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I quite like those striders - but don't have need of them at the moment. For the most part, Mantic's undead continue to be their best lines, imo.

Started reading the short story they posted. It was pretty good until the word "Dwarves" turned up. And you are told that they have beards and are fantasy dwarves in space. I can't get over that they didn't make the forge fathers more like the Volus in Mass effect. I like the forge father minis, as long as they have masks and you aren't reminded of what they really are.

The battlegroup is still not going to be useful to particularly many players who already have a bunch of zombies; most of us have at least one or two DZ plague starters as well, and probably a plague teraton. Still good value if you don't have any yet but I don't see too many folks deciding it's no longer better to just get a bunch of 20 for $20 3A's.

Adding the 20 for $20 zombies was a nice touch, though.

 jorny wrote:
Started reading the short story they posted. It was pretty good until the word "Dwarves" turned up. And you are told that they have beards and are fantasy dwarves in space. I can't get over that they didn't make the forge fathers more like the Volus in Mass effect. I like the forge father minis, as long as they have masks and you aren't reminded of what they really are.

Precisely why i hate the ff hero fig - he represents most of what i dislike about gw's whfb dwarves.

I will be converting that fig pretty heavily. The rest of the ff guys look fabulous, and i am one of the few who seems to love their vehicles. One fig wont ruin it for me though.

 Da Boss wrote:

Vermyn are a terrible concep as far as I'm concerned

What?

Oh. Carry on.

and the minis look like poop. Urgh. I hate that they're a core race. Space Skaven, did we really need such an unoriginal idea for one of the main factions? The idea of a "vermin" race that's sneaky and adaptable and scavenges tech is not too bad, but to have them be biped mutant rats is...urgh.

Can't disagree. I'm not over the moon about their design and style either. They have the feel of a set of baddies from some 80's - 90's action cartoon. You can see it, can't you? Captain Planet battles Verminous Skumm and his squeaking gang of incompetent Veer-myn. Thinly-disguised homophones slathered with Ks and Ys and extra punctuation everywhere.

Agreed on the rest of the factions too. I could go for some enforcers sometime, but I'm just not champing at the bit for them.

I mean.. seriously. How can anyone complain about any of these 75% full hardplastic deals? They are amazing value and 95% of the minis are top notch.

RoninXiC wrote:
I mean.. seriously. How can anyone complain about any of these 75% full hardplastic deals? They are amazing value and 95% of the minis are top notch.

They're great, but I already own all the old stuff I would ever want. You can't rope me in with more of the same no matter how good a deal it is.

Sure.. but that's like not an argument against the deal.
Best food in the world is worth nothing when I'm already stuffed. Doesnt change anything about the quality of the food.

I'm not sure who exactly is saying that the army deals are just plain bad? I'm with blackfang on this one. The deals are great for newbies or for people who need them to flesh out their DZ squad into a full army. But for people who just want to pick up new things for use in Deadzone, or who already have enough figures from past Deadzone KS campaigns to field a Warpath army, there's little appeal to them. It's not a moral outrage thing, just a practical difference in what various backers are looking for.

I dunno, even with previous Deadzone campaigns, you might still be low on models for use in Warpath. Unless you went completely crazy and got 80+ models for every faction... never got the point in that tbh. Its not a good deal if Im getting 80 for 80 if 20 for 30 is completely sufficient. <.<

I have more of each faction than what comes in the $75 deals. For some reason.

Except the redone plague deal, which might end up being the one I pick in the end if they don't spam any more zombies in it. Swapping some for more 3rd gens was a great move.

 Tyr13 wrote:
I dunno, even with previous Deadzone campaigns, you might still be low on models for use in Warpath. Unless you went completely crazy and got 80+ models for every faction... never got the point in that tbh. Its not a good deal if Im getting 80 for 80 if 20 for 30 is completely sufficient. <.<

To be fair I pretty much did that, I saw it as stocking up for warpath. Theres not much on offer atm that I don't already own buckets of, however I'm still in for an adv. Warefare pledge to get some more Veermyn, I love the space rats

In for a dollar for now, so I can track the updates.

Most likely I'll be getting a 20-for-20 deal on the new Plague Gen3s, and if they do a 2-for-30 deal on the APC/Tank and Dropship I'll probably get one of those deals for each of those.

At the moment, my rules interest is in the mass battle opportunities, and I am not a fan of the current mass-battle ruleset they've got previewed. If they manage to clean it up and remove all the flack slowing it down, I may end up pledging for the rules after all, but for right now I'm in for add-ons and add-ons only.

 Tyr13 wrote:
I dunno, even with previous Deadzone campaigns, you might still be low on models for use in Warpath. Unless you went completely crazy and got 80+ models for every faction... never got the point in that tbh. Its not a good deal if Im getting 80 for 80 if 20 for 30 is completely sufficient. <.<

A lot of people took advantage of the deals during the DeadZone KS to get a start on Warpath armies. They won't necessarily ned the big bundles as they already have the core forces.

Yeah, unless Enforcers or FF are surprise horde armies, I'm fairly certain I have enough for the size games I enjoy. I estimated that my army size would need to be roughly that of a 1750 Space Marine army . That's what I presently own. Unfortunately, not having finalized rules or lists makes it kinda hard to dial it in from there but I certainly don't need full lists of stuff that is already in existence. Had they released some specialists or something we've not really seen yet, then yeah, I'd probably go for that.

I didn't get a chance to get in on the DZ KS, so for folks like me new to Mantic, the current deals seem pretty nice.

But the KS is still pretty fresh - Chances are there will be more cool stuff coming as the weeks roll by, right?

 Alex C wrote:
Lowered my pledge to concentrate on just 2 armies for now. After getting slapped with a duty tax on my DBX/KoW shipment and due to shipping for Warpath being charged after the project rather than being included, I figure I better keep the total low(ish).

Mantic need to get onto local distribution hubs for their kickstarters instead of just shipping everything from HQ in Nottingham. This will probably be my last one from Mantic due to upcoming changes to AU Import Duty that go into place July 2017. Even this one will be sketchy to see if they fully deliver by then. If CMoN can do it, and even a number of smaller companies with boardgames (Journey) that have lots of add-ons can also do it, Mantic should be able to organise something. Of course, using "Mantic" and "organise" in the same sentence might be more than a little hopeful...

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

I think it's largely due to the fact that Warpath is just a 40K alternative while 40K still exists, unlike KoW which replaced the old WFB that GW killed. If you plan on paying Warpath with your existing 40K collection, then all you need are the rules. So, this KS is mainly for those who just want the rules or those who actually want one of the Warpath-specific armies (I, for example, do want a Forge Fathers army).

That was luck and timing. GW hadn't yet taken WHFB out back to put a bullet in its head when the KoW KS was running. The KoW KS (delayed) distribution just happened to be happening when GW pulled AoS out. The KoW campaign was last year.

 Polonius wrote:

I actually think the fact that they're avoiding being not-40k, while a good move, is part of the stall. The only one of the initial armies that has a clear analogue to 40k is the enforcers. Space dwarves, space skaven, and Lost and the Damned are all non-existent in the 40k universe. KoW went out of its way to allow a direct port of WFB armies into KoW, while warpath is being much more coy.

The bigger problem I have is that they left some great stuff on the cutting room floor. You have armies like Corporation and Orx/Marauders, which while a clear 40k analogue, are cool and popular. In Rebs you have an army made up of multiple alien races, plus browncoats. Why are they being given the cold shoulder?

It's a good move in some ways and a bad move in others. As with "Mantica" I don't give two iotas about their not-40k background, so I'm looking for a better ruleset for my 40k models that I can easily slot my models into - and if the Mantic models are good enough, I'll use them too - as I have with Ogres, Undead and others bits and pieces. Basically the same mindset that I have with KoW/WHFB and those models.

I have to say, the changes to the Plague Battlegroup are good to see - and it's good to see Mantic regocnising and responding to their customer base in that way - and good to see that they've stated that the Stage 3s will be properly compatible with the Plague Zombies as well. So I guess you could also mix them in somewhat with the Fantasy Zombies and Ghouls for really ragged additional variations.

 jorny wrote:
Started reading the short story they posted. It was pretty good until the word "Dwarves" turned up. And you are told that they have beards and are fantasy dwarves in space. I can't get over that they didn't make the forge fathers more like the Volus in Mass effect. I like the forge father minis, as long as they have masks and you aren't reminded of what they really are.

They're in a "can't please everyone" situation with the Forge Fathers. I'm not keen on Bearded tanks, but the entirety of my interest in them stems from them being Not-Squats. I'd prefer them less over the top then that silly looking character they previewed with the dogs attached to his face (credit to insaniak for that one).

I really liked the aesthetic that they put together in the Rogue Trader era. They were dwarves in that they were practical, earthy and tough, but they looked like sci-fi soldiers with bikers and engineers rather than Troll Slayers and Longbeards and Hammerers.

New update, a nice simple $5k stretch goal to add heavy weapons and plague dogs to the Stage 3 sprue.

Looks like they're going straight onwards to the 5th faction after this!

I like the art for the corporation.

A lot.

The 3rd gen sprue looks pretty sweet and I wanted more plague hounds for DZ anyway.

Corp doesn't interest me at all, there were plenty of high-tech human grunts kickstarted in the last few years.

While I want Asterians I had to vote GCPS is the vehicles will cover 3 factions

No idea what I want from this Kickstarter. I've enough troops for decent sized Enforcer and Forgefather armies. 20 3rd gens would give me a small Plague army with all the Deadzone troops I have. More tanks I guess!

I really thought a WARPATH KS would really be crushing it - knocking down stretch goals (real and fake) at a breakneck pace!

I really thought WARPATH would be a serious contender/threat to 40K - and of course it may still be!

But so far for me, this KS has been a disappointment.

Warpath has been delayed for a little too long unfortunately. The iron isn't hot anymore, and Antares and Maelstrom's Edge got there first in terms of 40k alternatives.

For the past 4 years, Mantic has been a board game/ skirmish game company, it is only very recently that the refocus on mass battles has happened, Warpath was basically ignored through that entire time period despite being the main thing that everyone wanted from Mantic at the time. And then board games brought in way more money anyway.

I honestly think if the Kickstarter had happened 2-3 years ago it could have hit $2 million. Would have been very exciting, but these days KS fatigue and other issues mean it'll still do very well, just not spectacularly. The backer count and $ total is doing way better than the KoW 2 KS.

They do finally have mass battle rules nailed, though, the current alpha rules are superior to either of the previous two versions of the game, IMO.

I'd expect interest to start picking up more with the retail release, as has happened with KoW, most of the sales there are not going to be KS.

With the hushed rumours of a 40k reboot similar to AoS, Mantic might have the timing just right.

While I think a couple of years ago might have been a better time to run the campaign (I know there was something about it in Autumn '13, after the DZ campaign when there was still a lot of buzz- definitely would have done it then), I'm not sure that even if Mantic had been ready for it, the quality of their minis would have been. I'm a lot more confident to pledge for their hard plastic stuff now than I would have been after the first KoW campaign, for instance. And yeah, I also think a lot of people are just kickstartered out. I'm not really sure that they could do a spectacular, exceed all expectations campaign now even if they pulled out all the stops.

I think Mantic actually said that the way forward for them is smaller, more manageable KSs which means that we're not going to see a Warpath, all factions complete KS here. That said, I think that what this KS is pulling in so far is about in alignment with what they're offering; 4 factions, 1 a human faction that people can buy similar offerings from a dozen companies without waiting a year, the plague, and the other two factions having limited general appeal. For a number of reasons they're not bringing the Orx but that's a missed opportunity because they have character and a direct 40k analog to draw sales from. Nor are they bringing in one of their completely original races which I admit would be more of a gamble but would potentially generate more interest.

The fact is that most people who are interested in the humans or forefathers or even the plague or dwarves probably already own fairly significant forces from the bloated DZ kickstarters (you can play with 10 models so we'll give you 50) so they're just drawing in some new blood for those. At least one new faction would have been smart and I think we'll see a pick-up when they do something with Asterians as I'm sure they will soon.

Edit:
It also doesn't help that they're signaling that they still have no idea which direction they want to take the rules even making fairly major changes after the launch of the KS which can turn some people off of backing. It bugged me that I got the DZ book and then major changes happened a relatively short time later so I basically paid for beta rules.

Edit 2:
Oops. Forgot there are 4 factions.

If says you get a plague dog per sprue, but that you only get 4 plague dogs in the battle group. But I thought it was now 40 3rd gens in the group which sounds like 8 sprues and should have 8 dogs? Hmm.

I didn't want a GCPS redesign but holy crap. I really like that concept art. Only thing I can say that isn't positive is to ask if he looks like that then where did the plague and zombies get their helmets?

GCPS should look like that though, they're supposed to be crack/elite soldiers and not just fodder ike the IG/AM often seem to be.

Grim, I thought the same thing on the dogs, but it looks like it was corrected in the update to 8.

GCPS are just Corp security forces. Never thought there was anything elite about them.

I think Asterians makes more sense at this stage. The Droid/Tank concept art has been going around for a while now, humans already have a faction with the Enforcers and the Corp actually already have plastics (infantry, heavy weapons, marines, strider). Also Mantic said they want to do a Corp vs. Z'zor Deadzone set, so they could do the GCPS at that point. In the meantime, there's tons of sci fi human minis with a similar aesthetic that can stand in until then.

Asterians are currently lacking any kind of plastics, they really need priority imho.

RobertsMinis wrote:No idea what I want from this Kickstarter.

Radical thought: if there's nothing you want, don't throw money at it.

scarletsquig wrote:Warpath has been delayed for a little too long unfortunately. The iron isn't hot anymore, and Antares and Maelstrom's Edge got there first in terms of 40k alternatives.

Much as I've been moaning about this KS, I'd back Warpath before those. (Sorry Dakka) Talk about hot irons? I still have nightmares about the first GoA kickstarter and the back-of-a-school-jotter doodles they had as collateral, before it collapsed and the game went cold a good long while.

agnosto wrote:
It also doesn't help that they're signaling that they still have no idea which direction they want to take the rules even making fairly major changes after the launch of the KS which can turn some people off of backing.

Yup. That's in no way a good thing. (It's almost as if... they consider themselves a model company rather than a game company, or something...) But even so.

 GrimDork wrote:

I didn't want a GCPS redesign but holy crap. I really like that concept art. Only thing I can say that isn't positive is to ask if he looks like that then where did the plague and zombies get their helmets?

GCPS should look like that though, they're supposed to be crack/elite soldiers and not just fodder ike the IG/AM often seem to be.

Unless those guys in the concept art are a specific unit that are more elite, and the 'line troops' of the faction are moreakin to what we've already seen. In 40k terms, perhaps what we're seeing is Stormtroopers to the Corp guys' IG? Which personally I'm hoping for, as while that design is nice, it's nothing particularly new or different (I could find very similar models from Forge World, Anvil, Spartan when their 28mm Halo comes out) while I think the existing Corp guys are a little different.

I'd rather see HP Asterians, though, than another human faction.