[Kings of War] Next Race, Evil Elves? Options

[Chaplain_Fortis]

I was just looking around on various other forums looking for a thread, and I came across a thread about mantic's new range of blisters to let you purchase their characters seperately. They had a bunch of blister art for current models and upcoming models and stuff, and then they had this:



So yeah... seems like evil elves will be next. I hope they have a better overall design than the good elves. This sorceress looks pretty cool, so I'm optimistic. Not a fantastic sculpt, but at least the design is pretty cool.

[Zippy Wonderdog]

The range looks alright for the price point. If you want quality over quantity then you can always turn to GW if they havn't priced themselves out of the market.

[BoBo]

Oh wow, I quite like that sorceress, far better then her "good" counter part.

Looks like I'll be adding some of these elves to my undead force

[angora]

I'm not keen on her. As with much of this company's stuff the sculpting just isn't great. It reminds me of some of Reaper's poorer work in that the posing is just a wee bit off. The detailing seems odd too - she looks almost as though she were designed to be plastic rather than metal.
GW are just as guilty of appalling sculpts (yes... I'm looking at you Mr Nagash...and you Razorgor) but in general they do nail it.
I guess every mini company produces duff minis in their range - although I've yet to really spot one in the Helldorado range - but I've yet to find a Kings of War mini that grabs me enough to buy it.
Take this opinion under advisement that I am pretty strictly a painter, not a gamer so my perspective may well be skewed.

This post has been edited by angora: Jun 16 2011, 06:11 AM

[Lonestar]

You are expecting alot for just over a buck a model when you buy a army set. Go back and look at what GW were producing at around the same time (age wise) in thier ranges.

Then compare the prices.

[Rangerwolf]

They're not doing a 'range' at the moment instead bringing out conversion bits for their vanilla elves.

The quality is what you pay for but like most other mantic products the in house painter doesn't give them justice.

This post has been edited by Rangerwolf: Jun 16 2011, 08:39 AM

[angora]

You are expecting alot for just over a buck a model when you buy a army set. Go back and look at what GW were producing at around the same time (age wise) in thier ranges.

Then compare the prices.

I'd debate that technology of 20 years ago was vastly different. Having said that I consider the High elf spearmen from GW and several other plastic sets to be sub par as well.
The main difference I see is that some of the GW stuff is stellar while I don't think that much of Mantic's stuff is good. That is, of course, just my personal opinion.
For a better example of a small company's output look at the plastic slayers from AoW - not sure how they compare comapny-wise though.

[Ashen]

I find that the Mantic stuff is quite good, and is excellent value for money for the following reasons:
1) Most of their stuff clicks together...easier for young people like my son to make the models.
2)For a company only a few years old they are producing great stuff, look at some of GW's range that is old (Mephy, high elf spearmen, cadians, etc), they are not that great.
3) Pure value for money. I can get 30 orcs for $40 (Aussie), to get the same amount from GW it would cost me $144...now from my perspective the GW Orc sculpts are not worth more than 3 times the mantic ones.

Seriously, the best way to beat the competition is through price. Mantic is beating them hands down on price.

Now, back to the topic, this new evil elf figure looks pretty good, and given how much cheaper it is likely to be I would pay for it.

[BoBo]

They're not doing a 'range' at the moment instead bringing out conversion bits for their vanilla elves.

That's not so bad, worked well for the Abyssal Dwarves I thought. You don't really notice that they have the exact same legs as the regular Dwarves.

I like how they've done their regular elves as very slender and thin. I much prefer that to other Elves that have been produced that are basically humans with pointy ears. While I wouldn't buy Mantic's "Good" elves, something with a much more menacing appearance definately appeals to me.

The quality is what you pay for but like most other mantic products the in house painter doesn't give them justice.

This is true of every single model they've ever produced. The Revenants in particular looked atrocious until I saw them in the real, there is an amazing level of detail and potential in those models but the studio Revenants look utterly terrible.

The detailing seems odd too - she looks almost as though she were designed to be plastic rather than metal.

Well Mantic has been taking great pains to keep metal models to a minimum in their range. She could possibly be a Plastic? I wouldn't be surprised if they started doing their character sets in plastic to avoid the metal. Genuinely surprised they didn't do that to begin with...

[Chaplain_Fortis]

They're not doing a 'range' at the moment instead bringing out conversion bits for their vanilla elves.

Where are you getting this information? Is it just speculation?

That's not so bad, worked well for the Abyssal Dwarves I thought. You don't really notice that they have the exact same legs as the regular Dwarves.

It didn't really work at all with the Abyssal Dwarves imo. They look decent enough, but mantic aren't able to deliver hybrid kits at the price point they need to.

@angora: There's some bad photoshopping going on which is causing a few of the "bad sculpt" calls, I didn't notice it at first either. Have a look at her nose and her left arm around the bangles.

Well Mantic has been taking great pains to keep metal models to a minimum in their range. She could possibly be a Plastic? I wouldn't be surprised if they started doing their character sets in plastic to avoid the metal. Genuinely surprised they didn't do that to begin with...

It's metal. It's part of the metal range of blisters of individual characters they are launching. Unless they pull a switcheroo and make it resin instead. It won't be plastic.

Yeah, it might make a little sense now if they start having character pieces moving forward in plastic, but really, they won't sell enough plastic characters to make it viable. And people dislike spending a "smaller demand" premium on plastic character much more than they do on metal characters.

[nasher]

Just read a battle report here at this blog.
http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2011/06/kin...797288791213588

Looks pretty decent , I can see myself playing it.

[Chaplain_Fortis]

Looks pretty decent , I can see myself playing it.

Well worth giving it a go.

[Rangerwolf]

Where are you getting this information? Is it just speculation?

Beasts of War's interview with the head of Mantic.

[nasher]

Yes but watching them is terribly hard . Great what they are doing, but the show for me at least is meh.
The best thing about KoW is it's at version 1, things should only get better. I like the feel of individual troppers dying, as I haven't found a system that had whole units staying on the board impresse me. That though doesn't mean KoW won't be good at this. The up side as well is I don't have to take troopers off the movement tray. Thumps up for that and the fact that units can be costed better. So hopefully less inbalance in the game with OTT units??. we shall see huh.

This post has been edited by nasher: Jun 16 2011, 05:37 PM

[Chaplain_Fortis]

Certainly less issue with OTT units. Army building still needs to be done "correctly" but it's more about playing to an armies strengths rather than "this unit/build is strictly best, use only this" there's a lot more options, you just need to build correctly (for example, orcs hit hard, but have terrible nerve, you need to have nerve buffing and also possibly screening units or you won't make it across the table).

The not removing casualties steamlines the game so much. If you can get over the fact that you're playing a game and that the little men aren't actually fighting each other so a little abstraction is ok then it's fine. If not you should probably go play RPGs instead. It makes each unit act more like a monster in WHFB or a monsterous creature in 40k. You fight at full effect as you sustain damage, then you lose the unit all at once after it's taken it's beating. The bonus that makes it a compelling game is that this is determined by dice roll with modifiers for damage taken, etc so you don't know how long your block of spearguys will stick around for once they start getting punched.

[mightymouse]

@Nasher & chaplin

had a good shot at KoW with Mr Wilcox. We both thought it went ok. There were some little issues where we needed to know how the charging order worked so we subbed in the 7th ed warhammer way and it worked great.

1 thing we both thought afterwards was just how refreshed we felt making an army list then actually playing. No BS just good solid play. The first game gave some awesome insights into the tactics involved which really felt like common sense tactics not I know more rules than you tactics.
I loved the idea of not removing models. no mess on the side of the table and I got to see nice painted models all the time. Having casualty markers mount up created a sense of suspense because you could still charge in and get your full amount of attacks( i am enjoying making tombstone casualty markers too. Trouble is unless you had your shooting build up markers on your opponent then its highly unlikely you could break them first go.

The game seems to me to be about softening up units you intend to charge then hitting them head on with flank or rear support to destroy them.

Not having characters join units is also awesome. This way you dont really get stupid uber units and characters hold their own if your not silly.

No ridiculous rules or over the top magic. One place I think KoW will excel is in a tournament situation. Easy to learn, solid tactics to win, no OTT rules, Magic enhances play doesnt dominate it, use your existing models.

I am now in the process of converting over all my fantasy armies to KoW. Not a big deal. a skullchucker or 2 a few bow skelleies and Im done. Bring on a QLD KoW tourny and I am there with bells on.

I have been reasonably dissappointed with Mantics range. The abyssal dwarves are growing on me and the orcs look ok. I am REALLY looking forward to goblins and the 8 new army lists. In fact I could buy a gobbo army. I have been institutionalized by GWs style but I have high hopes for Mantic.

As a painter I think GW plastics have too much detail for rank and file and are tedious to paint. I like my rank n file to look uniform and put effort into my characters. I can go to town on them now as they dont have to rank up and they are only making them real showpieces.

Try it out Shawn.

[mightymouse]

Just a quick one on the painting. Tommy Soule is a good painter. I think some painters just suit different armies. Perhaps the issue is that Mantic only use 1 or 2 painters. Blue and Red Undead wasnt a good idea. The army would of been awesome in earthy tones like black, bone, deep red, rusty metal, decay flesh. The dwarves in steel and so on. Dunno. Perhaps a brighter paint job over all might have helped.

[Drummer]

Just a quick one on the painting. Tommy Soule is a good painter. I think some painters just suit different armies. Perhaps the issue is that Mantic only use 1 or 2 painters. Blue and Red Undead wasnt a good idea. The army would of been awesome in earthy tones like black, bone, deep red, rusty metal, decay flesh. The dwarves in steel and so on. Dunno. Perhaps a brighter paint job over all might have helped.

Actually liked them.
I think it was setup also as a p!sstake on the GW Brets.

[Chaplain_Fortis]

You don't declare all charges at the same time and then move them all, your movement phase is just each unit in turn making one of the move orders. So the order of charges is the order of you choosing each unit and then moving it. I know how easy it is to keep assumptions from other games in similar games (especially if you haven't played many other systems before).

I agree that it's nice that you can make a list with very few restrictions on build or individual choices being viable. It seems like some builds are a bit overpowering such as elf archer spam, and there are a few builds that definitely don't work like slow orcs with no screeners, but aside from a few minor balance issues you can select your army based on what you want to play with and have it be vaguely usable.

I agree. Love not removing models. I really shines when you play 1500 and above where you can easily have 100 models on the table for a small elite army.

The softening up and then destroying units makes it feel very similar to epic but without all the rules micro involved with maxing combats in that game. It's a robust design mechanic.

There's still uber stupid units, but they aren't as rediculous as in WHFB and there are more solutions. Sometimes I miss having heroic heroes in the game, but you can't have everything.

It's definitely a decent tournament system, but I wouldn't want to play it in a developed meta yet, it seems there still needs to be a few balance tweaks to make sure it's all the way there. The core of the gameplay however definitely suits tournament play well.

The mini line is definitely hit and miss. I really like the undead and the orcs but the elves are just terrible and the dwarves seem to be a matter of taste, but they are by no means unusable. Agreed a lot of it comes down to the painting style. The undead army seems to feel very pre-6th ed warhammer and looks a bit too bright and fun to look good. They also hadn't figured out how to photograph the minis back then. They definitely look a lot better irl. I think they've figured out how to do it with some of the orc range (the first pic of the first orc guy was terrible, but the rest have been nice).

There's a good mix between a having a few details and having common parts to allow speed painting with the mantic kits I feel. I've been going along quite nicely with my undead.

I think the main problem with sorceress pic isn't the painting, that seems competent, it's just the photoshopping has clearly messed with the proportions a little. They'll get the hang of it soon I'm sure.

[mightymouse]

You don't declare all charges at the same time and then move them all, your movement phase is just each unit in turn making one of the move orders. So the order of charges is the order of you choosing each unit and then moving it. I know how easy it is to keep assumptions from other games in similar games (especially if you haven't played many other systems before).

I agree that it's nice that you can make a list with very few restrictions on build or individual choices being viable. It seems like some builds are a bit overpowering such as elf archer spam, and there are a few builds that definitely don't work like slow orcs with no screeners, but aside from a few minor balance issues you can select your army based on what you want to play with and have it be vaguely usable.

I agree. Love not removing models. I really shines when you play 1500 and above where you can easily have 100 models on the table for a small elite army.

The softening up and then destroying units makes it feel very similar to epic but without all the rules micro involved with maxing combats in that game. It's a robust design mechanic.

There's still uber stupid units, but they aren't as rediculous as in WHFB and there are more solutions. Sometimes I miss having heroic heroes in the game, but you can't have everything.

It's definitely a decent tournament system, but I wouldn't want to play it in a developed meta yet, it seems there still needs to be a few balance tweaks to make sure it's all the way there. The core of the gameplay however definitely suits tournament play well.

The mini line is definitely hit and miss. I really like the undead and the orcs but the elves are just terrible and the dwarves seem to be a matter of taste, but they are by no means unusable. Agreed a lot of it comes down to the painting style. The undead army seems to feel very pre-6th ed warhammer and looks a bit too bright and fun to look good. They also hadn't figured out how to photograph the minis back then. They definitely look a lot better irl. I think they've figured out how to do it with some of the orc range (the first pic of the first orc guy was terrible, but the rest have been nice).

There's a good mix between a having a few details and having common parts to allow speed painting with the mantic kits I feel. I've been going along quite nicely with my undead.

I think the main problem with sorceress pic isn't the painting, that seems competent, it's just the photoshopping has clearly messed with the proportions a little. They'll get the hang of it soon I'm sure.

Agreed, have had limited games. Elf archer spam could be bad against orcs especially or those unable to heal. It will be interesting to see what 2nd ed brings in October and the new army lists. Orcs may get some faster units that could perhaps negate this slightly. Who knows? Mantic has 3 points of positive difference for me - right price, right attitude, right potential.

Interesting year.