Mantic has a Kickstarter live for "Deadzone", a sci-fi skirmish game with a variety of factions from Mantic's Warpath universe and hard plastic modular terrain.
This first post will be kept updated as every new stretch goal is posted and unlocked, with a complete list of all the freebies you get at each level.
Mantic Games wrote:
Deadzone is the dynamic Tabletop Miniatures Skirmish Game set in the distant Warpath sci-fi universe, written by Jake Thornton, author of last year’s runaway Kickstarter success DreadBall – The Futuristic Sports Game.
Players control one of four unique factions, battling it out over scarce resources by combining deadly actions to lethal effect. The sci-fi backdrop of Deadzone is brought to life using the new modular Mantic Scenery Range adding a vertical dimension to your games and incredible customisation to your battlefield. No game need ever look the same!
Current Stretch Goals:
$1225k - Hard plastic Enforcers in heavy armour created, $10 for 5 add-on. (UNCERTAIN - Needs another $8.5k in paypal pledges in the survey to hit this).
Pledge Levels and Rewards Guide
There are two main pledge levels, Strike Team ($150) and Recon ($100).
Here is a list of everything included in these pledge levels, along with all stretch goal freebies.
Additionally, there is a $40 Scout level, which comes with faction-specific freebies depending on what faction you pick, for example if you pick enforcers, you will get all of the enforcer freebies listed in the $150 pledge level.
Also, by "RRP", I technically mean "KSRP" (Kickstarter retail price) the value of the freebies as they appear in the add-ons section, as the final MSRPs for the products have not been decided.
Completed Stretch Goals: $100k - New sprue of hard plastic terrain, to add greater variety to the terrain included in the pledges.
$125k - 4 extra "specialist" minis sculpted, all 4 added free to all Strike Team pledges.
$150k - New sprue of hard plastic terrain, to add greater variety to the terrain included in the pledges.
$175k - 8 extra "support" minis sculpted, and added free to all Strike Team pledges.
$200k - "The Survivor" Mercenary, added free to all pledges of Recon and above.
$225k - 4 extra "specialist" minis sculpted, all 4 added free to all Strike Team pledges.
$250k - An extra terrain sprue added free to all pledges of Recon and up.
$275k - 3 extra alternate sculpt minis (Rebs Yndij, Assault Enforcer, alt Plague 2nd Gen, and 4 marauder ripper arms added free to all Strike Team pledges.
$300k - Deluxe rubber-backed gaming mat added free to all Strike Team pledges.
$315k - Helfather Mercenary sculpted.
$325k - Nexus Psi Campaign supplement written, with a digital copy provided free in Recon and Strike Team.
$332.5k - Alt sculpt Assault Enforcer, free in Recon and Strike Team.
$340k - Rebs Yndij, free in Recon and Strike Team.
$347.5k - Marauder Sniper, free in Recon and Strike Team.
$355k - Plague 3rd Gen with HMG, free in Recon and Strike Team.
$375k - Terrain sprue, free for all Recon and Strike Team pledges.
$400k - Battlezone: Landing Pad sprues tooled, made available as an option for all terrain pledges and add-ons.
$415k - 4 new specialists sculpted (Marauder Hulk, Enforcer with Incinerator, Rebs Kraaw, Plague with Grenade Launcher) and made available as add-ons.
$430k - 4 free minis added to Strike team.
$450k - Battlezone: Fortified Defence Line unlocked as an option.
$460k - Chovar Mercenary sculpted and made available as an add-on.
$500k - Free faction starter added to Strike Team.
$510k - Extra terrain sprue added to all battlezones (in both the terrain-only pledges and terrain add-ons). 4 tile sprues total instead of 3.
$520k - Dr. Simmonds sculpted and added free to all Recon and Strike Team pledges.
$525k - Collection of fiction written, with a .pdf of this provided to all backers.
$537.5k - Recon Unit N32-19, free for all Recon and Strike Team pledges.
$550k - Battlezone: Ruins unlocked.
$560k - Forgefather Inferno Drill and Asterian Weapon Drone added free to their faction starters.
$575k - 3x Forgefather Brokkrs and 3x Asterian Cyphers added free to their faction starters.
$590k - Nastanza, Twilight Huntress Mercenary, added free to all Recon and Strike Team pledges.
$600k - Deadzone Compendium, free for all backers.
$610k - Zombie rules added to deadzone compendium.
$635k - Hard plastic sci-fi plague zombie sprue tooled, 5 free plague zombies added to Strike Team.
$650k - Asterian Black Talon and Forgefather Brokkr with Heat Cannon created, added free to their respective starter sets.
$665k - Wrath, Judwan Mercenary added free to all Recon and Strike Team pledges.
$675k - Multiplayer rules for large games added, free to all rules .pdfs.
$700k - Enforcer Faction Booster unlocked, and made available for either $20, or in a bundle deal which offers 6 boosters for $50.
$705k - Deadzone Acrylic Counter Set.
$730k - Plague Faction Booster unlocked, and made available for either $20, or in a bundle deal which offers 6 boosters for $50.
$740k - Blaine, Mercenary, free in Recon and Strike Team.
$765k - Rebs Faction Booster unlocked, and made available for either $20, or in a bundle deal which offers 6 boosters for $50.
$775k - Solo Play and A.I. Cards
$800k - Marauder Faction Booster unlocked, and made available for either $20, or in a bundle deal which offers 6 boosters for $50.
$810k - 2 Brokkrs added to Forgefather Starter, 2 Cyphers added to Asterian Starter.
$825k - Codename Oberon, Nameless Mercenary added free to Recon and Strike Team pledges.
$860k - Asterian Faction Booster unlocked, and made available for either $20, or in a bundle deal which offers 6 boosters for $50.
$875k - Rules for solo and co-op play against zombie hordes added to the Deadzone compendium.
$910k - Forgefather Faction Booster unlocked, and made available for either $20, or in a bundle deal which offers 6 boosters for $50.
$925k - Freya, Forgefather Smuggler sculpted and added free to all Recon and Strike Team pledges.
$935k - Resin loot counters.
$950k - Nem-Rath, Asterian Special Character.
$960k - Deadzone Event Ticket.
$975k - Kish, Plague Special Character.
$1000k - Hardback book, free for all $750 pledges, or $40 add-on, +2 free terrain sprues for Strike Team.
$1015k - Sergeant Howlett, Enforcer Special Character.
$1050k - Plague/Enforcer Strider.
$1065k - Eddak P’mera, Yndij Hunter, Rebs Special Character.
$1080k - Bjarg Starnafall, Forge Father Special Character
$1100k - Marauder Stuntbot.
$1120k - Faction Starter Boost: +4 free minis in Strike Team (as long as you don't pick Marauders as your free faction), +2 free minis in Recon.
$1140k - Chief Radgrad, Marauder Special Character.
$1150k - Fortifications Battlezone upgraded with Defense Line sprue.
$1170k - Female Enforcer Pathfinder Sniper on Infiltrator Bike
$1180k - Boomer, Marauder Grenadier
$1200k - Urban Pattern Iron Ancestor, Forge Father Vehicle
Promotional signatures I've made for anyone who wants to use them:
I really wish Mantic had gone with something besides space Zombies for their kickstarter. I'll still pledge for the non-zombie stuff and maybe some of the better, more "chaotic" baddies, but I'm just a bit disappointed.
On the plus side, when they post the free rules, lots of people are finally going to use their Sedition Wars boxes...
The thing with waiting for one project to ship before starting another is, once the design and sculpting is done on one project, it's a matter of twiddling their thumbs and waiting for China to spend the 3-4 months it needs to tool the moulds and send them on a slow boat back to the UK.
During that time, the design team has to have something else to work on. Waiting for one KS to complete before starting another would mean only one KS/year max. It's fairly clear they want to do more than that.
As long as no shipping deadlines are missed and everything is transparent, it's generally fine. Mantic are one of the few KS runners that treat their shipping estimate as an actual deadline rather than some vague placeholder.
That said, people are of course free to draw their own conclusions, I just thought I'd offer up the practical reason as to why they can't go down the "finish one before starting the other" road.
I would say almost certainly this is what they are trying to do - Necromunda is still massively popular, most GW vets think fondly of it, and now that Mantic have got a lot of WfB (and to a lesser extent, 40k) players making units with their models, its a short step to bring in a skirmish game that capitalise on that new fan-base as well as the fans of that older game.
Regardless of all of that though I'm really looking forward to this, and the background sounds more than a little like the premise for Mordheim! Be interesting to see who is going to do the rules for it, and what kind of approach they take.
During that time, the design team has to have something else to work on. Waiting for one KS to complete before starting another would mean only one KS/year max. It's fairly clear they want to do more than that.
As long as no shipping deadlines are missed and everything is transparent, it's generally fine. Mantic are one of the few KS runners that treat their shipping estimate as an actual deadline rather than some vague placeholder.
When is the last of the KoW stuff supposed to be due? (or the next waves?) May? Most of my KoW stuff is still outstanding, and while I may be willing to go in with some Dreadball stuff still to come, I'm not likely to go in with two KS worth of stuff outstanding. I'm not going to count Loka, since I just got the Alessio figure as a gesture of support.
Breotan wrote: As interesting as this is, I really wish they'd fullfill outstanding Kickstarter projects before starting new ones.
Everything for Dreadball and Kings of War that is supposed to have shipped, has shipped.
I know I'm eyeing the calender, wondering if they'll be able to deliver all the new units they promised by May 2013.
I didn't go in on Dreadball, but I know they put some of that out, with more to come. So they can't say that these new projects don't involve production.
Especially when the point of KS is to get great ideas produced, I'd be happier if I saw more production and less great ideas from Mantic right now.
OTOH, there's a 90% chance I'll be supporting this from day one.
Especially when the point of KS is to get great ideas produced, I'd be happier if I saw more production and less great ideas from Mantic right now.
For better or worse, Mantic's a "kickstarter-company" for the moment.
Every day they don't have something on Kickstarter is wasting money.
And this one looks like KS-bait to the core. Zombies vs. Marines? "Skirmish" instead of "Building Big Armies"?
I kinda doubt that this is the "version/vision" of Warpath we would've seen in a Kickstarter-free alternative universe. Not unlike Zombicide 2, this looks like a game designed to be a Kickstarter, pulling all the levers we now know work on Kickstarter-campaigns, not an "independent" idea looking for support through crowd-funding.
That said, I have no doubt their success (as with Zombicide 2) will quickly vindicate this approach.
Dreadball backers like me were told that some of the 2nd shipment stuff has slipped and will now turn up in the 3rd shipment (due to not being sculpted in time)
So they are starting to have problems at their end (rather than just the Chinese end)
(this won't stop me backing IF I like what I see though, as I really don't mind KS slippage as long as I'm sure I'll get the stuff eventually)
Breotan wrote: As interesting as this is, I really wish they'd fullfill outstanding Kickstarter projects before starting new ones.
Everything for Dreadball and Kings of War that is supposed to have shipped, has shipped.
I pledged for Reward: Veteran – Soldier + 2 units of Werewolves + 2 units of Ogres + 1 unit of Ogre Shooters + Wound Counters + Undead Vampiress from the cover art. So far, all I've received is the rulebook and some dice. Now, most of this stuff has a date of May2013 so it isn't unexpected. I'm just saying that I'd rather have existing projects fulfilled instead of having multiple, incomplete projects working their way through the pipeline.
KS is supposed to generate initial revenue to complete a project. After that, the project, in theory, is supposed to sustain itself and generate profits for the company. Those profits are what should be used for further expansion instead of companies being reliant/dependant on KS for their revenue stream.
I pledged for Reward: Veteran – Soldier + 2 units of Werewolves + 2 units of Ogres + 1 unit of Ogre Shooters + Wound Counters + Undead Vampiress from the cover art. So far, all I've received is the rulebook and some dice. Now, most of this stuff has a date of May2013 so it isn't unexpected. I'm just saying that I'd rather have existing projects fulfilled instead of having multiple, incomplete projects working their way through the pipeline.
KS is supposed to generate initial revenue to complete a project. After that, the project, in theory, is supposed to sustain itself and generate profits for the company. Those profits are what should be used for further expansion instead of companies being reliant/dependant on KS for their revenue stream.
Nod, both my wife and I are in a similar position, having both received dice, rulebooks and no models as we both went 100% for new sculpts. If the DB sculpts are starting to slip, and with May right around the corner with many KoW items not shown yet, I'm starting to expect that Mantic's stuff will start to slip.
Part of me is willing to cut Mantic a little slack, given how dramatically the "new stuff" pile in the KoWKS grew over time. It went from a handful of new units to a couple of armies worth. I know its just going to take time, especially when they only had concept sketches for most of the stuff.
A different part is watching the calender, and noting a dearth of KoW updates with Greens, sprues, etc of the new units. For stuff that's supposed to ship in two months, I haven't seen much aside from a 3D render of the men at arms. I'm not sure if there are even sketches of all the new units yet.
I can see cutting them slack, but there's going to be a certain number of people sitting this out simply because they're already waiting on a lot of stuff from Mantic. Not that Mantic is late delivering- but sometimes you need to get the stuff in hand before investing hundreds more!!
We've seen greens of fair few bits of the new KOW if you go though the KS thread, but thanks to the new Dakka policy that's vanished from N&R into the wastelands of the specialist boards
(not that they arn't nice boards, just underpopulated compared to N&R and the GW ones)
(eg Remy's excellent ogres)
maybe somebody on the ball mantic wise (Scarletsquig?) might be able to dig up link(s)
There's a Mantic thread in here, and people can feel free to post greens in there as well!
But sending a 100-page or whatever thread off into the appropriate subforum is actually very good for views of a new company thread in N&R. It makes it a lot less intimidating for new folks to catch up.
Otherwise, it'd be like having to read ALL the kickstarter comments on the main kickstarter page, before seeing what the company was up to
KS is supposed to generate initial revenue to complete a project. After that, the project, in theory, is supposed to sustain itself and generate profits for the company.
Quite the opposite. A Kickstarter-project is supposed to be finite and self-contained.
Anything that generates profits beyond the Kickstarter-campaign itself isn't supposed to be on Kickstarter in the first place, strictly speaking.
Polonius wrote: For stuff that's supposed to ship in two months, I haven't seen much aside from a 3D render of the men at arms. I'm not sure if there are even sketches of all the new units yet.
Seriously? Off the top of my head, I remember seeing Ogres (both melee and ranged options), Lesser Obsidian Golems, Lesser Abyssals, Angels, battle nuns, the undead dog handler, the vampiress, and renders for two custom heroes. There is, in fact a whole thread in the News and Rumors forum all about KoW-related releases and news. By all appearances, Mantic is on-track for a Q2 release.
This is the kickstarter I have been waiting all year for! I have a strong feeling that I will end up getting every single Enforcer model that they put out. Hopefully they use this a good way to make all the current sets full plastic rather than the metal hybrid ones. Terrain also sounds intriguing...
KS is supposed to generate initial revenue to complete a project. After that, the project, in theory, is supposed to sustain itself and generate profits for the company.
Quite the opposite. A Kickstarter-project is supposed to be finite and self-contained.
Anything that generates profits beyond the Kickstarter-campaign itself isn't supposed to be on Kickstarter in the first place, strictly speaking.
Not that anyone cares.
Ah, water is still wet, firestill burns and Zweischneid still makes up KS rules. Nothing ever really changes
Shoulda second-guessed yourself and held off with your announcement, Scarletsquig. You made the point on the Mantic forums that any _perceived_ slight from a KS company would blow up into something massive.
Hey everyone: Deadzone Kickstarter has not been officially announced by Mantic.
Now, regarding the Kings of War Kickstarter... From the Mantic Forums:
Mantic Games wrote:
some guy wrote:...raise your hand if you think they will get all these to tooling and production in less than three months....
All - with the exception of the stormwind cavalry - are already there and have been for a while.
We haven't got photos, it's as simple as that. They went straight to the toolmakers so we could meet our tooling schedule.
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
No one plays any mantic games near me because they are unfriendly to FLGS.
I am also annoyed they are doing more Kickstarters before delivering my items from previous Kickstarters. It feels like a giant rotating ponzi scheme.
It doesn't help that they don't have enough talented sculptors to keep up with the sheer number of sculpts they are making, LOKA showed with just down-tight horrible and amateurish sculpts. I am scared to support anything without greens due to once they have your money, there is no guarantee their 'A class' Sculptors will do the concept.
If I ever buy Mantic again, I will only do so via my FLGS so I will have a way to support my local store and return unsatisfactory quality casts like what was delivered in the Dreadball KS so far.
Personally, I believe Mantic has no intention of launching the Deadzone Kickstarter until the June Kings of War KS deliveries have been dispatched. I would imagine they would start showing preview stuff to build interest.
Polonius wrote: Part of me is willing to cut Mantic a little slack, given how dramatically the "new stuff" pile in the KoWKS grew over time. It went from a handful of new units to a couple of armies worth. I know its just going to take time, especially when they only had concept sketches for most of the stuff.
A different part is watching the calender, and noting a dearth of KoW updates with Greens, sprues, etc of the new units. For stuff that's supposed to ship in two months, I haven't seen much aside from a 3D render of the men at arms. I'm not sure if there are even sketches of all the new units yet.
Everything other than four of the cavalry units and a few of the heroes has already been shown, at this point in time. It's all in the KoW N&R thread, I can't post a rumour roundup in the OP since I didn't start the thread, but if you like I can do a compilation post that collects all the images that have been shown off in the various KS updates.
Is one of the stretchgoals gonna be their Squid people?
Then the KS could have both the Zombie and Cthulhu tag!
judgedoug wrote: Shoulda second-guessed yourself and held off with your announcement, Scarletsquig. You made the point on the Mantic forums that any _perceived_ slight from a KS company would blow up into something massive.
Hey everyone: Deadzone Kickstarter has not been officially announced by Mantic.
Not that its going to stop people from discussing it, much like CMoN's KS (especially confrontation which tends to be brought up in their various topics)
Polonius wrote: Part of me is willing to cut Mantic a little slack, given how dramatically the "new stuff" pile in the KoWKS grew over time. It went from a handful of new units to a couple of armies worth. I know its just going to take time, especially when they only had concept sketches for most of the stuff.
A different part is watching the calender, and noting a dearth of KoW updates with Greens, sprues, etc of the new units. For stuff that's supposed to ship in two months, I haven't seen much aside from a 3D render of the men at arms. I'm not sure if there are even sketches of all the new units yet.
In addition to my previous post, I think I'll do a Dakka image gallery full of all the KoW stuff that has been previewed and add it to my sig since a lot of people have missed a lot of the pics.
@judgedoug: This conversation would be had at some point regardless, and people were already starting to talk about it in the Loka thread.
As a forum for news and rumours, you can either have me posting the thread about it and sticking to the facts/ updating the OP or some random dude posting a "Mantic necromunda rip-off KSwtf" thread with "lol Mantic are fail the elves suck, GW ripoff hacks" as the OP and never updating it, like we got with the first week of the KoW Kickstarter. Take your pick. :p
It's true that the KS probably won't go live until about June-ish time or thereabouts, after DB Season 2 and KoW are either shipped or being shipping. June 2013 was the stated date for all the extras in the KoW campaign to be delivered.
Ah, water is still wet, firestill burns and Zweischneid still makes up KS rules. Nothing ever really changes
It's not a rule, only a "guideline". But it's not mine
Funding for projects only.
A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project.
UltraPrime wrote: A project can be completed and still make a profit by selling after it has finished.
Perhaps.
It's vague enough.
But if you're taking a more lenient approach to interpreting the guidelines, there is clearly nothing stating, as Polonius implied, that demands Kickstarters to favour "ideas" over "production"
KS is supposed to generate initial revenue to complete a project. After that, the project, in theory, is supposed to sustain itself and generate profits for the company.
You can perhaps interpret the condition of "finality" to also include sales after the project ended in some cases. But it strikes me as strange to assume that projects are "supposed to sustain themselves" when a finality of sorts is one the explicit statement they put front-and-center.
@judgedoug: This conversation would be had at some point regardless, and people were already starting to talk about it in the Loka thread.
As a forum for news and rumours, you can either have me posting the thread about it and sticking to the facts/ updating the OP or some random dude posting a "Mantic necromunda rip-off KSwtf" thread with "lol Mantic are fail the elves suck, GW ripoff hacks" as the OP and never updating it, like we got with the first week of the KoW Kickstarter. Take your pick. :p
Touche, I wasn't paying attention to Mantic or the Mantic-bashing around then. It was the Kings of War KS that made me really notice, then become a fan, and then the KoW rules themselves, which rapidly became the dominant miniatures ruleset in my gaming group.
Polonius wrote: Part of me is willing to cut Mantic a little slack, given how dramatically the "new stuff" pile in the KoWKS grew over time. It went from a handful of new units to a couple of armies worth. I know its just going to take time, especially when they only had concept sketches for most of the stuff.
A different part is watching the calender, and noting a dearth of KoW updates with Greens, sprues, etc of the new units. For stuff that's supposed to ship in two months, I haven't seen much aside from a 3D render of the men at arms. I'm not sure if there are even sketches of all the new units yet.
In addition to my previous post, I think I'll do a Dakka image gallery full of all the KoW stuff that has been previewed and add it to my sig since a lot of people have missed a lot of the pics.
I'm sure that'd be helpful. Maybe it's just a matter of perception. I've been a mantic fan since the Elves in 2010, so I've been getting the newsletters since way back. And after dropping a couple hundred bucks the better part of a year ago, I've been seeing constant updates on seemingly everything under the sun, but not a lot on the KoW.
Contrast that with, say, Reaper, who have done a decent job of explaining what is where in the process.
Yeah, one thing that Mantic did was not hang onto greens- they sent them immediately to be tooled so they could make their deadline. So the downside is we don't get lots of shots of the models, all painted, etc, but we do actually get them on time.
Ah, water is still wet, firestill burns and Zweischneid still makes up KS rules. Nothing ever really changes
It's not a rule, only a "guideline". But it's not mine
Funding for projects only.
A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project.
Something that "continues to make profit" is clearly open ended.
Nope, you're just inferring from that rule what you *want* to read into it. This guy has it right:
UltraPrime wrote: A project can be completed and still make a profit by selling after it has finished.
Good lord, if I were ever to try to interpret a statute in class the way you try to interpret this I'd probably get banned from the grounds for that alone
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nkelsch wrote: No one plays any mantic games near me because they are unfriendly to FLGS.
How's that? I've heard quite the opposite around here, TBH...
Nope, you're just inferring from that rule what you *want* to read into it. This guy has it right:
UltraPrime wrote: A project can be completed and still make a profit by selling after it has finished.
Good lord, if I were ever to try to interpret a statute in class the way you try to interpret this I'd probably get banned from the grounds for that alone
I conceded that this might well be the case.
Still, the point was how does anyone come to the conclusion that Kickstarter projects are, quote, "supposed to sustain itself and generate profits", when the one rule they give is that, quote, "A project will eventually be completed."
It's the difference between a possibility and an obligation.
Are Kickstarter guidelines vague enough to allow long-term financial (business) sustainability of projects? Yes. I concede.
Do Kickstarter guidelines in any way recommend or even demand long-term financial (business) sustainablity of projects? I don't see it.
Heh, nice strawman, but that's not what I said. *You* have argued several times that that was not the point, inferring stuff that's not there at all from a rather general rule. Could they change the focus of their site? sure. to pretty much anything, actually. That has no bearing here, though. While KS started out with small 'artsy' type projects (which, even then, often carried on post-KS, but I digress) the rules were *never* meant to exclude continued sales, as some folks keep claiming.
Bolognesus wrote: Heh, nice strawman, but that's not what I said. *You* have argued several times that that was not the point, inferring stuff that's not there at all from a rather general rule. Could they change the focus of their site? sure. to pretty much anything, actually. That has no bearing here, though. While KS started out with small 'artsy' type projects (which, even then, often carried on post-KS, but I digress) the rules were *never* meant to exclude continued sales, as some folks keep claiming.
Perhaps.
But the rules were likewise *never* meant to exclude projects that are/were/aim to be/would be financially unsustainable without Kickstarter as many people have likewise claimed.
And as with the "small artsy guys" who do serial-kickstarters over-and-over-and-over again for whatever art-installation, etc.. they've come up with now, there's no restrictions for "other people" on Kickstarter for just running "something" 356 days a year if that's what makes them happy.
And THAT is the argument I discussed in THIS thread.
Not sure how that is a strawman, when you are referring to points I made elsewhere.
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
how do you Think they could have done it better?
No one plays any mantic games near me because they are unfriendly to FLGS.
untrue, they're a trade orientated business with FLGS friendly trade terms.
LOKA showed with just down-tight horrible and amateurish sculpts. I am scared to support anything without greens due to once they have your money, there is no guarantee their 'A class' Sculptors will do the concept.
I'd agree, except no one at Mantic sculpted LOKA, Alessio had an independent sculptor (the guy from warlord games in fact) do the models. LOKA isn't a mantic product, they're just distributing it.
Something that "continues to make profit" is clearly open ended.
What do you think the project creators that make those bits of art and albums do once the campaign has stopped and they've got the funding? Put it on their ipod and listen to it?
nkelsch wrote: No one plays any mantic games near me because they are unfriendly to FLGS.
I am also annoyed they are doing more Kickstarters before delivering my items from previous Kickstarters. It feels like a giant rotating ponzi scheme.
It doesn't help that they don't have enough talented sculptors to keep up with the sheer number of sculpts they are making, LOKA showed with just down-tight horrible and amateurish sculpts. I am scared to support anything without greens due to once they have your money, there is no guarantee their 'A class' Sculptors will do the concept.
If I ever buy Mantic again, I will only do so via my FLGS so I will have a way to support my local store and return unsatisfactory quality casts like what was delivered in the Dreadball KS so far.
You do realise Mantic WILL send you replacement for miscasts if you send them an email with the picture don't you?
Unless you're saying your FLGS will refund you money if you don't like the sculpt of something you bought, which I find hard to believe.
What do you think the project creators that make those bits of art and albums do once the campaign has stopped and they've got the funding? Put it on their ipod and listen to it?
No they sell it.
Which is why I said nobody fething cares about what Kickstarter "was originally meant to be".
Not in music. Not in gaming.
That said, if you just wanna make an album on Kickstarter for your own iPod (and that of your backers), you're welcome to it. Nobody requires you to sell it, just because it's on Kickstarter.
And if you don't want to get involved with a studio and just do album after album on Kickstarter only, without any other distribution. Go for it!
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
how do you Think they could have done it better?
It's actually a problem with a lot of KS, honestly. Most people don't read the KS comments, don't read the relevant forums - they just get the email updates and skim them on their phone.
But is it possible for a KS to update the main page?
Having the front page continuously updated with greens and such. just a "Current Progress" section on the main page.
So if in doubt, just visit the main KS page and see all the greens and the current progress is "all models except stormwind cavalry are being tooled and cast right now."
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
how do you Think they could have done it better?
It's actually a problem with a lot of KS, honestly. Most people don't read the KS comments, don't read the relevant forums - they just get the email updates and skim them on their phone.
But is it possible for a KS to update the main page?
Having the front page continuously updated with greens and such. just a "Current Progress" section on the main page.
So if in doubt, just visit the main KS page and see all the greens and the current progress is "all models except stormwind cavalry are being tooled and cast right now."
No, once the Kickstarter Ends you cannot update the main page.
same with the pledge levels they cannot be updated after the ks has ended to stop scammers. would be quite easy just to change everything you promised etc if the front page was editted after it closed.
It doesn't help that they don't have enough talented sculptors to keep up with the sheer number of sculpts they are making, LOKA showed with just down-tight horrible and amateurish sculpts. I am scared to support anything without greens due to once they have your money, there is no guarantee their 'A class' Sculptors will do the concept.
scarletsquig wrote: Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:
Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.
In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.
For anyone who doesn't know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it's from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there's good odds that it was one of his sculpts.
scarletsquig wrote: In addition to my previous post, I think I'll do a Dakka image gallery full of all the KoW stuff that has been previewed and add it to my sig since a lot of people have missed a lot of the pics.
YES please . It would be greatly appreciated!
scarletsquig wrote:It's true that the KS probably won't go live until about June-ish time or thereabouts, after DB Season 2 and KoW are either shipped or being shipping. June 2013 was the stated date for all the extras in the KoW campaign to be delivered.
I think they need to ship KoW before doing another KS. That's been my stance on most campaigns. Doesn't seem to be hurting CMON, but it has to lose a certain percentage of business (well... mine, for instance ).
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
how do you Think they could have done it better?
It's actually a problem with a lot of KS, honestly. Most people don't read the KS comments, don't read the relevant forums - they just get the email updates and skim them on their phone.
But is it possible for a KS to update the main page?
Having the front page continuously updated with greens and such. just a "Current Progress" section on the main page.
So if in doubt, just visit the main KS page and see all the greens and the current progress is "all models except stormwind cavalry are being tooled and cast right now."
No it's not possible to alter the KS front page once the project has funded, so there's no way to do this
(presumably to prevent project creators altering what they offered/promised)
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
how do you Think they could have done it better?
It's actually a problem with a lot of KS, honestly. Most people don't read the KS comments, don't read the relevant forums - they just get the email updates and skim them on their phone.
But is it possible for a KS to update the main page?
Having the front page continuously updated with greens and such. just a "Current Progress" section on the main page.
So if in doubt, just visit the main KS page and see all the greens and the current progress is "all models except stormwind cavalry are being tooled and cast right now."
No it's not possible to alter the KS front page once the project has funded, so there's no way to do this
(presumably to prevent project creators altering what they offered/promised)
That certainly makes sense. You could get around that by having images linked on the main KS page that you just change the images out.
For instance your main page might have placeholder links to:
placeholder1.jpg
placeholder2.jpg
...
placeholder15.jpg
and then you just put new images with the same file name.
In that case, then at least have redundant links in every update. So this past KoW update showing the human infantry would have a link at the bottom going to the Mantic site with a small page showing all the completed greens. That really wouldn't be hard to do at all. Every KS update published would contain that link, and the link is maintained just by putting up the most recent pics of all the KS goodies.
@judgedoug - Not possible, kickstarter replaces all images you upload or hotlink on the main KS page with its own versions hosted on the amazon cloud, which you cannot access. Right click and look at the filename on any KS front page pic, it'll be a3.amazonaws.somethingorother.
This change was made at some point during the Reaper kickstarter, as I recall it messed things up for them quite a bit since the kickstarter servers were less reliable than their own, meaning their huge progression graphic took ages to load.
It's annoying because if you remove the pic from the front page, amazon deletes it from their servers as well, breaking all hotlinks to it.
I guess you could put a link to a webpage that will act as a container for all previews up on the KS page right before it closes and throw all progress in there, but that's about it. The KS website itself does not make things easy.
I'm just about done with the KoW Kickstarter sculpt image gallery, there's a few things missing that I need to dig up (immortal guard, screencap of men-at-arms, anything else?), but it's mostly all there:
Mummies, Cat Cav, Fleabags, Stormwind Cav and a few of the backer hero sculpts are the only things we haven't seen.
One thing I noticed while doing this is that there is actually *very* little posted on the KoW Kickstarter updates currently, I think that might be why people are getting annoyed/ stating that nothing has been shown, when in fact 80% of everything has been shown, there's only about 3-4 images on there, the older ones like the ogres are no longer working, so for anyone who doesn't subscribe to the newsletter, going back and checking every now and then isn't so easy.
It's something that could be improved upon, keeping a collection of all current progress up-to-date and easy to find by backers (The updates section on KS pages allows hotlinking, at least, so it could be done there). I'll do a similar one of these galleries for dreadball.
Rolt wrote: Going by the discription this kinda sounds like an necromunda/infinitiy style game, very interesting if true, lots of hobbying potential.
I would REALLY like this confirmed!!
And if it is like necromunda, then I will finally be tempted into the mantic system, OR will use the system with my necromunda gangs if this turns out better. Win win.
scarletsquig wrote: @judgedoug - Not possible, kickstarter replaces all images you upload or hotlink on the main KS page with its own versions hosted on the amazon cloud, which you cannot access.
Gotcha. Then at the very least, "In that case, then at least have redundant links in every update. So this past KoW update showing the human infantry would have a link at the bottom going to the Mantic site with a small page showing all the completed greens. That really wouldn't be hard to do at all. Every KS update published would contain that link, and the link is maintained just by putting up the most recent pics of all the KS goodies. " should be 100% possible. Especially with Mantic's army of volunteers to maintain it
Thanks for putting together that gallery Scarletsquig
It should help folk see that most stuff is done
(and according to a couple of posts on the Mantic forums some of the other missing units went straight to tooling without photos being taken, just to make sure stuff makes their deadlines)
I am glad that Mantic is responding to emails though. After seeing the Troll sculpts, I reduced the number of werewolves I was buying and added trolls instead.
Really hoping they come along soon as I would like to use them in a WoC army.
@Fenriswulf - aren't mantic models a smaller scale?
To give my opinion of the KS crap that actually related to this topic (basically the "another KS from Mantic" comments), as long as it is a whole new line/game, I'm fine. If they have to use KS to supplement an existing line, that is a VERY bad sign and indicator that the product is doing poorly. You shouldn't need to let other companies cut in on your profits and list firesale type prices everytime you want to release a new mini.
So new games from a small business being established via KS, I'm okay with.
New Dreadball teams, Warpath factions, or Loka sets via kickstarter.....I'm avoiding ANY new mantic products at that point (I'm already into Dreadball with others, so I'm not going to screw my friends and just bail if that did happen as far as this game is concerned)
That gallery does look good, scarletsquig, but it just looks like a sampling rather than a complete look at any one release. For instance, I remember there being another ogre, and several views of them.
But I hadn't seen the troll at ALL! Very interesting... thanks for putting it together thus far
KS is supposed to generate initial revenue to complete a project. After that, the project, in theory, is supposed to sustain itself and generate profits for the company.
Quite the opposite. A Kickstarter-project is supposed to be finite and self-contained.
Anything that generates profits beyond the Kickstarter-campaign itself isn't supposed to be on Kickstarter in the first place, strictly speaking.
Not that anyone cares.
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
I guess the thing is that pre-Christmas it felt like they were updating us almost weekly with how things were going. There's been much more of a scattering of information and updates since then.
I am really excited about this Kickstarter!!!
Any idea what the second new faction will be? I'm guessing it will either be Rebs or fleshing Enforcers out into their own full fledged faction. But I'm really looking forward to the race that John Doe (Nameless?) belongs to. Every time I tell people about the Warpath Universe they really perk up when I describe that race.
It's actually a problem with a lot of KS, honestly. Most people don't read the KS comments, don't read the relevant forums - they just get the email updates and skim them on their phone.
But is it possible for a KS to update the main page?
Having the front page continuously updated with greens and such. just a "Current Progress" section on the main page.
So if in doubt, just visit the main KS page and see all the greens and the current progress is "all models except stormwind cavalry are being tooled and cast right now."
Email updates from the creators are the best source of information. KS comments have a horrid layout. For example the KoWKS has 3294 comments. Unless you're willing to invest a lot of time in following them, they're pretty much impossible to follow.
Now, it's entirely true that Mantic has done a pretty poor job reminding everyone of what's been going on (just releasing shots of greens over the last 6 months and assuming everyone is seeing and keeping track), but they are pretty much on track for the promised Q2 2013 delivery of all of the new units.
I guess the thing is that pre-Christmas it felt like they were updating us almost weekly with how things were going. There's been much more of a scattering of information and updates since then.
Oh, I agree, and I follow it and read the Mantic forums daily. Information hasn't been organized very well. But Mantic's excuse has been a very good one: they didn't keep the greens around long enough, as they sent them immediately to get tooled and made. No constant WIP shots or painted masters delaying things, they wanted to actually get the KS delivered on time (versus, well, every other KS out there). I'm totally fine with that.
In addition to my previous post, I think I'll do a Dakka image gallery full of all the KoW stuff that has been previewed and add it to my sig since a lot of people have missed a lot of the pics.
Deathwolf wrote: I am really excited about this Kickstarter!!!
Any idea what the second new faction will be? I'm guessing it will either be Rebs or fleshing Enforcers out into their own full fledged faction. But I'm really looking forward to the race that John Doe (Nameless?) belongs to. Every time I tell people about the Warpath Universe they really perk up when I describe that race.
I'd say look at dreadball. You've got tech savvy Teratons on the dockett that might go looting for tech. Z'zor might be drawn in for some reason. You mentioned the Nameless, and that's a great possibility. After buying John Doe, I think I'm gonna play them when Season 3 comes out and ditch the Teratons (or play both....why not. Dreadball teams are cheap to expand into) so a skirmish team of those guys would be awesome.
I too am really excited for this kickstarter. I just hope it doesn't hit until the summer so my wallet has a little bit more time to recover from WWX
judgedoug wrote: Yeah, one thing that Mantic did was not hang onto greens- they sent them immediately to be tooled so they could make their deadline. So the downside is we don't get lots of shots of the models, all painted, etc, but we do actually get them on time.
Mantic: Hey guys we didn't take pictures of completed models because we immediately shipped them to the toolmakers because the 30 seconds it would have take to take pictures of the greens and/or completed models would have somehow thrown the universe completely off-kilter and caused the end of existence.
Seriously? No pictures because you send them immediately to be tooled? Hey, for anyone that believes that bit of hogwash, I've got some swamp-land that needs to be sold; only three castles burned down and sank into it...honest. I'll throw in the hand of my daughter in marriage as well; she's got huge....tracts of land.
Monte Python, because that's how ridiculous that explanation is.
Automatically Appended Next Post: While the glasses are fun, I hope this is not real as they look too much like standard zombies to me
but until tomorrow real or april fool, you decide
Automatically Appended Next Post: EDIT: Actually the pic originates with mantic blog and has the following from Ronnie after it
“The Plague are an important race for the Warpath universe,” said Ronnie Renton, CEO of Mantic Game, “Sci-fi undead is a staple archetype across the genre and after the popularity of our Kings of War zombie kit, we think we’ve really hit the nail on the head with another knock-out kit full of great sculpts and characterful poses – all at the prices you’ve come to expect from Mantic Games. Deadzone simply gives us the platform with which to launch this race.”
The Plague go up for pre-order on the 26th April 2013 with a core boxset that will give you 80 Zombies for £29.99. Sign-up to the newsletter to stay in touch with all of the Ghastly new information and get saving those pennies!
scarletsquig wrote: Hot off the press, here's everything I currently know about this:
- Deadzone will be a sci-fi skirmish game, set in Mantic's Warpath universe.
- It will be a Kickstarter, at some undetermined point in the next few months.
- It will feature the Plague and the Enforcers as the two main factions, both of which will receive a massive amount of releases and launch two new armies for Warpath.
- Other factions are hinted at being included.
- Plastic terrain will be a core part of the game.
A couple of snippets of background for Deadzone have surfaced, detailing the setting:
A Deadzone is created by a Plague Outbreak. When something triggers an outbreak the Corporation and Council find out very quickly and shut down the infected zone and a swathe of planetary systems around. An update is triggered to all Navcomps deleting the Deadzone from record - it no longer exists. If you were heading there you get a new destination, if you are inside when it goes.. you now have no destinations in your Navcomp and are considered collateral damage.
Understandably, there are still a lot of resources, etc stuck inside a Deadzone. The Council sends the Enforcers in to secure anything they feel is valuable, the Enforcers are also responsible for minimising witnesses.. that includes Plague and other Corporation troopers as well as pretty much anybody that crosses their path within the Deadzone.
Other factions flock to a Deadzone - lesser Corporations illegally utilise Marauder Mercenaries to seize assets and conduct black ops. The Forge Fathers have rich pickings on minerals, ores, etc. The Rebels have solar systems full of supplies.. etc. The Plague will kill most of the populace but leave the infrastructure, assets, etc mostly intact and recoverable.
Teaser image, has been around since December, so this has been in the planning stage for quite some time:
judgedoug wrote: Yeah, one thing that Mantic did was not hang onto greens- they sent them immediately to be tooled so they could make their deadline. So the downside is we don't get lots of shots of the models, all painted, etc, but we do actually get them on time.
Mantic: Hey guys we didn't take pictures of completed models because we immediately shipped them to the toolmakers because the 30 seconds it would have take to take pictures of the greens and/or completed models would have somehow thrown the universe completely off-kilter and caused the end of existence.
Seriously? No pictures because you send them immediately to be tooled? Hey, for anyone that believes that bit of hogwash, I've got some swamp-land that needs to be sold; only three castles burned down and sank into it...honest. I'll throw in the hand of my daughter in marriage as well; she's got huge....tracts of land.
Monte Python, because that's how ridiculous that explanation is.
Maybe you misread me? We've seen basically every model. We just don't get the "other KS" syndrome by having greens and masters just hanging out and getting a stellar paint job to show off and delaying delivery by months. Mantic got 'em, took a few quick pics of greens and then sent them to China for tooling. We HAVE pics. And we've got the Mantic Open Day which showed off a dozen kits, and then again on the Clash of Kings tournament. We've seen that some kits have come back from China already so we'll probably be seeing painted Ogres soon.
So, it's either "feth YOU MANTIC we're getting our models ON TIME but there's no painted preview shots!!!"
or
"feth YOU MANTIC, we're getting our models 6 months late but at least there's a nice painted pic of them!!!"
I love it. Mantic got so much flak for the Forge Fathers & Marauders "Fantasy Minis with Goggles".
I almost wish it was real, I'd love a goggle-clad torso and standard
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just realized the severed head in the lower left corner also has goggles, LOL
They do kind of have to make these things available as a bits pack now, though. they're actually pretty damn nice..
Wondering if perhaps the heads/goggles are actually bits for stuff we haven't seen yet?
Bolognesus wrote: They do kind of have to make these things available as a bits pack now, though. they're actually pretty damn nice..
Wondering if perhaps the heads/goggles are actually bits for stuff we haven't seen yet?
the goggles are from the forgefather kit i believe
judgedoug wrote: Yeah, one thing that Mantic did was not hang onto greens- they sent them immediately to be tooled so they could make their deadline. So the downside is we don't get lots of shots of the models, all painted, etc, but we do actually get them on time.
Mantic: Hey guys we didn't take pictures of completed models because we immediately shipped them to the toolmakers because the 30 seconds it would have take to take pictures of the greens and/or completed models would have somehow thrown the universe completely off-kilter and caused the end of existence.
Seriously? No pictures because you send them immediately to be tooled? Hey, for anyone that believes that bit of hogwash, I've got some swamp-land that needs to be sold; only three castles burned down and sank into it...honest. I'll throw in the hand of my daughter in marriage as well; she's got huge....tracts of land.
Monte Python, because that's how ridiculous that explanation is.
Maybe you misread me? We've seen basically every model. We just don't get the "other KS" syndrome by having greens and masters just hanging out and getting a stellar paint job to show off and delaying delivery by months. Mantic got 'em, took a few quick pics of greens and then sent them to China for tooling. We HAVE pics. And we've got the Mantic Open Day which showed off a dozen kits, and then again on the Clash of Kings tournament. We've seen that some kits have come back from China already so we'll probably be seeing painted Ogres soon.
So, it's either "feth YOU MANTIC we're getting our models ON TIME but there's no painted preview shots!!!"
or
"feth YOU MANTIC, we're getting our models 6 months late but at least there's a nice painted pic
It takes 6 months to take a pic of a print before it goes in the mail to China? Wow, I could seriously make some money as a photographer by offer, what 2 week service? No? How about the literal 30 seconds it takes, considering they have no problem showing off teaser images of some odd scrap on someone's desk?
It's not like we're actually going to see these in the mail beforen June anyway. That's fine but I'm just nonplussed by the endless parade of Kickstarters they're trotting out without actually finishing the first one they started. Just think how fast they cold have produced everything from the KoWKS if they had focused on that instead of adding dreadball and fantasy chess lines... Instead of x number of sculptors/ workers putting together 3 lines of miniatures how about they all work together and finish the one that was offered first?
Note: I'm not upset or anything I'm just expressing a perception.
Bolognesus wrote: They do kind of have to make these things available as a bits pack now, though. they're actually pretty damn nice..
Wondering if perhaps the heads/goggles are actually bits for stuff we haven't seen yet?
the goggles are from the forgefather kit i believe
...Ah, I see. Heh, guess I disliked 'em so intensely on the FF I hadn't thought of them here anymore. Nice catch
agnosto wrote: It takes 6 months to take a pic of a print before it goes in the mail to China? Wow, I could seriously make some money as a photographer by offer, what 2 week service? No? How about the literal 30 seconds it takes, considering they have no problem showing off teaser images of some odd scrap on someone's desk?
It's not like we're actually going to see these in the mail before June anyway. That's fine but I'm just nonplussed by the endless parade of Kickstarters they're trotting out without actually finishing the first one they started. Just think how fast they cold have produced everything from the KoWKS if they had focused on that instead of adding dreadball and fantasy chess lines... Instead of x number of sculptors/ workers putting together 3 lines of miniatures how about they all work together and finish the one that was offered first?
Note: I'm not upset or anything I'm just expressing a perception.
The sculpts were shot before they went of to be tooled. And yes, I can imagine it takes 6 months to have the item sculpted, checked, double checked and triple checked to make sure it all works as they want (otherwise re-sculpted or canned and start again if necessary), then have it shipped to China to be tooled before they are mass produced and shipped back, packed into peoples orders which are then ready to be shipped out to the individual backers.
Remember, they are still on schedule to supply this. Getting together all the kings horses and all the kings men of the sculpting team wouldn't speed this up at all. It's not like they're doing it in-house and they need the artists to sculpt, check, make master molds, demold, cast masters, make regular molds, cut and ensure clean sprue lines, then cast all the miniatures they need. The sculpts have been done by multiple artists and have been sent off, what's hard to get about that? Them having multiple kickstarters doesn't even enter into it.
They're on schedule. All the previous available items have been shipped, they're just waiting on the restics and their new plastic miniatures. It's not too hard a thing to understand.
Note: I'm not upset or anything I'm just expressing a perception.
The sculpts have been done by multiple artists and have been sent off, what's hard to get about that?
I dunno, probably the same way it was hard to understand my statement in the quote above. Markets operate on perception so do the purchasing decisions of consumers. Person A asked for money from person B to do some work on their house then a couple of months later, without having finished compensating person B, person A asks for more money from person C to do some work on their car and some time later asks person D for money to do some work on something else; meanwhile, person B is still waiting for what was promised him. Mind you the date of agreement on the loan isn't due yet but it is not unseasonable for person B to feel left out while all these other people get partial payments. Nearly like a ponzu scheme in some regards. We're going to give you just enough to string you along while we soak these other suckers for what they can give.
Mind you, I'm not implying this is what is happening here; I am absolutely certain that I will receive my goods and more than likely within the timeframe projected ( I wouldn't even be upset if they're late). I am just expressing a not unreasonable perception. You can disagree and that's fine, as with everything in life YMMV.
...Except there's nothing strange about supply pipelines with some delay in them, or businesses taking on multiple ventures concurrently - it's just sort of new to see it in a consumer-facing operation, but that's really not so strange, in something like crowd*funding*.
If you don't like that, by all means do feel free to wait until stuff hits retail. Noone's stopping you.
Note: I'm not upset or anything I'm just expressing a perception.
The sculpts have been done by multiple artists and have been sent off, what's hard to get about that?
I dunno, probably the same way it was hard to understand my statement in the quote above. Markets operate on perception so do the purchasing decisions of consumers. Person A asked for money from person B to do some work on their house then a couple of months later, without having finished compensating person B, person A asks for more money from person C to do some work on their car and some time later asks person D for money to do some work on something else; meanwhile, person B is still waiting for what was promised him. Mind you the date of agreement on the loan isn't due yet but it is not unseasonable for person B to feel left out while all these other people get partial payments. Nearly like a ponzu scheme in some regards. We're going to give you just enough to string you along while we soak these other suckers for what they can give.
Mind you, I'm not implying this is what is happening here; I am absolutely certain that I will receive my goods and more than likely within the timeframe projected ( I wouldn't even be upset if they're late). I am just expressing a not unreasonable perception. You can disagree and that's fine, as with everything in life YMMV.
Because businesses NEVER take on more than one job at a time right -_- It's not like the people are specialised at certain jobs. No, instead they're all jack of all trades. Heck, why not ask the sculptor to go to help cast the miniatures as well. Sculpting new models for new product lines is clearly a misuse of his time when so many other people are waiting for the miniatures to finish casting. Same for the marketers, the rule designers etc. We should all ship them to the factory to help in the casting process. amirite
It takes 6 months to take a pic of a print before it goes in the mail to China? Wow, I could seriously make some money as a photographer by offer, what 2 week service? No? How about the literal 30 seconds it takes, considering they have no problem showing off teaser images of some odd scrap on someone's desk?
It's not like we're actually going to see these in the mail beforen June anyway. That's fine but I'm just nonplussed by the endless parade of Kickstarters they're trotting out without actually finishing the first one they started. Just think how fast they cold have produced everything from the KoWKS if they had focused on that instead of adding dreadball and fantasy chess lines... Instead of x number of sculptors/ workers putting together 3 lines of miniatures how about they all work together and finish the one that was offered first?
Note: I'm not upset or anything I'm just expressing a perception.
"It takes 6 months to take a pic of a print before it goes in the mail to China?" - I'm not sure what you're asking here.
I'm still confused as to what the problem is. For example, we got preview shots of the Ogres while they were being sculpted, they went to China, then we got a pic of the test run sitting on the Mantic people's desk, and then we got a poll asking what the studio official color scheme should be, and then I'm going to assume shortly we'll get painted examples of the painted models while china is making ten thousand ogre casts. This is the opposite route that other companies have been taking, where they'll show lots of preview pics, then get the master all painted up, and show off lots of great pics of the painted masters, and then actually send them to get cast a month after their due date.
You do realize there was like 20+ new kits (all with multiple poses and bits) that were sculpted and are now being tooled/cast in china for a delivery date in 2 months? That it's all on time?
I can understand being grumpy with late Kickstarters (like, oh, OGRE or Sedition Wars) who are consistently and constantly late, but then Mantic is pretty much delivering everything on time (or early for many KoW and DB backers' initial shipments).
I think I haven't done a reasonably good job of explaining myself. I'm not upset with Mantic, I'm just trying to see it from the viewpoint of people who did grumble on the KS board and other areas. I don't know, nor do I care about Mantic's corporate governance or policies. The only complaint I have ever had was regarding some, small periods of time with little contact while receiving weekly updates about dreadball which gave the impression Mantic wasn't too concerned about KoW as much as the shiny new game; maybe that's just my GW PTSD response.
Anywho, I won't derail tins thread any more and I hope that I was better able to explain my original comment ( which was really tongue in cheek considering I couched it in Monty python).
Warpath looks fantasyish because their races are humans, dwarves, rats, and Orks. It doesn't matter who the sculpters are. And now they are adding zombies??? They need to stick to robots, bugs, and aliens for a while, similar to what season 2 of dreadball did, for people to start thinking of the Warpath universe as sci-Fi versus the high tech fantasy setting it is right now.
agnosto wrote: I think I haven't done a reasonably good job of explaining myself. I'm not upset with Mantic, I'm just trying to see it from the viewpoint of people who did grumble on the KS board and other areas. I don't know, nor do I care about Mantic's corporate governance or policies. The only complaint I have ever had was regarding some, small periods of time with little contact while receiving weekly updates about dreadball which gave the impression Mantic wasn't too concerned about KoW as much as the shiny new game; maybe that's just my GW PTSD response.
Anywho, I won't derail tins thread any more and I hope that I was better able to explain my original comment ( which was really tongue in cheek considering I couched it in Monty python).
Cheers
Oh, then I completely agree with you. They have done a very poor job of updating - and they should have a section on their website that lists the preview shots they've posted as well as recent updates; and every KoW update should have a link to that. See, I read their updates plus the posts on the forums and the comments and everything so I know more of what's actually going on, but if I only paid attention to the KS updates then I'd be pretty upset too. Mantic is just not very good at presenting their information in an orderly fashion.
Is it just me or does that artwork look like something you might see on a video game from the 90's? It just screams bad photoshopping everywhere you look.
Commander Cain wrote: Is it just me or does that artwork look like something you might see on a video game from the 90's? It just screams bad photoshopping everywhere you look.
You know I couldn't put my finger on why I liked it, but perhaps it is for that very reason!
Okay, it's confirmed to not be the finalized cover art or logo, they put a cropped, low-res WIP into the DB season 2 rulebook for the teaser because that's all they had access to at the time it went to print (probably a month or two ago).
I think I can explain why some people don't like this picture: It does not have nearly enough skulls for sci-fi.
Everybody knows that heaps of skulls are necessary for all artwork/models in the sci-fi genre.
Seriously though, I agree that it is campy but that I like it. It reminds me of the covers of the sci-fi novels I read growing up in the 90's (also video game covers even though I don't play them much).
Oh, then I completely agree with you. They have done a very poor job of updating - and they should have a section on their website that lists the preview shots they've posted as well as recent updates; and every KoW update should have a link to that. See, I read their updates plus the posts on the forums and the comments and everything so I know more of what's actually going on, but if I only paid attention to the KS updates then I'd be pretty upset too. Mantic is just not very good at presenting their information in an orderly fashion.
The funny thing is that they really were good at updating. They were pretty much the best, back when people were complaining about the lack of communication from CMON about Sedition Wars and Relic Knights. Now they've dropped off, but I think people's expectations have as well, given the state of a great deal of projects in the last 4 months...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Commander Cain wrote: Is it just me or does that artwork look like something you might see on a video game from the 90's? It just screams bad photoshopping everywhere you look.
Good call. That or a less-focussed WD cover from the '90's..
I wonder if that image is truly indicative of what will be in the game? Will we get an Enforcer Commander in plastic? Heads with open helmets? I see a sniper in the background, will we be getting snipers and rules for them?
And what is wrong with WD covers from the 90's, other than them being far too awesome, and the first thing that brought a lot of us into the wargaming hobby in the first place?
Not sure what WD covers from the 90s anyone thinks that Deadzone cover resembles.
gakky Black Library covers from the 2000s, sure.
Campy or not WD cover art in the 90s used to be done by actual illustrators, not some guy with a ripped version of CS and a DeviantArt account.
I agree with Pacific, what it lacks in polish, it makes up for in awesome.
Plus, we are just looking at a cropped, low-res WIP version of the final art at this point (ripped directly from the .pdf of the season 2 rulebook).
As far as the minis matching the cover art goes, I do hope that the big Plague beastie will actually be that massive, it would be pretty cool as a centrepiece.
Pacific wrote: And what is wrong with WD covers from the 90's, other than them being far too awesome, and the first thing that brought a lot of us into the wargaming hobby in the first place?
As much as I love a lot of the old stuff, Dave Gallagher's monthly paintings were pretty hit and miss.
It's already better-written and more atmospheric than Prometheus. Bravo, Mantic.
Ok, now I'm looking forward to the pdf for the background. Is this going to be it for Warpath this year, or is there another big release/revamp planned, ScarletSquig?
There will be 8 KoW releases per month in June/July/August, then all of the Dreadball ultimate stuff and Mantic's IP tie-in product for September/October. Probably Loka for November... they don't have much left to do on that, and it's all being handled by River Horse anyway.
Plus I'd imagine they'd be looking at shipping Deadzone wave 1 before this xmas, so that's December releases sorted.
Lots of stuff going on at once with Mantic.
I'm hoping that Deadzone takes the opportunity to not just be about skirmish, I'm not actually interested in a skirmish game and just want minis for Warpath 2.0 which is an excellent set of rules.
Note to everyone - If you haven't downloaded that already, go do it!
It's a free 80-page full-colour .pdf download for an excellent sci-fi gaming system, it is loaded with artwork, background and the rules themselves have gone through multiple online public beta tests to really refine them into something great.
It's better than 40k, so much much easier to learn, the army lists are properly balanced, the game takes a third of the time to play compared to 40k, the rules are clearly written, the game balance is taken seriously and designed for tournament play.
You don't have to wait 10 years for the codex for your favourite army to be released (yes, I do have an eldar army which currently *still* has an early 4th edition codex in the middle of 6th ), all the army lists are written at the same time, and updated at the same time. Updates generally occur once per year while a game is in active beta, once the game moves to hardback book and official release, it all gets updated on a 5-year cycle with the rules and army book released at the same time.
^ It is going to be a set of skirmish rules for all factions, not just two.
I imagine the plague and enforcers will make up the bulk of the model releases at the start of the kickstarter (they'll be wanting to 100% release the full armies for both of those factions), then later on if it's doing really well they'll move on to bulking out the other factions.
In a lot of ways this should do for Warpath what last year's KS did for KoW, getting an absolute ton of new restic units out of the door so that the armies can start to feel "complete" in terms of almost every unit having a model, rather than looking half-finished, which I think is the main thing putting people off Warpath at the moment, the model range isn't quite there yet, too many units don't have a model released.
ScarletSquig, do you have any idea about what sort of scale 'skirmish' we are going to be dealing with regarding Deadzone? Is it going to be more like Warpath 2, which is probably at the upper limit in terms of model count as to what people would regard as a skirmish system, or lower with something like Necromunda/Infinity model counts?
And leading on from this I suppose we can make assumptions about the style of rules - obviously something that has the smaller model count will be less abstract, more of individual miniatures rather than units taking more detailed actions rather than bigger squads moving and attacking each other in a more abstract manner.
Anyway, your thoughts or what you might know about this would be very appreciated!
As long as it is a Necromunda type game at its core, I'm in. WYSIWYG models that can purchase and change equipment and have team members permanently die and gain xp if they survive is the ultimate type of gaming.
Earth Dragon wrote: As long as it is a Necromunda type game at its core, I'm in. WYSIWYG models that can purchase and change equipment and have team members permanently die and gain xp if they survive is the ultimate type of gaming.
This, very much so. If they can get the same feel for the game, then I might just break into the system.
Earth Dragon wrote: As long as it is a Necromunda type game at its core, I'm in. WYSIWYG models that can purchase and change equipment and have team members permanently die and gain xp if they survive is the ultimate type of gaming.
This, very much so. If they can get the same feel for the game, then I might just break into the system.
To add a different perspective and while I enjoyed necromunda immensely, its a fundamentally unbalanced system with problematic random upgrades and 99% of people I played with never bothered destroying their painted (or in some times unpainted) minis to make their upgrades.
It is not what I would label as ultimate wargaming experience, for me, far from it.
Yeah I have to agree. The plethora of strength 5 and above weapons in the game as well as the stupid cover rules meant that it was all too easy to wound or take out gangers in the game.
I would rather see them make something completely unique to their ruleset, rather than trying to shoe-horn in an old system.
Fenriswulf wrote: Yeah I have to agree. The plethora of strength 5 and above weapons in the game as well as the stupid cover rules meant that it was all too easy to wound or take out gangers in the game.
I would rather see them make something completely unique to their ruleset, rather than trying to shoe-horn in an old system.
I never said "Necromunda" was the ultimate game. I said it was the ultimate type of game. I fully well expect a new system and considering I enjoy dreadball more then blood bowl, as long as they don't over simplify and they use multi-part plastic kits as the basic boxes for the teams and not do bs pre-posed pre-armed minis, Mantic will get a triple digit number of dollars from me on this one.
Personally, scopes, grenades, reloaders and any number of other nonsense stuff I don't mind if its not on the character, but I don't tolerate people having a guy holding a flamethrower, and next thing I know you claim he is shooting an autocannon at me........it should be clearly stated to all players that is unacceptable from the get go. If you want a guy with an autocannon, buy one, or borrow one. It's not that difficult.
If you start a guy with a stub pistol, and you save up and buy him a plasma pistol, dont design the model with the snub in his hand unless you have another model on stand-by with plasma. Just glue a holster on him with a pistol in it. That way other players KNOW to ask what's in the holster, not get a surprise, or have to remember the 42 things that aren't what they look like.
These games are supposed to be fun, so I suppose one of the pre-requisites is don't be and avoid playing with power gaming douche bags. Or at the very least, only play with power gamers with money, cause ones that don't have any cause a huge headache.
I imagine there will be customization, but it won't be to the ridiculous extent of necromunda, with dozens of different pistols and heavies, a lot of which don't have models or even bitz.
E.g. you'll probably start with a basic dude who can then become a melee/heavy specialist with experience, or become an elite/leader.
It's written by Jake Thornton so you can expect a *lot* of similarities with Dreadball in terms of the campaign and exp side of things. And there should definitely be one, I'd imagine the same injury system as Dreadball will be used, it's an interesting mechanic of "how much are you willing to pay to get this guy healed?".
Most of the customization for characters is likely to be skill-based more than equipment-based.
Like with Dreadball, there's only one time you have to buy a new mini as a result of a skill upgrade, and that's when a guard becomes a keeper. This is a good thing to avoid having to chop up models every other game or have a fethload of spares to cover all eventualities. That's not just a problem for money, it's a problem for time as well since you have to paint them all up.
I imagine something similar would be in place here.
I just want an enforcers sprue out of this KS, nothing else. Lovely models, but I absolutely will not buy that £3/model hybrid restic/metal stuff.
I was at the Mantic open day last year and managed to get £15.00 of the enforcers army deal. When I got home I opened her up and wished I bought the Forge Father one instead lol.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think going by DKH, PP and DB we will have Dice baced checks I.E 4 dice checks reduced by range etc. There are a lot of similarities in rules between all three of these rule sets, IMO there good rules so I hope he does not stray to far. (My biggest issue with DKH and PP were the card tiles and counters, they were more like paper then card lol).
Whilst I'm fine with fewer options then Necromunda (as far as per gang), I hope the options per force aren't overly regulated. XCOM type options would be just fine. If I want a rifle on my assault troop, or turn my support into a combatant and not a medic, I could stomach that. Of course, the weapons, stats and skills of the forces need to also be extremely different.
So I'm okay with every force not having the entire list to play with once things get going, but there needs to be equipment options still (upgrades of the same type of gun at least ie. Flamer to heavy Flamer, stubber to Bolter), and some drastic differences in weapon options from group to group.
The reason Mordhiems plastic kits worked well is you had the options available in the box. So if they DO have various equipment options, the kits need to look like the Skaven kit. If they don't, they still need a specialty troop you can have 2-3 of with a few options that you can buy seperately for just a few bucks.
Just as long as the miniatures aren't Dreadball minis with guns added on...
Honestly, the terrain kits need to be really cheap and not made of restic to interest me. There are so many terrain companies on the market now, that it makes a strange focus for a Mantic Kickstarter.
I'm surprised nobody's attempted to replicate the Necromunda style 'plastic bulkheads + card walkways' in the last few years, given how pricey the bulkheads are on ebay.
Not that I have any inkling what Mantic's plans are, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was along those lines.
Probably best. Given the advances in production technology over the last 20 years it's got to be more viable, and will definitely look better.
I was just thinking along more general lines, that any company that made a backwards-compatible bulkhead sprue would surely make money off it from the nostalgia crowd. Surprised nobody's tried it.
That artwork of 'spikey' reminds me of the bad guys from the defunct Aeon/Trinity game, specifically their skirmish game Battleground. That's a good thing btw.
As for Mantic itself, they lost a lot of my interest when they went half into the hard plastic kit business. If they had released that elven cavalry in plastic instead of metal and later resin, I would have a table full of that stuff. If you want to sh!t in the same pool as GW, don't use worse quality materials then GW (restic)! Bought a decent amount of plastic undead, but the dwarves were Meh again... Didn't really like Kings of War as a system. With Warpath my interest was low, it perked up at the mention of plastic sci-fi dwarves and orcs, but pretty much went away again when I saw the plastic/metal hybrid kit, ugh! Didn't have any money for the Dreadball KS. I am pretty interested what Mantic will do with a sci-fi skirmish game, more plastic scenery is good, and I like the concept art of the plague. I am also very interested in the Enforcers, really like the design (but not the annoying material), have a plan for them as 25mm Clan troops (without Elemental Battle armor), but still need to paint and build a lot of other stuff before I ever get to those (I hear they are horrible to assemble)...
I would like to see Mantic do away with the restic crap and use decent plastics that can be cut and glued like regular plastic modeling kits (and not with a heavy duty exato and 2-part epoxy). If companies like Dreamforge and Malifaux can do it, why can't Mantic? I would like to see a very well filled 2 man starter set for Deadzone, enough to start playing.
Cergorach wrote: I would like to see Mantic do away with the restic crap and use decent plastics that can be cut and glued like regular plastic modeling kits (and not with a heavy duty exato and 2-part epoxy). If companies like Dreamforge and Malifaux can do it, why can't Mantic? I would like to see a very well filled 2 man starter set for Deadzone, enough to start playing.
This is basically the majority opinion that everyone has been letting Mantic know loud and clear ever since they released their first metal units.
I'd also like a majority of hard plastic, but as a skirmish game we're probably going to be looking at almost all restic.
As long as they at least do a basic enforcers sprue (covering all heavy and assault options) and a couple of plague sprues I'll be happy.
At the very least there shouldn't be any (horribly expensive and impossible to put together) hybrid metal crap. There wasn't any of that in either the KoW or Dreadball Kickstarters, so it's a dead cert that it won't be making an appearance here.
In general, I'd like to see more ambition from Mantic... basically, the plastic moulds for the elves were really expensive and haven't made back their cost in sales.. they were a complete write-off for the company in terms of profit and it seems that ever since that happened they've avoided hard plastic like the plague to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen again. I'm just glad kickstarter is something that allows for them to dispense with that concern.
Kickstarters aside, they've been ultra-cautious and it'll probably be at least a year before they get back into hard plastic. They have 3-up greens already produced for certain units (orc archers are already 100% done) that have never seen the light of day due to the plug being pulled on hard plastic production at some point in late 2011.. since then a false start was made to make more (the ill-fated chinese goblin sprue), and now we're getting the KoW humans done as a sprue which will probably be a further "test" to see if their new tooling company sucks or not... and only after that has been delivered will we see more sprues start to trickle out.
It isn't just the tooling either, they've got a new digital sculpting workflow going on where Remy's sculpts get 3d-scanned and then cut up and arranged on sprues digitally for hard plastic production. So that's something that they're getting to grips with as well, using the same workflow as Malifaux, Dreamforge etc. instead of their previous non-digital methods.
Didn't they do something stupid, like use the metal goblin masters for the "3 ups" for the plastic sprue to save a few hundred pounds? I wonder how that worked out for them financially.
They really seem to be stuck taking little shortcuts that cost them tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Didn't they do something stupid, like use the metal goblin masters for the "3 ups" for the plastic sprue to save a few hundred pounds? I wonder how that worked out for them financially.
They really seem to be stuck taking little shortcuts that cost them tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.
I would say that would be the state of Mantic roughly one year ago when they rushed those plastic goblins to release.
Since then they've made over a million bucks from some successful Kickstarters, launched an incredibly successful game, and have hired on permanent sculptors.
And took an incredible amount of heat over those goblins.
I really doubt they'll make any more mistakes like that again.
I also wouldn't be surprised if we see a new goblin sprue in the future that has all weapon options on it.
me thinks mantic realizes that KS has seen a lot of mini projects lately so it is really trying to drum up support so they can make an immediate splash
In general, I'd like to see more ambition from Mantic... basically, the plastic moulds for the elves were really expensive and haven't made back their cost in sales.. they were a complete write-off for the company in terms of profit and it seems that ever since that happened they've avoided hard plastic like the plague to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen again. I'm just glad kickstarter is something that allows for them to dispense with that concern.
Kickstarters aside, they've been ultra-cautious and it'll probably be at least a year before they get back into hard plastic. They have 3-up greens already produced for certain units (orc archers are already 100% done) that have never seen the light of day due to the plug being pulled on hard plastic production at some point in late 2011.. since then a false start was made to make more (the ill-fated chinese goblin sprue), and now we're getting the KoW humans done as a sprue which will probably be a further "test" to see if their new tooling company sucks or not... and only after that has been delivered will we see more sprues start to trickle out.
It isn't just the tooling either, they've got a new digital sculpting workflow going on where Remy's sculpts get 3d-scanned and then cut up and arranged on sprues digitally for hard plastic production. So that's something that they're getting to grips with as well, using the same workflow as Malifaux, Dreamforge etc. instead of their previous non-digital methods.
Yeah, the high elves may have been a failure, but that's because they were/are sub-par sculpts as viewed by seemingly the majority of the fantasy wargaming population. While there will always be people who like anything niche, and personal aesthetics and so forth, there's clearly a big difference between sub-par sculpts (elves, dwarfs), half-arsed jobs like the Forgefathers and Orx and, well, original and quality sculpts like the Men-At-Arms appear to be or the Enforcers are. I feel that the Enforcers could make a lot of money if properly tooled in hard plastic as multi-part figures with a bunch of options and a Mantic price band.
I mean, I don't mind restic, but I don't exactly love it, either..
Yeah I would be all over hard plastic Enforcers. While restic is okay I certainly wouldn't want too much of the stuff, those mold lines can be a bit of a pain to clean!
Commander Cain wrote: Yeah I would be all over hard plastic Enforcers. While restic is okay I certainly wouldn't want too much of the stuff, those mold lines can be a bit of a pain to clean!
Azazelx wrote: Yeah, the high elves may have been a failure, but that's because they were/are sub-par sculpts as viewed by seemingly the majority of the fantasy wargaming population.
I was one of those Mantic-elf-haters until I owned some. The level of detail on them is pretty damn astounding. They are pretty fantastic models, actually.
I can't understand the hate for them either. Is it really just because they're skinny? They're really well detailed little figures.
I can't wait for this Kickstarter to go live. Even if the figure are Restic instead of hard plastic they'll still be cool. I love the design of the regular Enforcers as it is, so I'm already all over this one. I hope we see some new varieties and maybe even some plastic/restic versions of figures that were previously only metal.
highlord tambulaine - I've got my fingers crossed that we see a guest appearance by the teratons. Space needs more dino/ lizard men after all.
@Mantic - Please for the love of all that is holy read this. Space Orcs being more common then space reptiles in all these IPs is really a crime against humanity. Please remedy this situation by including some Teratons in this game. I would pledge for those models alone if anything!!
Barzam wrote: I can't understand the hate for them either. Is it really just because they're skinny? They're really well detailed little figures.
I can't wait for this Kickstarter to go live. Even if the figure are Restic instead of hard plastic they'll still be cool. I love the design of the regular Enforcers as it is, so I'm already all over this one. I hope we see some new varieties and maybe even some plastic/restic versions of figures that were previously only metal.
I get the elf hate. The skinny is done right, but the heads (particularly the scout heads, which was the model sent out to people for free) are oversized, which looks odd. There's also the fact that the spearmen and the archers are pretty much the same model (and the scouts were variants of the same models). Early Mantic plastics were plagued by some poor sprue choices (eg, should have only had command sprue, and put more design into differentiating archers and spearmen). The undead were better models, but had similar redundancies between their two kits, and had the useless bits differentiating the command and troop sprues. That's 4 redundant large sprues, which is a lot of money being spent inefficiently by a start-up. The early Warpath models had similar issues - not enough put into the design side resulted in fantasy rehash models being done in hard plastic.
Another minor quibble is the 'snotlings' on the Orc sprues. If you look at the designs, the ones doing things like mooning are on the basic sprue, and the ones standing around are on the command sprue. Those should have been swapped. Once again - that should have been noticed in the design stage.
However, I'm a big fan of Mantic overall, but they made some mistakes in their planning early on. I'm sure they'll look at what was popular in their Dreadball campaign (sales on various races) and use that to base the races that they expand on for Warpath (and likely start this in Deadzone). I think that the KoW kickstarter showed that there's a lot of interest in races that aren't GW knockoffs. I'm really hoping they expand towards races like the nameless, the judwan, teratons and the robots rather than relying on rehashing GW archtypes. That would make people take the universe and the game much more seriously.
I know Heath said something about drawing more Teratons a few weeks back, it might have just been more Dreadball art.. but he has been working on Deadzone stuff for awhile.
There might be some variance as they can't actually control the exact time a kickstarter goes live, only kickstarter themselves can do that by approving the project.
Wait! Two weeks means this won't start until near the end of the month, which means that isn't going to fund until close to the end of May if not into June, WHICH MEANS MORE MONEY TO SPEND (and hopefully see my space reptiles).
scarletsquig wrote: There might be some variance as they can't actually control the exact time a kickstarter goes live, only kickstarter themselves can do that by approving the project.
Actually, as long as they are approved they can launch whenever they want.
I was hoping it was gonna be a little bit longer down the line just so I could get a little more green before this thing went live. Hoping it has a 45 day time frame. It will help me get a better pledge going if it dies in June.
Just remember, you're not charged until the end date. So you're better off pledging high at the start, then dropping the pledge down a bit once you start counting the pennies you've got, as opposed to waiting, then having to pay more.
Mantic's kickstarters have always run for 30 days. Maybe they'll stretch this one out for 45? Give us poor chaps some time to throw more money at them in June instead of May?
Compel wrote: Just remember, you're not charged until the end date. So you're better off pledging high at the start, then dropping the pledge down a bit once you start counting the pennies you've got, as opposed to waiting, then having to pay more.
I don't agree with this method. For the individual it works, but not on a large scale. It inaccurately portrays where the funds are at and becomes VERY frustrating to the company and other backers when multiple pledgers drop funds as soon as the stretch goal they were really waiting for gets met.
So for everyone's sake that's involved, please don't do this. Better to pledge what you have available and increase steadily throughout the kickstarter when funds become available, over suddenly dropping when you have second thoughts.
In general, I'd like to see more ambition from Mantic... basically, the plastic moulds for the elves were really expensive and haven't made back their cost in sales.. they were a complete write-off for the company in terms of profit and it seems that ever since that happened they've avoided hard plastic like the plague to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen again.
The High Elf molds weren't that large, did they go with an expensive UK based plastic company? And what the heck! Written off? You can make a LOT of kits from a good plastic injection mold, no way should those things already be used up. If that's the case, someone at Mantic did something horribly wrong when they outsourced that production. I can also understand by the Mantic High Elves weren't as popular as say, their Undead. I can't believe their Undead line is unsuccessful. Honestly that sounds like a bunch of hogwash...
It isn't just the tooling either, they've got a new digital sculpting workflow going on where Remy's sculpts get 3d-scanned and then cut up and arranged on sprues digitally for hard plastic production. So that's something that they're getting to grips with as well, using the same workflow as Malifaux, Dreamforge etc. instead of their previous non-digital methods.
Mantic is joining the 21st century only a decade or so late...
Compel wrote: Just remember, you're not charged until the end date. So you're better off pledging high at the start, then dropping the pledge down a bit once you start counting the pennies you've got, as opposed to waiting, then having to pay more.
I don't agree with this method. For the individual it works, but not on a large scale. It inaccurately portrays where the funds are at and becomes VERY frustrating to the company and other backers when multiple pledgers drop funds as soon as the stretch goal they were really waiting for gets met.
So for everyone's sake that's involved, please don't do this. Better to pledge what you have available and increase steadily throughout the kickstarter when funds become available, over suddenly dropping when you have second thoughts.
I don't think it has a negative effect on kickstarters at all. If done en masse, you have a lot of support for the kickstarter, which helps reach stretches, which makes it a better deal, which draws in more backers. I think it's a fully legit thing to do, and even though you may not end up paying into the kickstarter, it does make the kickstarter more successful.
Mantic is joining the 21st century only a decade or so late...
GW started in 2007 when they switched (and the former plastics manager retired and started Renedra), so about 6 years ago?
GW's first plastics based on computer designs were the Rat Ogres which were released with the Lustria campaign (2004 or so?). But those were terrible, and it took a while for them to make decent computer based miniatures.
Compel wrote: Just remember, you're not charged until the end date. So you're better off pledging high at the start, then dropping the pledge down a bit once you start counting the pennies you've got, as opposed to waiting, then having to pay more.
I don't agree with this method. For the individual it works, but not on a large scale. It inaccurately portrays where the funds are at and becomes VERY frustrating to the company and other backers when multiple pledgers drop funds as soon as the stretch goal they were really waiting for gets met.
So for everyone's sake that's involved, please don't do this. Better to pledge what you have available and increase steadily throughout the kickstarter when funds become available, over suddenly dropping when you have second thoughts.
I don't think it has a negative effect on kickstarters at all. If done en masse, you have a lot of support for the kickstarter, which helps reach stretches, which makes it a better deal, which draws in more backers. I think it's a fully legit thing to do, and even though you may not end up paying into the kickstarter, it does make the kickstarter more successful.
You think 50 people all of a sudden dropping their pledges $300 a piece because they were overzealous on the first day has a positive impact on projects? Not in the slightest. It causes other backers to back out as well, and find other, more steady projects. I've seen it happen to Warzone and WWX for minor stretches, where they didn't grow much over the week with the amount of people dropping staying right with the amount joining, and when you make your initial pledge, and then see the amount drop 1k instead of going up, that is going to make you have second thoughts.
If we're talking $20-30, that's fine. You're only making a minor adjustment. But you should not be pledging money you don't have, and aren't 100% you are gonna get. (Like $50 your buddy "claims" he'll pay back to you or something). But seeing one pledge drop and the total falls $2000, and then you see 3 more pledges drop for about $500 between the lot in a particular situation let's me know that it is VERY damaging tactic to over do it. I had to cancel a pledge from a KS (nothing like the example I gave) and I know I did some harm. Should have never pledged what I did.
I may be misinterpretting the scale you are talking about, and if so please clarify, but when I read "pledge high" it's pledging what you don't know you can afford, and the results can damage the kickstarter when you have days when more of those folks decide to adjust down/cancel their pledge. I'm not saying don't pledge for the KS and wait until afterwards, I'm saying only pledge what you can afford during KS to avoid backing out later.
Mantic is joining the 21st century only a decade or so late...
GW started in 2007 when they switched (and the former plastics manager retired and started Renedra), so about 6 years ago?
GW's first plastics based on computer designs were the Rat Ogres which were released with the Lustria campaign (2004 or so?). But those were terrible, and it took a while for them to make decent computer based miniatures.
Not to derail, but do you have a pic of which rat ogre that was?
Pledge high as in, "if my bonus comes in on time and the significant-other hasn't noticed yet, I will go for the collectors edition first, then drop down to the standard edition as a compromise if I'm caught out..."
I'm not suggesting anything like the crazy money ones. - Fiddling with that is just rude!
And I don't think people are pledging with money they don't have (in any significant number). There's lots who jump in seeing momentum hoping for certain things that don't end up making it so they drop out, or jump in seeing lots of stuff that will be added then drop out when it turns out it isn't as much as was anticipated. If there's a thousand people following a kickstarter, then there's a thousand reasons for them to have backed it, and there could be a thousand reasons for them to drop their pledge. If you and five other people find reasons to drop your pledges at the same time, then the campaign is still probably better to have had your backing than to have never gotten that interest.
Honestly...the biggest cause of pledge dropping is early backer rewards. If there's a campaign with open early backer rewards and I might be interested, I'll back it. If it's not worthwhile in the end. The worst is campaigns with 'gifts' for early backers like the Through the Breach kickstarter. Leads to a huge early boost, then a bigger than normal lull in the kickstarter, and a risk of backer loss if momentum doesn't lead to new stretches.
I was one of those Mantic-elf-haters until I owned some. The level of detail on them is pretty damn astounding. They are pretty fantastic models, actually.
Barzam wrote: I can't understand the hate for them either. Is it really just because they're skinny? They're really well detailed little figures.
I don't have any and have never seen them in person. It probably is because they're so skinny, regardless of how much detail they have. I'm not really in the market for more High Elves, but I do have quite a few GW ones. I have no interest in these from the images I've seen, though I don't "hate" them.
If they want this to be a boardgame-type entry level product, they should really try and invest in hard plastic. Even moreso if the models will cross over into Warpath "proper".
Well, Warzone had a guy who apparently thought he had some commission coming in, selected a 2000 GBP pledged level, and then had to drop it. This not only tied up that pledge for perhaps someone else, but was very deceptive. So there comes a point where if you don't have the money, don't claim you do.
Lost jobs or unexpected bills I can understand and wife intervention is always understandable, but "maybe" money shouldn't get thrown around. If you were gonna have it by the end, then pledge when you have it. It's those boosts in the middle when things seem lagging that really help people stay interested.
I'm just suggesting people don't put themselves in a position to add to the mid KS chaos, as it's starting to get worse and worse with the recent projects (as I was a guilty party on one).
Then perhaps projects shouldn't make rewards limited to quantities that will either run out, or increase in price after the first day, forcing people to guess at what they'll have available to pledge in a month. That knife cuts both ways...
Well, said, RT. Abso-fething-lutely nail on the head.
I was going to post on this last night, but thought I'd leave it, because you know how it gets late at night, but it's pissing me off how Kickstarter has become such a game to people trying to min-max their rewards by telling other people how and when to pledge.
"Pledge for as much as you can afford, and then constantly update your pledge adding more for the stretch goals as they are revealed." Sheesh. I'll either pledge early on or when I find out about a project if it really interests me, or if I can snag an early bird slot. Then I'll adjust it up or down in the last 2 days. Or if it's one I haven't pledged for I might go in at the end. - Like Secret Weapons' Battle boards - I missed the early birds, and it's not something I have to have, so meh, I'll decide at the end.
I was really interested in the Hell-Dorado one as well. Pledged for it, but due to not having the cash available when it ended, had to pull most of my pledge. If I can pledge-manager it back up later, I probably will. If not, ah well - I shall live a little longer regardless.
Honestly, posts like Earth Dragon's that are filled with telling people what and how they should pledge just make me want to screw with campaigns by dropping five thousand fake-dollars in and out. Purely out of spite. So please don't tell others how they should pledge. mmmkay?
Whatever dude. Mine was a response to someone else telling others how to pledge. So not sure why I was the bad guy pointing out how that can mess with stuff unintentionally and it wasn't a great idea "to tell people to pledge like that".
Mmmkay
Automatically Appended Next Post: And I didn't feel like anyone else was being rude at all when disagreeing with me. It is definitely a two-way street I can most certainly see the benefits with trying to get initial funding quickly and maintaining. What's better? To teeter through stretch goals? Or struggle just to fund the initial box set? You are definitely asking for it when setting up EB specials (though, in the KS that has had some big pledges back out because money didn't show up, there was no EB specials).
Azazelx wrote: I was going to post on this last night, but thought I'd leave it, because you know how it gets late at night...
Maybe should've left it another night
Nah. He kept on going on about it, so I think it's actually reasonable. It was also a reply to the whole conversation including "pledge high". People "should" pledge whatever they want as often or not as they want. If you want to put down $500 on day one and unfortunately need to drop it at the last moment because your fridge broke - or simply because you changed your mind - fine. If you want to pledge early, then adjust and micromanage your pledge daily in response to each stretch goal and add-on, also fine. If you want to ignore the campaign until there are 35mins to go and then drop $120. Fine.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "Asking for it"? What?
Azazelx wrote: Honestly, posts like Earth Dragon's that are filled with telling people what and how they should pledge just make me want to screw with campaigns by dropping five thousand fake-dollars in and out. Purely out of spite. So please don't tell others how they should pledge. mmmkay?
Because when you're angry at Earth Dragon, the sensible thing to do is screw up some hapless entrepeneurs? Enviable logic, my good man.
Some one kept messing with the LOKA kickstarter. There was a while that every time they hit a stretch goal and announced it, someone would pull out a few thousand.
People doing that maliciously are / can be banned by Kickstarter, though, from what I have read. There's a difference between that and someone legitimately changing their mind (meaning they were sincere in their initial pledge, although usually there is guesswork involved with "early birds" due to unrevealed stretch goals and the true value of the pledge) or having a big expense come up, etc.
Earth Dragon wrote: Well, Warzone had a guy who apparently thought he had some commission coming in, selected a 2000 GBP pledged level, and then had to drop it. This not only tied up that pledge for perhaps someone else, but was very deceptive. So there comes a point where if you don't have the money, don't claim you do.
True.
But I think the rather non-committing nature of Kickstarter-pledges is part of the sites success. Not a few Kickstarter-campaigns actually stress that point very deliberately.
Indiegogo, in contrast, charges you at the moment you make your pledge (and refunds you later if the campaign is unsuccessful). It keeps shenanigans like that out. Its also a much greater "barrier" to pledge - for some reason (though it shouldn't make any difference if you are sincere).
RiTides wrote:People doing that maliciously are / can be banned by Kickstarter, though, from what I have read. There's a difference between that and someone legitimately changing their mind (meaning they were sincere in their initial pledge, although usually there is guesswork involved with "early birds" due to unrevealed stretch goals and the true value of the pledge) or having a big expense come up, etc.
Yeah, the campaign organizer can see who is pledging, pulling pledges, etc.., so if someone was screwing with the system, they could have been given the boot.
But I think the rather non-committing nature of Kickstarter-pledges is part of the sites success. Not a few Kickstarter-campaigns actually stress that point very deliberately.
This is true, in fact Mantic was encouraging it during the Loka Kickstarter by directly saying "Pledge now, you can always drop down later if you like, no money is taken until the end of the campaign".
It's all a bit off-topic, but the fact of the matter is having an early rush is good due to the method that kickstarter and to a lesser extent kicktraq uses to give advertising to campaigns... the ones that are a big hit early on and hit multiples of their campaign targets get more promotion and it snowballs from there.
Early birds and trying to get as many day 1 backers as possible is just plain how to do kickstarter properly, there's no morals or ethics about it, just business. An early spike of funds attracts a lot of interest which translates to more funds and so on, especially with stacking stretch goals. Hitting the funding level also gives a nice boost as weirdly a lot of people will not back something that hasn't funded yet. You've all seen how it goes.
IMO, there's too much angst over flip-floppers in the middle of a lot of campaigns, I tend not to concern myself much with it (and you shouldn't either ED, it happens in all campaigns, haven't seen a single one where it didn't), although others stress out over it and sometimes drop their pledge if there isn't enough "action" or "excitement" in the middle.
I don't think many people actually do that though, the vast majority are there to buy a product at a low price/ get a ton of free stuff... quite a lot of people simply sign up for the 48 hour warning and never pledge on any KS until that point because they don't have time to be looking at all the stretch goals or micromanaging their pledge.
Earth Dragon wrote: Well, Warzone had a guy who apparently thought he had some commission coming in, selected a 2000 GBP pledged level, and then had to drop it. This not only tied up that pledge for perhaps someone else, but was very deceptive. So there comes a point where if you don't have the money, don't claim you do.
True.
But I think the rather non-committing nature of Kickstarter-pledges is part of the sites success. Not a few Kickstarter-campaigns actually stress that point very deliberately.
Indiegogo, in contrast, charges you at the moment you make your pledge (and refunds you later if the campaign is unsuccessful). It keeps shenanigans like that out. Its also a much greater "barrier" to pledge - for some reason (though it shouldn't make any difference if you are sincere).
Human psychology as it is.
Sure. It's the same concept of "15 days free, but gives us your credit card". You are banking on a portion not paying attention and getting to charge them. Or "Send it back in 30 days for a full refund." Very common tactic which takes advantage of our inherent laziness.
Have to say think the terrain part of this is the bit that has got me most excited!
Even beyond Deadzone, regardless of what kind of game Mantic make, there are going to be a lot of Infinity, Necromunda (possibly even 40k) players who are going to be interested in this just because of the possibility of bulk terrain for dirt cheap.
Im hoping they have faction options as well. Im not likely to be interested in the whole game, or the Enforcers figures...but the Plague, in particular that big dude...I could use those.
I guess if the price is real good, and the terrain it comes with is nice, I could always sell off the Enforcers later on...
Pacific wrote: Have to say think the terrain part of this is the bit that has got me most excited!
Even beyond Deadzone, regardless of what kind of game Mantic make, there are going to be a lot of Infinity, Necromunda (possibly even 40k) players who are going to be interested in this just because of the possibility of bulk terrain for dirt cheap.
Same here!
I'm hoping that they even have a 'terrain only, and lots of it" option!
^ The Mantic and Secret Weapon terrain are both completely different and separate things. I know you know that, just posting to make sure everyone else is aware.
Of course, a 4x4 SW urban board is likely to be very useful indeed for Deadzone and Mantic's plastic terrain.
Both kickstarters will be running at the same time for a couple of weeks, so you'll be able to pick what you want from both to get the complete urban board, terrain and minis up and running if you want to.
It's quite a nice partnership IMO, SW gets the benefit of the UK market, Mantic gets a product into its distribution channels which packs some serious competition to GW's RoB and Cities of Death.
They'll be doing a KS for warpath? At some point, they really need to launch this stuff without having to Utilize KS. Specialty games make sense, but if you are struggling to obtain stable fan bases for your core games and have to "jump start" a game, you may need to re-evaluate your business plan.
Sure. It's great for the players who can get their stuff cheap, but all these games should be producing revenue to further expand other games. That way they aren't tearing into their profits everytime.
Earth Dragon wrote: They'll be doing a KS for warpath? At some point, they really need to launch this stuff without having to Utilize KS. Specialty games make sense, but if you are struggling to obtain stable fan bases for your core games and have to "jump start" a game, you may need to re-evaluate your business plan.
Sure. It's great for the players who can get their stuff cheap, but all these games should be producing revenue to further expand other games. That way they aren't tearing into their profits everytime.
Not sure if you're serious?
Kickstarter has become, for some companies, a nice way to get a pre-order out there, gauge interest, market it, etc.
Not sure if Mantic "needs" to do it this way, but may just "like" or "prefer" to do it this way!
Earth Dragon wrote: They'll be doing a KS for warpath? At some point, they really need to launch this stuff without having to Utilize KS. Specialty games make sense, but if you are struggling to obtain stable fan bases for your core games and have to "jump start" a game, you may need to re-evaluate your business plan.
Sure. It's great for the players who can get their stuff cheap, but all these games should be producing revenue to further expand other games. That way they aren't tearing into their profits everytime.
Not sure if you're serious?
Kickstarter has become, for some companies, a nice way to get a pre-order out there, gauge interest, market it, etc.
Not sure if Mantic "needs" to do it this way, but may just "like" or "prefer" to do it this way!
I WAS serious and YOU have 100% accurate and valid points.
(erased a crap load of detail that most readers already understand)
My concern is Warpath is already an established game and shouldn't need a KS if there was a lot of interest. It is also coming on the heels of a supplemental game for the Warpath universe and should be able to use the Deadzone kits, right? So as a fan of Mantic, it is just sad to see that Warpath isn't generating enough money to fund itself and it's own expansion. They have to resort to letting two other companies (KS and Amazon) take their cut and sell things at massive discounts (just judging off of dreadball) at which point, they aren't making any money off the pre-orders anyway, just funding it's creation.
The thing with Warpath..........it was one of their few products NOT generated from a KS (unless I got fed some bad info, but I'm pretty sure that is accurate). So backtracking a little to pick up some momentum is at least understandable seeing that they may be able to generate some additional interest that's not just current players getting stuff they would have purchased anyway in many cases for a price not initially profitable to Mantic.
In short, if Mantic and it's games are growing like I think many of us want them to, they wouldn't have anything to profit from by using KS for an EXISTING product and eventually wouldn't need it at all (Like, say, they had plenty of money to release Dreadball Season 1 with profits from other games, and then used profits from season 1 to fund season 2, which then funded season 3, so on and so forth). But since Warpath never had a KS, it's seems reasonable to explore, though dissappointing they have to do it.
At this point, for established gaming companies, KS is a marketing tool as much as anything else.
Nothing else generates the level of coverage or escalating interest like a KS does (at the moment), and the price you are paying for that exposure is literally directly proportional to how succesful it is.
As long as you aren't really bad at predicting your costs and margins then KS is the smart choice not the desperation choice.
Earth Dragon wrote: They'll be doing a KS for warpath? At some point, they really need to launch this stuff without having to Utilize KS. Specialty games make sense, but if you are struggling to obtain stable fan bases for your core games and have to "jump start" a game, you may need to re-evaluate your business plan.
Sure. It's great for the players who can get their stuff cheap, but all these games should be producing revenue to further expand other games. That way they aren't tearing into their profits everytime.
Not sure if you're serious?
Kickstarter has become, for some companies, a nice way to get a pre-order out there, gauge interest, market it, etc.
Not sure if Mantic "needs" to do it this way, but may just "like" or "prefer" to do it this way!
I WAS serious and YOU have 100% accurate and valid points.
(erased a crap load of detail that most readers already understand)
My concern is Warpath is already an established game and shouldn't need a KS if there was a lot of interest. It is also coming on the heels of a supplemental game for the Warpath universe and should be able to use the Deadzone kits, right? So as a fan of Mantic, it is just sad to see that Warpath isn't generating enough money to fund itself and it's own expansion. They have to resort to letting two other companies (KS and Amazon) take their cut and sell things at massive discounts (just judging off of dreadball) at which point, they aren't making any money off the pre-orders anyway, just funding it's creation.
The thing with Warpath..........it was one of their few products NOT generated from a KS (unless I got fed some bad info, but I'm pretty sure that is accurate). So backtracking a little to pick up some momentum is at least understandable seeing that they may be able to generate some additional interest that's not just current players getting stuff they would have purchased anyway in many cases for a price not initially profitable to Mantic.
In short, if Mantic and it's games are growing like I think many of us want them to, they wouldn't have anything to profit from by using KS for an EXISTING product and eventually wouldn't need it at all (Like, say, they had plenty of money to release Dreadball Season 1 with profits from other games, and then used profits from season 1 to fund season 2, which then funded season 3, so on and so forth). But since Warpath never had a KS, it's seems reasonable to explore, though dissappointing they have to do it.
Well KoW did not start out as a KS. It had one to help fund new sprues and to print the rule book and because of that they were able to afford 20 new kits I think it was 20, that's just pure awesome. They would not have been able to do this for a number of years. If they can replicate the success of the KoWKS for WP then it seems stupid that you wouldn't do it IMO. You also have to remember that mantic are still a smallish company and don't have the funds available that a KS can provide and I feel it's not really established yet and KS will also give it some great advertising.
And that's my only point. It'd be nice for them to get to the point where they don't need (not in desperation, but to avoid stagnation) to do a KS every time they release a product/expansion.
Meh, if it wasn't for the kickstarters people like me would never buy it.
Dread Ball is a perfect example. If I read they were releasing it, I would have just waited for it to come it and then got it at a discount, if I got it all, and certainly would have just only ordered the starter set. With the kickstarter they hooked me for 3 seasons worth of miniatures and an add-on board.
plastictrees wrote: At this point, for established gaming companies, KS is a marketing tool as much as anything else.
Nothing else generates the level of coverage or escalating interest like a KS does (at the moment), and the price you are paying for that exposure is literally directly proportional to how succesful it is.
As long as you aren't really bad at predicting your costs and margins then KS is the smart choice not the desperation choice.
KS is like advertising during the super bowl, it gets a lot of views.
Earth Dragon wrote: at which point, they aren't making any money off the pre-orders anyway, just funding it's creation.
They won't make money off pre-orders under any circumstances, bar some sort of wargaming holy grail moment where everyone buys in because the upfront costs of making toy soldiers is relatively large. Bringing products like this to market is all about managing cash flow and the key thing about KS is not the advertising exposure but the cash flow implications of money-up-front that isn't a loan (because loans have a cost and getting them in the current UK banking environment is extremely difficult). I would question the sanity of any business owner that didn't take the best cash flow option available to them.
Earth Dragon wrote: The thing with Warpath..........it was one of their few products NOT generated from a KS (unless I got fed some bad info
Dreadball is their ONLY KS generated product* at this stage, until Deadzone is launched. Kings of War had already been around for 3 years prior to the KS, the KS gave them the cash flow to bring forward about a years worth of releases. Dwarf Kings Hold (x3) and Project Pandora were not KS and Loka is River Horse's product that Mantic were providing support for because they already had the US company (required for KS) and the logistics to physically deliver it to market.
*In the sense that you describe an entire gaming universe as a product, I don't think it's realistic to view them in that way since the business reality is that each kit is an individual project in itself with varying payback periods - which is the key, only when the payback period is complete does a sprue/sprue set generate profit, until then it only generates revenue and cash flow.
@Baragash - There is a HUGE difference though between offering pre-orders at a discount while having to let another company in on that money generated and already having the ability to sell pre-orders at full price and having your tooling already bought from revenue being generated internally. If you can't see the downsides to using KS to take pre-orders against not using KS I don't know what to tell ya. There are pros and cons for both. I for one would like to see Mantic get to the point where the cons are out weighing the pros, much like they do for PP.
Without Kickstarter, we're back to restic/metal hybrids for all of Mantic's releases.
They need the funding, and it really helps them to take what would have been an "ok" release, and make it great. They have a dozen or so employees, which while reasonably large by the standards of the wargames world is still very much a small company.
For instance the original plan for Dreadball was to have metal ref, metal MVPS (which would cost double what the current restic ones do), stuff like the custom pitches and counters never would have happened, and the season 2 models would be penned in for some time 2014 instead of being on store shelves right now.
It would have been released, but not as good.
If KS didn't exist, they'd still be able to release stuff, but it wouldn't be as good because of lack of seed capital.
Look at the first warpath release as an example, they had to re-use the fantasy dwarf an orc sprues to be able to afford the tooling fees for hard plastic. If they'd kick-started that instead of being forced into making a "bean counter" decision we'd probably be looking at full sci-fi sprues for all races right now instead of some fantasy stuff with guns on and lots of hybrid metal/restic.
They also did pre-orders for products on their site before KS was popular, but they were nowhere near as popular as the Kickstarters.. it gets your product out in front of an audience.
Plus, Dreadball has already sold at least 2x the copies outside of the KS than it did during it. The KS was just a starting base to pay for their tooling costs, their actual operating profit (the stuff that pays staff wages and lets the company expand) comes from the general release sales.
hahahahaha.......Guys, I'm not slamming and saying they SHOULDN'T use KS at all and should have NEVER used KS for any of their products.
I'm wondering when they are gonna turn the corner and not feel they have more to gain from it's use. At some point, systems should be able to fund their own expansion, and your other products should be able to fund new products in a similar line. It's apparent Warpath pre-sales aren't enough, hence the KS.
Earth Dragon wrote: hahahahaha.......Guys, I'm not slamming and saying they SHOULDN'T use KS at all and should have NEVER used KS for any of their products.
I'm wondering when they are gonna turn the corner and not feel they have more to gain from it's use. At some point, systems should be able to fund their own expansion, and your other products should be able to fund new products in a similar line. It's apparent Warpath pre-sales aren't enough, hence the KS.
I'm hoping for better is all.
Most likely when they have filled out their entire range at least once.
Normally the tooling costs from miniatures are recouped over a timescale of several years. With Kickstarter, mantic doesn't have to worry about that, and can move on to their next release without having to wait for old ranges to make profit. Once they have all their ranges released, and there are no glaring holes, they wont need kickstarter anymore. They will be able to rerelease product based on profits being made across the entire range.
As it is now, they have a horde of ravening fans, demanding quality mantic product immediately. And the options they can give us without kickstarter are restic/metal or wait 5 years for more plastic.
Earth Dragon wrote: @Baragash - There is a HUGE difference though between offering pre-orders at a discount while having to let another company in on that money generated and already having the ability to sell pre-orders at full price and having your tooling already bought from revenue being generated internally. If you can't see the downsides to using KS to take pre-orders against not using KS I don't know what to tell ya. There are pros and cons for both. I for one would like to see Mantic get to the point where the cons are out weighing the pros, much like they do for PP.
I don't believe that a company trying to "run a KS" through their own website pre-orders would generate any where near as much interest as running it through KS, nor do I think they would be given any where near as much patience in terms of the time to bring to market.
Earth Dragon wrote: @Baragash - There is a HUGE difference though between offering pre-orders at a discount while having to let another company in on that money generated and already having the ability to sell pre-orders at full price and having your tooling already bought from revenue being generated internally. If you can't see the downsides to using KS to take pre-orders against not using KS I don't know what to tell ya. There are pros and cons for both. I for one would like to see Mantic get to the point where the cons are out weighing the pros, much like they do for PP.
I don't believe that a company trying to "run a KS" through their own website pre-orders would generate any where near as much interest as running it through KS, nor do I think they would be given any where near as much patience in terms of the time to bring to market.
Running a KS through their own site?
I have no idea what you think I'm saying at this point.
Anyone watch today's video with the new community manager?
Dude's got a table full of scenery sitting in front of him. I wonder where it's from...?
Also on Mantic's website there seem to be glimpses of Dead Zone pieces for those that want to hunt for it- in the ad for the next open day there's some suspicious looking scenery.
I think I'm just getting very impatient on this one. I want more info!
Dude's got a table full of scenery sitting in front of him. I wonder where it's from...?
Also on Mantic's website there seem to be glimpses of Dead Zone pieces for those that want to hunt for it- in the ad for the next open day there's some suspicious looking scenery.
I think I'm just getting very impatient on this one. I want more info!
I think that stuff in the video is from a company called quantam gothic.
Private meeting with Ronnie & Heath for the Dreadball backers at Adepticon today, so about 20 folks know all the details.. I'm not going to share everything, but I'll give you some highlights.
Some model pics were shown, as was a bunch of concepts.
Be ready on Friday, expect similar costs to Dreadball.
Do Not expect this to be Warpath, this is a board game.
Warpath players will be able to use components from Deadzone in Warpath, but these will not be the hard plastic infantry/vehicle sprues... That is still a bit off as they want to continue to build up the universe and refine the Warpath rules.
People will want to say this is Necromunda much the way they say Dreadball is Blood Bowl.
Hmm, I may hold off squandering the last of my tax-return to see what this looks like. Warzone already ate most of it, but I have a couple hundred to spare and this might be interesting. But man, I have to stop doing Kickstarters. They satisfy that deep down urge to get a load of stuff in one go. But once they are over, your inner impusle-buyer realizes he has been had and has to wait months for his stuff. Oh well, most of last year's Kickstarter stuff is going to be dropping in the next few months, hopefully that will distract me.
Cyporiean wrote: Private meeting with Ronnie & Heath for the Dreadball backers at Adepticon today, so about 20 folks know all the details.. I'm not going to share everything, but I'll give you some highlights.
Some model pics were shown, as was a bunch of concepts.
Be ready on Friday, expect similar costs to Dreadball.
Do Not expect this to be Warpath, this is a board game.
Warpath players will be able to use components from Deadzone in Warpath, but these will not be the hard plastic infantry/vehicle sprues... That is still a bit off as they want to continue to build up the universe and refine the Warpath rules.
People will want to say this is Necromunda much the way they say Dreadball is Blood Bowl.
So guestimating something like
$100 for 2 forces and personalities. $150 for 4 starting factions, etc...
Extra terrain instead of MDF and Arcylic boards add ons.
Faction Dice
As someone who was in the meeting this past evening, I went from being on the fence to now waiting with baited breath for it to get released publicly. All I can say is, the concept art and early models for it are amazing.
kaiohx wrote: As someone who was in the meeting this past evening, I went from being on the fence to now waiting with baited breath for it to get released publicly. All I can say is, the concept art and early models for it are amazing.
what were the minis like compared to other minis in the industry?
GW current mantic warpath minis
sedition wars
Infinity
kaiohx wrote: As someone who was in the meeting this past evening, I went from being on the fence to now waiting with baited breath for it to get released publicly. All I can say is, the concept art and early models for it are amazing.
what were the minis like compared to other minis in the industry?
GW current mantic warpath minis
sedition wars
Infinity
Minis are Remy sculpts, material is the same as Dreadball.
Speaking of which, they know what caused the horrible mold line issues on some of the stuff from Dreadball and have fixed it. If you have any Dreadball figs you aren't happy with because of that Manticwill replace them.
Minis are Remy sculpts, material is the same as Dreadball .
For those of us who haven't gotten around to Dreadball, what material were the figures made out of? Plastic? Restic? A hybrid amalgamation?
Coming into this as a board gamer rather than a wargamer, my knowledge of casting materials is a little iffy. Is this stuff going to be super brittle or will it be able to survive my somewhat clumsy children?
Just seen some previews at salute - new enforcer commander with open helmet and cloak, comms enforcer trooper with
Additional gear, 2 large plague types, one the one from the art (he's about 3 - 3.5 inches tall), a smaller more dynamic one (similar body type) and some human-hybrid types with guns. Resin masters of the plastic 'bulkheads' on show too - very very nice. Will try
And throw some pics up later, if they came out ok
They look about as flat as MDF terrain. For plastic, I hope they take advantage of the ability to add depth, or at least lots of additional extra bits.
They do look good. I just hope the price is pretty reasonable.
Thanks for the upload Squig, those look really cool I hope Mantics plays this smart and releases these as terrain sets as well. Two quick questions are the broken widows plastic as well?
and is this a "complete set" as in what comes in the Deadzone box?
I'll be renting my wallet out to moths by the time this KS is over and done with.
I love how the plastic terrain is essentially the old Necromunda terrain (buildings, bulkheads, walkways) only done entirely in modular plastic instead of card.
Other companies have tried this sort of thing (those russian hexagon and platformer sets), but those were too fiddly with too many small parts and visible connection pieces.. not really all that gamer-friendly either.
This looks good and is supremely practical as modular terrain.
The possibilities are huge... make tons of walkways criss-crossing each other, towers, bunkers. You could even do pyramids or skyscrapers!
EDIT see Riquende's post after mine they are his pictures after all
good to see there's ladders with the buildings, apparently there will be crates and barrels and the like as well. The terrain pieces are 3" square and clip together so they can be reassembled in different configurations.
Oh and the miniatures look very nice as well apparently there's a game or something to go with the terrain
Sorry! Riquende didn't realise you'd be posting it here as well I've edited the link out so that it only appears in yours now. Thanks for the pictures.
Alright... my money is listening. Looks like I may be cancelling plans to expand my Dark Angels a bit. Some Warpath stuff AND terrain to use for Infinity is always welcome. Hopefully there will be some Forge Father love in there since my Space Dorfs have been feeling a might bit lonely lately. Looks like I'm suspending purchases until Friday.
DaveC wrote: Sorry! Riquende didn't realise you'd be posting it here as well I've edited the link out so that it only appears in yours now. Thanks for the pictures.
Awesome pics Riquende, all of the minis are looking great as well. Added a link to your blog to the OP.
One other thing that's neat about the modular terrain that I notice from the pics, you can use three of the "battlement" pieces to form an open doorway/lobbyway piece.
@ Ronin - There will be Forgefather stuff. The KS will focus on six races to start with (Enforcers, Plague, Corporation, Forgefathers, Marauders, Veermyn), and then after those are funded (we all know this one is gonna be huge!), they'll be looking to expand it further, possibly with an expansion book and another 4 races.
Teratons will be making an appearance at some point, if you liked the look of the space dinos, I think the last rumour for those was that they'd be a mercenary faction within the corporation.
Rolt wrote: Thanks for the upload Squig, those look really cool I hope Mantics plays this smart and releases these as terrain sets as well. Two quick questions are the broken widows plastic as well?
and is this a "complete set" as in what comes in the Deadzone box?
The broken windows were added buy golem when they painted it, however due to how awesome it looked and how popular it was they are now working withe the production company to find a viable mass produced way to do it.
Alright, well if there are Space Dorfs then it will be hard for me to resist. Looks like I'm funnelling money in Mantic's direction come this Friday. And I'll be pulling extra shifts all next month, so I may have a bit extra to pop on it as well. Man, this is shaping up to be more expensive than last year's Kickstartapalooza. Cry some more wallet, cry some more.
Rolt wrote: Thanks for the upload Squig, those look really cool I hope Mantics plays this smart and releases these as terrain sets as well. Two quick questions are the broken widows plastic as well?
and is this a "complete set" as in what comes in the Deadzone box?
The broken windows were added buy golem when they painted it, however due to how awesome it looked and how popular it was they are now working withe the production company to find a viable mass produced way to do it.
Also I want that sniper now.
...by including a few sheets of blister plastic, and maybe a cheap pair of scissors if they want to really go to town on it?
Okay, now that Mantic has seen all this, everyone act apethetic about this whole thing in an attempt that Mantic lowers their prices during the KS to "convince us"
scarletsquig wrote: Dreadball was made from restic, and it's very tough stuff. Hard, but not brittle in any way.
I would add the caveat "...at room temperature." Back in December, I took a squad of Enforcers outside to apply spray lacquer, dropped one on the way back into the house, and he snapped off at the ankles. I now use brush-on sealer...
Very cool - terrain looks awesome (though it's annoying to see yet another source of the standard "Infinity" terrain when so many other niches are left unfilled - Fantasy version please Mantic, make it happen!)
Love the big gribbly too. Not so much the smaller big gribbly, I don't like minis that are permanently fused to terrain.
One problem with all of the "standard Infinity" terrain that's out there so far is that it's fairly expensive if you consider how many pieces you need for a full table. If this stuff comes out at a reasonable price, I may finally buy some Infinity terrain. The price of everything out there right now leaves me reaching for the balsa wood and plastic rods.
Really? Seriously, buy a dremel and a bunch of cutting discs. If it takes me more than 10sec/mini I'm probably watching the telly and eating at the same time
. It would be greatly appreciated!
), all the army lists are written at the same time, and updated at the same time. Updates generally occur once per year while a game is in active beta, once the game moves to hardback book and official release, it all gets updated on a 5-year cycle with the rules and army book released at the same time.
