Nope, not restic as Scarletsquig says above it is the same "newer" plastic that was used with Loka (now with a slightly different formulation) and will be used with Mars Attacks.
@DaveC at current exchange rates $50 is just under £30, so the $100 (thus £60 odd) level pledge seems reasonable for a boxed game and multiple extras.
What's wrong with the idea of some Reptilian good guys for once? They could be misunderstood because of their looks, but actually quite nice guys - break the mould a little But yes, hopefully they would have jumpsuits or something rather than Aztex-style outfits..
Both of these are well-established in the D&D side of things. Just not so much with the Warhams.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Nope, not restic as Scarletsquig says above it is the same "newer" plastic that was used with Loka (now with a slightly different formulation) and will be used with Mars Attacks.
@DaveC at current exchange rates $50 is just under £30, so the $100 (thus £60 odd) level pledge seems reasonable for a boxed game and multiple extras.
Sorry, I just don't buy Mantic's "new new newer!!" plastic.
Restic was just their coined term for PVC. These just sounds like a different formulation of PVC. Are they honestly trying to say it's not PVC? I would only believe that if they explicitly said what it is. "New formulations" and the whole "softer/harder formulation" language absolutely reeks of PVC.
It might still be PVC, but definitely a different sort, I have Loka and the minis are completely different material to restic.
If the detail is good and it doesn't take 5 years to clean and assemble each model like with restic, I don't care what it is.
It might still need a little bit of hot water bending, but again, from experience the Loka minis are easier to do this with than restic.
That's the smallest problem though, the biggest one is mould lines, I do not have time for spending 20-30 mins per mini on cleanup and assembly like I had to do with Deadzone. It should never take me longer to clean and assemble a mini than it does to paint it. It's the part count that makes it difficult.. if it comes in one or two pieces its fine, but all the Deadzone stuff is a mess of between 4-8 separate parts, which all have to have mould lines removed individually pre-assembly.
With Mars Attacks I am hoping to be able to spend 5 mins on cleanup, hit it with spray primer, then on to painting,, I have some AP desert yellow spray so the US marines at least will just be a case of spray, paint flesh, paint gun, pouches and boots in dark brown, wash, done.
scarletsquig wrote: Well, word is that the sweet spot for this will be $100, so not a major hit on the wallet.
Which is nice, but it's still more than I want to be spending on nebulous "in the future" stuff. Mantic is far and away the best at sticking to schedule, but I've gotten to the point that I could not buy anything new for the next six months and not really be able to tell I'd stopped between DZ Wave 2/3, DBX, KD:M, DFG, Bones II and SDE arriving in that timeframe (and likely a bit beyond).
Again, you put dragon-men on the table and we may still be talking turkey, and maybe there's some other back-pocket trick Mantic will pull out to get me to spend yet more dollars that I just haven't thought of yet. Time will tell I suppose.
PVC is "restic". No shell game with different formulations! If they get better results now, fine, but they need to own up to the material. They made this bed... now they have to sleep in it.
With any luck, some people might get their Mars Attacks KS deliveries before the DKQ KS closes to post reviews of the material.
In fact it might have been better for Mantic to delay this KS by a few weeks until after DZ wave 2 and Mars Attacks shipping, both have been hit by small delays, so backers there might not have as much appetite for this one while they're waiting on stuff from the others. It's something that could be said about nearly every Mantic KS though, I'm waiting on three of them currently.,, it usually works out okay though, I've backed so many that I'll back a new one just as the stuff from a previous one arrives.
I've been a little disappointed with KoW and Deadzone, the restic in KoW wasn't a good material choice for large armies, and Deadzone I'd have preferred a delayed delivery rather than it being rushed out before Christmas, the rules in particular feel rushed and poorly playtested. They're good and the game is fun, it just needs a lot more polish.
The main thing they do have going for them though is delivering on schedule, with delays never lasting more than a month or two, with multiple shipping waves so the stuff that's ready to ship doesn't just sit in the warehouse. In a world where we expect Kickstarters to be 6-36 months late as standard, it's pretty good going.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Nope, not restic as Scarletsquig says above it is the same "newer" plastic that was used with Loka (now with a slightly different formulation) and will be used with Mars Attacks.
@DaveC at current exchange rates $50 is just under £30, so the $100 (thus £60 odd) level pledge seems reasonable for a boxed game and multiple extras.
Sorry, I just don't buy Mantic's "new new newer!!" plastic.
Restic was just their coined term for PVC. These just sounds like a different formulation of PVC. Are they honestly trying to say it's not PVC? I would only believe that if they explicitly said what it is. "New formulations" and the whole "softer/harder formulation" language absolutely reeks of PVC.
No need to get hot about it. Loka and Deadzone figures feel like very different materials to me, whatever the chemical names of the formulation are, and I am no scientist. The good thing to me is that Mantic are trying to deal with the limitations of the material they 'mainly' produce in. The material for KOW/ Deadzone etc is not ideal due to bending/miscasts/ mould lines etc. If this "new new newer" stuff is better when we have it in hand they can call it "Mantic Fantastic Fastic Plastic" for all I care. If it is not, then we can all take issue. I think the thing that most of us want is a material that offers sculpts that match the detail of the resin masters, is relatively cheap, hard wearing and easy to glue.
However, I do care what they call it, and I can't think of a campaign they've done where they didn't say their formulation was different/improved from last time.
I view all of this discussion, and more informed wargamers/consumers, as a positive. But "harder soft plastic" and the like is, I think, not going to cut it now that people are more informed. It's PVC... if they are getting better results with it, I heartily welcome it, but as squig implies most people will want to see that to believe it.
Agreed on that. I think that an awful lot of companies, and us consumers, saw PVC as the dawn of a great new time in wargaming but the results have not yet really justified it. As a result people are a lot more weary of PVC based miniature kickstarters and the like. On this occasion with Mantic we are sensible to wait until Mars Attacks is in hand to judge if the material has been improved to satisfactory levels and is suitable for this fantasy based project.
The same is true for the sci-fi plastic units due for Deadzone, let us hope that Mantic do not "pull a Basilean Man at Arms" on the matter.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Agreed on that. I think that an awful lot of companies, and us consumers, saw PVC as the dawn of a great new time in wargaming but the results have not yet really justified it. As a result people are a lot more weary of PVC based miniature kickstarters and the like. On this occasion with Mantic we are sensible to wait until Mars Attacks is in hand to judge if the material has been improved to satisfactory levels and is suitable for this fantasy based project.
The same is true for the sci-fi plastic units due for Deadzone, let us hope that Mantic do not "pull a Basilean Man at Arms" on the matter.
I've held the zombie sprue. In terms of detail, it is at the least on par with the best of Renedra/GW, if not better. As the factory gets more confident with sprue layouts I'm sure the relative lack of extras will be sorted too.
It really would be nice if Mars Attacks! finds its way into backers' hands around the same time as Dungeon Sagas launches. If people could have all this new material stuff in hand to help assuage any fears or reservations about what the quality of figures are like, I think it would help A LOT. Bring a lot of the naysayers back. If Mars Attacks! is solid out of the box, it could be a real watershed moment for Mantic.
Also come hell or high water I will continue to hope and pine for scaly heroes, be they born of dragons, reptiles, or of the ocean depths.
Plus, not sure if everyone has been following those runes or not, but there's been some progress on those runes unlocking.
The pics I posted of the Mars Attacks stuff on the previous page are actual shots of the production minis, a random box taken off the stack sitting in China and airmailed to Mantic. I've spoken to someone who saw them still in the shrink wrap bags and he said they're almost entirely free of mould lines and look great so I don't think those pics are after Mantic removed the mould lines and hot water bent them either.
At this point it's a given that DKQ will have the same level of quality.
.. They have started to arrive? Or did you get yours early Deadleh?
I got to play around with the production box Not mine yet sadly!
There are some mold lines if you look hard enough, but honestly they're really not noticeable and wouldn't stick out unless you were going for studio quality.
I'd be extremely happy if I could get away without having to remove any mould lines, I can't stand having to do that, and so far I've only owned a few very nicely cast resins that didn't require it.
Definitely looking promising, the earlier MA production test models had some clearly visible lines on them and I'm not seeing many on the minis in those pics, you can easily tell from the bases.
I think the different manufacturer might be a factor too... whoever makes the restic seems a bit lazy and cost-cutting, resulting in a much lower quality restic than it should be. The early restic was great and had almost no mould lines and not much warping... then after the restic manufacturer secured a big contract and started doing huge batch production like the Dreadball KS the quality went straight out of the window, and the complaints about it started to rack up. After the Corporation marines was where it all went wrong I think, I have 100 of those and they're great, if only the same could be said for my basileans where every single one of them needs bending back into shape.
It would be nice if more miniatures companies put effort into reducing or eliminating mould lines, there are companies making model kits in Japan that have no mould lines at all.
Those are some nice pics Daedleh. Gives me hope for both Mars Attacks! and Dungeon Sagas.
Clean models with crisp details straight out of the box will hopefully give Mantic a push towards being a bigger player in the board game arena (with the Warpath plastics being the big push for tabletop gaming).
The original Dwarf King's Hold was a pretty well received game rules- wise, but I had read many frustrated reviews about the quality of the box, components, and having to actually build the figures that put a lot of players off.
Ronnie spills the beans on Dungeon Sagas Dwarf King's Quest in this Beasts of War interview.
Confirms the game will be a spiritual successor to games like Milton Bradley's HeroQuest and Games Workshop's Warhammer Quest.
Confirms same one piece, ready to play out of the box, round base moulded on (interfaces with existing Mantic bases?), same PVC material as Mars Attacks miniatures.
Confirms thicker, better tiles than Dwarf King's Hold.
Confirms 4 core heroes (Dwarf fighter, human wizard, human barbarian, Elf archer) and 4 additional heroes.
1. "Shape Shifter from the new nature army"
2. Basilian Sister Cleric
3. "Lizardman Salamander type"
4. ? (Based on sculpts we have seen thus far could be: Dwarf Engineer, Human Basilian Paladin, Halfling thief)
Baddies Confirmed: Undead Dwarf King and his retinue of armored undead Dwarfs, Undead Trolls and Undead Troll Shaman. Banshee, Necromancer, Ghosts, Skeletons, Zombies
I didn't think the mars attacks figures were pvc, I've got some loka figures and their nothing like restic, their basicly a board game plastic thats alot easier to clean than my dz stuff.
edlowe wrote: I didn't think the mars attacks figures were pvc, I've got some loka figures and their nothing like restic, their basicly a board game plastic thats alot easier to clean than my dz stuff.
There are many different ways to prepare PVC, and 'restic' is just one. Mars Attacks, DBX, Loka and now Dungeon Sagas are another. The most common way of course, is the type you'll find in the cupboard underneath your sink, closely followed by the floor of your 70s vintage residence
Very versatile plastic, PVC, and I'd be fine with them dropping restic and going with hard PVC and soft PVC, or just PVC if they don't feel they need to distinguish.
It's going to have a narrative campaign and then a huge book filled with rules for every undead model Mantic makes (for use as wandering monsters), new heroes, character classes, rules for levelling up stats, spending gold on new gear, building dungeons, dungeon designing for DM's to run a tabletop campaign etc.
More like Heroquest with Advanced heroquest bolted on and a lot of the more interesting stuff from Warhammer Quest (in terms of character levelling and campaign packs etc.).
And that's *just* the basic game box, the first funding target.
After that, stuff gets interesting, I can see them releasing a ton of extra campaign packs with a scenario book and minis to go with it, mostly likely a big baddie, a few minions to go with it and then the rest of the models borrow from the KoW range.
There will be plenty of extra female characters in there from the looks of things, the female version of the Basilean Paladin is confirmed, which is nice.
I really hope they get to do different campaigns for an orc infested cavern, or entering the Abyss and fighting demons.
Lizardman shapeshifter sounds like such a great character too, going to have to play that one I think!
Oh, and I heard August 1st start date and $100 sweet spot with Early Birds getting an extra resin model(s)? rather than receiving a discount.
This really seems to be more of what I was expecting out of Myth- a straightforward dungeon romp with hopefully an easy to grasp yet expandable ruleset.
I've got some games all lined up on the chopping block to cover this one too.
Has there been any more word on the idea of a time based bonus character early bird? Is that still happening?
Mantic will probably run this one for 30 days though, right?
The last two Mantic Kickstarters did not.
DreadBall Extreme ran from Feb. 21 2014 to Mar. 16 2014. 24 Days total.
Mars Attacks ran from Oct. 4 2013 to Nov. 10 2013. 37 Days total.
There is all sorts of metadata and analysis on when the best time to begin a Kickstarter campaign is. Interestingly the last two campaign both started on Fridays. August 1, 2014 is also a Friday. :-)
August 1 makes sense .. make it a month long so the slower middle of the campaign part will happen at GenCon, so they can get people to demo the game there, and then go back the campaign.
I'm probably going to back it, but a little on the fence still. It looks good and I like the sculpts so far, but I have so much Descent stuff already, and barely ever get to play it.
This might be the first Mantic KS to get me to back, if it's not too overpriced. I really want a WHQ style crawler that isn't too complicated to set up or play.
Side note: I find it really funny how the Banshee has gone from being a fairy woman to a dead spirit in "gamer mythology". Surely she'd work better in a fey faction than an undead one!
Da Boss wrote: This might be the first Mantic KS to get me to back, if it's not too overpriced. I really want a WHQ style crawler that isn't too complicated to set up or play.
Side note: I find it really funny how the Banshee has gone from being a fairy woman to a dead spirit in "gamer mythology". Surely she'd work better in a fey faction than an undead one!
The last two Mantic KS (Mars Attacks and DreadBall Extreme) were a pretty good value I thought. Which one did you think was over priced? I didn't know about the earlier Mantic KS and can't comment on them
I'll admit I just skimmed the wikipedia entry on Banshee's and I probally hadn't heard of a banshee before playing D&D. But I think they could go either way.
"The banshee ("woman of the barrows") is a female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the underworld."
Banshee also translates as "Fairy Woman" (Bean Sidhe, Woman of the Mounds, where Daoine Sidhe is "people of the mounds", a euphemistic term for Faeries who were supposed to live in ancient mounds in Ireland. Sidhe is sometimes used as a term for Faeries in general. ). Woman of the Barrows seems to me to be an incorrect translation, being a bit too specific. She's associated with death but in most myths isn't actually a dead person herself.
I can see how they become associated with undeath and so on. It just amuses me how it becomes nerd-canon, like trolls always being damaged by acid and fire, and all that.
Da Boss wrote: Banshee also translates as "Fairy Woman" (Bean Sidhe, Woman of the Mounds, where Daoine Sidhe is "people of the mounds", a euphemistic term for Faeries who were supposed to live in ancient mounds in Ireland. Sidhe is sometimes used as a term for Faeries in general. ). Woman of the Barrows seems to me to be an incorrect translation, being a bit too specific. She's associated with death but in most myths isn't actually a dead person herself.
I can see how they become associated with undeath and so on. It just amuses me how it becomes nerd-canon, like trolls always being damaged by acid and fire, and all that.
Megalith Games Banshee has a touct of the fey to it, though this is the first time I've heard of a Banshee being a faerie, I've always associated them to spirits of evil dead women.
Associating them with the spirits of evil dead women is an example of the pervasiveness of Nerd-Canon.
Just another evolution of mythology, but it is quite entertaining and amusing. That's a cool Banshee though.
The american versions of the Banshee tend to have her being a Ghost, but in the Irish myths, she's a fey spirit that keens for the famous Gaelic families. Sort of a mark of prestige. It then became more generalised.
(Will stop hijacking the thread with my pedantry now )
That's pretty interesting! I had no idea about any of it, either, so thanks for the background
I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this, but given past results it's very likely I'll just wait and see how it turns out. I am waiting on some Mars Attacks scenery that I ordered for a friend, and at least that seems like it was a safe bet.
- 'This August' for a launch date, Warren mentions 'soon'.
- 'take out and play', minimum of assembly and playable out of the box
- Same material as Mars Attacks
- 100% new, completely new sculpts, nothing re-used from existing product lines
- The 'first half', basic game, is going to be more Heroquest/Warhammer Quest than Descent in terms of complexity and style of playing. A board gaming/wargaming newbie will be eased into the game in terms of how to play through a structured narrative that's designed to be balanced and fun.
But - That's only the first half of the boxset. There will be a 'abandon hope all ye who enter here' separator halfway through the box, which will let players go completely to town with quest & dungeon creation, more hero types, character creation, stats for all of the creatures in the Mantica universe. It sounds like more of a leaning towards D&D and introduction of true campaign elements.
- Zombie/Undead dwarf theme - zombies, skellies, zombie trolls, undead dwarves & retinue.
Mega excited about this, I reckon it has the potential to be Mantic's biggest Kickstarter to date.
Mega excited about this, I reckon it has the potential to be Mantic's biggest Kickstarter to date.
Agree that it does at least have the potential. If they bring out dungeon builder terrain sprues, all bets are off. I'm not sure if they realise just how much cash being first to market with that product would make them. The dwarven forge stuff is brilliant, but there's plenty of room for a budget option in hard plastic too.
Just as long as they don't use the damn battlezones connectors. Horrible things.
I honestly don't think plastic dungeon tiles will happen, it goes against the general ethos of a pickup and play title and the tooling would likely be too expensive to support standalone. Sales, with deadzone the KS paid for it and they took a small hit for production as it was in every game box. With this it'd have to be an out of box add in.
I mentioned the idea of plastic tile terrain on Mantic's forums and how, if they pulled it off, they'd totally win at fantasy.
Apparently, irrespective of the financial issues, they had a go and the results were a bit iffy; the connected tiles had a tendency to "banana up" when lengths were laid down. Bit of a shame that it's a no-go, but it's nice to know that they tried.
I still think they'd be making plenty of money with decorative dungeon scenery (nevermind the game for a moment). There aren't a lot of good cheap options for the stuff, especially in plastic.
You get some Heroquest inspired pieces in there... it's on!
I wonder if they'll have a stat line for the Martians somewhere in that bottom half. At the very least the giant bugs deserve some stats!
Mega excited about this, I reckon it has the potential to be Mantic's biggest Kickstarter to date.
Agree that it does at least have the potential. If they bring out dungeon builder terrain sprues, all bets are off. I'm not sure if they realise just how much cash being first to market with that product would make them. The dwarven forge stuff is brilliant, but there's plenty of room for a budget option in hard plastic too.
Just as long as they don't use the damn battlezones connectors. Horrible things.
There was no mention of plastic tiles in the video - as Chillreaper says maybe they have tried them and they haven't worked? If so, it's perhaps wishful thinking to imagine them coming despite stretch goals.
Ronnie mentioned card that was of high quality (better than the stuff that was in DKH).
Although, I think this KS has an appeal far beyond just plastic tiles. You only have to look at how much Gamezone was making with their Heroquest before that got pulled, and that was despite the internet throwing its arms up in the air about the legal implications!
Honestly, that video was tremendously enthusing and well worth sitting down with for 15 mins with a cup of tea.
I wouldn't mind plastic tiles as an option, but I'm much happier with card. It's just easier all round.
I just hope they don't take any short cuts on production. But I can always sub in my better looking Red Box Games and hard plastic Undead if it does look sub par. I'd just rather not have to.
It's going to have a narrative campaign and then a huge book filled with rules for every undead model Mantic makes (for use as wandering monsters), new heroes, character classes, rules for levelling up stats, spending gold on new gear, building dungeons, dungeon designing for DM's to run a tabletop campaign etc.
More like Heroquest with Advanced heroquest bolted on and a lot of the more interesting stuff from Warhammer Quest (in terms of character levelling and campaign packs etc.).
I hope it's the case, but I'd like to see a lot more than just undead stats included - like Advanced HQ had a lot more than just skaven statted out in the basic rules.
Oh, and I heard August 1st start date and $100 sweet spot with Early Birds getting an extra resin model(s)? rather than receiving a discount.
Not happening, thankfully. I fed back my thoughts on this to Stewart and:
Stewart from Mantic wrote:
Don't worry, we won't be doing that :-). That was a suggestion mentioned at the open day that someone took as confirmed.
So all is good.
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Pacific wrote: Great interview with Ronnie Renton on Beasts of War, which actually includes some painted examples of the minis (some of the heroes and a skellie)
Haha, yes they do get enthusiastic about stuff. But, I like it, and find myself looking more forward to stuff when I watch them, which I suppose can only be a good thing (or bad thing depending on the wallet point of view).
I hope it's the case, but I'd like to see a lot more than just undead stats included - like Advanced HQ had a lot more than just skaven statted out in the basic rules.
From the sounds of things the '2nd half' of the boxset will have rules all of the other miniatures in the KoW range (inc. some we haven't seen yet).
Any idea if DKH will be compatible with the Battlesystems fantasy terrain?
I (and a number of others here) have the sci-fi stuff coming and it looks great, it seems as though battlesystems terrain is more in depth than the stuff planned for DKH.
edit: Even better would be if Mantic teamed up with battlesystems imo. They seem to be on good terms with Mantic lending them pre-release miniatures.
Can't see any reason why it wouldn't work, although naturally it'll be better suited to your own campaigns since the double-width of the walls will probably complicate things with the layouts for the fixed scenarios.
Yeah I linked to the pictures but took them down again as the Mantic server is really struggling right now. Nice looking minis and more zombies they get everywhere!
I'm ripping content and pictures from the secret mantic site for anyone who can't be bothered with entering passwords and such to view it. Got the new pics of the skeletons and zombies over there and will add the character profiles next.
Pacific wrote: Haha, yes they do get enthusiastic about stuff. But, I like it, and find myself looking more forward to stuff when I watch them, which I suppose can only be a good thing (or bad thing depending on the wallet point of view).
I hope it's the case, but I'd like to see a lot more than just undead stats included - like Advanced HQ had a lot more than just skaven statted out in the basic rules.
From the sounds of things the '2nd half' of the boxset will have rules all of the other miniatures in the KoW range (inc. some we haven't seen yet).
I took it to be that the 2nd half of the box would just have the stats for their entire undead range.
And yeah, I generally like BoW (especially since that clueless, rambly, annoying guy left) but I don't watch/read it too often because it just feels a bit too much like the gaming infomercial channel, where everything is absolutely awesome.
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scarletsquig wrote: Can't see any reason why it wouldn't work, although naturally it'll be better suited to your own campaigns since the double-width of the walls will probably complicate things with the layouts for the fixed scenarios.
Yeah, I imagine it would work well for either GMed adventures or less randomly-generated solo ones. The tiles lend themselves to a layout of "tunnels through rock" dungeons while the BS terrain is much more of the "all the rooms inside the building" - or "fill in every bit of the graph paper" style of dungeon building.
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scarletsquig wrote: Done. I'm ripping content and pictures from the secret mantic site for anyone who can't be bothered with entering passwords and such to view it. Got the new pics of the skeletons and zombies over there and will add the character profiles next.
.Mikes. wrote: Did I read a while back that the Dungeon Saga KS would include fantasy scenery tiles such as DZ's, or was I just dreaming?
Just speculation as of now. Though Mantic did say they would be doing plastic fantasy castle terrain, ala Deadzone, for their next project, which is a Kings of War version of Mordhiem with small warbands fighting each other. But that wont be until next year.
.Mikes. wrote: Did I read a while back that the Dungeon Saga KS would include fantasy scenery tiles such as DZ's, or was I just dreaming?
Just speculation as of now. Though Mantic did say they would be doing plastic fantasy castle terrain, ala Deadzone, for their next project, which is a Kings of War version of Mordhiem with small warbands fighting each other. But that wont be until next year.
Ah, that's probably what I was thiking of. Cheers.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback on Friday’s blog post. Moving Deadzone back to early next year seems to be the popular choice and there were some great recommendations for new factions. We’ll have some chats here at the bunker and work up some ideas and drawings.
We also have confirmation that DBX is on the sea and on the way to us. I flew in a copy of the box and a couple of the minis to take with me to Crisis this weekend. It is all looking spot on, particularly the plastics. I will have a ‘DreadBall – the future of the sports game of the future’ (what a mouthful!) blog post in a couple of weeks, but those of you that backed this will have some lovely toys with you in a few weeks’ time!
DBX Scenery
The above is one half of the scenery you’ll get in DreadBall Xtreme.
As I said last time, pushing Deadzone back has implications for Kings of War – there are already a couple of the campaign books (with army lists and rules in them) that are out of print and this is causing concern (rightly so). These have been OOP for a while. I have a number of European (and South American!) distributors all very keen on translating Kings of War into their own language. I don’t really want them to translate the old version, only to see it superseded within a few months – and I am not sure you’d be ok with the translations being the new version and you still being over a year away from print!
We are now running short of the hardback rulebook and the two-player set as well. If the Kickstarter goes after Deadzone it will not come in before the end of 2015 and I think that’s just too late.
Alessio and a team of KoW fanatics have been working for the last 3 months on updating the rules. By combining a refreshed rule set with a far more complete background and all the army lists – updated with new units and rebalanced – then putting all of it in one book and I think and we have the foundations of a fantastic 2nd edition.
I know Kickstarters have the potential to become a burden, and I am aware of this.
So did I consider just pre-releasing the 2nd Edition of KoW? Yes, I thought long and hard about it. But I think our fans have come to expect the amazing. Piles of plastics at great prices and any extra cash we generate being spent on new models to support their game, and more cool expansion books and background. If I put it up for pre-release we both lose the urgency that makes us get on and get things made and a deadline that sees it released soon.
I think it also undervalues just how much Kickstarter brings to the party. Over ½ the money we raise in any campaign now comes from people who have never backed a Mantic kickstarter before. I think there are a growing number of gamers in the world who are looking for a reasonably priced, well-made, fantasy Tabletop war game. We have that in KoW, but from the discussions I’ve had everyone who plays it thinks the rulebook needs both a freshen up, and for everything to be in one place. I think it also needs some publicity – a well-run campaign that raises its modest funding goal and goes past it, and allows us to get a new edition out in 2015 in 4 languages will do that.
Undead-Artwork-Army-of-Mhorgoth-large
That said, I am aware it is coming up to the time of year when our hobby money goes elsewhere, and while the argument for a Kickstarter is overwhelming, that doesn’t help the wallet!
We’ll have a low buy in pledge. It will get you a hard cover book, with rules, lots of background about the world and the armies and updated army lists. This would be a limited edition print. You also get the battle book – a soft cover book (it will come with just the army lists and rules) for taking with you to games nights and tournaments. If you just want the book, or to pay after Christmas just drop in a dollar and pick up what you want in the survey. Finally I would open a pledge for new players that gives them the rules pledge and an army to get going with it would also be a handy way for existing players the opportunity to start a new army, (or an Abyssal one )
The funding goal would be relatively low for just the book and we would only open the kickstarter for a couple of weeks, but we’d leave the pledge manager open well into the new year so everyone has as long as they need to get themselves sorted – and we’d use that time to keep the total going up and use the funds for tooling new miniatures if we overshoot the goal.
Dwarf-One-Player-Battle-Set
This means you get the new 2nd Edition Hardback Kings of War rulebook printed and into your hands mid-2015. Mantic will have 3 months focusing on this game, with the new rules, ahead of the release of Dungeon Saga too. And as always any funds we raise goes directly in to making the Kings of War universe better, through more background and new miniatures. The translated versions will be using the same rules as the English version, allowing international tournaments and cross border play from the outset. It also cleans up the printed range and puts everything in one place!
And IF you want it, and by that I mean if you run around with your arms above your head yelling ‘more, I want more’ and we sprint past the funding level we need for the book and some cool extra bits then I will use the extra funds to fill in some of the gaps in the existing armies and to tool the Abyssal army for Kings of War (which we’ve already sculpted most of). We would still keep the pledge manager open so you could add them on anytime too.
We intend to start the campaign next week and end it right at the start of December – as you can see it is a mini-kick in every sense of the word!
Let us have your ideas for what we should add to the plan below and we will try and get them made!
As much as I'd like to back it, my wallet is crying from several KS lately (including a Mantic one) and will soon be split further asunder by Black Friday and Christmas.
I guess it was too good to be true when Mantic said they were going to lay off the kickstarters for the year by delaying DZ2.
Have a read through the details of the ks on the blog
"That said, I am aware it is coming up to the time of year when our hobby money goes elsewhere, and while the argument for a Kickstarter is overwhelming, that doesn’t help the wallet!
We’ll have a low buy in pledge. It will get you a hard cover book, with rules, lots of background about the world and the armies and updated army lists. This would be a limited edition print. You also get the battle book – a soft cover book (it will come with just the army lists and rules) for taking with you to games nights and tournaments. If you just want the book, or to pay after Christmas just drop in a dollar and pick up what you want in the survey. Finally I would open a pledge for new players that gives them the rules pledge and an army to get going with it would also be a handy way for existing players the opportunity to start a new army, (or an Abyssal one )
The funding goal would be relatively low for just the book and we would only open the kickstarter for a couple of weeks, but we’d leave the pledge manager open well into the new year so everyone has as long as they need to get themselves sorted – and we’d use that time to keep the total going up and use the funds for tooling new miniatures if we overshoot the goal."
So to hazard a guess, just the $35 and $75 pledge levels to start, then a $1 pledge manager level later and maybe a couple vanity levels if they get enough money to unlock abyssals?
NTRabbit wrote: So to hazard a guess, just the $35 and $75 pledge levels to start, then a $1 pledge manager level later and maybe a couple vanity levels if they get enough money to unlock abyssals?
Likely something like that. Models will only got up IF funding does (because Christmas - no one is forcing you!) and the $1 should be there from the start.
NTRabbit wrote: So to hazard a guess, just the $35 and $75 pledge levels to start, then a $1 pledge manager level later and maybe a couple vanity levels if they get enough money to unlock abyssals?
As we have your ear Daedleh, wil the pledge amounts be available as add on pladges after the KS has finished? I mean if I can only pledge $1 before christmas but want the $75 pledge level will I be able to do that on the manager?
I honestly don't know sorry. You'd be best off asking on the Mantic Facebook page I think. I would have thought so, but please don't quote me on it
I've only been closely involved in the rules development. We've had some brief meetings about ideas for the KS and I've heard some vague pledge amounts thrown about but that's all I know about the KS side. The fact that it's starting so soon was news to me as well!
Mantic wants to keep their fantasy and sci-fi more separate than GW did right? So it's unlikely that we'll see a "fantasy Z'zor" I imagine? I'd love me an insectoid fantasy army like that!
Apparently so, though I can't for the life of me understand why. They already have Orcs, Dwarves, almost-elves, ratmen in their sci-fi. Insect-people in fantasy aren't that common, but it's certainly been done before so it's not a huge stretch of the imagination or anything.
Kings of War Kickstarter launches Friday 14th November! 1:30pm GMT!
1:30 PM Greenwich Mean Time conversion to worldwide times: - New York 8:30 AM - Houston 7:30 AM - Berlin 2:30 PM - Perth 9:30 PM - Sydney* 0:30 AM Next Day
Yonan wrote: Mantic wants to keep their fantasy and sci-fi more separate than GW did right? So it's unlikely that we'll see a "fantasy Z'zor" I imagine? I'd love me an insectoid fantasy army like that!
Makes me think of the insectoids from the Raymond E Feist 'Magician' series (I forget their name), think something like that would be extremely cool!
The thing is, I bet they would be open to suggestion to something like that, might be worth mentioning on the official forums perhaps?
Cho-ja, and I thought the same ; ) There was talk a while ago about how the Riftwar would be a great license for Mantic to get iirc, but yeah it was just talk.
So the Dungeon Saga pledge manager just hit open release after testing with the earlybirds and $1 backers. Just doing mine now, it's certainly generations ahead of the old google docs system.
Open until March 1st, not sure if they're doing non-backer invites but you can always ask if you missed out.
Edit: Haha, 503 server timeout at the first button, guess I'm not the only one who just frantically clicked on the email link
I think so, you just can't change which base pledge you go for once you've selected it - which isn't much of a bother considering it's $100 for the game, or over $1000 for a studio painted copy, and that's all.
Has anyone else found that the images aren't loading in the pledge manager?
I'm using Google Chrome, for what it's worth.
Seems better in firefox, aside from the initial 2 pledge images.
So, fun facts to make the shopping a bit easier. If you hover over the price, it changes to a shopping cart so you can just click 'add' there, without having to go into the next screen. Also, on the drop down 'shopping cart' you can click on the picture to remove the item.
Now, I'm trying to figure out what all the missing heroes I've err, missed, are.
After finalizing my pledge, I can assure you all that you are most certainly able to add more stuff afterwards.
I'm unsure on a couple of things though.
The traps- are they all going to be spikes, or will there be a bit of variety? Was that ever discussed?
The dungeon critters and resin heroes (or basically all the resin in general)- will they have bases for them? The standard DS cobblestone ones perhaps?
I might grab those if I knew one way or the other.
The Dungeon Master
The 3 sets of Legendary Heroes
All the expansions
Acrylic Counters
I'm not sure whether to go for the Black Fortress tileset, or whether it's worth going for any of the other standalone heroes. - I mean, I probably have loads of troops in my collection that could stand in for basically anything. In saying that, I could be tempted by Ravanna and the Dwarf Engineer, as they seem unique-ish enough.
On the other hand, I probably already have a dwarf engineer in my old warhammer fantasy boxes. And I'm sure there's plenty of other witch models out there too.
I'm tempted by the critters too, but again I'm guessing you can get them pretty much anywhere.
Compel wrote: So, the main part of my pledge so far is:
The Dungeon Master
The 3 sets of Legendary Heroes
All the expansions
Acrylic Counters
I'm not sure whether to go for the Black Fortress tileset, or whether it's worth going for any of the other standalone heroes. - I mean, I probably have loads of troops in my collection that could stand in for basically anything. In saying that, I could be tempted by Ravanna and the Dwarf Engineer, as they seem unique-ish enough.
On the other hand, I probably already have a dwarf engineer in my old warhammer fantasy boxes. And I'm sure there's plenty of other witch models out there too.
I'm tempted by the critters too, but again I'm guessing you can get them pretty much anywhere.
I think the Black Fortress tile set is worth it for a few reasons: 1) you will already have a narrative campaign using it in your Dungeon Journal, 2) when factoring in the "cost" of the furniture & doors, the tiles are only costing you an extra $5 - it's good value, 3) the focus of the game is creating/randomising and playing your own scenarios, and this would give you substantially more variety to play with.
You can get the dungeon critters elsewhere, but $1 per resin miniature is about as cheap as you're going to find for that material. Reaper Bones may be better for less mutated-looking rats though (although not any cheaper, even in PVC). Shame the old Warhammer Quest vermin sprue isn't still in production!
I too am tempted by the dwarf, as I think the nice detail of the sculpt would be properly carried through in resin!
I also personally think the "Resin Counter Upgrade" - $10 for 28 counters that really do look nice - is an easy purchase if you can afford it.
I'm thinking the same thing as Bioptic- the Black Fortress is worth it if you were already planning on getting any extra scenery. For just a few bucks more you can get the tiles as well, which makes sense since you're already getting the campaign included.
My Black Fortress is more than likely going to end up being a Skaven stronghold at some point. If Mantic doesn't give us any ratmen stats in that journal, I'm sure I can pull some by comparing some unofficial Kings of War stats with some comparative figures that do end up in Dungeon Saga.
I went ahead and grabbed the critters as well as the acrylic counters. I figure the critters will at least be uniform with all the stuff that's in the game, as they should include Dungeon Saga bases. But then I went and ordered a few extra bases as well to base even more critters if the mood should strike me.
Counters seemed like a good deal. I just hope they are more easily readable than the Deadzone ones.
Azazelx wrote: Apparently so, though I can't for the life of me understand why. They already have Orcs, Dwarves, almost-elves, ratmen in their sci-fi. Insect-people in fantasy aren't that common, but it's certainly been done before so it's not a huge stretch of the imagination or anything.
imagine fighting an insectoid in fantasy. Tough carapace armoured bugs, making an entire army armoured with the equivalent if full plate? They would be very hard to kill, realistically.
Azazelx wrote: Apparently so, though I can't for the life of me understand why. They already have Orcs, Dwarves, almost-elves, ratmen in their sci-fi. Insect-people in fantasy aren't that common, but it's certainly been done before so it's not a huge stretch of the imagination or anything.
imagine fighting an insectoid in fantasy. Tough carapace armoured bugs, making an entire army armoured with the equivalent if full plate? They would be very hard to kill, realistically.
They'd just have different bugs in the army. Fast-flying but squishy bugs, tough army ants, soft-bodied wasps as glass cannon, big-ass spider monster. (yeah, I know arachnids, but you get the idea). Remember, they're fighting these dudes. They will still feth you up, regardless of whether you're in full plate or armoured carapace.
Another one in favour of the new gobbos. They look like they can actually present a significant threat. Same with the orc sculpts really. Really liking the aesthetic theyre going for there. (which is also why I hate the Abyssal expansion... the lower abyssals just look like crap, imo.)
The gobos look awesome, I just wish the kow plastic kit was that good.
Wow, those look great! I hesitate to ask, but what material are they supposed to be in? Why couldn't we have gotten nice HIPS plastic goblins like these?
Gallahad wrote: Wow, those look great! I hesitate to ask, but what material are they supposed to be in? Why couldn't we have gotten nice HIPS plastic goblins like these?
BTW, Gallahad, to answer your other question, those are likely resins. As for the production stuff (unless you buy the resin sets):
What material are the miniatures made from?
The Dungeon Saga miniatures are made in multiple pieces, but provided fully assembled (unless stated otherwise), and made from highly detailed coloured plastic. The material is a type of PVC commonly used in board games such as Fantasy Flight Games’ Gears of War and our very own Loka. This allows us to have a high level of detail whilst keeping the dynamic poses required for such a fast-paced game, and of course making them very affordable as you would expect from Mantic.
Note that this material is not the harder PVC commonly known as “restic”, and is not sprued hard plastic.
The Kings of War Figure Packs may be a mixture of Premium Plastic - also known as "Restic" or "Resin Plastic" - or Hard Plastic, which is supplied on a sprue like a Games Workshop or Airfix model kit.
Gallahad wrote: Wow, those look great! I hesitate to ask, but what material are they supposed to be in? Why couldn't we have gotten nice HIPS plastic goblins like these?
Gallahad wrote: Wow, those look great! I hesitate to ask, but what material are they supposed to be in? Why couldn't we have gotten nice HIPS plastic goblins like these?
Because those are covered in undercuts.
Could you explain this?
Steve Buddle (of Spyglass/Eolith, before he went to work for Games Workshop full time) has this to say on the matter:
Suffice it to say that hard plastic has problems with maintaining detail that is not along a single plane, which is why 1) the models often tend to be of the multipose format where you get legs, a torso, a head, individual arms, and then little detailed bits you can glue on top, 2) the Kingdom Death plastics are going to be ungodly fiddly when they arrive, because they want to preserve all of the original sculpt details which means lots and lots of bits, and 3) GW pays a king's ransom in design to make relatively detailed and dynamic designs easy to assemble.
The bendy PVC can be bent and flexed when removed from moulds, meaning that you don't have the same problem, is my understanding.
Pretty nice group shot from the latest blog update
I know their the resin masters we've been seeing but I think mantic are really upping their game with these sculpts, especially considering their one piece figures.
This DS stuff is shaping up pretty nicely. I skipped the KS, but may just have to grab it at retail. Some of those minis (the cloaked Wraith-thingy, and the Necromancer raising the Skeleton) are great.
Right, they're modelled more as 'tiny orcs' than 'tiny goblins', in terms of proportions and facial features. Makes 'em more vicious, although I did love the sheer variety of the old GW metal snotlings.
I do wonder how well they'll do in boardgame plastic though - Mars Attacks suffered the most with delicate facial features and the like.
I think the orc hero mostly suffers from a weird paintjob... stripes and the grey mawbeast head. Really like his proportions though. For me, the Abyssal is a bit more of a miss... but then Ive never liked them, even when they were just concepts.
Cool stuff about character creation and progression in the advanced rules too.
(8 races, 9 classes, 3 options per level (one based on race, 2 on class), level up via "Glory", which you can invest either in those skills, or into getting more gold per scenario to buy items.)
Since the very beginning of Mantic Games we’ve tried to be as inclusive as possible.
From running the Kings of War Beta test way back in 2010 to fan-additions made to our Mars Attacks game, the community and their feedback has been central to the way we create our games.
With Dungeon Saga, this has been no different. From way back when we did Dwarf King’s Hold – our original dungeon crawler – and the feedback we had on that game, right through to the Dungeon Saga Alpha rules that you were able to play and feedback on in August 2014 when we were running the Kickstarter campaign, we’ve been collating feedback the whole time.
Recently we held a beta test at Mantic Towers and as we said in the last update, there were plenty of great suggestions on ways to improve the game. So much so we held back the beta rules, improved and iterated on them, and put them together into a new format.
On March 7th we’re holding a second Dungeon Saga playtest day at Mantic HQ, which you’re invited to attend. Just email dave@manticgames.com if you wish to attend.
A face-to-face playtest day is great, but we want all of you to get involved and, as promised, we’ve put the latest iteration of the rules together into the files below ready for you to download.
About the rules
In this folder you will find the Rulebook, Scenario Book, plus all of the stats and cards you need to play the game. You’ll need to mock up your own counters, tiles and find a few models to play with.
As you can see, the rules and the layout are not yet complete, and your feedback will influence the final design of the game.
The maps for example are currently just photographs (and, as they’re a little hard to read, we’ve also included a folder of higher-res imagery so you can get a better look at them).
. That means that there may be some things missing.
So here’s how you can give us your feedback…
We are looking for feedback on a number of specific topics:
- Are the rules easy to understand?
- Is the game easy to learn?
- Is the game fun?
- What did you enjoy about the game?
- What didn’t you like about the game?
We’ve set-up a board on the Mantic Forum dedicated to giving feedback on the rules, scenarios and rulebook.
Games Developer Jake Thornton has also set up this Q+A post on this Quirkworthy blogfor any questions on the Dungeon Saga Beta Rules.
If you want to have a say on the rules then you must submit your feedback by Monday 9th March. This feedback will then be collated and taken into consideration.
Finally, if you have a question regarding the pledge manager, please message us here on the Kickstarter. We cannot always monitor the comments as much as we like, no matter how hard we try, and we are working through our messages as fast as we can.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Link to beta rules
The KoW2 pledge manager invites have started going out today, and everyone will have one by next monday. It closes end of March, pretty quick turn around, so I hope they get a rules beta public pretty quickly, especially since there seem to be some ongoing battles between Alessio and the Rules Committee on the Mantic forum.
Since I'm in for the Abyssals and we haven't seen anything of the sprues yet (unless I missed something) I'm a little annoyed they want the money before the end of March.
Well, Wave 1 is the book and anything made up entirely of existing models. Mantic wants to get folks playing quickly, and had mentioned that Mega-Armies made up of existing stock could conceivably ship right away...
... of course that was before units like Soul Reavers were added, so who knows. I hope it is still the plan though.
And man... I just sunk $900 into the Pledge Manager. That feels surreal. Still, I am trying to advocate hard for this game, so I went in for a lot of "quality of life" extras like tons of movement trays (of all sizes), extra mega-armies to demo with, and even some of that nice pre-painted terrain to use as set-pieces.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: End of March? I just paid for the Dungeon Saga pledge manager. There are only so many tricks I can turn in a month!
Will there be a second opportunity for the pledge manager later? That's pretty much the only way I am adding any funds.
They are definitely opening the Dungeon Saga manager for a second time later on (presumably they need to get an idea of what to produce earlyish), so I'd assume this would be the case for KoW as well, but don't have confirmation.
It's typical Mantic Kickstarter management, unfortunately - tripping over themselves with too many new campaigns and pledge managers and all of the rest of it.
lord_blackfang wrote: It's a bit ridiculous to suddenly only have 10 days to pay with no advance notice.
Knock-on effects for Mantic's next kickstarter campains cannot be
over-stated. They are
a young company that has become overly dependent on the
convenience of Kicstarter at the expense of any future growth through their online
store or traditional retail distribution.
If this pledge manager is just for wave 1 (pre-existing models and the books), then I'm glad they're pushing to have it on time. They'll reopen it later when there's something to show on the new models.
This gets the rules out on time, which is what the kickstarter was all about (and is the thing they really need to do with GW potentially shooting themselves in the foot with 9th edition).
That's fine in one way, but rolling out a PM with a 10-day time-frame for people is just ridiculous. They spent way too long tooling around with the Dungeon Saga one, and now they're tripping over their own feet as usual with new campaigns and pledge managers self-cannibalising their own customer base.
Yep, probably just getting the $50 pledge from me. But with Conan wrapping soon and a couple others to finalize they might only get my $1 and I'll rough it with the free online version.
MaxT wrote: It's not like you didn't know it was coming - if you planned on spending $$$ in the pledge manager, you've had like 4 months to save up.
There's also the matter of credit limits. My bank only lets me spend 2/3 of my monthly salary on credit cards, regardless of how much I have saved up. This can severely limit my ability to partake of time-sensitive offers such as Kickstarters. Longer windows can help a lot as they at least give me some freedom to decide which month I'll get charged for payment.
MaxT wrote: It's not like you didn't know it was coming - if you planned on spending $$$ in the pledge manager, you've had like 4 months to save up.
There's also the matter of credit limits. My bank only lets me spend 2/3 of my monthly salary on credit cards, regardless of how much I have saved up. This can severely limit my ability to partake of time-sensitive offers such as Kickstarters. Longer windows can help a lot as they at least give me some freedom to decide which month I'll get charged for payment.
Random aside, but can I say how refreshing it is to hear that your banks show responsibility and ethics in how they apparently are unwilling to let an individual commit slow-suicide-by-debt? I think it would shock, but do a lot of good in America if banks, rather than revel in human weakness, instead tried to help people temper their impulses.
Random aside, but can I say how refreshing it is to hear that your banks show responsibility and ethics in how they apparently are unwilling to let an individual commit slow-suicide-by-debt? I think it would shock, but do a lot of good in America if banks, rather than revel in human weakness, instead tried to help people temper their impulses.
If every American bank followed your advice, you'd kill Kickstarter overnight, and eBay by the end of the year!
MaxT wrote: It's not like you didn't know it was coming - if you planned on spending $$$ in the pledge manager, you've had like 4 months to save up.
There's also the matter of credit limits. My bank only lets me spend 2/3 of my monthly salary on credit cards, regardless of how much I have saved up. This can severely limit my ability to partake of time-sensitive offers such as Kickstarters. Longer windows can help a lot as they at least give me some freedom to decide which month I'll get charged for payment.
I don't follow this... If you have money saved up, why do you need to use a credit card?
MaxT wrote: It's not like you didn't know it was coming - if you planned on spending $$$ in the pledge manager, you've had like 4 months to save up.
Yeah, see I don't "save up" my money for whenever a company might finally decide to release a PM at some random stage from a kickstarter that was run last year because I'm neither 16 years old, nor beholden to a company like Mantic (or CMoN, or insert company name here). I spend as I go, and maybe work a thing between two paydays at worst. If they want to pull this kind of silly gak, it just means that they get less money from me.
Azazelx, why do you continue to back Mantic projects?
No snark here, just genuinely interested. I only ever seem to notice you talking about Mantic in negative ways, throwing out/burning minis received and generally saying how gak they are. You always seem dissatisfied with both product and service.
JoshInJapan wrote: In order to avoid this Pledge Manager weirdness, I pledged for everything that I wanted up front so I won't have to add any more money after the fact.
There is some version of reality where I did the same thing, while driving my Ferrari from my mansion to my yacht, paying off the drunken hobos I ran down on the way while hands-free chatting it up with my man The Donald about how best to use the senators we bought off.
In this reality, I pledged $1 because I had $1 to pledge. I might have more later, by my wallet-mana is all tapped right now.
MaxT wrote: It's not like you didn't know it was coming - if you planned on spending $$$ in the pledge manager, you've had like 4 months to save up.
Yeah, see I don't "save up" my money for whenever a company might finally decide to release a PM at some random stage from a kickstarter that was run last year because I'm neither 16 years old, nor beholden to a company like Mantic (or CMoN, or insert company name here). I spend as I go, and maybe work a thing between two paydays at worst. If they want to pull this kind of silly gak, it just means that they get less money from me.
Its an odd thing to say....
You dont 'save up' money and then give examples of a 16 year old (who generally dont save money) as an example of what you are not.
I dont know who you are or how old you are and I dont really care, but to suggest that 'saving money' is a bad thing is foolish, no matter what the money is for.
Alex C wrote: Azazelx, why do you continue to back Mantic projects?
No snark here, just genuinely interested. I only ever seem to notice you talking about Mantic in negative ways, throwing out/burning minis received and generally saying how gak they are. You always seem dissatisfied with both product and service.
Yet you backed KoW?
A fair question.
I like Mantic. Or perhaps to put it better I desperately want to like Mantic. I see them as having great potential, and a much more gamer and hobby-friendly attitude than GW, which is what spawned them in more ways than one, and would like to see them successful.
Unfortunately, they just seem to keep fething up and making foolish decisions. I see much of this not ranging from deliberate malice, or even an ingrained incompetence at this stage, but being over-rushed and always under the pump - always rushing to run three kickstarters in various stages, and mistakes be damned. In effect, I'm critical because I care. Because I'd like to see them do better, both for themselves, and by us.
More specifically, I think KoW is a great game, and have been (slowly) converting my WHFB stuff over to it for the past 18 or so months. If you'd followed my P&M or Wordpress blogs, or even my postings in the Mantic or LotR forums you'd see that much of my hobby time is geared towards KoW and has been for some time. I don't blame you for not following these avenues, of course, but it's there and at this stage well-documented over 18 months or so that I'm a pretty solid fan of the rules. I haven't played WarPath yet, but I'm hoping that it will be a solid replacement for 40k in the same way. I just don't have the time to spend on it at this stage.
With DeadZone, they fethed up my order pretty significantly, and I'm not embarassed to say that I pretty much lost my gak at that point. I had 2 weeks off from work, and was all lined up to spend most of that time learning and playing the game. Let's just say that didn't happen.
With MA, I was just pretty much over KS in general terms, and they only fethed up my order in a minor way (due to a misunderstanding) I'm just over it in general. Note you won't find a whole lot of comments about MA from me - and the exact same kind of fatigue also applies to WoK, Cthulhu Wars, and RH which have now all finally arrived and remain un-QAed at this point. I only just checked my DZW3 last weekend, and I think it's all there - probably close enough, I guess?
I backed DKQ because it's a proven good game, and I also only got what I'd call "modular" upgrades, and one extra model. I've stopped going in for everything or endless baggies of extras. I'm in on KoW because as I said up top, it's a great game - my main minis game at this stage in fact - (and I like owning the full and proper rules) - and I want to support Mantic. I didn't bitch about DKQ, and if they weren't pulling ridiculous gak like a 10-day pledge manager on this one, I wouldn't be complaining here either.
I skipped over DBX completely (ok, I went in for $1 and then skipped the PMs) since the gakky restic models that came in the first game put me off ever trying or playing the base game, and I'm not likely to ever back them for the kind of $300+ money they want these days for models that may end up in metal or PVC or anything else. Also their "get absolutely everything mine cart" pledge that turned out to be bs with additional add-ons that weren't included after all was a little off-putting. But mostly because of the way they handled S1 and my never playing it afterwards.
Josh - fair point, but my opinion of Mantic (and also CMoN) KS projects at this point is that I may as well just back with a base pledge or even $1 and pick the rest up via PM, since it leaves me with much more flexibility on when I pay, and with Mantic, I'd like to see what I'm getting (or closer to it) before paying for it much more after their model shenanigans for almost all of their KS since the first KoW one. Also, I probably had something more important to pay for that week - like ordering from Warlord, Foundry, etc. In a world where I still have to prioritise my cash. Mantic KS are pretty low on the radar since we know they always run 2-4 waves of pledge managers later on down the line where I have more flexibility when I pay.
Azazelx wrote: Josh - fair point, but my opinion of Mantic (and also CMoN) KS projects at this point is that I may as well just back with a base pledge or even $1 and pick the rest up via PM, since it leaves me with much more flexibility on when I pay, and with Mantic, I'd like to see what I'm getting (or closer to it) before paying for it much more after their model shenanigans for almost all of their KS since the first KoW one. Also, I probably had something more important to pay for that week - like ordering from Warlord, Foundry, etc. In a world where I still have to prioritise my cash. Mantic KS are pretty low on the radar since we know they always run 2-4 waves of pledge managers later on down the line where I have more flexibility when I pay.
That wasn't a reply specifically to you, but rather to this particular subtopic. I backed a lot of Kickstarters last year, some of them far beyond what any sane person would do (well over $1000 US for Deadzone, for example), and a lot of that funding was via pledge managers after the campaign finished. Like you, I have other things that need my money, so I'm a) limiting my hobby purchases for the year, and b) only paying for things once. My credit card bills have been a lot more manageable since making that decision.
Got my PM invite at the $1 level filled it out and went to pay with Paypal I couldn't log in even though my details are correct then I noticed the cart links to a Paypal test site and not a live site very odd I cancelled out and changed my password on the live site just to be sure I'll have another look tonight when I can do it on my laptop (on an iPhone at the moment)
EDIT others are reporting the same issue I've sent Mantic a message about it
I also just got an email for my $1 "Your Dungeon Saga Pledge" - which I also finished with a couple of weeks ago. After seeing the new posts here, I guess I'll just give them a few more days to make it work before going near it.
Duncan - don't worry mate. We'll both just have to make sure that it never, ever happens again.
Just went to add a mini onto my $50 pledge and every time I try I get a "Pledge discount does not exist" error. I've reported it (as I can't work out how to fix the error like it's asking me to).
To confirm they will be opening this back up again once they get closer to releasing the hard plastic abyssals dudes and niads right? Because I'm not giving them a dime till I at least get a look at what I might be ordering.
Additionally they numbers in the actual selections seem way off for the armies. No numbers next to non-plastic models and like 4, 8 or 16 next to the hard plastic selections. My guess is those are hold overs from the Dungeon Saga pledge manager?
Sounds like they're having some small issues getting a second project to work on their system... which is an error you can't really get and work through until you put the second project on your system
My email said Dungeon Saga but it has taken me to the KoW pm. Successfully upgraded to the $50 pledge, but I've not really done anything else since I'm not in any hurry.
Now I just need to determine if I want a mega army or 2 starters.
I'm thinking 2 starters with the Abyssals and Nature stuff ought to suffice, since any games that get played around here are going to be using my figures and armies anyways.
I'm thinking 2 starters with the Abyssals and Nature stuff ought to suffice, since any games that get played around here are going to be using my figures and armies anyways.
I like Mantic. Or perhaps to put it better I desperately want to like Mantic. I see them as having great potential, and a much more gamer and hobby-friendly attitude than GW, which is what spawned them in more ways than one, and would like to see them successful….
...More specifically, I think KoW is a great game…
.
... I haven't played WarPath yet, but I'm hoping that it will be a solid replacement for 40k in the same way. I just don't have the time to spend on it at this stage.
I really like what Mantic does as far as rules. Kings of War and Warpath 1.0 (will try 2.0 someday) filled some big-game niches for me nicely. the problem for me is that I'm not a fan of Restic (though I bought quite a few Deadzone minis) and in general their minis just don't win me over. So, I make a point of buying the rules even though they're free and I pick up figs that do interest me such as Rebs, a few Forge Father items for my Squats and the occasional Crazy Box just for conversion stuff. It's not much, but in the grand scheme, but it's more than most other companies get from me and it's what I'm will to give them.
The Paypal issue is resolved it links to the live Paypal site now. All done my email did say Dungeon Saga but it linked to KoW and gave the correct credit.
As much as I love Kings of War I literally have like 9 armies for it. I was in at $50 pledge and looks like I'm staying there, with maybe a few add-ons like Ronaldo the Bard
What really puts me off when I look at this again is that they want $15 shipping for the $50 pledge, but if I just want to add the campaign book (+$10) they want $40 shipping. Which is all I really want - the printed rules and the PDFs.
Not interested in paying Mantic (due to their very uneven track record) upfront for concept art miniatures that could turn out to be of any quality in any material, and I've already given them buckets of money for the worthwhile figures from their existing armies in the past.
and yeah, I know the $40 covers whole armies being sent in multiple waves (which are all free shipping for the US and UK ) but it's a little odd that they didn't think about it in terms of the "just rules" pledges.
I got my invite, and ended up adding $16 to get Ronaldo and an Ogre shaman. I looked at several of the army offers, but kept remembering how many fantasy armies I already have.
I too am not adding anything else until we see what some of those new figures look like.
Took a gamble with the new forces of nature and the abyss starters. That's probably more than enough for me to get through, considering I don't have a single proper army to field in any game I've planned on playing....
Is it possible that rather than being too quick with Wave 1, they are in fact too slow?
If KOW I was any indication, they want to ship out what they have early on, and then ship out all the new stuff later. Most of the army packages are ready to go, and they can get the books pretty quickly. Part of me had kind of assumed they'd be shipping the in stock mega armies even earlier.
Polonius wrote: Is it possible that rather than being too quick with Wave 1, they are in fact too slow?
If KOW I was any indication, they want to ship out what they have early on, and then ship out all the new stuff later. Most of the army packages are ready to go, and they can get the books pretty quickly. Part of me had kind of assumed they'd be shipping the in stock mega armies even earlier.
It's all due to the backed-up nature of the way that Mantic run their KS campaigns. They had to get working, run (and close) the PM for DKQ before the KoW one, and now they obviously want to run and close this PM at a sprint so they can start the DZ2 campaign. Unfortunately they haven't worked out their time management very well. They seem to have improved on running a KS while a PM is open at the same time only to the point of asking for money for three different campaigns on a back to back basis.
I think they underestimated how much work Dungeon Saga was going to be, and overestimated a lot of things involved in getting the KoW 2nd rules finalised and the book ready for the printers.
NTRabbit wrote: I think they underestimated how much work Dungeon Saga was going to be, and overestimated a lot of things involved in getting the KoW 2nd rules finalised and the book ready for the printers.
Dungeon Saga and KoW are, for the most part, being developed by two separate groups.
NTRabbit wrote: I think they underestimated how much work Dungeon Saga was going to be, and overestimated a lot of things involved in getting the KoW 2nd rules finalised and the book ready for the printers.
Dungeon Saga and KoW are, for the most part, being developed by two separate groups.
DKQ = Jake Thornton and his playtest crew
KoW = Alessio Cavatore and his playtest crew
Tyr13 wrote: They do have seperate playtest groups (I think), but what about editing? Youd still have a bottleneck there.
Mostly separate playtest groups Alessio is doing the KoW document, I don't know whether Jake is doing most of the DS one (he isn't writing all the scenarios himself), though it seems likely (he did the DZ and DB ones I've seen before).
There will be some final work done by the Mantic studio, but the bulk of it should be done before it reaches them (leaving them free to work on Warpath in the mean time).
I haven't had my pledge manager notice yet, but I imagine that this delivery will be very basic. - A bit like how for DBX, they sent out the boxed game first, then about 6 weeks later, they sent out the other parts of wave I.
Whether they say that when the pledge manager is generally available or not, I dunno.
Baragash wrote: There will be some final work done by the Mantic studio, but the bulk of it should be done before it reaches them (leaving them free to work on Warpath in the mean time).
Which is the problem, way too much of it is not happening within Mantic proper because DS is eating all the resources.
Also reading the Mantic forum suggests Alessio and the Rules Committee have been having a very long and excruciating battle over the rules development because each has a fundamentally different idea of what they want KoW to become, which is why we still don't have a beta yet for a rule set that was meant to be done and dusted by new years.
Baragash wrote: There will be some final work done by the Mantic studio, but the bulk of it should be done before it reaches them (leaving them free to work on Warpath in the mean time).
Which is the problem, way too much of it is not happening within Mantic proper because DS is eating all the resources.
I'm not sure how the complete opposite of what I said can be the problem?
NTRabbit wrote: Also reading the Mantic forum suggests Alessio and the Rules Committee have been having a very long and excruciating battle over the rules development because each has a fundamentally different idea of what they want KoW to become, which is why we still don't have a beta yet for a rule set that was meant to be done and dusted by new years.
That's not the reason we don't have a beta at all. There's a clear hierarchy - rules committee made a list of suggestions, Alessio says "yes", "no", "I have a better idea to handle the problem".
Baragash wrote: That's not the reason we don't have a beta at all. There's a clear hierarchy - rules committee made a list of suggestions, Alessio says "yes", "no", "I have a better idea to handle the problem".
What I've read over there strongly suggests otherwise.
Alessio only working one day per week really didn't help expedite things, especially when each internal beta needed multiple revisions and discussions. Waiting a week for the feedback to be read, let alone acted on or responded to really slowed things down.
Also personality clashes, mostly between me and Alessio
Baragash wrote: That's not the reason we don't have a beta at all. There's a clear hierarchy - rules committee made a list of suggestions, Alessio says "yes", "no", "I have a better idea to handle the problem".
What I've read over there strongly suggests otherwise.
I guess being on the committee gives me a different perspective
Baragash wrote: That's not the reason we don't have a beta at all. There's a clear hierarchy - rules committee made a list of suggestions, Alessio says "yes", "no", "I have a better idea to handle the problem".
What I've read over there strongly suggests otherwise.
I guess being on the committee gives me a different perspective
So what is your perspective on why there is no beta?
The problems I've seen raised with current rules edition tend to look more like army selection/army list issues versus mechanics of the game.
While I appreciate the work Rules Committee has put in, much of the proposed change seems unnecessary to me. Hoping that AC does have the veto in case he thinks the game is getting too complicated or otherwise going off course.
privateer4hire wrote: The problems I've seen raised with current rules edition tend to look more like army selection/army list issues versus mechanics of the game.
While I appreciate the work Rules Committee has put in, much of the proposed change seems unnecessary to me. Hoping that AC does have the veto in case he thinks the game is getting too complicated or otherwise going off course.
I'm really hoping it's the other way around from what I've read, because it doesn't sound like the Rules Committee is the one taking the game off course.
Which of the changes do you feel are unnecessary? The ones on the sheet are either tweaks for balance (ranged modifiers), necessary overhauls (Line of Sight) or regularly requested from the community (additional spells).
Not a fan of heights, for one instance.
Artillery nerf also looks like it will take arty from a viable option that sometimes lucks you good results to barely worth taking.
I understand costing of the units needs to be redone and that falls in line with my view that list building/army units are what primarily need tweaks---not the core rules so much.
Mantic are going to do whatever they plan to do but I think the core is solid enough to not require huge overhaul. It's the army construction/units that are key to fixing balance IMO. YMMV.
Alex C wrote: Are they going to be shipping existing product right away?
Any shipping dates for the waves?
According to the kickstarter page they were planning three waves. The first wave will be existing box merchandise. The second was rule books and the 'planned' new minis. The third was the catch all of new materials that were unlocked but not expected by them to get unlocked during the KS. I haven't seen any dates, but would assume the first wave will be in July as stated in the kickstarter, although they might actually get the pre existing stuff out the door quicker than that and do wave two in July.
privateer4hire wrote: Not a fan of heights, for one instance.
Artillery nerf also looks like it will take arty from a viable option that sometimes lucks you good results to barely worth taking.
I understand costing of the units needs to be redone and that falls in line with my view that list building/army units are what primarily need tweaks---not the core rules so much.
Mantic are going to do whatever they plan to do but I think the core is solid enough to not require huge overhaul. It's the army construction/units that are key to fixing balance IMO. YMMV.
I don't think it needs a huge overhaul, but TLOS is an awful mechanic for shooting in an openly-proxy-friendly game based on Element basing. Artillery hasn't been a huge issue in my local games, but that's because I make the lists and don't spam artillery. If I did so, they'd rule the battlefield.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Rulebooks are Wave 2? Righto - I can ignore this PM entirely then until the next one.
Should also bear in mind that the artillery rules have changed since then, and even so - the damage from one is more than twice that of the average ranged unit. In the first few rounds of internal betas, Alessio actually buffed artillery from 1st ed. The committee were able to convince him that it was already overpowered before and needed to be brought down a notch.
Azazelx wrote: Those are essentially the man-portable ones, though, aren't they? Or the one-man-with-a-gun-on-a-stick ones? Warpfire Throwers and Jezzails?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Daedleh wrote: Yes, but the big one is reduction in blast damage.
90 degree arc?
Yes 90 degree arc limits their targets somewhat (you can still cover most of the board by putting them at a 45 degree angle), but the Blast(n) value going down is the big reduction. The previous average of (2D6) was reduced originally to (D3+3) (or rather the committee playtested with D3+3 - Alessio felt that it should be D3+6). We spent several hours discussing and evaluating each solution, to come up with a list of blast values that made war engines viable but well balanced versus regular shooting units.
Which Alessio then discarded and put his own values down anyway.
And Ogre Blunderbusses no longer have Reload, is that right? (I read it somewhere). That would take them from completely useless in practical terms to potentially decent (though they'll still only ever get one round of shooting in due to melee and disuption).
I mean, I'm far from WAAC, but even I found myself thinking "Why did I take these guys again?"
I have a question about the pledge manager, this is my first kickstarter so I'm not sure how it works. I'm happy with my pledge for the rulebook only, do I still need to use the pledge manager? The email makes it sounds like I have to use it but shouldn't Kickstarter have my delivery address and all that?
Thanks, think I managed to complete it successfully. Having to choose what I'd previously chosen again, then add it to the cart and go through checkout threw me for a bit.
Which Alessio then discarded and put his own values down anyway.
But you convinced him otherwise in the end, right? Right?
It took us a month of arguing and going over his head to Ronnie to convince him not to remove Regeneration, and then the same thing again to convince him not to make all large infantry armies illegal. There were much more pressing matters to fix/revert when I finally quit the team.
Which Alessio then discarded and put his own values down anyway.
But you convinced him otherwise in the end, right? Right?
It took us a month of arguing and going over his head to Ronnie to convince him not to remove Regeneration, and then the same thing again to convince him not to make all large infantry armies illegal. There were much more pressing matters to fix/revert when I finally quit the team.
When one of the main lists with Mantic models are Ogres, that must have taken some thinking from Alessio !
See this is what I was talking about when I said the things I'd been reading made me think the Rules Committee weren't the ones responsible for the delays, or the ones taking the rules in the wrong direction
Mymearan wrote: That doesn't seem like the best relationship between two parties that are supposed to help each other?
Not really. Me and Alessio in particular didn't get along because I'm blunt with my feedback and have an extremely high standard of quality for rules. I wanted to make sure that 2nd was as tight and well written as Warmachine (I know the style of game is not to everyones taste but the quality of rules is second to none), while Alessio is much more of a "gentlemans" gamer and believes that any disputes should be resolved by the players, rather than by clarity of the rules. My constant picking over exact wording and bluntness didn't go down well.
I should clarify that when I say all large infantry armies, I mean all existing collections. The changes would have made nearly all existing armies illegal and would have put LI armies at a significant disadvantage in general.
Im all for a tight set of rules like Warmahordes. How much infulence does the commity have with Ronnie? Im worried that with Alliseo and Jake only being freelancers their intrests may not wholly be with Mantic, that Alliseo only works 1 day a week on KoW is worriesome and only renforces my belief that Mantic should have a full time rules wrighter.
Daedleh wrote: It took us a month of arguing and going over his head to Ronnie to convince him not to remove Regeneration, and then the same thing again to convince him not to make all large infantry armies illegal. There were much more pressing matters to fix/revert when I finally quit the team.
Daedleh wrote: Not really. Me and Alessio in particular didn't get along because I'm blunt with my feedback and have an extremely high standard of quality for rules. I wanted to make sure that 2nd was as tight and well written as Warmachine (I know the style of game is not to everyones taste but the quality of rules is second to none), while Alessio is much more of a "gentlemans" gamer and believes that any disputes should be resolved by the players, rather than by clarity of the rules. My constant picking over exact wording and bluntness didn't go down well.
I know that feeling. I'm guessing the folks on the rules team either forgot about or failed to convince Alessio that my Regroup rule* was faster and more thematically appropriate than his attempts at a Regeneration rule?
* Regroup (n) At the start of your Move phase, remove (n) points of damage from this unit.
That's not one that I've seen but it would have been rejected sharpish anyway because it doesn't scale with unit size and goes against existing KoW principles such as Heal or the existing Regeneration. We had numerous other alternatives that resolved all the issues.
The fundamental idea of rolling a D6 for each point of damage and healing it on n+ is fine, however for it to be only a 6+ makes it useless. We'd have much preferred to see Regeneration (n) where n was the score needed to heal, then you could have some units with low regeneration on a 6+, have the average at 5+ and some extreme tarpit units such as Mummies could even be as good as 3+.
However it was an uphill battle just to get a regen rule in the first place, actually amending it once Alessio had written it was impossible.
^ It won't. The rules committee work on KoW2 is basically complete at this point, including points values balancing and proofreading of the final document. As far as I know it is now in Mantic's hands for final beta testing before going to print.
Ogres are a big guy army still as far as I know. I worked long and hard over the Ogre list developing new units to pad them out without resorting to the easy option of adding more goblins. I was very happy that the army list we submitted was characterful, well balanced and offered suitable modelling opportunities where models don't exist already. I've been told that it's been significantly amended from what we submitted so time will tell...
Daedleh wrote: That's not one that I've seen but it would have been rejected sharpish anyway because it doesn't scale with unit size...
It explicitly does scale with unit size, because it scales based on whatever value of (n) the unit possesses. Give a lone troll Regroup (1), a gang of three trolls Regroup (2) and a mob of six trolls Regroup (3).
...and goes against existing KoW principles such as Heal or the existing Regeneration.
The existing KoW principle isn't very good. Dice rolling should exist to introduce fog of war to the decision-making process, so that you cannot predict with absolute certainty what the results of your strategy will be. There is no strategy in regeneration - you always want your unit to regenerate, and it would regenerate anyway even if you didn't - so the rules should be written to resolve the ability as quickly and efficiently as possible.
scarletsquig wrote: ^ It won't. The rules committee work on KoW2 is basically complete at this point, including points values balancing and proofreading of the final document. As far as I know it is now in Mantic's hands for final beta testing before going to print.
If the Rules Committee work is complete, then who receives the feedback from beta testing in order to make necessary changes discovered by the community? Because if Alessio is ignoring the Rules Committee, what chance do the rest of us have of getting heard?
Don't worry about the Ogre list, it is looking great, lots of new units, none of them goblins.
Armies with nothing but ogres are still 100% doable.
The disagreement was limited to Daedle and Alessio, the rest of us kept working. Everything is still on track. Not sure what happens after the beta testing, whether that will be handled internally or not.. it is up to Mantic
I don't really have a problem with their working methods, someone has to make the call on finalizing a set of rules to meet the print deadlines at some point.. I can see Daedle's position though considering the large amount of work he put into it (a lot of which is still in there!).
New rules and lists are looking great, think everyone will be very happy with them.
Daedleh wrote: That's not one that I've seen but it would have been rejected sharpish anyway because it doesn't scale with unit size...
It explicitly does scale with unit size, because it scales based on whatever value of (n) the unit possesses. Give a lone troll Regroup (1), a gang of three trolls Regroup (2) and a mob of six trolls Regroup (3).
...and goes against existing KoW principles such as Heal or the existing Regeneration.
The existing KoW principle isn't very good. Dice rolling should exist to introduce fog of war to the decision-making process, so that you cannot predict with absolute certainty what the results of your strategy will be. There is no strategy in regeneration - you always want your unit to regenerate, and it would regenerate anyway even if you didn't - so the rules should be written to resolve the ability as quickly and efficiently as possible.
No, it doesn't scale because you have to redefine n for each unit size. Like Elite and Vicious, one of the main design points was that the rule had to scale without being redefined for each unit size. Rather than switching to Elite (n), with n being the number of dice re-rolled, and making messy lists of special rules in the unit entry we instead went with a version that didn't have to be redefined for each size, but still scaled up.
I disagree with your second paragraph because otherwise we have to revisit multiple abilities in the game, such as Headstrong (and arguably Nerve tests), which should have an element of chance to them - something that is way outside of scope. I don't think regenerate should be a sure fire thing.
The issues to be resolved with Regeneration were;
1) points cost
2) being switched off with Zap/Breath
3) not scaling with unit size
Your rule solves neither 2 nor 3.
Regardless if it was presented then it would be discussed and dissected between the committee. Given that no-one brought it up then no-one felt it was even worth mentioning.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
The disagreement was limited to Daedle and Alessio, the rest of us kept working)
There are two statements in this sentence that are false.
Daedleh wrote: No, it doesn't scale because you have to redefine n for each unit size. Like Elite and Vicious, one of the main design points was that the rule had to scale without being redefined for each unit size. Rather than switching to Elite (n), with n being the number of dice re-rolled, and making messy lists of special rules in the unit entry we instead went with a version that didn't have to be redefined for each size, but still scaled up.
Daedleh wrote: No, it doesn't scale because you have to redefine n for each unit size. Like Elite and Vicious, one of the main design points was that the rule had to scale without being redefined for each unit size. Rather than switching to Elite (n), with n being the number of dice re-rolled, and making messy lists of special rules in the unit entry we instead went with a version that didn't have to be redefined for each size, but still scaled up.
Look up the Abyssal Dwarf Decimators. I'll wait.
Yep, which is one of the ones that we wanted to remove. I'm not much interested in discussing it with you anyway since it's all a moot point. I don't like your rule, plainly none of the rules committee liked it and Alessio... does his own thing.
I take it the argument is that it sucks to have different rules based on different unit sizes. Which I agree with. A unit type should have one special rule that will scale properly no matter what the unit size is. I hate having different rules for each size of unit within a unit type. It's clunky and awkward and lazy.
RobertsMinis wrote: I was always told not to air my dirty laundry in public.
But, but, not only is it entertaining to watch, but it provides insight into what is going on behind closed doors...
Daedleh, I feels for you. I've playtested for over a dozen games and companies in the last 20 years, and nothing is more frusterating for them to ask you for feedback, you providing them with insightful feedback, that took you hours or weeks to compile, illustrating errors or pitfalls in their approach, them acknowledging you, and then pushing forward completely ignoring whatever you said.
But, but, not only is it entertaining to watch, but it provides insight into what is going on behind closed doors...
It's also important for us, because these are rules that we (aside from $1 backers) have already paid for. It's in our interests to know if the rules are being turned into something that is different from what was promised.
privateer4hire wrote: While I appreciate the work Rules Committee has put in, much of the proposed change seems unnecessary to me. Hoping that AC does have the veto in case he thinks the game is getting too complicated or otherwise going off course.
that I feel a pathological need to correct
I've seen similar sentiments dotted around the web pre-emptively putting the blame for the... stranger... decisions on the committee when that's really not the case.
RobertsMinis wrote: I was always told not to air my dirty laundry in public.
But, but, not only is it entertaining to watch, but it provides insight into what is going on behind closed doors...
Daedleh, I feels for you. I've playtested for over a dozen games and companies in the last 20 years, and nothing is more frusterating for them to ask you for feedback, you providing them with insightful feedback, that took you hours or weeks to compile, illustrating errors or pitfalls in their approach, them acknowledging you, and then pushing forward completely ignoring whatever you said.
I guess it speaks well of Mantic that you all weren't required to assent to NDA's, but I'm still catching the scent of "bad form" in the laundry airing here.
Adamsouza,
It may be frustrating and it might even be unwarranted (none of us not on the team can likely judge this well), but surely every playtester has to realize that their particular point of view might not -in the end- jive with the vision of the author or the company. If one can't deal with having your ideas rejected, then playtesting might not be the best activity for them to engage in.
I've only been in involved in playtesting a few times and I'd estimate that less than half the time I made any real difference in the rules. Still, I just enjoyed being part of the process and even if my ideas were rejected, I at least got the chance to offer them to the author.
privateer4hire wrote: While I appreciate the work Rules Committee has put in, much of the proposed change seems unnecessary to me. Hoping that AC does have the veto in case he thinks the game is getting too complicated or otherwise going off course.
that I feel a pathological need to correct
I've seen similar sentiments dotted around the web pre-emptively putting the blame for the... stranger... decisions on the committee when that's really not the case.
Nope, I'm not pre-emptively blaming RC. They've done their bit, some of which I disagree with.
If I don't like the final rules when they're published, Alessio will own that as the lead designer/author.
Mymearan wrote: That doesn't seem like the best relationship between two parties that are supposed to help each other?
Not really. Me and Alessio in particular didn't get along because I'm blunt with my feedback and have an extremely high standard of quality for rules. I wanted to make sure that 2nd was as tight and well written as Warmachine (I know the style of game is not to everyones taste but the quality of rules is second to none), while Alessio is much more of a "gentlemans" gamer and believes that any disputes should be resolved by the players, rather than by clarity of the rules. My constant picking over exact wording and bluntness didn't go down well.
I should clarify that when I say all large infantry armies, I mean all existing collections. The changes would have made nearly all existing armies illegal and would have put LI armies at a significant disadvantage in general.
Interestingly there is an article in wargames illistrated recently where Alessio talks about pretty much getting outright offended by proposed rules changes to his rule sets. He later goes on to say that it's sometimes a necessary evil but he genuinly seemed to hate criticism if his writing.
RobertsMinis wrote: I was always told not to air my dirty laundry in public.
But, but, not only is it entertaining to watch, but it provides insight into what is going on behind closed doors...
Daedleh, I feels for you. I've playtested for over a dozen games and companies in the last 20 years, and nothing is more frusterating for them to ask you for feedback, you providing them with insightful feedback, that took you hours or weeks to compile, illustrating errors or pitfalls in their approach, them acknowledging you, and then pushing forward completely ignoring whatever you said.
I guess it speaks well of Mantic that you all weren't required to assent to NDA's, but I'm still catching the scent of "bad form" in the laundry airing here.
RobertsMinis wrote: I was always told not to air my dirty laundry in public.
But, but, not only is it entertaining to watch, but it provides insight into what is going on behind closed doors...
Daedleh, I feels for you. I've playtested for over a dozen games and companies in the last 20 years, and nothing is more frusterating for them to ask you for feedback, you providing them with insightful feedback, that took you hours or weeks to compile, illustrating errors or pitfalls in their approach, them acknowledging you, and then pushing forward completely ignoring whatever you said.
I guess it speaks well of Mantic that you all weren't required to assent to NDA's, but I'm still catching the scent of "bad form" in the laundry airing here.
We did sign NDAs.
And everything I've posted has been within the list of things that Alessio gave us permission to promote the game with With my opinions on top, of course.
Adamsouza, It may be frustrating and it might even be unwarranted (none of us not on the team can likely judge this well), but surely every playtester has to realize that their particular point of view might not -in the end- jive with the vision of the author or the company. If one can't deal with having your ideas rejected, then playtesting might not be the best activity for them to engage in.
I've only been in involved in playtesting a few times and I'd estimate that less than half the time I made any real difference in the rules. Still, I just enjoyed being part of the process and even if my ideas were rejected, I at least got the chance to offer them to the author.
I understand what you are saying. The vast majority of play testing is just to catch various flaws and bring them to the attention of the designers and let them fix it. Occasionally though, you are tasked with more than that, and it's just frusterating when you realise that you've spent many more hours figuring something out than the original designer did, and they default to an "it's my ball" mentality.
Spoiler:
Not mentioning names, but I'll give you an example. For one game I was tasked with playtesting units to determine their points value and the interaction of their special rules. I would run anywhere from 9-15 battles, against various established units of an equal points value, and then teams, on a tabletop and create detailed battlereports. At the end I'd write up a summary and submit the batreps and summary, and make recomendations on adjusting point costs or abilities. Then one day I got a unit to test that was about the equivalent of a Imperial Guard Commisar. The concept was similar except that he would execute any of his unit who failed to wound the enemy. The problems with that were 2 fold. First off, he was point costed the same as another command model with identical stats, who had a much better command trait. Secondly, in EVERY one of my battle reports he killed more of his own troops than the enemy ever did. Just imagine a Commisar who executed every Imperial Guardsman under his command any time they failed to wound something with their S3 gun, that's how bad it was. So, I talked to the designer who wrote up the model. I told him that while it was fluffy, the ability triggered way too often, and was a huge liability, but it could be fun on a cheaper command model. At it's point cost it was vastly inferior to the other similar model, and I had bat reps to prove it. We discussed it and he agreed, then asked me what my recomendation was, lower the point cost or rewrite the ability. I actually had spent hours figuring out both an appropriate points cost for the existing ability and a toned down version of the ability and submitted both. After I had submitted my results, on the forums I had discovered there were 2 other play testers who had independantly reached a similar conclusion as well. Later on, the unit was released absolutely unaltered. The same high point cost and gakky command ability.
I had apparently spent 20+ hours of my life playtesting a unit that a designer had spent minutes on, so he could ignore all of it.
I get that it was their game and they will do what they like, but it doesn't change how frusterating it is.
Later on, the unit was released absolutely unaltered. The same high point cost and gakky command ability.
I had apparently spent 20+ hours of my life playtesting a unit that a designer had spent minutes on, so he could ignore all of it.
I get that it was their game and they will do what they like, but it doesn't change how frusterating it is.
See, working in an IT background, both as a Software Developer and as a test user of products being written software developers, this just makes my teeth itch (not that it hasn't happened in software either...)
In any case, the vast majority of the time I've had developers come back and say 'no, can't do that', it's almost always for the reason of "we can't afford that / it's not part of the contract."
Very, very rarely, have I ever experienced the Developers (ruleswriter), put their foot down and say, "no, you, potential user of my product, (playtester) you're wrong and I'm correct, nah-nah-nah."
That being said, the 'blind the customer (EG Ronnie), who is actually paying for the product, with science' tactic can sometimes pay off.
What about some sort of a "Rules committee mod?" Can they stop you from releasing a pdf with "your" modified point values, unit rules, etc.?
I have never played Kings of War, but I would play the Rules Committee version based solely off of the passion and commitment to the quality of the rules that some of the members have voiced here.
I have found that most often rules writers/rulesets who identify as or for "gentlemen gamers" really just use the term to cover their half arsed approach to quality. You can have a fun set of rules that is also tightly written.
I went in for a dollar on the KOW 2.0 KS, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything after looking through the pledge manager. Absolutely zero of the concepts interested me. I'd hoped that on a second pass the lower infernals would tempt me, but they still look like goofy cartoon villains from the eighties.
What I find particularly interesting was that I had the exact same thought about a "RC Mod" - even to the name, this morning when I got into work after reading part of this thread on my phone on the way in.
On that subject... Is the pledge manager for KOW supposed to be open for the masses yet? Cause I've never got the email about anything more than 'there's some pilot users for the pledge manager...'
