Sleboda

Agreed. I have 12 morghasts, and I only play with them because of cool factor, not because they are particularly good. It would be nice for them to get a boost.

I agree. Plus, any company whose business model is "Someone else spent decades and millions of dollars creating and developing something ... let's swoop in and ride their coat tails with a derivative product that could not have existed without the investment of the companies we're bottom feeding off of" is not one worthy of support.

I hear you, and clearly, yes, any biz can make errors. Heck, my current fave, AMG does things all the time that I scratch my head over (come on, your model kits don't include assembly instructions?). I just find it chuckle-worthy when those of us sitting in the bleachers tell Patrick Mahomes he is clueless about throwing the football, so to speak. It doesn't mean he'll never throw an interception, but come on, don't we think he knows just a tiny little bit more about being a QB that we do?

Ikr? It's almost like they lucked into becoming a 40 year, highly profitable success story that dominates market.

I'd like to see the same thing in both AoS and 40K: A codified (not the "the game is yours, do what you want" bull) set of casual matched play rules. Remove all the overhead of bloat. Reduce the mental load, need for reminder sheets, and various cards/tokens/oddball rules. Just let me put an army list together in 10 minutes and not think "******, what cool combo from 5 sources did I overlook?" Keep the full complexity as an option, but make simple the norm.

When people refer to primer as a base coat, they are not being malleable, they are being wrong. Can you say you are using primer as a base coat? Sure. Just like you can eat a pile of rocks sitting in a bowl of water at 7 a.m. and refer to it as breakfast cereal. We are all free to misuse words. It doesn't make us right.

Purely opinion here, but I think the Skaven problem is its history and the players to whom they appeal. They are the ultimate horde army. For decades, they were the army where a 2000 point force might have 6 units with 50 models in each unit as a starting point. Those 300 models were only 600 points (or so). People bought absolute piles of models, built strategies around clogging up the field and overwhelming with sheer masses. The sort of players who were drawn to that idea built their armies that way and this cemented their style. A self fulfilling feedback loop of sorts. Development for generations of the game focused on massive hordes. Now we have a game system clearly designed to minimize model count in many ways, and the rules don't really support moving 300+ models every turn. So, you say, why not just shift them to lower models counts? Well, try telling the very same players (and those to whom those players proselytized on the virtues of Skaven hordes) "Never mind. The thing that you loved about them, the thing that was their jam, is not a thing anymore." It's gotta be tough to completely gut an entire faction's core concept and still retain the interest from their players. Just my opinion.

I'm happy to discuss the minutia of my opinion elsewhere if you like, but I don't want to distract here too much. Basic idea is that while the technique takes amazing skill, terrific artistry, and is a wonder to behold in a static photo, it's like being the world's best airplane pilot and flying to a destination using passenger automobile.

I've been a judge for Golden Demon in the past. I can say that it's pretty much impossible to get the same appreciation for models in photos compared to in person. While I understand the view that Sigvald was awesome, I think folks really should defer to the judges who were actually on site. Plus, NMM should be an automatic disqualifier for painting awards in a 3D medium. In the last Demon I judged, the tie breaker for first place was that one model used NMM and the other didn't. I awarded the other (the non-NMM).

You're not alone. I appreciate the skill of excellent airbrush usage, but the result, for me personally, is almost always off-putting. Airbrushed models just don't look painted to me, in the traditional sense. They look like shortcuts, flash and style over more appropriate, detailed techniques. Pretty? Yep! Look 'right?' Nope. No disrespect to those who use or like airbrushing. Like I said, I respect the skill. It's just not personally interesting to me. Of course, I still buy my music on CD, read paper books, and find my lovely ladies (like @TwiceIfILikeIt, my love) at bars and not on Tinder.

My fave? The ones I can actually get before they sell out their standard edition. /bitter

@HollowHills and anyone else interested - I want to say something and be absolutely clear what the intent of it is. I want to compliment you and point out a positive thing that could be misconstrued. I truly mean this positively. Here goes. In the past, I've both agreed and disagreed with your posts here. There's been some crankiness and snark on my end, but also appreciation and smiles over your comments. At no time, not once, did it occur to me to even wonder what your gender identification (appoligies in advance if I'm not getting the terminology exactly right - I'm trying to use the right words) was. I was annoyed or pleased by the content of your posts, not by who you are or the way you live. And that's how it should be. If someone likes or dislikes another person, let it be based on what they do and what they say, not on opinions about how that person "should" live. So, the point is, I'll continue to get irritated by you (or not!) based on your comments here, and nothing else. Carry on! :). (and congrats on moving forward in life)

This is not meant to be snarky. I've just been away from AoS for many, many months as I play a boat load of Marvel Crisis Protocol and Ankh. So, it's not obvious to me... Why complain that you can't do a thing that the book specifically lets you do?

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

FWIW (and I've told this story here before), they did a similar thing when I was working at US HQ. We did a check on the new (at the time, decades ago) Space Marine Dreadnought. Every box we checked was missing the sticky banner that was listed as included. We told the head of sales that we had identified a mispack and suggested a few solutions that all included getting the banner put in or with the box. The boss said to ship them all out without taking any action to fix them. He said that if anyone called in, we could send them a banner. So, he chose to intentionally ship a product with known issues in every single box, shorting all customers an item to which they were entitled and only fixing it for those who had the nerve and wherewithall to contact us.

To their credit, yes, they did.

2 books in under 4 years is pushing it. Anything more frequent unconscionable.

We bought one today. Supadorbz.

No, but it is a discussion forum where we all express opinions and views. Is that ok with you?

Wow. New Core Set now. Another new Core Set in under a year. That accelerates the planned obsolescence to crazy levels! Glad I'm getting out.

Yeah, but Paladin is such a horrible Hearthstone class, nobody will care if he gets stolen.

It will probably be the first edition of the game I skip. I have bought them all, but haven't not even played a game since they started card rotation. The idea of buying products with a known, built-in death date just two years into the future is extremely off-putting. Increasing the cost is a tough sell. Besides, I get my arena combat fix from the much better Super Fantasy Brawl anyway.

I promise I won't get this thread derailed, but yes, decorative bases on gaming models really do detract from the game play experience, in my opinion. I, too, was playing back in the old days. Bases were (and still would be if I were king) Woodland Scenics fine ballast, goblin green, drybrush bilious green, edge drybrush with a touch of white added to the bilious, rim goblin green, job's done. Bases were/are a tool for holding up and moving models, not actual parts of the models themselves. In current AoS, I see the same "crime against immersion" with those absolutely insanely distracting 12 inch objective disks. It just feels to me like folks who use them don't really value the creative work that goes into making a table with terrain, placing lovingly painted models on that terrain, and the feelings of their opponents. That's enough on that, I suppose. Yes, those crazy Katakros-style bases are out of hand. I would really, really, really like GW to design those kits with an optional assembly that has zero base decoration. (Also, get off my lawn, you kids.)

I appreciate the post you've made. I don't agree with all of it, but that's too be expected when talking about art. I did want to comment on this section above that I do agree with. I've been collecting and painting GW models since about 1985. For me, the "golden era" was filled with lead models (so easy to convert, felt great in the hand, didn't fly off the table when you turn on a fan), blister packs, and monopose single-part models. The Marauder Chaos Dwarfs and their Undead range are still some of my favorite models. Ah, glorious ranks of identical skeletons with scythes! Perfection. It's undeniable that the quality of the actual sculpts and castings are light years ahead of those times, but I agree with you to an extent that we've entered a bit of form over function era. These are, primarily, gaming pieces. Yes, of course people get them just to build and paint as well. Heck, I myself have numerous models I'll never use in a game. But GW would not be the success they are today if they were just a model company and not also a game maker. Modern GW models such as Katakros are marvels, but also very much leave the game behind, so to speak. It's just my opinion, but when a gaming model needs sub assemblies just to get the paint in certain places, and when the base is so decorative that you find yourself wondering how it moved all the same bits of scenery up the battlefield as it advanced, I think it's safe to say the model is overdesigned for what its purpose is. Again, my opinion. This is also true for non-centerpiece kits that you might need 40 of in your army. If I'm painting 40 troopers, I really don't want each one to have 5 pouches, 7 skulls, 14 gems (I'm looking at you, Eldar), and a zillion other fiddly bits, even if they do look awesome. Frankly, if a kit gives me the option to leave some parts of and still look complete and be functional within its rules, I'm leaving them off. Now, to the main topic. I'm willing to bet that that there are models out there with as much quality, or even more, than GW stuff. I just see comparisons like that as not particularly relevant. Fun to talk about? Sure. Maybe. Just not a "fair" fight to have. GW is limited by what they are. They can't really take a chance on one off cool things. That need to sell a ton of every single thing they make, and, importantly, it almost all has to tie to a set of rules. That's a huge limit compared to a small model maker who can just make the single most coolest awesomest thing ever, and then sell a file or a casting out of his garage with no overhead to speak of and no requirement to make it "fit" into anything. That freedom is huge. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons games like Underworlds and Warcry (and maybe the new Kill Team) are such great moves for GW. They still do have to sell a boat load of each kit, but the 3-10 models in them can let them experiment with new styles and designs without committing to a full range of similar kits for armies. Think of Molog's mushroom and stalagmite, for example. You don't need to commit to an army of similar designs, so there is much more room for taking risks there. So yeah, I'm saying that there probably are excellent 'others' out there, but I am not sure it's the right question. The "little guy" in any endeavor will always have the ability to one-up the giant on a one off passion project. That doesn't make the little guy's stuff better than the giant's. It makes one thing (or a few) he did better because he had the luxury of having almost no constraints on his creation. The gorilla simply can't shift downward to match him. Think, as a comparison, of the army painter vs. the guy who spends a year painting his golden demon entry. Of course the demon guy will be better, but we wouldn't just outright say he's better at painting than the army guy. The two are not playing the same game, so to speak. It might be better, in my opinion, to ask if there are any other similar manufacturers doing what GW does, as a whole, better.

Good point. I used to be one of those "click now, learn later" buyers. Now I am a lot more cautious. Too many post-purchase regrets over the last few years. Reviews are useful.