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 Manchu wrote:
Anyone know anything about upcoming Deadzone releases?

I am seeing retailers taking pre-orders for:

- Clade Warriors Starter (Cypher Prime, 6x Cyphers, 5x Marionettes, Support Drone)

- Clade Veterans Booster (Shuuvatar, 3x Black Talons)

- Matsudan House Conclave Starter (Gyoji, 6x Matsudan, 5x Hainawa Marionettes, Support Drone)

- Matsudan Wanderers Booster (Ronin, Gravbike, 2x Crocodogs)

- Matsudan Daidarabotchi Booster (some kind of mech?)

- Kalyshi Booster (Deathstrike, 3x Kalyshi)

- Nightstalkers Starter (Banshee, 3x Butchers, 5x Scarecrows)

- Nightmare Incursion Booster (Horror, 3x Luctus Void Rays, 5x Reapers)

- Interdimensional Horrors Booster (Dread Ravager, Mind Screech, Fleshripper Butcher)

I know nothing about these. Where did you find it?

Haven't heard anything outside Nightstalkers getting rules for Deadzone

that they update the Asterian and Matsudan boxes witht he new models was expected
Resin upgrades for Marionettes (I used Puppteswar Bushi/Samurai bits in the past) and a new Mech are unexpected but welcomed addition

not sure what is with the Kalyshi but I guess a re-design as the previous metal designs did not work well with resin (but here I see the plastic Twilight Kin as the better option aynway)

PS: for the general design in Warpath/Nightstalkers, I like the overal look if it and always thought the Reapers fit better in a SciFi setting than the fantasy one

they are also focusing less on human based looks of models and try to be different which is I guess what some people don't like (specially when talking about bad proportions of alien models, were not looking like a human is a feature not a bug)

they made some bad decisions in the past and good designs were hindered by bad casting, which now should be solved by having a proper partner for making the models

I am really curious about when or whether Rebs and Veer-Myn Volt Runners will return to Deadzone.

I’m not too interested in Nightstalkers. I really hated the scarecrows when I came across then for KoW Vanguard. The rest of the line doesn’t hook me much.

But I love Asterians and Matsudan. Having new plastic Cyphers is amazing. Same for plastic Matsudan.

Also don’t overlook the Matsudan gravbike and crocodogs above!

Volt Chasers are available as STL via Vault or MyMiniFactory

Rebs is a big unkown with the last thing I heard was they want to but are not sure how

 insaniak wrote:

 Zethnar wrote:
... and aiming for it is probably driving away more customers than it's pulling in.

I'm curious as to how you would arrive at that conclusion, honestly.

Mantic might still be in business but the major complaint you hear any time you mention their products is that the models just aren't very good. This isn't some "I bought a box of Enforcers and didn't like the way the arms fit into the shoulders" kind of complaint either, this is mostly just the take on their aesthetic from people who have never purchased a product from them.

So yeah, I guess there's a market for the saturday morning cartoon style sci-fi they produce because someone is keeping them in business, but honestly, I've never personally seen one of their games out in the wild unless it's been me playing it, while I tend to otherwise see a lot of Star Wars, Warmachine, and Bolt Action, other games that would ostensibly occupy the same "more popular but not 40k niche".

That's your perception and what we perceive has usually little to do with state of things.
Mantic's products are improving and their last plastic kits are good, well sculpted and easy to build. And are relatively cheap.
And please remember that a giant like GW is still selling miniatures that are 20 years old (yes, I am thinking about Tow and especially ME:SBG that is their best game hand down).
Moreover Mantic ruleset are usually good, not perfect for sure but good (ask Kow players, that game is probably the most balanced game out there in rank'n'file niche AND is fast and fun)

Yeah, I mean, why would anyone buy the rereleased Old World goblins when the superior and cheaper(?) mantic goblins exist? Mantic does have great kits and apparently great rules, I feel they're not good at presentation of their products and their factions often lack a coherent Design.

They had good art direction in their middle era, in the time of KoW 2 and Warpath kickstarters, then they pivoted towards World of Warcraft style.

Johanxp wrote:
That's your perception and what we perceive has usually little to do with state of things.
Mantic's products are improving and their last plastic kits are good, well sculpted and easy to build. And are relatively cheap.
And please remember that a giant like GW is still selling miniatures that are 20 years old (yes, I am thinking about Tow and especially ME:SBG that is their best game hand down).
Moreover Mantic ruleset are usually good, not perfect for sure but good (ask Kow players, that game is probably the most balanced game out there in rank'n'file niche AND is fast and fun)

This is my general perception of Mantic too. The games, miniatures, designs and scope have all been improving steadily.

I have read comments very similar to Zethnar's for at least the past 7-8 years. Mantic are trying to do something extremely difficult, which is to survive in an industry utterly dominated by one very large company, but they keep plugging at it and so far I think they are doing a damned good job.

The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.

40k is huge, AOS is pretty big, but it seems there are enough people playing a few other fantasy/SF games that in my local area I've found one person who plays semi-regularly.

Maybe Halo will fix this?

 mattl wrote:
The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.

You up in the Northeast US? There are a bunch of us playing Kings up here, big events every few months and looks like we might have some single-dayers happening too. July 13 is a 1500 pointer in Springfield, MA, for example ...

But if you're talking about not-Kings, I got nothing. Any non-Kings Mantic I've played has been with my KOW club.

Well, locally we had 3 people buying into Legions Imperialis and 8 into Epic Warpath.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
They had good art direction in their middle era, in the time of KoW 2 and Warpath kickstarters, then they pivoted towards World of Warcraft style.

Sometimes I think I'm the only person who actually loved Mantic's Warcraft Orcs.

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 mattl wrote:
The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.

You up in the Northeast US? There are a bunch of us playing Kings up here, big events every few months and looks like we might have some single-dayers happening too. July 13 is a 1500 pointer in Springfield, MA, for example ...

But if you're talking about not-Kings, I got nothing. Any non-Kings Mantic I've played has been with my KOW club.

Nice. Springfield is far for me but others in the group may be interested. We recently started a Discord for all things Mantic in the New England area.

https://discord.gg/sk2P6MERM5

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well, locally we had 3 people buying into Legions Imperialis and 8 into Epic Warpath.

Yes, four in my group bought Epic Warpath, only 2 of us Imperialis -- and I just sold my LI.

For what it's worth, I'm in New Hampshire. No one around here seems to be playing anything Mantic, but that's just my immediate area; I can't speak for the whole state. Locally I've only seen people playing role-playing games and 40K.

Fantasy and mass army battles aren't my thing, but I have plenty of Deadzone stuff, and if anyone around is doing that, I'd be interested. I will check out that New England Discord. I might be interested in Halo, but it's a bit hard to get excited about buying into that when I have enough Deadzone models to play any faction. (Not that they're all built and painted yet, mind . . .)

Technically speaking, are Mantic games "Miniatures Agnostic" like Frostgrave and Stargrave? (Meaning they officially don't care what miniatures you use?) Just curious. As I said, I've supported Mantic plenty over the years and have many of their models.

As for whether Mantic is always getting better, that's a complex question and to some degree a matter of taste. The original Deadzone kickstarter got me back into the miiatures hobby, and I'll always have a fond association with Mantic because of that, so I'm definitely not a "hater." But these days I've gravitated towards the "Oldhammer" part of the spectrum, and Mantic's golden era of hand-sculpted models has passed. (I'm not saying I loved all of them - there certainly were a number of turkeys - but I liked a lot of them.) Mantic is also moving away from PVC models now. I know a lot of people can't stand PVC, but the lower cost barrier of casting PVC allowed Mantic to make a lot of creative one-off sculpts, which is why their catalogue is so rich with unique sci-fi aliens, among other things. It's also why they're finding it so hard to do a new iteration of the Rebs, because making polystyrene sprues for 6 to 7 completely different alien types is cost prohibitive. This is also why the new polystyrene Cyphers come in much fewer poses than the old PVC ones did.

The new Cyphers are a good illustration of why saying Mantic is just "getting better" across the board is subjective. The PVC Cyphers were a bitch to clean the mold lines from, absolutely, and the new ones will be much easier to clean and assemble. Whether that makes them better than the old ones depends on what you value more, pose variety or ease of working with the material, so it comes down to your personal preferences.

There are two areas where I think Mantic has clearly advanced, but I admit that the first one is an educated guess on my part. Given that there's now a team of people dedicated to Mantic's games who vet, playtest, and upgrade the rules, I strongly suspect that Mantic's game rules have improved. I just have to admit that I haven't tested those improved rule systems yet myself.

Second, the use of Archon to make their hard plastics instead of various Chinese companies has been a dramatic improvement. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but having followed Mantic for a long time, the Archon-produced Reapers were the first Mantic kit I'd seen that were fully and unequivocally equal to Games Workshop in quality (crispness, detail, etc.) There are other, Chinese-made Mantic plastic kits that I like and use, like their space Zombies, but if I'm honest, they don't match GW's level of quality.

But here's the thing - there is no guarantee that Mantic will stay with Archon in the future, fulfilling a "better and better" upward curve. If Archon decides to devote all of their casting resources to some new in-house project, that's it. Or if Archon decides to raise their prices above what Mantic is willing to pay, then Mantic will probably go back to using Chinese manufacturers again. If that happens, I expect that the quality of Mantic's plastic kits will once again vary from release to release, as they have in the past.

I'm not saying any of the above to root for Mantic's downfall. On the contrary, I hope they continue their partnership with Archon well into the future and produce lots of kits that are, in my opinion, truly on par with the best that GW has to offer. But realistically, how long that partnership continues depends on factors that Mantic doesn't completely control, so who knows?

 mattl wrote:
The hardest part about Mantic games is finding people to play them.

That's the same for any non GW game. Some areas have a scene, most don't. I used to be able to get an Infinity game easy as, now I'd have to drive for an hour. On the other hand a few years ago Bolt action was unheard of here, now it's the second most played game a my club.

If you want opponents to play most games you unfortunately usually have to work at it yourself.

Yeah I would like to see it happen but there are a nice variety of Mantic games which is great but you have some people who don’t want to play KoW, others only want to play KoW and then the upcoming Halo game will do well but I don’t know how well it’ll convert players to any other Mantic games.

My enthusiasm for assembling and painting anything is low because I struggle to think it’ll ever see any play. I’d like to focus on just getting a single Kings of War army together but the small local community here wants to play Kings of War and Vanguard and Firefight and Deadzone and Armada and Epic Warpath and Halo… but there’s about as many people as game systems at that point.

Local stores have struggled to get Mantic stuff in stock and it doesn’t seem to help when they do. I bought a few Ambush starters for KoW to try and show some support.

Another year will go by and I’ll have played 0 games of anything again. It’s hard to really justify this as my hobby beyond buying stuff and looking at it at this point. It doesn’t help that New England weather is either too hot or too cold either.

I’m honestly thinking I should focus on AoS Spearhead if I want to actually play something, anything. I’ll see how that goes after launch.

 Talking Banana wrote:

Technically speaking, are Mantic games "Miniatures Agnostic" like Frostgrave and Stargrave? (Meaning they officially don't care what miniatures you use?) Just curious.

like in official Kings of War tournaments, non-Mantic is allowed, you are just excluded from best painted prices as this is labeled as best painted Mantic army

on the other side, the rules are sold independent from the models and include models Mantic does not make, so conversions and alternatives are a thing anyway
(with the new version of FireFight they go a different way here as there are only available models in the lists, which was also something people saw as a disadvantage in the past if not everything got an official model)

First public update from the Epic Warpath rules committee.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manticgames/warpath-the-game-of-epic-scale-sci-fi-warfare/posts/4139196

 kodos wrote:

 Talking Banana wrote:

Technically speaking, are Mantic games "Miniatures Agnostic" like Frostgrave and Stargrave? (Meaning they officially don't care what miniatures you use?) Just curious.

like in official Kings of War tournaments, non-Mantic is allowed, you are just excluded from best painted prices as this is labeled as best painted Mantic army
)

I think there was the additional rule that any army could win the tournament but only a Mantic Army could advance to the final Championships in the UK.

Honestly, that feels fair enough for an official Mantic championship

I think the rules for minimum model count are greater at official tournaments too.

not really, like the CoK Uk has "base must look full" requirement for model count

 mattl wrote:
I think the rules for minimum model count are greater at official tournaments too.

IIRC, and with the caveat that I haven't had time to pay proper attention this edition (or any wargaming), Mantic dropped MMC from the official terminology so PMC became the official minimum (is that MMC = previous size +1 model vs PMC = 75% of correct size, I forget and I'm at work?), but in the KoW wider community mostly accepts MMC.

My personal rule is "If an ogre can walk through your regiment without bumping into anyone you don't have enough models"

A lot comes down to the Event/Tournie organiser anyway doesn't it. I've seen everything from an army comprised of movement trays being acceptable at a WHFB event to ones insisting on 3/4 colour minimum and absolute WYSIWYG.

The guys who run Mantic seem pretty relaxed and with a sense of humour (and probably don't have the luxury of enforcing strict rules around minis) so I'm sure if your miniatures and collection are a fair stab at whatever they are meant to represent it shouldn't matter.

 Pacific wrote:
I'm sure if your miniatures and collection are a fair stab at whatever they are meant to represent it shouldn't matter.

The slowly tightening rules are there exactly because some folks don't do a fair stab unless forced to. The last push I remember was because folks were bringing Kinder egg toys and dollar store dinosaurs without even going over the original paint.

Not to steer the conversation away from KoW in the Warpath universe thread but there's a new update with faction playstyles.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manticgames/warpath-the-game-of-epic-scale-sci-fi-warfare/posts/4139196

New concepts for various Super-Heavies

GCPS Super-Heavy Walker (Concept Preview)


Marauders Ripper Mech


Nameless Super-Heavy #1: the Psychomolsc (Concept Preview)


Nameless Super-Heavy #1: the Latropod (Concept Preview)

Beautiful art!

Does that first mech look any less of a Battletech mech? I'm not an expert there, but nearly all giant, bi-pedal walkers look like something from Battletech to me...