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 Alpharius wrote:
Try to affect the thread more positively then - adding in complaints about complaints isn't going to help much, whereas adding in on topic posts will.

But yet nothing is done about it. Maybe saying something about moving it to general instead of complaining about the people complaining about the people....

NTRabbit wrote:
It's be funny if it wasn't bloody annoying trying to read around the same few people talking about the same thing everyone else has gotten over or moved into a new phase of discussion on from the same few people in any given thread every day.

IRONY!

Actual question: which is supposed to be shipped first? MA KS or Deadzone part 2? I put extra DZ terrain on my MA survey since it ends first, thinking that mean it would ship first. If I'm wrong, is it still possible to change that around?

DZ2 is supposed to ship first.

I'm not sure you can change it around (easily). At least the MA survey says to 'only submit once' or something like that (have not opened the DZ one yet but I assume it has similar instructions).

 carlos13th wrote:
I think thats a big problem with Mantic is that they are always to busy for reasons yet charge onwards with the next kick starter anyway. Mars attacks is their most recent kick starter I think they should fix all the problems with the previous 3 before they move onto the next one.

This is something that worries me as I only at the moment like Kings of War, but the company is just barreling forward with more and more kickstarters to fund different things, and then coming back around later. As a potential customer (I've only bought the rulebook so far) this is distressing because it doesn't give me confidence that they will support a range beyond the initial investment, and doesn't instill confidence that they can exist without kickstarters. IMO a kickstarter is just that, to get a project rolling not to keep it going.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
I think thats a big problem with Mantic is that they are always to busy for reasons yet charge onwards with the next kick starter anyway. Mars attacks is their most recent kick starter I think they should fix all the problems with the previous 3 before they move onto the next one.

This is something that worries me as I only at the moment like Kings of War, but the company is just barreling forward with more and more kickstarters to fund different things, and then coming back around later. As a potential customer (I've only bought the rulebook so far) this is distressing because it doesn't give me confidence that they will support a range beyond the initial investment, and doesn't instill confidence that they can exist without kickstarters. IMO a kickstarter is just that, to get a project rolling not to keep it going.

KoW was around for several years in public playtesting before the hardcover came out, followed by two supplements. Or do you mean Dreadball and Deadzone? DB just had a non-KS supplement get released (or about to be released)... Deadzone hasn't had it's official retail release yet

Both Dreadball and Deadzone would have existed without Kickstarter. There was a retail release planned for Dreadball before Mantic figured out that Kickstarter was good... it involved restic corp and marauder teams, metal ref and metal forgefather/veer-myn teams... and nothing else.

Only, they'd have mostly been metal ranges rather than restic and the deadzone terrain probably would have been limited to core worlds and nothing else.

While they don't necessarily require kickstarter, it is the difference between them being a medium-sized company vs. a garage company.

In previous years it was the difference between metal and restic releases... this year it should mean the difference between restic and hard plastic releases.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
I think thats a big problem with Mantic is that they are always to busy for reasons yet charge onwards with the next kick starter anyway. Mars attacks is their most recent kick starter I think they should fix all the problems with the previous 3 before they move onto the next one.

This is something that worries me as I only at the moment like Kings of War, but the company is just barreling forward with more and more kickstarters to fund different things, and then coming back around later. As a potential customer (I've only bought the rulebook so far) this is distressing because it doesn't give me confidence that they will support a range beyond the initial investment, and doesn't instill confidence that they can exist without kickstarters. IMO a kickstarter is just that, to get a project rolling not to keep it going.

I'm in two minds. I think Mantic is actually doing a fairly good job of supporting their product lines - these are either stand-alone boardgames (Dwarf King's Hold, Pandora), expandable boardgames (Dreadball), skirmish games (Deadzone, Mars Attacks) and war games (Kings of War, Warpath).

- Dreadball has had 12 teams released for it, a host of special characters and a multiplayer variant using a different board and rules. There are plans for a sequel game. I think this is comparable to the amount of support that Bloodbowl saw, and over a much more compressed time frame.

- Dead Zone has 6 factions produced for it, each with a large number of unique sculpts and model types, along with 4 different terrain types and a host of extras like co-op and scenarios. In my mind, this is equivalent to well over a year's worth of normal spread-out releases.

- Kings of War has had the core armies expanded massively, and the Kickstarter allowed the creation of a couple of new ones. Again, I'd say this represented well over a year of normal releases.

- Warpath is definitely lacking support, but is not yet a full product line.

I'd argue that Kickstarters (specifically overfunded Kickstarters) have enabled the above products to receive substantially better support than the standard 'one or two new releases a month' pattern seen through traditional funding.

Conversely, I do believe that Kickstarters have had a negative impact on how aspects of Mantic are run - I'm certain that the KS funding is indeed put directly into just creating models, but 1) the sheer rush of production has seen some issues with quality, 2) the volume and variety of product to be shipped from these is greater than the staff of a small hobby company is really equipped to deal with, and Mantic has not expanded quickly enough, and 3) customer service has similarly not been scaled up in proportion, especially with the small gaps they're leaving between Kickstarters.

I believe the customer service issue is particularly pronounced because: i) the Kickstarters have all allowed a large amount of customisation, and often involved hundreds of multipart kits per order, ii) the restic material means lots of fragile & loose little bits in bags, and iii) the surveys being used are not really up to snuff, meaning potentially multiple re-submissions per backers.

Anecdotally, my only dealing with Mantic customer service was the 1st wave of the KoW Kickstarter, when the shipping of my package was a bit late - I received a very prompt reply apologising, and my order was sent with a few extra metal characters and upgrade bits. Completely satisfied.

I don't mind mantic doing kickstarters I just think they should slow them down to a rate they can manage professionally. The quality of their product and their customer service seems to have been greatly reduced in light of them trying to juggle so many kickstarters.

Have the fully deleivered everything for LOKA? Because atm people are still waiting on corrections from dreadball, corrections and second survey from Deadzone, First wave from Mars attacks. They are clearly struggling to keep up with all that in a way that is satisfying to customers yet are dong another kickstarer this month.

I can't help but agree.

I know Dreadball Extreme is supposed to be a 'small' kickstarter but still... I've not finished assembling my Dreadball season 3 items yet.

Just noticed these on the new Mantic instagram account

Whats' Dave building?

http://instagram.com/p/jZYxSwR0IV/
http://instagram.com/p/jZNOUZx0JV/

Dreadball extreme pitch/stadium I imagine. Probably prison themed.

Interesting that the DBX pitch is square.

You all are more versed than I am in the resin figures market, so I thought I'd ask your opinion. Is $20 a good price for a resin-cast vehicle like the Goblin Stuntbot or Enforcer on motorbike? Should I expect retail prices for those vehicles to be much higher than $20 after discounts, or about the same?

You can already go pay 20-30 bucks for one of Privateer's Heavy kits, made of the same basic stuff that Mantic seems to be using, and which I would assume are probably about the size of an Iron Ancestor.

An average Mierce creature of roughly the same size costs between 28- 50 depending on where you find one, and those are all resin.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
An average Mierce creature of roughly the same size costs between 28- 50 depending on where you find one, and those are all resin.

That would seem to indicate that the Goblin Stuntbot and Enforcer Cycle, both of which will be all resin, are well-priced at $20 each.

overtyrant wrote:
I didn't want this thread deleted just move the constant complaining to mantic general as I constantly have to dredge through all that gak to get to somes news, quite frankly it's starting to put me off Dakka..

Do you have a problem with just the negative posts about ongoing Mantic endeavors (i.e., news)? Or is your problem that there is a discussion on a discussion board, and not a monotone statement of updates? Because if it's the latter, that's what Tabletop Gaming News and other websites are for. Heck, almost all of the news in this thread is reposted from the Mantic newsletter and the Mantic blog, so why not cut out the middle man?

Has Mantic addressed the now open cockpit on the Strider? I'm sure it'd be easy to convert it to be closed again, but I'm just curious about that decision.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
I didn't want this thread deleted just move the constant complaining to mantic general as I constantly have to dredge through all that gak to get to somes news, quite frankly it's starting to put me off Dakka..

Do you have a problem with just the negative posts about ongoing Mantic endeavors (i.e., news)? Or is your problem that there is a discussion on a discussion board, and not a monotone statement of updates? Because if it's the latter, that's what Tabletop Gaming News and other websites are for. Heck, almost all of the news in this thread is reposted from the Mantic newsletter and the Mantic blog, so why not cut out the middle man?

It's the constant complaining (I.e., not news) page after page that I have to trawl through to find the news and intresting discussions. If I was a new user here and came to view this or one of the GW threads I would take one look and hop on out of here. Actually now I come to think about it there is an ignore button I can use which I forgot about!

Although the monobiker had some issues, I'd like to see more of the mobile scout look for the Enforcers, maybe a little more undisciplined as they operate on the frontier, a bit like the Infinity Haqqislam bikers.

It really is a great look, in fact I think N32-19 is my favourite mini out of the entire kickstarter, just a great dynamic sculpt that really gives the impression of him having been operating behind enemy lines for some time.

A whole unit of recon enforcers in hard plastic (or even just restic, with loads of sculpt variety + not a million tiny seperate parts) would be great, and provide a nice alternative to GW's pretty crappy squarejaw plastic scouts (the metal sculpts that preceded them were so much better!).

Yeah, a Recon unit would be awesome. They would also serve a good purpose in game, giving the Enforcers a potentially cheaper, light-armoured unit specialising the point-fire rather than blazeaway. Basically, toned-down N32s.

 Vermonter wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
An average Mierce creature of roughly the same size costs between 28- 50 depending on where you find one, and those are all resin.

That would seem to indicate that the Goblin Stuntbot and Enforcer Cycle, both of which will be all resin, are well-priced at $20 each.

That's correct - resin quality is of course variable (and I've not bought anything from Mantic in the material), but I've been assured that Mantic's stuff is quite good, and this is substantially cheaper than retail resin pieces. Like Kingdom Death Kickstarter prices for resin were $25 for a single 28mm model, Studio Mcvey seems to be about $15-25 for a single 28mm-35mm model (the pricier ones coming on scenic bases. I'd bet that these will be substantially cheaper than retail.

Although by the by, resin casting is partly expensive due to labour costs, which means that you can get some nicely-priced high quality pieces out of China, like Darkhammer: http://shop.darkhammerminiature.com/product/darkhammer-luxury-sets

 carlos13th wrote:
Dreadball extreme pitch/stadium I imagine. Probably prison themed.

All part of their current internet-treasure hunt

After the weekend, we'll be revealing the rather exciting DreadBall Xtreme preview site... but if you're clever, you can get there early! We put a trail of breadcrumbs around the internet, and if you follow them you should be able to find it! The final clues are released today...

If you want a good place to start, I'll give you a hint - one of our blog posts this week gave a fair bit of information away!

Best of luck, and please don't just give away the answer if you've found it - the fun is in the chase!

Yep the treasure hunt has been solved there is a letter hidden in that twitter image I managed to find it this morning.

The DBX teaser site is live not much to see really guess they will add more later.

They will issue the proper URL on Monday but they've asked that it be kept secret for the weekend to let people continue with the treasure hunt so I won't reveal it at least.

Don't bother. The teaser says nothing of interest.

Those Darkhammer sets are excellent, Bioptic, thanks for linking them. I actually like their style quite a bit more than I do Mierce's. Mierce sculptors are obviously well-trained and have a classical command of human anatomy, but to me some of their sculpts end up looking a bit like a Bernini-styled human body with, say, a rhino head stuck on top. In other words, some of their sculpts flow together, some seem a bit of a mish-mash. I know they have their fierce adherents, but since I'm only speaking for myself here, I'm not looking to have an argument about my personal taste. I do love some of Mierce's work. The one figure of theirs that I own so far is Brunchaath the Vile, which is one of the very best beastmen I've seen.

I hope Darkhammer will consider branching out into sci-fi someday. That's actually one area where GW have a leg up on Mantic. If you want to throw some cool fantasy figures into your sci-fi campaign, in 40K, hey! Presto! They're chaos demons. In the Mantic universe, they'd just look stupidly out-of-place (and without magic, stupidly outmatched with their swords and bows and whatnot).

Shame on Darkhammer for false advertising, though. "The Monk with Thousand-Hand" only comes with six!


Wait a minute - the treasure hunt's big conclusion / revelation is just that Dreadball Extreme is getting a teaser website? Where's the excitement in that? Isn't there supposed to be a treasure involved in a treasure hunt, or at least a tidbit of news we weren't expecting?

 AlexHolker wrote:
Don't bother. The teaser says nothing of interest.

Agreed.

Though the work people went through to find it is kinda insane.

Looks like they're ramping up the DBX teaser stuff now and the KS is just a couple of weeks away, so I've gone ahead and made a thread for it that collates all the info on the web that I'm aware of:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/578776.page

Feel free to add anything I've missed though, I feel like I should be remembering what the fourth team is besides convicts, asterians, forgefathers.. rebs, most likely?