Infestation is upon us
The Deadzone: Infestation Kickstarter goes live at 1:30pm GMT on Friday 20th March.

A threat lurks deep within the darkest corners of Exham IV.

Violent and aggressive in nature, uncontrollable if left to expand.

The Council of Seven has dispatched the Enforcer Pathfinders to assess and neutralize the threat in its early stages.

They are too late.

Infestation is upon us…..

Veer-myn-Mine-Escape

This week sees a mini-kick for Deadzone begin. I thought it relevant to explain a little about why we are doing it, what you can expect and a short update on the other outstanding projects while we’re at it.

So let’s start there. Dungeon Saga is off the printers in a matter of weeks. There is a big update coming but quickly I’ll say we have run two play test days, all the scenarios have been play tested – many of them by backers – and they are playing really well. We have had time to go over every part of the game and polish it aiming to make this as close to perfect as we can.

We’ve got a fantastic getting started guide, the adventures get progressively harder as the heroes toughen up, we have new art, and a very big surprise coming. I will reveal all in a blog post (ahem), but what I can say is that we have come up with a special way to say thanks to everyone who backed this project – and encourage newbies to give it a try once it is on the shelves! Watch for a video next week

Kings of War has been developed in parallel to Dungeon Saga by Alessio, with invaluable support from the rules committee. The new Abyssal and Nature army lists have been developed (and are both fantastic and calling to me, but I must resist!). As you know this was also a mini-kick and has given us a fantastic opportunity to polish the 1st edition KoW rules to play even quicker and more balanced. The point systems are just being worked through and it’s done too. There is a lot of people coming aboard KoW right now, and with a huge campaign coming up and new armies, units and heroes in the pipeline this will push the system to scale new heights. It goes off to translation in a few weeks (for simultaneous releases in German, Spanish and French!) and then to print! With you in summer and on time.

We have on the way the third wave shipment for Xtreme and seasons 5 and 6 too – they’ll be shipping May. Separate update on those – along with more play by plays for Xtreme.

Especially on KoW and DS we have taken on board the lessons from Deadzone, Mars Attacks and Xtreme. We are aiming to ship these in fewer waves, with much more pre-packed to minimize mispacks and errors. Thanks with your patience both on the old Kickstarters and the new pledge manager, all aimed at getting the product and its shipping right first time.

And Deadzone?

Well as we all know that was a massive project to serve up and delivering it certainly challenged us. We are coming back to it for a few reasons, and you can read about them in depth (and just how important your support is) in a great article here on the Escapist Magazine website.

In short, there are a few big reasons we needed to come back to Deadzone:

– We need another faction! Part of any minis game is giving us new enemies to fight against – or with! It poses new challenges and freshens up the system. When the Veer-myn hit the shelves the Forge Fathers and Asterians will have been out a year and it will be time for new blood

new 2From the Veer-myn Night-Crawler Hard Plastic Sprue

heavychem 1From the Veer-myn Night-Crawler Hard Plastic Sprue

– We’ll also add more new scenery – this has been hugely popular and the main request has been for more detail pieces, causeways, shafts and pipes. You speak, we listen – they are all in phase 1.

– Improve and simplify the army selection process and add a great campaign system

– The rules need a polish. Ideally this wouldn’t be done for a while but we need to make access into the game a little gentler

– it is a fantastic system but it takes too much effort to get there and it puts new people off. If the game is to flourish then it needs to be easier in the early stages.

The next point is really important too – we need a starter set and a range that retailers feel they can sell in their stores. The current starter set is fantastic value – filled with building sprues, rules, dice, counters, deluxe rubber mats and 2 factions – and that makes it too expensive in store and too much for a beginner to get started with. We’ll create a new 2 player set with a simple, high-quality supporting range – with all the basic sets in hard plastic to allow our retailers to constantly recruit into the universe.

Which bring us on to Warpath. Well this mini-kick is for Warpath too! We’ll get the Veer-myn in hard plastic – in fact if this kicks on every starter faction in Warpath will have some hard plastic sets. The Enforcers already have 2 sprues – and a 3rd coming in this mini-kick; we hope to get the Asterians funded, and the plague. In fact, with us adding to the scenery range too this is a Resin Plastic free Kickstarter – it is centering around the fantastic hard plastic we can now produce as we gear up for war!

male 2From the Enforcer Pathfinder Hard Plastic Sprue

male 3From the Enforcer Pathfinder Hard Plastic Sprue

Finally, the great opportunity we have for the next few weeks is that again we will get hard focus back on Deadzone – lots of people are waiting for a chance to dive in, and that chance is now. We will be running some spectacular deals on our website AND through our retail partners – AND ANY STORE CAN HAVE ANY DEAL FROM OUR WEBSITE. We want to support the trade accounts – so just go to the local gaming store and ask them to order what you want – and they’ll have it in a few days! With the crazy deals running you’ll be able to grab a faction starter or two, some great scenery – and have it all ready for the updated rules!

And backers of the previous Kickstarter needn’t worry either, as we’ll be giving each of the first Deadzone Backers a free digital copy of the new rulebook when it’s ready.

With the last four Kickstarters Mantic has signaled its intent – we are going to create exciting and deep universes – one fantasy, one futuristic in space. Each has benefited from two kickstarters that focus on developing those universes albeit with different game styles – but always to the same end. Whether it is via books, or a tabletop wargame, a sports game or a Dungeon crawler we want everyone to have a chance to collect, paint and game with minis at affordable prices. That is our mission. The support we get on Kickstarter allows that to happen.

Thank you for supporting the mission, help build the universes – and getting very cool toys along the way.