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I have noticed online that the Mantic models do not look very impressive (particularly compared to GW ones), with their appearing to be somewhat cartoonish (massive arms, no legs). When I have however seen my friend’s mantic elf army in real life they look fine. I was wondering whether this was true for most of the Mantic armies (and so reflects how a miniature may look different across different contexts – with a lot of miniatures they appear to not be in real-life proportions but this appears to look fine on the table top).

The 'no legs' comment is most often levelled at the trolls. I painted the studio models for those, and I think they're fine. Yes, they're top heavy, but I think it suits them. They're not lanky trolls.



Same's true for the werewolves, again I think they're fine. You'll either like the style, or you won't.


I think they're worth a go though, even if you don't like 'em, they're not exactly expensive.

If anything, would love to have those available in s.a, would be nice to have a alternative option to gw products.

I find their fantasy stuff a genuine joy to work with due to levels of customisation on the troops.

Everyone knows that trolls skip leg day

KINGPIN54 wrote:
If anything, would love to have those available in s.a, would be nice to have a alternative option to gw products.

I would love it if hobby shops would stock a decent amount of Mantic. Out of all of the hobby shops in my area, only 1 has more than the occasional board game, and most of their stock is ancient, or they bring in such sporadic stuff that it's hard to consider seriously.

I made the mistake of buying a bunch of Mantic stuff some years ago, and I say mistake, because looking online, a lot of the models look awesome; but when I inspect them in person, a lot of them are quite mediocre (or even lacking), in my opinion. So the result is that I don't paint any of it, because I enjoy painting complete armies, pretty much all of the factions have too much stuff that I don't like to get myself invested into painting it.

To some extent, it's a parallel to Forge World models which look just awesome on the website, but when I get them, there is so much remediation necessary to get them to the point where it's a clean model to work with that I just end up doing something else. Not exactly the same, because a lot of the FW models that require a lot of work are still awesome models -- the resin just has a lot of fixing-up to do -- whereas a lot of the Mantic models fall short IMO, but the parallel is that the end result is the same -- the models pile up unpainted.

In a lot of ways, it's the opposite of some of the GW models that mediocre in the White Dwarf but just really inspire me to paint them when I see the actual sprues. Not to say, of course, that there aren't GW models that are less inspiring, too, but at least with the GW plastic, I can look at the actual sprues before committing to a purchase.

I find it is the other way round personally; Mantic's models look OK online but better in person. Their newer kits are also much more posable and varied in parts than their older lines. Making a varied Orc and Goblin army was a chore, with lots of bits being swapped in from my bits box, lots of chopping and sawing etc... the new Abyssals were much easier, with a bigger selection of limbs and bodies in different poses.

The style is quite different, certainly (I quite like the thin elves now that I have a few and have actually looked at them for a while), but the photos on Mantic's site are not the best...

They're not lanky trolls

Which is why they need something to support that massive bulk. More than a pair of comedy chopsticks.