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That's insanely poor packing there (if the poll is representative),

and the extra shipping costs has got to hurt too

I wonder why this one has gone so badly wrong (I know KoW and Dreadball had some problems but nothing on that scale)

70% wrong does seem to place it firmly in the 'Disastrous' category.

I guess the 'if the poll is representative' part is the big deal. In customer service, poor experiences always are louder than good ones.

 pretre wrote:
I guess the 'if the poll is representative' part is the big deal. In customer service, poor experiences always are louder than good ones.

Though I agree that the folks who took part in that poll are probably not a good sample, Mantic's customer service seems about as strong as a soup sandwich soaked in milk.

 CptJake wrote:

 pretre wrote:
I guess the 'if the poll is representative' part is the big deal. In customer service, poor experiences always are louder than good ones.

Though I agree that the folks who took part in that poll are probably not a good sample, Mantic's customer service seems about as strong as a soup sandwich soaked in milk.

That comes back to who you talk to though. I've never had a problem with them and they are always pretty responsive to my inquiries. Heck, when I told them I was missing my Dreadball dude from DZ, they got back to me in hours (on the KS message system) well before I figured out that he had fallen under the chair in my garage and wasn't actually missing.

True different folks have different experiences and you generally only hear about the experiences that are not so good.

My Deadzone pack was one of the last shipped so it's missing a few bits but every one is noted on the packing slip as shipping in wave 2 so that's covered. I got 21 battlezones in wave 1 and they are correct to the last sprue which I was seriously impressed by (that's over 160 sprues) I expected at least 1 or 2 to be wrong - I didn't get any accessory sprues but it's noted on the packing slip. All of the miniatures are present and accounted for nothing missing at all. The mold lines are hit and miss some have next to none some are fairly bad even on the same models. I've put the Plague and Rebs together no major issues a few fiddley bits to clean up the Terraton took the longest time. The Marauders are still in the box I still don't like the models so they will stay there forever more and I'm not touching the Enforcers until (if) the hard plastics arrive. I really hope the hard plastics work out I don't mind restic too much but give me hard plastic any day if it's an option.

As for Dreadball I was missing the arms off a Void Siren Jack they sent me an entire Void Siren team as a replacement now I did say that they could wait until wave 3 shipping to send it to me which they did and they remember several months later.

If I must grumble metal season 3 boosters, dodgy backer MvPs and integrated bases that are a lot of work to remove models from - there good with the bad

One last thing I'll say on the packing issue is Mantic have left themselves very open to being ripped off by unscrupulous types with the reported high rate of shipping mess ups anyone can pretty much apply for anything (on their order) as "missing" (whether it is or isn't) and Mantic pretty much have to send more - it's a very tiny precentage will do this but some will.

 DaveC wrote:


One last thing I'll say on the packing issue is Mantic have left themselves very open to being ripped off by unscrupulous types with the reported high rate of shipping mess ups anyone can pretty much apply for anything (on their order) as "missing" (whether it is or isn't) and Mantic pretty much have to send more - it's a very tiny precentage will do this but some will.

This a million times. I think they're aware of this but the simple way in which they just seemed to sling baggies into boxes and think that it'd be right is just a continuation of the entire half-arsed business practices that they seem to be committed to now. It also doesn't bode well that people who are buying retail are reporting missing items...

What happened to the people saying "Don't back the kickstarter if you don't understand the risk" and faulty product and no refunds should be accepted when you "are getting at the price you are getting it at."

I thought people who expected undamaged, correctly packed product of exactly what they ordered with actual human responses to their emails were unreasonable?

They need to invest in a Customer relations system real quick so every email inquiry opens a ticket which can be tracked so people feel like they are heard and not sending stuff to a black hole. Seeing people have to email 3-4 different locations to get a response is terrible.

Yeah, I'm just wrapping up assembling things and thought I had everything on the survey. Then as I assembled some plague I found they had mixed up the extra parts with a Marauder bag so I have 3 plague without proper heads. Given that this was the box that they left out the rest of the Plague and Enforcer specialists, whoever did the packing of that box did a terrible job.

I assume I should submit another survey to Mantic or should I email someone to have it amended? I did put in a 2nd survey earlier because I wasn't sure if my Enforcer bonus should have been there (and if it was to have been there, it wasn't) but I don't recall if that's been said or not.

 Krinsath wrote:
Yeah, I'm just wrapping up assembling things and thought I had everything on the survey. Then as I assembled some plague I found they had mixed up the extra parts with a Marauder bag so I have 3 plague without proper heads. Given that this was the box that they left out the rest of the Plague and Enforcer specialists, whoever did the packing of that box did a terrible job.

I assume I should submit another survey to Mantic or should I email someone to have it amended? I did put in a 2nd survey earlier because I wasn't sure if my Enforcer bonus should have been there (and if it was to have been there, it wasn't) but I don't recall if that's been said or not.

I wound up with two surveys for the same reason and just noted it in the comments field. It's not like I'll actually get the two missing arms and 1 missing head....but hey, you never know.

I carefully tallied up everything and filled out the survey: all I'm missing is my Dreadball MVP, 2x Marauder Pyros, the head from one human rebs missile team, and the little communications dish you can put on the shoulder of a Ripper Suit.

On the other hand, after figuring out what I should have gotten based on what I backed for, I ended up with these extras (unless I'm wrong, Strike team + booster bundle for every faction):

1st Gen, 3x 3rd Gen w/ rifle, 3rd Gen w/ HMG
Field Commander
Commando Captain, 2x Commandos

I guess I should start picking the difference between the general Deadzone thread and the Mantic rumours thread a little bit better

One thing that I think massively confused things were the 'bonuses' for the Booster Bundle - the set of extra specialists from the faction starters that you got in addition to the 2x Boosters.

So for the plague, you got 3 more 2nd Gens and 2 plague dogs - but because those troops are normally contained in a bag with the 1st gen, you get one of those too. Rebs Teraton, grogen and drones? Have an extra commander. Same with the Marauders and the dogs/snipers.

So while I'm sure this was completely intentional (it makes much more sense giving out standard bags rather than re-packing them), nobody was officially told about this, and it made tracking what you *should* have received even harder! Not that I especially mind having extra stuff...

Is that true? I hope that continues for second survey.

 pretre wrote:
Is that true? I hope that continues for second survey.

I was just thinking "If that's the case I might snag a couple of Plague boosters..." just because the G1 Plague is pretty awesome and so are the Plague Teratons. Of course the gorilla in the room is the hard plastic kits. Obviously we won't hear anything for a little while with Chinese New Year keeping their supplier closed, but that's a big question mark for me on if I'm going to get much more since I already have a shedload. Hopefully we'll get good news on the plastic models front. If not, I might snag more terrain instead. Get some more fortifications and landing pad sprues...

Most of the money I spend (if any) on the second survey will be going to plastic is the take-away of this short seminar.

Yeah, we were already planning on doing the full 6 booster bundles (for the price of 3!), so all those extras would be a sweet bonus.

I imagine the extras are there because it was the most economical way to arrange models in the molds and it's more cost effective to just dump everything from one mold into a single baggie and give use some freebies than it is to pick out all the bits for the 1-2 models that shouldn't be in there.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I imagine the extras are there because it was the most economical way to arrange models in the molds and it's more cost effective to just dump everything from one mold into a single baggie and give use some freebies than it is to pick out all the bits for the 1-2 models that shouldn't be in there.

Don't play with my emotions like this LBF.

The real quandary is, at which points level can you afford a second G1?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
The real quandary is, at which points level can you afford a second G1?

I can barely afford one at 70. lol

And we're talking about S1 (Stage 1) right? Is G a localization thing?

I just love the model so much and 3-3 is boss. Not to mention the thing is impossible to put down with shooting.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure early on in development they were referred to as 1st/2nd/3rd Generation plague. At least that stuck in my mind for some reason.

Follow-up question: At which points level can you afford a second S1 if you already have a S1 and a Plague Teraton?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Follow-up question: At which points level can you afford a second S1 if you already have a S1 and a Plague Teraton?

Oh, you mean for reals what kind of list?

Well, two S1s would be 44. Plague T is 26. So you're at 70 right there. You then need 3 troops to cover your requirements. So lowest you could do it would be 79 points

2 S1s, Plague T, 3 S3Ds.

1st Survey Recaps are on their way in prep for the second survey.

And yet they are still ignoring any messages about a Dreadball missing bits. C'mon Mantic, the fething board isn't an insignificant item!

 sukura636 wrote:
1st Survey Recaps are on their way in prep for the second survey.

I already got mine last week.

I'm behind the times then . Still - useful to have!

 sukura636 wrote:
I'm behind the times then . Still - useful to have!

So would a response from Mantic about missing Dreadball items.

Played a few handfuls of DeadZone games and it is even more fun than I thought it would be! I received my First Survey recap but did not receive my Second Survey yet.

@ Krinsath - I had the exact same problem with one of my bags of Gen 3 Plague, i.e. Marauder heads instead of Plague heads in the bag.

@pretre - I will second the notion that it must depend on who you talk to. I have never had a customer service problem with Mantic. They sorted out my issues pretty quickly in the past. I am still waiting on my DeadZone missing stuff but they did say that survey closes at the end of this month so I don't really expect to hear back on that until February.

There was a conversation a few pages back about terrible mould lines on the DeadZone models. I'm not trying to re-hash that whole conversation but: I was working on some Wolf Guard terminators and Grey Hunters in the midst of assembling my DeadZone stuff. The GW hard plastics had some nasty mould lines too which made me remember that GW plastics normally seem too need cleaned up with a hobby knife. Maybe they are not quite as bad as the restic but they are also 5 times the cost...

The thing is GW mould lines on plastic are:

a) In an easier to remove place (eg not on a face/place of major detail).
b) In an easier to clean material.

There are some near constant mould lines on the DZ models, my top three least favourite being:

1. The mould line on the rebs commander hair/face.
2. Enforcer captain cloak.
3. Rebs trooper face.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I've had several Marauders with mold lines right down the center of their face. Really stupid placement.

asked some questions on their facebook page:

Me:
Can you give us an update on the hard plastic situation, with possibly pictures? Specifically, the space zombies and Enforcers. Everyone on Dakka is getting nervous about the plastic situation as we're almost into February, and if the hard plastics don't work out, if there's enough time to even tool in restic and not be delayed. And I'm also specifically wondering about my pledge (as I pledged for lots of Enforcers including individual poses and I'm still unsure what is happening with that if the hard plastic Enforcers get made).

Mantic:
"Getting" nervous?

Seriously, though, we're still waiting on a final answer, which is why we haven't said anything definite yet. We've had a really promising early test of the Zombies through, and it's looking awesome - just needs to have a few things tweaked, and we'll be happy to show it off.

If the hard plastic Enforcers get made - which we really hope they will - people who ordered individual poses will have the option of switching them out for credit, or something similar.

It's all in hand, basically! As soon as we know enough to make a statement that isn't "we think, maybe, hopefully, it'll work!" we'll do so. Hope that's a good enough answer for now!

Me:
Thanks! Do you know an approximate timeframe to see the shots of the space zombies? Even a rough guess like "we hope to have pictures in a month"would be awesome.

Mantic:
A month is probably about right. Hopefully before then, maybe a little bit after, but roughly a month

I just followed up with:
Thanks Mantic! Last question re: Enforcers. Will the survey be open long enough for us to know the outcome of the sprues/results of the hard plastic enforcers, esp if they have to get tooled in (the originally planned) restic instead?

Mantic:
Yes indeedy.