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lord_blackfang wrote:Agreed that shafts need to be thicc
Been doing historicals lately and realistic pikes stress me out.

That's why broom bristles for pikes are so popular.

 DarkBlack wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Agreed that shafts need to be thicc
Been doing historicals lately and realistic pikes stress me out.

That's why broom bristles for pikes are so popular.

If snapping pikes are a problem, use piano wire. It is quite strong. In fact, there was an accident, and I had one driven through a toe. The pike was fine; my toe less so.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I've been working on some Rift Forged Orcs for a forthcoming video

When will this video be available on your YT?

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Agreed that shafts need to be thicc
Been doing historicals lately and realistic pikes stress me out.

That's why broom bristles for pikes are so popular.

If snapping pikes are a problem, use piano wire. It is quite strong. In fact, there was an accident, and I had one driven through a toe. The pike was fine; my toe less so.

Egads man, you simply must stop playing on the floor! Or stop with the table dancing!

That sounds horrid!!

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Agreed that shafts need to be thicc
Been doing historicals lately and realistic pikes stress me out.

That's why broom bristles for pikes are so popular.

If snapping pikes are a problem, use piano wire. It is quite strong. In fact, there was an accident, and I had one driven through a toe. The pike was fine; my toe less so.

I am confused why you are telling us to use piano wire and then explaining why we should never use piano wire.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I am confused why you are telling us to use piano wire and then explaining why we should never use piano wire.

Actually, I thought that was an endorsement of piano wire's durability. It won't break or bend under the most extreme circumstance, so snapping pikes will never be a concern again.

My anecdote is also a warning against laziness. Had I put my purchase away properly before standing on a chair to change a light bulb, it would not have been on the floor when I slipped off the chair. The minis as well as the pikes were fine, just the packaging (and my toe) were damaged.

A review of Riftforged orcs by our fellow dakkanaut

It seems completely insane to me that Mantic is burning money tooling 2 sprues that have 2 copies of each sculpt when they could get the exact same result with 1 sprue. Someone embezzling money through the tooling subcontractor?

Other than that, seems like a sharp cast, but I don't care much for this World of Warcraft aesthetic.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It seems completely insane to me that Mantic is burning money tooling 2 sprues that have 2 copies of each sculpt when they could get the exact same result with 1 sprue. Someone embezzling money through the tooling subcontractor?

Other than that, seems like a sharp cast, but I don't care much for this World of Warcraft aesthetic.

It might be a modular tool so saving money, as they make 3 half tools and swap between two of them to get different sprues.

Such a shame.

I am impressed with the hammers and proportions of the Orcs.

However the armour is not to my tastes. Some classic GW Chaos Warrior armour would have done the trick.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It seems completely insane to me that Mantic is burning money tooling 2 sprues that have 2 copies of each sculpt when they could get the exact same result with 1 sprue. Someone embezzling money through the tooling subcontractor?

It was the same for the halflings.
.
I'd say it's less money for the 3D sculptor (just had to pay him for 5 different models rather than 10).

Remember when I said Mantic Games is just a cheap version of GW ? Well, it's still true.

But they could have put literally all of those parts on one sprue and save 50% of tooling costs, and just cast it twice instead of two different sprues once with all the parts doubled up. It's mind boggling. Unless they're planning to keep the body sprue and use it with variant weapon sprues, but they haven't done so yet for any faction, and even then they'd just be breaking even, not saving.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
But they could have put literally all of those parts on one sprue and save 50% of tooling costs, and just cast it twice instead of two different sprues once with all the parts doubled up. It's mind boggling. Unless they're planning to keep the body sprue and use it with variant weapon sprues, but they haven't done so yet for any faction, and even then they'd just be breaking even, not saving.

There are some parts that aren't doubled, though. Like the heads. Same for halflings as well.

So I guess it wasn't especially cheaper to make the not-doubled parts on a separate mould and just double the other sprues.

Or they could've made 10 diffrent bodies and such smh.

Sarouan wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
But they could have put literally all of those parts on one sprue and save 50% of tooling costs, and just cast it twice instead of two different sprues once with all the parts doubled up. It's mind boggling. Unless they're planning to keep the body sprue and use it with variant weapon sprues, but they haven't done so yet for any faction, and even then they'd just be breaking even, not saving.

There are some parts that aren't doubled, though. Like the heads. Same for halflings as well.

So I guess it wasn't especially cheaper to make the not-doubled parts on a separate mould and just double the other sprues.

Many of recent sprues prior to that did not fit on one frame either. (Salamanders, Naiads, Men At Arms)

I guess that when you're already spilling over onto two, you might as well take up the whole frame.

EDIT: I also don't imagine that 50% of the tool size means 50% of the tooling cost.

Kings of War: A Storm in the Shires 2-player set shipping 14 March 2022.

Basically, this is a new 3rd ed.KoW starter. The older starters Shadows of the North and War in the Holds are still valid, but will not be reissued once existing stock runs out. I think this is a good idea, as not everyone will want the combinations offered, and this method gives Mantic a chance of making a sale to holdouts who did not like the previous starter(s).

I'd agree with that

I like the variety of starters available at one time, you don't see that often within a single edition of a game. Coincidentally, I fancy the Riftforged line but haven't been very attracted to the current army sets (spoiler: I don't want the cyclopes), however the RO half of this starter is just what I'm looking for:

Well, I've just been getting into halflings of various kinds, so half of that at least looks pretty ideal for me.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
I like the variety of starters available at one time, you don't see that often within a single edition of a game. Coincidentally, I fancy the Riftforged line but haven't been very attracted to the current army sets (spoiler: I don't want the cyclopes), however the RO half of this starter is just what I'm looking for:

 krijthebold wrote:
Well, I've just been getting into halflings of various kinds, so half of that at least looks pretty ideal for me.

Well then, it sounds like you two need to split the box. Problem solved

The Riftforged are (aside from that manticore) Mantic finally getting orcs right. Lovely looking models. And the halflings are cool.

I'm not too impressed with the concept of literal Stormcast Orcs

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'm not too impressed with the concept of literal Stormcast Orcs

Orkcast

I like the concept of casted Orcs more than those of good-Chaos Warriors

it is just me, but being forgend into something to fight an eternal war fits the evil armies better than the poster boys

in other settings we have the Uruk-Hai, Chaos Warriors, Chitauri etc. were normal humans fight an uphill battle against superior beings

except for the Lightning, those are more like LotR Uruk-Hai than SCE

Miniaturemarket.com has a up to 80% off tabletop minis sale that just started which has the new rift forged orcs, Halflings and others on sale.

Cheers for the heads-up! Here's a handy link ... that has to be pasted in because of brackets: https://www.miniaturemarket.com/landing?p=minis-sale&filter[]=manufacturer_uFilter:%22Mantic%20Games%22&filter[]=product_tag_uFilter:%22On%20Sale%22

The more I convert my Mantic Games halflings, the more I get remembered how Mantic Games plastic kits aren't that great in quality. They work good enough, but for the current price, it's more difficult to justify the hassle honestly.

Their decision to put cavalry and infantry in the same box is really a poor one to me. Buying lots of boxes so that I have a decent number of infantries and now I'm left with way too many dog cavalry that I really need. And it's not like it's something on high demand in second-hand market...

At least the new orcs boxes are full infantry.

Not too long ago, we were talking over on the KoW Forum about the general lack of variety or updates when it comes to minigame mounts through the years, especially when it comes to plastic. Like with Mantic (look at the Frostfang beasties which IIRC are all the same, or the atrocious horses of different flavors that are still kicking around from 1E) but also with Warhammer for many editions - think back to the few plastic horse bodies with different metal heads with so many kits, or that goofy snarling Elf horse that was around forever. A member of the Mantic production team stepped in to talk about how cavalry is tough for miniature producers, because they're producing two entirely unique minis - sculpts, moulds, casts - but can't necessarily charge double for what is very nearly double the cost in time and money.*

Modern GW gets around this by charging quite a bit more for cavalry, sometimes excessively so thanks to the magic of Battlefield Role Pricing (the 5 for $100+ metal Blood Knights from back when still blow my mind, tho it was a lot worse when they cost even more and were in finecast ) (3 for $100 Varanguard was a tough pill as well, but at least they were huge?) (on the flipside, I was stunned when the plastic Blood Knights debuted recently at 5 for $60!)

It appears that Mantic has tackled the cost issue with the new Halfling cav by tying their sales to interest in the infantry where possible, which might also be because they saved on tooling by putting the dogs and mounted rider parts on the same sprue. If Mantic had a different pricing model (ala GW) or maybe just more money for production (ala GW), they could have separated the dogs out? It is an interesting compromise, and not one I love.**

*Fittingly, I've painted almost no cav models in my 27 years of wargaming, almost entirely because I don't like painting two models for 'one' mini

**It's worse in the case of swarms, which are frustratingly included a few at a time on the sprues of various plastic kits. Snow Foxes are one of the best - and cheapest! - units in the game, yet they're also one of the hardest to buy from Mantic

Historicals do charge the same for 12 cav as they do for 30-50 infantry so there's that...

Since Mantic now has a habit of tooling two sprues to make 1 sprue's worth of bits I'm not sure if that's what's holding them back from doing plastic cavalry

https://www.manticgames.com/news/metal-to-resin-the-great-switcharoo-stage-one/

first Wave of old metal models which get a resin replacement:

Dwarf Sharpshooters (metal components)
Enslaved Guardian Regiment
Earth Elementals
Tundra Wolves
Lord Skald
zombie trolls
Water Elementals
Soul Reaver cavalry troop (metal components)
Lykanis
Forest Shambler Regiment
Silverbreeze Cavalry Troop (metal components)
Gigas

Please bear in mind that the Great Switch will take time, so not all metal minis will be switching to resin straight away. You may find that your fantastic local gaming store may hold older stock of metal models for quite some time. Whilst the switch is in motion you may receive either metal or resin versions.

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