Kits in direst need of replacement/updates

[Evil Eye]

Simple question, really; what kits do you want to get a shiny new version the most?

 

My personal vote goes to the Land Raider (the Phobos pattern). The current kit LOOKS nice enough, even if the molding is a bit soft in places due to sheer age, but actually building the damn thing is kind of a pain in the buttocks due to the poor fit and incredibly pronounced seams and nasty moldlines- and if you're foolish enough to try painting the interior it becomes a bloody nightmare. The construction makes the usual "paint interior first, assemble fully and then paint exterior" approach that works with, say, the Rhino much trickier, as you have to approach it as a sort of sandwich- you can't just leave the roof off, as otherwise it will be impossible to assemble- and the engine piece in particular barely fits at all! And if you're a nerd like me that finds the undetailed ceiling (with hatches leading to nothing and ammo feeds for the hull turret just dangling in midair) annoying, unless you are extremely skilled at scratchbuilding/3D modelling you are going to have a bad time. I tried modelling up a roof bulkhead in Blender and printing it off, and even aside from my poor measurements resulting in it not fitting properly, I realized that the added detail (which would be invisible anyway!) reduced the space inside the tank to such a pitiful amount it made the Rhino look spacious! I honestly wish they'd just not bothered with an interior at all; the halfway-house approach pleases nobody.

More to the point though, it barely fits together and the details (especially the tracks) are seriously degraded from over 20 years of use. GW, give the old thing some love and refresh it with a nice new kit, and either do the interior properly or don't do it at all. It seems particularly amiss to have brand-spanking-new Terminators but then have them riding around in a Land Raider from, what, 1998?

 

As a tangent to that, I did find a solution to the interior problem that keeps the admittedly cool opening ramp whilst not showing the annoyingly unfinished inside.

Spoiler

And just because I can, a full shot of the WIP Land Raider Crusader, complete with raised "turret pulpit" (actually the result of me having to salvage a slightly mangled front hull due to my misadventures in trying to get my dodgy """upgrade""" to fit!)

 

 

Other candidates include:
>Noise Marines (who don't even have an actual kit, just some ancient Finecast parts which are adequate as additional flavour parts but woefully sub-par for turning CSM into fully-fledged Noise Maries).

>The Defiler (iconic unit, looks great as long as you don't get too close to it, a sod to build and severely antiquated).

>Soul Grinder (see above).

>"Regular" Lokhust Destroyers (the last Necron models still using green rods, would be nice to have them updated to the same standard as the rest of the range- bonus points for a Lokhust Lord!).

>Catachans (poor chaps being passed over for a decent refresh whilst the perfectly good Sentinel got a total redesign will never not be confusing to me).

>Grotesques (the plastic Wracks are just the old resin ones but plastic and even better, so I don't see why we couldn't get the same treatment for the Grotesques- the basic concept was there for them, even if the actual sculpt was somewhat mediocre).

>Archon's Court (the recently-MTO'd models were gorgeous sculpts, and I can see a foursome of weird unique Dark Eldar character models ala the Gobbapalooza being lots of fun for conversions too!).

[Doctor Perils]

On the chaos side of things, the obvious ones are bikers and Huron (as well as defiler as you mentioned)

 

For Aeldari, the remaining aspects and phoenix Lords are in much more dire need of an update than the Land raider (which is still an awesome looking model)

 

Imperial side: a multipart Inquisitor

 

Orks and Tau auxiliaries also still have some pretty old kits

 

[Captain Idaho]

Necron Destroyers seem to be a glaring omission.

 

Flayed Ones are desperately in need for a new multi part plastic kit. A horde unit, more often than not taken in squads of 20 and often several times in an army, yet there's only 5 very specific Flayed Ones models? Shockingly poor.

 

Skorpekh Destroyers suffer the same - 3 models in very dynamic but specific poses and you can take them in 6s and several units.

 

I'm lucky my friend converted 9 of my 12 Skorpekh to look different enough from each other.

[Lord Marshal]

• The Vyper is from 1996. That's older than most people collecting 40k these days. The worst part is the crew.
• The Phoenix Lords need a glowup but they do seem to be very slowly getting through those.
• Warp Spiders are the oldest of the Aspect Warrior kits I believe, since if I recall they didn't get a new sculpt with the 2006 'dex. They've aged well imo but they do show their age in terms of posing.
   
• I don't even think the multi-part Hellbrute is a decade old yet, but it's just such an awkwardly posed kit you could mistake it for coming out of the 90's. Compared to the excellence that was the Dark Vengeance Hellbrute, we badly need a new version already. 
• Chaos Bikers go without saying, though the Big Accurate Leak from late 2021 did mention they were coming despite never materialising from an otherwise 99% accurate list. Wonder if they'll land along with the next CSM codex? 

 

[sitnam]

I think the Defiler is the main kit I’d love to see  updated. It’s an iconic unit, but it just isn’t that attractive compared to other Daemon Engines

[ThePenitentOne]

All finecast must be redone as plastic before any plastic is replaced with newer plastic.

 

End of story.

[Redcomet]

Huron. His current mini is hilariously bad.

 

The Swooping Hawks and Baharroth.

 

The Deldar court minis.

 

Belial.

[WrathOfTheLion]

8 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

All finecast must be redone as plastic before any plastic is replaced with newer plastic.

 

End of story.

I agree with the sentiment, but not the idea. Guardians getting an update was more pressing to the health of the Aeldari/Craftworlds faction at that time than say, Fuegan and the Fire Dragons.

Edited May 30, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Xenith]

1 hour ago, Evil Eye said:

Archon's Court (the recently-MTO'd models were gorgeous sculpts, and I can see a foursome of weird unique Dark Eldar character models ala the Gobbapalooza being lots of fun for conversions too!).

 

This seems ripe for a Kill Team style box like the recent inquisitorial one - maybe 4 bodies + sslyth body that can make 8 different options? Maybe expand and have a melee sslyth and a ranged sslyth?

 

The Falcon and vyper I think should be targeted just for the sake of reducing frame space - there's so much air in the sprues, they could half the size of box needed to hold these models easily. That said, these models stand the test of time, aside from the vyper riders, so are maybe lower priority?

 

A new catachan platoon box would be great - we had the command squad revamp, and maybe heavy weapons? It seems like catachans might be in the IP danger zone of being too close to rambo/predator, so are just getting special release models so GW can say they're still using the IP. 

 

As has been said, the SM vehicles are due a revamp, though maybe GW will just nix them entirely. I'd add in the predator which again has masses of space on the sprues. 

[apologist]

I've always had a soft spot for basic infantry, so I think my preferences will always favour those. Bearing that in mind, my suggestions for:

 

The top three most deserving:

• Catachan Jungle Fighters – some of the oldest and least-loved plastics in the GW range, the infantry squad in particular seems like the lowest-hanging fruit of all: perfect as a standalone release for Kill Team, as part of a follow-up wave for the Imperial Guard range, and as a showcase for how the 10th edition Detachment concept works. 
• Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders – While some other Aspects would also benefit from an update, I think these two are most urgently deserving. Both epitomise the 'move fast, strike hard' core concept of Craftworld Eldar, and both are kits that would particularly benefit from the advances in technology available to GW today. 
• Grey Knights in Aegis armour – I'm not a fan of Grey Knights (or Deathwatch, or Custodes for that matter) as a standalone army, but in pure terms of kits that reek of being from a different design and production paradigm, the Grey Knights stand out like a heroically-scaled thumb. By virtue of being visually quite distinct from the equivalents in other Marine armies, the Grey Knight Terminator kits aren't as badly off, but the aegis-armoured ones look very peculiar. Again, a single release with two sets of options, and a large Black Templar-style upgrade sprue for the other two sets of options, would be a cost-effective way to give this army a huge boost.

Top three runners-up:

• Fire Dragons and Striking Scorpions – Both would benefit from new kits, but (subjectively, of course) these are better-looking kits than the Swooping Hawks and more modern than the Warp Spiders. Secondly, their roles – close assault and anti-tank – are important but not quite as iconic to the overall Eldar faction to bump the other two from my list.
• Vespid Stingwings – Full of potential, but rather pedestrian, static sculpts. Another good avenue for exploring as a Kill Team release, where the designers could have lots of fun around communion helms, additional/alternative equipment loadouts, and they'd also provide a fun injection of nimble but not necessarily super-fast mobility in the over Kill Team game.
• Noise Marines – These, I suspect, will be coming out sooner rather than later, but as @Evil Eye says, it's notable that this iconic unit entry doesn't have a decent way to be represented. Hell, a 'tide-you-over' upgrade sprue of guns, heads and shoulder pads for the new Chaos Legionaries kit would be great ahead of the inevitable Codex: Emperor's Children, and would continue to offer some vital variety in the Prince Of Pleasure's armies long after the full army is released.

...and three personal choices:

• Thousand Sons Rubric Marines – For much the same reasons as the Grey Knights above, it's a crying shame that this kit is likely to remain untouched for years. It's a serviceable kit, and that's damning it with faint praise. Enlarged to match the new Khorne Berserkers, an imaginative update could really sell the idea of these inexorable empty suits of armour – perhaps incorporating design concepts like the wonderful Light of Eltharion model from Age of Sigmar, where parts of limbs are missing. Likewise, incorporating swirling effects to suggest billowing dust or clouds of swirling magic surrounding them could really invest them with character and movement without sacrificing their core concept of near-mindless automatons.
• Ork boyz – The new kit is lovely – but it's far too limited in terms of potential. The ork boyz kit should have been much closer to the new Kroot kit – largely backwards-compatible, and absolutely bursting with variety.
• Tactical Marines – Dare I suggest this? Yes. It's very much coals to Newcastle, but I personally would love to see an updated Tactical Squad scaled to match Primaris marines, decked out mostly with Mark VII. In addition to bringing easy kitbashing back, it would (selfishly!) allow me to explore the years between the HH and modern 40k. 

[Squark]

Genestealers are painfully old. Lokhust Destroyers could definitely use a refresh- They just look weird with a heavy in the squad. The Mars and Phobos pattern Space Marine vehicles are also showing their age, but with the new Heresy kits I'm not entirely sure they won't just be replaced with upgrade kits for the deimos and proteus patterns.

 

If we include recently cancelled kits, The Casta Ferrum Dreadnought could also use the TLC they gave the Mk. VI kit- Giving the legs some range of motion and getting all the gun options in one kit would be wonderful.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Squark

[gideon stargreave]

42 minutes ago, apologist said:

Grey Knights in Aegis armour – I'm not a fan of Grey Knights (or Deathwatch, or Custodes for that matter) as a standalone army, but in pure terms of kits that reek of being from a different design and production paradigm, the Grey Knights stand out like a heroically-scaled thumb. By virtue of being visually quite distinct from the equivalents in other Marine armies, the Grey Knight Terminator kits aren't as badly off, but the aegis-armoured ones look very peculiar. Again, a single release with two sets of options, and a large Black Templar-style upgrade sprue for the other two sets of options, would be a cost-effective way to give this army a huge boost.

This. I wanted a terminator squad as allies to my Blood angels, but instead I've used Terminator minis with some conversions as Aegis armour instead.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Scouts are pretty dire, and it would be nice to have more pose variety for the Crusader squad.

 

Then again, the heads were bad when they came out.

 

How's the Grav Falcon doing? The design is still great, but the age of that mould must be showing?

 

And here's perhaps a really controversial one: the Questoris Knight. Considering how far kits like the Contemptor, Warmaster and Leviathan have come recently, redoing the Questoris to have more than two leg pose options would be amazing.

[WrathOfTheLion]

The Falcon/Wave Serpent chassis for Eldar is not in great shape. The molds are definitely wearing out, similar to the rhino and land raider ones. The LR and Wave Serpent are worse than the Rhino, I wonder if they actually redid the mold for the Rhino somewhere in its production run and they're wearing out a second.

Edited May 30, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[ZeroWolf]

26 minutes ago, Sword Brother Adelard said:

Scouts are pretty dire, and it would be nice to have more pose variety for the Crusader squad.

 

Then again, the heads were bad when they came out.

 

How's the Grav Falcon doing? The design is still great, but the age of that mould must be showing?

 

And here's perhaps a really controversial one: the Questoris Knight. Considering how far kits like the Contemptor, Warmaster and Leviathan have come recently, redoing the Questoris to have more than two leg pose options would be amazing.

If rumours are to be believed, we're getting new scouts via kill team, and possibly genestealers as well.

 

The remaining phoenix lords definitely need their turn in the sun. It's quite funny that one of the oldest armies (lore wise) is stuck with the oldest minis.

[TheMawr]

Top 5 that need it imho (but not necessarily personal needs);

1. Grotesques

-- A Squad represented by a single resin rotation miniature ? nothing tops that.

2. Inquisitor(s)

-- If the grotesque's state wasnt so dire I would have scored this 1.. they are a core element of the setting only third to spacemarines and chaos.. yet for a long time the most neglected one. (though its gotten better recently)

3. Servitors

-- Mostly because they are used in 6 or 7 Factions.. and thats counting spacemarines as 1

4. Noise marines

-- Not only are they just a resin upgrade kit, they are an upgrade kit for a kit that has been replaced.

5. Autarch on Jetbike

-- Same as 4 but much easier to convert.

 

 

Personal choices are harder because some replacements I'd really really want are for fairly recent kits (Death jester at the top). I guess my top picks would be the Archons court and Aspect warriors, also for the conversion potential they hold.

 

[ZeroWolf]

Oh speaking of noise marines, we'll almost certainly get them as part of the Emperor's Children codex release along with Fulgrim, just got to play the waiting game.

[MARK0SIAN]

+1 for Catachans. Out of all the kits still sold I think that one is the most in need of an update. 
 

To be fair to GW, they do seem to be updating kits at a faster rate than they used to be. If you’d posted this same thread even 2 or 3 years ago then the list of things in dire need of an update would’ve been much larger.

Edited May 30, 2023 by MARK0SIAN

[sarabando]

9 minutes ago, ZeroWolf said:

If rumours are to be believed, we're getting new scouts via kill team, and possibly genestealers as well.

 

The remaining phoenix lords definitely need their turn in the sun. It's quite funny that one of the oldest armies (lore wise) is stuck with the oldest minis.

scouts vs scorpions apparently. 

 

for me its all the resin characters asap, as much as i love firstborn an updated plastic ezikiel would be ace. 

 

All the eldar aspect warriors, 90% of the dark eldar range also need heavy work. 

[TheMawr]

11 minutes ago, MARK0SIAN said:

+1 for Catachans. Out of all the kits still sold I think that one is the most in need of an update. 
 

To be fair to GW, they do seem to be updating kits at a faster rate than they used to be. If you’d posted this same thread even 2 or 3 years ago then the list of things in dire need of an update would’ve been much larger.

 

For no sane reason at all I keep a file for that.. and indeed they have been on a roll. (especially when also looking at the fantasy side.) though somehow even with big updates they seem dead set on keeping at least 1 kit outdated, apart from votann no 40k range is completely up to date, and it would take a single (busy) release week worth of content to knock several ranges at least in the "everything not named is plastic" territory.

[WrathOfTheLion]

37 minutes ago, sarabando said:

scouts vs scorpions apparently. 

 

for me its all the resin characters asap, as much as i love firstborn an updated plastic ezikiel would be ace. 

 

All the eldar aspect warriors, 90% of the dark eldar range also need heavy work. 

They've done quite a few of the aspect warriors. Howling Banshees, Dark Reapers and Shining Spears are all very new kits, with Striking Scorpions looking to be on deck as well. So they've about hit half of them already in the past couple years.

[Toxichobbit]

There is a lot of good suggestions in here, but all of them pale in comparison to Warp Spiders. A regularly used unit that has a 30 year old sculpt from the start of the games second edition, when we're now heading into the 10th edition, and to top it all off they're Finecast. They're also monopose (most of them are one piece models!) and tiny. There is no other kit more in need of a resculpt than these.

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Toxichobbit

[Squark]

*Checks* Wow. Yeah, that is one ancient looking kit. And for a unit that's pretty prominent in secondary media, no less.

[Lay]

I second the call for new firstborn Marine tanks. Not only do the Chaos variants of those kits suffer from the same issues mentioned in the OP, they're also aesthetically outdated compared to the rest of the trim-loving CSM range. Hell, the Chaos Land Raider still has an aquila on its tracks. It's barely heretical.

[ZeroWolf]

This just popped into my head, but plastic versions of Trazyn and Orikan please. Love the infinite and the divine but I don't want to deal with finecast.