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Post by: Pacific
Elf Eagle Chariot.
 scarletsquig wrote:Just remembered, perfect solution (spending way too much time on dakka can help sometimes!)
http://eccentricminiatures.com/sprues.html
Eccentric minis, good alternate heads hard plastic, $2 for 16.
And.. they also have some spiked heavy maces and scourges (with hands attached!) that might do nicely for the basilean sisters.
Thanks for posting that, was after something similar for my Gamezone Dwarves.
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
scarletsquig wrote:Anyone know a good source of alternate heads for those men at arms?
Like the minis, getting loads of them, don't like 3 of the heads, and we're not getting spares on the sprue.
Ideally, something with the same helmet style.
)
I'm planning on using some of the spare heads from the Revenants sprue--the ones that look like fully enclosed helms or the ones where the skull faces can pass as "intimidating" faceplates.
Without seeing the actual minis, it's hard to tell what other model ranges have parts that would fit. Maybe some Greek helmets for officers or specialist spearmen would work? Automatically Appended Next Post: scarletsquig wrote:Just remembered, perfect solution (spending way too much time on dakka can help sometimes!)
http://eccentricminiatures.com/sprues.html
Eccentric minis, good alternate heads hard plastic, $2 for 16.
And.. they also have some spiked heavy maces and scourges (with hands attached!) that might do nicely for the basilean sisters.
If those arms fit the Mantic sisters, you just saved those sisters minis. Ronnie should give you some stock options.
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Post by: overtyrant
nkelsch wrote:God, do you know how impossible it would be to push that 2-fixed wheeled cart without any form of steering? That backwards chariot is a physical impossibility as the beasts of burden can't steer from behind due to the way carts work.
Animals can pull a static-wheeled cart, but to push it, it would need a form of steering in the wheels.
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of it, it is for a Fantasy game setting where the orxs riding it don't exist and giant dragon's fly through the sky breathing fire whilst wizards cast fireballs into the ranks of enemies!
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Post by: nkelsch
overtyrant wrote:nkelsch wrote:God, do you know how impossible it would be to push that 2-fixed wheeled cart without any form of steering? That backwards chariot is a physical impossibility as the beasts of burden can't steer from behind due to the way carts work.
Animals can pull a static-wheeled cart, but to push it, it would need a form of steering in the wheels.
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of it, it is for a Fantasy game setting where the orxs riding it don't exist and giant dragon's fly through the sky breathing fire whilst wizards cast fireballs into the ranks of enemies!
Suspension of disbelief doesn't excuse basic mechanical failures... it makes the model look broken not to be explicitly designed to actually be a working 'reverse chariot'.
GW pumpwagon is a good example of rear-steering with a rudder wheel behind the two fixed wheels. It is absurd but not physically impossible. This chariot would fishtail and crash on itself within moments.
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Post by: overtyrant
nkelsch wrote:overtyrant wrote:nkelsch wrote:God, do you know how impossible it would be to push that 2-fixed wheeled cart without any form of steering? That backwards chariot is a physical impossibility as the beasts of burden can't steer from behind due to the way carts work.
Animals can pull a static-wheeled cart, but to push it, it would need a form of steering in the wheels.
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of it, it is for a Fantasy game setting where the orxs riding it don't exist and giant dragon's fly through the sky breathing fire whilst wizards cast fireballs into the ranks of enemies!
Suspension of disbelief doesn't excuse basic mechanical failures... it makes the model look broken not to be explicitly designed to actually be a working 'reverse chariot'.
GW pumpwagon is a good example of rear-steering with a rudder wheel behind the two fixed wheels. It is absurd but not physically impossible. This chariot would fishtail and crash on itself within moments.
Not with the standard orc mentality. If an orc think it will work it will work! Just like if an ork painted his truck red it will make it go faster! If this was for any other army I would agree with you, but since its for orcs....
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Post by: nkelsch
overtyrant wrote:nkelsch wrote:overtyrant wrote:nkelsch wrote:God, do you know how impossible it would be to push that 2-fixed wheeled cart without any form of steering? That backwards chariot is a physical impossibility as the beasts of burden can't steer from behind due to the way carts work.
Animals can pull a static-wheeled cart, but to push it, it would need a form of steering in the wheels.
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of it, it is for a Fantasy game setting where the orxs riding it don't exist and giant dragon's fly through the sky breathing fire whilst wizards cast fireballs into the ranks of enemies!
Suspension of disbelief doesn't excuse basic mechanical failures... it makes the model look broken not to be explicitly designed to actually be a working 'reverse chariot'.
GW pumpwagon is a good example of rear-steering with a rudder wheel behind the two fixed wheels. It is absurd but not physically impossible. This chariot would fishtail and crash on itself within moments.
Not with the standard orc mentality. If an orc think it will work it will work! Just like if an ork painted his truck red it will make it go faster! If this was for any other army I would agree with you, but since its for orcs....
So Mantic's fantasy orcs now explain the failures in their models with GW's 40k psychic resonance for fungus men fluff? Most Orcs out there in the multiple fantasy worlds are not ignorant buffoon creatures who explain away action with willpower and psychic resonance. Even LotR orcs needed to build functional machines to lob rocks. They had pretty advanced catapults that worked due to physics, not by wishing.
Are people really falling over themselves to defend a broken concept that badly? People will just model it like a regular chariot because it looks broken otherwise.
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Post by: Da Boss
Yeah, the chariot thing looks wrong. It'd be better if it had some other configuration.
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Post by: scarletsquig
^Actually, Mantic's Orc background is really good.
They are intelligent creatures who live short, brutal lives. Live out in the cold windswept plains. Average lifespan is 10-15 years, maybe 20 if they're lucky enough to die of old age (rarely happens, most don't make into their second decade).
So, they have a bit of a mortality complex, which combined with their harsh "eke out a survival exposed to the elements" lives results in their motivation for being evil and going off and attacking anyone that has a better life than they were given.
They see a city of the elves, glowing with nice warm fires, knowing that everyone in there is immortal and enjoying fine wine, laughter and love and will do for all eternity, whereas they will be a corpse in the mud in a few years time whatever they do.
Which, of course, gives them every reason in the world to go down to that city and try to smash it to pieces and kill everyone inside. 
Then, on top of that, they have a culture based around sagas passed down through generations about heroic krudgers that did great deeds... so each leader of an orc tribe (and those who would kill him and become leader, too!) wants to carve a name out for himself before he dies.
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Post by: Da Boss
That is fething awesome. Awesome.
Wow. I love that idea- the short lifespan and rage at the futility of existence angle really sells it. They'd have to be pretty intelligent of course, otherwise their culture would utterly disintegrate. Do they age rapidly, or is it a magical curse that kills them off at age 15?
I always felt the orcs in LOTR got a real bum deal from the gods who essentially failed to protect them from Morgoth. They put the sun in the sky for the express purpose of driving them underground, ffs. Reality was against them, but they couldn't help being what they were. Made the whole bring down the Valar angle a lot more interesting to me when I thought about it.
Interesting stuff like that is why I was in love with the Orc archetype when I took up wargaming, and I've always been a bit disappointed by the GW treatment of the archetype.
SS, where can I access more of this background? The cool background sections on the mantic site went missing a while ago, are they back up?
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Post by: scarletsquig
^ Most of it made it into the KoW rulebook, but other parts of it didn't, and it's all been deleted fom the Mantic site unfortunately.
It shares a lot with LotR, in that they are a creation of an insane/evil god purely for the purpose of war. Only their god is now dead, leaving them as nothing more than a plague on the world in the eyes of the other races.
The basic description for them describes them quite well:
Orcs are among the vilest of all creatures; evil beings created for war.
They delight in destruction, all their essence is bent towards violence, mind and body. They despise beauty and goodness, finding their presence painful, and do all they can to bring what is right in the world to ash.
It is said that if they ever achieve this aim, they will then fight among themselves in the ruins of the realms of better races, unheeding and uncaring, hatred driving them on to ultimate self-destruction.
Basically, nihilism incarnate.
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Post by: decker_cky
I think everything you mentioned there is in the rulebook.
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Post by: Da Boss
That is unfortunate! Perhaps I will have to pick up the rulebook to have a look at this background. It's exactly the sort of stuff I like in a fantasy because while it is unlike anything that currently exists, it is still understandable and "human".
Orcs as the personification of envy is a great idea.
Some beer and not enough sleep has my brain now working overtime on this concept.
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Post by: overtyrant
nkelsch wrote:overtyrant wrote:nkelsch wrote:overtyrant wrote:nkelsch wrote:God, do you know how impossible it would be to push that 2-fixed wheeled cart without any form of steering? That backwards chariot is a physical impossibility as the beasts of burden can't steer from behind due to the way carts work.
Animals can pull a static-wheeled cart, but to push it, it would need a form of steering in the wheels.
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of it, it is for a Fantasy game setting where the orxs riding it don't exist and giant dragon's fly through the sky breathing fire whilst wizards cast fireballs into the ranks of enemies!
Suspension of disbelief doesn't excuse basic mechanical failures... it makes the model look broken not to be explicitly designed to actually be a working 'reverse chariot'.
GW pumpwagon is a good example of rear-steering with a rudder wheel behind the two fixed wheels. It is absurd but not physically impossible. This chariot would fishtail and crash on itself within moments.
Not with the standard orc mentality. If an orc think it will work it will work! Just like if an ork painted his truck red it will make it go faster! If this was for any other army I would agree with you, but since its for orcs....
So Mantic's fantasy orcs now explain the failures in their models with GW's 40k psychic resonance for fungus men fluff? Most Orcs out there in the multiple fantasy worlds are not ignorant buffoon creatures who explain away action with willpower and psychic resonance. Even LotR orcs needed to build functional machines to lob rocks. They had pretty advanced catapults that worked due to physics, not by wishing.
Are people really falling over themselves to defend a broken concept that badly? People will just model it like a regular chariot because it looks broken otherwise.
I still stand by my comment but since the direction Mantic took with there orcs is not the silly type (for what of a better term) and more the brutal type I will admit that the fight wagon does not really fit with the rest of there orcs.
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Post by: frozenwastes
spoiler tags on the images because you've already seen them, but I still want to comment.
Cavalry:
These might be my favorite miniatures Mantic has ever made. I could see using them as proxy Cygnar or Menoth cavalry in Warmachine. Very big and very fantasy looking. If you want human fantasy cavalry these may end up being the go to models. I'd like to see pictures at more angles of these guys as soon as possible!
Men at Arms
Alright, but I'm not sure I like the pose of them being in the middle of a charge, but still in perfect formation. I think they'd look better if they put 8 or 9 of them on a troop sized base and muddied up the rankings a bit to make it look like terrain charging was breaking up their formation a bit. Or better yet, just under 20 on a regiment sized base. Their arms look unnatural as you don't stick your elbows out like you're in a mosh pit when you are using a sword and certainly not when you are in a formed block of troops and the shields aren't really being held in a way that would actually protect the regiment (and then there's the strange shield wings/face injury window). Actually there's also something wrong about the way they are gripping their weapons-- like their wrists seized up and they can't tilt their hands forward and back.
There two units were not done by the same sculptor, were they?
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Post by: scarletsquig
Most of it is, but a fair bit of it is missing. I did manage to find one snippet that I'd quoted in a forum post though:
GAKAMAK'S CHARGE
Brass-mouthed cannons barked smoke and flame, rocking back on iron-bound carriages with each report. Goblins toiled quickly to reload them as Slavemasters walked up and down the line of earthworks, whipping and kicking those they deemed too slovenly.
Atop his mighty Gore Arsewind, Gakamak the Unstoppable bared yellowing teeth in a hideous Orcish smile.
“East tower is almost down,” he grunted in the thick language of the Orcs, almost to himself. He turned his head and looked down to where his lieutenants waited nervously on foot around him. “Krossgar, get your troops to the foot of the banking. You will attack first after the wretches go in.” He fixed the Headcrusher captain before him with a glare. The Orc began to return it twofold and thought better of it, bowing low – he was not strong enough yet to best Gakamak in a challenge. “Yes, lord,” he growled, and marched away, armour plates clanking.
Gakamak gave orders to all his underlings, Orc and Goblin, as the cannons spoke once more. The weapons had been taken from the Abyssal Dwarfs last week, and now were being put to good use against their makers. Smoke puffed along the line of the walls, ornate metalwork denting, stonework disintegrating. He gave a snort of satisfaction as a tower slipped forward like a stab victim stumbling to its knees, blocks coming apart as it turned from a building to a pile of rubble in front of him. Moments later, the rumble of its collapse reached his ears. A roaring cheer went up from his army.
Gakamak smiled again at the destruction, felt his heart pound at the sight of something unmade. He’d rip it down, all of it, rip it to pieces, smash it, burn it and dance on the ashes. He chuckled in his barrel chest, deep and phlegmy.
“Told you. East tower,” he said, gesturing with a massive, clawed hand. “Now sound the attack. Goblins in, first wave. Tonight we dine on Dwarf flesh.” He flipped back his visor, threw back his head and roared along with the bray of harsh trumpets. As one, his army joined him, and Gakamak’s blood sang with the joy of war.
Quite like that piece since it
a) Shows tactical thinking on the part of the orcs.. battering the towers down with artillery, then sending in the goblins as the first wave of meatshields, and
b) Gets across the sheer delight that they get from seeing things being destroyed.
There two units were not done by the same sculptor, were they?
Both sculpted by Remy. The men at arms were digitally scanned and heavily reworked by mantic's 3d guys though.
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Post by: judgedoug
 Da Boss wrote:Yeah, the chariot thing looks wrong. It'd be better if it had some other configuration.
The Orc Chariot is a multipurpose kit that can be assembled as a Chariot or a Fight Wagon.
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
Scarlet, if Remy did the Men at Arms, why do they have GW elf spearman hands and chimpanzee arms?
Not that I'm not getting some of them.
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Post by: NAVARRO
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:Scarlet, if Remy did the Men at Arms, why do they have GW elf spearman hands and chimpanzee arms?
Not that I'm not getting some of them.
Because Remy according to Mantic does not " get" multipart... the parts that look like pants are probably done by some "expert" in multipart 
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Post by: judgedoug
nkelsch wrote:So Mantic's fantasy orcs now explain the failures in their models with GW's 40k psychic resonance for fungus men fluff?
Where did anyone from Mantic say this? Or did some random person on a forum say it and you are using it as a basis to attack Mantic directly somehow?
nkelsch wrote:
Are people really falling over themselves to defend a broken concept that badly? People will just model it like a regular chariot because it looks broken otherwise.
"These bizarre contraptions consist of a wheeled platform crammed full with eager Morax at the front, pushed by two gores..."
There's Morax on a platform, and Gores push them directly forward. That model isn't a broken concept, it's a PERFECT EXECUTION of the concept. FFS.
This is an example of a model designed for Kings of War, and not Another Game System. I will be getting many of them, for my Kings of War Orc army, since it fits their style perfectly and is an excellent unit.
This sort of like that Celestial Hurricanum piece of gak nonsense that GW makes for Empire. It's designed for WHFB, and not any other game system. It looks absolutely fething slowed, laughably so, but it's a perfect execution of the concept - just like the Fight Wagon is. So you may not like it, just as I fething hate the Celesial Hurricanum garbage, but no one is forcing you to use it, just as I don't use that piece of gak for my Empire army (or the Empire War Rooster... man GW really pulled out the worse designs possible for the 8th ed Empire, huh?)
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Post by: scarletsquig
@NAVARRO: That's a possible explanation. It has been noted that the 3d guys struggle a bit with organic, soft detail while being excellent at hard angles and lines. Captain Grumpypants from deadzone is a good example... no helmet, horrible mini, add a helmet, absolutely stunning mini... the face was *that* bad, and now that I think about it, looks quite similar to some of these men-at-arms.
I stayed out of that particular debate (it got ugly quick when people were jumping down Cyporiean's throat just for being nice and providing a bit of casual insider info), but I found that statement odd considering that Remy has in fact done a lot of multipart kit sculpting.. in fact the Warpath corporation marines that Remy sculpted were the first minis that Mantic ever produced that had separate heads and arms on *all* the minis, not just some of them.
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Post by: nkelsch
 judgedoug wrote:nkelsch wrote:So Mantic's fantasy orcs now explain the failures in their models with GW's 40k psychic resonance for fungus men fluff?
Where did anyone from Mantic say this? Or did some random person on a forum say it and you are using it as a basis to attack Mantic directly somehow?
A member of the bucket brigade said it... Same way they said the Ogres have no genitals hence the horrible knock kneed poses.
nkelsch wrote:
Are people really falling over themselves to defend a broken concept that badly? People will just model it like a regular chariot because it looks broken otherwise.
"These bizarre contraptions consist of a wheeled platform crammed full with eager Morax at the front, pushed by two gores..."
There's Morax on a platform, and Gores push them directly forward. That model isn't a broken concept, it's a PERFECT EXECUTION of the concept. FFS.
This is an example of a model designed for Kings of War, and not Another Game System. I will be getting many of them, for my Kings of War Orc army, since it fits their style perfectly and is an excellent unit.
This sort of like that Celestial Hurricanum piece of gak nonsense that GW makes for Empire. It's designed for WHFB, and not any other game system. It looks absolutely fething slowed, laughably so, but it's a perfect execution of the concept - just like the Fight Wagon is. So you may not like it, just as I fething hate the Celesial Hurricanum garbage, but no one is forcing you to use it, just as I don't use that piece of gak for my Empire army (or the Empire War Rooster... man GW really pulled out the worse designs possible for the 8th ed Empire, huh?)
The fight-wagon cannot function the way the model is designed and it is a terrible model. Fine as a chariot, lazy and stupid as a '2 models one kit' design. The 'fluff' describes and impossible piece of technology which would fishtail and crash the way it is currently built and be impossible to drive. If they had build a cart with steering and rear-animal pushing which actually function, they might be ok... but they lazily thought turning a chariot around was 'hey now we are like GW and make dual kits too!' The fight-wagon is an unreasonable, indefensible model. It looks fine as a chariot, it looks like a 5-year old assembled his model wrong as a backwards chariot as a fight-wagon.
While the Celestial Hurricanum may be a silly pointless contraption, it is at least a valid horse-drawn wagon which won't immediately crash and implode upon being pulled by horses. You can't steer a chariot with fixed wheels from behind, especially by dumb animals. It simply isn't possible with the way that device is designed. But if ' GW sucks too' is the bucket you need to carry mantic's water in, more power to you. Most people didn't pay GW based upon concept art and don't have to now consider a refund due to a terrible model. That is the difference between 'poor models' by GW and PP and mantic... People can choose not to buy PP and GW's flawed models opposed to already having been stuck funding them with poor execution.
I look forward to alternative fightwagon conversions which are designed to actually work. Orc modelers are really good at such conversions.
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Post by: Cyporiean
Why are you even in this thread?
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Post by: NAVARRO
scarletsquig wrote:@NAVARRO: That's a possible explanation. It has been noted that the 3d guys struggle a bit with organic, soft detail while being excellent at hard angles and lines.
I stayed out of that particular debate (it got ugly quick when people were jumping down Cyporiean's throat just for being nice and providing a bit of casual insider info), but I found that statement odd considering that Remy has in fact done a lot of multipart kit sculpting.. in fact the Warpath corporation marines that Remy sculpted were the first minis that Mantic ever produced that had separate heads and arms on *all* the minis, not just some of them.
Yeah I know, I found it odd and also absurd in many levels, but lets leave it at that.
I for one would appreciate to see more from him and less from the other current mantic sculptors... There are very good sculptors outhere, like Diaz etc, mantic should hire those instead... and a decent painter.
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Post by: overtyrant
Rule Number One is Be Polite; thanks ~ Manchu
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Post by: Polonius
The same reason people white knight in GW threads. Consciously it's about "telling the truth" and "fighting against groupthink." Really it's about being the center of attention.
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Post by: nkelsch
 Polonius wrote:
The same reason people white knight in GW threads. Consciously it's about "telling the truth" and "fighting against groupthink." Really it's about being the center of attention.
I am a serious Orc Collector and would have loved to have another source for orc and goblin models... But Mantic keeps failing.
There are many others who have shown dislike with these models so my opinion is not alone... but some people can't stand any criticism to stand and have the need to bury and dissatisfaction with Mantic at all.
If Mantic wants to design 'dual kits' this was not a good execution of one.
As someone who has been burned by their false concept art, I think it is important whenever they miss the mark on what they promised in regards to concept art and quality sculpting, it is worth discussing in the public record.
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Post by: NAVARRO
nkelsch wrote: Most people didn't pay GW based upon concept art and don't have to now consider a refund due to a terrible model. That is the difference between 'poor models' by GW and PP and mantic... People can choose not to buy PP and GW's flawed models opposed to already having been stuck funding them with poor execution.
.
I don't get that, I mean if you have a problem with taking the risks of Kickstarters then the blame is on you for taking the damn risk in the first place.
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Post by: nkelsch
 NAVARRO wrote:nkelsch wrote: Most people didn't pay GW based upon concept art and don't have to now consider a refund due to a terrible model. That is the difference between 'poor models' by GW and PP and mantic... People can choose not to buy PP and GW's flawed models opposed to already having been stuck funding them with poor execution.
.
I don't get that, I mean if you have a problem with taking the risks of Kickstarters then the blame is on you for taking the damn risk in the first place.
Oh I learned my lesson the hard way that Mantic has a 'bait and switch' model with how they use Remy's time on sculpting and that they cannot be trusted in regards to concept art. At least now I can see the models are terrible before I choose to buy them at retail or not, hence what this thread is all about.
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Post by: overtyrant
Well they got the model bang on to the description and the rest of there orc line is great, haters gonna hate. I really dislike Mantics Dwarfs/chaos Dwarfs, there nuns and some of there elves (infact there is quite a bit of Mantics stuff I'm not a fan of) so I am no white knight for Mantic. Was also very disappointed with the quality of the boards and tokens in PP and DKH (great rule set though), but I don't feel the need to scream at the top of my lungs at every opportunity saying how naughty Mantic are,
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Post by: Polonius
nkelsch wrote:
I am a serious Orc Collector and would have loved to have another source for orc and goblin models... But Mantic keeps failing.
Some stuff is a failure. Some stuff is great. A lot of it is pretty mediocre, and some people will like it and some people won't. You know, personal taste and all that.
There are many others who have shown dislike with these models so my opinion is not alone... but some people can't stand any criticism to stand and have the need to bury and dissatisfaction with Mantic at all.
Well, a lot of people feel a personal touch with Mantic. They're approachable, easy to contact, and listen to feedback. People want them to succeed, and certainly don't always have the most objective viewpoint.
So, that leaves two choices for a person in your situation. You can comment on failings in models, and raise the concerns that you have, and then allow the conversation to move on. Or, you can make it your personal mission to change the minds of people that, by all admission, are clouded with emotion.
I'm glad to see you've taken the mature course.
If Mantic wants to design 'dual kits' this was not a good execution of one.
It doesn't look great. OTOH, it's a really dumb idea, so I'm not sure what anybody expected.
As someone who has been burned by their false concept art, I think it is important whenever they miss the mark on what they promised in regards to concept art and quality sculpting, it is worth discussing in the public record.
There are a lot of loaded phrases in this sentence. Concept art can't be "false," unless you think Mantic intentionally showed concept art they had no intention of using. My memory is hazy, but I seem to remember them throwing concept art out pretty quickly, with the understanding that it was a rough sketch.
You seem to be confusing backing a kickstarter, and ordering a pizza. Yeah, if the picture of the pizza has pepperoni, and yours doesn't, that's a problem. But when somebody say, "I have an idea, and this is a sketch we spent 20 minutes on, do you want to front some cash?" it's understood by all parties that concepts can change. Maybe you thought you were going to get something that looked exactly like the sketch, but you'd be in the minority.
As for quality, I think we're all a little disappointed. Not much we can say about that, but about half of these kits are deeply flawed. But then again, nobody is disagreeing with that.
And we're all discussing this. I'm not sure Dakka is "public record," whatever you seem to think that means.
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Post by: -DE-
I too find the idea of the wagon to be dumb and lazy. I wouldn't even call it an alternative build as much as assembling the pieces backwards. You can do that with any kit without being sanctioned by the powers that be to.
I'd never participate in a Mantic kickstarter and I'm dumbfounded how many people are willing to buy their models sight unseen on the basis of concept art that Mantic 9 times out of 10 fails to realize as decent sculpts. Heck, sometimes they don't even stick to the artwork they pitch their products off! It's crazy!
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Post by: Polonius
Polonius wrote:
The same reason people white knight in GW threads. Consciously it's about "telling the truth" and "fighting against groupthink." Really it's about being the center of attention.
nkelsch wrote:
Oh I learned my lesson the hard way that Mantic has a 'bait and switch' model with how they use Remy's time on sculpting and that they cannot be trusted in regards to concept art. At least now I can see the models are terrible before I choose to buy them at retail or not, hence what this thread is all about.
Well, good job for turning this thread into your private venting booth.
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
To be fair to nkelsch, some of the KoW 'risks', such as dumping the concept art we funded and changing the entire range's scale/style unannounced, were unthinkable. Just like you wouldn't consider "150 models but no bases--we never said bases were included!" to be a fathomable risk. It's almost an outside context problem for a minis ks.
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Post by: Polonius
 -DE- wrote: I'd never participate in a Mantic kickstarter and I'm dumbfounded how many people are willing to buy their models sight unseen on the basis of concept art that Mantic 9 times out of 10 fails to realize as decent sculpts. Heck, sometimes they don't even stick to the artwork they pitch their products off! It's crazy!
I cant' speak for anybody else, but I want alternative miniatures enough to back these kickstarters. It shows that the there is a market for more minis. Automatically Appended Next Post: BobtheInquisitor wrote:To be fair to nkelsch, some of the KoW 'risks', such as dumping the concept art we funded and changing the entire range's scale/style unannounced, were unthinkable. Just like you wouldn't consider "150 models but no bases--we never said bases were included!" to be a fathomable risk. It's almost an outside context problem for a minis ks.
Wait, you're saying that changing artistic direction is "unthinkable?" When talking about a glorified cocktail napkin sketch?
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Post by: NAVARRO
Polonius you are making a mess of the quotes! I never said that!
On another note all types of critique are useful... I may disagree with them but all have a place.
At the end of the day I really want Mantic and other companies to succeed but every single one of us is a bit selfish because we have a crystal clear idea of the style of minis we want to see them doing..
Me? I want them to produce high quality miniatures but they are clearly moving to something else... phrases like " not aiming for golden deamons" and the kind of stuff they are releasing, does not go well with what I considered to be a very promising product.
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Post by: Polonius
NAVARRO wrote:
Me? I want them to produce high quality miniatures but they are clearly moving to something else... phrases like " not aiming for golden deamons" and the kind of stuff they are releasing, does not go well with what I considered to be a very promising product.
Mantic has always been uneven, and when they promised delivery of a dozens of new units all at once, we all should have been a bit more realistic. I think that between the short development time since the kickstarter and the lack of salaried scupltors, they just couldn't get the top talent, and didn't have the time to redo stuff.
I'm worried about Mantic turning into little more than 3d chits.
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Post by: NAVARRO
Polonius wrote: NAVARRO wrote:
Me? I want them to produce high quality miniatures but they are clearly moving to something else... phrases like " not aiming for golden deamons" and the kind of stuff they are releasing, does not go well with what I considered to be a very promising product.
Mantic has always been uneven, and when they promised delivery of a dozens of new units all at once, we all should have been a bit more realistic. I think that between the short development time since the kickstarter and the lack of salaried scupltors, they just couldn't get the top talent, and didn't have the time to redo stuff.
I'm worried about Mantic turning into little more than 3d chits.
To be blunt about this I don't understand the rush to release SO much product in such a tight time frame... To many KS'rs maybe? They never really had the time to stop and mature the sculpting before releasing the minis.
I'm worried with that too... 3d can be a wonderful tool in the right capable hands, or in most cases so far, the easiest way to kill your brand.
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
Polonius wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:To be fair to nkelsch, some of the KoW 'risks', such as dumping the concept art we funded and changing the entire range's scale/style unannounced, were unthinkable. Just like you wouldn't consider "150 models but no bases--we never said bases were included!" to be a fathomable risk. It's almost an outside context problem for a minis ks.
Wait, you're saying that changing artistic direction is "unthinkable?" When talking about a glorified cocktail napkin sketch?
Look at the trolls. People paid a lot of money based on two sketches that Mantic admitted ditching in favor of some design backers never saw.
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Post by: frozenwastes
scarletsquig wrote:
The basic description for them describes them quite well:
Orcs are among the vilest of all creatures; evil beings created for war.
They delight in destruction, all their essence is bent towards violence, mind and body. They despise beauty and goodness, finding their presence painful, and do all they can to bring what is right in the world to ash.
It is said that if they ever achieve this aim, they will then fight among themselves in the ruins of the realms of better races, unheeding and uncaring, hatred driving them on to ultimate self-destruction.
Basically, nihilism incarnate.
Ugh. One dimensional background is one dimensional. The excerpt you posted wasn't awful, but I think the general idea is pretty implausible and the "I'm only listening to you because I can't beat you in a duel" cliche is pretty tired as well. I have no idea how to make an overused idea like the orc interesting again. I'd probably go with the 1970s D&D approach where they are just underground dwelling iron age tribal creatures who occasionally get banded together into larger hordes and rise up from the depths to raid the surface. They'd have their own language, gods, simple art, a small selection of pictographs/runes that didn't quite make up a writing system and a typical raider attitude of not seeing their victims as having any person-hood worth respecting. And if some ancient god made them to use as a weapon, even if that god was no longer around, I'd rather it be trapped than killed, so you could have orcs be motivated by some sort of eschatology where their master will one day return.
scarletsquig wrote:
There two units were not done by the same sculptor, were they?
Both sculpted by Remy. The men at arms were digitally scanned and heavily reworked by mantic's 3d guys though.
I really don't know what to think about that. Did they show any of the original sculpts before they were reworked?
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Post by: Polonius
BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Look at the trolls. People paid a lot of money based on two sketches that Mantic admitted ditching in favor of some design backers never saw.
I know hte story of the trolls. I just don't consider what they did "unthinkable." It's shown a lack of maturity on Mantics part that they didn't have more communication between the end of the KS and now, because a lot of the drama could have been avoided.
But... those sketches were just that: rough sketches. Anybody that paid a "lot of money" based on those sketches should have realized what they were doing.
I get that a lot of these scuplts are bad, or at least not popular (I rather like the trolls myself), so I see why people are upset. However, I think that a lot of the anger towards mantic, especially the effort to twist what happened in to fraud or some other malicious act by Mantic, is more a reaction to failed greed than anything else. Hear me out on this: near the end, people weren't bidding because they were long time Mantic fans or people excited by the product. It was seen as a huge windfall for gamers, a ton of models for cheap. And so we all pledged based on sketches and a wildly uneven track record. Now that we see what we get, we're all trying to paint ourselves as victims.
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Post by: overtyrant
Polonius wrote: BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Look at the trolls. People paid a lot of money based on two sketches that Mantic admitted ditching in favor of some design backers never saw.
I know hte story of the trolls. I just don't consider what they did "unthinkable." It's shown a lack of maturity on Mantics part that they didn't have more communication between the end of the KS and now, because a lot of the drama could have been avoided.
But... those sketches were just that: rough sketches. Anybody that paid a "lot of money" based on those sketches should have realized what they were doing.
I get that a lot of these scuplts are bad, or at least not popular (I rather like the trolls myself), so I see why people are upset. However, I think that a lot of the anger towards mantic, especially the effort to twist what happened in to fraud or some other malicious act by Mantic, is more a reaction to failed greed than anything else. Hear me out on this: near the end, people weren't bidding because they were long time Mantic fans or people excited by the product. It was seen as a huge windfall for gamers, a ton of models for cheap. And so we all pledged based on sketches and a wildly uneven track record. Now that we see what we get, we're all trying to paint ourselves as victims.
^ This. I rather like most if the sculpts and with the exception of a few of the kits they have been well received from what I can tell from the various forum's/social media sites I visit. It's just the vocal minority that likes to beat there cheast so they can be heard, over and over and over again.
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Post by: judgedoug
nkelsch wrote: judgedoug wrote:nkelsch wrote:So Mantic's fantasy orcs now explain the failures in their models with GW's 40k psychic resonance for fungus men fluff?
Where did anyone from Mantic say this? Or did some random person on a forum say it and you are using it as a basis to attack Mantic directly somehow?
A member of the bucket brigade said it... Same way they said the Ogres have no genitals hence the horrible knock kneed poses.
Okay, so Mantic didn't say it, so don't attribute it to them. If you're going to criticize or attack a company, don't do it by criticizing a random person's facetious interpretation.
nkelsch wrote:
"These bizarre contraptions consist of a wheeled platform crammed full with eager Morax at the front, pushed by two gores..."
There's Morax on a platform, and Gores push them directly forward. That model isn't a broken concept, it's a PERFECT EXECUTION of the concept. FFS.
The fight-wagon cannot function the way the model is designed and it is a terrible model. Fine as a chariot, lazy and stupid as a '2 models one kit' design. The 'fluff' describes and impossible piece of technology which would fishtail and crash the way it is currently built and be impossible to drive. If they had build a cart with steering and rear-animal pushing which actually function, they might be ok... but they lazily thought turning a chariot around was 'hey now we are like GW and make dual kits too!' The fight-wagon is an unreasonable, indefensible model. It looks fine as a chariot, it looks like a 5-year old assembled his model wrong as a backwards chariot as a fight-wagon.
While the Celestial Hurricanum may be a silly pointless contraption, it is at least a valid horse-drawn wagon which won't immediately crash and implode upon being pulled by horses. You can't steer a chariot with fixed wheels from behind, especially by dumb animals. It simply isn't possible with the way that device is designed. But if ' GW sucks too' is the bucket you need to carry mantic's water in, more power to you. Most people didn't pay GW based upon concept art and don't have to now consider a refund due to a terrible model. That is the difference between 'poor models' by GW and PP and mantic... People can choose not to buy PP and GW's flawed models opposed to already having been stuck funding them with poor execution.
Let me look at my Orc army.... let's see. I have a giant, which is a physical impossibility for a biped to be that large. I have a wyvern, who cannot physically lift it's own weight with the wings provided. I feel it is less far-fetched to have armored boars pushing a platform with Orcs on it. I suppose it's about as realistic as the Celestial Hurricanum, as that thing - well, no, you're wrong on that - as it actually would immediately crash and implode upon being pulled by horses, as it's so stupidly top heavy and absurd... unless there's also some Celestial Magic Shocks and Celestial KarlFranzium Suspension with some sweet Celestial Nuln All-Terrain Tires. Or maybe they only bring it out to fight on perfect asphalt pavements and only move it at 2 miles per hour. In a straight line. And there's like 20 guys on scaffolding holding it up.
And don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say ' GW sucks too!!1!', as that would imply I thought the Fight Wagon sucked. Which I quite like it and am looking forward to putting it my army. I specifically brought up the Celestial Hurricanum because it's total, total gak and as impossible - if not more so - than the Fight Wagon. It's one of the many models from 7th/8th Empire releases that will never, ever go into my Empire army, which spans from 3rd on up (just as I have no horrible, horrible barefoot monkey Empire soldiers - the worst plastic figures ever made - as I much prefer the monopose leads and 5th/6th plastic multipose soldiers). The point was, if a model is designed poorly by a team of retards and it looks like gak, then I won't buy it. Celestial Hurricanum is one. Y'know what else is? Those fething Mantic trolls, which are a huge disappointment to me. But this is the third time I've said that to you but you seem to think I am some giant Mantic defender.
Now, It's easy to point to GW as examples because most people know the armies and designs - and if you bother to look, most of their warmachines and odd contraptions make even less sense (Doom Divers? Trollslayer Axe-thrower war engines? Eagle Chariots? Uhh... the entire Skaven army? The steam tank, which would collapse under it's own weight, or blow itself apart the first time it fired the cannon?!) Of course, this is probably all explained by the all-purpose Hand-Wavium magic of some sort (I can certainly understand that for my 10k+ points of Tomb Kings) But, I can certainly use other examples... well, hell, all of every Steampunk thing ever. Most of anything made for any Weird War 2 game. Do you want me to go on? Pretty much everything not rooted in actual history falls under your oddly-Mantic-specific physics criticism.. .and even then we could argue that it would be a "physical impossibility" for Blighton's Regiment of 1641 to have coats with blue dye because there was no blue dye where the regiment was raised, or something.
And, finally, people can also choose not to buy any of this stuff. You _do_ realize the vast majority of backers got all these releases for free, as stretch goals? And you do realize that currently Mantic is allowing every backer to pick and choose what they want - again - before sending the figs to them? All of these models are not available for purchase, they are being shown to the backers so they can choose which ones they want (from any _extra_ money they put in).
So, what was your Kings of War pledge? How much did you pledge _extra_ for these models?
Edit: there was no concept art for the Fight Wagon, btw.
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Post by: Azazelx
Basically, Mantic probably need to slow the feth down with all the Kickstarters already and concentrate on bringing quality products to market, rather than fast products to market. Hopefully the negative feedback on the models that didn't match the concepts and/or turned out crappy will just be "growing pain"-type speedbumps as Mantic start to hopefully mature as a company and get some stronger Art Direction. Calling the troll concept art "glorified napkin" sketches is also disingenious at best. The concept art (armoured and unarmoured) was of high quality and they took in a lot of money based on the promise of them looking as shown.
On the new(ly shown) models:
* The Fight Wagon was an unexplained concept. It turned out a bit stupid. I'll just assemble mine as normal chariots. Problem solved.
* Orc Chariot is uninspiring but ultilitarian. Not an exciting model by any means but it does what it says on the tin. Not really a problem.
* Paladin cavalry look great. I'm surprised since so much of the other stuff has been so hit or miss.
* Men at Arms are still bad. I think there's also a bit too much "Remy did good work but others screwed it up"-type defence/canonisation of Remy. He may be their best sculptor, but he's clearly not infallible. Especially with Mantic's focus clearly being speed (and launching more Kickstarters) rather than hardlining on quality.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
The fight wagon should just be built as a normal chariot, but with the carry "basket" area reversed. The idea being the boars go full tilt and crash into the enemy with the orks holding on. When they hit, they use the momentum to launch themselves into the enemies ranks, hacking and slashing as they go. That's how I would do it.
The Paladin's look good, but you'd need to check the arms to see if they have long arm syndrome. I also am thinking that the reins are all one piece instead of separate straps, so they'll need to be modded.
I like the goblin characters. A little too GW, but that's how it is. Well sculpted though. Not so hot on the Dark Elf ones.
Men at Arms are still bad... I was going to be in for around 150-200 and a bunch of other stuff, but now need to go for Ogres instead. Sad about that, as I wanted to use them to proxy an Empire army. Oh well. The Paladins might be ok in foot and mounted versions, but unless I really have the other figures as well, it doesn't make much sense to do so.
Hope we can see the gargoyles and the like with tonights update.
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Post by: Azazelx
Well, you can always use Perry figures (or almost anything, really) as Men-At-Arms if the other Basilean stuff appeals.
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Post by: timetowaste85
I feel pretty bad for those that dislike the trolls: I happen to think they look pretty good, even with tiny legs. They remind me of Gwerrig (sp) from David Edding's "Elenium" series-a misshapen troll with tiny legs. Hmmm...fits it in my book. So I like them-I can, however see that they're not for everyone. Some of the MaA faces are hokey. Bodies are good. Paladins, ridden and on foot, are great. Horses are amazing. Ogres look 1000x better than GW ogres. Sisters arms suck, but hopefully can be chopped down. Cat-horse legs are bad. Elohi, from the partial builds we've been shown are also amazing. Fight wagon and chariot were the same kit, and the fight wagon was described exactly how it looks-how is anyone having an issue with this? Honestly, only stuff I dislike is as follows: werewolf nipples, cat-horse legs, sisters arms, couple MaA faces, and eh on the TK model.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Yeah I am looking at alternatives. Going to see if I can't get some of the Rackham Lion army pre-paints. Otherwise, a Wargames Factory Samurai army is also another possibility.
It's likely I will just focus on using the Ogres to make an Ogre army. I've got them now, might as well use them.
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Post by: scarletsquig
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Post by: Saxon
I like most of those... the long arm syndrome is very apparent though :(
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Post by: Alpharius
Oh boy...
I can't see many of those making people happy.
On to Deadzone!
(Fingers crossed!)
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Post by: decker_cky
I like the cathorse riders more than I thought I would, and like the chariot less than I thought I would. Elohi are pretty good. Mawbeast riders are pretty good. Immortal guard are good aside from the shields. Harpies are great. Golems are great.
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Post by: Schmapdi
 Alpharius wrote:Oh boy...
I can't see many of those making people happy.
On to Deadzone!
(Fingers crossed!)
I dunno - I think the Golem is pretty nice. And the angels seemed to have turned out ok.
Panther chariot is disappointing, there is nothing for the nuns to hold onto! I guess that's why they have those long arms - so they can reach the very low sides of their chariots. And oy - the face on that vampire!
Also - apparently the Basileans are delayed until shipment three which is in August.
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Post by: pretre
I don't think they look too bad. A little weird, but can't beat it for the price. On the other hand, selling off my KoW will help pay for my Deadzone. It is a vicious cycle.
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Post by: overtyrant
Dislike the Sisterhood and Abyssal Dwarfs but LOVE everything else especially the Golem and Angels, oh my lol!
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Post by: highlord tamburlaine
Cathorses are starting to grow on me. I know my kids would probably like some, minus the riders though. Same with the mawbeasts.
I'm liking the looks of the golems. Will be getting some at retail since I missed the kickstarter.
Angel dudes look like they're packing a lot more detail than their cohorts though.
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Post by: nkelsch
Why are clearly painted models being shown in black and white?
I have changed my mind on that golem. It may end up in my Dungeon Bestiary set.
Cathorse is bad, Angels have odd proportions which make them look like they have tiny heads. Everything else is 'ok', but people don't buy 'ok' models at retail... so unless your business model is to take KS money, make models for just the KS and then retire to Miami, These don't set up a strong model line for retail longevity.
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Post by: scarletsquig
The long arm syndrome is going to be a bit of a pain in the arse to fix, will have to snip off the forearm, trim it down, then reglue and smooth over the join.
Some of the necks also look too long, but with seperate heads, that's an easy fix. I see the nuns as a work project, in that they'll take an extra couple of hours of modelling time for me to be happy with them. That's fine, though, it's an easier fix than the M@A heads which will require replacement heads or some funky GS work.
I rather like the panthers, personally, don't see the issue with them. Chariot looks great, too.
Angels look great except for the paintjobs... gonna have proper flaming swords of doom on mine,not blue popsicles.
Gargoyles and Obsidian Golems turned out well, not quite sure what is going on with the fleabags and immortal guard though.
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Post by: overtyrant
nkelsch wrote:Why are clearly painted models being shown in black and white?
I have changed my mind on that golem. It may end up in my Dungeon Bestiary set.
Fleabag riders, Immortal guard and Golem are just sprayed.
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Post by: Da Boss
I like the fleabag riders! Kinda cartoony, but there's a lot of motion in the poses. The Immortal Guard look as crappy as all the abyssal dwarves. Angels are okay, not great because I think something with big wings like that shouldn't rank up. Gargoyles, harpies and golems are all alright.
The cathorses are weird. On the one hand, proper cats would make pretty poor mounts I'd imagine, but on the other, there's something off about those models.
The Nuns are still giraffe necked and gorilla armed, sadly.
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Post by: Saxon
Mawbeasts riders look exactly how I thought they would. Heads of Immortal Guard will fit perfectly with original release but the shields look weird. Panthers will look much better black as well!
15753
Post by: Schmapdi
The more I look at them, the more the heads of the Angels look very Bowie-esque.
So have we seen everything save the shipment three stuff now?
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Post by: overtyrant
So far the vast majority of the KoW figures are looking really good, am well chuffed.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Oh, and something easily missed:
- If you're happy to wait for August for all of your remaining minis to be shipped, send mantic a message via kickstarter and they'll delay the shipment and throw in "something shiny" for you.
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Post by: Alpharius
overtyrant wrote:nkelsch wrote:Why are clearly painted models being shown in black and white?
I have changed my mind on that golem. It may end up in my Dungeon Bestiary set.
Fleabag riders, Immortal guard and Golem are just sprayed.
Say what?
Is that like the opposite of "pants"?
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Post by: Da Boss
I think he means "spraypainted", it's not some mystery slang
44183
Post by: decker_cky
scarletsquig wrote:Oh, and something easily missed:
- If you're happy to wait for August for all of your remaining minis to be shipped, send mantic a message via kickstarter and they'll delay the shipment and throw in "something shiny" for you.
Shiny and signed. I'm in no rush to get my models, so I'll likely take this path.
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Post by: nkelsch
Da Boss wrote:I think he means "spraypainted", it's not some mystery slang
Just seems odd, the gargoyle looks to have distinct 'tones' of grey which makes it look like a BW of a painted figure, same with the dwarves.
If they plan to show unpainted or 'primed and inked', they may get some better feedback.
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Post by: decker_cky
Schmapdi wrote:The more I look at them, the more the heads of the Angels look very Bowie-esque.
So have we seen everything save the shipment three stuff now?
The abyssal dwarf dragon breath thing hasn't been shown, and I think it was shipment 2.
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Post by: judgedoug
nkelsch wrote: Da Boss wrote:I think he means "spraypainted", it's not some mystery slang
Just seems odd, the gargoyle looks to have distinct 'tones' of grey which makes it look like a BW of a painted figure, same with the dwarves.
If they plan to show unpainted or 'primed and inked', they may get some better feedback.
I think the Gargoyle is greyed because it's like three different resin colors. The Immortal Guard you can very definitely see the spray paint blobs from a quick primer spray.
Agree on prime + ink; or just gesso on the unprimed base models.
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Post by: RoninXiC
Those arms... those necks ...
So sad :(
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Post by: judgedoug
Mixed feelings update - love the mawbeast riders, they will fit absolutely perfectly in my goblin army, so I can retire the awful melon head GW wolfriders I've been using.
Immortal Guard look pretty much like their metal originals, but I just don't care that much. Will get swapped to the Abyssal Dwarf player in my group... same with those golems. Love the look of them, but don't have use for them. I like the gargoyle/harpy models, I'm hoping there's several poses.
Surprisingly like the panther cathorse models. It seems like the entire Basilean range looks like they're based on a non-existent cartoon. The chariot is dumb. Elohi angels look great, with a stupid popsicle sword. The one on the right does have a tiny head, oddly enough.
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Post by: timetowaste85
Elohi are amazing! Glad I'm getting 9. Most of the cat-horses ended up being decent; one looks bad, but the rest of the legs look fine. I'm okay with them. Long arms/necks on sisters still hurt though. B+/A- for the Basileans as a whole, which I'm okay with. No army comes out perfect with nothing wrong. I can deal with a few extended arms/heads that can likely be cut down.
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Post by: overtyrant
I just think it's taken them far to long to get these pics out 'officially' to us. Some of them have been on the net for yonks like the gargoyles and Golem. Why are we only just seeing them? I think they handled the last part poorly. Oh well as my old man says, 'a man that makes no mistkaes makes nothing'. I just hope they can learn from how they handled this last part and move forward for futre KS.
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Post by: NAVARRO
overtyrant wrote:I just think it's taken them far to long to get these pics out 'officially' to us. Some of them have been on the net for yonks like the gargoyles and Golem. Why are we only just seeing them? I think they handled the last part poorly. Oh well as my old man says, 'a man that makes no mistkaes makes nothing'. I just hope they can learn from how they handled this last part and move forward for futre KS.
I would prefer the opposite, that they took 10x times more time to develop something better and I just hope they really dont do another KS anytime soon and concentrate on improving first.
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Post by: decker_cky
NAVARRO wrote:I would prefer the opposite, that they took 10x times more time to develop something better and I just hope they really dont do another KS anytime soon and concentrate on improving first.
Not that I don't think they should create more of a delay between Kickstarters, but Mantic has clearly gotten better at dealing with Kickstarters with each one they run. If you remember the actual KoW campaign, Mantic was flat out scrambling to put together quick concept art as stretches were met. Meanwhile, in Deadzone, it's pretty clear that most everything was planned ahead of time, and Mantic arguably may have purposefully stalled the campaign at certain points to manage the success to something they could deal with.
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Post by: winterdyne
The harpy looks like a photo of the master, not a painted mini.
The goblins are definitely also not painted. *cough* Yet.
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Post by: overtyrant
decker_cky wrote: NAVARRO wrote:I would prefer the opposite, that they took 10x times more time to develop something better and I just hope they really dont do another KS anytime soon and concentrate on improving first.
Not that I don't think they should create more of a delay between Kickstarters, but Mantic has clearly gotten better at dealing with Kickstarters with each one they run. If you remember the actual KoW campaign, Mantic was flat out scrambling to put together quick concept art as stretches were met. Meanwhile, in Deadzone, it's pretty clear that most everything was planned ahead of time, and Mantic arguably may have purposefully stalled the campaign at certain points to manage the success to something they could deal with.
^exactly this if you can learn to manipulate a KS you will end up with a very successful one, and I feel Mantic have this experience now with the great success that was the Deadzone KS.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
winterdyne wrote:The harpy looks like a photo of the master, not a painted mini.
The goblins are definitely also not painted. *cough* Yet.
Well get back to that painting table (gets the whip out)
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Post by: primalexile
This is my order and now I am not sure how I feel after seeing everything....
80 Men-at-Arms (including enough to make 20 of them into Crossbowmen)
20 Paladin Infantry
10 Paladin Cavalry
20 Sisterhood Infantry
10 Sisterhood Cavalry
6 Angels
Berosos, High Priest of Basilea
Julius, Angel Hero
Samacris, Angel Mage Hero
Basilean Lord on Lion
Basilean Legacy Book
2 Men-at-Arms Command sets
1 Paladin Command set
1 Sisterhood Command set
I wish the Elohi were helmeted for sure...
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Post by: NAVARRO
Could care less if they are pros at manipulating KS's... They should be pros at releasing quality models first.
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Post by: overtyrant
primalexile wrote:This is my order and now I am not sure how I feel after seeing everything....
80 Men-at-Arms (including enough to make 20 of them into Crossbowmen)
20 Paladin Infantry
10 Paladin Cavalry
20 Sisterhood Infantry
10 Sisterhood Cavalry
6 Angels
Berosos, High Priest of Basilea
Julius, Angel Hero
Samacris, Angel Mage Hero
Basilean Lord on Lion
Basilean Legacy Bookend
2 Men-at-Arms Command sets
1 Paladin Command set
1 Sisterhood Command set
I wish the Elohi were helmeted for sure...
I know its personal taste and all that, but the only thing's I am not a fan of are the Sisterhood (though the calvary and chariot are growing on me, yes I feel dirty  ). The rest that we have seen I really like. Automatically Appended Next Post: NAVARRO wrote:Could care less if they are pros at manipulating KS's... They should be pros at releasing quality models first.
Once again down to personal taste, I like most of what they have produced, so in my eyes it has been a fairly successful KS.
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Post by: decker_cky
primalexile wrote:This is my order and now I am not sure how I feel after seeing everything....
80 Men-at-Arms (including enough to make 20 of them into Crossbowmen)
20 Paladin Infantry
10 Paladin Cavalry
20 Sisterhood Infantry
10 Sisterhood Cavalry
6 Angels
Berosos, High Priest of Basilea
Julius, Angel Hero
Samacris, Angel Mage Hero
Basilean Lord on Lion
Basilean Legacy Book
2 Men-at-Arms Command sets
1 Paladin Command set
1 Sisterhood Command set
I wish the Elohi were helmeted for sure...
You should surely change some of those basilean models into a starter, since I think you include the number models to compose it (would just get you a free chariot).
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Post by: primalexile
It started off with the Basilean Army Deal- $150 (This set contains 6 Elohi, 40 Men-at-Arms, 20 Paladins, 10 Paladin Knights, 20 Sisterhood Infantry, 10 Sisterhood Lancers, and a FREE Sisterhood Panther Chariot.)
I then started talking with Stewart and decided to just do the complete army. It appears I left the Chariot off the list.
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Post by: scarletsquig
I'll probably do a conversion article for the sisters once they arrive.. should be a relatively quick (but fiddly) fix to sort out the necks and arms and get them looking good.
A different colour scheme will definitely help them I think.
I'll be going with a crimson and bone scheme, should look much better. Or possibly orange and white, or muted yellow and blue. Something the reflects the fire/light solar cult background better, anyway.
Probably tanned skin rather than caucasian as well, I get the feeling that the M@A faces might look better in that skin tone, and there's a slight Egyptian/persian style to the whole army too, even the paladins have quite ornate armour.
Official scheme is a bit too "ultrasmurfs" for my liking.. I feel like there's a lot more that can be done with this army if the background and exotic elements are played up.
Definitely going to have some kind of vivid stripes or spots on the cats, too... the smooth fur is just asking for some freehand/ airbrushing.. will be painting mine bright orange to go with the fire theme.
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Post by: primalexile
scarletsquig wrote:I'll probably do a conversion article for the sisters once they arrive.. should be a relatively quick (but fiddly) fix to sort out the necks and arms and get them looking good.
A different colour scheme will definitely help them I think.
I'll be going with a crimson and bone scheme, should look much better. Or possibly orange and white, or muted yellow and blue. Something the reflects the fire/light solar cult background better, anyway.
Probably tanned skin rather than caucasian as well, I get the feeling that the M@A faces might look better in that skin tone, and there's a slight Egyptian/persian style to the whole army too, even the paladins have quite ornate armour.
Official scheme is a bit too "ultrasmurfs" for my liking.. I feel like there's a lot more that can be done with this army if the background and exotic elements are played up.
Definitely going to have some kind of vivid stripes or spots on the cats, too... will be painting mine bright orange to go with the fire theme.
I was thinking of decapitation and mutilation of the neck and arms... slice out a little bit of arm and neck and reglue.... I did see your link to alternative bits which I may consider as well.
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Post by: scarletsquig
You won't need to decapitate, the heads are separate, so quick neck snip and done. Arms will be trickier though.
I'm considering swapping the sisters weapons between the cavalry and foot too... the foot sisters are just standing around, but have these crazy whirling flails, whereas the cat riders are moving at speed and have static upright spears.
Makes more sense to put the crazy whirling flails on the moving cat riders and save the static spears for the static troops... not to mention making them a hell of a lot easier to rank up.
Of course, one of the nice things about the KoW rules is that it doesn't give a damn what weapons the minis have unless there are multiple options specified in the list.
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Post by: Schmapdi
scarletsquig wrote:You won't need to decapitate, the heads are separate, so quick neck snip and done. Arms will be trickier though.
I don't think it would be that bad - snip off the hand, file down the baggy sleeves a bit, make a greenstuff trim to cover the damage, glue the hand back on?
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Post by: Azazelx
That's fine if you're doing one model because you want to. The fact that you need to do that to both arms for 10, 20, 40, 60 models to be able to use them without wincing is just fethed up.
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Post by: primalexile
 Azazelx wrote:That's fine if you're doing one model because you want to. The fact that you need to do that to both arms for 10, 20, 40, 60 models to be able to use them without wincing is just fethed up.
I agree and if they were not included in the army deal I would probably substitute everything Sisterhood with Paladins.
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Post by: Schmapdi
Azazelx wrote:That's fine if you're doing one model because you want to. The fact that you need to do that to both arms for 10, 20, 40, 60 models to be able to use them without wincing is just fethed up.
Oh, I agree. I'll be waiting till tomorrow to see if we get any more previews - but then I'll be filling out my survey and dropping them in favor of mounted paladins/etc. Mostly because I don't think I'd be able to sell the sisters for anything. (Because without the sisters, my enthusiasm for the Basilean army has largely evaporated).
But still, as far as conversions go, it doesn't seem that onerous - anything will be obnoxious if you repeat if 100 times!
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Post by: scarletsquig
Oh, and something to keep in mind for the fleabag riders...
They're riding mawbeasts, Metal mawbeasts currently cost £25 for 5, restic ones (the fleabag riders) cost half that, or a quarter of that if buying from the KS.
So optimal solution for goblin players to avoid buying expensive metal units =
1) Buy tons and tons of fleabag riders.
2) Use the mounts as mawbeast packs
3) (optional) Get some third party mounts to use for the goblins instead (lotr wargs are rather nice).
Just thought I'd mention that since mawbeast packs are one of the more fun units from the goblin list.. they're small, cheap, fast and hit really hard. Excellent screening/ war machine hunter/ wave 1 suicide units.
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Post by: Azazelx
Is this the last of the KoW reveals, or will there be another one before their PM closes down?
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Post by: scarletsquig
This is the last reveal, these are all the pics they have.
The Elf/TK cav and remaining heroes are late.
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Post by: Azazelx
scarletsquig wrote:
Just thought I'd mention that since mawbeast packs are one of the more fun units from the goblin list.. they're small, cheap, fast and hit really hard. Excellent screening/ war machine hunter/ wave 1 suicide units.
They appear to be the KoW analogue for Squigs in the goblin force? Automatically Appended Next Post: scarletsquig wrote:This is the last reveal, these are all the pics they have.
The Elf/ TK cav and remaining heroes are late.
OK thanks. Time to get my gak sorted then.
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Post by: Bolognesus
Hmm, even those cats are sort of starting to grow on me. shame 'bout the riders' arms, though - those are still quite gakky. The immortal guard shields are a bit goofy but will probably paint up AOK, aside from that they're really just what I want from my evil dwarfs
The fleabag riders are actually pretty damn nice - could have done with an extra pose for the mawbeasts though I guess this is ok.
The golems are pretty much what we've already seen - I got some extras and I'm happy I did so
The gargoyles I'm not sure about - gotta see how they do painted up as bits of stone before rendering judgement
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Goblin Fleabags are good, Immortal Guard are meh, Gargoyle is good, Obsidian Golem still excellent, Lady Illona what happened to your face?, Panthers actually better than what I originally thought (could still do with some conversion work), Elohi I am not sure about, will need to look at when they come in.
I will see how easy/hard it is to score a win from the Panthers. Sisters on them will likely be ditched, and some kind of armour made for them perhaps, so I can resculpt the poses to make them look different. Will use my fleabag freebies as Mawbeasts it seems if I ever make a Goblin army.
I am now glad I changed from Basilean to Ogres. I won't have an Empire army to play anymore, but I can now make the majority of a large force of Ogres. Swings and roundabouts I guess.
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Post by: greenskin lynn
 Fenriswulf wrote:Goblin Fleabags are good, Immortal Guard are meh, Gargoyle is good, Obsidian Golem still excellent, Lady Illona what happened to your face?, Panthers actually better than what I originally thought (could still do with some conversion work), Elohi I am not sure about, will need to look at when they come in.
I will see how easy/hard it is to score a win from the Panthers. Sisters on them will likely be ditched, and some kind of armour made for them perhaps, so I can resculpt the poses to make them look different. Will use my fleabag freebies as Mawbeasts it seems if I ever make a Goblin army.
I am now glad I changed from Basilean to Ogres. I won't have an Empire army to play anymore, but I can now make the majority of a large force of Ogres. Swings and roundabouts I guess.
the vampire is kinda buck-toothed, yea
i find myself wondering how hard it would be to turn the golems legs into armored troll legs, if i don't come up with a better solution to the trolls that skipped leg day
i think the cats would look noticeably better with a different paintjob
the goblins are nice
overall, i'm happy with my freebies (i only went with a basic pledge, and didn't swing for any extra bogos or anything, since it was my first kickstarter)
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Post by: Da Boss
I hope mantic learn from the amount of pledge switching how important quality control is. I really wonder if they'll make a.y profit off those nuns. Also, why is everything they release painted blue? Are we in Mantic's Blue Age?
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Post by: lord marcus
Da Boss wrote:I hope mantic learn from the amount of pledge switching how important quality control is. I really wonder if they'll make a.y profit off those nuns. Also, why is everything they release painted blue? Are we in Mantic's Blue Age?
Not everything they release is blue. The basilean studio army color scheme is blue/white. The undead studio color scheme is blue/red, etc.
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Post by: greenskin lynn
 lord marcus wrote: Da Boss wrote:I hope mantic learn from the amount of pledge switching how important quality control is. I really wonder if they'll make a.y profit off those nuns. Also, why is everything they release painted blue? Are we in Mantic's Blue Age?
Not everything they release is blue. The basilean studio army color scheme is blue/white. The undead studio color scheme is blue/red, etc.
mantic is in the third age, the blue age
next will be the red age
followed by the lavender age
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Post by: Cyporiean
I look forward to the Plaid age.
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Post by: greenskin lynn
thats scheduled to follow the bedazzled age, as a step back to sanity
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Post by: Da Boss
Off the top of my head, Basileans are blue, Undead are (incongruously) blue, Forgefathers are blue, some of the dreadball teams are blue, I've seen blue Enforcers, blue Dwarves and blue elves in official photos at various times.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Yeah, the blue red combo really doesn't work for undead. I have no idea who over at Mantic is stuck on blue, but they need to go for something else in the spectrum!
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Post by: scarletsquig
The orcs were painted with blue armour to start with too. In fact, pretty much the entire orc release was an exercise in making fantastic models look terrible.
Also, the issue isn't so much blue as it is cobalt blue. Lots of different shades of blue out there, no need to stick to a bright default primary colour.
They appear to be the KoW analogue for Squigs in the goblin force?
Yep, rather like them myself.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
I can't remember who's undead it was, but they did a green/yellow colour scheme, done in quarters on the shields and cloth. Looked really really good, and worked really well with the undead look. I think it's just the blue/red combo being too bright for the models.
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Post by: scarletsquig
^ That would be Hybrid Alpha's undead:
He also did a rather good job of making the mantic elves look awesome, by running with the fae theme:
I still maintain that the elves are good sculpts. They're not out-of-proportion (aside from looking lanky, which is fine). and are loaded with really nice detail.
The only mistake was trying to sell and market them as "not- GW high elves" instead of "creepy otherworldly faeries".
The background, theme, art direction and presentation is vitally important to selling miniatures, it's one thing that Mantic still aren't much good at, creating atmosphere or something interesting to catch the eye that marks their stuff out from the crowd.
It's not an artist-driven company.
If you look at stuff like Kingdom Death, the minis are largely incidental, all of the stuff mentioned above is what sold it. If there was no art, no background and there was just a webstore with "naked woman with rock #1", "naked man with lantern #2", "giant baby monster", sales would be practically nothing.
Azazelx wrote:
* Men at Arms are still bad. I think there's also a bit too much "Remy did good work but others screwed it up"-type defence/canonisation of Remy. He may be their best sculptor, but he's clearly not infallible. Especially with Mantic's focus clearly being speed (and launching more Kickstarters) rather than hardlining on quality.
Nope, not water-carrying for Remy. I don't always quote sources (especially if it's something I read/saw a *long* time ago), but here's one I can offer: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/6mm-scale-armies?c=home
We are an established wargames company with our own range of metal and resin miniatures (as well as unique plastic bases), whose sculptors also have experience doing freelance work for other companies such as Mantic Games (several model kits including Dreadball robots, plastic Fantasy Men At Arms, and Deadzone plastic scenery tiles / promotional video).
I don't know where ScarletSquig got his info, or if it's correct or not, but he claimed that the Hordes/Trollblood sculptor did the KoW trolls.
Tried and failed to dig up a link for this, but the greens were posted on the sculptor's blog about 6 months ago. Some other french guy, not Remy.
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Post by: Pacific
Wow bit of a monster haul here of new releases - my take on these, for anyone who actually cares!
Goblin riders 7/10
Would have liked at least one sculpt with its mouth closed and not catching flies, but actually think they look pretty cool. I like the more fine-featured Mantic goblins, they look a bit more snivelling and evil like than the GW ones (and actually more like the older GW goblins)
Abyssal Dwarves 8/10
Evil Dwarves! Really look like these have some more detail on them, what material are they made from? Very cool style really like the concept for these guys.
Gargoyle Thing 7/10
Guess it's ok, I can imagine it moving in some kind of Harryhausen stop-gap way so it gets +1
Golem 6/10
Little bit dull, don't think the black and white does it any favours but it's a little non-descript . Maybe with it painted in a kind of stone with lava-like lighting coming through the cracks and the vents in its helmet would make it look much cooler?
Vampiress 4/10
Possibly a bit of a harsh score, but the concept art for her was awesome (looked just like a Warcraft character* I had for years) and this model looks like the kind of thing that jumps in front of you in the taxi queue post-club on a saturday night.
Doubly disappointing as I can't really think of a vampiress miniature by anyone that doesn't look goofy!
Cat cavalry 7/10
Am I allowed to like these? I actually think they look quite cool and charming, and there is nothing else like them on the market. The combat-nuns look well sculpted also. Think I would paint these as different species of cat
Cat chariot 6/10
Not as good as the above
Paladins 8/10
Think these look ace, having these guys taking on ogres or trolls at close range I think would look kind of cool on the tabletop!
* In fact, I get a distinct 'WoW vibe' running through a lot of Mantics models. Not just the stylings, but also the background of things like the orx (where they are a persecuted race). Anyway, it's a nice distinctive fantasy look that is perhaps proving that there is space for 2 mass combat fantasy systems.
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Post by: Alpharius
I fully appreciate that tastes differ - I really do!
But I am shocked at how well received these models are here.
Especially the cat cavalry!
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Post by: AlexHolker
 Pacific wrote:Vampiress 4/10
Possibly a bit of a harsh score, but the concept art for her was awesome (looked just like a Warcraft character* I had for years) and this model looks like the kind of thing that jumps in front of you in the taxi queue post-club on a saturday night.
Doubly disappointing as I can't really think of a vampiress miniature by anyone that doesn't look goofy!
The main problem with Mantic's vampires is that they seem to think it is incredibly important to show off the fangs, even though it looks stupid every time they do it. A vampire can still be instantly recognisable as a vampire even if their mouth is shut, thanks to little hints like a pale skin tone, unearthly pose or leading a shambling horde of corpses.
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Post by: scarletsquig
A random, but very welcome piece of good news:
- Mantic Orcs have been reduced in price by 25%.
Orc Ax used to be £25 for 30, they're now now £25 for 40.
Orc Greatax used to be £20 for 20, they're now £15 for 20.
Bunch of new releases went up today, looks like they're going with a "horde box" as their new standard infantry box (after they phased out the troop boxes last year), with a price of £25 for 40 minis.
Or, to put in in USD terms, $40 for 40 minis.
They've also released a bunch of new army boxes for undead and orcs which are a better deal than before, with better unit variety, at £50, £100 and £150 price points.
The £50 boxes give you a 33% discount off RRP.
The £100 and £150 boxes give you 40% off RRP.
All the new releases here, these will be sold to trade as well, so you can get some seriously affordable full armies with good unit variety:
http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Advance-Orders/Advance-Orders-Kings-of-War.html
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Post by: Azazelx
Anyone know what the RRP is going to be on that goblin trio?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
And are they metal or restic?
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
Looks like I'll be buying a lot more Wargames Factory minis with my spare $20/month.
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Post by: Da Boss
I wish these models had been available when I was in university, I would have been all over them. Now I've got more disposable income, I'm a little pickier. Some great deals there though for people who want to get into Fantasy wargaming on a budget.
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Post by: judgedoug
Azazelx wrote:Anyone know what the RRP is going to be on that goblin trio?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
And are they metal or restic?
I think all the KoW characters are in metal.
I would guess 19.99 for the 3 based on other multi-character sets. I added the set to my pledge, as I'll be getting it earlier and free shipping than ordering it from an online discounter. Automatically Appended Next Post: scarletsquig wrote:A random, but very welcome piece of good news:
- Mantic Orcs have been reduced in price by 25%.
This is Great News!
And not facetiously. Mantic Orcs are the best orcs on the market, imho. I wish I had a reason to buy more, but I've already got like 100 ax, 60 greatax, 40 morax, 30 gore riders, plus tons of characters, all painted up. They're my favorite army to field, and they were a joy to paint. I wish the rest of their line were as good, and I really wish they'd be able to release the sniffs/archers in a proper plastic sprue and/or re-do the ax sprue so it has the morax options too.
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Post by: RoninXiC
It's a shame their Goblins are super weak and have extremely soft details.. I'd love to start a full Mantic (Night-)Goblin army if those problems didn't exist :(
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Post by: privateer4hire
BobtheInquisitor wrote:Looks like I'll be buying a lot more Wargames Factory minis with my spare $20/month.[/quote
Awesome. Wargames Factory have some great stuff.
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Post by: Duncan_Idaho
The vampiress suffers heavily from the paint-job she is not that bad, but the cats-stuff is sub-standard and I wonder how someone justifies a score above 2-3. There are so many issues, starting with the reins.... giraffe necks... etc.
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Post by: Azazelx
Vamp's main issue is the long, stretched face that she has. Well, that was what stood out to me and stopped me looking in detail at the rest of the model. The platforms instead of stirrups are another WTF thing about the cathorses.
Aside from bitz-vendoring lions from the GW HE chariot,
is there another cat cavalry model out there somewhere? Not even Reaper seems to have anything that fits the bill. It's a good idea, just not executed particularly well.
As for the argument that all female Vampire miniatures look goofy, as a defence of the Mantic figure, Avatars of War, Reaper, and yes, even GW would like a word with you...
Kroot lists several more good ones.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/369076.page
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Azazelx, not that I've seen. Unfortunate as I was looking forwards to them as well. I might be able to get a win from the cat horses, but I am thinking it's going to take a lot of work.
The Lion Hero's mount is pretty awesome, but buying multiples of those? Dunno, you'd need to mod each of them so they all didn't look the same.
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Post by: Azazelx
Yeah, that Lion hero is made of awesomesauce (might need some dentistry, though). I'd rather they took an extra 6 months to resculpt the KoW models to bring them in line with that kind of quality, but I guess Mantic is choosing to always be pushing the next Kickstarter instead of shoring up the previous ones with top-end quality and "good enough!" sculpts.
Just look at the DeadZone (or KoW) Mawbeasts and compare them to those Maxmini ones just shown.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
I very much doubt that's going to happen unfortunately. I've gone with what I think is my best possible options, and I have to leave it at that. It gets me a really big Ogre army, and the possibility of trading out stuff I don't want for things I do with other kickstarter pledgers, but yeah I don't think Mantic is going to run out and resculpt some of their lesser good looking miniatures anytime soon.
I am hoping this is a good lesson for them. Better sculpted miniatures last the distance longer because they sell well to make back the money invested in their construction. You put out stuff fast and while it gives you a lot to sell, it's not always going to be a long lasting or best seller.
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Post by: Azazelx
Oh, there's clearly no chance of that happening. I did a ton of juggling and dropping BOGOF choices so that my pledge has all of the remaining models that my wife and I liked enough to pay BOGOF prices for, and hers has the Official Ogre army, along with books and such, for a final end-feeling of "It's alright, I guess." I'll revisit my feelings when they turn up in the post and I have them in hand, but I've done all I can for now.
On the topic of quality>more product, I wonder how well their skeletons/ghouls/.etc are selling these days?
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Post by: Da Boss
I can see issues with supplying so many ogres, because the amount of times I've seen someone say "I'm changing over to Ogres" would make me really nervous if I was mantic. Likelyhood of the market being flooded with Ogres as well as dirt cheap Basileans and so on is very high, and I do wonder what is the maximum threshold for people to continue to buy that kind of stuff.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
I have no idea, but I can imagine the resale on a lot of the kickstarter items are going to drop really quickly. Some of them will do well (Lion Hero, Mincer, Ogres), but others are going to do poorly.
I have delayed receiving mine till August, even though I have dropped my Basileans, just because it cuts down the cost of postage for Mantic, and I have enough miniatures on my hands as it is.
If anyone else is interested in trading in Australia, we should set up a thread about it. But that's for another thread.
On another note - Hooray for cheap toys that can be used as stand-in's for GW miniatures. Going to buy some McFarlane Toys Tuskedon's to use as Thundertusks, and will likely grab some Scibor Ogre Rhino's for Stonehorns. Anything to get away from buying from GW, even if the Scibor ones aren't so cheap. Both should work out to the cost of one box set of the Stonehorn/Thundertusk, so it's all good. Mantic Ogres look like they'll be able to be interchanged easily enough. I think I will consider it a challenge to make them look different from each other, considering there is only 3 body types and 4 different sets of arms (not counting Command or Hero).
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Post by: Azazelx
Well, there are only(!) 1600 backers for KoW - which is a lot, but not a huge drop in the WHFB bucket. Of the ogres that get sent out to backers, I'd say a lot will be actually used for WHFB/ KoW i.e: the "I guess I have an Ogre army, now." effect - and a substantial portion will end up where most miniatures do - unpainted and thrown in people's drawers and in boxes hidden in closets, sheds, garages and so forth.
And yes - I kept some Basiliean Paladins mounted and on foot and the angels as BOGOFs while ditching the men-at-arms, cathorses and sisters. Surprising, eh? 
But hey, it's a problem not only of Mantic's own making, but made as a result of deliberate choices. If the sisters and cathorses sell like the Elves and dragon riders, then they might re-examine their quality control a bit harder for the next KS.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yeah, I dropped mine to August for the same reason. I figured that my 3 current projects are unlikely to be finished before then anyway. And I'm trying to go through and finish off some of the endless random figures that were started years ago and then put aside as "interesting" things between the 3 larger-scale projects.
Of course, August is when I expect Bones to arrive as well. It's going to be a big month for toy soldiers.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
I am likely to see what it's going to take to salvage some of the models. Like the trolls, I don't mind the upper body. I am going to see if it's easy enough to make some lower body legs and different heads and try to work them in with the Rackham ones I have. It's a bit drastic, and as you said, yeah there's a large chance I just stuff them in a drawer and forget about them, as sad as it seems.
I should have pledged for Reaper bones. Didn't keep enough of an eye on it. The dragons they have in there are awesome, and so many of them so useful for so many armies.
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Post by: Da Boss
Sometimes I feel like that about all the Mantic KS and the Bones one, but I have enough to be getting on with and have sort of put my money into true 28mm enough these days to consider changing to that entirely.
It's a bit of a pisser to have to resculpt the legs though. I really think they need a critical voice in Mantic telling sculptors or designers when they need to start again.
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Post by: scarletsquig
^ They don't really have a core of artists within the company though, Ronnie is an expert businessman, not a creative, and probably thought the trolls/ sisters etc. looked pretty good.
They have an efficient team of full-timers managing the warehouse, supply chain and marketing, but mostly scattered temp. freelancers doing all the creative work, sculpting, illustration, writing background. This actually works pretty well for rules since either Alessio or Jake is tasked with a particular system and everything to do with that system, which keeps things nice and coherent.
As a result, they don't really have a house style, sculptors and artists largely bring their own style to the table and take it from there. They'll get one eventually, in time... just not yet.
Even Remy isn't immune, the ogres are knock-kneed because it's traditional in french comic books to have large monsters in that pose...so french sculptors emulate it a lot (see Rackham etc.).
The best thing they can do is post more WIP work and not be afraid to change it based on feedback.
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Post by: Azazelx
They simply need to hire a strong Art Director with the power to refuse payment to freelancers for sub-par product. Even as a part-timer to begin with. It'll save/make them more money in the long run than the uneven product they have been putting out. They don't even need a house style at this stage, just someone with some knowledge and a critical eye.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And some idea of anatomy and proportion
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Post by: scarletsquig
Mike McVey was Art Director for Mantic Games, up until October 2012.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/mike-mcvey/5/156/54
Also, freelance contracts are a minefield. I do commissions (mobile gaming stuff), and take cash in advance. If something needs changing, that's an extra charge, client can't come back and say "do it again" without breaking the contract. Any successful freelancer very quickly learns to have some teeth, right after the first time a client screws them over.
I'd imagine sculptors work under the same terms. The nice thing about having full-time staff is that you can just say "do it again", without any messing around.
In fact, they recently hired a new full-time sculptor and his first job was to fix the deadzone marauders... he did a pretty good job of turd-polishing, to be fair, but there's only so much he could do with such a flawed set of initial sculpts.
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Post by: Alpharius
This is the kind of thing that 'holds them back', more or less.
It HAS to be obvious to Mantic.
They've got a real opportunity to make some serious inroads into the whole SF gaming world with Deadzone and Warpath.
They HAVE to these two 'right' though...
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Post by: Azazelx
Well, that's a truly interesting find. I guess we can blame Mike for either being asleep at the wheel or not having the authority to say "No! Do it again!" Given that timeframe, I'd guess he was in the role as either a part-timer or consultant. Not that this forgives the poor stuff that came out (or was designed for KoW) on his watch.
Perhaps he was having regular flashbacks to his original sculpt of Lemartes which was also considered "good enough" to release by GW...
 Automatically Appended Next Post: scarletsquig wrote:
Also, freelance contracts are a minefield. I do commissions (mobile gaming stuff), and take cash in advance. If something needs changing, that's an extra charge, client can't come back and say "do it again" without breaking the contract. Any successful freelancer very quickly learns to have some teeth, right after the first time a client screws them over.
I'd imagine sculptors work under the same terms.
It really depends on what quality control is made clear and expected upfront. I used to paint miniatures for commission, and if I suddenly decided to half-arse it and feth it up, the onus would be on me to provide "fixes". It would of course be a different story if the client changed their mind and wanted the Blood Angels symbols changed to Flesh Tearers. For the sake of this discussion, I'll skip the trolls, since we don't know what the final concept art looked like, but things like the elongated arms and shovel-hands on the nuns are simply unacceptable as work-for-hire.
It also reveals the worst part about their accelerated-by-kickstarter release schedule that they seemingly have no plans to back off on. gak that shouldn't be keeps getting released. If the internets didn't kick up a huge stink about those DZ Orx, we all know they would not have been changed. At all.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Yeah, I think it's a two way street when it comes to sculpts. You can't just drop a bad sculpt on someone and keep expecting payments to fix the problems of your design in the first place. Otherwise freelancers could stretch it out for ages, and the manufacturer has to keep throwing good money after bad to get it sorted.
Fully agreed on the Art Director though. They definitely need to have someone with an aesthetic eye for detail and an idea of how a unified force will look, and then get in the sculptors to do that. Even if it costs a bit to get the really good ones, do it. That makes the miniatures even better to have on hand, because once you've made the mould to begin producing, that's it, you're committed.
Seeing them go towards 3d design is both good and bad. It's fine for cylindrical and flat shapes, but it is really bad for organic looking miniatures. The Enforcer series will look good, but more organic or human looking ones often suffer.
I guess it's a matter of decisions. I am thinking they are more set on having a lot of stuff out there to sell so they can have a bigger line to fall back on, rather than having fewer but of better quality and more options. It might be good in the short term, but kind of burns you on the long term.
An example is the Mantic Skeletons sprue (and Revenant sprue). Ton's of options, really fantastic sculpts, and a host of weapon choices and poseability options. The restic ones just can't compare, and it looks like the new Men at Arms one won't either from their showing of what's on the sprue.
Rapid expansion isn't always great, as it can leave you a mile wide and an inch deep when it comes to your primary objective - Selling good looking miniatures at a good price. You could make a lot of the latest KoW sculpts dirt cheap and I still wouldn't buy them.
In any case, they're learning. The Deadzone Orx is an example of that, though if I was going to keep my pledge, I would have wanted a complete resculpt. Hopefully they stay on the right track of things when it comes to the Warpath one.
Edit: Oh Lemartes... Always assaulting wind tunnels with a banner pole
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Post by: Taarnak
Fenriswulf wrote:Yeah, I think it's a two way street when it comes to sculpts. You can't just drop a bad sculpt on someone and keep expecting payments to fix the problems of your design in the first place. Otherwise freelancers could stretch it out for ages, and the manufacturer has to keep throwing good money after bad to get it sorted.
Agreed. Especially if what you deliver only resembles the concepts you were given in the broadest sense.
Fenriswulf wrote:
Fully agreed on the Art Director though. They definitely need to have someone with an aesthetic eye for detail and an idea of how a unified force will look, and then get in the sculptors to do that. Even if it costs a bit to get the really good ones, do it. That makes the miniatures even better to have on hand, because once you've made the mould to begin producing, that's it, you're committed.
This is so true. Lots of us have been asking where the art direction is for awhile now. Even in the Deadzone KS there is mis-match within the shown sculpts. I like the Plague well enough, but the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Gens all look like they came from different lines. And I doubt I need say anything about the Marauders.
Fenriswulf wrote:
Seeing them go towards 3d design is both good and bad. It's fine for cylindrical and flat shapes, but it is really bad for organic looking miniatures. The Enforcer series will look good, but more organic or human looking ones often suffer.
3D design is fine for organics if you have someone with the knowledge and experience to do them right. Troublemaker Games (whom I believe are currently doing all of the Mantic digital work) are still relatively new though, and still figuring organics out.
I really like Mantic as a company, and the individuals that I have corresponded with from there. I really, really want them to do well, but they need to clamp down on these issues sooner rather than later or they are going to have a very hard time of it.
~Eric
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Post by: Pacific
I think there has been a definite improvement from Mantic, if you look at their earlier offerings compared to those now. Agree they still have some way to go (in some cases) when compared to GW, aside from all comments about such things being subjective (I love that older Lemartes sculpt for instance! )
And, if one acknowledges that GW isn't the top of the pile, some way to go still further until they can reach the likes of what CB and McVey are producing (although arguably those are for a different market).
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Post by: Dysartes
I still don't see what the problem was with the DZ Orx (assuming we're referring to the greens shown at the Open Day).
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Post by: timetowaste85
 Dysartes wrote:I still don't see what the problem was with the DZ Orx (assuming we're referring to the greens shown at the Open Day).
We must be in the minority-I like them too. Then again, I'm not sure if I've seen the Open Day shots...I saw the minis on the kickstarter and really liked them. I'll take everybody's ripper suits, please. Then again, I also like the KoW trolls. So, I'm probably further into the minority.
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Post by: willb2064
I'm relatively happy with what I'm receiving from my pledge. I opted for a large a undead army consisting of existing models (which are still Mantic's best IMO), and I'm now getting a large Ogre army which were the best models to come out of this KS, and a small Balisean Paladin force. I had originally gone for all Basilean's, but have dropped almost all of them as it seems many others have done.
I'm also a fan of the Trolls, but I'll just stick to the 3 free ones I'm getting. The rest of the free models will be chucked in a box somewhere waiting to be sold.
Mantic's sculpting looks to have improved significantly in the last year, but they still suffer from a lack of art direction and inconsistent quality. If they aspire to be something more than just a cheap GW proxy (which I'm pretty sure they do), they need to fix this ASAP.
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
Mantic has had a fair degree of criticism over it's official painting, so do you think you can do better ?
if so they are recruiting (from facebook)
Mantic is recruiting again! We're looking for a studio painter and hobby specialist - the kind of person who can paint an army for display in a short space of time, but who can also turn out some beautiful pieces for close-up photography. If you think you've got what it takes, check out the Careers section of the Mantic website and get in touch!
http://www.manticgames.com/Careers/Studio-Painter-Hobby-Specialist.html
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Post by: Azazelx
Following the posts about Remy in the Sci-Fi thread, I checked out his blog and found a series of wonderful piuctures of the KoW KS Paladins. Just the sort of stuff we were clamouring to see for the longest time from Mantic - and much clearer shots than the KS provided.
If anyone wants to see them, here's the direct link to the post.
http://remytremblay.sculpture.over-blog.com/article-paladins-kow-mantic-117759372.html
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Post by: adamsouza
judgedoug wrote:
The Orc Chariot is a multipurpose kit that can be assembled as a Chariot or a Fight Wagon.
Since all you need to do is reverse the facing of the crew/animals, all Chariot kits are now multipurpose !!
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Post by: scarletsquig
Those were posted ages ago in this thread, people had concerns about scale creep for a page or so until I explained that they're deliberately sculpted too large because restic shrinks.
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Post by: Da Boss
I forgog you'd posted thyt, that is good news.
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Post by: RiTides
Polonius wrote:As for quality, I think we're all a little disappointed. Not much we can say about that, but about half of these kits are deeply flawed. But then again, nobody is disagreeing with that.
As long is this is clear, I'm not worried.
When I'm looking for alternate models to GW, I'm looking for good ones. Red Box Games. Dreamforge. Imbrian Arts. I'm open to almost anything.
But I agree with Polonius' above statement. The only thing that I may actually pick up is some golems, possibly to convert for use with my FW chaos dwarfs (as I am planning a lava-rock theme for my k'daii). Other than that... I fully agree that "about half of these kits are deeply flawed" and that "nobody" is (or should be) disagreeing with that... this was not a well done project by Mantic, there's not much more to be said about it beyond that, imo.
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Post by: Azazelx
scarletsquig wrote:
Those were posted ages ago in this thread, people had concerns about scale creep for a page or so until I explained that they're deliberately sculpted too large because restic shrinks.
I didn't remember them when it was Pledge Manager time, and the shots shown on the various "compilation" websites and blogs didn't have any of those shots, so we were guessing how they looked as individual models from the unit shots where the blue knights all sort of ran together visually.
That's also a fair bit of shrinkage needed to get them to the same scale as the Undead...
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Post by: scarletsquig
Quick bit of news:
- The Kings of War Starter Box is being reduced in price by 20% for the next 3 months only, £40 instead of £50 .
£40 for 95 miniatures, rules, dice and mantic points (You get 8 in the box, if I remember correctly).
20 Plastic Skeletons
10 Plastic Ghouls
20 Plastic Zombies
5 Plastic Resin Wraiths
20 Plastic Goblin Spitters
15 Plastic Orc Ax
5 Plastic Resin Gore Riders
Orclings
Mantic Points
 
Definitely a good time to pick it up if you have any interest in the game. The two armies are equal points out of the box.
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Post by: Pacific
Does anyone know when the new range of KoW stuff will hit stores, as opposed to the Kickstarter? Got me eyes on some o them trolls..
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Post by: Saxon
Pacific wrote:Does anyone know when the new range of KoW stuff will hit stores, as opposed to the Kickstarter? Got me eyes on some o them trolls..
28th June.
http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Advance-Orders/Advance-Orders-Kings-of-War/Product/Trolls-3-Figures.html
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Post by: highlord tamburlaine
Hopefully we'll be seeing some of those models trickling into the states sometime in July then.
I wouldn't be adverse to picking up a few of the new figures.
I'm curious when we'll start hearing about the return of Dwarf King's Hold. Wasn't that supposed to be the next project on Mantic's plate once they get everything else dealt with?
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Post by: Pacific
Is that wishful thinking highlord tamburlaine, or something you have heard a rumour about?
I really like DKH, think it's got some great mechanics and is a lot of fun. It's also ridiculously cheap, and while that has no doubt help it sell, it does make me wonder what Mantic could do if they re-released an upgraded version in 2013; They've now got the supply chain in place to do better tiles, a greater variety of better quality miniatures, really nice printed rulebook - certainly the potential is there to do a proper boardgame D&D/Heroquest equivalent. I think a lot of gamers would pick it up in a heartbeat, even if it were priced at £50 or so.
Thanks very much for that!
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Post by: Riquende
Pacific wrote:Is that wishful thinking highlord tamburlaine, or something you have heard a rumour about?
It was mentioned at the open day. It's been a while so I can't remember how definitive it is, but I think we all came away with the impression that Mantic's 2nd Kickstarter of 2013 would be a new version of Dwarf Kings Hold. Not sure there were any further details but you'd have to expect they would be using the funds to make some decent components. On the Mantic forum I speculated that they could try and make a fantasy version of the Deadzone tiles to enable large dungeon construction.
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Post by: Pacific
..That would be incredible!
Although I hate to think how much a full dungeon's worth would cost.. not sure if it has ever been done in plastic before, although I know there was a KS recently for a similar kind of thing?
I suppose there would be a large area of cross-over with the board gaming fraternity, much as with Deadzone
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Post by: highlord tamburlaine
I think I had read on Jake's blog a while back that his plan for the next iteration of Dwarf King's Hold would be bringing back the necromancer/ dwarf angle, but having something of a co-op style going for it in the vein of games like Ravenloft and its ilk.
I think straight up Deadzone style pieces wouldn't be the best thing for them to do. I think good old cardboard tiles would be for the best. My personal hope would be something like the old Necromunda catwalks. Using Deadzone type sprues of parts to prop up tiles at various elevations.
Throw in campaign rules, stretch goal warbands and extra tiles, some kind of loot/ treasure counters... you got yourself a recipe for a pretty good kickstarter.
Maybe they could even toss in a few extra sprues of whatever figures they want to get rid of...
Pure conjecture on my part though. We'll wait and see what the future holds.
I am impatiently curious to see as to who is going to truly fill the void left by Heroquest/ Warhammer Quest first- Mantic or CMON. Neither of them have tried their hand at the big epic fantasy boardgame yet, and judging by the numbers that Myth and Kingdom Death have pulled in, those types of games SELL.
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Post by: Azazelx
Tiles comparable (or even compatable with) games like Descent and/or Ravenloft would be the best way to go, along with either 2-part push-fit plastic miniatures like the stuff we've had in 40k starter boxes for awhile or one-piece figures (again - look at Ravenloft or Descent - or WHFB starters.) Even the current Mantic Orc sprue is good enough to work here.
Getting some new high quality hard plastic to fill in an updated boardgame would also do them well in KoW. Multi-part restic isn't such a good idea, though.
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Post by: highlord tamburlaine
Azazelx wrote:Tiles comparable (or even compatable with) games like Descent and/or Ravenloft would be the best way to go, along with either 2-part push-fit plastic miniatures like the stuff we've had in 40k starter boxes for awhile or one-piece figures ( again - look at Ravenloft or Descent - or WHFB starters.) Even the current Mantic Orc sprue is good enough to work here.
Getting some new high quality hard plastic to fill in an updated boardgame would also do them well in KoW. Multi-part restic isn't such a good idea, though.
Having truly compatible pieces might be tough due to how those games have a game- specific interlocking mechanic to them, but maybe something like those D&D tilesets from a few years back? Those are still the one inch spaces, but they didn't have the jigsaw piece patterning on the edges.
I definitely agree with you that those figures need to be as simple as possible if they want to get a game like this into as many hands as possible, hobbyists be damned.
Maybe something along the lines of the scientist pledge from Deadzone would work.
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Post by: Azazelx
Well, essentially they could make them compatible easily enough - just pick one (of Ravenloft or Descent) and make the jigsaw pieces the same. (The two games have slightly different pieces). Theoretically the Scientist level pledge could work, but what they lok like in practice is yet to be seen - though the theory is sound. Do the Orcs in green plastic and the dwarves and Elves or whatever in red, blue, yellow... similar to second edition BloodBowl/DungeonBowl.
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Post by: Baragash
I don't believe it's a revamp of any sort, just that DKH4 will allow people to play co-op like WHQ, Heroquest etc.
Use of Kickstarter might allow for better quality boards I hope.
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Post by: NewTruthNeomaxim
 highlord tamburlaine wrote:I think I had read on Jake's blog a while back that his plan for the next iteration of Dwarf King's Hold would be bringing back the necromancer/ dwarf angle, but having something of a co- op style going for it in the vein of games like Ravenloft and its ilk.
I think straight up Deadzone style pieces wouldn't be the best thing for them to do. I think good old cardboard tiles would be for the best. My personal hope would be something like the old Necromunda catwalks. Using Deadzone type sprues of parts to prop up tiles at various elevations.
Throw in campaign rules, stretch goal warbands and extra tiles, some kind of loot/ treasure counters... you got yourself a recipe for a pretty good kickstarter.
Maybe they could even toss in a few extra sprues of whatever figures they want to get rid of...
Pure conjecture on my part though. We'll wait and see what the future holds.
I am impatiently curious to see as to who is going to truly fill the void left by Heroquest/ Warhammer Quest first- Mantic or CMON. Neither of them have tried their hand at the big epic fantasy boardgame yet, and judging by the numbers that Myth and Kingdom Death have pulled in, those types of games SELL.
Honestly, I really do think that will be Kingdom Death. Assuming its rules work, even if there are obscene amounts of them... It has every chance to lock-down the whole co- op campaign system sub-genre. It has aesthetics... it has an insane volume of random events, loot, etc... I've definitely been one of those who most urgently wanted a WHQ for the modern-age, and while I think Myth will be fun (albeit pretty light from the looks of it), I think KD:M has the best shot at scratching a very specific itch.
That said, a good "endless" campaign game, dungeon-crawl in part hinges on "volume" of possible content... and one thing Mantic does very, very well, is volume.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Kingdom Death is tits, ass and gore.
It most definitely is not a casual generic mass-market fantasy dungeon crawler board game.
I'm hoping that DKH4 will seen as a good excuse to give KoW some new hard plastic, but I'm not holding my breath, it'll most likely be another restic thing, possibly with hard plastic 3D modular dungeon tiles as the main "draw" for the game, more than the minis themselves (same as how the terrain was the star of deadzone more than anything else).
That's not a bad thing either though, imagine the contents of the dwarven forge KS sold as low-priced hard plastic sprues instead.
As far as I'm aware, absolutely no-one currently produces a modular hard plastic "dungeon builder" kit, so there's a definite gap in the market to be exploited there.
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Post by: Alpharius
If anyone will eventually be able to give us "Warhammer Quest" again, well, it probably won't be GW, so...
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Post by: adamsouza
I'd be happy with high quality card stock floor tiles.
Mage Knight made plastic snap together modular dungeon tiles. They were great for those that have them, but it get's expensive pretty quick to make large dungeons.
People who have that kind of money to invest in dungeons are already using Dwarven Forge and Hirst Arts Stuff, I imagine.
Just give us some additional rules and better quality components and they'll sell themselves.
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Post by: scarletsquig
^ Mage Knight ones were overpriced pre-paints that weren't all that good, and were only sold for a year or so before being dropped like a stone, like pretty much all other wizkids products at the time (I bought into mage knight dungeons in a big way).
Actual hard plastic sprues for dungeon tiles would be highly affordable, and I disagree with the "everyone who wants it will buy resin or cast their own" sentiment.
There is always a market for *anything* that you're going to want to cover a table with to be as affordable as possible, and affordability is a factor for people who do have lots of money too... it allows their plans to be even more ambitious for the same amount of investment.
Or the money saved can be used to hire a commission painter, etc.
I sometimes wonder how many people realise that they could get a mantic army + professional paintjob for their money instead of one GW army on the sprues.
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Post by: adamsouza
The MK Dungeon Tiles were neither prepainted or terribly expensive. They did require a significant investment to cover a table with, which was my real point.
Dreadzone plastic terrain is not cheap. If you were to cover the table with it, using it for floor tiles as well as walls it would become significantly expensive.
Since Dreazone Terrain is Mantics plastic modular terrain system, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume a similar price point for a dungeon themed terrain set from them as well.
Thick laminated floor tiles, like D&D 3/4E, or Space Hulk, would be durable, more affordable, and get the job done, while keeping the board game in a box mentality of DKH. .
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Post by: Pacific
 adamsouza wrote:
Dreadzone plastic terrain is not cheap. If you were to cover the table with it, using it for floor tiles as well as walls it would become significantly expensive.
It's relative though I suppose. It's significantly cheaper than some of the ForgeWorld stuff, to use an extreme example, and in the same way I'm sure Mantic plastics would be much less than any resin equivalent.
In any case, might be nice to have the option for those that want it, then some high-quality card stock as an alternative?
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Post by: Da Boss
I would be happier with affordable and easily stored card tiles than more expensive and bulkier plastic. I really like DKH, although I have barely played it really, and part of the reason for that is that it is easily transportable.
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Post by: highlord tamburlaine
I don't know if GW would ever do Quest again. It would cut into the money their other lines make. At least that seems to be the view they operate under these days.
Kingdom Death will most likely scratch that campaign itch, but isn't as family friendly as I would like it to be.
I think Deadzone's campaign will give us an idea at least of how Mantic might approach an ongoing system.
I personally would prefer good quality tile. I still like the idea of plastic scenery/ accessory sprues to spice up the board.
Plus the crazies could get a Brian Blessed dwarven hero from the getgo to keep them quiet, and then I could start planting hints at Mantic HQ for my reptilian agenda, and sprues of hard plastic lizardmen that aren't Aztecs or low^ tech mindless savages.
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Post by: adamsouza
You know, I would be tickled pink if the boxed game came with high quality cardstock tiles and plastic accesories, while they also sold modular plastic tiles for those hard core enthusiasts.
Or, a roll out mat for the dungeon floor and plastic tiles for the walls and doors.
I just really, really, really, don't want to buy the dungeon floor in 3 inch squares.
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Post by: scarletsquig
^ That's probably the most likely approach.
Both Dreadball and Deadzone had a choice of three different materials for their boards, each one a step-up in price and quality.
Card, MDF, Acrylic for Dreadball.
Paper, rubber and hard plastic for Deadzone.
I went for the SW board for deadzone since plastic board + plastic terrain = awesome. And I can paint it in a colour that isn't grey.
Also, Ogre Army is now up for sale, looks pretty sweet for £50:
Compared to the GW battalion, it has 3 more ogres for £15 less. Considering that the ogres are one of the few things that GW makes that can be considered to be reasonably priced, that's not bad at all.
I'll definitely pick up a Mantic ogre army, looks like a nice quick side project that doesn't require much effort to assemble and paint.
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Post by: judgedoug
New update, wave 2 is shipping - everyone's free gargoyles and immortal guard got delayed til August but to make up for it, everyone's free fleabag riders and brock riders get doubled.
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Post by: winterdyne
These are now up for advance orders on Mantic's site (which means I can now show my photos!):
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Post by: judgedoug
Oh excellent! Those are restic? Hot damn!
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Post by: Pacific
And, let me be the first to say, those look really great! (+edit+ curses Judgedoug.. )
Really like the little details on them, like the packs attached to their saddles etc.
And the mounts look cool also, kind of like some kind of wolf/critter hybrid.
Really nice paintjob as well by the way!
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Post by: winterdyne
I also painted up archer torsos for these, but I didn't get pictures of those myself. I really need a dedicated photo area and I was struggling to get good shots. Moving studio soon I think, so stuff like that should be doable.
Yeah, they're restic for the most part. Some metal heads and components for the command group. I actually prefer the restic components though.
The lower legs are moulded to the mounts, yes, with a nice socket for the upper torso. Very easy to magnetise to swap out for mounted heroes etc. Not sure how they're being packaged but where there's a will there's a way...
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Post by: judgedoug
It looks like the legs/lower bodies are molded to the fleabags?
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
The Trolls are defiantly out in the wild now for non-KS buyers as I've just had my shipping email for them
and I like those fleabag riders, not so keen on the beasts (good paintjobs though, just not the minis for me)
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Post by: judgedoug
Spotted: the giant Ogre army set includes Ogres on chariots, and wagons full of powder kegs (suicide chariots?)
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
Powder Kegs ?
No, it sounds like the must have 'wagon of beer' vital for all Dwarf armies
Bring out the drunken dwarves!
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Post by: RiTides
I think those riders / cavalry are OK, but the paint job is really good!!
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Apparently there is also a web exclusive ogre veterans pack for the miniatures? Be interested to know exactly what they're talking about.
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Post by: judgedoug
Top, you can see Ogre Chariot and the "red Goblin Blaster" (powder keg wagon)
Also if you look closely these goblin archers are not quite the current plastics. I am wondering if they got remolded.
Anyway this is from the Grokagamok's Granite Fists online army deal.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Those archers are definitely the current plastics.
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Post by: judgedoug
Think so? Their heads are turned to the side.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Yep.. current plastics, for reference (old pic from over a year ago):
It's possible that a bit of kit-basing was done on the models to get the neck reposition, they do look a lot better like that than they do glued with the heads facing forward in a marching pose.
I often do this with mantic minis (which more often than not have the opposite problem of minis that should be facing forward looking over their left shoulder).
Odds of a hard plastic kit getting re-tooled is slim-to-none, for anything other than perhaps the "fantasy with googles" warpath minis.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
I had thought the goblins were getting redone due to how badly they turned out? Wasn't this one of the things Mantic was going to do with the line, or am I mistaken?
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
"We will absolutely make changes. That is not the final model."
I do not think those words mean what Mantic thinks they mean.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Mantic have never said that the goblins were being remade at any point. It'll likely happen at some point in the distant future (more likely that we'll see a spear/rabble sprue first, not based on the existing archers).
They're aware of the problems with the archers, know why it happened and are making sure it won't happen again (they're also changing the restic recipe for anyone curious, the new stuff is apparently harder, dark grey, less prone to warping and holds detail better), but the odds of getting a sprue retooled that they already sunk £20k or so into last year are slim. I'll get some Basileans on sprue next month and will be able to let everyone know if China has half-arsed the tooling on the sprues again.
For the time being they've lowered the price on the range (£3 was knocked off of the spearmen and rabble kits several months ago), and that's all that's likely to happen for a while in terms of hard plastic.
They're getting the new characters, fleabag riders (and sniffs), Trolls and Mincer to bulk out their army list next month which fills out the range quite nicely (everything other than artillery and monsters).
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Post by: Azazelx
BobtheInquisitor wrote:"We will absolutely make changes. That is not the final model."
I do not think those words mean what Mantic thinks they mean.
Which model(s) was that in reference to?
Is that Ogre chariot the same model as the Orc one, but with an Ogre crewman? Anything that's an equivalent in an OK army?
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Post by: Pacific
Fenriswulf wrote:I had thought the goblins were getting redone due to how badly they turned out? Wasn't this one of the things Mantic was going to do with the line, or am I mistaken?
It would be great if they were - I don't think the sculpt of the archers was that bad, but just the quality of the finished miniature was terrible - I exhausted my patience making 5 of them, let alone a full unit!
Hopefully Mantic learned from using that caster and won't make the same mistake again..
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Post by: judgedoug
Those are definitely not the plastics (I've become quite intimate with them, having painted over 200 of them). Those are most likely resin or metal masters, much like the full metal spearmen (which I also have a bunch of).
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Post by: scarletsquig
Yes, mantic uses resin masters to paint for the official pics, for almost all of their minis.
I was simply stating that the gobbos in the ogre army pic are the same ones we've been seeing in all other promo shots so far.
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Post by: winterdyne
The models I have painted and shown on the KOW front, with the exception of the gargoyle lord have all been production samples- test shots out the production moulds. Full production models should be a little better, but these were generally ok to good. Certainly nothing I felt approached finecast levels of disappointment.
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Post by: reds8n
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/26103.html
We were struck by the success of Mantic Games’ Deadzone, which raised over $1.2 million in a recently completed Kickstarter project (see "'Deadzone' Joins Million Dollar Club"). A second game, DreadBall, raised over $728,000, and two other Mantic Games raised six figure amounts as well. We spoke to Mantic community manager James Hewitt about the company’s experience with Kickstarter and how it’s interacting with the trade release.
Why don’t you introduce our readers to Mantic?
Mantic has been going since 2009, so about four years now. The company started out with a very small group of people who wanted to branch out and make some alternatives in the war game industry--some affordable models that look really cool,; that people wanted to collect but didn’t break the bank. A lot of the large companies were increasing prices for the same kind of thing and we wanted to do something different.
From there and a very small range of models, we’ve built up over the years and we’ve now got a fairly sizable following across the world.
Tell us about your first Kickstarter projects.
Our first Kickstarter started about this time last year and was called Kings of War. It’s the one where we learned how the Kickstarter process works. That was a campaign that was bringing some new life to an existing range of models we had. The Kings of War product was our flagship product that we first launched.
We had a series of miniature ranges. With the Kickstarter last year we expanded those in a fairly substantial way. Normally, we were putting out a couple of new models here and there, but with the Kickstarter we launched 22 new kits, which is a huge number for a miniatures company. We’re bringing them out over the next three months.
We’ve gone full circle with the Kickstarter campaign. We started off around June of last year and here we are June of this year actually releasing that product.
So Kings of War is shipping now?
The Kickstarter backers should be receiving their's at the start of July. It’s shipping from us at the end of June. So far it’s all been pretty much on time, which is really nice. It’s worked really well for us.
Ronnie [Renton], our CEO, just pointed out to me that Kings of War is in the top six on the CNN Kickstarters that were delivered on time. That’s my stat for the day.
What did you learn with that first Kickstarter about how to engage with your customers and get them involved?
The big thing we learned from the first one was that as soon as we promise something, we’ve got to deliver on that. Listening to customers, listening to what they want, and then working out which things are the ones to go with is really important. What we’ve found throughout the other Kickstarters as well is that you’ll get a very vocal minority, as is the way with the Internet, but if someone is saying something after two or three days, it’s probably still an issue. We were trying really hard to filter out the chaff and just go with the comments that were really popular. And sure enough we ended up with a huge list of models that people really wanted and on the whole have been really pleased with so far.
Are you talking about the figures to include in the base game or as stretch goals or both?
A little bit of both. One of the things we did differently with the Deadzone Kickstarter [was that] our initial goal was quite a bit higher than we had done previously. That’s because we knew we were going to hit a fairly large number fairly quickly. So with the stretch goals, it gave us the freedom to make the stretch goals quite a stretch, quite a cool thing that we could follow on from that.
With our early ones, we maybe set the goal lower than we could have. We could have rolled out the stretch goals more sensibly rather than having that initial rush where we had to put 70 things out in such a short space of time.
You’ve done four Kickstarters so far. The first one has shipped and the rest are all in process?
Yes, the second one we did was DreadBall and the first wave of it shipped in December. We did it in three waves. The first wave was the base game with a few additional teams and some extra cool things. That ran in September and shipped in December. That was real quick turnaround.
We then did a Kickstarter for a game called Loka, which was not produced by Mantis, but by a company called River Horse Games, which is owned by the guy who wrote Kings of War for us. It’s his company so we helped out with running the Kickstarter. That’s now in its final stages of receiving the backer surveys, so that will ship around November. And, as I said, Kings of War is starting to ship. That leaves Deadzone for the end of the year.
So what was the first Kickstarter project that you shipped?
DreadBall, funnily enough. It overtook Kings of War because Kings of War was such a large project. The scale of it was just immense. With DreadBall you had four different teams so about 40 models for the entire range (and for some models you had two of the same kind of thing). [Dreadball] wasn’t as big of a range as Kings of War, so we were able to get that out in time for Christmas in a fairly short space of time.
Did DreadBall ship to retailers also?
It did indeed. As far as I’m aware, we exceeded the amount we made on Kickstarter pre-trade in a very short space of time.
That’s an interesting phenomenon and one of the things we’re most interested in: the relationship between a Kickstarter project and your direct interaction with fans and then what happens in stores afterwards. Why do you think you were able to exceed the number that you were able to ship via the Kickstarter in stores?
It’s a really interesting thing. Because of the way Kickstarter works, you’re almost taking the place of that early investment stage. What’s happening is people are putting their money on it through Kickstarter, and those investors get a return in that they’re getting some cool products, some exclusives, some discounted stuff--that kind of thing--but then when it hits the trade launch, what you’ve also got is an army of people who are already heavily invested in the game.
If you go back to the Deadzone Kickstarter, when it comes to be released in the stores, the little independent retailer, he can see that the game is massively popular, he can see that it will sell because it has done so well on Kickstarter. So he’s not taking as big of a risk by ordering it in. He probably also has people in his store who are aware of it, who know it’s there, who want to play it and are already ordering it for themselves. It instantly generates a community.
With a game that you have funded yourself and released in the traditional fashion, you might be releasing the core game and maybe one or two add-ons. A retailer might look at that and go, "Mmm, I’ll give a go. I’ll try one or two sets and see how it goes." With something like Deadzone where they know it’s already a winner I think it hits retail and it just explodes. Dreadball is a great example. It’s done such crazy numbers since it was released and it’s still growing. You wouldn’t think the game’s only six months old.
Do you typically have retailer levels in your Kickstarter campaign?
Retailer levels are something we brought in with DreadBall (and the products since), where retailers could buy with their usual discount but get some extra freebies as well.
For example, with Loka, the one I’ve been working on, the chess game, we’ve put together a bundle which is their regular trade discount but also several of their sets get bumped up to the sweet spot backer level from Kickstarter so they get lots of cool stuff as well. They’re not missing out on the fun and they can pass them onto their customers.
So when you said your sales to retailers exceeded your sales through Kickstarter, were you including those retailer backer levels?
There’s two things. We’ve got the gaming store backer levels so a store can back the Kickstarter project and get that package with some additional free stuff at the regular trade discount. But as soon as it actually gets into production and we start selling it normally, then it goes through our regular distribution channels. With DreadBall, where we’ve beaten the Kickstarter numbers, that is through our regular distribution channels.
How has Kickstarter changed your company?
It’s grown it massively. We’ve been recruiting, we’ve been pulling new people in. Also it’s really increased people’s awareness of Mantic as a company, especially when DreadBall went out. We get more people looking at our other games as a result of DreadBall. There are so many more stores calling us up saying they’d like to stock our products. As time goes by we’re seeing more and more people who are coming on board because of the press that we’re getting from Kickstarter.
It has been noted that a lot of the game Kickstarters have been for miniature game products (see "Top Ten Tabletop Kickstarters: How They Do It"). What do you think the overall impact of Kickstarter on the gaming miniatures business is or is going to be?
The game industry as a whole is going through a really, really good time right now. There’s a real sense of growth and positivity and new things branching out and Kickstarter is massively to thank for that. Without something like Kickstarter you wouldn’t have people who can come up with an idea, come up with some prototypes and make a product. What’s brilliant is that it scales, so you get small, one-man operations where a guy has an idea, makes something with bits of cardboard [to] make the game and sells a few hundred copies, but also with a company like Mantic--which is still quite a small company, still growing--it gives us the opportunity to go all out and produce something in a really big, gutsy fashion.
DreadBall, for example, if we’d produced with without Kickstarter, we would probably only now be releasing the third and fourth teams from the first season, where now we’re releasing teams four to eight. We wouldn’t have had the confidence to put our product out there and put our money behind it and say, "This is definitely going to sell." Whereas with Kickstarter, it’s a sure bet.
Miniature companies have historically taken a long time to get bigger and once they’re big, they tend to stay there. Games Workshop and Privateer have been on the top of the fantasy and science fiction gaming miniatures lists for years. Now there’s a bunch of companies using Kickstarter to join those ranks. What do you think the presence of Kickstarter does to the competitive situation for miniature gaming companies?
I think it really pushes everyone to be on their "A" game because it’s not a monopoly anymore. There are loads of small companies that have come up in the last few years who have got the chance to really show what they can do and really be something quite big quite quickly.
As you say, 10-15 years ago, there’s no way that could have happened. Now there are so many companies all doing really interesting things and all taking things in their own little directions. Companies like us who are producing our own games, our own miniatures, some are just producing things to be used with other games that are already out there. On the whole it’s grown the industry massively and I think the ones that have traditionally been on top have got to pick it up and roll with the punches, really keep innovating so they can stay ahead.
Where are your new customers coming from? Were they formerly buying miniature game products from other companies, or are they people who have never played miniature games before?
We’re noticing quite a shift. When we first started out our customers were almost exclusively people who had come from other companies, who had maybe seen the prices of things and looked at us that thought, "I’ll try Mantic."
But since DreadBall, we’ve noticed an explosion of interest from board game fans. DreadBall’s a hybrid board game/miniatures game. We got a huge number of people who weren’t interested in miniature wargaming but wanted to pick up DreadBall. That’s infused a lot of new people outside of what was previously our core demographic who are now quite big Mantic fans and who we’ve seen on the Deadzone Kickstarter. A lot of people who came and joined us for the ride on DreadBall have now stayed with us through Deadzone. As a result, one of the things we offered was a board game edition which was pre-assembled miniatures in colored plastic so people didn’t have to build and paint the models if that wasn’t their skill set.
What’s next for Mantic?
We’ve got three months of Kings of War releases; loads of really cool stuff. All that stuff that was funded through Kickstarter is now going out through the regular retail trade channels. It will be available through our Website, obviously through other online retailers as well. So that’s the next three months.
We don’t like doing things one at a time, so we’ve also got the license for Mars Attacks!, which is going to be very exciting (see "'Mars Attacks' War-Game"). We’re still working out what that means--what it’s going to be, what we’re going to do--but whatever happens there’s going to be some miniatures with Martians and army men fighting and it’ll probably be hilarious because it has to be because it’s Mars Attacks!. So that’s the next big thing on our radar.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Fleabag rider sniffs, looking very nice:
And that kickstarter article on CNN listing Kings of War as one of the highest-billing Kickstarters that successfully delivered on time is very nice:
http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/kickstarter-projects-shipping/
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Post by: winterdyne
That is a nice photo... I really need a better photo setup. :-|
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Post by: RiTides
reds8n's article wrote:Ronnie [Renton], our CEO, just pointed out to me that Kings of War is in the top six on the CNN Kickstarters that were delivered on time. That’s my stat for the day.
I think most backers would've preferred they delay and get the product more on-point, than rush and get out an okay to mediocre product on-time, as they have done.
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Post by: Polonius
 RiTides wrote:reds8n's article wrote:Ronnie [Renton], our CEO, just pointed out to me that Kings of War is in the top six on the CNN Kickstarters that were delivered on time. That’s my stat for the day.
I think most backers would've preferred they delay and get the product more on-point, than rush and get out an okay to mediocre product on-time, as they have done.
Maybe. I know I would have, and many here, but I wonder how much of the flaws in the KS units are really due to time crunch. It's not like the pre-kickstarter releases from Mantic are amazing, or even consistently "not bad". The only thing I can hope to have improved would have been some redos on some particularly silly aspects (sister arms, troll legs). But from a business standpoint? I think it's stronger to be able to announce that they deliver on time than make a nebulous statment about quality or customer satisfaction. When they run another kickstarter (and being mantic, you know they will), "ontime delivery" is a compelling pitch.
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Post by: scarletsquig
An interesting comment about what feedback they pay attention to:
What we’ve found throughout the other Kickstarters as well is that you’ll get a very vocal minority, as is the way with the Internet, but if someone is saying something after two or three days, it’s probably still an issue.
So, basically, if something is an issue, make sure you don't stfu about it for at least 3 days. :p
Seriously though, my approach when offering feedback is to spend a very, very, long time writing a comment which goes into great detail and the reasoning behind my thoughts etc. etc. This then tends to result in a lot of other people posting "+1" if it's popular. A lot of people don't have the time to spend half an hour making a comment so it helps if you can try to think of what the core point that you want to raise is and see if you can thoroughly articulate what everyone else is thinking so they can then quickly state "agree with that other guy" and get involved without it taking ages for them to do so. I very rarely raise something directly with mantic unless I'm sure it's a popular gripe/have seen loads of people on Dakka complaining about it first.
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Post by: Azazelx
scarletsquig wrote:
So, basically, if something is an issue, make sure you don't stfu about it for at least 3 days. :p
I think I might be able to do that!
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
I got my (retail) trolls 3 pack though the door today so here's a brief rundown
4 different heads so you get a spare and can make a variety of combinations with
2 different bodies, a real shame this as they could so easily have done a tiny bit of customisation like rivitiing another armour plate over the scar on the back to give 3, oh well I'll have to do it
2 right arms with 'sword and club respectively, 1 left arm with a rock, 1 left arm with an empty hand
1 arm set with a 2 handed club
so you can do a decent bit of mix and match if you want 3/6/9 different figures
The casting quality is good with minimal mould lines
Now a few negetives
Some of the bits are (still) being twisted/pulled off the sprue, one armoured shoulder pad had a chunk taken out of it this way (an easy fix but I wish Mantic could make the caster stop doing it)
there are some mould lines in annoying places across eg across rivits in the armour making them hard to clean up, now this is not unique to mantic and a pretty minor issue here, but again a little adjustment to the masters when they saw where the lines would go could have fixed it
(oh and green square bases, oh how I hate them, but that's just a personal foible)
Overall for what I paid (£12) I'm very pleased with them and when I've painted this lot I'll certain consider another set
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Post by: Barzam
They don't sound too bad. Do they look better in hand than the promo pics?
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Post by: Baragash
I've only had a quick rifle through my package but at first glance I got an "oooh, shiny" feeling from the Golem components, they look nice and chunky.
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
 Barzam wrote:They don't sound too bad. Do they look better in hand than the promo pics?
They look better than the promo pics (but I liked them too), big pumped up torsos and arms, and small less muscular legs (and small heads for their body size, no geniuses that's for sure)
I believe that they 'knuckle walk' like gorillas rather than walking upright like humans and take most of their weight on their arms when they do so which is why they look like they do and think this works well, but I can see why some people don't like the look
You can trim off the loincloth from the less heavily armoured body (the one you get two of) pretty easily and I think that improves the look of that figure quite a bit (i'll try and add a picture later). It also adds more customisation possibilities
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Post by: pretre
Just got my June KS package. Wish stuff was labeled. lol
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Post by: greenskin lynn
 pretre wrote:Just got my June KS package. Wish stuff was labeled. lol
oh boy, a large unlabeled box of wonder
hope mine gets here soon
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Post by: pretre
Yeah, it's bad enough I have to open up the kickstarter thread everytime I'm thinking about my pledge and see what I got. I ended up labelling the baggies and sorting through. I'm assuming that the rest of this is in the next wave since it wasn't in the box.
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Post by: greenskin lynn
i know the gargoyles got delayed til the next package, but i was under the impression the celestian were in this one
edit-looking at the kickstarter update page, it looks like you got shorted some stuff, depending on your pledge lvl
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Post by: pretre
I hope not. I think I may have bogo'd some sisters too.
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Post by: Bolognesus
I believe the palace guard ought to have been in this batch. Seen pics of them on the mantic forums by now for sure, so I think you'd better contact mantic about getting a baggie of those in your next shipment
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Post by: pretre
I just messaged them on KS to find out what's left.
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Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim?
I think I might grab some of those Goblin fleabags as replacements for the horrible old GW Wolf Riders. I'm pretty impressed with 'em.
~Tim?
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Post by: pretre
If you want a discount set, let me know. I'll probably be selling my KoW stuff this weekend.
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Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim?
pretre wrote:If you want a discount set, let me know. I'll probably be selling my KoW stuff this weekend.
What're you selling for?
~Tim?
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Post by: RiTides
 Baragash wrote:I've only had a quick rifle through my package but at first glance I got an "oooh, shiny" feeling from the Golem components, they look nice and chunky.
Pics needed those Golems are one of the few items that really tempt me... I am very curious about what they look like "in the wild" since afaik there were only a few pics of them from Mantic previously.
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Post by: Baragash
Someone else's pic from the Mantic forum
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Post by: timetowaste85
Things are definitely missing from packs. Elven palace guard are supposed to be, so message them: I got mine. However, when SS mentioned we could contact for additional minis added to the ogre amounts from BOGOs, I did email stew about it and didn't get the extras sent. I'm also missing ten cavalry bases and wound counters. Looking through, I'm pretty sure that's all I'm missing. They sent an alert that all Basileans were shipping in August except the elohi. I got my elohi, waiting on the rest as expected. I'm just going to ask my extra stuff that got missed be sent with them, as I don't need them to make an emergency rush shipment for 6 missing models and 10 bases.
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Post by: RiTides
Baragash, thanks! What size base is that? The golem and the ogre both are looking great as expected.
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Post by: Cyporiean
That looks like a 50mm base
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Post by: timetowaste85
I think the golems are supposed to be on 50mm. I have three 50mm bases, and the golems are the only 3-of model groups. RITides, I don't think I'm gonna start an abyssal army, so if you have an interest in a 3-man group of golems, give me a yell.
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Post by: Grot 6
RiTides wrote:Baragash, thanks! What size base is that? The golem and the ogre both are looking great as expected.
40mm bases.
These guys are small.
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Post by: timetowaste85
Having built 17 ogres tonight, I gotta say I'm very happy with them. They have a different feel than GW's, and I think they're a lot better. Instead of being a caricature of an obese Asian, they look more bestial, more primal. The gun arms go on easily enough and aren't difficult, and the single HW arms are obviously easy too. They rank up very well as well. Now for the bad: the great weapon swords are awful. The hands are poorly positioned and they do not meet up at all. Some people will be disappointed, but I mostly wanted hand weapons and I'm not too upset. I have enough leftover great axes to make the weapons without having to use the swords, there is just less diversity. Unless I hack stuff up.
Grade: A-
They're awesome, but the issue with the great swords keeps them from being a perfect kit. I also had no issues with where they were removed from sprues-even the part on the cheek was easily removed on each head.
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Post by: legions_no_more
Just got my package today, and overall I am satisfied with my kickstarter purchase. I think I am missing a few items, but I am going to do a recount tomorrow since I been tired lately getting my apoc force together for this weekend. I think I might give up on the basileans and focus on ogres, cuz they are just too awesomesauce.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Hot water reshaping is essential on some of the restics, looks like it definitely will be needed on the ogre greatswords.
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
I said earlier I'd drop in a picture of one of the trolls with the loincloth removed,
it's easy to do on the two identical less heavily armoured bodies and to my eye improves them (on the armoured body it's going to be too complicated to bother with)
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Post by: Azazelx
I'm also keen to see what Squig's Bones Ogre/Mantic Troll rebuild looks like in the flesh.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
I've seen some comparison shots on the Mantic forum. The troll legs are *tiny*. And the Ogres look not much bigger than Chaos Warriors, which is a bit of a worry, but I will wait till I get them in my hands over here.
A lot of their stuff is going to take a work to get how I want it. I really wish the factory would cut rather than twist off the parts.
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Post by: Gadge
I found this on youtube it has some size comparisons of the new models
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAJ9DL1A0Yw
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Post by: warboss
Wow... those legs are really tiny looking, especially from that angle.
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Post by: decker_cky
Fenriswulf wrote:And the Ogres look not much bigger than Chaos Warriors, which is a bit of a worry, but I will wait till I get them in my hands over here.
This is more the classic size ogres have been rather than the scale GW went with for their new plastics. Won't mix with GW, but as an army should look good.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
 timetowaste85 wrote:Having built 17 ogres tonight, I gotta say I'm very happy with them. They have a different feel than GW's, and I think they're a lot better. Instead of being a caricature of an obese Asian, they look more bestial, more primal. The gun arms go on easily enough and aren't difficult, and the single HW arms are obviously easy too. They rank up very well as well. Now for the bad: the great weapon swords are awful. The hands are poorly positioned and they do not meet up at all. Some people will be disappointed, but I mostly wanted hand weapons and I'm not too upset. I have enough leftover great axes to make the weapons without having to use the swords, there is just less diversity. Unless I hack stuff up.
Grade: A-
They're awesome, but the issue with the great swords keeps them from being a perfect kit. I also had no issues with where they were removed from sprues-even the part on the cheek was easily removed on each head.
As scarletsquig mentioned, the restic does tend to need some hot water reshaping. Put the figure in hot water, the material will soften so you can repose it, then put it in cold water. I find myself actually doing this with any material that can be reposed even when the fit looks good, since it can make for a near perfect fit which doesn't need much (if any) filling. I do the same with any Bones that need assembly, though Bones needs actual boiling water.
Rather than considering the warping a (minor) issue with the material, I now consider the ability to get perfect fits a positive feature. It also allows for reposing, which will be good for a number of these mantic kits with only two legs and two torsos.
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Post by: Duncan_Idaho
And if you have good hair dryer it gets even easier.... just fixed a warped base plate this way.
Quite happy with my parcel I got today.
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Post by: Cryptek of Awesome
I'm confused by this last shipment.
Was it supposed to include the humans and battle nuns, or are they coming in a wave 3 shipment?
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Post by: timetowaste85
Wave 3 in August. It should be in the KS updates somewhere.
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Post by: bbb
The trolls are WAY smaller than I thought they would be.
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Post by: warboss
I'm actually ok with the size of the trolls but I think the issue isn't the size but rather the size OF THE LEGS. If the legs were actually scaled more closely to the rest of the model, they'd likely have the height you're expecting.
Either way, I'm really glad that I chickened out on this being my first kickstarter. While most of the figs they've put out so far are actually nice, the ones I was most excited about (trolls, ogres, battle nuns, angels, and brock riders) have come with characteristics that I'd find visually unacceptable. I much preferred the triceratops dwarf cavalry and they went with the brock variant instead. The nuns have ogre huge hands whereas the large humanoids have nun sized legs... and that paladin armored angel has a ridiculously small head. He looks like he came straight from a scene in beetlejuice!
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Post by: Grot 6
 warboss wrote:I'm actually ok with the size of the trolls but I think the issue isn't the size but rather the size OF THE LEGS. If the legs were actually scaled more closely to the rest of the model, they'd likely have the height you're expecting.
Either way, I'm really glad that I chickened out on this being my first kickstarter. While most of the figs they've put out so far are actually nice, the ones I was most excited about (trolls, ogres, battle nuns, angels, and brock riders) have come with characteristics that I'd find visually unacceptable. I much preferred the triceratops dwarf cavalry and they went with the brock variant instead. The nuns have ogre huge hands whereas the large humanoids have nun sized legs... and that paladin armored angel has a ridiculously small head. He looks like he came straight from a scene in beetlejuice!
We're going to see how they size up with Tre's stuff.
If they don't, I'll be selling the undead army set.
As to the leg issue- they are smaller, and make them look like those things in the old Mario brothers movie, and not in a good way.
Anyone interested in the add ons, pm me and give me a good offer, or a trade if you want. I'll start with the nonundead stuff.
So far I have an orc cart, an oger, an angel, dwarf on a bear, and Tiny the dancing troll.
In pm if interested.
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Post by: Azazelx
Fenriswulf wrote:I've seen some comparison shots on the Mantic forum. The troll legs are *tiny*. And the Ogres look not much bigger than Chaos Warriors, which is a bit of a worry, but I will wait till I get them in my hands over here.
A lot of their stuff is going to take a work to get how I want it. I really wish the factory would cut rather than twist off the parts.
I'll wait and see. I've got a few of the newer OK models, but I've also got a lot of the classic GW metal ogres, so if they fit in with the latter, I'll be happy. The troll legs look like toothpicks.  Automatically Appended Next Post:  bbb wrote:
The trolls are WAY smaller than I thought they would be.
Useful video, but I think I know what I'll be doing when mine arrive (in August/Sept) - some size comparisons to the various GW models.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Saw this idea over on the Mantic forums, and thought some of you might find it interesting or already have the bitz.
Mantic Ogres, GW orc arms. Perfect match. In fact they seem to improve the ogre a little by toning down the size of the fists. Worth thinking about for the ogre berserkers in the army list since they'd look better with bare arms and 2 weapons.
Edit: added the pic rather than linking it.
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Post by: warboss
Can you link the pics here? Apparently you have to be signed up and signed in to view that page.
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Post by: RiTides
That looks good... honestly, the ogres were quite a home run. Or maybe a triple, with the only real downside being the small legs, but arm swaps may lessen that effect. Just wish the rest had been as good!
Although I have worked out a trade for timetowaste's golems, as I think those could be very useful for my chaos dwarfs . Still a little hard to tell on the pics, so I will see when I have them in-person (and likely take some comparison shots).
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Post by: timetowaste85
Well, RITides, the looked pretty kickass sitting in the baggie- I can take them out and text you pictures, if you'd like before I mail them. When I was looking, I kinda kicked myself for not starting Abyssals, based just on the golems, but I really think the individual parts look like they'll be awesome!
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Post by: RiTides
Excellent . I can wait to see them in-hand, I think I need to before I really will know if they will work (for k'daii). Looking forward to it
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Post by: warboss
That does look quite nice... and now we've come full circle. People used to buy Mantic products to inexpensively fix or finish up GW products and now people must use GW ones to fix Mantic heroic scaling. It's the ciiiiiiiiircle of life... I wonder if someone will post one of the armored angels with a head that wasn't shrunken by foul magic.
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Post by: timetowaste85
warboss wrote:That does look quite nice... and now we've come full circle. People used to buy Mantic products to inexpensively fix or finish up GW products and now people must use GW ones to fix Mantic heroic scaling. It's the ciiiiiiiiircle of life... I wonder if someone will post one of the armored angels with a head that wasn't shrunken by foul magic.
I will tomorrow night! I found the solution. I could say now, but it would spoil the surprise. The answer comes from GW though. That's all I'll say. Warboss, if you're in the US, PM me your phone number or your email (which is fine world-wide, obviously) and I'll text you the solution so you can consent to the fix. Otherwise, wait til tomorrow for the unveiling.
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Post by: warboss
Lol, thanks. I appreciate the invite but I wait with the rest of the plebs until you get a chance to post it tomorrow. Thanks for taking the time to try and offer a hopefully cheap and easy fix. Or at least as cheap and easy as you can get now that GW has declared war on bits sellers...
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Post by: timetowaste85
Just hope that I don't forget my computer again. Lol. Otherwise I'll have to mail it to somebody to post for me! The model is fully built though, just have a few mold lines to scrape off to make it nice, but the head is a perfect fit and perfectly in proportion. I have a second head idea as well, but currently won't have it to test until next Sunday. The first head comes one to a kit, so I imagine that head will suddenly go into high demand after tomorrow night.
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Post by: plastictrees
It's the head off Nagash isn't it? Or Fabius Biles bodyguards, about time someone realized the full potential of those diamonds in the rough.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
I had been looking to find something which could be used to replace the arms relatively cheaply, and it looks like the GW orc arms will do nicely.
Thinking I might use the ogre arms for extra arms for a troll. Going to have to sculpt or group together some better legs for the trolls though.
Good find on the arms though! Excellent work!
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Post by: scarletsquig
^ Now there's an idea I might roll with, thanks... shrinking the troll arms rather than trying to convert larger legs might be a considerably easier fix... and you get spare arms with the ogres anyway.
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Post by: timetowaste85
Porous like graciously offered to post the picture for me in a couple minutes! Hope you guys like the head swap.
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Post by: porkuslime
Please time. spell it right dude!
As offered on TimetoWaste's behalf... here is his WIP..
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Post by: timetowaste85
Sorry man-auto correct on the phone is a bitch. Lol. Porkuslime offered. Lol. Whatcha guys think?
It is the non-helmeted head from the pistoliers/outrider box set!
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Post by: porkuslime
Do you think some of the Free Company or State Troop heads would work as well? (not sure if there are bare heads in there)
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Post by: bbb
Very nice! Which kit is the head from?
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Post by: timetowaste85
 porkuslime wrote:Do you think some of the Free Company or State Troop heads would work as well? (not sure if there are bare heads in there)
Went looking through my supplies and saw no bare heads, sadly. That was the only bare head I could find in the empire range that doesn't have a beard or mustache. I see a bunch of those heads selling well. The OTHER idea I had, if somebody would like to do a test-check, is a non-helmeted Eldar guardian head. I can post that in 11 days, but hopefully someone else could do it sooner.
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Post by: scarletsquig
Anyone have any ideas for good arm swaps for the Nuns?
I have about 40 of them coming next month.
That angel looks great, was thinking some high elf heads might work well, too.
I'm finding it pretty amusing that GW's 28mm heroic scale parts are actually perfect for truescale on larger 40mm-based minis.
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Post by: warboss
The head definitely works even with the overly dramatic hair blowing in the breeze... it works for a flying armored angel.
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Post by: timetowaste85
You're right Squig, the bare silver helm head will probably work too with an ear shave.
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Post by: RiTides
It does look good with a headswap 
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Post by: timetowaste85
Thanks, glad you guys approve. Always happy to give something back.
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Post by: decker_cky
Someone had a bretonnian knight beside the angels and I thought that those heads would work well for a head swap. No reason an angel wouldn't wear a helmet. Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think this is a case where the restic didn't shrink in a uniform amount. For whatever reason, the heads, which were marginally undersized, shrank a bit more than the rest of the body.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Yeah, it seems that smaller parts are affected by the shrinkage more.
I am thinking of just doing up some hollow cowls out of green stuff like the angels out of Diablo have and putting them on there. Strangely enough, I find the GW head there out of proportion to the skinny arms. Perhaps that's just me though.
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Post by: timetowaste85
I think it's just you. Then again, I'm biased.
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
I might try the bearded marauder head for that "blessed" look.
Also, I wonder if Scibor's not-Custodes heads would work. I wouldn't mind having more greater daemons of the Emperor to go with my Draigo.
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Post by: warboss
Bald screaming marine heads might work as long as they're bionic-free. It'll look like the D&D angel variant from previous editions that was bald (can't remember the exact name).
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Post by: decker_cky
Wood elf heads are a bit smaller than other fantasy heads aren't they? Some good options there I'd think.
Marine heads are a bit larger than the head porkuslime used I think, so would create even more of a scale issue with the arms. I think there's a sweet spot just a bit bigger than the heads that come with the angels that will look best, and there will be issues either too big or too small otherwise. Heads with a helm can avoid this issue somewhat.
Maybe paladin heads will work well.
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Post by: adamsouza
warboss wrote:Bald screaming marine heads might work as long as they're bionic-free. It'll look like the D&D angel variant from previous editions that was bald (can't remember the exact name).
Astral Deva
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
What about unhelmeted Bretonian knights?
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Post by: Azazelx
scarletsquig wrote:^ Now there's an idea I might roll with, thanks... shrinking the troll arms rather than trying to convert larger legs might be a considerably easier fix... and you get spare arms with the ogres anyway.
Would that actually work, what with their giant ...pecs?
And I still demand to see that Reaper conversion! You promised! 
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looks great - what head is that?
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Post by: timetowaste85
It's the only non-helmeted head that comes with GW's Pistoliers box set. Hence me asking for either 2 or 8 in the swap shop. 2 if I only get them as champs, 8 if every guys has those. If I had any High Elf silver helm heads, bowmen heads, or Eldar Guardian heads, I'd try them too before deciding. I'm sure SOMEONE who got the elohi also has those heads lying somewhere, so we need someone to try it and show results. Get moving gents!!
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Post by: Azazelx
Ahh. I don't have any of the newer range of GW's plastic humans. So human-sized heads like the helmets from the Empire/Demigriff/Brettonian Knights should theoretically also work?
I wonder how they'd look with some of the Grey Knight head options?
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Post by: highlord tamburlaine
Are those pinheads actually getting released to the wild? Ouch.
The rest of their bodies look so nice! It's sad that these miniscule heads managed to sneak past QC at some point.
I was tempted to make some hooded Diablo style angels as it was.
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
Would the spare hooded-yet-unhelmeted heads from the DA upgrade sprues work?
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Post by: nkelsch
Is it a good sign when you have to start buying GW products to FIX your cheap alternative model manufacturer models?
Mantic can't ride the "we took your money via KS suckers" business model if they continue to put out crap sculpts like they are doing. They are barley batting .500 with quality sculpts.
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Post by: plastictrees
Scibor sells helmeted 'knight' heads with open face plates that look pretty good.
I was definitely disappointed that I didn't get in on this when the initial greens came out, I've definitely recovered from that now. Those paladins on Remy's blog aren't looking so hot either.
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Post by: Schmapdi
nkelsch wrote:Is it a good sign when you have to start buying GW products to FIX your cheap alternative model manufacturer models?
I'm kinda in agreement here. What's the point of Mantic putting out minis on the cheap if, in order to look presentable, nearly every kit you have to buy replacement parts from other manufacturers to replace the "bad" parts from the Mantic kits.
After that considerable expense (not to mention all the extra time spent) you might as well buy the expensive kits in the first place.
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Post by: Barzam
Huh, I didn't think the heads they come with look that bad. Though, I'd rather have helmets for them. They don't come with any, do they? I bet they'd look pretty cool with Maxmini's not-Custodes helmets.
I actually rather like the Paladins, too. They're one of the few new KOW minis I'm looking forward to buying.
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Post by: timetowaste85
Schmapdi wrote:nkelsch wrote:Is it a good sign when you have to start buying GW products to FIX your cheap alternative model manufacturer models?
I'm kinda in agreement here. What's the point of Mantic putting out minis on the cheap if, in order to look presentable, nearly every kit you have to buy replacement parts from other manufacturers to replace the "bad" parts from the Mantic kits.
After that considerable expense (not to mention all the extra time spent) you might as well buy the expensive kits in the first place.
To be fair, the only fix I've had to make is the angel head. Everything else I've left as it is, because I like them. I even like the trolls with her tiny legs. It's just a different aesthetic, and while not everybody enjoys it, plenty of us do. Again only the angel had needed fixing in my eyes. And I will still Use the heads, just for different models where they fit to scale. They won't go to waste. In the car, so I had to text talk in order to send that. If there are mistakes I will correct it later.
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Post by: judgedoug
My friend got his KS goodies and I got to see 'em last night (I'm still waiting on my two pledges).
I gotta admit... everything looks really good. Much better in person. The Abyssal Golems are absolutely badass, as are the Immortal Guard. The fleabag riders look amazing, even the werewolves and mummies look better. I am very disappointed in the dwarf brock riders - there's only a single dwarf body (with lots of heads and arms... but still. one body?). Ogres are amazing. Still not a fan of the trolls but in person they are definitely better than I thought. The palace guard are better than the original metals, as they have extra weapon options.
Basically, every model you've seen preview pics of... think about it in your mind, and then reduce the size in your brain by half. That's how big they are.
The Angel heads are very tiny; my brother had the idea to use leftover plastic greek plumed helmeted heads from greek hoplite plastic kits. Since the angels are true-scale, using ANY 28mm figure head will look right on it.
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Post by: overtyrant
The Angel head's aren't that small. Whilst I like the vast majority of the sculpts Mantic have done from this KS I can't quite tell if most of these OMFG THOSE HEADS ARE B####Y TINY posts are series or just trolling.
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Post by: scarletsquig
^ Agreed, I don't see any problem with them at all.
Also, new pic of the ogre command group, we haven't seen the standard bearer or champion before. Lovely models, IMO... I like them more than the GW ogres.
This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
As for replacing parts like the ogre arms, it isn't so much about "fixing" a bad sculpt (as you can plainly see, they're fine as they are), but rather as a means of kitbashing to get more variety into the models.
Using the GW orc arms to create "savage" ogres to cover the Ogre Berserker entry in the KoW Ogre army list is definitely a good example of the kind of thing that KoW players have been doing for ages.
It's more a case of people who buy Mantic being more willing to use any mini or bit from any company they want to get the result they want, whereas a lot of GW-only players will stress out over "not tourney legal", so buying third-party isn't as common.
I've seen a forgefather army with space wolf bits, toy sci-fi flyers, parts from all sorts of different places, and some rogue trader exo squats thrown in for good measure. Looked brilliant.
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Post by: Slinky
judgedoug wrote:My friend got his KS goodies and I got to see 'em last night (I'm still waiting on my two pledges).
I gotta admit... everything looks really good. Much better in person. The Abyssal Golems are absolutely badass, as are the Immortal Guard. The fleabag riders look amazing, even the werewolves and mummies look better. I am very disappointed in the dwarf brock riders - there's only a single dwarf body (with lots of heads and arms... but still. one body?). Ogres are amazing. Still not a fan of the trolls but in person they are definitely better than I thought. The palace guard are better than the original metals, as they have extra weapon options.
Hmm, you're talking about models that weren't in my package - any definitive list anywhere of what should have been in the "$225 pledge June 2013" pack?
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Post by: judgedoug
 Slinky wrote: judgedoug wrote:My friend got his KS goodies and I got to see 'em last night (I'm still waiting on my two pledges).
I gotta admit... everything looks really good. Much better in person. The Abyssal Golems are absolutely badass, as are the Immortal Guard. The fleabag riders look amazing, even the werewolves and mummies look better. I am very disappointed in the dwarf brock riders - there's only a single dwarf body (with lots of heads and arms... but still. one body?). Ogres are amazing. Still not a fan of the trolls but in person they are definitely better than I thought. The palace guard are better than the original metals, as they have extra weapon options.
Hmm, you're talking about models that weren't in my package - any definitive list anywhere of what should have been in the "$225 pledge June 2013" pack?
Ogre Hero
Vampiress
Skeleton Dog Handler
Skeleton Standard Bearer mounted
3 Ogres (you picked either melee or shooter in your survey)
3 Werewolves
5 Mummies
5 Palace Guard
3 Abyssal Golems
1 Chariot w 3 plastic crew
1 Mincer
10 Fleabag riders (doubled from 5 for free due to delay)
10 Brock riders (doubled from 5 for free due to delay)
3 Angel paladin elohi dudes
3 Trolls
PAID Immortal Guard
PAID Gargoyles
Delayed til August 2013:
the rest of the free heroes
FREE 5 Immortal Guard
FREE 5 gargoyles
all the other Basileans
5 Elf Cavalry
5 Twilight Kin Cavalry
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Post by: Slinky
Excellent, thanks very much!
I see what has happened, I have 20 fleabags instead of 10 fleabags and 10 brock riders.
Since the fleabags are useful to my friend who plays Orcs, I am not bothered.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
Vampiress isn't actually one of those included. I think the old thread for this had a full list. But here's what I've written down myself as a reminder list -
Pledge level/reward
$35+ - Upgraded Mantic Splatdice
$50+ - Electronic copy of novel
$100+
- 1 x Undead skeletal dog handler
- 1 x Ogre hero
- 1 x Basilean Human Paladin
- 1 x Basilean Men at Arms
- 1 x Basilean Angel Paladin
- 1 x Basilean Battle Sister
- 1 x Elf Palace Guard
- 1 x Dwarf Brock Rider
- 1 x Gargoyle
- 1 x Mummy
- 1 x Troll
- 1 x Orc chariot/Fight wagon
$175+
- 5 x Basilean Mounted Knights
- 3 x Abyssal Golems
- 5 x Basilean Human Paladins
- 3 x Basilean Angels
- 5 x Basilean Battle Sisters
- 5 x Basilean Men-at-Arms
- 5 x Elf Cavalry or Twilight Knights
- 5 x Immortal Guard
- 10 x Fleabag Riders
- 10 x Brock Riders
- 3 x Trolls
- 5 x Palace Guard
- 5 x Mummies
- 5 x Gargoyles
- 1 x Limited edition Undead Standard Bearer
$225 (in addition to the $175+ level, excepting elf knights/twilight knights)
- 5 x Basilean Cat Cavalry
- 1 x Goblin Mincer
- 3 x Werewolves
- 3 x Ogres of your choice
- 5 x Elf Cavalry AND Twilight Knights
- 1 x All of the following heroes
- J'zik Gearlund, Dwarf Healer
- El'Rik Nisleen, Elf Mage Hero
- Atlak Nakh, Twilight Kin Hero
- Mikayel, Lord of Nightmares
- Basilean Angel Hero Julius
- Basilean Angel Hero Samacris
- Basilean Lord on Lion
- Druid Hero
- Air Elemental Hero
If anyone has any others to add, let us all know.
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Post by: Velour_Fog
scarletsquig wrote:
This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
I reckon they ought to chain the guy down and fire all their other sculptors. I don't mean to be nasty, but those basilean sisters are a bit tragic... as are a lot of mantic's other sculpts :S *cough* trolls.
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Post by: Taarnak
 Skarwael wrote: scarletsquig wrote:
This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
I reckon they ought to chain the guy down and fire all their other sculptors. I don't mean to be nasty, but those basilean sisters are a bit tragic... as are a lot of mantic's other sculpts :S *cough* trolls.
I agree that the aesthetic decisions on the trolls were...odd. However, they are not technically bad sculpts. I feel like we need to start making a distinction about that as a group. The Trolls are bad designs, not bad sculpts.
Some of the others are indeed bad sculpts however, and that is one reason that the distinction needs to be made. Also, if we keep consistent with the distinction, maybe Mantic will have better information/feedback.
~Eric
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
I really like the trolls though I can see why some might not, so they are a question of style rather than quality (he's also done a troll for PP) (By Gregory Clavilier for those who are interested http://greg-sculpteur.blogspot.co.uk/) but I agree the arms on the sisters are just not well done and a bit of art direction would not have gone amiss here
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Post by: Velour_Fog
 Taarnak wrote: Skarwael wrote: scarletsquig wrote:
This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
I reckon they ought to chain the guy down and fire all their other sculptors. I don't mean to be nasty, but those basilean sisters are a bit tragic... as are a lot of mantic's other sculpts :S *cough* trolls.
I agree that the aesthetic decisions on the trolls were...odd. However, they are not technically bad sculpts. I feel like we need to start making a distinction about that as a group. The Trolls are bad designs, not bad sculpts.
Yeah, sorry, I haven't been following this thread from the beginning or the kickstarter so I didn't see the concept art for them till now. It was indeed bad. I still feel that the sculptor could've made them look better by making them a bit less cartoony looking, but meh...
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Post by: timetowaste85
Skarwael wrote: scarletsquig wrote:
This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
I reckon they ought to chain the guy down and fire all their other sculptors. I don't mean to be nasty, but those basilean sisters are a bit tragic... as are a lot of mantic's other sculpts :S *cough* trolls.
I disagree with this completely. I think the trolls look great, and have no problem with the tiny legs. It's the style Mantic chose to go with, and some fantasy books do actually show trolls having tiny legs. They run around with their arms like gorillas. They chose not to go the tried-and-true fantasy look, they went with their own thing. It's not that bad, it's just different. I realize it's not the design for everybody, but I like it.
Ironically, my phone decided to type "their own way" as "the wrong way". Make of that what you will. LOL
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Post by: judgedoug
There was definitely a Vampiress in my friend's $225 pledge package I looked at yesterday.
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Post by: Fenriswulf
He likely got it through one of the army deals or similar, as it's not an auto-include in the $225 level for the free stuff. I was going to get it, but after seeing the sculpt, I am glad I didn't.
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Post by: Schmapdi
judgedoug wrote:
Basically, every model you've seen preview pics of... think about it in your mind, and then reduce the size in your brain by half. That's how big they are.
That's what happens to me every time I buy anything from a new company/product line. For example I just picked up my first Warmachine mini, a light warjack, and was surprised by how tiny it was. I've been in the hobby for years - and I'm still constantly amazed by small everything is.
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Post by: emperorpenguin
Fenriswulf wrote:He likely got it through one of the army deals or similar, as it's not an auto-include in the $225 level for the free stuff. I was going to get it, but after seeing the sculpt, I am glad I didn't.
It is an auto-include for pledges of $100+ listed in the pledge levels
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/kings-of-war
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Post by: JudgeShamgar
I'm not sure how this worked out, but here is what I pledged and got. I pledged at Standard Barer or $75.00. I upped my pledge for single armies to the $225.00 level to get all the free units. I did not get the electronic early release of the rule book, I assume because I did not pledge $100.00. However I just got what is described on the packing list as "$225 freebie bundle" and it had the Vampire from the front cover. Make what you will of it.
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Post by: RiTides
scarletsquig wrote:Also, new pic of the ogre command group, we haven't seen the standard bearer or champion before. Lovely models, IMO... I like them more than the GW ogres.
This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
Well, dang. I like those ogres more and more with every sculpt I see of them. A well executed range!
I'll likely be in the market to buy some more golems, by the way, if anyone wants to part with theirs from their order (preferably a larger group of them than 3 due to shipping, but I'm open to just 3 as well)
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Post by: timetowaste85
RITides, the ogres are fantastic. I kinda wish I got command parts, but I can always do it later. And I apologize that I only had 3 golems to give you. 
Speaking of sending stuff...anybody need the goblin mincer thingie from the $175 pledge reward group? I don't need mine and would be willing to part with it-perhaps somebody has a group of trolls they don't want? I'll also be willing to toss my Infernal Guard when they come in too. RITides, would you be willing to start a Mantic KS trade thread in your dungeon? I mean, uh, area of influence here. You're less likely to lock your own thread than if one of us started a mass thread on it.
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Post by: RiTides
Heh . Well, that deserves some discussion... I feel that a Mantic-specific mass thread for trading might do better in the Mantic subforum. Let me ask the other swapmods and get back to you...
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Post by: JoshInJapan
I got my box last night! I haven't had time to go over everything in detail, but I'm pretty happy at first glance. One thing stands out though: a hand-written note saying that metal parts will come in the next shipment, with an apology for the delay. That, I thought, was a nice personal touch, and is one of the reasons that I will continue giving money to Mantic.
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Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim?
scarletsquig wrote:^ Agreed, I don't see any problem with them at all.
Also, new pic of the ogre command group, we haven't seen the standard bearer or champion before. Lovely models, IMO... I like them more than the GW ogres.
This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
As for replacing parts like the ogre arms, it isn't so much about "fixing" a bad sculpt (as you can plainly see, they're fine as they are), but rather as a means of kitbashing to get more variety into the models.
Using the GW orc arms to create "savage" ogres to cover the Ogre Berserker entry in the KoW Ogre army list is definitely a good example of the kind of thing that KoW players have been doing for ages.
It's more a case of people who buy Mantic being more willing to use any mini or bit from any company they want to get the result they want, whereas a lot of GW-only players will stress out over "not tourney legal", so buying third-party isn't as common.
I've seen a forgefather army with space wolf bits, toy sci-fi flyers, parts from all sorts of different places, and some rogue trader exo squats thrown in for good measure. Looked brilliant.
I gotta say, the Ogres almost make up for the Basileans. They really should have Remy Tremblay placed as head of their sculpting team. Whoever is doing that job now needs to be sacked...
~Tim?
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Post by: Forlorn
scarletsquig wrote:This is what happens when a Mantic army gets 100% Remy Tremblay sculpts. If only he'd been able to do all of the Basileans as well. ;_;
Yes. Tiny legged ogres that are pee dancing. They got it 100% right if that's what they were going for.
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