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Just saw these photo's put up on warseer, and rememberd how much a few dakka members hates Mantic's elves. Now I ask why, since this horde looks awesome ranked up.

You don't seem to realize just how slender they are.

Even ranked up I am not a fan of what I see.

People are just used to GW's 38mm elves.

Their heads are too big for their bodies to ignore.

Well, I won't deny that the elf models are not perfect, but for whatever reason (mainly loyalty to other manufacturers, I guess?) there are a certain group of people who just want to hate on mantic as a part-time hobby. If you think I'm exaggerating, check out "monly" over on beasts of war, who currently has over 200+ posts across various forums that all state "mantic sucks" in one form or another.

Elves are the weakest of the mantic model ranges, so they are the easiest target.

Much easier to make an argument that mantic suck if you ignore the undead, dwarfs, abyssal dwarves and orcs.

Hence why even the Warpath thread here on Dakka has a completely offtopic 10-page debate about why mantic elves suck right in the middle of it, they are an easy low-hanging piece of fruit for anyone with a bone to pick to concentrate on.

Now that Mantic's sculpts are improving massively, the stock argument that gets wheeled out by has changed from:

"Mantic models look bad, look at these stupid elves" to

"Mantic rip off and steal GW's hard work!"

Just as the older argument ignored 80% of the model range, so too does the new argument ignore the fact that Mantic's best selling game at the moment is actually Dwarf King's Hold - a 100% unique mantic product.

There was even a thread over on warseer last week entitled "Mantic are overpriced!" which compared mantic's metal models to GW plastics in an attempt to show them as expensive. Other stock arguments are "GW invented green orcs, mantic are stealing the colour green!".. as if you can copyright a damned painting scheme.

I don't get it, really... there are plenty of games I don't personally like or play but I don't feel the need to put them down or go on 20-paragraph-long rants about a game I am never going to play and a company's models that I am never going to buy under any circumstance, no matter how good or cheap they are.

For instance, the style of Warmachine models and the game itself do not appeal to me in the slightest, but the models are technically excellent sculpts, the rules are incredibly well-designed, and PP seems to be a downright awesome company.

Oh, and as for the mantic elves I have a sprue of them. They are fairly average sculpts, the main issue I have with them is actually the boots. They're a bit too smooth and lacking in any sort of detail, it's like they're wearing socks. I like the extras on the sprue though, I now have a nice elf corpse and a sabertooth pussy for my bitz box.

I think the twilight kin will do wonders for improving the basic plastics by getting rid of that horrible spear and some of the pixie heads.

Well, the dragon riding elves are pretty bad.

I do love most of mantic's stuff.

malfred wrote:Well, the dragon riding elves are pretty bad.

I do love most of mantic's stuff.

Oh man, yeah, those things are just plain hideous. Not even going to say anything that remotely looks like defending them.

I don't understand how they got them so wrong, when this earlier sculpt of an elf lord on dragon looks so good:

This (sculpted by the awesome Kev White!):


... is about a million times better than this:



I'm not sure but I think the drakon riders might be Gary Morley sculpts. He's done a few things for Mantic, and they definitely look like his style.

Why on earth they didn't just hire Kev White again to do the drakon sculpts, I do not know, his sculpts (the palace guard and the characters) are the only really good-looking sculpts in the mantic elf range.

lord_blackfang wrote:You don't seem to realize just how slender they are.

Blitza da warboy wrote:Their heads are too big for their bodies to ignore.

*ahem* maybe that's because they are elves....and not anoxeric (sp?) humans?

That said I kinda like mantic and thier minatures. If GW ever does go the way of the dinosaurs, I might start Mantic, and combine the two lines to finish my armies.

@KingmanHighborn: I know that, but just because a body is slender, doesn't mean the heads don't have to be neither.

Beef the Elves up with greenstuff, and they might do as skeletons

Kroothawk wrote:Beef the Elves up with greenstuff, and they might do as skeletons

This seriously, I have a sample of mantic elves and I also have some skeletons from various companies. The skeletons look thicker than them!

Unless they do good looking "Not Witch Elves" in plastic, cant see the Night Kin doing too well.

I like the elves the most of all of mantic's lines. I do think the drakons are shameful and they should have never put those into production, but the normal slender elves look great. Well, they look great with one exception: the helmets. For some reason elves in conehead helmets are popular with mini manufacturers in the UK in spite of looking stupid and making the head look disproportionally large. The ones with rounded helmets and crests, crowns, or no helmets at all all look good.

Blitza da warboy wrote:Their heads are too big for their bodies to ignore.

Thats mostly a helmet, surely you realize that?

And I thought ranked up they looked ten times better than in a comparison shot, excepting the spears it actually looks like a proper elven spear wall.

I think they look great. Heck I always thought elves were supposed to be slender. Heck everyone of those models in the OP look beefier than Legolas from LotR.

scarletsquig wrote:

This (sculpted by the awesome Kev White!):


... is about a million times better than this:



I'm not sure but I think the drakon riders might be Gary Morley sculpts. He's done a few things for Mantic, and they definitely look like his style.

Why on earth they didn't just hire Kev White again to do the drakon sculpts, I do not know, his sculpts (the palace guard and the characters) are the only really good-looking sculpts in the mantic elf range.

This is hilarious. It looks like the rider saved up all his Dragon Points (tm) for dragon #1 and then dragon #2 was what arrived in the mail. It's shocking what the Elven Shopping Network can get away with.

I'm sorry, I just don't understand. They seem to have the dimensions (roughly, I seem to have left my pocket ruler elsewhere) of Eldar or Dark Eldar. And it's widely agreed that they are space elves and evil space elves, respectively. The average warrior has armor no less!

And just for clarification, elves are supposed to be the biggest of the fantasy races, right? Nope? Alright, then let's move to their heads.

Helmets. Even the ones without the full-face grills (first and second from the left, closest column) are normally sized. I don't know if it's maybe my untrained eye or what, but I'm afraid I can't find any problems with the sizes of these elves.

Honestly, too slender? They're fething elves.

Granted, that second dragon looks like a cartoon.

I hear Kanluwen LOVES these things!!!

Rico wrote:I'm sorry, I just don't understand. They seem to have the dimensions (roughly, I seem to have left my pocket ruler elsewhere) of Eldar or Dark Eldar. And it's widely agreed that they are space elves and evil space elves, respectively. The average warrior has armor no less!

They aren't. The dimensions of height and overall width are correct, but the proportions are asininely tiny. These guys are wearing bloody full plate armor and they're more slender than the skeletons produced by many companies out there.

That's an issue.

Now, of course you can point at Games Workshop's High Elf and Dark Elf Spearmen and say they're "too big"--and you'd be right. They're stupidly huge. The Wood Elves and the various Dark and High Elf special kits that have come out recently are far more fitting of the "accepted" norm for Elves in the Fantasy genre by and large.
They're about as tall as a human, and have relatively less muscle mass--but are far more lithe and deadly looking.

And just for clarification, elves are supposed to be the biggest of the fantasy races, right? Nope? Alright, then let's move to their heads.

What are you meaning by "biggest" here? Height, width, builds, etc?

Helmets. Even the ones without the full-face grills (first and second from the left, closest column) are normally sized. I don't know if it's maybe my untrained eye or what, but I'm afraid I can't find any problems with the sizes of these elves.

It's not your "untrained eye", it's that you're not understanding the issue. You come to it on the next line, so I'll address it there.

Honestly, too slender? They're fething elves.

And "fething Elves" are supposed to be relatively muscular, just not in the beefy sense. They're described in most fantasy as being "athletic" builds. That doesn't jibe well with the full plate wearing Elf being as "slender" as a skeleton.

Granted, that second dragon looks like a cartoon.

Yeah, because by all accounts they were trying to make a unique "drake" styled animal. It looks like the sculptor was told to copy the Proto-Drakes from World of Warcraft and leave off the front arms.

I have yet to see a picture of Mantic elves that didn't look poor (although the one posted by the OP is better than normal) and I've yet to see a Mantic elf in real life, especially one with a good paint job, that didn't look nice.

To be fair I've yet to see a Drakon in the flesh but every company has dud models - I'd still prefer Drakon riders to Pumbagors....

I get the impression that a lot of people who say they don't like Mantic haven't seen much (if any) of their stuff beyond the pictures on the 'net - and one of my few criticisms of Mantic is their website is not that good and their minis photography is plain awful.

Its the same with all the people who rag endlessly on about their rules (invariably with the 'why don't you remove casualties - I won't play any game evaaarrrrrr!!! where that's the case...). Play it first, then decide.

scarletsquig wrote:Well, I won't deny that the elf models are not perfect, but for whatever reason (mainly loyalty to other manufacturers, I guess?) there are a certain group of people who just want to hate on mantic as a part-time hobby. If you think I'm exaggerating, check out "monly" over on beasts of war, who currently has over 200+ posts across various forums that all state "mantic sucks" in one form or another.

Or some people just don't actually like Mantics models and want to present a counterpoint to people gushing over them?

Like, I will admit that Mantics Zombies are better than GW's Zombies. Fair play to them, GW haven't updated their 15 year old kit, and they look bad. Mantics Skeletons and Ghouls aren't bad, but GW's VC skeletons are better. Not a fan of either companies Ghouls. The rest of the Undead from Mantic? Terrible. That doesn't mean some of GW's stuff isn't terrible either, but far more of GW's undead ranges are a hit than a miss compared to Mantics.

I'll say this - Reapers Wraiths are still better than Mantics and even GW's new model.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:I get the impression that a lot of people who say they don't like Mantic haven't seen much (if any) of their stuff beyond the pictures on the 'net - and one of my few criticisms of Mantic is their website is not that good and their minis photography is plain awful

I have seen the Mantic Elves in person and don't like them at all. Other Mantic ranges are better.

-Loki- wrote:Mantics Skeletons and Ghouls aren't bad, but GW's VC skeletons are better. Not a fan of either companies Ghouls. The rest of the Undead from Mantic? Terrible.

Strongly disagree.

These are excellent, way better than the GW black knights:


Unfortunately, mantic fails in this case by the fact that there is only one, tiny photo of the models on their site.

Hmm, I really like the look of the Mantic elves. The tinyness makes them look different, not just a human with pointy ears. I guess it's all a matter of taste.

scarletsquig wrote:

-Loki- wrote:Mantics Skeletons and Ghouls aren't bad, but GW's VC skeletons are better. Not a fan of either companies Ghouls. The rest of the Undead from Mantic? Terrible.

Strongly disagree.

These are excellent, way better than the GW black knights:


Unfortunately, mantic fails in this case by the fact that there is only one, tiny photo of the models on their site.

The GW Black Knights suffer from being older than dirt. They should have been updated with the army book, same as the Zombies. But the Zombies have a timelessness to them. From the Michael Jackson "Thriller" zombie head to the scythes and hands on a stick for banners--they're awesome.

The Black Knights just look bad now that the Grave Guard and Skeleton Warriors have been updated.

Kanluwen wrote:
The Black Knights just look bad now that the Grave Guard and Skeleton Warriors have been updated.

Not to mention Black Knights cost a bucketload to buy a unit for. Cavalry units that get the plastic treatment from gw are much more affordable compared to their metal counterparts

Its so interesting when people say "GW models are outdated, thats why they suck", but GW still charge 2 times the price mantic do, for those outdated things...

I dont know where GW skeletons look better than Mantic ones...

And for the elves, as always, hater are hating.

Those elves are diferent from GW ones, they are not heroic proportioned, and they are meant to be much more slender and agile than humans... The style is diferent, iff you dont like one, just buy the other.

I know you GW fans dont had that for a long time, but it is called competition, it happens when 2 or more companies produce similar products. They try to offer better options for their costumers. If you dont like company A, buy company B. Simple right?

But look at what happened in the 2 last years: Mantic produced some better, some lower, some same quality figures than GW, for a lower price, giving option to you. They are not "rip offs" off GW models as someone would complain. (or else, tyranids, necrons, IG, tau, SoB etc... would be rip off too).

What GW have done to face the new competition: price increases, finecost bs, south hemisphere embargo, secrecy policies, increased codex creep, old metal trought the gut, treat costumers like dirt bitches.

What Mantic have done to use that: new models, better quality, asked their costumers " what you want?", good prices, added personality.

And that is not the only company out there competing with GW, PP offer a totally different game and miniatures range, Infinity offer great models (but to oriental in sthetic) and great rules.

I sincerely dont understand what you guys see on GW anymore... Their models rarelly dont look ugly to me, their Fantasy models are normally tottaly out of proportions, and their rules make GURPs sound like girls kidding...

And you complaing about SLENDER ELVES!!!!

Sry the out topic guys. I could have gone to far...

@ The Dwarf Wolf: "The Mantic Fanatics"? Bias, much?

Seriously though, I believe that a lot of the flexibility and quick response to the customer base of Mantic is due to them being a (relatively) small company, similar to GW 2 or 3 decades ago, so only time will tell if they stay customer-friendly/responsive (And unless there's a major shakedown of GW's internal management and buisness strategies, they won't ever return to that level of customer-buisness relation that they used to have). I'm not sure how well PP has done with their customer-friendliness (since iirc they're getting to be a large model company), but I do hope Mantic stays true to their roots.

OT, the elves spears look like somebody decided the cool organic carapace-look of the armor should extend to the spear, which resulted in a visual trainwreck. The rest of the model looks fine imo.

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:Its so interesting when people say "GW models are outdated, thats why they suck", but GW still charge 2 times the price mantic do, for those outdated things...

Probably because age(and frankly, appearance either) has nothing to do with price in this market. This whole statement made no sense.

kenshin620 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
The Black Knights just look bad now that the Grave Guard and Skeleton Warriors have been updated.

Not to mention Black Knights cost a bucketload to buy a unit for. Cavalry units that get the plastic treatment from gw are much more affordable compared to their metal counterparts

Ayup. You're better off combining a Zombie or Skeleton kit with a unit of Empire or Bretonnian Knights than buying Black Knights.

Blood Knights are an entirely different story, as they're just stupidly priced.