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 carlos13th wrote:

Bolognesus wrote:wasn't last year's box almost twice as expensive, too?

I bought last years box and I think it was the same price. £20 for the normal version and Maybe £25 with the bag.

The bag is awesome, btw. Nice and compact, but not flimsy either.

What's the bag?

Mantic messenger bag, it's very nice!

They don't have the bag this year.

Its just a canvas messenger bag with mantic on the side. Decent bag, nothing fantastic.

New update with Chovar and Boomer, and some shipping info:




Here's what ships in wave 1:


Deadzone Boxed Game, including all of the counters and cards you need to play.
Faction Starters – Enforcers, Plague, Rebs, Marauders
Faction Boosters – Plague, Rebs, Marauders
Faction Booster Bundles – Plague, Rebs, Marauders
All individual models in the above sets
8 Plastic Mercenaries – The Survivor, Recon Unit N32-19, Blaine, Nastanza, Wrath, Doctor Simmonds, Freya, and Oberon
2 Premium hand-cast metal Mercenaries – Helfather and Chovar
Random DreadBall MVP
Warpath Heroes – Enforcer Captain, Forge Father Huscarl, Forge Father Thorgarim Hero and Marauder Warlord
Scenery – Core Worlds, Fortifications, Landing Pad, Accessories and Connectors
Antenociti’s Workshop Urban Detailing Bundles
Gaming Mats Rulebooks
Faction Dice
Acrylic Counters (If you've ordered these you will be getting both the Standard and Plague pack)
Resin Equipment Crates
Battle Foam (may ship separately)
Bags
T-Shirts
Patches
Paint Sets


Quite a lot of stuff shipping well in advance of retail there, 3 of the faction boosters, 2 of the battlezones and some mercenaries.

INB4 "ohfethwhydidthechovarhavetobemetal" discussion.

 scarletsquig wrote:
2 Premium hand-cast metal Mercenaries – Helfather and Chovar

Aaaand I'm glad they are the only two I didn't order. Again with springing metal on us unannounced?

The rest looks good though, lots of loot!

In all fairness, Mantic did say straight up during the KS, in the update with the chovar in it that the chovar might not be restic:

Mantic Games on May 14, 2013
@Adam Fair - at this stage, there is no guarantee that the model will be resin plastic like the factions are. That decision depends on how many we sell during the Kickstarter. Also, this model is 40mm tall - I think you'll agree that $10 is pretty good value for something that big :-)

Source: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/deadzone-the-sci-fi-miniatures-board-game/posts/480461

They also said that it'll have individual ball and socket joins for each tentacle, so that one's going to be a bastard to assemble.

Yeah, I didn't get those guys either. Not that I'd mind metal so much in Deadzone, it's really just Dreadball where I didn't want it.

...fethfethfeth I forgot to order a few chovar. Feth again, really liking the look of it and would love a couple.

Second survey it.

 scarletsquig wrote:
In all fairness, Mantic did say straight up during the KS, in the update with the chovar in it that the chovar might not be restic:

A comment (especially on an update) isn't good enough imo. The KS faq said the models would be plastic, if there were exclusions to this it should have been listed there or in its own update.

I'm with Yonan on this one. Fair enough on Mantic's forewarning with the Chovar, but I don't believe there was any such discussion concerning the Helfather. I have Mantic's Warpath Enforcer model in metal, and I'm not impressed with the casting quality. I was considering the Chovar, and the Helfather was going to be a "must buy" for me on the 2nd survey; now I'll be dropping both. Pity.

Frankly, unless Mantic adopt an entirely up-front policy on announcing during kickstarter campaigns which models will or even may be cast in metal, I will approach all of their future kickstarters conservatively and wait for 2nd surveys before going in big on any peripheral models. I'm not going to pre-order any model without knowing what material it will be cast in, and I think it's a little ridiculous to expect otherwise from this customer base in general.

I have no idea what I ordered - Off to check if I got a mail from the survey

Little dissapointed in the two metals but only cause its bothering other folks. I'm more excited about getting 3/4 of the bzs coming in the first wave.

And that they're packing. Exciting.

 Vermonter wrote:
Frankly, unless Mantic adopt an entirely up-front policy on announcing during kickstarter campaigns which models will or even may be cast in metal, I will approach all of their future kickstarters conservatively and wait for 2nd surveys before going in big on any peripheral models.

Doesn't it come down mainly to demand though? Unil you get the surveys in you don't know if you're going to need 20 or 2000 of a particular model.

^ The flipside of that debate is that there was a $15k stretch goal during the DZ campaign to fund the sculpting and tooling of... a single metal dwarf, that wasn't a freebie.

The Chovar and Hellfather are the only 2 I passed on I actually don't mind them being metal here as they are 1 off pieces it's more annoying if you have half a team (or faction) in different materials. I thought about adding them in survey 2 but I'm not overly impressed by the casting quality on the metals so I'll pass.

and Scarletsquig brings up a good point yet again the sculpting and tooling of these was paid for by stretch goal soothe number ordered in the survey shouldn't matter the funds are there to tool it in restic.

 Riquende wrote:
Second survey it.

I don't think it was actually going to be on the 2nd survey. Would be happy to be mistaken, though.

Everything is going to be on the second survey, Mantic changed their minds on that point.

 Riquende wrote:

 Vermonter wrote:
Frankly, unless Mantic adopt an entirely up-front policy on announcing during kickstarter campaigns which models will or even may be cast in metal, I will approach all of their future kickstarters conservatively and wait for 2nd surveys before going in big on any peripheral models.

Doesn't it come down mainly to demand though? Unil you get the surveys in you don't know if you're going to need 20 or 2000 of a particular model.

If you need £x to tool y models in a particular material then you set up the Kickstarter to gain you £x to make those [i]y[/y] models, regardless of the mixture of those models that are actually ordered.

Now whilst I don't particularly mind for Deadzone in practical terms, it's the principle of the thing, and I'm still irritated about the S3 Dreadball situation because a) it puts the onus on me to do something about it and b) good luck getting anything out of Mantic during a Kickstarter fulfilment cycle.

No more pre-production model purchases from Mantic for me.

@Riquende - I understand the economics of it, but that doesn't change my attitude towards not knowing what material the miniature I'm buying will be cast in. If economics dictates that this is how it must be, so be it, but I'll just avoid pre-ordering peripheral individual models from Mantic in the future and stick to the bundle deals that will definitely get cast in plastic.

The lesson here is that if a hero model is bundled with a pledge level, you can be pretty sure it'll be plastic (Blaine, Oberon, Freya, etc.) If it isn't and is likely to receive only a few customer orders, it'll be metal (Helfather, Chovar).

By this logic, it's a safe bet that Boomer, Nem-Rath, Kish, Eddak P'Mera, and Chief Radgrad will be cast in metal too. I was going to pre-order a few of those; now that I have a better idea of their likely casting material, I won't. At the prices Mantic sells its individual, non-bundled figures at, it's not like I'm going to be missing out on a great deal anyway if I change my mind and buy them later at retail.

In terms of pre-orders, it's bundled, high-volume Mantic models for me from here on out.

I sympathise, and I take the exact same view myself on the whole "don't pledge massively at the start for absolutely everything" issue (on Deadzone the only thing past my pledge were a booster bundle, a few more terrain sprues and the compendium). Once Mantic said everything would be available on the second survey I deferred everything else to then so I'd have a better idea on what I'd be getting.

I just don't think they'd be able to say during the Kickstarter which material is most likely. Obviously the earlier the information is out there the better, Mantic are unfortunately adopting a "we're shipping now - surprise! metals." attitude, which isn't really pleasing anybody.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Everything is going to be on the second survey, Mantic changed their minds on that point.

Good to know, thanks (oh you wouldn't happen to have shipped my ases already, would you? )

 Riquende wrote:
I just don't think they'd be able to say during the Kickstarter which material is most likely.

They didn't even say that they were thinking of it - that's all they need to do, during the kickstarter and not buried in the comments. "We'll make the following minis in plastic, unless there's low demand in which case they'll be cast in high quality metal" is fine. I won't buy them if they do say that (until they've confirmed if they'll be plastic - I really don't like metal) but I have no problem with minis being metal if that's how they choose to make them.

 DaveC wrote:
The Chovar and Hellfather are the only 2 I passed on I actually don't mind them being metal here as they are 1 off pieces it's more annoying if you have half a team (or faction) in different materials. I thought about adding them in survey 2 but I'm not overly impressed by the casting quality on the metals so I'll pass.

and Scarletsquig brings up a good point yet again the sculpting and tooling of these was paid for by stretch goal soothe number ordered in the survey shouldn't matter the funds are there to tool it in restic.

I'm with Dave on this one.

The Chovar doesn't really have to scale too closely with anything else, so that one should be OK no matter what.

The Hellfather could be problematic if it doesn't fit well with the rest of the Forgefathers or whatever they end up calling the eventually released Evil Space Dwarves.

But that might be OK, as he could just be hand waved into being a Big 'un.

Still, Mantic...

The Hellfather should be the same size as the Abyssal Overmaster - due to leg stilts. Perhaps he's compensating for something......

Dwarves (and their evil or space derivatives) always have to compensate for the fact that they're not Elves (or their evil or space derivatives).

Yeah, they never said the Helfather was going to be metal. If they had, I probably wouldn't have bought him. So now there's the possibility that any of the other paid add-ons could be metal as well.

It has been said before... only an evil dwarf would heighten.

 Barzam wrote:
So now there's the possibility that any of the other paid add-ons could be metal as well.

Hopefully by the time of the second survey we'll have more of an idea on who is going to be what. Mantic have historically been good about people contacting them to swap out extras on KS pledges (I changed my mind on the KoW KS 3 times after submitting the survey), so if anything comes out in a material you don't like you may not be stuck with it.