http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/10/exclusive-painted-warpath-forgefather.html



Much, much better colour scheme. Not sure I'm getting any of the units yet, but will definitely pick this up just to paint.

He looks good

Good paint quality for sure

But he still screams "I'm a Warmachine character!" to me. Imo some models mantic is confusing sci fi with steampunk

Steampunk is a sub-genre of sci fi

lord marcus wrote:Steampunk is a sub-genre of sci fi

Not necessarily.

Steampunk is a subgenre of both scifi and fantasy, and can also be put under the "alternative history" heading as well.

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s.[1] Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain—that incorporates elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.

I dunno, steampuck is more about technology in a terrestrial lower tech era... sci-fi is more space. You wouldn't be using steampunk tech in space. Mantic's universe, steampunk is not appropriate pretty much in any capacity. makes little sense and is confusing.

That dwarf looks like a fantasy model who is a classic fantasy engineer type where he is building technologically advanced doo-dads using medieval-tech and crafting.

He looks grossly out of place in the same army as the forgefather powersuits.

It is like mantic is purposefully trying to fail and make minis that look bad or don't make sense.

I'm actually seriously liking the models. I can't wait to see what else they come up with, especially with their "Zz'or" idea.

TBH, I don't care if it is steampunk or whatever.. what matters is, it looks damned good.

If you look at GW's ranges, they often have the odd model in there that looks like it should belong to fantasy or other genres.

In fact, they have an entire range of models (daemons) that is basically a fantasy army, and nothing *but* a fantasy army that gets used in 40k with zero modification other than "bung it on a round base, job done". I don't recall seeing anyone crying bloody murder about the fact that GW copy+pasted both it's daemon models, and their background straight over from fantasy into 40k.

Also, look at the old Horus-Heresy space marine armour types, a lot of those are very heavily fantasy/ steampunk with big rivets and knights helms all over them. Does it matter? No! They look great, regardless, and so does that forgefather.

Also, here's the marauder hero to go with him:

Yeah, the Steampunk or not argument doesn't mean much regarding Mantic and 40k. Mantic is follwoing in 40k's footsteps and 40k is so far into Sci-Fantasy that it's probably closer to Steampunk than Sci-Fi anyway.

The new paintjob on the Forgefather hero is really nice. As much as I'd be disappointed to have a bunch of Space dwarves with fantasy loincloths (even squats didn't have loincloths), I might paint a squad up just to have a group to accompany the Hero fig.

nkelsch wrote:

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s.[1] Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain—that incorporates elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.

I dunno, steampuck is more about technology in a terrestrial lower tech era... sci-fi is more space. You wouldn't be using steampunk tech in space. Mantic's universe, steampunk is not appropriate pretty much in any capacity. makes little sense and is confusing.

That dwarf looks like a fantasy model who is a classic fantasy engineer type where he is building technologically advanced doo-dads using medieval-tech and crafting.

He looks grossly out of place in the same army as the forgefather powersuits.

It is like mantic is purposefully trying to fail and make minis that look bad or don't make sense.

Sci fi is SCIENCE fiction. The name does not give a time period all works should be based around, nor does it say anthing about space as a requirment.

Not one Warpath miniature that doesn't look like a Fantasy miniature with a gun glued on.
Guess that's why the extra Warpath thread was closed, because Mantic doesn't produce SciFi miniatures, just a new weapon sprue.

I really dont like the look of what I have seen so far. It just looks odd to me. I will wait and see.

I'm not saying Steam Punk=bad

Its just that seeing Humans with "5 minutes into the future" tech vs steam/diesel punk dwarves doesnt really seem like a coherent universe

Yes I'm aware of 40k's different styles, heck a lot of sci fi universes have different species with different tech/etc

But I think that the Fantasy In Space races are severely limited to being similar to their fantasy counterparts since the plastics are limited

I am not sure what to think of Mantic's miniatures.

They are hit and miss to me. Some good concepts yet none of their factions appeal to me as a painter or gamer.

Just seems a bit meh.

I'm not sure that "but Warhammer does it!" is an especially useful counter.

People looking at Mantic for proxies for GW games are only going to care that they like the models.
Everyone else is presumably looking for an alternative to Warhammer, something new and different. Maybe they shouldn't be expecting that, or maybe they shouldn't be expecting that yet, but there it is.

While I'm not particularly excited by the plastic orcs, or the gorilla-armed Forgefather heavies (or whatever they're called) I do like these two "leader" figures.

Have they shown the regular dwarfs yet?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cyporiean wrote:

Warpath Starter set all together... no close up pics of the Forgefather plastics yet :/

And this.. just doesn't seem like all that much for a starter box. For a 10 pound difference between this and Black Reach. Just in terms of box content..

nkelsch wrote:

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s.[1] Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain—that incorporates elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.

I dunno, steampuck is more about technology in a terrestrial lower tech era... sci-fi is more space. You wouldn't be using steampunk tech in space. Mantic's universe, steampunk is not appropriate pretty much in any capacity. makes little sense and is confusing.

This may be the least accurate definition of sci-fi I've ever heard.

Feel free to continue carving down pluralistic genres into highly specific niches, but you should know that by any credible accounting you're completely wrong.

The "clean technology with elegant lines" is just a modern way to face technology sthetic. Take a look at industrial technology: even the modern one will just look like "industrial revolution" technology, with eletronics in place of steampower.

Technology "looks" modern only when that is good for the business. The iPad look clean and elegant because our culture value that.

If you read Isac Asimov, you need a lot of imagination to imagine the clean, white, bright robots of "I Robot" (the movie).

Orx culture dont have any need for that type of preocupation, they need crude industrial weaponry.

Dwarf culture dont change like the human one, and never work around sthetic (except when they are meant to be beautifull).

I dont see anything wrong with Mantic aprouch and "tecno salada" on secnario, it even make sense.

How are they coming in basic boxed sets?

I don't like the price of the starter for whats in it.

Grot 6 wrote:How are they coming in basic boxed sets?

I don't like the price of the starter for whats in it.

Im in the same boat. Mantic fantasy have great values, and in the majority of the boxes it have good quality too...

Mantic sci-fi is not so good in value, and is not very good at all. I just had lost my interest in Mantic dwarfs until they get power armored troopers, and if orx keep this type of price vs quality rate, i will have to give up from them too...

Well, the boxed sets are usually where your best value lies, so this is likely as good as it gets. Unless you're just after one army and they do the same thing that they did with the Undead and Dwarfs from the first Mhorgoth's box. (I shoulda gotten the Undead-only one - their dwarfs are awful.)

I guess this is where the Mantic defenders chime in to tell us that we should "cut them some slack" as they're a beginning company, in the same way that we should be cutting them slack for reused Orc sprues. Since they haven't shown the other Forgefathers yet and release is imminent, I'm beginning to assume that they're a half-recycled sprue as well, as per the rumours. I mean, I like to support competition - I just bought the new Warmachine Starter box - but you gotta give us either quality or quantity, and this Boxed set unfortunately gives us neither compared to AOBR, allowing for a 10-12UKP difference.

scipio.au wrote:Well, the boxed sets are usually where your best value lies, so this is likely as good as it gets. Unless you're just after one army and they do the same thing that they did with the Undead and Dwarfs from the first Mhorgoth's box. (I shoulda gotten the Undead-only one - their dwarfs are awful) In my own opinon.

I guess this is where the Mantic defenders chime in to tell us that we should "cut them some slack" as they're a beginning company, in the same way that we should be cutting them slack for reused Orc sprues. Since they haven't shown the other Forgefathers yet and release is imminent, I'm beginning to assume that they're a half-recycled sprue as well, as per the rumours. I mean, I like to support competition - I just bought the new Warmachine Starter box - but you gotta give us either quality I see nothing wrong with the casting or techincal sculpting in these models. Obviously this is not what you meant, but it is what the word quality means or quantity There are over 50 minis in there, with 2 of them being plastic resin vehicles, and 5 of them being plastic resin infantry, both more expensive to supply then base plastics , and this Boxed set unfortunately gives us neither compared to AOBR, allowing for a 10-12UKP difference.

Fixed and replied too.

And we defend them because they do not deserve the fallacies people Prophesize here as truth, and thus have a right to be defended.

Baragash wrote:http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/10/exclusive-painted-warpath-forgefather.html



Much, much better colour scheme.

If someone kept making excuses like what I see in this thread for GW actions or products, they would be called apologists or white knights defenders of the faith.

It seems like people who have sigs who bash GW and then claim to be mantic fantatics... well they may be on a payroll or pushing an agenda.

I don't like the models, I don't think they are a good value. I don't think I should accept 'excuses' on why I should accept lower quality because it is 'cheaper'. And I am not going to blindly accept the words of some water-carrying mantic bucket brigade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

lord marcus wrote:
And we defend them because they do not deserve the fallacies people Prophesize here as truth, and thus have a right to be defended.

Do you arms get tired carrying that water? People can see the models with their own eyes and see the prices with their own eyes and decide if they like them and if the value is good without you needing to redefine mantic's situation for them. If people think the models look bad or are a poor value, they don't need you 'inform' them otherwise.

lord marcus wrote:

scipio.au wrote:Well, the boxed sets are usually where your best value lies, so this is likely as good as it gets. Unless you're just after one army and they do the same thing that they did with the Undead and Dwarfs from the first Mhorgoth's box. (I shoulda gotten the Undead-only one - their dwarfs are awful) In my own opinon.

I guess this is where the Mantic defenders chime in to tell us that we should "cut them some slack" as they're a beginning company, in the same way that we should be cutting them slack for reused Orc sprues. Since they haven't shown the other Forgefathers yet and release is imminent, I'm beginning to assume that they're a half-recycled sprue as well, as per the rumours. I mean, I like to support competition - I just bought the new Warmachine Starter box - but you gotta give us either quality I see nothing wrong with the casting or techincal sculpting in these models. Obviously this is not what you meant, but it is what the word quality means or quantity There are over 50 minis in there, with 2 of them being plastic resin vehicles, and 5 of them being plastic resin infantry, both more expensive to supply then base plastics , and this Boxed set unfortunately gives us neither compared to AOBR, allowing for a 10-12UKP difference.

Fixed and replied too.

And we defend them because they do not deserve the fallacies people Prophesize here as truth, and thus have a right to be defended.

Your reply is a mess. Use quotes, not colours, please.
Every post we make is opinion-based. This includes your good self. Quality can have more than one meaning, and the technical sculpting on the Warpath figures appears to range from quite good, to decent, to (if the forgefathers are in fact recasts of the Fantasy Dwarfs) poor.
I miscounted the Mantic figures (the number of those Orks), so the quantity isn't as bad as I thought, though more FFs and vehicles would make the package seem much more worthwhile compared to AoBR.

"Deserve" is a very emotionally loaded term. I'm not going to get too emotionally invested in the companies that make my little toy soldiers and instead try to speak on matters of sculpt quality, quantity, production quality (hello Finecast!) and the like. I'm sure the Mantic people are great guys in person and want to do as well as they can, but hey, there are guys like that in all of the companies in our hobby (even GW). When they produce quality or great deals I'll recognise them, and when they don't, I'll share my opinion on that as well.

These initial Warpath armies are pretty "meh" in terms of choice and overall aesthetic. The Dwarfs and Orx just seem like rushed jobs to get a product out. Was it necessary to launch this fall? Why not push it off and launch with the Corp. and the 8th Race, which seems to be their 2 flagship armies (with the Corp being the center of the Universe and the 8th race supposedly being original)? This just seems like a soft launch that could do more harm than good to the image they are trying to create.

I'll reserve overall judgment for the models until I see the Corp, 8th race, Zz'or and maybe Rebs, but I don't think there's any hope for races that might tie back into fantasy (I wouldn't be surprised if The Plague are zombies with axes and revolvers).

As far as prices, I still think that Warpath is reasonable. But I live in the States where the prices listed on the official sites are $99USD for AoBR and $74.99USD for FotF. With the weak dollar, GW's pricing is absurd. And Mantic's prices become more appealing as you buy in bulk.

nkelsch wrote:I don't like the models, I don't think they are a good value. I don't think I should accept 'excuses' on why I should accept lower quality because it is 'cheaper'. And I am not going to blindly accept the words of some water-carrying mantic bucket brigade.

When i pass trough a post of news about historical miniatures, flames of war or warhammer fantasy, i ignore it, or, when the thing really jump to my eyes, i got there and actually read it.

That is because i dont like historical miniatures, or flames of war, or warhammer fantasy. So if you dont like Mantic products, as you clear pointed, why on hell are you coming in this thread to talk bad about them? Would you like if i gone on a warhammer fantasy thread and started to rant about what i think is not good on that system/miniatures sthetic? If you dont like Mantic, that is perfectly ok, you have that right. Right now i just want a fantasy wargame, with hordes fighting hordes, and that dont fallow that (i)logic that GW call a game, and for that KoW fits for me.

Someone over there, that i will not give me the trouble to search and point by name, acused me, and all people who like mantic and use the Mantic Fanatics banners, to be deceptive liars, hired by mantic to tell people their product is good. Well, i should feel ofended by that, but maybe this guy is just one of those guys hired by GW to speak good about GW products, and bad against other companies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CT GAMER wrote:

Baragash wrote:http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/10/exclusive-painted-warpath-forgefather.html



Much, much better colour scheme.

WOW CT, they look exactly the same guy... Mantic is probably stealing that ideia too, you know, gunslingers shooting with 2 guns are a very orginal ideia. Yeha, Mantic now is stealing IP from PP too. At least now they are not a "GW copy" anymore...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hexol wrote:These initial Warpath armies are pretty "meh" in terms of choice and overall aesthetic. The Dwarfs and Orx just seem like rushed jobs to get a product out. Was it necessary to launch this fall? Why not push it off and launch with the Corp. and the 8th Race, which seems to be their 2 flagship armies (with the Corp being the center of the Universe and the 8th race supposedly being original)? This just seems like a soft launch that could do more harm than good to the image they are trying to create.

I'll reserve overall judgment for the models until I see the Corp, 8th race, Zz'or and maybe Rebs, but I don't think there's any hope for races that might tie back into fantasy (I wouldn't be surprised if The Plague are zombies with axes and revolvers).

While i agree with you about the rushed look, i dont share your view that the scenario goes around the Corp and the 8th race, the corp maybe, but the 8th race, never. They probably dont know what is the 8th race yet themselves. And well, the scenario is fantasy tied, their original ideia was to make "fantasy races on space", whyle that could sound lame, that is their way... I was really excited about this, as i like the concept, and wanted a "world of warcraft in space", but im not impressed too. I reality, im very inclined toward going "fajntasy only", and start to play infinity for sci-fi...

scipio.au wrote:

lord marcus wrote:

scipio.au wrote:Well, the boxed sets are usually where your best value lies, so this is likely as good as it gets. Unless you're just after one army and they do the same thing that they did with the Undead and Dwarfs from the first Mhorgoth's box. (I shoulda gotten the Undead-only one - their dwarfs are awful) In my own opinon.

I guess this is where the Mantic defenders chime in to tell us that we should "cut them some slack" as they're a beginning company, in the same way that we should be cutting them slack for reused Orc sprues. Since they haven't shown the other Forgefathers yet and release is imminent, I'm beginning to assume that they're a half-recycled sprue as well, as per the rumours. I mean, I like to support competition - I just bought the new Warmachine Starter box - but you gotta give us either quality I see nothing wrong with the casting or techincal sculpting in these models. Obviously this is not what you meant, but it is what the word quality means or quantity There are over 50 minis in there, with 2 of them being plastic resin vehicles, and 5 of them being plastic resin infantry, both more expensive to supply then base plastics , and this Boxed set unfortunately gives us neither compared to AOBR, allowing for a 10-12UKP difference.

Fixed and replied too.

And we defend them because they do not deserve the fallacies people Prophesize here as truth, and thus have a right to be defended.

Your reply is a mess. Use quotes, not colours, please.
Every post we make is opinion-based. This includes your good self. Quality can have more than one meaning, and the technical sculpting on the Warpath figures appears to range from quite good, to decent, to (if the forgefathers are in fact recasts of the Fantasy Dwarfs) poor.
I miscounted the Mantic figures (the number of those Orks), so the quantity isn't as bad as I thought, though more FFs and vehicles would make the package seem much more worthwhile compared to AoBR.

"Deserve" is a very emotionally loaded term. I'm not going to get too emotionally invested in the companies that make my little toy soldiers and instead try to speak on matters of sculpt quality, quantity, production quality (hello Finecast!) and the like. I'm sure the Mantic people are great guys in person and want to do as well as they can, but hey, there are guys like that in all of the companies in our hobby (even GW).

I did use a quote. I didn't want to seperate it so as not to loose meaning.

as far as

When they produce quality or great deals I'll recognise them, and when they don't, I'll share my opinion on that as well.

Thats perfectly acceptable. I'm not a Mantic apologist, and the Mantic fanatics group which i created is simply a social group for fans of the company. We're not diehard's, and we're not bucket carriers. Some of us dislike some of Mantic's products

. I just see an unjust amount of hate on dakka towards Mantic when the technical quality and quantity (50 + models in a box, with two different production mediums) IS there.

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

CT GAMER wrote:

Baragash wrote:http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/10/exclusive-painted-warpath-forgefather.html



Much, much better colour scheme.

WOW CT, they look exactly the same guy... Mantic is probably stealing that ideia too, you know, gunslingers shooting with 2 guns are a very orginal ideia. Yeha, Mantic now is stealing IP from PP too. At least now they are not a "GW copy" anymore...

Maybe take a deep breathe?

It was a simple observation that both have the same tailor. Blue/brass/brown in the same locations, both with two guns, etc.

it was an observation that I found amusing. Nothign was implied, so maybe relax just a tad?

Toy Soldiers are s3rious buisn3ss111

It is funny that Warpath is yet another battle in the endless war between Red and Blue.

Colour coded for our convenience as they say.

CT GAMER wrote:

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

CT GAMER wrote:

Baragash wrote:http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/10/exclusive-painted-warpath-forgefather.html



Much, much better colour scheme.

WOW CT, they look exactly the same guy... Mantic is probably stealing that ideia too, you know, gunslingers shooting with 2 guns are a very orginal ideia. Yeha, Mantic now is stealing IP from PP too. At least now they are not a "GW copy" anymore...

Maybe take a deep breathe?

It was a simple observation that both have the same tailor. Blue/brass/brown in the same locations, both with two guns, etc.

it was an observation that I found amusing. Nothign was implied, so maybe relax just a tad?

Toy Soldiers are s3rious buisn3ss111

Sorry CT, i was joking there too... i just forgot the " " in the end.

I understood your observation, and it was a joke with it. Reading it now i can see how "rant" it looked at the end. lol

Not intended

(edited some spelling issues)

This does more look like this Gamezone miniature, which is not SciFi at all:


... or this one by Avatars of War:

Kroothawk wrote:
This does more look like this Gamezone miniature, which is not SciFi at all:


... or this one by Avatars of War:

In pose only. The armor looks sci-fi, almost gears of war-ish. Niether of the others have a magma-hammer slung over thier shoulders.

There's only so many ways for things with two hands to hold two guns.

In other words, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!

Pictures of the plastic Steel Warriors have been posted on Mantic's blog: link.

I'm not impressed. If they screw up the Corporation too, I'm giving up on the company completely.

I wouldn't mind having a squad of those. An army of them would look kinda boring.

The website says...

As you can see from the photos we think the Forge Father models look fantastic – and with all the upgrades and new releases coming in the coming weeks they will make an unbelievably cool force. For those of you who worry about the legs (and aren’t convinced by the photos!) there are many ways you will be able to build your army with only sci-fi legs.

I'm not exactly sure what that statement means in the context of the miniatures pictured below whose legs look rather fantasy to me. Not terribly impressed now, but final judgement will be withheld until we I see the sprues.

lord_blackfang wrote:I wouldn't mind having a squad of those. An army of them would look kinda boring.

My thoughts exactly.

Oh gawd I just noticed how the gun melds with the shoulder on the 5 clone troopers in the back row.

If I wanted to do a Squat counts-as army or if Warpath is interesting enough to inspire me to do Forgefathers, I wouldn't hate those models, but they're not high quality and I would expect them to be priced to reflect that.

As I feared the difference between the restic models and those plastic ones is considerable if not as large as with the Marauders. I need to see the sprues/better pictures to get a final opinion but I am not blown away to say the least.

Da Boss wrote:If I wanted to do a Squat counts-as army or if Warpath is interesting enough to inspire me to do Forgefathers, I wouldn't hate those models, but they're not high quality and I would expect them to be priced to reflect that.

For the last time I have to ask what you mean by quality. There are no mold lines, no terrible gaps that I can see. They look reasonably sci-fi.

I get the impression that when people are saying quality they maybe making reference to the rigid positions of the models. The fact that the guns on the rear ranking models have the butt of the rifles blending into their shoulder pads and the fact they are clear clones.

They are for IG.
They have a good quality.
They re-use to much of the fantasy dwarfs, at a point that they do look like fantasy dwarfs with sci-fi bits.

The heads: well, looks like we have 2 new heads: captain and troopers. We have too some type of googling add-on, and comunicator add on for the head too...

The uper body: is new, and is good. I think it could work very well with new legs.

The lower body: is exactly the old one, wich mean their back is probably "naked into some type of cloth". With those legs they look to much IG for my taste.

Overal, the product by itself is good, and work very well for a squat IG count-as. But the product is not there by itself, it created a lot of expectative, and for me, it is a problem.

The final words tell us that there will be more sci-fi, and close combat in the army, probably with new options that will work with the Steel Warriors to make that "power armored look" that some of us are expecting.

What will happen? "IG squats" are the main product, but soon they will release a "Space Marines Dwarves" upgrade set, with metal optional bits, that will work like the chaos dwarves and twilight kin.

They will do a great work on the Corporation, because that will be all new, the same for the other races, for the same reason.

Again, i like the final product, but feel cheated on the way to it. At least they changed the chests this time.

Those are exactly as terrible as I anticipated. Once again, I am vindicated by the sheer banality of Mantic's releases.

If this game was basically a fantasy world which had a space ship crash into it and now all the fantasy races now have pewpew then I would say these models convey that universe. It actually might have been a good game that is a space/fantasy hybrid.

But it isn't... This is a terrible set of models to launch a supposed new game. They would have been better doing two fantasy only core races the way the bucket brigade even admits and then released these fantasy hybrids as 'extras' instead of cores.

Terrible terrible terrible.

The loin cloths/legs kill it for me. And I'd rather have a whole squad with the sergeant's mask head than the exposed faces and beards. About the only models I like are the vehicles and the heavies, which don't look interchangeable with KoW.

The "For those of you who worry about the legs (and aren’t convinced by the photos!) there are many ways you will be able to build your army with only sci-fi legs." quote is interesting. Does that mean they realize that the lower half of the troop models are killing the sci-fi feel and are going to provide options?

Lord Marcus: I guess by quality I mean the posing (fairly mono-pose) the design (pretty uninspired, lacking in detail), the proportion (I think slightly too top heavy) and the detail (too cartoonish for my liking).

Like I said, if I want to do Dwarves in Space I'll probably pick some up, but only if they are priced appropriately. I love my mantic undead, and their fantasy orcs are great value. If these guys continue the trend I'll be a happy camper.

Considering that Mantic has used their existing KoW Dwarfs as a basis for the kit, I am very impressed. I like their charm. "Fantasy" legs? How so?

lord marcus wrote:They look reasonably sci-fi.

Giving a knight a gun and a bionic eye is not enough. They all still have their swords for Christ's sake! How lazy is that!

And this would be the last straw. Very disappointed by these. They stretched 4 different sculpts into a whole squad of 10! Plus, if you took away their guns and the clearly added on sci-fi lenses on their helmets, you'd have fantasy dwarves, which is unacceptable. What's next, skeletons with bionic eyes and handguns?

As I feared, oh well theres more fish in the ocean as they say

Kenshin, if you could photoshop that second one to be blue rather than red it'd be 100% accurate.

Manchu wrote:Kenshin, if you could photoshop that second one to be blue rather than red it'd be 100% accurate.

I dont do photoshop, I use paint

No, no, no. If you look closely, you'll see that particular head has a pair of goggles that cover both eyes.

Guildsman wrote:What's next, skeletons with bionic eyes and handguns?

No, Imperial Guard

Kroothawk wrote:

lord marcus wrote:They look reasonably sci-fi.

Giving a knight a gun and a bionic eye is not enough. They all still have their swords for Christ's sake! How lazy is that!

They arent swords, they are knives. in this instance the could be used in the context of combat/field knives. If you don't like it, get on facebook or phone mantic directly and tell them. They do listen guys.

lord marcus wrote:They arent swords, they are knives. in this instance the could be used in the context of combat/field knives.

Okay, broad knifes that reach the floor then

Kroothawk wrote:
Okay, broad knifes that reach the floor then

HEY, dont make fun of their height!

It's a little too late to expect changes. This kit has already gone to production. And really, if they cared enough to change their design based on customer criticism, they would have cared enough to not reuse fantasy models for their sci-fi game.

Look at the Fate of the Forgestar box cover... now look at the Steel Warriors pictured above. The aren't the same!

Cosmic wrote:Look at the Fate of the Forgestar box cover... now look at the Steel Warriors pictured above. The aren't the same!

Artwork that doesn't look like the miniatures?! How dare someone do that...

Why do people find it entertaining to make fun of other company's miniature?

LunaHound wrote:Why do people find it entertaining to make fun of other company's miniature?

Its human nature to take refuge in humor, otherwise webcomics poking fun at video games would have never existed

Those figures are a real shame. I wanted to like Warpath (or the miniatures, even if I never play the game). Get some Orxs to mix in with my existing Orks. Get some Space Dwarves to use as a "counts-as" Squat army.

Unfortunately, the quality is not there. The sculpting and design quality, to be specific. And I don't mind a bit of Fantasy mixed in with my sci-fi (40k is Science-Fantasy, after all).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

lord marcus wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:

lord marcus wrote:They look reasonably sci-fi.

Giving a knight a gun and a bionic eye is not enough. They all still have their swords for Christ's sake! How lazy is that!

They arent swords, they are knives. in this instance the could be used in the context of combat/field knives. If you don't like it, get on facebook or phone mantic directly and tell them. They do listen guys.

They're clearly swords, which is actually okay in my book. Just don't do the whole denial-on-every-point thing. Call a spade a spade and it will help your crediibility. I'm not willing to make an international phone call to tell them I don't like their figures (what's the guy on the other end of the phone going to do/say? I don't expect him to apologise for company policy). I'm also one of those old people who don't like or do Facebook. If they care what I have to say they'll check the forums for an overall feel (of course, the noisier bastards, both negative and positive are on forums, but so too are those who contact them directly).

I'll "tell" them by simply not buying their product. Just as I have with Finecast (to draw a parallel). Vote with my wallet, etc.

It could be that mantic doesn't have 150000 dollars to spend on new molds, personally I don't mind reusing sprues. And how many poses are in a space marine squad, or a ork squad, or an IG squad. They could certaintly be better but many of the complaints could be levied against GW as well.

youbedead wrote:And how many poses are in a space marine squad, or a ork squad, or an IG squad. They could certaintly be better but many of the complaints could be levied against GW as well.

I find that separate torsos can go a long way.

kenshin620 wrote:As I feared, oh well theres more fish in the ocean as they say

Okay, I've given you flak for posting these before, but this one is pretty funny... mainly because this is exactly what I'm planning on doing! Only without that fancy-ass bionic eye thingy.

I have about 40 or so dwarf ironwatch knocking around that I wasn't planning on doing much with. They are going to be put on round bases and used as forgefathers.

Lets face it, that's no handgun, it's a lasgun!

youbedead wrote: They could certaintly be better but many of the complaints could be levied against GW as well.

Ok, super, what does that mean exactly? Another company might do something I don't like so I can't complain about this company doing something I don't like?
As soon as people realise that there are people that don't play 40k that might be looking for a sci-fi mass combat game this thread will become a lot less repetitive.

Are the heads "new" heads or do they just provide little goggle/bionic bits on the sprue to modify unchanged KoW heads?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

scarletsquig wrote:

I have about 40 or so dwarf ironwatch knocking around that I wasn't planning on doing much with. They are going to be put on round bases and used as forgefathers.

Lets face it, that's no handgun, it's a lasgun!

Bit of a tangent but I've been meaning to find this out for a while: Where do the handgun arms attach to the torso? At the "shoulder" or below the shoulder pad thing? Would they fit on a Cadian/Catachan torso?

plastictrees wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

scarletsquig wrote:

I have about 40 or so dwarf ironwatch knocking around that I wasn't planning on doing much with. They are going to be put on round bases and used as forgefathers.

Lets face it, that's no handgun, it's a lasgun!

Bit of a tangent but I've been meaning to find this out for a while: Where do the handgun arms attach to the torso? At the "shoulder" or below the shoulder pad thing? Would they fit on a Cadian/Catachan torso?

Looks like a bit under the shoulderpads

Does anyone else think that the painting might be making the crossover parts more obvious? The way they're such a contrasting color looks like CGI in A New Hope- glaringly obvious. I suspect a more blended approach will be more effectively all the way scifi.

Though nothing can help the flat top helmets- I don't mind anything but those frying panheads.

Some of my KOW dwarfs have separate heads, and they all have separate weapons. Some of them also have integrated legs and back-torsos with separate front-torsos and heads, as shown in Kenshin's post above.

youbedead wrote:It could be that mantic doesn't have 150000 dollars to spend on new molds, personally I don't mind reusing sprues. And how many poses are in a space marine squad, or a ork squad, or an IG squad. They could certaintly be better but many of the complaints could be levied against GW as well.

I'm sure they're working to a tight budget, and doing their very best to put out good product while saving as much as possible. The question is pretty much on how many sales wil their cut corners cost them versus how much will they save. It's a gamble, and none of us here with positive or negative opinions of the figures can know the answer, just as Mantic can't. They've made their choices and now they're rolling the dice.

It cost them a sale or two of the boxed set from me, but each individual one of us here is just a drop in the bucket. It just depends how many of us en masse decide to buy it regardless, or decide not to buy it (if we were potential customers). Along with how many "wow that's cool" customers who would just come along would have bought it.

As for the GW comparisons, I'm pretty sure the AOBR marines are all unique sculpts while obviously the multipart plastic marines have as many poses as you want to give them, and even near-identical poses will differ markedly depending on the armour mark components you choose to use (chests, legs, heads, etc)

scarletsquig wrote:

kenshin620 wrote:As I feared, oh well theres more fish in the ocean as they say

Okay, I've given you flak for posting these before, but this one is pretty funny... mainly because this is exactly what I'm planning on doing! Only without that fancy-ass bionic eye thingy.

I have about 40 or so dwarf ironwatch knocking around that I wasn't planning on doing much with. They are going to be put on round bases and used as forgefathers.

Lets face it, that's no handgun, it's a lasgun!

It actually looks just like a lasgun! I thought the original pic was a photoshop at first.

scipio.au wrote:Those figures are a real shame. I wanted to like Warpath (or the miniatures, even if I never play the game). Get some Orxs to mix in with my existing Orks. Get some Space Dwarves to use as a "counts-as" Squat army.

Unfortunately, the quality is not there. The sculpting and design quality, to be specific. And I don't mind a bit of Fantasy mixed in with my sci-fi (40k is Science-Fantasy, after all).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

lord marcus wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:

lord marcus wrote:They look reasonably sci-fi.

Giving a knight a gun and a bionic eye is not enough. They all still have their swords for Christ's sake! How lazy is that!

They arent swords, they are knives. in this instance the could be used in the context of combat/field knives. If you don't like it, get on facebook or phone mantic directly and tell them. They do listen guys.

They're clearly swords, which is actually okay in my book. Just don't do the whole denial-on-every-point thing. Call a spade a spade and it will help your crediibility. I'm not willing to make an international phone call to tell them I don't like their figures (what's the guy on the other end of the phone going to do/say? I don't expect him to apologise for company policy). I'm also one of those old people who don't like or do Facebook. If they care what I have to say they'll check the forums for an overall feel (of course, the noisier bastards, both negative and positive are on forums, but so too are those who contact them directly).

I'll "tell" them by simply not buying their product. Just as I have with Finecast (to draw a parallel). Vote with my wallet, etc.

They are Knives. Have you ever seen the fantasy dwarf models in person? The detail we are reffering to is not a sword. its a knife.

you may think I'm denying every point just to be annoying and/or Fanboyish. Thats simply not the truth. I'm pointing out inconsistencies in the logic of other posters statements, based and verified from what I know by having actually bought the parallel fantasy models.

And you don't have to make an international call. They have a contact web-form which I mentioned in my previous post.

I think they look pretty good (and Dwarves in Space is a niche that should have as many models made for it as possible! ) Hopefully there will be more various sculpts coming out, otherwise it will be pretty difficult to get motivated to make and paint so many of these guys.

However, I want to wait for a little bit and see how the orxs turn out, specifically the rifle varient which will hopefully look a bit less fantasy-ish.

lord marcus wrote:
They are Knives. Have you ever seen the fantasy dwarf models in person? The detail we are reffering to is not a sword. its a knife.

you may think I'm denying every point just to be annoying and/or Fanboyish. Thats simply not the truth. I'm pointing out inconsistencies in the logic of other posters statements, based and verified from what I know by having actually bought the parallel fantasy models.

And you don't have to make an international call. They have a contact web-form which I mentioned in my previous post.

I own the KoW boxed set. Ergo, I own the fantasy dwarves that this sprue is based on. If I were at home and not at work on lunch, I'd go get one to add "and I have one in my hand right now", but I'm familiar enough with the models that I feel quite confident enough not to need to do that. Thanks. A bladed weapon the length of which is from your pelvis to your feet is a sword, not a knife or dagger. A shortsword at best. Ever heard of a gladius? Unless the Roman empire was created at the end of an army of knives, of course. If they were unsheathed and presented for battle by those same figures, I doubt you'd be defending this pointless point. As I said earlier, I have no issues with models in a game like this being issued with swords or shortswords. After all, I play 40k(!)

I actually can't be arsed with their contact webform at this point, but you have my permission to contact them on my behalf and present their shortcomings to them. I'm still posting here because (as a group) we're having a somewhat entertaining discussion.

*picks up ironwatch model and looks at it*

Looks like a knife to me, but oh well.

The chainmail on the legs is much more of a problem as far as the sci-fi conversion goes.

A Greatsword for a human is a Knife for a Giant.

Cyporiean wrote:A Greatsword for a human is a Knife for a Giant.

And a knife for a giant is a greatsword for a human.

It might be a "knife" for a human, but it is a Dwarf sword.

The dwarf's hand is almost as wide as the length of the "sword".

Even by dwarf standards, it's definitely a knife.

There are 2 different sizes of knife on the 2 legs anyway, one is knifey, the other is longer and could probably pass as a short sword.

Cyporiean wrote:A Greatsword for a human is a Knife for a Giant.

That's pretty much what I was getting at - thank you.

Cyporiean wrote:

Artwork that doesn't look like the miniatures?! How dare someone do that...

No, no... sorry, I didn't specify. The PICTURE on the box. The one that shows the actual Forge Father and Marauder miniatures.

As a reference, could people please:

- turn to page 115 of the Warhammer 40000 Rulebook (3rd edition)

- and read it, particuarly the box which read "[Feudal Worlds]",

- then tell me about the contradiction in many of the previous statements regarding to the Forge Father's "fantasy" appearance.

The Forge Fathers are Forge Fathers. They can be whatever Mantic wants them to be.

See, the thing is. I don't have a problem with the swords.

I don't have a problem with chainmail on some models (it's not the best choice for dwarves, but on Orks I'd say go for it).

I don't even have a major issue with Tabards or flat-top helms.

Just, you know, make the models good.

Someone just look up the rules for the gunners: Can they engage in close combat and are the stats the same as for fighting with a sword/hand weapon?

LunaHound wrote:Why do people find it entertaining to make fun of other company's miniature?

Some will argue that people are just jerks. And while that might be true in a larger sense, I don't think that's why people make fun of Mantic's miniatures. I can only speak for myself, really, but I like to use humor to counteract disappointment. I had really hoped that I'd like Mantic's squats. Seeing them now has left me incredibly disappointed, especially seeing that all Mantic did was recycle their lazy fantasy design with some lazily-designed scifi embellishments. So when I saw kenshin620's picture it turned my frown upside down.

scarletsquig wrote:
There are 2 different sizes of knife on the 2 legs anyway, one is knifey, the other is longer and could probably pass as a short sword.

Knifey-spooney?

scipio.au wrote:

lord marcus wrote:
They are Knives. Have you ever seen the fantasy dwarf models in person? The detail we are reffering to is not a sword. its a knife.

you may think I'm denying every point just to be annoying and/or Fanboyish. Thats simply not the truth. I'm pointing out inconsistencies in the logic of other posters statements, based and verified from what I know by having actually bought the parallel fantasy models.

And you don't have to make an international call. They have a contact web-form which I mentioned in my previous post.

I own the KoW boxed set. Ergo, I own the fantasy dwarves that this sprue is based on. If I were at home and not at work on lunch, I'd go get one to add "and I have one in my hand right now", but I'm familiar enough with the models that I feel quite confident enough not to need to do that. Thanks. A bladed weapon the length of which is from your pelvis to your feet is a sword, not a knife or dagger. A shortsword at best. Ever heard of a gladius? Unless the Roman empire was created at the end of an army of knives, of course. If they were unsheathed and presented for battle by those same figures, I doubt you'd be defending this pointless point. As I said earlier, I have no issues with models in a game like this being issued with swords or shortswords. After all, I play 40k(!)

I actually can't be arsed with their contact webform at this point, but you have my permission to contact them on my behalf and present their shortcomings to them. I'm still posting here because (as a group) we're having a somewhat entertaining discussion.

You forget these are dwarves. And the fact that you ackowledge that there is a way to contact them about shortcomings you percieve yet are lazy enough to write them out upon a web forum where no one really gives a damn instead of copy/pasting to a web-form is illogical and ludicrous.

lord marcus wrote:
You forget these are dwarves. And the fact that you ackowledge that there is a way to contact them about shortcomings you percieve yet are lazy enough to write them out upon a web forum where no one really gives a damn instead of copy/pasting to a web-form is illogical and ludicrous.

Why do you take it so personally? It is not like Mantic is going to pull the product and re-engineer the model now due to people's feedback. Maybe if they would have released images beforehand but it sounds like they clearly don't care if people dislike the models. You really think if people post these criticisms on this 'web forum where no one really gives a damn' on Mantic's feedback site we will get the ORX and Forefather models pulled and new ones with fresh sculpts and pure scifi model sculpts?


People post comments and opinions on EVERY MODEL released by every company and many are much worse than anything posted in this thread. If complaints about 'swords' and looking like lazy fantasy in space designs is the worst Mantic has to weather, they should count themselves lucky. I remember last week where people called a gunner model for another company babies sitting on a toilet.

Image removed. There's better ways to make your point. Kudos on the effort though.
reds8n

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

CT GAMER wrote:

Baragash wrote:http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/10/exclusive-painted-warpath-forgefather.html



Much, much better colour scheme.

WOW CT, they look exactly the same guy... Mantic is probably stealing that ideia too, you know, gunslingers shooting with 2 guns are a very orginal ideia. Yeha, Mantic now is stealing IP from PP too. At least now they are not a "GW copy" anymore...

Maybe take a deep breathe?

It was a simple observation that both have the same tailor. Blue/brass/brown in the same locations, both with two guns, etc.

it was an observation that I found amusing. Nothign was implied, so maybe relax just a tad?

Toy Soldiers are s3rious buisn3ss111

Sorry CT, i was joking there too... i just forgot the " " in the end.

I understood your observation, and it was a joke with it. Reading it now i can see how "rant" it looked at the end. lol

Not intended

(edited some spelling issues)

No worries.

lord marcus wrote:
You forget these are dwarves. And the fact that you ackowledge that there is a way to contact them about shortcomings you percieve yet are lazy enough to write them out upon a web forum where no one really gives a damn instead of copy/pasting to a web-form is illogical and ludicrous.

No, I don't "forget these are dwarves". Though it's interesting that you feel that a blade that length is a knife and not a sword or shortsword in Mantic's case. Even scarletsquig has conceded that some of them look like swords. We might have to agree to disagree on that one.

You've actually hit on the reason I don't bother with their webform - I don't think they'll really give a damn. Their figures are (almost) out and done. Not one iota of my opinion will make a difference at this stage. As I said, discussing it (and other topics) here at least provides for some entertainment - that's why I post on Dakka or any forum, after all.

Should I ring up GW and complain about Finecast? Should I ring them and complain that they released Dreadfleet which I have no interest in and tel them I would have preferred WHQ? I think not. Sales (or lack therof) will provide them with enough information.

It may not make a damn slight of difference for this release. But there is always the possibility of a re-release featuring new sculpts. In addition, Ronnie stated in a blog post that there are new leg bits coming.

As i said before, The Mantic fanatics (while a group of fans interested in Mantic products) have a diverse range of opinions on the separate products Mantic creates and are not apologists who "carry water" or try to "sweep things under the rug".

About the swords/knifes... the ones you see on the back of ironclad belts are knifes, the ones you see in the belts of caped legs are short swords, except if their sheat is to tick...

I agree that is consider a direct attack beyond just been rude.
Even glorified with a nice made banner.

Hey Luna, dont bother with that, someone just called all Mantic Fanatics to be liars, hired by mantic to act in their benefit, defending their products and stuff...

That would explain the re-using of fantasy sprue on warpath, they have hidden expenses to deal with...

I just want to receive my check one day...

lord marcus wrote:But there is always the possibility of a re-release featuring new sculpts.

I don't mean to be mean, but this is just silly. The chances of Mantic re-releasing forge father line troops any time soon are zero. If it were a possibility, they would have resculpted their KOW elves by now, which, regardless of any actual flaw, are looked upon quite negatively.

They wont last long enough for a re-release.
If anything the failure of Warpath will cost them big time.

If it doesn't bankrupt them, they have around 1 more chance to go ( financially and having fan's faith ).

e.g release a proper human army to redeem themselves.

Sadly gentlemen, you may be right. With plans for 8(?) armies to be out by this time next year, resculpting Forgefathers (or orx) isn't going to be high on their hierarchy of needs.

I think it's way too early to start calling Warpath a failure, but judging by the amount of disappointment on this board alone from those who were previously enthusiastic or even just hopeful, Warpath isn't going to be as successful as it had the potential to be, even as a series of proxy miniatures for 40k.

Which is unfortunate.

Hopefully I can get some of their round bases without too much trouble so I can base all my Mantic undead on them - it's the only reason I haven't started in on them properly.

LunaHound wrote:They wont last long enough for a re-release.
If anything the failure of Warpath will cost them big time.

If it doesn't bankrupt them, they have around 1 more chance to go ( financially and having fan's faith ).

e.g release a proper human army to redeem themselves.

I totally agree......except I don't.

I dont play KoW or use their Mantic's regular dwarves, however I like the aesthetics of them in the Forgefathers enough to try to get some and see if this Warpath thing is something I want to dive into.

I severely doubt this is the "killing blow" towards Mantic considering the general amount of "I loves me some Squats" that gets bandied about in these forums. Anything remotely squat like is going to get looked at and a lot of people will be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I would love for Mantis to succeed i really do. Any company that offers good miniatures as alternative is always welcomed in my book.

I just hope they see past their hindsight and not repeat any further mistakes.

I think, at the very least, the models they've released so far are serviceable.

You can see what they are supposed to represent and there don't, AFAIK, appear to be casting issues/similar .. so we'll chalk that up as a step in the right direction.

I do find, and it's more noticeable on the ..the... notspaceorks that the way they've based the models does, for me, seem to make the models a bit too narrow on the bodies lower half which just seems wrong.

Also whilst I think the character models are better sculpts, as they should be, the discrepancy atwixt them and the troops or general soldiers is a bit too glaring. The Forgefather hero almost looks like a model from a different range or game system if one compares him to the Steel Legion troopers.

I'm not quite sure what weapons he is supposed to be armed with ( I'm going to assume it isn't actually nerf gun) but the basic weapon aesthetics seem totally different from all the weapons wielded by the rest of the line. Well, the plastic troopers anyway.

The orx leader is better in this regard however.

Overall I'm just finding the range released so far a tad too generic still. The basic concept -- dwarf in space, ork/orc in space is fine enough and, obviously, not really all that different from GW's successful knight!/Alien!/Elf! etc etc in space archetypes.

But at the moment, alas, it feels a bit like a Roger Corman or Syfy channel production. Oddly comforting in its familiarity perhaps even, but nothing that one hasn't seen before, allbeit XX years ago. And perhaps even from GW.

Still, there's still the rest of the races to be unveiled so they might pull something out of the bag yet.

..be odd after all the waiting if people wind up buying GW models to use for games of Warpath.

LunaHound wrote:I would love for Mantis to succeed i really do. Any company that offers good miniatures as alternative is always welcomed in my book.

I just hope they see past their hindsight and not repeat any further mistakes.

In the most recent blog post, written by Ronnie, he states that the cutbacks were made due to time constraints of getting 2 new armies released at once.

He then goes on to say that future releases for Warpath will be all-new sprues, starting with the Corporation release in January.

He also mentions that mantic will be providing some sort of sci-fi leg option at some point... this is probably going to take the form of metal hybrids, but at least they've listened and will be doing what they can.


Despite what a lot of the haters on here would like to think, mantic do listen to, and learn from, internet feedback.

As always withe the internet all reactions are blown out of proportions .

Maybe a nice walk in the woods in the autumn sun before posting something might help?

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
About the swords/knifes... the ones you see on the back of ironclad belts are knifes, the ones you see in the belts of caped legs are short swords, ...

That actually sounds pretty reasonable.

The truth is that (IIRC), Mantic rules are abstract enough that it really doesn't matter whether there are swords or knives in the sheaths. It's not that different from 40k really, where a chainsword and a knife are both CCW's, everyone is assumed to have one and you get the bonus based on what you have in your second hand.

Much ado about nothing really.

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
... except if their sheat is to tick...

I'm thinking the answer is either some Ex-Lax, or get examined for a possible an intestinal parisite?

scarletsquig wrote:

LunaHound wrote:I would love for Mantis to succeed i really do. Any company that offers good miniatures as alternative is always welcomed in my book.

I just hope they see past their hindsight and not repeat any further mistakes.

In the most recent blog post, written by Ronnie, he states that the cutbacks were made due to time constraints of getting 2 new armies released at once.
He then goes on to say that future releases for Warpath will be all-new sprues, starting with the Corporation release in January.

He also mentions that mantic will be providing some sort of sci-fi leg option at some point... this is probably going to take the form of metal hybrids, but at least they've listened and will be doing what they can.
Despite what a lot of the haters on here would like to think, mantic do listen to, and learn from, internet feedback.

I'm no hater. I think competition is a good thing. I like much of their undead range and own a reasonable amount of those figures. I also purchase non-GW figures from a wide variety of companies on a regular basis. I've also stated a number of times that the metal Orc and Forgefather look great. If the plastics were closer to that I'd be buying 4 boxes instead of none boxes.

The truth is that I'm very disappointed with the contents of the Warpath box, and I'm not motivated enough by an irrational love of the company or their range to seek out metal hybrids for half-arsed initial sculpts. I'd have loved some good quality Squats and more Orks to mix into my current 40k figures. I think they'd have been better off getting better quality figures into the starter box then what they've gone with, but clearly getting passable quality product out for Christmas sales has been a higher priority than getting good quality product out. Maybe they'll bring out a new starter set for next Christmas with different/nicer models?

The fact that they've hidden the box contents for so long and staggered the product shots out so slowly and carefully also makes me believe that they're aware of the issues that people would have with their models. When people first started talking about the possibility of the Dwarfs being hybrids with the fantasy figures, I honestly thought "no way", so imagine my bemusement when I saw that they in fact are. And even then you only get, what? 8 of them? Ouch!

As I've said though, I also have nothing invested in Mantic on a personal or emotional level. If/when they go under in a couple of years they will have just been another of many blips on the miniature wargaming radar over the years. Warzone, Void, Clan Wars, AT-43, Starship Troopers.. hell, even Confrontation (despite some figures being reissued..) If they're interested in my feedback, or that of people who haven't taken on the fan-mantle, they'll actually read threads like this. If not, it's not my responsibility to chase them to offer my feedback and there's not exactly much satisfaction to be found in a form-letter "Thank you for your feedback"-type reply.

It's spring here, Duncan. But as I've stated, I post here for the entertainment. While I find the Warpath box to be disappointing, I'm not upset or feeling a need to be defensive of them either.



As for Swords versus Knives, I believe the only person who actually had an issue with them was Kroothawk, while Lord Marcus was adamant that there are no swords. My interest was simply in arguing that a spade is in fact a spade. And not a spoon. Discussing the model, not the game effects of it.

scipio.au wrote:
The fact that they've hidden the box contents for so long and staggered the product shots out so slowly and carefully also makes me believe that they're aware of the issues that people would have with their models. When people first started talking about the possibility of the Dwarfs being hybrids with the fantasy figures, I honestly thought "no way", so imagine my bemusement when I saw that they in fact are. And even then you only get, what? 8 of them? Ouch!

This.

They hid the real models so long when they had the real models. They were deceptive about reusing molds and I don't think they were expecting the backlash of disappointment. And that is what it is. No one hates Mantic, but people are disappointed as people are starving and wanting to support pretty much any and every SciFi 'full army' model line. Mantic had a ton of good faith going in to this which they squandered.

If they had proven they could releases full armies of original Sci-Fi models and then came along and released Orx/forefathers as 'filler' lines to flesh out more armies for play, People would have understood and would have had 1-2 real armies with real effort to judge and support moving forward. It feels like a cheap lazy cash grab where they thought all us customers were stupid and would buy anything... They were thinking like GW and the problem is Mantic doesn't make Space Marines.

Bad models, lazy effort, and shows poor judgement on behalf of mantic in general on how they handle their line. They have only themselves to blame and people are legitimately disappointed regardless if a bunch of people tell them they are not allowed to be disappointed or not. This Ronnie guy made a terrible decision releasing 2 half-assed armies rather than one good army. Many games are released with two sets of models which are the same in order for initial game learning and balance. They could have released the human army and released it with all humans and had training missions with 'check out the soon to be coming quick filler armies!'

If Mantic survives this to be taken seriously, I look forward to a full original Sci-Fi line. Maybe they should go buy out that kickstarter crew with the human stormtroopers if they can't afford to design new models right now. If they had released those models in plastic for cheap people would have been throwing their money at mantic Philip J. Fry Style.

I also agree with Scipio... If Mantic isn't reading wargaming forums for feedback or the general pulse of people's reactions to thier products, then they are either bad at business or naive and deserve whatever they get. The criticisms are legitimate and not unreasonable at all, the blind excuses and justifications on the otherhand...

Wargamers on forums represent less than 10% of the community at large. Just to keep facts in this thread.

lord marcus wrote:Wargamers on forums represent less than 10% of the community at large. Just to keep facts in this thread.

Is that water heavy? and let's see. People have legitimatly said "mantics models look CHEAP and LAZY"

In the most recent blog post, written by Ronnie, he states that the cutbacks were made due to time constraints of getting 2 new armies released at once.

So... Cutbacks = Cheap, Time constraints = Lazy.

The time constraints and cutbacks shows in their final product which makes it seem 'poor' and people are seeing it no matter how many times you make excuses or try to explain it away. The company made bad choices and release a lower quality product than they advertised and promised and people are disappointed both in the result and the company. He even admits people are disappointed and cancelling pre-orders because the models failed to deliver and then suggests people wait until the REAL models are released when they modify the look and feel more. Basically people are buying prototypes now which is absurd to me.

Mantic admits they cut corners and did things on the cheap, Why do they need you re-defining people's opinions for them? Can you admit the Company explicitly admitted they were lazy and cheap and the resulting disappointment is justified even if it is only by a supposed 10%? Even mantic admits they released disappointing models and are issuing refunds. If Mantic came out and said 'this was the best we could do... we tried' that is way different than "we just wanted something out on the market as fast as possible and cut corners and reused stuff to make it happen... Too bad!"

youbedead wrote:It could be that mantic doesn't have 150000 dollars to spend on new molds, personally I don't mind reusing sprues. And how many poses are in a space marine squad, or a ork squad, or an IG squad. They could certaintly be better but many of the complaints could be levied against GW as well.

Being on shaky ground financially seems like an inauspicious time to try to launch a new figure line with numerous new expensive-to-produce product.

Hoping it would pay off heavily Aggy?

@ nek

Cheap implies shoddy. The product shown isn't shoddy. Its well produced. However, aesthetics may not be to everyone's tastes.

so...

Cutbacks = trying to get a whole new game out

Time constraints = before the christmas holidays so people can plan thier christmas spendings. Hopefully to include warpath products.

you know, for all the dislike in this thread, i like the dwarfs, and the sprue reuse doesn't bother me to a great degree, so i'm still going to pick some of them up

still undecided on the orx though

greenskin lynn wrote:you know, for all the dislike in this thread, i like the dwarfs, and the sprue reuse doesn't bother me to a great degree, so i'm still going to pick some of them up

still undecided on the orx though

lol, that is the beuty of the opinion. I have a very similar opinion, but inverted. I will not touch dwarfs, at least before the hybrid kits are out. But im seriously wondering to make a orxs army very soon...

lord marcus wrote:Hoping it would pay off heavily Aggy?

@ nek

Cheap implies shoddy. The product shown isn't shoddy. Its well produced. However, aesthetics may not be to everyone's tastes.

so...

Cutbacks = trying to get a whole new game out

Time constraints = before the christmas holidays so people can plan thier christmas spendings. Hopefully to include warpath products.

I hope you fanatical minions buy up all the 'prototypes' they are selling since they have already said to expect REAL sci-fi V2 of all these forefather models. This means the real customers can then get what they are promised in January and Mantic makes enough money from the fantatic brigade to re-do the models correctly. Everyone wins...

I feel bad for anyone who pre-ordered and is stuck with these half-done prototypes.

(if something is incomplete or requires additional parts to make it complete like the SCI-FI upgrade kit to a SCI-FI model, I call that shoddy.)

See I am curious about warpath.

But neither find the idea of the Forgefathers or the Orx interesting. For similar reason I wouldn't collect Dwarves or orcs (barring LotR) in any other system. They just don't appeal.

nkelsch wrote:

lord marcus wrote:Hoping it would pay off heavily Aggy?

@ nek

Cheap implies shoddy. The product shown isn't shoddy. Its well produced. However, aesthetics may not be to everyone's tastes.

so...

Cutbacks = trying to get a whole new game out

Time constraints = before the christmas holidays so people can plan thier christmas spendings. Hopefully to include warpath products.

I hope you fanatical minions buy up all the 'prototypes' they are selling since they have already said to expect REAL sci-fi V2 of all these forefather models. This means the real customers can then get what they are promised in January and Mantic makes enough money from the fantatic brigade to re-do the models correctly. Everyone wins...

I feel bad for anyone who pre-ordered and is stuck with these half-done prototypes.

(if something is incomplete or requires additional parts to make it complete like the SCI-FI upgrade kit to a SCI-FI model, I call that shoddy.)

Its not that they are not complete, or that they require additional parts. They are a complete miniature, not prototypes as you say. The fact that they may be getting accessory leg bitz to customize in between squads is 1. a rumor and 2. perfectly acceptable.

And for the last time. Its the Mantic Fanatics, a social group dedicated to TALKING about mantic products and services, not DEFENDING or being rabid apologists.

There's no need for name-calling here. The fact that some people sincerely like Mantic does not mean that other people do not like them or vice versa. If there are points to be made about the quality of the miniatures then by all means make them. But no part of those points necessarily entails a personal attack. Thanks!

lord marcus wrote:

Its not that they are not complete, or that they require additional parts. They are a complete miniature, not prototypes as you say. The fact that they may be getting accessory leg bitz to customize in between squads is 1. a rumor and 2. perfectly acceptable.

And for the last time. Its the Mantic Fanatics, a social group dedicated to TALKING about mantic products and services, not DEFENDING or being rabid apologists.

Mantic's own blog clearly says they are not complete and they are still releasing parts to make them fully SCI-FI. This makes the fantasy hybrids a stop-gap cash grab and the real SCI-FI models will be released later. Hence disappointment on behalf of a lot of people and a lot of lost or delayed customers. We now know to never trust Mantic's pre-release photos or concept art because what they promise and what they deliver don't match. Which is ashame for them as very few people will pre-order a product sight unseen.

You make excuses for Mantic that directly contradict their own Blog where they admit they cut corners, made a disappointing product, are refunding pre-orders and are re-doing the product in the near future to fix what is wrong with the current product... And you STILL make excuses and apologies for them.

I see other posters (including mantic fanatics who have anti GW statements in their Sigs) rain down the apologist tag on GW posters in almost every thread... I see a huge double standard if the 'Mantic Fanatics' are somehow immune for being called out for their constant drive to erase people's legitimate opinions on Mantic's models. If people dislike the models, they don't need someone telling them a dozen reasons why they don't have the right to dislike them or their criticisms are invalid.

I am going to skip the dwarves and orks for now, they look okay but nothing to really make me throw my money at them. I dislike the orc sculpts and Dwarves in space have no appeal to me at all, no matter how good the models look. I will probably wait until January to see what the Corporation guys look like and then make my mind up about investing in Mantic.

Nkelsch,

***You Said***Mantic's own blog clearly says they are not complete and they are still releasing parts to make them fully SCI-FI. "

Really? Or does it say that there will be the option of making these wonderful Science/Fantasy models completely sci-fi?

***You Said***This makes the fantasy hybrids a stop-gap cash grab and the real SCI-FI models will be released later.

I'm perfectly happy with the science-fantasy models they have now. You may interpret it as a 'stop-gap cash grab' but you have no evidence this was their intention. Sci-Fi models are not "Real"er than Science/Fantasy Models.

***You Said*** Hence disappointment on behalf of a lot of people and a lot of lost or delayed customers. We now know to never trust Mantic's pre-release photos or concept art because what they promise and what they deliver don't match. Which is ashame for them as very few people will pre-order a product sight unseen.

Do you not know that concept art is to be taken as, well, concept art, and not a finished product?

***You said****You make excuses for Mantic that directly contradict their own Blog where they admit they cut corners, made a disappointing product, are refunding pre-orders and are re-doing the product in the near future to fix what is wrong with the current product... And you STILL make excuses and apologies for them.

I read the blog, and I am reading your post. You are distorting what Ronnie said, and I appeal to anyone to read what he said with an open mind and decide for themselves. Ronnie never said he made a disappointing product. Never. He said if -you- or others are unhappy, he'll refund your money on the preorders. No matter how good Warpath is, you can't please everyond.


***You Said*** If people dislike the models, they don't need someone telling them a dozen reasons why they don't have the right to dislike them or their criticisms are invalid.

Well, I could use your logic and say, if I love Warpath, which I do, I don't need people like you telling me a dozen reasons why they are garbage and trying to make Mantic look incompetant or worse. And if your criticisms really are invalid, no one can say anything about it?

As has been said before it is way too early to start calling Warpath a failure. As for mantic I am a big fan of what they have managed to put out elves included after seeing how a freind of mine managed to push out a dark elf force based upon these painfully thin models. But by the amount of disappointment on this board alone from all walks of gamers from all genres the interest is still high in a product that's still in it's infancy.

Warpath isn't going to be as successful as it had the potential to be but lets face it it was never set up to run and run as a independant entity the whole mantic product range however different is as a series of proxy miniatures for 40k and warhammer. I doubt that warpath will ever fail at that with the hopefull imperial guard proxy and rouge trader style orcs that could maybe have been better done but why moan and bitch about rustic armour when traditionally most orcs got by with bolted together plates of metal ?

"For those of you who worry about the legs (and aren't convinced by the photos!) there are many ways you will be able to build your army with only sci-fi legs."

What does 'sci-fi' only legs mean? Does that mean they admit these are models without SCI FI legs? IE: fantasy Legs? (which they are) Which means the model is a fantasy Hybrid model. If they are releasing better models or models with better packs later, that makes these either a BAD version 1 release or a prototype. both mean 'wait for the V2 release'

"However, there is no way I would ever want any customer to buy something from Mantic and be disappointed – only ‘overjoyed’ is acceptable when you get a Mantic parcel!!! So, if anyone has placed a pre-order and does not like these photos, please just drop me a line before they are shipped and I will refund you in full!"

So they admit people are disappointed... And they gave a bunch of reasons why and how they 'cut corners' because they felt releasing models in 2011 and having more models was more important than convincing Sci-Fi or waiting for 2012 for a complete product roll-out.

I think it is good for mantic to admit they are wrong and offer refunds as well as let people know if they wait for the full roll-out in 2012, they will have access to 'better' models. It is much more reasonable than the 'these models are perfect and there are no valid complains to be had!'

I think they gambled and took the wrong path. They should have waited till 2012 and made a polished quality product. They squandered months of teasers and talk by producing disappointing results and now everything they do is catch up and repair. I am not going to say they are a failure, but they are going to have to prove thsemselves with much better releases in the future.

They have failed as far as I am concerned. I am not interested in their current Warpath product at all and I am not eager to see what comes next. The human army concept art was a bit embarrassing in my estimation. I'm not saying no one could like it but I very much agree with nkelsch's interpretation of Mantic's own stance: they seem to realize that they've miscalculated and if not failed overall failed at least some of their non-hypothetical customers.

So, we have another Mantic-hater in the thread, and now it will start to say how Mantic is bad, how those guys stink, and how they should all throw their plastic garbage into the incinerator and press the red button.

Again, we will see this thread getting 4-5 more pages whyle we try to understand why someone hate Mantic so much. And again, he will not be convinced at all, because all he want is to cry and scream, and tell us how Mantic is bad being a copy of GW, bla bla bla.

Wake me when the rant end please?

Interestingly the box art lists 10 less Marauders than the preorder listing. So is this a mistake or is Mantic really going to shortchange their most loyal fans who already preordered?

@The Dark Wolf

I don't hate Mantic. This isn't an issue of hatred. This is an issue of me not being willing to buy their product despite being in their target demographic. Now maybe the fact that I find their squats disappointing is my fault -- there's something wrong with my aesthetics or what have you. But that doesn't matter as far as the success of this product is concerned. Now add to that the fact that a Mantic employee concedes the point that people who already bought their product (I don't think they're Mantic-haters) might regret doing so now that they've actually seen the product. That's no reason to hate Mantic -- if anything, it's rather admirable. But it is an acknowledgement that their product is not doing it for more potential customers than myself and nkelsch.

As I said before, name-calling is not necessary. I don't know why I'm accused of being a "Mantic hater" just because I make a reasonable criticism of their products that they themselves seem to acknowledge. I don't know why this is characterized as a "rant." But by calling me a "hater" you are just setting yourself up to be called an "apologist" (or in your case a "fanatic"). Doesn't seem very helpful and I think it's rather close to flamebaiting.

nkelsch wrote:"For those of you who worry about the legs (and aren't convinced by the photos!) there are many ways you will be able to build your army with only sci-fi legs."

What does 'sci-fi' only legs mean? Does that mean they admit these are models without SCI FI legs? IE: fantasy Legs? (which they are) Which means the model is a fantasy Hybrid model. If they are releasing better models or models with better packs later, that makes these either a BAD version 1 release or a prototype. both mean 'wait for the V2 release'

"However, there is no way I would ever want any customer to buy something from Mantic and be disappointed – only ‘overjoyed’ is acceptable when you get a Mantic parcel!!! So, if anyone has placed a pre-order and does not like these photos, please just drop me a line before they are shipped and I will refund you in full!"

So they admit people are disappointed... And they gave a bunch of reasons why and how they 'cut corners' because they felt releasing models in 2011 and having more models was more important than convincing Sci-Fi or waiting for 2012 for a complete product roll-out.

I think it is good for mantic to admit they are wrong and offer refunds as well as let people know if they wait for the full roll-out in 2012, they will have access to 'better' models. It is much more reasonable than the 'these models are perfect and there are no valid complains to be had!'

I think they gambled and took the wrong path. They should have waited till 2012 and made a polished quality product. They squandered months of teasers and talk by producing disappointing results and now everything they do is catch up and repair. I am not going to say they are a failure, but they are going to have to prove thsemselves with much better releases in the future.

Yeah, Mantic made a wrong move, but look, they are even accepting it, and asking for excuses. Ronnie is saying "sorry guys, our products are not good as you expected, but we realize that, and we are working on it". That is one thousand times better than "we have a revolution for the hobby, we call it finecast, and it is incredible".

lord_blackfang wrote:Interestingly the box art lists 10 less Marauders than the preorder listing. So is this a mistake or is Mantic really going to shortchange their most loyal fans who already preordered?

They aren't mutually exclusive options. Some fans who pre-ordered already feel shortchanged because of Mantic's "mistake" (that is, a business decision made upon careful consideration of the bottom line) regarding reusing sprues. This would just be a more explicit example. But even if they do wind up shipping ten less at least they have set a precedent for letting people get refunds as the pre-ordered product fails to meet (some) consumers' expectations.

Manchu wrote:@The Dark Wolf

I don't hate Mantic. This isn't an issue of hatred. This is an issue of me not being willing to buy their product despite being in their target demographic. Now maybe the fact that I find their squats disappointing is my fault -- there's something wrong with my aesthetics or what have you. But that doesn't matter as far as the success of this product is concerned. Now add to that the fact that a Mantic employee concedes the point that people who already bought their product (I don't think they're Mantic-haters) might regret doing so now that they've actually seen the product. That's no reason to hate Mantic -- if anything, it's rather admirable. But it is an acknowledgement that their product is not doing it for more potential customers than myself and nkelsch.

As I said before, name-calling is not necessary. I don't know why I'm accused of being a "Mantic hater" just because I make a reasonable criticism of their products that they themselves seem to acknowledge. I don't know why this is characterized as a "rant." But by calling me a "hater" you are just setting yourself up to be called an "apologist" (or in your case a "fanatic"). Doesn't seem very helpful and I think it's rather close to flamebaiting.

Hey Manchu, i respect your oppinion, and your are surely not ranting. I see your criticizes and they all make sense. It was not intended on you...

Manchu wrote:I don't know why I'm accused of being a "Mantic hater" just because I make a reasonable criticism of their products that they themselves seem to acknowledge. I don't know why this is characterized as a "rant." But by calling me a "hater" you are just setting yourself up to be called an "apologist" (or in your case a "fanatic"). Doesn't seem very helpful and I think it's rather close to flamebaiting.

I am a big fan of mantics products but I really have to agree with your criticism and the path some people are choosing by unnecessary over zealous and rather weighted comments that will eventually lead to problems. A persons opinion is not wrong but different.

@The Dark Wolf: I don't think that nklesch is a "hater," either, to be honest. It's just that these talks can get out of hand if we're not careful. So the point isn't that Mantic is an awful company that deserves to fail but rather it's also a business (like GW) and the Mantic guys are answerable to a bottom line. Sometimes this is not product-friendly or customer-friendly. It is nice of Mantic to own up to this and let people who feel taken advantage of have a refund.

We will have to wait and see.

@Thorne: Like I said earlier in this thread, I might poke fun at Mantic a bit but that's just me dealing with my personal disappointment regarding this release. Like you, I think Space Dwarves rock and I was hoping that Mantic would offer what they seemed to promise: reasonable quality miniatures for a reasonable cost. For me, this hasn't panned out. I am glad that some folks like what Mantic has done -- after all, it certainly doesn't harm me that some people would like and derive happiness out of a product that doesn't excite me. I think a lot of the fuss we regularly see here on Dakka is attributable to everyone either being labeled a hater or an apologist. GW alienates me sometimes; Mantic alienates me far more often. It can be the reverse for others without us needing to label ourselves and wave the flags.

Manchu wrote:. I think a lot of the fuss we regularly see here on Dakka is attributable to everyone either being labeled a hater or an apologist. GW alienates me sometimes; Mantic alienates me far more often. It can be the reverse for others without us needing to label ourselves and wave the flags.

Waving flags is something I pride myself in doing. I'd agree mantics vision of dwarves in space annoys me as it should Ronnie himself a self proclaimed dwarf man but hater or apologist the one thing is clear were talking about a hobby where we still paint and play with plastic men. Either love them or hate them people will be eventually voting with their cash or not. Mantic dropped the ball it won't be the first or last time.

But least people get the chance to see a different product and decide. I wish mantic every success but I won't be buying from them in a hurry and now this will be the part I get labeled too

Cosmic wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Interestingly the box art lists 10 less Marauders than the preorder listing. So is this a mistake or is Mantic really going to shortchange their most loyal fans who already preordered?

This has me slightly worried. Technically, it is illegal under law in the UK. I have confidence that Mantic will sort something out.

However, it still looks great!

I would bet on Mantic giving the pre-orders the number they listed, while the new packaging would be sold at the lesser number.
In my experience purchasing from them, they are far more likely to give you extra, than to short-change you.
I think I got a couple extra ghouls in every pack I bought.

This happened with the zombies. They started at 30, but couldn't fit them in the packaging, so reduced later purchases to 20.
But you still got 30 if that was what you ordered.

If we're happy to leave the "fanatics" debate to rest, I will concede that my use of the word "haters" was also incredibly hyperbolic and reactionary.

I'm kinda amused that the sigs have caused such a stir though.. I was the one who made them, I can see how they kinda add a "posted by a fruitloop fanboy" vibe to the end of each post, but oh well.

Anyway, the removal of the 10 marauders is a much bigger "problem" in my eyes than fantasy legs or whatever.

It's an indefensibly bad idea, and I hope they'll reconsider.

What is even more bizzare is they've *added* 5 extra forgefathers, which is all well and good, but it doesn't make up for losing 10 marauders.

If I had pre-ordered the forgestar box, I would be cancelling my order right now, and to be honest... never mind the "hype leading to nothing" or the "fantasy legs" or the "pre-orders without pictures"...

... removing 10 models from the box a few weeks before release after a ton of people have bought the damn thing is worse than all of that combined.

I'm really not sure why the hell they are doing this, not only is it throwing away a massive amount of goodwill, it is actually illegal to do this under UK law, and if a casual observer like me can see that, then what on earth is mantic thinking?

Manchu wrote:...Like you, I think Space Dwarves rock and I was hoping that Mantic would offer what they seemed to promise: reasonable quality miniatures for a reasonable cost. For me, this hasn't panned out. I am glad that some folks like what Mantic has done -- after all, it certainly doesn't harm me that some people would like and derive happiness out of a product that doesn't excite me.

In fairness, I think something else must be considered: some people may not be weighing in (in fairness, either with approval or disapproval) out of simple disinterest in the current 2 armies.

Personally, I'm not interested in space dwarves or space orcs. So, although I find both lines to be perfectly suitable, I just don't care all that much (and clearly not to the degree some people here seem to have been personally offended).

That said, I am looking forward to the upcoming armies, as I do like the aesthetic I have seen so far.

Buzzsaw wrote:

Manchu wrote:...Like you, I think Space Dwarves rock and I was hoping that Mantic would offer what they seemed to promise: reasonable quality miniatures for a reasonable cost. For me, this hasn't panned out. I am glad that some folks like what Mantic has done -- after all, it certainly doesn't harm me that some people would like and derive happiness out of a product that doesn't excite me.

In fairness, I think something else must be considered: some people may not be weighing in (in fairness, either with approval or disapproval) out of simple disinterest in the current 2 armies.

Personally, I'm not interested in space dwarves or space orcs. So, although I find both lines to be perfectly suitable, I just don't care all that much (and clearly not to the degree some people here seem to have been personally offended).

That said, I am looking forward to the upcoming armies, as I do like the aesthetic I have seen so far.

Quoted for Truth.

I like to typically play human/human type armies. If it had been a sci-fi human army done in a new way (rather than endless tides for the meat grinder) then I would as they say vote with my wallet and given Warpath a good trial.
A decent human army would interest me very much, even as just a painter, long as it is distinct enough from the like of Cadians.

1.) I don't think we have any "Mantic haters" here discussing the Warpath miniatures. At least I am not aware of any.
2.) What I see is many people expecting a SciFi tabletop as a viable alternative to the expensive 40k game and now being very disappointed by what mantic delivers. Expressing this disappointment is legitimate.
3.) Saving money on concept artists and sculptors (by recycling old Fantasy miniatures) is a bad idea, when you want to establish a new game. Giving every Fantasy warrior a bionic eye and a gun is not enough to inspire GW customers to change their loyalty (esp. when the Fantasy warriors still wear chainmail and swords or run barefoot in tunics). Ruining your reputation at the start is not a good idea. Thought they learned from the elf debacle and were more interested in feedback, but no.
4.) Reducing the starter box contents from what was promised in preorders will cost further goodwill, again not a good idea.

Mantic has a lot of ex-GW staff working for them. Maybe they inherited too much of GW's negative side as well (marketing).

scipio.au wrote:When people first started talking about the possibility of the Dwarfs being hybrids with the fantasy figures, I honestly thought "no way", so imagine my bemusement when I saw that they in fact are.

BTW this is my first comment after posting the first Warpath concept sketches 20th May:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/370280.page

The Dwarf is clearly Mantic Fantasy. Still a long way to go I guess.

Sometimes I hate to be right

Oh, and if someone calls himself a Mantic fanatic in his sig, he shouldn't be surprised if people think he is a Mantic fanatic

I'd just want to see something in the flesh, so to speak, instead of just talk.

A couple of good scaled pictures, or some side by sides of the figures themselves.

It's not hate, by the way. You just need to tone it down on the Kool-Aid speak.

Yeah, we get that you got some sort of special place in the mantic food chain, but your getting to the point that your rubbing peoples nose in something that is an unfinished product.

Mantic poped off at the hole in as much, if not more then GW did so far with the Finecrap. Instead of trying to mouth out the marbles, its just fine time to put out the guys.

It's well over due to see a box of the basic orsxis, or whatever, and the little stunties.

If that stuff IS really just bits tacked onto a fantasy dwarf, then the natural question begs to be asked- is that weapons and armor sets interchangeable with equal scale dwarfs?

If so-

I know of a few boxes of dwarf slayers that could use a headswap, or weapons add.

Something I think is interesting is the different takes on multi-use kits.
Here is thread on rhinos and their variants SM tanks. It's got few responses, but folks seem to be okay with that type of reuse.
Once it's a foot soldier and/or it's not GW, it feels like it's a deal of the big and hairy variety.

Just sayin':

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/403365.page

privateer4hire wrote:Something I think is interesting is the different takes on multi-use kits.
Here is thread on rhinos and their variants SM tanks. It's got few responses, but folks seem to be okay with that type of reuse.

That's not the same thing. The SM tank variants make sense in universe: the Space Marines use both Rhinos and Whirlwinds for the same reason the US military uses both the M113 and the M901, or the C-130 transport and the AC-130 gunship. The only justification for the derivative nature of Mantic's Warpath models is out of universe: because Mantic, not the Forgefathers and Marauders, did it.

lord marcus wrote:Wargamers on forums represent less than 10% of the community at large. Just to keep facts in this thread.

Of course - forums such as this attract the most passionate and noisiest of any group. Videogame and car forums are much the same. That's why I don't care enough to feed back to them directly. Most companies have a certain number of extreme fans and sycophants (two different but related groups) who will be incredibly active on their home forums. The sycophants wil say their chosen company can do no wrong and white knight them at every opportunity. Note I'm not calling anyone here sycophants, but this is a well-established pattern. Check the Bioware KOTORO forums for some good examples of this.

Equally, you'll have a number of haters (if they are tolerated and not banned outright with harsh moderation). Just as the sycophants will say that the company can do no wrong, the haters say they can do nothing right. Again for an example, check out Blizzard's World of Warcraft forums.

In the end, the boxes will sell or not sell based on the quality of the contents. My own opinion is that they missed a sure-fire chance to make something awesome and have instead brought out a product that is pretty "meh". They're competing directly with AoBR in the marketspace, along with Warmachine, Dust Tactics, etc. Will their quality/quantity/price ratio be good enough to get them by? We'll see. As I said before, pretty much everything in this thread that's not opinion though, is speculation. We won't know if Warpath is a raging success or dismal failure, or more likely, a product that does "ok" for quite some time.

We also won't know if it would have sold gangbusters numbers if the figures were better or if it were priced lower (around the initial KoW boxed set price - not the resissued and price-increased recent version.)

privateer4hire wrote:Something I think is interesting is the different takes on multi-use kits.
Here is thread on rhinos and their variants SM tanks. It's got few responses, but folks seem to be okay with that type of reuse.
Once it's a foot soldier and/or it's not GW, it feels like it's a deal of the big and hairy variety.

Just sayin':

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/403365.page

Apples and oranges. GW uses the rhino chassis several times in the same universe for Imperial armies (space marines, SOB, etc.) and there's a precedent for such reuse of armored vehicles. During WW2, the U.S. alone used over a dozen different variants of the Sherman tank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_tank#US_variants). What Mantic has done with their Warpath figures is more akin to GW taking the Empire steam tank, adding on some machine guns and targeting lenses, and putting it in the space marine army. (Actually, that could be kinda cool, now that I think about it.)

Gerry Lee wrote: Ronnie never said he made a disappointing product. Never. He said if -you- or others are unhappy, he'll refund your money on the preorders. No matter how good Warpath is, you can't please everyond.

This is a good thing, and shows that they have some integrity. I think showing the entire product before accepting money for it would have displayed more integrity, as they and we well know that a number of people who may not have ordered won't bother to cancel, but it's something at least. Of course, we have no way of knowing what kind of feedback they received when they finally showed their products so a public offer to refund anyone who preordered could be a public show of good faith or damage control - or both.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Interestingly the box art lists 10 less Marauders than the preorder listing. So is this a mistake or is Mantic really going to shortchange their most loyal fans who already preordered?

They aren't mutually exclusive options. Some fans who pre-ordered already feel shortchanged because of Mantic's "mistake" (that is, a business decision made upon careful consideration of the bottom line) regarding reusing sprues. This would just be a more explicit example. But even if they do wind up shipping ten less at least they have set a precedent for letting people get refunds as the pre-ordered product fails to meet (some) consumers' expectations.

Well, pre-selling and taking people's money for a box of 20 widgets and then shipping 15 widgets to those who paid is shortchanging in a much more legal and specific sense than simply not living up to expectations... I'm not sure if it's legally fraud, but I assume it's not particularly legal.

If this turns out to be true, then I certainly won't be pre-ordering any Mantic product in future. Not that I pre-order a lot of stuff, but I do pre-order things from time to time. It's a much more serious erosion of trust than even the concept art-final product shenanigans...





Automatically Appended Next Post:

skrulnik wrote:
I would bet on Mantic giving the pre-orders the number they listed, while the new packaging would be sold at the lesser number.
In my experience purchasing from them, they are far more likely to give you extra, than to short-change you.
I think I got a couple extra ghouls in every pack I bought.

This happened with the zombies. They started at 30, but couldn't fit them in the packaging, so reduced later purchases to 20.
But you still got 30 if that was what you ordered.

This explains things a little better, but shows another remarkable lack of foesight on their part. Especially if this has happened before(!) This is really quite amateurish.. in fact, shockingly so.
I expect there will be no price drop in the boxed set commensurate with the decrease in product, which again affects the "value for money" aspect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kroothawk wrote:
Mantic has a lot of ex-GW staff working for them. Maybe they inherited too much of GW's negative side as well (marketing).

I had a similar thought a few days ago - but that perhaps they inherited GW's arrogance about their product.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

privateer4hire wrote:Something I think is interesting is the different takes on multi-use kits.
Here is thread on rhinos and their variants SM tanks. It's got few responses, but folks seem to be okay with that type of reuse.
Once it's a foot soldier and/or it's not GW, it feels like it's a deal of the big and hairy variety.

Just sayin':

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/403365.page

I dunno. I think adding a turret to an APC that's based on the M113 is much more similar to the real-world practice of putting a turret on an actual M113. Re-use of kit parts within reason is eminently reasonable. It just comes down to what people consider reasonable - or not!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Guildsman wrote:
Apples and oranges. GW uses the rhino chassis several times in the same universe for Imperial armies (space marines, SOB, etc.) and there's a precedent for such reuse of armored vehicles. During WW2, the U.S. alone used over a dozen different variants of the Sherman tank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_tank#US_variants). What Mantic has done with their Warpath figures is more akin to GW taking the Empire steam tank, adding on some machine guns and targeting lenses, and putting it in the space marine army. (Actually, that could be kinda cool, now that I think about it.)

I've seen someone's conversion, somewhere - where they did similar to that for a Black Templars army...

Would it be possible to open a new thread discussing the pro's and con's of Mantic's direction? That way the 3-4 people involved in it can repeat this same argument that they have been making for 10 pages or more there, and hopefully this page could be used to show news and new photos and the like?

I'm genuinely interested in seeing what new things are coming along, but I have to be honest it's getting a little tiresome reading through the same polarised viewpoints over and over again just to try and find if there is actually any new information in amongst it.

Pacific wrote:Would it be possible to open a new thread discussing the pro's and con's of Mantic's direction?

Feel free to do so and link it here.

That way the 3-4 people involved in it can repeat this same argument that they have been making for 10 pages or more there, and hopefully this page could be used to show news and new photos and the like?

Still, this is legitimate discussion of the News in question. I think if there comes newer News it should probably warrant its own new thread.

Well, the pictures of new product are very staggered, and as Manchu said, we're discussing the current Mantic news - and I think in quite a civil mannr overall. By being here we're also keeping Mantic at or near the top of the front page, so they're not sinking into Dakka obscurity!

Are we expecting any more releases from them this year? My impression was that the Warpath box and the metal characters were pretty much it for the rest of the 2011 period up to and including Christmas - with the follow-on product being the same models as the boxed set in unit boxes/packs.

I had a thought about the Orx "shortchanging." Maybe for some reason the initial print run of Orx was too small and now Rendera is busy with something else and can't make more in time for the release. So Mantic clumsily retconned the contents of the box, swapping 10 Orx for 5 "free" Forge Fathers. It's still illegal, but maybe Matic has budget lawyers to go with budget sculptors

I still think Renendra should upsize if they are getting so much business.

Manchu wrote:

Pacific wrote:Would it be possible to open a new thread discussing the pro's and con's of Mantic's direction?

Feel free to do so and link it here.

Considering this is meant to be a news thread, shouldn't it be the people who are just making the "I dislike that they are using KoW bits" or the "I don't mind, you shouldn't criticize them for that" posts which have filled every page since about p10 be making the thread to continue that discussion?

Although it is my fault for naively clicking on the thread every time it has moved back to the top, I would probably be better off waiting a couple of days and then skimming through it

RE box contents:

Mantic wrote:Guys, the packaging was just an old photo - the contents have NOT been changed. We've updated the photo to the latest version. There are still 40 Grunts in the box. We are not breaking the law nor would we randomly just take figures out, especially when we've recently added free figures in.

EDIT: also BoW news is using the correct 55 model artwork.

That's good to hear, then.

*off-topic* - checked your painting blog, Baragash. I like the paint you've done on that female demon figure. Can you link to what it is?

Thanks (actually I think the skin is too flat but I'm not good with large areas of skin so I need to try and learn to do that)

It's Freebooter's Succubus: http://www.freebooterminiatures.de/en/catalog/43

Well, count me in with those disappointed with the actual delivered product.

I've spent plenty of cash on Mantic, and I like what they do, but one of the problems I have with releasing Orx as a primary release is that it competes head on with one of GW's strengths: the quality and low price of Black Reach Ork Boys. Why buy Mantic Orx when you can get the "real thing" for roughly the same cost?

After putting together about half a box of Abyssal Dwarf Black Souls, I'm also not wild about more mantic hybrid kits. It was enough of a PITA that I'm thinking about selling off the rest of the full army of them I bought at Gencon.

Can we please push the whole I-like/I-do-not-like/You-are-an-idiot-not-to-share-my-taste-stuff to a different thread? I am looking for news and hate to skip pages of chicken bickering about a worm instead of finding the news.

Or at least rename the thread if no news are posted...

News threads are for discussing news, which naturally includes people stating whether they like and want to purchase a new release or not. If you want news without discussion, there are a few good tabletop news blogs out there -- of which I'm sure you are already aware.

If you want Mantic news as soon as it breaks, I'd suggest their own Blog, or Kings of War who they have an intimate relationship with. This is a discussion forum, not a "press releases only" board.

...unless you want to make the same comment regarding every other thread in this section of the forum, since Dakka was founded?

Yes, although this thread has to be a shining glory amongst them in terms of actual content. There are about 4 photos in 36 pages (slight exaggeration maybe )

The problem is when you have identikit mud-slinging responses go in either direction those of us who are sitting in the middle and just want to read here for news get hit by the said mud coming in from both sides.

And many threads often get locked regarding new releases, after the initial news just turns into wishlisting and a discussion about how good/bad a new rule is, on the basis that no new news is being posted in them.

News threads are for discussing news, which naturally includes people stating whether they like and want to purchase a new release or not. If you want news without discussion, there are a few good tabletop news blogs out there -- of which I'm sure you are already aware.

No I'm not actually, what are they?

Pacific wrote:No I'm not actually, what are they?

This is a good one: http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/

I am very pleased that Mantic has sorted the problem out. I knew it was probably a mistake. My faith is restored

Forgefather pre-orders are up.

The plastic resin heavy weapon troops aren't expensive as the distributor predicted.

£9.99 for 5. Not bad.

Can't wait to see the pricing on the vehicles, if they manage to make those £9.99 as well, they're on to a winner.

6 extra free forgefather models have been added to the starter set, so I can minimize the amount of clone troopers if I want to (and I will be - I only want the enclosed helms and posable arms on my minis.. no fantasy bits other than the legs!).

As an aside, I disagree that the black reach orks are high-quality. Have you seen those things? They're all monopose. No seperate torso/head/2 arms/ extra bitz like the marauders have. Of course, you could always reply that the marauders look like cat poop and GW black reach boyz look better than Megan Fox, but then we'd be engaging in a "subject to taste" debate that won't go anywhere. On an objective "which models have more bitz and posability", the marauders win over black reach orks...and the (hideously expensive) regular GW orks win over the marauders.

As for "the real thing" comment... you might find it hard to believe, but they are actually trying to sell these models for use in warpath as their primary goal. The release of the game was the whole reason they rushed these models out, the rules were developing rapidly and they needed at least 2 armies to be "out there" to make games actually possible.

My forgefather army will, first and foremost, be a 2000-point Warpath army (for under £100!). It's only after I get a Corporation army that I'll have something that will also be used as a guard proxy for 40k.

I'll make a project log on here when I get hold of them, my colour scheme and basing is gonna be way more awesome than mantic's.

Well, first i must say im disapointed with the prices. Those plastics look costly. By other side, buying them in bunches really reduce their cost.

I dont liked the forge father i they ended up, and i dont like GW at all. I do like those orc guys, so i think im starting an orc army. I have to admit that talking about orcs i will miss some of the "GW style", but no so much i would miss my money.

20 dolars for 10 orcs is not cheap, but 35 for 20 start to be handsome. And they aparently give good discounts for retailers, wich mean they can be cheaper.

So, i think i have a greetide on the plans...

I think with Black Reach Orks vs Warpath Orx the argument is largely going to be an aesthetic one -

Despite the "mono-pose" nature, AoBR Orks are individual figures and quality sculpts that haven't been recycled from a WHFB starter box. Customisation is via both separate heads and arms. - not sure why you thought the heads were integral? The separate heads and arms, along with 10 unique torso sculpts are also what stops them from having the 'clone effect" that the "back-row" forgefathers seem to have.

And as far as mono-pose goes, it depends on whether you're talking about all models having the exact same pose or not - or having customisable arms and torsos for each figure. Because, you know, the Marauders and Forgefathers might not like you throwing so many stones from the inside of their glass houses. So perhaps better to just agree that the Orx/Orks main difference is aesthetic?

I'd personally call the recycling of the Orx sprues lazy/cost-cutting/disappointing, though they are of reasonable quality - and I wouldn't dispute that. The basic Forgefathers unfortunately, are of much lower quality than the Orx. GW's current cycle of plastics, both multipart and push-fit are very high quality at this stage.

I use "quality" in terms of sculpt quality. An aesthetic choice based on detail, overall "look" and much more. Therefore, IMO the plastic Fantasci-fi Orx are better quality than the Forgefathers, just as the Mantic Undead are better than the Dwarfs.

Mantic's business is built upon supplying alternative miniatures for Warhammer/40k. I'm sure they figure that if they can have people actually play their game as well, then so much the better, and that in turn will help their sales as an alternative game. But let's not kid ourselves that proxy models isn't their core business - at least at this stage. Getting Warpath out the door for Christmas sales is clearly a huge part of that.

The pricing of the figures being cheaper is also a good move. I look forward to seeing them reviewed on the sprues, unpainted, etc so I can see for myself if the arm proportions are as bad as they seemed in the preview shots or if it was hopefully just a camera angle. Because I'd honestly like to get some if the quality (in this case - body proportions) looks good.

The arms on the metal hero looked fine, but the heavy weapons guys looked to have gorilla-arms - too long for their frames. I look forward to "real" pictures of the models.

edit - formatting/spelling

I was comparing the black reach orks to the marauders, not the forgefathers. If you'd read my previous posts, you'd know that I don't think that 50% of the forgefathers are of an acceptable standard, so I could really do without the unwarranted "throwing stones in glass houses" lecture, thanks.

I know the black reach orks have *one* seperate arm and seperate heads, but the other arm is moulded to the body, and they are all standing in the same pose, hence "monopose". Whereas the Marauders have 2 seperate arms, heads, and a lot more in the way of bitz and things.

As for the forgefather plastics, find someone else if you want to debate those, I agree with you on their overall suckiness.. the sculpting on the sci-fi parts is great, but the tooling decisions made are so bad they might as well have just made the models in resin plastic and made them look as good as the heavy weapons troops rather than wasting time and money on half of a 2-dwarf sprue with hardly any components on it. I mean, yeah they'd have been £2/model instead of £1 and dakka would be bitching about "greedy mantic raising prices up to GW levels" while ignoring the resin plastic material, but at least I'd have some nicer models!

For the record, I do own the figures from black reach as well. They also suck, but do the job as game "tokens". I consider them to be only a little bit better than the Cloney McClonesworth plastic forgefather.

If you want reviews of the sprues, go on beasts of war, they've had HD unboxing videos of all the warpath models available to look at for the past month. The gorilla arm thing seems to be down to poor assembly... on a Bow video they noticed that one set of arms only fits right with one of the bodies.. and in the official mantic pictures they've gone and glued the wrong arms on to the wrong bodies!

scarletsquig wrote:As an aside, I disagree that the black reach orks are high-quality. Have you seen those things? They're all monopose. No seperate torso/head/2 arms/ extra bitz like the marauders have.

Have you ever seen Black Reach orks? Doesn't seem so. They have separate heads and arms. And they wear trousers and shoes

^ Read the post above yours.

I think Kroot was taking the mik more than anything

scarletsquig wrote:I was comparing the black reach orks to the marauders, not the forgefathers. If you'd read my previous posts, you'd know that I don't think that 50% of the forgefathers are of an acceptable standard, so I could really do without the unwarranted "throwing stones in glass houses" lecture, thanks.

I know the black reach orks have *one* seperate arm and seperate heads, but the other arm is moulded to the body, and they are all standing in the same pose, hence "monopose". Whereas the Marauders have 2 seperate arms, heads, and a lot more in the way of bitz and things.

For the record, I do own the figures from black reach as well. They also suck, but do the job as game "tokens". I consider them to be only a little bit better than the Cloney McClonesworth plastic forgefather.

If you want reviews of the sprues, go on beasts of war, they've had HD unboxing videos of all the warpath models available to look at for the past month. The gorilla arm thing seems to be down to poor assembly... on a Bow video they noticed that one set of arms only fits right with one of the bodies.. and in the official mantic pictures they've gone and glued the wrong arms on to the wrong bodies!

No problem on the FFs then - I confused you with another poster. For sprue reviews, I'll check out BoW if there's no other options. Those guys are a bit ..overenthusiastic about Mantic at the moment. I'd rather see reviews and quality pics from posters on here and other boards. Rather than sitting through 10 minute videos of them rambling aimlessly.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the AoBR figures. I consider them to be pretty good, actually - And the torsos are similarly posed but unique sculpts, which I think is fine.

^ At least we can agree that BoW suck.

I stayed up past midnight to watch one of their exclusive mantic preview shows (which was 2 hours late, was supposed to air at 10pm) only to be faced with half an hour of drunk ugly dudes drinking beer out of pee bottles before the interviews with mantic started.

I'm waiting until January for the Corporation minis to arrive, though chances are, we'll get a super-duper-special-awesome pre-order deal first where they show off the concept art again as a product preview.

BrookM wrote:I'm waiting until January for the Corporation minis to arrive, though chances are, we'll get a super-duper-special-awesome pre-order deal first where they show off the concept art again as a product preview.

With any luck and a huge dose of reality and the pre order fiasco ringing fresh in their collective memories I should hope not. Preordering warpath just proved that it wasn't such a great idea showing pre order details and so called deals when you haven't shown your completed product yet. Let's hope that we get a little more than concepts to go on rather than three up models/designed spures anything other than how it was approached before.

Thorne wrote:

BrookM wrote:I'm waiting until January for the Corporation minis to arrive, though chances are, we'll get a super-duper-special-awesome pre-order deal first where they show off the concept art again as a product preview.

With any luck and a huge dose of reality and the pre order fiasco ringing fresh in their collective memories I should hope not. Preordering warpath just proved that it wasn't such a great idea showing pre order details and so called deals when you haven't shown your completed product yet. Let's hope that we get a little more than concepts to go on rather than three up models/designed spures anything other than how it was approached before.

It is their whole marketing thing though. They did it with their Abysmal Dwarves, their Orcs who are so "rad" their name has an "X" in it and now the initial Warpath releases.

BrookM wrote:

Thorne wrote:

BrookM wrote:I'm waiting until January for the Corporation minis to arrive, though chances are, we'll get a super-duper-special-awesome pre-order deal first where they show off the concept art again as a product preview.

With any luck and a huge dose of reality and the pre order fiasco ringing fresh in their collective memories I should hope not. Preordering warpath just proved that it wasn't such a great idea showing pre order details and so called deals when you haven't shown your completed product yet. Let's hope that we get a little more than concepts to go on rather than three up models/designed spures anything other than how it was approached before.

It is their whole marketing thing though. They did it with their Abysmal Dwarves, their Orcs who are so "rad" their name has an "X" in it and now the initial Warpath releases.

Orx with an X was the Warpath version. The 'Kings of War' version were Orcs.

Ya know, I like Mantic's stuff, as they look very nice and are sold at a VERY reasonable price.

When I grow dissatisfied with what I've got, I go looking for companies who have nice products, often not finding quite what I'm looking for, but Mantic is one of those companies that I keep coming back to look at their stuff. The only thing that has stopped me from starting up a Kings of War army in the past is the near-total lack of female miniatures outside the large box sets - though the Twilight Kin Sorceress looks quite nice indeed. I'm sure there's reasons for the general lack - particularly of female elves in the plastics - and I'm sure they're good reasons. If even a portion of the elves were female, the decision would be pretty much a no-brainer.

Enh, I always dislike removing female miniatures from the table after they've been killed. Maybe I'll give it some more thought.

Mantic opened a competition. I think they are joking with us...

http://www.manticblog.com/?p=4512

And give us some new color schemes for Forge Fathers:




I liked the Green, Black, and for my surprise, the Red...
(those are photoshoped you know...)

Those look to be SS' photoshop manips.

Yeah, they are lol

Yeah, I would really want to see the sprue and "real" model shots. They still have that "gorilla-arm" thing going. To explain WTH I'm on about - look at the "sergeant". See his pistol arm, but ignore the pistol itself. Now imagine if he lowered his arm towards the ground and extended his elbow so the arm was straight. His knuckles would be on the ground. It's one of those things I just can't get past since noticing it, which is a shame as the models are otherwise well-sculpted. - hence why I'm keen to see "real" photos of the models.

I also agree on the green/black/red all looking better than the blue, though I think it's unfair to call the blue/gold scheme "copying Ultramarines/GW" - you may as well say the same about Warmachine/Cygnar. I think it's just a bad choice of tone - if that blue was a darker, less rich blue (with a bit more purple in the mix - Moody Blue for those who remember) it would look better.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually - a darker green would look better as well. Something more like a DA-type green - but a little more earthy, accentuated with copper, bronze and brass, other dark metals is probably the way I would go with them.

What i am wondering is if the arms of regular troopers would fit those heavy bodys well...

But even if that occur, a unit of 10 will be very costly...

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:What i am wondering is if the arms of regular troopers would fit those heavy bodys well...

But even if that occur, a unit of 10 will be very costly...

I don't think that they will.

About the "Orangutan" arms: it doesn't look as if the Steel Warriors are that far off the Stormrage Veterans. I think they look cool! I could imagine a Dwarf having long arms to hurl himself around confined subterranean spaces

Mantic's latest video:

http://youtu.be/kBcy6b_h32k

Golem really did do an excellent job with that display board.

The competetion sounds fun, too!

Those helms on the dwarves look like chicken faces. the triangular pieces near the chin look like beaks...

Not moved by these figs at all...

I hope some of the other races/models have more appeal for me...

scipio.au wrote:Yeah, I would really want to see the sprue and "real" model shots. They still have that "gorilla-arm" thing going. To explain WTH I'm on about - look at the "sergeant". See his pistol arm, but ignore the pistol itself. Now imagine if he lowered his arm towards the ground and extended his elbow so the arm was straight. His knuckles would be on the ground. It's one of those things I just can't get past since noticing it, which is a shame as the models are otherwise well-sculpted. - hence why I'm keen to see "real" photos of the models.

I've made the same complaint. I far prefer the body shape used in Dungeons and Dragons.

I like how a better paint job ( none army painter dipped paint job )
pretty much shut all the nay Sayers up about inferior quality or lack of detail.

Now we move onto boo marauders have no shoes xD

lord marcus wrote:Those look to be SS' photoshop manips.

They're not mine.

Only one of mine is on the blog, the coppery red scheme in the bottom left.

LunaHound wrote:I like how a better paint job ( none army painter dipped paint job )
pretty much shut all the nay Sayers up about inferior quality or lack of detail.

You don't seriously think that photoshopping the colours would change our opinion on the sculpt, right?
It is only we made our point and don't spam this thread with repeating it.

LunaHound wrote:I like how a better paint job ( none army painter dipped paint job )
pretty much shut all the nay Sayers up about inferior quality or lack of detail.

Now we move onto boo marauders have no shoes xD

uhm, I've been saying the detail on those ones is fine and that my only issue with those forgefathers is the gorilla-arms since the start. But feel free to have no idea what you're talking about. The other (monopose/fantasy hybrid) ones are the dead horse with inferior quality and lacking detail. None of the figures shown have looked dipped, so I'm not sure what you're on about now. I believe the only criticism of paint has been towards the FFs, and that's been about their colour scheme from the start, and most people agreed they looked better recoloured when we saw SS's first shop, about 12 pages ago..

Kroothawk is correct in that at a certain point, both people with negative opinions and the Mantic Fanatics would agree to disagree on some points, reach agreement on others, and just tire of remaking the same point on others.

Naming contest results are back!

Attackster > Raptor
Scrapper > Brokkrs
Hel Valkyrs > Valkyrs
Rifle Grunt > Fraggers
Heavies > Rippers
Grizzlers > Stormrage Veterans

Looking at the thread, it looks like Breotan has won, due to suggesting "Forgefather Valkyrs". Congrats!

Also, I won the TGN contest to rename the scrappers.

What does the sprue look like?

And how about pics of the guys, such as what material are we looking at here?

I'm not going to pee on the parade with the negative talk, That other poo poo has been through the ringer for like 36 pages.

These are not GW, lets move on from there...

If you HAVE one of these guys, HOW do YOU like it?


Are the ork guys out yet? how do they stack up, and are they easy to put together and paint? what kind of plastic is Mantic using? are there additional bits?

How about those bike/ trike things, how many of those come in a box?

What are we looking at with that Thudd gun stand in? are there other weapons options, there?

I would like to know, basic question, if the Models are all multi-part.

^ Most of the above can be answered by spending 2 minutes on the mantic site.

scarletsquig wrote:^ Most of the above can be answered by spending 2 minutes on the mantic site.

Says the guy with the Mantic tag.....


Your not really being Mr Obvious, are you?

I'm talking about regular people that already have the sets. NOT the kool aid talk, and good intentions.

Already see enough of that, and haven't even seen figure 1 in the flesh. All talk, No substance.


So now it is time to put out and show what we have here.

As for the site, yeah, that was about a whole wasted ten minutes. Didn't tell me any more then "ohh... shineys!"

Better yet, a tutorial on how to put them together, paint them, discussion of the plastics and metals, and etc.

If I want gobbllygook, I can go look at company websites, where even saying that they need work won't get you dogpiles by guys that are more then likely getting free product while sporting thier nifty little company logos.

Do you see? Again... someone called us hired liars... Why? Because we carry a banner about something we like.

No MOD will say nothing about it? I feel ofended by that...




Automatically Appended Next Post:
But i must say this results are strange...

If they wanted they Hel Valkyrs to be called Valkyrs, why they started a competition?
I feel like my submissions where all ignored by Mr. Cavatore... But "Hel Valkyrs" is great (and i probably said something about it some time ago).

Grot 6 wrote: dogpiles by guys that are more then likely getting free product while sporting thier nifty little company logos.

Hey, those dogpiles are lucrative!

We get 10 free models for every negative comment we crush through sheer wordcount.

Bonus models are awarded for questioning the commenter's sexuality and/or successfully casting them as a "GW fanboi".

We get sent a whole army box for stuff like a passionate 4-page defence of the brilliantly sculpted elf drakon models, but it takes some dedication to pull that off.


It's an excellent affiliate scheme, highly recommended. Just pop a banner in your sig, and you can get started today!

Grot 6 wrote:

scarletsquig wrote:^ Most of the above can be answered by spending 2 minutes on the mantic site.

Says the guy with the Mantic tag.....


Your not really being Mr Obvious, are you?

I'm talking about regular people that already have the sets. NOT the kool aid talk, and good intentions.

Already see enough of that, and haven't even seen figure 1 in the flesh. All talk, No substance.


So now it is time to put out and show what we have here.

As for the site, yeah, that was about a whole wasted ten minutes. Didn't tell me any more then "ohh... shineys!"

Better yet, a tutorial on how to put them together, paint them, discussion of the plastics and metals, and etc.

If I want gobbllygook, I can go look at company websites, where even saying that they need work won't get you dogpiles by guys that are more then likely getting free product while sporting thier nifty little company logos.

They are signature banners made by a member of the social group for the social group's use. In no way is it a company logo for Mantic.

scipio.au wrote:

LunaHound wrote:I like how a better paint job ( none army painter dipped paint job )
pretty much shut all the nay Sayers up about inferior quality or lack of detail.

Now we move onto boo marauders have no shoes xD

uhm, I've been saying the detail on those ones is fine and that my only issue with those forgefathers is the gorilla-arms since the start. But feel free to have no idea what you're talking about. The other (monopose/fantasy hybrid) ones are the dead horse with inferior quality and lacking detail. None of the figures shown have looked dipped, so I'm not sure what you're on about now. I believe the only criticism of paint has been towards the FFs, and that's been about their colour scheme from the start, and most people agreed they looked better recoloured when we saw SS's first shop, about 12 pages ago..

Kroothawk is correct in that at a certain point, both people with negative opinions and the Mantic Fanatics would agree to disagree on some points, reach agreement on others, and just tire of remaking the same point on others.

Im talking about back then when Mantic used to do quick paint jobs via dipping and using that for the gallery , people used to make accusation they look bad due to inferior details and sculpts.
Now with better paint jobs, the doubts in lack details are not an issue anymore.

This has nothing to do with Photoshopping color or forge father with gorrila arms????

In that case, your earlier comment that you've kindly quoted above makes even less sense. Thanks for playing.

The plastics, judging from the sprue, look as sadly lackluster as feared. Two-piece basic troop models are something I thought we had moved past outside starter boxes and boardgames like Space Hulk.

Well, some people really like them, judging by how many Mantic dwarf armies are out there.

Guess, it has been said previously.
But I got the confirmation that humans are the next Warpath race, then the "8th race". Some bugs are also a certainty. And he hinted at Space Elves and Evil Space Elves coming eventually. Not sure if it has been confirmed before.

scipio.au wrote:In that case, your earlier comment that you've kindly quoted above makes even less sense. Thanks for playing.

It looks pretty much the same mister, dont know which lines you are reading or leaving out?

LunaHound wrote:

scipio.au wrote:In that case, your earlier comment that you've kindly quoted above makes even less sense. Thanks for playing.

It looks pretty much the same mister, dont know which lines you are reading or leaving out?

Tbh, your posts on this page have been a bit confusing, in a way I can't quite put my finger on.


Anyway, dem gorilla arms. loving the marauders though. Anyone here built one yet?

Someone asked for a sprueshot of forgefathers

From BoF:


and the unit picture


Looks like there's only 3 head options + 1 pre-attached to a body.

Looks good enough for me. I don't like the flat-top helmets, but there's an alternative option.

Im using these for skaven Jezzail teams

I like them, the price is really what will decide if I pick them up or not.

20 for 10, 30 for 20, usd.

poipo32 wrote:I like them, the price is really what will decide if I pick them up or not.

It's already on the website, $19.99 USD for 10 Forgefathers, $31.99 for 20.

Edit: ninja'd

I guess it's better luck next time.

For me, what kill them is that stupid "one piece clone". It look very nice, very well sculpted... but it will be repetitive.

If they had make 2 of those chest pieces, instead of the "one piece chest/head/arms", and added 2 extra options of heads (the one of the "one piece chest" and another closed helmet option) it could have been almost perfect.

Seems weird to me that they didn't make the 'sculpted on' head have the closed face mask as well. You can already pick two open faced helms on that sprue, why specifically sculpt another?

^ Yeah, that's a good point.

If you absolutely *have* to have a model that gets repeated a lot, better to give it a fully-enclosed helm.

Bare heads are there to show individuality, and look odd if repeated.

Finally, the heads are not flat, the paintjob just makes them look flat. The "flatheads" are the fantasy ones, which I really didn't like even when they were on the KoW models.

adhuin wrote:Someone asked for a sprueshot of forgefathers
From BoF:
Looks like there's only 3 head options + 1 pre-attached to a body.
Looks good enough for me. I don't like the flat-top helmets, but there's an alternative option.

Thank you sir.
While they do look better than I was expecting, at the same time, it's so, so disappointing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And good points both to PT and SS above.

Kroothawk wrote:Guess, it has been said previously.
But I got the confirmation that humans are the next Warpath race, then the "8th race". Some bugs are also a certainty. And he hinted at Space Elves and Evil Space Elves coming eventually. Not sure if it has been confirmed before.

"Dwarfs"
"Orcs"
Bugs - though the info so far suggests more wasp like basis rather than Starship Troopers
"Elves" - implication is evil, though that is from the point of view of everyone else, what their actual motives turn out to be, who knows?
Humans - think the Alliance in Firefly
Rebs - think the side that lost in Firefly + random assorted aliens and ne'er-do-wells
8th race
The Plague - zombies in space

Has anyone given any thought to what these could be used as for a 'counts as' in 40k (perhaps using the whole dwarf range?)

I was thinking perhaps Space Wolf Grey Hunters (I don't think IG are tough enough in game for how these troops look). Perhaps worthy of a thread in its own right?

adhuin wrote:Someone asked for a sprueshot of forgefathers
From BoF:

Just thought you all would like to see the ironwatch and forgefather sprues compared.

I'm still pretty disapointed about the loinclothes/tabards, and I really don't like the monopose torso, but I like them enough that I'll probably pick up a pack.

If not for the monopose torso, I could see great posibilities for weapon swaps which would enable the adaptation of these figs to many other game systems. Still, it is plastic, so I could still try carving it away...

Separating the torso/cloak from the waist/legs would have been the preferable way to go but the heads are largely interchangeable so there is that. Guess it's time to get out the old hobby saw and start converting the old-school way.

I like em. Not too crazy for them but they are a pretty reasonable price in bulk and they look sci fi enough to warrant some small place in mo forces but I won't be buying any yet. I still have 180 heads to find for my gretchin conversions.

my plan, at least for a few, is to greenstuff some beard varients, that should add some variety

Twilight Kin pics are live, plastic/metal hybrids based on the elves. 6 copies of the army deal are on sale this weekend only for £99 before a full release next February... they've had these sculpts knocking around for a while now, so the delay might be due to them planning to replace the metal components with resin plastic to lower the price. But for now, it looks like they've already made a few in metal that they want to shift.




Turned out pretty well I think, I like them a lot more than the regular elves, they sort out the weird spears, improve the heads, and the cloaks add some bulk to the models.

Overall, I think it's because the basic elf models are more suitable for dark elves in the first place, with their barbed, layered armour and shields.

Good colour scheme for a change, too!

The Sorceress model in particular is very good IMO.

Do quite dig those spearheads as well.

Mantic Army Deals are Ending!

This summer we have been running a selection of fantastic value army deals for both Warpath and Kings of War. These are simply the easiest and best value way to collect a Man(tic) sized army (and you will still have money left over to pay the rent!). Many of these offers have over 100 models, with heroes, artillery, elite regiments and cavalry – in fact everything you need to build a proper army.

But all good things have to end – and this weekend is that time! These army deals will only be available until Midnight Monday 31st – so if you have ever fancied a solid Dwarf battalion, Elven warhost, or Orc mob then click through.

hmm.. that's less good news, but they seem to intimate that there will be deals for new armies ( like the abpove models) when they roll out. Which is nice.

They probably want to re-price and repackage the deals.

If they pull them completely for a bit, then re-introduce them with new contents and price, there will be less gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair on the internets.

They have been constantly adding new deals, while not pulling old ones, so pulling them all would probably be a better way to handle it.


I do find it funny how Mantic has used the blind purchase army deal concept since they came out with the elves, but it wasn't until they dipped into Sci-Fi that people here noticed and had to raise a stink about it.
It's pretty simple. If you don't think they have shown enough to warrant a purchase, don't buy.
I bought the Undead army when all that was out was skeletons, as the cost of the skeletons seperately was close to the package cost.
The ghouls, revenants, and knights rewarded my risk.
Having the option to pre-order currently in-process product is not a bad thing, like some on this thread are screaming.
It is simply another option that they give you.

I like the twilight kin a lot, but they're not kidding when they say for advanced modellers.

The Abyssal dwarf kits are a nightmare!

These look vastly better than the original elves. But the metal/plastic hybrids is a turn off.

I don't like the dwarfs.

Hope those orks look better.

Mantic needs to step up the game, seeing as much qs they pimped this stuff up.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this has not been announced anywhere. Happy Halloween!

Mantic wrote:
Mantic towers has gone Halloween crazy – and what better opportunity to get really excited about our fantastic undead range – and we aren’t the only ones.

We have been inspired by the fantastic article by Violet Death about modelling Zombie and Ghoul regiments on Beasts of War – and created our Halloween Graveyard Horde Special. You get 60 Zombies and Ghouls and three of the terrific Tombstones sprues for just £40, or 20 figures and 1 Tombstone sprues for just £15. So whether you play Kings of War, or one of the other fantasy battle games out there – we can guarantee there is no better way to collect a huge pile of undead alongside great modelling and scenery pieces to make your regiments characterful and totally unique.

These guys are some of my favorite from Mantic, and now they have an army deal!



60 Zombies and Ghouls!

http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Halloween-Specials/Product/Undead-Gravestalker-Horde-60-Figures-and-Tombstones.html?utm_source=Mantic+Games+Newsletter&utm_campaign=eaa86e8583-Mantic_Games_Newsletter_115&utm_medium=email

...and the set of 20

http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Halloween-Specials/Product/Undead-Gravestalker-Deal-20-Figures-and-Tombstones.html?utm_source=Mantic+Games+Newsletter&utm_campaign=eaa86e8583-Mantic_Games_Newsletter_115&utm_medium=email

Also, back by popular demand, Mantic have released a German zombies set for Halloween, combining Warlord Games Germans and their own zombies for a very cool kit!



Set makes at least 10 but good use of bits will make plenty more than that!

Mantic wrote:

To finish All Hallows eve of with a bang (well, ‘Braaaiiins!!!!’ might be more appropriate) we have the German Zombies here for the festival weekend. This special set combines the Warlord German sprues and the Mantic Zombies to create a unique, characterful and very reasonably priced regiment of the walking dead – with Schmeisers!!

Check out the pics of the finished models, almost like they were made to be combined

http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Halloween-Specials/Product/German-Zombies.html

Nazi Zombies are reaaaaaaaaaally well made. I would give it a try if i wasnt exhausted from gluing the mantic zombies xD

Looks like today is the last day of Army Deals. Got my Ultimate Warpath deal pre-order in and I know my mate has taken advantage of the Liche King's Horde which has had some money taken off of it. Over 220 figures!!

Wayland games have 30% off the entire mantic undead range, today only:

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/mantic-games/undead/cat_510.html

I'm not affiliated with them, just pointing out the good deal is all.

You can get the army box of 110 models for only £35!

Less than 30p per model, pretty damn sweet.

Mantic is 80 likes away from the 4000 mark and a free warpath set to a random lik'er

Just as a heads up, the Mantic battle foam bag is now on the Mantic webstore.

Couple of new wrecked vehicles on Mantic Website!

2 upgrade kits are being released for the steel warriors.

The first (pictured below) will have new torsos, heads and BFG option.

The second will be a set of sci-fi legs.

I guess the upgrade kits will be metal?

Agamemnon2 wrote:I guess the upgrade kits will be metal?

Yup, tis a shame. I think these guys look suitable more sci fi. Although perhaps the knee pads are a bit thick

Too little too late, for me. Why should I have to buy another kit to make the sci-fi dwarves look sci-fi? Why couldn't these upgrade parts have been included in the kits from the beginning?

Liking the new stuff, and it's good that they are addressing one of the main criticisms (i.e. that a lot of what we have seen so far is just KoW stuff with small changes and given a gun).

Too little too late, for me. Why should I have to buy another kit to make the sci-fi dwarves look sci-fi? Why couldn't these upgrade parts have been included in the kits from the beginning?

Long story short, Renedra (the company that makes the hard plastic moulds for Mantic) for is overworked, doesn't seem to be expanding (preferring to remain small and raise prices instead), and there are no decent UK-based alternatives.

Mantic would do well to look overseas for it's injection moulding, outsourcing to Japan or somewhere that has excellent tech available would be much better than waiting in line for Renedra to tool moulds for 8-12 other historical mini companies before getting around to doing something for mantic.

It's pretty clear that mantic knew that the corner-cutting wasn't the ideal solution from the start, but didn't anticipate that the public reaction would be so negative.. hence the current scramble to at least put some quality models out there, even if it makes them more expensive.

I think there's room to do this with forgefathers, since they are an "elite" army... you don't need many models to make 1000 points. Won't work if they try to sell metal bodies for the marauders, though.

The dwarfs still wear chainmail and swords.

scarletsquig wrote:

Too little too late, for me. Why should I have to buy another kit to make the sci-fi dwarves look sci-fi? Why couldn't these upgrade parts have been included in the kits from the beginning?

Long story short, Renedra (the company that makes the hard plastic moulds for Mantic) for is overworked, doesn't seem to be expanding (preferring to remain small and raise prices instead), and there are no decent UK-based alternatives.

Mantic would do well to look overseas for it's injection moulding, outsourcing to Japan or somewhere that has excellent tech available would be much better than waiting in line for Renedra to tool moulds for 8-12 other historical mini companies before getting around to doing something for mantic.

It's pretty clear that mantic knew that the corner-cutting wasn't the ideal solution from the start, but didn't anticipate that the public reaction would be so negative.. hence the current scramble to at least put some quality models out there, even if it makes them more expensive.

I think there's room to do this with forgefathers, since they are an "elite" army... you don't need many models to make 1000 points. Won't work if they try to sell metal bodies for the marauders, though.

QFT

Renedra should up-size if it wants to keep business from going overseas, and not just Mantic. IMHO

So they're passing the buck.

Hardly - don't like it, don't buy. Having got a sprue, the sci-fi heads are just fine. Apparently there's a new unit entry for the Drakkarim in the FF army lists that's coming out on Friday, dudes who are a little more short-ranged. That photo is labelled Drakkarim, so you can a) have a new squad and b) use the bits to convert some of your other steel warriors if you want. There's two new BFGs as well included in the kit!

Hell there's some metal legs coming out with those bits too (not pictured btw) or if you really want use the Resin Plastics for all your infantry - they're fantastic and are completely 100% new. No problem.

Some cool new background up as well, and some great new photos:

http://www.manticgames.com/Sci-fi/Forge-Fathers.html

lord marcus wrote:Renedra should up-size if it wants to keep business from going overseas, and not just Mantic. IMHO

Why should Renedra upsize? If Mantic can't supply the demand then they should be the ones investing their money, rather than Renedra expanding only for Mantic to trott off to China.

A "Veermyn" plastic kit is being sent off for tooling.

Make of that what you will, but I'd put good odds on ultra-cheap plastic skavenslaves sometime in 2012.

Bloodwin wrote:

lord marcus wrote:Renedra should up-size if it wants to keep business from going overseas, and not just Mantic. IMHO

Why should Renedra upsize? If Mantic can't supply the demand then they should be the ones investing their money, rather than Renedra expanding only for Mantic to trott off to China.

Well, I think the problem is that if a local producer can't meet demand, eventually it will go out of business as the cost of bringing in non-local production goes down.

It's no different town to city than nation to nation.

Particularly if the local supplier is increasing price instead of capacity...

Or to put it another way - if Renedra can't supply what Mantic (or anyone else) would like, why should Mantic stay with them long-term?

Wargames Factory is a walking example of why outsourcing to China is not exactly a silver bullet solution either.

There's definitely been a slowdown on the hard plastics front recently, mantic's early releases (elves, undead, dwarfs) all had 4-5 sprues on launch, each of which had 5 or 10 models on the sprue. 2011 has seen that number drop right down to the forgefather release of "one half of a 2-man sprue" as the only plastics.

There's definitely a tooling bottleneck, and it seems to be hurting. It's not just Mantic either, Perry Miniatures currently have about 3-5 kits already sculpted and ready to go, they're just shelved and waiting for Renedra to clear it's existing (several month-long) queue before they can be tooled and released.

Please don´t forget.... even if Renedra is uptooling... it will take quite some time to do so.

An update, for those who haven't been following this elsewhere:

In March, there are 4 Corporation kits... in restic.

There are plans for bigger vehicles... in resin, from other companies.

There's some new terrain... in resin, from other companies.

And the Goblins are going to be in metal.

In other words, no matter whether it's not their fault, Mantic is effectively abandoning the one thing that set them apart from every two bit garage manufacturer.

Sounds like they are finding a way to move forward with their games and product line, while not being held hostage to Renedra's production bottle-neck.

I imagine down the line, they will get plastic kits back on track.

The restic is not a bad material either. I've got their Revenant Knights x10 kit and it took glue well, and cleaned up nice.

But unless another injection plastic company comes around, they will have to wait in line, or suffer the fate of Wargames Factory or the plastic PP units*.

*For those who don't know, rumors are that the original Chinese producer of PP plastic was not meeting quality requirements, but would not give back the molds.
Thus holding up models like Man-o-War Bombardiers and causing them to produce the Destor Cavalry as metal kits.

I havent heard goblins in metal, where did you get that nugget of info SS?

This is sad... very sad.

I dont liked any of the Mantic materials for Warpath, and was putting big hope on the goblins (and the to be released "elves in space").

Metal Goblins Means i will not get them... lets hope it is unfunded.

Plastic resin isnt bad, but an entire army of them? Problem is the plastic resin warpath so far isnt all that much of a discount from the big companies like GW. Those corp will have to be very good, otherwise perhaps Defiance may make it on top as sci fi soldier maker (unless they somehow screw up again)

And metal goblins? Goblins are suppose to be a hoard army, metal mantic stuff pretty much says "we do not think this is profitable, this is for the small niche groups"

Not exactly kenshin. The aforementioned problems with their plastics manufacturer may be forcing their hand with the goblins.

I've been thinking of starting an Ork army and took a look on their site and they want $35 (USD) for a box of 20 Orks..or whatever they want to call them. Eh...I can get GW minis of similar or better quality from AoBR off of e-bay for less; $35 will get me 20 grunts, 5 nobs, a warlord and maybe the deffcopters too.

Finally a more expensive alternative to 40k! Guess there is too much ex-GW staff at Mantic to see the flaw in that marketing strategy

agnosto wrote:I've been thinking of starting an Ork army and took a look on their site and they want $35 (USD) for a box of 20 Orks..or whatever they want to call them. Eh...I can get GW minis of similar or better quality from AoBR off of e-bay for less; $35 will get me 20 grunts, 5 nobs, a warlord and maybe the deffcopters too.

10 GW Orks in a box cost $29. Multiply by 2 to get 20 Orks and you're at $58.
For a comparable set of Mantic minis, you pay 60% of GW's retail.

Throwing ebay, car boots, yard sales and deals that somebody might get from a guy who is desperate to pay his rent by selling his army might not give a good comparison.

privateer4hire wrote:

agnosto wrote:I've been thinking of starting an Ork army and took a look on their site and they want $35 (USD) for a box of 20 Orks..or whatever they want to call them. Eh...I can get GW minis of similar or better quality from AoBR off of e-bay for less; $35 will get me 20 grunts, 5 nobs, a warlord and maybe the deffcopters too.

10 GW Orks in a box cost $29. Multiply by 2 to get 20 Orks and you're at $58.
For a comparable set of Mantic minis, you pay 60% of GW's retail.

Throwing ebay, car boots, yard sales and deals that somebody might get from a guy who is desperate to pay his rent by selling his army might not give a good comparison.

It's a good idea of what actual retail (not MSRP) is.

And the AOBR orks are a relatively stable commodity. In the US at least, they're pretty generally available.

privateer4hire wrote:

Throwing ebay, car boots, yard sales and deals that somebody might get from a guy who is desperate to pay his rent by selling his army might not give a good comparison.

Ok, how about any bit site on the web? Seriously, did you just ignore the "AoBR" part of my post? Every bit site on e-bay and elswhere parts out the AoBR set and it's a great way to pick up SM or Ork core, no frills, troops. Unpainted, unassembled, usually still on sprue models; I fail to see how that equates into someone selling their models to pay the rent or selling out of their car's trunk (does that even happen?).

I was just making a point that the 1/2 fantasy mantic product costs more than a GW equivalent. I'm no GW fanboi but I won't pay more just to avoid GW.

AoBR is a bulk-buy deal.

Might be best to compare it to one of mantic's army boxes if you want an actually worthwhile comparison... that way you get 50 orks for around the same price/model as the 20-man box, but also get a pair of raptors in there as well.

Or... if you want an actually properly-done comparison:

Mantic games - fate of the forgestar: £50

- 40 Maruaders
- Raptor vehicle

- 15 forgefathers
- Forgefather vehicle

- Dice, Rules

40k - Assault on black reach: £61.50

- 25 Orks
- 3 Deffkoptas

- 15 space marines
- space marine vehicle

- Dice, Rules, templates, whippy sticks.

So, make of that what you will... AoBR is still over 20% more expensive and you get fewer models. And this is GW's absolutely rock-bottom bargain-bin deal. Of course, you can buy AoBR for dirt cheap on eBay (it was released several years ago), and you can't do that with FotFS, because the latter was released.. a few days ago.

In addition, I own both AoBR orks and mantic marauders. AoBR is a lot more monopose and comes with less options. We've been through this exact same thing a few pages back, just read through all that rather than retreading old ground.

If you want to buy an ork army, for use in 40k army right now, GW is your best option, not mantic. Simple reason is that mantic's model range has only existed for one month, and you won't be able to make a full army out of them. GW's has existed for 25 years and has over a dozen plastic kits, and there's AoBR too, which was a great deal when I bought it for £40 on release! Not so much now that GW has jacked the price by over 50% in 4 years. In a couple of years time, things will probably be different as AoBR is no longer on sale, and mantic has more releases.

The focus with warpath is different. They are actually developing the models from the perspective of using them to play Warpath, not 40k. Forgefathers have no obvious 40k-alternative, the models aren't entirely suited to marines, and Imperial Guard are being covered by another faction. Everyone has been screaming at mantic to "stop stealing GW's hard work and do something of your own", and Warpath is a strong move in that direction. The whole reason this release was rushed and fantasy hybrids were used was because they wanted to take things in that direction and have 2 armies on launch to create a playable game. If you've ever complained that mantic need to be original (as a crazily high amount of people have), then don't turn around and complain that mantic going ahead and doing this makes their models less attractive for use in 40k.

For some of us, it's not all about pricing, free rules and well-balanced army lists are the main reason I like Mantic, followed by their general "not-GW" attitude, in that they don't attempt to sue half the damned internet, *and* the fact their version of finecast, resin plastic, is priced reasonably (at least half the price of metal) and is of a higher quality than GW finecast. Oh, and they sell to Australia, support their specialist games, run a skullz-style program, and numerous other things that GW threw into the trash about 5 years ago. Buying from GW just makes me feel like I'm pouring money into the black hole that is Tom Kirby's retirement fund.

scarletsquig wrote:Anyway, it's good to see that the "fill up the new and rumour thread with anti-mantic trolling instead of posting actual news and rumours" is still in full swing.

Mantic's not exactly making that easy, are they? They're more secretive than GW was until very recently, and the only news we've got is a list of all the things we wanted that we aren't getting.

Plastic Corp troopers? No.
Female Corp troopers? No.
Plastic vehicles? No.
Plastic goblins? No.
Good or reasonably priced terrain? No.

They're even feigning ignorance about the Veermyn.

@Scarletsquig,

I'm not trolling; I genuinely thought of mantic when I first considered starting an Ork 40k army but it turns out they aren't cheaper than GW so I'll not be buying from them.

I am more than willing to try other game systems; however, noone in my area plays anything other than GW games. A few people play Malifaux and a larger number play historical but neither of those interests me.

I don't know about in the U.K. but AoBR kits are easily found here in the US and seem to be the cheapest way to start an Ork army. I won't say a SM army since you only get a flamer and rocket launcher as special/heavy weapons and regular terminators which aren't nearly as useful as assault termies.

I really do not care what company I buy from, I'm a part-time hobbyist at best (haven't played a game in over a month), but I will research and buy from the company that presents the best deal for what I'm looking for. Last year I was very excited about Mantic but since they've raised their prices to near GW levels and the fiasco with recycling fantasy kits for their sci-fi line, I've been less enthusiastic about them. I've been considering a vampire counts army and may purchase from them in the future as their undead line is quite good IMO.

Since you took the time to post your lengthy reply, I thought you deserved the same courtesy.

Cheers.

I edited that line out of my post, unfortunately AlexHolker responded to it first. I took it out because I wanted it to be clear that it wasn't directed at you, but rather at the usual crowd of people that just turn up in this thread to pull trollfaces and laugh about how awesome GW is.

scarletsquig wrote:I edited that line out of my post, unfortunately AlexHolker responded to it first. I took it out because I wanted it to be clear that it wasn't directed at you, but rather at the usual crowd of people that just turn up in this thread to pull trollfaces and laugh about how awesome GW is.

It is no worse than the same usual crowd who show up and blindy carry Mantics water like they get commission for every sale placed on the website. It is disingenuous to call GW's AoBR MONOPOSE when they have 10 unique bodies, and a posable arm and headswap when the Mantic models have THE EXACT SAME posability with some models only having one posable arm and headswap and LESS overall poses. How Mantic models are anything BUT mono-pose is beyond me (not that mono-pose is necessarily a bad thing in wargaming but call a spade a spade). It is intellectual dishonesty in blindly defending a product as poseable but bashing another as monopose which sours people to Mantic as a whole. I think the Mantic Fanatics do Mantic a disservice on these forums by fighting battles mantic as a company doesn't need fought. I would let Mantic handle their own PR through their blog... They do a pretty good job with it.

Good job with your 'Let me bash GW as a way to defend Mantic' stance as well. No putting on a trollface there.

I just ordered a boxset of ten marauders for less than 12 quid with P&P, which I think is a pretty good deal for a factory fresh box. But, a lot of the reason I got them is because of the old RT-esque styling I have to say, which I prefer to the current GW ork line.

I'm still open minded about them though, will make and paint them and then post my results!

If everything we're hearing is correct, next year AoBR will be replaced by the 6th ed starter that will not include Orks, so the monopose Ork boyz will probably not be produced anymore. We'll have to see what that does to their price on the secondary market.

nkelsch wrote:

scarletsquig wrote:I edited that line out of my post, unfortunately AlexHolker responded to it first. I took it out because I wanted it to be clear that it wasn't directed at you, but rather at the usual crowd of people that just turn up in this thread to pull trollfaces and laugh about how awesome GW is.

It is no worse than the same usual crowd who show up and blindy carry Mantics water like they get commission for every sale placed on the website. It is disingenuous to call GW's AoBR MONOPOSE when they have 10 unique bodies, and a posable arm and headswap when the Mantic models have THE EXACT SAME posability with some models only having one posable arm and headswap and LESS overall poses. How Mantic models are anything BUT mono-pose is beyond me (not that mono-pose is necessarily a bad thing in wargaming but call a spade a spade). It is intellectual dishonesty in blindly defending a product as poseable but bashing another as monopose which sours people to Mantic as a whole. I think the Mantic Fanatics do Mantic a disservice on these forums by fighting battles mantic as a company doesn't need fought. I would let Mantic handle their own PR through their blog... They do a pretty good job with it.

Good job with your 'Let me bash GW as a way to defend Mantic' stance as well. No putting on a trollface there.

I need to dig up my commission post from a few pages back.

scarletsquig wrote:Care to write a reply to Kroothawk's troll post as well, while you're being all balanced and reasonable?

Hey, I bashed both GW and Mantic with my post
And making a full metal horde army will not continue Mantic's "worse looking but cheaper" policy.

Edit: You are still slow at editing it seems

^ Yeah I agree. Goblins will not be intended as a serious and proper army release, more likely that they'll be running the test sculpts in metal simply because it's cheap to do and it'll get them some feedback on the designs before going ahead with plastics.

Similar thing to the Twilight Kin, really, only even less viable as far as building an army goes. Bit of a shame really, goblins are the kind of thing I'd happily buy 200-300 of at mantic plastic prices and they would have been a natural fit for the orcs. Don't think I'll be buying any of the metals, especially with companies like FourA, Heresy and Otherworld already having some excellent goblin sculpts in metal.

Plus your posts at least make me smile as opposed to some of the more srs bsns rants on here, which I tend to reply to, then edit the post as I realise that I don't want to make the thread go offtopic any further.

The other 6 edits per post are for spelling/grammar errors and general mental incoherency. I wouldn't attempt to argue with myself, I'd lose.

Anyone know of any future release list schedule for the Marauder Orx? Specifically what other types of units are incoming?

I like Mantic, but im not going to support the decisions that i sees as contributing to a path to failure.

1) They are expanding too fast. I know they want to produce an adequate line to their armies but that's like building a building foundation out of Styrofoam.
e.g i know they are trying to break out as being a GW alternative, but that was actually their main selling point.

2) Because they are expanding too fast, they arn't making back stable sales. This means they have to water down and make short cuts ( while smart ) its ultimately not a sound choice.
e.g lots of the armies are hybrid materials and people are worried about price to content ratio dropping. This is again, counter productive to what most of mantic buyers want.

3) Mantic need to research what the mass wants instead of reading individual's wish listings ( e.g werewolves. for god sake i cant even tell if
the werewolve fans are deliberately giving bad ideas or not. Because we saw how unpopular (currently ) Wolfens are from Rackham... Quality and price are both unbelievable GOOD not to mention Mantic allow none Mantic products
just use Rackhams..... yet? no one buys them. Then why would they buy mantic werewolves? ) What people want? Generic great coat troops ( e.g wargame factory was it? the end product was bad but the demands are certainly there )
Or even some generic sci fi , generic fantasy human factions. Nothing time period specific like Empire troops, but rather generic like Britonnian Men at Arms.
Easy conversion potential = moar sales.

4) Mantic named their upcoming faction "Corporation"? . This is literally their last chance they have to grab back their customers. They have successful predecessors to work after....
O.N.I Corp. I would consider Warpath a flop, the sales momentum already slowed dangerously before they even release it. Unlike GW, they dont have enough fans to generate the momentum,
plus they have too much anti-Mantic haters that has waaaay too long to bash down a upcomming product. What they need to do is shorten the sneak peek by a month.

Also, female auxiliary troops for both sci fi and fantasy.
Guaranteed wtf sales boost

I will be very disappointed if the goblins are metal- I had planned to pick some up.

Da Boss wrote:I will be very disappointed if the goblins are metal- I had planned to pick some up.

If it is metal, then Mantic has strayed from their original purpose.

LunaHound wrote:

3) Mantic need to research what the mass wants instead of reading individual's wish listings ( e.g werewolves. for god sake i cant even tell if
the werewolve fans are deliberately giving bad ideas or not. Because we saw how unpopular (currently ) Wolfens are from Rackham... Quality and price are both unbelievable GOOD not to mention Mantic allow none Mantic products
just use Rackhams..... yet? no one buys them. Then why would they buy mantic werewolves? ) What people want? Generic great coat troops ( e.g wargame factory was it? the end product was bad but the demands are certainly there )

Uh, unless I've missed something, Rackham's Wolfen are currently unpopular because the company is out of business so you can't really buy their Wolfen except via ebay, and they didn't go out of business because nobody wanted their Wolfen. I'm not sure why they went out of business, but I have to imagine it has something to do with the switch to pre-painted plastics. While Confrontation was still around, the Wolfen seemed to be pretty popular in my local meta.

In all honestly, I might be misunderstanding what you're trying to say because that entire post comes across as something written by someone currently under the influence.

Other than that, though, I do wonder if Mantic is trying to do too much too quickly, expanding KoW and launching a brand new game, and I'm not liking all this talk of metal models.

RatBot wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

3) Mantic need to research what the mass wants instead of reading individual's wish listings ( e.g werewolves. for god sake i cant even tell if
the werewolve fans are deliberately giving bad ideas or not. Because we saw how unpopular (currently ) Wolfens are from Rackham... Quality and price are both unbelievable GOOD not to mention Mantic allow none Mantic products
just use Rackhams..... yet? no one buys them. Then why would they buy mantic werewolves? ) What people want? Generic great coat troops ( e.g wargame factory was it? the end product was bad but the demands are certainly there )

Uh, unless I've missed something, Rackham's Wolfen are currently unpopular because the company is out of business so you can't really buy their Wolfen except via ebay. While Confrontation was still around, the Wolfen seemed to be pretty popular in my local meta.


Other than that, though, I do wonder if Mantic is trying to do too much too quickly, expanding KoW and launching a brand new game, and I'm not liking all this talk of metal models.

$30 for ALL THESE ( they are size of GW minotaurs ) if i see another mention of people asking mantic to make were wolves im going to slap them
http://www.miniaturemarket.com/confrontation-wolfen-army-box-great-value.html

Maybe people don't want pre-painted plastics? Maybe they don't want minotaur-sized werewolves? Maybe people are, for whatever reason, uncomfortable buying products produced by a dead company? It's not logical, but I've seen it before. Maybe people are stuck in the "a manufacturer's miniatures can only be used for that manufacturer's games" mindset? Also not logical, but extremely common.


Maybe it's painfully ironic that someone using the handle "LunaHound" is complaining that people want more, different werewolf models?

By the way, I'm not saying Mantic should make werewolves (nor am I saying they shouldn't), but your reasoning seems to be:

Rackham made werewolves.
Rackham's werewolves weren't/aren't selling.
THEREFORE:
Mantic should not make werewolves.

RatBot wrote:Maybe people don't want pre-painted plastics? Maybe they don't want minotaur-sized werewolves?


Maybe it's painfully ironic that someone using the handle "LunaHound" is complaining that people want more, different werewolf models?

By the way, I'm not saying Mantic should make werewolves (nor am I saying they shouldn't), but your reasoning seems to be:

Rackham made werewolves.
Rackham's werewolves weren't/aren't selling.
THEREFORE:
Mantic should not make werewolves.

Rackham's "painted" figurines are very thin, treat them as free primer or even base coat ( proof = check my gallery, i paint over them directly )

And yes the 2nd part is what im saying :'P
If we are talking about GW, then by all means sure give it a try. They can afford to make them, and boost the sales by increasing their stats favorably.

But we are talking about Mantic, new and fragile company. Definitely SHOULD NOT test thin ice.
Im taking everything into account as a whole.

LunaHound wrote:
But we are talking about Mantic, new and fragile company. Definitely SHOULD NOT test thin ice.
Im taking everything into account as a whole.

See, that makes more sense. It sounded to me like you meant that Mantic shouldn't make werewolves because other people make werewolves.

Hell, now that we're on the topic, I think I might actually like to see sci-fi werewolves. But not from Mantic, not right now. They need to figure out their production issues before they do anything else, especially because their whole selling point is supposed to be inexpensive plastic models.

LunaHound wrote:What people want? Generic great coat troops ( e.g wargame factory was it? the end product was bad but the demands are certainly there )
Or even some generic sci fi , generic fantasy human factions. Nothing time period specific like Empire troops, but rather generic like Britonnian Men at Arms.
Easy conversion potential = moar sales.

I disagree about the Men at Arms. Because any human fantasy range is competing not only with other fantasy manufacturers but also every historical manufacturer, any fantasy humans Mantic makes really need to be proper fantasy humans. Anyone who wants Men-At-Arms will already have bought a box or five of the Perry twins' War of the Roses infantry.

4) Mantic named their upcoming faction "Corporation"? . This is literally their last chance they have to grab back their customers. They have successful predecessors to work after....
O.N.I Corp.

It's not just the name - they're also a bunch of unlikeable, evil dumbasses.

I would consider Warpath a flop, the sales momentum already slowed dangerously before they even release it. Unlike GW, they dont have enough fans to generate the momentum,
plus they have too much anti-Mantic haters that has waaaay too long to bash down a upcomming product. What they need to do is shorten the sneak peek by a month.

I disagree - if showing your work gives people too long to bash your product, you should try not sucking so hard. A short sneak peek schedule doesn't help - just look at the backlash when it was revealed the Marauders and Forgefathers used the exact same components as their fantasy counterparts.

Also, female auxiliary troops for both sci fi and fantasy.
Guaranteed wtf sales boost

Definitely agree with this. It's a "faction" three billion strong in real life that gets less plastic support than robo-wheelchairs for crippled Space Marines do.

RatBot wrote:Maybe they don't want minotaur-sized werewolves?

Then Mantic isn't for them either - Mantic's werewolves are Large Infantry, same as Ogres and Trolls.