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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Technically, Star Trek is a post apocalyptic setting, too. But my money's on Mad Max...as in, I would buy a boardgame plastic Immortan Joe in a heartbeat. Don't know anything about Fallout.

In the thread in News and Rumors, someone had said it was one of two massive post-apoc IPs that has been relevent in the last year, leaving us Mad Max or Fallout.

 Alex C wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
What's in Feb? The new KS? Pledge manager for warpath finally?

Hopefully he means the post-apocalyptic licensed game that is either Mad Max or Fallout

Has this been referenced? I'm very out of the loop.
There was no mention of that setting today in the seminar I attended.

Also interestingly, Mars Attacks got no coverage in the seminar, and was not pushed in the store. Only the base game was on sale. The focus was all on their home grown games.

Btw I'm not blind to the faults of any company, I may be quite sentimentally cheerful about this whole KS thing, but it's mostly because I didn't risk as much as other people. I still got burned. My book box is smashed and gluey, the books inside were torn. My dragon set was incomplete, the cards were wrong with my AC.
But I've had some good times out of it, and I trusted my money to them, and I feel... not awful. That's better than 3/4s of the KS I've backed, depressingly.

Funny, because Scarletsquig confirmed post-apoc in the News and Rumors thread...

Back to being confused...

There can be post apoc AND sci-fi. But they already did terminator.. And AvP.

Trying to think of post apoc sci-fi in the last year....

 Alex C wrote:
Funny, because Scarletsquig confirmed post-apoc in the News and Rumors thread...

Back to being confused...

Okay, to expand, the sci fi title is not the same as the post apoc title.
The post apoc was not common knowledge, if it's true, its a leak from the secret room raffle thing.

I was just reading in another thread about Bethesda having turned down official lisenced miniatures for Fallout, so don't know if that makes it more or less likely? (i.e. they either aren't interested in lisencing out, or they were waiting from a better offer from a bigger company i.e. Mantic, to do a more comprehensive job of it?)

The more I read about this now though the more I think Mad Max.. although I have to wonder would that really be worth $3mil+ as Deadleh was stating in the N&R section, even with the official lisence and Tom Hardy/Charlize Theron miniatures etc?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
"Convincing sculptors" is an "obstacle"? Could you please elaborate on that?
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 Alex C wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
What's in Feb? The new KS? Pledge manager for warpath finally?

Hopefully he means the post-apocalyptic licensed game that is either Mad Max or Fallout

Technically, Star Trek is a post apocalyptic setting, too. But my money's on Mad Max...as in, I would buy a boardgame plastic Immortan Joe in a heartbeat. Don't know anything about Fallout.

To be fair, if they revealed it to be Star Trek having said it was post-apocalypse, there would be a lot of confused faces in the room. As Star Trek is pretty much the exact opposite of Post Apoc by any measure
Perhaps a couple (who could remember was it those couple of episodes of DS9?) would still probably be rolling their eyes.

Mad Max would fit as it would give them a Gorkamorka analogue.

One more off the checklist!

Alex, each Star Trek series mentions the 3rd World War and the "Post Atomic Horror." When we see it in First Contact, the post apocalypse earth looks like a trailer park in Wyoming.




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Anyway, if it is a Mad Max game, will it be 28mm in scale, focusing on the characters? Or will they use smaller miniatures and focus on the cars?

I don't think it's Mad Max.

....I would really really like to be wrong, but I don't think that it is.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Orlanth, to say how you'd have an idea of how it would play,

Where did I say that? The only inkling I got was from the beast of war videos, and didnt see anything for myself until I received my pledge.
You must be misreading me somewhere.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

did Mantic ever put out the rule PDF for perusal? The three playtests we variously attended, we were only working from those photcopied and hand-written notes... And we did get a really good feel as to whether we'd enjoy it. We didn't see a real mini or card tile until maybe a few weeks before release.
It's not the same as having it in hand, I understand that entirely.

IIRC there was only the rough release notes, and I never bothered with those.
I backed because it was a dungeon bash game, based on what I saw available to backers. It looked like a damn good deal, and if the rules sucked it would all become RPG fuel. As it happens the rules don't suck and Dungeon Saga will be used on its own merit.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

As has been said, the core game is fine.
Mantic basically was trying to pull off the workload of a huge company, when they're only a moderately large company. They dropped some balls trying to juggle just that few too many tasks.
The various add-ons, upgrades and exclusives are intermittently flawed, incomplete, misprinted, or misrepresented. However the company is trying to make amends by offering replacements and refunds of the worst offenders.
Basically this was a massive learning curve and has shocked people on both sides, but the game system is solid.

Agreed, there are errors popping up, but nothing too substantial.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

Mantic Things I learned today at the seminar:
They are going to hire a dedicated communication and customer relations person for future KS. They are very well aware things were leaving folks soured.
For the future Kickstarters, they're looking to up staff levels appropriately and make sure the software is foolproof.
They are keen to work on some dungeon furniture packs as a future product line based on the reactions to the plastic scenery. I didn't get the gist of the timescale.
The DS game sold out its entire print run. 18k printed, 6k went to KS, 12k went to stores and preorders.
Ronnie is keen for: There to be foam in the boxes for the expansions. This may not end up being a thing. Plastic fantasy terrain much like the current sci fi range. Convincing sculptors and that it will sell well is the obstacle.

Interesting. I think this will become Mantic's biggest line, it was certainly their biggest KS project.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Alex, each Star Trek series mentions the 3rd World War and the "Post Atomic Horror." When we see it in First Contact, the post apocalypse earth looks like a trailer park in Wyoming.

But has Star Trek been relevent this last calender year? That was one of the clues.

 Alex C wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Alex, each Star Trek series mentions the 3rd World War and the "Post Atomic Horror." When we see it in First Contact, the post apocalypse earth looks like a trailer park in Wyoming.

But has Star Trek been relevent this last calender year? That was one of the clues.

Depends on how you define relevant. Between Axanar, the upcoming Anniversary hype, and the announcement of a new TV show, I'd say so. Anyway, it was not a serious suggestion, so let's not worry about it.

I'm starting to think it must be Fallout, and Mantic will give it the MA treatment, which is probably the best we can hope for.

Apologies Orlanth, I was browsing on mobile without avatars enabled and got you mixed up with Bob. My screen is only wide enough to show the post content at a readable size, or the side bar, so sometimes I get very confused.

Though my question was the same - (did they allow folk any real idea of content?) - sounds like errr, sort of? :/ Oh dear.

I will say this about the secret license... If you are lucky enough to find out what it is through someone being loose lipped, please be very careful. It's not about winning bets or spoiling surprises, it's about potentially voiding an agreement for Mantic which means none of us benefit.
This already happened for me today (two separate sources, same license name), and it leaves me unable to comment on the subject and kinda sad that I can't do guessy-guessy with everyone else. I hope, I really hope, that it stays under wraps long enough not to get anyone in legal bother.

To be fair, I also hate knowing what my christmas presents are in advance.

Is Fallout the franchise with that cartoon blond boy, head crabs and "pick up that can"? If so, it has quite some cultural penetration, beyond even Halo or Mass Effect, based on how many references I see and hear for it in my non-video gaming circle.

Half life is the one with head crabs.

Fallout does have a blond cartoon character used frequently in illustrations for the game, vault boy.

I'm missing the can reference though.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is Fallout the franchise with that cartoon blond boy, head crabs and "pick up that can"? If so, it has quite some cultural penetration, beyond even Halo or Mass Effect, based on how many references I see and hear for it in my non-video gaming circle.

Vault Boy (blue jumpsuit. cheesy grin) is Fallout. Pick up that Can is a tutorial in Half Life.

I think what's worth considering, is "What titles would also sell in a board/game store?"
Many titles could sell as a board game. But could it sell well? Would parents pick it up for family members unbidden?

GoT was given as an example in the N&R topic, that is something that has multi level reach beyond gamers. I believe it has a board or card game already.

The cartoon blond boy, (Vault Boy), - yes, that's the one.


Head crabs and 'pick up that can, citizen' would refer to The Half Life game series from Valve. Specifically, Half Life 2.

Half Life 2 is post Apocalyptic (Half Life 1 was more alien invasion as it happened). But, it's also basically been a dead franchise for the last 8 years.

It could be Falling Skies, but that show is finished now and I don't think was ever 'that' popular.

The Walking Dead, Fantasy Flight holds some licenses to it so I imagine that they'd be more likely to do something than Mantic.

Mad Max, well, that seems likely to me. - Fury Road was a bit of a 'sleeper hit' in the summer. When it was released, it was not particularly heavily advertised but grew massively due to word of mouth and is overall well thought of but didn't really have the 'huge' blockbuster bucks thrown at it (I imagine the sequel will though).

You have a large variety of vehicles at 28mm, which Mantic have done successfully before, people crying out for 'more' Mad Max. - The obvious Gorkamorka analogues too (lets face it, Gorkamorka was Mad Max with orks, so it makes sense to do Mad Max.)

Fallout game would be great. A mad mac game would be cooler. No one has made an official mad max game with official classic muscle vehiclea yet.

I have seen several car war type games but no one has done the game perfect yet.

Falling skies and half life aren't popular enough and are just meh.

The walking dead would be great if the minis are realistic 28mm or 32 mm. This would make a great coop type game.

Looking at those vehicles being previewed for Warpath it would seem Mantic are definitely getting going with that side of things.

That might make Mad Max a better fit..

Let's be honest, we were all secretly hoping it would be Iron Sky.

Should I be concerned I haven't received my core copy of Dungeon Saga yet?

Not considered late until December 7th. They just started going out in the US last Monday. Living within 5 or so hours of Chicago I'm hoping to see mine sometime this week, though turkey day shipping shenanigans may slow things up a bit.

Ok, cool. Sounds good!

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Let's be honest, we were all secretly hoping it would be Iron Sky.

I'm not sure how that movie went so badly so quickly. Anyway, DFG and DUST have my space nazi needs met.

This is pretty cool, the original piece of Dungeon Saga artwork for sale by the artist.

Yours for a cool £3394

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/236579478/dungeon-saga?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_uk_en_gb_a-art_and_collectibles-painting-other&utm_custom1=07d3b514-3924-4299-ad6d-e1da1aa47307&gclid=CI72mqbWp8kCFaXnwgod-rELsA

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Funny, because Scarletsquig confirmed post-apoc in the News and Rumors thread...

Back to being confused...

Okay, to expand, the sci fi title is not the same as the post apoc title.
The post apoc was not common knowledge, if it's true, its a leak from the secret room raffle thing.

Ronnie Renton posted the post-apoc hint at the end of the last update of the Warpath Kickstarter. Public knowledge for a long time, and accurate.

 Compel wrote:

Wow, those really are terrible. I hadn't seen them before due to not ordering them.

 Da Boss wrote:
I'm sort of in the same boat as Buttery. But I think that's because I was happy enough with the base game and missions, and the expansions.

All the extra stuff (invisible overlord, uncharted dungeon, all that) was just some extra gravy for me, that wasn't core to my engagement with the product. So the adventurers companion was not very important to me.

If it was, and if those sections of the rules were a core part of what you were interested in, then I can totally see being pissed off.

For me, the game delivered on-
Minis - 102 minis, all pretty nice quality, for a decent price. Now that I am becoming an old far, I like resilient boardgame minis that can take some abuse. These fit the bill and they are lovely to paint.
Accessories - the furniture and doors are lovely pieces and will get used by me in D'n'D games as well as DS.
Core rules/missions - fast playing, reasonably balanced, good fun. That's what I wanted.

The card components aren't of the highest quality (the dungeon tiles are good enough, but the cards are very flimsy in my opinion) but they serve their purpose.
It sucks that Mantic lured people in by over promising on the adventurer's companion rules. I was expecting a much chunkier hardback full of content.
But the other goodness overshadows that failure, for me.

At this point I only have the extras, and they are a pretty big disappointment so far. Including the minis, as I have a good number of them either mangled or broken, and more than half at minimum are warped. Nice sculpts on poor quality figures, and that's with the "boardgame figures, not miniatures" caveat. Or perhaps they would be decent but corners were clearly cut/QA was poor. Also not counting my missing stuff, because that's par for the course with Mantic.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
So.. this is your only Mantic product so far. So while I'm very happy for your positive experience, I've backed a fair few at this point and have a decent amount of first hand experience with Mantic's Kickstarters.
I've found their record appalling for competent delivery, average for component quality, wildly inconsistent levels of customer service (I'm at over 2 months now waiting on some replacement items), and spotty rules development.

They are getting better and you are getting jaded. Yes my experience is overall positive, but were I a repeat customer I would take each experience in separation. After all you came back for more, and no one forced you to, so you should look at this project in isolation.

I'm getting over Mantic, rather than simply jaded. Only a fethwit would look at each project from the same company in isolation. I wouldn't have backed this one, but I was hopeful for the HeroQuest thing, and was willing to give them a chance on it. At this stage I can safely say that I've learned my lesson, as I have no trust in Mantic to become competent, despite the latest round of Ronnie promising to do better "next time". Because that's happened more than once before as well and you can only mea culpa so many times before it becomes a bit meaningless. I believe I've seen all of these things promised before:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

Mantic Things I learned today at the seminar:
They are going to hire a dedicated communication and customer relations person for future KS. They are very well aware things were leaving folks soured.
For the future Kickstarters, they're looking to up staff levels appropriately and make sure the software is foolproof.

And, you know - put out the fething rules PDF before publishing it so the community can proofread them for you if you've proven that you can't do it yourself. Especially for a boardgame as opposed to a wargame. (Also far from a Mantic-only issue)

 Azazelx wrote:

BTW, it's probably better if you don't go on about how everything is the fault of the ebil Chinese Factories as you did while carrying water for Games and Gears. Mantic have been doing this for quite awhile now, as have CMoN - and the difference is chalk and cheese.

Actually I ought to. Chinese outsourcing burned Catalyst Labs fingers badly and killed Rackham and iKore. Some companies do ok, others less so.

Uh, yeah. It was the Chinese who killed Rackham. Uh huh. fuuuuuuu....

 Azazelx wrote:

FYI, they haven't done jack gak for AU as far as customs goes, as with the current laws, we have a AU$1k threshold - so there's actually no duty to be paid anyway unlike your own VAT situation. It's fine by me that they've been attempting to reduce their shipping costs (though we paid through the nose for it) but it's got nothing to do with customs, tax, or benefiting AU backers.

So it looks like there ought to be no complaint either. You cant ship across the planet without incurring costs. We don't have teleporters yet.
I am sure I will suffer badly if I back and Australian games company.

Ahem. You were the one talking about how they went out of their way to help Australian backers by being "customs friendly". I simply pointed out that you did not fully understand what you were talking about, and so your point there was and remains moot. Thanks for playing, though.
Now you're attempting to justify them asking for more shipping money to fix their own fuckup. Sorry, that's not how customer service works for big boy companies. I believe they made this choice so as to discourage many people from actualy getting the books, as the customers will have to pay more.

 Azazelx wrote:

While I'm not planning to marry CMoN at any stage, I'd rather go with selected CMoN boardgame products as they are at this point in time far more professionally produced in terms of product, care, packaging, component quality, etc - while being just as complex in terms of "optional add-ons". So as I've said. I'd love to see CMoN's take on a cooperative dungeon crawler boardgame (with campaign system) because I've been burned enough times by Mantic.

Here is the rub, I backed B-Sieged and I am hearing a lot of moaning about CMoN and their tardiness and customer service. For pretty much the same reasons as you made for Mantic. So its all about everyone individual mileage, and unless you get very unlucky and have a trashed or missing delivery box or a mispick or some such its simply a choice to see the glass half full or half empty. I choose the former from the same info. I could have chosen to get upset over the book, or the bad factory assembled dragon I received. In fact I did complain, but wrote such a light hearted email it got priority attention, which was unexpected.

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly.

Looked at those "bases"? Acrylic counters? Changes from Skull to Heart-counters? Pay for a printed book? Expect the Adventurer's companion to resemble the huge tome they used to advertise it? As you seem to have (later) acknowledged those issues, you may wish to revise your statement above.

CMoN ships their expansions in retail packaging, rules are checked and proofed, and components are of a consistent excellent quality. They've come along in leaps and bounds since Sedition Wars. And barring mispacks or your box getting lost/smashed by the post, their projects have been very light on legitimate complaints. People in the Zombicide BP comments are crying because the figures are in brown plastic instead of multicoloured like S1-3, and I can respect that coloured tokens are much easier for boardgamers and people who will never paint their models to use, but if you compare that to the component issues we have here....

ced has the right idea. Mantic is probably going to be a Black Friday company for me in terms of their KS products, as they have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted to follow through on their promises. An embyonic form of Peter Molyneux syndrome, perhaps? The info from the sculptor who posted here awhile back certainly doesn't help... And they really need to stop promising printed books at this stage...

Those trap tokens . It is a real shame that Mantic continue to let issues of quality control and customer service damage their brand and turn people away from them. Overall I have seen a lot of positive praise for DS but one look at the KS comments shows that a number of vocal backers are very unhappy at the moment. This seems to be mainly from those (in the US especially) that have yet to get their packages or are just plain angered by the quality/minimal size of the adventurer book and extras and a perceived "hiding their head in the sand" by Mantic.

It is just a shame that these issues seem to hinder Mantic, who are already a big player in the industry, from reaching the next level. I just hope that the new big IP they have brings with it a closer attention to detail and improved quality control.

Have ordered DS, £43 inc. free P&P from Firestorm Games here in the UK.

From reading reviews of the gameplay I'm hoping for a few (maybe more, if it's fun) games with some friends with dwarf, barbarian et al tromping around a dungeon. For me, that's a really reasonable price. I'm not expecting it to set the world on fire, although on that score I guess that's the difference between spending £40 on something and hundreds (which it is very easy to do with a KS)

That is a good price Pacific. Took a look at their website. The Adventurers Companion is a good buy to add on, forget the rest if I were you.


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 Azazelx wrote:


Uh, yeah. It was the Chinese who killed Rackham. Uh huh. fuuuuuuu....

Yes. Rackham made AT-43 and Confrontation Age of Ragnarok. Both games had potential, however stock imports from China were extreemly haphazard. They had no stock availability on basic lines for months at a time, when core items were plain unavailable the game was killed.

Imagine Gw outsourced and was told, 'no space marines until six months time', then after six months, 'perhaps space marines in another ix months'. The outsourced manufacturer doesn't give a gak, so long as they are paid, which is done upfront to get any work done.

 Azazelx wrote:

Looked at those "bases"? Acrylic counters? Changes from Skull to Heart-counters? Pay for a printed book? Expect the Adventurer's companion to resemble the huge tome they used to advertise it? As you seem to have (later) acknowledged those issues, you may wish to revise your statement above.

I acknowledged those issues from the outset, and have some misgivings, but the core product we backed for is just fine and a good value for what we paid for.
I am a glass half full backer, rather than a glass thrown at wall in tantrum backer.