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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You left out the part where this is the fifth KS he felt burned him.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Some of the recent responses in this thread are hilarious, and not in a belly chuckling way.

You're fully entitled to buy or not buy whatever you want, just as I'm fully entitled to call a claim of 100% error rate utterly fanciful. I certainly don't buy anything made of resin from GW anymore.

In all fairness, it does seem like an odd question to ask in this instance. As all the heads are in the one mini bag anyway.

In any case, here is the parts guide for the original minis https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/deadzone-the-sci-fi-miniatures-board-game/posts/691466

I've had more than my fair share of issues with missing or broken parts in the kickstarter. However, I'm also aware I've ordered a heckuva lot of things. Were generally talking at least 9 months of product for any specific range, but its arriving all at once.

It doesn't seem that unreasonable that there would be some mistakes. Are there more than they should be? To be honest, yes, but I see active improvement coming from mantic and any issue has always been resolved, sometimes by them going beyond the call of duty.

Its fine to be frustrated but I'd suggest any interactions with mantic are done calmly and rationally. Unlike a vast, vast number of companies in this world, mantic will resolve your issue, as soon as they can (which admittedly may not be particularly soon), but throwing a tantrum at them does not help anyone.

I once got in touch with a customer service operator and told them that I was so upset that I wanted to shoot barbed hooks into their face and pull their insides out through their nostrils then jump up and down on what was left of their genitals as they died.

And then they didn't even help me out! It was such terrible customer service. From that day on I resolved to be even more offensive and childish whenever I had cause to contact customer services over anything, and I think I was right to do so because from that point on I've only noticed the service get even worse!

Guys, while I can agree that beating up on customer service people is never helpful, it's also not helpful to turn a blind eye to Mantic's laundry list of issues that requires so much customer service and create so much frustration (like forgetting to include entire and significant portions of someone's order as is the case here). There comes a point where a company asking the customer to fix so many of their mistakes is going to reach a boiling point. While it's unfortunate that the CSRs usually end up being the release valve, this is not a situation of an entitled prat whining because an arm was bent or some minor cosmetic issue. This is someone who has had repeated and significant issues, and if Mantic doesn't have a system set up to track who they've wronged more than others that again is on Mantic, not the customer; knowing that a customer has had repeated issues is in a company's interest for protection against scams if nothing else after all.

People want what they paid for, and Mantic has done wrong by Azazelx. I might disagree with lashing out at someone who is genuinely trying to help with a problem, but I also don't think Mantic gets away scot-free on not going above and beyond (e.g. - just sending an entirely new baggie) on customers that they've fethed up royally on.

I've not had a huge issue with Mantic's CS, and things usually get resolved in my favor, if not exactly resolved correctly. The stand-out "was never resolved" was the Plague missing a head because they included the wrong sprue and it was a goblin head and rifle (which I wonder if it's the same model Az is fighting over). One model out of hundreds just didn't seem worth worrying about, especially when I can try sculpting an exploding head or something.

 Vermonter wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, has anyone seen Scarlet Squig lately? Is he all right?

I don't know, but I assumed that he's spending more time on the official playtesting group, now that he's a member. He may be busy conversing more directly with Mantic staff and getting the lowdown on what's actually happening at Mantic HQ, rather than speculating about it like we do here.

Nope, he's probably been the quietest member in there.

 ekwatts wrote:
I once got in touch with a customer service operator and told them that I was so upset that I wanted to shoot barbed hooks into their face and pull their insides out through their nostrils then jump up and down on what was left of their genitals as they died.

And then they didn't even help me out!

This is where I realized you weren't dealing with an American company. A by-God American company's customer service rep. would have transferred you to a supervisor, and the supervisor would have caved like a professional bottom. Then he would would have written up the CSR.

From my own personal Customer Service experiences, I can only tell you that over here, based on the many complaints to surface in the Mantic subforum the Mantic CS team would have been flayed alive, at least in terms of employment and future opportunity.

 sukura636 wrote:
Please don't be unpleasant to CS staff. They're rarely associated with the cause of your problem, and are only trying to help and get things right for you.
It just helps no one, in the end.

I'm completely aware of that. I wasn't unpleasant or rude. At worst, I was terse and showing my frustration.

 pretre wrote:
Man. I don't get some folks. I really had no problem identifying missing or bad parts and getting it sorted. It's not rocket surgery.

I'll provide you with some context - Especially since NTRabbit and a few others are being ridiculous with their assumptions at this point. I was asked to identify which of the following models had the issues:

2 Miscast Enforcer legs – Which models from the attached picture need replacements?
Missing head from 2A Plague figure – Which model from the attached picture needs the replacement head?





The relevant part of my reply:
I'm back at work now and don't have the time nor inclination to spend however long it will take looking through each and every little restic baggie that I received to find the right bag (two sets of both of those figures) and then mucking around with all of the bits to work out which specific figure is missing the head by doing a push-fit on them

I can't tell the difference from the picture between the #1 and #3 of the Plague, and I can't even see what #4 looks like compared to the other two.

Same deal with the enforcers, though I can tell you that it's not 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 as all of the more "unique" figures/legs were fine.


So a far cry from the hyperbolic rants that people's overly-vivid imaginations have conjured up at this stage.


Note - I can't even properly see the legs of Enforcers #3, 4, 5 or the head of Plague #4, (what a useless picture to send - and I have to admit - that ticked me off even more) but one would assume that any set of arms would fit any of the "standing up, boring guy" enforcer legs - so just send any two, and any of the three plague heads (#1, 3, 4) should be interchangeable - so just sent any one (or even the tiny baggie of three - because who gives a feth?) - which is what I did when I counted through all of the little bits initially.

It's a far, far cry from a ridiculous straw man comparison like "data cable with the ID#XXXX-X in the manual."

@azazelx, if I remember correctly (been a while now) the heads for the plague guys have unique connectors to the body. Why make ball joints do it's easy for the models to get repositioned when they can stick you with static poses .

I got burnt out on Mantic. The deadzone main box with those exact minis ruined my desire to buy any more mantic...except the terrain bundles which I'm using for x-wing

Azazelx wrote:Someone needs to teach Mantic about ball joints. I got an email from Sarah asking me to specify which of my Plague Stage 2 is missing it's head. and which Enforcer legs were miscast. This pissed me off rather a lot, since my missing parts form went in about 2 weeks ago now. I replied back tersely to the effect that I don't have the time nor inclination at this point to go burrowing through all that restic gak to push-fit each figure together in order to figure out exactly which one is missing/which sets of arms go with which head. I can make any of the heads work. I also mentioned I was on the verge of setting the lot of it on fire and putting the result on youtube when I received it. (which was completely true.)

So anyway - the point of my rant is that even on the Restic models, they need to start using ball joints instead of L-joins. They won't of course, because Mantic as a miniature producing company seems to have a learning disability and an inability to see the bleeding obvious.

Azazelx wrote:

 sukura636 wrote:
Please don't be unpleasant to CS staff. They're rarely associated with the cause of your problem, and are only trying to help and get things right for you.
It just helps no one, in the end.

I'm completely aware of that. I wasn't unpleasant or rude. At worst, I was terse and showing my frustration.

...

The relevant part of my reply:
I'm back at work now and don't have the time nor inclination to spend however long it will take looking through each and every little restic baggie that I received to find the right bag (two sets of both of those figures) and then mucking around with all of the bits to work out which specific figure is missing the head by doing a push-fit on them

I can't tell the difference from the picture between the #1 and #3 of the Plague, and I can't even see what #4 looks like compared to the other two.

Same deal with the enforcers, though I can tell you that it's not 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 as all of the more "unique" figures/legs were fine.


So a far cry from the hyperbolic rants that people's overly-vivid imaginations have conjured up at this stage.

Where is the part about you setting it on fire and putting it up on Youtube?

Also, why do you keep buying stuff from Mantic? I'm not being facetious, I agree with you on most of the things you say about Mantic QA, the quality of Mantic sculpts, the horror that is restic, etc. The main difference seems to be that after I got burned by Mantic on their Kings of War campaign, I haven't spent another dime on their stuff, and certainly not pledged for another Kickstarter.

Yes, yes, there are complaints and there are praises

But does it classify as N&R

Painted anything recently, Azazelx? I like your work.

 Gallahad wrote:

Where is the part about you setting it on fire and putting it up on Youtube?

Also, why do you keep buying stuff from Mantic? I'm not being facetious, I agree with you on most of the things you say about Mantic QA, the quality of Mantic sculpts, the horror that is restic, etc. The main difference seems to be that after I got burned by Mantic on their Kings of War campaign, I haven't spent another dime on their stuff, and certainly not pledged for another Kickstarter.

Ok. Here's my whole email, just name removed:

Hi Sarah and thanks for getting back to me.
I'm back at work now and don't have the time nor inclination to spend however long it will take looking through each and every little restic baggie that I received to find the right bag (two sets of both of those figures) and then mucking around with all of the bits to work out which specific figure is missing the head by doing a push-fit on them. Frankly, I was so annoyed when I received my order - especially with the missing books - that I was close to setting it all on fire and putting it on YouTube. (not, not hyperbole). Now everything is in a box, with the exception of the scenery - which is in a different box.

I can't tell the difference from the picture between the #1 and #3 of the Plague, and I can't even see what #4 looks like compared to the other two.

Same deal with the enforcers, though I can tell you that it's not 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 as all of the more "unique" figures/legs were fine.


thanking you,

So not super-rude or anything, but frustrated and tired of dealing with it, since I had to go through the figures over the course of a week.

Why buy? Fair question
- I'd heard wonderful things about DeadZone as a game, and I was very much interested in the Hard Plastic scenery. Plague and Enforcer models were non-optional, and I do like the look of the Enforcers and especially with the promise of hard plastic ones, I thought it worth getting on those as a collection of merits. There was also a lot of talk about the DZ stuff being "better", so I (foolishly?) gave them one more chance. I did skip DBX entirely, though - the restic figures that came with the original game have meant that I've not yet played a single game, so I felt little urge to pour more money down that particular sinkhole (when I look at that game I just want to play Blood Bowl instead!) I'm waiting on Mars Attacks, again based on positive gameplay feedback (mostly from DeadZone, but also people who played using the PDF rulebooks), the lack of restic and of course, Hard Plastic Scenery. I also went in on DKH more recently, though with a mind to using the models that are decent or salvageable while replacing the rest with my existing fantasy models - but again, it's "boardgame PVC" so as I said in that thread a couple of times, I value and consider them differently to "real" miniatures. And I can handle boardgame soft-ish PVC figures for a boardgame much more than I can deal with restic for "proper" wargaming.

So the thing is, unlike some other posters I actually like Mantic and want them to succeed - and succeed well. I have enjoyed their games - as far as the stuff I've played goes. I just find it frustrating that they still keep making simple mistakes, bad choices, and apparently still can't pack a pledge that will be sent to me correctly. I was actually really keen to play DeadZone on my holidays, so when I opened up the box and found that they'd forgotten the rulebooks, I really cracked the gaks. When the restic bags were unlabelled and it turned out that many of them weren't even linked from "mission control" I found it even more frustrating - hence the "setting on fire" comments. It took me almost a week to go through all the little baggies a bit at a time working out what they were and if they had all of their parts included, counting them, etc) and then to get "which (push-fit) head?" in reply almost 2 weeks later was just too much. Which type of body for the enforcers would have been less annoying in itself, since I thought it was obvious but they wanted to check against the "specialist" models - fine. But please don't ask me to select from one of several that are heavily obscured in the actual picture....

Mantic make good rules and fun games, but I won't touch any further restic from them again unless it's unavoidable. I'll still support them when I view it as a good gamble, because I want them to succeed. They'll probably still mispack my stuff every time, though.

 judgedoug wrote:
Yes, yes, there are complaints and there are praises
But does it classify as N&R

When there's no actual news, you get discussion instead. You could apply the same to most any thread in the N&R forum. Something like the "Dreamforge News" thread has dealt exclusively in "hows the KS stuff coming?"/"China says no" and should in theory be moved to the Dakka Discussions ghetto.

 Vermonter wrote:
Painted anything recently, Azazelx? I like your work.

Thanks. I've got a smallish thing or two I'll put up in the P&M sometime in the next week. Back to work + new PS4 + Shadows of Mordor have eaten into my painting time considerably...

Anything is acceptable to the fanatics

Probably mantics biggest problem listening too much to their own fanatics rather than anyone else

People have repeatedly told they detest the restic crap, however the fanatics drown out their voices and alas nothing is done

 mitch_rifle wrote:
Anything is acceptable to the fanatics

Probably mantics biggest problem listening too much to their own fanatics rather than anyone else

People have repeatedly told they detest the restic crap, however the fanatics drown out their voices and alas nothing is done

Mars Attacks, DBX and DKQ are all supposed the be "board game plastic" and not Restic. The Mars Attacks set I got was actually reasonably nice; more or less the same feel to the material as Descent, albeit I think Descent's sculpts were a bit better. However, saying "nothing is done" when EVERY subsequent KS is using a different material is a bit misleading. Whether or not it's an improvement in the long term, well, we'll know that by the end of the year I suppose.

 Azazelx wrote:
(when I look at that game I just want to play Blood Bowl instead!)

Been playing BB since mid 90's. Love it. Skaven team nearly undefeated.
I like Dreadball more. It's faster and more fun.
Give Dreadball a try with or without Mantic minis. You might be pleasantly surprised.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mitch_rifle wrote:
and alas nothing is done

Provide examples of this


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:

judgedoug wrote:Yes, yes, there are complaints and there are praises
But does it classify as N&R

When there's no actual news, you get discussion instead. You could apply the same to most any thread in the N&R forum. Something like the "Dreamforge News" thread has dealt exclusively in "hows the KS stuff coming?"/"China says no" and should in theory be moved to the Dakka Discussions ghetto.

Sure, I guess I'm just feeling like clicking the "new posts" icon is more like clickbait every 7 days or so because then it's someone (like yourself) with a valid complaint, sure, then someone saying "noway, I had no problems and Mantic gave me a massage" then the next person's reply of "my models came presmashed in a radioactive biohazard container and it killed my dog" and back and forth for a few days.
So here I am just adding to the noiiissseeeee

Has there been any chatter about expanding upon the Deadzone campaign system?

I've been wanting to do the campaign, but it just seems a bit lite. I seem to recall talk during the KS campaign about being able to upgrade weapons and gear, but that never really came to fruition. Sure, we can get new ammo or pump our stats, but it's not like we can loot our opponents and steal their weapons.

At the very least things work the way they're supposed to do in skirmish mode.

Deadzone is a wonderful skirmish game but I think the streamlined design is poorly suited to campaign play. The design space just isn't there.

This has become really apparent to me after getting Brimstone too.

I'm hoping Thorton/ Mantic are going to be able to step their game up when it comes time to release Dungeon Saga out into the wild.

Maybe we'll see some expanded campaign rules in the next kickstarter?

Ask for it the whole time during the campaign and get enough others to ask too.

Got my missing parts order including my free hardcover. Yay!

Azazel...you told her you were considering setting her company's product on fire and youtubing it, then say it wasn't "too rude"? I think we have different definitions of the word "rude". Honestly, you could have replaced any Mantic words with GW or PP or any other company, and I'd tell you the same thing-that was rude as hell.

"Frankly, I was so annoyed when I received my order - especially with the missing books - that I was close to setting it all on fire and putting it on YouTube. (not, not hyperbole)."

And this is an abject lesson on the concept of "proportional response".

Honestly, I think it's good for Mantic to be aware of how much ill will they are generating with their backers, likely their most loyal customers. For too long, Mantic has made frankly bizarre choices that have negatively impacted their business and the market's perception of them. Yet they have always had a solid core of loyal fans who have insulated them from the harshest of the criticism. When it takes them three or four kickstarter campaigns to learn from their mistakes, it makes it clear that they are too sheltered for their own good.

That's why I wrote "considering". Obviously I read that you didn't do it. But you put the thought out there to the company. A wake up call is one thing-tell them you're dissatisfied with the purchase and that you want a refund and have them provide the shipping cost. Demanding a paid return is a wake up call for any company. Threatening that you're considering setting their material on fire is likely to just get them to ignore you as it makes you look like a jerk. Personally, if I worked at Mantic, or any other company and got a response like yours, I'd toss it in the garbage and ignore it-it's a troll letter. Again-switch "Mantic" for GW, PP, FFG, Infinity, etc and I'd say the same thing. This is a generally poor letter regardless of who you sent it to.

Happy to have gotten my missing Forge Father crew today, but they sadly fell by the wayside when the mailman brought a big box of Miercian resin to my doorstep.

Sorry Forge Fathers, I hardly knew you.

Maybe I'll see them again soon when I get done with my current Darkland goodies!

At least they came- there's definitely that to be said.

I was extremely surprised by the Brokkrs. Really dynamic. I love Mantic's direction with dwarfs.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Yet they have always had a solid core of loyal fans who have insulated them from the harshest of the criticism. When it takes them three or four kickstarter campaigns to learn from their mistakes, it makes it clear that they are too sheltered for their own good.

If by "core of loyal fans" you mean they haven't pissed off enough people with their mistakes so that the market hasn't turned it's back on them, then you'd be correct. Market forces are market forces......*shrugs*

If what you mean is that there's some inner circle that sits around blowing smoke up Ronnie's arse then you couldn't be further from the truth.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
That's why I wrote "considering". Obviously I read that you didn't do it. But you put the thought out there to the company. A wake up call is one thing-tell them you're dissatisfied with the purchase and that you want a refund and have them provide the shipping cost. Demanding a paid return is a wake up call for any company. Threatening that you're considering setting their material on fire is likely to just get them to ignore you as it makes you look like a jerk. Personally, if I worked at Mantic, or any other company and got a response like yours, I'd toss it in the garbage and ignore it-it's a troll letter. Again-switch "Mantic" for GW, PP, FFG, Infinity, etc and I'd say the same thing. This is a generally poor letter regardless of who you sent it to.

First of all, I'm not Azazelx. His avatar's a cat. Mine's a dog. Totally different.

Second, in the context of miniature game Kickstarters, burning the rewards is 'a thing'. Thanks should be directed to Studio McVey and Cool Mini or Not (so tempted to write Cool Mini gets Hot). It's like protesting by burning a flag or standing in front of a tank, only the stakes are much lower depending on the size of one's pledge.

Third, based on the testimonials in the Mantic Customer Service thread, one does not need to threaten to burn anything to get Mantic to ignore one's self.

I should probably bow out here, though, because I'm one of those people who hasn't spent a lot with Mantic recently.

 mitch_rifle wrote:
Anything is acceptable to the fanatics

Probably mantics biggest problem listening too much to their own fanatics rather than anyone else

People have repeatedly told they detest the restic crap, however the fanatics drown out their voices and alas nothing is done

Well, I'm a pretty huge fan of theirs and never cease to ramble on about how much I dislike restic.

Quite happy with the Mars Attacks material, at least.

Better than restic for so many different reasons:

- One piece. No gluing.
- One piece. No gluing together 4-8 different bits of tiny restic.
- One piece. One mould line. Not 4-8 tiny mould lines, one on each tiny bit that have to be individually removed pre-assembly.
- One piece. No trawling through a dozen bags with jumbled together tiny restic bits for a bunch of different models (4-8 pieces each) to see if its actually all there or there are bits missing.
- Detail is pretty much the same as, or a little bit better than restic.
- Not as much warping, easier to fix the bits that are warped.

Brilliant game... so much better to be able to take the minis out of the box and get playing without any screwing around.