Mr Mystery
06-05-2012, 07:03 AM
Sup peeps!
So, Chapterhouse landed themselves in the poop by producing upgrade kits (fair enough I suppose) and then marketing them using GW owned trademarks and copyrights (whoops). Notably, the Tervigon, which if memory serves was a conversion kit for the Carnifex. And there are many companies out there churning out bitz and pieces for existing kits, or otherwise gap filling incomplete ranges.
Now, rather than focus on the various opinions on this practice (I'll freely state I'm against it, and I have a low opinion of such companies, but that's for another thread) I want to discuss more practical concerns.
For instance, now it's finally out, the Tervigon and Tyrannofex are considerably larger than most home made conversions and commercially available kits. Indeed, Chapterhouse, as far as I can see, have ceased production of their conversion kit for the Tervigon. I'd imagine this is mostly due to the GW model now rendering it a less than useful investment, rather than the ongoing (and tedious, so let's not discuss it here) court case..
But how does this affect those who have bought one or more already? I'm a self identifying casual gamer, but WYSIWYG is an important rule, as is True Line of Sight. Where a conversion or proxy has a significantly smaller sillhouette or mass, I feel the player has an unfair advantage, being able to hide the unit better, or worse, being able to use it to block line of sight to other units. From my limited understanding, this is even more likely to be seen as a problem in the more competitive circles, and that's before you take into account relative base sizes.
Is it a big enough issue that despite having invested in alternate models, those who seek to field a particular build in a Tournament style environment, to now make third party 'hole filling' conversion kits less attractive? For instance, though I'm not aware of any manufactured attempts, the Necron flier is significantly larger than the various home made conversions, enough to give a potential advantage under the 40k rules set.
Will this have a wider impact, in that players will wait for the official model first, and then if inclined that way, seek out a third party attempt of a similar size? And in terms of chicken and egg, will this mean we see reduced output from Third Party companies?
Of course, this won't affect bitz manufacturers, or indeed any third party bitz kit, as they're designed to be put on existing, known scale models. But third party attempts at gap filling? If we look to Dark Eldar, Necrons, Ogres and Vampire Counts, they have all their units out, barring the Bomber and a few special characters. This has already reduced the potential impact of third party sculptors, and way I see it, only those that are producing really nice models will continue in business, as it's inevitable someone will find their sculpt more appealing.
So yeah. Bit of a long winded one, but off we go!
So, Chapterhouse landed themselves in the poop by producing upgrade kits (fair enough I suppose) and then marketing them using GW owned trademarks and copyrights (whoops). Notably, the Tervigon, which if memory serves was a conversion kit for the Carnifex. And there are many companies out there churning out bitz and pieces for existing kits, or otherwise gap filling incomplete ranges.
Now, rather than focus on the various opinions on this practice (I'll freely state I'm against it, and I have a low opinion of such companies, but that's for another thread) I want to discuss more practical concerns.
For instance, now it's finally out, the Tervigon and Tyrannofex are considerably larger than most home made conversions and commercially available kits. Indeed, Chapterhouse, as far as I can see, have ceased production of their conversion kit for the Tervigon. I'd imagine this is mostly due to the GW model now rendering it a less than useful investment, rather than the ongoing (and tedious, so let's not discuss it here) court case..
But how does this affect those who have bought one or more already? I'm a self identifying casual gamer, but WYSIWYG is an important rule, as is True Line of Sight. Where a conversion or proxy has a significantly smaller sillhouette or mass, I feel the player has an unfair advantage, being able to hide the unit better, or worse, being able to use it to block line of sight to other units. From my limited understanding, this is even more likely to be seen as a problem in the more competitive circles, and that's before you take into account relative base sizes.
Is it a big enough issue that despite having invested in alternate models, those who seek to field a particular build in a Tournament style environment, to now make third party 'hole filling' conversion kits less attractive? For instance, though I'm not aware of any manufactured attempts, the Necron flier is significantly larger than the various home made conversions, enough to give a potential advantage under the 40k rules set.
Will this have a wider impact, in that players will wait for the official model first, and then if inclined that way, seek out a third party attempt of a similar size? And in terms of chicken and egg, will this mean we see reduced output from Third Party companies?
Of course, this won't affect bitz manufacturers, or indeed any third party bitz kit, as they're designed to be put on existing, known scale models. But third party attempts at gap filling? If we look to Dark Eldar, Necrons, Ogres and Vampire Counts, they have all their units out, barring the Bomber and a few special characters. This has already reduced the potential impact of third party sculptors, and way I see it, only those that are producing really nice models will continue in business, as it's inevitable someone will find their sculpt more appealing.
So yeah. Bit of a long winded one, but off we go!