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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






Slightly tongue-in-cheek political comment redacted, as per Insaniak's request, which I missed.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/10/12 01:25:13


Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™ 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Vancouver, WA

sculptin'zombie wrote:

Mort, if you consider what I say is just 1 side of the story and many doubt it that make it a rumor, so it's the right place, no?


If that's all you were posting about, that'd be one thing. But you didn't. Your walls of text went well beyond that. This is (or was) a thread dedicated to a KS - not to your job prospects, or the dirty laundry you felt the sudden urge to air DURING the KS. It really comes across as sour grapes, coming from someone with an axe to grind. I know, because I've been in your shoes once (not in the gaming industry though, thank goodness). It sucks. I empathize. But I also see your actions as being highly unprofessional.

But like you - and several others here - I am just voicing my opinion. And before one of the big-talkers here tosses out the 'Mantic Fanboy' tag on me - I've never done a Mantic KS. This is my first. I've played a couple games of KoW and have not bought any of their products until this KS.

And to those that disagree - /shrug. We disagree. Ain't no harm in that.

sculptin'zombie wrote:

I keep seeing people claiming Mantic minis get better everytime, I think my explainations make sense here, but feel free to ignore them.
I'm just saying could expect as much hit and miss in the future as there was 2 years ago, despite some claims I read here.


Great. So there could be some 'hit and miss' in the years to come. Did we already know that? Was anyone expecting Mantic to be perfect from here on out? There are plenty of complaints about some of their figs production values, not even taking into account the aesthetic side of things.

sculptin'zombie wrote:

now I know this is probably beeing unprofessional, but given the circumstances I kept it to the minimum,


Well, at least now you admit it.

And that's all I was saying.

There's two sides to every story, and I doubt we'll ever hear Mantic's side of what happened and why. But the KS is over, and I hope you have garnered some satisfaction from whatever impact you felt you had on it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/12 02:00:14


"Wheels within wheels, in a spiral array, a pattern so grand and complex.
Time after time we lose sight of the way, our causes can't see their effects."

 
   
Made in us
Near Golden Daemon Caliber






Illinois

I'm furthest from mad at Mantic about the shipping as possible. I'm very grateful they offered up that information, it helped me make a decision to scale back my pledge and when the manager comes around I'll likely get less. I think this is for the best, saves me money and doesn't bloat my backlog quite as much. They're still gonna get a pretty chunk of change before the manager ends unless I'm just flat broke then, but right now I'm glad they helped me make the informed decision to wait.

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






sculptin'zombie wrote:

the 3rd gen you mention is also my favourite, it was the 1st one, I should have stayed closer to it but had to rush to match Mantic deadlines and budget.


I always thought deadlines / budget pressures probably had something to do with it, given how good that first one was. Interesting to see that confirmed. The quality on that first guy was great - it's an interesting sculptural composition from every angle, "in the round," as we art historians like to say. The 3rd Gens got a lot of bashing, and even I wish they'd used a different design. But that one, that was great work.

the "dancing gobo" looks exactly like the concept art and iirc it was one of the studio manager's favourite minis among those I have sculpted (could be wrong), the 3rd gen were supposed to be like this, though I admit I'd redo them differently now.


I always loved this one, actually.

I'm sorry you were ill-used during your time at Mantic. You seem like a disappointed idealist, insofar as many of the realities you cite (lots of turnover at Mantic as people move on to better paid positions in the industry, cut corners, etc.) are what you would expect to find at many business places. I'm not saying it's right, and I like your idealism. But much of what you've told us probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to people here, even though it is disappointing to hear.

Anyhow, I hope that your next venture, as an employee or a freelancer, treats you better. I believe talent should be rewarded, and you have plenty of that. And you're right - it is a shame that Mantic didn't take your push for quality more seriously. Whatever they think their business model is, they lose money with every poor sculpt they make, and even their good sculpts need to compete effectively with other ones on the market. If I were Mantic, even from a cold business standpoint, I'd hire an artistic director. With you already in-house, I would have asked you to do the job. They've missed a big opportunity. It's a shame.

Anyone who entertains doubts about your skills just needs to have a look at your blog. I'd post a link, but again, don't want to presume. You might consider doing so yourself.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/12 02:00:53


Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™ 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Vancouver, WA

 GrimDork wrote:
I'm furthest from mad at Mantic about the shipping as possible. I'm very grateful they offered up that information, it helped me make a decision to scale back my pledge and when the manager comes around I'll likely get less. I think this is for the best, saves me money and doesn't bloat my backlog quite as much. They're still gonna get a pretty chunk of change before the manager ends unless I'm just flat broke then, but right now I'm glad they helped me make the informed decision to wait.


Ditto. I do appreciate them at least coming out with it in time for most folks to change pledges if they wished.

It would have been a rude-awakening for some of us to find out about the shipping -after- the fact. As others have pointed out, lots of KS don't do that, and I definitely appreciate it.

"Wheels within wheels, in a spiral array, a pattern so grand and complex.
Time after time we lose sight of the way, our causes can't see their effects."

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






 GrimDork wrote:
I'm furthest from mad at Mantic about the shipping as possible. I'm very grateful they offered up that information, it helped me make a decision to scale back my pledge and when the manager comes around I'll likely get less. I think this is for the best, saves me money and doesn't bloat my backlog quite as much. They're still gonna get a pretty chunk of change before the manager ends unless I'm just flat broke then, but right now I'm glad they helped me make the informed decision to wait.


Hey Grim,

As you mentioned earlier, we may not agree on a number of things, but truthfully, you've always had my respect. Too bad you're not in New England like I thought; I would have been happy to get in some good games of Deadzone with you.

I think Mantic posting the shipping information was the right thing to do, but in a way, it really was the only logical choice. You can imagine how upset people would have been if they were told they'd be paying $90+ for shipping after they were already on the hook and couldn't scale back accordingly. Public relations disaster.

I see Mort beat me to the punch, but I'll leave this up anyway.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/12 02:13:38


Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™ 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






Yup, very good that Mantic put out those figures before the end. I can't imagine the feedback if those sorts of numbers were revealed AFTER our pledges were locked in.

"The Omnissiah is my Moderati" 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
-






-

They're still going to hear that from some (unknown number) who missed it during the campaign...

   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





Melbourne, Australia

And I thought I'd never see the day people on the internet started complaining.

The galaxy is littered with the single-planet graveyards of civilisations which made the economically sensible decision not to explore space. 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






 Alpharius wrote:
They're still going to hear that from some (unknown number) who missed it during the campaign...


Very true!

"The Omnissiah is my Moderati" 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is it just me or did Mantic just guarantee that most American backers will have a chance to try out Gates of Antares and MEdge, and fall in love, before they even have a chance at buying Warpath KS figures through retail? God help them if WGF's planned sci fi range drops between now and then.


Mantic's new KS shipping price for US customers certainly won't hurt Maelstrom's Edge. If Mantic's crazy old bargain deals are gone, MEdge and Antares just became a lot more competitive. When discounted retail sets the baseline standard for the best deals, all of these companies' sets could end up costing about the same, whereas before Mantic KS campaigns had a huge advantage in undercutting everyone else.

I'm interested in a more diversified market with lots more companies producing hard plastic sci-fi minis, so that's a good thing in my book.

I dropped back to $100 at the last moment. (I'm still too fond of Mantic to go all the way back to $1.) Call it an experiment. If I can beat retail prices here with the better 20/$20 deals and shipping for that amount, Mantic and I will have a KS future. Just a smaller one. I've heard people doubting this, and I haven't done the math, but even with international shipping charges, can discounted retail really beat 20/$20? Considering how much five plastic minis can get marked up at retail, that seems like a stretch. I hope? Otherwise, it's $100 spent on becoming a little wiser. For what it is or isn't worth, I probably would have put between $300 to $500 into this campaign between now and the end of February if shipping had been lower.

Incidentally, this is a particularly awkward moment for Mantic to be switching back to metal, no? I'm very happy that I got my large Veer-myn metals from Infestation.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/10/12 03:16:20


Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™ 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




sculptin'zombie wrote:


the "dancing gobo" looks exactly like the concept art and iirc it was one of the studio manager's favourite minis among those I have sculpted (could be wrong), the 3rd gen were supposed to be like this, though I admit I'd redo them differently now.

Anyway I did those miniatures before beeing employed in-house as test pieces and they got me a full time, so if you think they are poor you are just proving my point really.

Now I think my other work prove I can do properly proportionned miniatures as well, and most Mantic sculptors have done small legs huge torso minis at one point, so maybe you should be looking elswhere (like the art direction, quality control or lack of it)


Sure, yeah I can see that. But we don't give all the credit for an excellently sculpted mini to to the artist behind the concept art, why would we put all the blame on the art when it sucks? Especially when you knew it was gak and made it anyway! If I were more of a dick I'd suspect some of the butthurt came from seeing Mantic have to redo your sculpts, a ridiculous conspiracy theory, but it seems the day for one sided accusations!
   
Made in jp
Battleship Captain






The Land of the Rising Sun

Because I currently live in Japan shipping was the 1st thing I checked before pledging and I cannot guess why other supporters seem to not be aware of it until the last possible moment. I've been many times before in the situation that when ordering something from the EU, or especially the US, s&h costed more than the price of the goods I was buying, perhaps that's why I'm not that surprised by the price of shipping nor it seems that bad to me.

I was going to pledge only for the warfare level but then after arranging things with a friend in Spain I traded it for an advanced warfare plus some add ons and even then I changed 2 times as people freed lower priced levels.

At least I can attest that Japanese Customs are very reasonable and in my knowledge they never hold packages hostage charging random taxes and fees.

M.

(Edit: If you think you had it bad in the US, I still remember the newsletter GW Japan sent around apparently their goods need to travel 1st class and like in Down Under they slapped a 50 pound fee on our orders just because.)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/12 03:03:43


Jenkins: You don't have jurisdiction here!
Smith Jamison: We aren't here, which means when we open up on you and shred your bodies with automatic fire then this will never have happened.

About the Clans: "Those brief outbursts of sense can't hold back the wave of sibko bred, over hormoned sociopaths that they crank out though." 
   
Made in us
Experienced Saurus Scar-Veteran





California the Southern

Well it's done. I thought about dropping my pledge down when I saw the shipping charges, but then I thought, eh, it's not worse than what CMON charge for the giant piles of stuff they've sent me.

Went shopping and let it ride on an EB Advanced Warfare. No idea which faction I'll get. Maybe they'll be cool and end up putting a vehicle sampler up in the pledge manager.

The key will be to how much I can add in the PM versus how much more the shipping costs will become. It'll almost be a game unto itself.


Poorly lit photos of my ever- growing collection of completely unrelated models!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/627383.page#7436324.html
Watch and listen to me ramble about these minis before ruining them with paint!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmCB2mWIxhYF8Q36d2Am_2A 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






 Miguelsan wrote:
Because I currently live in Japan shipping was the 1st thing I checked before pledging and I cannot guess why other supporters seem to not be aware of it until the last possible moment.



Because Mantic didn't make us aware of it until the last possible moment.

Yes, Americans have it much better than anywhere else in the world regarding shipping in most cases, but I think most people can at least understand why we may be shocked at $100+ shipping fees when we're conditioned to seeing $0-$20 normally, right?

"The Omnissiah is my Moderati" 
   
Made in jp
Battleship Captain






The Land of the Rising Sun

 Alex C wrote:
 Miguelsan wrote:
Because I currently live in Japan shipping was the 1st thing I checked before pledging and I cannot guess why other supporters seem to not be aware of it until the last possible moment.



Because Mantic didn't make us aware of it until the last possible moment.

Yes, Americans have it much better than anywhere else in the world regarding shipping in most cases, but I think most people can at least understand why we may be shocked at $100+ shipping fees when we're conditioned to seeing $0-$20 normally, right?


Define last possible moment. I pledged on Saturday and I was aware of the 90$ shipping cost to Aus and the rest of the world. I understand that somebody that pledged in the early days might be upset of having to come with more money or drop pledge levels but still there was a margin to do that and not be hit by the price increase after commiting.

M.

Edit: And yeah I feel your pain, had to send some documents to the US from Spain last month and I was surprised that they charged me 10€ while the cost of sending the same stuff from Japan is less than half.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/12 03:32:22


Jenkins: You don't have jurisdiction here!
Smith Jamison: We aren't here, which means when we open up on you and shred your bodies with automatic fire then this will never have happened.

About the Clans: "Those brief outbursts of sense can't hold back the wave of sibko bred, over hormoned sociopaths that they crank out though." 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





Melbourne, Australia

Postage is weird, and variable. I have a friend who works in logistics and says depending on the time of year it can be cheaper to ship an entire shipping container's worth of stuff from China to Melbourne docks than it would be to get that container 5km from the docks to the distribution centre. Local tarifs, government subsidies and all that.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/12 03:55:28


The galaxy is littered with the single-planet graveyards of civilisations which made the economically sensible decision not to explore space. 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
The key will be to how much I can add in the PM versus how much more the shipping costs will become. It'll almost be a game unto itself.


Darn tootin' it will. And I thought all my calculations and re-calculations of the value of various pledges during the Kickstarter were a lot to handle. But also, oddly, part of the fun of it. Game on, shipping charges.

Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™ 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Vancouver, WA

 Vermonter wrote:
 GrimDork wrote:
I'm furthest from mad at Mantic about the shipping as possible. I'm very grateful they offered up that information, it helped me make a decision to scale back my pledge and when the manager comes around I'll likely get less. I think this is for the best, saves me money and doesn't bloat my backlog quite as much. They're still gonna get a pretty chunk of change before the manager ends unless I'm just flat broke then, but right now I'm glad they helped me make the informed decision to wait.


Hey Grim,

As you mentioned earlier, we may not agree on a number of things, but truthfully, you've always had my respect. Too bad you're not in New England like I thought; I would have been happy to get in some good games of Deadzone with you.

I think Mantic posting the shipping information was the right thing to do, but in a way, it really was the only logical choice. You can imagine how upset people would have been if they were told they'd be paying $90+ for shipping after they were already on the hook and couldn't scale back accordingly. Public relations disaster.

I see Mort beat me to the punch, but I'll leave this up anyway.


I'm glad you did. And I totally agree with you.

I could imagine the firestorm if Shipping fees would be revealed AFTER it closed. Hearing folks with stories about how certain other KS kept it quiet just makes me cringe. Being up-front about it (even at the last hour) is better than trying to pretend it's not going to be an issue, because for a lot of folks it is.

Out of curiosity - those of you who backed their previous KS - how was the shipping on those? Similar? Lower? Higher? It seems like a good number of you were backers on previous KS (I wasn't, this is my first Mantic one), so I am curious.

And who knows? Maybe they'll find some way/work out some deal. I won't hold my breath, but it's a good long while until we'll see our stuff, so something could happen to help us out on this front...

"Wheels within wheels, in a spiral array, a pattern so grand and complex.
Time after time we lose sight of the way, our causes can't see their effects."

 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

 Vermonter wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is it just me or did Mantic just guarantee that most American backers will have a chance to try out Gates of Antares and MEdge, and fall in love, before they even have a chance at buying Warpath KS figures through retail? God help them if WGF's planned sci fi range drops between now and then.


Mantic's new KS shipping price for US customers certainly won't hurt Maelstrom's Edge. If Mantic's crazy old bargain deals are gone, MEdge and Antares just became a lot more competitive. When discounted retail sets the baseline standard for the best deals, all of these companies' sets could end up costing about the same, whereas before Mantic KS campaigns had a huge advantage in undercutting everyone else.

I'm interested in a more diversified market with lots more companies producing hard plastic sci-fi minis, so that's a good thing in my book.

I dropped back to $100 at the last moment. (I'm still too fond of Mantic to go all the way back to $1.) Call it an experiment. If I can beat retail prices here with the better 20/$20 deals and shipping for that amount, Mantic and I will have a KS future. Just a smaller one. I've heard people doubting this, and I haven't done the math, but even with international shipping charges, can discounted retail really beat 20/$20? Considering how much five plastic minis can get marked up at retail, that seems like a stretch. I hope? Otherwise, it's $100 spent on becoming a little wiser. For what it is or isn't worth, I probably would have put between $300 to $500 into this campaign between now and the end of February if shipping had been lower.

Incidentally, this is a particularly awkward moment for Mantic to be switching back to metal, no? I'm very happy that I got my large Veer-myn metals from Infestation.


Looking at around $24 for 20 guys would be discounted retail from $30ish. That would work. If they go too much higher than that, Mantic will edge into Eisenker price per-mini, and even the Enforcers look worse for that kit comparison.

Now, I know that Mantic has priced their last few plastic sci fi kits much higher than that, but as a certain colored squid pointed out to me, that's to encourage customers to buy the huge boxes, where the real savings are. The huge boxes probably match or beat the KSS prices at discounted retail, but with Mantic's roulette wheel of quality, they really need to have affordable, reasonable impulse buy priced kits so potential customers can see how the minis look in person. A box of 5 plastic Mantic minis for $25 is not really a good value, and in some countries is a deadly insult.

Unfortunately, GW has raised prices so dramatically that their "expensive" price per mini kits from 6 years ago had the same price per mini that today's "it's not too bad" plastics manufacturers are trying to pass as reasonable. If you wouldn't have bought 20 guardsmen for that price in 2009, why on Earth would you buy less than 20 Mantic GPS dudes for that retail price now?

   
Made in au
Screaming Shining Spear





Adelaide, Australia

 Alpharius wrote:
They're still going to hear that from some (unknown number) who missed it during the campaign...


They could have replaced the entire project page with the shipping charges chart in 72 point font and people would still complain that they missed it and feel cheated

   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

 NTRabbit wrote:
 Krinsath wrote:
it would have made more sense for Mantic to have a solution to that problem figured out before the KS


I too am looking forward to Mantic's solution to endemic political corruption, crony capitalism, the undermining of labor laws, legalised avoidance of taxes, and the corporate fueled destruction of public services and infrastructure.

Should be a doozy!


I think comes during the DZ3 kickstarter. May 2016, right?

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in au
Unstoppable Bloodthirster of Khorne





Melbourne .au

 NTRabbit wrote:
Dat shipping


What the feth? Nice last-minute timing on that shipping bump. I might have to request a refund when the pm comes out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 lord_blackfang wrote:
Harsh shipping costs. But they do show how much of the bill Mantic has been footing so far with $10 flat rate shipping across the board on most previous KS.


They might have to learn2hub like everyone else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 pretre wrote:
 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
So Mantic put together a Marauder package of all the previously released Deadzone stuff... was there that much demand for old Marauder sculpts?

Maybe, maybe not. Doesn't hurt to add it though.


It pretty much just pisses all over their retail customers, though.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/10/12 06:34:06


   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






I may not be pre-ordering one now, but I am intrigued by the Tangle miniature they're aiming to produce. Bizarre and ratty, and not really a "safe bet" kind of thing at all. Hopefully they'll do the sculpt justice, and if so, I'll pick one up. Same goes for the hamsterballs, which I'd been waiting an age for.

When they hit things right, they really can do good work. Ks shipping increases won't stop me from buying Mantic products; they just may change when I do, and where I buy them from.

Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™ 
   
Made in gb
Multispectral Nisse




Luton, UK

Well, for the first time in a KS I dropped my pledge to $1 with 2 minutes to spare, due to a combination of factors:

1 - the suppy issues I'm currently having with Mantic's existing projects. If it was just late then I wouldn't mind, but responses of "who are you, we have no record of your email address despite already sending you the pdf and some of your rewards" don't fill me with much confidence. Mantic should be better than this on their 10th project.

2 - I'm not really that interested in Warpath at the moment, so don't mind if I miss out on rules when picking add-ons.

3 - An unfortunately not-insignificant tax bill came through my door yesterday morning.

“Good people are quick to help others in need, without hesitation or requiring proof the need is genuine. The wicked will believe they are fighting for good, but when others are in need they’ll be reluctant to help, withholding compassion until they see proof of that need. And yet Evil is quick to condemn, vilify and attack. For Evil, proof isn’t needed to bring harm, only hatred and a belief in the cause.” 
   
Made in au
Unstoppable Bloodthirster of Khorne





Melbourne .au

 Mort wrote:
 GrimDork wrote:
I'm furthest from mad at Mantic about the shipping as possible. I'm very grateful they offered up that information, it helped me make a decision to scale back my pledge and when the manager comes around I'll likely get less. I think this is for the best, saves me money and doesn't bloat my backlog quite as much. They're still gonna get a pretty chunk of change before the manager ends unless I'm just flat broke then, but right now I'm glad they helped me make the informed decision to wait.


Ditto. I do appreciate them at least coming out with it in time for most folks to change pledges if they wished.

It would have been a rude-awakening for some of us to find out about the shipping -after- the fact. As others have pointed out, lots of KS don't do that, and I definitely appreciate it.


 Alpharius wrote:
They're still going to hear that from some (unknown number) who missed it during the campaign...


Well, going by Dave C's post timing about the shipping updates, the "warning" came around 10:30pm on Sunday night, when I was already in bed because work. The campaign then finished when I was at work, so it's not like I was realistically able to follow the final hours of the KS. I got suckered in by the TW tax and bumped up to Total Warfare, certainly not expecting an extra $70 to be tacked on top. Now I've got to decide whether to stay in and get an "all extras" pledge of $20/20 figures and possibly a few vehicles - because feth paying for useless heavy books that will need revision within two years - or ask for a refund, ASAP.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
sculptin'zombie wrote:

anyone in the know could tell who I am from my first post, there has only ever been 1 in-house sculptor at Mantic
I posted a link to my blog in my presentation section: http://area51minis.blogspot.fr/


Yep, I saw your blog. It made me quite sad since you're behind many of the far better sculpts that Mantic have shown in the last year or so.



regarding turnover, you are partly correct, but the difference is that GW will select new sculptors carefully and train them until they match their style and a certain standard in quality.
Mantic won't be so picky and has been trying new sculptor with little experience with mixed results. In particular digital sculptors don't always have a clear view of what their mini will look like once printed in 30mm, or know how to make them suitable for production. Of course Mantic can offer them some input about production, but they can't direct them properly or even get them to work in a consistant style (the enforcers, vermyn and marauders just don't belong to the same range). That's when they can deliver a proper mini at all, during my time here I had many change to do on freelancers sculpts, including new ones. Once I even had to resculpt half a model (from a digital print) because the sculptor didn't know how to resize parts of the model. I wonder what we'll see next...
I have read on several occasion that mantic use second rate sculptors, but If you look in detail who sculpt what at Mantic you'll find that many of their sculptors have done better stuff for other companies. The problem is that Mantic can't get the best of them for many reasons (I'd be happy to develop but my post are long enough)


I'd welcome reading more about it. Another thread for it might be the best place, though?


regarding the ogres, I don't agree, the old ones are excellent sculpts, with a questionable design choice (large torso and narrow hips), which iirc come from the concept art. I'll leave asside the mage as I did it to match the old ones and didn't had the freedom to change the design or the time to match Remy's sculpts. From what I have seen the Berserkers correct the design flaws (new concept artist who is also the sculptor), they are correct sculpts as far as I can tell (can't judge from a render) but the original ones would be a lot better than the berserk if they had the same proportions. At the end with design it's always a matter of taste.


Remy's sculpts are good but seriously flawed. The proportions have issues and the posing is not good. I am taken to understand that knock knees and pigeon toes are part of a common French "style" for comics and art, but it's not suitable for Ogres. Those ogres are also over-detailed for the PVC medium that they were produced in, resulting in terrible mould lines, and the heads are overall sub-par. Remy is a seriously talented sculptor, and those Ogres are still some of Mantic's best models in many ways, but as I said - they are also seriously flawed.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/12 07:10:15


   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis






Home Base: Prosper, TX (Dallas)

Still glad I dropped to $1 once the shipping came out. It just takes all the savings out of a product I'd be paying for 1-year in advance. I'll happily take the free rule pdf's though.

Shipping wasn't so bad in the DZ2 pledge manager for the 20 for $20 miniatures. I think I paid 7 bucks on 60 models. So figuring around the same amount I'll probably still grab a few of those but anything else I'll see about MM or ebay.

Best Painted (2015 Adepticon 40k Champs)

They Shall Know Fear - Adepticon 40k TT Champion (2012 & 2013) & 40k TT Best Sport (2014), 40k TT Best Tactician (2015 & 2016) 
   
Made in nl
[MOD]
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Cozy cockpit of an Imperial Knight

Dropped down to $1 myself, I'll be adding more again around the end of the month when I get paid.



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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






 Mort wrote:
Out of curiosity - those of you who backed their previous KS - how was the shipping on those? Similar? Lower? Higher? It seems like a good number of you were backers on previous KS (I wasn't, this is my first Mantic one), so I am curious.

And who knows? Maybe they'll find some way/work out some deal. I won't hold my breath, but it's a good long while until we'll see our stuff, so something could happen to help us out on this front...


Hi Mort,

Sorry I didn't get back to you on this sooner. Before Deadzone Infestation, deals were generally about as good as Warpath's, but shipping was free to the USA. Yep, those were the days. We were spoiled, admittedly.

Deadzone Infestation had new "actual shipping", but it really depended on how you pledged. The "get it all" pledge of Lockdown ($215) had its shipping to the (US and Canada, at least) locked down as well, to match that of a lower "sweet spot" pledge level, Quarantine, which was $115 worth of stuff. As I dimly remember, that came out to something like $30-$35. I didn't grumble, I thought that was fair and reasonable. Compare that to the projected actual shipping cost of $235 for Total Warfare, $60 to the USA and Canada, for pretty much the same level of deals and same amount of stuff. And that's before you add anything on to it, mind you. If you planned to add on a bunch of other things, as many of us did, that shipping price could easily climb on up from there.

And at that point, it starts biting into your savings on the deals to such an extent that the difference between buying into the kickstarter and buying later from discounted retail, particularly in similar bulk to save on shipping, starts to get slim or vanish.

If the financial benefit of paying now is minimal, then you are investing now to: 1) Charitably support a private, for-profit company or 2) You can't wait the extra time for retail, and want to have your stuff sooner. In either case, what you potentially sacrifice (depending on what you buy) is: 1) The chance to see what the final miniatures actually look like, which can vary dramatically from the concept art, and 2) To see what the quality of production for the final work is. How well will that Asterian ship go together? How well will it be supported by whatever stand Mantic makes for it? Do you want to find out once you've already spent $30 on it, or do you want to let other people take that plunge for you, and then if you like what you see, get it at discounted retail for maybe $5 more? Or maybe even for pretty much the same price, after you figure in the cost of shipping it from the UK?

US customers can still get good deals on Mantic's products, just not as good as they used to be. And the best deal is currently looking like being patient, seeing how the products turn out, and then buying what you actually want. Before, Mantic's deals for the US were so good that you really could afford to speculatively gamble on the final products, and if most of them were good, you were still fine if some didn't pan out. I'm not sure that's still true.

It also remains to be seen what this means for Mantic's KS development model. There's been some chatter of them moving away from it, which now seems like a good idea. If they keep it, I can't believe they'll be nearly as effective as before, because the USA has been their leading market for KS campaigns, and those campaigns won't be as attractive to US customers as they used to be. Maybe they'll do the smart thing and figure out some way to do distribution in their largest market that cuts down on the shipping expense. Maybe it won't matter, maybe they'll even do better this way. Or maybe they won't, and it'll be time for them to start producing products on their own dime. I don't claim to know.

One thing's for sure - this KS campaign won't be the bellweather to find out: the next one will. Because the shipping reveal did come late in the game this time, and a lot of people will be caught off guard by it, particularly since it's such a radical departure from the precedent that Mantic themselves set over the course of their many preceding kickstarter campaigns. If people want to argue that those people have only themselves to blame for not reading the fine print on the last 2 or so days and say Mantic's covered its bases, that's not the issue I'm addressing here. My point is that next time, high shipping costs will be a known factor right from the beginning. Then we'll find out what impact it has.


And there will be a reckoning. IN BLOOD.*


*This final line was self-parody. Please disregard it and take only the preceding lines seriously. Come on, how often do we get to type things like that? You know you want to.

Thank you.

This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2015/10/12 15:32:50


Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™ 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





I can see them doing much smaller KS in the future to fund say a Marauder HIPS sprue with perhaps a vehicle, then another one to fund a Zz'or sprue. Deliberately keeping it small means the P&P will be much much less and it won't spire out of control so that should keep things more manageable.
   
 
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