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Whoah. These are... something else. The Plague mutants both look horrendous and the Marauder Hulk's proportions are frankly even worse. I'm guessing it's not supposed to be his legs in the leg sections of the suit, or else he's shaped even weirder than the Plague. The rest aren't terrible, just ininspired, though the Asterians look hydrocephalic.

It's just a shame they're not letting people swap out Orx and Plague for good/reasonable models as they did with the KoW items...

The plague have grown on me (har) a bit. I can accept that they're being stretched out of their normal human proportions and are starting to look like caricatures of top-heavy weight lifters. I suppose a similar explanation could be used to justify the hulk, but that one still bothers me. The plague could be better, but I'm not clawing my eyes out anymore. I'd love to see a statement from Mantic about why they seem to have a habit of releasing sculpts with teeny tiny legs though.

Sadly, I'm wondering if they're starting to call it their house style.

I may just go all out stoopid and put the dancing sniper legs onto the hulk figure.

Just kidding.

 Lansirill wrote:
I'd love to see a statement from Mantic about why they seem to have a habit of releasing sculpts with teeny tiny legs though.

Same here!

We're getting into "What the hell are they thinking...again!" territory on what absolutely could be called the "Mantic House Style" on this problem...

Ok apart from the Hulks tiny legs and the plagues stretched out look (which is there design from the beginning) I'm not seeing what the huge issue is here with the others legs? Are people complaining just to complain?

Who cares about Deadzone, you rival people in this thread . I'm still wigging out over the Nameless Dreadball sculpts! Pure win, imo

overtyrant wrote:
Ok apart from the Hulks tiny legs and the plagues stretched out look (which is there design from the beginning) I'm not seeing what the huge issue is here with the others legs? Are people complaining just to complain?

No?

Opinions will differ, of course, but this is somewhat of a concept art to model question, as well as the 'Mantic Tiny Legs House Style" potential problem as well.

I suppose if people are really happy with that and vote with their wallets...OK?

But I don't think we're far enough along with any of that to know for certain either way.

 Taarnak wrote:

cincydooley wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Love all the Deadzone greens, with the exception of the big-chest plague, but their style is not really to my taste. Tons of detail for such small models. the Plague Teraton looks fantastic, like Mierce was releasing it.

Um. No. The Teraton doesn't live in the same country as any of the recent mierce releases in terms of quality. I like parts of the winged reb. I like the tau guy. And the chick is okay. The zombies are awful.

I agree with Cincy on this one. Almost nothing Mantic has released is on par with Mierce's stuff. There are a few gems, but overall not as good.

I'll politely disagree with both of you. As the owner of, jeez, almost all of Mierce's releases (my poor smoking credit card), I can easily compare the Teraton to something like, say, the Tarvax. I'm assuming the Teraton is about that height or smaller. In which case, he's definitely got loads more detail than any of my 6 Tarvax models. If he's the height of a Brythoniaid Dydnraig like Galhwch Lladd Llaw, then I would be disappointed. As it stands, and with my assumption of height equivalency to a Tarvax, the Teraton could easily be a new sci fi Mierce release and I'd pay $20 for him.

But the plague are just stupid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
Ok apart from the Hulks tiny legs and the plagues stretched out look (which is there design from the beginning) I'm not seeing what the huge issue is here with the others legs? Are people complaining just to complain?

No?

Opinions will differ, of course, but this is somewhat of a concept art to model question, as well as the 'Mantic Tiny Legs House Style" potential problem as well.

I suppose if people are really happy with that and vote with their wallets...OK?

But I don't think we're far enough along with any of that to know for certain either way.

I'm personally complaining because it's a stupid style. If they continue move into that direction I will continue to not buy those ugly products. I have a gigantic Mantic orc army for KoW because they're the best Orc soldiers on the market... but I am going to be giving away my Trolls when my KoW KS shipment arrives. I'm using Mierce trolls instead. For the Deadzone pledge manager I just added a ton of Enforcers because I know they will look excellent and I want them. The rest, other than the freebies, I'm waiting for retail.

 judgedoug wrote:

I'll politely disagree with both of you. As the owner of, jeez, almost all of Mierce's releases (my poor smoking credit card), I can easily compare the Teraton to something like, say, the Tarvax. I'm assuming the Teraton is about that height or smaller. In which case, he's definitely got loads more detail than any of my 6 Tarvax models. If he's the height of a Brythoniaid Dydnraig like Galhwch Lladd Llaw, then I would be disappointed. As it stands, and with my assumption of height equivalency to a Tarvax, the Teraton could easily be a new sci fi Mierce release and I'd pay $20 for him.

But the plague are just stupid.

That's cool and I don't dislike the Teraton, just so we're clear. It is one of the strongest Plague sculpts to date (2nd only to the original 1st Gen), but still a technically inferior piece to most, if not all, of Mierce's offerings. I'll never change your mind (or anyone else's really) so we can agree to disagree if you like.

I do think the Plague in general are very confused, aesthetically speaking. Each "generation" looks like it is a completely different faction to the others. This is a factor of limited/weak Art Direction.

Teraton appears to be a 1st Gen infected.

Also, I'm jealous of your Mierce collection.

~Eric

Edit:

 judgedoug wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
Ok apart from the Hulks tiny legs and the plagues stretched out look (which is there design from the beginning) I'm not seeing what the huge issue is here with the others legs? Are people complaining just to complain?

No?

Opinions will differ, of course, but this is somewhat of a concept art to model question, as well as the 'Mantic Tiny Legs House Style" potential problem as well.

I suppose if people are really happy with that and vote with their wallets...OK?

But I don't think we're far enough along with any of that to know for certain either way.

I'm personally complaining because it's a stupid style. If they continue move into that direction I will continue to not buy those ugly products. I have a gigantic Mantic orc army for KoW because they're the best Orc soldiers on the market... but I am going to be giving away my Trolls when my KoW KS shipment arrives. I'm using Mierce trolls instead. For the Deadzone pledge manager I just added a ton of Enforcers because I know they will look excellent and I want them. The rest, other than the freebies, I'm waiting for retail.

We agree on this one. It is an odd choice. If indeed it was a deliberate choice, which it may not have been.

~Eric

 Taarnak wrote:

Also, I'm jealous of your Mierce collection.

I was a gamble on their KS coupled with a tremendous amount of overtime worked earlier this year. The post KS pledge manager is still open so I will probably add more, sigh.

 Taarnak wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

I'm personally complaining because it's a stupid style. If they continue move into that direction I will continue to not buy those ugly products. I have a gigantic Mantic orc army for KoW because they're the best Orc soldiers on the market... but I am going to be giving away my Trolls when my KoW KS shipment arrives. I'm using Mierce trolls instead. For the Deadzone pledge manager I just added a ton of Enforcers because I know they will look excellent and I want them. The rest, other than the freebies, I'm waiting for retail.

We agree on this one. It is an odd choice. If indeed it was a deliberate choice, which it may not have been.

~Eric

They need to REALIZE it's becoming their thing, intentional or not. a year ago their 'thing' was reasonably good true 28's for cheap as hell. Now it's becoming a series of 'almost good stumpy leg hamfists'.

It's hard to find good angles of the actual 2nd Gen model, but they seem to have the same overall aesthetic going for the plague. To my eye, all their torsos are extended the same way, it's just not as noticeable on the other two generations because their shoulders are massively bulked out. Looking closely though, they all seem to be an inverted triangle on legs and they all seem to have very large hands relative to the rest of them. I'm not saying that I think they're the greatest design ever, but there is some consistency to the general traits. The renders of the zombies show a slight exaggeration of the torso, but not to the extreme of the actual "living" plague. This would indicate there is an art direction there, though the execution of the idea is certainly debatable.

For some reason they don't bother me as much as the greenskins, but I've never been particularly partial to orc-like creatures in most any setting either.

I'll also reiterate that I don't dislike the Teraton. I think it's one of the better ones in that grouping. My eyes simply tell me from that photo that it isnt as nice as the Mierce stuff, but I'm certainly willing to give that one a chance.

I just don't get the stretched out zombies with the tiny legs. All of their ogres have this weeble-wobble tiny leg syndrom too, which is a shame, as I was really hoping I could fit one or two in with my GW ogres.

 cincydooley wrote:
I just don't get the stretched out zombies with the tiny legs.

For clarity are you referring to the plague, who are mutated by a virus but still living, or the actual zombies, who were infected by the plague but died? I know it seems like it's just a fluff difference, but it's rather key since zombies are their own thing from my reading of things; they get in the plague's way as much as anyone else.

I'll agree with not getting the design behind plague at the moment (maybe there's an explanation we haven't heard for the design choice), but the zombies haven't looked bad from the renders we've been shown so far.

He's talking about the Plague, because as you note, we haven't seen the SF Zombie models yet...

I figure as much. Just wanted to be sure since it's a game with actual zombies in it too and I didn't know if he'd seen something I'd missed.

Yes, plague. My bad.

I'm really hoping they clean up that Rebs guy with wings. The concept was one of my favorites and that green is making my weiner pretty soft.

Actually i enjoy the plague, the marauders leave a bit to be desired.

 Azazelx wrote:
It's just a shame they're not letting people swap out Orx and Plague for good/reasonable models as they did with the KoW items...

Well, I was an (almost) alone voice asking for this throughout the first week of the Kickstarter, only to be shouted down by like a million people with Brian Blessed avatars saying "Mantic hath spoken, so stfu".

Even just posting a single comment asking for it would trigger a dozen+ really angry responses, so eventually everyone stopped bothering to raise the point.

Being able to pick double rebs and double enforcers for the 4 strike team factions would have been sooo damn good. Not that it isn't good already, it just could have made the leap from good to pure awesome is all.

They offered the choice with Loka (you could pick any 4 factions of your choice), it's a real shame they didn't continue that with Deadzone.

Logistics would have been tricky, yes.. but only to the point of having the warehouse people pack 4 units into a box instead of one unit... all of the individual boxes are going to be customized with all manner of different add-ons and stuff, so it really wouldn't have added a lot of extra complexity to pack swap-outs while doing it.

They could even have extended it to the 2 extra factions... swap out plague and marauders for forgefathers and asterians, anyone?

I had asked the same but got logistics would be difficult response from them.

They might feared Orx and Plague might be left unused and enforcers needing x4 production run.

I may have gone for 3 plague if we could have swapped!

I think however im happy to get one of each, it will challenge me to not only paint them but also use them in games, hence the reason ive gone for one of each booster pack aswell.

 Alpharius wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
Ok apart from the Hulks tiny legs and the plagues stretched out look (which is there design from the beginning) I'm not seeing what the huge issue is here with the others legs? Are people complaining just to complain?

No?

Opinions will differ, of course, but this is somewhat of a concept art to model question, as well as the 'Mantic Tiny Legs House Style" potential problem as well.

I suppose if people are really happy with that and vote with their wallets...OK?

But I don't think we're far enough along with any of that to know for certain either way.

I like my little-legged trolls. But it feels wrong on the Hulks. I voted by jumping on the KS and continuing to back their KSs. But the little leg Hulk does not get my approval.

 scarletsquig wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
It's just a shame they're not letting people swap out Orx and Plague for good/reasonable models as they did with the KoW items...

Well, I was an (almost) alone voice asking for this throughout the first week of the Kickstarter, only to be shouted down by like a million people with Brian Blessed avatars saying "Mantic hath spoken, so stfu".
Even just posting a single comment asking for it would trigger a dozen+ really angry responses, so eventually everyone stopped bothering to raise the point.

Yep, full credit to you on that, and agreed that it would have been so easy to do. I don't think you're "supposed" to be swapping out brand-new Mantic figures to use more expensive GW ones instead for their brand-new game, but that's where we're headed with a lot of this...

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I had asked the same but got logistics would be difficult response from them.

As ScarletSquig says, the logistics would not be that hard. They've already got the models broken up into per-race "modules", so just make the core module the infrastructure for the game instead of a single block of (infrastructure+enforcers+rebs+plague+marauders). Their failure to do this for Dreadball is why I did not buy that game, because I was only interested in Season Two teams.

They might feared Orx and Plague might be left unused and enforcers needing x4 production run.

You say that like it's a bad thing. A smarter company would welcome this influx of free market research, and recognise that if the cost of producing an Orx module is the same as producing an Enforcers module there's no upside to devoting resources to the useless filler instead of the one that the customer might actually appreciate.

The more I see of these models, the happier I am that I pulled out of this Kickstarter.

I say it as it is, neutral, I try to speculate their mindset, not say if it would be good or bad.

Logistics might not be that bad to swap things, they might not want to go to the trouble to do so for a few hundreds, even thousands of orders, of course they are already doing it for all the extras, so one can say what is another one custom option per order one might say its one option too many, I don't know I know if I had the choice I would skip orx and probably plague too.

Oh well, hopefully warpath will consist of an army box or single armies.

Or even better, if it took the form of multiple mini kickstarters, one per army.. that way you could get in on the armies you want to see funded only, and get freebies for that army only, etc. There has been some talk of doing this, could work really well to have a really focused kickstarter with the set goal of taking a single army and doing it really, *really* well.

They could do with some more flagship ranges like the Undead, the armies for both KoW and Warpath which currently have a really incomplete mini range and a ton of hybrid metals just aren't worth going for right now.

I think the one KS per army model could lead to a very unbalanced end result for the game.

Great if your army is a popular one, very bad if it's not as you not only get a worse deal, and a smaller less competitive force you'll be able foresee Mantic neglecting you in the future outside KS too (so some will drop out, making things worse etc)

Even if all the armies are one Kickstarter, the rewards should be focused towards the armies people actually want. If someone only likes the Rebs, they should only receive Rebs - every non-Reb model you send them costs just as much to produce, but fails to increase the perceived value of the bundle.