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Well, that's an unfortunate sculpt. Thankfully what we've seen of the rest of the GCPS seems to be decent. One out of a pile isn't so bad.

Both of those look bad. And good reinforcement for my avoidance of buying models from Mantic based on the concept art.

Well, that's disappointing.
The issue is less the pose and more her proportions. Her head seems to large, for example.

Is there a link to the rulebook? Does it contain Firefight rules or just "Warpath"?

Just mass battles - Fire Fight will be out next week.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Just mass battles - Fire Fight will be out next week.

Great. Thanks. Are these available publicly?

I'm not sure, sorry. Head to the KS page (link below) and see if you can open the last update. if you can, it's right there. If it's for backers only it will be locked.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/warpath-the-sci-fi-battle-game

 .Mikes. wrote:
I'm not sure, sorry. Head to the KS page (link below) and see if you can open the last update. if you can, it's right there. If it's for backers only it will be locked.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/warpath-the-sci-fi-battle-game

Oh duh... I should have just checked. I wasn't a backer, but I have a ton of Deadzone stuff so I figured I could try out Firefight a bit and see if strikes me. Thanks again!

The general feeling I've seen from non-backers/casually interested people is "The rules seem nice, but why isn't it in 15mm/10mm?", which really sums it all up

To be fair, that could be said for KoW and that works pretty damn well. The sentiment here is a bit less positive, from what I can tell.

Horse for courses, a ranked mass battle game in the style of ancient world blocks and lines is an entirely different thing from battles of the late modern period onward, which is what scifi wargames are based on, hence the lack of positivity in the sentiment.

True. Also maybe an indication this ruleset isn't really likely to catch on. At all.

I think another relevant point is also what people are used to. People are used to larger-scale R&F sword and board games of different scales using models in blocks/on movement trays - from WHFB to Hail Caesar to DBM. Scale doesn't tend to be an issue with people using trays and multibased blocks.

Moderns (including WW2) and Sci-fi games tend to be played with individually based models in 28mm while only smaller scale games of that type (epic, 15mm WW2, etc) get played with unit multibases. This seems to be "Epic in 28mm" only without the titans and large formations of armour.

The thing is, the whole advantage to this sort of unit-based (as opposed to individual model-based) mechanics in a 15mm system is that it gives you much more room on the table to have precisely the meaningful differences in speed and manoeuvrability between infantry and vehicles which in 28mm don't work at all.

To then take those abstractions and slap them on a 28mm range seems like it's missing the point rather a bit.

Fantasy rules like KoW work since in moving formations around like that we generally don't need those huge open spaces to make such a difference work.

I love the way DZC has room for vehicles and infantry to absolutely require each others' support to function in a way that would never be possible in 28mm.
And honestly, I might have even liked warpath if it had just bloody well been 6-15mm ruleset instead - actually making use of the advantages those scales bring to the table.

Not speaking out of any real depth of experience here, but aren't the main advantage of keeping everything 28mm:

1) Big battles look extremely impressive and detailed. At 6-10mm, there are very real detail limits on human-sized models, and it is much harder to get individual variation.

Whether or not you'll actually build & paint armies of that scale is quite another matter, but Mantic has at least made it affordable to do so, and is providing a (theoretically) viable ruleset for those that want to play this way.

2) You don't have to buy, build & paint an entirely different 6-10mm scale army to play this. You *do* have to own a large number of 28mm scale sci-fi models, but I'd wager that a lot of Dakka users do already!

I view this as a healthy option in scaleability, for time, money & table size. You can play anything from skirmish to massive conflicts as your situation suits. But it does depend on the rules being good, which I think is much more important for Mantic than personal taste over scale.

Firefight PDF will be released today for checking. Until then, here's a quick QAndA from facebook.

I'm a much bigger fan of 28mm than of smaller scales. I don't hate smaller ones or anything, I just feel like as amazing as Apocalypse games look, they're much more manageable at smaller scales. Hence, Epic. Not to mention that Apoc ends up being an exercise in setting up all your models at once across from each other, rather than a game where movement and manoeuvre are especially important. As opposed to relative deployment.

Or having both Bolt Action and Flames of War for WWII battles using the two different scales (sub in your own rulesets of choice for the two systems.

I dunno. I'm not particularly interested in the larger scale Warpath. The smaller one could be good.

Whether I play it will also depend on what the next edition of 40k turns out like, as it's too much of a mess of a nightmare to even consider right now unless I want to roll back and play 5th with a bucketful of mods.

Reading the backstory now and i quite like it, blade runner in space with fantasy races



Looks to me that she has an eating disorder, or was she a fashion model for Ralph Lauren before she became a Soldier?

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Reading the backstory now and i quite like it, blade runner in space with fantasy races

Spoiler:

Looks to me that she has an eating disorder, or was she a fashion model for Ralph Lauren before she became a Soldier?

Does the Fluff stat that Loren is a female?
Loren is a common male name in one of those Nordic countries so assumed it was a he.

The description given for the model is female yes.

If the Warpath 2.0 rules work out better for 15mm, that may not necessarily be bad for me at least. I've got a good supply of figures in that scale now and I've been looking for a good set of rules that I can use them with.

Well N117 being a woman was lost somewhere between the kickstarter update that introduced her and the eventual release in DZI, presumably because nobody bothered to tell the book writer, so the same thing happening to Loren isn't too far fetched.

 NTRabbit wrote:
Well N117 being a woman was lost somewhere between the kickstarter update that introduced her and the eventual release in DZI, presumably because nobody bothered to tell the book writer, so the same thing happening to Loren isn't too far fetched.

The problem lies squarely with whoever turned that reasonable concept art into that steaming turd of a sculpt (and further lies with whoever saw the sculpt and said "Yeah, ok then")

The sculpt looks like the sculptor trying hard to make an exact 100% match of the concept art without really considering the overall look. It seems a bit phoned-in compared to the fantastic work on all the other character models (Deadzone v2 was very impressive in terms of sculpts, can't think of a single dud).

It's an okay looking figure regardless, just a touch too truescale and poorly posed (right arm should be straight rather than bent).

 scarletsquig wrote:
The sculpt looks like the sculptor trying hard to make an exact 100% match of the concept art without really considering the overall look. It seems a bit phoned-in compared to the fantastic work on all the other character models (Deadzone v2 was very impressive in terms of sculpts, can't think of a single dud).

It's an okay looking figure regardless, just a touch too truescale and poorly posed (right arm should be straight rather than bent).

I'm very happy with the DZ2 stuff I got, metal cast quality notwithstanding. The sculpts themselves were good across the board.

Loren Chard though could have been so so much better. I'm not sure if the paint job there helps or hinders it either for me as I'm not a fan of that painter's style. But should it happen that at some point I use GCPS in a game of Warpath, and should I need to take Chard, there are some far better models out there, so it's not a big deal in itself that the official model is a mockery of skillful sculpting.

However it's just a massive shame that Mantic keep on doing this. It's even worse that it's not even slightly surprising now that they do, either.

 scarletsquig wrote:
The sculpt looks like the sculptor trying hard to make an exact 100% match of the concept art without really considering the overall look. It seems a bit phoned-in compared to the fantastic work on all the other character models (Deadzone v2 was very impressive in terms of sculpts, can't think of a single dud).

It's an okay looking figure regardless, just a touch too truescale and poorly posed (right arm should be straight rather than bent).

She is wearing baggy outfit and it looks like a tight fit, if the body is like a terminator then it is ok otherwise her arms and legs are too thin.

I'm sure she's not as bad as she looks. She's 'Verbal Kint'ing.

I'm sure she is as bad as she looks, but I'll wait until she arrives to be certain. Going to paint my GCPS as my planetside 2 faction (NC) and the plastics for them look good. Maybe if she really is that bad I can use a plastic trooper with a Statuesque minis female beret head. Hoping that the Firefight rules are tight as having read the new fluff book I still really like the Warpath universe.

Jake Thornton wrote:

Mantic Stuff
I am currently in dispute with Mantic :(

I don't want to discuss details which is why I've not mentioned anything publicly till now. I had hoped to have it sorted months ago. Unfortunately, it's taking a very long time, and until this is resolved I'm not going to be doing any more work for them on any project, new or old.

My apologies to those of you who feel caught in this crossfire. I'd rather not be here either.

Not a huge surprise I think that, "mantic... almost." ends up being a thing with their business dealings as well as their models.

 Compel wrote:

Jake Thornton wrote:

Mantic Stuff
I am currently in dispute with Mantic :(

I don't want to discuss details which is why I've not mentioned anything publicly till now. I had hoped to have it sorted months ago. Unfortunately, it's taking a very long time, and until this is resolved I'm not going to be doing any more work for them on any project, new or old.

My apologies to those of you who feel caught in this crossfire. I'd rather not be here either.

Not a huge surprise I think that, "mantic... almost." ends up being a thing with their business dealings as well as their models.

Maybe they'll get the Rules Committee to take over? They did a great job with Deadzone 2 and KoW.