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One of the things that I find interesting about KS is the similarity in the ranges of numbers for these projects.

It seems that mini games hover around the 5k backers range.

I've heard it claimed that after the KS, the retail version of the games have seen 2x sales number (that is around 15k total, 5k from KS and 10k from retail).

That seems like a very small market.

@scarletsquig

Any word from Mantic on whether they plan to redo the plastic Marauders and FF in the WP KS?

How about some plastic Gobbos?

 scarletsquig wrote:
Oh, and for those interested in Warpath Kickstarter rumours

- Next year.
- Hard Plastic everything.
- Large battles, with vehicles and flyers.
- Aiming to fund as much stuff as possible.

Be prepared for a far more "focused on the minis" Kickstarter when it arrives, and expect Reaper Bones levels of value.

See the 56 cents zombies in this kickstarter? Extend that to an entire army.

This one was very much a mixture of minis/ rules/ terrain/ accessories. Warpath will be more focused.

I do hope that there isn't as much of a huge time frame between the kickstarter and the models coming out like with this (a year almost and that is if there are no delays for the wave 2 stuff I was interested in like the Medic). Is all of the stuff unlocked in the last 48 hours still coming in wave 2 or did it cross into a wave 3? I'd like to see a viable mass battle alternative to 40k hit the market (the warzone release was a "platoon level skirmish" scale).

I think for the WP KS, they will need to refine the rules to be based on stands of units rather than individual models. The original WP 1.0, while apparently unpopular, was a lot more focused like this, which lends itself far better imo to larger (100+) model games than the stretched-past-breaking-point rule systems like 40K trying to operate with 100s of models (or more for Apocalypse).

I hope the KS iteration of the Warpath rules shifts the focus back to that scale of battles and appropriate rules, as I think it will be far more appealing than just trying to make another scifi large-ish scifi skirmish game

 darkPrince010 wrote:
I think for the WP KS, they will need to refine the rules to be based on stands of units rather than individual models. The original WP 1.0, while apparently unpopular, was a lot more focused like this, which lends itself far better imo to larger (100+) model games than the stretched-past-breaking-point rule systems like 40K trying to operate with 100s of models (or more for Apocalypse).

I hope the KS iteration of the Warpath rules shifts the focus back to that scale of battles and appropriate rules, as I think it will be far more appealing than just trying to make another scifi large-ish scifi skirmish game

I agree, my group was much bigger fans of the 1.0 rules then the 2.0 rules.

I like 2.0 alternate activation, but I dont see why that couldn't work with the way 1.0 was doing things.

 Ronin_eX wrote:
Ah, that gives me enough time to save up so I can be poor by the end of next summer!

wargaming is like pimping, it ain't easy

 tyrant of loserville wrote:

 Ronin_eX wrote:
Ah, that gives me enough time to save up so I can be poor by the end of next summer!

wargaming is like pimping, it ain't easy

But it's necessary!

 Cyporiean wrote:

 darkPrince010 wrote:
I think for the WP KS, they will need to refine the rules to be based on stands of units rather than individual models. The original WP 1.0, while apparently unpopular, was a lot more focused like this, which lends itself far better imo to larger (100+) model games than the stretched-past-breaking-point rule systems like 40K trying to operate with 100s of models (or more for Apocalypse).

I hope the KS iteration of the Warpath rules shifts the focus back to that scale of battles and appropriate rules, as I think it will be far more appealing than just trying to make another scifi large-ish scifi skirmish game

I agree, my group was much bigger fans of the 1.0 rules then the 2.0 rules.

Absolutely hated the 1.0 rules and I can tell you now if they go back to that the KS wont do anywhere near as good as this one (I know I wouldn't back it for the rules.)

Warpath 1.0 was KOW in space. Blobs of infantry make sense in fantasy, not so much in modern and future warfare.

This Kickstarter had a nice finish. Looks like I'll be adding 5 for $10 Hard plastic enforcers in the pledge manager later on.

Didn't like the way 1.0 had full units individually based but you didn't remove casualties. I also seem to recall needing to roll buckets of dice for stuff (although I may just be thinking KoW), which always puts me off games. Rolling over 20 dice for a single unit's attack is just too many for my taste.

I do hope Warpath stays platoon level skirmish as mass battles is terrible for 28mm. Go with 15mm for that stuff (there's plenty of manufacturers and rulesets to support it). 40k in it's current iteration would simply play MUCH better as 15mm, it's getting to be too much stuff on a standard 6'x4' table, especially with all the large super units and rumors that the apocalypse models are moving into the base game. I'd MUCH rather see Warpath as 50-100 models with a half dozen vehicles than see Mantic try and ramp up the numbers like GW has

evancich wrote:
One of the things that I find interesting about KS is the similarity in the ranges of numbers for these projects.

It seems that mini games hover around the 5k backers range.

I've heard it claimed that after the KS, the retail version of the games have seen 2x sales number (that is around 15k total, 5k from KS and 10k from retail).

That seems like a very small market.

But a small market with deep pockets. Miniature Kickstarter often have several hundreds of USD as average pledge-level. Most Computer Games Kickstarter, to name one example, often only have 30 or 40 Dollars as average pledge level.

Kingdom Death has $379,- average pledge. Deadzone has $283,-, Even the "budget" minis from Reaper made $194,- per backer on average.

Compare that to , say, Double Fine Adventure ($38,-) or, at most, $56,- for real heavy-hitters like Torment: Tides of Numenera, and you might get an indicator why selling expensive miniatures to few people is likely a more sustainable long-term strategy in this particular business than selling cheap miniatures to a lot of people.

Just wanted to say thanks to scarletsquig for keeping the thread so well updated and for everyone else who posted news and images in a timely fashion. That was awesome of you.

^Thanks!

@Mo'teef: No word on anything yet regarding specific units, the only thing we've seen are sketches for the modular corporation hovertank (which have been floating around for over a year now).

Remade Marauder/ Forgefather core will probably happen, but it's highly likely they'll do core units that don't exist yet, and vehicles that don't exist yet, with a rework of existing sprues pencilled in for later down the line.

As for me, I'm gonna buy a bunch of those $2/mini Mantic terminators (hard plastic, with weapon options) and make a whole army out of them.

Why? Well, why not.. It'll only cost me $60 at most, not much different to the price of a single box of terminators from GW.

That's the thing about Mantic that most people don't always get at first glance... they think "I can afford my single 40k army, why would I need cheaper minis?".. Mantic is great for people who really want to expand their stuff or go and do crazy projects on a whim without spending all that much.

I've also had *much* better luck introducing Mantic to people new to wargaming or people who lost interest in wargaming when they went to uni (*lots* of people like this in the UK.. when people stop buying GW, most simply give up wargaming entirely, they don't magically start playing malifaux or warmachine for no reason, for them "wargaming" = "Warhammer/ 40k". As soon as they say the prices got too high or they didn't like the new rules, the rest is easy.

Also, reminder for everyone with a pledge - The awesome hard plastic enforcers are not "in the bag" currently.. they will require another $8.5k of survey money..

... so if you feel like throwing in another $10 to get 5 of these beauties in multi-part hard plastic, go for it! Only need about 1 in 6 people who pledged to up by $10 to hit the target, but it does have to be the first survey and not the second one.




And yes, that's a 40mm base.

The scalability of Deadzone and backers having multiple armies should do wonders for getting more people to play once it's released. A fair few backers will be able to field all 6 factions I'd say. Two people? Play a 2x2 campaign. Got 6 people? Play a 3v3 on 2x4-6x4! And why not throw some AI zombies in the mix for a big ole shindig. Introducing someone to the game gently? Have a comp stomp! 2vsAI should be good fun with the solo/zombie rules. I prefer comp stomps with mates in PC games, will be good to do the same on the tabletop too so they don't get miffed at always losing ; p

I think there is potential for me to add more to my pledge, although the $800 was a high pledge, partially to get all the exclusive rewards inc deluxe rulebook. I haven't had a sit down and actually work out what I want to add. I think what I wanted came to around $680, and that was before deciding how many suits, extra characters I wanted.

 scarletsquig wrote:

Also, reminder for everyone with a pledge - The awesome hard plastic enforcers are not "in the bag" currently.. they will require another $8.5k of survey money..

... so if you feel like throwing in another $10 to get 5 of these beauties in multi-part hard plastic, go for it! Only need about 1 in 6 people who pledged to up by $10 to hit the target, but it does have to be the first survey and not the second one.

Would love to get them. $10,- for 5 40mm base figures.. what's not to like.

But how are they going to survey that? If they put the option in the survey, they essentially (near-) guarantee that they'll make them. It'd be a huge mess to go back and tell X people that their survey isn't valid cause there weren't quite enough people pledging for the mini that could've been unlocked.

Or will it appear only in the 2nd survey, if enough people pledge another $8.5K on other things already unlocked?

I think they know themselves that the extra from the survey will more than cover the extra $8,500 or so needed so it shouldn't be an issue. I've spoken to a few KS creators and the average extra money taken in post KS pledge managers is around 8% of the final total - this is fairly consistent across a number of projects - so that would add another $96k or so anyway. Even Adam Poots without going into detail said in his comments that the post KS survey was enough to cover the original KS and Amazon fees so again in the 8% range

I have another silly question...

Final Strike Team included 11 sprues of terrain. Does that include the associated connector and accessory sprues or do I need to add those to my pledge separately?

Should be 8 terrain 2 connector and 1 accessory.

 scarletsquig wrote:
^Thanks!

@Mo'teef: No word on anything yet regarding specific units, the only thing we've seen are sketches for the modular corporation hovertank (which have been floating around for over a year now).

Any pics of that hovertank to share?

And I'll be in for at least 20 of those Peacekeepers too!

 DaveC wrote:
I think they know themselves that the extra from the survey will more than cover the extra $8,500 or so needed so it shouldn't be an issue. I've spoken to a few KS creators and the average extra money taken in post KS pledge managers is around 8% of the final total - this is fairly consistent across a number of projects - so that would add another $96k or so anyway. Even Adam Poots without going into detail said in his comments that the post KS survey was enough to cover the original KS and Amazon fees so again in the 8% range

Yes it strikes me much more as marketing than a likely lack of funds, but hey they're entitled to try and get as much money as they can. It's not like they're trying to gouge customers by saying "we can't do it for $10 since we missed the goal so if you want them you need to add $30 per set" or anything; they simply made the observation that IF they get 9k on the survey (which they probably expect to) then they will do these models that people want. If people want to throw in more money just to help ensure it happens, that's on the consumer and they will be getting more product in exchange so everybody wins.

A few random reflections from the morning after:

I almost stuck with my original plan for a pledge amount right up to the end, even if the contents shifted a few times. Yay!

With as much plastic as I have coming now, I might actually be done buying models for a while outside of truly fantastic kits. I mean it this time. Really you guys!

While there was some doubt in the middle phases, I think Mantic did a very good job on the KS. It could have been bigger, but could have been much worse. In the end they made over a million dollars so that's something to be proud of. Congrats to the whole crew over there

December seems really far away right now, but when I think about the piles coming in from 3 different KSes about that time it will likely be here far too quickly.

Big thanks to scarletsquig for all the effort he put in. For an unpaid fan, you always go above and beyond for Mantic without being a complete fanboy/zealot towards people who express criticism. I can only imagine the ton of work it takes for you to promote them like you do here. While it's "just forum posts", you're helping another miniatures company get bigger in the market which makes the hobby as a whole better. It might be a tiny piece of the puzzle overall, but every piece counts.

Roll on survey!

I agree with DaveC. Out of the thousands who joined the KS campaign, there will be a lot of people adding on to their pledge for the survey, and not just for the plastic terminators. At this point I'm not concerned about it; it will happen.

Feeling my first KS withdrawal signs this morning. Wanted to "tune in" and see the latest "stock report" of how high the pledge total was going.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I guess around Christmas I'll know for sure if my investment in this was a good thing or not, and that will determine whether or not I continue to purchase from Mantic in the future. I've followed things carefully and done my homework, and all signs point to yes, but you never know for certain until you have the final product.

But looking over my list of purchases, I am well pleased. Part of the KS game is figuring out what you really want out of everything on offer, and trying to package it to make that work for your budget. For me that involved never upgrading to assault (didn't need the doubles) and leaving out the Forge Fathers. I was on the fence with them, but the Dwarf biker booster convinced me that Space Dwarfs aren't ever going to be my thing. Except for the Helfather, of course. (No offense to Dwarf lovers out there - it's just my personal taste, and if the Forge Fathers got you pledging more, hats off to you.) Even without assault or the FF, I went far beyond the Strike Team value on this. Warpath may be more focused on miniatures, but for me Deadzone offered too much of a "full package" to hold back - terrain, miniatures, Antenociti accessories, and most of all, a complete game to use it all with that won't be a rules nightmare to play with my son. Fantastic.

The value - provided the final product is as good as it looks to be - was so good that it overwhelmed my reservations about buying two entire faction starters I didn't want and would otherwise never purchase: the Marauders and the Plague. I will probably end up using some of the models from each of them, and I love having the gameplay variety of multiple faction options, so the rule sets and cards of those teams will be useful. Some of the models from both are excellent, too - the Goblin sniper from the Marauders is great, and Mantic's decision to invest in Remy's talents for the 1st Gen Plague was genius. That 1st gen really paid off for them and sold the entire game. The 2nd Gens look usable, if not inspired. The 3rd gens - wow. I think they will be a thorn in Mantic's side as they try to sell Plague armies to people going forward. I may end up just replacing every Plague model I have except Remy's 1st gen with Sedition Wars Strain models, which beat every Plague model but the 1st gen right into the ground. With Studio McVey's Strain models the army would look so awesome that I'd really WANT to play Plague - heck, they could become my favorite faction! The only niggle is that most SW zombies don't carry firearms, just the Quasimodos.

I dunno. I think some good head swaps could do a lot for Mantic's 3rd gens, so maybe they're salvageable?

For me, the stars of the miniature show were very clearly the Enforcers. After they fixed the captain, that was a rock-solid faction of good models. (I thought the "getting jiggy with it" assault enforcers were a little silly, but livable.) The Rebs also turned out very well, especially considering that team is entirely composed of hand-sculpted models. It shows that Mantic does have what it takes to do hand sculpts well, when they put their minds to it.

I ended up spending quite a bit anyway, but the Marauders and 3rd gens definitely impacted my decisions. I didn't buy any Marauder or Plague sculpt I didn't have to, and when investing in concept-only figures in bulk, I limited myself to 3-D sculpts like the Asterians. (I'm also buying 2 $8 hand-sculpts that I wasn't able to resist - the Helfather and Nemrath.) Not showing any Rebs or Marauders booster sculpts before the end of the KS put the nail in the coffin for those boosters for me. If Mantic get any photos of them up before the survey (Stewart told me that the Kraaw was nearly ready in an email) then I could change my mind.

My guess would be that if the Plague starter had looked as rock solid as the Enforcers at the start of the campaign, then Mantic would have done much better, especially as the "Zombie" thing is such a big Kickstarter draw. As it is, they still did very well, with the positives far outweighing the negatives. I had a great time, spent too much money, and, provided I'm not massively disappointed come December, am now a newly christened Mantic fan. I'm not generally into being a "fan" of any company, so that's quite an achievement on their part.

Looks like im going to be adding about $300-$400 on the pledge manager. Took a bit of a hit this month and could only just afford my eb1 strike so il be looking to add all the glorious extras!

I'l definately be adding in for 25 peacekeepers come second survey. Such a good deal! I really hope their a solid choice in the new enforcer armylist. I can see a really cool force of Peacekeepers and Striders.

Plus just noticed the Zombie multi pack deal so theres a must aswell!

Edit: I really like the 3rd gens, and think the orx aren't too bad.

For those who've commented about wanting the Warpath rules to go back to units ala 1.0, I'll toss my hat in the ring with those others who would be against that. I alpha tested those rules when they first came out and neither I nor my friends liked them. I too remember buckets of dice being rolled, but what's more is that there was no real reason to have miniatures at all at that point. With no models being removed from damage you could just use a movement tray with one guy on it and have it not matter. They way it is now is actually a lot of fun, a lot more than the 1.0 rules at least for me. I hope they polish up these rules but leave the core as it is. I wouldn't be opposed to having add-on rules for larger games that worked with units instead of models, but I'd like that be separate just like Apoc for 40K. That's just my two cents.

For me, this KS was all about miniatures... namely Rebs and later on, Forgefathers.

I am likely to go for a starter and booster for each of the Rebs and Forgefathers... and possibly a few characters.

Who could resist Dwarf bikers that don't look as ridiculous as the old GW 'hell's angels'?

So it is going to take me days to dig back through the last dozen pages of frantic posting, but I was hoping you guys could point me in the direction of a couple answers?

At the last second, I ended up adjusting my pledge to $300, with the realization that I am much more able, personally, to add another $200-300 later, than I am responsibly able to do it all in one lump now.

That said, I have never been a part of a Mantic Post-Kickstarter, and was hoping for insights...

How do their pledge-managers tend to work? I've heard people mention they do their post-pledge add-ons in two-wave, IE, they give backers TWO chances to add funds. Is this correct?

I am even more inclined to treat this as a big pre-Warpath purchase if I can buy more now, and then find myself with another shot at adding FURTHER funds, later in the year.

Also, speaking of Warpath... WAY back in this thread, someone mathed out purchases needed from THIS KS to already field several legal lists for different factions. Anyone still have that info?

Finally, is it the case that EVERY Deadzone mini/model will have Warpath rules? I know it was said in earnest, way back, but they've just innundated us with one-off mercs.... Do the Warpath 2.0 rules even support "merc" or "hero" units?

@ Newtruthneeomaxim

On the last of day of comments Mantic confirmed that they would be providing rules for every figure to use in Warpath, although as you point out that could be a little odd for the mercs.

Also I emailed Mantic regarding adding on to my pledge and they said I would have two opportunities to add on.

You can download the Alpha Plague army list from their website although it does not contain the special characters from the ks.

Does it say in one spot which items are part of which waves?

@warboss,

They are going to put that info in the pledge manager as they are not completely sure at the moment.