Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I feel a lot better about the Strike Team level pledge now!

Though I admit, I'm still confused on whether or not I have to pay additional shipping for the "Expanded Universe" $50 bundle that includes Forge Fathers and Asterians.

I'm thinking that I don't...

No, you don't. If you add-on any add-ons over $20, there's no extra postage.

we are fixing them and resculpting them" were boldface lies just like they did before

they never said they'd resculpt them - they said they'd tweak them and they have, the poses look much better.

They said if people still hated them, then they'd redo them. Looks to me like the pledge total is going up and the comments show almost unanimous support of the repose.

They are also more in line with the warlord by Remy than the crappy hard plastic ones which are just fantasy orx with badly sculpted rush components.

And actually, they said they'd fix the judwan and if you look at the production models they did.

I like the reposes. I'd like it more if they redid the faces so they weren't all smiling...I like the ripper suits but again, the heads look like they are smiling. They should tweak to make them snarl, not smile. But otherwise the major issue (the attrocious poses) have been rectified. Still not excited about them but they aren't a zero value anymore.

pretre wrote:
How are those pictures too small?

Well, they're hosted on Mantic's site and that's blocked for me at work. That means I had to look at them on my phone, which makes the pictures quite small. Clearly, this is all an elaborate ploy to prevent me from seeing the flaws in the new sculpts.

I asked in the comments section and was told:

@Alpharius
The commando holding his gun upright has a different head. The other 2 have had their arms repositioned. An improvement, but still could have gone alot further.

@Alpharius They're subtle

The arms have been scaled down and reposed, and at least one (maybe two) of the heads have been replaced. That's what it looks like to my eye, at least.

Anyone have the Photoshop etc. skills to show the old and new, side by side, or as close as possible to side to side?

Thanks!

 Alpharius wrote:

Anyone have the Photoshop etc. skills to show the old and new, side by side, or as close as possible to side to side?

Thanks!

Link the old ones and I'll do it in Paint.

 pretre wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:

Anyone have the Photoshop etc. skills to show the old and new, side by side, or as close as possible to side to side?

Thanks!

Link the old ones and I'll do it in Paint.

http://riquende.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/mantic-open-day-deadzone-images/#jp-carousel-373


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They have improved them quite a bit but I'm still not too keen on them. And I usually like orcs/orks/orxs of all types. Something about their headgear ...

The original pics are not so great. Is this what you wanted?

I really like the orx.

The reb leader looks pretty special, stylish but restrained. You can tell shes female so I expect a chainmail bikini rant any moment.

 Alpharius wrote:
I asked in the comments section and was told:

@Alpharius
The commando holding his gun upright has a different head. The other 2 have had their arms repositioned. An improvement, but still could have gone alot further.

@Alpharius They're subtle

The arms have been scaled down and reposed, and at least one (maybe two) of the heads have been replaced. That's what it looks like to my eye, at least.

Anyone have the Photoshop etc. skills to show the old and new, side by side, or as close as possible to side to side?

Thanks!

The flaws were in the legs of the running one. Which was not fixed. Which means right now 50% of the models are trash because they only appear to have 2 torsos. Repositioned the arms... it is a multipart kit, the arms still look pretty bad as the 'Hay, here are my gunz' pose is bad, and the awkwardly holding my gun in a non-shooting position doesn't do the other model any favors.

There is no significant difference in the changes, this is the same BS from before where they say 'we fixed it', and they didn't and the models are not as good as they should have been. I don't know why they couldn't simply match the concept art in style, scale and pose as these do none of that.

This further shows their models will not be faithful representations of the concept art, and that they have zero intention of resculpting when they show us flawed models. Mantic should just be upfront and say 'we are not going to change a thing.'

Oh, And nice flash on the mawbeast... Close to a week, multiple emails to multiple sources, no response over my Dreadball models being unacceptable. Too busy taking people's money in a KS to attend to the needs of previous backers. Of course the water carriers say 'Not mantics fault, they are all busy and their website doesn't work' as if that is ok and excuses customer service. Apparently there must be a new secret hoop I need to jump through to get my needs addressed. Well I am going out of town this weekend, maybe next week I will begin calling internationally to try to get some action.

The shotgun dude is unchanged (but fine anyway); the other two have vastly improved. I'd much prefer the twin-gun model to lose the left-hand gun but doing this myself is a lot easier than it would be for someone to sculpt on a second distinctive gun so I'm fine with it as it seems many rather like that model as well.

I like Mantic. A lot. They've made some stuff I've really liked. I've tried to not be too negative on the KS comments section, but I need to vent. I think they just didn't try hard enough to fix the commandos.

It really irritates me because they had all the input they needed to do them right.

The running commando could have had is left arm brought further forward and his right arm moved further back.

The 2 gun commando just needed 2 new arms.

They changed the heads, but they are almost indistinguishable from GW Orks.

They look better, but I just feel like they barely tried.

 pretre wrote:
The original pics are not so great. Is this what you wanted?

Thanks fulop78 and pretre!


I guess the changes are small and subtle, but I do like these versions better.

I was never going to do an Orx army for Warpath anyway, so these will be a fine addition to the selection of forces available for Deadzone...

Yeah, I couldn't find a good pic of the running guy.

Both seem to be improvements. Would love some better pictures though.

nkelsch wrote:
The flaws were in the legs of the running one. Which was not fixed. Which means right now 50% of the models are trash because they only appear to have 2 torsos. Repositioned the arms... it is a multipart kit, the arms still look pretty bad as the 'Hay, here are my gunz' pose is bad, and the awkwardly holding my gun in a non-shooting position doesn't do the other model any favors.

There is no significant difference in the changes, this is the same BS from before where they say 'we fixed it', and they didn't and the models are not as good as they should have been. I don't know why they couldn't simply match the concept art in style, scale and pose as these do none of that.

Legs weren't really ever the problem. Arm position and comedy elements were. Some of the arm position is down to casting limitations I am sure, but they really could have done better to match the concept art. Updated sculpt is much changed and much better from what I can tell.

Still wish they had gone for serious and deadly rather than comedic and brutal.

~Eric

Edit:
Also, since they said these are resin castings in the new update, I guess that means they are satisfied and running with them. Not sure why they would take the trouble to mold and cast them otherwise.

I will have to disagree a few things have changed.

Oh hey they did change the shotgun dude. oops?

Yeah, running guy looks a lot better. Less extreme movement and more cautious jog.

Not sure why they would take the trouble to mold and cast them otherwise

Assuming that he modified resin castings, and not the original greens, It would hide the exact nature of the changes so that critics wouldn't harp on them as much. Also, the detailing stands out in a more flattering manner on the grey resin than it does on the greens.

The legs were very scrawny in relationship to the arms in the earlier sculpts, but they seem to have towned down the arms enough that the models don't look quite as unbalanced any more. They're not human proportioned but, well, they're not humans.

The biggest problem left that I can see (and this is going to be true for most of the factions I suspect) is that the models are so characterful that it'll look really off if you have multiples. A more generic sculpt can be made to look unique with just a little repositioning (think Space Marines.) Commando Sergeant Double-Guns is going to look like Commando Sergeant Double-Guns unless you do some serious conversion. It's probably not a huge problem if you're playing Deadzone, but I could see it getting repetitive for Warpath (or possibly even for large DZ games.)

 Taarnak wrote:

Also, since they said these are resin castings in the new update, I guess that means they are satisfied and running with them. Not sure why they would take the trouble to mold and cast them otherwise.

Because resin casting is fast, cheap and easy way to prototype things, does not commit the original sculpt and can be a good basic point for improvements.

Aren't the arms separate pieces? Just take double gun's left arm and replace it with running guy's left arm, etc.

I am not sure they are interchangeable.

If the arms are seperate, it opens alot of possibilities to improve the models.

Take the right arm from the running commando, change the hand for one holding a plastic ork weapon and put on Mr Two Guns.

And of course the running left arm can be moved further forward.

Might even be able to use plastic Ork arms on them.

Edit:
They don't have to be interchangable, just seperate. A little GS will take care of it.

I think the resculpt will have forced them to make (most of) the arms separate, yeah. Could be a decently modular bunch as long as you don't need more than 5-6 total after all.

The runner would look much better with the 2-handed shotgun. When running with a firewarm, I would expect him to secure it to his body and point it 'away' from things opposed to running with a 2-handed gun one-handed while pointing it at things.

If the arms are swappable, that may allow people to 'fix' a lot of the pose issues themselves. KoW scale orcs in those new sculpts are much better and more consistant, unless Mantic has decided to go hero scale for all sci-fi games.

given the extreme poses i suspect both arms on the runner and at least the right arm on the two guns guy will be separate.

Pretty sure the shotgun guy would have to have separate arms as well. Can you imagine the mold for him in one piece?

Yes, it would be pretty horrible with undercuts, I can see him with only the shotgun been separate though.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I blame Bob for spending his DZ pledge wedge on nipple tassles and fursuits.

No, I spent some on Robotech (because I was confident their sculpts would turn out decently), some on the two new good-plastic KSs, and what remained of my DZ pledge is now earmarked for KOW. The most I would use DZ for is to try to kitbash heavy cruisers out og the terrain bits.

Besides, I already have more than enough of that other stuff.

I think I agree with hulksmash's assessment the most; I'm not in love with the tweaked models, but they're not a zero value anymore either. The adjusted angle on the enforcer captain picture for the stater set makes him look much less derpy (less being a key word), though again I'm still not enthused about it. They've not moved me towards pledging, but they're no longer moving me away so I suppose that's a success of a sort for Mantic.

Really the hang-up at the moment is knowing it's this or WarPath; I'm not going to be putting a ton of money into one of those campaigns. My inclination at the moment is to go big with DeadZone, because I have 40k for the more pitched-battle setup and I really don't have a skirmish game. Suppose I'll wait to see what the WarPath rules for the models are and try to decide from there.