Yonan wrote: Hahah nice researching, thanks Aza! I'm picking up some for myself at least (5 battlezones basically I think) so I'll definitely paint them with fantasy/medieval in mind as well. Will try to con him into getting a bunch too as you can't go wrong with lots of modular terrain.
Marble, sandstone, brown or grey clay come to mind as better choices than the .... vibrant.... red chosen by Mantic ; p
Well to be fair, the red brick is the most common that we see today, and Mars Attacks seems to be quite a vibrantly-styled/cartoony game, so bright bricks are fair enough in their promo materials. Once us lot get hold of them is where we'll see the interesting stuff start to emerge. I'm planning to get quite a few myself, and paint them to match the muted red I've done my Armorcast brick ruins in, so they work for WW2-sci-fi, but I think I might now do a bunch in some sandstone ochre and white-grey stone (so sick of dark blue-grey everything from years of 40k). Have to see if the sprue designs work for non-modern buildings, I guess...
Saw dread ball a week ago. They've got some kind of moving sale going on. And 27.99/34.99 is pretty standard in terms of MM discount. Did it say clearance?
GrimDork wrote: Saw dread ball a week ago. They've got some kind of moving sale going on. And 27.99/34.99 is pretty standard in terms of MM discount. Did it say clearance?
Part of the moving sale. I thought people might be looking for stuff so mentioned it when I ran across it; apparently only the Plague are available.
GrimDork wrote: Ahh yeah. I like MM they occasionally have really nice deals. Darn near ordered one of the $15 db teams.
Should have my stuff in a week or so though so no point in ordering more hold out minis.
They have one Veermyn and one Marauder starter set for $30...almost bought the Marauder one. I like the Marauder sculpts better than GWs Orks...I'll hold off and see if some plastic comes around later with the Warpath KS. I'll buy at retail though, no more Kickstarters for me.
I think the 1 player starter sets were better deals during the msntic new year sale. ~50 I think but two extra units at normal price. Which is like $40 free dollars or better pending set. Still... $30 sets are nothing to sneeze at, like getting everything in the box at least half off compared to msrp.
carlos13th wrote: I find it unlikely that GW are making new a new game that James has pitched.
Likewise. Mantic would seem a more obvious place where that could happen than GW. More likely a junior position in the studio - but as I said, best of luck to him - a few years there can only be a good thing for his CV!
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scarletsquig wrote: ^ No, nothing confirmed. All OT rambling based on speculation.
Warlord or River Horse were the first that came to mind, although GW pays a good salary to studio staff and Azazel makes a good point that it'd be great for further career advancement.
Didn't realise they were also in Lenton. Isn't River Horse pretty much just Alessio? Warlord seem quite small as well in terms of full-time creative staff - with core people like Priestly, Alessio, Chambers et al essentially doing work for hire. Still, even doing rules writing for either is a step up in terms of the CV from being a community manager.
and dreadball too. Dreadball teams going for $15-$20.
It's all the Mantic stuff that's on Clearance, they're not stocking them anymore, the KoW line as larger discounts. Recommend waiting a bit longer though, the clearance prices aren't even at 50% yet.
Amusingly, judging by stock levels their men-at-arms are selling much faster than the other basileans. Guess price does matter. :p
and dreadball too. Dreadball teams going for $15-$20.
It's all the Mantic stuff that's on Clearance, they're not stocking them anymore, the KoW line as larger discounts. Recommend waiting a bit longer though, the clearance prices aren't even at 50% yet.
Amusingly, judging by stock levels their men-at-arms are selling much faster than the other basileans. Guess price does matter. :p
Uh no they dropped Warpath and Kings of War (and this is the second time they've dropped Warpath and the third time they've dropped King of War - they usually then restock the entire line a few months after clearancing it all off - it's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen but I've been a loyal Miniature Market customer for 4 years now)
They had overstock of a few Dreadball items, hence the discount during the moving sale at 40% off.
One thing that continues to grate with Mantic and their pre-order system is the usual lack of a firm release date. I am very tempted by the Nexus-Psi one click collection (no copyright infringement intended) but the promise of shipping in "March" with no firm date is ever so slightly annoying.
Oooh videos. I need to go through and watch all of those.
In other news, true to their word, Mantic has finally shipped my order! And it's not just a tracking number lost in limbo, it's been picked up and is in transit. Should get it on Monday. I'd unbox it like I had originally planed to do months ago... but I think that's kind of been done to death at this point. At least it's in time for me to make some decisions about the second survey.
Actually, with the delay on the MA survey end date, it gives me just a little time to think over if I want to pack any more scenery into the MA shipment too, cool.
GrimDork wrote: Oooh videos. I need to go through and watch all of those.
In other news, true to their word, Mantic has finally shipped my order! And it's not just a tracking number lost in limbo, it's been picked up and is in transit. Should get it on Monday. I'd unbox it like I had originally planed to do months ago... but I think that's kind of been done to death at this point. At least it's in time for me to make some decisions about the second survey.
Actually, with the delay on the MA survey end date, it gives me just a little time to think over if I want to pack any more scenery into the MA shipment too, cool.
Congrats! You're finally going to get to go through tons of stuff. I'll cross my fingers that they did you the solid of making sure that everything's there since you had to wait so long.
The latest update states that the Peacekeepers at 5 for $10 are 50% or more off retail pricing. Seriously? $40 or more for 10 plastic models? What the hell are they thinking?
Mantic, take a long look in the mirror and decide who you really want to be, buddy.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The latest update states that the Peacekeepers at 5 for $10 are 50% or more off retail pricing. Seriously? $40 or more for 10 plastic models? What the hell are they thinking?
Mantic, take a long look in the mirror and decide who you really want to be, buddy.
Not sure if serious...
$40 for 10 awesome terminator stand ins when the next cheapest is $50 for 5 terminators from GW? I think they know who they are. The affordable alternative.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The latest update states that the Peacekeepers at 5 for $10 are 50% or more off retail pricing. Seriously? $40 or more for 10 plastic models? What the hell are they thinking?
Mantic, take a long look in the mirror and decide who you really want to be, buddy.
Not sure if serious...
$40 for 10 awesome terminator stand ins when the next cheapest is $50 for 5 terminators from GW? I think they know who they are. The affordable alternative.
I don't know anyone who pays $50 for terminators. That said, discounted Mantic pricing will be closer to $30 so you're still going to save $10 for 5 more models. As far as stand-ins go, the decision to not include optional weapons was probably a bad one if they intend to compete with GW on like vs. like.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The latest update states that the Peacekeepers at 5 for $10 are 50% or more off retail pricing. Seriously? $40 or more for 10 plastic models? What the hell are they thinking?
Mantic, take a long look in the mirror and decide who you really want to be, buddy.
Not sure if serious...
$40 for 10 awesome terminator stand ins when the next cheapest is $50 for 5 terminators from GW? I think they know who they are. The affordable alternative.
So, I should only buy their products in place of GW and not for their own sake? I thought Mantic's whole schtick was "build bigger armies," especially in plastic. Why should the pricing be so much more expensive than forgefather or marauder plastics? Are they basing their prices off of in-game performance?
They're large models on 40mm bases with a lot of options on the sprue.
Closer to KoW ogres as far as pricing structure goes. $4 or £2.50 each for RRP on a mini like that isn't the end of the world.
The pricing of the regular Enforcer sprues are what I'll be keeping a beady eye on, especially if they haven't got the fusion gun/ thermal rifle and other stuff on the sprue as the new metals seem to hint. Pricing has room for a little rise, but there has to be quality to match.
assuming 10 for 5 becomes 20 for 5 retail peacekeepers.
5 peacekeepers-->$20(25 even)
Terminators weigh in at $10 per model, peace keepers weigh in at $4-5 a model (theoretically). Half as much or less. Wut?
Peacekeepers are big ass models too, from the looks of what are apparently 40mm bases under their big honkin boots. It's also going to be a plastic kit with some degree of options.
Forget comparing them to terminators, and looking at other mantic units. Of course they should cost more than forge fathers or marauders, they're bigger. Bigger models typically cost more, don't they? Besides the fact that 5 of these should easily outpace the number of points the orx or forge fathers would get you in warpath.
scarletsquig wrote: They're large models on 40mm bases with a lot of options on the sprue.
Closer to KoW ogres as far as pricing structure goes.
The pricing of the Enforcer sprues are what I'll be keeping a beady eye on, especially if they haven't got the fusion gun/ thermal rifle and other stuff on the sprue as the new metals seem to hint.
In that regard the $40 rrp is a full $1 per model cheaper ($4/each) than the Ogres ($5/each). That's about what I would expect from hard plastic.
I'm not a GW fanboi by any stretch but if they don't have any options (they mention just guns but maybe there's a variety of guns), they'll be a hard sale at $4/each for Terminator stand-ins as the GW kits have tons of extras. I'm not downing the Mantic kit, just adding credence to them standing on their own because they might not be as useful as not-terminators without close combat options.
I should amend my former statement, peacekeepers don't have wp stats yet, but looking between points for rippers, forge guard, and regular enforcers... seems safe to infer 30 or better points in which case my earlier statement tracks.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: I see the Peacekeepers retailing at $22.50 for 5, seems pretty fair to me Bob, do not really see any issue?
It would be trivial to add another sprue in the box, and it would make the kit a must-buy instead of a want-some-not-terminators?
Their real competition will be DFG's Valkir, which will probably be cheaper than $4 per model, and include tons of extra bits, including heads, armor, tabards, posing options, extra weapons and kit. Even at the same price per model, the Valkir will blow the Peacekeepers away in terms of value.
going by the "lower sales volume due to lower requirements of quantity in games = higher price point to make back tooling costs" then that seems reasonable. of course i'm getting plenty on the survey at two bucks a pop so it should never affect me personally
So are we certain that the mauls/claws are gone from the sprue? That seems to be the consensus in the KS comments but I cannot see any confirmation that they are gone/included (please be aware I am myopic).
Assuming the sprue is the same size as the Zombie one I'm not sure there's a whole lot of free space for extra arms with 5 bodies, heads, 12+ arms and that shield on it already I can't see 25 odd arms fitting on such a small sprue - doesn't mean they can't tool a smaller arm sprue but that adds more cost.
They'll be hard pressed to fit all this in 1 sprue - remove the mauls and claws and there's still a lot of parts.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: So are we certain that the mauls/claws are gone from the sprue? That seems to be the consensus in the KS comments but I cannot see any confirmation that they are gone/included (please be aware I am myopic).
In the latest Deadzone update, Mantic themselves said they're gone.
agnosto wrote: I don't know anyone who pays $50 for terminators. That said, discounted Mantic pricing will be closer to $30 so you're still going to save $10 for 5 more models. As far as stand-ins go, the decision to not include optional weapons was probably a bad one if they intend to compete with GW on like vs. like.
I'm guessing you are talking about buying discounted. Even with that, plenty of folks buy GW straight at RRP. With 20% discount, you're still looking at $32 for 10 from Mantic and $40 for 5 from GW.
agnosto wrote: I don't know anyone who pays $50 for terminators. That said, discounted Mantic pricing will be closer to $30 so you're still going to save $10 for 5 more models. As far as stand-ins go, the decision to not include optional weapons was probably a bad one if they intend to compete with GW on like vs. like.
I'm guessing you are talking about buying discounted. Even with that, plenty of folks buy GW straight at RRP. With 20% discount, you're still looking at $32 for 10 from Mantic and $40 for 5 from GW.
Yep. So claws and mauls are out and shields are questionable. We'll just have bodies and guns on the sprue. With GW you get a whole extra sprue just for weapons (at least I think so, it's been a while so I might be wrong here). All those options have to be worth something, right?
Mind you, I'm no GW fan. I'm just pointing out that Mantic limiting themselves to just 1 sprue with minimal options isn't going to automatically have people lining up to buy them as GW stand-ins. Which is fine and also supports the "we're not really trying to rip GW off" angle. Personally, I like extras on the sprue for customization which Mantic has always been a light on in comparison to GW.
On the other hand, the shields are questionable because they're not sure whether they can fit them on the sprues... That suggests there's not exactly going to be loads of empty space on them.
Although, to be honest, I'd be quite happy with the Sgt Howlett style claws on the back of the hands as options.
It's not exactly a concept that GW can lay claim to, is it
Compel wrote: On the other hand, the shields are questionable because they're not sure whether they can fit them on the sprues... That suggests there's not exactly going to be loads of empty space on them.
Although, to be honest, I'd be quite happy with the Sgt Howlett style claws on the back of the hands as options.
It's not exactly a concept that GW can lay claim to, is it
Solution: make two sprues or sell a cheap upgrade sprue.
They could certainly do a close combat sprue during the Warpath KS it would give them a good excuse to sell an existing sprue and give previous backers that already bought them something new.
Compel wrote: I would be absolutely stunned if that wasn't already in the pipeline for future models.
I would normally say that as well but Mantic makes some strange business decisions (according to my armchair degree in corporate governance). Maybe less necessary in Deadzone but I certainly hope to see close combat options later. I like the renders.
agnosto wrote: Yep. So claws and mauls are out and shields are questionable. We'll just have bodies and guns on the sprue. With GW you get a whole extra sprue just for weapons (at least I think so, it's been a while so I might be wrong here). All those options have to be worth something, right?
Mind you, I'm no GW fan. I'm just pointing out that Mantic limiting themselves to just 1 sprue with minimal options isn't going to automatically have people lining up to buy them as GW stand-ins. Which is fine and also supports the "we're not really trying to rip GW off" angle. Personally, I like extras on the sprue for customization which Mantic has always been a light on in comparison to GW.
Comparison (based on what we have so far):
Mantic (no claws and maces, prob no shields. So 5 fist/gun, 1 optional CCW, two heavies). 1 Sprue / 5 guys: $20.00
Spoiler:
GW 4 Sprues / 5 Guys: $50.00 (Multipiece for multiple poses, 4 fist/gun and 2 heavies. 4 optional CCW. 1 Sprue of 'Back Options')
Spoiler:
So the real question is... Are the multi-piece posability, -1 gun/fist, 3 Optional CCW and Back Options worth $30?
edit: This is not a comparison for Assault termies since the Peacekeepers are not really good for that role.
DaveC wrote: They could certainly do a close combat sprue during the Warpath KS it would give them a good excuse to sell an existing sprue and give previous backers that already bought them something new.
Now THAT is an excellent idea - be sure to pass that along to Mantic, please!
DaveC wrote: They could certainly do a close combat sprue during the Warpath KS it would give them a good excuse to sell an existing sprue and give previous backers that already bought them something new.
Now THAT is an excellent idea - be sure to pass that along to Mantic, please!
+1. And oddly enough the thought didn't make my Mantic rage-o-meter climb at all. huh. odd.
@Pretre. I'm not trying to say that the Mantic models aren't a good value; they are. I'm saying that lack of options doesn't turn me on. Grey Knight termies have an absolute metric ton of customization bitz and bobs. Some people are willing to pay extra for the extra flash....a flashgit for example.
DaveC wrote: They could certainly do a close combat sprue during the Warpath KS it would give them a good excuse to sell an existing sprue and give previous backers that already bought them something new.
Now THAT is an excellent idea - be sure to pass that along to Mantic, please!
+1. And oddly enough the thought didn't make my Mantic rage-o-meter climb at all. huh. odd.
Who says peacekeepers have to be stuck in GW's mould of having just 'heavy' weapons and basic guns?
There's absolutely no reason for the Peacekeepers not to come out with parts for the 'special' weapons, in 40k terms, like the Thermal Rifle or the Fusion Gun.
Who says peacekeepers have to be stuck in GW's mould of having just 'heavy' weapons and basic guns?
There's absolutely no reason for the Peacekeepers not to come out with parts for the 'special' weapons, in 40k terms, like the Thermal Rifle or the Fusion Gun.
That would be awesome. They really should do an add-on sprue and throw those on with the claws and such.
Since the rules for the guns are on the stat cards, I imagine that their guns would just simply not have the deliberate rule. As opposed to writing in a funky rule that says 'ignores deliberate.'
Compel wrote: Since the rules for the guns are on the stat cards, I imagine that their guns would just simply not have the deliberate rule. As opposed to writing in a funky rule that says 'ignores deliberate.'
Yeah, totally. That's how they did it with Nastanza. I just still think of it from the design standpoint. Hmm. Do Rippers have Deliberate? Checks cards. No, they don't. Okay, so there's precedent.
I suppose one way to balance it gamewise is, don't give the heavy weapon peacekeepers deliberate on their guns, however do give them the 'Slow' special rule.
"Yes, we're that awesome that we can move and fire everywhere, but all these extra stabilisation gubbins messes with our top speed."
Compel wrote: I suppose one way to balance it gamewise is, don't give the heavy weapon peacekeepers deliberate on their guns, however do give them the 'Slow' special rule.
"Yes, we're that awesome that we can move and fire everywhere, but all these extra stabilisation gubbins messes with our top speed."
Compel wrote: I suppose one way to balance it gamewise is, don't give the heavy weapon peacekeepers deliberate on their guns, however do give them the 'Slow' special rule.
"Yes, we're that awesome that we can move and fire everywhere, but all these extra stabilisation gubbins messes with our top speed."
Or 'Support'. Support is a pretty nasty negative.
Isn't that the one that makes them suck in close combat? If so, I don't think that fits the peacekeeper thing.
I would back support way before slow. Thats what's so terrifying about peacekeepers and enforcers in general, they're heavy AND fast. Dude with w big heavy weapon isn't a good at stabbing people though? That makes a reasonable amount of sense.
Of course heavy weapon enforcers can't move and shoot, game balance blah blah, they can do it in warpath
judgedoug wrote: going by the "lower sales volume due to lower requirements of quantity in games = higher price point to make back tooling costs" then that seems reasonable. of course i'm getting plenty on the survey at two bucks a pop so it should never affect me personally
Yeah, it's not going to affect me personally, and so I am in no way personally offended or butthurt, but it seems closer to the "slightly cheaper than GW" route, than the "big armies - cheap" route for WarPath - and this isn't so good. HIPS should be significantly cheaper than Restic from all the hurf blurfing around the materials they make. The removal of CC weapons will also hurt them, because as much as they want people buying WarPath models for WarPath, we all know who the big dog is, and removing easy cross-compatability isn't a good or clever thing.
I'm personally glad that they're looking into Warpath-focused extra bits (the defender shield and shotgun), rather than having 40k-analogue bits on there just for the sake of it.
I am all for unique stuff from Mantic, in fact ages ago that used to be the argument/ whine oft-repeated on Dakka... "Mantic can't do anything but GW knock-offs".. quite amusing to see the opposite being stated now, that they should carbon copy 40k terminator equipment options rather than sticking with their own stuff.
AegisGrimm wrote: And half the people vehemently hated the power-maces, especially.
That was me. Very silly as a Sci Fi weapon in my opinion. Glad they ditched them. Making a decent stun baton out of plastic rod should be pretty easy, and when you are wearing power armor your fist can do for lethally intended close combat.
I really hope these guys turn out as well as the renders look. I like them.
scarletsquig wrote: I'm personally glad that they're looking into Warpath-focused extra bits (the defender shield and shotgun), rather than having 40k-analogue bits on there just for the sake of it.
I am all for unique stuff from Mantic, in fact ages ago that used to be the argument/ whine oft-repeated on Dakka... "Mantic can't do anything but GW knock-offs".. quite amusing to see the opposite being stated now, that they should carbon copy 40k terminator equipment options rather than sticking with their own stuff.
Umm.. yeah, No.
You're falling into the "Dakka whinges about this, that and the other" thing - like so many others do - as though everyone here is a hive-mind, except for you (or whoever happens to be making that whinge at the time). We're a collection of individuals, with different opinions, and you're better than that kind of pissweak argument. I for one never complained about having 40k-analogue bits in the package, except perhaps that the mauls weren't very good digital sculpts. And let's be blunt - if they want to avoid the "GW-Knock-offs" tag, perhaps Space Orks wasn't the best choice to start with, along with Squats and Space Skaven and Not-Guardsmen who are meant to proxy for IG right down to the 60mm 2-crew heavy weapons and flamer, meltas etc that aren't even used in WarPath.
I'm very much "Let's not pretend that WarPath is anything besides not-40k and just do it well." Decent looking "wolverine claws", "space maces" and "riot shields" are completely acceptable, as is an "auxullary rocket pod" - and let's face it - would help these figures sell more units to more people.
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carlos13th wrote: Yeah I things like maces and swords just seem out of place in Sci Fi. For me at least.
Swords are unlikely, unless they happen to be lightsabers - but truncheons, etc make sense and add multiplication of reach/leverage/force and acceleration to a hit. Much like you can hit something much harder with a cricket bat or a baseball bat than with your fist. Add enhanced strength powered armour to that with shock absorbers to contain the jarring in your own frame, along with a sturdy enough truncheon, and you've got some fething harsh melee, if it comes to that.
- edit - skip to 51s, since the link doesn't want to play ball.
And unlike Tony and Rhodey who seem able to ignore the laws of physics due to being Level 25 Heros, someone with their heads actually inside those helmets would probably have them reduced to gelatin.
I'm glad the mauls are gone, as I didn't care for the design. The claws I'm not against in principle, but while the design wasn't bad, I found it uninspired, so I don't mind them ditching those either. As for the shields, if Peacekeeper armor is as good as it's cracked up to be, why would they need them?
None of that's saying I wouldn't buy a close combat sprue, but I'd want some better looking / more sensible kit on it.
Vermonter wrote: I'm glad the mauls are gone, as I didn't care for the design. The claws I'm not against in principle, but while the design wasn't bad, I found it uninspired, so I don't mind them ditching those either. As for the shields, if Peacekeeper armor is as good as it's cracked up to be, why would they need them?
Well, an M1 Abrams is supposed to be rather good at taking hits, but adding reactive armour to them does seem to help their survivability. Ditto Tiger Tanks and Zimmereit back during WWII...
Vermonter wrote: I'm glad the mauls are gone, as I didn't care for the design. The claws I'm not against in principle, but while the design wasn't bad, I found it uninspired, so I don't mind them ditching those either. As for the shields, if Peacekeeper armor is as good as it's cracked up to be, why would they need them?
Well, an M1 Abrams is supposed to be rather good at taking hits, but adding reactive armour to them does seem to help their survivability. Ditto Tiger Tanks and Zimmereit back during WWII...
Actually, all Zimmerit did was make it harder for magnetic mines to be stuck to the side of the tank by infantry with no real proof that it increased survivability in the field, better analogy would be Schürzen
Actually, hitting something with the hand of a suit of power armor would probably be the dumbest thing you could do in hand to hand. The hand of the suit would be one of the most delicate bits due to the number of small, moving parts. You try punchung something with even reasonably sturdy armor, you're going to shatter your suit's hands.
Personally, I'd still rather see pile drivers used for close combat (like they did in VOTOMS).
Vermonter wrote: I'm glad the mauls are gone, as I didn't care for the design. The claws I'm not against in principle, but while the design wasn't bad, I found it uninspired, so I don't mind them ditching those either. As for the shields, if Peacekeeper armor is as good as it's cracked up to be, why would they need them?
Well, an M1 Abrams is supposed to be rather good at taking hits, but adding reactive armour to them does seem to help their survivability. Ditto Tiger Tanks and Zimmereit back during WWII...
Actually, all Zimmerit did was make it harder for magnetic mines to be stuck to the side of the tank by infantry with no real proof that it increased survivability in the field, better analogy would be Schürzen
Well, the lack of proof supporting Zimmerit was compounded by the fact that only the Germans made extensive use of magnetic mines during the war.
As far as Swords and Mauls being silly in sci-fi; they're only silly if you think all alien races would fight with guns at range. To say that there could never be a race of aliens who would be a hive-mind with only a few dissenting voices (you know exactly like Dakka! We'll call them Dakkaites I kid Az...) for whom swarm tactics and hand-to-hand combat is the norm is fairly limiting. Throw in the need to board spaceships which are a claustrophobic's nightmare to begin with or just as weapon of intimidation (one of the goals of the Enforcers in general) and it's really not that far-fetched.
I think it's silly to equip the cannon-fodder with hand-to-hand weapons, as humans are terrible at hand-to-hand with animals from our own planet, let alone intelligent ones. However, Peacekeepers are the creme de la creme of the Corporations forces and no expense would be spared in training nor equipment. Equipping them to only deal with ranged opponents when DeadZone shows there are "in your face" opponents out there would actually be sillier. However, swords and mauls may not be the most effective weapons. Axes would actually rank much higher given the general utility (ask any fireman about how useful an axe can be outside of combat).
However, if they were to add CC weapons for PeaceKeepers, I'd want the bitz to model a gun still on them. While having CC weapons on an elite group like the PeaceKeepers might not be silly, not having any sort of guns at their disposal is absolutely dumb.
Yeah, "not-assault terminators" don't really track that well for how I see warpath. Even the warpath rippers (now probably somewhat outdated, honestly) had heavy pistols and not just ripper talons.
I know the wrist blade usually gets knocked because it's not nearly as cool as a sword, and or would break, and all of that stuff... But having a melee weapon that didn't require both hands or actually drawing it out seems to fit power armored shooting enthusiasts. Pew pew, uh oh something got into range, *snickt* stab/slash, back to pew pew.
scarletsquig wrote: I am all for unique stuff from Mantic, in fact ages ago that used to be the argument/ whine oft-repeated on Dakka... "Mantic can't do anything but GW knock-offs".. quite amusing to see the opposite being stated now, that they should carbon copy 40k terminator equipment options rather than sticking with their own stuff.
I've said it many times, but making mechanical analogues is good. It makes it easier for your customers to find games, and it makes it easier for other people to start playing your game. What is not good is making aesthetic analogues.
A cervitaur and a wood elf horseman both serve the same role in the army and could use the same rules, but one offers something new as a plastic kit while the other is something we've had before. Or my idea of "the Order of the Shield" as a gendarmerie fielding sonic and microwave weapons and riding in riot APCs to give Sisters players most of what they want without the plastic kits becoming redundant if the Sisters ever get theirs.
As for good melee weapons, repeat after me, kids: pry bar. A guy in powered armour should wield a resilient, useful melee weapon. A demolitions tool increases their urban mobility and still works just as well to cave in someone's head.
carlos13th wrote: Yeah I things like maces and swords just seem out of place in Sci Fi. For me at least.
Swords are unlikely, unless they happen to be lightsabers - but truncheons, etc make sense and add multiplication of reach/leverage/force and acceleration to a hit. Much like you can hit something much harder with a cricket bat or a baseball bat than with your fist. Add enhanced strength powered armour to that with shock absorbers to contain the jarring in your own frame, along with a sturdy enough truncheon, and you've got some fething harsh melee, if it comes to that.
- edit - skip to 51s, since the link doesn't want to play ball.
And unlike Tony and Rhodey who seem able to ignore the laws of physics due to being Level 25 Heros, someone with their heads actually inside those helmets would probably have them reduced to gelatin.
Some kind of batton, stun batton I would be all for. But just not a mace which is just a medevil weapon with wires.
Well the Mauler Ripper Suit has an underslung power ram, Assault Peacekeepers could have a more sophisticated version of that? Grab the target in their suited hands, hold on tight, and let the power ram take the brunt of punching big holes in it, whether that be a wall or a 3rd Gen head
I especially like the kitchen sink bludgeon into the fireplace for that scene.
Man, they would be pretty terrifying with big power driver things. Or what about a uhh, space-hydraulic spike? Grab on with the enhanced power glove and let the spike hit a key area (brain?).
As to punching people with your exo-suit being a bad thing, isn't that the point of the up-armored likely less articulated energy gauntlet? It's also implied in the name that it may have some kind of energy involved, like tazerfist or something a bit more scifi and dangerous while we're at it.
GrimDork wrote: As to punching people with your exo-suit being a bad thing, isn't that the point of the up-armored likely less articulated energy gauntlet? It's also implied in the name that it may have some kind of energy involved, like tazerfist or something a bit more scifi and dangerous while we're at it.
You don't need to sacrifice any articulation - just have the back of the gauntlet extend forwards past the knuckles. You'd still be taking the impact on the wrist joints, but that's a lot better than the knuckles.
Vermonter wrote: I'm glad the mauls are gone, as I didn't care for the design. The claws I'm not against in principle, but while the design wasn't bad, I found it uninspired, so I don't mind them ditching those either. As for the shields, if Peacekeeper armor is as good as it's cracked up to be, why would they need them?
Well, an M1 Abrams is supposed to be rather good at taking hits, but adding reactive armour to them does seem to help their survivability. Ditto Tiger Tanks and Zimmereit back during WWII...
Actually, all Zimmerit did was make it harder for magnetic mines to be stuck to the side of the tank by infantry with no real proof that it increased survivability in the field, better analogy would be Schürzen
By the same token, no "proof" that it didn't increase survivability, either. And the point for this discussion remains, regardless of zimmereit, reactive, schurzen or riot shields.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
NTRabbit wrote: Well the Mauler Ripper Suit has an underslung power ram, Assault Peacekeepers could have a more sophisticated version of that? Grab the target in their suited hands, hold on tight, and let the power ram take the brunt of punching big holes in it, whether that be a wall or a 3rd Gen head
Great idea, if you can grab them and they lack their own spikes/genestealer claws, etc. I'd much rather have a metre of harsh metal stick to use.
As for "melee only" issues, I guess the issues is the heroic scaling of these models. Much like real world riot police manage to have a truncheon, shield AND carry a firearm. Something like a magna-clamp to "holster" your sidearm or truncheon as necessary on your "belt"?
As for "melee only" issues, I guess the issues is the heroic scaling of these models. Much like real world riot police manage to have a truncheon, shield AND carry a firearm. Something like a magna-clamp to "holster" your sidearm or truncheon as necessary on your "belt"?
Agree. Perhaps a way to have a hand hold a pistol or the beat-stick, while the other is on the belt. I like the idea of autoshotgun guys with big shields and the baton at their side. Or baton in hand, pistol at side, shield. Or pistol on hand, baton at side, shield. Etc.
edit - without the notorious lego-hands.
Bolognesus wrote: Otoh, I'm all for making the kit really good for one thing, rather than 'okay' for two.
So far, it looks 'okay' for one thing, but priced for a premium. They are priced like restics with about the same amount of options that come in a restic kit. It's almost like Mantic are trying to remove all the advantages HIPS bring to the minis.
Great idea, if you can grab them and they lack their own spikes/genestealer claws, etc. I'd much rather have a metre of harsh metal stick to use.
As for "melee only" issues, I guess the issues is the heroic scaling of these models. Much like real world riot police manage to have a truncheon, shield AND carry a firearm. Something like a magna-clamp to "holster" your sidearm or truncheon as necessary on your "belt"?
They've got two arms! Power ram on one arm with the hand free, hip holstered pistol, and stun baton in the other hand? Or could always go the not-stormbolter route for the wrist of the baton hand.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: They are priced like restics with about the same amount of options that come in a restic kit.
Options? In a restic kit?
All my KoW restic has 2 body options, 2 arm poses, no command, no spare heads. Hell, the entire ogre army only has 2 bodies.
Even the best restic kit for options, the corp marines, only has three special weapons on a sprue which require cutting/ conversion to fit, and only 9 rifles in the kit instead of 10, so the leader always has to have the "Corporation correctional power fist" equipped.
It's one of the main reasons why I dislike Mantic's implementation of the material, there's never enough stuff in the box to give a unit all of its options, never mind spare heads or sculpt variety.
Peacekeepers are offering a lot more than that, just having 5 different poses and heavy weapons on the sprue is an infinite improvement over what came before.
So is 7 heads per 5 minis on the zombie sprue. Way, way better than restic where you basically get zero spares.
I like where they're going with this. If the kit sells well, then a melee-focused kit later on is likely to happen. They'll have to release something for the Enforcers during the Warpath KS, if they want to split the army off the corporation list and Melee peacekeepers and recon units would do very nicely.
The focus on it having to all fit on one sprue is disappointing. The best thing would have been a sprue with bodies, heads, arms, basic weapons and some customization bits and bobs (different arms and heads) then ANOTHER sprue with special, heavy and close combat options.
Yes, I know sprues cost money to design and create but why would a company intentionally limit the marketability of a product? Maybe plan for the future a bit is all I'm saying. I get that Deadzone is a board game, not a full-on wargame but with a little forethought this unit in hard plastic can be warpath ready.
As it is there is probably already two sprues required just to fit it into a Mantic case. These are pretty chunky models and pieces, quite likely that the torso and legs will have to be 2-part.
Remember, as the zombies showed, the renders don't show the final components in their fully-divided up state. If they've had to have a few things wait for a separate sprue in the future to make sure that this one is good quality with no detail loss from render to sculpt then that's fine with me.
For all we know, they've already done one sprue with legs, bodies and heads and the other just with arms and weapons to allow for that expandability in future.
It is much better than them rushing to cram as many components as possible on, but then the legs or whatever have some horrible undercut-caused detail loss on there due to not being sub-divided properly.
Taking things a little more slowly in this case, just doing the shooty stuff now and leaving melee for later (if enough people ask for it) is a good thing.
I hope they don't separate the torso and legs (it doesn't look like that's the plan) while it works on some models the waist join looks to obvious and unnatural on others particularly armoured models - it's okay with clothing the older enforcer models don't look as good in 2 pieces as the newer 1 piece ones. There's 5 body types/poses plenty of variation for a unit like this in 1 piece bodies.
I'd assume the sprue will be a similar size to the zombie and that it would be easier to come up with a new type of packaging if they don't fit the current boxes.
Actually, hitting something with the hand of a suit of power armor would probably be the dumbest thing you could do in hand to hand. The hand of the suit would be one of the most delicate bits due to the number of small, moving parts. You try punchung something with even reasonably sturdy armor, you're going to shatter your suit's hands.
I know that in the case of melee weapons, in 40K the power fist is not doing the majority of the damage with it's punching, but the powered field that the large capacitors the the enlarged gauntlet are carrying. You are basically holding on and letting the power field rip the target apart.
Punching with the Peacekeeper gauntlet would not hurt the gauntlet, because of the enlarged "brass knuckle" section that protects the fingers.
Close combat wise, I would love to see energy escrima weapons and I'd love them to keep the claws on the guys. And the shields and shotguns. Basically, only things I would have liked changed were the maces to escrima sticks. That's about all. The poses are great, and I'm pretty sure I'll end up with 30-40 peacekeepers when all is said and done. Already in for 20 so far, I think.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: They are priced like restics with about the same amount of options that come in a restic kit.
Options? In a restic kit?
All my KoW restic has 2 body options, 2 arm poses, no command, no spare heads. Hell, the entire ogre army only has 2 bodies.
Even the best restic kit for options, the corp marines, only has three special weapons on a sprue which require cutting/ conversion to fit, and only 9 rifles in the kit instead of 10, so the leader always has to have the "Corporation correctional power fist" equipped.
That was the kit I was thinking of. In any case, beating their terribly repetitive restics with only awfully repetitive plastics is not that great an improvement for the same price per mini. With hard plastic, pricing should reflect the number of sprues and options rather than the size of the hombres. The Peacekeeper kit just strikes me a very expensive for what it is, let alone what it will probably turn out to be. After the M@A, Mantic should be giving away any decent plastics by the bucket to help repair their reputation, not taking a page from GW's playbook.
That was the kit I was thinking of. In any case, beating their terribly repetitive restics with only awfully repetitive plastics is not that great an improvement for the same price per mini. With hard plastic, pricing should reflect the number of sprues and options rather than the size of the hombres. The Peacekeeper kit just strikes me a very expensive for what it is, let alone what it will probably turn out to be. After the M@A, Mantic should be giving away any decent plastics by the bucket to help repair their reputation, not taking a page from GW's playbook.
To play devil's advocate, were Mantic to release this elite unit for say, $15 retail for 5 models, that would be wonderfully cheap (compared to the alternative at least) and tons of people would buy them in droves. This is great, until you look at the impact it has on the rest of the game's ecosystem. If I can build an Enforcer army with these and a minimal number of Enforcers who are, for the sake of argument, $25 for 10 then I will buy these and the Enforcer sprues and run an Enforcer army. 70 models on the table (2 Enforcers, 10 PeaceKeepers) for $200 is really nice. Any other army would be noticeably more expensive to build, because I'd have to have more expensive restic elites or buy dramatically more troop sprues (see also: Imperial Guard fatigue). While there are many reasons that half of 40k players are Space Marines of which cost is only one, at that point the Enforcers would trodding nearly the exact same path to becoming the most (over)played army in WP.
You'd also have to question how effective PeaceKeepers could be made in-game if they're a thing that everyone and their mother fields 50 of every game. If they're made as powerful as their role in the background suggests, WarPath becomes an incredibly boring affair. If they don't make them good or are so limited by choices you can only take 20, people lose interest because the models aren't that effective in the game and rants about Mantic pulls a bait-and-switch with the rules would ensue from the people who bought them prior to the re-do of WarPath coming out.
GW's "charge for its role in the game" plan isn't a completely stupid idea. GW's failing is the price of basic troops is astronomically high, so everything else gets pushed higher as a result. If you have a sane baseline for troops, potentially even losing a small amount on some of the swarm-style armies to keep overall army $$ costs even, then that model works out pretty well for everyone. Consumers know what the pricing bands look like when they're trying to build up a force and gamers get more variety on the tabletop because there aren't the "poster boys" getting all the cool toys in addition to being less expensive.
Like Squig, I'm more interested in what they're charging for basic Enforcers and, by extension, what one of the better core choices (assuming the Enforcers become their own deal) is going to be priced at.
So, hard plastic would still be a huge improvement over restic.. 50 hard plastic minis in the army set rather than 31 hybrid restics, and 10 of them rather large models.
All just speculation, but I'm fairly sure this is how it might pan out, I can see them being priced a little higher than the current warpath hard plastics (and possibly some of the newer ones), but not by much.
As long as they put the fusion gun and thermal rifle on the sprue I'll be fine with that. If the metal model for that equipment option in the DZ survey indicates that there won't be special weapons included on the enforcer sprue, I'll be less enthusiastic to say the least.
I like the comparison of Mantic Peacekeepers to DFG Valkir, and of course GW Termies. It looks as though, if you like the aesthetic, DFG is the best all round option by a substantial margin. Though I like the peacekeepers, with the Valkir just around the corner it's hard to rationalise them as a non-warpath player given Mantics problems with plastic, and the lack of options is a big problem for me. Maybe one sprue of five for Deadzone, that's it. The Valkir with the 3 different kits (and Mark mentioned the possibility of an accessory kit too, like the stormtrooper one), WGF high quality plastic and the abundance of options in DFG kits is very compelling.
AegisGrimm wrote: Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.
Not really. Termies are always available cheap since they've been in the last two starter sets. I certainly wouldn't pay that much for 5 hard plastic models from a non-GW company.
AegisGrimm wrote: Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.
There's no way they're going to cost that much. Maybe for 10 Peacekeepers, no chance in hell for just 5.
It's interesting to see the different perspectives of those that compare to GW, and those that have spent more time away from GW and buying other stuff though. The baseline changes.
If the renders are a great indication of how the Peacekeepers will turn out, like the zombies were, I expect many 40k players who aren't adverse to using other companies' models will drop regular termies for these in a heartbeat. I am kinda bummed still about the loss of the claws, but everything else sounds good to me so far. And hard plastic enforcers will do naughty things to my wallet too. Hehe
Well like I said, it depends if they want to play "slightly cheaper than GW" or price their models more in line with the rest of the non-GW, non "not-GW" industry...
AegisGrimm wrote: Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.
Not really. Termies are always available cheap since they've been in the last two starter sets. I certainly wouldn't pay that much for 5 hard plastic models from a non-GW company.
I meant versus the main boxed set. A set I have never bought due to prices, by the way.
There's no way they're going to cost that much. Maybe for 10 Peacekeepers, no chance in hell for just 5.
It's interesting to see the different perspectives of those that compare to GW, and those that have spent more time away from GW and buying other stuff though. The baseline changes.
$35 would be a good price if you are trying to steal the business of people who are paying twenty dollars more for what you are approximating.
Frankly I would not buy them for that price, but there is no way they will be priced as low as some people are wishing*.
Why would they charge more than Ogres? Ogres are restic and have about the same number of options/lack of options. Hard plastic should be cheaper than similar size restic. That said, this will be the true test of whether Mantic wants to go with the GW, pay for utlility/coolness not material, pricing.
$35 rrp for 5 peacekeepers and people will just keep buying discounted GW termies if that's the reason they're buying them. Grey Knight termies have an absolute ton of extras and a huge number of weapons comparably and I can buy them all day long for $42, shipping included, on ebay. $7 is well worth the entire extra sprue of bits, weapons, heads, arms, etc. Not to mention you can pose GW figues any way that you like. Pardon me, I'm going to have to go puke because I'm starting to sound like a GW fan.
I Mantic cheaping out with no shields and no cc weapons is any indication; we're looking at the peacekeepers just having 2 special/heavy weapons, maybe an extra head or two and that's it. Not to mention that the bodies look monopose in the renders so short of heavy modding, you're stuck with a unit with zero character. I'm not saying this is a bad thing but the difference between the two kits would be worth $7 if you care about what your minis look like and can afford it.
If you're buying them just to play deadzone or warpath, disregard the above but the price comparison still stands. Most people have no problem paying for extras.
I have a tendency to gloss over things, but are you trying to compare your $42 shipped grey knight terminators to the hypothetical $35 peacekeepers directly? That seems rather far from fair, you can get mantic stuff at 20% or better off just as easily as you can GW, and hell mantic will often give you the discount themselves if you order in bulk via the army sets (not that you can't also get those and discounted at internet retailers too). A bit more fair would be to adjust the hypothetical PK cost to 28 (80% rrp) and then whatever it is you're paying to get your GK's shipped (unless your retailer only does GW and has particularly phenomenal shipping rates, which they might for all I know).
I realize your argument will stand just as easily if we compare the 42 shipped to what would probably be 32-33 shipped? But it seems a bit unfair to assume a discount for one product and none for the other, doesn't it? I mean, for the supposed $10 difference, I may well be inclined to order the GW terminators as well (although I really don't like grey knight aesthetic, regardless I agree with you on the value).
$10 for 5 now makes it seem far more likely they'll be $20-$25 for 5 in the Mantic store at most, and then retailer discounts on top of that for the smart shopper.
They did say that they're just under 50% of retail priced at $10, and if anything Mantic has been accused of overstating the final RRP to exaggerate the amount of discount you get in the Kickstarter.
I made a mess of the comparison but yeah, discount to discount, I'll probably take more options /extras and pay more for it.
I know not everyone is interested in GW stand-ins but there's value in being able to customize your models and extras/options on the sprue. I think Mantic should send a message with their first hard plastic SciFi product that barebones isn't going to be the way forward.....unless of course it is.
Note, I may be off-base here because I can't remember if any of the existing warpath kits are hard plastic. I recall something about forefathers and marauders being based on the fantasy kits.
Hell, I would buy weapon/accessory sprues separately if they made them, even if the cost wasn't as nice as I'd like... I just love having extra bits around for conversions. I think other gamers do to, and while offering parred down kits grants maximum efficiency at quickly and economically generating an army... a lot of us are used to loads of extras and it's a bit of a bitter pill to swallow to not get them.
Forgefathers steel warriors and marauder grunts are based on the fantasy kits. The way it works for the dwarfs is that there are 4 kits that use the same half sprue of legs, melee dwarfs, rifle/crossbow dwarfs, steel warriors.. uhh crap now I forget. Anyway... It doesn't look so hot. The fantasy dwarfs are fine on their own, but the fantasy legs have leather boots, chainmail bits, and a definitely-not-scifi dagger on them. Or it's a cloak, that one isn't quite as bad. I have a bunch of the dwarfs and forge fathers, and I still like them to an extent.. they kind of grow on you... but you can't call them good by any means. They're renedra sprues I think, but that's all you can really say for them :p I think the grunts are pretty close, maybe it's the whole torso and you just add the arms and heads or something, but similar to the dwarfs.
I don't think it was necessarily a horrible idea in theory, but i'm pretty sure they just nabbed fantasy dwarf legs and orcs after the fact, rather than making a neutral leg/orc sprue that was a bit more ambiguous and easier to integrate for either army. I am no mantic lore expert, however, so any of the above could be wrong (as far as why they did things, I have some of each of the models on hand for physical reference)
I'm not sure where they plan to head in terms of goodies on the sprue/in the box. Their fantasy elves and skeletons/revenants have a lot of cool stuff on the sprue. The undead rat/dog and elven cat, the dead elf/skeleton pile, rising skeleton, either spare spears/swords for the skeletons, arrows set in the ground for the elves... etc. The zombie and ghoul sprues have some, but not as much extra, and obviously the new scifi zombie sprue has a bit extra, probably a little more than the fantasy zombie sprue, but not approaching the skeletons or elves.
So I'm guessing this $35 price point is just imagination and speculation right, or have I missed something?
As it stands the only confirmed price we know is $10 for 5 for Kickstarter backers, and that it could be approx 50% off of retail, correct?
Knowing the size of Mantic sprues - must fit in their white clamshell cases - my speculation is there will be one sprue of bodies and heads, and one sprue of weapon arms, and they will be sold as Peacekeeper Shooter Dudes or whatever; and then later on they'll tool a sprue of close combat arms and include them with the body sprue to make Peacekeepers With Beatin' Sticks as a separate product sku.
@judgedoug the $35 dollar price point was something that aegisgrim suggested he would still be happy buying them for. I think the general consensus is something more along the lines of 20-25 dollars for 5 peace keepers, and I think the way you've described the sprues is likely.
These guys are bigger though, they could go into the wider mantic case and afford an extra sprue or two... Would need a wider mantic case to comfortably situate their bases anyway.
judgedoug wrote: So I'm guessing this $35 price point is just imagination and speculation right, or have I missed something?
As it stands the only confirmed price we know is $10 for 5 for Kickstarter backers, and that it could be approx 50% off of retail, correct?
Knowing the size of Mantic sprues - must fit in their white clamshell cases - my speculation is there will be one sprue of bodies and heads, and one sprue of weapon arms, and they will be sold as Peacekeeper Shooter Dudes or whatever; and then later on they'll tool a sprue of close combat arms and include them with the body sprue to make Peacekeepers With Beatin' Sticks as a separate product sku.
I think NTRabbit and Scarlet Squig probably the price point pretty close so I could see it 5 for $20 or $25, so $4 or $5 per mini. With discount, we're eventually looking at $16 to $19 per 5. Ogres are going for $18 for 6 at Miniature Market right now and use the same base size (but round square). So....
They'll have to do better on regular troopers to beat dreamforge at 20 for A discounted $31.50 for those great stormtroopers which come with tons of options, are posable and are hard plastic... I can't recall what the heavy troops (Valkyr?) will sell at but may be cheaper than the peacekeepers. I like the peacekeeper aesthetic better but Mark knows how to pack a sprue with goodies and give his customers a great value.
I hope they don't let the cases hold them back from creating charactful minis, it'd be a shame and backers don't get them anyway...
Agree about fitting things to the cases, although I will say that they're pretty awesome. If I ever see a mantic product in a case for less than $10 it's really hard to not pick it up, they sell the cases for 4 bucks a piece and while I have a bit of trouble justifying the expense to myself outright, I have no trouble considering it as part of the price of a kit. As long as they aren't broken (seems like the ones I see for sale in shops sometimes are), you can pack a phenomenal amount of minis into them and they're pretty sturdy and not too hard on the minis. Actually a lot nicer in practice than I would have ever expected
@judgedoug the $35 dollar price point was something that aegisgrim suggested he would still be happy buying them for. I think the general consensus is something more along the lines of 20-25 dollars for 5 peace keepers, and I think the way you've described the sprues is likely.
I meant that I would be willing to buy them at that price if I were using them as a direct replacement for $50 Terminators. I also said that I would be very happy to see them at a lower price, too. It was pure speculation (as is a good chunk of the info about plastic Peacekeepers), as well as, admittedly a reading error on what Scarletsquig wrote- I misread and thought he said 5 for the $35 dollar point.
Although I don't like how it was said that I am basically brainwashed by GW and their high prices, as I haven't bought a retail GW product in about two years. Hell, my last purchase was on Ebay- 10 of the old 2nd ed. metal Eldar rangers for less than half of the modern finecast set of 5.
AegisGrimm wrote: Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.
I can't believe I just read that. You caused me physical pain just now.
I just want to reiterate: if Mantic decides to price these Peacekeepers as GW premium products without actually giving us the premium, they will lose my love, my money and my respect. No more kissing on the mouth. We're done. Finito. I'm-gone-and-I-took-your-dog-just-for-spite over.
I'm also pretty worried about the plastic enforcers since they failed to list them on the survey. In fact, the one thing I found in abundance on the two surveys was shenanigans.
agnosto wrote: Not to mention you can pose GW figues any way that you like.
I have to disagree with this statement. You can turn Space Marine torsos to the left or right, and have them leaning in any direction on the ball joint at the waist. They can look to the left or the right, as well. You can't pose their arms or legs without significant cutting and green stuff. Orks are the same, Tau have flat bonding surfaces between their torsos and legs, so you can't give them that tilt. While you get quite a few parts in any given kit, you don't really get that many unique poses out of it.
I just can't believe we're/they're/anyone is seriously considering Mantic charging $5 per mini for monopose torsolegs-rocking, no-frills, just the bare minimum, one-gun-per-man (plus-maybe-one-more-for-Elijah), almost-quality miniatures. That's looney tunes. That's one finger-pulled-out-of-Reaper's-rectum away from ruination.* Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?
*If Reaper released a set of 5 Bones "Shooty McSteel Mans" for $10 the day after Mantic dropped 5/$35 or even 5/$25 Peacekeepers, I would laugh harder than Sam Neill covered in blood. That would be glorious.
AegisGrimm wrote: Something like $35 for 5 Peacekeepers is really a pretty good steal, if comparing to GW.
I can't believe I just read that. You caused me physical pain just now.
I just want to reiterate: if Mantic decides to price these Peacekeepers as GW premium products without actually giving us the premium, they will lose my love, my money and my respect. No more kissing on the mouth. We're done. Finito. I'm-gone-and-I-took-your-dog-just-for-spite over.
I'm also pretty worried about the plastic enforcers since they failed to list them on the survey. In fact, the one thing I found in abundance on the two surveys was shenanigans.
Really? You literally posted immediately after I said I read something by Scarletsquig incorrectly. Holy crap is everyone riding a high horse to jump all over me for that.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?
Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.
Really? You literally posted immediately after I said I read something by Scarletsquig incorrectly. Holy crap is everyone riding a high horse to jump all over me for that.
I apologize. I had hit the quote button a while ago and just got around to typing something up. I fell far behind in the thread. So, please forgive the delayed reaction.
And I honestly do not mean to be jumping all over you. I mean to be jumping all over Mantic. I have been buying their stuff since the elves came out, participated in all of their kickstarters so far, and have just felt incredibly let down by their never-ending stream of poor decisions. I'm starting to get the impression that they really don't hold much esteem for their customers.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?
Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.
I'm also pretty worried about the plastic enforcers since they failed to list them on the survey. In fact, the one thing I found in abundance on the two surveys was shenanigans.
Plastic enforcers aren't listed individually on the survey because, like every other unit that is in one of the boosters bar the Sorak, we're not allowed to buy them individually anymore, presumably in an effort to reduce mispacks. Thought that was pretty obvious?
I'm sure they'll show the sprue before the end of the survey, but given that most people getting the Enforcer starter/boosters have already paid for them in the first survey, I suspect they're treating them as a lower priority for showing off compared to things people haven't yet bought and they want them to buy, ie Peacekeepers, Forge Fathers, Asterians, the walkers/vehicles
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?
Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.
Which kit is that?
The Men at Arms. Forty infantry for 25 pounds where either of the two Perry War of the Roses kits only costs you 18 pounds.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?
Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.
Which kit is that?
The Men at Arms. Forty infantry for 25 pounds where either of the two Perry War of the Roses kits only costs you 18 pounds.
Ah ok. I know next to nothing about historical minis and the companies that make them, outside of Flames of War.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Have Mantic even looked at other miniatures makers in the last 3 years?
Of course not. I'd been saying for years that it would be stupid to try to beat the Perrys at their own game and that they should focus their efforts elsewhere. So what happens? Mantic releases a kit that is 40% more expensive and far inferior in quality.
Which kit is that?
The Men at Arms. Forty infantry for 25 pounds where either of the two Perry War of the Roses kits only costs you 18 pounds.
Ah ok. I know next to nothing about historical minis and the companies that make them, outside of Flames of War.
I don't exactly want to defend the MaA, but I just quickly checked up on the Perry stuff (which does look to be of a very high quality) and it's actually now £20 for 40, and doesn't allow you to assemble 40 of a single unit type, and seemingly requires you to multibase. The Mantic box, for all its flaws, does include 40 individual bases, 2 weapon options for all, and a metal command. Irrelevant if you don't actually want to use the models, of course!
I don't think it's a foolish idea to produce a plastic kit for rank and file troops for one of your fantasy armies, even if there are cheaper alternatives on the market. It is probably foolish to spend tens of thousands of pounds on a mold you're not 100% happy with, though.
On the PeaceKeeper discussion, it's worth noting that all Mantic has said on the topic is that the KS deal of 5 for $10 is half of retail "or better" meaning the price is at least $20 for 5. I suspect Squig is correct that it will end up being $20 for 5 ($4 a model) with a set of 10 available for $35 ($3.50 a model). A little on the high side since DFG's Stormtroopers (for a non-GW comparison) ring in at $2.10 a model retail, but if PK are elites intended to be purchased more sparingly that's not an awful price point. That's why I'm more interested in seeing if the Enforcer sprue retails at $25 for 10, that's going to be more of the baseline costs Mantic are looking at for WarPath core units.
If I was looking at these to be a stand-in for GW, I would be waiting to see what they looked like; Mantic doesn't exactly have a sterling track record here and even at full retail you're looking at spending half of what you would on the GW kit. If I'm looking at them for DeadZone and assuming I like DeadZone, a risk of $10 isn't that bad. It would not surprise me if you struggle to get even that many on the table in a viable DZ force outside of massive games.
Really, the people for whom it becomes a dicey question are those who are stocking up in anticipation of WarPath. There it's a bit of a question mark, though with WarPath's own KickStarter coming in the not-incredibly-distant future and Internet discounters/Mantic sales, I'm not sure you're going to be losing tons of money holding off if you're unsure,
There's a new Dave's Hobby Tips, out, for painting DZ terrain:
Pretty good, but would have been nicer to see his painting technique. I'm painting some at the moment and am just whitewashing everything for now while thinking about what sort of shading to use on it.
I'm even toying with the idea of a gloss varnish to give everything a ceramic look to it... might look too tacky, though.
Can't wait for my Secret weapon board to arrive so I can complete the whole board and have the desert colony look I planned back when the Ks was running.
I'm also pretty worried about the plastic enforcers since they failed to list them on the survey. In fact, the one thing I found in abundance on the two surveys was shenanigans.
Plastic enforcers aren't listed individually on the survey because, like every other unit that is in one of the boosters bar the Sorak, we're not allowed to buy them individually anymore, presumably in an effort to reduce mispacks. Thought that was pretty obvious?
Are you guys serious? This has literally been covered once every couple days. In fact I asked Mantic directly and posted their response here for all to see. I guess I should post this every other day so that it doesn't get buried by people saying Peacekeepers will cost $35 for 5.
Doug Craig
hey Mantic - is there any update on the hard plastic Enforcers? my first survey still has tons of restic Enforcers including individual poses, and I'm holding off on completing my second survey until the hard plastic Enforcers are finalized. you've previously mentioned that, assuming hard plastic Enforcers are good, the basic restic poses will get replaced with hard plastic. is that still the plan? if they are good tools and Mantic will release them, people like myself (who got several individual restic Enforcer poses) will get to swap for the hard plastic? and will the hard plastic sprue then become available on the survey to purchase?
If that's meant to be a neutral unit - like the House Robots on Robot Wars - it's good. If it's a playable team Mantic are still idiots who don't know jack about showmanship.
Alright guys help me out here. Trying to sort through this massive pile of stuff (finally). How many core world battlezones were supposed to be in each strike box? two? Trying to see what I've got here, I either have too many or not enough.
That's what I thought, it wasn't in my strike boxes, but then it was outside of them, I have to count everything, but rough pile math tells me I should have 8, the 4 from strike x 2 and 4 more, which is correct. I think the only stuff I'm missing obviously at this point is stuff they were apparently still out of.
Thanks
Anybody know who this is?
Spoiler:
I think it's supposed to be a dreadball mvp but I can't seem to match it up.
GrimDork wrote: That's what I thought, it wasn't in my strike boxes, but then it was outside of them, I have to count everything, but rough pile math tells me I should have 8, the 4 from strike x 2 and 4 more, which is correct. I think the only stuff I'm missing obviously at this point is stuff they were apparently still out of.
Thanks
Though odd that you can buy everything in retail stores... They could have at least sent you everything since you've already waited so long.
I'm missing the helfather and chovar, several accessory sprues, and the rebs faction booster bundle. The rest of it I can get over (temporarily, until it shows up probably on the second shipment) but the missing rebs booster bundle pisses me off. And what doesn't make sense is that the things that I'm missing are clearly marked on the invoice/shipping paper thing with 'owe' in red pen, whereas everything else has a little check or tick next to it. I'm not sure how they were out of stuff if they waited until they got restocked to send my order, it's a bit confusing. Maybe those few things they didn't have come in and were out of them, but didn't want to wait? Dunno, there will be further emailing though. Certainly no extras for my patience, that much I'm sure of.
And I still can't figure out who this MvP is, it looks like a not-geth? Maybe they're secretly working on a ME boardgame and accidentally slipped a mini in?
Yeah, finally just found him. Well that's cool at least I also got a much better packed box than everyone else since they sent me what mostly looked like retail stock (faction starters, scenery upgrade packs). I dunno, maybe I technically did get some extras if all of those scenery upgrade packs come with accessory sprues and they still intend to send me all of the sprues I ordered.
I'm a bit butthurt over the rebs boosters missing, starting to get excited again though.
How many mantic points did you guys get in your boxes? It sounded like Ronnie was planning for them to be in there. I got some extras thanks to my retail packaging on the faction starters. Looks like I got those, and two sheets with spaces for 25 points, with the first four filled in, on the back of a fancy deadzone picture the size of a small post card?
I also got the extra 1st 2nd gen and dogs bag, and an extra Orx commander bag or something. I think this was fairly common among those who ordered the boosters though wasn't it? The third part of the booster bundle had your original specialists, and they just give you the whole bag those came in, instead of breaking it up.
Guess a third of a model beats nuffinks. And the cases are nice, all the bigger size what more comfortably fits 40mm based minis but I'm sure I can sort out a use for them.
I think my extra core world bzs came with the accessory sprue, but not the lz or fortifications bzs. Still its a few more to have now.
I'll have to go through the baggies eventually but w cursory examination says I got everything besides what was marked on the paper.
So, with no communication they knowingly mailed you an incomplete order.... No, "hey we're really sorry but your box is going to be missing some stuff." email? especially a slap in the face considering you could buy the stuff at retail now.
Yeah I'm gonna send them a message and see what's up. I would have had them send what they did if it would have meant waiting for the other stuff. As much as I'd like it all now, I'd rather get it second survey than wait even a couple of weeks. Gonna be working full time again soon, so having what I have now is superior. Though, yes, communication would have been spiffy
Who knows, maybe that invoice was meant to pass into someone else's hands who would fill in those missing pieces, or perhaps they wouldn't fit... into... the.. box? Meh what am I talking about. I'll just give them an email and see what they say. Just glad to be finally digging into ANYTHING.
I got a postcard which had the box art on one side, and a 5x5 grid over a space for name, email and order number on the other, with the first 4 squares in the grid already filled by default.
I posted on their forums about how they should make it possible to get into the game with the teams the customer wants instead of being stuck with the two teams Mantic wants, and his response was that you can already buy all the components separately. There's just one problem: Dreadball with thirty pounds of teams you don't want and Dreadball with no teams costs the same bloody amount.
Does anyone know if the Mars Attacks intact building sprues have open doors/windows like the Deadzone ones do? The tile concept art makes it look all solid. I'm hoping that's just how it was drawn. Otherwise they're going to effective be just kind of lame little boxes. Thanks!
I posted on their forums about how they should make it possible to get into the game with the teams the customer wants instead of being stuck with the two teams Mantic wants, and his response was that you can already buy all the components separately. There's just one problem: Dreadball with thirty pounds of teams you don't want and Dreadball with no teams costs the same bloody amount.
It's a problem with a lot of games that I wish there was a solution to; the 2 player starters for DZC, FSA, Flames of War, 40k just off the top of my head give you a copy of the rules (not 40k), some dice, some templates, some quick reference sheets and two specific teams of minis for their cost. If you want a different team, you need to buy a 1 team starter army/battlebox/patrol fleet/etc which has the same or slightly more minis as one of the starter box armies, but costs nearly as much, and doesn't give you rules, templates or any of the additional stuff which you then need to add on. Depending on the game, that cost ranges from annoying to prohibitively expensive.
Through their own webstores they should be able to offer the "basegame contents plus pick your 2 factions" custom kit, which should be easy for Mantic (both Dreadball and Deadzone) at least in the warehouse given the way they put together the Xmas boxes from crates of baggies, but with enough different armies to choose from it makes it difficult and expensive to make one of every combination ready to ship to retailers.
NTRabbit wrote: Through their own webstores they should be able to offer the "basegame contents plus pick your 2 factions" custom kit, which should be easy for Mantic at least in the warehouse given the way they put together the Xmas boxes from crates of baggies, but with enough different armies to choose from it makes it difficult and expensive to make one of every combination ready to ship to retailers.
They don't need to make every combination for retail, but even if they did that would only be four permutations per season. And making a combination would be dirt cheap. Each season would require five boxes, four of which they have to make anyway:
The "Home field" box - that season's rulebook, cards, dice, pitch, counters, etc.
Team #1
Team #2
Team #3
Team #4
Put the Home Field box, Team #1 box and Team #2 box in a pile. Print out a wraparound strip that says something like "Dreadball Xtreme Season 1 starter bundle: Asterians Vs Convicts!" Shrink wrap the whole thing. Done.
We're talking about the company that made a 40 quid alternative "elemental" chess game with only 1 Bishop, 1 Knight, etc,, per colour, asking you to buy 15 quid chess-pieces expansions to get a complete set of chess-figures for each colour.
I posted on their forums about how they should make it possible to get into the game with the teams the customer wants instead of being stuck with the two teams Mantic wants, and his response was that you can already buy all the components separately. There's just one problem: Dreadball with thirty pounds of teams you don't want and Dreadball with no teams costs the same bloody amount.
Couldn't you just buy the game board and the kickoff extra time which contains the cards you need to play? That's about 5 pounds cheaper than the DB kick-off edition on their website but the KO edition doesn't have cards. So it's probably different by a larger margin
NTRabbit wrote: Through their own webstores they should be able to offer the "basegame contents plus pick your 2 factions" custom kit, which should be easy for Mantic at least in the warehouse given the way they put together the Xmas boxes from crates of baggies, but with enough different armies to choose from it makes it difficult and expensive to make one of every combination ready to ship to retailers.
They don't need to make every combination for retail, but even if they did that would only be four permutations per season. And making a combination would be dirt cheap. Each season would require five boxes, four of which they have to make anyway:
The "Home field" box - that season's rulebook, cards, dice, pitch, counters, etc.
Team #1
Team #2
Team #3
Team #4
Put the Home Field box, Team #1 box and Team #2 box in a pile. Print out a wraparound strip that says something like "Dreadball Xtreme Season 1 starter bundle: Asterians Vs Convicts!" Shrink wrap the whole thing. Done.
Making it is easy.
Convincing retailers to stock 6 different permutations per season (1+2, 1+3, 1+4, 2+3, 2+4, 3+4) is another thing entirely - hence why it's something they could do on their own webstore, where you're sacrificing speed of acquisition, postage costs and the retailer discount for the convenience, which doesn't undercut sales of the normal box through retailers who really aren't interested in carrying more than one SKU for the base game.
The only alternative is to make it so that the base game contains no team at all, and encourage retailers to combine it with the independent team blisters they already offer, but that then undermines the idea of Dreadball being a fully functional boardgame in a box.
Sining wrote: Couldn't you just buy the game board and the kickoff extra time which contains the cards you need to play? That's about 5 pounds cheaper than the DB kick-off edition on their website but the KO edition doesn't have cards. So it's probably different by a larger margin
It gets you the bare bones, without the counters, physical rulebook, dice, rosters, bases or Kickstarter discounts. It does not provide any incentive to buy via the Kickstarter instead of waiting for retail.
Considering it's a bit too late to get it via Kickstarter, isn't complaining about getting it without the KS discounts or having incentives to buy via KS a bit of a moot point?
Actually, iirc weren't bases an add-on in the KS?
I suppose you could point out they should sell the rosters via their store but it's not really something I see moving a lot of units. Kinda weird they don't sell s1 rulebooks by themselves though
Sining wrote: Considering it's a bit too late to get it via Kickstarter, isn't complaining about getting it without the KS discounts or having incentives to buy via KS a bit of a moot point?
No, because there is another Dreadball Kickstarter starting this Friday, which would make this a perfect time to stop wallowing in mediocrity.
wanting Mantic to have more complicated picking and packing of individual bits seems a bit foolish based on how poorly they've coped with doing this on previous KS projects
having as much as possible put in a big box at the factory with all the bits in to cut down on miss-packs seems a smart way to go
They don't need to make every combination for retail, but even if they did that would only be four permutations per season. And making a combination would be dirt cheap. Each season would require five boxes.... Done.
Entirely possible for their website, but for retail, that's a terrible, terrible idea. Multiple SKUs for the same product is bad when it comes to retail. Every SKU that is added to a product is a greater chance for error, more warehouse storage space, more logistical problems for distributors (and resupply). Even companies like Nintendo and Sony know this and keep the number of "starter sets" for their multi-billion-dollar video game systems to around three SKUs at any point in the system's lifecycle.
Man I really want to like and get behind Mantic, they seem like great people with some really good ideas, but everything i read (yes I know it's the internet everything is negative) makes me really question if the games and company is going to be viable longterm. I bought the KoW rulebook to plan playing that but I have real second thoughts with the overall quality of everything they do :(
Just buy some KoW minis and play if you want to (or use your existing warhammer fantasy army with KoW rules), I can't see why internet complaints about someone not getting a reply to their email or unhappy that a kickstarter isn't structured how they'd like would stop you from doing that. A lot of it is just noise, there's 5 pages of discussion in this thread about a hypothetical RRP of a model kit that hasn't been released yet, with loud complaints based on assumptions that it will be just as expensive as GW kits.
Come over to the Mantic subforum or the Mantic forums, or the various facebook groups if you want someplace that is more focused on discussing playing the games and painting the minis rather than idle internet rants, this thread itself will mostly be made up of that, no matter how many things Mantic get right (and there is a lot of stuff that they do get right).
Yeah this isn't the best place to discuss Mantics news and rumours, this is Mantics complaints thread, though it's got a lot better since using the ignore button!
WayneTheGame wrote: Man I really want to like and get behind Mantic, they seem like great people with some really good ideas, but everything i read (yes I know it's the internet everything is negative) makes me really question if the games and company is going to be viable longterm. I bought the KoW rulebook to plan playing that but I have real second thoughts with the overall quality of everything they do :(
It's honestly the quality of the rules that keeps me coming back. I use Kings of War with Mantic minis, Gamezone minis, Mierce minis, Games Workshop minis, and the rules are still great no matter what figures I use them with
WayneTheGame wrote: Man I really want to like and get behind Mantic, they seem like great people with some really good ideas, but everything i read (yes I know it's the internet everything is negative) makes me really question if the games and company is going to be viable longterm. I bought the KoW rulebook to plan playing that but I have real second thoughts with the overall quality of everything they do :(
Don't let the thread get you down. I know that I am in love with Deadzone (as is my group) and our second survey (including people who are jumping on with us) is up over $1,400 because of it.
AlexHolker wrote:Mantic's community manager is an idiot.
I posted on their forums about how they should make it possible to get into the game with the teams the customer wants instead of being stuck with the two teams Mantic wants, and his response was that you can already buy all the components separately. There's just one problem: Dreadball with thirty pounds of teams you don't want and Dreadball with no teams costs the same bloody amount.
Well, if you're gonna start calling me names, you could at least quote me properly
What I actually said was: Not sure how realistic that is from a product point of view. A self-contained starter box, which costs less than getting all the bits individually, is the best way to sell the game through retail stockists like FLGSs. With DreadBall, all the component parts are available - it's just not as good a deal as getting the starter box.
Which is entirely true, and (as various people on this thread have already said) is no different to how any sensible company does things. Look at video game consoles or two-player starter sets from other tabletop gaming systems. And yes, also as people have said, adding a heap of different options for the starter box is just extra work for the warehouse, which I think we can all agree is a bad idea.
Zweischneid wrote:Yeah right.
It's Mantic, no?
We're talking about the company that made a 40 quid alternative "elemental" chess game with only 1 Bishop, 1 Knight, etc,, per colour, asking you to buy 15 quid chess-pieces expansions to get a complete set of chess-figures for each colour.
LOKA has four factions in it, though (two good and two evil), so you've still got two of each of the relevant pieces if you want to play regular chess. If you want to play LOKA, you only need one of each of those pieces to start with - and you can then expand them by getting the add-on sets. Putting four 18-piece sets would have ramped the price way up.
Sining wrote:Considering it's a bit too late to get it via Kickstarter, isn't complaining about getting it without the KS discounts or having incentives to buy via KS a bit of a moot point?
Actually, iirc weren't bases an add-on in the KS?
I suppose you could point out they should sell the rosters via their store but it's not really something I see moving a lot of units. Kinda weird they don't sell s1 rulebooks by themselves though
Rosters and S1 rulebooks you mean? Good point, we should totally sell those.
Summary sheet and other bits are available here, but there are some awesome playthroughs on YouTube that make things nice and clear. DreadBall Academy is one I normally point people to, but be aware that it's pretty long-winded and involves watching me drop loads of dice. There are several others - miniwargaming did one, andy2d6 did a series of bite-sized ones, squidgybidge has got a good one... have a google and see what you can see.
LOKA has four factions in it, though (two good and two evil), so you've still got two of each of the relevant pieces if you want to play regular chess. If you want to play LOKA, you only need one of each of those pieces to start with - and you can then expand them by getting the add-on sets. Putting four 18-piece sets would have ramped the price way up.
Shuuro sells with nearly 3 times as many pieces for 10 quid less. 4-18 piece sets for a 40 quid alternative chess set would still have been pricey (and still had less pieces than Shuuro).
And you basically need expansions for at least two player to play Loka as intended (i.e. build different "armies") or play a standard game of chess with two colours.
It's honestly the quality of the rules that keeps me coming back. I use Kings of War with Mantic minis, Gamezone minis, Mierce minis, Games Workshop minis, and the rules are still great no matter what figures I use them with
This. I really like Deadzone's rules, especially for a 1st edition. Sure there are some mechanics that need to be cleaned-up but it's a great system...especially when compared to 40k; it's not as clean as WarmaHordes yet but it'll get there.
@Wayne. I'm one of the biggest complainers in this thread but it's not because I don't like Mantic, it's because they have the talent and potential to do something great for the community and themselves if they would just stop half-arsing on the delivery side of the equation. Geat concepts, big ideas, sometimes poor execution. Maybe it's growing pains but they keep making the same mistakes over and over (or what I perceive as mistakes).
There all great videos to watch. IMO Mantic release some very nice rulesetes (well Jake and Alessio does). You don't have to use there minis, after all the DB, DZ and KoW restic I can honestly say I will try my best not to buy there restic anymore.
Because I just complained about there restic thats allright, right? I didn't complain about complainers, which is not allright, right? Though I did compliment (positive input!) Mantic on there rulesets in the same reply as complaining (not positive input!) about them, is that allright?
Funny. For me, it's almost exactly the other way around.
I really like the Mantic miniatures. They have a playful, throwback tone to them that I can really get behind.
On the other hand, I think Mantic is far too expensive for what they do and the rules are often iffy. DreadBall Judwan were a mighty big mess (though, to their credit, they fixed it quickly) and DreadBall overall is still heavily Striker-biased. I still haven't figured out how to included MvPs in a fair and balanced fashion without basically "manually" balancing each game involving MvPs.
Hell, the latest expansion, Azure Forest, included a special MvP for 2014 tournaments, who is "legal for official Tournaments in 2014 only", even thought the official tournament-rules printed in the same expansion tells you black-on-white that MvPs aren't used in official tournaments!!
I still think there will not be a single "official" DreadBall tournament (in the UK at least, including Nottingham), where I can legally use the "official 2014 tournament MvP. Any tournament allowing MvPs - including the official tournament MvP - essentially must not use the official tournament rules.
Also, Loka is a failure by most people's account, except for the miniatures (even if there are too few of them in the box to do the "Loka-thing" and build variant line-ups).
Spoiler:
Also, I'd recommend anyone watching BoW-videos to remember that BoW excised any hint of critical opinion towards the companies that sponsor/support them a long, long, long, long time ago.
BoW videos are very well made, no doubt, but their Brave-New-World-like everything-is-great approach to Mantic/Privateer/Corvus Belli, who support them, is almost frightning.
They are outsourced marketing videos, and they are good at it, but not the source I'd go to for an unbiased opinion about these kind of games.
"It's like they're trying to make a miniatures game out of chess."
Um, yeah, duh. That's kinda the point. That entire argument was against was against the premise of the game, not it's implementation. You might as well do a review slamming, "The Resistance" with the argument of, "I don't like talking to groups of people."
It's not like the fact the game uses dice would have been a hidden secret.
I mean, if the guy had said something like, 'the board falls apart, the models are floppy, red always wins and you can get hammered if the giant badger terrain piece is put in front of your king' then I'd probably say, 'you know what, fair point, maybe this is a poor game.'
Slamming it because you don't like the concept, well... I don't write horror films, so therefore I should go onto IMDB and give every single one 1 star.
Compel wrote: "It's like they're trying to make a miniatures game out of chess."
Um, yeah, duh. That's kinda the point. That entire argument was against was against the premise of the game, not it's implementation. You might as well do a review slamming, "The Resistance" with the argument of, "I don't like talking to groups of people."
It's not like the fact the game uses dice would have been a hidden secret.
I mean, if the guy had said something like, 'the board falls apart, the models are floppy, red always wins and you can get hammered if the giant badger terrain piece is put in front of your king' then I'd probably say, 'you know what, fair point, maybe this is a poor game.'
Slamming it because you don't like the concept, well... I don't write horror films, so therefore I should go onto IMDB and give every single one 1 star.
- And I'm not even interested at all in Loka.
/shrug
Glad nobody ever criticizes Warhammer 40K for not being balanced and with the argument of "I don't like narrative gaming". when it's explicit premise is being a narrative game.
If a game's premise/concept is inherently flawed (in a reviewer's opinion), one's gotta have the right to say that, no?
I don't even agree with the Dice Tower review, but its one-sided bashing of Loka is no more misguided than BoW's one-sided, nonreflective fawning over Mantic's output.
That would depend on the nature of the videos and articles.
Sure, BoW fawn over things and you do sometimes need to listen a bit carefully into finding out what the guys really think. Most of the time, they don't do a 'Review' though. It's an introduction, how the game works, what the background is. Sure, they may highlight their thoughts, but ultimately, their job isn't normally to answer.
"Should I buy this game or not?" - Which is what a review does, in my mind.
Instead, I tend to see the BoW videos of. "Ok, I've heard about this game, lets see what it's about." - It's answering a related, but very different question.
Yeah, it's fair enough to say they're 'external marketing' I think. - Though I imagine BoW would probably put it along the lines of 'increasing knowledge for people about the various games.'
But yeah, the impression I got was, "Loka is an objectively bad game because reviewers say it is, as illustrated by this Dice Tower guy shows" doesn't sit right with me.
In any case, this discussion, while Mantic related, isn't really sci-fi-ey enough for me.
But yeah, the impression I got was, "Loka is an objectively bad game because reviewers say it is, as illustrated by this Dice Tower guy shows" doesn't sit right with me.
.
Not really. My original point was that Loka (a) is very expensive and (b) doesn't give you the pieces in the box to employ one of its advertised main features... build different "chess armies".
Later, a statement was made that Mantic produces (a) good rules but (b) not-so-good miniatures.
To that, I replied that my personal impression was that Mantic tends to produce (a) fun (if not "good") miniatures but (b) bad rules.
I illustrated this inverse observations with several examples of bad rules from DreadBall (which I played heavily, and which is (!) sci-fi too, if you wanna focus on that) and a Loka-review (which I only played twice) by a highly-regarded board-game reviewer, who praises the miniatures but dislikes the rules (or the premise of the rules). If nothing else, note how Tom Vasel praises the miniatures. They are the least problematic thing in Mantic's offering.
Compel wrote: ..."Loka is an objectively bad game because reviewers say it is, as illustrated by this Dice Tower guy shows" doesn't sit right with me.
Loka is an objectively bad game because it imports a critical fumble rule into a game where the penalty is literally game-ending. If you attack with your king and roll a natural 1 and thus lose the game, are you going to be talking about how cinematic the game was? Are you going to be talking about how skilled your opponent is at not rolling 1s? I hope not.
Critical fumble rules should not be a core gameplay mechanic in any game where the death of a single individual automatically means you lose. It's why they're bad in role-playing games, and it's why they're bad here.
Maybe I've just played so much 40k that having to deal with 1 screwy stat and a potentially abused mechanic for... Less than 6 months, isn't a big issue to me. - And I do remember agreeing with you at the time that it was a badly broken thing. However, it was solved in pretty great time, in my view (and, personally I only ever had 1 Judwan game in the timespan anyhow, but that's just me).
So yeah, I class Dreadball as good rules. - I do have a couple of concerns with the new season 3 teams, but as I've not even assembled mine yet, I'm not going to go on about them.
I'll even attest to the fact I've got a couple of vague worries about Deadzone too, relating to mortars and the like. But, for the moment at least, I judge those complete rules as 'not really being released yet' so I'm not concerned.
I've gotten into more 'serious' rules discussions about Small World than any Mantic game I've played.
I stopped listening to BoW when they were so enthusiastic about the KoW Men at Arms. People who are that blind have no business doing what they do. A blind wombat knows how terrible those models are...unless you're buiding a misformed army of half-melted army men..
While we're on the topic of personal experiences...
shrug, I started playing Kings of War because Warhammer 8th is one of the shittiest systems ever written and ruined my fifteen-year love affair with Warhammer. Kings of War is everything that Warhammer 8th was trying to be but failed at so miserably. My group and I can play giant, giant games with literally five hundred miniatures on the table and have a huge amount of fun doing so while reaching the conclusion in approximately two to three hours (for huge games) or two hours or less (for normal sized games, which would be the equivalent of a huge Warhammer game). It's more tactically rewarding and has none of the Warhammer Fatigue that so often plagues hours four and up on large Warhammer games. It is the best mass-battles ruleset ever written.
Dreadball has been very fun the times I've played it - not in a league or anything - except for one game where my opponent complained the entire time. Not about the rules, as he loves the rules, but just complaining at everything that happened. It was very annoying.
Deadzone has had pretty universal acclaim. Unfortunately I have yet to try it despite about a half dozen people I know that are playing it. I need to paint my Enforcer team.
I have yet to play Warpath but I believe some people in my group are gearing up to try it out in a week or two as everyone (bar myself and one other) has stopped playing 40k but have an itch to play a 40k-style game. I'm hoping it picks up as I have a buncha Corporation and Veer-Myn models and I just splurged about bought 80 40k Cultists to use as Marauders.
I have zero experience with Loka, but chess-variants have never interested me.
Glad nobody ever criticizes Warhammer 40K for not being balanced and with the argument of "I don't like narrative gaming". when it's explicit premise is being a narrative game.
If a game's premise/concept is inherently flawed (in a reviewer's opinion), one's gotta have the right to say that, no?
I don't even agree with the Dice Tower review, but its one-sided bashing of Loka is no more misguided than BoW's one-sided, nonreflective fawning over Mantic's output.
I don't anyone should really expect too much objectivity from personal review sites or blogs though.
That... that sounds pretty cool. You might just sway my hand in purchasing an army of misformed, half- melted army men.
I wonder if their opponents would get some kind of morale penalty for facing such monstrosities, the way you guys describe them.
I should get some and let my kids paint them, let them be truly horrific.
Take that, counts as chaos- spawn!
lol. Maybe not a morale/nerve penalty but they certainly should have the equivalent of "reach" weapons because their arms are longer than their bodies....knuckle draggers.
I gave them and a fair number of the other KoW Kickstarter stuff to a friend so his 6 year old son could learn to paint.
WayneTheGame wrote: I guess I'm blind because honestly I don't thunk they're that terrible. Poor quality yes but a regiment of 20 still looks impressive.
They're not horrible unless you get closer than a foot to them or put them next to a model with more realistic proportions. They are beyond terrible when you compare them to the quality and pricing of the Perry Brothers though....
Switch the heads with paladins or Elohi and shorten the arms with clippers and make sure they get washes. Then MaAs look great. That's a LOT of work though, and more than should be expected, and I'm a Mantic enthusiast. However, I, and many of my friends love Loka. And Deadzone. And Kings of War. Huh. Imagine that. All well loved. Actually, Dreadball is the least played of the four of them. That's just my area though. We have one guy not horribly impressed, but it's not that big a deal.
I don't understand this whole deal with objective reviews. A good review states the the reviewers opinion and how he/she came to hold that opinion. Reviews trying to hard be objective either become boring or useless. I much more prefer a reviewer clearly stating his or her opinion. Then it's up to me to find reviewers who either do entertaining reviews or whose opinions are in sync with me.
jorny wrote: I don't understand this whole deal with objective reviews. A good review states the the reviewers opinion and how he/she came to hold that opinion. Reviews trying to hard be objective either become boring or useless. I much more prefer a reviewer clearly stating his or her opinion. Then it's up to me to find reviewers who either do entertaining reviews or whose opinions are in sync with me.
There's a difference between clearly stating your opinion based on your own feelings and experiences with a product and clearly stating your opinion based on how much the company who created the product paid you. One is being a reviewer; the other is being a shill.
Well according to Microsoft the average shill costs about $2.30 per 1000 views, so pretty cheap.
Can't say I like the look of that robot, but I'm at least curious to see what comes out of DB:X (to the max!), some of it may filter into deadzone after all.
Last week we took a sneaky look at the awesome Enforcer Peacekeepers (5 models for $10, at least 50% off RRP!!) – this week it’s the turn of the Enforcer Pathfinder Sniper on Infiltrator Bike!
Enforcer Pathfinder Sniper on Infiltrator Bike
When drone surveillance and orbital scans cannot provide the information needed to warrant full Enforcer deployment, the Council of Seven dispatches squads of Pathfinders to survey the landscape, relaying information back over encrypted channels.
Pathfinders are hand-picked from the ranks of Enforcers, taking on training under the harshest of conditions and specialising in a variety of weapons in preparation of their advance role. Several squads were sent to Nexus Psi alongside the regular Enforcer deployment, where they scouted ahead of the main force on Infiltrator Monobikes before taking up positions to give covering fire with their LSX Sniper Rifles.
We’ve already shown the pic of this lovely lady on bike…
… but here’s a couple more shots!
Awesome huh? You can pick up this gorgeous resin set on the survey.
Missing Bits
Since the end of January we have been processing the missing bits requests.
We’re doing these in batches as it is quite a challenging task. There are a lot of requests, of which half of the “missing” items are second shipment (such as Sergeant Howlett or the Zombies) or known-issues like the four D8s that will be sent out in the second shipment package. This makes sorting them correctly a meticulous task.
In addition, there are a number of entries that need to be simplified so that the warehouse can sort and dispatch the items, and a number that need to have follow-up emails to identify missing miniatures or components.
There are however a number of “easy” requests in this first batch and once we’ve authorized these we are beginning to send them out.
All in all, the machine is moving. There will be some stock items that need to be ordered in, and will be writing to some of you to clarify your requests, but we will be gradually releasing missing parts orders as we get through them.
Thanks for your patience whilst we work through these – we’ll keep you posted on progress!
B-b-brainzzzz!
A couple of weeks ago we showed off the hard plastic Zombie sprue. Since then we have handed over the frame to resident painting maestro Dave to give it a lick of paint…
This is a hard plastic figure straight off the frame. Dave particularly spoke about how enjoyable the face was to paint.
Mantic Glossary
Resin = Resin
Plastic = Resin Plastic
Restic = Resin Plastic
Metal = Metal
Hard Plastic = Actual Plastic
That is a handy guide but I'd add the disclaimer that just because Mantic called something Plastic doesn't mean they won't make it in metal without telling anyone until it is too late.
Mantic Glossary
Resin = Resin
Plastic = Resin Plastic
Restic = Resin Plastic
Metal = Metal
Hard Plastic = Actual Plastic
That is a handy guide but I'd add the disclaimer that just because Mantic called something Plastic doesn't mean they won't make it in metal without telling anyone until it is too late.
Yeah, but that really doesn't have to do with the terminology. That has to do with volumes and production capability.
Mantic Glossary
Resin = Resin
Plastic = Resin Plastic
Restic = Resin Plastic
Metal = Metal
Hard Plastic = Actual Plastic
That is a handy guide but I'd add the disclaimer that just because Mantic called something Plastic doesn't mean they won't make it in metal without telling anyone until it is too late.
Yeah, but that really doesn't have to do with the terminology. That has to do with volumes and production capability.
And most importantly customer confusion which is the point of this slight digression and a seemingly constant and voluntary thorn in Mantic's bum.
I know opinions vary on BoW videos but they are informative for the most part - I always find them entertaining if nothing else - whether they might be a bit too pro whatever company there's still a lot of actual information in them - here's another one on terrain building (1 hour long)
It includes the ruined terrain sprue.
James also mentions the possiblity of an industrial terrain set with machinery.
That zombie looks great, glad I went in for 80... so far. The solo play / large board rules with zombie hordes (basically 4th gens?) could be a lot of fun!
I realize the BoW - Mantic stuff is some form of advertainment, but I do enjoy them. Dreadball Academy sold me on Dreadball and I love it to bits now. Been enjoying their Deadzone stuff just as much and hope it continues, even if James heads off.
Still waiting to submit my DZ Wave 2 survey since we have so much time, may as well get more info before finalising.
You can 'finalize' your survey multiple times, in case you change your mind, find more money, lose more money, see something you like and want to add, see something you don't like and want to drop, etc.
I think I'm guilty of that one, at least for deadzone :p
Dreadball academy is about to sell me on DB too =/ It looks so fun with the ball bouncing all over the place and so on. May have to back Xtreme.
I realize we all figured this out a couple of months ago, but I'm late to the party so there. They definitely 100% do not give you enough connectors. The dollar value to add more isn't so much of an issue as the wait to get them in. I could get them cheap on the survey but wait forever, or buy them not-as-cheap now and either pay shipping or accrue yet more manticware to clutter my shelves and mitigate shipping costs. But until I get more, I don't see myself getting through more than 6-8 of my 12 battlezones, even using every strut/whatever/lamp post they sent me.
It's possible to make your connectors last by being pretty ruthless with them and using the lamp post / buttress type ones whenever you can when they're out of sight.
It's also possible to do get away with only doing 1 connector per side, or less sometimes. I try to go for managing a maximum distance possible between my connectors. - So one on the far right of the top side, for example. Then just another one on the bottom of the left side.
James did mention in that video that they've tweaked the set contents for the standard retail releases to have more connectors in them.
It would sure be nice if that 'tweak' was applied to stuff coming in the second wave.
Seriously.
I think every pledge that came with the base game should include an extra set or two as thanks. Especially those of us with all kinds of fun missing bits.
I've been looking at my dwindling supply of connectors, and I've got nowhere near as many battlezones as GrimDork does. Be nice if they'd included just a bit more.
Yeah, definitely a mistake made somewhere, whether on purpose or not, I don't really care, just stinky.
I'm going for maximum durability for my stuff so I'm splurging on the connectors. I want to build as much terrain as I can but Intend to build some pretty tall structures and don't want to see them come crashing down. Wish there was something else I wanted from the mantic webstore, I really don't want to pay shipping for connectors but I just can't justify buying any more models at the moment :p
If you ask me, the connector sprue bundle deal was priced apologetically low on the survey. I think they're half the price you pay on the webstore? Still, I'd have preferred even to pay more per battlezone and have had them included in the initial shipment than this blerggahkfuzz...
I will say, and I consider the GW cities of death terrain to be pretty damn nice (especially before the price hike!) that I like battle systems more. If you disregard the general not-enoughness of them, the clip system is awesome. Even if you glue them, they're easier to work with than gluing all of those gw tiles by hand. The gw stuff isn't a bad product by any means, but I definitely like working with these more. And since I am clipping... I can disassemble my structures in the future, and try something new. To that regard, I have to admit that I consider the connectors to be expendable, and while I'll be able to salvage some, many will die in the process of a fully building tear-down or overhaul. I'm gonna get a bunch extra on the survey so I've got a stockpile for future me.
This is for a permanent solution though, correct? Or have you successfully broken the hot glue beads with no ill effect on the tiles?
Dear god.. You may have done it. That may well be the answer for semi-permanent buildings. Hell, you could even paint the hot glue bead like a welding seam...
So tell me, have you broken one apart to see if both tiles were fully salvageable? I may have to try that, this could be perfect. I love hot glue anyway.
Yeah, little square subunits you can side-by side or stack. Gonna experiment with those after I get a few of the bigger pieces I've been planning out of the way.
GrimDork wrote: Dreadball academy is about to sell me on DB too =/ It looks so fun with the ball bouncing all over the place and so on. May have to back Xtreme.
After the Deadzone KS I looked into other Mantic stuff and saw the Dreadball Academy which instantly sold me on it, was a great series.
It would sure be nice if that 'tweak' was applied to stuff coming in the second wave.
Seriously.
I think every pledge that came with the base game should include an extra set or two as thanks. Especially those of us with all kinds of fun missing bits.
I've been looking at my dwindling supply of connectors, and I've got nowhere near as many battlezones as GrimDork does. Be nice if they'd included just a bit more.
No. I don't think we even got that many free walls extra, and in any case, connectors supplied currently cover about half a battlezone, rather than a whole one. That's not explained by a few extra wall panels even if it would play a small part.
GrimDork wrote: Yeah, little square subunits you can side-by side or stack. Gonna experiment with those after I get a few of the bigger pieces I've been planning out of the way.
I made a bunch of modular cubes but connectors were a definite issue.
Bolognesus wrote: No. I don't think we even got that many free walls extra, and in any case, connectors supplied currently cover about half a battlezone, rather than a whole one. That's not explained by a few extra wall panels even if it would play a small part.
Ah, I just went and looked at my pledge on the Kickstarter, the $150 one, comes with 11 extra scenery sprues.
edit - just quick browsed through the stretch goals and I saw at least three that added more scenery sprues for free but no mention of extra free connector sprues
Azazelx wrote: So.. MA will be shipping in one wave, and before DZ Wave 2? Is that correct?
They take our money for the second DZ survey as late as possible at end of May, and MA is meant to ship in August, is the closest I can find without trawling through the comments. I did think that MA was coming after DZ wave 2 though for some reason.
Bolognesus wrote: No. I don't think we even got that many free walls extra, and in any case, connectors supplied currently cover about half a battlezone, rather than a whole one. That's not explained by a few extra wall panels even if it would play a small part.
Ah, I just went and looked at my pledge on the Kickstarter, the $150 one, comes with 11 extra scenery sprues.
edit - just quick browsed through the stretch goals and I saw at least three that added more scenery sprues for free but no mention of extra free connector sprues
The added scenery sprues (to the 150 pledge that is) effectively added a second battlezone; they then dropped in connectors for said second battlezone.
You got the exact number of wall tiles that would have been on the original sprues, plus, I believe, an extra or two here and there (but nothing major) - they just divided them over more, but smaller, sprues.
Bolognesus wrote: No. I don't think we even got that many free walls extra, and in any case, connectors supplied currently cover about half a battlezone, rather than a whole one. That's not explained by a few extra wall panels even if it would play a small part.
Ah, I just went and looked at my pledge on the Kickstarter, the $150 one, comes with 11 extra scenery sprues.
edit - just quick browsed through the stretch goals and I saw at least three that added more scenery sprues for free but no mention of extra free connector sprues
The added scenery sprues (to the 150 pledge that is) effectively added a second battlezone; they then dropped in connectors for said second battlezone.
You got the exact number of wall tiles that would have been on the original sprues, plus, I believe, an extra or two here and there (but nothing major) - they just divided them over more, but smaller, sprues.
Did they? I didn't see an extra connectors stretch goal. But I'm not sure, honestly, with Deadzone I saw the initial offering and then I just pledged the 140 early bird and then kind of ignored most of the campaign until the survey. I just recall the initial pledge level didn't have nearly as much terrain, so in my mind extra wall/floor sprues got added due to stretch goals ( I'm still blown away by the sheer amount of stuff I got) But if everyone else is having not-enough-connector-sprue-problems then I should add some to my second survey since I haven't yet assembled all of my terrain.
Two battlezones, one connector sprue each in the pledge. This is the same ratio at which they were selling them in the december release battlezones (flgs got four for infinity, we're still collectively annoyed) and afaik on the first survey.
Really, they just figured connector sprues weren't exactly sexy enough for a stretch and just included what they'd figured was 'enough'.
Bolognesus wrote: Two battlezones, one connector sprue each in the pledge. This is the same ratio at which they were selling them in the december release battlezones (flgs got four for infinity, we're still collectively annoyed) and afaik on the first survey.
Really, they just figured connector sprues weren't exactly sexy enough for a stretch and just included what they'd figured was 'enough'.
I think it's more that they assumed people would be using the straight connectors more and not as many corner connectors (i.e. larger or longer buildings). I threw most of my long connectors away.
I haven't gotten an email acknowledgement for my submission or resubmission either, from roughly the same time span, so they're clearly still having issues.
I also haven't gotten an acknowledgement for a missing part submission I sent in yesterday, when my DZ use of the same system got an instant reply.
Bolognesus wrote: Two battlezones, one connector sprue each in the pledge. This is the same ratio at which they were selling them in the december release battlezones (flgs got four for infinity, we're still collectively annoyed) and afaik on the first survey.
Really, they just figured connector sprues weren't exactly sexy enough for a stretch and just included what they'd figured was 'enough'.
I think it's more that they assumed people would be using the straight connectors more and not as many corner connectors (i.e. larger or longer buildings). I threw most of my long connectors away.
Really? You're building rather small buildings then, I take it? anything 'big' has me running out of straights in no time - and it isn't as if the corner pieces last anywhere near long enough, either.
Really? You're building rather small buildings then, I take it? anything 'big' has me running out of straights in no time - and it isn't as if the corner pieces last anywhere near long enough, either.
Yep. Most of my buildings are small cubes that I can put together or stack for a modular approach. I'm going to magnetize them so they don't fall apart. They won't be gorgeous with big round magnets on them but they will be modular and won't fall apart.
That explains it. We built a few large buildings with some scatter terrain built out of the remaining pile of bits.
I'd say your approach will generally take less connectors so you might have less of a problem, but we literally ran out before we were halfway through.
Alpharius wrote: I haven't ever started thinking about putting these buildings together...
Quick question - If I'm going to just glue them together 'forever', will I need to use the connectors too?
And is it just an aesthetic thing, to cover holes, or is it necessary?
When I ran out I started using the boxes from the accessory sprue in the corners. A couple of them I just put together with glue and ran a bead down the seams; they're holding together fine so far.
'Need' and 'necessary' might not be the right terms; Bloody convenient, however, certainly is.
For keeping things (neatly!) in place while glue hardens etc. I'd really advise just getting enough of the blimmin' connectors, those few bucks are money well spent, hobby time being limited etc.
RiTides wrote: I posted this in the Mars Attacks thread but thought it was worth asking here too, since it applies to Mantic generally:
I re-submitted my pledge manager recently, but didn't get a confirmation email after 5 days now.
I also emailed them through KS 3 days ago and haven't heard back.
Is this normal? :-/ and if so, is there any other way to get their attention, or a special email address to contact, etc?
It was mentioned in one of the messages sent out that the problem is Google. From Update #83 on Mars Attacks:
Q) I have submitted the survey and haven’t received a confirmation email.
Google Drive can only send 500 emails a day and we have surveys open for both our Deadzone and Mars Attacks survey, meaning there are quite a lot of outgoing emails. Once it hits a certain threshold, the system needs manually resetting. We've done that and confirmations emails are starting to come back through again - please be patient whilst the system works it way through these and please do not message us regarding this, we are doing our best to fix it.
Which to me is an argument against using Google Drive for such things, especially customer service issues, but I think I've beaten that particular horse enough already.
Krinsath wrote: It was mentioned in one of the messages sent out that the problem is Google. From Update #83 on Mars Attacks:
Q) I have submitted the survey and haven’t received a confirmation email.
Google Drive can only send 500 emails a day and we have surveys open for both our Deadzone and Mars Attacks survey, meaning there are quite a lot of outgoing emails. Once it hits a certain threshold, the system needs manually resetting. We've done that and confirmations emails are starting to come back through again - please be patient whilst the system works it way through these and please do not message us regarding this, we are doing our best to fix it.
It also sounds like the problem is that they're running too many Kickstarters at the same time.
Krinsath wrote: It was mentioned in one of the messages sent out that the problem is Google. From Update #83 on Mars Attacks:
Q) I have submitted the survey and haven’t received a confirmation email.
Google Drive can only send 500 emails a day and we have surveys open for both our Deadzone and Mars Attacks survey, meaning there are quite a lot of outgoing emails. Once it hits a certain threshold, the system needs manually resetting. We've done that and confirmations emails are starting to come back through again - please be patient whilst the system works it way through these and please do not message us regarding this, we are doing our best to fix it.
It also sounds like the problem is that they're running too many Kickstarters at the same time.
And, as I wrote before, it's also indicative of the massive number of errors they've made in orders as they're useing the same system for missing parts reports.
Krinsath wrote: Which to me is an argument against using Google Drive for such things, especially customer service issues, but I think I've beaten that particular horse enough already.
Just a quick post to mention that I did pass along your recommendations for alternatives over to someone who can mention them to Mantic (one of the rare posts in this thread where a complaint was accompanied by a good practical solution!).. google docs is a temporary measure for them currently, they do want to replace it.
Currently the vast majority of their inbox is filled with complaints that shouldn't be complaints, reports of the missing dice or sorak, or stuff missing that was scheduled for wave 2 anyway.. and followup emails asking for a reply to previous ones. It is making it harder for the valid emails to get noticed.
Given that their email system nukes links without mentioning that, it's not surprising that they have a lot of followup emails asking for replies to previous ones. And with another KS about to start while three previous KS campaigns remain unfinished in terms of sorting people out (Loka, DB, DZ) and a fourth hasn't even started shipping yet, getting their gak in order isn't something that's going to happen quickly or easily...
Well, here's what the 2014 schedule looks like, roughly, for the most part it is releasing Kickstarter stuff:
- April : KoW Dwarf release.
- May : Deadzone terrain release, remaining KoW stuff.
- June/July: More Deadzone terrain releases, FF/Asterians. KoW 2.0 KS launch?
- August/September: Mars Ack Acks
- September/ October: Dreadball Xtreme
- November/ December: *Possibly* wave 1 KoW 2.0 KS shipments. Possible Warpath KS launch.
The second half of the year is somewhat vague and subject to change, but that's roughly what can be expected this year.
And then for 2015 - Remaining KoW 2.0/Mars Attacks/DBX retail releases followed by a fethload of Warpath (after the KS breaks $4m ), another licensed IP and DKH 4.
Again, the further into the future it goes, the more subject to change, the 2015 stuff is just extrapolation mostly.. it is very cool to be able to see so far ahead into a company's release schedule though.
In the short term, I'm mainly excited for KoW 2.0 KS since there is likely to be modular fantasy terrain accompanying it... and I can't wait to start a Nature army, especially since the infantry units are likely to be hard plastic (how cool would sprues for gnomes, naiads, slyphs and salamanders be? The nature list is wonderfully unique). Less enthusiastic about Abyssals, but I guess they're a good choice since they can be sold to both 40k and Fantasy players.
scarletsquig wrote: In the short term, I'm mainly excited for KoW 2.0 KS since there is likely to be modular fantasy terrain accompanying it... and I can't wait to start a Nature army, especially since the infantry units are likely to be hard plastic (how cool would sprues for gnomes, naiads, slyphs and salamanders be? The nature list is wonderfully unique). Less enthusiastic about Abyssals, but I guess they're a good choice since they can be sold to both 40k and Fantasy players.
I'll be impressed and somewhat heartened if Mantic actually does cast those figures in hard plastic. It would show confidence in their own brand and a willingness to invest in it, since people are unlikely to buy any of those creatures for use in other games.
scarletsquig wrote: Well, here's what the 2014 schedule looks like, roughly, for the most part it is releasing Kickstarter stuff:
- April : KoW Dwarf release.
- May : Deadzone terrain release, remaining KoW stuff.
- June/July: More Deadzone terrain releases, FF/Asterians. KoW 2.0 KS launch?
- August/September: Mars Ack Acks
- September/ October: Dreadball Xtreme
- November/ December: *Possibly* wave 1 KoW 2.0 KS shipments. Possible Warpath KS launch.
The second half of the year is somewhat vague and subject to change, but that's roughly what can be expected this year.
And then for 2015 - Remaining KoW 2.0/Mars Attacks/DBX retail releases followed by a fethload of Warpath (after the KS breaks $4m ), another licensed IP and DKH 4.
Again, the further into the future it goes, the more subject to change, the 2015 stuff is just extrapolation mostly.. it is very cool to be able to see so far ahead into a company's release schedule though.
In the short term, I'm mainly excited for KoW 2.0 KS since there is likely to be modular fantasy terrain accompanying it... and I can't wait to start a Nature army, especially since the infantry units are likely to be hard plastic (how cool would sprues for gnomes, naiads, slyphs and salamanders be? The nature list is wonderfully unique). Less enthusiastic about Abyssals, but I guess they're a good choice since they can be sold to both 40k and Fantasy players.
Really looking forward to kow 2.0 and wp, kinda thought there'd be a deadzone 2.0 ks coming, maybe with the vermyn and zzor.
Hard plastic really is a must now, I don't hate restic but its a pain in the arse to clean up sometimes. I really hope theres some lesser Abyssals coming in plastic, those big abyssals at the openday were fantastic imho.
^ At the open day I asked where the lesser abyssals were and Stew said digital sculpts for hard plastic.
Might take a little while but this year is a matter of getting hard plastic back up to the point where they're confident enough with their production process to launch the Warpath KS as 100% hard plastic.
Can we expect revised rules/new rulebook in KoW2.0? I'm thinking primarily about revising ranged combat, but a fresh hardback rulebook including the Basilean Legacy and Heroes and Legends would be welcome.
scarletsquig wrote: And then for 2015 - Remaining KoW 2.0/Mars Attacks/DBX retail releases followed by a fethload of Warpath (after the KS breaks $4m ), another licensed IP and DKH 4.
highlord tamburlaine wrote:That's a cool list, but the absence of Dwarf King's Hold is a bit dismaying.
Going forward, I hope they offer updated/ revised/ new rulebooks with every major KS they run.
I like getting new books, and getting whatever errata has come down the pipeline since the last major release is always nice to have in one single location (besides the internet obviously).
highlord tamburlaine wrote: Once we see how things go with Extreme and its single piece board game style figures, I wonder if DKH might get a similar treatment.
Is this accurate? I hadn't heard the Extreme pieces would be one-piece. If so, are they doing them in the usual restic or Mars Attacks softer plastic?
.Mikes. wrote: Can we expect revised rules/new rulebook in KoW2.0? I'm thinking primarily about revising ranged combat, but a fresh hardback rulebook including the Basilean Legacy and Heroes and Legends would be welcome.
Can't answer rules change but interested in what you think should change in ranged combat.
Can't answer rules change but interested in what you think should change in ranged combat.
Short version: It sucks.
Long version: It's not worth it.
I am talking unit ranged combat here rather than artillery, but there are dozens of threads on the main forum about how the way unit ranged combat is nerfed to the point it's barely worth taking the units, which especially for the elf army is silly. Those threads go into it in more details than I could.
.Mikes. wrote: Can we expect revised rules/new rulebook in KoW2.0? I'm thinking primarily about revising ranged combat, but a fresh hardback rulebook including the Basilean Legacy and Heroes and Legends would be welcome.
A fresh hardback containing the new books is likely. FAQ and clarifications will be included. There may be a mini softback containing just rules and army lists.
There will be no rule amendments until KoW 2nd edition in ~2 years. A list of suggested minor amendments were submitted to Mantic by the top tournament players and their playtest team but these were vetoed.
Compel wrote: The Dreadball Extreme minis are in the Mars Attacks / Loka style plastic.
Yep, I just had a look over my Loka minis again and am very pleased with the material.. detail is great, only one minor mould line to deal with, and the best bit?
.. the plastic doesn't even need a knife to scrape the mould lines off. Any metal tool with a right angle or acute angle will do the job.. I just took the mould lines off a Loka mini using the edge of a citadel sculpting tool.
I'm considering buying that horribly overpriced GW finecast cleanup kit for the scraper, could make the cleanup even more of a breeze (someone please let me know where I can find the same thing for much cheaper before I do something stupid :p).
.Mikes. wrote: Can we expect revised rules/new rulebook in KoW2.0? I'm thinking primarily about revising ranged combat, but a fresh hardback rulebook including the Basilean Legacy and Heroes and Legends would be welcome.
A fresh hardback containing the new books is likely. FAQ and clarifications will be included. There may be a mini softback containing just rules and army lists.
There will be no rule amendments until KoW 2nd edition in ~2 years. A list of suggested minor amendments were submitted to Mantic by the top tournament players and their playtest team but these were vetoed.
Fair enough, thanks for the update.... although I can't help but think those doing the vetoing are dwarf players....
EDIT:
Actually, while I'm at it could I get a quick rundown of what KoW mk2 KS will include?
.Mikes. wrote: Can we expect revised rules/new rulebook in KoW2.0? I'm thinking primarily about revising ranged combat, but a fresh hardback rulebook including the Basilean Legacy and Heroes and Legends would be welcome.
A fresh hardback containing the new books is likely. FAQ and clarifications will be included. There may be a mini softback containing just rules and army lists.
There will be no rule amendments until KoW 2nd edition in ~2 years. A list of suggested minor amendments were submitted to Mantic by the top tournament players and their playtest team but these were vetoed.
Fair enough, thanks for the update.... although I can't help but think those doing the vetoing are dwarf players....
EDIT:
Actually, while I'm at it could I get a quick rundown of what KoW mk2 KS will include?
The changes actually helped Dwarfs, a lot. While cannons shot up in cost, almost every single other Dwarf unit dropped. Infantry heavy armies were viable, especially those that relied on Ironwatch for ranged attacks with some light cannon support. Rangers started seeing more use, as did the Organ Gun and flame belcher. On the whole the Dwarf army felt much more like a coherent list with lots of viable builds rather than nothing but cannons, or units to unlock cannons.
We don't know what the 2nd KoWKS will include exactly. It's likely to start with the Abyssals (complete with brand new army list), Forces of Nature and then hopefully switching hybrid models such as the Abyssal Dwarfs into hard plastic.
Can't answer rules change but interested in what you think should change in ranged combat.
Short version: It sucks.
Long version: It's not worth it.
I am talking unit ranged combat here rather than artillery, but there are dozens of threads on the main forum about how the way unit ranged combat is nerfed to the point it's barely worth taking the units, which especially for the elf army is silly. Those threads go into it in more details than I could.
Huh, I disagree completely, ranged combat is awesome. Softens up the enemy units to the point where an average roll on the 2d6 bell curve will break them in one round of combat. Seems about accurate to me.
Can't answer rules change but interested in what you think should change in ranged combat.
Short version: It sucks.
Long version: It's not worth it.
I am talking unit ranged combat here rather than artillery, but there are dozens of threads on the main forum about how the way unit ranged combat is nerfed to the point it's barely worth taking the units, which especially for the elf army is silly. Those threads go into it in more details than I could.
Thanks. I've never faced that as a problem but mileage varies.
"We did not use hard plastic or restic because there is little variety in weapons and arms"
That's a wasted opportunity. It would be so easy to make a sprue where half the arms were empty or holding the ball, and half were holding pistols and melee weapons. They could have gotten the Necromunda fans and Blood Bowl fans at the same time.
You might even be able to fit in a torso with the handless left arm attached, that can be used either for a "firing from the hip" pose or a "protecting the ball with both hands" pose.
That is a negative Sir, no Peacekeeper sprue yet. I kindof like the window of a good few months before they start shipping the 2nd wave. It allows backers to hopefully see everything and also gives Mantic more time to get their ship in order.
Just got around to looking at my fortification sprue. I wasn't necessarily going to order more terrain on the survey.. and it's possible I may still wait for retail.. but dang. That's a cool box. Half a dozen up-armor panels you can use to enbeefen any of your existing structures (and they seem to on/off fairly easy too), same number of reinforced corner posts and middle-of-wall-post-whatever-you-call-those-things... for when you really want to make something look like a bunker. Several uparmored standard building tiles, for moderately fortified structures (wouldn't bother covering those with the up-armor panels, seems a waste), and some sexy diamond pattern nonslip walkways. Think you get six of those too. You get a bunch of those defense line bits too, the chunky half tiles with vision/gun slits. The only thing I don't really like is that you get the ginormous laser cannon with each. It's so big, you might even have to call it a space laser cannon (or space lasinator for the kids). I don't need more of those... unless I convert some Imperial vehicles into warpath tanks... but I'll probably like the warpath tanks better.
I have found the plague to be a bear to clean, but I think that's true of most spikey/organic shapes. I like the 3rd gens more than I thought I would, they've got more little bits of detail like ammo belts and such than I realized... though most of their guns are really detail soft. Still not getting the 3g hate though, looking at them near the 2nd and 1st gen, they all have vaguely the same body type.. the big guys just have more bone. I like that the spiky spine ridge is carried across all three generations, as is the "right angle neck", and even the supertorso (1st and 2nd gens both have it, you just don't mind as much because of the bone and cooler look).
*Ahem, sorry to blather on, glad to stuff all of that into a spoiler if it's a bit much. Just surprised how much I liked the fortification sprue (probably my favorite at this point, non considering vanilla, given you can only use so many landing pads..).
Space zombies have only one thing going for them, and that's body horror. If the Plague looked like something out of The Thing or Dead Space (don't click if squeamish), it would be easier to overlook the fact that they make no sense.
Someday? Nothing has been mentioned although during the KS it was mentioned that Z'zor and Veer'Myn would make better antagonists for a Deadzone expansion than additions to the original core game. I'm sure we'll see something eventually, either KS or retail. Given that they're doing a Dreadball Xtreme kickstarter, plans to do Kings of war 2.0 kickstarter, and so on... Surely. But probably after the Warpath Kickstarter? Maybe 2016 or later 2015? Scarlet Squig has a better grasp of their game plan than I do, but it's probably a ways off.
I mean... I'm sure it's going to happen eventually. The only reasons it wouldn't is if the company implodes, or they decide to drop kickstarters and work the whole DZ 2.0 thing in-house. In the case of the non kickstarted release... given what we know they already plan to do.. it would probably be several years later in that case. Probably sticking to kickstarter though, despite issues it seems to be working for them.
I am personally glad they'll be spacing themselves out, as I think this is the biggest single thing I've seen people repeatedly on-edge about in regards to Mantic Kickstarters.
Plus, that way more paychecks can be saved for the kickstarters as well!
I'm all for improvements to KoW as long as they keep it simplistic and tactically viable. If it turns into WHFB 8th with cheaper figures it won't be that good. It needs to remain lean and easy to learn/hard to master and make it so you win via strategy.
Definitely looking forward to a Warpath KS though to improve that into a viable 40k alternative.
WayneTheGame wrote: I'm all for improvements to KoW as long as they keep it simplistic and tactically viable. If it turns into WHFB 8th with cheaper figures it won't be that good. It needs to remain lean and easy to learn/hard to master and make it so you win via strategy.
Definitely looking forward to a Warpath KS though to improve that into a viable 40k alternative.
Kings of War needs no major rules changes. It needs more nice high quality HIPS plastic kits to get people who are interested in models foremost to give it a second glance.
Well I hate waiting for stuff, but my wallet will be glad. So does that mean we might see the DKH4 kickstarter this year then? I forget what the order was, that may have been after the others.
It would be kind of weird to have more than 2-3 months go by with mantic running or sponsoring a kickstarter though
Oh well, it'll be the more I can spend next year or whenever.
That is hideous. The mint green and egg yolk yellow were really bad colour choices, and the random detail draws attention to the fact that it's just one 1' square copy-pasted four times.
TableScapes Kickstarter wrote: Deadzone ™ - PAINT IN PROGRESS I only have a small window in which I can do airbrushing every day, and so I've been knocking out the initial paint work on these tiles as quickly as I can. I still need to come back and finish them all, of course, but I don't want to leave you waiting while I wrap things up. And so... Deadzone.
I have a few ideas for mine to get around the repetition.. for starters everything in the same colour (bright sandstone) will tie things together nicely... and then after that I'll be painting (and possibly modelling) in a road on each tile that starts in one corner and finishes in the other, taking a slightly different route on each one. It should allow the roads to link up nicely while avoiding them being all simple straights that aren't very interesting for LoS.
EDIT: Found some details of Mars Attacks' launch date and retail pricing, it's going to launch in October:
MGE MA01-1 Mars Attacks: The Miniatures Game ~ OCT PreOrder $74.99
MGE MA11-1 Mars Attacks: Attack From Space (4) ~ OCT PreOrder $24.99
MGE MA21-1 Mars Attacks: Martian Grunts (10) ~ OCT PreOrder $24.99
MGE MA22-1 Mars Attacks: US Soldiers (10) ~ OCT PreOrder $24.99
Looks like £50 for the base game, I got it for £10 with an extra 28 minis in the KS and spent most of the credit on DZ terrain. Pretty happy about that, my interest in the IP is limited, but for the prices they were offering in the KS, it was a no-brainer.
