With the release of The Old World today, Mantic has (yet again) "poked fun" at GW in te for of some "competitive marketing":

Like this video showing Mantic products while playing "A Whole New World"
I also recall Mantic advertising Kings of War as "available right now" when The Old World was announced.

How do you perceive this?
As a fed up with GW KoW player, it gets a chuckle from me. That's effectively singing to the choir though.

Started off almost as strong as they could with the Idol of Shobik and slasha or whatever the greenskin is but then they went and showed that nightstalker... thing...

Honestly you could tell me a rival company (to Mantic) made this video and I'd almost believe you except that it doesn't include the 'new' Empire of Dust wyrm things, those blobby twilight kin shields, or that abysmal blaster-master demon guy.

That's the problem with these things, you have to be able to back it up when you're trying to be cute. Para Bellum could arguably do it. Mantic... eh.

An aside on Para Bellum:


But the true problem with this, for me, is... what's even the joke here? Mantic's world has been around for a long time now. What's new? Besides the fact they couldn't think of anything but the opposite of 'old'? Idol of Shobik released in 2022. Shadowhulk 2019. When was the slasha released? How new is any of this stuff? At least Old World is accurately labeled for the age of the models. Har har.

Embarrassing all around. Fails at being cute. Fails at showing off superior products. Other companies do this sort of thing way better than Mantic ever has, yet they keep doing it.

As a fed up with GW KoW player, it gets a chuckle from me. That's effectively singing to the choir though.

Really says it all. Exact group they're catering to. Is there a punch line in there that makes sense to you or is it just the "GW bad" sentiment?

Mantic can poke fun all they want.

Pretty sure they'd love to have the problem of selling out of their product launches.

Mantic acts like its a much cooler company than they really are, IMO.

A friend asked me yesterday about mantic yesterday due to his potential interest in the Halo game, this was my response:


"They're just kind of a meh company IMO. mediocre rules, mediocre minis. They want to be GW by copying and competing with GW. Their main product lines are knock-off whfb, knock off 40k, knock off necromunda, knock off man o War (though to be fair gw hasn't brought that one back yet so can't blame them for filling a hole in the market), and after gw announced legions imperialis they suddenly announced their own knock-off epic ruleset.

Their aesthetic design is also generally just kinda lacking, like their gak just doesn't really look cool for the most part, it's just kinda meh. They have no real vision, they're basically old ex-GW guys that think modern GW has lost its way and the pinnacle of miniature gaming was late 80s/90s era GW products. A lot of their stuff is trying to imitate that aesthetic and style but modernized so it doesnt just look like the sculptors have no skill, but it's really just kinda meh."

With that in mind - when mantic posts their cute little shots at GW I can't help but feel that they're showing that GW lives rent free in their heads and they have a massive inferiority complex about it. They don't produce a better product. Good for them that they are proud of what they make, but if it was any good it cpukd and would speak for itself, they wouldn't need to try so hard to get clout.

It always seems like an “own goal” on their part. 82 likes and 7 comments in OP’s youtube short from how many hours ago? I’m sure their client base gets a hearty chuckle out of it, but it always reeks of desperation and seems like clear examples of “the crowd goes mild”.

If they truly felt so confident in their product to the point where they felt it could poach some sales from their competitor*, they’d have had “counter programming” on TOW pre-order weekend. Mantics site has “ambush” box sets (I guess some new way to play KoW?) in their pre-order section and those mini’s aren’t very flattering even against decades old Brettonian sculpts. If they had something amazing in the works, this weekend would’ve been the time for it. How many years did they have to prepare?

GW will probably sell more kits that were made pre-2008 (Mantics first year) these next 2 weeks than KoW kits will sell for the entire rest of year.

*I personally don’t think they should look at GW as a competitor. They are playing in different leagues, now more than ever. Meanwhile Conquest is like 1/3rd the age of KoW and its eating Mantics lunch while they poke fun at GW.

I generally find it amusing. I also don’t think it really makes them look bad for leaning into their reputation as the Private Select Kirkland Signature version of GW games, or not any worse. Lots of miniature companies sell to GW players as the affordable alternative without ever even becoming that notable.

I tend to smile and eyeroll at the same time. Mantic does some stuff pretty well, but then makes design choices in other places that really don't work for me.

Especially in weapon and armour design, their stuff is very computer gamey, fantasy designed by fantasy fans who don't know much about actual armour or weapons. It's fine, whatever, but it's not my preferred aesthetic.

But some of their stuff is great - I prefer their warboss on wyvern to the GW versions, and I think their Pheonix is really good. Mantic Ogres have a cool look, and I think it works as a range. Their undead when they came out were really good, they haven't changed them at all though and nowadays there are better options if you want cheap plastic undead.

But then you've got stuff like their Elves, where I can't work out what the armour they are wearing is supposed to be or how it's supposed to work, or the Veer-myn which really just look kinda bad.

I think it would be classier to ignore GW and just do their own thing.

Eh Mantic aren't alone, Warcradle poked fun at the Ketchup Epic marketing ad with their own with mustard.





Personally I've always felt that Mantic have cool ideas, but their designs are very much 80-early90s in style; or "cheap toy" style. I do somewhat get a feeling that they "matured" a bit here and there and some of the newer stuff is starting to look interesting and shed some of the design and scale choices of the early. However every time I look at most of their armies I'm left with a feeling of "I like that concept, that's really cool but only a couple of the models spark joy and the others are negative joy"

And its not the "this might look better in real life" but the "nope just don't like that"


Eg their fairly new Nightstalkers army is actually looking pretty darn cool overall
https://www.manticgames.com/kings-of-war/nightstalkers/



Meanwhile if I look at their elf-cat army
https://www.manticgames.com/kings-of-war/basilean/

They have things like this


Which honestly just looks terrible by modern day dragon designs and modelling. It's right up there with the old GW serpentine dragons with insanely huge front claws (which I never liked).


I do wonder if Mantic ever stop expanding their army ranges and start updating existing models if they might well start to come around and have armies that really catch my eye

They have updated their Empire of Dust range. Not for the better in terms of look though. I have a couple hundred of the old skeletons and I think they look better than the new ones. Only thing better is that they are in plastic and not half plastic and half metal like their old skeletons. So its improved in material but not looks.

That Dragon.... looks like a cheap plastic toy someone glued a knight on top off.

They have amazing prices though. Their army deals are great and what we all wish GW would price things at. I bought 2 discounted Empire of Dust army deals and 2 discounted Empire of Dust mega forces (over 300 models total from those 4 boxes) for about the same total price the new TK box is at. Besides like 60 mummies in plastic the other 240+ models are either 50/50 metal/plastic or 100% metal.

Wow, wtf are they doing with that as a promotional image? That dragon is painted incredibly poorly for a professional display piece! One thick coat?!

I've got that dragon and it's a bit derpy, too chunky and the proportions aren't great. But I've used it as a D&D monster a few times and always had a good reaction from players. I'm a mediocre painter and my paintjob on that dragon is better than Mantic's promo image. They really need to do better than that!

 Da Boss wrote:
Wow, wtf are they doing with that as a promotional image? That dragon is painted incredibly poorly for a professional display piece! One thick coat?!

I've got that dragon and it's a bit derpy, too chunky and the proportions aren't great. But I've used it as a D&D monster a few times and always had a good reaction from players. I'm a mediocre painter and my paintjob on that dragon is better than Mantic's promo image. They really need to do better than that!

Honestly its "very" classic DnD style! On the right table with the right models alongside it, it would look very classic in that setting.

When I was getting into the hobby years ago the "sticking it to the man" aspect was very appealing to me as a person who had issues w/ GW, but its hard to take them seriously on this given how in workshops shadow they clearly are.

Rihgu wrote:
An aside on Para Bellum:

Spoiler:

In fact, the mostly innocuous ad that has run in the top corner of Dakkadakka for many years now, "rank and file is back", is an example of this done right. Sure, they're making a direct reference to the killing of WHFB, but it's vague enough that it doesn't feel like pandering to disgruntled GW gamers. It feels like it's enticing people to a style of game they might prefer to the skirmish stylings most other modern games follow. The Mantic equivalent would be like "tired of your square bases getting blowed up??? well OURS never did!"

Interesting. There seems to be some bias toward the company or game you already like.
Those top corner ads came across as presumptuous from me. There has been rank and flank all along, is several games, so declaring the return as if Conquest is the only one rang false for me.

Which raises the question of if either has actually gotten anyone into either game.

But the true problem with this, for me, is... what's even the joke here?

It's amusing because of the way they did it, it's not a punchline.
KoW would be new to someone trying it out instead of struggling to buy The Old World. Which is the message.

chaos0xomega wrote:
"They're just kind of a meh company IMO. mediocre rules, mediocre minis. They want to be GW by copying and competing with GW. Their main product lines are knock-off whfb, knock off 40k, knock off necromunda, knock off man o War (though to be fair gw hasn't brought that one back yet so can't blame them for filling a hole in the market), and after gw announced legions imperialis they suddenly announced their own knock-off epic ruleset.

Is that really your impression?
I'll just say that I don't think that's accurate.

nels1031 wrote:Meanwhile Conquest is like 1/3rd the age of KoW and its eating Mantics lunch...

I hadn't noticed.

 DarkBlack wrote:

Interesting. There seems to be some bias toward the company or game you already like.

That would be incorrect. Kings of War was a game that I already liked before they turned me off with these bad "ads".

 DarkBlack wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
"They're just kind of a meh company IMO. mediocre rules, mediocre minis. They want to be GW by copying and competing with GW. Their main product lines are knock-off whfb, knock off 40k, knock off necromunda, knock off man o War (though to be fair gw hasn't brought that one back yet so can't blame them for filling a hole in the market), and after gw announced legions imperialis they suddenly announced their own knock-off epic ruleset.

Is that really your impression?
I'll just say that I don't think that's accurate.

[

So you're a fan then? Lol

That's a lot of people's impression.

And agreed, parabellum is eating mantics lunch. I've seen a multiple more games of conquest being played in the past year than I have seen games of KOW in the past decade.

chaos0xomega wrote:

So you're a fan then?
That's a lot of people's impression.

Neither makes that impression more true.

And agreed, parabellum is eating mantics lunch. I've seen a multiple more games of conquest being played in the past year than I have seen games of KOW in the past decade.

That's not good way to tell.
The games anyone sees are very localised and biased toward their interests.
It's why everyone seens to think that their game is doing better than it actually is.

As an example: I have seen maybe two games of conquest, ever.
Which puts it on par with Runewars.

I like PB and think they're a great example of a company making enough good choices to thrive but "eating their lunch"?

Conquest still has the scale issue for me, the multibasing/2 games 1 system idea was a lovely marketing pitch that in practice makes the games troop blocks stagnant looking even if the mini qualities gotten better, and even though they've got a setting of their own that's got great ideas swirling some of those factions (dweghom) are uglier than most mantic releases..

Para Bellum is also a few rich dudes bankrolling their childhood dream, Mantic have to actually finance themselves. And both companies' flagship games were written by the same author and both are better than any version of WHFB (including the one also written by the same author )

chaos0xomega wrote:
And agreed, parabellum is eating mantics lunch. I've seen a multiple more games of conquest being played in the past year than I have seen games of KOW in the past decade.

When the Old World got canned for AoS, the USA WHF competitive circuit (bar one region) switched over to KoW. The tournament circuit in the US and UK are of significant size. There's significant big multi-day tournaments running in the US, like Lone Wolf, and a packed event calendar across the UK.

I don't believe for a second Conquest is anywhere near KoW.

EDIT: the terrible dragon is from the time before Mantic started using proper studios like Angel Giraldez to paint for their promo models.

I dunno that being GWs sloppy seconds is the power move you think it is. We'll see how much of that remains true a year from now when TOW has reclaimed the WHFB community.

Conquest is being picked up by a growing number of retailers, has a growing tournament presence, a rapidly growing social media presence, etc. Kings of War just... is. In the almost 15 yrs since KOW launched, I've never encountered a brick and Mortar that stocked it. In the 5+ years since Conquest launched, they gained a retail presence in most of the stores I've visited in the area. It may be larger still, but Conquest seems to be picking up fans and growing market share, whereas Mantic picked up the leftover community from GW and has coasted along for a decade without doing much with their position in the market.

Correct me if i'm wrong but hasn't miniature wargaming exploded in popularity (at least outside the uk) in the last 4-5 years?

If you look at the amount of things mantics put out the last three years it's quite a lot, which (to my understanding) ties pretty heavily in w/ this.

I also don't get calling mantic's rules mediocre at all? Even if a lot of their stuff is community written KOW is a really solid game, deadzone seems fun, firefight got magazine praise even if it isnt that pretty looking, and I can personally vouch for KOW armada being some of the most fun i've had with anything tabletop related

Armada isn't a mantic ruleset, it's a Warlord ruleset (Black Seas) they licensed and adapted for fantasy gaming.

It's my experience that shops don't carry a lot of Mantic stuff, I think their kickstarter cycle and the fact that a fair bit of their stuff just doesn't sell well has burned some retailers. Same with Privateer Press.

Almost all the mantic I've ever bought has been direct, now with Brexit I am hunting around the various German webstores trying to find stuff I want but the stock is patchy.

Tbf, quite a lot of the GW range is in the same situation these days, but the range is massive.

But rules wise, I think every store I've been in has stocked KoW rulebooks and as far as I can see it is fairly widely played here. I've been to a KoW event and it had a healthy attendance. I think it's a solid game, though there are always issues with certain units.

there are 2 stores I know (fantasywelt.de and s-games.at) that can get you everything and ship to most countries
not always all on stock of course but they also can get you the mantic direct items (or at least did order them if asked in the past)

It's the market. I find it funny.

Who wrote Mantic game's rules are usually worse that GW games has arguably never played a Mantic game - as rules are usually BETTER.
Sure GW models are usually better but Mantic is improving.

Retailers detest Mantic because they detest crowdfunding (for good reason, of course).

Para Bellum can expand aggressively by giving great terms and massive freebies to retailers and players because they're seasoned capitalists and are fine with making a loss as long as they grow market share.

Adding in to other reports of Mantic's popularity, I think there was an attempt by a lot of local WHFB players to switch over to KoW when The End Times happened, but I don't think there was a lot of enthusiasm in the long run. At least, I think that KoW is not widely played here right now. However, everybody, even old and disgruntled Fantasy fans, are now rushing in as fast as possible to rebase all of their armies, even those not consisting out of GW miniatures, to suit The Old World. "Dude, I have to, it's The Old World!".

 DarkBlack wrote:

nels1031 wrote:Meanwhile Conquest is like 1/3rd the age of KoW and its eating Mantics lunch...

I hadn't noticed.

 DarkBlack wrote:

And agreed, parabellum is eating mantics lunch. I've seen a multiple more games of conquest being played in the past year than I have seen games of KOW in the past decade.

That's not good way to tell.
The games anyone sees are very localised and biased toward their interests.
It's why everyone seens to think that their game is doing better than it actually is.

Grunk wrote:
I like PB and think they're a great example of a company making enough good choices to thrive but "eating their lunch"?

 Baragash wrote:

I don't believe for a second Conquest is anywhere near KoW.

My comments about Conquest “eating Mantic’s lunch” was just an anecdotal observation of Conquests growing space in the Rank and Flank wargame market.

For one example thats not totally anecdotal, just look at tourney attendance at a venue that I believe is one of the larger wargaming conventions in the world, Adepticon. I believe thats a good snapshot of a games respective popularity.

-Registered Attendance at what seem to be each respective game systems premier event at this convention for March 2024-

Conquest tourney: 41/60
A Song of Ice and Fire tourney : 32/64
KoW Adepticlash : 25/50

For the record, I don’t play KoW, Conquest or ASOIAF, but I hope they all succeed. I just think Mantic’s priorities are out of whack with these “joke posts”. Just focus on how to portray their own product in the best light and don’t even acknowledge other games exist.

If I were someone in Mantic leadership, I’d be more concerned about true peer competitors than GW, which is on a whole different level.

-Games Workshop’s various fantasy mass battle game tourney registration-

AoS : 143/150
Middle Earth : 90/90
A WFB/TOW event : 50/50 (Might be a WHFB 8th edition tourney?)

Can't lie with that data.

I know that KOW recently had the largest tournament in its history somewhere in the UK (IIRC), at something like 150 players. Haven't been able to find comparison for Conquest, didn't bother trying to find one for ASOIAF. I doubt Conquest has had an event that large, but its also a third of the age of KOW so I wouldn't expect Conquest to have a bigger turnout - if it did Mantic would have an even bigger problem on its hands.

chaos0xomega wrote:Conquest is being picked up by a growing number of retailers, has a growing tournament presence, a rapidly growing social media presence, etc. Kings of War just... is. In the almost 15 yrs since KOW launched, I've never encountered a brick and Mortar that stocked it. In the 5+ years since Conquest launched, they gained a retail presence in most of the stores I've visited in the area. It may be larger still, but Conquest seems to be picking up fans and growing market share, whereas Mantic picked up the leftover community from GW and has coasted along for a decade without doing much with their position in the market.

I think that has more to do with how much attention you've paid or to what you have paid attention.
I've seen KoW in game stores and can assure you that there are a significant number of KoW players who never played WHFB (myself included, I got fed up with GW playing AoS and 40k).
Tournaments are growing and Mantic's quality and quantity of releases has steadily improved.

SgtBANZAI wrote:However, everybody, even old and disgruntled Fantasy fans, are now rushing in as fast as possible to rebase all of their armies, even those not consisting out of GW miniatures, to suit The Old World. "Dude, I have to, it's The Old World!".

There are a lot of players crawling back.
Definitely not "everyone" though. There are no shortage of people who are just not interested.
It's been a long time and there are many players have moved on, found something they like better, gotten into fantasy wargaming after The End Times and/or are just that fed up with GW.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Retailers detest Mantic because they detest crowdfunding (for good reason, of course).

Para Bellum can expand aggressively by giving great terms and massive freebies to retailers and players because they're seasoned capitalists and are fine with making a loss as long as they grow market share.

This is the opposite of my experience. My FLGS still has the same Conquest minis it had last year, and can’t seem to sell any brutes or abominations. But when we took my nephew there last week to spend Christmas money, there was an entirely new Mantic display with new minis. (Although they still had a lot of Armada stock that wasn’t moving.).




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’ll also add that I think the tournament data is really only useful for telling us what determined tournament gamers are into. Conflating them with wargaming as a whole is how you kill a Privateer Press-sized company.

I mean I have really no interest in AoS, Conquest or The Old World (sadly, because I loved old warhammer, but I'm really very unhappy about scale creep in miniature games and rebasing stuff).

KoW I think remains a good option for a regiment based game, but I think the extreme end of the competitive pool for KoW has some really weird stuff in it that is offputting to me. If I was gonna join a fantasy community, it would probably be for KoW because it doesn't care about base sizes and I could use any of my miniatures for it, but I'm more interested in maybe adapting Hail Caesar or something these days.

But I in no way think of myself as representative of the wargaming market in general. I dislike a lot of popular things and like a lot of things that get very little traction and my hang up about rebasing seems to be pretty specific to me, I've not come across many other people who are as annoyed by it.

I think KoW is currently trying a little too hard to present itself as as anti meta-chasing game, the latest book has pages and pages of 5 point cost adjustments plus absolutely insane gak like "remove units A and B from the army list; add unit C (identical to unit A and can be upgraded to unit B)"

That sounds kind of bonkers!

And like they were trying to fill their book with updates and ran out of ideas so wound up doing things that didn't actually do anything

I'm not sure tidying up an army list qualifies as "absolutely insane ".

I'm not a fan of the update books to be honest. I didn't really come with them to the latest edition, I was happy enough in 2e.

I am planning to give it a proper look, though.

Last Balance update was mainly about 2 things, removing default spells from wizards (and reduce their points accordingly) and adding Aura rules to Army Standard Bearer

consolidating unit entries that were split up before (adding the 2nd unit as upgrade again) and adjusting points for phalanx units both to correct past mistakes

this is a little more than just some points here and there for the sake of change

the books in general are more interesting because they add new armies, new background and new scenarios
point and rule changes themself are in the army builder anyway they don't need to fill the books with that (but do as some people like to have it printed instead of online only)

 DarkBlack wrote:
I'm not sure tidying up an army list qualifies as "absolutely insane ".

It's great when it's done in a reprint, it's insane when it's done in the form of errata. I'm having a hard time even coming up with anything more untidy than "cross out two units from the other book and add this one that's functionally the same". And they're doing this as a follow up to "everything you need in one book" 3.5 edition.

But since Mantic was perfectly happy to do truly minimalist balance patches in the past of just a few bullet points per faction, I'm guessing this is a response to some vocal players' outcry that the balance patch book isn't worth buying or something.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

It's great when it's done in a reprint, it's insane when it's done in the form of errata. I'm having a hard time even coming up with anything more untidy than "cross out two units from the other book and add this one that's functionally the same". And they're doing this as a follow up to "everything you need in one book" 3.5 edition.

I don't see how condolidating two nearly identical unit entries is as big a deal as you're making it out to be.
The web app list builder that actually gets used to make lists is what I was referring to with regard to tidiness.

But since Mantic was perfectly happy to do truly minimalist balance patches in the past of just a few bullet points per faction, I'm guessing this is a response to some vocal players' outcry that the balance patch book isn't worth buying or something.

The most recent book included a whole new faction, with lore, and new scenarios.
So already more than a "balance patch".

Which it needs to be because the rules are available in a web app already, so most players have the balance tweaks without the book.

Mantic has been around a little too long to keep acting like the cute little alternative. They haven't had a real bona fide hit yet, but both Deadzone and KOW have significant, if regional, fan bases. Both also carry the spirit of a GW game (necromunda/WFB) with updated, and IMO better, core mechanics.

 DarkBlack wrote:

I don't see how condolidating two nearly identical unit entries is as big a deal as you're making it out to be.
The web app list builder that actually gets used to make lists is what I was referring to with regard to tidiness.

It's not consolidating anything until a printing comes out that doesn't have the two superfluous units.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:
Adding in to other reports of Mantic's popularity, I think there was an attempt by a lot of local WHFB players to switch over to KoW when The End Times happened, but I don't think there was a lot of enthusiasm in the long run. At least, I think that KoW is not widely played here right now. However, everybody, even old and disgruntled Fantasy fans, are now rushing in as fast as possible to rebase all of their armies, even those not consisting out of GW miniatures, to suit The Old World. "Dude, I have to, it's The Old World!".

This is what saddens me about wargaming in general. There's very few people that continue playing older editions of any game just for the simplicity of enjoying that edition. Though I want to try ToW, I'm not going to rebase my miniatures. I very much enjoy playing older editions of WHFB and I also enjoy playing KoW.

In my area (more northward), there is a good size tournament scene that travels outside of the state. There is a FLGS up further north from me that stocks a lot of Mantic product. But that's because there are people in that area that play KoW and various Mantic games. But in the immediate area where I live, it's almost unheard of. You might find a couple people that want to try it out but you never see people playing any Mantic games in stores.

Mantic back then (2nd edition KoW/early 3rd edition) would make jabs at GW and follow it up with a sale on Mantic products. Which at the time, was really cool. Because you get a bunch of Mantic product for cheap. Now, you rarely ever get any surprise sales. For me personally, the jabs were more lighthearted. Because you know that if GW decided to bring back WHFB a lot of people are going to flock back. I think a lot of people also wonder how it will affect the player base of their games. I'm talking about KoW, T9A, Oathmark, WAP. Even older editions of WHFB.

Grensche wrote:
Because you know that if GW decided to bring back WHFB a lot of people are going to flock back.

Correct. I have seen multiple posts by both former and current WHFB players lamenting the changes to rules, base sizes and armies from the TOW's previews, but still insisting that they are going to - no, they have to rebase all of their stuff, modify army compositions or even start a new army outright because their old units are not properly supported/have a dubious future/are probably very weak rules-wise at the moment. I've already encountered proclamations from different people that they fully intend to throw away/sell off their current armies they have been using for WHFB or WAP for many years until now and buy Bretonnian/Tomb Kings' starter boxes to start "officially supported" factions again. Even if they hate Bretonnia and Tomb Kings or have so much of their stuff it's effectively a useless purchase. I've also seen examples of people tearing down and cutting out their (sometimes very impressive looking) old bases and trays and quickly gluing together their models on cheap PVC and MDF with virtually no additional work to make them look better - anything to rebase hundreds of models as quickly as possible for the TOW's release date. People whine, moan, swear at GW and lament the amount of terrible misfortunes awaiting their unsuspecting models before they get to work on making them "rules legal", yet they still are fully commited to actually doing it. Whatever they've been playing is now getting put on an indefinite hold, it's all about TOW and "officiality" now. Some of them are questioned if they are going to check some other ruleset with their miniatures, and the answer is consistently along the lines of "Why would I want to? It's not GW, it's not official". To me it looks very unhinged.

With that being said, very similar pattern emerged when Legions Imperialis was announced. I was told by an acquaintance of mine about a fresh NetEpic recruit who has just finished printing their Imperial Guard army, then learned about GW's new announcement and said something like: "I'm really hoping GW is going to make a list to suit my drop troopers, otherwise IT'S SUCH A WASTE SINCE I'LL HAVE TO SELL IT OFF IT AND USE SOMETHING ELSE TO PLAY THE OFFICIAL RULESET".

The acceptance of these things in the broader community is a bit depressing to me, but I try not to yuck anyone's yum. It does annoy me though that when I started talking about the scale creep and changes in base size invalidating collections I was aggressively told 1) scale creep is not happening, 2) if it is happening it's a good thing, 3) it's happening but it doesn't matter because no one will ever enforce it and 4) it's actually trivial to rebase all your miniatures and bigger miniatures look better anyway, pretty much in order.

Some people were consistent with point 4, which I disagree with but respect, but the people who shifted the goalposts from 1-4 really annoyed me.

For that reason I am pretty much only interested in playing base agnostic games with a broader community, because I really don't appreciate this sort of stuff from companies which is blatantly only to drive sales.

I honestly kinda suspect the chief motivation behind the base changes is exactly this. GW knows the players will conform to the changes like the brand addicts they are, and forfeit their ability to return to the third party rulesets they might have been playing in the interim.

The end result will of course be that five years down the line every rank and flank game uses new GW sizes.

That is also my fear - that GW sets the trend for the industry and the scale increases overall. It's happened before with the shift from 25mm to 28mm and now you see the shift to 32mm (people sometimes try to make out it was always 32mm because they want to deny the shift for some reason). Same with Conquest being bigger than everything else. I've got a lot of stuff now I suppose and will just stick in the 28mm scale for the rest of my hobby. I probably have enough to last me for years. And I guess that's the point - if you could get me to shift scale and re-buy everything, you'd be on to a real winner.

Sad though, makes me feel out of date and disconnected from the modern game.

I think the 1 inch = 5 feet scale used in a lot of D&D and it's derivatives will hopefully keep a 28mm scene alive to some extent anyway.

D&D is for sure staying on a 1" grid, but there's been considerable scale creep, driven in part by 3d printing trending towards 35mm-ish for the sake of durability and detail on first generation machines.

For me so far it looks like I'm "staying" with KoW (haven't played in 3rd yet but we have plans to revisit it this year) and I'm very curious about Hobgoblin.

What honestly is the reason for people's inability to move beyond games workshop? Is it some kind of formative childhood experience where it was the first best thing? A "I couldn't afford an army before but now hoo boy!" kind of deal?

This cult like fanaticism is not unique to GW, you can certainly see it with Apple, Tesla, cryptocurrency... and probably stems from the same tribal instincts that drive people to fanatically align with sports teams, political parties or street gangs... a (misfiring) evolutionary strategy of being a blind follower to hopefully enjoy the crumbs from the table of your betters.

Or people generally prefer the superior quality of GWs miniatures and the market dominance of their rules (even if the rules are generally not the best) that makes it really easy to find a game?

chaos0xomega wrote:
Or people generally prefer the superior quality of GWs miniatures and the market dominance of their rules (even if the rules are generally not the best) that makes it really easy to find a game?

Not the people who take criticism of GW as a personal attack, no.

It's not like I'm saying every person who enjoys some GW product is a cultist, but there's definitely a percentage. The ones who barge into threads just to ad hominem anyone who complains, certainly. Exact same psychology as Musk fanboys.

like saying you prefer a Tesla for the superiority in design over other cars and the market dominance, although the cars are not the best, that makes it really easy to find charging stations

not like you can play any game you want with the miniatures you like
you must play GW games because you like the GW models is very good GW marketing, not more
there is a trend that you can only use the rules from the same company that made the models, hence why all the historical manufacturer now are coming up with their own rules, and people asking if it really is allowed to use Perry models for Black Powder instead of V&F

playing the games you like with the models you like and the people you like
finding someone playing the same game is not easier with GW (there is a reason for people saying those games are good if played with the right people, but finding those is not made easier) unless you go for events were the version of the game is the same for everyone joining

there is no point in using a game don't like, playing pick up games with people you don't like, just because you like those models

No model can entice me to play with the local 40k tourney grinders lol

But there's some wholesome HH players and we're also getting into AT together

As for KoW, any version of it is a better game than any version of WHFB. But I'm not gonna claim it's for everybody. Not if you like heavy detail, individual wargear options, competitive spellcasting (as in, the wizards competing directly vs enemy wizards on who gets to cast)...

Personally I value the freedom to make my army the way I want it on all levels from composition to model count to looks and I've found it very satisfying to collect a visually coherent and lore appropriate force from dozens of models lines.

For example, KoW dwarfs are allowed to field earth elementals, so I'm using some oversized 54mm dwarfs and a Bones storm giant painted as animated ancestor statues.

 kodos wrote:
like saying you prefer a Tesla for the superiority in design over other cars and the market dominance, although the cars are not the best, that makes it really easy to find charging stations

thats... an awful analogy. Tesla doesn't have market dominance (except maybe in the realm of EVs, which itself are still just a fraction of the market), nor is the design really anything special, whereas GWs minis are hands down the best plastic kits and the most widely played games on the market.

not like you can play any game you want with the miniatures you like
you must play GW games because you like the GW models is very good GW marketing, not more

...the point is that GW games are the most commonly played. I can go to basically any hobby store and find a pick up game of 40k at a minimum, if not also Age of Sigmar. If I want to play Bolt Action, or Flames of War/Team Yankee, or god forbid dropfleet commander, I have to put a lot more effort into finding somewhere and someone to play.

there is a trend that you can only use the rules from the same company that made the models, hence why all the historical manufacturer now are coming up with their own rules, and people asking if it really is allowed to use Perry models for Black Powder instead of V&F

You kinda got it backwards. The companies that had rules are coming up wiht miniatures to support them, rather than the other way around. The reason for that is selling rules doesn't make you any money, whereas selling miniatures does.

playing the games you like with the models you like and the people you like
finding someone playing the same game is not easier with GW (there is a reason for people saying those games are good if played with the right people, but finding those is not made easier) unless you go for events were the version of the game is the same for everyone joining

This is laughably, hilariously, indisputably false. GW - and 40k especially - is the dominant market leader by a very very very very large margin. No other game comes anywhere close to having as large of a playerbase or as being as commonly played. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

there is no point in using a game don't like, playing pick up games with people you don't like, just because you like those models

As opposed to buying models you like but never being able to play because nobody else in your area plays those games? Because I do that too. I got tens of thousands of dollars sunk into very expensive miniature paperweights of models I love for games that nobody plays. Its awesome man, just having all these minis sitting around collecting dust because nobody in my area plays these games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

As for KoW, any version of it is a better game than any version of WHFB

Thats... an opinion...

. But I'm not gonna claim it's for everybody. Not if you like heavy detail, individual wargear options, competitive spellcasting (as in, the wizards competing directly vs enemy wizards on who gets to cast)...

How about just wanting a game where you actually remove casualties from your units and the effectiveness/capability of your units degrades as you take casualties (and no, nerve tests are not the same thing), and where you don't stand there doing nothing for the entirety of your opponents turn watching them act with absolute impunity?

chaos0xomega wrote:
How about just wanting a game where you actually remove casualties from your units and the effectiveness/capability of your units degrades as you take casualties (and no, nerve tests are not the same thing), and where you don't stand there doing nothing for the entirety of your opponents turn watching them act with absolute impunity?

Fair, but also fair to say units don't degrade in WHFB until the final 5, maybe 10 dudes, either. And I think modern KoW has a rule that your attacks are halved if you have more "damage" than your unit size but somehow avoided breaking. The second part, eh, absolute IGOUGO is a valid turn sequence, we lived with it in 40k from 3rd to 7th I think.

chaos0xomega wrote:

How about just wanting a game where you actually remove casualties from your units and the effectiveness/capability of your units degrades as you take casualties (and no, nerve tests are not the same thing), and where you don't stand there doing nothing for the entirety of your opponents turn watching them act with absolute impunity?

yeah, some people like to play mass-skirmish games
Rank&File is not for everyone and Warhammer Fantasy and their games based on that are special that way as no other games goes with formation based mass-skirmish

and standing there doing nothing is a problem only if the turns are too long, which is a problem with Warhammer Fantasy or 40k
a game were 6 turns take 2 hours with both having the same amount of time you have 1 hour down time in the worst case (but you don't do nothing in your turn) while if the game takes 4 hours to reach turn 3 you can watch your opponent 3 hours really doing nothing

but than there are also a lot of people who don't like that and actually want an R&F game without all the skirmish games single model mechanics

chaos0xomega wrote:

 kodos wrote:
like saying you prefer a Tesla for the superiority in design over other cars and the market dominance, although the cars are not the best, that makes it really easy to find charging stations

thats... an awful analogy. Tesla doesn't have market dominance (except maybe in the realm of EVs, which itself are still just a fraction of the market), nor is the design really anything special, whereas GWs minis are hands down the best plastic kits and the most widely played games on the market.

similar as GW does not have market dominance in the model industry but only in wargaming which is a fraction of the market and their design is not anything special either
they are making scale models for gaming which makes them the best looking and most detailed gaming models because the others are producing for gaming and not for display

chaos0xomega wrote:

...the point is that GW games are the most commonly played. I can go to basically any hobby store and find a pick up game of 40k at a minimum, if not also Age of Sigmar. If I want to play Bolt Action, or Flames of War/Team Yankee, or god forbid dropfleet commander, I have to put a lot more effort into finding somewhere and someone to play.

and people come back talking about their awful experience from that or that the game is too expensive because they need to buy a full 2k army to play, and are told that GW games are fun and you can start small, you just need to find the right people with the right mindset and this is not the games fault but the players not putting effort in searching the right players (who play the same way with lower points etc)

just get a 2k tournament net-list, buy the models for it and you can start playing everywhere, except if you did not check the local scene first and somehow no one plays AoS in public but just 40k

there is a trend that you can only use the rules from the same company that made the models, hence why all the historical manufacturer now are coming up with their own rules, and people asking if it really is allowed to use Perry models for Black Powder instead of V&F

You kinda got it backwards. The companies that had rules are coming up wiht miniatures to support them, rather than the other way around. The reason for that is selling rules doesn't make you any money, whereas selling miniatures does.

SgtBANZAI wrote:
...and buy Bretonnian/Tomb Kings' starter boxes to start "officially supported" factions again. Even if they hate Bretonnia and Tomb Kings or have so much of their stuff it's effectively a useless purchase.

That is tragically ironic.

Da Boss wrote:The acceptance of these things in the broader community is a bit depressing to me, but I try not to yuck anyone's yum.

Agreed.

lord_blackfang wrote:I honestly kinda suspect the chief motivation behind the base changes is exactly this. GW knows the players will conform to the changes like the brand addicts they are, and forfeit their ability to return to the third party rulesets they might have been playing in the interim.

The end result will of course be that five years down the line every rank and flank game uses new GW sizes.

Agreed with you on the first part, but not sure of the second.
Mantic at least seem to have made a point of NOT following GW and doing their own thing.

kodos wrote:...and people asking if it really is allowed to use Perry models for Black Powder instead of V&F

I'm surprised and dismayed the hear that mentality creeping into historical wargaming.

My experience with historical is that people take ownership of their hobby. You have to, because a lot of it is left up to you.
Rules are a book published as such and which minis you use and what they look like is up to you. How historical do you want to be? Quality or quantity?
The only "comformation" is to your gaming group (do that your armies are compatible) or the conventions that have arisen to make games easier. Which, due to purpose, don't change much.
(I got into wargaming with Ancients)

Which is why people going along with things like buying models to use in one game in a genre seems ridiculous to me.
I'm used to expecting an army to be usable in a until the paint wears off.
The rules I play will probably change, but my minis don't.

chaos0xomega wrote:

there is a trend that you can only use the rules from the same company that made the models, hence why all the historical manufacturer now are coming up with their own rules, and people asking if it really is allowed to use Perry models for Black Powder instead of V&F

You kinda got it backwards. The companies that had rules are coming up wiht miniatures to support them, rather than the other way around. The reason for that is selling rules doesn't make you any money, whereas selling miniatures does.

In the context of historical wargaming, there are many companies that make miniatures with no rules. You're typically expected to figure out which miniatures to use for historical games yourself, because you're interested in history.

playing the games you like with the models you like and the people you like
finding someone playing the same game is not easier with GW (there is a reason for people saying those games are good if played with the right people, but finding those is not made easier) unless you go for events were the version of the game is the same for everyone joining

This is laughably, hilariously, indisputably false. GW - and 40k especially - is the dominant market leader by a very very very very large margin. No other game comes anywhere close to having as large of a playerbase or as being as commonly played. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

I think you've missed the point here.
It's not about pick up games, it's about finding the kind of game/opponent that you actually want to play.
Ever try to find a narrative game of 40k?

there is no point in using a game don't like, playing pick up games with people you don't like, just because you like those models

As opposed to buying models you like but never being able to play because nobody else in your area plays those games? Because I do that too. I got tens of thousands of dollars sunk into very expensive miniature paperweights of models I love for games that nobody plays. Its awesome man, just having all these minis sitting around collecting dust because nobody in my area plays these games.

The point is that models shouldn't be tied to game systems.
You can use those models to play something else.
The converse of which is you can play a game with other models.
Get the models you like and use them in whatever game you like.

The way in which GW has somehow convinced people that game x models can only be used in game x is baffeling to me.
Nevermind that GW can apparently decree that certain models are no longer game x models and people replace them!
You own the physical object, how you use it is up to you.
It's your hobby. Do it they way you like.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

As for KoW, any version of it is a better game than any version of WHFB

Thats... an opinion...

An opinion shared by most of the KoW player base (presumably Mantic fans in general).

. But I'm not gonna claim it's for everybody. Not if you like heavy detail, individual wargear options, competitive spellcasting (as in, the wizards competing directly vs enemy wizards on who gets to cast)...

How about just wanting a game where you actually remove casualties from your units and the effectiveness/capability of your units degrades as you take casualties (and no, nerve tests are not the same thing), and where you don't stand there doing nothing for the entirety of your opponents turn watching them act with absolute impunity?

Even historical wargames rules have moved away from casualty removal. It's laborious and does not represent reality.
Rolling saves isn't being involved.

chaos0xomega: I think your points about preferences in games and so on are all fine, but I just wanted to say that in Europe 40K is very popular but medieval fantasy games are also very popular and WFB used to be a bigger game than 40K in Europe sometimes. I think the US market is much more into Sci Fi. I don't think it's as clear cut in Europe, though to be fair, that's also subject to change. It's also a bit harder to measure because higher rents and smaller shops mean less gaming space generally and most gaming happens in small clubs rather than in shops.

I think you can see this a little in what manufacturers in these regions produce - I think US is much more Sci Fi focused and there are many more small fantasy producers in Europe.

I think historicals are always their own thing, usually small clubs in both places.

Grunk wrote:
What honestly is the reason for people's inability to move beyond games workshop? Is it some kind of formative childhood experience where it was the first best thing? A "I couldn't afford an army before but now hoo boy!" kind of deal?

Some geniunely think that GW's models and rules are clearly superior, some don't want to bother with less active community where they have to put additional resources in to get a game going, some are stuck playing GW's games because no one will play anything else. Or they are assured no one will play anything else. At this point it's a self fueling cycle: GW is so dominant everyone kind of has to play GW, no matter the reason or if they really have to, it's enough for anyone to have an impression that everyone plays only GW games. GW's motto is "More Warhammer, more often" - they are everywhere in the wargaming scene and even beyond, they want to make you think and breathe Warhammer even if you are off the table, so they have a massive support structure with more books, videogames and online discussions than pretty much any other tabletop franchise, it's not even close. This cycle in my experience leads to some people being locked into the GW bubble and not realizing they can find something else. I've seen at least two people who proclaimed they're dropping yet another GW's system because they think it's trash, only for them to switch to, I don't know, Killteam or Necromunda. "40K's is completely ruined for me this edition, and AOS is a poorly balanced mess, nevermind how they butchered my favourite Necromunda, I guess the only way out for me is to start a Warcry warband and see how it goes".

I don't know if this is the exact reason why, but from my personal experience GW's fanbase has the biggest amount of people taking any criticism of their favourite company as personal attacks. However, this can also be simply because GW's fanbase is so huge in the first place, it's easier to run into these people.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:

I don't know if this is the exact reason why, but from my personal experience GW's fanbase has the biggest amount of people taking any criticism of their favourite company as personal attacks. However, this can also be simply because GW's fanbase is so huge in the first place, it's easier to run into these people.

I think its just a scale thing. I don't think people who play GW games are any way distinctly "different" to those who play other game systems and the vast majority of those seriously into the hobby are or have played multiple game systems over time. The bigger community is going to have more people involved with it, which means more of the good and more of the bad all together.


I think also there's a bit of an internet bias in complaining about GW stuff, which it also gets for being big and long lived. So sometimes there's a bit of the bitter element that's in there because people come onlin eto chat about their game and hobby and they get their enjoyment "attacked" more often because being big and long lived, there's also a bigger jaded population around attacking/insulting/criticising. Heck in general Dakka forums are oft regarded as being a somewhat negative/jaded atmosphere a times.



But yeah I don't think those who play GW games are any different. They are just people playing and engaging with something they like in the hobby wargame market.

Lots of different axes being ground in this thread. Here's some loose change of mine:

- I don't really love when Mantic ribs GW, I've largely broken up with the Dub and no longer have an antagonistic relationship with the company. For my tastes, GW makes models that largely do not appeal to me and focuses on games that are not worth playing beyond a casual level with friends.

- I do think some of Mantic's motivation is because geographically they and GW are neighbors with a shared history and in Mantic's mind they're peers, which I don't think GW agrees with. But GW also doesn't openly acknowledge any of the other wargame companies (because to do so would be to open their followers' eyes to the existence of alternatives, which any good gaslighter avoids at all costs). I do however think the first several The Other World posts from WarCom were directly inspired by the success of Kings of War 3E. Yes, especially that first one within a week of KOW 3E's financial success, when Dub told the world that something about WHFB was definitely coming eventually please believe us do not leave come back stay we love you here's the thing you once loved (please).

- I've seen Conquest on the shelves of precisely as many stores as I've seen the new Warmachine (i.e. one), and only recently heard anything about it being a game that a person should play. Sounds like the rules are good, the sculpts run the gamut from old and terrible to new and great (sounds familiar!), but I hear PB has a really draconian modeling requirement for events. Shame.

- The game I've seen the most on shelves, apart from Dub Stuff, is ASOIAF. Part of me is tempted, I really love Game of Thrones and want more. Have dug a little into the meta and it seems like there's a balance problem being worked on, which is pretty typical for an early edition of a game. I can't tell much about the hobby aspect, as the only games I've seen in person are 100% unpainted and I've never seen a conversion or alternate sculpt on any platform yet.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Personally I value the freedom to make my army the way I want it on all levels from composition to model count to looks and I've found it very satisfying to collect a visually coherent and lore appropriate force from dozens of models lines.

Good looking Dwarfs, BF!

- On that note, I play Kings because a) the rules are great; b) the rules are balanced externally and internally; c) the rules continue to be actively balanced at a manageable pace (i.e. annually); d) I can hobby however I want; e) and am actively rewarded for doing so; f) other people give a gak about hobbying and do it; g) my club plays it; and h) events are plentiful enough for my schedule and genuinely fun to be at.

When I compare that list to GW's offerings, it's clear how little the Dub has to offer me, and it's a high bar for all the other games kicking around, even just from a "Are people actually invested in the hobby / do people actually play with painted models?" standpoint.

But also Mantic dunking on GeeDub has nothing to do with me liking Mantic.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
within a week of KOW 3E's financial success

Citation needed.

As far as I can tell the majority if miniature gamers didn't even notice the new edition had been out for a month by the time GW made its announcement.

 Boss Salvage wrote:

- I do think some of Mantic's motivation is because geographically they and GW are neighbors with a shared history and in Mantic's mind they're peers, which I don't think GW agrees with. But GW also doesn't openly acknowledge any of the other wargame companies (because to do so would be to open their followers' eyes to the existence of alternatives, which any good gaslighter avoids at all costs).

This always seems odd to me that people blame/complain/criticise GW for not talking about other game brands, however how many other firms do that?

Seriously I've never seen another brand do it, the only time I actually see miniature makers talking and marketing other miniature makers are
1) When they own a webstore that sells outside of their own brand - even then they often have the store and their game wing under totally different names (eg Wayland Games owns Warcradle, but you'll never see Warcradle talking about other things Wayland sells).

2) 3D printing creators doing cross promotion marketing. Where honestly the markets are tiny, super niche and its a LOT of garage style companies (even the big ones are tiny).


Otherwise I've never seen Mantic talk about Warcradle; Warcradle talk about Infinity, Infinity talk about Malifaux. Everyone markets their own game in their own bubble and doesn't talk about the other firms at all.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Citation needed.

As far as I can tell the majority if miniature gamers didn't even notice the new edition had been out for a month by the time GW made its announcement.

Late October/Early November 2019: Kings of War Third Edition hits shelves
November 15, 2019: Games Workshop issues this vague statement about The Old World. WarCom would continue to hold space for TOW over the coming years. The only mention of rules development during these years would be a note about base size changing.

We know for a fact that WHFB was sunset because it was declared financially dead. It seems too suspicious to me that KOW's successful launch was met by a well-timed, vacuous marketing hype piece for an obviously similar product.

Also this thread is about the relationship of Mantic and Games Workshop, not the perceptive powers of ill-informed individual gamers. It's a safe bet that GW keeps tabs on its competitors, despite its ivory tower mentality.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Everyone markets their own game in their own bubble and doesn't talk about the other firms at all.

Sure, fair point. Maybe that's why Mantic's winks are so weird, because they're breaking the marketing wall and gesturing to The Other Guy. Maybe that's why I also don't like it, it just feeds back to GW one way or another.

EDIT 1: I've seen a lot of retro Warhammer stuff recently, including all these photos from White Dwarf where old lead is kind of intermingled and there's a lot of slop in the Nottingham mini world. Maybe some of the nostalgia of that era has rubbed off on me / Ronnie and crew.

EDIT 2: Does Games Workshop attend any cons and stuff these days? They were definitely absent for a long time, which added to my feeling of their elite douchiness. A manufacturer conspicuously apart from their peers.

EDIT 3: And I'd also point to the overwhelming Games Workshop Models Only policy that GW adopted whenever and that is STILL parroted by Warhamsters, as feeding my feelings above. Like a month ago I was at my friend's place with some 3D printed Tyranids and he was like, wait, you know those aren't legal, right? Bro, legal for what?????

 Boss Salvage wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Citation needed.

As far as I can tell the majority if miniature gamers didn't even notice the new edition had been out for a month by the time GW made its announcement.

Late October/Early November 2019: Kings of War Third Edition hits shelves
November 15, 2019: Games Workshop issues this vague statement about The Old World. WarCom would continue to hold space for TOW over the coming years. The only mention of rules development during these years would be a note about base size changing.

We know for a fact that WHFB was sunset because it was declared financially dead. It seems too suspicious to me that KOW's successful launch was met by a well-timed, vacuous marketing hype piece for an obviously similar product.

Also this thread is about the relationship of Mantic and Games Workshop, not the perceptive powers of ill-informed individual gamers. It's a safe bet that GW keeps tabs on its competitors, despite its ivory tower mentality.

All well and good, but where's the proof of supposed "Financial Success"?

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Everyone markets their own game in their own bubble and doesn't talk about the other firms at all.

Sure, fair point. Maybe that's why Mantic's winks are so weird, because they're breaking the marketing wall and gesturing to The Other Guy. Maybe that's why I also don't like it, it just feeds back to GW one way or another.

EDIT 1: I've seen a lot of retro Warhammer stuff recently, including all these photos from White Dwarf where old lead is kind of intermingled and there's a lot of slop in the Nottingham mini world. Maybe some of the nostalgia of that era has rubbed off on me / Ronnie and crew.

EDIT 2: Does Games Workshop attend any cons and stuff these days? They were definitely absent for a long time, which added to my feeling of their elite douchiness. A manufacturer conspicuously apart from their peers.

EDIT 3: And I'd also point to the overwhelming Games Workshop Models Only policy that GW adopted whenever and that is STILL parroted by Warhamsters, as feeding my feelings above. Like a month ago I was at my friend's place with some 3D printed Tyranids and he was like, wait, you know those aren't legal, right? Bro, legal for what?????

GW not only attends events they also do big promo previews at them - like the LVO coming up soon.

As for point 3 that's also a thing other firms have too - its just most firms don't have their own shops and only sponsor a very small number of competitive events. So the impact is way smaller than GW because GW has their own stores on the highstreet. Plus any event they attend/sponsor/back has to comply. Again its the same thing other firms would and do do - if they are organising a big event they want their models on the tables being played; so that its stuff they make that people are interacting with, taking photos of and soforth for their marketing.



This is what all the other firms do. The ones that don't are often so tiny that they are happy for just any sale or they don't have a company mindset behind them which might mean they are a hobby level business.



GW gets flack for it, but honestly its what other firms 100% do as well. Gw is just more obvious because they are bigger and thus it happens more times than not. Though on the 3rd party models front I'd also argue that GW gets copied WAY more than the others. No one in the 3D print world really cares to copy anything but GW for wargames if they are copycatting. So again its not that other firms wouldn't come out with 3D print rules that are similar, they just don't have the problem to start with right now.

 Overread wrote:

This always seems odd to me that people blame/complain/criticise GW for not talking about other game brands, however how many other firms do that?

GW goes so far as to not acknowledge that its market exists outside of itself. Can you imagine Ford not acknowledging that Fords are cars and that other cars exist and calling roads and traffic lights "Ford infrastructure"

I'm in favor of anybody taking the piss out of GW . It's long tradition in the Wargaming world.

That said, aside from writing my favorite set of Fantasy mass battle rules, there's little else that they have come up with in the last 5 years that I actually want to buy.

Of course, I could say almost the same about GW.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:

Correct. I have seen multiple posts by both former and current WHFB players lamenting the changes to rules, base sizes and armies from the TOW's previews, but still insisting that they are going to - no, they have to rebase all of their stuff, modify army compositions or even start a new army outright because their old units are not properly supported/have a dubious future/are probably very weak rules-wise at the moment. I've already encountered proclamations from different people that they fully intend to throw away/sell off their current armies they have been using for WHFB or WAP for many years until now and buy Bretonnian/Tomb Kings' starter boxes to start "officially supported" factions again. Even if they hate Bretonnia and Tomb Kings or have so much of their stuff it's effectively a useless purchase. I've also seen examples of people tearing down and cutting out their (sometimes very impressive looking) old bases and trays and quickly gluing together their models on cheap PVC and MDF with virtually no additional work to make them look better - anything to rebase hundreds of models as quickly as possible for the TOW's release date. People whine, moan, swear at GW and lament the amount of terrible misfortunes awaiting their unsuspecting models before they get to work on making them "rules legal", yet they still are fully commited to actually doing it. Whatever they've been playing is now getting put on an indefinite hold, it's all about TOW and "officiality" now. Some of them are questioned if they are going to check some other ruleset with their miniatures, and the answer is consistently along the lines of "Why would I want to? It's not GW, it's not official". To me it looks very unhinged.

I was thinking to myself last night "What if GW didn't change base sizes?" I don't think we would have all this craziness. Except for non-supported armies. That is a different topic on itself. WIth this uproar about base sizes, I wish Mantic would poke fun at GW by showing off their rules for basing because you have multiple options. I haven't checked social media to see if Mantic has done it. But if they have it would have been perfect, maybe bring some more people over who are interested in a game where they don't have to worry about modifying their miniatures to play.

 Overread wrote:

GW gets flack for it, but honestly its what other firms 100% do as well. Gw is just more obvious because they are bigger and thus it happens more times than not. Though on the 3rd party models front I'd also argue that GW gets copied WAY more than the others. No one in the 3D print world really cares to copy anything but GW for wargames if they are copycatting. So again its not that other firms wouldn't come out with 3D print rules that are similar, they just don't have the problem to start with right now.

Mantic does not. It's a big reason that a lot of fans like them.
Ronnie (Mantic CEO) is on record saying that although he prefers that Mantic models are used, people playing his game is more important.
You can show up at a Mantic event with 0 Mantic models.

The are prizes for Manatic armies, as encouragement, but no requirement to play.

You can get stls of Mantic's resin models from Mantic and their minis don't cost as much, so not as worthwhile to copy.
OPR has rules for Mantic factions though, so we might get there.

and the STL market is a very different thing and by a point its own self fulfilling prophecy
GW is the most expensive one and the one that only allows official models

3D printing being the cheap option to get official GW models as once painted hardly anyone can tell the difference
(and cheaper here means that not just material cost in resin but buying the printer)
while for other brands, buying the original plastic is still cheaper, so no reason to make a carbon copy of a Mantic or Northstar model in resin
and a lot of people I know who started resin printing early on don't do miniatures any more outside of small scale things that are not available otherwise (and don't bother any more printing a GW army but rather buy plastic alternatives instead)

like 200€ get you a Kings of War army with Mantic or historical models in plastic, why should you buy a 200€ printer + cleaning + resin + going thru the work/mess the make carbon copies (because you can make another one for cheap is not really an argument as faction hopping is not really a thing outside GW games)
while 800€ for a 40k/AoS army were only official models are allowed, buying the equipment and make one is tempting, specially as you know you might need a new army with the next balance update

Overread wrote:Seriously I've never seen another brand do it, the only time I actually see miniature makers talking and marketing other miniature makers are.

outside of some local brands, owned by the same company making fun of each other for advertising, I remember that Pepsi used to joke about Coca Cola or Coca Cola and RedBull taking on each other in advertising

than there is the question who is the target group of the "joke" as Mantic making a video about "Rank and File was never gone" is not dunking on GW directly, but on influences/community posts acting like R&F is something new GW invented with TOW

and while companies do not recognise others and their products, somehow in the wargaming world everyone feels the need to mention GW and their products no matter the topic but gets annoyed if others are mentioned in GW topics
"this is the 40k of historical gaming" is perfectly fine even if the comparision makes no sense at all

like taking the article from wargamer.com about new Twilight Kin for Kings of War
the article is using TOW several time as reference long before we even got a release date of TOW

you won't find an article about a GW game referencing upcoming or existing games from others (and specially not something like, "this is GWs take on Infinity style games"

 DarkBlack wrote:

Ronnie (Mantic CEO) is on record saying that although he prefers that Mantic models are used, people playing his game is more important.
You can show up at a Mantic event with 0 Mantic models.

I believe this in the context of Mantic events, but not in the context of Mantic the corporation. When it comes to KoW, the best thing for it's success is for as many folks as possible to be playing it.

For the success of mantic as a company, it's far more important to sell miniatures than game rules.

Not to say Rules and Games don't often go hand-in-hand, but when it comes to Ronnie's bottom line selling minis is the most important thing.

Mantic makes money selling models, but they're clever enough to know that people playing their game with non-Mantic models are still free advertising for Mantic. We have seen KoW become slightly more prescriptive with 3rd edition, matching base sizes and unit height class to Mantic models, but for the most part it's still pretty free.

What's nice about Kings of War is that you have options on how you want to base your miniatures. Multi-basing is popular but I still put my miniatures on individual bases because I love how a full regiment or horde unit looks. I hope Mantic doesn't get rid of putting models on separate bases. At least they're not pushing their fans to rebase on bases 5mm bigger than their original.

I like having multiple basing options. I also base individually because KoW is not the first or last game my minis will see battle in.

As long as KOW units are based on a specific permanent footprint it will make no difference whether the figures are singly or multi based.

yes, Mantic makes money selling models and they are a model company first
but for selling models you don't need to make your own games and it is easier to just make the models and ignore the gaming part if a company want to do that

but they also like to play games and the approach is more to have working games and get people in wanting to use mantic models for those games rather than forcing them to or having the games only as tool to sell models
(not sure who it once said but they know that they are selling more of their SciFi models to 40k players)

 Eilif wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:

Ronnie (Mantic CEO) is on record saying that although he prefers that Mantic models are used, people playing his game is more important.
You can show up at a Mantic event with 0 Mantic models.

I believe this in the context of Mantic events, but not in the context of Mantic the corporation. When it comes to KoW, the best thing for it's success is for as many folks as possible to be playing it.

For the success of mantic as a company, it's far more important to sell miniatures than game rules.

Not to say Rules and Games don't often go hand-in-hand, but when it comes to Ronnie's bottom line selling minis is the most important thing.

They do go hand-in-hand.
Ronnie regognises that the more people play KoW, the more the community grows.
The bigger the community, the more people buy Mantic models.
To play KoW as well as because Mantic is more visible.

People don't need to play games to buy models, but we do need models to play wargames.
Especially for models that are made to be game pieces, like Mantic's (which is why I prefer Mantic models over GW).

I opened up a mega army box of nightstalkers several years ago and there were no assembly instructions, the components were in multiple bags, and each bag had bits from different models in it. A nightmare indeed.

I like the KoW rule set a lot. I enjoy Firefight too. But I take their digs at other companies with a heavy grain of salt. They've had years to up their game, and have not in certain respects.

Ah yes back when they made some PVC warbands for a skirmish game, then repurposed them for the mass battle game by just packing multiple identical copies. Not a good look.

I like mantics rules but when I was collecting up my armada fleets I experienced more mispacks, omissions, chipping than with any other company i've ever bought from and it wasn't close.

They did fix those things no questions asked and free of charge, but that is kind of the bare minimum for something that's supposed to be a premium product

Grunk wrote:
What honestly is the reason for people's inability to move beyond games workshop? Is it some kind of formative childhood experience where it was the first best thing? A "I couldn't afford an army before but now hoo boy!" kind of deal?

My friend latches onto the first thing he encounters as being the genuine thing and everything else is a knock off, so to him everything that isn't GW is a cheap copy and to be avoided. He also won't drink any cola beverage that isn't Coke or Pepsi, or any ketchup that isn't Heinz, and so on. I had a hard time getting him to buy a GW kit from a 3rd party for 20% off instead of the GW a few doors away, and he's otherwise incredibly stingy.

I suspect there are a lot of gamers like that.

There's also market share - Only GW has stores, and White Dwarf is in a lot of newsagents so it's easily the first place to enter the hobby if you don't already know someone, and they've done an incredible job of re-imaging "the hobby" as buying, building, painting and playing with GW kits. To some extent it's true, because you can almost certainly find an opponent for a current GW game in any area whereas the other stuff is very hit and miss.

Compared to being able to take part in the hobby, miniature and rules quality, cost, etc are secondary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Everyone markets their own game in their own bubble and doesn't talk about the other firms at all.

Whilst they don't often broadcast it, most smaller gaming companies will get on fairly well with the others and share kits (like scenery from company A in company B's books), or recommend competitors if they don't do something.
I've been at conventions before where people have sent me to competitors for stuff they don't have.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Boss Salvage wrote:

Also this thread is about the relationship of Mantic and Games Workshop, not the perceptive powers of ill-informed individual gamers. It's a safe bet that GW keeps tabs on its competitors, despite its ivory tower mentality.

It definitely does and makes the odd obscure reference to stuff. Like talking about "kickstarting collections" just as Kickstarter was getting big and IIRC one of the competitors campaigns were running.

I'm sure the re-release of Blood Bowl was brought about after the success of Dreadball (which may even have been the kickstarter I mentioned), so I also wouldn't be surprised if the success of KoW was a factor in ToW since they'll have seen that instead of all the gamers moving to AoS plenty went to Mantic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, taking a pop at the market leader is a pretty common thing, especially when said market leader is doing something stupid. GW is always going to be the elephant in the room and a lot of people remember GW of old which could at least poke fun at itself (Remember that Mantics CEO used to be a director at GW back in the 90's).

Like when Samsung congratulate Apple on inventing something Samsung release years earlier.

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that a predominantly GW board would not like it when Mantic takes a shot at GW.

Me, I really do not care what Mantic do in their marketing.

Mantic is backrupt from a creativity standpoint. That is why they are focusing on well established IPs because they can't create an interesting concept to save their life.

That I agree with. Not sure how it's possible, but everything they make is a creative miss for me. It all just looks wonky and amateurish.

And yet they persist, on the strength of their rulesets.

Persisting and thriving are two different things.

Also not generally a fan of their rules. They are serviceable but uninspired and basic.

Persisting is better than a lot of businesses can manage!

I'm glad Mantic exists, and I enjoy some of their games and miniatures. Especially Dungeon Saga, Kings of War on the rules side and I like a good few of their models too.

There are a lot of misses for me as well - deadzone didn't really land for me, I don't care much for their future sports game, and there's a good chunk of their catalogue that I would describe as being influenced way too heavily by fantasy video games and not enough by any sort of logic or believable culture for their forces.

But honestly I'm more likely to play a Mantic game than a GW one these days, and have bought fairly equal amounts of mantic and GW minis in the past year. Though I've bought more North Star than either.

I guess they have a market, and I'm in it. But I don't think they're anywhere close to perfect, and it's a bit surprising to me how they continue to get some stuff wrong that I feel they should be doing better on at this stage.

Still, a wargaming world with more companies doing stuff is better than one with only one company. Choice is good!

There are plenty of companies in the wargaming world - a lot of them are doing really great stuff... I don't consider mantic to be one of them.

Sasorijap wrote:Mantic is backrupt from a creativity standpoint. That is why they are focusing on well established IPs because they can't create an interesting concept to save their life.

That subjective though. I find nightstalkers interesting, to say the least.
I also think the do well at adding their own stamp on fantasy tropes while keeping those tropes recognisable. Like their take on halflings or dwarfs.

chaos0xomega wrote:That I agree with. Not sure how it's possible, but everything they make is a creative miss for me. It all just looks wonky and amateurish.

It's possible if you're looking for something not to like.

chaos0xomega wrote:Persisting and thriving are two different things.

Also not generally a fan of their rules. They are serviceable but uninspired and basic.

Mantic's capability has definitely improved, they are growing and can produce more stuff than they used to. Which I would consider thriving.

Clearly, one wargamer's "basic" is another wargamer's "streamlined" and "rules getting out of the way".
Different people prefer different things and just because something isn't your preference doesn't make it bad.
For example: I prefer Mantic or North Star miniatures over GW miniatures, but that doesn't make GW minatures bad. They are marvels of plastic modelling, but not what I am looking for.

Going thru the games and what else is around

Deadzone is pretty unique as it has real 3D instead of 2D on different levles, not something everyone likes as you need the table for it, and no one else offers something similar (a reason why I think they are using Deadzone as base for their Halo game) and the only real alternative being Infinity but that one is also much more detailed

Kings of War is the streamlined R&F games comparable to several historical rules with the only difference being no formation changes
there are better R&F games, but all of them are historicals and most of them Napoleonic (Lasalle or General d'Armee)
the medieval or ancient R&F games are not much different just having different levels on details for units

(compared to those, Warhammer Fantasy is a mass-skirmish game with formation rules and the single models being way to important to catch the R&F feeling, Mantic does not offer anything similar, and the games that come close are again Napoleonic, Sharp Practice for example)

FireFight is pretty much the standard SciFi alternate activation game, nothing special to see here but games in that genre come and go as everything that is not 40k or has models that are useable 1:1 for it are ignored anyway (no matter how unique the gameplay might be)

Armada, a fantasy version of a historical game and pretty much the only one out there and all credits or complains go to Warlord Games anyway

I haven't played DSO yet so cannot say something about it
Dreadball is a sports game, adds in with BB being Fantasy American Football, Guildball being Fantasy Football and Dreadball being SciFi Basketball, a niche within a niche

Vanguard being a good game and again alone out there in what it is doing (Mortheim is focused on campaigns and other fantasy skirmish games need more models), yet Mantic wanted it to be the entry to KoW which was a dead end as a Skirmish never translates well into R&F games (not even in historicals, you are better off with a dedicated force for Sharp Practice and General d'Armee than trying to get units working in both)

the Boardgames are Boardgames and depends if you like the setting they try to catch or not (Walking Dead is not for me as I am not intrested, neither the comics nor the TV show)

so for me the rules they have are good in doing their thing with not a lot of alternatives out there in the same genre

I'd agree with all the above, and add that Deadzone, when it came out, was one of the most novel, slick and inspired systems ever, even though it was a 2012 runaway success Kickstarter based mostly on sketches and low prices and could have been just phoned in after collecting the money. Probably the only reason it didn't become the "industry standard" for skirmish games is that it doesn't really work without a bespoke line of terrain. And some healthy dose of anti Mantic bias of course.

For me the fiction just didn't grab me, and I was turned off by the rules innovation. Maybe I should give it another look. I don't really love mantic's Sci Fi factions though tbh, I think they made some bad calls right at the bottom in terms of faction design and it unfortunately puts me off their Sci Fi games. I like a lot of the models (the vehicles in particular are great) and some of the factions, but Asterians have really ugly designs to me and I've never seen a Veermyn model I liked the look of, and I'm not a huge fan of the Marauder aesthetic. Enforcers are alright and plague is interesting, but again I don't love the aesthetic they landed on - a little less saturday morning cartoon and a little more body horror would have worked better for me. The only ones I really like are the Forgefathers, and even then it's only the ones with fully enclosed helmets I really enjoy.

A shame, because I was really ready to give mantic sci fi a good shake.

I have only ever heard good things about the rules though to be fair.

What I really appreciate about the fluff is that all the factions are immensely competent. The world didn't go to gak because their Elf equivalent fell asleep at the wheel while safeguarding the galaxy or because humans are cartoonishly greedy or intolerant or any other usual trope.

For example, Asterians are watching for Plague outbreaks kinda like Eldar were supposed to watch for Necrons. They try to keep other races away from infected systems, if someone opens a jar of Plague anyway they send robotic forces to assist, but if that doesn't work they have a cloaked planet killer in every system to wipe the planet before Plague can spread.

 Da Boss wrote:
For me the fiction just didn't grab me, and I was turned off by the rules innovation. Maybe I should give it another look. I don't really love mantic's Sci Fi factions though tbh, I think they made some bad calls right at the bottom in terms of faction design and it unfortunately puts me off their Sci Fi games. I like a lot of the models (the vehicles in particular are great) and some of the factions, but Asterians have really ugly designs to me and I've never seen a Veermyn model I liked the look of, and I'm not a huge fan of the Marauder aesthetic. Enforcers are alright and plague is interesting, but again I don't love the aesthetic they landed on - a little less saturday morning cartoon and a little more body horror would have worked better for me. The only ones I really like are the Forgefathers, and even then it's only the ones with fully enclosed helmets I really enjoy.

A shame, because I was really ready to give mantic sci fi a good shake.

I have only ever heard good things about the rules though to be fair.

Agreed with this. I want to like the Asterians, Veermyn, and Enforcers. Every so often I think to myself "these are cheap, maybe I'll pick them up", but then I go through the model range and see theres only one or two minis I kinda like while the rest are kinda gross.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
What I really appreciate about the fluff is that all the factions are immensely competent. The world didn't go to gak because their Elf equivalent fell asleep at the wheel while safeguarding the galaxy or because humans are cartoonishly greedy or intolerant or any other usual trope.

For example, Asterians are watching for Plague outbreaks kinda like Eldar were supposed to watch for Necrons. They try to keep other races away from infected systems, if someone opens a jar of Plague anyway they send robotic forces to assist, but if that doesn't work they have a cloaked planet killer in every system to wipe the planet before Plague can spread.

That's it though, that all just sound derivative and bland, which is a problem that affects the majority of the fluff. The entire body of the lore honestly sounds like it was written by a 14 year old who had just read his first 40k rulebook (not that 40k's lore is particularly compelling these days). All that combined with a miniature range that varies from boring to just plain bad and you have a game that, despite how much praise the main rules get, completely fails to inspire any real interest from me. Every time I think it might be worth checking out one of their games I just have to look at the factions and miniatures to cure me of my curiosity. It's a shame too, I really want to like Mantic, but they seem to go out of their way to make their products as unappealing as possible.

Hmm, I see it as "What would 40k be if it didn't look like a 14 year old was writing it"

But I'll concede this makes it less evocative.

I agree with Zethnar

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Hmm, I see it as "What would 40k be if it didn't look like a 14 year old was writing it"

But I'll concede this makes it less evocative.

I like the lore of the Warpath universe a bit more than 40K. It's more science fiction than 40K's Scifi/Fantasy. I like the lore behind why area's, continents, or planets being deemed "deadzones" by the GCPS and all communication to those zones are cut off. Plus all information about those places are redacted or wiped off the databases as it they don't exist. While in those "deadzones" all sorts of stuff is happening because it attracts shady people and it basically becomes lawless.

I do agree with all lores in Mantic games can be somewhat bland. But it has been steadily getting better. I remember when lore was written for Ratkin in Kings of War and it was kind of cringe. But reading it now, they made some revisions and added more lore.

 Zethnar wrote:

That's it though, that all just sound derivative and bland, which is a problem that affects the majority of the fluff. The entire body of the lore honestly sounds like it was written by a 14 year old who had just read his first 40k rulebook (not that 40k's lore is particularly compelling these days).

That makes it sound like you haven't read much of Mantic's lore. I don't get the shonen vibe of Warhammer from Mantic's lore.
A matter of taste, I suppose.
I like tha KoW lore keeps tropes recognizable for if you want to bring something with you, but with something extra to make things their own flavour.

All that combined with a miniature range that varies from boring to just plain bad and you have a game that, despite how much praise the main rules get, completely fails to inspire any real interest from me. Every time I think it might be worth checking out one of their games I just have to look at the factions and miniatures to cure me of my curiosity. It's a shame too, I really want to like Mantic, but they seem to go out of their way to make their products as unappealing as possible.

This boggels my mind.
You don't have to use Mantic models to play KoW.

Rules are just a context to get your models on the table and a vehicle for what you want to represent.
If a game has lore you like that's great, but KoW purposefully leaves the door open to bring your own.
Isn't there a fantasy trope, story or concept that you want to bring to a wargaming table?

I can't quite wrap my head around how many wargamers let their hobby get dictated to them. It's your hobby with your miniatures that you bought , built and painted or will buy, build and paint.
You can take ownership of your own hobby.

The Warpath/Deadzone background has a completely different flavor than 40k. The tone and world building remind me more of New Space Opera, as written by Peter Hamilton, Neal Asher and their peers, than of the grimdark pseudo-Catholicism of 40k.

KOW was still being fleshed out the last time I read it, but Ithought it felt more inspired by the Silmarillion and Warcraft than by TOW’s more historical inspiration.

they have a free sample for their latest KoW novel https://www.manticgames.com/kings-of-war-fiction/pride-of-a-king-free-sample/

so one can have a look if the background is for them or not

and I agree, the 2 settings are very different flavour and not liking them is ok
For me I prefer the SciFi of Warpath over the futuristic-fantasy of 40k, specially as the good of 40k is really valid any more and new things are not for me

 DarkBlack wrote:

 Zethnar wrote:

That's it though, that all just sound derivative and bland, which is a problem that affects the majority of the fluff. The entire body of the lore honestly sounds like it was written by a 14 year old who had just read his first 40k rulebook (not that 40k's lore is particularly compelling these days).

That makes it sound like you haven't read much of Mantic's lore. I don't get the shonen vibe of Warhammer from Mantic's lore.
A matter of taste, I suppose.
I like tha KoW lore keeps tropes recognizable for if you want to bring something with you, but with something extra to make things their own flavour.

Honestly, I haven't read much of it, a few bits and pieces of the Warpath setting back when it was supposed to be a 28mm mass battle game on kickstarter, and a few pages from various rulebooks I've seen just to reconfirm that I didn't like it. Nothing about it really grabbed me, I don't know why I would have spent a lot of time diving any further into it. All the talk of evil mega corporations and secret super soldier conspiracies really did not come across as particularly mature or compelling.

I don't know what a shonen vibe is.

 DarkBlack wrote:

All that combined with a miniature range that varies from boring to just plain bad and you have a game that, despite how much praise the main rules get, completely fails to inspire any real interest from me. Every time I think it might be worth checking out one of their games I just have to look at the factions and miniatures to cure me of my curiosity. It's a shame too, I really want to like Mantic, but they seem to go out of their way to make their products as unappealing as possible.

This boggels my mind.
You don't have to use Mantic models to play KoW.

Rules are just a context to get your models on the table and a vehicle for what you want to represent.
If a game has lore you like that's great, but KoW purposefully leaves the door open to bring your own.
Isn't there a fantasy trope, story or concept that you want to bring to a wargaming table?

I can't quite wrap my head around how many wargamers let their hobby get dictated to them. It's your hobby with your miniatures that you bought , built and painted or will buy, build and paint.
You can take ownership of your own hobby.

I get that you don't need to use particular model lines with particular rules books, for the most part I've been 3D printing stuff to play with for the past few years and getting into little indie games. That said if you want to support a company then buying product from them is a good way to do it. I want to support Mantic because I feel like there is space in the market for alternative sci-fi miniatures games (and honestly, I'm just over Star Wars as a property), but the fact is I don't like their Warpath setting, it feels boring and derivative. It's also a lot harder to proxy miniatures for their sci-fi universe than it is for fantasy (although even that has factions where you're going to be hard-pressed to find proxies) and since Firefight doesn't offer the option of playing custom factions, it kind of limits it to what's available. So while I hear that the rules are quite good, I really don't like the fluff or the models so I have no real incentive to buy in.

Like it or not, the setting really does play a factor in whether people are going to get excited about your stuff, and Mantic's effort is mediocre at best in that regard. Regardless of what you personally think about 40k (I personally think that anything coming after 7th edition has kind of jumped the shark a little) their setting really seems to hit a nerve with large portions of the wargaming community.

All that said, I do think Mantic's vault subscription service is fantastic and I've been following it in order to fill out my collection for Armada. I do wonder if the value is still going to be there after they run out of ships though.