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I like the comparison of Mantic Peacekeepers to DFG Valkir, and of course GW Termies. It looks as though, if you like the aesthetic, DFG is the best all round option by a substantial margin. Though I like the peacekeepers, with the Valkir just around the corner it's hard to rationalise them as a non-warpath player given Mantics problems with plastic, and the lack of options is a big problem for me. Maybe one sprue of five for Deadzone, that's it. The Valkir with the 3 different kits (and Mark mentioned the possibility of an accessory kit too, like the stormtrooper one), WGF high quality plastic and the abundance of options in DFG kits is very compelling.

Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.

Only if the pks come with 4 sprues including full melee kit and accessories. The gw kit is pricy but it *does* have a lot of goodies.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.

Not really. Termies are always available cheap since they've been in the last two starter sets. I certainly wouldn't pay that much for 5 hard plastic models from a non-GW company.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.

There's no way they're going to cost that much. Maybe for 10 Peacekeepers, no chance in hell for just 5.

It's interesting to see the different perspectives of those that compare to GW, and those that have spent more time away from GW and buying other stuff though. The baseline changes.

If the renders are a great indication of how the Peacekeepers will turn out, like the zombies were, I expect many 40k players who aren't adverse to using other companies' models will drop regular termies for these in a heartbeat. I am kinda bummed still about the loss of the claws, but everything else sounds good to me so far. And hard plastic enforcers will do naughty things to my wallet too. Hehe

Yeah I am another person who wants good value. Not good value compared to GW.

Well like I said, it depends if they want to play "slightly cheaper than GW" or price their models more in line with the rest of the non-GW, non "not-GW" industry...

 Azazelx wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.

Not really. Termies are always available cheap since they've been in the last two starter sets. I certainly wouldn't pay that much for 5 hard plastic models from a non-GW company.

I meant versus the main boxed set. A set I have never bought due to prices, by the way.

There's no way they're going to cost that much. Maybe for 10 Peacekeepers, no chance in hell for just 5.

It's interesting to see the different perspectives of those that compare to GW, and those that have spent more time away from GW and buying other stuff though. The baseline changes.

$35 would be a good price if you are trying to steal the business of people who are paying twenty dollars more for what you are approximating.

Frankly I would not buy them for that price, but there is no way they will be priced as low as some people are wishing*.

*I will be very happy to be wrong, though.

Why would they charge more than Ogres? Ogres are restic and have about the same number of options/lack of options. Hard plastic should be cheaper than similar size restic. That said, this will be the true test of whether Mantic wants to go with the GW, pay for utlility/coolness not material, pricing.

$35 rrp for 5 peacekeepers and people will just keep buying discounted GW termies if that's the reason they're buying them. Grey Knight termies have an absolute ton of extras and a huge number of weapons comparably and I can buy them all day long for $42, shipping included, on ebay. $7 is well worth the entire extra sprue of bits, weapons, heads, arms, etc. Not to mention you can pose GW figues any way that you like. Pardon me, I'm going to have to go puke because I'm starting to sound like a GW fan.

I Mantic cheaping out with no shields and no cc weapons is any indication; we're looking at the peacekeepers just having 2 special/heavy weapons, maybe an extra head or two and that's it. Not to mention that the bodies look monopose in the renders so short of heavy modding, you're stuck with a unit with zero character. I'm not saying this is a bad thing but the difference between the two kits would be worth $7 if you care about what your minis look like and can afford it.

If you're buying them just to play deadzone or warpath, disregard the above but the price comparison still stands. Most people have no problem paying for extras.

I have a tendency to gloss over things, but are you trying to compare your $42 shipped grey knight terminators to the hypothetical $35 peacekeepers directly? That seems rather far from fair, you can get mantic stuff at 20% or better off just as easily as you can GW, and hell mantic will often give you the discount themselves if you order in bulk via the army sets (not that you can't also get those and discounted at internet retailers too). A bit more fair would be to adjust the hypothetical PK cost to 28 (80% rrp) and then whatever it is you're paying to get your GK's shipped (unless your retailer only does GW and has particularly phenomenal shipping rates, which they might for all I know).

I realize your argument will stand just as easily if we compare the 42 shipped to what would probably be 32-33 shipped? But it seems a bit unfair to assume a discount for one product and none for the other, doesn't it? I mean, for the supposed $10 difference, I may well be inclined to order the GW terminators as well (although I really don't like grey knight aesthetic, regardless I agree with you on the value).

$10 for 5 now makes it seem far more likely they'll be $20-$25 for 5 in the Mantic store at most, and then retailer discounts on top of that for the smart shopper.

They did say that they're just under 50% of retail priced at $10, and if anything Mantic has been accused of overstating the final RRP to exaggerate the amount of discount you get in the Kickstarter.

I made a mess of the comparison but yeah, discount to discount, I'll probably take more options /extras and pay more for it.

I know not everyone is interested in GW stand-ins but there's value in being able to customize your models and extras/options on the sprue. I think Mantic should send a message with their first hard plastic SciFi product that barebones isn't going to be the way forward.....unless of course it is.

Note, I may be off-base here because I can't remember if any of the existing warpath kits are hard plastic. I recall something about forefathers and marauders being based on the fantasy kits.

Hell, I would buy weapon/accessory sprues separately if they made them, even if the cost wasn't as nice as I'd like... I just love having extra bits around for conversions. I think other gamers do to, and while offering parred down kits grants maximum efficiency at quickly and economically generating an army... a lot of us are used to loads of extras and it's a bit of a bitter pill to swallow to not get them.

Forgefathers steel warriors and marauder grunts are based on the fantasy kits. The way it works for the dwarfs is that there are 4 kits that use the same half sprue of legs, melee dwarfs, rifle/crossbow dwarfs, steel warriors.. uhh crap now I forget. Anyway... It doesn't look so hot. The fantasy dwarfs are fine on their own, but the fantasy legs have leather boots, chainmail bits, and a definitely-not-scifi dagger on them. Or it's a cloak, that one isn't quite as bad. I have a bunch of the dwarfs and forge fathers, and I still like them to an extent.. they kind of grow on you... but you can't call them good by any means. They're renedra sprues I think, but that's all you can really say for them :p I think the grunts are pretty close, maybe it's the whole torso and you just add the arms and heads or something, but similar to the dwarfs.

I don't think it was necessarily a horrible idea in theory, but i'm pretty sure they just nabbed fantasy dwarf legs and orcs after the fact, rather than making a neutral leg/orc sprue that was a bit more ambiguous and easier to integrate for either army. I am no mantic lore expert, however, so any of the above could be wrong (as far as why they did things, I have some of each of the models on hand for physical reference)

I'm not sure where they plan to head in terms of goodies on the sprue/in the box. Their fantasy elves and skeletons/revenants have a lot of cool stuff on the sprue. The undead rat/dog and elven cat, the dead elf/skeleton pile, rising skeleton, either spare spears/swords for the skeletons, arrows set in the ground for the elves... etc. The zombie and ghoul sprues have some, but not as much extra, and obviously the new scifi zombie sprue has a bit extra, probably a little more than the fantasy zombie sprue, but not approaching the skeletons or elves.

So I'm guessing this $35 price point is just imagination and speculation right, or have I missed something?

As it stands the only confirmed price we know is $10 for 5 for Kickstarter backers, and that it could be approx 50% off of retail, correct?

Knowing the size of Mantic sprues - must fit in their white clamshell cases - my speculation is there will be one sprue of bodies and heads, and one sprue of weapon arms, and they will be sold as Peacekeeper Shooter Dudes or whatever; and then later on they'll tool a sprue of close combat arms and include them with the body sprue to make Peacekeepers With Beatin' Sticks as a separate product sku.

@judgedoug the $35 dollar price point was something that aegisgrim suggested he would still be happy buying them for. I think the general consensus is something more along the lines of 20-25 dollars for 5 peace keepers, and I think the way you've described the sprues is likely.

These guys are bigger though, they could go into the wider mantic case and afford an extra sprue or two... Would need a wider mantic case to comfortably situate their bases anyway.

 judgedoug wrote:
So I'm guessing this $35 price point is just imagination and speculation right, or have I missed something?

As it stands the only confirmed price we know is $10 for 5 for Kickstarter backers, and that it could be approx 50% off of retail, correct?

Knowing the size of Mantic sprues - must fit in their white clamshell cases - my speculation is there will be one sprue of bodies and heads, and one sprue of weapon arms, and they will be sold as Peacekeeper Shooter Dudes or whatever; and then later on they'll tool a sprue of close combat arms and include them with the body sprue to make Peacekeepers With Beatin' Sticks as a separate product sku.

I think NTRabbit and Scarlet Squig probably the price point pretty close so I could see it 5 for $20 or $25, so $4 or $5 per mini. With discount, we're eventually looking at $16 to $19 per 5. Ogres are going for $18 for 6 at Miniature Market right now and use the same base size (but round square). So....

They'll have to do better on regular troopers to beat dreamforge at 20 for A discounted $31.50 for those great stormtroopers which come with tons of options, are posable and are hard plastic... I can't recall what the heavy troops (Valkyr?) will sell at but may be cheaper than the peacekeepers. I like the peacekeeper aesthetic better but Mark knows how to pack a sprue with goodies and give his customers a great value.

I hope they don't let the cases hold them back from creating charactful minis, it'd be a shame and backers don't get them anyway...

Agree about fitting things to the cases, although I will say that they're pretty awesome. If I ever see a mantic product in a case for less than $10 it's really hard to not pick it up, they sell the cases for 4 bucks a piece and while I have a bit of trouble justifying the expense to myself outright, I have no trouble considering it as part of the price of a kit. As long as they aren't broken (seems like the ones I see for sale in shops sometimes are), you can pack a phenomenal amount of minis into them and they're pretty sturdy and not too hard on the minis. Actually a lot nicer in practice than I would have ever expected

@judgedoug the $35 dollar price point was something that aegisgrim suggested he would still be happy buying them for. I think the general consensus is something more along the lines of 20-25 dollars for 5 peace keepers, and I think the way you've described the sprues is likely.

I meant that I would be willing to buy them at that price if I were using them as a direct replacement for $50 Terminators. I also said that I would be very happy to see them at a lower price, too. It was pure speculation (as is a good chunk of the info about plastic Peacekeepers), as well as, admittedly a reading error on what Scarletsquig wrote- I misread and thought he said 5 for the $35 dollar point.

Although I don't like how it was said that I am basically brainwashed by GW and their high prices, as I haven't bought a retail GW product in about two years. Hell, my last purchase was on Ebay- 10 of the old 2nd ed. metal Eldar rangers for less than half of the modern finecast set of 5.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.

I can't believe I just read that. You caused me physical pain just now.



I just want to reiterate: if Mantic decides to price these Peacekeepers as GW premium products without actually giving us the premium, they will lose my love, my money and my respect. No more kissing on the mouth. We're done. Finito. I'm-gone-and-I-took-your-dog-just-for-spite over.


I'm also pretty worried about the plastic enforcers since they failed to list them on the survey. In fact, the one thing I found in abundance on the two surveys was shenanigans.

 agnosto wrote:
Not to mention you can pose GW figues any way that you like.

I have to disagree with this statement. You can turn Space Marine torsos to the left or right, and have them leaning in any direction on the ball joint at the waist. They can look to the left or the right, as well. You can't pose their arms or legs without significant cutting and green stuff. Orks are the same, Tau have flat bonding surfaces between their torsos and legs, so you can't give them that tilt. While you get quite a few parts in any given kit, you don't really get that many unique poses out of it.

I just can't believe we're/they're/anyone is seriously considering Mantic charging $5 per mini for monopose torsolegs-rocking, no-frills, just the bare minimum, one-gun-per-man (plus-maybe-one-more-for-Elijah), almost-quality miniatures. That's looney tunes. That's one finger-pulled-out-of-Reaper's-rectum away from ruination.* Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?



*If Reaper released a set of 5 Bones "Shooty McSteel Mans" for $10 the day after Mantic dropped 5/$35 or even 5/$25 Peacekeepers, I would laugh harder than Sam Neill covered in blood. That would be glorious.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.

I can't believe I just read that. You caused me physical pain just now.



I just want to reiterate: if Mantic decides to price these Peacekeepers as GW premium products without actually giving us the premium, they will lose my love, my money and my respect. No more kissing on the mouth. We're done. Finito. I'm-gone-and-I-took-your-dog-just-for-spite over.


I'm also pretty worried about the plastic enforcers since they failed to list them on the survey. In fact, the one thing I found in abundance on the two surveys was shenanigans.

Really? You literally posted immediately after I said I read something by Scarletsquig incorrectly. Holy crap is everyone riding a high horse to jump all over me for that.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?

Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

Really? You literally posted immediately after I said I read something by Scarletsquig incorrectly. Holy crap is everyone riding a high horse to jump all over me for that.

I apologize. I had hit the quote button a while ago and just got around to typing something up. I fell far behind in the thread. So, please forgive the delayed reaction.

And I honestly do not mean to be jumping all over you. I mean to be jumping all over Mantic. I have been buying their stuff since the elves came out, participated in all of their kickstarters so far, and have just felt incredibly let down by their never-ending stream of poor decisions. I'm starting to get the impression that they really don't hold much esteem for their customers.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?

Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.

Which kit is that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


I'm also pretty worried about the plastic enforcers since they failed to list them on the survey. In fact, the one thing I found in abundance on the two surveys was shenanigans.

Plastic enforcers aren't listed individually on the survey because, like every other unit that is in one of the boosters bar the Sorak, we're not allowed to buy them individually anymore, presumably in an effort to reduce mispacks. Thought that was pretty obvious?

I'm sure they'll show the sprue before the end of the survey, but given that most people getting the Enforcer starter/boosters have already paid for them in the first survey, I suspect they're treating them as a lower priority for showing off compared to things people haven't yet bought and they want them to buy, ie Peacekeepers, Forge Fathers, Asterians, the walkers/vehicles

NTRabbit wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?

Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.

Which kit is that?

The Men at Arms. Forty infantry for 25 pounds where either of the two Perry War of the Roses kits only costs you 18 pounds.

 AlexHolker wrote:

NTRabbit wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?

Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.

Which kit is that?

The Men at Arms. Forty infantry for 25 pounds where either of the two Perry War of the Roses kits only costs you 18 pounds.

Ah ok. I know next to nothing about historical minis and the companies that make them, outside of Flames of War.

NTRabbit wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

NTRabbit wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?

Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.

Which kit is that?

The Men at Arms. Forty infantry for 25 pounds where either of the two Perry War of the Roses kits only costs you 18 pounds.

Ah ok. I know next to nothing about historical minis and the companies that make them, outside of Flames of War.

I don't exactly want to defend the MaA, but I just quickly checked up on the Perry stuff (which does look to be of a very high quality) and it's actually now £20 for 40, and doesn't allow you to assemble 40 of a single unit type, and seemingly requires you to multibase. The Mantic box, for all its flaws, does include 40 individual bases, 2 weapon options for all, and a metal command. Irrelevant if you don't actually want to use the models, of course!

I don't think it's a foolish idea to produce a plastic kit for rank and file troops for one of your fantasy armies, even if there are cheaper alternatives on the market. It is probably foolish to spend tens of thousands of pounds on a mold you're not 100% happy with, though.

On the PeaceKeeper discussion, it's worth noting that all Mantic has said on the topic is that the KS deal of 5 for $10 is half of retail "or better" meaning the price is at least $20 for 5. I suspect Squig is correct that it will end up being $20 for 5 ($4 a model) with a set of 10 available for $35 ($3.50 a model). A little on the high side since DFG's Stormtroopers (for a non-GW comparison) ring in at $2.10 a model retail, but if PK are elites intended to be purchased more sparingly that's not an awful price point. That's why I'm more interested in seeing if the Enforcer sprue retails at $25 for 10, that's going to be more of the baseline costs Mantic are looking at for WarPath core units.

If I was looking at these to be a stand-in for GW, I would be waiting to see what they looked like; Mantic doesn't exactly have a sterling track record here and even at full retail you're looking at spending half of what you would on the GW kit. If I'm looking at them for DeadZone and assuming I like DeadZone, a risk of $10 isn't that bad. It would not surprise me if you struggle to get even that many on the table in a viable DZ force outside of massive games.

Really, the people for whom it becomes a dicey question are those who are stocking up in anticipation of WarPath. There it's a bit of a question mark, though with WarPath's own KickStarter coming in the not-incredibly-distant future and Internet discounters/Mantic sales, I'm not sure you're going to be losing tons of money holding off if you're unsure,