Open till the 16th? Might have some cash then but I'm not sure I wanna dump any more into MA, even considering the zombies and so on. Hopefully the DZ survey is open till march, or better still april
Just got mine... was there ever a render shown of the giant spider?
I basically just pledged for 6 bugs. Need to choose between them... is it just the below to go on for the spider, and nothing else? Hoping I missed a render being shown somewhere!
Whereas for the ant, there is both a render and a 3d print shown:
I don't trust Mantic's art, so I think I'll just be going with 6 ants if there's been no render shown for the spider... but thought I'd ask here with the folks who know
IIRC in the Mantic Radio #10 Ronnie said the survey will be open til the end of March for Deadzone so backers will have ample time to get replacements and see production tests of all the hard plastic sprues.
TLR - US and Canadian Battle Foam bags shipped, Deadzone Second Survey launching this week, deadline for missing bits submissions is Friday 31st January and there’s a big progress update coming end of this week.
Good news!
Battle Foam has now shipped all of the Deadzone Carry Bags to any US or Canadian backers who ordered one.
Not only that but the second survey is coming this week, giving you another bite at the cherry. You’ll be able to order extra of most of the range, though certain items such as the T-shirt and the Patch will not be available.
Never fear though, because we’re going to more than make up for that with some groovy new miniatures not previously available, as well as a few deals on things like individual Sorak and Connectors sprues – because y’all asked so nicely for them.
Look for that at the end of the week.
Missing Bits Survey
The 31st January is the deadline for the missing bits survey – if you are missing anything from your Kickstarter package, please fill out this form and let us know before Friday.
Next week we will download the forms and send an email to everyone who has submitted a form to say that we have received it. We will then sort through them and order the necessary stock – please keep an eye on the Kickstarter Updates for all the information as it becomes available.
This will allow us to best manage the process and ensure everyone gets his or her stuff after the crazy Christmas period.
Thank you for your patience.
And finally…
Because the second survey is your last chance to make use of the great Kickstarter offer, we’re going to be posting up a mega progress update so you can see where we’re up to on all things Deadzone related.
It’s promising to be very exciting, and we can’t wait to show you more.
I really want to get behind Mantic as a solid GW competitor, but I think they're going overboard with a lot of their projects. I get that they want to have larger appeal but I'd say they should shoot directly for 40K and WHFB, and not worry about this Dreadball (Blood Bowl?) stuff, and while Deadzone fills the place of Necromunda, was it really needed? It seems like they should have either focused entirely on WHFB/40K competitors or focus on bringing a version of the specialist games that were abandoned by GW, but not both.
I've been eyeing Kings of War as a solid alternative to WHFB with better rules and cheaper models, but reading the issues people are having makes me wonder a lot if it's worth it in the long run, and if these things are just growing pains (how good was GW when it was 5 years old, for example?) or if they're indicative of a larger issue.
Wayne: I thought the same way, but sometimes you try to find a market, and sometimes the market finds you.
If DB and DZ are successful, they can reliably make money year and year out, independent of GW, in a way the KoW or Warpath really can't.
Given they way they've knocked the KoW rules out of the park, I'm eager to see them create a rules set for sci-fi. At this point, I'd rather play Mantic Games with Gw minis then the other way around.
Meh, I just added 3 of each type of bug. Hopefully the spider's good... and not to be too negative, but this really is the last chance I'm giving Mantic if it isn't.
My willpower was strong. I was just in for a Will of Man EB, so I selected the custom pledge with Escalation Expansion (basically the 1-click pledge, but the 1-click only shows 1 paper mat) and just added on the Martian DB team, plus the AI deck and DZ decks. Will be the cheapest I've gotten out of a Mantic KS by far. I'm just pile o' plasticed out.
I just filled it in. I think I'll get an invoice for another $50 or so.
I saved $20 on new freebies (the space bounty hunters and radar dishes that we get free now) and I put that towards another 2 intact terrain sprues, a set of vintage soldiers, a set of translucent masters of science and one of the Antenocities flipped car packs.
That's on top of my existing $350 pledge
It's kinda funny that even though I went all in on Deadzone and got the large booster packs for everything, Martians and US Soldiers will be the two Deadzone factions I have the most miniatures for
Can't wait for Big Stompy Robot to duke it out with a Corporation Strider!
I don't know about anyone else but I'm looking forward to Jan 31 or so as they have promised an update showing new stuff, which I'm expecting hard plastic news.
Agree. While I have seen worse on both mantic and other stuff, those look hard to actually clean without damaging the detail or getting them all. At least there isn't one down the middle of the face. The one on the claw hand looks pretty snaggly and hard to get to.
And I am glad people are getting some emails. (and those who are not now have reason to follow up)
Can't wait for Big Stompy Robot to duke it out with a Corporation Strider!
That'll be like a grown (tallish) man taking on a toddler! You better bring a few backup striders
I always get a fresh blade when I start a new batch of restic minis... its more of a delicate snake-y cutting procedure for me than any kind of scraping or back dragging. And the new blade makes it especially easy to slice too deep. And it takes forever, but it works for me.
I may just add some zombies outright depending on how some funds work out. Maybe a bday present for myself I dunno though, not sure I need so many extras of a lot of the things in MA either. I almost want to cave and get the second set of survivors to splice with a zombie kit to do a Zombivor style option... but I *really* don't need the game twice, and i'm 95% sure it would be "too good of a deal to pass up" if I considered getting the heroes add-on instead of just another box game. Hmm.
Those Blaine mouldlines really aren't that bad, in comparison to others I have seen on Restic. I still have my copy of Sedition Wars sitting in the box, after seeing the mouldlines on those figures. Just the sheer hours it would taketo clean the basic boxed set figures is discouraging to me, and I am a veteran of metal minis for years and years.
Well, that and the rules. At least the Deadzone rules are playable.
AegisGrimm wrote: Those Blaine mouldlines really aren't that bad, in comparison to others I have seen on Restic. I still have my copy of Sedition Wars sitting in the box, after seeing the mouldlines on those figures. Just the sheer hours it would taketo clean the basic boxed set figures is discouraging to me, and I am a veteran of metal minis for years and years.
Well, that and the rules. At least the Deadzone rules are playable.
Am I the only one in the world who gets good restic casts? I finished all of the models in SW (minus the Biohazard expansion stuff) in record time since they required almost no clean up.
I've got to say, I had some models that were a paint to remove mouldlines from, but I'm pretty sure my Blaine was perfectly fine. My worst models were my plague teratons and some marauders I think.
Can't wait for Big Stompy Robot to duke it out with a Corporation Strider!
That'll be like a grown (tallish) man taking on a toddler! You better bring a few backup striders
I always get a fresh blade when I start a new batch of restic minis... its more of a delicate snake-y cutting procedure for me than any kind of scraping or back dragging. And the new blade makes it especially easy to slice too deep. And it takes forever, but it works for me.
I may just add some zombies outright depending on how some funds work out. Maybe a bday present for myself I dunno though, not sure I need so many extras of a lot of the things in MA either. I almost want to cave and get the second set of survivors to splice with a zombie kit to do a Zombivor style option... but I *really* don't need the game twice, and i'm 95% sure it would be "too good of a deal to pass up" if I considered getting the heroes add-on instead of just another box game. Hmm.
Mantic pretty much has to wait until the hard plastics are ready to show/preview for the next update.
My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.
I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.
I have a few questions about the Mars Attacks pledge manager, and I feel pretty confident that you guys are more likely to answer them than Mantic at the moment. (Besides, I already messaged them and they never got back to me.)
1. Will there be a 2nd survey, or is this the only one?
2. Are Corus's Bounty Hunters all aliens? Have we seen them yet?
3. All of the minis except for the saucer and stompy robot are Gears of War plastic, right?
4. Will all of the minis be available individually or in packs after the KS? For example, would I still be able to buy a box of Martians at retail, or would I have to buy the whole game to get them if I don't get them now?
5. What are the retail prices likely to be on boxes of troops or bugs? Do we have an idea yet?
Polonius wrote: And it's becoming clearer that Mantic is shutting itself off from normal communication channels, at least based on people's posts here.
What mantic should be doing is rolling out articles, videos, and podcasts that actually help people use their product. Examples:
1) a visual checklist for all parts, so backers can inventory their boxes
2) assembly guides, explaining what parts go where
3) Videos on the hot water method, gap filling, and other tricks to overcome the limits of restic
Instead, we hear about another bloody kickstarter. I'm getting tired of hoping the next stuff will be good. I want to make the best out of what I have, and I'd like it if Mantic did something to help that out.
1/2/3 are all so bloody obvious that it's a wonder why they haven't done them. It also appears that James has dropped off the radar, but I'm sure he'll magically reappear when it's KS time again.
So, everyone missed the post where I pointed out that they've already done 1) and 3) with a link to the former and a great big embedded video for the latter?
Fabulous!
And a good thing that video is so accessible from their webpage. I mean, you wouldn't want to have to follow them on facebook/youtube or mine forum posts to find it if you'd just purchased DeadZone from a retailer, right?
CptJake wrote: Can you link me to the visual checklist for DreadBall season 3?
That way when they finally unscrew themselves and send me my missing items I'll know what is in those poorly packed unlabeled bags.
scarletsquig wrote: Unfortunately there isn't one for dreadball, you'll probably get a hefty pile of metal all in one bubblewrap bag as per the KoWKS.
I guess everyone missed my DreadBall questions a few pages ago where I asked about the same for DB, or if I'd have to play "guess what the figures in this bag are supposed to be"?
Spoiler:
The result was that I had to play "guess what the figures in this bag are supposed to be."
I'll give them limited credit for doing it for Deadzone, but it's not in the boxes and again is pretty well hidden in KS comments. And, you know "sorry none for the previous KS, so suck it up bitches" isn't a great look either.
I'd let them get their heads above water and resubmit. It'd be ideal if they would respond quicker, but at this point I'd worry about trying to get a good response.
BrookM wrote: Maybe they should get their gak sorted out first before jumping into another KS project..
As Brook rightly points out - they're not interested in getting their heads above water. Issues with previous KS get ignored because they're too busy preparing/pimping/recovering from the next KS campaign.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I have a few questions about the Mars Attacks pledge manager, and I feel pretty confident that you guys are more likely to answer them than Mantic at the moment. (Besides, I already messaged them and they never got back to me.)
1. Will there be a 2nd survey, or is this the only one?
2. Are Corus's Bounty Hunters all aliens? Have we seen them yet?
3. All of the minis except for the saucer and stompy robot are Gears of War plastic, right?
4. Will all of the minis be available individually or in packs after the KS? For example, would I still be able to buy a box of Martians at retail, or would I have to buy the whole game to get them if I don't get them now?
5. What are the retail prices likely to be on boxes of troops or bugs? Do we have an idea yet?
Thanks.
1. This is the only one
2. Yes and no
3. As far as I'm aware, yes, though I think the Dreadball team might be in restic or metal if demand is low.
4. Pretty sure they were planning to sell blisters, but can't tell you for sure. The only thing i'm certain of is that the Dreadball team will be available for sale alongside the normal ones.
5. The Alien Abduction pack is "roughly 50% off MSRP" collectively, but it doesn't say what everything is individually
GrimDork wrote: My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.
I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.
I've had exactly the same experience with both products.
Baragash wrote: I asked in the KS comments when the DB team was announced and they assured me plastic.
And Mantic have never changed material without telling backers before shipping them .... Oh wait
I'm expecting the Dreadball Martians to be metal unless they are hugely popular.
I have to say this is Mantic's worst survey yet very confusing to use it's throwing up lots of questions on the KS with no response yet from Mantic they really need to stop using google docs and invest in a proper pledge manager now that they are 5 KS in with more to come
AegisGrimm wrote: Those Blaine mouldlines really aren't that bad, in comparison to others I have seen on Restic. I still have my copy of Sedition Wars sitting in the box, after seeing the mouldlines on those figures. Just the sheer hours it would taketo clean the basic boxed set figures is discouraging to me, and I am a veteran of metal minis for years and years.
Well, that and the rules. At least the Deadzone rules are playable.
Many people binned their Sedition Wars rather than deal with those mold lines... I am so, very, over restic...
carlos13th wrote: Are the asterians primarily hard plastic? I am trying to decide if I should keep my pledge in them or swap them for something else?
The original announcement way, way back when Enforcers were first said to be in HP, also listed Asterian Cyphers as getting the treatment, but I've not seen anything since then. Given that they're generally not 'organic' shapes but more straight edges and gentle curves, I think they're still a good bet to be on sprues.
I've been in on a starter & booster bundle for Asterians since day 1 (well, the day they were announced anyway). Hard plastic would be great, but I'll be fine with them in restic. The same factors that make them more likely to be in hard plastic also mean I wouldn't mind them in restic, as the lines would be easy to remove from the majority of their bodies. It would make it unlikely I'd ever expand them into a Warpath-capable force though.
GrimDork wrote: My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.
I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.
I've had exactly the same experience with both products.
Interestingly my Corporation, Veer-Myn, Orc Gore Riders had almost no mold lines at all.
GrimDork wrote: Yeah I briefly considered not doing the lines on my marines, they were kind of hard to see.
After you convinced me to buy some Corporation I went a bit ape-gak and now I own three one-player starters, an army box, an extra box of rangers, and the corporation officer. I think that gives me 50 marines, 50 rangers, 10 veterans, 12 heavy weapon teams, and the officer...
I also found that they are a perfect match, scale-wise, with Khurasan's Federal army infantry. http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/28mmscifi.html so I'm thinking they'll be OpFor...
GrimDork wrote: My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.
I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.
I've had exactly the same experience with both products.
Interestingly my Corporation, Veer-Myn, Orc Gore Riders had almost no mold lines at all.
Judgedoug, I love your posts man, but I'm inclined to believe scarletsquig's review a bit more- you both love Mantic, but he seems more willing to acknowledge the faults of the company / their products as well as their strengths.
I have, for the most part, only seen you post positive reviews... about any company you deal with, really. This makes it hard for me to tell if you're just really lucky in the batches of models you receive, or if you're just very generous towards the companies that you support.
Mold lines on restic are a common complaint and if that Blaine pic is any indication, it is still going to be a huge issue with Deadzone as well:
This isn't like cleaning mold lines off of hard plastic, and while you may respond "It's easy" that's simply not what I've heard from the vast majority of those who have dealt with it, as well as my own experience with Privateer Press restic.
As long as Mantic stays with restic, it will be a huge red flag for me, and I'll need to see models in-person before risking them. I have made an exception to this with the bugs from the MA campaign, and I hope they turn out well... and I also got their Obsidian Golems previously. But for small / lithe models that are more human sized, the kinds of mold lines pictured above on a restic model are a complete non-starter for me... and for many people.
My experience of the Corporation and Gore Riders is the same as judgedoug's, very minimal mould lines.
All of the pre-KS restic has been better than the post-KS restic from what I've seen. Dreadball and Deadzone seem to have shipped with much heavier flash. KoW stuff wasn't too bad.
With deadzone the worst thing is the double mould lines on some pieces due to the more complex tooling required.
Well, I must have misread your post, then! I won't edit the above, though, as the mold lines on that figure are not what I would call "minimal"...
scarletsquig wrote: All of the pre-KS restic has been better than the post-KS restic from what I've seen.
What does this mean?
Edit: And this is still my problem with Mantic, not knowing what is good or not unless I keep tabs on a thread like this... the art usually looks fantastic but if the casts will (or if the batch that I get will, etc) seems to be a real unknown most of the time until things have already shipped
So, apparently I misunderstood the above post earlier, and this is the reality of the situation:
-Restic made before KS (or at least, the recent few KS campaigns) was of good quality and had few mold lines -Restic made after KS (or at least, the recent few KS campaigns) has much greater mold lines, even double mold lines
My apologies to judgedoug for misunderstanding that... but we are left in the same place, that Mantic's new releases have quality problems that their original releases didn't . They do not seem to be learning... if most Deadzone models look like that, I can't imagine their surviving the fallout (or at least being able to be taken seriously by most gamers who have seen their releases).
It is worse than them not learning, it is them learning the wrong lessons. As SS mentions, they are rushing production and so the QC is gak and the shipped product is gak.
But, Mantic is learning that KS will give them a quick and LARGE injection of capital and that gak QC and gak product don't matter, as each KS still brings in the bucks.
So, they are learning, they are learning that they can feth the customers over and over and over.
So, they are learning, they are learning that they can feth the customers over and over and over.
Well, I wouldn't go that far. I'm no fan of the mold lines on the two factions I've built so far, but I still feel that the Strike Force pledge was a great deal. I got what I pledged for, on time, and in useable, if difficult to assemble, condition. Everybody's reaction is their own, and even I will have to rethink backing anything Mantic does in restic going forward, but I don't consider myself taken advantage of.
That DZ was a good deal does not excuse the current lapse in customer service, nor does it turn a promising but flawed product into a good product. It's just not a failure or screwjob.
Interestingly my Corporation, Veer-Myn, Orc Gore Riders had almost no mold lines at all.
Judgedoug, I love your posts man, but I'm inclined to believe scarletsquig's review a bit more- you both love Mantic, but he seems more willing to acknowledge the faults of the company / their products as well as their strengths.
I have, for the most part, only seen you post positive reviews... about any company you deal with, really. This makes it hard for me to tell if you're just really lucky in the batches of models you receive, or if you're just very generous towards the companies that you support.
I was saying "interestingly" because I also have the same experience that the retail-released restic stuff has generally been of higher quality than the Ks-releases stuff. I would pin that down to Chinese rush jobs and Mantic lacking good QC during fulfillment (which is probably why they replace bad models no questions asked).
Hmm, perhaps I don't post enough negative reviews? I hate Mantic's Abyssal Dwarf and Twilight Kin plasic/metal combos, straight up. I'm disappointed in their goblins because the army could have been the best goblins on the market (they are my favorite goblin designs, or at least tied with Red Box Games' goblins), but the plastics turned out pretty bad but I was able to turn my models into an army I like (which I do have a huge army of them due to the KoWKS). Uhh... the trolls made me sad. So did the Basileans, so I used Confrontation figures for that army. Some of my Dreadball stuff was crappy, and I recently cursed Manchu by giving him my extra Teraton team and he's been spending hours scraping away restic mold lines and swearing. I hope that Mantic's new hard plastics are good, but I honestly doubt they will be as fantastic as their original undead and elf sprues, but it's not like my patience is wearing thin or anything... if Mantic makes something I don't like, I don't buy it.... if they make something I like, I will. But I'm not one of those gamers that's beholden to a company, and 'official' miniatures are always secondary to my concerns of a good game to play. Hell I played a game of Kings of War this past weekend using my English Civil War Parliamentarian New Model Army figures, haha, and I recently bought Perry DAK for use in Bolt Action. For instance, the armies I'm working on for Kings of War are a Cult of Set army composed of Gamezone and Mierce models and then a Helsvakt Horde army composed of Red Box Games and Mierce models...three of my favorite miniatures companies in the world. The armies have no Mantic models (actually the Cult of Set uses the metal Mantic Elf archers as I really like those sculpts). If Warpath winds up being good, I have Urban War Viridians, Pig Iron, Copplestone, Khurusan Federal, SST Skinnies, and now yes Mantic Corporation to use - otherwise those figures will continue to be used in Tomorrow's War, Stargrunt II, or my own homebrew sci fi ruleset. I bought into Deadzone specifically to get loads of future terrain (especially for Judge Dredd) and lots of Enforcers (again for generic sci fi gaming) and it's a really really nice bonus that the rules are good and the models I got are actually nice. Shrug. I like what I like so I'll use what I like however I like
I'm also not inclined to buy crap... so there's not many negative reviews for me to post about! And I guess I've been really lucky with Mantic stuff, or it's just that usually the people who review things online are the ones that have had a bad experience with that product or service, and since I'm fairly active and don't have a lot of negative things to say then it sounds like I'm a water carrier or fanboy or whatever.
That DZ was a good deal does not excuse the current lapse in customer service, nor does it turn a promising but flawed product into a good product. It's just not a failure or screwjob.
Interesting, you call it a flawed product and a lapse in customer service, but say it is not a failure or screw up. I guess in my mind flawed product and lapse in customer service is a prime example of failure and screw up.
CptJake wrote: Interesting, you call it a flawed product and a lapse in customer service, but say it is not a failure or screw up. I guess in my mind flawed product and lapse in customer service is a prime example of failure and screw up.
I think there's a room on the continuum of "non-perfect" for both "totally garbage/waste of money" and "flawed."
I should have been clearer, in that while lousy QC and absent customer service are failures, I don't think the DZ kickstarter, or DZ as a whole, are failures.
I think the project/product, as a whole, is fun game with characterful models that was a good deal for the sweetspot pledge. It's a mixed bag, as successes go, when you make a game that people enjoy, with minis that people like painting, it's hard to say that mantic is trying to "feth the customers over and over and over."
Well although I have only assembled a single Commando so far, I did open every bag to check for parts and I don't think Blaine is representative of my batch in general.
The Goblin Artillery makes Blaine look like a great cast (an issue others seem to have had too), but there wasn't anything else that immediately jumped out at me. Overall I think the batch was better than what I got for Dreadball.
To elaborate on my point, I think that kickstarters (or human endeavors of any sort, really) can succeed overall despite some failures, and fail overall despite some successes. It's often complicated because every person's reaction is going to be different, based on their own expectations and experience.
I've backed a decent number of kickstarters, and DZ is right now in the lower half, but I'd call it a qualified success. The KoW kickstarter, in all honesty, was a fiasco to me. Some great looking models, a lot of crappy looking models, and mostly stuff I won't use, regardless. I don't feel cheated, but I do wish I could have my pledge back instead of the models they delivered.
On the other hand, some kickstarters are pure success, like the machined dice kickster. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/124127689/precision-machined-dice It delivered on time, the product was exactly as promised, and I love what I got. It was, admittedly, a modest kickstarter, but it was also done by a single college student, not an established company.
A bigger Kickstarter that, while delayed, was an unqualified success was reaper bones. I loved what I got, and I know they used the money for actual capital.
So, I can see some people calling DZ a failure, if they find the quality of minis so low as to unusable, or they haven't gotten their pledge yet. I would respectfully disagree, but I wouldn't call it a tremendous success, either.
judgedoug wrote: I was saying "interestingly" because I also have the same experience that the retail-released restic stuff has generally been of higher quality than the Ks-releases stuff. I would pin that down to Chinese rush jobs and Mantic lacking good QC during fulfillment (which is probably why they replace bad models no questions asked).
Hmm, perhaps I don't post enough negative reviews? I hate Mantic's Abyssal Dwarf and Twilight Kin plasic/metal combos, straight up. I'm disappointed in their goblins because the army could have been the best goblins on the market (they are my favorite goblin designs, or at least tied with Red Box Games' goblins), but the plastics turned out pretty bad but I was able to turn my models into an army I like (which I do have a huge army of them due to the KoWKS). Uhh... the trolls made me sad. So did the Basileans, so I used Confrontation figures for that army. Some of my Dreadball stuff was crappy, and I recently cursed Manchu by giving him my extra Teraton team and he's been spending hours scraping away restic mold lines and swearing. I hope that Mantic's new hard plastics are good, but I honestly doubt they will be as fantastic as their original undead and elf sprues, but it's not like my patience is wearing thin or anything... if Mantic makes something I don't like, I don't buy it.... if they make something I like, I will. But I'm not one of those gamers that's beholden to a company, and 'official' miniatures are always secondary to my concerns of a good game to play. Hell I played a game of Kings of War this past weekend using my English Civil War Parliamentarian New Model Army figures, haha, and I recently bought Perry DAK for use in Bolt Action. For instance, the armies I'm working on for Kings of War are a Cult of Set army composed of Gamezone and Mierce models and then a Helsvakt Horde army composed of Red Box Games and Mierce models...three of my favorite miniatures companies in the world. The armies have no Mantic models (actually the Cult of Set uses the metal Mantic Elf archers as I really like those sculpts). If Warpath winds up being good, I have Urban War Viridians, Pig Iron, Copplestone, Khurusan Federal, SST Skinnies, and now yes Mantic Corporation to use - otherwise those figures will continue to be used in Tomorrow's War, Stargrunt II, or my own homebrew sci fi ruleset. I bought into Deadzone specifically to get loads of future terrain (especially for Judge Dredd) and lots of Enforcers (again for generic sci fi gaming) and it's a really really nice bonus that the rules are good and the models I got are actually nice. Shrug. I like what I like so I'll use what I like however I like
I'm also not inclined to buy crap... so there's not many negative reviews for me to post about! And I guess I've been really lucky with Mantic stuff, or it's just that usually the people who review things online are the ones that have had a bad experience with that product or service, and since I'm fairly active and don't have a lot of negative things to say then it sounds like I'm a water carrier or fanboy or whatever.
That's actually super helpful to me, judgedoug, thanks for posting it! I quoted the whole thing to avoid taking anything out of context, but highlighted one part in green... so you do have criticism of Mantic, it's just that you choose to curse Manchu with it instead
Thanks for the thorough reply, I really appreciate it!
Polonius wrote: To elaborate on my point, I think that kickstarters (or human endeavors of any sort, really) can succeed overall despite some failures, and fail overall despite some successes. It's often complicated because every person's reaction is going to be different, based on their own expectations and experience.
I've backed a decent number of kickstarters, and DZ is right now in the lower half, but I'd call it a qualified success. The KoW kickstarter, in all honesty, was a fiasco to me. Some great looking models, a lot of crappy looking models, and mostly stuff I won't use, regardless. I don't feel cheated, but I do wish I could have my pledge back instead of the models they delivered.
See, my reaction helps prove your initial assertion that "every person's reaction is going to be different, based on their own expectations and experience". You may have thought KoWKS was a fiasco, but for myself, I believe KoWKS was the best KS I've done out of 32 so far. My initial pledges (I pledged from two accounts actually) got me tons of pre-existing models at far less than retail and also got me into one of my favorite miniatures games. I've had more games of KoW and had more fun playing it than I have had since probably Starship Troopers (my favorite ruleset of all time). In the end I got like, what, for a $175 pledge, 100 orcs, 20 orc cav, some characters, (the undead pledge was even better) and then like a dozen or more free units of models for each of my pledges, kept the ones I liked and trade off the ones I didn't like. I have a huge orc army that I love, and a huge goblin army that took some work to make look good but is now completely painted and also looks good... and I love playing the game! Absolute success, and was also really my first introduction to Mantic. So my first KoWKS shipment containing hundreds of hard plastic models and stuff and the hardcover rules was great, and then when I started playing I was blown away... Warhammer had disappointed me with 8th and I had been without a mass battles ruleset for years by that point, and I literally could not have been happier. I'm sure another KS exists that is a better "deal" than the KoW one was, but not one that has given me literally dozens and dozens of hours of enjoyment... if not actually a hundred hours at this point, or more. I tend to play KoW every week since getting the rulebook 18 months ago.
Pics or it didn't happen, Judgedoug (of the painted army, I mean).
Seriously, though, I would like to see it! Even just an overall army shot would be sweet.
I don't know of many people (or any?) who soldiered through making a whole army out of those gobbos, so this needs to be documented . I bet it looks really good all together, and you're a trooper for having done it.
Polonius wrote: To elaborate on my point, I think that kickstarters (or human endeavors of any sort, really) can succeed overall despite some failures, and fail overall despite some successes. It's often complicated because every person's reaction is going to be different, based on their own expectations and experience.
I've backed a decent number of kickstarters, and DZ is right now in the lower half, but I'd call it a qualified success. The KoW kickstarter, in all honesty, was a fiasco to me. Some great looking models, a lot of crappy looking models, and mostly stuff I won't use, regardless. I don't feel cheated, but I do wish I could have my pledge back instead of the models they delivered.
See, my reaction helps prove your initial assertion that "every person's reaction is going to be different, based on their own expectations and experience". You may have thought KoWKS was a fiasco, but for myself, I believe KoWKS was the best KS I've done out of 32 so far. My initial pledges (I pledged from two accounts actually) got me tons of pre-existing models at far less than retail and also got me into one of my favorite miniatures games. I've had more games of KoW and had more fun playing it than I have had since probably Starship Troopers (my favorite ruleset of all time). In the end I got like, what, for a $175 pledge, 100 orcs, 20 orc cav, some characters, (the undead pledge was even better) and then like a dozen or more free units of models for each of my pledges, kept the ones I liked and trade off the ones I didn't like. I have a huge orc army that I love, and a huge goblin army that took some work to make look good but is now completely painted and also looks good... and I love playing the game! Absolute success, and was also really my first introduction to Mantic. So my first KoWKS shipment containing hundreds of hard plastic models and stuff and the hardcover rules was great, and then when I started playing I was blown away... Warhammer had disappointed me with 8th and I had been without a mass battles ruleset for years by that point, and I literally could not have been happier. I'm sure another KS exists that is a better "deal" than the KoW one was, but not one that has given me literally dozens and dozens of hours of enjoyment... if not actually a hundred hours at this point, or more. I tend to play KoW every week since getting the rulebook 18 months ago.
So yeah, it's all relative.
Yeah, a big part of my problem was that I had started collecting mantic with the elves, and I picked elves for my army with the pledge. So I really have way too many elves, and they're charms have worn off on me. I look at the dwarves, ogres, undead, and even orcs wishing I had gotten them instead.
agnosto wrote: Wut? The model looks like a GW Koot model.
Scan the thread: The photoshop pic using my avatar pic was made to troll me and belittle everyone criticizing Mantic.
And the reference here had nothing to do with that. Alph just asked for the pic. Chillllll.
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RiTides wrote: This isn't like cleaning mold lines off of hard plastic, and while you may respond "It's easy" that's simply not what I've heard from the vast majority of those who have dealt with it, as well as my own experience with Privateer Press restic.
The Blaine picture was just off the google and was the first pic I found. Yikes, shouldn't have chosen that one.
As for mold lines, I've done my whole strike team except for Wrath and none of them were difficult to clean. Some of them had more lines than others, but a sharp X-acto knife was more than enough to handle them.
I think the whole 'oh no mold lines' thing is a bit over done. I spent about as much time cleaning mold lines off of individual restic minis as I did cleaning mold lines off my Firestorm Redoubt and Vengeance Weapons Batteries (both Plastic kits).
If cleaning Sedition Wars restic figures is no worse than cleaning Mantic's, it's also no better. Sedition Wars has it's fair share of "mold lines over the face" issues; I found cleaning Quasimodos without damaging fine details particularly difficult. That said, I definitely think it's worth investing in Sedition Wars if you like the Strain's space zombie aesthetic, particularly since Sedition Wars figures scale perfectly with those in Deadzone. In the USA, Sedition Wars is currently a steal on Amazon at $40 shipped.
For those planning to use Sedition Wars figures in Deadzone, how do you plan to use them? For me, the individual human hero figures are perfect Rebs additions, but standard Sedition Wars troopers are too uniform / elite looking to fit in a Rebs force. On the other hand, you could swap out Mars Attacks modern military grunts for Sedition Wars troopers and use the human Deadzone deck to field a great looking Corporation faction. As for the Strain, they make great Plague zombies; only the tech side of their bio-tech physiology needs a little fluff bending. I'd love to replace Plague 3rd gens with them too, but Strain zombies generally don't carry guns or other ranged weapons, making them awkward stand-ins for suppressive fire based Plague 3rd gens. Since Strain biotech is all about living weaponry built into / emerging from the body, I also don't want to mod standard external guns into their hands. Tyranid bio-guns could work well, but to really look good you'd need to green stuff / sculpt some transitional areas where the guns morph into the Strain figure's body, and I'm not eager to make every Plague trooper into an extensive sculpting job.
Maybe I'll have my Strain zombies issue suppressive fire from bursting pustules or something. If anyone here comes up with a better "Strain as shooty 3rd-gen" visual fix, I'd love to hear it.
Mars Attacks:
In the end I decided to reverse course and re-invest most of my Mars Attacks pledge back into Mars Attacks material rather than more Deadzone terrain. This is admittedly a gamble, since Mantic will be casting the Mars Attacks figures in the same rubbery plastic Fantasy Flight Games used for "Gears of War" plastic rather than the improved restic formula they used in Deadzone. There was nothing wrong with the LOKA figure I got in my Crazy Christmas box, but despite being cast in the same material as Gears of War figures, it didn't measure up to them. For that matter, most of FFG's own product line doesn't measure up to the quality of their Gears of War figures: Gears of Wars minis hold detail much better than Descent minis do, for example. Despite Mantic being entirely upfront from the beginning that Mars Attacks figures would be cast in a different material, I think the majority of Mars Attacks backers are expecting Deadzone levels of quality. If Mars Attacks figures really measure up to the Gears of War production standard, I think people will generally be very pleased, but if they fall short like the LOKA and Descent figures did, I think we'll see a lot of backer disappointment.
Polonius wrote: I've backed a decent number of kickstarters, and DZ is right now in the lower half, but I'd call it a qualified success. The KoW kickstarter, in all honesty, was a fiasco to me. Some great looking models, a lot of crappy looking models, and mostly stuff I won't use, regardless. I don't feel cheated, but I do wish I could have my pledge back instead of the models they delivered.
Wow, yeah, I can agree on the KOW kickstarter. I got into it for cheap D&D minis and then Reaper popped theirs, so it was entirely irrelevant for me. I got a ton of stuff that I tried to sell and ended up losing about $20 on the kickstarter. Really underwhelming for me even without the slight financial loss.
Deadzone though? Man, is this one great. I am probably going in for another grand after all the folks who are adding onto my pledge jump in. I love this game and the minis.
Exactly, it is all relative. I love the Abyssal Dwarf range,but the cleanup required on the metal add on bits is a massive amount of work. As I love the models I Had no problem doing it. If I did not like the sculpts that much I would leave them to one side. I have done this with the Basilean Paladins, knights and plastics. Just too much preparation for a model range I did not care for.
Then to Deadzone. I believe I was first on this thread to post some pictures of the models that I had received and bemoaned the mould lines on the mercenaries, some on the rebs and the odd one here and there. But I was lucky with my Marauders, Enforcers and Plague. Others have not been. It is this inconsistency that needs to be dealt with, and I think that requires them to leave their present suppliers.
It was these worries that led me to initially go with a vanilla strike team pledge and no add ons. I, again, was lucky to get everything I ordered and earlier than most. The fact that some Dakka members have not gotten anything more than 6 weeks after I got my pledge is way out of line. For those waiting on missing parts, and there are a lot of them, that is also out of line. Still waiting on KOW/Dreadball Ks items? Blimey.
Thus I can see why a lot of people are dissatisfied with their pledges. I am quite happy, and plan to dump about £100 on the 2nd survey. But again most of the past 3/4 pages are no news/rumours so we really do need a seperate thread for this type of discussion.
And that's just it. Look at Judgedoug, who felt he got the deal of a lifetime in KoW, to pretre and I, who got little more then a box of minis that's still unpainted in my closet.
And nothing in Deadzone is like the Basileans, which range from "not bad" all the way to "the goggles, they do nothing."
RiTides wrote: Pics or it didn't happen, Judgedoug (of the painted army, I mean).
Seriously, though, I would like to see it! Even just an overall army shot would be sweet.
I don't know of many people (or any?) who soldiered through making a whole army out of those gobbos, so this needs to be documented . I bet it looks really good all together, and you're a trooper for having done it.
Sure thing! Lemme find the pic..
This is a shot of my army from several months ago, this is my footslogger goblins with converted GW wolfriders, before the Fleabag Riders and Mincers were released. Now I have about 80 fleabags and 6 mincers to add to the army (which actually I have a full mounted 2000 point army of goblins now too) I've also added Mierce Trolls to the army.
the theme I was going for was a bunch of dirty brown and orange goblins running across a bright green grassy flowery field.
It's a crappy pic, I need to take some nicer pictures of the army.
CptJake wrote: It is worse than them not learning, it is them learning the wrong lessons. As SS mentions, they are rushing production and so the QC is gak and the shipped product is gak.
But, Mantic is learning that KS will give them a quick and LARGE injection of capital and that gak QC and gak product don't matter, as each KS still brings in the bucks.
So, they are learning, they are learning that they can feth the customers over and over and over.
The last KS, Mars Attacks, might show an effect as it did finish lower than the last two (excluding Loka which is in a different category altogether IMO). Whether it was the well publicized QA problems they were having at that time with KOW and Dreadball or just a lack of interest in the underlying IP (I personally had *no* interest in Mars Attacks) is another story.
New poster, been reading the forum for some time though.
Just wanted to give you folks an idea of my customer experience with Mantic and the DZ Kickstarter:
I went for Strike team, plus a few extra bits and collected it the open day. Got home and found I was missing the Enforcer and Plague factions, along with a couple of other bits. I filled out the query form that night (30.11.13).
I expected it to be sorted within a couple of weeks, but I still haven't received anything, despite attempting to contact Mantic a few times. I emailed James Hewitt yesterday and finally got a response from a guy called Chris Palmer, the 'Marketing and Kickstarter Co-ordinator'. The response was essentially 'we have kept you informed through updates, we haven't got your stuff, thanks for waiting'.
Everyone's opinion of what is acceptable service is going to differ, but to me, this is shocking service. Over 8 weeks to sort out something that should take 10 minutes. This has really soured my opinion of Mantic, making it far less likely I'll spend money with them again
Yeah, a big part of my problem was that I had started collecting mantic with the elves, and I picked elves for my army with the pledge. So I really have way too many elves, and they're charms have worn off on me. I look at the dwarves, ogres, undead, and even orcs wishing I had gotten them instead.
PM Alpharius, I believe he is selling his Ogres at a discount!
Polonius wrote:And nothing in Deadzone is like the Basileans, which range from "not bad" all the way to "the goggles, they do nothing."
lol Yeah, no horrible sculpts that were just bad and should feel bad.
chucklehead wrote:The response was essentially 'we have kept you informed through updates, we haven't got your stuff, thanks for waiting'.
Everyone's opinion of what is acceptable service is going to differ, but to me, this is shocking service. Over 8 weeks to sort out something that should take 10 minutes. This has really soured my opinion of Mantic, making it far less likely I'll spend money with them again
But if they don't have your stuff, how can they give you more? I.e. You are missing X. They have no more X and are waiting for it to come in from the manufacturer. The guy told you that. I mean, I know it sucks, but...
New poster, been reading the forum for some time though.
Just wanted to give you folks an idea of my customer experience with Mantic and the DZ Kickstarter:
I went for Strike team, plus a few extra bits and collected it the open day. Got home and found I was missing the Enforcer and Plague factions, along with a couple of other bits. I filled out the query form that night (30.11.13).
I expected it to be sorted within a couple of weeks, but I still haven't received anything, despite attempting to contact Mantic a few times. I emailed James Hewitt yesterday and finally got a response from a guy called Chris Palmer, the 'Marketing and Kickstarter Co-ordinator'. The response was essentially 'we have kept you informed through updates, we haven't got your stuff, thanks for waiting'.
Everyone's opinion of what is acceptable service is going to differ, but to me, this is shocking service. Over 8 weeks to sort out something that should take 10 minutes. This has really soured my opinion of Mantic, making it far less likely I'll spend money with them again
thanks for sharing, that does seem to confirm the theory that Mantic focused on shipping out a box to everybody, and then shut down for a month, and is only now actually correcting stuff.
The prevailing opinion is that Mantic is obsessed with keeping their streak of making KS deadlines intact, at the expense of Quality Control (in production and in packaging).
New poster, been reading the forum for some time though.
Just wanted to give you folks an idea of my customer experience with Mantic and the DZ Kickstarter:
I went for Strike team, plus a few extra bits and collected it the open day. Got home and found I was missing the Enforcer and Plague factions, along with a couple of other bits. I filled out the query form that night (30.11.13).
I expected it to be sorted within a couple of weeks, but I still haven't received anything, despite attempting to contact Mantic a few times. I emailed James Hewitt yesterday and finally got a response from a guy called Chris Palmer, the 'Marketing and Kickstarter Co-ordinator'. The response was essentially 'we have kept you informed through updates, we haven't got your stuff, thanks for waiting'.
Everyone's opinion of what is acceptable service is going to differ, but to me, this is shocking service. Over 8 weeks to sort out something that should take 10 minutes. This has really soured my opinion of Mantic, making it far less likely I'll spend money with them again
While I agree having to wait months really sucks, they did address that they can't replace missing stuff until after the 31st. Most of the stuff they used to fulfill the initial pledges were airfreighted from China instead of a slowboat, so they had to wait for the slowboat to be able to start sending replacement bits.
It really sucks you were missing the main factions though...
I hope Mantic sends people some freebies to the people missing a lot. Even if it's just a pile of Mantic points (hell there's some good deals, I'm gonna send in some Mantic points and get the Warpath Enforcer Peacekeeper Captain as I like him better than the Deadzone one)
Really think they should have left the Deadzone retail release until February, as originally planned.
KS backers have got to come first. no exceptions. 8+ weeks to replace something as major as 100% of the minis in the boxed game (the whole enforcer and plague starters) is too long.
They could have some spare stock right now to deal with this, if it hadn't all gone out to retail.
Then again, they expected an error rate of 2% (it was posted in a KS update) rather than 70% or whatever it is.
Even if the poll on the mantic forum represents almost everyone who had a problem (highly unlikely), that's still a 5% error rate total, more than double what Mantic were expecting.
I suspect the true error rate might be something like 5% major errors, 25-30% minor errors. There are problems at both the Chinese end (bags with missing or damaged nits inside) and the UK end (mispacks and missing bags).
scarletsquig wrote: Really think they should have left the Deadzone retail release until February, as originally planned.
KS backers have got to come first. no exceptions.
I agree, especially with the retailers who pledged in the Kickstarter to help fund the game... the backers and those backer retailers should have gotten their stuff, and gotten problems worked out.
Mantic may have wanted the Christmas cash, but honestly, would that have been better than 99.9% great opinions and excellent word of mouth from pampered backers by the time February retail release rolled around? As it stands it seems very few people are totally satisfied. (I'm pretty much fine, just had a wrong AW resin terrain bundle... but imagine if everyone here felt like me)
Toatally appreciate that they can't send me what they don't have and I said as much to Chris in my reply. The issue for me is that they shouldn't be in that situation in the first place.
I sent my order query form on 30.11.13, so they would have had Enforcer and Plague starters then. It would've taken less than 10 minutes for someone to look at the form, contact the packing warehouse and get them so send it in the post. However, now that they've sold the remaining starter sets through their website and to other retailers, I have to go without.
They may have said that they'll look at query forms from February, but how can anyone with a straight face say that that is accepatable service? I've worked in customer service for many years. If I told customers that I'd get around to looking at their issues in a couple of months, I'd be searching for a new job!
Like I said, everyones opinion of acceptable is going to differ. Some folks might be happy to wait a few months for stuff, and fair play to them
chucklehead wrote: Toatally appreciate that they can't send me what they don't have and I said as much to Chris in my reply. The issue for me is that they shouldn't be in that situation in the first place.
Oh I totally agree. They need to have handled that better and I hope they compensate in some way.
chucklehead wrote: Toatally appreciate that they can't send me what they don't have and I said as much to Chris in my reply. The issue for me is that they shouldn't be in that situation in the first place.
I sent my order query form on 30.11.13, so they would have had Enforcer and Plague starters then. It would've taken less than 10 minutes for someone to look at the form, contact the packing warehouse and get them so send it in the post. However, now that they've sold the remaining starter sets through their website and to other retailers, I have to go without.
They may have said that they'll look at query forms from February, but how can anyone with a straight face say that that is accepatable service? I've worked in customer service for many years. If I told customers that I'd get around to looking at their issues in a couple of months, I'd be searching for a new job!
Like I said, everyones opinion of acceptable is going to differ. Some folks might be happy to wait a few months for stuff, and fair play to them
Yeah, I'm with Chucklhead on this one. I have been waiting on a part for about a month from something I bought at a FLGS and have still yet to receive. Sarah Clark has been "helping" me and while very polite, I have yet to actually receive my missing stuff. I can't imagine a job where you can ask someone to wait a month and think its acceptable. If that is normal in most lines of work, then I'm in the wrong buisness. Mantic's lack of decent customer service has really soured me. I'm afraid to buy anything from them, because if its wrong (which it seems to have a good chance to be) you won't be able to get it fixed, and pretty much just wasted your money. I'd rather pay GW prices and have the correct parts, or at least be able to get the correct parts, than spend Mantic prices and gamble on what I'm getting. If this were just my experience, I may chalk it up to a fluke, but this seems to pretty much be their MO now that they've had a little success.
CptJake wrote: It is worse than them not learning, it is them learning the wrong lessons. As SS mentions, they are rushing production and so the QC is gak and the shipped product is gak.
But, Mantic is learning that KS will give them a quick and LARGE injection of capital and that gak QC and gak product don't matter, as each KS still brings in the bucks.
So, they are learning, they are learning that they can feth the customers over and over and over.
This is exactly the conclusion I made when they released slightly modified Fantasy miniatures as their brand new SciFi range in November 2011, making it obvious that the Elf design botch was not a exception, but the rule. Ronnie works on the assumption that he can sell the bulk by just showing early concepts (called preorder in the beginning, now called kickstarter). And indeed he still can. He needs kickstarter after kickstarter to barely stay afloat financially. No wonder that his current communication reminds me of Maelstrom in its final days. Mantic is a level above Defiance Games, because Mantic actually delivers products, even when rushed out without QC. Mantic would already be bancrupt, if every customer had seen the actual product before buying it.
There's some actual news in Mantic's response to the comments in the latest Mars Attacks update.
Most interesting to me are the following:
1 - You can order Deadzone mats via the Mars Attacks ks if you specify you want Deadzone mats in the comments at the end of the survey. So what? 3 Mat deals are $5 cheaper on the Mars Attacks survey than they are on the Deadzone one.
2 - For the first time, Mantic have stated that you can add on to your pledge after the KS campaign and qualify for the hardback book. This seems to run counter to their usual practice, and I don't know if it's intended to cover other reward qualifications as well, or if perhaps it's just a mistake. But interesting.
@ Enrique - So The Surgeon and Wrex now come free on Escalation, Martian Attack force and individual Science Division squads right?
Correct.
Also, if we qualify free Tiger Corps set, should we include them on the survey or not?
Only include them on the survey if you want additional sets, otherwise they will be included free.
@ Shaun - I pledged at 146$ which has 125$ add ons....
So does that mean I tick the 'will of man' box and then also spend 125$ on add ons?
Correct.
@ Adam - I couldn't locate Corvus' Bounty Hunters Core Add-on in the survey? It should have been between the Dreadball Martian Team and the Zombie add on. Was it omitted or did I just not see it?
As covered in the update above, we’ve not listed Corus’ Bounty Hunters separately as they now come free with the Tiger Corps set
@ Jochum:
1.-"If you pick the recommended 1-click Bloodshed on the Battlefield or Alien Abduction pledge level, you get 3 Mutant Bugs. 2 of these will be chosen for you as part of the recommended package, but you will be able to choose the remaining one." then the 2 chosen for us is 1 ant and 1 spider ? and i chose 1 ant or 1 spider.
Correct.
2.- i don't see Beloss Bel on Bloodshed on the Battlefield or Alien Abduction pledge. you confirm that she's present ?
Yes, sorry for the omission.
@ Antonio
So..How about that pledge manager mini-campaign to unlock more goodies?
We discussed it, but decided that for simplicities sake, we’re added some extra free stuff and will get the stuff we need to do done!
@ Steven
1 – No, just the Ambassador Supreme Regent. The other Supreme Regent was free if you pledged $350 or more.
2 – Yes.
3 – I’m sorry for the omission, she is included free.
@ Matthew Grant
You still have the $78 to spend toward add-ons you want.
We recommend the 1-click pledge for that very reason!
If you select the One Click Invaders Arrive $150 but chose the early bird, you will not lose the difference.
@ Christopher Jentzen - I'm very confused by this survey... How can I increase my pledge? How can I see a total of things I have/want? :(
You don’t increase your pledge per se, you just add on stuff with a value higher than what you originally pledged for. For example. If you pledge $100 for The Will of Man during the campaign, you’d select The Will of Man pledge level on the survey. However, if you select 1 set of Martian Grunts ($15) for instance, you’d then owe us $15, which we will charge for via paypal after the payment date.
The system isn’t sophisticated enough to let you see what you have selected sorry.
@ Jeffrey – Yes, if you pledge $140 and then pick $60 of add-ons, you’ll get the free hardback book.
@ Vermonter – Sure, not a problem.
The Surgeon and Wrex with any Science Division or Masters of Science squad.
@ Chris – 3 bugs total, 2 chosen for you (1 Ant, 1 Spider) the other you get to pick.
^ The $200 hardback book reward *always* counted post-survey cash.
It was the $300+ ones that did not count post-survey cash.
I'm not a fan of the "reward doesn't count survey cash" thing anyway. They'd have gotten a lot more money out of me on the next DZ survey if they'd just scrapped the whole survey limitation on the big spender rewards, I'd have raised from $250 to $400.
I guess they're just super-keen to pay the 5% KS fee that they don't have to pay on survey income. :p
This is exactly the conclusion I made when they released slightly modified Fantasy miniatures as their brand new SciFi range in November 2011, making it obvious that the Elf design botch was not a exception, but the rule. Ronnie works on the assumption that he can sell the bulk by just showing early concepts (called preorder in the beginning, now called kickstarter). And indeed he still can. He needs kickstarter after kickstarter to barely stay afloat financially. No wonder that his current communication reminds me of Maelstrom in its final days. Mantic is a level above Defiance Games, because Mantic actually delivers products, even when rushed out without QC. Mantic would already be bancrupt, if every customer had seen the actual product before buying it.
scarletsquig wrote: Really think they should have left the Deadzone retail release until February, as originally planned.
KS backers have got to come first. no exceptions.
I agree, especially with the retailers who pledged in the Kickstarter to help fund the game... the backers and those backer retailers should have gotten their stuff, and gotten problems worked out.
Mantic may have wanted the Christmas cash, but honestly, would that have been better than 99.9% great opinions and excellent word of mouth from pampered backers by the time February retail release rolled around? As it stands it seems very few people are totally satisfied. (I'm pretty much fine, just had a wrong AW resin terrain bundle... but imagine if everyone here felt like me)
It is a questionable business decision to put kickstarter backers second in line. To me it could signal that they are critically short on cash, and thus want to sell the models to retail first. However, they could have other motives. They could be trying to support FLGS. They could also just be trying to maximize profit in the sort term.
I certainly wish Mantic well. Hopefully things will start to click for them. Their supply issues are not nearly as bad as x-wing for example. Even GW has been having some supply issues. Their plastic terrain for deadzone is functional. Hopefully, new plastic minis, with good sculpts and detail, will follow.
spaceelf wrote: It is a questionable business decision to put kickstarter backers second in line. To me it could signal that they are critically short on cash, and thus want to sell the models to retail first. However, they could have other motives. They could be trying to support FLGS. They could also just be trying to maximize profit in the sort term.
I certainly wish Mantic well. Hopefully things will start to click for them. Their supply issues are not nearly as bad as x-wing for example. Even GW has been having some supply issues. Their plastic terrain for deadzone is functional. Hopefully, new plastic minis, with good sculpts and detail, will follow.
Or those retail orders could have been placed before and were already allocated so could not be re-allocated to KS backers.
@SS How are they changing their methods? I am sincerely asking here. Because they used to have pretty good customer service from what I saw, and now that they have had some success, it is going downhill. What are they doing to their methods to fix this?
spaceelf wrote: It is a questionable business decision to put kickstarter backers second in line. To me it could signal that they are critically short on cash, and thus want to sell the models to retail first. However, they could have other motives. They could be trying to support FLGS. They could also just be trying to maximize profit in the sort term.
I certainly wish Mantic well. Hopefully things will start to click for them. Their supply issues are not nearly as bad as x-wing for example. Even GW has been having some supply issues. Their plastic terrain for deadzone is functional. Hopefully, new plastic minis, with good sculpts and detail, will follow.
Or those retail orders could have been placed before and were already allocated so could not be re-allocated to KS backers.
judgedoug wrote: the theme I was going for was a bunch of dirty brown and orange goblins running across a bright green grassy flowery field.
It's a crappy pic, I need to take some nicer pictures of the army.
That's a sweet pic, at least for conveying the massive feel of the army! Thank you very much for posting it
No problem! The goblins actually look good when block painted and army painter dipped - the dip accentuates the details as the actual models have pretty soft details. Note this is only for the plastics... the metals and the new fleabag riders are great. I firmly believe Mantic should revisit the goblins and produce a 5-gobbo sprue with 8-10 head options, 5 quivers, 5 bow arms, 5 spear arms, 5 sword arms, 5 shields, a horn and a banner. They'd sell buckets of them as they are great designs.
Well the only thing we really have to do is wait til the end of the week for the big Deadzone update and then the first weeks of February for people to get their missing stuff. If the second survey closes at the end of March then backers should have plenty of time to figure out what more support (if any) to send to Mantic. They really need to show hard plastic stuff.
There's an IMPORTANT Dreadball KS updare just gone out, giving KS backers a 20% discount on the new Compendium which also has the Azure FOrest stuff in (so well done Mantic for giving us stuff we certainly weren't entitled to)
Update
TLR - The deadline for the Missing Bits survey is Friday 31st January and we will then process them; Mantic Digital launches 5 DreadBall titles!
Good news - the Galactic Tour Series: Azure Forest pack is now shipping from the warehouse! Didn't pre-order it? Well you can order it from the store using the link above!
Missing Bits survey The 31st January is the deadline for the missing bits survey – if you are missing anything from your Kickstarter package, please fill out this form and let us know before Friday.
Next week we will download the forms and send an email to everyone who has submitted a form to say that we have received it.
We will then sort through them and dispatch the components as quickly as we can – please keep an eye on the Kickstarter Updates for all the information as it becomes available.
This will allow us to best manage the process and ensure everyone gets his or her stuff after the crazy Christmas period. Thanks for your patience whilst we deal with this in an efficient manner.
Manticdigital.com is live! It was only a couple of weeks ago when we first spoke about Mantic Digital on our blog – and today it’s released!
Yep, Mantic Digital is now open to all and rather than regurgitate information, you can read all about it on our blog here.
In case you were wondering why this update was only visible to backers, it’s because all of you can use the following code to get 20% off the DreadBall Compendium (which already includes the Forest Pack and Playbook free!) to say thank you for your support:
Kickstarter code: (Sorry I've redacted this but is you're a backer check on KS)
We really do appreciate it and we hope you like the book!
Please note that the Playbook will be available at a later date as we need to finish tinkering with it - please also not that Mantic Digital does not currently support Firefox or IE because of certain functionality (we're working on an interface), we recommend using Google Chrome or Safari.
There you are guys and gals - let us know what you think about Mantic Digital and the new Compendium and we'll see you on the other side!
I logged in once, now it just keeps redirecting me to a "send auth code again" page whenever I try to go on the site, despite my account already being activated.
porkuslime wrote: so.. if I have issues with the Dreadball Kickstarter team, and a second issue with Deadzone Rebels.. I should fill out 2 separate missing item forms?
On top of the 3 forms I already did for them?
Probably for the best to use the official missing item forms, even if you have already sent email. If you used the contact form on their site there's no guarantee of that working out.
When people have online reviews of the digital products, please let us know! I am not sure what more than I need or how this is different that the digital books I got with my KS. I am curious to the whole thing.
nkelsch wrote: When people have online reviews of the digital products, please let us know! I am not sure what more than I need or how this is different that the digital books I got with my KS. I am curious to the whole thing.
I think these are all-singing, all-dancing versions with interactive... stuff. Maybe. As opposed to just a pdf.
scarletsquig wrote: ^ The $200 hardback book reward *always* counted post-survey cash.
It was the $300+ ones that did not count post-survey cash.
Whoops. Sorry for the error.
I'm not a fan of the "reward doesn't count survey cash" thing anyway. They'd have gotten a lot more money out of me on the next DZ survey if they'd just scrapped the whole survey limitation on the big spender rewards, I'd have raised from $250 to $400.
I'm inclined to agree, although I can understand the rationale behind making such offers exclusive during campaigns. It's a good question as to whether the present policy hurts or benefits Mantic more. If I were them, I'd experiment by having one of their upcoming kickstarters like Dreadball EX have all rewards count money that's added on the survey after the campaign. Then they could review the results and at least make an informed decision about "during the campaign only" pledge bonuses.
I guess they're just super-keen to pay the 5% KS fee that they don't have to pay on survey income. :p
You'd think kickstarter would have a policy about this, to keep all campaigns from moving bonuses to surveys and dodging their fee?
The Blaine picture was just off the google and was the first pic I found. Yikes, shouldn't have chosen that one.
As for mold lines, I've done my whole strike team except for Wrath and none of them were difficult to clean. Some of them had more lines than others, but a sharp X-acto knife was more than enough to handle them.
I think the whole 'oh no mold lines' thing is a bit over done. I spent about as much time cleaning mold lines off of individual restic minis as I did cleaning mold lines off my Firestorm Redoubt and Vengeance Weapons Batteries (both Plastic kits).
I actually wouldn't call the pic you posted all that bad as mouldlines go. As I said before, most if not all of my Sedition Wars human figures have flash that bad or worse. At least with Deadzone you don;t have many figures to clean to have a field-able force. Just model-wise, I wish I had all the money back from SedWars to spend on Deadzone figures instead.
AegisGrimm wrote: I actually wouldn't call the pic you posted all that bad as mouldlines go. As I said before, most if not all of my Sedition Wars human figures have flash that bad or worse.
Mars Attacks had its estimated delivery date set 2 months ahead of when they expected to be done with it.
DKH 4 is on hold. Warpath is on hold until quality hard plastic has shipped and feedback has come back positive.
The planned dwarf release for next month is now delayed to March/April so they can catch up on other stuff.
And yet they have timed it so MA and DZ surveys are out at the same time (both of which are asking us to commit to buying items they can't yet show) and they will be running the next DreadBall KS while folks still have issues from the previous DreadBall deliveries.
No, they really are not learning the correct lessons.
On the topic of defending Mantics just send it out minus the stuff we ran out of policy, I notice the packing slips include the missing items and Mantic were "suprised" to hear I didn't receive my complete order.
If they had known they'd run out that just seems disingenuous. Oh it's not there, damn, we were hoping you wouldn't notice, oh well sorry, we actually ran out, let us know what's missing and we'll send it out ASAP (three months).
Joyboozer wrote: On the topic of defending Mantics just send it out minus the stuff we ran out of policy, I notice the packing slips include the missing items and Mantic were "suprised" to hear I didn't receive my complete order.
If they had known they'd run out that just seems disingenuous. Oh it's not there, damn, we were hoping you wouldn't notice, oh well sorry, we actually ran out, let us know what's missing and we'll send it out ASAP (three months).
You're assuming that they were actually paying attention when they were throwing unmarked bags of resin minis into your box....
Basically the manticdigital stuff is pretty pointless at the moment for kickstarter backers who already have the ebooks? Aside from the live updates thing.
So, the real thing we're looking for is the 'Dreadball Playbook' which isn't really described at the moment, and is only the first of a series of apps, so it's probably a better idea to wait for them to be bundled together?
Not to beat a dead horse, but boy am I waiting to see any pictures of the stuff that is new to the Deadzone second survey. Otherwise known as the stuff guys like me have made sure to have money available for.
And yet they have timed it so MA and DZ surveys are out at the same time (both of which are asking us to commit to buying items they can't yet show) and they will be running the next DreadBall KS while folks still have issues from the previous DreadBall deliveries.
No, they really are not learning the correct lessons.
Pretty sure I've read that the Mars Attacks! survey came out yesterday, needs to be ccompleted by February 14 and is being charged end of February, whereas the 2nd Deadzone survey is coming out end of this week, but doesn't need to be completed and isn't being charged for months, to give them enough time to finish providing photos of everything we haven't seen yet.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AegisGrimm wrote: Not to beat a dead horse, but boy am I waiting to see any pictures of the stuff that is new to the Deadzone second survey. Otherwise known as the stuff guys like me have made sure to have money available for.
They promised all remaining wip pictures same day as the survey is opened at the very least, and with ages to fill it out they've given themselves enough time to get photos of test runs out for all to see, or hoist themselves on their own petard
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Joyboozer wrote: Has there been pics of the ruined building sprues? Its not just the regular ones but in restic rather than plastic?
There was a pic of the production masters or test run of the ruined tiles posted on facebook some weeks ago iirc, it was definitely in this thread
Bloody Facebook! Why can't mantic be one of those companies that associates an increase in productivity with banning Facebook during work hours. All those errors make sense now!
scarletsquig wrote: It's possible that a full 2-week holiday over xmas is too much to get away with, for a company that has so much going on.
They'd never get away with it in America, that's for damn sure! I can't stand you looney Euro liberals and your crazy "let's treat working people like actual human beings" social policies.
scarletsquig wrote: It's possible that a full 2-week holiday over xmas is too much to get away with, for a company that has so much going on.
They'd never get away with it in America, that's for damn sure! I can't stand you looney Euro liberals and your crazy "let's treat working people like actual human beings" social policies.
Seriously... we get a 'one-day' holiday here... and if staff want to take off, everyone else is working to cover their stuff. Stopping work for 2 weeks would bankrupt many small businesses.
Of course... we do landscaping... and nobody seems to call when there's snow on the ground. So maybe not the same thing
While we're on the topic of Mantic Digital, has anyone read the Blood stone of uhh... whatsit, or checked out the art book for KoW? Either of them worth getting?
Art book apparently just has the KS sketches + a few unseen bits and pieces like the replacement concept art for the trolls after the original (and much better) concept art was scrapped.
Here's the pic of the ruins pieces that was requested:
Mantic should rethink their hard-sell approach on the mechs (Striders, Stuntbot, Iron Ancestor). $20 apiece is easily matched or beaten at retail or on ebay.
The Mars Attacks robot, which is larger than the Deadzone mechs, costs more at $30 for one, BUT it is also included in a number of pledge / bundle deals that effectively give it a more reasonable pricetag and encourage fence-sitters to buy in now rather than wait for store discounts.
It doesn't seem like the impulse buy / full price approach for special models has worked all that well for Mantic. The only motivation for backers to buy figures like the Helfather was "so cool I just gotta buy it now at full price!", and the result was that Mantic received so few orders for that model that it had to be cast in metal. I'd bet better pricing and / or bundled discounts for the mechs would be a wise and profitable move for them to make on the 2nd survey.
They are selling the same mats for different prices in two surveys (DZ and MA) at the same time. Do you really think they have a clue as to how to price their products correctly?
Vermonter wrote: Mantic should rethink their hard-sell approach on the mechs (Striders, Stuntbot, Iron Ancestor). $20 apiece is easily matched or beaten at retail or on ebay.
The Mars Attacks robot, which is larger than the Deadzone mechs, costs more at $30 for one, BUT it is also included in a number of pledge / bundle deals that effectively give it a more reasonable pricetag and encourage fence-sitters to buy in now rather than wait for store discounts.
It doesn't seem like the impulse buy / full price approach for special models has worked all that well for Mantic. The only motivation for backers to buy figures like the Helfather was "so cool I just gotta buy it now at full price!", and the result was that Mantic received so few orders for that model that it had to be cast in metal. I'd bet better pricing and / or bundled discounts for the mechs would be a wise and profitable move for them to make on the 2nd survey.
I'm in absolute agreement. The boosters all got bundles, why can't the mechs?
As it stands I'm quite likely to just go in for more basic troops for each faction, and possibly just proxy a mech if/ when we get stats for them.
I'm also wondering what those named characters are going to get cast in. Has their been any word? Guys like the Wolverine Enforcer? I had assumed restic to begin with, but after seeing the Hellfather I would assume those guys will be metal now as well.
highlord tamburlaine wrote: I'm also wondering what those named characters are going to get cast in. Has their been any word? Guys like the Wolverine Enforcer? I had assumed restic to begin with, but after seeing the Hellfather I would assume those guys will be metal now as well.
Vermonter wrote: Mantic should rethink their hard-sell approach on the mechs (Striders, Stuntbot, Iron Ancestor). $20 apiece is easily matched or beaten at retail or on ebay.
The Mars Attacks robot, which is larger than the Deadzone mechs, costs more at $30 for one, BUT it is also included in a number of pledge / bundle deals that effectively give it a more reasonable pricetag and encourage fence-sitters to buy in now rather than wait for store discounts.
It doesn't seem like the impulse buy / full price approach for special models has worked all that well for Mantic. The only motivation for backers to buy figures like the Helfather was "so cool I just gotta buy it now at full price!", and the result was that Mantic received so few orders for that model that it had to be cast in metal. I'd bet better pricing and / or bundled discounts for the mechs would be a wise and profitable move for them to make on the 2nd survey.
If the helfather and chovar had just been freebies in the KS, they'd have been economical to produce in restic. Probably the best way to go about it, have people buy units and then throw in characters as KS freebies on top. Adds a lot of value since each character is worth £5 or so, and means you don't have to wring your hands over the decision to go restic or metal.
The other thing is... they didn't just do the helfather out of their own pocket.. there was $15k of stretch goal money put in to unlock it.
You'd think that would be enough for a restic tool.
The mechs are a totally different thing. They're being done in resin, not restic. $20 is about as low as they can go with that due to having to hand-cast them. There are no mass production benefits with resin cast minis. On the bright side they should be very nice models.
The big robot, truck, and saucer are hard plastic right? So we're paying a bit more as the tooling is likely ten times the cost of comparable restic tools.
Should be hard plastic, I'd imagine. Can't see any other way they'd do it and China can do large hard-line stuff okay.
Probably the biggest production challenge is making sure the clear plastic helmets and screens fit properly.
I'm quite happy with Mars Attacks. Once the retail value of the DZ terrain I selected is taken away ($203 - $140), I'm left with a whole gakload of stuff for the remaining $63 spent (about 100 minis, terrain, 2 vehicles and extras), it has been an absolute steal. "The invaders arrive" pledge level really was brilliant... got an EB 1, which basically meant getting the entire box game and IA level freebies for just $15 or £10. And they added even more stuff right before the survey for the hell of it.
I'm looking forward to the next kickstarter. DBX will be okay (not that bothered about it), KoW will be great if they get to the Nature army, and Warpath will be Mantic's "Reaper Bones" level KS if they do it right.
There is a huge amount of demand for high quality, low priced sci-fi miniatures that just isn't being met currently.
agnosto wrote: You have it all wrong; they're not averse to changing things at the last minute when it saves them money. This wouldn't so they won't.
Right-like the KoW screwup with ogre prices where they offered to give more free if you emailed them. Or when they didn't have hard plastic enforcers ready to send out for deadzone, so they gave extra restic enforcers so people didn't have to wait-people are still getting extra enforcers when the correct ones come. There is another example that's eluding me at the moment...but they have. Multiple times.
agnosto wrote: You have it all wrong; they're not averse to changing things at the last minute when it saves them money. This wouldn't so they won't.
Right-like the KoW screwup with ogre prices where they offered to give more free if you emailed them. Or when they didn't have hard plastic enforcers ready to send out for deadzone, so they gave extra restic enforcers so people didn't have to wait-people are still getting extra enforcers when the correct ones come. There is another example that's eluding me at the moment...but they have. Multiple times.
I got extra free fleabag and berserker brocks in the second shipment of KoW when they had to delay some other models to the third shipment. they also sent me a full bag of ten mummies when i was missing one or two pieces in the initial set.
agnosto wrote: You have it all wrong; they're not averse to changing things at the last minute when it saves them money. This wouldn't so they won't.
Right-like the KoW screwup with ogre prices where they offered to give more free if you emailed them. Or when they didn't have hard plastic enforcers ready to send out for deadzone, so they gave extra restic enforcers so people didn't have to wait-people are still getting extra enforcers when the correct ones come. There is another example that's eluding me at the moment...but they have. Multiple times.
Still waiting on my free ogres or even for the shooters I paid for. They sent me the melee ogres I paid for but no extras and none of the shooters I paid for. Email back and forth, blah blah blah... nothing. .but that was, what? 3 Kickstarters ago? Who's to expect them to take care if that now? That's not even mentioning the missing freebies (riders with no horses ).
Bah. Sure give me "free" stuff instead of what I paid for.
I think even though I could get a regular Iron Ancestor online for cheaper than the Deadzone one, I may have to cave and get one simply because for what I am doing with the Forgefathers (counts-as 2nd ed Squats) I want the Iron Ancestor (mechanically) as an allied SM dreadnought- and the new DZ weapon is a really good "counts-as plasma cannon", instead of the existing "twin autocannons", and the former is much better in that edition.
Literally a double proxy, lol. Iron Ancestor counts-as a SM Dreadnought, which then in turn counts-as a Squat walker.
20 bucks is still not bad for a Dreadnought-sized model, in any medium. Kinda balanced by the fact that extra Valkyr bikers from the booster are only $10, which beats the retail GW price for any kind of "bike" model for the last decade, at least.
Hopefully by making an order that is almost as simple as "one of everything from the "Deadzone Forgefather" bin", they can get my order right.
I didn't realize the mechs would be in resin, which is great by me provided it isn't too fragile. This does mark a change from before, right? What were Warpath Iron Ancestors made of?
I'm excited to see the Goblin Stuntbot, but what I'd most like to see is the Asterians get a mech unit. Currently they're the odd man out.
And the Martian forces are poised to stomp everyone. They have a flier (the saucer), two types of giant insect, and a retro robot with an alternate weapon attachment that looks to be at least twice as tall as the Deadzone mechs.
Humans get a truck with a gun on top and a satellite dish.
I didn't realize the mechs would be in resin, which is great by me provided it isn't too fragile. This does mark a change from before, right? What were Warpath Iron Ancestors made of?
I don't get the resin angle on the mechs, personally. The current Iron Ancestor is Restic (and the variant with metal bitz). Why not produce the DZ one in the same material, when it will share many of the same parts? Then it's idiotically easy to sell as an additional variant for the Warpath army.
Vermonter wrote: I didn't realize the mechs would be in resin, which is great by me provided it isn't too fragile. This does mark a change from before, right? What were Warpath Iron Ancestors made of?
I'm excited to see the Goblin Stuntbot, but what I'd most like to see is the Asterians get a mech unit. Currently they're the odd man out.
I had NO idea the mechs were 'resin' either - I thought they were going to be 'restic'!
Can someone point out specifically where this was stated?
Because I can see myself picking up a few more in 'true resin'!
Let me dig it up ( if no one beats me to it) I've had that notion in my head for months so I'm pretty darn sure. As soon as kid let's me I'll try to fact check myself.
Only having DreadBall and DeadZone stuff, how does Mantic do with resin? Do they have any experience in producing resin minis? Multipart ones the size these will be?
Honestly, resin can be great for some minis, but looking at the QC issues they have with restic and the inability to maintain consistent quality even within a single product code, I really worry about how they can mess up resin.
And on the Iron ancestor it's resin upgrade parts for the restic kit
If we hit this goal, we will sculpt and tool the Urban Pattern Iron Ancestor.
This resin kit can be used to upgrade the plastic resin Iron Ancestor with Heat Cannon, new backback and a new close combat arm. We will supply the whole kit - the resin upgrade kit and the Iron Ancestor - for you to add on to your pledge.
Even if they meant Restic (which I originally thought they did) the DZ Iron Ancestor is the same as a retail Warpath version. Only the ability to get discounts online makes the DZ versiion "more expensive" and it's a "unique to KS" sculpt at the moment, not to mention if it really is actual normal resin.
Ha! I finally have you, Scarlet Squig the well-informed!
I'm staking my entire, illustrious in its insignificance Dakka reputation on the proposition that the Mech vehicles will all be cast in restic as per normal, and not a single one will be resin. Which would mean that Mantic has no excuse not to do a bulk deal.
Why am I flamboyantly sticking my head in a noose? Because, my dear Watson, I just browsed update #104, and the very last sentence reads as follows:
"Note that all of the Mercenaries, Plague, Rebs and Marauders will still be in our Sprueless Plastic Resin as well."
Someone at Mantic using the term sprueless plastic resin for restic, eh? All the Mechs are going to be the same old restic they're already making the Goblin gun track etc. out of, mark my words.
Well it has an upgrade kit. Compare the dz urban IA to the doom storm pattern with the extra metal weapon.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I could have sworn in discussion it was determined to be proper resin but I'm not at my machine and phone makes it hard to trawl the comments.
I REALLY hope that they meant REAL RESIN and are sticking to it!
I'll let you all in on a secret...
IF Mantic can produce nice looking Forge Fathers that don't take 30min. each to de-flash and do mold line removal, I'll be using them as a "count as' IG army!
Aside from a Forge Father's army in Warpath, of course!
Mantic have dabbled with resin before, with the upgrade bits for the marauder raptor.
And of course they do a few resin casts for special edition minis. I have a unit of stormrage veterans in resin (won a naming competition by coming up with "Brokkrs") and they are rather gorgeous.
It looks like my epic showdown with Squig ended the only way it could - with this bananaman crashing and burning.
I found the reference in the Deadzone comments section of Jun 2, 2013 that Grimdork and Scarlet Squig were talking about. Mantic are responding to a backer request for a discount bundle deal on multiple striders:
"@Ben - the mech will be made in actual resin, so we can't offer any bundle deals I'm afraid - the cost wouldn't allow it."
"Actual resin" is definitely very encouraging. I'm glad to be wrong this time.
Half the fun of removing mold lines is gambling on whether or not I'll puncture my fingers for the umpteenth time.
Bonus points for using the same dull, rusty, barely held together hobby knife that really should have found its way to the rubbish bin many moons ago.
My hobby knife cherry got popped back in the early 90s, building an old Aoshima robot kit that had terrible flash all over it. Sliced my thumb open from tip to the first joint in it. Was quite unpleasant, but was an excellent conversation piece in junior high!
Sort of. From the Update #129 on Monday, the survey launches on Friday. Then later on in the update it says "Because the second survey is your last chance to make use of the great Kickstarter offer, we’re going to be posting up a mega progress update so you can see where we’re up to on all things Deadzone related."
On Facebook they said to expect news within a month as of Jan 24 on the hard plastics, and that the survey will be open a long time.
I believe the survey will be open until the end of March.
I'll be waiting personally til the deadline to make sure I have as much pictures and information as possible
Real Estate/Stocks: Buy Low. Sell High
Weight Loss: Calories Burned > Calories Taken In
Drawing: Start Basic Shapes. Fill in With Da Vinci level skill.
Restic Mold Lines: Make perfect, delicate microscopic slices on restic in fine details on faces, weapons, and other important bits. Don't scrape.
Real Estate/Stocks: Buy Low. Sell High
Weight Loss: Calories Burned > Calories Taken In
Drawing: Start Basic Shapes. Fill in With Da Vinci level skill.
Restic Mold Lines: Make perfect, delicate microscopic slices on restic in fine details on faces, weapons, and other important bits. Don't scrape.
Life am easy
Don't forget to add in 'Use the hot water treatment to align up the parts and close the 4mm gaps in your fresh mold line removed pieces'.
You guys forgot the step where you go to the emergency room for loss of blood and multiple self- inflicted lacerations to the hands (and possibly legs if you're clumsy).
@edlowe, I dunno, the legs at least look like ball-joints to me.
@carlos13th no I kind of agree. These Cyphers seem I dunno.. its not chunkier... maybe they're gangly or just a bit awkward-tall/skinny.
The models seem a bit more lanky than graceful atm, or maybe just built to an alien aesthetic I guess.
I'm a little off on the size of the models too. If those disks under them are meant to the the 15mm or so integrated bases these guys are tiny, if those are meant to be 25mm standard bases.. I sure hope they leave the integrated bases off, otherwise I fear a lot of overhang and or platforms.
I mean these are really just poses... those digital sculpts can be moved around a bit before they're finalized and the molds are made.
On the whole Resin thing.. Wtf seriously? I still stand by the urban iron ancestor having an upgrade kit and that meaning he should cost more... but if they're going to be in restic... I may just stick with my two big mechs and fish around for a FFIA on ebay or the discount sites and convert it. May get the goblin walker though as I've not got another way to approximate it easily.
Well that's disappointing to hear but not wholly unexpected. I hope they let people who picked them in the first survey drop/change them if that's the case as they paid for resin. $20 is expensive for Restic the Dreadball mech was $12 KS price (it's $20 full retail price)and the only difference between it and the Strider is the gun - that's an $8 gun
Speaking of swaps I ordered and paid for a few individual miniatures (like the enforcer medic and cypher prime) that hopefully will be made in hard plastic but will be combined with other minis I wonder how they'll deal with allowing credit for money already paid for these miniatures gievn the survey is fairly basic and isn't really tailored to individual backers orders.
I'm bad at finding things I remember, but I coulda sworn they said the striders would be somewhat larger, and the gun or chainsaw/flamer arms. Still, can probably get them for a similar price retail soo... I may wait for more monies.
DaveC wrote: Well that's disappointing to hear but not wholly unexpected. I hope they let people who picked them in the first survey drop/change them if that's the case as they paid for resin. $20 is expensive for Restic the Dreadball mech was $12 KS price (it's $20 full retail price)and the only difference between it and the Strider is the gun - that's an $8 gun
The Blaine picture was just off the google and was the first pic I found. Yikes, shouldn't have chosen that one.
As for mold lines, I've done my whole strike team except for Wrath and none of them were difficult to clean. Some of them had more lines than others, but a sharp X-acto knife was more than enough to handle them.
I think the whole 'oh no mold lines' thing is a bit over done. I spent about as much time cleaning mold lines off of individual restic minis as I did cleaning mold lines off my Firestorm Redoubt and Vengeance Weapons Batteries (both Plastic kits).
I actually wouldn't call the pic you posted all that bad as mouldlines go. As I said before, most if not all of my Sedition Wars human figures have flash that bad or worse. At least with Deadzone you don;t have many figures to clean to have a field-able force. Just model-wise, I wish I had all the money back from SedWars to spend on Deadzone figures instead.
Perhaps the words you're looking for are bad and worse, then? Blaine is bad. Many of us have decades of experience that says so.
Over the past couple of nights, I've gone back to assembling my dreadball season 3 models, since my deadzone is pretty much done.
To be honest, the only ones that have been a bit pants was a couple of the light grey restic models. The rest have gone together pretty perfectly. And I'm certain my Blaine had no issues like that.
I was starting to feel a bit negative towards Mantic with the whole general pantsness that digital books have been, plus a couple of deadzone models with awful lines (components of my plague boosters).
But honestly, tonight, and looking back at the sheer volume of my deadzone minis. Things have been pretty much fine. - I haven't even stabbed myself once!
To be honest, I've had more trouble cleaning up my Dropzone Commander resin minis in the last week or so.
I hate to say it, but the Asterians as shown in the video are not doing it for me. My general impression is that their features have perhaps been exaggerated a little, but whether the design has been changed or not, the net impact these figures have on me is boredom. Mantic's Forge Fathers look better than GW's Squats ever did, but that isn't the case here. The Asterian cyphers aren't as well-designed or elegant or inventive or original as their parents the Eldar were, nor is their aesthetic different enough to be interesting in its own right. They're far from terrible, but they are dull.
I may change my mind if the Asterians go through significant revision (I'm not counting on it), but as of now I'm switching my free faction over to the Forge Fathers (which so far look great).
The Blaine picture was just off the google and was the first pic I found. Yikes, shouldn't have chosen that one.
As for mold lines, I've done my whole strike team except for Wrath and none of them were difficult to clean. Some of them had more lines than others, but a sharp X-acto knife was more than enough to handle them.
I think the whole 'oh no mold lines' thing is a bit over done. I spent about as much time cleaning mold lines off of individual restic minis as I did cleaning mold lines off my Firestorm Redoubt and Vengeance Weapons Batteries (both Plastic kits).
I actually wouldn't call the pic you posted all that bad as mouldlines go. As I said before, most if not all of my Sedition Wars human figures have flash that bad or worse. At least with Deadzone you don;t have many figures to clean to have a field-able force. Just model-wise, I wish I had all the money back from SedWars to spend on Deadzone figures instead.
Perhaps the words you're looking for are bad and worse, then? Blaine is bad. Many of us have decades of experience that says so.
Oh, believe me, I have 20 years in the hobby. I would rather clean metal models than (at least some) of the restic I have had in my hands so far.
As for the mechs, I can't get behind it being a "bait and switch" just so Mantic can make money. I think it was more of a wording issue, because while "restic" or "resin plastic" is a commonly held unique medium, it's still a kind of resin- just not what we associate with the term. At least by using the Iron Ancestor as a gauge, the DZ one is no more expensive than the one for Warpath, if you go by true retail off Mantic's site rather than internet discount.
They are purely optional, and I would gladly pay $20 retail as opposed to a discounted $16.99 for an advance copy of a figure (because who knows when they will be released outside of the KS). It's three dollars, people. That's less than the shipping on an existing $16.99 Iron Ancestor from The Warstore, even with Neal's awesome shipping rates.
Plus the conversion kit. I realize this one doesn't have two guns, but a new weapon arm and backpack seems roughly equivalent to the DoomStorm, and that kit costs more than the standard IA.
I'll have to see what this guy looks like before I put in an order for him. I'm somewhat likely to stick with my big mechs unless the striders are 50% bigger. Even if they're 16-20% larger it really isn't enough, I'll be weaponizing the two mechs I already have.
Getting anxious to hear about the hard plastic, I would much love to get some not-terminators and completely obsolete that last bastion of my interest in my space marine collection.
Oh, and just a comment about the mantic digital stuff...
I got the Dreadball Compendium. It works great in my browser, and is actually really really cool with the way everything links together and easy access to rules, but the kindle version has a lot of issues... I'm not using an actual kindle, though, merely the kindle app on my android phone.
I'll check the epub version next, see if thats ok.
Cool thanks for the report! So it is the case that you can click rules when mentioned in the text to get the definition? Is it a pop up or a page flip? Definitely interested in getting the kings of war book (surely its slotted for sooner or later) in this manner.
Of course... we do landscaping... and nobody seems to call when there's snow on the ground. So maybe not the same thing
While we're on the topic of Mantic Digital, has anyone read the Blood stone of uhh... whatsit, or checked out the art book for KoW? Either of them worth getting?
Haven't read the Bloodstone thing, because I have little to no interest in fanfic or pulp fantasy fiction. The Art book isn't worthwhile though.
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scarletsquig wrote: Warpath will be Mantic's "Reaper Bones" level KS if they do it right.
There is a huge amount of demand for high quality, low priced sci-fi miniatures that just isn't being met currently.
With individuals' personal aesthetic preferences as the only "x-factor", Dreamforge's Eisenkern beat anything Mantic has done on a technical level (and is likely to do for some time at best) while being very reasonably priced. It just depends on if the end user like/can handle the Neo-WW2-Wehrmacht look and feel of them.
agnosto wrote: You have it all wrong; they're not averse to changing things at the last minute when it saves them money. This wouldn't so they won't.
Right-like the KoW screwup with ogre prices where they offered to give more free if you emailed them. Or when they didn't have hard plastic enforcers ready to send out for deadzone, so they gave extra restic enforcers so people didn't have to wait-people are still getting extra enforcers when the correct ones come. There is another example that's eluding me at the moment...but they have. Multiple times.
^ I prefer hard sci-fi and dislike "fantasy/historical in space", from that perspective the asterians are far more interesting to me than nazis/ russians/ americans in space (has already been done to death by so many different companies)... it just feels right that the most advanced faction in the game would use AI drones for the bulk of their combat forces.
If those Asterians are in fact hard plastic, and not restic in tons of separate thin and fiddly horribly warped pieces with double mould lines.. the I will be very happy indeed.
I'm at the point where I would seriously just be okay with mantic raising its prices on hard plastic to the same as its restic minis, if that's what it takes to get them tooled properly. £20 for 20 would be totally fine with me for multipart kits with lots of components, options and brilliant detail.
Still waiting on my free ogres or even for the shooters I paid for. They sent me the melee ogres I paid for but no extras and none of the shooters I paid for. Email back and forth, blah blah blah... nothing. .but that was, what? 3 Kickstarters ago? Who's to expect them to take care if that now? That's not even mentioning the missing freebies (riders with no horses ).
Bah. Sure give me "free" stuff instead of what I paid for.
Basically you need to ring them. That's the only way I managed to get the clusterfeth of messups in my KoWKS order fixed. And it took more than 1 phone call over more than 1 week, too. It sucks, but it's the way I got them to fix it after getting dicked around for weeks at a time via email. There's your solution. Don't expect them to fix it by themselves at this point.
Still waiting on my free ogres or even for the shooters I paid for. They sent me the melee ogres I paid for but no extras and none of the shooters I paid for. Email back and forth, blah blah blah... nothing. .but that was, what? 3 Kickstarters ago? Who's to expect them to take care if that now? That's not even mentioning the missing freebies (riders with no horses ).
Bah. Sure give me "free" stuff instead of what I paid for.
Basically you need to ring them. That's the only way I managed to get the clusterfeth of messups in my KoWKS order fixed. And it took more than 1 phone call over more than 1 week, too. It sucks, but it's the way I got them to fix it after getting dicked around for weeks at a time via email. There's your solution. Don't expect them to fix it by themselves at this point.
Nah, that ship has sailed. I'm out $50, they'll be out thousands as I won't buy from them again. I like the Ogres well enough and will use them but not enough to go begging and the amount I'm out isn't enough to spend hours on the phone trying to get action from them. Mantic has proven that they are unwilling/incapable of performing like a real company so I'll vote with my wallet and let them continue to soak money from kick starter suckers (like I was).
judgedoug wrote: The Deadzone mechs are considerably larger than the Dreadball ones, right?
GrimDork wrote: I swear I read that but its too hard to find stuff like that on my phone for me to confirm..
They said that at one stage, but Mantic say a lot of things that get changed without announcement. Like Resin > Restic, or Restic > Metal. Or the Trolls. They have some good rulesets, but they're not exactly trustworthy to follow up on what they say they'll do.
There shouldn't be anything stopping them from sorting it out right away.
Except they said they are addressing LOKA, then will address Dread Ball, and then address DeadZone. They are slow as gak responding via their contact form, seemingly ignore you if you attempt to get some response from them.
If he uses it will he eventually have his problems fixed? Maybe. But to think it will be sorted 'right away' is silly. They have not shown any indicator they address any issues 'right away'.
scarletsquig wrote: Thanks for that, Saxon, those look amazing. Really pleased with them.
I wonder what the deal will be with the bases on those. Integral bases? "Moon Boots"-style overhangs on the small integral round bases like on a bunch of the other figures? As for the renders, I like the not-Predator masks, but at this stage I'd feel safer using (and even paying for) Wraithguard and Dire Avengers.
I hope they just do away with the integrals on the hard plastics at least.. quite easy to do with the warpath bases, just flip them over since there's no bevel.
Those "Not-Eldar" look neat. I'm not sold on their games other than Kings of War at this point (Dreadball doesn't interest me at all and Warpath seems to be taking a backseat to "Not-Necromunda" aka Deadzone which does actually look good) but those guys look cool.
Also, someone on an earlier page asked about the KoW Book "Bloodstone of Cerillion". I am reading it now. It's not bad, not amazingly great but decent. I say get it since it's so cheap
WayneTheGame wrote: Those "Not-Eldar" look neat. I'm not sold on their games other than Kings of War at this point (Dreadball doesn't interest me at all and Warpath seems to be taking a backseat to "Not-Necromunda" aka Deadzone which does actually look good) but those guys look cool.
They do look good. I hope the delivered product does as well.
As for the mechs, I can't get behind it being a "bait and switch" just so Mantic can make money. I think it was more of a wording issue, because while "restic" or "resin plastic" is a commonly held unique medium, it's still a kind of resin- just not what we associate with the term. At least by using the Iron Ancestor as a gauge, the DZ one is no more expensive than the one for Warpath, if you go by true retail off Mantic's site rather than internet discount.
They are purely optional, and I would gladly pay $20 retail as opposed to a discounted $16.99 for an advance copy of a figure (because who knows when they will be released outside of the KS). It's three dollars, people. That's less than the shipping on an existing $16.99 Iron Ancestor from The Warstore, even with Neal's awesome shipping rates.
Whether it was intentional or not (and I guess I don't think it was), it is still pretty sad that even Mantic can't keep it straight.
"Sprueless Plastic", "restic" or whatever is nowhere close to what everyone thinks of when they see and read "RESIN".
scarletsquig wrote: I hope they just do away with the integrals on the hard plastics at least.. quite easy to do with the warpath bases, just flip them over since there's no bevel.
No way they keep those ridiculous integrated bases when they go to 'true' 'hard' 'plastic', right?
scarletsquig wrote: I hope they just do away with the integrals on the hard plastics at least.. quite easy to do with the warpath bases, just flip them over since there's no bevel.
No way they keep those ridiculous integrated bases when they go to 'true' 'hard' 'plastic', right?
Sure they could, they may have to put them all on platform boots like the Enforcer rocket dude though.
As for the mechs, I can't get behind it being a "bait and switch" just so Mantic can make money. I think it was more of a wording issue, because while "restic" or "resin plastic" is a commonly held unique medium, it's still a kind of resin- just not what we associate with the term. At least by using the Iron Ancestor as a gauge, the DZ one is no more expensive than the one for Warpath, if you go by true retail off Mantic's site rather than internet discount.
They are purely optional, and I would gladly pay $20 retail as opposed to a discounted $16.99 for an advance copy of a figure (because who knows when they will be released outside of the KS). It's three dollars, people. That's less than the shipping on an existing $16.99 Iron Ancestor from The Warstore, even with Neal's awesome shipping rates.
Whether it was intentional or not (and I guess I don't think it was), it is still pretty sad that even Mantic can't keep it straight.
"Sprueless Plastic", "restic" or whatever is nowhere close to what everyone thinks of when they see and read "RESIN".
I wish they would just say PVC, since that is what the material actually is.
scarletsquig wrote: I hope they just do away with the integrals on the hard plastics at least.. quite easy to do with the warpath bases, just flip them over since there's no bevel.
No way they keep those ridiculous integrated bases when they go to 'true' 'hard' 'plastic', right?
Don't their current plastics have them? I'm 99% sure they do.
I really wish they would drop that dinosaur though.
~Eric
Alpharius wrote: No way they keep those ridiculous integrated bases when they go to 'true' 'hard' 'plastic', right?
The one style of base I would love to see is clear plastic. Dreadball had a great idea with the clear plastic bases.
I'm currently cutting the integrals off my deadzone stuff and using clear acrylic bases, really enjoying this approach simply because it saves time... no need to paint the base!
I keep them on while I'm painting since they're handy to hold on to, especially if you crocodile clip them.
A clear polystyrene sprue for them would be so much better than acyrlic, less scratchable, and injection moulded gives a more even finish than laser-cut (+no need to peel the plastic film off like you do with acrylic).
Vermonter wrote: The Asterian cyphers aren't as well-designed or elegant or inventive or original as their parents the Eldar were, nor is their aesthetic different enough to be interesting in its own right. They're far from terrible, but they are dull.
They're based on Eldar? I thought they were robots?
They honestly look more like SST Skinnies (from the Roughnecks tv show) crossbred with Cylons
judgedoug wrote: They're based on Eldar? I thought they were robots?
They honestly look more like SST Skinnies (from the Roughnecks tv show) crossbred with Cylons
They are Eldar with more smarts. "Oh we are a dying race? Well then let us use our technology to fight for us, rather than waves of our finest men and women."
Pretty much Iyandan with Robots rather than Wraithbone...Wrobots maybe?
judgedoug wrote: They're based on Eldar? I thought they were robots?
They honestly look more like SST Skinnies (from the Roughnecks tv show) crossbred with Cylons
They are Eldar with more smarts. "Oh we are a dying race? Well then let us use our technology to fight for us, rather than waves of our finest men and women."
Pretty much Iyandan with Robots rather than Wraithbone...Wrobots maybe?
That sounds good to me
If Mantic put some more effort into Warpath I'm definitely picking these guys as my army I think (my brother likes the Space Skaven--I mean, Veer-myn), just right now the offerings are a little dull so going to wait for it to actually have some decent things.
Hmm. Had a look at the Eldar Wraithguard (haven't looked at Eldar models in years) and they didn't look as impressive as my "golden days of yore" memory had it. Turns out I'm just prejudiced against Space Elf robots in general, I guess. Strike the "GW did it better" element from my previous critique; evidently, they didn't.
I have some problems with the current Asterian poses, which seem more comic-book world inspired than militarily practical. There's more ambiguous gun-holding than gun-aiming than I'd like, the flying Cypher is posed in front of Mars Attacks brick scenery rather than Deadzone rubble, and the Cypher swordsman preparing to strike is completely exposing his flank and dangling his shield to the side like a fool. But I'll say this for Mantic: they make taking a chance on their Asterian faction a very low-risk proposition. I'm looking at buying 3 more faction boosters anyway, and I have no need of duplicates, so I could try out the Asterian booster for free. If I don't like it, I could sell or trade it on easily without taking a loss.
(Yeah, but is it really "free"? By any reasonable definition, you bet it is. The way they're splitting them up and pricing them for retail, you can't get the content in the Deadzone KS boosters cheaper at retail right now, so $20 a booster is already a good deal. A 4-for-3 "free" booster on top of that is a very good deal, and pretty easy to recoup on ebay, even at a discounted price.)
Since I'm already getting the Forge Father starter free, and I don't want an extra starter for any faction, the "buy two factions for $50" isn't as tempting as it might have been. I could get an extra Enforcer faction - love those guys, and they're uniform enough that multiples still look good - but I don't really need more of them. But I could get a free Asterian booster and pick up a starter at a favorable retail price later if I'm impressed with them.
In other non-news, I flirted with the dark side yesterday and bought new Games Workshop miniatures at a (not very) local game store for the first time in 20+ years. They were the repackaged Chaos Cultists from Dark Vengeance. I saw someone using them to replace his Plague 3rd gens on the Mantic forums, and the whole "medieval peasant rabble - IN SPAAACE!" thing went really well with the Plague 1st and 2nd gens. They're still not my ideal solution as they still have GW "heroic proportions," but they do hearken back to the creative grittiness of GW's youthful glory days in a way I quite like. And unlike the Sedition Wars Strain, they actually carry guns, making them a bit more reasonable as shooty 3rd gen replacements.
I still wouldn't have bought them at standard GW prices, but these guys were 5 for $10.
There are hints that Asterians don't usually live in the material universe, they have no planets, no space stations and the only territory they hold on any sort of permanent basis is the accretion disks of black holes.
I get the feeling that the bulk of the race already moved on to something else rather than "died out/ going extinct", the few that remain either enjoy being in the material galaxy more, or want to meddle with it despite it no longer being their home.
Don't their current plastics have them? I'm 99% sure they do.
I really wish they would drop that dinosaur though.
~Eric
My two cents - they are absolutely fantastic for their fantasy models as the integrated base allows quick painting and very quick basing (it's pretty damn easy to plug 40 models into a premade Warbases regiment tray). But their sci fi stuff yeah... don't like the bases.
judgedoug wrote: They're based on Eldar? I thought they were robots?
They honestly look more like SST Skinnies (from the Roughnecks tv show) crossbred with Cylons
They are Eldar with more smarts. "Oh we are a dying race? Well then let us use our technology to fight for us, rather than waves of our finest men and women."
scarletsquig wrote: ^ I prefer hard sci-fi and dislike "fantasy/historical in space", from that perspective the asterians are far more interesting to me than nazis/ russians/ americans in space (has already been done to death by so many different companies)... it just feels right that the most advanced faction in the game would use AI drones for the bulk of their combat forces.
If those Asterians are in fact hard plastic, and not restic in tons of separate thin and fiddly horribly warped pieces with double mould lines.. the I will be very happy indeed.
I'm at the point where I would seriously just be okay with mantic raising its prices on hard plastic to the same as its restic minis, if that's what it takes to get them tooled properly. £20 for 20 would be totally fine with me for multipart kits with lots of components, options and brilliant detail.
Fair enough on your aesthetic. Just watch out for the Forgefathers, Orx, Ver'Myn, Zombies and Enforcers with close combat weapons, lightning claws and capes. Because, you know, Warpath is already pretty heavily fantasy in space/not-40k
See, for me, I'm getting to the point where I'm happy to play Mantic's games (well, KoW) and willing to give the others a go, but no longer willing to buy their sub-par models based on the endless promises of them actually finally really-for-sure-this-time being good quality. And look, I'm not asking for GW or DFG quality. I'll be happy with Warlord/Perry/Mantic Undead quality (for restic or plastic). Actually, the Ogres are alright - just very limited. Great for a unit or three, but not enough variety for a proper army.
scarletsquig wrote: There are hints that Asterians don't usually live in the material universe, they have no planets, no space stations and the only territory they hold on any sort of permanent basis is the accretion disks of black holes.
Probably closer to dark eldar if you're looking for a 40k analogy.
Fluff-wise I see your point. Visually, they don't have any of the Goth S&M fetishism that saturates Dark Eldar models. I don't miss it.
Except they said they are addressing LOKA, then will address Dread Ball, and then address DeadZone. They are slow as gak responding via their contact form, seemingly ignore you if you attempt to get some response from them.
If he uses it will he eventually have his problems fixed? Maybe. But to think it will be sorted 'right away' is silly. They have not shown any indicator they address any issues 'right away'.
Yeah. Unfortunately at this point I put little faith in their online form or their response to email. Ringing and telling them to fix it in a firm but polite way seems to be the way to go - particularly for older stuff. But still, if agnosto already followed the procedure of the time for KoW and they never got back to him, it's pretty much bs that he has to keep chasing them - just as it was bs that I had to keep ringing them when email stopped being useful.
No way they keep those ridiculous integrated bases when they go to 'true' 'hard' 'plastic', right?
God I hope not, but then they're on the existing plastics for Elves, Orcs, Orx, Dwarves, Forgefathers, Zombies, Ghouls, Skeletons and Revenants ...so who knows?
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Vermonter wrote: Hmm. Had a look at the Eldar Wraithguard (haven't looked at Eldar models in years) and they didn't look as impressive as my "golden days of yore" memory had it. Turns out I'm just prejudiced against Space Elf robots in general, I guess. Strike the "GW did it better" element from my previous critique; evidently, they didn't.
The plastic Wraithguard are quite good - much better than the metals. The ideal for this sort of thing (from my perspective at least) would be to use the old Eldar Ghost Warriors, but good luck getting any of those. I have two, and I doubt their numbers will ever grow unless Forgeworld picks up 30k Eldar...
scarletsquig wrote: There are hints that Asterians don't usually live in the material universe, they have no planets, no space stations and the only territory they hold on any sort of permanent basis is the accretion disks of black holes.
Probably closer to dark eldar if you're looking for a 40k analogy.
Iyanden in the webway then, I guess. Not that GW's Space Elves using the racial name straight from Tolkien are made of originality either.
scarletsquig wrote: There are hints that Asterians don't usually live in the material universe, they have no planets, no space stations and the only territory they hold on any sort of permanent basis is the accretion disks of black holes.
Probably closer to dark eldar if you're looking for a 40k analogy.
Iyanden in the webway then, I guess. Not that GW's Space Elves using the racial name straight from Tolkien are made of originality either.
I don't know... if they don't actually have physical bodies and use robots to kill people or something, it's starting to sound like stretching to say they're Not-Eldar. At that point what similarities do they have?
Hell they'd be more like Therians in AT-43 (transhuman conscious living on the internet that use nanotechnology to build physical creations they control) than Eldar. Eldar are goofy space elves with organic technology that won't screw to save their species. (also the only 40k army I own)
Cyporiean wrote: So am I the only one that actually likes the look of the these Asterians Robits?
If they're proper hard plastic I'll pick up a bunch.
No I like them quite a bit, I think they'll look great in 28mm especially if they're as thin and spindly as the Kings of War Elves. I'll pick up loads for sci fi wargaming.
Cyphers are AI, not the souls of the dead or anything.
If there's one thing in favour of the Warpath background, it is the lack of religion/mysticism.
I don't mind stuff like the odd laser sword so much since a lot of fighting occurs in extremely dense urban areas (deadzone), starships (project pandora) and other confined spaces. It's less of a crime against logic than a lot of other stuff. Even the marauders at least have some good background as rogue mercenaries, if you don't paint them green there's very little attaching them to fantasy.
If anything, their background is closer to these guys, loyal only to the highest bidder:
I do appreciate how the Corporation is effectively an evil twin version of the Federation or Culture, driven to consume and control with the concept of putting morality over profits seen as a sign of weakness. It is a more realistic future vision of humanity than other sci-fi, greed is more likely to be our motivation than anything else.
I don't know... if they don't actually have physical bodies and use robots to kill people or something, it's starting to sound like stretching to say they're Not-Eldar. At that point what similarities do they have?
Hell they'd be more like Therians in AT-43 (transhuman conscious living on the internet that use nanotechnology to build physical creations they control) than Eldar. Eldar are goofy space elves with organic technology that won't screw to save their species. (also the only 40k army I own)
Well, the original pics of them from somewhere showed the ones who weren't robots to pretty clearly be skinny Mantic-style bald space elves. Pointy ears and all.
scarletsquig wrote: Cyphers are AI, not the souls of the dead or anything.
If there's one thing in favour of the Warpath background, it is the lack of religion/mysticism.
I don't mind stuff like laser swords so much since a lot of fighting occurs in extremely dense urban areas (deadzone), starships (project pandora) and other confined spaces.
Sure, but lightsabers/laser swords and Wolverine Claws are the stuff of space opera/science-fantasy/comics.
For much harder sci-fi, you'd be looking at stuff more like this for close combat:
And actual CQB looks much more like this - stacking, kicking in doors and flashbangs.
Than this:
Which is all fine, and you can enjoy it as much as you like, and have a huge amount of fun with it - which is all good and cool - but let's not pretend for a moment that Mantic's sci-fi universe is in any way "hard" sci-fi.
I do appreciate how the Corporation is effectively an evil twin version of the Federation or Culture, driven to consume and control with the concept of putting morality over profits seen as a sign of weakness. It is a more realistic future vision of humanity than other sci-fi, greed is more likely to be our motivation than anything else.
I always thought (and am probably right ) that the Corporation is meant to be a shot at GW.
I do appreciate how the Corporation is effectively an evil twin version of the Federation or Culture, driven to consume and control with the concept of putting morality over profits seen as a sign of weakness. It is a more realistic future vision of humanity than other sci-fi, greed is more likely to be our motivation than anything else.
I always thought (and am probably right ) that the Corporation is meant to be a shot at GW.
No way they keep those ridiculous integrated bases when they go to 'true' 'hard' 'plastic', right?
God I hope not, but then they're on the existing plastics for Elves, Orcs, Orx, Dwarves, Forgefathers, Zombies, Ghouls, Skeletons and Revenants ...so who knows?
Actually, from that list, unfortunately, I think we already DO know!
The Warpath one player and army sets all have EXTRA figures added. Like, a lot.
The corporation one player set normally comes with 10 marines, 10 rangers, and 3 heavy weapons teams. The sale bonus adds 10 more rangers and 10 more marines. So 40 figures plus 3 heavy weapons teams for $49.99.
I'm seriously about to fold on the Forge Father one player set as it adds another 10 models an an artillery piece to the 20 infantry + iron ancesor normally in the box.
If there's one thing in favour of the Warpath background, it is the lack of religion/mysticism.
I think this is the way Mantic are going now, and I like it too. But they waffled on it during the kickstarter. I got a direct response from them in the comments section where they said the Cyphers were partially reanimated Asterian corpses that bleed when injured. I'm not going to bother looking that one up, but if you care to call my bluff, It's there to be found. That response wasn't all that well received by backers (although I was ignorant of the Eldar parallel at the time and liked it myself), was never followed up on, and seems to have been replaced in favor of the remote controlled A.I. thing. (Which, to be fair if confusing, I'm pretty sure they had also put forward before making the reanimated dead comment.)
I don't know if that hiccup represented a sea change at Mantic, some internal confusion by whoever was at the keyboard, or reflected an ongoing debate among the staff on which way to take the Asterians. But it would seem to indicate they were considering it at one time.
scarletsquig wrote: If anything, their background is closer to these guys, loyal only to the highest bidder:
Ah, the Fifth Element. Only the French could make a movie where the sexual appeal of a young woman saves the universe.
(Not intended as a redneck American anti-French comment, by the way. I loves me some Lewis Trondheim / Joann Sfar / David B. bandes dessinées.)
scarletsquig wrote: If there's one thing in favour of the Warpath background, it is the lack of religion/mysticism.
I can't really agree with that. Given the lack of finesse they showed with the Corporation and the Vermin it's probably for the best, but religious belief is just as much a valid motivation as greed or patriotism is.
Azazelx wrote: For much harder sci-fi, you'd be looking at stuff more like this for close combat:
Or my personal favourite weapon for power armoured infantry, the FUBAR.
If there's one thing in favour of the Warpath background, it is the lack of religion/mysticism.
I think this is the way Mantic are going now, and I like it too. But they waffled on it during the kickstarter. I got a direct response from them in the comments section where they said the Cyphers were partially reanimated Asterian corpses that bleed when injured.
In other news I got a reply vis-à-vis Dreadball KS issues within an hour or so (I messaged via Facebook as I think Orcy's mailbox is full cos it kept bouncing my e-mails) and I've just had an acknowledgment of my Deadzone KS issues, which I only filed some time in the last 7 days.
Getting the calculator ready then. Sadly I can see the hard plastic question not being answered tonight, but as many have said we have plenty of time to wait and see.
Mantic's in full panic mode preparing for tomorrows challenge
A challenge has been laid down.
Tomorrow, Pathfinder Chris descents on the Mantic Bunker with an army of Abyssal Dwarfs to challenge Ronnie's Dwarfs. Both men are entering with beards intact... but only the winner's will survive! Yes, whoever loses has to shave their beard off. This is a serious matter, indeed.
Ronnie's waiting for you, Chris. You'd better be prepared. And remember... the only thing that stings more than aftershave is bitter defeat.A challenge has been laid down.
Tomorrow, Pathfinder Chris descents on the Mantic Bunker with an army of Abyssal Dwarfs to challenge Ronnie's Dwarfs. Both men are entering with beards intact... but only the winner's will survive! Yes, whoever loses has to shave their beard off. This is a serious matter, indeed.
Ronnie's waiting for you, Chris. You'd better be prepared. And remember... the only thing that stings more than aftershave is bitter defeat.
Asterians were easily my favorite faction when I backed the kick-starter, followed closely by the rebs. I don't know what it is about these renders though they just don't capture me in the same way they concept drawings did.
Maybe its just my lack of enthusiasm after the quality of the models I have received so far rubbing off on them or maybe there is something that has been lost between the drawings and these renders. I dont know.
carlos13th wrote: Asterians were easily my favorite faction when I backed the kick-starter, followed closely by the rebs. I don't know what it is about these renders though they just don't capture me in the same way they concept drawings did.
Maybe its just my lack of enthusiasm after the quality of the models I have received so far rubbing off on them or maybe there is something that has been lost between the drawings and these renders. I dont know.
to my eye the limbs etc are thicker than the concept art, (could be illusion, or just that they've had to adjust things to make minis that won't break to easily)
carlos13th wrote: Asterians were easily my favorite faction when I backed the kick-starter, followed closely by the rebs. I don't know what it is about these renders though they just don't capture me in the same way they concept drawings did.
Maybe its just my lack of enthusiasm after the quality of the models I have received so far rubbing off on them or maybe there is something that has been lost between the drawings and these renders. I dont know.
to my eye the limbs etc are thicker than the concept art, (could be illusion, or just that they've had to adjust things to make minis that won't break to easily)
I Think I actually like that they turned out a bit sturdier looking. Though I'm unsure about the heads and the prime isn't quite what I had pictured. Though I do like them overall and I think the black talon looks pretty epic.
Tomorrow, Pathfinder Chris descents on the Mantic Bunker with an army of Abyssal Dwarfs to challenge Ronnie's Dwarfs. Both men are entering with beards intact... but only the winner's will survive! Yes, whoever loses has to shave their beard off. This is a serious matter, indeed.
I challenge them to use the time correcting mis-packed KS packages from all their KS projects.
Tomorrow, Pathfinder Chris descents on the Mantic Bunker with an army of Abyssal Dwarfs to challenge Ronnie's Dwarfs. Both men are entering with beards intact... but only the winner's will survive! Yes, whoever loses has to shave their beard off. This is a serious matter, indeed.
Ronnie's waiting for you, Chris. You'd better be prepared. And remember... the only thing that stings more than aftershave is bitter defeat.
I think this is a set-up. Ronnie has the look of a man who's decided to shave his beard anyway.
The sky is falling! You just can't trust Mantic anymore!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lukez wrote: I Think I actually like that they turned out a bit sturdier looking. Though I'm unsure about the heads and the prime isn't quite what I had pictured. Though I do like them overall and I think the black talon looks pretty epic.
To be honest, I'm starting to think my initial response to the Asterian Cyphers was too harsh, but they need to rethink the black talon figure.
It does look very good alone and / or as a diorama piece. But can you see fielding multiple units of black talons attached to their multiple identical piles of brick rubble? It's going to look ridiculous in both Deadzone and Warpath games. (And as I noted before, Deadzone games don't even feature buildings made of brick in the first place.) I know one of the 2nd gen Plague was attached to scenery, but it was one of three versions. This figure is presumably the only Asterian black talon they're going to make.
Vermonter wrote: It does look very good alone and / or as a diorama piece. But can you see fielding multiple units of black talons attached to their multiple identical piles of brick rubble? It's going to look ridiculous in both Deadzone and Warpath games. (And as I noted before, Deadzone games don't even feature buildings made of brick in the first place.) I know one of the 2nd gen Plague was attached to scenery, but it was one of three versions. This figure is presumably the only Asterian black talon they're going to make.
We'll have to see how they do it. If it is integral like the Marauder/Reb commanders, that will be lame. If it is like the S2 with the separate piece, that'll be cool.
I don´t like the Asterians as much as i thought i would. Somehow they seem too blocky and toy-like now? It might be the 3-D images, we will see when they are produced. The concept is sound.
About restic: In my view the wibe here on Dakka towards the material has become a bit too negative. I prefer hard plastic but I don´t think that restic is worse then metal to clean up, at least not by much. Going on 35 + celaned and assembled Deadzone minis. (And the game is fun too)
And then I discovered the "hot-water trick". It is extremely easy and a stunningly effective method for conversions. I'm a bit sad that I didn´t discover it until I had glued both rebs, enforcers and most of the plauge. For any organic model one can easily twist and rotate not only arms, legs and heads but also entire torsos! A real boon for modelers and fun and fast to do. No 2 restic miniatures need ever look the same. Here are some examples of doublicates in one stock version and one water-bent. I am particualry pleased with the dogs:
Thanks for that, Compel, although I find the juxtaposition makes it easier to spot the new design tweaks that Mantic have added to the rendered Cyphers.
And thank you partisan nick for showing your hot water work with the dogs and 3rd gens. I'd love to see more pictures - maybe at a higher magnification - as you do more Deadzone figures and Plague 3rd gens particularly. I'm not a fan of the 3rd Gens as they are but would like to see if they can be salvaged at all with conversion and reposing.
DaveC wrote: Well that's disappointing to hear but not wholly unexpected. I hope they let people who picked them in the first survey drop/change them if that's the case as they paid for resin. $20 is expensive for Restic the Dreadball mech was $12 KS price (it's $20 full retail price)and the only difference between it and the Strider is the gun - that's an $8 gun
Agreed!
It seems a bit "bait and switch" right now...
Ugh...
partisan_nick wrote: I don´t like the Asterians as much as i thought i would. Somehow they seem too blocky and toy-like now? It might be the 3-D images, we will see when they are produced. The concept is sound.
I'm not a fan either... I mean, come on:
Certainly not anything to swoon over...
partisan_nick wrote: About restic: In my view the wibe here on Dakka towards the material has become a bit too negative. I prefer hard plastic but I don´t think that restic is worse then metal to clean up, at least not by much. Going on 35 + celaned and assembled Deadzone minis. (And the game is fun too)
And then I discovered the "hot-water trick". It is extremely easy and a stunningly effective method for conversions. I'm a bit sad that I didn´t discover it until I had glued both rebs, enforcers and most of the plauge. For any organic model one can easily twist and rotate not only arms, legs and heads but also entire torsos! A real boon for modelers and fun and fast to do. No 2 restic miniatures need ever look the same. Here are some examples of doublicates in one stock version and one water-bent. I am particualry pleased with the dogs:
Spoiler:
We can agree to disagree on restic, but I just think companies need to clearly point out that they're talking about PVC... not hand-cast resin, and not injection molded "hard" plastic.
Dead Figures
Characterful, fun pieces that denote the battlefield casualties of war, add this metal set of miniatures to your pledge and get 1 casualty for each of the first four races.
NEW! Dead Figures x 4 - $15
4 Metal Dead Figures (1 Enforcer, 1 Plague, 1 Rebs, and 1 Marauders) - Please enter the quantity of this item that you would like.
Dave, you are uncanny. I was just checking my email account a second ago, and there was no survey. Came here, read your message, went back to the ol' inbox, and lo, there it is.
Automatically Appended Next Post: NEW! Rebs Sorak Swordspawn with Combat Knives - $5
1 Metal Figure - Please enter the quantity of this item that you would like.
Automatically Appended Next Post: NEW! Marauder Upgrade Pack (5 Metal Helmeted Heads + BFGs + Special Weapons) - $5
Please enter the quantity of this item that you would like.
I'm not sure that sprue has as much going on as the fantasy zombie kit, but it doesnt look too shabby, at least from what I can tell at that size. I like that the arms are all separate, its a PITA changing the fantasy zombie arms around. Looks like a couple of extra heads, two spare arms, an extra torso and two bits I can't seem to Identify... Unless it's another pair of torsos..
March 30th? I may have paychecks in from my real job by then... maybe I WILL be making a bit of an order
The zombie sprue looks pretty nice. And I love the peacekeeper renders. I hope they look that good once they're produced. Those could give termies a run for their money.
Is this a typo? * 2 Corporation/Plague/Rebs Striders- $20
Plastic Figure with options to build 3 variants. Please enter the quantity of this item that you would like.
@Squall if those peacekeepers go the distance and look good at production... my marines will be dead to me, terminators are the only *cool* thing the space marines do that I don't like something else better.
Holy crap! That peacekeeper on the bike is amazing I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it's so full of win. Zero-cheesecake, totally serious, sick-ass monobike
Automatically Appended Next Post: Are these pictures in the survey or is my internet being wonky about registering the update?
pretre wrote: Is this a typo? * 2 Corporation/Plague/Rebs Striders- $20
Plastic Figure with options to build 3 variants. Please enter the quantity of this item that you would like.
Holy crap! That peacekeeper on the bike is amazing I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it's so full of win. Zero-cheesecake, totally serious, sick-ass monobike
With the time/quality constraints we face, we are going to make both the Asterians and Forge Fathers in Resin Plastic as we first announced during the Kickstarter. We did suggest at one point they would go hard plastic too, but with the amount of hard plastic we’d need to do now we’ve seen the Zombies, the delays would be unacceptable.
I dunno though, not sure I need so many extras of a lot of the things in 
. I bet it looks really good all together, and you're a trooper for having done it.
