Rather than fret about things that I have no control over I have been painting dwarfs....

I cannot help but compare the Mantic Storm of Iron to the GW Thunderers. Both sets allow the choice between crossbows and guns, both are dwarfs, and that about runs the list of similarities.

GW dwarfs are fatter, and somehow less businesslike - with a lot of options, and are proud members of the Beard That Walks Like a Man school of facial hair. Their guns are somewhat oversized, and kind of silly. On the pluss side there are a lot of variants on a sprue. Kind of expensive for plastics.

Mantic dwarfs are thinner, with smaller beards. Not much by way of options, and only four poses - two torsos and two pairs of legs. Parts can be used from other dwarfs in the line, which widens it a little. The guns are... anachronistically good. Sleek, with shrouded mechanisms and narrow scopes. Reasonably priced, especially in large numbers.

As for which dwarfs are better.... .... .... I have me no idea. For a steampunk game I would favor Mantic, for a Renny game I would favor GW.

Anyone else have opinions?

The Auld Grump

Personally, I'll go for whatever set gets me the most options, so in this case GW dwarves.

That said, I can see your dilemma. The Mantic dwarves are very nice.

I am waiting to see the Wargames Factory Dwarves.

Out of the 4 sets of Mantic Stuff I bought, I was very unhappy with all of them, there were so few options on poses or weapons I will never buy from them again, and I just don't like the look of the dwarves.

GW Silly and over sized is pretty much how they are described.

So for me the teaser shot (of likely a dwarven axe) has me waiting to see what WgF does.
The orcs are coming out soon, and the dwarves early next year, it was confirmed they are making dwarves so this axe is likely for them.



And if you want options so far Wargames factory has given the most options of any of the sprues i have seen.

Look at the Orc options,

7 different head options for the 3 bodies.
10 different weapon choices,
3 shields
(and many of the other sprues they make says wait for their dwarves if you want options.

you only get 3 orcs on that sprue?! I'd rather have more actual miniatures than more weapons that will eventually end up in a bits box.

I am partly looking for bitz, weapons for conversions of other models, and for some other projects (treasure piles etc) so I am very happy getting loads of stuff for a "bits box", and 24 minis for $20 is a good deal I think, 0.83 a mini and mantics figs which are a 1.50 a shot for almost no options and GW stuff is over $2 a mini.

count me pleased

I didnt know the price/quantity ratio, sorry. So you'd get 8 of those sprues for $20?

Ok, I retract my previous statement..

Yeah - variety is where Mantic has its greatest failing.

I really like their zombies, and can mix and match for a bit more variety.

The dwarfs... I like each dwarf better than I do any of the GW ones, but there are so many more of the GW dwarfs that it almost becomes moot. If only it weren't for the stupidly oversized weapons.

Dwarfs that I wish were still getting support would be the 'Russian' dwarfs made by Ral Partha and sculpted by Bob Olley. Bob Olley makes some awesome dwarfs.

For PCs Reaper has some good ones, especially in their Warlord line.

Wargames Factory.... is still so new to mold making. Every release you can see the improvements. I will be getting a box of their orcs, maybe use them as Hobgoblins, since the Warlord orcs by Reaper have sort of become my default.

The Auld Grump

Very nice! My wife is a huge fan of the old Chaos Dwarves. Of course, she is getting into Warmachine, so these may just be used for a Mercenary army...

First off, let me saw that I wasn't actually planning to buy any Mantic just yet, I was going to wait for the Chaos Dwarves................ but................... the prices and those damn Dwarf Bulldogs forced me, they used evil mind-snares, they..... were...... too...... damn....... tempting....... ahhhhhhhhhhhhh


So, yeah, I bought the Dwarf Army box plus the Dwarf characters box....... *cough* yeah I know, weak willed........ but the Bulldogs are just sooooo cool!!!! LOL

Now, as the mighty Monty Python would say....... "GET ON WITH IT!!"


FIRST IMPRESSIONS


Miniatures

From reading the copy of the Mantic Journal at the local games shop, I saw that Kev White sculpted the Dwarf Character set, so of course this was what I opened first. Very nice indeed. Good detail and proportions, with nice poses....... normal for Mr White, that guy has talent!!

Upon closer inspection I did see a couple of problems with the castings though. Some of the mould lines would prove to be difficult to clean properly due to their location, and there was some horrible flash on the Warsmith model. This model is carrying a metal bordered book, and there was a large amount of flash which covered a fair section of this book's cover. Removing the flash proved troublesome and will force me to change from being metal border to a flat cover by using green stuff to fill the cover's surface. Not ideal.

Moving to the army box, the first thing I noticed when lifting the box lid was that there wasn't any of the carrying cases inside (that you get when you buy individual units). Minor issue, but I feel that this is one element of the Mantic experience that makes them an attractive purchase.

The box was filled with well moulded sprues. I took a few minutes sorting them out into the different units and found that there were only enough sprues to make 10 of the 2H weapon Shieldbreakers (the box states that there are 15 in the box). I'm hoping that the remainder of the unit can be constructed from the other sprues, otherwise I will have to contact Mantic and see what happened to the rest.

Some form of 'box content' list (sprues) would be useful for the buyer to check whether the box had the correct contents.

Another issue (minor) is the amount of bases provided. There are supposed to be 85 figures in the box plus 4 war machine crew, and they supplied 90 bases....... no worries you say, you have 1 extra....... but if you want to base the 'dead/drunk' Dwarf models, and those wonderful Dwarf Bulldogs then you won't have enough...... hmmmmm

But enough of the negatives, lets get to the positives. The models are very nice and easy to assemble. The plastic models had minimal mould lines and cleaning was fast. For the two part bodies, I found that the hole and peg alignment design didn't line up properly. No big issue, I just cut off the peg and glued them together as flat surfaces.

Plenty of bitz on the sprues to customise the models with beer tankards, severed orc heads, extra weapons, and of course those Bulldogs to play around with.

Overall: Not the greatest Dwarf models out there, but they are nice and for the money they CANNOT be beat. A worthwhile investment and a superb way to build that large army you always wanted but could never afford.


"Kings of War" Rules

GW raised the bar when they released their Fantasy 8th Edition. A wonderful set of rules only hindered by the high investment and excessive terrain rules.

Along come Mantic with a certain Mr. Alessio, and throw into the ring a nice alternative set of rules.

This is not Warhammer Fantasy. It is simpler, faster, and has some very nice alternatives to the GW system. I see some similarities with DBA and other historical rulesets in the way that combats are resolved and the Nerve system is a very nice element of the game. There may not be the customisation of Warhammer (magic items, spells etc), and that may turn off some players, but it looks like the items, spells and abilities will be added to later on. From reading the rules it seems that Mantic have taken all the sticky points of Warhammer (the things that slow the game down or cause confusion) and created a much simpler and understandable alternative way of doing things.

I need to play a few games before finalising my opinions on this game (as should always be the case), but my First Impressions are very positive indeed.


Oh, and I have a nice idea for a Scenic Army Display to go with them once they are all painted up, using a certain WWG set!!!

I may not be all that fond of the Kings of War rules, but it is really hard to argue with the price.... Try 'em out, you may like them!

Shinobi - for a display stand I have become fond of Arena Works, the terraced stands are great for this, and as Sir Didymous pointed out,

The Auld Grump

Yeah - terraces kind of make it.

Maybe flat areas for the units and war machines, stairs for the heroes.

Played a couple of games of Kings of War the other day.

Very fast - each game took less than an hour..

Fun and flavor wise... it fell a bit flat - while fast I would have had more fun playing Mordheim.

I had a force of Undead, the other player used my dwarfs. I won, but it was only because I played conservatively, kept forces in pairs and used one force to soak up missile casualties so the other could get in charge range.

Undead missile troops are very, very poor indeed - damage inflicted by the two units of ten archers was small enough to be inconsequential.

Dwarfs, on the other hand, are deadly with their guns and crossbows. The Iron Belcher organ guns did more damage in one volley than both of my archer units put together in both games.

Balance seemed off, I think that an experienced dwarf player could beat an undead player of equal experience every time. Dwarfs are hard to injure, their special rule counts any time they might have to take a Nerve test, while the Undead special rule only kicks in when they inflict casualties (which makes the Giant Rats Dogs?) almost a required choice. If I had played dwarfs instead of undead it is likely that the game would have been a slaughter. (Which is actually why I took the undead, even before playing the balance seemed off.)

Because the entire unit either holds or breaks at once there really is no reason to have minis at all - a card with the unit's name and a space to mark damage would actually work better than the minis. In an odd way it reminded me of GDW's old System 7 Napoleonics game.

The Auld Grump

Some WIP pictures of my Mantic Dwarf army (15 more to assemble). I bought the Army set (85 figures) plus the metal Character box. For Warhammer this amounts to a 2000pt army. Not bad at all for the price.

Army so far..... not shown are the Ironwatch (being assembled as we speak) and the 2 Warmachines:


One of the Ironwatch Champions........ crying over spilt Ale hahahahahaha, thinking of adding an arrow through the tankard:


Psycho Dwarf Poochies, plus a couple of 'Cannon Misfire Boot' bases that come on the sprues!!! I'm thinking of converting one or more of these into Psycho Slayer Poochies with Mohawks and body piercings:


Enjoy!!

Like I've said - I may not be overly fond of their rules, but I really like their figures.

I just received their Lich King in the mail. As a rule, I have liked their plastics a great deal more than their metals, though I really like the ugly fat on their berserkers. The Lich King on the other hand.... Looks like he will be a very small bear to assemble and paint:


The skeleton he is raising is not so much clawing out of the earth as exploding from it - great clods of dirt and turf thrown up around him.

Unfortunately, I am tempted to do something that I know, from experience, is going to drive me batty - I want to paint him in the MacBeth tartan.



I used that tartan on my Cawdor gang for Mordheim - not an impossible tartan to paint, but kind of a pain.

Somehow it seems like I have been on a Scots streak of late.

The Auld Grump

I am happy to say that I abandoned the tartan... kind of. I added a roll in a simplified MacBeth tartan as a 'bandoleer' of sorts.

And I suddenly realized that I have over a dozen liches. Running from this guy to a lich pulling an undead rabbit out of his hat.

The Auld Grump, why do I have a dozen liches?...

Finally finished the lich king.

He is indeed a pain in the butt to paint - the skeleton exploding from the ground needs to be painted before being mounted to the base. I did the same for the king himself, and ended up skipping the tartan entirely.

I used a slurry of glue and sand in the opened grave, helping to mask the join.
I mounted the whole shebang on a 40mm econo-base from Gale Force 9, takes exactly the same space as 4 skeletons.

All in all, pretty happy with the figure.

The Auld Grump