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Ok ,let me start by explaining this topic is 40k related but may not seem that way to begin....
So with the arrival of my shiny new limited edition WHFB book due any day now i decided to take a trip down warhammer fantasy memory lane and dug out a copy of Warhammer fantasy from 1996/97, in truth its about to make its way into the loft with many other GW related items but thats another story...
Anyway i decided to remind myself of the fluff and read the army sections of the book, plenty of details and most importantly loads of photos of the minis including the old chaos dwarves and kislevites and other things we no longer see. As im looking at the pretty pictures and laughing at the garish colour scemes from back in the day i began to notice something, It was pretty apparent that (almost*) every single miniature in that book is no longer available to buy,by which i mean that the miniature may still exist in the army but the miniature on the page was long gone from the range.
Now i imagine that there are some of the minis in that book that are still current,but i cannot for the life of me identify many if any at all.
So in effect GW have managed to replace the entire WHFB range in 14 years.
So here is the tie in, how much of the 40k range is still hanging on from 1996/7 era? well a considerable number of eldar models for example that are still for sale were produced in 1994 -1997 including the vyper and falcon.
Im also fairly certain a number of space marine models including blood angels and space wolves also have minis dating from 1993 -1997. And slightly closer to our time are the dark eldar with its entire range dating from 1998,ok thats not quite 14 years but they have the privilege of being the only 40k race to have never had a mini updated (unless i missed one), and if memory serves me correctly the sisters of battle codex and current range were released in 1997 too.
Now what strikes me as strange is that 40k is considered the cash cow for GW, but i can point out certain sets of miniatures of fantasy armies that have been updated more than once since 1996 and yet a fair portion of 40k models have never had an updated.
I dont think we will ever really get to grips on the hows and whys gw do things, but i just thought i would share my ramblings in beardy Jervis type post and open up the floor to you guys.
So with the arrival of my shiny new limited edition WHFB book due any day now i decided to take a trip down warhammer fantasy memory lane and dug out a copy of Warhammer fantasy from 1996/97, in truth its about to make its way into the loft with many other GW related items but thats another story...
Anyway i decided to remind myself of the fluff and read the army sections of the book, plenty of details and most importantly loads of photos of the minis including the old chaos dwarves and kislevites and other things we no longer see. As im looking at the pretty pictures and laughing at the garish colour scemes from back in the day i began to notice something, It was pretty apparent that (almost*) every single miniature in that book is no longer available to buy,by which i mean that the miniature may still exist in the army but the miniature on the page was long gone from the range.
Now i imagine that there are some of the minis in that book that are still current,but i cannot for the life of me identify many if any at all.
So in effect GW have managed to replace the entire WHFB range in 14 years.
So here is the tie in, how much of the 40k range is still hanging on from 1996/7 era? well a considerable number of eldar models for example that are still for sale were produced in 1994 -1997 including the vyper and falcon.
Im also fairly certain a number of space marine models including blood angels and space wolves also have minis dating from 1993 -1997. And slightly closer to our time are the dark eldar with its entire range dating from 1998,ok thats not quite 14 years but they have the privilege of being the only 40k race to have never had a mini updated (unless i missed one), and if memory serves me correctly the sisters of battle codex and current range were released in 1997 too.
Now what strikes me as strange is that 40k is considered the cash cow for GW, but i can point out certain sets of miniatures of fantasy armies that have been updated more than once since 1996 and yet a fair portion of 40k models have never had an updated.
I dont think we will ever really get to grips on the hows and whys gw do things, but i just thought i would share my ramblings in beardy Jervis type post and open up the floor to you guys.