Modularity vs cost

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Assuming monopose kits particularly push fit kits are cheaper for GW to produce, what would the discount need to be compared to standard kits have to be for you to be ok/happy with all new kits being push for/monopose?

 

for me, I’d say i could be happy with that for a 33% savings.

[Ramell]

I think you're a bad person for even suggesting moving more towards push-fit for standard kits, just to save a little money. 

The current space marine range has a good balance between customizability and out of the box poses. But any further towards monopose would be too much. 

[ZeroWolf]

I think keeping push fit to starter sets is the right move, and i think all solo releases should be multipart (side-eyes outriders).

[TheArtilleryman]

For basic infantry, particularly for horde armies, I’d welcome this. Imperial Guard are the most obvious as there are so many models that nobody is going to care if there are duplicates. Same with tyranids and orks.

What they’ve done with the recent heresy marines is a great example of how this could work. Monopose but with the option to easily swap arms and backpacks to make any number of different unit types. HH is a much more affordable game to buy into because of this system, especially at FLGS prices.

 

In terms of a discount, I’m not sure what I would call a reasonable figure. I would say that selling both monopose and multipart kits for everything would be impractical and could possible dilute sales … but then that’s just a guess. Currently I can’t think of any kits that are sold in both varieties on their own - only monopose kits I can think of are all sold in starter set bundles.

 

What would be excellent would be to make cheaper “start collecting” style bundles with more basic kits for less. e.g. for IG do a command squad and two infantry squads all in monopose for say fifty quid. It would be a great way to make horde armies more accessible. 
 

Edit: in fact, what I’d actually like to see is several different starter boxes a la Mantic’s approach for Kings of War/Firefight, so not everyone has to have marines/tyranids. Guard vs Orks would be great for this and give a source of cheap monopose infantry for those armies.

Edited February 10 by TheArtilleryman

[MARK0SIAN]

I’m surprised you think there’d be any discount. Moving to push fit kits whilst keeping the price the same sounds more like the GW we know and love 

[siegfriedfr]

I do not understand the hate toward push-fit.

It negates the need for magnetizing and sometimes gluing, and it makes painting and transporting easier.

I wish all GW miniatures were actually push fit, which doesn't mean there couldn't be alternative builds.

 

As for GW applying any sort of discount because a miniature would be push fit, that is wishful thinking.

[ThaneOfTas]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

ok/happy with all new kits being push for/monopose?

There is no discount that would get me to be okay with *All* new kits being monopose/pushfit. The way that they currently do it, with launch boxes featuring pushfit versions of models that (should) later get multipart releases works fine.

 

The idea suggested above of some armies also getting a pushfit start collecting kit for a discount is not a bad one, so long as the multipart kit stays where it is.

[Cleon]

Personally I dislike push fit, I find it fiddlier and harder to get a flush fit than normal models, I'd much prefer 'glue needed' single build models to push fit.

[Grotsmasha]

I wouldn't be opposed to Core Infantry models/units from each Faction having a monopose box (as suggested above), but switching to a predominantly monopose line would not be cool, AND GW wouln't give us a discount either.

[Tawnis]

I don't mind the push fit kids for the starter sets, but that's about it for most armies. For my Space Marines, I won't by any duplicate push fits, so while I wouldn't mind picking up another unit of Infernus for lists I'm working on, I won't do it until they have a set that's not monopose, which may be a long time at this rate. 

 

Some swarm armies are fine, like Tyrnaid Gaunts and Necron Warriors, where they are just faceless masses, but others not so much. The new Ork Boyz kit is the ultimate example of these kits done wrong where there is only a few poses for both melee and ranged, so if you want to fill out a full 20 blob, you're going to have 4-5 idential models in each squad. Yuck. Battle Sisters are not great for this either, but they are at least a little more flexible. 

 

I think the sweet spot is keeping the arms and head swappable, even if the bodies and leg poses are not, that at least gives the models some semblance of individuality. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

In response to GW would never give a discount for push fit.

if they think people who aren’t willing to expand their armies at current prices will buy more kits if there’s a cheaper alternative then they most certainly would likely give it a shot.

 

like id love a second box of aggressors but it’s so hard to justify their price with only 3 in a box. Knock 33% off that price for a pfit version and I’d be all over it.

Same with Brutalis dread. I’d love one, but at the moment I just don’t see it as worth the monetary cost. A pfit version would be great and I’d probably have one by now, even at 25% cheaper.

[Wormwoods]

The thing is I really like converting and kitbashing, and a lot of monopose kits are worse for that. 

[Evil Eye]

No.

 

No, no, no.

 

And did I mention?

NO.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

15 minutes ago, Wormwoods said:

The thing is I really like converting and kitbashing, and a lot of monopose kits are worse for that. 

Just takes a bit more work.

 

but most kits these days are already on the cusp of being monopose compared back in the day when no directions were needed to build infantry.

[Evil Eye]

42 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

but most kits these days are already on the cusp of being monopose compared back in the day when no directions were needed to build infantry.

Right, and it's terrible. We need to go back.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

10 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Right, and it's terrible. We need to go back.

Not going to happen, especially since the new poses are generally so much better.

 

like I said it just takes a little bit more skill to do a conversion now, compared to glue generic LT arm onto generic torso, and fancy head to generic torso, and legs to generic torso.

 

managed to kitbash a warboss out of an AOS orruk. Had to do some cutting and covering up a gap or two, but no problems with kitbashing or converting over here.

[Evil Eye]

51 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Not going to happen, especially since the new poses are generally so much better.

Yeah, all four of them.

51 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

like I said it just takes a little bit more skill to do a conversion now

See, here's the thing. It's not just conversions that get screwed over by modern GW's kit engineering. The monopose nature of modern kits (especially characters) in plastic, and the resultant inflated partscount means A: higher prices (seriously, the older design philosophy is far more cost-efficient; if the 3E Ork Boyz sprues were retooled to be as densely packed as current sprues but with the exact same parts, you'd be able to fit double the amount of boyz in one kit for pretty much the same cost) and B: even if you're not converting at all, just building as per instructions, you end up with this dreadful jigsaw-construction on everything which ends up with miniatures being covered in seams which need filling with putty and/or sprue goo if you want the mini to look good. There's a reason that sculpts designed to be built in a specific pose tended to be made of metal or resin; they're much cheaper to make molds for and because undercuts are possible, you can take a miniature that would need 13 parts in modern GW plastic and cast it in, what, 3 or 4?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 minute ago, Evil Eye said:

Yeah, all four of them.

See, here's the thing. It's not just conversions that get screwed over by modern GW's kit engineering. The monopose nature of modern kits (especially characters) in plastic, and the resultant inflated partscount means A: higher prices (seriously, the older design philosophy is far more cost-efficient; if the 3E Ork Boyz sprues were retooled to be as densely packed as current sprues but with the exact same parts, you'd be able to fit double the amount of boyz in one kit for pretty much the same cost) and B: even if you're not converting at all, just building as per instructions, you end up with this dreadful jigsaw-construction on everything which ends up with miniatures being covered in seams which need filling with putty and/or sprue goo if you want the mini to look good. There's a reason that sculpts designed to be built in a specific pose tended to be made of metal or resin; they're much cheaper to make molds for and because undercuts are possible, you can take a miniature that would need 13 parts in modern GW plastic and cast it in, what, 3 or 4?

I agree they’ve made some stupid decisions like making PFs and shins be more than one part, but that doesn’t have to be the case for monopose/push fit or any kit in the future.

[Wormwoods]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Just takes a bit more work.

Yeah that's why is said 'worse' not 'insurmountably impossible'. I'm stating a preference.

[Evil Eye]

12 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

I agree they’ve made some stupid decisions like making PFs and shins be more than one part, but that doesn’t have to be the case for monopose/push fit or any kit in the future.

That's the thing, it kinda does by its very nature. If you want a lower partscount on a plastic pushfit miniature you have to go with a much more restrained pose. It's why a lot of pushfit minis tended to be quite two-dimensional for a long time; they were designed to be easy to put together and cheap to make (and buy), hence they sacrificed detail and dynamic posing.

 

If you want everything to be plastic, monopose and pushfit (WHY) then you have a choice between horrible jigsaw puzzle assembly and masses of join-seams, OR very two-dimensional, simplistic poses.

 

...Or, you know, we could not do that and stick with normal multi-part kits where you have to use *GASP* glue and can *SHOCK* pose the model to taste.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 minute ago, Wormwoods said:

Yeah that's why is said 'worse' not 'insurmountably impossible'. I'm stating a preference.

Is it worse? The base poses are significantly better than the old poses.

 

so you can have an easier kitbash with basic poses, or you have harder kitbashes with better poses.

[ThaneOfTas]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Is it worse? The base poses are significantly better than the old poses.

You could have just put more work into posing with the old style kits the way that you're suggesting that we need to put more work into converting now.

 

For you the trade off was worth it, for me and apparently at least several other people in this thread it really wasnt a good deal though.

[Bung]

10 hours ago, siegfriedfr said:

I do not understand the hate toward push-fit.

It negates the need for magnetizing and sometimes gluing, and it makes painting and transporting easier.

I wish all GW miniatures were actually push fit, which doesn't mean there couldn't be alternative builds.

 

As for GW applying any sort of discount because a miniature would be push fit, that is wishful thinking.

 

Its pretty simple, i dont want a low model count Army like SM consisting of 5 poses for the Body and changing that would be a massive conversion.

 

I like the old Firstborn Kits with seperate legs and Torsos which gave me to oportunity of more easy conversions and the ability to switch them with third party or 3d printed Bits.

 

For me the Primaris and Horus Heresy Marines were 2 steps backwards Like getting second Edition white Metal Marines bodies but in cheaper plastic.

 

I did enjoy building the Heresy Marines, but i doubt i use them besides core troop choices.

[Magos Takatus]

I do find I get far worse gaps in the push-fit models now compared to previous years. I think the tolerances for the parts are much tighter, so it's harder to get the pieces to fit.

 

It's a very interesting question to pose. I thought the Aggressor kit was nerve-wracking because I felt like I was about to break the kit trying to push the parts together. I think I eventually cut off the offending pegs and glued the models anyway. I haven't yet come back to marines to buy the full-fat Aggressors kit but I am enticed by the lure of more optional components to play with...

 

I think the idea of some monopose miniatures isn't that harmful, but I did buy a resin FW Contemptor in preference to this model:

 

My model looked like this:

 

I mean, it's not doing backflips but it's a bit more lively. I haven't looked at the new Contemptor kit but I think that was received with a lot more positivity?

[Jukkiz]

i feel like normal boxes with 5x2 man unit sprues male lot of armie´s normal troops look kinda samey. Without alot of bits or atleast some kitbashing. You can easily notice this with IG/AM

Edited February 11 by Jukkiz