I'm pretty pissed at gamesworkshop... their tau crisis suit designs and production models are possibly the toughest models I have ever attempted to model.
firstly, lets start with the design aspect. I thought crisis suits were supposed to be piloted by a tau pilot. With the model, there is physically no way a tau can ever fit inside. If it were a suit of external armor systems, the tau pilot must have a stance as wide as a buffalo (nuts included) to fit into the suit's pelvis stance. From whats shown on the forgeworld site, a normal tau without armor looks more like a tall lanky disco junkie from the 70's afro, bell bottoms and all in full glory... how do they sit inside that god forsaken suit I do not know... btw, there seems to be no torso movement at all, can you imagine living life doing everyday things without being able to rotate your waist?
I think the tau suit idea is a good one... but like most imitators, the execution is an epic fail. Since the tau designers have proven that their IQ is roughly congruent with that of a cabbage, I hereby nominate my garden gnome eddy mc to undertake the next tau codex' suit designs entirely. With all due respects, leave the robot designing to the Japanese.
Secondly, lets go over the quality of gw products, how many times have tank panels not lined up symmetrically with the corresponding sides? how many forgeworld doors have you bought that seem to suffer from more shrinkage than penis on a cold day if ice fishing? how many tau suit heads have dents on the smack middle of the top panel? (see picture, red circles marks the spot)
Now gw wants to charge $24.03 (nyc tax included) for this crappy model? how can I quantify this fact and have it make sense in the most marginal manner? Thats almost like saying Catholic priests do not molest underage boys and that the pope does not look like emperor palpatine... This makes me re-think all holy truths and everything else I've been taught...
Being calm now, I must say normally i never buy any fake goods as I believe people should get dues for what they put out on the market but this case is different... clearly we can see that even with the high premium gw is already charging, they still cannot afford a proper quality control team to oversee their products... and yet all nations rip on china for bad quality... I think from now on, I will only buy 1 box or unit of whatever I need, fix that up and just re-cast my own master molds into however many pieces I need. At least that will save me a lot of time than trying to make good something that's defective.
IIRC the pilot isn't extended through the limbs; they're curled up in the chest, and just control the movement of the extremities.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree that the look in general of the crisis suits is pretty poor. Some of the FW ones look better, but the Crisis and Broadside suits are IMO the weakest parts of the Tau range.
That's hilarious about the lack of a waist, I'd never noticed that before. Quality control is one of the main areas in which Games Workshop continually mystifies me. It just seems very inconsistent, and while I think the vast majority of their kits and models are great and very well produced, this just makes the poor ones stand out even more.
ReplyDeleteIn the Black Library books the Tau pilots sit in a seat of some kind in the body of the suit, rather than wearing it like Tony Stark wears the Iron Man suit.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the same complaint levied against Space Marines? Disproportionately small heads, shoulders extending several inches from the trunk to accommodate the thickness of the armored torso and arms in between, groin flat several inches across to accomodate armor between legs, disproportionately thin upper leg, and god knows what else.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem with the Crisis suits is that they're too small to accommodate a cockpit for the pilot, but since 40k is made in heroic scale, the suits actually share the scaled-down proportions of the tanks.
you would think since this game is played by measurements and the sense of scale would have direct correlation to the game that GW would pull their heads out their asses to get things done properly.
ReplyDeleteI strongly feel that if 40k vehicles are a bit larger, the overall outcome will be much more realistic and aesthetically pleasing. I once saw a true scale dark angel on someone's blog. The marine's proportion looked a lot like some of the newer sm illustrations found in the space wolves and BA codexes.