Yeah, my second order is going to basically be more scenery. I'll just be waiting for warpath to get my plastic fix. I was going to go pretty heavy on the FF if they went plastic. No worries about it not happening. I'm just not interesting in most of the models that aren't exclusives because I can get most of the normal stuff for around the same cost from retailers (outside of the BOGO Bundles).
agnosto wrote: [
They announced the change to restic at the same time they released survey 2. Interesting how the survey doesn't have a "give me my money back" option next to the Asterians and ForgeGuard.
You mean aside from the "we will give you a full refund" announcement with it?
I haven't been here all that long, but the people were right, Dakka
So, what is their stated process for getting this refund, and how has that process been working?
NTRabbit wrote: You mean aside from the "we will give you a full refund" announcement with it?
I haven't been here all that long, but the people were right, Dakka
My point exactly. How do you go about getting a refund? Did they detail how you do that? You email them I guess and that email sits in a box until you get a generated message about your LOKA order....the LOKA order that you never made. Did you read my post about the backer who actually had the gall to request a refund and spent months trying to get it? I see your and raise you a for your fantastic reading skills.
I'm happy with Deadzone, I'm just surprised they didn't more actively go after the gangfighting die hards. It's not that they shouldn't; make a world, they just should have broadened the appeal a bit. My two cents.
Crossover decks for the DBX teams could work for people interested in that as add ons/stretch goals for DBX. If Thornton has the time to write the rules that is, given he's apparently busy working on the final Mars Attacks! rules, DBX itself and then the big KoW 2 update, but I don't think it was really relevant enough to be a part of the original Deadzone project itself.
NTRabbit wrote: You mean aside from the "we will give you a full refund" announcement with it?
I haven't been here all that long, but the people were right, Dakka
My point exactly. How do you go about getting a refund? Did they detail how you do that? You email them I guess and that email sits in a box until you get a generated message about your LOKA order....the LOKA order that you never made. Did you read my post about the backer who actually had the gall to request a refund and spent months trying to get it? I see you and raise you a for your fantastic reading skills.
I recall reading someone who complained very loudly and publicly that they demanded a refund for shoddy Dreadball merchandise, then strangely stopped replying when people asked for proof of his accusations, if that's what you're referring to?
I haven't been here all that long, but the people were right, Dakka
Whoa there turbo - you might want to cool your jets a bit!
There is no "DAKKA" - just a bunch of people with a bunch of opinions.
Actually, the secret is to realise that Dakka is a hobby site - where for 90% of the users, their first hobby is actually to moan and whine incessantly about everything that crosses their vision for little particular reason.
After that, some of them play wargames!
The other 10% actually play games and paint cool stuff first and foremost.
Hulksmash wrote: Yeah, my second order is going to basically be more scenery. I'll just be waiting for warpath to get my plastic fix. I was going to go pretty heavy on the FF if they went plastic. No worries about it not happening. I'm just not interesting in most of the models that aren't exclusives because I can get most of the normal stuff for around the same cost from retailers (outside of the BOGO Bundles).
Isn't the FF unit that may or may not be in hard plastic some really expensive uber guys in Warpath? Maybe they should just redo the normal FF and have all their weapon options in plastic (missile launchers and whatnot)
I recall reading someone who complained very loudly and publicly that they demanded a refund for shoddy Dreadball merchandise, then strangely stopped replying when people asked for proof of his accusations, if that's what you're referring to?
Nope. In DeadZone there was a backer who Mantic informed that they would not be able to get his merchandise to him, something about his residing in Italy being an issue and then he tried for 2 months to get a refund before referring the matter to his credit card company. Mantic staff gave him the run-around the entire time.
CptJake wrote: Do the peace keepers go on 40mm bases for Dead Zone?
Judging by the Peacekeeper captain, yes.
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scarletsquig wrote: Would have been nice if there was, but there isn't... was hoping to get some more Kraaw, but don't want another TKZero, Zees etc.
I think this comes down to the way they were receiving models in manufacturing (batches in plastic bags). For the first survey, didn't they end up giving people the whole bag if they bought a single mini from that bag?
I recall reading someone who complained very loudly and publicly that they demanded a refund for shoddy Dreadball merchandise, then strangely stopped replying when people asked for proof of his accusations, if that's what you're referring to?
You can't possibly be talking about me, because I provided ample proof of the damaged models, the lack of communications along with Mantic staff actually admitting their failures and validating my experience as real. There is not only loads of proof but multiple people who had the exact same experience...
The only difference was I was asking for refunds before refunds became acceptable to frothing-fanboiz who basically had made the call "it is Kickstarter, Kickstarter carries risk, you are not buying product, it is an investment, you have no right to a refund.'
And now Mantic offers refunds when there are issues... So all those people who attacked people wanting refunds were flat-out wrong.
The shoddy products, bad communications and hard to navigate processes are still happening... The only thing which didn't hit me was the random change material issue.
Stop writing checks Mantic can't cash, They don't need you putting words in their mouths or you trying to downplay the legitimacy or number of people having issues. Let Mantic deal with their customers (and customers shared experiences) themselves... They actually have a guy who posts here who can deal with it. You are not helping Mantic.
nkelsch wrote: Let Mantic deal with their customers (and customers shared experiences) themselves... They actually have a guy who posts here who can deal with it.
Once the next KS is active we will likely see him posting again.
This thread is a constant war with myself over unsubscribing. I get that some of you have been wounded by Mantic in the past, but geeze... Not a page goes by where certain folks don't make it known again and again and again.
Yes, GW complaining is the only legitimate complaining. People experiencing Mantics gakky product are only allowed to state their issues once, quietly, and then must leave forever even if called out by smug fan boys.
pretre wrote: This thread is a constant war with myself over unsubscribing. I get that some of you have been wounded by Mantic in the past, but geeze... Not a page goes by where certain folks don't make it known again and again and again.
We get it.
Because the same people keep trying to say all those experiences are lies or not real, over and over. Some people refuse to let people have issues or comment negatively on any of the new developments without calling them liars or claiming they are making up false issues or are such a unique isolated experience it shouldn't be discussed.
I think it is great they are offering refunds 'BEFORE SHIPPING' to people who only want hard plastic. I do think it is curious they don't also disclose that process, and it just funnels people back to a known broken and unreliable 'contact us' form. (or the pledge a dollar and complain in sight of the new money venture thing again)
But of course, why allow discussion of legitimate complains to happen when you can attempt to call someone form a year+ ago a liar and tie all negative experiences to one angry man in a basement and make it sound like a grand conspiracy?
pretre wrote: I think this comes down to the way they were receiving models in manufacturing (batches in plastic bags). For the first survey, didn't they end up giving people the whole bag if they bought a single mini from that bag?
Seems likely. I was hoping to buy some more Ripper Suits, and maybe some Kraaw, but I don't need more of the other stuff that comes with them in the boosters/starters
plastictrees wrote: Yes, GW complaining is the only legitimate complaining. People experiencing Mantics gakky product are only allowed to state their issues once, quietly, and then must leave forever even if called out by smug fan boys.
There's a difference between discussing Mantics Customer service or QA/QC problems, and just haranguing an issue.
pretre wrote: I think this comes down to the way they were receiving models in manufacturing (batches in plastic bags). For the first survey, didn't they end up giving people the whole bag if they bought a single mini from that bag?
Seems likely. I was hoping to buy some more Ripper Suits, and maybe some Kraaw, but I don't need more of the other stuff that comes with them in the boosters/starters
Yeah I wanted to buy a Judwan and a second (Whats the turtle guy called?)
I note on the DZ Kickstarter comments that a lot of people are concerned having not received a confirmation email about their 2nd survey order (indeed, i am in the same boat). Mantic are a bit at fault here having promised the email in "up to 5 days" rather than say 5 working days or a week.
Then again those firing off multiple emails chasing up their confirmation emails are probably not helping either. It is this lack of staff to deal with such issues (ie the emails, missing bits forms etc etc) that is the major fault with Mantic for me at the moment. Just sad that this is still an issue and they are ploughing ahead with another kickstarter in just a matter of weeks.
plastictrees wrote: Yes, GW complaining is the only legitimate complaining. People experiencing Mantics gakky product are only allowed to state their issues once, quietly, and then must leave forever even if called out by smug fan boys.
There's a difference between discussing Mantics Customer service or QA/QC problems, and just haranguing an issue.
Responding to accusations of complaints being fictional isn't 'haranguing'. Read the last two pages and NTrabbits fascinating additions to the thread.
plastictrees wrote: Yes, GW complaining is the only legitimate complaining. People experiencing Mantics gakky product are only allowed to state their issues once, quietly, and then must leave forever even if called out by smug fan boys.
There's a difference between discussing Mantics Customer service or QA/QC problems, and just haranguing an issue.
Yep, exactly this, and I'm not a fan of the constant GW complaining either. But you can just label me as a smug fan boy.
plastictrees wrote: Yes, GW complaining is the only legitimate complaining. People experiencing Mantics gakky product are only allowed to state their issues once, quietly, and then must leave forever even if called out by smug fan boys.
There's a difference between discussing Mantics Customer service or QA/QC problems, and just haranguing an issue.
Responding to accusations of complaints being fictional isn't 'haranguing'. Read the last two pages and NTrabbits fascinating additions to the thread.
He's just as bad as the constant complainers, so I could add him to the list of reasons for this thread being a train wreck sometimes.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: I note on the DZ Kickstarter comments that a lot of people are concerned having not received a confirmation email about their 2nd survey order (indeed, i am in the same boat). Mantic are a bit at fault here having promised the email in "up to 5 days" rather than say 5 working days or a week.
Then again those firing off multiple emails chasing up their confirmation emails are probably not helping either. It is this lack of staff to deal with such issues (ie the emails, missing bits forms etc etc) that is the major fault with Mantic for me at the moment. Just sad that this is still an issue and they are ploughing ahead with another kickstarter in just a matter of weeks.
I think the fact that the auto-generated 'We Got It!' email does not seem to be consistently sent out is troublesome. It should not require staff time/man in the loop, and if you have not gotten one it leaves you wondering if the Mantic server got your survey. Trying to chase that down is a logical reaction on the customer's part.
Agree whole heartedly CptJake, it just seems like the poor staff having to deal with it have far too much work and not enough time/resources. I was lucky with my DZ shipment and was missing nothing. If I was missing bits, or like some on here missing whole orders, I would be very miffed indeed. By not dealing with their issues in order and on time, it seems to me like the pile is just getting bigger and their customers/backers more frustrated.
Hulksmash wrote: Yeah, my second order is going to basically be more scenery. I'll just be waiting for warpath to get my plastic fix. I was going to go pretty heavy on the FF if they went plastic. No worries about it not happening. I'm just not interesting in most of the models that aren't exclusives because I can get most of the normal stuff for around the same cost from retailers (outside of the BOGO Bundles).
Isn't the FF unit that may or may not be in hard plastic some really expensive uber guys in Warpath? Maybe they should just redo the normal FF and have all their weapon options in plastic (missile launchers and whatnot)
That would make sense. A plastic weapon/accessory sprue would be a cool thing.
I will say that Mantic is in dire need of a better issue tracking system than Google Docs. There are many readily available online for not outrageous costs (IssueTrak and ZenDesk are two I've seen used, and there are a host of others if one looks up "issue tracking software"). These would allow them to automate things a bit better and let customers see the status of their issue which, amazingly enough, reduces the duplicate emails of "What's going on with my issue?" since they can go in and LOOK (granted, some twits will still email anyway, but you can't win them all). If any Pathfinder or Squig-who-we-know-has-Ronnie's-mobile-number-on-speed-dial wants to pass that suggestion along and get them looking into actual solutions instead of band-aids, that'd probably be to the benefit of all parties.
They might realize that their current model sucks and actively looking into it, but given the lack of any mention of improving their woefully overtaxed Customer Support systems I'm not betting on it.
Yeah I wanted to buy a Judwan and a second (Whats the turtle guy called?)
Teratons. I've got two of them, I think that should be enough for now
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Krinsath wrote: I will say that Mantic is in dire need of a better issue tracking system than Google Docs. There are many readily available online for not outrageous costs (IssueTrak and ZenDesk are two I've seen used, and there are a host of others if one looks up "issue tracking software"). These would allow them to automate things a bit better and let customers see the status of their issue which, amazingly enough, reduces the duplicate emails of "What's going on with my issue?" since they can go in and LOOK (granted, some twits will still email anyway, but you can't win them all). If any Pathfinder or Squig-who-we-know-has-Ronnie's-mobile-number-on-speed-dial wants to pass that suggestion along and get them looking into actual solutions instead of band-aids, that'd probably be to the benefit of all parties.
They might realize that their current model sucks and actively looking into it, but given the lack of any mention of improving their woefully overtaxed Customer Support systems I'm not betting on it.
I've used Zendesk, it's pretty straightforward stuff and something they should be considering. Surveys on the other hand are a different story - Backerkit is expensive, and developing your own robust system requires skilled employees in an area they wouldn't have, webdev.
I'm not sure upgrading your customer support back end is something that makes for an exciting Blog though, they might just do it one day and fail to advertise. They really ought to though, they're too big to be relying on Google Docs now.
For surveys/orders, Google Docs works...well enough. You can take the data out of it once it's done and make it work with simple Mail Merges to create the documents required for a pick ticket and invoice.
For fixing errors though, it's completely inadequate. The lack of a solid communication piece is really where the majority of the pain points are. I find most consumers are understanding about resolutions taking time, but when they have to operate in a vacuum of information is when pitchforks and torches come out.
Polonius wrote: Responding to accusations of complaints being fictional isn't 'haranguing'. Read the last two pages and NTrabbits fascinating additions to the thread.
I suppose that's fair, although I think trying to convice everybody of a vauge point is probably unwise.
I think the concept that DZ had serious mold lines and packaging issues is well established. Some people clealry got better boxes, while others got much worse ones, but I think we're all board with the basic premise that the QA/QC was... poor.
Agamemnon2 wrote:
Polonius wrote: There's a difference between discussing Mantics Customer service or QA/QC problems, and just haranguing an issue.
So far you yourself have seemed remarkably hazy as to that difference, friend.
Umm... Ok? If you had a point, I'd try to respond, but I'm not sure you do.
First up, we have some ace new video content to share with you...
Deadzone Demonstration Game - Training Day
In this video, our very own Bear Wizard James M. Hewitt takes on Beast of War's Warren using the free-to-download Training Day Quickstart Rules:
Training Day Quickstart Rules (PDF)
Dave's Hobby Tips: Building Scenery
New to the blog today, resident expert Dave shows you the best way to build scenery:
Rubble Rubble
Speaking of scenery - these are exciting times as our shipment of ruined building sprues turned up today! Here’s what you’re going to be getting in the second shipment in Q2 2014:
Pretty neat huh? Those bits of rubble come in two types - one that has connector stubs on the back of them, so they’ll be able to hold two tiles together, and one in two halves that clip together so you can add a cover to a cube.
We’ve really gone to town on these to make sure they’re something more than just a few scratches here and there – and the effect is brilliant! The studio have done a magnificent job on these.
We can’t wait to get them into your hands!
Asterians and Forge Fathers
We’ve seen the chatter on the tubes about doing the models in the resin plastic material they were original specced in versus the proposed switch to hard plastic.
After your feedback, we will go back to the toolmaker and see what we can do. Ronnie's post in the previous update mentioned that the main factor was time, but there are wider implications and no guarantees that we can make it happen. However, we do listen and will see if we can make hard plastic happen...
If it comes back that we can’t do them in hard plastic, then we will stick with the existing resin plastic for these few-in-number, individualist elite troopers.
We’re more than happy to switch your choices to something different or refund you for these sets if this isn’t what you want And finally...
Just to cap the update off, we’ve got some more shots of the incredible Strider, in it’s 3 different varieties.
Cool huh?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Looks like the Strider may be fairly easy to magnetize/setup for use of all three types.
I would have done the two-piece snap together rubble pile as two separate 'lay flat' piles to give more (quantity-wise) cover, but the sprues do look good. I have a couple sets of those set for the second delivery, and am happy I got them.
I think it's great that they are taking feedback and taking another look at putting out plastic FF and Asterians! Strider is sounding pretty good now at those prices and including all variants, Hope it still includes alternate weapon options.
Is anyone else excited/anxious to see the AW bundles still on the survey? I may have to devote any birthday funds to picking up a couple of those bundles...
AW are doing their own Sci Fi terrain KS in April so I think I'll wait for that - I like 1 or 2 parts from each set but they have enough parts I don't want that it's just easier to order direct.
I should be able to find the information quickly but I can´t seem too - wich kick-starter ships first - Mars Attacks or DeadZone wave 2? I have two surveys to do and I want to make sure that the extra deadzone terrain arrives with the erlier shipment.
Ok anyone who's filling out their MA pledge or remembers... Gonna list a few things, can you think of anything else (that isn't the T-shirt, thumb drive, extra MA books, just actual models and such) that aren't included in the AA/BotB 1-click that aren't on this list?
$15 20 zombies
dz terrain of various types
$5 dead bodies
$5 wrecked car w/ motorcycle
$5 AI deck, martian dz deck, human dz deck
$25 AW crashed cars
$25 AW more crashed cars
Trying to get at least "one of everything I deem 'Important' " without going over (or at least not much!).
Also, can anyone remember this: If I have a bloodshed on the battlefield with an extra $50 cash tacked on... Does doing the 1-click bundle get me anything at all that I can't get by spending the same money with a custom pledge? Like... can I hand-build a replica of the BotB 1-click, and then say, remove the 3 extra mats since I already have some DZ mats coming... without losing anything (aside from the mats I dropped on purpose)?
Trying to scare up some funds to pick up the excellent mantic zombies while they're at the KS discount... got a few men at arms that would look better with zombie arms, and more zombies never hurt an undead list...
Thanks for looking, I appreciate it I'd probably be the first one to answer my question while this thing was going but I.. brain.. no... keep think words. Is not for smart making so much as going through the motions long enough to get by
DaveC wrote: Deadzone is due to ship end of June, Mars Attacks in August there will only be a few weeks between them - Battlezones cost the same either way.
EDIT in fact Deadzone is chepaer for scenery if you want 4 or more Battlezones as there is no extra discounts built into MA just $25 or $50 sets.
I think I was thinking of the mats. Thanks for the correction.
We posted at the same time more or less so I didn't see your post but yep the mats are $5 cheaper for 3 or 4 mat sets on the MA survey. You can pick Deadzone mats on the MA survey by entering it in the comments section at the end in case anyone hasn't heard.
GrimDork wrote: Is anyone else excited/anxious to see the AW bundles still on the survey? I may have to devote any birthday funds to picking up a couple of those bundles...
I don't have a "can't tell if serious" meme pic on hand...
You can get DZ mats huh? Meh, I have 4 of those coming, and I think 4 +1 MA mat will be sufficient, if I ever do anything 4x6 I'll just improvise a 1/6 of the table.
Also, can anyone remember this: If I have a bloodshed on the battlefield with an extra $50 cash tacked on... Does doing the 1-click bundle get me anything at all that I can't get by spending the same money with a custom pledge? Like... can I hand-build a replica of the BotB 1-click, and then say, remove the 3 extra mats since I already have some DZ mats coming... without losing anything (aside from the mats I dropped on purpose)?
I was thinking this too. But no you get more by doing the 300 one click pledge then spending your remaining 75 of credit on other things. At the moment I think I'm going to; Get the deadzone and ai card decks, the landing pad scenery, and the 1st lot of crashed cars I don't know what to do with the remaining 10 dollars.
What about dead figures? Seems like it would be neat to add in some casualty markers. Maybe not for every grunt or marine but maybe for survivors and martian characters. Or for making nice scenic displays
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hmm about got it figured out. Trying to decide between 8 sets of urban accessories or throwing a few more dollars at them to get another escalation or something. Really like that truck..
I ordered a set of Mars Attacks dead figures, hoping they won't be done in metal. As far as I'm aware, nothing from Mars Attacks has been announced as being done in metal yet.
Meh, they can be done in metal for all I care, 3 minis in metal for $5 never hurt my feelings. Of course I would prefer the same material as the rest of the set, make no mistake.
I ended up with a modified BotB pledge. It's like the 1-click but it has 2 escalations and no extra terrain, with only one rubber mat. I picked up a couple of urban accessory sprues and most of those things that I mentioned not being included. Skipped the retro soldiers, no interest really.
Kind of excited to get all 7 cars and anticipate much fun with giant stompy robots kicking them around
If I did my maths correctly (and the survey pops around to confirm) I only went $20 over my pledge and then $15 more for courier, but $35 extra isn't too bad for what it could have been (especially with so much DZ stuff available).
GrimDork wrote: Is anyone else excited/anxious to see the AW bundles still on the survey? I may have to devote any birthday funds to picking up a couple of those bundles...
GrimDork wrote: Meh, they can be done in metal for all I care, 3 minis in metal for $5 never hurt my feelings. Of course I would prefer the same material as the rest of the set, make no mistake.
I ended up with a modified BotB pledge. It's like the 1-click but it has 2 escalations and no extra terrain, with only one rubber mat. I picked up a couple of urban accessory sprues and most of those things that I mentioned not being included. Skipped the retro soldiers, no interest really.
Kind of excited to get all 7 cars and anticipate much fun with giant stompy robots kicking them around
If I did my maths correctly (and the survey pops around to confirm) I only went $20 over my pledge and then $15 more for courier, but $35 extra isn't too bad for what it could have been (especially with so much DZ stuff available).
Were you able to use 'included' credit for the AW stuff, of did you have to pledge extra?
GrimDork wrote: Meh, they can be done in metal for all I care, 3 minis in metal for $5 never hurt my feelings. Of course I would prefer the same material as the rest of the set, make no mistake.
Hey - you can't say "Meh," expressing complete indifference, and then say you have a preference in the matter after all.
And for the record, I don't believe for one minute that 3 minis in metal for $5 never hurt your feelings. Who do you think you are, tough guy, John Blanche?
If you get Bloodshed on the Battlefield it comes with three giant bugs (assuming you take the one-click). It seems you can only pick one type. Is there a way to get 2 of one and one of the other?
GrimDork wrote: Is anyone else excited/anxious to see the AW bundles still on the survey? I may have to devote any birthday funds to picking up a couple of those bundles...
bait and switch! those liars
Et tu Doug?
Just feelin' snarky!
Actually, it's Good News as I only got two of the four bundles initially and now I want the other two because, duh, Antenociti's Workshop stuff is ultra high quality, and was kicking myself for not getting them all.
@Vermonter I shall be preferentially indifferent all I please thankyouverymuch! And I'm a big softie... however, metal models are usually extra expensive and getting three of them, even casualties won't bug me at all
@CptJake I dunno. I did everything from memory aside from asking my question here and on the KS comments. I just remembered what I pledged and went with it. I'm pretty sure the AW stuff was on the last page which was called pledge boosters, or something, but I really just looked at pictures and put the appropriate numbers down. Kind of hopeful to see a summary email before they lock things down.
TLDR: I assume you had to pledge extra, but I already had and have no summary yet (wouldn't expect it this soon) to say for sure either way.
Oh, as for BtoB/AA and bugs. I believe when you pick that pledge level, the same or next page has a box to select which bug you want. I didn't do the one-click so I can't speak of that, but when I manually selected the apocalypse bundle I got two boxes to set up my second and third bugs. I expect that the one click would have a similar option on one of it's follow up pages.
- Men-at-arms situation of blind shipping 200 of the things to me without showing the sprues first, knowing that we'd probably think they were terrible = pretty much the worst thing the company has ever done. So, there's one thing we can agree on since we're both KoW backers.
For me, I don't mind if they screw up, as long as I'm not stuck with the screwup. I have 200 screwups in a drawer and don't want anymore!
So contact them and ask for a refund/exchange. I suggested that you do so several months ago, and your reply was that you'd rather keep them so you had a "stronger point" to them when they got to the WarPath plastics to make sure they're not (also) utter gak. Which didn't make sense then and still doesn't.
So contact them and return them. 200 pieces of gak is on them, and should not be on you. Who gives a feth if it costs them a bit of money to refund you? But if you're concerned about bringing Mantic financial hardship due to their poor and duplicitous decisions, get the refund as KS exchange credit or something. Just don't keep them for the sake of having a cross to hoist yourself on. Your points stand well enough without the loss of your money for garbage.
I'd think that making them refund you for 200 MAA makes a stronger case on their end then you being out of pocket for 200 MAA...
Actually, the secret is to realise that Dakka is a hobby site - where for 90% of the users, their first hobby is actually to moan and whine incessantly about everything that crosses their vision for little particular reason.
After that, some of them play wargames! The other 10% actually play games and paint cool stuff first and foremost.
Why are you here then?
Hm, let's see. No internal P&M Blog. No external P&M blog. No posts in any Painting or Modelling parts of the forum. No Gallery votes. No images in your gallery.
...half your posts in N&R...
Oh, I see. Moaning and whining.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DaveC wrote: Deadzone is due to ship end of June, Mars Attacks in August there will only be a few weeks between them - Battlezones cost the same either way.
EDIT in fact Deadzone is chepaer for scenery if you want 4 or more Battlezones as there is no extra discounts built into MA just $25 or $50 sets.
What are the extra scenery discounts via DeadZone? Navigating Mantic surveys is a nightmare.
Hm, let's see. No internal P&M Blog. No external P&M blog. No posts in any Painting or Modelling parts of the forum. No Gallery votes. No images in your gallery.
...half your posts in N&R...
Oh, I see. Moaning and whining.
Never blogged in my liffe, unlikely to start. I really should upload some images of my terrible painting though. I haven't posted in painting and modelling because I've nothing to contribute there, I just read them. I'm here to read, mostly, though I post in a couple Mantic threads and the Robotech thread, and I actually made an account to join a Kill Team campaign a friend was running that has been indefinitely delayed. It's just hard to pick the good content out of the incessant moaning and whining that comes from most here, especially in kickstarter and rumour threads. You'd be shocked to discover that no minis company has ever made a good mini, had good customer service or written good rules or fluff in history, going by weight of numbers.
It's be funny if it wasn't bloody annoying trying to read around the same few people talking about the same thing everyone else has gotten over or moved into a new phase of discussion on from the same few people in any given thread every day.
I always go out of my way to mention good service and product so reserve the right to mention the bad.
If you don't like that Mantic are receiving so much negative attention, perhaps you could get in touch and see if they can address the problems their end?
Two kickstarters delivered with the exact same issues. Yay Mantic.
And yet Dreamforge doesn't get these sorts of comments. How could that be? Surely it couldn't be because he's produced multiple high quality plastic kits for a fraction of what Mantic took in for their mediocre restic and worse Men at Arms?
AlexHolker wrote: And yet Dreamforge doesn't get these sorts of comments. How could that be? Surely it couldn't be because he's produced multiple high quality plastic kits for a fraction of what Mantic took in for their mediocre restic and worse Men at Arms?
Dreamforge is also what, 2 years behind schedule producing only 6 different kits? Everyone has their problems. Mantic has some communication and customer service issues, we all know it and should keep telling them, but from my Deadzone experience there's no problem at all with the quality of product. Didn't personally back any of their previous.
AlexHolker wrote: And yet Dreamforge doesn't get these sorts of comments. How could that be? Surely it couldn't be because he's produced multiple high quality plastic kits for a fraction of what Mantic took in for their mediocre restic and worse Men at Arms?
Dreamforge is also what, 2 years behind schedule producing only 6 different kits? Everyone has their problems. Mantic has some communication and customer service issues, we all know it and should keep telling them, but from my Deadzone experience there's no problem at all with the quality of product. Didn't personally back any of their previous.
Dreamforge is a false comparison. He had far fewer backers, did a great deal of the funding on credit from WGF (and so likely has a little less control in exchange though with WGF's execution this probably isn't a concern), has experienced excessive delays (though they are "only" 8 months behind at the moment; May 2014 will be the 1 year point on Wave 3) which is counter-balanced by Mark's reasonably good communication and WGF's high quality. However, there are still no rules and no game. Those are coming, and I'm sure they'll be excellent, but Mantic will have released 2 game systems entirely in the same timeframe which have been fairly well received overall.
Also, for completeness even though it's drifting OT, DFG will be releasing far more than 6 kits. There are currently 14 kits for sale from The War Store (not counting 10 and 20 stormtroopers as different kits) with I believe more than a dozen due in Wave 3. A weapon arm may not be a complex kit compared to the upcoming APC, but it is still a kit.
However, it's worth noting that WGF accidentally left out three components from the Wave 2 shipment (15mm capacitor coolers, 15mm Excalibur, left arm armor on most of the arm kits). Just straight up "oops, those were supposed to be in the box" kind of mistake like many people want to see Mantic burned at the stake for committing. However, without the sounding chamber that Mantic allows to develop with their lackluster communication on issues (in contrast once it was reported Mark was fairly on the ball about letting people know about it) and with WGF producing consistent high-quality stuff versus the spotty consistent of Mantic's supplier, people are for the most part not upset.
Again, communication is the notable difference, as people kept informed are less likely to make up their own stories. However, personally I've still not heard anything about my replacement parts being shipped...should I go rant and wail and rend my garments in the DFG thread like some of the posters in this thread? Some would apparently argue I should and not give any more money to a company that "lied" about how long the project would take. Or, I could take the view that a lot of stuff doesn't go exactly as anyone would like and not worry about minor stuff like toy soldiers. *shrug*
I'm happy with my purchases from both companies, even though they both have their own set of warts. Trying to say one is categorically superior to the other though is just glossing over the fact that with any company you have to make your choice about whether the flaws the company WILL have are matters that you care about or not. If those are in your own personal "key areas," don't do business with them and move on.
One of the people in my gaming club went off on a bitter ramble about something to do with poor customer service/information from the Malifaux people about a really badly delayed or something rulebook the other day.
Fantasy Flight Games have their own issues with massive stock problems and communication about when their models will actually be released. Their Imperial Aces set was supposed to be out before Christmas, now there's some suggestion it will be April? Maybe. Depending on country. You hope.
The Infinity people do seem to have things mostly right as far as I can see, but even then,I think there's some annoyance that, considering the price of their minis (£27 for 4 models, last I saw), that the latest 'Scots Guard' set has 2 identical bodies out of the 4 models. Feel free to correct me on this, though.
Even with Warmahordes, apparently their restic models are much in the same state as mantics, fortunately they're a small part of the range... I think (yeah, I'm struggling now).
Not to let anyone off the hook, because things should be improving at all the time. Especially since it's something potentially easy to fix, in the case of customer support. However, it's starting to seem to me that customers just have to get used to the growing pains of these companies and, for whatever reason, they take long than we'd expect or hope for.
Of course, if you want great customer service from a mature company, there's always GW. Enjoy your £70 a fantasy unit and 40k pay-to-win playmodel though.
NTRabbit wrote: It's just hard to pick the good content out of the incessant moaning and whining that comes from most here, especially in kickstarter and rumour threads. You'd be shocked to discover that no minis company has ever made a good mini, had good customer service or written good rules or fluff in history, going by weight of numbers.
It's be funny if it wasn't bloody annoying trying to read around the same few people talking about the same thing everyone else has gotten over or moved into a new phase of discussion on from the same few people in any given thread every day.
Na, the vast majority of people here give both criticism and credit where it's due. And while it's smashing that you've really enjoyed your DeadZone experience, it's clearly not been the same for the rest of us. I'm certainly one who's given Mantic credit where its due, but have had all kinds of issues with every Kickstarter I've backed of theirs (that's all of them to date). Trying to pretend that they are non-issues is disingenious and not useful for anyone, not least Mantic themselves. You see - the vast majority of us, including those of us who are critical - if not all of us want them to succeed, but they keep scoring own goals against themselves, and their customer service quality is all over the shop at best. My current outstanding issue is with Loka, which I was told would be resolved in 2-3 weeks. Except I was told that 2 months ago.
Using "We're SO busy right now! It's because we're 1)____________ for 2)____________!"
1)
Preparing
Running
Finishing up
Preparing to ship
Shipping
Completing Shipping
2)
Our Next Kickstarter
Our Latest Kickstarter
Our Previous Kickstarter
The final Pledge Manager from two kickstarters ago
Christmas
Really does start to wear thin after awhile.
I'm sure their CS will get better soon, though. With 2 surveys out, and another KS about to be launched, it'll be time for James to suddenly become interested in Dakka and customer service again.
Azazelx wrote: So contact them and return them. 200 pieces of gak is on them, and should not be on you. Who gives a feth if it costs them a bit of money to refund you? But if you're concerned about bringing Mantic financial hardship due to their poor and duplicitous decisions, get the refund as KS exchange credit or something. Just don't keep them for the sake of having a cross to hoist yourself on. Your points stand well enough without the loss of your money for garbage.
Can make my own decisions, thanks.. I also explained a few pages ago what I'll actually be doing with them/ my other reasons for keeping them, which you've completely ignored. If I had zero utility for any of the parts received and they were expensive, I'd have got a refund, as it was they're dirt cheap and the bitz will go nicely on the new perrys. I'm not going off on a hard plastic martyrdom effort, just making a reasonably logical decision.
As far as feedback goes, I think going to the open day and talking to the staff about them in person had more of an impact.
However, it's worth noting that WGF accidentally left out three components from the Wave 2 shipment (15mm capacitor coolers, 15mm Excalibur, left arm armor on most of the arm kits). Just straight up "oops, those were supposed to be in the box" kind of mistake like many people want to see Mantic burned at the stake for committing. However, without the sounding chamber that Mantic allows to develop with their lackluster communication on issues (in contrast once it was reported Mark was fairly on the ball about letting people know about it) and with WGF producing consistent high-quality stuff versus the spotty consistent of Mantic's supplier, people are for the most part not upset.
Again, communication is the notable difference, as people kept informed are less likely to make up their own stories. However, personally I've still not heard anything about my replacement parts being shipped...should I go rant and wail and rend my garments in the DFG thread like some of the posters in this thread? Some would apparently argue I should and not give any more money to a company that "lied" about how long the project would take. Or, I could take the view that a lot of stuff doesn't go exactly as anyone would like and not worry about minor stuff like toy soldiers.
Didn't they ask people to contact them to let them know if they wanted the missing parts sent out right away or to wait and send them with Wave 3? Not sure. I'm in Australia and they just sent them to me regardless without me needing to contact them. Of course, you could just ask Mark by posting in the thread or PMing him and you'll get an answer within a couple of days - instead of playing email tag or sending in the form that I only found out today from this thread since it's not mentionedAT the form site - that will Spam-Bin any messages from us that contain URLs. Or needing to email, email, ring, email, email, and ring again to get missing parts sent out... I do like Mantic, but their customer service needs to step up. The people there seem to be genuinely nice, and they will sometimes go the extra mile, but they're also the least competent and slowest to fix issues of any company that I'm currently dealing with. The only reasons I still deal with them is because ofthe goodwill generated by them being nice people and the previously-good 1-1 service I was able to get from them last year via Stewart and the fact that I really do want them to succeed. It's just getting harder as time goes on.
Azazelx wrote: So contact them and return them. 200 pieces of gak is on them, and should not be on you. Who gives a feth if it costs them a bit of money to refund you? But if you're concerned about bringing Mantic financial hardship due to their poor and duplicitous decisions, get the refund as KS exchange credit or something. Just don't keep them for the sake of having a cross to hoist yourself on. Your points stand well enough without the loss of your money for garbage.
Can make my own decisions, thanks.. I also explained a few pages ago what I'll actually be doing with them/ my other reasons for keeping them, which you've completely ignored. If I had zero utility for any of the parts received and they were expensive, I'd have got a refund, as it was they're dirt cheap and the bitz will go nicely on the new perrys. I'm not going off on a hard plastic martyrdom effort, just making a reasonably logical decision.
1) Posted before getting to your later post.
2) I replied to your post talking about how you don't want them. This bit is pretty emphatic:
3) 3) The other part, "feedback" was in reference to this next quote, posted by yourself some time ago. Here's the cross that I said your points stand well enough on their own without you needing to have 200 piece-of-gak figures for the points to be "legitimate". It's great that you live close enough to have access to talk to them directly, as they seem less interested or willing to take on feedback via email - I assume because internet. Hopefully they'll listen and learn.
Plus if I keep the MAA I get to legitimately complain about them in the KoW 2.0 KS comments section. I am going to be jammering away like nuts in that one, asking if they'll have command groups, asking if the command groups will be metal, asking if the sprues will have lego hands etc. etc. etc. and mentioning the men-at-arms every single time.
In the thread quoted from the Mantic subforum you said you'd convert them instead, and then, in the first section quoted above, you said you didn't want them anymore - so I assumed that you, you know, didn't want them anymore and again made the suggestion to return them. I'm actually on your side, but if you're going to be like that, I've got no problem quoting you contradicting yourself.
Well, I'm still going to be making the case for no lego hands and no unexpected material changes in the KoW 2.0 KS, at least now I don't need to worry about the quality of the sprues.
Didn't they ask people to contact them to let them know if they wanted the missing parts sent out right away or to wait and send them with Wave 3? Not sure. I'm in Australia and they just sent them to me regardless without me needing to contact them. Of course, you could just ask Mark by posting in the thread or PMing him and you'll get an answer within a couple of days - instead of playing email tag or sending in the form that I only found out today from this thread since it's not mentionedAT the form site - that will Spam-Bin any messages from us that contain URLs. Or needing to email, email, ring, email, email, and ring again to get missing parts sent out... I do like Mantic, but their customer service needs to step up. The people there seem to be genuinely nice, and they will sometimes go the extra mile, but they're also the least competent and slowest to fix issues of any company that I'm currently dealing with. The only reasons I still deal with them is because ofthe goodwill generated by them being nice people and the previously-good 1-1 service I was able to get from them last year via Stewart and the fact that I really do want them to succeed. It's just getting harder as time goes on.
I was contacted and went into the pledge manager to note I wanted some (not all). Haven't heard anything past that. If I was actually worried about getting my stuff, I'd PM him but I have faith in Mark (been a customer of DFG for a while now) and DeadZone kicked my queue so far back that they'll likely show up when they're needed even if they lost it and ship it with Wave 3.
I agree Mantic's communication is overtaxed to the point of being useless to the consumer. It's not that they're trying to ignore people; they simply do not have an efficient infrastructure. Enthusiasm can only carry you so far in building a house with a flipped over screwdriver to hammer nails instead of using the proper tools. What's more distressing to me is that it seems like they believe if they give it enough time to clear out they don't need to fix the problem...
Krinsath wrote: What's more distressing to me is that it seems like they believe if they give it enough time to clear out they don't need to fix the problem...
What I find more troubling is it does seem they're counting on allowing time to clear the back log, BUT starting a new KS project and running two KS surveys during that time.
It reminds me of the scene from the Jack Webb movie The DI where two guys are digging a hole while a third is filling it. (scene below)
Were they using a professional-grade setup, I'd have more faith.
Using a cobbled-together homegrown system says they are wallpapering over the hole. It also should say to them that if they have to delay a product, they need to look to see if there's efficiencies they can realize (and it's my belief that there are many).
Another difference between Mantic and Mark is that Mark isn't running successive Kickstarters while people haven't gotten everything from the first one. He said from the very beginning he is not averse to doing a KS for other factions but won't do it until the current one is completely finished. It means we get DFG minis slower but we know we won't be lost in the shuffle as the company moves on to the next cash cow.
Really this is my biggest complaint with Mantic and what I feel is at the root of all their issues. They're dead-set on rushing forward as quickly as possible with as many projects as possible. The end result is spotty quality, terrible customer service and the resulting gripe posts from me. I pitty them because they obviously didn't have grandfathers stand over them telling them, "Finish what you start and do it right the first time." I've tried to live by things like that my whole life and it's served me well....that said, I'm not pulling down $1.2 million off of kickstarters either.
@ SS
I don't think a month is going to cut it if they're just now taking care of LOKA....
I have to strongly disagree with overtyrant and judgedoug's requests for the thread to be deleted.
Just looking at the previous page me, petre, DaveC and a few others are still using it to post actual N&R amidst all the other stuff.
Whatever else gets posted doesn't take away from that, and I will keep updating the title super-quick for the ease of browsing of anyone looking in the N&R section. Much easier to glance at the title then decide if you want to click on the exact page with the news on it rather than trawl the thread each time. I'm just following the pattern that the Infinity thread and other well-managed N&R threads on the forum take.
To keep this post on-topic, I'll mention that there's a discussion over on the mantic forums where it has been revealed that timescale is not the only issue preventing hard plastic ff/asterians.
There are also issues with the sculpts and they're not sure if they have the skill/experience required to be able to get the undercuts right without detail loss.
Apparently they'd need a level of complex split-part tooling on a par with some of GW's character models in terms of the sculpt splits and they're not sure if either their sculptor or manufacturer can get it right. And even if they do work something out the component count might be too high.
So, there's other issues that they need to work out besides just shipping on time before they can make it happen. At the moment the Plague zombies took 2 months to get right after the initial test tooling, so while they can produce quality sprues it is still very much a learning process and takes time.
Well, the Dreadball one is locked, but that was back when KS threads remained in N&R after the KS had ended rather than being moved off to a subforum. And back when this was just the Dreadball N&R thread and nothing else.
There are the threads to use in the appropriate forum and some people do use them. Others actively choose to completely ignore they exist, and prefer to complain here as they think that posting in a subforum constitutes "burying the issue where people can't see it". I'd like to suggest that people post there with non N&R things related to KS, but this would probably be interperated as "rabid fanboi wants to shut down the truth" rather than "I'd like to keep the N&R thread full of N&R discussion".
The Dreadball thread is locked, it's true. This was done back when Dakka's policy for Kickstarter threads was different, and they were locked rather than moved. Feel free to start a Dreadball Kickstarter discussion thread in the Mantic forums, though.
Should I then complain about the N&R stuff being posted in the other thread? It's a bit silly to say that "this thread is only for this and that thread is only for that." but if a Mod were to come in here and say that it's appropriate, I'd heed them. That said, there are several Mods that have posted concerns about Mantic's policies and actions in this thread as well so....
@SS,
Do we know anything about the walker that they posted in during the KS with the big gun and enclosed cockpit? I know some people were asking about it but I don't know if anything's been said yet or not. That's the one I wouldn't mind multiple of, not that the renders of the current one are terrible mind you.
I didn't want this thread deleted just move the constant complaining to mantic general as I constantly have to dredge through all that gak to get to somes news, quite frankly it's starting to put me off Dakka..
@agnosto: There's some natural crossover between the two, since Kickstarter news is general Mantic news too.
However, I think once it gets to the point where people are having problems finding any news to discuss and are calling for the thread to be killed with fire... that's generally a sign that it's gone a bit too far offtopic. Of course discussion along this line is also offtopic. :p
No idea about the walker with gun and cockpit design, just as clueless as everyone else on that point. I like the new design, but an armoured cockpit would be nice.
The main thing that stands out as odd is that the plague cockpit has smashed glass, but the other two have no glass, so it seems like the plague carefully installed their own glass and then smashed it.
I think thats a big problem with Mantic is that they are always to busy for reasons yet charge onwards with the next kick starter anyway. Mars attacks is their most recent kick starter I think they should fix all the problems with the previous 3 before they move onto the next one.
having 2 Kickstarters worth of stuff to deliver or fix (mars attacks and whatever the next one is) is not so bad. Having 4 kick-starters to sort out and fix while gearing up for a 5th is way too much.
Alpharius wrote: Try to affect the thread more positively then - adding in complaints about complaints isn't going to help much, whereas adding in on topic posts will.
But yet nothing is done about it. Maybe saying something about moving it to general instead of complaining about the people complaining about the people....
NTRabbit wrote: It's be funny if it wasn't bloody annoying trying to read around the same few people talking about the same thing everyone else has gotten over or moved into a new phase of discussion on from the same few people in any given thread every day.
Actual question: which is supposed to be shipped first? MAKS or Deadzone part 2? I put extra DZ terrain on my MA survey since it ends first, thinking that mean it would ship first. If I'm wrong, is it still possible to change that around?
I'm not sure you can change it around (easily). At least the MA survey says to 'only submit once' or something like that (have not opened the DZ one yet but I assume it has similar instructions).
carlos13th wrote: I think thats a big problem with Mantic is that they are always to busy for reasons yet charge onwards with the next kick starter anyway. Mars attacks is their most recent kick starter I think they should fix all the problems with the previous 3 before they move onto the next one.
This is something that worries me as I only at the moment like Kings of War, but the company is just barreling forward with more and more kickstarters to fund different things, and then coming back around later. As a potential customer (I've only bought the rulebook so far) this is distressing because it doesn't give me confidence that they will support a range beyond the initial investment, and doesn't instill confidence that they can exist without kickstarters. IMO a kickstarter is just that, to get a project rolling not to keep it going.
carlos13th wrote: I think thats a big problem with Mantic is that they are always to busy for reasons yet charge onwards with the next kick starter anyway. Mars attacks is their most recent kick starter I think they should fix all the problems with the previous 3 before they move onto the next one.
This is something that worries me as I only at the moment like Kings of War, but the company is just barreling forward with more and more kickstarters to fund different things, and then coming back around later. As a potential customer (I've only bought the rulebook so far) this is distressing because it doesn't give me confidence that they will support a range beyond the initial investment, and doesn't instill confidence that they can exist without kickstarters. IMO a kickstarter is just that, to get a project rolling not to keep it going.
KoW was around for several years in public playtesting before the hardcover came out, followed by two supplements. Or do you mean Dreadball and Deadzone? DB just had a non-KS supplement get released (or about to be released)... Deadzone hasn't had it's official retail release yet
Both Dreadball and Deadzone would have existed without Kickstarter. There was a retail release planned for Dreadball before Mantic figured out that Kickstarter was good... it involved restic corp and marauder teams, metal ref and metal forgefather/veer-myn teams... and nothing else.
Only, they'd have mostly been metal ranges rather than restic and the deadzone terrain probably would have been limited to core worlds and nothing else.
While they don't necessarily require kickstarter, it is the difference between them being a medium-sized company vs. a garage company.
In previous years it was the difference between metal and restic releases... this year it should mean the difference between restic and hard plastic releases.
carlos13th wrote: I think thats a big problem with Mantic is that they are always to busy for reasons yet charge onwards with the next kick starter anyway. Mars attacks is their most recent kick starter I think they should fix all the problems with the previous 3 before they move onto the next one.
This is something that worries me as I only at the moment like Kings of War, but the company is just barreling forward with more and more kickstarters to fund different things, and then coming back around later. As a potential customer (I've only bought the rulebook so far) this is distressing because it doesn't give me confidence that they will support a range beyond the initial investment, and doesn't instill confidence that they can exist without kickstarters. IMO a kickstarter is just that, to get a project rolling not to keep it going.
I'm in two minds. I think Mantic is actually doing a fairly good job of supporting their product lines - these are either stand-alone boardgames (Dwarf King's Hold, Pandora), expandable boardgames (Dreadball), skirmish games (Deadzone, Mars Attacks) and war games (Kings of War, Warpath).
- Dreadball has had 12 teams released for it, a host of special characters and a multiplayer variant using a different board and rules. There are plans for a sequel game. I think this is comparable to the amount of support that Bloodbowl saw, and over a much more compressed time frame.
- Dead Zone has 6 factions produced for it, each with a large number of unique sculpts and model types, along with 4 different terrain types and a host of extras like co-op and scenarios. In my mind, this is equivalent to well over a year's worth of normal spread-out releases.
- Kings of War has had the core armies expanded massively, and the Kickstarter allowed the creation of a couple of new ones. Again, I'd say this represented well over a year of normal releases.
- Warpath is definitely lacking support, but is not yet a full product line.
I'd argue that Kickstarters (specifically overfunded Kickstarters) have enabled the above products to receive substantially better support than the standard 'one or two new releases a month' pattern seen through traditional funding.
Conversely, I do believe that Kickstarters have had a negative impact on how aspects of Mantic are run - I'm certain that the KS funding is indeed put directly into just creating models, but 1) the sheer rush of production has seen some issues with quality, 2) the volume and variety of product to be shipped from these is greater than the staff of a small hobby company is really equipped to deal with, and Mantic has not expanded quickly enough, and 3) customer service has similarly not been scaled up in proportion, especially with the small gaps they're leaving between Kickstarters.
I believe the customer service issue is particularly pronounced because: i) the Kickstarters have all allowed a large amount of customisation, and often involved hundreds of multipart kits per order, ii) the restic material means lots of fragile & loose little bits in bags, and iii) the surveys being used are not really up to snuff, meaning potentially multiple re-submissions per backers.
Anecdotally, my only dealing with Mantic customer service was the 1st wave of the KoW Kickstarter, when the shipping of my package was a bit late - I received a very prompt reply apologising, and my order was sent with a few extra metal characters and upgrade bits. Completely satisfied.
I don't mind mantic doing kickstarters I just think they should slow them down to a rate they can manage professionally. The quality of their product and their customer service seems to have been greatly reduced in light of them trying to juggle so many kickstarters.
Have the fully deleivered everything for LOKA? Because atm people are still waiting on corrections from dreadball, corrections and second survey from Deadzone, First wave from Mars attacks. They are clearly struggling to keep up with all that in a way that is satisfying to customers yet are dong another kickstarer this month.
You all are more versed than I am in the resin figures market, so I thought I'd ask your opinion. Is $20 a good price for a resin-cast vehicle like the Goblin Stuntbot or Enforcer on motorbike? Should I expect retail prices for those vehicles to be much higher than $20 after discounts, or about the same?
You can already go pay 20-30 bucks for one of Privateer's Heavy kits, made of the same basic stuff that Mantic seems to be using, and which I would assume are probably about the size of an Iron Ancestor.
An average Mierce creature of roughly the same size costs between 28- 50 depending on where you find one, and those are all resin.
highlord tamburlaine wrote: An average Mierce creature of roughly the same size costs between 28- 50 depending on where you find one, and those are all resin.
That would seem to indicate that the Goblin Stuntbot and Enforcer Cycle, both of which will be all resin, are well-priced at $20 each.
overtyrant wrote: I didn't want this thread deleted just move the constant complaining to mantic general as I constantly have to dredge through all that gak to get to somes news, quite frankly it's starting to put me off Dakka..
Do you have a problem with just the negative posts about ongoing Mantic endeavors (i.e., news)? Or is your problem that there is a discussion on a discussion board, and not a monotone statement of updates? Because if it's the latter, that's what Tabletop Gaming News and other websites are for. Heck, almost all of the news in this thread is reposted from the Mantic newsletter and the Mantic blog, so why not cut out the middle man?
Has Mantic addressed the now open cockpit on the Strider? I'm sure it'd be easy to convert it to be closed again, but I'm just curious about that decision.
overtyrant wrote: I didn't want this thread deleted just move the constant complaining to mantic general as I constantly have to dredge through all that gak to get to somes news, quite frankly it's starting to put me off Dakka..
Do you have a problem with just the negative posts about ongoing Mantic endeavors (i.e., news)? Or is your problem that there is a discussion on a discussion board, and not a monotone statement of updates? Because if it's the latter, that's what Tabletop Gaming News and other websites are for. Heck, almost all of the news in this thread is reposted from the Mantic newsletter and the Mantic blog, so why not cut out the middle man?
It's the constant complaining (I.e., not news) page after page that I have to trawl through to find the news and intresting discussions. If I was a new user here and came to view this or one of the GW threads I would take one look and hop on out of here. Actually now I come to think about it there is an ignore button I can use which I forgot about!
Although the monobiker had some issues, I'd like to see more of the mobile scout look for the Enforcers, maybe a little more undisciplined as they operate on the frontier, a bit like the Infinity Haqqislam bikers.
It really is a great look, in fact I think N32-19 is my favourite mini out of the entire kickstarter, just a great dynamic sculpt that really gives the impression of him having been operating behind enemy lines for some time.
A whole unit of recon enforcers in hard plastic (or even just restic, with loads of sculpt variety + not a million tiny seperate parts) would be great, and provide a nice alternative to GW's pretty crappy squarejaw plastic scouts (the metal sculpts that preceded them were so much better!).
Yeah, a Recon unit would be awesome. They would also serve a good purpose in game, giving the Enforcers a potentially cheaper, light-armoured unit specialising the point-fire rather than blazeaway. Basically, toned-down N32s.
highlord tamburlaine wrote: An average Mierce creature of roughly the same size costs between 28- 50 depending on where you find one, and those are all resin.
That would seem to indicate that the Goblin Stuntbot and Enforcer Cycle, both of which will be all resin, are well-priced at $20 each.
That's correct - resin quality is of course variable (and I've not bought anything from Mantic in the material), but I've been assured that Mantic's stuff is quite good, and this is substantially cheaper than retail resin pieces. Like Kingdom Death Kickstarter prices for resin were $25 for a single 28mm model, Studio Mcvey seems to be about $15-25 for a single 28mm-35mm model (the pricier ones coming on scenic bases. I'd bet that these will be substantially cheaper than retail.
carlos13th wrote: Dreadball extreme pitch/stadium I imagine. Probably prison themed.
All part of their current internet-treasure hunt
After the weekend, we'll be revealing the rather exciting DreadBall Xtreme preview site... but if you're clever, you can get there early! We put a trail of breadcrumbs around the internet, and if you follow them you should be able to find it! The final clues are released today...
If you want a good place to start, I'll give you a hint - one of our blog posts this week gave a fair bit of information away!
Best of luck, and please don't just give away the answer if you've found it - the fun is in the chase!
Yep the treasure hunt has been solved there is a letter hidden in that twitter image I managed to find it this morning.
The DBX teaser site is live not much to see really guess they will add more later.
They will issue the proper URL on Monday but they've asked that it be kept secret for the weekend to let people continue with the treasure hunt so I won't reveal it at least.
Those Darkhammer sets are excellent, Bioptic, thanks for linking them. I actually like their style quite a bit more than I do Mierce's. Mierce sculptors are obviously well-trained and have a classical command of human anatomy, but to me some of their sculpts end up looking a bit like a Bernini-styled human body with, say, a rhino head stuck on top. In other words, some of their sculpts flow together, some seem a bit of a mish-mash. I know they have their fierce adherents, but since I'm only speaking for myself here, I'm not looking to have an argument about my personal taste. I do love some of Mierce's work. The one figure of theirs that I own so far is Brunchaath the Vile, which is one of the very best beastmen I've seen.
I hope Darkhammer will consider branching out into sci-fi someday. That's actually one area where GW have a leg up on Mantic. If you want to throw some cool fantasy figures into your sci-fi campaign, in 40K, hey! Presto! They're chaos demons. In the Mantic universe, they'd just look stupidly out-of-place (and without magic, stupidly outmatched with their swords and bows and whatnot).
Shame on Darkhammer for false advertising, though. "The Monk with Thousand-Hand" only comes with six!
Wait a minute - the treasure hunt's big conclusion / revelation is just that Dreadball Extreme is getting a teaser website? Where's the excitement in that? Isn't there supposed to be a treasure involved in a treasure hunt, or at least a tidbit of news we weren't expecting?
Looks like they're ramping up the DBX teaser stuff now and the KS is just a couple of weeks away, so I've gone ahead and made a thread for it that collates all the info on the web that I'm aware of:
Feel free to add anything I've missed though, I feel like I should be remembering what the fourth team is besides convicts, asterians, forgefathers.. rebs, most likely?
I know many people are still interested in the progress (or lack of) on missing Deadzone items. It absolutely is news - it's news about the awful customer service Mantic gives its customers. This is relevant to all their potential new customers.
It's now been 10 weeks since I submitted my order query form, mainly for a missing Enforcer and Plague starter from my Strike team. Been in touch with Chris Palmer at Mantic a few times. Was told by him on 30.01.14 that he's 'investigate your (my) response'. Haven't heard back since. I contacted Chris and James again yesterday, asked for an update by the end of the day, completely ignored.
Just absolutely shocking service. How the hell do they think I can spend more money with them on the 2nd survey, or back their latest Kickstarter, when 10 weeks after cocking up my 1st shipment, they're in no hurry to resolve it?!
I know many people are happy with their shipment and the majority probably were shipped correctly, but new customers or backers need to know that if there is an issue, Mantic won't be rushing to resolve it
scarletsquig wrote: Feel free to add anything I've missed though, I feel like I should be remembering what the fourth team is besides convicts, asterians, forgefathers.. rebs, most likely?
Alpharius wrote: And you've really got to think at some point (soon?) Mantic will get stung with the "ANOTHER FREAKIN' KICKSTARTER?!?" backlash.
That is, unless they get a handle on their quality and customer service issues.
And while it sucks that people are having these issues, as somebody who has had minimal problems that were solved immediately, I'll keep throwing them money as they've done right by me almost every step of the way. I DO think they're foolish having another KS right away, as most businesses would want their customers' wallets to take some time to refill. If I go in big for the Deadzone KS second survey, I may not be able to throw much/anything at the DBX KS.
So yeah, to any Mantic staff looking in: I love your products. I've bought from everything so far. But please slow down, so you can take more of my money! And I guess take care of these guys having issues too. But mostly slow down so I can afford to keep giving you guys cash directly!
For me the main issue is how long it takes to take the mould lines off restic... I have minis that took longer to clean than they did to paint.
It's not that I don't want the new stuff, more that the existing backlog is getting a bit too big for me, largely as a result of it being so time-consuming.
And I'm saying that as someone who has been housebound for the last 9 weeks with not much better to do than clean up mould lines/ paint (love the latter, hate the former).. after all that time my backlog still isn't clear! Deadzone is 100%, several hundred Basileans are in the queue. :p
So, as far as purchasing goes, I'm gonna have to dial back a bit I think, hard plastic = yes, restic.. just has a time cost associated with it that I'm rapidly discovering has no place in my life.
I'd actually prefer (one-piece) metal, cleanup on a nice one-piece metal is a breeze, and Mantic casts them very well in-house.
KoW 2.0 I will go big on, for a Nature army. Not in restic, though (which it won't be, lovely masses of hard plastic infantry is already in sculpting for that KS, only the large models and cavalry are being done in restic).
scarletsquig wrote: You could be right about that, definitely heard something about a Rebs team, but that was ages ago and the concept might have changed to Convicts.
A Rebs team would be interesting fluff-wise - playing unsanctioned Dreadball to earn money to finance their operations - but the team would either take members from the existing Human, Judwan, Zee and Teraton teams, ignore them completely in favour of Grogans, Yndij and Kraww, or go for new sculpts of existing species. The orange jumpsuit team probably adds more without covering old ground.
scarletsquig wrote: So, as far as purchasing goes, I'm gonna have to dial back a bit I think, hard plastic = yes, restic.. just has a time cost associated with it that I'm rapidly discovering has no place in my life.
I agree completely. I don't have any ill feelings towards Mantic about restic, as I knew what I was getting into with Deadzone and Mars Attacks and decided in advance that I would take the time required to clean up the PVC. But at this point I can't justify buying even more models that will take forever to prep and paint, never mind buying tons of them. Dreadball EX is pretty much dead in the water for me at the moment due to this; they'd have to put out something amazing (and non-restic) for Deadzone to bring me on board for a reasonable amount. (Such as, say, some nice new hard plastic terrain kit at a great price.) I don't have much interest in fantasy figures these days, but now that you say they're planning to do troops in hard plastic, I'll at least have a look at KOW 2.0. Sometimes I'm still a bit of a sucker for fun evil fantasy factions.
I'll probably be haunting the $1 fringes of Mantic kickstarters until the hard plastic Warpath KS gets going. Chances are good that my Deadzone / Mars Attacks restic figures will keep me plenty busy until then.
I much prefer metal to restic too. Its very un-likley I will be buying much more restic from mantic. Don't mind so much for the bigger models but the small ones are a nightmare to clean.
Mantic really need to ensure they are not in a postion where they have not fixed the problems from 3 kickstarters ago yet are starting another kickstarter. It does not sit well with customers.
Its a shame they didn't offer single models as was rumoured. Would love to pick up a second gen 1 plauge and a second teraton but I wont buy a whole new starter for it.
Still would like to see what the Forgefathers actually look like, other than concept art. I don't mind them all being Restic, but I really need to see more than black outlines before I spent my 50-75 bucks.
I know this is probably a given by now, but i confirmed by KS message that you cannot add additional pledge levels to the second survey (i.e. extra Recon).
Mars Attacks! isn't restic though, it's that other softer board game figures plastic
That's true, but I think the mold line issues / cleaning of Mars Attacks will be very similar to dealing with restic. That is, if the figures really are anything like the Gears of War figures, which I have worked with.
scarletsquig wrote: @agnosto: There's some natural crossover between the two, since Kickstarter news is general Mantic news too.
So.. for clarity's sake - Zombies will be in hard plastic, Asterians and Forge Fathers will be in Restic - and what about the Enforcers and Enforcers' Not-Terminators?
GrimDork wrote: ^ but playing devils advocate here, we haven't seen sprues or heard much at all about those yet right?
Speaking of... was the HP enforcer sprue on the survey? Don't remember.
Good question - I don't remember that one either.
Though it must be, and it is also the reason for the long period of time that the survey is open - we'll have a chance to see the Enforcers in HP before we have to lock it up.
Oh well. I ordered 2 starters survey 1 so I guess that will do. Probably figured if they let the sprues go separately they might overwork their manufacturer. Or something. Its not like they ever said they'd put them up for individual sale did they?
GrimDork wrote: Oh well. I ordered 2 starters survey 1 so I guess that will do. Probably figured if they let the sprues go separately they might overwork their manufacturer. Or something. Its not like they ever said they'd put them up for individual sale did they?
No. When casting HIPS the machine does all the work. All you need to do is occasionally move the big pile of finished sprues, to make room for more sprues. HIPS is very simple: more production is better production, and more sales is better sales.
Not having hard plastic Enforcer sprues available to buy separately on the survey - which they know would be a huge money-maker, like the zombies - makes absolutely no practical business sense. Even as a pressure tactic to get people buying more Enforcer starters it would be bone-headed, as many more people would buy multiple sprues independently than grudgingly buy them via extra starters they don't want. To me it's a sign that Mantic is still worried that their hard plastic Enforcers won't turn out well after all, and they're trying not to overreach by inviting additional sales. That may be unfair, but in the absence of other information, I'm not seeing what else can be inferred here.
James previously said that, assuming the hard plastic Enforcers are ace, they'll automatically upgrade normal Enforcers in the sets to hard plastic and then offer them up as add ons (as you can continue to edit your survey response until the day it ends). It makes more sense to do it that way than to put them on the survey and have something bad happen and have to deal with several thousand people who were expecting hard plastic. My survey is in limbo right now as I ordered lots of restic Enforcers including individual poses in restic, so I'm waiting for the hard plastic results then I'll rejig my responses.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Doug Craig Thanks Mantic! Last question re: Enforcers. Will the survey be open long enough for us to know the outcome of the sprues/results of the hard plastic enforcers, esp if they have to get tooled in (the originally planned) restic instead?
Like · January 24 at 11:59am
Mantic Games Yes indeedy.
Like · January 24 at 12:17pm
I would imagine that additional Enforcer sprues will be ordered by making a note in the comments section of the survey after Mantic has indicated their pricing in an update.
I just posted a question on their FB page asking for a clarification of the current situation of the hard plastic Enforcers and will post their response when it comes.
I do think it was omitted until they were happy with it and were certain it'd be offered as hard plastic. Their reach already extended their grasp once with the Forge Fathers and Asterians so it'd make sense they'd try to avoid the hassle and angst of doing a bunch of refunds if things don't work out right. Doesn't exactly fill me with confidence mind you, but I'll wait and see.
I wonder how it will affect the Enforcer booster it's $20 for 5 minis most of which will be built from the hard plastics if it works out I wonder if you will still get 2 sprues (10 minis) instead as the HP sprue only has 1 shield.
GrimDork wrote: Yar. Makes sense not to throw it on the survey if they have any reservations at all. Not even sure I could use extras even if they are offered.
I agree, smart decision on their part. I'm sure War Path (or whatever the 40k-ish game is called) Enforcer deals will have these sprues included at a reasonable price once Mantic gets them cranking out the way they want them. The DZ folks interested in getting a ton are probably doing so for the Big Game anyway so waiting to get them right to offer them really shouldn't hurt anyone.
Big one. Definitely bigger, should uncomfortably seat a pilot now. Still not buying 4 inches. Maybe. Big mech's running pose is right at 2 inches. Well, strider should at least top 3 in an action pose and that's pretty solid ml.
DaveC wrote: I wonder how it will affect the Enforcer booster it's $20 for 5 minis most of which will be built from the hard plastics if it works out I wonder if you will still get 2 sprues (10 minis) instead as the HP sprue only has 1 shield.
yeah iirc they said you'd get enough sprues to replicate at the minimum what was offered originally in restic. so that would translate to getting 2+ sprues but would not surprise me if they threw in more.
This is the official Deadzone ™ tile for Mantic Games. It is approved, and they're packing it now.
Backers who ordered ONLY the Deadzone tile will see their orders shipped first. This is a reflection of our agreement with Mantic Games to get the tile shipped in time for the final wave of the Deadzone Kickstarter campaign pledges. If we couldn't get them the tile before March, they'd have to refund everyone... and that would be bad. Very bad.
Since Mantic Games is going to be shipping THEIR tiles in March, we're going to do the same -- but, again, only to those backers who ordered ONLY the Deadzone tile sets.
We will focus the rest of our efforts into getting all of the other orders out as quickly as possible.
I'd say MisterJustin was told to get them to Mantic by March or deals off they will most likely ship with wave 2 when ever that happens unless Mantic are planning to ship these separately but I can't see them covering the costs on another round of shipping it's possible though as the $60 cost did include shipping at least on the Secret Weapon KS so MisterJustin might be picking up the shipping bill.
Mantic are doing EU fulfilment for Secret Weapon (the whole KS), they've probably got something worked out.
I ordered mine on the SWKS so should be getting it in March.. I only ordered the DZ board so I should be one of the first to get it. Might even ship out before Mantic ships the rest in the second wave.
Really looking forward to it since there's a local campaign starting in March that I'm hoping to be able to get to. I'll be painting it sandstone simply to make a change from the usual grey.
One really rather cool feature of that DZ board... the recesses in the plastic appear to be at the same angle as the edge of a piece of deadzone terrain... so in theory the building should be able to slot into the board.
One really rather cool feature of that DZ board... the recesses in the plastic appear to be at the same angle as the edge of a piece of deadzone terrain... so in theory the building should be able to slot into the board.
I noticed that. That's going to be really spiffy, assuming they got the dimensions exactly right.
...and you glued your buildings exactly,precisely, 100.000% right. Otherwise it's mainly going to launch buildings crammed into those crevices straight up every time you look at them funny due to all that tension.
It's a hard plastic board, so potentially you could glue the buildings to the board and create a sweet setup that is still modular because the board itself is made of 1x1 tiles.
I think this + the DZ terrain could end up being the easiest modular city board solution on the market, especially if you made sure it was geomorphic so that all the streets lined up.
The ruins battlezone pieces would look especially great glued in-line with the crater so that where the wall ends the crater begins.
scarletsquig wrote: It's a hard plastic board, so potentially you could glue the buildings to the board and create a sweet setup that is still modular because the board itself is made of 1x1 tiles.
I think this + the DZ terrain could end up being the easiest modular city board solution on the market, especially if you made sure it was geomorphic so that all the streets lined up.
The ruins battlezone pieces would look especially great glued in-line with the crater so that where the wall ends the crater begins.
GrimDork wrote: ^ but playing devils advocate here, we haven't seen sprues or heard much at all about those yet right?
Yeah, that's why I was having the "so.. what's all that about again?" query.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DaveC wrote: I wonder how it will affect the Enforcer booster it's $20 for 5 minis most of which will be built from the hard plastics if it works out I wonder if you will still get 2 sprues (10 minis) instead as the HP sprue only has 1 shield.
I guess we're going to see if Mantic want to go the "slightly cheaper than GW" route, or the "big armies - cheap" route for WarPath and related games when the hard plastic starts to return.
I'll cross my fingers for the later though if they get some proper fluff going I'd be inclined towards the manticverse even if they were just barely cheaper. I like corporation marines and enforcers, and several other wp aesthetics. And the MV isn't 100% hard SciFi but its closer than the sci fantasy that is 40k. And no insult meant, 40k fluff is somewhat of a draw for me, I like it. I'm just getting to the point where I appreciate my space soldiers and wizards with a larger degree of separation. Oh and the rules. I know wp1.0/2.0 both have some issues but I almost always hear good things about KoW. Fast simple rules will definitely swing my vote.
The last time Mantic had a price adjustment on the Warpath hard plastics, it was to reduce the price by 25%.
I'm certain that you're all going to be really pleased with the WP KS when it comes along. I am fairly confident that it will beat Reaper Bones' record.
scarletsquig wrote: The last time Mantic had a price adjustment on the Warpath hard plastics, it was to reduce the price by 25%.
I'm certain that you're all going to be really pleased with the WP KS when it comes along. I am fairly confident that it will beat Reaper Bones' record.
Also, entirely OT, +1 to Azazel's custom title.
If they design the Veer-myn to be like guards and Reek from Dreadball and in hard plastic, I'm in for a huge amount.
judgedoug wrote: I just posted a question on their FB page asking for a clarification of the current situation of the hard plastic Enforcers and will post their response when it comes.
Doug Craig
hey Mantic - is there any update on the hard plastic Enforcers? my first survey still has tons of restic Enforcers including individual poses, and I'm holding off on completing my second survey until the hard plastic Enforcers are finalized. you've previously mentioned that, assuming hard plastic Enforcers are good, the basic restic poses will get replaced with hard plastic. is that still the plan? if they are good tools and Mantic will release them, people like myself (who got several individual restic Enforcer poses) will get to swap for the hard plastic? and will the hard plastic sprue then become available on the survey to purchase?
Like · · 22 hours ago
Mantic Games
Hi Doug,
The most up-to-date information regarding Hard Plastic Enforcers is here:
We're still working out the details, but it will all be finalised before the survey deadline, including details of what will happen if you ordered individuals and how to get your hands on more sprues
I have a rather juicy bit of verified rumour to offer this thread. Really, really rather juicy indeed.
But, in advance, I have to stress it is what Mantic are *planning*. And of course, that may change (as you're no doubt well aware of at this point and may or may not have complained at length about bait-and-switch/ horrible comms/ Ronnie personally running over your dog).
So, while I'll pass on the rumour I have to stress that this is non-official, non-binding, I am not a spokesperson for the company, I do not make the tea there, I am not secretly Fisty Glue Man's rentboy etc. etc. etc.
Do not get mad and write a 20 paragraph rant if it doesn't actually happen.
Especially do not post said 20 paragraph rant in this thread, calling me out specifically. If you do I reserve the right to reply with the traditional wet trout slap response as is traditional per internet protocol.
Okay, lengthy disclaimer over, here is the news/ rumour:
Spoiler:
Warpath Kickstarter will be 100% hard plastic. Mantic are planning stretch goals up to at least $2.5m pre-launch.
Oh my. I'm down - but that's likely 2015, eh? I'm fine with a year+ for Mantic to work out production, and hopefully launch the KS with some test sprues already done.
@judgedoug: Q4 this year, hopefully. Might be 2015 though, it just depends on how things go. DBX and KoW 2.0 (not entirely hard plastic that one, just the infantry) are the Kickstaterters that will ship this year. And they want to only start the Warpath KS after KoW 2.0 is shipping.
Good on them! So the kickkstarter either won't produce elites and characters, or they'll be HP? Cool. If it times out when I have monies they'll probably get more than a little from me.
^ Unsure about that. Think you might be right with the former, although it is worth noting that peacekeepers and forge guard are elites and have been considered for hard plastic, so its entirely possible that just plain every unit will be hard plastic. Even I will be amazed if they do characters in the material, I guess it's possible they might include "character bitz" on the sprues.. or possibly just in-house produce them all in metal as a standard non-KS release. I don't mind either way, really.
It'll definitely be razor-focused on masses of infantry and vehicles for all eight of the Warpath armies. Same format as the zombie sprue for all infantry, 5-man sprues. Entirely possible that Mantic will produce more new sci-fi kits than GW in 2015, they are really ramping up the company, moving to much larger new premises and moving things up a gear.
I just wanna know up front. I'm not adding a bunch to this one anyway without the hard plastic FF but I won't be pissy if they don't get made. Just hold off until the WP kickstarter. At this point I'm probably adding another 8 Battlezones and some striders for conversions (since at $10 each they are super ridiculous).
Yeah +1 character bits. And versatile sprues, if they could just moderately expand the marines sprue to incorporate vets and rangers as well, and do that across the factions.
Wonder what you would do to make w character without gimping a squad? If you turn one of 5-20 into something separate.. got 4 guys laying around. What do?
Yeah, $10 for something dreadnought equivalent... awesome. Or well maybe they're more like sentinels or something given they come in 3's for warpath... still.
GrimDork wrote: Yeah +1 character bits. And versatile sprues, if they could just moderately expand the marines sprue to incorporate vets and rangers as well, and do that across the factions.
It would probably be easier in the long run to make veteran and ranger 'half sprues' and chuck one in with a marine sprue for those units. That way you don't lose space/options on the marine sprue.
That wouldn't be a bad deal. The renedra sprues worked that way, they cut off half the dwarf hand gunner sprue and stuck the SciFi bits on there for steel warriors.
I wanna see some tanks. And scout vehicles too. Air/space craft if it blows up stupid huge, or not, don't really care for flying things too much, more interested in potentially hovering tanks
GrimDork wrote: Yeah +1 character bits. And versatile sprues, if they could just moderately expand the marines sprue to incorporate vets and rangers as well, and do that across the factions.
It would probably be easier in the long run to make veteran and ranger 'half sprues' and chuck one in with a marine sprue for those units. That way you don't lose space/options on the marine sprue.
ANOTHER freakin' awesome idea!
SS - please tell me you're taking notes/passing these things along!
agnosto wrote: Something that GW could learn from Mantic apparently.
Well, I think we're aware Mantic is cheaper than GW by now though.
More about the concept of providing discounts for bulk purchases instead of, "Here's a one-click bundle that costs exactly the same as if you'd go through and add it all to your cart separately.." I know GW has provided a few discounted bundles lately but it's not exactly a giant surprise that other companies figured it out a hundred years earlier.
scarletsquig wrote: I have a rather juicy bit of verified rumour to offer this thread. Really, really rather juicy indeed.
But, in advance, I have to stress it is what Mantic are *planning*. And of course, that can never change (as you're no doubt well aware of at this point and may or may not have complained at length about bait-and-switch/ horrible comms/ Ronnie personally running over your dog).
So, while I'll pass on the rumour I have to stress that this is official, binding, I am a spokesperson for the company, I make the tea there, I am secretly Fisty Glue Man's rentboy etc. etc. etc.
Do get mad and write a 20 paragraph rant if it doesn't actually happen.
Especially post said 20 paragraph rant in this thread, calling me out specifically. If you do I reserve the right to reply with the traditional trout dinner response as is traditional per internet protocol.
Warpath Kickstarter will be 100% hard plastic. Mantic are planning stretch goals up to at least $2.5m pre-launch.[/spoiler]
Very, very exciting!
That sounds like a rather good plan, if it can come to fruition. I do hope they wait till 2015 and do it properly, even if that means not launching all factions in HIPS at the time via the WP KS. Something this big is obviously better done carefully, slowly and properly. Hopefully with a lot or even all of the current/2014 KS backlog cleared out so they can do it well without being distracted by quality control failures and fulfilment from two-three campaigns ago.
They're not launching it until Deadzone and Mars Attacks are 100% shipped, and DBX/ KoW 2.0 have at least shipped their first wave. You're going to have hard plastics from both Deadzone and KoW 2.0 in-hand when it's running, so hopefully that will make everyone more confident with putting a big chunk of cash down. I'm going to be there with $1000 on day 1, probably going to come out of it with 8 massive sci-fi armies. It is the game I have been waiting for, a proper 40k competitor and I will be going all-in.
Gotta love the surprise people are having at the 33% discount bundle deal. They've been doing this sort of thing for 4 years already.
Back in the day they used to do "100 minis for £50" deals with every new hard plastic unit they released, about 2-3 months before they came out. It was like ghetto Kickstarter.
They've always been huge on pre-order deals so Kickstarter for them wasn't so much a new way of doing business, just a much more effective version of what they'd already been doing on their webstore.
Those are the 8 confirmed Warpath races anyway, anything beyond that is anyone's guess and would probably be beyond the scope of even a very large and very crazy Kickstarter.
I'm mostly looking forward to the Zz'or. Hundreds and hundreds of Zz'or.
Hey all. Long time thread reader, first time poster (mainly due to the whining/news and rumours ratio). I'm prompted to jump in and say how excited I am about the (possible) WP KS. Everything about it ticks all the right boxes for me. All the races, hard plastic and, most importantly, waiting for the current KSs to finish before forging on for it.
I can't wait to get my DZ Peacekeepers on the battlefield.
I may well be set on corporation infantry and enforcers. I kind of hope the armies stay together. It doesn't really matter if the allies system remains vaguely as it is now, but still. I could certainly use tanks for both armies, and I'll probably look into some forge father stuff to convert my modest dwarf horde into something presentable. Couple of things to round out plauge maybe. Probably lay off of the veer-myn, z'zor... not sure about marauders. I should have plenty of them after the kickstarter, same with rebs. Usually stay away from space elves but the aesterians are a bit different so we'll see.
SS: Think they'll be having Alessio writing the rules this time around? Have any of the 1.0 Vs 2.0 slash 40k equivalent Vs Apocalypse equivalent debates gotten anywhere lately?
I hope they do complete army sets rather than lots of races with missing options. Would prefer half as many complete sets than I would lots of incomplete races.
Also I really hope they go into Warpath with either no other kickstarter baggage to complete or only one kickstarter left to ship/fix. Warpath is a flagship of theirs and it would be stupid to do it cack handed.
GrimDork wrote: SS: Think they'll be having Alessio writing the rules this time around? Have any of the 1.0 Vs 2.0 slash 40k equivalent Vs Apocalypse equivalent debates gotten anywhere lately?
Can't see why Alessio wouldn't be writing it. The "I want 40k 2nd edition" and "I want 28mm Epic" sides of the debate both still refuse to give ground.
GrimDork wrote: SS: Think they'll be having Alessio writing the rules this time around? Have any of the 1.0 Vs 2.0 slash 40k equivalent Vs Apocalypse equivalent debates gotten anywhere lately?
Can't see why Alessio wouldn't be writing it. The "I want 40k 2nd edition" and "I want 28mm Epic" sides of the debate both still refuse to give ground.
Oooh, a 28mm version of epic "Space Marine" with order counters etc, that sounds good!
But of course. 40k sized game has the bigger market, more models as the primary game kind of becomes it's own thing but threatens to be harder to get into and more niche.
The way they've been doing the rules for their last few games... Maybe I can hope that they'll pick one, but after the kickstarter blows up and goes crazy, one of the middle-late stretch goals will be the other game type? Deadzone started two player single mat, but grew to have multi-mat multiplayer and even solo. We haven't see the proof of concept on those types, but I'm fairly confident they'll be good.
Mars attacks did the same thing, normal single mat games, then points battles, etc came along.
Perhaps they'll debut with 40k sized game and stretch goal up a mass battles. Or vice versa. Would be a good time to implement and tool those clear plastic X shaped "movement aids" we were talking about in one of the threads.
But would you buy the tanks if they had really long arms and ridiculously short legs?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BobtheInquisitor wrote: [Choosing to make Veermyn instead of Nameless would be a huge mistake. So, yeah, I can see it happening.
Mantic: almost.
I have room in my heart for Remy's Veer-myn at least, but I agree, I'd much rather have Nameless. I think Mantic is afraid anything that smacks of Cthulhu or seafood is box-office poison.
Ratmen however, always bring home the...cheese?
What are we doing again?
Looking forward to seeing what vehicles they have planned. Really don't need another sci-fi rules set, unless Mantic gets bought by Fantasy Flight and suddenly releases Star Wars Path.
Cthulhu is Box Office Gold in every Kickstarter I've seen them involved in!
Yep, I was kidding - I can't understand their avoidance of the Nameless in the slightest. I think a Nameless army would do very well, but they're just not making it into the big 8, are they?
Didn't the Fairytale Battle Royal miniatures include a zombie Cthulhu? Could have sworn it did.
I'll be happy with Warpath if I can have some kind of living, walking tanks, short stubby legs be damned! How high do they need to be off the ground anyway?
I will echo the sentiment that I want all the other stuff cleared out of their pipelines before going whole hog on this.
I do also hope they try to get as much groundwork laid out as possible prior to launching. Have a few sprues tooled up ready to SHOW us from the get go.
Hard plastic is essential but not sufficient for Mantic to stop being gak. If the Warpath Kickstarter is 100% plastic AND the concepts are good AND the sculpts are good AND they have more than the bare minimum number of parts AND the integral bases stay gone, they'll be worth looking at.
AlexHolker wrote: Hard plastic is essential but not sufficient for Mantic to stop being gak. If the Warpath Kickstarter is 100% plastic AND the concepts are good AND the sculpts are good AND they have more than the bare minimum number of parts AND the integral bases stay gone, they'll be worth looking at.
Well they already hit those two with Deadzone, I thought all of the concepts were good, and all of the final sculpts we've seen to date. I understand some people don't like the Marauders, some don't like the 3rd Gens, some don't like the Rebs weapon team and some don't like the Cypher renders, but that's just personal opinion rather than definitive fact.
Integral bases, I can see why they did them, but personally I'm cutting them all off. If they don't remove them completely, they need to at least prevent future platform shoe incidents.
Integrated bases need to go for the Scifi game. I realize they *can* make basing models easier, but it seems like I hear more modelers taking the hard route and cutting them off than talking them up. For fantasy? I don't really mind them. But not for scifi games with individually based minis and no movement trays.
I think some of the plague and marauder poses are sort of derpy, though hard plastic kits would give me more leverage to fix such things and so I have to agree that overall I like what I've seen.
Seems like the more digital sculpts they do the more likely we are to get concepts matched.
Durn near ecstatic, and when they tell me my order has finally shipped in a few days (evil glare engaged) I will be properly so
I appreciate the sentiment They have suggested as much. We shall see, I'll just be glad to finally have my stuff. May go on over to the kickstarter page and shoot them one more email just to be the squeaky wheel (in soviet deadzone, the metaphor is you!).
GrimDork wrote: Integrated bases need to go for the Scifi game. I realize they *can* make basing models easier, but it seems like I hear more modelers taking the hard route and cutting them off than talking them up. For fantasy? I don't really mind them. But not for scifi games with individually based minis and no movement trays.
For me the big issue with the integral bases was the very poor execution. The platform shoes added to some figures to fit them on those bases were just a bad choice.
Anyway, I'm not going to ever be a War Path player, but hope they do make some cool vehicles and figs I can use with other rule sets. I would love some decent 28mm plastic sci fi vehicles. I'm not a big fan of the styling on a lot of GWs stuff, tending to like a more 'hard sci fi' look. I'm hoping Mantic will come up with some cool stuff I can use. I may participate in the KS for cool terrain or a few other items, but won't be spending nearly as much as some of you guys.
AlexHolker wrote: Hard plastic is essential but not sufficient for Mantic to stop being gak. If the Warpath Kickstarter is 100% plastic AND the concepts are good AND the sculpts are good AND they have more than the bare minimum number of parts AND the integral bases stay gone, they'll be worth looking at.
Well they already hit those two with Deadzone, I thought all of the concepts were good, and all of the final sculpts we've seen to date. I understand some people don't like the Marauders, some don't like the 3rd Gens, some don't like the Rebs weapon team and some don't like the Cypher renders, but that's just personal opinion rather than definitive fact.
Integral bases, I can see why they did them, but personally I'm cutting them all off. If they don't remove them completely, they need to at least prevent future platform shoe incidents.
You're correct that my dislike of the Marauder commando and Ripper suit poses (love the rest of the Marauders, actually) is not a fact, anymore than your statement that the concepts and sculpts for deadzone were good was. (Even though I happen to agree with you for the most part)
Opinions matter a great deal in an industry where purchases are guided largely by personal taste, though. Nor do you need to have a "majority" opinion for it to impact sales. Even if only 20% of their customers agree with my view, that's a hit Mantic would rather not take. It's a hit I'd rather not deliver to them, either, as I like their product a lot.
The "fact" of the matter is that overall Deadzone has been a fantastic deal for me, I love most of the models, and I have no regrets about backing it. It is also "fact" that I would have bought more Marauder and Plague starters if I actually liked the commandos and 3rd gens, but as things are, I will be filling out their ranks with substituted models bought from other companies.
Nobody is going to like everything, so if only 20% of their customers don't like them, why would they change something the other 80% are buying?
If it was the other way around, and 80% were not buying them, then that would be a majority opinion of them being bad, and give Mantic a hit
So essentially, all sculpts have their admirers and detractors, so they all sell equally well? It's actually not the case that the Plague 1st gen, the only figure in the game sculpted by Remy, is generally better liked by more people, so it's now being sold individually and at a higher price than any other model in the game? It would sell just as well if another sculptor had been hired to do it, and fewer people liked it, as long as a majority still did? There's no meaningful difference between, say, a 70/30 majority and a 90/10 majority?
Some sculpts appeal to more buyers than others, and some sculptors have a higher hit ratio than others. Talent, training, experience, and artistic vision may be hard to quantify, but to deny they exist or that they play any role in miniature sales would be equally hard to argue. It's not about my taste versus yours, wrong vs. right, my loss is your gain, end of story. Business is not a zero-sum game. Any loss of profit isn't good, and every potential sale matters. The question isn't whether my opinion is in the minority and yours is in the majority. The question is whether the minority opinion is larger than usual and cutting into profits more than it "should" be.
I'm not a Mantic hater - far, far from it - and I'm not "angry" at them about the small percentage of sculpts I don't like. I don't have a personal animosity towards people like yourself who like them, either, and I'm not going out of my way to prove that your taste is "wrong". I'm glad you like those sculpts. But I find "majority rules, like it or lump it" arguments naive. The people who lump it don't change their minds and buy models they don't care for, they take their money elsewhere. If you want to talk percentages, the one that matters is whether that (hopefully) minority percentage of people who leave is larger than it ordinarily would be. If that percentage is higher than normal, it's a good sign you might want to adjust your concept for that line or hire a different sculptor.
And in the case of the Marauder style, which deliberately follows an established legacy in the miniature market, there are other factors. Maybe a GW heroic Ork style will bring in far more customers than it alienates. Maybe a higher percentage of KS customers disliking the product will be more than offset by the higher percentage of 40K fans dipping into Deadzone just to bulk up their Ork armies. In which case, from a business perspective, Mantic are doing the smart thing.
It's possible you're annoyed by the more or less constant, hyperbolic stream of negativity on these forums towards Mantic, and that you see this argument as an extension of that. I admit I don't know your mind and am only guessing here. Whether you do or do not, I don't see it that way. I actually don't think this is a huge issue to get hysterical about; as I said before, I'm very happy with Deadzone overall. I just don't believe that discounting the opinions of others, negative or positive, in blanket terms on the basis of "fact" is necessary or logical.
Vermonter wrote: Shame the Nameless get left out, but between the Veer-myn and Zz'or I'd probably get my monster itch sufficiently scratched.
Choosing to make Veermyn instead of Nameless would be a huge mistake. So, yeah, I can see it happening.
Veer-myn are awesome. you couldn't be more wrongererrerer!
I bought the one player set and then after I got them I went crazy and now I own *checks google drive* nightcrawlers -50, nightmares - 30, nightspawn - 1, stalkers - 30, scourgers 5
and would buy even more
My mind is split on the Veer-myn. If you had asked me before Mantic did them, I would have said putting Skaven in space would be an incredibly stupid idea. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the sculpts Remy produced for Mantic of the Veer-myn make me love them in all their character and absurdity. I'd definitely buy an army of them in a Warpath KS, provided the sculpts live up to the current standard.
The Vermin are bad in every conceivable way. They're an ugly implementation of an insipid concept presented as being implausibly significant by their idiotic flavour text. The setting is literally worse for their very existence, because it draws more attention to Mantic's childish portrayal of the Corporation as equal parts baby-eating evil and paint-licking stupid.
NTRabbit wrote: Which is still demanding the sculpts change to suit a minority view.
Nobody is going to like everything, so if only 20% of their customers don't like them, why would they change something the other 80% are buying?
If it was the other way around, and 80% were not buying them, then that would be a majority opinion of them being bad, and give Mantic a hit
So 20% of the people who 'bought' them disliked them? That is pretty bad. What about all the people who did not buy them because they were terrible models? There were a large number of uncounted people who did not buy the marauders because they were bad models.
The problem is, Mantic has bad sculpters. other KS can fire off 100 models with every single one being a hit. And there is a difference between not liking the subject matter and a bad sculpt.
Mantic has a serious failure in faithfully translating concept art to models (which most other companies have no problem doing) and has a serious documented failure in actually fixing real, identified flaws... (this is not 100% done! and then we find out it was)
Unlike every single other KS out there, people are buying in bulk, based upon concept art with the expectation they will probably need to throw away a % of the models because they will be crap sculpts, throw away another % because they will be damaged and then roughly get the rest at a decent price. I cannot remember another KS where that expectation happened or was expected to happen. Myth is getting ready to drop with dozens of sculpts and every single one is a home run and a faithful recreation of the art I pledged for. It can be done, mantic has bad artists and weak art direction.
The Vermin are bad in every conceivable way. They're an ugly implementation of an insipid concept presented as being implausibly significant by their idiotic flavour text. The setting is literally worse for their very existence, because it draws more attention to Mantic's childish portrayal of the Corporation as equal parts baby-eating evil and paint-licking stupid.
Just the same tired old detractors twisting words declaring their personal opinion about the models they dislike the most to be fact.
The proof will be in the sales of each faction (boosters for the Plague and Corporation, since they're in the retail box), and so far none of us have those sales figures yet. Given the wide positive reaction I've seen to the Marauders from places that aren't here, I'm reasonably confident the Marauders have sold well.
The most basic flaw of the race is that the threshold at which humanity wages a war of extermination against the proto-Veer-myn is lower than the threshold at which the proto-Veer-myn can do anything about it. They cannot grow powerful enough to challenge us right under our noses, because in growing individually more powerful they would sacrifice the only attributes that keep them alive. They're the least inspired sort of fantasy race with backstory that makes no sense in the science fiction setting Warpath purports to be.
pretre wrote: I think he did elaborate. But if you really want more of that...
3 years ago... they were pimped of being a 'secret race' that was a conspiracy, kept from the civilians of the universe, and a master threat to the corporations foundation. Something so dire and evil, there is an un-ending threat to humanity. It actually sounded cool, unique and as if Mantic was going to make a serious go at having a distinct, real universe onto their own.
And then it was fantasy skaven with goggles who hadn't mastered shoes and had torn leather loincloths. It had a really bad reaction and has probably been ret-conned by now.
The issue is 'meatgrinder hoard' races mean nothing in Sci-Fi because one person can carpetbomb a million aliens to death from orbit. Nids and Orks have a specific reproduction format which makes it at least plausible for them to replenish massive casualties in a reasonable way. Rats in space do not... While they would be more prolific, they would be no where near the level of reproductive and ability to teach offspring to keep themselves alive let alone be the greatest threat to humanity ever. If they had a real government, their own planets and so on, maybe, but not an 'under-race' living in human civilization.
It is skaven in space, which was lazy which made people sad.
Well.. we may not be seeing James Hewitt back.. according to the newsletter I just got.. he is parting ways with Mantic to go write gaming rules elsewhere...
Personally I thought Veer-myn were awesome. Who doesn't like Space Skaven? If anything the one that I hate is Forge Fathers since people seem to have this hard-on for Squats ever since GW threw them out 20 some years ago, and they were garbage then.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Looks like MA update 83 clarifies some of the survey issues and bumps the deadline to the 2nd of march. Supposedly some stuff is clearer and the graphics are accurate to the point of including extra stuff for the sake of simplicity. Also says the Google drive thing can only send 500 emails a day but they are going out now.
I'll have to do s new survey to check it out but since the date is now march, I'll wait to resub until the backlog has thinned.
Guess it's time for Mantic to hire a dedicated forum monkey?
I think when I get home today I'm going to take the plunge and figure out what I want with those surveys.
In the end I don't actually see myself ordering a whole lot more. I'm still a bit undecided on the Asterians, and Barzam already said he's going in pretty big on them. I already got all the FF stuff the first time around, and since I can't order individual figures really, I don't have a need for extra boosters.
On the other hand, that money I save will just be more for me to spend on the inevitable hard plastic stuff in the future.
You'll need to be living in Nottingham (or within commute distance) to apply.
I imagine they'll get plenty of applicants, pathfinders would be especially well-qualified since they've basically been doing the job for free already.
The Vermin are bad in every conceivable way. They're an ugly implementation of an insipid concept presented as being implausibly significant by their idiotic flavour text. The setting is literally worse for their very existence, because it draws more attention to Mantic's childish portrayal of the Corporation as equal parts baby-eating evil and paint-licking stupid.
Ah, I haven't paid any real attention to the background. So, perhaps the background sucks. I feel the same way about most fantasy in space stuff, like Orks in 40k. But regardless, the models are suh-weet! They're so itty bitty but just covered in tons of detail. Plus I've gotten mine on mega discounts like Miniature Market's Black Friday sale. I'm really looking forward to painting them, just waiting for clear acrylic bases to arrive (the BattleSystems KS shots of Veer-Myn and Corporation made me not only buy Battlesystems but the Corp and Veer-Myn models, which I'm glad I did!)
I've got to say, going to become a Rules Designer for GW would not have been my choice of a careers change. Especially if I had worked previously as someone in social media / communication-ey stuff.
Being forced by on-high to put out shoddy rules in a tight timeframe, knowing that your bosses genuinely don't care about the quality of the product you're producing, as long as it helps sell a new shiney...
Then having to live the bile and hatred online as a result of these rules - from the community you used to work with... And knowing, deep down, they actually have a point but your hands were completely tied...
Compel wrote: Being forced by on-high to put out shoddy rules in a tight timeframe, knowing that your bosses genuinely don't care about the quality of the product you're producing, as long as it helps sell a new shiney...
I know that these are 'known' truths, but we really don't know the conditions under which the rules designers work.
Then having to live the bile and hatred online as a result of these rules - from the community you used to work with... And knowing, deep down, they actually have a point but your hands were completely tied...
That seems like hell to me.
And this part is at least partly true.
I'm not sure that we have ever gotten any proof that the designers are locked in a tower and forced to produce bad rules. For all we know, they love everything they put out and management has nothing to do with it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
RiTides wrote: Is there any way to re-open a survey for Mars Attacks once it is submitted? If so, how do I do that / who should I contact about it...?
My friend decided he wanted to add something on to mine, but I already submitted it.
@RiTides, you've got to resubmit, it will override the last survey entirely.
@lagoon83, if you are as good at putting out quality rules as you are at putting out internet fires (and this apparent bear wizardry we keep hearing about), then you should be set. And failing that, you can always put your head down, grit your teeth, do what the bosses say, and avoid weekends and overtime like the plague Changing jerbs is usually stressful, good luck
porkuslime wrote: Where did you all hear the rules part was at GW? I did not see that in my email
Facebook.
Mantic Games: Alas! The bear wizard is leaving us in a few short weeks - Mr James M Hewitt is vacating the building to write rules for a Lenton-based gaming company. This means we are looking for a community manager - and we want you to apply!
Steffen From Wifstrand: For those of you in the know: What gaming companies are based in Lenton? David Kenny: GW
Good luck James! Leave loads of otters on your PC to await your unsuspecting replacement.
porkuslime wrote: Where did you all hear the rules part was at GW? I did not see that in my email
And James.. good luck wherever it is!
Scarletsquig.. want to make the plunge? You gotz forum presence already..
-P
I don't live in Nottingham. In any case, a pathfinder would be better suited to the job since they've basically been doing it for free in their spare time anyway.
I'd like to make some computer games based on Mantic IP at some point (it would be ridiculously easy to make one based around any game that uses the deadzone engine, the square grid makes things a breeze.. and mantic are even making their own AI with the zombie deck so that would be sorted too), the last approach I made with a little prototype back when Ronnie asked for interested game developers to get in touch during the DB KS didn't receive a response though, so I haven't really thought about it much since. As soon as Ronnie's update went out I scampered off, made this in under an hour (basic hex board coded with basic hover interaction to identify which hex is under the mouse and which hexes are adjacent), and fired off the email.
If they express any interest in apps or games in future I'll be just as quick on the ball. I'm hoping that Mantic Digital might expand in future to offer more of this sort of thing. I think making an interactive tutorial so you can go and fire up the app and learn the game in a step-by-step manner rather than wall of text in a rulebook would be great.
Actually, thinking about it, it might not have got a response because the email had a link to the prototype in it and their email system spam-blocks anything with a link in it. >_<
Thanks for the info! I think the Brokkrs look pretty good, and I never saw the optional head art for the cannon. From the art on the KS page, I actually thought that Brokkrs had twin-pistols like the metal Forgefather leader.
Although I'm not sure if I like the biker or not. The actual model has a pretty strange front windscreen and fender.
Well its not like they had production grind to a halt so they could all stand around holding hands while their artists generated the concepts and then all wait with bated breath while everything was sent to an back from the 3d printer (assuming that's what those brokkrs are anyway). They ran out of deadzone stuff. They ordered more. It would be a business destroying waste of time to sit around and wait for every little thing to get done before moving along. Should they have tried to fulfill prior kickstarters before moving on, probably more than they did. But once they're in the production phase, the artists and designers would be free to make said new stuff, without any effect whatsoever on production of more minis for fulfillment...
And if you're talking about mispicks... then yeah, I agree, they really really should have taken an extra week or something to add a bit more care sending out kickstarter packages.
GrimDork wrote: Well its not like they had production grind to a halt so they could all stand around holding hands while their artists generated the concepts and then all wait with bated breath while everything was sent to an back from the 3d printer (assuming that's what those brokkrs are anyway). They ran out of deadzone stuff. They ordered more. It would be a business destroying waste of time to sit around and wait for every little thing to get done before moving along. Should they have tried to fulfill prior kickstarters before moving on, probably more than they did. But once they're in the production phase, the artists and designers would be free to make said new stuff, without any effect whatsoever on production of more minis for fulfillment...
And if you're talking about mispicks... then yeah, I agree, they really really should have taken an extra week or something to add a bit more care sending out kickstarter packages.
How can they run out of Deadzone Boxes for Kickstarter backers? They knew how many they'd need from the Kickstarter, no?
Mind, even if they did run out in ... when did they send the first ones out? November? ... they could've gotten some more by now even if they ran out!
Also, if they ran out of boxes for Kickstarter-backers, why are there boxes in the stores?
Different allocations. I explained this a while back.
Let's say in Nov they ordered: 10k boxes for KS backers 5k boxes for Retail
They needed 10,100 boxes for KS backers due to errors. They can't just take them from the 5k for Retail without defaulting on their retail obligations.
And yes, I get that there are folks that say that they should have done just that.
So now we wait for the next containers to come from China and they ship out the second wave (which is probably pretty close right now since they got the second retail wave recently).
Zweischneid wrote: Well, wouldn't have killed them to order an additional 1% or even 2% extra boxes as a safety margin. Ya know.... in case things go wrong.
Could've put that back into retail later. Put them in the stash for the second survey, etc.., etc..
Completely agree. Although, we are working with guesswork here. For all we know, they ordered 11,000 for 10,000 backers and 1,200 were defective or something.
All we know right now is that they didn't have the spares until now.
I suspect they ordered more than they thought would be enough,
but they had a pledge manager that let everybody add on more and more stuff (which they did) that they didn't close until they'd shown at least some of the sculpts (by which time they'd had to finalise their orders
result running out of all the popular bits.
sadly I think they only way to prevent the shortages would be to lock the PM a lot sooner than they've been doing which would also result in unhappy customers (but also an unhappy manitic bank account)
I think they got a bit too greedy with the Deadzone pre-release thing. I mean, it was a nice idea but most of the people I know who went in for it, ended up not getting big chunks of their stuff. - One did a pre-release for the Marauders starter set before Christmas, didn't get it and ended up having mantic staff swear blind to him that it never said that it would be shipped in December and it was always going to be February.
He is not pleased. Not pleased at all and has actually raised a paypal dispute with Mantic over it.
Another did the big huge bumper collectors edition super expensive pre-release and got most of his things, except his marauder and rebs starters. He's pretty relaxed about it, he was mostly just wanting the book to read at the moment.
But honestly, if they hadn't bothered with the pre-release thing, or done it on a significantly smaller scale (EG, in shows only), or kept the extra boxes in the warehouse until mid-late January before announcing them, most people would likely have had the majority of their missing bits now.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mantic's done good by me, personally but they really do need to get their heads on straight.
Wow, I've been gone for a week and it looks like quite a bit of Mantic stuff has happened. Don't know how deep I will go in on DBX, but looking forward to seeing it.
They definitely struggled with the Deadzone release. I got my main box during the prerelease and had no problems, but I bought a starter at a FLGS and it took about a month and 3 e-mails to get a missing part. At least I got it though.
Compel wrote: Being forced by on-high to put out shoddy rules in a tight timeframe, knowing that your bosses genuinely don't care about the quality of the product you're producing, as long as it helps sell a new shiney...
I'm pretty sure nobody is forcing GWdevs to write in any particular way. If that were the case, the new stuff would be more powerful but the newest kits are almost universally the most terrible units in the codex (Riptide an honourable exception). They're writing complete and utter gak of their own free will.
AlexHolker wrote: Hard plastic is essential but not sufficient for Mantic to stop being gak. If the Warpath Kickstarter is 100% plastic AND the concepts are good AND the sculpts are good AND they have more than the bare minimum number of parts AND the integral bases stay gone, they'll be worth looking at.
Well they already hit those two with Deadzone, I thought all of the concepts were good, and all of the final sculpts we've seen to date. I understand some people don't like the Marauders, some don't like the 3rd Gens, some don't like the Rebs weapon team and some don't like the Cypher renders, but that's just personal opinion rather than definitive fact.
Well, whether they hit any of those is personal opinion actually - your opinions are no more canonical than anyone else's here. I felt that the concepts were a mixed bag and most sculpts decidedly second-tier. And yes, I consider myself a "Mantic supporter". My standards are pretty high, though.
GrimDork wrote: I appreciate the sentiment They have suggested as much. We shall see, I'll just be glad to finally have my stuff. May go on over to the kickstarter page and shoot them one more email just to be the squeaky wheel (in soviet deadzone, the metaphor is you!).
I'll agree with Carlos on this. You've also taken it much more calmly and politely than I would have.
NTRabbit wrote: Which is still demanding the sculpts change to suit a minority view.
Nobody is going to like everything, so if only 20% of their customers don't like them, why would they change something the other 80% are buying?
If it was the other way around, and 80% were not buying them, then that would be a majority opinion of them being bad, and give Mantic a hit
]
You're being deliberately disingenious here, as well as needlessly insulting. Who is the "minority" here, and where is your evidence? "Minority" or "majority" of what, by the way? Getting Orcs in the Kickstarter is a non-negotiable option for Strike Team level backers, and so for me it means their fate is to be mostly filling in a box of figures that will never be painted or used unless I manage to trade/give them away. That's if they don't end up lost somewhere like my KoW Cat Cavalry. (which I'm still looking for, as someone here is interested in some of the parts for conversion).
But back to the main point. 100% of strike team pledgers are "buying them" since they outright refused to allow people to swap them for something good. "Buying them" is/was essentially non-negotiable.
The Vermin are bad in every conceivable way. They're an ugly implementation of an insipid concept presented as being implausibly significant by their idiotic flavour text. The setting is literally worse for their very existence, because it draws more attention to Mantic's childish portrayal of the Corporation as equal parts baby-eating evil and paint-licking stupid.
Sadly, I gotta agree with Alex on this. Space Skaven could have been done well, but I'm not at all excited by the implementation. I've ordered GW parts from a bitz vendor to try and "fix" the DreadBall models I have, because I just don't like them as is. Might do the same as well for the few I have via Project Pandora. I ordered a lot of heads, after all.
porkuslime wrote: Well.. we may not be seeing James Hewitt back.. according to the newsletter I just got.. he is parting ways with Mantic to go write gaming rules elsewhere...
Interesting. James didn't really last long there as a dedicated community guy then, did he? He seemed a genuinely nice guy, but still - in that role I'd rather see someone who was active outside of KS periods, though. Even just for the occasional post rather than disappearing once the current KS of the day was complete.
Compel wrote: I've got to say, going to become a Rules Designer for GW would not have been my choice of a careers change. Especially if I had worked previously as someone in social media / communication-ey stuff.
Being forced by on-high to put out shoddy rules in a tight timeframe, knowing that your bosses genuinely don't care about the quality of the product you're producing, as long as it helps sell a new shiney...
Then having to live the bile and hatred online as a result of these rules - from the community you used to work with... And knowing, deep down, they actually have a point but your hands were completely tied...
That seems like hell to me.
No, it's an incredibly smart career move. Put the GW-bile on hold for a moment and think about what a stint writing rules at GW means to your CV and ability to get work elsewhere afterwards. It's a great springboard to working prety much anywhere else in the miniatures, roleplaying, tabletop gaming gaming industry as well as the computer/video game industry. Do you think the guys doing the hiring at Blizzard or Bethesda are going to take more note of the usual white noise of the internet (protip, they all have their own online nerdrage population) or a CV with 5 years of GW rulebooks and a letter of recommendation from the studio director/their counterparts at GW?
squall018 wrote: Wow, I've been gone for a week and it looks like quite a bit of Mantic stuff has happened. Don't know how deep I will go in on DBX, but looking forward to seeing it.
They definitely struggled with the Deadzone release. I got my main box during the prerelease and had no problems, but I bought a starter at a FLGS and it took about a month and 3 e-mails to get a missing part. At least I got it though.
Wait- you got a missing part already shipped out to you for Deadzone? How'd that happen?
I know quite a few of us have sent those forms in. I did mine the very first day it went up, and I've heard absolutely nothing back!
I get back and have 3 friends clamouring to add stuff to my Deadzone second survey. What Mantic has done with Deadzone/Terrain/Restic isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn awesome all up and a lot of people seem to be taking to it after being hesitant about kickstarting. Happy to see it seems to be taking off in Australia like Dreadball has.
One was wondering how well the Mars Attacks terrain would work for fantasy settings if painted more earthy... you can pass bricks off in fantasy but stone would probably be better is what I was thinking, as a non-fantasy player. Any thoughts on if the MA terrain would be too out of place in a fantasy setting?
---
Good on the Bear wizard for moving to rules design, living the nerd dream. Hopefully he can bring some semblance of sense to 40k rules. Working on fantasy ist verboten!
squall018 wrote: Wow, I've been gone for a week and it looks like quite a bit of Mantic stuff has happened. Don't know how deep I will go in on DBX, but looking forward to seeing it.
They definitely struggled with the Deadzone release. I got my main box during the prerelease and had no problems, but I bought a starter at a FLGS and it took about a month and 3 e-mails to get a missing part. At least I got it though.
Wait- you got a missing part already shipped out to you for Deadzone? How'd that happen?
I know quite a few of us have sent those forms in. I did mine the very first day it went up, and I've heard absolutely nothing back!
I think it was because I bought mine at retail (Rebs starter). It was the Tetraton's tail. Maybe they had extra of those?
Azazelx wrote: Who is the "minority" here, and where is your evidence? "Minority" or "majority" of what, by the way? Getting Orcs in the Kickstarter is a non-negotiable option for Strike Team level backers, and so for me it means their fate is to be mostly filling in a box of figures that will never be painted or used unless I manage to trade/give them away. That's if they don't end up lost somewhere like my KoW Cat Cavalry. (which I'm still looking for, as someone here is interested in some of the parts for conversion).
But back to the main point. 100% of strike team pledgers are "buying them" since they outright refused to allow people to swap them for something good. "Buying them" is/was essentially non-negotiable.
My point is that there is no evidence. Even there you're declaring the only reason people got Marauders is because Strike Team forced them to and nobody is actually going to build them, which nobody can prove. I'm a Strike Team pledger and I got them because I wanted them, not because I was forced to, so that shoots 100% out of the water. The only proof anyone will have is sales numbers, if they're ever released, and the Marauders running out of stock for preorders suggest at least someone is buying them.
If no one is buying Marauders and everyone hates them as some truly claim, they'll get ultimate vindication if a couple of baggies of them end up in the 2014 Xmas Box like the MaA and Ogres this year.
Azazelx wrote: Who is the "minority" here, and where is your evidence? "Minority" or "majority" of what, by the way? Getting Orcs in the Kickstarter is a non-negotiable option for Strike Team level backers, and so for me it means their fate is to be mostly filling in a box of figures that will never be painted or used unless I manage to trade/give them away. That's if they don't end up lost somewhere like my KoW Cat Cavalry. (which I'm still looking for, as someone here is interested in some of the parts for conversion).
But back to the main point. 100% of strike team pledgers are "buying them" since they outright refused to allow people to swap them for something good. "Buying them" is/was essentially non-negotiable.
My point is that there is no evidence. Even there you're declaring the only reason people got Marauders is because Strike Team forced them to and nobody is actually going to build them, which nobody can prove. I'm a Strike Team pledger and I got them because I wanted them, not because I was forced to, so that shoots 100% out of the water. The only proof anyone will have is sales numbers, if they're ever released, and the Marauders running out of stock for preorders suggest at least someone is buying them.
If no one is buying Marauders and everyone hates them as some truly claim, they'll get ultimate vindication if a couple of baggies of them end up in the 2014 Xmas Box like the MaA and Ogres this year.
Ah, I see where my choice of words was misleading. I apologise for that. I will clarify. I did not mean that the only reason anyone got them was because Mantic did not allow us to change them.
My intent was to state that 100% of customers got them (regardless of whether they would have liked to swap them out or not) was because swapping them out was not allowed and non-negotiable. Not that 1000% of backers dislike them or that nobody would like to buy them. If trades had been allowed, obviously some percentage we don't (and can never) know would have swapped them out for more enforcers, forgefathers, et al. This is why your claims of "majority/minority/etc" are useless, since it's just speculation.
So did anyone else notice the updated Mars Attacks stuff today?
The new images of what we get at each "custom" level is much more helpful.
For the price of those extra mats I can get all those extra Martians with an additional saucer. Not bad.
I think I've got enough mats from Deadzone as it is. Worst case maybe I can lay the paper street ones on top of my Deadzone mats for a little extra support?
What's everyone's thoughts on the scenery? I'm debating whether or not I need any extra, especially the intact stuff. I've got a fair amount for DZ already.
What's everyone's thoughts on the scenery? I'm debating whether or not I need any extra, especially the intact stuff. I've got a fair amount for DZ already.
Given that MA has no elevation and hence only needs one level of terrain, what they give you in the packs seems like a pretty good amount to me.
Yonan wrote: I get back and have 3 friends clamouring to add stuff to my Deadzone second survey. What Mantic has done with Deadzone/Terrain/Restic isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn awesome all up and a lot of people seem to be taking to it after being hesitant about kickstarting. Happy to see it seems to be taking off in Australia like Dreadball has.
One was wondering how well the Mars Attacks terrain would work for fantasy settings if painted more earthy... you can pass bricks off in fantasy but stone would probably be better is what I was thinking, as a non-fantasy player. Any thoughts on if the MA terrain would be too out of place in a fantasy setting?
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Good on the Bear wizard for moving to rules design, living the nerd dream. Hopefully he can bring some semblance of sense to 40k rules. Working on fantasy ist verboten!
Well, given local GW prices and the fond memories so many of us have of Necromunda and gang-sized sci-fi skirmish...
Good question on Bricks. I did some googling and looked at Wiki (amongst others) and brick buildings of various kinds have been used since the Greeks and Romans, through the middle ages and Renaissance, right up to today. - since "Fantasy" settings seem to usually be a mash-up of concepts from the Ancients right up and to including the Renaissance (and everything in between), I'd say that brick can fit right in quite nicely into most fantasy settings. Possibly not as the only material, but it definitely has a place. Now it just depends on what the actual MA buildings look like. I certainly intend to get a whole bunch and use them from everything from Bolt Action to 40k, and now I guess in KoW and Mordheim-type stuff as well as appropriate.
Hahah nice researching, thanks Aza! I'm picking up some for myself at least (5 battlezones basically I think) so I'll definitely paint them with fantasy/medieval in mind as well. Will try to con him into getting a bunch too as you can't go wrong with lots of modular terrain.
Marble, sandstone, brown or grey clay come to mind as better choices than the .... vibrant.... red chosen by Mantic ; p
Which is what I've been trying to say the whole time, anyone stating it factually one way or the other is conflating personal opinion and being a silly. I too should have been more careful with my words and added "in my opinion" to my first sentence.
Vermonter wrote: Shame the Nameless get left out, but between the Veer-myn and Zz'or I'd probably get my monster itch sufficiently scratched.
Choosing to make Veermyn instead of Nameless would be a huge mistake. So, yeah, I can see it happening.
Veer-myn are awesome. you couldn't be more wrongererrerer!
I bought the one player set and then after I got them I went crazy and now I own *checks google drive* nightcrawlers -50, nightmares - 30, nightspawn - 1, stalkers - 30, scourgers 5
and would buy even more
All I am saying is that you will find that Cthulhu and even his most degenerate derivatives have more Kickstarter charisma than any ratmen or even space sports ratmen. Expanding the almost-Cthulhu line into hard plastic will not erase the existing not-ratmen line, while it will add interest and open up a new market. In food terms, you can love vegemite all you want, and that's fine, but when Mangia Inc want to expand their line of foods dipped in creamy milk chocolate, maybe they should start with peanut butter first...
Besides, from your purchasing history it looks like the entire Veermyn market is now tapped out.
^ No, nothing confirmed. All OT rambling based on speculation.
Warlord or River Horse were the first that came to mind, although GW pays a good salary to studio staff and Azazel makes a good point that it'd be great for further career advancement.
Assuming he's working for GW, being in rules development wouldn't be hell. Hell would be being informed that the new "rules" you've been brought on to help develop is the new community guidelines for the forums they're launching with their multi-million dollar website redesign and that you will be the public face of GW's communications to the fans on the Internet to help develop these rules further.
THAT, my dears, is what hell would look like.
Back on-topic, finally put in my MA survey and managed to stick with my guns (and pledge amount)! This is probably going to end up like Reaper for me when the box shows up and I'm "What's this...oh right!" since it's in the far-distant future of six months from now. <cue horror music soundtrack> That's like an eternity, especially here on the Internet. Maybe I'll be unburied from KD:M by then though...
for your fantastic reading skills.
