Skeletons: Wargame Factory Versus Mantic

For some reason, I'm always on the lookout for skeletons at an affordable price. I used to love the old Games Workshop bare bones skeletons save for one problem. They were fairly brittle and a little bit of a pain to assemble.

When I initially bought my airbrush, I wanted some inexpensive figures that I could spray up with it in a variety of colors. Skeletons were right at the top of my list.

So I bought some Wargames Factory and some Mantic skeletons.

Let's start with Wargames Factory.

What a huge pain to assemble. The feet are seperate from the legs which are seperate from the torso which is seperate from the head which is seperate arms which is seperate from the weapons.

They also seem smaller than 28mm or perhaps they are merely true 28mm. What's worse, they are fragile or at least the ones I was assembling were. Another potential issue is there are no bases. For those who have excess bases or who are using a certain type of army, you'll need to provide your own bases. After playing a few of them, they went into the bits box. I can always use bits and it does come with a nice variety of weapons, shields, and even some broken earth.  The other advantage, and it is a huge one, is the price. At $19.99 for 30 of them, even as a bits box, its worth a look into.

The Mantic Skeletons have some pros and cons to them. Compared to some other figures out there, the price is right at $14.99 for ten figures. The pack I bought was $24.99 I believe and came with twenty skeletons and a skull throwing catapult with two more figures in addition to a freebie skeleton dog and a skeleton bursting forth from the ground. It also comes with a variety of weapons and bases. Mind you, these bases are 'Mantic' bases so they're designed for Mantic figures, having a circular spot empty in the center of them for the circular base integrated into the figures.

The real benefit for me? Assembly. Most of them are only two pieces. The shield arm is integrated. On some of them you can customize the head option or the weapon option. I'm clumsy so I had a bit of a struggle with the catapult but finally managed to get it together. I've already primed them up and thrown on a few base coats and will then go onto the inking.

I'm using that picture because it has an image of the sprue of the skeletons as well as the bases and stickers that come with it.

The posts in the Mantic skeletons are a little stale but they do line up fantastically. The real problem for me is I wasn't paying attention to the fact that I might want them to line up later on and put the musician's horn standing way out to the right so whenever I assemble the troops, he'll have to go on the outside.

If price is your only concern, the Wargames Factory ones should be for you. With all the deals on the various stores though, the Mantic ones were the clear winner for me.