Modularity vs cost

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

6 minutes ago, Rain said:

 

With all due respect, this is a disingenuous argument. A block of marble is "conversion friendly" if you're Michelangelo, but that doesn't mean that we should just be supplied with solid blocks of plastic that we can carve into our own unique units just because some highly skilled and experienced people might have no problems with it.

 

Of course it's possible to convert monopose models, but the question is whether or not the increased potential for dynamic poses is worth the increased difficulty in converting, especially for low-skill builders (of which I am proudly a part) to whom conversion essentially boils down to kitbashing, as our skills in sculpting and precise cutting around anything but defined joints like wrists are lacking. I'm not even dogmatically on one side of the issue, as I think that some kits strike a good balance. The new Berzerker kits are mostly great, and I appreciate the dynamism of the sculpts, but some other kits, such as Eightbound, are severely lacking in ways to make the models look individual, and the poses are hardly sufficiently interesting to make the lack of options worth it.

No, youre the one being disingenuous.

its not even close to being handed a hunk of plastic and being told to just carve the model yourself.

 

is there more to it than just glue new arm to torso? Yes, but it’s not remotely hard. You need nothing more than basic modeling tools, clippers, glue, maybe an exacto knife.

Edited February 28 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[jaxom]

New article https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/4xvlhken/the-emperors-children-army-set-examining-the-new-kits-in-detail/

 

talks a lot about the new kits being customizable. How does this fit into the variables? I think it counts towards a kit being modular and allowing creative freedom.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

12 minutes ago, jaxom said:

New article https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/4xvlhken/the-emperors-children-army-set-examining-the-new-kits-in-detail/

 

talks a lot about the new kits being customizable. How does this fit into the variables? I think it counts towards a kit being modular and allowing creative freedom.

All I know is I love that spear.

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

 

With all due respect, this appears to me to be a disingenuous argument. A block of marble is "conversion friendly" if you're Michelangelo, but that doesn't mean that we should just be supplied with solid blocks of plastic that we can carve into our own unique units just because some highly skilled and experienced people might have no problems with it.

 

But you aren't supplied with a block of plastic, you're supplied with a model that has distinct features, right?  How is the argument disingenuous?  Scribe said that Monopose kits can't be modified, but I don't think that's a very logical start.  Also like, I straight up said MPK is obviously the preferred.

 

1 hour ago, Rain said:

Of course it's possible to convert monopose models, but the question is whether or not the increased potential for dynamic poses is worth the increased difficulty in converting, especially for low-skill builders (of which I am proudly a part) to whom conversion essentially boils down to kitbashing, as our skills in sculpting and precise cutting around anything but defined joints like wrists are lacking. I'm not even dogmatically on one side of the issue, as I think that some kits strike a good balance. The new Berzerker kits are mostly great, and I appreciate the dynamism of the sculpts, but some other kits, such as Eightbound, are severely lacking in ways to make the models look individual, and the poses are hardly sufficiently interesting to make the lack of options worth it.

 

Right, the post I was responding to said that it wasn't not possible to convert models that are monopose.  That's just wrong, right?  Like you're agreeing, even while being self deprecating, but the post that I was responding to specifically said it was so limiting that it might as well be impossible to convert monopose.

 

I know it's tougher, but it's not impossible.

Edited February 28 by DemonGSides

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

I agree most kits should be MPK, but acting like you can't modify push fit is just wrong.

 

I've carved out metal kits, back in the early days, so I get it. The point remains that MPK's are vastly superior for kitbashing.

[DemonGSides]

It's in the first sentence of my first post responding to you about it.  Obviously kits that are designed to be swapped around are going to be easier to swap around.

But a monopose kit is only 'an abomination (to convert)' if you refuse to do it.  I've got Push Fit kits with all sorts of changes to them.  It just takes a little practice, like most things worth doing in life, and then it gets easier.

Edited February 28 by DemonGSides

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Also push fit is pretty straight forward, but might help to make sure we are all on the same page about what we’re calling monopose kits.

 

i personally consider pretty much every modern kit monopose, (the type where there’s like half or a fourth of a leg as part of the hips/waist and possibly the front half of the torso) to be monopose, even if they come with multiple options that technically change the pose up a bit from one choice to another.

 

so is everyone on the same page about monopose as me, or are some people using monopose and push fit interchangeably?

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

It's in the first sentence of my first post responding to you about it.  Obviously kits that are designed to be swapped around are going to be easier to swap around.

But a monopose kit is only 'an abomination (to convert)' if you refuse to do it.  I've got Push Fit kits with all sorts of changes to them.  It just takes a little practice, like most things worth doing in life, and then it gets easier.

 

(all the modern kits are an abomination) ;)

[NovemberIX]

I'd call it All push-fit are monopose, but not all monopose are push-fit.

[Magos Takatus]

I've got a few kitbashes and conversions under my belt over the years, but I find I am less inclined to convert my models for a number of reasons. Sure, being tougher to kitbash is one reason, but I find the more interesting poses make me less inclined to want to kitbash my models in the first place.

 

Firstly there is this guy:

 

This guy was a real champion of modularity, with tons of pieces to allow you to customise him to your heart's content, or spread the bits out across an army, but I always feel the parts look a bit tacked on with this model, and I always still end up seeing this model and think "oh, it's that captain again", even if  he's equipped with a different loadout.

 

Then there's this chap:

 

I'm not quite comparing apples to apples here because it's a Gravis Captain compared to standard power armour but the kit comes with a few options and it had more drama to it out of the box in my opinion. Would I like more choice in my posing ideally? Sure! Would I prefer a captain striding through ruins firing while he advances out of the box over a guy standing flat-footed while flapping a power fist or lightning claw awkwardly over his head? Absolutely!

 

I think the problem I find now is that I find it takes more effort to make the old multipart kits look good. I've seen enough awkward or uninspired firstborn marines and chaos marines to last a lifetime.

 

I must confess I've not painted a full Intercessor squad of marines yet, I've just worked on the odd Primaris model here and there, maybe that's my bias? I've been painting mainly Primaris characters so I've expected them to be more or less one pose? Still, I'm not just talking about space marines. My Skitarii wouldn't have been possible without GW's change in design principles and people used to say the Sisters of Battle were "not possible" to be made in plastic, but the more monopose builds mean that my Adeptus Mechanicus army now exists, and the Sisters are no longer consigned to single-piece metal models. 

 

I also find some of GW's bewildering "Easter egg" hollow construction to be irritating. I recently assembled some Warcry Askurgan Trueblades and they were infuriating to assemble, with one model requiring considerable gap filling because none of the parts really wanted to gel together in any meaningful way. Sometimes GW designers get a bit too "clever" for my liking and I wish they would include more pegs and slots into their models like they used to rather than odd contours that "sort of" fit together. Not like the "push fit" pegs in the first generation push-fit Primaris, because they were less "push fit" and more "crush the two components together while screaming and hope that the two pieces aren't broken by the time you are finished-fit"

Edited March 1 by Magos Takatus

[roryokane]

This feels spiritually related to this thread, but apologies for the necro if people think it’s inappropriate. 

There was an article released on warcom today saying the land raider kit is 25 years old:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/escfijsw/the-land-raider-at-25-celebrating-the-iconic-warhammer-tank/
 

Slap bang in the middle is a bit about all the stuff we lost from forgeworld - if different variants and resin doors aren’t modularity, I don’t know what is. And GW are openly spelling out what we’ve lost, without a hint of shame or regret. I dunno. Just feels sad, and it reminded me of this thread.

[NovemberIX]

I'm a little disappointed they didn't mention the Ares. Ironically, I was thinking back to this thread because of the new Drop Pods. Since they are now essentially monopose.

[roryokane]

16 minutes ago, NovemberIX said:

I'm a little disappointed they didn't mention the Ares. Ironically, I was thinking back to this thread because of the new Drop Pods. Since they are now essentially monopose.

The Ares is a wonderful conversion idea. I got one on ebay. I can't remember what the sponsons are though.

[NovemberIX]

I know the original used twin heavy flamers from the baneblade kit, I just ended up cutting down some Redeemer Flamestorm cannons and twinned them up for mine. It actually kinda funny talking modularity and the Ares. but for some small amount shaving and cutting, mostly the assault ramp, mine went together like a normal kit. 5th was an amazing time to kitbash.

 

I did wanna add one thing in relation to what Magos Takatus posted. The captain kit allowed for so much awesome kitbashing. Over the course of collecting I ended up with multiple captain and command squad kits. From that I was able to build three pretty distinct captains that the new monopose kits don't allow for (A generic, Malakim Phoros, and Knight Captain Courbray). I don't see the current monopose kits allowing for this kind of creativity, I'd rather people try and fail to make dynamic poses* than be forced into a singular one.

 

 

*Even the example primaris captain fails at this, the legs are all wrong for moving forward, at best he's braced himself on a rock for some strange reason. It comes down to the motion of walking, humans don't bend their legs that much on the forestep, we bend out knees to bring the rear leg back toward the front and straighten out on the footfall to brace for weight shift.

[roryokane]

20 hours ago, NovemberIX said:

I know the original used twin heavy flamers from the baneblade kit, I just ended up cutting down some Redeemer Flamestorm cannons and twinned them up for mine. It actually kinda funny talking modularity and the Ares. but for some small amount shaving and cutting, mostly the assault ramp, mine went together like a normal kit. 5th was an amazing time to kitbash.

 

I did wanna add one thing in relation to what Magos Takatus posted. The captain kit allowed for so much awesome kitbashing. Over the course of collecting I ended up with multiple captain and command squad kits. From that I was able to build three pretty distinct captains that the new monopose kits don't allow for (A generic, Malakim Phoros, and Knight Captain Courbray). I don't see the current monopose kits allowing for this kind of creativity, I'd rather people try and fail to make dynamic poses* than be forced into a singular one.

 

 

*Even the example primaris captain fails at this, the legs are all wrong for moving forward, at best he's braced himself on a rock for some strange reason. It comes down to the motion of walking, humans don't bend their legs that much on the forestep, we bend out knees to bring the rear leg back toward the front and straighten out on the footfall to brace for weight shift.

Oh I know it was originally twin heavy flamers, but the guy rewrote the rules for 8th and included flamestorm cannons as an option because when he originally wrote them the Redeemer hadn’t been invented yet! :p

 

he’s also added the option of hurricane bolters, and twin linked plasma cannons instead of the assault cannons (very 1st legion).

Then again, I kinda like the idea of an all-plasma land raider…

 

https://chamber42.com/blog/archives/251

 

people still seem to want a 10th edition datasheet too!

 

love your captains. Do I see elements of the company champion and some sternguard parts in the mix there? The fact that all these kits were interoperable is what made the whole range work - and for me that was what made 40K great.

 

 

[Antarius]

On 2/28/2025 at 11:09 PM, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Also push fit is pretty straight forward, but might help to make sure we are all on the same page about what we’re calling monopose kits.

 

i personally consider pretty much every modern kit monopose, (the type where there’s like half or a fourth of a leg as part of the hips/waist and possibly the front half of the torso) to be monopose, even if they come with multiple options that technically change the pose up a bit from one choice to another.

 

so is everyone on the same page about monopose as me, or are some people using monopose and push fit interchangeably?

I only use monopose for minis that have one pose. If I can assemble it in more than one pose, then by definition, it's not monopose.

Maybe that's a bit pedantic, but I do think monopose is becoming a tad devalued as a term - and hence less useful - when people use it to describe models that have more poses. Which is not to say that a kit with two options is the same as a kit with twenty options, of course 

[crimsondave]

Very interesting discussion.

 

I like the push fit models.  Sometimes they are more work for me because the gaps drive me crazy and I end up busting out the gap filler.  The push fit aren’t always monopose.  I know the Infernus had one guy with 2 build options, but I understand that’s not normally the case.  I kitbashed it anyway.

 

While there is occasionally a push fit model that goes together in a way that makes it very difficult to kitbash, I don’t think they are usually any harder at all to kitbash unless your counting cutting the pegs off as harder.

 

Here’s the push fit Gravis from Dark Imperium and the multi Lt. from the Deathwatch combat patrol…

Spoiler

Head swaps are generally nothing so I won’t address that.  I pinned the sword on the Gravis captain so it wouldn’t fall off every time it gets bumped.  The multiparty sword was just a straight glue on arm from the old Ravenwing sprue but I ended up pinning the plasma pistol for the same reason as before.

 

Here’s some Bladeguard I haven’t painted yet.  3 are multipart and the rest Indomitus push fit.  3 guys with the DA pads are the mp obviously.  I turned the Leviathan terminator Captain into an Ancient.  Just an arm swap.

 

 

Spoiler

 

I don’t think the difficulty on any of those affected much being push fit.  It is annoying you cant use custom pads on the multipart stuff.

 

All that said, I absolutely do NOT want to go all push fit.

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:29 PM by crimsondave

[roryokane]

On 4/16/2025 at 2:35 PM, crimsondave said:

Very interesting discussion.

 

I like the push fit models.  Sometimes they are more work for me because the gaps drive me crazy and I end up busting out the gap filler.  The push fit aren’t always monopose.  I know the Infernus had one guy with 2 build options, but I understand that’s not normally the case.  I kitbashed it anyway.

 

While there is occasionally a push fit model that goes together in a way that makes it very difficult to kitbash, I don’t think they are usually any harder at all to kitbash unless your counting cutting the pegs off as harder.

 

Here’s the push fit Gravis from Dark Imperium and the multi Lt. from the Deathwatch combat patrol…

  Hide contents

Head swaps are generally nothing so I won’t address that.  I pinned the sword on the Gravis captain so it wouldn’t fall off every time it gets bumped.  The multiparty sword was just a straight glue on arm from the old Ravenwing sprue but I ended up pinning the plasma pistol for the same reason as before.

 

Here’s some Bladeguard I haven’t painted yet.  3 are multipart and the rest Indomitus push fit.  3 guys with the DA pads are the mp obviously.  I turned the Leviathan terminator Captain into an Ancient.  Just an arm swap.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I don’t think the difficulty on any of those affected much being push fit.  It is annoying you cant use custom pads on the multipart stuff.

 

All that said, I absolutely do NOT want to go all push fit.

 

My issue is simply that they had a whole ecosystem of intercompatible models and parts, and that has been thrown out.

[Grotsmasha]

On 4/16/2025 at 11:35 PM, crimsondave said:

It is annoying you cant use custom pads on the multipart stuff.

 

With a little care and precision with clippers and knife, custom pads work with just about any model.
 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:09 AM by Grotsmasha

[ThaneOfTas]

8 hours ago, Grotsmasha said:

With a little care and precision with clippers and knife, custom pads work with just about any model.

True, but still frustrating that it requires more work than it used to.

Edited yesterday at 09:16 AM by ThaneOfTas

[Gorgoff]

On 2/10/2025 at 6:39 PM, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

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.

80%

10 men für 15 should be the price max.