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Do you have a link then? All I could find is the thread about Bloodbowl.

Please check the existing FORGE WORLD and FORGE WORLD OPEN DAY threads for that info - meanwhile, please stay on topic here.

Thanks!

In regards to the plastic/metal hybrid skellie archers - I have a couple of troops of their older hybrid archers - they stand with no problem on either the integral round base or the square base that they plug into.

The 'top heavy' description is a non issue.

Folks are still allowed to dislike them, of course, but the balance is fine.

For folks that use unit bases it would not even matter that much. (I have them on the square bases - I have plans to run The Mummy's Mask for Pathfinder - and skeletal archers seem like a safe bet for that.)

The Auld Grump

As long as they're not as horribly designed as Skeleton Jester for Dungeon Saga...

That was horrific with just putting two pieces of resin together, nevermind if the upper half was metal.

I have a bunch of the hybrid skeleton archers as well and honestly, of I hadn't multi based them yeah, they'd fall over if positioned on, say, the side of a hill.

Again though: the price of those hybrid units is what kills them. Mantic makes utterly acceptable models -at prices way below what those metal models will cost. At ~£20/10 models, no way.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Yeah, cuz THAT was really necessary...

Anyway, having built a full battalion of their undead, the legs come with the back half of the ribs attached with a hole in the middle. You can easily attach the front rib piece to it. And seeing how the feet are attached to a circular disc that fits inside the standard KoW square base, the only way it should be falling over is if you cut it off the round bit. Which becomes your problem. If it was attaching metal to the top of the spinal column piece, I'd say "hell no, Mantic you're nuts!!" But it isn't. It's meant to be properly seated. Would plastic be better? Yes. Does the metal have a good chance of flash issues? Yes. But attaching and staying upright shouldn't be an issue at all. Pick your argument better next time, if you'd like it taken seriously (and avoid the antagonistic approach when addressing somebody who just happens to disagree with you).

Antagonistic? The FFS was aimed at Mantic, not you. Thanks for trying the schoolteacher-style scolding - though you'll find that doesn't work on me.

Anyway, I've built enough models in my time including these skeletons and other hybrid kits to know that having a metal upper torso will not do good things to the balance of their skeletons, It'll move the centre of gravity too high to make them anything resembling stable.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Do you really think that's reasonable? If it comes down to that, I bet large sums of money most people just won't buy the Empire of Dust minis instead. Not to mention the fact that Mantic bases are solid, so any weights under them will make the minis stand out, literally, from the rest of the army.

Then that's their problem, like I say I've been doing it for ages because the more "actiony" trend of recent plastic models, particularly characters, has made many of them top-heavy and prone to tipping - people face exactly the same choice there but nobody seemed to give a crap, until there's a chance for them to gak on Mantic.

Funny to hear that from someone who took every opportunity to gak on GW for releasing a game that's not entirely to their own personal specifications? Anyway, if you read through the thread rather than cherry-picked the sentences that support your choice of argument to pick, you'll see that Doug, Bob and I all praised the design and only "shat" on Mantic when it was revealed that the plan is to make them metal-plastic hybrid kits.

As for weighting bases, I've got a (couple of) bags of washers that I use for various figures in different sizes. They work just fine with the GW-style bases that lack a slotta and have a recess underneath them. As Bob (and others?) noted, Mantic's bases are by and large solid, and as you may or may not know, the Mantic Skeleton legs feature a "plug" that slots into a large hole in the Mantic bases, so there's a significant difference between attempting to weight the two. Far from "exactly the same choice" if you look at what's involved and care about the final aesthetic look of the final models. As I said, I'm sure they'd be fine for those gamers that multibase/glues the models down to a regiment base

Not entirely sure it'd be worth the effort for marginal models, but have you considered fishing weights as part of the base? Especially in the case of an "Egyptian" style army you could work them in as rocks for the smaller ones, or urns for some of the larger varieties of sinkers. Again, these might not be the models to get to try it out on, but it'd be another tactic to help with some top-heavy models where the base doesn't do many favors and at least in the US fishing weights aren't outrageously expensive.

As I've seen mentioned here before, some of the smaller weights also work well with slotta-bases as they can tuck into the space a bit better.

I magnetise the bases of all my miniatures as a matter of course which is a great way of sorting any stability issues.

For the Mantic bases with the flat bottoms I use strong magnetic tape and line the movement trays with "rubber steel" sheeting.

The lip on the movement tray hides the magnets so you don't have to worry about them being seen.

 Bolognesus wrote:
I have a bunch of the hybrid skeleton archers as well and honestly, of I hadn't multi based them yeah, they'd fall over if positioned on, say, the side of a hill.

Again though: the price of those hybrid units is what kills them. Mantic makes utterly acceptable models -at prices way below what those metal models will cost. At ~£20/10 models, no way.

Since the side of hills are one of the places where I typically put my archers... I kind of have to disagree about them falling over, at least in my experience. (I castle up sometimes if the scenario permits - cav in the lead, sword and board next, then phalanxes, then archers on the sides of the hill, and a trio of catapults on top of the hill*. More cav and/or flyers for flanking.) It has been a non-issue for me. And the archers are not multi based - they serve double duty for both RPGs and KoW.

My phalanxes and some of my sword and board, on the other hand, are multibased. I highly recommend multibasing, but I don't have all that many skellie archers, so they each stand on their own.

The price argument is a lot harder to refute - and I would love to see complete plastic kits, or even just a HIP sprue of bits to convert the figures into archers. (And that is why the figures serve double duty... if I could afford another twenty archers, they would be multibased.)

The Auld Grump - who would never say no to having more affordable plastics.

* Depending on where we play there are two different styles of hills - one is shallow curves, that look pretty natural - there are figures that fall over on those hills, but the skellie archers haven't been those figures. maybe if they were facing uphill rather than down, but I would think that it would be the other way around.

The bases are not weighted, and are the standard KoW bases - sanded and flocked, with a few bits of gravel for looks.

Depending on how your hills are designed, your mileage may well vary.

The other set of hills is the one at our place, which are stepped rather than natural looking - and those sidestep the issue entirely.

 Krinsath wrote:
Not entirely sure it'd be worth the effort for marginal models, but have you considered fishing weights as part of the base? Especially in the case of an "Egyptian" style army you could work them in as rocks for the smaller ones, or urns for some of the larger varieties of sinkers. Again, these might not be the models to get to try it out on, but it'd be another tactic to help with some top-heavy models where the base doesn't do many favors and at least in the US fishing weights aren't outrageously expensive.

As I've seen mentioned here before, some of the smaller weights also work well with slotta-bases as they can tuck into the space a bit better.

I've got some lead fishing weights that I've cut up and then squashed with pliers to fit into the underside of the slotta for specific models. Hormagaunts come to mind. Then again, I only have about a dozen of them, and I really do like the models. Weighting the bases of Mantic's plastics is pretty much impossible anyway, unless you snip them off the disc and rebase them on GW-style bases. Or want bits of lead fishing weight snipped, glued down and painted as rocks.

 Maccwar wrote:
I magnetise the bases of all my miniatures as a matter of course which is a great way of sorting any stability issues.
For the Mantic bases with the flat bottoms I use strong magnetic tape and line the movement trays with "rubber steel" sheeting.
The lip on the movement tray hides the magnets so you don't have to worry about them being seen.

I like to have all my figures available for skirmish/board gaming, which is where the issues with top-heavy models (from any manufacturer) come in. If they're multibased or magnetised (I blu-tac my models to regimental bases for KoW) then there's obviously less of a problem.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Bolognesus wrote:
It does take some chutzpah to strike that tone and immediately complain the other is being antagonistic.

FFS, they'll still be annoyingly top-heavy when attached to the intended 20mm bases.

So weight your bases. If you want to do it properly, order Plusmodel lead wire and fix it in place then cover it with GS, or for a cheap but less effective version stick some penny coinage under there. I've been doing it for ages even for plastic models as they can be top heavy enough on their own.

Do you really think that's reasonable? If it comes down to that, I bet large sums of money most people just won't buy the Empire of Dust minis instead. Not to mention the fact that Mantic bases are solid, so any weights under them will make the minis stand out, literally, from the rest of the army.

Then that's their problem, like I say I've been doing it for ages because the more "actiony" trend of recent plastic models, particularly characters, has made many of them top-heavy and prone to tipping - people face exactly the same choice there but nobody seemed to give a crap, until there's a chance for them to gak on Mantic.

No, it's Mantic's problem. And I think you are mistaken that people are okay weighting bases in general. Maybe the real long timers are cool with it, but I can tell you how many of the new customers--the people Mantic needs the most since the veterans already have GW armies--simply sell off or never buy models that require so much hassle for rank and file troops.

Considering how much Mantic's latest plastic minis improved their reputation, it's only reasonable to see such a big step backwards as...well, a big step backwards.

Look, obviously metal isn't ideal, personally it's my least favourite of the various model materials to work with and I still have nightmares about GW's old plastic/metal hybrid kits, but in this specific instance it doesn't seem to be that big of an issue given how Mantic's skellies are put together, and at the end of the day expecting them to go from "we'll provide an army list for your WHF army" to "damn, GW have killed the whole model line, we must immediately launch a new plastic model range!" is a tad unreasonable. If metal means they can offer this stuff without first having to run six and a half kickstarter campaigns to fund the plastic tooling, I can live with it.

Except that isn't how it works. What will happen is that Mantic will release some poor, crappy models no one could like, and instead of concluding that crappy metal models don't sell, they will conclude that Empire of Dust models don't sell.

While you're prognosticating, how about next week's lottery numbers?

Let me know when Mantic produce hard plastic skeleton archers or goblin spearmen and I'll be happy to share.

Really, it's not 1996, or even 2006. Plastic-and-metal hybrid troops and chunky, expensive metal elites are the kinds of short-sighted, pound foolish mistakes a company with either overmodest ambitions or nostalgia-enduced delusions of grandeur would release into the void of WHFB's passing. The kind of old hands fine with buying metal Tomb Kings knock-offs will be happy to tell you how much better and cheaper the metal Egyptian undead are on some one-man internet back-alley shop with a name like Obscuretisan, No Name Foundry, or Never-Gonna-Make-It-Big Studios. At least Mantic will sell Reaper minis on their site so their customers can buy a more desirable product.

If I was going to buy metal Egyptian fantasy minis, and I wanted to be sure of their quality, I'd place another order with Wargods before looking at Mantic. Unless there's another kickstarter.

I personally don't mind hybrids but I understand why people don't like them. I dunno, I've got models with plastic, metal, resin, putty.. etc.. but I don't think it's realistic to expect everyone to look at the hobby that way. I also have felt the sting of said top heavy models tipping only to watch pieces go flying.

Why oh why won't Mantic figure out a medium and make that work? It's pretty obvious that they are trying hard to cut costs on their end. It seems like the material is the thing they are determined to go after to do this. They've seen repeatedly how we react when they do put out a cheap material or cut corners on production. Why do they still feel this is an acceptable way to do business?

 MLaw wrote:
I personally don't mind hybrids but I understand why people don't like them. I dunno, I've got models with plastic, metal, resin, putty.. etc.. but I don't think it's realistic to expect everyone to look at the hobby that way. I also have felt the sting of said top heavy models tipping only to watch pieces go flying.

Why oh why won't Mantic figure out a medium and make that work? It's pretty obvious that they are trying hard to cut costs on their end. It seems like the material is the thing they are determined to go after to do this. They've seen repeatedly how we react when they do put out a cheap material or cut corners on production. Why do they still feel this is an acceptable way to do business?

They cover their ears and hope we all come to accept it? I dont know. Honestly I like KOW but use almost no mantic models. I really want to like them but besides the undead everytime I see something I go, oh I got to have it! Then realize something about it and go... "almost".

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Let me know when Mantic produce hard plastic skeleton archers or goblin spearmen and I'll be happy to share.

Really, it's not 1996, or even 2006. Plastic-and-metal hybrid troops and chunky, expensive metal elites are the kinds of short-sighted, pound foolish mistakes a company with either overmodest ambitions or nostalgia-enduced delusions of grandeur would release into the void of WHFB's passing. The kind of old hands fine with buying metal Tomb Kings knock-offs will be happy to tell you how much better and cheaper the metal Egyptian undead are on some one-man internet back-alley shop with a name like Obscuretisan, No Name Foundry, or Never-Gonna-Make-It-Big Studios. At least Mantic will sell Reaper minis on their site so their customers can buy a more desirable product.

If I was going to buy metal Egyptian fantasy minis, and I wanted to be sure of their quality, I'd place another order with Wargods before looking at Mantic. Unless there's another kickstarter.

This times a bajillion gazillion. I am a huge Mantic fan and love every game they've put out, and own several huge armies - painted - full of Mantic minis. But I'm bewildered at this really dumb move. It's really, really dumb.
And Bob, you're not quite right on this one - "The kind of old hands fine with buying metal Tomb Kings knock-offs will be happy to tell you how much better and cheaper the metal Egyptian undead are on some one-man internet back-alley shop with a name like Obscuretisan, No Name Foundry, or Never-Gonna-Make-It-Big Studios. " - it's more like, "The kind of old hands fine with buying metal Tomb Kings knock-offs will bemoan Mantic's MSRP of the hybrid and metal kits, and instead buy far cheaper models from some one-man internet back-alley shop with a name like Obscuretisan, No Name Foundry, or Never-Gonna-Make-It-Big Studios."

Well, yes, they will buy the cheaper minis, but don't believe for a second that they won't come back here to tell you about it. Have you ever seen a KoW thread where miniatures came up as a topic that didn't evolve into a discussion of other companies' miniatures and where to buy them?

 MLaw wrote:
I personally don't mind hybrids but I understand why people don't like them. I dunno, I've got models with plastic, metal, resin, putty.. etc.. but I don't think it's realistic to expect everyone to look at the hobby that way. I also have felt the sting of said top heavy models tipping only to watch pieces go flying.

Why oh why won't Mantic figure out a medium and make that work? It's pretty obvious that they are trying hard to cut costs on their end. It seems like the material is the thing they are determined to go after to do this. They've seen repeatedly how we react when they do put out a cheap material or cut corners on production. Why do they still feel this is an acceptable way to do business?

Ronnie mentioned that they'll be moving to the new Dust tactics plastics across their ranges in future, specifically mentioning things like the KoW Large Infantry. They've finally found a PVC mix that they're happy with and people like.

The metal releases for KoW are a bit of a stopgap measure to get a lot of new models released to meet the demand for KoW.

Is that the same stuff they used for Dungeon Saga? I thought those minis came out nice. It must be tasty too, my dog ate off one of my dragon wings.. guess the tyrant of halpi will just have to fly around in circles.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Well, yes, they will buy the cheaper minis, but don't believe for a second that they won't come back here to tell you about it. Have you ever seen a KoW thread where miniatures came up as a topic that didn't evolve into a discussion of other companies' miniatures and where to buy them?

Haha, have you been to a GW N&R thread? The current LOTR/ME SBG N&R thread is "back in MY day the minis were cheaper! Now I can play _insert some other inferior game here_ for half the price!"

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Well, yes, they will buy the cheaper minis, but don't believe for a second that they won't come back here to tell you about it. Have you ever seen a KoW thread where miniatures came up as a topic that didn't evolve into a discussion of other companies' miniatures and where to buy them?

Do you not remember when Mantic was first starting and was trying to leech GW customers so they bent over backwards to let everyone know they would never hassle people over bringing miniatures from other manufacturers?

Heck, it wasn't even that long ago that Warpath/Deadzone HAD to be played like this because hardly any units had miniatures. I quite like some of Mantic's newer designs but they have enough that I don't like that I do look for alternatives.
I'm trying to convince my kids to give KoW a shot but they found my Warmaster stuff and only want to play that or Frostgrave atm :/
I'm hoping if I order some of the nicer of the Egyptian themed skeletons it'll bring them around. They like that type of design a lot.

Yeah, it's not really surprising that KOW discussions will debate the merits of different miniatures. The game has several army lists with no official figures and I'm not sure any of the army lists have an official figure for every entry. Talking about other company's figures is kind of an intrinsic part of the community.

It's a really nice consumer-friendly policy, but it does lead to some of Mantic's figures being questionable purchases. Like, almost all of their large monsters compared to the Reaper Bones equivalents.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Ronnie mentioned that they'll be moving to the new Dust tactics plastics across their ranges in future, specifically mentioning things like the KoW Large Infantry. They've finally found a PVC mix that they're happy with and people like.

The metal releases for KoW are a bit of a stopgap measure to get a lot of new models released to meet the demand for KoW.

I really hope that this isn't just for the new stuff and that they go back and do some of their recent large infantry releases in the new material. I would like to field lots of zombie trolls but they are quite expensive in metal.

I don't know anything about the production methods of the new Dust PVC as opposed to those of restic, but if it's possible to use the old molds with the new material then I think the should start doing the restic models in the new PVC as soon as possible.

I went back and assembled some old Deadzone models I've had in the pile alongside some of my Infestation kickstarter stuff, and the difference in working with the two materials was downright astounding.

Nothing here about the new DS/KOW photos mantic are posting on Facebook recently.

 daemonish wrote:
Nothing here about the new DS/KOW photos mantic are posting on Facebook recently.

Could you share them here (or just a link)? I hadn't heard of anything more recent than the empire of dust and earth elemental pics.

Here we go;
https://m.facebook.com/manticgames/photos/a.387258332318.165358.104345532318/10154143197557319/?type=3&source=48

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154142733092319&id=104345532318&set=a.387258332318.165358.104345532318&source=48

Ok...

2 models for DS that I already own. Not really news...

There was some speculation that it's the scenery that's actually being teased in the photos, not the models themselves.

Supposedly Mantic had talked about 3d dungeon walls and scenery?

I read that somewhere...

Heck, maybe it's to get us ready for the inevitable Deadzone Mordheim skirmish game in Mantica they've been all hush hush about.

A few pics of upcoming and w.i.p Mantic products

DS expansion, soon to be released




Green Rage set




Legendary Heroes of Galahir

MGDS04 Dungeon Saga: Warlord of Galahir MSRP: $49.99
MGDS20 Dungeon Saga: The Green Rage Miniature Set MSRP $24.99
MGDS21 Dungeon Saga: Legendary Heroes of Galahir MRSP: $24.99

Mantic open day - from http://blog.untilsomebodylosesaneye.net/

That is one badass pharaoh.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
There was some speculation that it's the scenery that's actually being teased in the photos, not the models themselves.

Supposedly Mantic had talked about 3d dungeon walls and scenery?

I read that somewhere...

Heck, maybe it's to get us ready for the inevitable Deadzone Mordheim skirmish game in Mantica they've been all hush hush about.

As long as they let us buy the scenery separately I can't wait - I was gutted when the Maki/Manorhouse modular plastic dungeon project died.