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Hi! I thought it would be interesting to discuss and analyse what has been successful for Mantic and what has not. I'm going to start with my own perspective, just to get things going, but I hope others with more knowledge or experience with Mantic products will chip in too.

I'm going to divide the ranges and products up into Success, Acceptable and Failure.

Successes:
KoW Rules: These rules are quick to play and learn, intuitive, and cleverly marketed at the large group of disaffected WHFB players. Being free online is a huge bonus. I hope we see these rules being adopted on a large scale.
The KoW Undead Range- Undoubtably one of Mantic's most successful ranges, these guys are successful because they are scaled and proportioned well, with a wide range of figures in plastic that can be used in many systems and situations. Whether you're a roleplayer, fantasy skirmish or mass battle player or into post apocalyptic sci fi, there's something in this range for you. I love them, I own a bunch, and I am especially happy with the scale. Some don't like the cartoony nature of the skeletons but I think it's acceptable.
Dwarf King's Hold: The rules are fun, the game is portable and easily stored, and it covers a market niche that is under exploited. The downsides of the poor production quality on the box and tiles is I think offset by the reasonable price. The boosters and add ons are cool too, as are the rule expansions.
Warpath Enforcers: Awesome power armoured troopers in a realistic scale. Very tempted by these, and if I ever start my post apocalypse project I will be picking some up. Impressively "sci fi".
Project Pandora: Haven't played it but apparently it's a good seller and a good game. The same criticisms apply as DKH with the same benefits.
Dreadball: Apparently hugely popular based on the KS, this is another board game success for Mantic.
Deadzone: I would provisionally put this here, but we'll see how the sculpts turn out.

Acceptable:
KOW Orcs: These guys are good sculpts but they are a little too "GW" for my tastes. I can see why it was done but I might like them more if it hadn't been. Additionally, there is an unfortunate lack of poses on the sprues. However what is there is of good quality and they are an interesting Orc Concept background wise. Disappointing Trolls also keep these guys out of the "success" bracket.
KOW Dwarves: A range with some depth, the blocky scale and odd proportions are offputting considering the more "true" scale models else where. I think these are okay, but they unfortunately don't fit with any other Dwarves I own.
KOW Twilight Kin: An improvement on the normal Elves, these guys still have some flaws and I feel they are a bit bland over all.
Abyssal Dwarves: Included primarily because I see others being very happy with them, personally I don't like them at all.
KOW Ogres: Just based on what we've seen, the sculpts are original while still sticking closely to Ogre stereotypes, making them recognisable but interesting. Unfortunately, limited poses, the restic material and the knock kneed syndrome count against them.
Warpath Rules: Still in development, but they don't seem to have captured the imaginations of Sci Fi gamers the way KoW's rules did.
Warpath Forgefathers: Space Dwarves were something many were interested in, unfortunately the initial plastics were very disappointing. Later restic releases have been much more promising, saving this range from being a complete disaster.
Warpath Corporation: Others are doing the mass sci fi troop trope better than Mantic. I think this range is when I first thought that they'd done some human troops with odd proportions. They look very bobble headed.
Warpath Marauders: Suffering from many of the problems of the KOW Orc range, but compounded by the fact that they are much more derivative and therefore some of the poses and equipment look really out of place.

Failures:
KOW Elves: This line are just bad. Weird proportions, stupid concepts like the Drake riders, and some soft sculpts.
KOW Goblins: Let down by poor quality plastics. Some of the non plastic units are okay, but they are not in any way unique or interesting.
Warpath Ver mynn: Big disappointment. Space Skaven with awkward models, bad poses and an an even worse paintjob. No, no thank you.
KOW Bastilans: Great concept, poor execution. The systers suffer from terrible proportions, the cat cavalry are poor and suffer from their heads being too similar to each other. The men at arms are poorly proportioned an the Angels look a bit silly ranked up. The Paladins are nice, but I worry that they are overly blocky and deviating away from Mantic's previously established scale, which is a very worrying development that I would like to see stopped pronto.

To summarise, when Mantic have had good QC or concepts, they have delivered for us. They are capable of putting out some great boxed games and capturing niches in the market, but they have a major problem with quality control. If I was running Mantic this would be my main concern going forward, as they can be very successful with the better quality stuff they produce. I would also start being very strict about scale, because stuff like that will end up really biting them in the ass as time goes on.

What do you guys think?

 Da Boss wrote:

Warpath Ver mynn: Big disappointment. Space Skaven with awkward models, bad poses and an an even worse paintjob. No, no thank you.

What do you guys think?

I can agree with most of your list.

They are Space Ratmen pretty effectively. They would have looked cooler as Space Skaven, which is what I think people who are unhappy with them are looking for.

Project Pandora - Great Game from all accounts, but suffers from cheap components. The Restic models are too modeling intensive for casual gamers and the card components are thin. I've heard people quite happy to download the rules for $5 and use their own tiles and models.

I bought the rules for Project Pandora $5 and used some old warzone plastic troopers for the corp and some EM4 aliens and Cthuloid creatures I had around for the veermyn and paired it up with my D&D dungeon tiles. It worked great.

Successes:

KoW Rules. For sure. I really, really dislike games where I have to make my opponent wait while I move all sorts of models and roll all my dice and crap like that, but everything works so quickly and is streamlined, there's hardly any wait at all.

Warpath Rules. It's basically Bolt Action (another set of rules by the same author) but with sci-fi bolted on. And it works!

Acceptable:

Warpath Enforcers. They don't get "success" as a rating from me because of how bad the fits were on the combined restic/metal hybrid kits.
Everything else not mentioned below.

Failure:

KoW Elves. I ended up tossing mine in the recycling bin after I called to find out if they accepted model sprues. First time I've ever "thrown out" miniatures.

KoW Nuns & Basic troopers. So much promise, but everything went horribly wrong.

 Da Boss wrote:
Hi! I thought it would be interesting to discuss and analyse what has been successful for Mantic and what has not. I'm going to start with my own perspective, just to get things going, but I hope others with more knowledge or experience with Mantic products will chip in too.

I'm going to divide the ranges and products up into Success, Acceptable and Failure.
Successes:

Agreed on the undead. They're mostly great, especially the plastics. I think the new KS mummies look bad, though.

I'd personally like to see a "Second Edition" of Pandora and DKH with upscaled production values. Proper one (or two part, at most) castings for the figures, better, thick cardstock for the tiles, etc, a proper box - essentially DreadBall level production values (but better boardgame miniatures, as the DZ may turn out to be). It won't happen for some time, but it would be good to see in the medium term.

Enforcers - the DeadZone ones look better than the initial ones. I won't touch the original releases with odd mixes of metal and restic, but may pick up a bunch of the DZ ones - or wait hopefully for the release of some injection-moulded plastic ones with the inevitable WP KS.

DB seems pretty good, though I haven't played it yet. Great production value on most of it - though some of the minis leave a little to be desired - more in the production than concept though. Agreed on seeing how DZ turns out.

Acceptable:

I'm not especially excited by the KoW (or Warpath) orcs. I much prefer the GW style as I'm a longtime fan of the styles and sculpts of both Kev Adams (who essentially created them) and Brian Nelson. I understand them going for a proto-GW style, since they want their models to be broadly compatible with WHFB, especially when Mantic launched, but for "non-GW" orcs, I generally like the WETA/LotR Orc/Uruk and even some of the WotC/Reaper orc styles.

I was excited to get the Dwarves in my Morgoth's box ...until I saw them in hand. I'd put the plastics down as a slight miss unfortunately. Or the low end of acceptable. No experience with the metals. The Abyssal dwarves look good on their webpage - better than the regulars, and better (generally) then GW's Abyssinian-hatted versions, but not up to par with the old-school GW ones (or their FW resurrection). That's really a choice of aesthetics, though. Hard to judge the new KS-sculpted ones at the moment, since the picture wasn't great. I'd say acceptable or possibly a success. Witht he rest of the range, having not seen them in hand or good quality, clear images, it's hard to say.

The "Sci-Fi upgrade" nature of the plastic Forgefathers and Orx don't do much for me. The Forgefather Dreadnought and character model with the gatling pistol are both good models. (Successes IMO). The metal ork is acceptable. The DZ models have potential, and I like the DB Forgefathers for the most part.

Corporation. Yeah, acceptable. I'm not one of the "lol Elysians" crowd, but they're just ok sci-fi human troops. Nothing special nor terrible.

Warpath rules: I haven't read them myself. While I'm more likely to play KoW than Herohammer, and the models for both are generally much mroe generic fantasy tropes, I'm much more invested in 40k, both in terms of models, background, history and fluff. I might give it a go from time to time, but I'm more likely to use my 40k armies to do so. Even if my 40k armies have Mantic (Raging Heroes, Vic Minis, Dreamforge, etc) in them.

Failures:

The elves look bad. If I got 2 boxes for $10 like the poster in the other thread, I'd certainly buy them to play around with (and if I then hated them, for $10 no harm no foul). And some of the character models look decent, but the range doesn't inspire.

The goblins look ok actually. I haven't had a need to use or buy them personally, and the GW ones look better to my eye, but they seem more like "acceptable" than failures - from the pics I've seen, anyway. Some things like the mawbeasts look embarassingly bad while, say the shredder looks great. - And the three character models just shown look good.

The Ver'Mynn are a good concept, badly executed and horribly named. gakky puns like that and "Mon'Keigh" are just embarassing.

The Bastilans are all over the shop really - which is also true of the KS sculpts in general. The mounted paladins and lion rider feel like old-school Rackham - so successes. The nuns/sisters, cat riders and misses. The Men-At-Arms are on the low side of acceptable (I don't like them, but that's not the point) and the foot paladins are on the high side of acceptable. The Angels, I'm not sure on yet, but they look to be acceptable at worst.

To summarise, when Mantic have had good QC or concepts, they have delivered for us. They are capable of putting out some great boxed games and capturing niches in the market, but they have a major problem with quality control. If I was running Mantic this would be my main concern going forward, as they can be very successful with the better quality stuff they produce. I would also start being very strict about scale, because stuff like that will end up really biting them in the ass as time goes on.
What do you guys think?

I disagree on the concept art delivering for us point, but agree on the QC. Concept art for the KS was generally very good, when it was shown. Ogres, werewolves and trolls for example filling the three categories for this thread. I also agree that they need to choose a scale and stick with it. Apparently my plastic Forgefathers from Mantic are a different scale to the upcoming DZ restic Forgefathers from Mantic. The sci-fi stuff seems to be headed towards truescale while the fantasy stuff is headed to wards heroic. A deliberate move to keeping their fantasy stuff WFB-compatible while trying to carve out a sci-fi niche distinct from 40k?

I want to preface this by saying that I do not really know what is selling well for Mantic, as I do not have their sales figures. It is conceivable that various stores have niche markets for different items from Mantic. For example, at one store Kings of War might sell well, while at another Dreadball may be a big seller for them.

My comments are related to my own personal preferences.

What I am looking for from Mantic is inexpensive plastic miniatures. Although they have produced a variety of cheap figures for Kings of War, on the whole I am not a fan of their KoW sculpts. (For example, the Avatars of War dwarves look much better, but also cost more.) I like some of the Warpath sculpts, but they cost twice as much as the Kings of War ones. I ended up picking up some Veer Myn. I also like the look of Enforcers. The corps figures look OK, but the legs are spindly.

Mantic's rules look good, but it is tough to find people who want to try them. The hardback Kings of War book is a bargain, even considering that the pdf is free.

My local store is pushing Dreadball, but there are no takers. This may change in time. The figures for Dreadball look like some of Mantics best sculpts. However, Mantic does not really have any real advantage in miniature games with a small model count. There are other companies out there with better models, and or more established rulesets.

I hope that Mantic sticks with the inexpensive model business plan. They seem to be moving to something else. I suppose if their rules and minis are good enough they could compete in other areas. However, the skirmish scale minis market is competitive at this point, with Infinity and Malifaux having excellent sculpts and fun rules.

I agree in part. I think you can have quality without jacking your price to GW levels, and also without the models being cruddy. The plastic undead are a perfect example.

When I said concepts, I meant more that the ideas were good, rather than the concept art. I think nuns riding cats is a stupid idea, for example, and similarly, I think elves riding swan-dragons is dumb.

When they've kept it simple, they've done a lot better.

The Warpath/KoW rules are something I'm keen to try out, but so far none of the models available have really blown me away (with the semi-exceptions of Forgedaddies and Undead, which I mostly like). I'm probably just going to use other companies mdoels with the mantic rules in the end.

 ProfessionalAmateur wrote:
The Warpath/KoW rules are something I'm keen to try out, but so far none of the models available have really blown me away (with the semi-exceptions of Forgedaddies and Undead, which I mostly like). I'm probably just going to use other companies mdoels with the mantic rules in the end.

I'm a fan of most of Mantic stuff (but don't love every model or range). On their rules + models you already have, I highly suggest doing just that.
Their rule sets are usually simple to follow but have just enough flavor to differentiate forces and to make players make tactical/strategic choices.

 Da Boss wrote:


Acceptable:KOW Orcs: These guys are good sculpts but they are a little too "GW" for my tastes. I can see why it was done but I might like them more if it hadn't been. Additionally, there is an unfortunate lack of poses on the sprues. However what is there is of good quality and they are an interesting Orc Concept background wise. Disappointing Trolls also keep these guys out of the "success" bracket.

Failures:

KOW Goblins: Let down by poor quality plastics. Some of the non plastic units are okay, but they are not in any way unique or interesting.

I respectfully disagree on both counts. I love the Mantic orcs. I don't see how lack of poses is a problem when you're building them in blocks of 20 or 40, since the guys in the middle of the block will be almost invisible from the shoulders down. The only real problem with the goblins is the tooling, but that disappears as well when they are ranked up into blocks. I would grade both of these one category up.

 Da Boss wrote:
When I said concepts, I meant more that the ideas were good, rather than the concept art. I think nuns riding cats is a stupid idea, for example, and similarly, I think elves riding swan-dragons is dumb.
When they've kept it simple, they've done a lot better.

I dunno. I think cat riders are an awesome concept for warbeasts. Blizzard pulled it off very well, and I got really excited when Mantic said they were doing it. The character model Mantic put together is very good, and I was hoping for something just as cool for the monstrous cavalry.







I had, as the song goes, High Hopes.

For reference:

- Undead, Orcs and Abyssal Dwarves are top sellers for KoW, Forgefathers and Corporation are top sellers for Warpath.

And the rules for both KoW *and* Warpath 2.0 are very, very good (and regularly updated, well-balanced with all the army lists available for free as well as the rules). It's just that most people haven't read the new WP rules and assume it's still crap.. Warpath is saddled with a crap, rushed 1.0 release that it now has to try to get people to forget about.

SS, if you have time, I'd be interested in any analysis you could post because you know a lot more about how Mantic work than most of us.

Surprised about Abyssal Dwarves though! I detest those models!

My guess is that they (Abyssal Dwarfs) and Forgefathers both benefit from disenfranchised GW players who miss Chaos Dwarves and Squats, respectively.

Oh aye, and with Forgefathers I can understand it (even considered it myself- I was in love with the Codex Imperialis squats when I was a kid and even tried to build my own army from mail ordered squat bikers and a bunch of dwarves with bolt pistols glued to them!). The Abyssals just don't look good to me, though. Too much bling, not enough menace.

Yeah, I'd share that view myself (though I absolutely love the Mantic standard dwarves, which I think puts me in something of a minority). But I'd imagine that simple desire for Chaos Dwarves en masse helps people overlook that - plus the simple fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I have about 500 Mantic dwarves, I think I like them as much as you do. clearance on miniature market, clearance on miniwargaming....yeah, battalion boxes at $40 each: both have 85 models in them, plus a couple unit boxes, characters, and incoming Brock riders.

Hoo, lessee here: (Stuff I don't own/play is marked with a *)

The Good:

The Bad: (Or in this case, mediocre/acceptable)

The Ugly:

I'll add anything else if I can think of any aspects I forgot.

 Da Boss wrote:
SS, if you have time, I'd be interested in any analysis you could post because you know a lot more about how Mantic work than most of us.

Surprised about Abyssal Dwarves though! I detest those models!

I can't really mention anything other than what I've said, because the question of this topic is "what has been successful for Mantic".. everyone is just posting their opinion based on what models/ rules they like or don't like, but that doesn't make any difference to what has or hasn't been successful for Mantic themselves, that's a fixed set of data that only they have full access to.

The only actual "failure" on the list (going by your question) that I'm aware of is the elves, which hadn't paid for their tooling costs as of a couple of years ago (whether that is still the case I have no idea).

There's even some stuff on your list like the ogres and basileans that haven't been released yet, so mantic has no idea if they will succeed or fail.

Personal opinions have zero bearing on sales stats. I might not like the trolls, but there are lots of people who do.

You can generally get a good idea of what is successful by seeing what gets the most new releases.. for example, Undead for KoW, and Forgefathers/Corp for Warpath have had the lion's share of new releases.

Okay, I guess I phrased the topic incorrectly. I was really interested in any hard data PLUS people's subjective views on it. Since this a discussion board and not a research institute

@ darkPrince010 - in regards to the Drakkon Riders.... I love them, but not for their original purpose. I bored holes in them and added 'Merry Go Round' poles, got a music box, and then made, well... a Merry Go Round. Took amazingly little work to reposition the hands to grip the poles.... Wind it up, watch them go 'round. Gave the model to my then-girlfriend's mum as a Christmas gift.

As wargaming miniatures... yeah... not so hot. As a novelty, sitting on a shelf, going 'round to the Beautiful Blue Danube? Not bad at all.

The Auld Grump

 scarletsquig wrote:

I can't really mention anything other than what I've said, because the question of this topic is "what has been successful for Mantic".. everyone is just posting their opinion based on what models/ rules they like or don't like, but that doesn't make any difference to what has or hasn't been successful for Mantic themselves, that's a fixed set of data that only they have full access to.

You know, I missed that bit - probably because there are a lot of the KoW KS models in there, and much of the OP list seems to be opining on the models themselves. Unless it was meant in terms of sculpt quality?

There's even some stuff on your list like the ogres and basileans that haven't been released yet, so mantic has no idea if they will succeed or fail.
Personal opinions have zero bearing on sales stats. I might not like the trolls, but there are lots of people who do.

Absolutely correct on both of these points.

Successes:

KoW Zombies, Ghouls and that Necromancer hero: Love these models. The Zombies and Ghouls are kick-arse sculpts that for the price blow the competition out of the water. The Necromancer model is really menacing and cool - I love the blank helmet and the energy swirling around especially.

WP Enforcers: These are great. They have a very refreshing hard sci-fi aesthetic.

Acceptable:

KoW Orcs/Dwarves/Undead: With some exceptions, I don't particularly like any models from these ranges. They just fail to excite me. Still, they're wicked affordable.

Dreadball: These sculpts are very nice, but they're also tiny and a real pain to paint up. They're also pretty repetitive.

Failures:

Veer-Myn: Awkward proportions, goofy grinning faces, strange aesthetic...They had potential.

Poor quality control: After the fiasco with the cat-riders, the werewolves with MASSIVE nipples, the goofy looking ape arms on the majority of the KoW KS models, and the disastrous first sculpts for the DZ KS Orx, I think we can all agree that Mantic needs to start sticking to their concept art.

The horrible:

The Elves: Need I say more?

~Tim?

Since people are putting Dreadball into one line, let me break down that game:

Good:

Rules - Simple, fast and fun. There a couple bad spots that a few folks out there have blown out of proportion, but there is no situation that you can't avoid once you understand the rules a little better. Still a young game, and like all games with new teams introduced adding additional rules, old rules will be adjusted, so you know they'll pan out

Humans - It's just nice to have a human team who CAN actually participate in function of the match including slugging it out with many other teams. This is a team to make our race proud

Greenskins - Great Orc model, some of the best bashers in the in the biz, and very fitting goblin jacks. The team just feels like how a Greenskin sports team should play

Female Humans - The poses could have been a little better, but nothing to knock them down a rank. The fact the human teams are both set up to use either gender is a major plus. These ladies look like, well, ladies, and not WWE divas that have no business actually being on the Pitch.

Robots - in the Top category sheering on the "out of the box" thinking on how the team operates. You'd want to learn the game with another team probably, as this one team can have a harsh learning curve, but the concept of robots transforming into whatever positions you need at the time is genius. Bravo Jake.

The Future - the future of Dreadball looks VERY bright. Four more teams on their way shortly offering more playstyles. A new game board that will allow for more then 2 teams to compete in a single game. Lots more team options opening up with all the new Rebel races being introduced through the Deadzone KS.......this game should do well

Price - Considering you can get a team for $20 stateside (often cheaper) this game has a low entry point, and you'll never really be at risk of investing $1000s to play and stay current.

Acceptable:

Forge Fathers - Great bashy playstyle. The team suffers a bit though from having low speed which impacts it's main scoring players WAY too much. There needs to be either a skill or a rules change to mitigate the fact that currently a DWARF is the squishiest player in the game. The rest of the team isn't quite as bad, but the strikers generally sit on the bench until you've cleared the pitch of any opposing guards or strong jacks. Mold lines (see bad)

Judwan - Very good Alien team. Whilst I rolled my eyes when people said "The models lool better in person".........the models look MUCH better in person. I thought they looked aweful, but now I rather like them. The problem is they are a little TOO good, and make one-day leagues and one-off play imbalanced with their inclusion. They'll need to look into toning them down in the Season 3 teams aren't natural counters to their "Striker only" roster.

Zzor - Phenomial team concept with broods of bugs filling in the different positions. The first 3 position team, I feel, to really have a great use for all three positions, instead of having useless Jacks, or pathetic Strikers. Would 100% be put into the "good" section if it wasn't for so many mixed up limbs in the kickstarter bundles and the miscommunication with the mold layout putting in 2 Guards and 4 Jacks instead of 1 Guard and 5 Jacks. Expect a bunch of Guards and Strikers to show up in grab bags later this year since they broke down every fifth set to put in another Jack into the Starters. I suppose you could still count this a good in many respects that they were willing to take the lose so that consumers could play the full team with only one box. Another testiment to Mantics top notch customer service (or just want to stay in business with high-maintenance nerds as their consumers lol)

Availibility of game supplies - Mantic offers decks, counters, dice, game boards, refs, balls......pretty much everything piecemeal. My only reall gripe is that to put it together piecemeal, you'd be better off just buying another game box for $60 on Amazon. So it would be nice to have like a $40 bundle to where you could get all the game supplies without any teams, making it to where not EVERY player ended up owning a Trontek and Mauraders team but could play the game. Still, $60 is really not that bad of a price to get into the game, even if you wanted to play 2 different teams.

MVPs - Interesting system to use them. Really gives some character to the universe and game. The auction system is neat and really makes some interactive league play. Some league organizers find it a little daunting, otherwise I'd have thrown it into the Good column, but just using a text, e-mail, facebook, twitter, or forum system could mitigate the league not all being able to be at one spot at a time. Just have to show a little initive as a league sponsor.


Game Balance - Noting the Judwan above, in general the game is showing to be fairly balanced amongst teams. Bashy teams seems to have records that suffer a bit, but most experienced players agree it's more of a function that players forget to score and less they just can't win (you know its bad when Orc players go to take their turn after the opponent scores, use two actions to slam and then realize THEY FORGOT TO LAUNCH THE BALL!! lol)

Bad:

Veer-myn - The sculpts look pretty good. Well balanced team (the database has them hovering at .500, so can't get much more balanced then) but these guys suffer from mold lines worse then any other team (see below)

Mold Lines - The Season 2 teams weren't anywhere near as bad, and this does seem to be a bit of a problem with Restic in general, but mold lines have been prevelant on many of the figures. They are tricky to clean (not impossible, and many files take them off) and in terrible places to where you either have to leave a bit of the line, or destroy some of the detail. Veer-myn had them all over their faces, and the dwarves had some of the thickest lines of all the models. Mantic reported that their formula had changed, so here is hoping that Season 3 and the Deadzone models have even more improvement over what was seen in Season 2.

Official Forums - There have been a few "mouths" of the official forums that feel they are helping the game, but may have actually done more harm to it. As Compel has reported here, a NON-mantic employee, who had a title making him appear so, stated his opinion a bit strongly of how some players were reacting to a rule. Trying to stand up and defend the game, he presented it as the game had no issues and people should just be happy or make their own game. Not smart. This was not an official stance of course, but it is hard to undo some of the collateral damage. Mantic could do a little better job with damage control in these situation by deleting these sorts of posts and locking these forums, as some of the counter fire was as absurd as the initial post. That thread is still open of course so any troll could potentially go in and stir up the hornets nest again. The Forums have also taken a ball launch issue in the rules and blown it out of proportion. This is scaring off new players, and really should be addressed. The "scaring off" is more done by non-players not understanding how situational and avoidable the problem is and many in the forums treating it as a Mt Everest type problem that is always present in every rush. I feel it should be adjusted myself, but have never had it ruin a game, and I've played dozens of games at this point.
To reiterate my point, Mantic needs to pull the reigns in a bit on their own fanboys and the trolls in their own forum just a bit.

 scarletsquig wrote:


Personal opinions have zero bearing on sales stats. I might not like the trolls, but there are lots of people who do.

I've found a lot of the Mantic stuff is priced in the 'why not those as well?' territory. Wayland games have the box of mummies for £12 for instance, which is the kind of thing I would add to another order just for the sake of it. I have an old Vampire Counts army that hasn't seen action in at least 5-6 years, and so no way I would start another undead army (for any system) but I like the style of them and for that kind of money they are worth it just for a few evenings painting and to stick in the cabinet.

Fun read. Thanks for posting all; I'd really like to see KoW take off too, but most folks come to dakka to post about GW products I reckon!

For me: I love the KoW rules, and am really looking forward to Deadzone (no rulers? d8 instead of d6? Wow! A no brainer for me). The undead minis have been without exception excellent and fun to paint.

I've not tried Warpath or Dreadball, but will likely jump on board when the Warpath KS gets put up (it's inevitable, isn't it?). I have a huge amount of 40K minis, and have yet to try that game... If Warpath is simpler and quicker, sign me up as well!

I strongly dislike the new trend in their miniatures towards broad shoulders and arms, and spindly legs - that look is as repulsive to me as the skinny elf look they started with years ago. Some of the wave 2 minis (trolls, ogres) fall into this category, and I think it's a pity. I don't like that look at all, and won't be buying any more. I also really dislike the elves. I do hope that line gets a complete makeover - a few of the kickstarter elf models seem to be moving in the right direction, with the elf hero/mage and the palace guard infantry looking a little more like an elf I'd be proud to field. The scrawny older models? I can see why you threw those out!