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Warhams-77 wrote:

The 'hardcore' tabletop gamer here buys english editions during a kickstarter. German translations if available are starter sets only, released much later and dont sell enough to allow for expansions to be translated. Who buys german core rules if you need the english ones for expansions? Not that many. Mantic has quite some problems selling in Germany in general from what I read and heard from shop owners. Players are rare. Even for Kings of War. You loose out on many customers if you do not offer translations early on - especially if you do kickstarters - as the initial sales are a big part.

This is a good point and one that I relayed to Mantic, the German market is huge and very important, especially for a game like Dreadball that can be put in the board games category.

 Compel wrote:
A suppose another 37 or so backers on the Jack pledge level is enough to make it sort of worthwhile, right?

I'll be dropping my Early Bird before this is over. Not sure if I'll pick up the Jack pledge or not. Frankly, it is not that great a deal when I add id the unknown shipping. I suspect I'll be able to pick up the books/cards for about the same price post KS from an online retailer and get a better shipping rate. Mantic hasn't done enough for me that I feel obligated to pay more for their products than I have to.

Earth Dragon wrote:
They aren't supposed to be anything special. Mantic has gotten absolutely panned in the past by game stores for consistently offering their catalog at firesale prices during later KS projects. I honestly think this is a far more responsible move to not undermine their exposure yet again. The problem with many TT games is that you have to have a community around to actually have them work. If you never allow for that community to assemble, the game dies. This is honestly a step in the right direction in my opinion.

If you are buying the old catalog items for the project, buy them to support the project. If you are buying older stuff on the cheap, go to the local stores to get them on the cheap.

The David Brooks of miniature gaming returns! Where have you been, guy? I thought you'd moved on from gaming to investing your money in something responsible and boring, like stocks.

I'm curious as to what you think of the CMON / Zombicide model of success and whether it would be a good way to bulk up Mantic's KS campaigns or not. It may be virtuous to support a game like DB because it's just good, but I think most pledgers want a "deal" of some sort. Mantic used to make very attractive bundle / price deals with free shipping, but they've moved away from that. The other common way to make people invest in a campaign is to load it with KS exclusives, which is what CMON do with Zombicide, Massive Darkness, etc. This creates the backlash from some that it's a turn off to retail customers who can't get that KS exclusive stuff later (except at scalper's prices on ebay), but CMON's games seem to sell well at retail despite the exclusives.

Speaking from a "smart investment" standpoint, CMON KSes are pretty reliable for making games that hold their value, and generating exclusives that can be sold afterwards to hedge your investment bet if the game is disappointing. (And Black Plague was, for me, extremely well produced and a lot of fun to play, so pretty much a win all around.) Mantic games generally don't hold their value, in my experience, and often end up being clearanced a year or two later, such that a person who sits the KS out often doesn't miss any savings and often beats the KS price in the end.

What's the answer? Does Mantic just need to put out games with better tested rulesets from the get-go? Do they need to produce a mountain of exclusives for their campaigns? I don't think cutting back on exclusives and cutting back on bargain / bundle pricing and charging shipping, as a strategy, has increased pledging interest. And on the face of it, raising prices and cutting back on benefits may protect Mantic somewhat and possibly helps at retail down the line, but it's also business 101 for attracting fewer customers during the campaign, isn't it?

When Deadzone 1 launched and made over a million, Beasts of War was speaking of Mantic as KS pros who knew how to run a successful campaign. I don't think that can really be said anymore.

Mantic can't seem to decide whether they want community/FLGS support or massive KS money. At least they realize you can't have both unless you're CMON and peddling zombies. But giving up the latter doesn't guarantee the former. Once bitten, twice shy. How many FLGS still have heaps of languishing Mantic boxes?

Like with their rules and miniatures, Mantic's market successes seems to mostly occur as a result of blind luck rather than any intelligent agency.

 scarletsquig wrote:

Warhams-77 wrote:

The 'hardcore' tabletop gamer here buys english editions during a kickstarter. German translations if available are starter sets only, released much later and dont sell enough to allow for expansions to be translated. Who buys german core rules if you need the english ones for expansions? Not that many. Mantic has quite some problems selling in Germany in general from what I read and heard from shop owners. Players are rare. Even for Kings of War. You loose out on many customers if you do not offer translations early on - especially if you do kickstarters - as the initial sales are a big part.

This is a good point and one that I relayed to Mantic, the German market is huge and very important, especially for a game like Dreadball that can be put in the board games category.

Thank you

It would be a good thing if Mantic offers a stretch goal for translations in future kickstarters like video games do. They aren't that expensive. Mantic could put some stickers onto the foreign edition boxes if producing more than english ones is too expensive. I think translating the manuals and some reference sheets wouldn't be more than 1 week of work (if at all) and this does not delay a release for long. Currently german companies like VME, Ulysses, Miniaturicum, Radaddel and a few others are translating most tabletop games and then sell them under their own lable. They are usually far behind the english releases. It's still like the 70s and 80s

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 lord_blackfang wrote:
Like with their rules and miniatures, Mantic's market successes seems to mostly occur as a result of blind luck rather than any intelligent agency.

I dont think that's correct

I think it's maybe 65% knowledge and experience, 35% blind luck

 Compel wrote:
I think it's maybe 65% knowledge and experience, 35% blind luck

I agree there is a chunk of blind luck at least. Mantic can't go a month without pulling a hand scratcher that usually doesn't work but occasionally does that would leave even the experts at Harvard Business school bewildered.

In general they are a typical GW chaser. They try to do certain things the same whether because they like them or because they are familiar, yet change enough to be different whether because it was broken or because they just didn't like it. The problem is what to keep and what to change is obviously a matter of taste, but in Dreadball and Deadzone, two of their big KS successes, they got the combo wrong in what is the staying grace in games like these: campaign play.

They don't give enough respect to making sure the rule-sets are well-tested and balanced, it's a pretty straight forward problem.

Neoprene Ultimate and Azure Forest pitches now available







Latest Yndij sculpts





Backer goals

Really like the commentators

The backing really implies they would be able to slot into something else. A forthcoming stadium terrain set?

Nope there's a slot to hold an in play event card

Elmer and Dobs aren't just for show, there's a slot in the back of the model to hold an in-play Event Card.

I jumped on an early bird that opened up. Figure I'll sit on that until the last day or so. Then I'll drop down to Jack, depending on how I feel.

 Baragash wrote:
They don't give enough respect to making sure the rule-sets are well-tested and balanced, it's a pretty straight forward problem.

This.

I eagerly awaited Warpath for years, but when the kickstarter happened it was obvious that the rules were still no where near finished, and it was a HUGE turn off.

I understand there will be a turn around time to produce and ship their products, but they should at least be finished products before we start throwing money at them, at least rules wise.

This one seems to be going very slowly:




...or is that pretty much as expected?

Mantic themselves have said that they would be happy with $200k and that's probably where this is headed now. That's probably enough to fund the boxed game and a few other bits. It's been mentioned before that board games cost in the $200k - $300k range to make and creators typically set a low funding goal to get funded and then they make up the funds near the end. Dreadball isn't as content heavy as some board games as there is only so many miniatures and parts required so it probably costs on the lower end of the scale, they can get 2 teams on 1 mold.

They've shortened the goal to get the extra Matsudan miniatures in and they'll will probably fund the Cyborgs in the next $60k- again 2 teams on 1 mold so they have to fill that mold regardless. They may have to put some of their own funds in to get everything done and get it to retail.

The problem seems to be most people have all the Dreadball they'll ever need and they are prepared to wait for retail to upgrade the Jack pledge at $45 doesn't seem any cheaper than discounted retail will be and retail may well be cheaper. I can't see Mantic doing much in the next 7 days to change that. I myself remain to be convinced that backing the KS is the way to go rather than hold off for a year and see how things turn out. None of the KS exclusives give much incentive to back right now, more coaches I have loads, the commentary team look cool but don't serve a game purpose so can be skipped.

This is a mini-kick, we were never expecting hundreds of thousands of $. We're over 160% funded, that's a great result - anything over $200K would be a fantastic result as far as I'm concerned

I never got around to assembling my Dreadball stuff. Real life got in the way. I am actually trying to get rid of my DB stuff to make more space. But if no one is interested (had a few threads in the swap shop), I may just pick up the Jack pledge

Hmm, I'm having a look through my DBX Frenzy pledge, were the Gemini twins not part of that kickstarter?

 Compel wrote:
Hmm, I'm having a look through my DBX Frenzy pledge, were the Gemini twins not part of that kickstarter?

No, I believe they didn't get unlocked.

Some updates from the last few days









Current contents of the Striker Pledge




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Updated Cyborg concept art

With 36 hours to go and at $168k

(Probably) final stretch goals

I wonder if it'll actually hit that $200k? I also wonder if Mantic are going to get the message about rebooting their games every two years?

Aside from the other various issues with Mantic - even if I were willing to back their campaigns for the models, I wouldn't buy into them on the rules anymore. We know WarPath is going to get the same treatment, ans probably Dungeon Saga as well, given Jake's lacklustre efforts once he got past the stuff he really wanted to do...

Just over 6 1/2 hours to go @$181k

Cyborg Captain unlocked



next Cyborg Team @$200k





it's not really taken off today but signs are it will easily beat yesterday - Cyborgs might be a close run thing but they have said pledge manager funds will count to unlock them.

You may seen it shared on our newsletter and facebook page but we’re also going to include Elmer and Dobs into Jack when it’s funded too.

Anyone want in for $1 so we can get the backer goal? :p

Gotta say I do think that the quality of the Mantic miniatures is steadily improving game after game

So, 45 minutes left, what are peoples thoughts?

Should have been a retail release, clearly.

Definitely. Skip new teams, just balance the old ones. Done. Maybe update a couple designs if youre feeling fancy. The KS was absolutely unnecessary. I actually kind of hope they dont hit 200k, even in the pledgemanager. Id like to see what theyd do. <.<

Stuck at around $185k and has slipped a bit. It won't see $190k let alone $200k. This probably should have just gone straight to retail alright, new rulebook and cards as a stand alone set and a reboxed version with 2 existing teams, it wouldn't have cost them much.

 Tyr13 wrote:
Definitely. Skip new teams, just balance the old ones. Done. Maybe update a couple designs if youre feeling fancy. The KS was absolutely unnecessary. I actually kind of hope they dont hit 200k, even in the pledgemanager. Id like to see what theyd do. <.<

They will magically make up the difference in the PM to include everything they intended to make from the outset. Nobody can prove shenanigans because we aren't privy to that data, but shenanigans will ensue to make the Cyborgs happen.