Bolognesus wrote:

http://napalmelfrebelscum.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/mantic-kings-of-war-kickstarter-wave-2.html
The most comprehensive collection of available sculpt pics.

Thanks for the pics, guys, especially this link... I actually like quite a few things there. Still no more than half for sure... but the ogres actually look Really good (I've seen them before but not as many pics). The golems, gargoyles, mounted dwarf, lion mount, and chariot also look quite nice.

Plenty I don't like still, but this tides me over... cheers

Anybody else liking the Basilean rule set they put out? I'm definitely getting a few hordes of MaAs and Paladins. And Elohi. Sisters...maybe not. Not a huge fan of the arms, like others said. I also like most of the Mantic models out there, including the trolls and mummies, but the ladies are definitely a weak link. But I don't like every model GW puts out either. I'm with SS that most of the models are good/great and only a few I dislike...but the models I dislike are ones he likes. Personal taste, yet again. I also don't like that immortal guard model; I think it's terrible.

It's quite an interesting army list.

I'd prefer it if they didn't have a phoenix in the army list though, I quite like the one that GW released and Mantic probably won't have big monsters for KoW for at least another 3 years.

Anyone know some good alternate sources of sweet phoenix minis? Not concerned about the size, just looking for a good sculpt.

Edit: I'll settle for getting a pair of the hobbit eagles to use instead if I can't find anything else, on closer inspection the warhammer one is pretty ridiculous.

I looked to Reaper to start, and wasn't impressed. I may still get a GW one for my Basileans. I wonder if GW knows (or cares) that its models are being used now for a superior game.

scarletsquig, you picked up the the Bones Kickstarter, right? I think you could easily paint the griffon from that as a phoenix.

I seem to remember there being a Phoenix available from that line of fantasy monsters at Michaels too, but I can't find a link to it.

It's either schleich or papo. Maybe safari ltd..

Everything involving the sisters seems to turn out quite shoddy.... The rest is nice/good to really good..... So, tastes may differ, but it is not as bad as some want it to be.

Dreadball... seriously folks... there might be some casting issues but that can be rectified by getting replacements, figures are all fine designwise and casting is mainly no problem.

Official pics for werewolves and mummies:

I really like the mummies, except their yellowbrown wrappings. dark mouldy grey would look better, i think.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:


Dreadball... seriously folks... there might be some casting issues but that can be rectified by getting replacements, figures are all fine designwise and casting is mainly no problem.

And how does one accomplish this? I have sent multiple emails from my email used for backing the Kickstarter and have gotten no response outside generic robotic platitudes. I have asked for explicit action to fix/replace/refund my bad models and gotten nothing.

Now I get to make international phonecalls. Customer service indeed.

So how does one 'simply' get replacements from mantic if not via their website customer service form?

If you email stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com that'll get it sorted.

They have problems with the contact us form on their website.

 scarletsquig wrote:
If you email stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com that'll get it sorted.

They have problems with the contact us form on their website.

Sounds good, I will give that a go. That form sounds like a black hole.

Their whole website needs a total redesign, honestly.

@nkelsch - Also, Stewart may take a bit to answer (though he may have waded through the backlog of the Open Day by now), but I think you'll find that he will answer. And he'll sort it out.

I'll throw these images here for those that don't visit the painting forums. :-) These are my images, not studio shots, so please excuse my photography where necessary.

Gargoyle Lord:


Trolls:



Werewolves:



Mummies:

Thanks!

Your images are better than the studio shots, those werewolves and mummies are looking pretty good.

The trolls though... dear god, they're wearing g-strings. The horror!

Loving those Mummies!

If only the troll legs weren't so small...

They're not supposed to be two basilean sister hands long?

Hits and Misses, honestly.

Hope those sisters are a multipart kit. Trimmings are in order on them.

 warboss wrote:
They're not supposed to be two basilean sister hands long?

Well played . Two birds with one stone, that!

Also, the above pics are sweet, and as stated, better than the studios. Can't make up for the models in some instances, but they certainly help!

I did think these studio shots were an improvement on previous ones, mind you.

The arms are too big on those mummies as well. Everyone points out the long arms/big hands on the sisters, but it's the faces that bother me the most. No wonder they joined the nunnery...

 rosafari wrote:
The arms are too big on those mummies as well.

Yeah - from these shots the mummies look pretty malformed too. The arms are very thick. And the sword on the unit champ looks ridiculously huge. He must be an anime mummy.

 RiTides wrote:

 warboss wrote:
They're not supposed to be two basilean sister hands long?

Well played . Two birds with one stone, that!

Also, the above pics are sweet, and as stated, better than the studios. Can't make up for the models in some instances, but they certainly help!

I try. The paint jobs are indeed quite nice and I like how the werewolves turned out. The mummies, though, have oversized shoulders and arms with very stiff (yes I know they're dead) poses compared to other mantic kits.

I still like the Trolls a lot although I don´t really have a use for them. The nuns, well, indeed need a lot of triming to work well.

Official Ogre pic:



Very happy with that one, looks great.

Has a very "oldschool citadel" style to it, so much better than the current GW designs.

I am very, very happy with the Ogres and am considering adding many to my pledges.

Where are pics of the shooters? I don't understand why Mantic just can't post pics of ink-washed primed models so we can see all the variations and poses.

Love that Ogre, hate the paint scheme.

the Ogre army is sitting there, taunting me. Of course, what the hell would I do with an Ogre army?

I like both the model and the paint scheme. The paint reminds me of the trolls in the shadowrun video game.

Remy to the rescue. I still have to see a miniature from him which is only mediocre.

It's a shame he can only sculpt so much :(

Yeah I have to say the Ogre is a definite win. I am actually happy with them quite a bit.

It's just a shame they're not the miniatures I want from this kickstarter!

Here are the June/July releases for Kings of War, with retail prices:

MGE KWH11-1 Ogre Warriors (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH12-1 Ogre Shooters (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH70-1 Ogre Grokagamok ~ JUL PreOrder $14.99
MGE KWH71-1 Ogre Command (3) ~ JUL PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWH81-1 Ogre Army ~ JUL PreOrder $74.99
MGE KWO16-1 Orc Gore Chariot ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWO17-1 Orc Fight Wagon ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWO18-1 Goblin Mincer ~ JUL PreOrder $19.99
MGE KWO19-1 Trolls ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWO21-1 Orc Ax Regiment PLASTIC (15) 1 $24.99
MGE KWO24-1 Goblin Flebag Riders ~ JUL PreOrder $34.99
MGE KWO31-1 Orc Ax Horde (redesign) ~ JUN PreOrder $39.99
MGE KWO81-1 Orcs Army ~ JUN PreOrder $74.99
MGE KWO90-1 Goblin Heroes ~ JUL PreOrder $19.99
MGE KWU17-1 Werewolves (3) ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWU18-1 Undead Mummies (10) ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWU19-1 Undead Vampiress Lady Ilona ~ JUN PreOrder $9.99
MGE KWU21-1 Undead Skeleton Regiment (redesign) ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWU26-1 Undead Ghoul Regiment (redesign) ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWU44-1 Undead Skeleton Horde ~ JUN PreOrder $39.99
MGE KWU92-1 Undead Lord Malak ~ JUL PreOrder $19.99
MGE KWU93-1 Undead Liche King ~ JUN PreOrder $14.99

man i so want to like those werewolves but the bare ass and crotch hair just ruins for me :(

Squig, you're good with Photoshop. Be a dear and put a spiked collar and gimp mask on a werewolf, please.

Won't it be easier to just take pics of your conversions when you're done with them?

whut the heck is an Ogre Grokagamok?

No. Those are just for me.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Squig, you're good with Photoshop. Be a dear and put a spiked collar and gimp mask on a werewolf, please.

This and the following comments... hilarious

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
man i so want to like those werewolves but the bare ass and crotch hair just ruins for me :(

I dunno... I think I prefer the hair covering the crotch but it's just an opinion. If you would prefer them to be hairless down there instead, far be it from me to argue your full frontal werewolf preference...

 porkuslime wrote:
whut the heck is an Ogre Grokagamok?

A named character I believe.

 porkuslime wrote:
whut the heck is an Ogre Grokagamok?

Ogre hero of some sort.

Makes me question mocking GW's naming convention. At least you know what a "Gutlord" is.

 Polonius wrote:

 porkuslime wrote:
whut the heck is an Ogre Grokagamok?

Ogre hero of some sort.

Makes me question mocking GW's naming convention. At least you know what a "Gutlord" is.

What's wrong with it? GW names ogres after stomach slurs, Mantic throws random letter-magnets on the fridge and whatever they spell becomes the name. I approve.

MGE KWH11-1 Ogre Warriors (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH12-1 Ogre Shooters (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99

Those didn't quite end up as BOGOF ...

MGE KWO16-1 Orc Gore Chariot ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWO17-1 Orc Fight Wagon ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99

I was under the impression this was a dual kit?

MGE KWO21-1 Orc Ax Regiment PLASTIC (15) 1 $24.99
MGE KWO31-1 Orc Ax Horde (redesign) ~ JUN PreOrder $39.99

Interesting ... Do we know what's changed here?

MGE KWU21-1 Undead Skeleton Regiment (redesign) ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99
MGE KWU26-1 Undead Ghoul Regiment (redesign) ~ JUN PreOrder $24.99

Doubly interesting ... everyone (or nearly) actually likes the skellies/ghouls.

^ New packaging.

god you guys are terrible... i love it... lol

while i do enjoy a nicely groomed landing strip now and again i definitely do not want to see it on my werewolves.
if the hulk could manage to keep himself in pants i think the werewolf community should be able to follow suit.

have we only seen the 1 ogre so far?

So the ghouls and skellies is just a box redesign?

yeah, they're changing the packaging away from the VHS like cases, I believe.

 Bolognesus wrote:
yeah, they're changing the packaging away from the VHS like cases, I believe.

given that i never used those cases for anything, i'm glad to hear they're changing it

Oh, I don't know, they're quite useful. not with their standard foam but using (half of) a KR N or F type tray they're actually quite good for smaller skirmish-type stuff (or dreadball teams, that works particularly well. I'd imagine blood bowl would be the same.)

 Bolognesus wrote:
Really though Azazelx, the hero on lion, ogres and paladins had mostly very positive reactions, the golems generally were well-received as well (I sure am getting extras too), the mummies were deemed somewhere in the area of "well, not too shabby", generally; it's just the brock riders, cats, sisters (arms, mostly!) trolls and to a somewhat lesser extent, werewolves which are catching flak.
as to the ogre shooters well, you've seen the bodies and there's pics of the weapons I believe - kinda close

I haven't seen immortal guard pics either (Squig, any chance of a hint where to find those? I believe you mentioned them as having been shown), by the way.
Most everything but the elf cav and some heroes should be revealed by friday or so, so let's hold this "percentage of mini's gone bad" debate for a week or so, shall we?

Look, I personally am good with a some of the figures that others have complained about - and not with others. But if you're going to make sweeping statements as though they are authoritative "no complaints" "the number was chosen carefully", then.. well, you get called on them. Better to do as you suggest by holding off on trying to call percentages until everything has been seen, and even then talk in general terms rather than absolute ones like "no complaints".

The sisters are fixable, which I may or may not get around to doing with my freebies, but I'd pledged for some extras since they sounded cool. But frankly, I'm not willing to "spend" money (or pre-paid BOGOF) on figures I need to fix up, since it's pretty much every arm that looks to need repairs due to the upper/lower arm ratio the sculptor used.

 Da Boss wrote:
Definitely seems like Mantic have taken too much on with so many Kickstarters "running" simultaneously. Otherwise they might have time to compile the sort of information RiTides is talking about for customers.
I might sound like I've got a bone to pick here but I've been fairly positive about Mantic in the past, so I think it's only fair to call them on it when I see things that I think are shoddy or silly.

I agree with you here.


With the mummies.... I don't hate the sculpts, but once again, they don't match the concept art that they were sold on, and the concept art is better. I was actually looking forward to getting a few cool-looking gothic horror/traditional mummies not decked out in giant silly Khemri hats holding maces and weapons. - which is why I own none of the current GW ones. - fake edit - on seeing the clearer shots, the models are looking pretty average. Clearly lots of mold lines that not even winterdyne was able to clean up, silly-thick arms (truescale FTW!) And the windy cloaks are a bit overdone. They're messy, disposable sculpts.


Winterdyne - once again your photos are far better than any of the ones I've seen from Mantic. I still don't like the trolls, but your paint on them looks even better than it did in the last photos I complimented you on.


Ogre. Looks good. The legs look much better in the painted shot as well.

 scarletsquig wrote:
It's quite an interesting army list.
I'd prefer it if they didn't have a phoenix in the army list though, I quite like the one that GW released and Mantic probably won't have big monsters for KoW for at least another 3 years.
Anyone know some good alternate sources of sweet phoenix minis? Not concerned about the size, just looking for a good sculpt.
Edit: I'll settle for getting a pair of the hobbit eagles to use instead if I can't find anything else, on closer inspection the warhammer one is pretty ridiculous.

erm.. you like the GW one or you don't? If you like it, why wouldn't you get it for your KoW forces?

Bit late to the party. Are the paladins plastic or restic?

 scarletsquig wrote:
Here are the June/July releases for Kings of War, with retail prices:
MGE KWH11-1 Ogre Warriors (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH12-1 Ogre Shooters (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99

Aren't these figures 3-for$25 that then become 6/$25 BOGOF choices/Kickstarter price? With the release of the retail pricing details, the ogres also appear to have gone from "BOGOF" to "16.5% off RRP" (ie we could buy them cheaper from many retailers).

If so, Might be worth changing some BOGOF choices to some of the quality items like the goblin shredder and picking up the Ogre sets of 6 at discounted retail - 6/$27 (or less) from stores to support retailers who stock Mantic/KoW. - or they could give us 12 Ogres if it's actually "BOGOF".

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
man i so want to like those werewolves but the bare ass and crotch hair just ruins for me :(

It's just paint. Paint it brown or grey for fur like the rest of the model instead of in skin tones and you'll be fine.

But if you're going to make sweeping statements as though they are authoritative "no complaints" "the number was chosen carefully", then.. well, you get called on them. Better to do as you suggest by holding off on trying to call percentages until everything has been seen, and even then talk in general terms rather than absolute ones like "no complaints".

Or you could not flip out and write 7-paragraph rants every time you have a problem with the minutiae of someone's post, and then keep ranting about it 4 pages later after the discussion has moved on.

My post was far too absolute and would have benefited from a "no complaints, in general" suffix.

Did I feel like bothering to post a reply to your post to that effect though? No, I didn't, and the reason why should be very obvious.

Anyway, yeah, definitely better off either dropping ogres from the pledge and buying discount retail *or* going for the ogre army bundle deal offered in the survey, which is still a really good deal.

 Azazelx wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
Here are the June/July releases for Kings of War, with retail prices:
MGE KWH11-1 Ogre Warriors (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH12-1 Ogre Shooters (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99

Aren't these figures 3-for$25 that then become 6/$25 BOGOF choices/Kickstarter price? With the release of the retail pricing details, the ogres also appear to have gone from "BOGOF" to "16.5% off RRP" (ie we could buy them cheaper from many retailers).

If so, Might be worth changing some BOGOF choices to some of the quality items like the goblin shredder and picking up the Ogre sets of 6 at discounted retail - 6/$27 (or less) from stores to support retailers who stock Mantic/KoW. - or they could give us 12 Ogres if it's actually "BOGOF".

Agree to some degree. I saw someone suggest on the mantic forums that they're doing the ogres at a lower margin to compete with GW ogres on price, which makes sense.

If you get the starter from Mantic, there's about another 20% discount from the freebies (though you probably don't need duplicates of the character).

 scarletsquig wrote:

But if you're going to make sweeping statements as though they are authoritative "no complaints" "the number was chosen carefully", then.. well, you get called on them. Better to do as you suggest by holding off on trying to call percentages until everything has been seen, and even then talk in general terms rather than absolute ones like "no complaints".

Or you could not flip out and write 7-paragraph rants every time you have a problem with the minutiae of someone's post, and then keep ranting about it 4 pages later after the discussion has moved on.

I reply as I go along. The fact that I hadn't read the thread for a whole two days isn't going to change that. Deal.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also on the ogres. One picture? That's a bit poor. Don't get me wrong, I like the model, but is that one pic (with face paint obscuring the sculpt) supposed to take the place of showing the regiment, and also the shooters?

Luckily, we on Dakka have links to blogs and photo compilations due the nature of our community, but the Mantic line of "wait till the official pics come out, guys!" is pretty undermined by this sort of thing. I posted a link to the faces on the blog linked earlier in the comments for the other backers who might not be forum regulars like us.

I also emailed a pleasant version of the same comments to Stewart, along with the "BOGOF = 16.5% off" and request to see pictures or at least a list of the command components.

 Azazelx wrote:
Also on the ogres. One picture? That's a bit poor. Don't get me wrong, I like the model, but is that one pic (with face paint obscuring the sculpt) supposed to take the place of showing the regiment, and also the shooters?

If you'll let me quote from the update email, it might make slightly more sense:

Kings of War Update #72 wrote:The Ogres have always been an option in the Kingdoms of Men army from the Kings of War rulebook, but in the upcoming Kings and Legends supplement they’re going to have their own force list! No more listening to orders from some jumped-up human on a horse… these Ogres are picking their own battles. The paint scheme above is one that we’re considering for the studio Ogre army – what do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

If they're not sure about the scheme yet, why paint up more than one example to show off?

It's a matter of purpose. The purpose of the pictures at this stage is so that people can manage their pledges and also add new items. I don't really care about the paint. I and many others would be very happy with bare plastic shots of the models, perhaps lightly inked to show off the details. The point is that they promised to show us the figures (not singular) so that people can make informed BOGOF decisions, or informed decisions about their add-ons.

Instead they have been dancing around the issue, with no good pictures and giving us the usual bs "wait for official pictures, guys!" line when people use what there is available as their references for the figures. I think the Ogres are actually one of their strongest lines from this KS, and it's pretty stupid of them not to properly show them off at this stage.

That one picture doesn't tell me what the other 1h+shield figures in the regiment box that they want to sell me looks like, nor does it tell me what the 2-handed options look like - or indeed what the regiment box includes (just 1h+s? other 1h weapons? 2h options for some? All? What kinds of 2H weapons? Nor does it show what the ranged versions of the ogres will look like or any of the similar option questions.

Like I said, I don't need paint. I just want to see what they're trying to sell us, you know, before we give them more money or make our final choices.

edit - typo


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also. Letting us know exactly what's in the "command packs". Not just for the ogres, but when showing off the regiments would surely be the most appropriate time to do so.

Looking forward to seeing more Ogre pics, once a paint scheme is settled on (or perhaps unpainted).

"Ancient Spirits of Evil...transform this decayed form...to Mumm-Ra...THE EVER-LIVING!!"

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, I think I can find a use for these guys, monkey arms and all.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Bolognesus wrote:
Really though Azazelx, the hero on lion, ogres and paladins had mostly very positive reactions, the golems generally were well-received as well (I sure am getting extras too), the mummies were deemed somewhere in the area of "well, not too shabby", generally; it's just the brock riders, cats, sisters (arms, mostly!) trolls and to a somewhat lesser extent, werewolves which are catching flak.
as to the ogre shooters well, you've seen the bodies and there's pics of the weapons I believe - kinda close

Now you're being silly as well as ignoring what I posted in relation to that already. Sure, *no* model will ever receive 100.00000% acclaim. Hell, 95% is a rarity, even for the really good stuff. Have you *seen* the whining about the looks of that new Eldar Wraithknight (and not the price, I mean)? that's a fact of life and anything over 80% positive comments, I disregard the negative - simply because not only is 80% a pretty good average for any model as far as reception's concerned, but also negative comments will be about five times more prevalent than negative sentiments, relatively - negative feelings will be posted quicker.
Go ahead, claim any model anyone is posting issues with is bad - I'm sure you'll be able to approve some model, somewhere, sometime by the year 2100 or so. Stupid methodology, if you ask me.

Also:

Today, we're looking at a couple of new battlefield contraptions that can bulk out your greenskin armies!

First up, the Orc Gore Chariot:


This war engine is as simple as it is brutal: a pair of snarling Gores pulling a very heavy and very spiky war-chariot, which carries a couple of big Orcs armed to the teeth and eager to get into battle. Their tactic is obvious: charge headlong towards the nearest enemy regiment.

For $25, your survey can get you two Chariot / Fight Wagon kits, which you can build as one of each or both the same. (The Fight Wagon is made of the Chariot kit with a couple of extra pieces.) You can take up to six of each as a single Regiment, but even one on its own is still a force to be reckoned with!

The Mincer is essentially a carriage powered by the frantic labour of Goblins or a small steam engine. The rear sports a large counterweight, necessary to offset the huge weight of the Mincer itself, a large, cone of counter-rotating segments. An adaptation of a digging machine, the Mincer’s grinding cone is fitted with blades, designed to be sent hurtling at high speed down a tunnel packed with Dwarfs.

The Mincer got a lot of attention at the Mantic Open Day, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s an awesome, characterful model, and at 50 points it’s a must-have in any Goblin army. If you order through the survey, $25 gets you two Mincers instead of one – that’s two Monsters for your army, but with Goblins you’re never short on Solid Units so it shouldn’t eat into your Hero / Monster budget!

With these additions, as well as the Trolls you saw last week, the greenskin armies are already looking a lot more dangerous. Are you going to be adding any to your force, or even starting a horde from scratch? Tell us all about it in the comments!

Command Packs

Towards the end of the survey there are several options for Command Packs. We realised we haven't told you what those contain, so here we go!

The Men at Arms command pack is a banner and drum with drumstick arms.
The Sisterhood command pack is a banner and horn arms - these fit infantry and cavalry.
The Paladins command pack is also a banner and horn arms that fits infantry and cavalry.
The Ogre command pack is a banner arm, Champion sword arm, Champion buckler arm, and (hooray!) a set of bagpipes.
The Fleabag Riders command pack is a banner and horn arms.

The chariot looks decent but 2 points I dont like

1. Boars look pretty tiny to make that thing move at a good speed

2. chariot doesnt have a front. That wouldnt be so bad though if it was smaller like Celt Chariots which also lacked fronts

I am going to be adding many Chariots and Fight Wagons and Mincers for my Orcs and for my Goblin army. Those are great.

Man, I'd like that charriot much more if it wasn't so clearly just a rectangle on wheels.

I hadn't noticed this before, but what's with those weird dancing leg poses on the mummies?

V1ND4LOO wrote:
Man, I'd like that charriot much more if it wasn't so clearly just a rectangle on wheels.

Nooooooo....! Can't... un... see.....

The chariot is serviceable enough. There's not much to it, no - but it's made by (and for) orcs. They tend to worry more about function than form.

I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

Schmapdi wrote:
I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

I really like it, and I think it can reasonably be used as a goblin chariot, a pump wagon or a mangler squig. Very fun model.

Schmapdi wrote:

I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

As a goblin Mincer for KoW of course lol

Schmapdi wrote:
The chariot is serviceable enough. There's not much to it, no - but it's made by (and for) orcs. They tend to worry more about function than form.

I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

Yeah, I don't really understand what else you'd want from an orc chariot; it looks like something that took as little effort as possible to build while remaining quite serviceable - just what I'd expect from a bunch of orcs...

Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

 agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

 Gitkikka wrote:

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, I think I can find a use for these guys, monkey arms and all.

They look like they have separate arms, so if you clip the tops off them, it should fix them a lot easier than the nuns.

 RiTides wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

The Ogres were advertised with a retail price of $25 for 3 but with a BOGOF offer to double to 6. They are now going to be sold for $30 for 6, so the advertised BOGOF is actually less of a discount (16.5% rather than 50%) than if you just bought them online from any webstore. Mantic clearly knew this when they sent out the 3rd survey but didn't address it.

 Bolognesus wrote:

Now you're being silly as well as ignoring what I posted in relation to that already. Sure, *no* model will ever receive 100.00000% acclaim. Hell, 95% is a rarity, even for the really good stuff. Have you *seen* the whining about the looks of that new Eldar Wraithknight (and not the price, I mean)? that's a fact of life and anything over 80% positive comments, I disregard the negative - simply because not only is 80% a pretty good average for any model as far as reception's concerned, but also negative comments will be about five times more prevalent than negative sentiments, relatively - negative feelings will be posted quicker.
Go ahead, claim any model anyone is posting issues with is bad - I'm sure you'll be able to approve some model, somewhere, sometime by the year 2100 or so. Stupid methodology, if you ask me.

It's easy. Avoid absolute statements. Also please note - and I should probably have pointed it out, I was only talking about comments I'd seen on Dakka, - not "in the whole world" or on the KS comments, because, yes, someone will always hate everything. I did also point out that I'm personally fine with a number of the models that got a lot of flack (Werewolves, for example).

Also:
Chariot looks great. Goblin Shredder looks great. I'll be getting some of those with my repurposed BOGOFs.

 RiTides wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

Well, it depends if the earlier reported prices are accurate. Backers were told one thing about unit sizes and now we're hearing something else. I'll use Ogres as an example. Backers were told that for $25 you could order 3 ogres and they would give one unit free, thus for $25 you'd get 6 Ogres, buy one get one free. Now, however, we're finding out that retail will be $29 for 6 Ogres. This means that we really didn't get BOGOF or we'd get 12 Ogres for $25; instead we get buy one with a small discount, smaller than we could get from online retailers like Miniature Market. On the Kickstarter page, Mantic has yet to address this even though it's been brought up several times by different backers (at least as of a couple of hours ago).

 agnosto wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

Well, it depends if the earlier reported prices are accurate. Backers were told one thing about unit sizes and now we're hearing something else. I'll use Ogres as an example. Backers were told that for $25 you could order 3 ogres and they would give one unit free, thus for $25 you'd get 6 Ogres, buy one get one free. Now, however, we're finding out that retail will be $29 for 6 Ogres. This means that we really didn't get BOGOF or we'd get 12 Ogres for $25; instead we get buy one with a small discount, smaller than we could get from online retailers like Miniature Market. On the Kickstarter page, Mantic has yet to address this even though it's been brought up several times by different backers (at least as of a couple of hours ago).

To be fair it is late in the evening in the UK, but I'm hoping it will be addressed in the morning. I'm a little skeptical though just because I have a hard time believing that Mantic didn't know they would be packaged in boxes of 6 before they sent out the survey (given the retail release is June they would have had to order retail packaging 2-3 months ago).

willb2064 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

The Ogres were advertised with a retail price of $25 for 3 but with a BOGOF offer to double to 6. They are now going to be sold for $30 for 6, so the advertised BOGOF is actually less of a discount (16.5% rather than 50%) than if you just bought them online from any webstore. Mantic clearly knew this when they sent out the 3rd survey but didn't address it.

It's only for a few of the units, but yeah. I think it's unfortunate, and I'd rather that they would have bumped the value again, as they did with the Men-At-Arms (12 Ogres for $25 would have been fething brilliant!).
I asked Stewart about it, and this is what he said:

Stewart wrote:
As for prices, all of the Kickstarter prices had no relation to RRP. With the manner in which we were introducing new units back then, we had no way of working out margins and retail prices, so we made some assumptions. The only rule we set ourselves was that the KS prices would be less than RRP, and we’ve stuck to that. With the Ogres in particular, the RRP is less than it would otherwise be to keep them competitive in the wider market. For everything else, the Kickstarter prices still provide a massive discount.

His point is pretty reasonable, but the result is that I'm swapping out trolls and ogres now for other things. I'll still buy the additional ogres, but I'll do it via retail, which will get them for roughly the same price, and also support retailers who stock Mantic.

Which still doesn't make any sense; you'd think they could at least match what retailers are going to charge. Ah well. Sad really, because the Ogres are pretty much the only models I need; I don't have any plans to start an Empire army and WHFB is the only fantasy game (other than Warma/Hordes) that's played around here...

 Azazelx wrote:

willb2064 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

The Ogres were advertised with a retail price of $25 for 3 but with a BOGOF offer to double to 6. They are now going to be sold for $30 for 6, so the advertised BOGOF is actually less of a discount (16.5% rather than 50%) than if you just bought them online from any webstore. Mantic clearly knew this when they sent out the 3rd survey but didn't address it.

It's only for a few of the units, but yeah. I think it's unfortunate, and I'd rather that they would have bumped the value again, as they did with the Men-At-Arms (12 Ogres for $25 would have been fething brilliant!).
I asked Stewart about it, and this is what he said:

Stewart wrote:
As for prices, all of the Kickstarter prices had no relation to RRP. With the manner in which we were introducing new units back then, we had no way of working out margins and retail prices, so we made some assumptions. The only rule we set ourselves was that the KS prices would be less than RRP, and we’ve stuck to that. With the Ogres in particular, the RRP is less than it would otherwise be to keep them competitive in the wider market. For everything else, the Kickstarter prices still provide a massive discount.

His point is pretty reasonable, but the result is that I'm swapping out trolls and ogres now for other things. I'll still buy the additional ogres, but I'll do it via retail, which will get them for roughly the same price, and also support retailers who stock Mantic.

I don't think his point is reasonable. 90% of the prices in the KS campaign are the same as the RRP, so they mislead their backers, and continue to mislead them by offering 3 for $25 with "BOGOF" in their recent survey. His response of 'well everything else is at a massive discount' is basically just sticking a middle finger up at anyone who pledged for Ogres.

IMO it would be a nice showing of faith to upgrade each BOGO of ogres to be 9 ogres, which is close to BOGO from the retail price.

Something tells me that Mantic aren't going to be offering BOGOFs in any future kickstarter.

If they'd called them bundle deals instead at exactly the same price there wouldn't be any complaints, but people would have bought exactly the same amount of stuff.

We're seeing that with deadzone, I can easily see the starters retailing at $50 (same price as the warpath starters) for 15 minis (some of them quite large), which makes the $50 bundle deal technically a BOGOF, but if they don't call it a BOGOF right now then later on if the RRP ends up lower on release, no-one will complain.

It's all just a matter of finding the correct wording.

decker_cky wrote:
IMO it would be a nice showing of faith to upgrade each BOGO of ogres to be 9 ogres, which is close to BOGO from the retail price.

I agree, that would be good.

The reason I think Stewart's point with regard to the BOGOFs is reasonable is one of context. At the time of the KoW kickstarter, there was a massive amount of "WTF is happening here?" going on, as they scrambled to come up with new stuff. Their goal was $5k remember, and at the time they weren't even sure they would get it. There was none of the stuff we see in the current ones - no carefully orchestrated, well planned in advance, fake stretch goals, early bird specials etc etc. It was very seat of their pants, and they were throwing out concept art with prices based on a broad price band of $25 sets. Obviously that has now changed when they've finalised their setup for retail.

Specifically, with the ogres, they've realised that they're not competing with single-model GW finecast "character" ogres (or ogryns) on price, but with the three main regiment boxes and doubled the retail packs.

Now, do I think it would be a great gesture for them to bump up the value of things like the Ogres? Too fething right I do - I'd have loved an army of ogres at $25 for 9 or 12. But if they're not going to do so, I'll suck it up, take my free ogres and change my BOGOFs to things that are good models that also retain a high "kickstarter value". I'll probably buy a few extras from retail down the line.

Would I be willing to offer them this same amount of leeway with DreadBall or DeadZone? Hell no. I'm willing to do it in the KoW set because of the context, and it's not a context and situation that will repeat itself.

I would have much preferred for their boxes to be about $25 or even $20, even if it meant they included 30% fewer models. $30 is not a great price for an impulse buy, especially since even their good sculpts are not exactly taking the world by storm.

I guess I just have to wait for MM or The War Store to adjust Mantic's prices down where they belong.

$18 or so for 3 would have been a very attractive price point for impulse buys, but $30 for 6 is fine too. There's still going to be the character model at the impulse price point, and an amazing bargain for the unit. With them being sold in 6's,

On a close but very different note: I'm hoping we see a large infantry horde in the ogre army (maybe 15 models 5x3?).

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I would have much preferred for their boxes to be about $25 or even $20, even if it meant they included 30% fewer models. $30 is not a great price for an impulse buy, especially since even their good sculpts are not exactly taking the world by storm.

It's direct competition with this @$40:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1320015a


Same number of models, $10 (25%) cheaper.

...until you add command bits. Hell, I'm usually one of mantic's stauncher defenders around here but I'm probably not going to BOGOF any Ogres, just waiting for the 9 freebies I'm due anyway to see if I really like them more than the GW stuff (which would probably be quicker to paint and not have metal command bits) - I kind of prefer the mantic ogre style but the GW ogres are quite nice as well. They'd blend in a damn sight easier with the big OK beasties I'd plan on getting - I was thinking of making my ogres into a dual KoW/WHFB army (KoW is abetter game IMO - quicker, more fun-, but having lots and lots of opponents to choose from has it's charm too). Feth, I think that after getting command bits they wouldn't even be appreciably cheaper. Never realized those GW ogres were actually pretty damn cheap in comparison to the rest of the line (which of course breaks down as soon as you want a maneater unit at like $40 per model but I digress), having bypassed most of the price increases since their release, if I'm not mistaken - at least with many of the plastics.
Hmm, kind of a weir sensation, this
of course this might just be sleep deprivation, I might deeply regret this post twelve hours from now, haha. no fun, working a thesis deadline to the point of hallucinating

I'm under the assumption that the command bits will be included in the retail boxes, but as you rightly point out (and I'd forgotten!) the command bits add another $5 to the Kickstarter prices. So the KS price is now the same as RRP without any discounts.

Someone else want to email that point to Stewart or add it to the KS comments? I'm too tired of it right now.

Glad I am not looking to get Ogres for an army, otherwise I would be spitting chips now.

The problem with this whole Kickstarter isn't that the ogres have suddenly come down in price for retail buyers compared to kickstarter pledgers, it's that they've shifted the goalposts on us yet again. First it was with showing concept sketches that now have models that look radically different from what is given, then promising us one type of model and supplying something completely different (monstrous cat cavalry is now regular sized cat horses), and now this.

I am now wondering what other surprises are in store. We can't back out now, they've already got our money. We've just got to sit here and take it pretty much.

 Azazelx wrote:
I'm under the assumption that the command bits will be included in the retail boxes, but as you rightly point out (and I'd forgotten!) the command bits add another $5 to the Kickstarter prices. So the KS price is now the same as RRP without any discounts.

Someone else want to email that point to Stewart or add it to the KS comments? I'm too tired of it right now.

actually, no. Straight from 'Squig's june/july releases post:

MGE KWH11-1 Ogre Warriors (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH12-1 Ogre Shooters (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH70-1 Ogre Grokagamok ~ JUL PreOrder $14.99
MGE KWH71-1 Ogre Command (3) ~ JUL PreOrder $24.99

... so in effect you're paying $10 for command bits, too.
Hmm, that's $80 for twelve models with two command sets - these things actually price out to the same level as bulls if you need the command bits. Dang. Not that I really mind, they're pretty good value but I never realized those OK bulls were such good value as well. always thought that box had three or four of them, not six... lolwut?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fenriswulf wrote:
Glad I am not looking to get Ogres for an army, otherwise I would be spitting chips now.

The problem with this whole Kickstarter isn't that the ogres have suddenly come down in price for retail buyers compared to kickstarter pledgers, it's that they've shifted the goalposts on us yet again. First it was with showing concept sketches that now have models that look radically different from what is given, then promising us one type of model and supplying something completely different (monstrous cat cavalry is now regular sized cat horses), and now this.

I am now wondering what other surprises are in store. We can't back out now, they've already got our money. We've just got to sit here and take it pretty much.

First of all, I still do believe mantic was issuing refunds to the deeply unsatisfied. Maybe SS can chime in here? Also, let's not confuse matters here; those Ogres are pretty damn close to concept and pretty well-received as well. I don't like the BOGOF thing either but making it sound as if these issues are compounded on the ogres (and believe me, I was deeply disappointed with the cats as well...) is a bit disingenuous and really, the 'radically different from the concept art' pretty much only goes for the sisters (which they were perfectly clear about - those were subject to MAJOR change past the end of the KS and they said so from the get-go) the trolls legs (the amount of armour plating was more or less designed-by-committee in the KS comments section, if I recall correctly) and the mummies - which I believe were clearly stated to be subject to major change as well. Hey, I dislike the sisters and the cat cav as well, but TBH, those were thrown in in such a way that one should have understood they were very rough ideas at the time. Doesn't excuse the bloody cats IMO, and the sisters are just a case of poor execution if you ask me, but you're well on your way to becoming agamemnon2.1 here.

 Bolognesus wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
I'm under the assumption that the command bits will be included in the retail boxes, but as you rightly point out (and I'd forgotten!) the command bits add another $5 to the Kickstarter prices. So the KS price is now the same as RRP without any discounts.

Someone else want to email that point to Stewart or add it to the KS comments? I'm too tired of it right now.

actually, no. Straight from 'Squig's june/july releases post:

MGE KWH11-1 Ogre Warriors (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH12-1 Ogre Shooters (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH70-1 Ogre Grokagamok ~ JUL PreOrder $14.99
MGE KWH71-1 Ogre Command (3) ~ JUL PreOrder $24.99

... so in effect you're paying $10 for command bits, too.

Ah, you're right. I hadn't spotted the Ogre Command box. The command packs they're offering really look like a ripoff by anyone's standards. $5 for a banner and horn arm in many of the sets is just insulting. Is the Ogre set the same $5? Because that one seems to be the only one that might contain close to $5 worth of parts, being 4 Ogre arms.

The Ogre command pack is a banner arm, Champion sword arm, Champion buckler arm, and (hooray!) a set of bagpipes.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bolognesus wrote:

First of all, I still do believe mantic was issuing refunds to the deeply unsatisfied. Maybe SS can chime in here? Also, let's not confuse matters here; those Ogres are pretty damn close to concept and pretty well-received as well. I don't like the BOGOF thing either but making it sound as if these issues are compounded on the ogres (and believe me, I was deeply disappointed with the cats as well...) is a bit disingenuous and really, the 'radically different from the concept art' pretty much only goes for the sisters (which they were perfectly clear about - those were subject to MAJOR change past the end of the KS and they said so from the get-go) the trolls legs (the amount of armour plating was more or less designed-by-committee in the KS comments section, if I recall correctly) and the mummies - which I believe were clearly stated to be subject to major change as well. Hey, I dislike the sisters and the cat cav as well, but TBH, those were thrown in in such a way that one should have understood they were very rough ideas at the time. Doesn't excuse the bloody cats IMO, and the sisters are just a case of poor execution if you ask me, but you're well on your way to becoming agamemnon2.1 here.

Yeah, the sisters are poor execution, though they seem to have gone from medium infantry to light since the KS in terms of armour. The cats were supposed to be monstrous, which would have easily allowed huge, cool, armoured World of Warcraft-style cat mounts but frankly if the final models looked good and not cathorse with awful riders I'd have been fine with them as well. The problem with the trolls isn't the armour or lack of (both concepts looked great), it's the proportions.

The Ogre command pack add-on is $10 in the KS survey.

Yeah, bummer for those wanting Ogres. The whole frenzy Mantic tries to foster of "Buy now it's an AMAZING deal via Kickstarter!" kind of falls off when it's the same, or perhaps even a little cheaper, to wait and buy it online.

Again, it's all about presentation... some other kickstarter pledges end up being at or near retail, but they're not offering "buy one get one free" labels on things, and then giving you only one box's worth.

Shame since the Ogres are some of the nicer sculpts... as mentioned, it's one of GW's cheapest armies. Ironguts are 4 for $40, I believe, instead of 6... but still, ogres are one of the few armies people can actually afford to start from scratch for fantasy atm

 RiTides wrote:
Yeah, bummer for those wanting Ogres. The whole frenzy Mantic tries to foster of "Buy now it's an AMAZING deal via Kickstarter!" kind of falls off when it's the same, or perhaps even a little cheaper, to wait and buy it online.

Again, it's all about presentation... some other kickstarter pledges end up being at or near retail, but they're not offering "buy one get one free" labels on things, and then giving you only one box's worth.

Shame since the Ogres are some of the nicer sculpts... as mentioned, it's one of GW's cheapest armies. Ironguts are 4 for $40, I believe, instead of 6... but still, ogres are one of the few armies people can actually afford to start from scratch for fantasy atm

Three things:
1.) Mantic is still an incredible deal when you factor in the free models. Not as good as some of the other BOGOs, but still better than you'll get in stores.
2.) The mantic ogres get cheaper when you consider the number of commands you actually need, great weapon troops, and blunderbuss troops. It's only one box set when you want a command that compares.
3.) Mantic ogres have shields - not stupid ironfists.

Seriously, you get $500+ of free minis at the $225 level of the kickstarter, and that's whether you're BOGOF or no BOGOF for your actual pledge.

Including 7 ogres.

So, 70% discount, and then you're getting a 50% discount on top of that if your pledge is entirely non-ogre BOGOFs.

Just felt like that needed restating.

You guys both seem to be missing the point:

1. If someone wanted specifically an ogre army with most of their pledge, they're paying close to retail, not buy-one-get-one-free.
2. That retail is not too far off from GW's, since GW's ogres are one of their few reasonably priced ranges.

It's a fair point...

 RiTides wrote:
You guys both seem to be missing the point:

1. If someone wanted specifically an ogre army with most of their pledge, they're paying close to retail, not buy-one-get-one-free.
2. That retail is not too far off from GW's, since GW's ogres are one of their few reasonably priced ranges.

It's a fair point...

No, they're not. There's an ogre army deal in the latest kickstarter survey that offers $225 worth of ogres (as calculated via the new retail list) for $125, and people are welcome to change their pledge to that.

That would be great, and perhaps Mantic is responding to the criticism with that. Details?

It's been live on the survey for the past 3 weeks. Several people who have actually bought an ogre army with their BOGOFS have already taken that option, others have simply switched their BOGOFs to other miniatures so they can save a whopping 3.5% by buying from a discount webstore (assuming it gives free postage).

Edit: Whoops, misunderstanding

I'm not arguing with you at all, no worries. Internet tone must have come off wrong there.

If you've pledged for a few packs of ogres, ask to swap them out for other things, or if you're really annoyed, for a refund on them. They'll be happy to oblige.

Be careful that you're not shooting yourself in the foot and reducing your pledge level below $225 before doing this though, because the $225 level comes with an extra 6 free ogres (as well as a bunch of stuff that can be traded for 50 ogres if you want).

Ah, yeah, you're right . Sorry. Or I just woke up grumpy. Anyway, I'm actually quite curious about the ogre army deal so I'll get off my arse and go check out the KS page

Squig, do you have a link to the list of exactly what is gained for having a pledge of $225? I am wondering where the whole 6 other ogres come from.

And while getting a whole bunch of stuff is nice, there's two conditions to that - You had to pledge high to get it, with the idea what you'd get would be like what was offered (such as from the sketch or the monstrous cat cav), and you're also got to be happy with what you're getting. Where's the value if the miniatures you receive are badly sculpted or malproportioned and are so bad you wouldn't buy them in the first place? I am at the $225 level, and I can't see myself using much of what's been shown thus far, free or selected. Where's the value in that for me?

^ Here (and just 4 ogres, my mistake!):

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/451718.page

As for your other point, it seems like you're more annoyed by that than the ogres themselves, which you've said you didn't pledge for.

My honest practical advice if you're 100% unhappy with the kickstarter as a whole, and consider the vast majority of the miniatures badly sculpted/ poorly proportioned?

Don't ask for a refund. Instead, sell it once it arrives.

You'll be getting a bunch of stuff 3-6 months before its release date, before retailers get hold of it.

Most people in the KoW KS are planning on using their miniatures, so it's highly likely to turn a profit.

In fact, with a $225 pledge it's probably at the point where you can sell your entire package for $500. Don't forget, you're sitting on around $1k of stuff total RRP.

New post over at the Mantic forums -

James from Mantic wrote:Hi guys, James here. Sorry in advance if this explanation doesn't *quite* make grammatical sense - bear with me

When we price things up on a Kickstarter campaign, we're working with theoretical figures. That's no different to how it would be if we were funding by way of a bank loan, financial backers, or selling off the large pile of Aztec gold that's hidden under some boxes at the back of the warehouse. It's stage one of a project - working out roughly how much we're going to sell things for. The difference is that in the pre-Kickstarter days, or indeed with any projects we still do that don't involve Kickstarter, the project goes through several stages before we sell anything. We get concepts and sculpts done, we send those off to get tooled, and most importantly, we then find out how much it will cost to produce the models. Then, by doing some accounting-fu (where words like "margins" and "gross profit" come up, and I hide in a corner), we come up with the RRP. This is the price at which we can sell the models while making enough money to cover the cost of production, wages for all involved, pay the rent, and put a little aside for a rainy day. (Fun fact! Some companies inflate that last part rather a lot. We make a point of not doing that.) Sometimes that figure is the same as what we'd planned. Sometimes it's a bit higher, or a bit lower.

So let's backtrack a little bit. With the KoW Kickstarter, we set a price for the Ogres based on what we thought the tooling costs, etc., would be. We decided they'd be about the same as the werewolves or trolls, so $25 for 3 sounded about right. Then, towards the end of the campaign, we offered the BOGOF deal, where you got twice as much as whatever you were previously going to get for the same price. Loads of people were understandably excited about this. At no point were these numbers the final RRP prices, though - we hadn't gone through those vital tooling stages to work out the margins and the gross profits and the whatever else.

Basically, long story short, the BOGOF was for the price on the Kickstarter campaign, not the retail price.

So tell you what we'll do. After all, we're Mantic! We listen. We try hard to make it right.

If you're not happy with the deal you're getting on your ogres, drop an email to stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com and he'll pick your order out of the pile and make sure it gets an extra bag of three ogres for each $25 add-on you purchased. So you're getting 9 for $25, which is $2.78 per miniature, compared to the $5 per miniature you're getting at retail. How does that sound? You need to get your email to Stewart before the survey deadline, i.e. before midnight BST on 02/06/13.

Hope that sorts a few things out

Now that's a lot better. Good to see that they're listening. 9 for the price of 3 is a much better deal, and I am glad they are going ahead with this.

Heck yeah, Mantic! 9 for $25 is a lot better, and should appease everybody involved. Good show

Reminder - You need to get your survey back in by midnight of 02/06/13 (2nd June) to do it.

If I can't get a win from buying Men-At-Arms, I might consider this deal. They're nicer sculpts than a lot of the other stuff, so why not.

 Fenriswulf wrote:
New post over at the Mantic forums -

James from Mantic wrote:...

If you're not happy with the deal you're getting on your ogres, drop an email to stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com and he'll pick your order out of the pile and make sure it gets an extra bag of three ogres for each $25 add-on you purchased. So you're getting 9 for $25, which is $2.78 per miniature, compared to the $5 per miniature you're getting at retail. How does that sound? You need to get your email to Stewart before the survey deadline, i.e. before midnight BST on 02/06/13.

Hope that sorts a few things out

Now that's a lot better. Good to see that they're listening. 9 for the price of 3 is a much better deal, and I am glad they are going ahead with this.

Uh, is it my imagination or is this the worst possible way to do that (you have to let them know if you want 3 extra ogres?), why would you make that opt-in rather then opt-out? Everyone that did the Ogres now needs to email Stew? Poor guy...

If the run it as an opt in Stew has lots of work to do, but I'll bet only 20-40% of the backers will bother to do so

(many won't care, others will miss the announcement, others will mean to but forget/miss the cut off)

If the did it as an opt out they'd have to give away loads more ogres (and depending on when the models are actually being made this might cut too far into the number of units they've ordered for the retail launch date)

... So now the 125 deal is actually less value or am I mistaken? Oh well, yay for flexibility; have three heroes inbound already anyway

On one hand, I love free stuff, on the other hand I'm not unhappy about the deal I'm getting.

Should I e-mail just for free stuff even though I have no reason to (and really Mantic did nothing wrong)? Or should I let it go? My Lawful Good-ness is conflicted.

Hey, they're offering - email ahead. It's kind of perverse incentive if only the loudest complainants get the best deals and more easygoing folks are left behind.


...Maybe make it a really nice email?

 pretre wrote:
On one hand, I love free stuff, on the other hand I'm not unhappy about the deal I'm getting.

Should I e-mail just for free stuff even though I have no reason to (and really Mantic did nothing wrong)? Or should I let it go? My Lawful Good-ness is conflicted.

Well think of it this way - casting of a few more plastic minis isn't going to cost them very much so you're not really "hurting" them.

Then you can:

- Take your spare Ogres - paint them up nice, sell them, use money to buy more mantic products - win win win.
- Give them to a friend or stranger to get them started on their own mantic army - many wins
- Some third thing

What? No, email you fool, email!

Take it as a thank you for being nice enough to help fund the kickstarter.

Also, from the Mantic Forum -

Question - Does that apply only to add-ons that were purchased at the time of the KS or all the Ogre units currently on the wave 2 survey now available as 9 for $25?

Answer - All Ogre units currently on the survey.

So I am guessing that means that command units also come with 3 extra? If so, even better.

Command 'units' are a retail thing; oges on the survey are all 6 (now 9) @ 25, with command bitz packs @ 10 or 12 or so bucks. Sorry, nice try though

Hah, oh well. I am sure people can get more than enough from their choices as it is.

Oh, @ 9 for $25 they're pretty damn good already, yeah.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
If the run it as an opt in Stew has lots of work to do, but I'll bet only 20-40% of the backers will bother to do so

(many won't care, others will miss the announcement, others will mean to but forget/miss the cut off)

If the did it as an opt out they'd have to give away loads more ogres (and depending on when the models are actually being made this might cut too far into the number of units they've ordered for the retail launch date)

That's the thing, making it opt-in means that at least some people will miss out that would take advantage... and they will be pissed.

It just strikes one as a really silly way to go about things: maximizes the work for Stew and the backers while also making the chance of error as large as possible.

I've just emailed Stewart to check what I'd already requested, and made the suggestion they make that announcement as a KS update, so at least all the backers should hear about it.

Thanks for the heads up!

After all of the other sculpts that I was interested in turned out to be not so good looking, I went heavy on the Ogres, so this will help a lot!

See, Mantic = awesome.

If you get the ogre army, that fixes things for people going all-out ogres, and the 9 for $25 thing fixes it for people just getting a few ogres.

 Alpharius wrote:
Thanks for the heads up!

After all of the other sculpts that I was interested in turned out to be not so good looking, I went heavy on the Ogres, so this will help a lot!

Don't forget to send an email to Stewart to say you want the 9 for $25 deal on the ogres!

stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com

You have to do it by/before June 2nd to get the deal.

 RiTides wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Thanks for the heads up!

After all of the other sculpts that I was interested in turned out to be not so good looking, I went heavy on the Ogres, so this will help a lot!

Don't forget to send an email to Stewart to say you want the 9 for $25 deal on the ogres!

stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com

You have to do it by/before June 2nd to get the deal.

I already did!

I've gotten a few emails from him over time, he usually responds within a day or two...

Really like the men at arms sculpts. Really dislike their color scheme.

Loving all the character models.

Official pics from the latest update:

Yeah, not real happy with how the men at arms have turned out. Was going to get a bunch, but they're not really as I would like. Hands too big, and faces are a bit munted for my liking. A shame.

I just costed up the Ogre Army deal. It's actually cheaper to buy it all separately. $50 for 18 Warriors, $33.33 for 12 shooters, $12 for a Hero model, $20 for two of the command packs - Total $115.33.

Welp, with this new unit being shown, it looks like I am an Ogre player. Sad, as I was looking forward to having some massed units of cheap troops. I guess it's easier to use Perry miniatures for what I am looking for, as it's around $25 for 40 of them, and they're at the scale I like.

 Fenriswulf wrote:
Yeah, not real happy with how the men at arms have turned out. Was going to get a bunch, but they're not really as I would like. Hands too big, and faces are a bit munted for my liking. A shame.

I thought their hands were too big at first, then realized they are wearing thick gloves. They have a crap paint scheme but a TON of potential. I am very happy with them.

Also; their proportions are fantastic. They are on 20mm bases and look very true-28.

Yeah, the painting on them is a little bit scary, especially that smiling guy in the back rank with the serial killer eyes!

They do at least look the part of demented zealous nutters. They look like thugs who have been given some fancy armour and the chance to go burn and murder everything in sight. I kinda like that, gives them a bit of character.

@Fenris: The perry stuff does very nicely, make sure to get some mantic bases for them, the tab on the feet of the perry minis fits nicely into the slot on the mantic bases, so it's a great way to put them on 20mm without having the "every model on its own little hill" effect.

Yeah, the paintjob isn't doing them many favours. I am just hoping they scale nicely next to the skeleton undead from Mantic.

I'll wait till a lot of other models are done being shown and make my final decision at the end. Otherwise, it'll likely be 36 Ogre Warriors and 18 Shooters, some command packs and various other bits.

Is the Ogre Hero listed the one people at $225 are getting for free? It does make a difference.

scarletsquig wrote:Official pics from the latest update:

judgedoug wrote:
Also; their proportions are fantastic. They are on 20mm bases and look very true-28.

It really could be the photography this time, but the arms look too long to me. I dunno why these guys are so allergic to well-lit, straight on shots. Preferably of bare figures/inked figures.

The color choices on them are not helping at all.

The Elf? lady is pretty good and the Dwarf is pretty good. The Elf mage looks decent but is a bit rough.

~Eric

Edit: On second look, the paint jobs don't appear to be doing any of the figures any favors this time out.

Are there any sprue shots? Can someone in Stewart's good graces please ask for sprue shots?

Just want to be clear: The ogre army deal isn't changed by the upgrade to ogre BOGOs?

Their arms don't look too long to me.

But yes, I don't, never have, and will probably continue to not understand why Mantic doesn't just take pictures of the unpainted models with a gesso or ink wash.

There are some rumours floating around that Mantic might do some short and sweet "one army" kickstarters in future for KoW/ Warpath, to take a single army and really go to town on it.

Think those guys would definitely benefit from a more muted/dirty colour scheme, although I have no idea whether that would represent the models correctly with regards to what they are supposed to be!

Really good of Mantic by the way though to bend to the will of the fanbase with the other stuff also.

I like them.

I don't like them more than Perry's 1450's Mercenaries. Or Warlords ECW Parliamentarians. And I am going to assume Perry and Warlord are going to continue to be more affordable.

Points for almost sallet helmets however.

willb2064 wrote:
The Ogre command pack add-on is $10 in the KS survey.

Ouch. Thanks for the clarification. I haven't opened my PM yet, and my KS emails except for the final PM email have been shuffled off to the burstingfullmessy Kickstarter email folder. Guess I'll be passing on those. Maybe I'll mod some of the spare OK ones that you get into them.

 scarletsquig wrote:
It's been live on the survey for the past 3 weeks. Several people who have actually bought an ogre army with their BOGOFS have already taken that option, others have simply switched their BOGOFs to other miniatures so they can save a whopping 3.5% by buying from a discount webstore (assuming it gives free postage).

Actually, speaking for myself, I'd have be paying slightly more from a UK discount webstore (with free postage) but I'd be supporting a retailer who stocks Mantic, and getting one of the other items that looks quite good - like the goblin shredder. I'm not a one-eyed supporter of Mantic like yourself, but I do want them to succeed - which is why I post in these threads. Do you see me posting in the GW new release threads? No? That's because I'm indifferent to/dislike GW as a company. Supporting retailers who stock the stuff I'd imagine is a pretty important thing for Mantic. While I'm sure there's probably a couple of people who participate in these threads for a bit of sport, I think you'll find that the vast majority of the critics here on Dakka want to see Mantic do well.

I didn't know about the army deal either, since I'm not opening the survey until they care enough to show us all of the models.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Yeah, the painting on them is a little bit scary, especially that smiling guy in the back rank with the serial killer eyes!

They do at least look the part of demented zealous nutters. They look like thugs who have been given some fancy armour and the chance to go burn and murder everything in sight. I kinda like that, gives them a bit of character.

@Fenris: The perry stuff does very nicely, make sure to get some mantic bases for them, the tab on the feet of the perry minis fits nicely into the slot on the mantic bases, so it's a great way to put them on 20mm without having the "every model on its own little hill" effect.

Remember guys, the models in the pic are blown up to quite a few times their actual size. Remember, Mantic humans are tiny - smaller even than GW humans. I'd say that whoever painted these did pretty bloody well to get the pupils on them, let alone be criticised for the painted expressions. Overall, the shields look nice, the heads look a bit meh (visors down would have been much better!) and overall they're certainly okay, but I also prefer the Perry models.


I've asked Stewart for clarification/confirmation on the pledge level of Veteran – Soldier – $110
A Kings of War Hardback Rulebook,
Mini-rulebook and
10 Dice
2 units of Werewolves
2 units of Ogres
1 unit of Ogre Shooters
Wound Counters
Undead Vampiress from the cover art

To see if the "units of" the two kinds of Ogres are now upgraded to the same as retail units - ie 6/unit rather than 3/unit.

 scarletsquig wrote:
There are some rumours floating around that Mantic might do some short and sweet "one army" kickstarters in future for KoW/ Warpath, to take a single army and really go to town on it.

In all honesty, I'm honestly not sure that Mantic could really get away with that. Dreadball and now Deadzone are nice looking, and I'm fairly pleased with models (and very pleased with the service), but... well, imagine you had pledged for the human army with the sisters. What would you do when you finally see what they ultimately come up with, but now you can't switch to something a bit truer to the concepts?

Mantic has many virtues, but at least right now they seem consistent about being inconsistent.

Touche'

I'm not a one-eyed supporter of Mantic like yourself,

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=one-eyed

I would really prefer not to have to add you to my ignore list, but recently you've been making a lot of casual insults in my direction while quoting random posts of mine that weren't replying to you.

I've been nothing but courteous to you, is there any chance you could go back to being the friendlier poster you were before you changed your username to something distinctly more satanic?

Cheers,

-squig.

(and sorry mods, randomly mashing report buttons just isn't my style. :p)

GBL wrote:
I like them.

I don't like them more than Perry's 1450's Mercenaries. Or Warlords ECW Parliamentarians. And I am going to assume Perry and Warlord are going to continue to be more affordable.

Gee, if only somebody could have predicted that this might happen.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
There are some rumours floating around that Mantic might do some short and sweet "one army" kickstarters in future for KoW/ Warpath, to take a single army and really go to town on it.

In all honesty, I'm honestly not sure that Mantic could really get away with that. Dreadball and now Deadzone are nice looking, and I'm fairly pleased with models (and very pleased with the service), but... well, imagine you had pledged for the human army with the sisters. What would you do when you finally see what they ultimately come up with, but now you can't switch to something a bit truer to the concepts?

Their current practice isn't much better. "Sorry about the Orks, have some Space Marines!" isn't worth much unless you actually want to collect Space Marines.

 scarletsquig wrote:

I'm not a one-eyed supporter of Mantic like yourself,

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=one-eyed
I would really prefer not to have to add you to my ignore list, but recently you've been making a lot of casual insults in my direction while quoting random posts of mine that weren't replying to you.
I've been nothing but courteous to you, is there any chance you could go back to being the friendlier poster you were before you changed your username to something distinctly more satanic?
Cheers,
-squig.
(and sorry mods, randomly mashing report buttons just isn't my style. :p)

I'll be blunt. I am still a little pissed off at you for the bs at the start of this thread when you came argumentatively barging into the discussion I was having with other people in this thread - not yourself - around "fake" stretch goals - and had that legitimate aspect of the discussion aspect shut down by Alph because you didn't like it. I referenced that, because I still believe it was a legitimate line of discussion and that it was bs that it was shut down and my later post removed.

Though having said that, I'm not consciously being rude to you outside of that reference, so I'll apologise if I have offended you outside of that one post. One-eyed is more extreme than you deserve. I'd use "Mantic fanatic" more, since it's a term you used to use, but frankly, that sounds even worse. Not fanboi, obviously. What non-offensive term would you prefer when referring to your level of like of Mantic? I'm being serious here. You're not exactly impartial, and you have a pretty strong bias towards them, but you do admit they're not infallable. (I even said so a page or so ago in this thread).







Automatically Appended Next Post:
*Not "this thread" - in fact it was the DeadZone one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlexHolker wrote:

Their current practice isn't much better. "Sorry about the Orks, have some Space Marines!" isn't worth much unless you actually want to collect Space Marines.

I'd argue that the "free faction" probably wasn't going to happen at all until they got all that negative feedback from the Orx. To be fair, it's really "Sorry about the Orks, have something else of your choice for free* as well."
*for pledges $150 and up

Yeah exactly. After seeing how this has turned out, I think I am going to shy away from any Mantic kickstarters on offer. I've been bitten quite badly from this experience, and it's soured me on them quite a bit.

And I am a big Mantic fan. That's why I want them to succeed. But if they keep going with "good enough" for their sculpts, they're going to lose out in the end. And no matter how many times "but look how much stuff you get!" is thrown up as a counter to my disappointment, it doesn't make up the difference in my opinion. I'd rather pay the money to get the items I want straight out, not be handed a bunch of items I have no interest in and have to either salvage some loss by on-selling them or get chucked in a box to be never used. Give me what I want from the beginning and you don't need to give away the farm to keep my interest.

Example - Darklands kickstarter pulled in a lot less than Mantic's, but look at the quality. The miniatures I pledged for have met or exceeded expectations across the board. And I got a sweet deal out of it to boot. Mantic? Well 4 of the choices I had made for my army deal are now ones I wouldn't want to buy even at low prices. So I now have to buy in an army I didn't want, and try to make my cash back by onselling (and considering the glut of miniatures I expect to be hitting ebay after this kickstarter, I don't know if that's likely).

I'd take an ounce of quality any day before I settled for a pound of 'meh'.

Darklands? Is that Mierce? I'd have gone in on that one - some beautiful sculpts, but I just couldn't in good faith considering the Maelstrom connection. The body was still warm, even!

 Azazelx wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

Their current practice isn't much better. "Sorry about the Orks, have some Space Marines!" isn't worth much unless you actually want to collect Space Marines.

I'd argue that the "free faction" probably wasn't going to happen at all until they got all that negative feedback from the Orx. To be fair, it's really "Sorry about the Orks, have something else of your choice for free* as well."
*for pledges $150 and up

I've not been paying as much attention to the Deadzone comments/thread as I'd like - can anyone give me a potted summary of what these two gentlemen are referring to regarding the Orx? The greens I saw at the Open Day were pretty cool.

Yeah it's Mierce, and I felt a little conflicted as well (though I hadn't lost any money). But I punted and pledged for a large amount of miniatures, and it's paid off.

Taken without the problems of the original company that owned them, the sculpts they produced from their kickstarter were amazing. The latest one of Hrudinn, the winged bird/giant/demon is just out of this world.

@Azazel: For reference, I haven't reported any of your posts, or spoken to any moderator about having them removed. I had some posts deleted too.

Though having said that, I'm not consciously being rude to you outside of that reference, so I'll apologise if I have offended you outside of that one post.

Thanks, apology accepted.

As as far as "what to call me?" goes, my username can be found listed above my avatar.

You're not exactly impartial, and you have a pretty strong bias towards them

"As an authority on myself I must disagree."

I've not been paying as much attention to the Deadzone comments/thread as I'd like - can anyone give me a potted summary of what these two gentlemen are referring to regarding the Orx? The greens I saw at the Open Day were pretty cool.

In a nutshell, you're one of the few people that did like them. Chaos ensued in the comments section, but then they got resculpted and now people are more ambivalent in general towards them.

Okay. I'll call you "Utilising Careful Highlighting".

You're also biased when discussing yourself.

Ugh.

Point in fact - using the Mod Alert button to report a post that you feel might be breaking the rules is the only Officially Sanctioned Response.

I just wish Mantic would hire top-flight sculptors. They're raising a lot of funds, and I know money is stretched tight. But, by far the biggest cost has to be tooling, right? Paying a bit more for the sculptor upfront would make them the sweet alternative that I have been hoping they could be, if they would put out more things like the ogres.

Watching Tre Manor's thread has me wishing they would bring someone like him onboard!

I do realize it's not Just sculpting, but some issues with casting on excellent sculpts (like the dreadball robots, although I think they're probably fine with just a bit of work). But on the other hand, if you start with a bad sculpt there's really no saving it.

There is the issue of sculptor availability, I had a list of sculptors I wanted to hire for EFT's Kickstarter, but kept getting 'Busy till at least July' responses.

Yeah, it would be good if they were able to save some money up and get some good designs/sculpts up front. If they are going to go heavy on one specific faction for other kickstarters, perhaps that's a good time to get one or two specific sculptors to work on that range alone, and have an art director ensure that the work matches up to any and all concepts they have on hand.

The extra cost for a really good sculptor will be a trivial price if what they create sells well and is in demand for a long time. As RiTides said, the majority cost is in the tooling. Why pay to tool something sub-par, when for the same price you can have something outstanding instead?

IMO the CAD sculpts (or whatever it's called when they do it on the computer) are really stunning. I strongly feel they should move more down the digital lane and they can then say get a 3D printing machine for examples/tests and what not.

I guess so much of it comes down to conception.. there have been some models released over the years that almost make me physically sick to look at (.. going slightly OTT ), yet I've seen many other people happily shunting them around a tabletop, spend an unhealthy amount of hours painting them etc.

I suppose the crunch point is 'would I hand over money for them'? Under normal circumstances that won't be an issue - the model just gets left on the shelf. However, the KS raises problems where you have that disconnect with the final product (and people pledging a lot of money based on concept art) - all of our opinion's about what is good are different, some have more of a sense of expectation (I won't say 'higher' or 'unreasonable'). It's not always going to hit 10 out of 10.

Personally I'd probably hand over money for about half of the stuff that's come out so far. I think some of it looks ace, some isn't terribly well realised, and some just doesn't appeal. At least from this perspective it's good that Mantic have left some manoeuvrability with people's pledges, and also seem willing to change concepts of some things.

 Alpharius wrote:
Ugh.

my thoughts exactly..

Handbags at dawn guys?!

I agree that there's a lot of top-notch sculptors out there who aren't under contract to anyone. Tre', Jody, Stephane Simon, Andy Foster, Kev White... (and I'd love to see some work offered to Kev Adams when he's well enough to work again!)

If Bob Naismith did the fantasy ghouls, he's shown that he can produce top-quality stuff in the Mantic scale. (I think those are Bob's). Mark Copplestone is still working, and does some great truescale work that would perfectly fit the Rebs or the Corporation.

I realise a lot of these guys now own their own small companies, but any of them who also do work-for-hire would result in some really kick-arse figures for Mantic. Just get the sculpts done before starting a campaign.

I'd pay handsomely for Tre Manor-produced figures for Mantic (especially plastics)

Same. Bob Naismith did the original designs for the Battle Nuns (now Basilean Sisters) and they look damn ace. If they had of only followed through with that instead. Seems like they dropped Bob and went for some other sculptor, though for the life of me I can't understand why.

 Fenriswulf wrote:
Same. Bob Naismith did the original designs for the Battle Nuns (now Basilean Sisters) and they look damn ace. If they had of only followed through with that instead. Seems like they dropped Bob and went for some other sculptor, though for the life of me I can't understand why.

Are there pics of the original Basilean Sisters from Bob?

The original series of concept sketches were by Bob. As can be seen here. The final concept that they went with was by Heath Foley. Not sure who sculpted them.

Quite a lot on this blog post:
http://bitzkrieg.net/archive/1334

Oh, wow. I remember those now. I much prefer the Heath Foley sketches. The original Battle Nuns were cliched garbage. Reminds me of the terrible Sisters of Sigmar from Mordheim.

Hi, long time lurker and first time poster!

I backed this at 175 and am currently thinking of upping it to 225 with extras, does anyone know if this would I'd get the 225 bracket freebies, such as the Mincer and Heroes?

Thanks for any help!

 Valar_JS wrote:
Hi, long time lurker and first time poster!

I backed this at 175 and am currently thinking of upping it to 225 with extras, does anyone know if this would I'd get the 225 bracket freebies, such as the Mincer and Heroes?

Thanks for any help!

I believe this to be true, though email Stewart at mantic just to be sure.

Yeah as far as I know it is. Go hog wild

Cool, thank you! Planning to get a bunch of extra angels and it would be nice to get the heroes thrown in as well.

I'd like to see the finished results on the angels. I think with a little work you could get them to look like ones from Diablo.

 Cyporiean wrote:
There is the issue of sculptor availability, I had a list of sculptors I wanted to hire for EFT's Kickstarter, but kept getting 'Busy till at least July' responses.

Noticed this mentioned a few times throughout various threads on Dakka, is there really that much of a lack of available sculptures at the moment ? I assume alot of its down to the current rise in kisckstarters and sculptors personal projects right?

Sorry for being off-topic but I'm very curious about this.

Is there a lack of sculptors ?

Probably not, but there is a real problems with some of the leading lights in the industry being booked up 6 months to a year in advance

for example Mierce tend to use such high end sculptors (for their expensive highly detailed resin minis), and had trouble getting the ones they wanted to work on their KS funded minis (some wont be free to start to November/December),

Soda Pop look to have switched sculptors for some of their stuff (probably due to availability)

Arena Rex haven't finalised who's sculpting as the sculptors they have got won't/can't commit to doing everything (presumably again due to other work being booked in)

It's also an issue if you get a sculpt that needs (for whatever reason) changes, you might find the sculptor is not free to make them (or not in the timeframe you need)

Using new/inexperienced sculptors is a bit hit and miss, you need to pay them even if they produce something you don't want to release (eg Kingdom Death commissioned the twilight knight 4 times to get the mini we know). Fine if you can afford to re-do it, and have the time to wait

If however you're lucky you get a great mini (eg the nameless sculpt from Dreadball) and the sculptor will tend to favour you for giving them their 'break'

 judgedoug wrote:
I'd pay handsomely for Tre Manor-produced figures for Mantic (especially plastics)

Heck, he's got a pledge level in his KS for this! Although for that one he retains the rights as it is a campaign for him to cast more figs in the RBG scale.

We haven't seen anything for a few days now. Hoping that we do indeed get to see everything before the cutoff date. Even the ogre was one figure rather than all the sculpts and they haven't been forthcoming yet on whether the ogre kit contains the 2h weapon options - or if the ogre "units" at the $110 pledge level have 3 or 6 figures in them.

Well I know the Ogre unit contains the 2H weapon options - that's been mentioned several times as I recall.
I don't think all the "later in 2013" models will get shown - a look at that paladin cav, though, would be good - painted shots of the golems and gargoyles, and any pics of the immortal guard at all, should still be shown before the weekend as well.

I hadn't seen clarification on the 2h weapons, but then if it was mentioned in the comments I don't follow those, pretty much only the updates.

On (not) showing the models, it's pretty poor form in that case, especially after the multiple promises to have everything shown. I think people would rather see unpainted shots over nothing.

The way they handle the end of KoW will decide the way I go with my DeadZone pledge, as well as anything Mantic that comes afterwards.

 Azazelx wrote:
We haven't seen anything for a few days now. Hoping that we do indeed get to see everything before the cutoff date. Even the ogre was one figure rather than all the sculpts and they haven't been forthcoming yet on whether the ogre kit contains the 2h weapon options - or if the ogre "units" at the $110 pledge level have 3 or 6 figures in them.

It has been a bank holiday weekend, Azazel, so if they're waiting ona delivery from Golem to shoot & publish, that might explain it - let's see if we get new communications today, as this should be the start of their work week.

OK fair enough. I'm not up to date on public holiday dates in other countries (or even here generally).

As of this moment, we're still missing out on the photographs for the following units/heroes from the Kings of War Kickstarter -

Elohi
Paladin knights
Sisterhoood lancers
gargoyles
Immortal Guard
Obsidian Golems (we have decent pics of the greens on these)
Elf Palace guard
Stormwind calvary
Fleabag Riders
Twilight Dark knights
Berosos
Herneas
Kernow
Grokagamok
Atlak Nakh
Mikayel
Lord Malak
Pantehr Chariot
Druid hero
Air Elemental hero
Goblin hero set
Abyssal Dwarf fire team

Repeated attempts at having Mantic show us photographs have resulted in no contact whatsoever. I am beginning to think we're unlikely to see nearly all of them in time so we can at least make some informed decisions on our choices for this Kickstarter.

Be careful those who are thinking of the Deadzone kickstarter, make sure you go for stuff that has definitive pictures of miniatures, because you never know what you'll be getting.

If anyone would like to post in the comments thread of the Deadzone kickstarter to try to get their attention in regards to posting more pictures for the KoW kickstarter, go right ahead. They seem to be a hell of a lot more active over there.

Have we seen anything painted in the updates that we didn't see at open day? The Men at Arms I guess? If they were waiting for Golem at that point and still are, then Golem is really screwing the pooch on this one.

BTW, regarding Immortal Guard, I did see some discussion that I haven't seen mentioned here in this thread:
http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?4230-does-KS-mean-a-Abyssal-Dwarf-repack

Orcsbain wrote:Thats right, what I took away from the conversation that the restic was destroying the molds with most "spins" hence the reason for "going back to the drawing board" with them and that they cast enough to fill out the KOW orders.

So apparently, because they're chewing through molds, the restic immortal guard are basically a kickstarter exclusive. I really want to see some shots of them as the one model I had seen didn't impress me.

Got my reply from Stewart on the Soldier pledge level:

Pledge $110 or more
Veteran – Soldier
(Soldier – A Kings of War Hardback Rulebook, Mini-rulebook and 10 Dice)
+ 2 units of Werewolves + 2 units of Ogres + 1 unit of Ogre Shooters + Wound Counters + Undead Vampiress from the cover art

Stewart wrote:
The units listed as part of the Veteran Pledge are boxes of 3, as this is what we planned during the Kickstarter.

Anyone have time to work out the RRP of Soldier based on the retail prices that have been revealed? I have to run off to work.

RRP on those models works out to 2*25+30+15=95, then there's the vampiress, counters, rulebook, dice and the >$100 pledge benefits.
Not disastrous but TBH, it could do with another baggie of ogres at least.

If someone that has not filled out their second pledge manager I would love to get my hands on a human army!

 Bolognesus wrote:
RRP on those models works out to 2*25+30+15=95, then there's the vampiress, counters, rulebook, dice and the >$100 pledge benefits.
Not disastrous but TBH, it could do with another baggie of ogres at least.

Thanks Bolo.

Yeah, I'm going to have to reply to Stewart tonight and point out that the "kickstarter value" of that pledge level has been gutted. Shifting the goalposts is okay if you move all of the associated goalposts, not just some of them. Sure, there's a lot of freebies, but cathorse and those trolls have little to no value to me. Between shifted value on the ogres, bad sculpts like the nuns and cathorse, stuff that doesn't resemble the concept art like the trolls, this has turned out to be a rather large disappointment, paid up a year in advance.

If they're not willing to do something about it, I think I'm done with Mantic. I'm not willing to go in on something like Warpath with the same kind of optimism or trust as I did KoW after these issues, certainly not to pay a year in advance. The "value" that some posters often mention is a bit dubious anyway, since Mantic stuff doesn't hold particularly good value secondhand, and a lot of those dollars are tied up in cathorses, stretch-armed nuns, trolls and so forth.

Complaining about the secondhand value on these miniatures seems a bit...odd...

Look at at it this way - with the Ogres dropping in price you're basically only 'short' about $15-17,50 in minis when the whole thing is put in the worst possible light. (TBH I never really saw the value in that pledge to begin with but that's a different story)
I get your frustration though - doesn't feel quite 'right'. did you BOGO (or whatever you want to call it) the pledge up to over $175? If you didn't I can see how this really is a significant part of total value you pledged for.
Maybe you could get them to let you switch the $110 veteran for $42,50 Soldier+counters (which you should have already received) and 67,50 BOGOF credit? at least that way you'd get to pick your own stuff and it never really would have contained more value than that anyway so that would have you even if I'm not mistaken?

 Alpharius wrote:
Complaining about the secondhand value on these miniatures seems a bit...odd...

You perhaps misunderstand. Or perhaps I was less clear than I could have been.

A counterpoint that's been used several times to the argument of "some of the figures are gak" is "you can sell them and make a killing secondhand". I'm basically saying that it's not a very useful counter-argument before someone throws the "sell them secondhand!" back at me. And besides, I'd rather have good figures that I can and will use myself. Because, you know, that's why I backed them in the first place.

 Bolognesus wrote:
Look at at it this way - with the Ogres dropping in price you're basically only 'short' about $15-17,50 in minis when the whole thing is put in the worst possible light. (TBH I never really saw the value in that pledge to begin with but that's a different story)
I get your frustration though - doesn't feel quite 'right'. did you BOGO (or whatever you want to call it) the pledge up to over $175? If you didn't I can see how this really is a significant part of total value you pledged for.
Maybe you could get them to let you switch the $110 veteran for $42,50 Soldier+counters (which you should have already received) and 67,50 BOGOF credit? at least that way you'd get to pick your own stuff and it never really would have contained more value than that anyway so that would have you even if I'm not mistaken?

I went for that level (and so did my wife) because we wanted to specifically build an Ogre army based on the great Mantic concept art, along with some old-school citadel models. (As well as make a Mordor troll horde via BOGOF, as noted earlier in the thread). Since my wife is learning to paint, working on larger models is something that fit our plans well. That pledge level was where the best outcome for a shirtload of ogres was at the time, but with the changes to retail, changes to BOGOF and addition to the "ogre army deal" it seems like we've essentially been shafted to the tune of 9-18 ogres between us. (9 each, since the Backer-level ogres didn't double like the retail ones, or gain 50% value like the BOGOF ones did).

I'm not sure what's going on with things like the Cathorse cavalry. They were a monstrous unit of 3, now they're a regular unit of 5. Do backers over $225 or whatever it was still only get 3, despite the downgrade from monstrous to regular? Nothing has been said. Having said that, things like that "free extras" worry me less than seeing a large shift in the value of my backing compared to the retail. I believe the $225 comes with 3 free ogres as well. I'm not upset at those not being bumped to 6, because those are "free", but when you're changing the value/quantities of stuff that's "core" rather then free, then it gets quite annoying.

Your option may work, but it just appears to be getting needlessly complicated, and at this stage I'm tired of the mess and wait to see the other sculpts. For me I'm feeling like I'll just get my stuff and wash my hands of Mantic. It's certainly not endearing me to give them more money via KS.

Back soon.

^ Azazel, if you email Stew he will make sure that you get 9 ogres for $25 instead of 6.

 scarletsquig wrote:
^ Azazel, if you email Stew he will make sure that you get 9 ogres for $25 instead of 6.

No, he's saying the $110 pledge level became a worse value because he's getting much less models than if he had just a bunch of BOGO Ogres.

Oh I see.

Well, the $110 level never stated that it contained any BOGOFs at any point, so while it's an annoying fringe case, it is accurate to the letter of the terms of sale.

All of the basic pledge levels offered less value than BOGOF, not just Soldier.

Champion, ($100 level) offers even less discount off RRP if you compare it to the prices in the Mantic store, the basic pledges were all designed to provide a small discount, the idea was that the stretch goal freebies were the things providing the massive value.

That said, if it's just a matter of throwing in 3 ogres, that should be easy to sort out.. sorry you couldn't get it sorted, scipio, I think the issue here is Mantic being £10k in the red with the KoW KS at this point already and they don't really have much room to budge on stuff where they're not technically doing anything wrong.

I am wondering if they are likely to modify all of the pledge levels that include ogres. We still don't know if the $125 level has a command squad of Ogres, or just the command upgrade. If it does, it's pretty much right on the $125 amount that it's listed at. If not, it's around $115 in value in comparison to using the bogof choices.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I think the issue here is Mantic being £10k in the red with the KoW KS at this point already and they don't really have much room to budge on stuff where they're not technically doing anything wrong.

Whoa, when did this happen? What?


Also, I'm not sure "misleading customers with the truth" or "pissing off the fanbase" count as "not technically doing anything wrong."


Oh, and I would love to see some sprue pics for the Men at Arms. Also, pictures of all the other models.

The word "technically" was used for a reason, I agree that it's more the spirit of the offer that counts than the minutiae, but believe it is important to keep the latter in mind when making complaints since it affects the basis from which you are presenting your case.

@Azazel: I would recommend sending another email asking if your pledge contents can be changed to Soldier ($30) + BOGOF ogres/werewolves, since the issue with the $110 pledge level is that some of it has already been shipped, which might make swapping it out difficult.. the part that has shipped is identical to the $30 pledge level though, so maybe there's room for some reworking there. Good luck! I know you're always polite which is in your favour, but persistence is also needed.

I think this is something that might be a little lost on non-UK people, it is an extremely important part of our culture here, we might share a language but it's still a totally foreign country in terms of everything else.

If you want something in the US, you shout and scream and throw lawyers at people until you get what you want.
It tends to get the best results, I've heard stories of people in the US basically stacking a dozen coupons on top of each other, and then walking out of a store with a bunch of free stuff.. apparently the angle is, if the coupons add up to a negative amount, you go into the store and demand free money in addition to free product (as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, while others are waiting in line behind) and then settle for "only" getting the products for free when the staff say no. If you don't complain, you don't get the product for free.
There are guides to doing this online, I find the whole couponing culture that exists over there really interesting.

In the UK you ask them extremely nicely and briefly, and that tends to do the trick a little better. If not, rinse and repeat, but keep the discussion private, low-key and persistent... the US-style approach has the opposite effect to what you want.

Cultural difference, not going to change. Keeping this in mind with all correspondence with people from foreign countries is the best practical advice I can offer for getting what you want as quickly as possible.

How are they 10k in the red?

 scarletsquig wrote:
The word "technically" was used for a reason, I agree that it's more the spirit of the offer that counts than the minutiae.

I would say that the thrust of my comment was aimed at the word "wrong", which is different from "illegal".

PS: I forgot to mention it earlier, but you hurt my feelings around the third time you tried to characterize me as the "lol nipples" guy to trivialize my criticisms of the shoddy werewolf sculpts. Behavio(u)r like that leads people like me to believe you have some sort of financial understanding bias toward Mantic that blinds you to their many emerging flaws. Fortunately, we know better. Mostly.

Automatically appended on topic post:

I really hope Mantic isn't so busy worrying about 10,000 pounds of red ink that they end up costing themselves 100,000 pounds in unsellable stock and angry customers.

^ Sorry about that, I stopped thinking you were serious when you said you wanted a gimp mask on the thing!

Your posts need to stop making me laugh.

I find the pubic hair more unsettling than the nipples, personally. At least it can't be said that the sculpt isn't horrifying?

How are they 10k in the red?

They seem to have budgeted well for the tooling + fulfiling orders, but didn't leave themselves with any spare room to manoeuvre.

They had to resculpt the elf cavalry since they weren't happy with how it turned out, which delayed things and resulted in a third shipment being required. That alone was probably the most expensive thing.

It really is hard not to make jokes about a hypermasculine werewolf with coke bottle nipples who spends all his gym time blasting his upper body, but who isn't too busy to wax his chest or trim a little down there for the missus. Too bad he can't reach his back hair with the trimmer.

But seriously, the proportions are just terrible. Sure, the trolls are worse, but those werewolves look more like monsters from Evil Toons than The Howling. I wanted them to fit the mold of bipedal werewolves as portrayed in The Howling, Bad Moon, Werewolf the Series, She Wolf of London, Underworld, etc. etc., and they are just a total disappointment. Troma wolves at best.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 scarletsquig wrote:

They had to resculpt the elf cavalry since they weren't happy with how it turned out, which delayed things and resulted in a third shipment being required. That alone was probably the most expensive thing.

They had to resculpt the elf cavalry since they weren't happy with how it turned out

weren't happy with how it turned out

How many people died when they saw the original sculpts? How many wish they had?

I can't imagine how bad those sculpts must have been.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
The word "technically" was used for a reason, I agree that it's more the spirit of the offer that counts than the minutiae.

I would say that the thrust of my comment was aimed at the word "wrong", which is different from "illegal".

PS: I forgot to mention it earlier, but you hurt my feelings around the third time you tried to characterize me as the "lol nipples" guy to trivialize my criticisms of the shoddy werewolf sculpts. Behavio(u)r like that leads people like me to believe you have some sort of financial understanding bias toward Mantic that blinds you to their many emerging flaws. Fortunately, we know better. Mostly.

I'm sorry.. but I have to say I think of you as 'Nipples guy' as well!

It's too late now.. the damage has been done..

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 scarletsquig wrote:

They had to resculpt the elf cavalry since they weren't happy with how it turned out, which delayed things and resulted in a third shipment being required. That alone was probably the most expensive thing.

They had to resculpt the elf cavalry since they weren't happy with how it turned out

weren't happy with how it turned out

How many people died when they saw the original sculpts? How many wish they had?

I can't imagine how bad those sculpts must have been.

That's what I'm thinking - when things like the nuns get rubberstamped as acceptable - how bad were those elf sculpts that they were deemed un-fit for sale? And how bad could they be when they were just converting the existing metal elf calv to restic? (which I thought was a fairly simple process).

Mantic releases stuff they shouldn't all the time. I understand the impetus behind it - but in the long-run I think it has done them more harm than good. Just like I think overall now the KoW kickstarter has added to the "Mantic releases uneven, gak-y models" reputation rather than diminish it. I know in the future, when/if I get excited by the prospects of some upcoming Mantic release I'll certainly temper my enthusiasm and walk away (at least until the sculpts start coming in).

 scarletsquig wrote:
The word "technically" was used for a reason, I agree that it's more the spirit of the offer that counts than the minutiae, but believe it is important to keep the latter in mind when making complaints since it affects the basis from which you are presenting your case.
....
In the UK you ask them extremely nicely and briefly, and that tends to do the trick a little better. If not, rinse and repeat, but keep the discussion private, low-key and persistent...

In the original KS, it talks about "units of ogres". Elsewhere, it indeed specifies "units of three". BOGOF talks about units of three @$25. But then again. what constitutes a "unit of ogres" has changed in the year since we gave them money. If they want to change what that means in terms of dollar value, then they should do it across the board. Essentially, I feel that my money would have potentially been better spent at retail at this stage. Stuff from my correspondence with Stewart that I've fed back to the forum have been relevant information, rather than "private" stuff - ie the troll concepts we thought were being used being discarded in the end, DZ Orcs being reposed, etc.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Oh I see.
Well, the $110 level never stated that it contained any BOGOFs at any point, so while it's an annoying fringe case, it is accurate to the letter of the terms of sale.
All of the basic pledge levels offered less value than BOGOF, not just Soldier.

Champion, ($100 level) offers even less discount off RRP if you compare it to the prices in the Mantic store, the basic pledges were all designed to provide a small discount, the idea was that the stretch goal freebies were the things providing the massive value.

That said, if it's just a matter of throwing in 3 ogres, that should be easy to sort out.. sorry you couldn't get it sorted, scipio, I think the issue here is Mantic being £10k in the red with the KoW KS at this point already and they don't really have much room to budge on stuff where they're not technically doing anything wrong.

Oh, I'm not talking about BOGOF at all in this case.

I guess it's a matter of perspective if $100+ are considered "small" pledges. I would have thought $100+ was quite respectable. (All up, my wife and I are in KoW for about $500 - probably not considered "small", I'd hope.) The thing was, at the time this was the best way to get Ogres. I'm also not griping about them being compared to BOGOF, but against the new retail value. Ultimately, I doubt a few dozen restic figures will do a lot of damage compared to alienating the people that supported them by giving them money a year in advance. Particularly with them halving in price at retail and being given out in greater BOGOF numbers. In the end, I can't control what they do. I can give them feedback on what I think, and if I'm not happy, I simply won't buy nearly as much of their product or support their Kickstarters any further due to an erosion of trust and goodwill.

You see, despite being a critical, complaining bastard on here, I also buy stuff. I don't just read these threads to gak on Mantic nor do I deliberately troll. I really do want them to be a successful company and grow their product with high quality product and good customer service. In order to support them, I've spent well over $1.5k on Mantic stuff in the last year and a bit (mostly via KS, but also a decent chunk at retail - Morgoth's Revenge, 2x Fate of the Forgestar, each of the 3 DKH, Pandora, 8x FF Iron Ancestors, 2x Corp army boxes, Wraiths and a small pile of characters in metal blisters). You know, not the world's largest Mantic collection, but not too shabby either. So I'm not just some prick whining about the Kickstarter - I'm a real retail customer as well. And really, goodwill towards Mantic has fuelled a lot of those purchases, since I haven't had much time to do anything with them due to getting ready to move/moving/unpacking. That's what they need to balance against a few grams of restic.

in fact...

Pictured: Proof of what customer goodwill means from a consumer. (some blisters missing, as they're in a moving box somewhere). Just so you know I'm not full of gak when I talk about actually buying their stuff at retail.
The little grey baggies are the 8x Iron Ancestors, which I deboxed for storage.

Goodwill also fuels the KS stuff - but there you could potentially argue that it includes the "free loot mentality", so I've kept it out of the pic.

 Bolognesus wrote:
Look at at it this way - with the Ogres dropping in price you're basically only 'short' about $15-17,50 in minis when the whole thing is put in the worst possible light. (TBH I never really saw the value in that pledge to begin with but that's a different story)
I get your frustration though - doesn't feel quite 'right'. did you BOGO (or whatever you want to call it) the pledge up to over $175? If you didn't I can see how this really is a significant part of total value you pledged for.
Maybe you could get them to let you switch the $110 veteran for $42,50 Soldier+counters (which you should have already received) and 67,50 BOGOF credit? at least that way you'd get to pick your own stuff and it never really would have contained more value than that anyway so that would have you even if I'm not mistaken?

The thing is, it just feels wrong. Kind of like a metaphorical slap in the face.

Let me explain. We funded them for a lot more than the $5k being asked. and we did it a year ago. It feels like now they have come back with
"Hey guys, thanks so much for supporting us. In order to be competitive, we're going to be offering a much better deal on these models that you paid us for a year ago to new retail customers than we did to you. To make up for it, we've got a sweet new army deal. What's that? BOGOF not happy? OK, how's this? If you paid extra for BOGOF, we'll give you a bit of a sweetener since you complained ([i]if you opt-in!). You guys who pledged for the defacto Ogre army? Sorry, you guys don't get anything extra - units of 3, as this is what we planned during the Kickstarter. Cheers, all!"[/i]

Now I'm sure that's not their intent, but it's certainly how it feels. Like I did right by them to fund them a year upfront for the Ogres and in return, they're rewarding everyone else. And it's not endearing me to send them more Kickstarter money.


I'm going to email Stewart in an hour or so, with polite but honest feedback and a few chunks of what we're written and discussed here today. Maybe I'll throw in that picture as well, now that I've taken it. The trolls I was so excited by are worthless to me. The monstrous cat cavalry I was so excited by are worthless to me. The nuns.. etcetera. I'm not going to ask/beg him for more ogres either. I'm simply going to communicate a lot of what I have in today's posts, and express my disappointment. If they want me to pay a year in advance for miniatures, and then offer a better deal later, then quid pro quo. If they want to make me happy or lose my goodwill as a customer, it's ultimately going to be their choice of actions. And yeah, I'd like to see them offer a gesture to all "soldiers", not just me. If they're doubling the retail box and offering a huge discount army deal, I doubt it will be hurting them really badly...


Somewhat separate from my Ogre bitching, this list of unseen sculpts isn't helping with the trust or goodwill issues either, especially since we know some/many of them must exist by now in an acceptable green/sprue form. (List cribbed from Fenriswulf).
Elohi
Paladin knights
Sisterhoood lancers
gargoyles
Immortal Guard
Obsidian Golems (we have decent pics of the greens on these)
Elf Palace guard
Stormwind calvary
Fleabag Riders
Twilight Dark knights
Berosos
Herneas
Kernow
Grokagamok
Atlak Nakh
Mikayel
Lord Malak
Pantehr Chariot
Druid hero
Air Elemental hero
Goblin hero set
Abyssal Dwarf fire team

 scarletsquig wrote:
^ Azazel, if you email Stew he will make sure that you get 9 ogres for $25 instead of 6.

I did that a while back, and haven't heard back yet.

I hope it happens though.

Initially I was in for BOGO on Ogres, Golems, Werewolves and Gargoyles.

Then I saw the Golem and Werewolf sculpts, and changed my mind.

Eventually, I ended up requesting all Ogres.

And then the retail prices were announced, so, yeah...

We'll see what happens...

 scarletsquig wrote:

If you want something in the US, you shout and scream and throw lawyers at people until you get what you want.
It tends to get the best results, I've heard stories of people in the US basically stacking a dozen coupons on top of each other, and then walking out of a store with a bunch of free stuff.. apparently the angle is, if the coupons add up to a negative amount, you go into the store and demand free money in addition to free product (as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, while others are waiting in line behind) and then settle for "only" getting the products for free when the staff say no. If you don't complain, you don't get the product for free.
There are guides to doing this online, I find the whole couponing culture that exists over there really interesting.

I've never witnessed what you've described, ever, in my entire life. And I have seen the couponing shows, but everyone in the episodes I've seen has been very nice and polite.

But I'm also from an area that prides itself on it's hospitality.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I betcha they don't want to show the rest of the models because they are even worse than the Trolls.

 judgedoug wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:

If you want something in the US, you shout and scream and throw lawyers at people until you get what you want.
It tends to get the best results, I've heard stories of people in the US basically stacking a dozen coupons on top of each other, and then walking out of a store with a bunch of free stuff.. apparently the angle is, if the coupons add up to a negative amount, you go into the store and demand free money in addition to free product (as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, while others are waiting in line behind) and then settle for "only" getting the products for free when the staff say no. If you don't complain, you don't get the product for free.
There are guides to doing this online, I find the whole couponing culture that exists over there really interesting.

I've never witnessed what you've described, ever, in my entire life. And I have seen the couponing shows, but everyone in the episodes I've seen has been very nice and polite.

But I'm also from an area that prides itself on it's hospitality.

Sounds like typical America Bashing, sadly.

From the Mantic forum in regards to the $125 Ogre deal -

The Same applies to the 'Ogre Army Deal', so if you pledge for that at $125 you now get:

27 x Ogres with Melee Weapons (your choice of Hand weapons & Shields or Two-Handed Weapons) - previously you only got 18

18 x Ores with Missile Weapons (your choice of Crossbows or Blunderbusses) - previously you only got 12

1 x Free Ogre Hero

2 x Free Ogre Command Sets

As Deoq said you have to email Stewart on:

stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com

telling him you want the increased number of figures rather than the lesser number of figures (seems strange but it is what Mantic has come up with, I would have thought it would have been simpler to just increase everybody's order).

Hope this helps.

Just calculated it up in comparison to the BOGOF deal for the Ogres. It's now worth $157 in value if you use the Kickstarter BOGOF prices. Good if you're looking to get a bunch of Ogres. Not sure if I will end up choosing this as I will already be receiving an Ogre hero for my $225 pledge, and I don't really want a repeat command pack. But it's a nice choice for those who want it.

They need to communicate this kind of information through the kickstarter, not to individuals.

I am thinking of taking the following;
1 x Kings and Legends Book, 1 x Basilean Legacy Book
1 x Ba'su'su the Vile, 1 x Abyssal Dwarf Fire team, 1 x Ogre Command Pack, 54 x Ogre Warriors.

That will take me to $5 over my original pledge, but kit me out with a bunch of miniatures to use.

 Fenriswulf wrote:


Just calculated it up in comparison to the BOGOF deal for the Ogres. It's now worth $157 in value if you use the Kickstarter BOGOF prices. Good if you're looking to get a bunch of Ogres. Not sure if I will end up choosing this as I will already be receiving an Ogre hero for my $225 pledge, and I don't really want a repeat command pack. But it's a nice choice for those who want it.

They need to communicate this kind of information through the kickstarter, not to individuals.

I am thinking of taking the following;
1 x Kings and Legends Book, 1 x Basilean Legacy Book
1 x Ba'su'su the Vile, 1 x Abyssal Dwarf Fire team, 1 x Ogre Command Pack, 54 x Ogre Warriors.

That will take me to $5 over my original pledge, but kit me out with a bunch of miniatures to use.

One can only assume they are not doing that so as to avoid all backers who picked Ogres taking them up on their offer to increase the BOGO to 9 figures/unit. There really isn't any other logical reason to not communicate it as a project update. If they are 10k in the hole due to this KS as has been suggested in this thread, that would support this theory.

The shame of it is, each "austerity measure" they take on the Kickstarter will probably lose them more than $10,000 in future sales. They are killing their entire brand to save pennies.

 Alpharius wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

I've never witnessed what you've described, ever, in my entire life. And I have seen the couponing shows, but everyone in the episodes I've seen has been very nice and polite.
But I'm also from an area that prides itself on it's hospitality.

Sounds like typical America Bashing, sadly.

I've not been to the US myself, but people I've spoken to IRL often talk about how very friendly and accommodating the vast majority of the people they met and encountered there have been.
I imagine the perspective would be taken from seeing stuff on TV and then applying it to everyone in a nation. Kind of like how all people in the UK are like Gordon Ramsey's performances on Hell's Kitchen and we Aussies are all like Steve Irwin..

I believe you've mentioned several times previously that you were going to break out some tinnies and endulge in a spot of wife-beating Azazelx?

It's more fun when she beats me.

So to speak.

We actually have a nice collection of Nerf-guns for marital warfare.

From the Deadzone comments:

mantic games wrote:@ Paul Thomas - sorry not everything has been shown. Tomorrow will will announce and let the KoW deadline slip a bit into next week (afterall the DZ one cannot move!). We got the painted Ogres today, and more heroes (the Goblin wizard is fantastic!) and these are being photo'ed tomorrow and put up. We will get more out asap too. Sorry again.

It's good to see what an up and coming company can achieve when they finally ask their parents to help them meet barely miss deadlines.


If only Rocky would get here with that van full of models and beer. It's going to be an all-nighter.

And they posted that in the deadzone comments? classy.

Only thing I actually want from the "extras" was the undead werewolves and the vampire chick. Any of this other stuff pulls up in the driveway, you guys can get dibs and trade me for it if you want. Not sure of what is really going to show up at this point, either. When it gets here, it really hope it comes out better then is expected.

 agnosto wrote:
And they posted that in the deadzone comments? classy.

They had Ronnie doing a Q&A session in the Deadzone comments last night - presumably someone asked him about the missing KOW previews.

Methinks a lot of people will be adding Ogres after this update.

All the pics:






Lovely models.

Why do they all stand like they gotta go to the bathroom really bad? This was the same issue with the original enforcers, Knock-kneed, unnatural leg poses.

They aren't walking, they aren't standing... I can't tell what they are doing except looking to keep their bladders from exploding down their leg.

They are nice from the waist up. Just like the trolls...

The paint jobs on the ogres are nice and so are the sculpts above the waist. I agree that they are kind of posed in the "i gotta pee!" kid pose strangely.

Yeah the legs could be designed better, but this is the best looking unit from the kickstarter, such as it is. I love the paintjobs though, something I might have to mimic for my units.

I really like them

(apart for the unnessesary loincloths... I presume they're there for some sort of casting reason)

I'm fine with them, I quite like 'em actually. Imagine them without the loincloth and it looks less knock-kneed.

I'm going to get my ultrasonic blade out and cut and reposition the arms and legs. I'll likely have the crossbows and guns facing forwards so it doesn't look like they're trying to poke the guy next to them in the eye (like the second ogre across seems to have done).

For anyone that wanted to know, the Ogre Army Deal's command upgrade is _just the bits alone_. So you get two sets of the _bits_.

I like them. The knock-knee pose isn't as bad as I have seen.

It's pretty funny that people are really going to town on Mantic about that and a lot of those same people will reminisce about how Rackham is still the best out there. Tons of their models suffered from the same knock-knee pose, if I remember correctly.

I really don't like knock-knee poses either, for the record. Nor for that matter am I a fan of loincloths...

I will be picking these up when they hit retail.

~Eric

Agreed, love all but the legs! Man, I think those could look great as units all ranked up, where the legs are less noticeable. Overall, they're my favorite unit put out by Mantic to date, by far! And the paint scheme is sweet, too

I think the Kickstarter update explains why the Ogres squeeze their legs together like that. They don't have anything between them.

"Some Ogres never feel the mating urge and remain in the south all their days (the Basileans have perfected a means of ensuring this)."

Think they look really good.. distinctive paint-scheme as well, actually think I prefer that to the paler-skinned GW standard style.

Yeah, the fact they are more muscled is a bonus. I can't stand the flabby GW ones. I think with a bit of reposing you could get a lot of uses out of them, even putting them on thundertusk/stonehorn or Mournfang cavalry. Maneaters might require a little more, as well as heroes, but nothing out of the realm of possibility.

I quite like them - but sadly I already own a sizeable GW ogre army, so I have 0 use for them.

nkelsch wrote:
Why do they all stand like they gotta go to the bathroom really bad? This was the same issue with the original enforcers, Knock-kneed, unnatural leg poses.

They aren't walking, they aren't standing... I can't tell what they are doing except looking to keep their bladders from exploding down their leg.

They are nice from the waist up. Just like the trolls...

I got a bunch of the Enforcers painted up, look fine to me.

For every nkelsch there's an overtyrant.

Personal perspectives!

I think the Ogres are very nice, the best of the KoW sculpts so far, but a few of them do have odd leg posing issues.

I don't accept that the ogres have no junk or were neutered as an explanation why they waddle with their knees together. But it is a curious new defense to justify issues as 'intended'. Someone actually sat down and said to a sculptor, "Remember, many of the ogres have no junk ro were neutered, so please visualize that concept as a core aspect of the model when you design it even though none of the concept art showed the ogres as junkless knobbied-knee poses." In all the concept art they have legs spread in a kinda haunched, bent-knee 'brace for impact pose' and none of the models look anywhere close.

It is simply odd that they look this way and odder that they need to justify it with fluff.

nkelsch wrote:

I don't accept that the ogres have no junk or were neutered as an explanation why they waddle with their knees together. But it is a curious new defense to justify issues as 'intended'.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/facetious

Has anyone ever seen nkelsch and Kroothawk in the same room?

 Alpharius wrote:
Has anyone ever seen nkelsch and Kroothawk in the same room?

LoL. Nice and very astute!


I love the ogres and plan to use them as Maneaters in my WHFB army since I already have a man-brazillion of the GW fat boys.

I'm at a crossroads with these ogres. I really like them but I much prefer my fatties and have a huge army of them that I use both for Fantasy and KoW. I might just get enough to use for Mantic event's and use my fatties for other games.

Why did they paint them as Uruk Hai?

 Riquende wrote:
Why did they paint them as Uruk Hai?

Because they wanted to distance themselves from all the complaints of them just making knockoff Warhammer figures. Now they're copying LotR

Changed my choices for the Kickstarter;

1 x Kings and Legends Book - $10
1 x Basilean Legacy Book - $15
1 x Ba'su'su the Vile - $8
1 x Abyssal Dwarf Fire Team - $12
1 x Goblin Fleabag Archer upgrade - $5
1 x Ogre Army deal - $125
1 x Ogre Warrior BOGOF choice - $25

The $125 Ogre Army deal offers better value for money than 5 $25 BOGOF choices, as you get a free Ogre Hero and 2 Command packs. That is, of course, if the Army deal is 27 Ogre Warriors, 18 Ogre Shooters, 1 Ogre hero and 2 Command Packs.

So, I think I should be fairly well set for an Ogre Army after this. I don't think I should need more than 36 Ogres in either regular Ogre or Irongut style, and 21 Shooters (18 plus my free 3 Ogre choice).

I really like the Ogres. I dont' play fantasy, but I want an Ogre army.

I mean, $125 should be enough to a playable army in KoW, right?

 Polonius wrote:
I really like the Ogres. I dont' play fantasy, but I want an Ogre army.

I mean, $125 should be enough to a playable army in KoW, right?

If the points are the same as the kingdom of men list, I count 1725 pts.

I have 30+ ogres coming already from soldier, stretches and 2 bogofs. Didn't see much need in getting the ogre army at the moment, bu I got the Basileans! Be snagging that chariot as a freebie in the box, and I love the paladins and MaAs. And the Eloihi are amazing too. Pretty much getting two full armies from this. After its all done, is there any chance of somebody (I'll even start it, if people want) creating a giant swap thread where everyone can put in the stuff they don't want for trade? Swap shop with a stickie might not be bad, but it may be better in the Mantic subforum?

To be honest, Kroothawk is very reasonable and refreshing... nkelsch is just boringly unnerving.

And they are not the same person I can assure you.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
To be honest, Kroothawk is very reasonable and refreshing... nkelsch is just boringly unnerving.

And they are not the same person I can assure you.

I guess when blindly carrying water for a company, instead of addressing the very valid criticism leveled by dozens of posters and customers it is easier to attack and name-call one or two of them in an attempt to invalidate the criticism.

No other company posting models on dakka has as much excuses made about why the models look b ad in photographs but somehow the very real flaws 'somehow' are better in person... and guess what? They are not. Bad models look bad. Good models look good. There are very real issues with Mantic's art direction, quality of their available sculptors and their ability to make legitimate faithful translations of concept arts to actual models. They failed yet again with the ogres as the legs are clearly 'wrong' and don't match the concept art the same way the trolls were a failure.

The sooner they fire every single sculptor (except Remy) and go all 3D, the better off they will be.

Or you can continue to make excuses and confuse people into continuing to think the models will be 'better in person' only to have them recieve them and be unhappy and be stuck with an expensive return shipping problem. If they look bad in photographs, they are bad models and people need to be skeptical to protect themselves.

Nothing like throwing in an ad hominem for no reason, eh Duncan?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be fair, nkelsch, whoever did the Rebs has done good work. I think the issue is just as much around strong Art direction/editing as around sculptors.

I don't know where ScarletSquig got his info, or if it's correct or not, but he claimed that the Hordes/Trollblood sculptor did the KoW trolls. The Hordes Trollbloods are IMO some really good, characterful models. So if SS's info is correct, the problem isn't with the sculptor - but either the Art Director being too weak to say "No! Do it again!" or the final (unseen by us) concept art being gak. Which is a Mantic communication issue.

The actual sculpting on the nuns is fine. It's no Jes Goodwin work, but as miniatures go, it's fine. The arm length (and giant flipper-hands) on the Nuns, however should have been picked up before they went to production. You know, as soon as there were enough body parts to blu-tac together, someone should have picked up on it and sent them back for some quick surgery.

Even those much-maligned Orx aren't terrible sculpts in terms of the detail work. It's the proportions and posing that are messed up (like Remy's knock-kneed Ogres). And the heads were pretty awful as well.

So

To be even more honest, I find even you way more refreshing than him. You at least come from a different angle every time.

nkelsch wrote:
the very valid criticism leveled by dozens of posters and customers

You have been so very loud and so very repetetive that I honestly don't know if there are criticisms by dozens of posters; it feels like the same criticism posted dozens of times by you.

nkelsch wrote:

No other company posting models on dakka has as much excuses made about why the models look b ad in photographs but somehow the very real flaws 'somehow' are better in person...

Many models suffer from this. For instance, Mantic Elves look like crap on their website but are some of the most beautifully detailed plastic models I've ever had. Conversely, GW somehow managed to make it's Empire infantry look better on their site, which is pretty amazing as they look like crap and are somehow even worse in person.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
To be even more honest, I find even you way more refreshing than him. You at least come from a different angle every time.

Dude, just don't even bait nkelsch. He had a valid complaint when he got some miscast Dreadball models but instead of getting replacements he just got it all refunded. He has no problem being an incredibly, uh, vocal, opponent of Mantic now, even on threads for ranges for which he has no models of. The more you feed him, the stronger he grows and the more he regenerates.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hey Azazel, someone posted on the comments that Stew allowed them to swap their Veteran Pledge + BOGOF for an Ogre Army + kings and legends book; and the Ogre Army also gets the +50% Ogre models count increase. So, like 27 warriors, 18 shooters, 2 cmd upgrade bits, and the hero.

Mantic models are not always the best and they have misfires (Goblins are specifically an annoyance).
That said, the WFB sweat pants and house slippers Ogres are not exactly anything to write home about.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat670005a&prodId=prod1320015a&rootCatGameStyle=

 judgedoug wrote:


Dude, just don't even bait nkelsch. He had a valid complaint when he got some miscast Dreadball models but instead of getting replacements he just got it all refunded. He has no problem being an incredibly, uh, vocal, opponent of Mantic now, even on threads for ranges for which he has no models of. The more you feed him, the stronger he grows and the more he regenerates.

And the poor quality sculpts of the Asterians validates one of my criticisms that models do not end up looking like their concept art and makes my decision to opt out of the season 3 shipment even more valid. I can't trust that mantic will be faithful to the promised concepts or that the funhouse mirror photography somehow makes the models look worse than they really do. And 40$ international shipping makes me want to not gamble on cast quality.

The only way for me to get models from Mantic is to see the sculpts in person, see the casting quality in person, then hand over my hard earned money to a vendor who I can return the product to without costing more than the model. Mantic realizes the best way to make customers is to make people happy with their purchase, not trick them into being stuck with sub-standard models. Lots of other people have had the same experience as me and continue to have issues. I don't think any favors are done by squashing discussion or hiding experiences from people.

As someone who is highly interested in the ogres, these are a huge disappointment as they do not match the concept art from the waist down and would take conversion and repair to make them useable.

So on Ogres alone, the *NON* me comments were:

I agree that they are kind of posed in the "i gotta pee!" kid pose strangely.

Yeah the legs could be designed better

love all but the legs! Man

I think the Kickstarter update explains why the Ogres squeeze their legs together like that. They don't have anything between them.

but a few of them do have odd leg posing issues.

And as soon as people start discussing the real issue, Ogre legs, You and Duncan immediately start attacking to divert the discussion from what is obviously the issue... The Ogre legs which show the 'BEST sculpt they have’ is still not 100% and having issues for people, even those who like the model have issue with the legs. You seem like you are personally invested in needing to invalidate criticism, even when valid, or at least try to confuse people by pretending I maintain 30ish sock puppet accounts with years long posting history simply to make up Anti-mantic issues. Maybe I photoshop their official photos as well to make the models look bad too? And I break in to the post office and glue extra plastic to the mold lines?

nkelsch wrote:

And as soon as people start discussing the real issue, Ogre legs, You and Duncan immediately start attacking to divert the discussion from what is obviously the issue... The Ogre legs which show the 'BEST sculpt they have’ is still not 100% and having issues for people, even those who like the model have issue with the legs. You seem like you are personally invested in needing to invalidate criticism, even when valid, or at least try to confuse people by pretending I maintain 30ish sock puppet accounts with years long posting history simply to make up Anti-mantic issues. Maybe I photoshop their official photos as well to make the models look bad too? And I break in to the post office and glue extra plastic to the mold lines?

Well, even if the legs are not great, you must admit that the ogres look 100x better than the fat, Mongolian ogres that GW puts out-Mongolian faces, Arabian slippers, and American-Gamer sweatpants. Those things need serious help.

These guys are way better than GW's fatties. The knock-kneed legs don't even bother me. What bothers me more is that if I just glance at them, a lot of them wind up looking like they're wearing thigh-high stripper boots. I know they're not, but unless I look at them closely, it looks kind of like they are.

I really dont see ogres in these and more orcs.

As for the sculpts the legs are not that bad and I have far more issues looking at those malformed biceps, they are just to damn big and look out of place... like you have a torso that cannot support such big lumps, the muscles are not credible either.

With all this said, its miles better than most of the new stuff which has been VERY disappointing so far.

As for the discussion, I do see reasons for people to be unhappy with this... well I have not invested one penny on this and its still sad for me to see the quality levels they are aiming for...

Painting is also subpar... all is just looking cheap at most levels...

Anyone at salute would have noticed the many small companies in there with FULLY painted ranges with superb sculpts and state of art paintjobs etc... Those do deserve more my money, they actually invested more in providing good quality stuff.

Also I would like to mention that Mantic seems to be going to fast and cutting corners to keep up this ridiculous speed... speed and quality is a hard thing to accomplish.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Well, even if the legs are not great, you must admit that the ogres look 100x better than the fat, Mongolian ogres that GW puts out-Mongolian faces, Arabian slippers, and American-Gamer sweatpants. Those things need serious help.

What's wrong with Mongolians?

I personally don't like either company's ogres, but at least the GW ogres are made out of a material that is fun to work with. The more I deal with restic, the less enthusiastic I feel about buying more of it.

Also, debating about each model in piecemeal is not the best strategy for dodging the issue: Mantic's treatment of the KoW range has been a huge disappointment, burning the fingers of 'early adopters' and tainting their range for years to come. You can't hide that by pointing to GW sculpts and saying "tu quoque".

nkelsch wrote:
And as soon as people start discussing the real issue, Ogre legs, You and Duncan immediately start attacking to divert the discussion from what is obviously the issue... The Ogre legs which show the 'BEST sculpt they have’ is still not 100% and having issues for people, even those who like the model have issue with the legs. You seem like you are personally invested in needing to invalidate criticism, even when valid, or at least try to confuse people by pretending I maintain 30ish sock puppet accounts with years long posting history simply to make up Anti-mantic issues. Maybe I photoshop their official photos as well to make the models look bad too? And I break in to the post office and glue extra plastic to the mold lines?

When have I attacked you? I even said your Dreadball complaints were valid and Mantic needed to respond to your emails, because they were failing you as a customer. (if you wanted to google me, you'll see me blasting Mantic's poor handling of the KoW KS on their own forums!) But you're also incredibly obnoxious and repetetive. Everyone gets it. You don't like Mantic or whatever. You had lots of problems with your pledge and lots of problems contacting anyone. Everyone on Dakka knows that by heart now because you won't stop bringing it up in every thread you're in. It seems like you've made it your perogative to respond to anything with your copypasta criticisms. Your name on a post is a joke to me now because as I'm scrolling through a thread, I'm pretty much assured that the post will be Mantic bashing. How about just put a few select copypasta quotes into your sig and stop reposting the same thing?

I like the Ogres, a lot, personally. I hate the trolls, which is really annoying and disappointing (because they look nothing like the concepts, which looked GREAT), because I was looking forward to using them (instead I am using Mierce trolls for my Goblin army, which are infinitely superior sculpts). I think the nuns are crap, I'm hesitant on the men at arms; but the angels, orc chariot and goblin mincer are fantastic... but I'm getting all this gak for free because I had two >$225 pledges, so I'm not too worried. All those regiments were free as stretch goals for me. My initial pledges paid for lots and lots of minis which I've already assembled and painted and had a blast playing Kings of War with.

New characters:




Pretty good, overall.. goblins are fun sculpts, mounted Twilight kin is a bit of a miss, but the one on foot more than makes up for it.. excellent sculpt.

I love love love the goblins. I'm definitely adding those on for my goblin army. The TK ones are KS freebies, right?

Why does Mantic take photos so close up that you can see brush strokes? It actually detracts from seeing the figure. God, half the size please.

^They're displayed smaller on the kickstarter page since the site downsizes them.

I just grabbed the URLs for them (which are the basic, huge image).

Anyway, a good sculpt looks good regardless of image size, I tend to find.

There's nothing wrong with the mounted TK character that won't be solved by slicing away the weird goat-horn holders on the side of the helmet and a different paint job. I love purple, but the effect here doesn't make it look like flames, it looks more like some sort of horse-poodle.

Dude... left horse hoof... purple brush strokes across the horse flesh.

Super giant pics always exaggerates crappy paint jobs, shrug.

I'd still honestly rather have unpainted, black-ink-washed shots of sprues and bits. Way easier to imagine how I want to paint them.

Most of these miniatures are rather goofy looking.

The Ogres remain the best of the bunch, as flawed as they are too.

This is troubling.

That Goblin wizzard is amazing, I can't wait to paint him.

 Alpharius wrote:
Most of these miniatures are rather goofy looking.

The Ogres remain the best of the bunch, as flawed as they are too.

This is troubling.

What? The Goblin heroes are fantastic! I don't much like the Twilight Kin, but there are lots of people who like the spiky armor aesthetic.

New sculpts look cool. Is anyone besides me getting a "mini" Sauron vibe from this model?

 Alpharius wrote:
Most of these miniatures are rather goofy looking.

The Ogres remain the best of the bunch, as flawed as they are too.

This is troubling.

Have to agree, the sculpting is bad on most of them... the painting is horrible.

I like most of those, but why oh why does the twilight kin on foot need a giant metal loincloth!

If they'd just gone with the cloak it would look much better

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I like most of those, but why oh why does the twilight kin on foot need a giant metal loincloth!

He's a tripod.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Most of these miniatures are rather goofy looking.

The Ogres remain the best of the bunch, as flawed as they are too.

This is troubling.

Have to agree, the sculpting is bad on most of them... the painting is horrible.

I'll go ahead and totally disagree with you about the goblin hero sculpts (but agree with you on the paint jobs).
I mean, they might be bad compared to Tre Manor or Tom Mier, but they look fantastic compared to most of the crap other companies put out.
I'm very happy with those goblin characters.

 judgedoug wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Most of these miniatures are rather goofy looking.

The Ogres remain the best of the bunch, as flawed as they are too.

This is troubling.

Have to agree, the sculpting is bad on most of them... the painting is horrible.

I'll go ahead and totally disagree with you about the goblin hero sculpts (but agree with you on the paint jobs).
I mean, they might be bad compared to Tre Manor or Tom Mier, but they look fantastic compared to most of the crap other companies put out.
I'm very happy with those goblin characters.

That's what they call 'damning with faint praise'!

This could all just be some much better...

At this point I feel compelled to mention that the Goblins are not Kickstarter-funded sculpts.

So, if you don't like them, that's an issue separate to the kickstarter, and related to Mantic in general.

It looks like the dodgy twilight kin is one of the custom backer-funded sculpts (probably someone called Michael since the name of the mini is "Mikayel"), so they'd have had to sculpt the person's face on the mini and pose it how they wanted it etc. That's just an educated guess from me, though.

In fact one of the reasons for the third shipment delay is that it took ages for the backer-funded sculpts to be finalised via slow email exchanges. I can see why they haven't offered single-backer-funded sculpts as freebies in future KS's.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I like most of those, but why oh why does the twilight kin on foot need a giant metal loincloth!

If they'd just gone with the cloak it would look much better

Easy repair to take away the metal loincloth at least. I'm a big fan of that model and of the goblin heroes. The Mounted TK hero I'm less of a fan of. Don't really like the head, nor to I like the fur above the hoofs. If it's intended to be flame - that could be pretty cool, but I hope it's not there to that degree on the rank and file models.

The Twilight Kin on foot is okay, but I don't like those Goblins very much. I mean they're competent sculpts but they're not blowing me away or anything. GW's recent Goblins are much better.
The Twilight Kin on horseback is a bit meh, but mostly because of his fashion choices. I actually think the face and so on are pretty good and the proportions aren't bad.

I like the goblin wizard. The rest are pretty average to mediocre.

It'll be nice to have actually seen everything by Wednesday. Does anyone know what the deadline is on the survey now?

 Da Boss wrote:
The Twilight Kin on foot is okay, but I don't like those Goblins very much. I mean they're competent sculpts but they're not blowing me away or anything. GW's recent Goblins are much better.
The Twilight Kin on horseback is a bit meh, but mostly because of his fashion choices. I actually think the face and so on are pretty good and the proportions aren't bad.

Which recent GW goblins? The shaman and the forest goblins on the arachnarok are very nice, but I'd say that the heroes/mages that were released with the 7th edition sculpts are about on par with the new Mantic goblin characters. Out of the 10 foot character released in that GW batch, there's only two I'd say I clearly like better (3/11 if we count the limited edition goblin hero that came with WD subscription).

The mantic goblins are also much better than the recent forgeworld night goblin command (which is the only GW goblin BSB that's been released outside of Grom's chariot).

I don't have a problem with any of these. They're all reasonable. The mounted TK's head isn't really doing the model any favours, but as a freebie, he's acceptable. (Wouldn't spend cash on him, though). On that note, the Goblins aren't free KS sculpts? How much are they asking for them?

Objectively, the paint isn't bad either, given that the images are shown at about 12,000x the sizes of the actual models.

decker_cky wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
The Twilight Kin on foot is okay, but I don't like those Goblins very much. I mean they're competent sculpts but they're not blowing me away or anything. GW's recent Goblins are much better.
The Twilight Kin on horseback is a bit meh, but mostly because of his fashion choices. I actually think the face and so on are pretty good and the proportions aren't bad.

Which recent GW goblins? The shaman and the forest goblins on the arachnarok are very nice, but I'd say that the heroes/mages that were released with the 7th edition sculpts are about on par with the new Mantic goblin characters. Out of the 10 foot character released in that GW batch, there's only two I'd say I clearly like better (3/11 if we count the limited edition goblin hero that came with WD subscription).

The mantic goblins are also much better than the recent forgeworld night goblin command (which is the only GW goblin BSB that's been released outside of Grom's chariot).

Well obviously it's subjective, but I preferred the GW heroes released with 7th and especially the Skulkers or whoever they were called- the little cloak and dagger goblins. Each to his own. The Mantic Goblin Sneak and the Mawbeasts are the only Mantic Goblins I've been really impressed by, which is a shame because I am a sucker for Goblins

 scarletsquig wrote:
All the pics:


Lovely models.

Don't let your friends forget leg day

thos modells look really stupid (and not in a good way)

(and people complain about GW proportions on modells mwahahaha)