[Kings of War] Mantic Fantasy News & Rumors

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**Baragash**

NTRabbit wrote:
Elbows wrote:
There are so many great dungeon crawl games out there...I couldn't fathom paying Mantic for one. The original Dungeon Saga KS that I received was the most unimpressive, lazy effort I've ever seen from a major game company. Hugely underwhelming.

I suspect that might be why Mantic and Jake Thornton haven't done any business since then

Jake and Mantic fell out, but I think someone asked him about it on his blog and he said that wasn't it.

**Sarouan**

Baragash wrote:
NTRabbit wrote:
Elbows wrote:
There are so many great dungeon crawl games out there...I couldn't fathom paying Mantic for one. The original Dungeon Saga KS that I received was the most unimpressive, lazy effort I've ever seen from a major game company. Hugely underwhelming.

I suspect that might be why Mantic and Jake Thornton haven't done any business since then

Jake and Mantic fell out, but I think someone asked him about it on his blog and he said that wasn't it.

Yeah, it's all fan conspiration theories, that neither Mantic nor Jake confirmed. The later just said he got into a dispute with Mantic Games at the time which is why he didn't work for them until it was resolved. That's all we know.

Meanwhile, the League of Infamy Kickstarter is a bit slowing down in pledges for now and last update revealed a stretch goal for rules for Dungeon Saga's villains to play them in the League. Which is always nice to recycle your Dungeon Saga miniatures.

**kodos**

Open Day pictures:

**Sarouan**

Well, those are thick rats. Even thicker than old GW skavens.

At least, they are well fed with cheese.

Can't say I'm a big fan of these miniatures, but it's nice to finally see true Mantic vermin miniatures for KoW.

What troubles me the most with recent Mantic works for KoW is that the miniatures constantly seem too big for their bases. You can see the rank and file vermins here barely stick together because of their arms spilling on their companion's space. It's actually a problem for a wargame like KoW, when you have to put the miniatures base to base. I know that a lot of players use multibases anyway, but this tendancy really doesn't incite players to bother with putting the miniatures base to base.

**kodos**

Not sure as I don't own any Veer-Myn, but it looks like that all those are the SciFi Models with Fantasy upgrades

not too bad, but not as good as the last dedicated releases either

**Sarouan**

kodos wrote:
Not sure as I don't own any Veer-Myn, but it looks like that all those are the SciFi Models with Fantasy upgrades

not too bad, but not as good as the last dedicated releases either

Ah, now that I look at the Warpath Veer-myn line on their webshop, indeed they look very similar. It would explain why they are so ill-suited for a rank and file unit.

Guess it will be a metal upgrade.

**Psychopomp**

I'm still honestly shocked at how good they look for sci-fi models with arm swaps and a different paint job, though. Pretty impressive, given how they're crossing genres like that without dedicated models.

**Boss Salvage**

Sarouan wrote:
What troubles me the most with recent Mantic works for KoW is that the miniatures constantly seem too big for their bases. You can see the rank and file vermins here barely stick together because of their arms spilling on their companion's space. It's actually a problem for a wargame like KoW, when you have to put the miniatures base to base. I know that a lot of players use multibases anyway, but this tendancy really doesn't incite players to bother with putting the miniatures base to base.

It's a fair point, and the new KOW starter set has a guide that actually talks about carefully arranging your models on their bases so they can rank up (something we had to do for WHFB but I only learned through trial and error). But frankly everybody should be multi-basing anyway, and the new Mantic models almost demand you do so, with the ranking / size issues. In which case they look great multi-based, as they take up more room than spindly single-based stuff. (EDIT: Also a multi-based army is a breeze to pack + unpack, scoot around the field, etc. I'm so happy I finally moved away from WHFB minis in trays and got a couple multi-based armies done, really just a great army scale gaming experience!)

Also new Abyssal Dwarfs from that same open day:

**cerealkiller195**

those abyssal dwarves looking mighty sweet, i do have to say i am pretty impressed of how much mantic has come as far as models. At first they were just cheap filler models to be used. But now they have some pretty cool sculpts that can stand on their own.

About multi basing, it is probably one of the main things that is attracting me to the game to be honest. I was just waiting for a friend to also want to make a return to fantasy mass battle games which this new edition has sparked interest with 1-2 other people in my playgroup along with the "use your old models" thing.. Can't wait to play!

**Psychopomp**

I can't wait to see the new Abyssal Dwarf sprues. Are the axe/shield and blunderbusses the same combo kit, or two separate kits?

**Sarouan**

New update on the League of Infamy Kickstarter ( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leagueofinfamy/league-of-infamy/posts/2680154 )

Salutations Scoundrels,

It’s Ronnie here. Boy, it’s been a tough weekend. Normally Saturday and Sunday are slow on campaigns, but we’ve never seen anything quite like yesterday. And it’s a real shame because we were starting to build some momentum coming into the weekend.

Thank you to everyone that’s stuck with the campaign through this tricky period and we’re determined to make sure you get lots of awesome stuff in your pledge. The good news is that the 48-hour reminder will be going out this evening and that normally brings in new backers and a boost with the funds.

It’s a huge shame that League of Infamy isn’t getting the love it deserves. This game has built on all we learnt from Dungeon Saga, Star Saga and Hellboy – then on top of that we added another cool layer of dirty dealing and mischievous antics to keep everyone around the table interested through the whole game. Sophie and James at Needy Cat have poured a lot into making a super fun, totally replayable experience that’s unlike any dungeon crawler we’ve ever played! Everyone that has played the game so far has had a total blast and the response from our Open Day was immense…please click here to have a look at some of fantastic games that were played in the run up to the campaign.

Of course, we’ve got late pledges to come and we’ll be opening the pledge manager after Christmas, so those of you at the £1 option will be able to jump on board with the Join the League or Master of Shadows pledges when funds are a bit more liquid!

But what are we going to do about the backwards progress – this is Mantic, and we don’t do backwards!!? Firstly, let’s just unlock that bloody Cavern Dweller! I’m sick of seeing its ugly face on the stretch goals – so we’ll add its ugly face to the pledge instead Everyone on the Master of Shadows pledge will be getting the Cavern Dweller for FREE and it includes a brand-new Kickstarter Exclusive scenario… taking the number of scenarios in the Master of Shadows pledge to a fantastic 25. Plus, we've also got the option of adding an extra Cavern Dweller to your pledge for just £10.

Secondly, we’re totally reworking the stretch goal plan. Alongside the daily goals, we were keeping a few of the gameplay cards in reserve ready for the final push. However, we’re going to bundle those together into £1k goals so we can celebrate every forward step! The cards are all really important and fun way to change up the game and add to the (already massive) amounts of replay value.

Thirdly, in anticipation of the final 48hr push we’re bringing forward another of the boss goals! The mighty Knucker will now be unlocked at £145k and added to the Master of Shadows and Optional Extras. We’re going to put the Knucker in the Optional Extras list now in anticipation of the unlock - so you can add that to your pledge! There’s still one more boss to come and we’ll be keeping an eye on funding over the next couple of days, so with a bit of support we can get that unlocked too.

Finally, we’ve got some more options for the resin villain packs. We know a lot of you have been asking for miniature-only pledges but with this being a board game all the models in the KS come assembled we are concerned that they won’t have the posing that Kings of War players want. However, it is something we have heard, and we will ponder how we can get these models into the KoW range – probably getting them unassembled with some resin options to allow you to make regiments, because there is no way we won’t find a way to get plastics this good into the range. However, the resin heroes/villains make a lot of sense in resin because, typically, you'll only need one of these in your Kings of War army or Vanguard warband.

I’m not going to lie and say this hasn’t been a difficult campaign. However, we really believe in League of Infamy and know 100% that it’s a truly fantastic game. Unfortunately it seems a lot of cash has been sucked out of Kickstarter over the past few weeks, and that has left this campaign drifting. Yet we’re determined to deliver a fantastic game that’s great fun to play, with fantastic miniatures. Please share the campaign and bring on a few more backers. Your help will push us through the final 48 hours and hopefully we can see that total grow again and get through to the £150k mark!

Thanks for reading and for the support,

Ronnie

Is it me or Ronnie just complained about the low amount of cash people pledged for this project ?

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

I think it's an admission that although they're handing over some stretches & making others cheaper they can't put out all the content they'd planned with the money they've got

(unlike previous mantic projects where a hard stall has led to the kitchen sink being thrown in)

I also suspect it means this game isn't going to get any love post KS, not when they've got the walking dead & hellboy as more successful ongoing products to keep expanding

**Boss Salvage**

I was curious how much Mantic expected to get from this KS, and so I did some research. Here's all of Mantic's backed Kickstarters, with number of pledges and totals (USD):

So yea, LOI is pretty anemic

Appreciate Ronnie at least gesturing towards the kinda bad timing on this campaign, and also dealing with the fact that with KOW 3E just dropping, their AFAIK largest, growing market just wants new sculpts for KOW, not some rando game attached to them. Amongst my gaming club (13+ people), only 1-2 are backing this, but several of us are piling on to get models for our KOW armies. Personally I look forward to giving the game a shot, most likely afterhours at KOW tournaments ... but I don't want to own it. And with no $1 pledge I can't get to the stretch goals I would toss $$$ at, at least directly

Happy to see Cavern Dweller and Knucker and so on get prioritized - I know it's bait to get more KOWers to pledge, but it gets those units closer to the large scale tabletop.

**Sarouan**

Yeah, and as for my Dungeon Saga friends, they're not that interested as well because they would rather have a second edition of Dungeon Saga than playing the villains in a new board game. They could use some of the miniatures, sure, but since the opponents are the good guys and they are the ones in quantities, it's not that necessary to have since they actually need the other way around (lots of monsters/minions/villains, a handful of good guys). You don't need that many bosses, after all.

**Maccwar**

Boss Salvage wrote:
And with no $1 pledge I can't get to the stretch goals I would toss $$$ at, at least directly

From the FAQ for the campaign

Yes! You can pledge any amount during the Kickstarter campaign and you will be sent the pledge manager. If you pledge £1, you’ll still receive the updates and information about the project too, so it’s a great opportunity to keep up to date with what’s happening in the campaign and what stretch goals we unlock.

You just need to select the "Make a pledge without a reward" option and the amount you pledge will be available once the pledge manager opens.

**Boss Salvage**

Ah! Good to know, possibly again because I feel like I read that and forgot

**lord_blackfang**

It's just so lame. If I'm a high fantasy super bad guy, fighting baby versions of KoW warbeasts shouldn't be the height of my career aspirations.

**Kalamadea**

Yeah, only 15 of the "40 elf enemies" are actually even elves, most of them are cats and awfully sculpted fat baby dragons. And then the expansions are mostly other monsters. If I'm going to play bad guys ransacking and looting an elven temple then, there should be priests and novices and civilians to fight and capture and enslave in addition to the regular guards. First expansion should have been human kingdoms with different priests and novices and civilians to fight and capture and enslave. As it is, you're bad guy anti-heroes fighting elves-but-not-really-any-elves, random-encounter-chart monsters, fish people, and halflings. None of those make me want to drop $96 plus shipping, even if there weren't a half dozen other KS demanding my money

**Sarouan**

lord_blackfang wrote:
It's just so lame. If I'm a high fantasy super bad guy, fighting baby versions of KoW warbeasts shouldn't be the height of my career aspirations.

It actually makes me think of the Overlord or Dungeon Keeper video game. That kind of "It's Good to be Bad", you know.

Meanwhile, we're in the last 24 hours and they revealed a new necromancer for the league.

Classical, sure, but skull fashion never gets old when you study necromancy !

**Psychopomp**

I'm just not feeling it. I paid to much to be burned by Dungeon Saga, and while the minis are nice, they're not what I'm looking to add to my collection right now. I want hordes of baddies for dungeons, not grandma's porcelain baby dragons and a bunch of elves and halflings.

I'll wait for retail and see what people are saying about the rules. If it somehow retroactively turns Dungeon Saga into what I wanted (doubtful), then mayabe. Of course, every Mantic Kickstarter where I said, "I'll wait until retail and see..." ended up with me not buying anything.

Oh well, I spent enough on Zombicide and Frostgrave, anyways.

**Alpharius**

It seems as if - maybe - some of Mantic’s missteps have caught up with them, to an extent.

What they get now via KS (outside of licensed properties) may be their new somewhat disappointing norm?

**BobtheInquisitor**

I waited until retail (plus a year or two) for DB X-treme and Season 2, and found them for much cheaper than their KS prices. I’ll take my chances on this one.

**Danny76**

Cheaper with all the Kickstarter stuff and all extras etc.
Or just got the initial box cheaper?

**BobtheInquisitor**

The core boxes. Like, got the initial boxes for $20-$25.

Later I got some of the expansion teams from Black Friday sales for about $10-15. But I don’t really remember which items came from which campaigns, so I have no idea how the savings actually compares. For my budgeting purposes, I often prefer to spread out purchases rather than put down one large sum up front, even if it means I miss out on some stuff.

**dyndraig**

I'm on the fence on this one, I like the concept but the campaign hasn't really inspired confidence...

**Sarouan**

dyndraig wrote:
I'm on the fence on this one, I like the concept but the campaign hasn't really inspired confidence...

Hmmm, I know I'm not the last to criticize Mantic Games quite agressively, but here I think this project is quite solid in more than one aspect. You can see they have already done a lot of work on the miniatures, the game system and future expansions all have a strong theme (not talking about the marketing/funny ads they made, since it doesn't bring anything to the game in itself). Sure, previous kickstarters made by Mantic Games didn't always turn out great, but I don't believe there is a good reason to think it will turn horrible here.

This is not Dungeon Saga or Star Saga, it's more alike to Hellboy - mainly because the team seems the be the same here.

As for the reasons the money raised wasn't that high in comparison to the others, well there are some IMHO. Timing with some other big Kickstarters at the time, sure, but I don't think that's the main one - I think the main reason is that Mantic Games fans are more looking for material to use for Kings of War and Dungeon Saga, given it is in the same universe...and that game sure brings a few things for that, but not that much. For Kings of War, it's mainly a few monsters and characters, but I don't think someone would bother to buy the game and gain 6 elven lancers and 6 elven archers for their elf army, especially if they all have the same pose. Same for the herd and their basic warriors, and I'm not even talking about the board game material (resin are another matter). For Dungeon Saga, this game brings way too many good guys and not enough bad guys to really use in their game - and there is a limit to the number of bosses or heroes you need.

Sure, it's a board game on its own, but how many different Dungeon Crawler games do you really need when you already have Dungeon Saga ? If it's just to play the villains, it's actually not that big a difference - especially when you can already do it in the said game you own. And yeah, the players can somewhat fight amongst themselves with the mechanism of League of Infamy...it may be fun for a while, but how long before it gets tiresome ? Play it coop or comp, but both don't work that well together.

On the other hand, reason the amount somewhat stalled and lowered a bit is, IMHO again, because a lot of backers switched to 1$ pledge since they confirmed you can still have access to the pledge manager later and see when the project is more advanced / have more funds when the financial pressure of last months in the year is gone. I'm sure Mantic Games will get more at that time, but it's obvious Ronnie would rather have all of the shiny money right at the end of the short campaign rather than waiting for their backers to finally open their wallet. If they did the campaign for gaining lots of money in a short amount of time, then yeah, it's kinda not that great of a success.

**pancakeonions**

lord_blackfang wrote:
It's just so lame. If I'm a high fantasy super bad guy, fighting baby versions of KoW warbeasts shouldn't be the height of my career aspirations.

On the other hand, sneaking in to kill the baby dragons before they become big, freakin' dragons is certainly prudent and makes a lot of sense. If I'm a high fantasy super bad guy, I wanna grind my foes into the ground - a big freakin' dragon might just put a damper on my efforts!

I also wasn't feelin' this one. I dropped out, despite having an elf and an undead army. I liked Hellboy enough, but not enough to get this one. Maybe I'll pick it up if I can find it for the cheap somewhere, but this just didn't spark my imagination...

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

this podcast may be of interest

https://weightoffire.podbean.com/e/episode-12-mamma-mia-miniature-design-chat-with-luigi-terzi/

Welcome to Weight of Fire, a podcast dedicated to wargaming and miniature painting with a heavy focus on Mantic games such as Kings of War, Deadzone and Warpath.

Ciao!! Andy and Paul are joined by Luigi Terzi, sculptor extraordinaire at Mantic Games, to discuss miniature design, concepts and all things around the miniature creation process!

**Boss Salvage**

Rat preview for Uncharted Empires is up:

**Sarouan**

Boss Salvage wrote:
Rat preview for Uncharted Empires is up:

Looks like he was in a rush, given the quality of the sound and that green screen behind the guy.