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OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.

Is there anyone who still cares what GW says?

Justyn wrote:

OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.

Is there anyone who still cares what GW says?

Sadly some people only have GW to play in

 kenshin620 wrote:

Justyn wrote:

OTOH while 3rd party arms on a dread is something you'll get away with in GW stores/events requiring 'original' models, using that whole IA is not.

Is there anyone who still cares what GW says?

Sadly some people only have GW to play in

That's going away as more and more GW's stop allowing open play on their tables and only allow demo games and scheduled events on their tables.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
I continue to maintain that Mantic's weakness, rules aside, is not the actual sculpts but rather their originality (or lack thereof). As far as I can tell literally everything ever produced by Mantic is derivative of GW to the point where they seem primarily intended as GW counts-as models rather than unique concepts of their own.

I would love to see Mantic start producing new and original lines of figures, as they seem to have a good handle on things from the operations side, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

Considering how many different armies GW produces to cover so many different archetypes, is this even possible?

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

I sure hope Mantic produces something original like space bugs that look nothing like space dinosaurs with exoskeletons, otherwise we'll never hear the end of it. Also, tentacle monsters. GW doesn't do those yet.
..

So, you're happy that those 'teams' are coming out for Dreadball (set in the Warpath universe) then, right? Zz'or and Nameless, the Nameless are tentacle-goodness, and the Zz'or look like giant bugs from your garden. I'm sure with enough popularity, they'll make their way into Warpath too.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

Well, we should be honest at the same time. The Corporation soldiers were pretty clearly IG analogues, right down to the weapon teams taking up a single round base and the inclusion of not-plasma/melta/flamers in the package. They don't need to look like Cadians or Catachans (who both look nothing alike) to be clearly designed as IG standins.

Having heavy weapon teams on separate bases that are larger than the normal squad guys is standard practice for historicals going back decades. GW didn't invent that.

They did however, design the lascannon, which Mantic copied, no doubt about it!

On topic, the Forge Fathers look great, a real improvement from the first guys they released.

 Commander Cain wrote:
They did however, design the lascannon, which Mantic copied, no doubt about it!

On topic, the Forge Fathers look great, a real improvement from the first guys they released.

They both kind of look like laser cannons off of toys from the 80s. I never thought GW's lascannon designs were all that original. You'll find laser bazookas in sci-fi long before GW had them in 40k. The mantic ones are also noticeably smaller than the GW ones. For some that's a plus, for others that's a negative.

I'm not sure what I think about the new FF stuff. I dislike the hard plastics that were just sci-fi conversions of their fantasy stuff, so I guess the new stuff is an upgrade.

 agustin wrote:

 Commander Cain wrote:
They did however, design the lascannon, which Mantic copied, no doubt about it!

On topic, the Forge Fathers look great, a real improvement from the first guys they released.

They both kind of look like laser cannons off of toys from the 80s. I never thought GW's lascannon designs were all that original. .

Lascannons and stub guns were taken directly from Judge Dredd...

That makes a lot of sense actually.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Considering how many different armies GW produces to cover so many different archetypes, is this even possible?

The enforcers are great and pretty original, but power armored. Uh oh! The Corporation soldiers look nothing like IG, but they are futuristic human soldiers. Uh oh! The veermyn are the result of a space radiation leak bringing terrible, terrible models to life, but GW has Nagash. Uh oh!

I sure hope Mantic produces something original like space bugs that look nothing like space dinosaurs with exoskeletons, otherwise we'll never hear the end of it. Also, tentacle monsters. GW doesn't do those yet.
..

So, you're happy that those 'teams' are coming out for Dreadball (set in the Warpath universe) then, right? Zz'or and Nameless, the Nameless are tentacle-goodness, and the Zz'or look like giant bugs from your garden. I'm sure with enough popularity, they'll make their way into Warpath too.

I am extremely happy with most of what Mantic has done lately and is doing. They still have the occasional chuckle-inducingly bad model, but they are really producing a lot of great stuff. Most of my model purchases in the last year have been Mantic models. I just wish they would get serious about plastic. Dreamforge is really making them look bad on this front. (Full disclosure: I love Dreamforge, too.)

As for the Nameless and the Z'zor, I would prefer Mantic made those factions now instead of some lame, half-baked space zombies. You want to talk about lack of originality? It's not in copying GW, it's in being the 5000th stupid company to jump on the "ZOMBIES IN _________!" bandwagon. The saddest part, though, is they'll probably sell like crazy. Just like boob models. Too bad the zombie boobs market is already tapped...or is it?

 agustin wrote:
Having heavy weapon teams on separate bases that are larger than the normal squad guys is standard practice for historicals going back decades. GW didn't invent that.

They may not have, but Mantic's use of same was clearly following the GW-compatibility train, just as much as Space Orx or recycling GW tropes like Space Dwarfz or Hrud/Space Skaven. I'm not exactly calling GW a bastion of creativity, nor am I saying that Mantic are soley a company of cut-price GW ripoffs (though they certainly started that way). Mantic are starting to find their own identity now, but it's just disingenuous to pretend that they didn't start off as and still take into consideration the GW-but-cheaper market as their primary focus - only recently (post-KS, really) have they started to move away from that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's also a bit unfair to criticise Mantic for the Space Zombies, considering that the entire faction is made up of:

Existing Kit A (Corporation Troopers)
+
Existing Kit B (Plastic Zombies)
+
Existing Kit C (Plastic Ghouls)
+
New Box Sleeve
=
Space Zombies box set.

Plus a slight rejig of the Space Skaven guy with a bad space scythe and some Triumvirate Goggles of Nurgle with Mono-Horn of Nurgle. (Because they only do original stuff, amirite?)

The space zombies made from combining corporation marines and the undead miniatures also look really really good, so it's hard to criticize them at all.

I don't like their character at all though.

The space zombies are not a Warpath faction either, just throwing that out there. They're nothing to do with the Plague whatsoever.

They are a splash release that was only made because their halloween special of the Z-corp sold an absolute heaping pile of models.

Essentially, customers said "we want this", so Mantic decided to keep on selling them, and make them available to trade/FLGS.

I'm really liking the deisgn of the new forgefather figs, but it just dawned on me that these new infantry units are priced the same as Space marines at 5 for $25?

I realize that these are metal figs, but it's still the same price as metal scouts (3 for $15) which are figs of about the same size, and also relatively monopose.

I kind of thought Mantic was supposed to be a better deal or is this just more of pricing based on in-game usefulness/power?

I realize the plastic figs are still a good deal (though with far less options than GW figs), I'm just trying to figure out what about this situation is rubbing me the wrong way.

Still hoping for new plastic units in a kickstarter though.

^ Pricing on them is entirely because they are chunky metal figures.

They're a pretty hefty chunk of metal to cast, so the price is largely determined by the cost of the raw material itself.

If you look at mantic's other, less material-heavy metals, the price is lower. The metal elf archers are 33% less, and the metal goblins are 50% less. The price is entirely in-line with their raw materials cost (Mantic doesn't have access to bulk pricing on that, either, it's a small company).

These units are also the elites of the army (which doesn't determine their price, but it does determine that they won't get priority for plastics since sales volume on them will not be very high), highly likely that the Kickstarter will focus on hard plastic core infantry and vehicles.

Mantic's pricing is still very low, in fact the plastic steel warrior and marauder boxes were recently reduced in price by £5, and a bunch of corporation sets went down in price by about £1. There isn't any margin for selling stuff cheap when metal is involved though, especially something as chunky as a forgefather mini. As a budget option, it is very easy to convert the plastic steel warriors into Thorgarim and Drakkarim if you want.

The metals are multi-part, not single-piece. Separate heads, arms+gun piece, legs and torsos.

I'm interested in hearing where the "no KS until 2014" rumour is coming from, everything I've heard on that topic points to Q2 of this year, with several people already having seen some of what Mantic has planned for it.

Where did the no-KS rumour come from Scarlet Squig? How far are they along the release of KoW? Arguably you would have to say that that would be the only thing holding up the Warpath KS (unless they want to play down the KS rumours so that other stuff sells now of course).

With how much they've been working Heath, I'm sure the Warpath Kickstarter is going to be great.

 Pacific wrote:
Where did the no-KS rumour come from Scarlet Squig?

Earlier in this thread.

How far are they along the release of KoW?

- Basileans are the only army left to be sculpted, and two of their units are done, with 4 more that we haven't seen yet. I'd estimate that they're at least 75% of the way towards getting it ready to ship.

 Azazelx wrote:

It's also a bit unfair to criticise Mantic for the Space Zombies, considering that the entire faction is made up of:

Existing Kit A (Corporation Troopers)
+
Existing Kit B (Plastic Zombies)
+
Existing Kit C (Plastic Ghouls)
+
New Box Sleeve
=
Space Zombies box set.

Plus a slight rejig of the Space Skaven guy with a bad space scythe and some Triumvirate Goggles of Nurgle with Mono-Horn of Nurgle. (Because they only do original stuff, amirite?)

I actually meant The Plague faction that Mantic is wasting using resources to develop. I don't mind the reboxed combo of existing kits at all as that won't slow down their entire release schedule just for the sake of minis that will make Mantic look like latecomers to the Sedition Wars party.

Oh, and Maimonides' Curly Beard! I had forgotten about that terrible Typhus rat model with the sausage scythe. Thanks for reminding me.

 scarletsquig wrote:
The space zombies are not a Warpath faction either, just throwing that out there. They're nothing to do with the Plague whatsoever.

They are a splash release that was only made because their halloween special of the Z-corp sold an absolute heaping pile of models.

Essentially, customers said "we want this", so Mantic decided to keep on selling them, and make them available to trade/FLGS.

There will be rules for them, though. I can't see Mantic being so stupid as to release a kit (yeah, we know it's for 40k) but not provide rules to use them as a fringe faction in their own game. There was a biochem accident at a space soldier base, and now they are zombies. There's your fluff sorted...

Redacted (thanks SS).

Dreadball N&R thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/502957.page

Regarding these guys, they've been brought to my attention again as Wayland Games has just advertised them in their newsletter (I've put the pics in spoilers as they've already been shown in the thread)



Has anyone got the Drakkarim yet and can comment on the composition?

Are they entirely metal, or some plastic bits?

I ask as I have some of the 'Steel Warriors with upgrade' sets that came out last year, and they were a mix of metal and plastic (some entirely metal, with a few that had mixed bits). A couple of bits with those at least look like the set that was released previously.

Also, with the hammer dudes (their official name! ) what are the components like? Is it separate pieces for the body, head and arms/legs?

Any help would be very appreciated!

100% metal, separate everything!

Excellent mate, that was exactly what I wanted to hear! Thanks very much.