Mantic Mars Attacks Kickstarter - Completed! - $558,076 final total.

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**lord_blackfang**

Alpharius wrote:
I don't get it.

It mostly plays on autopilot. Stuff just randomly explodes and the players basically just watch to see who will run out of models first.

**Looky Likey**

Lord Scythican wrote:
So I would really like to get a lot of the Martians, saucers, and robots for a counts as tau army. Do any of you have any suggestions for me that would help in determining what to pledge? I would love to do a $300 pledge but it says it is all gone.

Pledge for Invaders arrive but put the amount you pledge to $300, you can get two sets at that price.

**Alpharius**

lord_blackfang wrote:
Alpharius wrote:
I don't get it.

It mostly plays on autopilot. Stuff just randomly explodes and the players basically just watch to see who will run out of models first.

Ah, now I get it - thanks!

Also, that doesn't sound very interesting.

Or fun.

**lord_blackfang**

I suspect Mantic will pull it off better than Spartan and with some actual tactics added, but "cinematics" do seem to be a priority. Personally I find any game with event cards a bit suspect.

**GrimDork**

Those were limited time only during a convention. Doubling up on the $150 dollar pledge is still popular. I think its 2 boxed games and 250 in credit if you double that.. as opposed to 1 boxed game and 275 in credit if you get one and add $150 for add-ons. Given the contents of the box set have 20 martians ($30 bucks to add in) doubling invaders arrive is probably still better for you than buying a single and credit. Probably. Time will tell if that extra $25 of misc purchases would serve you better.

**scarletsquig**

There's a lot of flat-out incorrect info being posted in this thread about the rules.

I have no idea why spartan games was dragged into this, but the analogy of "move everything into range and then stand still and shoot" has absolutely no similarity with Mars Attacks at all whatsoever.

Mars attacks has martians with a shooting advantage (better armor) and humans with a melee advantage, so the optimal game for the humans is using cover to sneak up and bash their heads in... with the martians trying to get clear shots and murder at range. If anything a closer analogy would be space hulk, although without such an extreme melee/shooting split between the two factions.

Moving out of cover in Mars Attacks is deadly, so I'm not quite sure what all these posts stating it's a game of "move 6" forward then stand still and shoot on planet bowling ball" are going on about.

As for the suggestion that it's a completely pointless affair of drawing cards and rolling dice to "see what happens". Not true, either, see Jake Thornton's blog post about that particular "randomness, but not overbearing randomness" design challenge:

http://quirkworthy.com/2013/10/13/mars-attacks-the-design-challenge/

I also recommend reading his review of dreadfleet if you want to see just how much he hates games based on dumb luck:

http://quirkworthy.com/2011/10/08/dreadfleet-review-2-more-ships-more-battles/

Jake Thornton wrote:Sad as it is to say, I think Dreadfleet is the worst game that Games Workshop have ever made. Bar none. I’m not talking about the components here (which are fine), or the price (which is high), I’m talking about the playing experience (which is the worst).

The worst? Really? Worst by Phil? Worst this year? Nope. Worst ever. I’m trying to think of something that comes, as a whole package, further down the list than this, and am failing.

Worse than Combat Cards?
Worse than the Troll games?
Worse than Kerrunch! and SpaceFleet?

Yup, yup, yup.

That quote, followed is by a massive article about why spiraling randomness with no point to it and no way of controlling the game is a terrible thing.

Seriously, Mars Attacks is in good hands if randomness is your concern.

If you look at the card deck in the rulebook, most of the cards are tactical (add +1 to a roll etc.), with only a few random crazy events in there. None of which could be considered game-breaking.

**lord_blackfang**

That's a really cute post. And then you roll 2d8 to see where off-table artillery hits and murders everything in a 3x3 area. Which is pretty much analogous to the rain of skulls event card in Dreadfleet that killed it as a tactical game for most people.

**Manchu**

Thanks for that clarification, SS.

**scarletsquig**

lord_blackfang wrote:
That's a really cute post. And then you roll 2d8 to see where off-table artillery hits and murders everything in a 3x3 area. Which is pretty much analogous to the rain of skulls event card in Dreadfleet that killed it as a tactical game for most people.

Well, you could always go on quirkworthy and mention it.

Seriously, they're pretty easy to talk to when it comes to matters of game balance... Jake is already looking at toning down some of the cards, I'd be surprised if that wasn't one.

There's lots of other AoE in the game though, from the looks of it the game is set up to be a total bloodbath.

The humans get a (targeted) artillery strike card and strafing runs, the martians get freeze ray and heat ray cards for their AoE. Bunching up instead of spreading out is a death sentence, even without that random artillery strike card.

It's a powerful card, but within the context of the rest of the game it's not all that bad since you're going to want to be avoiding grouping up as much as possible, right up until you swarm in for melee.

If you put 5 minis into one square and the enemy has three heat ray cards, you're screwed.

**wilycoyote**

Okay, we made a quick board set up and got together some proxy figures (martians courtesy of Invasion from Outer Space and seeing there are no actual weapon stats as such,some Warlord WW2 US infantry) and set to getting a few test games in.

Verdict , a lot of fun, a good number of tactical choices to be made but not so deep so your died in the wool grognard will probably never play - did you expect them to anyway.

One thing the Artillery Strike and heat ray cards were banished after a couple of games, too one sided for such a small skirmish and are game changers for this scenario at least.

Few strange things do happen via the cards but this is not supposed to be realistic is it, added to the call for just one more game. Does give a movie feel to the game as you play.

Interesting to see what crossover to DZ there will be as there does seem a real opportunity for playing this at B&P level and then using a more DZ approach for those who crave something more tactically heavy.

Looking good so far and another likely winner for Mantic and Jake

**GrimDork**

Excellent. Thanks for sharing. Looking to get some people to try this myself so that's good info to have. Heat ray and artillery too much? Sounded like they could be.

**Squat Kid**

Gameplay looks epic!

**privateer4hire**

SS said, "...Seriously, they're pretty easy to talk to when it comes to matters of game balance... Jake is already looking at toning down some of the cards, I'd be surprised if that wasn't one..."

I kick Mantic's shins whenever they start going awry.
They do a lot of good game stuff (rules are their forte IMHO) but they jack things up occasionally.

Jake wasn't super happy when folks were complaining about some DreadBall rules that weren't working (and the proposed change wasn't being well received either)---BUT he listened. He changed rules that live play was demonstrably showing were problematic.

I give Jake and his partners credit on the rules thing and listening to feedback. If something's broken, let them know and let them know the 'why' and 'what' you're seeing. Chances are good if it's a bona fide beef, Jake'll adjust fire.

**Yonan**

Gotta love rule adjustments in a reasonable time frame. As a relatively new entrant to the table top scene, the lack of rule adjustments to blatantly not-ideal rules is aggravating after coming from PC games.

**scarletsquig**

I'd say that Kings of War's rapid success has had a lot to do with the free, balanced and regularly updated rules and army lists.

It can actually be quite difficult to design a KoW list compared to a warhammer or 40k one simply because there aren't any obvious "best units" or "broken builds/combos".

So instead you have to make a list by thinking about how it is you want to play during the game, and how units will support each other.

And magic items are balanced by all armies having access to them, it is basically a huge list of 80 common items.

A lot of it comes down to Mantic letting the game developers get on with it, whereas with 40k there's a definite "sell the new shinies, nerf the old shinies so people buy more of the other stuff" sales streak running through everything they write, which gets in the way of what could be a much better game. Alessio and Jake both worked for GW, but the work they've done outside of the company has been massively better.

The level ofcommunity interaction is wonderful too, Dreadball is a great example since that has a very passionate fanbase, probably the most vocal one out of any of Mantic's games... not the easiest thing for any game developer to deal with, but as mentioned, Jake put aside both his own opinion that nothing needed fixing *and* put aside his preferred fix for the problem when it wasn't popular and went with something completely different in the end after several months of debate and live playtesting.

Kings of War went through a similar process with the "follow-on" rule... a fix for a problem that caused more problems... which was then fixed properly when it was clear it wasn't the answer. And that wasn't a niche rule, but a core part of the melee rules.

Quite frankly I'm amazed that I'm even interested in a game with a grid system.. but it works because the rules make it work without losing the feel of a wargame. If you'd asked me 2 years ago what I thought of a game with a grid and cards I'd have said "not a proper wargame".

With deadzone and mars attacks, something just clicked... first the LoS rules sounded great, then the reasoning behind d8s sounded great (scatter, random row/column, greater range of stats than d6's) and it all started to look like something I could enjoy,

I'm still unconvinced about card decks, though. Prefer playing dreadball without it, can see myself doing the same with mars attacks. A d8 table could handle things much more easily.

**Yonan**

All sounds pretty great SS. I'm partial to the idea of cards myself but can see why you wouldn't be. Agreed on the grid system. It sounds basic, but if the rules are designed to function with it you get sped up but still solid gameplay which seems to be what Mantic have been going for. This fixes one of the main problems i have with tabletop games - slow and cumbersome rules that impede fun rather than foster it.

The KoW list building sounds much better than the GW enforced style you mention where you're virtually forced to use the OP-to-sell helturkeys if you want to be competitive etc.

**Lord Scythican**

Looky Likey wrote:
Lord Scythican wrote:
So I would really like to get a lot of the Martians, saucers, and robots for a counts as tau army. Do any of you have any suggestions for me that would help in determining what to pledge? I would love to do a $300 pledge but it says it is all gone.

Pledge for Invaders arrive but put the amount you pledge to $300, you can get two sets at that price.

Thanks!

I am probably going to pledge some cash to this. Right now I am thinking these martians might make a cool counts as Necron Army instead of Tau. I am thinking something like this:

Hey everyone, I have been wanting to do a martian themed army for years for some various game or another. After reviewing the KS on Mars Attacks, I am thinking I could make a pretty good counts as Necron Army with some of the martian minis. Anyways here is a rough idea of what I am thinking I could use for a Necron army. What do you all think? Any suggestions?

HQ:
Overlord = General Tor
Imotekh the Stormlord = General Tor Alternate Pose
Vargard Obyron = Martian Dredd
Trazyn the Infinite = General Zar

Troops:
Warriors = Grunts
Deathmarks = Martian Stealth Marines

Elites:
Necron Triarch Stalker = Martian Robot
Necron Lychguard / Triarch Praetorians = Martian Marines
Flayed Ones = Burning Cows? lol

Dedicated Transports:
Necron Night Scythe/Doom Scythe = Martian Flying Saucer
Necron Ghost Ark / Doomsday Ark = Martian Flying Saucer with extra bits?

**scarletsquig**

^ Looks like a good start!

There will mostly likely be giant bugs and zombies coming later on too, so there's your tomb spyders/ wraiths and flayed ones.

Might be some martians in heavy mining gear style armour, too, to fill the immortals slot.

If they get far enough to do the giant flying saucer, you'll have a monolith. That said, the GW monolith might fit in rather nicely regardless, same goes for a lot of the necron constructs, they could pass as the construction of a mad martian scientist.

**GrimDork**

The martians seem like a good base for a lot of armies really. Abundant ranged core troops with leader and heavy, elite generalists, elite melee/stealth unit, a few leader options, fast/aerial support from the saucers, and big stompy elite or heavy giant robots. And the science division now, as well as bugs andmaybe heavily armored martians too. Could see elder necron maybe tau... and of course a warpath army too.

Plus all the skirmish level crossovers.

**Alpharius**

lord_blackfang wrote:
That's a really cute post. And then you roll 2d8 to see where off-table artillery hits and murders everything in a 3x3 area. Which is pretty much analogous to the rain of skulls event card in Dreadfleet that killed it as a tactical game for most people.

Did you get a chance to ask Jake about this one yet?

I'd love to see his rationale/answer on it.

**Compel**

I thought someone mentioned earlier that an answer for it was for it to ensure that forces spread out significantly more, as opposed to clumping together in a death blob.

**Lord Scythican**

scarletsquig wrote:
^ Looks like a good start!

There will mostly likely be giant bugs and zombies coming later on too, so there's your tomb spyders/ wraiths and flayed ones.

Might be some martians in heavy mining gear style armour, too, to fill the immortals slot.

If they get far enough to do the giant flying saucer, you'll have a monolith. That said, the GW monolith might fit in rather nicely regardless, same goes for a lot of the necron constructs, they could pass as the construction of a mad martian scientist.

Thanks for the suggestions too! (BTW thanks for them on the other forum too!)

So this giant saucer...that sounds really cool. I need to find somewhere to suggest it. I would totally do 1 for $50.00 or 3 for $120.00...

**Alpharius**

Compel wrote:
I thought someone mentioned earlier that an answer for it was for it to ensure that forces spread out significantly more, as opposed to clumping together in a death blob.

That still doesn't answer the "In Dreadfleet It Is Awful vs. In Deadzone It Is Great" side of that question though...

**Black Nexus**

New update posted...

Evenin' Invaders!

Let’s get started with today’s update…

Recap: Credit

Each of our main pledge levels contains an amount of credit you can use to spend on Core Add-ons without raising your pledge to get them, and we’ve got a very handy tool in our Pledge Calculator on the front page for keeping track of everything.

One thing we all wanted to introduce – and you’ve been asking for in the comments – is more freebies. Stuff that we just throw in without you having to spend an extra dime.

We like doing deals too, so how could we not do a stretch goal on our way to the Robot? $450,000 is too good a number to miss out on!

So…

HERE WE GO!
$450,000 – FREE UPGRADE Blaine, Tiger Corps Merc

The last Martian died messily. It twisted in the warrior’s grip as it tried to turn towards him, viscera spewing across the alleyway in a gruesome arc. He withdrew his wrist-mounted blade and dropped the corpse; it collapsed next to two of its kin. These aliens didn’t go down easily, but they died all the same. After taking a moment to survey his handiwork he melted into the shadows of a busted-open doorway and reached into one of the inner pouches of his heavyweight coat, pressing the switch that activated his communicator.

“Tiger one, this is Blaine. I’m here.”

Blaine is a badass Kickstarter Exclusive figure whose origins are clouded in mystery.

He’s a special character for us, having concluded our DreadBall Kickstarter, and featured in our Deadzone campaign as a mercenary. Well, now he’s been spotted in Greenville, spearheading the Tiger Corps strike…

If we hit this mini-stretch goal on the way to our Giant Robot, we will produce Blaine – a brand new Kickstarter Exclusive miniature based on the concept art above.

We’ve put together a brand new core expansion set called Martian Mayhem, and if you include it as part of a pledge of The Will of Man ($100 and Early bird) and up, we’ll include Blaine in your pledge at no extra cost!

The new Martian Mayhem set includes a set of Martian Marines ($15), a squad of Stealth Martians ($15) and a Giant Stompy Robot ($30) for $50 – saving you $10 off Kickstarter prices, and $20 off MSRP!

You get $125 worth of Core Add-ons at The Invaders Arrive ($150 and Early Bird), so let's take a look at how you could fill that...

All in all, that means that the total value of your $150 pledge (including the Starter Set, Stretch Goal rewards and the inclusive $125 of Core Add-ons) is worth over $300 when purchased separately at retail.

Not only that but any stretch goals that upgrade any of these kits – like the Patriot’s Prime M7 upgrade – will upgrade those included with your pledge level as well, giving you even more bang for your buck, without spending a penny more!

Of course, if you did want to get more, then there are a number of Core Add-ons and Pledge Boosters on the front page that might interest you!

Remember that you can raise and lower your pledge as many times as you like, simply by clicking the Manage my Pledge button under the main total.
And finally!

Some more goodness for you as Dave has finished painting the Martian with Freeze Ray!

Work has also started on painting our display Saucer and Military Truck kit.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

**NTRabbit**

...and now we know why the 'sweet spot' $150 Invaders pledge came not with $100, or $150. or $130 extra credit, but exactly $125

**scarletsquig**

Quick add-up of the RRP value of that suggested $150 loadout (with all the freebies so far)

$75 - Base Game
$35 - Expansion #1
$65 - Escalation
$70 - Martian Mayhem
$32 - KS Exclusives (3 in the bundles, 1 alt General Tor for pledging before the 27th).

So, $277 RRP worth of stuff total so far in the $150 pledge.

Mantic have mentioned that future freebies will be added to the base pledge levels once they're done completing the core box set (only one character mini left to finish that off).

**Squat Kid**

Overall, you're getting more miniatures than the same pledge level in Deadzone, three of those miniatures being a giant robot, flying saucer and military truck... I can't complain

**lord_blackfang**

Do we know for a fact that the hero with the power club is the last core box upgrade? They've added new silhouettes on the sly to the base set graphic before.

**Squat Kid**

The kickstarter campaign is less than half over, I'm sure there's more they'll add to the "sweet spot" pledge and to the core game

**Zweischneid**

privateer4hire wrote:

Jake wasn't super happy when folks were complaining about some DreadBall rules that weren't working (and the proposed change wasn't being well received either)---BUT he listened. He changed rules that live play was demonstrably showing were problematic.

I give Jake and his partners credit on the rules thing and listening to feedback. If something's broken, let them know and let them know the 'why' and 'what' you're seeing. Chances are good if it's a bona fide beef, Jake'll adjust fire.

Yup. This! Very much so.