This one is my favourite standard (by that, I mean all plastic) model: Need to get mine finished at some point. Although... if we start running into FW stuff...:
^^Wot he said. The kits used to have the options for essentially all 3 options; standard, redeemer and crusader. They changed that, obviously, so that you had to buy one or the other. I've found it surprisingly hard to even find a land raider in a brick and mortar store!
I'll always have a soft-spot for the non-produced Land Raider variants. The Land Raider Ares always tickled me, as well as the Anvilarum. If the Anvilarum ever had rules written for it, I'd make one. Not that I can really claim not to like the Crusader/Redeemer patterns. I think of the LR's I had, six were Crusader for the Templars, the Red Scorpions had three Terminus Ultra's, one Achilles, two Redeemers, one Ares, one Helios and one or two Godhammer. Those were the days. Rocking up to apocalypse games and using LR's like Rhino's.
Some really nice looking models shown at the NY Open Day! Not a huge amount, but at least Genestealer Cults are getting their own dedicated codex at long last. For me though, the Ambull and Ambot.... oh my. Ambot kit has enough parts to build 2 of them
There are going to be soooo many builds of those Ambots popping up in the ork groups... As for the Ambull, so glad to see the old fella back at it. Really want to see an old school paint scheme on one. Not 100% on the armpit bugs though, might have to leave those off should I build one. On another note, I often wonder what the repercussions would be to GW's sales if they made all the models available separately (or least able to buy individual frames) through mail order rather than only have them available with additional rules and stuff. For example, the Zarbag's gits models for Nightvault, I bought those as I really wanted to paint them and they are great little figures, but the two packs of cards for the game remain unopened and I have no intention of buying the game to use them. I would prefer to be able to just get the models without having to pay the over-inflated greedy scalper prices on Ebay.
I would love to see them do individual sprues. Would be nice to get some extra (or original bits really) for my land raider. They'll never go back to the Mail Order of old as it's just not in their interest I imagine.
They did start releasing the shadespire models without the cards at a (slightly) cheaper price point for those that wanted the models but not the cards ( Sepulchral Guards but I don't know if the take up was great enough for them to do it with the other sets (it was like only £2.50 cheaper). I imagine the interest in splitting the starter kits would be much bigger.
Hell yes, I was working at Forgeworld during the height of that. If you wanted 5 left Chimera wings, fine, that's what you ordered and that's what was picked for you. If there wasn't stock of something then someone (such as me during my brief stint at the GW store there (pre WHW) was sent off to the racks to find the molds and we cast some up while you waited (and watched). Staff who had been there longer than 3 months could also buy metal models by weight. You grabbed a box and wandered around the racks, picked what you wanted and it was weighed. You just paid the cost price of the metal used. As for separate models or sprues now, I wouldn't mind one bit if they didn't come in any box. If separate ones from the boxed sets were available mail order only and arrived in a baggie with the assembly instructions on line.
I remember fondly when you could get the catalogue of every single goddamn part or piece they made, and phone the Mail Order team up and order it. Or when the shipment boxes were those cool white/grey things with the goblins all over. Or when, upon entering WHW, you could see one of the metal casters in use. Or the diorama of the Ultrasmurfs with the classic LR's and Thunderhawks. Ahh, for GW to stop having shareholders again. That said, the progress they've made in CAD and injection moulded plastics is staggering, and I love the detail that just wasn't possible back then - Being as it was before FW was FW.
I have a gang of Spyrers (2 x Malcadons, 1x Orrus, 1x Yeld and a Jakara made from a howling banshee) which I predominantly ordered via Mail Order. The sheer excitement of picking up those boxes from a GW store was awesome. Simple thing for many, but back in the late '90s it was awesome for me. That being said, when you compare the models of old with what they are able to produce now, it's like an amateur sculptor in comparison to an expert. The newest Necro models are staggeringly detailed and the fact that essentially all the parts are interchangeable is awesome. No need for excessive hacking and filing in order to try and get a part to fit any more.
I feel like that's something they've been aiming for in recent years. I remember when the razor saw was one of my most used modelling tools - These days it's not even touched.
Those who work at games workshop, might want to turn away now... and this is from a Printer that cost around £200, with a total noob at the controls, at 0.1mm layer height, my machine is capable of 0.5 and maybe 0.4 i havent tried, and its still an entry level machine... also i love the fact that i can just press a few buttons, and add iconography to the part... its SO sexy if i picked up an SLA printer, id print out replacement shoulder pads for pretty much all of my marines, Rhino and land raider doors and things like that
Yup, id love to get a colossal match going, maybe 20/30k points so i could use, at least the warhounds, but at 6k points on his own, im just not sure the Warlord would pull his weight unless the enemy Brings Titan level stuff, his weapons are mad though... im defo printing out the DUAL vulcan bolters for lulz, 40shots at Str6 ap -3 D2 is crazy, and i can mount 2 of the freaking things for ALL OF THE DAKKA!!!!!
IME, titan's don't fare well unless pitted against other titans. Sure, stomp might trounce most ground troops, but get a few faster vehicles with mulit-melta's or equivalent weapons, or strength doubling CC in there, and things soon strip off the wounds. TBFH, the knights are probably the best thing for wound-swallowing around a Warlord. Small enough to get between the feet, big enough to ruin smaller, faster, stuff. Sadly, the biggest problem with big games is how sodding long they take. Honestly, I feel like they need a referee/GM to manage the turn and keep track of what's shot and what hasn't, help put stuff away/get stuff out, and definitely more than one person per side - Ideally three. Two works, barely, but then you're both so busy running around everything that stuff gets missed, possible strategies get forgotten and so on. IME: a massive table in a garage at someone's house, and places to stay for all involved, and at least two days and a shitload of enthusiasm to get people back into day two. At least, those were always the things that tripped my friends and I on big games.
the 2/3 that size i played with, were played with a pretty heavy modification on ruleset, both sides went simultaneously in a rough order, ( fast attack, deepstrike, HQ, Elite, Troop, Heavy, Superheavy, Titan, Fast attack ) fast attack got to move twice but half their value, so they could out-manoeuvre stuff Shooting was the same, BUT casualties were only removed at the end of the turn, so everything got to move and shoot ( to try to get rid of first turn blat everything off the table ) and we had a whiteboard with the units on, with a small green tick for units that had moved, and a big red X for stuff that needed to be removed havent really looked much into the rules of 8th yet but a few rules i would change / add would be Templates Return, maybe have a choice of its written stats or a single template attack ( coz few things were funnier than scattering a template onto your own stuff ) Tanks lose 1 toughness for side armour 2 for rear armour ( some units such as land raiders would have rules stating this doesnt happen ) Whiteboard could be replaced with laptop / Tablet spreadsheet
Yeah, a big whiteboard would be good for tracking stuff. We struggled through with a tablet (later a Surface) when we did 10k+ games at WHW. At that point the biggest opponent was time - Hence the desire for a big board at home with sleeping provisions for all people involved. Have templates gone? That's lame. Template scatter was great - Especially when you tried to second guess how much scatter there would be.
