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 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:

Sarouan wrote:

Mantic Games' Kings of War has always been about being a pale copy of Warhammer Battle armies.

I'm fairly certain that was never the intention. As far as I understand things, the objective with getting Alessio to write a set of rules was to do more with their minis than be cheaper third party miniatures for Warhammer. Which pretty much the opposite of what you are suggesting.

...have you looked at them?

Wait, are you arguing that Mantic’s elves were supposed to pass as cheaper GW elves? Mantic’s dwarfs with their deliberately distinct design were supposed to pass as generic GW dwarfs? Salamanders as Lizardmen? Mantic’s orcs had none of the characteristics that GW Orcs have. Their undead were popular with GW gamers, sure, but every other design seems to have been purposefully made not to look like the GW equivalent. Or good at all, some argue.


There’s a difference between Mantic selling cheap elves (that look like stick bugs rather than High Elves) and someone like Wargames Atlantic selling affordable Death Fields minis that look very similar to specific IG regiments. And both of those strategies seem to have done alright for their companies.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:

Sarouan wrote:

Mantic Games' Kings of War has always been about being a pale copy of Warhammer Battle armies.

I'm fairly certain that was never the intention. As far as I understand things, the objective with getting Alessio to write a set of rules was to do more with their minis than be cheaper third party miniatures for Warhammer. Which pretty much the opposite of what you are suggesting.

...have you looked at them?

Wait, are you arguing that Mantic’s elves were supposed to pass as cheaper GW elves? Mantic’s dwarfs with their deliberately distinct design were supposed to pass as generic GW dwarfs? Salamanders as Lizardmen? Mantic’s orcs had none of the characteristics that GW Orcs have. Their undead were popular with GW gamers, sure, but every other design seems to have been purposefully made not to look like the GW equivalent. Or good at all, some argue.


There’s a difference between Mantic selling cheap elves (that look like stick bugs rather than High Elves) and someone like Wargames Atlantic selling affordable Death Fields minis that look very similar to specific IG regiments. And both of those strategies seem to have done alright for their companies.

The popular mass model rank & flank fantasy game with Elves, Dwarfs, Greenskins, Ogres, Undead, etc was WFB at the time Mantic launched. Seeing as they made Elves, Dwarfs, Greenskins, Ogres, Undead, etc models on the same base sizes, same equipment load out as GW's WFB models, but for a fraction of the price it is quite obvious what Mantic were doing.

Yes the models had an aesthetic different to GW, that isn't the smoking gun you think it.

Those Chariots and monolith look crap...however, that Idol looks fantastic.

By your reasoning, chits and empty bases are GW knock-offs.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
By your reasoning, chits and empty bases are GW knock-offs.

Hahah, OK.

but true, the same argument Warlord Games Landsknechts are a Warhammer knock off

released were Warhammer was still out, same model and base size, and the theme is similar to the Empire Faction

Perry Miniatures 1450-1500 model line is a GW Knock off too
same size, same bases, same theme as the Empire

No one says that the initial plastic release from Mantic was not made with Warhammer in mind, of course as those were made before Mantic had their own game
but this has changed and if Mantic still would make GW knock offs, they would need to follow AoS and not chase a dead game that no one ever played anyway
(as people still claim Warhammer was killed because no one played it and it did sold less than a single 40k unit box, so it would be pretty stupid to make a knock off, of something no one bought in the first place)

 kodos wrote:
but true, the same argument Warlord Games Landsknechts are a Warhammer knock off

released were Warhammer was still out, same model and base size, and the theme is similar to the Empire Faction

Perry Miniatures 1450-1500 model line is a GW Knock off too
same size, same bases, same theme as the Empire

No one says that the initial plastic release from Mantic was not made with Warhammer in mind, of course as those were made before Mantic had their own game
but this has changed and if Mantic still would make GW knock offs, they would need to follow AoS and not chase a dead game that no one ever played anyway
(as people still claim Warhammer was killed because no one played it and it did sold less than a single 40k unit box, so it would be pretty stupid to make a knock off, of something no one bought in the first place)

Perry Miniatures and Warlord's stuff is mainly historical, yes they could be used for the Human factions in WFB, but I strongly doubt that was the aim when they were made. Where as with Mantic it is obvious that they made their models to be a cheaper version of what models GW offered. Given that the game system came out a good while after as well, highlights this.

What killed off WFB was the ridiculous Hordes of 40+ models, units sold as 10 models at a very high cost, and the absurdity of the spells. It turned what was a strategic game into a travesty.

If I recall correctly, Hordes in WFB pre-dates Hordes in KoW. If I'm correct, that is another Mantic aping GW.

hard to tell for the Hordes, those were already in the first version of the rules from the 2009/2010 beta, wich are 6 months older than the 8th Edition rules that introduced Hordes as a dedicated thing to Warhammer
but Warhammer had larger units before that, just no special rules for them

 stonehorse wrote:

Perry Miniatures and Warlord's stuff is mainly historical, yes they could be used for the Human factions in WFB, but I strongly doubt that was the aim when they were made. Where as with Mantic it is obvious that they made their models to be a cheaper version of what models GW offered. Given that the game system came out a good while after as well, highlights this.

no one is saying that they did not started that way, and even Ronny said in an interview that this was the case, but he also said that doing it was the biggest mistake they made as a company during the first years

claiming that it is still the case, is the dispute here

and yes, Perry and Warlord do historical stuff, but with no dedicated game in need of the specific units, and the time of release being were Warhammer was still around, the claim that they did it only to sell plastics to Warhammer players is as valid as claiming the current EoD release is there to sell plastic as an alternative to Tomb Kings
(a faction that neither exists in models nor in rules, so what big market is there outside of the Kings of War players, that demands a Tomb Kings copy that is too far off from the original to get the nostalgic ex-Warhammer people attracted)

Sarouan wrote:
Mantic Games' Kings of War has always been about being a pale copy of Warhammer Battle armies.

To my mind it is a vast improvement over WHFB. It plays faster and is a much tighter tighter rules set.

I started playing WHFB back in the 80s with 2nd edition and ditched 8th for KoW way before the end times and have not looked back.

 Maccwar wrote:

Sarouan wrote:
Mantic Games' Kings of War has always been about being a pale copy of Warhammer Battle armies.

To my mind it is a vast improvement over WHFB. It plays faster and is a much tighter tighter rules set.

It's WHFB if they took off all the bloat and unnecessary complications, and didn't require you to mortgage your house for an army.

 kodos wrote:
new pictures:

Chariots

Spoiler:

Monolith

Spoiler:

Idol of Shobik

Spoiler:

Great stuff in these later previews, happy to see Mantic's own Idol and Monolith, and great to see more chariots on the market at all. Pretty sparse options out there for chariots and printing them is a pain on standard, smaller printers.

Did I already say that I respect how Mantic's new EOD put some distance between them and Games Workshop's old TK? If not I'm content to repeat that Not a lot of other opinions on the infantry and cav, except that I find the angery skulls pretty hilarious (in a fun nostalgic way) and genuinely like the horses, with the exception of that horrific filled-in mouth

I've posted a transparency update on my business operations.

Just letting everyone know here: Mantic is currently delaying the shipment of some orders due to difficulty casting resin models during the heat wave. EoD releases were mentioned as a specific impacted set of codes. My stock order was affected, and I'm sure others have been too.

by UK standards we are indeed melting (and very few businesses other than big retail stores will have any air conditioning)

we even had an airport close today when the runway melted

Dam it must be pretty hot.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
by UK standards we are indeed melting (and very few businesses other than big retail stores will have any air conditioning)

we even had an airport close today when the runway melted

Why is air conditioning / central heat not a widespread thing? Is it because y'all are on mainly gas infrastructure?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Dam it must be pretty hot.

Supposedly 100° or higher, when converted to Fahrenheit.

 lord marcus wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
by UK standards we are indeed melting (and very few businesses other than big retail stores will have any air conditioning)

we even had an airport close today when the runway melted

Why is air conditioning / central heat not a widespread thing? Is it because y'all are on mainly gas infrastructure?

Until recently, as I understand it, it was a rarity for it to ever get this hot (in the UK, at least), so air conditioning wasn't A Thing They Needed To Worry About.

Rihgu has it, we never usually get hot enough for it to matter,

and even if we did it was only for the odd few days which could be ignored (and compared to the summer of 1976 which is the last time we had a real sustained heat wave)

it's so out of the ordinary we don't even have maximum work temperatures for office workers (but we do have minimum ones, it spends plenty of time being cold over here)

Well, at this point the earliest indication I have is "maybe" Friday.

And if I'm first in line like my rep claimed, then is wager other US based retailers are also awaiting orders.

And this is after the week wait for the UK premium stores to be fulfilled.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
by UK standards we are indeed melting (and very few businesses other than big retail stores will have any air conditioning)

we even had an airport close today when the runway melted

Is the runway made of ice-cream?

Here in Australia most of our country attains the UK current temps for at least a few weeks to a few months a year.
Amazingly our roads do not melt, our rail lines do not warp.

I'm out running 10km training runs in 36 degree Celsius as normal in summertime.

The British come to Australia (and other hotter countries) for holidays in hot weather....


Having lived in the UK I do know your pain though of being inside a house designed to trap heat, when it is hot.
At university we would get a kids bathing pool, fill it and drink beer and watch sport on the TV, all in the shade of a tree... fun times.

Ok...? Things designed for a certain temperature range generally function better than equivalents designed for a different temperature range, people used to living in a certain temperature range will have less trouble than people with no experience in that temperature range. I'm sure if Mantic's factory were built in Australia they'd have made sure it could function perfectly fine in this heat, but why would they have spent extra time and money to deal with weather conditions that (from their perspective at the time) would never pose a concern?

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

Here in Australia most of our country attains the UK current temps for at least a few weeks to a few months a year.
Amazingly our roads do not melt, our rail lines do not warp.

Our infrastructure has both ends of the spectrum to cope with - parts of the UK can get below -20C (-4f) in winter and today we forecast to break all time records and exceed 40C (104f) in places.

At either end of the range things begin to grind to a halt. Other countries cope with this sort of temperature range better but we would rather complain about the weather and drink tea.

it is the same in Austria, no one had air condition years ago when 30°C was the maximum and this only for ~5 days a year
at the same time -20°C for 1/4 of the yeas is a thing, no one even thinks of "cooling"

(and still is, I have machinery in the lab that does not work properly with constant 30° in the room and I don't have air condition yet because machines not working during holiday season is not considered necessary and installing one in an old building is not cheap either)

and now we run into energy problems as well because some people like >25° in winter and <20° in summer

My stock order shipped this afternoon, so they are processing things.

Sprues are now up on the webstore for the empires of dust plastics.

figured you all might want better photos of the sprues too

And a size comparison between an empires of dust skeleton warrior and a wargames Atlantic skeleton with the conversion bits I offer.

Mantic have announced an Armarda ‘taster set’ for £30. Due to be released at the end of August.

https://www.manticgames.com/news/armada-taster-set-pre-order-now/

Taster Set includes:

1 x resin orc Bloodrunner
1 x resin Basilean Gur Panther
1 x Armada Rulebook and Token Set
1 x exclusive paper play mat with rules reference (70cm x 70cm)
1 x Armada dice set

£30 cost (£58 cost separately excluding the paper mat)

Always had an interest in a ship game, especially after Dreadfleet, but never taken the plunge. For £30 thought it worth a punt to see how it plays, even if I only end up painting & building the ships.

I've heard good things about Oak&Iron, and Dystopian Wars is pretty ace.

Black Seas is bad and 1 vs 1 is gonna be utter misery.

In-depth review of the first wave of new EOD stuff: https://blog.untilsomebodylosesaneye.net/2022/08/for-dust-you-are-and-to-dust-you-shall.html

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I've heard good things about Oak&Iron, and Dystopian Wars is pretty ace.

Black Seas is bad and 1 vs 1 is gonna be utter misery.

Armada's built on Black Seas, and we had fun with our campaign. I also have BS, but never played it - the rules aren't that different. I'd recommend giving it a try. The Bloodrunner is a v cool ship.

Oak & Iron is also fun. I played a bunch of DW years ago, it was mostly a dice fest with fairly limited tactical options (get to the right range band, unload your guns, hope you do it first), but Spartan Games had pretty bad rules all around, so maybe the new set is better?

New consolidated rulebook that also includes siege rules, rules for small (1000pts) and big (3000+) games, and "the normal clash of kings updates".

I'm keen, it's a fetching shade of red