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I thought that too, but he posted a reply to a comment on his blog indicating he literally meant Stalingrad, not a theme

Ah, I see the reply there.. he also mentions just using the brick Mars Attacks buildings, so odds are Mantic wouldn't produce anything for it, and it'd be a case of Warlord selling a bundle of rules, minis and some MA terrain.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Ah, I see the reply there.. he also mentions just using the brick Mars Attacks buildings, so odds are Mantic wouldn't produce anything for it, and it'd be a case of Warlord selling a bundle of rules, minis and some MA terrain.

Indeed. Warlord could get a mat made representing 'generic European town', get a bunch of MA terrain sprues together, bundle in some of their WW2 sprues (they've got a decent range now). Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt, etc etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:
Dunno, I read the "restic-laden" to be the comment about the miniatures. Restic says it all, really.

I can still see 'restic-laden historical garbage' as being a single proposition, but I don't deny you could well be right.

 Riquende wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Dunno, I read the "restic-laden" to be the comment about the miniatures. Restic says it all, really.

I can still see 'restic-laden historical garbage' as being a single proposition, but I don't deny you could well be right.

Riquende and Azazelx both demonstrate considerable critical acuity in their respective analyses, but they are essentially slipping into positivism and attempting to find a definitive answer to an inherently open-ended, philosophical question.


Who could ever know the mind of Alex Holker? The only thing we can be certain of is that "restic-laden historical garbage" will continue to generate new meaning and inspire fresh interpretation long after all of us have passed on.

@Vermonter: don't really care what's in his mind, surfing through his comments in Mantic threads, he's had all of about 3 semi-positive (aka: not negative) comments regarding Mantic anything-plans, games, mini quality, etc. All other comments have been pretty much worthless. If he posts an opinion, it carries less weight to me than just about any other comment by anyone else. I have no interest in Stalingrad stuff, myself, because I'm not a historical nut. But some are, so hopefully whatever Jake makes, it'll make the history buffs happy.

If Mantic made affordable hard plastic 28mm WWII terrain I know that would make me very happy - and a lot of other people too, I'd imagine!

^ http://store.warlordgames.com/products/ruined-hamlet

Works well enough for KoW too!

And there's the Perrys and Tabletop Workshop too... the latter is really worth a look since they've reduced their prices a bit and now offer free worldwide shipping:

http://www.tabletopworkshop.co.uk/

Thanks for those links - especially the Tabletop Workshop one!

Also - the Perry's do terrain too?!?

Yep, although not as much, architects of war distros it in the US, some other webstores might as well:

http://www.architectsofwar.com/perryminiaturesterrain.aspx

Renedra terrain is done by them too:

http://www.architectsofwar.com/renedraterrain.aspx

All hard plastic! Rather liking the new desert mud huts and the ramshackle barn.

There's plenty of good stuff out there, and it all works great for KoW or fantasy. I don't see much need for Mantic to add much beyond their mars attacks stuff and in any case the 3" connector terrain only really works with Deadzone due to the narrative explanation of how the sci-fi terrain is constructed via robots.

 Vermonter wrote:
Who could ever know the mind of Alex Holker? The only thing we can be certain of is that "restic-laden historical garbage" will continue to generate new meaning and inspire fresh interpretation long after all of us have passed on.

/slowclap

Excellent.

Anything that starts out with the word "restic" instantly makes me turn away, these days... I was fortunate and my friend wanted to add on the cars from Mars Attacks for terrain, so I adjusted my pledge for those in the pledge manager (instead of what I had planned to purchase) and am not personally waiting on anything from Mantic now.

Also those cars are resin and being made by Antenocitis iirc

Two sets of three are. Mantic also made one. Not sure what it was supposed to be made of.

NTRabbit wrote:
Also those cars are resin and being made by Antenocitis iirc

Well even better

CptJake wrote:I can't see 3x3 cubes in plastic appealing to a lot of historical gamers. It just wouldn't look like the actual buildings.

Paradigm wrote:Also, the 3x3 mechanic exists in deadzone for simplicity, but there is plenty of scope in the system to move beyond it.

The 3x3 grid system was actually first used by historical gamers, way back in the early 1960s by Joe Morschauser.



And people still play using his ideas.



Mantic's decision to go with a 3x3 grid comes from a longstanding tradition of trying to get wargaming to fit in a smaller space with less figures and a means of simplifying rules interactions.

It's also become common for people to take the simple hex based games like Command & Colours, Battlecry and Tide of Iron and use them as a basis for a historical miniatures game. I think there's room for a return of the Morschauser grid in a commercial product for historicals.



Likely though, SS is right. It's probably about the Stalingrad aesthetic and situation rather than literally a historical game.

You missed my point by focusing on a 3x3 grid. I have nothing against that. It is the modular buildings that frankly don't look like Stalingrad that I was against.

Regardless, a very interesting post, frozenwastes. Thanks!

I really hope they make it a marauders vs Veermyn campaign. There really aren't enough lighthearted, comedic takes on Stalingrad.

Especially ones with dancing snipers and tunneling rodents!

 CptJake wrote:
You missed my point by focusing on a 3x3 grid. I have nothing against that. It is the modular buildings that frankly don't look like Stalingrad that I was against.

And you think the people playing hex based command & colours care whether or not a hex board really looks like Austerlitz or Jena? The impression is good enough.

And for Stalingrad, terrain that sits on the edges of the each square can be very appropriate. The photos and meagre footage of the fighting there shows a ton of intact and semi-intact building facings. And the fighting was often into and across small streets and into and out of intact and semi-intact building facings. And like the people continuing to play with grid wargames from the 60s to today, including Deadzone, terrain along the edges of the squares to determine what type of terrain the square counts as is the way to go.


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 Vermonter wrote:
Regardless, a very interesting post, frozenwastes. Thanks!

I ended up getting a ton of 1960s material in an estate sale and it's surprising to me just how many of the ideas I'm finding in there are becoming fashionable again. Grid based games, alternating activation, lower model counts, etc.,.

I hope Mantic can make Deadzone as much of a post-Kickstarter success as they have for Dreadball. I really like the idea of a Morschauser style game being commercially viable again beyond people miniaturizing board games like C&C or Memoir 44 and the tiny groups of historical gamers that play his stuff at the occasional convention (like the tournament in the pictures in my last post).

.

 scarletsquig wrote:
^ http://store.warlordgames.com/products/ruined-hamlet

Works well enough for KoW too!

And there's the Perrys and Tabletop Workshop too... the latter is really worth a look since they've reduced their prices a bit and now offer free worldwide shipping:

http://www.tabletopworkshop.co.uk/

Did someone say "free worldwide shipping?"

Righto. I'm off to check out that page in detail!

There's another DBX update, the Kickstarter is officially still running... another stretch goal has already been broken (free MVP!) and there's another stretch goal for another free MVP at $600k.

I'll be keeping the KS thread in the Mantic forums updated:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/578776.page#6521070

There's now 110 minis in the $150 Rampage pledge level, with more to come!

If you missed the KS, you will be able to join in on this at some point in the future, they are opening up access to everyone.

Those are some awesome pictures Frozen Wastes.

I keep half expecting to see my dad in one of those pictures.

One of these days I'll just have to find some sort of historical gaming group and drag him to it. He'd probably enjoy it, especially since none of his kids share his passion for military history and recreating famous battles. Barzam does to a degree, but he'd much rather have his space stuff, and I'd much rather have big giant reptiles that could eat and step on all his pew pew spacemen.

They keep tossing in those MVPs and I'm afraid I'll finally just have to break down and order a Rampage pledge. I'll wait until the giant spider shows up. I was really interested in that, and I think that will finally tip me over the edge.

For those like me who legitimately never received an invite email, they put the password recovery link in the latest update.

Okay, so for someone who doesn't own a single DBO thing but is going big on DBX... would you recommend getting the original game? I'm going to get some of the cool-looking old teams to use in DBX, of course, but is there a point in getting the base game?

It's a significant amount of money even with the discount and I'm not really loving the 2 teams in the DBO starter, plus then I'd want the DBO deluxe mousepad mat and probably Ultimate too, not to mention all the rulebooks (as an aside, why can DBX have all the rules for all 6 seasons in one book but DBO is spread amongst 6 books?)

If you don't like the two teams in DBO, you're better off buying a couple teams you like, then going to your FLGS and buying Dreadball - Extra Time which is the deck of cards, refbot and pdf rules. Then you can either get the deluxe mat for the original game in the pledge manager, or you can have a custom one made for roughly the same price from http://www.inkedplaymats.com/

Edit: Which basically is to say no, if you don't like the two teams in it there's not much point getting the full original game, the $17 Kickoff Extra Time and a paper printout of the board and tokens to go along with whatever original teams you buy is enough to play the original game.

Now that the info seems to be in the public domain after being confirmed.. I'll mention it here:

- Deadzone Kickstarter wave 2 will ship with a copy of the Warpath 3.0 rules.

Or, to put it more accurately, Warpath 1st Edition.. in the same way that the KoW hardback is considered 1st Edition despite also having 1.0 and 2.0 rules before it.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Now that the info seems to be in the public domain after being confirmed.. I'll mention it here:

- Deadzone wave 2.0 Kickstarters will ship with a copy of the Warpath 3.0 rules.

Pretty sure Ronnie blabbed it on a Beastsofwar video during Adepticon when he basically released the entire Mantic platform for 2014/15 after being pressed once with the hard hitting question "What next for Mantic?"

Ronnie gives out info more freely when the questions aren't putting him on the defensive and are open-ended enough for him to get talking and get enthusiastic about the topic.

I always internally groan at open day seminars when half the questions are "why does x suck?" because the answers are usually complex by nature and it takes time away from the good stuff.

Kick ass. Looking forward to it.