Sunday 9 January 2011

Mantic Undead - Bare Bones Cost

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years you must have noticed the huge range of non Games Workshop plastic 28mm kits now available.  The first I recall hitting the geeky streets were the Perry ACW kits swiftly followed by the Warlord AncientsMantic Games were the first to come on the scene with fantasy kits and have been very well received. 

As my goblin army has been nearing completion (more on this next week), I’ve been looking for a new army to start work on.  I’ve always fancied undead (not in that way), ever since I painted up some zombies and skeletons for Advanced Heroquest back when I was a lad.  I really liked the plastic undead range by Mantic Games so I decided to see what I could get for my Frugal pennies.

The Mantic undead range has been reviewed so many times that I won't go over old ground, suffice to say that I can confirm that the quality is fantastic, even if the range of poses is a little limited.  As this is a Frugal Gaming blog I’ll be looking at the price.  I ordered my figures at the end of last year, but I’ll use the post VAT increase prices to make my point.  Looking at the various deals available, the prices break down as follows (click on the picture for a bigger version):


As you can see from the deals available the best price per individual figure is the Undead Army set, giving a mighty 110 figures for a measly £50.  You don’t get any of the bells and whistles with some of the other sets (such as catapults, cavalry or metal army command group) but to act as the bulk of an army I think it’s a fantastic deal, and I can always pick up the other bits and pieces as I go along.  The other sets offer loads of great options and if you're looking at picking up a huge force then you'd be wise to go for the Liche King's Horde; the revenant cavalry models are amazing!

Frugal Conclusion
Simple really, with prices and quality like this you can’t go wrong, get some.  Oh, and I’m looking forward to seeing their forthcoming Orc and Goblin range as well!

Frugal Afterthoughts
To get an additional discount I’d recommend going to Wayland Games, I bought my Undead Army Set from them before the price rises and (with their discounts) only paid £39 with free delivery!  The customer service was excellent, even with the bad snow my order arrived within 24hrs of me ordering it online.  Thanks guys!

Happy gaming!

Dave

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6 comments:

Unknown said...

I remember not liking the Elf range from Mantic but the later sets are much better. Especially the undead range as you pointed out. The zombies look better than their GW counterparts and are much cheaper of course.

The Angry Lurker said...

The undead stuff is excellent.

Von said...

I thought their dwarfs represented a slight dip in quality - they looked a bit too geometrical for my liking, a bit too artificial - but I am very fond of their ghouls and wraiths.

Lawrence is going to hate you for playing an undead army, you realise. He has issues.

Dave said...

I agree that the Dwarfs (Dwarves, surely?) as well as the Elves (Elfs?) are not to the same standard as the Undead (Undid?) but I'd still give them my money if I was building a full army.

Will the Orcs and Goblins be the best we've seen? I think they are going to produce something amazing. Fingers crossed.

CPBelt said...

I agree on the dwarves and elves. The skeletons look great. Gory zombies are not my thing. I hope the orcs look mean and not like the GW big-jaw versions.

Love the blog!

BTW just ignore all the pedantic nitpicking on TMP about all the plastic minis you forgot to mention prior to Warlord. ;-)

Von said...

@Dave - 'dwarfs' has been the mainstream spelling since the Middle Ages, although your Scandinavian myth cycles and your Tolkien favour 'dwarves' - equally valid, but in less common and more specific usage. I've fallen into the habit of using GW's preferred 'dwarfs', although I personally favour the one with the v.

There, see? You learn something new every day.