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Wow... I didn't expect the Humans to be taller then Elves, thats a rarely seen fantasy trope.

 Cyporiean wrote:
Wow... I didn't expect the Humans to be taller then Elves, thats a rarely seen fantasy trope.

D&D elves in the last couple editions have been smaller than humans, iirc.

 Cyporiean wrote:
Wow... I didn't expect the Humans to be taller then Elves, thats a rarely seen fantasy trope.

D&D Elves (except for Grey possibly) were noticeably shorter than humans in at least 2nd and 3rd edition. I don't play 4th and didn't play 1st so can't comment on those.

pretre wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:
Wow... I didn't expect the Humans to be taller then Elves, thats a rarely seen fantasy trope.

D&D elves in the last couple editions have been smaller than humans, iirc.

warboss wrote:
D&D Elves (except for Grey possibly) were noticeably shorter than humans in at least 2nd and 3rd edition. I don't play 4th and didn't play 1st so can't comment on those.

Pathfinder:


D&D:


Apparently Forgotten Realms had Elves being as tall/taller as the standard, also LOTR.

1E AD&D Race/Heights:

This is the best I could find in the Mantic fluff for Elves

"Elves are slender, much thinner than a man, but
deceptively strong. Their muscles are hard and supple,
and they can perform athletic feats that other races
could not hope to perform. Next to an Elf, a human
is graceless and ungainly. They are beings of poise,
uniformly beautiful, quick to laugh and quick to anger.
They are long-lived and wise, and yet impulsive. They
love to create, their arts are beyond compare, and
an Elven sword is as fine as it is sharp."

3E


Forgotten Realms is the exception in D&D, not the rule and, of course, Pathfinder isn't D&D although it uses the ruleset.

So As Tall/Taller:
-4th Edition
-Forgotten Realms
-Pathfinder
-Warcraft
-Warhammer
-Dragon's Age
-Lord of the Rings
-Marvel Comics

Shorter:
-D&D1-3
-Mantic

SeanDrake wrote:
Which hero's come with the 225 pledge because I got none of them?

Here's the full list of free heroes at the $225+ level for anyone else that needs to check. 11 models!

* J'zik Gearlund, Dwarf Healer
* El'Rik Nisleen, Elf Mage Hero
* Atlak Nakh, Twilight Kin Hero
* Mikayel, Lord of Nightmares, Twilight Kin Hero
* Basilean Angel Hero Jullius -
* Basilean Angel Mage Hero Samacris
* Basilean Lord on Lion
* Druid Keris
* Air Elemental Shaarlyot
2 pet dogs.

All really nice models, too... the people who put down $225+ on this Kickstarter got an insanely good deal, not only 11 hero sculpts, but two of them are large angel minis, and another is a feth-off great big lion rider sculpt.

 scarletsquig wrote:

SeanDrake wrote:
Which hero's come with the 225 pledge because I got none of them?

Here's the full list of heroes for anyone else that needs to check. 11 models!

* J'zik Gearlund, Dwarf Healer
* El'Rik Nisleen, Elf Mage Hero
* Atlak Nakh, Twilight Kin Hero
* Mikayel, Lord of Nightmares, Twilight Kin Hero
* Basilean Angel Hero Jullius -
* Basilean Angel Mage Hero Samacris
* Basilean Lord on Lion
* Druid Keris
* Air Elemental Shaarlyot
2 pet dogs.

Very useful - thanks for sharing/reminding!

 Cyporiean wrote:
So As Tall/Taller:
-4th Edition
-Forgotten Realms
-Pathfinder
-Warcraft
-Warhammer
-Dragon's Age
-Lord of the Rings
-Marvel Comics

Shorter:
-D&D1-3
-Mantic

4th had shorter elves as well.
Only NE in Warcraft are taller, HE are shorter.
First Dragon Age, elves were a head shorter.

And, you know, our original contention was D&D. The granddaddy of RPGs.

 pretre wrote:

4th had shorter elves as well.
Only NE in Warcraft are taller, HE are shorter.
First Dragon Age, elves were a head shorter.

And, you know, our original contention was D&D. The granddaddy of RPGs.

High/Blood Elves are the same height as Humans in Warcraft.


Dragon's Age:


And no, my original contention was modern fantasy Elves which in most mediums are now as tall as or taller then humans.

Additionally how are these Men-At-Arm scaling up to Empire and other 28mm Humans?

Nice to see my pictures made it over already! Here are some more:




The Men At Arms, Perry guy and Viking guy here were all done using the same method - Vallejo white airbrush primer with an Army Painter Strong Tone wash. Unfortunately I forgot to do the Orc at the same time.

From left to right on the mixed picture: Man at Arms, Perry Miniatures War of the Roses, Man at Arms, Gripping Beast Viking, Mantic Orc, Man at Arms.

So, now I've undercoated and inked them they don't look too bad. I think the bare plastic shots we've been seeing made them look worse than they are, but they still aren't good. The biggest problem is that these guys are BIG. They tower over the Orc, ludicrously so over 28mm humans. I think that scaled down to proper size then some of the detail would be forgiven. However, there are still issues with the arms (long arm syndrome is not unique to the sisters), chainmail and lego hands.

I've got two theories; firstly that the 3D scanning process wasn't very good and missed a lot of detail. I think that a 3D sculptor went back in to tweak and try to fix, including things like the chainmail but didn't do such a good job. Secondly I think these guys were sculpted for Restic originally, and someone forgot to scale them back down. A reduction of 20% in size would go a long way to correcting some of the problems. If the detail problem areas (including faces) were scaled down 20% then they wouldn't be too bad). The base disc fits in the Mantic bases perfectly (even if the hollow base isn't ideal), but may have been added after in the CAD program.

Having just the exact number of parts needed on the sprue with no spare arms or heads means that variety will be a problem. 1 in every 5 will have to be holding the spear in the attack pose. Having attack poses in the front rank would be great, but not if they're all exactly the same. God help you if you lose an arm or a head (easy to do and I almost did). You're a man down if you do since there are no spares.

Wow. Those arms are really horrible. I think they look much worse there than the sprue pictures, because you can really tell just how out of proportion the arms are. What was Mantic thinking? Do they really not care how bad their miniatures turn out? Did they make enough on the Kickstarters that they don't care if nobody every buys any more of these?

How big are the heads compared to the somewhat pinheaded Elohi? (as in, how would the combination of Elohi with MaA heads work)

 Cyporiean wrote:
High/Blood Elves are the same height as Humans in Warcraft.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Height
High elf ?? 5'3" - 6'1" 4'11" - 5'9"
Human ?? 5' - 6'6" 4'7" - 6'1"

That DA pic is from DA2, btw. My statement was the Original DA.

And no, my original contention was modern fantasy Elves which in most mediums are now as tall as or taller then humans.

No, your original contention was this:

Wow... I didn't expect the Humans to be taller then Elves, thats a rarely seen fantasy trope.

Which has now been disproven since it is an often seen fantasy trope.

Either way, I'll let it go since we're way OT.

Can somebody stick a ruler beside one of the assembled Men at Arms ?

I have a horrible feeling they did indeed sculpt for restic's shrinkage (which is what these were originally planned to be)

and not bother changed when the switch to styrene was made as Daedleh speculates

 Cyporiean wrote:

D&D:


Apparently Forgotten Realms had Elves being as tall/taller as the standard, also LOTR.

I said in D&D 2nd/3rd edition. Your picture is either from Pathfinder or 4th edition but absolutely not from any of the ones I referenced. In both standard and FR D&D in 2nd/3rd, the majority of elf racial variants were slightly shorter than humans except for possibly Gold/Sun elves in 2nd which may have been within an inch or two of human height IIRC in either direction. If 4th edition changed elven height, you can add that to the list of things that were changed willy nilly just 'cause in that edition (along with the destruction of the realms in general to fit in with their points of light mechanic).

edit: Here is a 3/3.5 picture of the FR elven variants. I don't think they had a nifty height comparison in 2nd edition as that tradition started in 3.0. You can cross FR off your list as "taller" since it isn't the case in the majority of editions 3.5 existed (2nd/3rd/3.5). Below is a 3e FR pic IIRC.



Either way, I agree it's off topic....

Back to the topic at hand.. the human spearmen don't actually look as bad as when on the naked sprue. Don't get me wrong... they'll certainly never win any sculpting awards but the faces are the only noticeably sub-par parts if you're looking at them from more than 12" away. Compared with the monstrosities that the gorrilla-hands basilian nuns have or the itty-bitty Looney Tunes Taz legs ogres get, that's nothing!

Casting issues aside, which are impossible to really factor in as we don't have these models cast elsewhere, I can't imagine that the initial outlay to have them sculpted well would have been dramatically more than whatever they paid for this gak. Maybe they would have had to sell more units post-KS to justify it...but guess how many units of this garbage they'll be selling.
Such a shame.

Yeah, seeing them inked up, I'm a little bit happier, but that arm/shield connection is just bad.

The arms are really what ruin the models for me. I was planning on using Perry or Eccentric minis' arms instead of the MaA arms, but now I doubt they will fit. This may be the rare occasion when I grab some GW HElf Spearman arms for their perfect proportions. Or any GW arms, I guess.

The height is actually not a deterrent for me. I like slightly larger models than Perry and Warlord, and these MaA will probably look like large, elite soldiers after arm and probably head swaps. Eccentric, Gripping Beast and WGF minis can be the bulk of the army with these MaA forming the brute squad. All in all, they definitely inspire one to make lemonade.

I foresee many Mantic-goblin-style blowout sales in their future.

Maybe Dystopian Legion players will find a use for them?

 scarletsquig wrote:
Hold your horses, everyone, there's plenty of pics now. :p
Looking quite nice, I like the regular elf ones a little more than the TK knights, huge improvement over the original metals, and the sculpted-on cloak is a better decision than having it separate.

Son of a.... work blocked!

The conspiracy continues!

 warboss wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:

D&D:


Apparently Forgotten Realms had Elves being as tall/taller as the standard, also LOTR.

I said in D&D 2nd/3rd edition. Your picture is either from Pathfinder or 4th edition but absolutely not from any of the ones I referenced. In both standard and FR D&D in 2nd/3rd, the majority of elf racial variants were slightly shorter than humans except for possibly Gold/Sun elves in 2nd which may have been within an inch or two of human height IIRC in either direction. If 4th edition changed elven height, you can add that to the list of things that were changed willy nilly just 'cause in that edition (along with the destruction of the realms in general to fit in with their points of light mechanic).

edit: Here is a 3/3.5 picture of the FR elven variants. I don't think they had a nifty height comparison in 2nd edition as that tradition started in 3.0. You can cross FR off your list as "taller" since it isn't the case in the majority of editions 3.5 existed (2nd/3rd/3.5). Below is a 3e FR pic IIRC.



Either way, I agree it's off topic....

Back to the topic at hand.. the human spearmen don't actually look as bad as when on the naked sprue. Don't get me wrong... they'll certainly never win any sculpting awards but the faces are the only noticeably sub-par parts if you're looking at them from more than 12" away. Compared with the monstrosities that the gorrilla-hands basilian nuns have or the itty-bitty Looney Tunes Taz legs ogres get, that's nothing!

Both pictures in that post by Cyp are pathfinder, the lower is from the older playtest version art.

 Azazelx wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
Hold your horses, everyone, there's plenty of pics now. :p
Looking quite nice, I like the regular elf ones a little more than the TK knights, huge improvement over the original metals, and the sculpted-on cloak is a better decision than having it separate.

Son of a.... work blocked!

The conspiracy continues!

Rest assured, you'll at least moderately approve of these models, too. Probably even like them

 scarletsquig wrote:


Think I'll definitely be replacing the heads... eccentric miniatures looks like the best bet since they sell a head sprue seperately ($2 for 16 heads is about as good as it gets), and also sell plastic giant crossbow artillery at 2 for $10 (which is an entry in the basilean army list which I will definitely need).

I'd rethink using eccentric miniatures for bits for the Men At Arms there squig, I've got some of the eccentric miniatures and they are a bit smaller than the Perry mini's so I think they'd start looking like the Elohi heads if you used them with the Mantic MAA.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The arms are really what ruin the models for me. I was planning on using Perry or Eccentric minis' arms instead of the MaA arms, but now I doubt they will fit. This may be the rare occasion when I grab some GW HElf Spearman arms for their perfect proportions. Or any GW arms, I guess.

Yeah, I'd definately rule out Eccentric, as they are smaller than the Perry arms.

hey guys, i've been published! one of my magic item suggestions was good enough to be used for the Basilean Legacy supplement book



Blog post - http://www.manticblog.com/?p=8904
Original Mantic forum thread started by Alessio Cavatore w/ my submission (post #5) - http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?3148-New-magic-artefacts%21&highlight=brew+truesight

I can't tell if you're joking about your name or if you're serious... if it's the latter, congratulations! If it's the former, you need to type bazinga! after your posts.

Was a 'create a cool arteract and Alessio might include it' thread on the mantic forums, iirc.

Yep, anyone familiar with regular posters on the Mantic Forums will recognise about 75% of the names in the magic items list.

I was really down on the basillian sculpts. However, after seeing so many of them assembled and inked, they may be serviceable.