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Something i find odd is that for a company that tries to be more open than GW they haven't really shown anything substantial Model wise.

They have revealed the rules Beta which i think is great but come on, October isn't that far off show us some masters already.

I've played a test game of this with my warhammer models and a few units.

The game was more complicated than KoW but much simpler than 40K, and honestly I'd say more fun, while the not removing models thing was odd in my small game, though I had a feeling in a noticably bigger game, with more big guns it would make more sense since the units can be cut down quickly and often entire units would most likely be destroyed

I'd say this game, while it has it's little problems it's got no more problems or bad rules than 40K had when it was first out.

As for the models, while we haven't seen them I have little doubt they'll be gorgeous. Looking at the KoW models theres very few that aren't good. While some don't look great on the site (Elven Spearmen for example) they look much better in person. Mantic don't have an 'Eavy Metal esque team so some of their models, like the Elven Spearmen and Drakon Riders, look bad on the site and due to the painting are considered bad sculpts, which isn't true.

So given Mantic make gorgeous models almost without exception (At least in my humble opinion) the KoW models will be great. Not to mention the rules will probably get better with more armies in the mix, at the moment we only have Forgefathers and Maurauders.

But with Corperation, Rebs, The 8th Race and Asterans in the mix it'll undoubtably be awesome. Two human armies (most likely), three completely unknkown races (assuming there's eight) and what we assume is Space Elves we'll have a great selection of rules, different armies and models.

This game isn't a competitor to 40K yet, it may one day become one, and it is a great alternative.

I for one will be playing this rather than 40K whenever possible in the future

Great thanks for the post.

I think this is what we need more of, actual comments from people who have played the game and either liked it or not, and their reasons for it. There has already been big discussion in this thread about Mantic ripping off GW, so I think really things should move on from there.

Perkustin wrote:Something i find odd is that for a company that tries to be more open than GW they haven't really shown anything substantial Model wise.

They have revealed the rules Beta which i think is great but come on, October isn't that far off show us some masters already.

The models are probably currently being sculpted, mantic have very short lead times on their products. Again, this is not GW, they do not sculpt stuff 18 months in advance and then not reveal anything until release date.

They're not holding out on anything, mantic regularly show greens of their models before the sculptor has even finished sculpting them, to gather public feedback and make sure that people are happy with them.

I'd imagine beasts of war will be the first place to get pics of the models, they usually are. Might even see some towards the end of this week now that their warpath week has started.

If nothing else, at least playing a few rounds will give you a better foothold from which to speak. Clearly we want Mantics game to be amazing, but they probably will weigh opinions of people who have actually used the rules more than people who are speculating. Yea, you hate the mechanic. So play the game, so you can say you tried and still hate it.

lord marcus wrote:

Mad4Minis wrote:So the rules are gak...now bring on the minis, the may still provide something for me to grab up.

Correction. One rule is "gak" in your opinion. the system on a whole seems quite good for a beta set.

Fair enough. Either way, I already have a rule set I use, and not terribly interested in another. Im far more interested in the minis than the rules.

Mad4Minis wrote:

lord marcus wrote:

Mad4Minis wrote:So the rules are gak...now bring on the minis, the may still provide something for me to grab up.

Correction. One rule is "gak" in your opinion. the system on a whole seems quite good for a beta set.

Fair enough. Either way, I already have a rule set I use, and not terribly interested in another. Im far more interested in the minis than the rules.

Perfectly acceptable. I too want to see the models, especially the forgefathers.

scarletsquig wrote:The models are probably currently being sculpted, mantic have very short lead times on their products. Again, this is not GW, they do not sculpt stuff 18 months in advance and then not reveal anything until release date.

They're not holding out on anything, mantic regularly show greens of their models before the sculptor has even finished sculpting them, to gather public feedback and make sure that people are happy with them.

For the plastics? Unless Renedra is offering Mantic a vastly shorter turnaround than they did for AoW's first plastic kit, for an October release the sculpting would have to have been finished by April.

I didn't know mantic was using Renedra.
But I believe that when you have the money you can have much shorter delays.

It's a quick-play Gothic Sci-Fantasy large-skirmish ruleset with vehicles. That's good enough for me. I was pretty much happy with 40k 5th ed., apart from the fact that in order to play it I had to interact with GW. That's where it all fell apart for me.

With a new ruleset and new models in the same genre with a different twist, but above all, run by a company who doesn't disrespect the fanbase, but rather goes out of its way to court them (for now - I realise this may not continue forever), I am engaged. And I'm looking forward to buying their plastic crack when it comes out.

Is it perfect? No, but who cares! Really?! Its free and the models are cheap, and the company is fun to deal with. That for me is good enough. Had GW not become the monolithic, corporate, faceless and unimaginative shell it is now, there wouldn't be a need for them. But sadly they did, and so now there is.

Its not just about the rules, or just about the models, or even just about the prices. Its the whole package. Other companies exist, and do good stuff, but Mantic are so visible - which other company has their Chief Exec/owner on Youtube having fun and engaging with the customer base? There's Battlefoam, and .... that's about it!

Grot 6 wrote:An alternative to the "Removing" of casualties would be to leave them lay on the table, faced up for incapacitated, or down for dead
....
Once again, dropping models on thier backs or bellies, and making them into terraign checks and modifiers would be more interesting and give you something to talk about. reroll for the down guys, leave the dead guys and later on, whoever wins can change out a dead guyw ith special weapons with and equivilent.

Just a thought - many of us probably don't want to be subjecting our nicely painted miniatures to lots of laying on their sides. A little bit for Blood Bowl is one thing, but this is another thing entirely...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:Uh yeah, OK.

Be all that as it may, it is a safe bet that more Mantic miniatures will find their way into WFB and 40K games than KoW or Warpath.

For now.

There's no negative implied there.

Infer away though!

I just ordered a KoW box, mostly to try out the miniatures. I haven't played WFB for years, and don't have either a Dwarf or Undead army, but I figure I'll have a muck about with the rules and if I enjoy them, I'll have a bunch of miniatures to use. I ordered an Isle of Blood box from GW for much the same reason... What I really want, though, is a small-medium-scale skirmish game. Sci Fi and Fantasy versions, so bigger than Mordheim. Kind of like Kill-Team used to be back when I last played 40k in 3rd Ed...

I don't think Mantic is aiming for 'smaller scale skirmish' with KoW or Warpath though.

And I don't think the 'speed it up' mechanics lend themselves to that type of game either.

I appreciate how heavy weapons are referred to as Ballistic Firepower Guarantors, or BFGs.

Yeah, like we're all going to be calling them 'Ballistic Firepower Guarantors'.

I like it, there are lots of little mentions of old 80's games/movies, even in just the Beta download! It's a good thing it doesn't take itself too seriously, or get too Po-faced I think.

Oaka wrote:I appreciate how heavy weapons are referred to as Ballistic Firepower Guarantors, or BFGs.

Yeah, like we're all going to be calling them 'Ballistic Firepower Guarantors'.

Generators. It was a typo apparently. but yes, i see what you mean.

PFFFT its just an excuse for the acronym of Big Fu*%$ng Gun

Which i wholeheartedly approve of !!

Fair enough, downloaded the beta, read them through and then broke out some proxies.

Easy to get to grips with the rules, flung buckets of dice, generally the game went smooothly.

Outcome, at least in my opinion totally bland. Okay it is the beta but tactics? There seems little scope apart from getting getting as many dice onto a target as you can and blowing it away (it comes down to who can roll the jammiest "nerve" dice). The bland to hit /damage roll means everyone is the same, the only difference is the name and whether you carry a BFG.

Yes I am looking forward to the figures but ruleswise no, it probably will not use 40k but there are some other sets out there that look promising (Hordes of Things, Alien Squad Leader or Stargrunt spring to mind).

I didn't realize that when some of you lay models down you really just break them, LOL!

If not, then they need wound markers then. SOMETHING different is the point here. The rules have a good start, but theres really nothing better then say- Starship Troopers rules set, which in point of fact was a much better "Difference-wise" set then something that seems a bit too derivitive.

I say that these rules can work excellently as either large scale combat or skirmish rules. You can play small scale games, or large, depending entirly on the model count, but they need something that people will go "Wow, Thats cool! never did anything like that before!" BUT...

Thats why I say that model interaction would be better. Even to the point where even if you DON'T lay them on thier side, they need to stay where they were knocked out, turned around backwards, and have a marker set next to them.

My point's not to get all touchy over one point, either- such as some people think is required here. "Lay the model on the front/ back" was a standard skermish rule on some of the games, It doesn't nessesarily mean throwing them around, juns putting them on thier back. It's really not even a point. The marker chits, also work well, but you would have a issue playing through two or three different close combats, when units start intermixing, anyway, how is having a wholely manned unit going to work when you flow through a gap, then get hit by three or four other opponent units?

And the issue of the tanks? what happens when you have an assult going on and get side hit by a opponents armor assult?

Bottom line on my side, I see that having a full unit on the table is going to confuse, rather then speed up play. As with others, I am kinda hung up on that as a point, but not enought hat I wouldn't just ignore that point and put in my own removal rule. I added my point as an alternative- You have a betterone, by all means, I'm open for suggestion, as well.

Leaving a full unit on the table and using some unseen factor as a decision maker is really pretty exploitable.

Oaka wrote:I appreciate how heavy weapons are referred to as Ballistic Firepower Guarantors, or BFGs.

Yeah, like we're all going to be calling them 'Ballistic Firepower Guarantors'.

That's the joke.

AlexHolker wrote:

scarletsquig wrote:The models are probably currently being sculpted, mantic have very short lead times on their products. Again, this is not GW, they do not sculpt stuff 18 months in advance and then not reveal anything until release date.

They're not holding out on anything, mantic regularly show greens of their models before the sculptor has even finished sculpting them, to gather public feedback and make sure that people are happy with them.

For the plastics? Unless Renedra is offering Mantic a vastly shorter turnaround than they did for AoW's first plastic kit, for an October release the sculpting would have to have been finished by April.

Orc Greatax greens were shown on the mantic blog, just before they were about to be sent off to Renedra.

A month later the kit was up for sale.

Lead times are about 1-2 months for Renedra cutting moulds for Mantic. There could be any number of reasons for this, including their sculptor being better at sculpting for plastic, less complex sprues from mantic, or the fact that mantic is an established customer who gets priority. I don't know.. all I know for certain is that their lead times are short and you can look at their past blog posts for proof.

If the models are anything like as good as the zombies and ghouls they do we're in for a treat.

Still waiting on my beta rules...

I was thinking about modeling removal and nerve tests...

Ok so a unit with 5 guys will have normally nerve 3, a unit of 10 will have nerve 5 and a unit of 20 will have nerve 9...

To kill a unit you must roll a 10 or more on a nerve test, nerve tests are 2d6+Damage-Nerve

In 2d6 the regular roll is 6-8, with extreme beying very rare... lets say that normally we will see rolls of 5-9

So, nerve 3 will normally die with 5 wounds (5-9+5-3 = 7-11)

Nerve 5 will normally die with 7 wounds (5-9+7-5 = 7-11)

And Nerve 9 will normally die with 11 wonds (5-9+11-9 = 7-11)

Its a little exagerated, but you can remove the models, and units will tend to die with low model count... The house rule i proposed a whyle ago do the job...

For lower fighting capability (to compensate the easyer cover, lets say), reduce number of attacks by 50%, when the squad reach 50% of the original strentgh.

Byte:

poipo32 wrote:Marauder Beta Army List
Forgefathers Beta Army List
Warpath Beta Rules

One way you could handle the reduction in unit effectiveness if you removed models, you could always reduce the amount of firepower and attacks according to the amount of models that are removed. And for each model that is taken out you could remove the percentage (rounding up) of firepower it gives to the unit from the total.

e.g 1 stunt bot dies -3FP
2 stunt bots die -4fp
3 stunt bots die -3fp
4 stunt bots die -4fp
and for units with more models than firepower (like Grunts) to make it simple you could start weakening the unit when the model count falls below the total firepower.

Or you could just give a FP value to each model

The same system could apply for attacks.

And instead of damage markers modifying nerve checks then make the removed models modify it.

Also to stop all the BFG's and Special melee weapons from being the last to die you could make it that you remove a BFG every 6 models and a SMW(special melee weapon) every 7.

While we're on the subject of damaged units being less effective, have you guys noticed the new rule that got added in the beta?

The "fragged" rule on page 6.

It puts a -1 to hit modifier on units that have received damage equal to their Nerve.

Just pointing this out, that there already is a rule that makes damaged units less effective, if you haven't noticed it, because a lot of posts on here are stating that damaged units are still just as effective as undamaged ones when that's not entirely true.

temprus wrote:Byte:

poipo32 wrote:Marauder Beta Army List
Forgefathers Beta Army List
Warpath Beta Rules

Thanks!

Corporation (AKA Humans) have got artwork on BoW site, look not bad, heavy armoured IG look to the sketches

http://www.beastsofwar.com/warpath/warpath-corporation/

Page not found? Someone took it down or something?

That's weird.

Oh well, I saved 'em. Will put them up if someone wants to see.