Mantic Games

[redandrea]

Mantic Games prides itself as being the best way to buy a new army - or even make an existing army bigger - much, much bigger.

[Grovel]

I dropped $225 on the kickstarter when it was running and have a tonne of plastic crack on the way, bits and pieces of which are from pretty much every faction, so i'll have a good idea on the quality once that is all done but one thing I can comment on at this point - customer service.

The Mantic guys have been top notch in that regard, questions I've asked have been answered promptly and they've been posting regular updates on where they're at ever since ending the kickstarter campaign.

I'm not a fan of a lot of the existing stuff truth be told. That being said however, there has been a teaser of some of the models funded by kickstarter and I must say they look a lot better quality than things like their elves & dwarfs (which I think are horrible).

As previously said their Ghouls & Zombies are fantastic and there are a couple of other gems in there too. The Werewolf concept art is what convinced me to use their kickstarter campaign to start a Vampire Count army, and the Celestian Cat Cavalry is what convinced me to up my pledge to $225.

[Vermis]

Nice rules - shame about the minis. Some of 'em, anyway. I think the undead are good and the orcs and goblins serviceable, but the elves and dwarfs are just odd. The elves are painfully skinny with armour on, and the dwarfs might have knees but they have heads like pumpkins sitting on no necks. And just thinking about their dragon models makes my throat close over and the world turn blac\f6jbm;zxkwt8p6gh77777777777








Which is fine by me because I'm looking at the KoW rules with a mind to play some of the armies from A Song of Ice and Fire - all human, except maybe the odd blue-eyed zombie horde. The free downloads so far look like they're in the Warmaster/Warlord Games vein, which I like. What EG calls 'dull and balanced', I see as an opportunity for tactics and manoeuvre, rather than list-building and memorising finicky abilities of individual models. 'Playing the game not the rules', so to speak. Fans of the game seem to think the same way.

The Warpath minis seem to be altogether better, except maybe the recycling of fantasy dwarfs. Apart from that I have a little sigh that their powered armour humans are more Iron Man than [url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v386/lofi_thriller/Minatures/sstcougar.jpg]Starship[/url] [url=http://whatarmy.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/starship-troopers/]Troopers[/url], but anyway.

[Grovel]

The rules are specifically designed with balance and speed of play in mind, which appeals to me.

Regarding your comments on the Elves & Dwarfs, they're the original sculpts the company produced. If you look at the Abyssal Dwarfs or other newer ranges like the Undead you'll get a better idea of overall quality of models that can be expected.

[eldargal]

Well, yes and no. Some of their original undead was great and some of the more recent undead was shockingly bad. The new sculptor, Remy, who is working on Dreadball and some (or all) of the Kickstarter stuff seems to be doing a much better job.

The abyssal dwarfs are quite nice, but what they have shown of the Twilight Kin have been very poor. The Twilight Assassin is a disgrace.

[eldargal]

No, Mantic. Just no. How were this given the go ahead to go into production? These would have disgraced miniatures production in the early 80s let alone today. Get your ******* proportions right. People might be able to brush it off when it comes to your terrible dwarfs and elves but these are humans. So make them look sodding human.

[Brakkart]

Good grief they look like they've all been stretched on the rack!

[Bigred]

For what it's worth - At Adepticon this year, almost all of the WFB undead armies were using Mantic standins. They were cheaper and look better than GW's skeletons and zombies.

I hear they area really focusing on Dreadball as it was such a clear success on Kickstarter. The minis for that are noticeably superior to several of their other ranges.

[Wildeybeast]

Their heads look like they have the 'nodding dog' necks. Such a shame as they could have been great.

[eldargal]

For what it's worth - At Adepticon this year, almost all of the WFB undead armies were using Mantic standins. They were cheaper and look better than GW's skeletons and zombies.

I hear they area really focusing on Dreadball as it was such a clear success on Kickstarter. The minis for that are noticeably superior to several of their other ranges.

Mantics undead are nice. I prefer GW skellingtons but that is down to taste, the Mantic zombies are plain superior. Their scifi stuff is top notch. But their Kow stuff is just terrible bar aforementioned undead. I don't even like the characters and elite undead personally.