Mantic Fantasy Games & General News & Rumour Roundup

[AlexHolker]

Well, I sent them the PM suggesting "conditional pre-orders" backed up by their greens as a way of increasing their plastic production. Only time will tell whether it pans out.

[André]

Well, at the moment Mantic is getting closer and closer to the "Rackham-trap".

I.e. Wanting to do too much with too little funds and not finishing anything in the process.

I was quite eager when I started with my Undead army. Now, over a year later, I am still waiting for miniatures for units and Undead fare batter than the other races.

Also the switch to SF was much too early and not well prepared which reminds me of Rackhams switch to plastic Confrontation.

With Dystopian Wars and Dropzone Commander getting momentum every day and other interesting games putting out nice miniatures Warmachine, Warhammer, etc. they are more and more loosing ground.

[imm0rtal reaper]

I think a well publicised kickstarter with great incentives could realistically make at least £200k If they set the original goal as the cost of sculpting +tooling+packaging for a single plastic kit, so that once they're funded they have "broken even" so to speak. They could then have the "stretch" goals as 'once we reach £X we'll make a second kit and you can choose between the two.'

Surely £200k would be enough to cover the costs of 4 plastic kits. Sure, they probably wouldn't make any profit off the kickstarter, but as long as they don't make a loss, it's still a win. It means they have four kits out on the market that have paid for themselves by time they hit shelves (unlike the elves).
It increases their range, means they can sell them at the lower prices of the undead plastics (again becuase they've already covered their costs) and they can spark interest in them again by saying "look at all out new shiny stuff!"

Maybe they could even use any additional money raised to start setting aside to bring their plastic production in house (long term plan)

[strewart]

I think the biggest mis-step Mantic has made though was not pursuing a Zombie game. They have some of the best zombies and ghoul sculpts out there. Ever since Mantic offered Hasslefree's various Zombie Hunters miniatures for sale in their online store, folks have been asking for a zombie game from them. I mean they had the mini's, they had the game designers...Zombicide is the game that Mantic should have made over a year ago. All I know is that's 3/4 of a million dollars that Mantics not getting.

Well I don't think Mantic would have been able to get as much since as far as I know, all the Zombicide models are 1 piece so they very much appeal to board game players as well, different coloured heroes means it can be played straight out of the box. Mantic zombies are multipart so before trying the game, players will need to spend a few hours clipping, cleaning and assembling them, plus there would be more of a focus on painting them as well. Wouldn't appeal as much to casual board game players. Super Dungeon Explore still did very well for itself, but I saw loads of comments from people who don't play tabletop wargames saying they were keen until they realised all the models came in tiny pieces.

This is all getting a bit off topic though... I guess because, as mentioned, there hasn't been much going on in terms of releases for KoW lately. Still, maybe this conversation should move to a new thread?

[decker_cky]

It wouldn't have been as successful, but it still had a lot of demand. It blows me away that they made great zombies, brought in zombie hunters, then didn't make any game to tie them together.

[Chicken Pig]

So the latest email/video confirms what we already knew about the hardback book. Its release et al but perhaps a few tidbits on the human army. We had seen that angels/deamons had been mentioned but up to now (and I may be wrong here) I had heard nothing of the Elementals that Ronnie mentions in the latest video. Any thoughts?

[AlexHolker]

So the latest email/video confirms what we already knew about the hardback book. Its release et al but perhaps a few tidbits on the human army. We had seen that angels/deamons had been mentioned but up to now (and I may be wrong here) I had heard nothing of the Elementals that Ronnie mentions in the latest video. Any thoughts?

There have been three human themes mentioned: Good, Evil and Nature - Elementals would be part of the third one. We'll have to wait and see if they're big, dumb monsters or if they're people - or some of each.

[scarletsquig]

Assault forces are starting to appear as pre-orders.

There's 4 different ones, for Elves, Orcs, Dwarves and Undead.

According to rumours, they will include a copy of the rules, a ton of figures and stuff like wound counters and dice, to make them a proper starter set, with the armies balanced against each other, so you can play one box against another.

£30 each, for sale 23rd of June alongside the new rulebook.

Very similar to the model that Privateer Press uses for its starter sets!

[Maccwar]

If those contain the full hardback rules then they are a real bargain.

[scarletsquig]

I imagine they'll be a softcover book, like the current one that is sold for £5, with just the core rules and army lists in.

We should get some more info soon, newsletter subscribers are getting the KoW Dossier in the next week or 2 and an early release .pdf copy of the rules in June.

[loveless]

Assault forces are starting to appear as pre-orders.

There's 4 different ones, for Elves, Orcs, Dwarves and Undead.

According to rumours, they will include a copy of the rules, a ton of figures and stuff like wound counters and dice, to make them a proper starter set, with the armies balanced against each other, so you can play one box against another.

£30 each, for sale 23rd of June alongside the new rulebook.

Very similar to the model that Privateer Press uses for its starter sets!

Very nice and worth looking into (even recommending to others). Shame there's no Abyssals or Twilights, but I understand why. Nice move on mantic's part.

[Caiphas Cain]

I could see them making the abbysals and twilight kin a box like that for 50 GBP though.

[redben]

Check out the blog for a sneaky peak of some plastic.

[emperorpenguin]

So they were the new Goblin plastics and not just conversions after all, glad to be proved right!

[GomezAddams]

See now thats really interesting, because now I can see them, there the same as the metals.

So...is it restic, or are they doing a McVey and converting regular figs into plastic?

[imm0rtal reaper]

See now thats really interesting, because now I can see them, there the same as the metals.

So...is it restic, or are they doing a McVey and converting regular figs into plastic?

As far as I know, they are plastic sprues, but they wanted to get the models out earlier so released the same parts in metal for the spearmen.

[GomezAddams]

So.. and just so I've got this straight, they made a plastic sprue of archers,took those, converted them to spears, and then had them made in metal?

[Don_Silvarro]

Yeah, that seems a bit... strange. But whatever works.

In order news, I noticed that the preorders for the hardback rulebook on Maelstrom and Wayland went from 20 pound RRP to 25 pound RRP

[Darsc Zacal]

I'm confuzzled myself over when Mantic says plastic while meaning restic or when they say plastic and mean injected plastic sprues.

I haven't heard the final word on these goblins, but I do know that when Ronnie himself was talking about plastic werewolfs, I was told later he was meaning restic.

I really wish there was an industry standard when referring to these different types of plastics.

[strewart]

I'm not a big fan of the noses - they are gigantic! And some don't even look like they are properly attached to the faces. But overall nice little gobbos. I guess with them price will be the biggest selling point.