The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[beefcake]

It does let them sell you and additional weapons sprue from forge world  at inflated prices. 

[Kommando_J]

The van saar sprues are very odd, this from the online store stands out:

''- 2 each of 5 body designs, each wearing armoured bodygloves, which can be assembled in 2 recommended ways:
- Body 1 can be armed with a lasgun and power knife, or a suppression laser
- Body 2 can be armed with a plasma gun and shock stave, or a rad cannon;
- Body 3 can be armed with a lascarbine or a lasgun
- Body 4 can be armed with a combi weapon (lasgun/melta) and Hrystrar pattern energy shield, or a lasgun
- Body 5 can be armed with 2 plasma pistols, or 2 laspistols;
- 20 heads – 12 bare, 8 helmeted – which can be attached to any body you wish;
- 10 pairs of shoulder pads;''

The bounty hunters are too expensive, especially the more useless ones.

[Gibby]

Forgeworld prices are utterly absurd. I'm bordering on a GW fanboy these days (somehow) and I still think FW take the piss. Their resin and casting quality isn't even that great.

[nic-e]

The van saar sprues are very odd, this from the online store stands out:

''- 2 each of 5 body designs, each wearing armoured bodygloves, which can be assembled in 2 recommended ways:
- Body 1 can be armed with a lasgun and power knife, or a suppression laser
- Body 2 can be armed with a plasma gun and shock stave, or a rad cannon;
- Body 3 can be armed with a lascarbine or a lasgun
- Body 4 can be armed with a combi weapon (lasgun/melta) and Hrystrar pattern energy shield, or a lasgun
- Body 5 can be armed with 2 plasma pistols, or 2 laspistols;
- 20 heads – 12 bare, 8 helmeted – which can be attached to any body you wish;
- 10 pairs of shoulder pads;''

The bounty hunters are too expensive, especially the more useless ones.

Yeah....I like me some kitbashing but the thought of putting those models together is giving me a headache! 

[Coenus Scaldingus]

Ah, that's a shame then - just more fixed combinations after all.

As for the Forge World products, the weapon packs (Escher at least, haven't looked into the Goliath ones) seem a bit like the Necromunda books: some nice things spread over several products, trying to make you purchase them all. Providing some additional weapon options separately is great (although resin seems a suboptimal material for the needle weaponry!). Having three expensive packs with quite an amount of overlap, however, not so much. Some options once again won't fit particular bodies because of the way they have been designed, meaning you may also need another pack to have the same weapon but fitting torso B.

Liking the look of the figures though, and I expect Belladonna and Slate to be quite popular as (the basis for) gang leader models. I know Belladonna will find her way to my desktop for that same reason; it's only a matter of time before a leader starts missing as many bits and pieces as she has had replaced with technology...

[Lost Egg]

Given the repeated poses, for a skirmish game I can't see myself using these in numbers bigger than 5...luckily that should be spot on for the Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes rules so I'm happy enough in that regard.

[grant]

I have the first two gangs for Necromunda and all the nostalgia in the world couldn’t get me past the horrible weird GW construction. Obviously they don’t want other companies to mix with them. They can’t even mix with themselves as a result.

Absolutely hated building my two gangs. Never played.

[Lolbat]

I am still thinking about getting the Van Saar boxed set to build for Rogue Stars or AE: Bounty where the limits on build types isn’t as big a deal. The entire Necromunda line has been designed in an odd way.

[Hawkeye]

I love the look of the Van Saar models, but before I pick them up I think I'll have to take the plunge and get the core game. I love Mordheim, but missed out on Necromunda somehow, and I don't really want to let it happen a second time, even though I get very little gaming in these days. Plus, the core game actually seems like a pretty good deal - particularly since there's no guarantee that the rules will come out separately, or if they do, that they'll be a reasonable price.

[Red Kop]

I have the first two gangs for Necromunda and all the nostalgia in the world couldn’t get me past the horrible weird GW construction. Obviously they don’t want other companies to mix with them. They can’t even mix with themselves as a result.

Absolutely hated building my two gangs. Never played.

Agreed.

I'm working (struggling) through the Escher gang at the moment. Putting models together is the part of the hobby I hate the most anyway but working on these models has caused me to turn the air blue on more than a few occasions. I got so frustrated with the restrictive combos that I've made up 4 models and haven't gone back to them in over a fortnight.

Case in point:
If you want to use the jacket on the Eschers, the only arms that then work with it is the shock whip and combi needle rifle/boltgun arms - so if you want to change the load out and still have the jacket look right, you need to chop the weapons up. The whip hand is fine if you change it to something like a power sword, but the combi weapon?

What a hassle.

Due to the design and the position of the arm and gun, it is next to impossible to remove the old weapon cleanly without damaging the shoulder pad and upper arm, and if you don't have much in the way of green stuff skills, it is hard to fix it up and get it looking okay.

I got there in the end, but it seemed to be far harder than it had any right to be for a plastic model.

Why couldn't they have done it so that all the weapons can connect to the arms at the wrists to allow different combos to be done easily?

 

I'll try and finish the gang up at the weekend, but man, it is a chore.

[Kommando_J]

Know what you mean, the goliath kit is decent, it annoys me no end that the orlock kit has so man extras fixed on like the tool kits and satchels.

[Daeothar]

Yeah; even with the first edition back in the day, it always irked me that they casually stated in their rulebooks that models needed to be converted as they progressed in a campaign. So you needed to model each and every change in loadout and other modifications.

No matter which group I've played the game with though, we have always done away with the WYSIWYG 'rules', as it was an achievement in itself to have a fully painted gang each campaign, and like would we cut up models that had our best possible paintjobs applied.

And remember the poses on those metal models? Most were actually pretty easy to convert, but there were some poses in there that made it virtually impossible to remove/replace a weapon or limb without having to resculpt half the mini.

Not to mention that as poor students, we could ill afford buying an entire new gang for each campaign. Although it's obvious what GW were thinking about that...

Then came the 2nd wave of miniatures, with a lot more posability and modularity in regards to weapon loadout. But the only gangs that were sculpted to an acceptable standard (IMHO) were van Saar and the Enforcers (I really disliked the Orlocks and Goliaths, and I don't think there were more gangs) and the ranges were pretty shortlived too.

So the entire difficult to convert thing is not new. Which is surprising, considering GW's drive to keep everything WYSIWYG (and sales up ). I had hoped that the new plastics would make converting a breeze. But let's face it; even with the abovementioned issues, it's still many times easier than cutting through a metal miniature with nothing at hand but a blunted X-Acto knife

[Coenus Scaldingus]

But let's face it; even with the abovementioned issues, it's still many times easier than cutting through a metal miniature with nothing at hand but a blunted X-Acto knife

Ah... I don't know what's worse: when you're unable to get through, or when you suddenly do...

[Daeothar]

Trust the voice of experience and many scars; it's the latter. Definitely the latter... 

[Sbloom141]

Cleaning the mould lines off the Eschers has been one of my least favourite hobby experiences ever.