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Wow, away for the weekend and seems I have some catching up to do..

I’ve not finalised the rules yet, but the general idea is to have them bimble about the battlefield in large numbers, causing trouble for both sides. It’s an AI system, but given that the zombies have only the barest minimum of “I” in the first place the simplified version in the game won’t be terribly smart. And that suits them just perfectly

How cool does that sound?

 Pacific wrote:

How cool does that sound?

Well I'm always 'meh' on zombies, so to me not very, but it's certainly helped push the pledges up so I can't say I'm unhappy about it!

Hard plastic Enforcer not-Terminators though? If they get there, that'll be a lot more exciting to me.

Ooompf those plague zombies...

anyone else picking up 80 of these?

Based on the popularity and quality of mantic's fantasy zombies these would drop in nicely into my chaos army.

Teraton sculpt:



Very happy with that.

And a concept for the plague teraton:

That Terry sculpt looks boss!

And it is large enough to make a damn fine Plague figure too.

The female enforcer has issues for the time been at least, no space in tooling...

I hope she gets better and is included in the final pack.

Yeah, but there's lots of other stuff for them to getting on with, forgefathers and asterians probably need 3 more stretch goals to get them up to scratch, then there's probably two lots of new specialists for all the basic 4 factions, acrylic counters, extra terrain for strike team, new battlezones, hard plastic enforcers.

They need to hit $800k to get the basic game "done" before they can go off and do other fun stuff.

Hopefully we won't just trickle along at $15k/day right until the last 48 hours, otherwise its going to be a bit boring until the weekend finish (the 48 hour warning will go out on friday evening, perfect timing there from mantic since that's the busiest time for pledging).. but if anything kickstarters are becoming even more skewed towards the first and last 48 hours of a project than ever before.

It's entirely possible that this one could swing an extra $500k on the final day or two.

It is, but it should have hit 800k by now, or Wednesday at the latest in order to be successful, dreadballs success was that it had went to season 2 and beyond, before the final rush was reached.

Time will tell, I remain optimist for the ladies chances.

^^ DreadBall didn't break 500K until the last couple of days and ended on $700+

I do not disagree with that, but dreadball had finished with season 1 stuff long before that, it was mid way funding season 2 stuff, well you may say we are there too and you might be right, although I am not sure if extended universe is part of the original pack or not, that been said as scarletsquig said the basic packs seem to need some fleshing out, w still have announced models that have not seen the light of day and models that have seen the light of day, but have not been announced.

Teraton looks rather cool! Can imagine that thing duking it out in close combat with some of the plague guys..

Are those some kind of Halo-style energy wrist blades I wonder?

I understood them as regular impactors, they even fold back for added kinetic energy.

I'm going to painting mine up as Mass Effect style Omni Blades.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Teraton sculpt:



Very happy with that.

Cool looking sculpt... kind of reminds me of the space triceratops villains from TMNT.

There's some new graphics up on the front page now...

In the add-ons section, the mercenaries pic shows 4 "locked" boxes, indicating that there's another 4 mercs to come, for 10 in total.

And the "expand your faction" pic has 6 "locked" boxes, possibly indicating that booster packs for all 6 factions will be an add-on, once all of the minis for those have been revealed via stretch goal.

Does anyone have a link to the post regarding force selection? I think there was a post on Jake Thornton's blog about it, but I didn't see it while skimming.

Teraton sculpt is awesome. The enforcers will be my main faction, but I think the Rebs will be the most fun to paint by far.

I played a couple of beta DZ games at the weekend, I was going to put some thoughts together for this thread but my opponent went one better and wrote a fully fledged blog post. I've since added my response below the line:

http://cautionsmallparts.com/crossing-over-to-the-deadzone/

or here (may not make total sense without his bit but I don't want to c+p his hard work):

We both struggled to get our heads around the activation mechanic -which I think I have the gist of now, after asking for clarification on Jake’s blog- and I think it’s an ok idea but woefully underwritten in the Beta ruleset.
The game appears (from KS promos etc) to exist halfway between board game and tabletop wargame but in practise is much much closer to the latter, albeit skilfully streamlined. I’d hesitate to recommend it to boardgamers at all except as a gateway to games with mini’s – I suspect even my friends who have happily played Zombicide etc would be turned off by DZ, coloured playing pieces or not.
But as a light skirmish wargame it works pretty well. The abstractions – gridded movement/distance measuring and cubic volumes, binary cover/no cover, direct fire v blazing away – are all generally elegant and (once understood) argument free. What I didn’t like so much were the LOS definitions (which I’d summarise as: able to see any part of the model inc base = allows direct fire, able to see whole of model inc base = clear shot bonus). In practise this is no quicker than necromunda’s ‘can I see more or less than half of the figure?’ just with the goalposts shifted, losing some immersion at the same time with its gameyness. Other thoughts – cards worked well, whilst being a bit vanilla – I can totally see those getting more tactical/faction specific. Factions were pleasingly different to play, and seemed balanced. The rules have clearly been written with the boxy Mantic scenery in mind, our impromptu setup was sometimes a bit fuzzy.
Overall I enjoyed it without being blown away. The beta lacks a bit of character and pizazz that maybe mission variants, specialists and the bigger monsters will add, but there is a sound ruleset to build on.

I think secret missions in the faction decks will help make games more interesting, when you don't know what your opponent's goal is.. adds more urgency to completing your own goals and or room for deception.

The LOS doesn't bother me, I figure its a Scifi game... scanners, UAVs supersenses, if you catch even a glimpse of an enemy you can probably light him up through the wall he's behind.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, rosafari, the more we hear the better!

Also the new update is out, sick new merc incoming, talk of multiplayer/mat just not too much details, probably more when its a stretchgoal for realsies.

Invoking the Wrath of...
Update #62 · May 27, 2013 · 12 comments

We're into the final week and we're going to be rolling out a number of goals as we build up for a massive finish!

Of course, the Plague Zombies are up next - and we've got some updated concept art!

Concept Art is work in progress

After that comes the fabulous Asterian and Forge Father Specialists - but then comes:
$665,000 – Wrath

Throughout their long and noble history, there has never been a Judwan warrior or a Judwan murderer, and certainly nothing like the psychotic assassin known as Wrath. At least, not until now. The following information has been pieced together from a variety of sources, and the truth of the matter will probably never be known for certain. The few that did know the truth of this code 8 secret operation are mostly dead. The handful that remain are running for their lives or hiding where they think he cannot find them.

It seems that he was taken from his parents at an early age and raised as an assassin for the Council of Seven. Producing such unwavering killers was probably only one order issued among many others and was long forgotten by the time he was old enough to be sent on his first mission. Still, he was their work.

His first mission was almost his last as the Enforcers he accompanied nearly shot him on the spot for disobeying direct orders under fire. Despite his excellence in training and simulation, when it came to reality he would not kill. He was, after all, Judwan.

The programme leader was give a month to persuade his subject to see reason. Failure would not be a healthy option for either of them. From that point the means of persuasion became increasingly blunt and desperate. Hypnotism, indoctrination, and behavioural therapy were quickly replaced by surgery, implants and mind-probes. These failed too, so more were tried, as was simple torture to break his will – to force him to obey. After a month the programme leader claimed a great success. He had broken the Judwan. Turning around such a high cost investment was such good news that even one of the Council saw fit to inspect this most lethal of new weapons in their arsenal.

Reports of this official demonstration are sketchy, but the results are clear. Today the assassin known as Wrath is the most wanted sentient in the galaxy. He is at the top of every Enforcers shoot to kill list and has been the target of no less than nine fleet sized actions. Small cities have been nuked in an effort to kill him, but he has slipped away quietly every time.

The main reason for this unusually costly pursuit is simple revenge. Wrath carries one of the Council of Seven’s ceremonial blades, and this he took from the dead hand of the Councillor himself. He cannot be allowed to live. His every breath is an encouragement to the Rebels and an embarrassment for the Council and the Corporation. The problem is that he was trained too well...

Mercenaries are powerful additions that can be brought into your squad. They offer unique rules and abilities.

If we hit this goal we will be able to sculpt and tool Wrath, a Psychotic Judwan Mercenary who has unfortunately been experimented on by the Corporation a little too much…

We’ll include this amazingly characterful figure to game pledges of Recon ($100 and Early Bird)* and up to say thanks!

* Not including scenery-only pledges.
Going BIG

If you didn't catch Jake's Quirkworthy post on game modes earlier, you'll notice he talked about games that go BIG. Here's what we had to say:

Multi-mat Games

Two-player games with more than one mat as a battlefield. Playing lengthways down a two-mat battlefield gives a different type of game as there is a longer approach/position phase, plus long ranged weapons play more of a role. It’s possible to use light vehicles as there is enough space and ground to cover.

Multi-Mat boards look very impressive - 4x4 or even 6x4 games are achievable.

Multi-player Games

Usually on more than one mat, but possible to play on a single one. These games pit teams of players against other teams of players – in effect taking a large two-player game and breaking each side down into sub-commands. Introduces an element of co-op play into Deadzone. Naturally I’ve slightly spun this by saying that even though each side shares a common goal they also retain separate missions for the sub-commands.

Of course, both of these games could be combined together

Let us know what you think in the comments!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
so vehicles after all this, i cannot wait.

 rosafari wrote:
I played a couple of beta DZ games at the weekend, I was going to put some thoughts together for this thread but my opponent went one better and wrote a fully fledged blog post.

Interesting read, and some nice pics, but I am a little confused by this statement: "If you like more traditional board games (even ameritrash)".

Boardgamers tend to divide games into "euro's" - strategic, chit heavy diceless affairs - such as Puerto Rico, and "ameritrash" - more random beer n pretzel games - such as Zombicide etc all the way back to Heroquest et al. It's not generally meant as a pejorative as such, but some serious boardgamers are sniffy about games that involve any luck at all.

 Ahtman wrote:

 rosafari wrote:
I played a couple of beta DZ games at the weekend, I was going to put some thoughts together for this thread but my opponent went one better and wrote a fully fledged blog post.

Interesting read, and some nice pics, but I am a little confused by this statement: "If you like more traditional board games (even ameritrash)".

Ameritrash is a quasi-affectionate term given to board games that have tons of little individual plastic pieces and are typically "overproduced" with counters, cards, etc. rather than being simple "Euro-style" games.

I believe it goes back to the 80s with Milton Bradley's Gamemaster series of Axis and Allies, Shogun and Fortress America. For more modern examples, Fantasy Flight Games is known to make them with Twilight Imperium and Horus Heresy standing out in my mind at the moment.

While it sounds offensive, it's my understanding that it's more a reflection of the game's style than anything related to quality. Most people I've seen use the phrase have said they love the games they're applying the label to, so it's one of those strange little terms I think. If DeadZone were a true board game, I do believe it would qualify for the label, but as an actual miniatures game that likes to pretend to be a board game it isn't.

Since we're approaching neckbeard territory I'm sure any errors in the above will be pointed out soon...

No, that's a much better explanation

The point attempted on blog (and briefly in the KS comments before getting BB gunned down) is that DZ looks a bit like an ameritrash board game - with its board/mat and scientist level coloured playing pieces - and has at times been talked up as such but it isn't by any stretch, it's an out and out skirmish wargame, and anyone pledging expecting something akin to even Zombicide will be baffled and frustrated.

Ameritrash is a good thing. The more the better.

Most games I own are Ameritrash ones.

1st Edition Descent was a fine example of an ameritrash game. Hell, basically anything in a Fantasy Flight coffin box.

I can't see board gamers being too put off by the rules. Especially ameritrash fans. Many ameritrash games already take their cues from min games anyways, and even those that don't tend to pour the rules on pretty heavy. Fantasy Flight games especially dig in to similar rules- cover, suppressed fire, overwatch, ammo issues/ jams/ malfunctions... I know we've dealt with most of those in games like Doom, Tannhauser, Descent...

Maybe I need to read through the beta rules. I'm still fiddling with the alpha ones.

Weren't they going to have both styles of turn order available?

wrath of judkhan?

So, what are the real chances that we see a "big Kboom" in pledges until the end of the week? I really want more forge fathers...

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
So, what are the real chances that we see a "big Kboom" in pledges until the end of the week? I really want more forge fathers...

Guaranteed. But the size of the boom varies considerably from Kickstarter to Kickstarter.

Minis Kickstarters almost always have a fairly pronounced end rush because many of us hold of final pledge increases until the last day. So while gained backers tend to be lower than the first few days, the total cash intake can often be many multiples higher. It is just the effect of a large portion of the entire existing pledging base adding non-inconsequential amounts of money to their pledge. This is why having a large number of backers is often the most important metric for the end rush, because a bunch of people popping $20+ on to pledges has a pretty pronounced effect when you have thousands of backers.

That said, whether the end rush will exceed the first day on this one is up in the air. But lately we have been seeing a trend in really heavy last-day rushes, so there is a fair chance. It will be interesting to watch, either way.

I'm in at $400 right now. Started at 2, went to 4 after a paycheck. There is one more installment to come from me, its partially waiting on accrued funds, and partially because I wanna see what exactly I want before I put down a final sum. I realize I could throw it all in now and Sort things out when the survey comes but I'm already stretching my hobby budget waay too far for this as it is.