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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I still haven't heard of another example of Mantic taking quick pics of a product and it resulting in a massive backlash, excepting times when the product itself turned out later to actually be bad, either in Mantic's opinion or in the final consumers' opinions.

This.. the nuns looked a bit dodgy even in the simple cellphone pics snapped of them, and the angels looked great even in the (even worse) cellphone pic snapped of them.

All of the major sculpt flaws were identified at that stage and getting better pics didn't change anything.

In a similar fashion, the cellphone pics of the TK and elf cavalry were enough for us to think "hey, those look pretty good, why didn't mantic show them earlier?".

Besides, a cellphone pic is actually ridiculously easy to get looking half-decent as long as it's an okay-ish cameraphone (or the cheapest digital handheld you can buy), they don't all have to be terrible as long as you have some extremely basic "macro mode = on, have main light source directly striking the minis from the angle you're taking the photo" knowledge, here is a cellphone pic I snapped of a PDC sprue 5 minutes after taking it out of the box.. no lamps just open window and the light turned on:



I can't think of too many reasons not to take some snaps if you've got staff in the production facility (and it sounds like they have someone full time over in China currently to teach them how to do their jobs properly).

 Yonan wrote:

 Gallahad wrote:
I don't really buy the whole "we never take quick pictures of our models because they exaggerate the downside" or "it takes a proffesional photo studio to get decent photos of miniatures" argument.

Don't mischaracterise the argument, it's not "never" - it's "used to", until they got burnt by it with Dreadball. I can see why they might want to wait to get good ones out so they don't get burnt again. I agree we need pics, so long as they're out before we pony up money again (ie. Mars Attacks) it should be fine.

There was still quite a lot of KoW stuff that didn't get shown until they had the pro-painted versions ready, or at all in the case of the Elf/TK calvalry and MAA....

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sorry, I meant that the leaked pics of the marauders not only caused bad fan reactions, but also caused Mantic to resculpt the minis. In other words, the "fix" was to repair the models and not to take professional pictures.

Mantic didn't take those pics, someone at an open day or something did.

The Mantic quality cell phone pics that causes a lot of backlash were around Dreadball figs from a year ago.

 judgedoug wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sorry, I meant that the leaked pics of the marauders not only caused bad fan reactions, but also caused Mantic to resculpt the minis. In other words, the "fix" was to repair the models and not to take professional pictures.

Mantic didn't take those pics, someone at an open day or something did.

The Mantic quality cell phone pics that causes a lot of backlash were around Dreadball figs from a year ago.

Which Dreadball figs? I don't remember much hate, apart from Wildcard, who is still quite a controversial figure. Besides, they took like 10 photos all from the same angle when the model looks as if it's meant to be seen from a different angle. So, again, more pictures would have been a solution...except for all the people who still dislike the sculpt, that is.

The Veermyn team are also a love/hate kind of team, and studio pictures would not have changed the reaction to them.

Maybe I am just not remembering correctly, so please remind me which specific Dreadball models everyone thinks look great in real life but drew fan ire due to bad pictures.

This is an important issue because Mantic post-MaA does not get the same benefit of the doubt that they used to when they tell us that models are in production/shipping out but can't seem to find any pictures of them or are unwilling to show us any. I simply do not trust Mantic like I used to, and what was once an adorable bit of incompetence on their part is now a major source of concern.


EDIT: It's even worse that Mantic didn't take those DZ marauder pictures, because those pictures are what lead to Mantic hiring someone to fix the sculpts. If some stalwart hero had not come along with his enchanted camera phone, the vile spectre of terrible sculpts would have won the day. Seriously, Mantic changed the models for the better (according to almost everyone) because the pictures showed how flawed the sculpts were. If Mantic had had their way, we would not have seen any pics until the sculpts were "already sent to the manufacturers", and we would be stuck with the models even Mantic now admits were terrible.

No current phones are sufficiently advanced to capture the "it looks better in person" factor inherent in all Mantic models.
They tried sending a guy around to your house to give you a detailed verbal description of the sculpts, but he only got as far as Oxford before running out of travel money.

It is basically always better to be surprised by models in hand rather than disappointed. If Mantic believed in the models they are shipping out, they would show pictures of them. Even if the picture exaggerated their flaws we would all be pleasantly surprised when they showed up. The only case in which it doesn't make sense to show pictures of models you have already sold to the people who bought them is if the models are pieces of garbage, and you want to sell more of them before your faithful backers figure out what they look like.

It just really, really bothers me how Mantic basically gave up on KoW, and just shipped out whatever crap they could to finish it up. Elves and Basileans all share the same barding style for their horses? That is so unbelievably lame, not to mention the dread orangatan cult sisters. I don't care if they didn't raise enough money in pre-sales to cover their production costs for all the units they promised. Maybe they should have looked down the road 3 months and put a little bit more of their own money in and went back to the drawing board on several sculpts (literally to the drawing board where they left all that good concept art they summarily disregarded). They had just barely raised a crap ton of money with Dreadball and then Deadzone, and no matter what anybody tells you, money is fungible. Dreadball has supposedly also been a big seller for them outside the KS, so it isn't like their only revenue is pre-sales.

Some new £100 Xmas army deals up on the Mantic site for various KoW armies, they're pretty good, mostly just 2 of the £50 sets stuck together with a bunch of extra stuff on top (ogre box comes with an extra 40 goblins and 3 chariots).

http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/christmas/special-presents.html

The Undead one has 179 minis in it, including some elites, werewolves, war machines, characters, cavalry etc. Pretty much kicks the crap out of the GW version that has 36 minis in it for £75.





There's £150 ones as well, I can work out the % discounts if anyone is interested.

The question is, will they be available at the open day?

Those are some nice deals! Currently the only one I'd be interested in would be the Ogres, and I'm not super enthusiastic about getting a bunch of crappy mantic Gobbos, but still. It's a decent deal for £100 quid.

Mantic will be out of action while they ship deadzone so if you need to contact them read here first

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/3180/502957.page#6307268

For those interested in picking up some (or some more) Basileans

Miniaure Market has a bunch on clearance (40% ish off retail)

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/clearance/table-top-miniatures.html

Here's hoping that Ogre army box gets put on clearance too...

MM is weird, they constantly cycle Mantic stuff through clearance, and when the clearance item sells out, they restock it at normal price. I bought tons of 'clearance' orcs last year (three morax troops included) only to have them restock them back to their normal discount.

Loss leaders, perhaps?

Probably just warehouse clearance of overstock that isn't selling as well as they hoped.

If I remember correctly, with stuff like miniatures the first 1-3 months are huge for sales and then it goes down from there, so I'd imagine they're just trying to keep their stock turnover smooth with any modest sales.

Perhaps. Almost all their first shipment of Basileans sold out so they probably ordered a bunch more and have a big pile of extras. A couple of glances and it looks like most of the Basileans they have 15-20 of so yeah they're probably selling them cheap to reduce shelf space.

Gah, would have bought a Basilean army but shipping -_- Need a UK company with those deals for free royal mail shipping ; p Two $45 armies (£49.99 each from Mantic) was very tempting.

You need to order a substantial amount of stuff from Miniaturemarket for it to work out worthwhile these days, Yonan. Like $500+
If rumours of another substantial price hike from USPS in Jan are true, that will really end buying from the US...

Totally true. I just got the notification from Endicia and USPS earlier today to expect a change in pricing (and xml formats etc for the integration I have to do) for integrated shipping for January for both normal and commercial rates.

Damn... I paid ~$90 shipping on my last ~$950 order from Discount Games Store in the US. With GW prices it's still worthwhile given the regional pricing bollocks, but sucks that it's going up even more.

At least shipping from China is still cheap or free ; p

 judgedoug wrote:
Totally true. I just got the notification from Endicia and USPS earlier today to expect a change in pricing (and xml formats etc for the integration I have to do) for integrated shipping for January for both normal and commercial rates.

Any specific timeframe/dates on that, Doug? I'm hoping to do a Discount Games Store order for the new Marine stuff in early Jan.

 Azazelx wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Totally true. I just got the notification from Endicia and USPS earlier today to expect a change in pricing (and xml formats etc for the integration I have to do) for integrated shipping for January for both normal and commercial rates.

Any specific timeframe/dates on that, Doug? I'm hoping to do a Discount Games Store order for the new Marine stuff in early Jan.

I'll remote into my office computer and check...

"Please forward this notice to your development team for immediate action. Some changes may affect the performance of your XML integrated solution and could potentially cause errors or the inability to process transactions.

These changes will be part of a mandatory software version upgrade to support new U.S. Postal Service® rates and options, which go into effect on January 26, 2014. The new version will be available for optional download on January 7, 2014 and after this date users may receive a prompt in the software recommending them to upgrade. All users will be required to upgrade by January 17, 2013."

Thanks Doug. Enough time to get in one decent order, at least.

Aza, DGS did a promotion recently for Cyber Monday - had $17 boxes of Necron warriors and so on, did you get in on those? I also won their owners 13 kg bits box, only needing to pay shipping. 20 years worth of GW bits... man, DGS are awesome. I'll probably join you with one last order before the USPS price increase since DGS are so good for us.

Thanks for that info Doug, helps a lot. I'll spread the word to my fellow skips.

Thats a lot of dudes!

Those are some really great army deals, shame its Christmas and I'm skint, maybe I'll pick one these up some time later and finally give KoW a try.

Interested in the Ogre army most of all could have some fun converting those, the box set comes up to 1500pts, is that enough for a standard Kow game?

 Yonan wrote:
Aza, DGS did a promotion recently for Cyber Monday - had $17 boxes of Necron warriors and so on, did you get in on those? I also won their owners 13 kg bits box, only needing to pay shipping. 20 years worth of GW bits... man, DGS are awesome. I'll probably join you with one last order before the USPS price increase since DGS are so good for us.

Thanks for that info Doug, helps a lot. I'll spread the word to my fellow skips.

Nope, didn't have the cash to get in on their Black Friday stuff unfortunately. Amazing score on the bits box there, though!

 Azazelx wrote:
Thanks Doug. Enough time to get in one decent order, at least.

No problemo dude!

I've not seen these before (posted by TheImp on Frothers)

The molochs are awesome. And from the pics, that looks like actual hard plastic. GW quality plastic. Sign me up for a million.

Nah, it's restic. Look at just above the word 'Abyssal' and you can see telltale signs of the twisted off restic sprue on the arm.

Mantic's gonna have to lift it's game if it intends to beat GW at their own game. Restic miniatures with few options just isn't going to cut it.