Mantic Fantasy Games & General News & Rumour Roundup

[emperorpenguin]

Beasts of War have images of the new Kings of War rulebook on show!

http://www.beastsofwar.com/kings-of-...ges-kings-war/


Cover



What looks like the new Goblin archers!

[AlexHolker]

Great, more hoods. Why couldn't they have stayed with the look of the Mawbeast Handler?

[emperorpenguin]

Probably because they reused the spear sculpts as the basis of the archers.

I prefer the hoods myself.

[mattjgilbert]

Those will be the new plastic goblins then

[sasheep]

Awesome. The artwork is pretty cool and the goblins look rather nice.

[strewart]

Nice artwork! I do miss the days of getting posters in the sets..

[Caiphas Cain]

Yeah, I liked the undead poster.

I'll probably pick up some goblin archers just for fun.

[The Devourer]

I love the look of the orcs on the book art. I hope mantic continue with this look for orcs since it really seperates them from GW.

[stlwarrior]

Agreed - the Orcs are what initially drew me to Mantic. I love the feral and bestial look they have. Also, their craniums and their jaws are reasonably portioned...

[GomezAddams]

Those will be the new plastic goblins then

Zoom in and take a look - its the spear guys with different arms. Shame really as I was all set to get hordes of the buggers but.. meh

[scarletsquig]

^ The 3 in the middle have the bodies from the metal spears, and the heads.

The 2 on each end have new bodies and new heads (which look to be more plastic than metal to my eye, the head lacks the jutting ears of the metal,the bodies lack undercuts).

No idea what's going on with them, possibly a 2-goblin plastic archer sprue that mantic has mixed with the metal spears for those pics? They'll definitely want plastic for the new starter set, no chance of them putting metals or hybrids in there.

All I know is that everyone and their dog wants hordes of nice-looking gobbos, and the spears and bows at the very least absolutely need to be an injection-moulded job that has a decent amount of money spent on it.

Resin plastic or hybrid metal won't make them cheaper than GW, and a 2-goblin sprue won't give enough variety.

I'd say the bare minimum to make a viable kit would be 3 bodies and 5 heads for one half of the sprue, and the other half being a swap-out for either spear and shield arms or archer arms... and a pet squig!

IMO, the 3-man zombie and orc ax sprues are about as sparse as you can go while still getting enough variety (and both of those get extra mileage from mixing with either the ghoul or greatax sprues), so I'm really hoping we don't get a gimped sprue like the warpath release last year got. I don't expect massive amounts of variety from mantic since low pricing is the main appeal, but they do need to get a better handle on what their market will tolerate if they want plastics to work.. there isn't an unreasonable demand, but there is a certain minimum standard that you see asked for as far as component count goes, and 3-man with seperate heads is as low as you can go.

Even stuff like the much-maligned forgefather sprue could have been made much better without spending any extra cash simply by using a smarter sprue design (ditch the goggles, replace with 2nd head, ditch all the weird tubes and gubbins and commander arms and 1-piece torso, replace with second multi-part torso, second set of rifle arms and plastic flamer).

It would be great if Mantic would start using Kickstarter or Indiegogo (the latter accepts UK-based companies), so that we can start funding these big expensive injection moulds ourselves with pre-orders instead of Mantic having to stress out over the cost of making the moulds and instead resort to either restic or metal instead because the piggy bank is empty.

If the Zombicide board game can raise nearly a million dollars, I'm sure Mantic can mange a tenth of that (or a twentieth if they're only aiming for half the cost to be covered) for the sake of getting a good sprue made.

[Caiphas Cain]

Heck, I'd go for a kick starter for Mantic. Just please no more 2 man sprues!

[decker_cky]

If they do the goblins closer to LoTR or warhammer starter style (mostly single piece, maybe loose heads for variety), I'd think a 5 man sprue should be possible with a few extra command bits on the same size sprue as zombies come on.

If mantic have a good design for goblins and have some 3-ups to show beforehand, a kickstarter would definitely be successful. They could probably even have a high stretch goal for casting a larger sprue with more options. Depends on the turnaround time I suppose, but cheap plastic goblins are a niche right now that's being underserved.

[mattjgilbert]

I _think_ it's a 5 man (well goblin) sprue but just bows to start with. Option to use the metal spear arms.

Next year should see more focus on plastic sets.


Quote/shame me when I turn out to be wrong!

[redben]

Those will be the new plastic goblins then

Are you sure? I've not heard anything to suggest plastic goblins have been made yet. Is it not more likely to be conversions of the spearmen at this point?

[mattjgilbert]

Pretty sure the plastic goblins will be out soon.

[redben]

It's almost like you have inside info.....

Even so, does that mean the goblins we see in the sample pages are said plastic goblins and not conversions of the spearmen?

[GomezAddams]

The 2 on each end have new bodies and new heads (which look to be more plastic than metal to my eye, the head lacks the jutting ears of the metal,the bodies lack undercuts).

They look like the same bodies too me :S The heads are part of the bodies so there the same, with the leader second from left.

No idea what's going on with them, possibly a 2-goblin plastic archer sprue that mantic has mixed with the metal spears for those pics? They'll definitely want plastic for the new starter set, no chance of them putting metals or hybrids in there.

Wouldn't they just use the current sets though? Maybe undead and humans?

All I know is that everyone and their dog wants hordes of nice-looking gobbos, and the spears and bows at the very least absolutely need to be an injection-moulded job that has a decent amount of money spent on it.

Amen!

It would be great if Mantic would start using Kickstarter or Indiegogo (the latter accepts UK-based companies), so that we can start funding these big expensive injection moulds ourselves with pre-orders instead of Mantic having to stress out over the cost of making the moulds and instead resort to either restic or metal instead because the piggy bank is empty.

A lot of the companies using indiegogo etc have there sites set pretty low. Even zombiecide only needed $20000. Unless Mantic factored out things like sculpting, packaging design etc, and could get a slot with Renedra, you're still looking at quite a hefty amount.

And then theres what happens if they don't meet that target. Its a small risk, but if that happens you end up stuck between a rock and a hard place where you either annoy your regulars who've commited and want those figures, or push on ahead and ignore what the wider consumer base tells you.

[redben]

I'm inclined to agree. The minis companies who have used crowdfunding have done so to get a small number of metal minis out, usually enough to make a starter for one faction, and they've done it to speed up the release schedule so they're not left hanging around a long time waiting to get the fourth or fifth faction of their game released. Mantic already have a full release schedule and would need to set a significantly higher amount to get even one sprue into production let alone two or three.

[AlexHolker]

And then theres what happens if they don't meet that target. Its a small risk, but if that happens you end up stuck between a rock and a hard place where you either annoy your regulars who've commited and want those figures, or push on ahead and ignore what the wider consumer base tells you.

That argument is completely without merit. Guess what? This is a decision that Mantic has to make anyway! The only thing a Kickstarter/Indiegogo project would do is make the decision easier, by giving them more information.