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 judgedoug wrote:
See, that's the thing - so many of the KS backers are just fine - despite the crappy men at arms - because most of the gak was free.

The $175 pledge netted you like $250 worth of pre-existing figures plus the rulebook. That was already a good deal.
Then the stretch goals hit - and you you got 15 units for free and like a dozen metal heroes due to the stretch goals and free dice and some restic KS exclusive miniatures.

So if you're like me and you only had use for about 6 of the stretch-goal free units, it was STILL an amazing deal because the initial pledges were discounted product.
And some of the sculpts were great, so again, if you were me, you bought several extra units of things you liked at a discount! (I've got like 60 fleabag riders I need to assemble and paint for my goblin army)

I thought the Men At Arms were garbage, I didn't like several sculpts of the new units, but I was still VERY VERY happy with the KS. It got me playing a fantastic rules set and got me started with a couple armies and I still got a bunch of free gak as stretch goals, some of which was useful, so I traded the other things to people for more of the useful things.

Pretty much this. I got a fantastic Ogre army out of it and a shedload of miniatures at a ridiculously low cost. The last shipment was really poor and unfortunately did overshadow the entire thing, but up until that point it was brilliant and there were very few miniatures that I didn't love. My split:

Awesome:
- The two army books
- Ogres
- Gargoyles
- Brocks
- Fleabags
- Almost all of the heroes
- Elf & TK Cavalry

Respectable:
- Elohi
- Paladins & paladin knights
- Chariot & Mincer
- Rest of the heroes
- Trolls (the legs aren't to everyones tastes I know)

Poor:
- Sisterhood (for the cavalry I'm just going to use the panthers without mounts)
- Mummies
- Palace guard

Downright terrible:
- Men at arms

Yes, the men at arms and sisterhood are universally despised and should be, but they overshadowed what was otherwise a good range of miniatures. A complete lack of communication and forward thinking on the men at arms was appalling but to claim that the rest of the kickstarter was terrible is just ridiculous.

 judgedoug wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:

A Kings of War 2.0 kickstarter will be quite an interesting event. There is an awful lot of ground for them to make up in the fantasy realm, not to mention all the people who were left a bit soured by the previous experience.

I missed the original one, and most of the stuff they released for it is stuff I wouldn't have bought anyways with the exception of a hero or two.

See, that's the thing - so many of the KS backers are just fine - despite the crappy men at arms - because most of the gak was free.

The $175 pledge netted you like $250 worth of pre-existing figures plus the rulebook. That was already a good deal.
Then the stretch goals hit - and you you got 15 units for free and like a dozen metal heroes due to the stretch goals and free dice and some restic KS exclusive miniatures.

And some may not be, because what you call 'free' they call add-ons diluting the cost so the value was finally worth them getting in. They saw those 'freebies' as models they expected.

And what good is 175$ pledge for 250$ of models if 75$ of those models go right int he garbage because you can't re-sell them as no one wants them?

'Value' is relative, and 'free' is misleading as it isn't free, it is just the changing the cost of the overall package. It is like saying 500$ for 4 tires vs 500$ for 3 tires and the 4th one is free.

And 'Throw away the stuff you don't like' is not a great tagline for a kickstarter. I don't see why people keep pushing that as an acceptable outcome.

for the cavalry I'm just going to use the panthers without mounts

/me, seriously wondering why he'd not thought of just doing that....

Maybe I should start looking online for some of that "garbage" people don't seem to want.

I can use some good fodder for practicing conversions. Plus I can see how bad it actually is.

Not all of us got in at $175. The deal was a bit less sweet below that range, especially when the only reason I got in at all was for the werewolves.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Not all of us got in at $175. The deal was a bit less sweet below that range, especially when the only reason I got in at all was for the werewolves.

Yeah, and I do feel bad about cases such as yours, where you pledged for a narrow range of product and were disappointed. Hence my quote " many of the KS backers are just fine".

I'm not hand-waving away complaints from anyone genuinely disappointed in the product they paid for and received (the trolls! I was so excited for the trolls! bleh. thankfully Mantic let us swap around paid add-ons), but I'm thoroughly annoyed at non-backers who assume the KS was a total bust because of some bad sculpts. While the bad sculpts certainly do absolutely suck and should never have happened, it doesn't invalidate the tremendous deal the KS was - from the get-go - for many of us, myself included. Even if no stretch goals and no freebies had been obtained I would have been very happy with just my initial pledges. I'm personally double-happy because I hadn't played KoW before the KS and was blown away after I got my rulebook and started playing, as it's now become my defacto minis game for my and my gaming group.

Keep in mind I'm also of the mindset that the M-A-A should not have been released. I keep thinking, perhaps Mantic should have done what Mongoose did back in the day - during the heady days of the Starship Troopers miniatures game, Mongoose was tooling plastic light mobile infantry (from the film), promised 20 multipose plastics dudes in a box for $25. Unfortunately the sprues came back looking terrible, so instead of releasing them, Mongoose said, "hey. these suck. we're going to get someone to sculpt metal figures and release them at the same price point, effectively making no money on them, because we want you to be happy". Because of that attitude, I wound up buying like 160 of the metal ones even though I would have rather had plastic multipose.

 judgedoug wrote:
Keep in mind I'm also of the mindset that the M-A-A should not have been released. I keep thinking, perhaps Mantic should have done what Mongoose did back in the day - during the heady days of the Starship Troopers miniatures game, Mongoose was tooling plastic light mobile infantry (from the film), promised 20 multipose plastics dudes in a box for $25. Unfortunately the sprues came back looking terrible, so instead of releasing them, Mongoose said, "hey. these suck. we're going to get someone to sculpt metal figures and release them at the same price point, effectively making no money on them, because we want you to be happy". Because of that attitude, I wound up buying like 160 of the metal ones even though I would have rather had plastic multipose.

Definitely would have been a better idea. I don't know if they'd have been able to afford to give everyone the metals. Maybe allow everyone to switch them out for something else and get the metals out to those who specifically want the men at arms (I'm betting there's a lot of people who'd gladly have swapped for something else). Another idea might have been to hook up with a historical manufacturer like perry or gripping beast and use their plastics as the men at arms until something better could have been done.

In other news, the Soul Reavers have disappeared from the online store. The same thing happened to the vampire on pegasus and we've had confirmation there's a new sculpt for the vampire in the works (since he was at 15mm scale despite the pegasus looking great). Maybe we've got new Soul Reavers incoming? It could be something as simple as a repack with restic horses though since I think they still had metals.

Metal arms and heads could fix up the MAA quite nicely, wouldn't mind seeing a bitz pack of metals to get them looking good.

Same as the goblins, look great once you add the metal arms.

The crossbow arms for the MAA are really nice, in proportion, great detail, all good.

If they did the same thing for the spear and sword arms (resculpting that ridiculous sword that's three times larger than any other sword on any mantic mini), I'd definitely buy it.

As it stands I have a huge Basilean army and no viable core infantry that I'm personally happy to use on the table without massive conversion.

EDIT: Now that I'm going through my Basilean sprues, I'm noticing a variation in tooling quality. Some sprues are better than others in terms of detail.

 judgedoug wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Not all of us got in at $175. The deal was a bit less sweet below that range, especially when the only reason I got in at all was for the werewolves.

Yeah, and I do feel bad about cases such as yours, where you pledged for a narrow range of product and were disappointed. Hence my quote " many of the KS backers are just fine".

Yeah, I personally do not have the "bucket o' random minis" fever that so many kickstarters like this seem to be counting on. I have too many models already, why do I need 100 more that I don't like?

I'm much more likely to narrowly pledge for just certain items, and thus need to be able to trust that they're good...

I piggy-backed onto timetowaste's pledge for 18 golems and picked up 6 more from folks selling them. I'll gladly pay for good product, but the idea that people should be appeased that they got a good deal even if a number of sculpts are hogwash... that's a tough sell.

My takeway from this campaign- if I'd gone in big, I better darn well have been happy to start any army. Because from the sounds of it, everybody's starting ogres because those are the sculpts that turned out good! But if they were set on something else, they're probably disappointed now.

 RiTides wrote:


My takeway from this campaign- if I'd gone in big, I better darn well have been happy to start any army. Because from the sounds of it, everybody's starting ogres because those are the sculpts that turned out good! But if they were set on something else, they're probably disappointed now.

I personally am very happy with the mawbeast riders and goblin mincer (for my goblin army pledge), my chariots/fight wagons (for my orc army pledge), the elf cavalry and palace guard (for my elf army), the twilight kin knights (for my gamezone dark elf army), the elohi (for my basileans using confrontation lion figures army), and brock riders (for my dwarf army). All of those were free stretch goals. The rest I traded away for more of the aforementioned!

But again, that's the "bucket o' minis" path. You must have a lot of armies and could pick good sculpts from each race to augment them.

If someone was starting one army, such as the KoW-Empire equivalent............

Basically, seeing the aftermath of this, I want to start a Mantic ogre army! But beforehand, there would be no way to know which sculpts would be good, and thus you can't plan for a specific army project until seeing the results.

This means, for someone like me, it's better to wait until retail with Mantic. I don't need the "fantastic deal" for a few hundred dollars' pledge... instead, I'll put those few hundred dollars into paying retail price for the sculpts that turn out well and that I can use.

Just my take, of course! The new campaign (Deadzone) looks promising, as they always do at this point... hopefully the casts don't disappoint.

 RiTides wrote:

This means, for someone like me, it's better to wait until retail with Mantic. I don't need the "fantastic deal" for a few hundred dollars' pledge... instead, I'll put those few hundred dollars into paying retail price for the sculpts that turn out well and that I can use.

Hindsight being 20/20, yes!

But moving forward - this is what I'll be doing with anything on the Fantasy side of things from Mantic

 RiTides wrote:

Just my take, of course! The new campaign (Deadzone) looks promising, as they always do at this point... hopefully the casts don't disappoint.

Yeah, I hope so too!

Daedleh wrote:
Pretty much this. I got a fantastic Ogre army out of it and a shedload of miniatures at a ridiculously low cost. The last shipment was really poor and unfortunately did overshadow the entire thing, but up until that point it was brilliant and there were very few miniatures that I didn't love. My split:

Awesome:
- The two army books
- Ogres
- Gargoyles
- Brocks
- Fleabags
- Almost all of the heroes
- Elf & TK Cavalry
-Golems
-Werewolves

Respectable:
- Elohi
- Paladins & paladin knights
- Chariot & Mincer
- Rest of the heroes
- Trolls (the legs aren't to everyones tastes I know)

Poor:
- Sisterhood (for the cavalry I'm just going to use the panthers without mounts)
- Mummies
- Palace guard

Downright terrible:
- Men at arms

Yes, the men at arms and sisterhood are universally despised and should be, but they overshadowed what was otherwise a good range of miniatures. A complete lack of communication and forward thinking on the men at arms was appalling but to claim that the rest of the kickstarter was terrible is just ridiculous.

For me, I'd have things fall slightly differently.

Awesome:
- The two army books
- Ogres
-Abyssal Immortal Guard (you forgot these)
- Gargoyles
- Fleabags
- Elf & TK Cavalry
- Paladins & paladin knights

Respectable (eg, very good, but with minor flaws that bring them down):
- Elohi
- Brocks
- Chariot & Mincer
- Sisterhood (love the panthers, don't hate the sisters)
-Mummies
-Palace guard

Poor:
- Trolls (legs are enough of an issue that I'm unlikely to use them).

Bad:
- Men at arms

Very happy overall, but a little more care could have improved significantly with some minor improvements.

Where are people placing the Werewolves and Golems?

Personally I adore the Golems. They were one of the concepts during the KS that looked like the art was drawn up in about 5 seconds, the final product was very different and all the better for it. I like the Werewolves too, but like anything else on the KS if you went big on them you were probably left a little dissapointed due to the lack of variety you can get out of the kit. For the Werewolves it was just 2 bodies and 4 heads, and 3 bodies and 3 heads for the Golems. The material is just not very forgiving for conversion to create variety amongst your units and that is the same on all the monster units whether it is trolls/Elohi, this is obviously a bigger problem on the ogres if you want a full army of them.

As a rule on the KS I liked the monster units better than the rank and file. As Scarletsquigs impassioned and accurate views earlier in the thread point out, resin plastic is just not suitable for core troops and should be reserved for elites/monsters. If Mantic can work with a UK producer to produce core plastic sprues they will be on the right track. The worry for me is that enough people already feel burned by the company and will never return. Then again as the likes CMON kickstarters and Defiance (Sedition Wars maybe not) have proven us wargamers can be pretty forgiving if you stick an appealing product at a good price in front of our eyes

I don't think the golems are perfect, but I think at the KS buy-one-get-one price, there's not much that can touch them in terms of value. They can barely squeeze onto a 40mm base, and feel more at home on 50mm... meaning they're Big!

To top it off, there is no equivalent model/sculpt out there that I can find. I'm going to be using them as K'daii fireborn for chaos dwarfs... the savings over an equivalent number of FW K'daii models is just silly.

Golems: good. Just, good. Maybe it's not your *style*, but those are awesome and there's a pretty close consensus there. Of course not everyone likes them - there's a taste component, after all, to all minis. We're picky bastards, all of us

Werewolves have had some bad press. I'm not really sold on them (but they're a low priority for me anyway so haven't even really looked that closely yet). The flesh tones/grey fur look isn't all that popular but the guys painting them a bit more furry are happy, it seems - I seem to remember seeing some decent pics of that. maybe someone else here knows where to find them again?

TL;DR:
Golems good, Werewolves a mixed bag. some hate them, some like them rather well, I find them eminently useable from what I've seen so far.
...Will see about speedpainting up two or three this weekend, come to think of it. I'm curious now

@Ritides, they were the only models in the KS to come with 50mm bases, but even then they can be a bit cramped. Again just another body or so and 2/3 extra heads and I would have been totally sold on them. As it is I have used Abyssal Dwarf shield bosses on some of the heads to add variety.

Edit: Another advantage for those with Golems is that there is no sign of when they will be released at retail. At the moment it may even be 2014 until the masses can get their hands on them. As Ritides says there is just no real equivalent out there on the market.

I didn't really look at the golems too closely since they got traded off as soon as I got them. From what I've seen they look alright and do the job but nothing outstanding.

Werewolves look alright, especially when painted completely furry rather than fleshtone + fur bits. A lack of variety really hurts them though and I do think they're a touch too small.

 scarletsquig wrote:


If they did the same thing for the spear and sword arms (resculpting that ridiculous sword that's three times larger than any other sword on any mantic mini), I'd definitely buy it.
.

If you don't want your Basilean weapons, will you be willing to sell them for cheap? I love the oversized weapons. I'll probably replace most of the weedy little disappointing swords on all my "boring scale" historicals with them. Also, I'm sure they'll look great on space marines enforcers.

 RiTides wrote:
But again, that's the "bucket o' minis" path. You must have a lot of armies and could pick good sculpts from each race to augment them.

This means, for someone like me, it's better to wait until retail with Mantic. I don't need the "fantastic deal" for a few hundred dollars' pledge... instead, I'll put those few hundred dollars into paying retail price for the sculpts that turn out well and that I can use.

But, see, that's the point. I was very happy from the get-go because all the army pledges in the KS were for pre-existing miniatures. I was very, very happy to get a Mantic Orc army for such a discount (big fan of their Orc style) - and I would have still been happy even if no stretch goals were ever met. The freebies from the stretch goals are icing on the delicious cake.

I actually only started all the aforementioned armies after the KoW KS ended because I love playing KoW so much (due to getting the rulebook from the KS!), it's given me great reasons to make lots of armies

I personally am far more suspicious of, say, Deadzone than I ever was for Kings of War, because with Kings of War my pledges included existing product and I knew what I was getting in my actual pledge (an Orc army). The freebies were the unknown.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


If you don't want your Basilean weapons, will you be willing to sell them for cheap? I love the oversized weapons. I'll probably replace most of the weedy little disappointing swords on all my "boring scale" historicals with them. Also, I'm sure they'll look great on space marines enforcers.

Naw dawg, glue 'em onto those sweet Centurion turdledges models! Big giant overwhelmingly stupid cool drills AND giant electro sword blade lightning claws! WHOA SWEET blurst models ever!!!1

 judgedoug wrote:
I personally am far more suspicious of, say, Deadzone than I ever was for Kings of War, because with Kings of War my pledges included existing product and I knew what I was getting in my actual pledge (an Orc army). The freebies were the unknown.

Not to get stuck on the point- but you keep referring to sculpts as "freebies". While they were free to you, if you didn't add any extra, others paid add-on prices for those sculpts. So, they were not "free" and can't simply be written off if you didn't like the sculpt in that case.

But I'm tired of talking about this as I think you know what I mean

Well, if anyone wants to get rid of their mini's and will trade for boardgames, send me a PM. I've put up with Battle Masters archers with half their faces melted off, so anything better than that would be an improvement!

Agreed -- If you don't like many of the sculpts, don't pledge through the KS. Wait until retail. Or another KS with better sculpts!

Bob, I don't need all the Basilean weapons I have. I'll have 160 of each kind, using 80 spears and 40 swords, so I'll have a bunch leftover. Let me know what kind of numbers you were thinking.

PM sent.

 judgedoug wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:

A Kings of War 2.0 kickstarter will be quite an interesting event. There is an awful lot of ground for them to make up in the fantasy realm, not to mention all the people who were left a bit soured by the previous experience.
I missed the original one, and most of the stuff they released for it is stuff I wouldn't have bought anyways with the exception of a hero or two.

See, that's the thing - so many of the KS backers are just fine - despite the crappy men at arms - because most of the gak was free.
The $175 pledge netted you like $250 worth of pre-existing figures plus the rulebook. That was already a good deal.
Then the stretch goals hit - and you you got 15 units for free and like a dozen metal heroes due to the stretch goals and free dice and some restic KS exclusive miniatures.

So if you're like me and you only had use for about 6 of the stretch-goal free units, it was STILL an amazing deal because the initial pledges were discounted product.
And some of the sculpts were great, so again, if you were me, you bought several extra units of things you liked at a discount! (I've got like 60 fleabag riders I need to assemble and paint for my goblin army)

See, my experience is a little different. Since we weren't especially taken with any of the existing stuff (excepting the undead, which we already had a bunch of) our plans were for ogres and trolls (based on the concept art). We then BOGOFed things like lots more trolls, more cat riders (based on the initial promises of monstrous cavalry, and envisioning something much more like the mounts from World of Warcraft or the lion mount being ridden by the metal hero than the cathorses we ended up with. Anyway, when the reveals started to come out, my wife and I both had to wildly vary our pledges in order to dodge the bullets of Trolls, Sisters, Cathorses and Elf Cavalry (as they weren't shown, and by the end I wasn't taking risks with Mantic's product sight unseen). In the end we finished up with more Ogres than we'll probably ever be able to use, more mounted and foot paladins than planned and a few fight wagons we didn't expect to be getting.

So not a terrible outcome, but required a lot of dedicated forum watching to not get screwed over on poor models that a huge chunk of our money was going to. I also picked up 2 of their "undead army" sets in the final survey, so now there's pretty much nothing left I want from them in the fantasy genre, aside from a few metals and odds and ends that could work. So in a second KoW KS, I'd be pledging for new figures, sight unseen. Which frankly, makes me nervous.

 Azazelx wrote:
See, my experience is a little different.

As would mine have been. I was looking at getting some harpies and sisters, but dropped the idea when I couldn't get a straight answer on which type of harpy they were making, and when Mantic decided that trying to beat the Perrys at their own game was a better use of a plastic kit than doing something new. But if I had pledged, I'd be screwed. Saying "Sorry the stuff you wanted is crap, have some of the stuff that kept you out of the game in the first place!" wouldn't cut it, any more than if Games Workshop screwed up your order of Orks and offered to sell you some Space Marines instead.

Yeah. I went in for $250 and was looking to have a massive Basilean army for both KoW and to use in Warhammer as an Empire army. After taking ages to see close up shots of what was sketched or promised, we finally see some shots (a lot of them leaked by other people) and had to make decisions based on that.

It wasn't until near the end of it when they were organising up for delivery that I found out if I did go for a Basilean force, I would be shooting myself in the foot. So that didn't leave me with a whole lot of options.

I have a ton of Mantic stuff from existing armies, so just getting a regular force wasn't a good option either. So I had to make the best choice I could. Which was the Ogre army. Which now I have them, they aren't what I am looking for either.

I wanted Mantic to follow through with their promises, and to make miniatures that were as good and as detailed as their original plastic kits. That's what I was pledging for, and what I thought they would deliver. They really failed in that regard, and even though I have received a bucketload of miniatures, there is very few I actually want to keep and use. Which is sad.

Mantic might have had to go out of pocket for this, but considering they had people fund all their tooling and sculpting for these miniatures, parting with 10 grand or so is pretty cheap, considering a lot of these designs are likely to sell well. Some more than other of course, but then again that was something else which could have been avoided.

What if Mantic, instead of cutting corners on a lot of the sculpts and tooling, instead put in a lot of their own money to see that high quality multi-option units were made instead? They'd still be ahead as the majority would have been paid by the supporters, and they would then have a ton of excellent sculpts tooled and ready to go with miniatures that would be recognised as being excellent and be great sellers from there on out. It would also make people who hadn't pledged rather jealous and less likely to pass up Mantic kickstarters in the future. A short term loss would be more than made up for with longer term profits from the miniatures themselves, as well as a sterling reputation to go ahead with for following kickstarters.

As it is, I very much doubt I will support a Mantic Kickstarter in the future. Not unless they seriously reconsider how they run their business.

What if Mantic, instead of cutting corners on a lot of the sculpts and tooling, instead put in a lot of their own money to see that high quality multi-option units were made instead?

They didn't have a lot of money is the problem with that.

Before kickstarter they were typically releasing one restic kit + some metal bitz to create another unit or two out of it per month. Hard plastic, not an option (well, until they went to China, but we all know how that turned out).

So, at that point in time, a single sprue was three months of operating capital for them. The goblins (despite turning out badly) would have represented a serious investment for them. Kickstarter was a lifesaver for company funding..
The bean-counting mindset was born out of necessity, but unfortunately it still lingers on over a year later at a point where the company can fund pretty much anything it wants for its core game worlds by putting it up on KS and saying "have at it".

That's why I specifically said "fewer, higher quality, more affordable kits" rather than "produce the same number of kits but make them all good". You either have quality/affordability of releases or quantity of releases, you don't get to have both.

Although with their current toolmakers, hard plastic is likely to make the minis cheaper, but also completely murder the quality as the toolmakers are either incompetent and/or have absolutely no desire to produce a quality product for their client... so that puts the whole thing out of whack and means they're probably better off with restic as the more stable solution, even if it's not going to help one bit with their goal of being an affordable miniatures company.

On the bright side, if Mantic can keep putting out £20 for 20 minis restic kits like the Basilean Paladins, I'll be very happy with them on the whole. That's another road they could go down.

Keep in mind that the second most common complaint about the KoW KS was Mantic lowering their restic retail prices to a point below the $25 for 20 originally offered in the kickstarter (once you factor in buying from a typical 20% discount + free ship retailer like wayland).

It is probably the first time I have ever seen complaints about a company lowering its prices. Valid complaints, mind, and I sure would have been happier if my fethloads of KS Basilean BOGOFs (8 in total) at least came with the metal command bits that the retail packs did, but on the whole "your prices are too low" is not the worst type of complaint in the world for a company to be attracting. :p

@Alpharius

found the thread with the alt painted werewolves:
http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?4890-Alternate-Werewolf-Colour-Scheme%21

it is an improvement, IMO.