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They were posted back with all the other open day pics. Those are some better pics of them though.

Can confirm that everything in that pic (or other pics from the open day) will be resin plastic, not hard plastic.

I asked them about the smaller infantry for the abyssal and nature armies and they confirmed that they would be hard plastic (probably digitally sculpted so no physical sculpts to show off).

So, you'll probably see more of those when the kickstarter goes live.

The next major release for KoW is not going to be a KS thing though, it should be either next month or the month after and will be a "War of the Beard" supplement book.. dwarfs vs. abyssal dwarves with new units for each. Official release of the brock riders, immortal guard as well as a huge bombard and some other stuff (I'm hoping that dwarf king on foot).

Here's a berserker lord on brock, courtest of Daedle on the Mantic forums:

Gotta agree with you, Fenris. Restic isn't gonna cut it. People want and have come to expect hard plastic kits with plenty of options. It's easier to clean, easier to fix when broken, and frankly holds sharper detail. I can see restic working for character kits, but for troops and monsters, people want hard plastic. I really don't get why Mantic seems uninterested in it of late.

~Tim?

^ Too expensive to tool is the short and curlies of the matter.

It's four restic kits or one hard plastic, as a rule of thumb.

That said they are trying to get back on track with it, but are finding that getting quality out of China is like getting blood out of a stone.

If they'd leapt into bed with WGF early they'd have been sorted, but Wyrd, Mark, Poots and Secret Weapon are already snuggled up with that particular bit of hard plastic production capacity. So, they're stuck using some other random company which they thought would be good.

That berserk Brock rider is awesome!! I want two.

The funding cost is basically irrelevant. They fund through customers who are willing to pay large sums of money up front for unseen product.

Imagine where Mantic would be if they had done three or four renedra sprues for their KoW kickstarter with a reputable sculptor rather than the 20 or whatever restic molds with various sculptors of grossly varying degrees of skill?

An alternate universe where Mantic produced a beautiful sprue for the MAA, a killer Battle Sisters or whatever sprue, a sprue of ogres with weapon options, and a sprue of Trolls similar to the concept art looks radically different for the health of the company. And it probably would have cost them less. In said alternate universe, what do we loose?

Those ten guys in the world that have Mantic elf armies they are looking to expand and those five guys with an Abyssal Dwarf army come off slightly worse. The amatuer hour mummies, the chorse cavalry, the peg leg trolls all get erased from the catalogue to be resculpted at a future date by somebody who knows how to sculpt.

The angels and werewolves and brock cavalry all show up at a later date with more options and poseability.

Ack. Reality sure bites compared to that scenario. Instead Mantic has a new catalogue full of slag in a material that doesn't file, doesn't cut easily, doesn't stay glued, and comes so distorted you get to re-mold all your own miniatures!

While the truth hurts, I'm somewhat willing to give them a pass on the KS1 stuff since it was all so wild, wooly and unexpected at the time. Except for the Trolls and Men At Arms.

Since then, though? Time to properly get their gak together.

Got to agree with you 100% Gallahad. In the miniatures game you really do need to aim for the best quality you can muster, and to have sculpts which will last the test of time.

If you only do what is necessary to get figures out and onto market, you cut your own throat in the long term.

How much better placed in the market would Mantic be now if they had of followed the above advice?

If they want Warpath to be a genuine contender, they're gonna have to seriously consider their methods, otherwise they aren't going to last. Kickstarter is going to have the laws of diminishing returns behind it if the option for going for mass miniatures in a poor format continues. There is only going to be so long people put up with it, and I think it's outlasted it's welcome in the minds of many, myself being one of them. Re-doing the miniatures in future kickstarters is really bad business practice as it means you're constantly having to source funds which could be used to help create new miniatures to fix old ones which weren't done properly in the first place.

If they are finding it hard to get the detail and quality they want from China, then they're going to have to source someone closer to home. Might not mean Renedra, could be somebody else entirely. But having someone in England who could make these miniatures in hard plastic, be able to send the samples by post or just be a drive away is a hell of a lot better than chancing it on dodgy operators out of China.

People may well prefer polystyrene over restic but that 1:4 cost ratio

(and I've heard closer to 1:6 for European producers, not sure if that's just a different source of info, or reflects an real across the board price difference)

How well do you think Deadzone would have done if they only had 2 factions, and only half the variety in each of them?

or the target, stretches etc were all 4x as large

I'd bet there would be a lot fewer backers (a games got to have at least 4 factions to gain 'traction' is a common saying), and a lot of backers would have waited longer to commit as the campaign didn't have 'value' yet

I (almost) think that polystyrene works best as an unmentioned aspiration for a restic campaign that overfunds wildly, or for solo retail releases

At the end of the day, restic sucks and as long as Mantic relies heavily on it, they'll be held back by it.

I think it's especially important now that GW seems to be eyeing up a return to some kind of bulk value in the larger sets.

Things like the SM Strikeforce, and especially the Tyranid one just released with 95 minis for £105 are a price point Mantic cannot beat while they're still using restic.

The best similar sort of sci-fi minis deal that Mantic currently offers in restic is 92 minis for £100 (2 Corporation army sets).

KoW has the fortune of being based on the initial rather nice Renedra sprues, but that only properly applies to the first 4 armies.

Outside of that, it has mainly been GW going totally demented with pricing over the last 3 years that has kept Mantic price-competitive despite switching to restic or hybrid metal for pretty much everything.

Not everything has to be hard plastic, but definitely the core units. I would love to see a Nature army with hard plastic gnomes, naiads, salamanders and slyphs (the four core elemental infantry units), it would really start to make Mantic stand out as doing their own thing and offering something fresh.

I think the KoW 2.0 KS is going to be an interesting beast. It is only going to fund a single army (Abyssals)... and then see what happens after that one army has fully funded.

 Gallahad wrote:
The funding cost is basically irrelevant. They fund through customers who are willing to pay large sums of money up front for unseen product.

Imagine where Mantic would be if they had done three or four renedra sprues for their KoW kickstarter with a reputable sculptor rather than the 20 or whatever restic molds with various sculptors of grossly varying degrees of skill?

An alternate universe where Mantic produced a beautiful sprue for the MAA, a killer Battle Sisters or whatever sprue, a sprue of ogres with weapon options, and a sprue of Trolls similar to the concept art looks radically different for the health of the company. And it probably would have cost them less. In said alternate universe, what do we loose?

Those ten guys in the world that have Mantic elf armies they are looking to expand and those five guys with an Abyssal Dwarf army come off slightly worse. The amatuer hour mummies, the chorse cavalry, the peg leg trolls all get erased from the catalogue to be resculpted at a future date by somebody who knows how to sculpt.

The angels and werewolves and brock cavalry all show up at a later date with more options and poseability.

Ack. Reality sure bites compared to that scenario. Instead Mantic has a new catalogue full of slag in a material that doesn't file, doesn't cut easily, doesn't stay glued, and comes so distorted you get to re-mold all your own miniatures!

My thoughts exactly! I'd happily take fewer, higher-quality hard plastic kits with options produced in a longer period of time over large amounts of hastily made, poorly sculpted, restic kits.

~Tim?

Perhaps I've been extremely lucky, but I've had almost no difficulties or issues with the restic stuff coming from Mantic. As materials go, it's pretty much at the same level as lead alloys and polystyrene for me.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Perhaps I've been extremely lucky, but I've had almost no difficulties or issues with the restic stuff coming from Mantic. As materials go, it's pretty much at the same level as lead alloys and polystyrene for me.

You must be the god of glue or something.

Of the five paladins I've assembled and had sitting on my painting table, literally every time I get the itch to try painting them, I pick them up, and subsequently break them (a 3 inch fall to the desk, push too hard on elbows trying to look at them and figure our color scheme, cough while holding them, etc.) I'm using the gel control super glue people recommended. There are now two paladins assembled on my painting desk, and lots of paladin pieces including the feared noodle swords of Mantica.Out of a bag of ten paladins (and I got lots of bags of ten), the average of arms useable out of the bag (sword straight, arms touch appropriate contact points) for me is about 3. I haven't even bothered trying to fit together the two paladin cavalry horse halves.

Injection Polystyrene is ideal for kickstarter backing because once you fund the tool, sending out bonus sprues to backers as stretch goals literally only costs you a couple of cents. Imagine a campaign where they wanted to raise $25000 to fund a tool of some demon infantry or something. You spend $50 and get 40 of the little buggers in sprues of 5. For every $10,000 over the initial, they add another sprue to your pledge for every $50 you pledge. Even if you assume it costs them another $1.00 per sprue including shipping, etc. they could add sprues to 10,000 backers. People would be selling their kidneys to pledge.

I've not had a problem either - and I am by no means a 'god of glue'.

Which brings up the question: What are you using for a glue?

It is quite possible that a large portion of your problem is the adhesive, not the material.

I have been using Zap-a-Gap or a Zap-a-Gap/Kneadatite sandwich, and not had a problem - with figures falling a good deal further than three inches.

Another question is: Do you wash the figures before gluing?

I always wash my models first - regardless of the material. Otherwise a thin layer of oil can prevent adhesion.

My only real problem with restic is the amount of cleaning - removal of flash, vents, webbing, etc..

The Chinese plastics company that Mantic is relying on... is pretty much crap, I'd prefer more restic to the abominable Men at Arms.

The Auld Grump

Not defending restic by any means but super glue and gel eventually go bad. The liquid stuff eventually congeals into a gel and the gel eventually does poorly, too.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I've not had a problem either - and I am by no means a 'god of glue'.

Which brings up the question: What are you using for a glue?

It is quite possible that a large portion of your problem is the adhesive, not the material.

I have been using Zap-a-Gap or a Zap-a-Gap/Kneadatite sandwich, and not had a problem - with figures falling a good deal further than three inches.

Another question is: Do you wash the figures before gluing?

The Auld Grump

Loctite precision gel control or whatever super-glue. I will try washing aggressively when I decide to put together the rest of them. I think I washed them but I honestly don't remember. Never have to wash polystyrene for assembly. Having to mix together a two part epoxy like Kneadatite to assemble miniatures is way more trouble than I care to go through. Is Zap-a-Gap different than super glue somehow? I'd be willing to give it a try.

i've been building mine with superglue from a local dollarstore (freds, if anyone is curious), and haven't washed any of the models.
as of yet, i've had no trouble with models staying together, and haven't had to use the epoxy method either

 Fenriswulf wrote:
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.

I wouldn't be surprised if they are indeed restic; tooling hard plastic for models that are a big question mark on sales would be a huge risk. However, if your evidence is a white bit on the shoulder at the upper right of the model, that's the shirt of the guy behind the case.

 Krinsath wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if they are indeed restic; tooling hard plastic for models that are a big question mark on sales would be a huge risk. However, if your evidence is a white bit on the shoulder at the upper right of the model, that's the shirt of the guy behind the case.

Nah, I meant the separate arm itself just above the word "Abyssal".

/facepalm.

Given that the weapons are green and brass rod, these clearly are not restic or HIPS production samples. They might be grey putty/grey stuff/ProCreate.

While, with the shine on them they do look like restic, but I don't believe that it is - remember this is the same company that didn't send out Dreadball Star Players/Keeprs/etc in restic because "we didn't get enough orders for resin plastic so we produced them in metal instead" To think they'd do a restic run at this early stage so that sculptors could then "do the weapons" - and then send them back for restic retooling again is, let's face it - unlikely.

 Gallahad wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I've not had a problem either - and I am by no means a 'god of glue'.

Which brings up the question: What are you using for a glue?

It is quite possible that a large portion of your problem is the adhesive, not the material.

I have been using Zap-a-Gap or a Zap-a-Gap/Kneadatite sandwich, and not had a problem - with figures falling a good deal further than three inches.

Another question is: Do you wash the figures before gluing?

The Auld Grump

Loctite precision gel control or whatever super-glue. I will try washing aggressively when I decide to put together the rest of them. I think I washed them but I honestly don't remember. Never have to wash polystyrene for assembly. Having to mix together a two part epoxy like Kneadatite to assemble miniatures is way more trouble than I care to go through. Is Zap-a-Gap different than super glue somehow? I'd be willing to give it a try.

I have to admit that I use Zap-a-Gap because I have been using it for years (over a decade), and have liked the results for all that time. I buy it in the big bottles....

I think that it is a better glue than any of the others that I have tried, but I cannot say why.

***

It may sound like a bit of trouble, but the green stuff/super glue sandwich is incredibly useful sometimes - and does a truly excellent job of filling gaps. Make a disk of Kneadatite on one surface, and spread a thin layer of super glue on the other. Push them firmly together - the Kneadatite mashes into the nooks and crannies, and the super glue helps it cure faster..

Another big advantage is that it gives a bit more time to position things - and the tackiness of the Kneadatite helps old everything together for the super glue to dry, then the super glue holds things in place long enough for the Kneadatite to harden.

Give it a try next time you have a larger model with a so-so fit for the parts.

I actually use it more for metal models - but did use it on the Mantic Trolls and on the Pirate Giant from Black Scorpion,

I picked up the method from The Army Painter's painting guide.

The Auld Grump

That's all well and good, but it's more work than I'm willing to put in for a bunch of cheap, average-at-best sculpts from Mantic in restic. Which is a bigger issue for them in many ways, really. At this point - to me at least - much/most of Mantic's restic is cheap, disposable stuff that's not really worth a lot of money, time or effort - with only a few exceptions - and even then only on some of those points...

I've been using dollar a tube super glue gel, dropped a recently primed DZ Ripper Suit about 5 feet last night and it came apart into every constituent piece - the glue didn't fail, it held too well as all the pegs on the arms and head snapped off instead. Relatively quick fix and more careful carrying, but it didn't behave any differently at that height than any styrene model would have.

I guess I'm too new to wargaming, because I'm not having any problem at all using this restic stuff.

Then again, I got some of the Xmas boxes, and had to look up on the internet what was wrong with the MaA, because I really couldn't see anything, and was more worried about not breaking the skinny elf bows while clipping them from the sprue, so I'm probably in an easy going minority.

Has there been any word from Mantic regarding the quality issues?

NTRabbit wrote:

I guess I'm too new to wargaming, because I'm not having any problem at all using this restic stuff.

Mould lines across faces, etc. Needing to reheat many limbs to make them/the figure work

Then again, I got some of the Xmas boxes, and had to look up on the internet what was wrong with the MaA, because I really couldn't see anything, and was more worried about not breaking the skinny elf bows while clipping them from the sprue, so I'm probably in an easy going minority.

They're bad models, mostly. Also, Lego hands.

Seriously though, and non-sarcastically - if you're enjoying them that's great and good for you.

Speaking for myself, I just don't find I have the motivation/time/energy to put a lot into them and wish Mantic would step up their game, because I want to continue to support them. By contrast, I decided to bust open my Dust Tactics Zombies last night. 6 Boxes, 30 models. No assembly, pre-primed, minimal flash - like only a few of the 30 models, and even then very minor for all but a couple.. They're already more than half finished in less time it'd take me to clean and assemble 30 Mantic models and they're actually quite nice sculpts as well.

Joyboozer wrote:
Has there been any word from Mantic regarding the quality issues?

Not really?

Restic really is going to be what holds them back - and with GW's recent stumbles and missteps, a golden opportunity is passing them by.

 Alpharius wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Has there been any word from Mantic regarding the quality issues?

Not really?

Restic really is going to be what holds them back - and with GW's recent stumbles and missteps, a golden opportunity is passing them by.

That doesn't seem true. They've got, what Asterians, Enforcers, Peacekeepers, Forge Fathers, and Space Zombies, all within the next coupla months? And the whole rewritten contract, and having already sent back the plastic Enforcers (which is why Deadzone got the Warpath ones as a freebie holdover)... seems more than 'not really'

Fair enough, but Mantic has also screwed up 'hard plastic' too.

So I'm glad you mentioned it - at the end of the day, Mantic's shocking lack of QC is what will really be holding them back.

I am apparently late to the party, but I really like the look of the Basileans. The website has them up for a great value, even with shipping the troops/city guard are 80 figs for $50.

I haven't been a big fan of the Fantasy line, but these are really nice.

Any word on any warmachines or Angels only?

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
I am apparently late to the party, but I really like the look of the Basileans. The website has them up for a great value, even with shipping the troops/city guard are 80 figs for $50.

I haven't been a big fan of the Fantasy line, but these are really nice.

They are not really nice. Rather than buy them from Mantic, you should ask around for people suckered into buying them sight unseen - they'll likely be a lot cheaper that way too.