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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Has Mantic ever explained how and why they have released so many obviously terrible models?

I like the rules for the game, the models are what keeps me from getting deeper into the game.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Has Mantic ever explained how and why they have released so many obviously terrible models?

i'm assuming its all part of some extreme drinking game
to stay on topic, my box arrived today, gonna crack it open later tonight....hopefully nothing was smashed when the postman strongarmed it into the box and half flattened it

People keep talking about how Mantic "lost" money on the Kickstarter. Well.. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Even if they put in $20k of their own money, They still did get $320k (I subtracted 10% for KS/Amazon fees) from the campaign, so another way to look at it is that they got $340k worth of production for only $20k. - And barely any of that new product has been released yet, so it's not really "lost money". It just means they had to invest their own money in their own product development as well, rather than it being 100% subsidised by crowdfunding.

I mean, in the "olden days" companies had to raise their own money, or how bigger companies still produce their own companies without Kickstarter. We don't hear about how Games Workshop has "lost" money on their Centurian sprues or how FFG is currently in the red on their Blockade Runner for X-Wing...

 Compel wrote:
It's not a horrible argument (speaking as someone who has spent a lot of cashon mantic stuff). However, I do believe it's suggesting significantly more... malice (for want of a better term), than mantic is due.

Combining 10's of 1000's of pounds of loss that the KoW kickstarter made, with a tight deadline and ultimately serviceable sculpts (though, I'll admit, rather crap), could very well have simply resulted in some meetings where, conscious of the loss, Mantic decided not to throw good money after bad, do what they can under budget, and (yes, wishlisting), learn their lessons for their next big plastic release...

I imagine the truth lies probably somewhere in the middle.

It's pretty much this.

The budgets that Mantic did on the fly during the KoW Kickstarter were wrong. They didn't take a lot of things into account, such as multiple shipments, that really ate into the funds quickly. Ronnie's stated publicly that multiple deliveries in particular was a huge, huge chunk that they didn't account for, thinking that it would just be one.

The KoW Kickstarter ended up costing a lot more than they received and Mantic are a small company with small pockets. They don't have a huge amount of capital to use, hence the reliance on Kickstarters to fund new lines. My understanding is that they did top up the KS amount quite significantly but it was still not enough to deliver all the models in the best quality on time. They had a choice of Meet Schedule, Quality Models, All The Models - pick two. And missing the schedule probably wouldn't have been a month or two, maybe 6-12 months.

I'm sure you've noticed that Mantics other kickstarters have been far less generous in their stretch goals and timelines since Mantic did learn from their mistakes. They've also hired a dedicated artist and sculptor which should go a long way to making sure that future sculpts are up to par. The Dreadball minis have generally been solid (casting issues not withstanding), and the Deadzone minis are looking excellent.

The issues with the Men At Arms plastics seem to be problems with the sculpting rather than the tooling. The difference between the weapons (presumably made using CAD) are light years ahead of the bodies which were traditionally sculpted and scanned in. General theories are that the 3D scanning equipment wasn't up to the task, and a relatively inexperienced 3D sculptor attempted to correct things such as chainmail without success. From what we've seen of the Deadzone plastic terrain so far, it looks like the tooling is absolutely top notch.

Daedleh wrote:

The issues with the Men At Arms plastics seem to be problems with the sculpting rather than the tooling. The difference between the weapons (presumably made using CAD) are light years ahead of the bodies which were traditionally sculpted and scanned in. General theories are that the 3D scanning equipment wasn't up to the task, and a relatively inexperienced 3D sculptor attempted to correct things such as chainmail without success. From what we've seen of the Deadzone plastic terrain so far, it looks like the tooling is absolutely top notch.

This was brought up quite a while back (in this thread maybe? when there were WIP shots of the men at arms). Remy sculpted the Men At Arms at 1-up and not 3-up. These were scanned in and hand-corrected, but obviously not enough to save them (only enough to make them slightly better than the goblins). If Mantic is going to pantagraph models for plastics, they need to do the traditional 3-up method and skip this 1-up scanning. Thankfully the Deadzone stuff is all 100% CAD so there's no bad 1-up pantagraphing.

I did think of a use for my craptastic men at arms, though. Since the Basilean list has a bolt thrower, and the plastic Confrontation Lion don't have one, I can get a cheap bolt thrower or two from somewhere and use my men at arms as lowly crewmen!


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 SheSpits wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Has Mantic ever explained how and why they have released so many obviously terrible models?

I like the rules for the game, the models are what keeps me from getting deeper into the game.

Use other models My Orc army is mostly Mantic (with Mierce trolls and Wyvern), my Goblin army is mostly Mantic (with RBG characters and Mierce giant), but my Basilean army is plastic Confrontation Lion, my Twilight Kin army is Gamezone and Mierce Khthones, and my special Helsvakt Horde (orc/human combo list) is RBG Helsvakt and Mierce Fomoraic Tarvax, Sronax, and other big beasties.

One of my favorite aspects of KoW - other than the sweet rules - is the ability to go far more buckwild with units and infantry than I ever could with Warhammer due to the unit/element basing.

Remy sculpted the Mantic men-at-arms?!?

Half-sculpted.

They were finished off and posed as digital sculpts (the posing is terrible).

The tooling or to be more specific the division of the components is to blame for a lot of issues with them, though... the left arm pretty much melts into the shield in a giant blob, something which easily could have been avoided using seperate shields. Same goes for the dynamic torsos, separate legs would have allowed the side detail to be retained. Amateur mistakes, really. Seperate shoulder pads would actually be a good idea on the deadzone enforcers... not just for the 40k crowd, but to get some good detail on the sides.

Slide-core tooling could also have been utilised to fix the problem (it is actually used on the men-at-arms too... the base disks are hollow for some unknown reason).

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 judgedoug wrote:
I can get a cheap bolt thrower or two from somewhere

I humbly suggest here: http://www.eccentricminiatures.com/retemb0011.html

Hard plastic, 2 for $10.

This still makes no sense to me. Surely the biggest cost is making masters, tooling and casting? How much could they possibly have saved by send turds to be processed than solid sculpts? Especially when you consider that this wasn't a one time order fulfillment, it was establishing at least one core kit in their fantasy line.

Welp, my wife's stuff is here. Mine is still in transit.

Just starting to do an inventory, and I see that the figures are still being torn off the sprues rather than clipped, so damaged parts are still a go!

Going by the packing slip, it looks like they forgot a shirtload of stuff. I guess I'll be emailing Stewart later tonight, then...

It also looks like the "shiny & signed" thing given to backers who said it was ok for them to hold the previous delivery for 2 months or whatever it was so they could save a pile on postage turned out to be a postcard signed by Ronnie. Wow.

Update later.

Actually, if you did not go for Basileans it is quite a good Kickstarter all in all.

 Azazelx wrote:
and I see that the figures are still being torn off the sprues rather than clipped, so damaged parts are still a go!

Haven't inventoried mine (and therefore looked closely) yet but at a glance the Gargoyle wings "elbow joint" looks like a high risk area for this.

I've gotten a bunch of replacements for the gargoyles in my second shipment - one in three to one in two (depending on how forgiving you are) were damaged. replacements weren't much better (but of course now I have the promised number of 'undamaged' gargoyles anyway).
I complained to let them know I think it's just stupid how they handle 'at-risk' injection points like that, but now I've looked at them again I'll probably be taking a bit of greenstuff to that offending area on the 'damaged' models - it's not at all hard to fix (actually it's trivial: insert blob of greenstuff, smooth over, ???, profit!) so the issue isn't half as bad as on some of the earlier mantic restics (and for that matter, privateer plastics) I've gotten - the DB season one stuff risked losing detail here and there where injection points were torn off. Not so much the case here; this is just a minor annoyance.

Still, if you have damaged gargoyles (and even out of five I'm reasonably certain you will) just let them know. Really, I like mantic a bunch but this one should just be a bit of a lesson to them.

i LOVE the look of those goblins !!

Get the **metal** ones and you'll be blissful for quite a while

It is too bad to hear the injection points / torn off the sprue issue has not been addressed.

Literally a box of snips given to the packers could solve that issue. It would probably even make the work easier and faster too.

I fear for retailers who have to suffer through "returns" because people open boxes of damaged models.

It's been adressed on nigh-on every miniature I have seen (and I have *everything* from this KS, and most of it quite a few times too!) except the gargoyles.
In their defence there isn't really a better place to put the vents but yes, a few snips wouldn't go amiss. OTOH, they're the *one* exception I've really seen in this KS.
So no. Major, major advances have been made since season one of DB (which in itself was quite doable as well IMO, though far from perfect) with one single exception.
And in their defence, fixing the damage here is, while not entirely trivial, certainly quite doable without significant sculpting skills.

 Azazelx wrote:
Welp, my wife's stuff is here. Mine is still in transit.

Just starting to do an inventory, and I see that the figures are still being torn off the sprues rather than clipped, so damaged parts are still a go!

Going by the packing slip, it looks like they forgot a shirtload of stuff. I guess I'll be emailing Stewart later tonight, then...

It also looks like the "shiny & signed" thing given to backers who said it was ok for them to hold the previous delivery for 2 months or whatever it was so they could save a pile on postage turned out to be a postcard signed by Ronnie. Wow.

Update later.

Almost mid-inventory update.
There's a fair few extra models in the box. So far 5 Brock riders, 5 mummies. I'm hoping the correct number of ogres are in here for the army & extras, and the other models aren't a mistake of some kind...

You're supposed to get 10 instead of 5 brocks to make up for the late shipping of gargoyles and immortal guard etc.
extra mummies is peculiar. One baggie of ten or two of five?

So the only shiny thing is the signed postcard? Should have asked for mine sooner. Oh well.

I believe it's a poster rather than a postcard (wouldn't know, didn't delay) but yeah, it's not something which would really wet my appetite either.

It's a poster of the Basilean Legacy artwork.

I'm pretty happy with it.

Still going through it all. Actually, I paused the KoW stuff to go through a Forge World order that arrived as well. Also, to eat dinner, etc.

The Mummies were all in one bag. 10 of them, with the large heads, large sword arms and shields inside, and another sealed baggie inside that bag with the smaller heads, axes, shortswords and non-shield arms inside.

Haven't opened the thing that looks like a book yet. Going to sleep in a few..

 scarletsquig wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
I can get a cheap bolt thrower or two from somewhere

I humbly suggest here: http://www.eccentricminiatures.com/retemb0011.html

Hard plastic, 2 for $10.

Thanks dude! Forgot about 'em. Now my men at arms have something to do while the Rackham plastics get to fight.
Good ol' Eccentric! Them and Proxie minis are becoming my favorite companies.

 Azazelx wrote:
Still going through it all. Actually, I paused the KoW stuff to go through a Forge World order that arrived as well. Also, to eat dinner, etc.

The Mummies were all in one bag. 10 of them, with the large heads, large sword arms and shields inside, and another sealed baggie inside that bag with the smaller heads, axes, shortswords and non-shield arms inside.

Haven't opened the thing that looks like a book yet. Going to sleep in a few..

They were probably out of 5man baggies or something like that. Just a mispick, free minis

 scarletsquig wrote:
It's a poster of the Basilean Legacy artwork.

I'm pretty happy with it.

I didn't get one of those. Nor did I receive a postcard. I guess I'll give them an email...

You do get some weird mis-packs on this kickstarter 3rd shipment. 6 Twilight Kin/Elven Knights/Paladins and Paladin knights for me, sadly for the mounted units I only have horses for 5 each, that said free minis. On the other hand my Immortal Guard are a figure short, 4 rather than 5. The mould lines on some of the pieces are a major pain, as others have noted on this material, but they do seem a fair bit worse than what I got in my 2nd shipment. I have no idea how I am going to clean the gargoyles heads to make them useable, as most lines are dead centre over the models face. I think the monster sized models come out of the resin plastic process a lot better than rank and file.

Then you come to the metal characters which are very well cast, the only issue I foresee is some breakages on parts such as the Twilight Kin foot characters spear and the elf mages staff due to the "softness" of the metal.

 SheSpits wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Has Mantic ever explained how and why they have released so many obviously terrible models?

I like the rules for the game, the models are what keeps me from getting deeper into the game.

As Doug said, use other models. I'm about to start work on a Twilight Kin army using Citadel and Raging Heroes miniatures. The only Mantic figures so far will be 4 Harpies.


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Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
You do get some weird mis-packs on this kickstarter 3rd shipment. 6 Twilight Kin/Elven Knights/Paladins and Paladin knights for me, sadly for the mounted units I only have horses for 5 each, that said free minis. On the other hand my Immortal Guard are a figure short, 4 rather than 5. The mould lines on some of the pieces are a major pain, as others have noted on this material, but they do seem a fair bit worse than what I got in my 2nd shipment. I have no idea how I am going to clean the gargoyles heads to make them useable, as most lines are dead centre over the models face. I think the monster sized models come out of the resin plastic process a lot better than rank and file.

Then you come to the metal characters which are very well cast, the only issue I foresee is some breakages on parts such as the Twilight Kin foot characters spear and the elf mages staff due to the "softness" of the metal.

Female Basilean Angels sculpt has a lot of issues. From my notes:

Samacris (Female Basilean Angel)
Mostly a nice model, sculpt-wise
left hand is atrophied to nothing (part of the sculpt, not a miscast - I think)
those wings (each weighs more than the torso) will never go on and stay on. DERP.
no integral base - so no strength to hold it onto a glued on base, particularly with the weight of those wings.
Wings will need to be entirely replaced, which means the "flaming" wings will not see use. Model will have to be pinned with difficulty to a resin base to keep it upright.
Nice design. Absolutely awful execution, especially for a "gaming" model. Should have been produced in restic or resin.

Having just assembled a few of the Men at Arms out of the box, I found that none of the attachment points seemed to fit well. It seems like no one at Mantic (or anywhere else) printed out any prototypes to make sure all the pieces would fit.

The arm "sockets" are not really flat, and the shoulder straps force one to glue the arms too low onto the torso. The neck socket also doesn't fit the head's stump. The results look something like the old WGF "ball-neck" models, but without the ball...

I'm just continually surprised every time I discover another failure of Mantic to check the quality of their product before sending it off for mass production.

One last thing: How much did it cost Mantic to tool the completely unnecessary sliding core hollows under the MaA's integral bases? Could they have tooled another head or arm option onto the sprue for that amount of money?

Were they going to double the freebie Men at Arms to 10 from the original 5 when they decided to go with proper plastic? Or was the doubling just for BOGOFs?

Doubling was just bogof.