’ve seen recasts of modern kits that are 80-100% as good in terms of quality. 

Most recasts/recasters I know of don't have issues with small details- resin casting is typically better than injection molded plastic for detail anyway. The only issue in general with recasting is the thinness or length of the specific pieces; drukhari and skitarii models have some really thin/spiky pieces that just don't have the strength in brittle resin to be produced properly, while stuff like super-heavy tanks with long hull pieces are prone to warping badly. Some of the newer GW stuff has those issues for recasting, but I doubt it has been done as a company-wide preventative measure. 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Lord_Ikka

[Ripper.McGuirl]

I will echo everything that's been said: it's not hard at all to kitbash. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is easier than ever to kitbash. I no longer have to carve a lump of metal to swap a melta gun off of a single piece, single pose space marine, for instance.
There are so many kits and so many options, you can do literally anything. 

Honestly, if anything, I would say they are going out of their way to ALLOW kitbashing. Particularly with the new kill team sets. Just the Aeldari Corsair kit, for instance, comes with enough parts to build the entire kill team, and then enough spares to turn 20 more models into corsairs.