Why? There are over 1000 active skus. That's a whole lot of choice to be had. Some minis are ugly, others are highly specialized in game terms, others are of designs that are very restricted, some designs just suck...
Which again baffles me that the Mackie hasn't gone Archive yet.
Stores want products that move. They want to know that what they order will get sold and make them profit. If they haven't had anyone ask for a Savage Coyote (or insert any archived mini here) in the past five years, they won't stock it because they know it won't move.
It's more complex than people not requesting a mech. I have an online store where I buy about half of my Battletech, and they are wonderful in that they don't really pre-stock any mechs, but will bring in any models I ask for if their distributors have them. But the
distributor doesn't carry about half of what I want. So even requesting it from the store, I can't buy an in-print mini, ergo it doesn't sell.
And the only local store I have that carries Battletech is run by a guy who knows absolutely nothing of the game. I had to educate him on what the hex bases were and how important it was to carry them, because he only ever stocked one blister. This guy goes to his distributor and tells him "give me fifty random units". So it's rare you find anything you like in his store because it's basically an even mix of whatever's newest, and whatever the distributor wants to be rid of.
For about half of my miniatures, buying from IWM directly is basically the only option. But their freight rates to Canada are highway robbery. $14USD to ship a $10USD mini? Get real! So the only way to order from IWM is to put together a huge $200 order for the free shipping, which means you don't order often, and you don't buy on impulse the way you would in a store. So that Savage Coyote I might have picked up on a whim gets overlooked because for my $200 I have to make sure that I get only the minis I need most.
Then again, I actually liked Far Country also.
Far country was awesome, no matter what people say.
The Beautiful thing about BT (or any other game not sold by GDW, for that matter), is that you can do as you will with everything.
There is truth to that, and in the past I used to play that way. Every Mech was a custom design in Mechworks, the factions and fluff were cast aside and we just played the game how we wanted, with whatever we wanted. Truth be told, that got boring. Working with the story, using the proper mechs and equipment for your faction, it added to the game. I've had as much fun puzzling over how to make the best Kuritan force with what they legally can use, as I do actually playing. And learning to work with the older tech (non-ER non-Pulse, non-Streak) showed me just how much more balanced the game was before the Clans. But that's just my take on things. As you said, people can do what
they want.
So, even if IWM would recast some of the old minis, would i buy it? I must say no as i usually own the numbers i want. And that is the major problem with those old minis: the long time players already own their share of those minis and don't order another one and so on (yes... there are those who can't get enough of them... but they are the exception of the rule).
Well I am definitely one of those exceptions to the rule. I hate to proxy, and when I design an army, I buy the miniatures I need, even if a different army of mine has one of them.
This is my Kuritan Jenner, and
these are my Davion Jenners - not
this is my Jenner, I use it for both Davion and Kurita. Again, that's just how I do things. I like to see my collection grow, I like that in doing so I support the companies who bring me the things I love, and each new mini is another one to assemble (my favorite part of the hobby).
Multipart minis are not wrong, absolutely not. But splitting arms (e.g. reseen Marauder) or legs (e.g. reseen Thunderbolt) into three parts is just a pain to work with. I can handle it and i know how to use a pin vise, but that should not be a standard. It is what is needed for free posing, but glueing it without pinning or a third hand can get really hard. Some possibility to pose ok, but not to the last toe (why was the reseen Rifleman toe not casted to the mini anyway?).
One man's irritation is another man's glee. I love the complexity of the new multi-parts. They give me so much freedom to sculpt the hexplates with more features than just flock, and as I've previously said, just a few extra parts of articulation and I can make two of the same miniature look completely different - almost as good as having a second sculpt. Some times the extra joints are a pain to work with (gods was the Marauder's hip-leg connection a pain), but in the end I still like the result. Again, that's me. For the folk who don't overly like the assembly process, there's always Dark Ages.
