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Hey guys, let's all complain about the quality of Deadzone models and castings!

Oh gak, I don't have any on me, do any of you have any on you? Can you please take some pics and write a review?

thanks guys!

Daedle wrote:
Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.

How can you say that? We haven't seen a single production miniature. Terrain doesn't qualify because, my half-blind cousin could make passable terrain in his garage. As was discussed earlier, organic shapes (i.e. people) are the true test of a material and mold. All we've seen thus far are pics of resin masters. I'll take you back to KoW where the resin masters of the Goblin Archers looked outstanding and we all know how that worked out.

I'm slightly more optimistic than before but I want shots of production models, unpainted before they ship to me. If they're going to send me another box of ape-armed men at arms, they can just keep their crap this time around.

 judgedoug wrote:
Hey guys, let's all complain about the quality of Deadzone models and castings!

Oh gak, I don't have any on me, do any of you have any on you? Can you please take some pics and write a review?

thanks guys!

...wha?!?

I don't think it is unreasonable to want to see pictures of actual production miniatures, is it?

If the minis don't turn me off Mantic, the fan(boi)base will.

 Alpharius wrote:


I think you should stop sleeping with the Tyranid Codex under your pillow.

There is no "Dakka".

Well, other than this guy here - Dakka.

But he hasn't made a single post yet...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to pictures of unpainted production models!

If that is so, why are people here constantly making vainglorious claims to "speak for" or "represent" the "community".

You are free (and safe) to ignore my blog, precisely because it is just that... my personal ramblings. Singlular. Me. Nothing else. Not representative of anything.

If people on Dakka - especially people on Dakka with moderation privileges - would stick to the same, there'd be no problem.

But I - in turn - are not granted the same courtesy.

I cannot "ignore" Dakka and simply "go to my blog" as long as people here, MODs included, abuse the relative popularity of this site to couch their personal grievances in a veneer of false legitimacy and authority by claiming to "speak for the community" (of which I am a part, like it or not), going as far as blackmailing company-representatives to respond to them here, deep within a 60+ page thread that is utterly inaccessible to anybody "from the community" who is less than daily on Dakka, and far away from official company websites, emails, forums, etc.. that people would naturally gravitate to. (Not to mention launching into full-fledged Rumpelstiltskin-mode if they don't get a response within 12 hours).

You can play this site/thread by "private club rules", like it or leave it. No problem with me. But if you do, don't claim to represent anybody.

Or you can aspire to make Dakka a platform and place of communication for and by the community, including with companies, but if that is the case, you need to seriously restructure how this particular information (communication with a company such as Mantic Games) is found, organized and updated, especially by people who - say - only come here once a month. The current format doesn't support that idea/aspiration. At all.

And if you seriously want to shoot for option No. 2, you should probably also make sure that people with moderation-privileges stay out of the nitty-gritty. Conflicts of Interest, Great Power, Great Responsibility, and all that.

Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.

Also, Deadzone isn't being made in a vacuum. If it's about to ship in December 2013 from Mantic Games then discussion of the quality of the Wave 3 Dreadball models that are shipping in October/November 2013 from Mantic Games seems pretty fair as well.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:


I think you should stop sleeping with the Tyranid Codex under your pillow.

There is no "Dakka".

Well, other than this guy here - Dakka.

But he hasn't made a single post yet...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to pictures of unpainted production models!

If that is so, why are people here constantly making vainglorious claims to "speak for" or "represent" the "community".

You are free (and safe) to ignore my blog, precisely because it is just that... my personal ramblings. Singlular. Me. Nothing else. Not representative of anything.

If people on Dakka - especially people on Dakka with moderation privileges - would stick to the same, there'd be no problem.

But I - in turn - are not granted the same courtesy.

I cannot "ignore" Dakka and simply "go to my blog" as long as people here, MODs included, abuse the relative popularity of this site to couch their personal grievances in a veneer of false legitimacy and authority by claiming to "speak for the community" (of which I am a part, like it or not), going as far as blackmailing company-representatives to respond to them here, deep within a 60+ page thread that is utterly inaccessible to anybody "from the community" who is less than daily on Dakka, and far away from official company websites, emails, forums, etc.. that people would naturally gravitate to. (Not to mention launching into full-fledged Rumpelstiltskin-mode if they don't get a response within 12 hours).

You can play this site/thread by "private club rules", like it or leave it. No problem with me. But if you do, don't claim to represent anybody.

Or you can aspire to make Dakka a platform and place of communication for and by the community, including with companies, but if that is the case, you need to seriously restructure how this particular information (communication with a company such as Mantic Games) is found, organized and updated, especially by people who - say - only come here once a month. The current format doesn't support that idea/aspiration. At all.

And if you seriously want to shoot for option No. 2, you should probably also make sure that people with moderation-privileges stay out of the nitty-gritty. Conflicts of Interest, Great Power, Great Responsibility, and all that.

Wow.

You might need to take a deep breath, step back and get some perspective.

Anyhow, everything is looking good on Deadzone so far - hopefully the production updates follow on quickly too.

 Zweischneid wrote:

If that is so, why are people here constantly making vainglorious claims to "speak for" or "represent" the "community".

You're the one who started this particular tangent, by complaining that there is discussion in the "News and Rumours" section of the forum which you do not approve of, (despite it being the norm for many more years than you've been a poster here) and complaining about "Dakka" as though the hundreds of active posters in this section are a singular entity. Now you're trying to drag it wildly off even that topic, putting yourself on the cross and quoting Peter Parker. It appears to me that you're more bored than anything and trying to stir up some arguments and be contrary for its own sake to keep yourself entertained.

edit - fixed quote tags.

OK - no more Off Topic stuff here.

Comments on "Dakka" and/or "Bloggers" can find another home - maybe in the Dakka Discussions and/or Nuts & Bolts.


Now - back to Deadzone and other Mantic SF stuff.

Thanks!

 agnosto wrote:

Daedle wrote:
Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.

How can you say that? We haven't seen a single production miniature. Terrain doesn't qualify because, my half-blind cousin could make passable terrain in his garage. As was discussed earlier, organic shapes (i.e. people) are the true test of a material and mold. All we've seen thus far are pics of resin masters. I'll take you back to KoW where the resin masters of the Goblin Archers looked outstanding and we all know how that worked out.

I'm slightly more optimistic than before but I want shots of production models, unpainted before they ship to me. If they're going to send me another box of ape-armed men at arms, they can just keep their crap this time around.

Exactly... you can't claim improvement from KoW to Dreadball to Deadzone, when no production models have been shown of Deadzone yet.

Judgedoug, you're right, by the same token you can't complain about the quality of Deadzone models- none have been shown!

But you certainly can't claim improvement if none have been shown, either

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear on both sides. Also, I found out that Cyporiean received her Dreadball box which has my Nameless team, but she's off to the Warstore Weekend so I'll find out what I got next week I'm guessing. But, at least I'll finally have it no matter the material, I'm just glad to have it finished!

 Alpharius wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Hey guys, let's all complain about the quality of Deadzone models and castings!
Oh gak, I don't have any on me, do any of you have any on you? Can you please take some pics and write a review?
thanks guys!

...wha?!?
I don't think it is unreasonable to want to see pictures of actual production miniatures, is it?

Yes, absolutely! I want to see them myself!

However, I think it's unreasonable to complain of the quality of Deadzone miniatures before anyone has seen them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RiTides wrote:

Judgedoug, you're right, by the same token you can't complain about the quality of Deadzone models- none have been shown!

But you certainly can't claim improvement if none have been shown, either

I haven't complained or praised improvement. I'm only mocking the dozens of posts that magically or psychically claim one or the other.

In addition to seeing the production minis, Mantic should really setup a big board full of terrain ASAP, 10-20 battlezones worth, Even unpainted, or with a ghetto basecoat + drybrush it would still look epic. The little teaser vid seriously whet my appetite for that stuff again ; p

Thinking the terrain would go beautifully as AvP colonial marine / their corporate overlords pre fab stuff since it's a very similar theme to mantic corporations iirc.

Seriously impressed with the terrain. I thought you would be able to assemble glue in place then you are done but it seems like its genuinely modular which is great.

NTRabbit wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

There is a serious problem with art direction and quality assurance at Mantic

As someone who admittedly only has a purchased Dreadball starter box in hand, didn't back and has no interest in Kings of War (Fantasy themes aren't my thing), and has only the photos of Deadzone to go by, I don't see any problem at all in the art direction - despite repeatedly being told otherwise.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's an endemic problem with the company.

QA is, of course, another issue.

QA checks to make sure the tooling is working and the product going out is OK. Art Direction is responsible for the quality of the sculpts. Art direction should have rejected the Drakon riders, the MaA sculpts based on their arms, the sisters based on their necks and torsos, the cat-horses, the trolls based on their ...really, do I have to explain about the trolls?... the Veermyn, the TK assassin, etc. Art Direction is supposed to make sure the sculpts look good and fit in with the Mantic fluff/aesthetic/product line. Hopefully we can agree that there is an issue there.

QA gave us bad restic and bad plastic goblins and also screwed up the Men at Arms. The Men-at-Arms were a failure on multiple levels in all departments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Daedle wrote:
Yep that's what I meant. Also the general curve of Dreadball being better than KoW overall and Deadzone looking to be better than Dreadball.

We have no indicator of the latter yet, do we?

We have seen painted versions of the resin masters for many of the sculpts.

Same thing for the goblins. How did they turn out?

I know nobody likes to have their opinion disagreed with, but...

the Veer-myn are pretty awesome. This image alone makes me want to own them


Also, as much as I and you and all of Dakka dislike the Basileans, they are selling extraordinarily well and the rest of the internet seems to like them (going by the positivity on other sites), so shrug.

Yeah, the trolls are crap. (wait i thought i was a mantic fanboi)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yonan wrote:
In addition to seeing the production minis, Mantic should really setup a big board full of terrain ASAP, 10-20 battlezones worth, Even unpainted, or with a ghetto basecoat + drybrush it would still look epic. The little teaser vid seriously whet my appetite for that stuff again ; p

Thinking the terrain would go beautifully as AvP colonial marine / their corporate overlords pre fab stuff since it's a very similar theme to mantic corporations iirc.

Seriously! I'm super excited for the terrain (that and the Enforcers were the major reason I went in big for Deadzone). I know we only have a month left but my internal excitement meter is ramping up.

Still pumped on the terrain. Glad the only two models I put in for originally seem to be turning out well (Wrath and the Enforcer Commando). Honestly I held off on models until wave 2 because I was worried about quality. So now we'll just have to see how everything turns out but I'm set up to go big on wave 2 for FF's and possibly more terrain! (cause 12 Battlezones isn't enough....)

I'm happy I paid for courier shipping, apparently those are going out first-ish? Will help offset my being across the pond and all.

I've got my blinders on to anything negative about deadzone right now. I fully expect it to be like christmas when I was a kid and god exactly what I wanted plus 2-3 other things equally awesome. (i think that happened, I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday =/). If, upon opening and examining my deadzone shipment, something falls horribly short of my (fairly easy going, really) expectations and or I feel conned/cheated/ripped off... then I will reconsider my stance. Having had no experience with KoW or DB personally, I choose to be ridiculously positive about this. If I get burned, I'll probably switch my viewpoint quite a bit... but I'm just not expecting that to happen.

I'm rather torn between unboxing the majority of it with pictures on my dakka p&m blog, or just trying to make the tallest building possible first

 GrimDork wrote:
I'm happy I paid for courier shipping, apparently those are going out first-ish? Will help offset my being across the pond and all.

I've got my blinders on to anything negative about deadzone right now. I fully expect it to be like christmas when I was a kid and god exactly what I wanted plus 2-3 other things equally awesome. (i think that happened, I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday =/). If, upon opening and examining my deadzone shipment, something falls horribly short of my (fairly easy going, really) expectations and or I feel conned/cheated/ripped off... then I will reconsider my stance. Having had no experience with KoW or DB personally, I choose to be ridiculously positive about this. If I get burned, I'll probably switch my viewpoint quite a bit... but I'm just not expecting that to happen.

I'm rather torn between unboxing the majority of it with pictures on my dakka p&m blog, or just trying to make the tallest building possible first

Im quite in the same boat here. Including the part about building something tall ^^. Piramid?

Nothing wrong with the cat horses, they look awesome same with the Werewolves.


I don't mind the trolls tbh.Funny proportions are hardly a new thing see almost everything GW and PP ever released.

Humans however should be in proportion since everyone knows what a human should look like riders of said cathorses.shouyld have been stopped and changed.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:


Humans however should be in proportion since everyone knows what a human should look like riders of said cathorses.shouyld have been stopped and changed.

No company or 3D artist should be building a human render from scratch. You can get royalty free 3D human anatomy 3D models which can be used as a base and can simply be posed and skinned. No reason to reinvent the wheel. Use a real human anatomy and 3D render a pose and armor. If they are doing it not based on anatomy or from scratch, they are doing so for no reason.

I think the sisters were sculpted oldschool style. Even with digital miniatures however a accurate set of human proportions is likely to be deliberately distorted for use at such a small scale. Things like faces and hands need to be over emphasized to look right when scaled so far down.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
I think the sisters were sculpted oldschool style. Even with digital miniatures however a accurate set of human proportions is likely to be deliberately distorted for use at such a small scale. Things like faces and hands need to be over emphasized to look right when scaled so far down.

I dunno....Ever taken a look at the Infinity line of models? The proportions on those models are pretty dang close to what you'd get if you shrunk someone down to 28mm. Tiny hands and tiny heads, and some of the nicest sculpts you'll ever see.

~Tim?

Even so scaled up accurately I'd expect them to have hilariously huge honkers, 0.75 to 1.5mm may be tiny in our terms but to a man living in a 28mm big noses are the norm.

1.5mm looks fine on a minature but scaled up a 60mm+ shnoz will get you teased at school.

Clothing thicknesses is another thing that tends to be distorted for both visual effect and practical production considerations. sjirt cuffs and cloaks are often massive if scales up.

 Azazelx wrote:
Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.

They're... Ok.

Once assembled and put together, they look perfectly badass and nicely awesome.

However, there are several issues with them. Issues big enough that, like I mentioned earlier, it would have me seriously concerned for Deadzone if they end up shipping as part of the starter game.

1) Instructions for assembling them (if there was any) was pretty much useless.
2) They're multipart mini's that really should NOT be multipart. Certain torsos only fit with certain legs in certain positions. Certain arms only fit together with certain guns and need to be matched with specific other arms. The unattached heads can only be glued on at certain angles due to the necks. The arms can only fit at certain angles too.
3) You need to get the knife out to do a fair bit of modelling work with them to actually get the models to fit together. - Someone had the bright idea of sticking a 'vent' (is that what it's called), right in the main attachment bowl pelvis thing for the legs. That was a real pain to remove.
4) You need to hollow out the pelvis more than it is to get the body to fit snugly.
5) Even once you do (4), you may find out you've got some gaps appearing if you don't pose it the exactly correct way.


All in all, it took me the same time to assemble 5 Mantic Enforcers as it took me to individually pose, position and kitbash 10 Games Workshop Tactical Marines.
It's been several weeks now and I still haven't amassed the energy to assemble the other 5 enforcers I own.


Someone please tell me it's a one off / I was particularly stupid the day I was assembling them, because well, that'd be great...

 Compel wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.

They're... Ok.

Once assembled and put together, they look perfectly badass and nicely awesome.

However, there are several issues with them. Issues big enough that, like I mentioned earlier, it would have me seriously concerned for Deadzone if they end up shipping as part of the starter game.

It seems that from the text of the update that the retail box (and all Ks backers will receive for free when done) will have hard plastic enforcers - or if they can't get them to look excellent - new restic sculpts. Since Deadzone doesn't launch retail-wise til next year, they have a little bit of time.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Compel wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Aren't the Enforcers now going to be pretty much the same as the existing ones? Seems pretty fair to discuss the casting/mould lines on those in that case.

They're... Ok.

Once assembled and put together, they look perfectly badass and nicely awesome.

However, there are several issues with them. Issues big enough that, like I mentioned earlier, it would have me seriously concerned for Deadzone if they end up shipping as part of the starter game.

It seems that from the text of the update that the retail box (and all Ks backers will receive for free when done) will have hard plastic enforcers - or if they can't get them to look excellent - new restic sculpts. Since Deadzone doesn't launch retail-wise til next year, they have a little bit of time.

But aren't they having a pre-release relase of the box set in late november at their opening day? I don't want to speculate too much, but it would be hard to believe that they would have different versions of the box for that release, only to redo it for the main release. Maybe they will, but it makes me wonder if the main release will actually get the hard plastic enforcers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I used the word "release" WAY too many times above.

 squall018 wrote:

But aren't they have a pre-release relase of the box set in late november at their opening day? I don't want to speculate too much, but it would be hard to believe that they would have different versions of the box for that release, only to redo it for the main release. Maybe they will, but it makes me wonder if the main release will actually get the hard plastic enforcers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I used the word "release" WAY too many times above.

Maybe a prerelease with that caveat?

Hmm... JAMES?!?!

I like the trolls. Lol. Screw you haters.
The men at arms need SERIOUS adjustments, but can look damn good. Elohi heads, bob's sword from spear idea and a serious attack of clippers on the upper arms and they look nice. Mine are extremely dynamic, but it takes a bunch of work getting them. Something that should never have been required to enjoy them. I'm in the fanboi category. I accept it and know it. But even I feel they needed more QA and shouldn't have made it out the door. That said, I've begun a 5 step process to fix them and make them look good on the table. The fact that people are willing to let them go for a good price helped influence my decision. Lol. Trolls are just not aesthetically pleasing to most. I appreciate them (I realize I'm in a minority there though). I still don't understand what people dislike abou the werewolves. The only issue they suffered from was the paint scheme. The nipples looked bad in the masters, but shrunk in the restic figures. They shouldn't even be a factor anymore. Oh well.

Double post :(

edit: or not? That was weird my post appeared twice mmm...

Anyway, the enforcers are nice sculpts just suffer from some dodgy tear points and moldlines on the legs. Ive put together an army boxes worth, but il definitely wait for the plastics to complete my army.

The vent on the waist was the worst part. No doubt. It sucked to put them together there. I had no issues with heads though, and each of my non-AR enforcers looks unique from the others. And I have 60. Plenty of HW, assault weapons and ARs.