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mattyrm wrote: Whilst I agreed with Bic initially (the right is clearly better) I wasnt aware how old the model is.

It is correct to say that GWs models have gotten far better as well. Some of their newer orcs are awesome. I love the Black Orcs for example.

I like the Black Orcs too. In fact, I've got 20 of them sitting on my shelf to paint.

But it shouldn't matter that the Orc sculpt is 12 years old, that is the product that Mantic is competing against.

biccat wrote:

mattyrm wrote: Whilst I agreed with Bic initially (the right is clearly better) I wasnt aware how old the model is.

It is correct to say that GWs models have gotten far better as well. Some of their newer orcs are awesome. I love the Black Orcs for example.

I like the Black Orcs too. In fact, I've got 20 of them sitting on my shelf to paint.

But it shouldn't matter that the Orc sculpt is 12 years old, that is the product that Mantic is competing against.

Actually it isn't as GW doesn't sell them anymore as far as I know. The Plastic orcs GW sells are multi part and not single casts. So that is incorrect. See the link below for the ones GW sells currently.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440079a&prodId=prod900162a

Same look but not the same models.

brettz123 wrote:

biccat wrote:

mattyrm wrote: Whilst I agreed with Bic initially (the right is clearly better) I wasnt aware how old the model is.

It is correct to say that GWs models have gotten far better as well. Some of their newer orcs are awesome. I love the Black Orcs for example.

I like the Black Orcs too. In fact, I've got 20 of them sitting on my shelf to paint.

But it shouldn't matter that the Orc sculpt is 12 years old, that is the product that Mantic is competing against.

Actually it isn't as GW doesn't sell them anymore as far as I know. The Plastic orcs GW sells are multi part and not single casts. So that is incorrect.

Aren't the multipart plastic orcs in the same style as the single-piece?

Looks basically the same to me.

edit: ok, so my criticism still stands.

The multi pose plastics are the same look and feel but I would consider them a slightly higher quality. A big problem with the GW miniature in the picture is the stupidity of the pose . But yes if you don't like the one in the picture you aren't probably going to change your mind by seeing the multi-part plastics even though there is some improvement, especially with muscle tone and the weapons.

brettz123 wrote:The multi pose plastics are the same look and feel but I would consider them a slightly higher quality. A big problem with the GW miniature in the picture is the stupidity of the pose . But yes if you don't like the one in the picture you aren't probably going to change your mind by seeing the multi-part plastics even though there is some improvement, especially with muscle tone and the weapons.

If ysomeone doesn't like Nelson's gorilla orks, nothing will convince them to like the proportions or the gorrilla butt design. Lots of people like Nelson orks. There are whole communities based around the love of the modern GW ork asthetic and other companies who emulate it's design. Those were released in those poses explicitly to be a non-multipart and rank up. Every other ork had one arm down at his side and they used that to rank. The archer boyz in that same set actually were very cool models.

When GW released the night goblin singlepart they did a much better job mostly because the technology changed and they could do more advanced things. The monopose night goblins were much better than the previous multipart night goblins.

I will take LotR orks for a realistic sculpt over Mantics any day of the week, but I also am also not really giving a damn about 'realistic' scale. I have recently gotten into http://www.avatars-of-war.com/ which makes some fantastic models IMHO. THey are slowly expanding to troops and I think they are basically doing it right in a way that makes them an actual alternative because their models actually look amazing. Since Avatars of War seem to be able to make great awesome models, I am not sure why I should be expected to accept substandard quality models from Mantic.

Mantic's orcs simply look terrible compared to what other companies are producing. 'being cheap' means nothing to me as I don't spend hours painting a model and decades gaming with it if it looks ugly. If I was looking for cheap and didn't care about the sculpts, I would be gaming with legos, tiddlywinks or green army men.

nkelsch wrote:Mantic's orcs simply look terrible compared to what other companies are producing.

What other (not-GW) companies are you referring to that produce rank & file orc models?

Avatars of War produce fantastic miniatures, but they aren't rank & file.

These corperation mini's look great. I think I might mix them in with some Pig Iron ones if I decide to do 28mm skirmish for Tomorrow's War. Even if I don't I might just still pick some up to paint. I really like the look of them.


With some 3rd party grav-belts or anti-grav packs they could make some nice looking drop troops IMHO.

The rangers have grav chute packs.

See, those Corporation troops are top notch - but they're WIP (at least I hope so - if they need that much green stuff under the shoulders just to assemble a plastic model, they've failed entirely). Lets see how the actual cast comes out.

edit - so I checked out the website and saw their available stuff. Quality dropped a little from those masters, but not a huge amount. Those are actually decent models - kudos to Mantic for making something I actually like finally.

I never really was a fan of the GW Orks. To me they look comical and don't look like they should be taken seriously. Being a modeler, not a gamer, I've always seen them as a comic relief of Warhammer. I've always thought they would appeal to people who don't like traditional armies (SM, Eldar, etc). I'e always thought of their look as if taking a walk on the wild side or marching to a different tune. I have built some of their stuff and their look eventually grown on me.

For me, I'd take the Mantic Orks over the GW. To me, they look a lot more business then the whimsical Orks of GW. I have built both Mantic and GW, but I'd choose the Mantic ones any day. My only gripe with them is the simple part break down of the figure. With the GW Orks, it's a lot easier to make custom poses over the Mantic ones. (Torso twist is a very important aspect of posing. Ask any Gundam modeler). GW also offers, so much more option parts so you can go nuts over the variety of poses/configurations. As far as the sculpting for Mantic goes, I think they're not bad. For me, what can make/break a finished model is ultimately the modeler. After browsing through many, many member galleries, I've seen some people do totally awesome work on less then stellar models. In fact, some painters here have inspired me to buy stuff which I'm not even interested in.

Mantic is still a fairly new company. In some ways it's unfair to compare GW to Mantic. It's like comparing a Level 3 Orc Warrior, to a Level 25 Warrior. Mantic is still in it's infancy yet. Who knows how much capital they had when they first started their company. Everyone starts from the bottom and works their way up.

I love the vision of Mantic and what they are trying to be, I just think they fall short a bit too often. Being the cheaper and more friendly little brother of GW that provides the same experience for less is a nice thought. I can't really get behind their constant copycat tactics though, they have all these army releases planned for years spanning two games and I'm not sure if there is a single Mantic original idea in all of it. I get that gw alternatives are their bread and butter but let's see a little glimpse of what will come after it is all released. Their prices have also crept a bit too high for their quality lately, but quality on future kits can always be improved to make up the value. The corporation troops look like a big step up in quality so far so we might see better value again soon.
Their game rules are clean, but so stripped down they strike me as very bland. I tried the warpath beta and there were some fundamental aspects of the game that did not appeal to me. I loved the idea of a true alternative game to 40k and fantasy but the rules for their games give me the disappointing impression they are just an excuse to sell models for GW games rather than a genuine effort.
I still see a lot of potential in Mantic but they need to mix in something new with all the old rehashes they are producing to win me over. I have a hard time getting a feel for what their company's identity is when it wears the gw mask all the time.

Mantic is expanding too fast, and unnecessarily.
Majority of the customers are buying it for cheap alternatives, not for the sake of playing Mantic's own game.

Hence there are simply no reason for them to expand so many races in a panic ( Goblins, Dark Kins, Abyssal Dwarves )

They should do a good job for the most main stream armies, profit from there, and then expend.

LunaHound wrote:Mantic is expanding too fast, and unnecessarily.
Majority of the customers are buying it for cheap alternatives, not for the sake of playing Mantic's own game.

Hence there are simply no reason for them to expand so many races in a panic ( Goblins, Dark Kins, Abyssal Dwarves )

They should do a good job for the most main stream armies, profit from there, and then expend.

Or perhaps do a metal unit of prototypes for each race, get feedback and then work on the production models. That would help avoid the screwy anatomy that almost every one of their lines has shown, if their sculptors actually had to work towards the same objective.

AlexHolker wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Mantic is expanding too fast, and unnecessarily.
Majority of the customers are buying it for cheap alternatives, not for the sake of playing Mantic's own game.

Hence there are simply no reason for them to expand so many races in a panic ( Goblins, Dark Kins, Abyssal Dwarves )

They should do a good job for the most main stream armies, profit from there, and then expend.

Or perhaps do a metal unit of prototypes for each race, get feedback and then work on the production models. That would help avoid the screwy anatomy that almost every one of their lines has shown, if their sculptors actually had to work towards the same objective.

No it wont. Because screwy anatomy is a personal perspective.
Before you know it, everyone will want it to be GW wack job anatomy, and thats certainly not accurate either.

^ Alex is entirely right on that point.

Opinions of sculpts are of course entirely personal *but* the internet (and the public) at large does come to an agreement.

E.g. "elves are bad", "undead are good".. "fantasy bitz forgefathers are bad", "corporation are good".

.. those are the kind of opinions that are basically universal when you take into account mass feedback as a whole.

The metal goblins from mantic were a great idea.

They were a test prototype for the race, Mantic only released them in metal for the sole purpose of obtaining feedback on the sculpt style. I'm not making this up, this is a fact that was directly stated on their blog.

Unfortunately the internet spent more time whining and moaning about them being metal instead of offering their opinions on the sculpts, which was what Mantic actually wanted to hear.

Thankfully, a few dozen people dropped by their blog and gave some good feedback where it actually matters. Now we know that when we do get plastic goblins (coming later this year!), they are going to look awesome, because the metal ones do, and any plastics will be designed to match that sculpt style now that Mantic knows that we like the look of them.

Much better than Mantic not showing us anything and just going ahead and splashing out on a plastic sprue without having the slightest clue about whether the general public will like the sculpt or not.

So yeah, Alex is right that the approach taken with the goblins is absolutely the best way to go about doing QC on the sculpting style.


As for Mantic making everything in stupid GW heroic scale proportions, I don't think they're going to make that mistake again... I say again, because that's what happened with the KoW Dwarfs... before that release, the entire internet was whining and bawling that the elves and undead look like stupid stick figures and they can't use them in warhammers because they don't look like their warhammers etc. etc. So, Mantic made the KoW Dwarfs heroic scale.

The KoW Dwarfs are the only sculpts that Mantic made heroic scale (their hands and feet are oversized just like on GW models).

There was a whole year on the internet where basically Mantic's entire feedback was people on forums crying out for heroic scale sculpts. I'm glad that that idiotic opinion has been consigned to the trash heap now that people with a greater knowledge of non-GW games are forming the bulk of the feedback for the company.

The current "popular opinion" that mantic should be less like GW is a much better one IMO, even if it does get expressed in an extremely ridiculous manner by some people (a lot of whom then go into a chapterhouse studios thread and give gushing praise to their latest release right after making a "Mantic steals from GW" rant ). I agree with the opinion, but the hypocrisy I constantly see from some people who hold it is unbearable.

Quite a good review of Warpath on the Frontline Gamer blog, well worth a read for anyone interested!

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2012/03/games-that-currently-intrigue-me.html

Good stuff - I like his blogs, always informative and a good read.