If you are a fan of Kings of War or Mantic, then you have most likely heard that they are shipping Kings of War: Vanguard. Not only that, but it is EARLY, and shipping all in one wave!
However the smaller pledges have gone out (as I'm sure you have seen), so my son graciously let me take his Giant pledge (and he will get mine once it gets in)).
I don't like just repeating what others have put out here - when possible I want to do something original or new (or first). So you have all seen pictures of a lot of what is in the giant pledge, and youtube unboxing videos (some are a bit too much - showing and reading EVERY card is - well I found it tedious and boring). So I'm not showing the box, or the big sets.
But I have to show the giant.
I am a fan of giants. I have only painted up five GW giants over the years (4 different models) for three armies. So of course I was excited about this one.
This is PVC, so it requires super glue to put together. It doesn't come with instructions, but the assembly is extremely straight forward.
The torso comes in four pieces, top, middle and bottom (in two pieces). Nice detail, they fit together very well, and it is quite a struggle to find visible mold lines on any of the model. The very few obvious ones are on hidden areas (so who cares!), a bit of quality production that I had notices GW did their larger kits (their giant, the dwarf gyrocoptor) - though it has been several years since I have actually bought any GW models.
The legs and feet are two pieces each. This also allows them to easily replace the feet with fur covered boots for the frost giant (and I'll have pictures of that once it gets in).
There are two heads, two right arms and two left arms - giving quite a bit of variety to the kit. There is also a fur cloak that is optional. Not only that, but the arms are simple ball/socket joints - meaning that you can position them as you like. This with the 16 possible part combinations make this an extremely varied kit (and even I am not getting 16 of these.
Lastly are a few extra little details - arrows and a prisoner. There are six holes in the arms (4 in the left, 2 in the right) to place these arrows, to show the giant having gotten shot and basically ignoring it. The prisoner (or snack?) can be put in his open hand, or I was thinking of attaching him to the belt in case he feels a bit peckish later.
Assembly is very, very easy. You should wash all the pieces first, and a little hot water (ok, slightly more than a little as some of these pieces are not that small) will help you straighten out anything that might not fit perfectly. I did this to help the two hip pieces fit better (they fit together, it just reduced the gaps (which were hidden anyway - again a great job engineering the assembly for this) and the cloak (which I didn't end up adding) to make it lay a bit flatter on his shoulders.
The middle torso fits right over the hips, covering any gap in the central joint. There were NO gaps on the sides where you would actually be able to see them. Many parts of this kit could almost be assembled without glue, the fit is so precise.
When you assemble the hips, there are two stubs for the legs, these are keyed so you can't put the legs on the wrong sides.
Of course it wasn't until after I cropped and loaded the pictures and started writing this that I realized I was putting up a lot of upskirt crotch shots. Happily (very happily) Mantic did NOT go the route Mierce miniatures (who has some fantastic monsters) did of making the models anatomically correct.(I don't need to see a giant's junk thank you very much).
You can see the slight gaps in the leg stubs, but again, these get covered up so are completely inconsequential.
The bottom of the legs have square holes - but these are two different sizes - so even if you can't tell your right foot from your left (the big toe is always in the center of them, duh!) you can clearly see that one of them will NOT go on the wrong leg (big stub, small hole).
The feet are the first part that requires glue, which is fine.
The model comes with a 75mm square MDF base, and the feet just fit on it. In the Kings of War rules, giants are actually listed on 50mm square bases (as monsters). Of course there is the extraordinary base rule allowing you to put monsters, heroes and war engines on larger bases when necessary. But still, it would be really awesome if there were actual rules for larger monsters (to match this really Colossal Giant kit), maybe making them faster, stronger, with more attacks and higher nerve (for a moderate amount of additional points). Maybe if we has a group, or even a committee even, of dedicated gamers who would put out updates and new units occasionally, like every year, that people could use if they wanted. That is just a dream I guess.
But I digress...
I did notice a small gap between the legs and feet when the feet were glued flat to the base (which may be my fault for rushing the assembly before everything had completely set) (and why is it that super glue will INSTANTLY bond to skin (and be carried around the model via capillary action inches from where you put the glue) but it can take more than a minute to bond two pieces of plastic together?)
The upper torso fits on the middle just like the middle fits on the hips. There is a very slight gap here, but is is where there are bits of armor etc against the skin - so I'm betting that they would again be unnoticeable once painted.
IF you are putting on the fur cloak/cape, you need to put is on BEFORE the head. Since it is open on one side, you might be able to maneuver it around the head (if you want to keep it removable - I haven't tried). For my first one I'm leaving it off.
The head simply glues to the neck. If you want variety you could magnetize it, of course. The details on the heads are amazing - even with pupils sculpted in the eyes.
Then simply attach each arm. The ball and socket joints allow you to position them as you like. I made the left arm swinging back (to match the right leg) to reflect him walking into battle (he is big enough to NEVER need to run). I liked the position of the sword in front of him - menacing but not attacking yet. It wasn't until later that I realized it blocks his face for pictures front on.
The big question of course, is just how big is he? 18 cm, which is about 7 inches. A lot of people have a hard time visualizing it just from the number though.
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| Is it because men have been telling women for years that this much is six inches? |
Unfortunately they didn't sell many robots, so how about the Mantic Dragon (or in this case, the Supreme Ironcaster on Great Winged Halfbreed).
Or maybe an Abyssal Fiend?
Or Greater Obsidian Golem / Greater Earth Elemental?
Yeah, the other big models really don't compare. But then the defining characteristic of a giant is SIZE. So how does he compare to other giants?
I have several GW giants, so how does he match up.
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| Old Metal Giant, Giant of Albion, Mantic Giant, current plastic Giant. |
The only one on the market that might be bigger is the Forge World giant, now renamed the Bonegrinder Gargant for AoS. I don't have this model (I may like giants, but I'm not going to shell out $160 plus shipping to get it), but here is a picture comparing it to the GW plastic giant
A couple more - compared to some of my Abyssal Dwarf models
And finally - how about the biggest baddie of them all - The Great Old One himself - the sleeper beneath the waves - Cthulhu!
So what do you think about the new Mantic Giant?
Because it is all fun and games . . .
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