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It's probably better for sales if they keep the angle as it is

Or not, he may have a really well sculpted face, I'm just feeling sassy tonight.

I dunno if I *love* that demon dude, but if I end up with a horde of the others via an army deal or something I'd probably get him. He seems to match them pretty well so the blending of the units would be worth it for me. But I wouldn't touch it for 40 bucks. (phrasing!) 25, maybe.

I find the big demon-critter to be pretty average, really. Not terrible, but not breathtaking, either. Personally, the little dudes standing around him look much better. Then again, I don't (and won't) play that faction, so it doesn't really matter to me personally anyway.

But if I -did- play that faction, I'd take that one person's advice and use the LotR Balrog fig instead, which I do own. Awesome fig, far more impressive, to me anyway.

Still looking forward to the 'other' army list book. I think it's a grand idea for them to do it. There's a LOT of disenfranchised WHFB players out there who, if given the chance, might very well make the switch, and offering them a way to do so without sacrificing their collections is a pretty good idea, I think.

I love the fluff for the ratkin, though.... 13 Years? (jab jab). LOL.

 heartserenade wrote:

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
It was metal, but they eventually converted it.

Oooh, any difference in sculpt with the metal and the plastic versions?

Slight posing differences, plastic one comes with sword and whip.

Same as the Fellbeast - comes with alternate heads and either a generic Nazul or the Witch King to ride it.

Attached is a pic of the two metal versions released (top two), plastic (bottom left), and unreleased ice balrog.

Were any of the $100 army add ons for the KoW kickstarter worth getting? I'm wondering if I missed something great...

The balrog I got has metal wings - each comes in 2 parts. These were soon switched to plastic wings before the full plastic one came out.

 Phobos wrote:
Were any of the $100 army add ons for the KoW kickstarter worth getting? I'm wondering if I missed something great...

All of them saved you a ton off of MSRP and gave you lots of stuff you would use all the time.

You missed a great deal.

 judgedoug wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
It was metal, but they eventually converted it.

Oooh, any difference in sculpt with the metal and the plastic versions?

Slight posing differences, plastic one comes with sword and whip.

Same as the Fellbeast - comes with alternate heads and either a generic Nazul or the Witch King to ride it.

Attached is a pic of the two metal versions released (top two), plastic (bottom left), and unreleased ice balrog.

Doesn't seem like there's any huge difference. Hopefully I can still grab a plastic one, but I remember my friend having a metal one and he quitted playing tabletop wargames a long time ago so I might be able to buy it from him.


Anyway back on topic, it seems like that the old Undead bundles are gone from the website, replaced by the new ones. The old ones (like Lady Illona's gang and shiz) seems to contain more stuff, if I remember correctly? I mean the new armies are still a good deal, but they don't contain a rulebook unlike the old ones.

I think the mini-rulebooks are possibly being phased out with the addition of a £10 softback book for the rules.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I think the mini-rulebooks are possibly being phased out with the addition of a £10 softback book for the rules.

Picked up a free softcover rule book at the ETC this weekend. Nice touch from Mantic to do this; I take it what they gave out is what you are talking about? It's called 'Gamers edition' and has all the basic rules as well as the army lists at the back

Not crazy out the chainmail diaper, but I'm loving the rest of it.

I should mention that my love of this item is conditional on being able to obtain one for about $20. Above that, my love falters, since bones makes beatiful big bads for $15 or less.

Was he part of the Abyssal Army deal ? It's been soo long I don't recall.

 Lt. Donomar StubbornBull wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
I think the mini-rulebooks are possibly being phased out with the addition of a £10 softback book for the rules.

Picked up a free softcover rule book at the ETC this weekend. Nice touch from Mantic to do this; I take it what they gave out is what you are talking about? It's called 'Gamers edition' and has all the basic rules as well as the army lists at the back

That's the one, haven't received mine yet but my FLGS has them. Great book, £10 gets you all the rules and army lists, probably the best gaming purchase anyone with a warhammer army can make right now.

I like the big abyssal, kinda. But I get the impression that whoever said he was "blown up" to that size was correct. Texture detail on his skin and especially the hair on his hooves, as well as the chainmail, looks wrong and outscaled on that miniature, and it could be a deal breaker for me. The "hair" looks especially bad. I don't mind the pose or the muscles or the head, that all looks fine to me.

Big demon wasn't in the army deal.

 Da Boss wrote:
I like the big abyssal, kinda. But I get the impression that whoever said he was "blown up" to that size was correct. Texture detail on his skin and especially the hair on his hooves, as well as the chainmail, looks wrong and outscaled on that miniature, and it could be a deal breaker for me. The "hair" looks especially bad. I don't mind the pose or the muscles or the head, that all looks fine to me.

I think the "hair" on his hooves is supposed to be fire.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's meant to be painted up as fire. Otherwise he's got two big wads of hair in his hands and there's a pretty strong updraft

Huh. Fire? The fire on the hands I could see, but the stuff on his legs doesn't look very flame-y to me.

Hair+cloven hooves is more classic demon, but maybe you're right.

I don't think that would look that good, personally. If I got one (I probably wouldn't - I have a nicely painted GW daemon prince if I need a big demon) I would have to do something with those flamey feet.

He's okay, but Reaper Bones exist, so whatever.

Reaper is a bit of a pain in the arse to get in Europe though.

Ehh, the stuff on the legs *might* be hair. If it is... it's sucky hair that needs to be resculpted. I would paint it like fire just to save my own sensibilities. The chainmail diaper looks stupid now that I've seen it. I would have to get some kind of shield or gargoyle faced codpiece or something to cover up as much of that as possible.

 adamsouza wrote:


Not crazy out the chainmail diaper, but I'm loving the rest of it.

Here I thought he was a slaanesh demon and those were sucker marks from a giant octopus

I just realized it has a chainmail diaper once you pointed it out. Ugh.

I'd do the hair around the legs as flames most likely.

The Bones stuff might not be as large as the Mantic guy. I'm painting that not- Balrog looking Bones guy from the 2nd Kickstarter, and he's only around 100mm or so including his rather thick base and big wings.

The Abyssal fiend looks bigger than that judging by how tall he is compared to the guys in the picture, assuming they're around 28mm or so. Fiend looks to be about 3 times their size.

The large resin monsters haven't turned out great, the abyssal fiend in particular doesn't look very menacing, and the loincloth in the concept art being replaced with oddly oversized chainmail underwear was a bad call.

£25 price tag makes it very hard to compete with Reaper Bones even if the sculpts were good, and for the high-end buyer Mierce has massively better monster sculpts.

Even some niche GW stuff like the Dweller in the Dark looks much better as a demonic fiend and fits better with the mantic infantry style.

Very fair call there SSquig. It is a shame that (for me at least) a lot of the bigger models seem quite poor in comparison to what is out there at the moment, and indeed poorer than Mantic's own 28-30mm figures. There is clearly a market for affordable bigger beasties, but Mantic just keep on failing to make the miniatures that could capitalise on this. The level of detail is certainly off and personally the aesthetic is too.

It is obviously not a intent to make sub-standard large models so what stage(s) in the design, sculpting and production process is allowing it?

Think it is primarily going wrong at the concept art stage, where there is a penchant for chunky heroic scale, tiny legs etc.

The abyssal fiend has the jaws similar to the old elf drakons in the concept art, which made it through to the final sculpt.

Also, while a "mischievous imp" style works well on the smaller minis since it fits the classical demon theme of spitefully cruel lesser minions that love to torture, that style applied to a larger demon or leader doesn't quite work since they're supposed to be the pure evil overlords.

I'm also surprised they don't use their board game plastic for larger monsters in KoW, the material is excellent and affordable. The DS dragon will probably be their first commercial success.

I think the problem is that the big beasties just don't mesh with what Mantic is all about, which is lots of affordable minis that look good ranked together on a table.

These big beasties aren't going to be used more than 1 or 2, which means right from the beginning it falls outside of Mantic's price structure, which is that everything is cheaper when you buy it by the box load. This also means the volume is so low that not only is hard plastic not viable, even restic is probably financially unsound. It's far too big and heavy for metal, so it has to be resin - the most expensive material, requiring the most skilled labor. There was never going to be a way for Mantic to make these big beasties 'affordable' in the same way Reaper does.

All this needs feeding back on the KS pages if it isn't already.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'm also surprised they don't use their board game plastic for larger monsters in KoW, the material is excellent and affordable. The DS dragon will probably be their first commercial success.

Demand, I'd say. You can't just make 1, or 100 of them, you need to be ordering a 5000 unit run of them at a minimum - pretty easy to do for a Dragon that's being sold as a board game component first, with backer preorders, and a secondary use as a Kings of War dragon in, what is it, 4 armies? Abyssal Fiends and Greater Obsidian Golems aren't a part of the boardgame or the expansions, they'd have to order a full run of them and then hope they sell enough to clear the warehouse and earn the investment back.

Failure at the concept art stage does make sense. This got me thinking which are my favourite Mantic large models and they are the Mars Attacks Big Stompy Robot and Saucer where, I assume, somebody else had already done the leg work design wise. There is also the possibility that the organic shapes needed for Fantasy are harder to work with.

Ultimately Mantic need people to be buying their miniatures, and not just their rules, for the company to thrive.

Wasn't this sculpted (somewhat) smaller then blown up ?

that never ends well as the degree of exaggeration you need for something at 28 or 50mm is not going to look right at 70 or 100mm

and stuff like that chain mail is a great example, links so large a 28mm warriors sword/spear etc will go right though the holes