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Mantic is set for massive year, looks like. The fact that they have multi-plans and are sharing them with the fans/gamers is great!
Gonna have to get Dwarf kings hold 1&2 when they restock em. Should have bought the original when I had the chance.
Mantic switched to resin from metal and doubled the product, good move as well.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:Something completely new would be great, but if your going to have fantasy in space (which is the path that I suspect Mantic will follow GW down) it may as well be like the old RT stuff where at least the GRIMDARK was not quite as grim.

Or Dark

Don't get me wrong, I am open to something new - I just want something that looks like it will actually be used in battle, rather than some 60's retro sci-fi ragun toting, jumpsuit clad, flared trouser, space goggle wearing army.

grak wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Now we just need some pictures!

http://www.beastsofwar.com/kings-of-war/leaked-mantic-sci-fi-pictures/

Don't really like the zoid with tracks, but I'm still interested.

Kanluwen wrote:Why? I'm quoting here: The size of the "armies" is too small for many people.
They don't want another little skirmish game that is being shown off, where a single box is pretty much a force.

"I can not, and will not, spend less than $600 on any game! Never!"

All jokes aside, I'm not sure why people hate the idea of skirmish games so much. I like big games with tanks and everything but I love the idea of being able to play a game with just one box.

Dysartes wrote:

LunaHound wrote:If that humvee is for space dwarfs, i want to slap Mantic -_-

Both their range seem to be lacking normal human faction, i'll be dissappointed if they push dwarf again, into sci fi....

Any particular reason, Luna? People seem to accept most other Fantasy archetypes in Spaaace, yet balk at Dwarves in Spaaaaace?

Ahh because so far we dont have any generic human faction by Mantic, Elves are the closest i guess , which is still abit off ( so no Empire , Britonian , IG type of humans )
before we get a 2nd dwarf army ( even if its in space ) , i rather we get a human of some sort first!

We don't really need Empire or Bretonnia with the work the Perry twins have done on their 15th century War of the Roses and Mercenaries kits. I agree that we should get some humans, they just shouldn't be anything made redundant by existing plastic kits.

lasgunpacker wrote:Mantic scifi should be exciting... but I keep thinking about the scrawny elves.

And this is hardly the first "challenge" to 40k. Remember Void? Remember VOR? Remember Warzone?

All "challenges" that did not make it.

I do. GW (and it's attached fanbase) was not in the position it was in right now, with a massive easy way to communicate globally and being pissed off at them in masses.

Thing is, at one point in GW's history, Warzone WAS a genuine concern. During the Pokemon craze of the late 90's GW was is serious danger, with weekly targets and the company being somewhat more or less douchy than it is now.

Void IMO WAS going to be a legit concern for GW if one of their higher ups within the company wasn't embezzling money.... Urban Mammoth (or I-kore as they were known then) were lucky to survive.

VOR, like Warzone came out at the wrong time. Not enough UK precense. I heard it had a LOT bigger following in the US. Again, if the Internet was like it was then today it would be a different story.

Don't write Mantic off just yet, they're run by a lot of the old GW alumni and more and more disaffected gamers (and staff) will be flocking to their banner with each passing month.

Good call on that, Alex - I'm seriously looking at getting some of those Perry kits and just adapting the KoW ruleset for some historical games.

What I'd like to see is Mantic doing humans with a totally different vibe to the typical late Mediaeval/early Renaissance feel of most fantasy armies (the primary reason for which seems to be to so they can throw in plate armour and guns).

Maybe early mediaeval (no later than 13th century) or possibly even dark age or classical? Leave the guns and plate to the Dwarfs for a change... Hell, I'd be happy if they just used clean and shiny new versions of the undead armour/weapons - it would make a logical tie-in between the two forces for a change!

P.S. thanks for the info from BoW - looking forward to watching the whole thing when I get chance.

@Grimtuff - am I the only one who'd love Mantic to persuade Andy Chambers to come and work for them?

A lot of the small fish that are in GW's "pond" are made up of ex-GW staff.

BrookM wrote:A lot of the small fish that are in GW's "pond" are made up of ex-GW staff.

Yup, off the top of my head, along with Mantic both Battlefront and Warlord have ex-GW higher ups in management in their respective companies.

If mantic hopefully keep their tie in with hasslefree that have been selling their figures too to design in tandem with I can see mantics futuristic product lines doing well.

I cannot see hasslefree's grymm being cast in hard plastic however awesome that would be. Admitedly I do think mantics dwarves with the right paint job still would make convincing squats and I have seen them done on my own site sIte space dwarves online.

But a big thumbs up to mantic for trying. If you look mantic are covering many of the generic fantasy lines at the momment because of who else does humans? The perry twins and warlord games both do some great models. 90% of the time their trade stands are next to each other come shows and events at a reasonable price. At the end of the day isn't that mantics own ethos?

If mantic can pull this off and pull it off well then GW may have to think about some price reductions or flounder in the face of competition that feels no need to charge for rules too.

Andrew1975 wrote:Those sketches do not look good. DO NOT WANT. Lets pray that they come up with something better. I have faith that they will.

It is too early to say that tbh Andrew.
The design process is more drawn out (pun intended) than coming up with a polished drawing.
These really are concept drawings rather than more fully developed degins that people call concepts.

What was leaked look to me like someone noting basic ideas to develop further and at a very preliminary stage.

It isn't GW's pond. They are just the big grumpy carp that bullies the other fish.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:Good call on that, Alex - I'm seriously looking at getting some of those Perry kits and just adapting the KoW ruleset for some historical games.

Neldoreth over at Warseer already has some historical rules in development - if nothing else, they might serve as a useful starting point. Otherwise, there are a few fantasy army lists people are working on that might be of interest.

What I'd like to see is Mantic doing humans with a totally different vibe to the typical late Mediaeval/early Renaissance feel of most fantasy armies (the primary reason for which seems to be to so they can throw in plate armour and guns).

Maybe early mediaeval (no later than 13th century) or possibly even dark age or classical? Leave the guns and plate to the Dwarfs for a change... Hell, I'd be happy if they just used clean and shiny new versions of the undead armour/weapons - it would make a logical tie-in between the two forces for a change!

I agree with leaving the handguns to the Dwarfs, but would prefer they get away from Humans being a misplaced historical army altogether. As I said on Warseer:

I wrote:It's not like there's a shortage of concepts Mantic could put into plastic. The humans could have regiments of warmages instead of archers. They could have skirmishing monks with meteor hammers. They could have grenadiers. They could have mixed units of summoners and elementals. They could have infantry in superheavy plate and tower shields. They could have plastic cavalry. They could have female soldiers.

Kanluwen wrote:I remain skeptical of the idea of them being "stiff competition" to GW.

Will they be competition? Yeah. And with them being the first 'real' integrated system for scifi with both models and rules it'll be another point in their corner.

But if the models are to the quality of their Elves--I will pass.

I like the Elves, have over 50 myself.....I like the fact that they look more 'Elfin' than GW's.

The rest of the KoW range is pretty good too, but they are a young company, relatively speaking. Give them time, the Warpath mini's are bound to better quality. And if that's the case I really can't wait for them to be released!

Hell, I'd be happy if they just used clean and shiny new versions of the undead armour/weapons - it would make a logical tie-in between the two forces for a change!

This makes a lot of sense.
Ronnie talking about the release of the, then new, Undead said that the idea was not the raising of the dead from a cemetery.
Instead, the Necromancer raised the dead from a battlefield, so rather than Aunties and grannies being raised, it was an entire army of dead.

Only thing is if the fluff says it is the slain from an ancient battle that gets raised, but a living equivalent would be good imho.

I do wonder if Alessio will also write the sci-fi rule set.

I personally don't care as long as it's not matt ward.

Don't go there please, it's been done to death.

We need a Matt Ward filter on Dakka please Mr Legoburner.

Given the panto performance last night on Turn 8 it seems safe to assume that Alessio will be doing the rules.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:We need a Matt Ward filter on Dakka please Mr Legoburner.

Circle the bandwagons! Mat Ward, he's a-comin'!

(apparently it is "Mat" rather than "Matt")...

Kanluwen wrote: "Stiff competition" implies that they're going to bend GW over and stomp them. Mantic is doing well, but they're not doing that well yet.

I have to wonder exactly how many people are playing Mantic's "competition" to WHFB, Kings of War. That would be a good way to get a measure of how well this can do.

I agree, I want for nothing more than a company like Mantic to redress the competition within the hobby, especially in terms of Sci Fi!. Infinity is great, but it can not be compared to WH40K in terms of size, and let's face it, people like large armies, tanks, flyers monsters...etc etc.

Mantic need to get three things right before this can deliver a blow to WH40K:

1) The miniatures need to be MUCH better than the Kings of War line.....yes, people will except a slightly lower "quality" of sculpt if they're paying £50 for 110 miniatures in a box, sure...but all Mantic will succeed in doing is creating a kind of "class distinction" between the companies, with Mantic being seen as the "poor mans" GW....not a good plan for the long term.

2) Their fluff and races need to be engaging and compelling. People like WH40K because of it's fluff etc....it Mantic release a game which is a "pale" carbon copy of WH40K, people will probably jump on board, but they won't create enough of a separation that people would be forced to chose Mantic over GW, at best it would be like a cheap companion game....again read: poor mans GW. On the flip side, if it's too "out there" it may be too much of a shock to the system that people are reluctant to jump in.....

3) The game rules need to be tight......no codex creep, balanced armies.....

I think if they do these things correct, WH40K and GW will be in trouble.

I am hoping and praying that they push Space Dwarves. Damn you all for saying otherwise. There are rumoured to be 8 races, i think its is perfectly fair for at least one to be a dwarven race (maybe a chaos dwarf type one too but not too fussed about that). 7 other races for all you boring people out there.

It does make a lot of sense for them to mirror GW in some way to make they money on people using them as proxy, in all fairness I am pretty sure that is all their models are used for from Kings of War.

Has anyone actually played Kings of War, i never see it discussed apart from the model range. Are the Mantic rules any good??

I know Silver.
Am thinking that the Matt Ward comments tend to be the silly ones, whereas sensible people with sensible posts posts about him use the prefered spelling.
As indeed I was just saying the other day to Mat himself at the Annual Pickled Gurkhin Fest in Bruge.

So if Mr Legoburner could filter Matt Ward it would cut out a lot of nonsense about the poor fellow.

lukewild1982 wrote: Are the Mantic rules any good??

Well that's part of the beauty of the enterprise....why not download them (they're free) and see for yourself......all you would have "wasted" is a few minutes of your day....

Delephont wrote:

lukewild1982 wrote: Are the Mantic rules any good??

Well that's part of the beauty of the enterprise....why not download them (they're free) and see for yourself......all you would have "wasted" is a few minutes of your day....

Did not realise this, consider them downloaded!!

Oh even cooler. Ive been thinking about jumping on board the Mantic range and this might make my decision even faster for me.

I hate to sound like a fat GW fanboy, but if I am I guess I am. Something about Mantic just bugs me.. I dunno, it just seems like they're just there to cash in on people upset with GW's prices so they make a cheaper alternative with models that in most cases aren't even half as nice looking.

I guess since I don't buy stuff that often, I expect a higher quality product and I don't mind paying more for getting exactly what I want. I'd rather do that than get what looks like a cheap knock off. So, hopefully Mantic can put together something really good & original with awesome fluff and models.. there's a first time for everything. I'll still be watching and hoping, but not holding my breath.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
1. A humvee.
2. The love-child of a half-track and one of the lions from Voltron.
3. A walker that looks like a Snow Fox from BattleTech, and a two-legged walker that is really chubby.
4. A Space Dwarf tricycle.
5. A Space Dwarf halftrack that looks too small even for the people riding it. A Chibi-Track, if you will.

I assume the models will be better (the general Mantic stuff is very nice after all).

1. Yes please.
2. No, just no, for the love of god, NO!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, if they do cyber-dogs, I won't be buying.
3. Eh, ok.
4. ick.
5. ick again.

Here's hoping these were just initial concepts.

Well of course they are initial concepts. I too hope they nix the dog-track thing. Thats just weird no matter WTF you do with it. I think the Squats are a funny to GW in all honesty. I still dont like Squats but its funny none the less

Necros wrote:I hate to sound like a fat GW fanboy, but if I am I guess I am. Something about Mantic just bugs me.. I dunno, it just seems like they're just there to cash in on people upset with GW's prices so they make a cheaper alternative with models that in most cases aren't even half as nice looking.

I guess since I don't buy stuff that often, I expect a higher quality product and I don't mind paying more for getting exactly what I want. I'd rather do that than get what looks like a cheap knock off. So, hopefully Mantic can put together something really good & original with awesome fluff and models.. there's a first time for everything. I'll still be watching and hoping, but not holding my breath.

I'm no GW fan boy, and yet I can see where you're coming from with your assessment of their Fantasy range. Sure, it's a harsh assessment, and I would imagine the Mantic guys would argue that their mission statement was/is to provide the same level of "emjoyment" that you'd get from GW products but at a reduced price....however, I doubt that argument could stretch to their Sci Fi game.

At the same time, if GW wasn't so hell bent on alienating it's customer base, then companies like Mantic either wouldn't exist or there would be nothing for them to cash in on.....so really, no matter how you spin it, what ever happens to GW from here on out was down to GW's own actions.

Necros wrote:I hate to sound like a fat GW fanboy, but if I am I guess I am. Something about Mantic just bugs me.. I dunno, it just seems like they're just there to cash in on people upset with GW's prices so they make a cheaper alternative with models that in most cases aren't even half as nice looking.

I guess since I don't buy stuff that often, I expect a higher quality product and I don't mind paying more for getting exactly what I want. I'd rather do that than get what looks like a cheap knock off. So, hopefully Mantic can put together something really good & original with awesome fluff and models.. there's a first time for everything. I'll still be watching and hoping, but not holding my breath.

Not sure that calling Mantic a cheap knock off does them or yourself any real favours.
It is perfectly okay if you wish to pay more for GW. But doing so in a way that could be seen as condescending towards others is not.

Mantic have seen a gap in the market and are doing a grand job of filling it imho.
As mentioned on Turn 8 last night:

5 Mantic metal Revenant = 20 Mantic plastic resin Revenant Cavalry.
ie they switched to plastic resin and doubled the amount in a box for half the price.
apologies if I misheard that/misunderstood, as I was in shock at the implications.
So GW can shove their Finecast where the sun won't melt them!
Personally I don't see that Vampire Counts cav are so much superior, but personal tastes etc.