Last April Mantic did a major release for their Trident Realms of Neritica range (see my posts here, here and here for some of the new releases).
Unfortunately my lazy a$$ didn't ever finish my write ups for the new releases One of the things I was most looking forward to when I heard about the new releases was the new Coral Giant (right now I am playing a TR list that had 3 coral giants!).
Unfortunately when I got ahold of the model, I was extremely disappointed. Instead of adding new legs/arms/head to the great existing Mantic Giant (like they did for the Storm Giant and Frost Giant variations), they instead made this - well it just seems to be a mess.
So let's look at the parts
First is the body. It really feels like just a blob with some pieces of coral added on. It looks more like an anatomical heart than a body. I do like the coral tubes, and really like the octopus around the back for detail on the surface, but they don't help with the poor design.
Next is the right arm? leg? Really hard to tell (and I just discovered I didn't get a picture of the other side. Again the details are good (the eel wrapping around is nice), but still, it is hard to see what it even is, and worse, where it goes.
The left 'arm' is just as, if not more, confusing
Then comes the legs - again some nice detail on the surface - it is the overall design that is poor.
The other leg
I really don't like this as is, so I did not want to glue it together (I'll show pictures of the two coral giants I have converted later). So instead of glue I just used blu-tack to hold things together (and this did not hold it well due to the weight of the pieces). This is a model that has to be fit and each piece figured out where it goes - there is no obvious placing for anything. It required constant reference to the pictures on the box (or picture, as the picture on the back of the box is just a slight angle change from the front instead of the back or side, and there were no additional pictures on their web site to help.
So I started with the body and the big arm. I guess this is supposed to be in the classic three point super-hero landing pose - with one hand down on the ground.
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| Black Widow poked fun at the classic pose - with Elana calling Natasha a poser! |
Anyway, it is really hard to show how this goes together. The peg on the arm goes in the top middle hole, and it then fits next to the blob looking side (this is inside, so no need to make it look good - but maybe if they had made it in two flat planes so it was more obvious how to assemble it?)
Attaching this piece doesn't hold the model up - so you need to add one of the legs. This one is on the lower left of the model (compared to the first arm).
Once the first leg is on the model somewhat stands up now.
The other leg fits on the side with the octopus - at least the size of the connection seems to match both parts.
The head actually attaches in the middle of the body
It is really hard to tell what is up or down on this head..
So the final model is put together
More than anything, the biggest issue I have with this model is it is simply too small. It is supposed to be H 6. It is a coral GIANT after all, not a coral golem.
It is actually the size of the Greater Obsidian Golem / Greater Earth Elemental.
When it should be the size of the giant, and not half it's size.
It is a comparable size to the Kraken (which is based on the Goliath model from Deadzone). It is also much smaller than it should be. I painted up two goliaths as krakens for my army before the kraken came out (that uses the same body but a different head).
I like my monsters to look like monsters, so my son printed out a large version of the demogorgon head from Stranger Things (which, by the way, I am really looking forward to for the final season). I printed a big piece of coral for the back and leg, and two large tentacles for the arms.
After I took the pictures of the coral giant, my thought was to use them to make the coral giant that Mantic SHOULD have made. I printed out the giant body (that was not available on the vault) (amazingly enough, this is the first time I had printed anything off the vault for my personal use (most everything I had printed had been for others (I have a couple of friends that subscribe but don't have printers), trophies or demo armies (i.e. replacing my metal elementals for my Forces of nature army).
I use the long arm on the rock as one leg, a leg as another, and the other leg and arm as arms. I put the head on top, but I really wasn't happy about the tiny head.
Then last December, the Mantic Vault released stls for the Thuul (all five plus the mythican).
As an aside, I already wanted to replace the models I was using for depth horrors (Karkinoi from The Gibbering Hordes faction, from The Other Side by Wyrd Games). (I also had used the Alpha Crawler and Horomatangi (with smaller demogorgon head), but they both overhung the bases so much that I replaced them with the above converted giants). The karkinoi legs, pincers got caught on other models constantly, so I wanted to replace them. I thought that using NightStalker butchers would work (and they already had tentacles!!!) but they needed heads - upsized thuul heads were just what I needed. I used the deadzone butcher upgrades from the vault for the arms for the Depth Horror Eternals.
As an aside, I already wanted to replace the models I was using for depth horrors (Karkinoi from The Gibbering Hordes faction, from The Other Side by Wyrd Games). (I also had used the Alpha Crawler and Horomatangi (with smaller demogorgon head), but they both overhung the bases so much that I replaced them with the above converted giants). The karkinoi legs, pincers got caught on other models constantly, so I wanted to replace them. I thought that using NightStalker butchers would work (and they already had tentacles!!!) but they needed heads - upsized thuul heads were just what I needed. I used the deadzone butcher upgrades from the vault for the arms for the Depth Horror Eternals.
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| 2 hordes and 2 heroes |
I used thuul heads upsized between 160 and 180% (i.e. 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8)
So it occurred to me to print one event bigger - 300% - (i.e. 3.0), and that would fit the giant better. Cuttting off the coral giant head, I replaced it with the thuul head. Then a bunch of green stuff to fill in all the huge gaps because the pieces did not fit well. I also added some dreadlocks on the back - to match some of those on the butchers. I then put the original head on the back.
I wanted to use some of the body piece - but it is a huge, solid piece of resin and I'll have to use a power saw to cut it in half (a band saw would be great - but I don't have one) (I did say I really liked the octopus on the body, and the eel on the leg).
So this is my version of what the mantic Coral Giant SHOULD have been - new resin pieces (arms, legs, head) to put on the original giant body.
I wanted to use some of the body piece - but it is a huge, solid piece of resin and I'll have to use a power saw to cut it in half (a band saw would be great - but I don't have one) (I did say I really liked the octopus on the body, and the eel on the leg).
So this is my version of what the mantic Coral Giant SHOULD have been - new resin pieces (arms, legs, head) to put on the original giant body.
Now I just need to actually finish painting him (and the depth horrors). And maybe finish the basing for the army (about an inch of clear resin so they would all be in water (which is why all the bases just have sand, seashells, and some clumps on them - awaiting the warm day when I finally finish them).
Because it is all fun and games . . .
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