Mantic Deadzone Kickstarter - Completed! - $1,216,482 final total.

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**Manchu**

nkelsch wrote:
Maybe the next game will be Z'zorkaM'morka or Veer-mynheim? That is pretty much all that is left to make

Don't forget Battlefleet Mantic.

**Fenriswulf**

I am pulling out of this kickstarter because I don't have the cash for it, and I am not too happy with the Marauder sculpts. I went in big for Kings of War, and with the sculpts that are coming out that, I don't think the Marauders will be redone to look like the other Mantic Orcs.

So, a $145 early bird open for whomever wants it in a minute or two. Good luck with this guys!

**darkPrince010**

Manchu wrote:
nkelsch wrote:
Maybe the next game will be Z'zorkaM'morka or Veer-mynheim? That is pretty much all that is left to make
Don't forget Battlefleet Mantic.

It just so happens I might have something to interest you lying around...

Note: This was for Warpath 1.0, so I need to tweak it so it can be used for WP 2.0. Alternatively, you can use it just fine with Hellebore's Warpath 1.1 Mass Battle ruleset that is basically a refined and streamlined version of the WP 1.0 rules.

**Earth Dragon**

Fenriswulf wrote:
I am pulling out of this kickstarter because I don't have the cash for it, and I am not too happy with the Marauder sculpts. I went in big for Kings of War, and with the sculpts that are coming out that, I don't think the Marauders will be redone to look like the other Mantic Orcs.

So, a $145 early bird open for whomever wants it in a minute or two. Good luck with this guys!

Make sure you check back cause they "might" change.

You can always grab one the lesser bundles. It's not Strike Team or bust. It's your choice of course, but I find the all or nothing mentality odd.

**Fenriswulf**

Eh, after how KoW has turned out, it's left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. If anything, I think waiting for a Warpath kickstarter is a much better idea. I want hard sprue plastic Enforcers, not restic. I can wait.

**Riquende**

Is it actually the Marauders you want? I'm not overly sold on those models either (at this early stage), but I don't care as I'll be looking to either swap with a mate for another starter I do want (Enforcers, Rebs, Asterians) or just sell them off if nobody's interested.

**scarletsquig**

In addition to the signatures posted on the previous page (and in the OP), I've also made some backer avatars for anyone who wants them:

**Fenriswulf**

I would really like some good looking Marauders. Better still, I would like a kickstarter from Mantic that didn't have some kind of redundancy in it in the form of miniatures you wouldn't want to use.

I pledged $250 for the Kings of War kickstarter, to get a $225 pledge plus shipping. Now it looks like a majority of the sculpts are ones I don't like and wouldn't want to use on the tabletop. Mantic weren't very forthcoming with pictures, and I had given them the benefit of the doubt as I love a lot of their lines quite a bit. Then suddenly when pics do come out, they're terrible (Troll legs, the entire Brock miniature, Cat Horses, Sisters, Paladin hands and arms). No consultation in the process apart from a few "What do you thinks?" in the Kickstarter. The Sisters went from an awesome concept to a muddled mess.

The thing that cheeses me off the most is the change of the cats from Monstrous Cavalry to regular horse sized ones. I had decided to pull out of pledging back then, but the whole Celestian idea got me very excited about it. Expecially the cat cavalry. Paladins on Monstrous Cavalry, awesome. So I pledged big. Then, without knowing, a single comment on the idea of cat cavalry had them switched from Paladins riding them to Sisters. Who knows when it was changed from Monstrous Cavalry to regular.

So now I have $195 worth of choices to make (I pledged for the hardback rules and the rest were BOGOF choices), and the whole way I am knocking more and more off my choice list. I had gone in for a bunch of Celestian choices, but now I don't really want any of it from what I have seen. I am hoping the Men-At-Arms figures turn out well, otherwise I am completely stuck. At least those can be proxied for Empire troops. I am hoping the shrinkage of the Paladins works in their favour, but I am likely to need to correct the hands/arms. The sisters I don't think are salvageable, outside of a massive resculpt. I wouldn't be caught dead with the Cat horses (where even the halberd looks badly done).

So I have a $225 pledge that's now hinging on one specific set of miniatures to see if I can't pull out a win out of all of this. All the freebies are nice, but if the sculpts are poor, why in the world would I want them? Where am I going to use them? The Goblin Mincer looks great, and from what I see of the chariot, it's not so bad - Only problem is I don't play Orcs and Goblins.

I've spent thousands of dollars on Mantic stuff so I can encourage others into the hobby, promote games, and get people interested. I thought it would be a cool thing to help fund them with KoW as well through the kickstarter, so they could get some awesome sculpts and get a larger and larger chunk of GW's market share, but they really dropped the ball when it comes to sculpting quality, as well as consultation with those who invested, and keeping us up to date with how the sculpts were progressing, and showing off painted versions of them. I honestly think them going hard for Dreadball afterwards made them lose focus on KoW, and it shows. Not reigning in artists sculpts and sticking to an overall design aesthetic has left them with a whole bunch of miniatures I wouldn't want to pay money for. Just turns out that being a sucker who backed for a bucketload leaves me in that exact position.

I want Mantic to do well. I am a fan. But I am not a fan of them forgetting about a project, and having it come in half-arsed.

**Compel**

To be honest, that seems like exactly the sort of thing worth emailing mantic about directly. - Minus the GW references of course. There is nothing wrong, inappropriate (well, maybe reign in the last sentence or so a bit) or unfair with what you just said there so you should email Mantic directly, so they know that you do have problems with it and that you're willing to put a face on what you've experienced, rather than an (effectively) anonymous forum post.

**Pacific**

+EDIT+ yes some good points there Fenriswulf, and obviously something you feel very strongly about. Write to Mantic and let them know.

In general terms I don't think anyone ever tries to release a sub-par model (and the style of something is very much open to subjective opinion in most cases). That being said, you can get a general consensus on whether something is good or not. The cat cavalry certainly haven't gone down very well - it might be that in the rush to bring such a high number of new miniatures to the market that some of them get released when they possible shouldn't have.

In any case, I don't think there is any harm in telling Mantic about it. Who knows, if enough people make similar comments then they might go back to the drawing board with it?

Eilif wrote:
Earth Dragon wrote:
This just got posted in the last update comments-

I just noticed that it says "We looked at the Veer-myn and the Z’zor as possible candidates but they seemed to be the perfect protagonists for their own story".

Wiping out Humans makes you a PROtagonist......Hilarious!!

Interestingly the original use of Protagonist (roots in greek theater) doesn't have anything do do with good or evil. It's just the character around whom the story is built also implies the Pro (first) or primary character.

It is interesting though that mantic thinks that Veermyn and Z'zor are interesting enough to be the center of their own stories. I wouldn't have pegged them as such.

Yes, although Earth Dragon is correct regarding the common usage of the term (you would expect 'antagonist').

However, in the context of the background it possibly makes sense. The Corporation are very much a 'Weyland Yutani' of the Warpath universe, exploiting and enslaving alien (and human for that matter) populations, exterminating when it suits them. Think of their use of the Marauders as cannon fodder for their armies also. In that sense, the animal species (who were probably quite happy eating cheese, rolling dung or whatever before the Corp turned up) might be regarded as the good guys by comparison.

Although, we are possibly giving this point too much attention

**Eilif**

adamsouza wrote:
Ellif wrote:
It is interesting though that mantic thinks that Veermyn and Z'zor are interesting enough to be the center of their own stories. I wouldn't have pegged them as such.

The Warpath fiction depicts them in another setting than Deadzone Planets.

Veermyn infest giant space haulers (Space Hulk) and Z'zor stick to their worlds and neighboring planets. While it's possible that Veermyn could end up in a Deadzone, or a Deadzone borders Z'zor space, those two races offer the possibility of expanding deadzone into other settings. Veermyn for indoor, battles inside vast space ships and Z'zor on alien worlds, possibly with organic structures and mobile man eating plants, etc...

That makes perfect sense. I hadn't thought of that, but Veermyn and Z'zor are races with built-in plot points for moving the Deadzone game into new locations.
Lots of potential there.

**Alpharius**

Don't call them short; they hate that.
Update #39 · May 16, 2013 · comment

Another missile impacted against the habtainer wall, but miraculously it held. Fillon didn’t know how many more it could take, but her options were limited. They were surrounded on three sides leaving only an open kill-zone to fall back into. Of the Rebs under her command, only four were still capable of anything like a fighting retreat, and Joruk’s Desolator had to run dry sooner or later.

Belwin darted around the refrigeration unit he’d been using for cover and let loose a burst from his rifle. His only reward was the bark of return fire from the enemy position, shots chewing more fist-sized holes through the wall. Fillon barked at him to get down and stop wasting ammo. Not that she blamed him. If they didn't do something soon, none of it would matter anyway.

She replayed the past ten minutes in her head – her compad’s clock showed it was only ten minutes, but how was that possible? – and tried to work out how OTR-9 had been backed into the scant cover of a blown-out diner unit. It had been a routine sweep-and-keep, picking the area clean of resources for the good of the cause. Drone visuals had shown no enemy forces, so they hadn’t suspected a thing until the Forge Fathers opened fire. She knew it was nothing political or personal; the Rebellion had fought alongside them on a number of occasions. She guessed they just wanted what was on Nexus Psi enough to put aside common courtesy in favour of a “shoot first, talk later” policy.

The east wall exploded inwards and she was snapped back to the present. Three Brokkr were already charging through the gap as she began to raise her rifle. Radner looked up from treating Nolan’s chest wound in time to take a heat hammer to the side of the head. Ryla sprang from cover, drawing his long-bladed skinning knife. The Sorak, an expert close-quarters fighter, had been waiting for the chance to set aside his rifle ever since the Forge Fathers had revealed themselves. He wasted no time dipping his blade past the lead Brokkr’s defences and into its exposed throat, but the dwarf still managed to unleash three point-blank headshots in return.

Fillon’s gun beeped empty as she pulled the trigger. She slung it and drew her sidearm, yelling at Joruk and Belwin to fall back. The Grogan wasn’t listening, too intent on keeping any more dwarves from making their way through the blast-hole with bursts from his cannon. Belwin stood to run and was pitched over by a heavy-calibre round that vaporized his shoulder and half of his ribcage.

The enemy were all around. Time seemed to move at a fraction of its normal speed as a missile streaked through the smashed front window and took Joruk apart from the waist up. In the tinny aftermath of the explosion Fillon could hear the enemy fire slowing as they realized their targets were running out.

She dropped her weapon and raised her arms, hoping that the little she knew of their language would be enough to convince them to take her alive. The battle was lost, but as long as one member of OTR-9 was standing, the war wasn’t over.

With the Forge Fathers turning up in Deadzone, game designer Jake Thornton has rummaged through the Corporation data-files and pulled out some more information about them...

The Forge Fathers are in the Deadzone for a very simple reason: resources. They are, at heart, miners and artisans, and the fact that the Corporation controls any resource-rich planets is like fingernails down a blackboard to the Forge Fathers. They want it all.

The moment that a Deadzone is declared, Forge Father ships are ready to move in and scour the area for the rich pickings they imagine must have attracted the Corporation in the first place. Often they are right, and their strike teams will be able to pinpoint likely sources of ores and other minerals that can be exploited by follow-up units. However, even the most avaricious of Forge Fathers knows that they must be wary of the original cause of the Containment Protocol, and so their forces arrive encased in the best armour money can buy, armed to the teeth and prepared for anything.

So what do you think of the Forge Fathers so far? Drop us some comments below and tell us your thoughts! If you like the look of them, you can add a Faction Set to your pledge on their own, or with the Asterians as part of the Expanded Universe Faction Bundle add-on.

If you're interested in finding out more about Forge Fathers, and about Deadzone in general, Mantic CEO Ronnie Renton will be doing another live Q&A session on the Mantic Facebook Page at 9pm BST tonight! Get your questions ready - the last one was great fun, and all sorts of secrets spilled out. I wonder what he'll say tonight...

**nkelsch**

Forgefather and Asterian Cocnept art are bad ass...

They need to have REMY sculpt them and match the pose in the art.

But I doubt we will get that. Probably the Forgefathers will have totally different scale and armor look and be in the worst part of an awkward swing or mid leap or some horrible pose.

Simply cannot back anything Mantic does on concept art alone after the utter fails we have been seeing. Mantic is their own worst enemy in regards to selling their own models.

**Riquende**

I had no idea you felt that way.

**Hulksmash**

To be fair Mantic themselves reinforced this with the concepts for the Rippers and Marauders being pretty sweet and then showing us greens that.....didn't live up to the concept art.

**Azazelx**

nkelsch - ask them those directions directly via the KS system (in a slightly nicer, but equally direct manner) and let us know what their reply is.

**Alpharius**

I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous here too.

I'm in for a quite a bit right now, but if we don't see some more solid sculpts, I might just go in heavy for the scenery options...

**Hulksmash**

@Alpharius

I hear that. I will say that so far Mantic does seem to be batting around 75% for their models on this one. All the shown Rebels (which is all but the commander, drones, and vespid lookin dude) have been seen and look great. The Enforcers look like Enforcers and except for the captain are solid. The plague look good and we've seen all of them except for the hounds and grenade dude.

Basically it's the darned Marauders that are hurting this. And I'm so nervous about ordering something almost a year out that might get that treatment.

God I wish they had a build you're own option. I'd happily pay a $20 premium to get it. At that point I'd go in for an equivelent 2xStrike level in a heart beat. Oh well. Less I'll likely have to put in on this as it goes forward.

**Eilif**

Eilif wrote:
In update 38, it says

To celebrate achieving this goal we will add One Free Faction Starter Of Your Choice (Miniatures PLUS Faction Card Deck) to game pledges of Strike Team ($150 + Early Birds) and up*, and add the digital rules for the Asterians and Forge Fathers into every pledge!

Has there been any mention of whether the PDF rules will contain copies of:
-Battle cards
-Cards for each Faction

As for event cards, I'm curious about the ability of someone who get's scout (faction plus pdf) to play the full game, a requirement of which is event cards. For the Faction cards, I'm looking at the possiblity of getting clubmates who didn't get in on our strike-zone pledge to play the game with proxies from their own sci-fi figure collection. For both situations, I'd rather just be able to print them out than have to copy or scan them.

I put this in the comments and Mantic replied with a YES to both the battle cards and all faction cards being included in the rules PDF.

**Pacific**

One option might be to go for the Strike level - you get 4 factions (with the 5th one free.. is that right?).. out of the 6 that are coming I'm sure 5 will probably be palatable (or you can sell or give to a mate to play with etc.), allowing you to leave the one you think is a dud on the sideline.

**Hulksmash**

Except the noted dud is one that you can't trade out. So now we have to worry if one of the two we haven't seen anything for is a dud which would leave us with 2 duds out of 5 sets....

**Pacific**

Ah OK I didn't realise that..

might be worthwhile giving some feedback to that effect!

Then if say 1000 people choose the rebels and 4 people the Marauders they might realise that something is up

**DaveC**

Remy did the Dreadball Forgefathers so I'm hopeful that he will do the Deadzone ones as for the Asterians I can see the Cyphers and drones at least being digital sculpts like the Robot team, time will tell (hope that's how they do them)

**scarletsquig**

If it ends up being a digital sculpt (and you're right, can definitely see the asterians and drones being all-digital), it'll turn out well, the people that Mantic hire for that really know what they're doing (and are running their own indiegogo for 6mm plastic at the moment).

Robot team turned out very nicely, and the digital enforcers for this are pretty sweet, too. And of course, they designed the terrain tiles on top of that.

I can't see them messing up the forgefathers unless they give it to someone who flat-out ignores the concept art and goes with giant balloon hands/ feet and terrible poses. You'd have to really make an effort to produce a bad sculpt when working to concepts like that, they look completely and utterly badass in the sketches.

In fact, a lot of the problems with the marauders could have been avoided if the sculptor treated the concept art as "I need to match this *exactly*" rather than "I'll go off and do my own thing in my own style and see how it goes".

When it comes down to it, Mantic's #1 problem at the moment is that they go to a lot of effort to get excellent concepts made, but every single time a random sculptor decides that they're not going to stick to that, it results in a bad sculpt.

Look at the difference between the KoW Ogres and the KoW Trolls for a perfect example. The former were Remy-sculpted and are 100% carbon copies of the concepts. The Trolls... kinda make you wonder if the sculptor even looked at the concept art, never mind paying any attention to the brief to make the models look like that. Some like the sculpts and that's good, but a lot of the discontent can be traced back to that disconnect between the concept art and final model.

**Hulksmash**

I sent in a decently sized message regarding my thoughts and concerns. I kept it upbeat and polite. We'll see how they respond.

**Lansirill**

Do any of these models already fit within the Warpath system? I'm trying to figure out how much value I'm getting from the strike team pledge; it's certainly worth a single pledge, but it may or may not be worth going assault or suppression team (as an example, 4x a starter is really only worth more than 3x a starter if I'm able to translate it to Warpath most likely.)

**scarletsquig**

^ Yes, lots of the models already fit Warpath.

Most/all of the Enforcers, Marauders and Forgefathers are good to go in Warpath as of today.

All of the DZ models will be getting Warpath rules eventually, it's going to be 100% compatible.

I can make up some sample army lists if you like, won't take me long.

**nkelsch**

scarletsquig wrote:
If it ends up being a digital sculpt (and you're right, can definitely see the asterians and drones being all-digital), it'll turn out well, the people that Mantic hire for that really know what they're doing (and are running their own indiegogo for 6mm plastic at the moment).

Robot team turned out very nicely, and the digital enforcers for this are pretty sweet, too. And of course, they designed the terrain tiles on top of that.

Mantic has been batting 100% with the digital renders. I haven't seen one bad render from them and from past experience, digital renders translate pretty much perfectly to models so if a company shows me a render concept, I can feel pretty safe that is what the model looks like.

If the asterians get a digital concept, I will minimum be in for a add-on because they are simply cool looking models.

**Lansirill**

scarletsquig wrote:

I can make up some sample army lists if you like, won't take me long.

That would be wonderful. I'm slowly going through the Warpath rules, but I haven't gotten to the army building yet.

**scarletsquig**

Okay, here's some Warpath army lists, for 3x Strike Team (where you really want to be to get a small playable warpath army for up to 5 different factions up and running (3x the starting four + 3x either free forgefathers or free asterians).

Really, though, it'll just be a way of getting a small army of elite restic units set up to get some small 750-point games in before the Warpath Kickstarter comes along with hard plastic core troops and vehicles comes along to expand that in 2014.

Forgefathers and Enforcers are definitely the most Warpath-usable ones.

Keep in mind forgefathers are getting more freebies as this goes on and the other factions probably will as well, so these lists are lowball estimates. Also, I haven't included all of the minis you get, most notably the ones that don't have rules... I've subbed in the enforcer engineer as a unit leader model for now. The Marauders don't have rules for commandos, or detailed rules for the ripper suits with weapon options, so I've had to heavily proxy those and count the commandos as regular horde troops.. those will definitely rise in points once the official lists for the DZ stuff is out.

Warpath has an allies system too, so you can easily do something like team up the Rebs with Marauders and have a game against the Enforcers.

Forgefathers (660 points)

Enforcers (800 points)

Marauders (335 points)

Made the lists using my battlescribe files, link to that is in my signature.