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Medium of Death wrote:After scarletsquigs comments about scale I had a look through the mantic undead range and various size comparrison pictures. I think you could make a very unique and awesome army from the mantic range and pepper it with some GW LotR kits. Necromancer, Morgul Knights, Castellans of Dol Guldor, Ringwraiths etc. etc.

Might even pass for Vampire counts, would be a tad small and depends on where you wanted to play.

They work as vampire counts no problem, there are tons of people over on vampirecounts.net already doing just that.

I'm also currently making a mostly-mantic tomb kings army (Only buying a few monsters and things from GW), because the basic GW tomb kings skeletons look horrible and are nearly 3 times as expensive. for the tomb guard with halberds I am taking mantic's elite skeletons (the revenants), and making the halberds using skeleton spear hafts and the blades from the revenant weapons (which are quite curved and tomb-kings in style anyway).

If you're using mantic for pretty much the whole army (or all of the infantry at least) then there is no scale issue since the whole army is correctly scaled with each other. The only time you get problems is if you want to mix GW infantry and mantic infantry together in the same unit... it doesn't work. GW character models fit into units of mantic okay though, they're supposed to stand out.

I have over 500 mantic minis and there really isn't that much difference in scale. The size of the models is the same, it's just that the weapons, heads, hands and feet are not oversized like they are on GW models.

All I can recommend to anyone interested in mantic is to simply pick up a unit that you like the look of at some point and see what you think. Getting the actual sprues in your hands is far better than any of the pictures and stuff that are online.

scarletsquig wrote:
All I can recommend to anyone interested in mantic is to simply pick up a unit that you like the look of at some point and see what you think. Getting the actual sprues in your hands is far better than any of the pictures and stuff that are online.

What and take away internt hyperbole? You are insane!

Given the massive saving you would have on taking Mantic infantry blocks instead of GW ones, if I were making a vampire lords army, I'd splurge the £44 for 5 of the Gamezone Miniatures vampire knights.






Mantic should back politely away from the already crowded expensive character models and get themselves to the wide open market of rank and file plastics that will make them rich as hell.

Why they haven't released 'Evil Viking Northmen' and 'Evil Viking Northmen in Extremely Heavy Spiky Armour' yet is beyond me...

Scarletsquig, (politely) your reasoning doesn't hold up well. I could use 15mm models for my army and they would all be the same scale. They'd still be the wrong scale and look ridiculous when matched against an opponent.

Seconded MGS. Gamezone has some sweet stuff!

Just say "My skeletons are of ancient lineage"...seriously, people 300 years ago were much shorter than the folk of today.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Why they haven't released 'Evil Viking Northmen' and 'Evil Viking Northmen in Extremely Heavy Spiky Armour' yet is beyond me...

It is on the horizon, along with Evil Elves, Goblins, Ogres and Humans...

Those mournful knights are awesome. *Adds to future buy list*

I'm afraid of them, in the sense that I couldn't do them justice.

You're totally right about the rank and file thing though Stompa.

Hopefully they'll see sense as surely their large models aren't that popular anyway (Drakon Lord anyone?)

Ninja'd by filbert.

Oh, 5 pounds. Yeah, that's about $1 higher than I'd expect for these, but not game breaking.

The figures MGS just posted kick ass.

NM misread....

I'm definitely eyeing those gamezone minis. The only thing that scares me is how much pinning I might need to do...

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Scarletsquig, (politely) your reasoning doesn't hold up well. I could use 15mm models for my army and they would all be the same scale. They'd still be the wrong scale and look ridiculous when matched against an opponent

Thing is though, the difference isn't *that* big, or at least not as big as the internet likes to make out. The models are just as tall as GW models (in fact, the skeletons and dwarfs I have are slightly taller than the latest GW models).

GW is also moving back towards a more normal scale after spending a whole decade releasing plastic kits with the big ham fists. It's only really the older GW plastics that look noticeably bad next to mantic models, GW's metals and a lot of the newer plastics fit really well because they stopped making models with telegraph pole spears and cartoony large hands and feet a few years ago.

I think 7th edition was the point where the plastics started to get scaled down, look at the difference between the old plastic night goblins and the new ones. The old ones do not fit very well in an army next to the new ones. Same goes for the dwarf warriors, skaven clanrats etc, the hamfist days are over. Mantic models look fine next to the newer GW kits, it's only when people compare them to GW's older hamfist kits that they look out of place.

What I will say is that the elves are too small. Mantic got those a bit wrong since it was their first army. Everything they've released since has been a good fit... and now their elves look a bit small compared to the rest of their models... but it's good that they made the change to a bigger size in their later releases rather than pressing on ahead with models that are as small as the elves.

I think a lot of people are assuming that Mantic is 25mm LotR scale or something. They're not. They're much bigger, and the same size as GW models (about 30 mm tall), it's just that they have regular proportions and not "heroic" proportions.

The dwarfs I have are both broader and (very slightly) taller than the GW dwarfs, they are nice and chunky models (to the point where it's a pain to get them to rank up).

scarletsquig wrote:

True. For being the same material as their other undead knights (the weird plastic/resin hybrid) it is kinda weird to charge double

No, the material isn't the same. At least get your facts right if you're gonna post a forum rant about how mantic are now greedy corporates, "following in GW's footsteps".

The only non-metal parts of these models are 4 of the resin-plastic horses, the riders and the entire vampire lord model are metal.

Metal. Is. Expensive.

Anyone who has paid even the slightest bit of attention to the price of tin lately knows that. And about 50% of the material in these models is metal. That's why the vampire lord on it's own costs £9.

Probably would have been better for mantic to not include the vampire lord and just release 5 regular knights for a lower price, having the lord in there makes it more expensive and the model sticks out like a sore thumb next to the others because the steed is unbarded (it's the same sculpt as their undead pegasus, with the holes fro the wings filled in).

Anyway, Citadel Finecast Blood Knights are now £61.50 for 5 (or will be very soon).

These still cost less than half of the GW alternatives.

Agree on the comments regarding the paintjob and sculpt though, I won't be buying these, they seem like a pretty half-hearted effort.

Will probably just pick up Morghul Knights from the LotR range if mantic includes them in Kings of War, those are much better sculpts (and scale perfectly with mantic minis).

My apologies, the next time I want to make a post I'll make sure I scour the internet for any relevant facts that might have something to do with my post...

Mick

Well, as a much cheaper alternative to Blood Knights, i like them. If I had unlimited funds the Mournful knights all the way but, like I said, these are a nice alternative.