Games Workshop

[slev]

the majority of players are married fathers in their 30's & 40's who played as teenagers, and now play at home with their mates.

is that mates as in "significant others" or mates as in "friends?"

Friends. That does not, of course, exclude partners

[cornixt]

I play what is now referred to as "oldhammer". Just use the older rules and don't buy new models unless you like them. Once you are out of the continuous update cycle, you don't spend much money at all.

[tasoe]

Mantic and Wargames Factory make plastic models on par with or better than Greed Workshop, and Reaper take their own way with their "bones" line.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but speaking from personal experience, the Mantic models suck monkey ass. I'm not sure what the material is because I can't really tell the difference of plastic and resin, but I've bought from some abyssal gargoyles and some trolls and they are all terrible at filing, smoothing, glueing, and generally preparing them to be painted. I wouldn't recommend them even though their prices are very ok.

*this all might be moot 'cause Bene mentioned plastic models and those I'm refering to might as well be resin.

p.s. An undead army I've bought from Mantic a few months back wasn't as bad, I guess that the undead were plastic and the new ones were resin (?)

p.s.2 My opinion is that Mantic figures from the kings of war line are sooooo ugly. It's a matter of taste really but any of their races look silly in comparison to their respective GW ones, except for the undead infantry which just look only a bit worse than the GW undead but come at about a quarter of the price. So I bought them.

[knightkrawler]

I also had to re-read the statement about Mantic's quality being on par with anything.
Mantic's quality is on par with its own price. Concur with Tasoe here.
You get what you pay and regret that you didn't pay more for a similar but better product.

[Sjeng]

I'm still very happy with my Mantic dwarves and undead from Mhorgoth's Revenge. Especially the zombies, those are the best I've ever seen, and WAY outdo GW's zombies.

[IvenBach]

I only have been able to paint my zombies from mantic but they came out really nice. Had a few people comment on them and say they look nasty, made me feel proud . Is there that much of a problem with Mantics figures? They were the first time I've ever had to assemble figures and aside from the fiddly bit of gluing them I think they are good/great figures for their price. Really looking to getting more of them done before the new year starts.

[wolfie907]

sjeng is right about the zombies but I have to agree that mantic are generally not up to industry standard

[Big Bene]

Well, I only have the Mantic "kings of war" zombies and ghouls, and these surely are better than their GW counterparts. Perhaps not in terms of level of detail or casting technique. But they are just great models, original yet serious. The GW ones look like muppets next to them.
But for Mantic's other minis, I can't tell anything. Perhaps I was too fast to judge from my narrow undead perspective.
But then again, this was not the point. It's obviousely possible to make quality plastic minis even if you are not Greed Workshop, and moreover, it's possible to sell them for a serious price.

[slev]

Mantic's stuff is generally passable, but cheap, so yes, you get what you pay for.

Their success shows that enough people would rather have good minis at a reasonable price point, than outstanding miniatures at a high price point, for it to be a business plan.

GW prove, however, that enough people would rather have outstanding miniatures at a high price point, than good minis at a reasonable price point.

The problem lies in that people want expect GW quality and mantic pricing.

[knightkrawler]

Especially the zombies, those are the best I've ever seen.

Man, you gotta do some research. Wait till you see my Confrontation zombies I'm painting up.
Granted, our choices of miniature styles deviate as far as one can imagine, and the better looking zombies from any manufacturer will be substantially more expensive, but the best you've seen? Dude...

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.