MANTIC News thread! (Corporation Marines unboxed, p.68)

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Polonius**

Well, there's "wouldn't it be cool" and "I'm excited about a concept enought to buy non-GW sculpts to make it happen."

As a guy that spent over a month trying to sell a Mantic non-Chaos Dwarf army... interest isn't overwhelming.

That said... I want to do something with space skaven!

**Necros**

If I were royalty, I would decree that they must be referred to as Spaven from this day forward.

(space + skaven = spaven!)

**Balance**

kenshin620 wrote:And Daemonettes have crab claws, does that mean they're crabs?

Yes. The trick is getting the right amount of Old Bay.

**The Dwarf Wolf**

Cmon, go take a look at the old Kobold from D&D, they are just rat mans... Skaven is just the pick of GW on those rat man (a very nice one). I dont have seen anything about "plague priests" or "mana stones" on that minis, nothing that point skaven... Only the good old rat-man in space...

Well, it will start again... but anyway, the minis looks cool, the prices will probably be low, and so i will do something with the space rat-man...

**Rolt**

I must admit those vermeen (spelling?) are nice looking sculpts and have great clean detail. But so far it looks like my fears have been comfirmed, they really do just look like fantasy rat-men holding ray-guns.
Who knows maybe after their painted up, the sci-fi elements of their design will show through better.

**garrapignado**

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:Cmon, go take a look at the old Kobold from D&D, they are just rat mans... Skaven is just the pick of GW on those rat man (a very nice one). I dont have seen anything about "plague priests" or "mana stones" on that minis, nothing that point skaven... Only the good old rat-man in space...

Well, it will start again... but anyway, the minis looks cool, the prices will probably be low, and so i will do something with the space rat-man...

A quick research about those Kobolds and they seem crocodiles to me. Older ones do have ears, but I don't see them as clearly ratmen. Maybe I should have search deeper.

And this space rats are very skaven. Their technology looks skaven. The sculp on the left even wears the same mask as poisoned wind mortar crew. They are cool, yes, but they are spavens.

**The Dwarf Wolf**

garrapignado wrote:
The Dwarf Wolf wrote:Cmon, go take a look at the old Kobold from D&D, they are just rat mans... Skaven is just the pick of GW on those rat man (a very nice one). I dont have seen anything about "plague priests" or "mana stones" on that minis, nothing that point skaven... Only the good old rat-man in space...

Well, it will start again... but anyway, the minis looks cool, the prices will probably be low, and so i will do something with the space rat-man...

A quick research about those Kobolds and they seem crocodiles to me. Older ones do have ears, but I don't see them as clearly ratmen. Maybe I should have search deeper.

And this space rats are very skaven. Their technology looks skaven. The sculp on the left even wears the same mask as poisoned wind mortar crew. They are cool, yes, but they are spavens.

About Kobolds: Take a look at their ecology, they live underground, are pests of hard control, cause big damage to structures and steal food... they have some lizard things, but have hairy bodys, and a general apearance of a small mammal (im not talking about those new ones that turned all lizard like).

(first one is the orginal one from the AD&D monster manual, the other is a revised versions of that)

About the minis: well, those are scavangers rat man in space, they will probably bear a lot of resemblance with scavangers rat mans in fantasy.

I dont see how their technology resemble skaven technology... Skaven technology have lots of crystals and cables and normally some coils. Those space rats guns looks like martian guns in cult movies of 80's, their clothes have some resemblances with the ragged robes of skavens, but c'mon, they are scavengers too... what they are supposed to be wearing?

They are a obvious strike on GW lack of spavens, but they are not spavens per se...

**poipo32**

Well the sculpts are pretty good, at least there is that.

**Kroothawk**

Kroothawk wrote:So it's indeed Space Rats.

silent25 wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:So it's indeed Space Werewolves.

Fixed that for you.

Thanks for fixing

Seems Mantic still works through every faction existing in the 40k background but currently without models.
Guess, after not-Space Hulk we see a Fantasy Football game.

**Agent_Tremolo**

Kroothawk wrote:Seems Mantic still works through every faction existing in the 40k background but currently without models.
Guess, after not-Space Hulk we see a Fantasy Football game.

I'd put my money on a new army for Warpath. The ~~Adeptus Mechanicus~~ Expertus Technicus.

**Cyporiean**

Kroothawk wrote:
Guess, after not-Space Hulk we see a Fantasy Football game.

IIRC, A Fantasy Sports game was talked about already... much like how Warpath and Not-Spulk was talked about 2 years ago..

**Commander Cain**

Well the fella on the left screams "Pigs in spaaace!" at me, nice sculpting though, with all this 3D rendering going on, it is good to see that good old GS still can't be beat!

**lord_blackfang**

Sculpting looks good, the anatomy less so. They are too hunched over and th arms, in particular on the left mini, look like they're growing out of a hump on the back instead of proper shoulders.

**ArbeitsSchu**

They are mutant space rats from the future. What sort of anatomy should they have?

**Pacific**

Here is a post from the sculptor regarding these minis, made on Beasts of War, that makes quite interesting reading

hank you for your nice comment, and even for those who don’t like it…

@ipaint: The picture shows the parts that you’ll got in the boxes, this whole set is used to make marines, veterans, rangers and heavy weapons. All the head and pair of arms are fully compatible with all bodies. It’s quite hard in this conditions to keep exact proportions and good dynamic poses. Well I did my best.

About the Veer-myn. You should wait for another minis to judge. You have only two guys, one pic for each and those as all the pictures of miniatures fail to show the minis with a good representation of 3D.
(I hope it makes sense). The minis are from dwarf size to 28 mm and the design vary from one to another. I don’t draw the concept art but I think it conveys the old school sci-fi feeling. The armor are so steampunk and I made some cool faces for other guys. I think that filthy rats in Iron Man suit could really suck. So I quite like those armors.
The green is actually in FIMO but the green color is very bad for lisibility, my fault…
Well a rat is a rat it’s difficult to depict an actual rat without being too boring, we need to exagerate things as well as proportions : heroic scale. But not that much, the pictures don’t allow you to compare to the other minis in the range (corpo, forge father etc..).
Plus the heads and arm must be compatibles on all the minis. I tried to have something with the minimum of part to assemble, a strong silhouette and give to all the detail a volume to ease the painting. As I did on the corporation maybe it’s the style that some of you call “GW”. GW’s skaven have had some many style for edition to edition, I really think that you cannot bring something totally new to a rat miniatures, well not on a 20 mm mini. In some ways you can compare to the skaven but my point is this range ( the whole things) has is own style.
I’m done you could strat to launch tomatoes , and well it’s MY point not MAntic point or anything, I’m talking my feeling about those minis.
Sorry if my message is strange or insulting or stupid, it’s difficult for me to express myself in english.

Have a good day,

Rémy

**garrapignado**

I really think that you cannot bring something totally new to a rat miniatures, well not on a 20 mm mini.

Easy: don't make rats.

**Mr. Burning**

Rats in space(TM) obviously don't need to cover their feet.

**bubber**

I was hoping for Pigs in Space, not rats :(

**garrapignado**

bubber wrote:I was hoping for Pigs in Space, not rats :(

That would have been more original.

**Kingsley**

So Mantic's big secret concept that was going to be the first show of their independent design studio and ability to stand on their own as a viable company selling new IP is just another GW knockoff? Why am I not surprised?

Mantic honestly has no credibility at this stage.

**Pacific**

Yes, but I'm sure they would look other crap

++EDIT++ Sorry, in reply to Space pigs comment.

The complete cover art of Project Pandora from the Mantic blog

Also, some more pics on Remy's blog, showing detail of the Corporation Commander. Not bad for a fiver, I'm sure you'll agree

**Polonius**

Fetterkey wrote:So Mantic's big secret concept that was going to be the first show of their independent design studio and ability to stand on their own as a viable company selling new IP is just another GW knockoff? Why am I not surprised?

Did I miss them stating that they were going to be showing off their own IP? It's possible, but I don't think they've ever acted like they were reinventing the wheel.

Mantic honestly has no credibility at this stage.

Credibility with regards to what, exactly? They claim to make cheap models and they do.

**Chaplain Pallantide**

@Polonius: Never mind Fetterkey, he's a GW fanboy to the max, so anything that comes near the greatness that is GW, he knocks...

Honestly, the Corp soldiers look great, though if any old school peeps remember the Rogue Trader IG, they look an awful lot like them, which I think is a good thing.

I also like the way these Rat-men are shaping up. This Remi guy can sure sculpt! I look forward to seeing more as these are some of the better sculpts I have seen come out of Mantic...

**Gorlack**

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:Cmon, go take a look at the old Kobold from D&D, they are just rat mans... Skaven is just the pick of GW on those rat man (a very nice one). I dont have seen anything about "plague priests" or "mana stones" on that minis, nothing that point skaven... Only the good old rat-man in space...

Looking at the cover for the box posted earlier in this thread I would have guessed that green substances played some importance in this faction, since both Veer-Myn are covered in green gas (which led my Skaven playing mind to think that these Spaven love future-warpstone as much as Skaven love actual-warpstone).

Cheers

**Kingsley**

Chaplain Pallantide wrote:@Polonius: Never mind Fetterkey, he's a GW fanboy to the max, so anything that comes near the greatness that is GW, he knocks...

That's not the case. I like a lot of things GW does, but there are things about other manufacturers that I like too. I'm a big fan of Darkson Designs' AE-WWII line, for instance. Dystopian Wars isn't my cup of tea, but I think they've pulled off what they do quite well. I would like to try out Infinity, but nobody really plays it in my area. The key thing that all those other systems have that Mantic's systems don't is that they are credible as standalone systems. Mantic quite frankly isn't. Their "Corporation" troopers are probably their strongest independent line, but even still the GW influence is obvious.

When I see a Mantic model I think "ah, some not-Skaven or not-Squats or not-Orks." I don't even know the real names of the Mantic lines-- I think the not-squats are "Forgefathers" but I'm blanking on the others. To me, that's a major problem. I really enjoy the narrative elements of the hobby, and when I don't even think of the models as representing what they're supposed to, there's no way I'm going to get into the game. In order for Mantic to get my money as an actual competitor to 40k, they would have to do substantially better than GW on at least one of the following:

1) Models
2) Rules
3) Fluff

Their models are worse, albeit cheap, their rules are worse, and their fluff is more or less nonexistent.

I don't necessarily blame them-- it's really hard to compete with a big, established "elephant in the room" like GW, which is why most of the companies that offer alternative games choose markedly different settings, like the pulp/Hellboy feel of AE-WWII, the "steampunk Epic" of Dystopian Wars, or the cyberpunk skirmish of Infinity. I'm just saying that Mantic has done nothing to demonstrate that they're anything other than a GW knockoff company.

When you get right down to it, if GW went out of business, Mantic would too.

**Polonius**

Fetterkey wrote:just saying that Mantic has done nothing to demonstrate that they're anything other than a GW knockoff company.

When you get right down to it, if GW went out of business, Mantic would too.

While I'm sure others would argue the semantics of "knock off," I think for the most part not only does nobody disagree with that, even the company itself seems to brand itself as that.

At some point, you're just criticizing a company for not being what they have no goal of being.

I'm sure you can back into the standard, "I'm just saying I don't like them" argument, or the "they make nothing that I'd want to buy" argument, but that's true for most gamers about most companies. Hell, how long did it take Citadel miniatures to stop being yet another rehash of Tolkien? Five years? Ten?

I also think you're focusing on the Warpath stuff in your criticism: I think the undead stands on it's own very well as plastic mass undead. The elves are the most "distinctive" looking race they have, and by far the most heavily criticized. The dwarves and orcs are, if anything, more bland than GW.

**Kingsley**

Personally, I had the impression that Warpath was supposed to be a valid alternative/competing product to 40k, and I'm disappointed to see that Mantic seems to instead be using it as more of an excuse. I might just be gullible, though-- it sounds like you didn't fall for that claim to the same extent that I did, and if all I expected from Mantic was a cheap GW knockoff company, I'd say they'd be more or less doing a fine job.

**Grot 6**

That stuffs coming along.

They still have a long way to back up the big talk that they had swinging out of the gate, Mantic's E peens are still swinging a bit lower then was first boasted.

That rat guy thing is a good start, but they still have that little issue of the bad dwarf in space thing thats still giving them a bad taste to be serious.

Not bad, but keep going forward, these new ones are a great step in the right direction.

**Polonius**

Fetterkey wrote: I might just be gullible, though-- it sounds like you didn't fall for that claim to the same extent that I did, and if all I expected from Mantic was a cheap GW knockoff company, I'd say they'd be more or less doing a fine job.

In the passive aggresive olympics, this would take at least silver in the "backhanded compliments" event.

**Alpharius**

Who else is doing Space Rats these days?