Druchii.net

Were 6th edition Orcs that bad, then? I liked almost every model, apart perhaps from the plastic common goblins. But the basic plastic Orc boyz were and are still a good kit, the wolf riders were decent enough, and the plastic chariot offered some conversion potential for other armies. And then the metals - these were some of the best GW ever made in my opinion. Especially the fanatics and the squig hoppers. So much character, so much fun. GW has been moving away from humourous aspects for a couple of years now, but they're taking their armies far too serious these days. (Perhaps they should rather take their rules wrting serious.)

Still, if you're talking about just the 6th edition rulebook, then yes, the older sculpts which still are in evidence in that book do have some dated sculpts. But if you ask me, GW's peak of sculpting was right at the end of 6th edition, with those lovely Bretonnians and even lovelier Wood Elves. I guess that's right before AutoCAD became the norm and everything changed to monopose plastics with two or three options per box.

I mean, just compare the model below to that leek-worshiping shaman above; I don't think anyone can argue which is the better model.

hmm. Where to begin?

It's a very nice looking, somewhat 2d dimensional, beastman you got there. But considering some of the remarks you made, may I ask what the last models were that you bought from GW?

Daeron wrote:hmm. Where to begin?

It's a very nice looking, somewhat 2d dimensional, beastman you got there. But considering some of the remarks you made, may I ask what the last models were that you bought from GW?

I bought the VC Tomb Banshee (pics on my blog as well as in P&M), and I've recently also done some Adeptus Mechanicus which I haven't shown here. I've also purchased some Spirit Hosts but I haven't gotten round to them.

I can assure you that that Beastman is three-dimensional, I painted him up a while ago as can be seen here. Honestly, I couldn't tell you if I preferred painting the Beastman to painting the Tomb Banshee. Both have exactly the same level of posability, which is zero, probably the same as the upcoming Ork (sorry, Orrrrrrruukkk) shaman. If GW was still in the metal model business then I think they could've done up the same banshee in that medium without much alteration. (Well, actually, they could have made the hair look a lot more natural, but that's just lazy AutoCAD and nothing to do with plastic versus metal.)

Bottom line: the golden age of GW models I was hinting at was when their plastics were great for their posability and kitbash potential and their metals had great character, whereas their current models have too few of either. To me, at least.

Yeah, that beastman's dead. There's no way he's getting his axe untangled from his horns (which are blocking his elbows for the downward chop he's trying to perform) and that ridiculous nose-spike (which is going to catch the spike on the end of the axe haft and either flip it out of his hands or knock his helmet over his eyes) before somebody stabs him. He be dead.

If we're being properly (and non-selectively) critical of the miniatures, I mean.

I actually agree with you about posability, though. I'm not a fan of the newer monopose minis. But at least with plastics it's fairly easy to cut and reposition limbs and weapons to give some variation.

Gnosis wrote:I can assure you that that Beastman is three-dimensional, I painted him up a while ago as can be seen here.

Lovely blog. And model. My remark on his 2D aspect was mostly directed at the orientation of anything that sticks out. Spikes, limbs, hair, weapon, it's all on a single line. My guess is that the model comes in a single piece. I still like the model, but purely from a technical point I'd rate the new ones higher in quality.

Gnosis wrote:Bottom line: the golden age of GW models I was hinting at was when their plastics were great for their posability and kitbash potential and their metals had great character, whereas their current models have too few of either. To me, at least.

They certainly made some terrific plastics but I will make a point there though. Multipose plastics weren't the norm during WFB. The only multipose models in 6th ed for dark elves were the warriors, if I remember correctly. 7th ed gave us multipose corsairs and... well.. that's about it?
I still have a ton of them (Warriors and Corsairs) and love them, but they were lonely in the multipose world.

The latest releases still offer multipose, but that seems to be a treat for models that are "supposed" to come in large numbers. The blood reavers and blood warriors are multipose, for example. I recently assembled a blood warrior kit, and I must say I was impressed by the quality. The poses look good in almost every angle and combination, and offer greater variety than any other kit I've seen before. Beats the old Warriors for sure (but I still love my dark elves a bit more).

Their elite troops or more complex troops don't get the same treatment by the looks of it, using more static alternative configurations. In particular the Fyre Slayers were a bit of a surprise but I haven't bought any so I can't compare.
Characters were rarely multipose, if ever, so that's not much of a change.

As for kit-bashing, well... I see a lot of kit-bashing and conversions on the painting and aos groups that I follow. If anything, the additional spare parts seem to encourage this. "Seem" .. because I have no empirical data on it

The style of the models is changing dramatically though, and perhaps that's were the conflict comes from. I like both the old and new style, each in their own way. I fear my old dark elf army will look out of place in AoS if this change keeps up... but then I might keep my DE army around for WFB and 9th. Or even KoW, if it ever manages to break through in Belgium.

Now that better pics (including 360° views and non-yellow colour schemes) are up on the GW website... I actually really like these new orcs. To the point that I might even buy some when I've completed the other projects I have planned (finishing my DEs and Slaanesh mortals; painting a small force of Fremen-themed Wanderers in desert colours; and my slightly mad idea to build an undead force around an all-female vampire coven - including blood knights converted from plastic HE Dragon Princes). So in about ten years, possibly...

True, the yellow colour scheme does a great disservice to the models. What the hell were they thinking?

I'm interested to see how they look with well-painted metallic armour instead of all those bright colours. Should make their green skin pop more as well. These 'Eavy Metal versions really look like a bunch of chaos warriors who were involved in a paint factory explosion.

Gnosis wrote:True, the yellow colour scheme does a great disservice to the models. What the hell were they thinking?

I'm interested to see how they look with well-painted metallic armour instead of all those bright colours. Should make their green skin pop more as well.

Perhaps it's the Space Marine effect - you give each army a colour to help people recognise it...

...or something.

(and because being greenskins is soooo 1990)

Rork wrote:(and because being greenskins is soooo 1990)

I wish GW was still run as in 1990 though.

Gnosis wrote:

Rork wrote:(and because being greenskins is soooo 1990)

I wish GW was still run as in 1990 though.

I don't think I was old enough to play with plastic glue then.

I'd be happy with mid 2000's with actual hobby stores, and prices for things that were not through the roof, and you got more minies per package then you do now. ANd the bability to order bits and peices here and there so you can bit bash.

I have no wish to return to the days when virtually every mini was metal and the few plastics were identical one-piece models with much less detail than the metal ones. And relative to the amount of spending money I had available back then, the prices per model were actually worse for me than they are now.

I actually prefer metal models these days. Better value when the Chinese invade and want to melt everything down for wire!

Heh. Once the world runs out of oil, recyclable plastics like polystyrene might well be worth far more than white metal.

BTW, is your name a reference to R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse novels?

I had a battle against the new Orruks last week. It was a fun, action packed game but it was a bit one sided. I got tabled (didn't care to play safe).
The big boss is a really impressive model, sitting on a base as large as Archaon's. The detail and style looks better on the table than on the pictures.

Anyhow, he was a badass in combat as well. My opponent sat him in cover and... then... he single handedly destroyed most of my army, taking a dozen wounds in return. It's not much of a surprise and I didn't really play with care
In cover, his 3+ save goes 2+ and the Khorne bloodbound have very little punch (if any). With practically no rend and barely any mortal wounds in the abilities, it was utterly incapable of dealing with the boss. He turned my army into a bloody pulp.

I still had a good time, but I'm grateful that AoS keeps such fights shorter than WFB ever did.

Well I can't say that I'm thrilled about these - for one thing (as many others have pointed out), they look like they belong in 40K (as do a lot of the other AoS minis, sadly - GW might be wanting to move away from the traditional Tolkein-inspired fantasy worlds, but I don't - at least not to the extent of having orcs in power armour). While these minis are amazing sculpts (you expect nothing less from GW these days), they're still ugly as hell and look like greenskin space marines. I think we'll all be calling them Green Marines from now on.

My second point is that the AoS minis are massive compared to the normal fantasy miniatures. OK, this has been a feature of 40K for a long time too, but these new AoS models are HUGE - more like toys that actual gaming figures. Is that what GW are aiming for? To make their range more like toys so they can make themselves look more attractive to potential corporate buyers? (Hasbro spings to mind). Seriously though, some of these new orcs look to be on 60mm bases - that's insane!

And thirdly of course, there is the name. GW don't want to call them "orcs" because they can't trademark the name. But they can trademark "Ooruks"? That's a bit strange, since the pronunciation is identical to "Uruks" (As in Uruk-Hai, fron Lord of the Rings). Difficult to see how GW can trademark a name that is quite clearly just a misspelled version of a word from Tolkein (who they CLAIM they are trying to get away from). According to Tolkein, the work "Uruk" was in fact the Elvish for "Orc", and thus GW has once again failed their roll for originality, despite their best efforts to appear to be clever. According to legal experts;

""Clever" Misspellings of Otherwise Unusable Marks. No, you can't use "Koke", "Polaroyd", "Z-Rocks" or "Codac". They are too close to the famous marks. A descriptive mark like "speedy" for a fast car is not registrable if you write it "spee-d". Similarly, if "Broccoli" is generic for broccoli, then so is "Brokoli"."

Of course it could be that the word "Uruk" is not trademarked by the Tolkein estate, in which case GW would appear to be able to use it - but then if they're trying to distance themselves from Tolkein, then that's a pretty poor (and highly unoriginal) attempt if you ask me.

So, Green Marines it is, then...

Although I have a feeling that most people will just call them orcs...

I'm sure they put more thought in the naming than a quick google of the legal system. Considering how much IP they lend to games, I wouldn't be surprised if they have that part figured out.
As for the scale creep... It's there and yet not. It's weird. They release only miniatures that are "supposed to be bigger" now. Keep in mind, the old Orc line is still on the shelves.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the scale trend continue. The Fireslayers seem to fit with the old Slayers or Dwarfs, so I'm told. I haven't seen them side by side myself though. These Orruks seem larger than any Orc by the looks of it. If I put the new Bloodbound side by side with Chaos Warriors, the difference is small. But if I put them next to an elf, it's like they weren't designed for the same game. And.. that is quite the case

So, what Orcs do you like darkprincess? Have you seen any alternative models that you like?

+1 Darkprincess! and Happy Birthday for the other day (please correct me if I am wrong)

It was DP's birthday? Why wasn't I told? I will schedule the slaves for extra whipping forthwith!

Happy belated birthday, DP!

On the subject of the new orcs being huge... the big boss on the 60mm base is roughly ogre-sized. But IIRC that's actually the size successful orc leaders are supposed to be in the fluff, because orcs never stop growing. A 'normal' human-sized orc is probably only 20-ish years old and most orcs don't live more than a decade or so more than that thanks to their ultra-violent lifestyle. But if an orc gets to 40, 50, 60 years old and hasn't been killed yet, then he's going to be much bigger, as well as more likely to be in charge of a lot of smaller orcs. And a particularly successful warlord might live for a century or more, and so will be even bigger. GW could never really do the fluff justice with the models before, because any orc character on foot still needed to fit on a 25mm square base so he could rank up with regular orc boyz. But that's no longer a limitation. So we finally get ogre-sized orc warlord models to represent the ogre-sized orc warlords that have long existed in the fluff.

I do worry about the scale of any new elf models GW do now, though. An orc army looks fine with orcs of different sizes - e.g. the new Ironjawz alongside older common orc models. But the scale difference between the old metal witch elves and the newer plastic ones is already at the edge of what looks OK when they're grouped together in one unit (I joke that all the shorter metal witches in my army are wearing high heels to try and compensate, while their taller plastic sisters don't need them). Unlike orcs, there's no fluff justification for elves to be of noticeably different scales within the same army. If the scale difference is more noticeable than with the witches, that's going to be a problem.

Cultofkhaine wrote:+1 Darkprincess! and Happy Birthday for the other day (please correct me if I am wrong)

Yes thank you

Shadowspite wrote:It was DP's birthday? Why wasn't I told? I will schedule the slaves for extra whipping forthwith!

Happy belated birthday, DP!

Thank you Yeah it was yesterday (2nd May)

Shadowspite wrote:I do worry about the scale of any new elf models GW do now, though. An orc army looks fine with orcs of different sizes - e.g. the new Ironjawz alongside older common orc models. But the scale difference between the old metal witch elves and the newer plastic ones is already at the edge of what looks OK when they're grouped together in one unit (I joke that all the shorter metal witches in my army are wearing high heels to try and compensate, while their taller plastic sisters don't need them). Unlike orcs, there's no fluff justification for elves to be of noticeably different scales within the same army. If the scale difference is more noticeable than with the witches, that's going to be a problem.

Yeah agreed entirely - the Hellebron miniature from the Cauldron of Blood kit measures 32mm from the base to her eyes, rather than the 28mm for the older witches - that's a pretty significant amount of scale creep - If we take 28mm scale to be approximately 1:60, then that 4mm difference amounts to a full-scale deviation of some 240mm (around ten inches taller!). As you point out, this is already on the fringe of what works together with the older minis.

Daeron wrote:So, what Orcs do you like darkprincess?

I quite like the existing plastic orc ranges - they're cool and have lots of options and look really iconic. What I don't like to see in fantasy games are all these models in power armour - if I wanted that nonsense, I'd play 40K, although those Sigmarines might make pretty good Slaaneshi Chaos Warriors with all that gold and extravagance, especially if I painted them in metallic purple It might be tricky to get them on 25mm bases though - I guess I could always convert them so that they're standing with their legs together, but then that's hardly very Slaaneshi, is it?


Let's see what GW do when they release the Druchii Eldar Marines...

Darkprincess wrote:Yeah agreed entirely - the Hellebron miniature from the Cauldron of Blood kit measures 32mm from the base to her eyes, rather than the 28mm for the older witches - that's a pretty significant amount of scale creep - If we take 28mm scale to be approximately 1:60, then that 4mm difference amounts to a full-scale deviation of some 240mm (around ten inches taller!). As you point out, this is already on the fringe of what works together with the older minis.

The size difference can be a bit jaring, agreed. Its one thing when its due to the poses, but say somthing like the slight hight thing can be offputting when compared to other minies. I've had several 40k sucubussess, an old metal Dark Eldar Archon for a Malekeith on foot/chariot, and a currently the raging hero's equivolent for a death hag and both Raging Heros and 40k tend to be a head taller then anything else I have Be it spearmen, Executioners, or corsair.

I quite like the existing plastic orc ranges - they're cool and have lots of options and look really iconic. What I don't like to see in fantasy games are all these models in power armour - if I wanted that nonsense, I'd play 40K,

I think this was my biggest issue with the original pics of this guy on the first page, which admittingly I failed to communicate. Its not that I don't think orcs could do plate armor; that would look fine especially on a black orc. Its that it looks too much like a banged up space marine power armor. My suspense in disbelief is spent on that. And if they take away the giant slingshot of doom, I am really going to be ticked.

although those Sigmarines might make pretty good Slaaneshi Chaos Warriors with all that gold and extravagance, especially if I painted them in metallic purple It might be tricky to get them on 25mm bases though - I guess I could always convert them so that they're standing with their legs together, but then that's hardly very Slaaneshi, is it?

I don't know. My first thoughts were: Which of the design department thought it was a good idea to marithon the Chronicles of Riddick films before designing these guys?

Here, by the way, is the size an orc warlord was always supposed to be, compared to a human (Emperor Karl-Franz in this case):


If anything, the new Orruk Megaboss might not be quite big enough...

Saintofm wrote:I don't know. My first thoughts were: Which of the design department thought it was a good idea to marithon the Chronicles of Riddick films before designing these guys?

Ehm... The Stormcast seem Art-Deco actually, and a lot of their azyr art as well. I assume the designers have studied art-history or something. Here's a few Art Deco examples:






Check the building art:


And compare this to:


I've been interested in studying art a little more since AoS launched

I love some art deco design...but for the Stormcast stuff it does get a little lost among all the traditional plate armour (and probably not enough contrast on the metallic art deco sunbursts).

I put all my thoughts on it in a video... or rather, the patterns I discovered.

Is it just me or is every time hey say this army's name they think of the ancestor of all cows, the Aurochs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs