Rules vs. Good Design Selling Models - How can Consumers influence GW?

[Clan's Cynic]

1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:

There are so many examples for this. Idoneth? The coolest models, sharks and turtles, were barely playable from the beginning. The impressive brand-new Kharadron ships became immediately  known as clown cars. At the same time, the spamming of the really old plague monks and clanrats became a thing. Ogors got a new tyrant and hunter, both hardly make it in any list with the new book. Etc. etc.

My understanding is that there's not so much a blanket rule that "new stuff must be more powerful" but that now and again the Sales Department will dip in and go, "Yeeaah, we'd really like it if you could, uh, give that model a boost to raise sales." According to a former development team member that's what happened with the Wraithknight.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[azdimy]

Personnally,  if the rules are cool and I don t like the model. I won t buy it. I ll look for cool alternate models from other companies if I really want it in my list

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

In fairness that's pretty much the same for ALL GW transport models except possibly the FW Manta. It's also true in a lot of other games - very few games operate with perfect 1:1 scale (in fact if memory serves me its such a rare thing that when games do do it its quite a big marketing thing for them - I recall it being something Dropzone commander that was quite widely spoken of). 

It's the same reason most buildings in wargames are tiny. Once you've got a 28-35mm infantryman the size of vehicle and building to be faithful starts to get pretty big. So you either stick to only infantry and the odd small transport; or you sacrifice scale for style. 

Yeah, I'm not saying GW should try to design ships to be able to hold everything the rules state that can fit in there, but an Ironclad can hold up to 20 thunderers, to get them in you'd have to use a grinder, but you'd only pour pink horror out at the location (and these cannot be included in the army). The comparison to a clown car fits, even if it is totally logical that ships are designed this way.

1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:

In even more fairness, historical ships were horribly crowded by today‘s standards.

For scenery, I always calculate 1 inch=1,5 m (=5 ft).  So a historical galleon of 40m would be 66 cm (26 in) long. A ship this size could easily carry 300 men, plus guns, plus everything else they wanted to transport. Good luck in fitting 300 miniatures in. 😄

Somehow, I now want a 26" Kharadron warship.

[RedMax]

7 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Somehow, I now want a 26" Kharadron warship.

With rules to attack and  boarding it!

[zilberfrid]

11 minutes ago, RedMax said:

With rules to attack and  boarding it!

Faction terrain that can fly, and be used by the opponent if taken. 

I want it even more now.

[Beastmaster]

1 nautical mile=27m=88 ft

I think we need a bigger table 😬

[DatHomieSilverSurfer]

To throw in my two cents, I've played many different games and seen many rulesets come and go. The ephemeral nature of the rules means that whatever 'power' level a model has is fleeting, but your opinion/taste on the design of the model won't change. Therefore, the only metric I use to determine whether to buy a sculpt is whether I like how it looks individually and as part of my army.

 

[Beastmaster]

I don’t even find the Kharadron ships too small. Judging from the 170 mm base, they should be about 8 in long, right? Comparable in dimension to a, say, modern 12 m Yacht. Not a problem to fit 10-15 people in, if comfort is not a priority.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Beastmaster

[flemingmma]

On 1/28/2020 at 11:22 AM, MitGas said:

the facial structures of your examples are indeed spot-on. 

So from my understanding of the lore with space marines is they're  (mostly with exceptions like the emperors children and the blood angels) meant to be ideally masculine to the point of disgust. So sharp featured, so square jawed and so hugely muscled that they are in fact hideous to look at. This is my own conjecture here, i think that the gw designers looked at guys who used testosterone or its derivatives (dianabol etc) in excess. With those drugs you start to get those features. Really square jaws and cheek growth. Of course this doesn't excuse other faces but even then i think it serves a practical design purpose. The technology wasn't  soften the facial features, make them look more realistic and have it still show through on the models so it was necessary to have chunky faces for a long time, and now its kinda the gw look. As some of the miniature designers retire, and as the others discover how to use the technology the faces are gradually changing and softening (genestealer cults and sisters of battle for example) but a particular hideousness is still necessary for ease of painting and moulding.

[MitGas]

21 minutes ago, flemingmma said:

So from my understanding of the lore with space marines is they're  (mostly with exceptions like the emperors children and the blood angels) meant to be ideally masculine to the point of disgust. So sharp featured, so square jawed and so hugely muscled that they are in fact hideous to look at. This is my own conjecture here, i think that the gw designers looked at guys who used testosterone or its derivatives (dianabol etc) in excess. With those drugs you start to get those features. Really square jaws and cheek growth. Of course this doesn't excuse other faces but even then i think it serves a practical design purpose. The technology wasn't  soften the facial features, make them look more realistic and have it still show through on the models so it was necessary to have chunky faces for a long time, and now its kinda the gw look. As some of the miniature designers retire, and as the others discover how to use the technology the faces are gradually changing and softening (genestealer cults and sisters of battle for example) but a particular hideousness is still necessary for ease of painting and moulding.

I'd argue that even most Blood Angels and Emperor's Kiddies are also more square-faced test freaks than average prettyboys when I look at the models (the art is something different). But I can only agree with absolutely everything you say here.  It definitely looks like all the guys who shaped the SM's image over the years looked at how facial development gets influenced by testosterone and most likely also steroids and HGH. It's definitely fitting.

It's quite funny that most of the primarchs models have have rather narrow faces, lacking the width of SM heads.

[Nos]

On 1/28/2020 at 1:07 PM, Clan's Cynic said:

My understanding is that there's not so much a blanket rule that "new stuff must be more powerful" but that now and again the Sales Department will dip in and go, "Yeeaah, we'd really like it if you could, uh, give that model a boost to raise sales." According to a former development team member that's what happened with the Wraithknight.

Regardless of who he was  and where he worked theres basically no evidence to back this up. Not over the past few years anyway.