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I've wanted armored, civilized, metal- working spiders for a long time. Maybe with different arachnid castes for various levels of labor/ unit types. Not sure how interested the rest of the gaming world would be in having spider armies.

This does sound like a really nice idea, although I'm not sure how easy it would to anthropomorphise a spider - the only examples I can think of are ones wearing a top hat with monocle, and not sure if that is what you have in mind..?

All for new ideas though, and hey Mantic is as the stage now (where their different game universes are still being added to) where they can get more creative if they want to.

They just added anthropomorphised spiders to Dreadball with the Koris in Xtreme, they could always do a fantasy version of that. Or did you want less anthro more spider?

Not feeling the spider, but I like the model. I can always hold out hope the quality will be there :-P

Edited myself

I'd like to see a race of giants or tiny things, would be interesting.

I do like where DBX has gone with the Crystallans, Koris and Ada-Lorana.

Any of those (or nameless) would make awesome Warpath armies, anything to get as far away as possible from the space elf, space dwarf, space skaven, space orcs and goblins, space undead thing that Warpath is lumbered with.

All of Mantic's sci fi stuff has been great in regards to bringing more unique creatures to the tabletop. Most futuristic games seem to have no issue with this, whereas fantasy tends to keep things in the more common and accepted tropes. Not sure why that is.

I've totally been digging all the Dreadball Extreme stuff. Hope to see comparable ideas start to appear in the fantasy lines as well, even if as characters, bosses, unique creatures, what have you...

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'd like to see a race of giants or tiny things, would be interesting.

Giants that don't follow the big, dumb and ugly cliche are something I'm interested in.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
All of Mantic's sci fi stuff has been great in regards to bringing more unique creatures to the tabletop.

Are we still talking about the company that made Space Ratmen, Space Zombies, Space Dwarves, Space Orcs and Space Elves?

I suspect that Tamb is referring to the games themselves, rather than each individual figure or faction. As in Warpath/DeadZone/DreadBall rather than Orx and Forgefathers specifically...

 Azazelx wrote:
I suspect that Tamb is referring to the games themselves, rather than each individual figure or faction. As in Warpath/DeadZone/DreadBall rather than Orx and Forgefathers specifically...

Don't let reason get in the way of a good whine

Sorry, brah!

If we're talking new races, I'd like something really funky. How about some plantmen? Why not have an army of Triffids?

I would be perfectly happy with animal-man races though. Intelligent apes? Sure. Gnolls? Hell yeah! Lizardmen who have actually figured out metallurgy? That would be a nice change from the usual savage type lizards.

A couple of water themed armies could go down well, ie a good or neutral aligned army of river themed creatures, and an evil aligned army of oversized crustaceans from the oceans

Loads of info and pics for dkh kickstarter on http://quirkworthy.com/2014/05/28/dwarf-kings-hold-4-some-info/

Some nice close up mini shots






Plenty more pics on Jakes blog.

New info there about the KS is:

- $95 sweet spot.
- Early Birds will have a bonus mini, not a discount.
- Early Birds will run for the first weekend rather than being limited in number.

So, finally a Kickstarter that doesn't make you camp out on it before the EB's all go in the first 20 minutes! Australians rejoice. :p

That's good to hear Squig, especially after waking up super freaking early trying to get an EB for Galaxy Defenders, which were gone in the time it took me to log into Amazon to finalize my payment.

Will have to check the blog when I get home.

Sounds like the new DKH will be one piece miniatures.

Well it is a board game, one piece minis are the minimum acceptable standard there. Unbackable odds they'll be the same one piece soft PVC figures as (most of) Dreadball Xtreme and LOKA

But will one-piece minis have the same detail? In any case, they'll be useful as DnD minis, so I'll be getting one unless the quality is crap.

I think the term they like to use is "pre-assembled". The Gears of War boardgame figures were made from several pieces, for example, but had already been assembled prior to going into the box. They also had a quite impressive amount of detail on them, so it's not necessarily as big a factor as you might think.

The models shown so far look so good that I'd hope for as sharp a material as possible, though. Paladin looks like he's seen some deeply unpleasant things...

A little bit of clarification from quirksworthy.

There seems to be a little confusion. I’m not sure where it’s from – Ronnie thought it might be something he said in a seminar at an Open Day. Wherever it started, I’d like to try to clarify things.

Mantic have mentioned two small scale (in terms of numbers of models) games set in the Kings of War background: Dwarf King’s Hold and a “KOW Skirmish”. These are two entirely separate things.

Dwarf Kings Hold 4: A board game in the DKH series and the next Kickstart project from Mantic (coming in a month or two). All the new fantasy figures you’ve been seeing lately here and elsewhere are for this.

“Kings of War Skirmish”: This is a piece of blue-sky-wouldn’t-it-be-nice-at-some-point thinking. It is not a confirmed project. Even before you guys ever heard of Deadzone we were discussing the idea of one day making a fantasy version, and it would indeed be cool to get around to it. That’s broadly what Ronnie means by a KOW skirmish game. During the seminars he talked about perhaps making 3D plastic scenery to build a castle for this when it arrives, but that was part of a conversation about why plastic walls aren’t really suitable for DKH. This may be where the confusion started. I also mentioned a Stalingrad variant of Deadzone, but that’s not due soon either.

So, two very different projects: one being developed right now, the other some years away and barely even on a drawing board.

Apologies for any confusion.

So no hard plastic multipart dungeons and castles just yet.

Oh well.. I suppose you can have too many good things all at once, and it's good that they are at least thinking of these news things!

I also mentioned a Stalingrad variant of Deadzone

Now that sounds interesting.. I wonder if it's some kind of 'stalingrad' concept of Deadzone, or actually a historical game using Deadzone rules? Might tie in with Warlord 28mm Bolt Action miniatures as those two companies have had some crossover?

DKH4 has a name now

With that in mind, I am really excited to formally announce that we are working on developing Dwarf King’s Quest – The Return of the Necromancer. This will be the complete and definitive version of the game in the Dwarf King’s Hold range.

Teaser campaign starts July 4, a little more info about what the game is going to be and why they're doing it. Nothing ground breaking, mostly just confirmation of what has already been floating around.

http://manticblog.com/2014/06/23/dhq-abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here/

I'm not sure what the game offers that isn't already out there now that I know it's not small scale fantasy skirmish, but it will do fantastic on kickstarter as all Mantic campaigns seem to do. I probably won't back it as I don't trust the miniatures to turn out with the same quality as the previews, but I'll no doubt try it at some point.

Full rundown here for those that do not want to click through:

"Hi, it’s Ronnie here.

A few weeks back we had an open day and as usual I said far too much!!! I tried to keep a lid on what we have planned – but I am just too excited!

barbarian sculpt
Taken from Jake Thorton’s Dwarf King’s Hold 4 – Quirkworthy blog post
Back in December/January I laid out what I hope the year would look like: a Kickstarter to keep DreadBall developing early in the year (done), one around the middle of the year (more on that now) and some serious support for Warpath later in the year, which we’ll come back to closer to the time.

At the Open Day we talked about these upcoming projects (and plans, even further afield) but one of them really started to generate lots of debate and questions. Because of that, I thought it was time to go on and talk in depth about this. In the year review blog I did say that we were working on at least one Kickstarter, which would be much softer on everyone’s wallets.

When we do a full gaming system, with loads of scenery and 6 factions or 12 new DreadBall teams, the totals can mount up quickly (as does our workload getting it all made!) so we wanted to do a fun, exciting Kickstarter that produced a really neat and tidy product, was kind to everyone’s budget (perhaps just a single pledge level at a low buy-in, with enough room to get all the basic and most of the extras – plus a few exclusives) I also thought a KS campaign like that would be a great way for new people to come on board and give Mantic a try.

With that in mind, I am really excited to formally announce that we are working on developing Dwarf King’s Quest – The Return of the Necromancer. This will be the complete and definitive version of the game in the Dwarf King’s Hold range.

Why another dungeon crawler you ask?

Well lots of reasons, but probably two main ones.

The first Dwarf King’s Hold games were made back in the early days of Mantic (and it was our first collaboration with Jake Thornton!). They came about as a creative way of using all the great plastic we had already tooled and pushing into areas we wanted to go.
‘Dwarf King’s Hold – Dead Rising’ told the story of a group of Dwarves going back into their ancestral Holds on a series of adventures. Each scenario saw them fighting ever more skeletons as they sought to accomplish missions and recover artifacts. It was hugely successful, and two more supplements followed, again designed around the plastic sprues that we had in the range. This was probably the game that gave us the confidence to press forward with DreadBall – so it was a major step in Mantic’s development.

We always intended to do the typical adventurers’ party version, and Jake has always been very keen on putting his mark on this type of game. However, at the time we just didn’t have the resources, or in some cases the knowhow (such as one-piece miniatures with great detail) to deliver the vision that we had for this type of game. However, with the passing of time all that has changed…

BarbarianSecondly, there are certainly a few great dungeon games out there, but they are all quite different from what we want to make. There are a couple from the light-hearted end of the spectrum – such as Super Dungeon Explore - and others that are intense and deep, such as Descent. But none of those are really in exactly the space we want to occupy.

We want to do a grave and dangerous dungeon miniatures game, set in our fantasy setting, with all the opportunity that gives us to develop the back story and flesh out the world. It will have very strong narrative, based around the main protagonists. This will really bring to life a whole new story arc in the world and highlight some of the big characters for further development. It will also give us a few great sculpts and some heroes for Kings of War armies too.

Alongside an overarching back story, we intend to create a game that is very easy to get started with – so it is very easy to have a great night of gaming with family and friends while playing a strongly narrative dungeon crawler. But - and this was one of the critical things for us - as you develop your knowledge of the world, your character evolves too.

The boxed set will give you both the ability to play through a series of adventures we have designed for you in a PvP mode (as a 2 up to 5 player set), so you can literally crack open the box and get playing. You’ll have all you need here – the heroes, the cards, reference sheets and a scenario guide.

The title is ‘Dwarf Kings Quest – Return of the Necromancer’ (#DKQ on Twitter and Facebook!) and it charts the return of Mortibris as he comes back, bigger and badder than ever. The adventurers – a dwarf fighter, barbarian, wizard and elf – have quests to complete against ever stronger enemies – which will all come in the box pre-assembled and coloured so you can take them out and start playing immediately, while still being of the quality that they will look even better with some paint on them. The skeletons and zombies will be in our normal 30mm scale – so you can use them as leaders in your normal Kings of War games – and indeed you can use the other models to bulk out your dungeons!
Alongside the regular troops will be a series of boss enemy models – such as Mortibris himself – so you really get a sense of the adventure escalating as each scenario progresses.

However, once you have played these through you can delve deeper and darker – which is why we intend you to actually have a piece of card under the main game box, so that it is split in two. Underneath the almost casual narrative campaign, we’ve added something extra.
WizardThe card is a trap door that says ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’ – and beneath it is another tray of game components. These open the game up, to really give you access to the whole sandbox, allowing you to go on and create your own quests, using the tiles, models and rules provided. This also offers character development, creating a setting where your hero can build up their skills and equipment over time as they acquire treasure and experience, making each character, and playthrough truly individual. We’ll include a character pack, more hero models – and a big book with all the extra rules enclosed.
I think the book will end up being called something sensible that describes what it does – but I have a working title – ‘Jake’s Book of Depravity’ as he will really get to go to town on build a truly multi-layer miniatures based RPG.

We will be using thicker card than in the first series of games too, just to give the dungeon a more solid and resilient feel, and of course, we will have everything else you need in the box such as adventure and treasure cards, character sheets, gold, furniture and much more.

So, as you can hopefully see we are pretty excited about what this possibilities of this game. I think we will be able to keep the pledge level really wallet friendly, because we will not have lots of armies, factions and teams, and can instead concentrate on squeezing as much in to the box as we can, when we hit stretch goals. The easy entry point and simple pledge levels should also mean we can introduce as many new people to the game as possible.

I thought you would appreciate the early warning and a few sneak peeks. We will have a teaser campaign starting the 4th July – which will be a quest to find runes – easily translated by our Dwarf Bartender (because ALL good quests start in a Tavern!). These will lead you to the ‘the Book of the Rise and Fall of Diffeth’ – and your quest will begin

Thanks for reading and best wishes,

Ronnie"

Deeeeeeem! I wants it but money is stupid tight right now and for the foreseeable future! (1-6 months) why must I suffer so?

Zond wrote:
I'm not sure what the game offers that isn't already out there now that I know it's not small scale fantasy skirmish, but it will do fantastic on kickstarter as all Mantic campaigns seem to do. I probably won't back it as I don't trust the miniatures to turn out with the same quality as the previews, but I'll no doubt try it at some point.

Seems like there's a lot of completed sculpts for this project. When has Mantic had serious issues with casting up final models? I know they had some real issues with concepts not being executed, but by and large, the scults you see have been executed very well. All I can think of are the goblin and men at arms hard plastics, which certainly had some issues but are certainly a different material than this project will use.

At this point with Mantic I'd rather not take the chance, as the examples of Goblins and Basileans you provided are still rather fresh in my mind at least as a cautionary tale.

The Basileans and Goblins happened because of a very specific set of circumstances relating to shoddy work by the factory and poor oversight from Mantic. They fixed those for Deadzone, and we've had the excellent terrain already, and the improved restic formula for the first wave of troops - the Deadzone hard plastic will start arriving end of July, so provided DKQ doesn't start and end before then, judge them on their most recent attempt at mini creation

I'm still scratching my head as to how people had issues with the goblins. The basileans I get; the MaAs are terribad. But the goblins? I think they're perfectly fine. Ah, well. To each their own.

Its mostly that the plastic goblins were a PITA to assemble.