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Mr Gutsy wrote:
Guess my luck has finally ran out, up until now my previous Mantic Kickstarter orders have all been complete but so far i've already noticed i'm missing a few items from my Lock-down pledge. I'll have to give everything a proper look over, but right now i know i'm missing all 3 of the Veer-Myn faction boosters, the Aberration from the Plague booster, and 2 bags of connectors from one of my scenery bags.

didn't the last update say that Lockdown pledges were coming in two boxes?

Well that sucks, I've have preferred more quarters to go with the ones I got as such a limited number will be quite hard to use. And the treadplate one looked great.

 Slayer Dragonwing wrote:
Glad that people are getting their pledges, and that most people seem to be generally happy with them. I missed out on the DZ Kickstarter and have to wait for Warpath to ship.

Does anyone know if N7-117 will be released as a general release? If not I will be looking to buy one from a Kickstarter backer who doesn't want theirs.

Most of the exclusives end up on the Mantic Points store at some point, and some are also sold at conventions

 judgedoug wrote:
didn't the last update say that Lockdown pledges were coming in two boxes?

Some are, some aren't, it'll say on the invoice whether it's 1 box or 2

My Lockdown pledge came in one box.

Mine also.

Man, I haven't even gotten an email that it's on its way. Any other east coast people on here who haven't received yet? I'm right outside of NYC by about 30 miles.

I hate all of you who have your stuff!
Waiting on wwwwwway too many bikes.

I never got an 'on the way' notice, I just got a package, so maybe your's is coming soon.

You only get the email if you have your address set up with FedEx.

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
You only get the email if you have your address set up with FedEx.

I don't think my package came via Fedex.

 NTRabbit wrote:

 Vermonter wrote:

NTRabbit - it's your line of work? You're working in table top gaming? Like, making a living at it? I thought that didn't happen in real life.

Communications, Online Community Management, Public Relations, etc and no, not currently making a living off of it, which is problematic.

You can be quite an ...aggressively overenthusiastic defender of things that you like. Here at least. Hopefully not so much professionally. Though if you are, that might be one of the things to consider when attempting to keep your next position. I think Ronnie has given more ground on Mantic's mistakes and drawbacks than you have.




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 Bioptic wrote:
I feel that it is certainly better than the previous PVC offerings, but
1) has arrived heavily warped (the Veermyn hero's base is completely twisted, making standing impossible)
2) is still in no way superior or an equivalent alternative to the resin that some of these were sold as.
Mould lines are still in evidence, just reduced, and have caused slippage on the detail where the mould halves have not aligned. Detail on some fine areas is poor, see the heads and tails on the rat swarms vs. the original renders.

overtyrant wrote:
And that's why I don't buy anything Mantic without seeing the product or reading reviews.

I haven't opened my baggies to make as fine an examination, but hopefully they're not all like that. Still, that report (and the metal Asterians) are good reinforcement of my decision to not purchase anything of their that's not HIPS before it's out in the wild with reviews.


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 Vermonter wrote:

The GCPS infantry will very likely be on the small side, if this picture from Salute is any indication. People who have their pledges in hand can look at Adrienne for an idea of their scale (the metal Sphyr standing next to the soldiers), as these pics show them to be about her height.

Spoiler:

Whether their scale is good or bad is up to you, anybody's guess, it's one big crazy world we live in.

That's rather unfortunate. They're going to be tiny, and also out of scale with their predecessors and even the zombies. They'll be dwarfed by the space skaven, so typical mantic consistency there, I guess.. I bought 100 or 200 of them.


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 highlord tamburlaine wrote:

Sadly my Nightmare has no head. I also seemed to have ended up with an extra Progenitor tossed in the mix.
Ain't a Manic Kickstarter without random bits missing and others added instead!

Ah crap. Is there a photo of a parts layout anywhere? I was hoping I wouldn't have to check every little bitty bit this time.

My order arrived - and aside from potentially missing bitty bits like that, the miniatures are all there, for the first time ever. It's only missing... the entire Outbreak pledge component. So yes, I'm missing the rulebook. (and paper mat, pretty picture, etc). I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though. But that's okay since the price being asked is not on a par with current GW product, either.

 Azazelx wrote:

You can be quite an ...aggressively overenthusiastic defender of things that you like. Here at least. Hopefully not so much professionally. Though if you are, that might be one of the things to consider when attempting to keep your next position. I think Ronnie has given more ground on Mantic's mistakes and drawbacks than you have.

I've never needed to defend the products or practises of my employers, they've always been flawless and beyond reproach, a shining beacon, just like all the media plans and management directives say

Anyone else been playing around with the scenery much?

I'm trying to figure out the best way to make the conveyor belts look sensible. - The two "Industrial" buildings I've made up look good though, however it's tricky to make the huge fan pieces look particularly sensible. - I've ended up using them together as two huge turbines on the top of the buildings.

Thanks for the pics, man. Any more Forge Fathers always great to see. I'm glad I waited to buy, build and paint my FF together rather than KS and full release.

After spending the last few days fiddling around with the new stuff, I feel like I need to echo the desire for Mantic to ditch the model (or get better QC) and embrace the PVC.

Very happy with all the PVC stuff, especially compared to the metals and restic. Barely any mold lines, crisp details, easy to fit together... I guess the only drawback others have mentioned is possible warping, but my figures came posed the way they should be.

I think the Kalyshi would have been much nicer in the material. The Sky scraper jetpack Marauders too. Maybe then we could have had a unit of them from the get go.

 Azazelx wrote:


My order arrived - and aside from potentially missing bitty bits like that, the miniatures are all there, for the first time ever. It's only missing... the entire Outbreak pledge component. So yes, I'm missing the rulebook. (and paper mat, pretty picture, etc). I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though. But that's okay since the price being asked is not on a par with current GW product, either.

Well, I put together some of the HIP Mantic steel warriors this afternoon. Fantastic detail, bucket loads of options and far fewer mold lines than the GW models I bought earlier this year. At $20 for a set of 20 too. Guess I'm delusional.

I did put together the pvc abomination. The mold lines ot did have are a pain to get off still in this material - better detail and less mold lines than restic but still a far cry from HIP.

If Mantic keep up with these plastic sprues... I'll be a customer of theirs for life.
(It's just the errors and errata needed for most of the recent books that needs addressing)

Deathwatch Overkill has I'd say had the same amount of mold lines that the two veermyn sprues have, sometimes more. Especially on the heads. Is there a reason companies put the mold line down the middle of the face? I feel like it'd be better one the side of the head.

Couple tips:
When assembling the Nightmares give the waist attachment
a quick file, and it will fit together better.

If you dont like the ball joints just clip them off and glue them on. Less possibility but a better fit in my opinion.

The new battlezones are slightly less rigid... It mostly shows on the smaller thinner pieces. The grated fencing is a good example, its flexible enough the it won't snap if you put some pressure on it. Could be just a few peices are cast in PVC or something.

The pipes are fun, but will probably need to be glued together for rigidity.

@Az
Why does it seem like your always on the attack? Did NTRabbit ask you for life advice? Rule #1.

Anyway...

You should check your invoice that comes in the box. Some of the pledges have been coming in two parts. I think that was one of the two boxes some people got a few pages ago.

@Compel
It's the only part I've not gotten into it yet. Let us know if you figure it out.

@HT
I think it's mostly the push-back from restic. I agree though PVC is way better than the metal.

 Azazelx wrote:
I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though.

You have a shed for miniatures? A shed?

I feel so much better about my addiction now.


I don't think I've seen any company put out plastics that are GW quality except GW (barring other companies who dabble in Renedra, like Mantic's earliest undead sprues). GW has the edge not only in crisp casting, but also in model design and posing. (Model design meaning how the models go together, not style. I prefer Mantic-styled enforcers to GW-styled Space Marines, and Mantic-styled Forge Fathers to any GW Dwarves or Squats.) That said, "good enough" is looking really good right now.

Personally, I have 'The Great Wall of Cardboard Shipping Boxes', and you can pick the Mantic ones out by the special tape

 NTRabbit wrote:
Personally, I have 'The Great Wall of Cardboard Shipping Boxes', and you can pick the Mantic ones out by the special tape

Bless you, sir. The next time I order miniatures, I'm showing your post to my wife.


Still, I wonder how much space my own collection would take up if I did have a shed to consolidate it in, and it weren't scattered around the apartment. So I'll stop throwing stones in glass houses.

Alright, last off-topic thing, but I have to know this. NTRabbit, do you actually have a rabbit? Is that your pet in your avatar? My son owns a holland lop.

Back on-topic, does anyone outside or inside Mantic's inner circle know if they're still considering a Project Pandora re-launch? If they did it with PVC miniatures like Deadzone infestation's instead of Dungeon Saga's, I think they'd have something there. They'd definitely have my money.

Azazelx wrote:

 Vermonter wrote:

Spoiler:

The GCPS infantry will very likely be on the small side, if this picture from Salute is any indication. People who have their pledges in hand can look at Adrienne for an idea of their scale (the metal Sphyr standing next to the soldiers), as these pics show them to be about her height.

[spoiler]

Whether their scale is good or bad is up to you, anybody's guess, it's one big crazy world we live in.

[/spoiler]

That's rather unfortunate. They're going to be tiny, and also out of scale with their predecessors and even the zombies. They'll be dwarfed by the space skaven, so typical mantic consistency there, I guess.. I bought 100 or 200 of .

I think it's mostly the pic but.

She's 33mm foot to head.
Reb human = 30mm
Imperial guard =31-32mm
Pan o fusilier (aiming) 33mm
Veer myn & steel warriors 26mm tall

So if she's the same height as the troops they should still be comparable but a little taller than the reb humans and previous restic marines/Rangers.

Vermonter wrote:

I don't think I've seen any company put out plastics that are GW quality except GW (barring other companies who dabble in Renedra, like Mantic's earliest undead sprues). GW has the edge not only in crisp casting, but also in model design and posing. (Model design meaning how the models go together, not style. I prefer Mantic-styled enforcers to GW-styled Space Marines, and Mantic-styled Forge Fathers to any GW Dwarves or Squats.) That said, "good enough" is looking really good right now.

Dreamforge make the best plastic infantry I've assembled. I'd say their ahead of GW

But I agree these are a great step for mantic.

 Vermonter wrote:

Alright, last off-topic thing, but I have to know this. NTRabbit, do you actually have a rabbit? Is that your pet in your avatar? My son owns a holland lop.

I had a rabbit long ago, but I don't think there are any photos of him, certainly not digital; my avatar is just a random internet pic

Just got my order... Can't express my disappointment. I ordered 7 terrain sprues and 1 model sprue. What did I receive? 7 terrain sprues and 1 model sprue. That's right, I got exactly what I ordered. After reading about Mantic's delivery problems on here, I was expecting at least a free rule book, free dice and tokens, and maybe even a complete Lockdown pledge packaged by mistake. Instead I got exactly what I paid for. You better believe I'll be writing a sternly worded letter to Mantic to let them know exactly what I think of their new packing policies. Won't let them get away with this, and in their next KS you better believe I'll be writing several e-mails to ensure they put their most confused warehouse employee on my order. When I order something I expect to receive something completely different, and when I counted my sprues and realised what had happened I threw the whole damn thing in a drawer in disgust and went immediately to write this.

/Mymearan

I must have somehow ended up on Mantic's naughty list at some point. The first DZ KS I was one of the first people in the US to receive it. Ever since then, every single time, I've been one of the very last. Oh well, it'll get here when it gets here.

Not bad for a nights work, I think. - My Lock Down pledge, plus a few pieces I hadn't used from my Christmas Crazy Box.






Plus the obligatory shot of the "leftovers."



Naturally, I found a couple of pieces that had fallen down the side of the sofa (including a fan blade), so I can tweak things a little bit further now too.

Triple9 wrote:
I must have somehow ended up on Mantic's naughty list at some point. The first DZ KS I was one of the first people in the US to receive it. Ever since then, every single time, I've been one of the very last. Oh well, it'll get here when it gets here.

Reverse for me. This is the first time I'm not flipping out about having the last package out the door.

My stuff arrived too. There's a lot of stuff in the scenery I don' really know what's for, but I guess I'll just have to get on trying. Been assembling some stuff today:






So far, quite happy with it all.

 JoeRugby wrote:


Dreamforge make the best plastic infantry I've assembled. I'd say their ahead of GW

But I agree these are a great step for mantic.

Yeah, I wrote that post just before rushing out the door. Then on the road I thought, "Dreamforge, you idiot. Or Maelstrom's Edge scarecrow robots."

We live in interesting times.


And great photos, Albertorius. Your assembled enforcers look better than any I've seen thus far. Including the female ones, which I had been a bit worried about (thought the waists might be too skinny.)

 NobodyXY wrote:
Deathwatch Overkill has I'd say had the same amount of mold lines that the two veermyn sprues have, sometimes more. Especially on the heads. Is there a reason companies put the mold line down the middle of the face? I feel like it'd be better one the side of the head.

@Az
Why does it seem like your always on the attack? Did NTRabbit ask you for life advice? Rule #1.

Anyway...

You should check your invoice that comes in the box. Some of the pledges have been coming in two parts. I think that was one of the two boxes some people got a few pages ago.

Swings and roundabouts, my friend. NT has never been shy of jumping to the defence of Mantic's poor decisions or to the attack when someone isn't pleased with something/anything that they have received from Mantic - even when the actual information is to the contrary he doesn't give any sort of apology or "oh, I didn't know that, my bad" - the typical internet "never apologise, never admit you were wrong in any way" kind of thing (see the "Mantic's restic is why the new PVC is good" comment for example) - and I've certainly been on the receiving end of it. Thanks for the mod advice, though.

As for the order, my box and invoice are very much a 1 Large, and it would make very little sense to send 6.5kg of models in one, and a ...150g(?) book and paper map separately. Also, it's listed on the invoice. Oddly, this time around I'm not even bent out of shape that they messed up. It's much more of a "eh, Mantic" and a shrug. I'm more surprised that they appear to have gotten the actual miniatures order correct and in full. If they manage to send it out to me within a week or two I'll be much happier than if they repeat KoW2 or Dungeon Saga and take 3-4 months and a need to contact Ronnie. If that happens, I'm sure I'll become quite testy. Though I haven't done a piece count or dry-fit of things like the PVC heroes or the Jetbikes. If there are issues when/if I eventually get around to assembling them, I'll contact Mantic at that time and ask them to fix it then. Even they don't expect us to assemble everything immediately (or ever, if you consider that latter from Ronnie).

Anyway, the rules-less Deadzone stuff is out of the way in the shed for now, since I'm working on other projects for the time being. I'm hoping that the Vermyn will mesh well with my Skaven models and fit into the eventual KoW Ratkin army I've purchased. The new plastics, and even the PVC are certainly much nicer than the restic models that came before.




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 Vermonter wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
I haven't looked at them in detail (they're already in the shed) but the plastic especially seem to be quite decent. Anyone who thinks they're on a quality or sculpting par with current GW product is delusional, though.

You have a shed for miniatures? A shed?
I feel so much better about my addiction now.

These are 2 years old now, but:
https://azazelx.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/the-war-room/
https://azazelx.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/new-years-hobby-resolutions-2014/

I don't think I've seen any company put out plastics that are GW quality except GW (barring other companies who dabble in Renedra, like Mantic's earliest undead sprues). GW has the edge not only in crisp casting, but also in model design and posing. (Model design meaning how the models go together, not style. I prefer Mantic-styled enforcers to GW-styled Space Marines, and Mantic-styled Forge Fathers to any GW Dwarves or Squats.) That said, "good enough" is looking really good right now.

Here's the thing. I'm pretty much system and company-agnostic. I don't need my "preferred" company or game to be the bets at everything. My preferred fantasy game is Kings of War. My preferred sci-fi game used to be 40k, but it's become a right clusterfeth, and I don't have a replacement for it yet. (Maybe a mashed-up, semi-homebrewed 5th edition at some stage in the future? Maybe the smaller WarPath?) My preferred plastics for Fantasy and Sci-fi are generally GW ones, due to the design, sculpts and quality of their sprues in regard to using the space for lots of variety, but that doesn't mean I think everything else is gak, or that they're always the best evar. There are some real duds in the GW plastic range as well (and let's not even go to Finecast town!) I don't like Mierce or Rob Lane (due to Maelstrom), but I recognise that many of their miniatures are amazing sculpts and a have a pile of them that I picked up before it all went down and that I bought from a friend. I like Warlord Games a lot, but it doesn't mean I have to prefer their plastic Greeks to Victrix' ones. Dreamforge has made some amazing models in HIPs as well. I'm not a fan of boardgame plastic in general, but if a game (or KS) is upfront about its use then I adjust my expectations of both quality and value accordingly. (Like, charging for resin and supplying BG plastic is a dick move).

Mantic's plastics have objectively come along in leaps and bounds, and as I said when I got my KoW2 stuff, I'll happily call them "quite nice" and recommend them to others - but they're not top-tier yet (and may never be). But then, I'm not expecting them to be - certainly not at this point in time.





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 JoeRugby wrote:

I think it's mostly the pic but.

She's 33mm foot to head.
Reb human = 30mm
Imperial guard =31-32mm
Pan o fusilier (aiming) 33mm
Veer myn & steel warriors 26mm tall

So if she's the same height as the troops they should still be comparable but a little taller than the reb humans and previous restic marines/Rangers.

Well, they're not side by side, so I guess we'll have to wait and see once they're released. It's Mantic's internal scale consistency issues like this that scare me the most, though. Even allowing for the fact that not everyone in the world is a uniform height...







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 Compel wrote:
Not bad for a nights work, I think. - My Lock Down pledge, plus a few pieces I hadn't used from my Christmas Crazy Box.

That looks rather excellent. When I get back to sci-fi, I'm hoping to be able to build some really nice out of their modular terrain, especially with the new Industrial Quadrant pieces added in.

Alrighty, today's effort.



So far, the Steel Warriors are the weakest of the new wave of sci fi plastic models from Mantic. Not only are the torsos not fitting the legs properly like people mentioned earlier, but, as far as I can figure out, there's no way for the backpacks that came with them to legitimately actually fit onto the models. - I can't even tell which is supposed to be right way up on them!

On the other hand, they look fine once assembled and if someones looking for their space dwarf fix, they're fine for that. Oh, and the weapon options in the kit are amazing. I tried just going for a simple, "assemble everything from one sprue, so I cover every base." - I still had 1 gun and several heads left over after assembling two sprues worth (AKA 10 models worth). That's brilliant variation.
Naturally, me being me, I then remembered I had some crazy box stormrage veterans, so I would have been better off assembling some normal guns instead of all the fancy heavy weapons. Oh well, live and learn.

The forge guard, who I hadn't got round to assembling from Original Deadzone Wave 3 are great though, not much leg, head and body variation (pay attention to the letters on the sprues!), but they went together great and had 3 special weapons to pick from.

Next on the list, is the special characters, they've been sitting in soapy water today.

Why were they in soapy water?