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Vorreiter!!!!

They are looking pretty damn good so far. Basically look like open-top one-man IFVs.

Of course there is no preview, they haven't funded yet. Prodos don't know if they have the capital to fund a sixth faction right out of the gate. Digging in to their pockets to create art assets for a faction that was never even originally planned to appear during the Kickstarter would be a bad idea. Prodos already dodged a bullet with the Free Marines, I don't think they'll be as keen to count their chickens before they hatch again.

Let's just let it happen. Either Mishima unlocks or it doesn't. Bauhaus players were in the same boat for the first £35k, Capitol players were in the same boat until we hit £80k. Why would Prodos change the policy when it is not entirely certain that they will get the money they need to produce the concepts?

Prodos are not wizards, they cannot redesign a whole faction in a few hours. There will be Mishima players willing to be early adopters before they see concepts (just like there were with Bauhaus and Cap players). If a player does not feel comfortable pledging sight-unseen, then they get to wait for release. That's the way it goes.

If Prodos stick their neck out, spend money and things don't work out, then that was a bad idea. Sure, going to the trouble of getting concepts and the like may push things to £140k, but it may not. And until that money counter ticks over, I agree with Prodos. The money we have put in is for designing and producing everything that has come before. Mishima can wait until £140k if it comes just like the other KS funded factions did.

WW1 hats? Man, you'll make our mounties feel old! Those are plain old campaign hats the old Light Infantry wore.

And considering how iconic it was made by R. Lee Emery in Full Metal Jacket, I'd probably be more inclined to nickname it the drill sergeant hat. And due to that, it is if anything, tied more to 'Nam as much as anywhere else (though, again, it is still used to this day by military personnel and law enforcement).

That said, it would make for a good character hat. Cap had a character named Sgt. Carter who was depicted with one. But an entire unit at least makes me think more on the Canadian side of things than a gung ho USA! style unit. Maybe Prodos can make a unit of Mountie Marines to compensate.

Damn, Prodos has broken my will. I just can't resist a Mishima starter, and since I'm getting a load of 2-of and 3-of squads, I think I can sacrifice one of those to a box of Hatamoto.

Damn you black hearts Prodos!

Why does Prodos have to keep making Cap units so awesome? I'm already in for three factions now, can't do a fourth!

Woohoo, my personal pledge calculations were on the money (mostly). I apparently still have room for one more unexpected character though. I already have one of each of the ones I want... so who to double up on?

Ah, first world problems.

Oh, and for those who missed the Kickstarter. Prodos have started taking pre-orders. For a limited time they are having a 20% off pre-order sale. So not quite as deep a discount as the KS (and no exclusives of course), but about what one can expect from an online retailer. If you were just looking to pick up a couple of things then this is the time to do it! And just remember that is 20% off of the RRP. Not sure what shipping will be though.

But for all the people holding off for the post-KS pre-order. Well, it has begun!

I'm going in for at least a bit of Mishima. A starter, an extra Meka and a unit of Hatamoto. Prodos have done really well on re-imagining the factions. I can't wait for their take on Mishima.

Man, I just realized how much stuff I got. I need to get a lot of painting done to make room for all this. *kind of hopes for delays so he has time*

 TheDungen wrote:
Nice model but Lord Inquisitor isn't a MC title. Make him a Inquisitor Majoris instead.

It is implied that there are more specialized ranks of Inquisitor than merely Inquisitor and Inquisitor Majore. Nikodemus, for instance, is Archinquisitor. Lord Inquisitor may be in charge of a larger chunk of the 2nd Directorate and be representative of a "warlord" level character in WZR while an Inquisitor Majoris may be hero level. With Inquisitors now being an elite squad and there being room in the force-org for 2-3 levels of unit, makes sense to have a third tier for them, potentially.

Most professions in Mutant Chronicles had several ranks, this was never really fleshed out for the Brotherhood whose Inquisitor/Majoris split was more like the split between grunts and officers (i.e. it had two tables for which level you were in the profession at). Expanding the rank structure would certainly be helpful since outside of Mortificators, the 2nd Directorate would have a lot of Inquisitors and having a rough idea at the chain of command could be handy.

That's pretty nice right there. I also love that it at least shares a bit of a naming convention with the Orca.

Can't wait to have a running battle between this and my Grizzly.

Yeah, the given head on the full mockup seems to be mimicing the fairly human looking Centurion of the original art. But the alternate heads definitely go in a more monstrous direction. They're all looking pretty good. I prefer the land-shark head over the alternate beast head, but they both look fairly good (ymmv and all that). They should create an imposing silhouette on the field, either way.

I had to search a bit, they are in the store.

Just because I can't bear to see this thing languish on page two (and because we have concept art for Mishima). My gift to Dakka:

Ronin Samurai


Hatamoto!


Loving the updated look. Especially on the Hatamoto. Their description of light-weight armour in the fluff never jived with the art and stats depicting them in heavier armour. I love that the Hatamoto suit is a proper powersuit of the variety worn by elite Samurai (according to Mutant Chronicles fluff). They also managed to get the Meka-esque look it was supposed to have (powersuits being designed as "small" versions of the Meka battlesuit).

They managed to maintain the angular lines of Mishima while giving them that high-tech look they were always missing (they buy a lot of components from Cybertronic and had loads of power armour in the background).

Now, I just wonder if we'll see a unit sporting Shoa Ace custom armour. That would be great as a mid-range unit between the size of those Hatamoto and the full-on Meka.

I wasn't expecting them to go back to the Mutant Chronicles stuff so much, but I'm glad they did. It is shaping up to look really great.

Oh, and as a final note, the pledge manager should be going up at the end of the week.

I'm so stoked for Mishima now, I always loved their depiction in Mutant Chronicles, but it translated poorly in to Warzone 1st Edition and never got much better. In MC they had all sorts of funky tech from proper power armour (which was quite unique to them at the time), large battlesuits and even full on mecha (the Gigamek! Which incidentally, I pray is their super-heavy down the road). They still had some cheap horde infantry given guns made by the lowest bidder (Ashigaru), but their high-end stuff was all exquisitely hand-made and rivaled Bauhaus in quality. So they had this wonderful divide in their ranks from lowly peasants with crappy plastic guns up to lords in armour created by artisans (and copious amounts of Cybertronic-sourced parts of course) wielding weapons passed down from father to son for centuries.

My biggest hope is that when they get to doing Bushido Samurai (or whatever they call 'em) that they don't make them pure assault units. Samurai without guns are weird.

 warboss wrote:
Is it a skirmish game or full blown wargame? I popped in during the kickstarter to peek at the renders of the future minis but didn't follow up enough to see the scale of the game. The last plastic boxed set came with 80 or so minis so definitely wasn't skirmish scale.

Good old "platoon-level" skirmish, but with room to go up or down quite a way. A game with 40 guys per side and some vehicles and walkers would be considered a very large game in most edition of Warzone. The beta itself was played with a dozen minis per side and lead to a very satisfying game.

As for the 2nd Edition boxed set? It was a really, really badly designed in general terms. It gave you 40 of the most basic troops, which is more than you will ever need and made for some pretty bland starter games. There was no real variety, just a bunch of low-level troops that were little more than cannon fodder. It was awesome mainly for the value and for being one of the first non-GW plastic attempts in the wider wargaming hobby. But the quality of the plastic was bad (wasn't polystyrene and seemed to actively resist attempts to glue it with even superglue), the contents didn't make for a great starting experience (it would be like learning 40k by facing two 40 grot armies against each other).

But the scale of the game itself usually started down around 6-12 minis and capped out around 40-ish minis for very large games. So it is still well within what most consider the skirmish scale. But instead of being strictly squad-based like Infinity it is usually called platoon-based because it focuses on several squads acting in conjunction. So it is more in the range of Rogue Trader/2nd Edition 40k, Stargrunt II, Tomorrow's War, Warpath and other games of that scale. It is sadly a gaming scale that hasn't gotten a lot of exposure outside of scenario-based "hard" sci-fi wargames and modern games. Now with Warpath and Warzone on the market I am starting to feel spoiled for one of my favourite gaming scales.

Well it looks like the suit itself is diesel-powered (the exhausts along the side). But the background in the Mishima Sourcebook says that they source most of the techy bits from Cybertronic (this is what I love about the Megacorps in Warzone, they aren't just nations called corporations, they actually sell each other stuff!). Powersuits were kind of the next wave in Mishima battlefield technology. It was almost strictly limited to the rich though. The other poor sods had to deal with non-powered stuff.

But Warzone, like most dieselpunk (and like its cousin steampunk) are all about anachronistic levels of technology despite being trapped in a retro era. If anything dieselpunk is more about the aesthetic than it is about the underlying tech. It basically allows us to have power armour, robots and plasma cannons while still letting everything look like it came from the 1940's.

And it is explained away by a combination of Cybertronic-sourced super-tech, jury rigs of older advanced tech to make it more resistant to Dark Symmetry corruption and refining a certain level of limitations to an apex that is not normally achieved when one is allowed to advance to the next stage. For the latter especially we can kind of compare it to a lot of other "lost arts" throughout history. They are mostly lost because we found a better/cheaper/faster way of doing it by applying more technology. But back in the day when they could make use of high-technology, they achieved things with their limited tech that is quite amazing when it comes to various building techniques and use of materials. Either way, it is all just a "wizard did it" explanation to allow for retro-aesthetics and high tech junk in the same game and nothing more.

Those look amazing! Like big, diesel-powered classic Ironman suits. Do they come with enough weapon bits to give them two of either option?

Pledge calculator is out of beta and starting to trickle in to the in-boxes of the general population. Already placed my order and it all went quite smoothly. Man, when it is all listed out like that, it really feels like a lot of stuff. What have I done?

After pledging is over Prodos has to hand Amazon and Kickstarter their cut on top of other taxes they need to pay. This is why it is important to cancel before this happens. Cancelling after the fact leaves Prodos footing the bill for a lot of charges. This is why KS terms tend to only suggest refunds are forthcoming only if the project cannot be delivered. Refunding any money at all, after pledges are done and over with is kind of rare. That Prodos are even considering doing a partial refund is good on their part, as they have no legal compunction to do so under the KS terms.

I had troubles with the pledge manager and Prodos were quick to reply and fix my issues. I can only think that there is either more to this story than is being let on or there was some other technical hiccup that prevented communication from reaching through. But if this was an issue of someone throwing a hissy post-KS, then there isn't much that can be done. Prodos has already had to pay Amazon, Kickstarter and probably even Paradox a cut of the money (as was their legal obligation). Unless circumstances arise and Warzone can't be delivered (which seems less than likely as books/pdfs will be heading out this month) then a backer looking for a refund doesn't have much to stand on.

Either way, I contacted service@prodos.co.uk and was all set and ready to go after a bit of back and forth with Mark. So I don't see why there would be an issue unless something else is going on.

In other news, this is a thing:

They used alternating activation in the beta rules and I don't think that has gone away.

As it stands, the stats seem to be in the ranges seen in 1st Edition (some increased to keep pace with the lower action economy in this version). The action system and card mechanics are the biggest change. Models have two actions base now (like 2nd Edition Chronopia) and you can't double up on actions anymore (though there are actions that allow you to do basically the same thing but with a finer degree of balance compared to being able to double or triple-up on your actions (so aim is actually worth a damn this time!). The card mechanics add a bit of a fog of war to things and allow for there to be double-blind bluffs in play (which I think is great for creating unique play-states every game). The card mechanics as well as unit abilities run on a resource system (kind of like command points in other games). Your army's commander gives a number of resources depending on their rules and each squad leader adds one to the pool. From there you can spend resources to activate unit abilities, equipment or to play out cards (which can be tactics, strategies or special equipment). These resources refresh every round and the economy of them can be pretty important if used wisely.

Beyond that, close combat has seen an overhaul in terms of options and it feels kind of Warmachine-like in terms of special actions (as well as the way combat timing is handled). Out of all the editions, I like the CC mechanics in this one the best since they manage to be both fast and quite evocative (having a Razide plow through a squad, flinging them aside like ragdolls, for example).

Characters are back to being a bit more pulpy and heroic (ala 1st Edition) but with most of the worst excesses curbed (at least from what we have seen so far). There is also talk of a character customization system, so people that like personalizing their heroes (1st Edition WZ players and any edition of 40k player) will probably enjoy this.

As for the latest spoilers on game mechanics, things are looking pretty interesting. Units appear to have active and passive abilities (the former cost resources to activate) and this ranges from things like the lightly armoured Chasseurs having a stealth-field generator they can plonk down to things like the Razide being able to bound over terrain when it charges. Some really awesome stuff in there (the Everasseur even has a proper 2-mode plasma cannon just like the Mutant Chronicles version of the Gehenna Puker!).

There are some play reviews posted by the lucky gits that got to play demo games at the Grumpy Old Wargamer con (along with photos of painted armies). Can't wait till the end of the month when we get the PDFs (and some will be getting their books shipped out, I presume, if that is all they ordered).

Loved the original renders, but these ones just look fantastic. They actually take a lot of inspiration from the 1st Edition art (the helmet especially) while not looking too dated. They look fantastic. Another one of those minis that makes me wish I had bought in for a fourth faction. May have to pick some Cap stuff up down the line just for the hell of it.

From what I gathered, the rulebook will be ready to ship by the end of the month (as will the PDF). Those orders that did not contain minis will be sent out at this time (and backers will get the PDF). From there it is basically going to be a rolling release as they finish things up. They are already in to resin production (a few shots of multiple troop sprues going around; so no longer prototypes). We know they are doing plastics through Renedra, so no clue on how all that is going (Renedra used to have timeline issues, but with the industry getting a lot broader in terms of plastics, their backlog may not be as intense).

I'm still expecting a few months past the end of June, myself, but shots of the production minis show that they are definitely getting things done. The first wave of stuff will mostly depend on how fast Renedra will be with the plastics since Prodos seem to have a handle on the resin production. From there wave 2 shouldn't be as bad (though it contains all the large kits which may present their own issues when going to production).

Either way by the end of this month or early next month, backers should be able to play some proxy games to keep us busy while we wait.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Did I hear correctly, that they are going with Renedra? Does this mean the models will be plastic (the good kind of plastic)?

Not everything, just the basic troops of each faction (it was either the £60k or £70k stretch goal, can't recall now). So Hussars, Chasseurs (not the armoured ones), Undead Legionnaires, Capitol Light Infantry, and Samurai. If it is the basic trooper in the starter set, then it is in hard plastic (the rest of the contents will be resin).

Everything else is resin. Which is why, in all of those production shots, you will not see any of the basic troops. I can't remember the update it came in but they did announce after shopping around that the hard plastic would be done in styrene and that they had gone with Renedra for it.

And those Venusian Rangers continue looking fantastic. They will be a joy to paint.

Yeah, she seems to have become a little more... erm, well-endowed since we saw the renders.



The original render certainly wasn't without curves but it seems she has had some work done.

Oh well, can't win 'em all. Maybe I can work a conversion using the EM bodies. Or get a second Angelika (who looks fan-freaking-tastic) and do a kitbash.

At least she isn't as bad as the original EM concepts. Boobplate is a step up from catsuit (a small step...), and unlike a lot of female minis she is wearing actual boots. So, like a more modest Red Sonja than a Deja Thoris.

*still hoping it is the angle of the shot*

Ah well, the resculpted EM and Angelika won them a lot of points in my eyes. Hopefully Val ends up becoming the odd sculpt out as time goes on.

Alright, well it looks like the PDF is getting delayed by a day due to an image corruption issue.

But to make up for it, we get this beauty:

Well the roadmap and PDF are out now. Overall, I have to say they are making good progress (most minis seem to be slated for the end of July) despite things like one of their sculptors running off and the 3D printer the bed (and holy crap, a flood at their printers!). But it is nice to see they are forging ahead and making fairly good time despite the troubles.

Now, of to devour the basic rules PDF (which looks damn good so far).

Totally worth pledging for two of those. I am a happy space-sammie player.

Can't wait to see the characters.

Always happy to see more of the Venusian Rangers. They're looking great in the flesh, err, resin.

Those words, they fit together and make a sentence... but I cannot parse them.

I have plenty of the old ones. But they make me shudder each time I look at them. They look like Nagash had an illegitimate child with a 90's shoulder pad factory on top of a bearskin rug (that they now don in memory of the deed).

The new ones look smooth, stylish and I am actually surprised at how natural the poses look (love the firing one, too few minis actually get modelled firing their guns). I love how versatile they are looking as well, can't wait to see the alternate pieces for the kit (though I am loving the basic ones here; they will also make an excellent generic special forces squad for any of the lesser Guard Orders).

Just remember, they also come with alternate heads that are the "classic" design as well. They just haven't been shown in the flesh (so to speak). But old-school jawless masks were shown in renders and Prodos did confirm there would be alternate heads in there. So everyone should be happy.

I'm personally glad that multiple styles of skull-mask/death's head are available since the skull is used as the generic cresthelm on most Bauhaus special forces (it is the standard mask that comes with Guardsman armour). So having one that is a more customized version and one that is "stock" is a nice touch.

But unless Prodos have changed their toon, the below renders are still a go to my knowledge: