Games Workshop

[tasoe]

Well, I only have the Mantic "kings of war" zombies and ghouls, and these surely are better than their GW counterparts.

That's true, I should've mentioned that. I guess I'm kind of prejudiced against Mantic because I had a simple mistake in my order once and it took me quite a few messages for them to correct it. I won't bore you with it, it wasn't so bad, I just thought that a big company who thinks big should immediately re-send the correct stuff instead of arguing with me for a bit. Since the fuss was only about 10 bases (!).

I'm still very happy with my Mantic dwarves...

I'll have to politely disagree with that. Not the fact you're happy! I'm sure that part's true. But really man, be honest, Mantic dwarves look terrible. Out of all the races they produce, they are the worst. Even worse than their elves who are anorexically skinny. Sure, they can fill up a nice unit when they are all together, but up close they are just ugly (not in a good way, like dwarves are supposed to be).

[Big Bene]

GW haven't sculpted Zombies for 15 years. If they did now, they would be expensive, but they would beat seven shades of *lemony goodness* out of the Mantic ones.

They did sculpt new ghules, however, which look just rediculous.
I'm not trying to say that mantic ghules are ideal - I plan to use them as variant zombies. Still not found ghules by that really fit my vision. The old GW ones come somewhat closer, but not really close. The new GW ones - well, what kind of aliens are these? And how do they manage not to fall nose-over? I know it's fantasy, but it's the only thing I can think of when seeing them.

[knightkrawler]

The dwarves look like statues including carved beards.
The orcs, however, are complete and utter crap of the worst kind.
I've never seen the Elves up close and I don't want to.

Sulpt and design wise, the undead are indeed high up on the list of undead bulks you can buy.
I just don't buy into farmer zombies being raised in battlefields.
Rackham were the only manufacturer uo until now as far as I know that went for soldier zombies. I paid quite a lot for those, but they actually look like they can have 3 Defend dice.

That all being said, Mantic is the cheap niche manufacturer, but nothing more.
The quality of the material and thus of the casts, is just below par. That's an objective thing to observe, not just my opinion. It's too soft.
And it's gotten worse. I have a goblin army box, that is substantially newer than the first wave you guys have all been referring to, and the material is crap. Period.
I don't wanna work with it, not just for conversions, but putting the figures together as they should be is a nightmare in itself.

I have no delusions about Mantic anymore and will not put money into them anymore either. I was disappointed three times in three purchases spread over two and a half years. By the gods, that is enough. GW at least can offer quality and I can see it on the box if I like it or not. Mantic doesn't do that.

I swear by ebay and smaller manufacturers that still do metal, concerning miniatures.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Goblin-King, yes, some of the deterioration of quality in GW figures that is being perceived, boils down to the studio's painting style.
That style is accomodated towards the 160 paints they offer and towards customers that are beginners, but will be tabletop standard painters pretty fast pretty soon when they follow the style. Is that a good thing? For them, yes, for our eyes, not necessarily.

The style is all about basecoat, wash, basecoat lighter, highlight, edge highlight. And they do these edge highlights on freakin' everything. You and I both know about the differences between hard and soft material and how to highlight them. Edge highlighting serves the purpose of having every miniature in the army pop out from the table.
It is a very good style for army painting and for not deterring your customers.
But even I have higher standards when I plan my dungeon minis. Of course, these have to pop even more and I don't know if I can do them justice, but I'm on my way by rapidly trying out daring new techniques (shaded basecoat, complimentary color shading, OSL, loaded brush highlighting, you name it...).

[slev]

They did sculpt new ghules, however, which look just rediculous.

The reason behind that was down to the lawyers who run the business side, pulling strings. They wanted something less generic, so you couldn't use other, popular, alternatives. The new ones are not popular, and tend to be used only out of necessety (tournament players) or ignorance (newbies).

I managed to score a load of old-school GW ones on ebay a while back to convert up for Mordheim. Much better.

[Big Bene]

The reason behind that was down to the lawyers who run the business side, pulling strings. They wanted something less generic, so you couldn't use other, popular, alternatives. The new ones are not popular, and tend to be used only out of necessety (tournament players) or ignorance (newbies).

That's what they are doing. This thread is not mainly about the quality of GW sculpts (they made some great minis the last years, but then again, market standards have raised in general), it's about their business policy. And you really can't say much for them in this aspect. Of course they can do what they want as long as they find idiots paying their prices. They are part of the free market. But I don't have to like it and certainly I don't have to participate. And I find it somewhat a pity that the nice minis they certainly offer are unaffordable for middle class youths.

I managed to score a load of old-school GW ones on ebay a while back to convert up for Mordheim. Much better.

Yes, they are. I use them for WFB, too (well, I want to. In reality I havn't played for over a year).

[slev]

That's what they are doing. This thread is not mainly about the quality of GW sculpts (they made some great minis the last years, but then again, market standards have raised in general), it's about their business policy. And you really can't say much for them in this aspect. Of course they can do what they want as long as they find idiots paying their prices. They are part of the free market. But I don't have to like it and certainly I don't have to participate. And I find it somewhat a pity that the nice minis they certainly offer are unaffordable for middle class youths.

This is why I say, I have no problem with a logical problem with GW's product and/or practices. I only have a problem when people's complaints are nonsense.*

As to affordability, based on normalised real value adjustments** from when I started in the early 90's, a typical unit of five (metal, monopose) humanoid GW models should cost around £20 today. You will find the same units in multi-part plastics for around £24 today. Similar a price, a small increase, but much more versitile a kit. I don't find this unreasonable, and I am thus confused by people claiming that it was affoardable X years ago, but not now.

*As an example of some of the nonesense, some people complaied when the LotR Balrog was changed from a metal model to a slightly larger plastic model, with more weapon options on the sprue. Bigger model, more (optional) pieces = more expensive, plaustic = cheaper, thus the fact that it was the same price as the metal kit made sense. However, some people complained that the *same model* (i.e. a Balrog) was now in a cheaper material, but costs the same. To them, this is simply a game piece, the actual model/kit itself having no bearing as to its value.

**Note that many people's perception of this have been skewed by absolute cost reductions arising from globalisation savings over the last decade or so. Since GW has taken little part in this, as people say hey want, we should not expect similar adjustments.

[IvenBach]

It seems I just haven't had any exposure to enough models to be able to discern quality detail better sculpts. Sarcasm: Hooray for an unrefined palate! /Sarcasm I think my best comparison is, do I dare say it, with HQ. I think we all like the sculpts but they certainly aren't the best. Nostalgia elevates them quite a bit in terms of quality. They work great to get into painting, they got me started, but there is only so much you can do with them. I don't include people like Mophus http://english.yeoldeinn.com/gallery-mophus.php and what he can do. I can't do that with HQ let alone more detailed minis. One day maybe but certainly not now. That's probably one reason why I'm not bothered by any others real or perceived view of quality difference with Mantic or any mini manufacturer. It does however give me other ideas about what I'm painting and how it may compare. I'm just not ready to pay a premium for GW models and probably never will. Ebay is assuredly the best place for me if I ever do want to get me some GW stuff.

[Anderas]

Be assured,
Mophus' Painting Style is quite easy to reach if you have somebody telling you how to do it.
He's painting really clean, but that's not all what painting is about.

For a start, if you drybrush, don't have to much color on the brush and don't use a wet pen. It is a failure most of the beginners are doing - and it is visible through ugly stripes in the drybrushed area.

If you paint, use a bigger brush than you'd expect, but with a good point.

And use a wet palette. There you can mix colors, they stay fresh for hours, and you can give the brush a twist or two to have a good point; plus you don't have too much color on your brush.

After, suddenly it is easy! really.

[Sjeng]

But really man, be honest, Mantic dwarves look terrible. Out of all the races they produce, they are the worst. Sure, they can fill up a nice unit when they are all together, but up close they are just ugly (not in a good way, like dwarves are supposed to be).

Well, I like their look. They're short, stocky, well armoured, bearded. I love their blocky armour. Dwarves = Stone and metal, square shapes, runes, big blocks of stone, heavy armour. Their sculpts show this. Sure, it might look a bit comic-book like, a certain artistic style, but it suits them.

I also like the LOOK of mantic orcs, but never had any, so I'll trust KK in that they're horrible to put together. The dwarves and undead were quite easy to assemble though.

[IvenBach]

Sarcasm: KK made it to 1:21 before he had to turn it off, I wonder why... /Sarcasm


All joking aside their other videos are good info for starting painting. I've learned, even re-learned, a few things watching them.