Gosh, I've dropped thousands of bucks on Mierce, and will continue to do so. But I also think the last year's worth of Age of Sigmar releases have been the best GW has ever made, hands down - with Archaon being the best plastic model ever made by any company, ever. The only hiccups in GW's releases have been their 40k stuff.
That all being said, I've also dropped thousands on Mantic models - while I prefer cheap & good (Mantic Enforcers are the best example of that) but don't mind paying premium bucks for fantastic sculpts (hence my AoS Nurgle army)
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Which sculp are you talking about, Bolognesus? The only plague monster I recall was the bald Image Comics monster, and there's no way I'd put that in the same room as the G1 plague guy, let alone on the same shelf.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Right now, Mantic seems to returned to it's strength of producing nice, simple, good-not-great minis which would sell well at decent prices. The Abyssals are great fantasy plastics. The Enforcers have great designs. Forgefathers are simple, but fun. This seems like mantic's niche. I hope they remember that and work to strengthen their brand here rather than attempting to aim for premium anything.
It's the 60mm based gorilla thing. Not a fan then?
Honestly though NTRabbit, you're being a bit hyperbolic here, don't you think? paying slightly more for an actually good model, one you'll only be taking one of anyway? Little overblown response there.
judgedoug wrote: Archaon being the best plastic model ever made by any company, ever.
See kids? There really is no accounting for tastes
While I don't think he's the best thing since sliced bread, I'll agree that he is an utterly fantastic model, easily on par with some of Mierce's best stuff.
On topic, I'm impatiently waiting for my DZ stuff, ordered some Scouts and quite a lot of terrain accessory spruces (pipes, industrial, Dreadball scatter terrain). It's been sent already but since we moved house 3 days ago I'm worried there'll be problems... Luckily I don't think they use TNT here in Sweden, hopefully it's Royal Mail so it'll transfer to our normal postal service.
e: cutting it before a wild mod appears and uses red text (it's super effective)
Bolognesus wrote: Honestly though NTRabbit, you're being a bit hyperbolic here, don't you think? paying slightly more for an actually good model, one you'll only be taking one of anyway? Little overblown response there.
It's still $25 USD for one mini slightly smaller than a Strider. Don't care if I need 1 or 10, I'm not prepared to pay that much money for an extra 5% sharpness and a heavy chunk of resin on a mini that small. For $25 USD I'm expecting a tank multikit.
I got one as part of my pledge, didn't add any extras.
It's fairly easy to see that none of you guys have touched any recent GW kits like the Magmadroth. The plastics engineering blows away anything I have ever seen from Bandai, who to this day relies on thin frame tooling that they pioneered in the late 90's when their kits were actually innovative.
It's resulted in lazy sculpts, packed full of rookie CAD errors
Utterly and demonstrably false. Easily disproven by every plastics release of the last year.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mymearan wrote: While I don't think he's the best thing since sliced bread, I'll agree that he is an utterly fantastic model, easily on par with some of Mierce's best stuff.
Hmm, I'd say on par with most of their range. Mierce's top tier stuff is still unreachable by any other company - you can tell they pay their contracted sculptors well (especially as they keep coming back). Archaon is simply the best engineered and sculpted plastic model. No plastics tooling can touch resin (esp lost wax) in terms of fine detail.
It's fairly easy to see that none of you guys have touched any recent GW kits like the Magmadroth. The plastics engineering blows away anything I have ever seen from Bandai, who to this day relies on thin frame tooling that they pioneered in the late 90's when their kits were actually innovative.
Oooh, I can't let that comment slide. You're saying that because Bandai uses thin frames, a technology that works for them, they're not innovative and are inferior to GW? How do you come to that conclusion? When was the last Gundam kit you built? You do know that Bandai has continued to innovate how their models are developed and made, don't you? Like that all Gundam kits are designed using CAD and have been since around the time SEED came out. Or that they use multiple plastic types in different sections of a kit such as joints to prevent the parts from wearing down. Have you ever built a Real Grade? They have parts that are already fully articulated already in the sprue. When GW can figure out how to make their kits so that they don't need painting, then they'll be on the path to being "one of the greatest model makers." Until they can get at least that far, they will remain mediocre at best.
NTRabbit wrote: e: cutting it before a wild mod appears and uses red text (it's super effective)
Bolognesus wrote: Honestly though NTRabbit, you're being a bit hyperbolic here, don't you think? paying slightly more for an actually good model, one you'll only be taking one of anyway? Little overblown response there.
It's still $25 USD for one mini slightly smaller than a Strider. Don't care if I need 1 or 10, I'm not prepared to pay that much money for an extra 5% sharpness and a heavy chunk of resin on a mini that small. For $25 USD I'm expecting a tank multikit.
I got one as part of my pledge, didn't add any extras.
And thus it's folks like you we have to thank for the profusion of garbage on the market. Worse, garbage that could have been good if they'd just cut a couple fewer corners.
No, people like me refusing to pay $40 dollarydoos for a single non-vehicle miniature has nothing to do with whatever perception of quality in the marketplace you have.
AH. Supply andere demand stops being a thing when it doesnt sluit tour little race to the bottom. Wel thats the end of that, then. I do like how you resemble every last possible stereotype of a communications degree, there. ( Except for civility, but hey, forum. Fair 'nuff)
Bolognesus wrote: AH. Supply andere demand stops being a thing when it doesnt sluit tour little race to the bottom. Wel thats the end of that, then. I do like how you resemble every last possible stereotype of a communications degree, there. ( Except for civility, but hey, forum. Fair 'nuff)
The only one here whose civility is in question is you, friend. NTRabbit has been giving his opinions on Mantic product, you have been giving opinions on his opinions and him as a person.
If that's how you want to read it, by all means enjoy your own private version of reality. I'm not the one who kicked off the abrasive attitude, I'm just always happy to play along
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Which sculp are you talking about, Bolognesus? The only plague monster I recall was the bald Image Comics monster, and there's no way I'd put that in the same room as the G1 plague guy, let alone on the same shelf.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Right now, Mantic seems to returned to it's strength of producing nice, simple, good-not-great minis which would sell well at decent prices. The Abyssals are great fantasy plastics. The Enforcers have great designs. Forgefathers are simple, but fun. This seems like mantic's niche. I hope they remember that and work to strengthen their brand here rather than attempting to aim for premium anything.
It's the 60mm based gorilla thing. Not a fan then?
Honestly though NTRabbit, you're being a bit hyperbolic here, don't you think? paying slightly more for an actually good model, one you'll only be taking one of anyway? Little overblown response there.
No, not a fan of it. It lacks a lot of the confidence and balance that make the G1 so compelling. It's not bad, but just not in the same grade as Remy's classic.
Also, I have never bought any Mierce items and probably never will. For me, the slight increase in quality is just not enough to justify the higher prices. For my hobby purposes resin is an inferior medium, which means I am unwilling to pay the prices some companies demand. I would much prefer to convert and kitbash with a number of decent quality plastic kits than pay top dollar for a single assemble-and-done mini with no options. I feel like I have a better chance finding what I want with Mantic than you do. Mantic is no Mierce, Kingdom Death or Wyrd, and they compete on their competitors' turf at tremendous disadvantage.
GW and Bandai both create excellent plastics aimed at different markets. I don't see a direct comparison solving anything.
I received part of my DeadZone 2 pledge today; I'm pretty sure I'm getting two boxes due to the slip that has circled "two boxes" and the way the stuff I don't have happens to add up to the value not declared on the first box....almost anyway. Little odd, but I suppose that's the new volumetric billing that the shipping companies do where size is more costly than weight. Have to see if a second box shows up with the other half since it is a pretty hefty chunk of stuff (terrain, mats, metal models).
While I barely recalled what I ordered in the first place, I do like the look of the plastics at first glance. Between how they turned out and the early looks we had at the GCPS, I'm vaguely optimistic that Mantic can get HIPS right for a "mass-market" level of model. They're not going to be grabbing-attention like a table full of gorgeous KD:M models, but just as in life there's room in miniatures for easy, cheap and fun.
Still lots of room for improvement, but I'd be remiss to ignore the improvements already made and on display here from a model standpoint.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Which sculp are you talking about, Bolognesus? The only plague monster I recall was the bald Image Comics monster, and there's no way I'd put that in the same room as the G1 plague guy, let alone on the same shelf.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Right now, Mantic seems to returned to it's strength of producing nice, simple, good-not-great minis which would sell well at decent prices. The Abyssals are great fantasy plastics. The Enforcers have great designs. Forgefathers are simple, but fun. This seems like mantic's niche. I hope they remember that and work to strengthen their brand here rather than attempting to aim for premium anything.
It's the 60mm based gorilla thing. Not a fan then?
Honestly though NTRabbit, you're being a bit hyperbolic here, don't you think? paying slightly more for an actually good model, one you'll only be taking one of anyway? Little overblown response there.
No, not a fan of it. It lacks a lot of the confidence and balance that make the G1 so compelling. It's not bad, but just not in the same grade as Remy's classic.
Also, I have never bought any Mierce items and probably never will. For me, the slight increase in quality is just not enough to justify the higher prices. For my hobby purposes resin is an inferior medium, which means I am unwilling to pay the prices some companies demand. I would much prefer to convert and kitbash with a number of decent quality plastic kits than pay top dollar for a single assemble-and-done mini with no options. I feel like I have a better chance finding what I want with Mantic than you do. Mantic is no Mierce, Kingdom Death or Wyrd, and they compete on their competitors' turf at tremendous disadvantage.
GW and Bandai both create excellent plastics aimed at different markets. I don't see a direct comparison solving anything.
Huh. Fair enough. It is a fairly peculiar model to look at, but it has the same menacing weirdness, I guess, that the S1 has for me.
As for different materials I'll certainly agree resin has some disadvantages (good grief, the menace of storing these things safely...) so yeah, if a plastic kit works for me I'll happily take the compromise in pure sculpt quality as often as not.
I don't quite see how I seem to have gone to not having much of a chance of finding what I'm looking for with Mantic? I ***love*** affordable plastics for units I need multiples of. I love restic for monsters I'll be using units of (as long as the price is right). It's just centrepiece models (that you'd actually spend the time and effort on when painting) that I really prefer quality over a few bucks' savings. And keep in mind it's resin they promised, initially. It's really amazing how certain people (not you, to be clear) seem to consider me unreasonable for being bloody miffed about a bait-and-switch tactic, that, let's face it, yielded inferior model detail at 100% certainly a substantial cost savings to Mantic. Eh.
I interpreted your statement to mean you were always looking for quality over 'value'. I still don't see very many centerpiece models coming out of Mantic. I'm genuinely surprised that you say you are willing to spend a few dollars more for better quality and yet are still looking at Mantic's range for that top notch display piece. Is the Plague Abomination that much more impressive in the flesh?
As for the bait and switch, we're on the same page even if not the same sentence.
It's fairly easy to see that none of you guys have touched any recent GW kits like the Magmadroth. The plastics engineering blows away anything I have ever seen from Bandai, who to this day relies on thin frame tooling that they pioneered in the late 90's when their kits were actually innovative.
You know, until those "demonstrably superior" GW kits can do the same stuff that the inferior Bandai high-end stuff does (no glue in anything, fully poseable, fully removeable parts to see the internal structure... you know, basically everything), or hell, what their bargain bin stuff does, I'll still think that the plastics GW does are alright and can be very pretty, but nowhere near the value they're asking for.
For the record, I've just assembled the Deathwatch box and a Ghostkeel. Also, a Real Grade RX-78-2 Gundam. The Gundam blows the other stuff right out of the water by miles.
Most of GW kits are organics and it's not possible to make HIPs poseable organic figures without ugly ball joints and no one is going to want a ball joint to show
Also, "fully poseable" isn't necessarily a good thing, it's more fiddly and harder to assemble. Gundam models are display models so it makes sense to make them poseable. GW models are gaming pieces and having mechanical models fully poseable would be overkill. Glue-less assembling isn't a plus either because again, you want sturdy models for gaming. Completely different beasts, I don't know why the comparison comes up so much.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I interpreted your statement to mean you were always looking for quality over 'value'. I still don't see very many centerpiece models coming out of Mantic. I'm genuinely surprised that you say you are willing to spend a few dollars more for better quality and yet are still looking at Mantic's range for that top notch display piece. Is the Plague Abomination that much more impressive in the flesh?
As for the bait and switch, we're on the same page even if not the same sentence.
It really is quite impressive in the flesh. I was plenty impressed with the renders already but it really shines once you can look at it from a couple more angles. Honestly, I'd be a little surprised if you didn't change your mind at least somewhat once (properly) painted pictures start popping up.
Basically they commissioned a very, very good sculpt like this, promised to produce it in a material that wouldn't make any compromises regarding quality (certainly for a chunky thing like this, even if resin isn't your 'thing' you wouldn't have too many issues with this sort of brick in resin!), and now instead I'm looking at something that looks very good, but, could have been amazing if they'd just not compromised on quality after the end of a KS. ...Again. And I'm fairly sure that's colouring my opinion more than a little.
Well I hope I see my 80 Forge Fathers here soon. I got enough so that I could make a solid marine army out of them. I'm excited for my squats that will go with my tau
Sining wrote: Most of GW kits are organics and it's not possible to make HIPs poseable organic figures without ugly ball joints and no one is going to want a ball joint to show
You must not be familiar with Bandai's Pokemon models, then. Or their Keroro ones. Or their Evangelion ones. Or there's Majin Bone and their MG Figurize lines. None of those lines use exposed ball joints and have well hidden articulation while having very organic sculpts.
As for snap together kits being sturdier than glu together ones, that's just bunk. I've built plenty of robot models in my time, and the old glue-together types were way less sturdy than current sbap-together ones. I don't know how many times I had to repair my old Dorvack models back in the day while some of the earliest snap-together ones I had managed to stand up to some pretty rough play.
Since the thread has devolved to being an off-topic fest lacking any merit, I'll answer this useful question.
Hips is an acronym for high impact polystyrene. Most traditional model kits - usually any plastic models that come on sprues are hips. Hips molds are very very expensive to tool (as they are traditionally made from steel), but the plastic itself is cheap. Models with low run counts will be more expensive to pay for the tooling costs; models with high run counts will be less expensive. It is most bondable with methyl ethyl ketone (mek), which melts the polystyrene (to another piece, usually) and forms a permanent bond.
Ugly exposed ball joints? You're going to see joints one way or another if you have an articulated figure. It's just a matter of how well the joints are integrated.
But not being able to do organic snap together kits? Uh uh.
Master Grade Luffy says "Hi!"
Goku as well.
A variety of Kamen Riders have been made.
And the Pokemon line has been chugging along... (both of them are articulated at most major joints, but these are simpler kits aimed for kids)
The Goku is quite impressive the way Bandai designed his muscles- they actually flex and adjust based on the arm position, allowing him to get into very flexible poses and not look super awkward. Organics can be done as plastic kits, and look good in the process!
Any Lockdown pledgers able to tell me how many FF Steel Warriors you got? Pledge picture on KS says 10 but my Lockdown bundle bag says 5.
The Wrath of Kings style restic or whatever it is is actually very good, definitely on a par with the actual Wrath of Kings stuff I bought at Salute. Metals are poor- not awful, but close (my two metal druids I got with my Kings of War kickstarter were comparably bad) and I have requested replacements in the ticket I raised. Mantic, IMHO, need to replace their metals with the WoK style plastic, or at least find a better producer, and ramp up their HiPS usage as the hard plastic they are producing now is great for their possibly outdated 'building big armies' aim.
Since the thread has devolved to being an off-topic fest lacking any merit, I'll answer this useful question.
Hips is an acronym for high impact polystyrene. Most traditional model kits - usually any plastic models that come on sprues are hips. Hips molds are very very expensive to tool (as they are traditionally made from steel), but the plastic itself is cheap. Models with low run counts will be more expensive to pay for the tooling costs; models with high run counts will be less expensive. It is most bondable with methyl ethyl ketone (mek), which melts the polystyrene (to another piece, usually) and forms a permanent bond.
I see, Interesting. So GW minis are HIPs as well then?
Resin Stage 3 - New Formula Aberration - Original Restic Stage 3
And, here's my Pathfinders I've assembled so far. I've got to say, I've not made the best advert for them, I think. - You need to be very careful about how to pose them would be my advice and I've not done that properly, I think.
That's not *that* big. Was expecting bigger, but it is Mantic, so I can't say I'm too surprised. That's probably just more of my own expectations on how big it would be.
It's nowhere near Mierce-scaled, no. OTOH, you can realistically hope to pack a decent amount of these away in a more-or-less decently sized carrying case. Something to be said for that
Compel wrote: It's not like a normal Stage 3 is particularly tiny. :p
I thought they were generation 1's..? And I bought mine for $10. I suspect most people who bought them did. $25 seems a bit much in comparison.
I'll have to look at the picture in a bigger monitor, but I have to admit that on this tablet it looks like a closer match to the original than The renders made it look.
Soo much stuff
Not going to be able to go through all of it so here's some of the new stuff
New Board Game plastic characters
Here are Enforcer "master chief", biker Blaine, abomination and the Piper
As they come
Components Assembled!
Miles better than the previous restic minis and better than most of the mantic metals I've seen too.
Their not as good as resins or metals from other companies but their still nice and a good step forward for mantic
Really happy with them will need to see how they take paint before I give my final verdict on them though.
Size comparison of the abomination and Gen 1 plague beast
teraton shocktrooper
Is there a fluff reason he's smaller than the reb teraton?
That's all for now please let me know if there's anything you specifically want a pic of.
P.s really jealous of your resin Gen 1 plague Compel
Is there a fluff reason he's smaller than the reb teraton?
Yep the Teraton Brawler (Rebs) is Female and the Teraton Shock Troopers are Male. The females are are larger than the males the Dreadball team is like this as well. The Shock Troopers should be on 25mm bases.
Thanks for the photos, Joe. The figures look great. Not too fussed about the warping here and there, as a hot water technique type of fella. You know the type.
Looks like this Enforcer has a jetpack that actually looks like one. Who knew?
I almost wonder if there was some unaccounted shrinkage in the design of the aberration.
Could explain a few things, no?
Gotta say the PVC stuff does look a lot nicer than their previous restic stuff. At this point I question why bother with the metal because the PVC looks a lot nicer for what they were shooting for. I've never been too impressed with Mantic's metal offerings.
My DZ stuff was delivered yesterday (NC near Bragg). I had a $1 bid and added a small amount of stuff in the pledge manager.
Got the deluxe mat, it looks decent, no surprises there.
Ordered 'Outbreak' to get the new rule book, it came with dice, cardboard tokens, a paper mat and a small poster of the cover art. Book is smaller than I thought it would be but looks okay. Tokens are fine, dice are nothing special. Again, no surprises.
Got 10 Steel Warriors: Two bags each with a sprue and a smaller bag of parts cut from a sprue. I have not opened them but really hope whoever cut the parts off did a decent job. I would have very much preferred cutting them off myself. From what I can tell detail is pretty good. Looks like there are torsos in the bag of loose parts as well as what look like two-part torsos on the sprue.
Got 10 Enforcer Pathfinders: Two bags each with one sprue, everything is on that sprue. Never been a fan of the robot dog but the pathfinders look nice. Glad I got these.
Got two Enforcer Jetbikes: One bag with a gak ton of cut from a sprue parts. Not really happy about that. Detail looks good but bags of loose parts for HIPS models is a crappy thing. Obviously I'll deal with it. There are a couple clear plastic flying stands in the bag too.
Also got a bag with bases for all the figures mentioned above.
Never got notice my package was on the way so was surprised it arrived.
Why did they go with clipping parts of a HIP's sprue? surely not only will it cause mispacks and potential damage to the parts but will also increase the cost of the kit due to more man hours needed to do this? One of the good thing about HIP's is that you can just put it in a box an be done with it.
overtyrant wrote: Why did they go with clipping parts of a HIP's sprue? surely not only will it cause mispacks and potential damage to the parts but will also increase the cost of the kit due to more man hours needed to do this? One of the good thing about HIP's is that you can just put it in a box an be done with it.
My guess is that they didn't have enough parts to fill a full sprue so got remainding parts for a few kits on one sprue.
If I remember correctly mantic have said in the past that their deal with the Chinese manufacturer meant that it didn't cost any extra to have to parts clipped.
overtyrant wrote: Why did they go with clipping parts of a HIP's sprue? surely not only will it cause mispacks and potential damage to the parts but will also increase the cost of the kit due to more man hours needed to do this? One of the good thing about HIP's is that you can just put it in a box an be done with it.
Apparently it's cheaper to pay someone in China to clip the parts off the sprue and ship them unsprued than it is to ship them on the sprue - less weight and far smaller packs to ship. Doesn't fully explain why only some sprues are preclipped and not others and it certainly makes sense for the terrain but that's the reason Mantic have given in the past.
The kits that still have parts on sprue are probably the ones that have specific matching legs/ arms/ torsos.
Really not a good idea to go ahead and clip everything off the sprue before assembly with a lot of newer Mantic kits, you'll end up regretting it once you notice the multiple letters on the sprue indicating which part goes with which.
Continuing my trawl through my Kickstarter shipment
Here are the forge father steel warriors
The sprues
What I built
What's left to go into the bitz box
Size comparison with Guardsman Bob and Fusilier Jones
My thoughts
I fell a little in love with these little guys during the Kickstarter that's why I've got 30 of them (6 sprues)
So I was really happy seeing the detail on the parts up close, it is a lot better than the enforcer and zombie sprues.
But when I came to put them together I was a bit let down by the poor fit between the 2 torso halves(doesn't line up and there are gaps in the arm and neck joints) and then the torso to the legs.( gaps around e sides no lower back if you put the torsos on straight but there is. Lot less when you angle the torsos)
Thankfully you can't really see the gaps when the whole model is put together.
Overall happy with the kit despite its faults and looking forward to building the rest of the little buggers.
Great about the detail, too bad about the fit, but your final results with the assembled Forge Fathers look great, Joe. Thanks for the photos. I'm excited to get my 30.
My Deadzone stuff was waiting for me at work this morning. I won't have time for a full unboxing until the weekend, but at first glance everything looks good. The best thing, in my opinion, is that my industrial battlezones came clipped from the sprue. I can't express how happy this makes me, as I have so many unassembled battlezone from the first DZ KS taking up so much space in the closet. Seriously, off the sprue is infinitely preferable to me.
I'm really happy with the quality of the hard plastics, and...sufficiently happy with the quality of the new PVC, even if I in no way consider it a replacement for the resin it replaced. The quality of the metal is genuinely atrocious - flashing so heavy that it doesn't cut away easily, and leaves a visible mark, heavy pitting and miscasts. Can't blame China for that one! No excuse when they're charging £6-£10 for each of these.
Things to watch out for in the new PVC are:
1) The level of warping is much higher than normal - I don't think I could've gotten away with assembling a single model as-was.
2) It's so stiff that even if you boil it, if it's sufficiently thick it won't properly straighten out. So the rear leg of my Abomination is permanently twisted, and I idiotically only noticed this when basing it..
2) It is possible to be actually miscast, unlike earlier PVC. My Brood Mother's central torso has excess material that has run into all arm, leg, head holes, making it impossible to fit anything int there. Will obviously be pushing for a replacement there!
Bioptic wrote: I'm really happy with the quality of the hard plastics, and...sufficiently happy with the quality of the new PVC, even if I in no way consider it a replacement for the resin it replaced. The quality of the metal is genuinely atrocious - flashing so heavy that it doesn't cut away easily, and leaves a visible mark, heavy pitting and miscasts. Can't blame China for that one! No excuse when they're charging £6-£10 for each of these.
Things to watch out for in the new PVC are:
1) The level of warping is much higher than normal - I don't think I could've gotten away with assembling a single model as-was.
2) It's so stiff that even if you boil it, if it's sufficiently thick it won't properly straighten out. So the rear leg of my Abomination is permanently twisted, and I idiotically only noticed this when basing it..
2) It is possible to be actually miscast, unlike earlier PVC. My Brood Mother's central torso has excess material that has run into all arm, leg, head holes, making it impossible to fit anything int there. Will obviously be pushing for a replacement there!
The metals are poor this time around. They'd do much better in the new material.
In contrast to your points 1 and 3, though, my batch only needed some very minor moldline removal- fortunately no miscasts but also definitely no warping. Everything went together like a dream! Sort of, anyway... Some of the jigsaw bits (I don't know the technical term) were slightly too long for their holes so on insertion left a gap between the parts, so it's worth dry fitting to test for this before glueing. This is the same thing as I came across with my House Goritsi starter set for Wrath of Kings.
With regards to the stiffness of the PVC- I actually have opposite concerns, as sitting out in the sun in the garden yesterday building the Veer-myn, I noticed that the vehicle had gone so soft that it could almost be rolled up, and it is a.good solid model. I don't like my models drooping in the sun :(
Veermyn and more veermyn with the shredders the stand outs that I wish I had more of (i'll post a sprue shot later)
the enforcer jetbikes are good but at a glance some of the clipping off the sprue is pretty shoddy and I need to build them to see if I need to put in for any replacements (or if they defects are hidden when built)
Polonius wrote: Their metals have been poor for a while. My Ogre Berzerkers from KOW2 had pretty awful flash on them.
The castings I got from KoW2 were really nice and crisp. IIRC recent demand for their metals is way more than they can handle in house so they have been using several external casters to try and keep up with demand. It looks like things might be a bit hit and miss depending on which caster your batch came from.
I've found their metals to be hit and miss since pretty much the start. In DZ1, some of the metals, like Helfather were really good while others, like my Plague Enforcer were kind of lumpy and had very poor details. And yet, the Abyssal Champion I got in KOW2 was one of the absolute best metals I've ever seen out of them. It really varies. I wish they could improve on their consistency.
Polonius wrote: Their metals have been poor for a while. My Ogre Berzerkers from KOW2 had pretty awful flash on them.
The castings I got from KoW2 were really nice and crisp. IIRC recent demand for their metals is way more than they can handle in house so they have been using several external casters to try and keep up with demand. It looks like things might be a bit hit and miss depending on which caster your batch came from.
That really is a Mantic QC issue. They may be contracting out work, but they are responsible to ensure their customers receive product Mantic approves of.
My 2nd box came today and I think everything was checked off the list as arrived.
I was worried by the reports I was reading about the Kalyishi but the two sets I received in terms of casting were nice and crisp with a minimal amount of flash. They didn't survive their trans-Atlantic journey particularly well, with a few of the parts seemingly bent fairly badly by their box-mates, but nothing was broken per se. Definitely a lot of things that will need fixing from that perspective and reminds me of why I dislike metal versus plastic.
Ironically, given the spindly nature of the sculpts and that the "hard" bending weakens metal, I ironically wonder if it'd have been better off in restic. The N-117 I received (my only restic mini from the KS) actually came through quite nicely and looks much better than the DZ1 restics. Not that I'd be running out to buy things in the medium, as it still seems to be more annoying to work with than HIPS, for some sculpts it might be a better choice than metal.
Anyway, that's another green box in the "backed projects" list. I'm down to WarPath, DropFleet Commander (both still before their delivery windows) and one KD:M expansion before I have received all of my KickStarters in full.
Mine arrived. Haven't had a chance to look very closely, but the shredders come with 6 heads that each look good. Veermyn in general look pretty good. Forgefathers and jetbikes I didn't get to look at.
As for Mantic QC, the recent KOW2 plastics are all very good except for the salamanders, which have a head-slapping key obvious flaw that should have been caught in the prototype stage, with several undercut voids filled with blank space or silhouette shadows across faces and huge sections of the leg. The funny thing is that the legs have pouches and skulls and stuff, the kind obviously added to fill out the undercuts in other plastic kits, but they are all in the wrong places! It looks as if the salamanders were sculpted to be cut at a different angle or even without any planning for plastic tooling at all. Their foreheads have what look like Venetian blinds where the scales on their raised brows extended inward to fill the void between their eyebrows. It's a total rookie mistake.
Just got a text that a package will be delivered to me within the hour. I don't have a shipping confirmation from Mantic, but there's nothing else this could be other than my DZ2 pledge. The hype is real!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yup, it's here and it's awesome. Got a Lockdown and double the scenery and I wish I'd have gotten even more. The red mousemat is also lovely.
Came home to a great.... big..... "While you were out" message.
Well.....bollocks. They'll be back tomorrow. I was going to call and ask for another delivery address, but apparently Fedex charge for that, so I'll take my chances.
Got mine, the new pvc mix they're using is fantastic, much better than anything else they've used before.
Hold details really well, no sign of warping, mould lines aren't too bad and the fit on parts is excellent,dry-fitted jetbike blaine and the piper and everything holds together without glue.
Making the switch tot he same plastic used for Dust Tactics was a great idea, it's a lot better than anything they were using before, either restic or the plastic in Dungeon Saga.
Recent metals seem to be the bigger issue with Mantic currently, lots of small parts, flash and other problems.
Mine's supposed to arrive today. Have to say I haven't been this excited for a Mantic release in a long, long time. The reviews of the hard plastics seem very strong, and this release puts the Veer-myn back on the table as a full force. I grant that space ratmen are aren't to everyone's taste, but if you do have a weakness for them, all the photos and discussion I've seen indicates that these are great models.
Maybe later today I'll be able to talk about the actual models, though, instead of wasting your time with ratboy anticipation.
I'm starting to wonder if Mantic are going to win me back despite shipping / price increases on the strength of the quality of their PVC and hard plastic models. (The general consensus on the DZI metals so far seems to be "stay away.") Good, consistent, reliable high quality is a fair reason for price increases, up to a point.
I recently looked at my hard plastic Mars Attacks truck (still unassembled), and dry-fit it together. Went together like a dream, looked great, and didn't have the seam issues that the Giant Robot had. If Mantic's Warpath vehicles turn out as good, I may end up buying some yet.
One last thing - it seems like Mantic are continuing the trend towards bulk buying even when purchasing relatively small quantities. It doesn't seem possible to buy just a couple of Abyssal / Naiad sprues right now, for example, if you don't want a small army deal. And the new Enforcer / Forge Father faction releases don't allow for buying, say, 5 to 10 hard plastic troopers individually anymore. The Mantic store currently doesn't have an option to pick up just 5 (or even 10) hard plastic pathfinders by themselves - you have to buy a bundled faction deal for $40 or so to get some.
The Enforcer booster - with 2 jetbikes, 5 peacekeepers, 5 troopers, a medic, and some (metal? I think I see a guy holding a tank mine) upgrades does look like a pretty solid deal, especially if you buy it on discount from retail. A bit annoying, though, if all you want are 5 more pathfinders to round out your deadzone force or warpath army. Is this "in bundles only" the new normal, or are more individualized kits like the older ones (you used to be able to buy a hard plastic / restic enforcer booster with just 5 troopers, etc.) expected to follow?
Has anyone taken any more photos that they can add to the thread? I am especially interested in Forge Father and Ratmen HIPS photos, also close ups of the new battlezones would be appreciated.
DaveC wrote: Mantic will be doing a 3 for 2 deal on the weekend of the Open Day (May 21st)
The Mantic store will be open, with stock from all of our ranges including the brand new Deadzone! Buy three items, get the cheapest for free!
Hmmmm...that's actually very tempting if it's all their ranges. I've been eyeing Naiads and Succubi and getting a combination of 3 regiments would (to my math) actually be a decent savings, especially if it's still free shipping. Sorry for the mild OT, but Bob reminded me I was after those for poking at by saying the Salamanders were on his "avoid" list; I do desperately want a Draconian army, but from what I've been able to see and that not-quite-endorsement says I should keep looking.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Has anyone taken any more photos that they can add to the thread? I am especially interested in Forge Father and Ratmen HIPS photos, also close ups of the new battlezones would be appreciated.
Here's some rat pics for ya
Veer myn night Crawler/stalkers
The Sprue
What I built
What's left for the bits box
Size comparison with Guardsman Bob and Fusilier Jones, and a photo bombing bjorn.
My thoughts
The torsos dont match flush with the legs, but their wearing bulky jackets so no a big issue (tried a few torsos on each set of legs) the fat malignius(sp) body is pretty bad though.
Some mold lines across the middle of the heads (not kit breakingly bad for the most part though) and the neck ball joints don't look great unless the heads are facing straight forward
But there are Loads of options and it's got lots of nice detail
Overall a nice kit but I can't help but start pondering what skaven bits I can mix in.
Vermonter wrote: Mine's supposed to arrive today. Have to say I haven't been this excited for a Mantic release in a long, long time. The reviews of the hard plastics seem very strong, and this release puts the Veer-myn back on the table as a full force. I grant that space ratmen are aren't to everyone's taste, but if you do have a weakness for them, all the photos and discussion I've seen indicates that these are great models.
Maybe later today I'll be able to talk about the actual models, though, instead of wasting your time with ratboy anticipation.
I'm starting to wonder if Mantic are going to win me back despite shipping / price increases on the strength of the quality of their PVC and hard plastic models. (The general consensus on the DZI metals so far seems to be "stay away.") Good, consistent, reliable high quality is a fair reason for price increases, up to a point.
I recently looked at my hard plastic Mars Attacks truck (still unassembled), and dry-fit it together. Went together like a dream, looked great, and didn't have the seam issues that the Giant Robot had. If Mantic's Warpath vehicles turn out as good, I may end up buying some yet.
One last thing - it seems like Mantic are continuing the trend towards bulk buying even when purchasing relatively small quantities. It doesn't seem possible to buy just a couple of Abyssal / Naiad sprues right now, for example, if you don't want a small army deal. And the new Enforcer / Forge Father faction releases don't allow for buying, say, 5 to 10 hard plastic troopers individually anymore. The Mantic store currently doesn't have an option to pick up just 5 (or even 10) hard plastic pathfinders by themselves - you have to buy a bundled faction deal for $40 or so to get some.
The Enforcer booster - with 2 jetbikes, 5 peacekeepers, 5 troopers, a medic, and some (metal? I think I see a guy holding a tank mine) upgrades does look like a pretty solid deal, especially if you buy it on discount from retail. A bit annoying, though, if all you want are 5 more pathfinders to round out your deadzone force or warpath army. Is this "in bundles only" the new normal, or are more individualized kits like the older ones (you used to be able to buy a hard plastic / restic enforcer booster with just 5 troopers, etc.) expected to follow?
This happened the last time. They will eventually release separate boxes. Currently I think they will stick with this for now as it gets everything out in one go (to a degree). Then when all the forces have start box plus support box they will break down into individual boxes plus whatever else is missing, namely strider and iron ancestors.
Back to deadzone v2 stuff I just bought the battle of hera deal as i missed out on the KS and i threw in the forge father support pack. When the plague drop ill be grabbing everything I can no matter how its released. The hips stuff will add onto the 4 plague starters and the old booster packs I had from v1
Took the dog for a super short walk today so that I could assemble a jetbike or two. JetBlaine required almost no cleanup and went together so smooth, just like the ocean under the moon. One of the tines is a little warped, but other than that, perfect. That miniature is so good that I hope Mantic find some way of un-exclusiving it.
The enforcer jetbike is much larger, but also goes together very easily. Watch out for a snap-together assembly where the thruster needs to be placed in the fuselage before the halves are put together. The rider on the other hand... The rider does not fit quite right without some cutting to his legs or to the jetbike's engine. Not too onerous, but definitely not smooth.
DaveC wrote: Mantic will be doing a 3 for 2 deal on the weekend of the Open Day (May 21st)
The Mantic store will be open, with stock from all of our ranges including the brand new Deadzone! Buy three items, get the cheapest for free!
Hmmmm...that's actually very tempting if it's all their ranges. I've been eyeing Naiads and Succubi and getting a combination of 3 regiments would (to my math) actually be a decent savings, especially if it's still free shipping. Sorry for the mild OT, but Bob reminded me I was after those for poking at by saying the Salamanders were on his "avoid" list; I do desperately want a Draconian army, but from what I've been able to see and that not-quite-endorsement says I should keep looking.
So in other words, it's Bob's fault.
Let me set the record straight: I am not saying avoid the salamanders. I personally love their sculpts, their dynamic poses and their weapons. I do not regret purchasing them at all*. However, they do have an issue with tooling that greatly impacts their value, a flaw I felt would be a deal-breaker for a lot of potential customers. It is also the kind of mind-boggling oversight that keeps Mantic's 'almost' reputation in play. I wanted to warn you all so that there are no unpleasant surprises.
*I bought the salamanders at 20 for $15, which is an amazing deal. Every customer likely has his or her own dollar-per-miniature threshhold to determine what is acceptable for the price and what isn't. At $1 per miniature I would still find them to be an acceptable deal, but at $2 per miniature would not buy any.
It's okay Bob, you were more the straw that broke the camel's back than the reason I decided to skip them. They already are only Draconian in the sense that they have some dragon-like features, and they lack wings. I was toying with poking at them for grins to see if maybe someday they could be turned into passable Dracs, but yeah...when an already-barely under consideration model has a flaw and the mountain of plastic is already huge, it's time to look elsewhere.
Just not sure if I like the Succubi or Naiads better.
JoeRugby wrote: The torsos dont match flush with the legs, but their wearing bulky jackets so no a big issue (tried a few torsos on each set of legs) the fat malignius(sp) body is pretty bad though.
With the heavier jackets / body armor, should they be flush with their pants? I would not expect them to line up unless it was a jumpsuit.
Krinsath wrote: It's okay Bob, you were more the straw that broke the camel's back than the reason I decided to skip them. They already are only Draconian in the sense that they have some dragon-like features, and they lack wings. I was toying with poking at them for grins to see if maybe someday they could be turned into passable Dracs, but yeah...when an already-barely under consideration model has a flaw and the mountain of plastic is already huge, it's time to look elsewhere.
Just not sure if I like the Succubi or Naiads better.
I like the Succubi better. They have fewer options, but the plastic seems slightly better tooled, and even a bit softer like GW HIPS. They have some great dynamic poses, with separate torsos giving you more than 5 possible poses, and if you get Lower Abyssals (as fireball throwers) you can easily give the succubi some shields. The naiads are more tricky to pose, especially since most of their arms seem to be limited to more "rank friendly" poses at odds with the running bodies, and the nets are just not as fun as matching blades. The succubi wear skimpy outfits, but I find them more Xena than Kingdom Death on the objectification scale. The naiads have outfits that scream 90's TV to me, which might be a negative for some.
I'm totally turning some naiads into sci fi/Warpath minis. I only need to clip the arms off their harpoons to make satisfactory Sci Fi Channel villains. I shall call them "Finbari".
Just got and (rapidly) went through my shipment. No time at the moment for a comprehensive review, but from the first scan, I'm on a Mantic high right now. Naturally I haven't assembled anything yet (except dry-fitting the abomination, which goes together easy and is a great model - one of the very few Plague models that can make a small head on a large body look good.)
The Forge Fathers, on the sprue, look like the fulfillment of what everyone wanted the first FFhp release to be. I wasn't a Space Dwarf fan until Mantic's designs won me over, but I expect the FF will be making new converts with this hard plastic kit. They have arrived.
Veer-Myn stuff looks excellent. I still dislike the bare arms, and may or may not bother to modify them, but a really solid kit, well cast, with lots of options, just as Joe said. The dust plastic Veer-myn stuff looks great at first pass too.
All of my metal figures are coated with what I presume is mold release agent, and it takes serious scrubbing to get off. Aside from that, there are several classic sculpts in there, even though I don't care for metal. My Teraton trooper arrived broken (or miscast - can't quite tell which) and I'll be placing a request for replacement on him - so far it's the only missing or damaged item I've identified (fingers crossed). The Kalyshi arrived in various states of bendiness, but they are my least favorite models anyway and destined to be replaced by Dark Eldar, so they can do acrobatic pretzels for all I care.
I'll add to the chorus: No more metals, please, Mantic. Go for that dust plastic instead - the results are much better.
A few quibbles aside, going through this box of new releases left me feeling like Mantic had at last turned from a wooden doll of a game company into a real boy.
It is great to hear some reports and many thanks to JoeRugby for the many photographs.
It looks like Mantic have upped their game from the Enforcer and Plague Zombie HIPs models and are a World away from the likes of the Basilean. Things are obviously not perfect but it is great to see some obvious progress. I foresee some Forge Fathers in my future.
Just got my box, I've opened it up and am pawing through it, and right now I am erect
ing the new battlezones in my head
I don't have any of the new KoW hard plastics, but I'm holding a bag each of the steel warriors and veermyn shredders in my hands, and they are outstanding, the best hard plastics Mantic have made. Even the battlezones look like they're an improvement in casting over the originals.
The boardgame plastic pieces are pretty hot too, makes you wonder how different things could have been if Mantic had been able to put all their early restic KoW/Dreadball/Deadzone right from the very start.
My experience with the metal Kalyshi matches with everyone else though, a couple bent bows, very heavy flash on a couple. The Ogre Terminator is much better, little bent on the bayonettes but otherwise well cast, no flash, but boy is he a big and heavy little dude. They really should have been done in boardgame plastic imo
So I got my pledge too! The metals are a mixed bag for me. Most are okay to good. with a few being very poor. Only the fish leader and bounty hunter and maybe the skyscraper are on par with the Original deadzone metals.
All the plastics look good. The PVC or whatever looks good so far as well. No complaints. The blue dice are a little sloppy, they are all legible at a glance though and that's what I need them to do.
I'll be building the brood mother, shredder and a test stalker first. I'm really happy with my pledge, all models, terrain and extras are present and accounted for. It came faster than I had expected too which is nice. Paying duty wasn't so nice, but I expected that.
Looks like mine made it over the Atlantic in less than a day, and should be arriving this afternoon, if FedEx decides not to hold it hostage like they did with the original game.
I got my stuff yesterday. Finally, I got my pledge before Highlord Tamburlaine. Anyway, I didn't get any metals, just two sprues of Pathfinders, one set of jetbikes, two sprues of dwarves, N7-117, and the new accessory sprue. I'll echo everyone else, the new stuff is really good. It gives me high hopes for the GCPS infantry. The boardgame plastic, from what I've seen is actually really good. I wish they'd used this material back in the first DZ kickstarter. The stuff is the same as restic though, isn't it? Just a different mixture? It's funny how what is essentially the same material can have such a difference in quality.
Barzam wrote: It gives me high hopes for the GCPS infantry.
The GCPS infantry will very likely be on the small side, if this picture from Salute is any indication. People who have their pledges in hand can look at Adrienne for an idea of their scale (the metal Sphyr standing next to the soldiers), as these pics show them to be about her height.
Whether their scale is good or bad is up to you, anybody's guess, it's one big crazy world we live in.
Barzam wrote: The stuff is the same as restic though, isn't it? Just a different mixture? It's funny how what is essentially the same material can have such a difference in quality.
As I understand it, it's like 3rd of 4th generation restic, and we wouldn't have been able to get to it if not for Mantic and PP (and probably some others) using the 1st generation restic in the first place, and having the poor to ok results and poor to worse Chinese QC drive improvements from everyone.
The material isn't the same as restic or made by the same supplier, they switched supplier to the same one that makes the Dust Tactics miniatures after being impressed by the quality.
Asterians look a bit better assembled I think, though I'm a little uncertain that their various blades and bows line up properly.
Here's the other characters. (Haven't glued the the big guys onto the bases yet). One of the interesting things is, the Marauder and Bounty hunter dudes are actually both generic troopers and special characters depending on what weapon options you give them. - I went for the generic troopers on both of mine.
Damn, when it rains, it pours- especially with Kickstarters and other hobby materials.
Deadzone today.
Darklands yesterday.
A large box of Chaos plastics before that.
Brimstone either tomorrow or Friday.
I can feel an evil aura emanating from my wife's eyes as she gazes upon the untold piles of plastic now clogging her (admittedly cluttered already) dining room table.
Have to sift through everything, but the rules look pretty solid now.
Can't ever have a Mantic Kickstarter arrive complete though. One of my Asterian trigenders was missing an arm and a leg. At least that's the only casualty so far.
Guess my luck has finally ran out, up until now my previous Mantic Kickstarter orders have all been complete but so far i've already noticed i'm missing a few items from my Lock-down pledge. I'll have to give everything a proper look over, but right now i know i'm missing all 3 of the Veer-Myn faction boosters, the Aberration from the Plague booster, and 2 bags of connectors from one of my scenery bags.
As usual the metal models are all pretty crap casts, but my Chief Mauhulakh takes the cake with just a ridiculous amount of flash and solid chunks of thick random metal which has ruined detail on the legs and jet pack. Definitely gonna have to consider the model miscast when i eventually send Mantic my support ticket.
Glad that people are getting their pledges, and that most people seem to be generally happy with them. I missed out on the DZ Kickstarter and have to wait for Warpath to ship.
Does anyone know if N7-117 will be released as a general release? If not I will be looking to buy one from a Kickstarter backer who doesn't want theirs.
Started putting together a few of the veermyn. The Stalker/Crawlers are almost the exact same size as the gen 1 rats. I missed some of the smaller details on that sprue. Some of the heads are almost 1:1 design wise with the older ones.The Brood Mother was easy to clean and fit together well. Her face is tiny though!
The Big Nightmares are pretty neat, I'm glad I got a few extra.
The little gen1 Nightmares/ Malignus come with at least one Big Chem Thrower, which will be much more useful then the drills and 'thrower.
The mat is much brighter than the original. It's really eye catching. The Orange goes almost to a desaturated yellow. I plan to match all the veermyn bases to that mat.
The new Industrial BZ can make a fare few different styles of structures without much work. I've got a Ventilation unit, a simple wellhead, that's 1/2 height with piping coming out the bottom and a row of storage units. The large generators go together really smoothly you probably don't even need glue.
I've got 3 and they will make really good 2 cube scatter.
I don't understand how the conveyor belt works though. I've only had a quick look but it seems to need to be up off the ground?
The piping is a fun addition, I'm just trying to find less obvious uses for it. The little pipes seem like they will have the largest range of use.
I like all the little detail bits. Consoles, Flood lights/speakers and some of the smaller details really make this BZ stand out from the earlier stuff.
The rats are pretty cool. I await the inevitable skaven/ veer myn mashups. It'll be even more fun if Mantic ever gets around to making their own ratlings.
Kinda sad I got Forge Fathers in Warpath instead of even more rats.
Not that the steel warriors are a bad kit, it's just the rats are cooler.
Sadly my Nightmare has no head. I also seemed to have ended up with an extra Progenitor tossed in the mix.
Ain't a Manic Kickstarter without random bits missing and others added instead!
I'm actually kind of surprised with N7-117 and the Piper being exclusives, considering they list them both as new leaders for Infestation. Maybe we'll see other sculpts?
Still liked the original N7-117 design better.
Anyone take a look at the exploration tables in the back of the campaigns? Seems the Infestation one is different, at least from a cursory glance.
Unfortunately yes no room left for it on the mold. There are a few bits that didn't make the final cut like the triangles so hopefully they will do a new sprue with these bits at some point.
Mr Gutsy wrote: Guess my luck has finally ran out, up until now my previous Mantic Kickstarter orders have all been complete but so far i've already noticed i'm missing a few items from my Lock-down pledge. I'll have to give everything a proper look over, but right now i know i'm missing all 3 of the Veer-Myn faction boosters, the Aberration from the Plague booster, and 2 bags of connectors from one of my scenery bags.
didn't the last update say that Lockdown pledges were coming in two boxes?
Well that sucks, I've have preferred more quarters to go with the ones I got as such a limited number will be quite hard to use. And the treadplate one looked great.
Slayer Dragonwing wrote: Glad that people are getting their pledges, and that most people seem to be generally happy with them. I missed out on the DZ Kickstarter and have to wait for Warpath to ship.
Does anyone know if N7-117 will be released as a general release? If not I will be looking to buy one from a Kickstarter backer who doesn't want theirs.
Most of the exclusives end up on the Mantic Points store at some point, and some are also sold at conventions
judgedoug wrote: didn't the last update say that Lockdown pledges were coming in two boxes?
Some are, some aren't, it'll say on the invoice whether it's 1 box or 2
Man, I haven't even gotten an email that it's on its way. Any other east coast people on here who haven't received yet? I'm right outside of NYC by about 30 miles.
I hate all of you who have your stuff! Waiting on wwwwwway too many bikes.
NTRabbit - it's your line of work? You're working in table top gaming? Like, making a living at it? I thought that didn't happen in real life.
Communications, Online Community Management, Public Relations, etc and no, not currently making a living off of it, which is problematic.
You can be quite an ...aggressively overenthusiastic defender of things that you like. Here at least. Hopefully not so much professionally. Though if you are, that might be one of the things to consider when attempting to keep your next position. I think Ronnie has given more ground on Mantic's mistakes and drawbacks than you have.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bioptic wrote: I feel that it is certainly better than the previous PVC offerings, but
1) has arrived heavily warped (the Veermyn hero's base is completely twisted, making standing impossible)
2) is still in no way superior or an equivalent alternative to the resin that some of these were sold as.
Mould lines are still in evidence, just reduced, and have caused slippage on the detail where the mould halves have not aligned. Detail on some fine areas is poor, see the heads and tails on the rat swarms vs. the original renders.
overtyrant wrote: And that's why I don't buy anything Mantic without seeing the product or reading reviews.
I haven't opened my baggies to make as fine an examination, but hopefully they're not all like that. Still, that report (and the metal Asterians) are good reinforcement of my decision to not purchase anything of their that's not HIPS before it's out in the wild with reviews.
The GCPS infantry will very likely be on the small side, if this picture from Salute is any indication. People who have their pledges in hand can look at Adrienne for an idea of their scale (the metal Sphyr standing next to the soldiers), as these pics show them to be about her height.
Spoiler:
Whether their scale is good or bad is up to you, anybody's guess, it's one big crazy world we live in.
That's rather unfortunate. They're going to be tiny, and also out of scale with their predecessors and even the zombies. They'll be dwarfed by the space skaven, so typical mantic consistency there, I guess.. I bought 100 or 200 of them.
Sadly my Nightmare has no head. I also seemed to have ended up with an extra Progenitor tossed in the mix.
Ain't a Manic Kickstarter without random bits missing and others added instead!
Ah crap. Is there a photo of a parts layout anywhere? I was hoping I wouldn't have to check every little bitty bit this time.
My order arrived - and aside from potentially missing bitty bits like that, the miniatures are all there, for the first time ever. It's only missing... the entire Outbreak pledge component. So yes, I'm missing the rulebook. (and paper mat, pretty picture, etc). I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though. But that's okay since the price being asked is not on a par with current GW product, either.
You can be quite an ...aggressively overenthusiastic defender of things that you like. Here at least. Hopefully not so much professionally. Though if you are, that might be one of the things to consider when attempting to keep your next position. I think Ronnie has given more ground on Mantic's mistakes and drawbacks than you have.
I've never needed to defend the products or practises of my employers, they've always been flawless and beyond reproach, a shining beacon, just like all the media plans and management directives say
Anyone else been playing around with the scenery much?
I'm trying to figure out the best way to make the conveyor belts look sensible. - The two "Industrial" buildings I've made up look good though, however it's tricky to make the huge fan pieces look particularly sensible. - I've ended up using them together as two huge turbines on the top of the buildings.
Thanks for the pics, man. Any more Forge Fathers always great to see. I'm glad I waited to buy, build and paint my FF together rather than KS and full release.
After spending the last few days fiddling around with the new stuff, I feel like I need to echo the desire for Mantic to ditch the model (or get better QC) and embrace the PVC.
Very happy with all the PVC stuff, especially compared to the metals and restic. Barely any mold lines, crisp details, easy to fit together... I guess the only drawback others have mentioned is possible warping, but my figures came posed the way they should be.
I think the Kalyshi would have been much nicer in the material. The Sky scraper jetpack Marauders too. Maybe then we could have had a unit of them from the get go.
My order arrived - and aside from potentially missing bitty bits like that, the miniatures are all there, for the first time ever. It's only missing... the entire Outbreak pledge component. So yes, I'm missing the rulebook. (and paper mat, pretty picture, etc). I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though. But that's okay since the price being asked is not on a par with current GW product, either.
Well, I put together some of the HIP Mantic steel warriors this afternoon. Fantastic detail, bucket loads of options and far fewer mold lines than the GW models I bought earlier this year. At $20 for a set of 20 too. Guess I'm delusional.
I did put together the pvc abomination. The mold lines ot did have are a pain to get off still in this material - better detail and less mold lines than restic but still a far cry from HIP.
If Mantic keep up with these plastic sprues... I'll be a customer of theirs for life.
(It's just the errors and errata needed for most of the recent books that needs addressing)
Deathwatch Overkill has I'd say had the same amount of mold lines that the two veermyn sprues have, sometimes more. Especially on the heads. Is there a reason companies put the mold line down the middle of the face? I feel like it'd be better one the side of the head.
Couple tips:
When assembling the Nightmares give the waist attachment
a quick file, and it will fit together better.
If you dont like the ball joints just clip them off and glue them on. Less possibility but a better fit in my opinion.
The new battlezones are slightly less rigid... It mostly shows on the smaller thinner pieces. The grated fencing is a good example, its flexible enough the it won't snap if you put some pressure on it. Could be just a few peices are cast in PVC or something.
The pipes are fun, but will probably need to be glued together for rigidity.
@Az
Why does it seem like your always on the attack? Did NTRabbit ask you for life advice? Rule #1.
Anyway...
You should check your invoice that comes in the box. Some of the pledges have been coming in two parts. I think that was one of the two boxes some people got a few pages ago.
@Compel
It's the only part I've not gotten into it yet. Let us know if you figure it out.
@HT I think it's mostly the push-back from restic. I agree though PVC is way better than the metal.
Azazelx wrote: I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though.
You have a shed for miniatures? A shed?
I feel so much better about my addiction now.
I don't think I've seen any company put out plastics that are GW quality except GW (barring other companies who dabble in Renedra, like Mantic's earliest undead sprues). GW has the edge not only in crisp casting, but also in model design and posing. (Model design meaning how the models go together, not style. I prefer Mantic-styled enforcers to GW-styled Space Marines, and Mantic-styled Forge Fathers to any GW Dwarves or Squats.) That said, "good enough" is looking really good right now.
NTRabbit wrote: Personally, I have 'The Great Wall of Cardboard Shipping Boxes', and you can pick the Mantic ones out by the special tape
Bless you, sir. The next time I order miniatures, I'm showing your post to my wife.
Still, I wonder how much space my own collection would take up if I did have a shed to consolidate it in, and it weren't scattered around the apartment. So I'll stop throwing stones in glass houses.
Alright, last off-topic thing, but I have to know this. NTRabbit, do you actually have a rabbit? Is that your pet in your avatar? My son owns a holland lop.
Back on-topic, does anyone outside or inside Mantic's inner circle know if they're still considering a Project Pandora re-launch? If they did it with PVC miniatures like Deadzone infestation's instead of Dungeon Saga's, I think they'd have something there. They'd definitely have my money.
The GCPS infantry will very likely be on the small side, if this picture from Salute is any indication. People who have their pledges in hand can look at Adrienne for an idea of their scale (the metal Sphyr standing next to the soldiers), as these pics show them to be about her height.
[spoiler]
Whether their scale is good or bad is up to you, anybody's guess, it's one big crazy world we live in.
[/spoiler]
That's rather unfortunate. They're going to be tiny, and also out of scale with their predecessors and even the zombies. They'll be dwarfed by the space skaven, so typical mantic consistency there, I guess.. I bought 100 or 200 of .
I think it's mostly the pic but.
She's 33mm foot to head.
Reb human = 30mm
Imperial guard =31-32mm
Pan o fusilier (aiming) 33mm
Veer myn & steel warriors 26mm tall
So if she's the same height as the troops they should still be comparable but a little taller than the reb humans and previous restic marines/Rangers.
Vermonter wrote:
I don't think I've seen any company put out plastics that are GW quality except GW (barring other companies who dabble in Renedra, like Mantic's earliest undead sprues). GW has the edge not only in crisp casting, but also in model design and posing. (Model design meaning how the models go together, not style. I prefer Mantic-styled enforcers to GW-styled Space Marines, and Mantic-styled Forge Fathers to any GW Dwarves or Squats.) That said, "good enough" is looking really good right now.
Dreamforge make the best plastic infantry I've assembled. I'd say their ahead of GW
Alright, last off-topic thing, but I have to know this. NTRabbit, do you actually have a rabbit? Is that your pet in your avatar? My son owns a holland lop.
I had a rabbit long ago, but I don't think there are any photos of him, certainly not digital; my avatar is just a random internet pic
Just got my order... Can't express my disappointment. I ordered 7 terrain sprues and 1 model sprue. What did I receive? 7 terrain sprues and 1 model sprue. That's right, I got exactly what I ordered. After reading about Mantic's delivery problems on here, I was expecting at least a free rule book, free dice and tokens, and maybe even a complete Lockdown pledge packaged by mistake. Instead I got exactly what I paid for. You better believe I'll be writing a sternly worded letter to Mantic to let them know exactly what I think of their new packing policies. Won't let them get away with this, and in their next KS you better believe I'll be writing several e-mails to ensure they put their most confused warehouse employee on my order. When I order something I expect to receive something completely different, and when I counted my sprues and realised what had happened I threw the whole damn thing in a drawer in disgust and went immediately to write this.
I must have somehow ended up on Mantic's naughty list at some point. The first DZ KS I was one of the first people in the US to receive it. Ever since then, every single time, I've been one of the very last. Oh well, it'll get here when it gets here.
Not bad for a nights work, I think. - My Lock Down pledge, plus a few pieces I hadn't used from my Christmas Crazy Box.
Plus the obligatory shot of the "leftovers."
Naturally, I found a couple of pieces that had fallen down the side of the sofa (including a fan blade), so I can tweak things a little bit further now too.
Triple9 wrote: I must have somehow ended up on Mantic's naughty list at some point. The first DZ KS I was one of the first people in the US to receive it. Ever since then, every single time, I've been one of the very last. Oh well, it'll get here when it gets here.
Reverse for me. This is the first time I'm not flipping out about having the last package out the door.
My stuff arrived too. There's a lot of stuff in the scenery I don' really know what's for, but I guess I'll just have to get on trying. Been assembling some stuff today:
Dreamforge make the best plastic infantry I've assembled. I'd say their ahead of GW
But I agree these are a great step for mantic.
Yeah, I wrote that post just before rushing out the door. Then on the road I thought, "Dreamforge, you idiot. Or Maelstrom's Edge scarecrow robots."
We live in interesting times.
And great photos, Albertorius. Your assembled enforcers look better than any I've seen thus far. Including the female ones, which I had been a bit worried about (thought the waists might be too skinny.)
NobodyXY wrote: Deathwatch Overkill has I'd say had the same amount of mold lines that the two veermyn sprues have, sometimes more. Especially on the heads. Is there a reason companies put the mold line down the middle of the face? I feel like it'd be better one the side of the head.
@Az
Why does it seem like your always on the attack? Did NTRabbit ask you for life advice? Rule #1.
Anyway...
You should check your invoice that comes in the box. Some of the pledges have been coming in two parts. I think that was one of the two boxes some people got a few pages ago.
Swings and roundabouts, my friend. NT has never been shy of jumping to the defence of Mantic's poor decisions or to the attack when someone isn't pleased with something/anything that they have received from Mantic - even when the actual information is to the contrary he doesn't give any sort of apology or "oh, I didn't know that, my bad" - the typical internet "never apologise, never admit you were wrong in any way" kind of thing (see the "Mantic's restic is why the new PVC is good" comment for example) - and I've certainly been on the receiving end of it. Thanks for the mod advice, though.
As for the order, my box and invoice are very much a 1 Large, and it would make very little sense to send 6.5kg of models in one, and a ...150g(?) book and paper map separately. Also, it's listed on the invoice. Oddly, this time around I'm not even bent out of shape that they messed up. It's much more of a "eh, Mantic" and a shrug. I'm more surprised that they appear to have gotten the actual miniatures order correct and in full. If they manage to send it out to me within a week or two I'll be much happier than if they repeat KoW2 or Dungeon Saga and take 3-4 months and a need to contact Ronnie. If that happens, I'm sure I'll become quite testy. Though I haven't done a piece count or dry-fit of things like the PVC heroes or the Jetbikes. If there are issues when/if I eventually get around to assembling them, I'll contact Mantic at that time and ask them to fix it then. Even they don't expect us to assemble everything immediately (or ever, if you consider that latter from Ronnie).
Anyway, the rules-less Deadzone stuff is out of the way in the shed for now, since I'm working on other projects for the time being. I'm hoping that the Vermyn will mesh well with my Skaven models and fit into the eventual KoW Ratkin army I've purchased. The new plastics, and even the PVC are certainly much nicer than the restic models that came before.
Azazelx wrote: I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though.
You have a shed for miniatures? A shed?
I feel so much better about my addiction now.
I don't think I've seen any company put out plastics that are GW quality except GW (barring other companies who dabble in Renedra, like Mantic's earliest undead sprues). GW has the edge not only in crisp casting, but also in model design and posing. (Model design meaning how the models go together, not style. I prefer Mantic-styled enforcers to GW-styled Space Marines, and Mantic-styled Forge Fathers to any GW Dwarves or Squats.) That said, "good enough" is looking really good right now.
Here's the thing. I'm pretty much system and company-agnostic. I don't need my "preferred" company or game to be the bets at everything. My preferred fantasy game is Kings of War. My preferred sci-fi game used to be 40k, but it's become a right clusterfeth, and I don't have a replacement for it yet. (Maybe a mashed-up, semi-homebrewed 5th edition at some stage in the future? Maybe the smaller WarPath?) My preferred plastics for Fantasy and Sci-fi are generally GW ones, due to the design, sculpts and quality of their sprues in regard to using the space for lots of variety, but that doesn't mean I think everything else is gak, or that they're always the best evar. There are some real duds in the GW plastic range as well (and let's not even go to Finecast town!) I don't like Mierce or Rob Lane (due to Maelstrom), but I recognise that many of their miniatures are amazing sculpts and a have a pile of them that I picked up before it all went down and that I bought from a friend. I like Warlord Games a lot, but it doesn't mean I have to prefer their plastic Greeks to Victrix' ones. Dreamforge has made some amazing models in HIPs as well. I'm not a fan of boardgame plastic in general, but if a game (or KS) is upfront about its use then I adjust my expectations of both quality and value accordingly. (Like, charging for resin and supplying BG plastic is a dick move).
Mantic's plastics have objectively come along in leaps and bounds, and as I said when I got my KoW2 stuff, I'll happily call them "quite nice" and recommend them to others - but they're not top-tier yet (and may never be). But then, I'm not expecting them to be - certainly not at this point in time.
She's 33mm foot to head.
Reb human = 30mm
Imperial guard =31-32mm
Pan o fusilier (aiming) 33mm
Veer myn & steel warriors 26mm tall
So if she's the same height as the troops they should still be comparable but a little taller than the reb humans and previous restic marines/Rangers.
Well, they're not side by side, so I guess we'll have to wait and see once they're released. It's Mantic's internal scale consistency issues like this that scare me the most, though. Even allowing for the fact that not everyone in the world is a uniform height...
Spoiler:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Compel wrote: Not bad for a nights work, I think. - My Lock Down pledge, plus a few pieces I hadn't used from my Christmas Crazy Box.
That looks rather excellent. When I get back to sci-fi, I'm hoping to be able to build some really nice out of their modular terrain, especially with the new Industrial Quadrant pieces added in.
So far, the Steel Warriors are the weakest of the new wave of sci fi plastic models from Mantic. Not only are the torsos not fitting the legs properly like people mentioned earlier, but, as far as I can figure out, there's no way for the backpacks that came with them to legitimately actually fit onto the models. - I can't even tell which is supposed to be right way up on them!
On the other hand, they look fine once assembled and if someones looking for their space dwarf fix, they're fine for that. Oh, and the weapon options in the kit are amazing. I tried just going for a simple, "assemble everything from one sprue, so I cover every base." - I still had 1 gun and several heads left over after assembling two sprues worth (AKA 10 models worth). That's brilliant variation.
Naturally, me being me, I then remembered I had some crazy box stormrage veterans, so I would have been better off assembling some normal guns instead of all the fancy heavy weapons. Oh well, live and learn.
The forge guard, who I hadn't got round to assembling from Original Deadzone Wave 3 are great though, not much leg, head and body variation (pay attention to the letters on the sprues!), but they went together great and had 3 special weapons to pick from.
Next on the list, is the special characters, they've been sitting in soapy water today.
You should aways do it to avoid parts not sticking together orpaint just falling off.
Is a Mantic only thing, or should I do that with GW minis as well?
People claim you should do it with any minis.
I've never done it with any minis in my 23 years of gaming and have never had a problem.
I've never done it, but there's definitely models that I probably should have. Metal miniatures seem to suffer from it the most, and you can generally tell by the fact that glue and primer just kind of slides off even when allowed ample time to cure. Even if it does adhere, it often comes off far easier than expected because it's actually on the mold-release and not the medium itself.
Some people don't want to get that far into the process to discover there's an issue, and it's a fairly trivial amount of time to let them soak in a tub of dishwasher soap for a day and maybe scrub the joints with an old toothbrush. I'm just a gambler, and my paintjobs are horrible anyway, so I just chance it.
It's easy to see on resin stuff too, the parts are extra shiny and feel a little greasy - I had some resin terrai pieces I obviously didn't clean well enough on the inside last year, the vallejo primer just beaded on the surface like water on a waxed car hood.
I don't bother with it for hard plastic, but out of habit I always wash everything else with a toothbrush and soapy water, just to be certain
Yeah, GW wise, you're probably only really looking at doing it with Finecast or Forge World. - Even then, Forge World might be of the same kind of resin as Hawk Wargames (Dropzone/fleet Commander), who advertise that it doesn't need washed.
Compel wrote: Yeah, GW wise, you're probably only really looking at doing it with Finecast or Forge World. - Even then, Forge World might be of the same kind of resin as Hawk Wargames (Dropzone/fleet Commander), who advertise that it doesn't need washed.
Forgeworld stuff needs to be washed. At least it did back when they made resin BFG minis...
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judgedoug wrote: Has anyone with packages under 2kg - ie, royal mail - gotten theirs yet in the USA? Over 2kg went speedy courier but under 2kg went royal mail.
Mine had maybe 10 sprues in it, so it was probably under 2kg.
LoL. I received an email from Mantic that seemed nice; it was all about supporting original backers of DZ1 and giving a free pdf copy of the rules for DZ2. They even gave me a coupon code....that doesn't appear to work. It's funny when the before price and the after price are the same.
Deadzone for Original Backers
1 $39.99
Deadzone PDF
$39.99 1 Option subtotal: $39.99
Deadzone Rulebook PDF 1
So, in my box, I've got a super spiky tail. It's a light grey, so doesn't like it's from one of the hard plastic sprues, yet I've not noticed any of the restic/resin models Ive assembled sofaarmising tails.
Vermonter wrote: And great photos, Albertorius. Your assembled enforcers look better than any I've seen thus far. Including the female ones, which I had been a bit worried about (thought the waists might be too skinny.)
Thanks! I mostly agree with the waists, actually. There's two out of 5 like that in the sprue, and I'm assuming they're supposed to be female ones, but I want to try to build some with the "male" torso to see if they look better. Another thing I want to try is using some of the extra stuff to build up the waists a bit.
secret surprise model, that can only be built if you can find 10 other people that pledged, and didn't get a repeat part?
Funnily enough, that's exactly the sort of thing that Wizkids and Heroclix actually do. - "Here, in this blind buy box of models, you have Iron Man's hulkbuster suit arm, the other pieces are randomly in other blind buy boxes of models."
My teraton already has its tail (it's a short, stumpy one). - I'll take a pic of it tonight after I assemble more rats.
I'm really liking the look of the Industrial Battlezones scenery, and probably will want more than what is coming in my $115 pledge. Does anyone know the retail release date for it?
judgedoug wrote: Has anyone with packages under 2kg - ie, royal mail - gotten theirs yet in the USA? Over 2kg went speedy courier but under 2kg went royal mail.
My Royal Mail/Air Mail package arrived yesterday.
1.61 kg, sent on the 03/05/2016, according to the label.
judgedoug wrote: Has anyone with packages under 2kg - ie, royal mail - gotten theirs yet in the USA? Over 2kg went speedy courier but under 2kg went royal mail.
My Royal Mail/Air Mail package arrived yesterday.
1.61 kg, sent on the 03/05/2016, according to the label.
NTRabbit wrote: I think it's possible the old restic Nightmares will be usable as Creepers, their unit entry has no picture
Asterian starter and booster up on the store now as well, same ship date
Why not, I guess. At least the old Nightmares scale well with the new Veer-myn in terms of height, even if they have a leaner aesthetic.
Creepers technically already have models, though, at least through the Warpath Kickstarter campaign. Creepers were sold as Nightcrawlers modded with a metal kit of alternate arms and heads.
So I laugh at you with American city-on-the-hill snideness, NTRabbit. I've out-Manticed you at last!
This exclusive Teraton Shock Trooper is only available until midnight BST Sunday 22nd May. Add it to your basket with an order of £30/€40/$50 or more and get it free.
DaveC wrote: The 3 for 2 offer has changed to 10% off
Yeah, on the one hand it's a downer because I was going to grab a bunch of random plastics I'd had my eye on and 10% off is not enough to order from the UK for with the currency conversion and wait time. On the other, it's now money that's free to go elsewhere so it's not a total loss for me.
Has anybody dealt with Mantic when it comes to buying parts / spare parts? I need a couple of plastic domes for a small project I am working on and the cockpit domes from the Mars Attacks robots are exactly the right size.. but I really don't want to buy two of them just for the domes.
NTRabbit wrote: I think it's possible the old restic Nightmares will be usable as Creepers, their unit entry has no picture
Asterian starter and booster up on the store now as well, same ship date
My Asterian tactics articles should be on the blog next week.
Worth noting that the faction booster for them also has a leader, so either the starter or the booster is a good choice, the booster has quite a lot of minis in it, 18 with 2 drones, 2 jetbikes and 5 metals is good.
Anyone going to the Open Day tomorrow? Looking forward to it myself, can finally cash in 100+ mantic points and get that dwarf king model.
Sorry, I probably missed a comma there. Going to cash in my points for some other stuff, and buy the convention exclusive dwarf king (it's the one that was previously only given away free for 500 people buying from Wayland).
Just curious, but what are you making? A bra for Madonna?
Hah! Nothing so fancy. Just a pair of tokens on 30mm bases that are kind of.. shield emitters. The domes fit exactly over the bases and I was planning on painting some faint hex lines on the inside of the dome.
I knew the next KS would be DB, but due to how Mantic operated the last version of it I will neither be supporting this KS or trying to grow it in my gaming communities.
Yes, I am... less than happy with how Dreadball Xtreme was handled, and can't see why a Kickstarter is needed to fix the primary issue with all the variants: the rules. We certainly don't need more teams or pitch types!
That's a magma cannon turret on top too, the last beta document I've got has the Hultr only armed with a hailstorm autocannon, so maybe some changes coming
I'm pretty cool on another Dreadball Kickstarter, and after the Adventurer's Companion I want to get a better idea of how Project Pandora will work before I commit to it.
But those sprues! I need my Warpath KS now! Man, it would be great to be working on the Plague stuff alongside my Infestation booster stuff.
(I also need the 20 plastic Enforcers coming with that KS. I need to build a captain with power gauntlet, but I don't have any Enforcer sprues. Is there any way to buy just one Enforcer sprue without it being in a support booster or similar box full of other stuff I don't need?)
The plague 3rd gens are looking very nice. I'm very pleased that some of the heads are looking cool - I'm not a fan of the tiny, full head of hair Plague 3rd Gen heads from round 1 of Deadzone. (They are great for multi-headed mutants, though. That's how small they were.) It does look like a healthy dab of greenstuff will be needed to smooth out the arm / shoulder connection points, which don't make much sense, being all muscle and ending with abrupt overlaps as they do. But I can deal with that, baby.
I KNEW the Marionettes would have the torsos and legs joined. I told everyone, but did you listen to me? Nooooooo, you all went about your lives, pretending that there were more important things to pay attention to, like marriage and pasta. Well, now the space chickens have come home to roost!
Seriously, I'm not sure how much of an issue it will be, considering that the poses are pretty neutral. I like them much better than the Forge Father sprue poses, which gives you identical running and standing on a rock poses that stick out in larger forces. It also looks pretty easy to snip the middle and turn the torsos, provided you don't have to cut through detail to do so.
All that said, they look great. If Warhammer players see anything in them that they can use to proxy for something, they could be big sellers beyond the Warpath crowd.
I don't see a Dreadball fixer KS generating much interest in and of itself, and I will more than likely sit it out like the Walking Dead ks. It will be interesting to see what they do to try and get people excited for it. I imagine hard plastic sprues of some core teams would do the trick, but I think there's no chance they'll try for that. I guess if I were Mantic I'd try to keep it small and cheap, as I don't foresee much interest in plunking down large sweet spot pledges on such a saturated product.
I wish the Project Pandora relaunch was next, frankly, but I'm still happy it's on the radar. But they'd really need to do it in the new DZI version of PVC, if they're not going to do hard plastic, which they won't. I've had my fill of Mars Attacks-style boardgame plastic and old Mantic restic.
I guess lower price will remain a toehold for Mantic in the boardgame market, now that GW has ramped up its boardgame production. Quality-wise, it's hard to make a serious comparison between Mantic's Boardgame plastic and thin board pieces and GW's hard plastic figures and thick boards, but if Mantic don't charge $100+ (it seems that GW boardgames can generally be had for around $120 discounted), they'll still have a spot. Dungeon Saga currently goes on Amazon for around $53 dollars, while Warhammer Quest Silver tower is around $115-120 on ebay.
If Mantic do decide they want to sell boardgames for $100 or so, they'll need to step up in production materials and quality to compete, though.
I'd go for a 'dreadball fixer' kickstarter providing there were sensible pledge levels that were just, "the books that fix all the dreadball stuff you already own."
I own literally everything there is for Dreadball, have not assembled or tidied up any of my final-wave DBX models, have yet to use any season 4-6 teams in normal dreadball. (Or the Asterians in DB Season 3 either).
A sensible Dreadball campaign (to me at least) would be a 50 dollar pledge, with a new book, maybe some new MVPs, an extra manager or two? I don't know. What else does the game really need at this point?
If they can put together a book like the Kings of War and Infestation ones, with everything consolidated in one handy spot, I'd be interested.
Maybe plastic fans to replace/ supplement the metal ones/ use as bystanders in a Deadzone?
Certainly not more teams. I think we're good on teams.
Also hope Vermonter is right in that Mantic will do Pandora in the new PVC stuff rather than any other material. Board gamers have no room to complain popping those joints in the plugs on the figures if it means we can get something a little more robust than single cast (Prodos' uincast perhaps?) pieces.
In regards to Dreadball I listened to an interview with Ronnie recently and he mentioned redoing the rules for Jacks. He also mentioned the possibility of adding 1 or 2 more player types beyond Striker, Jack and Guard/Keeper for more variety so they would probably need new models. I must find that interview and re-listen to it at some point.
Re: Dreadball: I think there was some talk of differentiating Guards and Keepers more, and splitting Strikers into two sub types... no idea how much truth there is to that though. The keeper part seems likely though.
Apologies again if these are not new news. I go to mantic open days because the staff are wonderful, and I enjoy seeing people play games. I'm not up to date on releases.
Going to have to break this into more than one post for my poor broadband.
I'm not entirely sure I'm needing to do this anymore, in any case...
Various giant space rats.
Any my various, well, gigantic space rats.
Hopefully I assembled enough normal troopers. However, hopefully it won't matter too much, as I'll probably be picking another faction for any campaigns I play in in the future.
Oh, I nearly forgot, I assembled my two jetbikes too.
They could have done with some instrutions, I nearly assembled them wrongly by not realising that there were footrests and instead putting the flight vanes in the holes at the back too.
And, with that, I think I've assembled at least one example of all the kickstarter Deadzone models. Well, to be honest, I've probably assembled enough for any future game of Deadzone I'd want to play. Which is, well, a little concerning considering the sheer number of sprues and things I've still to put together.
Oh wait, nevermind, still the veer'myn vehicles set to put together. Back to work...
I have an infestation pledge as well and haven't heard anything, so I put a ticket in. I don't have an issue being patient with companies, but Mantic is one that when they say they shipped everything, I don't 100% believe them. Not through malice, but just poor business practice. After this many KS's, I really can't understand how they have such poor integration between the office and warehouse. Even if they did what CMON did early on and hand keyed shipments after they were off, it would take so much pressure of their customers as well as their customer service folks. This was my make or break KS with Mantic, so I really hope the minis wow me.
I received mine. Box one on Friday, box 2 on Saturday.
Everything accounted for and looking good.
Scenery plastic seems to be more of a normal HIPS than previous packs that were the ultra hard stuff.
Infantry sprues look packed with parts. I've only assembled the 2 large Veermyn, but the amount of extra parts was quite surprising.
The resins look really good. I had to test the Piper with plastic glue to see if it really was resin. It felt too sturdy.
Kinda wish I ordered the Plague Aberrant. Pics here have looked so nice.
I regret not getting a 2nd scenery pack.
There's only one half of the 3-way and one half of the 4-way pipe connectors in the baggy.
Also, a mat instead of paper would have been nice. I thought that was one of the Stretch Goals, but I guess not.
I received my two Royal Mail-shipped boxes back on May 5th and May 9th I believe, and I'm technically within day-trip distance from RVA. So they are aware the East Coast exists at least.
In the interest of fairness, I should point out that my missing DZ stuff arrived this week, shipped UPS as the original was. Easily the quickest-sorted and least painful fix up of a Mantic shipping error I've ever had.
Still no sign of $115 pledge on East Coast, Virginia. Same with my brother, also a $115 pledge.
Put in a ticket and got a response, Mantic rep (Zak) confirmed the pledge had already shipped, and asked me to wait til the weekend just in case, and if it hasn't arrived yet, they'll send another.
Mantic said everything was shipped by May 10 and to wait until the end of May.
Automatically Appended Next Post: judgedoug, what sweet nothings did you say to Zak to even get a response? This is the first time I've been stonewalled by a support mail and trying to figure out the happy path.
Thanks. I had just sent an e-mail to the support address which opened a ticket up; just noticed there was no categorization to the request, so I updated that. Maybe that will help.
Had another look at some of the case photos above. Looks like Mantic is bringing the Sorak Swordspawn metal figure back into production (or just rubbing it in the faces of people who missed out during the original Deadzone KS.)
Also, the Hacker Half-Tail (Veer-myn specialist) looks enormous in front of the Mantic marines. I figured Skaven types were smaller and shorter than humans, but I guess new Veer-myn are larger.
judgedoug wrote: Still no sign of $115 pledge on East Coast, Virginia. Same with my brother, also a $115 pledge.
Put in a ticket and got a response, Mantic rep (Zak) confirmed the pledge had already shipped, and asked me to wait til the weekend just in case, and if it hasn't arrived yet, they'll send another.
I opened a support ticket the day after my pledge arrived (May 11), as I was missing an extra set of the four characters, and one of my Kalyshi was missing a bow arm. Took, 7 days for Rich to respond, and my missing parts arrived yesterday (June 2).
Got my character pack, plus an extra battle turtle just for fun, and instead of a Kalyshi bow arm I got a whole new set of 5 Kalyshi Guess I'm going to have to learn to recast, find an alternative arm, or paint her as a battle scarred veteran!
I'm fairly certain at this point we're dealing with the utter incompetence of the unholy combination of the Royal Mail and the United States Postal Service. These two systems, with the built-in inability of its' employees to suffer negative consequences for their rampant ineptitude, are perhaps only eclipsed by the wholly corrupt Italian postal system whose employees consider stealing packages as a perk of the job.
But, hey, that postal employee at the O'Hare Sorting Facility needed a new monitor stand while he binge watches Netflix and your Deadzone box was the perfect size.
While I would appreciate a tracking number, I'm almost glad to be free of the torture of sitting and watching my money either just stay at a sorting facility for weeks on end or bounce all around the country with no apparent regard for a final destination.
Mantic Games on the DeadZone Kickstarter Update wrote:
Deadzone Demo and Pipe Networks
It’s been a couple of weeks since the Deadzone: Infestation Kickstarter shipped – the smoothest dispatch operation we’ve had for some time.
General feedback on the game and the miniatures has been overwhelmingly positive and we hope that you’ve started building and painting your strikes forces and even played a few games as well!
If you've not, here’s a video of Ronnie playing Warren at Beasts of War to show you what you're missing out on!
Pipe Network
One recurring piece of feedback we are receiving involves the pipe network set.
Each pipe network bag comes with 1 4-way junction piece and 1 T-junction piece.
This is different from the graphic on the home page and the pledge manager, which suggests you get 2 T-junctions per set.
There was a change in the tooling that meant this was reduced to 1, with the intention that for retail we’d sell 2 sets together, effectively giving you the two halves to make the complete pipe section. We’re sorry that this wasn’t communicated in advance.
Where backers only get one pipe network sprue, this means that they only get 1 of each of these pieces, meaning that they require a second to turn these into complete pipes.
Obviously this is a bit of an oddity and, whilst we’d simple love to supply everyone with an extra sprue, we unfortunately can’t.
However, we will message all of the backers this affects with the option of purchasing a sprue at a special Kickstarter price so that they can get the two halves of the 4-way junction and T-junction.
judgedoug wrote: I'm fairly certain at this point we're dealing with the utter incompetence of the unholy combination of the Royal Mail and the United States Postal Service. These two systems, with the built-in inability of its' employees to suffer negative consequences for their rampant ineptitude, are perhaps only eclipsed by the wholly corrupt Italian postal system whose employees consider stealing packages as a perk of the job.
But, hey, that postal employee at the O'Hare Sorting Facility needed a new monitor stand while he binge watches Netflix and your Deadzone box was the perfect size.
While I would appreciate a tracking number, I'm almost glad to be free of the torture of sitting and watching my money either just stay at a sorting facility for weeks on end or bounce all around the country with no apparent regard for a final destination.
Yes, obviously the postal workers fault that PARTS are missing from orders and still orders have not arrived. I'm sure there some lost in the mail, but given the past I think it's much more likely that Mantic is the problem.
judgedoug wrote: Still no sign of $115 pledge on East Coast, Virginia. Same with my brother, also a $115 pledge.
Put in a ticket and got a response, Mantic rep (Zak) confirmed the pledge had already shipped, and asked me to wait til the weekend just in case, and if it hasn't arrived yet, they'll send another.
Hmm also in Va and no pledge here either.
I'm sure Mantic has already sent them out, and they will arrive in due time.
Yeah, I got my missing stuff pretty quickly, but it wasn't missing because Australia Post/UPS ate them, but because they weren't in the box (though they were on the packing slip)...
Theophony wrote: Yes, obviously the postal workers fault that PARTS are missing from orders and still orders have not arrived. I'm sure there some lost in the mail, but given the past I think it's much more likely that Mantic is the problem.
I'm not talking about parts, but I am talking about packages rendered through the highly incompetent USPS and RM. With thousands of positive feedback on ebay alone - and probably ten thousand packages shipped since I began selling stuff on the internet from 1994 (1998 ebay), I've got quite a lot of experience with how gakky the USPS and RM can be when they join forces to feth up your packages.
Again, Mantic said they shipped it, and has asked you to wait until this weekend (for some reason) - so I'm sure they shipped it!
If it is 'lost in the mail', I'm sure they're send you a replacement pledge.
Either way, I'm not sure we need many more backer delivery updates or customer service reports here in the News and Rumors thread - so, back on topic, everyone!
So, it looks like the Mars Attacks stuff is fading from the Mantic online store...again. I don't know if this means they're due for a restock, fading for good due to the license being dropped, or being diverted to the Warpath pledges.
Either way, it reminds me we haven't gotten the Mars Attacks lists for DZ 2.0, and the Martians are my biggest faction! Has anyone heard any word since, "We'll put out a PDF after the game is out,"?
So, it looks like the Mars Attacks stuff is fading from the Mantic online store...again. I don't know if this means they're due for a restock, fading for good due to the license being dropped, or being diverted to the Warpath pledges.
Either way, it reminds me we haven't gotten the Mars Attacks lists for DZ 2.0, and the Martians are my biggest faction! Has anyone heard any word since, "We'll put out a PDF after the game is out,"?
Given the way Mantic seems to work, it might turn out to be a forgotten promise in the end. Though in fairness, the game itself has only been out for a short while.
Mantic has army packs (starter + booster + bonus figure) up for Enforcers and Forge Fathers. An eBay seller has them on preorder, so they don't appear to be exclusive to the Mantic store. Seems like a good option, since if you were going to buy both a starter and booster you might as well get the bonus guy. They probably could also be used as essentially Warpath Firefight starter sets, if I understand the scales of the battles right. Hopefully the rest of the factions will get them too.
The first MVP is a medi-bot possessed by an extra-dimensional entity. Meaning the Warpath universe, like some other obscure miniatures sci-fi universe whose name escapes me at the moment, now officially has a form of demonic possession that includes manifesting lots of spikes.
Miniature Market has a couple items of interest in their new site launch sale.
Urban Pattern Iron Ancestor for $10 - http://www.miniaturemarket.com/mgdz6889.html (Production issues made getting this thing a nightmare for some time if you didn't order it in the kickstarter).
Also, not Mantic but used in lots of their promo images: they have a bunch of Tablescapes tiles on sale. The 24 packs for $150 are an insane deal - http://www.miniaturemarket.com/swmts2403.html Bunch of other Tablescapes sets too, like the Deadzone one for $45.
ulgurstasta wrote: Have we heard anything about when the new Plague stuff hits retail?
The DZ KS only added the Aberration to the Plague everything else new was from the the Warpath KS which probably won't hit retail until the end of the year or early next. There will most likely be a Plague starter set containing the existing stuff at some point soon.
I wouldn't be surprised - and this is just crystal ball speculation, I haven't heard anything - if they hold off on the Plague Deadzone boxes until the Warpath 3A sprue is available.
I wouldn't be surprised - and this is just crystal ball speculation, I haven't heard anything - if they hold off on the Plague Deadzone boxes until the Warpath 3A sprue is available.
Which also means holding off selling it till all the Warpath kickstarters are sent out - which means waiting on a load of Warpath models - and the rules.
I think this one is going to struggle, especially since Guild Ball has taken off, and Blood Bowl, no matter how antiquated and inferior the rules, will get people on nothing other than nostalgia, and is gonna be out around the same time.
NTRabbit wrote: I think this one is going to struggle, especially since Guild Ball has taken off, and Blood Bowl, no matter how antiquated and inferior the rules, will get people on nothing other than nostalgia, and is gonna be out around the same time.
Yeah, because Blood Bowl is such a terrible, unbalanced, game with such poor playtesting.
Yeah, because Blood Bowl is such a terrible, unbalanced, game with such poor playtesting.
It's an antiquated rule system, buried in dated concepts and mechanics that have long since been left behind by the rest of the industry, really a lot like 40k and WHFB. Sure, it's better balanced than either of those two, but it's still very old and clunky.
Yeah, because Blood Bowl is such a terrible, unbalanced, game with such poor playtesting.
It's an antiquated rule system, buried in dated concepts and mechanics that have long since been left behind by the rest of the industry, really a lot like 40k and WHFB. Sure, it's better balanced than either of those two, but it's still very old and clunky.
Yeah, as a long time player of Blood Bowl with a nearly undefeated Skaven team... I just got burned out. 3+ hour matches against one-trick teams. Blood Bowl suffers from the same headaches that come from "Warhammer fatigue" when you've spent hours and hours playing a single game and a single die roll loses or wins the match and you're left with a headache and the feeling that there was nothing you could have done to prevent that single die roll's outcome. It just stopped being fun.
Glad to see those are live, we've tried to make them an exhaustive document covering all the edge cases, and clear up a bunch of minor errors (mostly things like models that should have Beast not having it, and consistency errors like not listing the stats for default weaponry in all the profiles).
The Infestation supplement has only three pieces of errata, which I'm quite pleased about since the RC wrote it.
scarletsquig wrote: Glad to see those are live, we've tried to make them an exhaustive document covering all the edge cases, and clear up a bunch of minor errors (mostly things like models that should have Beast not having it, and consistency errors like not listing the stats for default weaponry in all the profiles).
The Infestation supplement has only three pieces of errata, which I'm quite pleased about since the RC wrote it.
Wow, you can see the huge difference that actual caring and effort makes. Congrat SS and the rest of the RC
The errata for the main rulebook actually is enough that I just want a new one. Does anyone know if a reprint will be available, or if there's an e-reader or pdf or digital version that has all these updates included?
scarletsquig wrote: Glad to see those are live, we've tried to make them an exhaustive document covering all the edge cases, and clear up a bunch of minor errors (mostly things like models that should have Beast not having it, and consistency errors like not listing the stats for default weaponry in all the profiles).
The Infestation supplement has only three pieces of errata, which I'm quite pleased about since the RC wrote it.
Wow, you can see the huge difference that actual caring and effort makes. Congrat SS and the rest of the RC
The errata for the main rulebook actually is enough that I just want a new one. Does anyone know if a reprint will be available, or if there's an e-reader or pdf or digital version that has all these updates included?
The amount of errata is pretty sad, especially considering the book has only just come out. Agreed with Doug - the RC is far and away superior to Mantic itself in terms of rules, editing and tightness
It isn't entirely errors, quite a bit of it is in response to community feedback (adding more weapon options, 2 nerfs to gamebreaking units, etc.).
Quite a bit of it is consistency errata as well, such as all of the edits defining default weaponry profiles in the statline itself, they're already listed in the weapon list, but they should be in the profile as well for consistency.
Aside from that it's mostly a case of giving Beast to models that should obviously have it and other minor things.
The FAQ should be considered in the same manner as a comprehensive rules document for a CCG, the bulk of it isn't fixing errors with the book, but rather clearly defining answers to very specific edge cases.
I do feel that there's sooo many changes that at the very least there needs to be a summary sheet with the updated model and weapon stats made for download for each faction.
scarletsquig wrote: It isn't entirely errors, quite a bit of it is in response to community feedback (adding more weapon options, 2 nerfs to gamebreaking units, etc.).
.
Kind of hard to not consider 'game breaking units needing nerfs' NOT to be an error. If they had been play tested properly they would not have been in the book as game breaking units...
To be honest, I'm probably not going to be playing the game until something like that comes out, in this day and age I don't want to be flicking through multiple pages of a book to figure out how to play a dude.
The beta lists were publicly accessible for 3 months and many, many issues with Jake's first draft of the army lists (basically v1 copy+paste with Marauders massively overpowered and Rebs massively underpowered) were resolved in that time.
Can't catch everything though, hence a major nerf to plague zombies and a minor nerf to rainmaker suits.
Those are one of the next projects on our list now that the FAQ is out. I'll be writing the Martian list since I played that faction quite a lot in v1.
scarletsquig wrote: The beta lists were publicly accessible for 3 months and many, many issues with Jake's first draft of the army lists (basically v1 copy+paste with Marauders massively overpowered and Rebs massively underpowered) were resolved in that time.
Can't catch everything though, hence a major nerf to plague zombies and a minor nerf to rainmaker suits.
I don't think it's fair to insinuate that the public should have picked up the errors. I don't personally have enough time to play my finished games let alone beta test for Mantic (or any other company). I just kinda expect "finished" rules and lists to be properly playtested for the most part, and the onus is on whoever is publishing them to get it done properly. So again, not on the unpaid RC, but Mantic itself.
scarletsquig wrote: Those are one of the next projects on our list now that the FAQ is out. I'll be writing the Martian list since I played that faction quite a lot in v1.
Thank goodness! Martians were my main faction in v1, and my 'traditional' factions don't have anywhere near the breadth of selection painted and ready.
(The answer would usually be to use that as a reason to get some stuff assembled and painted, but my gaming group decided to play the Destiny of Kings campaign this summer, and my Undead needed a lot of tweaks and additions to take it from a half-updated WHFB 8e Vampire Counts to a fully-functional KoW 2e Undead army...)
Very interesting FB post from a Warpath beta tester who basically demolishes the game. Let's hope Firefight is better.
This Does Not Work: A Reflection on the Warpath Beta After Three Games
I am committed to Warpath being great, and to help make it great. As it currently stands, I think the game is the opposite of great, and that is does not really work as a game. Successful combat games have opportunities for advantage, and ways to counter those advantages. Napoleonic warfare perhaps epitomizes this in the advantages that Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry each afford a commander, yet they also have weaknesses, this yields a nice paper/rock/scissors relationship. In other theaters combat, more units types result in a paper/rock/scissors/lizard/spock relationship and this is great too. I’ll speak about two successful Mantic Games, and how they work, Kings of War, and Deadzone 2nd Edition.
Kings of War succeeds in this paper/rock/scissors relationship well, each unit has a way it can be powerful, and has ways its weakness can be exploited. Deadzone succeeds in this very well also. Armor helps protect units, but one can use armor piercing weapons to negate this. If one plays lots of Armor piercing one can oppose this with Tough units, or with a large number of units with no armor which means the player using lots of AP us spending their points on nothing. Shooting in general is powerful, but in the game there’s enough cover, and units are generally defensible enough that they can get into close combat and wreak havoc.
Kings of War and Deadzone also each offer clear advantages to strive for. In Kings of War, one wants to flank their enemy, this results in rolling more dice of course. Also, single units in Kings of War are not generally able to destroy an opposing unit. Usually one must create a two-on-one situation to destroy an opposing unit. Again, this is a clear situation to try to create, and for the opponent to try to avoid. In Deadzone, one want to get clear shots in shooting, and get two-on-one close combat situations, or get big model against small model situations. Also the very statistics of a unit provides advantageous and disadvantageous situations. If I have a great shooter, I want him at a distance, and shooting down your low survive model. That great shooter probably has a poor fight value, and the opponent wants to get their good fight model in the same cube as that good shooter.
Models and units in Deadzone and Kings of War are also resilient enough that they can live to complete objectives. These games succeed in being about more than just destroying the opponent’s forces. In Warpath, units have such capacity for destruction that objectives are meaningless. Or if I have manages to hold an objective, it’s only a win-more situation.
In Warpath, there units who destroy other units with ease, Stormrage veterans, big tanks that roll lots of dice with high AP, and there are units not really capable of destroying units, Forge Guard, Steel Warriors, basically any unit that only rolls four dice (and that doesn’t have blast.) This is all to say there is a huge disparity between units that actually destroy other units, and units who pretty much fail at everything. In Deadzone and Kings of War, “weaker” units can be maneuvered to creat a situation where they are strong. This doesn’t happen in Warpath. Weaker units are just weak, and strong units and just strong. There’s no real way to create an advantage in Warpath. It helps for a unit to be in cover, but this doesn’t really help that unit survive. There’s so much AP in Warpath right now that my rolls to would are usually on a 2+. Close combat units have no chance of getting to the enemy without being destroyed.
My first Warpath game was Asterians vs. Forge Fathers. The Asterian objective was to live until turn 6 and then infiltrate of the sides of the board. To start, my high dice, high AP units destroyed some Forge Fathers units, and the Forge Fathers units then destroyed my units with high AP and good dice. Neither of us moved our forces very much, almost no maneuvering was needed. (And we DID have lots of terrain on the board!) By the end of turn two, I lost most of my forces, and the units I had left did not have enough AP to destroy Forge Father Tanks or Iron Ancestors. I conceded.
My second game of Warpath featured Astarians vs GCPS, in a take back the city scenario. My big Asterian Tanks immediately destroyed my opponents troop transport, I used a refresh order to let it attack again. My missle lauchers and shoot value of 2+ annihilated my opponents forces. I moved very little, I hardly made choices, I pretty much destroyed things and by the end of turn two, the advantage clearly mine, and we ended the game.
My third game was Forge Fathers vs. GCPS, and in this game, my opponent, Tyler, and I elected to use all infantry and/or bike style units. I wondered if the vehicles were the thing that was unbalanced and that by using all infantry the game would be balanced interesting and fun. The hypothesis was false. The same sorts of power differential came up in this game, that is the disparity between units who destroy other units, and units who are just weak. There was one instance of my Borkkr units charging into a building to destroy the enemy and take the building. Otherwise to Close combat happened. Again shooting is all-powerful. Stormrage veterans destroy things. My artillery units rolling 10dice 3ap destroy things Valkyrs destroy things. Meanwhile, Steel Warriors and Forge Guard pretty much failed at everything. The Forge Guard were hard to my opponent to kill, in but their measly four dice did not destroy enemy units, and were they to move out of cover to try and engage in close combat, they would never make it to the enemy before being destroyed.
In none of these games did I see clever play result in winning. No one needed to maneuver to create advantageous situations to win and destroy the enemy. Powerful units just destroy other units. The all or nothing result of casualties (because only whole teams are destroyed) only furthers the disparity between power levels of units. Once some casualties are taken, and one is left with some single teams, there’s really no way for these units to be effective at anything. They don’t roll enough dice to destroy another unit with a shoot action, they will never survive marching into close combat, and there aren’t enough command dice to give combined fire orders to coordinate these small teams with each other. If I have units on the board, there should be SOME way I can use them to my advantage. And currently in Warpath, this just can’t happen.
I ask the game designers and developers to really look at what makes the successful Mantic Games successful. Maneuvering forces needs to matter. One needs to create advantageous situations to win and to defeat enemy forces. Units that are strong on one way, need to have a weakness that can be exploited. Close combat needs to actually be able to happen, and be a viable strategy on its own (The Plague!). I urge the designers and developers to take time, and get Warpath both working and right. Currently, I don’t see it working, it isn’t fun because my decisions don’t matter, it feels like arbitrary destruction of units, and again the objective don’t matter because it’s so easy to destroy units.
Please contact me if you would like more clarity on any of the points that I have made. I want Warpath to be amazing. I’ve been looking for an alternative to WH:40k that has less expensive models and a single rulebook. Warpath is trying to be the game I want it to be, but right now, it’s not succeeding.
It seems disappointing that in 2 out of 3 games the player in the weaker position conceded, it would be more instructive to see how the games would play out (even if the results went as predicted)
other than that I think the beta rules are due for general release next month? so those interested can make their own judgements (although I wouldn't be surprised if he's right)
Sounds like the issues are a bit beyond the level of a tidy up.
I knew there was a chance of this happening, especially when they blindly ploughed ahead with making the mass battle rules the main event, when it was pretty clear that Firefight not only had the most demand, but was the sensible and correct starting point, with mass battle being an extension/expansion of those rules, rather than Firefight being a fundamentally different rule set we had to repeatedly (and still have to) force them to make.
judgedoug wrote: Does anyone know if a reprint will be available, or if there's an e-reader or pdf or digital version that has all these updates included?
The Mantic Digital enhanced rulebook should be kept up to date with any errata:-
It always confused me that they did not enlist Alessio, with additional help from the excellent rules committee, to adapt KOW into a sci-fi rules set. KOW is almost universally lauded and also scales very well whatever the size of the game. Obviously it would need a fair degree of work but surely it would have avoided some of the rumoured issues with Warpath. That said hopefully Mantic do not rush Warpath and can make a good rule set out of it eventually, there are a fair few great sci-fi games out there so it needs to be up to snuff to compete.
Warpath is on my radar since the day it got advertised for the first time (2010 if I remember it correctly). I bought several of the first army boxed sets and therefore own and have read both rulesets but in my club it hasn't been played at all as it felt like being in a neverending early-access status to most.
I think a printed ruleset with a sufficient amount of army lists and a follow-up like a campaign book with more army lisst sounds like a good plan.
Waiting longer for it is okay (after so many years) and I will most likely buy the new edition. But I hope Mantic takes the time it needs to be an at least okay-ish wargame. No pressure because of the kickstarter. Open beta-testing sounds sensible. But then fix the issues and/or re-write it if neccessary.
scarletsquig wrote: Those are one of the next projects on our list now that the FAQ is out. I'll be writing the Martian list since I played that faction quite a lot in v1.
Thanks a lot for all you guys' and girls' work at those projects and especially you and DaveC for keeping us informed about what is happening.
This is disappointing, as I too would love to have a good set of "not-40k" rules I can play. And given the current plastics for deadzone/warpath, I could see building a mantic warpath army... but the rules need to be there.
Warpath will do for most of those who just wanted to have a "balanced" 40k.
Everyone else will consider it bad and not being a real alternative.
It is not that easy to explain, but to sum it up, WP took some (broken) game mechanics from 40k in the very first place to keep the ex-GW players happy. The look nice on paper and look familiar to those who played 40k but do not work with the other rules the game is build around.
So Vehicles/Tanks and Close Combat is the same mess like in 40k and will lead to the same frustration.
(and it already was in the first alpha draft)
After KoW2, I really hoped that Mantic would make a nice SciFi game but at the moment it looks more like I should hope that there will be a 9th Age like Community project to get decent SciFi rules to use Mantics miniatures (unlike others, I like their new stuff a lot more than the new GW minis)
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: It always confused me that they did not enlist Alessio, with additional help from the excellent rules committee, to adapt KOW into a sci-fi rules set.
Alessio did write the first two versions of Warpath but is no longer involved directly AFAIK. IIRC Warpath 1 was very much KoW in space. As for the KoWRC they have been kept very busy on KoW and KoWH. Many of them are looking forward to prospect of a bit of a break from RC duties (or at least a lower workload) until work on the next KoW supplement begins to ramp up.
First, Kodos, thanks for the insight. I have a problem with your approach to how Warpath rules are created. Games Workshop writes them?
I assume Mantic is not forced by anything or anyone but actually they have been given a fair chance to surprise us with a good SciFi ruleset of their own. They have been financed for this already. Looking at Terminator Genesis and Gates of Antares for example, we can see good, modern scifi rules are achievable with the right effort and talent.
What Mantic releases, will be their work. They will get made responsible for it. You dont like the mechanics and think they dont work. Tell them, they have the chance to fix it now.
Could it be Mantic suck at writing a good scifi wargaming ruleset and will fail because they have no talent at hand? I dont know.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: It always confused me that they did not enlist Alessio, with additional help from the excellent rules committee, to adapt KOW into a sci-fi rules set.
Alessio did write the first two versions of Warpath but is no longer involved directly AFAIK. IIRC Warpath 1 was very much KoW in space. As for the KoWRC they have been kept very busy on KoW and KoWH. Many of them are looking forward to prospect of a bit of a break from RC duties (or at least a lower workload) until work on the next KoW supplement begins to ramp up.
Same goes for the Deadzone RC as well, while I was recently also added to the Warpath RC, I've just been too busy with Deadzone to contribute much, and in any case, the structure of that RC appears to be more advisory than anything else, Warpath development is being handled in-house with lots of playtest days and games being played. There has been an open beta process, but again, not a huge amount of interaction there, since it's basically a 1st edition without an established playerbase, whereas KoW and Deadzone had quite a bit more player feedback from v1 players.
Also, the quote criticism of the game a few posts up isn't entirely fair, and if you look at the full thread on facebook, there's a lot of counter arguments from people who have played 30+ games rather than 3.. it's a game with a lot of possible counterplays. They may still need to look at the vehicle rules and potential for deathstar units, though.
