Mantic Games - Sci-fi News & Rumors: Sci-Fi Zombies released.

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**GrimDork**

Trying to decide what to get (if anything) on the third survey...

Probably need another connector bundle...

Seriously considering peacekeepers, not sure if anything else. 90 zombies is probably enough..

What are you guys figuring out? Lock down in a couple of days right?

**Triple9**

I ended up just adding the peacekeepers. Assembled my asterians and forge fathers today and I think between those and the other factions, I have plenty enough of deadzone for the foreseeable future.

**JoshInJapan**

I added some Peacekeepers, Forge Guard, a stuntbot and iron ancestor, some more battlezone (1 core, 1 landing pad, 2 ruins), and buckled down and got three more deluxe mats. So much for willpower...

**Ahtman**

Anyone that already have the Hardback rule book have an opinion on it? Thought about adding it on this survey but would appreciate some insight on it.

**Thraxas Of Turai**

GrimDork wrote:
Trying to decide what to get (if anything) on the third survey...

Probably need another connector bundle...

Seriously considering peacekeepers, not sure if anything else. 90 zombies is probably enough..

What are you guys figuring out? Lock down in a couple of days right?

I have gone:

Peacekeepers x3
Enforcer sprue x2
Striders x3 (with the poor dollar strength against the pound these are even better than discounted retail price)
Incursion book
AI deck

**lord_blackfang**

Shame the 3rd survey doesn't offer the metal characters and upgrades. I avoided most of them originally because of the material, but I just cleaned up Boomer and I think it was the best metal mini I've ever had the pleasure of handling.

**.Mikes.**

Well my second box arrived, with the added surprise that I'd forgotten I'd ordered an additional, and therefore 2, Striders!

On the minus side I'm missing the resin equipment crates. But one thing, so I;m not that fussed, just a quick form.

**angelofvengeance**

I went for

x2 Striders (one for Plague one for Enforcers)
DZ scenery expansion set (all those lovely servo claw things and angular bits)
Errr I think plastic enforcers as well?

**timetowaste85**

I ordered 9 striders (2 for a friend), got him some peacekeepers, and I ordered the books. And some forge guard. I'm happy.

**CptJake**

Ahtman wrote:
Anyone that already have the Hardback rule book have an opinion on it? Thought about adding it on this survey but would appreciate some insight on it.

It is okay, probably worth the money I spent. I'm a bit annoyed the spine of the book has no print on it at all. On the book shelf it is unidentifiable, looks like one of those bound journals you can get. The inside is nicely done, BUT:

It really is the smaller books just assembled under one cover. The pages do not go from 1- the end, they start over for each of the included books. I get the fact this allows commonality of page numbers for rules, but it looks silly and makes finding page 30 a pain, since there are several page 30s. A combined/inclusive index should have been included but was not.

So, the physical book is nice with the exception of no spine printing to indicate what the darned thing is when on the shelf. Paper used for the pages is nice. I was hoping for more on the inside though... Another Almost when you consider what they could have done with it.

But again, I do think it is worth what I paid for it.

The slipcase for the soft covers is about useless on the other hand. It DOES have printing on the spine, but having the spine forward takes away the ability to pull out a book while it is on the shelf. And the folds of the cardboard seem to always catch the cover of the book you are trying to put back into it. Had it been a harder nice slip case it would have been fantastic, as it was delivered it was destined for the recycle bin.

Jake

**Riquende**

Re: the hardback book. Seeing pictures of it on the KS page (obviously a render from ages ago) makes me think there were plans to include a dustjacket.

And yeah, the sequential-individual-book thing is annoying, but I doubt the time necessary to go back and reformat all the books and lay out a totally new book would ever make it a viable proposition, given how important Mantic treats its deadlines.

I'd have been happy for a few extra months of work going into it for a much better product... but I guess that would eat into another KS project!

**angelofvengeance**

timetowaste85 wrote:
I ordered 9 striders (2 for a friend), got him some peacekeepers, and I ordered the books. And some forge guard. I'm happy.

I should think you would be with 7 Striders lol and Forge Guard

**GrimDork**

I really want to try to clean up one of my striders before I try to order more. I like the way they look and everything, and the price is rather good, but one can only clean up so much restic at a time before it gets obnoxious.

I did clip out a couple of sprues of zombies, like butter. After the first sprue I just started twisting them off since the contact points were all really small and thin and connected to fairly robust parts of the pieces. The plastic is softer than the last hard plastic, battlezones, feels more like the renedra stuff or a GW kit. Very much looking forward to assembling some, but I still think 90 has to be enough right?

--edit--
Quick observations of the Strider kit:
-I might have a really sharp blade or something, but the restic *seems* quite a bit softer this time, scraping lines isn't as good as plastic but better than last attempt, and cutting off nubs seems easier.

-They're huge! Head and shoulders over a dreadnought, taller than a 1st gen.

-Modeling the shoulders in the right position for the BFG forearms puts them in a solid/reasonable position for the CC arms as well, so if you're into magnets you should be able to do both configurations without worrying about the shoulders (which are balljoints and would be a pain for magnets anyway).

Dunno if this helps me though, so now I know it won't be brutal to clean them up, and they can do both configurations with ease. So I'm willing to do more, but they're more versatile than I counted on and do I really need them

**.Mikes.**

Ahtman wrote:
Anyone that already have the Hardback rule book have an opinion on it? Thought about adding it on this survey but would appreciate some insight on it.

Now I've had a chance to look through mine, I'm really glad I got it. As has been said, it's really just the four rulebooks and the short story anthology collected in a nice cover (although there are some notes on designing the rules by Jake at the end I haven'thad a chance to look at yet), but just having the rules in a single volume is worth the cost for me. I'm more than happy with it.

**timetowaste85**

I plan on having 6 corp striders, and they included those bitz as they plan to have corp striders in a similar setup. So my Warpath Corp army is done except vehicles, and my Enforcer army is more like 4 Enforcer armies. Anyone up for an 8000pt game of Warpath?

**Talking Banana**

So far I've only gone in for a Helfather and an extra Survivor on the third survey. (I overdid clean up on the latter and lost too much detail, so I want a second crack at it.) Mostly I'd like to save my money for Deadzone 2.0: The Veer-myning. Waste your valuable time reading my other pointless rationalizations below, if you dare.

Having assembled the starter and the extra restic ones we got for free, I'll have enough enforcers with the plastic ones I'll be getting for the starter and boosters. Much as I like the Forge Guard, I'll probably never use more than 6 at a time. And while it would be nice to have one Strider per faction, I want my Plague mustering giant mutant beasties, not giant robots. I'll be buying some monster from another line and subbing it in for the junkyard Strider.

The only thing I might add are 5 more Peacekeepers, because it would be cool to swap them in for Terminators on a Space Hulk board. (Or, what I'd really like to do for kicks, have them face off against Terminators on a Space Hulk board. "Captain, we've come up against soldiers wearing power armor as sophisticated as ours, but without the superfluous skulls and parchment tacked on!" "No superfluous skulls or parchment? Heretics!") Otherwise, with the three I've already got (two PVC, one metal), I'll have enough with the 5 polystyrene ones I'm getting. 8 should cover any Deadzone scenarios I'll want to play.

The Space Hulk Peacekeeper / Terminator slapdown is more of a lark than a necessity, though.* So I probably won't add any more.

*Yes, all of my other miniature purchases have been absolute necessities, not frivolous in the least. Really.

**Riquende**

Not getting anything on wave 3, not if there's a 2.0 coming up before Christmas.

Mind you, I'm not too fussed about either veermyn or corporation, so I might actually get to save some money.

**pretre**

Riquende wrote:
And yeah, the sequential-individual-book thing is annoying, but I doubt the time necessary to go back and reformat all the books and lay out a totally new book would ever make it a viable proposition, given how important Mantic treats its deadlines

This is the biggest complaint. Other than that it is great.

**Riquende**

pretre wrote:
Riquende wrote:
And yeah, the sequential-individual-book thing is annoying, but I doubt the time necessary to go back and reformat all the books and lay out a totally new book would ever make it a viable proposition, given how important Mantic treats its deadlines

This is the biggest complaint. Other than that it is great.

Indeed. It's a really nice looking and feeling product.

Oh... just seen today's update. Apparently more battlezones coming in the 2nd KS. Well, that's my plan to stay away averted then.

**DaveC**

Update with just the news parts visible (rest in spoliers). Off to a good start with the industrial terrain, they are adding more accessories this time to hide/dress up the plugs.

Update #162

TL;DR – Forge Guard and Enforcers tooling done, Missing Bits shipping, Third Survey deadline is this Sunday, New Battlezones tiles leaked!

Spoiler:

Good news!

Tooling on the Forge Guard has finished and the sprues are being produced.

Tooling on the Enforcer Troopers is also finished and production is due to start next week.

We’ve also seen the first test shot of the Peacekeepers – a few changes are needed, but the components are looking sharp and awesome. We can’t wait to get the frames here and show them off.

Once we get all of this produced and sent over to us, we can begin shipping out the third shipment. Hopefully you’ve all got plenty to play with from those second shipment packages in the mean time

Missing Bits

With such large packages being sent out, sometimes mistakes do happen. For the most part we’ve heard that the accuracy has been spot on, but a few packages have had missing bits, or damaged components.

If you’ve submitted a form for missing or damaged items, we’ve got a team working on these this week and next week to get them to you as soon as we can.

This is a complicated process as each form needs individually vetting – some people are genuinely missing components. Other have listed components they were not due to get, or have submitted forms that are a touch vague (“I’m missing a model” will go down as my all-time favourite missing bits form!) – these forms often require a return email to find out more. We thank you for your patience whilst we work through these.

Third Survey

You have got until midnight this Sunday 5th October to submit your third survey if you want any additional extras.

Whether that’s more Peacekeepers or Zombies, more scenery for your games (you can never have enough accessory sprues!) or maybe you want more mats so that you can try out Incursion’s multi-mat/multi-player rules!

The Third Survey deadline is this Sunday – get it submitted now if you want any additional items.

Deadzone Second Kickstarter

We’re reviewing everyone’s feedback on the second Deadzone Kickstarter towards the end of this year. There’s a lot of speculation which is great to see, and some great ideas coming out as well.

Today we’ve got the first new renders of some industrial Battlezones scenery to show-off – let us know what you think in the comments.

It this sparks any ideas of you own off – whether it’s scenery, rules or new miniatures or vehicles for Deadzone - let us know that too!
And finally...

Spoiler:

We will be attending the games show Spiel in Essen, Germany later this month where we have a whole host of new goodies to show and some great show deals. Not only will we have some amazing show deals on our Battlezones terrain but it will also be one of the first chances to play and get hold of Mars Attacks the miniatures game in German.

Finally we will be joined by our Mantic Digital team with some new digital add-ons to show off for both Kings of War and Dreadball.

If you're in the area, swing by the Mantic Stand and say hi!

**Riquende**

DaveC wrote:
Update with just the news parts visible (rest in spoliers). Off to a good start with the industrial terrain, they are adding more accessories this time to hide/dress up the plugs.

I think that's what's needed to make the battlezones really come alive. I like them a lot, but without adornments, they do end up being more 'obvious wargaming terrain' than 'actual building in use for some purpose'.

**highlord tamburlaine**

Had planned on picking up a few battlezone bundles, but seeing the new renders I think I'll wait and just get some of the new ones.

I do have enough scenery as it currently stands, having ordered around 7 or 8 battlezones worth between the first two surveys, which makes for a pretty dense single mat (as I don't have plans on playing larger games).

Dem pipes though. Oh how I want dem pipes.

Someone suggested Mantic offer a Frenzy type pledge for Deadzone. What do you guys think? I wouldn't mind an all in pledge- dependent upon what's being offered.

I don't know if that's an avenue that Mantic wants to travel down again though. Dreadball had some hurdles there towards the end, speculators and early bird frenzies being a serious source of those hurdles.

**Compel**

I think there could be some sort of middle ground somehow. Maybe keep the basic pledge level like in Dungeon Saga, but put on '1 of everything' add-on bundles?

It was confusing as heck trying to figure out if I've missed a random metal mini or not. - It turns out for Dreadball Extreme, I had.

**DaveC**

I don't think the Frenzy pledge worked very well - to much speculating on the unknown - just keep it simple Dungoen Saga worked well with just one level there will probably be a sweet spot pledge of $100 that gets a bit of everything, it depends on what the core product is, there's a lot of variety already in DZ and I'm sure there's 1 or 2 factions that people would skip if they could (looking at you Marauders) they tried to tailor MA to prevent that with the credit system and that didn't really work as intended either.

I'm not a fan of the Veer-Myn I'd like to be able to skip them but it's not the end of the world if have to get them (they can keep my Marauders company in the bottom of the box)

**edlowe**

Next dz ks is a sweet spot for me then addons galore in pm. Thats the way I do mantic ks now.

**Alpharius**

I might be in for terrain only - it does look nice!

I'm in the process of cataloging all of my Deadzone minis so I can put them up for sale though, so I don't need any more of them!

**totalfailure**

I'm pretty burned on the whole 'gotta catch em all' thing. DIdn't buy anything second or third survey, and I won't in another Kickstarter, either. Good for Mantic and the people that liked it, but after being a previous pretty heavy backer, I'm out.

**BobtheInquisitor**

When do we need to pay for stuff on the DBX pledge manager?

**NTRabbit**

DBX was on the My Pledgemanager by Kicktraq system, if you added any extras and locked them in you should have paid for them already automatically by the CC it asked for in the process. Deadline to lock it all in came and went September 30

**BobtheInquisitor**

Well then.