Zweischneid wrote: James Hewitt is on forums (as well as the places such as facebook groups, sub-reddit, twitter, etc.. most of which by themselves have far more mantic-playing people on them than all wargaming forums taken together btw. )
That said, he can't catch eveything. Hell, all of Mantic Games' 20-odd staff doing nothing but browsing forums full-time can't catch everything. You may just want fire up your email-account yourself and drop him a line, if you want him to know/see/respond to something, no?
And yes, Scarlet does a good job here on Dakka.
If James can check Dakka less often, because Scarlet is here, and concentrate on the other 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of the wargaming-interwebs that are not Dakka, that's a good thing, no?
Having a fan of a game company respond is not the same as an official response no offense meant to Scarlet as he/she is a great asset to the wargaming community. Perhaps publicly addressing issues at hand via Mantics site or through Kickstarter would be a good idea? As far as Wargaming-Interwebs is concerned I strongly believe Dakka is much bigger than Warseer, Facebook, and Reddit.... There are concerns and issues that have been outstanding so long it is ridiculous! If I neglected issues in my job I would no longer be employed. How hard is it to past a sentence that says something like this "We are aware of your concerns we are working on an official response and will have something for you guys and gals in the very near future.". Sometimes the smallest things can quell anger and misconceptions.
primalexile wrote: I strongly believe Dakka is much bigger than Warseer, Facebook, and Reddit....
Warseer? Sure. But not bigger than some of the larger forums (e.g. BoardGameGeek.com) who in turn are far smaller than the respective social media communities.
There are concerns and issues that have been outstanding so long it is ridiculous! If I neglected issues in my job I would no longer be employed. How hard is it to past a sentence that says something like this "We are aware of your concerns we are working on an official response and will have something for you guys and gals in the very near future.". Sometimes the smallest things can quell anger and misconceptions.
Send him an email: james.hewitt [at] manticgames.com
Blimey. James here. Been away from a computer for a week or so (at Spiel Essen, which by the way was only that small because of a booking error) and it looks like I've finally realised my dreams of becoming the target of a heap of online vitriol. Hooray!
As people have guessed, I don't get a huge amount of time to trawl forums looking for complaints or issues. If they're brought to my attention by someone emailing me - as someone did with this thread - I'll do what I can. My job these days involves a lot more than I can sensibly fit into the 40 hours I'd like it to, which is why I'm eternally grateful to people like Scarletsquig, Daedleh and all the rest for spreading the word and keeping people informed. I'll be sure to update my LinkedIn profile to reflect this
Anyway. There are a heap of things to address in this thread - questions, complaints, misconceptions, and some very valid viewpoints. We (I, Chris or someone else) will get a proper official answer out as soon as we can, hopefully this evening.
In the meantime, as ever, if you have an issue the best way to get it resolved is to email me directly. My email address was given earlier in the thread, and is posted all over the internet, so please feel free to drop me a line. I will respond to your concerns directly on a one-to-one basis if that's what it takes!
Keep your eyes on this thread for a proper response from Mantic later. In the meantime, thanks for joining in the discussion - positive or negative, it's all important
But to point out, the two main issues here do need addressing for everyone, not on a 1-on-1 basis. That is:
1. Why the metal and restic Zees were deemed OK to ship, when they are clearly different sizes
2. What the situation is with the plastic (or restic) Enforcers for those involved with Deadzone
It really isn't too hard to keep an eye on a single thread like this one, and the companies that do always get a lot of appreciation out of it, as has been mentioned already. So... thanks for checking in
Yes, absolutely - sorry, should have made myself clearer. I will gladly do both: I will respond on here, but also if people have concerns that they would like me to address directly I will do that. I was aiming to say that I'm fairly approachable online, with an open-door policy. Which I will no doubt regret in 3... 2... 1...
(Nah, only joking. I look forward to any emails that come my way!)
I've bookmarked this thread, and will endeavour to poke my head in whenever I get a chance. Considering I haven't had a day off in a week and a half, I'm not sure when that might be - but I'll do what I can!
lagoon83 wrote: Yes, absolutely - sorry, should have made myself clearer. I will gladly do both: I will respond on here, but also if people have concerns that they would like me to address directly I will do that. I was aiming to say that I'm fairly approachable online, with an open-door policy. Which I will no doubt regret in 3... 2... 1...
(Nah, only joking. I look forward to any emails that come my way!)
I've bookmarked this thread, and will endeavour to poke my head in whenever I get a chance. Considering I haven't had a day off in a week and a half, I'm not sure when that might be - but I'll do what I can!
Your rank tracking is oddly appropriate.
As good of a job as scarletsquig does it comes 'tainted' by the fact that he is such an avid supporter of your company. Having an actual member of the company coming on and saying something--preferably before he does, just so that it does not seem to be parroting the response he has already given as 'coming from the company' might go a long way towards soothing a lot of the doubts people seem to have about Mantic.
RiTides wrote:Cheers, and if you're able to get/post an answer to the two above concerns, that'd be great
Everyone who can give me an answer has already gone home, but I'll do some investigating tomorrow. I want to make sure I'm giving a correct answer before I give one.
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Kanluwen wrote: As good of a job as scarletsquig does it comes 'tainted' by the fact that he is such an avid supporter of your company. Having an actual member of the company coming on and saying something--preferably before he does, just so that it does not seem to be parroting the response he has already given as 'coming from the company' might go a long way towards soothing a lot of the doubts people seem to have about Mantic.
Fair point - however, please be aware that we are also fairly avid supporters of our company, so I doubt we'll come across as any less biased!
Zees are supposed to be clones. It's a little different. It's really the only ones that anyone cares about. The Teratons and Nameless in particular really aren't gonna show after they are painted they are different sizes
The "easy" solution would be to find a friend and swap your metal for their restics or vice versa. But that could have been fixed if people knew and could have ordered double on one or the other (whichever material they prefered).
There are a couple of the metal poses you could still of course use as they aren't standing up straight and the size difference is negligable to really tell unless your eyes are 6" away. But folks would like to use all 8 poses without feeling they don't mix right, and thus only have to double up or 4 or so throughout the team. RiTides has always come off as a "It's the principle of the matter" type guy and remains "rock solid" on his stance
Not bothered by the switch to metal, though why my Season 3 is not complete is still a mystery.
I'm more concerned with concepts. A lot of the concept art we see on Mantic kickstarters is excellent then the sculpts are released and it seems at times that any similarities are coincidental. Is this being addressed for future releases or should we treat any concept as only the artists interpretation?
lagoon83 wrote: Blimey. James here. Been away from a computer for a week or so (at Spiel Essen, which by the way was only that small because of a booking error) and it looks like I've finally realised my dreams of becoming the target of a heap of online vitriol. Hooray!
Hah, it's nothing personal, it's just that Dakka is fairly large and well-read and it (and the Mantic forums) should be checked as at least part of a routine. If the FB page can get answers to questions fairly regularly, why not here and on the Mantic forums?
We don't bite just looking for a bit of clarity on the specifics above, and hopefully a course correction on some of the more general issues that have been recurring (like not communicating problems before shipment...).
Anyway. There are a heap of things to address in this thread - questions, complaints, misconceptions, and some very valid viewpoints. We (I, Chris or someone else) will get a proper official answer out as soon as we can, hopefully this evening.
In the meantime, as ever, if you have an issue the best way to get it resolved is to email me directly. My email address was given earlier in the thread, and is posted all over the internet, so please feel free to drop me a line. I will respond to your concerns directly on a one-to-one basis if that's what it takes!
While it is nice to have a way to communicate directly with some staff, it's not very helpful to the community at large. Public responses means that far, far, far more people would see it and have their silent concerns addressed. While I trust what Daedle says somewhat since he's got some "insider info", that's obviously a "friend of a friend told me" kinda thing, and not really official.
Obviously some things don't warrant a response (if someone says "these models suck!1!" then it's a personal preference) but other things like RiTides' metals question and the whole Deadzone plastics thing, where we just want clarification on what is actually going on, it's far easier to address the question publicly so people can know what's going on (transparency, vs the oft-repeated claim of Mantic pulling bait & switches etc)
Great that an official Mantic person can post here, and I have to be honest probably quite a brave decision. As others have pointed out, I hope your 'rank' isn't too apt!
But, straight away a +1 for trying to engage with the community, and hopefully there will be some rational discussion and prevailing comments here that might make there way back to Mantic HQ - hopefully it will hopefully be good for everybody!
Azazelx wrote: I wonder if they'll want backers to cover the shipping back to the UK?
Automatically Appended Next Post: They did when nkeltch wanted a refund for his teams.
Yeah, a refund for a Kickstarter after Mantic offered to replace his mold-lined models and he refused to get his models replaced for free. They went way above and beyond offering an actual cash refund on an investment; did anyone get a refund for their Enron shares?
Hell, I've had mispacks and bad sculpts, and i just get them replaced, shipped to me for free. Tim @ Mantic even shipped my Mantic Points order bundled with my replacement parts from KoW so that I wouldn't have to pay shipping costs for my Points order.
Yeah, I've pretty much taken to ignoring everything Nkeltch posts in a Mantic thread. Half stories and indignation are all you'll find. There are plenty of other posters who have offered constructive criticism, but his has been largely confrontational.
Fine, but pissing on nkeltch aside, my question is still a valid one, and we apparently don't have an answer for it. Not that any of my Wave 3 stuff has turned up yet anyway, so I have no idea what I'm in store for.
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timetowaste85 wrote: But their customer service is equal to GW's. I've called/emailed both companies enough times to see the equality. I've also had an email response from Mantic within hours every time I send one.
It's not equal to GWs. For a time I had good email responses from them, but lately their response time to my issue with the KoW items screwups is countable in weeks. I'm still trying to wrap up the issues from my first email sent on 21st September. The main issue is non-responsiveness with them taking a week or more to reply to my emails (my current waiting time is now 10 days and counting since my last email to them). The tone on both sides if the emails is friendly - it appears that the main issue is that all their time is taken up with Mars Attacks (which is why I first got onto them a full fortnight before it started - to try and get it resolved before it took up all their time.)
It used to be great. Now it's gak. One thing (the only thing?) we can't fault GW on is their CS.
In fact - I just paused my post to send Tim this:
Me wrote:
Hi Tim,
Any updates on this? - as it's been another 10 days since my last email to you guys about this.
I hate to sound like I'm making a threat, but there's no chance whatsoever I'll be keeping my $300 MA pledge if this can't get rectified immediately, especially since I first contacted you guys about this on 21st September - well over a month ago now and a good fortnight before MA started up.
Good news ladies and gentlemen – we’re going to be producing hard plastic sprues for the Enforcers, Asterian Cyphers and Forge Father Forge Guard!
This breakthrough is down to the Cyphers, Forge Guard and the Enforcers being digitally sculpted."
- at no point does it say anyone gets them for free
- or even have a price
- in fact the update also says you have like 2 days left to complete your survey
- or even a delivery date
so with nothing saying you get them, or you get to buy them, or when they're even coming out, why would you assume that you got them?
It's implied. Being that the KS was in part for Cyphers, Forge Guard and Enforcers.
Regardless, it wouldn't be hard for them to be explicit and clear in their communications, rather than vague.
Yep it was definitely implied. We backed for those models, then we get told those models are being done in hard plastic. It's counter intuitive to suggest that they'd email us about something unrelated to what we were getting.
To be fair, while the comms weren't clear there were other hard plastic kits that were funded that people weren't automatically entitled to. Each of the additional terrain battlezones, while available to backers to buy, weren't given out freely.
It could have been done with confirming either way as soon as people started asking.
On the other hand, some of the terrain items that came later were indeed included in the core pledge.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ultimately though, if Mantic wants to keep it's customers and their Kickstarter momentum, they'll need to improve their clarity and communication. $300 or whatever every few months isn't too much for me to spend, and I've been a backer of each of Mantic's KS campaigns (excepting the forced drop for DZ) but I'm at the point of choosing to spend that money elsewhere. It'll also mean I don't come back in (big) on the next survey.
Daedleh wrote: To be fair, while the comms weren't clear there were other hard plastic kits that were funded that people weren't automatically entitled to.
That's right, but that was always clear, whereas in this case the wording in the update made it pretty clear that we were getting these ones
Azazelx wrote: On the other hand, some of the terrain items that came later were indeed included in the core pledge.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ultimately though, if Mantic wants to keep it's customers and their Kickstarter momentum, they'll need to improve their clarity and communication. $300 or whatever every few months isn't too much for me to spend, and I've been a backer of each of Mantic's KS campaigns (excepting the forced drop for DZ) but I'm at the point of choosing to spend that money elsewhere. It'll also mean I don't come back in (big) on the next survey.
In fairness- you are on the other side of the planet, so you are like 10/12hrs ahead, chances are their offices may not have been open when you've contacted them?
Alpharius wrote: Fairly shocked that we haven't gotten firm answers/updates yet.
It is well into the afternoon over in the UK.
Seriously?
People are working, ya know.
Give em a day or two to at least actually investigate the questions you've asked. Possible the weekend to - ya know - get round to it.
This "Dakka is the center of the known universe, companies should suck up to us"-attitude is getting rather annoying.
Not to mention that this is "News & Rumours". It should be the job of .. ya know .. the mods of this site, to keep this thread to News & Rumours, and to guide customer complaints and quality discussions to an appropriate thread in the Mantic Games section of this board, or better yet the Mantic Forums.
I also didn't get my plastic heavy armor Enforcers added for free, I definitely had to pledge extra to get those.
Actually, I'm going to retract my vitriol over Mantic/James just a little bit and apologize for jumping down his throat. I spent last night watching all of the available Kings of War week BoW videos while assembling some models and he obviously does have a job (and I did enjoy watching those videos). But more internets interactions in general would be nice.
I get the feeling from the comments on the ks that mantic want to make sure this update is completely correct and gives the most definate answers they can. Id prefer them to take the time over it than rush out a brief statement and have dozens of comments to wade through afterwards.
If you remember the inital problems regarding the complicated shipping waves in dz, the inital update wasn't clear enough so it caused a huge amount of confussion until a more in depth update was released.
I think we can afford them some time to get this right.
Alpharius wrote: Fairly shocked that we haven't gotten firm answers/updates yet.
It is well into the afternoon over in the UK.
I told them that the update should happen as soon as possible, preferably yesterday. They just said it would be "soon". Dakka wasn't where these questions originated from and the details were drawn up long before this thread went into meltdown. There should have an update about it sent out before it became an issue on here but for whatever reason that update didn't get sent out.
judgedoug wrote: Actually, I'm going to retract my vitriol over Mantic/James just a little bit and apologize for jumping down his throat. I spent last night watching all of the available Kings of War week BoW videos while assembling some models and he obviously does have a job (and I did enjoy watching those videos). But more internets interactions in general would be nice.
This is sensible. I cringed when I read your original comments.
edlowe wrote: I get the feeling from the comments on the ks that mantic want to make sure this update is completely correct and gives the most definate answers they can. Id prefer them to take the time over it than rush out a brief statement and have dozens of comments to wade through afterwards.
If you remember the inital problems regarding the complicated shipping waves in dz, the inital update wasn't clear enough so it caused a huge amount of confussion until a more in depth update was released.
I think we can afford them some time to get this right.
Absolutely this. Better that they get the update right and not cause more questions by missing something. I believe, given an update I've just been given, that there were some final pieces to lock into place before they could 100% confirm their solution.
Again, people are going to be very happy with it. Please just be patient.
Zweischneid wrote: ...to keep this thread to News & Rumours, and to guide customer complaints and quality discussions to an appropriate thread in the Mantic Games section of this board, or better yet the Mantic Forums.
Customer reviews and quality discussion make up a large percentage of most News & Rumors threads, where it is applicable. See the Puppets War threads for an example.
That is, until it either becomes a non-issue (the quality is universally good, and there's no concern there) or people stop caring (which actually happened with Puppets War for a while, although now their quality seems to have improved and people are posting about them again).
So, the fact that people care enough to discuss it is a good thing... and yes, the quality of components being delivered is certainly appropriate for News & Rumors.
Looking forward to the response from Mantic, thanks again for checking in here!
What is the best way to contact Mantic about issues with Dreadball shipments? I used their 'contact us form' on their website a few days ago and have not gotten a reply yet.
CptJake wrote: What is the best way to contact Mantic about issues with Dreadball shipments? I used their 'contact us form' on their website a few days ago and have not gotten a reply yet.
This is the email for dz survey questions, may be of some use?
CptJake wrote: What is the best way to contact Mantic about issues with Dreadball shipments? I used their 'contact us form' on their website a few days ago and have not gotten a reply yet.
This is the email for dz survey questions, may be of some use?
So it appears as if the million dollar company still doesn't have a functioning website. I think it is perfectly reasonable for customers to contact the company through a website and expect a response without having to hunt for secret staff-direct emails for a response. How do 'non-kickstarter' customers ever get anything resolved if the website doesn't work?
Alpharius wrote: Fairly shocked that we haven't gotten firm answers/updates yet.
It is well into the afternoon over in the UK.
Seriously?
People are working, ya know.
Give em a day or two to at least actually investigate the questions you've asked. Possible the weekend to - ya know - get round to it.
This "Dakka is the center of the known universe, companies should suck up to us"-attitude is getting rather annoying.
Not to mention that this is "News & Rumours". It should be the job of .. ya know .. the mods of this site, to keep this thread to News & Rumours, and to guide customer complaints and quality discussions to an appropriate thread in the Mantic Games section of this board, or better yet the Mantic Forums.
Yeah, seriously.
Are you serious?
Especially as this is, essentially, Mantic's "Job".
Additionally, a Kickstarter update would be OK, yeah?
It's arriving at Mantic HQ sometime between the 25th and 29th November. It'll then need to be packed and shipped which could take a couple of weeks. I'd expect the first parcels to start arriving the same week and overseas the week after.
Daedleh wrote: It's arriving at Mantic HQ sometime between the 25th and 29th November. It'll then need to be packed and shipped which could take a couple of weeks. I'd expect the first parcels to start arriving the same week and overseas the week after.
Sweet, so its still on time. Good to hear.
Gonna have to figure out how to hide all the various packages that are going to be arriving at relatively the same time...
Alpharius wrote: Fairly shocked that we haven't gotten firm answers/updates yet.
It is well into the afternoon over in the UK.
Seriously?
People are working, ya know.
Give em a day or two to at least actually investigate the questions you've asked. Possible the weekend to - ya know - get round to it.
This "Dakka is the center of the known universe, companies should suck up to us"-attitude is getting rather annoying.
Not to mention that this is "News & Rumours". It should be the job of .. ya know .. the mods of this site, to keep this thread to News & Rumours, and to guide customer complaints and quality discussions to an appropriate thread in the Mantic Games section of this board, or better yet the Mantic Forums.
Yeah, seriously.
Are you serious?
Especially as this is, essentially, Mantic's "Job".
Additionally, a Kickstarter update would be OK, yeah?
Sheesh.
Babysitting your forum is not the entirety of mantics job. If I wanted a answer to something they did or did not do or intended or did not intend the first place I would look wouldn't be the news and rumors of a primarily GW games forum.
*****************************************
With regards to people contacting Mantic I have had replies from the website forum on one occasion but on the other I ended up sending another message to them via kickstarter to get a reply.
Okay, I dropped my $141 pledge as well. Some cool stuff in this KS to be sure but everything that is not a Martian (minus that awesome truck) is not at all my thing. For me, the final straw is that I still haven't gotten interested in painting any of this stuff. Ah well, maybe I'll catch Mantic on the next spin.
dragqueeninspace wrote: You have 15 GW specific sub forums. Look at the thread numbers of those forums compared to the others. This forum is very GW heavy.
Sorry to chime in, but their Major competitor is GW. As a business decision ouldn it be wise to keep track of what your competitors customers are thinking? Maybe even listen to their thoughts and try and implement ways of capturing those customers for oneself?
Manticore wants to be a big boy, then they need to do big boy work! Small companies CANNOT survive bad press. They need to b on top of their game every moment, and if they slip up hen they need o address it quickly, and completely so h problem doesn't continue to rear its head over and over.
dragqueeninspace wrote: You have 15 GW specific sub forums. Look at the thread numbers of those forums compared to the others. This forum is very GW heavy.
Sorry to chime in, but their Major competitor is GW.
As they are increasingly moving towards board-games / hybrid-games, no, I don't think GW is such a big thing for them anymore. Other Kickstarter-companies (e.g. CMON) probably are closer to them in direct competition.
And while Dakka-mods seem to think that "miniature-quality-discussions" are "news", it still strikes me as counter-intuitive for most people. This is News & Rumours. People come here to see "new miniature released by X-.. here's the link". and "new rumour about Y .. here's the link". People looking for a discussion on Mantic miniatures quality would never find it here.
That's largely the point of having non-News-&-Rumours discussion boards in the first place.
Admittedly, non-News-&-Rumour boards on Dakka are all pretty much dead (outside the 40K / WFB main-threads), not least because all the Dakka-regulars discuss everything and the kitchen sink in "News & Rumours", because everything worthy of discussion of some kind seems to be "News & Rumours" by Dakka's ultra-vague definition (arguably because this makes it more convenient for Dakka-regulars and Mods to have all "hot" discussions in one place, where they hang out anyhow, even if it makes finding these discussions in these 50-pages-mega-treads an absolute nightmare for more infrequent visitors).
Hey guys! It's been a very busy day today - and among other things (trying to organise the open day, filming a couple of videos for the Mars Attacks and Deadzone kickstarters, helping out with some writing for the Beasts of War Kings of War week (of war) and catching up after my week in Essen) I've been chasing up proper answers. Chris is putting together a massive Deadzone update which will go out very soon, and that will have lots of properly-worded answers which hopefully will cut the confusion.
As for things I can answer that I've seen in this thread:
- Daedleh isn't picking up info from a "friend of a friend" - he comes to Mantic HQ fairly regularly, and we tell him stuff! We have a fairly good policy on visitors - if you're in the area, give us a call and we'll give you a tour, and let you see what we're working on.
- I've had a look at the metal Zees, and I can't see the scale difference people are talking about. If you compare two of them that are in more or less the same pose, they're within less than a millimetre of each other. HOWEVER, I'm not saying anyone's wrong - if you have got your hands on some metal Zees that you're not happy with (or anything else that you're not happy with), we will happily either exchange them or give you a refund if you send them back.
- Regarding the time it takes to answer our web contact forms, Sarah (whose job this is now) is doing everything she can to keep up, but it also trying to help us catch up with some other things. Also, there are a few she can't answer without consulting us (she's new, after all!) so they get held up while she waits for one of us to become available. In any case, it shouldn't take any more than a week to answer a query. If you email us, we *will* respond!
- Yes, it's our job to answer customer feedback and questions. However, it's also our job to do a lot more things, many of which are a bit more urgent at times (for example, getting rulebooks finished, organising events, putting together Kickstarter updates... stuff that is very time-bound.) I like to think that most info is available and we are fairly contactable online, but we can't promise to be in every place at once. We use our Facebook page quite a lot, and due to the nature of Facebook - lovely red buttons telling you when people are asking you stuff - it's really easy for us to keep up with it. Third-party forums (even massively popular ones) are a bit tougher to maintain a dialogue with, but we will try, especially now I've seen how much you guys want us to have a presence here!
Hope those are some answers that are helpful. I'm going to go and put the finishing touches to this video so the Deadzone update can go out - I'll be back in a bit to answer any follow-ups!
lagoon83 wrote: Great to be here! Hopefully I'll find my sea-legs before I'm violently ill....
...I may be stretching this metaphor a bit.
Automatically Appended Next Post: (...or am I?)
Hello James,
I'm not sure if I should ask this here or on Facebook, but I was wondering if you could shed some light on what happened with the Men at Arms and how Mantic is working to insure that the Deadzone plastic troops won't share the same fate. What was the process that Mantic went through when deciding to release the Men at Arms?
I am mainly asking because all of my DZ money is going to go to hard plastics...so long as Mantic can reasonably assure me that I won't be clipping chunks out of all their arms and gluing bits to their other arms.
ISo, how confident should we be in the DZ plastic troops?
lagoon83 wrote: I've had a look at the metal Zees, and I can't see the scale difference people are talking about. If you compare two of them that are in more or less the same pose, they're within less than a millimetre of each other. HOWEVER, I'm not saying anyone's wrong - if you have got your hands on some metal Zees that you're not happy with (or anything else that you're not happy with), we will happily either exchange them or give you a refund if you send them back.
It'll likely be cost prohibitive for me to send back any models I'm unhappy with for a material exchange (which is why it would've been good to communicate this change before shipping), so I'll likely just keep whatever I receive from Dreadball regardless of quality. But I do appreciate you looking into it and providing an answer, cheers.
This does mean, though, that I'll be going back to my strategy which worked extremely well with KoW- waiting until the sculpts are done and pictures are shown (usually by customers first, for whatever reason) and then buying the ones that turned out well.
I'm not sure if I should ask this here or on Facebook, but I was wondering if you could shed some light on what happened with the Men at Arms and how Mantic is working to insure that the Deadzone plastic troops won't share the same fate. What was the process that Mantic went through when deciding to release the Men at Arms?
I am mainly asking because all of my DZ money is going to go to hard plastics...so long as Mantic can reasonably assure me that I won't be clipping chunks out of all their arms and gluing bits to their other arms.
ISo, how confident should we be in the DZ plastic troops?
Thanks for any answers you can give.
Bob
Hi Bob!
The Men-at-Arms went through a strange process that I don't entirely understand myself, and everyone else who might know has gone off to a meeting. As I understand it, there were a few changes in how they were sculpted at different points during the process, which led to several delays; as we already had a trade release planned, and various retailers had already ordered them, we decided to go ahead with them even though they weren't 100% where we thought they should be. To be honest, we thought they were at about 90%, but in hindsight they probably weren't as high as that.
We've made some serious changes to how we do things - for starters, our CAD sculpting for soft-lines stuff (i.e. flesh rather than armour) is looking a hundred times better. Just check out the most recent Mars Attacks update for evidence of that. Also, with our Deadzone terrain (which will be in the upcoming update), our production sprues are looking better than ever. I'm honestly very, very excited. However, we're being cautious - again, the update (which will be up within the next fifteen minutes, as far as I know) explains all!
lagoon83 wrote: I've had a look at the metal Zees, and I can't see the scale difference people are talking about. If you compare two of them that are in more or less the same pose, they're within less than a millimetre of each other. HOWEVER, I'm not saying anyone's wrong - if you have got your hands on some metal Zees that you're not happy with (or anything else that you're not happy with), we will happily either exchange them or give you a refund if you send them back.
It'll likely be cost prohibitive for me to send back any models I'm unhappy with for a material exchange (which is why it would've been good to communicate this change before shipping), so I'll likely just keep whatever I receive from Dreadball regardless of quality. But I do appreciate you looking into it and providing an answer, cheers.
This does mean, though, that I'll be going back to my strategy which worked extremely well with KoW- waiting until the sculpts are done and pictures are shown (usually by customers first, for whatever reason) and then buying the ones that turned out well.
Fair enough - if you do want to send them back, though, we can sort you out something equivalent to the cost of postage.
- Regarding the time it takes to answer our web contact forms, Sarah (whose job this is now) is doing everything she can to keep up, but it also trying to help us catch up with some other things. Also, there are a few she can't answer without consulting us (she's new, after all!) so they get held up while she waits for one of us to become available. In any case, it shouldn't take any more than a week to answer a query. If you email us, we *will* respond!
The problem you have is not that it can take a week to get a response, but no one has ever set an expectation as far as I can see. In turn, your overzealous fans have set a false one with their statements which say "I have never had more than 24 hour turn around, email Soandso directly!" The last thing you want is people circumventing your contact system to pester staff directly especially about stuff which may not be their job, but the idea that people expect 24 hour email response and fear their emails are broken or ignored and stories of people out there with frequent same-day responses makes people upset and switch to emailing via other means. (or forum/KS comments bitching)
Simple stuff like email confirmed receipt, a 'real person' emailing back 'I can't answer your question, it may take a week to get an answer' and forcing everyone through a central communication's system (like a bug tracking or support ticketing system like lots of companies do) to keep things from falling in-between the cracks by having 'fans' encouraging to email people directly. You guys should be setting the 'hear back' timeline via your contact page or via email receipt. People going to forums with 'my email has no response' is a sign of frustration which is going to cause relation issues.
I did ask about whether we could set an autoreply with a "thanks for your email, we will get back to you in X days" - I can't remember what the final answer was, but I will chase this up again. Thanks for reminding me!
lagoon83 wrote: I've had a look at the metal Zees, and I can't see the scale difference people are talking about. If you compare two of them that are in more or less the same pose, they're within less than a millimetre of each other. HOWEVER, I'm not saying anyone's wrong - if you have got your hands on some metal Zees that you're not happy with (or anything else that you're not happy with), we will happily either exchange them or give you a refund if you send them back.
Hi, thanks for posting. You do realize that any potential refund is offset by the prohibitive cost of international shipping, right? Of course you do; Mantic was well aware of that when they shipped the mixed-material packages without so much as notifying backers beforehand. As to scale differences, I recommend you look a few pages back in this thread; you'll see a metal Zee that is obviously different in size to its restic counterpart and a page or so before that is a picture of a special character who is at least an entire scale size larger than his restic version.
All Mantic need have done to avoid this was to ship the affected teams/models entirely in one material or the other.
Ultimately, this didn't have an impact on me as I didn't back Dreadball. I did back KoW and am interested in the answer to Bob the Inquisitor's question about the "Man at Arms" issue. What steps has Mantic taken to avoid this with Dreadzone as it appears that the Finance Manager left China before the miniatures were finished. Was another employee left there to ensure quality of the product this time?
I know that you and others may not see it this way but crowdfunding is a form of temporary incorporation. Backers don't truly have any ownership in your company or much recourse if you do something dirty like, I don't know, send us poor quality merchandise, merchandise that is radically different from what was previously presented/advertised, merchandise of a different material than promised, etc. What we can do is talk. Communicate. Question and yes even badger until we get answers. It wouldn't be this way if we were dealt with above board but since Mantic seems dead-set on treating us as faceless wallets, we have no recourse until you, as a company, remember that with faces come voices and in this industry word of mouth means a great deal.
I know, I know, we'll get a gloriously huge update sometime "soon" just like we were to get a big update "next week" when the Finance Manager came back from China with a box and some scenery....two weeks ago. Then everybody ran off to Germany or parts unknown which apparently had no internet service to post the big update. That's the problem here. So far Mantic's been big on ideas and short on follow-through and I, and I'm sure everyone else here, would love that to change. For crying out loud, you know you've screwed up when Scarlet Squig who has been one of Mantic's biggest supporters and defenders on this site starts throwing in with the nay-sayers.
Zweischneid wrote: This "Dakka is the center of the known universe, companies should suck up to us"-attitude is getting rather annoying.
Not to mention that this is "News & Rumours". It should be the job of .. ya know .. the mods of this site, to keep this thread to News & Rumours, and to guide customer complaints and quality discussions to an appropriate thread in the Mantic Games section of this board, or better yet the Mantic Forums.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing there hasn't been much in the way of updates on the Mantic forums, either. And the question of the Enforcer plastics was raised on the KS update itself but was never answered. Another example is the lack of concept art for the Biker/Sniper (hopefully one of the four models mentioned in Mantic's recent FB update.)
I think that's why people are now getting a little testy.
Hopefully, Mantic will learn from these problems and avoid similar issues in the future growing into a stronger company as a result.
Thanks for responding Not sure whether you saw my previous posts, but I said that a) if anyone wants to send anything back we'll sort them out with something to offset the cost of shipping, and b) the Men at Arms issue has been addressed - this will be explained in full in the update, which Ronnie himself is currently refining. Should be up in a few minutes. We're being really careful to be clear with it, which is why I'm not going to discuss it on here until it's up.
Sorry I didn't see the pictures on the thread - I got as far back as the vitriol aimed at me and I started posting replies! I'll go and have a look now, but as I said, anyone who's not happy with the scale of miniatures is entitled to a refund. Of course, I understand that the problem is that there was a lack of communication; we do appreciate this, and we're trying to rectify it by being more communicative. Please don't make the assumption that we see our customers as "faceless wallets" - nothing could be further from the truth, as hopefully our willingness to listen to our fans and make changes where appropriate demonstrates.
Anyway, thanks again for your response, and I hope the update we're doing goes some way to answering some questions.
James, I've tracked down the posts regarding metal and restic mixed teams and pics for you, so you don't have to dig.
DaveC was one of the first to post about it. Note that he says he's happy despite getting teams that are mixed between the two materials, but responds when someone asks which MVPs were out of scale with a comparison shot (emphasis mine on coloring this part of the text):
Spoiler:
DaveC wrote: Got my Dreadball wave 3 stuff today, I got a mixed set of metals and restic (I could tell by the weight of the box before I even opened it) but the metals only cover half the season 3 teams you get the other half in restic, the metal casting looks a bit rushed in places but overall it's fine the Terratons are seriously heavy in metal!
Overall I'm happy with my Dreadball pledge. The new restic is a big improvement and hopefully Deadzone comes in this new formula far less mold lines and those that there are, are easier to clean. That said a lot of the booster stuff is in the older formula restic and has some bad mold lines it's clear they where made awhile ago but not in time for wave 2.
The 3 backer MVPs are pretty poor they are out of scale being to big and the sculpts are quite crude I'm not surprised they didn't show pictures of the finished sculpts in the survey I wouldn't have spent the money on them if I'd seen the sculpts prior to getting them.
Blaine looks great and looks like he's Mantics new KS mascot (whether he fits or not )
I got the acrylic pitch upgrade for ultimate there's a lot of parts. it's difficult to figure out how it all goes together I had to look at the rubber mat to figure it out. The acrylic pitch is great for 2 player games but there's far to many parts for mutliplayer if you knock the board it will break up all over the place. I'll probably stick to the rubber mat for games and I might glue the ultimate acrylic extensions together to make it more stable.
Roll on Deadzone next month and now I can finally finish my Forgefathers team.
Finally big thanks to Stewart I was missing some Void Siren arms from wave 2 he remembered to include them - actually he sent a full pack of 8 extra Void Sirens. Mantic's customer service is great.
There's a size difference from wave 1 to the backer MVPs.
Next is Orlandothetechnicoloured, who posted the size comparison shot between metal and restic Zees, of which he also received a mix. He also tried to crop the image to make them more comparable:
Spoiler:
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: Right I've taken some shots of metal vs restic (actually a bit tricky as you want comparable sculpts), but here goes
Zees
as you can see the restic is actually a 'cleaner' cast than the metal (the zees suffer a lot worse in metal than anything else) but is smaller, although this is exaggerated by a the 'on tiptoe' pose of the metal
cropped at the kilt shows the true scale of the shrinkage, it's there but probably not a major issue and these being the smallest figures will be the worst
Teratons
very little visual difference on the bigger teratons (where the metal cast is much better quality too)
I think it's important to clarify that there is no 'Mixed Material' going on (eg metal arms, restic body), if a figure is metal it's all metal, if a figure is restic it's all restic
there are however teams that will have a mix of metal and restic figures
assembly on the metals will vary some is going to be easy as decent peg & sockets are present, some not so much
Once again there is signs of some minis being twisted off the sprues (but not all this time, some are cut properly, so an improvement but not far enough yet)
Dozer the teraton is clearly comparable to the other big guys which is cool,
sadly the nameless big guy is smaller than the rest which is a shame (he is bigger than the other nameless, but not a patch on the other big guys)
It's a real shame the season 2 upgrades were to available to ship for everybody (the big question is did they go missing in transit, or did the factory run out of time and short ship)
Finally is scarletsquig's analysis of the problem with receiving teams that are mixed betwen metal and restic for the normal sculpts:
The thing is.. you can't just take the restic green and cast it in metal.
You need to completely resculpt it before casting it in metal.
Why? Well, scale is important.
Restic miniatures are deliberately sculpted at around 110% of the intended final size of the mini to compensate for the shrinkage that occurs when restic cools.
So, if you just run the restic greens in a metal mould you'll end up with half your team noticeably larger than the other half.
And the economics debate doesn't really apply to kickstarter-funded product. If there's a $20k stretch goal to tool some minis in plastic, you tool them in plastic, regardless of what the takeup on them on the survey is.
And if they're late, they're late - that's life and KS backers especially are quite used to things going a month or three overdue at this point with wargaming projects, they're generally OK with it as long as it is accompanied by a reassuring "we either delay this or ship you crap, and we're not shipping you crap". update message.
Also, another valid reason for not wanting metal is more difficult assembly.
The nameless tentacles would have been perfect for hot water reposing in restic too. Oh, and dreadball as a game can be a bit rough on the minis with lots of standing up and laying down minis, not so great for keeping metal minis paint unchipped.
Bit of a swing and a miss from whoever was manning the bean counter at Mantic, really.
In my opinion, these issues are obvious and should have been dealt with before shipping. The decision had to have been made by Mantic quite far ahead to not have them made in restic, and instead made in-house in metal, and yet no notice of this was given at all.
Note that those who posted about this have actually been good supporters of Mantic. Hopefully, this helps and you can pass on this information. These issues had to have been known at Mantic previously... but perhaps seeing how it is affecting your customer base will get more action to be taken in the future (although we've heard that that will be the case before several times now).
Finally, regarding Mantic learning from past mistakes- scarletsquig noted that the poor plastic goblins are STILL not pictured on the website! The Men At Arms were never photographed before shipment. Both times, Mantic said they had learned from the mistake of both not showing pictures, and the issues with plastic casting. But now with Dreadball, shipping models that have issues without showing pictures first has continued!!! And still no pictures of the goblin sprue on the website...
This has resulted in people starting to assume that if something isn't pictured, there's a problem, and is why people are saying they must see pictures of Deadzone production models before Mars Attacks ends. This is not a reputation that you want to have... so, please pass this along if possible.
In short they aren't yet happy with the plastic so will be sending restic enforcers now and hopefully plastic later.
They are looking to ship at the beginning of December.
*Ninja'd!*
I've skimmed the update and I a pleased with the resolution. Particularly that Mantic have recognised that folks like myself want quality from them.
However, I think they really need to keep their game up from now on. I accept they are being generous every time there is a problem but even so if there are too many problems...
Oh, Natazha (whatever her name is) looks good. A lot better than the cruddy DB Asterians, for which I breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Ok, let me say i loved to find a Mantic representant answering questions at dakka, and quite liked the explanations he give us: more or less he is saying "we dont know if there will be delays, but we are chosing to make dalys if that means quality".
It’s Ronnie here! I know everyone has been waiting for some information of where we're up to with Deadzone - so here we are with a monster update!
As you would expect the biggest Kickstarter we have ever done has thrown us a whole new set of challenges, but so far we look to be wrestling all of them down to the ground, putting our Peacekeeper armoured foot on their throats and firing some slugs into their heads!
First up, my apologies to those of you whose questions we’ve missed over the past few weeks. We were holding out for the results of some of our tooling and shipping info before I could give definitive answers. That info has now arrived, boats are loaded with 5 containers of plastics and boxes - and we can now give a clear update on where we are, and what will be happening.
So, let’s start with what we can’t do!
A while after the Kickstarter ended we looked at converting the resin plastic Enforcers into hard plastic, yet at the moment we can’t do that to a quality I am happy with. We have been working non-stop at making hard plastic organics at a standard that can compete (and beat) the best out there. Over the summer I tooled a hard plastic set and, whilst it was a step forward in quality, it was not up to where I want it to be. We have since then been working with a new technique – and we are very optimistic, but we have been optimistic before and we fell just short!
During the Kickstarter we said the zombies were going to be on sprues, in hard plastic. We have been using them as the test case and the early progress looks really encouraging. If we’re not happy with the results, we’ve got some time to get them fixed – and we will remake the tool – so we can look at alternative methods before sending them out in wave two. That said, we’re quietly confident.
Work-in-progress Zombie
If the method works well on the zombies I will ensure everyone gets all of the Enforcers they ordered in their second shipment, along with the Forge Fathers and the Asterians in hard plastic. If it is not up to the quality we expect, I will keep all those kits in resin plastic as was originally planned in the Kickstarter, and we will put the Peacekeepers into Resin Plastic as well. If anyone has added extras because they were hard plastic we will of course offer the option of exchanging those for other items or a refund. I don't expect any of that will be the case, but I just want to cover all the bases.
So what does that mean? Well it means I wasn’t ready to commit the finest troops in the entire Corporation to an unproven tooling method, and possibly have quality issues.
In Update 103 the plan was to take the basic troops for the Enforcers - Rifles, Assault Blades and Heavy Weapons – from the Enforcer Faction Starter and tool them as a multi-part hard plastic kit instead of resin plastic. This new kit would have still made the same models, but would have used the different plastic. As we are still waiting on the results of the zombie tooling, we are now past the point where we can get this tooled in time for the initial launch.
However, we don’t want to have to delay the launch for not having the basic Enforcer troops, so to replace the four models that would have come in the original promise (the three figures with heavy rifles and one of the figures with an assault blade) I am going to add a free pack of 5 resin-plastic Enforcers to every Kickstarter Enforcer Faction Starter (including the Faction Starter included with the pledge levels) allowing you to get on with playing the game immediately without having to wait for the new sprued plastic figures to arrive.
These figures include components for heavy rifles, an assault blade and a burst laser heavy weapon. They are totally free and in addition to whatever you have ordered. The hard plastic Enforcer sprues will be sent along with your second delivery when they are ready and a standard you can all be proud of.
A small minority of people who have selected individual figures may be affected by these changes and we will drop an email to anyone who is, and see what they want to do. This also applies to anyone who has paid for shipping on their second shipment – as you’ll now be getting one regardless due to the extra Enforcers, so we will be in touch to discuss how it affects you – you might be able to add for more minis instead!
So – if the bad news is more free figures, the good news must be really great!
Let’s cover that now…
The Marauders
We have added a Marauder Pyro to every Kickstarter faction starter free of charge.
This balanced the game better (and gave away another cool models) and gave a more rounded force for the Marauders. In relation to this, the faction starter lost the duplicate arms for the Ripper Suits. This was both to make room on the tool and because it added little during final testing. It turned out that the Marauders got some pretty hefty pieces of extra kit anyway – you won’t be disappointed when you see the finished Hulk and Goblin Guntrack!
Limited Edition Alternate Survivor
We are making a metal limited edition of the Survivor model in a new pose available as an exclusive pre-release model for the launch through our trade partners. He will not be available to buy separately – except of course to Kickstarter backers ☺ If you want him then he can be added in the second survey which will be with you around March-April next year, along with anything else that gets added to the range.
Shipping Update
The vast majority of the models are now on their way to us, and they’re looking fantastic. We were not happy with some of the first batch, so we reworked the mould and ran it again. We’ve seen the results and we're very happy with them. We haven’t had a chance to get any photos just yet, but we are flying in some of the production pieces and will get images out as soon as we receive them. In the meantime you can check out our recent DreadBall releases for an idea of the quality you’ll be getting – it’s the same material that we’re using for the Deadzone figures.
DreadBall Big Mech
DreadBall Alpha Simian
Now, no matter how many models we have, everyone always wants more, so how about a couple of new factions?
Head on over to the Mars Attacks Kickstarter a little later, where you’ll find that we’ve now unlocked a set of faction decks to use the Martian and Human forces in Deadzone. Want to play Enforcers against Martians? Now you can! We have set it up so if you just want the Deadzone bits you can pledge for those with the models without having to buy the game (but why would you!).
If you are into DreadBall you could pick up a team too! Exciting - and a bit random! So if you feel like popping on over and supporting us we'd be real appreciative.
But what about the Scenery?
And now onto more things to make you happy – scenery! It’s not been an easy journey, but as you’ll see from the video below, this scenery works better than I’d ever dreamed it would. The building tiles look amazing and we have had a few pre-production copies in the office to paint up. In final testing they have clipped together wonderfully. We’ve pushed really hard to get a push-fit connector system. This involved reworking all of the scenery tools, and completely remaking the connector mould three times! However, we’re now there, we believe this scenery is going to be a massive part of our sci-fi range, and many people’s gaming tables for years to come. Thank you for helping make it possible!
We now have the final tiles for the scenery - but instead of us writing about it, just watch
Once we have enough scenery sprues we’ll get our resident hobby guru Dave to put some together so you can see some examples of the incredible kits you’ll be able to build.
Back in the office and away from the tooling, we’ve been having plenty of fun with the rest of Deadzone. Jake has been pulling together a tight set of rules for multi-mat and multiplayer games ready for next year’s compendium (in between his work on Mars Attacks), and the sculptors are working on the last few bits for the second shipment! It’s all things Forge Fathers this week – the Brokkrs are all done and ready to be sent over from the sculptor – we’ll sort some pics when they get here – and everyone’s favourite, the Iron Ancestor, is getting an upgrade…
From the painting table...
Our talented painters has been slaving away too – look what he’s been up to…
Blaine
Helfather
Nastanza
Doctor Simmonds
Wrath
Recon Unit
The Survivor
And finally...
We are now pulling out all the stops and aiming to start shipping Deadzone in the first days of December. For any of you that are UK based (or further afield if you are being brave) you could come to the Open Day and collect your pledge personally and be one of the first to have it. Your backer ticket gives you free entry to the Open Day, so make a day of it and get a Deadzone demo too! Also anyone who paid for Courier shipping will be the first pledges to be despatched, and then we will quickly roll through the rest of the orders.
There’s plenty more information to come in the next few weeks, so please keep an eye on your inboxes. As always, drop your comments and questions below and let us know what you think!
Thanks for supporting us, best wishes,
Ronnie
PS - And if all that wasn't exciting enough, digital PDFs of the Deadzone Rulebook will be with you next week.
Nice use of the KS system for an official update!
Good thing Mantic don't listen to Bloggers!
Well update 117 really dissolved any worries I had(most of which were induced by this thread haha). Looks like plastic kits will be delayed until they can be done right
And that is the correct decision, rather than intentionally shipping plastic that was not done right...
I imagine it'll get buried due to the long update posted, so I'll quote over the compiled Dreadball issues post I made above in a day or two if it doesn't get addressed.
This is the bummer of having a combined thread for multiple campaigns... one still finishing with issues gets drowned out by the hope and promise of the new, yet to be completed one
Alpharius wrote: But that's a lot of 'resin-plastic' where 'hard-plastic' was going to be.
...for now, and in addition to the hard plastic that is to follow, unless something disastrous happens. Based on what I've seen I'm confident that we'll get it right this time.
It’s Ronnie here! I know everyone has been waiting for some information of where we're up to with Deadzone - so here we are with a monster update!
As you would expect the biggest Kickstarter we have ever done has thrown us a whole new set of challenges, but so far we look to be wrestling all of them down to the ground, putting our Peacekeeper armoured foot on their throats and firing some slugs into their heads!
First up, my apologies to those of you whose questions we’ve missed over the past few weeks. We were holding out for the results of some of our tooling and shipping info before I could give definitive answers. That info has now arrived, boats are loaded with 5 containers of plastics and boxes - and we can now give a clear update on where we are, and what will be happening.
So, let’s start with what we can’t do!
A while after the Kickstarter ended we looked at converting the resin plastic Enforcers into hard plastic, yet at the moment we can’t do that to a quality I am happy with. We have been working non-stop at making hard plastic organics at a standard that can compete (and beat) the best out there. Over the summer I tooled a hard plastic set and, whilst it was a step forward in quality, it was not up to where I want it to be. We have since then been working with a new technique – and we are very optimistic, but we have been optimistic before and we fell just short!
During the Kickstarter we said the zombies were going to be on sprues, in hard plastic. We have been using them as the test case and the early progress looks really encouraging. If we’re not happy with the results, we’ve got some time to get them fixed – and we will remake the tool – so we can look at alternative methods before sending them out in wave two. That said, we’re quietly confident.
Work-in-progress Zombie
If the method works well on the zombies I will ensure everyone gets all of the Enforcers they ordered in their second shipment, along with the Forge Fathers and the Asterians in hard plastic. If it is not up to the quality we expect, I will keep all those kits in resin plastic as was originally planned in the Kickstarter, and we will put the Peacekeepers into Resin Plastic as well. If anyone has added extras because they were hard plastic we will of course offer the option of exchanging those for other items or a refund. I don't expect any of that will be the case, but I just want to cover all the bases.
So what does that mean? Well it means I wasn’t ready to commit the finest troops in the entire Corporation to an unproven tooling method, and possibly have quality issues.
In Update 103 the plan was to take the basic troops for the Enforcers - Rifles, Assault Blades and Heavy Weapons – from the Enforcer Faction Starter and tool them as a multi-part hard plastic kit instead of resin plastic. This new kit would have still made the same models, but would have used the different plastic. As we are still waiting on the results of the zombie tooling, we are now past the point where we can get this tooled in time for the initial launch.
However, we don’t want to have to delay the launch for not having the basic Enforcer troops, so to replace the four models that would have come in the original promise (the three figures with heavy rifles and one of the figures with an assault blade) I am going to add a free pack of 5 resin-plastic Enforcers to every Kickstarter Enforcer Faction Starter (including the Faction Starter included with the pledge levels) allowing you to get on with playing the game immediately without having to wait for the new sprued plastic figures to arrive.
These figures include components for heavy rifles, an assault blade and a burst laser heavy weapon. They are totally free and in addition to whatever you have ordered. The hard plastic Enforcer sprues will be sent along with your second delivery when they are ready and a standard you can all be proud of.
A small minority of people who have selected individual figures may be affected by these changes and we will drop an email to anyone who is, and see what they want to do. This also applies to anyone who has paid for shipping on their second shipment – as you’ll now be getting one regardless due to the extra Enforcers, so we will be in touch to discuss how it affects you – you might be able to add for more minis instead!
So – if the bad news is more free figures, the good news must be really great!
Let’s cover that now…
The Marauders
We have added a Marauder Pyro to every Kickstarter faction starter free of charge.
This balanced the game better (and gave away another cool models) and gave a more rounded force for the Marauders. In relation to this, the faction starter lost the duplicate arms for the Ripper Suits. This was both to make room on the tool and because it added little during final testing. It turned out that the Marauders got some pretty hefty pieces of extra kit anyway – you won’t be disappointed when you see the finished Hulk and Goblin Guntrack!
Limited Edition Alternate Survivor
We are making a metal limited edition of the Survivor model in a new pose available as an exclusive pre-release model for the launch through our trade partners. He will not be available to buy separately – except of course to Kickstarter backers Smiling face (black and white) If you want him then he can be added in the second survey which will be with you around March-April next year, along with anything else that gets added to the range.
Shipping Update
The vast majority of the models are now on their way to us, and they’re looking fantastic. We were not happy with some of the first batch, so we reworked the mould and ran it again. We’ve seen the results and we're very happy with them. We haven’t had a chance to get any photos just yet, but we are flying in some of the production pieces and will get images out as soon as we receive them. In the meantime you can check out our recent DreadBall releases for an idea of the quality you’ll be getting – it’s the same material that we’re using for the Deadzone figures.
DreadBall Big Mech
DreadBall Alpha Simian
Now, no matter how many models we have, everyone always wants more, so how about a couple of new factions?
Head on over to the Mars Attacks Kickstarter a little later, where you’ll find that we’ve now unlocked a set of faction decks to use the Martian and Human forces in Deadzone. Want to play Enforcers against Martians? Now you can! We have set it up so if you just want the Deadzone bits you can pledge for those with the models without having to buy the game (but why would you!).
If you are into DreadBall you could pick up a team too! Exciting - and a bit random! So if you feel like popping on over and supporting us we'd be real appreciative.
But what about the Scenery?
And now onto more things to make you happy – scenery! It’s not been an easy journey, but as you’ll see from the video below, this scenery works better than I’d ever dreamed it would. The building tiles look amazing and we have had a few pre-production copies in the office to paint up. In final testing they have clipped together wonderfully. We’ve pushed really hard to get a push-fit connector system. This involved reworking all of the scenery tools, and completely remaking the connector mould three times! However, we’re now there, we believe this scenery is going to be a massive part of our sci-fi range, and many people’s gaming tables for years to come. Thank you for helping make it possible!
We now have the final tiles for the scenery - but instead of us writing about it, just watch this...
http://youtu.be/ytM0cNS2TwI Once we have enough scenery sprues we’ll get our resident hobby guru Dave to put some together so you can see some examples of the incredible kits you’ll be able to build.
Back in the office and away from the tooling, we’ve been having plenty of fun with the rest of Deadzone. Jake has been pulling together a tight set of rules for multi-mat and multiplayer games ready for next year’s compendium (in between his work on Mars Attacks), and the sculptors are working on the last few bits for the second shipment! It’s all things Forge Fathers this week – the Brokkrs are all done and ready to be sent over from the sculptor – we’ll sort some pics when they get here – and everyone’s favourite, the Iron Ancestor, is getting an upgrade…
From the painting table...
Our talented painters has been slaving away too – look what he’s been up to…
Blaine
Helfather
Nastanza
Doctor Simmonds
Wrath
Recon Unit
The Survivor
And finally...
We are now pulling out all the stops and aiming to start shipping Deadzone in the first days of December. For any of you that are UK based (or further afield if you are being brave) you could come to the Open Day and collect your pledge personally and be one of the first to have it. Your backer ticket gives you free entry to the Open Day, so make a day of it and get a Deadzone demo too! Also anyone who paid for Courier shipping will be the first pledges to be despatched, and then we will quickly roll through the rest of the orders.
There’s plenty more information to come in the next few weeks, so please keep an eye on your inboxes. As always, drop your comments and questions below and let us know what you think!
Thanks for supporting us, best wishes,
Ronnie
PS - And if all that wasn't exciting enough, digital PDFs of the Deadzone Rulebook will be with you next week.
*If* the Plastic Enforcers had looked good, then all Enforcers would have been plastic everywhere. (which makes the implied free upgrade to plastic due to KS backing TRUE) Because 2 rounds of them are 'not good' they will be a 'restic only' for the first round KS fulfillment and when the plastic process is perfected, restic will be retired for Plastic. BTW, here free models.
They seem to imply that people who may want to wait for plastics can negotiate that with them which may be good for people looking to 'troopbuild'.
So the Wave 1 Enforcers are going to be the Warpath ones, not the new ones? And the 'new' sculpts will be coming later, material yet to be determined?
Slightly annoyed as I already have some Enforcers and was looking to get a little variety, but hey, I guess I can wait for next year to get them, and hey, free minis.
I also like the 'Hey you can buy a special variant pose of X!!!' but then don't bother to show it.
New sculpt would be available in the feb/march survey, way I read it so they have some time to show that model yet.
I would, however, very much like some actual production model shots. James, please please get on that. empty a baggie onto the table and take a few pics of the contents if that's all you have time for, please
Riquende wrote: So the Wave 1 Enforcers are going to be the Warpath ones, not the new ones? And the 'new' sculpts will be coming later, material yet to be determined?
Slightly annoyed as I already have some Enforcers and was looking to get a little variety, but hey, I guess I can wait for next year to get them, and hey, free minis.
Im a little bit disappointed that their not the newer style enforcer armour, but it makes sense not to tool a sprue twice for different materials.
hopefully tho il be blown away by a awesome quality plastic sprue next year.
Stupid thing is I didnt think the backer ticket could be used for this openday so I went ahead an bought two (1 for a mate im trying to drag into the hobby)
Riquende wrote: So the Wave 1 Enforcers are going to be the Warpath ones, not the new ones? And the 'new' sculpts will be coming later, material yet to be determined?
Slightly annoyed as I already have some Enforcers and was looking to get a little variety, but hey, I guess I can wait for next year to get them, and hey, free minis.
Im a little bit disappointed that their not the newer style enforcer armour, but it makes sense not to tool a sprue twice for different materials.
hopefully tho il be blown away by a awesome quality plastic sprue next year.
Stupid thing is I didnt think the backer ticket could be used for this openday so I went ahead an bought two (1 for a mate im trying to drag into the hobby)
Riquende wrote: So the Wave 1 Enforcers are going to be the Warpath ones, not the new ones? And the 'new' sculpts will be coming later, material yet to be determined?
Slightly annoyed as I already have some Enforcers and was looking to get a little variety, but hey, I guess I can wait for next year to get them, and hey, free minis.
Im a little bit disappointed that their not the newer style enforcer armour, but it makes sense not to tool a sprue twice for different materials.
hopefully tho il be blown away by a awesome quality plastic sprue next year.
Stupid thing is I didnt think the backer ticket could be used for this openday so I went ahead an bought two (1 for a mate im trying to drag into the hobby)
more updates like this mantic please.
Contact them maybe they will refund one of them.
have to see, it was only a £5 so there maybe another event next year. Plus im sure I heard we got £10 swag bags for turning up. I may take a false mustache and re enter for more stuff
The vast majority of the models are now on their way to us, and they’re looking fantastic. We were not happy with some of the first batch, so we reworked the mould and ran it again. We’ve seen the results and we're very happy with them. We haven’t had a chance to get any photos just yet, but we are flying in some of the production pieces and will get images out as soon as we receive them. In the meantime you can check out our recent DreadBall releases for an idea of the quality you’ll be getting – it’s the same material that we’re using for the Deadzone figures.
As soon as we've got the production miniatures in-house, we'll post a picture of them. As far as I'm aware they're not here yet. Unless I'm wrong! Which I might well be. I'll check it in the morning, most people have gone home now.
judgedoug wrote: So... the only Enforcers in the main box set is a baggy of the current Enforcers?
As I understand it, the 8 basic Enforcers (4 Rifles, 3 Blades and 1 Rocket Launcher) have been replaced by 5 Warpath ones. i assume all the specialists/captain etc are still in Restic (and were always going to be).
Then next year we get the 8 'missing' Enforcers either in Restic or on a sprue.
The vast majority of the models are now on their way to us, and they’re looking fantastic. We were not happy with some of the first batch, so we reworked the mould and ran it again. We’ve seen the results and we're very happy with them. We haven’t had a chance to get any photos just yet, but we are flying in some of the production pieces and will get images out as soon as we receive them. In the meantime you can check out our recent DreadBall releases for an idea of the quality you’ll be getting – it’s the same material that we’re using for the Deadzone figures.
How can you see them, yet not have a photo? I thought the Mantic personnel were all back from China so...
Anyway, it's been this way for some time, so hard to get photos of production models out of Mantic :-/
I'm going to stop checking here for a bit since I'm not seeing much new, and it's raising my blood pressure lol. But I do hope you're able to answer the Dreadball issues I consolidated above James (from DaveC, Orlandothetechnicoloured, and scarlesquig) despite the fact that it probably doesn't matter much anymore, since everything's already shipped... but maybe this time the lesson will finally be learned for the other campaigns you're still running (such as Deadzone). At the least, I'm happy to hear that you're not pushing ahead with poor Deadzone plastics, but the fact that you're holding off means there have been issues which hadn't been communicated, either...
Anyway, I again appreciate your input here and if you do address the Dreadball concerns I consolidated above from those other posters, I'd certainly check in on that and would appreciate it. Cheers.
The vast majority of the models are now on their way to us, and they’re looking fantastic. We were not happy with some of the first batch, so we reworked the mould and ran it again. We’ve seen the results and we're very happy with them. We haven’t had a chance to get any photos just yet, but we are flying in some of the production pieces and will get images out as soon as we receive them. In the meantime you can check out our recent DreadBall releases for an idea of the quality you’ll be getting – it’s the same material that we’re using for the Deadzone figures.
How can you see them, yet not have a photo? I thought the Mantic personnel were all back from China so...
They've seen them but can't get photos that they want to send out.
I'm incredibly confused on what enforcers we are getting in the main kick starter box game, what will be in the retail release, and what we'll be able to order next year in March for wave 2.
They've seen them, are happy with them but can't show us because they are flying them from China. So, they're happy enough with them to ok them for shipment on a boat from China but they were somehow not ready when the Finance Manager was there two weeks ago.... They weren't ready two weeks ago but they're on a ship now. Think about that a second.
Holy gak. Stop with the speculation.
Your list of Mantics eeeeeevillll production deeds doesn't include their previous trip two months ago when they most likely rejected the tools that they had mentioned in the update.
I'm incredibly confused on what enforcers we are getting in the main kick starter box game, what will be in the retail release, and what we'll be able to order next year in March for wave 2.
Ok.
You are getting everything you were promised in the Kickstarter, plus one extra bag of 5 Warpath Enforcers.
You get Sniper, Engineer, Gun drones and Captain in Wave 1 PLUS the free bag of 5 warpath enforcers. This will be shipped to ks backers and will be what's in the retail release.
In shipment 2, you'll get the hard plastic frame to build the 3 Basic troopers and the guy with assault blade.
You get 5 free figures.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @ CptJake - aren't you fking clever.
TLDR Version of the update for the confused: - We're sorry. - Plastic isn't working out, so we're using Zombies as guinea pigs. - If we do tool plastic enforcers, they will be sent in the second shipment. - If we do not, then all enforcers and peacekeepers that were going to be plastic will be resin plastic. - You have the option of a refund/exchange if you don't like that. - The basic enforcer troopers (3 rifles, one blade) will not be in the initial launch but will be sent along with second delivery. - You will instead get 5 resin enforcers with heavy rifles, blade and burst laser. (FREE BONUS) - Free Marauder Pyro for faction starter. No duplicate arms for rippers. - LE Survivor available in second survey - Shipping starts in December (crossing fingers) - You can pick up your stuff at Open Day if you're in the UK
Except for the enforcers situation. But only because it was not well explained: so, we will get the 8 (or 10, due to sprue nature) "basic" enforcers on the KS later, and now we will get 5 free restic Enforcers? If it is so, them it sound like heaven...
About the marauder Pyro, i loved the news. I was thinking about magnetize the models to freely swap the arms, but i really prefer another miniature in place of another set of arms for 2 of them. I wanted the pyro in the starter since the first concept of it
And about the terrain sprues on the KS box, can you guys make it clear to us how much sprues we really get in each Strike Team?
This reallllly sucks for me. Most of my pledge were Enforcer models of various types for a Tomorrow's War platoon.
Edit. It's not terrible. I'll just delay the project... but still I was looking forward to working on them soon. Getting a little bored of fantasy and historicals. ..
Also: im not happy with the doc girls who turned into a monster. The concept art showed something a lot more femalish, she now looks like a woman body builder... :/
In shipment 2, you'll get the hard plastic frame to build the 3 Basic troopers and the guy with assault blade.
But there are supposed to be more than that in the starter! That's where the confusion is....
They say the restic stuff are free add-ons, it was almost assumed that the 8 enforcers in the KS starter would be turned into 2 sprues of 5 guys in plastic.
That is why I am thinking we will get 5 restic now, and 10 plastic them. And coming from Mantic, this is not unbeliviable...
The Dwarf Wolf wrote: Also: im not happy with the doc girls who turned into a monster. The concept art showed something a lot more femalish, she now looks like a woman body builder... :/
actually I much prefer her this way, more in fitting with the other 3rd stages. But thats just imho. I'm one of those weirdos who think the 3rd stages are really cool. Hence alot of plague coming my way
Although, the more I think on it, the more this is sounding like quite the balls up, going forward.
Having recently assembled a set of the current restic enforcers. I really do have to say: They are *not* friendly models for a game starter set.
They're fine for a normal model kit but there's a LOT of work that needs done. For example, figuring out which limbs go with which. - You also need to find the exact pose that the body fits into the lower half. In my mind, it would be exceedingly difficult for a complete newbie to modelling to put together.
The Dwarf Wolf wrote: Also: im not happy with the doc girls who turned into a monster. The concept art showed something a lot more femalish, she now looks like a woman body builder... :/
actually I much prefer her this way, more in fitting with the other 3rd stages. But thats just imho. I'm one of those weirdos who think the 3rd stages are really cool. Hence alot of plague coming my way
I like 3rd stages too, but i was thinking this doc had something "different", and was expecting something as Kerrigan (Star Craft). That is why i expected something more sexy and femalish. But as you said, this is imho
I have about 60 of the WP Enforcers, and while I love the things, some new variety would be great. I took it to mean we'd be getting the DZ models in restic, but we'd be getting additional WP Enforcers with them. Am I mistaken? If we're only getting more WP enforcers with no new sculpts until much later, it'll suck for me as I'm not getting anything new, but there are options to work with. I guess I'll re-read it when I'm not at work and go from there. Still excited for my goodies, but waiting a bit longer for hard plastic instead of more of what I already have is a bit saddening. Not a dealbreaker, mind you-I want quality, of course. Just a bummer of waiting longer is all.
They're fine for a normal model kit but there's a LOT of work that needs done. For example, figuring out which limbs go with which. - You also need to find the exact pose that the body fits into the lower half. In my mind, it would be exceedingly difficult for a complete newbie to modelling to put together.
Doesn't the boxed set go on general sale next year though? Whilst it's pure speculation, maybe the Enforcer situation will have been resolved by then and the shelf stock will have the final models in, rather than the Warpath stopgap.
In Update 103 the plan was to take the basic troops for the Enforcers - Rifles, Assault Blades and Heavy Weapons – from the Enforcer Faction Starter and tool them as a multi-part hard plastic kit instead of resin plastic. This new kit would have still made the same models, but would have used the different plastic. As we are still waiting on the results of the zombie tooling, we are now past the point where we can get this tooled in time for the initial launch.
However, we don’t want to have to delay the launch for not having the basic Enforcer troops, so to replace the four models that would have come in the original promise (the three figures with heavy rifles and one of the figures with an assault blade) I am going to add a free pack of 5 resin-plastic Enforcers to every Kickstarter Enforcer Faction Starter (including the Faction Starter included with the pledge levels) allowing you to get on with playing the game immediately without having to wait for the new sprued plastic figures to arrive.
These figures include components for heavy rifles, an assault blade and a burst laser heavy weapon. They are totally free and in addition to whatever you have ordered. The hard plastic Enforcer sprues will be sent along with your second delivery when they are ready and a standard you can all be proud of.
A small minority of people who have selected individual figures may be affected by these changes and we will drop an email to anyone who is, and see what they want to do. This also applies to anyone who has paid for shipping on their second shipment – as you’ll now be getting one regardless due to the extra Enforcers, so we will be in touch to discuss how it affects you – you might be able to add for more minis instead!
But there are supposed to be more than that in the starter! That's where the confusion is....
Messaged and asked, reply was basically -
There's 5 basic guys with rifles, made up of three sculpts. 2 are duplicates.
There's 3 basic guys with assault blades, made up of two sculpts, 2 are duplicates.
We're getting 1 new assault guys now in restic, plus the bag of 5 wp enforcers (which includes 5 troops - 1 with blade, 3/4 with rifle, and option to add heavy weapon), giving us 6 out of the 8 models.
The remaining two duplicated sculpts come later, but the trade-off is at the end of it, we've got five free models plus shiny hard plastic sprues.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
it would be exceedingly difficult for a complete newbie to modelling to put together.
imho, those that play mantic games are vets, but point taken.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Doesn't the boxed set go on general sale next year though? Whilst it's pure speculation, maybe the Enforcer situation will have been resolved by then and the shelf stock will have the final models in, rather than the Warpath stopgap.
was mentioned that these will also have restic troops.
I think that showing the bigger Dreadball models as examples of restic is a bit off. Even with the older KOW "bigger" models such as the ogres/trolls/golems it tends to have a lot less mold lines than the infantry sized figures. Some of the infantry sized Dreadball figures I own have been horrible for mold lines. I have heard of a new mix for restic but the pictures of figures such as the Zees in this thread make me think that it really isn't better.
I know this is a news and rumours thread but so many people just seem to be making stuff up when they dont know whats going on. Its a little ridiculous.
Its a shame the hard plastic is going to be late but I would prefer the wait over getting poor quality models.
I like the consistency of Plague being done a certain way and not throwing out a "sexy" female zombie just because.
Does seem to deviate from the concept art, but the concept art was deviating from the look of the plague, as many pointed out when it was presented. Plague are more "mutant" versus "undead". As long as Mantic improve on consistency with their looks and themes for the models, I'm good, even if I don't care for a particular model.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Aren't the store shelf box sets gonna have blue enforcers and red plauge models? I think they are getting a completely different thing from the "Starter" kits that were planned for backers which are ALSO different from the Starters that go on sale.
As said, much of the "what we are getting now and what we are getting later" as far as the enforcers go is speculation. We just need to ask for a complete list of what to expect.
agnosto wrote: They've seen them, are happy with them but can't show us because they are flying them from China. So, they're happy enough with them to ok them for shipment on a boat from China but they were somehow not ready when the Finance Manager was there two weeks ago.... They weren't ready two weeks ago but they're on a ship now. Think about that a second.
I'm trying real hard not to.
Well, if they don't cough up production shots within 11 days, I'll save $300 on Mars Attacks, so there's a plus.
I'm glad there retooling the models there not happy with to get better quality, after all people here said they would be happy with that even if that caused delays right?
Thanks for hoping on board and answering some questions James.
It's good hear they are retooling the hard plastic sprues and are going to get them right, 90% isn't nearly close enough, I'll take a delay of several months any time to get 100% right. I think Mantic need to draw back from this we ship everything on time at the expense of quality point of view and rather go with OK we might be a bit late but we'll keep you informed and the product will be the very best it can be. It's probably last chance on the hard plastic sprues for most people after some the previous ones so better to be sure.
I really would still like to see some photos of production models in the bare restic before the MAKS ends if that's possible, I understand not wanting to put second rate camera phone shots out after the Marauder pictures but putting nothing out at all whilst saying we've seen them they're fine isn't enough either.
I don't want to be down on Mantic I've spent a lot of money with them recently and see them as a genuine replacement for their bigger rival who I won't buy from again so any feedback comes from a genuine want to see them succeed and grow. As I said very happy with most of the Dreadball stuff there's just a few finishing touches let it down here and there.
Yep good update, pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear. There are currently issues, so they're not shipping those things. If there are still issues come wave 2, they'll ask first what we want to do. Hard plastic minis in deadzone were never essential for me, though I do really like them.
Good quality sculpts, all in restic, with the option of refunding any of the hard plastic if it looks dodgy (before it ships) is a good result. I'd echo above though that seeing profuction minis before the Mars Attacks KS ends is *very* relevant though. The Dreadball pics they include look really good, so assuming they're like that, very happy indeed.
Ah... so the base game comes with 4 enforcers with rifles, plus some other stuff like the captain and engineer. We're still getting restic captain and engineer and whatnot, but the _basic enforcer infantry_ will be delayed to perfect the hard plastic sprue so in the meantime we get the Warpath Enforcer infantry baggie to hold us over.
Great update, Mantic are doing whatever they can and I'm much happier with the "if its terrible, we'll just do restic instead" approach.
However, it also just goes to show the full extent of fail from their tooling company:
- Battlezone sprue scrapped and retooled once.
- Connector sprue scrapped and retooled three times.
- Zombies scrapped and retooled once (so far).
Sounds like the Chinese factory just doesn't have a clue about anything that they're being paid to do or a shred of commitment to quality, or interest in the product.
No idea who they're using but it sure as hell can't be Wargames Factory. Everything they've tooled so far has been absolute gak, and it took them three attempts just to get a sprue with rectangle clips fitting into rectangle slots done correctly (all of it 3d modeled).
The men-at-arms were not an "improvement" as the DZ update states, they are worse.
I own both and would happily buy more goblins (the underlying sculpt is really good even if the tooling is crap) but there is no way I'm buying more MAA.. with those you have terrible sculpting and terrible tooling.
How many repeated failures, mistakes, incompetency, mutiple-retooled moulds, plane trips to send staff over to babysit etc. etc. is it going to take before Mantic decides to give up with China and look at one of the UK companies who produce fantastic hard plastic tools and are low priced and actively seeking clients in the wargames industry?
judgedoug wrote: Ah... so the base game comes with 4 enforcers with rifles, plus some other stuff like the captain and engineer. We're still getting restic captain and engineer and whatnot, but the _basic enforcer infantry_ will be delayed to perfect the hard plastic sprue so in the meantime we get the Warpath Enforcer infantry baggie to hold us over.
Works for me and I'm happy with a delay if it means I get a quality product. I've never complained once about Dreamforge and there are lengthy delays there.
I want to like Mantic again; I really do, but I also want them to focus on doing this right and not on the next kickstarter.
We'll see what happens because I'm still getting a bit of dejavu with the "we can't show pics" because they said the same during KoW when they told us they rushed the masters right off to the manufacturer and didn't stop to take a pic or two....
judgedoug wrote: Ah... so the base game comes with 4 enforcers with rifles, plus some other stuff like the captain and engineer. We're still getting restic captain and engineer and whatnot, but the _basic enforcer infantry_ will be delayed to perfect the hard plastic sprue so in the meantime we get the Warpath Enforcer infantry baggie to hold us over.
thats how I read it.
That makes it easier to read at work, thanks guys. I can handle waiting for quality and have the "get-me-by" additional Enforcers. Even though I have more than enough already. I could actually field a SM army with Mantic enforcers at current price costs!
Okay, them I am totally happy then. Basically - they are delaying some figures to make them good as the tooling wasn't up to their new (higher) quality standards, and are giving us pre-existing freebies as "get you by" for now - that's actually more than most other companies would do (which would be just to delay it all, period). And to top it off, the terrain sprues look fantastic.
Well, whip out your 256-color crayola box and color me "Pleased".
Yeah I really think they need to start to send there tooling here in the U.K. I was discussing this with friends the other week and I'm a firm believer they need to find a way to bring the restic/Plastic production in house or here in the U.K. at least.
judgedoug wrote: Okay, them I am totally happy then. Basically - they are delaying some figures to make them good as the tooling wasn't up to their new (higher) quality standards, and are giving us pre-existing freebies as "get you by" for now - that's actually more than most other companies would do (which would be just to delay it all, period). And to top it off, the terrain sprues look fantastic.
Well, whip out your 256-color crayola box and color me "Pleased".
Hopefully this is the direction they take and keep in the future: fairly easy to follow update (long isn't a problem here) and freebie fixes added on to what you're already getting when delays happen. 95% of us on Dakka (I'm not taking other sites into account) said wed be happy to wait longer for non-rushed jobs (as long as we're kept in the loop), and they're giving that to us with freebies tacked on to get us by.
Just get the game to me with competent pieces and I'll be happy.
I too would love to see them get a handle on their tooling. Maybe if there's enough outcry from the public they'll start looking a bit more seriously at local homegrown plastic providers.
I'm all for keeping business at home, wherever home may be.
I might be wrong but I think that the Undead and other initial KoW plastics were Renedra (a UK oufit I believe) but they got too backed up to do the Mantic stuff later so they looked further afield. I'm sure someone will correct me here if I'm off the mark.
Pathfinder Dave wading in after a lifetime of lurking. Sometimes you guys have valid point, and sometimes it seems misinformation and speculation can be the worst enemy.
I'd like to add my take on the little tooling debate. Moving tooling to the UK is not a definite guarantee of success, nor is moving it in house.
Additionally, Mantic are being very candid about their successes and failures in plastic tooling - we often don't hear about this form other companies, so that it too several attempts to get a sprue right is not a bad thing. I've heard the same of renedra and GW - multiple attempts to correct errors. In fact, if anything its shows a determination to push the quality as high as they can get it. Like people have said, they are looking now more into getting results rather than deadlines.
It's like everything in business Sukura, you are going to go the route of getting the most for the least and giving the least for the most. That's how you make money. There is a ceratin amount of honesty and ethics involved, but that honesty and ethics unfortunately derived from just trying to keep the revenue streams flowing.
Just criticizing Mantic on their tooling decisions (in particular where the tools are based and how many attempts they are willing to suffer) is a bit of a stretch. They aren't gonna send money overseas just because. Most companies would prefer to keep money inside their own economy, so going to China is not something they'd do just because they think Chinese women are hot and want an excuse to pick up some chicks (or Birds rather....they are British). It's because more lucrative deals are being made there. Part of their contract may be that retooling costs a lower percentage then what can they can find in the UK, and material costs may be significantly cheaper. Even a 10% increase per model might push you out that way if you have a deep enough run.
I just don't think many of us know enough of the details to be too harsh on someone's business decisions. Making suggestions is one thing, but assuming they are morons when it comes to expanding their company is something else.
The Dwarf Wolf wrote: Also: im not happy with the doc girls who turned into a monster. The concept art showed something a lot more femalish, she now looks like a woman body builder... :/
actually I much prefer her this way, more in fitting with the other 3rd stages.
You say that like it's a good thing. The Plague still look like parodies of the worst aspects of Mantic's sculpting.
The Dwarf Wolf wrote: Also: im not happy with the doc girls who turned into a monster. The concept art showed something a lot more femalish, she now looks like a woman body builder... :/
actually I much prefer her this way, more in fitting with the other 3rd stages.
You say that like it's a good thing. The Plague still look like parodies of the worst aspects of Mantic's sculpting.
I really like the plague 3rd gens, less zombie more mutant. I also (and I know many people dont) like the kow trolls and I've come round to liking the orx especially the basic troops. I think imho if she'd be too slim or different to the 3rd gens then she'd stick out and wouldn't fit the factions style. I know im probably in the minority here but I like what I like!
The Dwarf Wolf wrote: Also: im not happy with the doc girls who turned into a monster. The concept art showed something a lot more femalish, she now looks like a woman body builder... :/
actually I much prefer her this way, more in fitting with the other 3rd stages.
You say that like it's a good thing. The Plague still look like parodies of the worst aspects of Mantic's sculpting.
I really like the plague 3rd gens, less zombie more mutant. I also (and I know many people dont) like the kow trolls and I've come round to liking the orx especially the basic troops. I think imho if she'd be too slim or different to the 3rd gens then she'd stick out and wouldn't fit the factions style. I know im probably in the minority here but I like what I like!
I'm with you ed, I like the 3rd gens alot and I'm glad she has been done in the same style!
I'm not big on the plague, but Simmons is aesthetically appropriate. Far more than she was. That said, first gen plagues are some of the best minis Mantic has!!
I actually thought Black Nexus was your account for a while since you had the same avatars here/ on the mantic forums. :p
sukura636 wrote: I'd like to add my take on the little tooling debate. Moving tooling to the UK is not a definite guarantee of success, nor is moving it in house.
Well, that's fair enough, but if Mantic ever change their mind I have half a dozen really nice PDC sprues that I think could make a pretty strong case to the contrary.
Might be worth having a drive down to Wiltshire for a chat with them, they're experienced, really know their stuff, are wargamers themselves, and they have successfully delivered (on time) a kickstarter with 5 hard plastic sprues after getting a mere £11k of funding. They even had a pledge level for wargames companies to get a sprue tooled for £2500, and are currently looking for companies who want hard plastic tooling to get in touch.
Plus their kickstarter was tooled, produced and delivered in their spare time (evenings and weekends) over the space of 3 months. The overall impression I've gotten from following the campaign and their progress has been "these guys really know their stuff".
I'd just like Mantic to succeed, they're not going to get where they want without hard plastic and quite frankly the Chinese company doesn't seem interested in/ committed to/ capable of quality with that for whatever reason. Mantic shouldn't be having to spend valuable time, resources and grey hairs having to babysit them, they should already be capable of doing the job Mantic paid them to do. That's just my opinion on it.
I find it odd that so many customers in this thread say they can't afford to ask for a refund because of postage costs.
Esp. given all the cases of mispackaging, sending out things not ordered and sending out products even Mantic is not happy about.
Guess customers have to adapt one way or the other. Not sure Mantic will like that.
SS, Mantic is only having problems with the organic lines for plastic atm aren't they? PDC has shown no ability to do them yet. They can make the inorganic stuff (mine are yet to arrive though ; p), but Mantic has no problem with that I think. From my limited, painkiller hazed understanding of the issue.
I think the idea of the whole 'organic lines' thing is, Mantic are using that as their yardstick for deciding. "Is Hard Plastic the right tool for the job."
It's the 'hard' thing to do, so if they can work it out correctly, then the easier armour plating type figures should, in theory, be fine too.
@Yonan: Correct, organics would need to be demo'd.
Think they could handle it though, there is quite literally 0.1mm levels of detail on the sprues I'm looking at right now, it is right on par with Renedra.. wiping out the detail just by putting a layer of paint over the top is a serious concern!
I know the files they're working from are likely quite different, but Hawk Wargames also got the plastic sprues for their new 2-player box set made in hard plastic in the UK... with excellent results.
It's fair to say we don't know what Mantic has looked at up to this point, but as even Black Nexus points out, it's also fair to say that the solution they've pursued so far for hard plastic is definitely not working.
The Plague "supertorso" and other distorted features are really growing on me (get ready to run when my mind goes too!). Simmonds doesn't exactly match her concept art, but she more closely matches the rest of the plague, and I am happy it worked out that way.
I was looking forward to sinking my teeth into the new enforcer sculpts, but if they want to send me what amounts to 10 free current enforcers, then I'll be fine with that. But... Did it say anywhere in the update that these were specifically the warpath ones? I read it on my phone, and didn't see it, but I'm guessing this is interpreted as implied? If thats the case then does the restic baggy contain the metal bits for the assault blade and burst laser... or am I mistaken and those actually exist in the restic strike team?
Terrain looks fugging amazing, with just a couple of clips he was wailing on that thing, I'm excited. A little worried that paint is going to muck things up a bit (especially if I end up dipping them for extra protection), but those look awesome and I'm glad I ordered many-lots.
Nastanza (or w/e) is a really neat model. The head is a bit weird, she looks man-elfish but the rest of the model looks feminine. Maybe from a different angle or with slightly different colors (or maybe break down for some GS hair too, if it bothers me). May just be the aesthetic they're aiming for with the Aesterians which might not be a bad thing.
Pathfinder Dave wading in after a lifetime of lurking. Sometimes you guys have valid point, and sometimes it seems misinformation and speculation can be the worst enemy.
I'd like to add my take on the little tooling debate. Moving tooling to the UK is not a definite guarantee of success, nor is moving it in house.
Additionally, Mantic are being very candid about their successes and failures in plastic tooling - we often don't hear about this form other companies, so that it too several attempts to get a sprue right is not a bad thing. I've heard the same of renedra and GW - multiple attempts to correct errors. In fact, if anything its shows a determination to push the quality as high as they can get it. Like people have said, they are looking now more into getting results rather than deadlines.
Hopefully that's enough.
I would just like to add that moving it into the U.K means they can control quality better as well as hitting deadlines (no boat) they wouldn't have to fly around the world when there is a problem they just need to pop down the road which means they can visit more often as well to take photos or to check on progres as well as no neee to keep an employee in a foreign country. My experience with the Chinese (in engineering) is that most of the time they produce gak, if you want cheap parts with no tight tolerances then you go to china, you want a quality part and able to hold tight tolerances then you don't send it to the Chinese.
Additionally, Mantic are being very candid about their successes and failures in plastic tooling - we often don't hear about this form other companies, so that it too several attempts to get a sprue right is not a bad thing. I've heard the same of renedra and GW - multiple attempts to correct errors. In fact, if anything its shows a determination to push the quality as high as they can get it. Like people have said, they are looking now more into getting results rather than deadlines.
Hopefully that's enough.
I don't think Mantic are being candid at all. I have 60 Men at Arms here that say otherwise. If Mantic had been candid, I would have known to avoid them.
And despite the update, we still don't know who at Mantic made the decision to greenlight the Men at Arms or why, how they ended up looking so bad, and what steps Mantic is taking to avoid the issue in the first place.
And, no, the update didn't provide that information. It just gave us the same "that won't happen again" message as last time. The problem is, Mantic is a company that releases models like the Men at Arms, the Drakon riders, the Basilean sisters, the Basilean sisters on cat-horses, the Trolls (dear GOD the Trolls!), the manscaped werewolves, the Twilight Kin assassin, the goblins, the half-cheeked fantasy warpath sprues, the Veermyn, and many more. There is a serious problem with art direction and quality assurance at Mantic, and telling us that the same people who accepted all those terrible products for sale are now being extra careful to make sure the Deadzone minis will be good? ... Please tell me you can understand why that's not convincing.
To use a bad analogy, if your interior decorator is colorblind you can't just tell him to look harder to make the colors complementary.
I know that you and others may not see it this way but crowdfunding is a form of temporary incorporation. Backers don't truly have any ownership in your company or much recourse if you do something dirty like, I don't know, send us poor quality merchandise, merchandise that is radically different from what was previously presented/advertised, merchandise of a different material than promised, etc. What we can do is talk. Communicate. Question and yes even badger until we get answers. It wouldn't be this way if we were dealt with above board but since Mantic seems dead-set on treating us as faceless wallets, we have no recourse until you, as a company, remember that with faces come voices and in this industry word of mouth means a great deal.
I know, I know, we'll get a gloriously huge update sometime "soon" just like we were to get a big update "next week" when the Finance Manager came back from China with a box and some scenery....two weeks ago. Then everybody ran off to Germany or parts unknown which apparently had no internet service to post the big update. That's the problem here. So far Mantic's been big on ideas and short on follow-through and I, and I'm sure everyone else here, would love that to change. For crying out loud, you know you've screwed up when Scarlet Squig who has been one of Mantic's biggest supporters and defenders on this site starts throwing in with the nay-sayers.
There is a serious problem with art direction and quality assurance at Mantic
As someone who admittedly only has a purchased Dreadball starter box in hand, didn't back and has no interest in Kings of War (Fantasy themes aren't my thing), and has only the photos of Deadzone to go by, I don't see any problem at all in the art direction - despite repeatedly being told otherwise.
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's an endemic problem with the company.
There is a serious problem with art direction and quality assurance at Mantic
As someone who admittedly only has a purchased Dreadball starter box in hand, didn't back and has no interest in Kings of War (Fantasy themes aren't my thing), and has only the photos of Deadzone to go by, I don't see any problem at all in the art direction - despite repeatedly being told otherwise.
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's an endemic problem with the company.
QA is, of course, another issue.
Yeah, I'm with this guy! Even though I've only handled a small percentage of the worlds populations boobs, I'm pretty sure they are all awesome!
GrimDork wrote: I was looking forward to sinking my teeth into the new enforcer sculpts, but if they want to send me what amounts to 10 free current enforcers, then I'll be fine with that. But... Did it say anywhere in the update that these were specifically the warpath ones? I read it on my phone, and didn't see it, but I'm guessing this is interpreted as implied? If thats the case then does the restic baggy contain the metal bits for the assault blade and burst laser... or am I mistaken and those actually exist in the restic strike team?
I think it's implication based on the image used and the model count. And I can confirm the Restic Strike Team does include 1 Restic blade arm (and pistol) and 1 Restic Burst Laser.
I've confirmed that of the 8 basic enforcers that we were supposed to be getting in the basic kits, we're getting 6. 1 of the new sculpts and a bag of the current enforcers including restic cannon and blade. These 8 were supposed to have been swapped out for 10 hard plastic enforcers and we're getting those HP enforcers in the second wave. So all in all, we're getting 7 extra enforcers on top of the ones that people pledged for. This isn't a problem from the gameplay point of view since the enforcers had more than 100 points in the core box anyway.
Judgedoug, I'm sure Mantic will be in touch to sort out your pledge. From best I can tell you'll be sorted with the hard plasticenforcers but of course Mantic will make sure you get what you want.
In terms of redoing tools, the clips weren't as solid as in the video when I visited Mantic HQ. It's likely that the problems weren't that the factory screwed up, possibly that Mantic wanted to see if they could get the fit even tighter. As others have pointed out, no one in this thread (at least none of those complaining because the sprues have been retooled) has enough experience with plastic tooling to say how many times tooling normally has to be redone to get it right, including at wargames factory. We don't know the exact reason why the tools were redone and it's pointless to speculate.
I did have the wrong end of the stick ehen it came to the whole restic/hard plastic in the first wave. I misunderstood Ronnie when he told me that plastics weren't coming to mean that they werent in the basic enforcer sets at all.
Give em a day or two to at least actually investigate the questions you've asked. Possible the weekend to - ya know - get round to it.
This "Dakka is the center of the known universe, companies should suck up to us"-attitude is getting rather annoying.
Not to mention that this is "News & Rumours". It should be the job of .. ya know .. the mods of this site, to keep this thread to News & Rumours, and to guide customer complaints and quality discussions to an appropriate thread in the Mantic Games section of this board, or better yet the Mantic Forums.
Maybe you should wander back over to your blog and rule with an iron fist over there instead of bitching about how this site is run, if you're so unhappy? I'm a bit over your endless "the way it should be done is the way I interpret things..." attitude in posts here
Maybe you should wander back over to your blog and rule with an iron fist over there instead of bitching about how this site is run, if you're so unhappy? I'm a bit over your endless "the way it should be done is the way I interpret things..." attitude in posts here
Wasn't this thread (recently) all about how people should listen to feedback and respond to their fans and customers? I guess Dakka doesn't hold itself to the same standard that they demand of companies like Mantic when it comes to listening to critical feedback?
Mars Attacks is using a different material altogether so any problems from past kickstarters won't apply. The only crossovers are the game mat (which we've already had for Dreadball and is fantastic) and the hard plastic scenery (which even the biggest detractors of Mantic are very optimistic about).
monders wrote:I don't want to throw this thread off track, but regarding the Mars Attacks! stuff... can we expect the same problems as the DZ, Db and KoW kits?
They're going to be one piece models, and don't seem to be massively detailed so hopefully not.
I'm not at all clued up on tooling or what not.
Past performance is one of the best indicators of future performance. I expect trouble.
Daedle wrote:Mars Attacks is using a different material altogether so any problems from past kickstarters won't apply. The only crossovers are the game mat (which we've already had for Dreadball and is fantastic) and the hard plastic scenery (which even the biggest detractors of Mantic are very optimistic about).
Really? Where have they stated this and what is the new material?
If you read earlier in the thread, Mantic has stated Daedle as a fairly reliable source. They may have told him directly.
(Okay daedle, I've talked you up as reliable, now my reputation is tied to yours lol)
I also feel like you are cherry picking "past experiences". Every Season of Dreadball saw increased overall quality of sculpts, so other issues aside (which you are obviously accounting for with your comment) constant improvement in model quality should also be expected.
CptJake wrote: Really? Where have they stated this and what is the new material?
In the Mars Attacks KS, on day 1 of it, same material that is being used for Loka and the Gears of War board game, good review and pics of the material can be found here:
Really? Where have they stated this and what is the new material?
It's somewhere in the MA thread I think, the figures are single piece and made out of the same plastic they've used for the Loka pieces, which is also the same plastic used by FFG in their Gears of War game
Earth Dragon wrote: If you read earlier in the thread, Mantic has stated Daedle as a fairly reliable source. They may have told him directly.
(Okay daedle, I've talked you up as reliable, now my reputation is tied to yours lol)
I also feel like you are cherry picking "past experiences". Every Season of Dreadball saw increased overall quality of sculpts, so other issues aside (which you are obviously accounting for with your comment) constant improvement in model quality should also be expected.
Reliable except when I misunderstand something I'm told..!
And yes absolutely to the second. Every Mantic release has been bumping up in quality and Deadzone/Mars attacks is no exception.
And there will ve plenty of deadzone demos going on at the Open Day don't worry. A few of us are staying up late the night before assembling (and painting if we've got time) demo sets.
CptJake wrote: Really? Where have they stated this and what is the new material?
In the Mars Attacks KS, on day 1 of it, same material that is being used for Loka and the Gears of War board game, good review and pics of the material can be found here:
Maybe you should wander back over to your blog and rule with an iron fist over there instead of bitching about how this site is run, if you're so unhappy? I'm a bit over your endless "the way it should be done is the way I interpret things..." attitude in posts here
Wasn't this thread (recently) all about how people should listen to feedback and respond to their fans and customers? I guess Dakka doesn't hold itself to the same standard that they demand of companies like Mantic when it comes to listening to critical feedback?
Since you post constantly (3k posts in 3 years) and continue to post, you're just as much a part of "Dakka" as myself or anyone else here. If you were really fussed about this entire forum not being a mass of press releases, I imagine you'd simply stop reading here or find a better forum to spend your time on, as I'm sure you also know what your basic option is if you don't like the rules of this playground are. Since we all know you continue to participate, enjoy posting things in order to be contrary and love a good stir of the pot, you're at least as much a part of the "problems" that you facetiously complain about as anyone else.
Maybe you should wander back over to your blog and rule with an iron fist over there instead of bitching about how this site is run, if you're so unhappy? I'm a bit over your endless "the way it should be done is the way I interpret things..." attitude in posts here
Wasn't this thread (recently) all about how people should listen to feedback and respond to their fans and customers? I guess Dakka doesn't hold itself to the same standard that they demand of companies like Mantic when it comes to listening to critical feedback?
I think you should stop sleeping with the Tyranid Codex under your pillow.
I got three different materials in my season 3, metal, a darker coloured restic which was of excellent quality, and a lighter colour unfortunately the majority was the lighter restic and the quality was awful.
Joyboozer wrote: I got three different materials in my season 3, metal, a darker coloured restic which was of excellent quality, and a lighter colour unfortunately the majority was the lighter restic and the quality was awful.
Sounds like you are cherry picking 'past experiences' like I did.
"Every Mantic release has been bumping up in quality and Deadzone/Mars attacks is no exception"
i cannot fully agree with that.
So on the KOW side the hard plastic Men at arms are better than the Elven/Undead and Orc hard plastic sprues? Not for me. Even the initial Warpath hard plastic sprues, whilst being a prime example of bean counting of the worse kind, knock most of the other Warpath restic releases into a cocked hat because of the level of detail and lack of mold lines. For me in terms of art direction/concept and ideas the quality is improving but the results are wildly varied.
I would agree that in terms of rulebooks/components/card stock etc (say project Pandora vs Dreadball) then the quality is on the upward curve, and again the Dreadzone mat/rulebook and cards look great. As for the battlezone sprues they look brilliant, and may well adorn tabletops for multiple games across the world.
To a more "on-topic" issue have we still not had the final list of what will be shipped in wave one come December?
Joyboozer wrote: I got three different materials in my season 3, metal, a darker coloured restic which was of excellent quality, and a lighter colour unfortunately the majority was the lighter restic and the quality was awful.
Me too. For me ,the lighter material was used on the alternate sculpts for the season 1 stuff, which makes me think they might have been made some time ago (before a switchover to a newer material). The alternate sculpts for season 2, and all the season 3 stuff*, was done in the darker restic which was much better.
So I'm hopeful the 'upwards curve' does exist.
* Except the notorious metals, obviously.
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Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Daedle, you say that
"Every Mantic release has been bumping up in quality and Deadzone/Mars attacks is no exception"
i cannot fully agree with that.
You're not wrong, but I think in the context of looking purely at Restic Daedle is largely correct.
Daedle wrote: Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.
Daedle wrote: Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.
We have no indicator of the latter yet, do we?
We have seen painted versions of the resin masters for many of the sculpts.
Daedle wrote: Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.
How can you say that? We haven't seen a single production miniature. Terrain doesn't qualify because, my half-blind cousin could make passable terrain in his garage. As was discussed earlier, organic shapes (i.e. people) are the true test of a material and mold. All we've seen thus far are pics of resin masters. I'll take you back to KoW where the resin masters of the Goblin Archers looked outstanding and we all know how that worked out.
I'm slightly more optimistic than before but I want shots of production models, unpainted before they ship to me. If they're going to send me another box of ape-armed men at arms, they can just keep their crap this time around.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to pictures of unpainted production models!
If that is so, why are people here constantly making vainglorious claims to "speak for" or "represent" the "community".
You are free (and safe) to ignore my blog, precisely because it is just that... my personal ramblings. Singlular. Me. Nothing else. Not representative of anything.
If people on Dakka - especially people on Dakka with moderation privileges - would stick to the same, there'd be no problem.
But I - in turn - are not granted the same courtesy.
I cannot "ignore" Dakka and simply "go to my blog" as long as people here, MODs included, abuse the relative popularity of this site to couch their personal grievances in a veneer of false legitimacy and authority by claiming to "speak for the community" (of which I am a part, like it or not), going as far as blackmailing company-representatives to respond to them here, deep within a 60+ page thread that is utterly inaccessible to anybody "from the community" who is less than daily on Dakka, and far away from official company websites, emails, forums, etc.. that people would naturally gravitate to. (Not to mention launching into full-fledged Rumpelstiltskin-mode if they don't get a response within 12 hours).
You can play this site/thread by "private club rules", like it or leave it. No problem with me. But if you do, don't claim to represent anybody.
Or you can aspire to make Dakka a platform and place of communication for and by the community, including with companies, but if that is the case, you need to seriously restructure how this particular information (communication with a company such as Mantic Games) is found, organized and updated, especially by people who - say - only come here once a month. The current format doesn't support that idea/aspiration. At all.
And if you seriously want to shoot for option No. 2, you should probably also make sure that people with moderation-privileges stay out of the nitty-gritty. Conflicts of Interest, Great Power, Great Responsibility, and all that.
Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.
Also, Deadzone isn't being made in a vacuum. If it's about to ship in December 2013 from Mantic Games then discussion of the quality of the Wave 3 Dreadball models that are shipping in October/November 2013 from Mantic Games seems pretty fair as well.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to pictures of unpainted production models!
If that is so, why are people here constantly making vainglorious claims to "speak for" or "represent" the "community".
You are free (and safe) to ignore my blog, precisely because it is just that... my personal ramblings. Singlular. Me. Nothing else. Not representative of anything.
If people on Dakka - especially people on Dakka with moderation privileges - would stick to the same, there'd be no problem.
But I - in turn - are not granted the same courtesy.
I cannot "ignore" Dakka and simply "go to my blog" as long as people here, MODs included, abuse the relative popularity of this site to couch their personal grievances in a veneer of false legitimacy and authority by claiming to "speak for the community" (of which I am a part, like it or not), going as far as blackmailing company-representatives to respond to them here, deep within a 60+ page thread that is utterly inaccessible to anybody "from the community" who is less than daily on Dakka, and far away from official company websites, emails, forums, etc.. that people would naturally gravitate to. (Not to mention launching into full-fledged Rumpelstiltskin-mode if they don't get a response within 12 hours).
You can play this site/thread by "private club rules", like it or leave it. No problem with me. But if you do, don't claim to represent anybody.
Or you can aspire to make Dakka a platform and place of communication for and by the community, including with companies, but if that is the case, you need to seriously restructure how this particular information (communication with a company such as Mantic Games) is found, organized and updated, especially by people who - say - only come here once a month. The current format doesn't support that idea/aspiration. At all.
And if you seriously want to shoot for option No. 2, you should probably also make sure that people with moderation-privileges stay out of the nitty-gritty. Conflicts of Interest, Great Power, Great Responsibility, and all that.
Wow.
You might need to take a deep breath, step back and get some perspective.
Anyhow, everything is looking good on Deadzone so far - hopefully the production updates follow on quickly too.
If that is so, why are people here constantly making vainglorious claims to "speak for" or "represent" the "community".
You're the one who started this particular tangent, by complaining that there is discussion in the "News and Rumours" section of the forum which you do not approve of, (despite it being the norm for many more years than you've been a poster here) and complaining about "Dakka" as though the hundreds of active posters in this section are a singular entity. Now you're trying to drag it wildly off even that topic, putting yourself on the cross and quoting Peter Parker. It appears to me that you're more bored than anything and trying to stir up some arguments and be contrary for its own sake to keep yourself entertained.
Daedle wrote: Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.
How can you say that? We haven't seen a single production miniature. Terrain doesn't qualify because, my half-blind cousin could make passable terrain in his garage. As was discussed earlier, organic shapes (i.e. people) are the true test of a material and mold. All we've seen thus far are pics of resin masters. I'll take you back to KoW where the resin masters of the Goblin Archers looked outstanding and we all know how that worked out.
I'm slightly more optimistic than before but I want shots of production models, unpainted before they ship to me. If they're going to send me another box of ape-armed men at arms, they can just keep their crap this time around.
Exactly... you can't claim improvement from KoW to Dreadball to Deadzone, when no production models have been shown of Deadzone yet.
Judgedoug, you're right, by the same token you can't complain about the quality of Deadzone models- none have been shown!
But you certainly can't claim improvement if none have been shown, either
Anyway, I think it's pretty clear on both sides. Also, I found out that Cyporiean received her Dreadball box which has my Nameless team, but she's off to the Warstore Weekend so I'll find out what I got next week I'm guessing. But, at least I'll finally have it no matter the material, I'm just glad to have it finished!
judgedoug wrote: Hey guys, let's all complain about the quality of Deadzone models and castings!
Oh gak, I don't have any on me, do any of you have any on you? Can you please take some pics and write a review?
thanks guys!
...wha?!?
I don't think it is unreasonable to want to see pictures of actual production miniatures, is it?
Yes, absolutely! I want to see them myself!
However, I think it's unreasonable to complain of the quality of Deadzone miniatures before anyone has seen them.
In addition to seeing the production minis, Mantic should really setup a big board full of terrain ASAP, 10-20 battlezones worth, Even unpainted, or with a ghetto basecoat + drybrush it would still look epic. The little teaser vid seriously whet my appetite for that stuff again ; p
Thinking the terrain would go beautifully as AvP colonial marine / their corporate overlords pre fab stuff since it's a very similar theme to mantic corporations iirc.
Seriously impressed with the terrain. I thought you would be able to assemble glue in place then you are done but it seems like its genuinely modular which is great.
There is a serious problem with art direction and quality assurance at Mantic
As someone who admittedly only has a purchased Dreadball starter box in hand, didn't back and has no interest in Kings of War (Fantasy themes aren't my thing), and has only the photos of Deadzone to go by, I don't see any problem at all in the art direction - despite repeatedly being told otherwise.
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's an endemic problem with the company.
QA is, of course, another issue.
QA checks to make sure the tooling is working and the product going out is OK. Art Direction is responsible for the quality of the sculpts. Art direction should have rejected the Drakon riders, the MaA sculpts based on their arms, the sisters based on their necks and torsos, the cat-horses, the trolls based on their ...really, do I have to explain about the trolls?... the Veermyn, the TK assassin, etc. Art Direction is supposed to make sure the sculpts look good and fit in with the Mantic fluff/aesthetic/product line. Hopefully we can agree that there is an issue there.
QA gave us bad restic and bad plastic goblins and also screwed up the Men at Arms. The Men-at-Arms were a failure on multiple levels in all departments.
Daedle wrote: Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.
We have no indicator of the latter yet, do we?
We have seen painted versions of the resin masters for many of the sculpts.
Same thing for the goblins. How did they turn out?
I know nobody likes to have their opinion disagreed with, but...
the Veer-myn are pretty awesome. This image alone makes me want to own them
Also, as much as I and you and all of Dakka dislike the Basileans, they are selling extraordinarily well and the rest of the internet seems to like them (going by the positivity on other sites), so shrug.
Yeah, the trolls are crap. (wait i thought i was a mantic fanboi)
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Yonan wrote: In addition to seeing the production minis, Mantic should really setup a big board full of terrain ASAP, 10-20 battlezones worth, Even unpainted, or with a ghetto basecoat + drybrush it would still look epic. The little teaser vid seriously whet my appetite for that stuff again ; p
Thinking the terrain would go beautifully as AvP colonial marine / their corporate overlords pre fab stuff since it's a very similar theme to mantic corporations iirc.
Seriously! I'm super excited for the terrain (that and the Enforcers were the major reason I went in big for Deadzone). I know we only have a month left but my internal excitement meter is ramping up.
Still pumped on the terrain. Glad the only two models I put in for originally seem to be turning out well (Wrath and the Enforcer Commando). Honestly I held off on models until wave 2 because I was worried about quality. So now we'll just have to see how everything turns out but I'm set up to go big on wave 2 for FF's and possibly more terrain! (cause 12 Battlezones isn't enough....)
I'm happy I paid for courier shipping, apparently those are going out first-ish? Will help offset my being across the pond and all.
I've got my blinders on to anything negative about deadzone right now. I fully expect it to be like christmas when I was a kid and god exactly what I wanted plus 2-3 other things equally awesome. (i think that happened, I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday =/). If, upon opening and examining my deadzone shipment, something falls horribly short of my (fairly easy going, really) expectations and or I feel conned/cheated/ripped off... then I will reconsider my stance. Having had no experience with KoW or DB personally, I choose to be ridiculously positive about this. If I get burned, I'll probably switch my viewpoint quite a bit... but I'm just not expecting that to happen.
I'm rather torn between unboxing the majority of it with pictures on my dakka p&m blog, or just trying to make the tallest building possible first
GrimDork wrote: I'm happy I paid for courier shipping, apparently those are going out first-ish? Will help offset my being across the pond and all.
I've got my blinders on to anything negative about deadzone right now. I fully expect it to be like christmas when I was a kid and god exactly what I wanted plus 2-3 other things equally awesome. (i think that happened, I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday =/). If, upon opening and examining my deadzone shipment, something falls horribly short of my (fairly easy going, really) expectations and or I feel conned/cheated/ripped off... then I will reconsider my stance. Having had no experience with KoW or DB personally, I choose to be ridiculously positive about this. If I get burned, I'll probably switch my viewpoint quite a bit... but I'm just not expecting that to happen.
I'm rather torn between unboxing the majority of it with pictures on my dakka p&m blog, or just trying to make the tallest building possible first
Im quite in the same boat here. Including the part about building something tall ^^. Piramid?
Nothing wrong with the cat horses, they look awesome same with the Werewolves.
I don't mind the trolls tbh.Funny proportions are hardly a new thing see almost everything GW and PP ever released.
Humans however should be in proportion since everyone knows what a human should look like riders of said cathorses.shouyld have been stopped and changed.
Humans however should be in proportion since everyone knows what a human should look like riders of said cathorses.shouyld have been stopped and changed.
No company or 3D artist should be building a human render from scratch. You can get royalty free 3D human anatomy 3D models which can be used as a base and can simply be posed and skinned. No reason to reinvent the wheel. Use a real human anatomy and 3D render a pose and armor. If they are doing it not based on anatomy or from scratch, they are doing so for no reason.
I think the sisters were sculpted oldschool style. Even with digital miniatures however a accurate set of human proportions is likely to be deliberately distorted for use at such a small scale. Things like faces and hands need to be over emphasized to look right when scaled so far down.
dragqueeninspace wrote: I think the sisters were sculpted oldschool style. Even with digital miniatures however a accurate set of human proportions is likely to be deliberately distorted for use at such a small scale. Things like faces and hands need to be over emphasized to look right when scaled so far down.
I dunno....Ever taken a look at the Infinity line of models? The proportions on those models are pretty dang close to what you'd get if you shrunk someone down to 28mm. Tiny hands and tiny heads, and some of the nicest sculpts you'll ever see.
Even so scaled up accurately I'd expect them to have hilariously huge honkers, 0.75 to 1.5mm may be tiny in our terms but to a man living in a 28mm big noses are the norm.
1.5mm looks fine on a minature but scaled up a 60mm+ shnoz will get you teased at school.
Clothing thicknesses is another thing that tends to be distorted for both visual effect and practical production considerations. sjirt cuffs and cloaks are often massive if scales up.
Azazelx wrote: Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.
They're... Ok.
Once assembled and put together, they look perfectly badass and nicely awesome.
However, there are several issues with them. Issues big enough that, like I mentioned earlier, it would have me seriously concerned for Deadzone if they end up shipping as part of the starter game.
1) Instructions for assembling them (if there was any) was pretty much useless.
2) They're multipart mini's that really should NOT be multipart. Certain torsos only fit with certain legs in certain positions. Certain arms only fit together with certain guns and need to be matched with specific other arms. The unattached heads can only be glued on at certain angles due to the necks. The arms can only fit at certain angles too.
3) You need to get the knife out to do a fair bit of modelling work with them to actually get the models to fit together. - Someone had the bright idea of sticking a 'vent' (is that what it's called), right in the main attachment bowl pelvis thing for the legs. That was a real pain to remove.
4) You need to hollow out the pelvis more than it is to get the body to fit snugly.
5) Even once you do (4), you may find out you've got some gaps appearing if you don't pose it the exactly correct way.
All in all, it took me the same time to assemble 5 Mantic Enforcers as it took me to individually pose, position and kitbash 10 Games Workshop Tactical Marines.
It's been several weeks now and I still haven't amassed the energy to assemble the other 5 enforcers I own.
Someone please tell me it's a one off / I was particularly stupid the day I was assembling them, because well, that'd be great...
Azazelx wrote: Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.
They're... Ok.
Once assembled and put together, they look perfectly badass and nicely awesome.
However, there are several issues with them. Issues big enough that, like I mentioned earlier, it would have me seriously concerned for Deadzone if they end up shipping as part of the starter game.
It seems that from the text of the update that the retail box (and all Ks backers will receive for free when done) will have hard plastic enforcers - or if they can't get them to look excellent - new restic sculpts. Since Deadzone doesn't launch retail-wise til next year, they have a little bit of time.
Azazelx wrote: Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.
They're... Ok.
Once assembled and put together, they look perfectly badass and nicely awesome.
However, there are several issues with them. Issues big enough that, like I mentioned earlier, it would have me seriously concerned for Deadzone if they end up shipping as part of the starter game.
It seems that from the text of the update that the retail box (and all Ks backers will receive for free when done) will have hard plastic enforcers - or if they can't get them to look excellent - new restic sculpts. Since Deadzone doesn't launch retail-wise til next year, they have a little bit of time.
But aren't they having a pre-release relase of the box set in late november at their opening day? I don't want to speculate too much, but it would be hard to believe that they would have different versions of the box for that release, only to redo it for the main release. Maybe they will, but it makes me wonder if the main release will actually get the hard plastic enforcers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, I used the word "release" WAY too many times above.
But aren't they have a pre-release relase of the box set in late november at their opening day? I don't want to speculate too much, but it would be hard to believe that they would have different versions of the box for that release, only to redo it for the main release. Maybe they will, but it makes me wonder if the main release will actually get the hard plastic enforcers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, I used the word "release" WAY too many times above.
I like the trolls. Lol. Screw you haters. The men at arms need SERIOUS adjustments, but can look damn good. Elohi heads, bob's sword from spear idea and a serious attack of clippers on the upper arms and they look nice. Mine are extremely dynamic, but it takes a bunch of work getting them. Something that should never have been required to enjoy them. I'm in the fanboi category. I accept it and know it. But even I feel they needed more QA and shouldn't have made it out the door. That said, I've begun a 5 step process to fix them and make them look good on the table. The fact that people are willing to let them go for a good price helped influence my decision. Lol. Trolls are just not aesthetically pleasing to most. I appreciate them (I realize I'm in a minority there though). I still don't understand what people dislike abou the werewolves. The only issue they suffered from was the paint scheme. The nipples looked bad in the masters, but shrunk in the restic figures. They shouldn't even be a factor anymore. Oh well.
edit: or not? That was weird my post appeared twice mmm...
Anyway, the enforcers are nice sculpts just suffer from some dodgy tear points and moldlines on the legs. Ive put together an army boxes worth, but il definitely wait for the plastics to complete my army.
The vent on the waist was the worst part. No doubt. It sucked to put them together there. I had no issues with heads though, and each of my non-AR enforcers looks unique from the others. And I have 60. Plenty of HW, assault weapons and ARs.
Yonan wrote: In addition to seeing the production minis, Mantic should really setup a big board full of terrain ASAP, 10-20 battlezones worth, Even unpainted, or with a ghetto basecoat + drybrush it would still look epic. The little teaser vid seriously whet my appetite for that stuff again ; p
Thinking the terrain would go beautifully as AvP colonial marine / their corporate overlords pre fab stuff since it's a very similar theme to mantic corporations iirc.
I think Mantic's might be OVER utilizing the "What's hot now" strategy. They understand miniature projects aren't gonna keep doing as well as they have been on KS. You see the same names in 90% of the projects. Mantic has had good success using the system and established themselves as one of the better "bang for your buck" companies, enticing people to jump in for all the "freebies" (Hooray ). But this has already warn many of us down, and projects have been coming in and we are getting less interested in the new Project (make no mistake, the thing that hurt Bones II the most from passing Bones I was people realized how many minis they had from the first they didn't know if they were ever gonna use). Also as Mantic is a small company, you can tell most of them bump, shift, and slide to fill mulitiple roles (Customer Service guys assist in Warehouse, Sculptors assist with painting projects etc. Those things might not be happening specifically but you get it). They are stretching themselves a little thin to get all these projects in whilse they can.
I really think they need to take a bit of a breather after Mars Attacks (I suppose maybe the Warpath KS if the planning is already underway). Jake could afford sometime to reassess and address the rules issues with his current projects. Dreadball and KoW could use a look at which models they could afford to redo in the next couple of years (Basic Veer-myn team might be a start) and a general assessment of the company should be made from the inside of which games are working and which aren't and if there is anything they can do about it. A look at if they even need to do Kickstaters anymore to expand/reboot/reinvigorate/start-up new games and projects should be made. Giving folks close to $500 worth of stuff for $150 is awesome for each of us, but how many would spend $150 on $150 worth of stuff anyway, or often even up to the entire $500 (with less potential of flooding the market with 2nd hand sales on ebay hurting brick and mortar initial sales)? Folks were crying that they needed to be allowed to order everything off the 2nd survey so they could see it first, but how much is that gonna hurt their penetration into the market post KS since they are getting from the company AFTER it has hit store shelves at rock bottom prices? Not to mention all the piggy backing that is going to happen from friends as opposed to buying it from the store since they know they can wait after getting the minimum ( assuming you are just giving them/loaning them your stuff).
In general, it is a bad sign if the company can't break away from kickstarter (eventually, I understand their strategy right now even more then I'm letting on) because either we don't like their stuff enough to buy it for full price so expect it damn near at cost, they never get the market penetration they are looking for because anyone that wanted it got it off the KS, or because they overlap their projects so much, they never get the revenue they need to sustain everything and we stop buying the existing projects we enjoy since we got burned on a later KS.
So yeah, it would be nice for them to get to the point to where they could dedicate a little more promotional time to a particular project, instead of just pushing the next project on everyone through the connections they made through the previous projects. But Ronnie might have a 5-year plan on this, or he might be flying by the seat of his pants.
I think Mantic's might be OVER utilizing the "What's hot now" strategy. They understand miniature projects aren't gonna keep doing as well as they have been on KS. You see the same names in 90% of the projects. Mantic has had good success using the system and established themselves as one of the better "bang for your buck" companies, enticing people to jump in for all the "freebies" (Hooray ). But this has already warn many of us down, and projects have been coming in and we are getting less interested in the new Project (make no mistake, the thing that hurt Bones II the most from passing Bones I was people realized how many minis they had from the first they didn't know if they were ever gonna use).
I would disagree, the thing that held back Bones 2 was lack of focus, "B-team" sculpts and screwing over the international backers, not a lack of interest from the fans.
As far as I know all of the mantic kickstarters have been more successful then the previous.
I may have overstated "the most". But it surely impacted it in the end. If folks didn't have other projects on order, they would have been more enticed to jump on in (or go in for Core or Expansion 1 or whatever). This is going off of what many were saying, so I'm not just pulling this out of the air. And of course what you are saying is what impacted it the most of yourself. But that is also a good example how expectations from KS compaigns is getting to a level where they are hard to reach. (Obviously they still did well. You don't generate over 3 mil and call that a failure, but people expected more on multiple levels).
Automatically Appended Next Post: and Mars Attacks does not look like it will defeat Deadzone. KS hasn't hiit it's "peak" but it is getting close to capacity as far as miniature games go and it with eventually die down a bit.
Earth Dragon wrote: In general, it is a bad sign if the company can't break away from kickstarter
I think you're significantly underestimating the working capital cycle benefits that Kickstarting offers even to companies that don't need to use Kickstarter.
Forget capital cycle benefits, the customer excitement generated early, the way it makes customers feel invested in that product line - the way KS creates a market share before a single unit has been produced is a much greater benefit to the mid-sized companies you mean IMO.
judgedoug wrote: I know nobody likes to have their opinion disagreed with, but...
the Veer-myn are pretty awesome. This image alone makes me want to own them
I have the Veer-myn, I like the sculpts. The material leaves a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, many of Mantic's products have one problem or another. You have some with bad sculpts. Others are made from bad materials.
This being said, I really like Mantic. They make some really great games, at lower prices than many other companies. I am hoping that they begin to fire on all cylinders. From my perspective they are moving in the right direction. Their newest restic formula seems to be an improvement over older ones. They are pushing forward with hard plastic production again.
carlos13th wrote: Seriously impressed with the terrain. I thought you would be able to assemble glue in place then you are done but it seems like its genuinely modular which is great.
Stuff like this becomes a lot less modular once you start painting it, though. I imagine that if I get a pile of this scenery, it'll end up and assembled into permanent structures since I'll want to paint it...
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judgedoug wrote: I know nobody likes to have their opinion disagreed with, but...
the Veer-myn are pretty awesome. This image alone makes me want to own them
I really haven't done anything at all with the small number of them that came with Pandora, but that image makes me want to see if I can replace the Mantic heads with well-sculpted, proper plastic skaven heads and see what kind of a difference that makes.
carlos13th wrote: Seriously impressed with the terrain. I thought you would be able to assemble glue in place then you are done but it seems like its genuinely modular which is great.
Stuff like this becomes a lot less modular once you start painting it, though. I imagine that if I get a pile of this scenery, it'll end up and assembled into permanent structures since I'll want to paint it...
This is the first thing I want reviewed and why I couldn't accept them. Modular terrain is awesome... when it is cast in toy-like plastic and pre-painted or papercraft like the old necromunda stuff. If I put acrylic paint on it, (like other modular terrain) it can't be reconfigured without damaging the paintjob and ruining the terrain. So It becomes static terrain. Which is fine, if it looks good. There is better stuff for modular which will be permanent terrain.
I really need to see how legitimate this stuff can be as fully painted models which can be assembled and disassembled with the clips and all and how a normal paintjob will hold up to that. Else it simply becomes static terrain, (which is potentially fine and not a dealbreaker, but lessens the amount needed to a few pieces.)
I'll experiment with it, but certain things I plan on having permanent, like the top of a tower, and maybe some catwalks. I wouldn't want to glue where the ladder is or the supports determining how high it is though. From what I'm seeing, this shouldn't cause any problems.
Doesn't there appear to be longer "corner" clips that go over everything as well? So even if there was a little bit of wear you may be able to cover it up.
I think Mantic's might be OVER utilizing the "What's hot now" strategy. They understand miniature projects aren't gonna keep doing as well as they have been on KS. You see the same names in 90% of the projects. Mantic has had good success using the system and established themselves as one of the better "bang for your buck" companies, enticing people to jump in for all the "freebies" (Hooray ). But this has already warn many of us down, and projects have been coming in and we are getting less interested in the new Project (make no mistake, the thing that hurt Bones II the most from passing Bones I was people realized how many minis they had from the first they didn't know if they were ever gonna use).
I would disagree, the thing that held back Bones 2 was lack of focus, "B-team" sculpts and screwing over the international backers, not a lack of interest from the fans.
As far as I know all of the mantic kickstarters have been more successful then the previous.
I think you're both right - along with Bones 2 being so close (too close?) on the heels of Bones 1 fulfilment. There are a lot of factors in a campaign that size, after all...
I think you could always get away with making stackable buildings like they have designed for Infinity (couple of companies, forget names). Assemble and glue tiles together to make sections and combine them in different combinations etc. I know I know, you can buy that kind of thing already but still.
I plan to potentially dip/brush on minwax and matte seal mine to make then fairly durable. Will have to test it and see if I can get the clips to work with the paint+sealants... but I'm hoping to work something out.
I will probably glue some of my 14 battle zones into pemanent combindable structures for use as bases to build deadzone paintball arenas from, but I want a set that's very durable and modular that I can port around and use for demos.
Well I intend to glue together my landing pad battlezone and I think il make a few sub assembles such as towers and walkways. To be honest its the customization of the scenery thats the coolest thing imho rather than being able to take it apart after each game.
carlos13th wrote: Seriously impressed with the terrain. I thought you would be able to assemble glue in place then you are done but it seems like its genuinely modular which is great.
Stuff like this becomes a lot less modular once you start painting it, though. I imagine that if I get a pile of this scenery, it'll end up and assembled into permanent structures since I'll want to paint it...
Thats a very good point. Maybe a varnish and a seal will protect it enough that it can survive being taken apart without to much damage to the paint job. Time will tell i suppose.
Theoretically, the only damage the terrain should suffer would be in the areas under the connectors. Even some solid varnish there might not be enough to protect the paint job from the force it looks like you'll need to use. That said - the connectors will cover these up again, and if for some reason you don't use a connector there, Mantic are providing a bunch of decorations to clip in to cover them up again. The outer surface of the connectors won't be damaged so the paint should stay in tact there.
I can't see the modularity causing a noticeable level of damage to the paint job.
judgedoug wrote: I know nobody likes to have their opinion disagreed with, but...
the Veer-myn are pretty awesome. This image alone makes me want to own them
Well, the Veermyn seem to be pretty polarizing. I have the Dreadball team, and I just don't see the diamond in their rough, but then again, I am one of the few who likes their elves, so I can sympathize. The heads were also a lot more shocking back in the days when Mantic was known as the "true-scale plastics" fantasy miniature company.
Also, as much as I and you and all of Dakka dislike the Basileans, they are selling extraordinarily well and the rest of the internet seems to like them (going by the positivity on other sites), so shrug.
Could you please post a link to this information? I just have a hard time believing that they aren't just talking about the paladins and elohi. I suppose people are buying the Basileans based on the quality of their rules and fluff, but I simply cannot imagine people can be uniformly positive about minis that have two distinct problems just gluing their damn monkey arms on. (I'm talking about the shoulder strap overhang and the lumpy, rounded attachment point that needs to be cut or filed before gluing.) And keep in mind that I actually traded for more Men at Arms. (Mostly because I saw their potential for a compulsive converter with a large bitz box. I doubt most gamers or modellers or people would be willing to spend so much time just to get "good enough" results.)
Yeah, the trolls are crap. (wait i thought i was a mantic fanboi)
Usually, I would be on that side, too. I have full armies of elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, Men at Arms/Elohi, and Forgefathers. I pledged fairly big for KoW and Dreadball, and only lowered my DZ pledge after the KoW fiasco. But I'm sick of defending them. No, I'm sick of HAVING to defend them. Mantic has made so many mistakes again and again that it is really frustrating beyond reason. I want them to succeed. I want them to produce wonderful models that everyone will love and to have the best reputation around. However, Mantic doesn't seem to want any of that, based on their method of interacting with the KS pledgers, i.e. the early adopters and their most enthusiastic customers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I still have a troll that needs a home. And an entire Dreadball Veermyn team. Somebody please think of the Veermyn.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dragqueeninspace wrote: Nothing wrong with the cat horses, they look awesome same with the Werewolves.
I don't mind the trolls tbh.Funny proportions are hardly a new thing see almost everything GW and PP ever released.
Humans however should be in proportion since everyone knows what a human should look like riders of said cathorses.shouyld have been stopped and changed.
The cat-horses have really put off a lot of backers because they look awkward and, more importantly, are not the monstrous cavalry that backers pledged for.
The werewolves were the kit that actually got me to pledge. The concept art looked great--a bit hulking and muscular, but not off-puttingly so. The final sculpts were only loosely based on the art, by an artist who didn't understand what made the sketch work. First of all, the heads are too small and docile looking. The torsos are hypermasculine V's, like Johnny Bravo on steroids, which is not a trait one expects to see in werewolves. (Werewolves should be somewhere between a human and a wolf in shape, not Mighty Mouse.) Their forearms are thicker than their thighs at some points. The sculpting of fur was sparse enough to give the wolves the appearance of having "landing strips", and the nipples, although shrunken, were still comically placed and exaggerated. The poses were sillier than intimidating, although I suppose a skilled converter could fix that. Frankly, the werewolves were a disappointment.
Even the nuns were getting a lot of positives on Beasts of War this week.
As for the terrain, it seems to me that assembling all the terrain before every game might be unnecesarily time consuming, and making a selection of ground floors and a few complete buildings that you can then reconfigure as you want is the "sweet spot" for usage.
Indeed. As someone who owns a crate's worth of Necromunda, Platformer, Hexagon and Syberclicks I can attest that there is no way you'll want to put it all together and break it down again every time you play.
I will probably leave 1-2 battle zones in pieces for my travel set, the rest will be assembled into parts and left. If stability demands it, certain structures will be glued as necessary.
Looking forward to having too much to do, its a good problem.
Well, the Veermyn seem to be pretty polarizing. I have the Dreadball team, and I just don't see the diamond in their rough, but then again, I am one of the few who likes their elves, so I can sympathize. The heads were also a lot more shocking back in the days when Mantic was known as the "true-scale plastics" fantasy miniature company.
I had almost no interest in them until people started complaining, and then I looked them up, and I really like them! Azazelx mentioned he doesn't think the heads are rat-like enough, but I don't mind... they look like rag tag mutant rat guys with guns. That works for me. *If anyone has Warpath Veermyn they don't want and are willing to sell them, message me*
Could you please post a link to this information? I just have a hard time believing that they aren't just talking about the paladins and elohi. I suppose people are buying the Basileans based on the quality of their rules and fluff, but I simply cannot imagine people can be uniformly positive about minis that have two distinct problems just gluing their damn monkey arms on.
Dude, I know. But for instance, watching the KoW week on BoW, I saw these comments http://www.beastsofwar.com/kings-of-war/kings-war-week-basilean-faction-breakdown/#comments and it blew my mind. Sure I think the Elohi and Paladins are cool but there's tons of praise for the battle nuns. I have no idea.
"Those are some good looking models. This faction looks really interesting."
"the sisterhood deffo look cool, i dunno, there’s something about scary battle nuns"
"I do like those minis, not sure about the colour scheme the studio ones are painted, but they do look good."
"The detail on them looks great and even the simpler “rank and file” troops like the Sisterhood look good too."
"I love the look of the models"
"Panther riders? Ok that’s fairly cool."
"Really love the look of this army. I’m going to take the plunge into KoW"
"Big cats and angels look awesome"
(all just from the first page of comments...)
As for sales, this is purely anecdotal on my part. Every day I have a morning routine where I check frpgames.com's new clearance items, see the MiniatureMarket deal of the day, and check Warstore's bargain basement. So I'll see each website's "new releases", so I watched as the Basileans arrived in frpgames and thewarstore and saw that most were sold out within a few days (the AM hours at work are pretty boring so I tend to catch up a lot on Dakka and whatnot during this period). Frpgames just got a restock (as they are the retail arm of a distributor) but Warstore is now completely sold out. MiniMarket is always behind so has a few units in stock. So entirely anecdotal but the Warstore is straight up sold out of everything after they had everything in stock.
Usually, I would be on that side, too. I have full armies of elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, Men at Arms/Elohi, and Forgefathers. I pledged fairly big for KoW and Dreadball, and only lowered my DZ pledge after the KoW fiasco. But I'm sick of defending them. No, I'm sick of HAVING to defend them. Mantic has made so many mistakes again and again that it is really frustrating beyond reason. I want them to succeed. I want them to produce wonderful models that everyone will love and to have the best reputation around. However, Mantic doesn't seem to want any of that, based on their method of interacting with the KS pledgers, i.e. the early adopters and their most enthusiastic customers.
I literally knew almost nothing about MAntic for years, occasionally seeing reference to them or a few models here and there. It was the KoWKS that got me into them. At first I did't like the Elves either but once I got my hand on them I fell in love (they really are intricate beautiful sculpts). I'm not beholden to Mantic but I do like most of the crap they do so I'd very much like them to succeed too. I feel most of the problems can be traced to "too much growth, too fast". I really have a feeling over the next year they'll be able to settle in and catch their breath. Meanwhile, I'll still be playing Kings of War (and hopefully Deadzone if my group likes it) I don't feel a need to defend Mantic, as I obviously don't like a lot of stuff they do either - but I don't feel the need to go out of the way to attack them (ala Kroot), or make random-ass speculations based on half-baked theories and some evil intent.
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lord_blackfang wrote: Indeed. As someone who owns a crate's worth of Necromunda, Platformer, Hexagon and Syberclicks I can attest that there is no way you'll want to put it all together and break it down again every time you play.
Yeah, same here - and I just added 10 of Proxie Models' plastic modular buildings to my pile, too. With Deadzone coming soon I will probably just wind up gluing it together.
With the terrain I'm thinking of keeping separate levels as separate assemblies to make it easy to transport.
I'll be going to the open day and picking up my DZ pledge so there will be some nice production pics of all the deadzone stuff for you guys on Dec 1st.
That's the first time they've shown the counters. So a Battlezone is £25 versus $25 in the KS good saving then. EDIT ah the £25 includes an accessory sprue which the KS Battlezone didn't so it's £25 versus $30 (£19) still £6 is £6 saved.
Ah so those rifle Enforcers pictures are the Warpath ones that Ronnie talked about. So the KS and retail backers will get those until early next year when we get the hard plastic frame for free?
judgedoug wrote: Ah so those rifle Enforcers pictures are the Warpath ones that Ronnie talked about. So the KS and retail backers will get those until early next year when we get the hard plastic frame for free?
That's what is sounds like, though that does beg the question of what's happening with the retail boxes since there's no way to track them...
Obviously that matters not in the slightest to me as a KS backer for way more than I will ever be able to paint, but I can see where that's a very thorny question for the person buying the game at retail. Would the 2nd printing have the hard plastic sprues? Retail boxes get the old school version of the basic Enforcers and that's what they get? Some other option that we're not seeing (such as they actually have the basic troopers tooled in restic before the KS started and are using that one)?
judgedoug wrote: Ah so those rifle Enforcers pictures are the Warpath ones that Ronnie talked about. So the KS and retail backers will get those until early next year when we get the hard plastic frame for free?
That's what is sounds like, though that does beg the question of what's happening with the retail boxes since there's no way to track them...
Obviously that matters not in the slightest to me as a KS backer for way more than I will ever be able to paint, but I can see where that's a very thorny question for the person buying the game at retail. Would the 2nd printing have the hard plastic sprues? Retail boxes get the old school version of the basic Enforcers and that's what they get? Some other option that we're not seeing (such as they actually have the basic troopers tooled in restic before the KS started and are using that one)?
Seems like a weird sort of place to be, really.
I thought the purpose of the hard plastic enforcers was for Warpath and the Deadzone contents would be more "board game like" (remember the Scientist level of Deadzone as a board game) so perhaps they'll just stick with pvc restic enforcers for Deadzone period, and the KS backers get additional hard plastic sprues as the freebies. So I would assume Deadzone as a game box will have 100% restic at retail.
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Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Do the pre-orders give any indication of when they will be shipped? I cannot see any dates given.
"Yes, Deadzone is now available to pre-order from the Mantic shop! This is part of our pre-Christmas limited release of the game – everything will be released in full in 2014, but for now we’re going to be producing a boxed game, which will be released alongside a range of additional products."
So probably a hard date once they get closer to shipping. But before Christmas.
That's the first time they've shown the counters. So a Battlezone is £25 versus $25 in the KS good saving then. EDIT ah the £25 includes an accessory sprue which the KS Battlezone didn't so it's £25 versus $30 (£19) still £6 is £6 saved.
Good to know, I held off on buying terrain during the KS since there weren't any bundle deals for it and I wasn't sure how retail pricing would compare.
The resin crates and counters look really nice... didn't see the plague counters during the KS though, will backers who pledged for acrylic counters get those too?
Also, I hate to point it out, but the faction starters were more expensive during the KS than at retail for UK backers... $35 during the KS (£21.93), £19.99 retail. The dollar was worth more back then too so the difference can't be attributed to currency differences. Equal prices for US backers, mind.
squall018 wrote: I was hoping they would be selling the mats seperately at retail. Seems not, though.
remember it's a prerelease; all the goodies will be available early next year. they might have only printed enough mats in the first round to do one apiece.
Also, I hate to point it out, but the starter sets were more expense during the KS than at retail for UK backers... $35 during the KS (£21.93), £19.99 retail. The dollar was worth more back then too so the difference can't be attributed to currency differences. Equal prices for US backers, mind.
Basically the same as strike team minus a few KS exclusive minis and a few terrain sprues.
I think the Deadzone KS ones come with more minis. Quick glance at the Plague and there's extra 3rd gen including an extra HMG guy.
The $249 mega preorder is equivalent to a $150 pledge plus $30 resin/acrylic bits but the $249 includes less figures and half as many special characters. So the KS sweet spot pledge was still a much much better deal.
Souleater wrote: Does anybody know what will be available in the second survey? Just stuff from wave two or a repeat of the first survey?
both KoW and Dreadball had lots of stuff from wave 1 still available in future surveys. in fact in my wave 3 Dreadball survey I ordered the acrylic pitch for like half of retail price because I had a chance to play on it and decided I wanted it. KoW final survey even had currently existing units at a discount (undead revenant knights at almost half off, too, iirc)
Since these are our first decent individual pics of the minis, I think I'll do a pic dump so people don't have to trawl through all the thumbnails individually:
The equipment crates look really spiffy painted up, glad I got some (at half price too!).
Also glad my battlezones were 25 and accessory sprues were 5 instead of $40 combo sets (though that price won't necessarily stop me from buying Deadzone scenery upgrade packs in the future).
I definitely don't feel ripped off for spending so much on the kickstarter ahead of time, current prices seem quite a bit over what I spent. I realize I could get some of this stuff 20% of on certain resellers, but even then I feel like I got a decent deal on what I ordered. Remember your faction starters may have cost $35 for most of the campaign but the survey (and second survey to come) let you pick any two for $50, etc.
The Mantic guys have been great to deal with, I have changed my pledge countless times and even had to back down to just the initial pledge with the news of a young un on the way.
Poor Steward probably was pulling his hair out when he saw my 8th pledge change. I do know that in my second survey I will definitely get the resin containers, acrylic pack, and collectors edition book.
Yeah, price wise I am not fussed over the retail vs KS slight differences, to the point that I am considering putting an order in for one of the £100 bundles.
Yeah, I wonder if we'll see the production minis before they reach us in the mail. I know I'll get called a bad guy for saying that but it's a legitimate worry considering what they've done before...
I believe that to be the work of more than one painter, look at the bases to get an indication of who did what. For example the same painter did the Marauders, Rebs, Wrath and Nastanza.
I would love to see that exact array of photos... with models directly out of the box without any prepwork. Basically a direct unboxing with every model with a close-up view.
I know I don't buy a GW model without seeing a 'sprue' unboxing or a unpainted assembled model of other people's products.
agnosto wrote: Yeah, I wonder if we'll see the production minis before they reach us in the mail. I know I'll get called a bad guy for saying that but it's a legitimate worry considering what they've done before...
Joyboozer wrote: They are ok, just nothing awesome. I'm still waiting to see the Mantic miniature that makes me think I can't wait to paint that.
i have been saying the same thing for a couple of years now...
Mantic has yet to sell me on a single mini, but they are getting closer withthe Enforcers...
i was impressed with the free hard plastic Ghouls that they gave away a few years ago...
then came all this restic nonsense...
not good...
i'm waiting to see if the hard plastic Enforcers happen, and are as awesome as i hope they will be...
CptJake wrote: Scarlet Squig, is it safe to assume those are the same painted resin masters we have already seen and not actual production minis?
And wow, some of the Marauder poses are really bad... But I knew that.
I wish more people liked the marauders. I know there's been a pretty big turn around and many more like them than originally, but I still feel like I'm in a minority when I say I really like them! I'll be ordering additional sets of them even.
CptJake wrote: Scarlet Squig, is it safe to assume those are the same painted resin masters we have already seen and not actual production minis?
And wow, some of the Marauder poses are really bad... But I knew that.
I wish more people liked the marauders. I know there's been a pretty big turn around and many more like them than originally, but I still feel like I'm in a minority when I say I really like them! I'll be ordering additional sets of them even.
There's elements of them I like, just don't think they are great.
I like what they'll be in a campaign. A lot more character than enforcers and plague, on par with rebs. And i don't mind how they look at all, there are parts I particularly like, but overall I think they're neat and an glad to get them.
I wanted to like the marauders. I really did. But the decision to go the Happy Goofy Silly route ruined them for me. Too many of the poses are just awful in my opinion. I don't need comic relief in my skirmish gaming.
I'm waiting to see what my local buddy gets. I really, really like the rebels right now but I'm not ordering any other single models without seeing what they look like off the bat. That said I'm still stoked to get the stuff I ordered in.
I wish more people liked the marauders. I know there's been a pretty big turn around and many more like them than originally, but I still feel like I'm in a minority when I say I really like them! I'll be ordering additional sets of them even.
Oh, those Marauders. I've been all over the map in my opinions on them. The one thing that has remained constant since the beginning for me are the Mawbeasts and Goblin snipers. Loved them then, love them now. (Yes, even the "dancing" sniper. The snipers - the best received Marauder models by far - are incidentally sculpted by the same guy who did the 3rd gens and the trolls from KOW. Surprised me a bit, as I quite like the snipers, am ambivalent about the 3rd Gens, and can't stand the KOW trolls.) A small part of me thinks I'm quite mad to like the Mawbeasts, but the rest of me doesn't care.
As for the Marauder grunts, I'd originally intended to swap them out for Remy's Locust grunt sculpts from Gears of War. Those sculpts are truescale, better posed, more detailed, more plausible anatomy, more badass, etc.
As a bonus, the Gears of War boardgame also includes the best 2nd Gen Plague sculpt ever.
I still might do this switch, but I'm starting to like the Deadzone Marauders, and for the second survey - mostly on the strength of the hulk and gun platform - a Marauder booster BOGOF is now at the top of my list.
As for the ripper suits, we'll see. I like the close combat one a lot, although I'll probably swap the head. The one with the guns . . . if only he were pointing them forward. I'll either rework the arms or just sigh and use it as is.
Again, I know some people had certain expectations of the marauders... I really didn't, I'm just looking at them from (what I think is at least ) a fairly fresh/unbiased opinion. They're a bit goofy, but they've got a cunning thing going on too. Kind of reminds me of the villain from Galaxy quest. Kind of like bowser, he rides around in a clown top thing... but he kidnaps royalty, runs an army, and probably lays waste to cities (see mario galaxy especially). I don't care if they do or don't look like GW orks of any era, or that they aren't "super srs mcbadasses to the core with no taint of nonsense silliness", I think they're cool and tied at first with the rebs for faction with most character (and liable to be the most fun [for me at least] to run in a campaign).
What I would really like to see, is the accessory sprue "unboxed". I can vaguely tell what I'm getting, but I would like to see it in it's final form so I can start planning things. I bypassed all AW add-ons and condensed that extra cash into accessory sprues, so I'm really curious to the final layout/item count. Also hoping they offer the AW bundles on the second survey, now that I've splurged on core game terrain and accessories, it would be nice to spruce it up with screens and panels and such
can someone tell me why they are using the old enforcer sculpts with the new ones. They look very out of place. Are they gonna make the new ones when the gane gets its proper release in Feb. They enforcer models are making me hold back purchasing the limited releases. Really hope they change them to the renders I seen on the kickstarter.
I believe the reason is that they got enough funds to make a hard plastic sprue, but they weren't pleased with the results of it enough to greenlight them making it into the box. Kickstarter people are being given the current warpath enforcers for now and getting (hopefully) the reworked hard plastic sprues in our second survey. I honestly can't tell you the general state of the preorder dealies.
Alright thanks for the reply. But it is strange they have the engineer and sniper as the new improved looking enforcers, are they restic then? Why not make restic marines to go along side? Hope mantic can get the hardplastic problems sorted asap, its a shame, they have so much potential.
Will hold off and see what happens with the enforces before I buy deadzone, very hard to do (gutted I missed the KS, got my KoW stuff to paint though) Might buy the rebs faction though
The Engineer, Sniper, Captain and Sentry Guns were always going to be restic no matter what that hasn't changed. The other troops were originally to be restic then they decided to do them in hard plastic now that's delayed due to tooling issues so they are giving out the older designs in restic as a make weight for backers until they sort out the hard plastic versions. There's no point in paying to tool them in both materials just to make the first wave shipping it's wasted money if the hard plastic tool works out. If they can't sort out the hard plastic the new versions will then be cast in restic either way backers will get the new designs in wave 2 in what ever medium works best. Not sure how that effects the current retail preorders.
ok I see, might email mantic see what the story is with the enforcers, good to hear that a sprue is on its way. The £150 deal on their website looks to tasty to pass up lol
I quite like the marauder commandos myself...at least the resin masters that they've shown pictures of (yes, I keep harping on this), with the exception of he dog with the chainsaw in his mouth.
Ok so... I can't believe I'm doing this (hate centurions...), how are centurions not properly proportioned? Its a FREAKING ROBOT SUIT. Why would a robot suit need the same proportions as its pilot/operator. Look at the back, the marine is standing on leg-stilts and just kind of fitting in there sort of like an appleseed land mate. I can at least understand the deal about the marauders since they're a living creature, but thats like asking my dreadnoughts have really short legs and no neck
Besides, different species, doesn't have to look like people if it doesn't want to
Yeah if I missed the kickstarter, I'd definitely be looking into getting one of the retail sets and maybe some add-ons too.
Loved them then, love them now. (Yes, even the "dancing" sniper. The snipers - the best received Marauder models by far - are incidentally sculpted by the same guy who did the 3rd gens and the trolls from KOW.
Which sculptor is this, out of curiosity? I remember seeing his blog a while ago and then some people on dakka bitching at me because I couldn't find a link or remember the sculptor's name when I said the trolls weren't Remy sculpts, all I knew was "some other French freelancer who did a lot of PP minis".
I think the trolls, plague 3rd gen and deadzone marauders (pre-fix) are all far below the quality standards of the rest of mantic's sculptors*. Proportions are just all over the place in a model range that is supposed to be truescale.
The snipers and mawbeasts are nice, I agree. But even that isn't a unanimous opinion, some people like all of the marauders except those models.
Overall I prefer the rough military and wiry mean look of the warpath marauders rather than the cartoony heroic scale look of the deadzone marauders. The latter is very popular though since people have major preconceptions from decades of familiarity with 40k orks, which the DZ marauders are closer to.
If I ever get a marauder army, it will not be painted green, probably a red/brown like the KoW ogre skintone. Want them to look like the primitive violent aliens with a strong military structure and get away from the "Orks must look like this because GW said so" theme.
*And mantic's sculptors are really great on the whole, how cool are the new nastanza and recon unit pics we've just seen recently? Also, not one Mars Attacks sculpt looks bad/ out of scale/ not matching concept art. Not one.
judgedoug wrote: Ah so those rifle Enforcers pictures are the Warpath ones that Ronnie talked about. So the KS and retail backers will get those until early next year when we get the hard plastic frame for free?
That's what is sounds like, though that does beg the question of what's happening with the retail boxes since there's no way to track them...
Obviously that matters not in the slightest to me as a KS backer for way more than I will ever be able to paint, but I can see where that's a very thorny question for the person buying the game at retail. Would the 2nd printing have the hard plastic sprues? Retail boxes get the old school version of the basic Enforcers and that's what they get? Some other option that we're not seeing (such as they actually have the basic troopers tooled in restic before the KS started and are using that one)?
Seems like a weird sort of place to be, really.
On a similar note, will Survey 2 backers get the plastic sprues instead of the restic? Or will they get the restic with hard plastic as well/to follow?
Also, I hate to point it out, but the faction starters were more expensive during the KS than at retail for UK backers... $35 during the KS (£21.93), £19.99 retail. The dollar was worth more back then too so the difference can't be attributed to currency differences. Equal prices for US backers, mind.
Do the KS faction starters come with additional models over retail? And weren't they in some kind of BOGOF deal as well? (Sorry, I legitimately can't remember all of the ins and outs and permutations of the optional extras for DZ)
scarletsquig wrote: If I ever get a marauder army, it will not be painted green, probably a red/brown like the KoW ogre skintone. Want them to look like the primitive violent aliens with a strong military structure and get away from the "Orks must look like this because GW said so" theme.
Good idea. It's been good to see Mantic pull away from GW with their Rebels, Plague and Enforcers, but the Marauders, lovely minis as they are, still feel like a throwback.
@Azazel: That depends on how effective the people Mantic are sending over to China are at teaching them how to do their job properly. From the sounds of it Mantic staff are having to pretty much commandeer the place to get good results out of it. :p
If they still can't get hard plastic right after several attempts, plan B is "screw it, restic everything", and the entire second survey contents other than the battlezones will be restic.
This includes kits such as the Plague Zombies and Enforcer Peacekeepers which could end up restic if they can't get it sorted. As Ronnie said "we're confident, but we've been confident before and it went wrong".
On the whole it is good news for backers since it is a statement of total commitment to good quality. It is coupled with an in-advance refund offer for anyone who only bought the models because they were going to be hard plastic.
And yes, KS starters came with an extra 1-3 models per set. There was no BOGOF or anything during the KS, but they were offered at 2 for $50 during the survey. Someone corrected me earlier in the thread on that point.
It's a shame to see so many other companies just pop up and start selling hard plastic sprues while Mantic just wallows around trying to get one thing right. If WWX, Dropzone, 6mm whatevers, PDC toys in your toys, etc. can get plastic sprues done for cheap, how can an established, popular company like Mantic have so much trouble? Jebus, just call up Wyrd and ask for WGF's phone number already.
It boggles my mind that Mantic is willing to put a bullet in their future's head by marrying restic when the wargames market is experiencing the birth of the hard plastic renaissance.
scarletsquig wrote: @Azazel: That depends on how effective the people Mantic are sending over to China are at teaching them how to do their job properly. From the sounds of it Mantic staff are having to pretty much commandeer the place to get good results out of it. :p
If they still can't get hard plastic right after several attempts, plan B is "screw it, restic everything", and the entire second survey contents other than the battlezones will be restic.
This includes kits such as the Plague Zombies and Enforcer Peacekeepers which could end up restic if they can't get it sorted. As Ronnie said "we're confident, but we've been confident before and it went wrong".
On the whole it is good news for backers since it is a statement of total commitment to good quality. It is coupled with an in-advance refund offer for anyone who only bought the models because they were going to be hard plastic.
And yes, KS starters came with an extra 1-3 models per set. There was no BOGOF or anything during the KS, but they were offered at 2 for $50 during the survey. Someone corrected me earlier in the thread on that point.
Thanks for the info, a lot there to consider as we see how this plays out - Especially with the non-discount the KS essentially gave on the starter sets, which doesn't really endear Mantic well for future KS campaigns since online retailers will have things like that cheaper then the KS, without needing to buy sight unseen 6-12 months in advance...
Yeah, the volume of kits you can churn out of a HIPs mold is worth paying some money for it. In particular something that would be multi faceted to cover more then one game and multiple units like the Enforcer kit is trying to do. I'm not sure if they are just giving some other upstart company a chance, or they are doing this at a discount vendor, or what the overall issues are.
Like many, I really hope they get this crap bagged out. It's a shame Mantic might get held back because they can't get a couple essential kits figured out.
Vermonter wrote: Loved them then, love them now. (Yes, even the "dancing" sniper. The snipers - the best received Marauder models by far - are incidentally sculpted by the same guy who did the 3rd gens and the trolls from KOW.
Only half right. The Goblin snipers and Stage 3s were done by their in-house sculptor. The KoW Trolls weren't.
@agnosto: On the Mantic forums we've been raving about how good WGF is at tooling since before the DFGKS (first production pics of malifaux sprues 18 months ago).
Unfortunately, I think the opportunity to use them has passed. They now have a much busier schedule / larger client list and probably charge more than the fees that Mark managed to secure on the DFGKS, which WGF saw as mutually beneficial to turn around their reputation by really showcasing their talent.
There are however a lot of other tooling options beyond WGF or Renedra which I've already blathered on about at length. It could be the case that mantic are simply in too deep with their current company to be able to risk switching at short notice rather than them not being aware of the fact that there's a few new UK companies doing it for £3-5k/sprue these days. Digital sculpting workflows and CNC advances have changed a lot of things very quickly and you do have stuff like DZC (a 1-man operation tooling entire armies in hard plastic, without kickstarter) these days.
As many have pointed out they'd have to go through exactly the same validation and QC process with any new company and KS timetables probably don't allow for that.
Stop the plague from escaping the planet!!!! This stuff looks great and could really add in some interesting scenarios. Even things like attacking Freighters where certain players are holding their base of operations. Already getting excited to plug this stuff into the scenarios.
(And just look at the video. It's all Mantic models lol)
Not that any of my Wave 3 stuff has turned up yet anyway, so I have no idea what I'm in store for.
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