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I don't like that there isn't a way to order just the sprues of FF like there are for the peace keepers. I feel like anything I order will wind up costing me more than discounted retial....

 edlowe wrote:
Well heres the Mantic mix up for everyone to see, and whats got me thinking.

The change to hard plastic has a few knock-on effects:

- Forge Father Booster Bundle – because we can’t really do single figures from a hard plastic frame, we’ve removing the Forge Guard with Missile Launcher. Don’t forget there’s a vehicle in the booster though

- Forge Father Booster Bundle – we’re throwing in a complete hard plastic Forge Guard sprue, meaning you can build the Forge Father with Heat Cannon and Hailstorm Autocannon in the specialist booster, the Forge Guard with missile launcher plus you’ll get  Forge Guard with Hailstorm Rifles AND a  Forge Guard Huscarl.

Given you can buy one Faction Booster Bundle and get another of your choice for free this makes the faction Booster a very sweet deal.

So I get the complete sprue I would have got at starter plus more, at a better dkscount if I buy 4?

can I note I'm mostly in this for warpath hence I want full units

This was ScarletSquig's resonse to them in the comments: Note: I'd trust SS's breakdown on this stuff more than I'd ever trust Mantic's.

Love the look of that Forge Guard, wonderful looking mini, great to have it on a proper sprue. And the shields on the peacekeepers is a great addition.
This update gets the forge guard contents of the forgefather booster bundle wrong, however. Original loadout
Pic here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/637/974/e209466d4cac4bf1d13e833e3031662a_large.jpeg…
...was supposed to be 2x missile launcher, 1x hailstorm autocannon, 1x hailstorm rifle.
So, you don't get 3 bonus minis, only one, the huscarl.
And of course, you lose one missile launcher option (but the faction starter now comes with the parts for one, so no big deal).
Agree that it's pretty bad for those who just bought the one booster, might be better to throw in a forge guard sprue for booster buyers and two into the booster bundle just to cover things properly.

 agnosto wrote:
*yawn* It's late and I can't be arsed to go into my usual Mantic rant. Suffice to say that I'm not surprised and am actually insulted when they say things like "they'll be in resin as was intended all along" even though they have an update saying that good zombies=hard plastic Forgeguard AND Asterians.

Yes, Mantic, some of us can read.

I and the Mantic fans on this board will be most happy for June. Me, because I'll finally be done with Mantic for all and good and the fans so they won't be burdened with my comments.

Carry-on.

Well, I found this post entertaining . I'm not quite That jaded... but I certainly won't ever be kickstand Mantic going forward...

If you buy starter + booster there's a net gain of 2 Forge guard and 1 Huscarl and a net loss of 1 hailstorm autocannon, remember the new Forge Guard ABS sprue has 5 Forge Guard PLUS a Huscarl on it, not 4 + 1

Sure would be nice to see some pictures of these sprues, rather than the usual bs "we didn't have time"...

 edlowe wrote:
So second survey in, looks like im going big for 3 warpath armies. Lots of zombies (yea!) Plenty of enforcers still to be delivered however whats the best deal for forge fathers? Im hoping s.squiq esq. Will pop up and tell me where to spend my cash! )

You still want lots of booster bundes, get as many as possible, they are a fantastic deal. Make sure you fill out units of 3 for Warpath.

Forgefather booster has 2x valykr, mining laser, 2x brokkr chief, 2x demo charges, 6x forge guard (really weird number for a sprue).

5 forge guard will probably be around $15 retail, restic mining laser $15 and valykrs $10 each? Then say $10 for the remaining 3 brokkrs.

So, 2 FF booster bundles will be worth about $130 at retail, but you're paying $50. Which is great! Bargain, fill your boots on booster bundles. is my advice to basically everyone.

Don't prioritise the starters. $35 = £21.22 which is more expensive than RRP (£20), even putting that down to $25 by buying two doesn't change much, you can get it cheaper than that at discount retail (I'm buying my FF/Asterian starters straight from my LGS there's so little difference in it).

6 Striders is probably a nice easy pick for you as well for Warpath purposes.

It is a shame about the Asterians not being hard plastic as they are the faction I am most excited about but I don't mind restic as a material - the models tend to be more interesting.

Still can't get my head round the Forgefather update... But I do hope the models scale with the current storm rage veterans.

Peacekeepers look great! Love those shields.

 RiTides wrote:

Well, I found this post entertaining . I'm not quite That jaded... but I certainly won't ever be kickstand Mantic going forward...

lol. I backed KoW and got burned, not as badly as ScarletSquig but it was enough. I wound up backing Deadzone because it started before I received the second shipment for KoW which contained most of the issues I had with the whole thing, it was poorly packed, missing a number of items and contained no instructions on how to put the things together. They did the same thing with Deadzone but this time around I had help in a willing friend to get through the misshapen lumps of restic that didn't fit together all to well with mold-lines being an issue on more than a few models.

I went from being excited about Mantic because of the hard plastic undead to an active dislike of the company because of their apparent indifference about quality and increasingly worsening level of customer service.

I'm not a GW fanboy by any stretch but at least with them you know that you can expect a certain level of quality in their miniatures (outside FW and Fincast). Perry Brothers, Warlord, Dream Forge, Tamia, Kotobukiya, Wargames Factory are a few of the companies that I have purchased hobby models from and none of them have delivered models at such a poor level of quality as Mantic. Arguably several of those listed are cheaper than Mantic and still produce better quality. That begs the question, what is Mantic doing wrong? I can say that I no longer care, I used to but they've effectively burned that bridge with me.

Cheers.

Already paid for my FF faction starter during the first survey, but I got it as one of my freebies from strike so no big deal over here. Otherwise I'd be inclined towards this "FF booster bundles, buy them all!" reasoning.

In other news, my missing pieces did show up a day or two ago so I can confirm that that is a thing that happens.

I'm only going to be possibly pledging for Mantic KS Campaigns in the future that have 'hard plastic' components.

And even then, probably only mostly for the terrain.

9 times out of 10, it really does seem to make more sense to wait for retail and getting the best discount there, rather than rolling the dice up front.

It's sad cause the test model for the FF heavy dudes looks good. I'd like to go in on them like several people are doing for the peace keepers. I just don't have much if any interest in any of the stuff in the bundles outside of the actual Forge Guard and since there is no way to get them without other models I'm waiting till retail.

And yeah, I've already been burned paying more for the few characters I wanted up front since at retail they were the same cost or less. So I'm extremely leery of ordering anything I'm not 100% on.

Thanks for all the help guys. I resubmitted with 3 ff booster bundle packs and stuck on an extra plague to fill out my other force. Plenty of zombies and just 1 peacekeeper pack.

May have to submit again if they show off the plastic enforcers, I really hate cleaning up the restic ones.

I am going to add the peacekeepers to my pledge and thats it.

Sigh, I added it up, and unless I've forgotten something, I'll be out around $200. Thats it for me though. Until warpath comes out. And even then... I'm not entirely sure I'll want that much. Some tanks, or especially some other vehicles, probably. As much as I like hard plastic models, I think I'll have plenty after these kickstarter rewards all start rolling in.

Been plugging away at my marauders from DZ, they're still restic of course, but I guess I got a good batch as the mold lines are very faint. These guys are huge and enormously chunky, I kinda like it. They certainly feel like aliens. Those poor rebs, literally everything in deadzone is bigger than they are (sans teratons and sometimes the grogan).

At Yonan's suggestion I picked up the DFG Stormtrooper Accessory Kit. The heads are definitely sized for space marine scaling, and the arms may be a bit big on some mantic minis, but the hands and most all of the accessories seem nearly perfect. And you get so many bits, 20-40 each of 3-4 types of pouch, stick bomb style grenades (not my favorite), a few weapons but not many, it's a really nice kit for the money. It would have been a home run for me if the pieces didn't slightly reek of weird/future WW2 or whatever (stick bombs on modern infantry what?) but yeah it's looking like a nice kit to splice with rebs and probably future DBX minis.


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Probably still going to source Hasslefree for my guns though, you don't get a lot with that accessory kit, and they aren't scifi enough to use all over the place.

I love the marauders but won't be buying any more.

I'm tempted to add the FF booster, but then I'd be down yet another $50 plus whatever else I've already added, which I think was quite a chunk. I've got to start cutting back on this stuff for a bit. I do kind of hope that we see some Corporation Robots along with those tanks and other vehicles in the Warpath KS.

You want to split the cost of that BOGO Barzam, I'm down. Not sure what I'll be getting with my FF booster pack, but if you want to do the BOGO I could split with you.

Don't forget you to still owe me some space zombies!

Anyone deal with any good online mantic retailers who discount? Miniaturemarket has stopped carrying mantic except for the retailer kickstarter stuff. Thewarstore never has any stock, I've asked Neal about restocked, but get the impression it's not a priority. I don't want to derail the thread so just pm me if you have good dealings with anyone, or have had bad business from anyone in particular that I should be aware of.

Oh I'm in the u.s. As the flag suggests, and would prefer to stay ordering in country unless the deal is insane.

Actually, I'd love to see the answer posted in this thread, because if Miniature Market and The War Store are dropping Mantic, that is huge news. The only other place I'm likely to shop is at my FLGS, and they haven't ordered in new Mantic non-Dreadball stock in years.

It sounds pretty bad if Mantic is almost excluded from retail in the US.

miniature market seems like it goes through cycles of having a bunch of mantic stuff, then only have a few things in clearance, then back to having a load of stuff

Ayup, Mini Market has stocked, clearanced, stocked, clearanced almost yearly, it's bizarre. I've ordered stuff thru the Warstore.
frpgames.com carries Mantic as well, usually in the 20-40% off range, which is nice.

yea, i was looking at frp earlier out of curiosity from this thread
my only problem with them is shipping gets weird/expensive sometimes

i'm always tempted to get one of the big elf armies when miniature market is in the start of a mantic clearance phase

miniaturemarket is a mile from my house now that they have moved.....AGAIN. They ordered mantic from the kickstarter and then would sell at retail with discount and still make $$$$. They sell through it and then get the next KS stuff in and sell it. But from what the guys told me they are fed up with trying to get stock.

I've contacted thewarstore.com neal to see when they might get the KoW rulebook back in because it's been months. they couldn't give me an answer. They said they place orders, but half the time Mantic is out of stock on too much to get a decent order in.

 Theophony wrote:
Anyone deal with any good online mantic retailers who discount? Miniaturemarket has stopped carrying mantic except for the retailer kickstarter stuff.

They do this every year, no big deal. It's kinda what their site runs on, the flash sales.

There's a thread on the Mantic forums about this where an employee has confirmed no real stock issues on their end as far as the KoW range goes, US stock problems are likely to be the result of a distributor not ordering enough in to meet demand.

The only thing that actually went OOP is the basilean legacy book. One small print run, wasn't very popular, isn't get reprinted and is instead being incorporated into an updated KoW 2.0 hardback/ compendium (pdf still avialable until then).

 greenskin lynn wrote:
yea, i was looking at frp earlier out of curiosity from this thread
my only problem with them is shipping gets weird/expensive sometimes

i'm always tempted to get one of the big elf armies when miniature market is in the start of a mantic clearance phase

I'm also annoyed by their bizarro shipping, but, i've learned that if you email them after it arrives and send a picture of your Fedex box with the weight of 2 LBS on it when they charged you $17.95 shipping then you'll get a refund. Their site uses automated weight and from what I understand many items were entered with 1 pound instead of 1 ounce. Instead of going through 500,000 products to fix them, it's easier for them to issue s&h refunds.

frpgames currently has the Twilight Kin mega army on clearance http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=82136#.UzA1r_ldV8E
here's all their Mantic overstock clearance items http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=overstock&div=0&level=0&mfg=MGC

That's some pretty hefty clearance, especially when you consider the discount you're already getting when you buy those big army sets. A few items even 50% off, though those are mostly marauder grunts and steel warriors which are usually clearanced to hell and back.

 GrimDork wrote:
At Yonan's suggestion I picked up the DFG Stormtrooper Accessory Kit. The heads are definitely sized for space marine scaling, and the arms may be a bit big on some mantic minis, but the hands and most all of the accessories seem nearly perfect. And you get so many bits, 20-40 each of 3-4 types of pouch, stick bomb style grenades (not my favorite), a few weapons but not many, it's a really nice kit for the money. It would have been a home run for me if the pieces didn't slightly reek of weird/future WW2 or whatever (stick bombs on modern infantry what?) but yeah it's looking like a nice kit to splice with rebs and probably future DBX minis.

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Probably still going to source Hasslefree for my guns though, you don't get a lot with that accessory kit, and they aren't scifi enough to use all over the place.

Dont' forget that bits seller I mentioned if you decide you want more eisenkern rifles. $1-$2 for 10 is pretty convincing I thought. But yeah, the rocket launchers especially aren't sci-fi enough to use, and the rifles are definitely projectile rather than energy based. Stick bombs also not very sci-fi as you say, but might look good for rebs as improvised explosives, who knows.

Those hands... so great for conversions ; ) The third spruie in the accessory kit sort of seems liek a waste when you consider what's on the other two sprues, but the "MULE" could be useful in a lot of games I reckon, even if it's just terrain. It'd look perfect in some Battle Systems terrain for a Deadzone game for example ; p

---

I got my missing parts from Deadzone wave 1 box today. I told them I was happy to have it shipped with my wave 2 but I guess they wanted it sorted through a more straight forward, if much more expensive postage wise process. I would have let the missing lower halves of the marauder dogs slide, but missing 4 terrain sprues - the guns/walls ones, couldn't let that slide.

 solkan wrote:
No drone swarms.
And I'd been considering ordering a half dozen for sci fi mechanical baddies.

Taban's Escape board game had nothing but mechanical drones in various insect shapes.

I think the game is supposed to be hitting the market soon, and there was talk I believe of add on packs of the various mechanical critters.
Might want to check them out for your mechanical critter needs since Mantic's axed theirs.

Yeah I say let them fix their errors and the financial punishment that entails will probably sting to the point they don't want to do it again. I was impressed they sent my stuff out overnight fedex like they did the big package, perhaps they have some kind of bulk deal or that's just how you get things over the pond if you don't want to send them on a boat.

The hands look nice. I think I might even get some use out of the heads converting some space marines, I kind of want to modify the power armor to be less gothic/sci-fantasy and get some different heads and weapons to make a human merc company with bulkier off-brand powered armor. The pouches are already proving useful. I'll fish out some pictures after a bit of what they've done for Anne Marie Helder, along wit ha hasslefree gun and a space marine combat knife.

Weaponized Anne Marie:

I'm hoping that restic being a packing nightmare for them will encourage them to make more hard plastic when they realise that a sprue will not have loads of tiny bags, missing bits in the tiny bags, warped/damaged bits in the tiny bags.

You cast a polystyrene sprue, then you cast 1000 more that are exactly identical in terms of casting quality and don't tend to have bits break off before they hit packing.