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.

If everyone could turn it down a notch?

And remember that this site has rules that must be followed - especially Rule #1?

Thanks!

I've put together a whack of Mantic KoW models. The plastic quality isn't great, and the detail certainly isn't GW standards, but they're also priced significantly lower than GW as well.

That's kind of Mantic's shtik. The minis are budget...because they're for a mass battle game. They're a bit simpler, but they're meant to be painted en masse and look good to a tabletop standard ranked up in units.

GW has been selling us mass battle figures at skirmish game prices for years now, and we've been lapping it up because we didn't have a better option. Other games produce minis that are just as expensive...so why don't they get the same flak over prices as GW does? Easy...because they don't expect us to buy 30 models at $7 a pop just to get to a playable unit size.

For every DreamForge, there's a project like the (name escapes me) one that made miniatures that looked like they were sculpted out of playdoh.

ADW Games, ice age mammals... Talk about a load of rubbish that people went nuts over.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:That's kind of Mantic's shtik. The minis are budget...because they're for a mass battle game. They're a bit simpler, but they're meant to be painted en masse and look good to a tabletop standard ranked up in units.

I'm not convinced that's entirely the case, or enough of an excuse. Going back to what I said earlier about aged sculpting styles, the style that many historicals and some fantasy ranges are still sculpted with: stumpy, tube-shaped limbs; mitten hands; dead expressions; overall looking like basic dollies dressed up with a few themed accessories. (Well, they often are, but it's not pretty when it's applied to handfuls of skirmish characters) That's the unkind definition. To be a bit more generous, you could just call them basic or simple, as you say - not much individually but paint up a dozen or more, bunch them together, and they're not too bad.

I don't think that's the main cause of Mantic's problems. I'd say it's a part of the problem. In my experience even sculptors who can crank out fantastic human sculpts often struggle with anything non-human; what chance is there for someone who can just about manage a human figure in that 'aged style', or who just phone that style in, like Ronnie's go-to guy Bob Naismith?

The real issue, as I see it, is that Mantic is trying to go almost straight from that old, 'it'll do' style (taking a bit of it along for the ride) to the current trend for big, brash, somewhat over-the-top fantasy. And so it looks like there's too little necessary time or expertise going into the design and execution to pull it off; too little knowledge of real-world anatomy and proportions (even human proportions) to know what to mix up and exaggerate; too little care put into the quality.
That's why we end up with dwarfs that have huge, flat heads; stick insect elves (there's 'willowy' and then there's 'skeletal'. Skinnier than skeletal.); the thankfully defunct drakons (probably the worst); Twilight Kin assassins that look like the sister of the Pilsbury Dough Boy; basically one rachet-jawed mawbeast, multiplied several times; wights from the early '80's; pee-pee dance ogres; twiglet-legged trolls (with playmobil shoulders); melty goblins; dreadful misshapen Basilean sisters (only topped by the drakons); cat cavalry that looks like rejects from those buckets of wildlife toys you get in pound shops... even their best stuff, the plastic undead, has hard, dry headbones that somehow form 'eebil eyes' expressions.

In a nutshell, TL;DR: they're doodling cartoons, not designing creatures and beings. And they can't even do that very well. I don't know if painting up a bunch of any of those problematic minis and pushing them together will help hide that effect as much as 'simple' sculpting, especially the characters or the big stuff with only 3-5 in a row. (Sure won't hide the fact those trolls look like a celeriac with a pair of toothpicks shoved in it) Small wonder some Mantic fans don't have much problem steering people to the Perry Brothers.

One thing that all of us need to keep in mind is that different people like different styles.

I like the Mantic Trolls.

I also like the GW Trolls.

And the Pathfinder Trolls.

And the Reaper Trolls.

And even my old Ral Partha Trolls.

When I put them on the table, what people see are Trolls. I have never had anybody ask 'are those supposed to be Trolls?' - the trollishness in each case was and is obvious.

I do not like the style of the new Age of Sigmarine figures. At all.

But folks are allowed to have their opinion - no matter how much I may disagree.

I find the complaints about the smaller figures that Mantic has produced far more compelling - some of the scale human sized figures do look... awful. (Yes, Men at Arms... I am loo... no, I am avoiding looking at you.)

But style wise... I am actually quite happy with most of the Mantic offerings that I have picked up over the years - and I think that their Orcs and Undead lines are quite good.

I also quite like their elves and dwarfs - though others are free to disagree.

I had fun painting the Mantic Trolls - my favorite is shouting at a face painted on the rock in his hand.

So, let us leave off yelling at each other for differing tastes in style, eh?

Mantic is doing alright, and is improving over time - I very much doubt that the problems experienced with either the Goblins or the Men at Arms will be repeated.(I am pretty sure that they dropped that manufacturer - with good cause.)

Rules wise, I find Kings of War vastly superior to Age of Shareholders - and have played often enough to feel that opinion has weight.

And people do not have difficulty shepherding folks to the Perry brothers because Mantic is not trying to tie people exclusively to their miniatures - Mantic themselves used images of Perry WotR figures in the first version of the full KoW rulebook.

So, let us not start having an argument that Mantic itself has avoided, hmm?

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* On topic - part of the reason that so many companies are using Kickstarter is that the old dynamic of Bank - Manufacturer - Distribution has been breaking down for quite some time - and in the process took several good companies with it.

Distributors used to buy a good deal wider selection of material - but have over time been narrowing their focus to that which sells through the fastest.

The game companies relied on Distribution sales to pay the bank for the loans that allowed products to be made, and then sold to the distributors - when the distributors stopped gambling that things would sell... the companies had to look elsewhere.

Now, add the ease of internet shopping - distributors start becoming less important.

And with Kickstarter - the companies can avoid dealing with the banks and distributors to get their products available.

 agnosto wrote:

For someone who professes a great distaste for having words put in your mouth, you certainly appear to enjoy doing so for others.

How about we call it one-all in that case, a mutual fail that cancels each other out, and both attempt to stop it in future?

 agnosto wrote:

All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along.

I'll assume that your command of English is sufficient to understand the term "of one stripe or another" so I really don't get where you state that I'm demeaning the entirety of the industry. Ah well, mysteries do persist I suppose.

I said:

That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

So, the use of "either" usually means something in a sentence; indicating two options. 1. People enjoy gaming so much that they'll buy whatever comes along or 2. Enough people find what I consider to be a "crappy" product of their taste to sufficiently support the company.

I will admit that I could have written this better but I wasn't expecting my pithy statements to be parsed and then argued over. I explained myself further to JudgeDoug; you could have simply asked me to defend my statement and I would have done the same without all the growling, unless that's your thing.

I got the demeaning of the industry from the part that says "All of these companies". That's fair enough, no?

And to be frank, both variants express an opinion that people continue to buy gak - and implies that it's the gak product keeping them all "chugging along. - which is why I took exception. I can't imagine that, say, the Basileans or Goblins sell in huge numbers compared to their better figures. We've seen many threads here where people ask about the quality of those two ranges, and I've also seen similar questions asked and answered elsewhere. Meanwhile their Undead range continues to gain overall praise. I'm sure that there are a good number of people who fit your statement in regard to gakky models because "those are the official models", but there are also a lot of people who won't touch them with a barge pole.

I really think that a great many of these companies have a minimal amount of crappy product, especially if we're being objective. Let's take Raging Heroes & Avatars of War. You or I might not love every sculpt or design, but I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that pretty much everything that both companies put out is very high quality. Some of the older sculpts for Bolt Action have some weird heads going on, but overall that range is also very good indeed (unless you're Big P/Tailgunner who see every inaccuracy no matter how big or small via their encyclopaedic knowledge of the period). Warlord Games' entire range is pretty damned good. I'd say that for the Perrys' as well. Reaper? Artizan? The same. And on and on it goes.

Even one-man shops like Copplestone castings, Bob Olley and Heresy "quality" or lack therof are going to be very much based on an individual's opinion of the sculptor's aesthetic style.

In response to your statement about the opposite being true of the industry as a whole. My opinion is that KickStarter is producing a negative impact on quality, to some extent. I've backed a number of projects, aside from Mantic, and seen the whole gambit of awesome to crap coming out of them. Since any person with an idea can potentially find people to back their dream, not considering if they have the know-how or ability to actually competently produce their dream, the market is seeing an uptick in crap products. Sure, we can ignore those but that doesn't make it any less true in my eyes. For every DreamForge, there's a project like the (name escapes me) one that made miniatures that looked like they were sculpted out of playdoh.

Aside from that. Generally, in most industries, competition breeds innovation and improvement, not AoS.

I've got some of those playdoh miniatures. They're the Winter War range. Ultimately, Kickstarter requires a lot of care as well as some research and diligence from backers, and it's a (painful) learning curve for us and also for the companies putting out product if they want to keep going. Then again, there have always been gak miniatures out there. Kickstarter provides both the people who will sculpt those as well as the Dreamforges the opportunity to get their models out there. Regardless, it's up to us (the consumers) to dodge the gak and pick up the gems, but it;s always been that way. There's just so much more to choose from.

But beyond that, the fact that games like SAGA and Lion Rampant and Gripping Beast metals and plastics are now a thing. Even Mantic, with their ..uneven ratio of hits and misses are moving further into the hits camp (yes, took them long enough!) with their newer figures. The fact that you can make a Kings of War human army from Perry Plastics or (most of) a Warhammer Undead Army from Mantic Plastics, or Dwarves from Avatars of War, or play SAGA with WGF Vikings, or 30k with Dreamforge or 40k with Raging Heroes. You can cheaply and easily build a good looking Nurgle Cult army with your Plague Zombies sourced from Zombicide or Studio Miniatures. All of this is a very good thing - tons of options that we never had before, and I honestly can't see any negative there. There's never been a better, more healthy time for the industry.

Even in the times when GW dominated much more completely, while Mephiston and Diaz' Daemnettes were there through the years, Nagash was also there before, and Pumbagor is there now. All you had to do then was not buy the gak and the same applies now, except we have WAY more options.

Back to the original point, Mantic has toned down the Kickstarters quite a lot. The last pledge manager closes tomorrow, and after that, no more Kickstarter for a long time.

I would estimate Warpath KS for early 2016 considering how much else is going on and the lukewarm reception to the rules.

There will probably be a major focus on KoW for at least the next 6 months considering the surge in popularity, with some Dungeon Saga and DBX thrown in too.

 Vermis wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:That's kind of Mantic's shtik. The minis are budget...because they're for a mass battle game. They're a bit simpler, but they're meant to be painted en masse and look good to a tabletop standard ranked up in units.

I'm not convinced that's entirely the case, or enough of an excuse. Going back to what I said earlier about aged sculpting styles, the style that many historicals and some fantasy ranges are still sculpted with: stumpy, tube-shaped limbs; mitten hands; dead expressions; overall looking like basic dollies dressed up with a few themed accessories. (Well, they often are, but it's not pretty when it's applied to handfuls of skirmish characters) That's the unkind definition. To be a bit more generous, you could just call them basic or simple, as you say - not much individually but paint up a dozen or more, bunch them together, and they're not too bad.

It's probably worth the reminder that Mantic are far from the only company has rather severe fails in this ilk. While I'm absolutely not making excuses for Mantic in this - I do believe they need to do much better - this kit was put out by GW not very long ago.

They are, to be quite blunt - poor models as far as modern HIPS plastic kits go. Softly and mushily detailed, slightly oversized to the rest of the LotR range, and featuring overly-chunky details in their cloaks and clothing. They are a lazy boxed set marketed in a lazy manner - replacing all of the previous metal ranges of rangers. These also cost a lot more than any of their similar competition, because GW.

The real issue, as I see it, is that Mantic is trying to go almost straight from that old, 'it'll do' style (taking a bit of it along for the ride) to the current trend for big, brash, somewhat over-the-top fantasy. And so it looks like there's too little necessary time or expertise going into the design and execution to pull it off; too little knowledge of real-world anatomy and proportions (even human proportions) to know what to mix up and exaggerate; too little care put into the quality.
That's why we end up with dwarfs that have huge, flat heads; stick insect elves (there's 'willowy' and then there's 'skeletal'. Skinnier than skeletal.); the thankfully defunct drakons (probably the worst); Twilight Kin assassins that look like the sister of the Pilsbury Dough Boy; basically one rachet-jawed mawbeast, multiplied several times; wights from the early '80's; pee-pee dance ogres; twiglet-legged trolls (with playmobil shoulders); melty goblins; dreadful misshapen Basilean sisters (only topped by the drakons); cat cavalry that looks like rejects from those buckets of wildlife toys you get in pound shops... even their best stuff, the plastic undead, has hard, dry headbones that somehow form 'eebil eyes' expressions.

In a nutshell, TL;DR: they're doodling cartoons, not designing creatures and beings. And they can't even do that very well. I don't know if painting up a bunch of any of those problematic minis and pushing them together will help hide that effect as much as 'simple' sculpting, especially the characters or the big stuff with only 3-5 in a row. (Sure won't hide the fact those trolls look like a celeriac with a pair of toothpicks shoved in it) Small wonder some Mantic fans don't have much problem steering people to the Perry Brothers.

Many of us have been saying similar for years. Mantic need a proper art director with the authority and balls to tell sculptors that their sub-par work just is not good enough, and tell them to fix it or do it again.
I've complained many times on this forum - and directly to Mantic about how unacceptable it was that these concept pictures somehow became these models. Especially after taking people's money for them. Gorilla-armed Basilean Sisters aren't much better.

Unfortunately for every figure that makes you think they're past the hump, there are a couple that fall down badly. These are a couple of my more recent favourites. From disproportionate necks in the concept art to the models.



They're slowly getting better, but it's a painfully slow process.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
One thing that all of us need to keep in mind is that different people like different styles.
I like the Mantic Trolls.
I also like the GW Trolls.
And the Pathfinder Trolls.
And the Reaper Trolls.
And even my old Ral Partha Trolls.
When I put them on the table, what people see are Trolls. I have never had anybody ask 'are those supposed to be Trolls?' - the trollishness in each case was and is obvious.

That's fine, but the issue I have with the Mantic Trolls is that they took people's money based on two quite nice pieces of concept art and then delivered something very different. If the initial design looked like the eventual models, then I might think they were rubbish, but would happily ignore them without the annoyance.