The Hammerhead shark guy is a welll executed figure. I like the sculpt and all, but having a Hammer Head Shark head on a humanoid body just seems like concept out of a silly Kids TV show. I expect Ninja Turtles to show up to foil his nefarious plans.
GrimDork wrote: Teenage mutant ninja Teratons you mean? Gah, now I feel the need to replace the cool punch-weapons with TMNG weapons and get them all masks!
It’s all in ruins!
Update #102 · Jul 16, 2013 · 21 comments
After last time’s shiny photos of the Rebs, we’ve got some scenery today and ok, go on, some Plague shots too!
Let’s do this.
The Ruined Battlezone has turned out fantastically - we think with our sculptor doing a great job of creating a selection of characterful pieces that turns your clean and shiny sci-fi city into a hollow, desolate, destroyed urban landscape, with broken wall and floor sections as well as piles of rubble for your gaming table.
Here’s Stew with more…
Ruined BattleZone
- Contains 4 x Ruins sprues and 1 x 48-piece connector sprue.
- The pieces in the top right join together to make a standalone pile of rubble that provides excellent cover.
- The similar rubble piece in the bottom right is designed to sit against a wall and works as a connector to hold the wall tiles together.
- These pieces can be used to make complete bombed-out buildings, or can be combined with the other BattleZones to add battle-damage to the edges of larger structures.
NOTE: All sprue designs are awaiting final confirmation from our factory, so there may some slight tweaks still to come, but we will ensure that you can still build just as much with them!
I think the opportunity to add these ruined sections to your Core World Buildings is a very enticing prospect making your tiles go further!
Oops!
There’s been a fair bit of discussion regarding the Fortifications sprue and the corner pieces…
It seems we made a mistake on the diagram only listing one corner piece - you get three Fortification sprues in a Battlezone (plus a Defence Line sprue) meaning you’d only get three corner pieces, which isn’t enough for a fortified bunker. Oops, sorry about that!
Well, after some jiggery pokery, we’ve fixed our diagram and added the additional Corner Piece, so there are now two per sprue (and Six per Battlezone!)
Some of you have also queried why the Defence Line sprue is part of the Fortifications Battlezone.
Well, the components from the Defence Line Sprue right from when we announced it as a stretch goal were going to be included on the Fortification sprue – in other words you were always going to get the Defence Line components as part of the Fortifications Battlezone.
As we started sculpting it however, it became apparent that we’d be able to produce a better product if we took the barricades and burst laser off and put them on a separate sprue. This then allowed us to add more fortification components to the other sprue, and stops you getting a gun on every single sprue, which would be rather a waste. The same logic applies to the Landing Pad sprue - the deflector pieces would have needed a sprue to themselves to allow the landing pad to do everything we wanted it to, but would have had very limited use anywhere except the edges of a landing pad. The Defence Line pieces fill exactly the same role but with many more uses on top. The flexibility and variation that tooling the set this way generates is by far and away better than what we could have done otherwise!
In addition, the initial playtesting of this game was done using almost exclusively barricades. Jake's plan was always to have lots of them in the game - low level cover makes for far more interesting tactical gameplay. The Defence Line sprue is now available in two BattleZones, and in both cases works perfectly on its own to provide this cover even if you don't want to combine it with the other tiles.
... Sniff. Uh Oh!
And finally – yep, it’s time for the Plague!
Here are three of the models from the Plague Booster set - the Plague Teraton, Plague Swarm and the Plague Mortar with crew.
Picture of the Ruins sold me. Even more reason to drop fortifications. just stick to CW, ruins, and landing pads now. Maybe one fort if they still come with the gate, 3 gates would be sufficient.
Yeah, that's what I've been going on. Really need to get to it, I think today's update was the last one before it finishes so we're officially in the lock-down home stretch.
*Sigh* think I just talked myself into two more battlezones... No fancy robots though, and some of the characters are getting ignored for sure.
Really like both the plague and the ruins. A well painted swarm could look awesome and the ruins will make for some great looking boards, not to mention more interesting gameplay as I imagine models can shoot through the gaps.
@Yonan, that's the thing I'm excited about the ruins for. You can make complete buildings but you can still shoot through them! Best of both worlds, some what. The extra scatter terrain will be nice for folks who didn't load up on accessory sprues and or who aren't super enamored with crates/barrels/canisters
For Deadzone? Dice rolling is different completely. Everything is opposed rolls of d8's. Like their dreadball system but with d8s instead.
So. Sort of? There are two cover mechanics, the concept of being obscured or not; and actually being in a cube (3"x3"x3" section of the board) that counts as having cover.
If you can see 100% of a model, including base, then you get a pretty nasty bonus to shoot that likely spells the target's doom. Even just a bit of intervening terrain will spare the target from this.
If a model is in a cube that counts as cover (denoted by some piece of scatter terrain, but the model doesn't actually have to be behind it, its assumed he ducks behind or w/e), then he gets a defensive bonus.
No worries! It sounds really interesting to play. Some quirky stuff is going to crop up where a model is in cover and can claim the defensive bonus while still presenting a clear shot (in a square that counts as cover, but with none of said cover between him and attacker ), but it sounds fun.
And I like the whole thing about cover making you more likely to get suppressed, digging in cause you're in a safe spot etc.
Sunday is your last chance to get your finalized survey into us. Addresses, Contact Details and your choices are key details for us and we need this as soon as possible so we can start processing and ordering.
We're keeping an eye out for the responses.
One key thing is that IF your survey is late, we’ll still process your order however we will not be able to add-on anything that isn’t a Mantic Product – that means no Battle Foam, no Army Painter and no Antenociti's Workshop scenery. If you want these items then please get your survey in as quickly as you can!
Before you do that though, we’ve some important information.
NEW! Hard Plastic Sprues
Good news ladies and gentlemen – we’re going to be producing hard plastic sprues for the Enforcers, Asterian Cyphers and Forge Father Forge Guard!
This breakthrough is down to the Cyphers, Forge Guard and the Enforcers being digitally sculpted.
We’re working on pulling the sprue layout diagrams together but this is a hugely exciting piece of news that we wanted to tell you before the Kickstarter Survey deadline.
Asterian Cypher Concept
The Asterian Hard Plastic Sprue contains the Asterian Cyphers, Cypher with Heavy Weapons (Fission Beam and Rocket Launcher) and the Cypher Prime – we’re hoping to squeeze the gun drone on there too! All other Asterian Miniatures remain sprueless Plastic Resin.
Forge Guard Render
The Forge Guard Hard Plastic Sprue contains the Forge Guard, Forge Guard Huscarl plus Heavy Weapons including Rocket Launcher, Heat Cannon and Hailstorm Autocannon. All other Forge Father Miniatures remain sprueless Plastic Resin.
IMPORTANT! Enforcer Components - note that not everything included in this image will be in hard plastic and that the picture does not include all variants - there are some components missing. All of the torsos will have bases attached.
The Enforcer Hard Plastic Sprue contains 5 Enforcer Bodies with enough parts to arm them with Heavy Rifles, Assault Blades and Pistol. You can also build an Enforcer Sergeant, Enforcer with Heavy Weapons (Rocket Launcher, Incinerator, Burst Laser) and you have the bodies for the Enforcer Defenders. All other Enforcer Miniatures (including Sniper, Engineer and the Defender Shields and Shotguns) remain sprueless Plastic Resin.
We’re super excited by this – a hard plastic Enforcer sprue was something we’d always dreamt of and now being able to do it, plus two additional kits as well, is just unbelievable. You made this possible and we cannot thank you enough.
The other great thing of course is that the Deadzone Model range is fully compatible with our Warpath line, meaning we’re getting a total of five new hard plastic miniature kits (Enforcers, Enforcer Peacekeepers, Cyphers, Forge Guard and Plague Zombies!) to add to the range. Exciting times for the future indeed!
Note that all of the Mercenaries, Plague, Rebs and Marauders will still be in our Sprueless Plastic Resin as well.
Enforcer sprue looks ace (and its not even all showing). That's like selling a box of 5 marines with bits for tac/assault/devastator. Of course, you'd need a couple/few of boxes to make a focused suppression team, but you get those bits with every enforcer team you buy, so any assault or strike teams give you extra bits. Like the little accessories they threw in (bottom right).
"IMPORTANT! Enforcer Components - note that not everything included in this image will be in hard plastic and that the picture does not include all variants - there are some components missing. All of the torsos will have bases attached. "
Not sure which components won't be plastic and what that means for the box, but I'm sure there are enough heads, just not everything is shown.
I've got some sort of basic pledge in for this, can't even remember what it is now, actually. I initially planned to upgrade it to 2x whatever the sweet spot is and a bunch of extras, but I'm feeling a bit ambivalent, or indifferent about it all now. A big part of that is the usual lack of being able to see what I'm buying combined with 1001 options. I guess I'm pretty underwhelmed by Restic and the small models as well, as I prefer heroic scale to truescale and whatever scale Mantic is calling their mess of a multi-scale these days. Also not keen on being forces to pay for/take the gakky Orx and Plague at the "sweet spot" level, either.
Mostly though, it's Spreadsheet Wars combined with dinky little DeadBall figures that's putting me off.
So is anyone getting the Battlefoam bag? Is it worth it? I had been planning on going with KR Multicase as a big single system solution for my Eldar, Robotech, Deadzone, and if I like where Mantic is going Warpath. But, Battlefoam has the contract with Mantic, so they have all the right size trays and would be a lot quicker to have the custom shaped trays for the walkers and eventual vehicles ready than KR.
On the other hands, all the nonsense surrounding Battlefoam and the founder, and I read thy still haven't fulfilled similar arrangements for previous kickstarters?
Well I'm locked in for 160 zombies for a friend, 8 battle zones and two models I thought looked fun to paint. All the model models I want are in wave 2 anyway so waiting for actual photos for most of them seemed wise. That and Mantic figuring out how to work the plastic sprue part of the add-ons means that I'm probably going to go in pretty heavy on the second survey.
I can easily see a bunch of Forge Guard and some more battle zones (assuming I like the ones I get) beinga added with a few more individual models to paint if their model comes out nice.
So, with the missile launcher for the Forge Guard going into the plastic sprue, is there a reason for that figure to be in the booster, other than giving you a 6th body? The sprues are confusing me as they are spanning the starters and boosters for options.
After the exciting news of hard plastic Enforcers, Forge Fathers Forge Guard and Asterian Cyphers, we’ve got the first renders of the Goblin Stuntbot - check it out below:
Let us know what you think in the comments!
Hey guys - the hatch is removeable and there is a goblin pilot sculpted into the torso, just like on the concept art It's identical to the concept art - in fact, it's sculpted BY the guy who did the concept art!
They probably should have included him in the picture, but, there you go!
Just to make any one who doesn't know aware... Jake will putting up the next version of the beta rules tomorrow (read:08/08/13) excluding any minor hiccups that prevent him from doing so.
They can be found here as soon as he posts them: www.quirkworthy.com
No sorry I meant the stuff he's been putting out makes the update look good. I think be just updated saying he was gonna have to sleep on the points another night before releasing it.
The Peacekeeper preview looks great as well, I'll have to throw a few sets in my second survey 5 for $10 in hard plastic it would be rude not to get some
All hands on deck
Update #105 · Aug 9, 2013 · 6 comments
Ronnie and Stewart have returned from their China travels and they’ve come bearing goodies…
No, not food and pink drinks – we’re talking this lot!
We've got three massive bags full of scenery tiles!
Yep, that there is the first batch of scenery tiles and we've also got big ol’ pile of connector sprues. The details are super sharp, but there’s still more to be done.
What’s happening with this lot? Well, it’ll get photographed properly, assembled, painted and then photographed for the box. We’ve also got the counters and cards to get off to the printers, so it’s all hands on deck(!). Good job we’re hiring a studio painter! And if that’s not enough, here's a sneaky peak at the Work In Progress Enforcer Peacekeepers!
Man, all the digital stuff is just looking amazing. The Enforcers and Forge Fathers are making it all worth it on their own. I hope Mantic goes toward digital stuff more as time goes on. Between this and Warzone, it just seems like a much better way to progress from concept to finished product. It is easier to tweak designs and re-do things and it always seems there is better translation from concept art to the 3D sculpt.
At the very least, it seems like a much better way to go for mechanical designs, but even for more organic stuff the higher resolution printers seem to be doing quite well.
That said, most of the non-digital stuff Mantic have produced (outside of a few gaffs) have been quite nice as well. But the digital stuff is still what has me looking forward to things the most. I think I'll be grabbing a lot of extras when the second survey comes down the line next year. I can see grabbing more of everything from the Forge Father and Enforcer lines (especially those Peacekeepers, just lovely).
And that terrain is looking fantastic. Still glad I went all in on this one. It will provide me with a nice game in addition to finally giving me enough terrain to fill my 6'X4' table without having to resort to random crap as scatter terrain.
It's all coming together...
Update #106 · Aug 14, 2013 · 19 comments
Following Ronnie and Stew's triumphant return from China last week, we've been busy! Samples were sent to painters without a moment's hesitation, and guess what just arrived at the office?
Our new in-house hobby maestro Dave got given all the terrain tiles and accessories that you'll get in the basic Deadzone box, and was told to work some magic. This is what he came up with. (He hasn't even started yet - blimey, he's keen!) As you can see, this is more than enough to play a game of Deadzone - plenty of cover, plenty of stuff breaking up line of sight, but still lots of room to reach in and move your models.
If you look closely, you might see that the terrain's not the only thing we've recently received... but more on that next time! Gen Con Indy 2013
In other news, Ronnie and Chris are on their way to Indianapolis to man the Mantic stand at Gen Con. If you're going, swing by Stand # 1237 where you'll be able to chat to the guys, get your hands on a load of Mantic models, and see some unpainted plastic Deadzone terrain tiles up close! We'll also be showing off a preview of a new project we're working on - check this blog post to find out how you can get involved and win a prize if you're going...
Anyway, let us know what you think of the picture above in the comments section!
Also:
Creator Mantic Games 37 minutes ago
Hey guys To clarify, this is what will be in the box when it hits the shelves as a trade product. Strike Team gets a LOT more than this!
I heard someone mention that the enforcer captain can be built without the cape. Can anyone confirm this? And does that mean the cloth pieces between the shoulder and head are also optional? Or am I going to end up with a strange out of place cloth on the model?
Oh man, from the end of the kickstarter until now, the dollar have only increased in price... It means that my costs will increase about 25%, when they finally send my paypal invoice. Plus any extras i will have to pay as import taxes and fees...
But man, i dont care, im very happy with the product, and i want it more each day...
frozenwastes wrote: I heard someone mention that the enforcer captain can be built without the cape. Can anyone confirm this? And does that mean the cloth pieces between the shoulder and head are also optional? Or am I going to end up with a strange out of place cloth on the model?
The whole cape (including attachment points) was said to be separate. It also has a secondary, helmeted head. Looks quite good in that configuration (ended up dropping the WP Captain because of that news).
That's such good news. Capes might work with GW's cartoon medieval style of armour, but I don't think they look right on actual sci-fi miniatures unless except maybe as camo cloaks or something-- and even then, it's iffy.
Mutations
Update #107 · Aug 23, 2013 · 12 comments
So, how goes it in the land of Deadzone?
Well, we’ve got our resident photographer working overtime to get all of the Deadzone miniatures and buildings photographed so that we can finish off the box, cards and counters.
Speaking of which, here are a couple of the designs:
These are just some of the counters - there’s over 130(!) in Deadzone!
Once all of the photography is done and processed, we’ll be showing off the finished models over the next couple of weeks whilst keeping you updated with all of the latest sculpts. We’ve taken the feedback on board regarding the Peacekeepers and have made some alterations and we can’t wait to show you those!
Messages
Just a heads up really on this one - we’re a little swamped with messages at the moment and will answer your queries as soon as we can
Thanks for your patience!
Invoices
Please note that not all invoices have been sent out yet – with over 4000 of them to process and manually send out, it takes us a fair bit of time.
We’ll let you know via the updates once we’ve sent them all out - until then please do not message us asking where your invoice is, thanks
I like the claws, but as I said in the KS thread, the mace is the least-good bit. I don't think it's bad though, but maybe something better could take it's place.
Keeping the Peace
Update #108 · Aug 30, 2013 · 27 comments
A couple of weeks ago we showed off the Work In Progress Peacekeeper models. Well, we’ve taken your feedback into account, and here we are with round 2!
Before we begin, please bear in mind that these are still Work in Progress and not all of the options may make it onto the sprue – that depends on space. However, if you’ve got your favourites let us know, and if there are any cool gubbinz or extras you‘d like to see on the sprue, please leave your suggestions in the comments.
As we said previously, everything we're showing here is Work In Progress and not all of the components may go on the sprue. We're particularly keen to know what people think about the Charge Maul, and what fun extras you'd like to see with the kit!
I like them a lot, but I think they should lose the 'Power Mace' - especially if they're already saying that all of the pictured elements may not make it on to the final sprue!
Other than that, they look great, and I'm glad I went in for...20 of them!
Thanks for dumping the post ral...Alpharius, the zoom in makes me like both the claws and rifles better. Didn't notice the angular claws or the double barreled rifles before. I'm now ok with the talons over bigger wrist blades, if necessary. Just a change to the mace head....
I must add a few of these in the second survey $10 is a steal.
Only issues I have are the maces are awful - drop them or lose the medieval style head and turn them into batons or shock sticks or anything else. The heavy weapons really need to be held in both hands the one handed flamer looks a bit awkward.
I have to agree talking a cross two threads is a bit confusing.
Something like the Demolition Man stun baton, just a little more durable-looking. Anything but that medieval looking flanged affair. And +1 to whoever said it didn't need external power cables too!
Something like the Demolition Man stun baton, just a little more durable-looking. Anything but that medieval looking flanged affair. And +1 to whoever said it didn't need external power cables too!
Yeah, that's closer to what I would want to see. That or the power-maul from the Ravenwing Knights box (kind of looks like a mixture between a power-tetsubo and a baseball bat). A flanged mace just doesn't scream mil sci-fi bad arse to me. If it were a Forge Father weapon, I'd be all over it.
But outside of that, I want an army of these guys.
I just wish we didn't have to wait until next year to get the Forgefathers. I am eager to see what their plastic kit will shape up as, and I want to build my Squad army for some 2ed games, dangit!
Yeah, I got some steel warriors to enable the fancy stuff from deadzone in warpath games, and they're already done. They're gonna be full-on dusty before their reinforcements make it in :p
If those forgeguard come out anything like the peacekeepers though... I'll probably want more!
They don't need to be. Look at the package they will be coming in. $35US for five Forgeguard (including a leader and heavy weapon), plus the mining laser and 1 crewman, 5 Brokkrs with pistols, and a Brokkr with a Muspel cannon. That's not bad at all for a price. I'm also really exited for the $8 Valkyr bikes to make a squad of them. I tell you, the Forgefathers better turn out better than the Marauders were in comparison to their art.......
My plan is for the two Forgefather packs (with two additional bikes) to be the basis of a small 2nd ed 40K Squat army. That would be about $70 (approx) and would make a Character figure, two infantry units, a 3-man bike unit, and a support weapon (with the two crew if I also use the demo expert figure). Add the Deadzone-special Iron Anscestor, a 10-man squad of Steel Warriors, and another character and I would have what would be about a 2,000pt army for about $110-120US.
It's not Peacekeeper-as-Terminator cheap, but still not bad at all.
That's Mantic's style, armies on the cheap, and all that. I could probably make a 2k space marines list proxying the enforcers I'll be getting. Not sure I really want to... but I guess it's an option
War In Urban Battlezones
Update #109 · Sep 6, 2013 · 20 comments
Deadzone – where to start?!
The box has been finished and looks beautiful. It’s also massive and very heavy - far heavier in fact than what we might have been expecting!
Of course, this box and the contents shot below is designed for the retail release contents - Kickstarter Backers get SO much more than this.
This week design work on the rulebook starts, and Jake has finished his page plan and writing the rules. We hope to have an example spread to show you over the next couple of weeks, plus we’ve also had an influx of painted minis that we can show off.
Look out for those coming soon!
Surveys, Invoices and Messages
With some minor exceptions, all of the invoices have now been sent out. There are a couple of minor mistakes on some surveys and we'll be getting back in touch with those people to get them sorted.
If you are expecting an invoice and haven't had it yet, please contact us through the Kickstarter messages and we'll sort you out as quickly as we can. There's still a minor backlog on messages (though we are nearly up to date) so please be patient with us.
Monday update! Shipping in November confirmed! I'm not sure if that means some folk will get stuff in mid-late november, or if its more of a soft guarantee for early december, but either way its exciting and getting closer!
Thanks, I'll try that. I still haven't gotten my invoice. Though to be honest I'm not exactly enthused about paying it after waiting for a response for so long.
Kind of a "is it plugged in" question, but just in case:
The invoice you are waiting for; it is the invoice for the extras that you added in on the survey after the fact, and not the initial payment (which they took out shortly after the KS ended), correct?
I know that's probably redundant, but there were a couple of people on the KS comments section who were thinking this invoice was in fact their original, so I thought to ask just in case.
Yeah, I was dumb. The invoice is for anything above and beyond your pledge. If you only picked stuff that was already paid for by the KS payment, you get no invoice.
The Mantic guy was nice enough to explain it to me.
pretre wrote: Yeah, I was dumb. The invoice is for anything above and beyond your pledge. If you only picked stuff that was already paid for by the KS payment, you get no invoice.
The Mantic guy was nice enough to explain it to me.
Ah, thanks, I was suspecting that, but it is nice to see a confirmation.
The key thing with Deadzone that makes it superior to Mordheim/Necromunda is that you don't use every single model in your roster every single game.
You select 100 points from a pool of available models and gear.
Experienced models cost more points, injured models cost less.
So, it allows new players to join a campaign, or for you to keep a strike force running indefinitely without much risk of having a wildly unbalanced game.
The more experienced teams are simply allowed more choice with roster selection (and choice minis with their own tailor-built skillsets, weapons stolen from enemy corpses etc.) than the new ones.
Well, I love Mordheim and Necromunda and all, but those look like they will provide a much better long-campaign experience that doesn't devolve in to crazy imbalances depending on who pulls out the early, lucky wins.
I like the idea of point costs mattering for more than just strike team creation. Veteran troops costing more and injured ones costing less is an interesting way of handling it. I also love how equipment requisition is handled, feels like a perfect fit for a more militarized setting.
This will definitely be a whole lot of fun. Come on November/December, get here faster!
I was hoping they'd get rid of that model as it was easily the worst in the whole KS, as in downright "this somewhat spoils the good from everything else". Hopefully everyone replaces it or converts it to be better ; p
Those amuse me too... They kind of push me to regard the marauders in a more comical manner. More comical in a "Badguy from galaxy quest is fairly goofy yet he still obliterated a species" sort of way. A good way
Can someone who already sent in their Survey add to it before the October paypal deadline? Now that I see an actual GOOD photo of the Ripper suit, I actually like them and would love some cheap Meganobz.
This sounds like one of those times that you would have to contact Mantic and see if they would "work something out" for you. I know some people got in on the kickstarter who didn't manage to pledge for it, and they seem good about modifying shipping addresses and all of that... its possible?
Just wondered if there was an easy way, because otherwise it can just wait until the 2nd Survey to get bought, along with all my prospective ForgeFather stuff.
I dunno, if you get a hold of them, it would probably be easy (if they were willing, and its more money... so quite possibly they would be). But I don't think there's any button, or a simple re-sub of your survey, I think you'd actually have to contact them and such.
They weren't sure on Monday exactly what's getting shipped in November asides from the main box. Everything that's ready in November will go out then but certainly things like the hard plastic enforcers and peacekeepers aren't going to be ready. I don't know if the first shipment is going to be broken up into 2 parts if not everything that's meant to be coming in December arrives early.
And note when they say November, it'll be the last week of November rather than at the start or halfway through.
They will have some of it available at the trade stand for their open day in November too.
I think it's pretty daft of them to announce this far ahead that it'll be going out in November since any number of things can go wrong between now and then. Better to announce it when they know for 100% definite and know exactly what's going out like a week before than to announce something and potentially have to go back on their word.
The figures in the Deadzone box will be restic and are the "characters" while the hard plastics sprue will be a general enforcers sprue, albeit with pieces to make similar characters to the deadzone box.
More like GW releases Dark Vengeance with the unique Chosen in finecast then releasing a plastic Chosen box set later on.
It could change if the plastic enforcers come through early, but I don't think they will.
They said they were able to tool 3 more hard plastic sprues including enforcers. Did they ever explicitly state that they would have that tool ready in time for the deadzone shipments? I can't remember. I know we were all immediately talking about how we did or didn't like having hard plastic enforcers in the kickstarter shipment, but did they say? It doesn't matter to me, I just worked through the 46 corporation marine army set and I like restic just fine.
For the purposes of deadzone, everything may as well be restic, as you don't need a lot of them to play the game itself. The hard plastic sprues they said they could tool would be more important for someone building an enforcer army for warpath.
Again, its fuzzy, and I'm too tired to go check the specific update.
If I remember correctly, the only hard plastic that I read about was the Enforcer specialists and peacekeepers, Asterians, and the FF Forge Guard (probably so they don't have to do it again for Warpath)
Honestly, you'd think all the basic troops would be hard plastic, and characters (maybe big models, too), would be the only restic. But, either way, the game looks to be extremely fun.
There's nothing there which says the enforcers in the game will be hard plastic, just that there will be a hard plastic sprue tooled. Restic's really good for models with a small number of parts like the models in the box like Dreadball. If Mantic did stick one of the plastic sprues in the box then they'd also have to throw in a bits bag too to make the various specialists which is far from ideal. I've no idea how backers will be getting the plastic sprues.
I also have no idea what is going on with the hard plastic and whether it will or will not ship to backers in place of restic and what form that will take.
I don't think a straight replace-restic-with-plastic thing is going to work since the plastics will inevitably retail for much less which would make some people unhappy.
Well, considering just going off the update post about the hard plastic sprue, it says you can make:
Enforcer Sergeant
Enforcer with Heavy Rifle
Assault Enforcer
Enforcer with Rocket Launcher
Enforcer with Incinerator
Enforcer with Burst Laser
Enforcer Defender (bodies only, shields and shotguns will be restic)
I'm willing to bet that what we will be getting in the box will be hard plastic.
GrimDork wrote:Maybe, if the tool is ready. It would be a different one from the restic tool yeah? I don't fully understand those processes.
I'm cool with restic, really. But ifthey send plastic it will save me from having to buy at least one of the kits later on just out of curiosity
It would be a different one, but I'm pretty sure quite a bit of the range is being tooled on a computer instead of sculpted by hand, so it wouldn't really be a big deal for them to use a new tool over the old one, as long as it hadn't been turned into a mold yet.
baritowned wrote: Their customer service is very good when a KS is not going on. I'd say it's almost as good as GW's.
Then there is privateer press, who once had me wait two months for an arm for a mini...
Their CS is great regardless of when you send out. I sent Tim King a message before I went to sleep the past few nights due to a couple missing things from my Kickstarter, and he has replied by the time I've woken up each morning. This, of course, counts for the time delay from the UK to the US. I have YET to be discouraged by their customer service, Kickstarter time or otherwise. They've been great about getting back to me, and very good at fixing mistakes. I'd say they're equal to GW's customer service (which is pretty close to the IDEAL CS model for all companies to have).
GrimDork wrote: Those amuse me too... They kind of push me to regard the marauders in a more comical manner. More comical in a "Badguy from galaxy quest is fairly goofy yet he still obliterated a species" sort of way. A good way
I love originality. Oh wait. Where have I seen Orcs/Orks done as a comical army? Let me think now, give me a minute I know it'll come to me...
There is a list. Trying to think of which update...
Here we go, you are looking for the second section where it mentions shipping.
So yes, available with the first wave. If you do read the link, ignore the part about the second survey, they made a post later on saying everything would be on the second survey too.
New update, not much new in it. Nice pic though ; ) Wrath is a Judwan merc iirc?
A quick update, and an awesome model shot! Update #113 · Oct 4, 2013 Well, Deadzone production is ramping up at a tremendous rate, and things are getting very exciting indeed! Studio layout guru Curis is currently applying the finishing touches to the rulebook, and I think it's safe to say it's going to be one of the nicest-looking pieces of printed publication we've ever done.
Before I go any further, I'd like to make a quick announcement. We've currently got a bit of a backlog in the Deadzone inbox - people chasing up invoice queries, asking to change their shipping address, and several other things. Please rest assured that we are getting through them as quickly as we can - so if you haven't had an answer, it's not because we're ignoring you, it's just that there's a bit of a queue! We really appreciate your patience, and will get to you as quickly as possible.
Right! That's out of the way; how about something cool?
Most Judwan are pacifists; Wrath is different. The result of a shadowy Corporate-funded programme to create the ultimate assassin, he escaped his masters, and now seeks revenge for what they did to him.
We'll be getting another update out to you shortly - in the meantime, what are you looking forward to most in your upcoming Deadzone package? Let us know in the comments!
Probably another resin master that may or may not reflect the final product.
Don't get me wrong - I'm very excited for all of this, and have invested HEAVILY in it... but I am still not 100% convinced that Mantic can or will pull it all off...
...but I certainly hope they do!
I hope that if something turns out crap, that they scuttle it, delay it, and re-launch it when it is right!
The dreadball minis ScarletSquig linked in the other mantic thread from this mantic blog were production models and looked great, so the restic models seem to be sorted thankfully. Still a little worried about the hard plastic minis after the Basileans.
All of the restic in the last KoW wave was fine, too.
Dreadball season 3 is the first to get the new/improved restic mix though, and people seem to be liking it and noticing the difference, saying that it's much closer to hard plastic in terms of working with it.
I wouldn't call it fine, but certainly an improvement. If you look at the different major batches of Restic you can certainly see that it's been an iterative process of improvement and it looks like they've really nailed it down now.
The enforcer that I bought about four months ago kind of initially turned me off to their restic, but after working with it and painting it, I don't mind it as much.
Now the hard plastic forge fathers and Orx... God how I loathe those... Is it bad that I bought Fate of the Forge Star just for the Cannon, Raptor, and Iron Ancestor models?
Hard plastic orx? Don't you mean hard plastic forge father forge guard, and asterian cyphers?
I just worked through the 40-46 mini corporation box set, I like restic just fine. It is what it is, but I still converted the stuffing out some with zombie parts, perfectly happy to get a large box full of the substance in november/december.
GrimDork wrote: Hard plastic orx? Don't you mean hard plastic forge father forge guard, and asterian cyphers?
I just worked through the 40-46 mini corporation box set, I like restic just fine. It is what it is, but I still converted the stuffing out some with zombie parts, perfectly happy to get a large box full of the substance in november/december.
I was talking about the warpath models, that they re-tooled from their KoW counterparts. Mantic even admits that they are utter crap and that it was a bad decision on their part
Ahh, gotcha. I should have caught that but I'm a bit off today.
The steel warriors... I agree they aren't amazing. I still own a few and painted them with the intent of using them in Warpath... someday... but they didn't get a lot of effort to go with the no so good level of detail/definition.
Well, sent the rest of my wave 1 payment in. Looking forward to my buildings and a few choice models. Have we had any word if the Zombies made it into the first wave? I'm excited to see how they turned out and I ordered a bunch for my buddy. That way if I feel like throwing in for more on the second survey I can
usernamesareannoying wrote: hey guys... any word on how or when well have access to the digital rules from the KS?
For Dread Ball, once the rules were finalized they sent you a coupon link for the PDF at Wargames Vault, and you used the code to get the PDF for free. I suspect this will work the same way.
I think they said something like mid november. Or maybe someone suggested that, it was late and I don't have physical evidence :p I have a feeling they'll do it shortly after they start distributing the retail box to their retailers/stockists or whatever they call them across the pond :p
There has been no word on the zombies, not even a new picture. So either they aren't coming in wave 1, or they decided to throw us a nice surprise lol.
usernamesareannoying wrote: hey guys... any word on how or when well have access to the digital rules from the KS?
For Dread Ball, once the rules were finalized they sent you a coupon link for the PDF at Wargames Vault, and you used the code to get the PDF for free. I suspect this will work the same way.
Oh awesome, I like that. Didn't get involved in the beta but would love to start pawing through the final rules early.
I'd like to see the layout, and what made it into the first book. I'm assuming the multiplayer/multimat games didn't make it in, but who knows. I'd also like to have week or two to make a couple of optimized, balanced starter forces (maybe even playtest them) so I can have a short list of what to paint first
Parroting off an interesting statement by Mantic on the MA kickstarter page whilst we were gossiping of various things:
Mantic said:
Deadzone will ship to Kickstarter backers before retailers ship And yep, we anticipate shipping late November. Our Ops direction heads out to our manufacturers next week to check progress
They also mentioned updates in the coming weeks and a clearer picture of what exactly we will see in the first shipment (zombies or not, etc) as the shipping date gets closer.
I imagine the multi mat games won't be in the main rulebook. However, it would be nice if they did something like Star Wars: X Wing and have a couple of paragraphs talking about how you could at least make the normal game into a team one.
Oct 18, 2013
An exciting delivery!
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It's been a rather exciting week in the Mantic office. Why, you ask?
Our Finance Director (and international man of mystery) Mark went to visit our production facility last week, and he brought us back a Deadzone box! It's got exciting stuff in it, too, but today I just want to show you how awesomely massive it is! That's an Enforcer in front of it. Look at how tiny he is in comparison! For anyone who doesn't know how big an Enforcer is, I also put it next to a standard AA battery for comparison purposes:
Yeah, it's pretty huge. It measures 45cm x 30cm x 11cm (more or less) and it's pretty heavy, too! This beast will be making its way out to backers very soon now, just as soon as the main shipment reaches us...
Apologies...
...to anyone who was having trouble viewing images in our previous update! Looks like Kickstarter was doing something strange, as several people reported problems. Good news, though! You can check out the update in your browser by following this link.
...and something to make up for it!
Speaking of cool pictures, we've seen a few comments asking for more pictures of miniatures. How about these?
yeah, I think we can all agree that the Marauders are looking pretty badass. How amazing are those Ripper Suits? Surely nothing can look as cool as that...
Well played, Rebs. Well played.
Oh, and one last thing
Our Mars Attacks: The Miniatures Game Kickstarter campaign is two weeks in, and it's been an amazing ride so far! It's great to see so many familiar faces from Deadzone over there, and if anyone else wants to come over and join the fun we've got a few Early Bird deals that opened up last week. We're going to be closing them off at midnight on Sunday, but until then you've still got a chance to snag a deal - and get your hands on this exclusive Field General Tor miniature!
That's all for today - if you've got any questions, as ever, get 'em in the comments below! Keep an eye out for next week's update... oh, we've got some exciting things to show you.
That Mars Attacks stuff at the end is a bit cynical, but, who cares!
My mailman really did look tired with my Dreadball delivery today. - I went with cheerleader, so he had 2 pretty damn huge boxes, filled up with around 50 odd bags of resin minis, plus a whole bunch of metal ones too.
Compel wrote: My mailman really did look tired with my Dreadball delivery today. - I went with cheerleader, so he had 2 pretty damn huge boxes, filled up with around 50 odd bags of resin minis, plus a whole bunch of metal ones too.
And I live on the top floor of a flat.
Did you tip him? Sounds like he might have deserved one!
Oh, your mailman delivery your stuff to you personally? Mine always left some type of note in my mail box, advising me to pick my stuff up at the mail center... :/
As if i waited... as soon as i know my stuff arrived (via internet tracking) i will be alredy in the mail center to take it DD
Those really look great, rebs keeps me amazed, and marauders are workable. But i really wanna know about the hard plastic stuff...
I'm waiting for my delivery... My driveway is almost a quarter mile long, and USPS refuses to bring boxes back, despite it being a straight driveway with plenty of room to turn around
:/ i imagined that Mantic would have news for us at the middle of the week... I think im a bit anxious about the plastic stuff
Not only that would mean tons of plastic stuff for me, but also a new step on the company growth, and i think i am that type of costumer who enjoy the growth of the companies i support...
I've tempered my enthusiasm here due to some of the recent Dreadball Season 3 stuff.
I'm still looking forward to this one - just with a little more trepidation now...
Whilst I hate working with metal in general (I have NO idea why it is so popular with many "hard core" modelers) the keepers and alt sculpts for Season 3 look great, blend virutally flawlessly in with the restic models after you start to paint them (I caught off guard after putting some paint on one guard and then grabbing another and it weighted 20 times as much) and haven't been anywhere near the headache I've had in the past working with metal minis.
I wasn't close enough to the KS to know either way that some were metal and restic (found a secret door to get it for the last survey), so while I was taken back the claw and teraton keepers damn near weighted a pound a piece, I didn't sweat it. I can understand if people thought it was 100% restic why they might get a little put off metal showed up.
It's what we "grew up" with, it has heft, it's generally a lot more durable than plastic or resin for models with spears, halberds and the like (depending on shaft length and width). For single-piece models I generally prefer metal. For multi-parts, I tend to go for plastic or resin
I'm still working on my first restic models, so I'm withholding my judgement for the time being.
Metal spears are fine until the break.... If they're small enough to pin then they're fine again, if not... I like metal alright, but I've always had a problem with easily taking off paint at sharp edges from normal gaming wear and tear. Now that I dip a lot of things and use typically more coats of sealer.. might not be as much of a bother...
Rules, dice, tiled game board, terrain, faction cards, objective markers. Although you could probably play without the faction cards like Dreadball: Kickoff.
To make up for the lack of update last week, we’re going to have two this week – where in the next one we’re going to go over progress on the project so far.
We’re also going to try and film the new scenery tiles in action as well. We can’t wait to show this off, so I hope you’re as excited as we are.
In the mean time, let’s take a closer look at the Plague…
Pretty cool, huh?
And, as we head off to prepare for this week’s bumper update, here’s the first look at the Plague Faction cards.
There’s three types of card in Deadzone – Stat card, Mission Card and Battle Card. The Stat cards cover all sorts of stuff – how much room they take in a square (or Cube, since it’s 3D!), shoot, fight, command etc – whilst the Mission Cards are used to give you your objectives (in secret, without the opponent knowing of course) and the Battle Cards can be played to buff your troops in key fights with the opponent.
Battle Cards open up a whole new wealth of tactics, and we can't wait to hear how people use them. Not long to go now!
And finally…
In exciting news, we’ve had confirmation from our manufacturers that the boxes, models and the scenery are on the water and are sailing towards us, hopefully avoiding typhoons and storms along the way.
Exciting times – and we’ll be back with the progress update later this week!
PS - we're looking at adding cross-compatibility with our Mars Attacks game by creating faction decks for the Martians and Humans (handy since the terrain and gaming mats are already compatible) - who would be interested?
This update look a lot like "well, we are late, and we dont know what to say, sorry? Maybe next week we can show you what you rally want to see. See you later"
It’s Ronnie here! I know everyone has been waiting for some information of where we're up to with Deadzone - so here we are with a monster update!
As you would expect the biggest Kickstarter we have ever done has thrown us a whole new set of challenges, but so far we look to be wrestling all of them down to the ground, putting our Peacekeeper armoured foot on their throats and firing some slugs into their heads!
First up, my apologies to those of you whose questions we’ve missed over the past few weeks. We were holding out for the results of some of our tooling and shipping info before I could give definitive answers. That info has now arrived, boats are loaded with 5 containers of plastics and boxes - and we can now give a clear update on where we are, and what will be happening.
So, let’s start with what we can’t do!
A while after the Kickstarter ended we looked at converting the resin plastic Enforcers into hard plastic, yet at the moment we can’t do that to a quality I am happy with. We have been working non-stop at making hard plastic organics at a standard that can compete (and beat) the best out there. Over the summer I tooled a hard plastic set and, whilst it was a step forward in quality, it was not up to where I want it to be. We have since then been working with a new technique – and we are very optimistic, but we have been optimistic before and we fell just short!
During the Kickstarter we said the zombies were going to be on sprues, in hard plastic. We have been using them as the test case and the early progress looks really encouraging. If we’re not happy with the results, we’ve got some time to get them fixed – and we will remake the tool – so we can look at alternative methods before sending them out in wave two. That said, we’re quietly confident.
Work-in-progress Zombie
If the method works well on the zombies I will ensure everyone gets all of the Enforcers they ordered in their second shipment, along with the Forge Fathers and the Asterians in hard plastic. If it is not up to the quality we expect, I will keep all those kits in resin plastic as was originally planned in the Kickstarter, and we will put the Peacekeepers into Resin Plastic as well. If anyone has added extras because they were hard plastic we will of course offer the option of exchanging those for other items or a refund. I don't expect any of that will be the case, but I just want to cover all the bases.
So what does that mean? Well it means I wasn’t ready to commit the finest troops in the entire Corporation to an unproven tooling method, and possibly have quality issues.
In Update 103 the plan was to take the basic troops for the Enforcers - Rifles, Assault Blades and Heavy Weapons – from the Enforcer Faction Starter and tool them as a multi-part hard plastic kit instead of resin plastic. This new kit would have still made the same models, but would have used the different plastic. As we are still waiting on the results of the zombie tooling, we are now past the point where we can get this tooled in time for the initial launch.
However, we don’t want to have to delay the launch for not having the basic Enforcer troops, so to replace the four models that would have come in the original promise (the three figures with heavy rifles and one of the figures with an assault blade) I am going to add a free pack of 5 resin-plastic Enforcers to every Kickstarter Enforcer Faction Starter (including the Faction Starter included with the pledge levels) allowing you to get on with playing the game immediately without having to wait for the new sprued plastic figures to arrive.
These figures include components for heavy rifles, an assault blade and a burst laser heavy weapon. They are totally free and in addition to whatever you have ordered. The hard plastic Enforcer sprues will be sent along with your second delivery when they are ready and a standard you can all be proud of.
A small minority of people who have selected individual figures may be affected by these changes and we will drop an email to anyone who is, and see what they want to do. This also applies to anyone who has paid for shipping on their second shipment – as you’ll now be getting one regardless due to the extra Enforcers, so we will be in touch to discuss how it affects you – you might be able to add for more minis instead!
So – if the bad news is more free figures, the good news must be really great!
Let’s cover that now…
The Marauders
We have added a Marauder Pyro to every Kickstarter faction starter free of charge.
This balanced the game better (and gave away another cool models) and gave a more rounded force for the Marauders. In relation to this, the faction starter lost the duplicate arms for the Ripper Suits. This was both to make room on the tool and because it added little during final testing. It turned out that the Marauders got some pretty hefty pieces of extra kit anyway – you won’t be disappointed when you see the finished Hulk and Goblin Guntrack!
Limited Edition Alternate Survivor
We are making a metal limited edition of the Survivor model in a new pose available as an exclusive pre-release model for the launch through our trade partners. He will not be available to buy separately – except of course to Kickstarter backers ☺ If you want him then he can be added in the second survey which will be with you around March-April next year, along with anything else that gets added to the range.
Shipping Update
The vast majority of the models are now on their way to us, and they’re looking fantastic. We were not happy with some of the first batch, so we reworked the mould and ran it again. We’ve seen the results and we're very happy with them. We haven’t had a chance to get any photos just yet, but we are flying in some of the production pieces and will get images out as soon as we receive them. In the meantime you can check out our recent DreadBall releases for an idea of the quality you’ll be getting – it’s the same material that we’re using for the Deadzone figures.
DreadBall Big Mech
DreadBall Alpha Simian
Now, no matter how many models we have, everyone always wants more, so how about a couple of new factions?
Head on over to the Mars Attacks Kickstarter a little later, where you’ll find that we’ve now unlocked a set of faction decks to use the Martian and Human forces in Deadzone. Want to play Enforcers against Martians? Now you can! We have set it up so if you just want the Deadzone bits you can pledge for those with the models without having to buy the game (but why would you!).
If you are into DreadBall you could pick up a team too! Exciting - and a bit random! So if you feel like popping on over and supporting us we'd be real appreciative.
But what about the Scenery?
And now onto more things to make you happy – scenery! It’s not been an easy journey, but as you’ll see from the video below, this scenery works better than I’d ever dreamed it would. The building tiles look amazing and we have had a few pre-production copies in the office to paint up. In final testing they have clipped together wonderfully. We’ve pushed really hard to get a push-fit connector system. This involved reworking all of the scenery tools, and completely remaking the connector mould three times! However, we’re now there, we believe this scenery is going to be a massive part of our sci-fi range, and many people’s gaming tables for years to come. Thank you for helping make it possible!
We now have the final tiles for the scenery - but instead of us writing about it, just watch
Once we have enough scenery sprues we’ll get our resident hobby guru Dave to put some together so you can see some examples of the incredible kits you’ll be able to build.
Back in the office and away from the tooling, we’ve been having plenty of fun with the rest of Deadzone. Jake has been pulling together a tight set of rules for multi-mat and multiplayer games ready for next year’s compendium (in between his work on Mars Attacks), and the sculptors are working on the last few bits for the second shipment! It’s all things Forge Fathers this week – the Brokkrs are all done and ready to be sent over from the sculptor – we’ll sort some pics when they get here – and everyone’s favourite, the Iron Ancestor, is getting an upgrade…
From the painting table...
Our talented painters has been slaving away too – look what he’s been up to…
Blaine
Helfather
Nastanza
Doctor Simmonds
Wrath
Recon Unit
The Survivor
And finally...
We are now pulling out all the stops and aiming to start shipping Deadzone in the first days of December. For any of you that are UK based (or further afield if you are being brave) you could come to the Open Day and collect your pledge personally and be one of the first to have it. Your backer ticket gives you free entry to the Open Day, so make a day of it and get a Deadzone demo too! Also anyone who paid for Courier shipping will be the first pledges to be despatched, and then we will quickly roll through the rest of the orders.
There’s plenty more information to come in the next few weeks, so please keep an eye on your inboxes. As always, drop your comments and questions below and let us know what you think!
Thanks for supporting us, best wishes,
Ronnie
PS - And if all that wasn't exciting enough, digital PDFs of the Deadzone Rulebook will be with you next week.
I thought the booster was all restic sculpts. I do see the shield on the plastic enforcer sprue image... but mayhaps that was just an extra bit thrown in?
If you read the old updates, that was just the idea, but they weren't sure what they were gonna put on them exactly. In the picture, that's a lot of bits for so few bodies. I think the Rocket Launcher and shotgun/shield got pulled.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, there also aren't enough heads on that pic
Perhaps this thread should have stayed in "News and Rumors"
All the hub bub griping and complaining that is partially substantiated and partailly ludicrious could have better been placed here.
I said it before and I say it again: Mantic needs to slow down and focus a little bit more on what they already have in production OR hire some more people if they are going to go in so many directions at once.
Actually, I'd call it the other way, the complaints would have been better off here in the mantic forums since whenever I post actual N&R in the N&R thread it gets buried under 5 pages of gak.
I really like all the new minis, recon unit and nastanza look fantastic.
Well, unfortunately, the mods are participating in the complaining and arguing at times in the news threads. It's hard for those guys to find the right balance of enforcement and participation and they probably choose to go the less hypocritical route.
Earth Dragon wrote: Well, unfortunately, the mods are participating in the complaining and arguing at times in the news threads. It's hard for those guys to find the right balance of enforcement and participation and they probably choose to go the less hypocritical route.
The Mods are site members too. They are entitled to complain and argue just like everyone else. Neither of those things are against the rules. If they do break the rules, someone will slap their wrists just like yours or mine.
I think the point is whether complaints about materials or production models about a particular product belong in the News threads or in the actual product discussion thread itself.
At the same time, look at all the other miniature KS you've pledged for. My most recent one that has shipped, Warzone, showed only the resin masters and not even that for all the items. It hasn't been something that KS projects have all been showing. I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.
It is more other issues like another KS currently running and the recent metals that have people on edge, but that offense alone is hardly justifying the backlash as it has not been an expectation put on very many companies, and nobody was saying anything about.
There is actually doing something crooked and then there is expecting something that just hasn't been happening in a lot of other places. It's the "They must be doing something wrong and trying to trick us" mentality that is completely off base.
WWX has not been showing any production plastics. I don't see people acting like they are violating any KS terms like I see agnosto and others showing. I'm not seeing the same criticism. The thought there was must be something wrong BECAUSE they didn't take pictures and show them is what is off target, as not many companies have been.
Why weren't these same "they must be up to no good" criticism being thrown at Prodos for the same thing?
It's not me being "overly supportive". It's me saying calm down and chill. This hasn't been an expectation placed by and large yet and these accusations shouldn't be made for the offense (that in other places isn't seen as an offense).
The difference is that neither WWX nor Prodos games failed to show production models and then delivered extremely poor product on previous Kickstarter campaigns.
Worry about Prodos not showing production models is very different from Mantic not showing production models.
Gallahad wrote: The difference is that neither WWX nor Prodos games failed to show production models and then delivered extremely poor product on previous Kickstarter campaigns.
Worry about Prodos not showing production models is very different from Mantic not showing production models.
And I mentioned that in the first post. The metals, the men at arms, the Season 1 Dreadball flashing and mold lines to add some other fuel if you'd like.
I'm pointing out that not showing anything but the Master is common and not in and of itself a hint of problems. It wasn't an expectation before. Should be made one in the future? Yes. But it wasn't made one previously.
I've jabbed at Mantic for spreading themselves too thin, having a seeming lack of a sound, long term business plan, selling out and further cheapening their IP to increase sales (which is more evidence of lack of long term thinking), overlapping their KS projects a little too much, not doing enough plastic kits (Dreadball box set in particular)......I can list plenty.
At the same time I'll give them props that they held off on the Plastic enforcers(which is a bit of evidence other things aren't going.....as poorly in the very least as a portion also have model they could sub in like the Enforcers), ensured the scenery clips were done right, and realized they should move the basic Enforcer, Asterian, and Forge Father kits to plastic with the overages.
I have my concerns on what might be showing next month, but folks have taken a single issue, which hasn't been an industry expectation before now, and are making it into a sign of sure doom. It's a little overdone at this point.
I think people need to realize that at least Mantic is coming through with the KS items. There are a good number of 'gaming community' kickstarters that aren't providing their items. At least we are getting our stuff.
My only real complaint with any of the Mantic kickstarters has been that they don't label the dang miniatures in the bags, so you have to sort through and make sure everything is correct. You'd still have to do that anyway, but it'd be easier with the miniatures labeled.
My only real complaint with any of the Mantic kickstarters has been that they don't label the dang miniatures in the bags, so you have to sort through and make sure everything is correct. You'd still have to do that anyway, but it'd be easier with the miniatures labeled.
Amen. At least they could take a picture of each bag and list its correct contents on the web so you could use it as a reference.
Gallahad wrote: The difference is that neither WWX nor Prodos games failed to show production models and then delivered extremely poor product on previous Kickstarter campaigns.
shrug, all of my Mantic KS stuff has been excellent. The vast majority of KoW and overwhelming (if not all) of Dreadball has been perfect.
off the top of my head, and of course, these are my opinions:
fantastic - goblin mawbeast riders (these really are just amazing sculpts), immortal guard, gargoyles, elohi, mincers
good - paladins, stormwind cav, palace guard, chariots, fight wagons, dark knights, mummies, werewolves, brock riders
poor - trolls, nuns, men at arms
I saw the majority of these figs beforehand (and why I ordered even more mawbeast riders). Most of them were free stretch goals, so the figs I didn't like I just traded to someone who did, for other figs I wanted. Still the best KS deal I've ever had and will probably never be topped.
I only got 6 Dreadball teams - the original 4 plus Teratons and Nameless - loved the sculpts on all of them.
Sadly Alpharius doesn't understand the overall point and refuses to. The recent pics show they weren't hiding anything and it wasn't certain doom. It just wasn't an expectation before hand for really any company to ensure pictures of production models pasted the Master Resins.
Now they've heard some noise so they can choose what to do with it from there. When you change the rules in the middle of the game you can't expect for immediate compliance.
Hrm, I hadn't considered that the book did not contain the cards. Though, why should it really? You get a faction deck with your faction. I don't think Deadzone is meant to sell at anything less than the Plague Vs enforcers retail box size. I realize they sell faction starters and individual minis, but I think thats more for after you have your main game.
I guess what I'm getting at is its kind of like buying the 40k rulebook, it doesn't come with any army specific codex-plurals. And most ways you buy deadzone will come with the cards you need so thats why they aren't in the book.
Blah blah, regardless, it is a problem for playing *right now*.
You/I/many of us should give Mantic a buzz through whichever channels we've decided are most effective and see if they've got the cards anywhere in a PDF as well...
Then of course, given how little it looks like the rules have changed, you might just nab the most recent PDF's of the beta cards off of Jake's Quirkworthy blog:
I *think* I nabbed links to the most recent iteration of each:
Earth Dragon wrote: Sadly Alpharius doesn't understand the overall point and refuses to. The recent pics show they weren't hiding anything and it wasn't certain doom. It just wasn't an expectation before hand for really any company to ensure pictures of production models pasted the Master Resins.
Now they've heard some noise so they can choose what to do with it from there. When you change the rules in the middle of the game you can't expect for immediate compliance.
That's a fething hilarious spin on that particular issue, but, yeah whatever.
Believe me, I'm VERY happy that the recent production miniatures look good and match the concept art.
Something that hasn't, you know, always been the case.
Thanks for digging those up for us. I appreciate it.
Over on the Lead Adventure Forum, Andrew Rae posted that he contacted Mantic and they told him the cards would be going out to us in a pdf soon.
So, keep an eye out, I guess.
~Eric
That's good to know. I can't remember where, but we were specifically told that cards would come with the PDF rules when the KS was being funded. This is especially important for me. Even though I have Rebs and Forgefathers coming, I'd like to use some of the myriad sci-fi figures I have for other factions. Also for those who may play Warpath and wish to try deadzone, the cards (or at least printable/copiable sheets) should be included.
So, it turns out that after this delivers, I'd have 150 Enforcer models in total. This includes Howlett and Recon. Of course, then Mantic made their generous offer to include a pack of the 5 current Enforcers due to those of us waiting on pure plastic Enforcers in our faction starters. Meaning my number goes up to 160 (2 faction starters). I'm now at 160. I think I may have a problem...how will I ever field 160 Enforcer models?! Even when Warpath 3.0 hits! Under 2.0, I can only field like 40 Enforcers. I have quite a bit more than that...
timetowaste85 wrote: So, it turns out that after this delivers, I'd have 150 Enforcer models in total. This includes Howlett and Recon. Of course, then Mantic made their generous offer to include a pack of the 5 current Enforcers due to those of us waiting on pure plastic Enforcers in our faction starters. Meaning my number goes up to 160 (2 faction starters). I'm now at 160. I think I may have a problem...how will I ever field 160 Enforcer models?! Even when Warpath 3.0 hits! Under 2.0, I can only field like 40 Enforcers. I have quite a bit more than that...
Could give some skirts and pompoms to cheer on their fellows on the tabletop ; p
Yeah, I threw together a list using Warpath 2.0 rules for them and could only get 50 models on the table. 2 snipers, 3 captains, 2 strike teams, 3 HW squads, 3 assault squads. Of course, I don't remember how many models make a "steady" unit. If it's 10, back to the drawing board, I'll have too many characters. We'll see when I look again later. Right now I just care about getting them painted.
Warpath 3.0 will let you use the lot, no doubts about that from what we've heard about it.
Or, at the very least you'll be totally spoilt for choice as far as army list selection goes.
I just bought a dirt cheap sedition wars box for use in Deadzone, the extra minis for the Rebs will be sweet.
It's looking likely that my Rebs will have minis from 4 different lines (DZ, Urban War, Sedition Wars, Mars Attacks). Possibly more. I just love the whole assortment of random aliens and ragtag humans.
I think I'm at about 100+ Rebs minis and counting with my total, definitely already Warpath-worthy.
scarletsquig wrote: It's looking likely that my Rebs will have minis from 4 different lines (DZ, Urban War, Sedition Wars, Mars Attacks). Possibly more. I just love the whole assortment of random aliens and ragtag humans.
I think I'm at about 100+ Rebs minis and counting with my total, definitely already Warpath-worthy.
Rebs my fave due to that variety, however I'm really happy with the minis the game comes with for them so I'm knackered wrt using more minis from elsewhere for the time being as I want to use all of them haha. Hard to argue with Kraaw and Judwan (my faves) let alone Zees, Sorak, Yndij and Grogan! The humies looked really good too though, especially the commander. The one non-deadzone line I'm thinking of using so far though are the WWX minis which I hope scale well with Deadzone as the outlaws will make awesome Rebel humies.
I also like almost the entire Rebs faction sculpts, and want to emphasize that they were all hand-sculpted. Everyone here is well-aware of that, but sometimes discussions of Mantic's hand-sculpted models vs. their computer rendered ones seem to emphasize only the negative aspects of models created by hand. When we focus only on the Marauders or Plague 3rd gens, it feels like the take-away message is that Mantic's hand-sculpts are poor, while their computer sculpts are good. I won't argue that their ratio of success in converting concept art to successful final sculpts is much higher with computer rendering than with hand-sculpting so far. But the Rebs, one of Deadzone's stand-out factions, are one area where Mantic got concept-to-hand sculpt absolutely right.
It makes you wonder how Mantic's talented sculptors got the 3rd Gens / Marauders "wrong"*. Sylvain, the in-house sculptor who did the 3rd Gens, is extremely talented, which makes me think that the problem lies with the concept (not necessarily the same as concept art) he was given to work with. Bone spikes, steroids, and rage aren't really very original or interesting mutations. Even going in the complete opposite direction, having 3rd Gens look absolutely normal, would have been more interesting. If the effects of the Plague on 3rd Gen victims were limited to corrupting the mind, they could have served as infiltrators and generated a lot of story possibilities. It is entirely possible that when he sculpted the 3rd Gens with gorilla arms, long torsos, and tiny legs, Sylvain was following the company's intended design very closely. (Whether that design corresponded exactly with the concept art or not. We don't know what he was told in the Mantic studios.) Design choices also played some role in the Marauder issues, as Mantic was clearly trying to revamp their earlier Marauders and align them more closely with certain GW Ork styles. In other words, when Mantic sculptures fall short*, that is sometimes more attributable to the vision of the company taking a "wrong turn" than to the talent of the sculptor. Sometimes.
I am fascinated, and a little concerned, by the industry's increasing turn towards computer rendering. I don't see it as a bad thing at all, but I don't want them to make the same mistake George Lucas made in the Phantom Menace - throwing out all the old hand crafted techniques of puppetry, stop-motion, miniature modelling, and replacing them wholesale with (often lifeless) CGI. I think computer rendering is here to stay, and thank goodness for that. But I hope hand-sculpting is here to stay as well, in some capacity. I'm happy to see companies expand their toolkit with computer rendered models, but I hope they don't abandon manual sculpts altogether in the process.
* It's hard to keep qualifying everything you say and keep your post short, so I'll just acknowledge here that my valuations aren't absolute "fact," but very much a matter of personal taste. If you love the 3rd Gens or Marauder commandos (and really it's the 3rd gens I dislike most), I respect your opinion.
I just bought a dirt cheap sedition wars box for use in Deadzone, the extra minis for the Rebs will be sweet.
@Scarlet Squig - I have Sedition Wars too, and would love to integrate it with Deadzone - Sedition Wars being a prime example of a much more interesting conception of a mutating / zombifying disease given much more imaginative execution in the final sculpts. I just worry that the Sedition Wars figures won't scale well with Mantic's and will end up being too small to use, especially the soldiers and humanoid zombies. Is this not a concern for you, or do Mantic's figures generally scale well with Sedition Wars? I only have Remy's Veer-myn to compare my Sedition Wars figures with, and given their idiosyncratic size, Veer-myn tend to look good alongside anything, but don't represent Mantic's general figure scale very well.
Vermonter wrote: @Scarlet Squig - I have Sedition Wars too, and would love to integrate it with Deadzone - Sedition Wars being a prime example of a much more interesting conception of a mutating / zombifying disease given much more imaginative execution in the final sculpts. I just worry that the Sedition Wars figures won't scale well with Mantic's and will end up being too small to use, especially the soldiers and humanoid zombies. Is this not a concern for you, or do Mantic's figures generally scale well with Sedition Wars? I only have Remy's Veer-myn to compare my Sedition Wars figures with, and given their idiosyncratic size, Veer-myn tend to look good alongside anything, but don't represent Mantic's general figure scale very well.
I have a full set of SW minis painted and lined up next to a bunch of the pre-DZ Enforcers in a case. Here's a terrible, underlit pic from my gallery for comparison:
I plan to use my SW minis as Corporation troops, using Mars Attacks DZ cards.
Update #119 deployed. Blah blah open day, blah blah (seems to suggesting they'll be working on shipping stuff *before* their open day, which is awesome). Blah blah free backer ticket, blah blah digital dz rulebook updated to have plague and enforcer cards. They look sharp, too. Enforcer captain got a much different gun from beta, standard 3rd gens are now fast. Woot.
So just looking through the updated pdf: Anyone know what the "Defender Shield" does for the guy with the riot shield and shotgun? I can't seem to find the rules for it
darkPrince010 wrote: So just looking through the updated pdf: Anyone know what the "Defender Shield" does for the guy with the riot shield and shotgun? I can't seem to find the rules for it
Yeah you're right, doesn't show up under equipment, and doesn't have an ability rule that I can see. It should have a profile in equipment like the energy shield (which is cool by the way!). Might need to mention it on Quirkworthy.
Seriously two weeks? That is fairly good news Now if I'm just lucky enough to be within the earlier waves of courier shipping I'll have a painted set ready to make relatives play with me on x-mas
Thanks for the comparison shot, JoshinJapan. The Sedition Wars trooper / Enforcer contrast works well because it emphasizes what the Enforcers are supposed to be - larger, stronger, extra humans.
I guess the final test for me will be how something like a human Rebs trooper compares to a Sedition Wars trooper, since both are supposed to have normal physiology. Hopefully we'll know the answer to that one in just a few weeks when our boxes arrive.
I hope the SW stuff pairs up very well with Deadzone, because that range has a number of outstanding models I'd love to put to good use.
scarletsquig wrote: It can take 2 weeks, but they've often sent out the international packages first because they know it takes longer for them to arrive.
Depending on when they start shipping it's probably a good thing, as the current semester I'm in runs through December 12th. Then, I'll have all the time in the world for the Deadzone goodness!
I'm not concerned about scale, the regular Mantic corp are pretty small to start with. And the Enforcers are taller than space marines. I'm expecting SW to fit right in.
I'll be using SW minis to represent veteran Rebs that have gotten their hands on some seriously good stolen Corp gear.
As for the plague, mantic's style, scale and proportions are all over the place on that line, so it really won't matter. If anything the SW stuff is a closer match for the style of the 1st Gen (layered exposed muscle) than the 2nd and 3rd Gens are. Both are Remy sculpts I think(?) so it's not surprising.
Thought it might be useful for those that backed that KS to get some use out of the minis for what is otherwise looking to be quite an unpopular/ dead game. There's the core of a couple of deadzone factions in there if the minis are gathering dust.
scarletsquig wrote: I'm not concerned about scale, the regular Mantic corp are pretty small to start with. And the Enforcers are taller than space marines. I'm expecting SW to fit right in.
I'll be using SW minis to represent veteran Rebs that have gotten their hands on some seriously good stolen Corp gear.
As for the plague, mantic's style, scale and proportions are all over the place on that line, so it really won't matter. If anything the SW stuff is a closer match for the style of the 1st Gen (layered exposed muscle) than the 2nd and 3rd Gens are. Both are Remy sculpts I think(?) so it's not surprising.
Thought it might be useful for those that backed that KS to get some use out of the minis for what is otherwise looking to be quite an unpopular/ dead game. There's the core of a couple of deadzone factions in there if the minis are gathering dust.
Don't put too many pictures of enforcers next to space marines, Squig. We wouldn't want people to discover what the superior looking model is, after all.
Hint for those who may need it-I ain't talking about the green guy.
Good lord, once I get a few enforcers in front of me I may end up dumping my 4500ish points of collected space marines all over the swap shop subforum. I have a great fear that I'll never be able to paint one again after working on the enforcers. I know I'd have trouble trying to do a cadian or catachan after doing 40something corporation marines. Dreadnoughts may make cool guard robots or something? =/ Maybe convert them into Iron ancestors somehow, but you definitely voice a very real concern of mine Timetowaste
Am I bad for immediately thinking about all of the work it's going to take to pull the special and heavy weapons off of my marines and somehow mod them onto enforcers?
I dunno. I think a plasma cannon should be huge. ;-) Hmmm, maybe rig a bipod on the front of a heavy bolter or run a corp guy next to him carrying the ammo backpack...
Problem is, no one around her plays warpath so all I have is 40k...
agnosto wrote: Am I bad for immediately thinking about all of the work it's going to take to pull the special and heavy weapons off of my marines and somehow mod them onto enforcers?
There is a tactical flame unit included in the set, so there's your flamer sorted. There's alt plasma and melta in the Corp sets too, or you could mod the flamer.
Missile launcher is sorted, as is heavy bolter (burst laser), from there you could probably modify some of the weaponry to suit although it will require a lot of cutting down and possibly just mounting the nozzles or barrels from the GW weapons on the enforcer guns. Assault marines are covered, pretty much.
You might want to want for the the hard plastic sprues (basic enforcers, peacekeepers), they look like they're gearing them pretty heavily towards providing not-40k space marine (and terminator) options.
One of the cool things about the energy gauntlets is that they are small and still functional as a hand, allowing for 2-handed poses which look a hell of a lot better, you can see it still has a power fist, but it isn't some giant club hand:
I think that pose with the kneeling legs is going to look pretty awesome.
Still, a bit too early to get excited about that, current word is that China can't handle it. I can see there being wave 2 delays, in all honesty, Mantic has the cash, and they're not going to want to just scrap all their hard plastic work at this stage and put out restic instead just to meet a deadline.
I think they're going to be in for a shock when the wave 2 survey comes out if all the hard plastic sprues are in there. I for one will be doubling or tripling my initial pledge and building a Warpath enforcer army, in addition to getting more terrain and forgefather/asterian stuff (was already planning on second-surveying that stuff).
KoW Kickstarter (I blind-bought lots of Basilieans) made me highly nervous about going big on wave 1 survey, I didn't see any point in spending much extra when I could wait for wave 2 when a lot more previews would be available. It just seemed smarter to wait. Warpath KS looks like it'll be a long way off yet (possibly Q4 2014 at this rate?), so I might as well get started now.
That really does look good SS. If they've nailed down their hard plastics I have some money assigned to them from my KS pledge too. If they're not, they said they'd refund it so I'm fine with it either way.
I'm trying to get out of buying hordes of the same thing. That said, I want at least 15 of those peacekeepers. *maybe* 80 zombies for $45, on the fence there.
Still, second survey is probably gonna see a less than reasonable amount of money coming from me :p
GrimDork wrote: I'm trying to get out of buying hordes of the same thing. That said, I want at least 15 of those peacekeepers. *maybe* 80 zombies for $45, on the fence there.
Still, second survey is probably gonna see a less than reasonable amount of money coming from me :p
Not me-- I went all in during the KS, then added even more in the survey. There is nothing left for me to buy.
Oh, well... I mean I went in for assault and got a bogo for all 6 factions, and 14 battlezones. I just mean I don't want to field 6 quasi-identical units of 10 space marines anymore. If I paint any more full sized armies,though, it's going to take a flexible allies system or a lot of variance in what I field to get me through it.
Its more what's keeping me to only wanting 10-15 peacekeepers when a year or two ago I'd want 30+, and gobs of the plastic enforcer sprue if those are ready and made available survey 2, etc.
So Mantic posted on Facebook (instead of Kickstarter, idk why) that they're not sure now if they'll be able to ship next week. Apparently whoever is in charge of the KS posts spoke too soon, and the bosses weren't happy
Lol oh well. The whole "shipping early" thing basically meant it was going to hit my original expectation anyway. As long as I get it before x-mas, I'll be happy.
I wouldn't mind seeing the other 3 battlezones. May give me some incentive to move some stuff around in my Mars Attacks pledge if I like the last 3 more than I figured.
That's right, we haven't seen much other than the core terrain sprues. Damaged core, landing pad and the military one all looked promising in the concept art, I'd forgotten about them tbh hahah. I assume we won't need to fill out our Mars Attacks survey until after we have our Deadzone stuff, if so I might go in for some more terrain with MA pledge monies... though 14 battlezones *should* be enough. That said, 640K should have been enough memory for anyone according to Bill Gates at one stage too and we know how that worked out...
Quirkworthy linked something I posted recently, "Deadzone 40K" in his new post DZ Bits and Bobs and wasn't against it which made me happy. Someone else was talking about using Deadzone rules with other settings too which I thought was interesting. If people start developing army rules for Deadzone, it could become a platform for multiple settings, you could get things like balanced SMs vs Z'zor vs Aliens vs Martians which could be awesome. At the very least, I'll keep plugging away at Deadzone 40K since I think the Deadzone rules have a lot of promise for making the 40K setting enjoyable on tabletop. Just a quick plug in case anyone has some ideas they want to share for it ; p
Yeah, EM-4 owns those now but they are mostly the old Grenadier range, many sculpted by Mark Copplestone who has updated versions of some of them for sale as well. EM-4 are a great company, never had any problems buying from them or getting questions answered by Doug, the owner.
Lookit! Found this linked over at the mantic forums, its got assembled and painted shots of the faction starters (maybe some of the booster bits too, forget) for everything except marauders so far:
Off Topic, but I'll never pass up a chance to praise Doug and EM4. I've purchased quite a few figures from them over the years and even had an article in the CombatZone Chronicles. His service to USA is always quick and affordable.
Doug is doing a great job of keeping some great miniatures in circulation at a great prices long after the original companies have folded. The Grenadier Future Warriors and Fantasy Warriors are two of the best, but there's also great stuff from metal Magic and others. Also their plastic battlemechs and incredible selection of cheap bases are great.
So... I received an email from Mantic this morning requesting updated address information, because I moved shortly after the survey was sent out. The person that emailed me said that they are shipping this week.
Meh, its probably that new customer service person who will get a severe smack on the knuckles for making promises the warehouse team can't keep
Or not, I'd be ok with that
Thanks for dumping the photos here Yonan, I was ogling them but too lazy to do that (and just recently got access to my computer, would have taken forever on my phone blah blah).
I think I'm gonna be a little disappointed with the overall amount of scatter terrain my 16-ish accessory sprues produce, but I'll be glad to have all of the railings and the ladders will be interesting if not useful for Deadzone (since things can just scramble up the walls). Maybe for using the tiles as Infinity terrain, don't they like ladders?
Still, I think I only directly ordered 10-12 of those accessory sprues, I've spent more money on less in the past I'm sure :p
Actually now it looks like the drums and cannisters are single pieces? So hmm. Cause there should definitely be two ladders and stuff so I think that's maybe a half accessory sprue? I gues 2 stacks of barrels, canisters, and two large crates per would be ok... Just gotta confirm if you get two of those or not..
Well the accessory sprue graphic boasted 2 ladders 2 canister sets 2 large crates 2 medium rectangular containers, 4 rails and 6 support struts plus the long pointy things and i dunno are those lights? So yeah I'm thinking that sprue is a half sprue, and if you get two of those for $5 or per selection, it should be quite fine. Still may need more scatter terrain though, battle systems here I come!
Yeah the sprues look very sparse which is about the only flaw with them I think. Must be something to do with the manufacturer Mantic uses, because WGF pack their sprues solidly with stuff.
If you ordered 10-12 of these, I'm pretty sure you'll have ample scatter terrain ; p Pretty sure you won't get less - if anything, maybe more, so yeah probably Mantic split the sprues into smaller sections for some reason.
Spoiler:
edit: Yeah it looks like in one of the pics, there's 2 accessory sprues stacked on top of one another, so it looks like it was split in half and you get 2 instead of 1. Just counted it off, yeah it's exactly what's in the promised sprue, just on 2 sprues instead.
Yeah, its what I figured. What I'm getting at though... I should have enough railings to probably save most of the half tiles for walkways and to use as partial walls places, with plenty of struts to support them and ladders to convincingly reach them.
I'm just wondering if 16x2 sets of mini barrels, containers and crates will be enough for some of the shenanigans I have planned . There will probably be enough scatter for normal games of deadzone but I was thinking of a warehouse kind of area with lots and lots of containers
Meh, I'm sure I have enough of them that I'll be sick of painting the darn things before its over :p
Off Topic, but I'll never pass up a chance to praise Doug and EM4. I've purchased quite a few figures from them over the years and even had an article in the CombatZone Chronicles. His service to USA is always quick and affordable.
Doug is doing a great job of keeping some great miniatures in circulation at a great prices long after the original companies have folded. The Grenadier Future Warriors and Fantasy Warriors are two of the best, but there's also great stuff from metal Magic and others. Also their plastic battlemechs and incredible selection of cheap bases are great.
Thanks for all those pics. I'm looking forward to seeing the unboxing pics and hopefully a review or two from those who attend the Mantic open house.
After getting the wife's permission to go in for Stronghold level on Battle System, am looking even more forward to getting my DZ terrain and combining the two.
Now, all you FedEx guys are the courier shipping, right? I can expect my non-special shipping to come via USPS in the next couple weeks after the couriers go out. I'm eagerly awaiting it, but you courier guys do get priority. Also, I didn't realize Jake Thornton had written parts of Necromunda too. I knew he did the bloodbowl to dreadball transition, but I didn't realize necromunda was partially his baby as well. Getting the group from home who loved Necromunda to make the switch over will be even easier than I originally anticipated.
), but it sounds fun.
