This thread contains all the latest info and images from all of Mantic's sci-fi gaming systems such as Warpath, Dreadball, Deadzone, Project Pandora and others.
Pictures can be found throughout the thread, the the thread title will point to the page containing them, this first post will be kept updated with a brief summary of rumors about each of mantic's sci-fi games.
Latest Dreadball N&R:
- DBX will ship later this year after a successful Kickstarter funding the game and 12 new teams which will be compatible with the original Dreadball game.
Latest Deadzone N&R:
- 4 kits will be produced in hard plastic (on sprues) instead of resin plastic - Enforcers, Peacekeepers, Zombies and Forge Guard. Zombies are available or purchase now. Plastic Enforcers available to backers in December.
- A second Deadzone Kickstarter will happen at some point next year (possibly Q1) to fund a new faction (Veer-myn) and some additions to all current factions, also the deadzone terrain will be expanded with new sets.
This mini-kickstarter will act as an expansion to the current box-set/game NOT a new standalone game, all units in the new campaign will be compatible with Warpath.
Latest Warpath N&R:
- Kickstarter possibly coming in 2015. Not this year.
- Hard Plastic everything, core infantry, tanks, aircraft when it launches.
- Current ruleset covers medium-sized engagements (40-60 minis + a few vehicles on average), there will be an additional, separate ruleset to handle mass battles.
Latest Mars Attacks! N&R:
- Will be released August 2014, in partnership with Topps.
Nice work! I can tell you're good people because of the bebop reference.
Continuing a thought from the earlier thread... I do winder why no dakkites have posted pics if their trucks and saucers? We know they're going g out and surely someone in dakka has one or the other by now?
I've only received the boxed game so far and that was the part I was least interested in but it was only $15 after the credits and the terrain alone is worth that. The rest is in the next lot of shipping.
Someone showed off their GSR on one of our dakka threads but I'm having trouble remembering which.
Re: the second picture, regardless of what we've heard of the helmets being subpar, I think they look just fine from that distance... and if you really want a nice photo shoot you probably want to take them off due to the glare anyway. Looking forward to getting some so I can see how they look in person.
The bugs are great, I prefer the ant to spider, but I will not be sad to have a mix of both
Really getting excited for MA to show up, looking over my summary I see that I did pay for courier (as far as I can tell, it's not too specific) so I should like to see exactly what extras are included to cover that difference.
As always, if we haven't been inundated with pictures by the time my stuff shows up I'll have a show & tell on the blog.
Alpharius wrote: I'd like more pics of the terrain, especially the crashed saucer and the 'street clutter' and 'filler' terrain, like the crashed cars and such...
Please!
The cars vary widely in size - the SUV is amazing and quite large, some of the others are really small! I personally think the crashed ones look MUCH better than the intact ones, and much more detailed due to all the damage, and more fitting in with a wargaming setting.
The reason I got these is a friend wanted them, and I wanted to be free of my pledge since I had been interested in the bugs but they didn't turn out to be something I could use. I'm actually giving them to him today but will see if I can nab a few pics first.
Yeah, like Tamburlaine said, I got my 'umans over the weekend. I had the soldiers, Tiger Corps, Novas Vira, and a truck. Oh yeah, I also got Blaine and Mantic's resin crashed car. The Tiger Corps is pretty cool. They fit in a lot better with Deadzone/Warpath than they do Mars Attacks.
The truck is very well done, heavy, hard platic. No restic in there. It actually feels like toy quality platic rather than model kit or GW type plastic. My biggest problem with it though is that the truck's axels look loke they should allow the thing to roll, but they actually need to be glued, thus preventing the truck from actually rolling around. Luckily, a little bit of plasticard should fix that issue.
Speaking as a reader rather than a mod I'd recommend different threads for different games. I have the strongest interest in Warpath/Deadzone, some in Mars Attacks and little in Kings of War or Dreadball. If I have to wade through news and comments on all at once I'm less likely to read the thread at all.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Speaking as a reader rather than a mod I'd recommend different threads for different games. I have the strongest interest in Warpath/Deadzone, some in Mars Attacks and little in Kings of War or Dreadball. If I have to wade through news and comments on all at once I'm less likely to read the thread at all.
Just my 2 cents...
I think you're in luck then as this thread is for all of Mantic's SF offerings only - so you won't see any KoW in here, though you will get a bit of Dreadball on you!
Interested in the Warpath rules, especially if large engagements with tanks and aircraft are built in from the get go, however as with all Mantic kickstarters it would take a lot of excellent models to back in any sort of large quantity.
@sukura636
Cool thanks, I've changed it from enforcers/pathfinders to enforcer peacekeepers.
TBH I copied that info from SS last thread, I might end up messing around with the OP a bit later, maybe change it to a current and future/rumored information list.
The current 2.0 rules aren't too bad tho I dislike the combined shooting/melee stat. It needs a bit more grit to stop it coming across as too simplistic.
Heres the link to tge current rules download if you haven't checked them out.
I also got one of the nice T-section mats, two sets of urban accessories (which turned out to be super awesome for $5.. I wish I got more) and some of the Antenocitis scatter terrain. All perfect for Pulp City or a modern zombie game!
I regret not getting any of those cars, though. I'd love to see how they turned out!
It's enforcers AND peacekeepers, aha, but thanks for making the change.
On WP, they haven't been making nothing BUT spinoffs, but rather spinoffs that feed back into Warpath. The initial launch was too rushed, and too small to support the game. Now, we have a lot to start with, and a KS would provide even more (in fact after the WP KS, we will have 3 KS's worth of stuff).
I can confirm that things are being worked on behind the scenes, and that you will possibly hear of it soon, but nothing other than that, I'm afraid. I suppose this is why it's a rumors topic.
You had the option to pick up Pilot Joe, he apparently fits into the cockpit for both the B/G/L/H/T/SH/RG SR. I think he may have been part of certain bundles, and possibly available solo.
I got both the AW Waste Disposal and Sidewalk Slaughter packs - both very nice and crisp as you would expect from Antenocitiis and it scales nicely alongside the plastic urban accessories as you would hope. I'll get some pictures in the morning if I haven't been beaten to it!
Thanks for making a new thread, haven't had much time to keep the old one updated lately.. any internet time I've had has been occupied with the rules commitee stuff.
scarletsquig wrote: Thanks for making a new thread, haven't had much time to keep the old one updated lately.. any internet time I've had has been occupied with the rules commitee stuff.
Is it actually a committee, where you sit around a table and have meetings with an agenda and minutes and such? Because that sounds really, really boring.
It's like that, but because it's a Mantic rules committee if you want to raise a point, you have to roll-off against an opponent with D8s based on your debate score. If you score more successes than your opponent you get to raise your point, but if you DOUBLE them then you can also call for a vote on the issue. If your opponent doubles you though they have the option to refer your idea to a subcommittee where it'll languish for X meetings (depending on the difference in successes). If you tie or the opponent only beats you then you have to check your rhetoric score to see if anyone gets a bonus die for a later round.
Man, politics would be a lot more interesting to watch if that's how it worked...
Politicians would be replaced by pro gamers with trick rolling skills backed up by a legal committee from the party they're represented.
It would almost be as cool as if the president had to take out the house/senate's chosen rep in an MMA battle, and the house/senate duked it out in a royal rumble to decide who was right
GrimDork wrote: Has anyone seen the resin cars or crashed saucer yet, or any of the AW upgrade kits?
Here are the resin cars I got for my friend, click on the image to zoom in in the Dakka gallery:
Front row - road rampage
Middle row - car carnage
Back row - wrecked car (single)
I think the damaged cars look by far the best, unfortunately there is an undamaged car in both sets. The size also varies quite a bit. Sorry I didn't have a scale model - the nickel coin is about 21mm in diameter.
The damaged cars are going to be awesome for Infinity or other urban setting tables! Just note that they all have a clear underside lacking detail from the casting, so have to be oriented with a certain side down as shown above (with one on its side and one upside down, for instance).
Those look excellent RiTides, how much were they on the pledge manager?
Loving the GSR, will have to pick up a few for no reason in particular. Mould lines in logical places, but if it is HIPS they will not be a problem to remove. The canopy/cockpit looks excellent too.
It could be the perspective but the bottom left car looks longer than the top left, with a different bumper set up. The car crashed into the light post is completely different from the first two I mentioned, though it *is* somewhat similar to the brick-covered car. I can't say much about the flipped over car but it's showing a side that would be flat on the others, and then there's the SUV and the car in back which should be different since it's done by Mantic and not AW (I believe). So at least 3 different bodies among the AW cars, (probably 4 with the flipped one since that side isn't developed elsewhere) and a 5th for 5/7 out of the possible cars.
The Mantic car ended up as resin? Wasn't it supposed to be plastic? Maybe I'm remembering wrong, seems a steal for 5 bucks, I only got one because I figured how many cars are you gonna see with a toilette *and*a motorcycle crashed into them?
I got a shipping notice for tomorrow, assuming it's MA and that I can somehow get the wife to sign for it or just pick it up at the place, I may be able to get some pictures as soon as tomorrow night.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Those look excellent RiTides, how much were they on the pledge manager?
$25 for the road rampage or car carnage sets (3 in each), or just $5 for the wrecked car in the back (although this is also one of the smallest).
I think the 4 damaged cars and the damaged SUV look absolutely excellent! Like I said, there's some size discrepancy, but then again a crashed car can end up quite crumpled. It's the two on the left that were a disappointment, one in each set... and as lord_blackfang points out, they were very similar (I don't know if the bumper accessory and light on top were the only difference as I didn't look closely enough, but you can see the side windows are the same). Because these are intact, the size stands out and they seem too small to me (and also seem less detailed since they're missing all the damage). I probably would not use the intact two cars. They also stand out a bit because they are SO intact... not a scratch on them, which looks a bit odd next to the carnage of the other vehicles.
But still, even ignoring these, the other two cars from each set are quite excellent. I think 5 crashed cars for $55 is pretty darn good for the detail present on the damaged ones, and the fact that one is made to be upside down and another on its side adds a lot of variety. They are definitely all in resin.
I have a rumour at least, from the comments for the BoW weekender on Saturday in response to a request to show it, Warren mentioned the big Deadzone battle they'd recorded was being held back at the request of Mantic, to be saved for publishing alongside an upcoming big announcement.
lord_blackfang wrote: Well, except for the Hummer they all look like the exact same car with different lights on the roof?
AW actually posted a bunch about this as he's in the UK and didn't know much about US vehicles. The Police Cruiser and the Taxi are both Ford Crown Victorias, as that's what they are in real life.
Aside from Warpath, which they put on the back burner for already described reasons, what release and forget product support have they done? Kings of War has been getting new units and army lists, Dreadball got the Azure expansion and the Xtreme KS, and Deadzone hasn't actually finished releasing yet.
Frequent kickstarters are what everyone is now using to turn 3 years of single unit per month releases into massive starts and chunky expansions to really drive early uptake in a way that the old drip feed never will. If you don't like that, it might be worth sticking to companies who don't use KS at all.
Are you sure you're not thinking of Spartan Games?
Mantic has been pretty good. Dreadball just got a free digital living rulebook recently, didn't it?
A guy on another forum I'm on asked Mantic if he could have permission to make and share a cheat sheet for Dreadball, basically the rules minus the fluff, so that we could play a Dreadball league on Vassal and include people who hadn't bought the game yet. They said sure, as long as it's fluff-free so people still have a reason to buy the book , and then while he was doing it went and did it themselves anyway, with both the free Mantic Digital living rules and the Refbot app.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Are those damaged vehicles KS exclusives or will they eventually hit retail?
They are an Antenocities product and they've gone "all Infinity, all the time" recently so I imagine even if the cars were originally intended for general release that' won't happen now.
New blog from Ronnie, skip to the last two paragraphs to for a little new info on the DZ2 KS.
Spoiler:
Sorry I have been quite for a while. I have been doing some travel and we have all been very busy getting everything ready to ship in the coming weeks.
Monday saw us really get into the Mars Attacks main delivery. Once that has finished we will be straight on to the Deadzone wave 3 shipment – the last one for that massive project – and then we will ship the Dreadball Xtreme game (DBX) and some extra teams – just in time to have it under the Christmas tree!
Boxed-Game
If DBX Kickstarter Backers can get to the Open Day on Nov 29th they can take their Dreadball Xtreme games away with them. Backers can get a collection ticket here – this will give you ½ price access to the Open day and we will get your KS order ready for you to take away with you. Get a ticket soon because we might have limits on numbers.
Once we have sent all these backer pledges the only Kickstarter projects we have outstanding are the DB Xpansion and the rest of the teams for DBX and then Dungeon Saga. All the sculpts for DBX are away and in tooling already, and they are starting to come through. I have written another blog on all things Dreadball, and I think we can look forward to a very exciting 18 months for the Sports Game of the Future – including the ‘Strider Cup, sponsored by Mech-Tech Innovation Labs, part of the Trontek Corporation’ – which might involve the best European Dreadball player playing the best American player in a multigame world series at Adepticon 2016! I will get that blog up about that soon – but suffice to say – start polishing your balls!
DBX Coaches and Free Agents
DreadBall Xtreme Production Figures – Free Agents and Sponsors
Dungeon Saga is also making solid progress. The Undead have completed sculpting and are off out to tooling. Sylvain has been working solidly on the greenskin expansion and there are some great looking sculpts coming for that. They are off being resin copied, so you will be seeing photos soon. Jake was in this week and he ran both myself and Stewart, and a new group through a couple of adventures. The base rules are really solid now and Jake is going to write those up and get them out for Alpha and comment. We have two excellent intro scenarios that give you a chance to learn 2 heroes at a time in a fast, straight forward little adventure. The first mission does moving and fighting – with just the Dwarf and Barbarian. The second scenario covers magic and ranged attacks. A little cool rule is that each hero will begin with a unique special ‘feat’ they can deploy once per game – the barbarian can attack every enemy in base to base contact with him once per game, and this not only adds character to each hero but also it raises the a challenge of when you should use it!
IMG_1599
Kieren does his best Mortibris impression whilst Luke extolls the virtues of playing the wizard – it’s his favourite character.
As always with Mantic Kickstarters you never fail to surprise us – so after we had run two $500,000 KS this one went and did $1m! Fortunately we have some contingency plans just in case it went crazy. That total allowed us to unlock the Abyssal Expansion Pack, the Dragon Suppliment pack and the giant undead Demon Lord, along with the plastic dungeon furniture and traps. This put most of the extra work on our sculpting resource – and because we normally do whole armies a few dragons and demons are easy
We are making good progress with Dungeon Saga and we are trying to implement all we have learnt this year to make this our smoothest KS delivery yet. We will of course keep you posted with progress and that will go up once we have cleared out the last of what we’re shipping now , but if you want to keep in the loop Jake’s blog www.quirkworthy.com is an excellent way to keep up with his thoughts and developments as he hones the game – and you’ll probably get to interact with the great man himself!
We are continuing this year and next to keep investing in our two worlds – The Kings of War realm and the Warpath universe. Other licenced properties hopefully will open new doors for the wider range and bring Mantic to more hobbyists – and ultimately that is what I want Mantic to stand for. Fully formed, interesting worlds and universes that can be gamed in.
I want to see a day when every school boy – and girl if they like – has a Mantic Tabletop miniatures game somewhere in their cupboard. It would be fantastic if people think of Mantic as a friendly gaming company that offers great toy soldiers, and fun games at reasonable prices – and as something they would like to spend their free time doing. Obviously the commitment to a skirmish game will be different than for a full mass combat wargame – some fans will be more committed than others. But I hope we can get to a place that anyone who wants to, can access a hobby that whether they enjoy collecting, painting or playing it is open and easy for them to do so.
We will be revisiting Deadzone again soon, but the KS will be after Christmas. I have a full blog on what we hope to achieve with the campaign and I’ll get that up shortly, but I think it’s important original backers have had time to look at all they have, especially the new hard plastics – and it should give everyone a little more time to prepare – just in case you all decide it is going to go large!!!
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a little mini kick surprise before then though – it’s a project very close to my heart and the centre of where Mantic began! Watch this space for more!
Oh please tell me there is a KS for injection plastic "not Elves since we already have those." I would blast my memories of the KoW kickstarter into oblivion is they remade the elves decently.
Frankly, the Elves and Undead are some of the last things they need to work on, unlike the second rate hack job some of the Basileans got.
To address some other comments, I feel Mantic has given up on several games, including Dreadball and Deadzone. How are the game balance issues and overload of FAQs being handled? And people say GW does a lousy job....
And don't tell me'But, but, they have selected rules committees to handle it!'. That's pure BS, and a sign of their limp level of commitment to their products.
I can see the discussion around Mantic HQ being 'What will make those annoying people go away, and not cost us anything at all?' 'I know! Recruit fanboys from our forums to oversee our rules!' That guy probably got some personal time with Fisty Glue Man for coming up with that one...
totalfailure wrote: Frankly, the Elves and Undead are some of the last things they need to work on, unlike the second rate hack job some of the Basileans got.
To address some other comments, I feel Mantic has given up on several games, including Dreadball and Deadzone. How are the game balance issues and overload of FAQs being handled? And people say GW does a lousy job....
And don't tell me'But, but, they have selected rules committees to handle it!'. That's pure BS, and a sign of their limp level of commitment to their products.
I can see the discussion around Mantic HQ being 'What will make those annoying people go away, and not cost us anything at all?' 'I know! Recruit fanboys from our forums to oversee our rules!' That guy probably got some personal time with Fisty Glue Man for coming up with that one...
"I feel like..." went straight to fact and then random fabrication didn't it.
So, when did they give up? Was it the extra things coming for Dreadball? The Expansions and retail releases for Deadzone? The constant work from Jake on FAQs? Or letting those who were continuously stating how they could change the rules for the better actually have a hand in it?
Are there balance issues? Yes. Are they being corrected? Yes. Do you have full and total knowledge of Mantic's rules development? I doubt it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Got my Mars Attacks! stuff. I didn't order 'all the things' but I did get most of them, anyone still need a picture of anything?
Automatically Appended Next Post: This is definitely the best packed of my orders so far. All of the main packages are there, I've got to open them and check each piece but so far so good.
I've just barely scratched the surface but I already wish I had ordered at least one more of the $5 wrecked car, it's resin and while not quite as chunky as the other cars from the sets, it's still really detailed and quite nice.
The AI deck is tiny, really small cards for some reason.
All of the vehicles are some kind of hard plastic, they feel like the same/similar material to the scenery.
Blog will have pictures as I get around to unboxing, until then I'm gonna leave it to requests as I don't want to just spaz out, tear up all the packaging, and lose stuff
totalfailure wrote: Frankly, the Elves and Undead are some of the last things they need to work on, unlike the second rate hack job some of the Basileans got.
To address some other comments, I feel Mantic has given up on several games, including Dreadball and Deadzone. How are the game balance issues and overload of FAQs being handled? And people say GW does a lousy job....
And don't tell me'But, but, they have selected rules committees to handle it!'. That's pure BS, and a sign of their limp level of commitment to their products.
I can see the discussion around Mantic HQ being 'What will make those annoying people go away, and not cost us anything at all?' 'I know! Recruit fanboys from our forums to oversee our rules!' That guy probably got some personal time with Fisty Glue Man for coming up with that one...
"I feel like..." went straight to fact and then random fabrication didn't it.
So, when did they give up? Was it the extra things coming for Dreadball? The Expansions and retail releases for Deadzone? The constant work from Jake on FAQs? Or letting those who were continuously stating how they could change the rules for the better actually have a hand in it?
Are there balance issues? Yes. Are they being corrected? Yes. Do you have full and total knowledge of Mantic's rules development? I doubt it.
Do you have full and total knowledge of Mantic's rules development? I doubt it.
The mediocre effort put forth is not Jake Thornton's fault. He doesn't work for, or get paid by Mantic to do FAQs. What has been done scratches the surface. How much have those rules committees done the last cxouple months for Dreadball or Deadzone? Get back to me when they produce something that helps the games, like the poor Rebs in Deadzone, or the Forge Fathers in Dreadball.
You can be the sheeple all you like. It's hilarious how you are willing to overlook mediocrity from Mantic, yet many of you are the same ones that post your outraged responses to anything GW does...easy on the Mantic Kool Aid there......
Well shucks, I was actually looking forward to a Deadzone campaign in November. I guess i can keep saving up those pennies then, at the very least.
Good to hear that progress is being made on all their current offerings, and I'm jealous of those who are getting their Mars Attacks stuff, as I desperately want mine.
pretre wrote: What's the date for wave 3 shipping? Mission control has October still.
I don't know when shipping is supposed to start, but the deadline for payment is the 31st.
I'm waiting for my other stuff (and pictures of the Enforcers) before I pay a cent. Since they're not even up to shipping full sets of MA yet, I think we'll be just fine.
totalfailure wrote: Frankly, the Elves and Undead are some of the last things they need to work on, unlike the second rate hack job some of the Basileans got.
To address some other comments, I feel Mantic has given up on several games, including Dreadball and Deadzone. How are the game balance issues and overload of FAQs being handled? And people say GW does a lousy job....
And don't tell me'But, but, they have selected rules committees to handle it!'. That's pure BS, and a sign of their limp level of commitment to their products.
I can see the discussion around Mantic HQ being 'What will make those annoying people go away, and not cost us anything at all?' 'I know! Recruit fanboys from our forums to oversee our rules!' That guy probably got some personal time with Fisty Glue Man for coming up with that one...
"I feel like..." went straight to fact and then random fabrication didn't it.
So, when did they give up? Was it the extra things coming for Dreadball? The Expansions and retail releases for Deadzone? The constant work from Jake on FAQs? Or letting those who were continuously stating how they could change the rules for the better actually have a hand in it?
Are there balance issues? Yes. Are they being corrected? Yes. Do you have full and total knowledge of Mantic's rules development? I doubt it.
Do you have full and total knowledge of Mantic's rules development? I doubt it.
The mediocre effort put forth is not Jake Thornton's fault. He doesn't work for, or get paid by Mantic to do FAQs. What has been done scratches the surface. How much have those rules committees done the last cxouple months for Dreadball or Deadzone? Get back to me when they produce something that helps the games, like the poor Rebs in Deadzone, or the Forge Fathers in Dreadball.
You can be the sheeple all you like. It's hilarious how you are willing to overlook mediocrity from Mantic, yet many of you are the same ones that post your outraged responses to anything GW does...easy on the Mantic Kool Aid there......
Did Ronnie run over your cat or something?
I'm fairly sure that he at least knows one of the rules committee guys if that helps
Work has been done on the issues facing both DB and DZ, but DB has DBX shipping deadlines coming up so that's the priority at the moment.
And yeah, it's totally the same as GW, whose design studio has more employees than all of Mantic, releasing something into the wild and not giving a gak about it forever more.
Sixteen posts, nonsensical arguments...yup, gotta agree. Apt username. Rebs can win. They have made improvements, such as the change for the sniper leader. What other faction gets a sniper leader?? I do agree with your post about DB FFs. Those guys are terribad. But that is the only point in your entire post that had any degree of accuracy or legitimacy.
Somebody post enforcer pictures today to keep me from going rabid!!! I wants me some enforcer pics!!
*raid on Ronnie's house to get them, if necessary*
I saw on MM that they have decks for Deadzone for the Matrians and the Marines. Does anyone have pics of the unit stats? I just m wondering if its worth buying the Marines pack (20$) and the Deck to use them in deadzone (8$). Same with Martians
I have two robots. One is totally in the linked gallery. I didn't order one of every single item but I got most of the things. And we saw a robot delivered at least a week before I got my shipment. But yeah still a ways to go from the sound of it.
gak, you're right. I should stop playing Deadzone and Dreadball despite enjoying them immensely, and then I should complain that no development is happening despite all the development that is happening.
fething BRILLIANT
Automatically Appended Next Post: Got my Fedex 4.2 kg Mars Attacks shipment notification; will be delivered tomorrow. (FAST!) Total pledge was $250. This is my pledge:
The Invaders Arrive ($150) - Custom Pledge: 1 ($125 credit)
GrimDork wrote: I have two robots. One is totally in the linked gallery. I didn't order one of every single item but I got most of the things. And we saw a robot delivered at least a week before I got my shipment. But yeah still a ways to go from the sound of it.
Huh, I must have missed it but fair enough. And yeah, I imagine it'll still be awhile before they finish shipping it.
Man I am sooooo tired of waiting for Warpath news, I love my corporation stuff, want more, and I really want to see what they have in store for a mass battle ruleset and how they handle vehicles and such.
Alpharius wrote: Does anything in that contain a Giant Stompy Robot?
If so, please post pics!
If not - how could you resist it?
Haha, no, I got a custom pledge instead of recommended loadout. So the $150 was a copy of the game, plus a pile of bonus figs, and then $125 in credit. I was mainly interested in modern urban scenery and had a mild interest in the game itself.
Alpharius wrote: That's what I did too - piggybacking on another user's pledge to get the 'modern urban' terrain.
But I couldn't resist adding in a GSR too!
I have to admit I kinda regret not getting one! But it'd just sit in a box for a year before I got to it. Trying to reign in my needless hobby expenditures...which is of course why a $250 pledge is arriving tomorrow.
ultimentra wrote: Man I am sooooo tired of waiting for Warpath news, I love my corporation stuff, want more, and I really want to see what they have in store for a mass battle ruleset and how they handle vehicles and such.
I'm really hoping we get an alpha/beta of at least one of the two Warpath 3.0 rule sets with DZ shipment 3 so I can mess around with it and start encouraging people, but like everyone else I'm happy with the KS for it being pushed back until later net year, I need the fund recovery space
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Those look excellent RiTides, how much were they on the pledge manager?
$25 for the road rampage or car carnage sets (3 in each), or just $5 for the wrecked car in the back (although this is also one of the smallest).
I think the 4 damaged cars and the damaged SUV look absolutely excellent! Like I said, there's some size discrepancy, but then again a crashed car can end up quite crumpled. It's the two on the left that were a disappointment, one in each set... and as lord_blackfang points out, they were very similar (I don't know if the bumper accessory and light on top were the only difference as I didn't look closely enough, but you can see the side windows are the same). Because these are intact, the size stands out and they seem too small to me (and also seem less detailed since they're missing all the damage). I probably would not use the intact two cars. They also stand out a bit because they are SO intact... not a scratch on them, which looks a bit odd next to the carnage of the other vehicles.
But still, even ignoring these, the other two cars from each set are quite excellent. I think 5 crashed cars for $55 is pretty darn good for the detail present on the damaged ones, and the fact that one is made to be upside down and another on its side adds a lot of variety. They are definitely all in resin.
Good to know.
I'll be curious to know how much they end up being post KS. $25 for 3 cars isn't bad and is around the price you'd pay for 1/43 cars that you'd have to break up yourself. Could be a good seller to folks out side of "Mars Attacks" when it hits the general market.
Odd about the two on the right. It's pretty clear they must took two Ford Crown Vics and put a taxi top on one and cop lights on the other. Still, it's probably still the most common taxi and cop cars seen in US cities even if the Vic has been discontinued. Still, Crown Vic 1/43 die cast can be found for around $5 each, so it's too bad they didn't sell a pack of just broken cars.
I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen any of those cars hit eBay yet. I guess there are unusual enough - and good enough - that most people are keeping them. I emailed Mantic to see if the cars would eventually be available through their store.. no reply yet.
Alright last from me tonight (probably). I attached some helmets to my finished martians so here's a couple of pics of what that looks like.
Spoiler:
The helmets are totally asymmetrical but that seems to be on purpose, the 'lip' on one side seems to fit very well over the collar on the front of the martian suit as you can see in the pictures, I'm pretty sure this was intentional. I haven't got any other painted martians of different varieties to check the fit for those to see if it works across the range but I'm guessing it will.
Frankly, unless the finalized domes weren't ready until very late in the process, I'm surprised Mantic seemed to be sheepish about showing them off. They seem to be 90-100% awesome to me. Some of them have a little mess around the edges but it picks off pretty easy, I put domes on six martians in just a few minutes. I also used superglue, your mileage may vary but my cheap dollar store stuff has *not* clouded the helmets in any noticeable way with just a bit on the front and back.
highlord tamburlaine wrote: *Shakes fist menacingly at computer for not giving him a FedEx notice*
At least I've got Brimstone and Arcadia to keep me company for the time being.
Indeed! There is also now an intact building in the gallery, dz stat cards, painted martians with helmets, and maybe more GSR photos, for anyone who hasn't checked in a while
Welp my Mars Attacks shipment Fedex tracking just updated with "delay beyond our control" and went from eta of today to an eta of N/A. It's currently hanging out at a Fedex location in Stansted, GB. Was there some sort of bad weather over there? Or perhaps the "delay beyond our control" were Fedex employees taking a nap.
judgedoug wrote: Welp my Mars Attacks shipment Fedex tracking just updated with "delay beyond our control" and went from eta of today to an eta of N/A. It's currently hanging out at a Fedex location in Stansted, GB. Was there some sort of bad weather over there? Or perhaps the "delay beyond our control" were Fedex employees taking a nap.
I assume it's just a flight delay (not caused by weather).
Congratulations, Mantic. The plastic Enforcers look ace.
5 bodies
5 sets of legs
5 rifle right arms
5 rifle left arms
5 pistol left arms
5 dagger right arms
1 power gauntlet right arm
1 burst laser
1 incinerator w/ 1 incinerator fuel tank
1 support weapon arm
8 heads of various purpose
2 holstered pistols
2 pouches
Short but sweet update for you – the Enforcers and the Forge Guard are on a boat to us and are due to hit our warehouse in early December - we'll be shipping the third shipment as soon as they've arrived so please get your paypal requests paid if you've submitted a third survey!
The Peacekeepers are just being finished off and will be flown over to us so that they arrive at the same time.
Here’s the Enforcer Troop sprue – we think it looks great, packed full of fine detail!
We’ll show off the Peacekeepers soon
And finally...
Ronnie's got an update on the state of play with the Deadzone: Infestation Kickstarter. Pop on over to the blog to see more - thanks for letting us know what you thought
In a blog a few months ago we spoke about whether there was an appetite for a Deadzone 1.5 as an expansion Kickstarter – not a game in its own right, but supporting the core system by adding more units and factions to what’s already there. The idea was for it to build on the solid foundations that have been established but add a new faction (Veer-myn) to the mix. This would give us a chance to clean up the core rulebook (I think everything is in it, but it could be presented in a way that makes it easier to reference).
It will also give us a chance to add extras to the scenery range (such as pipework linking through all the cavities) to add another dimension (oh, and wait until you see the Octagon Fortress we built this week with the extra sprue, it’s an awesome armoured Battle Base) Sorry, got distracted there! We can also get a couple of new units to the existing factions. All the units would also be compatible with Warpath too.
We are thinking of adding some more industrial components to the Battlezone range. What sci-fi scenery would you like to see?
Since we kicked off the discussions I have picked up on a number of themes:
a) There is massive desire to go back and add on to Deadzone, for some doubly so if it is also developing Warpath
b) Actually most people would like to see 2 new factions, not just 1. I think that’s a great idea and while a few of the suggestions are my favourites, please let me have your ideas below (but not Zz’or or Corporation Troops – we are saving those!)
c) Can we prepare a way for new backers to come in if there is not a base game
d) There is a big appetite for the KS, but please can it go after Christmas because people want to give this their full support and it will not be a mini kickstarter no matter how many times we say it!
I also think it is not right to look again for funding until everything for the first kickstarter has been delivered and backers have had a chance to have a look. If we had managed to get the hard plastic sprues in the second shipment then any time from now onwards would be fine.. However, with those still waiting to ship it feels before Christmas would be wrong.
This is the new hard plastic Deadzone Enforcer Sprue. Kickstarters backers will be getting this in December. Click the pictures for a closer look:
As always Mantic listens. And so taking on board all the feedback here is the plan. We will look at doing 2 new factions, we will create a new backer pledge from DZ 1 to let people get into the game, and we’ll go live at the latter end of the KS window we had and do it after Christmas. This way we can go as far as you want to go!
We will use the time to prepare lots of ideas and concepts so if it goes past the funding goals we need, then we will have great ideas to tool and add to the warpath universe. It will also give backers time to prepare. I still think it will be gentler on the wallets than DZ1 because there is no base game and everyone already has the scenery in bulk. We will also come up with a way for new fans to jump on board too. Before then we will get a free rules/ quick start guide and reference sheet written and available to build up the number of people playing so we can talk to as wide an audience as possible.
If you have ideas for faction 2 add them in the comments below or on our Facebook, and prepare for Containment Protocol – Infestation in early 2015.
However…
If we push DZ back into the early 2015 slot we push Kings of War out of it! If we push Kings of War back further into 2015 then we will not see the new book released until 2016, which from talking to the community it is too late.
So we’ll let you know on Monday what crazy plan we’ve concocted!!
@JudgeDoug I think the thing next to the holstered pistols is the Incinerator backpack, there are pics of the rear view of the model in one of the rule/expansion books.
Why would you do that to yourself? Hand them out to the less fortunate and go all plastic!
Or burn them, right Azazel?
I would burn mine but I feel I would be letting out some evil spirit. Better to keep them in a lead lined box and hide it in a corner in some oubliette!
To be fair I did not back Dreadball Extreme but I would prefer it if they dealt with that before shipping Deadzone wave 3. I can understand that people who went Forgefather/ plastic Enforcer heavy may feel differently.
So Veer'myn + our choice for DZ2, Corporation + Z'zor for Warpath 3.0 base armies, and KoW new edition is due out early next year with the Abyssal and Forces of Nature armies due for a KS as well.
I wish Ronnie would tell us things in his blogs, it's impossible to get any sort of hints or future planning out of him
Abyssals aren't sci fi enough for DZ for me, but they could always do some MA style crossover decks if enough people asked. Abyssals are for Fantasy DZ, or not-mordheim, whatever you want to call it.
The Koris, Crystallan and Nameless are all options, maybe Ada-Lorena too? The other races we know of are all downtrodden or refugees and in the Rebs list.
There's the Tsudochan too, now that I've had a quick browse. They use electromagnetics to move players and scenery around in DBX, could bring an interesting new mechanic to Deadzone, though I'm not sure wandering preachers really constitute a strike team.
Was it the Tsudochan that had the giant spider? That'd be fun to have wandering through a Deadzone. Hiding in the upper corners of a tower, ready to eat unsuspecting snipers... good times!
I wonder if that mini- kicker will drop before Deadzone... was that mentioned in the blog?
Yeah the big spider was a Kori Giant MVP, pretty sure the Tsudochan didn't get a giant.
Koris would be really cool, but i wonder if there's room for two "bad guys" from two races. Maybe they could be a 3rd or 4th if the money gets that high?
re Enforcer sprues - so those two cylinders near the heads are ... grenades? What about those handle-looking things (that look like plasma cutters from Aliens)
judgedoug wrote: re Enforcer sprues - so those two cylinders near the heads are ... grenades? What about those handle-looking things (that look like plasma cutters from Aliens)
They appear in the earlier 3D renders they look like a knife with a serrated blade with a pouch like handle cover.
The hard plastics look very nice. I've been waiting for them before tackling the Enforcer faction.
Definitely not regretting going a bit bonkers on my enforcer sprues in wave 3. Would be cool if we could next get the missile launcher and special weapons in plastic, along with maybe the shields on one sprue?
plus I think the strider really needs to be a plastic kit, with use in four factions i'm sure it would be justified, plus easier to assemble.
Ask and you shall receive, changed the title and updated a few things in the OP, if anyone has anything else they'd like me to add just say so, feel free to PM me as well.
New plastic enforcers look pretty cool and reasonably modular with what looks to be a decent amount of bits, hopefully this is just the start of Mantic stepping in a strong direction towards high quality hard plastic kits.
Warpath won't work without them, plain and simple.
It's interesting . . . once you remove the Zz'or and Corps, there aren't any "must dos" left for the second team, just weird / sideways options. No bad thing, as those are often my favorites.
My top pick would be Nameless. That is, cosmic horror type nameless (i.e, bloodsucker, Spawn variety), not "actually friendly guys / seafood variety platter" Nameless (calamari, crab, or shrimp). The latter are good fun for a tongue-in-cheek space football game, but for a dark future skirmish game?
To be honest, whilst I was always relaying the traditional Namelss fluff, if they could be done as a faction, then I would be behind it.
I know that the Corp and ZZ'orr are being held off for two reasons. One is a future project, although I don't know whether this is WP or a another DZ expansion. The other is that with new units planned for current factions for DZ2, there is a lot (just take my word for it) of stuff in the KS, so it runs the risk of having too wide a scope.
Said it before, we need a proper Sorak tough guy soldier dude, not just a friendzoned ammo carrier holding his ladyfriend's toys while she hogs all the glory and destruction.
Crystallans (or is it with a k?) could be cool. I dunno if I want a Tsudochan faction personally. Ada Lorana could be cool but I'd want a *lot* more variety in units than just variously proportioned flying glowy anatomical models.
I'd like a mercenary faction. It could take all of the non-faction-specific mercs that already exist, and then add some baseline grunts/specialists/vehicles(maybe) to balance it out as a faction rather than just taking 3-5 super-heroic personality heavy mercs.
For the Merc army maybe make the missions not about killing and such that you'd have to rely on your grunts instead of potentially OP 'character mercs' to balance it out
@HLT: Shark dues are Sphyr, Soraks are the arms/legs swapped quasi-reptilian dudes. And we kind of have a fighty Sphyr in Kish (or whatever they renamed her to, plague named character).
We already have a merc faction though, the Marauders.
Also the reloader in the Rebs missile team is a male Sphyr.
I've been counting out all the alien races that appear in the Rebs, because excepting maybe the Teratons none of them are intact enough to have a standing army of their own.
Well yes, Marauders are mercs. But there will be mercs of other factions that aren't allowed into that illustrious club and have to scrape by on their own. Humans too deranged to be a part of the GCPS military OR the rebs, aliens who want to fight but only for the money, not for a cause, and so on.
I think Crystallans would be pretty cool as the second faction, though I'd totally be open to Nameless or Mechanoids. If I'm honest I'm not very excited about veermyn so I'm glad they are planning to have a second faction. I do really hope they go mostly hard plastic on this one. The zombies are nice and the enforcers are looking pretty good as well.
The exciting part about Veer'myn would be replacing all those old and not so great hybrid restic and metal kits with distinct restic and hard plastic kits.
Barzam wrote: Whaddaya need tough guy Sphyr brawlers for? Just use the Dreadball ones.
Forget all of the fleshy meatbags. The DZ2 second faction should be Corporate combat robots.
Proper sci-fi combat drones would be awesome. Aside from Necrons, robots aren't really that common in sci-fi combat games, and everyone who's seen Star Wars will want an army of Battle Droids.
judgedoug wrote: Welp my Mars Attacks shipment Fedex tracking just updated with "delay beyond our control" and went from eta of today to an eta of N/A. It's currently hanging out at a Fedex location in Stansted, GB. Was there some sort of bad weather over there? Or perhaps the "delay beyond our control" were Fedex employees taking a nap.
Mine was on the same plane and is also still at Stanstead
Crystallan could be cool, but I'd prefer it if they kept them more on the crystal side, less on the rock golems from space side. Much as I want traditional hand sculpting to be with us for a long time, I would also prefer that the Crystallans be computer sculpted.
Sphyr are fair game. I don't know that I'd want a full faction of them, but I could be won over. It would all come down to how inspired the unit ideas / models turned out. I did find the Sann-Gar concept art to be pretty poor, but I'm hoping that the final sculpt will be better.
Maybe we already have a robot faction with the Asterians, ("actually they're not robots, they're cyborgs," yeah, whatever), but I also like the Corporate drone robot faction idea. I don't know if Mantic paid any attention to the latest Afterlife kickstarter, but the War Drones were one of its strongest selling points, so there's definitely interest in more practical military robots out there.
Ada Lorana are a swing and a miss for me. I like their background, but I don't like their DBX model designs. Classically idealized male nudes with cyclops eyes don't really say "energy creature" to me, and if I really wanted to buy OMAC figures, there's Heroclix.
I don't get the sense that anyone's really very excited to see more Tsudochan. I'm guessing that those pining for a serpentine / reptilian race (like me) would like to see an unambiguously serpentine / reptilian race, rather than a "do they have legs or tails or what under those robes?" one. I was one of the few who kind of liked the Tsudochan until Mantic decided to make the entire team out of a single reposed CG model (the jack), at which point I gave up and threw my lot in with the Koris. Haven't looked back since.
I think the Teratons make a better template for doing a full-blown space lizardmen faction. They have a killer design, always important, and refreshingly for lizardmen, they aren't "lower on the evolutionary scale than mammals" savage morons, a tired trope that bores me to tears. All they need are some vassal lizard races and giant reptile warbeasts to vary things up a bit. But it seems unlikely they'll be chosen, given that their cool factor is a significant anchor for the Rebs faction right now.
So...those hard plastic enforcers. They look awesome. Shame I'm only getting in 20 of them. Maybe I'll email Sarah and ask if I can add another 4 sprues on.
...who am I kidding, I'm emailing her as soon as I'm out of work to do it!!
Got my missing parts from wave 2 today. Two sprues of zombies and the forge father starter. I guess that's just two baggies of 3x brokkrs with hammer/gun and the two handed heat gun/rifle thing, the chief/solo mini with sprue of his parts, and the mining laser with forge guard sprue to follow... correct?
The missions make it look like forge guard are an iffy choice. On one hand they're great for surviving and claiming a close objective, on the other hand they're too slow to be very useful for scour, infiltrate, or distant objectives. But man they've got some awesome gear.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh never mind that ninth guy is an 'engineer' that goes with the mining laser thing. Chief comes in the booster, got them confused. So yeah, right stuff.
Neat just gotta wait for my hard plastic goodies now and deadzone shall be completed.
Do the bikes just have Fast, or is there something else (maybe something that allows 2x Sprint?), because it would be a little odd to have motorbikes only be as fast as running Mutants.
Paradigm wrote: Do the bikes just have Fast, or is there something else (maybe something that allows 2x Sprint?), because it would be a little odd to have motorbikes only be as fast as running Mutants.
5 - 5 2 1-1 Vehicle (3), Fast Range 6, Ap2 Firestorm 15 Points
Deadzone is not exactly an open road, you don't get to go full throttle. Moving 2 cubes and then letting rip with 5 dice Blaze Away is amazing and will murder a cube's worth of Cyphers instantly.
I would go as far as to day the Forge Fathers are a hard counter to Asterians.
lord_blackfang wrote: Deadzone is not exactly an open road, you don't get to go full throttle. Moving 2 cubes and then letting rip with 5 dice Blaze Away is amazing and will murder a cube's worth of Cyphers instantly.
I would go as far as to day the Forge Fathers are a hard counter to Asterians.
Yeah, true. That combination of speed and firepower is pretty good considering most weapons with that kind of AP are CC to Deliberate.
Plus there's no foot model. I mean they are physically on bikes, but I guess they aren't of the type to get off of them.
Hrmm so a forge guard and a valkyr, which is at least 33 points. Could take 4 brokkrs with some gear, maybe one of them with the heat rifle thing. 6 body squad goes well with the 2-1 command of a forge guard. Nice short list to paint too...
Wow... that would kill you unless you've got wolverine regeneration! And then wouldn't you just want the super metal instead of HP covering your bones?
I'm gonna see if I can get by on my 20 HP enforcers and 10 peacekeepers for awhile.
I'll have to anticipate army deals and camp Miniature Market sales if I want any more.
I'll probably be joyously painting mars attacks minis well into next year anyway though so I may not even notice when the enforcers show up
Jeez, nearly a year later and I'm still painting stuff that came in the original Deadzone box, nevermind all the up and coming figures!
In my defense, the bulk of my Marauders are finished, save for a few leftover multiple poses (that probably wouldn't get fielded anyway, due to my wanting a bit of visual variety) and enough of my Plague are finished to field a variety of teams.
Looks like I'll be getting a 12 pound box from Mantic today, full of bugs and Martians. Not sure just how much stuff that's going to constitute.
Mine was 10 without the main game in it, and there was quite a bit
I still need to figure out if I did the math wrong and was only meant to receive 5 bugs, or if they missed one. Probably the former but gotta remember to check.
I think I'm getting 30 Enforcers, 15 Peacekeepers and 18 Forge Guard, and it's really hard keeping myself from adding more. And I don't even play Warpath, this is all for Deadzone (and XCOM proxies).
I used to have a GW problem, now I have a Mantic problem.
Holy crap balls . So that's what it should look like huh?
I'm considering replacing mine with plasticard. Same for For and alt For, bit of rod and some card at then end maybe.
Most of the rest is fine save for some droopy gun barrels here or there, and one oof my three Natalyas was taking a nap flat on the base. Not falco though, falco doesn't sleep.
My Natalya was also snapped at the foot - and they'd forgotten my second bag of Novas Virae, so no replacement! Only omission in the entire order though.
My Edwyn had the droopy sword as well, but boiling water put it right back to as displayed above. I will say that Zombicide models typically do better out of blades than this material seems to, but otherwise no complaints so far.
I think the red may have been the bendiest, the dark green science division and brown most other things were all pretty good except for the really skinny rifle barrels.
I've got to say overall, I'm fairly impressed with how the game turned out.
-It plays fast and easy.
-The figure quality, outside of a snapped ankle on a single figure and a few droopy weapons, was pretty good.
- My order was actually CORRECT the first time! That's a first for me from Mantic! No missing item reports for once!
All of this bodes well I feel for both Dreadball and Dungeon Sagas, since they'll be using this material.
At this point my only real gripes are trying to figure out what that large cylinder drum is for on the robot, and trying to get a helmet on Martian Dredd- it just doesn't want to fit!
I got my Mars Attacks pledge earlier this week, just went through it last night. First impressions:
The Mars Attacks boxed game is really, really nice. Super professional, high quality book and pieces. No wonder it's been a hot seller, this is a fantastic box.
The hard plastic trucks are equally great. I got three of them. They come in baggies with most of the big parts loose and then a sprue that has the smaller parts (machine gun, etc)
The Antenociti's Workshop wrecked resin vehicles are absolutely great. I got every single one (two of the t-boned car) and kinda wish I had bought more.
The US soldiers are fantastic and will have a much wider audience thanks to 25/28mm modern combat gaming.
As I previously mentioned I mainly got Mars Attacks for all the modern terrain and such. I got two sets of Intact plus the Ruined from the boxed game, plus three sets of accessories and all the AW resin stuff.
Mars Attacks really is the best product Mantic have ever released.
Just not needing to assemble them is awesome. 12 minutes or so of mould line cleanup per model and they're ready to paint.
I've already got the 40 minis from the boxed game primed and ready to paint which is way more progress than I ever managed with Deadzone or KoW with the masses of restic.
I got my long awaited shipping notice yesterday, should get it on Wednesday at the latest, and I'm afraid it's going to get played several times before I paint anything.
Most of my figures have had minimal flash/ mold lines, which is a serious plus. I will hopefully some day get around to painting them. Still chugging away on random Deadzone figures.
I am super happy with the ruined terrain as well. Generic brick buildings and rubble are pretty adaptable to fantasy skirmish games almost as much as they are for any sort of modern/ near future type games.
Anyone know what that big cylinder does for the big robot? Any idea where it's supposed to go on it?
scarletsquig wrote:Mars Attacks really is the best product Mantic have ever released.
Wow. I'm actually a bit surprised by that in the end. The KS happened right around when I got my hands on some disappointing Dreadball stuff, so I gave it a pass.
I've always thought your evaluations were fair, so I'll give the game another look. Everyone getting the game seems to like what they find in the box and the unboxing videos and pictures I've seen are impressive.
But level with me... is it really better than the plastic undead line for KoW?
But level with me... is it really better than the plastic undead line for KoW?
No, the plastic is definitely not as good as traditional styrene.
However, the Mars Attacks product overall is excellent. I would say the figures are at the top tier of boardgame miniatures - so that makes them better than, say, Bones, but just not as good as HIPS kits.
SS, you had mold lines? I guess it's possible mine had 'em too but I didn't really see any on mine.
But level with me... is it really better than the plastic undead line for KoW?
Different beast entirely, since you aren't having to build anything straight out of the box, other than tinkering with how you put your scenery together, which so far seems to be a lot more forgiving than its Deadzone counterparts. Admittedly there's less flexibility in how the ruins go together compared to the walls for DZ, but I've built and broken down a ton of ruins and finished buildings with not a single connector busting on me, compared to DZ's countless that have lost their lives. Expansion stuff like vehicles on the other hand have to be built... but still very nice, even if I have to put the robot in a static pose (after decades of Gundam building) and the truck can't roll. Gives me VERY high hopes for what kinds of vehicles they can pull off for Warpath.
I'd say it's better in that you can play the game practically as soon as you open the box, unwrap the cards, tear open all the baggies and punch out the counters. You're ready then!
Yes, again, the truck is a great kit and if it's representative of future plastic vehicles then I am very excited for Warpath, especially since it was only $50 for three of them as add-ons (and I'm assuming they're, what, 24.95 retail? So $20 each from most online discounters. Great value for a nicely detailed modern vehicle with multiple assembly options)
judgedoug wrote:
No, the plastic is definitely not as good as traditional styrene.
However, the Mars Attacks product overall is excellent. I would say the figures are at the top tier of boardgame miniatures - so that makes them better than, say, Bones, but just not as good as HIPS kits.
They certainly look good in the pictures and video I've seen. The comparison to bones and the boardgame miniatures categorization is really useful. Thanks!
highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Different beast entirely, since you aren't having to build anything straight out of the box, other than tinkering with how you put your scenery together, which so far seems to be a lot more forgiving than its Deadzone counterparts. Admittedly there's less flexibility in how the ruins go together compared to the walls for DZ, but I've built and broken down a ton of ruins and finished buildings with not a single connector busting on me, compared to DZ's countless that have lost their lives.
What was different about them? Just a different plastic or something?
I'm not really sure what sets the Mars Attacks building materials apart from the Deadzone ones. I'm sure they're the same (or similar) plastic. They came bagged and off the sprue (rather sloppily I might add, as I had to go in and clean up some sprue scars), as opposed to DZ's still being on a sprue.
The connectors are more durable maybe? I haven't broken a single one, and that's after assembling a deluxe set of intact pieces and a whole ton of ruined wall sections, tearing it all down again, reconfiguring it, and letting my kids have a go at building their own stuff. I would not do that with my DZ connectors, as I've broken dozens of them myself already, nevermind the rampaging children. The connectors survived my son, and that child is a Lord of Destruction when it comes to hobby materials. That to me gives it a big 'ol seal of approval.
The DZ terrain has been through several recuts since the first shipment and the fit has improved a lot. It's not up to the standard that the Mars Attacks stuff is, but certainly the more recent batches of sprues go together and come apart fairly easily.
scarletsquig wrote: Mars Attacks really is the best product Mantic have ever released.
Just not needing to assemble them is awesome. 12 minutes or so of mould line cleanup per model and they're ready to paint.
I've already got the 40 minis from the boxed game primed and ready to paint which is way more progress than I ever managed with Deadzone or KoW with the masses of restic.
I agree with this in all respects but one. There are exceptions, but I think it's fair to say that Mars Attacks models are generally not as dynamic or 3-dimensional as Deadzone's are, because the majority of its models are sculpted to be one-piece, or cast with the simplest possible assembly in mind. This is also why a few Mars Attacks models have conspicuous undercuts, whereas Deadzone models don't.
This is a typical difference when you contrast boardgame minis with wargame minis, so I'm not leveling it as a damning critique. I still like my Mars Attacks figures, and the ready-to-play-out-of-the-box (man, that's a lot of hyphens) aspect has allowed me to play several games with my son already, whereas I still haven't done much with Deadzone beyond assembly.
But I disagree with the sentiment you sometimes see on Dakka that Mantic has no outstanding PVC models, just passable ones. To my eye, Deadzone has a number of outstanding models (and yes, some average ones, and some "what-were-they-thinking?!" duds). Generally speaking, I prefer Deadzone models to the Mars Attacks minis, many of which look stilted or too static, presumably to make casting / assembly simpler. (Keep in mind that I've only received the MA starter box set so far, though, so my comparative data is a little limited yet.) I don't love the absurd amount of work it takes to make my Deadzone figures look good, but once that work is put in, they look better than my Mars Attacks figures.
Anyway, it's apples and oranges, as both approaches have their benefits. But as much as I've enjoyed playing Mars Attacks, my appetite for more one-piece / simplified pre-assembled figures of this type isn't really any bigger than my appetite for more PVC ones. I see myself moving away from both towards more hard plastic purchases in the near future.
^Which warpath will hopefully provide Or even DZ 2.0 from the sound of it.
Re: truck video; huh. I put the back of the cab, the then front of the cab, *then* the two sides on for all three of mine. I guess I was concerned with assembling the cab portion and seeing it not fit or something. Really simple kit to assemble, a lot easier than a Rhino or something (of course those have interior details and lots of gubbins, but still).
Automatically Appended Next Post: I should have watched the video though Their method for doing the wheels was a little smarter than my own.
Yeah the 3 pack of saucers is totally the same deal as the kickstarter right? That's pretty fair though I wasn't expecting them to be much more at retail, they're nice but they aren't exactly massive bits of kit.
The bundle is technically even better now since during the kickstarter it saved you 10 dollars and now it's saving you 25
I realize the thing with mantic is to always go for their bundle deals, but I'd kind of find it hard to just buy one truck or saucer for 25 bucks. They're nice kits but you could get a lot bigger of a kit from Tamiya, say, for the same or less, and for 12 more dollars I could just pick up a Rhino. What I couldn't do is get 3 of those for 50, and that is kind of neat.
Hopefully they do some bundles in the future for martian and human army deals just because
Though... I gotta ask... what's the deal with bundling the Martian Dredd with the dead figures? I could see a lot of people wanting either or... Also 5 dollars a piece for those is sketchy, but I'm probably just jaded because I refuse to buy things at RRP/MSRP/regular-price-acronym-of-your-choice.
Yup, near as damn it the same deal. In the KS it was 3 for $50 (and $20 each) so not quite buy 2 get one free but by the time you factor in exchange rates of dollar to pounds there is little in it.
Good to hear your thoughts on the saucer/trukk with regards to details and prices. I think that Mantic cut themselves so close to the bone on the Kickstarter prices, and especially this one which had weird momentum shifts and big declines in pledging, that retail is the place where they can make some actual profit. I assume that Topps charge well enough for the licence too.
If Mantic repeat the Human/Martian attack forces from the KS I think they will do well. One final question for backers out there, has anyone got a picture of the Martian standard bearer?
Can't really see myself buying any of those bundle deals, as I don't expect I'll ever need multiple vehicles. Maybe I'll pick up Martian Dredd and the dead figures some day, but only at a good discount from an online retailer.
I'm with Azazelx on this; I value "boardgame plastic" figures less, and am unwilling to pay $5 per fig. prices for them. (Or worse, the $8 per fig. prices they wanted for individual minis during the Mars Attacks kickstarter.)
I won't be buying more of them, but I am curious to see what they'll sell the robots for.
I'm with Azazelx on this; I value "boardgame plastic" figures less, and am unwilling to pay $5 per fig. prices for them. (Or worse, the $8 per fig. prices they wanted for individual minis during the Mars Attacks kickstarter.).
Those prices were really odd, especially when you consider what they were offering the Dungeon Saga stuff for- same prices, but for resin figures instead? That's some Mantic level craziness!
GrimDork wrote: I need to make my camera do whatever yours is doing there... You've managed to capture much more of the detail on the red figs.
Was using my phone's LED torch and my camera's macro mode! The resin regent is quite nice, and remarkably non-brittle - feels more like scenery resin, possibly because they didn't have to capture super-fine details. Any brave souls have the banner diorama miniature? I couldn't quite extend to the $500+ level it required...
I'm still slowly working my way through my Deadzone kickstarter wave 2.
I've got to say, I'm remarkably impressed with the Asterians. Ok, sure, the moldlines are a bit footery compared to the forge fathers. But I really do like the idea of having proper modern sci-fi 'robots.'
Yeah the asterians were a lot better than I thought And I kinda dig their fluff.
Also, I finished assembling everything from wave 2! A couple bags went to the trade pile unassemvled though so if they don't trade they may come back to haunt me.
Though having played mars attacks... I think I'd almost be more inclined to try deadzone lite first
Too bad I don't have dz ma stats allowing for that.
Are you talking about bringing DZ teams into Mars Attacks? That would be interesting., and probably pretty doable using the current figures' stats as a baseline to start from.
Though having played mars attacks... I think I'd almost be more inclined to try deadzone lite first
Too bad I don't have dz ma stats allowing for that.
Are you talking about bringing DZ teams into Mars Attacks? That would be interesting., and probably pretty doable using the current figures' stats as a baseline to start from.
Mine is due to arrive at my mailing address today. 20kg, apparently. I should have it in hand on Friday but probably won't have a chance to go through it until next Thursday, so hopefully it's all good...
I have a 4.0kg package on the way, currently in Germany. Hopefully it will be here either Friday or Monday, as the weekend would be more than a little inconvenient for me...
I got all the terrain I needed with my ridiculous Deadzone pledge so didn't need more. Though I did go for a fair bit of Mars Attacks terrain too (8kg total) ; p Got my Mars Attacks, really like it. Bodes well for Dungeon Saga and more importantly, Dreadball Extreme as I'm very happy with the quality of the models. Still love my multi-part hard plastic, but this unpack and play stuff in mars attacks is actually getting me to play a game today, whereas I still haven't played Deadzone -_- Played lots of Dreadball though!
Amusingly the first time I cut myself since cleaning Mantic Deadzone restic was cleaning this Mantic Mars Attacks boardgame plastic. Damn you mantic! Was only one cut though... the callouses built up from Deadzone warded off most of them I guess.
Alpharius wrote: I hope you bought a lot of hard plastic terrain...
...20KG?!?!?
20kg of quality restic models!
GrimDork wrote: I think he spent the entire, or possibly two of, the bloodshed on the battlefield pledges on battlezones. But my memory fails most days.
I refuse to be nominated for anything! I don't have time to paint my minis let alone make up rules for them that i'll never get to use. /sadface =/
It *should* be done, however
Yeah. Something like that. I can't exactly remember at this stage, but it's either 1x or 2x BotB worth of terrain and another BotB of pretty much the "recommended $300 pledge", plus some more terrain on top of that. Got delivered sometime today. My mum said the box is apparently around the same size as my SWM Tablescapes pledge was. So not small. I certainly wasn't expecting it to come to 20kg, though...
I got pretty much just the $300 pledge with some extra resin cars, 6 of the mats and the signed comic books (I think, lost the email), and mine was only 8.8kg
Oh, and the dreadball team. Speaking of, the team turned out quite nicely, bodes well for DBX in the same material.
I think the issue is that Remy sculpted the Warpath ones but someone else (who's name eludes me now) sculpted the Dreadball ones and they aren't up to Remy's standard. Plus fur in restic = not good! Of the original 4 Dreadball teams only the Veer Myn weren't done by Remy.
My Dreadball Veer Myn remain in the box untouched.
Honestly, as "free" minis they aren't so bad. However, once you add in the repulsive qualities of restic, they are harder to look at than a Brother Vinnie Merkel mini.
I guess it's a gripe. I mean, I never bought any Dreadball Veer-myn, so I don't have buyer's remorse or anything. I just bought what I liked, the original Warpath Veer-myn miniatures, and left it at that. I share Dave C's opinion that the Dreadball Veer-myn are not up to the same standard.
If the new Veer-myn sculpts are poor, I'll probably find a way to buy or trade for the Veer-myn deck and just use my Warpath figures. I'm sure Mantic will try and preempt that with new special Veer-myn units, but really, what more can you do with space ratmen? The polystyrene Veer-myn will have to be rank-and-file to a large degree to make good commercial sense anyway.
I'm not really expecting that they will be poor sculpts, though, so I probably will buy in. I think they'll probably be digital sculpts, for one thing, meaning whoever did the Dreadball batch will probably not be involved.
As to whether the Dreadball Veer-myn are "really that bad," I do recognize that Dreadball was going for a very different vibe than Warpath. The Dreadball universe is a bit sillier, frankly, and more open to comedy by nature, so the more slapstick Veer-myn sports poses make a certain sense there. But thematic differences aside, I don't think it's hard to tell which sculptor spent more time on their work.
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In actual news, Mantic has put up a Christmas section on their webshop. They don't appear to have any Crazy Christmas box deals.
It got lost in the MA talk. I like it but I think I'll be using it in DZ rather than DB(X) I hope the base is easy to remove. The Brokkrs with some arm swaps will mix in well too.
"These Enforcer Peacekeeper sprues are on a boat to us from the manufacturer and are due in at the start of the December. They will ship, alongside the Enforcer and Forge Guard sprues, plus anything you might have ordered in the third survey, as soon as the last component has arrived! "
Well folks, it’s only a couple of weeks until shipping and we’ve got some fresh new previews!
Hot on the heels of the free agents, sponsors and scenery are these shots of the production models for the Convicts and Kalyshi teams. As you can see the figures are looking sharp!
We’ve already shown you the Rebs and Sphyr, so next up is the Brokkrs:
I have a ton of the Enforcers and Peacekeepers coming to me, and a bunch of Antenociti's Workshop APC's and grav tanks. I believe I have discovered my Christmas break project.
I just asked Sarah to throw more Enforcers on my order. It wasn't an issue. Just ask them to send a paypal statement for the amount you want. They'll do it, I'm sure.
timetowaste85 wrote: I just asked Sarah to throw more Enforcers on my order. It wasn't an issue. Just ask them to send a paypal statement for the amount you want. They'll do it, I'm sure.
timetowaste85 wrote: I just asked Sarah to throw more Enforcers on my order. It wasn't an issue. Just ask them to send a paypal statement for the amount you want. They'll do it, I'm sure.
CptJake wrote: I can see where I ordered two sprues of Peacekeepers. Did any come with the Enforcer bundles as well, or should I just expect those 2 sprues?
(I can't remember what came with what at this point...)
Peacekeepers were an extra purchase, there weren't any of them in the starters or booster bundles save for the restic Captain.
No need to rush though, I'm sure if you wait until they're in the store you'll be able to get 40 of them for the same per unit price as the KS
Really considering adding 3 more sprues of peacekeepers to my force if they'll let me. Payday in a fortnight I guess that would becutting it close tho.
The peacekeepers (and dbx stuff too) really do look nice. I think I'm gonna be OK with 10 of them, as they're effectively the same thing as 40k terminators, you can only use a couple in deadzone (or 5 in a specific mission) generally and more than a couple of units in warpath is probably still excessive. For me, at least. If you haven't noticed I'm trying to keep myself from begging them to let me add more too
I could trawl through the updates but does anyone remember the shipping dates (tentatively, of course) for the first wave of DBX? Wasn't it sometime this year still?
GrimDork wrote: The peacekeepers (and dbx stuff too) really do look nice. I think I'm gonna be OK with 10 of them, as they're effectively the same thing as 40k terminators, you can only use a couple in deadzone (or 5 in a specific mission) generally and more than a couple of units in warpath is probably still excessive. For me, at least.?
I'm with you, Grim. I have a massive painting backlog and it's silly to add models I'll barely if ever use just because they're pretty.
So I opened up my 20kg box of Mars Attacks. I pull out my floor mats. Supposed to be 2 of each (and confirmed twice in emails from Sarah). What's in there? 4x T-junctions! I check the invoice. What's listed there? 4x T-Junctions!
1) I shouldn't have paid for the DZW3 stuff.
2) Surely they're just fething with me now?
I sent Sarah an exasperated email asking her for confirmation that they will fix it. Didn't even talk about setting this stuff on fire. I did mention facepalming.
I think I'm done with spending big on Mantic's KS at this point. I might get basic boxed games, or rulebooks. But no more going in big. They clearly just can't manage it. (This one was $775, all up.)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hm.. one of my MA boxed games is shrinkwrapped, the other is not (and has a slightly crushed box). Anyone else received non-shrinkwrapped boxes?
And is there a Boxed-set content list anywhere out there?
I got the 4x T junctions and 2x straights that I asked for.
Azazelx, I have a query for you - have you or any members of your immediate family, deliberately or by accident, ever killed a gypsy?
Also the box contents: Paper mat, two identical sheets of cardboard tokens, the victory counter sheet, the rulebook, deck of cards, 6x white d8, a plastic bag with 10 tan soldiers including a HMG and a rocket launcher, a bag containing your 9 heroes and 1 alien hero in red plastic, and 2 bags each containing 10 Martians in green plastic, 2 plastic bags of ruined terrain, 1 bag of terrain accesories and 1 bag of connectors
It really only seems to be an issue when dealing with Mantic. I mean, every other kickstarter is a 6 months to a year or three late, but that's not special snowflake stuff.
But feth, I got Sarah to confirm the mats twice in two separate emails
So the UPS guy called, Mars Attacks is schedules for delivery exactly when the KoWKS goes live, so one KS may make me miss the early birds on another KS. Grumble.
Azazelx wrote: It really only seems to be an issue when dealing with Mantic. I mean, every other kickstarter is a 6 months to a year or three late, but that's not special snowflake stuff.
But feth, I got Sarah to confirm the mats twice in two separate emails
I think at this points its evident that they really need some basic invoicing/inventory listing and packing skills with some of their staff. This is just basic, it shouldn't be complicated unless they haven't got a system sorted out correctly.
TBH I'm really surprised considering Ronnie Renton's background in logistics, you would think this kind of procedure shouldn't be an issue (and you would have thought especially for the bigger orders).