Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

marielle wrote:The only gripe I have with Mantic is that they block up the Renedra release schedule.

Why is this a gripe if more plastic kits are being released?

and

With what? They haven't had a plastics release since the early warpath stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Alex

No, Nightsword is a member of the staff, and he asked for questions first. Wander rogue simply had a live feed set up to ask questions as well.

AlexHolker wrote:

Max Jet wrote:+ Costumer interaction
(Whoever had the pleasure to speak to either the sculpters, Mr. Renton, Mr. Cavatore or the Golem team itself knows exactly what I mean. There is not much to say, than the interaction is perfect. Simply perfect. And the implement the costumer opinion wherever possible, I can name you 10 examples out of the top of my head!)

As an Australian, I couldn't disagree more. If you're not within spitting distance of the bosses, their customer interaction drops off precipitously.
.

I have to admit, this made me laugh a lot (although sardonically). The rules were changed, in line with what you exactly wished for, and you are still complaining that Mantic don't listen to their fans? What more did you want, a limo driver to pick you up, and then red carpet rolled out once you arrived at Mantic HQ?

You know at one time GW used to be a great company for customer feedback. I once had hand-written letters from both Jervis Johnson and Gav Thorpe following my comments about why the rules were in a particular way. There is not a chance in hell of something like that happening these days. But, I wonder if the reason now that they have essentially said 'feth the lot of you' to any kind of customer feedback is that percentage of customer who is impossible to please, and they have just given up.

In all honesty, in the 20+ years I have been wargaming, I have never seen a company attempt the level of fan interaction and feedback that Mantic is going through with. Admittedly some of this is only possible with new technology, and the forums/blogging system where people comment on their stuff, but if you read comments from people at the recent Mantic tournament it's obvious that they are doing their utmost to create a balanced game. Such a thing doesn't happen overnight, and arguably there are very few games that have managed it to a high degree (perhaps Infinity?) but at least they are making an effort, and involving the fanbase while doing so.

lord marcus wrote:

marielle wrote:The only gripe I have with Mantic is that they block up the Renedra release schedule.

Why is this a gripe if more plastic kits are being released?

Because Mantic's junk clogs up the release schedule of companies like Perrys.

Pacific wrote:I have to admit, this made me laugh a lot (although sardonically). The rules were changed, in line with what you exactly wished for, and you are still complaining that Mantic don't listen to their fans? What more did you want, a limo driver to pick you up, and then red carpet rolled out once you arrived at Mantic HQ?

Once again: I was helping him. As part of his job he wrote a rule that did not work, and I identified it and explained how to fix it. Why does this mean I'm not allowed to say the reverse case - where the fanbase asks them to help by providing information about their work - is too localised for a manufacturer that operates out of a webstore and independents?

marielle wrote:

lord marcus wrote:

marielle wrote:The only gripe I have with Mantic is that they block up the Renedra release schedule.

Why is this a gripe if more plastic kits are being released?

Because Mantic's junk clogs up the release schedule of companies like Perrys.

So if Mantic pays just as much as Perry for tooling, they are not entitled to have thier sprues tooled?

It's always weird to watch the various trends of 'hatred' that spring up around different companies. People who dislike Mantic do so in a very different manner to those who dislike GW.

People who dislike GW generally pick on their insane prices, their questionable business practices and perhaps their rules. And if people dislike a model like, say, the Chibi-Hawk, people just dislike the model.

But not Mantic. Oh no. It seems that for them it's never a case of "I dislike this model" but more a case of "How dare they make this model!!!!!". When GW makes a crap model it's usually a blip on an otherwise very good radar. When Mantic does something someone else disproves of, they've done something wrong, something shameful; they've 'sinned' somehow.

It's a weird psychology.

malfred wrote:

I disagree.

I want Mantic to release their own unique or interesting take on standard
fantasy races because that makes me more likely to buy them than if
they're just weaker versions of GW's ip.

Agree. Being a terrible knock-off line discourages me from purchasing their products... that, and their orks are ugly and boring. Being a greenskin collector, I have been waiting for a model line where someone treated orcs as a humanoid species with male and female models opposed to making orks a rip-off of GW's spore-based, all male orks with other greenskins being genetically related. Hell, even if they were all male, was the snotling and squig rip-offs really needed? Why do orcs need snotlings and squigs... or whatever they call them.

There are dozens of things Mantic could have done, but they took the lazy (and in IMHO unethical) path and have made an inferior product because of it.

I was kinda excited about some of the ideas they had for warpath, but slowly as they flesh out what they are actually implementing, it gets worse and worse. the 8th race was the final let-down by being a horrible rip-off space skaven. I am glad the greatest threat to the universe is ratmen in medieval armor who haven't even progressed in civilization technology to make clothing without having to cobble together scraps of fabric. Apparently all something needs to be sci-fi is fantasy with googles.

The models are not good, they do not stand on thier own merits and the fluff is terrible. They have no value to me.

I think over-exposure might have blinded you to the diverse rainbow of GW hatred. Are you suggesting that people aren't constantly making insane hyperbolic statements about GW?

Fundamentally my biggest problem with Mantic is that I don't really care that they're offering a cheaper product. That's just not something that I factor in to my assessment of, what I consider to be, a creatively uninspired, at best, adequately sculpted product line.
It might be unfair to remove what they probably consider to be their biggest advantage from the equation but I don't play these games to push around large numbers of cheap models that I hate.

@nkelsch: Could you please read the Mantic orc background before commenting on it? Not just that one page either, the whole lot.

It's actually fairly well fleshed-out and specifically mentions that Orcs breed. Orclings are merely one of the variants created by the gods.. the background is closer to Tolkien's, with them being the result of corrupted/twisted beings from other races specifically forged by an evil power for war. Spawning from fungus is not mentioned at any point.

They have some interesting new approaches with the orc background, such as mentioning that their lifespan is about a decade long, and generally damned miserable, which provides motivation for their hatred of long-lived and civilised races, there is a huge pre-occupation with death and mortality, with the main goal of most Krudgers being "to be remembered forever", like a lot of their particularly brutal ancestors were. It also mentions that some leaders cull the strongest young in the tribe to make sure they don't become competitors later in life (allowing them to live and rule for longer), but most don't since it hampers the strength of their tribe. It gives the impression of quite a cold and calculating type of race, far removed from GW's "we's da orcs, green is best we's gonna smash da 'ooomiez!!!". The short stories present them as warlike and highly tactical, being totally fine with sitting back and pounding the crap out of a castle with catapults before swarming in.

The mantic background/ model range may not cater to your specific desires to see female orcs in miniature form, but it is definitely different to GW. Not in terms of the types of models being made, which match-up to the GW unit types (I personally love the free orclings on each sprue), but definitely in terms of background and sculpting style.

That still looks like fairly uninspired orc fluff IMO. I’m inclined to agree with the basis of nkelsch’s comments, even after reading the above.

^ I'm simply addressing the false statement that it is a clone of GW's background.

I only ever post when I see an objectively false statement being made. I have no problems with opinions, as long as they are based on reality as opposed to false assumptions at best, or strawmen at worst.

Doing this makes sure that others do not start believing false things about Mantic "because this dude on the internet said so".

That’s cool. I was merely added my own opinion to the mix. Nkelsch from what I gather was looking at things from an aesthetic point of view and I don’t think he was addressing their back stories specifically (where such deviations are a given).

As a word of advice Scarlet, when you try to set the record straight, you should scale back your fervour when you do so.

candy.man wrote:That’s cool. I was merely added my own opinion to the mix. Nkelsch from what I gather was looking at things from an aesthetic point of view and I don’t think he was addressing their back stories specifically (where such deviations are a given).

In fairness to scarletsquig, I too got the impression that the entirety of the first paragraph of nkelsch's response was aimed at Mantic - and that it covered both background and aesthetics.

Unethical? LOL!

H.B.M.C. wrote:
But not Mantic. Oh no. It seems that for them it's never a case of "I dislike this model" but more a case of "How dare they make this model!!!!!". When GW makes a crap model it's usually a blip on an otherwise very good radar. When Mantic does something someone else disproves of, they've done something wrong, something shameful; they've 'sinned' somehow.

It's a weird psychology.

Absolutely my sentiments! (And one day I will find out where all these myths come from. Notice it's the same people spreading rumours like "Mantic is the reason Renedra cannot dish out more sets" "Chapterhouse is the reason GW can't release the Tervigon" " New Line Cinema is the reason we can't have more infos on releases." ) I guess some people just really love their plastic toys.

candy.man wrote:That still looks like fairly uninspired orc fluff IMO. I’m inclined to agree with the basis of nkelsch’s comments, even after reading the above.

Sometimes you do not need a second post to know when someone has formed a rock solid opinion, no matter the facts

scarletsquig wrote:Doing this makes sure that others do not start believing false things about Mantic "because this dude on the internet said so"..

Like for example Mantic clogging up the Renedra process...

candy.man wrote:As a word of advice Scarlet, when you try to set the record straight, you should scale back your fervour when you do so.

I suggest you read his view on the 8th race, the Twilight Assassin, the Elves and the Dwarves before just randomly making statements.

lord marcus wrote:

marielle wrote:

lord marcus wrote:

marielle wrote:The only gripe I have with Mantic is that they block up the Renedra release schedule.

Why is this a gripe if more plastic kits are being released?

Because Mantic's junk clogs up the release schedule of companies like Perrys.

So if Mantic pays just as much as Perry for tooling, they are not entitled to have thier sprues tooled?

Ignore the comment that adds nothing at all to the discussion, and is designed to get a rise out of people (i.e. a trolling post).

The models are not good, they do not stand on thier own merits and the fluff is terrible. They have no value to me.

I think the models are great, they stand on their little plastic bases fine (sorry ) and the fluff needs time to develop. GW have had 25 years with the 40k universe, but it was equally lacking when Rogue Trader first appeared. In fact, I can remember reading it at the time and thinking 'obviously someone likes Frank Herbert', but that didn't make me throw the book to the ground in outrage. Give it time, these things can't be built up overnight. A full printed rulebook is on the way, as well as a no doubt questionable novel, I'm sure in a few years from now it will be a very different picture.

lord marcus wrote:

marielle wrote:

lord marcus wrote:

marielle wrote:The only gripe I have with Mantic is that they block up the Renedra release schedule.

Why is this a gripe if more plastic kits are being released?

Because Mantic's junk clogs up the release schedule of companies like Perrys.

So if Mantic pays just as much as Perry for tooling, they are not entitled to have thier sprues tooled?

That is obviously not what he said or meant. Take a deep breath.

Max Jet wrote:"New Line Cinema is the reason we can't have more infos on releases."

To be fair, that one may actually be true.

Mantic is not holy, it is not the saviour of the hobby and personally I feel they still have a long, long way to go.

I like Mantic well enough, but I still won't buy their "angry eyes" skeletons.

Mantic does some nice things. For instance they seem to listen to their fans and that is a really good thing esepcially when you consider how GW seems to operate. Free rules are also very cool. It is also a good way to get beta testing done for free.

What I don't like about Mantic are the miniatures. I find the sculpts to be technically inferior to the top notch companies out there. While they do cost less I don't see them as significantly less expensive than say Perry miniatures or Victrix. So they have a long way to go in that regard. The only miniatures I have even come close to liking are the Corporation (though the new Veermyr look promising).

Overall I think there is some potential here but they really need to make better miniatures that don't look like they are poor 2nd edition knockoffs.

I have yet to see a model I was impressed with, I only play SM and Dwarves, they don't make SM and their dwarfs really suck.

Still, ive already got a dwarf army and a SM army and I don't buy that much stuff anymore. Checking ebay once a week and buying off there occasionally means I don't have to buy anything new from GW at ridiculous prices, and I don't have to buy sucky miniatures off mantic. Their undead look alright, but I dont play them.

I think unless your well into the hobby, you can get by nicely with second hand gak. I don't need to own 3 land raiders or 6 dreadknights. And I've never really understood people that go "OMG! New XXX now I have to go out and buy 5!" :(

Although, Im happy to spend £500 a month on booze. I guess im just not that into the hobby.

But seriously.. they make some ugly ass dwarves.

I've got about 1k of GW ones and a box of totally awesome AOW berserkers. I think that's me done for dwarves. Its no contest..

SUCKY


ALL KINDS OF AWESOME

I'll give you that the AOW berserkers are better looking than the Mantic bare-basic warriors. How do the AOW warriors compare to the Mantic warriors in appearance? How do the Mantic berserekers compare to the AOW berserkers.

And how does AOW compare to Mantic in pricing? For those of us who do not have an infinite amount of hobby money, that is not a factor we literally cannot afford to ignore.


By the by... if Mantic Dwarves are sucky, what's your opinion of the GW Beer-Belly Dwarves?

If Mantic had not added snotlings and squigs to their model line, then they would have been more a generic D&D/LotR orc style. I feel the snotlings and squigs are what has tied their cart regardless of what they claim their fluff is to being a GW knock off, and considering their explicit goal to seemingly make products which fit GW's universe almost exclusivley, it makes the product-line uninspired and the models can't stand on their own as they are bad sculpts and poor design. Why they emulated GW's orkoid race design by including snotlings and squigs confuses me.

They had an opportunity to make an original orc line and they didn't. They haven't with any of their lines. All would be forgiven if the models looked good but the models can't inspire me to part with my money. I would pay *MORE* than GW prices if I felt the model was of quality design. Being cheap is not an incentive for me to buy, assemble and paint an inferior sculpt.

8th race murdered warpath. They almost had something with their corporation figures being cool, but considering the corporation is nothing but exterminators killing evil space rats now the game has simply died.

Vulcan wrote:I'll give you that the AOW berserkers are better looking than the Mantic bare-basic warriors. How do the AOW warriors compare to the Mantic warriors in appearance? How do the Mantic berserekers compare to the AOW berserkers.

And how does AOW compare to Mantic in pricing? For those of us who do not have an infinite amount of hobby money, that is not a factor we literally cannot afford to ignore.

By the by... if Mantic Dwarves are sucky, what's your opinion of the GW Beer-Belly Dwarves?

As I said I get my stuff off ebay, you see GW dwarves on their all the time for next to nothing. Especially painted ones, buy em, stip em, your away!

I got my AOW box off ebay with 2 dwarves missing for £18, and made up the two using spare stuff off the spru, and two old GW dwarves, stick them in the middle of the pack, your good to go! As I said, if your patient and you get past the "I need it now!" impulse, you can get anything off there. Check it a few times a week, and In a month you will have yourself a dwarf army for very little. I literally buy nothing at all new.

And yeah I like the GW ones far better. The Mantic warriors and shieldbreakers and thunderers all suck in my opinion.. the cannon crew is alright, but thats about it. They have weird square beards, flat heads and dont have the squat look I like, Dwarfs should look more like gorillas, not short humans. Take this guy for example.



He looks like he has a thin waist and big shoulders, like a human warrior! I bought Tor Dragonbane for my army leader..



Thats a dwarf right there. Messy hair, big ass beard, and ridiculously fat arms and hands that look like they reach his feet when he stands up straight.

YMMV of course, what ever floats your boat. I just think the Mantic ones look tidier and slimmer and more in proportion and that's not dwarfs for me.

The thread was called "Mantic discussion thread" not "Whinge at Matty because he doesn't like the dwarves very much"

If I was going to make a UD army Id go pay mantic a visit, but I'm not, so I'm not.

I agree about the Dwarves, I don't particularly like the design concept. Although I'm not a big fan of the GW 'guaranteed, 86% beard' ones either, and prefer the Gamezone dwarves which are lovely little sculpts, and quite similar to what GW was doing with the older metal dwarves. Personally, I think the best dwarves GW makes at the moment are the LoTR ones, which I think are some of the best models in the whole range. I have a small collection of them, even though I don't play the game!

I do like the Mantic Orcs however. I think that the Brian Nelson sculpts of orc-kind have become so ingrained in people's psyches over the years, they forget that there was a generic 'orc' of fantasy, much less ape-like, that existed within D&D, Tolkein and other fantasy literature long before GW made those sculpts. In fact, look at the 1st/2nd editions of WFB, and Rogue Trader, for similar examples from within Games Workshop produced miniatures.
So the Mantic ones have a different concept; they are still cruel, still violent, but in more of a controlled manner - not the screaming and mindless ape that runs into the enemy until they or their opponent are dead, but perhaps more of the 'Orc' that we are familiar with from Tolkein, a slightly more bestial barbarian which is nevertheless organised, has a culture and with a cunning intelligence. I think it's great that players now have the option of conveying that kind of 'style' on the tabletop.

The price of them is also a really good point, and means I don't have to feel too guilty about it when I order! The army set contains 50-odd foot infantry, and 10 cavalry, for less than £50. Had I wanted the GW orc models the combined cost would work out at more than £120 (going from RRP in both cases).

That being said, I think it's great the concepts of all the Mantic line (Undead, Orcs, dwarves, elves) are usually at least a little different from their GW counterparts. It gives us, the wargamer, more choice than ever before in terms of what models we can collect.

Personally I find their undead line top notch. If I was going to play a Vampire counts army, they would certainly be what I would buy. But I'm a dwarfs man, and their dwarves are literally the worst I've seen aside from the ones that look like garden gnomes. They're like oddly proportioned assyrians..... It's a real personal turn off.

When it comes to the orcs I find the same thing. I just don't like the look. I do however really like their elves.

So far their sci-fi just doesn't fit my taste, but if they ever come up with something that I actually like the look of I'll give them a shot.

Vulcan wrote:I'll give you that the AOW berserkers are better looking than the Mantic bare-basic warriors. How do the AOW warriors compare to the Mantic warriors in appearance? How do the Mantic berserekers compare to the AOW berserkers.

And how does AOW compare to Mantic in pricing? For those of us who do not have an infinite amount of hobby money, that is not a factor we literally cannot afford to ignore.


By the by... if Mantic Dwarves are sucky, what's your opinion of the GW Beer-Belly Dwarves?

While I don't like the look and feel of the fat belly GW dwarves the quality of sculpt is FAR superior to the Mantic ones. Mantic dwarves are not a quality sculpt. They are cheap but they also look bad.

Like: Many are good for bulking up / filling out large fantasy units. Nothing really stands out but nothing is jarringly bad either.

Dislike: Asthetic is the same as the early 00's while both Avatars of War and GW are moving toward more fluid, visually exciting sculpts. Mantic doesn't seem to be interested in following the leaders.

Companies do not set out to produce bad sculpts. The problem is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A project can get green lighted, and then the company finds that the gaming public at large does not like it.

It is also important to understand that producing a good plastic model takes experience. This is something that Mantic is acquiring. If we look back at GWs old plastics and metals they were horrendous as well. (See the awful SMs in the current identify this figure thread.)

I think that many of the criticisms of Mantic's dwarves are valid. However, they were one of their first efforts. Their undead look much better, and in some cases are better than GWs. Mantic's Corporation stuff looks cool. This being said, nothing that Mantic has produced thus far gotten me to open my wallet.