Call it the Mantic Warpath & Dreadball thread

as opposed to Mantic SciFi thread to make it easier on search

In my opinion Dreadball Definitely deserves (to keep) its' own thread.

I'm very interested in Dreadball... I'm not as interested in Warpath / general Mantic releases.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'm hoping to convince the mods that Dreadball discussion should go in this thread as well, to make it into a Mantic sci-fi thread rather than just a Warpath thread.

That will get awful messy once that WP KS goes up. I'd keep DB separate, and if that licensed property gets big attention it would be better off in another separate thread - it keeps news on a busy topic from drowning out posts on a game with less to report on, which could still be relevant.

I don't see an issue with having three Mantic threads on the go in N&R. -

Warpath and Sci-fi - include other stuff like Project Pandora, figures that really want to be Mortarion and his plague zombiesm, etc - Make the KS thread a separate one so the KS news doesn't start on page 18 and retire it to the Graveyard forum later.

Dreadball - New Rules, figures and releases - retire the KS thread to the GY.

Kings of War and Fantasy - new rules, greens, figures - for both KoW and also related stuff like DKH etc.


Some KS discussion will no doubt happen in the threads anyway, but they'll become predominantly news threads - in the same way as Mongoose's thread works.

 scarletsquig wrote:

Sorry Kroothawk, I know you were super eager for another 8 pages of mocking fantasy sprue rehashes, but it ain't gonna happen.

Dude, mocking sprue rehashes is the past. The future is mocking drooping fried-egg nipples on werewolves.

I'm just glad Typhmouse doesn't have any to file off. He might actually get into it.

February releases - Forgefathers!

Warpath Forge Father Hero
Warpath Forge Father Thorgarim Team
Warpath Forge Father Drakkarim Team
Warpath Forge Father Iron Ancestor Conversion

Teams only being available suggests metals, although restic would be better.

The Hero is likely to be the Brokkr Hero we saw sculpted last year.

Iron Ancestor Conversion is likely to be the same deal as the raptor bull and quad, a kit with either a right cannon arm or a left melee arm (or both if we're lucky!).

That sounds excellent! So presumably some new sculpts for the Drakkarim (which hopefully be a little easier to put together!)

Finally, for the uninitiated what are the Thorgarim?

 Pacific wrote:
That sounds excellent! So presumably some new sculpts for the Drakkarim (which hopefully be a little easier to put together!)

Finally, for the uninitiated what are the Thorgarim?

If I remember rightly the Thorgarim are the Forgefathers elite heavy infantry, think terminators from 40K.

^ Nah, the Forge Guard are the heavy exosuit equivalents. Some people have seen concept art for them, so it's likely that they're a shoe-in for the upcoming KS.

These are the Thorgarim, elite infantry with heat hammers:



Highly likely that this will be the hero that is being released, a Brokkr Chief:

I want Mantic's SQUATS to be so good - so I can think about doing a 'counts as' IG army with them...

Picture of the Iron Ancestor variant:

That's really quite nice - looking forward to more from Mantic for the Iron Ancestors!

Are the arms removable? Do you guys think I can use the on Dreads?

Plus I like those hammer dwarves. They can even represent a heavily armored dwarf fantasy army.

The arms are separate pieces, but I don't have a dread arm at the moment to compare sizes to.

Quick and dirty size comparison between an Iron Ancestor gun arm, and a Forge World Mortis Pattern Left Autocannon Dreadnought Arm (IA-ISM-D-017) I had in a drawer.

Eeep/ Bit on the small side.

It'd probably be OK as a t/l heavy bolter, and due to the way it attaches to the Iron Ancestor you'll need to build the shoulder up anyway.

To be fair, sawing off the barrel ends and attaching some PS (or brass, whatever) tubing in between isn't exactly rocket science - and Dysartes is right about the shoulders which would be 90% of the work anyway.

I think that's close enough to be regarded as a 'counts as' Autocannon no problem.

Alternatively, you could use the entire Iron Ancestor as a dreadnought alternative and not have to bother with converting at all, for less than half the price of the GW version.

The scale difference isn't that far off at all (keep in mind that the GW base is taller in this pic:



The guns and bulked-out shoulders are the main difference, the height is about the same.

Call it a pre-heresy variant or something, the models were a lot smaller back them anyway, and looked a *lot* weirder.

Or if you want to go the whole hog, the forgefathers make better counts-as squats (using the space marine list) if you're wanting to use them in 40k due to the heavy armour on the models, counting them as salamanders works great due to all the heat-based weaponry they have.

OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.
...however cool the model is.

 Bolognesus wrote:
OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.
...however cool the model is.

Not that that will be much of a problem soon anyway, what with there no longer being GW events and what looks like a diminishing number of GW stores that have gaming space (At least here in NA).

Was going to say that's not much of an argument against any more really! Im gradually making up a FF army (collecting bits and pieces, but really waiting for the next Kickstarter, whenever that comes) and was originally going to use it as a 'counts as SM' force - not a perfect representation, but probably the closest you will get. But I'm already sick of having my other 40k stuff carpet-bombed by unpainted Playmobil toys scooting around on flight stands, it's kind of given me a fresh impetus to try Warpath

That will still vary from place to place, though I see what you mean

Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:

Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.

In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.

For anyone who doesn't know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it's from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there's good odds that it was one of his sculpts.

Wow that is awesome news! I love his work and cannot wait to see what he does with the warpath range!

Ah, very nice.

I hope we see some vehicles soon, that's the main thing that's holding me back. Well, that and being a jobless college student (again).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should say, some more vehicles since there's the Iron Ancestor and the Marauder Raptors.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:

Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.

In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.

For anyone who doesn't know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it's from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there's good odds that it was one of his sculpts.

I'm glad to hear Mantic has an internal sculptor now (especially such a talented one). Maybe now they can get some consistency within their own product lines

But first they need to keep him working on all the KS models I'm getting!

Sweet. Now I'm looking forward to the warpath KS. Especially if it means resculpts for the forgefathers

 scarletsquig wrote:
Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:

Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.

In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.

For anyone who doesn't know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it's from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there's good odds that it was one of his sculpts.

This is excellent news! A very talented sculptor, that's for sure.

Absolutely great news, the fact that Remy sculpted the SW phase 1 Strain models has definitely peaked my interest in the upcoming Warpath plague faction.

I also didn't realize that Remy sculpted the Sedition Wars Firebrand models, i always thought they were by Kev white. Im praying that the Warpath Rebel army will be similar in design to these models. (But with a few more aliens.)

Sining wrote:
Sweet. Now I'm looking forward to the warpath KS. Especially if it means resculpts for the forgefathers

I completely agree, im really hoping that we see both the ForgeFathers and Orx get re-sculpts for the Kickstarter. IMO the plastic ForgeFathers and Orx models have served their purpose as cheap filler for when Warpath was a relatively new venture, but when you compare them the latest Warpath releases they're definitely starting to become the weak point within the range.

I continue to maintain that Mantic's weakness, rules aside, is not the actual sculpts but rather their originality (or lack thereof). As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

I would love to see Mantic start producing new and original lines of figures, as they seem to have a good handle on things from the operations side, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:

Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.

In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.

For anyone who doesn't know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it's from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there's good odds that it was one of his sculpts.

Sounds like Mantic is finally getting properly serious. If they can show us this by getting rid of things like Hybrid kits and repurposed plastics, I think they'll be in a good place a year from now. If they want a licence to print money, it'd be the Enforcers in multipart hard plastic.




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 Kingsley wrote:
I continue to maintain that Mantic's weakness, rules aside, is not the actual sculpts but rather their originality (or lack thereof). As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

The enforcers aren't original (they're Iron Man, or perhaps, War Machine) but they're not a GW ripoff. They also appear to have been pretty much universally liked. The designs at least, not the hybrid models..

The types of units Mantic produces may follow the same generic tropes that GW uses, the execution and model design is what is completely different and unique.

For example, Mantic Orcs/ Goblins/ Undead have a lot more common with the 80's British dark fantasy aesthetic than anything GW has produced in the last 20 years.

Think the film Labyrinth, Army of Darkness, metal album covers, that sort of thing.

Warpath takes the opposite route, trying to take a more modern "clean and shiny" sci-fi approach rather than 40k's grimdark. It's pretty clear to anyone who has spent 30 seconds with a copy of Dreadball that they're going for something a bit different.

If they wanted to effectively be nothing other than GW rip-offs they would have gone "heroic scale" instead of "true scale" with their designs in the same way that other more blatantly GW-inspired companies do.

Anyone writing them off as cheap GW knock-offs either hasn't bothered to look at the model range much or take one look at the free rules which are in fact taken very seriously and are not just a "tack-on", or "warhammer-lite" as people often like to dismiss them. They're damned good and offer fast and balanced gameplay, as well as having excellent support.

That's not to say that GW compatibility isn't still considered important (it's important for those of us who buy Mantic minis too, if I can't get a KoW game, I can still use the minis to play warhammer), but it's pretty clear that it is no longer the main focus of the company like it was back in 2009, their own rules and their board games especially make them far more money.

This month's releases for goblins are a fire-belching trumpet war machine and furry land-shark creatures. You could call the latter "GW squig rip-offs", but it'd be a bit of a stretch.

Similarly, the "Dreadball = Bloodbowl clone" argument has been posted on the internet quite a lot and debunked pretty thoroughly.

Good observation about the Evil Dead/Metal Album cover art aesthetic. That's exactly what Mantic's undead remind me of.

Having Remy as a full time sculptor is fantastic. Consistency is what they need. Now they need to find themselves a professional model engineer and master mould maker who can keep them from having repeats of how badly the hybrid restic and metal kits go together.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:

Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.

In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.

For anyone who doesn't know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it's from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there's good odds that it was one of his sculpts.

This is amazing news! Far and away my biggest criticism of Mantics efforts has been their inconsistency within their various lines. To have solved the consistency problem (and with a sculptor of the quality of Tremblay) is really great news.

 Kingsley wrote:
As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

Technically Forge Fathers fill a giant hole where demand exists in the market.

But other than that, every Dreadball thing has no GW analog.

Mantic may have started as the GW Proxy manufacturer but left that behind around June of last year. Launching the KS for Kings of War, funding tons of units that have no GW analog, kinda proves my point. Orc Fight Wagons? Goblin Mincers... and War Trombones... and Sharpstick Slashers? Obsidian Golems? The entire Celestian/Basiliean human range? and Berserker Brock Riders? (what GW army has crazed dwarves riding giant badgers?!)


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 scarletsquig wrote:
For example, Mantic Orcs[...]have a lot more common with the 80's British dark fantasy aesthetic than anything GW has produced in the last 20 years.
..."true scale"...

lotta snipping, but _this_ qft. I love their Orcs. Back in the 90's I had a WHFB Orc army that was a mix of old 80's orcs, Kev Adams orcs, and then Brian Nelson orcs (when he redid the boar riders in 1998 or so). It was all over the place, different scales, ranging from scrawny and mean, to goofy and silly, to grim and scarred. Eventually I sold the army and never really liked the 2000's GW aesthetic of big heads, biggers jaws, and ape arms. Mantic's Orcs are basically everything I loved about 80's style Orcs, but done in modern methods. Now I've got over 200 of them, dark green skin with bronze armor. I love their truescale, I love their armor designs (like the embossed faces on some of their armor), I love their jagged bits and weapons. Best orcs available. To me, and their fans, they're not a replacement for GW; they're the only good orcs on the market. GW's orcs are for people with no taste.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 scarletsquig wrote:
This month's releases for goblins are a fire-belching trumpet war machine and furry land-shark creatures. You could call the latter "GW squig rip-offs", but it'd be a bit of a stretch.

Mawbeasts are interesting, in that you can see that they might have been originally intended as a Squig-analog, but they're like 3 times bigger and look more like, as you said, mutant furry land-sharks. Lol. (I kinda want to use them as cavalry, they're so big)

Remy makes wonderful sculpts, which are subsequently ruined by shoddy molds, detail-ruining mold lines and lazy staff 'twisting' models off sprues to leave pits and damages on the models.

It is sad when Remy is the only sculptor who doesn't make trash int hat company. Almost all the Dreadball models not done by Remy are practically 'throw in the garbage' quality.

I cannot trust concept art from mantic as they lack the sculptors who can faithfully re-create models from it.

I hope if Remy is fulltime Warpath, that this doesn't mean now that they have stolen our money for Dreadball they will pawn the rest of the models off on some bad sculptor. I kinda wish they would finish Dreadball before doing any more warpath since they only have one artist who can make a good sculpt.

Funny, I encountered the opposite. Other than _too much_ sprue on my Dreadball models, they were virtually flash-free. But my money wasn't "stolen", I guess, because I've received product?

 scarletsquig wrote:
Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:

Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.

In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.

For anyone who doesn't know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it's from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there's good odds that it was one of his sculpts.

Wow, thanks for the update Squig, thats outstanding news Remys an amazing sculptor, looking forward to the warpath KS even more now. I wonder how many new armies we will see during the warpath KS, I know we should have Plauge, John-Doe Race/Nameless, Judwan, Z,zor and Astrainains (urm... spelling?) all coming, but I would'nt be surprised if Mantic have something "extra" hidden up their sleeve for the KS as well.

Exciting stuff.

 judgedoug wrote:

Funny, I encountered the opposite. Other than _too much_ sprue on my Dreadball models, they were virtually flash-free. But my money wasn't "stolen", I guess, because I've received product?

It's a very long con.

 plastictrees wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

Funny, I encountered the opposite. Other than _too much_ sprue on my Dreadball models, they were virtually flash-free. But my money wasn't "stolen", I guess, because I've received product?

It's a very long con.

I think I see it. I'll be yearning to play Dreadball so much that I won't work some offered overtime chances and I'll lose money in the long run

nkelsch wrote:
Remy makes wonderful sculpts, which are subsequently ruined by shoddy molds, detail-ruining mold lines and lazy staff 'twisting' models off sprues to leave pits and damages on the models.

It is sad when Remy is the only sculptor who doesn't make trash int hat company. Almost all the Dreadball models not done by Remy are practically 'throw in the garbage' quality.

I cannot trust concept art from mantic as they lack the sculptors who can faithfully re-create models from it.

I hope if Remy is fulltime Warpath, that this doesn't mean now that they have stolen our money for Dreadball they will pawn the rest of the models off on some bad sculptor. I kinda wish they would finish Dreadball before doing any more warpath since they only have one artist who can make a good sculpt.

Eek, don't scare me. I was hoping that by getting only a Season 3 team they'd have worked out all the kinks.

Who did Shoeless Joe? I'm going to finally pick up my copy of him at TempleCon this weekend from a friend I believe, and the pics of that model have looked great. I hope they have the same sculptor do the rest of the Nameless team...

During the KS the asked the masses if we liked Tentacle Joe and wanted the sculptor to do the rest of the nameless team

we almost unanimously said yes (one or two dissenters said 'he's not dynamic enough) so we should be OK for him (or her I guess) to do the lot

Okay phew . Thanks!

 scipio.au wrote:

Sounds like Mantic is finally getting properly serious. If they can show us this by getting rid of things like Hybrid kits and repurposed plastics, I think they'll be in a good place a year from now. If they want a licence to print money, it'd be the Enforcers in multipart hard plastic.

I agree that all plastic, all metal, or all restic would be ideal, as opposed to hybrid. Sadly, I bought the 46-figure Strike protocol set, so it wouldn't benefit me much, but it would be good for whoever buys in next...

Forgefather Thorgarim Hero:





Pretty sweet sculpt if you ask me.

For Cygnar!
Beard is a little static, but nice overall.

Same thing stood out to me on first glimpse. Is this one of the new Remy sculpts?

 Kingsley wrote:
I continue to maintain that Mantic's weakness, rules aside, is not the actual sculpts but rather their originality (or lack thereof). As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

I would love to see Mantic start producing new and original lines of figures, as they seem to have a good handle on things from the operations side, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

Considering how many different armies GW produces to cover so many different archetypes, is this even possible?

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

I sure hope Mantic produces something original like space bugs that look nothing like space dinosaurs with exoskeletons, otherwise we'll never hear the end of it. Also, tentacle monsters. GW doesn't do those yet.

And since when has GW ever sold a model of a werewolf with oversized nipples? Never!

Actually, I find Mantic to be one of the more refreshing model companies out there. The other big plastic releases tend to remind me that Star Wars and WWII Germans sell like peanut butter and chocolate...

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
I continue to maintain that Mantic's weakness, rules aside, is not the actual sculpts but rather their originality (or lack thereof). As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

I would love to see Mantic start producing new and original lines of figures, as they seem to have a good handle on things from the operations side, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

Considering how many different armies GW produces to cover so many different archetypes, is this even possible?

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

I sure hope Mantic produces something original like space bugs that look nothing like space dinosaurs with exoskeletons, otherwise we'll never hear the end of it. Also, tentacle monsters. GW doesn't do those yet.

And since when has GW ever sold a model of a werewolf with oversized nipples? Never!

Actually, I find Mantic to be one of the more refreshing model companies out there. The other big plastic releases tend to remind me that Star Wars and WWII Germans sell like peanut butter and chocolate...

I think that mantic are starting to come out from under the 'count as' shadow. The recent KoW kickstarter proves this. And once they start expanding the warpath range further it will definitely prove it. To me it seemed as they were filling holes in GW's range when they first started with warpath with the dwarfs and rats in space. Or offering cheaper alternative models for Orks and guardsmen. But I think they are really only just getting into their stride. Dreadball being the proof of this! Also it's good seeing troops that aren't just nazi's in space. That certainly seems to be a trend at the moment.

 Kingsley wrote:
I continue to maintain that Mantic's weakness, rules aside, is not the actual sculpts but rather their originality (or lack thereof). As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

I would love to see Mantic start producing new and original lines of figures, as they seem to have a good handle on things from the operations side, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

I disagree. I think that because Mantic was was taking quite a big leap with Warpath (Creating a whole new game with rules and minis is not going to be cheap or easy), they wanted to keep things simple and stick with generic fantasy/sci-fi races. Also GW don't own the rights to or created the concepts of Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Humans ect... so your point about Mantics minis be a derivative of GW is absolutley silly.

Some more pics of all the new releases, they've just gone up for advance order:

Thorgarim:


Drakkarim:


Iron Ancestor Doomstorm:


And yeah, it's all Remy-sculpted as far as I know.

Sorry accidently quoted myself

 scarletsquig wrote:
Forgefather Thorgarim Hero:





Pretty sweet sculpt if you ask me.

I likey the dynamic pose

The new Forge Fathers stuff is looking awesome.

Also worth noting that they have bitz packs for them on the site:

http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Warpath/Forge-Fathers/Infantry.html

So, if you decide you don't want anything to do with the plastic steel warriors, you can go ahead and buy a pack of rifles for £3 instead to convert your Drakkarim into Steel warriors.

They do each part separately as a bitz pack, so you can buy a rocket launcher as a bolt-on or if you want them all to have enclosed helmets, you can do that as well.

The metal is killing me

I guess I'm not seeing where the bitz order are?

I do like the Forge Fathers for the most part.

Those Drakkarim look like they have got a couple of new poses and/or weapons in them? Is that correct?

OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.

Is there anyone who still cares what GW says?

Justyn wrote:

OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.

Is there anyone who still cares what GW says?

Sadly some people only have GW to play in

 kenshin620 wrote:

Justyn wrote:

OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.

Is there anyone who still cares what GW says?

Sadly some people only have GW to play in

That's going away as more and more GW's stop allowing open play on their tables and only allow demo games and scheduled events on their tables.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
I continue to maintain that Mantic's weakness, rules aside, is not the actual sculpts but rather their originality (or lack thereof). As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

I would love to see Mantic start producing new and original lines of figures, as they seem to have a good handle on things from the operations side, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

Considering how many different armies GW produces to cover so many different archetypes, is this even possible?

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

I sure hope Mantic produces something original like space bugs that look nothing like space dinosaurs with exoskeletons, otherwise we'll never hear the end of it. Also, tentacle monsters. GW doesn't do those yet.
..

So, you're happy that those 'teams' are coming out for Dreadball (set in the Warpath universe) then, right? Zz'or and Nameless, the Nameless are tentacle-goodness, and the Zz'or look like giant bugs from your garden. I'm sure with enough popularity, they'll make their way into Warpath too.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

Well, we should be honest at the same time. The Corporation soldiers were pretty clearly IG analogues, right down to the weapon teams taking up a single round base and the inclusion of not-plasma/melta/flamers in the package. They don't need to look like Cadians or Catachans (who both look nothing alike) to be clearly designed as IG standins.

Having heavy weapon teams on separate bases that are larger than the normal squad guys is standard practice for historicals going back decades. GW didn't invent that.

They did however, design the lascannon, which Mantic copied, no doubt about it!

On topic, the Forge Fathers look great, a real improvement from the first guys they released.

 Commander Cain wrote:
They did however, design the lascannon, which Mantic copied, no doubt about it!

On topic, the Forge Fathers look great, a real improvement from the first guys they released.

They both kind of look like laser cannons off of toys from the 80s. I never thought GW's lascannon designs were all that original. You'll find laser bazookas in sci-fi long before GW had them in 40k. The mantic ones are also noticeably smaller than the GW ones. For some that's a plus, for others that's a negative.

I'm not sure what I think about the new FF stuff. I dislike the hard plastics that were just sci-fi conversions of their fantasy stuff, so I guess the new stuff is an upgrade.

 agustin wrote:

 Commander Cain wrote:
They did however, design the lascannon, which Mantic copied, no doubt about it!

On topic, the Forge Fathers look great, a real improvement from the first guys they released.

They both kind of look like laser cannons off of toys from the 80s. I never thought GW's lascannon designs were all that original. .

Lascannons and stub guns were taken directly from Judge Dredd...

That makes a lot of sense actually.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Considering how many different armies GW produces to cover so many different archetypes, is this even possible?

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

I sure hope Mantic produces something original like space bugs that look nothing like space dinosaurs with exoskeletons, otherwise we'll never hear the end of it. Also, tentacle monsters. GW doesn't do those yet.
..

So, you're happy that those 'teams' are coming out for Dreadball (set in the Warpath universe) then, right? Zz'or and Nameless, the Nameless are tentacle-goodness, and the Zz'or look like giant bugs from your garden. I'm sure with enough popularity, they'll make their way into Warpath too.

I am extremely happy with most of what Mantic has done lately and is doing. They still have the occasional chuckle-inducingly bad model, but they are really producing a lot of great stuff. Most of my model purchases in the last year have been Mantic models. I just wish they would get serious about plastic. Dreamforge is really making them look bad on this front. (Full disclosure: I love Dreamforge, too.)

As for the Nameless and the Z'zor, I would prefer Mantic made those factions now instead of some lame, half-baked space zombies. You want to talk about lack of originality? It's not in copying GW, it's in being the 5000th stupid company to jump on the "ZOMBIES IN _________!" bandwagon. The saddest part, though, is they'll probably sell like crazy. Just like boob models. Too bad the zombie boobs market is already tapped...or is it?

 agustin wrote:
Having heavy weapon teams on separate bases that are larger than the normal squad guys is standard practice for historicals going back decades. GW didn't invent that.

They may not have, but Mantic's use of same was clearly following the GW-compatibility train, just as much as Space Orx or recycling GW tropes like Space Dwarfz or Hrud/Space Skaven. I'm not exactly calling GW a bastion of creativity, nor am I saying that Mantic are soley a company of cut-price GW ripoffs (though they certainly started that way). Mantic are starting to find their own identity now, but it's just disingenuous to pretend that they didn't start off as and still take into consideration the GW-but-cheaper market as their primary focus - only recently (post-KS, really) have they started to move away from that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's also a bit unfair to criticise Mantic for the Space Zombies, considering that the entire faction is made up of:

Existing Kit A (Corporation Troopers)
+
Existing Kit B (Plastic Zombies)
+
Existing Kit C (Plastic Ghouls)
+
New Box Sleeve
=
Space Zombies box set.

Plus a slight rejig of the Space Skaven guy with a bad space scythe and some Triumvirate Goggles of Nurgle with Mono-Horn of Nurgle. (Because they only do original stuff, amirite?)

The space zombies made from combining corporation marines and the undead miniatures also look really really good, so it's hard to criticize them at all.

I don't like their character at all though.

The space zombies are not a Warpath faction either, just throwing that out there. They're nothing to do with the Plague whatsoever.

They are a splash release that was only made because their halloween special of the Z-corp sold an absolute heaping pile of models.

Essentially, customers said "we want this", so Mantic decided to keep on selling them, and make them available to trade/FLGS.

I'm really liking the deisgn of the new forgefather figs, but it just dawned on me that these new infantry units are priced the same as Space marines at 5 for $25?

I realize that these are metal figs, but it's still the same price as metal scouts (3 for $15) which are figs of about the same size, and also relatively monopose.

I kind of thought Mantic was supposed to be a better deal or is this just more of pricing based on in-game usefulness/power?

I realize the plastic figs are still a good deal (though with far less options than GW figs), I'm just trying to figure out what about this situation is rubbing me the wrong way.

Still hoping for new plastic units in a kickstarter though.

^ Pricing on them is entirely because they are chunky metal figures.

They're a pretty hefty chunk of metal to cast, so the price is largely determined by the cost of the raw material itself.

If you look at mantic's other, less material-heavy metals, the price is lower. The metal elf archers are 33% less, and the metal goblins are 50% less. The price is entirely in-line with their raw materials cost (Mantic doesn't have access to bulk pricing on that, either, it's a small company).

These units are also the elites of the army (which doesn't determine their price, but it does determine that they won't get priority for plastics since sales volume on them will not be very high), highly likely that the Kickstarter will focus on hard plastic core infantry and vehicles.

Mantic's pricing is still very low, in fact the plastic steel warrior and marauder boxes were recently reduced in price by £5, and a bunch of corporation sets went down in price by about £1. There isn't any margin for selling stuff cheap when metal is involved though, especially something as chunky as a forgefather mini. As a budget option, it is very easy to convert the plastic steel warriors into Thorgarim and Drakkarim if you want.

The metals are multi-part, not single-piece. Separate heads, arms+gun piece, legs and torsos.

I'm interested in hearing where the "no KS until 2014" rumour is coming from, everything I've heard on that topic points to Q2 of this year, with several people already having seen some of what Mantic has planned for it.

Where did the no-KS rumour come from Scarlet Squig? How far are they along the release of KoW? Arguably you would have to say that that would be the only thing holding up the Warpath KS (unless they want to play down the KS rumours so that other stuff sells now of course).

With how much they've been working Heath, I'm sure the Warpath Kickstarter is going to be great.

 Pacific wrote:
Where did the no-KS rumour come from Scarlet Squig?

Earlier in this thread.

How far are they along the release of KoW?

- Basileans are the only army left to be sculpted, and two of their units are done, with 4 more that we haven't seen yet. I'd estimate that they're at least 75% of the way towards getting it ready to ship.

 Azazelx wrote:

It's also a bit unfair to criticise Mantic for the Space Zombies, considering that the entire faction is made up of:

Existing Kit A (Corporation Troopers)
+
Existing Kit B (Plastic Zombies)
+
Existing Kit C (Plastic Ghouls)
+
New Box Sleeve
=
Space Zombies box set.

Plus a slight rejig of the Space Skaven guy with a bad space scythe and some Triumvirate Goggles of Nurgle with Mono-Horn of Nurgle. (Because they only do original stuff, amirite?)

I actually meant The Plague faction that Mantic is wasting using resources to develop. I don't mind the reboxed combo of existing kits at all as that won't slow down their entire release schedule just for the sake of minis that will make Mantic look like latecomers to the Sedition Wars party.

Oh, and Maimonides' Curly Beard! I had forgotten about that terrible Typhus rat model with the sausage scythe. Thanks for reminding me.

 scarletsquig wrote:
The space zombies are not a Warpath faction either, just throwing that out there. They're nothing to do with the Plague whatsoever.

They are a splash release that was only made because their halloween special of the Z-corp sold an absolute heaping pile of models.

Essentially, customers said "we want this", so Mantic decided to keep on selling them, and make them available to trade/FLGS.

There will be rules for them, though. I can't see Mantic being so stupid as to release a kit (yeah, we know it's for 40k) but not provide rules to use them as a fringe faction in their own game. There was a biochem accident at a space soldier base, and now they are zombies. There's your fluff sorted...

Redacted (thanks SS).

Dreadball N&R thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/502957.page

Regarding these guys, they've been brought to my attention again as Wayland Games has just advertised them in their newsletter (I've put the pics in spoilers as they've already been shown in the thread)



Has anyone got the Drakkarim yet and can comment on the composition?

Are they entirely metal, or some plastic bits?

I ask as I have some of the 'Steel Warriors with upgrade' sets that came out last year, and they were a mix of metal and plastic (some entirely metal, with a few that had mixed bits). A couple of bits with those at least look like the set that was released previously.

Also, with the hammer dudes (their official name! ) what are the components like? Is it separate pieces for the body, head and arms/legs?

Any help would be very appreciated!

100% metal, separate everything!

Excellent mate, that was exactly what I wanted to hear! Thanks very much.