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I hope someone is able to convert up a good generic chariot idea

Boar boyz are great models, as are the AOS wolf riders. Bloodbowl has plastic pump wagons, and there’s an okay option for a warboss/BSB on boar. All that’s missing is replacing the dated chariots (or at least the beasts pulling them)

Greenfield wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I would hope that if they rerelease island of blood/spire of dawn minis that they wouldn't permanently alter or eliminate the skaven components.

They could market and sell it as a two-fer "Start a High Elf army for TOW and a Skaven army for AoS!"

There would be plenty of demand for it regardless, considering how driven the community is to try to pretend the legacy factions aren't just going to be abandoned in due course by GW.

And honestly? It wouldn't be that hard for them to cut mold plates from a weaker material with the intention of rearranging the model layout to leave a High Elf only sprue and a Skaven only sprue. It's probably a little impractical to do it that way, but with as little overhead as it would take to do that coupled with the obscene prices they'd be able to ask, I'm leaning toward them being willing to take that risk.

Moulds can be cut in materials like aluminium instead of steel, which is cheaper but reduces their lifetime. But it's still a new mould. The layout of a sprue can't be re-arranged directly from or onto a mould; that means returning to the masters (physical or digital, the latter being much easier to do). It's still a fairly big overhead. If GW are going to do it, it may well be they just make a new steel mould anyway, since they're set up to do so.

With CNC machines, ESPECIALLY 1 that can be fed an STL, it's far easier than you'd think. Still some overhead, but not nearly as much as you're thinking.

CNC machines don't work from the STL format, thats basically only used for 3D printing, though I suppose you could transfer STL format to a CAM package to convert it to the necessary output, but thats probably an unnecessarily complicated workflow vs alternatives that exist.

In general, what you described is also only really true if the mold was originally cut via CNC. Island of Blood was produced during the transition era, so may well have been done using the old 3-up and pantagraph, in which case its not as simple or straightforward as you think it is. As far as I have been able to find, Brian Nelson sculpted the High Elves half, he was mostly known for his hand sculpting going back to the 90s, I'm not sure if he ever transitioned to digital. Looking closely at some of the sculpts, they look as though they were sculpted in greenstuff, etc. so I'm going to guess that this approach probably isn't an immediate option without a bit of work.

chaos0xomega wrote:
CNC machines don't work from the STL format, thats basically only used for 3D printing, though I suppose you could transfer STL format to a CAM package to convert it to the necessary output, but thats probably an unnecessarily complicated workflow vs alternatives that exist.

In general, what you described is also only really true if the mold was originally cut via CNC. Island of Blood was produced during the transition era, so may well have been done using the old 3-up and pantagraph, in which case its not as simple or straightforward as you think it is. As far as I have been able to find, Brian Nelson sculpted the High Elves half, he was mostly known for his hand sculpting going back to the 90s, I'm not sure if he ever transitioned to digital. Looking closely at some of the sculpts, they look as though they were sculpted in greenstuff, etc. so I'm going to guess that this approach probably isn't an immediate option without a bit of work.

I didn't say it WAS going to happen, just that it was plausible in a "worst case scenario" sort of way. The more likely version is forcing people to buy IoB and BfSP sets, possibly packaged with rulebooks.

 GaroRobe wrote:
I hope someone is able to convert up a good generic chariot idea

Boar boyz are great models, as are the AOS wolf riders. Bloodbowl has plastic pump wagons, and there’s an okay option for a warboss/BSB on boar. All that’s missing is replacing the dated chariots (or at least the beasts pulling them)

For the Wolf Riders, I would just use the AoS figures. They have the same options, but way better mounts and riders.

For the Boar Chariots, it's probably worth grabbing an extra box of Boar Boyz and just swapping them for the old boars. Most of the bits for the riders are cross-compatible anyway.

 Scottywan82 wrote:

 GaroRobe wrote:
I hope someone is able to convert up a good generic chariot idea

Boar boyz are great models, as are the AOS wolf riders. Bloodbowl has plastic pump wagons, and there’s an okay option for a warboss/BSB on boar. All that’s missing is replacing the dated chariots (or at least the beasts pulling them)

For the Wolf Riders, I would just use the AoS figures. They have the same options, but way better mounts and riders.

For the Boar Chariots, it's probably worth grabbing an extra box of Boar Boyz and just swapping them for the old boars. Most of the bits for the riders are cross-compatible anyway.

They are lovely models, I intend to use them as well but the cost is going to be insane if you want a big wolf rider army. I'll be sticking to the old kits for the bulk of it, though I don't actually mind the old ones but still think the plastics look much better mixed with the 6th Ed night goblins.

 The Phazer wrote:

Greenfield wrote:
Moulds can be cut in materials like aluminium instead of steel, which is cheaper but reduces their lifetime. But it's still a new mould. The layout of a sprue can't be re-arranged directly from or onto a mould; that means returning to the masters (physical or digital, the latter being much easier to do). It's still a fairly big overhead. If GW are going to do it, it may well be they just make a new steel mould anyway, since they're set up to do so.

TBF you can cut the moulds to enable that sort of multi-gating where you can cast part of the sprue (Bandai do it with Gundam kits all the time nowadays) but I doubt the IOB tools were done with that in mind and I don't think GW has ever really done it.

Yes, moulds can be made of multiple smaller steel blocks known as inserts, which together form a single mould. I suspect this is how it's done for some of the character models from various boxed games, that first appear as a sprue of four connected character frames and then later get solo releases – but as far as I'm aware the use of inserts produces visibly distinct areas or sub-frames on the sprue, not completely mixed sprues like Island of Blood.

Thats correct-ish.

What greenfield is kind of describing is what in the industry is referred to as "mold cavities". A single mold which can be used to manufacture 4 kits at once would be referred to as a 4 cavity mold. In industry multi-cavity molds are often used to produce multiple duplicate parts per cycle (i.e. you have a 64- cavity mold, where all 64 cavities each produce the same exact part every time you run the mold through the press, so you're producing 64 parts per cycle instead of 1 part per cycle). If a mold has multiple cavities but each cavity is a different part, these are often referred to as family molds instead, as the different cavities are usually "related". These would more often be used for bigger kits (think something like a baneblade) where each set of sprues is basically produced independently from the other.

A family mold that makes different kits (i.e. each cavity is a separate character, sometimes for entirely different factions or games, etc.) would still be referred to as a family mold (industry doesn't really care about those distinctions, they would see it as being all part of the same product range, brand, customer, etc. and leave it at that). You would use what are called RSO's - Runner Shut Offs - to open or close sections (i.e. cavities) of the mold to plastic flow in order to limit production to just specific sections/cavities. I.E. if you had a 4-part family mold and say one cavity produced a primaris lieutenant, one produced a tau fireblade, one produced a chaos sorceror, and one produced a drukhari archon, but you only wanted to produce the chaos sorceror, you would use one or more runner shut-off devices to turn "off" the flow of plastic to the other sections of the mold. Typically this is achieved by a rotatable piece that is inserted into the mold block that might have a 2 or 3 way "intersection" of runner/sprue cut into it, by rotating it, you move the "intersection" out of alignment with the rest of the runner/sprue and thus block the flow to a section of the mold. Think of it kind of like a railroad turntable or switchtrack, basically. The runner is your railroad, the hot molten plastic is your train, and the RSO controls which section of track your train runs through.

A mold insert generally refers to when you embed a part inside another part (ex - a screwdriver - its a plastic handle formed around a metal rod with the flat/philips head at the end of it). There are base inserts (which are commonly called mold inserts as well, and sometimes referred to as MUD inserts though those refer to a specific standard non-proprietary system, whereas base inserts are proprietary and only fit the bases they were designed for) which are a mold plate that are set into a frame/base to enable rapid quickchange production of different parts, etc. There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding with regards to how they work/what they are used for. Typically, I think when you see multi-insert MUD or block systems, its being done that way so that the manufacturer can service multiple customers simultaneously rather than because its a true family mold or multi-cavity application - you usually select the option when you're cost conscious because your production run won't be large enough to justify the expense of a full set of molds.

The idea is that rather than having to produce a full set of molds for each part/kit, you can instead produce only a section of the mold (i.e. the insert) which has the actual geometry that you are trying to produce, while the rest of the mold block (with all the nozzles, gates, and injector pins necessary already engineered into it) is already built and ready to go. The mold inserts are cheaper by virtue of being significantly less material, as well as less cutting as you aren't putting in all the engineered features needed to make it work (again, ejector pins, etc.), and instead of having to remove the entire mold when you want to rotate production to a different part, you just swap out the plate/insert with the ones relevant to the part you want. To my knowledge they aren't generally used in multi-cavity/family mold applications though there are systems that allow you to run multiple plates simultaneously such as a MUD H-Frame which allows for simultaneous production of two separate molds, and double-H which allows for simultaneous production of four. To my knowledge, it isn't possible to use it with an RSO, though I could be mistaken - more commonly, you would use a blank plate to block flow to one (or more) of the cavities.

From my guess, I would imagine that if GW is using anything like any of what I discussed above, it would be a MUD U-frame (single cavity) or a proprietary block insert. From my memory, theres no indication on their sprues of the kits being produced in a multi-cavity application, as you would see the runners/sprues (or remnants thereof) linking the different kits together. Even when using an RSO I would expect to see something indicative of it, and to my recollection I can't think of any evidence I've noticed of it. All the character kits I can think of (again going from memory) seem to have fairly clean sprue perimeters with no indication of plastic flowing in from outside their perimeter - most I think tend to have their gates right dead center of the frame which suggests they are produced in a single-cavity setup, whereas a MUD H/Double-H/E (E is like a n H but side-by-side, meaningless distinction IMO) would have a single injection point/gate used to provide plastic to both plates, and you would see the indicators that the plastic flowed in from "outside" the sprue frame). Its possible they use a proprietary system that allows them to do multiple plates with center-gating that wouldn't indicate the use of a multi-cavity/family insert system, but I kinda doubt it would be worth going through the trouble for them. I can't really think of any reason why you'd bother having a multi-cavity insert system if the intent was to blank-plate or RSO a section of it off, the point is to increase throughput by allowing production on multiple products simultaneously, so blanking off sections/cavities would be somewhat defeating the point. At that point you would just switch out the plates with other kits and rotate through production (if for example you wanted 10,000 shots of kit A but only 5,000 shots of kit B, 2,500 of kit C, etc. You would keep insert A in, and switch out inserts B and C as you hit your production targets for them while continuing to produce A).

chaos0xomega wrote:
CNC machines don't work from the STL format, thats basically only used for 3D printing, though I suppose you could transfer STL format to a CAM package to convert it to the necessary output, but thats probably an unnecessarily complicated workflow vs alternatives that exist.

In general, what you described is also only really true if the mold was originally cut via CNC. Island of Blood was produced during the transition era, so may well have been done using the old 3-up and pantagraph, in which case its not as simple or straightforward as you think it is. As far as I have been able to find, Brian Nelson sculpted the High Elves half, he was mostly known for his hand sculpting going back to the 90s, I'm not sure if he ever transitioned to digital. Looking closely at some of the sculpts, they look as though they were sculpted in greenstuff, etc. so I'm going to guess that this approach probably isn't an immediate option without a bit of work.

What looks like it was sculpted with greenstuff?

The opposite conclusion has been the longstanding consensus -- IoB was early digital sculpting. Telltales include the parts with elaborate "effects" and/or "motion" like the ball of magic under the Elf wizard or the flame and smoke effects on some of the Skaven models, which weren't often attempted in the same extent by-hand (and which still show up on GW models now, indicating a throughline from IoB to now). Skinny weapons are another feature. The Clanrats, overall, also look extremely digital, like an array of base poses recombined with different details, armor types, etc. reappearing in slightly modified expressions. Combined with the fact that the subsequent Clanrat standalone kit also displays those qualities and the same bases + cut-and-paste detail.

If the Perrys were convinced to learn digital sculpting I have no trouble believing most if not all of the GW sculpting stable were too.

There quite a bit of good reading here. Thanks!

Huh? The Perry's still sculpt everything by hand. I've never seen anything to indicate they've moved to digital. One of the main reasons they left GW in 2014 (years after IoB) was GWs push to go fully digital and their desire to continue the old ways.

As for the signs, as far as the elves are concerned, the "scales" on their armor isn't a consistent size/shape fron model to model nor even on the same model, and in some places the lines aren't quite straight, which is suggestive of those features being sculpted manually rather than using digital tools to duplicate them precisely. The stiff posing with minimal variation is also suggestive that they were partially sculpted in greenstuff, cast in metal (though in this era they had started scanning and 3d printing instead of casting) and then further over-sculpted in additional greenstuff to create those minor variations in pose and detail, as digital methods would allow for greater variety for minimal effort while retaining geometric consistency. I've also found posts from John Blanche discussing working with Brian Nelson on certain kits - Brian was still clay and greenstuff sculpting 3-ups well into 2011/2012 ish even while others on the team were transitioning to digital.

As far as the skaven are concerned, the HPA - which released around the same time as IoB - was sculpted in clay by Seb Perbert from artwork by John Blanche. Seb also sculpted a lot of the IoB Skaven. Not a clearcut indicator per se, just because one mini was hand sculpted doesn't mean another was, but it's a good indicator of what the common processes being used in the studio at the time were by certain sculptors.

How I wish GW let the Perry’s come back and sculpt by hand again provided they wanted to also. Something you can’t quite capture through digital design imo that’s there with hand design.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Huh? The Perry's still sculpt everything by hand. I've never seen anything to indicate they've moved to digital. One of the main reasons they left GW in 2014 (years after IoB) was GWs push to go fully digital and their desire to continue the old ways.

You also haven't seen anyone in this thread claim that they've moved to digital.

Now, with the goalposts back on the field, here you go:
(skip ahead to 00:31:45)

....you claimed, or at least implied, that they did.

"If the Perrys were convinced to learn digital sculpting I have no trouble believing most if not all of the GW sculpting stable were too."

I wouldn't consider "4 months" of digital sculpting and "a few hours of digital work on various things", which were mixed and completed with traditional sculpting to be a strong argument to your point.

Also of note that the events being discussed here occurred 4-5 years after IOB released, which was itself 6-8 years after IoB would have been sculpted.

Island of Blood being at least made different than the boxes before was hinted back than already because it was the first box that got a different sprue layout
and the AoS clanrats currently available are the same sculpts as the IoB ones

but whatever it is, we will know when High Elves return what we get and if the old models returning are the very old ones or not

 kodos wrote:
Island of Blood being at least made different than the boxes before was hinted back than already because it was the first box that got a different sprue layout
and the AoS clanrats currently available are the same sculpts as the IoB ones

but whatever it is, we will know when High Elves return what we get and if the old models returning are the very old ones or not

The AoS Clanrats are a different kit to the IoB ones. Same basic design, but they got a standalone kit with the Skaven release at that time which is the kit that is still available. The IoB ones have moulded shields, which are optional in the full kit.

chaos0xomega wrote:
....you claimed, or at least implied, that they did.

"If the Perrys were convinced to learn digital sculpting I have no trouble believing most if not all of the GW sculpting stable were too."

I wouldn't consider "4 months" of digital sculpting and "a few hours of digital work on various things", which were mixed and completed with traditional sculpting to be a strong argument to your point.

Also of note that the events being discussed here occurred 4-5 years after IOB released, which was itself 6-8 years after IoB would have been sculpted.

He didn't say they moved to digital sculpting. Just that they learned how to do it...

Aka to LEARN something you don't have to do something exclusively. You do know you can posses skill for both hand AND digital sculpting don't you?

 ImAGeek wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Island of Blood being at least made different than the boxes before was hinted back than already because it was the first box that got a different sprue layout
and the AoS clanrats currently available are the same sculpts as the IoB ones

but whatever it is, we will know when High Elves return what we get and if the old models returning are the very old ones or not

The AoS Clanrats are a different kit to the IoB ones. Same basic design, but they got a standalone kit with the Skaven release at that time which is the kit that is still available. The IoB ones have moulded shields, which are optional in the full kit.

exactly, different kits but same sculpts which does not rule out that both are made from the very same greens but could also mean those were already available digital

tneva82 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
....you claimed, or at least implied, that they did.

"If the Perrys were convinced to learn digital sculpting I have no trouble believing most if not all of the GW sculpting stable were too."

I wouldn't consider "4 months" of digital sculpting and "a few hours of digital work on various things", which were mixed and completed with traditional sculpting to be a strong argument to your point.

Also of note that the events being discussed here occurred 4-5 years after IOB released, which was itself 6-8 years after IoB would have been sculpted.

He didn't say they moved to digital sculpting. Just that they learned how to do it...

Aka to LEARN something you don't have to do something exclusively. You do know you can posses skill for both hand AND digital sculpting don't you?

I mean, in the interview they pretty much say they couldn't figure out how to do stuff and thus sculpted parts of the mini hy hard, so did they learn?

 nathan2004 wrote:
How I wish GW let the Perry’s come back and sculpt by hand again provided they wanted to also. Something you can’t quite capture through digital design imo that’s there with hand design.

I don't think it's the medium, I think it's the hiring of computer design graduates rather than art graduates.

Got my TK box finally, and god these TK skeletons are awful, I had forgotten how flimsy they are to assemble.

Wayniac wrote:
Got my TK box finally, and god these TK skeletons are awful, I had forgotten how flimsy they are to assemble.

I said screw it and bought oathmark skeletons, which look nicer, and I also bought skeleton chariot kits(2) from the Wargames atlantic. I'll probably still be buying regular TK heroes and such but I couldnt be doing with those nasty-ass skeletons.

(Also I was going for more of an "Army of Darkness" vibe than "Egypt with more skulls". Will probably also get some Tomb Guard down the line so it looks like armies of ancient celt greek egyptian etc armies. Wish there was some roman skeletons to get too

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 nathan2004 wrote:
How I wish GW let the Perry’s come back and sculpt by hand again provided they wanted to also. Something you can’t quite capture through digital design imo that’s there with hand design.

I don't think it's the medium, I think it's the hiring of computer design graduates rather than art graduates.

Good point but some of the old world releases I really like. The Standard Bearer for Tomb Kings will be going in my army and while I don't play Orcs, the new Orc Boss and Shaman look incredible.

Maybe trying to match aesthetic is forcing them to do less instead of more which more is what they do it seems on all 40k and AoS stuff nowadays it feels like. Maybe it's just me though lol.

CaptainKlang wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Got my TK box finally, and god these TK skeletons are awful, I had forgotten how flimsy they are to assemble.

I said screw it and bought oathmark skeletons, which look nicer, and I also bought skeleton chariot kits(2) from the Wargames atlantic. I'll probably still be buying regular TK heroes and such but I couldnt be doing with those nasty-ass skeletons.

(Also I was going for more of an "Army of Darkness" vibe than "Egypt with more skulls". Will probably also get some Tomb Guard down the line so it looks like armies of ancient celt greek egyptian etc armies. Wish there was some roman skeletons to get too

Might look a bit solitary compared to normal skeletons in Roman gear, but the Bone Giant will be released with a Roman style helmet. At least that's an option to get a Roman touch to your army.

 nathan2004 wrote:


Maybe trying to match aesthetic is forcing them to do less instead of more which more is what they do it seems on all 40k and AoS stuff nowadays it feels like. Maybe it's just me though lol.

While I agree in general, they managed to do quite unspectacular new cadians of a reasonable scale and sober style.
And the new foot chaos warriors is neiter scale-creepers or over-the-top design, just basic and sober update of the classic design. And I guess the new cities of sigmar stuff is quite grounded. Even the absurd walking ogre sniper tower have ogres that look nothing like the comic book style mawtribe models.
So, even for the main systems, they can adopt a style less inspiered by "sunday cartoons". (Just for the record, I dont mind the occasional over the top sunday cartoon centerpiece unit once in a while, but some things are best left plain and grounded.)

Are the Goblins released next week?

Haven’t said when, they seem to be catching up on production as I too finally got my order in the mail.

CaptainKlang wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Got my TK box finally, and god these TK skeletons are awful, I had forgotten how flimsy they are to assemble.

I said screw it and bought oathmark skeletons, which look nicer, and I also bought skeleton chariot kits(2) from the Wargames atlantic. I'll probably still be buying regular TK heroes and such but I couldnt be doing with those nasty-ass skeletons.

(Also I was going for more of an "Army of Darkness" vibe than "Egypt with more skulls". Will probably also get some Tomb Guard down the line so it looks like armies of ancient celt greek egyptian etc armies. Wish there was some roman skeletons to get too

Dark Art Studios has you covered, but their skellies are metal and a bit pricey. Maybe something for the front rank only

 nathan2004 wrote:
Haven’t said when, they seem to be catching up on production as I too finally got my order in the mail.

Actually I think large portions of the USA are still on wave 1. You got a delay due to weather affecting at least one of the major US warehouse hubs.

Personally I wouldn't hope for Orcs and Goblins soon. Bear in mind that Tomb Kings and Bretonnia don't have their entire ranges released yet. The Orcs and Goblins article outright states that the plan is not to release everything in a single wave either. It's conceivable that February is more Tomb Kings and Bretonnia and Orcs and Goblins are spread out across March and April.