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 got 10, even though the bag only said 5.

 judgedoug wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
What are HIPs? I am unfamiliar with this term.

Since the thread has devolved to being an off-topic fest lacking any merit, I'll answer this useful question.

Hips is an acronym for high impact polystyrene. Most traditional model kits - usually any plastic models that come on sprues are hips. Hips molds are very very expensive to tool (as they are traditionally made from steel), but the plastic itself is cheap. Models with low run counts will be more expensive to pay for the tooling costs; models with high run counts will be less expensive. It is most bondable with methyl ethyl ketone (mek), which melts the polystyrene (to another piece, usually) and forms a permanent bond.

I see, Interesting. So GW minis are HIPs as well then?

This thread is getting a bit off topic ...

Please feel free to continue discussing the relative merits of plastic models in another thread, perhaps in General Discussion.

Thanks!

So, to bring things on topic, I just assembled my Aberration and am starting on my Pathfinders.

I'm not gonna lie, the Dog Drone is kinda adorable, I definitely love the redesign of him.

Anything else anyone is particularly wanting to have a look at?

You've been singing praise for the Aberration, let's see it! I wouldn't mind seeing how some of the new characters, like N7-117 turned out.

I want to see an Aberration next to the Stage 1 or whatever the original big guy is called. Get a sense of size.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I want to see an Aberration next to the Stage 1 or whatever the original big guy is called. Get a sense of size.

I'll try to get a size comparison pic done tomorrow when I do my "unboxing" effort.

I am pretty smashed at the moment tho so if I don't let me know

I present to you...

The Three Plamigos

Resin Stage 3 - New Formula Aberration - Original Restic Stage 3








And, here's my Pathfinders I've assembled so far. I've got to say, I've not made the best advert for them, I think. - You need to be very careful about how to pose them would be my advice and I've not done that properly, I think.



And yeah, Robopup is adorable.

Well huh.

That's not *that* big. Was expecting bigger, but it is Mantic, so I can't say I'm too surprised. That's probably just more of my own expectations on how big it would be.

Looks nice though.

It's not like a normal Stage 3 is particularly tiny. :p

They're Stage 1's, not 3's...

Ever since drinking deep from the Darklands well, my sense of scale is incredibly warped.

Normal sized figures come on 40mm bases and monstrous stuff doesn't really start showing up until around 80mm or 100...

Damn Mierce.

It's nowhere near Mierce-scaled, no. OTOH, you can realistically hope to pack a decent amount of these away in a more-or-less decently sized carrying case. Something to be said for that

 Nostromodamus wrote:
They're Stage 1's, not 3's...

Pffft, the last time I played the game was last years tabletop day :p

 Compel wrote:
It's not like a normal Stage 3 is particularly tiny. :p

I thought they were generation 1's..? And I bought mine for $10. I suspect most people who bought them did. $25 seems a bit much in comparison.

I'll have to look at the picture in a bigger monitor, but I have to admit that on this tablet it looks like a closer match to the original than The renders made it look.

Deadzone KS unboxing effort

Soo much stuff

Not going to be able to go through all of it so here's some of the new stuff

New Board Game plastic characters

Here are Enforcer "master chief", biker Blaine, abomination and the Piper

As they come

Components Assembled!



Miles better than the previous restic minis and better than most of the mantic metals I've seen too.
Their not as good as resins or metals from other companies but their still nice and a good step forward for mantic
Really happy with them will need to see how they take paint before I give my final verdict on them though.

Size comparison of the abomination and Gen 1 plague beast


teraton shocktrooper


Is there a fluff reason he's smaller than the reb teraton?

That's all for now please let me know if there's anything you specifically want a pic of.

P.s really jealous of your resin Gen 1 plague Compel

 JoeRugby wrote:

Is there a fluff reason he's smaller than the reb teraton?

Yep the Teraton Brawler (Rebs) is Female and the Teraton Shock Troopers are Male. The females are are larger than the males the Dreadball team is like this as well. The Shock Troopers should be on 25mm bases.

Huh. Thought the Aberration would be bigger, especially for $25.

Thanks for the photos, Joe. The figures look great. Not too fussed about the warping here and there, as a hot water technique type of fella. You know the type.

Looks like this Enforcer has a jetpack that actually looks like one. Who knew?

Not very big for a $25 PVC model, no.

I almost wonder if there was some unaccounted shrinkage in the design of the aberration.

Could explain a few things, no?

Gotta say the PVC stuff does look a lot nicer than their previous restic stuff. At this point I question why bother with the metal because the PVC looks a lot nicer for what they were shooting for. I've never been too impressed with Mantic's metal offerings.

My DZ stuff was delivered yesterday (NC near Bragg). I had a $1 bid and added a small amount of stuff in the pledge manager.

Got the deluxe mat, it looks decent, no surprises there.

Ordered 'Outbreak' to get the new rule book, it came with dice, cardboard tokens, a paper mat and a small poster of the cover art. Book is smaller than I thought it would be but looks okay. Tokens are fine, dice are nothing special. Again, no surprises.

Got 10 Steel Warriors: Two bags each with a sprue and a smaller bag of parts cut from a sprue. I have not opened them but really hope whoever cut the parts off did a decent job. I would have very much preferred cutting them off myself. From what I can tell detail is pretty good. Looks like there are torsos in the bag of loose parts as well as what look like two-part torsos on the sprue.

Got 10 Enforcer Pathfinders: Two bags each with one sprue, everything is on that sprue. Never been a fan of the robot dog but the pathfinders look nice. Glad I got these.

Got two Enforcer Jetbikes: One bag with a gak ton of cut from a sprue parts. Not really happy about that. Detail looks good but bags of loose parts for HIPS models is a crappy thing. Obviously I'll deal with it. There are a couple clear plastic flying stands in the bag too.

Also got a bag with bases for all the figures mentioned above.

Never got notice my package was on the way so was surprised it arrived.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I almost wonder if there was some unaccounted shrinkage in the design of the aberration.

There was a deliberate shrink to make it fit on a 60mm base, was mentioned in an update ages back.

Thanks to all the people posting pictures and unboxing videos. I'm pretty excited about the new stuff now.

Thanks especially for the 3/4 profile shot on the new plague monster. That makes it easier to see how much bigger it is than the 1st gen.

I really wish I had gotten some enforcer jetbikes.

Why did they go with clipping parts of a HIP's sprue? surely not only will it cause mispacks and potential damage to the parts but will also increase the cost of the kit due to more man hours needed to do this? One of the good thing about HIP's is that you can just put it in a box an be done with it.

overtyrant wrote:
Why did they go with clipping parts of a HIP's sprue? surely not only will it cause mispacks and potential damage to the parts but will also increase the cost of the kit due to more man hours needed to do this? One of the good thing about HIP's is that you can just put it in a box an be done with it.

My guess is that they didn't have enough parts to fill a full sprue so got remainding parts for a few kits on one sprue.

If I remember correctly mantic have said in the past that their deal with the Chinese manufacturer meant that it didn't cost any extra to have to parts clipped.

overtyrant wrote:
Why did they go with clipping parts of a HIP's sprue? surely not only will it cause mispacks and potential damage to the parts but will also increase the cost of the kit due to more man hours needed to do this? One of the good thing about HIP's is that you can just put it in a box an be done with it.

Apparently it's cheaper to pay someone in China to clip the parts off the sprue and ship them unsprued than it is to ship them on the sprue - less weight and far smaller packs to ship. Doesn't fully explain why only some sprues are preclipped and not others and it certainly makes sense for the terrain but that's the reason Mantic have given in the past.

The kits that still have parts on sprue are probably the ones that have specific matching legs/ arms/ torsos.

Really not a good idea to go ahead and clip everything off the sprue before assembly with a lot of newer Mantic kits, you'll end up regretting it once you notice the multiple letters on the sprue indicating which part goes with which.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Thanks to all the people posting pictures and unboxing videos. I'm pretty excited about the new stuff now.

Dammit, Bob. You're always so negative.