[Kings of War] Mantic Fantasy News & Rumors

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**Bolognesus**

Azazelx wrote:
Bolognesus wrote:
Really though Azazelx, the hero on lion, ogres and paladins had mostly very positive reactions, the golems generally were well-received as well (I sure am getting extras too), the mummies were deemed somewhere in the area of "well, not too shabby", generally; it's just the brock riders, cats, sisters (arms, mostly!) trolls and to a somewhat lesser extent, werewolves which are catching flak.
as to the ogre shooters well, you've seen the bodies and there's pics of the weapons I believe - kinda close

Now you're being silly as well as ignoring what I posted in relation to that already. Sure, *no* model will ever receive 100.00000% acclaim. Hell, 95% is a rarity, even for the really good stuff. Have you *seen* the whining about the looks of that new Eldar Wraithknight (and not the price, I mean)? that's a fact of life and anything over 80% positive comments, I disregard the negative - simply because not only is 80% a pretty good average for any model as far as reception's concerned, but also negative comments will be about five times more prevalent than negative sentiments, relatively - negative feelings will be posted quicker.
Go ahead, claim any model anyone is posting issues with is bad - I'm sure you'll be able to approve some model, somewhere, sometime by the year 2100 or so. Stupid methodology, if you ask me.

Also:

Today, we're looking at a couple of new battlefield contraptions that can bulk out your greenskin armies!

First up, the Orc Gore Chariot:

This war engine is as simple as it is brutal: a pair of snarling Gores pulling a very heavy and very spiky war-chariot, which carries a couple of big Orcs armed to the teeth and eager to get into battle. Their tactic is obvious: charge headlong towards the nearest enemy regiment.

For $25, your survey can get you two Chariot / Fight Wagon kits, which you can build as one of each or both the same. (The Fight Wagon is made of the Chariot kit with a couple of extra pieces.) You can take up to six of each as a single Regiment, but even one on its own is still a force to be reckoned with!

The Mincer is essentially a carriage powered by the frantic labour of Goblins or a small steam engine. The rear sports a large counterweight, necessary to offset the huge weight of the Mincer itself, a large, cone of counter-rotating segments. An adaptation of a digging machine, the Mincer’s grinding cone is ﬁtted with blades, designed to be sent hurtling at high speed down a tunnel packed with Dwarfs.

The Mincer got a lot of attention at the Mantic Open Day, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s an awesome, characterful model, and at 50 points it’s a must-have in any Goblin army. If you order through the survey, $25 gets you two Mincers instead of one – that’s two Monsters for your army, but with Goblins you’re never short on Solid Units so it shouldn’t eat into your Hero / Monster budget!

With these additions, as well as the Trolls you saw last week, the greenskin armies are already looking a lot more dangerous. Are you going to be adding any to your force, or even starting a horde from scratch? Tell us all about it in the comments!

Command Packs

Towards the end of the survey there are several options for Command Packs. We realised we haven't told you what those contain, so here we go!

The Men at Arms command pack is a banner and drum with drumstick arms.
The Sisterhood command pack is a banner and horn arms - these fit infantry and cavalry.
The Paladins command pack is also a banner and horn arms that fits infantry and cavalry.
The Ogre command pack is a banner arm, Champion sword arm, Champion buckler arm, and (hooray!) a set of bagpipes.
The Fleabag Riders command pack is a banner and horn arms.

**kenshin620**

The chariot looks decent but 2 points I dont like

1. Boars look pretty tiny to make that thing move at a good speed

2. chariot doesnt have a front. That wouldnt be so bad though if it was smaller like Celt Chariots which also lacked fronts

**judgedoug**

I am going to be adding many Chariots and Fight Wagons and Mincers for my Orcs and for my Goblin army. Those are great.

**V1ND4LOO**

Man, I'd like that charriot much more if it wasn't so clearly just a rectangle on wheels.

**Albino Squirrel**

I hadn't noticed this before, but what's with those weird dancing leg poses on the mummies?

**RiTides**

V1ND4LOO wrote:
Man, I'd like that charriot much more if it wasn't so clearly just a rectangle on wheels.

Nooooooo....! Can't... un... see.....

**Schmapdi**

The chariot is serviceable enough. There's not much to it, no - but it's made by (and for) orcs. They tend to worry more about function than form.

I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

**decker_cky**

Schmapdi wrote:
I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

I really like it, and I think it can reasonably be used as a goblin chariot, a pump wagon or a mangler squig. Very fun model.

**overtyrant**

Schmapdi wrote:

I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

As a goblin Mincer for KoW of course lol

**Bolognesus**

Schmapdi wrote:
The chariot is serviceable enough. There's not much to it, no - but it's made by (and for) orcs. They tend to worry more about function than form.

I'm fond of the mincer - I'm not quite sure what I'd with it though.

Yeah, I don't really understand what else you'd want from an orc chariot; it looks like something that took as little effort as possible to build while remaining quite serviceable - just what I'd expect from a bunch of orcs...

**agnosto**

Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

**RiTides**

agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

**Azazelx**

Gitkikka wrote:

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, I think I can find a use for these guys, monkey arms and all.

They look like they have separate arms, so if you clip the tops off them, it should fix them a lot easier than the nuns.

**willb2064**

RiTides wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

The Ogres were advertised with a retail price of $25 for 3 but with a BOGOF offer to double to 6. They are now going to be sold for $30 for 6, so the advertised BOGOF is actually less of a discount (16.5% rather than 50%) than if you just bought them online from any webstore. Mantic clearly knew this when they sent out the 3rd survey but didn't address it.

**Azazelx**

Bolognesus wrote:

Now you're being silly as well as ignoring what I posted in relation to that already. Sure, *no* model will ever receive 100.00000% acclaim. Hell, 95% is a rarity, even for the really good stuff. Have you *seen* the whining about the looks of that new Eldar Wraithknight (and not the price, I mean)? that's a fact of life and anything over 80% positive comments, I disregard the negative - simply because not only is 80% a pretty good average for any model as far as reception's concerned, but also negative comments will be about five times more prevalent than negative sentiments, relatively - negative feelings will be posted quicker.
Go ahead, claim any model anyone is posting issues with is bad - I'm sure you'll be able to approve some model, somewhere, sometime by the year 2100 or so. Stupid methodology, if you ask me.

It's easy. Avoid absolute statements. Also please note - and I should probably have pointed it out, I was only talking about comments I'd seen on Dakka, - not "in the whole world" or on the KS comments, because, yes, someone will always hate everything. I did also point out that I'm personally fine with a number of the models that got a lot of flack (Werewolves, for example).

Also:
Chariot looks great. Goblin Shredder looks great. I'll be getting some of those with my repurposed BOGOFs.

**agnosto**

RiTides wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

Well, it depends if the earlier reported prices are accurate. Backers were told one thing about unit sizes and now we're hearing something else. I'll use Ogres as an example. Backers were told that for $25 you could order 3 ogres and they would give one unit free, thus for $25 you'd get 6 Ogres, buy one get one free. Now, however, we're finding out that retail will be $29 for 6 Ogres. This means that we really didn't get BOGOF or we'd get 12 Ogres for $25; instead we get buy one with a small discount, smaller than we could get from online retailers like Miniature Market. On the Kickstarter page, Mantic has yet to address this even though it's been brought up several times by different backers (at least as of a couple of hours ago).

**willb2064**

agnosto wrote:
RiTides wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

Well, it depends if the earlier reported prices are accurate. Backers were told one thing about unit sizes and now we're hearing something else. I'll use Ogres as an example. Backers were told that for $25 you could order 3 ogres and they would give one unit free, thus for $25 you'd get 6 Ogres, buy one get one free. Now, however, we're finding out that retail will be $29 for 6 Ogres. This means that we really didn't get BOGOF or we'd get 12 Ogres for $25; instead we get buy one with a small discount, smaller than we could get from online retailers like Miniature Market. On the Kickstarter page, Mantic has yet to address this even though it's been brought up several times by different backers (at least as of a couple of hours ago).

To be fair it is late in the evening in the UK, but I'm hoping it will be addressed in the morning. I'm a little skeptical though just because I have a hard time believing that Mantic didn't know they would be packaged in boxes of 6 before they sent out the survey (given the retail release is June they would have had to order retail packaging 2-3 months ago).

**Azazelx**

willb2064 wrote:
RiTides wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

The Ogres were advertised with a retail price of $25 for 3 but with a BOGOF offer to double to 6. They are now going to be sold for $30 for 6, so the advertised BOGOF is actually less of a discount (16.5% rather than 50%) than if you just bought them online from any webstore. Mantic clearly knew this when they sent out the 3rd survey but didn't address it.

It's only for a few of the units, but yeah. I think it's unfortunate, and I'd rather that they would have bumped the value again, as they did with the Men-At-Arms (12 Ogres for $25 would have been fething brilliant!).
I asked Stewart about it, and this is what he said:

Stewart wrote:
As for prices, all of the Kickstarter prices had no relation to RRP. With the manner in which we were introducing new units back then, we had no way of working out margins and retail prices, so we made some assumptions. The only rule we set ourselves was that the KS prices would be less than RRP, and we’ve stuck to that. With the Ogres in particular, the RRP is less than it would otherwise be to keep them competitive in the wider market. For everything else, the Kickstarter prices still provide a massive discount.

His point is pretty reasonable, but the result is that I'm swapping out trolls and ogres now for other things. I'll still buy the additional ogres, but I'll do it via retail, which will get them for roughly the same price, and also support retailers who stock Mantic.

**agnosto**

Which still doesn't make any sense; you'd think they could at least match what retailers are going to charge. Ah well. Sad really, because the Ogres are pretty much the only models I need; I don't have any plans to start an Empire army and WHFB is the only fantasy game (other than Warma/Hordes) that's played around here...

**willb2064**

Azazelx wrote:
willb2064 wrote:
RiTides wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Yay, BOGOF isn't really BOGOF, it's more like BO at a discount.

What do people mean by this kind of thing, I've seen it a few times? Is it just that you paid more for a supposedly buy-one-get-one-free deal than seemed worth it, making it more like paying for 1.5 and getting the last 0.5 free? Or...?

The Ogres were advertised with a retail price of $25 for 3 but with a BOGOF offer to double to 6. They are now going to be sold for $30 for 6, so the advertised BOGOF is actually less of a discount (16.5% rather than 50%) than if you just bought them online from any webstore. Mantic clearly knew this when they sent out the 3rd survey but didn't address it.

It's only for a few of the units, but yeah. I think it's unfortunate, and I'd rather that they would have bumped the value again, as they did with the Men-At-Arms (12 Ogres for $25 would have been fething brilliant!).
I asked Stewart about it, and this is what he said:

Stewart wrote:
As for prices, all of the Kickstarter prices had no relation to RRP. With the manner in which we were introducing new units back then, we had no way of working out margins and retail prices, so we made some assumptions. The only rule we set ourselves was that the KS prices would be less than RRP, and we’ve stuck to that. With the Ogres in particular, the RRP is less than it would otherwise be to keep them competitive in the wider market. For everything else, the Kickstarter prices still provide a massive discount.

His point is pretty reasonable, but the result is that I'm swapping out trolls and ogres now for other things. I'll still buy the additional ogres, but I'll do it via retail, which will get them for roughly the same price, and also support retailers who stock Mantic.

I don't think his point is reasonable. 90% of the prices in the KS campaign are the same as the RRP, so they mislead their backers, and continue to mislead them by offering 3 for $25 with "BOGOF" in their recent survey. His response of 'well everything else is at a massive discount' is basically just sticking a middle finger up at anyone who pledged for Ogres.

**decker_cky**

IMO it would be a nice showing of faith to upgrade each BOGO of ogres to be 9 ogres, which is close to BOGO from the retail price.

**scarletsquig**

Something tells me that Mantic aren't going to be offering BOGOFs in any future kickstarter.

If they'd called them bundle deals instead at exactly the same price there wouldn't be any complaints, but people would have bought exactly the same amount of stuff.

We're seeing that with deadzone, I can easily see the starters retailing at $50 (same price as the warpath starters) for 15 minis (some of them quite large), which makes the $50 bundle deal technically a BOGOF, but if they don't call it a BOGOF right now then later on if the RRP ends up lower on release, no-one will complain.

It's all just a matter of finding the correct wording.

**Azazelx**

decker_cky wrote:
IMO it would be a nice showing of faith to upgrade each BOGO of ogres to be 9 ogres, which is close to BOGO from the retail price.

I agree, that would be good.

The reason I think Stewart's point with regard to the BOGOFs is reasonable is one of context. At the time of the KoW kickstarter, there was a massive amount of "WTF is happening here?" going on, as they scrambled to come up with new stuff. Their goal was $5k remember, and at the time they weren't even sure they would get it. There was none of the stuff we see in the current ones - no carefully orchestrated, well planned in advance, fake stretch goals, early bird specials etc etc. It was very seat of their pants, and they were throwing out concept art with prices based on a broad price band of $25 sets. Obviously that has now changed when they've finalised their setup for retail.

Specifically, with the ogres, they've realised that they're not competing with single-model GW finecast "character" ogres (or ogryns) on price, but with the three main regiment boxes and doubled the retail packs.

Now, do I think it would be a great gesture for them to bump up the value of things like the Ogres? Too fething right I do - I'd have loved an army of ogres at $25 for 9 or 12. But if they're not going to do so, I'll suck it up, take my free ogres and change my BOGOFs to things that are good models that also retain a high "kickstarter value". I'll probably buy a few extras from retail down the line.

Would I be willing to offer them this same amount of leeway with DreadBall or DeadZone? Hell no. I'm willing to do it in the KoW set because of the context, and it's not a context and situation that will repeat itself.

**BobtheInquisitor**

I would have much preferred for their boxes to be about $25 or even $20, even if it meant they included 30% fewer models. $30 is not a great price for an impulse buy, especially since even their good sculpts are not exactly taking the world by storm.

I guess I just have to wait for MM or The War Store to adjust Mantic's prices down where they belong.

**decker_cky**

$18 or so for 3 would have been a very attractive price point for impulse buys, but $30 for 6 is fine too. There's still going to be the character model at the impulse price point, and an amazing bargain for the unit. With them being sold in 6's,

On a close but very different note: I'm hoping we see a large infantry horde in the ogre army (maybe 15 models 5x3?).

**Azazelx**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I would have much preferred for their boxes to be about $25 or even $20, even if it meant they included 30% fewer models. $30 is not a great price for an impulse buy, especially since even their good sculpts are not exactly taking the world by storm.

It's direct competition with this @$40:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1320015a

Same number of models, $10 (25%) cheaper.

**Bolognesus**

...until you add command bits. Hell, I'm usually one of mantic's stauncher defenders around here but I'm probably not going to BOGOF any Ogres, just waiting for the 9 freebies I'm due anyway to see if I really like them more than the GW stuff (which would probably be quicker to paint and not have metal command bits) - I kind of prefer the mantic ogre style but the GW ogres are quite nice as well. They'd blend in a damn sight easier with the big OK beasties I'd plan on getting - I was thinking of making my ogres into a dual KoW/WHFB army (KoW is abetter game IMO - quicker, more fun-, but having lots and lots of opponents to choose from has it's charm too). Feth, I think that after getting command bits they wouldn't even be appreciably cheaper. Never realized those GW ogres were actually pretty damn cheap in comparison to the rest of the line (which of course breaks down as soon as you want a maneater unit at like $40 per model but I digress), having bypassed most of the price increases since their release, if I'm not mistaken - at least with many of the plastics.
Hmm, kind of a weir sensation, this

of course this might just be sleep deprivation, I might deeply regret this post twelve hours from now, haha. no fun, working a thesis deadline to the point of hallucinating

**Azazelx**

I'm under the assumption that the command bits will be included in the retail boxes, but as you rightly point out (and I'd forgotten!) the command bits add another $5 to the Kickstarter prices. So the KS price is now the same as RRP without any discounts.

Someone else want to email that point to Stewart or add it to the KS comments? I'm too tired of it right now.

**Fenriswulf**

Glad I am not looking to get Ogres for an army, otherwise I would be spitting chips now.

The problem with this whole Kickstarter isn't that the ogres have suddenly come down in price for retail buyers compared to kickstarter pledgers, it's that they've shifted the goalposts on us yet again. First it was with showing concept sketches that now have models that look radically different from what is given, then promising us one type of model and supplying something completely different (monstrous cat cavalry is now regular sized cat horses), and now this.

I am now wondering what other surprises are in store. We can't back out now, they've already got our money. We've just got to sit here and take it pretty much.

**Bolognesus**

Azazelx wrote:
I'm under the assumption that the command bits will be included in the retail boxes, but as you rightly point out (and I'd forgotten!) the command bits add another $5 to the Kickstarter prices. So the KS price is now the same as RRP without any discounts.

Someone else want to email that point to Stewart or add it to the KS comments? I'm too tired of it right now.

actually, no. Straight from 'Squig's june/july releases post:

MGE KWH11-1 Ogre Warriors (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH12-1 Ogre Shooters (6) ~ JUL PreOrder $29.99
MGE KWH70-1 Ogre Grokagamok ~ JUL PreOrder $14.99
MGE KWH71-1 Ogre Command (3) ~ JUL PreOrder $24.99

... so in effect you're paying $10 for command bits, too.
Hmm, that's $80 for twelve models with two command sets - these things actually price out to the same level as bulls if you need the command bits. Dang. Not that I really mind, they're pretty good value but I never realized those OK bulls were such good value as well. always thought that box had three or four of them, not six... lolwut?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fenriswulf wrote:
Glad I am not looking to get Ogres for an army, otherwise I would be spitting chips now.

The problem with this whole Kickstarter isn't that the ogres have suddenly come down in price for retail buyers compared to kickstarter pledgers, it's that they've shifted the goalposts on us yet again. First it was with showing concept sketches that now have models that look radically different from what is given, then promising us one type of model and supplying something completely different (monstrous cat cavalry is now regular sized cat horses), and now this.

I am now wondering what other surprises are in store. We can't back out now, they've already got our money. We've just got to sit here and take it pretty much.

First of all, I still do believe mantic was issuing refunds to the deeply unsatisfied. Maybe SS can chime in here? Also, let's not confuse matters here; those Ogres are pretty damn close to concept and pretty well-received as well. I don't like the BOGOF thing either but making it sound as if these issues are compounded on the ogres (and believe me, I was deeply disappointed with the cats as well...) is a bit disingenuous and really, the 'radically different from the concept art' pretty much only goes for the sisters (which they were perfectly clear about - those were subject to MAJOR change past the end of the KS and they said so from the get-go) the trolls legs (the amount of armour plating was more or less designed-by-committee in the KS comments section, if I recall correctly) and the mummies - which I believe were clearly stated to be subject to major change as well. Hey, I dislike the sisters and the cat cav as well, but TBH, those were thrown in in such a way that one should have understood they were very rough ideas at the time. Doesn't excuse the bloody cats IMO, and the sisters are just a case of poor execution if you ask me, but you're well on your way to becoming agamemnon2.1 here.