Hello all!

[Shard0808]

It seems inquisitor has finally lured me in! Have to say I'm very looking forward to getting started on my warband and getting involved in such a vibrant community (you small but hardy bunch of folk keeping the game alive)
Will post a character background within the week, hopefully with stats and wargear etc. Please cast your experienced and discerning eye over said profile and let me know what you think.

A pleasure to make first contact with you all!

[Koval]

WELCOME TO THE CONCLAVE

It's worth pointing out that these days, the only place to get 54mm models (apart from Dannica and the Eversor) is eBay, so I'd personally advise new starters to consider 28mm. In any event, however, if you're UK-based then you'd be more than welcome to attend the Autumn Conclave at Warhammer World at the end of September.

Please cast your experienced and discerning eye over said profile and let me know what you think.

Be careful what you wish for

[Shard0808]

Thank you Koval for the warm (and very yellow!) welcome

I must say that the 54mm range is what first attracted me to the inquisitor game; the opportunity to paint on a larger scale with a greater scope for conversion. I have painted and converted a few 40k armies throughout my interest in the GW universes, but always remembered that one introduction game of Inquisitor I played years ago. Now seemed the right time I know it's harder to find the models... But that kind of feels like half the game right there. The characters are yours, built from whatever pieces you can find to rope a warband together and give them some emotional connection with the player. Not only something out of a box, but something you made from scratch, back story and all...

So any help tracking down some miniatures would be great!

On that, I'm seriously considering starting my first (and main) character on the Andreas Dark Nova Firereach Commando http://www.arcaneminiatures.co.uk/miniatures-detail.asp?ID=36463

Any thoughts or tips greatly appreciated

[Koval]

That model's 65mm tall -- while tall women do exist, I am fairly sure that she's pushing the definition of "tall".

As for tracking down extant 54mm Inquisitor models -- as I said, there are a few going on eBay.

The characters are yours, built from whatever pieces you can find to rope a warband together and give them some emotional connection with the player. Not only something out of a box, but something you made from scratch, back story and all...

That's not limited to one scale or the other, though. In my own collection, the model with which I'm personally happiest is a 28mm model*. In fact, I'd say there's more scope for conversion and scratch-building at 28mm just because there's a greater availability of parts** and good sculpts. But backstories and generally Having Fun are not exclusive to a particular scale.

*Interrogator Milenko Romer. Admittedly, he still needs a paint job...

**I should imagine you've accumulated a pretty sizable bitz box by now, depending on how recently you did those 40K armies.

[aeprod]

I've only been collecting inquisitor really for the last year (or less than it), and I've been able to track down almost every single 54mm model they ever made (including some of the harder to find guys) and I've really enjoyed converting other 54mm models to the 40k universe. Ebay if you're smart and patient provides some  good deals. It won't be cheap, but I know I've paid less than GW retail per model, overall.

With the specialist games no longer *totally* supported, much of the fun I find with these old games (and Inquisitor especially) is the hunting, collecting, and converting of models that are not readily available. This was what I found so gratifying about collecting a squat army in 40k over the last decade, and now its shifted to Inq, BFG, Aeronautica Imp.

So, in essence, it is very possible, in this day and time to begin the INQ54mm hobby as well as the 28mm hobby, it just requires that you enjoy the "hunt" as well as thinking outside the box about what models from other manufacturers can be imported in to your collection.  Once my PhD exams are over, I'll post photos of my collection and show some of the various non-GW models I've been able to import in to the INQ universe.

[MarcoSkoll]

65mm is stretching it a bit, even with the heels.  Although, if 65mm is to the top of the gun, that would actually make her quite petite - still, looking at this review the size comparison with the Fire Dragon makes it look like it's not to the gun. She's comfortably twice the height of the 32mm Fire Dragon, even with his pointy Eldar hat.

So that's about the size of this lass (in heels herself) - the model on the (photo) left is my (notably tall) Inquisitor, the model on the (photo) right is an incomplete Sgt Stone. So, pretty darn tall*. Not impossibly so, but certainly unusually so.
*When I finally get around to the conversion of that model, she'll be a character who has had an already considerable height surgically increased (mostly to appear more imposing - being loomed over so dramatically, particularly by a woman, would be enough to put most people at some degree of unease). I'm not normally too picky about just pinning extreme heights on statistical deviation, but it's extreme enough I felt I could make a character point out of it - it's at least more interesting and biologically consistent than excusing it with low gravity.

The characters are yours, built from whatever pieces you can find to rope a warband together and give them some emotional connection with the player. Not only something out of a box, but something you made from scratch, back story and all...

I would stress that "something out of a box" is not what 28mm Inquisitor is about. Some percentage of people might treat it that way, but it's not the way it has to (or should) be.

28mm Inquisitor models don't have to be "something out of a box" any more than the 54mm ones do. To take an example or three from the 28mm side of my Inquisitor collection:
- Inquisitor Magnus Virasson is mostly spliced from Valten and Grand Master Azreal; so he's not drastically different in concept to many of the old 54mm conversions produced by GW studio members - combine the upper body of one model with the legs of another and swap a few weapons around.
- Reaver is largely based on one model, but is probably at least as adventurous a conversion of the 28mm Death Cultists as most of what was done with their 54mm cousins.
- And then there's Lynx Vanden, in that rarest of categories of the old metal Space Marine scouts: those that got cut into ten different pieces and then turned into a woman.

Scale doesn't have to define attitude to creating characters or models - people can be marvellously creative or dully un-inventive at any size.

Don't consider this an attempt to browbeat you into going 28mm though; Go with whatever appeals, be it large or small*!
*Or both, as my having both 28 and 54mm modelling logs can attest.

[Shard0808]

Thanks for the speedy replies guys, I Wasn't saying that 28mm wouldn't be great for converting, just that hunting for that special 54mm bit might make me more connected to my characters thanks for a warm welcome and for the above advice on the Dark Nova model, 60mm will indeed be too large I think. I don't think I could convincingly work her exceptional size into a back story.
I'm still not sure on how highly powered an Inquisitor (for instance) should be, is this the place to post ideas or should I start a new thread in a different part of the site?

[Koval]

Have a read of this article on the Carthax Wiki, which is what happened when some of us hammered out a "Conclave Standard" some time ago. The consensus seems to be that most, if not all, of the characters presented in the rulebook are ridiculously overpowered*, and lower-powered characters just make the game less predictable.

Once you've settled on a character idea and a statline, the character's profile and background will live in the Rules Discussion forum.

*To the point where Shyloque's profile in the front of the rulebook is by far the least objectionable, the only major problem being a BS of 80. Bizarrely, he's quite close to what we might get from a Conclave Standard approach.

[MarcoSkoll]

I'm still not sure on how highly powered an Inquisitor (for instance) should be, is this the place to post ideas or should I start a new thread in a different part of the site?

Normally, character/rules discussion takes place in the "Inquisitor Rules Discussion" section further down - I don't think anyone would object to you hijacking this thread of yours, but you might get less response.

However, to start you off, the guide Koval linked is good.

In loose summary, this takes the approach that powerful characters that always succeed are less interesting than those where there's the element of chance - so high stats and boltguns for every character just make for short, brutal and not very interesting fights.
It also extends into things like Inquisitors probably aren't the best fighters in their warbands - they might be pretty handy at it (after all, it's a dangerous job), but they have other commitments. Are they really likely to be a bigger badass than that ex-Guard Sergeant in their employ - probably not.

So, really, it throws out all the old random generators in favour of a more reasoned approach.