Mantic's Mawbeasts conversions

If you are planning to put together a goblin army for Kings of War you probably have a huge budget problem when it comes to Mawbeasts. They are a great unit but the metal models are really expensive, for this reason I started to think a way of converting the restic Fleabag riders into Mawbeasts.

You will need the following:

• some mantic's restic fleabag riders
• a mantic's metal mawbeast (you actually need just one and you can always take one from a friend since it's just needed for the mold)
• some temporary mold material like Instantmold 
• some green stuff or similar modelling putty

Mold creation
Use the back of the metal mawbeast and make a mold out of it (you need just a mold of the furry back not the whole model). In order to do this you have to warm up the Instantmold into how water (be careful!) press it on the mawbeast's back and wait for it to cool down.

Fleabag assembly
Before assembling the fleabag riders you have to cut the legs from the ride, you can use a plastic cutter and then take out the small pieces with something sharp. This will leave a huge flat gap on the fleabag's backs that will be filled in next step.
Then you glue together the two halves of the ride, the tongue and for some rides the separate paw. You also might want to glue them on the base at this point (or you can do it later, as you prefer)

Fun with the green stuff
Now it's time to make the furry back's, make sure that the mold is wet (it will be easier to take out the green stuff) then press some green stuff in the mold. Turn the mold over and press it on the fleabag back assembled in previous step. Make sure that the green stuff stuck onto the model and carefully take away the mold. The picture below shows the final result.

Mantic's Fleabag Riders unboxing/review

The Fleabag riders are Mantic Games' take on the classic Goblin Wolfriders, if you followed fleabag's riders design evolution you already noticed that the actual miniatures looks different from the original concept. Mantic redesigned the model in order to re-use their existing Mawbeast (a nasty predator that is basically their version of the beloved GW Squig).
For general considerations about packing and material you can check the Ogre review I did before, for details about the Fleabag riders keep reading!

• Assemble the models will take time, I put together 10 of them in about an hour. There are lots of small pieces (like the Mawbeasts tongues...) and some of the small pieces have some nasty molding lines that takes time to be cleared. I haven't said that before but plastic glue will not work on this, you have to use super glue. Mine had also some gaps between the goblin body and the mawbeast ride, so I had to use some green stuff to close the gaps.
• If you are thinking about converting the fleabag riders into a mawbeast unit I have some bad news for you, It is possible but it will take some time and skill. The mawbeast ride has half of the goblin rider legs attached to its back, if you want to get rid of the rider you have to cut off this part. After that you will have to use some green stuff to sculp the fur on the mawbeast back.
• Speaking about convertions you could use some of the leftovers of this kit (about 5 heads and 5 spears in my case) to convert Mantic's plastic Goblin archers into Goblin spearmen (or speargoblin?!). 
• There is no command group bits in the package I received, I'm not sure if Mantic will sell them separately (like they did for the Ogres) or it will be available in the retail box. Anyway the command group bits are made in Metal and not in plastic, you could use it to make some characters (Wiz, Biggit and Flaggit) on fleabag's back for example.
• Mantic has another version of the kit with goblin archers, in that case the goblin archers are made of metal and they are basically and add on to this kit (just the rider changes, the rest of the model it's the same.

Mawbeast body A	There are two mawbeast's body alternatives, each is composed by two halves (one has the goblin rider legs attached unfortunately) and the other half of the goblin legs are on a different sprue. There are 5 mawbeasts body like this in the kit.
Mawbeast body B	This is the second mawbeast body alternative, it has an extra component (the mawbeast paw). There are 5 mawbeasts body like this in the kit.
Rider's Body	This is the upper body of the goblin riders available in two variants (there are 5 of each in the kit). The shield goes in the slot in the right (green arrow) and the head goes on the top (red arrow). There is a peg on the bottom that goes into the ride.
Goblin's heads	Three heads types are available in the kit, and there are 5 of each (it means you have 5 extra heads). The one on the left has also a decoration on the top pictured just below in this image. The quality of them is better than the goblin heads available in the infantry sprues, there is much more details.
Spears	The kit has three different spears designs and there are 5 of each types. (it meas you will have 5 extra spears left). As a note some of them were badly bended so I had to warm them up with hot water (almost boiling) in order to restore their shape.

First images of Mantic's Goblin

Folks over Beasts of war revealed some page of the upcoming new release of the King of War manual, one page showed what I believe it's the first picture of the goblin archers.

It seems that on May the 9th there will be some sort of announcement related to Kings of War! Is there an official relase date for the rulebook and the new rumored units?