"It's Just Nostalgia!"

[throwsFireball]

This is one of the things I hear pretty commonly on some parts of the 'net (especially more Warhammer focused parts). The argument is that the only reason older sculpt styles / older rules are preferred is just down to nostalgia.

I don't know how many people are gamers, but there's currently a shitstorm going on around Blizzard due to the fact they've sent a cease and desist to a Vanilla private server (Vanilla is old WoW... Nostalgia WoW). A LOT of people were playing on this server (30+k at peak times). Apparently people only want to play on this server because of nostalgia.

The funniest part is that one of the big Blizzard guys basically said, "You're only interested in Vanilla WoW because of nostalgia".

Just reminded me of the sort of arguments people make when people say that the only reason only things are enjoyed is due to nostalgia. It's clearly not true since the older stuff offers a completely different experience and a lot of people are obviously interested in that different experience.

How do you guys all feel about this argument?

[Atheling]

Well, an example if I may; if I had a choice between the '80's Citadel Beastmen and the last Beastmen models they made I'd go for the 80's stuff every time as it was more imaginative and there was way more variation.

Darrell.

[throwsFireball]

Well, an example if I may; if I had a choice between the '80's Citadel Beastmen and the last Beastmen models they made I'd go for the 80's stuff every time as it was more imaginative and there was way more variation.

Darrell.

Definitely. They felt like actually chaotic monstrosities. Look at the Pantheon of Chaos stuff, they're more like what they should be.

[Daeothar]

I think I can see both sides of such an argument.

On the one side; those gamers (didn't a lot of them mass suicide their characters in protest?) simply like(d) the experience that Blizzard did not provide anymore. I understand that it has to do with difficulty level and the lack of challenging gameplay in later versions of the game.

On the other side, there's Blizzard moving their product forward and losing revenue (although in the grand scheme of things, I suspect it wasn't all that much) to illegal servers like this. It might well be that Blizzard wanted to make a statement with stepping on this illegal server as well of course.

Had that illegal server not existed, would those protesting players not have played WoW? Come on; you know they all would have. When you spend that amount of time on/in a game, you wouldn't stop playing when there is (yet) another change to the game. You grumble to yourself, you cry out on the forums and you continue playing...

The Blizzard's spokesperson statement about nostalgia is is of course just a thin argument to justify their stopping the illegal server, even though they are obviously in their right to do so.

Still; I used to be a heavy Diable player back in the late nineties, spending entire nights online questing with guild members, but eventually was able to detox. About 3 years ago or so, when cleaning up, I found my old Diablo CDs and just for the heck of it, I installed it and logged in on the trusty old local server and lo and behold: it was still running! I was alone in there, for the half hour I spent in those empy, echoing halls, but it was still up! And so was the Starcraft server (which actually had a handful of users playing a game).

So it's not because of server space or technical issues that Blizzard will not run servers with older games on them; it is apparently a commercial/strategic decision.


The comparison with tabletop miniature games is not analogue at all though. WoW requires you to subscribe and pay a periodical fee; it's the game's business model, so when people are playing the game outside of the official servers, no money is being made by Blizzard.

Tabletop miniature games however, require the acquisiton of one or more rulebooks and miniatures (plus sundy other supplies such as dice, rulers, terrrain etc). This is a one off purchase and then it's yours to do with as you please. So when you like the gameplay of WHFB's 3rd edition, you're not doing anything illegal by playing it with your mates at your club or at home. GW can prohibit the playing of games in their stores that they do not currently sell, obviously; it's their store after all. But they have no say at all over what you play outside of their stores.

I'm sure they would if they could though. Because if they could, they could force players to play only the latest version of their games, such as Blizzard can do (because of their business model).


However, I think nostalgia in miniature gaming usually comes from the memories of the good times we all had when we just starting out gaming. When miniatures were worth their weight in gold to you, because your allowance was never quite enough. Compare those same miniatures to the ones being sold now, without the cloak of warm, fuzzy feelings; just cold, logical objective reason, and you know that those minis cannot hold a candle to the modern ones.

People speak about character, but all that character is put there by the observer's subjective observations and emotions. My personal sweet spot lies with the early nineties GW miniatures; I love those, because that's when I really got into gaming. So those are special to me.

Therefore, when I look at miniatures from the late seventies and early eighties, I'm pretty meh about them. They don't do it for me (mostly anyway), because they do not come from my personal Goldy Locks Zone. Now, if attraction were pure and objective, I would love them for their naive and primitive quality, but instead, they're mostly shapeless blobs of leadrotting metal (with glossy enamel paintjobs). However, ask any grognard(ier) player here who started out playing back then, and they would call me a GW fanboi and clueless youngster without taste for saying that.

And younger players, raised on plastic multipart kits, with digitally sculpted fine details covering the whole of those miniatures would be tripping over themselves to point out that my lovely early nineties minis are two-dimensional, crude, plain and boring. Oh; and metal too, so impossible to convert, not at all like their awesome plastic regiments. (which obviously proves they're all clueless and tasteless idiots...  ).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and nostalgia most certainly is too!!

In conclusion; reading about the reasons of those WoW players walking their characters off a broken bridge in protest, they apparently preferred the gameplay of the older version they were playing. Surely the grahical qualities of the game must have improved since its introduction, but to my untrained eye, not so much at all, so looks probably only play a very small part in instigating their outrage. And that's an issue we, as tabletop wargamers will never face, as we can play older games we own, with older minis (which we probably re-acquired through Ebay and fora such as LAF ) without fear of legal actions. Which makes nostalgia for us not just understandable, but also an accepted part of our hobby, something that will most likely never happen with MMORPGs...

[Aerendar Valandil]

I'm actually a bit mixed on this. A bit of nostalgy is not a real problem, but what I do think is that the glasses are a bit too pink. What I often miss is th realisation that alt east half of nostalgy is not the actual past, but the silky remembrance. Whether it is about music, books, comics or gaming, the experience was very often in formative years when things were new and impressive. Therefore, each generation has its own nostalgy.

- I still play punk, hardcore and metal music of the late eighties; that is not necessarily better punk or metal than before or after, the sound of many bands is strikingly similar up to the point that I always grab a few favorites. This is my past and my sound, but that is also incredibly subjective.
- I once read fantasy. I seldom read fantasy now, but I do have good memories of the books I read. Does that make them better? No. The dDragonlance is iconic and very DD-like, but that's about it.
- My 'formative' fantasy wargaming range is 4th/5th ed WH elves. They were good models. I do think they were less static than earlier ranges. But after that new ranges have seen the light, some better, some worse.

Especially the eighties figures had a certain very personal quality about them, because every company was starting and was just trying things out. That made for some very nice models, but at least some, if not many, were of inferior quality. The old slann were a very nice concept, but were they good models? Not particularly. And it made for incomplete, sometimes  inconsistent ranges hardly mounting up to something like a credible army. Does that disqualify any preference or happy remembrance of the past? No. Bu new companies make good models too, which will be the glorified nostalgy of new  generations to come.

[Tactalvanic]

Its just other people being polite about the peculiarities and addictions of  other people that they cannot relate to.

ie they don't understand why your doing something, realise some of its old or very old. Or Ancient.

So.

Instead of calling for a mental evaluation they reference eccentricity if your lucky enougth to be English 

Or "oh its nostalgia" we don't need to understand the reasons for doing that because they are having a "nostalgia" moment...

e.g.
Who's your Doctor Who? Tom Baker - does this make him the best Doctor? No it makes me nostalgic...

Although he was pretty damn good.

We like what we like, and that changes over our lives and over other peoples lives, but still there are times when its true, some old things are better than some new ones, granted many aren't but when they are, are we not just being honest pointing this out until proven otherwise?

Regardless it has its place and use for everyone, and it usually helps keep us happy 

[Vermis]

What Daeothar said. Copy 'n' paste here.

I think some older, 80's-early 90's minis are genuinely good, showing character and skill; and here on the LAF, members like Hobgoblin have been softening my view of them. But the majority of - if not all - gamers that I've seen praise the general superiority of 80's miniatures over newer examples, seem to be those who grew up with them in the 80's. And to be honest a lot of those 80's miniatures - and new sculpts by big names from back then, or sculpts emulating old styles (whether in imitation, or because they're also 'naive and primitive', or otherwise) - can look pretty crude by modern standards, to the point that 'character' can sound like a euphemism. It's sometimes difficult to see the reasoning, if it's not nostalgia.

[throwsFireball]

However, I think nostalgia in miniature gaming usually comes from the memories of the good times we all had when we just starting out gaming. When miniatures were worth their weight in gold to you, because your allowance was never quite enough. Compare those same miniatures to the ones being sold now, without the cloak of warm, fuzzy feelings; just cold, logical objective reason, and you know that those minis cannot hold a candle to the modern ones.

People speak about character, but all that character is put there by the observer's subjective observations and emotions. My personal sweet spot lies with the early nineties GW miniatures; I love those, because that's when I really got into gaming. So those are special to me.

Therefore, when I look at miniatures from the late seventies and early eighties, I'm pretty meh about them. They don't do it for me (mostly anyway), because they do not come from my personal Goldy Locks Zone. Now, if attraction were pure and objective, I would love them for their naive and primitive quality, but instead, they're mostly shapeless blobs of leadrotting metal (with glossy enamel paintjobs). However, ask any grognard(ier) player here who started out playing back then, and they would call me a GW fanboi and clueless youngster without taste for saying that.

And younger players, raised on plastic multipart kits, with digitally sculpted fine details covering the whole of those miniatures would be tripping over themselves to point out that my lovely early nineties minis are two-dimensional, crude, plain and boring. Oh; and metal too, so impossible to convert, not at all like their awesome plastic regiments. (which obviously proves they're all clueless and tasteless idiots...  ).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and nostalgia most certainly is too!!

I don't think this is true at all. "Character" means emotional power or a representation of what the thing should be. The miniatures tell a story in and of themselves (or, at least, allow the viewer to make up a story to suit) rather than having to have a book to explain what the character should be.

The old modelling styles lend themselves to distinctive character features since they're the easiest and quickest ones to sculpt and allow for models to have a lot more "character" on a limited timescale. Digital sculpting allows for a lot of detail in a short amount of time, as well as not needing to do so much "character" as you can compensate with photorealism.

The primary difference between new and old models is the difference between a photograph and a characterisation. Characterisations enhance what's already there (often utilising non-physical features, like greedy people having a big smirk and rubbing their hands together) whereas photos just take a snapshot. The detail clutter doesn't help, either. Put sixty skulls on it instead of having a big skull axe or something.

To use another example, it's the difference between fight scenes from the original Star Wars and fight scenes in the prequels. The original movies are always very emotional and filled with meaning whereas the prequels are just perfectly choreographed and clean.

[Diablo Jon]

I like a bit of Nostalgia I still think 3rd editon WFB is great, I still love Rogue Trader, 2nd edition AD&D is still fab basically the games I played in secondary school and college. I still love some of the miniatures from that era (or even a bit earlier in the pre slotta-days).

 Having said that I'm happy to admit not everything from that era was great WRG ancients rules still bring me out in cold sweat (even now) not to mention the pain of trying to play Empire Napoleonic rules with my college mates. If I'm honest most miniatures these days are way above what was available back then. Some miniatures have stood the test of time to my eye Jes Goodwin Elves, the original Chaos Dwarves and Grenadiers future wars miniatures but a lot were pretty crap think Hinchcliffe historical, Minifigs 25mm or a lot early Grenadier sculpts.

I guess we all have times in our lives were things were good and we tend to look back on fondly. Theres no shame in it.

[Daeothar]

I don't think this is true at all. "Character" means emotional power or a representation of what the thing should be. The miniatures tell a story in and of themselves (or, at least, allow the viewer to make up a story to suit) rather than having to have a book to explain what the character should be.

The old modelling styles lend themselves to distinctive character features since they're the easiest and quickest ones to sculpt and allow for models to have a lot more "character" on a limited timescale. Digital sculpting allows for a lot of detail in a short amount of time, as well as not needing to do so much "character" as you can compensate with photorealism.

The primary difference between new and old models is the difference between a photograph and a characterisation. Characterisations enhance what's already there (often utilising non-physical features, like greedy people having a big smirk and rubbing their hands together) whereas photos just take a snapshot. The detail clutter doesn't help, either. Put sixty skulls on it instead of having a big skull axe or something.

To use another example, it's the difference between fight scenes from the original Star Wars and fight scenes in the prequels. The original movies are always very emotional and filled with meaning whereas the prequels are just perfectly choreographed and clean.

Looks we are indeed disagreeing here. What you have to keep in mind is that sculpting has been an evolving and maturing art/skill. When miniatures were there to represent the many troops in a big army, all that was required was that the minis would be recognizable for what they were to represent. So a French Old Guard soldier would be an exact copy of his many neighbours and that was ok, as the goal was to represent a full regiment. Character and individuality were not important.

Those characteristics only became important with the advent of the RPG. And sculptors took to this new niche with the same tools and skills they had been using for those clone armies that were the norm before, where a mini should have a face with a nose, mouth and two eyes, but that was it.

So those first RPG minis were not sculpted with a very high degree of skill or finesse, and that too was ok, because people didn't know better. But this move to individual miniatures for RPGs meant that sculptors did start to strive for better results. After all; their minis were now scrutinized individually, as opposed to them being part of a large unit. And lack of detail and character became noticable at that level.

That's why they began to work towards making their sculpts as individual as possible. And where the overall skill level was not sufficient, many times, the resort was, for lack of a better word,  impressionism. When you're unable to sculpt something, sculpt to suggest it. And the end-user's paintjob would be key in driving home that suggestion. And most likely, in some cases, the painter got the suggestion wrong and painted it differently. Bear in mind; painting skill had to evolve just as much as sculpting had to.

And here I come to the point where I have to point out that i think you're looking at this from a nostalgic point of view yourself. Your appraisal of those older sculpts, I feel, is biased to the point where you overlook the failings of those older sculpts. See; I think that had those sculptors back in the day had access to the materials, skills and tools of current sculptors, they would have used them! And their miniatures would have had the detail and complexity of modern day minis. it was not a conscious technique of them to sculpt soft, 'impressionist' details, or a fashion thing, but rather they did their best, using more primitive techniques, which have evolved over time, as have skill levels.

I agree with you that the suggested character allows the observer to fill in the blanks, which triggers their imagination, and therefore appreciation of the miniature, where the latest miniatures are so 'photorealistic' that there is no need to give them any more thought, making them more forgettable, even though they're technically superior. I think we can almost see this as fact. But then again; because of those much more accurate techniques of the present day, facial sculpts can be so detailed that even very subtle expressions can be created. And those can also convey emotions really well. Of course, here too, a paintjob can make or break that illusion, or even change it completely. And in the end, it comes down to the imagination of the observer most. If they do not have any imagination, no matter how suggestive (or excellent) the sculpt, they will not 'see' it and will not be able to attribute character to it either.

But appreciation of minis, no matter from which side of the spectrum, is still influenced by how you originally experienced them. Same thing with music, movies or fashion. You were raised with those suggestive lead minis from the eighties? Then it's highly likely that you now have a (refound?) appreciation for them. Because you can see in them what those who got involved in the hobby at a later date cannot; the enjoyment of those minis back when you were still in school and played D&D with your mates. And the achievements of your old characters still ring through those old minis.

Warm and fuzzy...

And in that state, one is prone to blind oneself to the positive sides of newer things, such as better sculpted miniatures in our case. I would argue that the character you see in your favourite miniatures is there too in my favourite nineties sculpts, no matter that those minis are more refined. And it also is there in 21st century minis, but it's harder for us to see, mired as we are in our respective era's. Still; those recent miniatures probably evoke the same emotions with the current gaming kids as your eighties sculpts did with you.

I'm certain that kids who get into miniature gaming these days, maybe playing Infinity, should they still be in the hobby 30 years from now, will have the same feelings towards their old pewter PanOc troopers. And who knows how minis will look by then? Probably exact copies of A-list actors, 3D-printed photorealistically, in colour, in the safety of one's home? And those starting out with miniature gaming then, having just printed their entire army, will be scoffing at those lumpy, metal, oddly proportioned and old fashioned Infinity minis of dad's and won't understand his dreamy eyed statement that those old minis were the real deal, and those newfangled prints just lack character and emotion.


What I am wondering about though (and this may of course be fueled by my own 'origin era'), is whether or not you feel that digitally sculpted minis might be too clinical when compared to hand sculpted minis. Maybe that's what you really have issue with? Because here, we're looking at a fundamentally different way of creating miniatures with more 'distance' between the sculptor/modeler and the actual miniature, which may remove some of the human touch from the end product?

[Andrew Rae]

Interesting thread.

I think I'm pretty much of Daeothar's opinion, which is handy as I could never have put it so well.

I think one thing that may influence one's opinion in addition to nostalgia is the change of character of many miniatures - particularly those from GW. Whereas now many figures are in heroic poses with heroic armour and heroic weapons shouting heroic things, figures from the late-80s and early 90s (up until 92ish, I'd say) seem to me to have a more downtrodden, 'little guy' look to them - by design or just a result of the sculpting and manufacturing limitations. Even the big guys like ogres! Life sucks and they've grabbed a sword because they have to. Perhaps that just appeals to some people more than Mr Heroic Pose - I think it does to me. It certainly gives more variety, though I do love a good foot-on-rock bad-ass as well.

Older, lets say cruder figures also show more willingness to break the rules and exaggerate for effect. Hobgoblin's excellent thread features many figures in twisted, down-right bizarre poses that nonetheless express their character very well. As sculpting became more sophisticated (or more rationalised and rigid), sculptors became less willing to do this. And if you're not going to exaggerate wildly, you have to compensate with good, subtle posing, which has been less than evident over the years (seriously, there's absolutely no reason to not use contrapposto on every single figure you sculpt - it's worked for thousands of years and is the easiest way of adding character, beyond straight up caricature. Come on!).

My own personal nostalgia is an odd one. I discovered miniatures in 1993, a couple of years or so into the 'rationalisation' of Citadel miniatures. Some of this was great (you'll never convince me a pre-1998 Space Marine sculpted by anyone other than Jes Goodwin is any good), it did lead to a loss of individual 'character' while being very rigidly simple and cast-able in the posing. There were also some odd sculptor choices - Aly Morrison has sculpted some great, characterful figures in his time, but Space Marines aren't his forte. And there were also some rubbish sculptors...

For me any figure pre-92 was a near mythical thing of grainy images in the blue and red catalogues or the odd old blister on the rack in the local newsagents. All these weird and wonderful, unobtainable figures and what we got every month were fucking Gary Morley sculpts and mono-pose plastic tat! I used to wonder what the hell Jes Goodwin was doing as I'd seen from the catalogues he'd sculpted all these wonderful figures but here's more Gary Morley (looking back I see Jes was actually doing a hell of a lot, I just wasn't that interested in Eldar).

But now, having spent my youth frustrated at the figures of the time, I find myself collecting and painting mono-pose plastic tat (with the odd pre-92 gem thrown in for relief) in some bizarre, desperate attempt find some redemption for those figures. And I love them.

Ah nostalgia!

[Hobgoblin]

This is an interesting discussion, with lots of good points on both sides. I'd like to lob a few Mills bombs into the fray if I may ... 

First, one point about all this is that, when it comes to the quality of miniatures, it's not necessarily chronological. Sculptors don't always improve, and their later work can be worse than some of their earlier stuff. And nor does the "Whig view of (miniature) history" really hold: some miniatures made today are very good; others are not. There are lots of small companies doing stuff that isn't as well sculpted - or even as modern-looking - as stuff sculpted in the late 70s. Plenty - indeed most - of the miniatures launched on Kickstarter are technically inferior to stuff Tom Meier was doing in 1979. There were some inarguably crude, even rudimentary miniatures made by some of the biggest names in the early 80s, but there was also some brilliant stuff.

Also, nostalgia itself is not necessarily chronological. On another thread, I compared an early-80s Perry armoured orc to a current GW orc. I couldn't believe that anyone would think that the latter was better. Diablo Jon did, though. But - and I think he'll forgive me for paraphrasing here - he said that it was in part because of nostalgia for Gorkamorka orks by the same sculptor - which long post-dated the Perry orc.

Second, it's really about sculptors and styles. I said earlier that some sculptors regressed as well as progressed. Let's take Nick Lund. His earliest Chronicle stuff is pretty rudimentary. But he was soon (when Chronicle was absorbed by Citadel) producing stuff that was striking and "powerful" even if crude in some ways. And then, in the slottabase era, he produced some absolute classics. Then he went to Grenadier, and though some of his stuff was interesting and occasionally "powerful", it was generally inferior to the older stuff. When I bought some Grenadier orcs as a kid, I found them inferior to the Chronicle giant black orcs in every way. That wasn't nostalgia - I was painting the miniatures up at the same time, and I think both were still in production! And today, I still feel that way about their respective merits. And I still think the best of Nick Lund's stuff is superb, despite its technical shortcomings. Think of the pointing hobgoblin shaman, or Eeza Ugezod - not the Death Commandos one, but the one from the Regiment of Renown: both figures that look absolutely terrific on the tabletop today.

Contrast with Tom Meier, whose work started out astonishing and is astonishing still. His Thunderbolt Mountain stuff is probably better than his Ral Partha stuff, but it's a slim margin and it looks like it would mix well. I don't think it's nostalgia that makes me prefer, say, Tom Meier's orcs of 79 to Mantic's orcs today: very few people would claim that the Mantic ones are superior creations.

Then there are the Perrys. Their current stuff is widely acknowledged to be cutting-edge, and their multi-part plastics are far superior to most other companies' - they don't look like poseable action figures. And (for example) their plastic foot knights are generally superior to their (terrific) old Citadel/Foundry men-at-arms. But I don't think the progression's linear. Their savage orcs from the 90s that rode plastic boars are much less interesting and well conceived than their C15 armoured orcs or the first slottabase range of orcs.

And ditto for Aly Morrison - his old hobgoblins are better in just about every way than his (admittedly nice) Marauder orcs. It's not a technical issue, but one of style, I think.

That brings me to my third point: some of this stuff is about commercial pressures. Sometimes blander or more toy-like styles were imposed on sculptors. An obvious example: as Warhammer became a more formal wargame with more rigid army lists, rank-and-file GW miniatures became more uniform and less interesting. I recall the period in the 80s when GW stopped selling blisters of "orcs" and started selling blisters of "orcs with polearms" and "orcs with two hand weapons" and so on. Commercially, it was doubtless a good move; aesthetically, it was a step backwards.

A fourth point: technology, especially the use of plastic, has brought some great opportunities with it. Now, when Citadel first introduced plastic shields and weapons (spears with hands attached, in the main), they talked it up as a chance to make miniatures with shields and weapons of "realistic thickness". Fast-forward to today and look at the Perry foot knights - realistic swords and lucerne hammers and poleaxes wherever you look. But look at GW and  - to quote Edmund Wilson, "Ooo, those awful orcs" (and their ridiculously oversized weapons ....). In other words, plastic promised convincingly sized weapons - but many firms have used it to produce miniatures with ludicrously exaggerated weapons ...

[throwsFireball]

<snip>

One key problem with your theory is that I'm early 20s. I wasn't even born in the '80s!

It's just that I look at the variety and posing and characterisation and want something more like that on my table. Then again, I don't like my entire army being unified in everything as many miniatures seem to want it to be.

What I am wondering about though (and this may of course be fueled by my own 'origin era'), is whether or not you feel that digitally sculpted minis might be too clinical when compared to hand sculpted minis. Maybe that's what you really have issue with? Because here, we're looking at a fundamentally different way of creating miniatures with more 'distance' between the sculptor/modeler and the actual miniature, which may remove some of the human touch from the end product?

There's two key problems coming into miniature making that I'm seeing in games and in digital art in general.

With a lot of old games, some of their defining features were either technical limitations or bugs. Games which had bugs that were easily replicable and fun to use found them becoming key features. As an example, Tribes had skiing which was a bug where players could make themselves become frictionless allowing them to throw a grenade at their feet and go flying off at superspeed. In the sequel to Tribes, this was made into a key and core feature.

A lot of older games have silly little stuff like that that allows for the making of interesting tales and fun. Stuff like WoW's "fun abilities" like levitate and such which could be used for really interesting tactical combat which are completely missing from modern MMOs.

It's a focus on cleanliness instead of a focus on the experience which destroys the experience.

The second thing is that a lot of digital artists are avoiding the key foundations of art (honestly, the whole modern art movement as a whole has destroyed the concept of skill in art... but I digress) such as body language, muscle structure and the like. I'd say 99.9% of modern miniatures I see (that aren't goblins) have either an emotionless face or a shouty face. That's it. There's nothing inbetween.

Digital art and proper use of old art foundations leads to some wonderful work. Look at the range of expression in this and keep in mind this is digital art:

[rebelyell2006]

First, one point about all this is that, when it comes to the quality of miniatures, it's not necessarily chronological. Sculptors don't always improve, and their later work can be worse than some of their earlier stuff. And nor does the "Whig view of (miniature) history" really hold: some miniatures made today are very good; others are not. There are lots of small companies doing stuff that isn't as well sculpted - or even as modern-looking - as stuff sculpted in the late 70s. Plenty - indeed most - of the miniatures launched on Kickstarter are technically inferior to stuff Tom Meier was doing in 1979. There were some inarguably crude, even rudimentary miniatures made by some of the biggest names in the early 80s, but there was also some brilliant stuff.

CTRL+F "Airfix", Phrase not found...

[Conquistador]

It's about what you want I suspect...

To me there no more "fun" goblins/orcs than the once OOP Der Kriegspieler "smiley faced" ones that are now sometimes available (just received an order) and none that I think best represent [book] LOTR than the old day "Goblins of the North" era figures.  YMMV.

I don't care if the later stuff is "better art" or more technically creative.  The above hit the sweet spot for me.  Even the recently reproduced Chaos War Orcs  do not do it for me the same way - selling off the ones I received with the KS plus my old ones - because, as good as they may be, they simply leave me cold.

Does that mean there are no really good figures today?  No.  There are many good figures available today.  And I buy them at times, when they meet what my expectations are.