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So I had an order (rebs and marauders starter) come in for some deadzone stuff today. I ordered it from Amazon ( I don't have a FLGS). Anyways, it came in legit looking retail packaging. Hard VHS looking case and all that. Anyways, there are no instructions in that either. Not some big revelation, but it looks like they may be planning on going to retail the way things are now. Maybe not the main box, but the other stuff.

Same thing with the terrain upgrade box. Pretty awesome box and everything, but pretty much what you guys got with the KS, just with an extra piece of cardboard surrounding it.

I guess they have time to fix it, but I don't know they will after seeing that. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Yeah, "Second Survey" really is going to be "First Chance" to get a lot of this stuff.

Or a lot more of this stuff.

Those white clam shell case things are great. Put some finished minis in one and close it, they don't go anywhere. I'm not sure I wanna spend $4 a pop to get more, but I'm tempted. I'll definitely consider the value of those cases any time I'm looking at clearance mantic stuff from now on.

 Alpharius wrote:
Yeah, "Second Survey" really is going to be "First Chance" to get a lot of this stuff.

Or a lot more of this stuff.

Luckily I already bought everything that was intended to ship in wave 1, so in the Second Survey I only need to add the Forge Fathers and Asterians ($50), their booster bundles ($50), all the vehicles ($100) and the special characters ($45). Oh, and another 3 deluxe mats for larger games ($50) and maybe another 10 battlezones...

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Yeah, "Second Survey" really is going to be "First Chance" to get a lot of this stuff.

Or a lot more of this stuff.

Luckily I already bought everything that was intended to ship in wave 1, so in the Second Survey I only need to add the Forge Fathers and Asterians ($50), their booster bundles ($50), all the vehicles ($100) and the special characters ($45). Oh, and another 3 deluxe mats for larger games ($50) and maybe another 10 battlezones...

Is that all????

I paid it forward for the 5th and 6th factions and their boosters. I didn't order any walkers, special characters, zombies, or peacekeepers. I think I'll get the MA rubber mats and then I'll have like 4 of each so I shouldn't need more of those.

I think $45 for 80 scifi-zombie-mutants is pretty damn amazing if they come out well... but I'll be hard pressed to ever get through them all so I may just have to stick with 20. Definitely need 2-3 orders of peacekeepers though. I wasn't going to get all of the walkers... but the concept art is getting better and better. Still not sold on all of the special characters, but something like 3-4/6 so may order them anyway... funds permitting.

 squall018 wrote:
So I had an order (rebs and marauders starter) come in for some deadzone stuff today. I ordered it from Amazon ( I don't have a FLGS). Anyways, it came in legit looking retail packaging. Hard VHS looking case and all that. Anyways, there are no instructions in that either. Not some big revelation, but it looks like they may be planning on going to retail the way things are now. Maybe not the main box, but the other stuff.

Same thing with the terrain upgrade box. Pretty awesome box and everything, but pretty much what you guys got with the KS, just with an extra piece of cardboard surrounding it.

I guess they have time to fix it, but I don't know they will after seeing that. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Those would be pre relase stuff. Not retail release (confusing, I know). There will be differences between the two.

The connector sprue has been brought up, with Mantic. No promises, but they are looking into adding another sprue into retail. Why wasn't this passed on? Because its in no way certain or official, so by no means take it as definite.

Additionally, not sure if I am meant to mention this or not, but the pathfinders are discussing the instructions thing. Again nothing solid yet, so for the love of Ronnie, don't assume anything.

Just trying to allay things.

 sukura636 wrote:

 squall018 wrote:
So I had an order (rebs and marauders starter) come in for some deadzone stuff today. I ordered it from Amazon ( I don't have a FLGS). Anyways, it came in legit looking retail packaging. Hard VHS looking case and all that. Anyways, there are no instructions in that either. Not some big revelation, but it looks like they may be planning on going to retail the way things are now. Maybe not the main box, but the other stuff.

Same thing with the terrain upgrade box. Pretty awesome box and everything, but pretty much what you guys got with the KS, just with an extra piece of cardboard surrounding it.

I guess they have time to fix it, but I don't know they will after seeing that. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Those would be pre relase stuff. Not retail release (confusing, I know). There will be differences between the two.

The connector sprue has been brought up, with Mantic. No promises, but they are looking into adding another sprue into retail. Why wasn't this passed on? Because its in no way certain or official, so by no means take it as definite.

Additionally, not sure if I am meant to mention this or not, but the pathfinders are discussing the instructions thing. Again nothing solid yet, so for the love of Ronnie, don't assume anything.

Just trying to allay things.

Thats fair. I wasn't necissarily knocking it, so much as putting the info out there as most of the guys here have the KS version, not the pre-release version. The stuff I have looks like its made for retail, so while it may not be final I can't see too many changes coming. I guess instructions would definitley be an easy change without messing with the boxes though.

Like I said, happy with my stuff, just sharing my experience, which is definitley different than the KS backers so far.

Just saying that you get more assembly instructions in a Dust Tactics box of pre-assembled, pre-painted minis. I hope that Mastic intends to step up and provide something; either that or add a warning on the box next to the age label. I think someone with experience with say Zombiecide, or any other non - war game boxed product, were to pick this up, they may be disappointed with the amount of work they'll have to put in before they can play a game.

I don't feel that myself and others pointing this out constitutes butt hurt or a general displeasure with the quality of the product, just that this game is most definitely not currently accessible to the casual board game crowd or people without a good deal of model building experience.

Yeah. It's just a matter of taking the extra bit of care to be a professional game company, rather than the "she'll be right, mate - hobbyists will work it out!" attitude that they still have.

Has anyone used deadzone terrain for other games?

Or other terrain for deadzone?

Haven't tried it yet, but I have every intention of using it for 40k.

Part of me wants to see if I have enough tiles to make an X-Wing Death Star board out of DZ terrain. 3'x3' (standard X-Wing game size) would be 100 solid tiles, plus 20 to make a 6" "trench" down the middle. The scratch-build "gun" from the accessory stuff a few pages ago would be awesome for such a thing as well. I'm at least close to that number, I'm just not positive that I'd have enough. If I ever get off my lazy ass to do such a crazy thing, I'll make sure to post pictures. It won't be soon though, as there's still a ton of terrain to cut out at my house.

Originally I wanted to use Deadzone scenery to make a 3-D Space Hulk board. I still think that could be done, although it would be quite expensive, and the height of the tiles is not ideal for viewing 28mm figures top-down in tight corridors, so you'd need to make a lot of creative use of half-tiles and windows if you wanted gamers to have a view of anything but the tops of the figures' heads. Now I'm pretty sure that Battle System's paper terrain will do sci-fi interiors easier and better, so I think I'll be sticking with BS for indoors and keeping Deadzone tiles doing exterior scenery.

Now if Mantic wanted to do something like relaunch Project Pandora with Deadzone-Style terrain and kick Space Hulk's pirate booty, that would be awesome. (Especially if they expanded it beyond the two faction "bug hunt", so that gamers could stage and play any kind of interior starship battle scenerio they wanted, with multiple factions and scenarios available.) Three pieces of advice to Mantic if they ever went that route:

1. Make 2x2 foot starship floor plastic boards, but with evenly spaced connector holes across the board so that freestanding tile walls can be firmly attached anywhere. Or less expensively, use a mouse-mat board, and design walls that interlock and stand up on their own firmly. Maybe do both, with the mouse mat being standard and the plastic board being a "deluxe" add-on option, as they did in the Deadzone KS.

2. Make starship interior wall tiles that are a maximum of 2 inches tall, not the Deadzone standard of nearly 3 inches tall. A 2 inch maximum height would keep the space corridors feeling immersive, but not be so tall that they frequently block a player's view of the actual miniatures on the board.

3. Make angled / ramped wall pieces so that corridors appear wider and less boxy, and better accommodate 28mm figures (which tend to be narrower towards the feet and wider at the top with outstretched arms etc.) while still conserving table top space (getting the same visibility / maneuverability with straight walls would require making the corridors wider). This might be done the way they currently do Fortification walls in Deadzone, with angled ramp pieces that clip onto flat tile walls, or they could make clip-on pieces that fit like wedges at the base and angle the entire wall.

Battle Systems did ramped corridors first in paper; I'd actually argue this was the key innovation that launched their business and set them apart from other sci-fi paper terrain makers like World Works Games.

The original Battle Systems download it and print-it-yourself set:



The kickstarted, pre-printed version:



However, other hobbyists did it long before BS did using homemade and / or Hirst Arts cast-your-own plaster blocks and a variety of other hobby materials.





Ramping interior walls are a general 3-D Space Hulk convention at this point, and I'd love to see Mantic's take on it in plastic.

(I'm a Battle Systems supporter and am very excited about what they have coming.)

Maki Games kickstarter also had spaceship dungeons parts made in plastic, but while they widen in the mid-height, they contract back to normal size at the top so perhaps not what you were exactly looking for. Still, they're made of plastic.


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rolljordan/maki-games-high-quality-modular-wargaming-terrain/posts/684829 is the link for the relevant update on the KS.

I think both companies are probably looking to stand on their own, but I think BS terrain would be lovely for both PP and DKH in future projects.

 GrimDork wrote:
I think both companies are probably looking to stand on their own, but I think BS terrain would be lovely for both PP and DKH in future projects.

A collaboration could be great - the foundations could have been laid by the use of Mantic models in the BS promo shots?

 Pacific wrote:
A chap in the mantic section of the forum did a really useful guide for Strike Team level pledges

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/567758.page

Think mine was dead on, although got an extra Dreadball MVP - got 2 of the same guy, although I already had him

I just want to double check that this is correct, so for just the Stirke team pledge level I should have everything pictured in that post? Plus any wave 1 extras?

Just realized that I am missing the packet containing the Rebs commander from my order. No matter, I have more than enough to paint while I wait for it to arrive.

If we chose the Enforcers as our extra faction were we supposed to receive another set of the Deadzone models with this shipment or are they being made into hard plastic also? I only have one set of them and was wondering if this is the norm.

I have to say I really love the models in the Rebs faction, all the aliens are really well sculpted and make for a very interesting group to paint. I have also added a lot of the dreadball models to the faction (with added weapons of course). Might have to add the faction booster before wave 2 comes around...

Enforcer raction starter wave 1 is 1 old enforcer bag and 1 new enforcer bag. Second enforcer starter? You should have 2 of each of those.

@Luide - As you guessed, I'd rather that the tops of the Maki corridors didn't contract, as that will just block players' view of what's going on on the board. I can't deny that those pictures are pretty exciting, though. I'll have to keep my eye on Maki when their stuff hits retail.

@Grimdork - Agreed, a Battle Systems / Mantic Project Pandora team-up would be pretty fantastic.

I just started cleaning and assembling my Enforcers. Is it just me or are the restic heads for these guys (the DZ ones) really lacking in detail, and what detail is present is very soft?

Jake

You're not alone.

 carlos13th wrote:
Has anyone used deadzone terrain for other games?

Or other terrain for deadzone?

Honestly, i'm still a huge (read: slightly bigger) fan of the Dust Tactics/Warfare modular building sets. They aren't perfect aesthetically, but they're cheap, and can be much easier to work with than the Deadzone one's thus far. That comes at the expense of versatility, but for 40k, Malifaux, and most of my gaming needs, I use the five or six sets of those I own, to tremendous effect.

 Bolognesus wrote:
Enforcer raction starter wave 1 is 1 old enforcer bag and 1 new enforcer bag. Second enforcer starter? You should have 2 of each of those.

Hmm, I thought as much. Will have to make sure I get those guys sent to me as well...

Decided to assemble the Deadzone miniatures this morning. Had to walk away when I realised I had started to sing my lumps, my lumps, my lumps of restic junk.
I'd like to know where miniature quality sits on Mantics priority list?
Is the scale of the miniatures suitable for the material?
If I like to do more than tabletop quality paint jobs should I avoid Mantic products?
There are mold lines through faces and guns that are so small the detail is flat and looks like a plastic lump, why did these make it to the design stage let alone past QA?
I've recently gotten my daughter into gaming, she likes the GW and privateer press stuff to look at. We play super dungeon explore and her favourite game is zombicide.
She took one look at Deadzone and asked why I bought that. I replied I thought we could play it and she said no thanks!

Really? Because, despite mold lines, I really like most of the deadzone minis.

 pretre wrote:
Really? Because, despite mold lines, I really like most of the deadzone minis.

It's not the miniatures themselves, those I like, it's the quality of the casts.

Joyboozer wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Really? Because, despite mold lines, I really like most of the deadzone minis.

It's not the miniatures themselves, those I like, it's the quality of the casts.

Maybe you got a bad batch. Mine have been pretty good overall and the majority of what I've seen in this thread have been good. Compare what you have to what's here and, if necessary, get a hold of mantic for replacements.

QA and QC would force Mantic into having less Kickstarters as they would have to take more time instead of just slinging plastic bags in boxes and slinging them out the door. I will give them this; Deadzone cast quality has so far been much better than KoW. Who knows, maybe within the next 4 or 5 Kickstarters they'll rediscover plastic as a viable material for miniatures.

I had to resort to the internet to assemble my models as instructions are nonexistant. Missing random limbs here and there is annoying as well; so far missing one plague arm and one human reb arm. The halo of flash around the teraton(?) Weapons has been annoying to clean up as has been bending warped weapons and limbs. I seriously do not have the time to correct poorly cast product; if they can't be bothered to send me a well-formed, complete product, I can't be bothered to give them any more of my money. This nonsense is exactly why I don't buy Forgeworld or any other non-plastic mini. Ronny told me the new resin would be better than the KoW type and he is correct but it's still less than high quality. My modeling skills are just not sufficient to remove the copious mold-lines without damaging detail as they seem to be placed on or near fine features.

I do love the ripper suits and other Orx. Had they been cast in plastic, I'd be placing a large order for more.

Ah well, I'll go back to my corner; I only posted because I had been puting models together today and was annoyed.