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 Hulksmash wrote:
Are the jetbikes plastic or restic?

Hard Plastic

 Hulksmash wrote:
Are the jetbikes plastic or restic?

plastic.

 judgedoug wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:

 MLaw wrote:
The decisions they're making now are based on perpetuating the KS cycle, not developing the games. If you took away KS from them and forced them to do development like other companies how would this go?
.

We already know the answer to this, because they were an active company for years before their first Kickstarter.

The answer is forgefathers and marauders based on the fantasy plastics, and restic for everything else, including the entire Corporation, Enforcer and Veer-myn armies.

Kickstarter = hard plastic.

I'll take Kickstarter and actually good, affordable hard plastic minis over the dark, dark days of hybrid restic/ metal any time.

Don't you realize Squig that when one must take an anti-Mantic position they must contort themselves in all manner of strange shapes in order to justify their beliefs

"Oh the glory days of restic! Those were the days! Not this hard plastic nonsense now! Mantic... almost"

There are lots of reasons to dump on Mantic, not least because it's easy fun, but there is also a genuine reason to keep up the critiques. I still see every mantic kickstarter as some sort of haggle in a third world bazaar.

"$30 for a dropship? You must be meshuggeh. What would the retail price be? Well, $75 for three is better, but I'm still not convinced. Remember when you tried to sell jetbikes for $10 each? It was a shonda, stealing from us like a gonif. Two for $10 was more like it. But I have enough jetbikes, unless maybe you can make a better deal..?"

Playing in a Mantic kickstarter is like buying a used car. You can't back down or give an inch if you want to walk away happy.
Plus, how can we get Mantic to improve themselves if we don't stand over their shoulders constantly asking, "why you no doctor yet?" We do it out of love, and probably some deeply disturbing emotional issues.

PS: I paid cash monies for the DS adventure books in paper form, but that never happened, either. Now I'll be getting a Valandor mini who looks very different from his original sketch. I wonder where the Mantic roulette wheel will stop spinning in the WP pledge manager phase.

I just hate the fact the FF drop troops are a metal/plastic hybrid.

 NTRabbit wrote:
There should be a sticky at the top of this forum that explains why no, you're completely wrong about financing and kickstarter and here's why, because the same incorrect claims and assumptions come up in every major project thread, and the same answers as to why they are wrong are posted every time, and ignored every time.

If the business model is that confusing to so many people, then the business model is wrong or misleading. I can call an apple a watermelon for the rest of my life but that doesn't change what other people see.

@Bob - lol slowclap bud (exalted). That's a large part of it. People assume it's just complaining but those people have probably never haggled for anything in their lives

Outside of that, you're exactly right about Mantic altering the deal after the fact. They play dirty pool so turnabout really is fair play where my money is concerned. People can label it as bashing if they like but those same people are going to be gaga googoo when the complaining causes mantic to release stupidly insane deals.

I am still a little miffed about the adventure books not being printed as was promised, and that has kept me from spending any money with Mantic for awhile. In fact, I haven't spent a single penny with them since that. I am kind in wait and see mode with this KS, but am kind of excited about it.

That being said, if you asked me right now, I would probably tell you I will drop my pledge before the end, just based on those adventure books. I really wanted those.

Done whining... at least for now.

People give Mantic a hard time for the same reason they give GW a hard time: they were fans, got burnt, and now are seeing more of the same.

I like Mantic. They are good guys, they care about gamers, and they put out some good games. But let's not lie: they have to use Kickstarter to raise funds for plastic sprues, because outside of a few exceptions, they're mediocre at best! We live in a world were Warlord is putting out amazing 28mm plastic kits for Southern Early War Finnish Ski Paratroopers or some other niche force, while Mantic has to run a bake sale to fund a sprue of five semi-detailed space marine knock offs.

Mantic is like that friend that still lives with his mom and gets drunk five nights a week. You want to love him, cause he's great, but he really kind of sucks, you know?

I too am still annoyed about the adventure books. I ponied up for physical copies as well. Ended up with traps or critters or something instead.

I don't understand why the drop armor can't be some sort of upgrade sprue instead of metal. Set the funding higher or get some feedback from consumers, whatever they need to... I just see them working better all in plastic. Or hell, even restic.

 Polonius wrote:
People give Mantic a hard time for the same reason they give GW a hard time: they were fans, got burnt, and now are seeing more of the same.

I like Mantic. They are good guys, they care about gamers, and they put out some good games. But let's not lie: they have to use Kickstarter to raise funds for plastic sprues, because outside of a few exceptions, they're mediocre at best! We live in a world were Warlord is putting out amazing 28mm plastic kits for Southern Early War Finnish Ski Paratroopers or some other niche force, while Mantic has to run a bake sale to fund a sprue of five semi-detailed space marine knock offs.

Mantic is like that friend that still lives with his mom and gets drunk five nights a week. You want to love him, cause he's great, but he really kind of sucks, you know?

Warlord is a £4 million dollar company. And I _wish_ they were producing Finns in plastic. The most recent kit is German Paratroopers. There's not even Italians or British Expeditionary Force in plastic. It also helps they've partnered with Italeri for vehicle production.

And I don't think anyone thinks anything other than Mantic is a Kickstarter company. As Squig pointed out, we can have them be a Kickstarter company and get cheap hard plastic stuff, or we get restic core troops.

It also comes down to perspective. At this point in my life, my brain is oversaturated with Space Marines, so I hate them. I hate the design, I hate the models. They're fething stupid looking. So the Enforcers plastics look several orders of magnitude better to me than gakky old Space Marines that I've been exposed to for 20+ years. So, feth yeah, give me a Kickstarter to produce cheap plastic sci fi models that are much, much, much better than Space Marines.

Alpharius wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
But meh, it's mantic

Uh oh!

I think we have a new potential Mantic Slogan!

1) Mantic. Almost.

judgedoug wrote:
Mantic shouldn't use Kickstarter to fund hard plastic models
gets replaced by
Mantic shouldn't produce these gakky pvc restic models, where's the hard plastic

Yeah, 'cos nobody ever started or maintained a range of HIPS kits without causing themselves to be tethered to Kickstarter and jumping through the bizarre hoops that it, or the business, or the funders, demand.

Funding hard plastic models through KS isn't the problem though: in my eyes, at least, it's the Defiance-style shenanigans that come to light and that we get hints and suspicions about, and the attitude of pulling up the ladder after each campaign and screw anyone who didn't splurge on it. A lack of restic doesn't really change that. You'd have to, I dunno, contort into strange shapes to make the issues all about restic.

 Polonius wrote:
People give Mantic a hard time for the same reason they give GW a hard time: they were fans, got burnt, and now are seeing more of the same.

I like Mantic. They are good guys, they care about gamers, and they put out some good games. But let's not lie: they have to use Kickstarter to raise funds for plastic sprues, because outside of a few exceptions, they're mediocre at best! We live in a world were Warlord is putting out amazing 28mm plastic kits for Southern Early War Finnish Ski Paratroopers or some other niche force, while Mantic has to run a bake sale to fund a sprue of five semi-detailed space marine knock offs.

Mantic is like that friend that still lives with his mom and gets drunk five nights a week. You want to love him, cause he's great, but he really kind of sucks, you know?

That pretty much sums up my feelings, thanks.

How many KSs has Warlord ran? Oh, yeah. Somehow they're able to fund plastic kits without the need to panhandle on the corner and I don't think it's unfair to ask why that is. The incessant KSs just tell me that they are completely unable to fund or expand their own enterprise through sale of existing product which in turn tells me that nobody's buying. If nobody's buying post-kickstarter, they have bigger issues than restic vs HIPS. They have enough existing products to expand their product line if they were actually selling sufficient volume to do so.

You don't need a PHD in Econ to understand that your cousin goes to the paycheck loan place because his expenses outweigh his income.

 agnosto wrote:
How many KSs has Warlord ran? Oh, yeah. Somehow they're able to fund plastic kits without the need to panhandle on the corner and I don't think it's unfair to ask why that is.

Massive start-up capital funded their initial releases, but there was a dead period in early 2012 until the runaway success of Bolt Action has caused their company to grow 40% in the past year.

So Mantic is a Kickstarter company. Like Mierce and many others. /shrug



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vermis wrote:
it's the Defiance-style shenanigans that come to light and that we get hints and suspicions about, and the attitude of pulling up the ladder after each campaign and screw anyone who didn't splurge like an addict on it.

What.... are you talking about? I literally don't understand what you mean by this.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
it's the Defiance-style shenanigans that come to light and that we get hints and suspicions about, and the attitude of pulling up the ladder after each campaign and screw anyone who didn't splurge like an addict on it.

What.... are you talking about? I literally don't understand what you mean by this.

I think he means that Mantic blew up the St Louis arch.

I do worry about Mantic's position as a profitable company. By using Kickstarter they have massive spikes in income one or two times a year which is supplemented by the 1/2 times they have a major release such as KOW 2/ Dungeon Saga. Then KS skim x amount from the top of that. I really wonder how much they are selling the rest of the year, especially when they deliver KS packages with tens of miniatures that will probably never get painted, as some posters on here have admitted to. You also see a lot of people using their rules, but not their miniatures, is selling one £20 odd rulebook every few years between updates a viable business model?The paucity of non-KS backed releases is a concern, say 6 such releases a year would help spark interest in the product and company as well as bringing in more income.

That said having backed no Mantic KS since Deadzone 1, the options this time round have me very interested in potentially backing it this time round.

 pretre wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
it's the Defiance-style shenanigans that come to light and that we get hints and suspicions about, and the attitude of pulling up the ladder after each campaign and screw anyone who didn't splurge like an addict on it.

What.... are you talking about? I literally don't understand what you mean by this.

I think he means that Mantic blew up the St Louis arch.

Chortle!
I assume "Defiance" implies that Mantic is run with the same level of incompetence and malicious intent to defraud that Tony Reidy brings to the table? This is despite delivering on millions of dollars of Kickstarters now, of course

I'm still trying to figure out the "Pulling up the ladder after each campaign and screw anyone who didn't splurge like an addict on it" part

It's probably a topic for another thread but they appear to be doing fine up to 2013 at least and I'd say 2014 was better again

https://companycheck.co.uk/company/06770093/MANTIC-ENTERTAINMENT-LIMITED/summary

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
I do worry about Mantic's position as a profitable company. By using Kickstarter they have massive spikes in income one or two times a year which is supplemented by the 1/2 times they have a major release such as KOW 2/ Dungeon Saga. Then KS skim x amount from the top of that. I really wonder how much they are selling the rest of the year, especially when they deliver KS packages with tens of miniatures that will probably never get painted, as some posters on here have admitted to. You also see a lot of people using their rules, but not their miniatures, is selling one £20 odd rulebook every few years between updates a viable business model?The paucity of non-KS backed releases is a concern, say 6 such releases a year would help spark interest in the product and company as well as bringing in more income.
That said having backed no Mantic KS since Deadzone 1, the options this time round have me very interested in potentially backing it this time round.

We know that Mantic makes money, Deadzone is now in it's 5th(6th?) printing, at 10,000 copies per printing. Kings of War retail books AND the army sets are selling - out of stock now - waiting on restocks and reships to distributors. Dungeon Saga has apparently presold very well to retailers at least through Golden Distribution in the USA.

agnosto wrote:The incessant KSs just tell me that they are completely unable to fund or expand their own enterprise through sale of existing product which in turn tells me that nobody's buying. If nobody's buying post-kickstarter, they have bigger issues than restic vs HIPS. They have enough existing products to expand their product line if they were actually selling sufficient volume to do so.

judgedoug wrote:there was a dead period in early 2012 until the runaway success of Bolt Action has caused their company to grow 40% in the past year.

Yyyup. Then WG were selling sufficient volume to fund or expand their own enterprise. It suggests that, despite Mantic being the latest heir to GW, they haven't really had their own runaway success. Lots of people use their old WHFB minis with Mantic's free-to-download fantasy battle rules, and from what I gather people have snapped up loads of cheap KS-bargain DZ minis for a game that only needs a handful. Where's the follow-on sales and sustainable profit with that? Will Warpath and Firefight be that runaway success? I don't know. Might be. I think they'd need to be better than what has already been hinted (or hasn't, as the case may be) for that to happen.

So Mantic is a Kickstarter company. Like Mierce and many others. /shrug

Shrugging doesn't make it a good or indifferent thing, though. Doesn't automatically make it a bad thing either, but, well, /shrug.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vermis wrote:
it's the Defiance-style shenanigans that come to light and that we get hints and suspicions about, and the attitude of pulling up the ladder after each campaign and screw anyone who didn't splurge like an addict on it.

What.... are you talking about? I literally don't understand what you mean by this.

 MLaw wrote:
@Bob - lol slowclap bud (exalted). That's a large part of it. People assume it's just complaining but those people have probably never haggled for anything in their lives

I used to be like that. I never liked making a fuss. But having worked in retail and seeing just how much cushioning companies put into their prices and practices in anticipation of customer service, it makes me realize just how much I was losing out by not being a squeaky wheel. We've seen how Mantic Kickstarter campaigns play out, and it would be sheer gullibility to assume Mantic are not strengthening their 'game' in anticipation of ours. I like Mantic's employees and think they are great people, but the company itself would be the type of friend you don't loan gas money to.

Outside of that, you're exactly right about Mantic altering the deal after the fact. They play dirty pool so turnabout really is fair play where my money is concerned. People can label it as bashing if they like but those same people are going to be gaga googoo when the complaining causes mantic to release stupidly insane deals.

Mantic really does paint a pretty target on themselves sometimes.

And also wasn't Mars Attacks a very good seller initially as well?

I am very happy that Mantic exist, and hope they continue to do so as it is good to have more competition in the market. I guess the successes of their KS projects has, if anything, dissuaded them from a more traditional miniature release schedule.

As DaveC suggests this is probably the wrong place for me to have brought it up.

That just leaves me waiting for the HIPS Plague Infantry, it looks like a great kit.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I too am still annoyed about the adventure books. I ponied up for physical copies as well. Ended up with traps or critters or something instead.

I don't understand why the drop armor can't be some sort of upgrade sprue instead of metal. Set the funding higher or get some feedback from consumers, whatever they need to... I just see them working better all in plastic. Or hell, even restic.

For me, I would prefer if Mantic released everything they are making in metal in restic instead. Restic works for that kind of limited number kind of thing, such as upgrade pieces, large monsters or rare elites.

Are Mantic still casting the metal miniatures in house? If so, I think the metal rather than restic route is:

A:Ultimately more cost effective
B:Can have greater quality control
C:More reliable delivery times

 Vermis wrote:
It suggests that, despite Mantic being the latest heir to GW,

This is interesting, because, other than very specifically taking shots at GW with Kings of War v2, this hasn't been an official line from Mantic. Other people have made the claims and drawn upon the evidence that Mantic is filling the gaps left by GW shrinking from the market... but that would imply that making the above statement is literally just contradicting what other random people have said.

 Vermis wrote:

So Mantic is a Kickstarter company. Like Mierce and many others. /shrug

Shrugging doesn't make it a good or indifferent thing, though. Doesn't automatically make it a bad thing either, but, well, /shrug.

Right, being a KS company or not doesn't really have any bearing, especially, as has been pointed out, we don't know Mantic's sales other than a few targeted items. Maybe KS accounts for 10% of their revenue? Maybe 90%? Does anyone know? Or is it just random speculation?

 Vermis wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
it's the Defiance-style shenanigans that come to light and that we get hints and suspicions about, and the attitude of pulling up the ladder after each campaign and screw anyone who didn't splurge like an addict on it.

What.... are you talking about? I literally don't understand what you mean by this.

Things that have already been mentioned in this thread. Terrible resculpts; minis that don't end up like their concept sketches; punters funding rulesets that have unfinished, questionable mechanics (and no ironclad guarantee they'll be ironed out) or that don't even have a first draft yet; the markups on post-KS retail minis; the suspicion some have that some of these kickstarters are needed to fund the previous project, and so on. It'd be nice to be able to /shrug all that off whenever the next chunky render is posted, but to be honest I'd like to see a few more consistent, reliable products out of Mantic before I can do that.

pretre wrote:
I think he means that Mantic blew up the St Louis arch.

Wow, you've managed to turn around my whole POV. I can't believe I've been so wrong. Now I love Mantic and everything it does.

I can write hyperbolic, unhelpful sarcasm, too. Despite what you people think, I'm not hating on Mantic for the fun of it. (Dealing with some of you is not much fun at all, believe me.) But others have concerns about the whole way Mantic is trying to do things, and dismissing them as 'haters' because they voice those concerns is not going to win them over or make them slink away in shame. It has a nasty resemblance to the way some GW fanboys try to shout down any valid criticisms.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
Are Mantic still casting the metal miniatures in house? If so, I think the metal rather than restic route is:

A:Ultimately more cost effective
B:Can have greater quality control
C:More reliable delivery times

Well, I said for me. I just don't buy metal any more if I can avoid it, and for Mantic I can avoid it. I also haven't been too impressed with the quality of Mantic metals I've received in the past.

 Vermis wrote:

pretre wrote:
I think he means that Mantic blew up the St Louis arch.

Wow, you've managed to turn around my whole POV. I can't believe I've been so wrong. Now I love Mantic and everything it does.

I can write hyperbolic, unhelpful sarcasm, too. Despite what you people think, I'm not hating on Mantic for the fun of it. (Dealing with some of you is not much fun at all, believe me.) But others have concerns about the whole way Mantic is trying to do things, and dismissing them as 'haters' because they voice those concerns is not going to win them over or make them slink away in shame. It has a nasty resemblance to the way some GW fanboys try to shout down any valid criticisms.

Whoooosh.

edit nvm, not sure what happened here

FYI,

I am not backing this and have stopped following it. Someone may want to take over the front page. This KS has left me feeling disenfranchised with Mantic again..

Mantic....Almost.

I'd be happy to 'take over the front page' (as, I'm sure, are plenty of other posters), but I'm not sure how anyone but a mod would go about actually 'taking over' the first post?