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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the Goblins are going to be in metal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is sad... very sad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

privateer4hire wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

privateer4hire wrote:

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

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

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

AoBR is a bulk-buy deal.

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

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

Mantic games - fate of the forgestar: £50

- 40 Maruaders
- Raptor vehicle

- 15 forgefathers
- Forgefather vehicle

- Dice, Rules

40k - Assault on black reach: £61.50

- 25 Orks
- 3 Deffkoptas

- 15 space marines
- space marine vehicle

- Dice, Rules, templates, whippy sticks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They're even feigning ignorance about the Veermyn.

@Scarletsquig,

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

nkelsch wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edit: You are still slow at editing it seems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LunaHound wrote:

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

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

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

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

RatBot wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

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

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


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

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