Pee dancing or not, they're still better than GW's overweight Mongolian caricatures.
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RiTides wrote: Heh . Well, that deserves some discussion... I feel that a Mantic-specific mass thread for trading might do better in the Mantic subforum. Let me ask the other swapmods and get back to you...
Oh, and I'll start the thread in the Mantic subforum...feel free to move it to the Swap Shop if the other swapmods agree to it. Or close mine and turn it into yours to keep it from locking up until we're well and done.
timetowaste85 wrote: Pee dancing or not, they're still better than GW's overweight Mongolian caricatures.
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RiTides wrote: Heh . Well, that deserves some discussion... I feel that a Mantic-specific mass thread for trading might do better in the Mantic subforum. Let me ask the other swapmods and get back to you...
Oh, and I'll start the thread in the Mantic subforum...feel free to move it to the Swap Shop if the other swapmods agree to it. Or close mine and turn it into yours to keep it from locking up until we're well and done.
here we go...
was this the creative basis for this sculpt? you decide.
My werewolf is trying out for the part of Ryu if they ever make a decent Street Fighter movie-he has the Hadoken pose down pat.
I'm not sure on the paint scheme, but the werewolf models are pretty good, the hair feels appropriate, and the nipples certainly don't stick out (literally and figuratively) as much as pictures online would suggest.
Fenriswulf wrote: He likely got it through one of the army deals or similar, as it's not an auto-include in the $225 level for the free stuff. I was going to get it, but after seeing the sculpt, I am glad I didn't.
It is an auto-include for pledges of $100+ listed in the pledge levels
That's only for actual pledges made at that level for specific armies.
For people like me who pledged for the $35 level, then chose the rest as BOGOF's to get to the $225 level, I wouldn't be getting the Vampiress as a free miniature. This might change as I have now dropped a majority of my BOGOF choices for an Ogre army and some BOGOF choices, books etc. I don't know if this is the case, but it will be interesting to find out.
timetowaste85 wrote: My werewolf is trying out for the part of Ryu if they ever make a decent Street Fighter movie-he has the Hadoken pose down pat.
I'm not sure on the paint scheme, but the werewolf models are pretty good, the hair feels appropriate, and the nipples certainly don't stick out (literally and figuratively) as much as pictures online would suggest.
RiTides wrote: I just wish Mantic would hire top-flight sculptors. They're raising a lot of funds, and I know money is stretched tight. But, by far the biggest cost has to be tooling, right? Paying a bit more for the sculptor upfront would make them the sweet alternative that I have been hoping they could be, if they would put out more things like the ogres.
Watching Tre Manor's thread has me wishing they would bring someone like him onboard!
I do realize it's not Just sculpting, but some issues with casting on excellent sculpts (like the dreadball robots, although I think they're probably fine with just a bit of work). But on the other hand, if you start with a bad sculpt there's really no saving it.
This. They're not hurting for cash, not really, and the cathorse debacle is really hurting them. Their sculpts are all over the place. When you're sinking that much into a sprue, go for the best. We'll wait.
timetowaste85 wrote: My werewolf is trying out for the part of Ryu if they ever make a decent Street Fighter movie-he has the Hadoken pose down pat.
I'm not sure on the paint scheme, but the werewolf models are pretty good, the hair feels appropriate, and the nipples certainly don't stick out (literally and figuratively) as much as pictures online would suggest.
you're in denial and need intervention stat.
Psh. Lol. I'll post pics in my gallery when done. I do like them though. Pictures really have done them an injustice.
overtyrant wrote: The Angel head's aren't that small. Whilst I like the vast majority of the sculpts Mantic have done from this KS I can't quite tell if most of these OMFG THOSE HEADS ARE B####Y TINY posts are series or just trolling.
I haven't commented on them to date, but I'm being super serial. They are pinheads.
I agree that the aesthetic decisions on the trolls were...odd. However, they are not technically bad sculpts. I feel like we need to start making a distinction about that as a group. The Trolls are bad designs, not bad sculpts.
Actually, the troll concept art looked great. Unfortunately, they decided not to use either variant of the original concept art that they showed during the KS. I think the sculpting is technically competent, but the blown-out proportions do put them in the category of poor sculpts. Without any of us having ever seen the final concept art the sculptor worked from (I wonder if it'll be in the Digital Art Book?) there's little to go on other than the finished product. So I'm going to continue calling them poor sculpts until I see the final concept art.
I disagree with this completely. I think the trolls look great, and have no problem with the tiny legs. It's the style Mantic chose to go with, and some fantasy books do actually show trolls having tiny legs. They run around with their arms like gorillas. They chose not to go the tried-and-true fantasy look, they went with their own thing. It's not that bad, it's just different. I realize it's not the design for everybody, but I like it.
My personal issues with the trolls are due to the initial concept art, which as I expressed above, was really good. This in turn led me to pledge for quite a few of them (Army of Mordor!) only to be terribly disappointed with the final product when it was shown. Luckily they allowed me to change out the models via the recent PM, but the disappointment remains. If I'd just come along recently, I wouldn't have the same experience of the failed investment, and so while I might make fun of them and laugh a time or two, I wouldn't care or be annoyed about their final design. The same way that I feel about the Elf Dragon riders or whatever they are. You'll probably find that a number of others with issues about the trolls are coming from a similar perspective of having expected (and paid for!) something rather different to the final product.
Fenriswulf wrote: He likely got it through one of the army deals or similar, as it's not an auto-include in the $225 level for the free stuff. I was going to get it, but after seeing the sculpt, I am glad I didn't.
Pretty sure it was clarified that it comes under the catchall of "all character models created as part of this Kickstarter". I haven't got my stuff yet, so I'm not sure.
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Duncan_Idaho wrote: Actually Rackham Wolfen did not look much different, they only had a different painting scheme.
Agreed. The bare-skin paint scheme does these no favours. I'll be interested to see mine when they eventually come, and how they stack up to the Rackham metals and plastics.
Some new previews from Facebook. They weren't happy with the sculpts that the freelancer sent them so they're in the process of having their in-house sculptor fix them up:
Female character has longarm syndrome again. There must be some lore thing on Mantica where all the women go around carrying heavy weights in each arm from birth onwards, so they get better reach.
Don't know so much about the male characters, I can't see how they'll turn out.
They need new/better freelancers, or they need to grow some editorial balls and refuse to pay for sub-standard work. Either that or start freelancing sculpts to me, since it's clear they'll pay for and accept anything.
Those two male heroes are fine. The female sculpt seems a little off. I can't put my finger on why though. I don't think it's the arms. They look alright to me. That hero on the left actually looks really good, to me. Middle guy seems to be leaning a little too Heroic in proportions to my liking, but he still looks good.
I spy some Plague in the background, a guy with a crossbow, and a spiral shaped lance. Who comes with a spiral lance?
Female head is too far "forward" I'd say.
Middle hero: look at his left arm (our right); too little definition in the cloth (looks like a blob) and hand.
I think their inhouse sculptor needs his eyeglass prescription looked at because he keeps making the arms too long on everything.
I received my box yesterday and was immediately a little disappointed in how small the Ogres are; they're more like Black Orcs than Ogres; I can't justify putting them on 40mm bases. I love the sculpts though. Got a random Mor-Ax sprue in the box as well...
Goblin fleabags are very nice.
Side note, I don't like the restic and won't be joining any more of Mantic's kickstarters that aren't 100% plastic, I don't like having to use hot water or a hairdryer to straighten or putty to fill in the holes in models that should come to me error free. Mantic=GW Finecast on a large scale unfortunately. (Just my initial impression)
Looking at my package, the mummies look like the arms are perfect length. In the pictures, they look longer than they should've been. Anyone think that the sisters might actually come out looking normal, given the same thought process?
If they used the masters in the pictures, the arms shrunk down appropriately. That would also explain why the angel heads are too small in the models-they were fine on the masters. I'd expect our female arms will look better in person.
timetowaste85 wrote: Looking at my package, the mummies look like the arms are perfect length. In the pictures, they look longer than they should've been. Anyone think that the sisters might actually come out looking normal, given the same thought process?
If they used the masters in the pictures, the arms shrunk down appropriately. That would also explain why the angel heads are too small in the models-they were fine on the masters. I'd expect our female arms will look better in person.
Sadly not on the nuns arms, I saw them at the open day and there still freakishly long. The angels heads are fine though.
timetowaste85 wrote: Looking at my package, the mummies look like the arms are perfect length. In the pictures, they look longer than they should've been. Anyone think that the sisters might actually come out looking normal, given the same thought process?
If they used the masters in the pictures, the arms shrunk down appropriately. That would also explain why the angel heads are too small in the models-they were fine on the masters. I'd expect our female arms will look better in person.
Sadly not on the nuns arms, I saw them at the open day and there still freakishly long. The angels heads are fine though.
Aren't the painted previews done with pre-production casts or something? Angel heads didn't show the shrinkage in the previews, so maybe the sisters turn out better than expected.
agnosto wrote:I think their inhouse sculptor needs his eyeglass prescription looked at because he keeps making the arms too long on everything.
I received my box yesterday and was immediately a little disappointed in how small the Ogres are; they're more like Black Orcs than Ogres; I can't justify putting them on 40mm bases. I love the sculpts though. Got a random Mor-Ax sprue in the box as well...
GW ogres were pretty much exactly the same scale for 20 years, but everything has balooned over the last 8 or so years. They're 40-45mm tall, which I think is what the industry standard for ogre sized things has always been.
Side note, I don't like the restic and won't be joining any more of Mantic's kickstarters that aren't 100% plastic, I don't like having to use hot water or a hairdryer to straighten or putty to fill in the holes in models that should come to me error free. Mantic=GW Finecast on a large scale unfortunately. (Just my initial impression)
Fair enough. It's nowhere near as bad as finecast which has actual flaws to the casting. Needing a little work to prep models is part of the hobby.
Also, the ability to repose models without actually damaging them is a great feature of the material. I wanted to have a little different pose than the gun across the chest pose with the blunderbuss, so I bent the model to look like this:
The model's not quite done prep, and needs a bit of filling on the gun, but neither metal nor hard plastic are anywhere near as forgiving for making modifications like this.
Yeah, that's a good point- the left arm goes from his head to his knee, and is a lot thicker than the legs! PP is known for this, of course, but it can be too much.
I've acquired 2 sets of Golems now, though, if anyone else wants to sell/trade theirs let me know
Nice conversion you got going there decker, pretty cool, you should upload some pics of your army in the Mntic sub-forum when your done.
Never really paid much attention the the orges myself, but now that I've seen them propley, yeah those arms and hands are just way too big. Its a real shame really since the actual sculpt itself is really good, lots
of fine, clean details, replacemeant arms look like a must. Hey the sculptor has the same tools as me, so awsome!
Agnosto: That torso is the tallest one, and is about 5mm taller than the hunched over one, so there definitely is a height difference on average. Overall bulk is the main size difference though (compare the ogre to a chaos warrior and to a black orc - they're not much bigger).
I have no issue with the size though (not as much of a difference between GW stone or common trolls and the new plastic river trolls).
decker_cky wrote: Agnosto: That torso is the tallest one, and is about 5mm taller than the hunched over one, so there definitely is a height difference on average. Overall bulk is the main size difference though (compare the ogre to a chaos warrior and to a black orc - they're not much bigger).
I have no issue with the size though (not as much of a difference between GW stone or common trolls and the new plastic river trolls).
So...the Mantic Ogre torso that is standing straight up is the same height as the GW Ogre torso, while the hunched one is different? Say it ain't so! Proportions: we has them!
Mantic ogres look similar in size/ style/ scale to the wonderful Mordheim ogre bodyguard. Particularly the head with the underbite and square teeth.
I don't see the issue, besides, if you're buying Mantic you know full well you're not getting GW uber-heroic scale.. in fact that's the reason why the trolls are so jarring.. if they were GW minis they'd probably fit right in.
Also, it probably shouldn't bother me, but Mantic could really do with releasing some proper cavalry and monster bases... the renedra green ones are too thin and it's kinda annoying.
As for my opinion on restic - it's tolerable. Absolute pain in the ass for infantry models where you have to clean up loads of tiny components and try to glue them together since the cleanup of mould lines is really annoyingly hard, I can't use a file like I prefer to.
On larger minis like the ogres/ cavalry, it's great. Fewer models, relatively less work to remove mould lines... *and*...
...Restic large infantry and cavalry is nice and affordable (£2/mini gore riders, £3/mini ogres). Restic infantry is not... £1.50/mini is pretty much GW pricing, and at that point you have to start looking at the GW version and the various extra options/ variety that it generally offers.
So, really, my opinion boils down to "If it's on a 20mm/25mm base and you're going to want more than 10 of them in an army, it really needs to be hard plastic".
Unfortunately, Mantic's last properly-done hard plastic range was orcs.. July 2011, so 2 years ago and pretty much bugger all since then... it's like the company was on a massive roll up until then, and then ran out of money, fell flat on its face, became over-cautious, started to make some truly dire decisions in the name of bean counting (warpath 1.0).. before kickstarter came along and gave them a shot in the arm again. Now that they're back on a roll again, they really need to go back to what made everyone like them back in 2009/2010 (when they gained some truly devoted fans such as yours truly).
The annoying thing is, Kickstarter levels of cash could easily fund the tooling, even at Renedra prices of £40k/sprue. $60k stretch goal in a KS, job done.
$300k of funding later, bam, whole new army, hard plastic everything. And you just know the KS would be funded in a day or two so I really don't understand the current strategy of "restic everything, spam as many new lines as possible".
even at Renedra prices of £40k/sprue. $60k stretch goal in a KS, job done.
because that isn't how it works. you've not counted sculpting, concepting, painting, kickstarter fees, any resining, amazon fees and the actual cost of the shot plus any other costs. Budgeting a kickstarter is a lot more complicated than a tool = x so the stretch must = x.
I just saw the sketches for the two elf cavalry units. Looks great bu they sort of slid in that they are a 2014 release. Is that new? I'm waiting on them for my actual elf army that I ordered...
Polonius wrote: I just saw the sketches for the two elf cavalry units. Looks great bu they sort of slid in that they are a 2014 release. Is that new? I'm waiting on them for my actual elf army that I ordered...
"Mantic Games: If you were a Kickstarter backer, you'll get them in your August shipment as a thank-you for helping us fund them "
Everyone got their first shipment in August/September 2012. If you pledged for an army and didn't get it, something is very wrong.
even at Renedra prices of £40k/sprue. $60k stretch goal in a KS, job done.
because that isn't how it works. you've not counted sculpting, concepting, painting, kickstarter fees, any resining, amazon fees and the actual cost of the shot plus any other costs. Budgeting a kickstarter is a lot more complicated than a tool = x so the stretch must = x.
Don't forget that we're talking about Mantic; with their recent struggles they should also factor in the cost of reconcepting, resculpting, and reshooting minis.
even at Renedra prices of £40k/sprue. $60k stretch goal in a KS, job done.
because that isn't how it works. you've not counted sculpting, concepting, painting, kickstarter fees, any resining, amazon fees and the actual cost of the shot plus any other costs. Budgeting a kickstarter is a lot more complicated than a tool = x so the stretch must = x.
It is the bulk of the expense, though. And using renedra is just an extremely expensive example.. wargames factory can do tools for $12k/sprue. Good ones, as well. Dreamforge managed over 20 sprues for $200k (this did include other financing though, so raise the estimate to $500k to be safe).
Also, all of the other things mentioned are expenses with restic as well, so if they are significantly large costs, then it makes all the more sense to spend good money on the tooling to make the effort worthwhile.
True, pretty much every plastics tooling company in the market is bottlenecked to hell at the moment.. the main issue is simply that not enough of the many thousands of injection tooling companies out there are interested in supplying the wargames market (which is why I backed PDC as a UK-based injection tooling company kickstarter).
And some of the ones that do aren't necessarily all capable of, or interested in, delivering a quality product, as the chinese goblin sprue shows.
I can see why warlord are going in-house with their injection tooling, it's the only reliable way to make sure it gets done.
scarletsquig wrote: True, pretty much every plastics tooling company in the market is bottlenecked to hell at the moment.. the main issue is simply that not enough of the many thousands of injection tooling companies out there are interested in supplying the wargames market (which is why I backed PDC as a UK-based injection tooling company kickstarter).
I assume Wargames Factory is the Chinese company that Mantic is so careful not to mention. It's much easier to blame some Chinese company's shoddy craftsmanship for your screw-ups when nobody realizes that you are talking about the same company making amazing plastics for Wyrd and Dreamforge.
Basically started out owned (at least in part) by Tony Reidy who's now running Defiance Games ended up owing money to a Chinese manufacturing partner/investor which it couldn't repay
So the Chinese company own the lot after a hostile takeover
sometime around late 2010/early 2011
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I assume Wargames Factory is the Chinese company that Mantic is so careful not to mention. It's much easier to blame some Chinese company's shoddy craftsmanship for your screw-ups when nobody realizes that you are talking about the same company making amazing plastics for Wyrd and Dreamforge.
except the entire sprue style is totally different from anything we've seen from WGF/Ghost and I've seen some dakkanaut with a professional history in plastics or somesuch state, a while ago, that the placement of vents/sprue-component connections/whatever (very much a decision made by the tooling company!) was done by a complete nincompoop. Sorry, doesn't sound like WGF/Wai Kee/anything associated with those, really.
I stand corrected. (I have never seen the plastic goblins in real life because I've never bought any due to their reputation.)
Now I wonder why Mantic tried to contract out plastic production to China without using WGF. Heck, maybe they should give a call to the US company that made the UAMC for Defiance, since they can't be too expensive if Reidy can afford them.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I stand corrected. (I have never seen the plastic goblins in real life because I've never bought any due to their reputation.)
Now I wonder why Mantic tried to contract out plastic production to China without using WGF. Heck, maybe they should give a call to the US company that made the UAMC for Defiance, since they can't be too expensive if Reidy can afford them.
Yeah. To be fair, the goblins aren't total garbage. I've painted over 200 of them. They would have been just fine for 20 years ago, and are great for boardgame quality (like, if there was another Battlemasters or something and Mantic goblins were in it). They're not worth more than like 20 cents apiece though, and they're great for a horde army, especially if you do what I did (mix Mantic's amazing metal goblin sculpts in the front ranks of all units, with the plastics filling out the remaining 80% of the unit)
What is a huge shame is that Mantic's goblin designs are brilliant, and much like their Orcs, are my favorite designs on the market (well, maybe tied with Tre Manor). If I was rich, I would give them 50 grand just to remake the goblin infantry sprue into a proper large format sprue (like their skellies and elves) with all weapon and command options.
Basilean Elohi (Angels) - $25
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Basilean Men-at-Arms - $25
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Basilean Paladins - $25
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Basilean Paladin Knights (Cavalry) - $25
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Basilean Sisterhood Infantry - $25
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Basilean Sisterhood Lancers (Cavalry) - $25
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Ogre Warriors - $25
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Ogre Shooters - $25
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Abyssal Dwarf/Twilight Kin Gargoyles - $25
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Abyssal Dwarf Immortal Guard - $25
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Abyssal Dwarf Lesser Obsidian Golems - $25
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Dwarf Brock Riders - $25
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Elf Palace Guard - $25
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Elf Stormwind Cavalry - $25
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Goblin Fleabag Riders - $25
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Goblin Mincer - $25
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Orc Chariot/Fight Wagon - $25
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Trolls - $25
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Twilight Kin Dark Knights - $25
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Undead Mummies - $25
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Undead Werewolves -$25
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Undead Army - $50
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Elf Army - $50
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Orc Army - $50
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Dwarf Army - $50
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Goblin Spitter Horde - $25
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Undead Wraiths - $25
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Revenants Knights - $25
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Gore Riders - $25
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Elf Seaguard Horde - $25
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Elf Spearmen Horde - $25
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Elf Bowmen Horde - $25
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Elf Hails of Arrows - $20
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Elf Bolt Thrower Battery - $15
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Mantic Splat Dice Pack - $5
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Goblin Paint Set - $15
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Toyz in the Hood T-Shirt Bundle - $100
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Kings of War Digital Art Book -$5
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The Basilean Legacy Book - $15
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Kings and Legends Book - $10
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Kickstarter Exclusive Undead Dog Handler - $5 (note that this model is included FREE in pledges of $100 and up)
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Limited Edition Undead Standard Bearer - $10 (note that this model is included FREE in pledges of $100 and up)
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Lady Ilona, Undead Vampiress - $10
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Some nice additions available for various armies. I particularly like the army boosters (there's a few I'm considering).
I bet with the new ogre list they'll sell a lot of chariots and goblins.
bbb wrote: So, are those going to be retail prices, or just kickstarter survey prices?
Kickstarter survey prices. At a quick comparison, it seems like it's roughly a pound to dollar conversion from the current UK prices on most existing items.
If the elohi are the size of chaos warriers, does that mean Mantic will release a larger box (say, 6?) at retail? Or are they going with 3 large-human sized models for $20 while every other company around gives a better deal?
Has anyone gotten insight into the new Ogre army list in the upcoming book?
My main question is how it will stack or change from the Armies of Men ogre units.. point cost is not needed, but armament styles IS needed, as well as unit sizes..
Are we still looking at 1, 3 and 6 strong units?
Any new commander types?
I ask, mainly to know how to structure my WIP Ogre Army, and what I will need to figure out needs on.
1,3,6 mostly still in. Hero types include captain with chariot option, warlock (which can bring along a new unit, Beserker Braves), army standard.
Warlocks are a bit expensive but come with zap(2) and breath attack(10), they inspire beserker braves have elite and vicious if within 6" of a troop or regiment of beserker braves.
You can take flea-bag riders as Red Goblin Scouts. Ogre chariots are in and of course normal ogres and shooters.
Quirky little unit called the Red Goblin Blaster which can sacrifice itself to do a d6" blast and damage friend or foe with 2d6 hits with piercing(4). If it charges an enemy it does 2d6 hits with crushing strength(4) in the following melee (from the explosion) so two choices, charge and explode just damaging one unit or potentially run it between several enemy units and blow it, hopefully rolling well on the d6.
Both "berserker" and especially "brave" do rather exclude "goblin", don't they? But yes, they're Ogres.
Basically two hand weapons, insane smashers. There was talk on the mantic boards of just using WHFB Black Orc arms for the hand weapons (scale works OK, and the lack of armour fits rather nicely!).
They do have a bit of a dwarf slayer ish vibe, yes.
New pics of the Basileans, along with the preorders are now up on the mantic site. Some of the minis have been repainted to be less blue.
This one hasn't, mind, but is still a very nice sculpt:
And, the army box:
..which includes metal command for all models.
Have to say, it's a little bit annoying that the KS models don't come with the metal command bitz (you have to pay $5 extra for them), but the retail release does have them. Not much of a big deal, though.
scarletsquig wrote: New pics of the Basileans, along with the preorders are now up on the mantic site. Some of the minis have been repainted to be less blue.
This one hasn't, mind, but is still a very nice sculpt:
Have to say, it's a little bit annoying that the KS models don't come with the metal command bitz (you have to pay $5 extra for them), but the retail release does have them. Not much of a big deal, though.
Are those wings painted or made of some sort of clear plastic?
Also, either way, a very fine model, and quite a step up from many of the other recent human sculpts.
Those wings look like a photoshopped background or some kind of cut out. They dont have any sense of depth, unlike the mini. Does anyone have an unpainted image?
Dang, that's a nice model. It's almost up to GW quality in the crispness of the detail. If Mantic could keep up this level of quality consistently I could conceivably switch to Kings of War...The key word is consistency, which Mantic struggles with.
Does anybody remember what comes in the Basileans box set? 40 MaAs, 20 girls, 10 knights, 10 lancers, 20 paladins and a chariot? Is that correct? I'm trying to decide what else to add on the survey.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Automatically Appended Next Post: Man, I can't keep track of all of Mantic's surveys any more.
Join the club. Feth, I even get the ones I have to actually turn in confused
Kinda hope my recent shipment hits this week, I'd love to get a closer look at some things before pledging for extras... (sure, golems are fine and the chariots for ogre conversions aren't an iffy item either, but still...)
Also, since we discussed head swaps for Elohi earlier...chaos marauder heads are the right size too. I took a couple of the clean shaven heads with helmets, cut off the horns, and they look like pissed off angels with helmets. Lol
timetowaste85 wrote: Also, since we discussed head swaps for Elohi earlier...chaos marauder heads are the right size too. I took a couple of the clean shaven heads with helmets, cut off the horns, and they look like pissed off angels with helmets. Lol
How did you manage to avoid the temptation to use the bearded "Brian Blessed" head?
There's this guy as well, the Angel heroes turned out quite well:
Another good sculpt although I think the wings would look better painted entirely metal there.
Both of them are 3d sculpts, by the way. These were the minis made for the $6000 backers, who were very picky about sculpt quality and asked for the sculpts to be tweaked multiple times. It's amazing how asking the opinion of even just 2 mantic fans on a sculpt before sending it off for tooling can result in some much nicer looking minis.
I'll have a project log up for my own basileans next month, they will be painted much better. (see my avatar for the colour scheme :p)
I think reds, purples, oranges, beige etc. are far better colours than the really cold blue and white that mantic have gone with.
The background is that they're a solar cult who worship light and "the shining ones" who live above the clouds atop a nearby mountain. And the motifs and minis feature flame and fire a lot.
I think a dark scheme of black and orange could work really great on them as well.
Still looking for a good source of replacement heads for the men at arms, might have to give up and get some perrys (which will be useful anyway, for the crossbow arms, standard/musician arms and possibly some replacement arms for the sisters).
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Only if that sane person was insane enough to read the KS comments, right?
Yeah, I avoided the KS comments and still think Brian Blessed is made of awesome.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hm.. you've kind of given me an idea for a "counts as" Basilean army incorporating something I've been meaning to get around to doing for years. Maybe once I read the rules...
The wings on the second one still suck. It would have been easy to pull up a photograph of a bird's wing on google to realise that the feathers fan out from the "arm" bones at the front/top.
Wow, I like that model a lot better actually! The wings might be the weakest point, but it's pretty sweet, imo.
Edit: quoting onto new page:
scarletsquig wrote: There's this guy as well, the Angel heroes turned out quite well:
Another good sculpt although I think the wings would look better painted entirely metal there.
Both of them are 3d sculpts, by the way. These were the minis made for the $6000 backers, who were very picky about sculpt quality and asked for the sculpts to be tweaked multiple times. It's amazing how asking the opinion of even just 2 mantic fans on a sculpt before sending it off for tooling can result in some much nicer looking minis.
But here's what I don't understand... why would they not normally go about this process? If having a few people who are willing to say "No" to a sculpt is all it takes... can they hire one of those guys? Get his opinion as a freelancer?
Seriously, Mantic needs to reject more bad sculpts and put out more like this... and then they'll be rolling in it! And also save money on not paying for poor sculpts to be cast that won't sell very well.
Interestingly, the Basileans were delayed from 2nd shipment to 3rd shipment because of the overwhelming demand for them - I read something like Mantic had to order 89,000 men at arms sprues to fulfill orders.
I'm pretty excited to get the third shipment, honestly. I'd very much like to see them "in the flesh", and the more I think about it, the more I'm reconsidering selling my freebies immediately and instead painting them as a darker leather/black color scheme (still don't know what to do about those arms...)
judgedoug wrote: Interestingly, the Basileans were delayed from 2nd shipment to 3rd shipment because of the overwhelming demand for them - I read something like Mantic had to order 89,000 men at arms sprues to fulfill orders.
scarletsquig wrote: There's this guy as well, the Angel heroes turned out quite well:
Another good sculpt although I think the wings would look better painted entirely metal there.
Both of them are 3d sculpts, by the way. These were the minis made for the $6000 backers, who were very picky about sculpt quality and asked for the sculpts to be tweaked multiple times. It's amazing how asking the opinion of even just 2 mantic fans on a sculpt before sending it off for tooling can result in some much nicer looking minis.
Agreed. The mini is quite nice both in detail and scale (except for maybe the wing position as I'd equate the one above with a soaring pose and not a standing on the ground one). The wings might be as easily converted by changing their angle or adding the blood angel sanguinary guard wings to his back instead (assuming the scale is roughly the same).
The arms may be fine: if they were the masters, the arms are thinner/smaller and shrink more than the bodies. We saw it with Elohi heads. Ok in original pics, itty bitty in the flesh. I had to replace all the heads for mine. Disappointing, but it's the only thing I've been unhappy with (plus a few arms needing to be cut to fit properly, but lots of companies have the same issue). So yeah, one issue when I'm happy with everything else...nobody is perfect.
If they could have kept the focus on their miniatures like they did with the original style plastics they put out, I reckon they would be in a much better position in regards to kickstarters.
They do offer volume, and yes they do deliver on time. But when a lot of their stuff is badly sculpted, and they don't take the time to make sure what they are getting is exactly what is wanted, especially when it comes to sculpt vs concept art, it hurts them in the long run.
Am I happy that I get a whole bunch of miniatures? Sure. Are they ones I would buy at release for myself? Most likely not, no. I am most likely to just sell everything I am getting at this stage and seeing if I can break even.
judgedoug wrote: Interestingly, the Basileans were delayed from 2nd shipment to 3rd shipment because of the overwhelming demand for them - I read something like Mantic had to order 89,000 men at arms sprues to fulfill orders.
57 sprues for every kickstarter backer? 0_o
I would also assume retail orders since they're being released shortly after the KS shipments.
I don't play any fantasy games, but I love these Basileans. Was contemplating picking up some trolls just to paint, but I think I like these guys even more. Might make it a reward if I can clear the painting queue a bit ; p
I emailed Stewart to ask if there were any pictures of the Stormwind or Twilight Kin Cavalry available, so backers could decide whether to add them or not to the final survey. His response was:
We don't have pictures of the elves unfortunately - our sculptor was running a little late with them, and they literally went straight from him to the factory for production so we didn't get a chance to take photos. The concept art for them is on our Facebook page, and the moulds have recently been tested so we should have some production samples quite soon. We'll get them up on the website as soon as we can.
So, well, I won't get into the problems with that reply, aside from the fact that I don't trust Mantic to deliver on unseen product in terms of quality, even with great concept art. So that's $50-100 I won't be rolling the dice on.
Azazelx wrote: I emailed Stewart to ask if there were any pictures of the Stormwind or Twilight Kin Cavalry available, so backers could decide whether to add them or not to the final survey. His response was:
We don't have pictures of the elves unfortunately - our sculptor was running a little late with them, and they literally went straight from him to the factory for production so we didn't get a chance to take photos. The concept art for them is on our Facebook page, and the moulds have recently been tested so we should have some production samples quite soon. We'll get them up on the website as soon as we can.
So, well, I won't get into the problems with that reply, aside from the fact that I don't trust Mantic to deliver on unseen product in terms of quality, even with great concept art. So that's $50-100 I won't be rolling the dice on.
That reply reminds me of movies which are not available for 'critics review' which usually points to a movie so terrible the studio won't let critics pre-screen it.
Mantic 'concept art' is basically worthless in all regards as even the models which look 'good' look nothing like the concept art.
Yowch, that's not good...
Well, here's hoping they buck a trend or two (maybe these were left to a sculptor who's competent on his own accord?) but that's not encouraging.
Azazelx wrote: I emailed Stewart to ask if there were any pictures of the Stormwind or Twilight Kin Cavalry available, so backers could decide whether to add them or not to the final survey. His response was:
We don't have pictures of the elves unfortunately - our sculptor was running a little late with them, and they literally went straight from him to the factory for production so we didn't get a chance to take photos. The concept art for them is on our Facebook page, and the moulds have recently been tested so we should have some production samples quite soon. We'll get them up on the website as soon as we can.
So, well, I won't get into the problems with that reply, aside from the fact that I don't trust Mantic to deliver on unseen product in terms of quality, even with great concept art. So that's $50-100 I won't be rolling the dice on.
That reply reminds me of movies which are not available for 'critics review' which usually points to a movie so terrible the studio won't let critics pre-screen it.
Mantic 'concept art' is basically worthless in all regards as even the models which look 'good' look nothing like the concept art.
A few marauder models aside, all of the models from the Deadzone KS seem to match the concept art pretty spot on. A few of them have some awkward elements in the execution, but they do match the concept very well. Isn't the dreadzone execution pretty spot on to the art too? Really, it's the KoWKS that had this issue - a kickstarter in which they were obviously scrambling to get concept art ready on the fly (and I believe they generally mentioned that they were tossing a few ideas around still). So yes - it has been an issue, but it appears to be improving over time for better overall product. Mantic has had some issues, but the broad stroke you're painting is an unfair representation.
decker_cky wrote: the broad stroke you're painting is an unfair representation.
Ah, so you've only just met nkelsch, I see? Par for the course, really. Still, I could say that, well, the DB zzor had some surprises when they were first shown a few months ago if I recall correctly - it just wasn't an issue since they're pretty damn cool. But yes, generally that's been confined to the KoWKS only.
decker_cky wrote: the broad stroke you're painting is an unfair representation.
Ah, so you've only just met nkelsch, I see? Par for the course, really. Still, I could say that, well, the DB zzor had some surprises when they were first shown a few months ago if I recall correctly - it just wasn't an issue since they're pretty damn cool. But yes, generally that's been confined to the KoWKS only.
But compared to their "peers" in the industry who have provided detailed concept art and the models are faithful representations down to poses and the buckles on their shoes, the mantic art which draws everyone in is not followed, designs changed, poses made wacky and WIP sculpts never fixed.
There are plenty of curveballs from the dreadball line.and barley an overall 50% faithful execution of concept art... And those which are faithful are messed up poses which ruin the concept or abysmal proportions.
This " we can't take a photo and send stuff direct from the sculptor to the factory" shows a total lack of internal organization QC or art direction. Every final sculpt should be photographed, blown up and sent to every inch of the staff inside mantic for review. The fact a picture is not being taken and they go directly to casting shows there is still zero actual art direction going on or rejection of unacceptable models as for a modelto be reviewed would require extensive photography.
it is continued deceptive practices and slapdash kick starter fulfillment which doesn't care about quality because they already have people's money and they don't want to give people the ability to see and reject a sculpt before it is shipped to them.
This could all be handled in good faith with simple photos of their models. I am sure the sculptors too photos, I am sure mantic could release those if they actually wanted to allow backers to see them before pledging via the pledge manager. The simple truth is they want to hide as much as possible as they are their own worst enemy.
Azazelx wrote: I emailed Stewart to ask if there were any pictures of the Stormwind or Twilight Kin Cavalry available, so backers could decide whether to add them or not to the final survey. His response was:
We don't have pictures of the elves unfortunately - our sculptor was running a little late with them, and they literally went straight from him to the factory for production so we didn't get a chance to take photos. The concept art for them is on our Facebook page, and the moulds have recently been tested so we should have some production samples quite soon. We'll get them up on the website as soon as we can.
So, well, I won't get into the problems with that reply, aside from the fact that I don't trust Mantic to deliver on unseen product in terms of quality, even with great concept art. So that's $50-100 I won't be rolling the dice on.
That quote made me laugh until I actually slapped the table. How could anyone say all that with a straight face?
I guess now we know the secret of Mantic's artistic operation.
RonnieJFletcher wrote:
The wargaming community means about as much to me as a festering ball of dog snot! You think I care about the pea-brained yokels who buy my models? If you took their combined I.Q. and multiplied it by a hundred, you might have enough intelligence to tie your shoe, if you didn't drool all over yourself first. I can't stand those sniveling maggots! They make me want to puke! But, there is one good thing about selling models to a Kickstarter full of mindless sheep: I always know I have them exactly where I want them. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Well, I didn't post it in order for some piling on. Just that the excuse happens to be an unlikely/weak one that we've seen before with poor end results, and that under the circumstances anyone else here considering getting the Elf cav might want to give them a cautious miss. I mean, it's obviously different to the reasons that Squig gave awhile back (rejected sculpts getting redone) but to be fair, I understand that no employee can come out and say that...
Automatically Appended Next Post: It's also worth pointing out that nkelsch's points about photos and the non-release of same are obviously good ones.
Think I've settled on the best source of alt. heads for the men at arms.
Perry mounted men-at-arms box comes with 24 spare heads in a very similar style to the men at arms helms. Sallet helms, with feathers.
2/5 of the heads on the M@A sprue look okay, so that's another 16 heads sorted.
So, one box of perry will get 40 men at arms looking how I want, while also adding some useful cavalry minis, and giving me 3 standard and 3 musician bits (which I need since you don't get them with the KS models).. there's even 15 spare hand weapons with hands attached so I can try replacing some of the sister weapons with maces and hammers.
I'll post up the conversion pics of these once they're ready, I think the Basileans can be a great looking army, but they will need a little work doing first to get them there.
Azazelx wrote: I wonder how well the Angels might work with plastic Elven heads?
I tried them with non-helmeted guardian heads from the Eldard line. They are still too small. The only heads I had luck with where the Pistoliers head that I had porkus lime show earlier, and cast marauder heads with the horns cut off the Helms. Both look quite good, I must say.
decker_cky wrote: the broad stroke you're painting is an unfair representation.
Ah, so you've only just met nkelsch, I see? Par for the course, really. Still, I could say that, well, the DB zzor had some surprises when they were first shown a few months ago if I recall correctly - it just wasn't an issue since they're pretty damn cool. But yes, generally that's been confined to the KoWKS only.
But compared to their "peers" in the industry who have provided detailed concept art and the models are faithful representations down to poses and the buckles on their shoes, the mantic art which draws everyone in is not followed, designs changed, poses made wacky and WIP sculpts never fixed.
Emphasis mine.
Examples please? I keep seeing this bandied about, and I'd like to see some examples of it.
There are plenty of curveballs from the dreadball line.and barley an overall 50% faithful execution of concept art... And those which are faithful are messed up poses which ruin the concept or abysmal proportions.
Your statistic is probably incorrect and largely meaningless, but I completely agree about the poses and proportions issue.
This " we can't take a photo and send stuff direct from the sculptor to the factory" shows a total lack of internal organization QC or art direction. Every final sculpt should be photographed, blown up and sent to every inch of the staff inside mantic for review. The fact a picture is not being taken and they go directly to casting shows there is still zero actual art direction going on or rejection of unacceptable models as for a modelto be reviewed would require extensive photography.
it is continued deceptive practices and slapdash kick starter fulfillment which doesn't care about quality because they already have people's money and they don't want to give people the ability to see and reject a sculpt before it is shipped to them.
This is malicious speculation at best. You have absolutely no way of knowing their motives.
This could all be handled in good faith with simple photos of their models. I am sure the sculptors too photos, I am sure mantic could release those if they actually wanted to allow backers to see them before pledging via the pledge manager. The simple truth is they want to hide as much as possible as they are their own worst enemy.
Releasing the sculptor's photos should work. After all, if they were good enough to approve the item with, they are good enough for a preview.
New Basileans characters look incredible. Will almost certainly pick those up. If anyone here pledged for a Basilean army but doesn't want to keep it, PM me. I'll work with you on a deal for them.
This could all be handled in good faith with simple photos of their models. I am sure the sculptors too photos, I am sure mantic could release those if they actually wanted to allow backers to see them before pledging via the pledge manager. The simple truth is they want to hide as much as possible as they are their own worst enemy.
Releasing the sculptor's photos should work. After all, if they were good enough to approve the item with, they are good enough for a preview.
I hadn't really thought about this, but that's true: since the work is being done by freelancers, there must be photos, even if only for supervisors at Mantic to give the okay on. Any reasonable work product setup would require the artists to check back in on the elements in question.
To imagine the alternative is... gobsmacking. The only way there could not be WIP and final photos would be... if they had either a) implicit faith in the sculptors, or b) no interest or ability to demand changes.
I hadn't really thought about this, but that's true: since the work is being done by freelancers, there must be photos, even if only for supervisors at Mantic to give the okay on. Any reasonable work product setup would require the artists to check back in on the elements in question.
To imagine the alternative is... gobsmacking. The only way there could not be WIP and final photos would be... if they had either a) implicit faith in the sculptors, or b) no interest or ability to demand changes.
I've reached this point in my thinking as well.
either way, it doesn't make me respect mantic overly much.
Azazelx wrote: I wonder how well the Angels might work with plastic Elven heads?
I tried them with non-helmeted guardian heads from the Eldard line. They are still too small. The only heads I had luck with where the Pistoliers head that I had porkus lime show earlier, and cast marauder heads with the horns cut off the Helms. Both look quite good, I must say.
Any number of bits makers - specifically I was thinking of ordering the not-Space Marine Greek or Roman / Corinthian style helmets with crests. Specifically those as they are larger for GW's melonheaded marines.
scarletsquig wrote: Think I've settled on the best source of alt. heads for the men at arms.
Perry mounted men-at-arms box comes with 24 spare heads in a very similar style to the men at arms helms. Sallet helms, with feathers.
2/5 of the heads on the M@A sprue look okay, so that's another 16 heads sorted.
So, one box of perry will get 40 men at arms looking how I want, while also adding some useful cavalry minis, and giving me 3 standard and 3 musician bits (which I need since you don't get them with the KS models).. there's even 15 spare hand weapons with hands attached so I can try replacing some of the sister weapons with maces and hammers.
I'll post up the conversion pics of these once they're ready, I think the Basileans can be a great looking army, but they will need a little work doing first to get them there.
At this point though, why not just have a Basilean army using Perry troops instead of MoA?
To each his own but I actually really like the MaA. Bit of a personal thing, I'll give you that. I also like the thuggish heads so no perry troops for me this time round I guess.
To be fair though, I have yet to see them (or any KoW wave two stuff... -_-' ) in the flesh.
I'll admit, I was disappointed in how the heads of the MaA turned out. Something about them seems off, like their helmets are too small. My opinion of them may change if I ever see them in person though. Those angels though, damn. They more than make up for any issues I may have had with the rest of the Basileans.
I have all the big gribblies in the flesh (er, plastic) and the only things I've been unhappy with are the Elohi heads (using GW heads to replace) and that some two handed weapons don't connect properly without serious work. No issues with legs on trolls, big arms on ogres, any of that: Mantic didn't go with traditional looks, they made the stuff their own. And that Ogre captain looks SPOT on to the concept art. Quite pleased with stuff so far.
I hadn't really thought about this, but that's true: since the work is being done by freelancers, there must be photos, even if only for supervisors at Mantic to give the okay on. Any reasonable work product setup would require the artists to check back in on the elements in question.
To imagine the alternative is... gobsmacking. The only way there could not be WIP and final photos would be... if they had either a) implicit faith in the sculptors, or b) no interest or ability to demand changes.
The thing about this - to my mind at least - is that it implies that Mantic themselves have little confidence in their sculpts and models. And definitely so before paint - which misses the point that paint can turn people off - such as the naked werewolves.
The funny thing is that decent unpainted shots can often look better than their "finished" shots. Case in point the Basilian foot knights. The painted ones just look like a blob of infantry painted blue, silver and black with little detail or posing properly visible - while the shots on Remy's blog show them to be some very nice knightly sculpts.
This was obviously my interpretation. It certainly fits into the narrative they've developed since their Storm of Kickstarters began. They seem to believe that quality is somehow unrelated to the success of their product. Either that, or they believe their fans are so desparate for more Mantic prodect that we'll buy any crap they shovel our way, so they might as well save money that might otherwise be spent on better sculpts or hiring an art director. It would be much more offensive if I didn't believe that Ronnie really just has no idea how he and his company (and their products) come across.
I find it almost comforting to imagine Mantic Towers as a sitcom about clueless middle management whose business practices are so divorced from reality that it matters more to the audience than to the characters what sort of business they're in. (And we won't even find out until the 6th season or so when the show jumps the shark.)
Schmapdi wrote: At this point though, why not just have a Basilean army using Perry troops instead of MoA?
I like the M@A models, other than the heads, and want to have a fantasy human army rather than a historical one. Basilieans are definitely firmly in the fantasy camp, the shields and weapons are really cool designs.
The heads look like they came out of a stock human 3d model without taking into account that you need larger noses and ears on 28mm miniatures or it looks really weird. They're really quite nice minis and then you look closer and go "oh god, the faces".. it's like the Deadzone enforcer captain head that everyone hated put on every model in the unit:
Here's an example, 100% accurate human facial features on a stock 3d model... looks fine on the screen, but copy that 1:1 on to a 28mm 3d model and it will look terrible, the nose will look tiny, mush into the face and you'll be left with a largely flat oval:
I'm fairly certain this is where the men-at-arms sculpting went wrong, since I've seen the same mistake on faces on other minis from the same sculptor (deadzone enforcer captain, deadzone plague zombies). There's also some issues with the open mouthed ones where the face looks stretched rather than having the jaw rotate on its axis, and overall it looks like the facial expression sculpting was just a "use the push putty tool in Zbrush until you mash the face into something that looks about right" job.
A lot of 3d sculptors make this mistake, not exaggerating the small details enough because it looks fine blown up on the screen.. I seem to recall something in the Kingdom Death KS about the creator constantly having to argue with his 3d sculptors about making the details chunkier and more prominent to make sure they translate properly to 28mm models.
You know, looking at the detailed pictures they just sent out for the sisters, the one has her arm flat down her leg. Do the same with your arm. Their arms are microscopically too big. Less than a millimeter too big. I'll be okay with them. I'm loving the Basilean pictures.
You could probably GS the noses to be a little larger with minimal difficulty if they bother you but they look good to me. After looking zoomed in at those Men at Arms for a while, the main thing that I find problematic is the lack of a design on the chest, but that's probably intentional so you can use transfers right? Or maybe just to paint heraldry... damn I really want some now.
Taarnak wrote: Examples please? I keep seeing this bandied about, and I'd like to see some examples of it.
This is speculative on my part, and I can't speak to general industry practice, but from comparisons of concept art to finished sculpt Privateer Press appear to demand such from their sculptors, as do Corvus Belli and Studio McVey. Googling for, say, "Sedition Wars concept art" should provide plenty of examples.
e.g. Skaldi Bonehammer from Hordes:
Spoiler:
Two points, though: First, that such constraints don't rule out sub-par executions, such as the infamous Kayazy Assassins, and second, that this is all something of a red herring. The issues with Mantic's sculpts arise not from a failure to conform exactly to the concept art but rather from either a failure to conform to it at all – or, at least, to the art shown to backers – or an unwillingness to demand that flaws in sculpting be corrected before acceptance – and even the first of those is not necessarily fatal.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bossk_Hogg wrote: Those wings look like a photoshopped background or some kind of cut out. They dont have any sense of depth, unlike the mini. Does anyone have an unpainted image?
This is a render, but it shows what's going on with the wings:
They're nice models; bit finnicky to clean up and you really, really need a hairdryer to bend the wings so they'll rank up and to repose the tails for variety, but nicely detailed.
I got my 2nd wave stuff through a couple of weeks back and have started painting some up. Here are a couple of shots of stuff I haven't seen in their finished form online yet:
First up the skeleton dog handler:
and secondly the dwarf berserker brock rider
First off let me say that I am pleased with them for the price I paid on the kickstarter. Both are characterful models. Both look fine on the gaming table.
BUT. They really aren't top quality casts. The concept was good, the sculpting was fine. The casting is sub-par. Somewhat blobby and certainly not what I would describe as "crisp".
I don't think the quality is up to their pre-kickstarter resin casts - I have some restic Wraiths and some restic Revenant Cavalry, and both are pretty much on a par with good metals, and the early Mantic metals were indeed well sculpted.
Pic of Wraiths for comparison:
I've still got a lot to paint up of my kickstarter order so I may be over-reacting, and if so I will report that, but what I have seen so far has disappointed me somewhat. I don't feel "ripped off" in any way. I think Mantic have done a bang on job in getting decent miniatures out to me at a bargain price and on time. They managed the production and packing and communications very well. Better than Reaper, for instance, in that regard.
I do think their QC on restic has suffered though - these are not up to the standard of equivalent metal casts, and show some areas where the casting is rather mushy (such as around the scabbard on the skeleton, and on the dwarf's left bicep where I couldn't work out what was muscle and what was armband, for instance) and details hard to work out. They are absolute beggars too for mold lines. Some of the worst I have experienced in that regard. Bending wasn't an issue though as any bent parts sorted well in hot water, and stayed (so far) sorted.
The real difficulty for me going forward though is retail price> For instance one of the models I was most looking forward to was the new lady Vampire. I haven't got a photo to show you, but I must admit to being a tad disappointed. The fine detail just wasn't fine enough. Her face was OK for a tabletop mini, but was definitely not "top quality" moulding. Now I got her for free, and she's OK. But IMHO she isn't worth the £6.50 full retail I would have to pay for her now. That is 30% or more higher than the price I would have to pay for a top drawer sculpt from Hasslefree in metal
So if Mantic are only producing average quality, and are not the cheapest, I really don't see their competitive advantage. Sure they are cheaper than GW, but lets face it, who isn't these days?
So, I think to sum up, I am a "little disappointed". Although, to be fair, maybe I was expecting too much at this stage.
Certainly, with this and with my Reaper kickstarter (still no delivery :( ) I have learned a few caveats with Kickstarter in general. Do I regret it? No. Will I be amending my expectations downwards in future. Yes.
The brock rider is cool, thanks for posting it! Shame about the casting quality (although are you sure it was a problem with casting, not sculpting, etc?).
Harpies also look creepy... which I think is what they were going for
As a whole the harpies look good, but I really don't like the design of the tails coming out of the back at the wings. It might just be the angles of the pictures, but it looks off to me.
I like my Brocks, but I feel the 10 I got for $25 was a fair value. Any less for a similar price and I'd start questioning. That's not to say they're bad: they aren't at all. Jut not 5 for $20 or $25 quality. I can see how people would e unhappy with the vampiress. I have no use for her, so I don't care, but her dental damage needs help.
RiTides wrote: The brock rider is cool, thanks for posting it! Shame about the casting quality (although are you sure it was a problem with casting, not sculpting, etc?)
Yes, I''m sure the sculpting is fine. I do think the casting is to blame. Coupled with the humungous mold lines, the impression I've been left with is that the model seems ever so slightly "melted". I'm no expert on casting but I've seen comments by others on similar issues that indicate that maybe the model was taken out of the mold too early, before it had cured properly and so the material "sagged" ever so slightly before it fully hardened. So sharp edges aren't sharp, but a little rounded and fattened, and detail isn't just as quite as crisp as it should be in a perfect world.
Now I've seen far worse, don't get me wrong, and there is still a goodly amount of detail to see and the models are surely characterful, fun to paint, and look good enough as a tabletop army.
It's just i wouldn't pay a premium price for them as I would say for Hasslefree, or Heresy Miniatures or something (at least from my experience of their models).
So an update is out for the Basileans: Paladins are plastic (I thought they were restic!) and this is awesome, and most Basileans are "pious", meaning they can recover wounds-it's like an army wide "heal," that each unit casts on themselves. Oh yeah! Can somebody not at work post the update for all to see? Otherwise you gotta wait a few hours for me to do it.
It's the love child of resin and plastic. It's like an Arnold Palmer. Half iced tea, half lemonade. I wouldn't call it iced tea, and I wouldn't call it lemonade. I'd call it an Arnie Palmer, a half&half, or the proper name. Only referring it to half is incorrect. I don't mind restic, I just prefer plastic and got more excited at what I thought was a change from great to FANTASTIC! That's all. It's still inaccurate.
First person to tell me I made an 'apples and oranges' comparison gets a wiffle-ball upside the head.
Restic may be plastic, but it is not the same material that the industry calls plastic. Calling restic "plastic" is misleading. "Sprueless plastic" works fine and the distinction is enough not to give customers the wrong expectations.
Cyporiean wrote: Do you complain about Privateer's plastic not being 'true plastic' as well?
YES, very vocally. I bought some of their kits when they first came out and found out that they had none of the strengths of "true" plastic, but were more annoying to clean and glue than metal! I have also had casting or packing issues with more than 50% of their restic kits. I don't buy PP stuff much anymore.
I find PP's restic is even worse quality and harder to work with than Mantic's.
And, really, if we can all use the term "restic" and understand each other, then they can use it, too.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Restic may be plastic, but it is not the same material that the industry calls plastic. Calling restic "plastic" is misleading. "Sprueless plastic" works fine and the distinction is enough not to give customers the wrong expectations.
TBH, just calling it PVC would be best, that's what it is.
Anything else is just a trade name, and "plastic" is about as broad a term as you can get... it's like using "wood" to describe both MDF and mahogany, technically accurate, but not a detailed enough descriptor.
Mantic used to be happy to use the term resin plastic, but have avoided it recently since they got a lot of people asking "so is it resin like finecast then?".. they had restic minis out before finecast even existed, back when resin was an indicator of high quality..that perception has changed somewhat with the release of finecast and mantic no longer wants the "resin" part to be associated with their minis since the majority of wargamers (and particularly the ones mantic would like to sell to) have never bought any resin other than citadel finecast.
Regardless of what they want to call it... "restic" is a much more established word for that material in the wargaming community... and as you say, "plastic" is too generic.
Saying something like PVC would be fine, of course, but just "plastic"... not so much (imo).
scarletsquig wrote: Anything else is just a trade name, and "plastic" is about as broad a term as you can get... it's like using "wood" to describe both MDF and mahogany, technically accurate, but not a detailed enough descriptor.
If you sold me a "wood" coffee table and I found out it was just MDF, I would be rather annoyed.
Mantic used to be happy to use the term resin plastic, but have avoided it recently since they got a lot of people asking "so is it resin like finecast then?".. they had restic minis out before finecast even existed, back when resin was an indicator of high quality..that perception has changed somewhat with the release of finecast and mantic no longer wants the "resin" part to be associated with their minis since the majority of wargamers (and particularly the ones mantic would like to sell to) have never bought any resin other than citadel finecast.
People don't avoid buying restic because it's called restic, they do so because it is restic. It's more expensive per unit, it warps, production rates do not scale like proper plastic does and it's more prone to casting flaws. Deliberately trying to hide behind the good name of proper plastic is even worse than doing so out of ignorance.
There are lots of different types of plastic of which the stuff PP uses is one. Insisting on some special definition of plastic when the scale modeling community already just calls that "styrene" (which it is) is pointless.
If plastic cement works on it, it's likely styrene. If it doesn't, that doesn't mean it's not plastic. Miniature wargaming is a niche hobby and I don't see why we should insist on specific terms for materials when the larger world already has them available for our use.
It's like insisting that because miniature companies use tin in their metal miniatures a metal miniature that isn't tin somehow doesn't count as metal.
The issues with Mantic's sculpts arise not from a failure to conform exactly to the concept art but rather from either a failure to conform to it at all – or, at least, to the art shown to backers – or an unwillingness to demand that flaws in sculpting be corrected before acceptance – and even the first of those is not necessarily fatal.
I have to agree with this. Also I keep looking for something better or at least some kind of evolution on the overall quality and its just not here... add the fact that the restic material is also pants and you have poor sculpts in poor material.
By now mantic would have time, experience and money to try to do something much better but I get the feeling they are producing exactly what they want.
frozenwastes wrote: There are lots of different types of plastic of which the stuff PP uses is one. Insisting on some special definition of plastic when the scale modeling community already just calls that "styrene" (which it is) is pointless.
If plastic cement works on it, it's likely styrene. If it doesn't, that doesn't mean it's not plastic. Miniature wargaming is a niche hobby and I don't see why we should insist on specific terms for materials when the larger world already has them available for our use.
It's like insisting that because miniature companies use tin in their metal miniatures a metal miniature that isn't tin somehow doesn't count as metal.
I agree with you to a point. Technically it's all plastic. However, when I (and most gamers, and even scale modelers) hear "Plastic model" we think of a model kit made of styrene or similar hard plastic that can be assembled with a solvent glue. We also expect a higher degree of uniformity as these kind of kits are injection cast in metal molds. It's not perfectly accurate, but in my experience it's accepted parlance.
Companies owe it to their customers -when dealing with a material that is not the above- to not just call something "plastic", but to give some indication that it is a different material that cannot be assembled with "plastic" glues. Sprueless plastic, Restic, Troll-cast, Plasti-Resin, Bones, etc. I don't care what you call it, just let me know it's going to be different. If I buy a kit simply called "Plastic" and Plastic-Weld solvent won't work on it I'm going to be a bit miffed.
Of course, it'd be even better if companies would be a bit more specific and simply label their products a bit more accurately with terms like "Polystyrene", "PVC vinyl", "Polyester Resin", etc...
frozenwastes wrote: There are lots of different types of plastic of which the stuff PP uses is one. Insisting on some special definition of plastic when the scale modeling community already just calls that "styrene" (which it is) is pointless.
If plastic cement works on it, it's likely styrene. If it doesn't, that doesn't mean it's not plastic. Miniature wargaming is a niche hobby and I don't see why we should insist on specific terms for materials when the larger world already has them available for our use.
It's like insisting that because miniature companies use tin in their metal miniatures a metal miniature that isn't tin somehow doesn't count as metal.
I typed something up before, but obviously forgot to post before I closed that window. The reason to use the term "Restic" is simply precisely because it's become an understandable piece of Jargon within our niche hobby that refers to a specific material, which differentiates it from other forms of resin and plastic.
You guys all know I really like the Mantic company: I've been quite vocal in the matter. But this does feel underhanded, like they're trying to sneak something past. If they said "the models are in our resin-plastic formula"...no complaints. If they call it "plastic", which we all expect to be models like the dwarves, undead and Elven basic models...we're going to feel lied to. Honesty is fine, even if we prefer plastic. Lying to us is never okay. And that goes for all companies.
By now mantic would have time, experience and money to try to do something much better.
I think they are... Their recent announcement for Deadzone is that they've made enough in the kickstarter that they're replacing a good amount of restic sculpts for the main armies with plastic figures.
By now mantic would have time, experience and money to try to do something much better.
I think they are... Their recent announcement for Deadzone is that they've made enough in the kickstarter that they're replacing a good amount of restic sculpts for the main armies with plastic figures.
Yeah, I read that too. Most figs are still Restic, but it looks like the 5 sets that will likely be most popular as units in Warpath are getting the plastic treatment.
"Enforcers, Enforcer Peacekeepers, Cyphers, Forge Guard and Plague Zombies."
This is a good thing in my book. I can deal with Restic, but I'll take Plastic over Restic any day. I'm most excited about the Forge Guard. They'll fit nicely into my squat army as Exo Armor. The old Exo Armor is nostalgic, but the Forge Guard actually LOOK like they're wearing Exo Armor.
timetowaste85 wrote: You guys all know I really like the Mantic company: I've been quite vocal in the matter. But this does feel underhanded, like they're trying to sneak something past. If they said "the models are in our resin-plastic formula"...no complaints. If they call it "plastic", which we all expect to be models like the dwarves, undead and Elven basic models...we're going to feel lied to. Honesty is fine, even if we prefer plastic. Lying to us is never okay. And that goes for all companies.
Not everyone expects that. Anyone who plays warmachine knows plastic can range from hard plastic to the kind of restic PP and Mantic use. And they still market it as plastic
scarletsquig wrote: Mantic's recent terminology has been to call restic plastic, and plastic sprues hard plastic.
It has been consistently like this ever since the KoW Kickstarter.
Count me under the list of people confused. When they were running the KS and I saw them talking about "plastic", I also assumed that they were following the standard terminology of referring to styrene plastic that works with "plastic glue" and not restic. If they're going to use both, they should refer to styrene as just "plastic" and add their choice of adjectives to PVC/restic/whatever variants that you use CYA glue on.
There actually is no standard terminology in TT industry.
Correct terminology would be duroplasts and thermoplasts, resin and plastic are to broad to be of any real use actually, cause there are kinds that have most of the properties of what you would associate with the other kind.
You are confusing the terminology of a chemist with the terminology of marketing. What something is called in one industry has little to do with what that something actually is, especially as far as what a fussily-precise chemistry student would call it.
Hint: If many of your customers say it's a problem, it's a problem. It doesn't matter how anal retentive you get with proper definitions.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: You are confusing the terminology of a chemist with the terminology of marketing. What something is called in one industry has little to do with what that something actually is, especially as far as what a fussily-precise chemistry student would call it.
Hint: If many of your customers say it's a problem, it's a problem. It doesn't matter how anal retentive you get with proper definitions.
Correct.. I might not have been the most clear in my post but I was referring to the standard terminology used in the model building marketplace since at least the mid 1980's. Models labelled simply as plastic on the front of the box were ones you could use plastic glue on, regardless of what a chemist in a lab might think of that nomenclature in the grand scheme of his field. No one model making company (let alone a second tier company in the even smaller gaming hobby submarketplace) shouldn't muddy the water that has been clear for decades across multiple hobbies as its simply confusing to the end customer.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: You are confusing the terminology of a chemist with the terminology of marketing. What something is called in one industry has little to do with what that something actually is, especially as far as what a fussily-precise chemistry student would call it.
Hint: If many of your customers say it's a problem, it's a problem. It doesn't matter how anal retentive you get with proper definitions.
Agreed!
Bottom line - Mantic would be better served by NOT referring to 'restic' as 'plastic', at least how it is viewed in this fine hobby of ours!
I thought we were done two iterations ago, but peeps keep jumping in to score smart-points by pointing out how wrong the consumer is and how right their particular education is.
So any pics of the Dark/Elf Cavalry yet? I wonder if Winterdyne has a batch of each painted up that he's not allowed to show us yet?
While the masters went "straight to China" (without any photos being taken(!)... Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, or speak of confidence in their product..
Now you see, there's the difference with working with Mantic.
I'm not 'not allowed' to show anything. There's no NDA, no contract. It's just a polite personal request. Refreshing to not be treated like a potential criminal.
And yeah, there's stuff I've worked on and am working on that I'm not showing yet.
Pretty awesome of Mantic, even though they're releasing a supplement book with the new army list in, they're still releasing the rules for it online (albeit without the background text, history, pics and other stuff that the book contains).
I feel like it's the most awesome thing the company does, free rules and army lists online as living documents.
So much better than paying £45 for rulebook and £30 for army book! By the time you're done just buying the rules from GW, you could instead have free rules and a whole army of minis from Mantic.
Worth keeping in mind when warhammer 9th edition comes out next year.
winterdyne wrote: Now you see, there's the difference with working with Mantic.
I'm not 'not allowed' to show anything. There's no NDA, no contract. It's just a polite personal request. Refreshing to not be treated like a potential criminal.
And yeah, there's stuff I've worked on and am working on that I'm not showing yet.
I was inferring from the language you've used in the past, when showing photos. Though obviously, it confirms that the "we have no photos of these for you to see, but please buy them" line is horse-puckey.
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scarletsquig wrote: Basilean army list has been posted up for free download:
I feel like it's the most awesome thing the company does, free rules and army lists online as living documents.
So much better than paying £45 for rulebook and £30 for army book! By the time you're done just buying the rules from GW, you could instead have free rules and a whole army of minis from Mantic.
Worth keeping in mind when warhammer 9th edition comes out next year.
I'll certainly give them credit for that. In fact I've somewhat started buying an Elven army for KoW ...out of GW models
scarletsquig wrote: Basilean army list has been posted up for free download:
I feel like it's the most awesome thing the company does, free rules and army lists online as living documents.
So much better than paying £45 for rulebook and £30 for army book! By the time you're done just buying the rules from GW, you could instead have free rules and a whole army of minis from Mantic.
Worth keeping in mind when warhammer 9th edition comes out next year.
I'll certainly give them credit for that. In fact I've somewhat started buying an Elven army for KoW ...out of GW models
The interesting thing is that I've found that I am building more armies (and painting them!) since I switched to Kings of War. Mantic's Orcs (my fav in the world), Mantic Goblins, my giant Helsvakt RBG KS combined with my Tarvax and Sronax from Mierce into a giant army, and now I'm planning on Gamezone Dark Elves with Mierce Gorgonares for a Twilight Kin army. Not to mention I have about a billion points of Mantic Elves and Dwarves ready to be painted, and this is in ADDITION to my WHFB Tomb Kings, High Elves, and Empire armies (all I've been collecting for 10+ years and so are quite large)
scarletsquig wrote: Some concept art for the new Abyssal army, one of the next armies to be released for KoW (army list is included in the Basilean legacy book):
Those legs aren't that bad! But agreed that they could use being a bit longer, particularly when translated to model form.
His left forefinger does pretty much touch his toe, though
Now that I've thought about it, it makes sense, given that the angels are called Elohi. Morlocks and Eloi are the two races decended from humans (and rather represent darkness and light) in H.G. Wells Time Machine.
Which means depending how you look at it Mantic have either been very clever, or just unoriginal.
Now that I've thought about it, it makes sense, given that the angels are called Elohi. Morlocks and Eloi are the two races decended from humans (and rather represent darkness and light) in H.G. Wells Time Machine.
Which means depending how you look at it Mantic have either been very clever, or just unoriginal.
Usually, I'd go with unoriginal. Don't think in this case it's the Time Machine though, but simply biblical/Hebrew. If anything, Wells took his inspiration from the same source.
Yeah, definitely biblical source on that. The abyss itself is quite literally hell, with seven circles, tortured souls and everything else.
As for the demon.. it doesn't look like it is about to fall over or have its legs snap like twigs, so I'm fine with it... the luck of bulk to the troll legs is a much, much bigger issue than lack of height, they have tiny thin little ankles that look like they'd break instantly.
Now that I've thought about it, it makes sense, given that the angels are called Elohi. Morlocks and Eloi are the two races decended from humans (and rather represent darkness and light) in H.G. Wells Time Machine.
Which means depending how you look at it Mantic have either been very clever, or just unoriginal.
Everyone should read the bible at least once for the monsters: like Greek mythology, people name-drop it everywhere. Plus, lots of anime makes a lot more sense...sort of.
Everyone should read the bible at least once for the monsters: like Greek mythology, people name-drop it everywhere. Plus, lots of anime makes a lot more sense...sort of.
Oh, Neon Genesis Evangelion, so close to greatness, only to fall flat on it's pompous head.
I'm OK with waiting to see how it looks in real life though, as Demon Physiology is more forgiving with proportions.
Exactly! I don't mind the art, but for a fantastical creation, it can have weird proportions... hopefully the modeller tweaks them a hair more in line, and then it will be great, imo.
As long as it doesn't look like the plague mortar crew :-O
Now that I've thought about it, it makes sense, given that the angels are called Elohi. Morlocks and Eloi are the two races decended from humans (and rather represent darkness and light) in H.G. Wells Time Machine.
Which means depending how you look at it Mantic have either been very clever, or just unoriginal.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but key Mantic staff are ex-GW people...
scarletsquig wrote:Yeah, definitely biblical source on that. The abyss itself is quite literally hell, with seven circles, tortured souls and everything else.
Thing is, having seven circles of hell isn't biblical, it's Dante's hell that has circles (though there are nine).
Everyone should read the bible at least once for the monsters: like Greek mythology, people name-drop it everywhere. Plus, lots of anime makes a lot more sense...sort of.
In which case all you would know is that Moloch was a god of the Ammonites, and depending on the bible you used, you wouldn't find Elohim in it anywhere (King James for example), as it is translated as god or gods.
Admittedly I would agree that they are simply drawing on terms that exist in some quasibiblical state based on a variety of authors works like Dante, Milton, D&D, etc, rather than a reference to Time Machine. That's just the first place my mind went when I saw Moloch (Oh no, not Morlocks). That said, reading the Bible doesn't really help either, as the terms either aren't in there, or aren't used in the same context, for instance Lucifer is used only once in the KJV (and only older ones at that) and it refers to a morning star i.e. the planet Venus.
This has gone a bit off topic though, so...
For a high level daemon, it doesn't look all that, intimidating, but that might just be the pose I suppose.
Everyone should read the bible at least once for the monsters: like Greek mythology, people name-drop it everywhere. Plus, lots of anime makes a lot more sense...sort of.
In which case all you would know is that Moloch was a god of the Ammonites, and depending on the bible you used, you wouldn't find Elohim in it anywhere (King James for example), as it is translated as god or gods.
I forgot most people don't have the Hebrew-and-English version. It's fun.
Admittedly I would agree that they are simply drawing on terms that exist in some quasibiblical state based on a variety of authors works like Dante, Milton, D&D, etc, rather than a reference to Time Machine. That's just the first place my mind went when I saw Moloch (Oh no, not Morlocks). That said, reading the Bible doesn't really help either, as the terms either aren't in there, or aren't used in the same context, for instance Lucifer is used only once in the KJV (and only older ones at that) and it refers to a morning star i.e. the planet Venus.
You're right. The real fun is in the midrashes or apocrypha. Usually that stuff finds its way into your average mainstream religious education, though. Certainly any writer looking to sift Western mythologies for useful tidbits is going to come across the juicy parts.
This has gone a bit off topic though, so...
For a high level daemon, it doesn't look all that, intimidating, but that might just be the pose I suppose.
Frankly, it looks like a Gremlin (from the movie) at a fetish party. I blame Mantic's art director.
I think it actually looks pretty derivative of the Rackam Mid-Nor Dwarves, which isn't a bad thing since Rackham have gone bust. However, I would like to see proper legs return to their miniatures sometime soon. Please.
Why is the Rackham look so popular? I haven't heard anyone praise GW for releasing oddly-proportioned, overly-cartoony, cgi-looking sculpts, but when Rackham did it it was cool?
It´s actually only the King James that leaves the elohim out. The continental bible has them in there, refers sometimes to them as Gods/God, but hints at the elohim in the annotations to those words. Also continental bible normally includes the apocryphia.
The variations Eli or Elohim adonai were even left unchanged in there. And the septuaginta and qumran original texts have all the words all over the place.
It'll do, I guess, fairly middle-of-the-road sculpt that I'll be happy to game with. Looks much better than the WIP did (before Mantic's in-house sculptor fixed it up a little).
...yeah. Those seem to be meant as gauntlets. ...in places where metal gauntlets would actually not have metal bits, but just leather/glove as well. ugh.
Still, I kind of like the miniature.
Funny though; us usually rather positive regarding mantic are iffy on the sculpt and the ones usually rather critical love it. Weird.
Berosos is not one of the backer-funded heroes; therefore he's not a freebie. You could have gotten him for $8 on the survey. Will probably go in the GBP6,49 RRP category, should make him about $10.
Not a bad price at all at todays usual price for nice (enough) metal hero models.
Cleric is decent, though yeah the gloves are... odd. I wouldn't baulk if he were a freebie, though unless he specifically fit your RPG character, or you were going Mantic-only in your purchases, I can't see why you'd buy him for 7 squid when this guy is available for a few more...
...Yeah, I don't know... That's technically an awesome model, superior to berosos in a technical sense for sure but that gorget is just awful IMO. I'd have to resculpt too much to go for that in all likelyhood...
We'll have to disagree then. I think it's great, but the AOW model is just an example, and I'm also partial to many of the GW Empire Warrior Priests and not a few Reaper models that fit the same bill, at a high quality.
I don't dislike the Mantic one (except for the hands- I'd probably just paint them dark leather brown and hope no-one looked at them closely), I just fail to see the point in buying it for the amount they're going to be asking.
Thing is, it fits with the rest of the basilean line a lot closer than those other options would.
I like the paladins a lot. Ditto to the M@A. this guy ties them in nicely, which is why I'd prefer him over, say some othe reaper bones stuff already coming my way (or coming my way sometime in the next twenty years, grumble...) for a basilean army. A cohesive look is worth something as well.
You're right though, there's other options at the same price, or at least not that much more expensive.
Azazelx wrote: Cleric is decent, though yeah the gloves are... odd. I wouldn't baulk if he were a freebie, though unless he specifically fit your RPG character, or you were going Mantic-only in your purchases, I can't see why you'd buy him for 7 squid when this guy is available for a few more...
I suspect with AOW's distribution and availability history, one reason might be that the mantic model is actually there for purchase. That said, the AOW fig has alot more detail and I prefer. Mind you that the Mantic cleric is decent and likely very affordable, which is what I expect previously and hope more recently (due to missteps) from Mantic.
The rather awesome lion rider is £12.49, not bad at all.
Hmm, if the mantic website is anything to go by* Berosos will retail at $11.99 USD. Quite simply not worth it for a sculpt that's just average (not bad, but certainly not amazing) in quality. Even more so when you see what better models cost from a company like Reaper. Plugged in the search terms "Cleric hammer" and look what comes up, ranging in price from $5 to $10.
http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer
I thought Mantic was supposed to be an affordable alternative to most companies, but I'm routinely baffled by what they charge for some characters. Certainly they're cheaper than GW, but that's not hard to do.
Mantic are affordable alternative to most companies but primarily in the rank and file models. I got 6 Ogres today for $30 when I could have bought 6 Ogres for $40 from the industry leader.
That said, I sometimes wish partnerships with WarLord (rules & figs for sci-fi since Alessio writes for both companies and WP and BA are somewhat close in design), Reaper (Heroes) and/or Avatars of War (heroes) were possible.
The rather awesome lion rider is £12.49, not bad at all.
Hmm, if the mantic website is anything to go by* Berosos will retail at $11.99 USD. Quite simply not worth it for a sculpt that's just average (not bad, but certainly not amazing) in quality. Even more so when you see what better models cost from a company like Reaper. Plugged in the search terms "Cleric hammer" and look what comes up, ranging in price from $5 to $10.
http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer
I thought Mantic was supposed to be an affordable alternative to most companies, but I'm routinely baffled by what they charge for some characters. Certainly they're cheaper than GW, but that's not hard to do.
well there's exactly one model there which is about as good as Berosos, http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer/latest/14269 The rest is worse. Look, I'm not saying Berosos is all that good and reaper have their place (and a good one it is!) but they have a higher 'naff to good sculpt ratio than Mantic, IMO.
Of course a lot of it might just be pretty damn old at this point.
That one strikes me as the best of the bunch, and nice than the KoW model. Still, I like the KoW model well enough too.
The bones one doesn't really look like a great cleric, more like a warrior with a religious focus (eg, not a priest, but a crusading knight). He would make a great generic fighter for the Basilieans though.
The pic you show? fair 'nuff. This one shows a rather pouty face and his feet waay too close together. I dunno, it feels like it's only cool from one particular angle. He almost looks like a kid pouting in a corner because he didn't get the ice cream he was yammering on about. Halbarand, to my eyes, has a rather nasty case of Privateer Press Pauldron ... Syndrome (pathology doesn't work, sadly. I came close ^^). As frozenwastes so eloquently puts it though, opinions are funny that way indeed
The bones one doesn't really look like a great cleric, more like a warrior with a religious focus (eg, not a priest, but a crusading knight). He would make a great generic fighter for the Basilieans though.
...Yeah. I think that's the point, though. Look at the M@A, look at what tidbits of basilean background are strewn about here and there; it's often little more than a bunch of nasty guys using religion to justify their daddy issues/power complex etc. They do good often enough as well but they're not so much "holy" as much as "holier than thou" and prepared to back it up with a mace and a torture rack To my mind, this guy isn't supposed to be pious - he's a first-grade donkeycave in cleric's robes. The way this interacts with actually having angels fight by their side will be... interesting... for sure so I might have to eat some crow on this after actually getting my mitts on the "The Basilean Legacy" book but for now I'd say your complaint is not so much a bug as it is a feature
Bolognesus wrote: Thing is, it fits with the rest of the basilean line a lot closer than those other options would.
I like the paladins a lot. Ditto to the M@A. this guy ties them in nicely, which is why I'd prefer him over, say some othe reaper bones stuff already coming my way (or coming my way sometime in the next twenty years, grumble...) for a basilean army. A cohesive look is worth something as well.
You're right though, there's other options at the same price, or at least not that much more expensive.
I'm still finding it a bit hard to tell what parts of the army look cohesive in terms of sculpts - though I'm skipping the Men-at-arms and gorilla-armed sisters and went in on more of the Foot and Mounted Knights after seeing Remy's unpainted sculpts. Really though, I think cohesiveness will come more from paint than sculpts - particularly when dealing with character models.
While happy to skip the figures for the most part, I wouldn't mind getting more of the MAA's shields. I wonder if Mantic will sell sprues of them separately? (I'm going with Perry for that part of the army).
I suspect with AOW's distribution and availability history, one reason might be that the mantic model is actually there for purchase. That said, the AOW fig has alot more detail and I prefer. Mind you that the Mantic cleric is decent and likely very affordable, which is what I expect previously and hope more recently (due to missteps) from Mantic.
While I'd agree with you if you were to order that model direct from AoW, or if it were upcoming, that particular model is metal and has been in regular, very available release for years now. AoW's stuff doesn't have all the drama and issues around it at retail, and it's pretty readily available.
Yeah, I bought some stuff direct from them (quite) awhile back, before they started using that odd, terrible exchange rate and forcing overseas purchasers to use USD instead of GBP to get shipping. It quite literally stopped me from buying more stuff from them direct.
privateer4hire wrote: Mantic are affordable alternative to most companies but primarily in the rank and file models. I got 6 Ogres today for $30 when I could have bought 6 Ogres for $40 from the industry leader.
That said, I sometimes wish partnerships with WarLord (rules & figs for sci-fi since Alessio writes for both companies and WP and BA are somewhat close in design), Reaper (Heroes) and/or Avatars of War (heroes) were possible.
Well, cheaper than GW and PP, I guess. Reaper's Bones can now be included in the R&F price game, not to mention things like Perry Miniatures, Wargames Factory, Warlord, Dreamforge (upcoming)... as for the Ogre differential, it really depends on the aesthetic of the models. $10 (25%) isn't a lot of difference if you like the GW models, or multipart hard plastic with lots of extras - or the much larger size/bulk/heft of the GW ones. If it's purely based on price, then Reaper Bones has Mantic completely pwned. 77005: Ogre Chieftain ($2.74) 6 for $16.44 - and a nice model, too - at almost half the price of Mantic.
And Bolo - we'll have to write the Reaper-Mantic "better model" argument off to personal aesthetics. I found quite a few of the Reaper models to be better looking for this particular role than the Mantic one.
It'll do, I guess, fairly middle-of-the-road sculpt that I'll be happy to game with. Looks much better than the WIP did (before Mantic's in-house sculptor fixed it up a little).
This is really poor.
Obviously it's not particularly fair for that solid army level paint job to be blown up like it is, but it's still a pretty shoddy sculpt for an established company to be putting out in 2013.
Outside some established names they don't state who sculpts what right?
Please don't refer to styrene as hard plastic unless you've tested the materials yourself and graded them properly on the Mohs Scale. Lets not encourage Mantic to continue their adventures in revising industry standard nomenclature.
Bolognesus wrote: ...Yeah. I think that's the point, though. Look at the M@A, look at what tidbits of basilean background are strewn about here and there; it's often little more than a bunch of nasty guys using religion to justify their daddy issues/power complex etc.
They do good often enough as well but they're not so much "holy" as much as "holier than thou" and prepared to back it up with a mace and a torture rack To my mind, this guy isn't supposed to be pious - he's a first-grade donkeycave in cleric's robes.
The way this interacts with actually having angels fight by their side will be... interesting... for sure so I might have to eat some crow on this after actually getting my mitts on the "The Basilean Legacy" book but for now I'd say your complaint is not so much a bug as it is a feature
Making everybody dicks isn't interesting when everybody's doing it. At this point, the most subversive thing Mantic could have done is made a holy army which aren't dicks.
Bolognesus wrote: ...Yeah. I think that's the point, though. Look at the M@A, look at what tidbits of basilean background are strewn about here and there; it's often little more than a bunch of nasty guys using religion to justify their daddy issues/power complex etc.
They do good often enough as well but they're not so much "holy" as much as "holier than thou" and prepared to back it up with a mace and a torture rack To my mind, this guy isn't supposed to be pious - he's a first-grade donkeycave in cleric's robes.
The way this interacts with actually having angels fight by their side will be... interesting... for sure so I might have to eat some crow on this after actually getting my mitts on the "The Basilean Legacy" book but for now I'd say your complaint is not so much a bug as it is a feature
Making everybody dicks isn't interesting when everybody's doing it. At this point, the most subversive thing Mantic could have done is made a holy army which aren't dicks.
"Read these pamphlets at your convenience! We don't expect you to agree with every tenet of our faith, we'd just like to instigate a healthy dialogue! We appreciate that you lead a busy life, but if you can make our next pancake breakfast we really think you'd have a fun time!!!"
Bolognesus wrote: [
well there's exactly one model there which is about as good as Berosos, http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer/latest/14269 The rest is worse. Look, I'm not saying Berosos is all that good and reaper have their place (and a good one it is!) but they have a higher 'naff to good sculpt ratio than Mantic, IMO.
Of course a lot of it might just be pretty damn old at this point.
As evidenced by the posts that followed yours, alot of folks would find quite a few models from reaper that are as good or better. As for the naff to good ratio, that's another opinion that many folks would disagree with. Reaper may have some stinkers, but Mantic has it's share of Wraiths, Elves and Werewolves.
My main point though is that Berosos is too expensive for what he is. 12 bucks for an average sculpt of a single human on foot. Just silly, especially from a company that touts it's products as supposedly being a good deal.
Bolognesus wrote: [
well there's exactly one model there which is about as good as Berosos, http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer/latest/14269 The rest is worse. Look, I'm not saying Berosos is all that good and reaper have their place (and a good one it is!) but they have a higher 'naff to good sculpt ratio than Mantic, IMO.
Of course a lot of it might just be pretty damn old at this point.
As evidenced by the posts that followed yours, alot of folks would find quite a few models from reaper that are as good or better. As for the naff to good ratio, that's another opinion that many folks would disagree with. Reaper may have some stinkers, but Mantic has it's share of Wraiths, Elves and Werewolves.
Funny enough though, those wraiths have as many supporters as detractors, those werewolves got a mixed reception, not an altogether bad one as you seem to suggest and even the elves, while not good sellers, have their fans.
Stylistically rather specific, that's for sure. Still, of those you mention only the elves really get that much flak.
Sure, there are those who like reaper's 'style'. TBH most folks around here don't like their look at all though, from what I hear.
Funny enough the models they do bonesify tend to be the ones we do like around here so it seems their sales record at least somewhat agrees
All of that aside though, you might note I explicitly put this down to a difference of taste more than of quality. Neither Berosos (or for that matter some of the other mantic hero models) nor Reapers stuff is altogether at the top of the heap, quality wise. A lot of stuff on both ends is funky, though not without it's charm to some, but to state reaper is doing all that much better (and put it down as fact, rather than taste) as was done in the posts I originally responded to is, respecfully, bs.
@Plastictrees, AlexHolker
That is precisely the problem. It's freaking impossible to make an army fighting for their religion the kind of not-dicks good AH suggests, to our perspective. Not being a bunch of dicks would require at least respecting a healthy dose of freedom of (and from) religion and expression etc.; while those work (to some extent!) in an RPG world (DnD does it nicely enough, in some interpretations, in some settings, in some places for example), it wouldn't really *work* in a wargame; Either the church respects those freedoms or they put a standing army to use fighting for their beliefs. The two don't really go together. So yeah, you could go with "not-thugs" but actually that is precisely what most other settings do. Just holier-than-thou gak and damn the collateral etc.
I'd say the idea of having most of the army (MaA at least) fighting under the banner of religion while actually being unashamed boorish thugs is less common than the just an "army of paladins" setup most commonly used.
Still, you're right it's tricky making a "good" army interesting and unique nowadays.
@Az
I think I've stated it's a matter of taste more than of quality quite enough now, but here's once more just for you Cohesive? I'd say anything not-sisters is cohesive enough; the MaA fit to the paladins close enough and while the angels could have done with some more cloth to tie them in with the army a bit better it looks cohesive enough to me. The MaA and paladins sure do look like parts of one and the same army to me (and perhaps having the Elohi, being supernatural creatures, look a bit more different isn't even a bad thing).
The MaA are styrene (as opposed to other plastics) and have the shields on the sprue so you'll have to find someone who's not using the shields to buy those separately, I'm afraid.
I don't think your price comparison is completely fair: as soon as you want something with two-handed weapons it's 6 for 30 vs. 4 for 40: that's double the price, not the 33% more you casually disregard (though I can understand Australians not wanting to dwell on 33% and up price differences after a few years of playing GW games ). Also, try to buy a hero model for the GW ogres. As affordable as the plastic rank-and-file are, those are fething insane. Sure, there's a bit more variety in the GW offerings but everything like characters, manhunters, yetis and so forth is immediately insanely expensive.
I'd also say there's quite a few of us preferring the lack of that very bulk to the GW lardy ogres you mention. Seriously, even back when I was playing fantasy I've been eyeing an ogre army for years but that gourd just put me off of the idea. Now I finally get affordable, plastic ogres which I actually like the look of. Sure, they're not perfect but they fill a very different kind of ogre niche at, besides the annoying metal command bits (which are by the way very nice in detail, I'm currently painting a set and I'm quite impressed), are easily at the level of quality of the GW ogres. Little more work on the mold lines, though being ogres all the parts are large enough to be easy to clean without destroying any detail IME, but that's about it.
And the total price is really, really sharp; by the time I'm done with 'em I'll have a sizeable KoW army which could probably double somewhere around 3000pts of WHFB if I wanted, with perhaps one or two additions thrown in (I'm eyeing that cannon-on-a-critter thing @ €26; all it needs is a rider swap and it's actually a lovely model, especially at it's price ) at somewhere around €200 and that's with spares and variety. I've seen infinity lists run that high I'm sure once you actually have all elements you'd want to an army with GW parts that would end up probably at least 50% more expensive. Sorry, but every way I look at it once you buy an entire army it starts to make quite a difference.
Of course, if you prefer the fatty look you should go for the GW models, that's true but to make a comparison with a reaper model which will have perhaps two or three buddies, most of which look substantially less nice than that one, mono-posed with fixed arms and head (just having those separate actually makes for quite a bit of variety on the mantic stuff. I'd have liked a little more but it's serviceable - nothing like having a few monopose models ten times each), with hardly any uniform look to the few ogres they might put out in bones in the foreseeable future is just crap, and you know better than that I fully agree Perry has the market for historicals at awesome prices completely cornered (perhaps together with fireforge). Tiny point there is that as much as historical players might loathe fantasy minis, the lack of fantasy elements can be quite a turn-off to some of us (me included, for basilean purposes at least).
Much of reaper's bones stuff is awesome for RPG purposes but it's so completely aimed at only having a few models on the table that hardly anything could really see any use in armies other than just the large monsters. the sheer boring repetitiveness of it all will just break that for anyone not on an utterly barebones budget. So no, bones do not really contend in the price game other than for the large monsters (and of course there, anything they're putting out is an instant winner). Using that for rank-and-file models is so repetitive you're little better off than just using tokens as minis.
My main point though is that Berosos is too expensive for what he is. 12 bucks for an average sculpt of a single human on foot. Just silly, especially from a company that touts it's products as supposedly being a good deal.
Agree.
But this is worse than an 'average' sculpt. The hands make the model a non-starter. No one can accept the hands on that model as a reasonable sculpt you expect people to willingly pay money for...
Bolognesus wrote: @Plastictrees, AlexHolker
That is precisely the problem. It's freaking impossible to make an army fighting for their religion the kind of not-dicks good AH suggests, to our perspective. Not being a bunch of dicks would require at least respecting a healthy dose of freedom of (and from) religion and expression etc.; while those work (to some extent!) in an RPG world (DnD does it nicely enough, in some interpretations, in some settings, in some places for example), it wouldn't really *work* in a wargame; Either the church respects those freedoms or they put a standing army to use fighting for their beliefs. The two don't really go together. So yeah, you could go with "not-thugs" but actually that is precisely what most other settings do. Just holier-than-thou gak and damn the collateral etc.
It's actually a lot easier to create this sort of army in a fantasy or science fiction setting, because there are more enemies that are unambiguously bad. You'd have to be the most depraved sort of moral relativist to claim that raising an undead horde to slaughter a path across the world is just a difference of opinion. Training and equipping an army to stop those attacks doesn't require that you be a bad person, any more than being a police officer forced to shoot a gunman does. That doesn't help with mirror matches but it's better to just ignore those, rather than handwaving about how there are really four Gauntlets of Ultramar and that Calgar vs. Calgar slugging match makes perfect sense, honest!
I'd say the idea of having most of the army (MaA at least) fighting under the banner of religion while actually being unashamed boorish thugs is less common than the just an "army of paladins" setup most commonly used.
Still, you're right it's tricky making a "good" army interesting and unique nowadays.
Can you think of any examples of wargames that play the "army of paladins" straight?
AlexHolker wrote: It's actually a lot easier to create this sort of army in a fantasy or science fiction setting, because there are more enemies that are unambiguously bad. You'd have to be the most depraved sort of moral relativist to claim that raising an undead horde to slaughter a path across the world is just a difference of opinion. Training and equipping an army to stop those attacks doesn't require that you be a bad person, any more than being a police officer forced to shoot a gunman does. That doesn't help with mirror matches but it's better to just ignore those, rather than handwaving about how there are really four Gauntlets of Ultramar and that Calgar vs. Calgar slugging match makes perfect sense, honest!
I think that the way the army is composed means that even if there's some religious manipulating and bullying, they're undoubtably considered a 'good' army. After all, this army quite literally is led to war with their gods providing direct and unambiguous help.
decker_cky wrote: I think that the way the army is composed means that even if there's some religious manipulating and bullying, they're undoubtably considered a 'good' army. After all, this army quite literally is led to war with their gods providing direct and unambiguous help.
The Dwarves are also classified as a "Good" army, and they're running a worldwide extortion racket. Being a god doesn't automatically mean you're good, it just means you're more powerful than your average bear.
I think that model looks really good, I'm not seeing the problems. The price is too high for a single model is my only complaint. The face is great and it's hard to see from that image, but the hands look fine. Considering getting an army of Basileans even though I don't play KoW or WHFB.
@Az
I think I've stated it's a matter of taste more than of quality quite enough now, but here's once more just for you Cohesive? I'd say anything not-sisters is cohesive enough; the MaA fit to the paladins close enough and while the angels could have done with some more cloth to tie them in with the army a bit better it looks cohesive enough to me. The MaA and paladins sure do look like parts of one and the same army to me (and perhaps having the Elohi, being supernatural creatures, look a bit more different isn't even a bad thing).
What I mean by cohesiveness is that with individual character models especially, the paint will do more to make one War Cleric model "cohesive" over another with the Elohi army, regardless of whether the model is made by Mantic, Reaper, AoW or GW.
The MaA are styrene (as opposed to other plastics) and have the shields on the sprue so you'll have to find someone who's not using the shields to buy those separately, I'm afraid.
That's a shame. I'll have a few of them but not a lot in that case. I thought they might be separate shield sprues like GW makes.
I don't think your price comparison is completely fair: as soon as you want something with two-handed weapons it's 6 for 30 vs. 4 for 40: that's double the price, not the 33% more you casually disregard (though I can understand Australians not wanting to dwell on 33% and up price differences after a few years of playing GW games ). Also, try to buy a hero model for the GW ogres. As affordable as the plastic rank-and-file are, those are fething insane. Sure, there's a bit more variety in the GW offerings but everything like characters, manhunters, yetis and so forth is immediately insanely expensive.
I'm not saying that the GW ones are cheap - merely that the Mantic ones aren't an amazing deal, especially given their smaller stature. Having said that, they are at least doubled from the initial BOGOF KS price range now. It wouldn't have done them too well for the "affordable alternative" to be more expensive than the leading brand. As for the characters, well yes, the GW ones are very expensive, but since Mantic only seems to have the one "Captain" model - which appears to be simply a new head and arms based off a trooper, there aren't a lot of other options - unless you go look up Reaper's product line)
I'd also say there's quite a few of us preferring the lack of that very bulk to the GW lardy ogres you mention. Seriously, even back when I was playing fantasy I've been eyeing an ogre army for years but that gourd just put me off of the idea. Now I finally get affordable, plastic ogres which I actually like the look of. Sure, they're not perfect but they fill a very different kind of ogre niche at, besides the annoying metal command bits (which are by the way very nice in detail, I'm currently painting a set and I'm quite impressed), are easily at the level of quality of the GW ogres. Little more work on the mold lines, though being ogres all the parts are large enough to be easy to clean without destroying any detail IME, but that's about it.
My favourite of the GW ogres are the old 3rd Edition Jes Goodwin sculpts. Similar to the Mordheim Ogre. I'm lucky enough to have most of them, too. Which made for a nice tough unit for my Orcs. My main point of contention with the new ogres isn't their distinctive look, but the break from the old ones. The Mantic ones are nice, but the size could be an issue. When I eventually get them in hand in a month or two, I'll be able to comment more knowledgeably - but I did order the KoW Ogre army.
And the total price is really, really sharp; by the time I'm done with 'em I'll have a sizeable KoW army which could probably double somewhere around 3000pts of WHFB if I wanted, with perhaps one or two additions thrown in (I'm eyeing that cannon-on-a-critter thing @ €26; all it needs is a rider swap and it's actually a lovely model, especially at it's price )
What? Link?
I'm sure once you actually have all elements you'd want to an army with GW parts that would end up probably at least 50% more expensive. Sorry, but every way I look at it once you buy an entire army it starts to make quite a difference.
It really depends which of the two games you're planning to use them in. If you're planning to use them to Warhammer with, you'll need a whole pile of those ancillary models anyway, so you'll have to buy the GW ones, or look up Reaper for proxies.
Of course, if you prefer the fatty look you should go for the GW models, that's true but to make a comparison with a reaper model which will have perhaps two or three buddies, most of which look substantially less nice than that one, mono-posed with fixed arms and head (just having those separate actually makes for quite a bit of variety on the mantic stuff. I'd have liked a little more but it's serviceable - nothing like having a few monopose models ten times each), with hardly any uniform look to the few ogres they might put out in bones in the foreseeable future is just crap, and you know better than that
I brought up the Reaper one specifically because of the "looking only at price" argument. And because the Bones Ogre is a good model. And because I've known Fantasy and 40k players over the years that liked to have armies using the same model, repeated many times for their units. Not my own aesthetic, but people are out there who like to do that.
I fully agree Perry has the market for historicals at awesome prices completely cornered (perhaps together with fireforge). Tiny point there is that as much as historical players might loathe fantasy minis, the lack of fantasy elements can be quite a turn-off to some of us (me included, for basilean purposes at least).
Well, bearing in mind that many of the Plastic Brettonian and Empire kits are just oversized/heroic scale Perry historicals, I don't see a huge deal overall. If that's your own aesthetic, then fine - and I can appreciate the shields.
Much of reaper's bones stuff is awesome for RPG purposes but it's so completely aimed at only having a few models on the table that hardly anything could really see any use in armies other than just the large monsters. the sheer boring repetitiveness of it all will just break that for anyone not on an utterly barebones budget. So no, bones do not really contend in the price game other than for the large monsters (and of course there, anything they're putting out is an instant winner). Using that for rank-and-file models is so repetitive you're little better off than just using tokens as minis.
Not really. it's not every line, but there are a good few Bones lines that will actually work really well for R&F - moreso for KoW than WFB, since KoW is more flexible with individual weapons - but either:
Bones:
Orcs - lovely Tre Manor sculpts, including a captain.
Skeletons with sword & shields
Skeletons with bow
Skeletons with spears
(Pathfinder) Goblins (9 unique sculpts)
Regular Goblins
Bow Goblins
Chaos Hounds
But then, I date from these days:
and later, this:
So I'm not that fussed about a few of the less important fantasy units all looking quite uniform.
I actually still have a ton of the plastic High Elf spearmen from then, as I love the sculpting(infinitely superior to the current hamfist high elf spearmen - look at those older plastic HE archers you posted, their hands are reasonable!). I think I have 2 regiments of metal high elf spearmen and 1 30-man regiment of the plastics... and roughly 100 metal archers, hah.
Well, bearing in mind that many of the Plastic Brettonian and Empire kits are just oversized/heroic scale Perry historicals, I don't see a huge deal overall. If that's your own aesthetic, then fine - and I can appreciate the shields.
Are they? The difference is that Perry plastic kits are exquisitely detailed and high quality. The plastic Bretonnian and Empire soldiers kits are some of the ugliest and worst designed plastic soldiers on the market. While Mantic's men-at-arms are certainly inferior to most of Perry, Fireforge, Warlord kits, they are orders of magnitude better than GW's monkey-faced shoesless Empire shitsoldiers and that laughable construct-your-own-dirty-peasant-action-figure Bretonnian set.
You're confusing concepts that you don't like with sculpt quality.
The brettonian peasants are well designed and have a lot of detail, a whack of bits and some of the most characterful and delicate faces that GW has produced in plastic.
I haven't picked up any of the new Empire soldiers so I want comment too much other than to say that shoelessness isn't a quality issue, it's a design choice.
Workmanlike paint jobs aren't rescuing the MaAs, but there's only so much paint can do when your design brief is something like "your uncle wearing a five year olds knight costume, but not in a wacky way, he thinks he looks awesome" and then hiring a sculptor that isn't in love with his work.
plastictrees wrote: You're confusing concepts that you don't like with sculpt quality.
The brettonian peasants are well designed and have a lot of detail, a whack of bits and some of the most characterful and delicate faces that GW has produced in plastic.
I haven't picked up any of the new Empire soldiers so I want comment too much other than to say that shoelessness isn't a quality issue, it's a design choice.
Workmanlike paint jobs aren't rescuing the MaAs, but there's only so much paint can do when your design brief is something like "your uncle wearing a five year olds knight costume, but not in a wacky way, he thinks he looks awesome" and then hiring a sculptor that isn't in love with his work.
Yes, I agree! the Bretonnian peasants are well designed plastic clip together toy figures with delightful cartoon character faces. They are the exact opposite of the brilliant Perry Bretonnian sculpts that came before them. One design aesthetic was: "Hey Perry brothers, make really well sculpted fantasy-based medieval French figures that will be sought-after long after we discontinue the figures even though no one plays the army anymore", and the other was "totally ignore our previous designs and make some toys based on the King Arthur and the Knights of Justice cartoon from 1992". Now, the King Arthur and the Knights of Justice cartoon certainly has it's fans, just as the plastic Brets have their fans. I can't for the life of me figure out WHY.
For some reason I actually own some of the plastics Brets. I also own shedloads of Perry and Warlord plastics (AWI, Napoleonics, ECW, WW2, etc) and _all design choices aside_, the GW plastic Brets - like most of their infantry kits - are inferior to everyone else's. It's blown my mind that so many of GW's basic infantry are pretty crap. My billions of points of Empire has mostly 4th ed metal infantry and Perry-designed 5th/6th plastic infantry; my ginormous HE army has hundreds of metal oop archers and spearmen because the HE hamfist plastic infantry blows; and there's not a damn thing I can do for my 300 Tomb Kings skeletons.... everyone else in the army ('cept good ol' Meatball Head Liche Priest) looks leagues better than those plastic skeletons :( Every other plastic infantry manufacturer on the market makes better plastic infantry - quality and design - except for maybe Eccentric, and that is just a guy in his garage.
Even if Mantic's Men at Arms figures turn out to be mediocre (which looks like there's a good chance of that), that still makes them basically the best generic plastic fantasy 28mm soldiers on the market. Which now makes me wonder why no one has just designed a good plastic 28mm fantasy human kit. There's no real competition.
^ They all think that no-one will buy it because historicals exist.
Mantic themselves held off of making the human army for a very long time for this reason, they assumed everyone wanted to buy historicals instead.
I'll do a little review of the M@A's (along with the rest of the KS stuff) when I receive it. Really hoping it'll be better than I expect in a lot of areas... the tooling quality on the sprues has to be the #1 concern after the infamous chinese goblins.
No sprue pics so far makes me nervous considering they ship in 2 weeks. Mantic never posted an official sprue pic of the goblins either, despite every other hard plastic release before that point getting one.
Well, bearing in mind that many of the Plastic Brettonian and Empire kits are just oversized/heroic scale Perry historicals, I don't see a huge deal overall. If that's your own aesthetic, then fine - and I can appreciate the shields.
Are they? The difference is that Perry plastic kits are exquisitely detailed and high quality. The plastic Bretonnian and Empire soldiers kits are some of the ugliest and worst designed plastic soldiers on the market. While Mantic's men-at-arms are certainly inferior to most of Perry, Fireforge, Warlord kits, they are orders of magnitude better than GW's monkey-faced shoesless Empire shitsoldiers and that laughable construct-your-own-dirty-peasant-action-figure Bretonnian set.
I'll admit that it's entirely possible that I have the older plastics of Empire and Bret, as I picked them up quite awhile ago. Having said that. the designs are based on historicals and have been for decades, despite nominally being "fantasy" figures - with the capital-F-fantasy element being much more pronounced with character models and oddball units like flagellants.
I'll admit that it's entirely possible that I have the older plastics of Empire and Bret, as I picked them up quite awhile ago. Having said that. the designs are based on historicals and have been for decades, despite nominally being "fantasy" figures - with the capital-F-fantasy element being much more pronounced with character models and oddball units like flagellants.
ahh yeah, the plastic multipose Empire soldiers from 5th/6th were sculpted by the Perry's. they're still actively used by historical wargamers for some certain periods (esp Italian medieval/ren)
I am talking about the newest 7th/8th Empire plastics and the last plastic Bret kits.
Does anyone here happen to have a Mantic forum account? if so could you please post the pictures of the Men at Arms plastic sprue from the thread below. (I'd post them myself, but my newly created Mantic account doesn't have access to view images yet...)
http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?5242-Basileans-just-arrived
The first impressions from that thread don't sound to promising, when even Scarletsquig calls something produced by Mantic 'Poor' it really has me concerned about the quality of the miniatures.
Actually I think they're not as bad as these blown-up shots make them look initially. remember you're viewing them at about 300-400% magnification on an average monitor; while I'm not entirely happy and think it could have been better the chainmail is my only real issue with them (and we all know how little that tends to matter when base, dry, wash, dry is how you paint it anyway...)
SS had really, really high hopes for these so that might have coloured his opinion, too - besides, he's certainly not one of the usual fan-choir suspects on the mantic boards.
Very disappointed. It's a fair price for fair-quality fantasy infantry, but it could have been so much better. The real kicker is when you compare the Mantic sprue above to the Perry Men at arms sprue which is from a set that is actually less expensive per-miniature with far more options:
It's a stark contrast (and that's only showing one of the two sprue types in the set!) and pretty bleak for Mantic. More pics and comparisons here http://www.reviewingwargames.com/wargamereviews/perrywotr.html Now the Perry brothers are legend and their WotR figs aren't technically fantasy, but I still scoff at the idea of paying more for less figs that aren't as nice and have less options.
I am so glad I changed my choice from Basilean's to Ogres. Would have been better if I hadn't of pledged at all though I think.
I am a big supporter of Mantic, but they really have slumped badly. If this is the quality of plastic they get back from China, even if they have great 3d sculpts from their designers they will be in poor shape when they are finally cast.
Mantic's sprues are indeed disappointingly bare. When they finally do make a plastic sprue like this - one with so much potential they really need to learn to go all out. (Both sculpting-wise and cramming the suckers full of bits/bobs to make the most of it).
Yikes. That's disappointing.
Watching Manticore releases has been a real roller coaster lately. The KoW stuff really doesn't seem to have lived up to its potential. Those early greens following the KS were very encouraging.
On the flip side the latest dreadball pics and the deadzone sculpts are pretty solid.
I'll do a review once I have my 200+ men-at-arms in-hand, but it's not looking good. Roughly on a par with the goblins it seems, only this time, the tooling looks to be better, but the sculpting looks to be a lot worse.
The chainmail is just plain lazy. Anyone who has a mantic skeleton sprue can see what properly-done chainmail looks like, each link is sculpted, the detail is extremely fine and it looks amazing.
On these models it's just a bunch of circles in neat rows and columns, without any attempt to sculpt links or without even bothering to alternate rows... this basic "poke holes in a flat surface" technique is what people did back in the 80s when they wanted to sculpt chainmail, it's a bit shocking to still see it still used on a sculpt from a modern company paying thousands for plastic tooling.
About the heads... I'm wondering if they are supposed to have mouthpieces/ masks on and the official models were painted incorrectly?
Like this:
I can't think of any other possible way for the giant lips and mouth area to make sense. Surely it has to be a mask?
If they are supposed to have mouthpiece mask, that'd be okay, and would look pretty awesome I think! Would give them a nice crazy religious cult look.
Mantic's painters have screwed up royally when painting minis before (corporation boots painted as if they were skinny turnup jeans) so it is a very real possibility that the heads aren't that bad and the painting made the models look worse.
If anyone with the minis in-hand can let me know what you think on that point that'd be great, I still have no idea if I'll need to replace the heads or not.
I think I'll be fine with using the models, they'll look alright in large blocks etc. I mainly bought them as gaming pieces so from that perspective I'm fine with them.
Then again, I'm happy to buy the mantic goblins for bulk horde purposes (they're not that bad, the sculpts are great but the tooling is a bit "mushy" which really lets them down)... they're a bizarre case where the hybrid metals are much better minis than the plastics (and the same price, too!).
As they are at the moment the only way it seems to salvage these miniatures is to use alternative heads, find some better hands, replace the legs and torso with Perry Miniatures figures, and you should be good. And also perhaps the arms and feet.
Even the shields don't make much sense. I know they wanted to have people putting spears over the top through the part missing in them, but they really should have had a slot through the side. They're impractical if you're using them with swords, or spears anywhere other than through the top.
The Mantic undead rule. They need to go back to how they had things done previously. They're only hurting their own brand by releasing these miniatures as they are.
scarletsquig wrote: About the heads... I'm wondering if they are supposed to have mouthpieces/ masks on and the official models were painted incorrectly?
I think it's meant to be a beard and moustache.
Yeah, those are abysmal. I've said for a long time it would be foolish for Mantic to waste tens of thousands of dollars failing to beat the Perrys at their own game, but even if you're willing to pay extra for Mantic, these are rather blobby.
I'll wait to hold judgment until mine are in hand. But, if they are as bad as people are suggesting, Mantic will be getting an email with a request to replace them with a different set of models.
maybe I'm totally insane, but did everyone else forget that they're standing on 15mm circles? the models are tiny. the "mushiness" looks pretty much the same as these mantic skeletons i'm holding in my hands.
Anything described as "mushiness" can't be good...
That said, I'm not in for those and am happy with the golems I'm getting that timetowaste added on for me. And I had to basically put a lock on my wallet not to buy some ogres. So... they just seem to be hit and miss.
As plastictrees noted, the new Dreadball stuff mostly looks really good. I think with Mantic I just wouldn't feel safe going in big for a large variety of their sculpts, as they seem to incentivize doing in their kickstarters, since some of them are bound to be misses.
But picking and choosing after you see some of it sculpted can result in some pretty good minis for the price, imo.
Yeah. I had backed this thinking their stuff would be up to par with their Undead plastics, as well as some of their Warpath stuff, and had really high hopes based on the concept artwork, but most of that has been thrown out the window, and I am going to try to recover my losses by selling the Ogres I chose. I am hoping this happens, otherwise I spent $250 on this when I had so many other, better kickstarters I could have chosen.
They need to go back to the drawing board with their miniatures and learn that quantity and cheap does not equal good. Hell, the Basilean Men at Arms are more expensive than Perry miniatures and no where near as good.
The only really excellent figures to come from this have been the Obsidian Golems and the hero on the Lion. Most of the others are going to take a fair bit of work to get looking good.
I don't think I will back their projects in the future. I am going to check how the Deadzone kickstarter turns out, because after how the new plastics look, if the same happens to the Enforcers and other plastic troops, people are going to be livid.
Well, if my Basileans come in mushy and looking like crap (I'm gonna detach a single one and paint it up), I'll email Mantic, let them know I'm not satisfied, and ask for a switch of equal value to my ogres. But I won't do that until they come in and I see how they look. I wait to reserve judgment, but I won't lie that I'm a bit nervous at the moment. Here's hoping things work out well.
they look pretty ass-tacular but I know how tiny Mantic models are (most assume they are normal heroic 32mm or whatevs, nope, they're small as hell). thankfully i'm just getting the freebies from the pledge, so if they suck, then no problem. regardless, bad cell phone flash shots are not a way to judge a model; a primed, ink washed size comparison shot would be way more helpful.
but this highlights again Mantic's incredible disconnect with the community at large...
these are the FIRST pictures we've seen of them. the FIRST.
Mantic should have released nice high quality shots of the sprue so that we could judge them properly.
we STILL haven't seen the elf knights. maybe they're brilliant? who the feth knows.
Automatically Appended Next Post: it's unbelievable how they are running this company yet fail to make even the most rudimentary decisions... like, guys, i love you Mantic, really i do, but if you keep punching yourself in the nuts, it's your own damn fault.
Serious question - are they doing the insular-disconnected thing? As in only listening to the feedback of the superfans that live on their own forums and writing off the rest of the internet as "haters" and "noise"?
Because despite hosting the most negative and shameful thread on the internet, most of us here on Dakka are pretty objective when we talk about the quality of sculpts, regardless of the producers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yeah, if the first public photos of the Elf knights are going to be taken by KS backers at this stage, I'm not holding my breath for any kind of quality. (We know it's a pretty safe bet that Winterdyne has the models, probably finished as well.) The reused "we didn't have time to take photos as they went to the casters" lie/excuse is pretty insulting as well.
timetowaste85 wrote: Well, if my Basileans come in mushy and looking like crap (I'm gonna detach a single one and paint it up), I'll email Mantic, let them know I'm not satisfied, and ask for a switch of equal value to my ogres. But I won't do that until they come in and I see how they look. I wait to reserve judgment, but I won't lie that I'm a bit nervous at the moment. Here's hoping things work out well.
Enjoy a 50$ return shipping for that exchange/refund!
I thougth the reasons for the variance was established as a desire to stay on schedule despite a lack of really top notch scupltors being free, combined with a damn-near negligent lack of quality control.
Polonius wrote: I thougth the reasons for the variance was established as a desire to stay on schedule despite a lack of really top notch scupltors being free, combined with a damn-near negligent lack of quality control.
That is probably the case, but damn! If that's actually been stated publicly?
I'd suggest their priorities should be...shifted.
And I dare say that there would be very few people upset over delays IF it meant quality sculpts were the result.
they havne't said anything publicly on that line, that's just supposition.
I'm guessing Mantic has taken a quick look at their books, and realized that they make a lot of money of kickstarters, and being able to claim "we have a track record of making deadlines" while also showing improving quality (by all accounts the dreadball models are consistently better) is a good pitch.
It's frustrating, because more than anything, hard plastic sprues are rare opporunities, and medicore results really hurt the community.
Azazelx wrote: Serious question - are they doing the insular-disconnected thing? As in only listening to the feedback of the superfans that live on their own forums and writing off the rest of the internet as "haters" and "noise"?
I wish they listened to the feedback on their forums. And there are plenty of superfans like me who are vocal in their disgust of gakky models. Everyone seems to think Scarletsquig is a mega fanboy but he tears Mantic new ones with every missed opportunity.
There are definitely some sycophants on the Mantic forums, but that's with any company (GW white knights). I love Mantic because it's a buncha cool guys trying to put out neat things. But they're juggling like 25 balls right now and dropping at least a third of them.
It's really mind boggling how these things seem to shake out.
We're at a moment in the industry where there has never been more competition, and with every passing year more players enter the hard plastic marketplace. Mantic doesn't have the buffer for quality that some companies (PP or Wyrd, for example) have, that their units are so idiosyncratic that their really aren't alternatives. Mantic specializes in models that are intentionally kinda generic.
Consider the Deadzone plastics: when they finally come out, they are going to be (fingers crossed) on the market at roughly the same time as DreamForge puts out wave 3 (Mark's Heavy infantry and female Stormtroopers). Mantic's selling point can't only be that it's cheap.
judgedoug wrote: maybe I'm totally insane, but did everyone else forget that they're standing on 15mm circles? the models are tiny. the "mushiness" looks pretty much the same as these mantic skeletons i'm holding in my hands.
Didn't forget, but there's certain things like the base rim that serve as a good indicator to general tooling quality, even in low quality pictures.. that edge around the rim should be a sharp 90 degree angle between the top of the base and the rim, with a defined corner.
It doesn't have that, it has a curve. The goblins have curved-off integral base rims where they should be crisp edges too (if you look at any pics of any other mantic sprues online, the base rims are sharp)... so it's something you can look at immediately to determine whether the tooling is a bit mushy or not.
I'll do a fair review once I get mine delivered. I think I'll be fairly happy with them, but that's just speaking personally. I'm keen to have a fantasy human army and right now mantic are the only company that makes a proper fantasy human army as opposed to pseudo-historical of some sort (GW empire, bretonnians etc.). I may end up buying some GW demigryph knights to use as chariot proxies for the army, since I absolutely love the look of those (one of the few things in GW's post-7th edition empire range that doesn't look like ass).
timetowaste85 wrote: Well, if my Basileans come in mushy and looking like crap (I'm gonna detach a single one and paint it up), I'll email Mantic, let them know I'm not satisfied, and ask for a switch of equal value to my ogres. But I won't do that until they come in and I see how they look. I wait to reserve judgment, but I won't lie that I'm a bit nervous at the moment. Here's hoping things work out well.
Enjoy a 50$ return shipping for that exchange/refund!
Oh man, I kind of hope they do. Can you imagine the drama that they'll unleash when he posts the email requesting that? PP got away with terrible service for a while because they had great models. Mantic...has already burned through a lot of good will. I think most KS backers are just looking for an excuse to rage at them at this point.
If they send faulty products, they need to make good on it. That's a big if, for me, as I've only been disappointed with a small number of Mantic models. That said, I won't send back unless absolutely hideous, and as my Basilean additions, while through the survey manager, were not part of my original pledge, it's more like a preorder created through false advertising. Again, this is in case I'm unhappy. So far the troll legs haven't bothered me, I like the dwarves and undead, and the ogres are light years ahead of GW. Elves I've only seen pics, Abyssals and orcs are good, and I love the enforcers.
Mantic had a chance to rival GW but I think they have fluffed it, and although some of the models are interesting, I find the majority of them rather Sub Par, the angel army interested me but after seeing them, I'm glad I never pledged.
GW's CS is now far worse than PP now, they put you through hoops just to exchange a finecast monstrosity.
Honestly the best CS was from Wyrd, the guy was so nice and honestly, Id recommend them to everybody.
It'd say Mantic does rival GW. I'd say about 50% of GW's sculpts are garbage, and I'd say about 50% of Mantic's are crap too. Hopefully Mantic will one day pull ahead.
timetowaste85 wrote: Well, if my Basileans come in mushy and looking like crap (I'm gonna detach a single one and paint it up), I'll email Mantic, let them know I'm not satisfied, and ask for a switch of equal value to my ogres. But I won't do that until they come in and I see how they look. I wait to reserve judgment, but I won't lie that I'm a bit nervous at the moment. Here's hoping things work out well.
Enjoy a 50$ return shipping for that exchange/refund!
Oh man, I kind of hope they do. Can you imagine the drama that they'll unleash when he posts the email requesting that? PP got away with terrible service for a while because they had great models. Mantic...has already burned through a lot of good will. I think most KS backers are just looking for an excuse to rage at them at this point.
I have the email... I was forced to do that in order to get my refund for my miscast season 2 models. I would have done season 1 as well but the size and weight would have cost me 80$ to ship it all back. The season 2 stuff was only 40ish dollars.
I decided it would be more cost effective to cancel my season 3 pledge and then buy models at retail than to get them shipped and return them if there are issues. I think they count on the return postage costing more than the models to discourage people.
nkelsch wrote: I think they count on the return postage costing more than the models to discourage people.
Yes, because it's clear that Mantic is actually a hypercompetent, but very low stakes, supervillian. that's way, way more likley than them just being not very good at making minis.
judgedoug wrote: You do know they replace miscast models for free? Of course you do. We were all around when you were throwing a hissy fit.
I've had miscast models. I got ahold of them and they sent me new ones. I didn't have to return anything! derp
Oh Really? Considering 80-90% of season 2 was miscast, they asked me to send it all back. Season 2 cost 52$ invoice, and it cost me 42$ to ship it internationally. I have the email chain to prove it along with my shipping receipt and tracking info.
So I then had them cancel season 3 so I wouldn't get stuck in the same situation.
So beware if you are returning large number of models due to 'dissatisfaction' as they may on a whim to punish you by forcing you to return them via expensive postage. Something to consider if the images look 'poor' and you have second thoughts about a specific army you pledged for. You can pretend it 'doesn't work that way' but it does.
But feel free to blame me. I am just warning people they are better off not waiting for 'models in hand' to want to return them. Better change your pledge before it ships to make sure you get something you will be happy with.
nkelsch, just a tip on shipping to the UK... since the shipping price hike, I've used first class mail several times instead of priority. It actually arrived in the same amount of time, and was (I believe) about half the cost, or maybe even a bit less.
So... just something to keep in mind for the future!
If we could avoid rehashing that whole issue, I'd appreciate it though. I think the issue with the models here (KoW) is more of a lackluster original sculpt, than with "miscasts".
judgedoug wrote: You do know they replace miscast models for free? Of course you do. We were all around when you were throwing a hissy fit.
I've had miscast models. I got ahold of them and they sent me new ones. I didn't have to return anything! derp
Oh Really? Considering 80-90% of season 2 was miscast, they asked me to send it all back. Season 2 cost 52$ invoice, and it cost me 42$ to ship it internationally. I have the email chain to prove it along with my shipping receipt and tracking info.
So I then had them cancel season 3 so I wouldn't get stuck in the same situation.
So beware if you are returning large number of models due to 'dissatisfaction' as they may on a whim to punish you by forcing you to return them via expensive postage. Something to consider if the images look 'poor' and you have second thoughts about a specific army you pledged for. You can pretend it 'doesn't work that way' but it does.
But feel free to blame me. I am just warning people they are better off not waiting for 'models in hand' to want to return them. Better change your pledge before it ships to make sure you get something you will be happy with.
Yes, you demanded a refund instead of a replacement. A refund on an investment. Hell, I wouldn't refund anyone, it's fething Kickstarter. If you don't want to fund stuff sight-unseen, then pre-order it after it's actually manufactured. But Mantic is excellent at _replacing_ miscast models for free.
judgedoug wrote: You do know they replace miscast models for free? Of course you do. We were all around when you were throwing a hissy fit.
I've had miscast models. I got ahold of them and they sent me new ones. I didn't have to return anything! derp
Oh Really? Considering 80-90% of season 2 was miscast, they asked me to send it all back. Season 2 cost 52$ invoice, and it cost me 42$ to ship it internationally. I have the email chain to prove it along with my shipping receipt and tracking info.
So I then had them cancel season 3 so I wouldn't get stuck in the same situation.
So beware if you are returning large number of models due to 'dissatisfaction' as they may on a whim to punish you by forcing you to return them via expensive postage. Something to consider if the images look 'poor' and you have second thoughts about a specific army you pledged for. You can pretend it 'doesn't work that way' but it does.
But feel free to blame me. I am just warning people they are better off not waiting for 'models in hand' to want to return them. Better change your pledge before it ships to make sure you get something you will be happy with.
Yes, you demanded a refund instead of a replacement. A refund on an investment. Hell, I wouldn't refund anyone, it's fething Kickstarter. If you don't want to fund stuff sight-unseen, then pre-order it after it's actually manufactured. But Mantic is excellent at _replacing_ miscast models for free.
But people returning gakky models because they look like garbage as was just discussed, you think mantic is going to exchange them 'for free'? No, if they ship you 200$ of models and they look like crap and you want to return them, prepare to pay a hefty international shipping penalty.
Hence if you are unsure of the quality of the sculpt and you might not be happy with them from the released photos and Mantics sketchy 'previews' then tell them to change your pledge to something you are pretty confident you will enjoy. By your own words, people should expect to 'eat it' if they dislike the final result regardless if Mantic previews it or not right? Then Mantic is incentivized to hide previews, send models sight-unseen and then encourage people to 'keep' them due to high return postage.
And they were not going to 'replace' my season 2 miscast pledge 'for free' and since I have no faith they could send me models which didn't have the sprue tears and mold lines in different parts of the model which didn't damage detail, I wanted a refund instead of 'replacement.' when I was going to be out 40$ either way and I would rather pick them up at retail where a 'return' doesn't cost me more than the model.
judgedoug wrote: Yes, you demanded a refund instead of a replacement. A refund on an investment. Hell, I wouldn't refund anyone, it's fething Kickstarter.
You might wish you had, if you were found to be in violation of the relevant consumer protection laws.
judgedoug wrote: Yes, you demanded a refund instead of a replacement. A refund on an investment. Hell, I wouldn't refund anyone, it's fething Kickstarter.
You might wish you had, if you were found to be in violation of the relevant consumer protection laws.
Azazelx wrote: Serious question - are they doing the insular-disconnected thing? As in only listening to the feedback of the superfans that live on their own forums and writing off the rest of the internet as "haters" and "noise"?
I wish they listened to the feedback on their forums. And there are plenty of superfans like me who are vocal in their disgust of gakky models. Everyone seems to think Scarletsquig is a mega fanboy but he tears Mantic new ones with every missed opportunity.
There are definitely some sycophants on the Mantic forums, but that's with any company (GW white knights). I love Mantic because it's a buncha cool guys trying to put out neat things. But they're juggling like 25 balls right now and dropping at least a third of them.
It's all relative. Squiggy is a megafan by Dakka standards, but I understand that he's far from it on the Mantic boards, and gets shouted down a lot whenever he raises these issues. I personally hate official forums and tend to avoid them like the plague, so I'd rather have that extra degree of separation by posting and getting my news from here instead, and aside from the few times I've skimmed them or gone looking for something specific, don't have a firsthand "feel" for their forums. I agree that Squiggy has become much more critical of gakky Mantic releases here as well, and I love him for that. /brohug
Automatically Appended Next Post:
RiTides wrote: Ugh, can we get back on topic guys... that is a rabbit trail I think most of us have no desire to go down.
The last wave of this is shipping soon, right? I am looking forward to getting my golems
Actually, if there are consumer protection laws that apply here, or to this sort of thing, I'd love to learn about them. The usual retort to KS is "well, it's a KS, you shoulda knew it was a gamble that you'd get anything at all", so any actual hard info on consumer protection would be welcomed.
Don't worry Tides, I'm looking forward to getting my models with your golems and passing them on. Despite my saying if things were amiss, I'd email them, I expect to be okay with things and I'll look forward to my 60 paladins, 80-100 MaAs, 20 mounted Pallies and sisters. Yeah, I went all out. Lol.
Buzzsaw wrote: It's really mind boggling how these things seem to shake out.
We're at a moment in the industry where there has never been more competition, and with every passing year more players enter the hard plastic marketplace. Mantic doesn't have the buffer for quality that some companies (PP or Wyrd, for example) have, that their units are so idiosyncratic that their really aren't alternatives. Mantic specializes in models that are intentionally kinda generic.
To be fair, there's currently a 8+ page thread on the PP forums complaining about their own plastic models
Well, the best plastics manufacturers are Wargames Factory and Renedra at this point. Mantic really really needs to partner up with them (or re-partner in the case of Renedra).
Actually, interestingly, recent Warlord releases that I've gotten have been on sprues that have not had the ubiquitious "made in england by renedra" stamped on the frame. I know there was a rumor that Warlord was going to start doing plastic in-house but I wonder if it's more that they found another plastics company and have perhaps invested heavily into them.
My point being - Mantic and Warlord should join forces, like Mongoose has for the Dredd minis game.
Yeah, this is definitely something they need to do. Also, hooking back up with Bob Naismith or another talented bloke to do the sculpting would be a great boon too. Too many unknown talents making mediocre or poor sculpts in the KoW kickstarter unfortunately.
There was that independant company who was making their own plastic injection via a kickstarter, but I didn't see how that went. I don't think they were interested in getting into it, which is a shame.
^ You mean PDC which had a successful KS that I backed?
That's... actually quite interesting, now that you mention it.
Their sprues look like this:
Round sprue rather than square, no labelling other than on flat label pieces within the sprue itself.
Which is basically identical to what the men at arms sprues look like.
Possibility that Mantic are already using them? Or do lots of companies tool sprues in this sort of fashion?
I'm thinking probably not since PDC only got up and running about 3 months back and have had a ton of their own stuff to do (which is looking really high quality) but it's interesting to note the similarities while trying to guess the tooling company.
Still eagerly awaiting the pics of the (rather elusive!) hard plastic stormwind cavalry and dark knights.. if anyone gets their KS delivery, get those cellphone pics on dakka pronto!
It's all relative. Squiggy is a megafan by Dakka standards, but I understand that he's far from it on the Mantic boards, and gets shouted down a lot whenever he raises these issues.
Not at all, people are fine with criticism on the mantic boards and more people should join. The only thing they have a short fuse for over there is permanently negative armchair analysts (the kind that don't buy the models or play the game but complain anyway), extremely harshly-worded criticism or people who complain about mantic lowering their prices (yes, this has actually become one of the most common complaints about mantic. ).
It's kickstarter comments sections that get ugly, you can't post anything without getting mobbed, or having the comment buried under a 100-comment long ramble where the same 3-5 backers talk about their pet dogs/ cars/ babies. :p
And even then, the comments on the updates aren't afflicted by this, making them the best place to have a sane discussion during a mantic KS.
. Well, that deserves some discussion... I feel that a Mantic-specific mass thread for trading might do better in the Mantic subforum. Let me ask the other swapmods and get back to you...
Say it ain't so! 
