Mantic Games - Sci-fi News & Rumors: Sci-Fi Zombies released.

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**Alpharius**

Vermonter wrote:
The dip in Orx quality has a simple explanation. The Dreadball Orx were sculpted by Remy Tremblay; the DeadZone Orx were not. This time Mantic decided to save themselves some money, and they got what they paid for.

So far I've only seen one DeadZone sculpt directly attributed to Tremblay, the 1st Gen Plague, and not surprisingly it's the stand-out piece of the game. There are some other good sculpts in there, including not only the digital enforcers but also most of the hand-sculpted Rebs. But I still wouldn't put any of them up against the 1st Gen in a contest.

Can you imagine how the Plague faction would have looked if Tremblay had sculpted them all? Or for that matter, the Marauders?

Good points there.

I thought Mantic was making Remy THE Deadzone sculptor too?

Shame that he wasn't available, or able, or... something else.

**Commander Cain**

Yeah so much for the rumor that Remy would be sculpting the whole range so as to have a nice consistent look to it all. No consistency here folks!

That being said, I do like the Ork captain and it is a very nice sculpt indeed..

**jdelrio22**

I've got a question here.

Once the kickstarter ended, there isn't a way to add to the kickstarter pledge like add ons correct?

Looks like I can add for another $10 a set of Enforcer Peacekeepers

**Alpharius**

There will be a way to add on via a Pledge Manager coming...next week, I think?

The Enforcer Peacekeepers add on might not be until the 'Wave 2" Pledge Manager though, as they have to be 'unlocked' by people adding on approximately $9K via the "Wave 1" Pledge Manager...

**Sining**

Vermonter wrote:
The dip in Orx quality has a simple explanation. The Dreadball Orx were sculpted by Remy Tremblay; the DeadZone Orx were not. This time Mantic decided to save themselves some money, and they got what they paid for.

So far I've only seen one DeadZone sculpt directly attributed to Tremblay, the 1st Gen Plague, and not surprisingly it's the stand-out piece of the game. There are some other good sculpts in there, including not only the digital enforcers but also most of the hand-sculpted Rebs. But I still wouldn't put any of them up against the 1st Gen in a contest.

Can you imagine how the Plague faction would have looked if Tremblay had sculpted them all? Or for that matter, the Marauders?

Save what money? Isn't Remy a full-time employee now?

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

Mantic has had a fair degree of criticism over it's official painting, so do you think you can do better ?

if so they are recruiting (from facebook)

Mantic is recruiting again! We're looking for a studio painter and hobby specialist - the kind of person who can paint an army for display in a short space of time, but who can also turn out some beautiful pieces for close-up photography. If you think you've got what it takes, check out the Careers section of the Mantic website and get in touch!

http://www.manticgames.com/Careers/Studio-Painter-Hobby-Specialist.html

**adamsouza**

Not criticizing their painting, but they need MORE painted pics of their models.

Larger, close up, pics of the various models identifying the model and it's armament are currently absent on their website and rule books. It's less of an issue in KOW than Warpath. In Warpath the main way to tell troops of the same race apart is their armament, and their is no section depicting what the armament looks like.

**Bolognesus**

I'd say a full-time painter might just deliver on that *MORE* painting part

You're right though - even for KoW the painted pics are a bit scarce.

**Da Boss**

The problem with Mantic's painting has pretty much always been the colour selection rather than the skill of the painters. It's always blue-with-something.

**Hulksmash**

Blue is super easy to paint. I'd love to paint for a living but for some reason I don't think it'd pay as much as what I do now and it's the wrong country.

**Talking Banana**

Save what money? Isn't Remy a full-time employee now?

**Krinsath**

To my knowledge, Remy is not an employee of Mantic. His various web profiles and sites still list him as a "freelancer".

Mantic did just hire an in-house sculptor during the DeadZone campaign (who did the tweaks to the marauders to make them a little more palatable), but I do not believe it was Remy.

**Azazelx**

Interesting. Thee news as filtered to us by SS was that he Remy had been hired as a full-time Mantic employee. Of course, the same news also said that he was going to be the only sculptor allowed to do Warpath stuff, which is clearly not accurate. Looks like SS's source was either talking out of his arse or there was some miscommunication.

**Compel**

Maybe Remy is doing Warpath things but not Deadzone?

EG, there was a bunch of forge fathers released recently.

Alternatively, maybe he was just retasked since that initial quote.

**Krinsath**

Azazelx wrote:
Interesting. Thee news as filtered to us by SS was that he Remy had been hired as a full-time Mantic employee. Of course, the same news also said that he was going to be the only sculptor allowed to do Warpath stuff, which is clearly not accurate. Looks like SS's source was either talking out of his arse or there was some miscommunication.

He might be and is being lazy about updating his profiles and blog (he wouldn't be the first person to not do that). I'm just assuming in this field that if you were an employee of a company they would not want you advertising as a freelancer, even if you're not taking new commissions. I could very easily be wrong on that point.

**Azazelx**

Well, I'm certainly not suggesting that SS was wilfully lying to us, merely that whoever was the source may not be reliable/may have been feeding him a line/may have been making hopeful speculation/may not have been as informed as we all hoped. I mean, it may have just been another poster sounding feasible on the Mantic board - after all, we've all taken that info as gospel here...

**Krinsath**

I think because we desperately want that to be true.

I don't think Sir scarletsquig would ever willfully mislead us either, nor are we certain we have been. The evidence that he isn't an employee is just as a flimsy as "someone on a forum said..." if you really think about it.

In other news, the latest DZ update is full of win. I'll post in the DZ thread about my specific thoughts (someone has to go to the "Other Games" Sub-forum Ghetto after all), but looking at their projections on things in what wave (i.e. - mostly Wave 1) I do have to commend Mantic for how well they structure their stuff. In the world where a KS being delayed is met with the "You don't say?" face, Mantic has (so far) done a good job of surviving success and getting things out. While they need to work a bit on art direction and consistency, Mr. Renton has the logistics end well in hand it seems.

**Alpharius**

Where is scarletsquig anyway?

Maybe his sources can help clear this up?

**Zweischneid**

Well, here's a recent pic of Mantic Games' staff doing a day out.

Is Remy on it or not (not sure what he looks like real life)?

Spoiler:

And for Remy not updating his blog, half of the links on Mantic's page aren't even working. I think people underestimate how much of a on-a-shoestring-company Mantic games still is, Kickstarters and all.

**Alpharius**

Fortifications, Forge Fathers, and Shipping Dates
Update #96 · Jun 13, 2013 · 26 comments

Hi Guys!

We're currently putting the finishing touches on the survey - double checking all the add-ons are there, making sure all the bundles and deals are correct, and adding lots of pretty pictures! The survey will be sent out to you on Monday, and you'll have until the 21st of July to complete it and lock in your rewards. You will then have until the beginning of October to get your payments in for any additional items that you want. Keep an eye out for our next update next week.

In the meantime work is continuing on the game, and we're currently on track to get more into the first shipment than we'd expected! One such item is the additional BattleZones. We haven't finalised the layout of the sprues yet, but we've got lots of new components sculpted that massively widen the scope for your sci-fi buildings, and here are some examples:

Fortifications BattleZone - thicker, armoured wall sections and pillars, just a taste of what's to come.

Landing Pad BattleZone - not just a landing pad. 135 degree connectors, longer walls and triangular pieces allow for much more varied shapes in your buildings.
Shipping Information - 1st and 2nd Shipment

A lot of you have been asking about what ships when, so you can budget effectively for the surveys. Every item in the Kickstarter will be made available in the survey that will be out on Monday, regardless of when it ships. The second survey will be sent out shortly before we're due to ship the second batch (roughly Q2 next year, or earlier if we can), allowing you to top up your rewards should you wish. This survey will ONLY contain second shipment items - it will not offer anything already shipped.

These are the items we currently have planned for the second shipment:

Forge Father Faction Starters and Boosters
Asterian Faction Starters and Boosters
Plague Zombies
Light Support Vehicles (Pathfinder on Bike, Iron Ancestor, Stuntbot, Striders)
Faction Special Characters
Enforcers in Peacekeeper Armour (if funded!)
Deadzone Compendium
Deadzone Collector's Edition Hardback Book
AI Card Deck

Due to some changes to our tooling schedule made possible by your support, EVERYTHING else will come in the first shipment, so you'll have the vast majority of your order with you by Christmas! As we get closer to the release dates, there may be some items that change. For example, the Plague Zombies are very close to being finished, and we might be able to squeeze them into Shipment 1. If this is the case, we'll add them to the second survey anyway so that you can pick up some more if you need them. The same applies to anything else that we can speed up. We'll keep you posted in the updates as we know more.

Of course, we're just as hard at work on the second shipment items too, so I'll leave you with this...

Unposed work-in-progress render of the Forge Father Forge Guard infantry.

Let us know what you think in the comments below!

So...

Enforcers in Peacekeeper Armour (if funded!)

Yeah, OK!

**Krinsath**

I assume the picture in this interview is Remy, but that is again an assumption:

http://volomir.blogspot.com/2011/12/painting-with-remy-tremblay.html

Not that I can really tell who's in that picture of Mantic either.

**scarletsquig**

My source is a company employee (for the full-time thing anyway, not for the "only person sculpting warpath" thing, that was separate and a very old bit of info from over a year ago that looks to have changed.. as Azazel says, I've already mentioned this on the forums).
Just because he's full-time doesn't mean he's currently living in the UK, or based in their offices.

He got a job offer from GW that would have presumably required him to leave France which he didn't accept.

It's actually really hard to find info about Mantic's sculptors, they keep things very much under wraps, even compared to GW which happily says who sculpted what all the time. They used to, but don't anymore.

I don't blame them really, the internet has thrown a very large amount of personal attacks at individuals for the work they've done and gets very ugly very quickly. Alternatively, it could be GW's constant poaching attempts that they're looking to frustrate. :p

**Yonan**

Zweischneid wrote:
And for Remy not updating his blog, half of the links on Mantic's page aren't even working. I think people underestimate how much of a on-a-shoestring-company Mantic games still is, Kickstarters and all.

They're in the process of updating their site, explains the dead links atm. Was mentioned on their twitter or facebook today iirc.

Mantic Games:
We're currently updating the website - the new one should be going live very soon
Like · 1 · 22 hours ago

**Krinsath**

Yonan wrote:
Zweischneid wrote:
And for Remy not updating his blog, half of the links on Mantic's page aren't even working. I think people underestimate how much of a on-a-shoestring-company Mantic games still is, Kickstarters and all.

They're in the process of updating their site, explains the dead links atm. Was mentioned on their twitter or facebook today iirc.

And as I said, Remy would be far from the first person in the history of the Internet to not update their various profiles when they needed to be changed. Good to hear that SS's source is more reliable than that though.

**scarletsquig**

Anyway, back on to news discussion, I'm surprised that so much stuff is shipping in the first shipment, going to have to scrabble up some more paypal funds, I think!

Most of the stuff won't be available in the second survey, so if you want to add it, it's going to have to be first survey.

The landing pad terrain is very nice, it will lets us make non-boxy buildings with angled edges, which should improve things a lot.

Anyone else a little concerned about the volume of stuff being shipped before December though?

As in, can they actually make it happen without the casting quality being terrible due to China deciding to crank the dial up to 9001 on the tooling machine?

They bit off more than they could chew with Dreadball and I really don't want to see that happen again.

**Krinsath**

I'm trying to recall if the "nothing that has been shipped" restriction was in place for DreadBall. As I mentioned in the other thread I might be interested in more terrain, but having not seen a lot on the alternate battlezones yet I'm not 100% on that. If I'm reading that right though if I want the KS price I need to order it on the upcoming survey.

Hopefully we'll see more detail before the 21st of July and it'll be a moot point.

**lord_blackfang**

scarletsquig wrote:
Anyway, back on to news discussion, I'm surprised that so much stuff is shipping in the first shipment, going to have to scrabble up some more paypal funds, I think!

Most of the stuff won't be available in the second survey, so if you want to add it, it's going to have to be first survey.

Yeah, this is a bit harsh! Looks like Mantic is going to some effort to get as much money up front as possible.

I think the Fortification pieces look lovely, not sold on Landing Pad - yes, angles are good for making more interesting structures, but it gives me a bad Hexagon vibe somehow.

**Krinsath**

lord_blackfang wrote:
scarletsquig wrote:
Anyway, back on to news discussion, I'm surprised that so much stuff is shipping in the first shipment, going to have to scrabble up some more paypal funds, I think!

Most of the stuff won't be available in the second survey, so if you want to add it, it's going to have to be first survey.

Yeah, this is a bit harsh! Looks like Mantic is going to some effort to get as much money up front as possible.

I think the Fortification pieces look lovely, not sold on Landing Pad - yes, angles are good for making more interesting structures, but it gives me a bad Hexagon vibe somehow.

Use them to build an Octagon for some DeadZone UFC tournaments!

Actually....

**judgedoug**

scarletsquig wrote:
Anyone else a little concerned about the volume of stuff being shipped before December though?

As in, can they actually make it happen without the casting quality being terrible due to China deciding to crank the dial up to 9001 on the tooling machine?

Perhaps they got enough money to get their own restic machines?
That would certainly makes things easier.

**Hulksmash**

I think a big part of it is that they're still allowing thru October to pay for the changes you make to your pledge. Which isn't to dissimilar from allowing you to order previous items on the second shipment. At least to me it's not much different as if I can't scrape up the money by october then next february isn't much better

I assume that if they produce a poop they will allow us to juggle our pledges.

I'm thinking Marauder Boosters (the heavy weapons and hulks make this worth it just for additionals on those models), more terrain, the helfather, and some extra misc. mini's.

For the second shipment I can see supplementing the FF, plastic termie enforcers, adding the specials, a fair amount of zombies, and maybe some of the walkers but that'll depend heavily on seeing actual models before I make that call.