Other Wargames Manufacturers News: Mantic is determined to beat GW at selling something

That's a fun game that can be applied to almost any model.

Any robot - Necrons
Any bug - Tyranids

As Adepta Sororitas are the only armoured human female 40k army, of course the "best fit" for these Atlantic Digital models would be them. That doesn't however mean that it is even close to being a good or accurate fit.

Almost any generic model range could be categorized into a best fit for a 40k army.

Because I have eyes and I am not biased by a seething hatred for Sisters of Battle. @Lord-Marcus also said they look nothing alike. Beyond the basic trope of women in space armour with wings, they are completely different.

• The armour design is completely different
• The wing design is completely different
• The scaling and proportions are completely different
• The boots/feet vary massively
• One has major religious overtones, the other is completely devoid of them

One is a female religious space marine and the other is a female in an avian inspired mech suit.


Another thing, I've seen you celebrate obvious TK knockoffs (poor ones at that) in the past, but this time around a model vaguely (in the most basic way possible... woman in winged space armor) resembles the Sisters of Battle and it is a waste of time. I get that TK are discontinued (at least for now), but your bias is showing through.

 

This has nothing to do with my dislike of Sisters of Battle. I didn’t even consider my dislike for Sisters as an army when I made my above statements. I too have eyes in case you didn’t notice, and I get that the aesthetics aren’t entirely the same as I have acknowledged above, but my dislike for these new models is entirely due to the fact they are copying an existing concept that already has a popular range of miniatures.

I have also reacted negatively to other attempts by the same company to make their own models for existing concepts already in production, in particular their desire to make Angus McBride Orcs for the same Atlantic Digital programme, again a pointless waste of time given that WA themselves already have a plastic box of Goblins that follow this aesthetic (and ‘Goblins’ and ‘Orcs’ are used interchangeably in the Middle-Earth novels anyway), plus we already have the decent GW Middle Earth plastics. Not to mention that I was negative about Mantic, a company I praise more, releasing a Ratkin range to compete with GW selling Skaven, an army I collect with passion, because, again, trying to imitate the great GW Skaven plastics is futile. Their only saving grace was that they made an affordable set of 5 Jezzails that are superior to GW’s monkey-rat sculpts.

Army preferences have nothing to do with my argument here, I simply dislike seeing wargames companies developing and releasing stuff that other companies have already cornered the market on, when they could be exploring new and untapped, or formerly-tapped and now sadly discontinued, possibilities that would arguably make more money (I can’t see Sisters of Battle fans shelling out on the above WA models, or many Skaven players buying Mantic’s Ratkin Warriors when GW’s 7th Edition Skaven Clanrats still stand the test of time) and would definitely be a better use of their time and expenditure.

He would, given that he partly works for WA and will always defend them. However, you are a comparatively unbiased party, which is why I’m taking your responses seriously but not his.

If you want to play the numbers game, several other folk on the WA forum have also acknowledged they are ‘not-Sisters’. Not with the same disgust as I have, but have at least seen past the superficial aesthetic differences like I have.

And you’ve proven my point when I celebrate Mantic’s fine-looking new Tomb King models - Tomb Kings are currently discontinued, unlike Sisters of Battle which have become GW’s joint poster models, and I was celebrating the fact that Mantic actually made the effort to make TK readily available again. Of course GW will be making their own for TOW much to the joy of us all, and if they are plastics done to GW’s higher standards, then of course I will celebrate them too, probably more than I did for the Mantic ones. However, the glacial pace at which they develop TOW, plus the fact it isn’t even certain that their planned resurrection of Tomb Kings will be in plastic, means I’m not changing my tune any time soon.


I don’t even know why you’ve decided to defend these models out of the blue in the first place - they’re not Chaos Dwarfs, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen or Tomb Kings, why should you care?

 

It's a subconscious bias.... if it has anything to do with Sisters of Battle, WoC, Witch Elves, Empire or Vampire Counts it always rears its head. In my opinion, whenever you engage with these topics, you do so with a very heavy emotional bias (even against direct evidence, up to and including mathematical evidence... i.e. Chaos Warriors).

It's an internet forum... I can't notice such a thing. For all I know, someone is reading these messages to you and describing the pictures. Or maybe you have some sort of advanced brail system.

Outside of the human female in flying space armour motif, the aesthetics are completely different. I even asked @Mrs. NIGHTBRINGER for a second opinion and she concurs.

By your logic no company outside of GW could ever sculpt armoured space females (sisters of battle), armoured space males (space marines), robots (necrons), bugs (tyranids), etc. If we extend this thinking, you should probably get rid of your WHFB Dwarfs and High Elves because they borrow too much from LOTR (or do we have to get rid of LOTR models because the WHFB models were released first, even if they were stolen from Tolkien lore).

Personally if I was designing third party miniatures, I would attempt to piggy back off of GW's prosperities (without crossing that legal copyright/trademark threshold). That's where the money is. An entirely new and original concept not tied to any pre-established IP just isn't going to sell very well. You can build a game around your models (like one page rules), but always design models in such a way that they can be used to replace GW ones. Especially with GW constantly increasing their prices. A lot of people will flock to pick up third party alternatives at a more attractive price point.

That said, I don't think these flying female models are close enough to Sisters of Battle to scratch that itch. They would make for poor stand ins because they deviate far too much aesthetically. If you're a person who really loves Sisters of Battle, these models don't capture their essence or match up to their depiction in lore.

Then it would make more sense for him to say that they are excellent Sisters of Battle alternatives. There is more money in that angle. I think he was giving his honest perspective, but we can let @Lord-Marcus speak for himself.

I didn't prove your point. I was pre-emptively dismissing it because I already knew that would be your next move.

Those things look terrible. A very poor man's TK. You never did buy them did you?

Of course aesthetics are subjective.

I don't care. I'm not defending these models, I'm simply stating truth. If I'm honest, I don't even really like these models.

They simply don't look anything like the Sisters of Battles outside of sharing the general theme of human female in flying space armour. It's not an act of defense on my part, but rather an attack of your mischaracterization.

 

Just because I do business for Wargames Atlantic under contract does not mean I am blindly loyal.

Frankly, I don't like everything WGA makes. The harvesters, outside of conversion fodder, don't interest me on their own, for example.

Cannon fodder too, aren't super interesting. Jumps suit infantry is useful in a variety of ways though.

I also dislike the idea of Grognard raptor cavalry. Simply because greatcoats on scaled mounts seems oddly dystopian. I'd much prefer that the digital kit with horse bits was turned to plastic.

It's not going to stop me from buying or converting any plastic model that Wargames Atlantic brings to the table.

I will always try to speak honestly and directly.

The valks are not SoB. They don't look like SoB.

Norse detailing like knotwork would look good, but it would limit this kits already limited usability.

Frankly, they are warrior women that "fly" into battle. I think that's the image of what a "Valkyrie" is that Hudson was going for with the designs on these.

 

That is how I interpreted your assessment. I was just calling out @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl for dismissing your opinion so "conveniently" (because it didn't align with his narrative).

Exactly! Beyond the broadest of brush strokes (women that fly into battle as you put it) they are nothing alike.

 

Having built and begun painting over a hundred of the infantry and cavalry so far:

They are fine from table distance. Up close, the soft details on them and odd proportions on some weapons become apparent.

The infantry sprue layout are baffling, though. They tooled a 2nd sprue where the only change was 5 heads.

They are not "Bad" models. They are soft in some details and have some odd issues, but they are serviceable and are ok to paint.

my $0.02.

 

I'm admittedly a GW fanboy (in terms of model aesthetics) so I'm a bit biased here. I just think the GW TK models are vastly superior.

 

on everything but the bog standard skeletons + khemri upgrade sprue i agree with you.

The mantic skells have better proportions.

GW still wins based on aesthetic with me, but that does not prevent me from adding mantics offerings to my collection. Frankly fact that skeleton cavalry is plastic makes it easy to say "Eh, Numas liked horses and probably had cavalry divisions" because massed ranks of them looks ok.

 

The worst are the Mantic Necro-Knights (snake surfers). That is the biggest difference in terms of sculpt quality. The skeletons would definitely be the closest, as the GW ones are decades old at this point and quite dated.

 

I must apologise to @Lord-Marcus for my recent comment. It was wrong of me to make such an assumption of you or to dismiss your opinions so lightly. Of course you, like anyone else here, are a man of integrity who has his own views and beliefs.

I have none at the moment, mainly because I'm working on all my other army projects, but when I eventually do get round to Tomb Kings, then I will definitely consider at the very least the Skeleton, Skeleton Horseman and Skeleton Chariot kits they make (which are easily superior to the very old GW Skeleton kits), unless GW fulfil the dream of new Tomb King Skeleton kits in plastic, which as I mentioned above is not yet guaranteed.

Also it's not guaranteed that they'll bring back the 8th Edition Tomb Guard and Necropolis Knight plastic kits (which I of course agree are superior to the Mantic efforts) - if GW make the dumbest decision and go full-Forge World on Tomb Kings when TOW arrives, then Mantic would still remain my source for Tomb King models, as currently it's the only affordable and decent source of Tomb King models around.

 

WIP renders. Onna-bushi and female hoplites

These are from the latest Atlantic Digital update.

 

https://wargamesatlantic.com/blogs/news/a-fireside-chat

 

For anyone interested:

[img width=600 height=354]https://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2023/6/19/1169513_sm-.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=331]https://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2023/6/19/1169512_sm-.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=369]https://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2023/6/19/1169514_sm-.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=431]https://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2023/6/19/1169515_sm-.jpg[/img]

new northern alliance plastics, currently on preorder. At least 1 shop that sells sprues-a-la-carte in the states has them up for preorder too.

The ravens look useful for mid-sized monster birds of various descriptions annd paint jobs, while the elves in winter tribal dress are kind of interesting, but all of them look to be running forwards.

The extra pair of wings on the sprue could be useful for winged serpent conversions

 

I forgot to post about those:




I can certainly see uses for the Ice Elves, but the stars of the show have to be the Raven Riders. I'm pleased to see Mantic have finally started to move their Dwarfs away from the original square-head design and making them look more realistic, and the ravens themselves really fill a niche, they'd be great as monsters for a mythological Viking army for Dark Ages gaming.

 

https://gamefound.com/projects/mwg-...YrZ9s6Q#/section/rewards/reward-product-38212

Last 10 hours of the Damned hard plastic sci-fi campaign by war games Atlantic

 

https://mcdougalldesigns3d.com/blogs/news/mantic-games-preorders-august-part-1-firefight

I wrote up my usual blog post for august preorders from mantic games.

A lot of potential for various sci fi gaming here: hard plastic tanks, half-tracks with mortars, command and control fliers, and several 2 player starter sets.

If you are looking to build up an armored company for 40k or some other sci fi game, that archon tank deal is a killer savings.

The other vehicles are all generally solid and have some good utility in terms of parts. The added bits like the command array on the enforcer flier look nice too.

There's also the two player sets. Of these, I think I prefer the vyr-myn vs forgefathers personally. lots of bodies, lots of conversion potential. The Vyrm myn with head swaps could make good mutant cultists and the tunneler tank is useful for a variety of gaming and terrain projects.

 

Interesting. From size comparison photos online, that Wolverine tank compares favorably in size to a Leman Russ - a hair bigger, but not so bit it could be a Rogal Dorn...

 

Mantic released some new preorders for September.

They are now available as pre-orders from my website, with the usual discount.

 

Yeah, I was rather disappointed that all these are just different variants of the same vehicle chasses, I expected Mantic to be more imaginative than that, especially when you look at everything they've been working on for Kings of War.