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After seeing the Loka Kickstarter thread, I was thinking about Mantic, and how despite my personal lack of interest, how it's quite a good business move for them if they can get their products into High Street/Mainstream retailers. Since I've been on a bit of a boardgame kick recently - repurchasing both HeroQuest and Advanced HeroQuest that had pieces mangled/lost/damaged in the intervening decades, it made me think about what might be the next good move for Mantic.

If the chess-games are successful, they could do far worse than to put out an entry-level boardgame or two. Something that Mum can buy for Little Timmy - who can then punch out the pieces and play.

Unfortunately, both Pandora and DKH in their current incanations are simply too cheap and nasty to do this unless they put out a "Second Edition" with vastly upgraded production quality and get rid of the multipart wargame models. Even Sedition Wars by CMON is too far down the wargamer's path with multipart models that need to be heated, reshaped, and assembled with superglue.

No, I'm talking about something with mass-market accessibility and quality. They put together a good board for Dreadball, but the next step is proper plastic pieces. Not multipart wargame models, but single-piece castings. Something like the soft plastic of Descent or the harder plastic of Heroquest. No Glue. No assembly. I've read so many posts over the years where people credit HQ and SC for getting them into the hobby, and GW in particular. or is that niche already filled with the various WotC offerings like Dungeon, the Ravenloft/Ashadalon/Drizzt series and Dungeon Command? - all pushing new entrants towards the D&D range. (and Heroclix). Not to mention Descent.

As it happens, Hasbro own MB, Parker Brothers and WotC, so I'm guessing a partnership, GW-style is going to be out of the question.

To be honest, this is exactly where Mantic need to go, just not right now (let's get the KS extras out of the way, for the extant ones and Warpath).

I've not played DKH or PP so I don't know how rules-suitable they'd be to it, but I think the world is crying out for a new 'Heroquest and/or Space Crusade" with which to capture the imagination of a new generation of gamers. As you say, the current incarnations aren't suitable from the point of view of component quality, but remade sets with hard plastic components and properly made boards etc could be that game.

Although I've not seen anything come from it yet, I remember reading that Mantic had a deal with Hornby for distribution. What's the biggest toy store( in the UK at least)? Toys R Us. Insider knowledge: Some Hornby products are consignment, that is, Toys R Us don't choose to stock it, Hornby just send stuff with a layout of what to put on the shelves. With the right application of pressure, Mantic could ensure their stuff gets good exposure.

I don't want to see Mantic overstretch themselves too much but long term, I'd love to see this.

Well, Loka will allow them to practise getting single-piece, fully based coloured plastic pieces done properly (they're still not sure if the pieces will be restic or hard plastic).

So, from there it should be relatively straightforward.

Hard plastic would definitely be the way to go, single piece, with slide moulding so details on the sides and minimal amounts of sprue that can easily be twisted off.

Wouldn't take too much effort, one sprue for the heroes + enemy bosses and unique monsters, and a second sprue with one of each of the various minor gribbles on it, so they can throw 10 sprues in the box and have a strong "over 100 minis!" selling point for the box set.

Even at Renedra prices, that's not more than about £100k worth of tooling costs. Easily achievable within the scope of a kickstarter.

I quite liked what Mage Knight Dungeons did in the brief time that it was around for, the expandable randomized dungeon tiles were pretty cool.

The one thing I hope they stay away from is getting carried away with the "100 minis per box!" or whatever, which along with lots of cardboard tokens and stuff can really drive up the cost of a game.

I think if they can keep it in the USD$30-40ish (About the same as most boardgames I see on shelves in Walmart, not counting the super-cheap $15-$20 monopoly/chess sets and the like), it will be a very, very attractive option, as I think what really kills a non-gamer's interest in stuff like WOTC's Wrath of Ashardalon or Castle Ravenloft is the accompanying $55+ pricetag. While it is objectively (imo) a good deal for the minis and contents, for a non-gamer who is unfamiliar with their FLGS and the price of games like this, it would seem ridiculous alongside $30 sets of Mousetrap and Clue.

I think if they keep the number of minis somewhat low (While still having enough to create interest in them), I think they'd have a winner, but the last thing I want to see them do is make some amazing Heroscape-type game with hundreds of minis, but then never be able to shift stock and ultimately drop it entirely because it isn't selling well enough.