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And they continue with a (potential) hit: gentlemen, space skaven!
http://www.manticblog.com/?p=5397

Wouldnt they have been better off releasing them as a fantasy army? There are no 40k rules for them and unlike squats they dont have a huge fanbase.

One of their better offerings. May be quite smart as they look like they could be used by both fantasy and sci fi gamers alike.

Primarch wrote:Wouldnt they have been better off releasing them as a fantasy army? There are no 40k rules for them and unlike squats they dont have a huge fanbase.

I dunno. They're cool (or at least a cool idea - we'll see how the whole model range plays out), and something a lot of 40K players have been interested in having for a while now - I've been hearing "when is GW releasing space skaven?" chatter since the early RT days at least. You pretty regularly see converted space skaven armies using Guard rules or whatever.

I mean, props to Mantic for not just settling for "the company that makes cheap subs for GW models." They may even figure people might actually play the game they make, y'know?

You could start using the Ork codexes? It is kind of the general codex of rabble and hodge-podge armies. Guard-like rats are interesting, too. I guess the rat ogres become Ogryns, etc.

It seems these miniature producers making things in the wake of GW have a way of spurring GW to take interest in making models for gamer interests. I've heard there are are rumors of a plastic dwarf slayer kit in kind of reflection of Avatar miniatures producing their own kit of berzerkers. Of course I haven't seen that kit from GW either. So... maybe I'm just wishing these things will spur change.

Anyway, very nice model that looks very fun.

Well, if Mantic feels like they've been unfairly pigeonholed as the company which just copies GW, they aren't trying that hard to avoid it.
The sculpt above, does look cool, but as you said, it depends on what the rest of the army looks like. Personally I am still holding out for Draco-chickens in Spaaaaaaaccceee!!!!

I remember there was a little chart of aliens in the 3rd ed. book. There were Hurd and some kind space octopus. Also a space bigfoot. But maybe my favorite is the battle the Blood Angels wage on the army of spiders! Definitely a real glorification of pest extermination in the 40th millenium!

Although the one I really like is the Tau-auxillary army of a client human planet. This was an idea GW actually posted its seems a decade ago on their site. I felt it was a time they were more responsive to gamer interests and hobby side. Ah, nostalgia.

Space skaven were designed by jes goodwin, round about the same time he did the RT stuff. They're in The Gothic and The Eldritch. Nil points for originality, mantic. Not a terrible sculpt, tho. It's no space chicken, that's for sure.

me_in_japan wrote:Space skaven were designed by jes goodwin, round about the same time he did the RT stuff. They're in The Gothic and The Eldritch. Nil points for originality, mantic. Not a terrible sculpt, tho. It's no space chicken, that's for sure.

Yep. The Hrud were being vaunted as possible space rats but then they had d complete image overhaul and became something totally different because GW decided that space rats were a dumb idea.

Not so original but they could sell well if the rest of the range looks good. Some of us old fartd could be swayed by nostalgia.

Suprisingly the Hrud have been mentioned a couple of times in more recent GW literature. In one of the HH short story anthologies the Hrud are mentioned as having fought against the Iron Warriors and in Imperial Armour 10, there is an entry on a war between them and the Star Phantoms.