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 Andrew Rae wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
No tapes measures?

I don't like the sound of that.

I do! Being a fan of Dust Tactics, most wargames seem a terrible fudge for line of sight and cover. It's one of the reasons Dust Warfare was a flop for me. So combine DT style LOS/cover, proper 3D boards and presumably Jake Thornton's usual simple but interesting rules and I'm looking forward to this game.

Of course, I'll mash the hell out of the rules and shoehorn in figures from my collection like I do with Jake's other games (God of Battles and DKH)...

You and... not a lot of other people, maybe?

So DUST TACTICS has similar rules, and amazing models, and isn't exactly setting the world on fire.

Similar rules here, with decidedly mediocre miniatures? I'm not sure that's a recipe for success.

Still, as you say, tastes differ - we'll see!

^ Dust Tactics is actually pretty huge.

It's not to my own personal tastes either, but there is one hell of a large fanbase there, more than at-43 ever had, in fact.

You won't see many dakka posts about it since a lot of the audience is board gamers and they hang out on BGG etc.

I'd imagine Mantic is looking at the wider board game market for this, gradually getting board gamers more used to a tabletop game style of gameplay in the hope that they might also get into Warpath or KoW.

Mantic's board games have always brought more cash in for the company than their wargames anyway, DKH was hugely popular as was dreadball (you can see just from the KS results).

Essentially, I view Deadzone as a means of appealing to the board gamer crowd (who have more money), but also releasing a ton of terrain and minis to flesh out Warpath in the process.

So, for a lot of us looking at it as wargamers it's going to be "take the sweet terrain, and the hordes of free stretch goal minis and run". I wouldn't be surprised if there's a $150 option that lets you completely cram a 4x4 board full of loads of multi-level modular terrain.

On top of that, the game is probably going to be pretty damn good, too. Jake's writing it, so you're at least going to get a better game out of this than sedition wars where the game itself felt like an afterthought.

 Alpharius wrote:
You and... not a lot of other people, maybe?

So DUST TACTICS has similar rules, and amazing models, and isn't exactly setting the world on fire.

Similar rules here, with decidedly mediocre miniatures? I'm not sure that's a recipe for success.

Still, as you say, tastes differ - we'll see!

Perhaps, but I get the impression Dust Tactics is doing pretty well. I'd imagine DT rules and DZ rules won't share much beyond being grid based. I like the basic DT rules but each new supplement seems to add more 'WTF?' rules. Jake Thornton's rules are always pretty elegant and he's good at coming up with really nice rules out-with what you'd expect. Anyway, my comparison was mainly about the grid system; once you've played a game like DT where a unit is in LOS/cover simply because it's in a square not because "50%+ of the unit are visible with more than 50%+ of their torso showing (flags and topknots do not count)........" it's hard to go back!

All I am basing this on is that right now, we're on the largest miniatures wargmaing forum in the world, and I don't often find myself reading about DUST much at all.

Which is a shame - it has some fantastic looking models.

I can't help but think that the rules leave a lot to be desired, or maybe it is considered more a boardgame?

A lot of its rules seem way too abstract for my liking - but... that's just me talking!

More on topic here - it is not encouraging to read about similar rules abstractions here.

All I need to hear about now are 'exploding sixes' and I'm out!

Gonna have to agree with SS here, Dust Tactics is tremendously huge... but it's a board game.

The board game markets outsell all these neato little miniatures games. Just like the video game market outsells the minis market... but we're on a minis wargames board so Dust Tactics and Call of Duty don't get discussed. Dust is a boardgame and it insanely popular with board gamers.

Just wanted to admit publicly that I am happy to have been proved totally wrong in my denials that Mantic would do a small skirmish game. Really looking forward to possibly getting this.

Love the terrain and most of the Plague figures, as well as the engineer type Enforcer.

Hate, hate, hate the Enforcer Captain and sniper. Capes? Really?

I'm also not a fan of the Plague figure with attached scenery. It looks well sculpted, but I hate when companies do that in general.

Not real thrilled about the gridded movement, but it could ultimately be a non-issue.

Looking forward to seeing more info.

~Eric

Dust tactics is very big.

Im loving the fact that Deadzone will be on a grid, gets rid of annoying LoS issues and makes for a very tactical game.

Other than that this will be nothing likr DT

So theres going to be no Veer-Myn in this game, well that sucks I hope they get added as a stretch goal at least.

^ They'll probably be added after the first 6 forces are sorted.

Dreadball had no problem at all releasing 12 different teams, so I imagine you'll get your rats.

It does seem a little strange to not have them as one of the first 6 though considering how they're a scavenger race, and the background for Deadzone is one giant salvage operation.

I am just not impressed with the models at all. Click the previous page of this thread if you haven't seen them, they're all there.

 RiTides wrote:
I am just not impressed with the models at all. Click the previous page of this thread if you haven't seen them, they're all there.

So in that respect, this is one way they won't be like DUST TACTICS!

Hopefully the rules help 'save' this, because right now, the miniatures are a letdown, especially after the progress made, and shown, in the Kings of War line...

 Alpharius wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
I am just not impressed with the models at all. Click the previous page of this thread if you haven't seen them, they're all there.

So in that respect, this is one way they won't be like DUST TACTICS!

Hopefully the rules help 'save' this, because right now, the miniatures are a letdown, especially after the progress made, and shown, in the Kings of War line...

I don't call cathorse progress. They still batting about .500 for sculpts.

 Alpharius wrote:


Hopefully the rules help 'save' this, because right now, the miniatures are a letdown, especially after the progress made, and shown, in the Kings of War line...

Keep in mind we've only seen fan photos of painted figures. I'm sure once the Kickstarter stars we'll get better quality pics.

Hopefully Mantic will show us some professionally shot unpainted ones. I like seeing the clean ones rather than what someone else has already painted, but that's just my preference.

Also on the upside I would imagine there's going to be quite a few races showing up in this so the Enforcers can get tossed to the side if they don't suit your fancy. If they really do use this as a springboard for Warpath with all the money they will inevitably accumulate from the Kickstarter, we might see some KoW quality figures coming down the pipeline. Like that lion riding hero... gimme a space equivalent!

 Alpharius wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
I am just not impressed with the models at all. Click the previous page of this thread if you haven't seen them, they're all there.

So in that respect, this is one way they won't be like DUST TACTICS!

Hopefully the rules help 'save' this, because right now, the miniatures are a letdown, especially after the progress made, and shown, in the Kings of War line...

Shrug, I saw the miniatures yesterday and thought they were nice went online and saw the picture of the captain and thought it was horrible. There is alot to be said about seeing the miniature in person then a fan photo on a shaky phone.

I saw this at salute aswell. While I'm still on the fence as to weather I'll be supporting the KS. I have to agree with the above comment that the models looked much nicer in person.

Did the drone thing look less like something from Robot Wars? A box with a gun on doesn't do it for me.



Whoa, forgot Dave from Red Dwarf presented on that show!

 Black Nexus wrote:

Unless this is a case of "Mantic Photography [tuba fail sound]", then he's really out of proportion

FFS, you really do take any opportunity... this is a picture that someone has taken on their phone at salute and is NOT a mantic photograph!

Actually, I was just trying to be a little generous in saying that the model sucked. Obviously a cell phone isn't the best camera, but we've seen the model from the front, from above, from the back, from front and above, etc. There isn't a picture where it doesn't look bad.

At least the cell phone photographer realized it might be a good idea to take photos from different angles instead of multiple photos from the same angle. (Any opportunity, you said.)

At least he's the only model that really looks bad to me. And all it would take to fix him is a head swap, really.

Really, apart from the Captain the proportions seem fine. They are ballooned out for the Plague, but I think that was purposeful; Now they look more like various flavors of 40K chaos demons and CSM, rather than just sickly space zombies. Frankly, if they'd gone with the "KoW Zombie Kit + Corp Marine" style of kits they released in that big 80-model deal a while back, I suspect there would have been a lot of complaining about lack of originality with space zombies AND it would have been less marketable to 40K people (Who, remember, just got the new CSM codex a few months back and would probably welcome more models for their new CSM army more than they would some random generic space zombies)

However, the "all unique sculpts" bit makes me a bit wary. It'll be all fine and good imo if that just means unique sculpts but with swappable not sculpted-on arms/lower torso+legs/head, but the last thing I want is a bunch of identical guys of any sort all in the same pose copy-pasted by the number of sets I might buy.

Think all of the sculpts look like they have been turned up to '11' if you get what I mean. I could quite easily imagine them with a GW tag on them, and someone could easily have fooled me by doing so. Is that a good or a bad thing? Well, it's not for me personally (and I much prefer a more understated, realistic route for design aesthetic), but GW seem to have gone full-throttle down this route as well so perhaps it is what sells?

But, positives from this
- the terrain, this one is bound to be the most important aspect for many, regardless of what you think about everything else.
- the game itself. Jake Thornton is a fine games designer, and his games for Mantic so far have been 3 out of 3 (with Dreadball in particular a real cracker). If this can capture the campaign/personalisation components of Necromunda, with a smoother game mechanic, this has the potential to be massive.
- more space dwarves!

 Taarnak wrote:
Hate, hate, hate the Enforcer Captain and sniper. Capes? Really?

yeah, what the feth is Mantic thinking giving a sniper model a camouflage cloak? what a buncha retards

 judgedoug wrote:

 Taarnak wrote:
Hate, hate, hate the Enforcer Captain and sniper. Capes? Really?

yeah, what the feth is Mantic thinking giving a sniper model a camouflage cloak? what a buncha retards

Honestly, I just dislike the fact that the rest of the enforcer is the color scheme for the cloak is forest green while the rest is the grey/black/white they've been doing for the other Enforcers.

If they had done a grey, black, or white (Black would be best imo) cape instead, that would have matched better and looked a lot less forced. Alternatively, they could have done one of the following color schemes with a matching cloak (By Matt Gilbert over on the Mantic forums), or #2 or #4 with the same green cloak, and it would have looked waaaay nicer.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Honestly, posts like Earth Dragon's that are filled with telling people what and how they should pledge just make me want to screw with campaigns by dropping five thousand fake-dollars in and out. Purely out of spite. So please don't tell others how they should pledge. mmmkay?

Because when you're angry at Earth Dragon, the sensible thing to do is screw up some hapless entrepeneurs? Enviable logic, my good man.

I didn't actually do that, you realise?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 scarletsquig wrote:
quite a lot of people simply sign up for the 48 hour warning and never pledge on any KS until that point because they don't have time to be looking at all the stretch goals or micromanaging their pledge.

I'm pretty much at this point myself with KS. If I get an Early Bird - then great! If not. I'll sign up for the 48-hour warning and see if I still care when we get to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Earth Dragon wrote:

Sure. It's the same concept of "15 days free, but gives us your credit card". You are banking on a portion not paying attention and getting to charge them. Or "Send it back in 30 days for a full refund." Very common tactic which takes advantage of our inherent laziness.

You're absolutely correct on this point. Charge-now is one of the (several) reasons I no longer give IGG campaigns a second look anymore.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Taarnak wrote:
Hate, hate, hate the Enforcer Captain and sniper. Capes? Really?

yeah, what the feth is Mantic thinking giving a sniper model a camouflage cloak? what a buncha retards

The sniper is wearing high tech armor that could be, you know, camouflaged. But hey, what was I thinking, right?

The Enforcers are not a force that has been tied to the WW2 in space aesthetic previously. Why start now?

~Eric

Everyone please dial back the Snark in this thread by a lot, OK?

Thanks!

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Keep in mind we've only seen fan photos of painted figures. I'm sure once the Kickstarter stars we'll get better quality pics.

These aren't cell phone pictures taken of a White Dwarf in the middle of an earthquake, these are photos taken that show off every detail. And high quality pictures won't make that guy's arms stop coming out of the sides of his head.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Keep in mind we've only seen fan photos of painted figures. I'm sure once the Kickstarter stars we'll get better quality pics.

These aren't cell phone pictures taken of a White Dwarf in the middle of an earthquake, these are photos taken that show off every detail. And high quality pictures won't make that guy's arms stop coming out of the sides of his head.

This, essentially. These pics are pretty damn good for fan photos and I'm not sure why people seem to have this idea that waiting for "better pics" will somehow fix pretty obvious flaws in design. Happens in all the White Dwarf leak threads, too...you're not allowed to judge what appears to be an ugly design without being told to wait for HD pics. When HD pics come out and it's still ugly, you then have to wait until you've already bought the expensive model, assembled and painted it before you can make your final, final judgment. And then they'll just dismiss your opinion because you're a "hater" anyway.

Or maybe the idea is that it just looks like his arms are coming out the side of his head because of the angle of the photo. I mean it's all about perspective, right?

Anyway, other than that guy I thought the models looked alright. I really like the big mutant, though, that's a cool model.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Keep in mind we've only seen fan photos of painted figures. I'm sure once the Kickstarter stars we'll get better quality pics.

These aren't cell phone pictures taken of a White Dwarf in the middle of an earthquake, these are photos taken that show off every detail. And high quality pictures won't make that guy's arms stop coming out of the sides of his head.

Agree. Those photos in this thread are pretty dang good. I am tired of being told 'they look better in real life' when they never do. No other mini manufacturer gets a 'pass' like that.

Looks bad in photos = looks bad in real life = A bad model

nkelsch wrote:
No other mini manufacturer gets a 'pass' like that.

Are you kidding? I hear people saying that about GW all the time here.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
No other mini manufacturer gets a 'pass' like that.

Are you kidding? I hear people saying that about GW all the time here.

They shouldn't. Bad sculpts are bad sculpts whoever does them.