Anyone painting their stuff yet? I've painted the skeletons and zombies along with the core 4 heroes so far.

Found the detail a bit soft on the Zombies, but they paint up well with a few washes and a bit of drybrushing.

I'm trying to get them painted before we play any missions with them, but we're going to try some out this weekend so it might be that I end up playing with unpainted trolls, ghosts and dwarf revenants.

Once my stuff comes in I hope to jump onto the painting quickly, but it's not here yet. I think they're supposed to start shipping the US carton a/b boxes from Chicago on monday and I'm fairly close...but I'm sure there are a ton of packages to move.

I painted my resin Legendary Salamander if that counts. It's on dakka if you want to see.

I thought the details on it were fine. Then again, it was resin...

Got my first games in vs. my fiancee.

I really enjoyed them, and I think the two intro adventures are a really good way to start. We played til the first full party adventure.

First game with the Dwarf and Barbarian was a pretty easy win for the lady.
Second game, I won the first time (got a good combination of Raise Dead and Extra Command cards and was able to swamp the wizard and elf in skelingtons). We play it again and she won handily.
Third game, came with in a hair of a hero victory as they scythed through all the opposition without much worry (although the barbarian was starting to look like a pincushion as time went on - he needed two healing potions before the last fight).

Unfortunately the heroes ran out of time just as the wizard was running for the last door to break the wards. They thought the door was the objective but it revealed a room full of zombies before the actual objective, and they hadn't hurried enough before that.

Thoughts:
It plays really fast - the resolution mechanic is fun (rolling and comparing dice) and fast to resolve, and it's used for spellcasting, fighting and opening locks. The balance seems pretty good - the heroes can wade through a lot of undead, but you'll get the odd lucky hit in and with only 5 health each it stacks up. The Wizard is extremely squishy and needs to be protected but he's also pretty useful in terms of freezing foes in place, opening wards and blasting stuff apart. The elf ranger is the most versatile of the lot, I reckon. It's tense and fun, as well as being pretty fast.

Comparing it to what I've seen of for example Descent Second Edition or even the D'n'D board games, it's very streamlined but manages to include all the classic dungeon crawler tropes in a fairly satisfying way. The Overlord Cards can be really satisfying (getting a 3 Raise Dead at the start of the game can really put the heroes up against it, especially if you can follow it with extra commands to send them swarming in).

It remains to be seen how the mission balance is moving forward. When I reviewed the original game years ago, I said this was a bit more like budget Dwarf Hulk than Warhammer Quest, I can definitely say it plays like a classic dungeon crawler now.

Painting my way through the figures as we play the missions is a pretty strong incentive to get stuff done, too. 22 minis in a week is pretty fast for me, and I'm not unhappy with the outcome. Geeking out over all the components!!!

Sounds like fun, thanks for sharing

Dungeon Saga stuff so far is up on a PM blog now.

Sorry about the crappy photos - the camera is pretty good, so if you click and zoom you can get a good idea of what they're like.

I need a light box.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/670478.page

I had Carton B waiting for me in my parental home. I am there a lot looking after my elderly father so I diverted my copy there.

It was only yesterday that I finally fully unboxed things.

My copy of the dragon was mis-assembled, as was the KS exclusive box. Didn't mind about the box, the lid is askew but it fits within its sheath The dragon was a problem though, badly glued together it will need completely disassembling and reassembling to be worth painting. It would need a fair amount of green stuff to fix and I dont have sculpting skills for that frankly..

So I sent Mantic an email labeled 'Karrathor the Broken' as a play on words of the dragons name.

Got this reply:

Hi <Orlanth>,

We’re not meant to be doing anything with missing items until the 7th, but mainly due to the title of your email, I’m going to send you a slightly different Dragon model. It’s the same one, but the version we had made for Kings of war come separate to the base, so I’ll send that through. If you can repair the Dragon yourself, then you’ll have two .

Thanks Mantic. Lets see if I can indeed save the dragon. As it will be some time before I do any Halpi scenarios, I will likely ignore it and paint the other minis and sort out the replacement.

That's nice of them! I'm hoping they get me my replacement Warlord of Galahir before Christmas, but I'm not too bothered. I've got the Warhammer Age of Reckoning limited warboss that will work fine as a stand in if I feel like running the scenarios.

Oooh I've got that guy too, pretty neat model. I always like to think of it more as a goblin leader with a mount though

Good to hear they're taking care of you on the dragon, any chance of seeing a photo of the mangled original you got?

 Da Boss wrote:
That's nice of them! I'm hoping they get me my replacement Warlord of Galahir before Christmas, but I'm not too bothered. I've got the Warhammer Age of Reckoning limited warboss that will work fine as a stand in if I feel like running the scenarios.

Having now got the mini, I can say he will be worth the extra wait, and is a good warboss for Mantic style orcs in all circumstances. GW orcs are not quite the same, especially regarding the heads.
Don't you have lots of undead to kill first?

Has anyone got the 'Legendary Heroes' set? (These ones) Would be interested to know how these metal minis compare with the minis that come with DS

Weren't the supposed to be resin?

KS versions were resin, retail will be metal.

That staff will not last. A staff that thin will work for plastic, maybe for resin if you are lucky, but not for metal.

When it breaks replace it with a skull?

Because METAL!!!

So its Wednesday, anyone in the US receive their carton a or b yet?

Haven't received Jack. Nor Valendor.

Has anyone else not received their KOW2 Blaine?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Haven't received Jack. Nor Valendor.

Has anyone else not received their KOW2 Blaine?

DS is sitting in an unopened box under my desk as work, waiting for me to find enough time to open it. Still no Blaine on dinosaur yet here, either.

 Orlanth wrote:
That staff will not last. A staff that thin will work for plastic, maybe for resin if you are lucky, but not for metal.

Mine seems to be OK so far (metal), but then I've only just painted it and it has not seen any action yet.

The idea of legendary versions is cool and tempting, but I'm a bit disappointed that they don't have the equipment they earned during the campaign (when they actually "become legendary".)

Rordan should be armed with the Revenant King's hammer, and Danor should have the Troll Shaman's staff.


Also not really sold on Danor suddenly sprouting a 3 foot beard mid dungeon, but maybe he drank a Potion of Hair Growth.

Yeah I wasn't really sure about the wizard variant either, unless he went into the hyperbaric(bolic?) time chamber to train for a few years... As an advancement over a career I understand but it seems like you can reach legendary/epic status within the single dungeon campaign in the main box right?

Still, cool models, I skipped them during the kickstarter...but if I love the game enough I could be tempted.

I think the progression is accelerated on purpose for the base game. Playing the "advanced game" you progress a lot slower (giving your characters time to grow impressive beards).

I wouldnt use them for purpose. Valandor set uses the silhouettes for the original models as does the artwork. It would also have made sense for Mantic to use the epic sculpts as artwork on the card reverses.

Above all the epic models should show the progression of the game, as Da Boss said.

Are the models single piece? Because £20 is a lot to pay for models that will fall apart the entire time.

IIRC, of the four legendary base characters, only the barbarian was multi-part (right leg and left arm separate).

The game's designer, Jake Thornton, has finally had a chance to review finished versions of the product. He acknowledges some issues, and that he is "not familiar with the final version of the rules as printed, and there are some notable differences".

http://quirkworthy.com/2015/11/20/while-i-have-a-moment/

I thought that I would ramble a little about where DS is for me.

Firstly, despite the large amount of good stuff in DS, I’m a bit disappointed with some of it too and entirely understand why some of you are quite upset. My experience is very different from yours, so the reasons may differ, and I am seldom if ever entirely happy with things because I’m a bit of perfectionist, but still…

Secondly, as I find time I’m going to add whatever fixes I can for any rules queries. This is often a very time-consuming process that can literally take hours of cross-checking for a single short answer. Not every time, of course, but sometimes, definitely. So bear with me. Remember also that I’ve worked on something like a dozen other games since I last touched DS, so it’s not exactly fresh in my mind.

Anyway…

Over the next few few days I will be dealing with some of the questions on the FAQ page with mostly inline answers rather than a PDF. Partly this is because I am away from my desk, working on a tablet without access to all my original files. Partly this I because I am not familiar with the final version of the rules as printed, and there are some notable differences.

So, if I come up with an answer that doesn’t cover the whole problem, or seems to miss out a reference, please point it out so I can refine it. Once that’s done and I’m back at my desk then I can collate them into a proper PDF FAQ.

In addition to the FAQ there are some articles which might help. I’ll look at this when the building work is finished (did I mention the builders are knocking walls down in the house before we move?) and I’m back at my desk. End of next week? Maybe sooner. The most requested article seems to be something about balancing adventures. A very tricky one, that for a number of reasons. I will have another think though and see if I can come up with anything helpful to expand on what’s in the book already.

As before, please post questions to the FAQ page rather than here so I can find them more easily. Thanks

The FAQ page referred to is here:

http://quirkworthy.com/2015/11/11/dungeon-saga-faq/

 mattjgilbert wrote:
IIRC, of the four legendary base characters, only the barbarian was multi-part (right leg and left arm separate).

Yet Kelden had a separate sword blade. Don't know where to begin with prepping that, but I think I will get just one shot to glue it properly in place.

I haven't played with any of the legendary heroes yet so I cannot tell if they will be sufficiently sturdy, but I had no problem with Keldan's sword blade in gluing/painting (and I even dropped the poor fellow from my desk...)

I use the following "technique":

1. put alittle droplet of super glue on both hand and sword blade end
2. put a tiny tiny ball of greenstuff on the hand
3. press blade into green stuff - hold for 20seconds or so

now the super glue should have properly bonded with the green stuff
if necessary scrape some gs away or "model" it a bit with a toothpick/metal instrument to make it less visible

4. lean keldan in some position between things such that the sword blade is stabilised in position for the time it takes the greenstuff to harden completely (~1 day)



Same technique has worked well for Ally McSween's knife blade (seriously why is that a separate piece?!) and the treeman's separate decorative bits

The same technique also works well if you use Milliput instead of Greenstuff. The superglue seems to bond the Milliput almost instantly, and there's a lot of heat given off by the reaction - you may hear the technique called "hot welding".

If you're pinning, a tiny spot of Milliput in each hole before you put in the pin and superglue makes the joint bombproof.

As well as making the fit better, a thin ring of Milliput + superglue round the joint surfaces also helps to hold the assembly together. IIRC, my old metal Mordor Troll is about 25% Milliput, so the result is strong as well as fast-acting.

Thank you for this. I didnt know about this trick at all.

Someone should do an article.

I do something similar with blue tack, glue on both ends and blue tack in the middle. If its a big enough join I'll put the tack down first and superglue just one side to save effort. It's a slightly weaker join but they rarely break for me and usually fix really easily.

Greenstuff is probably the snobby 'proper' way to do it though, so that's probably the way to go for others.

The miliput method sounds neat too.

I find milliput coarse, even their extra fine.

Green stuff is the good stuff, the trcik to that is not to buy it from GW but to buy it as Kneadatite, you get a strip a yard long at half the price of a four inch fold from GW. It is exactly the same material, and the Kneadatite company Polymeric Systems has started calling it Green Stuff too.

The clownshoes "fix" in the latest update is pretty much the last straw for me and Mantic. I'm done with their haphazard kickstarters and fulfilment. I'll pick up the KoW rulebooks and the odd figure (sadly the ones I'm interested in were sculpted by the French sculptor who posted here about getting screwed around by them). I'm done with their badly-organised and proofread boardgame KS projects, though. At this stage, we need CMoN to put together a HeroQuest/Warhammer Quest successor. Unless Specialist Games re-releases it..

 Azazelx wrote:
The clownshoes "fix" in the latest update is pretty much the last straw for me and Mantic. I'm done with their haphazard kickstarters and fulfilment. I'll pick up the KoW rulebooks and the odd figure (sadly the ones I'm interested in were sculpted by the French sculptor who posted here about getting screwed around by them). I'm done with their badly-organised and proofread boardgame KS projects, though. At this stage, we need CMoN to put together a HeroQuest/Warhammer Quest successor. Unless Specialist Games re-releases it..

Whoa. Jake Thornton says the fix is a work in progress and Mantic realise they screwed the pooch over the hardback book. There are issues, even customer service level issues. I found I dont have enough resin bone markers to make a full set and may have to mix resin and card pieces which defeats the point in buying them to begin with, and they were KS exclusive.
I paid extra to go over $200 to get the hardback book, which was eventually free for all at $175 and not as advertised.
There have been casting problems with some of the stuff have got, and I have no base for Kelden, which is not surprising as it was added loose in most boxsets.
All in all there is a lot to complain about.

But it also DELIVERS. Just over twelve months from KS funding is not bad at all for a project of this size. The sculpts deliver in quality, the game largely delivers in quality, which is not bad at all allowing for the cap on difficulty and wide range of models to use.

Yes Mantic makes mistakes, yes it juggles a lot very quickly, but they do take game quality seriously, and they do take customer service seriously. I hope Folklore the Affliction and Human interface Nakamura Tower, both projects of broadly similar scale have the same measure of quality Dungeon Saga has shown, and I am still waiting for Heroquest 25th.

Up to you Azazelx, but I think a less than perfect success is an acceptable passmark. If you expect too much to be right first time Kickstarter will repeatedly disappoint you. Frankly I would say we got lucky that the Chinese factories didn't feth Mantic around as they have with many other projects. Deliveries have gone out with very little mishap, which is quite an achievement for a project this size. Some people will get a sucky ride, due to the roll of the dice on delivery quality, but so far is appears antic have beaten the odds, an they have done a lot to try and make the project Aus, US and EU friendly for customs purposes, and processed a massive and complicated backer delivery quickly despite using multiple hubs . I wish Reaper would do that, Bones 3 is going to drop my stones the the customs vice.

This is my only Mantic product so far, and is likely to remains such. I have no interest in the rest of their product line beyond the odd boxset here or there for WHFB. By and large I am very impressed, though I have heard that some earlier projects were mishandled and this may mean repeat customers might have differen memories of the company. If so, consider this, it appears with the reletive smoothness of the project that Mantic are learning from experience.

So.. this is your only Mantic product so far. So while I'm very happy for your postive experience, I've backed a fair few at this point and have a decent amount of first hand experience with Mantic's Kickstarters.

I've found their record appalling for competent delivery, average for component quality, wildly inconsistent levels of customer service (I'm at over 2 months now waiting on some replacement items), and spotty rules development.

I won't argue that other projects such as Myth, Sedition Wars, et al have been equally or more fethed up, but other people being gak at their job doesn't excuse Mantic from the very same. Both Dreadball and DeadZone are supposed to be rather good games at their core, but already both have had serious issues and have had to be rewritten. (Jake is generally good, but he's not nearly as good as he and his fans think he is).

BTW, it's probably better if you don't go on about how everything is the fault of the ebil Chinese Factories as you did while carrying water for Games and Gears. Mantic have been doing this for quite awhile now, as have CMoN - and the difference is chalk and cheese.

FYI, they haven't done jack gak for AU as far as customs goes, as with the current laws, we have a AU$1k threshold - so there's actually no duty to be paid anyway unlike your own VAT situation. It's fine by me that they've been attempting to reduce their shipping costs (though we paid through the nose for it) but it's got nothing to do with customs, tax, or benefiting AU backers.

Really though - promising one thing and delivering another, changing the deal over and over, fething up the product quality and then asking backers to pay for the shipping to deliver what was actually promised (and delivery paid for once already!) is clownshoes. I'm personally over it. I'll play KoW, buy the odd model, etc at retail, but I see no point in continuing to fund their semi-competent kickstarters at this point. They've finally burnt the last of my goodwill. I'd rather buy the second edition of their products at retail and hopefully not have to deal with their endless "1st edition mistakes" any more.

While I'm not planning to marry CMoN at any stage, I'd rather go with selected CMoN boardgame products as they are at this point in time far more professionally produced in terms of product, care, packaging, component quality, etc - while being just as complex in terms of "optional add-ons". So as I've said. I'd love to see CMoN's take on a cooperative dungeon crawler boardgame (with campaign system) because I've been burned enough times by Mantic.

Speaking as a completely average backer, the game is fun as feth to sit down and play, and came in time for Christmas.
Yeah there were issues, but not issues that stop four or give people having a great evening of they want to.

There at least, they succeeded.

I'm sort of in the same boat as Buttery. But I think that's because I was happy enough with the base game and missions, and the expansions.

All the extra stuff (invisible overlord, uncharted dungeon, all that) was just some extra gravy for me, that wasn't core to my engagement with the product. So the adventurers companion was not very important to me.

If it was, and if those sections of the rules were a core part of what you were interested in, then I can totally see being pissed off.

For me, the game delivered on-
Minis - 102 minis, all pretty nice quality, for a decent price. Now that I am becoming an old far, I like resilient boardgame minis that can take some abuse. These fit the bill and they are lovely to paint.
Accessories - the furniture and doors are lovely pieces and will get used by me in D'n'D games as well as DS.
Core rules/missions - fast playing, reasonably balanced, good fun. That's what I wanted.

The card components aren't of the highest quality (the dungeon tiles are good enough, but the cards are very flimsy in my opinion) but they serve their purpose.

It sucks that Mantic lured people in by over promising on the adventurer's companion rules. I was expecting a much chunkier hardback full of content.

But the other goodness overshadows that failure, for me.

I don't see how this is a "clownshoe" fix?

They are doing the best that is possible at this point of time: fix the mistakes, reprint, give it to us for free (plus postage).

All the other fixes are fixes to very very minor quibbles, but I am sure they will deliver adequate pdf digital content there too

The ONLY thing someone could be annoyed about is that they had given the impression that the AC would have truly advanced rules etc in it (more like pathfinder than dungeon saga...). Yes, they did not deliver on this and will never, probably. I am a tad sad about it but I understand why it didn't happen - it was just unrealistic for this project.


BTW: I am quite sad to hear that their customer service is so patchy / random. I had complained that my Blaine had an arm missing (for the KoW 2 blaine, not this one). I said that I was going to play an order to the webstore soon and still had DS parts and KoW 2 parts coming by post, and that I'd be happy to wait and have them send the blaine arm with that... but they still sent me A WHOLE NEW BLAINE within three days!! So, yeah, I am quite confused why they are so bad at prioritising - letting some customers wait for months and others (who express being very willing to wait!) are served within 24h.

 Azazelx wrote:
So.. this is your only Mantic product so far. So while I'm very happy for your positive experience, I've backed a fair few at this point and have a decent amount of first hand experience with Mantic's Kickstarters.
I've found their record appalling for competent delivery, average for component quality, wildly inconsistent levels of customer service (I'm at over 2 months now waiting on some replacement items), and spotty rules development.

They are getting better and you are getting jaded. Yes my experience is overall positive, but were I a repeat customer I would take each experience in separation. After all you came back for more, and no one forced you to, so you should look at this project in isolation.

 Azazelx wrote:

BTW, it's probably better if you don't go on about how everything is the fault of the ebil Chinese Factories as you did while carrying water for Games and Gears. Mantic have been doing this for quite awhile now, as have CMoN - and the difference is chalk and cheese.

Actually I ought to. Chinese outsourcing burned Catalyst Labs fingers badly and killed Rackham and iKore. Some companies do ok, others less so.

 Azazelx wrote:

FYI, they haven't done jack gak for AU as far as customs goes, as with the current laws, we have a AU$1k threshold - so there's actually no duty to be paid anyway unlike your own VAT situation. It's fine by me that they've been attempting to reduce their shipping costs (though we paid through the nose for it) but it's got nothing to do with customs, tax, or benefiting AU backers.

So it looks like there ought to be no complaint either. You cant ship across the planet without incurring costs. We don't have teleporters yet.
I am sure I will suffer badly if I back and Australian games company.

 Azazelx wrote:

While I'm not planning to marry CMoN at any stage, I'd rather go with selected CMoN boardgame products as they are at this point in time far more professionally produced in terms of product, care, packaging, component quality, etc - while being just as complex in terms of "optional add-ons". So as I've said. I'd love to see CMoN's take on a cooperative dungeon crawler boardgame (with campaign system) because I've been burned enough times by Mantic.

Here is the rub, I backed B-Sieged and I am hearing a lot of moaning about CMoN and their tardiness and customer service. For pretty much the same reasons as you made for Mantic. So its all about everyone individual mileage, and unless you get very unlucky and have a trashed or missing delivery box or a mispick or some such its simply a choice to see the glass half full or half empty. I choose the former from the same info. I could have chosen to get upset over the book, or the bad factory assembled dragon I received. In fact I did complain, but wrote such a light hearted email it got priority attention, which was unexpected.

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly.

I think that Mantic have made a reasonable compromise here - and not a clownshoes fix - and at least they have owned up to the issue and tried to fix it. Other more porminient KS companies have simply walked away from the mess they sent out

I understand that people who wanted a full advanced AC are disappointed but this was product unseen and as such there was every cahance that not everyone would get what they wanted. If the AC was the main thing that you wanted, perhaps you should have mad ethe more informed decision when it was released for retail? Sorry if that comes over a bit harsh

As it is the game delivers and scratches the same itch the original Heroquest, a fun lite RPG boardgame

I'm at their open day and they are indecently apologetic over the entire thing. No cover up, total transparency.
I can admire that in a company that could take an egotistical stand.

Edit: Side pic of below to avoid three posts.

And better late than never, I remember someone wanted to see him.

 Azazelx wrote:
The clownshoes "fix" in the latest update is pretty much the last straw for me and Mantic.

Same here, except *before* DS I read enough on Dakka to give Mantic a pass, or at least reconsider them once they deliver a game I'm satisfied with. From the comments I've read here, blogs, and BGG, they didn't.

That's not going to keep me from picking up the base game on a Black Friday or Daily Deal sale, but that goes for plenty of other games I'm interested in.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
And better late than never, I remember someone wanted to see him.

That was probably me. Thank you, I quite like the look of this fantasy Blaine. Unfortunately I still haven't received mine, so I guess it's time to file a missing item report.

ced1106 wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
The clownshoes "fix" in the latest update is pretty much the last straw for me and Mantic.

Same here, except *before* DS I read enough on Dakka to give Mantic a pass, or at least reconsider them once they deliver a game I'm satisfied with. From the comments I've read here, blogs, and BGG, they didn't.

That's not going to keep me from picking up the base game on a Black Friday or Daily Deal sale, but that goes for plenty of other games I'm interested in.

That's pretty fair - after reading these comments (From Dakkanauts I consider pretty sensible) I went back and checked the big graphics. They really did promise quite a bit that they didn't deliver on in the end - and it was primarily written material. But it was all stuff that was peripheral to my interests which probably explains why I'm so happy and you guys aren't.

The combined Dungeon Journal/Adventurers Companion would have been better than the wee booklet and fairly sparse AC we got. It also didn't really deliver on all the promised contents.

Model wise though, and in terms of core components, I feel they did deliver, and the core game is mechanically solid and importantly, plays fluidly and satisfyingly. It's not too complex, but I personally see that as a good thing.

The only poopy models they gave us are the terrible twosome from the Valandor expansion (Val himself looks like an eighties cartoon hero and Ba'el is just pretty bad in all aspects).

I do feel that the core game is pricey enough for the content at retail though! It should really come with an "evil dead" booster worth of extra minis to be properly worth it.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Speaking as a completely average backer, the game is fun as feth to sit down and play, and came in time for Christmas.
Yeah there were issues, but not issues that stop four or give people having a great evening of they want to.

There at least, they succeeded.

How can we know if we don't have our stuff yet?

You know what else would be fun for 1 or 2 peaople? The adventure books I paid for that Mantic canceled after taking my money. Frankly, those were the most exciting part of the entire DS campaign for me, the only part I pledged in the actual campaign for to show my support. And now I don't even have my Valandor consolation prize because Mantic hired Lucy and Ethel to pack all their rewards shipments.

Da Boss wrote:The only poopy models they gave us are the terrible twosome from the Valandor expansion (Val himself looks like an eighties cartoon hero and Ba'el is just pretty bad in all aspects).

It's bizarre, the painted version of Val is jaw-dropping. I was so stoked having seen it, and really it was the figureI was most buzzed for. And then he is a Ken doll of a figure in the plastic. I can only hope he paints well.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
How can we know if we don't have our stuff yet?

You know what else would be fun for 1 or 2 peaople? The adventure books I paid for that Mantic canceled after taking my money. Frankly, those were the most exciting part of the entire DS campaign for me, the only part I pledged in the actual campaign for to show my support. And now I don't even have my Valandor consolation prize because Mantic hired Lucy and Ethel to pack all their rewards shipments.

I was trying to be, you know, positive on things that are generally applicable once the core product is delivered. I'll stop.

Well, as you say, the positivity will be applicable once the core product is delivered. Whenever that will be. I used to be pretty positive about Mantic, and will be again, but it's hard to keep that positivity going while Mantic's metaphorical knee is still wedged firmly into my metaphorical jewels.

So what's the deal with the extra books/content? What is missing, solo/variant coop? Depth in terms of the custom games/bestiary/creating and leveling the characters? Still waiting on my stuff and haven't been following really closely (also barely remember what we were even promised at this point).

Why is there negativity for this game? What did manic screw up? I had pledged for the game and resin legendary characters but had to back out due to basement water issues...

I was thinking of buying the game but am seeing lots of 'mantic screwed up' comments.

I guess if they messed up bad or you are unhappy I'd buy your pledge from you as I wish I hadn't had to drop my pledge

The core game is fine, there are no screw ups there.

The Adventurer's Companion is what people are unhappy about - the hardback book that expands the game.

AI play, solo play, character creation and bestiary are all there, and functional, but they are a bit bare bones.

Also, the copies we got in the KS have page references screwed up and a few errors and duplicated sentences and paragraphs where there shouldn't be any.

It also doesn't have some of the adventures promised, which will be released digitally later.

I'm happy with what I got and I think if you get the core game you will likely find it okay, but wait to see if Mantic fix the AC before buying.

The issues, generally speaking are going to be exclusive to the kickstarter patrons. - So if you're just buying normally, you're gonna be pretty pleased with the game, I'd say.

Basically, there are numerous editing errors in the Adventurers Companion.

The impression was given of the Adventurers Companion that it was a more 'epic' book than it actually ended up being. That's not to say it's a bad book, persay. Just more of a case of wasted potential and potentially people paying more than they would have otherwise.

There's the pretty much standard "masses of missing pieces and parts of orders" thing which Mantic usually does. - I personally, for example, are missing my Dungeon Critters pack.

Some books are being released as PDF when they were advertised as physical books. Really annoying if you're a kickstarter backer but buying retail, you'd know that already...

One that my mate has mentioned which noone else has, apparently the 'traps' set is so badly made that actual fingerprints are visible on the models.

Yeah, the "kickstarter special" stuff seems to have been compromised on quality a fair bit, the focus was on making the retail game as good as possible it seems.

 Compel wrote:
One that my mate has mentioned which noone else has, apparently the 'traps' set is so badly made that actual fingerprints are visible on the models.

Here's what someone posted on BGG. Anyone who wants do know about problems with the AC (proofreading, content) should see the BGG forums. Various blogs I've read comment about the game tiles (double-sided with the same dark art), clips (don't work well), etc.

"As you can see, the left one looks like a "floor" while the right has lots of fingerprints and basically looks like something I'd make when drunk."



https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1476721/are-resin-trap-tokens-supposed-look

Wow, those are really bad. I feel really sorry for anyone who pledged for them.

Extremely poor form.

The Black Fortress tiles aren't properly double sided, but all the core game tiles are.

The art is nothing special though- a bit overcrowded in my opinion, but good enough for what it is. I prefer the black fortress ones, even though they are not properly double sided.

I took some Black Fortress tiles to my local GW today, to select a paint to go with the tiles for the bases.
I noticed that the expansionscare all double sides with one half similar to Black Fortress one half custom for the campaign. I was going for grey flagstones like Mantic did, but decided instead to go for brown.
I bought Steel Legion Drab > Reikland Flesh > Karak Stone directly based on the 'layering' side of the GW wallchart from the base colour of Steel Legion drab, which was the closest to the generic flooring for Dungeon Saga.
While I have an awful lot of paint I like to standardise bases, and therefore bought current G line so that if buy sets in the future I can have a consistent basing style.
Grey does seem a more natural shade for flagstones, but there are brown flagstone floors.

Those trap tiles are awful, glad I didn't buy them. The add ons have been very random, from those who got them the dungeon critters was a very good buy. The wound markers look great, though they dont look like they were advertised to, the acrylic counters are apparently crap, but I haven't seen them, must heard they were disappointing.

Orlanth, to say how you'd have an idea of how it would play, did Mantic ever put out the rule PDF for perusal? The three playtests we variously attended, we were only working from those photcopied and hand-written notes... And we did get a really good feel as to whether we'd enjoy it. We didn't see a real mini or card tile until maybe a few weeks before release.
It's not the same as having it in hand, I understand that entirely.

 455_PWR wrote:
Why is there negativity for this game? What did manic screw up? I had pledged for the game and resin legendary characters but had to back out due to basement water issues...

I was thinking of buying the game but am seeing lots of 'mantic screwed up' comments.

I guess if they messed up bad or you are unhappy I'd buy your pledge from you as I wish I hadn't had to drop my pledge

As has been said, the core game is fine.
Mantic basically was trying to pull off the workload of a huge company, when they're only a moderately large company. They dropped some balls trying to juggle just that few too many tasks.

The various add-ons, upgrades and exclusives are intermittently flawed, incomplete, misprinted, or misrepresented. However the company is trying to make amends by offering replacements and refunds of the worst offenders.
Basically this was a massive learning curve and has shocked people on both sides, but the game system is solid.


Mantic Things I learned today at the seminar:
They are going to hire a dedicated communication and customer relations person for future KS. They are very well aware things were leaving folks soured.
For the future Kickstarters, they're looking to up staff levels appropriately and make sure the software is foolproof.
They are keen to work on some dungeon furniture packs as a future product line based on the reactions to the plastic scenery. I didn't get the gist of the timescale.
The DS game sold out its entire print run. 18k printed, 6k went to KS, 12k went to stores and preorders.
Ronnie is keen for: There to be foam in the boxes for the expansions. This may not end up being a thing. Plastic fantasy terrain much like the current sci fi range. Convincing sculptors and that it will sell well is the obstacle.

Start saving for February. (Bear in mind I don't get newsletters, or KS updates, this may not be news)

Ronnie also may or may not have been strangled when everyone went home for some of the "leaks" he got excited over, but I also don't think it was accidental.
I'm not really sure I 100% understood some of the future things hinted at, so I'm not going to blab and go off half cocked. The above were very plain truths.

What's in Feb? The new KS? Pledge manager for warpath finally?

 GrimDork wrote:
What's in Feb? The new KS? Pledge manager for warpath finally?

Hopefully he means the post-apocalyptic licensed game that is either Mad Max or Fallout

"Convincing sculptors" is an "obstacle"? Could you please elaborate on that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alex C wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
What's in Feb? The new KS? Pledge manager for warpath finally?

Hopefully he means the post-apocalyptic licensed game that is either Mad Max or Fallout

Technically, Star Trek is a post apocalyptic setting, too. But my money's on Mad Max...as in, I would buy a boardgame plastic Immortan Joe in a heartbeat. Don't know anything about Fallout.

New KIckstarter or launch as far as I understood.

I need to talk with the folk who were with me in the light of day, but from my scant understanding, it will likely be sci fi related.

Folk could gain entry to a secret room today by raffle ticket. That sounded very silly and very cool. This is the first open day where they weren't showing everyone a big physical reveal.
Now this could have been protecting something, testing the waters as to fan leaks, building hype, who knows.
I didn't get in, I lost my ticket. I'm not very organised.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Technically, Star Trek is a post apocalyptic setting, too. But my money's on Mad Max...as in, I would buy a boardgame plastic Immortan Joe in a heartbeat. Don't know anything about Fallout.

In the thread in News and Rumors, someone had said it was one of two massive post-apoc IPs that has been relevent in the last year, leaving us Mad Max or Fallout.

 Alex C wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
What's in Feb? The new KS? Pledge manager for warpath finally?

Hopefully he means the post-apocalyptic licensed game that is either Mad Max or Fallout

Has this been referenced? I'm very out of the loop.
There was no mention of that setting today in the seminar I attended.

Also interestingly, Mars Attacks got no coverage in the seminar, and was not pushed in the store. Only the base game was on sale. The focus was all on their home grown games.

Btw I'm not blind to the faults of any company, I may be quite sentimentally cheerful about this whole KS thing, but it's mostly because I didn't risk as much as other people. I still got burned. My book box is smashed and gluey, the books inside were torn. My dragon set was incomplete, the cards were wrong with my AC.
But I've had some good times out of it, and I trusted my money to them, and I feel... not awful. That's better than 3/4s of the KS I've backed, depressingly.

Funny, because Scarletsquig confirmed post-apoc in the News and Rumors thread...

Back to being confused...

There can be post apoc AND sci-fi. But they already did terminator.. And AvP.

Trying to think of post apoc sci-fi in the last year....

 Alex C wrote:
Funny, because Scarletsquig confirmed post-apoc in the News and Rumors thread...

Back to being confused...

Okay, to expand, the sci fi title is not the same as the post apoc title.
The post apoc was not common knowledge, if it's true, its a leak from the secret room raffle thing.

I was just reading in another thread about Bethesda having turned down official lisenced miniatures for Fallout, so don't know if that makes it more or less likely? (i.e. they either aren't interested in lisencing out, or they were waiting from a better offer from a bigger company i.e. Mantic, to do a more comprehensive job of it?)

The more I read about this now though the more I think Mad Max.. although I have to wonder would that really be worth $3mil+ as Deadleh was stating in the N&R section, even with the official lisence and Tom Hardy/Charlize Theron miniatures etc?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
"Convincing sculptors" is an "obstacle"? Could you please elaborate on that?
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alex C wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
What's in Feb? The new KS? Pledge manager for warpath finally?

Hopefully he means the post-apocalyptic licensed game that is either Mad Max or Fallout

Technically, Star Trek is a post apocalyptic setting, too. But my money's on Mad Max...as in, I would buy a boardgame plastic Immortan Joe in a heartbeat. Don't know anything about Fallout.

To be fair, if they revealed it to be Star Trek having said it was post-apocalypse, there would be a lot of confused faces in the room. As Star Trek is pretty much the exact opposite of Post Apoc by any measure
Perhaps a couple (who could remember was it those couple of episodes of DS9?) would still probably be rolling their eyes.

Mad Max would fit as it would give them a Gorkamorka analogue.

One more off the checklist!

Alex, each Star Trek series mentions the 3rd World War and the "Post Atomic Horror." When we see it in First Contact, the post apocalypse earth looks like a trailer park in Wyoming.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyway, if it is a Mad Max game, will it be 28mm in scale, focusing on the characters? Or will they use smaller miniatures and focus on the cars?

I don't think it's Mad Max.

....I would really really like to be wrong, but I don't think that it is.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Orlanth, to say how you'd have an idea of how it would play,

Where did I say that? The only inkling I got was from the beast of war videos, and didnt see anything for myself until I received my pledge.
You must be misreading me somewhere.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

did Mantic ever put out the rule PDF for perusal? The three playtests we variously attended, we were only working from those photcopied and hand-written notes... And we did get a really good feel as to whether we'd enjoy it. We didn't see a real mini or card tile until maybe a few weeks before release.
It's not the same as having it in hand, I understand that entirely.

IIRC there was only the rough release notes, and I never bothered with those.
I backed because it was a dungeon bash game, based on what I saw available to backers. It looked like a damn good deal, and if the rules sucked it would all become RPG fuel. As it happens the rules don't suck and Dungeon Saga will be used on its own merit.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

As has been said, the core game is fine.
Mantic basically was trying to pull off the workload of a huge company, when they're only a moderately large company. They dropped some balls trying to juggle just that few too many tasks.
The various add-ons, upgrades and exclusives are intermittently flawed, incomplete, misprinted, or misrepresented. However the company is trying to make amends by offering replacements and refunds of the worst offenders.
Basically this was a massive learning curve and has shocked people on both sides, but the game system is solid.

Agreed, there are errors popping up, but nothing too substantial.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

Mantic Things I learned today at the seminar:
They are going to hire a dedicated communication and customer relations person for future KS. They are very well aware things were leaving folks soured.
For the future Kickstarters, they're looking to up staff levels appropriately and make sure the software is foolproof.
They are keen to work on some dungeon furniture packs as a future product line based on the reactions to the plastic scenery. I didn't get the gist of the timescale.
The DS game sold out its entire print run. 18k printed, 6k went to KS, 12k went to stores and preorders.
Ronnie is keen for: There to be foam in the boxes for the expansions. This may not end up being a thing. Plastic fantasy terrain much like the current sci fi range. Convincing sculptors and that it will sell well is the obstacle.

Interesting. I think this will become Mantic's biggest line, it was certainly their biggest KS project.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Alex, each Star Trek series mentions the 3rd World War and the "Post Atomic Horror." When we see it in First Contact, the post apocalypse earth looks like a trailer park in Wyoming.

But has Star Trek been relevent this last calender year? That was one of the clues.

 Alex C wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Alex, each Star Trek series mentions the 3rd World War and the "Post Atomic Horror." When we see it in First Contact, the post apocalypse earth looks like a trailer park in Wyoming.

But has Star Trek been relevent this last calender year? That was one of the clues.

Depends on how you define relevant. Between Axanar, the upcoming Anniversary hype, and the announcement of a new TV show, I'd say so. Anyway, it was not a serious suggestion, so let's not worry about it.

I'm starting to think it must be Fallout, and Mantic will give it the MA treatment, which is probably the best we can hope for.

Apologies Orlanth, I was browsing on mobile without avatars enabled and got you mixed up with Bob. My screen is only wide enough to show the post content at a readable size, or the side bar, so sometimes I get very confused.

Though my question was the same - (did they allow folk any real idea of content?) - sounds like errr, sort of? :/ Oh dear.

I will say this about the secret license... If you are lucky enough to find out what it is through someone being loose lipped, please be very careful. It's not about winning bets or spoiling surprises, it's about potentially voiding an agreement for Mantic which means none of us benefit.
This already happened for me today (two separate sources, same license name), and it leaves me unable to comment on the subject and kinda sad that I can't do guessy-guessy with everyone else. I hope, I really hope, that it stays under wraps long enough not to get anyone in legal bother.

To be fair, I also hate knowing what my christmas presents are in advance.

Is Fallout the franchise with that cartoon blond boy, head crabs and "pick up that can"? If so, it has quite some cultural penetration, beyond even Halo or Mass Effect, based on how many references I see and hear for it in my non-video gaming circle.

Half life is the one with head crabs.

Fallout does have a blond cartoon character used frequently in illustrations for the game, vault boy.

I'm missing the can reference though.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is Fallout the franchise with that cartoon blond boy, head crabs and "pick up that can"? If so, it has quite some cultural penetration, beyond even Halo or Mass Effect, based on how many references I see and hear for it in my non-video gaming circle.

Vault Boy (blue jumpsuit. cheesy grin) is Fallout. Pick up that Can is a tutorial in Half Life.

I think what's worth considering, is "What titles would also sell in a board/game store?"
Many titles could sell as a board game. But could it sell well? Would parents pick it up for family members unbidden?

GoT was given as an example in the N&R topic, that is something that has multi level reach beyond gamers. I believe it has a board or card game already.

The cartoon blond boy, (Vault Boy), - yes, that's the one.


Head crabs and 'pick up that can, citizen' would refer to The Half Life game series from Valve. Specifically, Half Life 2.

Half Life 2 is post Apocalyptic (Half Life 1 was more alien invasion as it happened). But, it's also basically been a dead franchise for the last 8 years.

It could be Falling Skies, but that show is finished now and I don't think was ever 'that' popular.

The Walking Dead, Fantasy Flight holds some licenses to it so I imagine that they'd be more likely to do something than Mantic.

Mad Max, well, that seems likely to me. - Fury Road was a bit of a 'sleeper hit' in the summer. When it was released, it was not particularly heavily advertised but grew massively due to word of mouth and is overall well thought of but didn't really have the 'huge' blockbuster bucks thrown at it (I imagine the sequel will though).

You have a large variety of vehicles at 28mm, which Mantic have done successfully before, people crying out for 'more' Mad Max. - The obvious Gorkamorka analogues too (lets face it, Gorkamorka was Mad Max with orks, so it makes sense to do Mad Max.)

Fallout game would be great. A mad mac game would be cooler. No one has made an official mad max game with official classic muscle vehiclea yet.

I have seen several car war type games but no one has done the game perfect yet.

Falling skies and half life aren't popular enough and are just meh.

The walking dead would be great if the minis are realistic 28mm or 32 mm. This would make a great coop type game.

Looking at those vehicles being previewed for Warpath it would seem Mantic are definitely getting going with that side of things.

That might make Mad Max a better fit..

Let's be honest, we were all secretly hoping it would be Iron Sky.

Should I be concerned I haven't received my core copy of Dungeon Saga yet?

Not considered late until December 7th. They just started going out in the US last Monday. Living within 5 or so hours of Chicago I'm hoping to see mine sometime this week, though turkey day shipping shenanigans may slow things up a bit.

Ok, cool. Sounds good!

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Let's be honest, we were all secretly hoping it would be Iron Sky.

I'm not sure how that movie went so badly so quickly. Anyway, DFG and DUST have my space nazi needs met.

This is pretty cool, the original piece of Dungeon Saga artwork for sale by the artist.

Yours for a cool £3394

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/236579478/dungeon-saga?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_uk_en_gb_a-art_and_collectibles-painting-other&utm_custom1=07d3b514-3924-4299-ad6d-e1da1aa47307&gclid=CI72mqbWp8kCFaXnwgod-rELsA

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Funny, because Scarletsquig confirmed post-apoc in the News and Rumors thread...

Back to being confused...

Okay, to expand, the sci fi title is not the same as the post apoc title.
The post apoc was not common knowledge, if it's true, its a leak from the secret room raffle thing.

Ronnie Renton posted the post-apoc hint at the end of the last update of the Warpath Kickstarter. Public knowledge for a long time, and accurate.

 Compel wrote:

Wow, those really are terrible. I hadn't seen them before due to not ordering them.

 Da Boss wrote:
I'm sort of in the same boat as Buttery. But I think that's because I was happy enough with the base game and missions, and the expansions.

All the extra stuff (invisible overlord, uncharted dungeon, all that) was just some extra gravy for me, that wasn't core to my engagement with the product. So the adventurers companion was not very important to me.

If it was, and if those sections of the rules were a core part of what you were interested in, then I can totally see being pissed off.

For me, the game delivered on-
Minis - 102 minis, all pretty nice quality, for a decent price. Now that I am becoming an old far, I like resilient boardgame minis that can take some abuse. These fit the bill and they are lovely to paint.
Accessories - the furniture and doors are lovely pieces and will get used by me in D'n'D games as well as DS.
Core rules/missions - fast playing, reasonably balanced, good fun. That's what I wanted.

The card components aren't of the highest quality (the dungeon tiles are good enough, but the cards are very flimsy in my opinion) but they serve their purpose.
It sucks that Mantic lured people in by over promising on the adventurer's companion rules. I was expecting a much chunkier hardback full of content.
But the other goodness overshadows that failure, for me.

At this point I only have the extras, and they are a pretty big disappointment so far. Including the minis, as I have a good number of them either mangled or broken, and more than half at minimum are warped. Nice sculpts on poor quality figures, and that's with the "boardgame figures, not miniatures" caveat. Or perhaps they would be decent but corners were clearly cut/QA was poor. Also not counting my missing stuff, because that's par for the course with Mantic.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
So.. this is your only Mantic product so far. So while I'm very happy for your positive experience, I've backed a fair few at this point and have a decent amount of first hand experience with Mantic's Kickstarters.
I've found their record appalling for competent delivery, average for component quality, wildly inconsistent levels of customer service (I'm at over 2 months now waiting on some replacement items), and spotty rules development.

They are getting better and you are getting jaded. Yes my experience is overall positive, but were I a repeat customer I would take each experience in separation. After all you came back for more, and no one forced you to, so you should look at this project in isolation.

I'm getting over Mantic, rather than simply jaded. Only a fethwit would look at each project from the same company in isolation. I wouldn't have backed this one, but I was hopeful for the HeroQuest thing, and was willing to give them a chance on it. At this stage I can safely say that I've learned my lesson, as I have no trust in Mantic to become competent, despite the latest round of Ronnie promising to do better "next time". Because that's happened more than once before as well and you can only mea culpa so many times before it becomes a bit meaningless. I believe I've seen all of these things promised before:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

Mantic Things I learned today at the seminar:
They are going to hire a dedicated communication and customer relations person for future KS. They are very well aware things were leaving folks soured.
For the future Kickstarters, they're looking to up staff levels appropriately and make sure the software is foolproof.

And, you know - put out the fething rules PDF before publishing it so the community can proofread them for you if you've proven that you can't do it yourself. Especially for a boardgame as opposed to a wargame. (Also far from a Mantic-only issue)

 Azazelx wrote:

BTW, it's probably better if you don't go on about how everything is the fault of the ebil Chinese Factories as you did while carrying water for Games and Gears. Mantic have been doing this for quite awhile now, as have CMoN - and the difference is chalk and cheese.

Actually I ought to. Chinese outsourcing burned Catalyst Labs fingers badly and killed Rackham and iKore. Some companies do ok, others less so.

Uh, yeah. It was the Chinese who killed Rackham. Uh huh. fuuuuuuu....

 Azazelx wrote:

FYI, they haven't done jack gak for AU as far as customs goes, as with the current laws, we have a AU$1k threshold - so there's actually no duty to be paid anyway unlike your own VAT situation. It's fine by me that they've been attempting to reduce their shipping costs (though we paid through the nose for it) but it's got nothing to do with customs, tax, or benefiting AU backers.

So it looks like there ought to be no complaint either. You cant ship across the planet without incurring costs. We don't have teleporters yet.
I am sure I will suffer badly if I back and Australian games company.

Ahem. You were the one talking about how they went out of their way to help Australian backers by being "customs friendly". I simply pointed out that you did not fully understand what you were talking about, and so your point there was and remains moot. Thanks for playing, though.
Now you're attempting to justify them asking for more shipping money to fix their own fuckup. Sorry, that's not how customer service works for big boy companies. I believe they made this choice so as to discourage many people from actualy getting the books, as the customers will have to pay more.

 Azazelx wrote:

While I'm not planning to marry CMoN at any stage, I'd rather go with selected CMoN boardgame products as they are at this point in time far more professionally produced in terms of product, care, packaging, component quality, etc - while being just as complex in terms of "optional add-ons". So as I've said. I'd love to see CMoN's take on a cooperative dungeon crawler boardgame (with campaign system) because I've been burned enough times by Mantic.

Here is the rub, I backed B-Sieged and I am hearing a lot of moaning about CMoN and their tardiness and customer service. For pretty much the same reasons as you made for Mantic. So its all about everyone individual mileage, and unless you get very unlucky and have a trashed or missing delivery box or a mispick or some such its simply a choice to see the glass half full or half empty. I choose the former from the same info. I could have chosen to get upset over the book, or the bad factory assembled dragon I received. In fact I did complain, but wrote such a light hearted email it got priority attention, which was unexpected.

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly.

Looked at those "bases"? Acrylic counters? Changes from Skull to Heart-counters? Pay for a printed book? Expect the Adventurer's companion to resemble the huge tome they used to advertise it? As you seem to have (later) acknowledged those issues, you may wish to revise your statement above.

CMoN ships their expansions in retail packaging, rules are checked and proofed, and components are of a consistent excellent quality. They've come along in leaps and bounds since Sedition Wars. And barring mispacks or your box getting lost/smashed by the post, their projects have been very light on legitimate complaints. People in the Zombicide BP comments are crying because the figures are in brown plastic instead of multicoloured like S1-3, and I can respect that coloured tokens are much easier for boardgamers and people who will never paint their models to use, but if you compare that to the component issues we have here....

ced has the right idea. Mantic is probably going to be a Black Friday company for me in terms of their KS products, as they have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted to follow through on their promises. An embyonic form of Peter Molyneux syndrome, perhaps? The info from the sculptor who posted here awhile back certainly doesn't help... And they really need to stop promising printed books at this stage...

Those trap tokens . It is a real shame that Mantic continue to let issues of quality control and customer service damage their brand and turn people away from them. Overall I have seen a lot of positive praise for DS but one look at the KS comments shows that a number of vocal backers are very unhappy at the moment. This seems to be mainly from those (in the US especially) that have yet to get their packages or are just plain angered by the quality/minimal size of the adventurer book and extras and a perceived "hiding their head in the sand" by Mantic.

It is just a shame that these issues seem to hinder Mantic, who are already a big player in the industry, from reaching the next level. I just hope that the new big IP they have brings with it a closer attention to detail and improved quality control.

Have ordered DS, £43 inc. free P&P from Firestorm Games here in the UK.

From reading reviews of the gameplay I'm hoping for a few (maybe more, if it's fun) games with some friends with dwarf, barbarian et al tromping around a dungeon. For me, that's a really reasonable price. I'm not expecting it to set the world on fire, although on that score I guess that's the difference between spending £40 on something and hundreds (which it is very easy to do with a KS)

That is a good price Pacific. Took a look at their website. The Adventurers Companion is a good buy to add on, forget the rest if I were you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:


Uh, yeah. It was the Chinese who killed Rackham. Uh huh. fuuuuuuu....

Yes. Rackham made AT-43 and Confrontation Age of Ragnarok. Both games had potential, however stock imports from China were extreemly haphazard. They had no stock availability on basic lines for months at a time, when core items were plain unavailable the game was killed.

Imagine Gw outsourced and was told, 'no space marines until six months time', then after six months, 'perhaps space marines in another ix months'. The outsourced manufacturer doesn't give a gak, so long as they are paid, which is done upfront to get any work done.

 Azazelx wrote:

Looked at those "bases"? Acrylic counters? Changes from Skull to Heart-counters? Pay for a printed book? Expect the Adventurer's companion to resemble the huge tome they used to advertise it? As you seem to have (later) acknowledged those issues, you may wish to revise your statement above.

I acknowledged those issues from the outset, and have some misgivings, but the core product we backed for is just fine and a good value for what we paid for.
I am a glass half full backer, rather than a glass thrown at wall in tantrum backer.

For those of you who backed Warpath, have you seen this post over at bgg? Maybe it's getting posted elsewhere, but for those with the time, take a look:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1478753/warpath-rulebook-page-design-opinions-needed

 Pacific wrote:
Have ordered DS, £43 inc. free P&P from Firestorm Games here in the UK.

From reading reviews of the gameplay I'm hoping for a few (maybe more, if it's fun) games with some friends with dwarf, barbarian et al tromping around a dungeon. For me, that's a really reasonable price. I'm not expecting it to set the world on fire, although on that score I guess that's the difference between spending £40 on something and hundreds (which it is very easy to do with a KS)

It has a lot of replay value. The closest I can describe it is a videogame where you know you're going to die, you just get a little better each time. If the heroes win the regular adventures on the first try, you're doing something very wrong as an overlord.

it took our Monday night group five attempts to beat Adventure 1: Well Met, and then suddenly they cracked it with 4 turns to spare.

So far all I've gotten is one of the expansions that was shipped separately, still waiting for the rest so I haven't read the rules yet. Anyway.. is there any kind of facing rule saying you need to have square bases? I like the look of round bases better so I was thinking about rebasing stuff... figured a 25mm round would be fine for most? 40 or 50mm for the big models?

I believe facing is v important, yes, but that can be easily handled with round bases I am sure.

Facing is important but as long as it's unambiguous there shouldn't be any problem with round bases.

The bases are one of the games nice features I like them a lot and am tempted to buy them by the bagload later.

They have only one flaw, the fit the squares and thus can get very crowded if you have a bunched melee, and clumsy if any parts go over the base edge, as you cant easily readjust for multiple fighters with wings or polearms.

The bases also argue with the connection clips.

Is facing just front & back? that should be easy enough for round bases. I just prefer that look.. I do like the dungeony pattern the square ones have though

I was going to go with Proxie Model's round bases, they're cheap and nice & flat so they'll be good for a board game too. I like the warmachine style bases the best, but they're 30mm so they would probably be too big.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Have ordered DS, £43 inc. free P&P from Firestorm Games here in the UK.

From reading reviews of the gameplay I'm hoping for a few (maybe more, if it's fun) games with some friends with dwarf, barbarian et al tromping around a dungeon. For me, that's a really reasonable price. I'm not expecting it to set the world on fire, although on that score I guess that's the difference between spending £40 on something and hundreds (which it is very easy to do with a KS)

It has a lot of replay value. The closest I can describe it is a videogame where you know you're going to die, you just get a little better each time. If the heroes win the regular adventures on the first try, you're doing something very wrong as an overlord.

it took our Monday night group five attempts to beat Adventure 1: Well Met, and then suddenly they cracked it with 4 turns to spare.

Ah thanks for that, certainly sounds encouraging! I think I'm probably going to play a few games, then pick up the adventurers guide.

What usually happens in these kinds of games is I play the bad guy/overlord, and then am much too soft on the adventurers playing the game. I leave a few gaps for them to have a chance to pull the game back and then end up losing at the last moment..

You aren't the GM,but a rival player, so have no mercy, crush the sanctimonious fools who dare tread in your dungeon home.

This does them a favour, as the scenario are balanced enough the heroes will eventually learn how to win.

 Necros wrote:
Is facing just front & back? that should be easy enough for round bases. I just prefer that look.. I do like the dungeony pattern the square ones have though

I was going to go with Proxie Model's round bases, they're cheap and nice & flat so they'll be good for a board game too. I like the warmachine style bases the best, but they're 30mm so they would probably be too big.

Facing is a little more than front or back. Imagine your figure stood on a square grid, facing forwards. The three squares directly in front, and the ones to left and right are 'front', and the three behind are 'behind'. There's a penalty if you're attacked from behind. So, on a grid:

F F F
F X F
B B B

Does that make sense? As long as it's obvious where your figure is 'looking', it shouldn't be a problem how they're based.

If you have round bases, mark the front somehow, it will be enough to just have a dot on the base.
This might sound simple enough to leave to the miniature, but it can be confusing for some with minis that face off centre or stand sideways. For the official minis this only becomes confusing with Madriga, but confusion is often a watchword for gamesmanship. Square bases make it hard for someone to 'accidentally' face a diagonal, though adding a centre dot on the front arc also prevents gamesmanship, but gives levity when positioning the base on the board square.

I got my DS package a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't had time to open it until today, during a slow hour at work. Everything appears to be there, and the models look much nicer than I had expected. For some reason, they seem to have sent me two copies of Return of Valandor, and three sets of the Valandor/Bael, along with the usual mountain of packing peanuts and three empty ziploc baggies. I'll have to spend some more time going through everything over winter break, but at this point I have no regrets over backing this project.

I wonder if the orc archers will be available separately. They'd make a nice unit of Skulks for KoW.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
I wonder if the orc archers will be available separately. They'd make a nice unit of Skulks for KoW.

KoW Skulks were released a month or so back so it seems unlikely.

 Orlanth wrote:
You aren't the GM,but a rival player, so have no mercy, crush the sanctimonious fools who dare tread in your dungeon home.

This does them a favour, as the scenario are balanced enough the heroes will eventually learn how to win.

Ah OK, so similar to Descent then in that regard.

I struggled with doing that in that game as well actually, too much playing D&D is very hard for un-learn that style of play!

Great to hear that the scenarios are well balanced, look forward to playing some games for the first time this weekend!

I'm impressed by the plastics, the material is harder than I thought it would be and holds a decent amount of detail. The Valandor model is a bit lacking in comparison, but I'll live.

All in all, a massive amount of plastic and card that must have risked the delivery dude's core strength, I'm missing my resin addons, but that's hopefully nothing that an email won't rectify.

 Orlanth wrote:

Yes. Rackham made AT-43 and Confrontation Age of Ragnarok. Both games had potential, however stock imports from China were extreemly haphazard. They had no stock availability on basic lines for months at a time, when core items were plain unavailable the game was killed.

Imagine Gw outsourced and was told, 'no space marines until six months time', then after six months, 'perhaps space marines in another ix months'. The outsourced manufacturer doesn't give a gak, so long as they are paid, which is done upfront to get any work done.

Your narrative about the evil/indifferent Chinese seems to omit more than a few poor decisions made by Rackham, but hey - you're welcome to believe what you like.

 Azazelx wrote:

Looked at those "bases"? Acrylic counters? Changes from Skull to Heart-counters? Pay for a printed book? Expect the Adventurer's companion to resemble the huge tome they used to advertise it? As you seem to have (later) acknowledged those issues, you may wish to revise your statement above.

I acknowledged those issues from the outset, and have some misgivings, but the core product we backed for is just fine and a good value for what we paid for.
I am a glass half full backer, rather than a glass thrown at wall in tantrum backer.

Huh.

I thought you said:

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly.

Can't see much? gak, you're a perfect corporate customer. Because you seem to forget that people pay money for these things and tend to expect that the quality or design of the things that they paid for would match or at least be a very close approximation to what was promised. It's fine that you place little to no value on your money or the time that it takes to earn it, but I value my own a bit higher, it seems.

Your little snipe about broken glasses is telling, since you appear to be the kind of guy who will take any old gak you're given and thank them for it. People who get pissed off and vocally angry about things that aren't up to scratch are the ones who actually force change and backpedalling when companies decide to feth over their customers.

 Azazelx wrote:


Your narrative about the evil/indifferent Chinese seems to omit more than a few poor decisions made by Rackham, but hey - you're welcome to believe what you like.

I will, because it makes sense. You highlighted Rackham alone out of the several companies I mentioned which show a recurring pattern.

 Azazelx wrote:

I thought you said:

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly.

Can't see much? gak, you're a perfect corporate customer. Because you seem to forget that people pay money for these things and tend to expect that the quality or design of the things that they paid for would match or at least be a very close approximation to what was promised.

It is.
Mantic even offered you premium quality seperatly via exclusive resin miniatures. They were also up front about Dungeon Saga being made of single piece boardgames quality plastic.

 Azazelx wrote:

It's fine that you place little to no value on your money or the time that it takes to earn it, but I value my own a bit higher, it seems.

And you are wrong to do so. They never offered you premium plastic models in the boxsets, as boardgame quality sculps they are well above average for the most part. Superior to the sculpts for Descent at least.
You have the entirely unrealistic expectation of what you are getting, perhaps you should have read the Kickstarter description when you backed it.

When you add to that the quality of sculpts available for the premium resin miniatures, which were provides as an optional extra you have only yourself to blame. Exemplary sculpts of most pieces were provided for you. Not all I must admit but you cant crucify Mantic for that.

 Azazelx wrote:

Your little snipe about broken glasses is telling, since you appear to be the kind of guy who will take any old gak you're given and thank them for it. People who get pissed off and vocally angry about things that aren't up to scratch are the ones who actually force change and backpedalling when companies decide to feth over their customers.

^ Please dont throw the rattles out of the pram ^

With minor exception what you got it what Mantic promised. If it sucks now in your opinion then it sucked during the pledge funding and its your fault for backing a project that was clearly from the description given not worth buying. If you are upset over the exceptions to this like the hardback book then take a chill, Mantic didn't provide 100%, who does?

You are entirely as an artistic opinion not to like Dungeon Saga, it is entirely subjective whether a models is awesome or sucks. I for one don't like the barbarians axe, the horned skull at the back just seems to get in the way and look ridiculous. Someone else might think its awesome. However what you are doing is flatly denying that Mantc have delivered what they promised i the KS to deliver. The fact is by and large they have, there are exceptions, resin counters, acrylic counters and the hardback book especially, but they are a small percentage of the project. For the vast majority of items we get a clear reresentation of what Mantic promised in their text and showed in their images when the Kickstarter was active.

The novels, the cut scenarios, the lack of explaining about extra hero's not coming with rules unless you buy the expansion, overselling the book that allows you to create a dungeon and campaign.

Still, to Mantic's credit I have my refund coming now and will probably still concider them again when spending cash, something I wouldn't have done if they'd not sorted me out.

I still haven't seen anyone here in the US that have received their core box, Is that still the case? Have they said anything about when these will begin to ship? I thought they all arrived at the dispersement point about 2 weeks ago. I got screwed around with the KOW2 shipping and blew my lid and am probably on a blacklist with Mantic. I'm concerned with their lack of updates their and the fact that I was a late backer on this that I might get left out. I don't get the updates from this being a late backer, and I'll admit that I haven't been following the comments as closely as I should due to life stuff.

I think the last update alluded to most of the boxes having been sent, and promised another update about the shipping status quote soon... However I think soon has already passed. Lemme go look it up again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the 20rh they said they were most done and should be by the 7th promising more on shipping in a future update. Which was 9 days ago. As close as we are to the US distribution center I think we both should have gotten it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But I guess there's just over a week before official lateness.

Theophony, I was a late backer for KoW and was forgotten about, so it's worth hounding them about it if you don't have it by the 7th.

 Alex C wrote:
Theophony, I was a late backer for KoW and was forgotten about, so it's worth hounding them about it if you don't have it by the 7th.

Same here for KoW2. Still no response from Armstrong. R2 puts his odds of survival at 720 to 1. Oh dear oh dear.

 Alex C wrote:
Theophony, I was a late backer for KoW and was forgotten about, so it's worth hounding them about it if you don't have it by the 7th.

That's not a Good sign.....

But I did contact rich a few months back and asked him to double check my order and he sent me a copy of my paid invoice. I have his email saved. But I have been a big pain in his butt on the KOW2 comments and have called him out as the liar he is with proof. (He promised he mailed my replacement pledge the day before minus some things), he then went on vacation and Steve emailed me and said he would get it out the next day (2days after rich had supposedly shipped it). I got Stevie's box of goodies, with a couple extra figs (a Blaine that they were out of stock on , and an extra Ronaldo the bard). Still no sign of riches box. I want things to go smooth as I don't want to look like I'm making stuff up with Mantic not being able to ship stuff. There's just too much mis-ships happening out of there.

VicVox wrote:
I haven't played with any of the legendary heroes yet so I cannot tell if they will be sufficiently sturdy, but I had no problem with Keldan's sword blade in gluing/painting (and I even dropped the poor fellow from my desk...)

I use the following "technique":

1. put alittle droplet of super glue on both hand and sword blade end
2. put a tiny tiny ball of greenstuff on the hand
3. press blade into green stuff - hold for 20seconds or so

now the super glue should have properly bonded with the green stuff
if necessary scrape some gs away or "model" it a bit with a toothpick/metal instrument to make it less visible

4. lean keldan in some position between things such that the sword blade is stabilised in position for the time it takes the greenstuff to harden completely (~1 day)



Same technique has worked well for Ally McSween's knife blade (seriously why is that a separate piece?!) and the treeman's separate decorative bits

I have been fond of this method since first encountering it in The Army Painters' free painting guide.

It works amazingly well.

The Auld Grump

Looks like bad news for American backers- the distribution company Mantic hired has been sending the parcels out at a really incredibly slow rate, and if they don't get their act together Mantic reckons they might not all by delivered by 7th December.

I saw that, I was sad. Well, am sad.

Lame.

How does anything that can call itself a company manage to only send out 80 boxen in a given day? I mean they're prepackaged... so far as I understand they'd have to get them all in, store them (and there were probably a lot but still) and then slap on a label for where each goes before chucking it on a truck...

Oh well, probably some small time company they found that was offering cheap rates.. or possibly the company oversold it's capabilities and fooled mantic and what not. Either way, kind of bored of it all at this point

 GrimDork wrote:
possibly the company oversold it's capabilities

You talking about Mantic or their distributor?

Maybe it's both?

Finally got my DS stuff today. Tyrant Blaine looks awesome, but either has a tattered to hell cloak or a ton of bubbles. Valandor is...sigh. Half the quality of a Bones mini at twice the price. The Abyssals are decent, roughly Mars Attacks quality. Will post more after I get a good look at them and maybe some pics.

Agreed it is a slow rate of dispatch, but wiythout excusing it taht much it is unfortunate that DS shipping is at the same time that the delivery systems are at full capacity with Black Friday and Cyber whatsit.

I have suffered exactly the same in reverse from US KS's. The goods ship (usually a six week trip from China) but seem to take an eternity to arrive on my dorrstep once they dock, usually because the Company has torely on the good services of its shipping agents and deilvery companies. Even CMON (the biggest KSer around are not immune, a year or so ago Rivet Wars took over month simply to get out of German customs..

I got my set , was there supposed to be a dragon in the base pledge, Because if so then I am missing that. I didn't get any expansions, just the $100 pledge. Lots of gluing to bases and bending needed, but nothing glaring that is broken. They put so much effort into the stupid box, but then not everything fits inside of it . Even the big sheet for the Dungeon master is too large to fit inside and mine is bent on the edge from poor packing. Oh well, at least it is here. THe skeleton archers are great from what I saw. I like the dwarf and dog figure too. Valandor looks like a gw/mcdonalds toy, such soft detail.

You needed to add the Tyrant of Halpi expansion for the Dragon.

I'm currently trying to work out the best way to organise all of my stuff - I'd like to keep the expansions separate and the cards nicely organised, too.

The base game looks after itself, but three (or is it four, maybe five?) expansions get a bit complicated.

I know that Mantic are reopening the pledge manager so we can buy extra book-boxes, so that should work, but I'm wondering what to do with the cards. Is it a good idea to keep all the expansion cards separate, or merge them all? One idea that I came up with was to buy a bunch of plastic card deck boxes (30-40p each) and have every type of card separate for each expansion.

I think everything can be mixed together, except the "Overlord" decks. - They need to be kept apart.

However, I also think they're labelled separately (EG Orc overlord).

Or at least, that's how I did it.

Good to see some American backers getting their packages! You guys have been waiting a while now.

Supposedly chewing through the carton BS now. Fingers crossed. Enthusiasm flagging though lol.

 Compel wrote:
I think everything can be mixed together, except the "Overlord" decks. - They need to be kept apart.

However, I also think they're labelled separately (EG Orc overlord).

Or at least, that's how I did it.

Ah ha. Thanks!

I wasn't too sure how the cards worked out - I haven't actually opened them yet, too scared because of the insane quantity of them!

 Chillreaper wrote:
I'm currently trying to work out the best way to organise all of my stuff - I'd like to keep the expansions separate and the cards nicely organised, too.

The base game looks after itself, but three (or is it four, maybe five?) expansions get a bit complicated.

I know that Mantic are reopening the pledge manager so we can buy extra book-boxes, so that should work, but I'm wondering what to do with the cards. Is it a good idea to keep all the expansion cards separate, or merge them all? One idea that I came up with was to buy a bunch of plastic card deck boxes (30-40p each) and have every type of card separate for each expansion.

Thanks for mentioning that about the pledge manager. since I was a later backer I don't get the E-mails/updates. I'm not sure about getting another box, but I would like a real copy of the rules not the misprinted ones.

No kidding...

I hope they let us pick up other stuff so I can get five or six more of those excellent dice bags. I wouldn't live long enough to enjoy them though, due to acute sarcasm poisoning.

So, most recent update says that Carton A should be on it's way to people now and Carton B is next but is likely to not make it to everyone by December 7th, and more likely to be December 11th, so Mantic ask people not to hassle them until then. (For American backers who don't have access to kickstarter updates.

Few months late by now, for sure.

Got my package today. I only got a few resin models and a pair of Ba'el', but I'm not really all too impressed with the models.

Got the Legendary wizard, and the staff is so thin it's almost able to move freely. I'm nervous about cleaning up the flash and snapping the resin.

The paladin's casting quality isn't that great either. The way they designed the shield to connect is baffling.

And of the 2 Ba'els I ordered, one looks to have been assembled quickly, leaving a number of gaps in the seams. Really would have preferred to have been able to assemble the models myself.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

Your narrative about the evil/indifferent Chinese seems to omit more than a few poor decisions made by Rackham, but hey - you're welcome to believe what you like.

I will, because it makes sense. You highlighted Rackham alone out of the several companies I mentioned which show a recurring pattern.

I highlighted it because I'm reasonably familiar with the fall of Rackham, and it's a good example of you being wrong.

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly.

Can't see much? gak, you're a perfect corporate customer. Because you seem to forget that people pay money for these things and tend to expect that the quality or design of the things that they paid for would match or at least be a very close approximation to what was promised.

It is.
Mantic even offered you premium quality seperatly via exclusive resin miniatures. They were also up front about Dungeon Saga being made of single piece boardgames quality plastic.

We know how well Mantic's offerings of premium quality exclusive resin miniatures worked out in their following campaign, don't we? Still, I digress since we have yet another case of you either misunderstanding what I'm complaining about, or being wilfully ignorant. I'm not especially complaining about the miniatures. It'd be nice if they weren't broken, were packed properly and weren't about 50% warped, but those are not the basis for my complaints and yet again you seem to be trying to put words into my mouth or strawman my argument.

The miniatures would be fine if they weren't damaged and warped due to poor quality control. The KS brown paper box packaging is a joke, but they never explicitly promised anything better, so I can let that past as well. Still, there's this:
http://twilight40k.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/dungeon-sagas-missing-missions.html

 Azazelx wrote:

It's fine that you place little to no value on your money or the time that it takes to earn it, but I value my own a bit higher, it seems.

And you are wrong to do so. They never offered you premium plastic models in the boxsets, as boardgame quality sculps they are well above average for the most part. Superior to the sculpts for Descent at least.
You have the entirely unrealistic expectation of what you are getting, perhaps you should have read the Kickstarter description when you backed it.
When you add to that the quality of sculpts available for the premium resin miniatures, which were provides as an optional extra you have only yourself to blame. Exemplary sculpts of most pieces were provided for you. Not all I must admit but you cant crucify Mantic for that.

Once again you attempt to focus on the miniatures, and not what I actually care about much more and am complaining about. See, I have plenty of miniatures already - though more nice miniatures are always nice, they're not the focus for me in this game. If you look through the KS thread, you'll see that in there I make the distinction to others more than once that we're talking about boardgame plastic game models, not "miniatures" and so people's expectation of both quality - and especially value - needed to be tempered. This was mostly in response to people SQUEEEEEing about how many "miniatures" you get in the KS deal. So if you're going to continue trying to argue with me over the disappointing quality of this KS, please remember that while the quality of the supplied figures is disappointingly poor, this is due to warpage and needless breakages. The sculpts are just fine, except that the orcs seem to have little relation to any of Mantic's other Orcs. But that's a sculptor/lack of art direction issue. And I have plenty of superior GW orcs to replace them anyway. I'm not happy that my models are warped and broken, but I trust I'll eventually get replacements for the worst of those that can't be fixed with boiling water. That lack of QC will hurt them more at retail with the BG or even toy store crowd than it will me.

My main reasons for backing were for the non-miniature components: the game itself, the campaign system (including the hardcover compendium that was to have everything in one place), and the other ancillary items. Sadly, these are the areas where they have skimped majorly while seemingly not giving too many feths. I'm glad I also have no interest in printed fiction, since that's an area that Mantic manage to fail on time and time again. Protip: Stop promising novels!

And please don't ever try to tell people that they are "wrong" to have high standards. You're most welcome to live your life with low standards and low expectations, but don't try to project your own low expectations onto others. Realistic expectations are best, but I'll grant that you appear to be labouring under the misunderstanding that my posts are an endless series of complaints about the model quality. Either that or you're attempting to stawman everything I say, but at this point I'll consider it an honest mistake/misunderstanding.

 Azazelx wrote:

Your little snipe about broken glasses is telling, since you appear to be the kind of guy who will take any old gak you're given and thank them for it. People who get pissed off and vocally angry about things that aren't up to scratch are the ones who actually force change and backpedalling when companies decide to feth over their customers.

^ Please dont throw the rattles out of the pram ^

With minor exception what you got it what Mantic promised. If it sucks now in your opinion then it sucked during the pledge funding and its your fault for backing a project that was clearly from the description given not worth buying. If you are upset over the exceptions to this like the hardback book then take a chill, Mantic didn't provide 100%, who does?

Nice ad hominem. Actually, it's a weak one, but hey. I beg to differ on "minor exception", but as I said, it's telling that you have such low personal standards.
CMoN are pretty much on track with this at this point. Have you backed any of their recent campaigns and gone anywhere near "all in" on extras? They do a tremendous job with it all lately. Soda Pop's SDE FK campaign seemed not to have any issues, and I got most of that. It might be a personal difference between you and I, but I don't look at poor performers and rate my own targets on simply being slightly better than those. Since you now want to talk about other campaigns rather than holding this one in isolation, please do take the time to have a look at how well Dead Zone :Contagion is going.

You are entirely as an artistic opinion not to like Dungeon Saga, it is entirely subjective whether a models is awesome or sucks. I for one don't like the barbarians axe, the horned skull at the back just seems to get in the way and look ridiculous. Someone else might think its awesome. However what you are doing is flatly denying that Mantc have delivered what they promised i the KS to deliver. The fact is by and large they have, there are exceptions, resin counters, acrylic counters and the hardback book especially, but they are a small percentage of the project. For the vast majority of items we get a clear reresentation of what Mantic promised in their text and showed in their images when the Kickstarter was active.

Again with the models.
My complaints are not aesthetic. Well, Mantic badly need an Art Director, and the dragon looks like a child's toy, but I have enough dragons that I can safely give the DS one away tomorrow and use the better one from <insert any one of the better dragons here> without too much worry at all. Even the trolls look roughly 1000x better than the garbage they supplied with the 1st KoW KS. Too bad they alienated their best sculptor so badly.

From what I understand, Mantic did a reasonable job with the core box. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else appears to be cocked up to some degree and their response (even after the update) is poor and remains inaccurate.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Theophony wrote:
Valandor looks like a gw/mcdonalds toy, such soft detail.

I'll be giving away the seriously sub-par models and proxying them with better ones. Valandor looks like he wants to be replaced by a suitably heroic Sigmarine!

 Azazelx wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

Your narrative about the evil/indifferent Chinese seems to omit more than a few poor decisions made by Rackham, but hey - you're welcome to believe what you like.

I will, because it makes sense. You highlighted Rackham alone out of the several companies I mentioned which show a recurring pattern.

I highlighted it because I'm reasonably familiar with the fall of Rackham, and it's a good example of you being wrong..

So reasonably familiar you wont actually post anything on it. Just declare me wrong by right of wave of hand.

Meanwhile gave explanation that the AT-43 lines and Confrontation lines had critical supply shortfalls due to late production and more critically unavailability of core parts.
A good example of this was UNA Steel Infantry attachments, which are as critical to availability as the space marine devastator, yet simply not available for sale anywhere because the suppliers couldn't get around to batching more.

ackham had other problems, this is true, but they were surmountable. They did however have a reasonable product with growing popularity, just not the availability.

 Azazelx wrote:

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly

We know how well Mantic's offerings of premium quality exclusive resin miniatures worked out in their following campaign, don't we? Still, I digress since we have yet another case of you either misunderstanding what I'm complaining about, or being wilfully ignorant.

Those who react with anger for others failing to match their jaded viewpoint on a very well received product have no position to call others ignorant.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:

......Once again you attempt to focus on the miniatures, and not what I actually care about much more and am complaining about. See, I have plenty of miniatures already - though more nice miniatures are always nice, they're not the focus for me in this game.

.......but I'll grant that you appear to be labouring under the misunderstanding that my posts are an endless series of complaints about the model quality. Either that or you're attempting to stawman everything I say, but at this point I'll consider it an honest mistake/misunderstanding.

It was how we started this disagreement
Well I can only go by what I read from you as to what you are saying:

 Azazelx wrote:

At this point I only have the extras, and they are a pretty big disappointment so far. Including the minis, as I have a good number of them either mangled or broken, and more than half at minimum are warped. Nice sculpts on poor quality figures, and that's with the "boardgame figures, not miniatures" caveat. Or perhaps they would be decent but corners were clearly cut/QA was poor. Also not counting my missing stuff, because that's par for the course with Mantic.

If Azazelx is un unreliable source for information as to the opinions of Azazelx then what is?

*shrugs* I'm inclined to agree with Azazelx (apart from on the quality of models, having not received my pledge yet I have no basis for comparison).

Won't be backing any more Mantic KSers.

If I were making a miniature wargame from the DS minis and wanted them arrayed on a tabletop, make a really good job of painting and basing them etc. I'm not sure they would be acceptable. But, for a boardgame I think they are fine, and actually better than a lot of the stuff I have for other games. Probably about 20% of mine were warped in some way, just got a bowl of very hot water and 15 minutes later job done. A few of them needed a dab of super glue to keep the foot down but that was it.

As for the game itself got to play for the first time last night. First impressions are that it's very fast to play (even while learning to play which is definitely a bonus, you could even get some games in on a 'school night'). But, after playing the first 4 missions or so it seems much easier for the side of the heroes. I admit I was a little dubious about Orlanth's comments above saying the Necromancer player should go full out/no holds-barred (I've played loads of D&D style games where you have to pull your punches a bit) but now see he was completely right about that. The dwarf and barbarian seem to waltz through armoured zombies and revenants with ease, and even the zombie troll (which the mission guide makes a fuss of when it appears for the first time) was one-shotted by the elf's multi-shot ability in a single turn.

Now need to play some more games to work out if it were my gakky (vs. very strong) dice rolling that made the game seem a bit easy for the heroes. It's definitely fun and we have booked some continued playing, and I might now have a look at getting the adventurers book for the campaign style play.

I think that you are right, in so much that the heroes can in many ways wade through the opposition, but in most scenarios they are against the clock. So as the overlord you are generally not looking to make kills, but simply delay them or get them to lose focus on the objectives.

Often , if the dwarf or barbarian gets carried away, swinging down the dungeon you can exploit it by focusing on the wizard or elf

Neverthless, so far it is fair to say in our gamesthe heroes are slightly on top, but it may be as you say the tendency from D&D to try and be helpful rather than outright nasty that is doing it

The game has two stages.

First when the heroes try all the different things they can do, liie stand on bone markers etc.

Second when they realise to win they must ignore all that and rush the objectives.

Winning as Overlord prior to the epiphany is easy, afterwards it is more difficult.

1. Wound the elf. As the ranged unit robbing Madriga of an attack dice is very useful as she wont have enough bite left to do much. She is also an easy target.

2. Stalk the wizard. Your easiest chance of a kill-win is to gank him. You dont need to succeed, you only need to positon yourself to do so to get the warrriors to have to make where you want them to and not the other way around.

3. Delay the Break Ward spell. Oftimes this is needed to win, make the wizard run a gauntlet of attacks of opportunity and this becomes more difficult. Anyone can smash a lock, only Danor can dispel a magical lock.

4. Block the warriors. Dont waste your time trying to kill the barbarian or dwarf, though if you get lucky you could threaten either so they have to hold back. Rushing a fighter and attacking is fine, but you do just as well if you ove close enough the warrior must go around or get bogged down.
It is a worthwhile use of a skellie to make Orlaf only move one space and attack as his whole turn, You might also get the skellie back.

I've got to admit, ever since I've played the demo game at the games expo, the main thing I'm worried about is actually the other way round.

It seems entirely possible for the game to be unwinnable by the heroes against a skilled overlord, pretty much no matter how often you play.

 Orlanth wrote:

Winning as Overlord prior to the epiphany is easy, afterwards it is more difficult.

In that case I am most certainly in trouble!

I've just realised actually that I was accidentally playing armoured zombies as skeletons (didn't realise they were a separate entry). I'm sure that made a bit of a difference.

Also, need to read through the magic and magic items rules as the wizard seemed to just be spamming crystals and using quite a few spells each turn (need to make sure I've got a grasp on those rules).

He can cast two little spells on one big one. Crystalise is a little spell. To spam it he casts it and one other.

Generally speaking Break Ward comes first whenever needed, and crystalise while doing so. Once you have a crystal use it to boost a burn spell which is used every other turn. The longer range Firebolt is almost worthless unless you add a crystal to it. This you can do on the same turn but the odds are not too good unless you have a powerful crystal.

There is enough in the ruleset to make Danor interesting and tactical to play.

Ok the extra missions are coming via digital gamebooks always were digital the sculpts aren't that's bad game can be winnable with a skilled overlord as long as the players, that's like any game. The biggest cockup was the adventurers companion but game is playable and those who didn't get mats, yer fair dues that was bit of a mistake by mantic but I understand what they were trying to do by synching characters to expansions, they should of done that retail not ks but otherwise been gravy for my group

Overlord definitely has a huge advantage the first time through, and new players take things very slowly. The time limit *always* gets hit.

I ran demos yesterday and decided to scrap the time limit and only allow myself victory via crippling a hero.

The time limit via overlord deck is one of the aspects of the game I'm not as much of a fan of, would prefer it if the time limit was determined by other factors, such as an increasing amount of reinforcements, like Space Hulk where if you try to camp out you will get overwhelmed.

I deliberately removed the time limit for the Blaine missions and one of the Keldan ones. The other one I kept it in because it fitted the story.

Yer where it's relevant to the story time limit is fine, but I have found it's easier to scrap it specially when mission doesn't need it

It wouldn't be hard to work in a "time limit" based on ever increasing minions if you have the models - it's a cool idea for a quest, actually!

Was reading the "build your own dungeon 'rules' " while waiting for a burger today.

Pretty bad. I've seen better blog posts on dungeon design available for free online.

When I've played enough games I'm going to have a crack at writing my own guidelines.

Heroes could buy extra turns by 'mocking fate' and calling on the evil Overlord to do his worst.

Every time the heroes do this the Overlord draws two cards either from the unused cards or the discard pile, placing one into his hand and the other shuffled into the Overlord deck.
The Overlord player also gets 1d6 reinforcement points. After the Overlord has enough stored dice he may roll them and buy reinforcements in level equal to the total (it would pay to save up for a Moloch or troll). The Overlord player must spend all the reinorcement points, losing any excess, but need not roll all the reinforcement dice he has saved.

The heroes may mock fate as often as they like so long as there are cards to stack. Mocking fate takes up a heroes whole turn, like popping a feat does.

I have found rather than completely axing the time limit, the card mechanism is handy to help out new players - add a few cards as needed.

Helps get them into the game a little easier and then you can up the ante.

Warlord of Galahir doesnt use a timelimit, it uses reinforcements instead. Just in case anyone wants to see some alternate options.

Got my stuff today. Too tired to really check it out top to bottom. Initial responses:
Hooboy, a lot of models to work through, yay. It's a good thing... I'm just a bit inundated with minis atm
The bases look cool, now to remove them (where necessary) so I can use clear acrylics like always.
Valandor really isn't giving me the same mcdonalds toy vibe other people seem to be getting. I mean, even happy meal toys come with straight weapons! Ba dum pish.
But really, Valandor, Be...demon guy... both look fine to me. Not super amazing, but not bad. I think Val will be reasonably fun to paint because he's reasonably simple but there's still some filigree on the armor I can work with, just as soon as I get him a spear shaft replacement.
Demon dude is a bit i dunno if it's shallow or simple.. but it's not bad. He doesn't look like an end boss of an epic level dungeon, but he would be pretty terrifying in your lower levels imo. I'm alright with him.
Dragon looks fine. I think if you could take the sculpt and stretch it out into a normal walking/sitting dragon pose he would look better proportioned. It's just that he's got his back half in a squat/sit/walk and his front half is reared up as far as possible while he puffs out his chest and strikes a pose. Maybe he's breathing in to spit fire or something. I like him just fine, he's especially good at fitting into that smaller footprint.

The book boxes are awesome, I don't care if everything ends up fitting into them at the end or not... they're gonna look sweet on the shelf.

I need to quality check and do a headcount but so far so good. Which book is it that has problems, the dungeon journal or adventurers companion? The companion had the corrections sheet in it so I guess that?

The art and layout of the books seems sweet though. Way more than just over a white background, really fitting for the fantasy theme.

Looking forward to digging into this when i've got a bit more time.

Got my stuff too.

Somehow had a couple of tiles missing from the frames, even though they were (badly) shrink wrapped.

Overall the stuff looks fine though. Just got a few repairs and reposing to do.

Did they announce yet when the Adventurer's Companion is getting a reprint?

If it's only page reference and the like that are incorrect, how bad is it?

Wondering whether to get now, if it's only the page references that are wrong I'll probably just get it as it's not like I'm learning the rules for Infinity here.

dungeon journal is missing a few quests the adventurers companion has all the massive errors people are whining about which to be fair are really boneheaded mistakes, the plan on doing a reprint over christmas with despatch over january

And the journal's missing quests are coming out in PDF form aren't they?

Yeah, though they will be quite a while coming out.

The Adventurer's Companion has some pretty embarrassing copy and paste errors. The journal didn't have any that I noticed - I quite like it because it's got a bunch of extra missions and also includes bandits as an enemy type.

I like how sylph has salamanders flavor text.

the corrected pdf on one the updates has the right text

You can also check the wizard entry where he turns into the paliidan,

Any how, yes the reprinted AC we tidy up the page number issue and the copy/paste stuff, but still needssome work - Mantic still mix up key words "shield bash" anyone.

Expect that the AC and Journal may start to turn into a "living ruleset" for the next year or so - hopefully free download - before Mantic revisit DS with printed copies/compendiums

This and the digital adventures promised should keep this ticking over nicely for the near future

 GrimDork wrote:

Valandor really isn't giving me the same mcdonalds toy vibe other people seem to be getting. I mean, even happy meal toys come with straight weapons! Ba dum pish.
But really, Valandor, Be...demon guy... both look fine to me. Not super amazing, but not bad. I think Val will be reasonably fun to paint because he's reasonably simple but there's still some filigree on the armor I can work with, just as soon as I get him a spear shaft replacement.

I like the design of Valandor. I like the original sculpt of Valandor. I like his pose and his armor. I like the very idea of Valandor. But the model I received is pretty awful. I have Descent 1st Edition, and those minis are better casts than Valandor. It's not like I didn't know he was boardgame plastic--that's why I bought him! All the other DS plastics I received have been decent quality, in the same zone as Mars Attacks, Grind, X-Com (better even), or Myth. Valandor is noticeably inferior in quality.

I assume his condition is a result of a rushed cast. His armor filigree fades in and out of existence, like ghost worms. His right shoulder, greave, knee, vambrace and abs have almost no detail, like the details took Doc Brown's Delorean back in time and c-blocked their dads. His popped collar has a stud on one side and not on the other. The side of his face in the crook has careworn lines and a subtle expression, along with an uncanny resemblance to David Warner. The other side of his face looks like someone CGI 'youthed' Vaughn Armstrong into his uncanny valley teens. His spear has uncurled a bit into a wiggly wushu polearm from the hers-and-hers toy it came as. His spear of longinus' blade has a wing-shaped crossguard on one side and a horseshoe of the other. Sure, that might make him average quality for boardgame miniatures in general if you include games like Monopoly and Risk, but for a wargame company's kickstarter he is a poor mini.

It's not quite to refund territory because $8 isn't worth the time it would take for me to stalk down Rich Armstrong, bind him in ropes of communication, and beguile an email response from him, let alone the hassle of shipping it back in December, but it sure is enough to make me go to the internet and complain!

Finally got my box today.. wow, tons of stuff!

It looks like I ended up with 2 return of valandor sets. It was included in my big box today, but they also sent me that separately like a month ago. Guess I got some extra minis

Are they the same quality, or is there a difference between the sets?

Far as I can tell the minis are the same... i just got extras


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh and also 2x board tiles too, so I can build bigger dungeons


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also really digging the big book looking box. Think I'll keep all the minis in 1 and all the books and boards in the other. Is that how it's gonna be for the retail version too? Or was it a special KS thing?

 Orlanth wrote:

So reasonably familiar you wont actually post anything on it. Just declare me wrong by right of wave of hand.

I'll go with wrong, then. I certainly don't need to rewrite everything I know on a given topic to anyone, and particularly you.

 Azazelx wrote:

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly

We know how well Mantic's offerings of premium quality exclusive resin miniatures worked out in their following campaign, don't we? Still, I digress since we have yet another case of you either misunderstanding what I'm complaining about, or being wilfully ignorant.

Those who react with anger for others failing to match their jaded viewpoint on a very well received product have no position to call others ignorant.

Pointless fluff answer. You apparently can't see much to complain about despite all of the issues that have been raised, or more to the point are willing to forgive them anything. DKS has a number of major issues. You have no response, so instead write a pithy reply. Poor attempt at redirection there.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:

......Once again you attempt to focus on the miniatures, and not what I actually care about much more and am complaining about. See, I have plenty of miniatures already - though more nice miniatures are always nice, they're not the focus for me in this game.

.......but I'll grant that you appear to be labouring under the misunderstanding that my posts are an endless series of complaints about the model quality. Either that or you're attempting to stawman everything I say, but at this point I'll consider it an honest mistake/misunderstanding.

It was how we started this disagreement
Well I can only go by what I read from you as to what you are saying:

 Azazelx wrote:

At this point I only have the extras, and they are a pretty big disappointment so far. Including the minis, as I have a good number of them either mangled or broken, and more than half at minimum are warped. Nice sculpts on poor quality figures, and that's with the "boardgame figures, not miniatures" caveat. Or perhaps they would be decent but corners were clearly cut/QA was poor. Also not counting my missing stuff, because that's par for the course with Mantic.

If Azazelx is un unreliable source for information as to the opinions of Azazelx then what is?

Reading comprehension FTW, I see. I'll just highlight my issues for those who are challenged.

If they weren't broken and warped, I'd have no real problem with them. You can blame the evil Chinese for that, and I'm sure you will - but the fact is that it falls on Mantic and their lack of QA/QC. When CMoN has been doing this for about the same amount of time, and no longer have these recurrent issues while Mantic does, it's on Mantic, since in the end they are the company asking for money for this product. They're also the ones who are going to suffer in the wider marketplace as a result of their lack of QC. Not you and not I.

At this point, I'm letting you know that I'll no longer be responding to your posts here. You have made it more than clear that you're the ideal consumer, and are willing to take whatever is given with a grateful smile regardless of what has been promised for your money or your time - But hey, maybe you're filthy rich and just don't give a feth or value those things? You of course have the right to hold such low standards as that's your prerogative. On the other hand, given all of this and the fact that you choose not to reply to actual points, and instead side-step them, I don't think arguing with or talking to you is a worthwhile use of my time. Feel free to post and have the last word or whatever. I don't care. Have a good one!

Considering the sheer amount of mispacks people are getting, I can't help but wonder who packed this stuff? I thought it was done at the factory in China.

Almost as bad if not worse than what Mantic themselves would've done at HQ like with Deadzone, Kings of War, Dreadball... it's like they just can't catch a break and get it done correctly.

Or were all the game boxes packed in the UK as well?

I just don't get how the consistently seem to get things so badly mispacked.

Guess I'll be looking forward to seeing what exactly shows up in my box tomorrow afternoon...

I imagine bags were packed in China, boxes were packed in the UK.

All carton As and Bs were pre-packed in China because they had (supposedly) set contents.

Only the add-ons (because they were (potentially) different for every single person) were done in the UK.

Got my Carton B on Tuesday.
The only error in the entire box I found is one of my trolls is missing a weapon hand.
That's pretty good, imo.
Loving the Book/Boxes. Mantic needs to offer an empty one. I can't fit everything into the 2 boxes.
Currently everything went back into the big box it all came in for transport to next game night.

I don't understand the complaints about Valendor.
He's a decent model, and the spear straightened right out when i hot water dipped him.
The detail is about as expected when compared to any boardgame mini, or even a PVC mini from Warmachine.
His aesthetics fit with the Basilean models from what I've seen of them on Mantic's site.
As for detail fading in and out, the Space Hulk Terminators have the same issues. Never heard a bad word about those.

My carton B came Monday and - unless one of the card or tile packs is mispacked in the shrinkwrap - I seem to have everything. Some minis came off their bases, one Abyssal firethrower came apart, and lots of minis need straightening and recentering on their bases.

All in all, I'm pretty happy. I'm going to have to do a lot of work cleaning up both minis and rules, but I expected both. I wanted to run this game as a GM (as opposed to an Overlord) like Warhammer Quest all along, so I knew I'd have to fudge together a different way of playing.

But...that still doesn't excuse what feels like a first draft ruleset. As I posted in the News and Rumor thread, I feel like Jake's final submissions constitute a great first draft for games design, but need more work to be a polished, finished game. The core game rules are solid, but Jake lacks clarity when explaining rules in writing. Also, the adventures are good, but emphasize a balanced, competitive game over creativity. Too many Overlord victories are, "Cripple one of the heroes or keep them from winning until you run out of cards." The Blaine, Keldin, and Hordrin quests in the Dungeon Journal serve as good contrast.

But the Adventurer's Companion (the final, corrected PDF version, even) shows Jake's lack of interest in writing anything more than a Heroquest clone. You can actually watch his level of investment drop as you progress through the book. The uncharted dungeons, invisible overlord, and dungeon design sections (especially the latter) feel more like he turned in his notes and outlines rather than a final copy. I really wish this game had gone through a rules committee after leaving Jake's hands.

That said, I'm going to get this stuff painted up and play a house-ruled Advanced Dungeon Saga with my friends. If I have time, I'd like to produce a few fan expansions and plop them on the interwebs somewhere. The first I'm considering is a Dungeon Economy add-on to allow players the feeling of amassing hordes of wealth. Something simple, like, "Due to the mystical properties of gold in Mantica, gold coinage is incredibly rare. The printed costs in Gold remain the same [for simplicity's sake] but actually do refer to one bar of gold. (Gold being too precious in the manufacture of magic items or as a consumable in high-level magic rituals to waste on mere coins.) However, most heroes' wealth is in the silver and copper coinage of the realms. 1 Gold is the equivalent of 100 silver coins, with 1 silver coin being equal to 100 copper coins. This means that 1 Gold is equal to 10,000 copper coins - the most common denomination of money in Mantica." Then add in some new treasure item cards that have sacks or coffers of the smaller coinage, and some interesting items whose only purpose is to serve as vendor trash to be sold at market. This economy system will also allow for item cards that are mundane adventuring gear or weapons with small in-game bonuses and values in silver or copper.

tl;dr - I feel like Jake's final submissions are more like solid first drafts, but I have plans to build my own Dungeon Saga anyway. There's a solid enough core for me to work with, here.

I went over all of the contents last night and as far as I can tell I have everything. I haven't opened up the decks of cards but they're all shrinkwrapped so I'm gonna assume those are there. I like the extra furniture and stuff too, those will be nice for scenery bits for other games.

I had a few bent arms or swords, and a few minis popped off their bases, but nothing catastrophic. I'm still thinking about taking off the square bases and going with round ones anyway. The minis feel a little small to me though, I guess I was expecting them to be a little bulkier. Well, the dragon is definitely bulky. But the other guys feel a little small.

I'm a little worried about painting them though.. the details are kind of soft on some sculpts and I'm worried the primer might wash them out more. I could probably skip primer on some, but the heroes are all dark blue.. not a good base for painting light colors.

I found them to be okay with a prime-base-highlight-wash sort of paint technique. Some had little definition, but the wash at the end tends to sort that out. The worst for me were the Zombies.

I think I'll try and lightly prime the dark blue guys with army painter bone color, it's usually a little thinner and covers better than my cheapy white hardware store primer. The other lighter colored models like the skeletons I'll just paint without the primer since those seem thinner and I don't want to lose detail. then I can just spray em with matte varnish at the end.

Kinda on the fence though .. I have literally thousands of 30mm warmachine round lip style bases thanks to making my own minis... would it be dumb to use them for DS minis? I was sizing stuff up last night, they're only slightly bigger than a board square, but I think it could get messy if there's hordes of baddies all bunched together. I haven't played or even had a chance to skim the rules yet.. does that happen often? I just like the look of the rounded bases better, and I plan to use them for skirmish games too, so I thought the round bases would be more fun for that.. but I don't want them to cumbersome to use when I play Dungeon Saga. I could use GW style 25mm bases, but I'd rather use the ones I already own

I totally am planning on repopulating the entire game with Privateer figures.

We'll see how that goes.

Worst case I'll just swap out the heroes.

I've gone through the collection and picked out 1 of every pose, gonna paint them all up. 49 minis in all. I just finished doing the hot water thing to fix the bent weapons, was pretty easy. Kinda fun dunking it in water and seeing it just straighten itself out all on its own. The worst was the Valandor spear, that was almost a 90 degree angle, but nothing hot water couldn't fix.

Did anyone order the resin heroes? Do they look any better than the PVC ones?

Still torn on the bases since I'm mostly going to be using these for skirmish games, but I guess I'll keep the squares. The dungeon floor tiles look kinda cool especially when you rank em all up. I wouldn't mind buying sprues of em or KOW armies if they ever wanted to sell em separately.

To be honest, the resin heroes, though they can be a bit fiddly to glue together are some of the nicest looking fantasy hero models I've seen.

I'm sure I'll get shouted down for this, but honestly, they're Forge World level.

Yeah the one resin elf guy I got looks really great, lots of fine detail.

I'm kinda surprised with the plastic minis. I sat down for a day full of shaving and filing off mold lines but there really aren't many at all. Priming all the dark blue heroes now

So far the details are looking pretty solid to me, though I have been working on a lot of Bones minis lately, so most things are better in comparison. I'm hoping the hot water bending is simple, one of my scytheltons is trying to do a somersault.

Hot water was fine for me. I just stuck a mug of water in the microwave for 3 minutes, then dunked the bent part in and it most cases it straightened out all by itself.

Yeah that's what i'm hoping for, the straightened out by itself bit. I guess we'll see

So, did I just get an exceptionally bad Valandor, then? Everyone else seems happy with theirs, and most posters here think Bones is a medium to be scraped off their shoes.

My valendor's spear was pretty bad, the rest of the model was ok. The spear tip part starting at the left hand was bent to almost a right angle, between the hands was a little bent, and the back end of the spear was bent at the right hand. Just dunked it in the hot water and bent everything back into place and it was fine

I had to dunk Valandor twice to fix his spear.

And yeah, I think Valandor sucks as a cast. The detail is too shallow and it makes painting his armour a pain in the arse.

I was never that enthusiastic about him anyway though, so I'm not too bothered. All the stuff I actually like came out pretty nice.

 Psychopomp wrote:

But...that still doesn't excuse what feels like a first draft ruleset. As I posted in the News and Rumor thread, I feel like Jake's final submissions constitute a great first draft for games design, but need more work to be a polished, finished game. The core game rules are solid, but Jake lacks clarity when explaining rules in writing. Also, the adventures are good, but emphasize a balanced, competitive game over creativity. Too many Overlord victories are, "Cripple one of the heroes or keep them from winning until you run out of cards." The Blaine, Keldin, and Hordrin quests in the Dungeon Journal serve as good contrast.

But the Adventurer's Companion (the final, corrected PDF version, even) shows Jake's lack of interest in writing anything more than a Heroquest clone. You can actually watch his level of investment drop as you progress through the book. The uncharted dungeons, invisible overlord, and dungeon design sections (especially the latter) feel more like he turned in his notes and outlines rather than a final copy. I really wish this game had gone through a rules committee after leaving Jake's hands.

I think you're putting too much blame on Jake. Certainly he wasn't responsible for the other shortcomings in the project, as well as Mantic's previous efforts. I wouldn't be surprised if Mantic (Ronnie) put pressure on the entire project to be shipped in December for Christmas sales.

I wonder at the decision to print everything only once, on the cards. This keeps the rules down to a minimum and allows complexity to be added through the various card decks, but it leaves the casual reader (rather than player) dissatisfied, feeling like there is not much content.

So am I correct in assuming that we didn't get stat cards for the not-drizz't, dwarf+dog, extra halfling, and whoever else I'm forgetting (possibly no one)?

As long as the stats are written down somewhere?

Ah, Dungeon Journal in each of their relevant sets of adventures. Cool. I guess none of those heroes (Blaine, Keldan, etc) get to become epic variants?

What's the deal with the Dwarf Kings Hold stuff in the back, then? It looks like that stuff is practically a separate game with somewhat different rules? Only getting a bit of a chance to skim here (apparently children are force multipliers for eachother!) so assuming what I must. That would mean that the Ancient Grudge at the end is practically yet another game, dungeon skirmish after a fact. Looking forward to getting to dig into these better.

Little bored with the items in the first batch of cards (in the main game), that's a *lot* of power crystals etc... but still everything looks neat.

Wait... That was just the first 4 card decks, I was a little let down that everything was kind of limited or plain but upon reading that there should be Tavern and Market cards, I had a look through my stuff. Whoops, misplaced 5 entire decks... now to look those over.

Oh yeah, the adventurer's companion decks shave me sorted out for wants (more or less). Gotta figure out how the uncharted dungeon and invisible overlord stuff works, but everything looks pretty cool.

That post read like you having a conversation with yourself

I would have liked all the rules to also have been in the book. I might scan them as a PDF just in case - cards like that are not the most survivable things, especially if I intend bringing this to school to play with the nerdy students at lunch time.

Grimdork, you will find there is a fair amount of conteb]nt in and around the game, but it is not clearly shown up in the rules.AC etc. You almost stumble over thing by accidemnt so to speak. I think it is going to a waiting game to see how much more fan based material will start to see the light odf day as people start to discover these parts, so they can make the whole.

Although the stats are tweaked to match Ds, you could conceivably use the journal to play the separate games contained in it, if you have the figures. Hopefully mantic will post a nice PDF of the counter shetts , to let everyone who wants do this.

What would be really swell would be to offer us a nice, thick, die cut, cardstock counter sheet in the pledge manager when they reopen it. Or offer a bundle of them from the original games if they still have any in stock.

It would also be nice if they can ship some of the extra stuff I may order inside the extra book box I will most likely be ordering to hold the pile of gak this game comes with.

I had to get a refund on my pledge and recently purchased another's pledge (with acrylic hearts and bone piles)... I have to say I am surprised that none of the extra hero's come with their stat cards! I hope they release the expansions soon so I can actually use them with their cards.

:(

ced1106 wrote:

 Psychopomp wrote:

But...that still doesn't excuse what feels like a first draft ruleset. As I posted in the News and Rumor thread, I feel like Jake's final submissions constitute a great first draft for games design, but need more work to be a polished, finished game. The core game rules are solid, but Jake lacks clarity when explaining rules in writing. Also, the adventures are good, but emphasize a balanced, competitive game over creativity. Too many Overlord victories are, "Cripple one of the heroes or keep them from winning until you run out of cards." The Blaine, Keldin, and Hordrin quests in the Dungeon Journal serve as good contrast.

But the Adventurer's Companion (the final, corrected PDF version, even) shows Jake's lack of interest in writing anything more than a Heroquest clone. You can actually watch his level of investment drop as you progress through the book. The uncharted dungeons, invisible overlord, and dungeon design sections (especially the latter) feel more like he turned in his notes and outlines rather than a final copy. I really wish this game had gone through a rules committee after leaving Jake's hands.

I think you're putting too much blame on Jake. Certainly he wasn't responsible for the other shortcomings in the project, as well as Mantic's previous efforts. I wouldn't be surprised if Mantic (Ronnie) put pressure on the entire project to be shipped in December for Christmas sales.

I don't hold Jake accountable for any materials or misprint issues, no. But I've been following his development posts and even engaging him in conversation over on his blog since during the KS campaign. He never seemed very interested in campaign or AI rules, and I believe that is the reason for the weaknesses in the Invisible Overlord and especially the dungeon design rules. From the outset, it seemed Jake was interested in reinventing Heroquest and only inventing Heroquest. The push for Advanced Heroquest / Warhammer Quest style rules came from Mantic and the fans, and those are the weakest parts of the rules system. I don't think that's coincidence.

Now, lest it seem I'm just ragging on the man, those basic rules for a reinvented Heroquest are simple, elegant, and brilliant. But, like with Deadzone and a lesser extent Dreadball, they're presented a little haphazardly. Jake's strength is in writing good, solid core rules, but he's weak in clear, intuitive presentation writing. He's also a bit weak in more complicated add-ons, as we see with the Adventurer's Companion and the Deadzone 1 campaign rules. This is just critique, not condemnation. I'd like to see Jake's work run through a strong editor with the remit to confer with Jake and rewrite for clarity. I also think it'd be nice to have those more complicated add-ons come from Jake as a first draft, then run through a rules committee overseeing a public playtest before being given over to the editor. Jake's a good rules writer, but Mantic needs to exercise a bit more quality control and not burden the man with every aspect of a rules system for an entire game. (I think that's something Mantic needs to do in general, and not just Jake, actually. Ronnie needs to learn to control his enthusiasm enough to say, "That's fantastic...but it needs to be better. Please go back and tweak this, this, and this." Or hire someone who *will* do that.)

Thanks!

Are you on BoardGameGeek? I'd like to see your comments in the Personal Comments section for Dungeon Saga so others can see it!

EDIT: BGG review: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1490551/dungeon-saga-review

Cutting through a lot of chaff in this thread.

Miniatures are hands down the best figures ever released for a boardgame - maybe on par with Blood Rage, easily superior to FFG. Superior in quality to many metal and quite a few lower quality resin sculpts. Anyone who doesn't agree is blind and wrong.

Have played like 7 missions so far with a full crew of people. Most of us like exploration games more than tactical combat games; for that reason alone Dungeon Saga to me is an order of magnitude more fun than Imperial Assault (our group never finished the campaign, got close tho, but was so boring and dry) and definitely Descent which I can barely stomach.

What the feth is up with the $20 Tome Book box? That's gotta be a mistake right?

I haven't played yet but I agree about the minis, they're a lot nicer than I expected and hardly any flash or mold lines to clean up, or their cleverly disguised in areas that don't matter. Only done 3 so far but they're fun to paint too

 Compel wrote:
To be honest, the resin heroes, though they can be a bit fiddly to glue together are some of the nicest looking fantasy hero models I've seen.

I'm sure I'll get shouted down for this, but honestly, they're Forge World level.

LOL comparing them to Forge World would be doing them a disservice. The resin figs are Mierce levels of casting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Necros wrote:
I haven't played yet but I agree about the minis, they're a lot nicer than I expected and hardly any flash or mold lines to clean up, or their cleverly disguised in areas that don't matter. Only done 3 so far but they're fun to paint too

Mispacks and $20 tome boxes and misprinted books and all the other gak aside, Dungeon Saga has two immensely powerful things going for it:

1. the game is fun as gak to play. the core rules are super fething fun and i haven't had this much fun playing a dungeon crawler since about 8-10 years ago when my group played warhammer quest for an entire summer with the full campaign rules.
2. the miniatures and dungeon decor are fantastic, better than any other boardgame on the market, by far.

I wouldn't be opposed to $10, I was kinda expecting it around that, bit of sticker shock here right now at $20 per book box.

Man, Mantic is gonna have to have a REALLY nice licence for me to back their next project. Between the post-funding changes, spotty customer service, shipping problems, quality issues and creeping price points I'm very leery any more.

Which is a shame, because the games are very fun.

If that backpack is anything like the dice bag, stay the heck away from it.

Well, there's always retail. I've already seen Dungeon Saga products on pre-order at $54, and I can wait for a sale. We'll have to wait for the DS 2.0 KS for the Adventurer's Companion.

How well did the KS after DS fulfill? I see KoW 2.0 is currently fulfilling.

KoW 2 wave 1 is done, wave 2 just started shipping.

Deadzone 2 supposed to go out next month.

No idea on Warpath, I bailed that one.

The backpack looks cool, but not for me. I think the extra boxes are expensive though because they are probably doing a new printing and ordering a lot less than they needed for the KS originally.. and the less you print the more expensive each one costs. I think I'm gonna grab 1 to store the minis. I have one box that's got all the books and cards, then my 2nd box has all of the board tiles & tokens. 1 more should be good for holding all the extra minis

I haven't played yet and only just kinda skimmed the rules. WHen it comes to all of the cards and stuff... would it be best to consolodate all of the different expansions into 1 big deck? like 1 big ability deck, 1 big spell deck, etc? or do you need to keep them separate for each expansion?

I was gonna order 1 for the minis, but they're having a laugh at that price.

I would've bought another box for 10, but at 20 I'm having some serious second thoughts. An extra Adventurer's Companion would be handy to have, so I'll probably go ahead and get one.

A shame they didn't offer up more resin stuff, I'd be grabbing more of them for sure.

At $20 they are a fething joke. That means that Kickstarter backers will have paid $45 ($25 + $20 for the box), while the retail item is $40. Someone at Mantic is an idiot. They should be sold at cost, period. Five bucks at most.

@Necros - we have only played the base game plus one or two scenarios from another campaign maybe? So no idea how he's separated cards, etc. Not entirely sure as it's my brother's copy and I've just been enjoying playing it.

From my understanding, it's best to keep the expansions separate because each deals with a different sort of Overlord which will have different powers and so on.

Book box at 20 dollars is pricey, but I might get one anyway for the minis.

The quality of the minis is pretty good really - I'm painting up the Abyss expansion at the moment and they're all lovely and paint up really nice.

deleted my link as soon as I saw the $20 price tag. Haven't played yet, just primed the undead figs and npc figs along with my zombicide black plague set. I don't think the figs are as good as the blood rage figures, but they are really nice. Too bad mantic fired that sculptor .

I like the Book boxes. I'd like to get 2 but I'll make do with just one, simply because of my own finances right now.

I don't think $20 is too bad for a custom purpose box with unique design and cover. I've never seen similar from any other company, and I highly doubt it would be any cheaper from others.
I don't think shipping that much air helps. Large shipping box with very little weight can be pricey. You have to pick a shipping method that reduces the risk of crushing, or use a really sturdy shipping carton.

What's this about firing the sculptor? I hadn't heard anything about that. I thought Mantic was still contracting sculptors.

I think they had *one* in-house guy but he was let go, and came around here to let us know about it. If it wasn't this thread then it was the kow/news and rumors thread (I believe, could have been one of the scifi threads).

Definitely no boxen for me, two will be enough. Can't imagine not storing my minis in foam after going to all of the hard work to paint them, so two book boxes should be enough for all of the non-model materials surely.

Need to remember to have them send me one of the fixed ACs though.

Nah, they didnt have an inhouse sculptor, Remy (I think?) was freelance as well. Theyd just *considered* hiring him fulltime.

Nah, there was. I'm pretty sure I even met him once!

I think his name was Sylvain or somesuch, French dude.

If you're in the US, Michael's craft store has various decorated storage boxes, including book-shaped ones. They're usually at a discount, but you can get a coupon on the Michael's website.

 Compel wrote:
Nah, there was. I'm pretty sure I even met him once!

I think his name was Sylvain or somesuch, French dude.

Correct, he did a lot of the DS models before he was let go.

ced1106 wrote:
If you're in the US, Michael's craft store has various decorated storage boxes, including book-shaped ones. They're usually at a discount, but you can get a coupon on the Michael's website.

Yes, for $4.49

This paper mache box is perfect to give as a gift or to keep for your own home décor. Decorate it with paint, decoupage, stickers or other fabulous embellishments. Finish it off with varnish paint to protect and enhance your creation or use a glossy finish for that extra pizazz. Create multiple book boxes for an entire library.

Details:
6 1/4" x 8 3/4" x 2 1/4"
Paper mache

Useless size for Dungeon Saga

So I'm trying to organize my non-figure portion of Dungeon saga and all of the expansions for packing into the book boxen. Am I going to want to keep my dungeon tiles separate on a per-expansion basis? I know Imperial Assault really benefits from having your tiles organized ahead of time and I wasn't sure if the DS tiles were any simpler to use (say, you need the warehouse tile for a scenario in IA but in DS any 4x4 tile would work unless you need lava etc) or not.

What about the cards? Can I safely mix together all of the spells, items, and so on? Locations seem like a given, and obviously the invisible overlord cards would have to be separated out for specific use, but can I just toss all of the items/spells/songs/etc together and use them in every campaign or will there be some degree of imbalance/just not rightedness?

Forget finding people to play, I'm gonna have to set up the first adventure just to try this thing out myself if I have to.

As far as I can tell the art printed on the tiles only matters for lava like you said, so any 4x4 tile can stand in for any other one.

I will be grouping all my tiles together.

The cards are a little trickier. My instinct is to keep them separate for my playthrough of all the core missions, and then to make a basic index and group them together for "Adventurer's Companion" games where everything is in the mix.

I'm not sure if it will really make a difference (aside from Overlord cards, which need to be kept separate). I know that for example Infernal Crypts has it's own random dungeon cards and so on. But if you're playing the campaign rules I see no issue with having all the locations together and all the magic items together.

I think the original campaign just assigns cards and doesn't have random treasure so much, just hard coded potions and purposeful upgrades. I think I can safely mix them for the most part. Got my stuff organized into a plastic organizer and baggies, with black fortress the tiles basically fill up one book box.

 skrulnik wrote:
I like the Book boxes. I'd like to get 2 but I'll make do with just one, simply because of my own finances right now.

I don't think $20 is too bad for a custom purpose box with unique design and cover. I've never seen similar from any other company, and I highly doubt it would be any cheaper from others.
I don't think shipping that much air helps. Large shipping box with very little weight can be pricey. You have to pick a shipping method that reduces the risk of crushing, or use a really sturdy shipping carton.

Your best bet is to sell your expansions on ebay right now, as they are going for approximately $60.

Then use the money to re-buy the expansion for MSRP $39.99 when they get released to retail. The retail boxes COME IN THE BOOK BOXES. So you can be a sucker right now and pay $20 for a book box ON TOP OF the $25 you already spent on the pledge... and wind up paying MORE than retail; _OR_ sell your expansions now and make money in the end after buying the retail releases.

The $20 pricetag from Mantic for those book boxes is fething ridiculous.

The game's designer is soliciting technical feedback (I.e. rules being inconsistent or missing) on the Dungeon Saga Adventurer's Companion prior to the reprint, over on his blog. Deadline for submissions is 23rd - if you've noticed something that's still wrong even in the PDF, it's time to be a hero!

http://quirkworthy.com/2015/12/21/ds-reprints/

$20 for a book box isn't bad. They have to print it, make it sturdy, put magnets in it, etc. For the quality of the box and price to make it and sell it, it's a decent deal.

If you just want a cheap box to store minis in, I have plenty of empty cardboard boxes in my basement!! However they will not lok so nice sitting on your shelf.

Yeah that's the thing with the book boxen. The cardboard doesn't cost much sure, but it has to be assembled and made sturdy. Plus the covering on the outside isn't free. Plus three sizable (presumably neo) magnets per box and whatever they hold onto on the other side. And putting them together with those. I would not expect them to be much cheaper on the shelf, especially not from a company who doesn't specialize in making such things.

I mean they're prohibitively expensive in that I no longer entertain the idea of getting another one, however I don't think the price is as outlandish as all that. Is shipping included within the $20 or is there a lot of that on top of the price tag?

I literally cannot understand how anyone is defending the $20 price tag.

Expansion cost: $25. Book box: $20. Total cost: $45.


Retail expansion cost, includes book box: $39.99


If you are all very satisfied with paying more than retail for your purchases, please let me be your vendor of choice for any purchases in life, ever. I will happily sell you anything in the world that you need for 15% above MSRP.

Aren't you missing how sets/boxes/combis/etc are typically reduced in price? As in all of the big mantic army deals with a progressively stacking discount?

Usually if you can buy parts of something piecemeal it costs more for the same stuff than if you bought the set. Unless you're buying the junky part nobody wants, which doesn't seem to be the case here.

Well I'm at miniaturemarket.com (their physical store) and they have 2 copies of the base game on the shelf for 1/2 price (39.50). They are still in good shape, just the cover that goes over the book box is dinged. I'm torn as it doesn't have all the Kickstarter stuff with it, but still.... Must remember that I don't want more .

Well I held off buying the two sets...for 24 hours. So I got them earlier today and they will get primed for use further down the road in KOW. Between these three sets and my zombicide Black Plague I figure I have an easy 1500 points of zombie horde. Plus plenty of terrain goodies for making my zombicide board 3D.

Are there king of war rules out there anywhere for the zombie troll shamans?

 Theophony wrote:
Are there king of war rules out there anywhere for the zombie troll shamans?

They've been written, I'm not sure on the publication date as they'll be released as a PDF download. 7 DS characters are in the Destiny of Kings and 3 are coming as PDF.

The basic 4 Dungeon Saga characters (Elf, Dwarf, Barbarian, Wizard), Mortibris the Necromancer, Ba'el, and Valandor get rules in Destiny of Kings.

There is also Dungeon Saga dashboards for the Destiny of Kings campaign adventure for a Vampire, Wraith, and an Abyssal Champion.
The mission is kinda neat. It's these 3 characters and Mortibris as the Adventurers vs Rhordin the Dwarf as Overlord.

The zombie trolls are in the current edition of KoW that's available for retail. The first print run of KoW 2.0 has already sold out.

pancakeonions wrote:
The zombie trolls are in the current edition of KoW that's available for retail. The first print run of KoW 2.0 has already sold out.

Not Zombie Troll Shamans though, which is what he was talking about.

 GrimDork wrote:
Aren't you missing how sets/boxes/combis/etc are typically reduced in price? As in all of the big mantic army deals with a progressively stacking discount?

Usually if you can buy parts of something piecemeal it costs more for the same stuff than if you bought the set. Unless you're buying the junky part nobody wants, which doesn't seem to be the case here.

That is certainly an acceptable practice, but that's not even what we're seeing here. The Kickstarter backers are paying more than MSRP for the equivalent item. _More than MSRP._

 judgedoug wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
Aren't you missing how sets/boxes/combis/etc are typically reduced in price? As in all of the big mantic army deals with a progressively stacking discount?

Usually if you can buy parts of something piecemeal it costs more for the same stuff than if you bought the set. Unless you're buying the junky part nobody wants, which doesn't seem to be the case here.

That is certainly an acceptable practice, but that's not even what we're seeing here. The Kickstarter backers are paying more than MSRP for the equivalent item. _More than MSRP._

Where are you getting that information? I bought the infernal crypts as a KS backer for $25. MSRP is about double that, $49.99. Or are you including the silly $20 box in the equation? The latter just seems like a poorly put together afterthought on Mantic's part; but getting my Infernal Crypts for 50% MSRP seems a pretty good deal to me!

I think the counter point would be that you didn't get a book box with your infernal crypts for your half off, but I agree that I got it cheaper and don't need a book box and am happy with what I got/paid. Won't buy any book boxes for $20 but the price doesn't seem ludicrous.

Were they giving away extra book boxes for people? As in, if you bought all of the expansions or some such? I can't quite remember, but this conversation is giving me a "wait a minute..." moment...

Yeah if you bought all the expansions you got 1 extra book box. But it's not big enough to fit all the expansion materials in there, so it's not too useful. I'm going to give the extra book box a miss and just story the minis separately. All the cards, tiles, counters and books fit comfortably in the boxes.

Special Customer Service Update from Mantic Games

The hiring of Zak (and Matt G) promises to be a good move for Mantic. A useful update for backers without hyperbole, smarmy remarks or blaming backers. The chimps who remain in Mantic employment should take note.

You are receiving this email because you signed up to the Dungeon Saga or Kings of War Kickstarter. We are sending you this special email in place of a standard update to inform you regarding the status of our customer service.

If you have sent us a message or missing items please read carefully.

Thanks for getting in touch - we will resolve your query!

If you have submitted a missing items form or sent us a message, we have received your response and are working around the clock to get your issue resolved.

We will sort you out. Our customers are our number one priority and we will ensure that we do everything we can to help you - Zak, Customer Experience Manager.
Kings of War & Dungeon Saga Missing Bits
The good news is on Friday we sent out approximately one third of the missing bits parcels for Dungeon Saga.

We have begun sending out the remaining missing items out for Dungeon Saga, Kings of War and any further missing bits forms we have received.

We will get as many as we can out this week and next. We are experiencing some stock shortages and will be in touch with individual customers to update them on what's going on.

Note that we will not respond to missing bits forms unless we need more information - we are busy packing your orders!

If you have a missing pledge or any missing bits please fill out the missing bits form here IF you have not already done so. If you have filled it out already please do not fill it in again.

Dungeon Saga Missing Pledges
I have rushed in a delivery of more Dungeon Saga games and am making sure everyone who hasn’t received their pledge yet is getting a copy, ahead of the original April estimate.

We will do our best to make sure that Dungeon Saga customers who have not received their pledge get their Dungeon Master and any add-ons from the stock we have. If we are unable to completely fulfil any pledges, we will be in touch with you individually to update you.

We are on it!
Kings of War Missing Pledges

I am aware that there is an incredibly small minority of backers who have not yet received their Wave I Kings of War items.

Kings of War Wave I missing pledges are being sent out along with the missing items as outlined above.
If you have a missing pledge or any missing bits please fill out the missing bits form here IF you have not already done so. If you have filled it out already please do not fill it in again. We will get you your pledge!
Dungeon Saga Pledge Manager
The second Dungeon Saga Pledge Manager closed on Sunday 10th January. We initially planned to print 2000 copies of the Adventurer’s Companion and sold out before the Pledge Manager closed.

It’s clear that there’s a demand for the reprint of the book, and so I have switched back on the pledge manager with unlimited stock. If you would like a reprint of the Adventurer’s Companion we will supply you with one, please complete the pledge manager now.

In addition, we’ve reopened orders for the Book Box too.
You can access the pledge manager using the email link in the invitation email we sent out or via the reminder email to all backers including a link.

You have until midnight Friday 22nd January GMT to request your reprint of the Adventurer’s Companion, a book box or the Dungeon Saga rucksack via the pledge manager.

Is anyone actually buying that rucksack?!

Well the new customer service initiative is working brilliantly. Instead of my replacement Hoggar, the one I got with the kickstarter didn't have a head, they sent me a Necromancer overlord panel. Yay. And I never did receive my Enforcer medic and defender models from Deadzone 1. I've long given up on those though.

Can somebody tell me: did US backers receive this via Alliance Games?
Just received a box at the office and can't open it til Sunday. I'm assuming it's DS. Can any other U.S. backers let me know? DS and KoW 2 are both late, but full communication, I'm not concerned at all, just trying to figure which I should be excited to have received.

Huh. I just found a box full of Black Fortress tiles and furniture in my mailbox at work. I didn't even realize that I hadn't received it yet. A not-unwelcome surprise.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Can somebody tell me: did US backers receive this via Alliance Games?
Just received a box at the office and can't open it til Sunday. I'm assuming it's DS. Can any other U.S. backers let me know? DS and KoW 2 are both late, but full communication, I'm not concerned at all, just trying to figure which I should be excited to have received.

Pretty sure the US core boxes were shipped by Alliance.

Yup. Dungeon saga is indeed what had been waiting on my desk.

Hey guys, just a heads up.

Remember to lock in your pledge manager if you wanted the Dungeon Journal, rucksack, or book boxes.

The PM closes TONIGHT at midnight englishpeopletime.

None of the expansions are available, right? Basically...anything including models.

The list is literally the revised book, rucksack, and book boxes. Those three things. Pretty sure that's it unless there was another page hidden somewhere.

Well done Mantic, small and surprisingly slim package arrived this morning. Let's just review what I sent you in mid-November.

"Were you missing any whole products? If so, tell us in this box.: 1x set of critters 1x set of furniture 1x set of doors
Anything else wrong with your order?1. Request full refund for the additional 'collectors edition' (pah) hardback Compendium. I'm happy to return by post proving you pay the postage. It has been falsely advertised, it littered with errors and simply isn't worth the money I paid for it. There is nothing collectable about it (in a positive way)..."

So what did I receive:

1x set of critters CHECK
1x set of furniture NOPE
1x set of doors NOPE
1x Adventurer's Companion, complete with errors (see XXX) and correction sheet WHAT?!

Honestly Mantic was my missing items form that confusing that you were incapable to translate the request into reality (or at least some sort of engagement)? I thought you might be finally making some improvements, but evidently its all style without substance.

shaneimus and BrizzleRob. PM me what you are missing and I'll get it sorted out.

Well, I just received a small envelope from Mantic after several months. It had my missing Tyrant of Halpi cards set in it, but managed to miss:

Missing:
Dungeon Doors Set
Dungeon Furniture Set
1 goblin warrior
1 ghost

Broken/miscast:
1x Orcling Stand (broken speartip)
1x Goblin with spear (broken spear)
1x Drech'Nok (broken scythe)
1x Abyssal Warrior (broken spear)
1x Efrit twisted so badly I don't know if even hot water will fix it.
1x Abyssal Magi is missing his casting hand - entirely. (miscast)

What the everloving feth is going on over there? I thought the new guy was supposed to be a gun at this? Exactly the kind of customer service that will have me sitting out of Mantic's Kickstarters from here on in.

Maybe it's time to email Ronnie direct? I plan to if I don't get a response to my ticket for my entirely missing KoW2 pledge (both waves) by the end of next week. Then, a week after that...Facebook? I don't know. Short of calling Rich's mother to fill her with shame, I don't have any idea how else to get things moving.

I think you should be contacting Ronnie immediately at this stage. Roll all correspondence with Rich and also any paypal receipts into the quoted emails. I'll give it a week for either the rest of my stuff to turn up or Matt to sort it out for me before I do the same.

The really fethed thing on my end is that someone clearly saw my ticket, since they sent me one of the missing items.

 Azazelx wrote:
I think you should be contacting Ronnie immediately at this stage. Roll all correspondence with Rich and also any paypal receipts into the quoted emails. I'll give it a week for either the rest of my stuff to turn up or Matt to sort it out for me before I do the same.

The really fethed thing on my end is that someone clearly saw my ticket, since they sent me one of the missing items.

Mantic....Almost finished reading your missing parts ticket , got distracted by "The Next Big Thing Form Mantic"

Does anyone know the link to the current/new ticket system?

Zak kindly didn't provide a link in the emails that got sent out to the various kickstarters.

Also, for a laugh, check this link.
http://www.manticgames.com/kickstarter/mission-control.html

KICKSTARTER MISSION CONTROL

Kickstarter Mission Control is your one stop shop for Kickstarter Delivery information. It includes estimated delivery dates and status reports on tooling and production for our live Kickstarters.

The first Mission Control report is now live for Deadzone.
The Second Mission Control report is now live for DreadBall Xtreme.
Please note that this section will be continously updated.

uh-huh.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
nevermind. Found the link, somewhat buried on their website and only because there were directions to it buried in the comments of the Mantic blog post that the KS messages referenced.

New update that explains why I got my order seperately, despite primarily ordering to get something else out of the shipping cost... (some MP ASBs)
I mean... why send them off like that Instead of waiting? Kind of confusing... now theyre paying shipping again... -__-

I've been trying to put my resin "Legendary Paladin" together. His hand / cloak seems ridiculously badly cast / fitted. - Anyone else having the same trouble?

I also haven't the foggiest how this second pauldron type thingy is supposed to fit on the model...

 Azazelx wrote:
Does anyone know the link to the current/new ticket system?

Zak kindly didn't provide a link in the emails that got sent out to the various kickstarters.

Also, for a laugh, check this link.
http://www.manticgames.com/kickstarter/mission-control.html

KICKSTARTER MISSION CONTROL

Kickstarter Mission Control is your one stop shop for Kickstarter Delivery information. It includes estimated delivery dates and status reports on tooling and production for our live Kickstarters.

The first Mission Control report is now live for Deadzone.
The Second Mission Control report is now live for DreadBall Xtreme.
Please note that this section will be continously updated.

uh-huh.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
nevermind. Found the link, somewhat buried on their website and only because there were directions to it buried in the comments of the Mantic blog post that the KS messages referenced.

Have you got a link to their support page? Trying to find it myself!

Go to "contact", first line has a link at the end. Should lead you to https://manticgames.freshdesk.com/support/home

Reprinted Adventurer's Companion has arrived, btw. Haven't had a proper look through, but the biggest immediate difference is the cover art has been adjusted (zoomed in), and the book is substantially thicker due to higher paper quality. It has the same 96 pages as before.

My copy arrived in perfect condition, due to being packaged like a book and not just randomly tossed into a big box filled with sharp game components like before!

What's the latest? I'm still waiting on a significant number of missing items. I saw something in the KS comments that Mantic isn't going to have stock until May? Anyone confirm?

Update: got my stuff, and based on some recent KS comments, it looks like Mantic has mailed another round of missing product.

Good luck to all who are still waiting.