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 Kroothawk wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Wut? The model looks like a GW Koot model.

Scan the thread: The photoshop pic using my avatar pic was made to troll me and belittle everyone criticizing Mantic.

It's a form of love. You can feel the love.

Okay, Joker will go back to Injustice...

 Kroothawk wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Wut? The model looks like a GW Koot model.

Scan the thread: The photoshop pic using my avatar pic was made to troll me and belittle everyone criticizing Mantic.

You can take solace in the fact that none of my kroot or any kroot I've seen in person have ever had mold lines like that.

My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.

I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.

I have a few questions about the Mars Attacks pledge manager, and I feel pretty confident that you guys are more likely to answer them than Mantic at the moment. (Besides, I already messaged them and they never got back to me.)


1. Will there be a 2nd survey, or is this the only one?

2. Are Corus's Bounty Hunters all aliens? Have we seen them yet?

3. All of the minis except for the saucer and stompy robot are Gears of War plastic, right?

4. Will all of the minis be available individually or in packs after the KS? For example, would I still be able to buy a box of Martians at retail, or would I have to buy the whole game to get them if I don't get them now?

5. What are the retail prices likely to be on boxes of troops or bugs? Do we have an idea yet?

Thanks.

 scarletsquig wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
And it's becoming clearer that Mantic is shutting itself off from normal communication channels, at least based on people's posts here.

What mantic should be doing is rolling out articles, videos, and podcasts that actually help people use their product. Examples:
1) a visual checklist for all parts, so backers can inventory their boxes
2) assembly guides, explaining what parts go where
3) Videos on the hot water method, gap filling, and other tricks to overcome the limits of restic

Instead, we hear about another bloody kickstarter. I'm getting tired of hoping the next stuff will be good. I want to make the best out of what I have, and I'd like it if Mantic did something to help that out.

1/2/3 are all so bloody obvious that it's a wonder why they haven't done them. It also appears that James has dropped off the radar, but I'm sure he'll magically reappear when it's KS time again.

So, everyone missed the post where I pointed out that they've already done 1) and 3) with a link to the former and a great big embedded video for the latter?

Fabulous!

And a good thing that video is so accessible from their webpage. I mean, you wouldn't want to have to follow them on facebook/youtube or mine forum posts to find it if you'd just purchased DeadZone from a retailer, right?

 CptJake wrote:
Can you link me to the visual checklist for DreadBall season 3?
That way when they finally unscrew themselves and send me my missing items I'll know what is in those poorly packed unlabeled bags.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Unfortunately there isn't one for dreadball, you'll probably get a hefty pile of metal all in one bubblewrap bag as per the KoW KS.

I guess everyone missed my DreadBall questions a few pages ago where I asked about the same for DB, or if I'd have to play "guess what the figures in this bag are supposed to be"?

I'll give them limited credit for doing it for Deadzone, but it's not in the boxes and again is pretty well hidden in KS comments. And, you know "sorry none for the previous KS, so suck it up bitches" isn't a great look either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Polonius wrote:

I'd let them get their heads above water and resubmit. It'd be ideal if they would respond quicker, but at this point I'd worry about trying to get a good response.

 BrookM wrote:
Maybe they should get their gak sorted out first before jumping into another KS project..

As Brook rightly points out - they're not interested in getting their heads above water. Issues with previous KS get ignored because they're too busy preparing/pimping/recovering from the next KS campaign.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I have a few questions about the Mars Attacks pledge manager, and I feel pretty confident that you guys are more likely to answer them than Mantic at the moment. (Besides, I already messaged them and they never got back to me.)


1. Will there be a 2nd survey, or is this the only one?

2. Are Corus's Bounty Hunters all aliens? Have we seen them yet?

3. All of the minis except for the saucer and stompy robot are Gears of War plastic, right?

4. Will all of the minis be available individually or in packs after the KS? For example, would I still be able to buy a box of Martians at retail, or would I have to buy the whole game to get them if I don't get them now?

5. What are the retail prices likely to be on boxes of troops or bugs? Do we have an idea yet?

Thanks.

1. This is the only one
2. Yes and no
3. As far as I'm aware, yes, though I think the Dreadball team might be in restic or metal if demand is low.
4. Pretty sure they were planning to sell blisters, but can't tell you for sure. The only thing i'm certain of is that the Dreadball team will be available for sale alongside the normal ones.
5. The Alien Abduction pack is "roughly 50% off MSRP" collectively, but it doesn't say what everything is individually

I asked in the KS comments when the DB team was announced and they assured me plastic.

 GrimDork wrote:
My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.

I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.

I've had exactly the same experience with both products.

 Baragash wrote:
I asked in the KS comments when the DB team was announced and they assured me plastic.

And Mantic have never changed material without telling backers before shipping them .... Oh wait
I'm expecting the Dreadball Martians to be metal unless they are hugely popular.

I have to say this is Mantic's worst survey yet very confusing to use it's throwing up lots of questions on the KS with no response yet from Mantic they really need to stop using google docs and invest in a proper pledge manager now that they are 5 KS in with more to come

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Those Blaine mouldlines really aren't that bad, in comparison to others I have seen on Restic. I still have my copy of Sedition Wars sitting in the box, after seeing the mouldlines on those figures. Just the sheer hours it would taketo clean the basic boxed set figures is discouraging to me, and I am a veteran of metal minis for years and years.

Well, that and the rules. At least the Deadzone rules are playable.

Many people binned their Sedition Wars rather than deal with those mold lines... I am so, very, over restic...

The lines on Blaine look pretty bad, imo...

Are the asterians primarily hard plastic? I am trying to decide if I should keep my pledge in them or swap them for something else?

I don't think Mantic can answer what is going to be plastic, restic, or metal yet.

 carlos13th wrote:
Are the asterians primarily hard plastic? I am trying to decide if I should keep my pledge in them or swap them for something else?

The original announcement way, way back when Enforcers were first said to be in HP, also listed Asterian Cyphers as getting the treatment, but I've not seen anything since then. Given that they're generally not 'organic' shapes but more straight edges and gentle curves, I think they're still a good bet to be on sprues.

I've been in on a starter & booster bundle for Asterians since day 1 (well, the day they were announced anyway). Hard plastic would be great, but I'll be fine with them in restic. The same factors that make them more likely to be in hard plastic also mean I wouldn't mind them in restic, as the lines would be easy to remove from the majority of their bodies. It would make it unlikely I'd ever expand them into a Warpath-capable force though.

 scarletsquig wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.

I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.

I've had exactly the same experience with both products.

Interestingly my Corporation, Veer-Myn, Orc Gore Riders had almost no mold lines at all.

Yeah I briefly considered not doing the lines on my marines, they were kind of hard to see.

 GrimDork wrote:
Yeah I briefly considered not doing the lines on my marines, they were kind of hard to see.

After you convinced me to buy some Corporation I went a bit ape-gak and now I own three one-player starters, an army box, an extra box of rangers, and the corporation officer. I think that gives me 50 marines, 50 rangers, 10 veterans, 12 heavy weapon teams, and the officer...
I also found that they are a perfect match, scale-wise, with Khurasan's Federal army infantry. http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/28mmscifi.html so I'm thinking they'll be OpFor...

 judgedoug wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
My retail sedition wars box definitely has mold lines, but I wouldn't say that they're bad or anything. I think the strain are kind of hard to do given the shapes of them but I certainly won't complain about them.

I think the most minor restic mold lines I've had so far were on the contents of my corporation army box. They were a pain to clean, but they were pretty minimal.

I've had exactly the same experience with both products.

Interestingly my Corporation, Veer-Myn, Orc Gore Riders had almost no mold lines at all.

Judgedoug, I love your posts man, but I'm inclined to believe scarletsquig's review a bit more- you both love Mantic, but he seems more willing to acknowledge the faults of the company / their products as well as their strengths.

I have, for the most part, only seen you post positive reviews... about any company you deal with, really. This makes it hard for me to tell if you're just really lucky in the batches of models you receive, or if you're just very generous towards the companies that you support.

Mold lines on restic are a common complaint and if that Blaine pic is any indication, it is still going to be a huge issue with Deadzone as well:



This isn't like cleaning mold lines off of hard plastic, and while you may respond "It's easy" that's simply not what I've heard from the vast majority of those who have dealt with it, as well as my own experience with Privateer Press restic.

As long as Mantic stays with restic, it will be a huge red flag for me, and I'll need to see models in-person before risking them. I have made an exception to this with the bugs from the MA campaign, and I hope they turn out well... and I also got their Obsidian Golems previously. But for small / lithe models that are more human sized, the kinds of mold lines pictured above on a restic model are a complete non-starter for me... and for many people.

My experience of the Corporation and Gore Riders is the same as judgedoug's, very minimal mould lines.

All of the pre-KS restic has been better than the post-KS restic from what I've seen. Dreadball and Deadzone seem to have shipped with much heavier flash. KoW stuff wasn't too bad.

With deadzone the worst thing is the double mould lines on some pieces due to the more complex tooling required.

Well, I must have misread your post, then! I won't edit the above, though, as the mold lines on that figure are not what I would call "minimal"...

 scarletsquig wrote:
All of the pre-KS restic has been better than the post-KS restic from what I've seen.

What does this mean?

Edit: And this is still my problem with Mantic, not knowing what is good or not unless I keep tabs on a thread like this... the art usually looks fantastic but if the casts will (or if the batch that I get will, etc) seems to be a real unknown most of the time until things have already shipped

I want to like them... I really do...

The restic kits that Mantic made before using kickstarter have less flash than the ones funded via kickstarter.

Stuff like revenant cavalry, wraiths, gore riders, corporation marines etc. is generally alright.

I think there has been some rushed production recently due to the higher volume needed to meet the large KS orders on time.

Ugh... well, that seriously sucks...

Certainly my Wraiths were waaaaaaaaaaay better than any of the KS stuff, I haven't really looked at my Rev Cav.

So, apparently I misunderstood the above post earlier, and this is the reality of the situation:

-Restic made before KS (or at least, the recent few KS campaigns) was of good quality and had few mold lines
-Restic made after KS (or at least, the recent few KS campaigns) has much greater mold lines, even double mold lines

My apologies to judgedoug for misunderstanding that... but we are left in the same place, that Mantic's new releases have quality problems that their original releases didn't . They do not seem to be learning... if most Deadzone models look like that, I can't imagine their surviving the fallout (or at least being able to be taken seriously by most gamers who have seen their releases).

It is worse than them not learning, it is them learning the wrong lessons. As SS mentions, they are rushing production and so the QC is gak and the shipped product is gak.

But, Mantic is learning that KS will give them a quick and LARGE injection of capital and that gak QC and gak product don't matter, as each KS still brings in the bucks.

So, they are learning, they are learning that they can feth the customers over and over and over.

 CptJake wrote:

So, they are learning, they are learning that they can feth the customers over and over and over.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. I'm no fan of the mold lines on the two factions I've built so far, but I still feel that the Strike Force pledge was a great deal. I got what I pledged for, on time, and in useable, if difficult to assemble, condition. Everybody's reaction is their own, and even I will have to rethink backing anything Mantic does in restic going forward, but I don't consider myself taken advantage of.

That DZ was a good deal does not excuse the current lapse in customer service, nor does it turn a promising but flawed product into a good product. It's just not a failure or screwjob.

 RiTides wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

Interestingly my Corporation, Veer-Myn, Orc Gore Riders had almost no mold lines at all.

Judgedoug, I love your posts man, but I'm inclined to believe scarletsquig's review a bit more- you both love Mantic, but he seems more willing to acknowledge the faults of the company / their products as well as their strengths.

I have, for the most part, only seen you post positive reviews... about any company you deal with, really. This makes it hard for me to tell if you're just really lucky in the batches of models you receive, or if you're just very generous towards the companies that you support.

I was saying "interestingly" because I also have the same experience that the retail-released restic stuff has generally been of higher quality than the Ks-releases stuff. I would pin that down to Chinese rush jobs and Mantic lacking good QC during fulfillment (which is probably why they replace bad models no questions asked).

Hmm, perhaps I don't post enough negative reviews? I hate Mantic's Abyssal Dwarf and Twilight Kin plasic/metal combos, straight up. I'm disappointed in their goblins because the army could have been the best goblins on the market (they are my favorite goblin designs, or at least tied with Red Box Games' goblins), but the plastics turned out pretty bad but I was able to turn my models into an army I like (which I do have a huge army of them due to the KoW KS). Uhh... the trolls made me sad. So did the Basileans, so I used Confrontation figures for that army. Some of my Dreadball stuff was crappy, and I recently cursed Manchu by giving him my extra Teraton team and he's been spending hours scraping away restic mold lines and swearing. I hope that Mantic's new hard plastics are good, but I honestly doubt they will be as fantastic as their original undead and elf sprues, but it's not like my patience is wearing thin or anything... if Mantic makes something I don't like, I don't buy it.... if they make something I like, I will. But I'm not one of those gamers that's beholden to a company, and 'official' miniatures are always secondary to my concerns of a good game to play. Hell I played a game of Kings of War this past weekend using my English Civil War Parliamentarian New Model Army figures, haha, and I recently bought Perry DAK for use in Bolt Action. For instance, the armies I'm working on for Kings of War are a Cult of Set army composed of Gamezone and Mierce models and then a Helsvakt Horde army composed of Red Box Games and Mierce models...three of my favorite miniatures companies in the world. The armies have no Mantic models (actually the Cult of Set uses the metal Mantic Elf archers as I really like those sculpts). If Warpath winds up being good, I have Urban War Viridians, Pig Iron, Copplestone, Khurusan Federal, SST Skinnies, and now yes Mantic Corporation to use - otherwise those figures will continue to be used in Tomorrow's War, Stargrunt II, or my own homebrew sci fi ruleset. I bought into Deadzone specifically to get loads of future terrain (especially for Judge Dredd) and lots of Enforcers (again for generic sci fi gaming) and it's a really really nice bonus that the rules are good and the models I got are actually nice. Shrug. I like what I like so I'll use what I like however I like

I'm also not inclined to buy crap... so there's not many negative reviews for me to post about! And I guess I've been really lucky with Mantic stuff, or it's just that usually the people who review things online are the ones that have had a bad experience with that product or service, and since I'm fairly active and don't have a lot of negative things to say then it sounds like I'm a water carrier or fanboy or whatever.

 Polonius wrote:


That DZ was a good deal does not excuse the current lapse in customer service, nor does it turn a promising but flawed product into a good product. It's just not a failure or screwjob.

Interesting, you call it a flawed product and a lapse in customer service, but say it is not a failure or screw up. I guess in my mind flawed product and lapse in customer service is a prime example of failure and screw up.

 CptJake wrote:
Interesting, you call it a flawed product and a lapse in customer service, but say it is not a failure or screw up. I guess in my mind flawed product and lapse in customer service is a prime example of failure and screw up.

I think there's a room on the continuum of "non-perfect" for both "totally garbage/waste of money" and "flawed."

I should have been clearer, in that while lousy QC and absent customer service are failures, I don't think the DZ kickstarter, or DZ as a whole, are failures.

I think the project/product, as a whole, is fun game with characterful models that was a good deal for the sweetspot pledge. It's a mixed bag, as successes go, when you make a game that people enjoy, with minis that people like painting, it's hard to say that mantic is trying to "feth the customers over and over and over."

Well although I have only assembled a single Commando so far, I did open every bag to check for parts and I don't think Blaine is representative of my batch in general.

The Goblin Artillery makes Blaine look like a great cast (an issue others seem to have had too), but there wasn't anything else that immediately jumped out at me. Overall I think the batch was better than what I got for Dreadball.

YMMV ofc.

To elaborate on my point, I think that kickstarters (or human endeavors of any sort, really) can succeed overall despite some failures, and fail overall despite some successes. It's often complicated because every person's reaction is going to be different, based on their own expectations and experience.

I've backed a decent number of kickstarters, and DZ is right now in the lower half, but I'd call it a qualified success. The KoW kickstarter, in all honesty, was a fiasco to me. Some great looking models, a lot of crappy looking models, and mostly stuff I won't use, regardless. I don't feel cheated, but I do wish I could have my pledge back instead of the models they delivered.

On the other hand, some kickstarters are pure success, like the machined dice kickster. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/124127689/precision-machined-dice It delivered on time, the product was exactly as promised, and I love what I got. It was, admittedly, a modest kickstarter, but it was also done by a single college student, not an established company.

A bigger Kickstarter that, while delayed, was an unqualified success was reaper bones. I loved what I got, and I know they used the money for actual capital.

So, I can see some people calling DZ a failure, if they find the quality of minis so low as to unusable, or they haven't gotten their pledge yet. I would respectfully disagree, but I wouldn't call it a tremendous success, either.