Horus Heresy [30k] Legion Contemptor Upgrades - DA, WS, IF, EC, IW, SoH

[Irongert]

I'll be honest in that this is a thing that won't affect me since I already have all the legion specific contemptors I'll ever want but it's still a sad announcement. Things like these are what make the various legions stand out from each other. Seems like a lot of people think the same, there's a fair few of them out of stock on the FW site. I hope that they will at least bring them back long enough for everyone who wants them to still get them while they can. 

[Redcomet]

They look great. And it means less FW resin to deal with

[Toxichobbit]

15 hours ago, The4thHorseman said:

At least all the FW Complete Legion Specific Contemptors are preserved out in the wild and backwoods of the interwebs, unlike the Boxnaughts. Sad.

 

Most of the boxnaughts are out there. It just takes a lot of effort to find them.

[sarabando]

just a dumb move, unless these cost a tenner i simply wont bother. 

[Ripper.McGuirl]

I am totally fine with this. I prefer more uniformity between the legions for Heresy, and the heads and torsos make them quite a bit different on their own.

[Interrogator Stobz]

This is a real shame. All the cool Dreads by future artists that we are not going to see has increased. 

[Halandaar]

Actually this also makes me worried for the fate of the non-30K custom dreadnoughts too, namely Hecaton Aiakos and Culln the Risen.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Halandaar

[Ripper.McGuirl]

44 minutes ago, Halandaar said:

Actually this also makes me worried for the fate of the non-30K custom dreadnoughts too, namely Hecaton Aiakos and Culln the Risen.

My guess is they are on the chopping block. They are attached to books they longer make, in a series they no longer make. Unless they start doing Age of Darkness: Badab or something, I bet they are going away.

[Urauloth]

4 hours ago, Redcomet said:

They look great. And it means less FW resin to deal with

Depending on how much they end up selling for, I'm inclined to agree about some of them. I think a couple look kinda weird without the shoulders they were designed to go with, though. It's a shame to lose those.

 

I'll be interested to see how the DG one looks when it shows up.

[LameBeard]

Some seem to come out ok, like the Imperial Fist. Remember it might be £46 for resin, but that’s with no arms. So this could be a money-saving compromise for some. Others look really a bit janky though, real shame to lose the trim on the Dark Angel, the Emperor’s Child looks the worst probably, and the artist has done a great job gussying up the White Scar shoulders, but that kind of detail is way beyond me! So I need to think about that Alpha Legion one now I think …

[Corswain]

I find it a little strange but I can see the logic. The only one on my future shopping list is the Dark Angels one and I don't think the missing legs or shoulders will worry me too much. I'll get away with transfers and the bits box.

[Nephaston]

I just had a horrible thought, what if this isn't axing arms and legs but dividing them up only to release contemptor arms/legs as a separate box to increase "choice" at a non negligible upcharge.

 

Can even veil it as a "we heard you, here are some slightly retooled bits for a pretty penny" like it's generosity.

[Castellan Wulfrik]

The more I think about it the worse this idea gets. Many people will already be buying an extra arm set for weapon options anyway, when you take that into account and that the cost of these chests will probably be quite high most people are probably not saving any money and getting a less detailed model. Especially when you consider the upcoming plastic price increase.

[spessmarine]

current stock definitely varies in quality

can't say this one looks like one to miss

 

 

WS one though, that was a lovely one

 

[sarabando]

i bet they will sell these with the plastic kit so it costs as much as the FW ones do now and i cant save a penny

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

1 hour ago, sarabando said:

i bet they will sell these with the plastic kit so it costs as much as the FW ones do now and i cant save a penny

nope it’s just teh torso .

[WrathOfTheLion]

I don't know, they're growing on me less over time. I think I'll just get the resin ones now that I want, and then just use the plain plastic kit with decals and paint. I think it'll work for some of them, but others like the Word Bearers, Dark Angels and White Scars ones really have some nice detail to them. In the end, it doesn't really matter all that much though.

 

I decided to order the ones I really wanted. I'd probably grab any of the Leviathans you may want as well, for the Legions that have them.

Edited February 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Squike]

I think this is a shame for many of the points mentioned already, the FW Contemptor kits were one of the best FW kits there was, and I prefer building it to the new plastic Contemptor that seems to have so many unnecessary joins, and be in way more pieces, ( I get its for the plastic moulding but I found it a pain to build compared to the resin one)

 

I went to try and buy the SOH version as I know I need another one, but unfortunately being stuck out in the Middle East right now for some reason the FW website wouldn't let me complete the transaction, and now its out of stock... hopefully they restock at least once before they finally disappear. 

[Cleon]

After sleeping on it, I'm now tempted (when they get around to doing the Blood Angels one) to get one of these to upgrade my spare untouched Calthnought, but that will depend on price...

Or maybe I put it on a plastic one and use the unused plastic body to improve the pose of the calthnought... I dunno.

[sockwithaticket]

20 hours ago, Halandaar said:

Actually this also makes me worried for the fate of the non-30K custom dreadnoughts too, namely Hecaton Aiakos and Culln the Risen.

They've long since disposed of all the varied mk. IV dreads, the only one left is the Salamander character and that's presumably just because they've got stock.  Hecaton and Culln are probably in the same boat, once their stock runs down they'll be gone. As @Ripper.McGuirl upsettingly pointed out, the Imperial Armour campaign books they featured in are dead and buried, so there's no real need to re-up on those models.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

I'm convinced all of the people complaining about the shoulders and knee sections not being included as upgrades are the same hobbyist that dislike decal transfers and prefer to paint their details (because they just suck at being able to use transfers decals). 

This is a good thing and a good move by FW that makes a lot of sense for us and them. GW/FW are not blind to the fact that most "gamers" in this hobby are not model hobbyist who enjoy working with difficult materials i.e. resin over plastic. There's not a lot of "gamers" that want to devote the time and energy into fixing bubble holes, mold lines/slippages, pinning, bent parts, or deal with painting difficulties associated with resin models. They know that the plastic dreadnoughts are a hit that >90% of gamers in the hobby are going to want over resin dreads. For those few people who would be willing to buy FW resin for the customization in their collection(s), they now have the option to upgrade what is now the standard contemptor in plastic. 

For those under the impression they could have had GW make these in plastic instead of resin. Hard NO. There's so many people that are ignorant to the fact that resin can bring about much finer detail than plastic is capable of. You would not have a product anywhere near as nice if these were in plastic. If you don't believe that or think it's right.. fine, but you're wrong. 

This move may not be ideal for many of you that have an issue with these upgrade kits, but that doesn't mean that it was the wrong move or that FW dropped the ball. Would other customization bits have been nice? Yeah.. they would be, but even being given the option of torso customization is pretty dope, and I'm glad FW did it. Maybe they've even had the chance to redo the molds and we'll have much nicer torso's than we've seen with the complete legion specific contemptor kits being replaced. That would make a lot of sense considering we're only being offered 6(?) right now as opposed to all of the legions.. those are the ones that have been re-done. We'll see how upset I am once the price drops and we know by how much they are raking us 

 

All of the negativity is a bit over the top.. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

People are complaining because we're losing yet more legion specific content from the heresy range. There's some really nice details that just get lost, and can't be made up by any amount of freehand or decals. This isn't anything new; every round of last chance to buy has had the same complaints; forgeworld used to be dedicated to providing all sorts of extras to bring about more character for your armies.

 

I've made and painted contemptors since they were released in 5th, and they were one and all easier to assemble than the new plastic one, including any resin-isms like reheating the achillus spears to straighten them. Gap filling and leveling is a bit silly to say they're trying to avoid and cater to "the gamers", when the mk6 have gaps in all their studded pads and the Leviathan has a seam in its forehead. 

 

The plastic comment is frankly wrong considering the modern sculpts they release these days. 

 

They really should have just continued to sell both the full resin options and the new plastic kits. The amount of one-off characters they churn out for necromunda and blood bowl shows that a repeated-buy model is more than viable.

[Noserenda]

I'm convinced all of the people complaining about the shoulders and knee sections not being included as upgrades are the same hobbyist that dislike decal transfers and prefer to paint their details (because they just suck at being able to use transfers decals). 

I think that might actually be the silliest take yet, congrats frater :D Im not saying it cant exist but ive never seen transfers that can replicate studs, pelts, chains and the many other nice details we are losing here, did you even look at the kits?

Now i have a strong dislike of forgeworld resin, its cheap and nasty and they charge like it isnt but the contemptors are genuinely simple to build and a few years back (Moulds may not be as great now!) required basically no cleaning to the extent that outside of having to use superglue they are easier than many plastic kits out there to build.

And even if the resin was particularly hard... the arms and legs being marginally easier to build is such an absurdly fringe benefit at best given you still have a resin body to deal with at the heart of the thing!
 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Noserenda

[Flaherty]

19 hours ago, Noserenda said:

 

I think that might actually be the silliest take yet, congrats frater :D Im not saying it cant exist but ive never seen transfers that can replicate studs, pelts, chains and the many other nice details we are losing here, did you even look at the kits?

Now i have a strong dislike of forgeworld resin, its cheap and nasty and they charge like it isnt but the contemptors are genuinely simple to build and a few years back (Moulds may not be as great now!) required basically no cleaning to the extent that outside of having to use superglue they are easier than many plastic kits out there to build.

And even if the resin was particularly hard... the arms and legs being marginally easier to build is such an absurdly fringe benefit at best given you still have a resin body to deal with at the heart of the thing!
 

Also, the notion that resin provides higher accuracy is one of the weirdest beliefs that manages to persist in the face of plentiful evidence to the contrary. That may have been true circa 2010, but GW's advances in CAD modeling have paid off and literally changed the game. Look at any FW Death Guard model and compare the level of detail, or even the crispness of of similarly detailed plastic pieces and the superiority of plastic is immediately obvious.

 

Resin only persists because it has a lower tooling cost than plastic and GW doesn't yet want to embrace selling STLs. It should be phased out ASAP IMHO :)

Edited February 12, 2023 by Flaherty

[WrathOfTheLion]

Note that the resin models are also designed using the same CAD process as the plastic models.

 

Of recent ones, only Primarchs have been hand-sculpted, and I think even those have started to move over (Horus Ascended I think was CAD designed)

Edited February 12, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion