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 rosafari wrote:
Forgetting about the current empire troops -which GW have taken in a pretty divisive aesthetic direction- these Mantic men at arms are objectively worse than their own initial plastics, and GW's 4/5/6th edition plastics from 16 BLOODY YEARS AGO.



I can't believe I swapped from nuns to more of these :(

I swapped out 80% of my Basilean's for Ogres. Based off that photo I wish I swapped out the last 20%.

I find it amazing how poorly these compare to the original Mantic plastics (like the Undead I have a metric ton of).

The forearms on the Dark Elves look problematic. Also, I would love to see a side view of the Man at Arms, because I remember the original Mantic photo made it look like they were forearm simians, too.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The forearms on the Dark Elves look problematic. Also, I would love to see a side view of the Man at Arms, because I remember the original Mantic photo made it look like they were forearm simians, too.

It looks like the upper arm/bicep/shoulder region is part of the body sculpt, but it's hard to tell from that pic.

Other than the shield, and from the poor pic, I am happy with the TK cav design!


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 Azazelx wrote:

Looking at the finished/unpainted figure above... what makes him a "true fantasy" figure? Oversized sword and oddly-designed shield? Silly looking helmet? The rest of him is really rather generic, and while you can take that as "generic fantasy" I see it as "easily proxied for almost anything else on the market."

Yeah, those are the main points. When I look at the MaA, I think, crappy D&D plastic soldier. When I look at Perry WotR I think, amazing medieval plastic soldier. When I look at GW 7th/8th Empire I think, ugly monkey with no shoes that someone gave a sword to.

 Azazelx wrote:

Missing the point entirely there, Doug. SS made some generic point about "poor" GW kits from "20 years ago". Mine is that some (most? all? need a list of what was out in 1993!) of the GW kits from 20 years ago were pretty damned good for the time, and others still hold up today. The "terrible sculpts" thing doesn't quite work either. Comparing the RTB01 Plastic Space marines to the latest iteration of the Tactical squad is apples to apples ...except it really isn't - even though the RTB01 models wouldn't pass muster as a new kit today.

I think I just starting making my own point somehow and got sidetracked. Perhaps I'm just frustrated with the huge quantity of poor plastic kits flooding the market and the fact that GW doesn't replace it's older kits as it's not financially viable for them, so I have limited places to turn to when I want to build an army for some reason.

 Azazelx wrote:

Similarly, I'm getting the bare minimum of them as freebies, and they'll work in the same vein as many of the Bones models. Generic space fillers and learn-to-paint figures.

I think perhaps better than that. I still love the old HQ and AHQ men at arms and I think these guys will fit the same purpose quite easily. A quick prime, few colors, dip, flock, and now I have the city guard patrols for a game. Still a shame that's all they're good for, for my purposes :/

 scarletsquig wrote:
there has not been a single core infantry sprue released in the entire of warhammer 8th edition

Not that I disagree with the thrust of your point but: Savage Orcs, Plaguebearers.

 Baragash wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
there has not been a single core infantry sprue released in the entire of warhammer 8th edition

Not that I disagree with the thrust of your point but: Savage Orcs, Plaguebearers.

Not speaking for SS but I believe the point was that GW doesn't replace pre-existing plastics anymore, no matter how badly they're designed. They replace metal or finecast models with plastic kits, nearly always dual purpose, so that current players of that army have to buy it anyway for the new unit. but getting off topic now

^ No, I just forgot about those two.

 judgedoug wrote:


Not speaking for SS but I believe the point was that GW doesn't replace pre-existing plastics anymore, no matter how badly they're designed. They replace metal or finecast models with plastic kits, nearly always dual purpose, so that current players of that army have to buy it anyway for the new unit. but getting off topic now

If only they didn't replace the older plastic Empire troops!

Whether they could have scrapped the sprue is kind of immaterial now, though. This should've been caught much, much earlier. Mantic needs to pay for better sculpting, pure and simple. A few les units in this KS, to put more funds into sculpting the rest, would've made a big difference imo.

 RiTides wrote:
Whether they could have scrapped the sprue is kind of immaterial now, though. This should've been caught much, much earlier. Mantic needs to pay for better sculpting, pure and simple. A few les units in this KS, to put more funds into sculpting the rest, would've made a big difference imo.

Exactly!

Also, Quality Assurance might need an upgrade or two as well...

 Azazelx wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:


Not speaking for SS but I believe the point was that GW doesn't replace pre-existing plastics anymore, no matter how badly they're designed. They replace metal or finecast models with plastic kits, nearly always dual purpose, so that current players of that army have to buy it anyway for the new unit. but getting off topic now

If only they didn't replace the older plastic Empire troops!

I agree, but they had to. There was no way to do spearmen with the older multipose kit and they had to discontinue the old single pose spearmen/handgunner sprue.

There's pics of the metal heroes here:
http://imgur.com/a/0FSAg

seems the horses for the elves are just the horses we've already seen for the paladin cav.

Heroes look pretty well cast to me - then again metal casting is not something you can ever really fault mantic on.

Not entirely happy with the samey horses, on the other hand, they are decent horses and I can appreciate sculpting eleventy different types of "horse" is a bit wasteful.

 judgedoug wrote:

I agree, but they had to. There was no way to do spearmen with the older multipose kit and they had to discontinue the old single pose spearmen/handgunner sprue.

Keep the heads, torsos, legs, redo the arm options. The plastic tactical marines have been almost identical from the release of 3rd ed until now, but the sprues have been through several iterations. Remember each marine being on it's own mini-sprue and the arms and bolter being on a second, with backpack sprues for the third?

 Azazelx wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

I agree, but they had to. There was no way to do spearmen with the older multipose kit and they had to discontinue the old single pose spearmen/handgunner sprue.

Keep the heads, torsos, legs, redo the arm options. The plastic tactical marines have been almost identical from the release of 3rd ed until now, but the sprues have been through several iterations. Remember each marine being on it's own mini-sprue and the arms and bolter being on a second, with backpack sprues for the third?

That would make sense if they were sticking with that style, but they moved away from the Landsknecht and Swiss Renaissance influence into bizarro cartoon steampunk. Plus they repackaged them into ten-soldier boxes.

And come on, marines as a range sell better than all of WHFB combined. Of course they'll get more plastic love.

Which hero's come with the 225 pledge because I got none of them?

Ouch, that's an issue.

The ones shown here, minus basusu:
http://imgur.com/a/0FSAg

Anyway, email mantic, their cs is good aonce you reach them.

Still no pics of the Dark/Elf cavalry?

Bloody hell, it's seems like this conspiracy is spreading!

I have emailed them and am awaiting a reply but not too worried. However to rub salt in the wound it appears they did supply me with the bases for the hero's



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The elven cav are both pretty nice if no one has done it by the time I get home I will throw some pics up.

Heh, they sent me too many ladies Ilona with my wave 2 but neglected to include any bases. Shoddy work there, in all

 Azazelx wrote:
Still no pics of the Dark/Elf cavalry?

Bloody hell, it's seems like this conspiracy is spreading!

Seriously. People are getting them all over the official forums but just post descriptions instead of pics:
"The restic horses are absolutely gorgeous. As are the TK and Elf cavalry. Brilliant miniatures. Great sculpting, crisp details and well cast. Hands down beat the equivalents from GW. Why on earth didn't we see photos of these?"

It's quite frustrating as my Elf army has the metal Elf Stormwind Cavalry and I'm wondering if the new cav will be compatible or if I'll use them for another army. And I'm wondering if either of them would match Gamezone's Dark Elves, as I've got several units of their plastic spearmen and light cav coming in the mail and could use a heavier cav in the army.

Hold your horses, everyone, there's plenty of pics now. :p





Looking quite nice, I like the regular elf ones a little more than the TK knights, huge improvement over the original metals, and the sculpted-on cloak is a better decision than having it separate.

Oh, those both look excellent (other than the goofy TK shields). I am very happy with them and it boggles my mind that Mantic didn't show these guys off on the KS page yet.

Winterdyne, have you painted any of these Elf cav? Cat's out of the bag, show us painted pics

If I was lucky enough to have had mine delivered at the weekend, I'd have painted up and posted pics of a unit already just for the fun of being first.

I am very rapidly becoming a fan of restic, despite having the exact opposite opinion previously.

The detail on the material is good. Mould lines are minimal as long as China doesn't deliberately try to cut corners (and it seems like they do need supervision to prevent them from doing this).

And.. my previous major reservation, pricing, has been largely solved by an interesting move by Mantic; the Basilean Paladins are £20 for 20, instead of just the single £15 for 10 box offered previously.

If they keep up that sort of £1 per mini pricing, then I'm totally happy with the material being used rather than pursuing a seemingly endless and expensive endeavor to make a non-renedra plastic sprue that doesn't suck.

I'm actually a little concerned for Deadzone now, I was fairly certain that the mistakes with the goblin sprue were in the past, but they aren't, and Deadzone shipping is in December (this is non-negotiable, the enforcer hard plastics at the very least have to ship then), so it's possible they're going to have to stick with the same tooling company to meet the ship date... which, combined with the lack of info about what the sprues are going to mean for backers adds quite a lot of uncertainty to the DZ KS at this point.

Horses look good, from what I can see! But regarding this:

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'm actually a little concerned for Deadzone now, I was fairly certain that the mistakes with the goblin sprue were in the past, but they aren't, and Deadzone shipping is in December (this is non-negotiable, the enforcer hard plastics at the very least have to ship then), so it's possible they're going to have to stick with the same tooling company to meet the ship date... which, combined with the lack of info about what the sprues are going to mean for backers adds quite a lot of uncertainty to the DZ KS at this point.

Why would they "have to ship then" or try to meet the ship date with lackluster product? Clearly, as shown with some items here, that is not a winning strategy. If they've got a better method, I imagine the vast majority of backers would rather have good product late than shoddy product on-time. MUCH rather...

 RiTides wrote:
Horses look good, from what I can see! But regarding this:

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'm actually a little concerned for Deadzone now, I was fairly certain that the mistakes with the goblin sprue were in the past, but they aren't, and Deadzone shipping is in December (this is non-negotiable, the enforcer hard plastics at the very least have to ship then), so it's possible they're going to have to stick with the same tooling company to meet the ship date... which, combined with the lack of info about what the sprues are going to mean for backers adds quite a lot of uncertainty to the DZ KS at this point.

Why would they "have to ship then" or try to meet the ship date with lackluster product? Clearly, as shown with some items here, that is not a winning strategy. If they've got a better method, I imagine the vast majority of backers would rather have good product late than shoddy product on-time. MUCH rather...

YES, please!

That's the big question though isn't it

how much longer would folk wait ?

maybe a month or two, but relic knights being pushed back 6 months caused loads of outrage and a fair amount (apparently) of refund requests,

if they switched companys who would they go to and what would the wait be

good companies will probably) be busy,

unknown quantities are just that (the goblins company was poor, this lot are better but still not great what would a 3rd new company in Mantics price range be like)

WGF have the skills (if supplied with good starting 3d sculpt like Dreamforge's stuff) but are very heavily behind: I'll guess 12+ months delay if Mantic could afford them

Renendra again have the skills but are (reputedly) very busy too so lots of delays (I'll guess WGF level) and being in the UK almost certainly significantly more expensive than anywhere in china : Could they afford to tool what they've now promised at Renendra's prices my guess is not

so Ronnie has to roll the dice and choose which is the less worst option and since they are planning at least one more KS this year I think he'll go for potentially iffy minis rather than loose the reputation for delivering on time (based on what Mantic has done so far)

The horses do look nice especially with the variety of leg positions.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

unknown quantities are just that (the goblins company was poor, this lot are better but still not great what would a 3rd new company in Mantics price range be like)

WGF have the skills (if supplied with good starting 3d sculpt like Dreamforge's stuff) but are very heavily behind: I'll guess 12+ months delay if Mantic could afford them

Renendra again have the skills but are (reputedly) very busy too so lots of delays (I'll guess WGF level) and being in the UK almost certainly significantly more expensive than anywhere in china : Could they afford to tool what they've now promised at Renendra's prices my guess is not

so Ronnie has to roll the dice and choose which is the less worst option and since they are planning at least one more KS this year I think he'll go for potentially iffy minis rather than loose the reputation for delivering on time (based on what Mantic has done so far)

Scarletsquig pointed out SK Engineering http://www.skengineering.co.uk/2410/frames.php
who do Victrix, and they are fantastic quality.

Another comparison pic, this time with a mantic elf (the paladins are about the same height):



The more I look at the faces, the less I like them... they all have this weird, pudgy, creepy look to them.

Makes it look like a unit of sex offenders or something.

Think I'll definitely be replacing the heads... eccentric miniatures looks like the best bet since they sell a head sprue seperately ($2 for 16 heads is about as good as it gets), and also sell plastic giant crossbow artillery at 2 for $10 (which is an entry in the basilean army list which I will definitely need).

Ooh, that shield attachment point is urrrrgly.

Holy crap, look at the size of that dudes forearm.