We’ve known it’s been coming for a long while and they finally let fly! Mantic are doing STL’s for home printing! I wrote a couple of blogs a few years back when I got my 3D printer and discussed my experience and most importantly, what impact it would have on the industry. I said at the time that Mantic would probably survive it as their IP was getting stronger, the sculpts were getting better and their miniatures were still so cheap that the hassle of printing was a counter balance. However, the world has changed quite brutally over the last few years and the industry has fluctuated quite a bit due to the Pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine and the new pressures put on businesses have put thousands onto the scrap heap. In many cases it was simply a case of adapt or die. While I think Mantic would have carried on regardless, they have rightly, and bravely embraced the changing industry, following the similar model of Avatars of War and Raging Heroes by producing both physical, and now the option of digital too.
Will it work? Lets have a look at the pro’s and con’s…..
PRO!
-Accessibility! If you want Mantic products, you can often be out of luck. If your local store (IF they actually stock Mantic products) doesn’t have it then it’s a case of ordering it, often adding the extra cost of postage. And because Mantic have such a huge range of models, casting them takes time for such a small business that often products are out of stock for months. Who can remember the great Soulflayer drought of 2021-22? Actually that particular one was a good thing…. But now, you can simply download a file, jiggery pokery it in a computer and stick it in the printer and a few hours later you get the model! And you can print it as many times as you like!
-Cost! Imagine you want that Ceremonial Guard horde (40 lizard chaps) for your Salamanders army. Two plastic regiments of Salamanders are £50 and then the upgrade packs are (mail order only) £12.50 to upgrade only FIVE models. Total cost……£150 for a 265 point unit. I think I speak for everyone when I say “no sodding way am I paying that Renton!!!!!”. But now the option to buy some STL’s and print them yourself is there and I would happily spend £60. Well done Mantic, you’ve gone from no sale to a sale. Smaller win but still a win. A lot of the resin figures can be very expensive and this will bring the cost down and make collecting new armies a lot easier for a lot of people, enabling people to use armies they would never have been able to afford before. Riftforged Orcs struggle without Helstrikers. Now they’re affordable, getting the rest of the army to go with them doesn’t seem quite such a chore…..
The subscription price tag is totally fair and in line with other patreons out there. I only have one and I’ll probably cancel that now and subscribe to the Vault instead.
-Environmental Impact! The world is dying, the human race is stripping the worlds natural resources and polluting the environment at a terrifying rate. We’re adding to that collapse just because we wanted to play with little toy soldiers. But now we don’t have to feel quite as bad because now instead of having to produce and send tiny toys in boxes way bigger than they need to be halfway across the world in polluting ships and planes….. We can send models there at the press of a button! Just like e.mail saved millions of trees from being cut down, now we’re saving penguins. Or something like that. I don’t care. Submarine birds that go ice swimming are unnatural anyway, they should be in the Nightstalkers list or something.
-Hobby options! Planning and buying an army is fun. Getting free or cheap toys and then working out what to do with them is AWESOME!!! I picked ups a couple of cheap Plague models at the Mantic open day and it sent me down a rabbit hole and now I’m nearly up to 1500pts of painted horror! A bit of inspiration goes a long way. Now new and interesting lists can be made and ready to go BEFORE you’ve had the chance to realise it’s a daft idea! And the conversion and scaling opportunities are endless. I took one look at the first picture and thought ‘That Aeronaut needs blowing up to airship size….’
-Stability! Sales go up and down and once the initial ‘new release’ bubble pops, the money made on sculpts goes down and slowly declines over the years. At that point you’re selling so few that you might as well sell them as STL’s and that subscription means a stable regular income that Mantic can rely on every month and that helps with planning new stuff and a better release schedule because they know the money will be there to do it. And it means there’s cool stuff for us every month!
-Cross game pollination! That’s just me trying to sound clever and say that it covers all of Mantic’s games. Between this and the Companion you can simply print a Deadzone Force/Ambush army in a weekend, have the rules and jump straight in and give it a go. No need to go down the shops and buy a new starter box just to try a new game. And for all those people who already play across many games there are tons of opportunities for adding new units or starting new forces.
CONS!
-Accessibility! While UV resin may only be £50 or so a litre, you can easily get a tournament sized army out of a bottle BUT the start up cost of getting a printer in the first place can be prohibitive. And there’s all the additional costs which you can do as expensively or cheaply as you want but it all adds up. If you only want to print a few models now and again…. Find a friend with a printer and annoy them or just buy the models themselves. It can be pretty much another hobby in itself and requires a lot of work and research to master so while it may initially may look like you’re getting a good deal, once you get into it with time and money you may wonder why you bothered or that you’re in over your head. After an initial frenzy of printing I barely use mine now and it’s in a box in the attic. As it needs to be 20 degrees plus to use effectively without failed prints, where I live now means I can only realistically use it maybe 4-5 months of the year.
The main problem I see with the Mantic Vault is that they DON’T HAVE THE OPTION OF PRE-SUPPORTED STL’S!!!!!!! I’ve followed several patreons and I know that Mantic are going to spend forever having to answer every single Facebook Vault post that they don’t have a pre-supported option and why they don’t. Eventually they will have to give in because you have to cater for the lowest common denominator and that is people like me who don’t have fancy new machines with fancy new software. Some people need instructions with their kits and this is waaaay above that skill level. There are a large number of people in the same boat who don’t want to have to spend ages working out supports and 2 days and 3 failed prints later to decide that it’s not worth it. It reduces the accessibility ESPECIALLY for newer hobbyists and there will be a fair few Mantic fans who get into 3D printing just because of the Vault. It’s a steep enough learning curve as it is. I’m a lot more experienced at it now and I still winced when I saw there was no pre-support option (Most Patreons have both) and was the main thing to put me off.
I’ve also seen online the payment method Mantic has chosen has been a problem for some people, especially overseas. Apparently they can’t accept PayPal either which is also a massive pain in the arse for a lot of people who use it for online payments. Also, they are restricting it to their own platform and by ignoring MyMiniFactory and Patreon they are missing out on potentially thousands of customers who use those services for getting their STL’s.
-Cost! Printers are bloody expensive and add in all the little extras you need for washing and curing, electricity, repairs, safety equipment etc and it adds up. A litre of resin does go a long way, but it’s still expensive and there will be lots of failed projects that will eat into your wallet. Sometimes it will feel like it’s expensive for cheapness sake and just because you CAN print something doesn’t mean you need to. I have armies sitting there for years that I never get around to painting.
-Environmental Impact! Resin is toxic and gives off toxic fumes. It needs proper ventilation and needs to be disposed of responsibly. You need gloves to handle it and while I’ve had plenty on my skin and it’s been a mild irritant at worst, I have seen pictures of people that it has burned quite badly. I don’t even want to think about what long term inhalation does and the cleaning alcohol is quite potent to breathe in too. You can’t pour it down the sink so you have to leave it in the sun to cure the resin and let it evaporate so you can safely dispose of the waste. Be warned!
-Hobby options! There’s not much bad about this apart from lack of options until the range is fleshed out. I get the feeling we’re going to see a lot of Helstriker-heavy lists in the coming year…..
-Another thing is that older Mantic sculpts (like Rebs) were done by hand and can’t be put up as STL’s as it was before digital sculpting. Fortunately the newer Mantic miniature design is generally much better!
-Cross game Pollination! I’ve had Armada for nearly 2 years and haven’t even played a game of it yet. I have a painted Orc Fleet and a built Basilean fleet but still have no one to play with locally so there’s no way I’m going to be printing any more. The first month is certainly Armada heavy in the STL department so there isn’t actually a lot for me, even though I play all the games. I don’t do Riftforged Orcs and I already bought 2 boxes of the poachers and have the Aeronaughts I need…. So it will be a bit hit and miss at times.
And me? I’ll probably subscribe at some point though wether it will be month one or not yet I haven’t decided. I like the welcome pack and has some Firefight models I’d like and I have a spare giant I got halfway through converting that would quite happily take the storm giant parts. Plus if I print those Helstrikers after all then all I need is some plastic Riftforged orcs….. After all, it is nearly summer and warm enough to get the printer out of the attic.
I rate this brilliant out of brilliant. Well done Mantic, you have embraced the future, and we shall embrace you.
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