Mantic Preview Some Upcoming Kings Of War Units
March 4, 2016 by brennon
Mantic Games have ducked and dived their way through the undead hordes to show off some of what's coming for Kings of War over the next few months. At the head of this charge we have some Fantasy undead; The Wights...
These are some dangerous looking miniatures that seem like brutal warriors bought back from the brink to harvest your souls. You can find out more about these models in particular over on the Mantic Blog in a companion piece HERE.
Following on from the Wights we have a look at some lithe Elves, the Silverbreeze Cavalry.
I'm still not a massive fan of the way that Mantic make their Elves (I think they do better monsters and large creatures) but they have all the hallmarks of a quick unit that will be fleetfooting it around firing off shots at the back of regiments.
Last but not least we have news that the Forces of Nature are coming...
I'm really looking forward to what they're going to be working on when it comes to their large tree-creatures and other fey additions to the faction. This might get me into Kings of War if I can run with a huge walking forest as my army.
What do you think of what's coming?
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Those Wights are a massive improvement on the previous sculpts- as are the Elves, though I agree they still aren’t KOW’s strongest faction in terms of style!..
The elves certainly aren’t helped by the paint job either. Plus they could have used some cloaks, it would have given them a little more presence.
They’d have to be dwarf trees, right?
First time I can really say I like something first look at it is the three Wights. Then again if it’s undead it fits in with my quickly growing undead army, not interested in sappy elves, everything dies even the elves and then they come into my army. It grows every time it kills another something then that something race animal etc becomes a target to produce some undead of them.
Those Wights are really good while that Silverbree Cavalry is just decent.
The Wight’s torsos look great, but the legs look too short for their bodies. Why give them stunty legs? I don’t like the ragged skirts they’re wearing either; while cloth is a nice contrast of material to hard metal, they lose some of the brutality they could have had. And with them being so far gone as to being corpses, they’d have more ragged strips of cloth, rather than tattered skirts. The way the skirts are splayed out also compounds the stunted look that they have. I’d give them new legs if I bought these.
Those Wights are awesome models and would make a fine addition to any Undead army. By comparison, the Silverbreeze cavalry are serviceable but not spectacular, but still offer an affordable option that is far from bad.
love the wights and the Lykanis is beautiful
Like the Wights but the Elf cav just doesn’t do it for me.
To be honest the Wights are the first miniatures from Mantic I like. Mantic’s style was up until now not mine.
The wights look good they may be better more blue or red I think.
Not really inspired TBH. Maybe if they had a better paint job to sex them up a bit they would spark more interest but from the pics I see of them they appear very mediocre. I just wonder is Mantic spreading itself a bit too thin these days – they’ve done a hell of a lot lately on Kickstarter – I’m thinking they need to slow down a bit and consolidate their current games / products and devote more time to sexing them up a bit – they’re on to a good thing with KoW, picking up a lot of… Read more »
Those new wights look great – though so do the older ones :p
The Silverbreeze Cavalry are average models, their price will dictate whether or not they’re worth buying… They do everything on the tin but are clearly gaming pieces rather than pieces of art.
It’ll be all wight on the night.
Wight. That’s the end of those dreadful puns – it’s ghastly.
I can see the Wight at the end of the tunnel!
The Elves are still poor and these are every bit as bad as their existing Elf range. They’re too skinny and they also look like they’ve just walked out of the He-Man or Dungeons and Dragons cartoons. The green colour scheme doesn’t help either; it makes them look like green beans. The Wights are definitely an improvement over the existing models, which is great news. Sadly their Elf ranges (Twilight kin included) need to be rethought Overall Mantic’s miniatures “suffer” from function over form and that’s how they keep their prices low but I’m very much a form over function… Read more »
That cavalry is incredibly … boring and basic though, and it’s not just the paint scheme. If mantic release them cheaply that’s fine. But I don’t see anyone buying such zzzzzzzzzzz models unless they’re so cheap they’re too good to pass off as unit-fillers. They look like basic toys from a decade ago.
I can understand the attraction of Mantic’s miniatures. If you literally just want a representation of the units that you can get down on the table quickly then Mantic are the company for you. They’re not too expensive so you won’t feel bad if you don’t put a Golden Demon standard paint job on them. You can do a quick basic paint job, get them assembled quickly and start playing quickly. If the game is your primary concern then I would definitely advocate Mantic. But if you like to deliberate and spend time designing your army, converting and, as was… Read more »
I think some of their models are excellent and others are good – a lot of are a bit meh and some look good/ok but are badly designed. I have a lot of their dwarfs and given a good paint scheme they actually look perfectly fine, even good at times. Their elf infantry are perfectly good too, they *should* be thin, Their goblins are great too. But some of their models just fail or look “ok” but hardly worth buying – and sometimes their prices aren’t even low enough to justify the costs. I like their Ogres but wtf did… Read more »
For a company that builds its reputation on bargain bin prices we shouldn’t be surprised with bargain bin quality. That cavalry really looks below average in every way possible. Shame as I would like to support this company but not for this type of product.
Least they don’t pretend that they minis are premium that they could sell with premium price like some other company that we know does.
I don’t know of any company pretending to sell premium quality miniatures but I know several companies that actually sell premium quality miniatures and models.
Games Workshop is a shop that pretends to sell premium quality miniatures when in fact they sell standard quality miniatures when compared to competitors such as Warlord Games and Perry Miniatures which produce just as good miniatures for much lower prices.
You may not like Games Workshop but their models are still top quality; it’s no pretence on GW’s part, they genuinely do sell some of the best miniatures on the market. Their miniatures are every bit as good as Warlord or the Perry’s and they stand up to scrutiny against pretty much all competitors. They have a huge range, so there’s always going to be some items people individually don’t like. Occasionally there are some that are almost universally criticised. But overall I think that Games Workshop DO sell a premium product. I’ve talked about this elsewhere but in terms… Read more »
Ok, for the benefit of the down voters, here’s why Games Workshop still represent value for money to me. Value is not the same as cost and it is entirely based on perspective. When I buy miniatures and models I consider four factors, of which cost is only one. The primary concerns I have when buying models are: 1. Sculpt Quality – the proportions of the model, dynamics of the pose, the level of detail and the crispness of the detail. 2. Build Quality – how easy is it to assemble, do the parts fit together well, can I build… Read more »
@onlyonepinman I wouldn’t deny most if not 90% + of GW’s line is top notch but one can’t really call them premium if other companies are producing just as good models regularly. I didn’t even mention PP because they miss the mark too much they have plenty of models that rival GW.
Premium would be for this company > .. actually I was gonna link them but forgot their name as they’re far too expensive. But they do a lot of nudity.
Actually a straight forward example of a real premium miniature company is Forgeworld. There :p
Most companies aren’t producing products as good as Games Workshop though. There are a few companies that do but they’re by no means a majority and most of those that do so not sell models in the same sort of volumes as gw. Corvus Belli produce some fantastic models but they don’t sell boxes of 10 or 20. You buy them individually or in groups of 3 – 5 models. Games Workshop sell both individual characters, and the newer clam pack characters are absolutely brilliant kits, and boxed regiments. On top of that they then have their sort of premium… Read more »
Your criteria of converting is somewhat irrelevant to be fair as model quality is model quality (sculpt and material) but it’s personally something I’m always looking for @onlyonepinman – but the bulk of GW’s plastic range are no better (or more convertible) than the ranges mentioned above – in fact GW have recently gone out of their way to make sure it’s tougher for you to convert their models or even swap between like minded ranges (AoS). I find it somewhat amusing as GW have stripped away multi-pose models which use to make GW stand out. The AoS models are… Read more »
“Most companies aren’t producing products as good as Games Workshop though.”
And ?
So what?
That doesn’t mean they are automatically premium products.
If most markets sell economy meat and I sell average meat – or just good quality meat – that doesn’t make my brand or food premium in quality.
And “premium” is a relative term; so if the rest of the market is selling “economy” meat and you’re selling regular meat, your meat would effectively become “premium” and the economy meat would become “regular”. Premium is only really an indicator of your position compared to everyone else, it carries no expectation of the actual product quality only that it will somehow be better than other peoples’ brand. And there can also be more than one premium company in any given market. Audi, BMW and Mercedes are all “premium” car companies. So it’s perfectly acceptable for Games Workshop, Corvus Belli… Read more »
But their undead are excellent – and a lot of their other models are perfectly ok or even good…
The Dungeon Saga miniatures probably represent the best stuff they’ve ever sculpted and even then I’d say they only slightly above average.
Their Undead Skeletons and Ghouls, Zombies (Which are old) represent some of the best if not best plastic models out there for those specific creatures. They’re a joy.
I am not 100% keen on the Dunegon Sa.. you know I literally have 4 boxes full of Dungeon Saga and haven’t even bothered to look at the models which kind of tells you all I need to know :p Mantic probably have a fail rate of 40-50% in terms of just being able to produce averagely good models (in terms of art).
All of the Dungeon saga models that are included in the basic game (and the expansions) are new sculpts for the game and they’re a lot better than some of the old plastics. Their only real failing is that they are mono-pose but I can live with that with it being a board game. The Orcs look miles better than their current KoW range, the faces look a little bit less Games Workshop. The Dwarfs aren’t too bad, the legs look a little weird and some of them have integral arms which means you can’t swap them out. This is… Read more »