I got to hold the MA models today, and the sculpts are gorgeous. There was very little flash, and the details are very good. The US soldiers are amazing models.
Also, my Avengers squad of Enforcers will be featured on the Mantic site soon. Met with the rep here today, showed him them in person, and he loved them and requested to put them up on site. Been a good Thursday.
Hah sweet! All I did was mow yards for 8 hours, glad to hear *somebody* is having a good time It's a really neat idea, makes sense to show it off Jealous you got to look at the new MA minis.
Is anyone playing in the DZ campaign come Gencon? I had to pick between that and a single 1 hour 'learn to play' and figured I'd tough out the 4 hours for a chance to play more Janes Gully or something wasn't it?
GrimDork wrote: Hah sweet! All I did was mow yards for 8 hours, glad to hear *somebody* is having a good time It's a really neat idea, makes sense to show it off Jealous you got to look at the new MA minis.
Is anyone playing in the DZ campaign come Gencon? I had to pick between that and a single 1 hour 'learn to play' and figured I'd tough out the 4 hours for a chance to play more Janes Gully or something wasn't it?
Janes Gully, yep. I'm doing the 4 hour slog at noon on Saturday.
Balls, I'm doing friday, I think. I guess you are safe from many a crushing defeat! Well not really, I'll have to get a few more games in before august lest I embarrass myself! It sounds fun though, in any case. I'm looking forward to seeing what they've done with the terrain and if there will be any specific mission types and so on.
Yeah, I don't get in until around noon on Friday, so have to pack the majority of events on Saturday. I was hoping the AI deck would have been released by now, because I'm quite sure I won't get enough games in otherwise and will embarrass myself.
Yeah that deck would help me too. Its mid august right? I mean I think shipment 2 is due by then isn't it? Hopefully we get the PDF sooner than that. Might be forced to set up some games solitaire and play that way just to get used to the dice and turn sequence
New pic of the ruins battlezone, which goes up for preorder next week:
Probably the most useful out of all the sprues, looking forward to it.
Liking the texture around the edges as well, would have been all too easy to leave that flat and dull but it shows a triple layered composite material with metal bracing/power conduits etc. sticking out.
I can see myself ruining mine even further, drilling in bullet holes and scratching up the paintwork.
Agreed on that Squig, it looks great. I certainly want a good few ruin battlezones when they are finally released. And, as others have stated, the AI deck will be brilliant for me once it is released.
The panels look REALLY good, the rubble piles are not so good. They don't look like rubble made from the destruction of the panels, and the detail on them seems kind of soft.
I have two on order as well.. may have to get some more! I have to agree on the rubble piles... the I bar things and the chunks are both too stocky to be made from the walls.
C for Chovar 1 Bag of 10 Corporation Marines
1 Bag of Basilean Cathorses
1 Sprue of 10 Elven Bowmen Command
1 Sprue of 2 Orx Warpath Command
1 Sprue of 2 Deadzone humans and 1 Deadzone Yndij
1 Bag of Dreadball Z'zor with Guard and Striker
1 Silver Paint pot (anyone know the actual colour?)
1 Loka Skeleton pawn
1 pair of clippers
D for Deadzone 1 Warpaint Gold
1 pair of clippers
1 KOW Orc Command arm sprue (Hrm, no bodies)
1 bag of 2 Dreadball Asterians
1 Loka... Fire elemental?
1 bag of Ogres with 2 guns
1 Deadzone sprue with Marauder boy and Goblin Sniper
1 Warpath Veermyn Sprue
1 Sprue of 10 Elven Bowmen Command
So, overall, pretty good, I think. - They certainly feel a lot more useful to me than the set from Christmas. The Deadzone models will always have a place. No harm with having more Dreadball minis. The Corporation Marines are great, too - Are they getting rid of Project Pandora? Between the sale and having marines in one box and Veermyn in the other, it's curious.
Sounds like a nice haul. I was gonna order a couple but the DZ and MA surveys both needed to be paid and then there were gencon badges to buy. I kind of consider the entire DBX kickstarter to be little more than a large crazy box anyway so that'll do
From the hauls listed, the crazy boxes weren't bad at all. Last Christmas I got lucky on an Amazon seller getting rid of Project Pandora for $20 shipped, though, so I was already taken care of this time around.
And yes, Mantic looking to clear their old stock of Pandora does look like a good sign that the Veer-myn and Corps will be coming to Deadzone / returning to Warpath soon. Or that Mantic will be re-launching Pandora. Either way I win, sucka!
The thing about crazy boxes is, the longer you wait, the better they get. By Christmas there will probably be Mars Attacks stuff in there, and maybe Dreadball Xtreme. And sometime after the Warpath KS finally, really, actually launches, there should be sprues from that thrown into the crazy boxes too.
I love the stencils I got from the KS, really high quality and Brian has put out a lot of good video tutorials on them. My procrastination may have paid off! Looks like there's a triple pack with a decent discount. They're expensive, but really high quality, I highly recommend the Anarchy stencils. I also picked up some Snappy Stencils which are made from laser cut HDF which makes them more durable but... far less good. basically. For the flat Deadzone terrain I thought they'd be perfect and i still think they are, but I can see me getting the new Anarchy ones too as they're specifically deadzone themed which is awesome.
I'm kind of tempted by those, thanks for sharing. I'm a bit afraid of ordering an A4 sized package from anywhere that uses squiggly marks for currency though, it's liable to cost almost as much to ship as it does for the items. Might just have to stick with masking with tape and the nifty little square card thing I've been using. But those are pretty nice still.
The shipping during the kickstarter was very reasonable, it's saying 3 squiggly lines for delivery, and the triple pack of stencils is 21 squiggly lines. Signing up for an account on their webshop now so I'll see how much it is. The stencils are basically just sheets of paper size and weight wise so shipping is thankfully relatively cheap.
edit: Royal Mail USA Flat Rate £5.55 Royal Mail Worldwide Flat Rate £5.55
So yeah it's money, but probably the same cost if you see any of the other stencils that you like. Some are really good, very happy with the dozen that I received from the KS.
Well that's not terrible for shipping from anywhere that costs in pounds. Certainly better than I paid from Heresy for some certain metal minis. They're pretty neat for sure.
I tried to take some pics of the stencils but it's impossible to see the detail. Brian has printouts of the various stencils I think (saw one in his last tutorial video). I might ask him if we can see them.
Nice will have to watch that vid, Pacific. Yeah you can do a lot with masking tape but stencils definitely have their place. Especially if you're on the slacker or less competent side. Or both ; p *raises hand*
New DBX update. The Jack for the Crystallens looks pretty good, closer to the more slender concept art we saw than the guard model we were worried about. The guards are chunkier than the concept art, but I'm happy with the design still. The pic from the open day was just a weird paint job / frosting effect.
The Mechanites seem a bit... bland? I like the designs, but they just seem to be lacking detail.
The guard poses are good, but yeah the jack pose isn't ideal now that you mention it. Most importantly, the Crystallen guards look like they'll fit right into Deadzone ; ) The jack could be modeled with a wrist mounted weapon too with that pose.
I just saw the update. These crystallens look alot better than what we saw from the open day pictures. I hope the end product looks more like these, and less like those first pictures. I think this is one of those teams I will remain hopeful for, but will wait until retail if I want to pick them up.
These are resin too, not clear acrylic so that'll help witht he final product too imo, I'm really looking forward to that aspect. Yeah the initial pic from the open day with the frosting was dodgy, these are a big relief as they were probably my favourite concept.
I'm liking the Mechanites much more than I expected to. I see what people are saying about them needing more fine detailing, but I don't really think it's that bad, and after they're painted I don't think it will be a problem at all. It's fair to say that they currently look too clean and streamlined to pass as ramshackle junkyard robots - at least, not without considerable conversion work and weathering - but that's ok by me.
The Crystallans aren't really my cup of tea, though. The Jack resembles the concept art, but his pose is uncertain. The guards have better poses, but they look more rock golem than crystal alien. I'm not convinced that the guards' current lumpy rock designs will make the most of the blue translucent casting material.
I won't write the Crystallans off, but I won't be buying these models to convert to Deadzone. I'll wait to see what the official Crystallan Deadzone figures look like, if they ever happen.
^ Agree with the above completely. Crystallan sculpts still kinda sucky other than the jack, mechanites surprisingly cool, I'm now happy to be getting them as a free faction.
I think the main design flaw with the Crystallans was choosing to pursue the whole "they fused with rocks" thing... if they were just plain sharp crystal aliens that would have been awesome... adding the blobby rocks to them confuses the overall look and makes them look like coral, plus those part will have to be painted on an otherwise clear plastic mini.
Nice idea, execution somewhat poor.. it would have been cooler if they were fleshy creatures at first and the doomsday device they activated turned them into sentient crystals.
This is why I spent literally the entire Kickstarter asking Mantic for more pics of the sculpts, concept art to mini translation is still pretty much non-existent with Mantic, any given sculptor may either produce a perfect carbon copy of the art, or go off and do their own thing.
And from the look of the WIP sculpt, the sculptor was more keen on the rock golem style rather than crystal style.
I apologize if it's already been mentioned recently... but was there any idea of when the fantasy skirmish game would be released? Would it be through a kickstarter?
Red Viper wrote: I apologize if it's already been mentioned recently... but was there any idea of when the fantasy skirmish game would be released? Would it be through a kickstarter?
Pretty much everything Mantic does is released through KS. As far as when that KS was starting, I believe it was end of this year, or the beginning of next. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
So looks like the pledge manager is going live soon, and everyone should have it in the next 24 hours. If you want any of the limited stuff, keep an eye on your e-mail!!
I bet I get mine last and all the Blaines are gone...
Some more info:
- Survey money counts towards new stretch goals.
- They will be opening the survey to new backers (if you want a cheap 40% discount Dreadball shopping cart for the rest of the year, here it is).
- Survey will be open until this November.
- There will be a second survey early next year.
A delay has been announced, it won't all ship this November, only the core box game and a selection of extra stuff.. the rest comes 2015.
The delay matters little to me, getting my goods staggered is probably good for me at this point. Hopefully they take full advantage of it and push the quality as far as it will go. Will have to check out the survey soon, though adding anything is gonna have to wait.
The Mechanites actually look quite good. I reckon with a little bit of work they'd be very usable in 40k as Imperium/Adeptus Mechanicus Robots or Mechanicum stuff.
November? Is that a record for Mantic surveys? It feels like a long time. I wonder if, combining that long open period with opening the survey to non-backers, stretch goals might explode.
As for the limited Blaines, I hear you; I want want one too and there's no PM in sight for me yet. On the other hand, while Dreadball Blaine is the original, Deadzone Blaine is a much, much better sculpt in my opinion. So if I do miss one, I'm glad it's not that one.
Azazelx wrote: The Mechanites actually look quite good. I reckon with a little bit of work they'd be very usable in 40k as Imperium/Adeptus Mechanicus Robots or Mechanicum stuff.
The lack of detailing could work well int hat regard, as it'll leave room for 40k gubbins.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Brian from Anarchy Models was kind enough to email me the designs for the stencils so we could see what is in them. I watched the video and I'm sold. I know we can make our own, but this will save so much effort, and a lot of them - especially the text - are better than what I would come up with after hours of work. I'll happily add these to the bunch I picked up from the Anarchy Models stencil kickstarter. I love how they're perfectly cut to sit over the tiles and a number of the decals I can see being useful elsewhere too.
Just filled my pledge manager out. I'm a bit annoyed I need to waste money getting 'Dreadball Ultimate' when all I actually want is the 2 Giants I missed in the first kickstarter. But live and learn. And at least the rubber mat comes in more handy for travelling places than my fancy one.
The Pledge Manager itself is pretty harmless, my only criticism being that they could have labelled "you've already bought this in the pledge" a little more clearly. However, hearing the horror stories from the Raging Heroes thread, I think we got away lucky.
Only thing is, I wish I could remember what I planned to spend the last $25 of my pledge on... I think it was originally going to be Tycho, the coin and something else...
Still waiting on the pledge manager. I've decided if I miss out on Blaine due to this I'll just ask for a refund on my entire pledge.
I pledged in the first minute of the KS, and upped my pledge for Blaine within minutes of the update with him in going live, since it's the *only* exclusive Mantic model I don't own.. it wasn't marked as exclusive in ODB KS, only as a DBX preview model.
No point getting bothered about it until it is confirmed that I got screwed over though. :p
I'm a little surprised you don't already have him, Squig, as I thought you'd been in on every Mantic KS campaign so far.
Or maybe you were in on the original Dreadball, but Blaine was just an optional purchase or something? In which case he's become a "stealth limited" figure that flew under your radar at the time, I guess.
Blaine was added free for all DBO backers at Jack level and up. I got him as part of my Striker pledge. I'd be a bit upset alright if I was hoping to get Blaine from DBX and hadn't got my PM nearly 24 hours after others have. (I haven'e got my DBX PM yet either).
scarletsquig wrote: I was short on cash at the time of ODB, have managed to catch up on every other exclusive I missed via mantic points and convention purchases.
Still a stealth limited figure though, since no-one knew he was a KS exclusive for ODB until DBX launched.
He was never KS exclusive, which is why Mantic is offering him on DBX at all. They did seem to think he was, though. I figured out he wasn't by doing some DBO KS sleuthing and was the first to push the case, which others then supported.
It's going to be pretty ironic if I don't get a Blaine after making the argument that made him available to DBX backers in the first place.
I'm very concerned that my previous post didn't sound self-entitled enough, so I just wanted to add that the real reason I deserve to get a Blaine is that I'm better than everyone else.
Still waiting on the pledge manager. I've decided if I miss out on Blaine due to this I'll just ask for a refund on my entire pledge.
I pledged in the first minute of the KS, and upped my pledge for Blaine within minutes of the update with him in going live, since it's the *only* exclusive Mantic model I don't own.. it wasn't marked as exclusive in ODB KS, only as a DBX preview model.
No point getting bothered about it until it is confirmed that I got screwed over though. :p
I nedver thought I'd see Scarlet Squig rage out on Mantic!
Hardcore!
Which Blaine are we talking about here? If it's the one from the Dreadball sweetspot pledge, you can have mine for the cost of shipping.
@Bob - More annoyed at them being unable to deal with the very very basic programming required to use an off-the-shelf KS script, install it on a website and then populate it with some basic info.
Just got my pledge manager and the first option there is to choose from on the survey is broken so I can't fill it out.
It works on $150 Rampage, but not the EB's, so the obvious problem is that they've set the conditions for the rampage picks to be "if base pledge == $150" rather than "if base pledge == $150 || if base pledge == $145 || if base pledge == $140").
Squig, at least you have a broken pledge manager. I still have nothing. I will live, but its kind of a reminder of Mantic's usual... well.... I guess I'll use the word shenanigans.
Also, does the survey say anything about what is in the first wave vs. the second wave?
^Sounds like NTR has a good guess at it. A clearer picture would be nice. Got my manager email thingie last night, will check it out as time allows. Worry not for I have more than enough Blaines at this point and shall not be contesting the coveted DBO Blaine limitedness!
Already whined about this on the KS comments, and didn't want to leave you guys out.
Got a "testers can already login to the PM because your account is already set up!" email last night. Tried to login, succeeded, got a "no projects yet!" screen. No access that way, no PM message, nobody loves me, poor me.
Consider my Blaine panic duly alleviated, but damn this is annoying.
Especially because I wanted to buy 850 Blaines, try to resell them all at an inflated price, end up selling less than a quarter of them, lose a lot of money, and get run out of the house by my wife.
It was a foolproof plan!
Interested in Games Design? Then we need you!
Do you have what it takes to join the ranks of our esteemed games designers? Now’s your chance! With so many hobbyists hungry for more Mantic, maintaining our games has become more than a one-man job. While Jake and Alessio are hard at work on our core systems to bring you more exciting new releases, we can’t let the support for our fans and their favourite games fall by the wayside – so we’re looking for help!
We’re looking to put together a crack team of dedicated volunteers to help keep our game systems alive and offer us a fresh perspective. If you’re a talented writer or designer, with a good understanding of gaming and a keen eye for detail, and a little bit of spare time, you’re exactly what we need! We will be setting up online discussion groups for each game where you can have your say and share ideas, and we will be arranging monthly meetings with the Studio team to agree the best way forward. This team will be directly shaping Mantic’s games in the year to come – if that sounds like something you want to be a part of, then keep reading!
Our games are enjoyable and exciting – and we need your help to keep that fresh and exciting!
Responsibilities
• Acting on community feedback
• FAQs and Errata – updating our “living” rulebooks
• Playtesting our new games and systems
• Ad-hoc new rules (e.g. minor supporting releases, campaign packs, retailer support products)
• Ongoing playtesting and development of core systems
• Eventual development of larger projects such as supplements
What’s in it for me?
• First and foremost, you will be working with our Studio team on the hottest new releases – you will have a direct impact on our games, and you’ll get to see all the shiny new stuff before it hits the shelves.
• You will be invited to monthly meetings on Skype to share your opinions and agree on the future direction of our systems.
• If you can get to Nottingham we will also run gaming events where we can all meet face to face and try out your ideas first hand!
• You will have full access to our reference library and IP bible, and you’ll receive free copies of any product that you have worked on.
• Additional rewards will be available for the best and most innovative ideas.
• Finally, and most importantly, you could be our games designers of the future! As Mantic grows, we hope to be able to take on more staff on a freelance or even permanent basis. The studio is where all of our products begin their life – it’s the hub of the business and it’s an exciting place to be! When the time comes, our trusted rules committee will be our first port of call for the top talent.
How to apply
Our ideal applicants will be people who are creative, but can also nail down the logical steps required to create a tactical, fun and of course understandable game. There are undoubtedly a lot of people out there with such talents, but we need to keep the team to a manageable number to ensure that effective decisions can be made. Therefore we’ve set up a short exercise to test out your abilities and pick the best candidates.
You have a choice of two of our most established systems to work with, Kings of War and DreadBall. Here’s what we’re looking for:
DreadBall Challenge Cup
This is where the DGB take the DreadBall leagues to the strangest or most inhospitable planets in the galaxy to test the players to their limits. Each section of the Challenge Cup will present an alternative way of playing DreadBall to represent these conditions.
• Design a setting and an MVP
• Write the background for the setting
• What makes it different – rules for the pitch, players, events etc
• You have the option of including a set of extra cards if you wish
Kings of War Narrative Campaign
This can be based around any part of the Kings of War universe, but should tell a story through a series of scenarios, playable by the average Kings of War player (so no 15,000 point sieges please :-P)
• Background and storyline
• 3-4 Scenarios with knock-on effects
• Special units for each side if desired
• Key characters for each side if desired
In both cases, other than the information above the brief is open, so it’s a chance to be creative. We’re looking for a finished piece of 1500-3000 words, depending on chosen content. Obviously it won’t have to have been playtested, so don’t worry if the balance isn’t quite right. It’s the initial ideas and presentation that are important. To summarise what we’re looking for:
• Tactical subtlety
• Innovation
• Working within the format and ethos of existing rules
• Synergy
• Rules presented in a concise format
• Working to a brief and to deadline
Submissions must be sent to stewart.gibbs@manticgames.com by the 23rd of July 2014 and must be accompanied with a signed copy of the following document:
Brokkers tuned out nice (well in resin at least ) first time FF have felt properly Sci-Fi and not just Dwarfs in space
glad I added the FF starter at the last minute
and ruined terrain which will hit retail before backers get theirs but all other retail releases are pushed back until after backers get them - they needed something to release in June.
Understandable why they have decided to do that igiven the complaints that some KS backers have levelled at them in the past.
But the way it is worded is:
"To ensure that this happens, we’ve pushed the Asterian, Forge Father and Enforcer retail releases back until after the Kickstarter packages ship."
Given the time and effort needed to ship the KS I can still see some things being available at retail before everybody has their second shipment. Not an issue to me though.
and ruined terrain which will hit retail before backers get theirs but all other retail releases are pushed back until after backers get them - they needed something to release in June.
Brokkrs do look good. I didn't add them in, and I can certainly afford to wait as it will take me forever to clean and paint everything else already. But it's looking more likely that I'll pick these up when they do hit retail.
Those Brokkr look great! Like the orange jump suit colour scheme as well, and the proportions are somewhat different from what seems to be the standard dwarf (where they don't have knees).
Also - is that a non-Caucasian sci-fi miniature I spy?! I thought that wasn't allowed?!
The fact that you're charged each time you add something new to the PM (beyond your original pledge) is great. If this PM will be open until November (really?), you could spend $30 a month on it instead of having to put down a whopping extra $180 in one go, and then having to explain that to the wife.
Not that I see myself spending that much more; stupidly, I front-loaded most of my pledge payment anyway. But it sure makes it easier to get the odd add-on you might have felt pressured to cut out of a large done-in-one payment. I could definitely see getting some more acrylic doors and windows for Deadzone.
We will close off the Pledge Manager on the 30th September.
Still that's 4 months to add things. I've ordered what I want but I have a few things on a reserve list that if I have some spare funds in the next 4 months I might get as well. Plus they still have a few paid for extras to add later like the backer MVPs
It's a 40% Discount shopping cart for anyone to buy anything Dreadball direct from Mantic for the next year or so, essentially, with flat rate shipping of $5.
I may just make use of it, the $340 bundle is really tempting now that it includes the boosters.
So I got mine this afternoon and filled it out. Am I the only one who sprung for some of the Deadzone zombies? Also picked up the MA team. I didn't want the whole game, but I loved the movie. Dreadball team seemed perfect.
Yeah... I think I"m there with you Dave. Maybe 90 for me, but same thing. Seems like a neat way to get ALL THE DREADBALLS, but I'm not sure how much I want that. Maybe the base game, though Xtreme seems more brutal and therefore more fun to me
Those Brokkr are awesome. And kudos on the painter for remembering that people (even fictitious sci-fi dwarf people ) come in more than one skin tone. Overall, a great job on the sculpt and the paint job.
I more or less opted for the autofill pledge, but I nitpicked a few things since I already had a lot of mats from Deadzone. Looking forward to seeing how well the two types of scenery mix.
Building the DZ buildings is pretty fun, as long as you've got enough clips or plan to glue. Painting is neat too, there are a lot of surface details, raised or flat, to paint or not paint. I'm finding the tiles and my buildings to be a good size to start working on my airbrushmanship.
That said, I'm having at least as much fun building scratch/found/junk terrain as I am making the DZ stuff :p
Personally, I still think the all in pledge for Mars Attacks was a great sandbox full of carnage.
I tweaked the all in pledge a bit (tossed out the extra mats since I've got DZ ones) and ended up with more Martians and a crap ton of giant bugs.
After binging on Walord's Bolt Action sprues, I'm thinking I'm going to have me a good old slice of 50s Americana Giant Bug Bash, with the Marines attempting to save Greenville from Communist science gone wrong.
If we have until September I may hold out just to see how much more crap ends up at the various pledge levels.
GrimDork wrote: I more or less opted for the autofill pledge, but I nitpicked a few things since I already had a lot of mats from Deadzone. Looking forward to seeing how well the two types of scenery mix.
Building the DZ buildings is pretty fun, as long as you've got enough clips or plan to glue. Painting is neat too, there are a lot of surface details, raised or flat, to paint or not paint. I'm finding the tiles and my buildings to be a good size to start working on my airbrushmanship.
That said, I'm having at least as much fun building scratch/found/junk terrain as I am making the DZ stuff :p
A local online retailer had the mats heavily discounted a month or so ago. Cheaper than the KS prices. Boy did it make me glad that I pledged for several in the KS. I did order some extra clips sprues. We'll see if I got enough once the stuff arrives - when's the ship date for DZ and MA supposed to be again?
GrimDork wrote: I more or less opted for the autofill pledge, but I nitpicked a few things since I already had a lot of mats from Deadzone. Looking forward to seeing how well the two types of scenery mix.
Building the DZ buildings is pretty fun, as long as you've got enough clips or plan to glue. Painting is neat too, there are a lot of surface details, raised or flat, to paint or not paint. I'm finding the tiles and my buildings to be a good size to start working on my airbrushmanship.
That said, I'm having at least as much fun building scratch/found/junk terrain as I am making the DZ stuff :p
A local online retailer had the mats heavily discounted a month or so ago. Cheaper than the KS prices. Boy did it make me glad that I pledged for several in the KS. I did order some extra clips sprues. We'll see if I got enough once the stuff arrives - when's the ship date for DZ and MA supposed to be again?
You and me both Azazel. I think I've snapped a good dozen or so of my clips- but managed to rescue a few that weren't beyond saving lol.
When it comes, the pledge manager email is actually going to say Dreadball Extreme Pledge Manager in the subject line, right? It's not going to be something I mistake for spam and accidentally delete, is it?
Those Brokkrs look really good. I am looking forward to using the ForgeFathers to make myself a modernized Squat force for games of 2nd edition 40K.
Unfortunately it will have to be retail, as the clinical-level of avoidance of posting any real Forgefather model images other than a blurry Brokkr pic made me stay out of the Kickstarter, as I could not justify paying the money for things sight-unseen, as Mantic has only a so-so record of following their artistic renderings.
What we really need now is a really good shot of a painted squad of the exo-armor.
I just hope that the new Deadzone forces (FF, Asterians, Martians, Humans) are all viable on the field. Too bad about the Rebs; from what I've been reading, some house rules may be required to make them competitive.
Think I'll be giving the Marauder team to my wife or young son to play, or to anyone with less of an interest in Deadzone than myself. Playing against the Marauders sounds like giving yourself a handicap.
As for playing as the Marauders vs. the Rebs, not for me. Sounds like a boring steamroll to victory. Hopefully at least one of the new teams will be able to give the Marauders a run for their money, as I've been modifying the heck out of my Orx and have actually started to like them. It'd be nice to field them against a challenging rival someday.
Vermonter wrote: I just hope that the new Deadzone forces (FF, Asterians, Martians, Humans) are all viable on the field. Too bad about the Rebs; from what I've been reading, some house rules may be required to make them competitive.
Think I'll be giving the Marauder team to my wife or young son to play, or to anyone with less of an interest in Deadzone than myself. Playing against the Marauders sounds like giving yourself a handicap.
As for playing as the Marauders vs. the Rebs, not for me. Sounds like a boring steamroll to victory. Hopefully at least one of the new teams will be able to give the Marauders a run for their money, as I've been modifying the heck out of my Orx and have actually started to like them. It'd be nice to field them against a challenging rival someday.
I find the main issue with the rebs is the scour(item grabbing) missions are pretty tough and easy to interrupt and it accounts for half of their missions.
I've played the Asterians and they are definitely capable.
They have some very hard counters to some of the cheesiest stuff in the game.
For starters, they can't be pinned or suppressed, so Sentry Guns are less nuts... but it also means that if a mawbeast is getting stuck in, you can freely blaze away into the melee cube to put it down rather than risk a break off.
Cypher Primes are an excellent melee tank unit, Black Talons are massively superior Kraaw for a few points more.
And then, their drones are lots of fun too... they have an ap1 sentry gun with frag.
Forgefathers seem viable, but I don't expect more than one forge guard to be making an appearance in 70-point lists (in fact, none at all might be best), the missions are too hard with a low mini count. Luckily, Brokkrs are cheap and good since deadzone is a melee game, with tough rather than armor, they are a bit more resilient against the mawbeasts, a pair of them in a cube with enraged is certainly enough to smack it up rather than getting eaten + infinite fight chain of death. Valkyrs are rather great too.
scarletsquig wrote: Forgefathers seem viable, but I don't expect more than one forge guard to be making an appearance in 70-point lists (in fact, none at all might be best), the missions are too hard with a low mini count. Luckily, Brokkrs are cheap and good since deadzone is a melee game, with tough rather than armor, they are a bit more resilient against the mawbeasts, a pair of them in a cube with enraged is certainly enough to smack it up rather than getting eaten + infinite fight chain of death. Valkyrs are rather great too.
Glad to hear the FF will be viable, as the models are looking better all the time. A bit silly that I'll only be able to field one Forge Guard out of the 10 I'll be receiving, though. (5 from the booster deal, 5 from the starter.) Valkyr effectiveness makes me happy I went in on the booster bundle deal.
DaveC wrote: Well now look what they hid in the Ruined Quadrant pictures
That's the Brokkr Mining Platform and Remote Bomb-bot
Love the models, not sold on the paint job for these (which is no big deal, of course.)
Together the models look a bit like a momma mining laser and her little bomb-bot child.
Oh yeah . . . little family narrative going on in that photo. First Momma laser blasts a hole through the wall, then Grampa dwarf sends junior bombot through the hole to blow up the Marauders.
Nice , was wondering but when are these going to be released for retail? and are these going to be released alongside the new Peacekeeper armour Enforcers?
Not sure if it'll all release in that month either, odds are it'll be a gradual release... plague zombies and their book/ card deck aren't going to be out until December for non-KS backers.
Depends whether they decide to put the whole shebang on preorder at once or stagger them over a few months, but the walkers are shipping in wave 2 as well, so same time as everything else bar the ruins - after the KS packages are mailed
Ok, cheers for replies I just got the starter for my birthday and I am really looking forward to having a captain and a squad in peacekeeper armour in my games in the future tbh..
Picked up a Landing Pad at the UK Board Games Expo today, nice change of packaging, the pad and the defence lines come bagged like this:
Think it is a pretty good idea to allow those consumers with no prior knowledge/experience of the product to see what they are buying into. Probably also saves Mantic some cash on packaging. The other sets are in boxes/sleeves like the original battlezone set. The Sci-Fi Urban Quadrant is a massive box of scenery and if you get it at discount retailers it looks like a great deal.
That bomb bot is cute in a manly, bearded kind of way. Also good to see that some of the Brokkrs reflect the point that we have reached Peak Beard.
Really liking the forge father stuff so far. I'm probably going to have to get more of them eventually, may be (one of) my go to faction(s) for the Warpath Kickstarter. Almost wish I had ordered more, but I'll surely survive till the other kickstarter.
I really like those Brokkr's and the bomb bot. Seem like great little sculpts, and they feel less like "dwarves in space." Still not wild about them toting around hammers, but I might be able to suspend my disbelief.
The Brokkrs clearly need more drills. I for one like the fact that the Brokkrs are not your typical fantasy or sci-fi dwarves, I especially like the fact that they aren't 95% beard. Now if only they had some mining power armor. I wish Hasslefree had a drill arm with their Grymn power armor.
Hmm one of the Veerr-myn boxes has drills. Maybe something to look out for on the cheap, say when miniature market or the like is doing mass clearance again or what have you. Actually maybe several of the veer-myn kits have drills, I was just thinking of the one with nothing but.
The hammers do tend to tie the universe a bit more to sci-fantasy, than if they just had more guns or something. Or hell, even just combat knives "just in case", though I think brokkrs are fairy fighty so having *some kind* of dedicated melee weapon may make sense in the close quarters of a deadzone.
I have some of the Veer-Myn with the hand drills. They're kind of tiny. Some kind of Brokkr with an exo-suit mounting a big ass mining drill would be neat somwhere down the line. Pickaxes could have been a good alternative to the hammers, too.
I think you should BANE yourself for a day for that one. Jeez. That was just about the easiest one out there...and you dropped the ball. Take a break. Have a lemonade. Snort some sprue shavings.
If they really wanted to be smart, they would have given the Scrappers demolition tools. Just as good for bludgeoning people, but much better for breaking things.
Though those tracked vehicles look cool, so did the resin master of the marauder gun truck. Once put into restic, it is a softly detailed mold line infested mess.
Do you think Mantic has changed their manufacturing process enough that these brokkr vehicles won't end up as disappointments?
AlexHolker wrote: Has there been any indication that they might add a new team as a stretch goal, or are the twelve all they've got?
There hasn't been much at all. They started with Phantasm, so presumably M'Zei Kein and Gemini are on the docket. After that, all they need is one Hobgoblin star player to have one MVP per team, bringing things in line with ODB. They also mentioned the 4th giant (the spider) as a possibility if funds got high enough, and it didn't seem like they'd thought about anything beyond that.
Mantic said they would put out a stretch goal update early this week, so hopefully they will go into how they plan to structure future goals then.
Wow, those ruins look quite good. I know these got briefly mentioned several pages ago, but this actually looks like something I might want... unlike the terrain when it didn't have the ruined options/pieces, as it just looked too blocky.
A bit off topic at the moment, but does anyone think Warpath will actually launch this year? Have Mantic updated their info on that since the Open Day?
I haven't heard anything. As much stuff as they previewed at the open day that looked pretty far along, pretty much none of it was Warpath. I would say its gonna be awhile.
Yep, still don't have my DBX pledge manager invite, comments response was "it's already been sent" and no reply to my private message, getting quite annoyed now.
SS-they're gonna release a new ruleset *before* the kick starter? I wonder how that would even work. Would tie their hands as to what units were options in the KS, but they might already have planned it out. Would much prefer to see the simple army lists of v2 remain within the rulebook itself. I don't hate the concept of army books(especially for fluff, galleries, and elaboration) but I certainly don't mind armies contained in the main book either.
Hmm.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I certainly don't want them to go crazy with a 40k 7th end 3 book release... but I *would* like to see them put out a nice book and not shoot themselves in the foot. V2 isn't bad, I guess, but anything hoping to challenge for more market share should probably be sharper.
Pretty sure he's referring to the beta rules for Warpath 3.0 that all the Deadzone backers are getting for free with shipment two, so it's not a proper release and it doesn't lock them into anything.
still haven't received my DBX invite either. But, seeing as I only put $1 into this one, I'm not really in a hurry for it, either. I can wait a bit longer.
I think we should all wait until they have some production models to see, and a print for every item on the pledge manager. Then they might actually have a motive to stick to the art they sold us on during the kickstarter campaign.
Barzam wrote: still haven't received my DBX invite either. But, seeing as I only put $1 into this one, I'm not really in a hurry for it, either. I can wait a bit longer.
Whilst I haven't had a direct reply to my comments, other people that have asked on the KS comments have been told they've already had them sent out, and one guy in particular was told they already had his completed and submitted!
So barring some major brainfarts out there, Mantic could be having technical issues that they're so far not aware of.
I have not heard any such rumour before but over on his blog Jake Thornton mentions the possibility of a Stalingrad variant for Deadzone, if anything happens it seems way off in the future. And if anything does happen what does Jake actually mean?
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: I have not heard any such rumour before but over on his blog Jake Thornton mentions the possibility of a Stalingrad variant for Deadzone, if anything happens it seems way off in the future. And if anything does happen what does Jake actually mean?
I imagine it would mean a historical game based on the Deadzone engine for WW2 era street-fighting... Which would actually be pretty awesome, if something of a departure from what Mantic have done until this point. But Hard Plastic WW2 ruins and buildings, and another DZ-based game... I wouldn't say no!
I would. While World War Two Russia is one of the least gak historical factions as far as I'd be concerned, it's still restic-laden historical garbage that further distracts Mantic from doing the one thing that might make them worth following.
I would. While World War Two Russia is one of the least gak historical factions as far as I'd be concerned, it's still restic-laden historical garbage that further distracts Mantic from doing the one thing that might make them worth following.
No one would be forcing you to buy it, and it's the kind of product that could be KS-and-done, so to speak. Assuming there's hard plastic terrain, I could see it appealing to the historical 28mm crowd in the same way Deadzone did to the Infinity/40k players- people would be buying enough to cram a 6x4 table with the stuff.
And who knows, he said it would be far in the future if at all, and I imagine after the Warpath KS, Restic may well be a thing of the past (largely depending on the quality of the Zombies or Enforcers)
CptJake wrote: I can't see 3x3 cubes in plastic appealing to a lot of historical gamers. It just wouldn't look like the actual buildings.
Of course not just cubes, but I can see modular and ruined historical terrain (think a more realistic version of the DZ Ruins terrain) doing well. Also, the 3x3 mechanic exists in deadzone for simplicity, but there is plenty of scope in the system to move beyond it.
I'm just saying, I can see this doing fairly well and offering something new if they go for it.
You can't sell 'Stalingrad' without some of the actual buildings. A generic WW2 Urban Combat game? Maybe. But call the setting Stalingrad and then hope to use generic modular buildings isn't going to attract the folks looking for historical accuracy.
There are several companies that make Stalingrad terrain in several scales. They've modeled specific buildings that were locations for key engagements for a reason.
Err.. historicals? What are you lot waffling about now?
Am I the only person on here capable of reading between the lines on Jake's blog posts?
"Stalingrad" doesn't mean "Mantic is going to produce a WW2 line of terrain", if you read the post it is pretty clear from the context that it refers to a Deadzone campaign supplement that follows a similar theme to the IRL battle, with an army trapped inside a city and stubbornly resisting. Probably a Rebs vs. Enforcers campaign book or something like that.
Ah, I see the reply there.. he also mentions just using the brick Mars Attacks buildings, so odds are Mantic wouldn't produce anything for it, and it'd be a case of Warlord selling a bundle of rules, minis and some MA terrain.
scarletsquig wrote: Ah, I see the reply there.. he also mentions just using the brick Mars Attacks buildings, so odds are Mantic wouldn't produce anything for it, and it'd be a case of Warlord selling a bundle of rules, minis and some MA terrain.
Indeed. Warlord could get a mat made representing 'generic European town', get a bunch of MA terrain sprues together, bundle in some of their WW2 sprues (they've got a decent range now). Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt, etc etc.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Azazelx wrote: Dunno, I read the "restic-laden" to be the comment about the miniatures. Restic says it all, really.
I can still see 'restic-laden historical garbage' as being a single proposition, but I don't deny you could well be right.
Azazelx wrote: Dunno, I read the "restic-laden" to be the comment about the miniatures. Restic says it all, really.
I can still see 'restic-laden historical garbage' as being a single proposition, but I don't deny you could well be right.
Riquende and Azazelx both demonstrate considerable critical acuity in their respective analyses, but they are essentially slipping into positivism and attempting to find a definitive answer to an inherently open-ended, philosophical question.
Who could ever know the mind of Alex Holker? The only thing we can be certain of is that "restic-laden historical garbage" will continue to generate new meaning and inspire fresh interpretation long after all of us have passed on.
@Vermonter: don't really care what's in his mind, surfing through his comments in Mantic threads, he's had all of about 3 semi-positive (aka: not negative) comments regarding Mantic anything-plans, games, mini quality, etc. All other comments have been pretty much worthless. If he posts an opinion, it carries less weight to me than just about any other comment by anyone else. I have no interest in Stalingrad stuff, myself, because I'm not a historical nut. But some are, so hopefully whatever Jake makes, it'll make the history buffs happy.
And there's the Perrys and Tabletop Workshop too... the latter is really worth a look since they've reduced their prices a bit and now offer free worldwide shipping:
All hard plastic! Rather liking the new desert mud huts and the ramshackle barn.
There's plenty of good stuff out there, and it all works great for KoW or fantasy. I don't see much need for Mantic to add much beyond their mars attacks stuff and in any case the 3" connector terrain only really works with Deadzone due to the narrative explanation of how the sci-fi terrain is constructed via robots.
Vermonter wrote: Who could ever know the mind of Alex Holker? The only thing we can be certain of is that "restic-laden historical garbage" will continue to generate new meaning and inspire fresh interpretation long after all of us have passed on.
Anything that starts out with the word "restic" instantly makes me turn away, these days... I was fortunate and my friend wanted to add on the cars from Mars Attacks for terrain, so I adjusted my pledge for those in the pledge manager (instead of what I had planned to purchase) and am not personally waiting on anything from Mantic now.
CptJake wrote:I can't see 3x3 cubes in plastic appealing to a lot of historical gamers. It just wouldn't look like the actual buildings.
Paradigm wrote:Also, the 3x3 mechanic exists in deadzone for simplicity, but there is plenty of scope in the system to move beyond it.
The 3x3 grid system was actually first used by historical gamers, way back in the early 1960s by Joe Morschauser.
Spoiler:
And people still play using his ideas.
Spoiler:
Mantic's decision to go with a 3x3 grid comes from a longstanding tradition of trying to get wargaming to fit in a smaller space with less figures and a means of simplifying rules interactions.
It's also become common for people to take the simple hex based games like Command & Colours, Battlecry and Tide of Iron and use them as a basis for a historical miniatures game. I think there's room for a return of the Morschauser grid in a commercial product for historicals.
Spoiler:
Likely though, SS is right. It's probably about the Stalingrad aesthetic and situation rather than literally a historical game.
You missed my point by focusing on a 3x3 grid. I have nothing against that. It is the modular buildings that frankly don't look like Stalingrad that I was against.
CptJake wrote: You missed my point by focusing on a 3x3 grid. I have nothing against that. It is the modular buildings that frankly don't look like Stalingrad that I was against.
And you think the people playing hex based command & colours care whether or not a hex board really looks like Austerlitz or Jena? The impression is good enough.
And for Stalingrad, terrain that sits on the edges of the each square can be very appropriate. The photos and meagre footage of the fighting there shows a ton of intact and semi-intact building facings. And the fighting was often into and across small streets and into and out of intact and semi-intact building facings. And like the people continuing to play with grid wargames from the 60s to today, including Deadzone, terrain along the edges of the squares to determine what type of terrain the square counts as is the way to go.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vermonter wrote: Regardless, a very interesting post, frozenwastes. Thanks!
I ended up getting a ton of 1960s material in an estate sale and it's surprising to me just how many of the ideas I'm finding in there are becoming fashionable again. Grid based games, alternating activation, lower model counts, etc.,.
I hope Mantic can make Deadzone as much of a post-Kickstarter success as they have for Dreadball. I really like the idea of a Morschauser style game being commercially viable again beyond people miniaturizing board games like C&C or Memoir 44 and the tiny groups of historical gamers that play his stuff at the occasional convention (like the tournament in the pictures in my last post).
And there's the Perrys and Tabletop Workshop too... the latter is really worth a look since they've reduced their prices a bit and now offer free worldwide shipping:
There's another DBX update, the Kickstarter is officially still running... another stretch goal has already been broken (free MVP!) and there's another stretch goal for another free MVP at $600k.
I'll be keeping the KS thread in the Mantic forums updated:
I keep half expecting to see my dad in one of those pictures.
One of these days I'll just have to find some sort of historical gaming group and drag him to it. He'd probably enjoy it, especially since none of his kids share his passion for military history and recreating famous battles. Barzam does to a degree, but he'd much rather have his space stuff, and I'd much rather have big giant reptiles that could eat and step on all his pew pew spacemen.
They keep tossing in those MVPs and I'm afraid I'll finally just have to break down and order a Rampage pledge. I'll wait until the giant spider shows up. I was really interested in that, and I think that will finally tip me over the edge.
Okay, so for someone who doesn't own a single DBO thing but is going big on DBX... would you recommend getting the original game? I'm going to get some of the cool-looking old teams to use in DBX, of course, but is there a point in getting the base game?
It's a significant amount of money even with the discount and I'm not really loving the 2 teams in the DBO starter, plus then I'd want the DBO deluxe mousepad mat and probably Ultimate too, not to mention all the rulebooks (as an aside, why can DBX have all the rules for all 6 seasons in one book but DBO is spread amongst 6 books?)
If you don't like the two teams in DBO, you're better off buying a couple teams you like, then going to your FLGS and buying Dreadball - Extra Time which is the deck of cards, refbot and pdf rules. Then you can either get the deluxe mat for the original game in the pledge manager, or you can have a custom one made for roughly the same price from http://www.inkedplaymats.com/
Edit: Which basically is to say no, if you don't like the two teams in it there's not much point getting the full original game, the $17 Kickoff Extra Time and a paper printout of the board and tokens to go along with whatever original teams you buy is enough to play the original game.
Now that the info seems to be in the public domain after being confirmed.. I'll mention it here:
- Deadzone Kickstarter wave 2 will ship with a copy of the Warpath 3.0 rules.
Or, to put it more accurately, Warpath 1st Edition.. in the same way that the KoW hardback is considered 1st Edition despite also having 1.0 and 2.0 rules before it.
scarletsquig wrote: Now that the info seems to be in the public domain after being confirmed.. I'll mention it here:
- Deadzone wave 2.0 Kickstarters will ship with a copy of the Warpath 3.0 rules.
Pretty sure Ronnie blabbed it on a Beastsofwar video during Adepticon when he basically released the entire Mantic platform for 2014/15 after being pressed once with the hard hitting question "What next for Mantic?"
Ronnie gives out info more freely when the questions aren't putting him on the defensive and are open-ended enough for him to get talking and get enthusiastic about the topic.
I always internally groan at open day seminars when half the questions are "why does x suck?" because the answers are usually complex by nature and it takes time away from the good stuff.
Whhheeeeeeee!! Looking forward to a good Sci-Fi game again involving little plastic men. We used to have one of those. Then it died. Good thing a replacement is on the way. 3 > 6 or 7!!
I don't like movement trays for anything 20th century or later, to include Sci-Fi. With the advances in tech that have occurred and are likely to occur, guys lined up or clustered together that closely just does't look right to me for any game where the player takes on the role of a platoon leader or company commander.
Now, if the player is supposed to be a BN commander and is maneuvering platoons or companies, platoon bases are appropriate.
At 28mm I'm not a fan. Movement trays make sense for fantasy and historical because that was actually how they fought. Modern and later combat where the soldiers spread out to avoid area-effect weaponry makes the movement trays into an undesirable break from immersion, IMO.
At 15mm and under, well, obviously it's fine since infantry are super tiny anyway and the area covered by a base is actually pretty sizable.
scarletsquig wrote: Now that the info seems to be in the public domain after being confirmed.. I'll mention it here:
- Deadzone Kickstarter wave 2 will ship with a copy of the Warpath 3.0 rules.
Or, to put it more accurately, Warpath 1st Edition.. in the same way that the KoW hardback is considered 1st Edition despite also having 1.0 and 2.0 rules before it.
It won't be WP3.0 rules. It'll be beta 3.0 rules. They won't be final and Mantic are willing to make significant changes based on feedback.
scarletsquig wrote: Out of curiosity, what does everyone think of the idea of movement trays and element basing (5 models on a movement tray) for a sci-fi game?
I'm not even sure myself what the new rules will look like, but this is something Ronnie has mentioned.
Make it 4 to a base and I'm in.
Something like this, but with a more irregular pattern (with a couple of different patterns for variety's sake) and maybe rounded corners:
I'm partial to the concept at high quantities but you'd sacrifice some playability doing so. I always wondered if there was a 2d (ie. x, y) version of one of these sphere expander toys to act as a movement tray where you could expand or contract to create different spacing between the models on the fly.
Alpharius wrote: Movement trays for SF games just don't seem 'right' to me.
With SF combat being primarily a ranged thing, it just seems...wrong.
I see no real difference between this and infantry squads in something like Epic, or (for the kids) Dropzone Commander, and the same concerns never get raised there.
It all depends on the scale of the game, for me. If my group of 4 guys are going to move around together everywhere, and have to maintain coherency at all times, and there are no downsides inherent in the rules (things like blast templates) AND they're one of 20 or so similar squads of guys doing the same thing? Then yes, movement tray every time thanks, even at 28mm.
I think it doesn't seem right because it's not currently done. If a game came along that popularised it, then greater acceptance could follow.
I see no real difference between this and infantry squads in something like Epic, or (for the kids) Dropzone Commander, and the same concerns never get raised there.
It all depends on the scale of the game, for me. If my group of 4 guys are going to move around together everywhere, and have to maintain coherency at all times, and there are no downsides inherent in the rules (things like blast templates) AND they're one of 20 or so similar squads of guys doing the same thing? Then yes, movement tray every time thanks, even at 28mm.
I think it doesn't seem right because it's not currently done. If a game came along that popularised it, then greater acceptance could follow.
As I alluded to with my post, it's not really raised there because the ground covered by a base is actually pretty sizable. Also, infantry and their tactics are rarely the focus of that scale of game and it is instead on vehicles/walkers and aircraft that normally don't appear on the table. At that scale the abstraction you're dealing with anyway encompasses the movement tray/base approach.
At 28mm my feeling is that model falls apart because the scale is close-in enough that soldiers clumping up looks wrong. Grenades and artillery are the primary reason soldiers tend to spread out and given their prevalence and effectiveness in modern combat saying that they will somehow be phased out in the far future stretches disbelief past the breaking point. To then try and further add on a lack of radios or other communications devices to facilitate more dispersion when those technolgies and tactics are already extant and it becomes patently ridiculous.
Could it be done? Maybe, as you say we've not seen someone really make a strong play at doing it. However, I'm extremely doubtful it can be done well enough at the scale to compensate for the damage being done to the suspension of disbelief.
Alpharius wrote: Movement trays for SF games just don't seem 'right' to me.
With SF combat being primarily a ranged thing, it just seems...wrong.
I see no real difference between this and infantry squads in something like Epic, or (for the kids) Dropzone Commander, and the same concerns never get raised there.
It all depends on the scale of the game, for me. If my group of 4 guys are going to move around together everywhere, and have to maintain coherency at all times, and there are no downsides inherent in the rules (things like blast templates) AND they're one of 20 or so similar squads of guys doing the same thing? Then yes, movement tray every time thanks, even at 28mm.
I think it doesn't seem right because it's not currently done. If a game came along that popularised it, then greater acceptance could follow.
OK?
I also don't like it as it makes dealing with terrain unnecessarily fiddly, complex and unwieldy.
Well, as someone who admittedly doesn't have much knowledge of modern 40K and the like:
I thought that most Sci-fi games above the skirmish level tended to require unit consistency, at least - no models more than 1 or 2 inches apart. This was flexible, so you could go single-file to get past difficult terrain, or in a long rank to maximise line of sight.
I also recall it being a *massive* pain to manage as the game sizes scaled up, particularly with large-but-cheap armies. You don't really care about the exact positioning of one grot in a group of forty.
Assuming that unit consistency rules are already in place, and we're dealing with quite a few 'squads', I can absolutely see the advantage. I don't think it would look too odd if the following rules were obeyed:
1) Irregular spacing on the round base 'slots', so that you don't get regular ranks.
2) A choice of 'round' trays, for more elite or scouting units, with wider spacing between the base slots. Troopers/grunts could get away with more rectangular trays, which could then be stacked to move large units as a whole.
And no limitations on removing the base mid-game so the models can set up in some ruins.
I don't think they really work for 'modern' games for the reasons detailed above, although you could go with them if you wanted,
If you did use the above idea the system would have to have a compatible movement system, as taking minis on/off a movement tray would be far to easy to game for extra distance
I also don't like it as it makes dealing with terrain unnecessarily fiddly, complex and unwieldy.
Only if the game's rules make it so.
I'm not actually that keen on movement trays, but I'm certainly willing to give them a go, and I've never seen any substance to the counterpoints, it always comes down to 'it feels wrong, it looks wrong, it seems wrong' etc.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Red Viper wrote: If the battle is large enough that movement trays are required to move infantry, then I don't think 30mm is the right scale.
That I agree with. I'll be honest and say that nothing I've heard about Warpath makes me think it's a game for me, if I want the sort of game Ronny envisions (tanks, planes, hordes of guys etc etc etc) then I'd just stick to my Epic armies.
If there were movement tray rules, I'd stick with 2.0. Fixed unit positions does not represent the flexible nature of modern/sci-fi warfare at all, and while it's an abstraction, it's one we can do without. I get the impression Warpath is meant to be in the 40-70 model range, not the 100+ (yet, although I wouldn't be averse to a separate ruleset) and at that size, I wouldn't feel any need to sacrifice a element of realism and tactics for simplicity at that scale.
I, too, would like to voice my opinion here... simply, I don't think that movement trays really work for a 28mm sci-fi setting. I actually quite like the idea of units being able to group up into a mob and put on a tray (and then given the option to dismount/remount whenever), as scarletsquig mentioned, but I don't know if it would really cut it.
I'm not sure if it would actually speed up gameplay, or improve simplicity, rather than add time consumption when playing.
Lastly, I would like to mention that, especially with round-based miniatures, having them spread out doing their own thing just looks nicer. It just isn't the same as with our square-based fantasy friends, when a big block of minis is an impressive spectacle.
Another important point is ease of adapting from 40k.
Like it or not, 40k is the thing that WP will be compared to.
Every design decision that takes you farther away from a 40k aesthetic is another excuse for folks not to try the game.
"I don't want to buy/make movement trays"
"That looks silly with sci-fi/skirmish."
"40k doesn't play like that. That's stupid!"
Decisions like removing template weapons in favor of dice for blasts are more supportable IMO. I'm sure most of us can point to at least one time our opponent either fudged a template placement and/or we at least disagreed on who got hit.
It does NOT require movement trays. I absolutely detest the idea of multibasing in 28mm modern/sci-fi games (I'm not even keen on IG weapon teams) so there's not even a hint of that here.
I'm not a fan of movement trays either. It works ok for fantasy or games where you need ranked troops.. but IMO if a game involves any kind of rapid firing guns and men that need to get into or outta dodge real fast, it seems like loose models just work better.
Looking forward to getting the ruined urban quadrant.. waiting to see if it shows up on the warstore soon, I'd rather order it domestic-like. Or am I better off just preordering from Mantic?
Weirdly if you already support them and have signed up for the newsletter you get nothing....unless you place an order for more stuff
Or unless you happen to have an extra e-mail address.
Their database also tracks your name and physical mailing address regardless of your email addy.
Also, there are only 500 of the FREE sprues available, per their website so folks will want to hurry.
privateer4hire wrote: Their database also tracks your name and physical mailing address regardless of your email addy.
Also, there are only 500 of the FREE sprues available, per their website so folks will want to hurry.
Silly idea, would a squad of 3 units per base with separate leader/specialist on a slandered base work better?, after
all don't most troops work in squads of ten. and it'd be small enough to fit around/in most terrain.
So a squad of ten troops breaks down into x3 joint bases with leader on a 25mm base for coherency purposes.
And a squad of Five would break down into x1 joint base with leader and specialist on x2 25mm bases.
It could be a good way of ranking up the grunts and reducing moving time while still retaining the flexibility
of troop movement and changing out the specialist/leaders for other options.
timetowaste85 wrote: Uh...the sprue give away states its random for people already signed up. So...you are still entered in if you're already on their mailing list.
It does?
To celebrate the launch of the Battlezones range of affordable modular wargames terrain in May – and the impending launch of the Ruins - we’re giving away 500 FREE hard plastic terrain sprues!!
CLAIM YOUR FREE WARGAMES SCENERY SPRUE
Claiming your free accessory sprue is simple - all you need to do is fill out and submit the form below! Not only will we post you out your accessory sprue free of charge, but you’ll also be signed up to the Mantic newsletter where you’ll receive updates on all the latest rumours, gossip, Kickstarters and great offers.
Note that you’ll only receive the terrain sprue if you are not already signed up to the Mantic Newsletter. If you are already signed up please check out the newsletter released on the 6th June because we are doing something special for you as well!
Full of barrels, crates, railings, ladders, lamp posts and more, the accessory sprue is packed with goodness and, if you *place an order on the Mantic Webstore before the 30th June of £15, €17.50, $25 or more, we will include a FREE sprue in your Order!
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!
Next week we will be randomly picking 50 lucky people who are already signed up to the newsletter to win one of these great accessory sprues - good luck!
Rolt wrote:Silly idea, would a squad of 3 units per base with separate leader/specialist on a slandered base work better?, after all don't most troops work in squads of ten. and it'd be small enough to fit around/in most terrain.
So a squad of ten troops breaks down into x3 joint bases with leader on a 25mm base for coherency purposes. And a squad of Five would break down into x1 joint base with leader and specialist on x2 25mm bases.
It could be a good way of ranking up the grunts and reducing moving time while still retaining the flexibility of troop movement and changing out the specialist/leaders for other options.
I think fire team bases make a lot of sense. Something like the ones the green jackets are in here:
Spoiler:
But perhaps even more widely spaced.
Also, wanted to ask a general opinion of recently received sprueless plastic from mantic. The last stuff I saw was the Chromium Chargers a friend of mine got and they were bad in terms of both heavy mould lines/flash and heat twisting. Like far worse than any Privateer Press models using the same plastic. Are things still like that?
I want to like Mantic so badly (I've been buying some of their rules as ebooks and using them with other miniatures), but after see those twisted robots, I'm super wary of their miniatures.
Restic genuinely has much improved from the days of Dreadball Season 2. However, that really is not to say it's perfect or anything like that. - The deadzone minis do still have some incredibly awkwardly positioned moldlines for example (Rebs Commanders hair, I'm looking at you!)
However, the models genuinely do have the potential for damn awesomeness once cleaned up.
I keep half expecting to see my dad in one of those pictures.
One of these days I'll just have to find some sort of historical gaming group and drag him to it. He'd probably enjoy it, especially since none of his kids share his passion for military history and recreating famous battles. Barzam does to a degree, but he'd much rather have his space stuff, and I'd much rather have big giant reptiles that could eat and step on all his pew pew spacemen.
I know everyone already has too many projects, but I bet you could make a nice self contained game set based off Deadzone with flocked squares and terrain and individually based soldiers. Pick an era you know he's interested in an keep it simple and self contained. My friend's wife hated miniature gaming until he made her a fully textured and painted Settlers of Catan set with the mountain hexes actually rising up and the brick hexes having little clay pits and straw piles and stuff. He made little huts and buildings and roads out of polymer clay and painted them up. He even found a miniature laden down with loot to be the robber and painted it up. After that she started to understand the attraction of miniature gaming and painting. PM me or start a thread about it in the Historical forum here and I'll be happy to talk about it more.
They keep tossing in those MVPs and I'm afraid I'll finally just have to break down and order a Rampage pledge. I'll wait until the giant spider shows up. I was really interested in that, and I think that will finally tip me over the edge.
The Astarian Kalyshi team is really growing on me. I think they'd be a great basis for a more wargaming appropriate conversion. I like this idea of not having missed out if I still want in.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Compel wrote: Restic genuinely has much improved from the days of Dreadball Season 2. However, that really is not to say it's perfect or anything like that. - The deadzone minis do still have some incredibly awkwardly positioned moldlines for example (Rebs Commanders hair, I'm looking at you!)
Was the DB Season 2 just a low period where their factory was doing crappy or something?
When you talk about awkwardly positioned moldlines, like on the hair, is it the type of thing where their removal would destroy detail? With the chromium chargers, it was like a half mm strip of no detail all the way around the figure once my friend managed to actually get the mould lines off the things.
However, the models genuinely do have the potential for damn awesomeness once cleaned up.
Yes they do. I'll go searching for more painted up examples of different figures I might be interested in.
IMO, the Chromium Chargers are about the worst, and the worst by an incredibly large margin at least amongst all the Mantic sci-fi stuff I have. I've gotten all the DreadBall stuff had a huge DeadZone order, and the mold lines, while they existed, weren't even on the same continent as the ones that were on the robots. I'm overall pleased with the models and to my recollection the only ones where the castings had "always have to be fixed" issues is the Marauders; particularly the Pyros and the Commanders. The Enforcer Missile Launcher deserves special mention for the integral base that both has platform shoes and then doesn't fit into the "full base" either.
That said, PVC models are a different beast entirely from traditional plastic in that you can seriously just crap out on quality in a given order. I had one Pyro that was fine outside of the spindly fuel hose. I had another where the nozzle end looked like it was 45 degrees to the direction it should have been in and the gun barely attached. So if you get reviews from one person who says "everything is awesome" and another who says "they're complete and utter gak still", they might both be telling the truth.
On the flip side correcting those flaws, while annoying in a product you paid good money for, isn't particularly complex either. A dunk in ridiculously hot water and the model becomes entirely flexible. You then reposition what's out of sorts, dunk it in cold water to "save" this new position and you're done. Out of a few hundred models (edit for clarity: and it's right around 300 or so atm), I've had to do that maybe a couple dozen and it hasn't failed yet. This feature of the material also makes it surprisingly easy to do some light conversion work since you can just re-position arms and legs as well.
As I stated earlier, I overall am quite pleased with what I've gotten from Mantic for DZ and DB. There's certainly room for improvement and I do hope they take advantage of that, but in terms of feeling like I got something worthwhile I would go with "yes" as the games are fun and the models good (not great like a DFG/KD:M, but good).
Just a side note for those joining the mailing list for the free sprue.. it's like the mafia in that you're in for life. I've tried unsubscribing a half dozen times with the links in the messages to no avail over the past two years. I guess I could try manually emailing them about it but judging from the response times with their website contact form posted here in the thread, I suspect it would be just as effective as my unsubscribing has been.
warboss wrote: Just a side note for those joining the mailing list for the free sprue.. it's like the mafia in that you're in for life. I've tried unsubscribing a half dozen times with the links in the messages to no avail over the past two years. I guess I could try manually emailing them about it but judging from the response times with their website contact form posted here in the thread, I suspect it would be just as effective as my unsubscribing has been.
Set up an email rule to auto-delete emails from the mailing list address?
darkPrince010 wrote: See, I have the opposite problem; I'm on the mailing list, but I haven't gotten the link for the contest. Can someone please email me a link for it?
It's not a contest in the sense that you have to do anything further.
If you are already receiving mantic newsletters then you're already entered for one of the 50 sprues.
If you don't already receive mantic's newsletter, then you can register and (as long as you're in time to be among the first new 500) automatically get a free sprue.
Krinsath wrote: IMO, the Chromium Chargers are about the worst, and the worst by an incredibly large margin at least amongst all the Mantic sci-fi stuff I have.
The only other Mantic stuff I've seen is the Warpath starter box Fate of the Forgestar or something and their plastic elves and undead for KoW. And the first Dreadball box game that he got through the local shop. And then he got the Chromium Chargers and I was all WTF?! What happened?
Good to hear it's their worst by an incredibly large margin and not normal. I'll let my friend know as he wanted to get some more DB teams, but was very, very wary after the chargers arrived.
As I stated earlier, I overall am quite pleased with what I've gotten from Mantic for DZ and DB. There's certainly room for improvement and I do hope they take advantage of that, but in terms of feeling like I got something worthwhile I would go with "yes" as the games are fun and the models good (not great like a DFG/KD:M, but good).
Thanks for the honest review. I'm in the process of selling off my Dystopian Wars stuff and I'll probably poke around for some more "in the wild" pictures of Deadzone stuff and get some of it.
if you would like, I can snap a picture of just about any model from DB and most of the models from DZ (except Marauders, I only have the base sets of them). Most of the DB stuff will be primered so details are slightly more apparent than bare restic though I haven't gotten to primering DZ stuff yet (got side-tracked by FoW...gaming ADD and all that).
Krinsath wrote: if you would like, I can snap a picture of just about any model from DB and most of the models from DZ (except Marauders, I only have the base sets of them). Most of the DB stuff will be primered so details are slightly more apparent than bare restic though I haven't gotten to primering DZ stuff yet (got side-tracked by FoW...gaming ADD and all that).
I'd really appreciate something like 1 guy from each DBO team.
Krinsath wrote: if you would like, I can snap a picture of just about any model from DB and most of the models from DZ (except Marauders, I only have the base sets of them). Most of the DB stuff will be primered so details are slightly more apparent than bare restic though I haven't gotten to primering DZ stuff yet (got side-tracked by FoW...gaming ADD and all that).
I'd really appreciate something like 1 guy from each DBO team.
Not sure if you meant in a group or individually so I just went with both. I seem to have mislaid most of my Z'Zor though, so I only had the one random pair that I was sent with my S2 boosters. Group shot and link to images spoilered below. It's worth noting that I'm an incredibly lazy modeller, especially with DreadBall, so almost no clean-up outside of trimming sprues away was done. Also I'm using my airbrush spraybox as a lightbox so the images are not that awesome.
Spoiler:
WIP Cadian Officer shown for scale; remember he's on a GW base and thus a couple mm taller as a result.
Going through the models again for this, there is definitely the wide variation of quality I mentioned, and that applies within teams sometimes. Season 2 teams (Judwan, Z'Zor, Female Corp and Robots) are certainly the worst offenders with the Robots still holding the title. Season 1 teams seem mostly okay from my batch though the Veer-Myn are noticeably worse than the Corporation or Marauders. Season 3 is harder to judge because of the amount of metal I was shipped so my sample size is smaller, however they seem much improved over the Season 2 models, and even the Season 2 boosters I received later were much better. Granted, that bar is not particularly high since the Robots were awful, but still worth noting.
Yes. Thanks. It looks like Mantic is on a case-by-case basis when it comes to their sprueless plastic.
How's the Big Mech? It seems like it has enough gun port like things that I could use it for sci-fi wargaming straight away with little or no conversion.
EDIT: Never mind, i found a bunch of pictures elsewhere. It's not great. And it seems a bit small. I guess that's why they made the description say it's powered by an AI because it's a bit too small to be piloted.
I like the Big Mech, I was thrilled to get a pair of them in my christmas crazy boxen. I don't remember cleanup being a problem, and if you keep the intended pose, assembly was rather easy too. I just use him as a robot/merc, mostly for posing in pictures and looking cool. Weaponized this one with an imperial assault cannon and some missiles though he still needs a right hand weapon/gun...
Dammit Mantic, stop giving me things to throw money at! Or at the very least, release them so I can get it over with. I'm sure what they're doing to my finance constitutes torture in some countries.
Seriously, though, Howlett is looking awesome, and with that Strider, I feel Sentinel Squadrons waiting to happen.
Nope, your post is the first survey deadline. Bob is on the money. So just 3 odd weeks to pay Alpharius. (Edit, Petre got the wrong deadline, and I do not know what month it is, go us!).
Paradigm wrote: Dammit Mantic, stop giving me things to throw money at! Or at the very least, release them so I can get it over with. I'm sure what they're doing to my finance constitutes torture in some countries.
Seriously, though, Howlett is looking awesome, and with that Strider, I feel Sentinel Squadrons waiting to happen.
No! No sentinel squads!! I can't. I won't. I...yeah, who am I kidding? I'm gonna do it.
Wolverine looks awesome, can't wait to put him together in the brown and yellow.
Yes, those look good. However, are they production castings or really nicely painted and perfectly cast resin masters which once turned into production materials will be typical soft details and mold lines?
Isn't Howlett supposed to be metal? God, I hope so. Being how his namesake is supposed to have metal sounded his skin...it would be appropriate. I'm okay with restic, but I prefer when companies put those tiny little playful jabs in.
Got my *cough* 4 *cough* crazy boxes. Thankfully they had a much better system with at least 4 different contents, I got A, B, C and D labeled boxes. Great value as expected, I'm glad I now have a large variety of Warpath and Kings of War minis for painting funsies. The Basilean angel guys and Ogres are awesome have wanted them since I laid eyes on them. However, after having only recently finished cleaning my 3 Deadzone strike teams and 1 BOGOF for each faction I now have more restic to clean again ; p My thumbs are basically steel thanks to calouses from cleaning the other stuff now though so more bleeding shouldn't be much of a problem!
Can confirm the SS report of the Mantic clippers being good, can clip models right on the contact point without damaging the model which saves some work. Much better than my old Army Painter clippers.
Alpharius wrote: Oops!
I think I might have missed the deadline for paying for Survey 2 stuff!
Deadline was 2nd of June. If you send them an email, you might still get lucky.
Mars Attacks is due I believe July 2, and I still haven't received my invoice
Looks like I missed the deadline for DZ. I thought it was the end of June. I still don't have my MA one either. Which means they'll have to extend that one as well. Mantic seem pretty keen on bulk direct purchase monies and are pretty accommodating usually (check out that DZ KS Pledge Manager!), so I'm sure it'll be fine. I've just sent Stewart an email.
A friend missed the DZ wave 2 deadline (only by a day or two) and was told he could still pay.
I'm sure the deadline is only in place so that they're not trying to chase down thousands of payments when it's time to ship... if they can get 99% of their funding in and confirmed well before they're starting to pack up people's boxes, then it's much less of headache.
I've always had good luck with that one so I can't help too much... didn't we get one of those CS rep people specifically fur the 'murica or simlar? Also, the facebook route seems viable.
@Yonan, ooh grats on the crazy boxen, I was gonna get them but then I looked ahead to take a tally of how many minis I'll be getting this year from kickstarters.... yeah... I'm good for a decade :(
GrimDork wrote: @Yonan, ooh grats on the crazy boxen, I was gonna get them but then I looked ahead to take a tally of how many minis I'll be getting this year from kickstarters.... yeah... I'm good for a decade :(
Same situation here, but I needed a pair of clippers ; p My logic is faultless!
It's a really neat idea, makes sense to show it off 
Jealous you got to look at the new 
Janes Gully or something wasn't it?
