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Is this the last of the KoW reveals, or will there be another one before their PM closes down?

This is the last reveal, these are all the pics they have.

The Elf/TK cav and remaining heroes are late.

 scarletsquig wrote:

Just thought I'd mention that since mawbeast packs are one of the more fun units from the goblin list.. they're small, cheap, fast and hit really hard. Excellent screening/ war machine hunter/ wave 1 suicide units.

They appear to be the KoW analogue for Squigs in the goblin force?


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 scarletsquig wrote:
This is the last reveal, these are all the pics they have.

The Elf/TK cav and remaining heroes are late.

OK thanks. Time to get my gak sorted then.

Hmm, even those cats are sort of starting to grow on me. shame 'bout the riders' arms, though - those are still quite gakky. The immortal guard shields are a bit goofy but will probably paint up AOK, aside from that they're really just what I want from my evil dwarfs

The fleabag riders are actually pretty damn nice - could have done with an extra pose for the mawbeasts though I guess this is ok.
The golems are pretty much what we've already seen - I got some extras and I'm happy I did so

The gargoyles I'm not sure about - gotta see how they do painted up as bits of stone before rendering judgement

Goblin Fleabags are good, Immortal Guard are meh, Gargoyle is good, Obsidian Golem still excellent, Lady Illona what happened to your face?, Panthers actually better than what I originally thought (could still do with some conversion work), Elohi I am not sure about, will need to look at when they come in.

I will see how easy/hard it is to score a win from the Panthers. Sisters on them will likely be ditched, and some kind of armour made for them perhaps, so I can resculpt the poses to make them look different. Will use my fleabag freebies as Mawbeasts it seems if I ever make a Goblin army.

I am now glad I changed from Basilean to Ogres. I won't have an Empire army to play anymore, but I can now make the majority of a large force of Ogres. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

 Fenriswulf wrote:
Goblin Fleabags are good, Immortal Guard are meh, Gargoyle is good, Obsidian Golem still excellent, Lady Illona what happened to your face?, Panthers actually better than what I originally thought (could still do with some conversion work), Elohi I am not sure about, will need to look at when they come in.

I will see how easy/hard it is to score a win from the Panthers. Sisters on them will likely be ditched, and some kind of armour made for them perhaps, so I can resculpt the poses to make them look different. Will use my fleabag freebies as Mawbeasts it seems if I ever make a Goblin army.

I am now glad I changed from Basilean to Ogres. I won't have an Empire army to play anymore, but I can now make the majority of a large force of Ogres. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

the vampire is kinda buck-toothed, yea
i find myself wondering how hard it would be to turn the golems legs into armored troll legs, if i don't come up with a better solution to the trolls that skipped leg day
i think the cats would look noticeably better with a different paintjob
the goblins are nice
overall, i'm happy with my freebies (i only went with a basic pledge, and didn't swing for any extra bogos or anything, since it was my first kickstarter)

I hope mantic learn from the amount of pledge switching how important quality control is. I really wonder if they'll make a.y profit off those nuns. Also, why is everything they release painted blue? Are we in Mantic's Blue Age?

 Da Boss wrote:
I hope mantic learn from the amount of pledge switching how important quality control is. I really wonder if they'll make a.y profit off those nuns. Also, why is everything they release painted blue? Are we in Mantic's Blue Age?

Not everything they release is blue. The basilean studio army color scheme is blue/white. The undead studio color scheme is blue/red, etc.

 lord marcus wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I hope mantic learn from the amount of pledge switching how important quality control is. I really wonder if they'll make a.y profit off those nuns. Also, why is everything they release painted blue? Are we in Mantic's Blue Age?

Not everything they release is blue. The basilean studio army color scheme is blue/white. The undead studio color scheme is blue/red, etc.

mantic is in the third age, the blue age

next will be the red age

followed by the lavender age

I look forward to the Plaid age.

thats scheduled to follow the bedazzled age, as a step back to sanity

Off the top of my head, Basileans are blue, Undead are (incongruously) blue, Forgefathers are blue, some of the dreadball teams are blue, I've seen blue Enforcers, blue Dwarves and blue elves in official photos at various times.

Yeah, the blue red combo really doesn't work for undead. I have no idea who over at Mantic is stuck on blue, but they need to go for something else in the spectrum!

The orcs were painted with blue armour to start with too. In fact, pretty much the entire orc release was an exercise in making fantastic models look terrible.

Also, the issue isn't so much blue as it is cobalt blue. Lots of different shades of blue out there, no need to stick to a bright default primary colour.

They appear to be the KoW analogue for Squigs in the goblin force?

Yep, rather like them myself.

I can't remember who's undead it was, but they did a green/yellow colour scheme, done in quarters on the shields and cloth. Looked really really good, and worked really well with the undead look. I think it's just the blue/red combo being too bright for the models.

^ That would be Hybrid Alpha's undead:



He also did a rather good job of making the mantic elves look awesome, by running with the fae theme:



I still maintain that the elves are good sculpts. They're not out-of-proportion (aside from looking lanky, which is fine). and are loaded with really nice detail.

The only mistake was trying to sell and market them as "not-GW high elves" instead of "creepy otherworldly faeries".

The background, theme, art direction and presentation is vitally important to selling miniatures, it's one thing that Mantic still aren't much good at, creating atmosphere or something interesting to catch the eye that marks their stuff out from the crowd.
It's not an artist-driven company.

If you look at stuff like Kingdom Death, the minis are largely incidental, all of the stuff mentioned above is what sold it. If there was no art, no background and there was just a webstore with "naked woman with rock #1", "naked man with lantern #2", "giant baby monster", sales would be practically nothing.

 Azazelx wrote:

* Men at Arms are still bad. I think there's also a bit too much "Remy did good work but others screwed it up"-type defence/canonisation of Remy. He may be their best sculptor, but he's clearly not infallible. Especially with Mantic's focus clearly being speed (and launching more Kickstarters) rather than hardlining on quality.

Nope, not water-carrying for Remy. I don't always quote sources (especially if it's something I read/saw a *long* time ago), but here's one I can offer: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/6mm-scale-armies?c=home

We are an established wargames company with our own range of metal and resin miniatures (as well as unique plastic bases), whose sculptors also have experience doing freelance work for other companies such as Mantic Games (several model kits including Dreadball robots, plastic Fantasy Men At Arms, and Deadzone plastic scenery tiles / promotional video).

I don't know where ScarletSquig got his info, or if it's correct or not, but he claimed that the Hordes/Trollblood sculptor did the KoW trolls.

Tried and failed to dig up a link for this, but the greens were posted on the sculptor's blog about 6 months ago. Some other french guy, not Remy.

Wow bit of a monster haul here of new releases - my take on these, for anyone who actually cares!

Goblin riders 7/10
Would have liked at least one sculpt with its mouth closed and not catching flies, but actually think they look pretty cool. I like the more fine-featured Mantic goblins, they look a bit more snivelling and evil like than the GW ones (and actually more like the older GW goblins)

Abyssal Dwarves 8/10
Evil Dwarves! Really look like these have some more detail on them, what material are they made from? Very cool style really like the concept for these guys.

Gargoyle Thing 7/10
Guess it's ok, I can imagine it moving in some kind of Harryhausen stop-gap way so it gets +1

Golem 6/10
Little bit dull, don't think the black and white does it any favours but it's a little non-descript . Maybe with it painted in a kind of stone with lava-like lighting coming through the cracks and the vents in its helmet would make it look much cooler?

Vampiress 4/10
Possibly a bit of a harsh score, but the concept art for her was awesome (looked just like a Warcraft character* I had for years) and this model looks like the kind of thing that jumps in front of you in the taxi queue post-club on a saturday night.
Doubly disappointing as I can't really think of a vampiress miniature by anyone that doesn't look goofy!

Cat cavalry 7/10
Am I allowed to like these? I actually think they look quite cool and charming, and there is nothing else like them on the market. The combat-nuns look well sculpted also. Think I would paint these as different species of cat

Cat chariot 6/10
Not as good as the above

Paladins 8/10
Think these look ace, having these guys taking on ogres or trolls at close range I think would look kind of cool on the tabletop!

* In fact, I get a distinct 'WoW vibe' running through a lot of Mantics models. Not just the stylings, but also the background of things like the orx (where they are a persecuted race). Anyway, it's a nice distinctive fantasy look that is perhaps proving that there is space for 2 mass combat fantasy systems.

I fully appreciate that tastes differ - I really do!

But I am shocked at how well received these models are here.

Especially the cat cavalry!

 Pacific wrote:
Vampiress 4/10
Possibly a bit of a harsh score, but the concept art for her was awesome (looked just like a Warcraft character* I had for years) and this model looks like the kind of thing that jumps in front of you in the taxi queue post-club on a saturday night.
Doubly disappointing as I can't really think of a vampiress miniature by anyone that doesn't look goofy!

The main problem with Mantic's vampires is that they seem to think it is incredibly important to show off the fangs, even though it looks stupid every time they do it. A vampire can still be instantly recognisable as a vampire even if their mouth is shut, thanks to little hints like a pale skin tone, unearthly pose or leading a shambling horde of corpses.

A random, but very welcome piece of good news:

- Mantic Orcs have been reduced in price by 25%.

Orc Ax used to be £25 for 30, they're now now £25 for 40.

Orc Greatax used to be £20 for 20, they're now £15 for 20.

Bunch of new releases went up today, looks like they're going with a "horde box" as their new standard infantry box (after they phased out the troop boxes last year), with a price of £25 for 40 minis.

Or, to put in in USD terms, $40 for 40 minis.

They've also released a bunch of new army boxes for undead and orcs which are a better deal than before, with better unit variety, at £50, £100 and £150 price points.

The £50 boxes give you a 33% discount off RRP.
The £100 and £150 boxes give you 40% off RRP.

All the new releases here, these will be sold to trade as well, so you can get some seriously affordable full armies with good unit variety:

http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Advance-Orders/Advance-Orders-Kings-of-War.html

Anyone know what the RRP is going to be on that goblin trio?


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And are they metal or restic?

Looks like I'll be buying a lot more Wargames Factory minis with my spare $20/month.

I wish these models had been available when I was in university, I would have been all over them. Now I've got more disposable income, I'm a little pickier. Some great deals there though for people who want to get into Fantasy wargaming on a budget.

 Azazelx wrote:
Anyone know what the RRP is going to be on that goblin trio?


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And are they metal or restic?

I think all the KoW characters are in metal.
I would guess 19.99 for the 3 based on other multi-character sets. I added the set to my pledge, as I'll be getting it earlier and free shipping than ordering it from an online discounter.


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 scarletsquig wrote:
A random, but very welcome piece of good news:

- Mantic Orcs have been reduced in price by 25%.

This is Great News!

And not facetiously. Mantic Orcs are the best orcs on the market, imho. I wish I had a reason to buy more, but I've already got like 100 ax, 60 greatax, 40 morax, 30 gore riders, plus tons of characters, all painted up. They're my favorite army to field, and they were a joy to paint. I wish the rest of their line were as good, and I really wish they'd be able to release the sniffs/archers in a proper plastic sprue and/or re-do the ax sprue so it has the morax options too.

It's a shame their Goblins are super weak and have extremely soft details.. I'd love to start a full Mantic (Night-)Goblin army if those problems didn't exist :(

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Looks like I'll be buying a lot more Wargames Factory minis with my spare $20/month.[/quote

Awesome. Wargames Factory have some great stuff.

The vampiress suffers heavily from the paint-job she is not that bad, but the cats-stuff is sub-standard and I wonder how someone justifies a score above 2-3. There are so many issues, starting with the reins.... giraffe necks... etc.

Vamp's main issue is the long, stretched face that she has. Well, that was what stood out to me and stopped me looking in detail at the rest of the model. The platforms instead of stirrups are another WTF thing about the cathorses.

Aside from bitz-vendoring lions from the GW HE chariot,

is there another cat cavalry model out there somewhere? Not even Reaper seems to have anything that fits the bill. It's a good idea, just not executed particularly well.

As for the argument that all female Vampire miniatures look goofy, as a defence of the Mantic figure, Avatars of War, Reaper, and yes, even GW would like a word with you...
Kroot lists several more good ones.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/369076.page

Azazelx, not that I've seen. Unfortunate as I was looking forwards to them as well. I might be able to get a win from the cat horses, but I am thinking it's going to take a lot of work.

The Lion Hero's mount is pretty awesome, but buying multiples of those? Dunno, you'd need to mod each of them so they all didn't look the same.

Yeah, that Lion hero is made of awesomesauce (might need some dentistry, though). I'd rather they took an extra 6 months to resculpt the KoW models to bring them in line with that kind of quality, but I guess Mantic is choosing to always be pushing the next Kickstarter instead of shoring up the previous ones with top-end quality and "good enough!" sculpts.

Just look at the DeadZone (or KoW) Mawbeasts and compare them to those Maxmini ones just shown.