Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Such is the danger of pre-order Kickstarter schemes such as this one. It's gone from a figure I'd buy to one I would not spend money on, but I'll get over the bad pose and stripper boots of this otherwise-nicely-sculpted posed figure by virtue of it being almost free in the scheme of things.

It's very similar to the Sedition Wars figure in a lot of ways - but that's the risk - we're buying something sight-unseen based on concept art.

The Bombshell Babes situation was a bit better, since Patrick decapitated the oversized head that Betty had, but he did that while the campaign was still running and any of us could have pulled our dollars. Hopefully he'll continue to stand out by being responsive to constructive criticism from the people who have pledged the large amounts of money that is financing this stuff - because a lot of other figure producers are not!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Swap in one of those Bombshell babe characters, Buzzsaw

I think I'm going with Libby.


Or maybe Roller Girl from Reaper.

They both look athletic without being waif-like or comically fat. (I almost said "without being madonnas or whores." Why would a cruel double standard about women pop into my head in a Dreadball thread?)
I must be a real fat nerd.

EDIT: I have an idea! to deal with the skin suit

I just need to cut up one of my extra players and place the armor all around her. Then place her opposite the not-Prof X character, and the rest is obvious.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg_cwI1Xj4M] "So, I see Wildcard charging me, and she's going for a super Slam, and I think, 'Oh really?' And her armour falls off. Instantly. And she's scrambling around to put it back on, but it's too late. I've seen everything.
"I've seen it all."[/url]

Hahahaha!

The sad thing is, just can't seem to avoid shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of their new stuff (not coincidentally, done by Remy Tremblay) is really very good. Then they put the only female human that isn't a comically overweight woman in stripper heels. Waaaaa?

It just seems such an unnecessary reminder that their previous lines have been marked by heavy variability in quality.

^ I saw orange text in that post and thought "that's a link to the bloody elf drakon riders again isn't it?".

Then I clicked, and wasn't disappointed. :p

Those Drakon riders are the replacement for Hitler as far as Godwin's law applied to Mantic threads goes.

Agreed, they are almost as certain as the Pumbagore (or before that the ogre cheerleader) being posted if there is any discussion regarding GW models !

 scarletsquig wrote:
^ I saw orange text in that post and thought "that's a link to the bloody elf drakon riders again isn't it?".

Then I clicked, and wasn't disappointed. :p

Those Drakon riders are the replacement for Hitler as far as Godwin's law applied to Mantic threads goes.

Their value is in their undisputed quality. Everyone agrees they are rubbish.

With other things, opinions vary. Are the Elven core units terrible, spindly crap? Some say yes, some say no. Are the Veer-myn derivative and crudely done? Some say yes, some say no.

The Drakon Riders have the virtue of being so utterly terrible that they are essentially indefensible. A peculiar bit of a virtue.

As an aside, I'm not sure it's much of a defense to say something of "you're only pointing out that they produced one of the worst sculpts in the last few years because you want to point out they can make eye-gouging bad sculpts! How dare you!"

They didn't have a particularly large stable of human female MVPs, which are now apparently destined to be Beach-ball and Bimbo. This isn't a case of "yeah, the green didn't come out the way we wanted", it's a that they really did want stripper heels and dancing queen pose. That does not build confidence.

Heh, for once I wasn't intending to go on the defensive with that post, I was calling the drakon riders horrible long before it was cool.

Was just making a fun observation about how what started as "the elves are bad" default comment has gradually been refined into concentrated drakon syrup as the years have passed.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Heh, for once I wasn't intending to go on the defensive with that post, I was calling the drakon riders horrible long before it was cool.

Was just making a fun observation about how what started as "the elves are bad" default comment has gradually been refined into concentrated drakon syrup as the years have passed.

Heh, fair enough, apologies for the ubersnark (it's like regular snark, but blond /rimshot).

As Pacific says, like the Pumbagore, it's just one of those things that you look at it and you start trying to process "how... how did that make it to retail?"

Also, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have put money into this if I didn't recognize that when the guys at Mantic are on, they really cook it.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
Heh, for once I wasn't intending to go on the defensive with that post, I was calling the drakon riders horrible long before it was cool.

Was just making a fun observation about how what started as "the elves are bad" default comment has gradually been refined into concentrated drakon syrup as the years have passed.

Heh, fair enough, apologies for the ubersnark (it's like regular snark, but blond /rimshot).

As Pacific says, like the Pumbagore, it's just one of those things that you look at it and you start trying to process "how... how did that make it to retail?"

Also, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have put money into this if I didn't recognize that when the guys at Mantic are on, they really cook it.

When they good, they are good, when they are bad, they are bad. It is hard looking at the Enforcers with thier unrealistically thin body proportions when the Mantic human models look so amazing. I think Mantic really has made a better product with thier slightly hero-scale sculpts.

Same goes for Marauders. The current marauders look like a totally different species from the Dreadball model, and the Marauder hero had amazing concept art with a smirky 'I gonna kill you with my claw' face and when it became a model, it was a terrible pose with a horrible face which destroyed the model.

Every time I was told to 'see the model in person' I ended up seeing them in person and was equally disappointed.

I bought EVERY MODEL being produced from the dreadball line. I hope I am rewarded with at least an 80% acceptable model rate.

I feel like Mantic's issue is they Kickstart to raise funds, and then they have to produce a ton of sculpts in a short period of time. You can throw money at production runs, mold making, manufacturing issues, those are good problems to have... Not having enough high-level sculptors to service your kickstarter before you start another one is a bad problem to have. If a single dreadball sculpt suffers due to having an unqualified sculptor put on it because the good sculptors get re-purposed to a Warpath kickstarter, I will be devastated. I hope they keep the model-making bandwidth to that of how much thier team of quality sculptors can support without quality suffering. That is all.

In all honesty, I tend to like Mantic's stuff when I see it in person. I like their elves. I love their dwarves (all two of them). I even bought the orcs once Scarlet Squig sold me on their background, and I loved them, too. (Well, except for the helmetless heads and Mr Top Hat. Too Disney.) But, if Wildcard is another case of Facebook Nessie (her pictures make her look like a monster), then Mantic seriously needs to hire a photographer or PR dept..

I'm still looking forward to Large Marge (or whatever the joke in her name is), simply because she is a woman who doesn't look like a Werner Klocke model* every other female miniature ever sculpted. Maybe they'll let Sandra Garrity sculpt her so we can have a model with some dignity. I was pretty excited at the concept until it started to seem like a piss take aimed at certain Mantic fans.


Wildcard is disappointing, but doesn't upset me too much since I never planned to use her anyway. But if they screw up John Doe or Rico and zend them to casting before getting any feedback, I will get Ishmael on their white humps.

"He piled upon the sculpt's broken form the sum of all the general ragequit felt by his whole stereotype from Comic Book Guy down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s Blast (6) shell upon it."





* Werner Klocke is the Jim Lee of miniatures: every woman he sculpts has the same face and body type. I can only imagine why...

Werner Klocke: "Honey, what do you think of my latest beauty? She's different from every sculpt I've ever made."

Mrs. Klocke: "She doesn't look like me! Is this what you've been doing working late all those nights! Who is your model for this sculpt? Is it that go go boot-wearing whore from Nottingham? You son of a bastid!"

 scarletsquig wrote:
^ I saw orange text in that post and thought "that's a link to the bloody elf drakon riders again isn't it?".
Then I clicked, and wasn't disappointed. :p
Those Drakon riders are the replacement for Hitler as far as Godwin's law applied to Mantic threads goes.

Wow. Those are Nagash-level awful. While I haven't seen them before, they clearly should have been in the KoW Kickstarter as prospects for resculpts.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll give Werner this much at the very least - he may be in a face/body rut, but at least it's a well-sculpted face/body rut.

Last update says the Survey should be out tomorrow (Friday 12th Oct)

So we can all allocate out pledges (and spend extra)

Plenty more shots of Ronnie playing with the Acrylic and MDF pitches on the video for those of us thinking of getting one

(and from the figures falling over remember your extra hex bases if you're getting lots of figures!)

 scipio.au wrote:


Wow. Those are Nagash-level awful. While I haven't seen them before, they clearly should have been in the KoW Kickstarter as prospects for resculpts.

have you held a Nagash and painted one personally? I have. The 90's were a terrible time of Gary Morley and the Morrisons infecting everything, and every new release saw you hoping it was a Perry or Copplestone. It was painful to paint that thing. Seriously. Ugh.

The Dragon Riders may not be a full step ahead of Nagash-quality, but certainly a stumble ahead. A coughing, disease-ridden leprous stumble and fall to the floor, doubled over in agony, but still every so slightly better than Nagash.

But yeah, those things need a resculpt ASAP.

I was there, Dougie. I played through the entirety of the nineties. I never painted a Nagash, Even though back then I'd buy some of the nice models from many of the releases just to paint even if I didn't play that army (Heinrich Kemmler, the Lichesmaster anyone?) I refused to buy one becaue I've never been willing to buy a model that was garbage just because it might be ok in a game, but I've certainly held it, while making derisive comments at the time. I started in the 80s with Minifigs, and my first Warhammers were WHFB3 and Rogue Trader.

Is it bad that I don't consider the drachon riders to be as bad as Nagash, the pumbagor or the baby carriage knight? Not great sculpts, but GW has quite a few worse. Mantic may not have any figures to match GW's best work yet, but their worst sculpts are still better than GW's worst. I'd put the enforcers forth as their best, but I like a couple GW models better. Mostly in the daemon line-I love the old KoS (my first greater daemon, even if others hate it), love the Juan Diaz 'nettes, and really like screamers and flamers too.

I like pumbagore.

He is fun when he shows up out of my chest of monsters in random games.

It really isn't a terrible model, just really over the top.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Is it bad that I don't consider the drachon riders to be as bad as Nagash, the pumbagor or the baby carriage knight? Not great sculpts, but GW has quite a few worse. Mantic may not have any figures to match GW's best work yet, but their worst sculpts are still better than GW's worst. I'd put the enforcers forth as their best, but I like a couple GW models better. Mostly in the daemon line-I love the old KoS (my first greater daemon, even if others hate it), love the Juan Diaz 'nettes, and really like screamers and flamers too.

Let's be realistic for a moment though - Citadel has been around since 1979, and through a ton of iterations. Mantic has been around for.. I'm honestly not sure. 3 years? Nagash was around at least since 1994 (found him in an old '94 catalogue) - that's almost 30 years ago. That's a lot of time and a lot of models, so it's pretty easy for them to have a lot more "worst" sculpts when compared to such a recent company.

 scipio.au wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Is it bad that I don't consider the drachon riders to be as bad as Nagash, the pumbagor or the baby carriage knight? Not great sculpts, but GW has quite a few worse. Mantic may not have any figures to match GW's best work yet, but their worst sculpts are still better than GW's worst. I'd put the enforcers forth as their best, but I like a couple GW models better. Mostly in the daemon line-I love the old KoS (my first greater daemon, even if others hate it), love the Juan Diaz 'nettes, and really like screamers and flamers too.

Let's be realistic for a moment though - Citadel has been around since 1979, and through a ton of iterations. Mantic has been around for.. I'm honestly not sure. 3 years? Nagash was around at least since 1994 (found him in an old '94 catalogue) - that's almost 30 years ago. That's a lot of time and a lot of models, so it's pretty easy for them to have a lot more "worst" sculpts when compared to such a recent company.

Psst - scipio - 1994 to 2012 is 18 years, chief, so calling it "almost 30" is over-egging the pudding somewhat...

Any ETA On their Pledge Manager?

Due out today, I think.

 scipio.au wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
^ I saw orange text in that post and thought "that's a link to the bloody elf drakon riders again isn't it?".
Then I clicked, and wasn't disappointed. :p
Those Drakon riders are the replacement for Hitler as far as Godwin's law applied to Mantic threads goes.

Wow. Those are Nagash-level awful. While I haven't seen them before, they clearly should have been in the KoW Kickstarter as prospects for resculpts.

Both Nagash and the Mantic Drakon Riders were sculpted by Gary Morley.

If you look at the Mantic elf battle dragon by Kev White, it is a really high-quality sculpt. Similar concepts for both models, large difference in the end result due to different sculptors being used.

I'd like Mantic to hire Kev White more, especially for the Elves, his sculpts for that range (Palace Guard, that dragon and the characters, especially this guy) all look brilliant.. nice cleanly done sculpts in powerful poses.

It can come across as quite unfair at times to focus on sculptors rather than companies, but it really does matter a lot when it comes down to it. There is a very good reason why GW pays the Perrys £90k/year and has already offered full-time employment with a large paycheck to every one of the popular sculptors that Mantic uses that wasn't already ex-GW to start with. Top-tier sculptors are gold dust, and "average" sculptors are ten-a-penny.

I also think that some sculptors see commission work as "get the job done, get the money in the bank", whereas others eat, sleep and breathe sculpting and are really passionate about creating the best works of art that they possibly can.

Oh dear Gary... /shakes head

I can't say much for the elf rider, since I can't see it very well (I really wish they'd increase the image size on their website) but I'll definitely the Kev White dragon is a nice model.

You've got their ear, SS. Suggest to them they they take a few pages out of the GW website's book with regard to image sizes, component shots and multiple angles of their models. It might cost a bit more in terms of photography time and web design time, but I can;t count how many GW figures I've bought - not for an army, but because I've been able to check out how good they look in detail on the GW site.

^ You mean, like I've already been doing multiple times over the course of the last 3 years and we've actually seen a nice improvement on that front since then?

Waaay ahead of you, to the point where I'm pretty much a broken record on that topic. It's not something that I've mentioned in a long time, because their presentation and photography is a lot better than it used to be. Nothing wrong with the pics and presentation of the dreadball kickstarter, for instance. Also, it's not obvious from looking online, but their retail boxes now look a million times better than they did 3 years ago, and they make most of their sales via retail, not their own website.

They could still do with putting up more detailed component lists, unboxing and sprue pics on their website though, that's the thing that is more important to me than the pictures or the paintjobs... e.g. Enforcer Assault Team - 5 sets of melee arms in the set or just 4? No way to find out without buying! Want to see goblin sprue? Google for blurry cellphone pics. It's all a symptom of them being extremely overworked, though... some things are more of a priority than others and they absolutely zero in on making miniatures to the exclusion of almost everything else... rules design is the only major non-miniature thing that really gets heavily invested in, other stuff like fancy websites and more artwork is way down the list of priorities. Image size on their current site can't be increased without having the site completely remade, they paid for a custom coded solution for their webstore from an expensive developer who charges a lot to make any updates. I'd expect the website itself to remain the same until they can get the funds to do a complete overhaul, it's too much of a mess at the moment to do anything really cool with.

They've already re-done the forums this year because their old ones were horrible, so there is some good progress on that front. And then there's the dreadball website which was placed off and away from the main mantic site so they could do some of that fancy stuff with it.

 scarletsquig wrote:
^ You mean, like I've already been doing multiple times over the course of the last 3 years and we've actually seen a nice improvement on that front since then?

Waaay ahead of you, to the point where I'm pretty much a broken record on that topic. It's not something that I've mentioned in a long time, because their presentation and photography is a lot better than it used to be. Nothing wrong with the pics and presentation of the dreadball kickstarter, for instance. Also, it's not obvious from looking online, but their retail boxes now look a million times better than they did 3 years ago, and they make most of their sales via retail, not their own website.

They could still do with putting up more detailed component lists, unboxing and sprue pics on their website though, that's the thing that is more important to me than the pictures or the paintjobs... e.g. Enforcer Assault Team - 5 sets of melee arms in the set or just 4? No way to find out without buying! Want to see goblin sprue? Google for blurry cellphone pics. It's all a symptom of them being extremely overworked, though... some things are more of a priority than others and they absolutely zero in on making miniatures to the exclusion of almost everything else... rules design is the only major non-miniature thing that really gets heavily invested in, other stuff like fancy websites and more artwork is way down the list of priorities. Image size on their current site can't be increased without having the site completely remade, they paid for a custom coded solution for their webstore from an expensive developer who charges a lot to make any updates. I'd expect the website itself to remain the same until they can get the funds to do a complete overhaul, it's too much of a mess at the moment to do anything really cool with.

They've already re-done the forums this year because their old ones were horrible, so there is some good progress on that front. And then there's the dreadball website which was placed off and away from the main mantic site so they could do some of that fancy stuff with it.

It's good that you're on them then. I actually phoned them up shortly after discovering that they existed over a year ago to make that suggestion, and I haven't noticed a change at all on their webpage in that time. There are ways of getting around image size limitations, it's called more photos and using the zoom function

- And they already have pages that host more than one picture. So there's no excuse for not having multiple pics of everything on their website. Overworked? Not enough time? I don't want to seem like an arsehole, but those are piss-poor excuses. Hire a casual for 3 weeks or a month to do it, or get in one of the Superfans/Mantic Fanatics who can prove their worth as a photographer in for a couple of weeks/weekends and pay them in product/warm handshakes from Ronnie. That'll sort out the goblin sprue issues, or the number of arms, or whatever-have-you. I'm sure that GW make most of their sales via retail as well. It's not about where you buy the figures or if you vuy them on the webstore, but being able to see them and then go to the FLGS/online retailer and know you want them, and know what you're getting.

I can only speak for myself, but they have quite a few might-be-interesting figures I haven't bought, simply because I can't properly see what I would be buying. Do they sell enough product just by being a cheaper alternative to GW for WFB figures that they don't need to sell based on their own quality as sculpts? I dunno. Maybe they do.

nkelsch wrote:
I like pumbagore.

He is fun when he shows up out of my chest of monsters in random games.

It really isn't a terrible model, just really over the top.

I agree, the model does have a certain charm to it, and perhaps even more so now that it has that rather amusing moniker. Certainly, it always seems to bring a smile to people's lips when they see it on the tabletop, which I guess can only be a good thing !

Nagash on the other hand always used to get snorts of derision, but I don't know how much of that was down to how downright nasty he was on the tabletop - and people tend to dislike miniatures that kill all of their stuff! Interestingly, I once heard that the miniature was initially designed with a hooded cowl for a head, but someone in GW disliked it and said something like 'make it more recognisably a skeleton'. The end result was the 'comedy lord of the undead', but it's interesting to think what might have been.

Regarding the topic though, I do think for the most part Mantic's model design, and their presentation of those models (really the most important part in terms of selling stuff!), has improved. It still has some way to go, but it's much better now than it was even a year or two ago.

Nice!

Any idea who sculpted it?

I really like that one. Looking forward to more.

~Eric

The Dreadball Survey is out

NOTE: You don't get a summary page (or a total spent) at the end to keep a note of what you're getting as you go through it

They say you'll be invoiced for any extra spending (but when that is due to happen ? I spent a bit more and no invoice so far)

 Pacific wrote:

Nagash on the other hand always used to get snorts of derision, but I don't know how much of that was down to how downright nasty he was on the tabletop - and people tend to dislike miniatures that kill all of their stuff! Interestingly, I once heard that the miniature was initially designed with a hooded cowl for a head, but someone in GW disliked it and said something like 'make it more recognisably a skeleton'. The end result was the 'comedy lord of the undead', but it's interesting to think what might have been.

Here's the story. Thing is, it only excuses the head. The rest of the figure isn't exactly awesome, nor is the original head, as seen in the link.

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/entry.php?471-In-Defence-of-Gary-Morley

And I do like what the sculptor has done with John Doe,

I do hope s/he gets to do the whole Nameless Team & big guy as well

Tentacle guy looks quite decent. I hope the final cast version looks as good!