The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[FramFramson]

I need to notify the people at Stuff of Legends that there's a genuine Citadel uncatalogued terrain item on the market

 

[eilif]

I think you put your finger on the problem with the "new" Ratskins... Along with awkward posing, I didn't think particularly highly of the Fanatic/Specialist Games re-sculpts for Necromunda.
 The new Van Saar were a reasonable match style-wise with the Gary Morley originals, but so-so heads and awkward poses spoiled them.

Mostly though, I didn't see the purpose in re-imagining the established models. Aside from being a dick move to those that already had gangs, they would have done much better if they had simply added more options to the original range (which had few melee and special weapon options on the whole).

Then again, their approach to the minis was the same as the rules - fix some stuff that's moderately inconsequential, ignore the parts that definitely need a lot of help (like the wonky quality of the various skill tables).

I was just thinking the same thing about the Van Saar myself as I was assembling and starting to paint a batch of old and new Van Saar last week.  The new ones were a major missed opportunity.  The proportions were all off.  They went from almost-truescale to almost heroic.  Also, while the general style of dress is similar, the fine detail is largely lacking and the detail that is present is heavy handed and chunky.  It's almost like the difference in style between Infinity and Pig Iron.  Both are cool looking aesthetics, but you wouldn't put the two in the same line of minis. As you say, the new heads were not at all similar to the old heads.

I was glad to have a few of the new ones to add some variety to my gang, but they really couldn't hold a candle to the originals. Makes one wonder why they didn't simply modify the originals for interchangeable weapons and heads if that was the point  anyway.  Not like the Necromunda line or GW-in-general is unfamiliar with modifying and re-using sculpts.

[Major_Gilbear]

I bought enough of the "new" style to do a whole gang at one point, the idea being that they'd all match in style that way, and that I'd finally have a gang with some real weapon variety at last (since, along with the other Gary Morley sculpted gang, the Goliaths, they had the lowest sculpt count of any House gang in the game).

But GW never finished the Van Saar resculpts, and never released all the figures they did commission (there's an unreleased female and juve torsos, unreleased head sprue and unreleased weapon sprue), and then they severely restructured the range to limit what you could buy shortly after. This was when the new VS range was just dropped and the old starter box came back.

Makes one wonder why they didn't simply modify the originals for interchangeable weapons and heads if that was the point  anyway.  Not like the Necromunda line or GW-in-general is unfamiliar with modifying and re-using sculpts.

I wondered this myself many times with the "new" resculpts - they were clearly worse, and the originals could have been adapted with either further weapon variations, or plug-in style weapons, or both.

To be honest, I was always unsure why the original ranges had so few "open arms" sculpts, which would have made weapon swaps for close combat or gunfighter gangers so much easier. Hell, even a separate head sprue for each gang would have been amazing!

I think that's one of the reasons that Escher have always been popular - good House skills, good mix of useful weapons, second biggest sculpt range in the game (after Orlocks I think), and lots of open-arm poses. Jes got/gets it.

In fact, this talk of Necromunda recently has got me thinking about a rules re-write I was working on... 

[Too Bo Coo]

Holy crap I feel uninformed.... I had no clue Specialist Games was history...  Now I really understand why people are predicting the end of GW.... 

Where can we find new Necromunda minis?

[Steve63]

Not really new, but they can be found here
http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Necromunda_1999_onwards_-_Collectors_Guide
I always thought that once GW dumped games into Specialist Games it was B or even C team sculptors producing the figures, there is the odd gem though.

[Vermis]

Holy crap I feel uninformed.... I had no clue Specialist Games was history...  Now I really understand why people are predicting the end of GW.... 

Where can we find new Necromunda minis?

http://tinyurl.com/neen79g

[OSHIROmodels]

http://tinyurl.com/neen79g

But that's heresy...

Bad pun I know, I couldn't help myself 

cheers

James

[beefcake]

I have most of those not-delaques and they are great.

[eilif]

I bought enough of the "new" style to do a whole gang at one point, the idea being that they'd all match in style that way, and that I'd finally have a gang with some real weapon variety at last (since, along with the other Gary Morley sculpted gang, the Goliaths, they had the lowest sculpt count of any House gang in the game).

But GW never finished the Van Saar resculpts, and never released all the figures they did commission (there's an unreleased female and juve torsos, unreleased head sprue and unreleased weapon sprue), and then they severely restructured the range to limit what you could buy shortly after. This was when the new VS range was just dropped and the old starter box came back.

This answers another question I had. I've got what I think was the last specialist/classic GW catalog (nice book). It's got a picture of a female Van Saar figure painted up, but no listing for that body.  I ended up making one of the multipart gangers a girl anyway with an Alpha forge head, but unfortunately since it's one of the new bodies in a gang mostly comprised of original sculpts, she is the "big girl" of the gang.

So many missed opportunities with SG.

I've got a bunch of Necromunda weapons sprues leftover so now I'm thinking of converting up a Delaque gang from ERM Slicks.

[Too Bo Coo]

I wasn't a fan of the minis either in that era.  I noticed c1995 that once the Epic stuff was reintroduced, the minis got a lot better...and significantly more expensive. 

[eilif]

In the 90's when I started minis the specialist games sculpts were quite universally horrid.

That's kind of a broad brush you're painting with there. Which games and when exactly in the 90's? During most of the 90's those games were part of the main GW family of products or called "Fanatic" and for Necromunda anyway, most folks agree that that's when some of the best miniatures were made.

[Dr.Falkenhayn]

Which games and when exactly in the 90's?

BFG Orcs?
 Necromunda Security Types/Enforcers?
pretty much every Inq. Model?

[eilif]

BFG Orcs?
 Necromunda Security Types/Enforcers?
pretty much every Inq. Model?

Can't speak to BFG as I never played.  However, Enforcers weren't bad and I don't think they were released until the 00's, certainly no earlier than '99.  There were definitely some stinkers in the 2nd gen Necromunda models, which IIRC were also mostly released in the 00's. 

As to Inquisitor, I completely disagree. Overpriced, maybe, but they were some absolutely beautiful models. Possibly some of the best that GW was producing at the time.  Also, Inquisitor was 2000 and onward.

All this to say 99 and onward may have gotten a bit shakey for some lines, but I think that the majority of the 90's were really good for Fanatic/Specialist.  It's the era that gave us 1st gen Necro sculpts and characters, many of which still hold up today like the Van Saar and Escher and scum.

[beefcake]

I'm a big fan of the 90s sculpts for specialist. Best of GW I think.

[Major_Gilbear]

Most of the Fanatic and Specialist Games were not sculpted by the regular GW team. Instead, they were trainee sculptor projects, and in many cases they were outsourced to other sculptors. For Necromunda, roughly, these are:

• Adam Clarke sculpted the new Ratskins and some of the new Redemtionists

• Shane Hoyle sculpted most of the new Redemtionists

• Mark Harrison did the Ash Nomads, the Enforcers, the new Bounty Hunters, and the new Scavvies.

This answers another question I had. I've got what I think was the last specialist/classic GW catalog (nice book). It's got a picture of a female Van Saar figure painted up, but no listing for that body.  I ended up making one of the multipart gangers a girl anyway with an Alpha forge head, but unfortunately since it's one of the new bodies in a gang mostly comprised of original sculpts, she is the "big girl" of the gang.

On the website, the female body, female head, a Juve and a flamer were all spotted. I know some reported seeing a few other nick-nacks too, hence the summary of the unreleased models.

So many missed opportunities with SG.

Definitely.

I've got a bunch of Necromunda weapons sprues leftover so now I'm thinking of converting up a Delaque gang from ERM Slicks.

I'd suggest Heresy's gangers instead - they are very good, and most feature separate weapons. Andy's also got a few female members of the gang too.

I do wish Andy'd sculpt other gangs though - I'd love to see him tackle Van Saar and Escher equivalents.

In the 90's when I started minis the specialist games sculpts were quite universally horrid.

Wow, that's harsh! 

Most of the "good" Necromunda line was mid-90's, and most of the BFG models and "good" Epic models were all late 90's.

In fact, the very best Epic range was Epic 40k; not only did they have the best sculpts and a huge variety of sculpts and combinations, but they were also cheaper than the Titan Legions models for the most part (Titans and superheavies got more expensive though). They are still generally the most sought-after Epic models.

The original BFG stuff was generally very good, although the SG/Fanatic stuff was rather poor. I know the Ork ships were an acquired taste, but I thought they were still a much better effort than almost any other Ork ships I had seen before (or since), and I personally liked them.

I never really took to Inquisitor as a game, and I think the sculpts showed that the sculptors were really taken out of their comfort zone. Yes, some were very nice, but most were awkward. Another thing was that as the scale gets bigger, weird proportions (GW's "Heroic Scale") look stranger and stranger. Yet, if you make the proportions more "true" on the bigger models, they stop looking like their 28mm counterparts.

Mordheim did quite well out of the SG/Fanatic attention somehow. Many of the models, whilst rather unnecessary, were actually pretty decent.

I can't really speak for Bloodbowl too much unfortunately, as it was never an interest of mine and so didn't monitor it very closely. However, I do remember lots of wonky-looking teams being released (like those Amazons...).