Modularity vs cost

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

it might have been easier to kitbash a captain in 2008 than now, but to get a truly interesting pose out of them, I’d say it was much more difficult back then requiring more knife work, or green stuff work now.

Citation needed. The huge amount of fully compatible Space Marine parts in different poses, all with universal connections that could be freely posed meant that even with no greenstuff work it was incredibly easy to get a good pose out of a captain (or any other multipart Marine for that matter). And if you went the extra mile with remodelling? The world was your oyster.

 

And yes, metal models were indeed a thing (and arguably were superior to monopose plastics for characters, given the lower cost and less seams to fill in due to the increased detail-per-part meaning the model could be cast in a small amount of parts) but they were companion pieces to the multi-part plastics, not the only option. Hacking up a monopose plastic model may be easier than a metal one (though resin is about the same given how easy it is to cut) but your argument would only hold water if we only had access to metal monopose models, and the only army that ever went that neglected was Sisters of Battle.

 

...Speaking of which I'm still kinda bummed about the plastic Sisters. Decent enough sculpts but the slight scale creep is annoying and the almost completely monopose nature of the kit is seriously disappointing.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

19 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Citation needed. The huge amount of fully compatible Space Marine parts in different poses, all with universal connections that could be freely posed meant that even with no greenstuff work it was incredibly easy to get a good pose out of a captain (or any other multipart Marine for that matter). And if you went the extra mile with remodelling? The world was your oyster.

 

And yes, metal models were indeed a thing (and arguably were superior to monopose plastics for characters, given the lower cost and less seams to fill in due to the increased detail-per-part meaning the model could be cast in a small amount of parts) but they were companion pieces to the multi-part plastics, not the only option. Hacking up a monopose plastic model may be easier than a metal one (though resin is about the same given how easy it is to cut) but your argument would only hold water if we only had access to metal monopose models, and the only army that ever went that neglected was Sisters of Battle.

 

...Speaking of which I'm still kinda bummed about the plastic Sisters. Decent enough sculpts but the slight scale creep is annoying and the almost completely monopose nature of the kit is seriously disappointing.

Yes, like captain with pistol pointed straight, or at a 90 degree angle, and generic legs standing shoulder width apart, and melee in one of three positions like straight up, straight out, or straight down. So much variety and such great and dynamic poses

[jaxom]

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought GW used a CAD extension to translate 3D models through the cutting process onto a sprue? I.e. it’s not a process given over to a lot of human oversight.

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Yes, like captain with pistol pointed straight, or at a 90 degree angle, and generic legs standing shoulder width apart, and melee in one of three positions like straight up, straight out, or straight down. So much variety and such great and dynamic poses

You're just being plain disingenuous now. Obviously an arm by itself won't look especially dynamic; it's how you combine those parts together that makes the pose interesting. The Death Company kit (may it rest in peace) could make some really amazing looking poses by itself, for example.

 

I'm also not seeing what poses we're getting nowadays that couldn't be achieved with a multipart kit. In fact I'd say a lot of the poses we get now that don't lend themselves to multi-pose kits are pretty terrible anyway. Like, does every character need to be leaping into the air supported by a waft of smoke streaming from a massive scenic base?

[jaxom]

20 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I'm also not seeing what poses we're getting nowadays that couldn't be achieved with a multipart kit.

Depends what you mean. If one is looking at the old ball-and-socket waists, there’s a lot of dynamic motion added to cabling, cloth, and the like by having the torso-waist-hips be a single piece. I think that’s been the most commonly removed “multipart” thing; for example Mk6 marines and Intercessors. Arms are pretty swappable.

 

Aggressors, Scions, and other models with a lot of cabling or ammo feeds another place we tend to see less customization. Arms can only go in specific positions or there’s breaks; even though these kits are “multipart.”

[Rain]

I think that the modern "dynamic" kits can be nice when done well. While I am not a fan of the Eightbound kit, the new Berzerkers are absolutely wonderful. While I wish we could mix and match legs and torsos (and all of the bling and doodads like chains and loincloths), and that the 2 handed weapons could fit on more than just the two bodies pre-selected for them; the kits otherwise allow you to swap around heads, shoulder pads, backpacks, and arms. There are 20 heads in each 10 man kit, which allows for a lot of variety, as well. You can build all helmeted, all bare heads, or a mix thereof. Also, the running poses are generally well done, and give the models a sense of forward momentum which using old school running legs just lacked.

 

All of that said, the older style was clearly easier to convert and customize overall.

 

 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

23 minutes ago, jaxom said:

Depends what you mean. If one is looking at the old ball-and-socket waists, there’s a lot of dynamic motion added to cabling, cloth, and the like by having the torso-waist-hips be a single piece. I think that’s been the most commonly removed “multipart” thing; for example Mk6 marines and Intercessors. Arms are pretty swappable.

 

Aggressors, Scions, and other models with a lot of cabling or ammo feeds another place we tend to see less customization. Arms can only go in specific positions or there’s breaks; even though these kits are “multipart.”

Let’s move away from marines for a second and talk about guard.

 

until the 9th refresh your standard guard infantry had like 2 maybe 3 sets of legs, only one was clearly different from the others, and is just walking legs, versus legs spread.

now Cadians have running poses, that were simply impossible with the old kits, at least impossible without a lot of cutting and green stuffing.

 

51 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

You're just being plain disingenuous now. Obviously an arm by itself won't look especially dynamic; it's how you combine those parts together that makes the pose interesting. The Death Company kit (may it rest in peace) could make some really amazing looking poses by itself, for example.

 

I'm also not seeing what poses we're getting nowadays that couldn't be achieved with a multipart kit. In fact I'd say a lot of the poses we get now that don't lend themselves to multi-pose kits are pretty terrible anyway. Like, does every character need to be leaping into the air supported by a waft of smoke streaming from a massive scenic base?

We clearly have very different opinions on the older kits.

 

as for the second part, very few characters are as you describe per faction/subfaction.

as for the scenic bases that largely seems to be a response to what the community was already doing. The community was already putting their custom kitbashed characters on pieces of bark or cork and painting them like rocks, so now every ground pounding LT or captain has a tactical rock. Now all jump pack characters and units, are leaping forward or in a cool landing position…because a lot of people were already doing that themselves. 

[NovemberIX]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Yes, like captain with pistol pointed straight, or at a 90 degree angle, and generic legs standing shoulder width apart, and melee in one of three positions like straight up, straight out, or straight down. So much variety and such great and dynamic poses

Gotta disagree with you there.  While yeah, my own efforts are rather pedestrian and have some "basic" elements, there was definitely more variety than the monopose kits. Like Evil Eye said, the death company kit was full of interesting parts, so was the Van Vets kit, along with BT and the early MkIV could be combined to do some very interesting stuff, and that ignores the ease of finding different weapon variants that you could just pop on. I mean to put it simply, I don't think I could re-make my shrugging marine from the kits that are out now.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, NovemberIX said:

Gotta disagree with you there.  While yeah, my own efforts are rather pedestrian and have some "basic" elements, there was definitely more variety than the monopose kits. Like Evil Eye said, the death company kit was full of interesting parts, so was the Van Vets kit, along with BT and the early MkIV could be combined to do some very interesting stuff, and that ignores the ease of finding different weapon variants that you could just pop on. I mean to put it simply, I don't think I could re-make my shrugging marine from the kits that are out now.

They might have had interesting poses, but the variability of those poses was just about as limited as the current monopole models are. The biggest variability they have is the specific angle of each arm.

[SvenIronhand]

I think part of it is that there are currently less options in terms of kits to kitbash with. 

[NovemberIX]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

They might have had interesting poses, but the variability of those poses was just about as limited as the current monopole models are. The biggest variability they have is the specific angle of each arm.

I don't think that's quite true, I think there were at least 45+ leg variations, 15 running (van vet, assault, DC), 25+ Standing type (Tacs, Devs, DC, SG, MkIV, MkIII) and two squatting types that came with the old and new Devs. I'm kinda under counting a bit since I didn't actually check  not counting the old tac box, or the 5 man sprue that was used in assault and command squads, they're legs were more or less mirrors of the old basic tac legs. And while it can be argued that the standing legs are all pretty much the same save for details, the running legs are all each unique.

[roryokane]

On 2/22/2025 at 5:04 AM, NovemberIX said:

I don't think that's quite true, I think there were at least 45+ leg variations, 15 running (van vet, assault, DC), 25+ Standing type (Tacs, Devs, DC, SG, MkIV, MkIII) and two squatting types that came with the old and new Devs. I'm kinda under counting a bit since I didn't actually check  not counting the old tac box, or the 5 man sprue that was used in assault and command squads, they're legs were more or less mirrors of the old basic tac legs. And while it can be argued that the standing legs are all pretty much the same save for details, the running legs are all each unique.

Indeed. Then add all the torso, helmet, and backpack variants and possible weapon loadouts of the Firstborn... even if you don't want to cut a single piece of plastic, there is functionally infinite variation at play.

[jaxom]

On 2/25/2025 at 11:46 AM, roryokane said:

Indeed. Then add all the torso, helmet, and backpack variants and possible weapon loadouts of the Firstborn... even if you don't want to cut a single piece of plastic, there is functionally infinite variation at play.

Across 9 kits; though I’m not sure if that impacts the analysis. It may impact the dynamic thing. Comparability across kits means the join points for particular body parts have to be the same.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, jaxom said:

Across 9 kits; though I’m not sure if that impacts the analysis. It may impact the dynamic thing. Comparability across kits means the join points for particular body parts have to be the same.

Yep that’s my point.

for every kit to be interchangeable the connection points have to be the exact same limiting the number of cool and dynamic poses.

 

great the DC kit had running legs, but unless you’re a BA player that’s useless unless you plan on removing all the BA iconography.

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

for every kit to be interchangeable the connection points have to be the exact same limiting the number of cool and dynamic poses.

That is...literally the opposite of what that would do. If everything is modular, you can get far more poses than if everything is locked to one build.

 

Plus, even aside from reaching more "dynamic" poses it simply allowed for subtle differences between similar models, making "repeating" sculpts far less of an issue. You could get a fair bit of variety with the poses of the previous-gen plastic Hormagaunts by virtue of the ballsocket arms and head, in spite of the kit being extremely basic. The new kit has no such options and without doing some quite tricky reposing you WILL have duplicate poses.

 

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

great the DC kit had running legs, but unless you’re a BA player that’s useless unless you plan on removing all the BA iconography.

First of all, removing BA iconography is much easier than trying to repose a modern-era monopose miniature. Secondly, surely the solution was to release more modular kits, rather than throwing out the tried-and-tested modular formula altogether?

 

Hell, if they wanted to overhaul the Marine line for upscaling they still could have kept things modular, even if it wasn't entirely cross-compatible with older models. I've said it before, but inverting the ball-socket setup of Marine waists so the belt and socket were on the legs and the ball was on the torso would have been a straight upgrade; not only would it have allowed for slight variation in the twist of the waist sculpt without compromising the overall sculpt-integrity, it would have actually given even MORE range of natural looking poses. Look at JoyToy's Marine action figures and how they handle the waist, it's basically the same setup (albeit in miniature it would be much, much simpler due to simply requiring a mating surface to permanently glue).

[phandaal]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

great the DC kit had running legs, but unless you’re a BA player that’s useless unless you plan on removing all the BA iconography.

 

What about every other kit he mentioned besides Death Company? Are we going to just ignore that? That is a little too Internet to be in good faith.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

13 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

What about every other kit he mentioned besides Death Company? Are we going to just ignore that? That is a little too Internet to be in good faith.

That’s literally the only kit evil eye actually listed…

[Evil Eye]

The DC kit was just a singular example; given the sheer amount of pre-Primaris Marine kits with the same joint system released over the years, listing them all would be redundant and take ages. But for just a few more examples, you have the Vanguard and (now tragically OOP) Sternguard kits, Devastators, the (again OOP) Assault Squad and of course the good old Tacticals. All of which could be very easily mixed together for pretty much any pose you wanted; older White Dwarf often gave examples of doing just that. Not to mention, cutting and reposing arms and legs was MUCH easier with those modular kits.

[Rain]

Apropos of nothing, I am currently slowly assembling the new Demon Prince kit. I love the look of the finished models, they are a massive improvement over the lumpy looking 4th edition kit.

 

However, these guys are an absolute nightmare of a 3D jigsaw puzzle to assemble. Just figuring out how the pieces fit together takes some brainpower, and there are certain pieces that require other pieces to support them, and if you apply too much pressure while gluing the whole house of cards collapses.  Converting this technical nightmare is best not contemplated.

 

It’s funny that GW is pushing to be “new player friendly” while making kits like this.

[roryokane]

2 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

The DC kit was just a singular example; given the sheer amount of pre-Primaris Marine kits with the same joint system released over the years, listing them all would be redundant and take ages. But for just a few more examples, you have the Vanguard and (now tragically OOP) Sternguard kits, Devastators, the (again OOP) Assault Squad and of course the good old Tacticals. All of which could be very easily mixed together for pretty much any pose you wanted; older White Dwarf often gave examples of doing just that. Not to mention, cutting and reposing arms and legs was MUCH easier with those modular kits.

And you can always pinch a few bits and bobs from chapter specific kits too, without needing to necessarily shave off any iconography, depending what you're going for!
Plus, if you'd been collecting for a few years. you could end up with a few older variations thrown in for good measure as well (like the Mk VIII torso from the 1998 tactical squad, for example). The firstborn Sternguard and Vanguard Veteran kits were an INCREDIBLE resource for mixing and matching.

Edited February 27 by roryokane

[phandaal]

22 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

That’s literally the only kit evil eye actually listed…

 

You weren't replying to Evil Eye, unless your response was created in Benjamin Button time. Here is the post that mentioned the Death Company kit.

 

On 2/21/2025 at 11:04 PM, NovemberIX said:

there were at least 45+ leg variations, 15 running (van vet, assault, DC), 25+ Standing type (Tacs, Devs, DC, SG, MkIV, MkIII)

 

Now put those goalposts right back where you found them, sir.

[Scribe]

On 2/10/2025 at 11:02 AM, 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.

 

Because you have the same models as everyone else. Limited options, limited to zero kitbashing. Its an abomination.

 

As to the OP question.

 

No discount is good enough, monopose sucks, and will forever suck, and is just one more step down the road of disappointment GW has put us on since what, 8th?

 

Bring back multi-pose kits.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Because you have the same models as everyone else. Limited options, limited to zero kitbashing. Its an abomination.

 

As to the OP question.

 

No discount is good enough, monopose sucks, and will forever suck, and is just one more step down the road of disappointment GW has put us on since what, 8th?

 

Bring back multi-pose kits.

Ive literally kitbashed a push fit orruk as a warboss, slugga, power klaw, boss pole thing.

 

theyre not impossible to kitbash. Not even close.

Edited February 28 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[DemonGSides]

17 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Because you have the same models as everyone else. Limited options, limited to zero kitbashing. Its an abomination.

 

As to the OP question.

 

No discount is good enough, monopose sucks, and will forever suck, and is just one more step down the road of disappointment GW has put us on since what, 8th?

 

Bring back multi-pose kits.

 

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

 

Every single starter set I've gotten post Dark Vengeance has been kit bashed up on the space marine side quite a bit.  Hell, even modifying the Space Marine Heroes: Death Guard kits wasn't that hard.  It's definitely more than "First time with plastic models" should attempt, but I would think anyone deep enough in the hobby to sign up to a twenty year old forum is probably capable enough to do some chopping up of a monopose kit into something more.

 

It is a CREATIVE hobby, after all. Might have to do some creating. 

Edited February 28 by DemonGSides

[Rain]

21 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

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

 

Every single starter set I've gotten post Dark Vengeance has been kit bashed up on the space marine side quite a bit.  Hell, even modifying the Space Marine Heroes: Death Guard kits wasn't that hard.  It's definitely more than "First time with plastic models" should attempt, but I would think anyone deep enough in the hobby to sign up to a twenty year old forum is probably capable enough to do some chopping up of a monopose kit into something more.

 

It is a CREATIVE hobby, after all. Might have to do some creating. 

 

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.

 

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.

Edited February 28 by Rain