Kings of War Unboxing: Basilean Army
August 23, 2016 by dignity
Today we're Unboxing and taking a look at the Basilean Army for Kings of War.
Mantic have impressed us again with their detailed sculpts. Just look at the wings of the Elohi for a perfect example!
This Basileans make up all that is pure within the world of Mantica. With the Elohi flying high in the sky, nothing can stand against their faith.
These Paladin-like warriors are a force to be reckoned with and we may need to flip a coin as to who is going to play this army between Justin & John.
Have you played with the Basilean Army?
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Oh dear. These look like they where sculpted 20 years ago.
They look even worse painted…
The way they are painted does them no favours. Actually look better unpainted.
The good modelling potential for KoW is that the unit size is based on their footprint so the exact number of models is less important, and for orcs etc they need not to be ranked up which will solve the ‘arms and swords’ overlapping problem
Mantic really need to step up their game, these miniatures look… well let’s leave it at not good.
im sure Kings of War is a perfectly good game, but one best played with another company’s miniatures.
Sorry Mantic, awful sculpts with horribly soft detailing.
They really need to sort this side of their game out.
@johnlyons may need a shirt printed with ” did I roll my eyes out loud?”
For when @dignity goes all punny.
Good video guys.
Have you given thought to using a little bit of see through tape to mark out the edges of your close up cams? Once you get used to placing the items in it there would be a bit less fiddling with them.
Very ‘Toy soldier’ looking with very wooden poses and very soft detail. Mantic do produce some really good miniatures, but sadly not the Basileans. The horses are quite good though, although I’m not a big fan of Restic.
And now for something completely different. I will say before though that this is written with what was available. Sending my postal order made out to the company I duly waited 31/2 weeks for my Spartans to arrive, hands like pit shovels and heads so large that if they were indeed real people they would all be falling over every time they turned them to look elsewhere. I painted them and placed them with care on the school wargaming table along with everyone else’s Greeks to make a big enough army to take on the one belonging to Mr Brown… Read more »
They certainly aint that bad, and compared to the official dr who mini’s they are works of genius, and for their purpose i.e. mainstay of an army i wouldnt them over detailed as i dont feel bad if i dont paint the details then; hell, for me less is more, there is a good chance i could actually get the lot painted and not be hating on the end result, in a reasonable timeframe (says mr i have managed 10 nearly finished mini’s this year but have added about a 100+ odd to the painting debt, seriously less than 1… Read more »
I actually like the Paladins on foot and horseback despite their micro heads. The infantry are below average, seriously, even for Mantic.
The the girls and Angel dudes are okay.
I’m still waiting for a Manyic sculpt that really strikes my chords to be honest..
In their defence..this is an old release and I like to think they will get better in time.
Having invested heavily into their The Walking Dead All Out War KS I sure hope so!!!
I picked up the Balilean Men-at-Arms box a while back and they went together fine and look the part on the table top. When I started gaming 50 odd years ago there was little detail on the figures. Today’s models, even the average ones (I am NOT saying these are average by the way) are far superior. Mantic have brought to the market decent models – some of their undead are excellent IMHO – at a good price that allows me to field the size of armies I want to play with. At the end of the day, you pays… Read more »
I think they are good figures they aint to FW type quality but for a mass army game they don’t have to be. the painting is good I think we cant all be as good as Romain remember.
Mantic do produce some quality miniatures. I own a large number of their Dwarves and Mantic’s Forces of the Abyss Mega Force. I really like the look of the new Forces of nature and in particular the Salamanders, but the Basileans just don’t look right. Possibly in 50 years they will become collectors items like Hinchiffe Romans or Greenwood and Ball’s Greeks.
I still have my Hinchiffe Romans!
Basileans is some of my favorite KoW lines along side with Abyssal Dwarves and Forces of Nature and I am not afraid to admit that I like those models.
I watched this with some trepidation, for several reasons. Firstly I am a great supporter of Mantic, have backed all their kickstarters and I really respect what they are trying to do. It is just that this army (which I own) contains a kit that is not really the company’s best work. I will get to this later. The other reason I really didn’t want to post is that chrisg and applemak are 100% correct. Even with that kit in there there is no way you can say that you aren’t getting value for money or that these are the… Read more »
After looking at these on a big screen I do not think they are anywhere near as bad as some are trying to make them out to be, and the paint job is not doing them any favours. These are actually decent, not amazing but not crap either.
Mantic provide a nice relatively cheap route into wargaming, and ultimately that is a good thing.
You generally get what you pay for, although I think you generally get more misses than hits (something about the aesthetic just seems off to me, which I find to be a slight shame because the concept art / sketches tend to be much better than the final product), but that’s just my own taste.
As others have said, these models unpainted actually seem much better than the studio paint job (I can’t paint for toffee though).
The sculpts are decent but the fitting of the parts looks poor. The main thing you guys missed is the huge issue of multi-basing in this game. This allows you to use only eleven models to represent twenty, in this case a regiment. “Ranking up” is now eliminated. I just finished multi-basing three Warhammer Fantasy armies as I will no longer support ANY GW products EVER. And yes, Mantic encourages us to blend our armies to make unique forces. I also love multi-basing because it allow me to create mini dioramas if I want to. Multi-basing is the future and… Read more »
Mantic need to stop producing crap in order to get people to support them. Chicken and the egg scenario I suppose. They need support to make better stuff but need to make better stuff to get support.
That and they need to stop sending everything through Kickstarter so that LGS’ will support them.
I plan on using my Sigmarites on movement trays as proxies for some of these Basilean units. (Mostly since I already own those models). But I must agree with most of the comments that they don’t look all that good, just tabletop standard.
I very much dislike the Basilean range. Even more so than Mantic’s other stuff.
Lower quality than most manufacturers. Apart from the army deals, not cheap enough to compensate. Much like most of Mantic’s minis.
Want human horsemen? Fireforge ones are cheaper and nicer.
Human spearmen/crossbowmen, again FF are better and much cheaper at £25ish for 40.
Gripping beast are cheaper again and nicer than Mantic.
Mantic seem to want to make “historical” quality minis at almost double the price.
I have been picking up mantic minis for a little while, mostly second hand off auction sites. I agree with john they are a fiddle to put together but I have been adding heads and accessories from other ranges like GW and once painted they look ok. I like the idea of big armies and this way I can pick up the models for between 10p to 50p each which is great value especially when you are playing big mass army games. Some of the metal sculpts are really good. maybe not to the standards of other manufactures but I… Read more »
Oh god, what is wrong with the arms on those Not-Sisters-Of-Sigmar?
THAT IS SO BAD
Is this a repost of something a few years ago? I know it doesn’t explicitly say in the article ‘new release’, it heavily implies that these are new. (It may say otherwise in the video- I haven’t watched it) But judging by a lot of the comments it needs to be made a lot clearer the Basileans are a 3ish year old line that came out of the first Kings of War Kickstarter. And yes, they look abysmal. They were awful then and look worse now. However Mantic have made some huge improvements since these Basileans came out and their… Read more »