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And again, for the record, I am missing DreadBall stuff and have let them know and am still waiting. I have also let them know about my missing DeadZone stuff, but I would really expect them to have worked the DreadBall season three stuff at this point.

 sukura636 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
I wish he was busy going through the 'missing items' forms and acting upon them.

He probably is. The people here on Dakka do not represent every single person with a missing item. Plus, everyone who hasn't heard anything, will send another one. Add to that the normal customer enquiries and you have the mother of all backlogs. Oh, and of course the afore mentioned day job.

Tl;dr - Mantic are working through them, and will get to you eventually.

So they had time to blow smoke up my arse telling me my missing stuff would be sent out ASAP back in November, but are too busy to actually send it as they have a real job?
Thanks for the clarification white knight/employee.

I've got to say, I was always under the impression that any missing deadzone items would be sent out at the start of February.

On the other hand, I thought James' real job was customer services / community support. :p

Missing Dreadball items.

 agnosto wrote:
Or, you know, they could have done something other than the "chuck it and pray" model of shipping and made sure everyone got their stuff the first time around. I know I know it's an unheard of concept and some Mantic white knight will be along presently to present me with a laundry list of how it's perfectly acceptable to botch 70% of the orders that went out the door...

We prefer to be called "Fanbois". white knights are for GW.
Seriously though, that many mistakes suck. I offer condolences to those missing stuff and I hope you get it soon.

 sukura636 wrote:
Oh, and of course the afore mentioned day job.

Obvious solution: if nobody buys anything during the next Kickstarter, Mantic will have plenty of time to deal with the backlog.

I'll personally be buying into DBX for the KS exclusives only, the rest I'll be getting retail since I'd like to support the local stores... there's now three places in my city that stock Mantic and I'd like things to stay that way.

 sukura636 wrote:
. Oh, and of course the afore mentioned day job.

Tl;dr - Mantic are working through them, and will get to you eventually.

If you are official Mantic representation, maybe you need to stop posting on forums and open the corporate email box and begin responding to people's various and repeated unanswered emails and making plans to fulfill products for them?

If you are not official Mantic representation, you are not doing Mantic any favors by putting poorly chosen words in their mouths.

nkelsch wrote:

 sukura636 wrote:
. Oh, and of course the afore mentioned day job.

Tl;dr - Mantic are working through them, and will get to you eventually.

If you are official Mantic representation, maybe you need to stop posting on forums and open the corporate email box and begin responding to people's various and repeated unanswered emails and making plans to fulfill products for them?

If you are not official Mantic representation, you are not doing Mantic any favors by putting poorly chosen words in their mouths.

I think you misunderstood his post. He doesn't work for Mantic in an official capacity, nor is he paid, he's the equivalent of the old GW Outriders; just someone that supports Mantic in their local area. I think they're called Pathfinders...just people that run demo games and what-not.

 agnosto wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

 sukura636 wrote:
. Oh, and of course the afore mentioned day job.

Tl;dr - Mantic are working through them, and will get to you eventually.

If you are official Mantic representation, maybe you need to stop posting on forums and open the corporate email box and begin responding to people's various and repeated unanswered emails and making plans to fulfill products for them?

If you are not official Mantic representation, you are not doing Mantic any favors by putting poorly chosen words in their mouths.

I think you misunderstood his post. He doesn't work for Mantic in an official capacity, nor is he paid, he's the equivalent of the old GW Outriders; just someone that supports Mantic in their local area. I think they're called Pathfinders...just people that run demo games and what-not.

His responses are insulting to disappointed backers and like all water-carrying, puts words in Mantic's mouth and doesn't do Mantic any favors. Silence and limited official responses is better than an equivalent of 'quit yer complaining' response which attempts to marginalize very valid concerns.

nkelsch wrote:


His responses are insulting to disappointed backers and like all water-carrying, puts words in Mantic's mouth and doesn't do Mantic any favors. Silence and limited official responses is better than an equivalent of 'quit yer complaining' response which attempts to marginalize very valid concerns.

You're not going to get an argument from me, I was just trying to make it clear that he wasn't "official". Personally, I think Mantic's business practices are just one long string of feth the people that gave them money after another. They suckered me into KoW and then Deadzone before I actually received the KoW stuff and found out 1) how shoddy and half-arsed it all was and 2) how little they actually care about the quality of their product.

As I told Ronnie in a personal email, not that he gives a feth, they've lost a customer that spends upwards of $3-5,000 in hobby-related purchases a year and insured that none of that will go to Mantic in the future. No, Mantic is all about churn and burn; keep the Kickstarters going with perceived "What a great deal!" bargains before people can catch on to how little they care about their product or their customers. Prime example, they continue to use the shoddy Chinese manufacturer that seems incapable of producing even simple casts without horrid issues. This means they're pocketing as much money as they can and to hell with everyone.

If I could tell, really imprint one thing on the collective consciousness of the leadership of Mantic it's this; slow the "f" down. Do it right and do it well the first time and you'll keep customers and create brand loyalty. Continue to send out boxes of unsorted bags of resin crap and people will walk. 70% error rate on shipped goods is unacceptable, this means you truly could give a rat's arse about your company image or the product you're producing. Yay! You sent me a great looking box. Boo! it was full of unmarked, unsorted miniatures with no instructions, a packing list or any way to tell what the hell I actually got except a box full of resin and plastic.

 agnosto wrote:

nkelsch wrote:


His responses are insulting to disappointed backers and like all water-carrying, puts words in Mantic's mouth and doesn't do Mantic any favors. Silence and limited official responses is better than an equivalent of 'quit yer complaining' response which attempts to marginalize very valid concerns.

You're not going to get an argument from me, I was just trying to make it clear that he wasn't "official". Personally, I think Mantic's business practices are just one long string of feth the people that gave them money after another. They suckered me into KoW and then Deadzone before I actually received the KoW stuff and found out 1) how shoddy and half-arsed it all was and 2) how little they actually care about the quality of their product.

As I told Ronnie in a personal email, not that he gives a feth, they've lost a customer that spends upwards of $3-5,000 in hobby-related purchases a year and insured that none of that will go to Mantic in the future. No, Mantic is all about churn and burn; keep the Kickstarters going with perceived "What a great deal!" bargains before people can catch on to how little they care about their product or their customers. Prime example, they continue to use the shoddy Chinese manufacturer that seems incapable of producing even simple casts without horrid issues. This means they're pocketing as much money as they can and to hell with everyone.

If I could tell, really imprint one thing on the collective consciousness of the leadership of Mantic it's this; slow the "f" down. Do it right and do it well the first time and you'll keep customers and create brand loyalty. Continue to send out boxes of unsorted bags of resin crap and people will walk. 70% error rate on shipped goods is unacceptable, this means you truly could give a rat's arse about your company image or the product you're producing. Yay! You sent me a great looking box. Boo! it was full of unmarked, unsorted miniatures with no instructions, a packing list or any way to tell what the hell I actually got except a box full of resin and plastic.

I don't disagree that they need to slow down, because their packing problems in DeadZone are almost assuredly down to trying to meet their KS estimate and pulling in people who 1) didn't know what they were looking at because it was brand new and 2) don't normally pack orders. To then take those people and pack 4000+ boxes where there was a huge amount of variation in contents in a very short timeframe and, well, you get what we see now. Mantic is at a point that they can push things back a month or two when needed and not have people worried like they would be with say, Defiance or other suppliers. They need to work on their self-awareness to know when the timeframe they have isn't enough to do the job properly rather than giving it the good college try.

However, I will disagree with you that their use of the same supplier is a sign that they don't care. Mantic should go find a new supplier that has just a good of a chance of being worse as it does of improving? That's just as big of a gamble since most of the "we do miniatures" companies are booked up and not actively seeking new clients. Instead, they sent their own people over to China to babysit, and the results did improve. Whether they improved to each backer's own preferred quality standards is certainly a matter of debate, but that things are in general getting better is widely agreed upon.

Somehow though, moving employees halfway around the world shows they don't care? Does it suck that it's fairly common that the Chinese need to be babysat to not cut every single corner? Sure, but it's just as sad that domestic suppliers are so expensive that it's still cheaper and faster to ship something from the other side of the world than make it locally. Air-freighting a large amount of terrain just to send it to KS backers is a sign of their disinterest? Overnighting 40lb+ boxes to other countries an indication that "feth those guys" is their attitude? There are far, far cheaper things they could have done to pocket money there and nobody would have raised an eyebrow had they done them, really. They chose not to, and to say Mantic doesn't do anything to show appreciation to their backers is plain exaggeration. Those things might not matter to you, but just because you don't care doesn't mean those things didn't happen.

Now, where they have been sucking wind of late is in their communication with customers, and if you decide to focus only on "what's gone on lately" then certainly your opinion is validated. They need to get people working on communication, especially to people with KoW and DB issues. They also need to have the "one method of communcation to rule them all" where people actually can get status updates (even if it's just "we're waiting on stock from our suppliers") as well rather than the current model of "which of the six different methods haven't you tried? it's totally that one you haven't done that always works." A true trouble-ticket system rather than the Google Forms they're so fond of would probably be a decent investment.

In a perfect world, Mantic would spend the time between now and the summer getting their company organization better laid-out. There's been too many lapses on basic "things that need doing" (e.g. - how long did it take for a manifest of the DZ box to be sent out on KS? How many times has Ronnie apologized for not mentioning something? etc.) to say what they have is working properly, and the sooner they set that to rights the better for everyone involved. Is that likely to happen? I doubt it, but one can hope...

 Krinsath wrote:
I don't disagree that they need to slow down, because their packing problems in DeadZone are almost assuredly down to trying to meet their KS estimate and pulling in people who 1) didn't know what they were looking at because it was brand new and 2) don't normally pack orders. To then take those people and pack 4000+ boxes where there was a huge amount of variation in contents in a very short timeframe and, well, you get what we see now. Mantic is at a point that they can push things back a month or two when needed and not have people worried like they would be with say, Defiance or other suppliers. They need to work on their self-awareness to know when the timeframe they have isn't enough to do the job properly rather than giving it the good college try.

This is the thing that bugs me the most. They KNOW that they should take the time and make sure everyone gets what they pay for but they can't slow down or it will delay the next Kickstarter project. They have to keep them rolling or the suckers will stop buying the crap they're slinging at them. Anyone with half a brain would stop at some point and say, "Gee, if we didn't just toss crap in a box and ship it, we'd be saving money in the long run." Seriously, when there's a 70% failure rate and it doesn't even slow them down from the mad scramble to the next money grab, you know what their priority is and it's not customer service. Customer service would be taking care of the people whose money you've already taken BEFORE you move on to the next thing.

They're not Defiance. They're something else, but nearly as shady since you get at least some of your product but then never hear from them again about what's missing.

Mantic! You have shown an incapacity to even ship retail boxes in complete condition; stop! Think for a minute and make sure that you're sending out complete packages. Quit half-arsing everything. Quit fething people over. Start answering email and complete the orders that are still incomplete from 3 Kickstarters ago. Catch up then go on to the next thing.

 Krinsath wrote:
However, I will disagree with you that their use of the same supplier is a sign that they don't care. Mantic should go find a new supplier that has just a good of a chance of being worse as it does of improving? That's just as big of a gamble since most of the "we do miniatures" companies are booked up and not actively seeking new clients. Instead, they sent their own people over to China to babysit, and the results did improve. Whether they improved to each backer's own preferred quality standards is certainly a matter of debate, but that things are in general getting better is widely agreed upon.

Somehow though, moving employees halfway around the world shows they don't care? Does it suck that it's fairly common that the Chinese need to be babysat to not cut every single corner? Sure, but it's just as sad that domestic suppliers are so expensive that it's still cheaper and faster to ship something from the other side of the world than make it locally. Air-freighting a large amount of terrain just to send it to KS backers is a sign of their disinterest? Overnighting 40lb+ boxes to other countries an indication that "feth those guys" is their attitude? There are far, far cheaper things they could have done to pocket money there and nobody would have raised an eyebrow had they done them, really. They chose not to, and to say Mantic doesn't do anything to show appreciation to their backers is plain exaggeration. Those things might not matter to you, but just because you don't care doesn't mean those things didn't happen.

Not being an insider here, I can't fathom why they act like an abused spouse and keep going back for more. There are other manufacturers in China that seem to be able to get things right; hell, illegal recasters do a better job than the people Mantic found. Have you actually looked at DZ models? They have mold lines in places where mold lines shouldn't exist; you don't design a board game and make it where only an expert modeler can produce an end product that doesn't suck. A couple of pages back you can see what the Marauder pyro came out looking like; if you apply the "hot water" trick, it looks like he's shooting the guy next to him. This brings on another point. These aren't cheap models; they're $3+ models that require 30+ minutes work to make them even ready to prime. I don't know about you but my time is worth a great deal more than the difference between this per model amount and a GW model but to each his/her own I guess. I will say that the new resin is better than the crap I got with KoW; congrats Mantic your suck factor dropped one notch but climbed 10 when you didn't send me what I paid for (some people haven't even seen anything from Mantic yet).

As for overnighting stuff, ask the Canadians how that worked out for them. Nice but also shows lack of business savvy unless it actually came out cheaper that way (sometimes it does).

 Krinsath wrote:
Now, where they have been sucking wind of late is in their communication with customers, and if you decide to focus only on "what's gone on lately" then certainly your opinion is validated. They need to get people working on communication, especially to people with KoW and DB issues. They also need to have the "one method of communication to rule them all" where people actually can get status updates (even if it's just "we're waiting on stock from our suppliers") as well rather than the current model of "which of the six different methods haven't you tried? it's totally that one you haven't done that always works." A true trouble-ticket system rather than the Google Forms they're so fond of would probably be a decent investment.

The problem here is that this isn't new or just lately. They made major changes to models during KoW (Trolls) and then even changed the material for models in Dreadball with nary a peep to backers or anyone. I know that some of them used to work for GW but Mantic doesn't have the market presence to pull these kinds of antics without it costing them in the long run...but it does explain where their style of business management comes from.

 Krinsath wrote:
In a perfect world, Mantic would spend the time between now and the summer getting their company organization better laid-out. There's been too many lapses on basic "things that need doing" (e.g. - how long did it take for a manifest of the DZ box to be sent out on KS? How many times has Ronnie apologized for not mentioning something? etc.) to say what they have is working properly, and the sooner they set that to rights the better for everyone involved. Is that likely to happen? I doubt it, but one can hope...

Yeah, I'm not holding my breath which is why they won't get any more of my money, possibly ever. Ronnie has apologized but he keeps doing the same thing over and over! How stupid is that? Is he so far removed from the process that he has no idea what's going on in his own company? It's like keystone cops over there and I'm truly amazed they're still in business. If I was a FLGS owner and had to deal with the amount of missing items from packages that we keep hearing about, I wouldn't carry their product if they showed up and begged me to.

Anyway, I'll got back to my corner for a few more pages and try to stop being so negative. True fans like ScarletSquig will be happy when Deadzone's finished because they won't ever have to see my comments again.

@Agnosto
Where are you getting this 70% from? A forum poll where most of the people who got everything didn't bother to respond?
I've had my stuff since before Christmas, and felt no need to post about it. I do not doubt that a considerable number of those like me merely haven't bothered to mention it.

You have issues with Mantic and how you feel you have been treated. I get that. But you are not their only customer.
I've seen you loudly proclaiming about how Mantic is ignoring you and giving you bad customer service.
Your experience has been poor, but that does not make Mantic this horrible failure of a company that you paint them to be.
It just means you had a bad experience.

@On topic.

I got in the Deadzone KS at the Strike Team level.
The entirety of the box game was in there.
Some of my add-ons weren't.
Anything that was missing was marked on the invoice that was in the box. All of that was marked as coming in shipment 2. Therefore I consider it to be satisfactory.

I was seriously impressed at the accuracy, considering how long it took me to sort things out and realize that everything the invoice had on it was accounted for in one way or another.

There were two quality issues I had. Recon was missing his dagger, and one of my 3A Plague was broken at the ankles.
I filled out the form and that was the end of it. Ball is in Mantic's court now. I don't need a constant flow of updates.

I highly doubt anyone will hear about replacement items until it is time for shipment 2 to roll out. Otherwise Mantic will incur even more cost.
I have no problem with that. They have given me no reason to believe that the missing items will not be taken care of.

I'm in the same boat as Skrulnik. Got my stuff (except the missing dice) early and I love the terrain so far. Clearly some people have not had a great experience, but I am happy so far (given the bucketload of miniatures pledges).

Mantic clearly need to take greater care and slow down on the kickstarters (and ditch restic), but I for one would back another KS from Mantic.

I wouldn't back another restic kick starter from mantic, maybe a hard plastic one but not restic.

I hope they take the extra step in the future too and include labels and instructions in boxed games instead of a bunch of sprues and bags of bits thrown into a nice box.

Labels on the bags would have improved the situation for everyone from the people packing to ensure they got everything it to the customer.

Mantic already is slowing down, the DKH 4 Kickstarter was planned for late last year, but is now delayed until 2015.

As of right now, they only have to ship the second half of Deadzone and Mars Attacks. That's it, everything else is done.

DBX is probably pretty much entirely sculpted already, some of the KoW KS units are too, wouldn't surprise me if they had the entire abyssal army sorted by now.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Mantic already is slowing down, the DKH 4 Kickstarter was planned for late last year, but is now delayed until 2015.

As of right now, they only have to ship the second half of Deadzone and Mars Attacks. That's it, everything else is done.

Umm... the DreadBall 2.0 Kickstarter is just a month away. Hardly "slowing down".

That one will be pretty straightforward for them, I can't see it being bigger than the original DB KS, most likely on a par with Mars Attacks and around the $500k mark.

They are re-thinking their KS strategy with hard plastic in mind. From what I've heard, KoW 2.0 KS will have a lot of abyssal units in hard plastic, and only large infantry/ monsters characters etc. in restic. It will be an exercise in returning to the quality/ price points that the company used to have on its older ranges.

As for working in China, from the sounds of it it's pretty much Mantic staff, Chinese machines currently as they're flying a lot of their own people over to get it done right.

 scarletsquig wrote:
That one will be pretty straightforward for them, I can't see it being bigger than the original DB KS, most likely on a par with Mars Attacks and around the $500k mark.

That is still pretty big.

According to Kickstarter Stats, only 270 projects in the games category (which includes computer games) in the history of Kickstarter broke the US$ 100.000 mark. With 500.000 US$, they might well be in the top 100 Gaming-Kickstarter of all times. If they do break 1 Mill, they'd be in the Top 30 in Games (and in the top 100 of all Kickstarters across all categories in the entire history of Kickstarter).


https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats

 carlos13th wrote:
I wouldn't back another restic kick starter from mantic, maybe a hard plastic one but not restic.

Same here - no more Mantic 'restic' for me - at least not 'in bulk'.

 carlos13th wrote:


I hope they take the extra step in the future too and include labels and instructions in boxed games instead of a bunch of sprues and bags of bits thrown into a nice box.

Labels on the bags would have improved the situation for everyone from the people packing to ensure they got everything it to the customer.

Simple little steps that would have been incredibly helpful and useful...

...maybe next time?

I won't be holding my breath.

I most likely won't be backing any more restic KS campaigns either - at least, not beyond picking up a handful of miniatures at most here and there. But then, I'm a bit of a weird mutant here anyway - seeing as it will take me at least a couple of years to get all my Deadzone figures painted, I really shouldn't be buying any figures in any materials anymore. It's very likely that by the time I'm done with my current Deadzone haul, Mantic will be doing Deadzone II. Seeing as any Warpath KS is likely to spotlight the most vanilla factions in the Warpath universe first (FF, Corp, Asterians, Marauders) and leave the weird stuff I love out (Z'zor, Veer-myn, Nameless, Teratons really should get their own faction, dare I say Helfathers?) I doubt even the announcement of an imminent hard plastic Warpath KS would get me excited right now.

In that regard, Mantic's current plans suit me well. With no interest in Dreadball or Kings of War, I'm safe from temptation until 2015.

That said, I am a very satisfied Deadzone customer at this point.

Apologies to anyone who found my posts insulting; I assure you that it wasn't my intention. Attempting to allay fears completely backfired somehow. I wasn't telling anyone not to complain, just trying to make it clear that Mantic is doing everything that they can to solve problems; it's easy to mistake silence for indifference. Sorry again.

To explain my position. I'm a non--paid demo person for Mantic (pathfinder) although swooping around the internet and annoying/aiding people is also in my 'job description', as it were. I'm in regular contact with Mantic actual, and tend to be more in the loop than others, although not all this information is available to share. I can escalate things if needed - which does happen sometimes. Not too long ago I decided to just try to keep on top of Dakka more, as a matter of course. I can keep an eye on here (so that Mantic can worry about their emails) and also I can feed info back down to you - like the HP decision before survey 2 thing.

Anyway all that is completely OT, so I'll be quiet now .

 sukura636 wrote:
I wasn't telling anyone not to complain, just trying to make it clear that Mantic is doing everything that they can to solve problems;

That is demonstrably false. They are clearly not doing 'everything' because it is stupidly simple to implement a Customer relation system so all emails go through a single source, Email forms *ACTUALLY* work. People get confirmed receipt of emails with tracking numbers. Web-based tracking of the status of their request so they know it is not 'lost'. Ability to have further communications be tracked. All of these things are done by small companies which are MUCH MUCH MUCH smaller than mantic and it is low-hanging fruit to implement and would make administration on their site much easier than the communications disaster they are managing now. Every employee could find out the status easily.

Simply admit they are in over their heads with communications, announce they are implementing a CRS and spend a weekend entering in all current emails into it so people can track their issues.

In today's age, sending an email to a company/filling out an onlineform and getting ZERO RESPONSE for weeks with the expectation of 'we got it, don't worry' is madness and unacceptable. Considering communications was poor and unreliable a year ago when the KS were having small issues, it was a ticking timebomb for when large issues by another aspect of the company caused an issue and the failed communications process becomes more overwhelmed and broken than it is.

So you are 100% wrong in saying they are doing everything they can. That is a false statement. They are actually doing less than minimum by sending large numbers of orders out knowingly wrong to backers and retailers and simply hoping enough of the people throw up their hands due to indifference or ignorance to bother them for repairs. They are doing a good job making people lose hope due to lack of communications, I wonder how many people have given up already.

It is an easy problem to solve with time and money... and when you as a company make a mistake, your time and money are forfeit to make customers happy (especially when your business model is based upon people pre-paying for products via KS, goodwill is your lifeblood)

Don't you see this as a giant failure if they need some non-company shill like you to hand-pick legitimate issues from people who tried to get resolutions via official means and were ignored and have *YOU* escalate things to a resolution? why is mantic ignoring or failing to treat all official communications direct from people with the same respect of what some forum-trolling insider brings to them? Does this mean the only real way to get a speedy response is to be an insider or complain super loud online so they will 'silence' you by providing basic-level service? Do you see the problem your mere existence portrays to the internet? You claim that you have special avenues to get things resolved which breeds a feeling of the service being provided is worse than it may actually be...

But you are doing it for the attention, you like to exercise your clout as an 'insider' eh? Tell mantic to actually respond to EVERY EMAIL they get so people feel their emails are read, and will be acted upon even if there is nothing to report at this time. Then they may be doing 'slightly more' than bare minimal... not 'everything they can to actually solve problems'... Unless they don't actually consider disenfranchised customers with incomplete/damaged orders 'a problem'

Honestly not fussed over restic. I'd prefer hard plastic, but I just ordered sedition wars knowing it was essentially the same thing to pass time while I wait.

Looking forward to this apparently imminent update to see some sculpts/renders and so on.

 skrulnik wrote:
@Agnosto
Where are you getting this 70% from? A forum poll where most of the people who got everything didn't bother to respond?
I've had my stuff since before Christmas, and felt no need to post about it. I do not doubt that a considerable number of those like me merely haven't bothered to mention it.

You have issues with Mantic and how you feel you have been treated. I get that. But you are not their only customer.
I've seen you loudly proclaiming about how Mantic is ignoring you and giving you bad customer service.
Your experience has been poor, but that does not make Mantic this horrible failure of a company that you paint them to be.
It just means you had a bad experience.

@On topic.

I got in the Deadzone KS at the Strike Team level.
The entirety of the box game was in there.
Some of my add-ons weren't.
Anything that was missing was marked on the invoice that was in the box. All of that was marked as coming in shipment 2. Therefore I consider it to be satisfactory.

I was seriously impressed at the accuracy, considering how long it took me to sort things out and realize that everything the invoice had on it was accounted for in one way or another.

There were two quality issues I had. Recon was missing his dagger, and one of my 3A Plague was broken at the ankles.
I filled out the form and that was the end of it. Ball is in Mantic's court now. I don't need a constant flow of updates.

I highly doubt anyone will hear about replacement items until it is time for shipment 2 to roll out. Otherwise Mantic will incur even more cost.
I have no problem with that. They have given me no reason to believe that the missing items will not be taken care of.

Well, that's alright then, you got your stuff so the majority who haven't should just stfu. Ok. There are still backers who haven't received anything at all, not even a poorly sorted box but you got your stuff so Mantic is gold. There were 4,306 backers; that's hardly an army, especially when you consider that they knew what was coming and had plenty of time to prepare for it. No, they didn't get enough product to even get enough dice into everyone's hands (except retailers apparently). That is a logistics failure and has nothing to do with anything but poor business management. Any peon with a SAP system could have had this sorted before it even became an issue but Mantic is determined to cheap out in every arena possible, including customer experience. My wife does logistics for a living and she just laughed and shook her had when I recounted all the antics going on around the multiple kickstarters. No organization is perfect but you have to at least attempt to off-set known variables when planning an enterprise; I know from experience, I manage 10 federally funded programs that provide services to in excess of 10,000 students and employ more than 100 employees. Each one of these programs is a "ball" in the air that has to be juggled and the moment that communication breaks down, the balls start to fall and things start falling apart. Mantic has shown that they can't keep 1 ball in the air much less 4.

The sad thing is that there are people who are willing to take it. In what realm of possibility is it ok to ship an incomplete product to a customer? Why does Mantic get a pass and other companies don't? If Ford sells you a car that's missing a seat, do you just shake your head and say, "Gee, they'll sort it out eventually." No, you get upset and demand that it be corrected ASAP. Sure, we're not spending nearly as much on Mantic's resin crap but the principle is the same. Have you ever gone to the grocery and when you got home you realized that the cashier/sacker didn't bag your milk? How passive are you about that experience? Or if you're in a restaurant and you don't receive the meal that you ordered? You're spending much more on Mantic merchandise than the last two examples.

You mention the second survey and shipment 2. Ok, we have a not insignificant number of backers who do not have complete product from round one AND they're not going to make them whole until AFTER the second survey goes out. Stop and think about that for a moment. From a business perspective, what should take priority? Shilling more of your product or making people whole? Mollifying upset backers so they're willing to buy more of your product or just pushing ahead with pawning more of your wares (sight unseen no less)? The message this sends is that they could care less about the people that they have admitted to wronging; these people are the bottom priority and take a backseat to trying to milk more money out of a Kickstarter that they seem unable to control reasonably well enough to even insure delivery of purchased goods to paying customers.

Well, this attitude maybe alright with you but it is most certainly not alright with me and I'll continue to speak my piece until I'm made whole, receive everything I've paid for and walk away from the catastrophe that is the Mantic business model.

 scarletsquig wrote:
They are re-thinking their KS strategy with hard plastic in mind. From what I've heard, KoW 2.0 KS will have a lot of abyssal units in hard plastic, and only large infantry/ monsters characters etc. in restic. It will be an exercise in returning to the quality/ price points that the company used to have on its older ranges.

Until they decide to make them in metal without telling anyone first.

 Alpharius wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
I hope they take the extra step in the future too and include labels and instructions in boxed games instead of a bunch of sprues and bags of bits thrown into a nice box.

Labels on the bags would have improved the situation for everyone from the people packing to ensure they got everything it to the customer.

Simple little steps that would have been incredibly helpful and useful...

...maybe next time?

And maybe, for models that don't need to have separate heads, don't have separate heads. No piece should be that damned small.

So much whining over so very little.

I got an email receipt for my submission of the missing pieces form, and that's all I need for now. I don't need my hand held every minute of the day.

As for materials, I prefer hard plastic over restic, so as long as they stick to the hard plastic for basic units, restic for leaders/large units, I'm not fussed. I would think twice if it was an entire KoW army of restic though.

Agree. I can see doing dz teams in restic, but I'd cry if I had to do a dozen or more regiment trays out of restic.