Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Crisis Suits and Broadsides

I was cruising the blogosphere early today as I am home sick and I found this, rather unfortunate set of news; http://natfka.blogspot.com/2011/12/tau-crisis-and-battle-suits-not-to-get.html

Assuming the rumor is true, it contradicts earlier rumors about new Crisis Suits, yet it seems to consistent with Gw's model. Very rarely do they completely redesign a plastic kit, instead they re-work the sprue to add more options, such as was done for the Ork Boyz sprue, and Space Marine kits like the Tactical Squad and Assault Marine set. Most likely what they have done is add the Broadside weapons, in plastic, to the basic Crisis Suit kit.

Yet it's only a rumor, so here's hoping that there is a new Crisis/Broadside kit altogether.

9 comments:

andy_divide said...

Seems unlikely to me; sexy new crisis suits [that fit together properly] would be a major money spinner. I'm sure GW are aware of the current perceptions of chicken-like-ness and how that translates to missed potential sales... "I'd quite like a tau army but their key units look like goddamn roosters" etc.

I could only see this rumour being true if XV-8's / 88's were part of a bigger range of mecha-style kits, i.e. plastic XV-9's and maybe some fancy HQ only suits.

As much as I'd like a crisis suit update I'm not too concerned either way - I'm happy enough with the appearance of my conversions and I enjoy the process of converting, in fact I'd go as far as to say that even if the current crisis suit models looked super awesome as standard I'd probably end up converting them anyway, I don't want my army to look like everyone else's!

Cobalt Cannon said...

eeehhhh,.... I'm not so sure. From one hand, I can see Forgeworld not wanting new tau suits that look cooler than the ones they sell to kill their sales, but on the other hand, this kills any sales that GW would get from the exciting new tau suits. This could also be a rumor spread by GW (which I believe 99% of them are) to create misinformation so when they release new crisis suits, everyone Freaks and thinks they have to have them. GW has created Demand artificially this way before.

One last thought, that the rumor could be a smart ass rumor spread by GW. The suits could be redesigned XV8s, so technically, they aren't new suits, but they look differently. So in some way that's true that the suits aren't new, but it's not the whole truth.

Tim said...

Good point about it being a red herring. GW would love to see everyone buy their remain Crisis Suits in stock, thinking that there isnt going to be a re-do, but then voi-la! they do! and we all buy the new crisis suits as well.

I would love new suits...really. I am tired of having to convert every single suit to make it look good.

TheGraveMind said...

This would be a huge failure if they do not redesign the suits. I personally cannot stand the way they look at the moment.
I am currently using like 10 second-hand old/broken suits as stand ins until I can either buy the new suits or figure out an easy way to convert them all.

Cobalt Cannon said...

Exactly Tim.

GW has done such things in the past to clear out stock. When metal kits were going to be replaced by finecast (crapcast) they would market the heck out of the old metal kits on their website. Then suddenly one day they are marketing them as finecast. This happened with the Orc dreadnoughts and Killa Cans too when the newer versions were released. I'm willing to bet that we'll see a push to sell the old tau kits on their website. When you see them pushed, expect replacements to appear soon after.

Anonymous said...

Or they could completely redo the suit. As in dark eldar. They redid the whole line. Everyone complained about the old suits. Everyone loved the FW ones. It only makes sense to make more money.

Tim said...

Just realized something...the Forge world suits are all built to work with the existing Crisis Suit set. If the basic set changes, it makes all those forge world suits obsolete. Would GW do something like that?

andy_divide said...

I guess forgeworld could make resin casts for the plastic components of those suits, or the new suit design could cleverly be compatible with the forgeworld bits, or the new suits could be plastic replacements for the forgeworld suits, in the same way that Piranhas started out as a forgeworld model.

Valk said...

Pending on the author of the codex, and who's working with him/her on it (wish Alex, the previous author stick to it), if the codex is crap, new suits wouldn't boost sales at all.

Also, do keep in mind that, new suits doesn't always mean a better looking suit.