Mantic Games were kind enough to send my wargaming club a selection of sprues for our fun and delight. Included within these sprues were two skeleton sprues. I'm currently working on a Vampire counts list (or two) so it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Partly because it will give me some variety, partly because it will let me know what I think of their range but mostly because they are free figures!
I opted to just try the single sprue, I figured that if I grabbed more than that I might get lynched by the other members of my club.
The sprue has enough components for 10 figures. We received another skeleton sprue and half of that sprue was identical to this but the other half appeared to offer command choices. The first thing I noted was that the majority of the figures upper torsos already have the arms, weapons, shields and heads attached, so the ability to vary the poses appeared limited. The poses themselves look good and dynamic and make a nice change from the GW bending over look. The only major gripe that I would have is that the skeleton heads look a little odd. The GW figures have loads of skulls left over so this can easily be solved with simple head swaps.
I found the moulding itself to be generally good with no misalignment of casting and very little flash. The plastic is soft in comparison with GW, which makes the figures a little bendy and the details are not very recessed, so greater care is required when undercoating so as to avoid losing the detail. However, all said; the assembly was very simple with less work required than is normally required of GW.
The figures come with their own 20mm basing system, but I opted to place onto GW bases to help them fit into the look of my GW skeletons. I didn't remove the plastic base, so this makes them stand a couple of mm higher than they otherwise would.
The (mostly) finished models are presented below:
I have not painted anything on the shields because I could not think what to put there. Maybe something will come to me.
I have also taken some comparison shots to see just how they compare with my GW skeletons;
As you can see, they are a tad taller, but as explained above that is my fault. Generally I think they fit in very well. The figures are of a good quality offer enough variety and are quite easy to paint. Their big advantage is that they are cheaper! I think I still prefer GW, but the difference is not as great as I expected.
Last of all I have included a couple of photos of a mixed unit of GW and Mantic figures to see if I could get away with it. I think I can.
