Modularity vs cost

[TheArtilleryman]

On 2/16/2025 at 3:12 PM, Timberley said:

One company that does modular kits well is Anvil Industry here in the UK.  Their 'Regiments' range is fantastic for creating 'your dudes' (assuming you're running IG or similar).  Admittedly, they lack some of the dynamic posing of the GW models, but that's easy to get around (far easier than would be true of GW's IG models).

Even just buying a bunch of their heads and sticking them on Cadians makes a phenomenal difference. Boom, instant bespoke regiment.

[Arikel]

As a bit of a counterpoint to the “look how easy it is to convert the new models, just a bit of cutting here, a bit there, arm from this guy, legs from that guy etc” I do get that. It’s not all that much harder and takes a bit more practice and skill, and the extra effort can be more rewarding. However, I want to bring up one thing I haven’t seen expressed really that is the potential cost of conversion.

 

With the old system, kitbashing was easy but more importantly for this angle, it was relatively safe. Yes poses may have been relatively limited etc, but you could use arms from 2 different kits, legs from another, head from a fourth and body from a 5th kit and make a unique character armed the way you wanted without any cutting necessarily required. A few kits bashed together would pretty much always get you as many marines as legs in the kits allowed(I always found legs to be the limiting factor) with useable parts to spare in your bits box for the next kit you got.
 

Meanwhile today, converting a monopose character with parts from other similarly designed kits has an element of risk that it may not have had before. Not only am I potentially ruining a figure I just spent 40+ canadian pesos on, I am possibly cutting up needed parts for that 5 man squad I dropped 60+ dollars on, which I didn’t check before I started cutting and can now only make 4 of, hope I can find parts to make  a 5th guy somewhere in my bits box. If I do mess up the conversion, I could end up with no character and a useless squad, squandering my very limited hobby budget completely. Considering that acquiring the needed skills for the conversions in the first place will likely ended up with a few pieces being ruined this can add up. 
 

Now gw has limited this somewhat by either fixing completely or limiting squad/character loadouts, so you don’t have to kitbash anymore, whereas it was somewhat expected before with the marine range through 5th to 7th ed.  
 

If you do want to make your stuff unique, it’s not only harder and takes more skill, it can make the hobby even more expensive than it already is even after you get comfortable with chopping up ridiculously expensive little folks. This can make it more intimidating to start with, for folks with small budgets.

 

So yeah, previously I could buy a captain kit, a 5 man kit and and a tac squad and make 16 figures. Now, there is a larger than I am comfortable with chance that If i don’t build em as shown On the box, I will not get 16 figures, and if I really mess up, end up with not enough dudes to fill the squads and no character to lead them.  
 

For me, I have enough stuff that I’ll likely pass on before I get through my backlog, but it’s still a concern I have when buying the new kits and very likely would put me off the game if I were starting out, instead of 20 years plus and only half done my 3rd company and assorted hangers on (sunk costs and all that, I may still have a pile of shame when I die but if I haven’t completed my company I swear I’ll be back to haunt whoever inherits my collection :p )

 

Anywho, just some thoughts from the peanut gallery. I don’t have a coke habit because I don’t have the money for it, and the changes to the way kits are made now make the already getting beyond reasonable plastic habit just that little bit more expensive, and that’s why I don’t like the change personally.

[roryokane]

On 4/23/2025 at 4:32 AM, Arikel said:

As a bit of a counterpoint to the “look how easy it is to convert the new models, just a bit of cutting here, a bit there, arm from this guy, legs from that guy etc” I do get that. It’s not all that much harder and takes a bit more practice and skill, and the extra effort can be more rewarding. However, I want to bring up one thing I haven’t seen expressed really that is the potential cost of conversion.

 

With the old system, kitbashing was easy but more importantly for this angle, it was relatively safe. Yes poses may have been relatively limited etc, but you could use arms from 2 different kits, legs from another, head from a fourth and body from a 5th kit and make a unique character armed the way you wanted without any cutting necessarily required. A few kits bashed together would pretty much always get you as many marines as legs in the kits allowed(I always found legs to be the limiting factor) with useable parts to spare in your bits box for the next kit you got.
 

Meanwhile today, converting a monopose character with parts from other similarly designed kits has an element of risk that it may not have had before. Not only am I potentially ruining a figure I just spent 40+ canadian pesos on, I am possibly cutting up needed parts for that 5 man squad I dropped 60+ dollars on, which I didn’t check before I started cutting and can now only make 4 of, hope I can find parts to make  a 5th guy somewhere in my bits box. If I do mess up the conversion, I could end up with no character and a useless squad, squandering my very limited hobby budget completely. Considering that acquiring the needed skills for the conversions in the first place will likely ended up with a few pieces being ruined this can add up. 
 

Now gw has limited this somewhat by either fixing completely or limiting squad/character loadouts, so you don’t have to kitbash anymore, whereas it was somewhat expected before with the marine range through 5th to 7th ed.  
 

If you do want to make your stuff unique, it’s not only harder and takes more skill, it can make the hobby even more expensive than it already is even after you get comfortable with chopping up ridiculously expensive little folks. This can make it more intimidating to start with, for folks with small budgets.

 

So yeah, previously I could buy a captain kit, a 5 man kit and and a tac squad and make 16 figures. Now, there is a larger than I am comfortable with chance that If i don’t build em as shown On the box, I will not get 16 figures, and if I really mess up, end up with not enough dudes to fill the squads and no character to lead them.  
 

For me, I have enough stuff that I’ll likely pass on before I get through my backlog, but it’s still a concern I have when buying the new kits and very likely would put me off the game if I were starting out, instead of 20 years plus and only half done my 3rd company and assorted hangers on (sunk costs and all that, I may still have a pile of shame when I die but if I haven’t completed my company I swear I’ll be back to haunt whoever inherits my collection :p )

 

Anywho, just some thoughts from the peanut gallery. I don’t have a coke habit because I don’t have the money for it, and the changes to the way kits are made now make the already getting beyond reasonable plastic habit just that little bit more expensive, and that’s why I don’t like the change personally.

I think there's something to the idea that owning an extensive bits box is actually harder now, both in absolute monetary terms, but also because the kits have so many fewer bitz to go around (Firstborn Sternguard vs Primaris Sternguard kits being the best example). Those of us who've been in the hobby a WHILE, especially between 2nd and 7th ed, will have just accumulated gargantuan collection of bitz that allow us far more freedom of customisation than someone who is equally well off in real terms joining the hobby now and then plowing on for the equivalent length of time would have. And, as you say - you run the risk of absolutely ruining the monopose model and then need to buy a whole new kit (or whole new model if you can find it on ebay at least) rather than going "Oh no. Fortunately, I have umpteen Mk VI legs, Mk VII Helmets..." and then just rebuilding from scratch because you'll inevitably have the bits lying around.

[gaurdian31]

1 hour ago, roryokane said:

I think there's something to the idea that owning an extensive bits box is actually harder now, both in absolute monetary terms, but also because the kits have so many fewer bitz to go around (Firstborn Sternguard vs Primaris Sternguard kits being the best example). Those of us who've been in the hobby a WHILE, especially between 2nd and 7th ed, will have just accumulated gargantuan collection of bitz that allow us far more freedom of customisation than someone who is equally well off in real terms joining the hobby now and then plowing on for the equivalent length of time would have. And, as you say - you run the risk of absolutely ruining the monopose model and then need to buy a whole new kit (or whole new model if you can find it on ebay at least) rather than going "Oh no. Fortunately, I have umpteen Mk VI legs, Mk VII Helmets..." and then just rebuilding from scratch because you'll inevitably have the bits lying around.

And that's great for Space Marine players, most other factions don't/didn't have that. Specialists and HQs were in metal and monopose for a lot factions for a long time so a lot harder to customize without chopping. At least now things are plastic so a bit easier to chop.

[roryokane]

4 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

And that's great for Space Marine players, most other factions don't/didn't have that. Specialists and HQs were in metal and monopose for a lot factions for a long time so a lot harder to customize without chopping. At least now things are plastic so a bit easier to chop.

First of all: space marine players make up a plurality if not a majority of the player base. Second: the idea that other factions suffered so now Space Marine players must too is so backwards I don’t really know where to start. 

[gaurdian31]

14 hours ago, roryokane said:

First of all: space marine players make up a plurality if not a majority of the player base. Second: the idea that other factions suffered so now Space Marine players must too is so backwards I don’t really know where to start. 

Where am I saying that Space Marine players must suffer? I am just stating that it could be worse. Preferably everyone would get multi-pose kits. At least now the mono-pose kits are plastic so they are a lot easier to convert then metal or resin models. Also are you saying that just because Marines are the most played faction it is fine for every other faction to suffer? That's so backwards I don't really know where to start.

[kabaakaba]

I don't play or paint/build marines some how, but your kits is example of perfect modularity and flexibility compared to IG. Cadian shock troops is real monopose, certain weapon for certain body, sereously? and some spare hands with grenades and knives. and that for years, old cadians not way better in this aspect. ogrins/bulgrins. all hq is monopose. without solid cutting you can't get something. but i love lasgun wall( not effective, but still) and sometimes i wish i can buy all that guys as push fits with less price  and don't glue 200+ horde)

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, kabaakaba said:

I don't play or paint/build marines some how, but your kits is example of perfect modularity and flexibility compared to IG. Cadian shock troops is real monopose, certain weapon for certain body, sereously? and some spare hands with grenades and knives. and that for years, old cadians not way better in this aspect. ogrins/bulgrins. all hq is monopose. without solid cutting you can't get something. but i love lasgun wall( not effective, but still) and sometimes i wish i can buy all that guys as push fits with less price  and don't glue 200+ horde)

 

I've bashed my Cadians and my Solar Auxilia together with very little cutting.  The arms basically fit, maybe some slight scraping for some angling. 

 

It's a craft hobby, people should expect to have to do a lil work.

[roryokane]

16 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

I've bashed my Cadians and my Solar Auxilia together with very little cutting.  The arms basically fit, maybe some slight scraping for some angling. 

 

It's a craft hobby, people should expect to have to do a lil work.

So having to do more work is an improvement because…?

[jaxom]

1 minute ago, roryokane said:

So having to do more work is an improvement because…?

It’s a craft hobby. There is craft required. The craft can be complained about or outsourced if it goes beyond one’s ability to commit time and/or effort. I think that’s a more common line of thought with painting though. There’s a lot of army commission painters out there; I think they may do assembly too?

[DemonGSides]

21 minutes ago, roryokane said:

So having to do more work is an improvement because…?

 

Because it's fun?   And if you don't think hobbying is fun, just build it as the instructions say.  "I want to have personalized miniatures but I don't want to do any work to achieve it" is a really strange tract to take on a forum with such a rich history and repository of people putting effort into their models. 

 

I also disagree with the notion that it's harder to modify models today. People looking through rose tinted glasses mostly, I expect.  Primaris stuff is all super plain and very easy to add to; I think the worst part is the propensity to have bare heads with helmets already clipped to their belts, but those are usually one of anniversary models or something out of the starter kit and push to fit or close enough to. And they're easily fixed with a lil snip and adding quite literally any of the hundreds of doodads that are still present in most sets. 

Edited April 25 by DemonGSides

[kabaakaba]

47 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

I've bashed my Cadians and my Solar Auxilia together with very little cutting.  The arms basically fit, maybe some slight scraping for some angling. 

 

It's a craft hobby, people should expect to have to do a lil work.

I'm not against craft in hobby, like some kind of kitbash or scratch builds, but virtually I can make full squads of 20 with exact poses. Because of how things now with ig kits. And also you have very limited ability to to change something with knife and GS because of how bodies and hands made

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, kabaakaba said:

I'm not against craft in hobby, like some kind of kitbash or scratch builds, but virtually I can make full squads of 20 with exact poses. Because of how things now with ig kits. And also you have very limited ability to to change something with knife and GS because of how bodies and hands made

 

I guess I just disagree. I've got 40 Cadians all built since their refresh and there's a few who look similar but nothing that's an exact replica of each other.  And I've managed to cross pollinate those same cadians arms onto a different systems guys with nothing more than a little sprue goo and some extremely minor cutting, including the flame tanks for flamers (I made my Solar Aux into Catachan's basically, so it's a full flamer unit including a flamer command squad, all of it).

Edited April 25 by DemonGSides

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 4/24/2025 at 1:05 PM, roryokane said:

I think there's something to the idea that owning an extensive bits box is actually harder now, both in absolute monetary terms, but also because the kits have so many fewer bitz to go around (Firstborn Sternguard vs Primaris Sternguard kits being the best example). Those of us who've been in the hobby a WHILE, especially between 2nd and 7th ed, will have just accumulated gargantuan collection of bitz that allow us far more freedom of customisation than someone who is equally well off in real terms joining the hobby now and then plowing on for the equivalent length of time would have. And, as you say - you run the risk of absolutely ruining the monopose model and then need to buy a whole new kit (or whole new model if you can find it on ebay at least) rather than going "Oh no. Fortunately, I have umpteen Mk VI legs, Mk VII Helmets..." and then just rebuilding from scratch because you'll inevitably have the bits lying around.

As for bits, I’d say that’s slightly offset by the relative cheapness of 3d printers and filament/resin.

 

buy an STL of heads for $15 and you can print as many as you want for Pennies on the dollar.