Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I like the model a lot, even if his forearms are longer than his shins. The face looks great. Are his hands supposed to be metal?

...yeah. Those seem to be meant as gauntlets. ...in places where metal gauntlets would actually not have metal bits, but just leather/glove as well. ugh.

Still, I kind of like the miniature.

Funny though; us usually rather positive regarding mantic are iffy on the sculpt and the ones usually rather critical love it. Weird.


Berosos is not one of the backer-funded heroes; therefore he's not a freebie. You could have gotten him for $8 on the survey. Will probably go in the GBP6,49 RRP category, should make him about $10.
Not a bad price at all at todays usual price for nice (enough) metal hero models.

Cleric is decent, though yeah the gloves are... odd. I wouldn't baulk if he were a freebie, though unless he specifically fit your RPG character, or you were going Mantic-only in your purchases, I can't see why you'd buy him for 7 squid when this guy is available for a few more...

...Yeah, I don't know... That's technically an awesome model, superior to berosos in a technical sense for sure but that gorget is just awful IMO. I'd have to resculpt too much to go for that in all likelyhood...

We'll have to disagree then. I think it's great, but the AOW model is just an example, and I'm also partial to many of the GW Empire Warrior Priests and not a few Reaper models that fit the same bill, at a high quality.

I don't dislike the Mantic one (except for the hands- I'd probably just paint them dark leather brown and hope no-one looked at them closely), I just fail to see the point in buying it for the amount they're going to be asking.

Thing is, it fits with the rest of the basilean line a lot closer than those other options would.
I like the paladins a lot. Ditto to the M@A. this guy ties them in nicely, which is why I'd prefer him over, say some othe reaper bones stuff already coming my way (or coming my way sometime in the next twenty years, grumble...) for a basilean army. A cohesive look is worth something as well.

You're right though, there's other options at the same price, or at least not that much more expensive.

 Azazelx wrote:
Cleric is decent, though yeah the gloves are... odd. I wouldn't baulk if he were a freebie, though unless he specifically fit your RPG character, or you were going Mantic-only in your purchases, I can't see why you'd buy him for 7 squid when this guy is available for a few more...

I suspect with AOW's distribution and availability history, one reason might be that the mantic model is actually there for purchase. That said, the AOW fig has alot more detail and I prefer. Mind you that the Mantic cleric is decent and likely very affordable, which is what I expect previously and hope more recently (due to missteps) from Mantic.

Nah, it's a metal mini, so £6.49.

Restic characters are cheaper at £5/model.

The rather awesome lion rider is £12.49, not bad at all.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Nah, it's a metal mini, so £6.49.

Restic characters are cheaper at £5/model.

The rather awesome lion rider is £12.49, not bad at all.

Hmm, if the mantic website is anything to go by* Berosos will retail at $11.99 USD. Quite simply not worth it for a sculpt that's just average (not bad, but certainly not amazing) in quality. Even more so when you see what better models cost from a company like Reaper. Plugged in the search terms "Cleric hammer" and look what comes up, ranging in price from $5 to $10.
http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer

I thought Mantic was supposed to be an affordable alternative to most companies, but I'm routinely baffled by what they charge for some characters. Certainly they're cheaper than GW, but that's not hard to do.

* Mantic uses their own odd exchange rate. I got the estimated USD price for Berosos by switching the currency on this model that retails for 6.49 GBP http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Kings-of-War/Undead/Lords-and-Heroes/Product/Undead-Vampiress-Lady-Ilona-1-Figure.html)

Mantic are affordable alternative to most companies but primarily in the rank and file models. I got 6 Ogres today for $30 when I could have bought 6 Ogres for $40 from the industry leader.

That said, I sometimes wish partnerships with WarLord (rules & figs for sci-fi since Alessio writes for both companies and WP and BA are somewhat close in design), Reaper (Heroes) and/or Avatars of War (heroes) were possible.

 Eilif wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
Nah, it's a metal mini, so £6.49.

Restic characters are cheaper at £5/model.

The rather awesome lion rider is £12.49, not bad at all.

Hmm, if the mantic website is anything to go by* Berosos will retail at $11.99 USD. Quite simply not worth it for a sculpt that's just average (not bad, but certainly not amazing) in quality. Even more so when you see what better models cost from a company like Reaper. Plugged in the search terms "Cleric hammer" and look what comes up, ranging in price from $5 to $10.
http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer

I thought Mantic was supposed to be an affordable alternative to most companies, but I'm routinely baffled by what they charge for some characters. Certainly they're cheaper than GW, but that's not hard to do.

* Mantic uses their own odd exchange rate. I got the estimated USD price for Berosos by switching the currency on this model that retails for 6.49 GBP http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Kings-of-War/Undead/Lords-and-Heroes/Product/Undead-Vampiress-Lady-Ilona-1-Figure.html)

well there's exactly one model there which is about as good as Berosos, http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer/latest/14269
The rest is worse. Look, I'm not saying Berosos is all that good and reaper have their place (and a good one it is!) but they have a higher 'naff to good sculpt ratio than Mantic, IMO.
Of course a lot of it might just be pretty damn old at this point.

That's not the miniature I would have picked for better than Berosos. There are about 5 or so I'd pick before that one. Opinions are funny that way.

The Reaper miniature 'Halbarand' from Eilif's list is a bit better than Beroso, and as it was one of the Bones KS vampire pledge costs about tuppence

http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer/latest/14036#detail/14036_Halbarad2_af



That one strikes me as the best of the bunch, and nice than the KoW model. Still, I like the KoW model well enough too.

The bones one doesn't really look like a great cleric, more like a warrior with a religious focus (eg, not a priest, but a crusading knight). He would make a great generic fighter for the Basilieans though.

The pic you show? fair 'nuff. This one shows a rather pouty face and his feet waay too close together. I dunno, it feels like it's only cool from one particular angle. He almost looks like a kid pouting in a corner because he didn't get the ice cream he was yammering on about.
Halbarand, to my eyes, has a rather nasty case of Privateer Press Pauldron ... Syndrome (pathology doesn't work, sadly. I came close ^^).
As frozenwastes so eloquently puts it though, opinions are funny that way indeed

The bones one doesn't really look like a great cleric, more like a warrior with a religious focus (eg, not a priest, but a crusading knight). He would make a great generic fighter for the Basilieans though.

...Yeah. I think that's the point, though. Look at the M@A, look at what tidbits of basilean background are strewn about here and there; it's often little more than a bunch of nasty guys using religion to justify their daddy issues/power complex etc.
They do good often enough as well but they're not so much "holy" as much as "holier than thou" and prepared to back it up with a mace and a torture rack
To my mind, this guy isn't supposed to be pious - he's a first-grade donkeycave in cleric's robes.
The way this interacts with actually having angels fight by their side will be... interesting... for sure so I might have to eat some crow on this after actually getting my mitts on the "The Basilean Legacy" book but for now I'd say your complaint is not so much a bug as it is a feature

 Bolognesus wrote:
Thing is, it fits with the rest of the basilean line a lot closer than those other options would.
I like the paladins a lot. Ditto to the M@A. this guy ties them in nicely, which is why I'd prefer him over, say some othe reaper bones stuff already coming my way (or coming my way sometime in the next twenty years, grumble...) for a basilean army. A cohesive look is worth something as well.

You're right though, there's other options at the same price, or at least not that much more expensive.

I'm still finding it a bit hard to tell what parts of the army look cohesive in terms of sculpts - though I'm skipping the Men-at-arms and gorilla-armed sisters and went in on more of the Foot and Mounted Knights after seeing Remy's unpainted sculpts. Really though, I think cohesiveness will come more from paint than sculpts - particularly when dealing with character models.

While happy to skip the figures for the most part, I wouldn't mind getting more of the MAA's shields. I wonder if Mantic will sell sprues of them separately? (I'm going with Perry for that part of the army).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:

I suspect with AOW's distribution and availability history, one reason might be that the mantic model is actually there for purchase. That said, the AOW fig has alot more detail and I prefer. Mind you that the Mantic cleric is decent and likely very affordable, which is what I expect previously and hope more recently (due to missteps) from Mantic.

While I'd agree with you if you were to order that model direct from AoW, or if it were upcoming, that particular model is metal and has been in regular, very available release for years now. AoW's stuff doesn't have all the drama and issues around it at retail, and it's pretty readily available.

 scarletsquig wrote:

The rather awesome lion rider is £12.49, not bad at all.

That's a brilliant price for that particular model. I hope they're as good as they look in pictures once in hand.

 Eilif wrote:

* Mantic uses their own odd exchange rate. I got the estimated USD price for Berosos by switching the currency on this model that retails for 6.49 GBP http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Kings-of-War/Undead/Lords-and-Heroes/Product/Undead-Vampiress-Lady-Ilona-1-Figure.html)

Yeah, I bought some stuff direct from them (quite) awhile back, before they started using that odd, terrible exchange rate and forcing overseas purchasers to use USD instead of GBP to get shipping. It quite literally stopped me from buying more stuff from them direct.

privateer4hire wrote:
Mantic are affordable alternative to most companies but primarily in the rank and file models. I got 6 Ogres today for $30 when I could have bought 6 Ogres for $40 from the industry leader.

That said, I sometimes wish partnerships with WarLord (rules & figs for sci-fi since Alessio writes for both companies and WP and BA are somewhat close in design), Reaper (Heroes) and/or Avatars of War (heroes) were possible.

Well, cheaper than GW and PP, I guess. Reaper's Bones can now be included in the R&F price game, not to mention things like Perry Miniatures, Wargames Factory, Warlord, Dreamforge (upcoming)... as for the Ogre differential, it really depends on the aesthetic of the models. $10 (25%) isn't a lot of difference if you like the GW models, or multipart hard plastic with lots of extras - or the much larger size/bulk/heft of the GW ones. If it's purely based on price, then Reaper Bones has Mantic completely pwned. 77005: Ogre Chieftain ($2.74) 6 for $16.44 - and a nice model, too - at almost half the price of Mantic.

And Bolo - we'll have to write the Reaper-Mantic "better model" argument off to personal aesthetics. I found quite a few of the Reaper models to be better looking for this particular role than the Mantic one.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Berosos pic is out:



It'll do, I guess, fairly middle-of-the-road sculpt that I'll be happy to game with. Looks much better than the WIP did (before Mantic's in-house sculptor fixed it up a little).

This is really poor.
Obviously it's not particularly fair for that solid army level paint job to be blown up like it is, but it's still a pretty shoddy sculpt for an established company to be putting out in 2013.
Outside some established names they don't state who sculpts what right?

Please don't refer to styrene as hard plastic unless you've tested the materials yourself and graded them properly on the Mohs Scale. Lets not encourage Mantic to continue their adventures in revising industry standard nomenclature.

Please don't refer to styrene as hard plastic unless you've tested the materials yourself and graded them properly on the Mohs Scale.

Oh god, not this again.

 Bolognesus wrote:
...Yeah. I think that's the point, though. Look at the M@A, look at what tidbits of basilean background are strewn about here and there; it's often little more than a bunch of nasty guys using religion to justify their daddy issues/power complex etc.
They do good often enough as well but they're not so much "holy" as much as "holier than thou" and prepared to back it up with a mace and a torture rack
To my mind, this guy isn't supposed to be pious - he's a first-grade donkeycave in cleric's robes.
The way this interacts with actually having angels fight by their side will be... interesting... for sure so I might have to eat some crow on this after actually getting my mitts on the "The Basilean Legacy" book but for now I'd say your complaint is not so much a bug as it is a feature

Making everybody dicks isn't interesting when everybody's doing it. At this point, the most subversive thing Mantic could have done is made a holy army which aren't dicks.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Bolognesus wrote:
...Yeah. I think that's the point, though. Look at the M@A, look at what tidbits of basilean background are strewn about here and there; it's often little more than a bunch of nasty guys using religion to justify their daddy issues/power complex etc.
They do good often enough as well but they're not so much "holy" as much as "holier than thou" and prepared to back it up with a mace and a torture rack
To my mind, this guy isn't supposed to be pious - he's a first-grade donkeycave in cleric's robes.
The way this interacts with actually having angels fight by their side will be... interesting... for sure so I might have to eat some crow on this after actually getting my mitts on the "The Basilean Legacy" book but for now I'd say your complaint is not so much a bug as it is a feature

Making everybody dicks isn't interesting when everybody's doing it. At this point, the most subversive thing Mantic could have done is made a holy army which aren't dicks.

"Read these pamphlets at your convenience! We don't expect you to agree with every tenet of our faith, we'd just like to instigate a healthy dialogue! We appreciate that you lead a busy life, but if you can make our next pancake breakfast we really think you'd have a fun time!!!"

They seem very reasonable.

 Bolognesus wrote:
[
well there's exactly one model there which is about as good as Berosos, http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer/latest/14269
The rest is worse. Look, I'm not saying Berosos is all that good and reaper have their place (and a good one it is!) but they have a higher 'naff to good sculpt ratio than Mantic, IMO.
Of course a lot of it might just be pretty damn old at this point.

As evidenced by the posts that followed yours, alot of folks would find quite a few models from reaper that are as good or better. As for the naff to good ratio, that's another opinion that many folks would disagree with. Reaper may have some stinkers, but Mantic has it's share of Wraiths, Elves and Werewolves.

My main point though is that Berosos is too expensive for what he is. 12 bucks for an average sculpt of a single human on foot. Just silly, especially from a company that touts it's products as supposedly being a good deal.

 Eilif wrote:

 Bolognesus wrote:
[
well there's exactly one model there which is about as good as Berosos, http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/cleric%20hammer/latest/14269
The rest is worse. Look, I'm not saying Berosos is all that good and reaper have their place (and a good one it is!) but they have a higher 'naff to good sculpt ratio than Mantic, IMO.
Of course a lot of it might just be pretty damn old at this point.

As evidenced by the posts that followed yours, alot of folks would find quite a few models from reaper that are as good or better. As for the naff to good ratio, that's another opinion that many folks would disagree with. Reaper may have some stinkers, but Mantic has it's share of Wraiths, Elves and Werewolves.

Funny enough though, those wraiths have as many supporters as detractors, those werewolves got a mixed reception, not an altogether bad one as you seem to suggest and even the elves, while not good sellers, have their fans.
Stylistically rather specific, that's for sure. Still, of those you mention only the elves really get that much flak.
Sure, there are those who like reaper's 'style'. TBH most folks around here don't like their look at all though, from what I hear.
Funny enough the models they do bonesify tend to be the ones we do like around here so it seems their sales record at least somewhat agrees

All of that aside though, you might note I explicitly put this down to a difference of taste more than of quality. Neither Berosos (or for that matter some of the other mantic hero models) nor Reapers stuff is altogether at the top of the heap, quality wise. A lot of stuff on both ends is funky, though not without it's charm to some, but to state reaper is doing all that much better (and put it down as fact, rather than taste) as was done in the posts I originally responded to is, respecfully, bs.

@Plastictrees, AlexHolker
That is precisely the problem. It's freaking impossible to make an army fighting for their religion the kind of not-dicks good AH suggests, to our perspective. Not being a bunch of dicks would require at least respecting a healthy dose of freedom of (and from) religion and expression etc.; while those work (to some extent!) in an RPG world (DnD does it nicely enough, in some interpretations, in some settings, in some places for example), it wouldn't really *work* in a wargame; Either the church respects those freedoms or they put a standing army to use fighting for their beliefs. The two don't really go together. So yeah, you could go with "not-thugs" but actually that is precisely what most other settings do. Just holier-than-thou gak and damn the collateral etc.
I'd say the idea of having most of the army (MaA at least) fighting under the banner of religion while actually being unashamed boorish thugs is less common than the just an "army of paladins" setup most commonly used.
Still, you're right it's tricky making a "good" army interesting and unique nowadays.

@Az
I think I've stated it's a matter of taste more than of quality quite enough now, but here's once more just for you
Cohesive? I'd say anything not-sisters is cohesive enough; the MaA fit to the paladins close enough and while the angels could have done with some more cloth to tie them in with the army a bit better it looks cohesive enough to me. The MaA and paladins sure do look like parts of one and the same army to me (and perhaps having the Elohi, being supernatural creatures, look a bit more different isn't even a bad thing).
The MaA are styrene (as opposed to other plastics) and have the shields on the sprue so you'll have to find someone who's not using the shields to buy those separately, I'm afraid.

I don't think your price comparison is completely fair: as soon as you want something with two-handed weapons it's 6 for 30 vs. 4 for 40: that's double the price, not the 33% more you casually disregard (though I can understand Australians not wanting to dwell on 33% and up price differences after a few years of playing GW games ). Also, try to buy a hero model for the GW ogres. As affordable as the plastic rank-and-file are, those are fething insane. Sure, there's a bit more variety in the GW offerings but everything like characters, manhunters, yetis and so forth is immediately insanely expensive.
I'd also say there's quite a few of us preferring the lack of that very bulk to the GW lardy ogres you mention. Seriously, even back when I was playing fantasy I've been eyeing an ogre army for years but that gourd just put me off of the idea. Now I finally get affordable, plastic ogres which I actually like the look of. Sure, they're not perfect but they fill a very different kind of ogre niche at, besides the annoying metal command bits (which are by the way very nice in detail, I'm currently painting a set and I'm quite impressed), are easily at the level of quality of the GW ogres. Little more work on the mold lines, though being ogres all the parts are large enough to be easy to clean without destroying any detail IME, but that's about it.
And the total price is really, really sharp; by the time I'm done with 'em I'll have a sizeable KoW army which could probably double somewhere around 3000pts of WHFB if I wanted, with perhaps one or two additions thrown in (I'm eyeing that cannon-on-a-critter thing @ €26; all it needs is a rider swap and it's actually a lovely model, especially at it's price ) at somewhere around €200 and that's with spares and variety. I've seen infinity lists run that high
I'm sure once you actually have all elements you'd want to an army with GW parts that would end up probably at least 50% more expensive. Sorry, but every way I look at it once you buy an entire army it starts to make quite a difference.
Of course, if you prefer the fatty look you should go for the GW models, that's true but to make a comparison with a reaper model which will have perhaps two or three buddies, most of which look substantially less nice than that one, mono-posed with fixed arms and head (just having those separate actually makes for quite a bit of variety on the mantic stuff. I'd have liked a little more but it's serviceable - nothing like having a few monopose models ten times each), with hardly any uniform look to the few ogres they might put out in bones in the foreseeable future is just crap, and you know better than that
I fully agree Perry has the market for historicals at awesome prices completely cornered (perhaps together with fireforge). Tiny point there is that as much as historical players might loathe fantasy minis, the lack of fantasy elements can be quite a turn-off to some of us (me included, for basilean purposes at least).

Much of reaper's bones stuff is awesome for RPG purposes but it's so completely aimed at only having a few models on the table that hardly anything could really see any use in armies other than just the large monsters. the sheer boring repetitiveness of it all will just break that for anyone not on an utterly barebones budget. So no, bones do not really contend in the price game other than for the large monsters (and of course there, anything they're putting out is an instant winner). Using that for rank-and-file models is so repetitive you're little better off than just using tokens as minis.

 Eilif wrote:

My main point though is that Berosos is too expensive for what he is. 12 bucks for an average sculpt of a single human on foot. Just silly, especially from a company that touts it's products as supposedly being a good deal.

Agree.

But this is worse than an 'average' sculpt. The hands make the model a non-starter. No one can accept the hands on that model as a reasonable sculpt you expect people to willingly pay money for...

 Bolognesus wrote:
@Plastictrees, AlexHolker
That is precisely the problem. It's freaking impossible to make an army fighting for their religion the kind of not-dicks good AH suggests, to our perspective. Not being a bunch of dicks would require at least respecting a healthy dose of freedom of (and from) religion and expression etc.; while those work (to some extent!) in an RPG world (DnD does it nicely enough, in some interpretations, in some settings, in some places for example), it wouldn't really *work* in a wargame; Either the church respects those freedoms or they put a standing army to use fighting for their beliefs. The two don't really go together. So yeah, you could go with "not-thugs" but actually that is precisely what most other settings do. Just holier-than-thou gak and damn the collateral etc.

It's actually a lot easier to create this sort of army in a fantasy or science fiction setting, because there are more enemies that are unambiguously bad. You'd have to be the most depraved sort of moral relativist to claim that raising an undead horde to slaughter a path across the world is just a difference of opinion. Training and equipping an army to stop those attacks doesn't require that you be a bad person, any more than being a police officer forced to shoot a gunman does. That doesn't help with mirror matches but it's better to just ignore those, rather than handwaving about how there are really four Gauntlets of Ultramar and that Calgar vs. Calgar slugging match makes perfect sense, honest!

I'd say the idea of having most of the army (MaA at least) fighting under the banner of religion while actually being unashamed boorish thugs is less common than the just an "army of paladins" setup most commonly used.
Still, you're right it's tricky making a "good" army interesting and unique nowadays.

Can you think of any examples of wargames that play the "army of paladins" straight?

 AlexHolker wrote:
It's actually a lot easier to create this sort of army in a fantasy or science fiction setting, because there are more enemies that are unambiguously bad. You'd have to be the most depraved sort of moral relativist to claim that raising an undead horde to slaughter a path across the world is just a difference of opinion. Training and equipping an army to stop those attacks doesn't require that you be a bad person, any more than being a police officer forced to shoot a gunman does. That doesn't help with mirror matches but it's better to just ignore those, rather than handwaving about how there are really four Gauntlets of Ultramar and that Calgar vs. Calgar slugging match makes perfect sense, honest!

I think that the way the army is composed means that even if there's some religious manipulating and bullying, they're undoubtably considered a 'good' army. After all, this army quite literally is led to war with their gods providing direct and unambiguous help.

decker_cky wrote:
I think that the way the army is composed means that even if there's some religious manipulating and bullying, they're undoubtably considered a 'good' army. After all, this army quite literally is led to war with their gods providing direct and unambiguous help.

The Dwarves are also classified as a "Good" army, and they're running a worldwide extortion racket. Being a god doesn't automatically mean you're good, it just means you're more powerful than your average bear.

I think that model looks really good, I'm not seeing the problems. The price is too high for a single model is my only complaint. The face is great and it's hard to see from that image, but the hands look fine. Considering getting an army of Basileans even though I don't play KoW or WHFB.

 Bolognesus wrote:

@Az
I think I've stated it's a matter of taste more than of quality quite enough now, but here's once more just for you
Cohesive? I'd say anything not-sisters is cohesive enough; the MaA fit to the paladins close enough and while the angels could have done with some more cloth to tie them in with the army a bit better it looks cohesive enough to me. The MaA and paladins sure do look like parts of one and the same army to me (and perhaps having the Elohi, being supernatural creatures, look a bit more different isn't even a bad thing).

What I mean by cohesiveness is that with individual character models especially, the paint will do more to make one War Cleric model "cohesive" over another with the Elohi army, regardless of whether the model is made by Mantic, Reaper, AoW or GW.

The MaA are styrene (as opposed to other plastics) and have the shields on the sprue so you'll have to find someone who's not using the shields to buy those separately, I'm afraid.

That's a shame. I'll have a few of them but not a lot in that case. I thought they might be separate shield sprues like GW makes.

I don't think your price comparison is completely fair: as soon as you want something with two-handed weapons it's 6 for 30 vs. 4 for 40: that's double the price, not the 33% more you casually disregard (though I can understand Australians not wanting to dwell on 33% and up price differences after a few years of playing GW games ). Also, try to buy a hero model for the GW ogres. As affordable as the plastic rank-and-file are, those are fething insane. Sure, there's a bit more variety in the GW offerings but everything like characters, manhunters, yetis and so forth is immediately insanely expensive.

I'm not saying that the GW ones are cheap - merely that the Mantic ones aren't an amazing deal, especially given their smaller stature. Having said that, they are at least doubled from the initial BOGOF KS price range now. It wouldn't have done them too well for the "affordable alternative" to be more expensive than the leading brand. As for the characters, well yes, the GW ones are very expensive, but since Mantic only seems to have the one "Captain" model - which appears to be simply a new head and arms based off a trooper, there aren't a lot of other options - unless you go look up Reaper's product line)

I'd also say there's quite a few of us preferring the lack of that very bulk to the GW lardy ogres you mention. Seriously, even back when I was playing fantasy I've been eyeing an ogre army for years but that gourd just put me off of the idea. Now I finally get affordable, plastic ogres which I actually like the look of. Sure, they're not perfect but they fill a very different kind of ogre niche at, besides the annoying metal command bits (which are by the way very nice in detail, I'm currently painting a set and I'm quite impressed), are easily at the level of quality of the GW ogres. Little more work on the mold lines, though being ogres all the parts are large enough to be easy to clean without destroying any detail IME, but that's about it.

My favourite of the GW ogres are the old 3rd Edition Jes Goodwin sculpts. Similar to the Mordheim Ogre. I'm lucky enough to have most of them, too. Which made for a nice tough unit for my Orcs. My main point of contention with the new ogres isn't their distinctive look, but the break from the old ones. The Mantic ones are nice, but the size could be an issue. When I eventually get them in hand in a month or two, I'll be able to comment more knowledgeably - but I did order the KoW Ogre army.

And the total price is really, really sharp; by the time I'm done with 'em I'll have a sizeable KoW army which could probably double somewhere around 3000pts of WHFB if I wanted, with perhaps one or two additions thrown in (I'm eyeing that cannon-on-a-critter thing @ €26; all it needs is a rider swap and it's actually a lovely model, especially at it's price )

What? Link?

I'm sure once you actually have all elements you'd want to an army with GW parts that would end up probably at least 50% more expensive. Sorry, but every way I look at it once you buy an entire army it starts to make quite a difference.

It really depends which of the two games you're planning to use them in. If you're planning to use them to Warhammer with, you'll need a whole pile of those ancillary models anyway, so you'll have to buy the GW ones, or look up Reaper for proxies.

Of course, if you prefer the fatty look you should go for the GW models, that's true but to make a comparison with a reaper model which will have perhaps two or three buddies, most of which look substantially less nice than that one, mono-posed with fixed arms and head (just having those separate actually makes for quite a bit of variety on the mantic stuff. I'd have liked a little more but it's serviceable - nothing like having a few monopose models ten times each), with hardly any uniform look to the few ogres they might put out in bones in the foreseeable future is just crap, and you know better than that

I brought up the Reaper one specifically because of the "looking only at price" argument. And because the Bones Ogre is a good model. And because I've known Fantasy and 40k players over the years that liked to have armies using the same model, repeated many times for their units. Not my own aesthetic, but people are out there who like to do that.

I fully agree Perry has the market for historicals at awesome prices completely cornered (perhaps together with fireforge). Tiny point there is that as much as historical players might loathe fantasy minis, the lack of fantasy elements can be quite a turn-off to some of us (me included, for basilean purposes at least).

Well, bearing in mind that many of the Plastic Brettonian and Empire kits are just oversized/heroic scale Perry historicals, I don't see a huge deal overall. If that's your own aesthetic, then fine - and I can appreciate the shields.

Much of reaper's bones stuff is awesome for RPG purposes but it's so completely aimed at only having a few models on the table that hardly anything could really see any use in armies other than just the large monsters. the sheer boring repetitiveness of it all will just break that for anyone not on an utterly barebones budget. So no, bones do not really contend in the price game other than for the large monsters (and of course there, anything they're putting out is an instant winner). Using that for rank-and-file models is so repetitive you're little better off than just using tokens as minis.

Not really. it's not every line, but there are a good few Bones lines that will actually work really well for R&F - moreso for KoW than WFB, since KoW is more flexible with individual weapons - but either:

Bones:
Orcs - lovely Tre Manor sculpts, including a captain.
Skeletons with sword & shields
Skeletons with bow
Skeletons with spears
(Pathfinder) Goblins (9 unique sculpts)
Regular Goblins
Bow Goblins
Chaos Hounds

But then, I date from these days:



and later, this:



So I'm not that fussed about a few of the less important fantasy units all looking quite uniform.