Jump to content

Malios

Members
  • Posts

    47
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Malios's Achievements

Judicator

Judicator (2/10)

45

Reputation

  1. Your style is very GW with the colour choices and highlighting. There's nothing wrong with that, and you do it quite well. But its time to broaden your horizons with fresh ideas and styles. Within GW, look at the Forge World masterclass books. Forge World paint in a very different style to "the citadel method" and may open up some new ways for you to experiment with. Outside of GW, look up the likes of Angel Giraldez on facebook + youtube. He also has his own book range. He paints in a different style to GW and almost exclusively uses Vallejo gear + paint. His techniques are difficult at first but achievable with the citadel paint range (which I'm assuming you own.) There are also other artists out there like Richard Grey, The Cult of Paint (Andy Wardle, Henry Steele etc) and even John Blanche who have their own style and ideas which is well worth looking into. These guys are consistently in the top entries of the Golden Daemon for a reason. Experiment with their ideas: some may work for you. Also look beyond tabletop wargaming into the scale modelling and diorama community for different styles. AK Interactive as a brand has some great tutorial books for example. The use of weathering powders and mediums, the use of chipping effects, the use of enamel-based washes and paints for different effects etc. Lots of styles to take and choose from. Its a shame that "tabletop wargamers" and "scale modellers" often see themselves as two different hobbies: both hobbies each have their own great ideas (tabletop wargaming often utilises more vast colour selection and highlights for effect whereas the scale modellers have great tricks for creating weathering and realism) and can learn alot from each other. And finally, I'd really look at getting an airbrush and making your own wet palette. It opens up many additional doors as another tool at your disposal. With new techniques and styles to play with, you can experiment more to push beyond what you know. Hopefully this helps.
  2. Does the BL sales figures also include third parties such as Audible or Amazon? Or just direct sales from the website? Because I see the appeal in Audible: its monthly subscription is cheaper then buying direct from BL website.
  3. Miniature wargaming in Australia is a "luxury item." Which basically means its not essential and can have whichever price tag the distributor (GW) wants to place on it. Rumour is we also pay the brexit tax in our pricing, which isn't alsupposed to happen. We're supposed to pay GST (which we do) but not stacked with Brexit as well. Australians generally receive a 30 - 60% markup from the exchange rate. A keeper of secrets is $130 approx if you exchanged UK prices, but has been marked up to $188. Stores that sell for 15 - 20% off (they do exist) don't make much profit from individual sales from what I hear beyond constant turnover of products. That speaks volumes at how high the distributor pricing is before it gets to the retail side. So yeah, we do get ripped off substantially in this hobby.
  4. Best advice is not to use GW paints through an airbrush. Once you use a better brand with dedicated airbrush paints (Vallejo, AK Interactive, Scale75, MIG, even Tamiya), who also have dedicated thinners, you will understand. You can use GW (or even standard hairy brush) paints if you really don't want a second set of paints, but the additional $$ spent saves you lots of time and drama.
  5. Airbrushing works well for models with lots of smooth surfaces. Space Marines of all types and Adeptus Custodes armies for 40k / Heresy are testament to this. There are several ways to do it, depending on the tone of metallic that you want. You can do it all with the same metallic colour, such as the Angel Giraldez true metallic silver method, or you can use several colours via the airbrush. But regardless of the method, the aim of capturing that definition with the airbrush is to go from dark to light. The hard part about this with metallics is that metallics are shiny, and being the same colour they tend to blend into one another: You have to use more extreme shades on the dark/light scale to create that zenithial definition. A common method with gold is to use a dark copper as the base colour, then a 50-50 mix of copper and gold, then bright gold as the extreme highlight with the airbrush. Then use bright silver with your normal hairy brush on the edges where the light catches.
  6. The bar for books was set by Forge World's Imperial Armour series and the early Heresy books for me. The Realmgate Wars books came close and were a good step in the right direction because they needed to add some foundations to the (then unknown) AoS setting. Forbidden Power was a step backwards however. Hopefully, as others have explained, Wrath of the Everchosen is a step forwards.
  7. I agree with all of your raised points. The decision to retire seasons in Beastgrave led to me giving up on Warhammer Underworlds myself because of exactly what you've explained. Sure, you can play "legacy" games of Warhammer Underworlds but thats like telling a Bretonnian player "sure, you can play Open Play in AoS." Its a shame because Warhammer Underworlds was great and Beastgrave had some good changes from Nightvault to shake the game up. But, not to get distracted on a tangent topic. Its one thing to observe and accept the business practice, and another thing to like it. "New GW" may be more open and engaging then "2000s GW" but their business practices are the same old toxic habits. As the old saying goes, which Kramer touched on without actually saying it: vote with your wallets. If you don't like it, don't buy it and let sales figures do the talking.
  8. Its an alien concept for warhammer players to have armies or product lines "retired," particularly those players who've had their armies for decades and never needed to replace them. At GW pricing its also a scary concept: a sizeable sectorial army for Infinity or a new army for ASOIAF may only set you back by $200 - $300 AUD retail (if not bought second hand), which most warhammer player pay just to fill their battleline units. But its also the norm of the industry. It shouldn't deter us from the hobby knowing that it will happen: you all build armies knowing that the General's handbook shakes things up annually after all. If anything, it gives a greater appreciation to enjoy it while it lasts. Its too soon to say that's GW's market strategy anyway. If it does happen however, atleast you'll be ready for it.
  9. I wouldn't fear it: it won't happen for some time, or most likely won't happen at all. Its more to gain the acceptance now before it becomes a shock that GW is a company out to make profits: eventually a progressive narrative product has to progress which means something eventually has to be discontinued. [Edit] Skaven are pretty safe, being solely GW IP. Clan Skyre was just an example (and what an example!) of what could happen when a progressive storyline mixes with marketing and profits.
  10. A fair point: I fully understand where you're coming from. I don't blame you for that opinion because I was much the same. If you broaden your hobby scope a bit and start looking at other companies who use progressive storylines, you realise that its actually the norm to discontinue lines: GW (and surprisingly Privateer Press) seem to be the exception and I put that down to the GW systems having a "static" setting for a very long time. Card gaming systems "retire" seasons all the time which Warhammer Underworlds is trying to emulate. Corvus Belli, who as a company have a self-imposed SKU limit, discontinue entire Infinity factions so they can release new kits and factions to match narrative developments. (Corvus Belli still provide rules and some support for discontinued factions however and provide plenty of notice before they do it: its not a shock-horror surprise and kick in the balls like when GW does it.) Watching the decision to retire seasons in Warhammer Underworlds, as well as the selection of kits that went into Cities of Sigmar's battletome and the subsequent retirement of kits that didn't make the cut makes me believe that GW are going that way as a business. GW has in the past also discontinued entire lines (dogs of war, Squats, and almost sisters of battle) and entire gaming systems (GorkaMorka, Battlefleet Gothic etc.) so they are more then capable of doing it. It sounds bad when I say "don't get too attached to your models," because it is when you're paying GW pricing to watch your investment get discontinued. But, at the same time, companies have limited SKUs and production space, including GW: eventually you need to discontinue something for something new to come around, particularly if it will be more profitable then the items being discontinued. A progressive narrative is a tool to do that. Smaller factions are easier to get rid of then larger ones. [Edit] Just as we saw the narrative progress with the release of the warrior chambers (Conquer back territories in the Realmgate Wars), the extremis chamber (in response to Archaon and the Varanguard) and then the Sacrosanct Chamber (in response to the Necroquake and the Soul Wars), I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually see the opposite occur and Stormcast chambers get discontinued because their sales are bad and they no longer serve a narrative use.
  11. The smaller factions is an interesting concept. For starters, its likely that GW are chasing the profits: releasing new, small factions that haven't been seen before in one hit on a regular basis might be seen as more profitable then the old business model where players already had a space marines army from two decades ago and -might- buy a new kit with each edition. On the other hand, AoS is a progressive setting: smaller "once off" faction sku's are easier to remove in the narrative if the sales aren't going their way. GW wouldn't be the first company to have this approach. For example: Its hinted in the Skaven Battletome that Clan Skyre, whose model range is 80% failcast, are sizing up with Clan Pestilens for a Skaven civil war of Realms shaking proportions. GW could greenlight this to occur and Skyre loses. Clan Skyre could then be wiped from sales overnight and their units delegated to non matched-play status with something new in the Skaven narrative to take its place. Sure, you'll have some unhappy Skyre players, particularly the meta-chasers, but welcome to progressive storylines mixed with Capitalism.
  12. The yellow contrast is much darker and more yellow. I wouldn't advise that one. You'd have to go a bone colour for the base and choose your washes carefully. You'd need a glossy or satin wash rather then a matt wash to get that ivory effect and would need to consider gloss varnishing the model before applying the wash to get a smoother flow over the surface.
  13. Its one of the most clever AoS novels written so far in my opinion. Josh Reynolds really did well with it. The setting was dark, the characters and their motivations weren't straight forward and overall you genuinely felt the depressing reality of Shadespire as you were reading it. The thing I appreciated most was that time itself was not linear: Shadespire itself defied even the loose definition of Physics that the mortal realms possess which made the ending make sense in its own twisted way. Bit of a shame that Beastgrave threw Shadespire's concept under the bus with its own advancement of Warhammer Underworlds: there was so much potential in Shadespire to be covered. Warcry or even Warhammer Quest could have easily had spin off campaigns or kits set in Shadespire for example.
  14. AoS is in a pretty good spot at this point. With Forbidden Power wrapped up, we know that the Aelven factions are coming and Archaon is bringing his own friend back into the fold which will likely be accompanied by the multi-part versions of chaos warriors, chaos knights and possibly marauders (or equivalent). My ultimate dream faction would have been an elite vampire faction: the opposite of your standard death armies with a low model count but powerful models with fresh Blood Knight sculpts both on mounts and on foot. The Soulblight allegiance / Legions of Nagash allegiance just isn't quite there for me unfortunately. Ossiarch Bonereapers now fill that gap in Death's arsenal however so its likelihood of happening are slim. Although there aren't too many left anymore, this is a good opportunity in the lull post Forbidden Power for GW to retire the lingering failcast sculpts and reproduce / combine them into plastic kits (if they plan to keep them at all that is). Skaven are the biggest example of a fantasy era army that made a natural transition into AoS' setting like they were there all along, but are in much need of failcast retirement as well as fresh sculpts. They missed an opportunity I think with alot of the battletome re-releases to expand upon the initial smaller AoS armies like Sylvaneth etc. An extra character is nice, but an extra unit box or two would have done most of those factions wonder to "shake up the status quo."
  15. Forge World used to be awesome. At the start of this decade, in a time where GW had little interaction with the community, Forge World was the Australian hobbyist's best friend. Not only was Forge World cheaper then retail GW back then, (good conversion rates, yewwww!) but they were giving us what we the consumers wanted. Chaos Dwarfs? Forge World had you. Heresy era and mk6 armour for space marines? Forge World had you. Specialist and heavy weapon options (mainly for space marines because GW were stingy in their plastic kits)? Forge World had you. Awesome looking kits like the Verminlord before they had plastic versions? Forge World had you. The now discontinued Imperial Armour books were quality products (excluding the rules which got out-dated pretty quickly) and the early heresy black books blew anything GW did at the time out of the water. The best value books though were the Forge World master class books: being painting books, they don't really age and still have some really handy tips. ....then everything went pear-shaped 2015 onwards. Essentially, as GW were starting to clean up their act, Forge World did the opposite. The loss of direction for the Heresy with Bligh's passing, the out of nowhere last chance to buy for entire ranges and the substantial price increases for converting into local currency (in many cases double the price for Australians) were the nails in the coffin. After a decade of really good releases, I lost faith in Forge World very quickly. What has made things challenging for Forge World in my opinion has always been the lack of retail support and the lack of advertising. The wide-spread recasting of Forge World products is also a modern problem that Forge World (and by extension GW) has to face. Because Forge World isn't well advertised (it may appear in White Dwarf sometimes, but not always. Its social media presence is also not announced by GW as much either) and not seen in GW / warhammer stores, it often only caters to the "veteran hobbyists" and "warhammer enthusiasts" who have the stable income to afford it and the knowledge to find it. That really limits the target audience and isolates the targeted consumers (ie 12- 20 year olds) from purchasing their stock outside of Nottingham. In modern times this is absurd, considering that Black Library is widespread in GW stores so there's no real excuse for it anymore. To also touch on the recasting problem (because its a separate topic in itself,) the advantages of resin also means that it is easier to recast. Whats scary is that the -demand- for Forge World products are there, but the utterly ridiculous pricing drives consumers to recasters who often match or exceed forge world's quality for 1/3 of the price. Why pay $180 Australian plus shipping for a Primarch when recasters will match the quality and clean up the model flash for you for $25? Beyond the ethics of it, there's little reason with such a substantial difference to not go with the latter. So yeah, Forge World are in a really strange spot. They're isolated from the main company from a communication perspective and are often slow or caught unaware by releases (book 7 for heresy and 7th edition 40k release as an example.) They're also isolated from GW's primary consumer base because they're not sold in stores or advertised very well. They're also discontinuing their main heresy, 40k and AoS ranges left right and center and only supporting boxed games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda. I'm fully aware of SKU limits, worn out resin moulds and poor sales as reasons to discontinue stuff, but compared to where they were six years ago... leaves me a bit disappointed. [Edit] as an Australian consumer, I wasn't aware that FW pricing in the UK has remained pretty even compared to GW's unjustified price hikes. You learn something new every day. GW really are the WotC of this industry... It sucks that they are so far ahead of their competitors financially that there's no real competition to keep them in check.
×
×
  • Create New...