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I hate hybrid kits. I'd rather have fully metal guys (like my 6th edition Tomb Guard) or fully plastic guys - c'mon, a cool Egyptian skeleton kit will sell for Mantic like gangbusters, especially as GW's was not that great. Or... just... retool the current skeleton sprue with new upper halves!

I really hope we see some trident realms, stalkers and EOD stuff come from the open weekend, even if it's just concept art.

I actually like all of those renders and sketches.

 judgedoug wrote:
They mentioned on Facebook that they are metal conversion kits for the current plastic undead.
Facepalm.

That's just... no. Don't do that.

Mantic, almo...

 judgedoug wrote:
I hate hybrid kits. I'd rather have fully metal guys (like my 6th edition Tomb Guard) or fully plastic guys - c'mon, a cool Egyptian skeleton kit will sell for Mantic like gangbusters, especially as GW's was not that great. Or... just... retool the current skeleton sprue with new upper halves!

Yeah, this is a very good time to get some good looking TK out there.

 Azazelx wrote:
I actually like all of those renders and sketches.

 judgedoug wrote:
They mentioned on Facebook that they are metal conversion kits for the current plastic undead.
Facepalm.

That's just... no. Don't do that.

Mantic, almo...

 judgedoug wrote:
I hate hybrid kits. I'd rather have fully metal guys (like my 6th edition Tomb Guard) or fully plastic guys - c'mon, a cool Egyptian skeleton kit will sell for Mantic like gangbusters, especially as GW's was not that great. Or... just... retool the current skeleton sprue with new upper halves!

Yeah, this is a very good time to get some good looking TK out there.

The way their skeletons are built, it shouldn't be a problem at all for connecting, unlike most metal/plastic hybrids. The issue people are having with flash on their metals though...different matter. That could be problematic.

Cleaning heavy flash from wire-thin bone limbs is bound to be more fun than I can handle.

Seriously, do it in the new PVC and I'll buy a mega army deal's worth. Metal... no.

Pictures shown on Mantic's Open Day:

Some kind of Abyssal unit I'd imagine. Possibly Tortured Souls or Larvae depending on size



Three headed Hellhounds:


Looks promising IMO.

Those hellhounds look awesome! Any daemon players still need a Karanak and hate the lizard-dog?

I would prefer just one head on my hell hounds. Cerberus makes it big, and suddenly every hound from every afterlife has to have three heads. It gets old.

Those hounds look interesting, I'm not a fan of either the chaos hounds or the fins on the khorne dogs.

Pics I took, apologies if these aren't new, I'm not a close follower of KoW.

I'm a little uncertain if the Egyptians were KoW or sci fi.

If Mantic are smart, they could be both. Optional 'staff weapon' tops wold be a lot of fun. They'd be easy enough to convert if the minis are plastic, though.

Just been told they're Empire of Dust.
I'm really behind on things.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Just been told they're Empire of Dust.
I'm really behind on things.

Wait. Are you still there? I need you to do something for me: please grab Ronnie by the shirtfront and scream the word "plastic" as loud as you can. You'd be a real mensch.

I got to see all the new metals for the Empire of Dust today, the infantry look really great as well.

Also, they're making Tomb Swarm minis which are really nice.

The main big news about KoW is that there will be a skirmish game set in the KoW world. They hope to Kickstart the new game, and use this as a means for funding new hard plastics for existing armies, and some new heroes in metal or resin as leaders.

The idea being something like each different army having a box full of 4-5 different 5-man sprues that you then use to build your warband.

So, it'll mostly be a case of a new set of rules, and lots of new minis which can either be used for the skirmish game or for KoW, in the same way that the release of Deadzone supports Warpath, and vice-versa. It will get a lot more new sprues produced for KoW very soon.

Skirmish game won't have the grid/ cube system that Deadzone has, and will focus on customizing characters, having them level up etc. Closer to Mordheim than Frostgrave.

Licensing is taking a very long break after The Walking Dead is released, and Mantic will be focusing on it's own IP.

Another tidbit - Ronnie intends to have Reaper Bones stocked in full on the Mantic webstore to make it easier for UK buyers to get hold of it. He realizes they're a great source of large monsters for use in KoW.

The Open Day was really enjoyable, most fun one I've been to in a while, the 30-minute terrain building was loads of fun, pile of random battlezones bits, and 30 minutes to make something out of them. Keep what you built at the end of it, prizes for the most interesting/ creative build.
There were some really creative results, people built aircraft and giant robots out of them!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Just been told they're Empire of Dust.
I'm really behind on things.

Wait. Are you still there? I need you to do something for me: please grab Ronnie by the shirtfront and scream the word "plastic" as loud as you can. You'd be a real mensch.

I'm not fast enough to catch me a Ronnie. Whatever he had for breakfast today, he was like a fething bumble bee.

They seriously need an art director. Most of that is atrocious.

~Eric

 Taarnak wrote:
They seriously need an art director. Most of that is atrocious.

~Eric

I like the zombies, but the Egyptian toilet paper-men... Wow.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If Mantic are smart, they could be both. Optional 'staff weapon' tops wold be a lot of fun. They'd be easy enough to convert if the minis are plastic, though.

They'll be dual kits with ranged weapons.

The arms in the top of the picture is holding large crossbows.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If Mantic are smart, they could be both. Optional 'staff weapon' tops wold be a lot of fun.

Jaffa kree!

 scarletsquig wrote:

Another tidbit - Ronnie intends to have Reaper Bones stocked in full on the Mantic webstore to make it easier for UK buyers to get hold of it. He realizes they're a great source of large monsters for use in KoW.

That's some great cross promotion.

Can anyone tell me if they filmed the seminars?

The big Egyptian guys sure look pretty bad. They look like somebody took a bulked up sculpt, and just carved random grooves into it to make it look "techy" or..something.

On a positive note, the new plastics look extremely impressive. I may buy me my first Mantic miniatures since the Basilean tragedy of 2013.

Also, I'm very hopeful about whatever new plastic mix Mantic is using at the moment, as it receives high marks from just about everybody.

Love the look of the empire of dust stuff. I would love those 'jaffa' to get some Sci fi staff weapons as an option.
Real shame there going for metal conversion parts to do them, I'm sure HIPS kits would sell like hot cakes.

Mantic - almost, really is a thing isn't it. When the renders for the centuars came out I was planning a new army. With them being limited pose metals I haven't even brought one box yet. These might also just end up on a one day wish list.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Can anyone tell me if they filmed the seminars?

They did.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
The way their skeletons are built, it shouldn't be a problem at all for connecting, unlike most metal/plastic hybrids. The issue people are having with flash on their metals though...different matter. That could be problematic.

The metal/plastic skeleton archer hybrid kits are terrible.

Any type of hybrid kits are terrible. HIPS would be best and quite frankly this is what they should be running KS for, to tool plastic kits, even if for example 1 KS to tool 1 HIPS kit and another KS to tool a different HIPS kit. not running KS for (unfinished)games that they have already run them for.

A UK stockist for Reaper Bones would be fantastic. I've backed two Bones kickstarters, but when I want stuff between kickstarters I tend to look at the Reaper site, contemplate how much import duty I will pay, go and look at some UK suppliers instead, see how much of a markup they've placed on the big monsters compared to the Reaper site, and then not buy at all.

 scarletsquig wrote:

The main big news about KoW is that there will be a skirmish game set in the KoW world. They hope to Kickstart the new game, and use this as a means for funding new hard plastics for existing armies, and some new heroes in metal or resin as leaders.

The idea being something like each different army having a box full of 4-5 different 5-man sprues that you then use to build your warband.

So, it'll mostly be a case of a new set of rules, and lots of new minis which can either be used for the skirmish game or for KoW, in the same way that the release of Deadzone supports Warpath, and vice-versa. It will get a lot more new sprues produced for KoW very soon.

Skirmish game won't have the grid/ cube system that Deadzone has, and will focus on customizing characters, having them level up etc. Closer to Mordheim than Frostgrave.

This is frankly the most exciting news I've heard out of the Open Day yet! This will be my next Mantic "Oh god, what am I going to do with all the stuff in this box?" Kickstart.

I'm all for new plastic troops for the KoW armies (especially Abyssal Dwarves) and the warbands sound exactly like the "plastic sprue sampler packs" I've been wishing I could pick up since I got my Dungeon Saga stuff.

Mantic would probably be better off not making Empire of Dust kits at all rather than making them metal upgrade parts for plastic kits and metal large infantry. The market just doesn't support those things like it used to, especially when the market can buy Reaper Bones minis from the same site. But then, I wonder what Mantic will do with their $50 archfiends and colossal elementals when they'll also be selling Reaper's equivalents for $10-$15.


My dream would be for Mantic or Reaper to hire Fitz from Wargods of Aegyptus to sculpt some minis for plastic/Bones. The guy knows how to sculpt cool Egyptian-themed minis, and his Amazons could give Sieldwolf some real competition if they were tooled in plastic or DUST PVC. If it were cheaper, the companies could just buy the rights to a few existing minis and be able to churn out an exciting boardgame type of force.

That not- Balrog is also about the same size as GW's $130+ Skarbrand model.

It's all subjective, and how much you want out of your hobby time/ money.

Owning just about everything Bob showed there (minus the marine, no marines for me, no siree!) or at least having checked them out in person, the Mantic one still feels like a good value. It's got a different aesthetc compared to the rest of them. To me, as long as it stands out as something unique, I'm probably going to be interested.

I could care less about the Aegytpus stuff, *unless* they decided to go back and make some properly sized Sobeki. Way too human sized for my tastes.