Saturday, May 17, 2014

Rules and Information around 7th Edition

Warning - bullshit ahead.  
Although it's not entirely puzzling that GW has released a new edition (7th) on the heels of a new edition (6th), one has to wonder. GW has never released core rule editions so quickly and it seems in general that the production of new rules -- or at least the sale of new rules -- has ramped up in the last year.

GW has released new codices, supplement codices, core rule expansions, and even new editions (herein referred to as rulebooks) for purchase at a rate never before seen. Surely, you could say that the new rules don't encompass what they once used to. In the hey days of White Dwarf, GW released new rules in their magazine nearly every month. So what has changed?

Ok - one could go into a whole analysis of the number of rulebooks produced per year and then look at the average price per rulebook and compare that over time. I'm not going to waste my time with that. We already know that those have significantly gone up since the introduction of digital rulebooks.

So what? Well if you also look at the average number of releases per army per year, I think that those have gone down slightly. What I notice is, each time a release is done for an army, it is - 1 large model, 1 medium sized unit, 1 new unit on foot, 1 clam shell character on average, (Tau had 1 more a new flyer). Look at Dwarves, Wood Elves, Eldar, Imperial Guard. 

Could it be that information (rulebooks) is more profitable than matter (miniatures kits) and that's why we're seeing a ramped up rulebook rate?

Dark Eldar Update


Still a WIP. But I love how the head looks. Considering making the spikes a metal color to add visual interest. Going to do more work today...

5 comments:

John Stiening said...

Those look amazingly evil. I love them. I am still waiting to see how you do the flesh tones. Purple and yellow together at last!

Cobalt Cannon said...

One thing that I would like to add about each successive book of "Rules" as they call them (Miniature and plastic kit advertising actually).
Each new book is less and less rules centric and more about doing everything possible to convince people to buy more and more of their plastic. That's all Allies were for, and now the word on these new books is that they are ditching the force organization, to get you to include more heavy support, and more elites, which cost more than troops.


Now about these Dark Eldar: niiiiiicceee. : )

One suggestion Tim. Consider changing the glow on the rifle barrels from red/orange/yellow to shades of purple (perhapse blue to purple) to compliment the yellow glow of the helmet visors.

Be well.

Tim said...

I'm a bit hesitant to add purple to the models. I already have green in the armor, red on the cloths, and yellow on the faces and guns. The original Idea was to do them mainly in white/black and yellow, but more colors got mixed in. I'm afraid if I add a purple it will just be too much.

However, the thought of painting their hair in punk purple had crossed my mind. I think I may do that with some of the models in the unit, to add variety.

It might work to take the red out in order to add purple in. Not sure.

anyway, got some feedback on the bases. A friend said that I need to step up my game on bases, that things look a little like I just threw stuff on them. What do you guys think?

greggles said...

With bases...

I found that it's best to look at them as a unit. Similar to how you would do in fantasy. They don't have to match up perfectly, but as long as the unit looks like they are part of the same area or terrain, it usually flows much nicer together.

That being said, the bases shown in these photos look good, and don't distract away from the beautiful models.

Chuckles said...

I'm pretty badly colorblind, which is my excuse for only having about five completed paint jobs in my cast of thousands of minis, but I think the yellow on the gun and the yellow in the faces really works well. If I imagine how these guys would look on a game table, I think they would clearly be cohesive and quite visible on the lush, green battlefields of the forty-first millenium.