[Kings of War] Mantic Fantasy News & Rumors

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**kodos**

it depends on what you expect
they are reliable but also want to listen to the costumer, and than stupid stuff can happen, like if the backers are asked "to you want faster shipping or higher quality" and the majority prefer to get their stuff faster (and than all whine about the bad quality)

KS means that you buy something that is not yet produced and you take the risk that it will be different or take longer because of not known production issues
some people don't care about time because the are aware that it will take longer, others go mad if they get their stuff 2 weeks later than expected

But I prefer to wait for retail, just because I don't like KS in general (and buy hobby stuff for my current needs and not for stuff I may want to play in 2 years) and not because Mantic is not reliabel

**lord_blackfang**

Zethnar wrote:
That video was pretty good, although I'm not sure about the rolling for power points at the start of every turn. it feels like it could be a little too random and have a little too much influence over what you can and can't do in a turn. Still, Vanguard might actually turn out to be interesting, making this the first product from Mantic I can say that about since they royally screwed up their Dungeon Saga kickstarter.

I wasn't thrilled with the power dice mechanic when I read it, but it works great in practice.

**NTRabbit**

They've released the alpha rules for people to play with in advance of the KS, has warbands for Dwarfs, Goblins, Undead, and Abyssals

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ewhudffg0qrtvpg/VANGUARD%20-%20ALPHA%20RULES%20OCT%2027.zip?dl=0

**DaveC**

New Basilean render

Miniatures will be plastic or resin, plastic is not defined but I'd guess it's the PVC board game plastic for most and HIPS for a few troops like Men at Arms.

**Zethnar**

Ancestral Hamster wrote:
How reliable is Mantic when it comes to Kickstarter fulfillment? Is waiting for retail the better idea?

Delivery was fine. I think some people had troubles but that's normally the case for any kickstarter I've been involved in and likely more often the fault of the backer rather than the company. I've never personally had a delivery go missing, whether it was from Mantic or otherwise, but then I fill out my pledge managers on time and make sure I pay for shipping.

The problem with Dungeon Saga was that the rule books were full of errors and problems and felt as though they hadn't been properly playtested. They also fell way short of what was promised in the kickstarter. Mantic refused to admit there was any issue with the rules and wouldn't talk about them, let alone issue an FAQ. It wasn't until the Star Saga kickstarter was preparing to go live, and they decided to try and head off any dissent before it happened, that they admitted the game was sub-par and promised to try and at least fix the issues with the core rules by forming a 'rules committee'. Of course they then went completely silent for another eight months, only releasing the FAQ after continued prompting by the community.

Not that I'm still bitter about the whole thing.

Still, they've stopped contracting the designer that was in charge of Dungeon Saga and there might be some hope we'll see a fixed 2nd edition as I believe the base game did well for them (well enough to sell through a couple of printings). I believe their kickstarters since then have also been better (so at least they learned from their mistakes), although I've not participated in them myself.

Anyway I don't want to get too far off topic here. I'm willing to give Mantic another chance as despite their past problems they continue to produce content that interests me (at least with their fantasy lines), even if previous experiences have left me unwilling to open my wallet of late. Vanguard may well be the product to change that.

**Alpharius**

DaveC wrote:

Miniatures will be plastic or resin, plastic is not defined but I'd guess it's the PVC board game plastic for most and HIPS for a few troops like Men at Arms.

So, "Plastic" (PVC), Resin or HIPs?

**DaveC**

Alpharius wrote:
DaveC wrote:

Miniatures will be plastic or resin, plastic is not defined but I'd guess it's the PVC board game plastic for most and HIPS for a few troops like Men at Arms.

So, "Plastic" (PVC), Resin or HIPs?

I probably should have clarified by saying low volume - only one needed in an army/warband miniatures in resin, higher volume but not enough to justify HIPs in PVC and HIPS only for stuff that will be used in bulk for Vanguard and KoW like M@A basically how they did it for Deadzone infestation which produced 5 HIPs kits (plus terrain), Vanguard is a good excuse to do some HIPs stuff for KoW without doing another KoW KS.

**highlord tamburlaine**

That is one impressive looking dude.

His design is giving me flashbacks to playing Destrega on the PS1 with Barzam and his favorite character Raone.
No idea why. The papal- like regalness perhaps?

**Ancestral Hamster**

kodos wrote:
it depends on what you expect
they are reliable but also want to listen to the costumer, and than stupid stuff can happen, like if the backers are asked "to you want faster shipping or higher quality" and the majority prefer to get their stuff faster (and than all whine about the bad quality)

KS means that you buy something that is not yet produced and you take the risk that it will be different or take longer because of not known production issues
some people don't care about time because the are aware that it will take longer, others go mad if they get their stuff 2 weeks later than expected

But I prefer to wait for retail, just because I don't like KS in general (and buy hobby stuff for my current needs and not for stuff I may want to play in 2 years) and not because Mantic is not reliabel

Zethnar, Kodos thank you for your replies. That's pretty much what I wanted to know. Will just have to wait and see what kind of offer Mantic makes when the KS launches. Your point about not wanting to play the game you backed two years ago is a good one, and has happened to one or two games I backed on KS. Need to keep it in mind if the shinies are too tempting.

**lord_blackfang**

I've heavily backed Deadzone 1&2, Dreadball Xtreme, Kings of War 2, Mars Attacks and Warpath (of those that have delivered already) and would still back a Mantic KS without a second thought if I liked the physical product. But I did skip Dungeon Saga, which I hear was a bit of a mess.

Mantic isn't flawless but they can be trusted to deliver bucketfuls of at least decent (and ranging all the way up to excellent) minis for silly cheap. The rules... often feel like Mantic got bored 75% of the way in and said, what the heck, we already got the money, no need to polish this, just print it and ship it. KOW2 the shining exception here and definitely one of the top 5 quality rulesets currently existing in the hobby.

**DaveC**

Above is a Reaper - Nighstalkers core troop 3 to 4 used in Vanguard up to blocks of 20 in KoW - definite candidate for HIPs

Phantom - can fly

Spoiler:

KS will inroduce the Northern Alliance after new Baselians and Nightstalkers. Includes Ice Naiads and Snow Trolls mentioned. I think I might have a use for all those Frostgrave Barbarians I bought.

**Psychopomp**

Ancestral Hamster wrote:
kodos wrote:
it depends on what you expect
they are reliable but also want to listen to the costumer, and than stupid stuff can happen, like if the backers are asked "to you want faster shipping or higher quality" and the majority prefer to get their stuff faster (and than all whine about the bad quality)

KS means that you buy something that is not yet produced and you take the risk that it will be different or take longer because of not known production issues
some people don't care about time because the are aware that it will take longer, others go mad if they get their stuff 2 weeks later than expected

But I prefer to wait for retail, just because I don't like KS in general (and buy hobby stuff for my current needs and not for stuff I may want to play in 2 years) and not because Mantic is not reliabel

Zethnar, Kodos thank you for your replies. That's pretty much what I wanted to know. Will just have to wait and see what kind of offer Mantic makes when the KS launches. Your point about not wanting to play the game you backed two years ago is a good one, and has happened to one or two games I backed on KS. Need to keep it in mind if the shinies are too tempting.

The problems with Dungeon Saga weren't really on the Kickstarter fulfillment, but on the game development side of things. To explain why I feel that way, I'll copy over a post I made on Mantic's DS sub-forum on the state of the game. I reference a few prior posts, but I think the context is easily inferred from my post.

Before I do so, though, I want to stress that since the Dungeon Saga KS, I've also heavily backed the Deadzone 2 and Warpath Kickstarters and was very pleased with what I've gotten. I plan to throw $1 into the Vanguard KS to follow it, and if I don't increase that later I expect it to only be because my last semester of grad school has tapped me out financially. (The timing is pretty awful for me, actually.)

I don't think the expectation of "much like Warhammer Quest" was an uncommon one, actually. I mean, the reason I was hyped up for the Kickstarter was Ronnie - in his Beasts of War pre-campaign hype visit - started talking about the "Book of Unspeakable Darkness" or whatever he called it at the time and basically described the Roleplay Book from Warhammer Quest without naming names. I think that was a very common and clear expectation through the whole process, and by the end of the Kickstarter had metastasized into a concept of, "The core game will be like Heroquest, and the Adventurer's Companion expansion turns it into Advanced Heroquest/Warhammer Quest." I don't recall any other expectation for the game at that point.

Then - and I hate to keep throwing Jake Thornton under the bus, because he's a decent guy, but he keeps deserving it - Jake turned out to not like Warhammer Quest or other "RPG-lites", and didn't do any research on modern market dungeon crawlers. At one point on his blog, I pointed out that it sounded like his vision for the Overlord was him reinventing Descent, and he confessed to having never looked at Descent! Despite clear (and often vocal, on his blog) expectations from the Kickstarter pre-hype and the backers, Jake decided to write Jake Thornton's Nostalgic Heroquest Rewrite, By Jake Thornton for Jake Thornton. And on the Adventurer's Companion, it really really shows. I fully agree with eriochrome's assessment that it's at alpha/beta level of completion. I lean more towards 'alpha', myself. And I can't help but notice that that seemed to be Jake's modus operandi for his Mantic work - look at how Dreadball and Deadzone first editions were good games but...not *quite* right. Then a Rules Committee and later second editions cleaned (and finished) them up to be fantastic games.

So, I think that Dungeon Saga's fundamental problem lies with a disconnect between the expectations of both the Kickstarter team *and* backers for a new, modern day Warhammer Quest...and the preferences and practices of the contracted creator. At this point, I don't think the consequences of that disconnect can be rectified with tweaks and errata. I think the core game may need a second edition, too...just to add more "hardpoints" to the core system to allow a hypothetical Adventurer's Companion second edition to add extra features onto. Or even incorporate some of the elements from the AC into the core game to begin with. I refer back to my previous post, where I pointed out that random monster placement and random dungeon design being the the WHQ core rules made their incorporation into the expanded rules seamless. I suspect that by designing the game around strictly pre-written scenarios, Jake may have written DS into a corner on expand-ability and replay value. I also suspect that by focusing so heavily on an adversarial not-GM vs PCs dynamic and trying to retain that in the AC, the game system lacks the flexibility to allow for easy, intuitive co-op and/or randomized play. (I really think that the RC and/or a second edition should take advantage of the Adventurer Companion's status as an add-on expansion to incorporate a change in the role of the Overlord to more of a traditional GM-as-referee one. That would smooth out a lot of the difficulty in creating a design-your-own dungeon section.) Finally, for something as complex as what the Adventurer's Companion *needs* to do, I wouldn't be afraid of using tables. Tables might not be in vogue right now, but they save on the need for planning, printing, and including cards for all the necessary features or variables. Also, tables *work* for this sort of thing. (See also the Deadzone second ed. exploration tables.)

In summary, I as time goes on, I am increasingly of the opinion that DS needs a second edition that refocuses on the promises and expectations from the Kickstarter. Such a second edition would benefit from using the framework of the first edition (indeed, I don't think Mantic even needs to worry about changing the miniatures and furniture that comes in each box) but heavily revised, polished, and re-oriented towards the original design goals without Jake Thorntons personal preferences hindering them. I would absolutely back another Kickstarter for such a project (though I'd prefer a simple rerelease with new, second edition rulebooks) especially at a new-rules-only level.

Anyway, that's just my opinion on a game I was really primed to enjoy but ended up being badly disappointed by. I realize that a lot of the work it needs will be delayed until we see what Star Saga did differently and how the consumers react. I just hope the work needed gets done eventually, as I think there's a kernel of a great game in Dungeon Saga, it just needs a re-focused second edition to bring that kernel out and allow it to flourish.

**BobtheInquisitor**

I pledge my dollar.

**highlord tamburlaine**

No takebacks Mr. Inquisitor! You aren't allowed to pull that pledge now!

Ogre guards could end up being a cool unit. Always a sucker for giant armored humanoids.

Guess if I'm not a big fan of the models for this Northern faction I can always substitute in Shieldwolf maidens and Trollkin.

Probably most excited to see what the Night Stalker units look like on the table.
Mantic's last few board game plastic releases have been pretty well detailed. Hopefully these remain as such.

**lord_blackfang**

I'll buy 100 of any new HIPS troop, just saying.

**Theophony**

Psychopomp I’ll have to argue without you on the Dungeon Saga KS fulfillment not being a problem

.

I got my order missing stuff and it took forever for them to get replacements. When they sent replacement order they sent an extra of Blaine on dinosaur, which they were short of to fill other orders

. Communications was lousy as well. They have since hired more people, but I haven’t been willing to buy anything from them since. (Except clearance stuff off the shelves)

**Azazelx**

Theophony wrote:
Psychopomp I’ll have to argue without you on the Dungeon Saga KS fulfillment not being a problem .

I got my order missing stuff and it took forever for them to get replacements. When they sent replacement order they sent an extra of Blaine on dinosaur, which they were short of to fill other orders . Communications was lousy as well. They have since hired more people, but I haven’t been willing to buy anything from them since. (Except clearance stuff off the shelves)

Yeah, this.

Suggesting that being shipped miscasts and missing items are "more often the fault of the backer than the company" is a dick move, Zethnar. I'm not the one who fethed up the boxing of my Mantic KS pledges in Nottingham any of the many times I've been mis-shipped, shipped broken or miscast models, or missing items. I'm not sure how you can even suggest it to be so. How does that narrative work? Backers' job is to sent them the correct money and then open the box that should contain the correct items.

**jeff white**

I downloaded the Alpha Rules.
Read through them.
The game looks like a winner
and coming out head to head against Shadespire,
with all of GW's ongoing collectible card game profit maximization shenanigans,
I have to say that hands down this is the better game.
Mantic may be turning the tables with this one.
As their miniatures quality improves, their production and logistics coordinate and become more professional, and as GW seems intent on mangling their "IP" to milk it for money at every turn, this game signals a sharp upturn for Mantic in my opinion.
A very cool release.
I wish the Mantic people the very best of luck with this one.

**Theophony**

Azazelx wrote:
Theophony wrote:
Psychopomp I’ll have to argue without you on the Dungeon Saga KS fulfillment not being a problem .

I got my order missing stuff and it took forever for them to get replacements. When they sent replacement order they sent an extra of Blaine on dinosaur, which they were short of to fill other orders . Communications was lousy as well. They have since hired more people, but I haven’t been willing to buy anything from them since. (Except clearance stuff off the shelves)

Yeah, this.

Suggesting that being shipped miscasts and missing items are "more often the fault of the backer than the company" is a dick move, Zethnar. I'm not the one who fethed up the boxing of my Mantic KS pledges in Nottingham any of the many times I've been mis-shipped, shipped broken or miscast models, or missing items. I'm not sure how you can even suggest it to be so. How does that narrative work? Backers' job is to sent them the correct money and then open the box that should contain the correct items.

Very true and the DS KS was the one where their pledgemanager lost (

mantic says it wasn’t lost, just misplaced) a slew of the KS backers information and didn’t realize it until after the complaints started to roll in. They also changed manufacturers during this time (at least on Dino Blaine) even using Prodos at some point to get things done. Even with that they didn’t get enough produced to cover the numbers they needed and some people waited months, and they even called people liars in their comments.

**BobtheInquisitor**

highlord tamburlaine wrote:
No takebacks Mr. Inquisitor! You aren't allowed to pull that pledge now!

Ogre guards could end up being a cool unit. Always a sucker for giant armored humanoids.

Guess if I'm not a big fan of the models for this Northern faction I can always substitute in Shieldwolf maidens and Trollkin.

Probably most excited to see what the Night Stalker units look like on the table.
Mantic's last few board game plastic releases have been pretty well detailed. Hopefully these remain as such.

I haven't been disappointed with Mantic Kickstarter minis for a while now. I've lost dollars to far worse campaigns.

I really like the look of the Basileans, so I'll likely get the small Basilean pledge.

**Zethnar**

Azazelx wrote:
Suggesting that being shipped miscasts and missing items are "more often the fault of the backer than the company" is a dick move, Zethnar.

I'm not saying that companies don't feth up shipping. When you're doing thousands of orders over the period of a week or two its bound to happen. But the amount of times I've seen people bitching about not receiving their pledge only to be told "You never filled out the pledge manager. Contact us at [email address] and we'll fix you up" far outweighs the number of times I've seen complaints from people with legitimately mis-packed items.

**NTRabbit**

Theophony wrote:
Very true and the DS KS was the one where their pledgemanager lost ( mantic says it wasn’t lost, just misplaced) a slew of the KS backers information and didn’t realize it until after the complaints started to roll in. They also changed manufacturers during this time (at least on Dino Blaine) even using Prodos at some point to get things done. Even with that they didn’t get enough produced to cover the numbers they needed and some people waited months, and they even called people liars in their comments.

They didn't change dino blaine manufacturers, they added additional ones because the original resin shop proved unable to meet the deadline to which they'd agreed. I think that particular fiasco is what drove Mantic to open up their own in house resin shop.

**RiTides**

jeff white wrote:
I downloaded the Alpha Rules.
Read through them.
The game looks like a winner
and coming out head to head against Shadespire,
with all of GW's ongoing collectible card game profit maximization shenanigans,
I have to say that hands down this is the better game.
Mantic may be turning the tables with this one.
As their miniatures quality improves, their production and logistics coordinate and become more professional, and as GW seems intent on mangling their "IP" to milk it for money at every turn, this game signals a sharp upturn for Mantic in my opinion.
A very cool release.
I wish the Mantic people the very best of luck with this one.

Wow, I'm not sure what your experience with Shadespire has been, but I've had the opposite reaction. It isn't "collectible", you can own all gameplay content and miniatures for just $120 ($60 starter and two $30 expansions). You're not allowed to take duplicate cards so this is literally everything in the game.

In Q1 they'll be putting out two more expansions. Again, hardly collectible territory! X-wing has been going this route, only it Does allow duplicates, requiring you to buy a lot more. GW has been surprisingly generous with Shadespire.

Anyway, nothing against Mantic, but my experience with Shadespire is just at odds with what you posted here...

**ulgurstasta**

Honestly I have a hard time seeing the point of the northern alliance army. Seems to be stepping on the Varangur toes design-wise.

**Nostromodamus**

ulgurstasta wrote:
Honestly I have a hard time seeing the point of the northern alliance army. Seems to be stepping on the Varangur toes design-wise.

Me neither. Just seems to be a case of "[random KoW unit] with a coat on". Varangur and Kingdoms of Men (which can have good or evil allies) already fill the niche.

**kodos**

The other way around, Varangur is just a Spin Off of the Northern Alliance, as Salamanders are for Nature or Rhordia is for KoM

So nothing unique but not so specialised as Varangur

**Psychopomp**

*shrug*

I haven't experienced any issues with any of my Mantic Kickstarter shipments (so far) out of four I've participated in and received, so I can't criticize them for that. My only disappointment with them (so far) has been the development of Dungeon Saga contrary to my (and others' online) expectations based on Ronnie's presentations and the Kickstarter updates.

The only thing shipping/fulfillment wise I can say is the delays from the listed delivery estimate, but I've found that Kickstarter delivery estimates are almost always overly optimistic, so I just add 2-3 months in my head anyways. I *would* have preferred my Warpath vehicles not be delayed (I got GCPS and Plague battleforces), but they seem to be coming along and I have plenty of lead & plastic pile to tide me over.

**pancakeonions**

The only problem I had was with the original Kings of War kickstarter (2012), I had pledged for the $100 level, and they accidentally sent me a $225 level pledge. By the time I figured it out, they weren't interested in "fixing it" (ie, having me send my toys back).

So there's some more fodder for the Mantic nay sayers! They didn't fix the problem with my pledge! Those lazy bums!

(Been a big Mantic fan ever since, even if some of the models I got in that pledge were pretty janky)

**highlord tamburlaine**

I just got my Veer Myn tunneler the other day... and it's got extras of certain pieces and missing other core ones.

Looks like I'll be firing off an email as soon as Vanguard starts!

On the plus side, they're usually even more responsive when there's a Kickstarter running.

And for as much flak as we give them, I thought Mantic's been slowing down on the kickstarters as of late.

**Azazelx**

Zethnar wrote:
Azazelx wrote:
Suggesting that being shipped miscasts and missing items are "more often the fault of the backer than the company" is a dick move, Zethnar.

I'm not saying that companies don't feth up shipping. When you're doing thousands of orders over the period of a week or two its bound to happen. But the amount of times I've seen people bitching about not receiving their pledge only to be told "You never filled out the pledge manager. Contact us at [email address] and we'll fix you up" far outweighs the number of times I've seen complaints from people with legitimately mis-packed items.

With as about as much respect as it deserves, I'll take what you claim to "have seen" with a bucket of salt, mate.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

jeff white wrote:
I downloaded the Alpha Rules.
Read through them.
The game looks like a winner
and coming out head to head against Shadespire,
with all of GW's ongoing collectible card game profit maximization shenanigans,
I have to say that hands down this is the better game.
Mantic may be turning the tables with this one.
As their miniatures quality improves, their production and logistics coordinate and become more professional, and as GW seems intent on mangling their "IP" to milk it for money at every turn, this game signals a sharp upturn for Mantic in my opinion.
A very cool release.
I wish the Mantic people the very best of luck with this one.

The game might well be excellent, but it's not head to head against Shadespire. Nothing like it, in fact. Shadespire is out now. This is a Kickstarter to launch sometime soon (TM) and deliver in... well, I'd expect it in a year's time for wave 1, and about 4 months after that for wave 2, and who knows after that for wave 3.

That's about as far from head to head as you can get.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I just got my Veer Myn tunneler the other day... and it's got extras of certain pieces and missing other core ones.
Looks like I'll be firing off an email as soon as Vanguard starts!
On the plus side, they're usually even more responsive when there's a Kickstarter running.
And for as much flak as we give them, I thought Mantic's been slowing down on the kickstarters as of late.

Any idea where we can find instructions so I can spend my time QAing their product again? My sets didn't come with any.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

pancakeonions wrote:
The only problem I had was with the original Kings of War kickstarter (2012), I had pledged for the $100 level, and they accidentally sent me a $225 level pledge. By the time I figured it out, they weren't interested in "fixing it" (ie, having me send my toys back).
So there's some more fodder for the Mantic nay sayers! They didn't fix the problem with my pledge! Those lazy bums!
(Been a big Mantic fan ever since, even if some of the models I got in that pledge were pretty janky)

It's fantastic that you ended up "on top" for one of your pledges, and even better that you and others have had lots of pledges arrive without any problems at all. Seriously. That's great. But belittling the many of us who have backed them time and time again with feth up after feth up after feth up that have in many cases taken months and way too many emails to resolve... well, it's not very nice. An "I'm alright, Jack" attitude used to dismiss others' legitimate complaints and experiences isn't very useful.