Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Yep and just to add as I edited in above KS backers get all the M@A rule cards if they got the minis so actually they aren’t affected by the Rulebook containing only crossbowmen. The only people really affected are those that got the Rulebook to use with other minis but the KS is clear that only starter warbands rules are included.

I can understand Mantic wanting to move to selling their own minis with the game, the buy in for a skirmish game is lower than a war game so where they give leeway in mass battles they’d rather their own minis get used for skirmish

 DaveC wrote:


I can understand Mantic wanting to move to selling their own minis with the game, the buy in for a skirmish game is lower than a war game so where they give leeway in mass battles they’d rather their own minis get used for skirmish

That's actually the reason why KoW brought barely nothing to Mantic Games in terms in sales : because of making units without having the miniatures to play them and thus "forcing" players to go buy in other companies. Their first extension with entries clearly designed to allow WFB players to come in with their GW armies showed it the most.

That, and the fact their miniatures were crappy (and like Manchu said, even the recent ones are "meh" at best). So even more reasons not to buy them.

Let's put it bluntly : selling rules alone isn't enough to bring money in Mantic's purses. That's why they make a discount sale on rulebooks.

So yeah, it makes sense they try to "force" people buy their miniatures to play the game. Still, I don't have faith in the future of this game or Mantic really supporting it on a long term view.

I don’t think Vanguard is being marketed exactly as KoW was.

With KoW, it was: use your existing collection to play our rule set.

With Vanguard, Ronnie has said: try our rule set with your existing collection, I’m confident you will like it enough to buy into our stuff.

The wheel is turning here, people.

 Manchu wrote:

With KoW, it was: use your existing collection to play our rule set.

Yeah, it was a mistake. Otherwise, I agree with you, except that I'm not optimistic about the wheel turning - won't be enough and thinking it's a bit too late with GW being strong again and the overloaded miniature/game market, IMHO.

 Sarouan wrote:

 DaveC wrote:


I can understand Mantic wanting to move to selling their own minis with the game, the buy in for a skirmish game is lower than a war game so where they give leeway in mass battles they’d rather their own minis get used for skirmish

That's actually the reason why KoW brought barely nothing to Mantic Games in terms in sales : because of making units without having the miniatures to play them and thus "forcing" players to go buy in other companies. Their first extension with entries clearly designed to allow WFB players to come in with their GW armies showed it the most.

That, and the fact their miniatures were crappy (and like Manchu said, even the recent ones are "meh" at best). So even more reasons not to buy them.

Let's put it bluntly : selling rules alone isn't enough to bring money in Mantic's purses. That's why they make a discount sale on rulebooks.

So yeah, it makes sense they try to "force" people buy their miniatures to play the game. Still, I don't have faith in the future of this game or Mantic really supporting it on a long term view.

Its funny because around here more people used Mantic models to play WHFB than to play KoW

 Galas wrote:

Its funny because around here more people used Mantic models to play WHFB than to play KoW

Yeah, of course they did. It was the first reason Mantic sold these miniatures, after all.

At this time, they were decent enough. But now ? They're really showing their age.

Because the minis are not good enough? Or the setting is too generic? Or the prices are already too steep, considering the first two questions? I see all of these things as problems for Mantic. But nonetheless Deadzone is a very solid game and Vanguard is a nice port of Deadzone into the fantasy genre. I’m not sure it has any real competition, TBH.

 Manchu wrote:
Because the minis are not good enough? Or the setting is too generic? Or the prices are already too steep, considering the first two questions? I see all of these things as problems for Mantic.

It's a combination of lots of things, but I think not being able to buy all the units from Mantic's store alone and Mantic being just unable to produce new stuff for KoW while they keep making new games (because their team is simply not big enough) are also playing a role.

To me, the Brotherhood and Varangur's "disappearance" in Mantica's background following the campaign aren't surprising. The "not Bretonnia" and "not Chaos" were actually begging for buying miniatures from GW or historical kits, honestly. Apart from a certain hero, there was litterally nothing to buy on Mantic's shop for those. That it came into "Northern Alliance" was to be expected so that Mantic can take it as their own (and I wouldn't be surprised if the "not Chaos Gods" varangur god was just written off at some point in the future. They needed to redo the concept, if they want to keep it at all.

But nonetheless Deadzone is a very solid game and Vanguard is a nice port of Deadzone into the fantasy genre. I’m not sure it has any real competition, TBH.

It has plenty of competition, seriously. Deadzone is just another generic skirmish SF game, even boardgames are competing with it in more than one aspect. The rules may be nice and all for its defenders, but that is pretty much it. You don't see it played that much in the stores and clubs around the world, after all. Not even talking about GW's Kill Team.

Also today's blog gives some point costs for the Northern Alliance stuff that's not in the starter lists

Ice Queen 32 points
Frost Fang Cavalry 38 points
Thegn 39 Points
Ice Elemental 47 points

I didn’t mean that Deadzone has no competition. I meant Vanguard won’t. Frostgrave has been the king of this niche for lack of competition for the past several years. AoS Skirmish is barely a real thing. Other fantasy skirmish sets are either defined by in-built limitations (e.g., Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game) or just non-starters at market.

 Sarouan wrote:

 DaveC wrote:


I can understand Mantic wanting to move to selling their own minis with the game, the buy in for a skirmish game is lower than a war game so where they give leeway in mass battles they’d rather their own minis get used for skirmish

That's actually the reason why KoW brought barely nothing to Mantic Games in terms in sales : because of making units without having the miniatures to play them and thus "forcing" players to go buy in other companies. Their first extension with entries clearly designed to allow WFB players to come in with their GW armies showed it the most.

That, and the fact their miniatures were crappy (and like Manchu said, even the recent ones are "meh" at best). So even more reasons not to buy them.

Let's put it bluntly : selling rules alone isn't enough to bring money in Mantic's purses. That's why they make a discount sale on rulebooks.

So yeah, it makes sense they try to "force" people buy their miniatures to play the game. Still, I don't have faith in the future of this game or Mantic really supporting it on a long term view.

You seem to be very anti Mantic, and don't want to see the interesting bits about mantics various properties when they are presented.

 Manchu wrote:
I didn’t mean that Deadzone has no competition. I meant Vanguard won’t. Frostgrave has been the king of this niche for lack of competition for the past several years. AoS Skirmish is barely a real thing. Other fantasy skirmish sets are either defined by in-built limitations (e.g., Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game) or just non-starters at market.

Don't follow it much but isn't Shadesphere also getting pretty popular?

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I didn’t mean that Deadzone has no competition. I meant Vanguard won’t. Frostgrave has been the king of this niche for lack of competition for the past several years. AoS Skirmish is barely a real thing. Other fantasy skirmish sets are either defined by in-built limitations (e.g., Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game) or just non-starters at market.

Don't follow it much but isn't Shadesphere also getting pretty popular?

Seems to be (or at least, GW thinks it is enough to plan out and release a second season's worth of cards and warbands), but I'd argue that Shadespire and Frostgrave/Ghost Archipelago are at the opposite ends of fantasy skirmish gaming. Frostgrave is all about campaigns and customzing your wizard, warbands and miniatures. Shadespire is the opposite - super competitive with little personal customization beyond building the deck of cards you play with. They satisfy two different audiences.

I would go as far as to say Shadespire is a pure board game.

Yep, it’s a completely different product.

The rested guys are all on sprues. There is significant bending of spear shafts. The Basilean plastics look great...except for their swords. All the bases are square for some reason. Blain is 62 points and gets a chance to terrify one enemy mini per turn. Also, his spear shoots piercing beams.

I didn't get to see much else before the box had to go into the closet. I have to wait for my Birthday to play with the toys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Restic

 lord marcus wrote:


You seem to be very anti Mantic, and don't want to see the interesting bits about mantics various properties when they are presented.

Oh I do know them. I followed KoW for years before, and I watched all the other games from their birth to their newer editions. Hell I even played Deadzone when it came first. Mantic knows to make games, but they don't have the manpower to support them like GW, that's all. All of their games have nice appealing rules, not perfect of course, but the trouble is...there is always something lacking. Be it background or soul, I don't know what you want to call it, they always miss the spark to get really at the top.

Vanguard isn't different here. It lacks something to me. And if you think Frostgrave is the only competitor in this niche...you really didn't look far.

And yes, I'm very frustrated with Mantic. They keep releasing their crappy material and make it look like it's gold. I hope you're aware the price they're asking for Vanguard miniatures are far from being the "cheap" ones they were known for when they sold their proxies for WFB. Yes, they have more details...but it's the same crappy PVC material and they're really not that great in the end.

 infinite_array wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I didn’t mean that Deadzone has no competition. I meant Vanguard won’t. Frostgrave has been the king of this niche for lack of competition for the past several years. AoS Skirmish is barely a real thing. Other fantasy skirmish sets are either defined by in-built limitations (e.g., Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game) or just non-starters at market.

Don't follow it much but isn't Shadesphere also getting pretty popular?

Seems to be (or at least, GW thinks it is enough to plan out and release a second season's worth of cards and warbands), but I'd argue that Shadespire and Frostgrave/Ghost Archipelago are at the opposite ends of fantasy skirmish gaming. Frostgrave is all about campaigns and customzing your wizard, warbands and miniatures. Shadespire is the opposite - super competitive with little personal customization beyond building the deck of cards you play with. They satisfy two different audiences.

I see so more of a Guild Ball competitor.

 Sarouan wrote:


Vanguard isn't different here. It lacks something to me. And if you think Frostgrave is the only competitor in this niche...you really didn't look far.

And yes, I'm very frustrated with Mantic. They keep releasing their crappy material and make it look like it's gold. I hope you're aware the price they're asking for Vanguard miniatures are far from being the "cheap" ones they were known for when they sold their proxies for WFB. Yes, they have more details...but it's the same crappy PVC material and they're really not that great in the end.

Care to name some that are actually popular? I know Company of Iron could be one but I honestly don't know how many people play it.

I got Vangard as I'm looking for a simple and fun skirmish game to play with a few friends as Infinity is way to bogged down in rules and a single game takes us 3 hours as we really only can play once every 4-6 weeks.

 Monkeysloth wrote:

Care to name some that are actually popular? I know Company of Iron could be one but I honestly don't know how many people play it.

It's actually not about "popularity", because it's always subjective. I mean, I know no one playing Frostgrave while I do know lots of people still playing Mordheim - that doesn't mean my view is the same worldwide. It's about having time to share for another med/fan skirmish scale game that comes on the market. Competitors on that matter are plenty. UK in particular have quite a few generic game system allowing skirmish battles with a system of experience - some including dungeon crawlers kind of games. They're not really known outside of the island, though.

As for small scale skirmish games akind to Vanguard, I can name Alkemy (not it's not dead), Freebooter's Fate or Bushido for the few that comes from my mind. I don't really follow the most recent trend in Kickstarters, but I'm sure there are some others that could compete as well.

Vanguard will appeal to KoW fans, for sure, but since their numbers have greatly dwindled since that day when WFB died and lots of lost players were on the market not knowing where to go next, I don't have a great expectation about having that number be that big in the future. It's mainly for Mantic fanbase, let's be honest here.

I got Vangard as I'm looking for a simple and fun skirmish game to play with a few friends as Infinity is way to bogged down in rules and a single game takes us 3 hours as we really only can play once every 4-6 weeks.

Go play Kill Team, then. At least it's SF and closer to Infinity in setting. Seriously,if you compare Guild Ball to Shadespire in terms of competition and thus only look at the game system and not what's behind it, why stopping to Vanguard ? There are even simpler game systems than Mantic's new baby, honestly.

Mordheim is OOP so cannot compete with Vanguard. Alkemy and Freebooter’s Fate are both great examples of market nonstarters. Keep in mind, it’s not that I dislike such games. (I actually love these strange settings, especially Anyaral.) It’s just that they don’t reach even a fraction of Mantic’s potential customers. Malifaux operates in a somehwta similar space but the tone is pretty different. And when you get into generic Western fantasy tone, nothing has anything like the support and marketability of Vanguard. The very notion that Frostgrave dominates the space demonstrates that it’s a niche for the taking. GW will eventually turn back to this with a serious go at AoS Skirmish, in the wake of KT’s uproarious success but until then Mantic can have a field day.

 Sarouan wrote:



Seriously,if you compare Guild Ball to Shadespire in terms of competition and thus only look at the game system and not what's behind it, why stopping to Vanguard ? There are even simpler game systems than Mantic's new baby, honestly.

I asked because I was curious as to what game(s) you were refering too as competetors and if maybe there was a skirmish game that I had overlooked.

Fantasy Skirmish Games that are similar and that are played around are Frostgrave, Malifaux, and SAGA fantasy rules.

For SciFi, Infinity, Deadzone and KillTeam are the ones around.
Infinity is played for different reason than Deadzone and KT is played because it is 40k

Guildball is here more a replacement for Warmachine/Hordes and Shadespire struggle as those who like Boardgame TT's play Deadzone or Bloodbowl.


So Vanguard is generic Fantasy Skirmish with focus on pic up games with the possibility of campaigns has its niche. Time will tell if it finds its place like Deadzone or not

Mantic problem was over capitalisation without a proper plan. Warhammer was killed off as players knew it, and it left a lot of people angry and looking for an alternative. Mantic had some good product (its rules and its undead miniatures), and then jumped on the Kickstarter bandwagon to get things really going.

Unfortunately they failed to plan things out properly. Miniatures didn't look anything like their concept artwork, they got screwed over on the first incarnation of Basileans, and their restic left a lot to be desired.

They shouldn't have gone so wide in their range so quickly. Should have focussed on getting a quality product made (at least Renedra or GW standard) for their miniatures, which would allow them to build their core identity, and encourage people to switch over. Great miniatures at a good price is as good a lure as you need for a fanbase which is cheesed off at how they had been treated by GW. Make the buy-in reasonable and the players will follow.

Instead we got a ton of plastic in varying degrees of quality, with none of it really outstanding, and it's taken them until now to work their way back around. I do believe the Nightstalkers are a fantastic look for their miniatures, it's just a shame that the window of opportunity they had wasn't taken advantage of when they had it.

Spend the money on getting good sculpts made. Have a good art design team, which includes top notch painters to showcase the product, and you'll pull market share in really well, which will stay stable as your product will be seen as being one which is an excellent buy, and thus you'll keep people around to also play your game. Blow it all on cheaper sculpts and you've just spent good money on expensive molds which won't see nearly the return as ones made for excellent models.

I do believe Mantic is on the right path with the Nightstalkers, especially their plastic kits, they just need to keep going with this.

WHFB didn't die until KoW 2E was about to hit retail.

It's easy to say a company shouldn't go wide so quickly, but the problem is that when trying to convince gamers to look away from GW games for a moment, if you launch with anything less than the same number of armies that GW already has, they'll dismiss the game outright as shallow and unsupported, no matter how good the sculpts for the two/three launch armies are. GW gamers are basically always looking for an excuse to dismiss the alternatives, rather than a reason to engage with them, so most companies are really up against it no matter which was they go.

Look at Hawk and DFC, great sculpts, fully realised factions on launch, solid if slightly flawed rules, and a sizable portion of the potential player base still rejected it based entirely on the hopeful notion that GW were going to redo BFG some time in the next 4 years, a dated and badly balanced long OOP game whose draw is fueled by nostalgia and corporate loyalty.

 NTRabbit wrote:
WHFB didn't die until KoW 2E was about to hit retail.

It's easy to say a company shouldn't go wide so quickly, but the problem is that when trying to convince gamers to look away from GW games for a moment, if you launch with anything less than the same number of armies that GW already has, they'll dismiss the game outright as shallow and unsupported, no matter how good the sculpts for the two/three launch armies are. GW gamers are basically always looking for an excuse to dismiss the alternatives, rather than a reason to engage with them, so most companies are really up against it no matter which was they go.

Look at Hawk and DFC, great sculpts, fully realised factions on launch, solid if slightly flawed rules, and a sizable portion of the potential player base still rejected it based entirely on the hopeful notion that GW were going to redo BFG some time in the next 4 years, a dated and badly balanced long OOP game whose draw is fueled by nostalgia and corporate loyalty.

What are Hawk and DFC?

 lord marcus wrote:

 NTRabbit wrote:
WHFB didn't die until KoW 2E was about to hit retail.

It's easy to say a company shouldn't go wide so quickly, but the problem is that when trying to convince gamers to look away from GW games for a moment, if you launch with anything less than the same number of armies that GW already has, they'll dismiss the game outright as shallow and unsupported, no matter how good the sculpts for the two/three launch armies are. GW gamers are basically always looking for an excuse to dismiss the alternatives, rather than a reason to engage with them, so most companies are really up against it no matter which was they go.

Look at Hawk and DFC, great sculpts, fully realised factions on launch, solid if slightly flawed rules, and a sizable portion of the potential player base still rejected it based entirely on the hopeful notion that GW were going to redo BFG some time in the next 4 years, a dated and badly balanced long OOP game whose draw is fueled by nostalgia and corporate loyalty.

What are Hawk and DFC?

Hawk Wargames, a now-defunct company that was acquired by TTCombat which produced DropZone Commander (DZC) and DropFleet Commander (DFC). Saying GW loyalty played a role is to overlook the incredibly poor handling of the KS for DFC. It was advertised as BFG 2.0, sure, to the point that Andy Chambers designed the rules. However, it didn't become clear to many folks until later that there was no plans for a fleet vs. fleet in space gameplay and that it was always going to require the transport ships and ground combat. That soured more than a few people.

More damning was the amount of orders that Hawk lost track of, including some from fairly major backers at the higher tiers. Even after TTCombat acquired the lines, they were still trying to fulfill orders from the KS because it was such a cluster (we're talking 7-8 months on from fulfillment starting). I have no proof of this, but I believe their pledge manager software contractor may have screwed up since Mantic used the same one at the time and suffered from a similar "missing pledges" syndrome. This left stock shortfalls, and generated a huge amount of ill-will because Hawk fell behind and then went silent, and portions of the campaign were just cancelled (map packs primarily). I'd rate it as one of the bigger fiascoes I've seen on KS (of those that ended with people getting their stuff anyway), and I suspect it played no small part in Hawk's ultimate demise. I know a few stores tried to stock it, but then could never get restocks so the game didn't go anywhere around here.

Whatever the cause of their logistics failures on that campaign, that had far, far more to do with DFC's issues than anything GW mentioned maybe doing. Wish I could say that won't be an issue for Vanguard, but Mantic isn't immune to logistics issues and there seem to be a lot of stores that "used to" carry Mantic stuff about, which isn't a particularly positive sign.

Yeah, a good friend of mine went all in on DFC KS and boy is he pissed. On top of everything described above, Hawk apparently caved in to small, vocal groups complaining about balance and changed the rules back and forth a few times and at this time you probably need a personal hotline to Andy Chambers to find out which version you're supposed to play. After DFC and the dumpster fire that is Dark Souls my friend swore off KS forever.

It's always easier to blame GW for the lack of success/own mistakes of the editor itself for a game. Main reason why GW fanbase stays loyal/come back to them is simple : GW may do mistakes, but their size and their support is so big that they can afford to jump back on their feet when they screw up. It's not the same for the smaller competition - if they really screw up, they just disappear, more than one time with their games and leaving a community completely lost and confused. When it happens, I can assure you that you can be all angry you want, you can't direct it anywhere because the main perpetrators are gone and the game is dead anyway. I still remember the recent debacle of Spartan Games, for example.

They don't play in the same league, that's the reality. That's why I'm always suspicious of declarations from another fanbase saying that Vanguard will be the next thing in their field - if it was made by GW, sure, I would believe you. But it's Mantic. We all know the support will be a little more than the few videos we saw so far, because they can't afford to do much more else. It's up to the players, always...and it varies greatly from where the motivated people are and to what extent they will go to support the game until something else happens in their life.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Yeah, a good friend of mine went all in on DFC KS and boy is he pissed. On top of everything described above, Hawk apparently caved in to small, vocal groups complaining about balance and changed the rules back and forth a few times and at this time you probably need a personal hotline to Andy Chambers to find out which version you're supposed to play. After DFC and the dumpster fire that is Dark Souls my friend swore off KS forever.

Reading your post just gave me KFC cravings.

Until October 31st you can use the code ORCY20 to get 20% off orc/Marauder products on the Mantic website. You could grab yourself one of the awesome Winged Slashers, an Orc army for Kings of War. Just enter the code ORCY20 at the the checkout! This offer is only available until October 31st.