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I am curious about what symbols or icons work for Mantic in both KoW and the Warpath universe. Many people have decided not to back Star Saga because the miniatures were bland and not "must-have" designs. Mantic is losing money to a resurgent GW, a Warzone boardgame, and other recognizable mini ranges. What can Mantic do to strengthen their visual identity and brand?

For example, I bought a decent number of Enforcers during the KS, but I ran out of things to do with them. Mantic's stunted visual lexicon limited my ideas for poses and conversions, so I ended up giving some away. What does an Enforcer hero look like? Veterans? Characters? If there were an upgrade sprue, I would have bought that instead of further weakening Mantic's market by undercutting their product. If there were aspirational artwork, I might have tried for more inspired conversions. Instead, I bought a $25 space marine just because he now came with a free Deathwatch sprue that I can use to bling up the scores of space marines I haven't given away for free.

What Mantic units have a strong visual identity? Forgefathers have beards on their armor, tanks and presumably other vehicles. Asterians look like 90's CGI robots in the best way. Fantasy Abyssals all look like Ghoulies with Hapsburg jaws, but it works for them...mostly. Mantic's elves and dwarfs are just different enough from the competition to convince gamers not to buy them, but not so distinct as Rackham's sculpts that collectors love. The salamanders suffer from Mantic leg syndrome and a bit of undercut blurring, but are otherwise the best plastic lizardmen on the market. The Basilians have a nice fantasy aesthetic, but horrible execution. Not exactly iconic designs, but the seeds are there for some of them. The Enforcers could even cross that boundary as the 'superhero army' of Michael Bayish Iron Man dudes, space marines for the 2010's.

What can Mantic do to improve their visual branding? I don't know, really. I would love to see a 'tacticool' sprue for all Corp. units, including shades, scopes, extra grips, bandoliers, straps, webbing, sponsor-donated swag (like timepieces, logos and bevarages, maybe?). If the corporation is all about Robocop-style capitalism, why not own it and release a decal sheet of brand logos to jazz up Enforcers and GCPS helmets like race cars? I would love to see some kind of design aesthetic for the more notable forgefathers, too, with heavier weapons, toolbelts, beard combs or something. I want a reason to be excited about putting together another sprue, or buying another box.

What do you think?



GW has some sort of schtick for each of their armies. A potential customer can look at a shelf of GW boxes and immediately tell which brand the figures are, which factions the boxes contain, and which boxes contain heroes for those factions.

I do agree that Mantic would be well served to make their IP less generic. Part of the problem is that Mantic doesn't seem to prioritize that kind of uniqueness. I'm not sure if that's a holdover from their start when they were trying to be a less expensive alternative for minis for other games or just a lack of resources for IP development. Looking at KoW, some armies are more difficult to pin down with detailed background. Kingdoms of Men can be all kinds of armies so it's tough to generate something like a sourcebook similar to Blood on the Reik that GW did for the Empire in WHFB. Even new lists like Varangur have an issue where the faction can be barbaric Chaos warrior type models or Vikings that are more low fantasy/historic. Those are two very different aesthetics.

I recently picked up the KoW hardback rulebook with the new historic supplement to try to get more background information to add character to my armies in a way consistent with the IP.