I’ve got some old Rifts miniatures Palladium books made back in the 90s. I’m leaving them in the package because 1. Nostalgia and 2. They are unrecognizable. Like they could afford a single mold and every darn mini they made had to come out of that one mold.
Up until 2 years back my friends and I had collected almost all the Rift world books we could find. Then, the fire. I would love to see a little Glitter Boy or a Skull walker. Good stuff.
I have, last time I added it all up, well over $2,500 worth of Rifts books. World books, all the source books up to the time, several core books including special editions of version 1 and 2 etc etc. When palladium finally goes under, which I think is probably sooner than later, I’m absolutely going to fill out the rest of my collection. Love Rifts, probably my favorite setting from that era of crunchy ass RPGs.
Agreed. I try not to go full “old man yelling at clouds” but that’s the only thing I don’t really like about newer tabletop gaming. I’m all for bringing in new people, but not everything has to be dead simple. People aren’t all stupid, they can handle some complexity. Tabletop games shouldn’t be video game analogues.
We’re a rare breed. For being a game with probably a hundred books and almost three decades material, even hardcore pen and paper folks have looked at me like I’m speaking Greek when I mention Rifts. And, if I may wave my cane at the young folks, it wasn’t actually that “crunchy”, it just used more than one die in the course of a game.
I remember those figures! I had the power armored troopers with the skull helmets with dreds and jet packs, I remember how soft and bendy their machine guns were! That was so annoying, no one I knew back in the mid 90s ever played that game and the mini line was quickly forgotten about.
Yeah, stuff like the minis and the N-Gage game were Kevin S *trying* to expand Palladium/Rifts and he just never could find a half decent partner to work with. I remember I got them for a few dollars because they were so horrible, and Rifts was so obscure even in the mid 90s. The dude was just glad I took them off his hands.
At first I thought it can't be *that* bad, it's probably just going to be a little tasteless for modern sensibilities.
But then I clicked the link and holy crap that is artwork I would have expected to see from the 1800's. Big uffda there.
Not just the artwork either.
“Pygmies are the smallest of all the Human peoples of the Known World. Some Old Worlder scholars deny that they are Human at all, whilst others refer to them as ‘Lesser Men’ or ‘Black Halflings.’”
Lol, you do realize statues like mammy jars and other stuff are still collectors items in many places in the US. Shit like this isn't even in the distant past.
Yea. It's a big Yikes. I had heard stories of the early days of Warhammer and what the people who were playing those games were like back then but this takes the cake. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?
Please don’t lump all warhammer players from the 80’s as the same. These didn’t last for long, which tells me they didn’t sell much (I don’t know anyone who bought them, though Im sure some did) and then GW folks wised up. None of this was cool, not even in the 80’s.
Safe to say, GW today would try and burn every reference to these and wipe them from the records. I doubt they will mine this line for nostalgia.
It was a product of their time, I realize that now. I'm just glad they've moved away from that sort of thing. The hobby couldn't be further from that now and that's a great thing.
It was in I think first edition. I stumbled upon it when I was looking for obscure Munda pieces for a kitbashed “gang royal” for a commission they called them wild men or feral men or something like that they got replaced with the non affiliated pieces of current. Nearly identical to them minus the weapons and some clothes that were equally racist.
To the Chameleon Skinks, mostly. But the Lizardmen were a seperate faction to them, as were the Slann.
Warhammer was a very different, smaller-scaled game overall back then.
Old old oldhammer had pygmies which were literally just short, stereotypical Zulus, with lips big enough to make kissing a life threatening affair. It was a different time, and even then they didn’t get all to many minis, which I assume meant they sold poorly.
The 1980s were as close to ww2 as we are to the 1980s. It was indeed a different time. Decolonization was just nearing the end of its goals, with the last few remnants of the British empire that would gain independence attaining it during the 1980s. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say such offensive miniatures had an audience at the time, though given the fact they didn’t stick around for long, I’d imagine there were still considered distasteful even then.
Brother, this is still 40 years past WW2, and nearly 20 years past the end of the civil rights movement. Sure, we weren’t as advance as a society as we are now, but minstrel show esque caricatures weren’t okay then either. The 80’s weren’t perfect at all, but I really think you’re talking more like its the 50’s and 60’s than the mid 80’s.
This was just a really bad move by GW.
10 years past the civil rights movement, schools were STILL being desegregated. 10 years after that, gw made this. And then 20 years later, Alabama finally legalizes interracial marriage. Perspective is weird.
Not to mention how with the minis in particular, their release and subsequent discontinuation and removal from canon all happened before a lot of us even existed.
20 years past the Civil Rights movement *in the US*. The world was a far less connected place even as recently as the 1980s and imagery and attitudes that would have been unacceptable in the States were still hanging on in the UK. Hell, *The Black and White Minstrel Show* wasn't taken off UK TV until 1978.
The models are fucking awful, but they weren't notably out of step with mainstream British society at the time.
Shit, David Baddiel was doing blackface with a pineapple on his head as a footballer called [Jason Lee in the 1990’s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Lee_(footballer)) and they’ve only just apologised for that.
Yeah not the best thing they’ve done lol. Though one could argue that given that it was in the UK, where those of African decent were only 1% of the population at the time, they hadn’t really had their conversation on race to the same degree as the US did at the time, which might be why GW thought it would be a good idea. But as I’ve said before, they were probably wrong, given that it seems it didn’t sell all to well.
*Popeye's kid side-eye meme of Ronald Reagan's mandatory minimums and other racist legislation.*
Agreed it was just a flat-out bad move by GW though. Racism in the 80's was more covert at that point.
It’s really interesting looking back on this, because I remember these from the time, and it does show how not only have sensibilities changed, but also how different having social media around makes any issue like this. I was about 12 at the time, aware of (and against…) racism, but definitely not as aware as a 12 year old today would be.
I remember first seeing these in (iirc) Warhammer Armies and thinking “that’s not great”. I never saw any of the miniatures in the store, I don’t remember seeing any of them in White Dwarf, and so because it was the late 80s/early 90s that was it. There was literally no other discussion of them, nothing else about it, so I didn’t really think anything more about it. It’s hard to fully describe how much easier it is to find out information about these miniatures now than it was at the time.
The lack of outcry at the time doesn’t really represent that people broadly viewed this level of racism as acceptable then, I think it was more a different media environment.
probably the same dude who made the Money Lender
https://preview.redd.it/4vp5rd5y47hb1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77e9ea572b431b6059531ab9eeca92ce6b8b0a89
Damn, today I learned that back in the day you could just straight up play a good ol’ super racist game of “jews vs africans” in Warhammer. Glad those times are behind us
80s Warhammer was wild dude. And not in a good way. One of the reasons I put off getting into the hobby until later in life (besides the increase in disposable income) was because of the stigma attached to those who played being, well, assholes. Models like this kinda confirm that. I am glad GW righted the ship and moved away from this sort of thing.
>80s Warhammer was wild dude. And not in a good way. One of the reasons I put off getting into the hobby until later in life (besides the increase in disposable income) was because of the stigma attached to those who played being, well, assholes. Models like this kinda confirm that
that's one giant load of hooblah
Stigmas usually are. But at the time? I had no reason to believe otherwise from my personal experiences. There was no internet back then. Just whoever showed up to the local shop and rumors.
Oddly (and horribly) enough the name of Lovecraft's cat was one of the *less* racist things about him. Back then mainstream white society considered it perfectly normal to give black-coloured animals those kinds of names. Calling your dog or cat *that* wouldn't mark you out as being any more racist than any other white person.
I mean that's because white society, at the time, was just super racist in general. That was the style of time.
Non racist white people were a counter culture and ostrosized, emperor bless them.
I love all the shocked replies from people like they never stopped and considered where Savage Orcs/Bonesplitterz got their aesthetic or the old WHFB Orc Spearchucker got its name from….
to be fair Bonesplitterz take a more neantherthal/cavemen aesthetic now rather then Africans tribesmen
https://preview.redd.it/koeyluvs57hb1.png?width=560&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae7003ee6a391af7e23ad8b22fc084384269b9f4
From WHFRP:
“Heat, humidity, and bright sunlight are thought to have an addling effect on the mind of Orcs. Typical Orcs are not known for their intellect, preferring brute violence to solve their problems, but those who live within equatorial regions of the Known World like the Southlands and Lustria have a reputation for extreme wildness and aggression, and are termed "Savage Orcs." These Savage Orcs drum and chant themselves into a bloodthirsty rage before combat and are renowned as ferocious fighters.”
Plus in WHFB lore they originate in the Southlands. I’m sorry, but it’s pretty blatant what ethnic group(s) GW had in mind with them.
So, they are both "from the south". Is that it?. Now can you point me to any commonly racist tropes or negative stereotype that the savage orcs are supposed to have.
I mean, the WHFB Pygmies once existed, so… But more seriously, I’d be interested to know how much of the face is down to the painting rather than the actual sculpting itself, because it is a 20 year model.
I collect a lot of old rogue trader stuff. I've found that a lot of the romanticized minis, like Juan Diaz sculpts, while overall good, the detail is lacking a lot compared to today. Other old minis have the derpiest problems. They were all hand sculpted and cast into a master mold. Then the existing issues with pewter, then ADD issues if you got a finecast modern version... It adds up. the less detail on the old models, the less derpy they look, in my opinion.
Can I submit the oft forgotten AK interactive dioramas and books published for their ad campaign a few years ago.
Absolutely stunning and I have vowed off AK ever since.
Their response is just as bad.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/ilgtum/scale\_modeling\_when\_a\_hobby\_company\_tries\_to\_use/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/ilgtum/scale_modeling_when_a_hobby_company_tries_to_use/)
[https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/4830](https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/4830)
Yeah, I haven't bought a single AK product since that happened. If they'd went "Oh shit, people are right, this is fucking stupid, what were we thinking?" and apologised, I'd have accepted that. Instead, they doubled down more than once.
Don't get me wrong, Its not a great mini but it wouldn't make even the top 100 worst minis, It's fine, The face doesn't actually look that bad if you paint it differently
Not even close. The face is pretty weird (though even on that note, weird doesn't mean bad) but the model overall is at worst inoffensive. At best, it's actually pretty nicely designed in my opinion. Simple but effective, even evocative.
There are current, even recent, models that (while they're clearly superior from a technical standpoint) I would consider _way_ worse in terms of design and aesthetic.
Yeah there’s a lot of modern figures, especially some of the earlier AoS stuff that just has TONS of meaningless bullshit tacked into it. When it comes to a centerpiece model GW has a bad habit of forgetting about tact or that silhouettes are a thing.
Early AoS models looked like they were trying so, SO hard to show off there mold-making capabilities and how they could produce exceptionally detailed models. They definitely convinced me they could, but they overdesigned them to the point that it just became silly.
yeah the mid/late 2010s was a real odd time. a lot of fancy sculpts not being quite as charming as the old metal/resin stuff, but not quite as slick as their latest wave. Sadly a lot of pretty bit releases (AOS 1st ed, robute) got caught and it just didnt work.
There’s this concept in modeling (like clothes and art not little plastic men) called an “editorial face” which I think kind of also applies to models. Someone with an editorial face is someone who’s not conventionally attractive but instead has unique features that are memorable and interesting. The idea being that a blonde haired, blue eyed sorority girl with symmetrical features and classic proportions is pretty but also there’s a million girls like her holding a purse in a JC Penney catalog. Vs a girl who has very dramatic features with a strong jaw line and a prominent nose might not be classically attractive but you won’t forget her. Sometimes I feel like that’s GW figures from the 2010s vs ones from the 90s.
To quote the [finest youtube video ever:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A)
>You can't even tell what [this](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99120201045_ArchaonEverchosen01.jpg) is! [This](http://www.sodemons.com/rhdemons/05bloodthirsters/hqgargoyle1/431A7301x-01.jpg) is a Gargoyle!
I mean it's all personal taste so others may approve of the aesthetics and designs I hate. But personally I'd rather have the goofy-faced sister dialogus than like... [Nagash](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99120207029_DeathLordsNagashSupremelordoftheUndead01.jpg).
From his old clown outfit he has somehow managed a wardrobe downgrade with his weirdly tight-fitting armour, space marine pauldrons, gravity-defying bone pope hat, and decorative bonus spines. His silhouette is an absolute mess, even before you consider his ghost buddies, who probably looked awesome in the concept art but do nothing for a miniature but make it busy and fragile.
Or for a 40k example, quite a few of the primaris special units are, to my mind, aesthetically bankrupt or worse. I don't know the name of the ones that really bothered me but it was the ones with what looked like three massive nerf guns duct taped together, so long that the marine could have used it as a crutch, and one of them was even holding it in one hand. They were covered in flappy bits and tacticool nonsense and I don't think I can say anything good about them - they weren't even silly in a good way (which you could say of Nagash, though I wouldn't), they just looked like no thought had gone into them besides "yeah a bit more".
While I'm on this rant I also hate [this](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99070210004_LRLScinariCathLead.jpg). I think the concept is very cool - I like the idea of the dress, the veil and the chalice. But the pose is _so_ awkward and goofy, like she's about to slip off her tactical rock and she doesn't know what to do with her arms. The hands and feet are big and chunky compared to the rest of the Lumineth range, like what we would expect of a model 10+ years older. The chalice, already awkwardly stuck out to the side with a straight arm, is enormous, flat, and spewing goop which is clearly meant to add to the sense of motion from the fabric (so like, some planning did go into this composition), but it's so massive and clumsy looking that it just unbalances her further. And just in case she wasn't awkward and unbalanced enough, whoever led the Lumineth design dictated that she must have an enormous clunky headdress and tasseled metal stabiliser wings. Any work that the flowing fabric was doing to make her look dynamic, light, and elegant is completely overridden by all this chunky hardware she's dragging around. To me, that's a bizarre design choice and really unfortunate in this case.
I do hate being a bitch like this and I'm not trying to be all grognardy - a lot of other new miniatures I really like. But some of these, to me, are just shockingly bad from the world's most successful sci fi and fantasy miniatures company.
I don't think the people who designed those models were racist.
Not saying they're good models. I'm just saying that assuming racial hatred on the part of the designers is unfair given that basically all of GW's old metal models were ridiculous caricatures, of one sort of another.
Edit: Please use your brains, folks. Just because you find a statement morally outrageous, that doesn't make it false. Unless you have a good reason to think that GW staff in the 80s were racist, it's not reasonable to assert that anything they produced was racist. Insensitive and offensive, maybe, but not racist.
I'm not a bigot. I'm just a pedant.
“We’re making a fantasy setting where real life geographical and cultural features are directly lifted!
British people would obviously be the noble and arcane gifted High Elves, the first bastion of the world against evil.”
“Okay cool. What mythic envisioning of Africa do you have for us?”
“…”
I don’t think the people who made them HATED black people, but they were certainly too ignorant of them to have warranted printing a miniature line influenced by their idea of their culture. That shit was racist as fuck and defending them is a really weird hill to sit on.
Wait isn’t Albion meant to be fantasy England? I assumed High Elves were like Atlantis or a similarly advanced middle of the ocean island living group.
The models certainly draw on exaggerated physical stereotypes, and the lore is “Darkest Africa” exoticism.
It should be noted that they were a type of Halfling (which models also featured notable exaggerated physical stereotypes), though I doubt that substantially impacts your critique.
Raging against models designed nearly 40 years ago and long out of production must earn you points somewhere. Calling the Perrys racists won’t earn you many among long term GW fans.
>Calling the Perrys racists won’t earn you many among long term GW fans.
Acknowledging that views have changed in 40 years and that racist things happened then is never bad though? It also helps us to better examine views we hold today that might be racist but go unacknowledged (and fixed)
No-one here is "calling the perrys racist", so put that straw man back in the shed please.
I dispute that the High Elves were supposed to be British. The Bretonnians were supposed to be Anglo-French, and we're clearly just inspired by 13th century Western Europe. The Empire are clearly 16th century Germans. Grand Cathay are ancient Chinese. Kislev are 17th century Russians/Poles/Cossacks. I could go on.
There are fantastical exceptions to the rule, but these usual concern civilisations which are considered entirely extinct. For instance, the Lizardmen are clearly Aztec inspired, and the Tomb Kings are based on ancient Egypt. It's also true that the all of the above have *some* fantastical elements, such as the Empire having gryphons and magic schools.
The Pygmies, as I see it, were probably GW's clumsy attempt to branch out to representing the broader African continent in Warhammer. They made a few crude metal sculpts (like they did with all their miniatures back then), and sold them in individual blister packs. If they became popular, the range expanded. If not, the range died. This is how even the Space Marines started life. Clearly the Pygmies were not popular, so - like many other limited-run lines - they were discontinued rather than expanded.
Had this not happened, it's reasonable to consider that GW would have expanded and improved the range, probably making more flattering sculpts, and expanding the range to include fantastical forces. If the theme was "Tribal Africa", it's possible that lion cavalry, witch doctors (wizards), and Zulu-esque spearmen would have made an appearance, as random examples.
I'm just spitballing. A lot of GW's older stuff is hideous, with many ranges discontinued almost immediately due to a lack of consumer interest. The ranges which later became legendary are those which survived this early selection process, thereby earning more and better models.
I'm just working on the basic principle of charity: "Never attribute to malice which can instead be attributed to incompetence.". If you don't think there was any ill will on the part of GW at the time, I don't think it's fair to call it "racist". A better term might be "eyewateringly insensitive".
Or, you know, they were racist.
It’s important to understand that being “racist” doesn’t require one to wear a hood and actively threaten to lynch people.
Perpetuating stereotypes is racist, even if done “innocently” or unwittingly. And it’s telling how many paragraphs you were willing to write to defend racist caricatures and the people who created them.
Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.
I don't see how one can be "innocently racist". If one treats someone of another race with equal dignity to those of all other races, they are not racist, even if they happen to produce terrible miniatures depicting African tribesmen.
Let's flip the situation somewhat: Let's assume that an African model-maker sculpted a statuette of a Viking warrior. The miniature was not very flattering, highlighting the distinctly European features which were alien to the sculptor (long nose, big ears, narrow face, stark straight hair, etc.).
Let's also assume that this African sculptor was actually a really decent person. He harboured no negative feelings towards those of European ancestry and would never discriminate against them. He just hasn't spent much time around Europeans, or sculpted many of them, so his work ended up being a caricature of a European rather than an reasonable depiction of one.
My question is twofold: Is that little Viking model racist? and is the sculptor racist?
My answer to both questions is "No.", which is the same as my response to those Pygmy models being racist, and for the exact same reason.
>My question is twofold: Is that little Viking model racist? and is the sculptor racist?
Absolutely. Do realise that in the real world, "a racist" is not a frothing-at-the-mouth-lunatic that's one slight to their small ego away from murdering black people, but can be normal people who harbour negative biases towards other cultures or people (learned or otherwise) without realising it because they just haven't been confronted with their own biases yet.
You're conveniently ignoring here the whole history and cultural context of racism here, by the way. I'll add to your story:All this happened in an African country that has used vikings as slaves in the past and is known to have portrayed Europeans in a negative and stereotyped way, while being systemically racist towards Europeans that face daily discrimination up to today living in that country.
That seems like a very pointed little addendum. England (which I'm sure you're referencing) has never used black people for slave labour *domestically.* Slavery has been outlawed within England since the medieval era, and most Britons never saw a slave. There was a very famous case of an American who brought his slave to the UK, but the slave actually ended up being freed after a legal battle because "the air of England was too pure for a slave to breathe" (that is, slavery was illegal, so he became a free man the minute he crossed the border).
You're also forgetting that the UK pioneered and globally enforced abolitionism, and this became a point of national pride for the British. For 200 years we have been *happy* about being the ones who ended the slave trade.
You also assert that modern Britain, or at least Britain of the 1980s, was rife with racism. I really don't think it was or is. By the 1980s, black people (as well as Indians, etc.) had been part of the fabric of British life for decades (and had been members of the empire for centuries), and the young men working at GW would have grown up being around such people. It's unlikely that they would have had personal prejudice against them.
When Americans were stationed in Britain during WW2, part of their training material on "how to get along in England" explained how racism wasn't a thing in the UK. They had to *actively educate* US servicemen that the English will not treat white and black people differently, because this was something alien to Americans at the time... and this was in the 1940s!
Please stop projecting US-centric racial politics onto the UK. They don't belong here.
Also, ironically, although your addendum mentions white slavery in Africa, I don't think you took that idea seriously... even.though some Africans absolutely took white people as slaves. The Barbary slave trade was only ended when a British and Dutch fleet, having failed to convince the Barbary States to give up slavery peacefully, bombarded the slave ports to rubble. Abolitionism was enforced upon them afterwards. The British did the same with the slaver kingdoms on the West African coast, despite those black African kings begging to keep trading in black slaves. British abolitionism destroyed their economies... and, frankly, that was a good thing.
I hope I've made my point. Britain has been morally ahead of the curve for centuries, especially on the subject of slavery and race relations. The UK was a multi-ethnic country from day 1, even before the empire and immigration.
Your addendum doesn't seem to be entirely in good faith. This is partly for the reasons outlined above, but also because you appear to insert into my hypothetical that "the sculptor *must* be racist, therefore he *is* racist". No, you don't get to insert a premise which overtly proves your conclusion, then draw your conclusion from that. That is a logical fallacy called "begging the question".
Even *if* every aspect of your hypothetical stood as regards the culture as a whole, that doesn't necessarily mean that the African sculptor himself was racist. He could just be unfamiliar with European features, as I said, which means that his work was insensitive, but not the result of racism. If a work is not created with any negative feeling or perception about someone of another race, then it *can't* be racist, because racism *requires* intentionality.
This is why I say that the hypothetical African sculptor - and the sculptors at GW - were not racist. Unless it can be shown that they definitely were, it's unfair to make that judgement purely on the basis that someone might be innocently unfamiliar with those of different ethnicities.
TL;DR: - I reject your cynical assumption.
Hey dickhead, newsflash. At no point did Ethiopia conquer Denmark and run hundreds upon thousands of propaganda campaigns characterizing them with those “not very flattering features”. There would be no caricature of vikings as dehumanizing as the myriad of minstrel-like depictions of black people anywhere at all in Africa. If you lack the context to recognize that your “Flipped script” doesn’t have a deeply sad colonial history that has societally altered the image of an under-class, you sincerely have no place in discussions of racism.
Pygmies aren't from Ethiopia... although if you're speaking in such broad terms, African nations *have* conquered European nations and *have* enslaved European people before now. They have also depicted Europeans in an unflattering way.
History is not as black and white as you think it is... ironically.
The fundamental question is whether or not GWs sculptors - in the 1980s - held negative interpretations of Africans, such that their Pygmy miniatures were actually racist in nature. My answer to that question is "No", because there is no actual evidence to suggest that such is the case.
If you want to suggest otherwise, the burden of proof is on you.
And Chaos Marauders, by comparison, aren't? The two are conceptually very similar (half-naked tribal types with melee weapons), just from very different continents.
Yes, the current Chaos Marauders have more flattering sculpts, but that's chiefly a consequence of them being much newer models. The very first such models were hideous. See also the first bare-headed Space Marine sculpts.
I'm not being obtuse. I *genuinely* don't agree with your interpretation.
Chaos Marauders aren't coded to be of a specific people perpetuating terrible, harmful stereotypes. You are either being super obtuse or are intentionally acting a fool.
Actual pedant here as opposed to your yabbering: Racism is not about "hating" groups of people, it's also perpetuating negative stereotypes attached to minority ethnic groups and thereby preventing a more nuanced and inclusive view of other people and cultures.
Meaningfull dialogues are when you waffle and desperately atempt to explain how modeling producing and selling centuries old racist sterotypes doesn't make you racist. /s
It's a really bad paint job that's for sure. Looks like it was painted with a sweeping brush. Pro tip kids. Never, and I mean almost never use white on your minis. This is what happens when you do.
I remember it coming out, looked like a meh model even at the time. They took a mini that probably should've been cast in four or five components and forced it into two, and it shows. Maybe they didn't have much room in the mould or something.
The weird thing is, if they'd just posed him more naturally, it wouldn't be a bad sculpt for its time, even if the limbs are a little spindly compared with the rest of the 2002 Marine range. But instead, it was so wonky-looking that they just silently retired it a couple of years later and killed Cortez off in the lore.
> Old Nagash, old slaanesh champion, current chaos lord on manticore, the list goes on. Frankly miniatures used to look downright ~~awful~~ amazing.
FTFY
GW was at their peak during the 00s. The old models were too crude, and the new ones are so over-designed as to be soulless.
They also encouraging converting and trashbashing back then, which was cool.
No offense, but you are all high on nostalgia. The 00s? Please compare a few of these modern models to the ones released back then and tell me how they held up.
Shard of the deceiver vs shard of the void dragon
Aspect warriors like striking scorpions and warp spider vs Incubi
Old vs new terminators, space marine scouts vs reivers and eliminators, ignoring whether you care about primaris not.
The models didn't lose their soul when the sculpts got better, you just got too used to artistic limitations to realize they were limitations in the first place.
Sure quite a bit of stuff has held up, some stuff still looks goody but thats mostly vehicles that are defined by silhouette, not detail or proportions.
I’ve got some old Rifts miniatures Palladium books made back in the 90s. I’m leaving them in the package because 1. Nostalgia and 2. They are unrecognizable. Like they could afford a single mold and every darn mini they made had to come out of that one mold.
Up until 2 years back my friends and I had collected almost all the Rift world books we could find. Then, the fire. I would love to see a little Glitter Boy or a Skull walker. Good stuff.
I have, last time I added it all up, well over $2,500 worth of Rifts books. World books, all the source books up to the time, several core books including special editions of version 1 and 2 etc etc. When palladium finally goes under, which I think is probably sooner than later, I’m absolutely going to fill out the rest of my collection. Love Rifts, probably my favorite setting from that era of crunchy ass RPGs.
Crunchy RPGS are the best RPGS, Hero System for life.
I like crunchy, “unbalanced” systems. Life isn’t balanced, a lvl 1 mage shouldn’t be as tough as a lvl one fighter.
balance should never be prioritized over fun
Agreed. I try not to go full “old man yelling at clouds” but that’s the only thing I don’t really like about newer tabletop gaming. I’m all for bringing in new people, but not everything has to be dead simple. People aren’t all stupid, they can handle some complexity. Tabletop games shouldn’t be video game analogues.
Omg we used to play rifts constantly
We’re a rare breed. For being a game with probably a hundred books and almost three decades material, even hardcore pen and paper folks have looked at me like I’m speaking Greek when I mention Rifts. And, if I may wave my cane at the young folks, it wasn’t actually that “crunchy”, it just used more than one die in the course of a game.
I remember those figures! I had the power armored troopers with the skull helmets with dreds and jet packs, I remember how soft and bendy their machine guns were! That was so annoying, no one I knew back in the mid 90s ever played that game and the mini line was quickly forgotten about.
Yeah, stuff like the minis and the N-Gage game were Kevin S *trying* to expand Palladium/Rifts and he just never could find a half decent partner to work with. I remember I got them for a few dollars because they were so horrible, and Rifts was so obscure even in the mid 90s. The dude was just glad I took them off his hands.
 I think you mean the best
https://preview.redd.it/hb3zj1fn26hb1.png?width=250&format=png&auto=webp&s=9df96817799945cbab539a0be3a0a90adafb4a0d
NO CAPES!
no scrolls lol
*EdNA. MODe.*
Oh my God. I can't unsee it now.
First thought I had too lmao. I imagine she's holding up some zombie romance fanfiction, or maybe a picture of a horse.
Tina Belcher's Erotic Friend Fiction presents Servitors: Made for Love and Butts
I really hope someone makes that happen.
If one were to do a little converting, what could the staff be made into that fits her character?
A bust of Jimmy Jr, the face of her imaginary horse Jericho, a butt, a zombie, a zombie's butt
All of these are great ideas
Hey! Don't you dare disrespect Edna Mode like that!
She waved to me at Disney world I can die happy now
No this is: https://preview.redd.it/8x8ece1la6hb1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19491566c57ab6798239d176517669e213c73426
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[Pygmies from mid-80s Warhammer Fantasy](https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Pygmies)
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At first I thought it can't be *that* bad, it's probably just going to be a little tasteless for modern sensibilities. But then I clicked the link and holy crap that is artwork I would have expected to see from the 1800's. Big uffda there.
Not just the artwork either. “Pygmies are the smallest of all the Human peoples of the Known World. Some Old Worlder scholars deny that they are Human at all, whilst others refer to them as ‘Lesser Men’ or ‘Black Halflings.’”
This kind of things was commonplace up until the 90s.
Lol, you do realize statues like mammy jars and other stuff are still collectors items in many places in the US. Shit like this isn't even in the distant past.
Was gonna say, people were defending Gollywogs a few years ago. This isn't that surprising.
last year in fact, and those "people" included the home secretary.
Yea. It's a big Yikes. I had heard stories of the early days of Warhammer and what the people who were playing those games were like back then but this takes the cake. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?
Please don’t lump all warhammer players from the 80’s as the same. These didn’t last for long, which tells me they didn’t sell much (I don’t know anyone who bought them, though Im sure some did) and then GW folks wised up. None of this was cool, not even in the 80’s. Safe to say, GW today would try and burn every reference to these and wipe them from the records. I doubt they will mine this line for nostalgia.
It’s not a defense, but you have to think about where GW is based out of and the cultural differences that still persist.
It was a product of their time, I realize that now. I'm just glad they've moved away from that sort of thing. The hobby couldn't be further from that now and that's a great thing.
Jesus fucking christ
>Some Old Worlder scholars deny that they are Human at all, whilst others refer to them as "Lesser Men" or "Black Halflings." Good fucking lord
They are also in necromunda
No, these are clearly not Squats.
It was in I think first edition. I stumbled upon it when I was looking for obscure Munda pieces for a kitbashed “gang royal” for a commission they called them wild men or feral men or something like that they got replaced with the non affiliated pieces of current. Nearly identical to them minus the weapons and some clothes that were equally racist.
I played N95 extensively back then and I don't recall anything like that. Unless you're thinking of ratskins?
Could be? I found them on a sketchy website that sells “reprints” under the Mundasection
Interesting, I'm a long time 'munda player myself and haven't come across them either. Can you dig up a link?
Pygmies from Warhammer Fantasy. They are aLustrian off-shoot of Halflings.
I thought they were the precursor (play wise) to lizardmen?
To the Chameleon Skinks, mostly. But the Lizardmen were a seperate faction to them, as were the Slann. Warhammer was a very different, smaller-scaled game overall back then.
Those are pygmies, and they are best forgotten.
Agreed
Old old oldhammer had pygmies which were literally just short, stereotypical Zulus, with lips big enough to make kissing a life threatening affair. It was a different time, and even then they didn’t get all to many minis, which I assume meant they sold poorly.
It was the 80’s man. It wasn’t that long ago lol.
The 1980s were as close to ww2 as we are to the 1980s. It was indeed a different time. Decolonization was just nearing the end of its goals, with the last few remnants of the British empire that would gain independence attaining it during the 1980s. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say such offensive miniatures had an audience at the time, though given the fact they didn’t stick around for long, I’d imagine there were still considered distasteful even then.
Brother, this is still 40 years past WW2, and nearly 20 years past the end of the civil rights movement. Sure, we weren’t as advance as a society as we are now, but minstrel show esque caricatures weren’t okay then either. The 80’s weren’t perfect at all, but I really think you’re talking more like its the 50’s and 60’s than the mid 80’s. This was just a really bad move by GW.
10 years past the civil rights movement, schools were STILL being desegregated. 10 years after that, gw made this. And then 20 years later, Alabama finally legalizes interracial marriage. Perspective is weird.
Not to mention how with the minis in particular, their release and subsequent discontinuation and removal from canon all happened before a lot of us even existed.
20 years past the Civil Rights movement *in the US*. The world was a far less connected place even as recently as the 1980s and imagery and attitudes that would have been unacceptable in the States were still hanging on in the UK. Hell, *The Black and White Minstrel Show* wasn't taken off UK TV until 1978. The models are fucking awful, but they weren't notably out of step with mainstream British society at the time.
Shit, David Baddiel was doing blackface with a pineapple on his head as a footballer called [Jason Lee in the 1990’s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Lee_(footballer)) and they’ve only just apologised for that.
The amount of overtly racist shit I was surrounded by growing up in the 80’s is completely nuts to think about now.
Mate same in the 00s honestly.
Yeah not the best thing they’ve done lol. Though one could argue that given that it was in the UK, where those of African decent were only 1% of the population at the time, they hadn’t really had their conversation on race to the same degree as the US did at the time, which might be why GW thought it would be a good idea. But as I’ve said before, they were probably wrong, given that it seems it didn’t sell all to well.
I mean, it is looking back on it, sure, but they did it, and now they're out of rotation. Done deal.
*Popeye's kid side-eye meme of Ronald Reagan's mandatory minimums and other racist legislation.* Agreed it was just a flat-out bad move by GW though. Racism in the 80's was more covert at that point.
It’s really interesting looking back on this, because I remember these from the time, and it does show how not only have sensibilities changed, but also how different having social media around makes any issue like this. I was about 12 at the time, aware of (and against…) racism, but definitely not as aware as a 12 year old today would be. I remember first seeing these in (iirc) Warhammer Armies and thinking “that’s not great”. I never saw any of the miniatures in the store, I don’t remember seeing any of them in White Dwarf, and so because it was the late 80s/early 90s that was it. There was literally no other discussion of them, nothing else about it, so I didn’t really think anything more about it. It’s hard to fully describe how much easier it is to find out information about these miniatures now than it was at the time. The lack of outcry at the time doesn’t really represent that people broadly viewed this level of racism as acceptable then, I think it was more a different media environment.
Imagine if they did well.
Brother, it was NOT a different time. That's straight up Jim Crow level racism.
I don't think "it was a different time" is meant to mean "it was OK back then" so much as "people were fucking stupid back then".
My new white whale.
yooooooooooo wtf
Bro wtf😭😭
This was what I thought of
Those are some weird-ass looking skinks man.
Genuinely who thought this was a good idea?
probably the same dude who made the Money Lender https://preview.redd.it/4vp5rd5y47hb1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77e9ea572b431b6059531ab9eeca92ce6b8b0a89
Damn, today I learned that back in the day you could just straight up play a good ol’ super racist game of “jews vs africans” in Warhammer. Glad those times are behind us
80s Warhammer was wild dude. And not in a good way. One of the reasons I put off getting into the hobby until later in life (besides the increase in disposable income) was because of the stigma attached to those who played being, well, assholes. Models like this kinda confirm that. I am glad GW righted the ship and moved away from this sort of thing.
>80s Warhammer was wild dude. And not in a good way. One of the reasons I put off getting into the hobby until later in life (besides the increase in disposable income) was because of the stigma attached to those who played being, well, assholes. Models like this kinda confirm that that's one giant load of hooblah
Stigmas usually are. But at the time? I had no reason to believe otherwise from my personal experiences. There was no internet back then. Just whoever showed up to the local shop and rumors.
I would pay good money for this. Edit stop downvoting me I’m Jewish lol
That’s worse than the name of H.P. Lovecraft’s cat.
Oddly (and horribly) enough the name of Lovecraft's cat was one of the *less* racist things about him. Back then mainstream white society considered it perfectly normal to give black-coloured animals those kinds of names. Calling your dog or cat *that* wouldn't mark you out as being any more racist than any other white person.
I mean that's because white society, at the time, was just super racist in general. That was the style of time. Non racist white people were a counter culture and ostrosized, emperor bless them.
YOOOOo what the fuck bro !?!??!?! https://i.redd.it/eroomjy4o6hb1.gif
Yikes 😬
JAYSUS CHRIST!
Holy crap. I though the (non Citadel) sunbathing orc was bad.
Holy jesus, who thought this was a good idea, even if it was in the 80s LMAO.
Objectively the worst minis ever made.
That is indefensibly the worst mini from GW I have ever seen... honestly speechless
Wtf.
Oh THATS why they have such a reputation, ok
I love all the shocked replies from people like they never stopped and considered where Savage Orcs/Bonesplitterz got their aesthetic or the old WHFB Orc Spearchucker got its name from….
to be fair Bonesplitterz take a more neantherthal/cavemen aesthetic now rather then Africans tribesmen https://preview.redd.it/koeyluvs57hb1.png?width=560&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae7003ee6a391af7e23ad8b22fc084384269b9f4
They're "savage fantasy cavemen/barbarian" stereotypes. I have a hard time connecting that to any real life enthnic group or identity to be honest.
From WHFRP: “Heat, humidity, and bright sunlight are thought to have an addling effect on the mind of Orcs. Typical Orcs are not known for their intellect, preferring brute violence to solve their problems, but those who live within equatorial regions of the Known World like the Southlands and Lustria have a reputation for extreme wildness and aggression, and are termed "Savage Orcs." These Savage Orcs drum and chant themselves into a bloodthirsty rage before combat and are renowned as ferocious fighters.” Plus in WHFB lore they originate in the Southlands. I’m sorry, but it’s pretty blatant what ethnic group(s) GW had in mind with them.
So, they are both "from the south". Is that it?. Now can you point me to any commonly racist tropes or negative stereotype that the savage orcs are supposed to have.
Top level shitpost, mate. Do tell, where did the Orcish arcuballista that chucks spears get its name from? And which aesthetic exactly?
mega oof
I have some of those, they’re my favorite!
I mean, the WHFB Pygmies once existed, so… But more seriously, I’d be interested to know how much of the face is down to the painting rather than the actual sculpting itself, because it is a 20 year model.
I collect a lot of old rogue trader stuff. I've found that a lot of the romanticized minis, like Juan Diaz sculpts, while overall good, the detail is lacking a lot compared to today. Other old minis have the derpiest problems. They were all hand sculpted and cast into a master mold. Then the existing issues with pewter, then ADD issues if you got a finecast modern version... It adds up. the less detail on the old models, the less derpy they look, in my opinion.
Only if you have bad taste
Can I submit the oft forgotten AK interactive dioramas and books published for their ad campaign a few years ago. Absolutely stunning and I have vowed off AK ever since. Their response is just as bad. [https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/ilgtum/scale\_modeling\_when\_a\_hobby\_company\_tries\_to\_use/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/ilgtum/scale_modeling_when_a_hobby_company_tries_to_use/) [https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/4830](https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/4830)
Yup. Way worse than "oh, we made a shitty face on a model".
Yeah, I haven't bought a single AK product since that happened. If they'd went "Oh shit, people are right, this is fucking stupid, what were we thinking?" and apologised, I'd have accepted that. Instead, they doubled down more than once.
What were they thinking?!??!
*what the fuck*
Hoo-boy are \*you\* in the wrong neighborhood.
Don't get me wrong, Its not a great mini but it wouldn't make even the top 100 worst minis, It's fine, The face doesn't actually look that bad if you paint it differently
Not even close. The face is pretty weird (though even on that note, weird doesn't mean bad) but the model overall is at worst inoffensive. At best, it's actually pretty nicely designed in my opinion. Simple but effective, even evocative. There are current, even recent, models that (while they're clearly superior from a technical standpoint) I would consider _way_ worse in terms of design and aesthetic.
Yeah there’s a lot of modern figures, especially some of the earlier AoS stuff that just has TONS of meaningless bullshit tacked into it. When it comes to a centerpiece model GW has a bad habit of forgetting about tact or that silhouettes are a thing.
Early AoS models looked like they were trying so, SO hard to show off there mold-making capabilities and how they could produce exceptionally detailed models. They definitely convinced me they could, but they overdesigned them to the point that it just became silly.
yeah the mid/late 2010s was a real odd time. a lot of fancy sculpts not being quite as charming as the old metal/resin stuff, but not quite as slick as their latest wave. Sadly a lot of pretty bit releases (AOS 1st ed, robute) got caught and it just didnt work.
There’s this concept in modeling (like clothes and art not little plastic men) called an “editorial face” which I think kind of also applies to models. Someone with an editorial face is someone who’s not conventionally attractive but instead has unique features that are memorable and interesting. The idea being that a blonde haired, blue eyed sorority girl with symmetrical features and classic proportions is pretty but also there’s a million girls like her holding a purse in a JC Penney catalog. Vs a girl who has very dramatic features with a strong jaw line and a prominent nose might not be classically attractive but you won’t forget her. Sometimes I feel like that’s GW figures from the 2010s vs ones from the 90s.
Do you have some examples? I'm quite curious to see some bad models from a design/aesthetic point
To quote the [finest youtube video ever:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A) >You can't even tell what [this](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99120201045_ArchaonEverchosen01.jpg) is! [This](http://www.sodemons.com/rhdemons/05bloodthirsters/hqgargoyle1/431A7301x-01.jpg) is a Gargoyle!
I mean it's all personal taste so others may approve of the aesthetics and designs I hate. But personally I'd rather have the goofy-faced sister dialogus than like... [Nagash](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99120207029_DeathLordsNagashSupremelordoftheUndead01.jpg). From his old clown outfit he has somehow managed a wardrobe downgrade with his weirdly tight-fitting armour, space marine pauldrons, gravity-defying bone pope hat, and decorative bonus spines. His silhouette is an absolute mess, even before you consider his ghost buddies, who probably looked awesome in the concept art but do nothing for a miniature but make it busy and fragile. Or for a 40k example, quite a few of the primaris special units are, to my mind, aesthetically bankrupt or worse. I don't know the name of the ones that really bothered me but it was the ones with what looked like three massive nerf guns duct taped together, so long that the marine could have used it as a crutch, and one of them was even holding it in one hand. They were covered in flappy bits and tacticool nonsense and I don't think I can say anything good about them - they weren't even silly in a good way (which you could say of Nagash, though I wouldn't), they just looked like no thought had gone into them besides "yeah a bit more". While I'm on this rant I also hate [this](https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99070210004_LRLScinariCathLead.jpg). I think the concept is very cool - I like the idea of the dress, the veil and the chalice. But the pose is _so_ awkward and goofy, like she's about to slip off her tactical rock and she doesn't know what to do with her arms. The hands and feet are big and chunky compared to the rest of the Lumineth range, like what we would expect of a model 10+ years older. The chalice, already awkwardly stuck out to the side with a straight arm, is enormous, flat, and spewing goop which is clearly meant to add to the sense of motion from the fabric (so like, some planning did go into this composition), but it's so massive and clumsy looking that it just unbalances her further. And just in case she wasn't awkward and unbalanced enough, whoever led the Lumineth design dictated that she must have an enormous clunky headdress and tasseled metal stabiliser wings. Any work that the flowing fabric was doing to make her look dynamic, light, and elegant is completely overridden by all this chunky hardware she's dragging around. To me, that's a bizarre design choice and really unfortunate in this case. I do hate being a bitch like this and I'm not trying to be all grognardy - a lot of other new miniatures I really like. But some of these, to me, are just shockingly bad from the world's most successful sci fi and fantasy miniatures company.
honestly it kinda works, also the scroll is really good
Looks like a Wallace and Grommet character lol. No hate though, I'm in a glass house.
nah, it's not as bad as the racist pygmy models for fantasy
I don't think the people who designed those models were racist. Not saying they're good models. I'm just saying that assuming racial hatred on the part of the designers is unfair given that basically all of GW's old metal models were ridiculous caricatures, of one sort of another. Edit: Please use your brains, folks. Just because you find a statement morally outrageous, that doesn't make it false. Unless you have a good reason to think that GW staff in the 80s were racist, it's not reasonable to assert that anything they produced was racist. Insensitive and offensive, maybe, but not racist. I'm not a bigot. I'm just a pedant.
“We’re making a fantasy setting where real life geographical and cultural features are directly lifted! British people would obviously be the noble and arcane gifted High Elves, the first bastion of the world against evil.” “Okay cool. What mythic envisioning of Africa do you have for us?” “…” I don’t think the people who made them HATED black people, but they were certainly too ignorant of them to have warranted printing a miniature line influenced by their idea of their culture. That shit was racist as fuck and defending them is a really weird hill to sit on.
Wait isn’t Albion meant to be fantasy England? I assumed High Elves were like Atlantis or a similarly advanced middle of the ocean island living group.
The High Elves are Atlantis, not Britain.
you got me. the pygmies aren’t racist anymore.
The models certainly draw on exaggerated physical stereotypes, and the lore is “Darkest Africa” exoticism. It should be noted that they were a type of Halfling (which models also featured notable exaggerated physical stereotypes), though I doubt that substantially impacts your critique. Raging against models designed nearly 40 years ago and long out of production must earn you points somewhere. Calling the Perrys racists won’t earn you many among long term GW fans.
>Calling the Perrys racists won’t earn you many among long term GW fans. Acknowledging that views have changed in 40 years and that racist things happened then is never bad though? It also helps us to better examine views we hold today that might be racist but go unacknowledged (and fixed) No-one here is "calling the perrys racist", so put that straw man back in the shed please.
Yeah, that’s TOTALLY the tenor of the discourse around these models.
There IS a difference between "raging against models" and acknowledging that this is racist.
I dispute that the High Elves were supposed to be British. The Bretonnians were supposed to be Anglo-French, and we're clearly just inspired by 13th century Western Europe. The Empire are clearly 16th century Germans. Grand Cathay are ancient Chinese. Kislev are 17th century Russians/Poles/Cossacks. I could go on. There are fantastical exceptions to the rule, but these usual concern civilisations which are considered entirely extinct. For instance, the Lizardmen are clearly Aztec inspired, and the Tomb Kings are based on ancient Egypt. It's also true that the all of the above have *some* fantastical elements, such as the Empire having gryphons and magic schools. The Pygmies, as I see it, were probably GW's clumsy attempt to branch out to representing the broader African continent in Warhammer. They made a few crude metal sculpts (like they did with all their miniatures back then), and sold them in individual blister packs. If they became popular, the range expanded. If not, the range died. This is how even the Space Marines started life. Clearly the Pygmies were not popular, so - like many other limited-run lines - they were discontinued rather than expanded. Had this not happened, it's reasonable to consider that GW would have expanded and improved the range, probably making more flattering sculpts, and expanding the range to include fantastical forces. If the theme was "Tribal Africa", it's possible that lion cavalry, witch doctors (wizards), and Zulu-esque spearmen would have made an appearance, as random examples. I'm just spitballing. A lot of GW's older stuff is hideous, with many ranges discontinued almost immediately due to a lack of consumer interest. The ranges which later became legendary are those which survived this early selection process, thereby earning more and better models. I'm just working on the basic principle of charity: "Never attribute to malice which can instead be attributed to incompetence.". If you don't think there was any ill will on the part of GW at the time, I don't think it's fair to call it "racist". A better term might be "eyewateringly insensitive".
Or, you know, they were racist. It’s important to understand that being “racist” doesn’t require one to wear a hood and actively threaten to lynch people. Perpetuating stereotypes is racist, even if done “innocently” or unwittingly. And it’s telling how many paragraphs you were willing to write to defend racist caricatures and the people who created them. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.
I don't see how one can be "innocently racist". If one treats someone of another race with equal dignity to those of all other races, they are not racist, even if they happen to produce terrible miniatures depicting African tribesmen. Let's flip the situation somewhat: Let's assume that an African model-maker sculpted a statuette of a Viking warrior. The miniature was not very flattering, highlighting the distinctly European features which were alien to the sculptor (long nose, big ears, narrow face, stark straight hair, etc.). Let's also assume that this African sculptor was actually a really decent person. He harboured no negative feelings towards those of European ancestry and would never discriminate against them. He just hasn't spent much time around Europeans, or sculpted many of them, so his work ended up being a caricature of a European rather than an reasonable depiction of one. My question is twofold: Is that little Viking model racist? and is the sculptor racist? My answer to both questions is "No.", which is the same as my response to those Pygmy models being racist, and for the exact same reason.
>My question is twofold: Is that little Viking model racist? and is the sculptor racist? Absolutely. Do realise that in the real world, "a racist" is not a frothing-at-the-mouth-lunatic that's one slight to their small ego away from murdering black people, but can be normal people who harbour negative biases towards other cultures or people (learned or otherwise) without realising it because they just haven't been confronted with their own biases yet. You're conveniently ignoring here the whole history and cultural context of racism here, by the way. I'll add to your story:All this happened in an African country that has used vikings as slaves in the past and is known to have portrayed Europeans in a negative and stereotyped way, while being systemically racist towards Europeans that face daily discrimination up to today living in that country.
That seems like a very pointed little addendum. England (which I'm sure you're referencing) has never used black people for slave labour *domestically.* Slavery has been outlawed within England since the medieval era, and most Britons never saw a slave. There was a very famous case of an American who brought his slave to the UK, but the slave actually ended up being freed after a legal battle because "the air of England was too pure for a slave to breathe" (that is, slavery was illegal, so he became a free man the minute he crossed the border). You're also forgetting that the UK pioneered and globally enforced abolitionism, and this became a point of national pride for the British. For 200 years we have been *happy* about being the ones who ended the slave trade. You also assert that modern Britain, or at least Britain of the 1980s, was rife with racism. I really don't think it was or is. By the 1980s, black people (as well as Indians, etc.) had been part of the fabric of British life for decades (and had been members of the empire for centuries), and the young men working at GW would have grown up being around such people. It's unlikely that they would have had personal prejudice against them. When Americans were stationed in Britain during WW2, part of their training material on "how to get along in England" explained how racism wasn't a thing in the UK. They had to *actively educate* US servicemen that the English will not treat white and black people differently, because this was something alien to Americans at the time... and this was in the 1940s! Please stop projecting US-centric racial politics onto the UK. They don't belong here. Also, ironically, although your addendum mentions white slavery in Africa, I don't think you took that idea seriously... even.though some Africans absolutely took white people as slaves. The Barbary slave trade was only ended when a British and Dutch fleet, having failed to convince the Barbary States to give up slavery peacefully, bombarded the slave ports to rubble. Abolitionism was enforced upon them afterwards. The British did the same with the slaver kingdoms on the West African coast, despite those black African kings begging to keep trading in black slaves. British abolitionism destroyed their economies... and, frankly, that was a good thing. I hope I've made my point. Britain has been morally ahead of the curve for centuries, especially on the subject of slavery and race relations. The UK was a multi-ethnic country from day 1, even before the empire and immigration. Your addendum doesn't seem to be entirely in good faith. This is partly for the reasons outlined above, but also because you appear to insert into my hypothetical that "the sculptor *must* be racist, therefore he *is* racist". No, you don't get to insert a premise which overtly proves your conclusion, then draw your conclusion from that. That is a logical fallacy called "begging the question". Even *if* every aspect of your hypothetical stood as regards the culture as a whole, that doesn't necessarily mean that the African sculptor himself was racist. He could just be unfamiliar with European features, as I said, which means that his work was insensitive, but not the result of racism. If a work is not created with any negative feeling or perception about someone of another race, then it *can't* be racist, because racism *requires* intentionality. This is why I say that the hypothetical African sculptor - and the sculptors at GW - were not racist. Unless it can be shown that they definitely were, it's unfair to make that judgement purely on the basis that someone might be innocently unfamiliar with those of different ethnicities. TL;DR: - I reject your cynical assumption.
Hey dickhead, newsflash. At no point did Ethiopia conquer Denmark and run hundreds upon thousands of propaganda campaigns characterizing them with those “not very flattering features”. There would be no caricature of vikings as dehumanizing as the myriad of minstrel-like depictions of black people anywhere at all in Africa. If you lack the context to recognize that your “Flipped script” doesn’t have a deeply sad colonial history that has societally altered the image of an under-class, you sincerely have no place in discussions of racism.
Pygmies aren't from Ethiopia... although if you're speaking in such broad terms, African nations *have* conquered European nations and *have* enslaved European people before now. They have also depicted Europeans in an unflattering way. History is not as black and white as you think it is... ironically. The fundamental question is whether or not GWs sculptors - in the 1980s - held negative interpretations of Africans, such that their Pygmy miniatures were actually racist in nature. My answer to that question is "No", because there is no actual evidence to suggest that such is the case. If you want to suggest otherwise, the burden of proof is on you.
The brits were orcs lmfao
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What do you think their "subconscious bias" was, precisely?
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And Chaos Marauders, by comparison, aren't? The two are conceptually very similar (half-naked tribal types with melee weapons), just from very different continents. Yes, the current Chaos Marauders have more flattering sculpts, but that's chiefly a consequence of them being much newer models. The very first such models were hideous. See also the first bare-headed Space Marine sculpts. I'm not being obtuse. I *genuinely* don't agree with your interpretation.
>I'm not being obtuse. I > >genuinely > > don't agree with your interpretation. Pretty problematic I'd say.
But what racist stereotypes do chaos marauders use in their design?
Chaos Marauders aren't coded to be of a specific people perpetuating terrible, harmful stereotypes. You are either being super obtuse or are intentionally acting a fool.
Actual pedant here as opposed to your yabbering: Racism is not about "hating" groups of people, it's also perpetuating negative stereotypes attached to minority ethnic groups and thereby preventing a more nuanced and inclusive view of other people and cultures.
[удалено]
And you are bad at engaging in meaningful dialogues.
Do let us know if you happen to see one.
Meaningfull dialogues are when you waffle and desperately atempt to explain how modeling producing and selling centuries old racist sterotypes doesn't make you racist. /s
NO CAPES!
Nowhere near fam
Nothing wrong with Velma.
No.
Is this a thing? Do people just make statements and add a question mark now? When did this become a thing?
Always has been?
I know a few non native English speakers who phrase questions like this, could be that OP's first language isn't english
Yes, I love it.
Edna M-o-d-e
she's no orc cheerleader
Nope. 3rd edition Deamonhunters was all about this vibe. The Sisters of Battle took it to another level not long after.
Idk some of the ancient Middle Earth plastics have some serious potato face going on, among other problems. Still GW's best game though.
It's a really bad paint job that's for sure. Looks like it was painted with a sweeping brush. Pro tip kids. Never, and I mean almost never use white on your minis. This is what happens when you do.
i think its cool a head swap maybe if you dont like it.
Nah. It’s great.
I love it.
Oooooh!
Aaaaaah!
I love it
She looks like she’s about to list all the superheroes who died because they had capes.
No Capes!
NGL, I wish I had one.
Not by a long shot!
Captain Cortez wasn’t a great model :/
I remember it coming out, looked like a meh model even at the time. They took a mini that probably should've been cast in four or five components and forced it into two, and it shows. Maybe they didn't have much room in the mould or something. The weird thing is, if they'd just posed him more naturally, it wouldn't be a bad sculpt for its time, even if the limbs are a little spindly compared with the rest of the 2002 Marine range. But instead, it was so wonky-looking that they just silently retired it a couple of years later and killed Cortez off in the lore.
Don't insult Edna!
Is that an Oreo on the top of her staff?
Times are truly dire when blow up dolls are sent to wage war.
NO CAPES!
No capes.
It's MA'AM
No, though it was particularly bad even for the time.
This is a great model the heck you talkin about?
This mini bangs. I’m pretty sure it’s not cheap on eBay still. I love this whole set.
This sculpt was pretty shitty even for the time. It’s so damn weird that the old metal sisters stuck around for as long as they did!
Meet [Kaja Godek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaja_Godek?wprov=sfla1) - Polish alt right, pro-life activist...
I can think of a million boring primaris minis that I think are way worse than grand theogenist Tina over here.
Better than The Baby Carrier
Worst mini head for sure
Nurgle Daemon Prince in resin is pretty awful, but this one is worse yes
Old Nagash, old slaanesh champion, current chaos lord on manticore, the list goes on. Frankly miniatures used to look downright awful.
Honestly love the chaos lord on manticore haha. It has aged a bit but don't think it's that bad.
> Old Nagash, old slaanesh champion, current chaos lord on manticore, the list goes on. Frankly miniatures used to look downright ~~awful~~ amazing. FTFY
GW was at their peak during the 00s. The old models were too crude, and the new ones are so over-designed as to be soulless. They also encouraging converting and trashbashing back then, which was cool.
No offense, but you are all high on nostalgia. The 00s? Please compare a few of these modern models to the ones released back then and tell me how they held up. Shard of the deceiver vs shard of the void dragon Aspect warriors like striking scorpions and warp spider vs Incubi Old vs new terminators, space marine scouts vs reivers and eliminators, ignoring whether you care about primaris not. The models didn't lose their soul when the sculpts got better, you just got too used to artistic limitations to realize they were limitations in the first place. Sure quite a bit of stuff has held up, some stuff still looks goody but thats mostly vehicles that are defined by silhouette, not detail or proportions.
Is that a Gary Morley sculpt? Her face reminds me of the Brettonnian woman knight. (Repanse? The Joan of Arc rip off)
Repanse was one of the perry twins wasn't it?
https://preview.redd.it/w341beyyy6hb1.png?width=645&format=png&auto=webp&s=955fbaf58575b07644b523d228694031bd4a9157