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...................Exalted because its true...


I think they've got a bit more maturing too, but they're really coming along.

They remind me of GW in 1997: tons of enthusiasm, lots of cool games just released and lots more on the horizon, 50/50 mix of cool models and bad models, great community interaction. Making me nostalgic, sniff sniff.

Yeah I was going to say that as well, definitely 90's GW. Or 'the Golden Age' as many of us remember that time

 Pacific wrote:
Yeah I was going to say that as well, definitely 90's GW. Or 'the Golden Age' as many of us remember that time

Funny thing is that was probably GW's 'Golden Age' (for many of us) and that nowadays, just about everything else in Tabletop Miniature Wargaming is more 'Golden Age' than GW!

Off topic, but it kind of makes me sad. Sort of like growing up and not remaining friends with your old gradeschool/highschool best friends because of differing tastes/etc. I had to cut it off before I started in on the 'getting too expensive' (in regards to GW) and then people had to ask what kind of 'friends' I was referring to

But yeah, there's a lot of lore, lot of nostalgia and positive feeling from my first days in this hobby exclusively with GW.

I'm hoping that Mantic can really pull out all the stops in the fluff department and that their games and lore become the games and lore that I remember in another 10-20 years as 'the good old days', though hopefully they stay grounded and keep being awesome

My golden days with GW were a bit earlier than some of you it seems (early 90s), because by 97 I was out of high school and 100% focused on conquests of the female persuasion, with the sales of those miniatures from years past used to fuel my growing vinyl addiction (which would in turn end up funding my wife's engagement ring- punk rock for capitalism!).

Flipping through the books, seeing all these new games and models coming out... it definitely does take me back to those simpler times in life, and the enjoyment I use to get from GW and their products.

Now if I could only actually get to play more often. In that regard, some things never seem to change...

Didn't 40K 2nd release in 1993?

That was the start of the GW Golden Age for me - WFB was a lot of fun back then, as was Space Marine/Titan Legions and so on.

IF Mantic can capture even 50% of that 'magic', they'd be doing great!

What? Mine started in 89 with the release of advanced heroquest and died sometime mid 97 with the last WQ release. Let us hope mantic picks up the fallen banner with dungeon saga...

Mine started in 1997 - coincidentally the same year I discovered miniature gaming...

 judgedoug wrote:
They remind me of GW in 1997: tons of enthusiasm, lots of cool games just released and lots more on the horizon, 50/50 mix of cool models and bad models, great community interaction. Making me nostalgic, sniff sniff.

Perhaps not so ironically, I think this is when Ronnie Renton (head of mantic) was one of the big whigs at GW. If he was running the show then, it would make sense as to why Mantic is like that now.


Off Topic. I feel old, considering I played 40k when it was still called 'Rogue Trader'. Then the big boxed set came out, and Codices, and it really was a 'Golden Age'. I'm impressed at how much of the rogue trader era, GW (or more accurately FW) have been tapping into as of late. I never thought I'd see the return of the War Robots, Conversion beamers, and the jokaero!

I always wondered if there was a secret gaming cabal in my area growing up. My dentist's office was originally a game store that specialized in RPGs and miniatures a good 30+ years ago (very early 80s), and I bought my copy of Rogue Trader at a local B.Dalton Bookstores in a local strip mall, marked up due to being an import, that had an entire gaming section before that ever seemed to be a thing. I am forever indebted to that store for putting me on my path of nerdiness. That store later closed, became a See's Candies, that became a coffee shop, that became a skateboard shop for a long time, and eventually became a vacant building.

I forever remember it as the B.Dalton that got me into gaming. Even drove by it on my way home from work!

I hope we can see more presence in middle America type stores the way GW seemed to be slowly creeping in back then with Mantic. Maybe Dungeon Saga will be the one to slip in and open the floodgates.

Regarding the Mantica background-- my son dug out my copy of WHFB3e a couple of days ago, and we've been looking through it together since then. There's lots of background material, and it all reads like the words of an enthusiastic fan. The Mantic fluff is at least that good, if not better, which puts KoW (at least) squarely in what I consider the Golden Age.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Regarding the Mantica background-- my son dug out my copy of WHFB3e a couple of days ago, and we've been looking through it together since then. There's lots of background material, and it all reads like the words of an enthusiastic fan. The Mantic fluff is at least that good, if not better, which puts KoW (at least) squarely in what I consider the Golden Age.

3e book was great, and so was Warhammer Armies.

My favourite 3e book quote was in the painting section where it said you needed good quality brushes as you would never get good results with "an 'orrible bit of yak's tail on a stick"

Got a FedEx tracking number this morning after contacting Mantic about not receiving my DBX/KoW yet. Scheduled for delivery tomorrow.

Seems I was forgotten.

Oh well, at least now I know it's coming and I appreciate the international overnight delivery, especially as the parcel weighs 40lbs!

Got my KoW pledge today! Woot

 Slinky wrote:
3e book was great, and so was Warhammer Armies.

I remember few years ago when the previous edition was being put together saying to Ronnie "we need to recapture the feel of 3rd ed whfb and the warhammer armies book".

It sounds like that was a success

It's a lovely book. I just wish the rules page numbers would line up in both versions.

It seems that everyone's Golden Days of GW are all different periods - but all ending sometime in the last 10 years

For me it was Space Hulk, but I had already been tainted by Hero Quest and Battle Masters. From Space Hulk it went to 40k 2nd (and my Genestealer Cult army) into WHFB 4th. The highlight was Mordheim and Warhammer 6. Then it ended when the WHFB7 army books started coming out. Great ruleset, bad army books. And then the slow death of LOTR, which is a shame, as LOTR was overall the best 28mm minis range ever.

But of course it became easy to follow my favorite writers as they left GW, and witness their magnificent creations when unbound by GW... Andy Chambers with SST, Alessio and Rick with Bolt Action, Alessio with KoW and Terminator.

Gosh, honestly, with the formation of Mantic and Warlord and other companies born from the crumbling of the GW Empire, this is kind of like a new golden age of gaming innovation and enthusiasm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It's a lovely book. I just wish the rules page numbers would line up in both versions.

Thankfully the rules are slim enough and the sections short enough that someone with the hardcover said "it's in the War Engines section paragraph 3" and it's easy to find for someone with the softback.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I always wondered if there was a secret gaming cabal in my area growing up. My dentist's office was originally a game store that specialized in RPGs and miniatures a good 30+ years ago (very early 80s), and I bought my copy of Rogue Trader at a local B.Dalton Bookstores in a local strip mall, marked up due to being an import, that had an entire gaming section before that ever seemed to be a thing. I am forever indebted to that store for putting me on my path of nerdiness. That store later closed, became a See's Candies, that became a coffee shop, that became a skateboard shop for a long time, and eventually became a vacant building.

I forever remember it as the B.Dalton that got me into gaming. Even drove by it on my way home from work!

I hope we can see more presence in middle America type stores the way GW seemed to be slowly creeping in back then with Mantic. Maybe Dungeon Saga will be the one to slip in and open the floodgates.

My brother used to work at B.Dalton, mid 90's - the thing about them is that the employees could order whatever they wanted to stock in the store. He used to order gaming books and kept well-stocked the Lovecraft section. So I'm pretty positive your B.Dalton had a great gaming section specifically because of an employee like my brother

Gw's golden days for me were the late 80s/early 90s. I games at a game store every Saturday night and one of the guys fathers brought in his armies he made in England and brought bac to the states. He taught us all how to play and soon the weekly D&D, Traveller, Cyberpunk and Rifts games gave way to warhammer fantasy. My skaven army began back then. There was a wine and cheese shop in the same plaza so I went and got the names for each skaven based off of actual cheeses . Each week we fought over an outhouse, for some reason every army general needed to use the facilities at the same time and the old world only had one outhouse.

As for Mantic....I hope this isn't their golden age. They have been making some great things, but I think they have a lot of growing to still do before I consider them more than just a cheap warhammer knock off. They've got momentum going and I think Warpath will determine how viable they are. They are definitely THE company to take the biggest bite out of GW, but others have done the same in the past and have gone to dust (no pun there as they weren't a contender).

Oh and the Names are the best part of the warhammer world. this current naming of Blood Blooders and Rage Ragers

 Theophony wrote:
As for Mantic....I hope this isn't their golden age. They have been making some great things, but I think they have a lot of growing to still do before I consider them more than just a cheap warhammer knock off

I think it's the beginning of theirs.
I assume you mean miniatures, because Kings of War is a vastly different game. Primarily, it rewards tactical movement; that single difference alone makes it a completely different (and superior) game to Warhammer Fantasy, any edition.
But not sure on the miniatures angle either, their elves and orcs are pretty different, aesthetically. Though their undead are pretty similar.

 Alex C wrote:
Got a FedEx tracking number this morning after contacting Mantic about not receiving my DBX/KoW yet. Scheduled for delivery tomorrow.

Seems I was forgotten.

Oh well, at least now I know it's coming and I appreciate the international overnight delivery, especially as the parcel weighs 40lbs!

Wow - international overnight costs a fortune! Good on them for making it right so quickly.

 RiTides wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Got a FedEx tracking number this morning after contacting Mantic about not receiving my DBX/KoW yet. Scheduled for delivery tomorrow.

Seems I was forgotten.

Oh well, at least now I know it's coming and I appreciate the international overnight delivery, especially as the parcel weighs 40lbs!

Wow - international overnight costs a fortune! Good on them for making it right so quickly.

Yep, I'm impressed!

Nice one Mantic

 judgedoug wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
As for Mantic....I hope this isn't their golden age. They have been making some great things, but I think they have a lot of growing to still do before I consider them more than just a cheap warhammer knock off

I think it's the beginning of theirs.
I assume you mean miniatures, because Kings of War is a vastly different game. Primarily, it rewards tactical movement; that single difference alone makes it a completely different (and superior) game to Warhammer Fantasy, any edition.
But not sure on the miniatures angle either, their elves and orcs are pretty different, aesthetically. Though their undead are pretty similar.

To be fair how diffrent can you go with undead without hitting steampunk? Skeletons, mummies, etc. don't realy have options beyond outfit and Mantic went with midevil Europe as the main setting.

 ChaoticMind wrote:
To be fair how diffrent can you go with undead without hitting steampunk?

The race of the dead, their garb, and how they bury their dead. Whether the necromancers are part of that same race or another. Whether the necromancers respect the dead or use them as expendable pawns. Whether the dead are used intact or in aggregate. Whether the body is the component used by the necromancer or the spirit.

Necromancy covers anything from a dwarven necrocracy ruled by a golem animated by the spirit of its king to a human culture that slaughters cattle for food and then uses the bones to build animate engines of war. Even Warhammer Fantasy has the Tomb Kings, the Necromancers and the Vampires as three distinct undead cultures.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 ChaoticMind wrote:
To be fair how diffrent can you go with undead without hitting steampunk?

The race of the dead, their garb, and how they bury their dead. Whether the necromancers are part of that same race or another. Whether the necromancers respect the dead or use them as expendable pawns. Whether the dead are used intact or in aggregate. Whether the body is the component used by the necromancer or the spirit.

Necromancy covers anything from a dwarven necrocracy ruled by a golem animated by the spirit of its king to a human culture that slaughters cattle for food and then uses the bones to build animate engines of war. Even Warhammer Fantasy has the Tomb Kings, the Necromancers and the Vampires as three distinct undead cultures.

You bring up some great points were the fluff can be radicaly diffrent, but I was thinking about how they look. I'd forgoten about the idea of inhabited golems witch would be rather diffrent visually. I also like the idea of using animal / non-human skeletons instead but they're still skeletons. In the end any skeleton, zombie, mummy, vampire, or necromancer will be the same just in X style clothing rather than Y style.
Ghosts, artificial bodies, and ghouls are the only types that I've seen that can vary in there base form beyond Orc vs human vs dwarf vs etc. and Mantic has chosen floating shrouds and incorporeal humans as there ghosts. I would say there style for ghouls is unique in being deranged humans rather than beastial humans like most others.

Edit. As for there primary focus of human based undead Mantica seems to be the generic fantasy world overflowing with humans and the other races as minorities. Allthough the question remains where are the orc, goblin and ogre undead? They all seem to breed pretty well and are as warlike and decentralized as humans.

I personally suspect other non-human kinds of undead are going to be introduced through Dungeon Saga expansions and then extended into metal/hard plastic KoW lines, much like the Undead Troll is doing right now.

Woot! Got my KS stuff today (less Blaine, 'natch). Nice looking stuff! Good production value, although I'm not 100% sold on the plastic markers yet. But the books look great. And Ronnie is a rather nice sculpt even if I have no idea what I'll do with him...

Valete,

JohnS

Got my rukebooks, Blaine, bard and counters. And of course the... "map".

Just waiting on my abyssal army... luckily I have an ork, goblin and beastman army still to paint before it all arrives

I haven't gotten a shipment, and no email, confirmation, or tracking number.

I know they said to wait until Sept 30 to report missing shipments, but I should be concerned, right?

Got my zombies today.

No email or anything.