Let's Talk Mantic Games

Recent GW/FFG discussion and a trip to my FLGS has me thinking of another pretender to the GW throne...Mantic.

From what I understand, Old World WFB players really dig Kings of War and many of the Indy GTs have switched over. Barnes and others have made it sound like Deadzone is a hoot and probably more fun to play than Necromunda. As much as I love Blood Bowl, I'm having a great time with DreadBall and feel I can argue why it's a better game than the old BB warhorse.

So, it seems like their rules, for the most part, are really on point. The biggest knocks I perceive against them are a) B-list GW settings and b) dodgy minis.

The Settings:
As I've mentioned before, outside of Space Hulk and Necromunda the 40K universe doesn't interest me at all. To be honest, I much prefer what I know of the Warpath Universe...Mantic's sci-fi setting for DreadBall, DeadZone, Warpath, and their upcoming sci-fi dungeon crawler. It doesn't seem to be nearly as grimdark as 40k and actually a bit more fun to play in, IMO.

On the fantasy side, the Old World is hard to top IMHO, but that doesn't mean I'm not open to something new. Looking at the Kings of War armies, I see some that I like and here too the figures and art for the setting seem more...upbeat. I dunno if that's the word, but it too looks like a more lighthearted place to game. Not so goofy as say Terrinoth but definitely a more preferred place to live over the Old World. To be honest, the art for KoW gives me the same sort of fantasy feeling as Rankin-Bass cartoons for some reason. Not sure why. Maybe because there's some sunlight and characters look to be emoting something beyond the GW/PP angst? I can hear the merman below being voiced by Casey Kasem...


The Minis:
Yeah, there are some suspect sculpts and lower shelf castings, but it's not all bad. Some of the minis are quite good and to be honest, I'm not put off by the bad minis at all. Maybe because the games are really fun...and they should be having been designed by former GW employees who are using mantic to refine earlier designs and ideas. Beyond the games though, I feel a sense of liberation in painting a mantic fig. Maybe it's because the mini isn't up to GW's top shelf standards and the pressure to match that quality with paint isn't self imposed, but whatever the case is I feel a bit more free-wheeling and excited to paint these minis.

Special Price mention:
The low price of all these mantic minis must be taken into account. Playing fantastic minis games with this low of a buy-in can't be overlooked. Complete DB teams for $25. Complete DeadZone for $30. Kings of War armies for $70. Yes, please!

Now, I do think there are a large portion of gamers that are using Mantic rules with other (GW) company's minis. I believe this is definitely the case with KoW as mantic has even smartly put out a book providing army lists for all the GW ranges that mantic themselves don't provide. My fear is though that if they are looked at as a rules only company than they may not survive. FFG's RuneWars will likely make a bigger splash than any of Mantic's titles. In fact at my LGS the only Mantic offering they have is are the KoW books and some Army boxes. No DeadZone. No DreadBall. Same store does have a huge section for FFG titles right next to their large GW wall. RuneWars will get plenty of real estate.

So...what do y'all think of Mantic? Where do they go from here? Raise mini quality and prices? Focus on rules? Can they compete or will they be gone in five years? I'd love to hear from you in the comments section below.

I haven't checked out any of Mantic's latest stuff, but I really disliked Kings of War and Dwarf King's Hold back when they first came out.

I have a buddy who loves Kings of War/DKH and hates Games Workshop so I've played them quite a bit with him in the past.

Kings of War bothered me because it was so damn bland. The lack of many special unit rules and minimized racial asymmetry bothered me. The whole game felt very flat, like someone took the Old World and pressed an iron down on top. I get that it was streamlined to produce fast play, but much of the character was lost and what remained wasn't endearing.

I also didn't like that the game rewarded charging and you didn't roll for distance like in old school Warhammer, so basically it came down to me maneuvering just outside my opponent's charge radius and seeing who would blink first.

Dwarf King's Hold had poor components and a game that was OK at best. Again, bland, and nothing there that was really compelling.

For what it's worth I liked their miniatures quite a bit. My buddy has an enormous Orc army fully painted.

From what I can tell, they have improved in terms of gameplay. Deadzone looks great and I hear the current iteration of Kings of War is better. Dwarf King's Quest doesn't look much better though and the Kickstarter was plagued with fulfillment issues.

I guess it should be clarified that the Kings of War that everyone loves is the new second edition and that Dungeon Saga seems to have replaced Dwarf Kings Hold.

Interesting that the minis were a high point for you as seem to frequently come across posts that run these models down.

The Settings:
I'm warming up to the Deadzone/Warpath universe, but I'd still rather game in 40k. 40k has gotten a little too grimdark and serious in the past decade, but that eccentric gothiness in space is something that has made it unique from say a Star Wars or Star Trek knock off. In that sense to me Mantic's sci-fi setting has that feeling of any given SyFy channel show set in space. Whereas Games Workshop used a lot of different influences to create it's gaming universe it still feels like more than the sum of its parts. Mantic's just feels like blatant knock-offs and generic sci-fi tropes.

For fantasy I also thought GW's Old World felt a little generic too and same with Mantic's. Although I do like those mer-people forces, that's cool to see more of nature as a faction, something Age of Sigmar is getting into with the Sylvaeth forces.

Minis: Some of them are pretty good like I think a lot of the Deadzone minis look good (no experience with the actual casting however). A lot of the fantasy ones though, I'm not so sure of. The elves look way too scrawny.

Price: Yeah, big bonus points to Mantic on this one. GW has only gotten even more expensive lately and you're expected to throw down $100+ on ONE model, some gigantic demon/warmachine/dragon thing for your army. Sheesh.

I'm glad the KS campaigns were brought up. I understand the recent KoW and DZ were great, but the DS was a disaster. I did take part in the DreadBall second edition campaign and questioned many of the decisions in how it was run. I'm not sure of the order of these four recent games, so I don't know if they are getting worse, or just inconsistent. I think they guy running most of Mantics KS events has left the company though, but I could be wrong.

At any rate, is Mantic still at the level where they need KS? Like I said, I don't see their products in my LGS, but I'm sure CMON doesn't need to use KS at this point either...

Well, I jumped in head first with Mantic so I'm qualified here...

Setting- It's pretty dumb. You are right on the money, it is about like a SyFy channel version of 40k. It definitely lacks the character and uniqueness of anything GW does. GW hit a grand slam by combining 2000AD, Starship Troopers, Tolkien, Moorcock and heavy metal/punk rock. Seriously, whoever said "Let's make this dude look like a cathedral" was brilliant. Mantic is...bootleg GW in a lot of ways. They seem to be trying to push away from that, like they have fish people (YES) and some different concepts, but when you see the Orks (ahem, Marauders),they look SO bootleg. I do like how they sort of willfully go after certain niches that GW is ignoring- the Forge Fathers are obviously Squats. The Veer-Myn are the 40k Skaven that never were. Wish they would do a Slann army. All that said, Dreadball feels LESS like a GW/40k knockoff- it kind of has its own thing going on, mainly because the game is actually totally different. Inspired by, sure, but it is not Blood Bowl at all. It is...shhh...actually kind of better.

Minis- Kind of a mixed bag. They were doing that sprueless "restic" stuff, so there were mold lines that had mold lines. And you have to use fucking cyanoacrylate glue, which SUCKS. They've switched to polystyrene, but it is nowhere near the quality of GW in terms of casting, sculpts and QC. Some of the figures are quite good- I really like the Veer-Myn and the Forge Fathers are pretty neat and characterful. But the Enforcers are TERRIBLE. The detail is trash, the poses are weird, and they are a pain in the ass to assemble. The Asterians (bootleg Eldar) look good, but they are really small- something to remember is that this is 28mm truescale, not heroic, so stuff like guns are little. No bolter-sized weapons or anything like that. The Enforcer Pathfinders are newer sculpts and they are better than the other human figures I've seen. The Dreadball stuff is mostly pretty good- they are simpler figures, so far they've been pretty fun to paint. Especially the bugs. Now, the terrain they have is really good EXCEPT for the fact that it is a PITA to assemble and they don't give you enough connectors.

Price- Yep, way cheaper than GW. For the price of one Start Collecting, you can get like three Deadzone army boxes. They come in starters and boosters, with the boosters having kind of the more specialized units. Get a starter and a booster and you have WAY enough to play Deadzone. There are some individual and one-off figures, but not like 40k. And no codexes- everything is in the rulebook. There aren't any large vehicles, just a couple of jetbikes and walkers really. But yeah, it is actually shockingly inexpensive if you are looking at this from the GW end of the scale.

Dreadball is really, really good. I think it's a cleaner, smoother and probably more fun game than Blood Bowl. Deadzone is awesome, and it is a kind of game that GW does not currently offer (the upcoming Kill Team set notwithstanding, but that is a full 40k rules set tailored for small model count skirmishes). I also really like that you can just put the terrain out on the mat and have fun- no need for a 4x6 terrain table.

So I really like both of the games I've played from them...but I will say this. It is not a substitute for GW. There are things that GW stuff does it simply does not. Take a look at the Silver Tower figures and rulebooks. Mantic doesn't come close to that.

The DS Kickstarter was a disaster, and it cost them my pledge on the Dreadball KS. They should be getting past needing KS now.

One plus on GWs side is the production is top notch and the games just come out when they are ready. No waiting around for delayed products, excuses around production/shipping delays that are centered on the Chinese New Year, etc. For instance, I have pretty strong faith that Gorechosen will be ready at the end of September when they said it would be.

Mr. White wrote: I guess it should be clarified that the Kings of War that everyone loves is the new second edition and that Dungeon Saga seems to have replaced Dwarf Kings Hold.

Interesting that the minis were a high point for you as seem to frequently come across posts that run these models down.

Not sure if my buddy backed 2nd edition KoW, I wouldn't mind trying it again.

I think the Elf models are sub-par and I didn't like the Dwarfs at first (they grew on me). But their Orcs and Undead are great. The Orcs look a little more Lord of the Rings and a little less silly like their Old World counterparts, but I'm fine with that. I'm also a huge fan of their dragons and bigger models when I last saw them.

Maybe I was wrong to omit a 'Rules' section in my OP as that does seem to be Mantic's strength. Sure they can't compete setting and minis wise with GW, but do Mantic's games play better?

Are the rules good enough that they can survive without a perceived increase in minis quality?

EDIT: Are GW's games still made in the UK? Looking at the KoW boxes today they said 'manufactured in Great Britain' but I thought Mantic had some production in China.

Mantic is always going to look like off-brand GW because they're GW guys who wanted to do GW stuff in ways GW was moving away from.

Barnes, you should ask for a Dungeon Saga + Adventurer's Companion review copy ...

Heh, I actually did back in December, I think it was...they said they would, then they didn't. Wa waaaah.

It looks good, but it also looks like it isn't on par with Silver Tower or other options. See, Deadzone and Dreadball both are actually pretty unique game-wise.

I think the rules for both of those are excellent- very cleanly written, easy to grasp, easy to teach. It does suck, like Mark said before, that there aren't stat line cards but that's an easy fix with a copier.

I'm heavily invested in Mars Attacks, which is the precursor to Walking Dead All Out War. The rules look to be almost a perfect port with bolted on stuff.

I like Mars Attacks quite a bit. Fun little romp, mostly simple. The rules tend to cascade and become a hair overwhelming when you've got all the expansions in (mostly card rules, not "rules rules") but it's still fun. The miniatures are really neat and I like how they did the helmets. The vehicle rules are pretty intuitive as well, which is rare.

I think they are actually very close to Deadzone, with just some cardolay added.

They were having a killer sale on Mars Attacks, not sure if it is still on. The full bundle was like $120 or something. I would have gotten it but too much other stuff piled up now.

I saw someone on Dakka Dakka sum up Mantic thusly:

"Mantic...almost"

Pretty accurate. The game rules are generally quite good (Deadzone, Deadzone 2nd, Dreadball), but the balance of the factions is questionable, and they always seem to throw in some unforced errors in fulfillment. The models range from cool to crap. That said, the head of the company, Ronnie, strikes me as earnest in his enthusiasm. Wish they had better execution, though.