Haven't heard anything outside Nightstalkers getting rules for Deadzone
that they update the Asterian and Matsudan boxes witht he new models was expected
Resin upgrades for Marionettes (I used Puppteswar Bushi/Samurai bits in the past) and a new Mech are unexpected but welcomed addition
not sure what is with the Kalyshi but I guess a re-design as the previous metal designs did not work well with resin (but here I see the plastic Twilight Kin as the better option aynway)
PS: for the general design in Warpath/Nightstalkers, I like the overal look if it and always thought the Reapers fit better in a SciFi setting than the fantasy one
they are also focusing less on human based looks of models and try to be different which is I guess what some people don't like (specially when talking about bad proportions of alien models, were not looking like a human is a feature not a bug)
they made some bad decisions in the past and good designs were hindered by bad casting, which now should be solved by having a proper partner for making the models
I am really curious about when or whether Rebs and Veer-Myn Volt Runners will return to Deadzone.
I’m not too interested in Nightstalkers. I really hated the scarecrows when I came across then for KoW Vanguard. The rest of the line doesn’t hook me much.
But I love Asterians and Matsudan. Having new plastic Cyphers is amazing. Same for plastic Matsudan.
Also don’t overlook the Matsudan gravbike and crocodogs above!
Zethnar wrote: ... and aiming for it is probably driving away more customers than it's pulling in.
I'm curious as to how you would arrive at that conclusion, honestly.
Mantic might still be in business but the major complaint you hear any time you mention their products is that the models just aren't very good. This isn't some "I bought a box of Enforcers and didn't like the way the arms fit into the shoulders" kind of complaint either, this is mostly just the take on their aesthetic from people who have never purchased a product from them.
So yeah, I guess there's a market for the saturday morning cartoon style sci-fi they produce because someone is keeping them in business, but honestly, I've never personally seen one of their games out in the wild unless it's been me playing it, while I tend to otherwise see a lot of Star Wars, Warmachine, and Bolt Action, other games that would ostensibly occupy the same "more popular but not 40k niche".
That's your perception and what we perceive has usually little to do with state of things.
Mantic's products are improving and their last plastic kits are good, well sculpted and easy to build. And are relatively cheap.
And please remember that a giant like GW is still selling miniatures that are 20 years old (yes, I am thinking about Tow and especially ME:SBG that is their best game hand down).
Moreover Mantic ruleset are usually good, not perfect for sure but good (ask Kow players, that game is probably the most balanced game out there in rank'n'file niche AND is fast and fun)
Yeah, I mean, why would anyone buy the rereleased Old World goblins when the superior and cheaper(?) mantic goblins exist? Mantic does have great kits and apparently great rules, I feel they're not good at presentation of their products and their factions often lack a coherent Design.
Johanxp wrote: That's your perception and what we perceive has usually little to do with state of things.
Mantic's products are improving and their last plastic kits are good, well sculpted and easy to build. And are relatively cheap.
And please remember that a giant like GW is still selling miniatures that are 20 years old (yes, I am thinking about Tow and especially ME:SBG that is their best game hand down).
Moreover Mantic ruleset are usually good, not perfect for sure but good (ask Kow players, that game is probably the most balanced game out there in rank'n'file niche AND is fast and fun)
This is my general perception of Mantic too. The games, miniatures, designs and scope have all been improving steadily.
I have read comments very similar to Zethnar's for at least the past 7-8 years. Mantic are trying to do something extremely difficult, which is to survive in an industry utterly dominated by one very large company, but they keep plugging at it and so far I think they are doing a damned good job.
The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.
40k is huge, AOS is pretty big, but it seems there are enough people playing a few other fantasy/SF games that in my local area I've found one person who plays semi-regularly.
mattl wrote: The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.
You up in the Northeast US? There are a bunch of us playing Kings up here, big events every few months and looks like we might have some single-dayers happening too. July 13 is a 1500 pointer in Springfield, MA, for example ...
But if you're talking about not-Kings, I got nothing. Any non-Kings Mantic I've played has been with my KOW club.
lord_blackfang wrote: They had good art direction in their middle era, in the time of KoW 2 and Warpath kickstarters, then they pivoted towards World of Warcraft style.
Sometimes I think I'm the only person who actually loved Mantic's Warcraft Orcs.
mattl wrote: The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.
You up in the Northeast US? There are a bunch of us playing Kings up here, big events every few months and looks like we might have some single-dayers happening too. July 13 is a 1500 pointer in Springfield, MA, for example ...
But if you're talking about not-Kings, I got nothing. Any non-Kings Mantic I've played has been with my KOW club.
Nice. Springfield is far for me but others in the group may be interested. We recently started a Discord for all things Mantic in the New England area.
For what it's worth, I'm in New Hampshire. No one around here seems to be playing anything Mantic, but that's just my immediate area; I can't speak for the whole state. Locally I've only seen people playing role-playing games and 40K.
Fantasy and mass army battles aren't my thing, but I have plenty of Deadzone stuff, and if anyone around is doing that, I'd be interested. I will check out that New England Discord. I might be interested in Halo, but it's a bit hard to get excited about buying into that when I have enough Deadzone models to play any faction. (Not that they're all built and painted yet, mind . . .)
Technically speaking, are Mantic games "Miniatures Agnostic" like Frostgrave and Stargrave? (Meaning they officially don't care what miniatures you use?) Just curious. As I said, I've supported Mantic plenty over the years and have many of their models.
As for whether Mantic is always getting better, that's a complex question and to some degree a matter of taste. The original Deadzone kickstarter got me back into the miiatures hobby, and I'll always have a fond association with Mantic because of that, so I'm definitely not a "hater." But these days I've gravitated towards the "Oldhammer" part of the spectrum, and Mantic's golden era of hand-sculpted models has passed. (I'm not saying I loved all of them - there certainly were a number of turkeys - but I liked a lot of them.) Mantic is also moving away from PVC models now. I know a lot of people can't stand PVC, but the lower cost barrier of casting PVC allowed Mantic to make a lot of creative one-off sculpts, which is why their catalogue is so rich with unique sci-fi aliens, among other things. It's also why they're finding it so hard to do a new iteration of the Rebs, because making polystyrene sprues for 6 to 7 completely different alien types is cost prohibitive. This is also why the new polystyrene Cyphers come in much fewer poses than the old PVC ones did.
The new Cyphers are a good illustration of why saying Mantic is just "getting better" across the board is subjective. The PVC Cyphers were a bitch to clean the mold lines from, absolutely, and the new ones will be much easier to clean and assemble. Whether that makes them better than the old ones depends on what you value more, pose variety or ease of working with the material, so it comes down to your personal preferences.
There are two areas where I think Mantic has clearly advanced, but I admit that the first one is an educated guess on my part. Given that there's now a team of people dedicated to Mantic's games who vet, playtest, and upgrade the rules, I strongly suspect that Mantic's game rules have improved. I just have to admit that I haven't tested those improved rule systems yet myself.
Second, the use of Archon to make their hard plastics instead of various Chinese companies has been a dramatic improvement. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but having followed Mantic for a long time, the Archon-produced Reapers were the first Mantic kit I'd seen that were fully and unequivocally equal to Games Workshop in quality (crispness, detail, etc.) There are other, Chinese-made Mantic plastic kits that I like and use, like their space Zombies, but if I'm honest, they don't match GW's level of quality.
But here's the thing - there is no guarantee that Mantic will stay with Archon in the future, fulfilling a "better and better" upward curve. If Archon decides to devote all of their casting resources to some new in-house project, that's it. Or if Archon decides to raise their prices above what Mantic is willing to pay, then Mantic will probably go back to using Chinese manufacturers again. If that happens, I expect that the quality of Mantic's plastic kits will once again vary from release to release, as they have in the past.
I'm not saying any of the above to root for Mantic's downfall. On the contrary, I hope they continue their partnership with Archon well into the future and produce lots of kits that are, in my opinion, truly on par with the best that GW has to offer. But realistically, how long that partnership continues depends on factors that Mantic doesn't completely control, so who knows?
mattl wrote: The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.
That's the same for any non GW game. Some areas have a scene, most don't. I used to be able to get an Infinity game easy as, now I'd have to drive for an hour. On the other hand a few years ago Bolt action was unheard of here, now it's the second most played game a my club.
If you want opponents to play most games you unfortunately usually have to work at it yourself.
Yeah I would like to see it happen but there are a nice variety of Mantic games which is great but you have some people who don’t want to play KoW, others only want to play KoW and then the upcoming Halo game will do well but I don’t know how well it’ll convert players to any other Mantic games.
My enthusiasm for assembling and painting anything is low because I struggle to think it’ll ever see any play. I’d like to focus on just getting a single Kings of War army together but the small local community here wants to play Kings of War and Vanguard and Firefight and Deadzone and Armada and Epic Warpath and Halo… but there’s about as many people as game systems at that point.
Local stores have struggled to get Mantic stuff in stock and it doesn’t seem to help when they do. I bought a few Ambush starters for KoW to try and show some support.
Another year will go by and I’ll have played 0 games of anything again. It’s hard to really justify this as my hobby beyond buying stuff and looking at it at this point. It doesn’t help that New England weather is either too hot or too cold either.
I’m honestly thinking I should focus on AoS Spearhead if I want to actually play something, anything. I’ll see how that goes after launch.
Technically speaking, are Mantic games "Miniatures Agnostic" like Frostgrave and Stargrave? (Meaning they officially don't care what miniatures you use?) Just curious.
like in official Kings of War tournaments, non-Mantic is allowed, you are just excluded from best painted prices as this is labeled as best painted Mantic army
on the other side, the rules are sold independent from the models and include models Mantic does not make, so conversions and alternatives are a thing anyway
(with the new version of FireFight they go a different way here as there are only available models in the lists, which was also something people saw as a disadvantage in the past if not everything got an official model)
Technically speaking, are Mantic games "Miniatures Agnostic" like Frostgrave and Stargrave? (Meaning they officially don't care what miniatures you use?) Just curious.
like in official Kings of War tournaments, non-Mantic is allowed, you are just excluded from best painted prices as this is labeled as best painted Mantic army
)
I think there was the additional rule that any army could win the tournament but only a Mantic Army could advance to the final Championships in the UK.
mattl wrote: I think the rules for minimum model count are greater at official tournaments too.
IIRC, and with the caveat that I haven't had time to pay proper attention this edition (or any wargaming), Mantic dropped MMC from the official terminology so PMC became the official minimum (is that MMC = previous size +1 model vs PMC = 75% of correct size, I forget and I'm at work?), but in the KoW wider community mostly accepts MMC.
A lot comes down to the Event/Tournie organiser anyway doesn't it. I've seen everything from an army comprised of movement trays being acceptable at a WHFB event to ones insisting on 3/4 colour minimum and absolute WYSIWYG.
The guys who run Mantic seem pretty relaxed and with a sense of humour (and probably don't have the luxury of enforcing strict rules around minis) so I'm sure if your miniatures and collection are a fair stab at whatever they are meant to represent it shouldn't matter.
Pacific wrote: I'm sure if your miniatures and collection are a fair stab at whatever they are meant to represent it shouldn't matter.
The slowly tightening rules are there exactly because some folks don't do a fair stab unless forced to. The last push I remember was because folks were bringing Kinder egg toys and dollar store dinosaurs without even going over the original paint.
Does that first mech look any less of a Battletech mech? I'm not an expert there, but nearly all giant, bi-pedal walkers look like something from Battletech to me...
Does that first mech look any less of a Battletech mech? I'm not an expert there, but nearly all giant, bi-pedal walkers look like something from Battletech to me...
I think anything in B&W line art will make most people think Battletech. The top missile launchers remind me of the old terminator missile pods, they even have the same shape of a truncated pyramid.
Lol, I thought someone might respond with Gundam, or perhaps mention Pacific Rim.
Well yes, but at least those are things which don't necessarily have the same presence or footprint within the wargaming market. Though I'd probably stay more blocky Power Rangers/Transformers style for GCPS, and save the sleeker Gundam style for future Enforcers expansion.
Baragash wrote: I wonder if leaning into a more humanoid, head-above-the-shoulders look would have been better to avoid comparisons to Battletech and 40k?
Battletech have so very many different aesthetics that anything mech like could be said to draw comparisons with it.
I mean... this is Battletech
Spoiler:
...but so are these
Spoiler:
...just without getting ourselves into the whole "Unseens" kerfuffle.
no matter what the design will be, it will always be similar to an existing design in the basic shapes simply because we have already seen everything
it is just what is more similar to the people interested in EWP that will be called out
be it Gundam, Battletech, Titanicus or Avatar
Lol, I thought someone might respond with Gundam, or perhaps mention Pacific Rim.
Well yes, but at least those are things which don't necessarily have the same presence or footprint within the wargaming market. Though I'd probably stay more blocky Power Rangers/Transformers style for GCPS, and save the sleeker Gundam style for future Enforcers expansion.
Ah see when I think pacific rim I mainly think of cherno alpha which is not quite "head on shoulders"
Does that first mech look any less of a Battletech mech? I'm not an expert there, but nearly all giant, bi-pedal walkers look like something from Battletech to me...
There's allot of Battletech style in both of those walkers.
The first one however reminds me most of Reaper CAV. Especially in the stance, bulk, blocky lines, and use of helicopter style cockpit.
I dont get mad at derivative mechs though.
It's hard to get around the influence of Battletech and the Macross, Dougram and Crusher Joe Mecha designs that made up most Battletech's early output. The designs are iconic enough to burn into designers heads and just diverse enough that it's difficult to design something without some similarities.
It looks like the strike teams are the formerly PVC, metal, and/or resin teams that have already been released via their Vaults subscription.
I think I'm going to back for the All Terrain tier, though. I have several unbuilt plastic sets, but there's always some tiles you want more of, and it'll be nice to be able to print to my needs going forward.
Albertorius wrote: Got a mail from Mantic stating they need to close the Epic Warpath PM by the end of august, so I completed it...
Ended up with double Captain for all the factions plus all the STLs ^^
Good to meet you, fellow crazy person! :-)
I did double Captain for six factions, plus two of each of their Reinforcement Boxes in resin, plus acrylic token sets for two.
This year has been a real epiphany. I broke from GW, and have been so much happier. A big part of that was going hard on what really excited me in the hobby, not just what I felt bullied into playing because of the presence of prebuilt "community" (most of whom, locally, were toxic donkey-caves who actively made gaming feel like work).
My wife and I will focus our 2025 on Epic Warpath, and Ravaged Star, while happily keeping to ourselves, and rediscovering why we fell in love with miniature wargaming.
I did double Captain for six factions, plus two of each of their Reinforcement Boxes in resin, plus acrylic token sets for two.
My wife and I will focus our 2025 on Epic Warpath, and Ravaged Star, while happily keeping to ourselves, and rediscovering why we fell in love with miniature wargaming.
This was nice to read. I hope you two have a blast and many epic encounters.
This was nice to read. I hope you two have a blast and many epic encounters.
Thanks. We really have increasingly felt our hobbies were becoming chores, and our decisions were being manipulated by bad actors, and even worse companies. Its very liberating to go, "Nah... we can decide what games would make us happy all by ourselves, thanks."
Mantic gets a lot of grief from some because their models aren't always A+++ top-tier... and yet they make games that almost universally play really well. They also have great folks at all levels of the company. Its VERY easy to support Mantic.
I went to a looot of effort to rally around 8 players (half of whom I trust to ever actually put models on the table)
But we were all of us deceived, for another playgroup was made.
An offshoot of our club who kinda retreated into isolation and only play Bloodbowl and Flames of War have jumped on board en masse, so somehow we have 15+ folks now pledging for the plastics and a near perfect spread of factions.
I'd say we're safe from that. The very early rules document Mantic openly shared was already rock-solid. By all accounts, every beta test since just got better and better.
At least as of early rules, only morale seeming a bit underwhelming stood out as needing adjustments.
I ended up pledging for Veermyn, Nameless, Marauders and Forge Fathers. And I have three people piggybacking on my pledge for Enforcers, so Mantic might call social services on me.
The rulebook is out for translation. Once it comes back, it will be ready to have final pictures added, and then prepared for print!
Studio photography for the rulebook is also now in progress.
Miniatures Update
We are coming to the end of making the pre-production tweaks to our plastic models, and they will then be resubmitted to the factory for checking. The last few plastic models are also being finished, with any known fixes already accounted for.
Once the plastic pre-production work is finished, the last of the resin models can then be finished. They’ve been temporarily on pause while our studio team finalise all the plastic models ready for production and tooling.
In Summary
So, while we don't have any new pretty pictures for you this time, there's LOTS of important preparations being made for the next phase of bringing Epic Warpath to life. We'll be back in touch in early 2025, and will of course keep you in the loop throughout all the exciting developments coming up.
I imagine they're able to get an early sprue for the photography?
EDIT. They addressed this.
On the question, tooling won't be until 2025. We're currently tweaking individual components for manufacturing prior to sprue layout of the final versions of each piece. At that point, we will know exactly how much space remains to increase the size of the vehicles where we'd love to do this. We'll definitely update everyone on this topic once we have the final layout!
given by the lead time of printed books and the sprues, there is a good chance that they are using 3D prints for any pictures made prior release (like even GW use 3D prints for pictures of their models)
lord_blackfang wrote: That's what I'm saying. Photography for book pictures (with 3d prints) will lock in the current, undersized vehicles.
It's a weird move, for sure, when they could just... take the photos when they lock down the sizes on the sprues. It's not like they want to give people the rulebook before the minis after all... and even if they wanted to, they could do it anyways, as production would still take a (probably long) while.
Kinda making me think they're gonna go "ah, well, sorry everyone but we actually couldn't embiggen the vehicles and keep the number of them the same on the sprues, so we didn't". I'm personally not very worried about it, but it could be a real issue for some people, if that turns out to be true.
I prefer scale fidelity in my games but im so detached and disconnected from the lore of the game that i probably wouldnt notice the vehicle scale was off if others didnt point it out
lord_blackfang wrote: That's what I'm saying. Photography for book pictures (with 3d prints) will lock in the current, undersized vehicles.
It's a weird move, for sure, when they could just... take the photos when they lock down the sizes on the sprues. It's not like they want to give people the rulebook before the minis after all... and even if they wanted to, they could do it anyways, as production would still take a (probably long) while.
Kinda making me think they're gonna go "ah, well, sorry everyone but we actually couldn't embiggen the vehicles and keep the number of them the same on the sprues, so we didn't". I'm personally not very worried about it, but it could be a real issue for some people, if that turns out to be true.
They're going to be getting the book printed for them at the very least (assuming they're set up to do the layout themselves) so they're at the mercy of what slots are available at the printers, miss the slot and they may need to wait too long for another meaning a missed release slot, so making sure everthing is finished on time may require compromises
After a very, very long time of playing with tiny Epic rhinos that absolutely could not fit 10 marines inside, Ork Battlewagons too, as long as its reasonably in scale, and you can tell what it is meant to be doing, I am honestly not too bothered.
Overall aesthetic, ease of build, plastics quality and price I would place above that in terms of importance - but understanding this is a very subjective thing.
KS delivery is delayed from March to May because of a change in resin production (resin infantry and similar small models are changed to 3D printing instead of casting)
People can change address in the pledge manager until end of February
mattl wrote: I’ve seen the difference between 1K and 4K printers, and 4K printers seem to be very common for home printers now.
I never got along with resin printing at home myself.
As far as I understand, in 3d printer land they appoint resolution to the absolute size, rather than an inch or other set measurement. So 14k doesn’t necessarily mean anything good, if the plate they print it on is gargantuan. But I might be mistaken, as im going off a loose memory of a video about 3d printing I’ve seen a while ago.
I assumed it was resolution of the display and that 4k being common for home printers now is because the price of a 4k LCD screen is now much cheaper than it was a few years ago.
The cheaper printers got larger displays but kept the same pixel size and therefore got higher total numbers but the same resolution (which is between 30 and 100 microns).
14k on a 6" display would be impressive on a 12" display not so much
Yet a big difference between industrial/professional printers and home printers is the light source and pixel size
mattl wrote: I’ve seen the difference between 1K and 4K printers, and 4K printers seem to be very common for home printers now.
I never got along with resin printing at home myself.
As far as I understand, in 3d printer land they appoint resolution to the absolute size, rather than an inch or other set measurement. So 14k doesn’t necessarily mean anything good, if the plate they print it on is gargantuan. But I might be mistaken, as im going off a loose memory of a video about 3d printing I’ve seen a while ago.
Yes, but not only that. The number of ks that a given screen has doesn't matter whit, what you want to know is the size of the pixels, which is what actually matters.
And then there's the issue of screen density, where a bigger "k" number actually ends up detracting from the print quality because, while in theory the pixels are smaller, there's a point of diminishing returns with screen density where due to the aforementioned density (the screen is more packed with the needed electronics to have all that many pixels) mean that you need to extend light exposure to actually cure the resin above, which ends up causing blooming with a regular light source, and making the number of extra pixels moot unless you go for a really high end printer with much better light sources.
In short? Resolution hasn't actually been better in the last couple screen generations, even though the number of ks have increased, and we're kind of backpedalling on that regard.
As to actual pixel size, anything below about 30 microns is more or less overkill. By way of example, this week I downscaled some Anvil Digital 28mm minis down to 10mm (which is very ineficcient, because downscaling thin downs thedetail a whole lot) to use as Armoured Clash infantry. That's about the same scale as Epic Warpath regular infantry, and this was the result, with something that's very badly suited for it, on an Uniformation GKTwo, which is "8k", with a 10'' screen and a pixel size of 29 microns:
Spoiler:
I guarantee you that going from an "8k" screen to a "14k" or however big arbitrary number you go, it will make little if any difference whatsoever.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
kodos wrote: The cheaper printers got larger displays but kept the same pixel size and therefore got higher total numbers but the same resolution (which is between 30 and 100 microns).
14k on a 6" display would be impressive on a 12" display not so much
Yet a big difference between industrial/professional printers and home printers is the light source and pixel size
On paper we're on the 16-24 microns range nowadays... but that's mostly on paper
Yea resolution on a 10" 8K printer is about on the edge of what a human eye can resolve, 12k is safely beyond it, further increase is pointless (and is probably bottlenecked in other components anyway).
Thats dependent on the size of your screen, those resolutions on a 3"x5" screen will produce different results from the same resolution on a 36"x60" screen.
It sounds like resolution isn't a helpful measurement.
the original announcement says "We’re taking things up a notch! All of the 'reinforcements' infantry units will now receive a quality upgrade, thanks to an exciting new partnership with the expert team at AmeraLabs.
We’ll be using their Master Quality Resins to produce these particular units at 14k resolution and ultra-thin 0.02 layer heights, to ensure that these very super-finely-detailed units will look their absolute best.
The other 'reinforcements' units, such as vehicles and Super-Heavies already achieve a fantastic result in hand-cast resin, so this change is specific to the 'reinforcements' infantry."
AmeraLabs seems to be selling a specialized resin for miniatures, but is "ultra-thin 0.02 layer heights" especially low?
On Kickstarter Mantic confirmed "We use Anycubic M7 Pro for our printing, and have worked with AmeraLabs directly to tune in the SioMaster Resin for production printing."
Also they confirmed still no word on the vehicle sizes, they're waiting on final sprue designs.
[quote=mattlAmeraLabs seems to be selling a specialized resin for miniatures, but is "ultra-thin 0.02 layer heights" especially low?
ER... it's the "detail" level, but most of the time, overkill. "default" layer height for a resin printer is 50 microns (0.05). Making layers 20 microns make (obviously, duh) each layer much thinner, which increase the Z axis accuracy and makes layers and voxel lines much less noticeable.
I have printed a fair bit of stuff at 20, 25, 30 and 50 microns, and nowadays I've found that the sweet spot is around 30. But yes, that is a much better measure of what they're doing than "14k".
Ideally they'd be telling you the machine, the resin, the pixel size and the layer height.
I see they answered my question! . So M7 Pros, then. That's a pretty decent printer with some weird quirks, but it also tells us that pixel size is 16.8x24.8 microns, and it has a COB light source and Fresnel collimating lens, which means it's decently precise. Only issue it really has (for our purposes) is blooming, due to the screen, but you won't notice anything at all.
That's perfectly adequate and very good to know. Only thing left would be the specific resin, but I expect they'd use a "tough" one.
EDIT: Well... and hopefully they would have changed the ACF film.
Is it me or Epic Warpath minis have the same "issue" of Vanguard DiD minis? like amazing infantry but vehicles are meh... guess I'll wait until I have them on my hands.
SU-152 wrote: Is it me or Epic Warpath minis have the same "issue" of Vanguard DiD minis? like amazing infantry but vehicles are meh... guess I'll wait until I have them on my hands.
A little bit, yeah, which makes sense being the same designs, but yeah, Mantic vehicles tend to be a bit uninspired... I think the only one I really, really like is the truck.
I just received an order of a Halfling Battlegroup, Halfling Howitzer, and a Northern Alliance Frostclaw Riders Regiment.
I have to say I am really impressed with these miniatures. Mantic's game has stepped up really well in more recent releases. The Frostclaw Riders are damn amazing, and well worth it for just the conversion opportunities alone, as well as the bonus 2 wings you get per box.
Looking forward to converting the Frostclaws to be mounts for Cult of Taal Empire Captains with the Dragon Bow for Warhammer: The Old World. Will likely remove and resculpt the platform on the back, and have the riders sitting closer up on the neck. The Dwarfs supplied (4 per kit) can make extra bodies or be used as characters to join in with the GW ME Dwarves I am using which are the same scale.
The Halfling troops will be given 28mm scale Dwarf heads so they can fit in with the GW Middle Earth Dwarfs, and become Thunderers. All my armies are in 28mm scale as it allows me to use cheaper historical miniatures compared to GW ones, as well as the occaisional Middle Earth ones as characters. Their mounts will be used with wolf heads to make mounts for my Goblin Wolfriders. I think they will work really well, and look very different to a lot of other manufacturers wolves. Plus, all the Goblins I have to put on mounts are smaller than the current GW ones, so they'll fit nicely. The spear arms will be used for my Chaos force to make lances, once I extend them out a bit with some tubing with the same diameter. Will need to find ways to add the shield arms to my current GW ME Dwarfs to give them a nice variation. Either that or scrape the arm parts off and glue them to the back of the miniature with a strap going across their body. I feel these miniatures will work really well to look like a more rag-tag mercenary group.
The Halfling Howitzer will also have the same happen, with me changing it to being crewed by Dwarfs. It comes with both a multibarrel gun, which could be either an Organ Gun for Dwarves, or an Empire Hellblaster, depending on what you're using them for. It also comes with a mortar, but that's only going to be really useful for the Empire if you ever choose to run one of those.
Overall, really great miniatures, and it's really good to see better art direction and design choices come through for Mantic.
^ The spare frostclaw wings are great for converting pegasus captains if you have an Empire army and don't want the usual route of just using a bretonnian one.
scarletsquig wrote: ^ The spare frostclaw wings are great for converting pegasus captains if you have an Empire army and don't want the usual route of just using a bretonnian one.
I forgot to write in that this is exactly what I mean to do. Use two Frostclaws as pegasus mounts for Cult of Taal captain characters, and then use the wings to convert two Victrix or Perry horses into Pegasus mounts for other character types. There is a hell of a lot of use in this kit. I don't much care for the platform the dwarves stand on, but I think I should be able to convert that up easily enough. As I am only likely to need two of these, I think this box set is a really good deal.
Does anyone know if Mantic are planning to preview any of the Epic Warpath minis at Salute in a few weeks time?
I actually got a sneak peek last year at some early designs with one of the rules designers, hoping they might have a bit more to show this time around.
Pacific wrote: Does anyone know if Mantic are planning to preview any of the Epic Warpath minis at Salute in a few weeks time?
I actually got a sneak peek last year at some early designs with one of the rules designers, hoping they might have a bit more to show this time around.
They had the Plague and Forgefathers stuff on display at Adepticon so it's likely they would have the same or more for a more local show.
about 27 seconds into this video
Nearly 2 months now since the last update this probably isn't shipping in May. I wonder if they have even finalised the sculpts/layouts for the plastic production which Archon will be taking care of.
On a side note it appears that Troublemaker have had to delay shipping the Warpath terrain from their own KS as Mantic aren't ready to go yet.
Are the buildings from the last two pictures terrain from the Troublemaker KS? If so, shoot, I should have got their terrain instead of extra sprues of the mantic stuff.
Glad I switched out the forge fathers at the last minute, the vehicles look pretty terrible. Asterians, on the other hand, look much better than the renders, I might have to see about picking some up once they release for real.
Edit: Yeah, wasn't this supposed to ship in March? The lack of communication has not impressed either.
2 months of radio silence after announcing a delay doesn't look good. No sprues in hand when they should be starting packing? Maybe they missed a production window at Archon or something and now just have to wait for months?
So I went to the KS project page and there was a button "Anonymously request an update" so maybe everybody click that
As you were for another month (or 2) - it would be nice see some pictures of stuff that's already done
Short Production Update
A short one for you today, but good news to reassure you: production is moving full speed ahead! The reinforcement units are already being printed using premium resin (we have LOTS of these to make and they're looking great), and the HIPS plastic units for all of your armies are also approaching their production slot with our EU manufacturer.
As we mentioned in previous updates, we’re still on track to begin shipping your pledges in the second half of May. So next month!
So we now know the content of the Nameless plastic box and I am glad I picked it up as 3rd faction
Everything else isn't really news here, that they are approaching the slot would mean Archon is doing them later in April and they hope they get everything packed and shipped within a month
So we might see EU getting their stuff earlier this time if they ship directly
Doubt Archon will ship directly to us, pledges also have books, dice, Troublemaker terrain... that aren't made there.
My anxiety over shipping is increasing after another "EU friendly" UK kickstarter turned out to straight up not know IOSS only works for shipments under 150€.
The Warpath specific sprues were part of their most recent KS as well they are manufactured and they have them but shipping is held up.
Doh! I added the XL buildings pack to my Warpath pledge but at £100, but in retrospect I would have rather have spent £100 on those existing Troublemaker buildings. They are more 40k-y, but that makes them more versatile in my opinion and I prefer the look. Ah well, maybe I will order some from Troublemaker anyway.
Damn, those Asterians look awesome, I kind of regret not getting them now. I'm not sure what to think of the Forgefathers, the sculpts are, unfortunately, accurate representations of their 28mm stuff. That said I don't think their official colour scheme does the models any favors. Infected piss yellow and orange really isn't a great combo, and adding the neon green glow doesn't help either.
So, the lack of Epic Warpath stuff at Salute was.. weird. I would have expected there to be a display board or demo game of it at the show if it really is delivering from the end of next month but there was practically nothing; just one shelf at the very bottom of a single glass display cabinet, hidden in shadow, with a few different models from four different factions.. the same painted models from Adepticon, as far as I could tell, but far fewer and none of the terrain.
They never have a huge stand, but what they had on Saturday was comporable to previous years. They had plenty of Halo and their new Champions game, plus a demo of their Worms game (which did look pretty fun). But not so much as a poster for EWP.
Hopefully it will have more of a presence at the UKGE at the end of May.. but I expect another update from Mantic will drop right before that. Hopefully a "We are shipping" update rather than a "Yeah, about that release date.." update
“Made in Poland EU by Archon Studios” I think that’s the most point of origin info I’ve seen on Archon Sprues yet!
It is a pretty funny detail, I can easily imagine Mantic forgoing the "we remove our branding from the sprue" fee to save a few cents, which to my knowledge nobody has done yet? Not even Mantic with the Archon KoW sprues.
Seeing how lovely the sprue is I only regret we don't get two per faction (maybe infantry/armour split like Armoured Clash did) so we'd have room for more different vehicles and more poses. There's just two poses in total for the Peacekeepers, for example.
My thoughts exactly! Imagine the amount of over-engineering that went into GWs half-assed attempt to bring back Epic? Meanwhile Mantic casually makes the game and models we actually need for a good experience.
I REALLY hope this does well for them as it is a scale they could still absolutely dominate at a time where the market is about to contract a TON.
“Made in Poland EU by Archon Studios” I think that’s the most point of origin info I’ve seen on Archon Sprues yet!
It is a pretty funny detail, I can easily imagine Mantic forgoing the "we remove our branding from the sprue" fee to save a few cents, which to my knowledge nobody has done yet? Not even Mantic with the Archon KoW sprues.
Seeing how lovely the sprue is I only regret we don't get two per faction (maybe infantry/armour split like Armoured Clash did) so we'd have room for more different vehicles and more poses. There's just two poses in total for the Peacekeepers, for example.
Yeah, that's a bit of a shame, actually. I'd have loved to have two separate sprues.
Very nice, and I think more than enough detail for that scale (and my eyes!)
I personally wasn't bothered with the vehicle scale (I have a very low bar as an oldhammer Epic player) but good that they have listened to community feedback in that regard.
There's no official scale stated and they didn't set out with one in mind, they said they just scaled down 28mm sculpts to the smallest size they still looked good.
Obviously we'll have a useful number once someone gets the sprues in hand and measures a dude.
NAVARRO wrote: Looking very nice indeed, is the human scale 15mm?
From the FAQ
What is the scale of the Epic Warpath miniatures?
The height of an enforcer (ground to eyes) is 12mm. All other models are based on this, but the vehicles are slightly smaller for practical gameplay reasons.
Enforcers are a bit taller than a regular human in Warpath.
Man, the more I look at these sprues the happier I am. I legit love Armoured Clash, but assembling it sucks... and they're twice as easy as Legion Imperialis. These look great, and I could have stuff assembled and cleaned in minutes!
So would be fair to say humans are like 11mm or so.
I sometimes miss when 15mm sci-fi miniatures were popular and would love to see a comeback of those times. The quality is obviously quite high these days and those sprues do display an amazing level of detail for that scale.
If the price is right I could see myself getting some just for nostalgia sake.
Vehicle size is 15% bigger, details look good considering the size. 6 sprues makes up a starter set.
“Made in Poland EU by Archon Studios” I think that’s the most point of origin info I’ve seen on Archon Sprues yet!
Even more glad I skipped this now. The vehicles are improved but still far too small. Looks like 6/8mm vehicles with 10/12mm figures. What's the point of going to a smaller scale if you can't take advantage of it to keep the big impressive things (vehicles, spacecraft, buildings) more properly in scale?
Might still scoop up some sprues on sale at some point just to add more infantry (they look quite good) to my 10mm forces, but for now it feels like I dodged a bullet here.
I do think it compares unfavourably with Dropzone Commander, where Dave specifically picked the 10mm scale as something that standard vehicles specifically would look good in. Even though the core vehicles were so thin that pilot has to be lying prone, it all still feels very plausible.
That game was focused much more on vehicles, and Epic Warpath is clearly focused more on the (much more diverse) infantry options. But I agree it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity for the sake of squeezing everything onto one sprue. Also not a massive fan of the repeated infantry sculpts on a single sprue. But I'm still happy it exists, and very happy with the sharpness Archon can achieve at such a tiny scale!
I'm really looking forward to these and a little annoyed I didn't buy more armies, but once they're out I'll be able to pick one up for around $50.
I think for the price these are great.
It's also not often we get hard plastic stuff from anyone in a smaller scale, which is also to be commended.
I asked in the Kickstarter comments if the bases will be loose or on a frame like the current round redibases (ie. the ones with an inset circle) and Mantic confirmed they'll be loose which is good. The ones on a frame tend to wind up with a small amount of scarring on the sides.
If the Panther is a transport then I can see issues with scale being valid but if it's a gun platform then yeah seems reasonable that a single enforcer could be reclined in the front piloting it.
Looking good though. I wish I'd have splashed out on some big support units too. And maybe some Veer-Myn and Forge Fathers... but hey ho.
My thoughts on scale are that at this level you need some abstraction. The Mantic minis here are *far* less out of scale than the first editions of Epic (Rhinos in particular are hilariously small) and those things were sold in the hundreds of thousands. So, I really don't think it is going to be a deal-breaker for a majority of punters.
A good range of easy to assemble miniatures, reasonably priced, with a game that is straightforward to play - that would give them an opportunity to pick up the Legions Imperialis players that liked the scale and have a lovely mini collection, but have been turned off that game - and I think Mantic could do well with this game. It certainly has the potential to take off in a way the 28mm version of Warpath has not.
Mantic need give it a bit of love when it drops though, because they are currently constantly flip flopping between their own IP and Halo, and now we have Assassins Creed ramping up. Trying to keep tabs on Champions was a chore because their socials are so heavily focused on Halo.
I've enquired about getting on the Epic early access train a couple of times but haven't heard anything back. I want to get it hyped because the You Can Play Right Away Starter Army In A Box model should do good numbers.
Yeah, seems an odd choice to me as well, esoecially as there seems no way to get more of the plastic vehicles otherwise (big muss not including STL versions of them)
I find the problem mofe egregious with Armoured Clash, as the game is ostensibly about tank battles but you only really get like 2-4 tanks per box
Out of curiosity I emailed support about adding to a pledge and got an auto response that they are out of the office for two weeks but will respond when back, so just a heads up on that.
All hands on deck packaging everything up as far as they can without the minis? We've just finished easter half terms here and the next school break is in another 4 weeks.
NAVARRO wrote:Its plastic so should be very simple to snip and repose.
Hypothetically, but sniping a 10mm plastic figure is likely to mar it pretty badly. Careful slicing and it should glue together will enough but it's the same kind of fun as gluing 28mm true scale ankles and wrists.
Or Mantic could have just paid the comparatively negligible cost for the sculpture to do some additional pose variations.
Pacific wrote:My thoughts on scale are that at this level you need some abstraction. The Mantic minis here are *far* less out of scale than the first editions of Epic (Rhinos in particular are hilariously small) and those things were sold in the hundreds of thousands. So, I really don't think it is going to be a deal-breaker for a majority of punters.
A good range of easy to assemble miniatures, reasonably priced, with a game that is straightforward to play .
Completely disagree. One of the advantages of a smaller scale is that you DON'T have to abstract the vehicles at all and you can abstract your structures and ground scale much less than 28mm.
No argument that this is a good value, but justifying the scale discrepancies as being an improvement on a game that came out 35 years ago is a very low bar to hurdle.
I adore the Kings of War rules. I really like the Mantic crew that I've interacted with over the years at Adepticon. Really nice people who want to do good games at a fair price. Halo and Walking Dead seem like proof they they can deliver the goods the same as other top tier companies.
However, -especially with their proprietary lines- they keep shooting themselves in the foot with this kind of malarkey. Compromises in products and sculpting and size choices (or mistakes?) that keep knocking them off the mark. It's a company I want to support more, but I feel like they keep doing silly things like this and giving me reasons not to.
I hope not too, but I'm also sure they've realized that wasn't what people wanted given the sheer number of the miniatures from Overdrive I've received in crazy boxes.
The only teaser for Dreadball we got by now was a small gameplay and lore snippet, but this would confirm it is still Dreadball and not a different game
kodos wrote: The only teaser for Dreadball we got by now was a small gameplay and lore snippet, but this would confirm it is still Dreadball and not a different game
mattl wrote: Vehicles and infantry on the same frames is exactly what Space Marine/Epic 40,000 did.
I wish they'd used different colored plastic too.
Epic 40K did not.
it did although marines got another sprue with bikes instead of Rhinos next to the infantry
Depends on the edition, the later editions recut and resculpted those sprues a few times with infantry-only, but the early plastics were all mixed infantry w/ vehicles for Marines, Orks and Eldar sprues
I would have prefered Mantic do separate infantry-only sprues, but that's not a realistic ask for a small niche game like this, the mixed sprues were pretty much required. On the plus side, all the extra weapon turrets should make for fantastic Battletech weapon emplacements, just need some extra hex bases and some plastic automotive clips to act as platforms . Looking forward to the retail release for these sets
Dreadball suffered a lot from the 2.0 KS taking a long time to deliver and then being very different to the brief on delivery, requiring £80 of captain card packs to play fully if you'd gone all-in.
There wasn't anything wrong with the 1.0 rules ("the ball shatters" action card excluded), so the new edition felt like adding extra bits for the sake of changing things up.
Dreadball 1.0 is a much better game than Blood Bowl and a return to the more streamlined original approach would be great. I miss when it had an active scene and loads of tournaments.
It can be played in 30-60 minutes whereas depending on teams and player speed, I've had 3-4 hour games of blood bowl.
I dunno, I recall Faceless team basically making all other players get fed up of the league and we never bothered doing a second when 3 other players signed up on faceless.
Tabletop_Magpie wrote: Ronnie said in TMU that he basically killed DB with Extreme and he genuinely regrets the decisions he made on it.
Not sure what he means or how that looked like from his point of view
I saw it like this
I never played basic DBO
I backed Xtreme KSall in, thinking it was a new parallel way to play that seemed more exciting to me (prison rules, with bombs and shivs etc). I got all teams and two neoprene pitches so I could run events.
Mantic released the DBX box and a phoned-in team compendium
Then went straight back to using those models for 3 more seasons of DBO, each with its own book, web coverage, etc and never mentioning DBX again
DBX was just very overengineered packaging for 3 more seasons of DBO teams masquerading as a standalone game
Mantic put zero effort in it and dropped any support for it the day after it was shipped to backers
Soon after the leftovers were given away in crazy boxes
It was a bait and switch kickstarter and the most disingenuous thing Mantic had ever done, in a long history of weird cheapskate corner cutting releases
NVM. Curious about this new DB. Original DB was great. Only real issue was how jacks worked or didn’t. And they did get ahead of themselves about expansion teams. Really nice rules mechanics and the dice contested rolls were great.
Mantic's video guy Andy just left, so I hope they keep up the quality of their videos. It has been very good in the last year or two when Andy was there.
Has Mantic mentioned anywhere their roadmap for the Flood faction of Halo Flashpoint? I'm not so interested in the banished (coming July, I think), but the Flood figures may be neat proxies for plague infected minis. I'm very curious to see what they do with those.
mattl wrote: Mantic's video guy Andy just left, so I hope they keep up the quality of their videos. It has been very good in the last year or two when Andy was there.
mattl wrote: Mantic's video guy Andy just left, so I hope they keep up the quality of their videos. It has been very good in the last year or two when Andy was there.
mattl wrote: Mantic's video guy Andy just left, so I hope they keep up the quality of their videos. It has been very good in the last year or two when Andy was there.
I have now painted all 5 armies currently available for KoW Champions with the sixth release due early next week.
The quality of the resin champions is top notch.
The rest of the boxes vary depending on their age with the latest Kings of War hard plastic kits being amazing quality and the older kits suffering a little as a result.
from what I heard, the translations are still worked on and not printed yet so there is that
there was also a KS comment from Mantic to give us more information "this" week, so we should get something today or tomorrow (though technically it was written 4 days ago so Monday might still within a week)
OnTableTop just finished an interview with Ronnie - Epic Warpath tooling was delayed 6 to 8 weeks, largest project they've done tooling wise shipping mid to late summer- pdfs a few weeks before. Enforcers are done and are currently shipping from Poland to the UK.
At this point if they know it's delayed just put out an update - I guess they are waiting on a firmer shipping date but late summer suggests we won't see this until early September.
kodos wrote: Are those the new vehicles or still the same 3d printed masters they take around to the different cons?
Good point but at this point surely they could have either painted the test shots or printed them in the current size - it's only 2 minis and they could have done them when painting the Drakon as that's new.
The livestream is finished this link should jump direct to Ronnie if not it's at 1 hour 4 minutes 30 seconds.
But I doubt Mantic has any test shots, I don't think Mantic did test shots in their life, they just send the first draft to production and yolo. Archon will make sure the sprue is at least physically castable but Mantic will just order their 5000 units blind and what happens happens.
I already knew the "second half of May" thing was bs, but I am still annoyed that they are telling some podcast before telling their kickstarter backers. Horrible form.
But I feel like if the delay was really a last minute surprise for Mantic, they would have sent out the rulebook pdf and the STLs by now. They haven't done the faction guides they promised 2 months ago either. I'm guessing they've known since very shortly after that update, so they didn't bother wasting the manpower.
I backed project arrived 4 years after the promised finish line (Siege of the Citadel 2 ed anyone?) and I am still waiting for the new Chronopia so this small delay is nothing for me.
Really hope the ruleset is solid as it seems.
Nobody expects a KS to be on time and hassle free but it's fair to expect decent communication, imo. Just shows contempt really leaving backers in the dark
I think the mistake here was not ordering radio silence for UKGE and then that information releasing before the KS updates being sent out. Or they should have done the update beforehand. But I don't think it illustrates contempt at all. They're a pretty personable company and group of guys. That much is plain if you ever get to chat to them at one of the shows.
If you want contempt, or at least soul-less pursuit of profits by a giant corp and their customer base just viewed as walking purses, I don't need to write out the name here..
lord_blackfang wrote: But I feel like if the delay was really a last minute surprise for Mantic, they would have sent out the rulebook pdf and the STLs by now. They haven't done the faction guides they promised 2 months ago either. I'm guessing they've known since very shortly after that update, so they didn't bother wasting the manpower.
The delay bothers me not at all, TBH, I expected it.
Them not releasing the rules does irk me, though. I want to actually SEE how's the game, you know. Even learn to play it using proxies.
I just have a feeling, with nothing at all to support it, that an email came in from the plastics producers to clarify the Warpath slots and it got missed because that same day something also came in for Halo which is absolutely the NUMBER ONE priority at Mantic.
Like I say, I just pulled that out of my backside but with the Epic Warpath KS being a ghost town where as usually Mantic are all over their KS comments/updates it seems like there wasn't anyone available for other projects.
Ha ha it could be. Despite being a massive project (at least 9 distinct sprues.... that's more than everything else by Mantic combined gets in a year) it seems to be the red-headed stepchild somehow.
lord_blackfang wrote: Ha ha it could be. Despite being a massive project (at least 9 distinct sprues.... that's more than everything else by Mantic combined gets in a year) it seems to be the red-headed stepchild somehow.
Which is wild, because its also the corner of the market that would be easiest to take over. 10-12mm sci-fi is a place no one, even GeeDubs, "owns" yet. They could really make it theirs, but punting is just going to let Warcradle steal it from under them (Armoured Clash is a legitimately excellent game).
There are moments I regret choosing Warpath over AC... it was a pretty cringe move considering I'm a Warcradle volunteer... but I'm a sucker for Mantic's sci-fi universe and at the time it looked like Warpath would have all 8 factions out by the time AC had 3. Pretty sure it was also before we knew James Hewitt would head AC.
GW announced LI just as Mantic were about to announce Epic, but GW completely boffed the LI launch and it seems to have been staggering to catch up since. The market was THERE for the taking! The KS for Epic went great, loads of goals smashed, it was all going hunky-dory then oh hello, AC gets announced AND LAUNCHED and not only seems to be a terrific system, it has consistent monthly releases too.
The near silence on the KS pages has been uncharacteristic for a Mantic campaign, and until Halo dies down a bit I just don't see it getting the HYPE outside of fans with a YouTube channel or Instagram account.
I might be projecting a bit with my thoughts on Halo. I'm working on a massive scheme in my day job, which is my main focus and everything else gets whatever time The Big One allows, which is usually a half day or so a week.
Armoured clash does seem to have the advantage of being well designed to use its cards etc rather than the traditional bolted on approach. I am still salty GW changed Epic's scale. Killed it for me.
lord_blackfang wrote: Pretty sure it was also before we knew James Hewitt would head AC.
Yep I’m fairly sure it was.
I’m glad Mantic are doing it all in hard plastic (sadly not different colors for each army) and I know it’ll be good when it finally arrives but I wonder if there’s anyone who will play it in my area. When I was beta testing the rules there were a couple of us interested but that was a year or so ago now.
Hearing about some of this about Epic Warpath, many years ago when Warpath and Kings of War were first making it big, wasn't the old adage we fans coined for Mantic something along the lines of:
Ive largely avoided mantic til now because the "almost" aspect is painfully obvious. Only grabbed epic because im a sucker for the scale and the ks offered a lot for very little.
Also im prstty sure its a game that probably wont see significant expansion, so two plastic kits for each of my 4-5 chosen factions and the stl bundle and im probably set for a very long time, which means it wont chew up my wallet while I chase LI and AC releases.
Kings of War is big in some parts of the world and Halo is doing well. I'd love to see more people playing Firefight or Warpath, as generally people seem to favor sci-fi over rank and flank.
I'm enjoying painting Kings of War Champions sets.
AegisGrimm wrote: Hearing about some of this about Epic Warpath, many years ago when Warpath and Kings of War were first making it big, wasn't the old adage we fans coined for Mantic something along the lines of:
"Mantic...Almost"
Yes, now I think the "second half of May" should be "Be" as in May-Be.....as in it May "Be" done eventually. Still not HassleFree, where you get Free Hassle with every order.
Theophony wrote: Yes, now I think the "second half of May" should be "Be" as in May-Be.....as in it May "Be" done eventually. Still not HassleFree, where you get Free Hassle with every order.
From the update last week: Due to a last-minute supply chain disruption, and linked to the huge size of this project, we have to postpone the fulfilment of pledges from June until late Summer. After recently learning of the delay, we needed to make sure we had proper clarity on the situation with our supply chain before updating you, so our honest apologies for not being able to let you know faster.
This is quite an old but interesting article. I hadn't realised Alessio Cavatore was involved. If that's the case, I absolutely do not think the game will be bloated. Alessio is known for writing very concise and streamlined rules (consider the 40k version he lead on that was much cleaner, much less special rule bloat, than those that followed).
There was never any danger of it being bloated, I've never seen a bloated Mantic game! Unit balance, on the other hand... is more an afterthought anywhere outside KoW.
That was more in response to someone posting that they had a 4 hour game Lord Blackfang, which would absolutely be a sign of a bloated ruleset. That really worried me as I was hoping this game would be everything Legions Imperialis isn't, with that game being a bicep workout lifting heavy rulebooks over the course of several hours.
But everything I have read elsewhere, including the news that Alessio is involved, makes me think that may have been an outlier. Fingers crossed, we will hopefully find out for ourselves soon.
Kings of War being the outliner for unit balance is mainly because it is the game with most events played and therefore enough public data available to adjust problems more quickly
Deadzone and Firefight are getting a balance update in the coming months, it happens it is just slower
I was in Warlord Games in Nottingham about a month ago and Alessio walked past me and into a back room, so I am guessing he still has something to do with them! Although I know a lot of the Nottingham wargames community is quite interlinked anyway.
Yeah I bought the first copy ever from Mantic of that one and several others. I really liked the forge fathers, assembled them at the time and lost them in a move I think. However I found a big box of the orx/mauraders and have a huge army of those assembled now alongside a huge army of the PVC models made for Deadzone.
Genuinely amazed and disappointed in equal measure that after the update almost 3 weeks ago, they still have had nothing to show. Not even a page layout for the book that by all accounts should have been finished.
How about some prints of the massive support craft/creatures? Surely they have some finished STL's they can run off?
This project feels like it's been outsourced to be honest.
kodos wrote: MMF was more about making the PVC models available as those were not seeing another print run but not getting plastic models anytime soon either
That makes sense. I wish that had been communicated better at the time.
There are a fair number of rumblings of discontent in social media about the lack of any updates, hopefully Mantic will notice and publish something soon. Even if, like has been said, its just some production photos or extracts of the rulebook or artwork.
Something is moving at least Troublemaker games have confirmed they can now ship the new Warpath terrain sprues from their KS - these are the same sprues offered in the Warpath KS so Mantic have these on hand as Troublemaker had to get them shipped from Mantic to send to backers.
I don't quite understand the worry about the lack of advertising yet. Why would Mantic advertise it really strongly now, only for would-be purchasers to realise they can't get it yet, and will still be waiting till all the KS backers have it. I would imagine the hype will start during KS delivery, so there's pics, images and reviews out on the net, and then Mantic start with the retail releases.
I would expect an update on June 30th.
We are working towards having a big update go out then, which will plot the coming months, then shortly after our marketing kicks in etc...
Thank you for your continued support and patience until we could bring you today's update. With the new schedule in place, we'll keep you updated as we move toward the final stages - and we remain hugely excited to finally get Epic Warpath into your hands, and onto your gaming tables.
That was 3 weeks ago. Granted there were a handful of test print miniature shots shared there at least.
I haven't seen anyone worrying about lack of advertising, just the lack of communication which is very uncharacteristic.
I would expect an update on June 30th.
We are working towards having a big update go out then, which will plot the coming months, then shortly after our marketing kicks in etc...
Gimgamgoo wrote: I don't quite understand the worry about the lack of advertising yet. Why would Mantic advertise it really strongly now, only for would-be purchasers to realise they can't get it yet, and will still be waiting till all the KS backers have it. I would imagine the hype will start during KS delivery, so there's pics, images and reviews out on the net, and then Mantic start with the retail releases.
I hope so, because every month radio-silent is another one where Armoured Clash eats their lunch. AC feels like a slow grower, but the game is sooooo good that it could really break out at almost any time. Leaving too much time to really get entrenched could really hurt Epic Warpath (which would suck, as it is also a TERRIFIC game).
What Discord server? How is a person supposed to find this info?
Searching Discord for 'Warpath', 'Mantic Games', 'Mantic', 'Deadzone', 'Firefight' and 'Warpath' brings up nothing related to Mantic on Discord.
I guess I'm not with the yoof of today and prefer a decent searchable forum still.
Gimgamgoo wrote: What Discord server? How is a person supposed to find this info?
Searching Discord for 'Warpath', 'Mantic Games', 'Mantic', 'Deadzone', 'Firefight' and 'Warpath' brings up nothing related to Mantic on Discord.
I guess I'm not with the yoof of today and prefer a decent searchable forum still.
I don't know why the search doesn't bring them up, but they are linked on the mantic subreddits as well (don't know about Facebook)
These are from the Epic Warpath FB group, I assume the person painting the studio minis.
These are a mix of printed and plastic.
+EDIT+ my tech abilities have failed and my phone won't let me link from the pics in my gallery, if anyone is able to grab the top three from here and post below I would be grateful
https://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?u=34906
Pacific wrote: These are from the Epic Warpath FB group, I assume the person painting the studio minis.
These are a mix of printed and plastic.
+EDIT+ my tech abilities have failed and my phone won't let me link from the pics in my gallery, if anyone is able to grab the top three from here and post below I would be grateful
https://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?u=34906
mattl wrote: They do look nice. Any idea which are printed vs. plastic?
I just don't understand why these pictures are not being published on Kickstarter.
It sounded to me like the announcement on discord was that they were working on the actual announcement for KS and the bits on discord were, more or less, an early preview of what would be in the KS update. Still taking to long to get an update out, though.
mattl wrote: They do look nice. Any idea which are printed vs. plastic?
I just don't understand why these pictures are not being published on Kickstarter.
if I get the original post right those aren't studio models but the private ones from a studio member who was allowed to share the work in progress (hence not all bases are done)
and the printed ones are both super heavies, the flyer, walkers and the 2 larger tanks
The fact they don't think it's worth taking five minutes to log in to the kickstarter and leave a comment saying that, in lieu of an actual update, is really very damning.
Billicus wrote: The fact they don't think it's worth taking five minutes to log in to the kickstarter and leave a comment saying that, in lieu of an actual update, is really very damning.
They haven't even unpinned the comment announcing the update that came a month ago.
I’m going to be wary about backing the next thing from Mantic as a result of the poor handling of this game.
It’s July now. We’re probably not going to have anything on hand for another two months and we’re getting close to Mantic shipping their advent calendars soon.
I’m interested in Halo but not really beyond the starter sets as a collector. I’d hoped to play this one but locally I don’t know anyone who backed it.
It’s hard enough to find anyone who wants to play Kings of War a very established game with a decent sized player base. Getting anyone to play anything else from Mantic is already so hard in my area that any delay or hiccup can really kill a game.
for now this is a average KS, we get monthly updates, expected delays but nothing that would indicate that something worse is behind the curtain
for the other point, with the current summer sales on games, Halo starter boxes are cheap to get now so if you just want to collect them, now is the time
and finding other people to play with is a general problem for all games (even with 40k, were the problem isn't to find someone but the right one to make it fun)
The issue for me that updates are basically happening… if you’re on Facebook or Discord.
That’s not cool. That’s the part that bothers me the most. Nobody should need to use either of these things or that they even exist in the first place.
Discord is where information goes to die.
You can’t find anything without already being a member and often joining a Discord server means dealing with a tyrannical admin who set it up on a whim.
Finding a game of 40K or AOS or Trench Crusade or Kill Team or even The Old World lately is easier than finding a single person who wants to play Firefight or Kings of War or KoW Champions, etc.
the official updates still happen on KS on a monthly basis
facebook, youtube and discord are people talking who know more or are to some part involved talk about it
and I am not going into the meme of the discord mods as the pure evil
you can find a toxic community everywhere and you don't need to join them, yet none of the discord servers I am on have such a problem or have I ever encountered a tyrannical admin
If monthly updates are the norm then fine. It has been a long time since I backed a Mantic non-board game or non-terraincrate project. I think the last one was Warpath as I seem determined to play this game in some form.
An issue with Discord is that you can't tell if they're going to be toxic before you join because there's no transparency. The rise of Discord is largely responsible for my lack of playing games outside of an official Warhammer store because the stores can't have a Discord server.
I'm of a mind to unsubscribe altogether from Mantic lists, seeing as I don't have a way of telling them I'm not interested in Halo or Champions, not even a little bit.
I'm surprised they have a dedicated Kickstarter Manager to be honest. I can only presume they are part time, or pick up KS Manager Duties a couple of hours a month on top of whatever else they are doing.
There are some really easy wins for Mantic here, based on the content of previous updates.
April:
They're printing loads of Support units. Let's see them then!
Updated Faction Guides are coming. Let's see them!
June:
The Full PDF rulebook is implied to be ready to be shared closer to delivery. Let's see some of it!
Maybe I'm guilty of what I often see others doing - holding mantic to different standards than other companies. I have only ever had excellent KS experiences with them (Hellboy and DSO).
There used to be a commenter on here that would be in every Mantic KS thread raging at the Mantic Marketing Machine (which at the time was just my mate Mart!) for tricking gullible idiots in to backing Mantic campaigns by hyping the product. We never knew how good we had it
I don't know what else their KS manager is doing but like this year there are 4 KS (Epic, Calendars, Assassin's Creed, Ghost in the Shell) that need to take care of including handling comments/complains and the pledge managers
I don't know what else their KS manager is doing but like this year there are 4 KS (Epic, Calendars, Assassin's Creed, Ghost in the Shell) that need to take care of including handling comments/complains and the pledge managers
And said guy was on holiday the last weeks
just to start - The lack of content isn't the KS lads fault, I know. My implying they're part time was a stupid thing to comment.
Pledge managers for the Calendars and Epic are in, AC* and GITS are not active campaigns yet. The only thing I can find about Ghost in the Shell is a fan group Facebook post from last November
You are doing a very noble job of supporting them and it is to be admired while many of us are feeling more and more disillusioned, but I feel that you are willfully missing the point I and others are making - there is plenty they can be doing to update us, and keep hype and interest rolling. 1 faction preview every 2 weeks would buy them 4 months of good graces.
(*Well I can't find out much about this because the Mantic page I'm trying to look at has pop up for the free Halo rules that I can't close without signing up to the newsletter. KS page says Launching Soon)
Ultimately it is a bit of a silly thing to be getting wound up about. I'll probably drop out of the tread until the next update. Keep the positivity rolling Kodos!
Tabletop_Magpie wrote: 1 faction preview every 2 weeks would buy them 4 months of good graces.
You have a way with words that bears repeating
lord_blackfang
Imagine if instead of radio silence we had 1 faction focus - that were promised 2 months ago - every 2 weeks. You'd still have 2 months of grace left over right now.
Cleric
We have a whole marketing schedule planned for EWP once it gets closer to retail release. As for the KS, an update will be out later today, and that will have more than enough to keep you all busy until you get your pledges in the post.
kodos wrote: I don't know what else their KS manager is doing but like this year there are 4 KS (Epic, Calendars, Assassin's Creed, Ghost in the Shell) that need to take care of including handling comments/complains and the pledge managers
And said guy was on holiday the last weeks
I didn't know they were covering Ghost in the Shell! Do when know what format the game will take? Is it another board game like Assassins Creed?
mattl wrote: If you look in the comments you’ll find a post from me with a reply from myself with a link to the real PDF.
After posting I went to check the KS comments and post about it if it hadn't already been brought up. I saw the link but assumed it was a trick to get us the Mantic OnlyFans page and I'm not falling for that again.
It's a limited time addition to Mantic's free downloads section, so presumably anyone with an account on Mantic's website can go and grab the download from here when logged in:
Great rulebook, and I'm really liking the artwork, very nice of Mantic to get the .pdf out there, gives me time to read through and learn before the minis arrive.
I think I had to add it to my account via the freebie item on their store as I’ve done that for all the languages now and they all appear on that page now.
Any other site for downloading it? a Halo banner fills the whole screen and won't go away...
If you log in and go to the Downloads section it's available there near the bottom.
I think Loopstah means that you cannot bypass the Halo ad without agreeing to sign up to the news letter. not even to log in.
It happened to me on my laptop yesterday to while looking for some information to support a reply to Kodos, and on my phone the evening before (can't think what I was looking for then though!)
The Epic Warpath sprues I ordered from Troublemakers KS have arrived - just the one sprue design in an off white - I've pictured both sides. Nice level of detail on them and they are the same size and have the same connections as their other sprues so no issue mixing and matching panels. Will give me something to work on in advance.
You should be able to mark the Halo pop up as an ad with your ad blocker of choice and hide it that way. I did that the first time it popped up as it didn’t immediately close when I hit Escape.
. So M7 Pros, then. That's a pretty decent printer with some weird quirks, but it also tells us that pixel size is 16.8x24.8 microns, and it has a COB light source and Fresnel collimating lens, which means it's decently precise. Only issue it really has (for our purposes) is blooming, due to the screen, but you won't notice anything at all.
sad, same no-go as armoured clash: infantry and vehicles come in the same sprues and cannot get them separately...
