I once thought I'll try a large model, it's going to be easier since it's larger... until I realized it's the same level of detail just so much more of it!
Oh for sure-- I find working with large scenery to be fine but the second I take the brush to a larger Creature model or humanoid sort of figure, it's like I forget how to paint. I feel like I got cocky because I used to paint big Planes and stuff from Airfix and Revell. But I took my brush to a non-vehicle/terrain model and realised it was a waaaaaay different ballpark. I'd definitely try again though.
Whilst I personally love building and painting larger models the timely advice of "Do you really want that model or are you just being sucked in by the marketing?".
I just like to collect and paint. I will buy a mini because I like the way it looks and will never play it in a game. That being said, not a huge fan of the big miniatures because I could paint 20+ models for the time it would take for 1 big mini.
I suffer from this in that i get hooked in by marketing and the artwork/hype up . end up getting a model and get bored with it so sell it usually, probably only biggest things i finished were my 4 chaos knights and my 2 converted/kitbashed morka/gorkanaut .. knights very easy to build and easy to paint but some of the new big stuff looks so complex ... currently been selling off 70% of my GW armies to just focus on necrons/deathguard and my chaos knights .... think i am going to take a break from warhammer though and looking to get into battletech (3d printing my mechs i need ) and i want to start playing burrows and badgers which looks incredible fun skirmish game
I'm with you, Uncle Atom. Mostly for the practicality (travel, storage, handling), but also because of the direction of the narrative. Back in whfb 7th, the game had a very "struggle of the little guy"-feeling. Now we're quickly approaching "battle of the Gods!"-territory, and that just doesn't appeal to me, or a lot of guys I know. So skirmish games, yay!
This is a big problem in AoS. The trend (seems to me) has been away from *you construct and command your army* (very much how I remember WHFB) towards *you slightly customise the preset army* . It's the MOBA system that they seem to have adapted to the tabletop. I know this is only a half truth, but the proliferation of unique characters, 'god monsters', armies with limited unit choices, monopose models, and unbalanced rule writing (internally and externally)... it just grates on me. I'm sick of seeing the same models, looking identical too each other, in the same armies, featuring the same unique characters, with the same "faction terrain" piece. I don't want to play against 'the build' of an army, I want to play against 'your army'. I hate how frequently someone asks me why I don't have -this- model in my army. I shouldn't have to include the same 3 units that make a faction work to be able to play a vaugely competitive game. /rant
@@seanocd Good Mighty Gods, you hit the nail on the head! MOBA style! This is what I hate about the new Warhammer, be it 40k or AoS. Three of us have three vastly differing death army fluffs. My fluff is about a crazy, paranoid, mildly ocd-ed necromancer on a quest to revive his dead father so that he can verify his claim to the throne. One of my friend want to relive a Dragonlance story, so he made up a death knight who made a pact with Nagash to help him get his dead lover back in exchange for servitude and control over a territory. My other friend have this army about a band of knights of the realm, led by an heir to abovementioned throne, but named a murderer of his father, now a plaything of the oldest vampire/halfgod of the realm. All three are Death armies. However, we really struggle to keep to the fluff during army building... Either there is no valid choice for whatever we want to field or if there is, we kick ourselves in the nut, followed by tying our hands back, if we do. What I am getting at: in AoS you have the freedom of choice which incidentally is the same as being free to be stupid. Yes, I am exeggarating.
@@jake53105 "monopose figures are the death of AoS and 40K" he said, at a time when those games are more successful and have larger playerbases than ever.
I prefer painting the big models. They tend to have larger surface area which lets me have more room to experiment with the transitions between layering, and I would rather paint one big unique looking thing instead of 30 small almost identical things. I tend to turn my brain off and just batch paint when it's a lot of small models, and that leads me to stop experimenting or even have fun, ends up feeling more like work than creativity. In fact, big models are usually so many points that I can build an army out of like, 3 battleline troops and then 4 big cool models - lets me play Age of Sigmar almost like it's a skirmish game lol
I'm the opposite I could paint night gobos for years and never get board , though I admit I did have a lot of fun with my Trogg Hag and mangler squigs.
@@josephskiles I think it's good to have variety. I really enjoyed painting Zarbag's Gitz as my first taste of Gloomspite, but then I'm also working on a Great Unclean One and that is just an absolute treat to paint. There's room for both.
@@MrStath1986 yeah I think Zarbags was the best paint job I've done yet. I agree variety it great but for some reason I love painting those little guys
I've kind of liked both, and tend to work in smaller batches with a lot of armies even if most of them are similar. I've been working on a Dragon Rampant force that will, probably, double for Oathmark if I decide to do more cavalry due to the basing I was using. It's mainly using the Reaper Anhurian forces with other things mixed in along with some conversions (One major one is using weapon swaps to trade the cavalry's lances for spears which I think look better along with creating a command group). A couple big models mixed into the force and switching between unit types with smaller groupings of them to split it up even if most of the troops are very similar to each other, but if I get bored of spearmen, archers are easy enough...or some of the other things for it such as the scorpion ballistae that I've converted (Rather simple conversion by removing the drum and sticks from the drummer in the Anhurian command pack and some minor work using the WizKids small ballistas to have them operating them). You can also mix things in to units with games like that to work as a rank and file while being different enough such as my cavalry force has a large dog (Reaper's Garr) that is basically just treated as another member of the unit. And having monsters as an option to mix in if I want to...while I have a dragon that I've been using, it's a bit small and is more of a temporary use of a mini I got for D&D.
I’ve enjoyed building and painting the big models, I have 40K Chaos Knights, but it’s starting to feel like the big models are becoming the rule. It’s why my Age of Sigmar Skaven army is mostly Rat Swarms that are basically base decoration
I think that we always underestimate the collector and painter market for “miniatures” and these big centrepiece models are a huge seller to those markets
They come out with a ton of new infantry stuff all the time. Each army has a centerpiece model, and they are almost never auto includes. They are for fun. You do not need them.
@@MrStath1986 Nagash is a funny one to point out, given that he can only be played in massive games due to points limitations and is widely-regarded as simply not worth his points cost.
Just started to collect AoS army, and I feel the same. I will make more smaller armies and have more troops. i will probably not win often, but i will play on my terms.
It honestly makes me nostalgic for the older releases from companies like Games Workshop, I don't need or want every single thing to be so big or grandiose. A centerpiece model like Archaeon or the Glotkin sure, but it seems like almost every model now needs to be big or stuffed with so much detail its exhausting
The primary focus for Tamiya models is to build and display them so they look as accurate as possible. Models for wargaming do not require or need quite that level of detail or steps to build because their main focus is to get them onto the battlefield and start playing.
For me looking at these huge models, I think besides painting them that storage and transport is even more of a headache. I have no idea how I would store something like Kroak and get him to a gaming club safely
Plastic bin with a metal sheet at the bottom, then just place a few magnets under the base. It's how I have been transporting the eidolon, kroak, etc with no issues.
What I really want from V&B, is the ability to answer the "what if?" questions. Like, "What if Napoleon had won at waterloo?" or "what if Poland-Lithuania had survived up to the rise of Napoleon?"
I hecking love Big models. Love how imposing they look, and I love spending weeks painting them. Painting 35 of the same troop bores me to death. I think it comes from my love for building gundam kits and model kits. The diorama heroes are super cool also.
I feel this as someone who has some tanks on the bench right now being painted, it's painful sometimes but an airbrush helped a lot, but it can really hurt your motivation when it takes weeks or months to finish a project
I feel you, just finshed painting a large building. It took me about four days of painting to finish, and when painting the last few areas, I couldn't be fucked to put more than the necessary amount of effort into it. I will say, that an airbrush would have helped a lot for the patina and base coating (which i sponged on), so I could put more effort into the details and battle damage.
@@Ben-fk9ey I will get a few eventually but the main reason for me being a slow painter is tough work at a hardware store and gym. Those two get me beat quite often. I have seen the magic contrast paint can do though, brilliant stuff
It's great to see a you mentioning The Other Side! It's a fantastic game. In fact rules-wise it's probably the best 6x4 wargame I've ever played, and it deserves more coverage. Besides, what's not to love about a steampunk British Empire fighting fish-men from another dimension?
Yeah, the artwork looked really cool. But that miniature? Those gaps are rough :( I recently built a lot of models for the boardgame Shadows of Brimstone and thought they fit badly. But that fish monster is even worse :/
@@nick67430 Yeah it is pretty bad. The problem with pre-assembled minatures is that sometimes they aren't assembled to the highest standard. I've personally had no problems with mine but I've heard of a few folks who have had these issues. It's easily fixed by putting the mini in the freezer to destroy the glue and then re-assembling it properly but I agree that does defeat the purpose of buying pre-assembled minis. The gameplay more than makes up for it though. I've never seen factions with such wildly different mechanics balanced so well.
You neglected to mention Karl Franz, or how he's now called, "Freeguild General on Griffon," the original big leader model. But the thing is, he led the largest empire of men, and he was just a little dude on a big winged lion. But Karl Franz was just one surplus model in a massive roster of spearmen, archers, handgunners, tanks, elite warriors, commanders, wizards, cannons, and siege weaponry. He wasn't the focus of the army, he was an addon that they made because he's a person in the lore, and you can even build him as a wizard lord or a normal empire lord. And there are quite a few similar models, like the vampire lords on the big bone horses. I think the big models I really don't like are the gods and that sort of stuff. Nagash is just a weird, unecessary model, and his pose is super odd. He could've been way smaller. Maybe just a bit bigger than the resident large boys (Stormcast Eternals,) like the size of those new chunky eternals with the big hammers and literal shield faces. Just because he's a god doesn't mean he needs to be massive, he just needs to be impressive and powerful. I feel like the diorama type models are actually great, they're really just an excuse to make a cool ass diorama and sell it, and I like that. I feel like the bonereapers are what the other new armies should be. They have cavalry, infantry, siege weapons, elites, wizards, and commanders. They have a full roster that gives you options.
That's actually how I got into Age of Sigmar, actually. I was painting a bunch of little minis and got tired of the tiny details. So I went to Seraphon/ Lizardmen, and the Bastilladon was a pleasure to build and paint. Great fun, easy. Also fun in game, because dinosaur with laser, come on! Further though, Lord Kroak's old model was $50 and medium sized, but they wanted to increase his presence. So they made this giant display piece for $115. The actual Kroak on the throne went up maybe 10% in size, but the assembly became large, intricate and more expensive. He is cool, I do have him, I do play him, but he is also more than he needs to be in Presence. The newer models from GW are more intricate and detailed, and assembly is more interwoven and overlapping. They don't seem to be building them with "someone's going to build this" in mind. The old Stegadon, or Carnosaur, or Bastilladon, they are made very easy to build in sub assemblies. The howdah on the Stegadon literally snaps in once you're done painting and want it on the body.Kroak could be built off his throne, but the skink attendant, his leg was part of the stonework piece and it's just silly. Same with the bat centaur vampires, Vengorian Lords. Their claws could easily have been molded separate from the stonework, but they're instead split up so you HAVE to built it on the stupid column and trim off pieces of stonework to modify. It makes no sense.
The big armies and models are what scared me away from Warhammer Fantasy in the late 90s/early 00s. I fell in love with the sneaky creepy Skaven, but to field a worthwhile army you had to buy and paint a bunch of models just to meet the minimum unit sizes, plus all their war machines were big and expensive. More recently I've gotten back into it with figure agnostic skirmish games, and that is so much less pressure
Doing my first Mega Gargant took me over 2 months. Staying motivated for this long is pretty hard, but I love seeing it on the table. The gaps though are really the worst part about big models. Also, the big models only really look impressive on the table, if there are regular sized miniatures around it. You're not that big, if everyone is just as big as you...
There are a number of pros and cons for the larger minis - less units to have to maneuver around the battlefield is one benefit, but I feel like the larger models generally just serve as a bullet sponge threat-beast that survives through turn one , if lucky. Large models like the knights could be employed in some cool home-brew kill team co-op scenarios, too. I'll admit it took me a long time to finish sub-assembling/painting/building my 2000 points of chaos knights back in 8th, but when they were all done after a painting session that lasted until 4 a.m. the night before a tourney, I was beaming when they were on the table. Different tastes though, and different experiences to be had with both sizes though, I think, and they can all have their potential various uses. Good food for thought though, Uncle Atom! (I've got my sights set on Kill Team 2021 and am hoping it knocks it out of the park. Can't wait to peep Death Guard sheets :D )
Over the years I have collected a big AoS Slaves to Darkness army and it can be both a glorious and satisfying sight when Archaon leads a 3000 points army into battle, but that seldom happens. Most of the time Archaon sits as a display piece in my cabinet and most of the time i play battles with a smaller selection of my StD army. It's nice to be able to change the selection of your army for different battles and i find it very rewarding to have Archaon as a centre piece and fictional general of my army. Besides this you only need one (or two) big models per army so i don't think it's a big deal ;-)
I understand what you are getting at here. I remember painting Ghaz in sub-assembly and thinking, 'man each of his arms is a normal model, there's a small sized squad here!'
I like some big dudes. It's something different to paint. It's a Challenge. But I don't Like having to paint 5 big dudes for an Army and then still have to paint lot's of little dudes.
I had bought a big ol honking Forgeworld model (Taunar) as a passion project, and it was hard to get motivated to start on it. It was daunting the thought of "what if i screw up??" And I did, one of the pieces broke because i dropped it. And that really put a damper on my drive, but i thought about it for a few months, and decided, that even with that accidental break, i want this to be my center piecw still. So long story short, i have it all in sub assemblies now, gaps filled with greenstuff, and am waiting for the right day off work to prime it up and begin the long haul of final paint and assembly
I enjoy painting the larger models, but then most of my 'armies' are painting projects anyway, as I don't really get a lot of chances to game even without the pandemic. I think what actually gets to me is the newer, smaller models with incredibly intricate detail, often accompanied by absolutely gorgeous examples in the book or box art, that just make me wonder 'why bother' sometimes.
As I was watching this video all I could think of was when I got my Ork Wazbom Blastajet primed and put it on my hobby space beside the 3/4 done Mangler Squig that had intimidated me out of completing them, which was beside the 3/4 Lord of change which had intimidated me out of completing him. I can't believe I never noticed this cycle.
The last 10% of a project is always the hardest, I find. No matter the size, it seems daunting to do the parts that need the most attention (that last detail). I almost had this with a Loonboss on Cave Squig I was just painting; felt like setting him aside and doing something else, but pushing through wasn't too bad. Little fiddly details, yes, but didn't take that long on the whole.
The big minis are so satisfying when they are done but are a complete nightmare to store and transport. They also usually end up being a bit meh on the tabletop. Also the cost is madness.
@@HydratedBeans but at least the super star destroyer is supposed to be big. I just find that gw are dipping again, focused on massive minis but write crap rules for them.
Okay here is the thing: Unlike Uncle Atom I love "BIG". Both large scale games and large models. I used to play a whole bunch of 10.000 - 20.000 points games in 40k back in 3rd and 4th edition, I really enjoyed that games. Took a whole weekend and an infinite amount of preperation to organize those games, and nowadays I don't even know enough people to actually play a game of that proportion anymore. Uncle Atom is absolutely right: My favourite model ever is the GW Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon for AoS (I believe that model existed back in Warhammer Fantasy as well). I love it. But I'm scared to hell and back by this model, and I'm not even kidding. But just in my latest hobby session I finally started painting that guy. At least the armour of the Vampire. And it feels so good to overcome such fear. I think when I finally finish that model somehow it will have made a better hobbyist.
I was already having a problem with this when it started happening in 8th edition fantasy. I like infantrymen, cavalry, maybe the odd monster (or vehicle depending on the game.) It shifts the scale into something I don't find believable (Yes I know they are all fantasy games, but still) and not really enjoyable. But even more importantly, each big model makes each other big model less special. Big models would be really scary because they were so sparse. If they are everywhere... Well it kind of just makes them... meh. The Detail creep that you mention also just makes it painful to paint these and to be honest I don't like detail creep in my infantry either. Call me moderately old fashioned, but the models made by GW around 6-7th edition fantasy and 3-5th edition 40k were the best balanced in terms of availability and detail (More detail often doesn't even look better to my eyes).
I completely agree with you. Less detail allows for more mistakes when batch painting. If you take the new kruleboyz, they are a pain to batch paint when compared to the ardboys. Also, being monopose doesn't help but that's another issue entirely
Yeah, the big guys are getting common and therefor less special and less intimidating. With AoS it got from grimdark low fantasy to chromeplated high fantasy. Everything it bright and colourfull and magical and BOMBASTIC and EXTRAORDINARE and so much over the top... blerk! 🤢🤮 give me Oldhammer with common guys struggling agains other common guys. And then give me one mighty general like a high lord or a king or mighty necromancer king on a beast. Or maybe ONE steamtank or deathroller. Make it being something special!
"afraid to put it together" ... that definitely was the case for me with Mortarion. It sat for well over a year before I finally devoted a week to assembly and painting. The final result looked great, but I can only do those once in a while. The daunting factor in doing the big models is real!
I think it's more about copyright. Big diorama models that are a scene are super hard to proxy, and easy to sue people over. This is GW hedging against 3d printing.
The Stormlord was the largest model I’ve painted. Bought it used, stripped it down and painted it up in around 6-7 hours. Lot of dry brushing, big brushes and then picking out details was pretty satisfying. I know the tanks aren’t like some of these monsters and diaromas but I think I got it to a decent standard. But yeah I’d never paint triumph of St Katherine but Belakor would be fun just doesn’t fit with my Alpha Legion. www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1113864-Stormlord%20%28top%29.html?m=2 There’s a few photos in the gallery there
Adam, I really do love your content, I do. But I have to say I am getting a little tired of the whole, "Awww shucks I could never paint something that big" or "Ohhh, I could never paint an army with so many models." Skirmish games are a great way to get into wargaming with fewer models sure. But even skirmish games require you to paint probably at least 20 models if both sides have ten. And skirmish games still require built and painted 3D terrain. The Awww shucks mentality to me reeks of shortcuts: paint as few models as possible, spray zenithal and then use as many shortcut techniques and then use books and coffee cups for terrain, and it's all good supposedly. I get that there are lots of reasons people simply can't paint lots of models - time, logistics, storage, etc. But the constant subtle Awww shucks stuff is getting old. I have been painting for twenty years and I finally wanted to challenge myself and paint something large with lots of flesh on it, because it intimidates me to death. I PURPOSELY picked a Sons of Behemat Giant. A model that I didn't think I could ever paint. Because I wanted to get to a new level. So I carefully followed WH TV's own tutorial, methodically and step by step. And the giant came out amazing, people tell me it looks as good as the stuff the GW studio paints. I just can't see anybody who watches your channel challenging themselves that way. They would listen to you and hear the all the reasons you can't do something outside your comfort zone rather than the reasons you could and should. Also, I got into historical and bought their new Epic Battles Civil War. It's 15mm and the starter comes with three THOUSAND individual models. I mean, never mind the "massive amount" of models in a 150 model dwarf or orc army. This is literally three thousand little guys in blue and gray uniforms. It is assembly line painting on steroids. You can't paint five models for historicals. You decide to either paint entire armies of hundreds of models or you don't. In the end, you get what you put into it. If you want to see two massive fantasy or Civil War armies on a tabletop and enjoy the epic aesthetic of it, you simply choose to do it because you want to. I really don't care for this whole, ohhhh well I can't do anything big or grand so I'll just paint five models and settle for that. Nonsense. Like anything else you want that seems impossible at first, you either decide to do it or you don't.
Yeah, many of the points in this video are just invalidated (as being recent developments) by like... 3rd Edition. Got monoliths, land raiders, raiders? you're not even doubling the size going from a monolith to a knight. The fishman gaps has little to do with the size of the model, and more to do with design/manufacturing/assembly. Try putting a normal harlequin (or any small spindly) army in a case without pieces snapping. Overall, I think if this was presented in a "how big do you want to go, let's look at some solutions" rather than "hey, LOOK OUT for all these GOTCHAS!" I'd have liked the video more. I mean, one enormous benefit of games with big models is they certainly finish faster, one way or another. It's definitely no fun having a well-painted Baneblade blown off the table before you even get to move it, either, so I mean that's a thing. Shoving a giant diorama through terrain.... I get that. There's no counter-argument there :)
When the Sons of Behemat came out, I fell in love with the idea of making an army of guys the size of action figures. I didn’t go for the official models because my budget was just a little over half of 1 Mega Gargant. I dipped my toes in with a Mantic Giant. I found it to be super fun to paint even though I got the paint mixing wrong and instead of painting him like an Uruk Kai I made him look like Hell Boy. I liked that I could see the detail and didn’t need to squint to know what to paint. That said, after doing a full army of 3 Megas and 3 regular Gargants (wiz kids hill giants), I was happy to go back to the small stuff. I think doing the big stuff helped make me a better painter.
Another issue with large models is that most game systems have a "sweet spot" that they're primarily designed around, and for most wargames that's typically unit on unit combat with light and medium tank/monster support. Superheavy units tend to break the scaling of the game, and are typically written with truly absurd statlines to compensate for the amount of aggro they're going to generate. When you reach the point that a model is so big and so intimidating that everything on the other side of the table is going to exclusively shoot at it, you can't assign it a balanced points cost - either it's going to go first, and annihilate swathes of things with its overpowered attacks, or it's going to die and achieve nothing. Rarely is there a middle ground.
I've been on a tank painting spree and recently got back to troops. I can't believe I paint such small things. 😂 I have adjusted again though. I appreciate the occasional large model. Moderation is really key.
Yeah sub assembly is basically mandatory on the diorama models, I do enjoy painting them because they tell even more of a story than single models, though I wouldn't want to do it more than once, because it's the same story. lol I think some of the "lead" units for many age of sigmar armies are a little bigger than they need to be, like Nagash or Celestant-Prime.
Games Workshop killed my interest in their games BECAUSE of those Big models! I'm now more into INFINITY (rom Corvus Belli) and I sold all of my unpainted Warhammer stuff. I'm just keepping some stuff for Warcry or Killteam. That's it.
Awe man come on the chaos knights are GREAT! I love the sense of scale u get btwn a squad of csm w a big corrupted knight towering over them. It Looks amazin. They really compliment eachother. I magnetized it even so I can switch the face plates and use all 3. Also got a cockpit kit for it. Was a super fun project. There are also so many cool 3rd party armour kits out there u can customize the knights with..I also enjoy not allways painting minis by breaking it up w a tank or knight then back to minis. I can't see a downside to big models at all man.
Unrelated to the subject matter of this particular video, but just wanted to say I really enjoy your content, Uncle Atom. Found your channel about 2 weeks ago. I listen to your videos all throughout my work day. You seem like a genuinely kind person who knows his stuff.
My first foray into AoS I went with Beastclaw Raiders. I really enjoyed painting Ogors - they're just a tad bigger than Space Marines or the like, but enough to get better at faces. Plus, of course, as they're apparently allergic to shirts you get plenty of practice at painting skin. Then there's those beasties of theirs. I think it was the army I've enjoyed painting the most. A bonus was that I found I actually enjoyed playing army-scale games with fewer, more points-costly models. Naturally, I went onto Gargants and Mega-Gargants! My 40k stuff is more 'normal'. I had no intention of starting a new AoS army, but now there's dragons. I'm feeling the pull.
"Buying the models is the easy part." Amen. Especially during the long pandemic in which buying things provided an instant, but short-lived gratification. Its a lot more fun to love what we already have.
All this video did was inspire me to finish my behemat army. Personally I'll take 1 or 2 big models on the paint table over a hundred little ones. Feels less daunting for my brain plus I feel like I'm making bigger strides (no pun intended) when basing back and forth
Mileage varies. I feel similar to small models. My hobgrots remail unpainted. Tiny models are daunting to me. The details on such small minis makes me second guess everything. The big models are absolutely my favorite. We all come from different places.
I have painted 1 and 3/4 large models. I spent about 40-50 hours on the updated Black Coach, and found it to be quite an enjoyable experience (and I HAAAAATE painting models). But right now, I'm working on The Silent King. I've been working on him since October. There's several degrees of magnitude more detail, and I can't work on it for very long before just being done with painting. I bought a heavy assortment of Necrons when the model came out. I love the army, they've been my favorite for a very long time. Most of them are still on sprue because working on The Silent King just wore me out.
Fully agree with you. I would add another point: wargame should be "manouvring" armies, not list building. Since the table size remains the same (or, as in aos 3.0 smaller), big monsters, heroes and models with larger bases move the game in a direction where manouvres are almost impossible; I mean you can just fire in the first turn and than with a charge the armies are in melee were dice rolls and the toughest list will probably win. Is it fun? Not at all for me. I am 52, plaing since I was 16. I think this type of games could be funny for a while, but than you want something more "strategic". Huge tanks, monsters and robots are ok for me with smaller scale: < 15 mm. This is my opinion .-)
I think one reason for the big models, is that they can so big models in plastic like no one else in the industry. The other is resin 3D Printing. Your home printer cant do such a big model easy. I find a Ton of alternative print at home models for eldar or imperial guard as well as star wars infantry. But big boys? Rarely
Eh, to each their own. I love the big models. Some of my favorites things I've painted are Imperial Knights. The feeling of satisfaction as I finish armor panels and glue them on. 💙💙💙
Scale creep is making gaming more and more expensive, and thus more socially exclusive. Thus the shift to skirmish gaming with a dozen 28/32mm figures. $/£200 for a model that cannot in anyway be used in a game or on the average 4x4 table is ridiculous. Scale creep is driven by profit not by the necessities of gaming. It is why I am shifting increasingly into 10mm (and yes scale creep is happening here with '12mm' with Warlord and Victrix) and back to 15mm. Armies that look like armies, and you can still use them with skirmish rules: one group base= 1 figure. Suddenly battles look like battles. By the way, if you game 10mm fantasy or Sci-fi you can use 15mm Dragons, giants, drop ships etc if you want really impressive or terrifying creatures and weapons... And they don't take over your gaming table!
Feel this a lot. Had been staring at a repulsor executioner sitting in a box on my shelf for months because it was too daunting to look at. I finally got it built into it's 3 sub assemblies... and it has been sitting grey on the shelf for more months. I've had it for over a year and keep pushing it back since I don't need it until I have 2k army ready... and just much easier to grab a couple infiltrators, intercessors, or devastators and get them done.
I am working through a couple of large minis. They've taken me the best part of 3 months and I'm not finished. It really starts fo drain motivation because you don't see much change session to session.
My Skaven Verminlord is the biggest miniature I have for any of my wargaming armies and I'm perfectly fine with it's size. The bigger models give an epic quality to a battle made up of smaller dudes.
Only been in the miniatures hobby for 2 years or so and every time I try to work on my Tau army I find myself burnt out by the battlesuits. Fire warriors are time consuming just because of the quantity but they don't bother me as much as trying to get one of the larger suits like a Commander or Riptide looking just right. Haven't really messed with them much since last august or so, having focused most of my miniature painting time on a Clone Army for Star Wars Legion. The move to 9th edition kind of killed my enthusiasm for 40k a bit. Took everything I learned painting the Tau and used it on my clones, and love how they come out. It does make me want to go back and finish my Tau knowing my skills have improved so much from my early models. Maybe when they announce the Tau Codex or a new Tau model I'll feel the drive to finish it. Until then it'll be a model here or there.
I'm also not a fan of big models or armies. I don't play table top as I would like to but I am a commission painter and I never accept big huge models or armies. The only way I'll do a big army is if they are all different and I can paint each character differently than the last
I spent almost 6 weeks painting a Stardrake and I love how it looks and plays. The thing is, I know know how long it takes to build and paint something of that scale. I won't be painting anything of that scale again in a hurry, put it that way🤗
I'm a big fan of them. I think they represent a good end-goal for hobbyists to work towards, and they provide an option for players who prefer low model counts. A centerpiece model can also really tie an army together and make an army better than the sum of its parts. Their presence in the game is not a bad thing at all. If you don't like them, which is fine, don't buy them. But their existence does not merit discussion on what they mean for the future of the hobby. Giving players choice is good, and many of the models being released these days are so rich in detail the idea that you want to paint miniatures, not large models doesn't hold water when you have so many miniature details you can hone your skills on. Not only that, having a large model that you paint gives you a chance to develop skills that might be a bit harder to practise on smaller scale. Edit: I'd like to add that being afraid of painting them, or not assembling them because you're worried you will make a mistake during assembly, is a psychological issue with the hobbyist, not the models themselves. Rather than concern ourselves with the projects that pose these psychological issues, we should be focusing on the psychological issues posed by these projects and recognise that these are normal responses and important steps in everyones journey. There are gaps in your models? There's a chance to learn how to seal them. You're worried you will build it wrong? You should recognise the value in reading instructions carefully, or try out some dry-fitting techniques. If the concerns related in this video are true for some people, then the problem resides in the psyche of the hobbyist, and not with the models themselves. And that's okay! But complaining about them isn't constructive. It's not them, it's you.
John and I fight about this on Legends of The Painty Men a lot. I love big centerpiece models, he hates them and wants just your standard miniature troops. Now, having said I love big centerpiece models, I will say this: I only love them once. I have every different iteration of the cauldron of blood from the early 90’s to today because after I sub assemblied and painted the newest version the idea of having to do that 3 more times was a total non-starter for me and so I went back and touched up my old models just to avoid that hassle again. The same thing happened with my KO army. After building and customizing the buns off my frigate I could not face putting together the Ironclad.
I bought a Broadside and a Riptide a year ago. It took me about a week or so to assemble the Broadside because of all the small parts which created ~100 gaps to fill. After that experience the Riptide still sits on top of a shelf in its unopened box.
Not to mention the size creep. Bigger is better right? "Man... What scale are we doing again?" "28mm." "Okay... So... This guy is... 4 meter tall." "Well, he is a big bloke." "Okay. But what about the new robot we put out to update the robot that was supposedly a derivative of the one we just made?" "Isn't it georgeous?" "Yea, it is. Do you see them beside each other? The old model is supposed to be 6 meter tall. This one is 9." "You are right. We'll release another one later that is bigger." Yea, I don't buy it. Since I have a printer now, I might as well decide the scale for myself at this stage.
I have Verminlord, Terrorgheist and Zombie Dragon And I havent touched either for a year. Especially Verminlord. The models is so huge and beautiful Im always afraid ill ruin it. And if you paint large model badly... Well. IT SHOWS.
I've asked for it for my birthday. It'll probably take me all year to finish (and I don't think I'm going to work on it non stop) but I've really wanted to paint one of these for a long time.
I just painted a Warhammer Giant/Gargant and it was my favourite model I've ever painted. Also the fastest I've ever painted, managed to do everything but highlights and the base in a single day. I don't know if I'd like anything bigger than that, though. Next big model I'm painting at some point is a Stonehorn for my AoS Mawtribes, which I think I'll have some fun with as well, because I love painting fur, and it's the first BIG hero model for me, so I'll really take my time with it.
I've painted a whole bunch of greater daemons so I actually have a hard time with smaller models. I find it harder to get at the finer details in a smaller model.
The thing I love about miniatures is that they allow for more dramatic to-scale stuff in the range. Putting a person next to a giant or a dragon, or a crew next to a tank, is just really interesting to me. I've been working on a Death Korps of Krieg army and having everything from squads of infantry to a Gorgon or a Bane Blade makes for a really visually diverse army, and I love it. But I am a painter/collector first and a gamer second. Then again, I'm not a big fan of skirmish teams. I've done a few and yeah, I can finish them all in a couple of weeks, but I was originally drawn to table top gaming by Warhammer Fantasy. Something about seeing those huge armies in formation really spoke to me. Yes, it's a huge investment in money and time, but I find it much more rewarding to see a large army come together with a large variety of sized models than I do with skirmish teams. As you say, there is no one way to do this hobby, and I'm glad there is such a wide variety of play styles and model options for every type of hobbyist and player.
I recently purchased the AOS Be'lakor. Not the new large one, I found someone with old stock and got the small version. I don't want a model so big I'm afraid to leave the house with it or just get it off the shelf.
I love bigger models! Its so much more fun and easy to paint a tree monster like Spirit of Durthu compared to painting 40 small dryads over and over again… But yes storing and transporting them kinda sucks.
I can see your point to an extent. Big models are really quite daunting projects. I was pretty scared of painting my flying Hive Tyrant, but once it’s done, it’s the best I’ve felt about a model I’ve painted. I’ve come back to 40k in my 30s having played in my early teens and even back then I remember the big centre piece models, like the old bloodthirster, being something I aspired to own and paint and I think that’s pretty much stuck with me. I love big models now and think it’s all part of the spectacle and painting challenge. Really interesting take mate - got me thinking.
Some of us don't even play the games. We just paint and display them in set dioramas. I put mine in fishtanks with fake grass and air plants for decor. You can get a 5 or 10 gallon tank cheap or free, throw some dirt inside and fill it out for a virtual battlefield with cheap MDF buildings for terrain.
My favorite GW sculpts of the last decade are all small. The traitor guard out of the BSF box are among my favorites, I feel like they tell a story with minimum detail creep. When there is too much model, it’s more difficult to tell a unique story with it in my opinion.
Meanwhile, your standard person-sized troops have been sat around looking the same since the 90s in a few cases! I was so excited to see new Ork boyz recently.
@@odeegrotsniffer4166 I mean, each to their own but I think the Saurus and Kroxigor are some of the most commonly cited on lists of "ugly old models that need updating" alongside the Khorne Beserkers
Totally agree with your sentiment. When every big model is a now a showcase/diorama/center piece it becomes daunting. To take them anywhere, even make them & paint them takes so long you have no time for the "army" to accompany it. To say nothing of the cost of them, you have to decide one big "cool" looking model or x many unit choices that could work for several things.
about 1,5 years ago I impulse bought alarielle the everqueen. I had a quite okay time building the kit and then felt almost scared to start painting. about 4 months ago I started painting her in a train of thought like; well, something might end up ugly, but I could always prime the model and try again and ended up having a great time painting the model. we're in the hobby for fun, never forget that. many thanks for the helpful tips uncle Adam!
One of my all-time favourite big models was a boss ork on a wyvern, the thing about it was that it was almost entirely cast in metal (I think the wings were plastic) so it had a lot of table presence, it felt like it was worth the money and the points cost, and worth the effort of painting well. Plastic just doesn't have the same feel for me, I know the plastic and actual production cost pence, and these days I'm not sure how much expense there would have been in the design process with modern technologies and methods. The collector in me would much rather spend the time and money on one of those old metal models than the newer stuff, although the plastic material probably lends itself better to 40k in terms of flat panels and the like which were sometimes a bit hit and miss with metal.
This is what drew me to the dark eldar range, the archon/succubons/haemonculus and leaders are small and not all that over the top. Sure there's the raiders and vehicles, but they still aren't that bad. The models I enjoy painting the most are necromunda minis, also blood bowl.
My first foray into big models was/is (still painting) Be'lakor, but he was a gift from my gaming group. It is definitely daunting, but at the same time I feel less cramped working on him as well since he's easy to maneuver (as long as you deal with the base, body and wings separately).
Travel and storage are such a challenge with these massive models. I don't mind the painting and modeling, but I use magnetic storage solutions and nobody makes boxes that are 9" deep to fit my Silent King, so now I have to figure out a completely different way to store it
I agree with this - they're "miniatures" - they're supposed to be small! But more seriously. I've been playing Warhammer way back since Warhammer Fantasy in the early 90's and they were just starting to get into bigger models, but they were limited by the medium - you could only make pewter models so big before they were too heavy and just didn't hold together. Even with that, the problem with the game was that the biggest model was always the winner - as others said, it became "battle of the gods." I was always more interested in the soldiers - and IMO armies should mostly be made of the rank-and-file soldiers. So, I don't think it makes sense from a narrative perspective, nor from a game perspective.
I disagree with some of your points; i hate the "diorama" style units but the big knights and dragons are most welcome IMO. In my teens my Malekith was so awesome but a bastard to carry around being a massive metal dragon, the plastic versions are built much better in comparison to the metal minis of old, they really do break far less lol. Loved your take as always, cheers :)
Im the oposite. I started with Sisters and I run a ton of bodies, so maybe I want a few models and 2-3 big boys as center piece to my games. Might start with something like that for AoS
I oddly enjoyed making the terrorgist from age of sigma, even though I glued the rib cage the wrong way round. Messed the wings up so had to sculp new wing joints. Looks weird but I love it. I quite like the problem solving.
I recently completed my little warband I called the Half-nificent Seven, seven 25mm scale Halflings, and people laughed at me, but then saw just how much fun I was having just using them to harass their big figures. So now we at the club I game at have reverted to skirmish level gaming, and the hobby has become FUN again, not just a big push to field the biggest models we can find in the games to pit against each other (Mostly un-painted, because keeping the motivation going to paint huge figures is hard, even during lock-down here in Ireland), and it's MUCH cheaper, too :-). I created my own wargame system/game, as we all wanted something that wasn't GW produced, and that we could have fun collecting and making things for ourselves, so now we're having amazing nights where all we do is sit and paint/build figures/vehicles/terrain for the new game, and make up silly rules and scenarios, and no-one gets left feeling they have to conform to a certain Codex or whatever. We just have fun making 25 mm figures/scenery, and being around each other again, doing our own thing and laughing all night long. Our club is now the only "BIG" thing about our games/model making hobby, and everyone is happy again, which is the most important thing, we feel, as if you're not happy with the hobby/your gaming friends, you may not stay in it after a while.
I just finished painting Be'lakor and I really liked the experience of painting such a big and awesome model. But then again, I don't have a demon army that I would play him with. I can't imagine having him on my painting table for a couple of weeks and not being able to play with him because I have to paint in sub assemblies. That would be frustrating as hell. Forget about transporting him, he's just going on a display shelf!
I think, GW should make the larger models with painting in subassemblies in mind. For example, maybe it even tells you in the instructions, build this, this and this, keep them separate while you paint. Maybe they could have some kind of plastic nub that a tool fits so you can hold it easier that gets hidden once its glued. Or, even, have it so that the sub assemblies never glue, and can always be taken apart for easy transportation.
I strongly agree. Models bigger then Redemptor are reall pain for me to transport, since I go 1h in train... Something like my beloved terrorgheist are too big to transport well in my boxes... And with details, I think my upper limit oftolerance is 5 cavalery models.. Bigger things or in bigger amount just get to long of a work and tire me out.
I love big models. I loved it when they started adding them, and I love them now. They're what make these games stand out, they're awesome centerpieces, I honestly can't get enough of these big models.
I once thought I'll try a large model, it's going to be easier since it's larger... until I realized it's the same level of detail just so much more of it!
I had the same experience in reverse with 15mm miniatures. They almost have the same amount of detail as a 25/28, just smaller.
Oh for sure-- I find working with large scenery to be fine but the second I take the brush to a larger Creature model or humanoid sort of figure, it's like I forget how to paint.
I feel like I got cocky because I used to paint big Planes and stuff from Airfix and Revell. But I took my brush to a non-vehicle/terrain model and realised it was a waaaaaay different ballpark.
I'd definitely try again though.
For some models it's definitely easier. For many it can definitely be harder
one must be very good at small first before trying a larger one. the challenges increases a lot
Whilst I personally love building and painting larger models the timely advice of "Do you really want that model or are you just being sucked in by the marketing?".
This!
It applies to any models being hyped, not just the big ones.
Buy what you need, not what the company tells you you need.
I just like to collect and paint. I will buy a mini because I like the way it looks and will never play it in a game. That being said, not a huge fan of the big miniatures because I could paint 20+ models for the time it would take for 1 big mini.
Applies to a lot of game products and even Steam offerings too!
@@ashley587 I wouldn't but O might not realise that it was just the marketing making me want to buy it.
I suffer from this in that i get hooked in by marketing and the artwork/hype up . end up getting a model and get bored with it so sell it usually, probably only biggest things i finished were my 4 chaos knights and my 2 converted/kitbashed morka/gorkanaut .. knights very easy to build and easy to paint but some of the new big stuff looks so complex ... currently been selling off 70% of my GW armies to just focus on necrons/deathguard and my chaos knights .... think i am going to take a break from warhammer though and looking to get into battletech (3d printing my mechs i need ) and i want to start playing burrows and badgers which looks incredible fun skirmish game
I'm with you, Uncle Atom. Mostly for the practicality (travel, storage, handling), but also because of the direction of the narrative. Back in whfb 7th, the game had a very "struggle of the little guy"-feeling. Now we're quickly approaching "battle of the Gods!"-territory, and that just doesn't appeal to me, or a lot of guys I know. So skirmish games, yay!
This is a big problem in AoS.
The trend (seems to me) has been away from *you construct and command your army* (very much how I remember WHFB) towards *you slightly customise the preset army* . It's the MOBA system that they seem to have adapted to the tabletop.
I know this is only a half truth, but the proliferation of unique characters, 'god monsters', armies with limited unit choices, monopose models, and unbalanced rule writing (internally and externally)... it just grates on me.
I'm sick of seeing the same models, looking identical too each other, in the same armies, featuring the same unique characters, with the same "faction terrain" piece.
I don't want to play against 'the build' of an army, I want to play against 'your army'.
I hate how frequently someone asks me why I don't have -this- model in my army. I shouldn't have to include the same 3 units that make a faction work to be able to play a vaugely competitive game.
/rant
@@seanocd Good Mighty Gods, you hit the nail on the head! MOBA style!
This is what I hate about the new Warhammer, be it 40k or AoS.
Three of us have three vastly differing death army fluffs. My fluff is about a crazy, paranoid, mildly ocd-ed necromancer on a quest to revive his dead father so that he can verify his claim to the throne.
One of my friend want to relive a Dragonlance story, so he made up a death knight who made a pact with Nagash to help him get his dead lover back in exchange for servitude and control over a territory.
My other friend have this army about a band of knights of the realm, led by an heir to abovementioned throne, but named a murderer of his father, now a plaything of the oldest vampire/halfgod of the realm.
All three are Death armies. However, we really struggle to keep to the fluff during army building... Either there is no valid choice for whatever we want to field or if there is, we kick ourselves in the nut, followed by tying our hands back, if we do.
What I am getting at: in AoS you have the freedom of choice which incidentally is the same as being free to be stupid.
Yes, I am exeggarating.
@@seanocd God damn monopose figures are the death of AoS and 40K. They completely gut the ability to tell a story.
@@jake53105 "monopose figures are the death of AoS and 40K" he said, at a time when those games are more successful and have larger playerbases than ever.
@@SadisticBlessings said, oblivious to the point being made.
I prefer painting the big models. They tend to have larger surface area which lets me have more room to experiment with the transitions between layering, and I would rather paint one big unique looking thing instead of 30 small almost identical things. I tend to turn my brain off and just batch paint when it's a lot of small models, and that leads me to stop experimenting or even have fun, ends up feeling more like work than creativity.
In fact, big models are usually so many points that I can build an army out of like, 3 battleline troops and then 4 big cool models - lets me play Age of Sigmar almost like it's a skirmish game lol
This
I'm the opposite I could paint night gobos for years and never get board , though I admit I did have a lot of fun with my Trogg Hag and mangler squigs.
@@josephskiles I think it's good to have variety. I really enjoyed painting Zarbag's Gitz as my first taste of Gloomspite, but then I'm also working on a Great Unclean One and that is just an absolute treat to paint. There's room for both.
@@MrStath1986 yeah I think Zarbags was the best paint job I've done yet. I agree variety it great but for some reason I love painting those little guys
I've kind of liked both, and tend to work in smaller batches with a lot of armies even if most of them are similar.
I've been working on a Dragon Rampant force that will, probably, double for Oathmark if I decide to do more cavalry due to the basing I was using. It's mainly using the Reaper Anhurian forces with other things mixed in along with some conversions (One major one is using weapon swaps to trade the cavalry's lances for spears which I think look better along with creating a command group). A couple big models mixed into the force and switching between unit types with smaller groupings of them to split it up even if most of the troops are very similar to each other, but if I get bored of spearmen, archers are easy enough...or some of the other things for it such as the scorpion ballistae that I've converted (Rather simple conversion by removing the drum and sticks from the drummer in the Anhurian command pack and some minor work using the WizKids small ballistas to have them operating them).
You can also mix things in to units with games like that to work as a rank and file while being different enough such as my cavalry force has a large dog (Reaper's Garr) that is basically just treated as another member of the unit.
And having monsters as an option to mix in if I want to...while I have a dragon that I've been using, it's a bit small and is more of a temporary use of a mini I got for D&D.
I’ve enjoyed building and painting the big models, I have 40K Chaos Knights, but it’s starting to feel like the big models are becoming the rule. It’s why my Age of Sigmar Skaven army is mostly Rat Swarms that are basically base decoration
I think that we always underestimate the collector and painter market for “miniatures” and these big centrepiece models are a huge seller to those markets
It seems like every new aos army has a huge centrepiece model, I just like the troops
It's a trend that started with Nagash. Now everyone needs a 'god' tier model to keep up.
This is honestly what put me off getting into AoS.
They come out with a ton of new infantry stuff all the time. Each army has a centerpiece model, and they are almost never auto includes. They are for fun. You do not need them.
@@MrStath1986 Nagash is a funny one to point out, given that he can only be played in massive games due to points limitations and is widely-regarded as simply not worth his points cost.
Just started to collect AoS army, and I feel the same. I will make more smaller armies and have more troops. i will probably not win often, but i will play on my terms.
It honestly makes me nostalgic for the older releases from companies like Games Workshop, I don't need or want every single thing to be so big or grandiose. A centerpiece model like Archaeon or the Glotkin sure, but it seems like almost every model now needs to be big or stuffed with so much detail its exhausting
I mean, the new krieg models are small and clean with great details without being too busy.
Right. I want small, durable models I can transport without fear.
The primary focus for Tamiya models is to build and display them so they look as accurate as possible. Models for wargaming do not require or need quite that level of detail or steps to build because their main focus is to get them onto the battlefield and start playing.
@@richardmullens4707 yeah I have never seen games workshop that way they have always been the collectible miniature wargame hobby.
@@richardmullens4707 That's how you use them, sure.
A lot of us build and paint to display, and very occasionally play.
For me looking at these huge models, I think besides painting them that storage and transport is even more of a headache. I have no idea how I would store something like Kroak and get him to a gaming club safely
Take an uber and hold it for dear life.
Or something with a seatbelt cuz if you get break checked its going flying
Magnetise as much of the sticky out parts you can to help reduce their volume for transport.
Plastic bin with a metal sheet at the bottom, then just place a few magnets under the base. It's how I have been transporting the eidolon, kroak, etc with no issues.
Use the old metal Kroak?
One of the advantages to playing 15mm warmaster and 10mm napoleonics (Volley&Bayonet)
What site is that? Never heard but im interested where to buy them
What I really want from V&B, is the ability to answer the "what if?" questions. Like, "What if Napoleon had won at waterloo?" or "what if Poland-Lithuania had survived up to the rise of Napoleon?"
Been playing 15 & 20mm Naps for 40+ years. It's great!
Bolt Action is a great game also.
15mm WW2 and 10mm Napoleonic are really good to play. Makes for a different experience from 25/28mm
I hecking love Big models. Love how imposing they look, and I love spending weeks painting them. Painting 35 of the same troop bores me to death. I think it comes from my love for building gundam kits and model kits.
The diorama heroes are super cool also.
If you like dioramas try kings of war and multi basing units
Big models don't look imposing. They look like toys for preschoolers.
I feel this as someone who has some tanks on the bench right now being painted, it's painful sometimes but an airbrush helped a lot, but it can really hurt your motivation when it takes weeks or months to finish a project
I feel you, just finshed painting a large building. It took me about four days of painting to finish, and when painting the last few areas, I couldn't be fucked to put more than the necessary amount of effort into it. I will say, that an airbrush would have helped a lot for the patina and base coating (which i sponged on), so I could put more effort into the details and battle damage.
Ha, it takes weeks or months for me to finish a single infantryman (marine, gor, genestealer etc.). Talk about being a slow painter
I feel your pain! I took awhile to finish my bladeguard
@@sunttu333 Contrast paints could become your best friend!
@@Ben-fk9ey I will get a few eventually but the main reason for me being a slow painter is tough work at a hardware store and gym. Those two get me beat quite often. I have seen the magic contrast paint can do though, brilliant stuff
It's great to see a you mentioning The Other Side! It's a fantastic game. In fact rules-wise it's probably the best 6x4 wargame I've ever played, and it deserves more coverage. Besides, what's not to love about a steampunk British Empire fighting fish-men from another dimension?
Yeah, the artwork looked really cool.
But that miniature? Those gaps are rough :(
I recently built a lot of models for the boardgame Shadows of Brimstone and thought they fit badly. But that fish monster is even worse :/
@@nick67430 Yeah it is pretty bad. The problem with pre-assembled minatures is that sometimes they aren't assembled to the highest standard. I've personally had no problems with mine but I've heard of a few folks who have had these issues. It's easily fixed by putting the mini in the freezer to destroy the glue and then re-assembling it properly but I agree that does defeat the purpose of buying pre-assembled minis. The gameplay more than makes up for it though. I've never seen factions with such wildly different mechanics balanced so well.
You neglected to mention Karl Franz, or how he's now called, "Freeguild General on Griffon," the original big leader model. But the thing is, he led the largest empire of men, and he was just a little dude on a big winged lion. But Karl Franz was just one surplus model in a massive roster of spearmen, archers, handgunners, tanks, elite warriors, commanders, wizards, cannons, and siege weaponry. He wasn't the focus of the army, he was an addon that they made because he's a person in the lore, and you can even build him as a wizard lord or a normal empire lord. And there are quite a few similar models, like the vampire lords on the big bone horses.
I think the big models I really don't like are the gods and that sort of stuff. Nagash is just a weird, unecessary model, and his pose is super odd. He could've been way smaller. Maybe just a bit bigger than the resident large boys (Stormcast Eternals,) like the size of those new chunky eternals with the big hammers and literal shield faces. Just because he's a god doesn't mean he needs to be massive, he just needs to be impressive and powerful.
I feel like the diorama type models are actually great, they're really just an excuse to make a cool ass diorama and sell it, and I like that. I feel like the bonereapers are what the other new armies should be. They have cavalry, infantry, siege weapons, elites, wizards, and commanders. They have a full roster that gives you options.
That's actually how I got into Age of Sigmar, actually. I was painting a bunch of little minis and got tired of the tiny details. So I went to Seraphon/ Lizardmen, and the Bastilladon was a pleasure to build and paint. Great fun, easy. Also fun in game, because dinosaur with laser, come on!
Further though, Lord Kroak's old model was $50 and medium sized, but they wanted to increase his presence. So they made this giant display piece for $115. The actual Kroak on the throne went up maybe 10% in size, but the assembly became large, intricate and more expensive. He is cool, I do have him, I do play him, but he is also more than he needs to be in Presence.
The newer models from GW are more intricate and detailed, and assembly is more interwoven and overlapping. They don't seem to be building them with "someone's going to build this" in mind. The old Stegadon, or Carnosaur, or Bastilladon, they are made very easy to build in sub assemblies. The howdah on the Stegadon literally snaps in once you're done painting and want it on the body.Kroak could be built off his throne, but the skink attendant, his leg was part of the stonework piece and it's just silly.
Same with the bat centaur vampires, Vengorian Lords. Their claws could easily have been molded separate from the stonework, but they're instead split up so you HAVE to built it on the stupid column and trim off pieces of stonework to modify. It makes no sense.
I think the storage and transport are the biggest issues for me and that's why I have only one bigger model for AoS. A chimera.
The big armies and models are what scared me away from Warhammer Fantasy in the late 90s/early 00s. I fell in love with the sneaky creepy Skaven, but to field a worthwhile army you had to buy and paint a bunch of models just to meet the minimum unit sizes, plus all their war machines were big and expensive. More recently I've gotten back into it with figure agnostic skirmish games, and that is so much less pressure
I've been in the hobby since a Greater Daemon on a 40mm square base could be the centrepiece of an army... I do kind of miss that.
Doing my first Mega Gargant took me over 2 months. Staying motivated for this long is pretty hard, but I love seeing it on the table. The gaps though are really the worst part about big models.
Also, the big models only really look impressive on the table, if there are regular sized miniatures around it. You're not that big, if everyone is just as big as you...
I'm nearly 2m tall. When I'm with my friends, I stand out a lot. When I'm with the basketball team, I'm just a regular guy amongst others...
@@Seelenschmiede
Riddle; I am no bigger than a dot, but even giants look up to me. Among peers I mark the end
@@drowningin I would like to say a star, but, I am not sure how that would mark the end. Hmmmm. Good riddle.
@@AndrewFishman stars are huge mate, at least your response was....."punctual"
There are a number of pros and cons for the larger minis - less units to have to maneuver around the battlefield is one benefit, but I feel like the larger models generally just serve as a bullet sponge threat-beast that survives through turn one , if lucky. Large models like the knights could be employed in some cool home-brew kill team co-op scenarios, too. I'll admit it took me a long time to finish sub-assembling/painting/building my 2000 points of chaos knights back in 8th, but when they were all done after a painting session that lasted until 4 a.m. the night before a tourney, I was beaming when they were on the table. Different tastes though, and different experiences to be had with both sizes though, I think, and they can all have their potential various uses. Good food for thought though, Uncle Atom!
(I've got my sights set on Kill Team 2021 and am hoping it knocks it out of the park. Can't wait to peep Death Guard sheets :D )
Over the years I have collected a big AoS Slaves to Darkness army and it can be both a glorious and satisfying sight when Archaon leads a 3000 points army into battle, but that seldom happens. Most of the time Archaon sits as a display piece in my cabinet and most of the time i play battles with a smaller selection of my StD army. It's nice to be able to change the selection of your army for different battles and i find it very rewarding to have Archaon as a centre piece and fictional general of my army. Besides this you only need one (or two) big models per army so i don't think it's a big deal ;-)
I understand what you are getting at here. I remember painting Ghaz in sub-assembly and thinking, 'man each of his arms is a normal model, there's a small sized squad here!'
I like some big dudes. It's something different to paint. It's a Challenge. But I don't Like having to paint 5 big dudes for an Army and then still have to paint lot's of little dudes.
I had bought a big ol honking Forgeworld model (Taunar) as a passion project, and it was hard to get motivated to start on it. It was daunting the thought of "what if i screw up??" And I did, one of the pieces broke because i dropped it. And that really put a damper on my drive, but i thought about it for a few months, and decided, that even with that accidental break, i want this to be my center piecw still. So long story short, i have it all in sub assemblies now, gaps filled with greenstuff, and am waiting for the right day off work to prime it up and begin the long haul of final paint and assembly
I enjoy painting the larger models, but then most of my 'armies' are painting projects anyway, as I don't really get a lot of chances to game even without the pandemic. I think what actually gets to me is the newer, smaller models with incredibly intricate detail, often accompanied by absolutely gorgeous examples in the book or box art, that just make me wonder 'why bother' sometimes.
As I was watching this video all I could think of was when I got my Ork Wazbom Blastajet primed and put it on my hobby space beside the 3/4 done Mangler Squig that had intimidated me out of completing them, which was beside the 3/4 Lord of change which had intimidated me out of completing him. I can't believe I never noticed this cycle.
The last 10% of a project is always the hardest, I find. No matter the size, it seems daunting to do the parts that need the most attention (that last detail). I almost had this with a Loonboss on Cave Squig I was just painting; felt like setting him aside and doing something else, but pushing through wasn't too bad. Little fiddly details, yes, but didn't take that long on the whole.
The big minis are so satisfying when they are done but are a complete nightmare to store and transport. They also usually end up being a bit meh on the tabletop. Also the cost is madness.
That’s how I feel about my Super Star Destroyer. It’s just a huge pain to take to tournaments
@@HydratedBeans but at least the super star destroyer is supposed to be big. I just find that gw are dipping again, focused on massive minis but write crap rules for them.
@@5p3cu10 true, at least the ssd kills things very well
Okay here is the thing: Unlike Uncle Atom I love "BIG". Both large scale games and large models. I used to play a whole bunch of 10.000 - 20.000 points games in 40k back in 3rd and 4th edition, I really enjoyed that games. Took a whole weekend and an infinite amount of preperation to organize those games, and nowadays I don't even know enough people to actually play a game of that proportion anymore.
Uncle Atom is absolutely right: My favourite model ever is the GW Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon for AoS (I believe that model existed back in Warhammer Fantasy as well). I love it. But I'm scared to hell and back by this model, and I'm not even kidding. But just in my latest hobby session I finally started painting that guy. At least the armour of the Vampire. And it feels so good to overcome such fear. I think when I finally finish that model somehow it will have made a better hobbyist.
I was already having a problem with this when it started happening in 8th edition fantasy. I like infantrymen, cavalry, maybe the odd monster (or vehicle depending on the game.) It shifts the scale into something I don't find believable (Yes I know they are all fantasy games, but still) and not really enjoyable.
But even more importantly, each big model makes each other big model less special. Big models would be really scary because they were so sparse. If they are everywhere... Well it kind of just makes them... meh.
The Detail creep that you mention also just makes it painful to paint these and to be honest I don't like detail creep in my infantry either. Call me moderately old fashioned, but the models made by GW around 6-7th edition fantasy and 3-5th edition 40k were the best balanced in terms of availability and detail (More detail often doesn't even look better to my eyes).
I completely agree with you. Less detail allows for more mistakes when batch painting. If you take the new kruleboyz, they are a pain to batch paint when compared to the ardboys. Also, being monopose doesn't help but that's another issue entirely
I KNEW around 8th too, that things are getting big and stupid.
Yeah, the big guys are getting common and therefor less special and less intimidating. With AoS it got from grimdark low fantasy to chromeplated high fantasy. Everything it bright and colourfull and magical and BOMBASTIC and EXTRAORDINARE and so much over the top... blerk! 🤢🤮 give me Oldhammer with common guys struggling agains other common guys. And then give me one mighty general like a high lord or a king or mighty necromancer king on a beast. Or maybe ONE steamtank or deathroller. Make it being something special!
@@Seelenschmiede Exactly this!
"afraid to put it together" ... that definitely was the case for me with Mortarion. It sat for well over a year before I finally devoted a week to assembly and painting. The final result looked great, but I can only do those once in a while. The daunting factor in doing the big models is real!
Bigitures are all about maximising profit, the mark up on them is astronomical.
Yndrasta was a large part of why I bought Dominion, so I could avoid the mark up on her individually.
I think it's more about copyright. Big diorama models that are a scene are super hard to proxy, and easy to sue people over. This is GW hedging against 3d printing.
@@soulcatcher521 I'd say more recasting than 3d printing.
@Bungee Imagine If you could Play 3 archaon so much Money for 3 Models lul
90mm ovals or 80mm round bases (60mms work too) are the sweet spot for me. Not too big, but still stand out and make cool centerpiece units.
I am at the same as you, anything over 80mm just seems way to big
The Stormlord was the largest model I’ve painted. Bought it used, stripped it down and painted it up in around 6-7 hours. Lot of dry brushing, big brushes and then picking out details was pretty satisfying. I know the tanks aren’t like some of these monsters and diaromas but I think I got it to a decent standard. But yeah I’d never paint triumph of St Katherine but Belakor would be fun just doesn’t fit with my Alpha Legion.
www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1113864-Stormlord%20%28top%29.html?m=2
There’s a few photos in the gallery there
Adam, I really do love your content, I do. But I have to say I am getting a little tired of the whole, "Awww shucks I could never paint something that big" or "Ohhh, I could never paint an army with so many models."
Skirmish games are a great way to get into wargaming with fewer models sure. But even skirmish games require you to paint probably at least 20 models if both sides have ten. And skirmish games still require built and painted 3D terrain. The Awww shucks mentality to me reeks of shortcuts: paint as few models as possible, spray zenithal and then use as many shortcut techniques and then use books and coffee cups for terrain, and it's all good supposedly.
I get that there are lots of reasons people simply can't paint lots of models - time, logistics, storage, etc.
But the constant subtle Awww shucks stuff is getting old.
I have been painting for twenty years and I finally wanted to challenge myself and paint something large with lots of flesh on it, because it intimidates me to death. I PURPOSELY picked a Sons of Behemat Giant. A model that I didn't think I could ever paint. Because I wanted to get to a new level. So I carefully followed WH TV's own tutorial, methodically and step by step. And the giant came out amazing, people tell me it looks as good as the stuff the GW studio paints.
I just can't see anybody who watches your channel challenging themselves that way. They would listen to you and hear the all the reasons you can't do something outside your comfort zone rather than the reasons you could and should.
Also, I got into historical and bought their new Epic Battles Civil War. It's 15mm and the starter comes with three THOUSAND individual models. I mean, never mind the "massive amount" of models in a 150 model dwarf or orc army. This is literally three thousand little guys in blue and gray uniforms. It is assembly line painting on steroids. You can't paint five models for historicals. You decide to either paint entire armies of hundreds of models or you don't.
In the end, you get what you put into it. If you want to see two massive fantasy or Civil War armies on a tabletop and enjoy the epic aesthetic of it, you simply choose to do it because you want to.
I really don't care for this whole, ohhhh well I can't do anything big or grand so I'll just paint five models and settle for that. Nonsense. Like anything else you want that seems impossible at first, you either decide to do it or you don't.
Yeah, many of the points in this video are just invalidated (as being recent developments) by like... 3rd Edition. Got monoliths, land raiders, raiders? you're not even doubling the size going from a monolith to a knight.
The fishman gaps has little to do with the size of the model, and more to do with design/manufacturing/assembly.
Try putting a normal harlequin (or any small spindly) army in a case without pieces snapping.
Overall, I think if this was presented in a "how big do you want to go, let's look at some solutions" rather than "hey, LOOK OUT for all these GOTCHAS!" I'd have liked the video more.
I mean, one enormous benefit of games with big models is they certainly finish faster, one way or another.
It's definitely no fun having a well-painted Baneblade blown off the table before you even get to move it, either, so I mean that's a thing.
Shoving a giant diorama through terrain.... I get that. There's no counter-argument there :)
@@valleyDweller Very well said!
When the Sons of Behemat came out, I fell in love with the idea of making an army of guys the size of action figures. I didn’t go for the official models because my budget was just a little over half of 1 Mega Gargant. I dipped my toes in with a Mantic Giant. I found it to be super fun to paint even though I got the paint mixing wrong and instead of painting him like an Uruk Kai I made him look like Hell Boy. I liked that I could see the detail and didn’t need to squint to know what to paint. That said, after doing a full army of 3 Megas and 3 regular Gargants (wiz kids hill giants), I was happy to go back to the small stuff. I think doing the big stuff helped make me a better painter.
Another issue with large models is that most game systems have a "sweet spot" that they're primarily designed around, and for most wargames that's typically unit on unit combat with light and medium tank/monster support. Superheavy units tend to break the scaling of the game, and are typically written with truly absurd statlines to compensate for the amount of aggro they're going to generate. When you reach the point that a model is so big and so intimidating that everything on the other side of the table is going to exclusively shoot at it, you can't assign it a balanced points cost - either it's going to go first, and annihilate swathes of things with its overpowered attacks, or it's going to die and achieve nothing. Rarely is there a middle ground.
I've been on a tank painting spree and recently got back to troops. I can't believe I paint such small things. 😂 I have adjusted again though. I appreciate the occasional large model. Moderation is really key.
Large models are just too impractical for me. I don’t have the storage room. They’re just too fragile as well.
Absoutely
Yeah sub assembly is basically mandatory on the diorama models, I do enjoy painting them because they tell even more of a story than single models, though I wouldn't want to do it more than once, because it's the same story. lol I think some of the "lead" units for many age of sigmar armies are a little bigger than they need to be, like Nagash or Celestant-Prime.
Games Workshop killed my interest in their games BECAUSE of those Big models!
I'm now more into INFINITY (rom Corvus Belli) and I sold all of my unpainted Warhammer stuff. I'm just keepping some stuff for Warcry or Killteam. That's it.
Awe man come on the chaos knights are GREAT! I love the sense of scale u get btwn a squad of csm w a big corrupted knight towering over them. It Looks amazin. They really compliment eachother. I magnetized it even so I can switch the face plates and use all 3. Also got a cockpit kit for it. Was a super fun project. There are also so many cool 3rd party armour kits out there u can customize the knights with..I also enjoy not allways painting minis by breaking it up w a tank or knight then back to minis. I can't see a downside to big models at all man.
Unrelated to the subject matter of this particular video, but just wanted to say I really enjoy your content, Uncle Atom. Found your channel about 2 weeks ago. I listen to your videos all throughout my work day. You seem like a genuinely kind person who knows his stuff.
My first foray into AoS I went with Beastclaw Raiders. I really enjoyed painting Ogors - they're just a tad bigger than Space Marines or the like, but enough to get better at faces. Plus, of course, as they're apparently allergic to shirts you get plenty of practice at painting skin. Then there's those beasties of theirs. I think it was the army I've enjoyed painting the most. A bonus was that I found I actually enjoyed playing army-scale games with fewer, more points-costly models. Naturally, I went onto Gargants and Mega-Gargants! My 40k stuff is more 'normal'. I had no intention of starting a new AoS army, but now there's dragons. I'm feeling the pull.
"Buying the models is the easy part." Amen. Especially during the long pandemic in which buying things provided an instant, but short-lived gratification. Its a lot more fun to love what we already have.
Oh those are some BIG gaps indeed :( that’s a lot of extra filling work
All this video did was inspire me to finish my behemat army. Personally I'll take 1 or 2 big models on the paint table over a hundred little ones. Feels less daunting for my brain plus I feel like I'm making bigger strides (no pun intended) when basing back and forth
Mileage varies. I feel similar to small models. My hobgrots remail unpainted. Tiny models are daunting to me. The details on such small minis makes me second guess everything. The big models are absolutely my favorite. We all come from different places.
I have painted 1 and 3/4 large models. I spent about 40-50 hours on the updated Black Coach, and found it to be quite an enjoyable experience (and I HAAAAATE painting models).
But right now, I'm working on The Silent King. I've been working on him since October. There's several degrees of magnitude more detail, and I can't work on it for very long before just being done with painting. I bought a heavy assortment of Necrons when the model came out. I love the army, they've been my favorite for a very long time. Most of them are still on sprue because working on The Silent King just wore me out.
Fully agree with you. I would add another point: wargame should be "manouvring" armies, not list building.
Since the table size remains the same (or, as in aos 3.0 smaller), big monsters, heroes and models with larger bases move the game in a direction where manouvres are almost impossible; I mean you can just fire in the first turn and than with a charge the armies are in melee were dice rolls and the toughest list will probably win.
Is it fun? Not at all for me. I am 52, plaing since I was 16. I think this type of games could be funny for a while, but than you want something more "strategic".
Huge tanks, monsters and robots are ok for me with smaller scale: < 15 mm.
This is my opinion .-)
I think one reason for the big models, is that they can so big models in plastic like no one else in the industry.
The other is resin 3D Printing. Your home printer cant do such a big model easy. I find a Ton of alternative print at home models for eldar or imperial guard as well as star wars infantry. But big boys? Rarely
Instead of printing a giant model , WHY not print the sprues in the box? Also is everyone doing resin with UV light or the filament?
Eh, to each their own. I love the big models. Some of my favorites things I've painted are Imperial Knights. The feeling of satisfaction as I finish armor panels and glue them on. 💙💙💙
Scale creep is making gaming more and more expensive, and thus more socially exclusive. Thus the shift to skirmish gaming with a dozen 28/32mm figures. $/£200 for a model that cannot in anyway be used in a game or on the average 4x4 table is ridiculous. Scale creep is driven by profit not by the necessities of gaming. It is why I am shifting increasingly into 10mm (and yes scale creep is happening here with '12mm' with Warlord and Victrix) and back to 15mm. Armies that look like armies, and you can still use them with skirmish rules: one group base= 1 figure. Suddenly battles look like battles. By the way, if you game 10mm fantasy or Sci-fi you can use 15mm Dragons, giants, drop ships etc if you want really impressive or terrifying creatures and weapons... And they don't take over your gaming table!
Feel this a lot. Had been staring at a repulsor executioner sitting in a box on my shelf for months because it was too daunting to look at. I finally got it built into it's 3 sub assemblies... and it has been sitting grey on the shelf for more months. I've had it for over a year and keep pushing it back since I don't need it until I have 2k army ready... and just much easier to grab a couple infiltrators, intercessors, or devastators and get them done.
This is why I love drop one commander just the right size of model imo
I am working through a couple of large minis. They've taken me the best part of 3 months and I'm not finished. It really starts fo drain motivation because you don't see much change session to session.
My Skaven Verminlord is the biggest miniature I have for any of my wargaming armies and I'm perfectly fine with it's size. The bigger models give an epic quality to a battle made up of smaller dudes.
Only been in the miniatures hobby for 2 years or so and every time I try to work on my Tau army I find myself burnt out by the battlesuits. Fire warriors are time consuming just because of the quantity but they don't bother me as much as trying to get one of the larger suits like a Commander or Riptide looking just right.
Haven't really messed with them much since last august or so, having focused most of my miniature painting time on a Clone Army for Star Wars Legion. The move to 9th edition kind of killed my enthusiasm for 40k a bit. Took everything I learned painting the Tau and used it on my clones, and love how they come out. It does make me want to go back and finish my Tau knowing my skills have improved so much from my early models. Maybe when they announce the Tau Codex or a new Tau model I'll feel the drive to finish it. Until then it'll be a model here or there.
I'm also not a fan of big models or armies. I don't play table top as I would like to but I am a commission painter and I never accept big huge models or armies. The only way I'll do a big army is if they are all different and I can paint each character differently than the last
One of the untold stories of GW's scale creep is just how close to impossible most of their models are to store/transport.
you transport a picture to represent them.
If it's bigger than a Grav Tank and isn't a scenery piece, my space elves don't need it. :P
I hope Great Unlcean One's size increases are linear, by 2040 you will be able to put your arm around one and take a photo.
I am so tired of 200 dollar models that are half my list that take three weeks to paint and then are hot dogshit on the table in half an edition.
What did that happen to? 😬Also, will we get a plastic Thunderhawk?
Jack Kent... 100% agree
I spent almost 6 weeks painting a Stardrake and I love how it looks and plays. The thing is, I know know how long it takes to build and paint something of that scale. I won't be painting anything of that scale again in a hurry, put it that way🤗
I'm a big fan of them. I think they represent a good end-goal for hobbyists to work towards, and they provide an option for players who prefer low model counts. A centerpiece model can also really tie an army together and make an army better than the sum of its parts.
Their presence in the game is not a bad thing at all. If you don't like them, which is fine, don't buy them. But their existence does not merit discussion on what they mean for the future of the hobby. Giving players choice is good, and many of the models being released these days are so rich in detail the idea that you want to paint miniatures, not large models doesn't hold water when you have so many miniature details you can hone your skills on.
Not only that, having a large model that you paint gives you a chance to develop skills that might be a bit harder to practise on smaller scale.
Edit: I'd like to add that being afraid of painting them, or not assembling them because you're worried you will make a mistake during assembly, is a psychological issue with the hobbyist, not the models themselves. Rather than concern ourselves with the projects that pose these psychological issues, we should be focusing on the psychological issues posed by these projects and recognise that these are normal responses and important steps in everyones journey. There are gaps in your models? There's a chance to learn how to seal them. You're worried you will build it wrong? You should recognise the value in reading instructions carefully, or try out some dry-fitting techniques.
If the concerns related in this video are true for some people, then the problem resides in the psyche of the hobbyist, and not with the models themselves. And that's okay! But complaining about them isn't constructive. It's not them, it's you.
John and I fight about this on Legends of The Painty Men a lot. I love big centerpiece models, he hates them and wants just your standard miniature troops. Now, having said I love big centerpiece models, I will say this: I only love them once. I have every different iteration of the cauldron of blood from the early 90’s to today because after I sub assemblied and painted the newest version the idea of having to do that 3 more times was a total non-starter for me and so I went back and touched up my old models just to avoid that hassle again. The same thing happened with my KO army. After building and customizing the buns off my frigate I could not face putting together the Ironclad.
I bought a Broadside and a Riptide a year ago. It took me about a week or so to assemble the Broadside because of all the small parts which created ~100 gaps to fill. After that experience the Riptide still sits on top of a shelf in its unopened box.
Not to mention the size creep. Bigger is better right?
"Man... What scale are we doing again?"
"28mm."
"Okay... So... This guy is... 4 meter tall."
"Well, he is a big bloke."
"Okay. But what about the new robot we put out to update the robot that was supposedly a derivative of the one we just made?"
"Isn't it georgeous?"
"Yea, it is. Do you see them beside each other? The old model is supposed to be 6 meter tall. This one is 9."
"You are right. We'll release another one later that is bigger."
Yea, I don't buy it.
Since I have a printer now, I might as well decide the scale for myself at this stage.
I have Verminlord, Terrorgheist and Zombie Dragon And I havent touched either for a year. Especially Verminlord. The models is so huge and beautiful Im always afraid ill ruin it. And if you paint large model badly... Well. IT SHOWS.
JUST use more liquid magic: nuln oil
The biggest (pun intended) offender is that giant Archaon model. Absolutely beautiful, but completely ridiculous!
I've asked for it for my birthday. It'll probably take me all year to finish (and I don't think I'm going to work on it non stop) but I've really wanted to paint one of these for a long time.
@@OnboardG1 Just got Mine Yesterday and im so fucking hyped to Paint him
I just painted a Warhammer Giant/Gargant and it was my favourite model I've ever painted. Also the fastest I've ever painted, managed to do everything but highlights and the base in a single day. I don't know if I'd like anything bigger than that, though. Next big model I'm painting at some point is a Stonehorn for my AoS Mawtribes, which I think I'll have some fun with as well, because I love painting fur, and it's the first BIG hero model for me, so I'll really take my time with it.
I've painted a whole bunch of greater daemons so I actually have a hard time with smaller models. I find it harder to get at the finer details in a smaller model.
The thing I love about miniatures is that they allow for more dramatic to-scale stuff in the range. Putting a person next to a giant or a dragon, or a crew next to a tank, is just really interesting to me. I've been working on a Death Korps of Krieg army and having everything from squads of infantry to a Gorgon or a Bane Blade makes for a really visually diverse army, and I love it. But I am a painter/collector first and a gamer second.
Then again, I'm not a big fan of skirmish teams. I've done a few and yeah, I can finish them all in a couple of weeks, but I was originally drawn to table top gaming by Warhammer Fantasy. Something about seeing those huge armies in formation really spoke to me. Yes, it's a huge investment in money and time, but I find it much more rewarding to see a large army come together with a large variety of sized models than I do with skirmish teams.
As you say, there is no one way to do this hobby, and I'm glad there is such a wide variety of play styles and model options for every type of hobbyist and player.
I recently purchased the AOS Be'lakor. Not the new large one, I found someone with old stock and got the small version. I don't want a model so big I'm afraid to leave the house with it or just get it off the shelf.
I love bigger models! Its so much more fun and easy to paint a tree monster like Spirit of Durthu compared to painting 40 small dryads over and over again…
But yes storing and transporting them kinda sucks.
I can see your point to an extent. Big models are really quite daunting projects. I was pretty scared of painting my flying Hive Tyrant, but once it’s done, it’s the best I’ve felt about a model I’ve painted. I’ve come back to 40k in my 30s having played in my early teens and even back then I remember the big centre piece models, like the old bloodthirster, being something I aspired to own and paint and I think that’s pretty much stuck with me. I love big models now and think it’s all part of the spectacle and painting challenge. Really interesting take mate - got me thinking.
I totally agree with you. Large minis make Kickstarter games cost more and take up more shelf space.
I love all the big centerpiece miniatures
Some of us don't even play the games. We just paint and display them in set dioramas. I put mine in fishtanks with fake grass and air plants for decor. You can get a 5 or 10 gallon tank cheap or free, throw some dirt inside and fill it out for a virtual battlefield with cheap MDF buildings for terrain.
My favorite GW sculpts of the last decade are all small. The traitor guard out of the BSF box are among my favorites, I feel like they tell a story with minimum detail creep. When there is too much model, it’s more difficult to tell a unique story with it in my opinion.
It's not the building and painting, _storing_ oversize models is a pain once you have more than a couple...
Especially if you have cats.
Meanwhile, your standard person-sized troops have been sat around looking the same since the 90s in a few cases! I was so excited to see new Ork boyz recently.
Look at AoS. There are a ton of new infantry troops all the time.
@@odeegrotsniffer4166 Because it's a new game. But even that is suffering from GWs inability to update, look at the seraphon troops
I love my seraphon troops. They still look great. A few special units look dated, but there is nothing wrong with skinks and saurus warriors.
@@odeegrotsniffer4166 I mean, each to their own but I think the Saurus and Kroxigor are some of the most commonly cited on lists of "ugly old models that need updating" alongside the Khorne Beserkers
@@odeegrotsniffer4166 And let's not talk about the cold-one knights...
Totally agree with your sentiment. When every big model is a now a showcase/diorama/center piece it becomes daunting. To take them anywhere, even make them & paint them takes so long you have no time for the "army" to accompany it. To say nothing of the cost of them, you have to decide one big "cool" looking model or x many unit choices that could work for several things.
about 1,5 years ago I impulse bought alarielle the everqueen. I had a quite okay time building the kit and then felt almost scared to start painting. about 4 months ago I started painting her in a train of thought like; well, something might end up ugly, but I could always prime the model and try again and ended up having a great time painting the model. we're in the hobby for fun, never forget that. many thanks for the helpful tips uncle Adam!
One of my all-time favourite big models was a boss ork on a wyvern, the thing about it was that it was almost entirely cast in metal (I think the wings were plastic) so it had a lot of table presence, it felt like it was worth the money and the points cost, and worth the effort of painting well. Plastic just doesn't have the same feel for me, I know the plastic and actual production cost pence, and these days I'm not sure how much expense there would have been in the design process with modern technologies and methods. The collector in me would much rather spend the time and money on one of those old metal models than the newer stuff, although the plastic material probably lends itself better to 40k in terms of flat panels and the like which were sometimes a bit hit and miss with metal.
I have that model!
This is what drew me to the dark eldar range, the archon/succubons/haemonculus and leaders are small and not all that over the top. Sure there's the raiders and vehicles, but they still aren't that bad. The models I enjoy painting the most are necromunda minis, also blood bowl.
My first foray into big models was/is (still painting) Be'lakor, but he was a gift from my gaming group. It is definitely daunting, but at the same time I feel less cramped working on him as well since he's easy to maneuver (as long as you deal with the base, body and wings separately).
I think when it comes to large armies and large models it's a matter of just knowing your limits and pacing yourself.
I miss EPIC and the 6-10 mm scale, it's the GW game me and my friends started into the hobby with back in the day.
Preach! Epic was a great game. Painting to a reasonable standard was pretty easy.
Travel and storage are such a challenge with these massive models. I don't mind the painting and modeling, but I use magnetic storage solutions and nobody makes boxes that are 9" deep to fit my Silent King, so now I have to figure out a completely different way to store it
I agree with this - they're "miniatures" - they're supposed to be small! But more seriously. I've been playing Warhammer way back since Warhammer Fantasy in the early 90's and they were just starting to get into bigger models, but they were limited by the medium - you could only make pewter models so big before they were too heavy and just didn't hold together. Even with that, the problem with the game was that the biggest model was always the winner - as others said, it became "battle of the gods." I was always more interested in the soldiers - and IMO armies should mostly be made of the rank-and-file soldiers. So, I don't think it makes sense from a narrative perspective, nor from a game perspective.
I disagree with some of your points; i hate the "diorama" style units but the big knights and dragons are most welcome IMO.
In my teens my Malekith was so awesome but a bastard to carry around being a massive metal dragon, the plastic versions are built much better in comparison to the metal minis of old, they really do break far less lol.
Loved your take as always, cheers :)
Im the oposite. I started with Sisters and I run a ton of bodies, so maybe I want a few models and 2-3 big boys as center piece to my games. Might start with something like that for AoS
I oddly enjoyed making the terrorgist from age of sigma, even though I glued the rib cage the wrong way round. Messed the wings up so had to sculp new wing joints. Looks weird but I love it. I quite like the problem solving.
I recently completed my little warband I called the Half-nificent Seven, seven 25mm scale Halflings, and people laughed at me, but then saw just how much fun I was having just using them to harass their big figures. So now we at the club I game at have reverted to skirmish level gaming, and the hobby has become FUN again, not just a big push to field the biggest models we can find in the games to pit against each other (Mostly un-painted, because keeping the motivation going to paint huge figures is hard, even during lock-down here in Ireland), and it's MUCH cheaper, too :-). I created my own wargame system/game, as we all wanted something that wasn't GW produced, and that we could have fun collecting and making things for ourselves, so now we're having amazing nights where all we do is sit and paint/build figures/vehicles/terrain for the new game, and make up silly rules and scenarios, and no-one gets left feeling they have to conform to a certain Codex or whatever. We just have fun making 25 mm figures/scenery, and being around each other again, doing our own thing and laughing all night long. Our club is now the only "BIG" thing about our games/model making hobby, and everyone is happy again, which is the most important thing, we feel, as if you're not happy with the hobby/your gaming friends, you may not stay in it after a while.
Are you going to be covering the other side when wyrd relaunch it at gen con? I honestly hope it succeeds this time around
I just finished painting Be'lakor and I really liked the experience of painting such a big and awesome model. But then again, I don't have a demon army that I would play him with. I can't imagine having him on my painting table for a couple of weeks and not being able to play with him because I have to paint in sub assemblies. That would be frustrating as hell. Forget about transporting him, he's just going on a display shelf!
I think, GW should make the larger models with painting in subassemblies in mind.
For example, maybe it even tells you in the instructions, build this, this and this, keep them separate while you paint. Maybe they could have some kind of plastic nub that a tool fits so you can hold it easier that gets hidden once its glued. Or, even, have it so that the sub assemblies never glue, and can always be taken apart for easy transportation.
I strongly agree. Models bigger then Redemptor are reall pain for me to transport, since I go 1h in train... Something like my beloved terrorgheist are too big to transport well in my boxes...
And with details, I think my upper limit oftolerance is 5 cavalery models.. Bigger things or in bigger amount just get to long of a work and tire me out.
I suppose at some time I should do something about that Forge World Chaos Mammoth that I bought decades ago. That is a dauntingly huge model.
I love big models. I loved it when they started adding them, and I love them now. They're what make these games stand out, they're awesome centerpieces, I honestly can't get enough of these big models.