Mantic Games - Warpath Universe News and Rumours

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**judgedoug**

Polonius wrote:
judgedoug wrote:
So now this thread has devolved into bashing Mantic for an IP that they haven't licensed

For a guy whose panties got incredibly bunched up for me casually insinuating that you were a vocal Mantic supporter, you really do go out of your way to white knight for them.

So now this thread has devolved into Polonius bashing judgedoug for pointing out that people are bashing Mantic for literally things that they have not done

**NTRabbit**

I think I'm going to pull my pledge from the World War Z kickstarter, all the sculpts shown so far are very disappointing, and I'm not confident in the rules.

**judgedoug**

NTRabbit wrote:
I think I'm going to pull my pledge from the World War Z kickstarter, all the sculpts shown so far are very disappointing, and I'm not confident in the rules.

plus MiniatureMarket.com will have it at 50% off on Black Friday, I plan on picking it up plus some more 60% off Dropzone Commander and 40% off Infinity like last year

**Alpharius**

We're all going to need to reign it in a bit and get back on topic here.

**Polonius**

Alpharius wrote:
We're all going to need to reign it in a bit and get back on topic here.

I will say this: I would not want Mantic to get the license to any property I had an emotional stake in. I guess Mars Attacks is a pretty fun game, but from my perspective I've seen the company deliver one solid hit in the Kings of War Rules. Deadzone required extensive changes soon after release and Warpath is on both the fourth and fifth iteration since it sort of debuted. Model-wise, the best of the lot could be considered "good enough for the price."

I like Mantic a lot. I've played in their events, backed their kickstarters, bought their stuff direct from them and at retail. I think you can do some great gaming with their stuff, and they make some things that are good value for the price. But we're long past the point where they are a scrappy underdog, and we're past the point where we need to continually lower our expectations to match whatever Mantic puts out.

So yes, I will be negative about the idea of Mantic adapting a property I'm interested in, because I no longer have reason to trust them. I don't think I'm being irrational, and I don't think I'm "bashing" them to say that they have a wildly erratic quality of rules (with an admittedly high ceiling) and erratic quality models (with a depressing low floor).

**Bombad**

Does Transformers count as post-apocalyptic by now? I think Michael Bay has destroyed almost every major city by now in those movies. I'd even take Noah over WW:Z...

**Baragash**

Polonius wrote:
judgedoug wrote:
So now this thread has devolved into bashing Mantic for an IP that they haven't licensed

For a guy whose panties got incredibly bunched up for me casually insinuating that you were a vocal Mantic supporter, you really do go out of your way to white knight for them.

That's stretching the definition of "white knighting" to..............making up a completely new one

I happen to agree with you about the quality of Mantic's rules out of the gate, but maybe wait until you all know what it is [i]then[i/] you can have your meltdown, or not

**agnosto**

Bombad wrote:
Does Transformers count as post-apocalyptic by now? I think Michael Bay has destroyed almost every major city by now in those movies. I'd even take Noah over WW:Z...

Big stompy robots gets my money every time. If Gundam models ever had a game attached to them my wallet would be in trouble.

**judgedoug**

agnosto wrote:
Bombad wrote:
Does Transformers count as post-apocalyptic by now? I think Michael Bay has destroyed almost every major city by now in those movies. I'd even take Noah over WW:Z...

Big stompy robots gets my money every time. If Gundam models ever had a game attached to them my wallet would be in trouble.

I got tired of there not being a good one so I bought like 25 1/144 one year war mobile suits and collaborated with Manchu on a quick ruleset.
Now to build them...

**Polonius**

Baragash wrote:
I happen to agree with you about the quality of Mantic's rules out of the gate, but maybe wait until you all know what it is [i]then[i/] you can have your meltdown, or not

Do you know what I do know? That Mantic has been sitting on about $300 of mine for over a year, and has neither shipped my KOW pledge, nor have they responded to any of my attempts to contact them.

This is the, what, sixth major kickstarter they've run? And every time, they act shocked that it requires a lot of time and planning to coordinate? I'm frustrated, and annoyed, because with the army I have and the pdf, I'd almost rather have the $300 back than my pledge. But instead I get a brick wall of what I'll laughingly call "customer support."

This is a company that's bush league in nearly everything they do, and its only a matter of time before any given customer gets screwed hard by them.

**agnosto**

judgedoug wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Bombad wrote:
Does Transformers count as post-apocalyptic by now? I think Michael Bay has destroyed almost every major city by now in those movies. I'd even take Noah over WW:Z...

Big stompy robots gets my money every time. If Gundam models ever had a game attached to them my wallet would be in trouble.

I got tired of there not being a good one so I bought like 25 1/144 one year war mobile suits and collaborated with Manchu on a quick ruleset.
Now to build them...

Did you guys put a thread together over it? I'd totally torture my friends into playing something like that.

**Barzam**

agnosto wrote:
judgedoug wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Bombad wrote:
Does Transformers count as post-apocalyptic by now? I think Michael Bay has destroyed almost every major city by now in those movies. I'd even take Noah over WW:Z...

Big stompy robots gets my money every time. If Gundam models ever had a game attached to them my wallet would be in trouble.

I got tired of there not being a good one so I bought like 25 1/144 one year war mobile suits and collaborated with Manchu on a quick ruleset.
Now to build them...

Did you guys put a thread together over it? I'd totally torture my friends into playing something like that.

Yes, please share this. I imagine there could be a lot of abuse though unless you kept it strictly One Year War.

**MLaw**

1/144 stompy robot rules.. if you want, try Gruntz.. Technically 1/100 is 15mm but a lot of people use Gundam and other figures with that set.

As for Mantic.. I try not to get emotionally attached. They know they have to keep their playerbase happy, interested, and relevant. They also are trying somewhat hard to push towards hard sci-fi... if.. you call 80s cartoon designs hard sci-fi.. (I kid they do have "some" nice infantry) I haven't really found any of their rules to be enjoyable even though they are getting traction. The talk about Firefight "sounds" hopeful but so did Warpath when they were talking about it during DZ1.. and DZ sounded awesome when they were describing it. Some people enjoy the mechanics of those games and that's fine, I'm just finding that I don't seem to be among them.
I am not sure why people would get upset about Mantic working on WW:Z. It's not like there aren't a ton of zombie games out there. If you're really into that kind of thing, you probably have found one you can at least stand to play at the moment. If Mantic does NOT pick up the property then who will? We've seen plenty of other companies pick up and either over charge for this type of property or fail on concept. It's a roll of the dice with Mantic. The figures will probably be decent to good and they may end up cranking out a sleeper. They have that capability I think, they just haven't found their big hit yet.

**Alpharius**

judgedoug wrote:
agnosto wrote:
Bombad wrote:
Does Transformers count as post-apocalyptic by now? I think Michael Bay has destroyed almost every major city by now in those movies. I'd even take Noah over WW:Z...

Big stompy robots gets my money every time. If Gundam models ever had a game attached to them my wallet would be in trouble.

I got tired of there not being a good one so I bought like 25 1/144 one year war mobile suits and collaborated with Manchu on a quick ruleset.
Now to build them...

I need to see this ruleset please - ASAP!

(Does it also include rules for infantry, tanks and other vehicles?)

**judgedoug**

Hey guys, regarding the One Year War ruleset -

if you want to message me, i'll send you a link to our playtest copy. (google doc)

It's a d6, vaguely dice pool system, mobile suits only.
I doubt we'll be able to even touch it this year due to other miniatures commitments (look at all the kits I need to build) but I'm hoping to get to testing it out in January.

**Barzam**

Tsk tsk, not a single amphibious suit. You're missing out on Zeon's best weapons! I'll definitely hit you up for those rules. Thanks.

**Talking Banana**

Alpharius wrote:
I need to see this ruleset please - ASAP!

(Does it also include rules for infantry, tanks and other vehicles?)

THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT MANTIC GAMES.
KEEP YOUR POSTS ON TOPIC OR ACTION WILL BE TAKEN.

MY APOLOGIES, ALPHARIUS. I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO THAT.

**GrimDork**

Alpharius wrote:

(Does it also include rules for infantry, tanks and other vehicles?)

If its mecha wouldn't the rule be target an infantry or tank unit, roll any number of dice, regardless of result replace tsnk/infantry with a smoking crater? In the reverse, infantry and tanks can do light damage to mecha by rolling 3 consecutive 6's on a d6

I dunno maybe I never saw some of the older shows, have tanks and infantry ever been effective?

On topic, I'm cautiously optimistic about the IP. If its really cool I'll be on board, if I'm not interested I get to skip pledging.

**pretre**

Vermonter wrote:
Alpharius wrote:
I need to see this ruleset please - ASAP!

(Does it also include rules for infantry, tanks and other vehicles?)

THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT MANTIC GAMES.
KEEP YOUR POSTS ON TOPIC OR ACTION WILL BE TAKEN.

MY APOLOGIES, ALPHARIUS. I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO THAT.

Was thinking this myself. Maybe a new thread and pop the link here?

**Alpharius**

Point taken!

(Also, note added next to certain individuals' entries on The List.)

Back to the regularly scheduled discussion in here, ASAP!

**Theophony**

Alpharius wrote:
Point taken!

(Also, note added next to certain individuals' entries on The List.)

Back to the regularly scheduled discussion in here, ASAP!

Yeah, I won't be lonely on the THE LIST anymore

**scarletsquig**

I played three games of the new Deadzone rules last night, the game is so much more fun without the results of doubles and triples and tons of modifiers to constantly look up, it is stripped right down to the basic things that are good about the game, and is much better for it.

Activation is now one model only, so play passes back and forth very quickly, keeps both players very involved.

Movement, LoS, positioning within cubes is basically the same, only with the speed stat added to ditch all the fast/agile/slow special rules.

Command dice are far better than the old system of cards and command actions (you can actually do things with your commander now, rather than parking them out of sight and using command actions).

Played three games (and two of them were larger 200-pointers) in the space of around 2 1/2 hours. Only would have had time for one game under the old rules.

Going to keep playing it and hopefully will get to balance points values, going to be a lot of work!

Also, the Deadzone RC is writing the campaign rules. This is one area that might actually gain in complexity over the old rules, but it's going to be worth it.

**judgedoug**

One of my usmc buddies and I read over the Warpath 0.2 quick reference sheet, then the pdf last night, and discussed it a bit. Copied and pasted here for anyone interested in seeing what we discovered about the ruleset

Spoiler:

**Mort**

Thanks for sharing, Doug! Interesting comments!

I also watched this last week, and I think it is pretty interesting as well, in case folks haven't seen it. The BoW guy meets up with a Mantic guy to go over the finer points of the latest version of the rules, I believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEbnqW8Rw9k

**edlowe**

scarletsquig wrote:
I played three games of the new Deadzone rules last night, the game is so much more fun without the results of doubles and triples and tons of modifiers to constantly look up, it is stripped right down to the basic things that are good about the game, and is much better for it.

Activation is now one model only, so play passes back and forth very quickly, keeps both players very involved.

Movement, LoS, positioning within cubes is basically the same, only with the speed stat added to ditch all the fast/agile/slow special rules.

Command dice are far better than the old system of cards and command actions (you can actually do things with your commander now, rather than parking them out of sight and using command actions).

Played three games (and two of them were larger 200-pointers) in the space of around 2 1/2 hours. Only would have had time for one game under the old rules.

Going to keep playing it and hopefully will get to balance points values, going to be a lot of work!

Also, the Deadzone RC is writing the campaign rules. This is one area that might actually gain in complexity over the old rules, but it's going to be worth it.

Sounds good squig, shame I didn't go for a physical book with my pledge, any news if there's a new box set coming?

**Mymearan**

Oh man looking forward to DZ2.0 even more now... Didn't buy the rule book from Infestation though, guess I was too cheap!

**edlowe**

Mymearan wrote:
Oh man looking forward to DZ2.0 even more now... Didn't buy the rule book from Infestation though, guess I was too cheap!

did the same thing, just went massive on a veermyn force for warpath (and I hope ff is worth it)

Still got half a room of deadzone scenery to put together plus the secret weapon plastic board (which is sweet) I'm hoping I can drag some people down the local store into deadzone if I paint up a couple of basic forces.

**adamsouza**

Thanks for sharing Doug. That's probably the most I've gotten out of the new rules soo far.

I backed at $1 this time.I have unused LOKA, DEADZONE, and DREADBALL Kickstarter packages on a shelf in my cellar. If I like the rules PDF, I'll just my forces at retail.

**judgedoug**

adamsouza wrote:
Thanks for sharing Doug. That's probably the most I've gotten out of the new rules soo far.

I backed at $1 this time.I have unused LOKA, DEADZONE, and DREADBALL Kickstarter packages on a shelf in my cellar. If I like the rules PDF, I'll just my forces at retail.

I've found it's a lot easier to digest rules when you and a buddy or two are going over them together at the same time, so you can bounce rules concepts off of each other.

**MLaw**

Yeah, I just don't get behind the notion of "in real life ___ "... it's a game, not a simulator. Most of the rest was stuff I had picked up on and isn't my personal cuppa. Unless I missed something, your assumption about Mantic supplying the bases is off. I am fairly certain they said a few times they'll not have any for this.

I think there should be a limiter on how much suppression you can stack on (if there isn't, I don't remember one) based on the type of weapon or other situations. I just can't see someone encased in armor capable of withstanding an orbital drop being phased by small arms fire.