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For that price you take them just for the bits.
Heads, Weapons and Bases are good enough for conversions of anything (if you have some Core Box Sigmarines and want to replace Hammers with Swords, it will never be that cheap again)

There were really only one or two good heads for every five MaA. The swords and spears might be worth the price, though. And if you have a bunch of sci if arms waiting for some cool "timeless" bodies to convert into troops, you could do a lot worse than the old MaA. I already have scores of them left, or I'd be thinking pretty hard about this deal.

Horrible minis, such a disappointment at the time.

I am tempted by this deal though.

Always heard they were horrible but what is actually the problem with them? Its a pretty good price and if they are not too horrific to work with I could see some uses.

They're plastic, which means they're pretty easy to work with and you can kitbash tons of them to your heart's content.

At the price they're offering it's not a bad idea to go in with a few other people and divvy them up for assorted projects.

Might need to talk some other locals into splitting one with me...

 ingtaer wrote:
Always heard they were horrible but what is actually the problem with them? Its a pretty good price and if they are not too horrific to work with I could see some uses.

All but two of the heads look really bad, like muppety bad. The arms are all over the place in length, but pretty much all too long to some degree. They have Lego hands. The arm poses are very stiff and limited. The details on the arms and bodies are soft or blurry in places where the digital sculpts likely had undercuts. The sides of the bodies where the arms attach are lumpy and need to be filed or cut flat, and the shoulder straps removed. There was a thread on Dakka when they came out about how much work it would take to make them look good as intended.


But other than that, they're pretty great.


Relevant: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/553823.page

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 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
They're plastic, which means they're pretty easy to work with and you can kitbash tons of them to your heart's content.

At the price they're offering it's not a bad idea to go in with a few other people and divvy them up for assorted projects.

Might need to talk some other locals into splitting one with me...

Are we talking about saving shipping on an order from Mantic, perhaps divvying up some bundles?

...perhaps, but I'm not planning on staying awake until 2AM or whenever Mantic's sale starts.

On the other hand, considering how slow the CMON site is...

Cheers for that Bob, feth that idea then, looks way to much work to get any sort of half decent result. Guess I am going to have to spend the money on some more orcs instead.

Highlord, my instincts tell me that much haste will not be necessary when buying from a Mantic Black Friday. Don't they usually extend the sale for days and then weeks?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Highlord, my instincts tell me that much haste will not be necessary when buying from a Mantic Black Friday. Don't they usually extend the sale for days and then weeks?

I would have thought so, but now that I am at home and wanted to order the Man at Arms deal it has already disappeared

Bah, what's the point of buying huge amounts of crappy miniatures, that you will never build or paint completely anyway ?

That's the problem with mantic fanbase. They're conditionned to see value in crap.

Better wait next year, then maybe Black Friday will see the new Men-At-Arms at interesting prices. Now those would be much more acceptable.

 Sarouan wrote:
Bah, what's the point of buying huge amounts of crappy miniatures, that you will never build or paint completely anyway ?

I need about 40 Swords and 20 Spears for conversion of AoW Dwarfs and GW Empire models.

Looked on 3rd party products and bits sellers, the cheapest I found are for 0.8€ per sword/spear, which means if I buy the Mantic bundle take the weapons and throw everything else in the bin, it is still cheaper. And the weapons are actually better looking than most 3rd party resin bits (the good looking ones are much more expensive)

 Sarouan wrote:
Bah, what's the point of buying huge amounts of crappy miniatures, that you will never build or paint completely anyway ?

That's the problem with mantic fanbase. They're conditionned to see value in crap.

Better wait next year, then maybe Black Friday will see the new Men-At-Arms at interesting prices. Now those would be much more acceptable.

Each full, opened box of unassembled minis works as a horcrux. Pretty cheap for immortality.

 kodos wrote:

I need about 40 Swords and 20 Spears for conversion of AoW Dwarfs and GW Empire models.

Looked on 3rd party products and bits sellers, the cheapest I found are for 0.8€ per sword/spear, which means if I buy the Mantic bundle take the weapons and throw everything else in the bin, it is still cheaper. And the weapons are actually better looking than most 3rd party resin bits (the good looking ones are much more expensive)

You'll find your pleasure elsewhere. Look at historical kits, they're a better value for what you're looking for.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Each full, opened box of unassembled minis works as a horcrux. Pretty cheap for immortality.

In that case, I'm fine with GW unopened boxes. At least they make higher quality horcruxes.

 Sarouan wrote:

That's the problem with mantic fanbase. They're conditionned to see value in crap.

It's always easier to say other people are fools than to inspect your own prejudices, eh?

 Sarouan wrote:

You'll find your pleasure elsewhere. Look at historical kits, they're a better value for what you're looking for.

as I also play SAGA no it is not
You need historical kits Lances to make small Spears for heroscaled models, not talking about swords or heads.

Of course, this is true with the Mantic Elves, they fit perfectly together with other real scaled 1/56 or 28mm or historical kits.

But with out of scale or using no scale at all models from GW or other "heroic" manufacturers you need out of scale bits for conversion

 Sarouan wrote:

 kodos wrote:

I need about 40 Swords and 20 Spears for conversion of AoW Dwarfs and GW Empire models.

Looked on 3rd party products and bits sellers, the cheapest I found are for 0.8€ per sword/spear, which means if I buy the Mantic bundle take the weapons and throw everything else in the bin, it is still cheaper. And the weapons are actually better looking than most 3rd party resin bits (the good looking ones are much more expensive)

You'll find your pleasure elsewhere. Look at historical kits, they're a better value for what you're looking for.

that is completely and shamefully untrue. I have dozens of kits from the Perrys, WGF, Fireforge, Gripping Beast, Immortal, Warlord, and maybe Conquest (the guys who made the Normans, not the Jim Hensen looking fantasy), and all of their weapons are dinky and uninspiring. If you want great, heroic-scaled fantasy swords and spears in plastic, you either buy them from Mantic (MaA, Salamanders, Abyssals to a lesser extent), Shieldwolf (not a big selection so far, but hopefully soon), Reaper (they have ABS? Weapon sprues from last Kickstarter that are seriously cool but hard to find) or Kingdom Death. Mantic's MaA swords are among the best and also really affordable. I'd much prefer to use a Mantic Weapon on a Gripping Beast mini than vice versa--one looks like a hero with a legendary weapon and the other looks like the schlub with the letter opener at medieval times.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Each full, opened box of unassembled minis works as a horcrux. Pretty cheap for immortality.

In that case, I'm fine with GW unopened boxes. At least they make higher quality horcruxes.

I'm good there, thanks.

 Sarouan wrote:
Bah, what's the point of buying huge amounts of crappy miniatures, that you will never build or paint completely anyway ?

That's the problem with mantic fanbase. They're conditionned to see value in crap.

Better wait next year, then maybe Black Friday will see the new Men-At-Arms at interesting prices. Now those would be much more acceptable.

That is a whole lot of false assumptions in one short post.

Do I build and paint the Mantic models completely? Yes. So, you are, at the least, wrong.

Are those models all crappy? Less so than a lot of recent GW. More so than a lot of older GW. (I do not like the overly ornate computer generated GW crap - and a lot of what GW is releasing is exactly that - with enough exceptions that I keep looking. I like the GW plastic minis from about ten years ago or so.)

The Men at Arms are, in point of fact, pretty awful - but for large blocks of troops - which is, also in point of fact, what Kings of War is all about - they do the job, especially in the middle of a formation. Just like model railroading, you do not need to spend vast amounts of effort on models that will not be seeing a lot of focus.

And the weapons, on their own, are fine - 90% of the problems are with the human figures themselves.

That Mantic saw fit to blow out the older, admittedly crappy, MaA models at a discount is fully understandable.

That folks see value in having bulk troops for a game that is about bulk troops is equally understandable.

Not being able to see the value says more about the observer than of the people making the purchase.

Bad as they are, they're still better than the miniatures I started with, back in the seventies. Compared to those ancient Minifigs, the MaA are stellar.... Miniature modeling has come a long, long way.

The Auld Grump - plus, I give Mantic points for the use of the word 'Century' for the bundle.

So, they're completely out of the MaA bundles, right? I don't see them.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, they're completely out of the MaA bundles, right? I don't see them.

At 40 cents per model, not a huge surprise. The page with the bundle is likewise gone - they did not just remove the link.

The Forgefather Valkyr are also out of stock, so... I am in for the Tunneler and the Raptors - the tunneler will see use in a steampunk game, rather than their SF game, while the raptors will be finding a good home with an ork player that I know....


I am kinda miffed about missing the Valkyr... I picture dwarf bikes roaring along to Ride of the Valkyries.

Also bothered by the lack of a Fantasy Crazy Box this year - I am a sucker for grab bags, and my wife has slightly different tastes, so arguing over who gets what is kinda fun.

The Auld Grump - rounding out the order with more zeds - I can always find room for more zeds.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


Bad as they are, they're still better than the miniatures I started with, back in the seventies. Compared to those ancient Minifigs, the MaA are stellar.... Miniature modeling has come a long, long way.

This is why I say mantic fanbase is conditionned to see value in crap. You do know we are in 2018, not in the seventies anymore - comparing quality to a time that is gone and behind us is completely dishonest in itself, and you are aware of it.

Mantic can do much better, but they keep doing it cheap because they know their customers are used to this cheapness. And they will defend them for doing so, like we can all see here on this topic. It's really a snake biting its own tail.

But sure, you can always find a justification throwing some money at old Men-At-Arms. That will never make them good for what the market is offering right now - same for mantic elves, TBH.

 Sarouan wrote:
[
Mantic can do much better, but they keep doing it cheap because

Because this is their business model. There is still an "affordable wargaming" advertising and no there are enough Premium SciFi and Fantasy companies out there, no need for another one.

And while the GW Fanbase still argues that even the last model in a regiment of 40 that is only stays 5 minutes on the table need to be a premium model worth the 10€ that they paid for, others will say that having the same premium models 20 times in one unit because there are just 2 different ones in the box (except for some lesser details that cannot be noticed in a unit of 40) is not worth the price

 Sarouan wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


Bad as they are, they're still better than the miniatures I started with, back in the seventies. Compared to those ancient Minifigs, the MaA are stellar.... Miniature modeling has come a long, long way.

This is why I say mantic fanbase is conditionned to see value in crap. You do know we are in 2018, not in the seventies anymore - comparing quality to a time that is gone and behind us is completely dishonest in itself, and you are aware of it.

Mantic can do much better, but they keep doing it cheap because they know their customers are used to this cheapness. And they will defend them for doing so, like we can all see here on this topic. It's really a snake biting its own tail.

But sure, you can always find a justification throwing some money at old Men-At-Arms. That will never make them good for what the market is offering right now - same for mantic elves, TBH.

You do know that there are people that see more value in ten figs for twenty quid than in one figure for twenty quid, right?

Mind you - I also say that the Mantic figures are often better than that twenty quid GW figure - even in the case of the Men at Arms, and not just for price. (Sorry, but a lot of the more recent GW figures look like dung to me. Overly ornate, awkwardly posed, unrealistic, fragile, and being not worth the price is just the icing on the cake.)

I would take the bad MaA figures over the awful Sigmarines.

The Auld Grump

Is now a bad time to mention how much I enjoy the Proxie Models troops?


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I have to disagree with Sir Grump on one thing, though: if I had to choose between 100 MaA for $40 and 100 Sigmarines for $40, I'd go Sigmarine every time. I paid a lot more per Sigmarine for the ones I already own...

Some day I want to go shopping with Souran just so I can watch him recoil with disgust for the Kroger brand. "Kirkland's signature is the ink of fools!"

100 Multipart Sigmarines for a good price would also be worth it just for the Bits
100 of the new Core Box Models, not so much

 kodos wrote:
100 Multipart Sigmarines for a good price would also be worth it just for the Bits
100 of the new Core Box Models, not so much

Also, I have to admit to fibbing a bit - if I were still playing 40K then the Sigmarines would seem a lot more attractive - in my opinion they work better for 40K than for a fantasy game. (A friend has a bunch painted up for Blood Angels - I had forgotten about them. He made them look very nice, and swapped out a lot of weapons.)

But for my current needs, I would take a 100 of the MaA over 100 of the Sigmarines.

I am a big block wargamer at heart - and a century of MaA work fine for the core of a big block o' infantry.

Not that it matters - they had sold out long before I could get my mitts on them.

The Auld Grump

The KoW RPG was just announced, it's going to be written by Red Scar Publishing using the Modiphius 2d20 system



Dragonmeet is go! And we can now reveal our amazing news.

Red Scar are very pleased to announce that we are partnering up with Mantic Games to produce Kings of War the Roleplaying Game!

More information will flow from Mantic Games and ourselves as the project takes shape over the coming months, so please sign up to our mailing lists to ensure you don't miss out. Our first tidbit, however, is that we are keen to ensure that the roleplaying game fully integrates with the Kings of War range, which will allow you to take your RPG character through the dungeons of Dungeon Saga, the skirmish of Vanguard and the mass battles of Kings of War if you so dare!

 NTRabbit wrote:
The KoW RPG was just announced, it's going to be written by Red Scar Publishing using the Modiphius 2d20 system

Spoiler:

Dragonmeet is go! And we can now reveal our amazing news.

Red Scar are very pleased to announce that we are partnering up with Mantic Games to produce Kings of War the Roleplaying Game!

More information will flow from Mantic Games and ourselves as the project takes shape over the coming months, so please sign up to our mailing lists to ensure you don't miss out. Our first tidbit, however, is that we are keen to ensure that the roleplaying game fully integrates with the Kings of War range, which will allow you to take your RPG character through the dungeons of Dungeon Saga, the skirmish of Vanguard and the mass battles of Kings of War if you so dare!

Interesting.

I hope it has the same simple to learn but depth from how the game works and ither players that make KoW and Vanguard so good (and recognisably Mantic games).

Hmmm. I'd honestly rather see a rewrite of Dungeon Saga or a Dungeon Saga 2.0 before a roleplaying game, but hopefully we'll get a more robust foundation of fluff for Mantica out of it.

I remember being unimpressed with the 2D20 system, when I saw it for Conan.

I hope it works better for Mantica than Hyboria.

The Auld Grump