Complexity for Complexity's Sake

[onlyonepinman 18075xp 2]

I recently purchased a couple of boxes of the new Rohan Warriors.  I use them quite extensively in other systems as they have a lovely dark age aesthetic with a fantasy twist.  One of my issues with the original Rohan Warriors was the scale.  It was all over the place.  The basic infantry were 25mm, the cavalry closer to warlord or footsore’s 28mm historicals, likewise the elite Infantry such as the Royal Guard.  The characters were all over the place as well.  With the updated Eowyn, Theoden and Eomer models this was drastically improved to the point where only the regular Infantry seemed out of scale.  So when they announced the new infantry off the back of the War of the Rohirrim film (the only thing about that movie to be thankful for, but it’s an ill wind that blows nonody some good), I was pretty excited – scale creep was almost guaranteed.  Having watched a video with Peachy mixing and matching them with some victrix Saxons I was sold.   This was the range refresh I had been waiting for, and at £30 for a box of 24, surprisingly affordable (for GeeDubs).  So I picked a box up.  And then I thought,  no, get two boxes because then you can refresh the whole army with miniatures that are in scale with everything else.

Then I got home and I started to assemble them and frankly I have been left questioning my life choices.  What Peachy didn’t show in his video, was the assembly.   The models have gone from two part models (a shield and a miniature), or single piece in the case of archers, to models with 7-8 components per model,  two of which are a helmet and a face.  Yes, the face has to be glued to the front of the helmet.  Because apparently someone on the design team hates you and wants you to suffer.  For reference,  the face is 3mm wide, so small I was struggling to pick them up.  You also need to try and file the top down before gluing,  because the injection point is on the top, where it fits onto the helmet.  There are as many components on each infantryman as there are on character models like Eomer and Theoden, or at least their dismounted variants.  It took me over two hours to clean up all parts and assemble HALF a box, so a full box is almost 4.5-5 hours of work, and I have two boxes.

I don’t know what anyone else’s thoughts are on this, whether anyone has had the same experience, but this seems to be needlessly complicated.  Yes, the new poses are more dynamic but they’re not so much better as to be worth the additional effort required to build them.  Considering you have to build 24 at a time,  I think this is a huge failure from GW.  I don’t understand the thinking behind this, to me it seems utterly pretentious to expect modellers to want to spend that much time assembling rankers.  If this is ticking anyone’s boxes, please let me know but I genuinely regret buying them at all,  let alone buying two boxes of them. Each miniature now requires the same amount of effort as the special character but dungers just don’t need that amount of detail and dynamism.

[grantinvanman 2394xp 0]

Well, the good side is they do look like a very modern upgrade. The bad, of course, is that you’re right – that’s a lot of parts for one mini.

I’ve heard nothing but horror over the build part of the boxed set, but overall joy when done, I guess.

[elessar2590 18214xp 0]

You’re exactly right. I don’t know why but it seems to be the norm for GW now. Maybe it’s CAD design issues, maybe it’s GW believing it’s own propaganda that it’s a boutique model company not a rules based gaming company, maybe GW has a “no space on the sprue” policy so their sculptors are breaking models up to fill sprues so they look good. If I had to bet it would be a little of 2 and 3.

I built a lot of Perry War of the Roses stuff lately, the sprues are clearly designed to build the unit and there’s space for other stuff but they left it blank. That’s the old school method, the box builds the minis and uses as much room as it needs today sprues are jam packed, which is great, but I wonder if filling the sprue has become so important that they’re artificially making minis more complex to fill the space.

[onlyonepinman 18075xp 0]

Thing is, the original 1 piece miniatures were still a joy when finished and painted.  They weren’t perfect and had all the issues that single piece models have, but when they’re painted and fielded by the dozen, they look ace.  The new ones are only going to look better when viewed individually, something that people don’t generally do with rankers.  I don’t know if I will ever get around to building the second box, it’s too much of a time sink.

[onlyonepinman 18075xp 0]

I am going to compare the new Rohirrim to the new(ish) Saxons from Victrix, which tend towards the more complex end of the spectrum of plastic miniatures (outside of GW), but also have fairly dynamic and interesting poses.  Saxons are also a nice comparator for the Rohirrim.

The worst case scenario I could construct from the latest set of Saxons was 7 components, and this is by deliberately selecting the options that require the most components for the sake of it.  In practice,  the average is more like 5-6 components per model.  But therein lies another failing of the Rohan warriors: the Victrix models have options, the Rohan models Don’t.  While some of the Victrix heads have multiple parts, in most cases you have multiple options, so you can create multiple different models using the same torso.  While this adds to the assembly time, it also adds some value in that a small number of body poses can be used to make a large variety of unique models.  An even more extreme example would be their Late Roman Infantry, which not only has even more flexibility as it can be built as Late Roman, Arthurian Britain or Goth infantry.  The Rohan models don’t have any of this flexibility or customisability – there are no options.  Each figure is comprised of a fixed set of parts and there are two of each model in the box which when built are identical.  Each helmet has only one face and each face is compatible with only one helmet.

I Don’t mind complexity if it adds value, in the case of the Rohan miniatures,  it adds nothing and so, in my humble opinion,  it actually reduces value.  There are no options,  no flexibility – just complexity, seemingly for its own sake.

[sundancer 43265xp 0]

Changing heads and arms and weapons? Yes please! Glue on faces? 2 Part heads? GTFO!

And I do think it’s the way most companies now do their digital sculpting. It looks all nice and neat on a clean computer monitor but none of those designers have tried to assemble one of their contraptions. At 28mm I think G’Wullu has surpassed the point of diminishing returns. Yes, they can add so many details on their minis. Details that will be gone for most buyers of their product because the plastic glue gets everywhere and melts all the details into a mush.

[templar007 52379xp 1]

I think that this is a result of folk, talking heads, IPTV Personalities that sit around and say things like, ” I just don’t want a box of minis anymore that can’t do DYNAMIC poses”.  These same people don’t seem to build their own armies so don’t feel the pain or 10x extra build time.  I watch lots of IPTV personalities all over the internet.  They’re all guilty of this sin.

 

Unfortunately it seems that GW is only listening to the talking heads now…….of course I’m not sure they have ever listened to the actual hobbyist.

 

YMMV

[onlyonepinman 18075xp 0]

@sundancer with the new Rohan guys you get all the fun of gluing faces to helmets but none of the hassle of having to decide on any weapon options.

@templar007 I don’t really care too much about dynamic poses.  It’s a nice to have.  For rank and file, I want something quick and easy to assemble and paint; dynamic poses not quick to assemble and can often be more difficult to paint.  For characters its fine, for rankers not so much.

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