Mantic Games Vampire Lord on Pegasus review
I’ve been lucky enough to review a few Mantic Undead products now. I have been impressed by the quality of the pieces and the value they represent. None of the products have been perfect, but taken in context with the aforementioned value for money, they can still be considered pretty amazing products which any undead general should be jumping all over.
The next item I’m reviewing from the Mantic range is the Vampire Lord on Pegasus. This is another metal sculpt, as were the wraiths; my initial thoughts with the Lord revolved around how difficult to assemble it would be considering how thin Mantic’s components are and how a model like this would definitely need pinning to stand any chance of holding together for more than five minutes.
On opening the box those fears were somewhat allayed. The pegasus is fairly chunky, and the arms were already attached to the rider; so it looks like it’s only the wings that might cause a headache during construction.
Unfortunately those same thick and heavy components provide their own set of headaches. The components weigh so much that annoyingly long pauses are needed for the glue to dry at each stage, even with more pinning than a voodoo doll. Then there is the fact that judicial use of green stuff is needed in order to fill in the gaps, this is normal for metal cavalry (especially mounts in two pieces), so can’t really count against this figure.
When you finally get the whole thing together there is even more disappointment. The thing is just tiny, and doesn’t at all seem suitable to represent a powerful army general. Mantic have the whole true 28mm shtick going on, but even when lined up with other mantic miniatures, it looks a bit wee.
Scale issues aside, the rider doesn’t cut it at all. Many of the problems for me are from the neck up: the face, the hair, everything. It took me a while, but I eventually worked out who I was reminded of – the count from Sesame Street. The skinny body looked more like it belonged to a size-zero model, and not a powerful, blood-mad vampire.
When it comes to Mantic’s heroes, it looks like the value-for-money army idea comes undone, as what you need are options: different weapons, a shield, armour variant (a helm etc), you get nothing extra for this thing and it’s another nail in the coffin for this vampire. [You’re fired – ed]
Finally the base comes as a vaguely shaped lump of metal for you to glue onto the supplied square bit of plasticard, another shocker on this product. More green stuff is needed to get that flat expanse of plasticard up to the level of the rest of the base.
So, in summary, a disappointing product with little going for it, the winged undead pony is OK, but the rest of it is truly awful.
Dead beat: 3/10
I have to agree, this model really doesn’t look great.
One thing DeepSpace doesn’t mention here is the terrible pose of the Vampire Lord, would it have been too much effort for Mantic to have sculpted him holding some reins or similar, rather than vaguely waving his arms in the air?
@Paul
Yes, the pose of the rider is very poor. I think that they spent all the effort on the mount and the rider was an afterthought.
Use the pegasus and put something else on it.
For me, personally, the pegasus is the best available pegasus on the wargaming market
@Jan
Of course that is always an option, and it’d need some work in order to get your model sitting correctly. Some of the vampire models out there are about the same size as the pegasus and would look a bit silly perched on its back.
As far as I’m aware it is pretty much the only undead pegasus on the market, but there are some good undead mounts made by companies such as Reaper which are also ripe for a bit of conversion work.
Good to know; Paul, DeepSpace, Jan. Good to have some kind of idea of what you will actually be getting, (beyond the impression you get from the photo,) if you do go and order this model. never occured to me how flimsy it might be …..
I pinned the wings and the hooves.
For the gaps I used Plastic Putty from Vallejo. Tamiya has similiar stuff. It is better than Green Stuff for gap filling.
The Vampire is really not the best one. I put a magnet in his ass. 🙂 And a magnet on the Pegasus, too. So I can always look, to change the vampire.