One more step towards global domination

[Manticore]

Yep, that would be about right Gaarew. Stuff was cheap back then but still it would feel like you were burnt on the price of what was plastic army dudes.

Been a while since those days, days where you could by the WD battlereport army in a set with a decent discount, free box of goodness with a WD subscription (thats how I got my Gorkamorka!!! a whole free big box game with a sub!!!) and of course mail order deals...

If you could pinpoint where they went to **** would you say it was when they got shareholders and all that guff?

[Nightsword]

The difference between the orc sprues and the excellent skeleton and elf sprues just doesn't make sense.

It does when you know the cost of the sprue - Orcs and Dwarfs are some chunky mothers.

Orcs get 3 plastic kits, because the Gore Riders are RP. There's a choice in if we make "this" or do we make "that". Ultimately "that" got chosen, and "that" is probably far cooler than what "this" was TBH, I like the Orc sprue now I've cut it up and made a couple of units (check out my plog), but then again I don't see the appeal of lots of options - when your stood up playing a game on a table that's 2,3 feet down, does it really matter. I put a strangle-hold further on the variety in the unit, by only having my plastic Morax having the horned helm, and not using top hat head, which left me with 3 heads for the Ax. I think I've still managed to achieve some great variety, I still had fun putting them together (unlike those frigging Dark Eldar warriors I built and then sold), you still get more figures in a box, you'll get them built faster, they paint up well and straight onto the table for gaming.

Artwork went on feedback from retailers. As we always say, we're suckers for feedback and what people think, and that ultimately includes our retailers because they are our customers too.

[strewart]

Yeah I have also been unhappily following all the news. What irks me most of all is nowhere have I found any kind of legitimate justification for all of this. Do GW honestly expect us to just say 'ok, no more UK online store... I'll just pay double the price in Aus, no worries'?!?!? How stupid do they think we are? Additionally, people keep saying the vast majority of Aus sales are actually in store anyway, so why bother cutting off a small section of their own sales just for the hell of it?

Move to resin is nice, it is a cheaper material, it is also lighter so cheaper to ship. Mantic switched some units to resin and prices went down, cool. GW does it and not only do prices not go down, but they increase them?!?! And we aren't talking small amounts, its 10-20% increases. Where the hell is the logic there?

Annual price rise on everything else, well it is still annoying and way above what inflation should be, but at least it is in line with what GW has been doing for years.

Fantastic news for the competition though. I certainly won't be buying any more GW products again, and while my wargaming budget is certainly not what it used to be, I can safely say that Spartan Games, Scibor Miniatures, and of course (probably mostly) Mantic will be getting any money that I do put towards the hobby from now on. In fact, it may even start with me preordering Garlak's Monstrous Horde on Thursday when I get paid, though I was hoping to put an orc 3-up in the same order I have no idea when they will be available though.

[scarletsquig]

I'd already switched to all-Mantic wherever possible. Will be heavily promoting the company as much as I can and in as many places online as I can.

That said, recently I haven't even needed to bother evangelising, non-fanatics are starting to do that now.. the GW pricing thread over on warseer currently has several pages of talk about Mantic.

It's clear that they're at least starting to be seen as GW's main primary competitor whereas a year ago they were mostly unheard of or disliked.

[matt_rego79]

Stopping maelstrom shipping to Australia was the straw that broke the camels back.

Goodbye GW, Hello Mantic.

[Fear Of Drowning]

Yep, my WOC  for the TOFP on Warseer is my final GW army, and most of that I got from Gaarew in exchange for the initial batch of Abyssal Dwarfs. It is all mantic from now on, I am 20 infantry and 10 cavalry from an all painted 3000pt KOW army. That is nearly 300 miniatures in total, I dread to think what an army of that size would cost from GW, the cavalry alone would be a massive cost.

As many have said in this thread, GW's loss is many other companies gain.

[Croaker]

I'd already seriously reduced my GW buying in favour of mantic, but now it's total.
I'll get one last order from Maelstrom for a few things I still want, but that's the end.

[gaarew]

I agree with strew.

This is pretty much the last straw for me, long gone are the days when I'd drop £100 a week in GW, just for something to do until next payday.

Talking with a few guys last night at the club, and worked out that, having just ordered the big Orc army from Mantic, the 60 standard Orcs from GW would set me back £111, meaning I got the 20 Greatax, 20 Morax, 20 Gore riders, Goblin, Mawbeast and Krudger's Gang for £39...


I expect that, once I get settled into the new pad I'll start cataloguing the GW backstock from the lair for ebay or trade.

If anyone is looking for anything, lemme know now.

[Llew]

In posting to a guy who works for Privateer Press, I think I just hit on the best ad campaign for Mantic.

"For everyone in the Southern Hemisphere, take advantage of our Antipodean Super Sale!  xx% off on our products from now until June 1st when GW's new pricing policy takes effect.  Try as they might, GW can't compete with the stuff in our A.S.S.!"

[scarletsquig]

Strangely, the thing out of all of these that has bothered me this week is nothing to do with pricing.

It's the C&D they sent to raging heroes, banning them from selling their awesome lamassu model that I wanted to buy at some point, for the abssyal dwarfs.

So, I had zero intention of using the model for anything remotely related to GW, or it's games yet GW still dishes out legal threats to kill off their competition just because they have a 20 year old lamassu sculpt which looks like a pile of crap that they haven't had for sale for well over a decade.

I can deal with price rises, companies make money, it's what they do. The petty bullying I can't stand though, especially when it's with things that aren't hurting their profits one bit.

Currently looking into the P3 range of paints to reduce my GW purchases even further.

If I see a GW model I want I'll wait until I can find it on ebay.

[Nationality]

It's the C&D they sent to raging heroes, banning them from selling their awesome lamassu model that I wanted to buy at some point, for the abssyal dwarfs.

Well, obviously, they'd want to C&D that. GW invented the concept of a lammasu. </end sarcasm>

In posting to a guy who works for Privateer Press, I think I just hit on the best ad campaign for Mantic.

"For everyone in the Southern Hemisphere, take advantage of our Antipodean Super Sale!  xx% off on our products from now until June 1st when GW's new pricing policy takes effect.  Try as they might, GW can't compete with the stuff in our A.S.S.!"

That would awesome. I'd move to New Zealand just to take advantage of that sale. And also to get the f*** out of the States.

[Llew]

Yeah, the Raging Heroes C&D was completely ridiculous.  It's a shame those guys couldn't find a pro bono attorney to take their case like CHS, because their lammasu was orders of magnitude cooler, more impressive, more expressive, more fearsome than that old lump of metal GW had.

I just hate that I never heard anything about it until it was already discontinued.

GW is dead to me -- they have absolutely no interest in gamers whatsoever.

[Darsc Zacal]

Strangely, the thing out of all of these that has bothered me this week is nothing to do with pricing.

It's the C&D they sent to raging heroes, banning them from selling their awesome lamassu model that I wanted to buy at some point, for the abssyal dwarfs. 

So, I had zero intention of using the model for anything remotely related to GW, or it's games yet GW still dishes out legal threats to kill off their competition just because they have a 20 year old lamassu sculpt which looks like a pile of crap that they haven't had for sale for well over a decade.

I agree. I'd been following the developement of that Manticore and thought it was pretty cool of the company when they responded to their customers requests and sculpted that Lamassu head as an option. I can't believe this is happening. Will GW be threatening anyone who makes a dragon next?

It's been irritating enough reading repeated rants by Fanbois who seem to believe that GW invented everything Fantasy and any other company is just ripping GW off.

It's doubly irritating when GW seems to believe that themselves.

But most frustrating to me is when a company gives in to GW's bullying because they don't have the finances to standup for themselves  if legal action is threatened. Arghh!

[scarletsquig]

Yeah, well if you're a small company there's not a lot else that you can do. The winner of any given court case is the person who can afford the most expensive lawyers.

Which means that it's only worth going to court if GW's C&D would put you out of business totally. Such as with Chapterhouse, GW made the mistake of issuing a C&D that would totally wreck the company so they figured "screw it, we can either go along with that and have a 100% chance of having no business anymore, or take them on and lower that percentage".

You can't push too far with C&D's if you're basing them on legal claims with the substance of thin ice.

Anyway, aside from all that, anyone notice that the mantic forum over on warseer now gets at least 20+ people viewing at most times of the day? Interest in mantic definitely spiked these past weeks,

[Robert]

There seems to be a bit more interest on Dakka Dakka as well, in the " Lord of the Rings and Other Fantasy Games" section...