epic!

you should see him next to a terminator, he makes it look tiny...

ya i know

they're made of too much awesome for a slight on their name like that

ya know... this kinda works *laughs* being the armour indom and all *chuckles* very cool my friend :) I can't wait to see him painted though deep down I want to paint em... can you make me one :3 *giggles*

afraid not I have no more conversion beamers and those centurion suits are expensive.

*snaps fingers* aw shucks :) I understand just looks awesome and wish I had one now *laughs* look forward to seeing it painted!

Jeez... the Centurions... >_<

'Yo dawg! I herd u liek Spess Mehrenes, so ah put a Spess Mehrene in yo' Spess Mehrene so y'all can be protected while you're protected!'

The Centurions deserve a lot more credit than they get. I used them a few days ago, and they tore their way through 3 units of Chaos marines and 2 tanks before I had to back off due to casualties (5 turns of awesomeness). they more than doubled their points cost in what they killed or forced enemy units to flee the battle field.

I'm not debating their effectiveness.

I'm debating how bloody ridiculous and out of the blue they are.

Really, it's just GW's desperate attempt to gimmick their way back into favor with players who have been dropping them and Citadel like a cheap cigar.

If I didn't love Warhammer 40K as much as I do, it wouldn't bother me so much.

I think you need to understand that Games Workshop is a publicly owned business. That means shareholders who want a return on their investment.

A company like GW doesn't stay around because it revamps the same things again and again, the company would stagnate and collapse if that was all they did (as I understand it at one point when it was a private company it nearly did). They need to generate new product to to generate interest. This is why new army units are produced, they may not fit everyone's taste, but they will generate extra revenue for the company as many gamers/hobbyists will want to try them out and learn more.

If you want to talk gimmicks for getting into favor with their audience then Hasbro is one of the biggest culprits. Transformers for example: had a great initial run but sales dipped so they needed a new gimmick to get kids to get their parent to spend money on toys, enter the combiners, dinobots, triple changers, throttle-bots, target masters, head masters and more over the years. All in a effort to make money for their share holders. Go to any toy department of any store and look at all the toys based of movies, cartoons, or other tv shows and see how many of them have no actual relation to the source, the vast majority are just the same figure /car/etc with a new paint job and some extra little bit added or a slightly different mold in order to generate interest - gimmicks. Hell apple has done such a good job of gimmick selling in the last 10 years that they're stuck for new ideas, and car manufacturers will do the same thing with their new car models.

Now, I'm going to come over to your side a bit and explain why people get upset about this kind of thing. Are a lot of the new things a bit out there, unnecessary, or even out right silly? Yes, but the designers both game and miniature, try these new things to see what will be fun in the games, if they didn't we'd just have the same models from 30 years ago and nothing else. It's not always about being totally serious, after all they are just GAMES in the end, and games are to be played to have fun. Now you are fully entitled to be upset with something you don't like because we as players and hobbyists invest a lot of our own time in these games, building armies, reading the lore, playing games, painting, etc. We are emotionally attached to our hobby and it's natural to be defensive when you see something you disagree with as it affects how YOU perceive the hobby. The real trick is looking on the grander scale, how does this affect EVERYBODY in the hobby not just YOU. Yes, you might not like the look of something, but two dozen others around you might thing differently, or on the other hand you might find a particular model the best thing ever, where as your gaming group might think it's the biggest turd in the world. It's a personal thing which we drive our opinions through. Personally I find it really annoying when people run down other peoples model/army/paint choices because they base it off of their own opinions, rather than finding our what the other person was trying to achieve as it generates a lot of hostility, and that is not what the games or the hobby is about as I see it.

Now like you I love 40K I've played it for over 20 years and I love everything about it, and embrace the changes that come along every year. I wasn't sure when I first saw the centurions as I am with a lot of new kits, but I let time and experience with the kits or seeing other people use them build my opinion of them. When I finally got the centurion kit I was amazed at how much fun they were to build, so much so that I turned my mind to the conversion above and bought an extra box of them just to do it. Then I read the lore behind them - specialist heavy units for the 8th and 9th companies of Marine chapters. To me it added a lot of flavor to a very static part of Space Marines as I see it and it also makes sense as to why the 8th and 9th companies would deploy units like this to the main battle companies in order to more specialized attack power where needed.

Now above you mentioned how 'bloody ridiculous and out of the blue they are.' I want to ask you why you think they are that? then tell me what is good about them (and 'nothing' is not an answer).

If you're going to defend GW's draconian business practices that frequently punish their biggest fans rather than effect any real protection for their property, then use something else besides drawing comparisons to other companies.

They're ridiculous because Terminator armor fills the same damned role. They're out of the blue because there's no precedent, lore or otherwise.

What's good about them is based STRICTLY on their value as a game piece. Sure they're powerful units and effective at what they do. But from a lore standpoint, they're anomalous.

Yes, I'm invested in the story of the world. Warhammer 40K is number two in my top five sci-fi settings, with Dune being at the peak. Star Wars, Star Trek and Fallout being the bottom three of the top five.

And these things... I don't know what GW was thinking or what shareholder in their addled minds were thinking, but Space Marines are NOT Matryoshka Dolls. X_X

As for how it affects me, I'll either have to devise a new method to counter these ridiculous things when my gaming pals pick them up or have to pick some of them up myself.

My Space Wolf Army was recently bolstered by the addition of the Thunderwolves and Fenrisian Wolves. Those are great! They're in-lore, they're units that required creative modding and they're unique. However, the Centurions are just.... there now.

Good conversion, mate. Looks good, unlike their normal state.

I still think they're one of the most static, ugly, boring, and unengaging models GW has ever made.

They are a little static, but if you play around with the components and make a few little tweaks with green stuff you can get an awesome looking centurion. My Assault Centurion Sergeant looks like he's going to boss walk his way over a unit himself.

You really have to build one though before you judge, there are so many little details and conversion opportunities you'd be mad to pass them over.

Well, I'll never have the chance since I'm a Blood Angel through and through. Need my 6th Ed. Dex! I always play a fast and hard army, so I think like terminators, centurians will never suit me. I'll rely on you to prove their modelling merit.

I'm really excited for the plastic sternguard. Can't wait to combo a box of them with some flashy BA (and Deatch Company) bits. And the twin autocannon rhino chassis anti-air looks like it'll fit my fast army's anti-air need.

You should totally mail me some plastic Sternies. :'D

P.S.

The new tactical squad looks like a buy as well so I can refurb my list to at least survive in 6th. Since my third ed tacs with ML and flamer aren't doing too well these days.

I've got a box in front of me.... so worth it

alliance rules, you can still use them along side your Blood Angels army.

Boo, allies rules, boo. :P

why boo? it's a great way to pick the army you want?

Apocolypse I like it. But in standard games I feel it's detracted from 40k since 6th Ed rolled around. Around me, it's become a game of min-maxing, which is boring. Everyone and their mother has Grey Hunters for example, even though they used to be an Ultramarines/Salamanders/Blood Angels army.

some people abuse the rule, it is there to help you play more story driven games. for example I'm putting together a 1000 list of Imperial Guard that's themed as a depot garrison that's getting over whelmed, I'll be adding 500 points of Space Marines in drop pods to represent incoming re-enforcements.

but not everyone is me. you just have to accept that there are power gamers out there.

Of course. There are the people like you or I who would make fluffy, and fun armies. But the fact is, you give people the ability to min-max, they'll take it.

Whereas, you and I could likely just do the same fluffy stuff without rules with a "Hey man, mind if I play like this?" And my home gaming group would say 'Yeah, that's cool/awesome."

Once you open the gates for all though, you get crap like this. Grey hunters, grey hunters, etc, etc...

yup, very true.

What is the conversion beamer from? I don't immediately recognize what it formerly was.

The conversion beamer itself is actually a conversion beamer

it's from the old Space Crusade expansion 'Mission Dreadnought.' Sadly I no longer have the smaller versions that the marines held, but I had this larger one hidden away with the rest of my bits

Figures, been a long time since I last saw one of those.

Excellently done.

thanks man

there's a lot of work in this, glad it paid off

epic

Cheers man

going to set this guy beside that epic dreadnaught you had?

This one is for my Raven Guard, but there will be plenty of Dreads for him to stand along side

was it you that made the one dread with the double double bolters?

you must be thinking of someone else, I only have a Deathwing Venerable Dread and Space Wolves Venerable Dread in my scraps gallery.

Nice! What is the bit you used for the conversion beamer?

Also: my Master of the Forge is mounted on a bike. Conversion beamer + bike = the scariest shooting unit EVER.

it's actually an old conversion beamer from the the early nineties. It was part of the Space Crusade expansion 'Mission Dreadnought'