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scipio.au wrote:
On a more serious note, would it be possible to have a Mantic sub-forum for these discussions?

Already been discussed, the end result of that was that all conversation about Mantic not strictly about the news and rumours (including stuff like 8-page debates about whether resin plastic is plastic or whether or not mantic stole the colour green from GW) belong in the Mantic Discussion thread that Pacific linked to.

Awesome, thanks for the new forums!

Veer-Myn Scourger pic:



Looks like they broke the arm off after it was painted!

^ Comma comma comma comma chameleon!

Pacific wrote:Apparently there is also artwork of the Forgeguard which a few people have seen, but it hasn't been released yet.

There's also sketches of the following floating around, that people have seen, but there are no pictures of:

- Power-armoured Corporation
- Corporation APC / Tank

In addition, it is confirmed that Forgefathers will be getting the Surtr Heat-Cannon Artillery piece (Jotunn with a different weapon), and a 10-man box of stormrage veterans with new weapons, more options and possibly a lower price tag since it won't be a 5-man box anymore.

Kings of War releases throughout June, July and August, then after that there will probably be some Warpath in the Autumn, with Corp one month, and Forgefathers another. They're the 2 best looking armies (and also, the only two I collect :p), so I'm glad they're focusing on filling them out. Warpath needs proper *armies* before anyone will play it, not just 3 infantry units and a hero.

^ Here you go!

Yeah, had to do a quick edit after I realised that.

Really liking that sculpt, great model.

They also have an arse-shot of the Corporation Commandos for some reason. :p

@ Alpharius - I've heard this August, not 100% sure though.

They'll be doing a release wave of the Iron Ancestor, a 10-man box of Stormrage veterans with new options, and the Surtr Artillery piece (the jotunn with a new anti-tank gun).

@scipio - That's definitely one of Mantic's 60mm bases it's on, to give you an idea of scale. So yeah, dreadnought-sized.

But definitely not dreadnought priced, you'll probably be able to get them for cheaper than ebay'd black reach dreadnoughts. The Jotunn is a similar-sized model with more seperate parts and costs £12.50.

@BrookM - Probably later this year, November or December time. They're at the concept stage currently, plan is to release an APC and then a battle tank based on the same hull as the APC.

heartserenade wrote:Maybe it's the same one who paint the zombies on the zombie box. I just got the stuff I won from miniwargaming for the Dakka Painting Challenge and one of the stuff I got is 30 Mantic Zombies. The paintjob for that one is not bad, but it's just a bit above tabletop level. I really think they can do better to showcase their product: the zombies are amazing! The paintjob could've showcased their amazingness more.

I've spoken to the commission painter who painted those zombies, while he had the unit of zombies in front of him.

He explained that there were different levels of quality that could be commissioned, and that Mantic had, for that unit requested (and paid for) the unit to be painted to a basic gaming standard (with a slightly higher standard on the models in the front rank).

They don't "need to be bludgeoned", they are painting to the quality standard that they are being paid for. If Mantic has the funds to pay them quadruple the amount, then they can paint up the unit to the same standard as the AoW berserkers regiment (painted by exactly the same people, only to a showcase standard instead of a gaming standard).

So, the painting is largely an issue with Mantic making a fiscal decision to use their money to make more miniatures rather than spending a lot of money on commission painting everything to a high standard. A horde of 60 zombies painted to a high standard could easily end up costing $1000 or so, money which Mantic could have spent making more miniatures instead. Unlike most other garage companies and whatnot that make single miniatures, Mantic has to pay for getting whole armies painted up, which does not come cheap.

Using the community to paint their miniatures is not an option since they need to physically keep hold of the models to use for shows and new photographs, they can't just have one picture then call it quits.

Photography is still poor, as can be seen on the completely-out-of-focus gun arm on that iron ancestor. I've given up complaining about it, I can only tolerate being TFG for so long. :p

^ It looks like this will be the contents of the new set will be this, 2 crew models, surtr heat cannon and static platform:



Basically, a Surtr static weapon platform, but if you have a Jotunn, then you can hot-swap parts between the two kits to make either a tracked Surtr, or a static Jotunn. Excellent idea!

I think the tracked version will look a *lot* better with both blast shields in place rather than just the one.

And the untracked version will look better with no blast shields.

The half-and-half way they've built them on there with either the top or the bottom blast shield in place looks a bit crap, but the actual sculpt is quite nice, looks like an alien weapon!

I'm certain it'll look great once it's assembled with a better regard for the overall silhouette of the model.

Also, new Raptor Transport for the Marauders:



So, there's now a way to go for either a 3-wheeler or 4-wheeler, open top or armoured style for that model.

Nice catch, cheers!

Judging by Mantic's usual price bands, the UK prices should be something like:

£30 - Strike Forces
£16 - 10 Stormrage Veterans
£14 - Raptor Transport, Surtr Platform
£12.50 - Iron Ancestor


Very nice pricing on the the Iron Ancestor there, I expect it'll be a very popular kit. At that kind of price point it's no problem at all to just buy forgeworld arms for the thing and kit it out however you want.

^ There are no rumours about the Asterians at all. Not in development, currently and won't be for some time.

Plague are likely to be the 5th release for Warpath, but even they won't be appearing for some time, the current emphasis is on fleshing out the first 4 armies before anything else.

September release for the new stormrage veteran kit, iron ancestor, surtr, raptor transport, and veemyn stalkers and gougers.
October release for the Corporation Commandos and Commando hero (and a new army box for them).
November release for the new game from Mantic.
December unknown, outside chance of Corporation vehicles at this point if Mantic has found a way to make them affordable. Modular APC/ Tank kit has been designed, and Mantic wants the price to be as low as possible on it.

Then, Q1 and Q2 2013 will be loaded with all the Kickstarter releases for KoW.

^ I agree, those are the 2 armies I am going to get into in a big way once their model ranges are looking "ready".

Marauders and Veer-myn I don't really like because I feel like they detract from the sci-fi setting, having fantasy tropes present rather than proper *aliens*. It kills suspension of disbelief to try to shoe-horn "space fantasy" into a setting which makes any attempt to take itself seriously (the background tries hard to do this in many ways, but fails).

Zz'or and Plague and Asterians are potentially much more interesting concepts. Out of those three, I'm strongly hoping that only the Zz'or will have a passing resemblence to a GW army, and that the Plague (Sedition Wars did space zombies brilliantly well) and Asterians will be entirely unique. Even the Zz'or might not clone GW tyranids though, which would be quite nice, I hope they do go with an insectoid alien style since there isn't much on the market in that style... tyranids are more giger/lovecraft/crustacean/ in design.

That's not to say that orcs or rats in space are bad, just that they need to be done properly and presented as an alien species rather than a straight copy+paste from fantasy, which they pretty much are at this point.

Forgefathers did a much better job of coming across as alien with their armour design, and in their background where they are the hard counter to the Corporation and give away their weapons tech to any alien species surrounding their space to create a buffer zone to prevent to Corp from getting close. Also, their starships are massively superior to the Corporation ones. They're a really great, serious and modern take on "space dwarfs" without a hint of campiness (if you leave off the fantasy heads).

Whereas Marauders are just some copy+paste aggressive aliens who would still be stuck in primitive tribes in an isolated star system if the Corp hadn't arrived, and Veer-myn are a pest-control nuisance. Neither of the 2 races possess much intellect or have any ability to build their own starships or pose a real threat on a galactic scale. Marauders are simply mercenaries who are subject to the whims of the other factions.

For me, Warpath as a game is a whole lot more appealing if you just look at the Corporation and Forgefathers and try to forget the other two factions exist. Hopefully once the Zz'or and Plague are out, things will be a lot less polarized, and the setting will look a lot less like a running "X thing. In. SPAAAAAAACE" joke.

I do too, it's a nice sculpt.

Yep, new pics of everything:







Marauder kits are very nice, you can now make 4 different variants of the Raptor which is great for sculpt variety.

That's the first I've heard of an Enforcer army box.

Is that the name for the Corporation Commando army box that's coming out?

Edit: *Checks the Mantic store*

Looks like "Enforcers" is simply the new name for "Commandos". No idea what will be in it... it's being released a month after all of this stuff, so there will probably be another month's wait before we find out.

Warpath 2.0 rules and army lists are being released as a free .pdf to newsletter subscribers this Friday.

Completely new game with alternate activations as the turn sequence (something which is apparently similar to Infinity and whatnot).

Intelligent, non-aggressive feedback wanted on the rules.

Not currently, no idea if that will change..probably not, since it's a mass-battle game. You do remove units when they are destroyed.

I also have no idea why that is the one thing that causes a lot of people to instantly go "No, hate it." with Mantic's rulesets when its really no big deal at all and is just an abstraction to speed the game up that is also used in games like Epic (considered to be one of the most well-written, tactical rulesets from GW).

Damage in Mantic's systems is abstract and takes into account negative morale, so its best to think of the "Nerve" stat as being a combination of both wounds and leadership.

Well, you'll see on Friday and can give feedback then. Who knows? The game might swing the other way and add movement trays for a more epic-style game (a lot of people currently playing the game already use movement trays, speeds things up a lot).

Hopefully this time around we can avoid the trainwreck of calling the rules total crap, calling Alessio a hack, and baseless complaints about "feedback is pointless because Mantic will never listen" that formed the bulk of the discussion over on the BoW forums (and to a major extent, these forums as well) last year during the original beta test.

It wasn't until several months later that the angry 40k players lost interest and buggered off that some actual rational discussion about the rules could take place without being drowned out in a signal-to-noise ratio from hell which actually made me start to sympathise with GW's policy of choosing to ignore 100% of all internet feedback.

I always like to think that the internet is this wonderful sea of polite, highly-intelligent people capable of forming well-written debates and constructive criticism which can massively improve any game that asks for it, but the reality of it has a nasty habit of taking that naive assumption and slapping me in the face with it.

Mantic is pretty good at listening to feedback. Make sure it's worth listening to (generic comment directed at the entire internet).

Edit: I can confirm that Individual Casualty Removal is "in".

As an aside though, this doesn't always hold true:

Plus, it is is just a part of wargaming in general - a visual, visceral part of the game.

If we're actually talking about "wargaming in general" and not "The GW Hobby", the vast majority of historical rulesets are unit-based or element-based, as are most of the popular fantasy rulesets. It's only really sci-fi and skirmish that have individual casualty removal as the standard, and even then only for 28mm scale.

I was actually hoping for a mass-battle game from the new Warpath rules, but it probably makes more business sense to go with an alt-40k sized game as standard with a lot more changes to match that system. Hopefully they'll release a mass-battle supplement later down the line.

@ Alph - Pedantry wasn't the intent, was just drawing more on personal experience there with the various games that I've played over the years is all.

I'm not heavily opinionated on the topic, I just want a quick mass-battle game where I still have the option to use movement trays if I want. Individually moving models takes ages and that's the real thing that slows the game down.

Casualty removal will help a little with that since you don't have to move the dead guys, but not nearly as much as use of a movement tray will.

The side-effect is also that it could make shooting and melee a lot slower if the system moves to individual combat and shooting as well... and this is before I even begin to mention all the tedious meta-gamey stuff that has sprung up around 40k's long-winded wound allocation and casualty removal system over the years.

That forms the bulk of the reason why I'm hesitant about seeing it added to Warpath, *not* removed from 40k... approaching a rules debate with the assumption that Warpath is supposed to be 40k lite is an extremely bad idea. People make the same mistake about KoW all the time, especially those who just skim read the rules for 5 minutes instead of getting some models out and playing a game, which is what feedback should really be based on.. real-life playtesting, not armchair game development.

@ Da Boss: A lot of the people asking for it last year were basing their argument on only ever having played 40k, and wanting the rules to be more like 40k, rather than for the reasons which you two have gone into, which is why I asked for a more detailed explanation, to see what the thought process behind that comment was. That's all. You've both got good reasons (I strongly agree with Alph's point about it making more sense for loose formations because of the visual element) , and your point about not moving dead models was one that hadn't occured to me since all my Warpath models are on movement trays.

*Personal opinion is that WotR was the best set of rules GW has done in recent years, since the movement trays really cut down on the chore of having to move hundreds of models, and also the empty gaps left behind in a ranked movement tray instantly let you see how many "wounds" had been inflicted on the unit already.. so, it was like an element-based game that used empty slots in the base as visual aids/ wound markers rather than putting counters on the table. Worked well, the game was great as a mid-point between skirmish and mass-battle.

**********************************************

Edit: More juicy rumours, fresh from the distributors who post this stuff online!

NYA MGE DBF11-1 DB Midgard Delvers $24.99
NYA MGE DBF70-1 DB Forge Father MVP $9.99
NYA MGE DBH11-1 DB Trontek 29er's $24.99
NYA MGE DBH70-1 DB Human MVP $9.99
NYA MGE DBM01-1 Dreadball Futuristic Sports Game $79.99
NYA MGE DBO11-1 DB Greenmoon Smackers $24.99
NYA MGE DBO70-1 DB Goblin MVP $9.99
NYA MGE DBV11-1 DB Skittersneak Stealers $24.99
NYA MGE DBV70-1 DB Veer-myn MVP

- Sci-fi football game from Mantic called "Dreadball".

- Released in November.

- Looks like 4 different teams and a character for each will be released alongside the main boxed game.

^ Issue 5 of the Mantic Journal, which was given away in their newsletter last year.

Here's a link:

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/e62f0c35454fa3ba687404d69/files/MJ_Issue_5.pdf?utm_source=Mantic+Games+Newsletter&utm_campaign=221b769020-Mantic_Games_Newsletter_124&utm_medium=email

Forgefather background starts on page 26.

^ Yeah, most of the people playing Warpath at this point are using at least some GW models in their army, if not the whole army.

Same goes for KoW to a lesser extent, part of the appeal of the rules is that you don't have to buy anything right away if you've got a fantasy or 40k army.. you can literally just read the rules, write a list and get playing half an hour later.

Also, new Forgefather hero:

New post up on BoW for DreadBall, with pics:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/mantic-games/mantic-games-dreadball/





Love the look of that pitch!

The whole design looks like it's going to be wonderfully retro/ 80's TRON-style.

Da Boss wrote:Edit: One thing just jumped out at me, looking at the new lists: the nerve value doesn't seem to go up anymore with increased unit numbers. This is hopefully a typo, or else large units are a terrible idea and MSU will rule the day.

Yep, we all noticed that one, and it's actually even worse than it seems at first glance.. due to the fact that Nerve tests aren't one-per-activation, they're once-per-shot (so 4 units causing 4 damage = 4 nerve checks).. plus the activation rules encourage massive MSU spam as well (think about it.. why risk failing activation tests, when you can opt out of the whole system and have all your units act in the final "leftover units" activation instead... which will then let you go nuts and trigger a ton of onslaught bonuses as you shoot the rest of your army at once. MSU-wars is a very big problem for a whole number of different reasons.

This will probably be the absolute first thing that get sorted out.

This is a completely new game, almost, in comparison to the rules released last year and should be treated as an alpha build in it's current state.

There's a wonderful rules discussion forum over on the mantic boards, for anyone genuinely interested.

^ They already do:

Drakkarim Legs Bits Pack

With similar packs for special and heavy weapons, torsos and heads.

Just a quick update on the Warpath beta-testing..

We're now into week 2 of the beta testing, and Alessio has released an updated 2nd beta version of the 2.0 rules to incorporate some small suggestions, as well as releasing the 3rd and 4th army lists and adding some small tweaks to the current ones.

The beta development is taking on a rapid development cycle with regular updates.

Rules are available to download here, for those of you who aren't signed up to the newsletter.

If anyone would like to join in with the beta-testing it would be of huge help (especially if you can physically playtest or do so using Vassal), at the moment there's only about a dozen of us and the whole thing is getting a little incestuous. :p

Also, Marauder Bull Quad is out, the 4th Raptor variant:

ThomasPolder wrote:where to go to help with vassal testing? if there's a community doing that now I'd love to join in. is it just somewhere via the mantic forums? and how much work is it to get vassal set up for such a thing? (never used it...)

I've got a guide to using VASSAL to playtest Warpath up on the Mantic forums here.

So far there hasn't been much interest, only me and darkprince are using it to get some games in. From a casual observation, it seems that most 40k players are really happy with 6th edition, which is why we haven't seen more people interested currently.

@Cyporiean: All I can really suggest is to give the new rules a quick play, they're actually not that bad. If it doesn't appeal, keep in mind that the 2.0 rules are now called Warpath Skirmish.

There will be a second, mass-battle game released next year. Multiple sets of rules to appeal to as many different people as possible.

People who like 40k will love Warpath Skrimish, I've played a few games now, and think its great, quite similar to 40k without a whole heaping ton of the complexity and fiddliness that comes with 40k... beta needs a *lot* of small tweaks at this point, but is progressing well, Mantic is incorporating a lot of the suggested changes that we're making, as long as we've playtested them and thought them through.

People who liked WP 1.0 and games like Epic will probably enjoy the mass-battle version of the rules (which will be completely separate).

Basically, Mantic is going with the same approach that GW used for LotR with separate rules and army lists for SBG and WotR.


As for the Enforcers, a whole ton of background just got posted to the Mantic website, definitely worth a read, its really interesting and goes into all sorts of detail about how the Corporation works:

http://www.manticgames.com/Warpath/Corporation.html



And all the models are now up for advanced order:

http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Advance-Orders/Advance-Order-Enforcers.html

Bit rich for my tastes, but as always, the army box is a good deal, so I'll take it.

Hopefully the decision to go hybrid metal was made so they could put more money towards making the upcoming Corp vehicles good and cheap (imagine an APC or tank at Iron Ancestor prices!).

^ You won't have to wait long!



Very much an "Iron Man" design style rather than traditional power armour or 40k space marine style.

Buzzsaw wrote:

Cyporiean wrote:...

Here is the link.

My main issue is that its gone from a simple quick mass battle game, to being a clunky skirmish game.

Thanks!

That's odd, I mean, isn't mass battles Mantic's... thing? Why switch to a format best suited to smaller army sizes?

This is just the Warpath Skirmish game, there will be a mass battle version coming out later, as Alessio mentions on the podcast.

They're going with 2 seperate game systems, because half the people want 40k-sized games with individual casualty removal (and absolutely will not play any game that doesn't have it)... and the other half want an abstract mass-battle game without it (and absolutely will not play anything else). By doing this they'll appeal to as many people as possible.

So,with 2 sets of rules, Warpath and Warpath Skirmish, they'll be getting rid of the problem with the 1.0 rules where it wasn't really one or the other, with an odd mixture of mass-battle and 40k-style rules that was unpopular.

A lot of people wanted Alternate Activation and won't play anything that doesn't have it either, so that has been added. I really hope to hell all the people complaining at length on the internet actually go out and buy the game once they've got what they asked for. :p


Cyporiean, the new Skirmish game might not be to your personal taste, but I've played it a few times and quite like it. Then again, I also played 40k for over a decade and enjoyed that game too, so that probably explains it.

There isn't really a right or wrong answer, its all down to personal preference.

^ Cool, will be great to see you there!

Really need some fresh perspectives giving input, at the moment the bulk of the feedback is coming from non-40k players, so I really think a different perspective on the rules from people who currently (or previously) played 40k would be great, since this new skirmish ruleset is mainly designed to be "40k, but quicker to play, and better"

Also, Enforcer Captain:



Very Starcraft in style, which is awesome!

Replace the head with a sphere and you have a good basis for one of the heavier Terran units.

Its about time a company started to take their inspiration from modern video games, there's a lot of really high-quality, realistic designs that would work extremely well in miniature form.