Okay, so I think we can all agree hands down that the Men at Arms are bad. The arms are long, the details are soft, and the swords are too big (according to SS, I haven't started building any yet or even compared sizes). So what's to stop us from throwing them in the garbage, accepting our losses, or contacting Mantic for replacements after receiving them? And why in God's name did this sorry bastard (me) buy a further 80 off of somebody at KS BOGO prices after having the first group in hand and a rank already built up? Well, I believe they're fixable. Not only are they fixable, but painted properly, they aint half bad (Except the arms. God, the arms!!). So, the point of this thread is to go through fixes. I'll be attaching pictures throughout the process, and I hope others who have attempted (and hopefully succeeeded) at making them better will show off their ideas too, so that these cheap minis aren't our red-headed step children of minis, but are instead a good and passible unit on the table. To start, a picture of bare plastic with the spear arm fixed. Now, the monkey arms suck. They're too long. Are they badly detailed? Not so much, just way too long-in the bicep area. See where I'm going with this? I cut out the cloth that separates the elbow guard from the chain mail atop the shoulder. Having done this, the arm looks perfectly normal in size. I don't need to adjust the forearm at all, as the fist to the elbow should be slightly longer than the elbow to shoulder. The size should also be appropriate where greenstuff doesn't need to be used to fill in any gaps. I didn't touch the arm for the shield-that's way too much work, as it requires a full resculpt, and I want this to be fairly easy for people to fix. Chopping the bicep took 2 minutes. I'll be adding a painted image of him later (tonight, I hope).

And here's an image of that same exact model painted up. Except his base. I'm gonna fill that in later. With a decent paint job and that gorilla bicep fixed, he's definitely passable on the tabletop. Washes are a must on these guys though-some GW stuff it's possible to get away without them, as there is enough detail to show off, but these guys require a wash, big time. As you can see though, it's definitely tabletop quality now.

Unforunately, more work than that is required, the elbow still reaches the waistline (according to correct anatomy, it should lie just above the navel, you can check this on yourself!).

And then, the wrist should be in-line with the groin with the outstretch palm no more than halfway down the thigh.

The mitten lego hands are pretty bad, too. And the gauntlets are extremely chunky, and the entire right arm melts into the shield.

And the posing on the arms is terrible.

Whoever sculpted these just plain hasn't done life drawing and has zero sense of proportion or human anatomy, there are some very basic rules and it's not hard to check that you've done them right.

with that in mind, my prefered solution is to trash the arms, and source alternatives.

Currently eyeing up historicals to use. First thought was fireforge games, but a little investigation indicates that the arms are a touch too small and the heads a touch too big. Perry miniatures seem like a better fit.

I photshopped up a (properly scaled, to the millimetre) pic of perry and fireforge men-at-arms to play around with... IMO the Perry kit seems like the better fit, it's built to work with pavises so the mantic shields should work quite well.

Mantic body, fireforge arms/head:



Mantic body, perry arms/head:



If anyone owns both of these kits, I'd massively appreciate seeing what the arms look like on the men-at-arms bodies, even just a quickly blu-tacked together cameraphone snap would be awesome.

I do wish they gave us more arms to work with, but that picture I have the arm is off by about a half millimeter...which definitely bears up to tabletop quality. The problem here is that we are viewing this model in a vacuum-he's all alone. Put him in with 39 other guys, and they'll look uniform and probably pretty good. That's a long way off though, as I'm not a fast painter at all. I had him done fairly quickly, but got distracted by Injustice and took too long to finish him. Lol

I certainly won't disagree on the shield arm-that thing's just plain awful. Thankfully, it's only visible from one angle, so you can largely ignore it (or try to).

I dunno, a bad mini is a bad mini even in large groups if the posing is off.. a unit of hamfisted, sticky-out arm high elf spearmen still look terrible to my eyes.

Interestingly, the metal crossbow arms look absolutely fine and have no scale issues whatsoever.

The one really good part of the MAA kit is the spears and shields, I'll definitely be trying to hang on to those, as well as the torso to keep some fantasy style to the models.

I've definitely changed my mind on fireforge after that photoshop job, simply because the arms look a little on the small size, heads aren't quite what I'd want and the perry kit offers poses like the 2-handed spear arms which opens up some chances to make a properly nice-looking unit with the front rank having lowered spears with the big shields spiked into the ground on their bases.

The fact that I have to put work into them to make them table top acceptable sucks. I can't/won't deny it. I'm just saying this makes them workable, and usable. And I think I mentioned in the N&R thread that the crossbow arms were fine too. It's why I want 20 more of them. haha

Sorry... but I have to agree. (If I didn't have to agree then I wouldn't be sorry... )

I am painting mine up to use as city watch for Pathfinder, mostly - they will be fielded by the dozen, and cut down by the dozen when the game permits.

I actually like their faces, and weapons, and shields. But the proportions.... Oi!

I agree that Perry historicals are the best way to go for replacements.

The Auld Grump

I keep flip-flopping with these minis, my opinions keep changing between:

"maybe they'll be okay with conversion"

to:

"maybe they'll be okay with replacement bitz"

to:

"hmm, that'll cost money and I'll be throwing good money after bad"

to:

"I'm sick of looking at these and I'm gonna throw them in the drawer and try to forget they exist".

I think you might be on to something with the arms, although removing some extra material from the bicep might be needed, pretty much all of the cloth rather than just some of it. And then with the arms it varies.. some have too much bicep, others have too much forearms, and they all need different cuts I think.

Which then leaves the problem of the giant feth-off great big lego mitten right hand. The left hands on these (holding the shield) are quite small and in-scale, not so much with the right hands though.

I'll feel pretty bad about buying a whole kit just to get some decent hands for these, so I might go with my original gut feeling and buy some eccentric miniatures sprues.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I
I'll feel pretty bad about buying a whole kit just to get some decent hands for these, so I might go with my original gut feeling and buy some eccentric miniatures sprues.

You do know Hoardobits has fireforge bits right? You can just get the arms/heads you want without having to buy the whole kit.

I just moved so I can't post up pictures right now, but I have tried both GW and Perry arms on the MAA bodies. The Perry arms are, by my eye, a tiny bit too short, and a little thin to look good on the MAA. The GW arms are the best so far. I have lots of extras from the GW Empire militia boxed set (one of the great plastic box sets in the hobby imo), but they are all a bit too irregular in style and armament to make any sort of a cohesive unit. I have also modeled up a barbarian monk type guy using MAA bodies, WGF orc arms, and a WGF viking head. The arms are properly long, have the lego hands so you can use the original weapons, and can be found for pretty good prices from bits sellers. Some of the posing on them is weird, and there are really no good left arms, and the arms are bare, so it isn't really a civilized look, but I like the end result. I will try to get pictures up sometime in the next month.

Unfortunately I don't have any of the Fireforge stuff, which I am hoping will be the solution since if they are at least as long as the Perry arms but thicker, I think they will be passable. That being said, my desire to do anything with these figures is rapidly approaching zero. After I sat down to see how the Perry arms looked on them, I just ended up working on Perry stuff after a couple minutes of "AAAGGGH, these are the worst arms" and wondering why on earth the MAA ever saw the light of day in their current form.

Every time I look at the arms I am just blown back by how bad the proportions are. Honestly, I don't think I will even bother doing anything with my MAA. My hobby time is far too valuable and rare to spend fiddling around with such atrocious miniatures. If I didn't want the spears to convert WGF hoplites into wood elves, I would send them back to Mantic and ask for a refund. Even the detailing on the spears is pretty bad. Those leather wraps or whatever on the spears will disappear with a single layer of primer.

Well just bought a set of 10 of these guys from ebay, gonna try my hand at fixing them, I might even try building some compatible bits for both the arms, heads and weapons if anyone's interested.

No promises of course, I,ve still got about 11 custom tyranid sculpts and other stuff to finish off, but I'll give it a shot.

Okay got my M@A in the mail, already started to give them a look over, a few obvious points spring to mind about these:

1 - Those arms, dear lord, no point in trying to fix these, I just going to outright replace them.
2 - The shield is too large and the "wings" are just intrusive to posing.
3 - The shield arm is integrated with the shield and lacks detail, going to have to make these separate.
4 - The arms need to be about 25-30% smaller in bulk and a lot shorter to be correct.
5 - Faces are really flat and they also have no chin guard on their helmet.
6 - Heads have nowhere to slot in? I found this just weird, I can't make a gorgot/neck guard to help this.
7 - Feather on the helmet just looks odd, gonna remove.
8 - Handle on the sword is too short, sword as a whole too big, needs to be replaced.
9 - Overall height isn't to bad, they're a little taller than most of my other miniatures, but its workable
10 - Arc in the back also isn't as bad as I thought, again workable.
11 - More variety in parts is a real must for these guys, nothing fancy, just a few extra arms and say two more heads

That's my list, anyone got anything else to add?

Lets make it a nice round thirteen. :p

12. Posing is terrible on the arms and some of the legs making them really hard to rank up.
13. Undercuts obliterate detail on the chainmail on some of the legs.

14. The chainmail in general looks terrible

I honestly don't see any way of really rescuing them and don't think any of the results would deserve the time needed. I'd just accept that they're gonna look terrible and replace them out with something else. Gripping beasts vikings might be a really good substitute.

Personally, I like the bodies and I don't mind the heads. It's the shield arms lack of detail and the length of the sword arm that cause me the most concern. Sword fixes are easy enough, when I get to those. I'm not even mildly concerned about those. I'm not trying to forgive them their error-the arms really are sculpted badly, and those should have never seen the light of day. Even scrapping them and doing them in metal (as the metal crossbows arms are perfectly fine) would have been, even though a lot of people don't like the hybrids. I think they're preferable in this case.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I keep flip-flopping with these minis, my opinions keep changing between:

"maybe they'll be okay with conversion"

to:

"maybe they'll be okay with replacement bitz"

to:

"hmm, that'll cost money and I'll be throwing good money after bad"

to:

"I'm sick of looking at these and I'm gonna throw them in the drawer and try to forget they exist".

I think you might be on to something with the arms, although removing some extra material from the bicep might be needed, pretty much all of the cloth rather than just some of it. And then with the arms it varies.. some have too much bicep, others have too much forearms, and they all need different cuts I think.

Which then leaves the problem of the giant feth-off great big lego mitten right hand. The left hands on these (holding the shield) are quite small and in-scale, not so much with the right hands though.

I'll feel pretty bad about buying a whole kit just to get some decent hands for these, so I might go with my original gut feeling and buy some eccentric miniatures sprues.

The problem with Timetowaste's mini's arm is actually the shoulder. Cut off the overhang and glue the MaA arms slightly higher (so that they seem to have slightly big or padded shoulders) and the arms should line up well enough. So, I'd say the work that needs to be done is: 1) cut off everything between the chainmail and the elbow guard, 2) Cut off shoulder "straps", 3) if you are using one of the (two?) long forearm arms, cut out a section before the wrist.

For the mitts and shield arms, perhaps the outside of the mitts can be painted like armor to look like a good punching gauntlet? The shield arms... I don't know. Paint them like they are entirely armored and black-line in some details?

I'm considering dremelling the shield shoulder off and resculpting it. I was aiming for easy fixes to help people do it, but a new shoulder with a pin to poke chain in might not hurt.

Instead of sculpting a billion shields, just get some from a bits seller.
f'instance, Hoard O Bits sells the Deus Vult Foot Sergeants shields, 48 of them for $8.09.

Sorry Doug, I probably could have typed that better: I'm going to dremel off the shoulder that is attached the shield (shield will stay undamaged) and I'll pop down a blob of greenstuff in a shoulder-y shape, then poke holes to make it look like amateur chainmail sculpt. The arm will be smaller, and will have more shoulder detail.

ah, that makes way more sense

Here is the technique I am using to fix up my Men at Arms:

I use clippers for almost every cut in an effort to make the "fix" as quick and easy as possible. You can tell from my photos that I did not spend a lot of time cleaning up the cuts after I made them. I will probably just use a heavy brush of liquid greenstuff on any gaps or rough areas since the models aren't exactly crusted in fine detail. You might notice a lot of glue marks and mess on my minis, which were also a result of my cavalier attitude towards these minis. Your results would probably vary for the better.

1. First, I cut out a section from the biceps of each right arm, although A2 and A4 are probably acceptable if you aren't too picky. I make sure the front of the shoulder is longer than the back to prevent be acutely-bent elbows.

2. Clip off the under-arm or arm pit of any model who doesn't want Chicken Tonight, Chicken Tonight. The shoulders should end up looking like space marine arms pre-shoulder pad.

3. I clip off the torsos' shoulder straps. The overhang prevents the arms from attaching properly.

4. I cut away the uneven, rounded shoulder sockets. Seriously, tool-maker, why is the arm attachment point all lumpy?

5. I clip the feathers off the heads.

6. I use the feathers as a brooch or besagew for each Man at Arms, to hide the poorly-defined left shoulder.

7. Clip the helmet top smooth(ish) or else use spare decorative bits on it.

I tried to use parts of the spear shafts to add some detail to the shield arms, but they really didn't look like anything other than random Mentos tubes stuck to the dudes' triceps and wrists, so I stopped doing that.

(sorry for the picture quality.)














What do you think?

Not bad, like the idea for the brooch and taking off the shoulder pads is definitely essential.

I also noticed the uneven shoulder join, even after you take off the shoulder pads the damn things still don't have a flat join to the arms.

You've got some better posing out of them too, which is quite tricky to pull off. They at least look like they're using their shields to ward off blows or arrows rather than trying to fly with them.

I'll have to have another go at these hideous things sometime, my rage at the last attempt has subsided enough for me to be willing to look at them again.

In the second set of pictures, I used their spear blades for swords for a more realistic size. I also added the spikes and loops from the back of the spears to their helmets where the feathers used to be. And the unhelmeted head is from the Elohi angel kit and looks great on the MaA body.

I'm still trying to get the right arms into more natural poses, but it's hard enough to work with them as they are. Still, the clipping process is very quick, so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time. In fact, I quite enjoy fixing these guys. I... I might have to get more of them...

I have been assembling a bunch of mantic undead for the past while. It's hard to believe those M@A come from the same company! Anyone know who is the 'final say' on QA at mantic?

 Da Boss wrote:
Anyone know who is the 'final say' on QA at mantic?

Whichever unskilled, disinterested, underpaid Chinese worker happens to be manning the tooling machine that day.

If you're really lucky their supervisor won't come along and tell them to cut corners/ deliberately do a crap job to save time/money.

Often the minis get sent straight from the sculptor for tooling without mantic seeing the minis until that is done.

Anybody had a go with the fireforge arms and heads yet? Scarletsquig, do you have any of the Eccentric miniatures heads? I would love to see how they look on either the MAA or the paladins (I don't like the paladin heads at all). If they look really good, I may bother, but all my MAA are currently slated as gifts for nephews, and people under the age of 10 who are learning to paint.

BTW, I just can't believe that Mantic have absolutely no control over the product they release. That is bonkers. Even the dumbest chinese company on earth would respond to the threat of "No, that sprue is unacceptable and we will take all our future business elsewhere if you don't fix it." Money talks, and so does future money.

Contracts talk. The factory made their money and Mantic didn't have a backout clause for either the goblins or men at arms (I can kind of forgive them for the goblins but not the M@As). Mantic do have a backout clause going forward.

Jeez that sucks for Mantic but it is a "rookie" mistake I suppose.

They look OK to me, not great but acceptable enough for me but then again, I have very low expectations of Mantic - my primary driver for Fantasy armies is price and generally speaking, they win on that score. The actual aesthetics don't really factor into my appreciation, hell, I have a Mantic elf army! Mainly because my painting skill makes no difference to making a model better or worse.

 Gallahad wrote:
BTW, I just can't believe that Mantic have absolutely no control over the product they release. That is bonkers. Even the dumbest chinese company on earth would respond to the threat of "No, that sprue is unacceptable and we will take all our future business elsewhere if you don't fix it." Money talks, and so does future money.

If you're a huge plastics company making several million kids toys or widgets or whatever per day for massive companies, losing the future business of a small fish customer with high demands is no big deal, the threat wouldn't hold any water.

They just plain don't care and you won't get good quality without western supervision or strict contracts. This is the standard model for a lot of Chinese companies. Not all, just some. WGF are probably the only exception that exists, hence why they got booked up very quickly.

What happened at Mantic that caused the shift from the awesome, large sprues of their early days, then to the smaller sprues, and now to Restic/crappy sprues?

Is it a case of, the company had a big loan at the start and used that capital to pay out for some really nice sprues to start with, and then the capital began to dry up, and they had to use the money from sales alone to fund new projects, and eventually that became untenable, hence the shift to kickstarter?

In any case, I think they will do long term harm if they can't get control of their QA. We're a picky bunch with high standards.

 Da Boss wrote:
What happened at Mantic that caused the shift from the awesome, large sprues of their early days, then to the smaller sprues, and now to Restic/crappy sprues?

Is it a case of, the company had a big loan at the start and used that capital to pay out for some really nice sprues to start with, and then the capital began to dry up, and they had to use the money from sales alone to fund new projects, and eventually that became untenable, hence the shift to kickstarter?

In any case, I think they will do long term harm if they can't get control of their QA. We're a picky bunch with high standards.

That's exactly the case. They had a large startup fund (no idea where from!) and used it to produce large plastic sprues for the Elves then Undead. Dwarfs came next and started having smaller sprues and then the Orcs had even smaller sprues after that. At that point the startup capital was burnt through and yes they were relying on funding from sales.

I spoke to Ronnie at one point after they were starting to bring out restic figures and he said that if he could go back and do it all again then he'd have done units such as the elf scouts, balefire etc in restic. Unfortunately at the time they overestimated how much return they'd make and hadn't even considered restic as a material (let alone the learning steps that came with it).

And yes it will do long term harm if they don't get control, and already has. It does seem that they have learnt from their mistakes with Dreadball (better stretches, sculpting etc), Deadzone (absolutely top quality models and terrain) and Mars Attacks (extra time added on for their expected delivery to allow for unforeseen problems). The Kings of War kickstarter was an absolute rush job, and knowing Ronnie would have been a Friday afternoon "Hey this kickstarter thing looks pretty cool - throw something up on there by the end of the day will you?" idea. They certainly didn't make a big announcement of it and hadn't planned much before the kickstarter. They didn't leave themselves enough breathing room for delivery and the stretch goals were too small for things like shipping, resculpting etc. The Men At Arms suffered the worst for it since Mantic couldn't afford to and didn't have the time to tool a replacement sprue. Not a great situation at all and wasn't handled very well, but the future is looking brighter with the DZ and Mars Attacks kickstarters.

I didn't think they looked too horrible to begin with, but those mods on the previous page actually made them look pretty damn nice.

Quesiton though, has anyone tried using Fireforge, Perry, or GW helmetted knight heads? I'd bet that using a helmet that actually covers the entire face and is maybe a smidge larger would really help their overall look.

Thanks for the spear conversion, I think I might do the same! Looks much better. Also going to try adding a few elohi heads.

 Daedleh wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
What happened at Mantic that caused the shift from the awesome, large sprues of their early days, then to the smaller sprues, and now to Restic/crappy sprues?

Is it a case of, the company had a big loan at the start and used that capital to pay out for some really nice sprues to start with, and then the capital began to dry up, and they had to use the money from sales alone to fund new projects, and eventually that became untenable, hence the shift to kickstarter?

In any case, I think they will do long term harm if they can't get control of their QA. We're a picky bunch with high standards.

That's exactly the case. They had a large startup fund (no idea where from!) and used it to produce large plastic sprues for the Elves then Undead. Dwarfs came next and started having smaller sprues and then the Orcs had even smaller sprues after that. At that point the startup capital was burnt through and yes they were relying on funding from sales.

I spoke to Ronnie at one point after they were starting to bring out restic figures and he said that if he could go back and do it all again then he'd have done units such as the elf scouts, balefire etc in restic. Unfortunately at the time they overestimated how much return they'd make and hadn't even considered restic as a material (let alone the learning steps that came with it).

And yes it will do long term harm if they don't get control, and already has. It does seem that they have learnt from their mistakes with Dreadball (better stretches, sculpting etc), Deadzone (absolutely top quality models and terrain) and Mars Attacks (extra time added on for their expected delivery to allow for unforeseen problems). The Kings of War kickstarter was an absolute rush job, and knowing Ronnie would have been a Friday afternoon "Hey this kickstarter thing looks pretty cool - throw something up on there by the end of the day will you?" idea. They certainly didn't make a big announcement of it and hadn't planned much before the kickstarter. They didn't leave themselves enough breathing room for delivery and the stretch goals were too small for things like shipping, resculpting etc. The Men At Arms suffered the worst for it since Mantic couldn't afford to and didn't have the time to tool a replacement sprue. Not a great situation at all and wasn't handled very well, but the future is looking brighter with the DZ and Mars Attacks kickstarters.

This is something I have been telling people in forums and youtube comments. Mantic is not focusing in their core games (Warpath and KOW).

The KoW kickstarter has only just finished and they're still releasing models to retail from it. Warpath is getting love via Deadzone. Not only is Deadzone being used as an intro game for Warpath, it's being used to fill out the niche models so that a full launch of Warpath can concentrate on the core models.

I'm using Deadzone to fill my two Warpath armies: Orx and Enforcers. I also have regular corporation, but with 100-some of the little bastards, I think my horde is okay as is.

Deadzone looks pretty promising. I will keep an eye on the releases. Love the Enforcer design. A good hard plastic sprue would get a bit of money from me!

I will have pictures up tomorrow morning, hopefully, of the front rank of my new and improved MaAs using a combo of what I was already doing with some suggestions from bobtheinquisitor. Hopefully it encourages people to not write their own MaAs off as a total loss.

 Barzam wrote:
I didn't think they looked too horrible to begin with, but those mods on the previous page actually made them look pretty damn nice.

Quesiton though, has anyone tried using Fireforge, Perry, or GW helmetted knight heads? I'd bet that using a helmet that actually covers the entire face and is maybe a smidge larger would really help their overall look.

I've mostly been concerned about using "just what's in the box", but I will save 5 or so MaA to use GW parts on. When I get to them, I'll put up some pics, but it might be a while.

So does anyone have a comparison of the quality of the Men at arms vs the Paladins?

Because I have a box of the paladins, and while I think they're dandy (Bit of a gap with gluing the arms, but nothing severe), I'm curious how similar or dissimilar they are from the M@A.

 darkPrince010 wrote:
So does anyone have a comparison of the quality of the Men at arms vs the Paladins?

Because I have a box of the paladins, and while I think they're dandy (Bit of a gap with gluing the arms, but nothing severe), I'm curious how similar or dissimilar they are from the M@A.

They don't really look very similar at all. The Paladins look much more like the Elohi, except that their heads are in helmets, and they are a bit more stout. The Men at Arms look more like the guys you take pictures with at Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament. Their heads, arms, weapons and torsos are completely different proportions compared to the Paladins, and the armor does not have the same look to it.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I will have pictures up tomorrow morning, hopefully, of the front rank of my new and improved MaAs using a combo of what I was already doing with some suggestions from bobtheinquisitor. Hopefully it encourages people to not write their own MaAs off as a total loss.

I am still looking forward to seeing them. It's nice to see someone actually paint the MaA.

Here are some pictures I took of the Basilean Sisters with WGF Amazon arms.

In this view you can see a lot of what worked and what didn't. The model on the left had a better torso/shoulder, so I gave it the better WGF arms, and it looks quite good. The mini on the right's torso had severely-sloped shoulders which would have made any arms look terrible, but make the WGF obligatory 'awkward arms' look even worse. It doesn't help that all of the sisters have extremely long and nightmarish necks. Believe it or not, the one on the right was the best fit out of the four remaining sampler heads. If I ever do decide I like the sisters models, I may have to use WGF heads, too. At that point, I might just use WGF models altogether, which are $20 for 30, or roughly a million times better of a deal than anything Mantic sells. (Man, this KS has really hurt Mantic's standing with me.)


Here is a nice side-rear view for you to absorb the assemblage of bleh parts into a holistic mehness that defies enthusiasm.


"Fetish-fuel cosplay in the hizzouse! Whoop! Whoop!"



And then this happened.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think that's Magneto at Renn Faire.

Eccentric's arms don't look too bad.. would they make a decent replacement for the regular MAA arms?

At least the posing on them looks a lot more normal and the chainmail has detail.

And yeah I don't know what the hell went wrong with the sisters, but they're going to involve a lot of snipping that I'll do at some point when I can be bothered to.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Eccentric's arms don't look too bad.. would they make a decent replacement for the regular MAA arms?

At least the posing on them looks a lot more normal and the chainmail has detail.

And yeah I don't know what the hell went wrong with the sisters, but they're going to involve a lot of snipping that I'll do at some point when I can be bothered to.

They would not work for MaA arms--they are much too small. The hand would hang only to the hip. Everyone would call your soldier "T-Rex", but not because he's a big, vicious carnivore.

Here you can see them next to some other Mantic minis:


I like the Eccentric minis, although I think they are a bit too small to use with most other minis. They also tend to look bland in large numbers, in my opinion.


As for the sisters... Some day I hope Mantic puts up a Kickstarter to fund a documentary/docudrama about the KoW Kickstarter and what went wrong, ideally with the same light-hearted tone as The Pentagon Wars or The Late Shift. I would pledge well for that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The more I look at that first sister's hat (and whip), the more I am reminded of this guy.

Thanks for that pic... the nice thing about them being a bit on the small side is that it looks like the heads will at least be a good fit.

At the moment I'm just putting together paladins, paladin knights, angels and characters first; then once they're painted I'll start to bother looking at the rest of the army.

By that point the Perry foot knights will be out so I can see if I want to grab some of those for the MAA instead.

What happened to the guy in the far right?

I think that's an elf body with a serious case of "roman bobble head".

I like to ...experiment.

*shifts glasses to reflect glare*

It's a WGF Hoplite head (and shield) on a Mantic Elf. Different versions of "true 28mm" scale, I guess.

I love the Roman?(Or maybe greek?) with the machine gun. Cant help but think he has an unfair advantage for his time period. At least until he runs outta ammo.

Bob, you are seriously cracking me up man. Those pictures with your commentary are hilarious.

 carlos13th wrote:
I love the Roman?(Or maybe greek?) with the machine gun. Cant help but think he has an unfair advantage for his time period. At least until he runs outta ammo.

Yeah... before DFG's plastics, most of my sci-fi indulgences involved using historical minis and adding guns. I tend to get about 10 to 15 of them done before I burn out and shove the rest of the nearly-full box into the closet. I blame R. M. Meluch's hilarious Merrimac series for this. (The gun arms are from the Defiance Games UAMC. For some reason, I get a little naughty tingle when I kitbash them with WGF bits.)

Automatically appended same post:

Thanks Gallahad!

Got any painted. They would work well as Caesar's legion from Fallout: NV.

 carlos13th wrote:
Got any painted. They would work well as Caesar's legion from Fallout: NV.

Me? Models? Painted?

I no understanding.

I am back to show some other things I've done with the MaA. I used some GW bits, including the requested Knight head (with more to come on that in the next wave), as well as a WGF Hoplite's head.


Left to right: GW Empire State Troops sword arms and Chaos Marauder head, EST crossbow, EST halberd, EST swords with MaA head. I plan to add shields to the swordsmen, but wanted to get pics of their arms for comparison.


I think the GW arms look pretty good as unarmored arms, but the GW heads are too large to accompany them on an MaA torso.


Any pair of arms that hold the same weapon will result in hideous gaps that will be harder to fill than the hole in a Browncoat's heart after Serenity. In advice eerily similar to Dr Ruth's, I suggest using copious feathers.


Left: (Mantic dwarf head and hammer) Garreck always wondered why his father hated the dwarf mailman so much. His mother liked him just fine.
Middle: (GW Emp. Knight head and Pistolier hammer) Sir Timmus never entered or left battle without sufficient head protection.
Right: (WGF Hoplite head, Chaos Marauder arms) Leonardus was the king of the clubbing scene at The Hot Gates.


Abbey Path to Victory.


Only one of these guys has the guns for 40k.


For the sake of completion, my spearmen that I made with my patent-pending feather-brooch method.




I think I'm going to write Mantic about this one. I think my sampler Brock was in thoroughly used condition. At first, I was delighted that Mantic had designed an armored diaper for the brock, but now I'm starting to think this one was just unlucky.

If you read the KoW rulebook there's actually some background text about what dwarfs like to get up to with their badgers.

Is there seriously a separate buttplug piece though? That's hilarious, kinda wish I'd spend more time looking at mine before trading them away now.

Let us know what Mantic's response is.

There was no plug piece in my kit, which is what clued me in that this was less awesome and more... brockse.

EDIT: Also, his back left foot is a melty stump. So, I'm just going to chalk it up to a rather unfortunate miscast.

EDIT: Those are shoulder plates that have the wrong tabs for my Brock and will not fit.

The EST arms certainly make the MAA look a lot better, I have to admit. I still wouldn't buy any but hopefully it can help people like SS who are stuck with piles of the things...

Hahaha! Bob, I really enjoy your chimera projects. That dwarf at the left is really hilarious!

Getting back to topic. So it is better to buy Perrys men at arms to avoid having to spend more money to repair the Mantic ones? unless you already have spare GW bitz

Yeah. Either Perry minis, Fireforge minis or Gripping Beast minis. I think I prefer Gripping Beasts minis because they look slightly more heroic in scale and should fit in with my Reaper Bones models better.

Of course, their weedy swords will need to be replaced with my spare MaA swords. For science.

Wow, those EST arms go a long way towards making them look better. I think Judgedoug has the best idea though. Just replace them altogether with the Confrontation Lions. Although, I still think the MAA would look passable mounted onto some columns and painted marble.

I disagree with the original post. The men at at arms are far better than some of the basic infantry from KoW. Both the high elves and the dwarves look rather cartoonish especialy the sculpts of the high elves. The proportions of the dwarves aren't too bad but still look cartoonish for most of the line. Their heros however put their line to shame.

As someone with 500 dwarven infantry and 160 MaAs...I felt confident in posting they were the worst of the KS figures. They ARE fixable though, with a bit of spit and grit. Also, the dwarven and elven infantry were done prior to the KS.

I still want to see some of your painted MaA.

I'd still like to finish the few that I started painting. I'll see if I can get one or two done tonight. Work is keeping me out on the road for the next week. Bringing enforcers with me to work on during my off time (when I'm not hanging ou with Porkuslime, that is).

I... am tempted to put the Basilean weapons and shields on figures from the Perry twins....

The weapons look fine - the shields... it's not that hard to remove the arm.

I will keep the dozen or so that I am painting up as City Watch, and let the rest of the Sweater Men stay on their sprues.

It looks, to my unpracticed eye, like the MaA figures did not have the needed resolution when the 3D masters were produced - a different manufacturer, this time around?

For the record - I like both the elves and the dwarfs in the KoW line - and nearly every other miniature in the Kickstarter looks good. (Except for the ogres and the gargoyles - those look great!)

The Auld Grump

I'm not sure where else this could go, honestly, but since this thread is about "awful" minis Mantic has made...I just got a bunch of Mantic goblins, hearing the worst, but damn, they're awesome! I'm trying to figure out the complaints. They're far superior to GW goblins even. I mean, granted, I didn't go through EVERY model, but I went through a couple, and they all looked good. No complaints.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
It looks, to my unpracticed eye, like the MaA figures did not have the needed resolution when the 3D masters were produced - a different manufacturer, this time around?

Well, someone at Mantic let me know the whole story with them at the Open Day* (I didn't even ask, it was mostly just volunteered!). Multiple problems rather than just one specific one let to the minis being as they are. I knew some of the issues already, but it was explained again and expanded upon by the staffer, adding some new stuff I wasn't aware of:

- Remy sculpted one Men-at-arms. One. This was then digitally scanned and reposed and had new faces etc. done by a different 3d sculptor. This process didn't turn out perfectly, but it isn't the whole story either (note the puzzling difference between the excellent crossbow arms and the plastic arms, and the fact that the renders looked decent enough).

- The 3d files were sent to China.. and not used. Format was incompatible with the Chinese software which uses its own format, and the manufacturer didn't want to pay for the conversion software.

- What actually happened was that the manufacturer got some random guy to quickly (and quite evidently, half-arsedley) trace over the files mantic sent and recreate a new version of the 3d sculpts in the Chinese software that was compatible with the machines. So, the sprues we have on the shelves right now were basically 100% sculpted by some random chinese factory worker who had a bit of 3d software knowledge.

- There were some other minor things mentioned, stuff about them not milling finely enough and the shields and weapons being milled properly, but the rest of the sprue wasn't.

- First Mantic hears of any of this is when they get a test sprue in the mail, wonder what on earth went wrong and fly out half the company to China to make sure the deadzone sprues didn't suffer the same fate. It looks like they now have some of their own staff over there pretty much permanently to handle some of the more complicated stuff.

- I asked if they could re-tool the sprue. Can't do that without paying them again unfortunately, the contract at the time wasn't written well enough. With deadzone and all future sprues from the manufacturer, Mantic is working on a strict "no quality, no payment, re-tool the sprue" contract. This is something that Ronnie has mentioned quite a bit anyway, the fact that they're redoing sprues now if they're not done right the first time (core worlds tool was scrapped once, connector sprue tool was scrapped twice).

*waited a little while before posting because I didn't feel like dragging up this old chestnut again at the time and posting this in the mantic forums to mainly inform the people who actually own the models, or are getting some hard plastics in future.

So, yeah, pretty confident about their future sprues now that I know everything about what went wrong there. I'm a little less confident about them sticking their current manufacturer, but I guess without the cheap cost the models simply won't get made or sold at the price point they sell at. Someone asked about Chinese manufacturing during a seminar, and Ronnie explained it was simply a case of getting stuff done within their budget and expected sales figures.

My MAA are sitting in a cupboard awaiting the release of the Perry foot men-at-arms, in the hopes of being able to kitbash some minis I'm happy to use (probably just gonna use the spears, shields and feathers). They're okay-ish, but that unfortunately means my motivation to work on them is pretty much zero.

100% of the infantry in my basilean army will be paladins at first. Then it'll be the nuns with conversions, then.. I'll get around to the MAA. But before all that I'll be putting an all-cav and angel army together since it's a lot of points and not many models.

Am I correct in remembering that their older molds were made by Rendera in the UK?

The Mantic Undead are heads and shoulders (and intestines, and spinal bits) above the MaA models.

I thought that something was different when I saw that the frames of the MaA models were round, not rectangular.

The skeletons and revenants are very, very good sprues.

The Auld Grump

Even their stuff like the elves are better sculpted than the MAA even if you dont like them the quality of the sculpting is good.

Everything up to and including the Warpath Forgefathers and Marauders was tooled by Renedra.

So, the bulk of the models in the line, everything other than the KoW Goblins, MAA and Deadzone sprues.

The extremely high quality of the Renedra sprues makes the Chinese ones look even worse in comparison.

Renedra sprues are often better quality than GW ones, taking an objective view and looking at the level of fine detail and sharpness on them.

Matter of opinion, but I think The Elohi are much worse than the men at arms.

 sing your life wrote:
Matter of opinion, but I think The Elohi are much worse than the men at arms.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong or arguing with you since taste is subjective and you're right to feel the way you do, but... I really want to know what makes you feel that way. Please tell me more.


@Scarlet Squig, thank you for all the background information. Truly, you are Mantic's most valuable employee. (James better watch his back.)

When I get a chance to do more modelling, I'm going to try the Eisenkern accessory arms and heads on the MaA, and maybe some PDC guns.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
Matter of opinion, but I think The Elohi are much worse than the men at arms.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong or arguing with you since taste is subjective and you're right to feel the way you do, but... I really want to know what makes you feel that way. Please tell me more.


@Scarlet Squig, thank you for all the background information. Truly, you are Mantic's most valuable employee. (James better watch his back.)

When I get a chance to do more modelling, I'm going to try the Eisenkern accessory arms and heads on the MaA, and maybe some PDC guns.

Most of the stuff he posts doesn't make sense. I gave up trying a while ago.

I'm interested in his opinion. Art is subjective, so I feel like I learn a lot more from someone who experiences it very differently from me.


Also, I might just be a grand admiral named Thrawn.

To answer your question:

1. Look far more like action man figures of elves than actual paladins [IMHO]
2. Flaming swords are too silly
3. Heads are worst I've seen so far on a miniature, Weird proportions and are all the same.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:



Also, I might just be a grand admiral named Thrawn.

 sing your life wrote:
To answer your question:

1. Look far more like action man figures of elves than actual paladins [IMHO]
2. Flaming swords are too silly
3. Heads are worst I've seen so far on a miniature, Weird proportions and are all the same.

1. I'm not quite sure I understand. Do you mean that they are too thin? As angelic beings, should they have the same proportions as a human, in your opinion? I find that a fairly fantastic creature like an angel can have a wide latitude in appearance before it bothers me, so I'm curious what 'button' the elohi push for you.

2. According to Midrashes and other Biblical fan fiction, archangels like Uriel and Sandalphon carry swords of ever-turning fire. Seems like Mantic more from the old stories than just the Hebrew word "elohim" for the elohi. So, yes, it can seem silly, but many people might consider it a valid and important characteristic in an angelic being, the same way some people prefer human feet on a minotaur. I am curious where you draw the line, though. In Mantic's Mantica universe, there are many magic weapons that are similar, as well as undead dog walkers, dogs with throwing handles on their backs, and so on. Is Mantica just a silly place?

3. Yeah... I'm using GW heads on mine, fortunately.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:



Also, I might just be a grand admiral named Thrawn.

He likes to study art. For military applications.

I got some of the elves, I think they're neat. I got some of the MaA too. I'd have to assemble and paint some of them before I could say if their faults would bother me or not.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
Matter of opinion, but I think The Elohi are much worse than the men at arms.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong or arguing with you since taste is subjective and you're right to feel the way you do, but... I really want to know what makes you feel that way. Please tell me more.


@Scarlet Squig, thank you for all the background information. Truly, you are Mantic's most valuable employee. (James better watch his back.)

When I get a chance to do more modelling, I'm going to try the Eisenkern accessory arms and heads on the MaA, and maybe some PDC guns.

Most of the stuff he posts doesn't make sense. I gave up trying a while ago.

No, you gave up trying because you couldn't argue against my points, because they're all entirely correct.

I've settled on my fix for the men-at-arms.

Perry foot knights:



Not released, not scheduled for release currently. Probably won't see them until 2015.

However long it takes I will wait and buy 200 of them the second they go on sale. The style is close enough to the basileans with those helmets and the rules have basileans as wearing heavy armour, so that's no problem.

I view my current pile of men-at-arms as useful for the following purposes:

- I need the bases.
- Weapons and shields to make the perry stuff more fantasy.
- Potential use of the torsos with spare perry heads and arms. Maybe, maybe not. Or sell them off for peanuts. Or, I might call up Mantic and do a bitz order of crossbow arms to give them a use. Unsure.

Ask for a refund? They can't have been cheap...

About £60 in total spent on them alone during the kickstarter.

Considering the large quantity of other freebies I got during the KS (and successfully traded for even more Basileans) I'd rather pass on the refund idea and simply see that £60 spent as:

- £16 spent on 160 bases (they cost this much and I'd need to buy them for any perry minis anyway).

- £44 spent on 160 shields and spears for use on the perry minis to make them nice and fantasy looking. Works out at about 13p per "bit" which isn't too bad.

The other 40 MAA I have came from buying a couple of Basilean army boxes where they were essentially free on top of the other stuff in the box. With those ones I'll probably just email mantic and bitz order 40 crossbow arms (along with a bunch of the rather nice command bits).

The Basileans in general I'm really happy with... Paladins, Knights, Angels and characters are all top-notch minis. I like the cat cavalry and the chariot. Foot sisters need some work but should look okay. It's only that one unit that is a write-off.

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.

There's a number of things that definitely don't get done right that need to be done right and I'll be trying to encourage more debate on those points. Their current thinking is that "lego hands = good idea" and they want all the new 5-man sprues to have them so you can swap the weapons around.

Hmmm... I do not know if you are one of those folks like me that sometimes brings more than one army along - so that a new sacrificial victim player can be brought into the fold, but if do... maybe give the MaA a quick paintjob, and use them as a loaner army - so that when (not if, I'm afraid) something happens to the borrowed minis then you will not be all that heartbroken.

And by quick, I mean block colors, dip, base, done.

The Auld Grump - that was how I did them for city guard....

Lego hands? Bloody hell - just mould the weapons with hands attached like the most recent Space Marines or even one-piece weapon arms with some variety as most others do. Can we get James on here to discuss (after his New Year's hangover is gone) it before they scuttle their next sets of future plastic kit sales? Surely Ronnie has some experience with a certain company that manages to do plastic kits right?

Ronnie doesn't like lego hands either, he said so in one of the open day seminars when the topic was brought up.

He encouraged us to let Stew know if we don't like them, so it's definitely something to let them know about if it's not wanted.

I got the impression Ronnie mostly stays out of making final decisions on production matters these days.

I plan on mentioning it during the KoW 2.0 Kickstarter and encouraging some discussion then.

 scarletsquig wrote:


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.

There's a number of things that definitely don't get done right that need to be done right and I'll be trying to encourage more debate on those points. Their current thinking is that "lego hands = good idea" and they want all the new 5-man sprues to have them so you can swap the weapons around.

Good luck with that - I spent a good deal of time/effort during the first KS to make sure the new kits wouldn't have a lot of the same problems as the existing stuff. (Proper banners, head variety, etc) only for Mantic to throw me for a loop with a bunch of stuff I'd never dreamed they do. So you'd better specify things like "make sure the miniatures all have feet" and "no live deadly scorpions in the box."

Ronnie doesn't like lego hands either, he said so in one of the open day seminars when the topic was brought up.

He encouraged us to let Stew know if we don't like them, so it's definitely something to let them know about if it's not wanted.

I got the impression Ronnie mostly stays out of making final decisions on production matters these days.

I can't wait till I run my own miniatures company so I can have opinions on how things should be done and then not follow through on them ...

Those perry men at arms look fantastic. Are they going to be plastic?

Scarletsquig, have you considered just going for some of the metal Perry Agincourt/WOTR stuff for the men at arms? Even in metal they are very reasonably priced, just over £1 a mini

They're not quite as good a fit stylistically.

Not going to go for the basic perry infantry either for similar reasons.

As far as infantry goes in the army list, paladins look like the best choice to me anyway, for anything other than a horde.

Mounted nuns are okay, but foot nuns at De 3+ are just going to get shredded really easily. MAA are 20 points less than paladins, but I feel you gain quite a lot of good stuff for those 20 points.

Hey all, been a while since I posted here.

So back on page #1 I said I'd try my hand at sculpting some compatible bits for the M@A to help improve the models somewhat, and then I kinda of forgot about it, for several months......
But I'm back and last night I drew up so quick concept art and did a test sculpt, the sculpt itself is a little unrefined detail wise because I'm testing new clay types out, but the overall concept should be clear.

Here we go:

Came out pretty well, would love feedback and suggestions of course, sorry for the bad photos this was on the quick.

Oh and concept art: (just squint to see details)


Enjoy.

Gah! I hadn't realized just how bad the arms were

Anyway I popped by to show my solution to the problem.

How to fix?

How do you fix anything that has parts you don't like, and when chaos just isn't an option?

FRIGGEN UNDEAD IT THE HECK UP!


Yeah baby!

Probably not the perfect solution for those of you who actually want to use your righteous paladin/knight army as such... Unless you could be swayed to the winning side, who doesn't love a good anti-paladin and a host of religiously EVIL knights Anyway... I'll probably scavenge some zombie, ghoul, and skeleton parts and convert my remaining 15 MaA into the undead variant. Maybe use them as another block of revenants unless I can think of something better.

OK, now that might actually work...

Hah, the best solution!

But seriously, I really don't think these figures are salvageable for Basilean guys, not without a massive amount of work and spare parts.

I think Mantic have learnt from this mistake, and are likely to make big changes to stop it happening again. They can't afford to put out kits like this, it's just too costly. Perry plastics are too price competitive and full of bits, so Mantic will need to lift their game if they are looking to corner the market.

Percy's are crazy good value for money and great quality. Mantic can't make mistakes like this and expect to sell when there are other good alternatives.

Those are really cool Grim, might not be suitable as Men at Arms due to lack of armor, but as elite zombies or some sort of crazy zealous militia they are spot on.

It was a quick tack-job from the bottom of my bits box, used up most of the zombies/ghouls in a corporation conversion. Just wanted to flesh out (puns are always intended, why else would people use a particular word with such a big vocabulary out there) the idea before I lost it.

I think it'll work for me, and people who don't mind playing them as evil/undead.

Your solution to making them still Basi... those guys... is far more elegant and quite nice. Do you sell your bits anywhere or is it more of a hobby?

That looks really nice Rolt, a vast improvement!

You should contact Mantic and ask if they are open to some kind of business arrangement

Thanks Grim and Pacific

I obviously need to improve the details a lot, but in terms of a rough "sketch" the idea is there, if I keep working on this project I would love to eventually create a few sets of arms, 3 different types of shield, spears and swords,
and at least 6 different types of head, I think this would create just enough visual variety for a large block of troops. Someone also mentioned these guys lack a command troop troop right?, I'm assuming that's a banner bearer,
musician and a Sargent of some sort right? I don't own the book, so I don't know the full options.

Maybe I could make the sargent a female knight with alt heads and hair, could be fun. I'm very fond of the helm's so far, mainly because I based them off of this:


In terms in selling this stuff, meh I dunno, Mantic can have this stuff for free for all it matters (a fan submission if you will) I'm not looking to make any money, I just need a practice project to improve my sculpting, can't become a
professional sculptor unless I drastically start improving.

If anyone's got any ideas to add or even stuff they think would be cool, just throw it up.

I wish that we could convince Mantic that spending the money on Rendera frames will be a better choice in the long run - I have not seen the plastics from the new company on any models newer than the MaA, but looking them over again....

My hopes for future models are not high - and I do not trust this new manufacturer. After tracing the images rather than getting the right software... I would have dropped them like a dead skunk. (It may not have been in the contract - but that was just dishonest.)

The Auld Grump

IMO the joke is on both parties there - either the agreement should have specified how production data was to be supplied or they should have checked interoperability before signing.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I wish that we could convince Mantic that spending the money on Rendera frames will be a better choice in the long run

This!

Eh they don't look THAT terrible to my eyes. Not great mind you but not complete garbage either. Certainly better than old school GW with their single pose plastics from back in the day.

I don't think I could assemble the models as intended without dying a little inside. The arms are just way too big. The heads don't bother me as much. Mine will the some form of undead (as mentioned earlier) and so I'm fine with what I have, but I don't want more.

Since I do have those and the renedra skeleton sprues in hand, I do heartily agree that the renedra sprues are soooo much better. The MaA plastic feels almost closer to some kind of restic than gw/renedra hard plastic. It's oddly brittle and well.. hard. Kind of like restic is, but it's definitely not that either.

Yeah, I refuse to leave mine as they are-they're all getting serious surgery. Thanks to some of you guys on here, I have a good collection of extra paladin and Elohi heads to attach, and a sharp pair of clippers get the extra amount out of the arms to make them look presentable. All ranked up in a unit with those fixes, they'll look great. I just haven't had time for a mass scale project like that, so it's gone to the wayside.

The best use I have found so far for my MAA was giving them away to 8-12 year old family relations over the holidays. They loved customizing them with weapons and heads, etc. from my bitzbox. Oddly, almost none of them chose to use the stock arms...

Is Mantic planning on retooling these or are they happy having a vastly inferior product as a troop choice?

I was recently looking at getting into KoW and wanted to get a Basilean army but with these guys and the sisters being all wacky I may just have to pass for now.

I was considering a Basilean army when they were first announced too.

Lost intrest after seeing the MAA and sisters.

The probability that the MAA and Sisters get re-tooled is basically nil. Mantic already made the decision that they were going to release these abominations into the world. Their brand has already been damaged, but they figured that the brand dilution was worth saving the cost of another $15k or whatever to start over from scratch on them.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Eh they don't look THAT terrible to my eyes. Not great mind you but not complete garbage either. Certainly better than old school GW with their single pose plastics from back in the day.

Those figures were great, despite their minor flaws. I'll gladly swap my MAA for some of the old WFR Elves, Skaven or Dark Elves....

SO, just finished assembling my MAA from my crazy Xmas Box, and I have to say I'm not seeing why the backlash against them is this bad.

They're definitely not the most detailed models Mantic has to offer, and there are a few small areas that are relatively flat/detailless, but overall I'm not seeing why the opinion on them is quite so negative.

I'd personally give them a 3/5, something I'd buy if they were on a good sale and I had some spare disposable income. Not something I'd buy immediately in bulk (a 5), or buy if I had disposable income (a 4), but better than a grudgingly-accept-if-given-as-a-gift (a 2), or would-return-immediately (a 1).

Were there some aspects to them that I'm missing that are the reasons people hate them so much?

The right arm requires serious cutting to look like anything other than his mom dallied too long with a virulent gorilla. Faces are fine when painted and washed, but without a wash it's impossible for them to look good. I got a lot and I got them cheap. I'm ok with them and agree with your 3 (maybe a 2.5). They look good with work, but you shouldn't have to perform surgery to get them to look decent.

 darkPrince010 wrote:
SO, just finished assembling my MAA from my crazy Xmas Box, and I have to say I'm not seeing why the backlash against them is this bad.

They're definitely not the most detailed models Mantic has to offer, and there are a few small areas that are relatively flat/detailless, but overall I'm not seeing why the opinion on them is quite so negative.

I'd personally give them a 3/5, something I'd buy if they were on a good sale and I had some spare disposable income. Not something I'd buy immediately in bulk (a 5), or buy if I had disposable income (a 4), but better than a grudgingly-accept-if-given-as-a-gift (a 2), or would-return-immediately (a 1).

Were there some aspects to them that I'm missing that are the reasons people hate them so much?

The length of their arms, size of their hands, the awful non flat shoulder joints, the bubble shoulders in general, and the horrible hardness of the plastic. Seriously, the arms are all different lengths and clearly out of proportion to the body. Not just a little out of proportion either. Grossly out of proportion. One of the faces is also laughably bad.

 primalexile wrote:
Is Mantic planning on retooling these or are they happy having a vastly inferior product as a troop choice?

I was recently looking at getting into KoW and wanted to get a Basilean army but with these guys and the sisters being all wacky I may just have to pass for now.

I don't know Mantic's plans but I don't think retooling is anywhere near on the horizon (if at all) due to their frenetic release schedule.
They have Mars Attacks, more Deadzone stuff, a Kickstarter or two coming this year and at least some Dreadball action like the Azure Forest expansion all coming in the near future.

In the meantime, the FireForge guys have some excellent foot soldiers that would great Basileans IMHO.
They run about a buck a foot soldier (YMMV) and are made of hard plastic like Games Workshop models.
They also have matching knight types for a couple of army types (e.g., teutonic knights, Templars, even Monguls if that's how you view your Basileans.)

http://www.fireforge-games.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=1&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=56&vmcchk=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=95
http://www.fireforge-games.com/component/virtuemart/?page=shop.product_details&category_id=12&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=57
http://www.fireforge-games.com/webstore.html

 darkPrince010 wrote:
SO, just finished assembling my MAA from my crazy Xmas Box, and I have to say I'm not seeing why the backlash against them is this bad.

They're definitely not the most detailed models Mantic has to offer, and there are a few small areas that are relatively flat/detailless, but overall I'm not seeing why the opinion on them is quite so negative.

I'd personally give them a 3/5, something I'd buy if they were on a good sale and I had some spare disposable income. Not something I'd buy immediately in bulk (a 5), or buy if I had disposable income (a 4), but better than a grudgingly-accept-if-given-as-a-gift (a 2), or would-return-immediately (a 1).

Were there some aspects to them that I'm missing that are the reasons people hate them so much?

Because of these things.

Holy crap! Fireforge has Mongols?

Is it possible to swap my Men at Arms for them?

Don't mean to be a hater but they are positively horrid!, i want to buy into manic but they're not giving me a reason to

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Holy crap! Fireforge has Mongols?

Is it possible to swap my Men at Arms for them?

ooh! Those are new!

 mitch_rifle wrote:
Don't mean to be a hater but they are positively horrid!, i want to buy into manic but they're not giving me a reason to

You aren't being a hater. 95% (or more) of us mantic enthusiasts hate the MaAs. If I couldn't alter/adjust mine, I'd be pissed, and I'm one of the biggest Mantic Fanbois on here. But I can [slowly] take the time to fix mine with alternate heads and cutting the arms, and they look pretty good after doing that. I'd say my front rank of one unit is positively awesome and full of character. But it took a bit of work to get there: work that should have been an option, not a requirement.

I hate to raise the dead here (although those do seem to be the best Basileans), but I finally managed to capture some more of my MaA study models on film, as well as my solution for the Drakon Riders.

My latest attempt to salvage my minis? I went sci fi!

From left to right, I used Dreamforge arms (I would have used the rifle, but lost my directions for which arms go together!), Dreamforge, GW and WGF. I think I like the GW look for chapter serfs or Inquisition. I'll have to try a pure fantasy take on the Dreamforge arms. I left the gaps open to show the terrible fit, but I plan to cover every join with pouches or knives from the Dreamforge accessory set. I love that set.


Welcome to the gun show. Feel free to bring a knife.


Like a Dark Eldar at a pot luck, these guys are bringing the pain.



For my Drakon elves, I found some plastic swans at the dollar store (or big lots?) and some cake toppers at Hobby Lobby. I cut the pillars in half without regard for cleanliness or regularity; I plan to use AuldGrump's putty and superglue sandwich to fix gthe pillar into the swan and will fill the gaps with flock. Nothing says "Mystical transport from some otherworldly Elfin shadow world" like grass growing in your land-cruising swanboat.


This was my test model. The hole in the top of the pillar fits a standard round base. (I just grabbed the first figure I had with such a base. Unfortunately, Mantic round bases don't fit right.)


Ta-da!


This was just done to test the concept. I plan to bling the crap out of the swanboats using GW High Elf bits.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

For my Drakon elves, I found some plastic swans at the dollar store (or big lots?) and some cake toppers at Hobby Lobby. I cut the pillars in half without regard for cleanliness or regularity; I plan to use AuldGrump's putty and superglue sandwich to fix gthe pillar into the swan and will fill the gaps with flock. Nothing says "Mystical transport from some otherworldly Elfin shadow world" like grass growing in your land-cruising swanboat.


This was my test model. The hole in the top of the pillar fits a standard round base. (I just grabbed the first figure I had with such a base. Unfortunately, Mantic round bases don't fit right.)


Ta-da!


This was just done to test the concept. I plan to bling the crap out of the swanboats using GW High Elf bits.

*Bink, blink* Now I have an image of wood elves 'surfing' into battle on the backs of giant swans.....

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* I grew up in Boston, which has swan boats....

 darkPrince010 wrote:
SO, just finished assembling my MAA from my crazy Xmas Box, and I have to say I'm not seeing why the backlash against them is this bad.

They're definitely not the most detailed models Mantic has to offer, and there are a few small areas that are relatively flat/detailless, but overall I'm not seeing why the opinion on them is quite so negative.

I'd personally give them a 3/5, something I'd buy if they were on a good sale and I had some spare disposable income. Not something I'd buy immediately in bulk (a 5), or buy if I had disposable income (a 4), but better than a grudgingly-accept-if-given-as-a-gift (a 2), or would-return-immediately (a 1).

Were there some aspects to them that I'm missing that are the reasons people hate them so much?

10 years ago they would have been fine, but the bar has been raised quite high recently. Fireforge, Perry and Gripping Beast are offering suitable plastic humans that are of much better quality and far cheaper. There is really no excuse for releasing something this poor today.