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Just posted pictures of my Venusian Rangers for WZR... finished in the nick of time for todays game:

http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/warzone-resurrection-bauhaus-venusian-rangers/

They just need some high gloss varnish on the lenses and the viewports on the helmets otherwise they are done.

Enjoy,

Burkhard

Here is the pre-view (as usual more clickable pictures on the blog if you are interested!):

Looks great! I like the snow effect on the stand (especially the frosted appearance of the grass). Nice lens flare on the scope too.

I think I actually had some old Warzone minis who might be the predecessors to these guys. Do you know much of the history of the game? Do the three minis in this picture (sorry I don't have a better one) look familiar?

Thanks a lot! Although I have to admit, that the frosted grass are winter tuffs from MiniNatur (I think sold under the name Silflor outside Germany).

The minis in your picture are indeed Warzone minis. Actually Venusian Rangers, too. The minis were designed for the 1st Ed. and IIRC the only Bauhaus minis that did not get a redesign for the 2nd Edition. I believe though that the Dinosaur is a plastic toy! ;-)

Well that's pretty neat, I thought they looked alike. So Warzone has had 2 editions, and then Warzone Resurrection (technically 3rd edition?)?

I might have to pick up some of the new rangers just for old times sake. Do you know if they'll eventually sell them in blister packs?

I actually think this is the 4th Edition actually.

There was a 1st Ed published by Heartbreaker. The 2nd Ed. Used a lot of the old minis (except for Bauhaus and Capitol who got many new ones) and completely different rules and was published by Target Games. At some point Heartbreaker and Target got into a legal legal fight over IP and royalties which ruined both. Then there was Ultimate Warzone (or Warzone, Universerse under Siege), but form what I heard that was mostly 2nd. Ed. books all under one cover with some minor tweaks. But I only ever learned about that late last year, so it must have been pretty sublime. And now there is the 4th Ed. WZR.

The Rangers are actually for sale separately, but they come with different heads and capes from mine (which were from the Kickstarter exclusive conversion pack). But there is talk of a redesign of the Rangers already and my gut dealing is that they will come with this type of cape and heads.

Yeah, the capes on the Rangers was part of the driving force behind my wife making me go for Brotherhood first over Bauhaus.

I could never develop an interest for Brotherhood. I mean the minis look cool, especially the WZR ones, but they never did anything for me background wise, so I always skipped them.

The Brotherhood is too much like the Imperium for me to have much interest in it.
I've never really like Venusian Rangers model wise, in fact I think that Bauhaus is the weakest of the Resurrection model ranges in terms of sculpting quality. At least the redone stuff is going in the right direction.

At least they don't have bread bags for footwear.

I think the addition of thigh armour to protect that femoral artery would have been nice. But that's on them, not on you. Your painting is good.

They look very resin-y, for some reason.

Well, they are apparently on-board for an updated sculpt in the near future. So it will be interesting to see what has changed.

I admit that I am a fan of the the current ones in a lot of ways. They just have a lot of nice little details that make 'em feel like spec-ops types. Part of me is hoping that we get some kind of minor house special forces unit down the line. The basic, plain skull mask on the current ones (not the old-school jawless one that came in the upgrade pack) is pitch perfect for a non-affiliated version of the Guardsman Mk III armour that Bauhaus special forces types wear, and having a distinct skull-mask from the V-Ranger version will help differentiate things.

Though right now I am using the old-school masks to pick out "veteran" units (usually the ones that get camo cloaks and the choice doctrines in my lists) while the more plain ones are the "base" models with less missions under their belts.

Either way, I am definitely interested in seeing the resculpted Bauhaus stuff. While I like the original concepts from early in the Kickstarter, I will also admit that Prodos has come a long way since then, and Mishima and Imperial have just been stellar in terms of quality and detail (as have the updated units for the Brotherhood, Bauhaus, and Cybertronic). With so much improvement since they started and so much learned from their early attempts with the first factions they designed and sculpted, I am glad to see them going back to tweak things where they think they need them.

So they'll actually redo the Etoiles Mortants so they are not an eyesore anymore?

Mathieu, they have already redone the Etoiles and they are in the store.

Regarding the other comments, I agree that the sculpts on many of the still current Bauhaus minis lack in detail compared to the newer factions. For me this makes them some appealing actually. I always wanted to give them more of a winter setting look. So sculpted hoods, faux fur on the Hussars and so on. Less detail meant more space for that, without the danger of sculpting over such nice details.

 14th broklyn wrote:
I actually think this is the 4th Edition actually.

There was a 1st Ed published by Heartbreaker. The 2nd Ed. Used a lot of the old minis (except for Bauhaus and Capitol who got many new ones) and completely different rules and was published by Target Games. At some point Heartbreaker and Target got into a legal legal fight over IP and royalties which ruined both. Then there was Ultimate Warzone (or Warzone, Universerse under Siege), but form what I heard that was mostly 2nd. Ed. books all under one cover with some minor tweaks. But I only ever learned about that late last year, so it must have been pretty sublime. And now there is the 4th Ed. WZR.

Not quite true. Mutant chronicles was developed by Target Games in Sweden. The first edition of Warzone was also developed and published by Target Games. Heartbreaker was at first contracted as a minature maker for Mutant Chronicles and some other games published by Target Games. Target Games later bought the company, and it became It's minature making division. In 1999 Target Games went in to reconstruction (similar to US bankruptcy proceeding). The computer gaming division became Paradox Interactive and all the intellectual property went to Paradox Entertainment. Paradox then licenced Warzone and Chronopia to Excelsior Entertainment in the US. Excelsior didn't manage the properties very well. After many delays they published a third edition of Warzone and a second edition of Chronopia. The rules were apparently solid and well balanced, but the books were badly edited and had poor layouts. They also made some strange decisions like bringing back some of the bad first edition sculpts as new units. All in all, Excelsior were probably huge fans and very dedicated, but they didn't have the resources or business skills to handle the IP which led to their downfall.

Yeah the relationship between Target and Heartbreaker is much like the relationship between Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures.

As for the legal troubles Target Games was part of a larger parent company (Target) that ended up going under. And while Paradox (the electronic gaming arm of Target) had enough liquid assets to float away, Target Games was just coming of a lot of large, costly expenditures they needed to fund things like hard plastics and couldn't escape the sinking wreck of their parent company who took them under with it. Paradox grabbed the rights to Mutant Chronicles and Warzone (and even attempted to make it in to a never-released MMO at one point).

So Target published 1st and 2nd Editions. Paradox licensed the rights for Warzone (but not Mutant Chronicles) to Excelsior entertainment who put out the third Edition (Ultimate Warzone) as well as the second edition of Chronopia before tanking (if I recall, Chronopia taking so long to do was one of the major factors delaying UWZ which was years behind when it came out). The books for each were huge, almanac-like edifices that attempted to fit everything in a single book. These massive undertakings meant that they took ages to produce and left little time for prettying them up. The editing and layout was all pretty basic and the art assets were mostly recycled and often of a fairly low quality. They suffered too much from trying to put everything in the book, the designer almost acting as more of a curator than a game designer. The rules were a workman-like streamlining of 2nd Edition with a bit of the flavour and soul of 1st Edition added back. Though a bit too much time was spent making sure every model ever had its own unique profile (this included separate profiles for 1st Edition and 2nd Edition sculpts of the same model). In the end Paradox decided not to let them renew and all of the old moulds and masters from 1st and 2nd were (allegedly) destroyed.

After this, it sat dormant for a bit. But the rights for it were once more passed out and Fantasy Flight Games did a CMG board game with the license (though I recall it being called Mutant Chronicles (which was doubly weird because another company had been licensed the MC RPG rights as well). But it probably at least partially counts as the 4th Edition, even if it was terrible. It also made sure to do everything in a new scale (54mm) so that no one could use their own collection at all. The WZ grogs did not take kindly and there was a lot of venom (things were kind of toxic around that point since neither new Mutant Chronicles-based property was especially faithful to the source material). Either way, the CMG (which became non-collectible in hopes of getting better sales) died off and the RPG silently died without a word. It sat dormant for a long time after that.

And here we are!

So if we're being charitable then Warzone Resurrection is the 5th edition, if we are not being charitable it is the 4th.

In the end, I am surprised at how well Prodos has done with the property. FFG kind of broke the fan-base a bit and made it really bitter and insular. Paradox's earlier mishandling (the movie pushed out to cross promote the CMG after several failed attempts, the stillborn MMO, and their less than tactful handling of Excelsior when license renewal came around) meant that the fanbase were basically ready to go right at the throat of anyone who touched the game and you could really see that early on in the KS campaign's announcement. People were picking every nit they could and declaring any deviation from the source material as bad and wrong. But I think Prodos have managed to remain pretty true to the source while also bringing their own touch to it. All in all, I think they were the right choice for the license. They have the right amount of reverance and passion for the source without it feeling like they are putting plastic over everything and trying to keep it exactly as it once was (not like Target ever did after all).

They may not always be perfect, but they did about as good a job as they could have with Warzone and I'm just glad to see it alive and on shelves again.

 Ronin_eX wrote:


In the end, I am surprised at how well Prodos has done with the property. FFG kind of broke the fan-base a bit and made it really bitter and insular. Paradox's earlier mishandling (the movie pushed out to cross promote the CMG after several failed attempts, the stillborn MMO, and their less than tactful handling of Excelsior when license renewal came around) meant that the fanbase were basically ready to go right at the throat of anyone who touched the game and you could really see that early on in the KS campaign's announcement. People were picking every nit they could and declaring any deviation from the source material as bad and wrong. But I think Prodos have managed to remain pretty true to the source while also bringing their own touch to it. All in all, I think they were the right choice for the license. They have the right amount of reverance and passion for the source without it feeling like they are putting plastic over everything and trying to keep it exactly as it once was (not like Target ever did after all).

They may not always be perfect, but they did about as good a job as they could have with Warzone and I'm just glad to see it alive and on shelves again.

As a fan I am also very pleased how well Prodos has managed it. They keep a pretty impressive release rate with non-kickstarted minatures that look great and they are open to discussion and input when it comes to the rules. They also seem to run it like a serious business, while still being gamers and fans of Mutant Chronicles.

Frankly I understand why Paradox pulled the license from Excelsior. And in hindsight, with Prodos now making excellent miniatures it was probably a good thing in the long run.

I assembled the starter box of Brotherhood yesterday and there was almost no clean up required. One sprue of five men had some flash, the other did not. Everything else was very good. Took no time at all to get them ready.

Good stuff, Howard. I have a big force of Brotherhood due in any day now.