I may get this one over the Mythic Batman game coming in February. Been very happy with most of the Mantic Walking Dead models pending a couple of poor casts which have been replaced.
...the Hellboy board game will feature stunning, pre-assembled plastic miniatures that accurately capture the look and feel of Mike Mignola’s world famous comic series.
Aeneades wrote: I may get this one over the Mythic Batman game coming in February. Been very happy with most of the Mantic Walking Dead models pending a couple of poor casts which have been replaced.
Theophony wrote: They should get Rob Liefeld to make a game then they can use all those old Basilean men at arms figs.
He's busy sculpting the Mantic troll range
I'm a lot more interested by this than the walking dead. Always been interested in the Hellboy comics but never gotten around to it. Supposedly there's a pretty well fleshed out weirdwar-esque universe established through the comics, graphic novels etc.. (I assume that the license, similar to TWD is for adapting the comic universe rather than the movie depictions).
I've been extremely happy with The Walking Dead - in fact, I have the Safety Behind Bars expansion arriving in the mail today. It fits perfectly between board game and miniature game, without really giving up the strengths of either, and it is pretty respectful of the source material (despite not being a fan of the comic, I still appreciate this). The models are also at a halfway point, being preassembled or one piece, but using better plastic and having good design with some cool detail. And I really like the modular neoprene mats.
I've been disappointed with just about everything else Mantic has done and it seems like they abandon most of their games after a month, and this one sounds more in line with Dwarf/Star Saga than TWD. Mantic can do great work when they really want to. I just wish they wanted to more often.
Sqorgar wrote: I've been extremely happy with The Walking Dead - in fact, I have the Safety Behind Bars expansion arriving in the mail today. It fits perfectly between board game and miniature game, without really giving up the strengths of either, and it is pretty respectful of the source material (despite not being a fan of the comic, I still appreciate this). The models are also at a halfway point, being preassembled or one piece, but using better plastic and having good design with some cool detail. And I really like the modular neoprene mats.
I've been disappointed with just about everything else Mantic has done and it seems like they abandon most of their games after a month, and this one sounds more in line with Dwarf/Star Saga than TWD. Mantic can do great work when they really want to. I just wish they wanted to more often.
My understanding is it is based on twd game engine with adjustments made to take into account the more powerful protaganists of Hellboy and the potential for larger games, rather than being based on the dungeon/star saga games.
Not sure if that's a good thing as the walking dead was one of the 2 Mantic KS I did not back but i mostly see good things about it so I may go for this as I used to enjoy Hellboy.
Mignolaverse is good stuff. It's been going for quite some time. There's literally 1000s of pages of story out there if you're willing to invest the time reading it. Thankfully Dark Horse has been collecting a lot of the older paperback editions and collections them into big 400+ page hardcovers. I'm a sucker for Guy Davis art, so maybe I'm a bit impartial, but they're good books.
I'll check this out for sure. Love the books, was impressed with Walking Dead, satisfied with Star Saga so far... I like where Mantic is taking these board game projects.
Is this the Walking Dead compatible co-op boardgame they hinted at in the Walking Dead update, or is that an entirely different boardgame being planned?
And Alph, the Walking Dead miniatures did turn out very nice.
Barzam wrote: Is this the Walking Dead compatible co-op boardgame they hinted at in the Walking Dead update, or is that an entirely different boardgame being planned?
And Alph, the Walking Dead miniatures did turn out very nice.
This is a different game. The mantic blog article mentions that the secret upcoming game is based upon a walking dead story line.
SeanDrake wrote:My understanding is it is based on twd game engine with adjustments made to take into account the more powerful protaganists of Hellboy and the potential for larger games, rather than being based on the dungeon/star saga games.
Where are you getting this from? Reading the press release, they specifically mention "Up to four people take control of iconic BRPD members, such as Hellboy, Abe Sapien and Roger the Homunculus, before exploring gothic locations and uncovering ancient artifacts." - If it was TWD related, it wouldn't specifically call out 1-4 players, and "exploring gothic locations" makes me think a dungeon crawl.
If it is TWD related, that is the best possible outcome for me.
Barzam wrote:Is this the Walking Dead compatible co-op boardgame they hinted at in the Walking Dead update, or is that an entirely different boardgame being planned?
They specifically mention that the board game is "inspired by one of the major storylines in The Walking Dead", so it must be a different game.
I found TWD miniatures to be a bit "chunky" compared to other modern-day miniatures, but I thought they were otherwise fine. I don't like TWD's business model of selling you only one or two cast miniatures per box. Star Saga backers report different plastics used in the miniatures, resulting in, frex, the infamous bendy sf tables.
I didn't back Star Saga, so don't have the mini's. I guess I'll see how the Terrain Crate mini's are before deciding on Hellboy? I have the old HeroClix boxed set, myself. Thanks for the news!
Looks like Mantic is going the Spartan Games road, hm.
And yup, that certainly will mean the previous Kickstarters still in progress will push their release dates. As usual.
KoW releases are already impacted, anyway. See the blog announcement about 2018 releases for KoW : only monsters and characters. Such big releases for a mass battle wargame with so many lists and so few Mantic miniatures to play them.
... in the mantic hq they are not capable of focusing on making good miniatures and new races for the fantasy range kings of war????... warpath too damn!!!
It's always hard to tell from the outside looking in, if the change in focus is a Spartan like 'bored now, let's do something else;
or whether sales numbers are telling them that board games are the best way to go with the mass battle stuff useful for steady slower releases but not where the main money is coming from
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: It's always hard to tell from the outside looking in, if the change in focus is a Spartan like 'bored now, let's do something else;
or whether sales numbers are telling them that board games are the best way to go with the mass battle stuff useful for steady slower releases but not where the main money is coming from
IMO the latter is more likely. Many people play KoW and/or Warpath with non-Mantic miniatures that they already own so that limits what Mantic can earn from those games (and to be fair that's kinda how they are marketed and it's easy enough to find appropriate non-Mantic minis for most of the units in those games... it's too late for Mantic to pull back on that now). TWD has been their biggest money-maker ever, so this is not really all that surprising a move.
We are pleased to announce that our upcoming Hellboy board game – based upon the visionary comic book series by Mike Mignola – will be designed by well known tabletop games designer James M. Hewitt. With a wealth of high profile titles already under his belt, James will ensure the Hellboy board game lives up to the world famous source material.
The Hellboy board game will be a co-operative experience in which players face off against some of the comic’s most famous foes. Up to four people take control of iconic BPRD members, such as Hellboy, Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman, before exploring gothic locations and uncovering ancient artifacts.
After previously working at Mantic Games and Games Workshop, James now heads up the games design studio Needy Cat Games. In the past he has developed hugely popular titles, such as DreadBall, Necromunda 2017, Blood Bowl 2016, Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower and Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth.
“We wanted a talented games designer who could create a fun, co-operative board game that incorporates the atmosphere and drama of the comics,” said Ronnie Renton, Mantic Games CEO. “James has a wealth of experience making a diverse range of titles and he’s most certainly the man for the job.”
“This is – forgive the pun – one hell of a license to work with,” added James. “The thought of sinking my teeth into the BPRD’s adventures and reimagining them for the tabletop… well, that sounds more fun than a monkey with a gun. This is a great chance to make a narrative-led game that mixes big, loud action with a wry sense of humour. I can’t wait!”
Hellboy has appeared in graphic novels and comic books, prose novels and short story collections, two animated features, two live-action films, toy lines and all manner of merchandise.
The Hellboy board game will be launching on Kickstarter in April 2018. Make sure you sign up to the Mantic Games newsletter at www.manticgames.com for the latest developments.
I'm conflicted. I love Hellboy. I love cooperative dungeon crawls (which this sounds like). I do not love the quality of Mantic's models. I kind of wish anyone else was handling this.
Honestly? I'm GLAD Mantic is doing a Hellboy game. Because it's easy for me to skip and not even feel bad about it. Hope you guys enjoy the game, but I can happily sit this one out. Hope it does well for them though; just not my cup of tea.
Date of April 22nd is mentioned but that's a Sunday so might not be accurate.
- Co-op board game
- 30-32mm heroic scale (Hellboy is 36mm)
- Abe, Liz and Johann Krauss mentioned.
- Game will involve both investigation and combat - investigation will involve hunting, reading and gathering information
- 6 Bad guy bosses in KS. You don't encounter them until the last room and you won't know who you are facing until then so you may be ill equipped to deal with them (I guess this is where the investigation part comes into into it) Ronnie mentions bringing holy water because you think your facing a vampire but it ends up being something else holy water is useless against. You deal the boss randomly face down from a deck.
- There is also a deck of doom that generates other opponents and new challenges.
- The board tiles are not straight forward square tiles but they are not as complex as Dungeon Saga either. Cemetery, Haunted House and "rooms" mentioned. All artwork in the style of the comic book.
Nnnngh. I love Helloby, but I also love Mars Attacks. I invested heavily in that game post-Kickstarter and was promised Martian lists for Deadzone 2e and Warpath/Firefight. I got an unfinished beta for the former and zip for the latter.
I just don't have much confidence in Mantic's follow-through anymore. I just expect the Kickstarter product and done for their games now.
Kriswall wrote: I'm conflicted. I love Hellboy. I love cooperative dungeon crawls (which this sounds like). I do not love the quality of Mantic's models. I kind of wish anyone else was handling this.
Same here
- Hellboy yaaaaaaay
- Mantic Hell naaaaaaay
Kriswall wrote: I'm conflicted. I love Hellboy. I love cooperative dungeon crawls (which this sounds like). I do not love the quality of Mantic's models. I kind of wish anyone else was handling this.
Have you actually built any recently? Seems like many who hate base their view off of 1st gen sculpts. They did pretty well with Star saga recently (yaaaay doors!) and TWD is popular here. Dead zone models are also quite good
Kriswall wrote: I'm conflicted. I love Hellboy. I love cooperative dungeon crawls (which this sounds like). I do not love the quality of Mantic's models. I kind of wish anyone else was handling this.
Same here
- Hellboy yaaaaaaay
- Mantic Hell naaaaaaay
Kriswall wrote: I'm conflicted. I love Hellboy. I love cooperative dungeon crawls (which this sounds like). I do not love the quality of Mantic's models. I kind of wish anyone else was handling this.
Same here
- Hellboy yaaaaaaay
- Mantic Hell naaaaaaay
In all honesty though Mantic delivers a lot of value in their Kickstarters and actually sticks to their schedule, few other companies function so smoothly without 6 month plus delays over their "estimated" times. I have bought into the kickstarters from Mantic I like for the game and the others I didn't. Only one i missed out on that i was on the fence about was Mars attacks and kick myself for that. I did the KoW kickstarter which I was very happy with and the Walking Dead one, again very happy with. Tons of value for the money and I was happy with the outcome. With every project their miniatures seem to be getting better. They might not have the high refined quality of some of their competition but they definately have them on the value/ cost.
Thats's interesting - I had only grabbed some doors (which are the hard plastic), didn't know they went PVC for the rest of the kit. Not a big fan of TWD sculpts either (but to be fair, not a fan of the show either). Like always, the Mantic studio paint jobs never do anyone favors. The Star Saga sculpts looked pretty good even for being board-game level, I will have to find someone here with them. I don't know why they keep jumping around to different materials either... HIPS just works for 99% of the applications these days
Thats's interesting - I had only grabbed some doors (which are the hard plastic), didn't know they went PVC for the rest of the kit. Not a big fan of TWD sculpts either (but to be fair, not a fan of the show either). Like always, the Mantic studio paint jobs never do anyone favors. The Star Saga sculpts looked pretty good even for being board-game level, I will have to find someone here with them. I don't know why they keep jumping around to different materials either... HIPS just works for 99% of the applications these days
Quick answer....cost. HIPS costs more, and requires better talented sculptors. Resin is too labor intensive for a tabletop mass combat game and costs more, but really holds details. Pvc is dirt cheap, but lacks details and is bendy. That’s why they keep changing formulas on the resin-pvc hybrids to find a happy medium, but who knows how much money they have lost due to people who have been run off by the constant changes and bad figures (sculpting wise and material wise).
Also just pulled out some of my dungeon saga stuff from storage and the paint on it has ...faded??? Rubbed off??? Not sure how to describe it, but the primer is same I always used and is stored with non Mantic stuff which was fine. Also one of the tables from the DS terrain was all sorts of bent. I applied pressure to it all night and it seems to have fixed the issue.
Theophony wrote: Quick answer....cost. HIPS costs more, and requires better talented sculptors. Resin is too labor intensive for a tabletop mass combat game and costs more, but really holds details. Pvc is dirt cheap, but lacks details and is bendy. That’s why they keep changing formulas on the resin-pvc hybrids to find a happy medium, but who knows how much money they have lost due to people who have been run off by the constant changes and bad figures (sculpting wise and material wise).
Thanks. Anyone know why Mantic keeps hopping from one material to the next? I mean, their old Orcs Army starter set was fine, with its hard plastic. And TWD's plastic seems to also work. But when you KS a project, you're buying the miniatures unseen, so knowing what plastic the mini's will be in would help.
Well it's Mantic. Unless some miracle has happened the miniatures will be decidedly average. They may not suffer the usual problem of poor design choices, being based on someone else's concept work, but the material will undoubtedly be gak-tier PVC.
ced1106 wrote: Anyone know why Mantic keeps hopping from one material to the next?
Because they keep trying to cheap out on the plastic in some way and people invariably complain about the quality of their miniatures so they promise to try something new next kickstarter.
Generally speaking, the only people run off by "poor mini material choices" are a small minority of people here and some other similar forums, who aren't sure why every new game in the world isn't released by Games Workshop and equipped with extreme detailed Games Workshop hard plastic sprues. There's little to no complaining about it on places like BGG, where they're more interested in the quality of the tokens and the card board/tiles, the rules, campaigns for replayability, and expansions.
The last time I saw any complaints about Mantic minis was Dreadball, where most potential boardgame players knocked it back because they were multipart and not preassembled or single piece.
Yahbut Mantic set itself up as a less expensive alternative to GW. Ronnie himself used to work for GW as its Global Marketing Director.
As for BGG complaints, Dungeon Saga's Adventurer's Companion was sent incomplete to backers and *very* negatively received. Numerous threads mention bent miniatures and incomplete shipments. BGG even has a four-page thread about its KS practices.
...and so on. Walking Dead is a miniatures game, and, afaik, was received well and the miniatures have good detail.
Star Saga is just arriving, and I haven't found BGG reviews, not that I'm looking at the moment. Here's a first impression, though: "The miniature figures are very nice - good detail. I am looking forward to painting these. The "furniture"
on the other hand, is pretty bad. Lots of bent pieces and flash. Good idea but not implemented very well. The rules are just ok." https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1915438/just-got-game-my-first-impressions
Hopefully, we'll receive the Mantic Terrain Crate before Hellboy ends.
Today we're delighted to unveil the first miniature from the upcoming Hellboy game! Also, we've got a great community contest for you to get involved in.
Would you like to paint one of the pre-production Hellboy miniatures? Just comment below with a pic of your best painted Mantic miniature (it has to be Mantic so we can share the results) by March 29th and we'll choose our favourite to receive a resin Hellboy to paint (and keep) ahead of the Kickstarter launch. What are you waiting for? Get painting!
That's the problem with the amount of KS starting in April this might just get over looked - I know it's gone from my list but I'll keep the thread updated.
I'll have to see what the game format is and, ideally, have received my TerrainCrate KS from Mantic.
Star Saga terrain has me very, VERY worried about the TerrainCrate stuff now. Especially since they said it would be made in harder plastic than the Dungeon Saga terrain.
I'd like to believe what Mantic say but they've gone back on their promises a few too many times for me to.
Yep. Not fond of the TWD body proportions, but not a major fan of the series. I have the WizKids version from way back, and a Hellboy Jr. trade. I'm good!
Very nice there - even if it is the 'resin master'.
Slightly 'off' proportions work for Hellboy himself, but I hope any 'normal human' miniatures end up with better looking proportions than (I think!) we saw with TWD game.
Thanks to the Facebook group for the game there is some news from Adepticon -
-totally co-op -exclusive box for Kickstarter
-Mignola cover
-Lobster Johnson in box
-investigation elements
-gave to balance investigation vs speed
-End boss surprise
-Frog monsters base boss
-showed off the most awesome tentacle swarm (no pics aloud)
Today's Hellboy unveil is the tentacle monster seen in Seed of Destruction. Measuring approx 84mm and on a 50mm base, this will be one of several boss encounters in game.
Can Mantic pull of sculpts to the quality of the minis displayed, I hope so! Would also be good to see an alternative sculpt of Hellboy sporting Big Baby. I also think his face needs a little tweaking on the painted mini shown.
Wonder how they will run the KS, will it be all in like the Batman one just run by Monolith? Will it be KS exclusive, guessing not?
Some great opportunity here for Mantic to produce something really unique backed by high quality miniatures. I am also hoping they won’t get put off producing some Nazi occult rank and file soldiers and if they do not just producing 4 of the same sculpt, same goes for BRPD agents.
They could also produce some really cool settings for the game boards/tiles.
Anyway we will see how it progresses and what they come out with in due course although it would be nice to get some more info. Not sure if their timing is right with Monolith just sucking up so many backers and with the film not due for release until next year but then again I am not an expert in these matters. I do hope they manage to pull it off and we see some great stuff backed up by even better production values.
Today's Hellboy unveil is the tentacle monster seen in Seed of Destruction. Measuring approx 84mm and on a 50mm base, this will be one of several boss encounters in game.
My initial thoughts on Johann were mixed but the sculpt is growing on me for some reason.
Why would they produce minis in resin for separate purchase if already going to make them in plastic? Doesn’t make sense to me, just sell them in plastic.
Mantic sold miniatures in resin that were offered in plastic during their Dungeon Saga KS. Resin's there for those like A2 who don't want the game, but want higher quality figures for painting or other use. I imagine that the plastic and cardboard is put together in China, while the resin's made elsewhere. Logistically, for a plastics-only offering, they would have to have their Chinese game factory pull out the figures. According to Petersen Games, when they did this for Cthulhu Wars, they lost money for this service.
Mantic sent Hellboy (and possibly more of the minis, the box was big enough) to Angel Giraldez to paint, and he's already got a wip pic up on Instagram. It'll be at Salute, so anyone in the UK will be able to see how it looks painted in a way that is completely unattainable for most of us!
My personal wishlist? That's a tough one, the Mignola-verse is chock full of wonderfully evocative designs for heroes and villains. If I was making a boutique range of resin minis, I'd want at least the following (most of whom would also work as boardgame adversaries).
* Roger the Homunculus
* Baba Yaga
* Herman von Klempt with Kriegaffe
* Memnan Saa
* Lobster Johnson
* Hekate
* Nimue
* Astaroth
* The Black Flame
My personal wishlist? That's a tough one, the Mignola-verse is chock full of wonderfully evocative designs for heroes and villains. If I was making a boutique range of resin minis, I'd want at least the following (most of whom would also work as boardgame adversaries).
* Roger the Homunculus
* Baba Yaga
* Herman von Klempt with Kriegaffe
* Memnan Saa
* Lobster Johnson
* Hekate
* Nimue
* Astaroth
* The Black Flame
I want Prince Nuala (and some of the cool elf guard guys) and some tooth fairies.
Prince Nuada appearing would depend if it is comic license only (which it looks like style-wise), or all media to include the film. Nuada only appeared in 1 issue of a hellboy comic and that was one of the film, so probably doesn't count. King Dagda and his court are probably the closest. Gruagach is also a neat fae character
With the Frogs in play, Captain Daimo is probably on the cards somewhere fairly early in the stretch goals.
Varvara and the Russian equivalent of the BPRD would be entertaining, as would Hellboy's demon hunting Luchador friends with Camazotz as an end boss
One of our club members was in the playtesting and while he could not say much, he was very impressed by the core alpha set of the game. He said it showed real potential for a fun game.
He also got to see a sample smaller concept sculpt for the Hellboy figure and said that it carries enough detail to be nice and a great painting challenge without all the very fussy detail that you lose when undercoating.
Today's Hellboy unveil is Roger the Homunculus AND we're pleased to announce the Kickstarter will launch April 25th! Stay tuned to the Mantic Blog for gameplay details ahead of the start date #Hellboy
After picking your jaw up from the floor, take a closer look at these incredible Hellboy pre-production miniatures painted by the supremely talented @StudioGiraldez . Which one's your favourite?
Chikout wrote: I must say these minis look like a considerable set up in quality from Mantic's usual work. I suddenly became interested in this kickstarter.
Well, these are still just pics of painted 'pre-production' miniatures, though I've heard "good things" about their Walking Dead PVCs, so...fingers crossed!
Remember my name, FAME!
I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna learn how to fly, high
I feel it comin' together
People will see me and cry, FAME!
I'm gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame, FAME!
I'm gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name
Mantic has mostly been putting out quality minis lately. Not boutique resin quality, but better than they used to. I credit their apparent decision to transfer their former art director to CMON's Zombiecide Invader project.
Remember my name, FAME!
I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna learn how to fly, high
I feel it comin' together
People will see me and cry, FAME!
I'm gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame, FAME!
I'm gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name
That got me. That got me good. Now I need to dig out my college boombox and CD collection...
Today we’re kicking off a series of blogs about our exciting new project – Hellboy: The Board Game. In today’s entry, we thought we’d give a little bit of background on development and a brief overview of the game before delving deeper into gameplay mechanics over the days to come.
So, how did this all come about? Well, after the huge success of Mars Attacks and The Walking Dead: All Out War, we knew that we would like to produce another licensed game. After all, it’s a great opportunity to work closely with the creators of some of the best-known and iconic characters around. And who wouldn’t want to do that? When we drew up a list of potential licenses, Mike Mignola’s incredible Hellboy series was top of the list.
Hellboy has become a household name – thanks to the live action movies, videogame appearances and animated films – but we always loved the original graphic novels. The combination of folklore, huge monsters and, of course, Hellboy battling enemies with that famous Right Hand of Doom, has always been appealing. As a result we began talking to Dark Horse in late 2016 and we eventually signed the deal in late 2017 (that’s right, it does take quite a while to sort these things out).
Originally we saw the Hellboy game as a dungeon crawler with Hellboy and the other members of the BPRD setting off to a suitably spooky location and then battling minions before facing off against a big creature. In this original pitch we thought that – like Dungeon Saga – one player would be in charge of the bad guys, while four other players would take control of the BPRD.
However, if you’ve read the comics you’ll know there’s never really one entity in charge of all the evil minions Hellboy faces and there are different antagonists, each with their own wicked plots. As a result the first decision was to make sure Hellboy was a fully co-operative experience as the members of the BPRD work together to overcome adversity, rather than having one player take on the role of the dungeon master.
The next question was – which storyline should we base it on? There are actually so many great stories to choose from that this was rather a difficult one. What’s more, the cast of BPRD characters changes throughout the original Hellboy graphic novels and the subsequent BPRD series. So instead of being based solely on one particular story arc, Hellboy: The Board Game takes inspiration from a number of fantastic storylines to create something spectacular.
This gives us a great opportunity to bring in some of Hellboy’s most notorious adversaries, while also mixing up the members of the BPRD who work with each other. In fact, it was Mike Mignola himself who suggested having Johann join the team for the core game.
From here the pieces really started coming together quickly and we could immediately see how all the four main protagonists – Hellboy, Liz, Abe and Johann – would work together. We also wanted to ensure that the inexplicable and seemingly random events of the comic were portrayed as gameplay elements too.
DECK OF DOOM!
This led to the creation of the Deck of Doom! This is a deck of cards that triggers particular events as the BPRD agents explore the location. The event can be anything from a surprise attack by a monster to a spooky mist that rolls in to obscure line of sight. Due to the random nature of the Deck of Doom, you’ll never know what to expect when playing a mission and you can replay them for different experiences.
Even better, as the game grows with new monsters or expansions, they’ll each come with their own set of cards so you can customise your deck for unique actions. This is something that’s expanded further in the exciting BPRD Archives (and we’ll cover that in a future blog).
With the basics down, it was time to call in a top games designer and that’s where James M. Hewitt from Needy Cat Games enters the action. In tomorrow’s blog we’ll discuss how James developed and shaped the game into what we have now.
Remember, Hellboy: The Board Game will be hitting Kickstarter on April 25th. We’ve got a very exciting opening pledge level planned, so make sure you don’t miss out. What’s more, next week will be Hellboy Week across the Mantic Blog and social media. Find out more about the game, see the miniatures and plenty more!
In yesterday’s blog we talked about the early stages of development for Hellboy: The Board Game. You can check it out here. For today’s entry we’re looking at how the game progressed once James M. Hewitt (founder of Needy Cat Games) became involved with the project.
James is a very lovely chap and he’s worked with us before on the awesome DreadBall and was our much-loved community manager for about a year. He was also a designer at Games Workshop and worked on big titles like Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, Blood Bowl 2016 and Necromunda 2017, among others. He’s kind of a big deal (and he’ll let you know this within five seconds of meeting him… if he even lets you look him in the face). From Mantic’s point of view it was extremely exciting to have James on board and he once let us make eye contact in a meeting.
Immediately James began tinkering with the basic mechanics we’d established, i.e. a co-operative game for up to four players in which the BPRD explores a gothic location and hunts down a suitably terrifying beast! Yeah, so not a lot to work on…
However, something that James immediately realised from reading the comics is that there’s a huge amount of investigating involved in the original stories. Often Hellboy and the crew won’t know exactly what they’re facing. Instead they must hunt for clues at the scene and, invariably, fight some wicked minions along the way, before facing off against a towering monster (like Sadu-Hem below).
With this in mind, James began by splitting the gameplay into two key elements: investigating and, somewhat inevitably, combat. For the investigation element you’ll have to search your surroundings for clues about the threat you’re hunting down. If you fail to find a piece of the puzzle, then the final confrontation will be a whole lot tougher.
Combat is also a key part of the comics and James wanted to ensure this was as cinematic and fun as possible. As a result you’ve got Hellboy punching monsters around, Liz setting fire to things, Abe taking aim with his gun and Johann possessing his enemies. The combat (and investigating for that matter) both use a really simple but rewarding custom dice system that we’ll cover in a later blog.
With the two elements of gameplay defined, this led to the creation of the Impending Doom Track and the Information Gathered Track. The former tracks how much danger the agents are in and how close they are to the final fight. While the latter shows the amount of evidence they’ve gathered. This could be a piece of equipment or vital information that will expose an important weakness ahead of that end battle. A key part of the game is successfully balancing these two elements and there’s often a frantic race to grab that crucial info before the Impending Doom track reaches its dramatic conclusion. Stay tuned to a future blog for more details about these.
Another genius element introduced by James was the creation of the Case File deck. We always had the idea that it would be great if missions were contained in a top secret envelope so you never knew what was coming. However, James took that one step further with the Case Files. Before each mission you’ll need to crack open a small, top secret envelope to unveil a deck of cards.
These cards act as the scenario generator for the mission and explain things like how to set up the board and trigger special events. Thanks to the secretive nature of these cards, the first time you play a mission, you’ll have absolutely no idea what’s in store. Even the final boss might be a mystery. Even better, after you’ve played a mission, you can mix the Case Files up to create a bespoke experience! It also led to the creation of the thrilling BPRD Archives expansion, which is something we’ll be exploring in more depth soon.
Finally James’ other key idea was the exploration mechanic. The Case File reveals the initial set-up but after that you’re on your own. Each time you enter a new room you’ll flip over an Encounter Card. Each room is split into four areas and the Encounter Card tells you what’s inside, e.g. some monsters, a clue or a piece of furniture to search. A little like the Deck of Doom cards, these are placed randomly so each game has the potential to play differently, even if you’ve completed the mission before.
To surmise all the above, James has turned what we always thought would be a good game into an absolutely GREAT game. The playtesting we’ve been having here at HQ has been fantastic fun and you’ll soon be able to see the game in action with a full gameplay video.
James is a very good designer and made a big splash at GW before leaving to found his own studio, through which he has come back to freelance at GW and now, Mantic (another of his former employers). Seeing his name makes me take notice of this game despite never having read Hellboy. My local library does have all the volumes though, so a trip there might be in order...
It’s Hellboy Week on the Mantic Blog. Over the next few days we’ll be delving into key gameplay elements ahead of the Kickstarter launching on April 25th. We kicked off the blogs last week with an overview of the early development stages. If you missed those, make sure you read part one and part two.
For today’s rules focus, we’re looking at an Agent Card. In Hellboy: The Board Game you and up to three others (although you can play solo too, don’t worry) will choose your BPRD agent and then head out into the field. In the core game you’ll find four agents to choose from: Hellboy, Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien and Johann Kraus. Each agent has their own unique card with their own special abilities.
For now we’ll look at Hellboy’s Agent Card and explain all the various parts. In some cases we’ll give a brief overview as we’ll be expanding on them later in the week. This is just to whet your appetites. A rule aperifit, if you will.
Work in progress. Artwork/text subject to change/licensor approval.
Above you can see a work in progress Agent Card for Hellboy. Please bear in mind that the graphics/text are still subject to approval but this will roughly be what you see in the finished product.
SKILLS
First up in the top left are your skills. Starting from the top left and going clockwise you’ve got:
Fight (used when attacking enemies in the agent’s area)
Shoot (used when attacking enemies in other areas)
Defend (used when defending against enemy attacks)
Examine (used when examining clues and points of interest)
The different colours represent the colour of dice you’ll be rolling when making that test. We’ll be covering this in further detail later in the week.
SPECIAL RULES
Next up you’ve got the special rules for the agent. These are abilities that are always active for that agent. As you can see from Hellboy’s card, he’s pretty handy (ba-boom, tish) at punching enemies thanks to his Boom! rule. In fact, he can send them flying, which is very handy for moving them out the way or punching them into the path of another agent. It’s also good for hurling them into fire (which Liz can cause) or into furniture to cause more damage.
THREAT LEVEL
This is important for the start of the game. Ahead of the mission, you place character icons on the target priority tracker. During the enemy phase, the character in first place will be the target of enemy attacks. Thankfully this changes during the course of the game, so poor Hellboy won’t always be suffering damage.
UNIQUE ACTIONS
Here’s one of the most exciting elements of the card! These are the Unique Actions the agent can perform as part of their turn. Each costs a differing amount, so you’ll have to choose carefully when you want to perform them. We’ll be going into more depth about Agent Actions in a future blog. For now just imagine how much fun it will be to throw furniture at a frog monster. Answer: lots of fun.
STARTING CARDS
Before a mission you can spend the BPRD budget on equipment to help you successfully complete the scenario. However, agents also start with their own unique pieces of equipment or abilities (for example Liz’s Flame Tracker). In this case it’s a Heavy Pistol and Hellboy’s Coat. A coat may not sound exciting but we’ll explain more in a future entry. It might also be an extremely nice coat!
DAMAGE
No one said fighting the harbingers of Doom would be easy and the agents are likely to take damage during the game. If this fills up with damage counters, then they’ll be knocked out.
And that concludes our quick review of Hellboy’s Agent Card. As mentioned above we’ll be exploring some of the elements in closer detail over the next few days. In tomorrow’s blog, the dashing James M. Hewitt will be here to explain what Case Files are… and you definitely don’t want to miss that!
Hellboy Week: Case Files
Hello Needy Cat fans – and hello visiting Mantic / Hellboy fans, too!
Did you know that Mike Mignola himself has done a bespoke piece of artwork for the game box? Phwoar.
Did you know that Mike Mignola himself has done a bespoke piece of artwork for the game box? Phwoar.
With the Hellboy Kickstarter tantalisingly close, Mantic are running Hellboy Week on their blog, with a different article about the game’s mechanics every day. I’ve offered to tag in every other day to give the designer’s perspective on some of the key parts of the game. If you missed yesterday’s entry (describing the Agent Cards), you might wanna check it out here. Also, you can hear a bit more about the game’s development in two entries from last week, which you’ll find here and here.
Today, though, we’re talking about Case Files.
This is my prototype mock-up type thing, and has absolutely no bearing on what the finished product will look like.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Mignolaverse, Hellboy is (sometimes) a field agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence. A shadowy organisation founded in the wake of WWII, the BPRD is dedicated to protecting mankind from all manner of occult threats, from cult uprisings and ancient gods to witches and werewolves. When they catch wind of any such occurrence, they assemble a team of skilled field agents and send them to investigate. Hellboy: the Board Game replicates this on the tabletop, with the players taking control of the BPRD’s A-Team and taking on some very serious threats indeed.
It actually took a while (and a fair amount of playtesting!) before I hit on an interesting way to represent this in the game. Case Files were the solution!
When you open your copy of H:tBG (acronym alert) you’ll find several decks of cards; you’ll also find several Case Files. Each one is tied to a particular Case (that's a scenario, in standard gaming lingo) and includes various unique cards. You'll get a deck of Encounter Cards, which will determine what’s in each location you explore (more on them later in the week), and possibly some other cards to be shuffled into the Deck of Doom or the Requisition Deck (again, more on these later!). Most importantly, though, you’ll find the Case File deck.
Again, this is just my mockup. Look, those are Star Saga minis. Nothing here is real.
The Case File deck is something you’ll want to treat with due reverence. It’s not a normal deck of cards; for starters, you mustn’t shuffle it or look through it! It occupies a space on the HQ board (which Rob’s going to tell you about tomorrow) and handles the pace and narrative flow of the game. Only the top card is visible at any time, and will give instructions for when it should be flipped over. The back of the card might reveal a hidden passageway to a new area, give the players a much-needed leg-up or contain a new objective – anything’s possible!
Some Case File cards might be put “in play”, meaning they’re taken off the top of the deck and placed next to the HQ board. These cards will show a trigger – for example, “flip this card if all the agents are Knocked Out”, or “flip this card if the Information Gathered track reaches 10” (more on that from Rob tomorrow).
Eventually, each Case File deck will come to the Confrontation, a final showdown against a Boss. Going into the Case the players won’t necessarily know which Boss they’re going to face – they’ll have their briefing, sure, and there might be some clues along the way, so they might think they know what they’re coming up against… but what would Hellboy be without a few unexpected plot twists? What’s more, there might be multiple routes to a Confrontation. If Rasputin’s cooking up an evil scheme in the basement of a crumbling manor, you’d better hope you can find him through exploring the board… but if you all get knocked out, you might wake up to the sound of maniacal chanting and find yourselves in the middle of the ritual circle, stripped of all your kit! Whatever happens during the game, the Case File deck ensures that you’ll always get to play the Confrontation, even if it means you start at a serious disadvantage; that way, every game ends with an explosive show-stopper, instead of just fizzling out because you had some bad dice rolls.
“Hey, James,” one might ask, “surely this mean you can only play each Case once! What about replayability? You are the literal worst!”
Thanks, convenient hypothetical questioner. Haven’t heard from you in a while!
During playtesting, we’ve found that playing through the same Case File multiple times is absolutely something you’ll want to do. The first time will always be special – after all, you’ll be surprised by what’s going on, and that’s always a laugh – but chances are you won’t beat it. Hellboy: the Board Game can be tough, as all good co-operative games should be, so we’ve made a big effort to make the Cases replayable. Each time you play a Case you’ll find that the Deck of Doom and Encounter Deck will combine in new ways, providing different challenges and keeping things fresh.
Right, I think I’ve covered pretty much everything you might want to know about Case Files. Tomorrow, Rob’s going to be talking about the HQ Board over on the Mantic blog, so make sure you tune in – then I’m back here on Thursday with more info about the Deck of Doom. Exciting!
I understand that the board shown is a mock-up. But if they get Mignola to illustrate the board tiles, or even if they can effectively re-purpose his art to create them, the game will look outstanding on the table. I really hope they go that route rather than doing vanilla, generic-looking tiles of rooms and hallways. It'd be a bit like playing the game inside the actual comic panels.
Vermonter wrote: I understand that the board shown is a mock-up. But if they get Mignola to illustrate the board tiles, or even if they can effectively re-purpose his art to create them, the game will look outstanding on the table. I really hope they go that route rather than doing vanilla, generic-looking tiles of rooms and hallways. It'd be a bit like playing the game inside the actual comic panels.
I had the exact same thought when I saw that mock-up. Mignola tiles would be so fantastic.
Looks like something above your standard dice-chucker. The Case File deck reminds me of Chill. Hopefully, I can use my Mantic library terrain with this game...!
If they go with generic/ typical art for tiles, the comments section needs to be peppered with constant requests for Mignola- style art until it pops up as a stretch goal.
Seriously, that's leaving money on the table if they don't go for the full art package.
Mantic decided to switch materials again and do their Hellboy figures in metal instead of plastic, and they've commissioned new sculpts that won't require pre-assembly.
Feast your eyes on these beauties:
Painted resin masters:
Or maybe, just maybe, this post is a cruel joke in poor taste. My apologies.
Vermonter wrote: Mantic decided to switch materials again and do their Hellboy figures in metal instead of plastic, and they've commissioned new sculpts that won't require pre-assembly.
Feast your eyes on these beauties:
Painted resin masters:
bring Ronnie and the Glue Man to me! All must suffer for this outrage!
Or maybe, just maybe, this post is a cruel joke in poor taste. My apologies.
Oh. Heh... Okay then. You got me. In this post-Zombiecide: Invader era, it's just too easy to pass off terrible garbage as the new brand, but shame on me for taking the bait.
Hope you’re enjoying Hellboy Week so far. We’ve previously covered the anatomy of an Agent Card and yesterday the delightful James M. Hewitt *swoon* talked about Case Files (with added Skeletor references) on the Needy Cat Games Blog.
For today’s blog I’m afraid you’re stuck with me (Rob) but we have got something very exciting to look at: the HQ board, featuring the Impending Doom Track and Information Gathered Track. If you’ve read our previous blog on the early development of Hellboy (which of course you have… there’ll be a test at the end of the week) you’ll know that the game is split into two key elements: combat and investigation.
This split between the two parts is represented perfectly by the HQ Board. This large board sits near the game tiles and is used to track a number of different elements. Please note, this is still the work in progress version so the design may change in the finished product. Anyway, what’s it all mean? Not life, just the board.
TARGET PRIORITY
As mentioned in our previous blog about the Agent Cards, during the course of the game enemies will target different agents. Each agent has a token on this track, and it is used in certain situations, mainly when an enemy chooses a target for its attack.
Whenever this happens, the agent whose token is at the front of the queue (furthest left) is chosen as the target. If they are not an eligible target, they are ignored and the next agent along is chosen as the target.
Whenever an agent is chosen as a target in this way, their token is moved to the far right of the track.
The agent in the first space is considered to be the lead agent and gets the final say on what the team should do! If only life were this simple. I might start carrying around my own Target Priority track for meetings.
SPACES FOR CARDS
Admittedly this isn’t that thrilling to look at when blank but this is where the Requisition Cards (equipment), Deck of Doom and Case File cards will be placed. It’s likely the Requistion Cards won’t sit here and instead we’ll be adding a discard pile for the Deck of Doom.
Anyway, once the game is running, this area will be far more thrilling as you have the suspense of not knowing what’s coming next in the Deck of Doom, while the Case File cards run the mission for you. Hopefully you’ll know all about those after reading James’ blog yesterday.
IMPENDING DOOM
Typically Hellboy stories tend to be a race against time. Hellboy and the team must locate their target before an ancient evil is unleashed or a terrifying ritual is completed. In the game this is represented by the Impending Doom Track.
During the course of the game certain events will move the Impending Doom track closer to its inevitable and dramatic conclusion. The track is moved by cards drawn from the Deck of Doom, when the agents take time to rest, if there are too many Frog Swarms on the board, etc.
Depending upon the Case File you’re playing there will be different effects if the tracker reaches specific stages of the Impending Doom track. However, the higher it is, the worse things are going to be!
INFORMATION GATHERED
On the flip side to the Impending Doom track, you’ve got the Information Gathered scale. This is used to represent how many vital clues the agents have gathered during the course of the mission. You see, scattered throughout the location are clues that could hold an important piece of evidence that exposes a weakness of the final threat.
Each time the agents gather one of these clues, the Information Gathered track is moved one or more steps. Just like Impending Doom, the Case Files will dictate what happens when the Information Gathered tracker reaches certain stages.
Learning to balance the threat of Impending Doom and taking time to hunt down all the clues to complete the Information Gathered track is a key part of the game and you’ll have to make some tough choices.
Well, hope you enjoyed this inspection of the HQ Board. Tomorrow the delectable James M. Hewitt will be back on the Needy Cat Games blog to give you a run down on the ominous DECK OF DOOM (it must be said in a shouty voice).
"Restic" isn't a hybrid of anything. It has no resin in it. It's PVC grade 110. It's just very hard PVC. Same factory and material as Privateer Press were using at the time for Warmachine. It's not been used by Mantic for years. No idea where the whole "restic is resin and plastic" thing came from, or the name. It's not a thing.
Dungeon Saga minis, Mars attacks minis, TWD minis, Star Saga minis are ALL all grade 95 PVC. What make some appear harder than others is purely the thickness of the sculpt (and therefore the amount of material in any given weapon, arms, torso etc.). There haven't been any experiments in different plastics.
All new sculpting briefs for models destined for PVC are to go thicker.
"Restic" isn't a hybrid of anything. It has no resin in it. It's PVC grade 110. It's just very hard PVC. Same factory and material as Privateer Press were using at the time for Warmachine. It's not been used by Mantic for years. No idea where the whole "restic is resin and plastic" thing came from, or the name. It's not a thing.
Dungeon Saga minis, Mars attacks minis, TWD minis, Star Saga minis are ALL all grade 95 PVC. What make some appear harder than others is purely the thickness of the sculpt (and therefore the amount of material in any given weapon, arms, torso etc.). There haven't been any experiments in different plastics.
All new sculpting briefs for models destined for PVC are to go thicker.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for this, that was very interesting. If you have a moment, I'd like to ask two further questions regarding Mantic's plastics.
Was the PVC used for Deadzone minis like the Veer-myn progenitors and the Piper also grade 95 PVC? Those seem to me to be better quality than the Star Saga minis (which, don't get me wrong, aren't bad), but it's interesting to think that the difference may just be down to relative sculpt thickness.
Also, with Mars Attacks in particular it seemed like certain colors of plastic (the Red martian figures) came out less crisply than others (like the Beige Star Wars Alien / Human good guy resistance guys, whatever they were called.) Does the color added to the plastic actually impact the quality of the casting, or is it just that some colors make it harder to read detail but the casting quality is actually the same?
And while we're on the subject, do you know what color the Hellboy miniatures are planned to be?
Hellboy Week: The Deck of Doom
Evening, all! Hellboy Week is still in full swing, with the Kickstarter launching in just under six days' time. Exciting!
If you haven't been keeping up with the series, you'll find several links in my previous post, and another entry from yesterday on the Mantic Blog. The aim of these posts is to give you guys a taste of the gameplay you can expect from Hellboy: The Board Game - after all, Mantic have been showing off the miniatures for ages, so it's only right that we should focus on the rules!
Yesterday, the lovely Rob did a great job of explaining how the HQ board works, and what its various bits are for. One of these was the Impending Doom track, which acts as a kind of timer, ticking down turn by turn until it launches the Confrontation, regardless of whether you're ready for it. A shrewd group of players will investigate their hearts out and uncover the big boss before this happens, but through playtesting I've seen countless cases where the agents took their sweet time, thinking they had ages before things took a turn for the worse.
See, here's the thing: you don't always know how quickly the Impending Doom track will advance, thanks to the Deck of Doom.
This might not be what the backs of the cards look like. It's early days!
The Deck of Doom is one of the three decks that runs a game of Hellboy. You've got the Case File deck, which I explained on Tuesday, and which handles the overarching plot and narrative structure; then there's the Encounter deck (which Rob will be covering tomorrow), which tells you what's in each room you explore. The Deck of Doom completes the picture by throwing in all sorts of twists and unexpected occurrences, ensuring that no two games of Hellboy are the same.
The base Deck of Doom contains all manner of unusual and creepy effects, but at the start of each Case you shuffle in additional cards. Some of these pertain to the Case itself, adding bespoke elements that suit the story, while others are linked to the specific agents that are taking part. A Doom card might see Hellboy getting angry, or the fire that lives inside Liz Sherman battling its way to the surface.
Playing as Liz requires more than a little luck-pushing. You can keep building up her Living Flame to let her cause more damage, but if it gets too high... well, it ain't pretty. Oh, and once again, this isn't a final card. It's a mockup.
Other than this, Doom Cards can bring new enemies into play, introduce temporary environmental effects or tweak the rules in subtle (but noticeable!) ways. More importantly, the majority of Doom cards will also advance the Impending Doom track. In a given deck, you should expect about two-thirds of the cards to advance the track, and a couple might even advance it twice. You'll be drawing one of these cards at the end of each round, so there's a real sense of time pressure.
Sometimes, Doom Cards can be helpful! Ish. Mockup card, etc.
Of course, the Deck of Doom isn't the only way the Impending Doom track advances. If the board is clear of enemies, the agents also have the option to rest. This gives them a well-earned reprieve, letting them examine clues freely, rest up and heal some damage (which they'll be taking lots of, believe me!), put out fires and generally get into a better position. Resting is an incredibly powerful tool in the agents' arsenal, but it increases Impending Doom whenever you do it. As with many things in this game, it all comes down to a decision. I've really enjoyed watching our playtesters agonise over the decision to rest, especially when they make the wrong call and it comes back to haunt them later. A solid loss is so much more satisfying when you can see it was your own fault!
Of course, it would be crazy to talk about the Deck of Doom without mentioning the artwork. As you'll see from the mockup images above, the plan is to have a fair chunk of card space dedicated to some of the fantastic art that characterises the comic series. One of the true joys of working on a licensed product like this is having such a range of source material to draw from, and I can't wait to see what the cards end up looking like.
Right! That's the Deck of Doom covered. It's back to the Mantic blog tomorrow, then back here on Saturday where I'll be explaining what Agents can get up to in their part of the round. Before I sign off, though, here's a sneaky peek at what we were getting up to last night...
Do I need to mention by now that this is a mockup? Because it's a mockup.
I think we already knew Angel Giraldez had made some sort of faustian bargain with a dark power to obtain the magic necessary to paint like that, long ago.
"Restic" isn't a hybrid of anything. It has no resin in it. It's PVC grade 110. It's just very hard PVC. Same factory and material as Privateer Press were using at the time for Warmachine. It's not been used by Mantic for years. No idea where the whole "restic is resin and plastic" thing came from, or the name. It's not a thing.
Dungeon Saga minis, Mars attacks minis, TWD minis, Star Saga minis are ALL all grade 95 PVC. What make some appear harder than others is purely the thickness of the sculpt (and therefore the amount of material in any given weapon, arms, torso etc.). There haven't been any experiments in different plastics.
All new sculpting briefs for models destined for PVC are to go thicker.
Also, from experience, people who haven't held a Walking Dead:All Out War miniature may not realize how good a quality they are. There're solid, paint up beautifully.
Yeah, Walking Dead quality is pretty good. I think they turned out better than the more recent Star Saga pieces. Hoping we see Mantic continue to tweak and improve the process!
While not mantic minis I can say the Cthulhu wars 'collectors' minis (done in a dull red for the KS backers) are noticibly less bendy than some of the identical minis done in some of the colours used for the main game
so what colour additive is used can change the physical properties of the material
now whether that's directly due to the 'dye' is unclear as it will typically be added as a small proportion of coloured pvc pellets during the process
and if a factory is taking shortcuts it's conceivable that they might use as a random example red pvc 110 (because that's all they've got on hand) to colour pvc 95, but use yellow pvc 95 (as they've got that) so you'd end up with two slightly different mixes
Of the 3 colours used the light grey used for TWD and Warpath/Deadzone is definitely better, the Star Saga blue isn't quite as good and the red is the lesser of the 3. If the PVC type used in all cases is the same then the variable has to be the colour added. Also worth keeping in mind that TWD minis are chunkier with thicker detail than Star Saga minis so that will also affect the loss of detail in the transfer to PVC and the perception of quality. The Hellboy minis shown so far are definitely in the TWD end of chunky thicker details.
Thanks for this, that was very interesting. If you have a moment, I'd like to ask two further questions regarding Mantic's plastics.
Was the PVC used for Deadzone minis like the Veer-myn progenitors and the Piper also grade 95 PVC? Those seem to me to be better quality than the Star Saga minis (which, don't get me wrong, aren't bad), but it's interesting to think that the difference may just be down to relative sculpt thickness.
Yes I believe so. That's the default for that factory.
Vermonter wrote: Also, with Mars Attacks in particular it seemed like certain colors of plastic (the Red martian figures) came out less crisply than others (like the Beige Star Wars Alien / Human good guy resistance guys, whatever they were called.) Does the color added to the plastic actually impact the quality of the casting, or is it just that some colors make it harder to read detail but the casting quality is actually the same?
I guess there's a possibility the colourant may alter the physical characteristics of the plastic but it's not something I'm aware is a cause. Mars Attacks was before my time working for Mantic but I suspect different models in the range were done by different sculptors so that can account for some differences. One big factor is the one you mention - colour. The colour of a model has a big influence on the perception of the detail (and what the eye can see). Compare a bare metal model to one sprayed grey. The grey one will be much easier to see. I remember when the second round of Deadzone models came out and they were darker than the first, lots of people (me included) said well done to Mantic for changing the material as it looked and felt much better. In fact it was grade 110 pvc just like the first wave, but a slightly darker colour.
We experimented with the colour mix for our in-house resin too for this very reason. Too light or dark and you can't see the details as well. Make it black or white and it can look cheap. Mid-grey is what you want.
Also, from experience, people who haven't held a Walking Dead:All Out War miniature may not realize how good a quality they are. There're solid, paint up beautifully.
Ronnie wanted them chunky to make them easy to paint.
This is Off topic but could you ask someone to pop into the Warpath KS and do a quick update as preorders are due to ship from next Monday (although I don’t see this happening). Thanks
On topic I’ve updated the OP to put everything in the one place.
This is Off topic but could you ask someone to pop into the Warpath KS and do a quick update as preorders are due to ship from next Monday (although I don’t see this happening). Thanks
Warpath update is planned for Monday I think. Vehicles are in transit and almost here so the KS should then also get planned and start shipping soon too (all three remaining vehicles).
Back on topic Kickstarter launches 8PM (UK) 25th April 2018
HELLBOY: THE BOARD GAME – EXPLORING & ENCOUNTERS
Welcome everyone to another of our thrilling entries exploring the intricacies of Hellboy: The Board Game. Just in case you’re still catching up, we’ve already covered: Agent Cards, Case Files, the HQ Board and Deck of Doom… phew, that’s a lot of stuff and we’re not finished yet. Today we’re talking about how you explore the board.
Back in the early days of development we always knew that we wanted the board to grow as the players explored the location. After all, the BPRD agents often don’t know the exact location of their target and end up taking unexpected twists along the way (often through the floor too). As a result, when you’re playing the Hellboy game, the playing area will change along the way.
Work in progress. Subject to approval.
The initial set up is dictated by whatever Case File (remember those? Keep up, we only talked about them the other day) you’re playing through. This will show you what tiles to place and which way to arrange them. Taking a closer look at an example tile above (please bear in mind this is still work in progress so could change) you’ll see it’s split into four areas.
Work in progress. Subject to approval.
But why is the tile split into four areas? Well, fret not dear reader because we’re about to tell you. There are actually a few reasons for the split. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the areas show how far you can move. Agents can move up to two areas (orthogonally or diagonally).
Secondly the areas dictate which enemies you can attack. An enemy that’s in the same area as an agent can be attacked with a Fight action. Whereas an enemy that’s in a different area must be shot at with a Shoot action. What’s more, in order to interact with a Clue or Point of Interest you’ll need to be in the same area.
ENCOUNTER CARDS
However, the most exciting element about the split is that it’s used to dictate exactly what you’ll find in the room. You see, each unexplored room has an Encounter Card placed face down inside it. When you first enter the room you flip the card to reveal what’s inside. There will then follow a moment of suspense as you check what’s inside.
Work in p… you know the drill by now!
Each Encounter Card has four elements, each of which might contain nothing, or some enemies, or some scenery, or some Investigation Markers. These are all set up in the newly explored room.
You then place the first element in the area closest to the agent making the action, then go clockwise around the room. In a 2-area room, the first and third elements are in this area, and the second and fourth are in the other.
The Encounter Deck is split into Stage One, Stage Two and Case Start encounters – this determines the rough order they’ll appear in, but the exact order is random. As you explore you’ll be placing the Encounter Cards down to determine what’s in each room. However, the great thing about this is that the exact order is random. So even if you’ve played a mission before, the order of the encounters can be entirely different, which could make for a very different gameplay/tactical experience. This means the replay value of even just the core game is fantastic.
So, there you have a quick run down of the Encounter Cards and how you explore.
REMEMBER, THE HELLBOY KICKSTARTER LAUNCHES ON APRIL 25th. HOPE YOU’VE ENJOYED ALL THE PREVIEWS SO FAR. WE’VE GOT TWO MORE THIS WEEKEND TOO. AGENT ACTIONS WILL BE HANDLED BY JAMES ON SATURDAY AND WE’LL BE BACK ON SUNDAY TO TALK DICE MECHANICS.
Matt, would you know if the terrain pieces 9eg. those from the Wizard's Study) in the Mantic Terrain Crate can be used to replace the 2D furniture tokens I assume will be in the Hellboy boardgame? Thanks!
ced1106 wrote: Matt, would you know if the terrain pieces 9eg. those from the Wizard's Study) in the Mantic Terrain Crate can be used to replace the 2D furniture tokens I assume will be in the Hellboy boardgame? Thanks!
You mean we might have planned that people would want to buy loads of extra furniture from us from our existing ranges?
Hey, Hellboy fans! Has it been two days already? I swear, this week’s flown by - probably some kind of time-dilating effect caused by our alarming proximity to the start of the Hellboy Kickstarter. It’s launching in FOUR DAYS - are you as excited as we are?
We’ve played so many games of Hellboy this past couple of weeks, just to make sure it’s as polished as possible, and I’ve got to say it’s looking really swish. Andy from Blackjack Legacy (you might remember him from the interview I did when he came down to the Hellboy playtest day) was over at the Needy Cat offices yesterday, along with my long-time gaming buddy Adam (who designed the Needy Cat Logo). They played through the demo scenario, Andy as the stoic and inquisitive Johann Kraus and Adam taking on the pyrokinetic powerhouse herself, Liz Sherman. After weeks of tweaking and polishing it was so satisfying to watch what happened - a solid, well-paced adventure, with several nail-biting moments and and ending that… well, you’ll have to keep an eye on Andy’s channel if you want to know more
Anyway! Enough about that. You’re here for Hellboy week, and today I’ve agreed to divulge some secrets about how Agent Actions work. If you've not been keeping up, there are a load of links in yesterday's post over at the Mantic blog!
At the start of each round in a game of Hellboy: The Board Game, each player takes a trio of Action Cubes and puts them on their Agent Card. These cubes can then be spent in the Agent phase, each one fuelling an Action. What’s really interesting is that there’s no set player order - the Cubes can be spent however you wish. Hellboy could use a cube to shoot a Frog Monster, then Hellboy could leap in to punch it, then Abe could follow… it’s entirely freeform, which leads to some very interesting discussion around the table!
There are plenty of Actions to choose from, some of which you might be using more than others. Here’s a nifty breakdown...
MOVE
This is the most straightforward Action, letting an agent move up to two areas. However, even this is not without an interesting wrinkle. If at any point you try to leave an area that’s occupied by any enemies, you have a decision to make. Either you try to dodge past them, taking a point of Damage in the process, or you let them follow you into the next area. If another agent in your area is feeling gracious, they can discard one of their own Action Cubes to distract an enemy and give you the chance to slip away. This is the first of many situations where you can spend Action Cubes together, giving a real feeling of teamwork and interactivity between the players.
FIGHT
This action lets you attack an enemy in your area by making a test against your FIGHT skill (we covered dice in a previous post, didn’t we?) Other enemies in your area will downgrade your dice, while other agents in your area can discard Action Cubes to upgrade your dice. Again, this is really important - a character like Johann, for example, might not be particularly great in a fight, but he can provide assists just as well as anyone else.
SHOOT
This one’s similar to Fight, but it uses your SHOOT skill, requires a Ranged Weapon and targets enemies in other areas. Agents can’t assist you here - in fact, if there’s another agent in your target area or in the path of your shot, they’ll downgrade one of your dice unless they discard an Action Cube to get out of the way.
Abe Sapien's really handy with a ranged weapon, and sweet crikey, his miniature looks fantastic as well.
Abe Sapien's really handy with a ranged weapon, and sweet crikey, his miniature looks fantastic as well.
EXAMINE
One of the things that really makes H:tBG stand out against a lot of other games that look similar is its focus on investigation. Throughout a Case the agents will have multiple opportunities to advance the Information Gathered track by examining Clues (making a test against their EXAMINE skill), hoping to gain valuable Insights which will help them in the Confrontation. Also, the Case File deck will often throw in checkpoints in the form of Points of Interest - the players will need to search the area for the appropriate point of interest then successfully examine it in order to turn the next card in the deck.
EXPLORE
Agents can use this action while standing in a doorway that leads to an unexplored area, letting them flip and set up its Encounter Card. Exploration is key to progress (and, as you should know by now, progress is something you always need to be thinking about), but you should be careful - explore a new area too late in the turn and you’re bound to get jumped by some bad guys before you have a chance to clear them all out.
CLEAR
As the game goes by, the board can get clogged up by things like Frog Swarms (which, being awful harbingers of ancient evil - don’t ask - can cause the Impending Doom track) and Fire (which can burn important things like clue tokens, useful scenery and the more flammable variety of agent). Clear actions are your chance to get rid of these annoyances. We recently had a game where Johann’s player spent several turns in a row making increasingly passive-aggressive Clear actions, giving Liz’s player vicious side-eye and muttering things like “oh no, you carry on, I’ll just put this enormous inferno out, shall I?” and “it’s fine, not to worry, everyone’s obviously just as fireproof as you are”. The important thing to remember is that this game’s fully co-operative.
TRADE
At the start of each Case you’ll kit your team out with everything from big guns to lucky charms, but sometimes you’ll get halfway through and realise someone else might put your equipment to better use. The Trade action lets you swap things around and keep everyone happy.
Those are the seven basic actions that are available to everyone, but each Agent also has a set of Unique Actions - things that only they can do. Some of them are more powerful versions of the standard actions; Abe’s Dash, for example, is a once-per-round Move that lets him go three areas rather than two, and ignores enemies. Other actions are truly unique, though, like Hellboy’s Hurl Furniture (which creates some hilarious moments of group discussion - “I reckon I should throw that bookcase at those Frog monsters.” “Wait, I haven’t had a chance to examine it yet!” “Yeah, but… it’ll kill them.” “Seriously, we need that information!” “Yeah, I’m throwing it.” “Argh!”)
So there you have it. Actions in a nutshell. Check the Mantic blog tomorrow for one last taste of Hellboy Week before the real countdown to the Kickstarter begins! I hope you’ve enjoyed this glance into the workings of Hellboy: the Board Game, and that check out the Kickstarter on Wednesday. I’m really proud of how this game’s turning out, so thanks in advance for your support!
I like seeing a teamwork mechanic -- that costs actions. Hopefully, it'll feel like a "meaningful decision" BGG'ers keep wanting.
TMNT has a teamwork mechanic, but it's "free" so doesn't feel like a "meaningful decision". PACG spends resources (eg. Blessings) to help other players, but the decisions seem to be on the obvious side.
Welcome to the latest blog charting the various gameplay elements of Hellboy: The Board Game. Hopefully by now you’ll have read our previous entries, detailing – the agent cards, Case Files, the HQ Board, Deck of Doom, exploring the board and agent actions. As you can see there’s a lot of depth to the game – and we’ve still got a couple of blogs to go!
Onto today’s entry today then and we’re talking dice mechanics. We realise this may not sound like the most exciting aspect but, trust us, there’s a lot to get excited about.
First up, if you cast your mind back to our first ever rules blog (the one breaking down an agent card) you’ll remember that we spoke about there being three colours of dice on the card: red, yellow and green. Red is the lowest level die, with a maximum score of 1, while green is the highest with a maximum score of 3.
When you want to perform a test, e.g. for combat or investigating you’ll need to make a dice roll. Dice tests all use three dice and the colour shown on the agent’s card shows what colour dice they get to roll. For example, Hellboy is pretty handy in combat (as you might expect) so he rolls three green dice in close combat. However, he’s not great when it comes to shooting, so will only roll three red dice. But don’t worry, when he does manage to hit something he causes a whole lot of damage!
Occasionally there will be times when you need to downgrade a test. In these situations you’ll still typically roll three dice but you’ll downgrade one die to a different colour – green to yellow and yellow to red. If you have to downgrade a red die, then it’s removed entirely.
However, it’s also possible to upgrade dice too! Upgrading dice could be the result of using a special item or a fellow agent can sacrifice one of their actions to upgrade another agent’s dice. This is particularly handy when two agents who are bad at investigating really need to crack a code and can work together to overcome the challenge.
But hang on, you’re screaming at the screen at the top of your voice, is it possible to upgrade the green dice? YES! Although there are only three colours shown on an agent’s card, there is also the super special WHITE DICE! This mighty die has a maximum score of four successes, so it’s great when facing stronger enemies.
EFFECT DIE
When rolling a test, as well as rolling your standard three dice, you also have to roll the Effect Die at the same time. For those who’ve read the comics you’ll know that things don’t always go to plan for Hellboy and that’s represented by the Effect Die.
The Effect Die is a six-sided die with different special outcomes:
The Catastrophic Effect– this cancels the test die that scored the most successes. Perhaps we should rename that the ‘Aw… crap’ result. It can also have special enemy effects, like the paralysing tongue of the frog monsters. Eek!
One/Two Dots – these simply add to the overall test score
Re-roll – this lets you re-roll any of the dice that were just rolled
Doubled Die – lets you double the score of one test die
BPRD Icon – either adds 2 to the test score or can be spent to trigger a special rule as defined on an agent’s card
And that pretty much sums it up for the dice mechanics! You’ll mainly be using dice for combat and investigating and the intuitive mechanics are a breeze to grasp. We’re fast approaching the start of the Kickstarter campaign now and tomorrow we’ll be looking at equipment.
I mean, sure, traditionally speaking, weeks run for seven days, but here in the shadow of the Ogdru Jahad, where the loss of sanity is probably the best you can hope for, who can say for certain?
Ahem. Sorry, my point is: today’s a bonus Hellboy Week blog, hooray! (As if it’s not enough that you got a bonus sort-of Hellboy Week blog last night…) Today, you lucky people, we’re talking about budgeting.
Wait, come back! It’s interesting, honest!
One of the benefits of the B.P.R.D. being a well-funded shadowy government organisation is that the gang are rarely short on resources – the flipside, of course, is that you have to stay within parameters. This is represented by the Mission Budget, which the players can spend before the Case. This budget scales depending on the number of agents, and is one of the ways in which the game scales for different player counts.
But what can you spend your budget on?
REQUISITION CARDS
The agents generally start with an equipment card or two (things like Hellboy’s Pistol and Abe’s Harpoon), but true to the comics, you’ve got the chance to take all manner of additional equipment by buying Requisition Cards. Think you might be facing something big and scary? Stock up on grenades and bigger guns. Got a player who always rolls dreadful dice? Hang a Warding Charm off them.
Requisition cards are a great way to fill the gaps in your skill set, especially if you’re not running with a full team of four. For example, if you’ve just got Liz and Hellboy present, an Investigative Toolkit or B.P.R.D. Comms Set can help you out when it comes to advancing the Information Gathered tracker; similarly, if it’s Abe and Johann, a Protective Undersuit or set of Field Dressings can help you keep fighting when the going gets tough.
Alternatively, you might want to use Requisition cards to push your specialisations even further. Give that Undersuit to Hellboy, and he’s going to be near-impossible to take down. Give Johann the Investigative Tools and there won’t be many clues he can’t decipher!
BACKUP AGENTS
Just as no man is an island, no B.P.R.D. field team works alone. Backup Agents represent other agents working on the periphery of the case, checking out other leads nearby. Sure, they’re the B-team, but they definitely come in handy.
Backup agents are taken by a specific agent just like requisition cards – this is their Contact, the agent responsible for keeping in touch with them. At the start of the Case their card is on its “remote support” side, showing a particular colour of dice. Whenever the group Takes Time, each Contact rolls that die and advances the Information Gathered track by that much, representing the backup agent reporting in with what they’ve found nearby.
Instead of doing this, the Contact can call in the Backup Agent. Their card is flipped to their “on location” side and they’re added to the board as another Agent (represented by a counter – after all, they’re only side characters!). Backup agents who are giving direct support in this way have a simplified set of rules and a single Action Cube each round, meaning they never take centre stage but they can still help even the odds. Each Backup Agent also has a special rule which makes them unique – they might give automatic upgrades to certain tests, for example, or might grant special abilities.
Most importantly, this is a great chance to bring more characters from the Mignolaverse to life on the tabletop. There are loads of supporting B.P.R.D. characters, and Backup Agents let you bring them to the table while still playing as one of the big, awesome heroes.
So there you have it. That, as far as I’m aware, is the last Hellboy Week blog post. I really hope you’ve enjoyed this extended look at the game’s mechanics, and that you’ll join us in two days to launch the Kickstarter with a bang.
I genuinely can’t wait!
James Hewitt
April 23, 2018
Automatically Appended Next Post: On and Angel Giraldez post this WIP of Hecate being painted
Main point - first KS Mantic are running in GBP£ not US$
Limited number of EBs.
RONNIE TALKS HELLBOY AHEAD OF THE KICKSTARTER
I’ll be honest, it’s a little bit exciting around here right now! In case you’ve missed it (which by this point is hopefully nobody!) we have a Kickstarter going live tomorrow… and we are very very thrilled about it!
We know this is a massive licence, and an absolute fan favourite – most of the Mantic office included! The feedback we have got so far suggests that we are getting it right – and we are absolutely determined to deliver a Hellboy experience that’s bigger than a Tentacle Monster.
Tentacle Monster painted by Studio Giraldez.
If you have been off exploring haunted houses for the last week and missed it, you can see all the latest on sculpts, game play and the game design over on the Hellboy Blog week here.
However, I just wanted to drop in with an update about a few insider facts and housekeeping points, so nothing gets in the way of the big launch tomorrow.
To nip any conspiracy theories in the bud, I wanted to let you know that we will be running this campaign in UK pounds. In this day and age it should make no difference to the currency you see on the Kickstarter page, because they do an approximate translation into your local currency. It might mean the dollar amount is not a round number, but other than that it should not be anything to worry about. Originally when we first used Kickstarter, dollars was the only option but now UK pounds are an option so we’ve made the switch. Hopefully it’ll make no difference, but if it does please let us know and we can review this for future campaigns.
Ok, on to the fun stuff…
Abe Sapien painted by Studio Giraldez.
Every KS campaign has a tipping point where the value goes from Good, to ‘Wow, that’s insane!’… and every Mantic campaign gets there, sometimes (remember “I survived $256k!”?) slightly longer than others, but they always do!
Well, with Hellboy we want to hit that insane value level right out of the blocks…so the ops and design team have got themselves together and put together a waaaay sexy core pledge… with a complete game, and 2 expansions plus a whole heap of amazing bonus minis (like the awesome Kickstarter exclusive Hellboy below) right from the off. This should help as many Hellboy fans jump in right at the start and begin unlocking those sweet stretch goals to add even more miniatures.
To help us hit that funding goal in record time, we even have a small number of early birds for our long time loyal fans. So be there at the start to grab the already awesome pledge at an even better price. Mantic is also committed to supporting and working with hobby stores all over the world, and we will have a retailer pledge from day one so retailers can have one-time access to the Hellboy Kickstarter edition while the campaign/pledge manager is open.
Alternate Kickstarter exclusive Hellboy painted by Studio Giraldez.
Dark Horse and Mike Mignola have been incredibly helpful throughout the time we have been working on this… including a unique new art piece from Mike himself. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those at Dark Horse and Mike Mignola for their support and advice. And finally the ops team have been slaving away to make sure that the big uber box of Hellboy goodness comes together beautifully packed in a unique Kickstarter exclusive box. This will contain the game, the expansions, and all the stretch goals we hit. The trays will be designed to both work to ship the contents out safely to you, and as a place to keep everything neat and tidy for repeated play.
What about our other Kickstarters?
The final Warpath vehicles are now with us and we will be processing shipments to Kickstarter backers within the next few days. TerrainCrate is just going through final assembly, and boats are being booked for delivery in May/June (depending upon where you are in the world). From our ops team, Matt visited one of the plastic factories in China recently to check on the TerrainCrate progress and to make sure the models were looking good. Here is one of the pictures he took from the factory floor (not literally!)
TerrainCrate pieces straight off the production line. Taken while Matt was in China.
For Star Saga wave 2, all the print files are in China being worked on and the plastic test shots will be with us next week ahead of production (just so we can check they’re looking good). Vanguard plastic models are in tooling and the resins are already in production and on schedule.
So, I hope this has hardened your resolve to get on board with Hellboy at the get go, and ride this monster through to the big boss end battle – if so, I will see you online at 8pm UK BST, 3PM eastern and 12PM on the west coast for some serious fun with Anung Un Rama
I'm excited for this. Seems they have really made a commitment to quality and are pulling out all the stops for this IP. The company seems to have made big strides lately.
Gallahad wrote: I'm excited for this. Seems they have really made a commitment to quality and are pulling out all the stops for this IP. The company seems to have made big strides lately.
I think some enduring successes have helped them get over the churn of games they once had. Kings of War has been a real success, critically and otherwise, and Walking Dead sells well at retail. Those two give them a "foundation" to work from with more confidence.
They mentioned in one of the blogs that they wanted to make certain that the opening offer was a good deal without the need for fake stretch goals. We may see less stretch goals than usual because of this but I appreciate the up front value and honesty.
We already know that we have Lobster Johnson, Hecate and Roger as we've seen the cad figures. There are a lot of other monsters and BPRD agents that could be done.
We have the Nazi troopers in the Conqueror Worm bow, so I can see some more of the Nazi villains appearing as a mini expansion as they would have the henchmen already available for them
Yeah, I know. But I don't think we've seen Roger or Lobster in physical form yet have we?
Until now anyway.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Roger is now unlocked...
So, the info around Trevor says " As well as having playable agents, another key element of Hellboy: The Board Game is the ability to call in support from other agents or colleagues in the field. And who better to call in than Trevor Bruttenholm himself?", which I guess unlocks the ability to have loads of the lesser known supporting agents, Tom Manning or Kate
Giraldez had a photo of a fair sized Mantic box on a (now no longer visible) instagram story, and he's only shown himself painting a small handful of Hellboy minis.
I have the impression that every single mini has been finalised, approved, and probably mastered (or is being mastered right now), which is (part of) why it has an unusually optimistic shipping date of Feb '19.
@ Mysterio
These are just assumptions on my part. Take it with a grain of salt.
if you take in account the comics Johann shouldn t even be there. Afaik he never met Hellboy(in the comics). Nice that they put him in anyway.
I wonder what they are allowed to use exacly, since Johann is not a part of the Hellboy-titles. He is part of a spinoff-series called BPRD when they split the series from hellboys-storyarc.
Did they get the whole Mignoliaverse for this Ks? Is a Sir Edward Grey coming? Benjamin Daimyo?
But other than that they pretty much got the first 3 bigger storystrings from the Hellboy-mainseries covered here, I would have not assumed to get "Wake the Devil" in the corebox, if i didn t read that from ronny in an interview beforehand.
Maybe Guirescu and Hecate will get moved into the BPRD-archives for retail, since they were with the women of tessalia(harpies)?
We could also get Baba Yaga and a bigger Werwolf in the BPRD-archives. Would be pretty fitting to cover the "one shots" between the 2nd and 3rd bigger storyarcs.
But i was pretty surprised that we got such a bundle of "generic" minions in the beginning.
Mantic could have taken every one kind of them and make an expansion out of them. (Wolves of St. August for example).
But maybe that will be coming later, with these monsters here just for show of whats to come. A added bonus for Kslers.
Mantic could have made this way more piecemeal than they did....
But after this info I m pretty dry about the comics. Just started reading them(finished Conqeror worm yesterday) and read up on some BPRD Members, but there is definitly more room for expansions. I know there is a bigger arc coming later in the Main-story about witches, because of the coming Hellboy Reboot Movie which will focus on the "rise of the bloodqueen".
btw. That "Pamcake"-Hellboy is pretty much just for fun, even his comic-story is. (but it's a very good one for what it is!)
There are quite a lot Ks-exclusives coming I presume (all Supportagents will get KS-exclusive sculpts and there are at least 5 of them/ see 2nd demo video/ the 1:47 one).
I m not quite sure if i like it. I pretty much respected Mantic for not overdoing the KS-exclusives like some other other companies do.
I just hope they don t do it with some essential gamepieces like Lobster Johnson.
They mentioned in one of the blogs that they wanted to make certain that the opening offer was a good deal without the need for fake stretch goals. We may see less stretch goals than usual because of this but I appreciate the up front value and honesty.
Wow, this one is going nuts, probably going to be Mantic's biggest kickstarter, in dollar terms it's already over $750k half a day after launch.
I'm not familiar with the source material, so won't be going in on it, but it does look like they've done a lot of stuff right this time, huge pile of minis on day 1. Think they might need some alternate sculpts for some of the minions though.
I'm interested in the beasts and monsters set for general gaming, hopefully those get expanded a bit with different monsters since at the moment it's 30 minis and 6 sculpts. Having bat swarms, werewolves and other horror staples all in one set is really great.
Does anyone know whether or not Mantic's quality has improved over time? I backed their old Kings of War campaign and the undead army I got was pretty bad. The scale was significantly smaller than most competitors and the details were soft with tons of really bad mold lines. I ended up giving half the army away and dumping the rest in the trash.
Do we have any confidence that this will be better? The only thing I'm seeing seems to be what are presumably painted resin masters and CG sculpts... neither of which help me know what production minis will look like.
Aeneades wrote: These are going to be same quality as Walking Dead which I have been extremely happy with.
I'll have to check out Walking Dead. Mantic's quality left such a bad taste in my mouth from previous attempts that I've just been automatically dismissing anything new they put out.
It is so refreshing to be part of a campaign where the creators actually listen to backer feedback (see the dice change). Also, as an extra bonus:the comments section so far seems to have avoided becoming a group chat for regulars filling it up with endless inside jokes and inanities.
Aeneades wrote: These are going to be same quality as Walking Dead which I have been extremely happy with.
I'll have to check out Walking Dead. Mantic's quality left such a bad taste in my mouth from previous attempts that I've just been automatically dismissing anything new they put out.
Same here - but I have heard that their "Walking Dead" miniatures were certainly the best they've done to date.
Slight problem being that a campaign they ran after that one had some not so great PVC quality minis. Star Saga, was it?
Fingers crossed here.
Gallahad wrote:It is so refreshing to be part of a campaign where the creators actually listen to backer feedback (see the dice change). Also, as an extra bonus:the comments section so far seems to have avoided becoming a group chat for regulars filling it up with endless inside jokes and inanities.
I'm glad this KS campaign's comments section is better, as most popular ones are absolutely useless.
I think I read somewhere though that there's a fair bit of Cow Clamoring in this one though?
Kriswall wrote: Do we have any confidence that this will be better? The only thing I'm seeing seems to be what are presumably painted resin masters and CG sculpts... neither of which help me know what production minis will look like.
Mostly "yes" that their quality has improved leaps and bounds over the old KOW, but they've also proven they can still backslide. As others have mentioned, walking dead has so far been their high water mark whereas the more recent Star Saga was more hit and miss. I have both and I think the physical PVC is the same between the two games, but Walking dead had simpler, thicker detailing cast in grey plastic. The Star Saga figures (especially the marines) were much busier detail wise and they went with red and blue plastic, which made them look (out of the box) worse than walking dead. To be fair, once you got some primer on the Star Saga figures they looked much better. Then there is the terrible warped furniture they put in the Star Saga box. With hot water most of it straightened out and looked decent, but again out of the box it was awful stuff.
I can't find it now but somewhere either earlier in this thread or over in the Warpath thread, someone affiliated with Mantic said their aiming to go back to Walking Dead style (thicker details in grey plastic) for this campaign. Be wary if they start throwing furniture in to the pledges.
I think this is really encouraging, as it shows that Mantic have learned, after some time, that going in hard for quality in their miniatures can be an absolute winner. If you spend the money at the beginning stages with great artists, and excellent painters to paint and show them off, they will drive people to want the game. And I think their quick success here has shown that well.
I really hope from here on out they dump the "chew through" kickstarters and instead go for something which is likely to have a big impact, be long lasting, and helps grow the company, which will allow them to start competing against the likes of Privateer Press and Games Workshop.
I am in for a pledge, and I am not really even that much into Hellboy!
I hope this is a decent length of licence as opposed to only a couple of years,
otherwise it risks being mainly money via KS again which carries on trapping mantic there
Since it's done well it's almost certain the rights owner will want more for a 2nd time round which combined with the fact that by then it will be selling at the slower retail rather than the all the money at once KS could well mean it would be uneconomical for mantic to renew
Mike Mignola seems to be pretty active in the project for a licensor. : "Mike Mignola is involved. He's been approving all the miniatures and has been making suggestions about certain elements too. For example, he suggested having the core team as Hellboy, Abe, Johann and Liz. There have been some instances where he has sent us special drawings to help when designing a miniature too."
Mantic are also returning to Mike Magnola with backer suggestions such as having cards to use assisting agents as full agents and full agents as assisting agents so he is definitely heavily involved.
I would be interested in this, if not for the fact that I doubt anyone I know has read Hellboy. It seems like the sort of game where knowledge of the license is pretty much mandatory.
They are about to re-release all the Hellboy comics in paperback omnibus format for a very reasonable price. First one is out next month, great for gifting to your gaming friends to get them interested in the game.
The first book contain introduces quite a lot of what has featured in the campaign so far -
I know many gamers who haven't read Lovecraft, yet enjoyed Call of Cthulhu RPG and Arkham Horror. Best thing to do is to check if your gaming group would like to play a "kick butt' dice-chucker sorta game.
Aeneades wrote: They are about to re-release all the Hellboy comics in paperback omnibus format for a very reasonable price. First one is out next month, great for gifting to your gaming friends to get them interested in the game.
For anyone who is worried about miniature quality (quite legitimately based on some of the older KoW releases) providing Mantic follow the pattern of Walking Dead then we have nothing to worry about. Cracking miniatures for that game, perfectly fine level of detail on the sculpt and think most people would be happy with them.
Think the first movie captured the style and feel of the comics quite well. The second movie less so as it was more of just an action film, although thought that was still a very good film in its own right.
Well seems like job done for Mantic and their most successful KS to date.
Minis look great as does gameplay. I only have a few concerns/suggestions below.
1, Will the minis be the right quality post production. Indicators are pointing towards yes but who knows.
2. The tiles; tracks and cards still look like they need a bit of work. I am assuming they are not the finished product and would have been good to have seen some that were or very near. It also looks like they could do with more tiles and these should definitely feature in the SG’s. Also will they be thicker, currently look a bit flimsy.
3. The Nazi minions are cool but the LMG one just seems to be the wrong stance, would have been better if he was in a braced slightly leaning back stance. Also the rifleman looks a bit off. Would have also been good if a couple had helmets, especially the sub machine gunner with the gas mask.
4. While I am not to bothered if Isla and Kroenen appear in the KS it would be nice to see a generic Nazi officer in leather jacket as an SG to go with the minions. Would then be good to see the leader types in the first expansion. It could also include Hellboy brandishing Big Baby and of course more tiles, cases etc.
Anyway all seems to be progressing well and just remains to see how high it will go, I am guessing at least 1mil.
If Mantic want to take this to the next level, my suggestion would be to have James and Mignola design a brand new story mission as an add-on boxed set, complete with brand new Mignola-designed monsters and characters, and have the story be a "canonical" side-step in the Mignolaverse.
I don't mean have Mignola draw an exclusive comic book for the campaign - that would send it in to overdrive, but that level of investing Mignola's time and energy is not going to happen. But if he just drew up some new threats / monsters and helped James write the plot for the original add-on mission, that would be plenty.
It basically comes down to Mignola's own enthusiasm for the project. If he just wants to use the existing comics as source material (which is likely and understandable for a successful talent like himself), this has no chance of happening. But if he's getting excited about the game and the campaign, Mantic should at least ask him. He's already done brand new artwork for the game box cover, after all, and I don't see how doing a brand new side-step adventure along the lines of "Wolves of St. August," say, would hurt the Hellboy property. If the only way to get the new story (however inconsequential to the Hellboy story arc) is through Mantic's game, that's bound to draw more people in.
It also depends on whether Mantic is currently reeling from starting off with over a million in backers, or if they're interested in pushing the total as high as they can and take on the additional production costs and obligations. Maybe they underestimated demand and would end the campaign right now if they could?
I can see a few 40k players looking to get their hands on that Rasputin for cults etc. Mantic should make him available to buy more of in the pledge manager. I am guessing he would scale to 40k okay.
Chimaera wrote: I can see a few 40k players looking to get their hands on that Rasputin for cults etc. Mantic should make him available to buy more of in the pledge manager. I am guessing he would scale to 40k okay.
Having been burned out on Mantics inability to deal with complex order pulling in Kickstarter, I’d say they need as few options as possible to maintain a positive name for a while. Sculpts have gotten better, I’ve heard good things about TWD, now fixing their let’s change material again because it’s been a week and pulling orders correctly might bring me back.
Chances are you won’t be able to get that model separately on the Kickstarter but he will instead be available for free with mantic points on the webstore. They did the same thing with walking dead Kickstarter exclusives.
Mhhh... still no Guirescu.
I am beginning to wonder if he will be "retail exclusive"(released with the first wave for retail).
Ilsa and the coming Kroenen were clearly not planned from the beginning. And getting those before Guirescu let's me believe he won t show up in this campaign.
He might even get a little box like "Road to Woodbury" for Walking Dead(which was also retail exclusive)
Maybe put him and some Harpies plus a alternate Hellboy in a single player introductionary Scenario.
Ronny clearly stated in the livestream that there is a retail- and a kickstarterlist. (Which is a good thing in my book/expands the live of the game way beyond the Kickstarter)
But maybe rhwaw lists are not as writen in stone as i think, depending on how well the Ks does.
PS:
Let's speculate on coming expansions! I think the BPRD archives give us some hints with their minion selection.
I call it now. First addon-expansion will be "wolves of St August".
I wonder if there is any Chance for a king Vold.
Mysterio wrote: Will the 'swarm of frogs' translate OK from render to PVC though?
You never know until you see the final product. But in my opinion -
I have Mantic's excellent Veer-myn Piper figure, who comes with two swarms of rats, and I can tell you that those came out very well. Here's Mantic's official pic:
Mantic's gotten pretty good with PVC in general, and Hellboy is a high-budget / high-profile game for them, so I personally doubt there will be a problem.
You can see on the render above that the space between the frogs becomes solid amorphous filler, as if they were emerging from a smooth column, so if that's conspicuous in the final model, it's inherent in the design, not a casting flaw. Considering that we're looking at a blown up digital image of something that will become very small, though, those spaces will be teeny tiny, and probably inconspicuous to all but the most nit-picky.
Mysterio wrote: Will the 'swarm of frogs' translate OK from render to PVC though?
You never know until you see the final product. But in my opinion -
I have Mantic's excellent Veer-myn Piper figure, who comes with two swarms of rats, and I can tell you that those came out very well. Here's Mantic's official pic:
Mantic's gotten pretty good with PVC in general, and Hellboy is a high-budget / high-profile game for them, so I personally doubt there will be a problem.
Thank you for that - much appreciated!
Looks like they will turn out just fine, so that's good to hear. This campaign is a great value and remarkably....affordable and restrained, at least to date.
I imagine there will have to be one or two 'must have' add-ons before the end though?
Mysterio wrote: The painted ones look great - it was a VERY smart move to get Angel to paint them!
I wonder if they were contractually obliged to do that? their in house painter Dave is a great painter (and a Golden Demon winner) maybe they just didn't have the time for Dave to paint everything on his schedule and had to outsource it and Angel is the man you want to outsource to.
Mysterio wrote: The painted ones look great - it was a VERY smart move to get Angel to paint them!
I wonder if they were contractually obliged to do that? their in house painter Dave is a great painter (and a Golden Demon winner) maybe they just didn't have the time for Dave to paint everything on his schedule and had to outsource it and Angel is the man you want to outsource to.
Agree, have been following Angel for years through his Infinity work and lucky enough to see some in person as well. The guy can most certainly paint and in this case its showing the minis in the best possible light.
Its more likely that they have to commit to a minimum order of 15,000 units if they need more based on how well the KS does they can up that order then.
Here's my suggestion for a campaign wondering how to reckon with it's own success and trying to come up with stretch goals:
Dashboards for organizing item cards, hit points, experience, you name it, all in one place. CMON has being doing these for their recent Zombicide editions, and they are great for accelerating play and reducing clutter. (And not nearly as complicated or expensive to design as a digital miniature.) The only problem CMON has with these is giving backers more of them than they need during kickstarters. As gaming tools, they're fantastic.
Agree - those dashboards are an absolutely fantastic idea. Think they're useful in the functional sense as well as looking cool (and the Invader one looks like the best yet!)
The above Hellboy in Mexico expansion is £35 and, while not KS exclusive, is a one print-run and done job. This means that they will be getting enough to cover all the Ks orders and some to sell at conventions, but it will not be going to retail.
thanks to this we've just blown through the Fire token upgrade and Pancakes hellboy Agent card stretch goals and are nearly at Kate's card as well.
I've realized that every single game of Hellboy will look very similar up until the very end with either Frogmen+ boss, Nazis + boss, or Woodland creatures + boss. The vast majority of the stretch goals have been really uninteresting to me, as they add very little to the game experience. I don't understand the fascination with backup agents for example. They have already said that next week the stretch goals will largely be the same (more backup agents, more linen finish, more one-off Nazis). The campaign has just become really boring. All of the additional boss types have all been Nazi variety types, which is my least favorite foe that Hellboy faces. There has been a lot of requests in the comments for more minion diversity, but to no avail so far. I'm getting bored with the campaign.
The game is starting at the first Hellboy stories and working their way forward (with a lot of additional releases planned to go straight to retail) similar to how the Walking Dead game started at the beginning of the comics with each expansion covering the next phase of the comics. Hellboy does start with very similar enemies but expands more as the comic progresses so we will see the same happen with the boars game. The Mexico expansion being added as an early side release was a way to help mix things up with a side story.
I like the backup agents as they also operate as full agents so allow you to play the game with a team of minor character agents rather than always having to play as the main stars.
I would like to see at least a couple of types of extra minions added during the campaign so hopefully that does happen.
Sounds like there is an additional addon this Wednesday on top of the promised resin models.
A better box is certainly worth having (as some Mantic boxes have been thin and easily torn), although i'm less interested with in the finish
but at least they're keeping an eye on making it deliverable, the sheer nonsense of the request lists in the comments are crazy (I can understand asking for a fav character or villain, but so many have a list of about 20)
(and I want the minions in the Hellboy in Mexico expansion doubled up like the rest)
The thing I find most baffling is the addition of duplicate minions for no apparent game reason.
Yeah there's the hardcore mode, but that's a lame excuse to pad the pledge with perceived value.
The component upgrades are a requirement with Mantic so it's nice to see them . But the amount it's taking to fund a linen finish and spot varnish is too much. It should not cost as much or more than adding a mini.
The actual game value is a bit lackluster, as are most of the stretch goals. It's a solid 'meh' although I could be convinced if it provides good value by the end.
Ghool wrote: The thing I find most baffling is the addition of duplicate minions for no apparent game reason.
Yeah there's the hardcore mode, but that's a lame excuse to pad the pledge with perceived value.
The component upgrades are a requirement with Mantic so it's nice to see them . But the amount it's taking to fund a linen finish and spot varnish is too much. It should not cost as much or more than adding a mini.
The actual game value is a bit lackluster, as are most of the stretch goals. It's a solid 'meh' although I could be convinced if it provides good value by the end.
I'll agree adding extra minions has minimal gameplay value, but it also doesn't cost much to add extra to the production run, and gives backers an additional reason to get in on the game (i'll certainly be using my extras elsewhere)
and as to what the stuff is costing, it's all a tool to keep the money flowing, they basically know what they want to offer and what they need to do so (no more on the hoof stuff like old mantic desperately trying to salvage a stalled KS)
Can't help but feel a little disappointed with the miniatures. They're technically fine, and will serve well as game pieces, but they do lack the flair of Mignola's designs, especially when set against the other components.
It's one of the rare cases where I think a more simplistic design would have worked better.
I don't know how I didn't see this before, but the minis are huge:
The normal humans are 40mm tall! That is like primaris or stormcast size. I think this moves this KS out of the "worth it" column for me. I don't have a use for a bunch of 40mm scale Nazis, dramatically reducing the value of the box to me. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up some Frogmen at retail.
Mantic are looking to clarify the size issue but sounds like they are 35mm (need clarification if that’s to the top of head or eyes) so looks like the image may have been incorrectly marked up.
Hey everyone - back from the cinema now so I'm looking through the questions. I see there are quite a few about the scale. The standard scale for humans, e.g. Lobster and the Nazis is 35mm. I'll get another scale shot done to show some of the minions around the heroes.
Mantic Games 16-time creator 23 minutes ago
I've just taken that second image (the row with lobster Johnson in) off too - just in case there is a mistake with the measurements. I'll get it checked out tomorrow. I think the sculptor included the bases in the measurement too. Anyway, apologies for the concern.
Make sure you read to the bottom of this update to see all the latest news/information. Well, the total has been a little like a yo-yo today (these things happen in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign). However, we definitely saw the total tick over £1,055,000 at one point so that means...
Kroenen has officially been added to pledges and we can get cracking on some new stuff! Nazi scientists were so last week...
Our next goal features a number of upgrades. The Information Gathered token will become a very cool 3D book token (so it looks better alongside the Impending Doom track). Meanwhile, the BPRD logo tokens will now be used to represent the investigation tokens that you gather during play and you'll get three of them, rather than just one.
Following that we'll be upgrading the Kickstarter Exclusive box to really make the most of that awesome Mike Mignola artwork. It'll now come with a linen finish (to help protect it) and we'll use a spot varnish on the logo to ensure it stands out on your gaming shelf. You can use it to dazzle and delight your gaming pals.
Our latest stretch goal is another brand new BPRD agent: Sidney Leach. Like we've done with the previous Back-up Agents, Sidney will be a Back-up Agent AND a playable agent (taking the total of playable characters in the core pledge to 12). Sidney has the ability to detect and manipulate metal, so his abilities will be useful for investigating and for combat too.
NEW SOCIAL GOALS
We've seen a lot of requests for new social goals and who are we to argue? As you know, we've been running a contest recently for people to suggest what pieces of Hellboy lore they'd like to be turned into Requisition Cards (equipment) in the game.
We've really enjoyed reading all your suggestions and have picked our favourites so far from the comments to be turned into items. Some were suggested by numerous people, so we've taken a variety of ideas for those. Others were suggested by individuals and we've tweaked them as required.
To celebrate the community involvement with these cards, we thought it made sense to add them as social goals.
Our first goal is to reach 200 fans on Boardgamegeek. To become a fan on the site, simply head to this page and click the little heart button (assuming you're a member, of course). This will unlock the Lich Candle card (as suggested by Marcel Claxton).
Why stop at 300 fans? Our next social goal is to climb to 400 fans on Boardgamegeek. This will unlock the decapitated head of Father Nicholas Budzen. This was suggested by backer Kees, although we changed the ability slightly, as his original suggestion was close to another item already in the game.
Can you ever have enough BGG fans? Well, clearly not because we want 400 of you to become a fan. This will unlock the Pancakes card. So many of you suggested this one and we tried to combine the ideas into one card.
Our final BGG social goal will be unlocked at 500 fans. That will unlock the Iron Shoes as a piece of equipment. We'll look through the comments again to find out who suggested this one but we really liked the idea.
The final social goal is to encourage 600 members in the unofficial Hellboy Fanatics Facebook Group. There are a lot of Fanatics pages out there for Mantic games and they're a great way for fans to get together and discuss their thoughts. You can join the group here. Once there are 600 members, it will unlock the Zinco Rocket Pack. Again, this was suggested numerous times by different backers and we've combined the ideas.
Phew, that's a lot of social goals. How long until we smash through them all? Please note the cost of each item isn't final and designs will be tweaked slightly in the final product.
LIVE KICKSTARTER Q&A
Finally in our big update of justice, James M. Hewitt the designer of Hellboy: The Board Game will be appearing on a live Kickstarter Q&A on Wednesday, May 16th at 8pm (BST). Comment below with any questions you've got for James and we'll quiz him during the live feed.
judgedoug wrote: Been vaguely following since my day 1 pledge, as the game looks like a fantastic co-op or solo boardgame.
Jump onto Dakka, complaints are that Hellboy board game is incompatible with... I have no idea... Bolt Action miniatures?
Good job
Are most of the human miniatures you own 40mm tall? Stop being facetious.
Mantic wants to be the a big player in the industry. They take industry standards (28-32mm) and biggify them (40mm), now they are the big boys in the industry .
judgedoug wrote: Been vaguely following since my day 1 pledge, as the game looks like a fantastic co-op or solo boardgame.
Jump onto Dakka, complaints are that Hellboy board game is incompatible with... I have no idea... Bolt Action miniatures?
Good job
Are most of the human miniatures you own 40mm tall? Stop being facetious.
Mantic wants to be the a big player in the industry. They take industry standards (28-32mm) and biggify them (40mm), now they are the big boys in the industry .
Worked for GW with there biggius Marines
Anyway there is no industry standard outside of maybe historicals, most ranges are not even consistent. 40k is scattered from 28mm ish to 40mm ish. Infinity is becoming legendary for It's scale issues and the poor child soldiers of the Nomads.
Honestly if this is the best dakka can manage on a Mantic KS thread mantix must be doing well
judgedoug wrote: Been vaguely following since my day 1 pledge, as the game looks like a fantastic co-op or solo boardgame.
Jump onto Dakka, complaints are that Hellboy board game is incompatible with... I have no idea... Bolt Action miniatures?
Good job
Are most of the human miniatures you own 40mm tall? Stop being facetious.
Mantic wants to be the a big player in the industry. They take industry standards (28-32mm) and biggify them (40mm), now they are the big boys in the industry .
Thankfully in the comments Mantic indicated there may have been a mistake with the measurements (the sculptor including the base perhaps?). He said he would put up scale shots today.
judgedoug wrote: Been vaguely following since my day 1 pledge, as the game looks like a fantastic co-op or solo boardgame.
Jump onto Dakka, complaints are that Hellboy board game is incompatible with... I have no idea... Bolt Action miniatures?
Good job
Are most of the human miniatures you own 40mm tall? Stop being facetious.
of course Mantic until now was the one company with consistent scale with their fantasy and SciFi minis and are going to make a different scale for a boardgame not connected to any other game
(and it would still for any GW game were the scale ranges from 1/56 to 1/35 for models of the same faction)
Abe and Hellboy are both taller than a regular human. The half frog man hybrid at the end is 32mm to top of the head which should mean that the humans scale nicely with most other ranges.
Add-On Wednesday is here! Resin miniatures for painters and collectors! Plus, a new stretch goal...
Calling all BPRD agents,
It's Wednesday and you know what that means: Add-on Wednesday! However, before we get to that, there are some other important things to deal with. Firstly, overnight you unlocked a new stretch goal.
This means that the Information Gathered token has now been upgraded to a 3D book and the clues gathered tokens have been upgraded to BPRD logos. So, what's next?
We're just around the corner from upgrading the Kickstarter Edition box and should blast through this goal in absolutely no time.
Following that, BPRD Agent Sidney Leach will be ready to join the gang. Sidney will be a Back-up Agent and playable agent, so you can play a BPRD-only team, should you want to. He has the ability to detect and manipulate metal, so will certainly offer something different from the standard agent.
Our next stretch goal is another component upgrade that's been requested numerous times in the comments. A key part of Hellboy: The Board Game are the clues that you'll have to gather during the course of a mission. Originally these were just going to be cardboard tokens, however with this goal we'll upgrade them to 3D plastic tokens. Please note, the designs above are absolutely not final (and will have more of a distinct Mignola-vibe) but give you an idea of roughly what you'll receive.
ADD-ON WEDNESDAY IS HERE!
Wow, this is turning into a long update. Anyway, the latest Add-On Wednesday is here! Just in case you've only joined the campaign recently, every Wednesday we add some optional extras to the campaign that people can choose to add to their pledges. Last week we had the Hellboy in Mexico expansion and today we've got some fantastically detailed resin miniatures that are perfect for painters or collectors.
But what's a resin miniature? Well, rather than the standard PVC plastic miniatures, which are made in China, resin miniatures are all handmade by our expert team here at Mantic HQ in Nottingham. Resin miniatures capture the crisp detail of our sculpts slightly better than PVC plastic and are very popular with miniature painters who like to carefully pick out every detail.
Since the Kickstarter began we've had numerous requests from backers and those interested in backing if we could offer the option for resin miniatures, so we're happy to oblige! We've tried to group them into sets to ensure you save money based on buying individual miniatures but also to make sure it's logistically much simpler when it comes to packing. Although, we have made sure that Hellboy is available on his own, as we're sure he will be very popular! Anyway, enough waffle, let's take a look at what's on offer...
First up is one that's useful as a gaming piece, rather than for painters (and is VERY cool). One of Johann's abilities is 'Projection' which allows him to leave his containment suit and explore a different area of the board. Normally this is represented with a token but with this set you'll get a translucent ectoplasmic projection of Johann and an empty suit marker to show where he started. This is a cool little optional extra that was suggested by one of our playtesters.
Below are the rest of the resin miniatures you can choose from. Please bear in mind you are already receiving the majority of these as part of the Agent Pledge in PVC plastic. We're offering these sets for miniature painters and also for anyone who just wants to purchase the miniatures on their own.
ARMY PAINTER SETS
If you're just getting started with miniature painting, then we can recommend the Army Painter series of paints, so we're happy to offer these as an optional extra (just in case you want to start painting the moment your miniatures arrive).
As the name implies this is a great entry point into painting. This set contains all the colours you'll need to paint your Hellboy set and (most importantly) it does include red!
If you want to throw yourself in at the deep end, then the Mega Paint Set should really set you up for life!
HOW TO ADD OPTIONAL EXTRAS TO YOUR PLEDGE
If you want to add any of the Optional Extras to your pledge, it couldn't be easier.
1. Click on 'manage my pledge' and increase your overall total by the amount required. For example, if you want translucent Johann, increase your total by £10
2. Relax and enjoy the rest of the campaign
3. After the campaign closes we'll email you the pledge manager. In the pledge manager you choose what optional extras you want to receive. Any extra funds pledged during the course of the campaign will become credit to spend in the pledge manager or you can add extra funds directly into the pledge manager. We're currently expecting to send the pledge manager to backers in late June/early July.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Boo Hiss Mantic
those sets of resin minis almost seem designed to get you to end up with extra minis you don't want
(there are suggestions there may be an all in bundle/another bundle with horned hellboy in later but as it stands it's pretty poor)
There is at least one more resin pack to unlock before the bundle appears (horned Hellboy and Baba Yaga will be in it I believe along with models not yet shown).
Mantic are looking into changing the Johann model to be him outside of his suit for the ethereal projection. The empty suit marker that comes in that addon will also be a 3D model (not certain if Resin or Plastic but would assume Resin given lower volumes).
Abe and Hellboy are both taller than a regular human. The half frog man hybrid at the end is 32mm to top of the head which should mean that the humans scale nicely with most other ranges.
Same shot as before I believe, I wouldn’t take the frog man as an indicator of average size if they do update the numbers.
If you look at the group pics of the heroes liz and gas dude are taller than abe.
When I asked about the average scale I was told it was 35mm which should mean either to the eyes or to the top of the head.
If you measure the nazis and humans on your screen (get the base to 25mm at the largest) then you can measure the height yourself, they come to about 40mm. So about 2mm taller than a primaris and 1 cm taller than a guardsman.
I’d want to use these with my 40k, hasslefree, crooked dice etc minis so they wouldn’t work for me, so I’m out.
@ODYNH - we talked about that in the Q&A. The demo Case (the one in the video) is intentionally a bit easy - the Case Files themselves will be harder. My goal for testing is around a 30% win rate on first playthrough, in other words you can beat them if you've got your wits about you but it shouldn't feel like an auto win.
Abe and Hellboy are both taller than a regular human. The half frog man hybrid at the end is 32mm to top of the head which should mean that the humans scale nicely with most other ranges.
Same shot as before I believe, I wouldn’t take the frog man as an indicator of average size if they do update the numbers.
If you look at the group pics of the heroes liz and gas dude are taller than abe.
When I asked about the average scale I was told it was 35mm which should mean either to the eyes or to the top of the head.
If you measure the nazis and humans on your screen (get the base to 25mm at the largest) then you can measure the height yourself, they come to about 40mm. So about 2mm taller than a primaris and 1 cm taller than a guardsman.
I’d want to use these with my 40k, hasslefree, crooked dice etc minis so they wouldn’t work for me, so I’m out.
I'm afraid I will have to make the same choice you did. I just don't need a bunch of 40mm Nazis. Even if they come with a great game, there are other great games out there that come with miniatures that scale with my collection that I can spend money on. Great game +minis that scale > potentially great game + minis that don't scale.
Additionally, if you haven't read the comics (or only the movies plus a few comics like myself), the bulk of the stretch goals have been generic Nazis and generic agents. The box is basically filling up with boring stuff. I the the later releases where Hellboy fights more creatures and less Nazis would better suit me (since creatures scale easier)
The miniatures in Hellboy: The Board Game are 35mm scale. Here's a line-up to show how they stack up against one of our 28mm scale Star Saga Marine.
a bit disappointing (not so much the 35mm scale, but the 'human' Nazis seeming to be a bit oversized even for that)
time for a bit of a value rethink based on new info
Well, I'm out. As far as I am concerned this choice is inexplicable. As I explained above Fun game +miniatures that scale> Fun game + miniatures that don't scale. There are a lot of games competing for my money, and lots of cool stuff I don't own yet. There is no shortage of competition in the the fun game + minis that scale column.
I'm potentially dropping out too now as part of the 'value' for me is using these minis in other Weird War II games.
Ha! Sorry to keep repeating myself. I really like Hellboy, and I was pretty juiced about this campaign, I got an EB and everything. I guess I'm just processing the disappointment and talking myself out of buying a bunch of 40mm Nazis.
They probably went a bit bigger here for a couple of reasons - one is that they'll show better, I guess, and the other is that they'll have fewer PVC problems at that size too.
I'm still on the fence, as I'm a Hellboy fan too, but I'm wavering.
Well the one thing that’s absolutely correct is the height of the Star Saga Marine which is 35mm to the top of the head excluding the base (I checked last night)
Well the one thing that’s absolutely correct is the height of the Star Saga Marine which is 35mm to the top of the head excluding the base (I checked last night)
I just don't think they have seen a big enough drop/enough complaints to justify changing the whole line. Hellboy being 43mm has been on the page since day 1. If they do make a change, they will do it queitly. But it seems unlikely without a lot of resculpting. Shrink that Lobster Johnson down until he is the same height as the Star Saga Marine and his head will be tiny and his arms super thin. Add to that the group of 3-4 regular commenters who like them huge because they are boardgamers and say so every time someone brings up the scale, and you have a recipe for no changes.
Bud Waller has joined the crew as a playable BPRD Agent and Back-Up Agent. In Wake the Devil, Bud Waller meets an untimely end at the hands of Roger (before he joins the BPRD) so hopefully you can help him survive a little longer. With Bud in the pledge, you'l now be able to play as a BPRD-only team. The BPRD agents won't have as many special abilities as Hellboy and the crew, but they will work well together - so keep them close and keep them safe! So, what's next?
We've had numerous requests to make Target Priority markers for Lobster Johnson and Roger - so all the standard agents in the core pledge will have their own Target Priority bust (alongside the cardboard token). With regards to the Back-up Agents that were turned into playable agents and characters from the Hellboy in Mexico expansion, we are hoping to make resin versions of these and add them as an optional extra in the pledge manager - so stay tuned. The Agent Pledge box is already pretty full and our operations manager is having sleepless nights about cramming everything in!
Our next goal is another exciting scenario! This will be based around Herman von Klempt and his loyal Kriegaffe. It will use the troopers from the Conqueror Worm expansion and maybe throw in some surprises along way... a chance encounter with Kroenen, perhaps? Although we don't want to spoil the surprise.
Finally, it's the last week of the campaign T^T and it's been a rollercoaster of emotions and excitement. But don't worry because we've still got a few surprises up our sleeve! Wednesday will see a brand new expansion added to the optional extras (feel free to speculate about what that will be in the comments) and we might even have some more bad guys entering the fray...
The priority markers are unlocked and the next one has been revealed...
mantic wrote:Our next stretch goal is a little one that should hopefully be blasted through in no-time tomorrow when Add-on Wednesday goes live. Currently enemies have their wounds marked on the board with cardboard tokens. However, we've seen numerous comments from backers that were worried the board could become a little cluttered. In order to help keep down the clutter, we'll add plastic cubes to use as wound markers. These can be easily placed on the base of minions or the boss to track how much damage they've taken.
Came back to see what other people thought of this. KS comments are bad as usual. (Some things never change).
Not a fan of the Value filling duplicates in the core pledge. Turns a "must by" into a "wait till Mantic sells it at half price" at retail.
The lack of a buzz here suggests my suspicions are right. Good luck Mantic, but considering I never opened the Star Saga box, I think I may pass on this, although I like the concept.
Came back to see what other people thought of this. KS comments are bad as usual. (Some things never change).
Not a fan of the Value filling duplicates in the core pledge. Turns a "must by" into a "wait till Mantic sells it at half price" at retail.
The lack of a buzz here suggests my suspicions are right. Good luck Mantic, but considering I never opened the Star Saga box, I think I may pass on this, although I like the concept.
I think there is a lot less excitement generally for KS's these days in the forum, I think it's in part because the novelty has warn off and you have to really push the boundaries to get people excited as they once were. Possibly Kingdom Death was the last one that seemed to explode, it seemed to get the sweet-spot between a lack of availability previously and a mystique around the new product.
Although, over £1.2 million and still going, they have obviously done something right!
Dreyf wrote: Strech goals being added to an extension and not to the pledge (because the box is full)?!?
Is it something usual in kickstarters?
I was going to add some extensions to my pledge, but I think that I will stay with the basic pledge: I don't condone the principle.
Yes, it has become pretty common over the last few years. For example, the recent Zombicide campaign did the same thing. That campaign also had higher pledge levels that received exclusive stretch goals with the basic pledge missing out.
Mantic were upfront from the beginning that they had added a lot more value into the starting offer then you would normally get and do away with fake stretch goals unlocking what should have been in there to begin with. They were upfront that this would mean less stretch goals then usual and have actually been generous in what they have provided so far considering this.
Having some stretch goals for the addon bundle opens up more options to a) create additional stretch goals that may not be possible to add to the core pledge and b) encourage a big pickup in addon money to help unlock more stretch goals for all backers.
Came back to see what other people thought of this. KS comments are bad as usual. (Some things never change).
Not a fan of the Value filling duplicates in the core pledge. Turns a "must by" into a "wait till Mantic sells it at half price" at retail.
The lack of a buzz here suggests my suspicions are right. Good luck Mantic, but considering I never opened the Star Saga box, I think I may pass on this, although I like the concept.
I think there is a lot less excitement generally for KS's these days in the forum, I think it's in part because the novelty has warn off and you have to really push the boundaries to get people excited as they once were. Possibly Kingdom Death was the last one that seemed to explode, it seemed to get the sweet-spot between a lack of availability previously and a mystique around the new product.
Although, over £1.2 million and still going, they have obviously done something right!
A lot of the reduced excitement is also down to board / miniature gamers being a pretty limited group and these Kickstarter campaign pledges take up a massive amount of room once you add in stretch goals and addons. We all have limited space and a couple of big Kickstarter campaigns can fill a spare room (the original Shadows of Brimstone all in pledge does a pretty good job of doing this all on its own).
I have passed on several very interesting campaigns in last few years just because space in my spare room (used exclusively for my PC desk and board game storage) has almost run out entirely. I have several massive games I haven’t even touched yet, still sitting in the cardboard shipping boxes. What was an instant back four years ago now gets a quick glance over and that’s it. Mantic and Hellboy is one of the few games that interests me enough to actually pick up.
it looks like Mantic are offering a box (Box full of Evil) that will house all of the KS extras...... Just what a bunch have been asking for
But if you get it you don't get Hellboy in Mexico and the other new expansion in their own boxes, just in this thing instead (and it gets an extra Mini too that you'll otherwise need to get at retail)
crazy (wonder if they can include unassembled expansion boxes as a work around)?
It's a bit different to that (but still as ridiculous to be complaining about).
The original plan was to have the main pledge come in four boxes and have these stored inside a large box. These boxes are for the main games, 2 expansions and stretch goals. They decided today that it would make more sense and work out much better if they just combined all the small boxes straight into the big box as would make it smaller, more secure and better quality. This has upset people who want the separate original boxes just for collection purposes, because they want the original box to sell off one of the expansions, etc.
They have also added a bundle for the 2 expansion addons which will also combine them into a second big box. This bundle also comes with additional stretch goals (2 so far). People are upset that the first stretch goal was an enemy that was in demand and they instead want it unlocked as a main stretch goal or want everyone stretch goal to be for the main pledge as don't want to pay extra. They are also upset as they wont get separate boxes for the two expansions for collection or sale purposes, etc.
The stretch goals with the addon bundle are not kickstarter exclusive and will be available at retail. Due to the generous original pledge level Mantic are not able to make these goals for everyone but can make them goals for those who buy addons.
With the floating Japanese heads, we really want to create a Japanese-themed set. So we asked Mike Mignola if we could produce a new miniature based on some concept art included in Right Hand of Doom.
He was happy to give us the go ahead and thus the Oni miniature was created. This miniature stands around the same size as Hellboy and will be great to pop into missions alongside the floating heads or the beasts from the BPRD Archives expansion.
One of our favourite parts of the campaign was the Requisition Card competition we held. This was a chance for backers to come up with their own ideas for items that could be used in the game. There were so many great suggestions and we were disappointed we couldn't use more. So, we'll dig through those suggestions once more and include five extra Requisition cards in the Agent pledge. We'll update backers after the campaign has finished to let everyone know which ones we chose.
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oh and its almost (26 hours) down to the last day
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As you know, our next stretch goal is the dastardly Igor Bromhead - a recurring thorn in Hellboy's side. With this goal we'll produce a miniature of Igor Bromhead looking suitably crafty! But after that? Well as we enter the final 24 hours we wanted to make sure we had something big and exciting...
Step up to the plate: Saint Leonard's Worm. This mighty creature is seen in the Right Hand of Doom collection as part of the story: The Nature of the Beast. With this stretch goal, we'll produce a miniature for Saint Leonard's Worm along with a new confrontation. Will the Visitor be here to save Hellboy this time?
I am surprised that more people aren't bothered by the 40mm tall Nazis.
I must be in the minority wanting to use the miniatures in other pulp or fantasy settings. Hopefully I can get the Frogmen separately at some point.
Given the success of this KS, I can see Hellboy becoming a staple of the (somewhat crowded) Mantic game lineup with annual or so big box expansion releases. It is nice to see them get lucky, as I am still rooting for them despite not being a customer for several years.
I would be more bothered if they were something else than nazis. I have no plans to use them outside the Hellboy boardgame.
With monsters, there is some wiggle room with the scale. If the frogmen are bit taller than humans from other games, no big deal.
The medieval undead? I need to actually compare the figures with another games figures to see if I'm bothered or not. They are monsters, so I might not be much bothered...
The big monsters like the croc-wyrm, the scale does not bother at all.
So, I propably can use most of these figures alongside other games figures. The nazis can stay in the Hellboy box. They are my least favourite advesaries even in the Hellboy game.
Maybe you can just say that they are nazi-übermench-supersoldiers? That could explain that they are a bit taller than your other humans?
Gallahad wrote: I am surprised that more people aren't bothered by the 40mm tall Nazis.
I must be in the minority wanting to use the miniatures in other pulp or fantasy settings.
I understand buying a KS and thinking 'thats a heap of minis i can use in different settings', I have done similar with Zombicide (modern setting) and Shadows of Brimstone (western + fantasy) but I dont really get it when it comes to Nazis though, they are plentiful in many metal and plastic ranges.
If you want cheap 28mm nazis, cant you just buy a box of bolt action germans, you can even arm and pose them how you wish, If the 30 nazis arnt usable there is still 90 other models, 30 frogs, 30 asst beasts + 30 others.
It doesnt strike me as a KS to buy just for the models though they seem quite limited in applications (except for the 30 beasts they look cool) and if you want the Hellboy themed models you probably want the game itself. Just my opinion though
Since if I use them anywhere else it will be in some sort of weird WWII game rather than a historical one I've decided they will be genuine Nazi Übermensch created with occult technology
so being 7 feet tall will be totally reasonable
(although i'd have preferred them be a bit smaller…… and since they're PVC you never know they may end up that way anyway)
oh and the Frogmen had a retail price against them so will get a separate release (although whether stores will bother picking them up i'm not convinced, you may need to buy direct from mantic I think they were scheduled for $18)
When I'm kickstarting a miniatures heavy boardgame, I always ask myself: Can I use these minis in other games too (mostly skirmish)?
If the answer is yes, I find it is easier to take the risk if the boardgame is not good enough in the end.
So I'm always trying to kickstart game for the game itself + for the miniatures to be used outside the game too. Both counts are important.
I decided to take the chance with the Hellboy boardgame even if I don't really need these miniatures for other games. I just like Mignolas art enough to jump in.
Gallahad wrote: I am surprised that more people aren't bothered by the 40mm tall Nazis.
I must be in the minority wanting to use the miniatures in other pulp or fantasy settings.
I understand buying a KS and thinking 'thats a heap of minis i can use in different settings', I have done similar with Zombicide (modern setting) and Shadows of Brimstone (western + fantasy) but I dont really get it when it comes to Nazis though, they are plentiful in many metal and plastic ranges.
If you want cheap 28mm nazis, cant you just buy a box of bolt action germans, you can even arm and pose them how you wish, If the 30 nazis arnt usable there is still 90 other models, 30 frogs, 30 asst beasts + 30 others.
It doesnt strike me as a KS to buy just for the models though they seem quite limited in applications (except for the 30 beasts they look cool) and if you want the Hellboy themed models you probably want the game itself. Just my opinion though
Exactly. They will have chosen a scale that they think works best with the sculpts and for the board game. Obviously the consideration for this has been greater than the requirement that people might buy into this KS because they want to make an occult Nazi army.
As you say, that might be a bit annoying, but there are tons of 'weird war 2' type miniatures out there, it's probably one of the most popular pseudo-historical settings out there.
I suppose there's the reverse view too. If you love the game so much, you go and pick up some figures from some of the other WW2/wierd war 2 ranges, and they just don't fit right because they are too small.
Either way I am still backed, I am trying to work out if to get the £75 big box too. It's a lot of money for a board game I won't play more than a few times
So, even though there were hints that they would re-clarify the re-clarification on the scale of the regular human sized minis here, they in fact did not re-clarify and/or state that they'd be...smaller?
They clarified that they would not be changing the sizes (fair enough, although it was only in the comments)
and removed the image with the Nazi in which caused the majority of the controversy
so no doubt some will be surprised with their larger than expected human figures..... but then again a bunch of folk always seem to be surprised by how small minis are when their boardgames arrive
anyhoo, another stretch
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Mantic Games 16-time creator about 1 hour ago
We are going to stick with the plan of having the Box Full of Evil in one large box with the trays to hold the miniatures. However, we will put the art prints of the boxes in there too.
cool
Automatically Appended Next Post: All stretch goals now unlocked with time to spare,
fingers crossed Mantic can pull this one off smoothly
will spacely sprockets our produce cogswell cogs? will Elroy keep Astro or will Tralfaz be taken away to a life of luxury?
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