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Well, to compare pricing directly, you have to look at GW or Dreamforge.

With something like the FF tank, with 3 different build options including two completely different turrets, a different hull top and back, and a dozer blade, it's approaching the kind of variety you have with GW's Astra Militarum tanks, where you get all the stuff you need to magnetize between multiple variants.

Leman Russ is £31 or $47 ($35 is about as low as you'll get as a discounted price on it).

Forgefather tank for $30, or $25 in bundle deal compares really well.

I guess the only thing lower than that you could really compare it to is the space marine razorback, which is a bit of a stretch since it only has a custom pintle rather than alternate hulls, turrets, dozer blade.

Any hard plastic that comes in under the £20 mark is awesome as far as I'm concerned, so paying £16.50 for the forgefather tank with the bundle is something I'm fine with.

Buying 6 of them comes to £99, which sounds like a good deal to me. Quite similar to when GW did £50 for 3 vehicle bundles back when Apocalypse was released.. those bundles were actually Ronnie Renton's idea when he was working for them as head of sales!

Ronnies a smart bloke, why hasn't he done a Kickstarter to steal Jes Goodwin?

The main issue I have with comparing KS prices of vehicles(be it Mantic or whoever) to other companies retail is I know exactly what I am going to get at retail for my money. All it takes is a few changes in production of a vehicle to take it from something you actively desired to a disappointment. So with the deals it is just a case of YMMV. Would you rather spend up to double on something you know you want or half that on something you think is passable? This is where I think this KS is quite good in that a good percentage of the product in the deals, in the form of infantry, is already at retail or is on the cusp of full production.

Personally I really like the Forge Father tank variants and hope that Mantic nails the production of them. If they match the concepts I think that the 3 for $75 is a really good deal. I think that Mantic have done some cost benefit analysis to prevent lines that they actually made a loss on like some of them did in the early Kickstarters.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
Would you rather spend up to double on something you know you want or half that on something you think is passable? This is where I think this KS is quite good in that a good percentage of the product in the deals, in the form of infantry, is already at retail or is on the cusp of full production.

I have to say, after picking up their previous hard plastic figure releases, Mantic has my trust on this one. Technically there's room to botch the new things - the Asterians, the Third Gens. But after the Enforcers, the Plague Zombies, the Peacekeepers, the Forge Guard - I'm really not worried at all.

Vehicles are newer for them. I guess they should be easier to do than figures, like their terrain, which I also trust. But the Mars Attacks vehicles were not produced to the standard I want from Warpath, even though the Mars Attacks terrain was good. (Mostly my problem with MA vehicles is due to the highly visible, difficult-to-impossible-to-remove seams on things like the giant robot.) So I'm not sure. I will say that if the Warpath vehicles were produced to the same standard as the Mars Attacks ones with no improvement, I wouldn't want to buy a single one of them.

But yeah, if they can produce the Forge Father tank to live up to the render, that's a great vehicle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Joyboozer wrote:
Ronnies a smart bloke, why hasn't he done a Kickstarter to steal Jes Goodwin?

GW should count their blessings that Goodwin never left to start his own company.

Agreed, I have all the recent plastic infantry releases bar the Forge Guard and the quality is great. The VeerMyn and Pathfinder sprues seem to be another step forward for the company and the Steel Warriors look like they are going to be brilliant.

I guess you take a chance with the vehicles. If you get them for $25 each that could be a steal if they are good/great quality as the retail could be anything from $35-$40+.

Who knows how predictive it is, but at Miniature Market a Mars Attacks saucer currently goes for $19.99. A Giant Robot goes for $31.99. (Those prices are discounted, of course.) If Warpath vehicle prices were similar, that would mean $30 a vehicle actually isn't much of a Kickstarter deal.

That's a sizable if, though. Personally I'm hoping the Warpath vehicles will be a lot more sophisticated and better made, therefore worth pricing higher at retail. (Because while that Saucer is a simpler, smaller model, the Giant Robot isn't.) If they're priced higher simply because GW is out there pricing similar things ridiculously high, but otherwise they're no better made than the Mars Attacks vehicles,* I wouldn't find that a compelling reason to buy Warpath vehicles at $30 each.

Again, my hope is that they'll be better. But that's the gamble I'm hesitant about taking with vehicles at the current price.

*Having received one from the KS campaign, I wouldn't pay $30 for another Mars Attacks robot. If you're happy with that model, ymmv.

 Vermonter wrote:
(Mostly my problem with MA vehicles is due to the highly visible, difficult-to-impossible-to-remove seams on things like the giant robot.)

 NTRabbit wrote:


That's because the Mars Attacks stuff is all preassembled, ie built to the standard of boardgame components. The seams are where two pieces that would otherwise be on the sprue of a Warpath vehicle have been glued together at the factory, with all the care and precision of a production line worker, rather than one of us sitting at a desk, with tamiya super thin cement, and a packet of diamond files. Horses for courses.

That's a great point. Also an obvious one. (Smacks forehead.)

Damn. I'm going to have to buy some vehicles now.

Or maybe not. Looks like October will see the best damn Slaan models ever made hit Kickstarter. But back to the topic at hand.

 MLaw wrote:
That said, I buy a lot of Warpath and other sci-fi models to do custom scenarios. Other people use it for upscaled Tomorrow's War or Gruntz even. I have also heard people using them for games like Hammers Slammers or Stargrunt 2.

Same here. I've got a bunch of Mantic's sci fi stuff (as well as Pig Iron, Copplestone, Urban Mammoth, etc) because I love generic sci-fi stuff. The Warpath beta rules don't really interest me.
Hell, I actually used about 8 of the Mantic Orx Marauders vehicles and kitbashed them, along with around 80 40k chaos cultists, to make a Mad Max Wastelanders army... for whatever system.

I've posted this before in another thread, but for those who missed it, here's a 3-D print of the Asterian drone:




Excellent.

 MLaw wrote:
As for the tank profile being too high.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/why-armys-new-tank-so-heavy

That's been canceled though!


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 warboss wrote:
The new tank is definitely an improvement over the corny rogue traderish original concept art. I like it but I do have a minor quibble that has been partly mentioned so I'll add to that chorus in case Mantic is reading this. The back looks too plain and doesn't specifically have enough rivets.

I would disagree with your assertion. It has too many rivets.
Riveted construction was abandoned in the 1930's specifically because it was awful.
Unless we're fighting in the Space Spanish Civil War then none of these tanks should have rivets :(

Yeah but people expect rivets on tanks. Noone really cares about "realism" in a game with space rats. Or do you?

Rivets give tanks a tank look. That's the reason wargaming tanks have rivets.

 MLaw wrote:
I am not overly fond of the GWness of having an APC and the main tank based on the same chassis but as it were,

Sherman Kangaroo, baby! (Sherman converted to apc)


Russian BTR-T! (T-55 converted to IFV)

SOME people may expect rivets.

I know for a fact not all of us want or expect them in a sci-fi setting.

I'm indifferent to rivets, but I can understand why some people wouldn't like them.

RoninXiC wrote:
Rivets give tanks a tank look. That's the reason wargaming tanks have rivets.

They give tanks a World War I look. But not the last 85 years of tank designs... space tanks with rivets don't look like tanks to me. They look like lazy designers who have no idea what they're doing. So I sigh and do not buy.

from "American Tanks and AFVs of World War II"
"The Aberdeen firing tests showed that heavy machine gun fire drove the rivets of tanks into the vehicle's fighting compartment, which would have caused great harm to the crew and the interior components of the tank. In addition, bullet splash would enter into the vehicle's fighting compartment through the riveted joints; even worse, AP projectiles as small as 37mm would part the riveted joints at the seams."

Pretty easy to shave rivets off a plastic tank, tho. Easier than adding them. So rivets on the model is closer to making both camps happy.

You can please some of the people some of the time but you can't please all the people all the time.

I only expect rivets on GW tanks tbh.. maybe I've built too many military tank kits :/

Didn't know that APC had been scrapped JudgeDoug, thanks for the heads up.

Somehow I missed that Corp tanks were supposed to be hover. I think there's potential for good hover tanks.. there's already some out there. I just ordered the AW one yesterday as a matter of fact.

Comparing pricing on anything to GW pricing is only valid if the goal is to aspire to be like GW. Given that many people interested in Mantic are that way after having lost interest in GW I don't know that I would go down that road. I don't consider GWs prices on vehicle kits to be reasonable and haven't bought one outside of a heavily discounted ebay listing or two in a decade. I have however, been buying sci-fi vehicles from many other places. Either way, as Vermonter (I believe) pointed out.. it doesn't really matter if the people who are already on board believe the vehicles are a good deal. Mantic has your business regardless. What matters is the people's business Mantic does not have. If I can't get these at $20 each I'll just wait for vehicles I am crazy about from other manufacturers. These are all decent but nothing I would bend over backwards to purchase, let alone pay anything remotely close to retail for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 judgedoug wrote:

 MLaw wrote:
I am not overly fond of the GWness of having an APC and the main tank based on the same chassis but as it were,

Sherman Kangaroo, baby! (Sherman converted to apc)


Russian BTR-T! (T-55 converted to IFV)

I will say the same thing I said before..
Yes it's been done. There are practical reasons not to. I personally don't like it.

EDIT: As a side note, that BTR has.. rivets..lol

 MLaw wrote:
I only expect rivets on GW tanks tbh.. maybe I've built too many military tank kits :/


EDIT: As a side note, that BTR has.. rivets..lol

T-54/55 was developed in 1945 by the Soviets - you do the math!

Woops, actually, just now reading up on that BTR-T - those bumps aren't rivets, those are reactive armor compartments!

 judgedoug wrote:

 MLaw wrote:
I only expect rivets on GW tanks tbh.. maybe I've built too many military tank kits :/


EDIT: As a side note, that BTR has.. rivets..lol

T-54/55 was developed in 1945 by the Soviets - you do the math!

Woops, actually, just now reading up on that BTR-T - those bumps aren't rivets, those are reactive armor compartments!

Yep.

 judgedoug wrote:

 MLaw wrote:
I only expect rivets on GW tanks tbh.. maybe I've built too many military tank kits :/


EDIT: As a side note, that BTR has.. rivets..lol

T-54/55 was developed in 1945 by the Soviets - you do the math!

Woops, actually, just now reading up on that BTR-T - those bumps aren't rivets, those are reactive armor compartments!

Then the FF tank has reactive armor compartments! Problem solved, case closed. No more rivet debates!

BTW: it looks like you did the math. You had originally said 85 years or somesuch, that tank is 70. Cheeky editing the comment after the fact

Ronnie will be doing a Facebook chat at 20:30 BST tonight if anyone wants to talk directly to him

 judgedoug wrote:

 warboss wrote:
The new tank is definitely an improvement over the corny rogue traderish original concept art. I like it but I do have a minor quibble that has been partly mentioned so I'll add to that chorus in case Mantic is reading this. The back looks too plain and doesn't specifically have enough rivets.

I would disagree with your assertion. It has too many rivets.
Riveted construction was abandoned in the 1930's specifically because it was awful.
Unless we're fighting in the Space Spanish Civil War then none of these tanks should have rivets :(

You lopped off the IMPORTANT part where I said it was an aesthetic choice.

 warboss wrote:
I realize that for space dwarves they're largely aesthetic but it would be nice if the two evened out a bit.

Second, historical accuracy in advanced metallurgy and construction doesn't apply to space dwarves... in space. Thirdly, your historical accuracy is off. The mid war M3 Lee and the late war Cromwell were rivetted although the technique was very common in early war tanks from all nations (axis and allies). It fell out of favor during WW2, not before.

While some of this tank tank is fascinating (or not) and possibly slightly on topic - can we get back to being...more On Topic please?

 MLaw wrote:
BTW: it looks like you did the math. You had originally said 85 years or somesuch, that tank is 70. Cheeky editing the comment after the fact

Haha, I stand by the 85 years, the design philosophy of 1930 was "rivets and big tanks with lots of turrets", all of which were terrible ideas (rivets exploded inward and killed crew, limitations of engines and drive trains couldn't support superheavy tank designs, and multiple turrets were costly and ineffective). And actually by 1945 the Soviets had stopped using rivets as well, the T-34 obr 1942 and later, IS-2, and T-54/55 were all welded.
Here's a better shot of the BTR-T


WOOPS! Sorry Alpharius, posted before I saw your warning! I'll stop

No worries - it would make a good topic for a different thread though!

The real question is: when did the Allies stop building tanks with beards?

 MLaw wrote:


Comparing pricing on anything to GW pricing is only valid if the goal is to aspire to be like GW. Given that many people interested in Mantic are that way after having lost interest in GW I don't know that I would go down that road. I don't consider GWs prices on vehicle kits to be reasonable and haven't bought one outside of a heavily discounted ebay listing or two in a decade. I have however, been buying sci-fi vehicles from many other places. Either way, as Vermonter (I believe) pointed out.. it doesn't really matter if the people who are already on board believe the vehicles are a good deal. Mantic has your business regardless. What matters is the people's business Mantic does not have. If I can't get these at $20 each I'll just wait for vehicles I am crazy about from other manufacturers. These are all decent but nothing I would bend over backwards to purchase, let alone pay anything remotely close to retail for.

This.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The real question is: when did the Allies stop building tanks with beards?

That.