Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Mantic will be running a world exclusive pre-release demo of their new game system in London next Saturday (12th February). They will also be demoing their game system

More details will be posted on the Dark Sphere home page (www.darksphere.co.uk) throughout the week.

Hi guys,

I can now give you some more details about the day:

11-12 Demo of Mantic's Kings of War miniatures game
12-1 Dwarf King’s Hold: Dead Rising - demo 1
2-4 Kings of War Participation battle
4-5 Dwarf King’s Hold: Dead Rising - demo 2

Some more information about the board game:
"Dwarf King’s Hold: Dead Rising is written by former GW Games Designer Jake Thorton and will see plucky dwarf adventurers take on the evil undead in the dank, deep depths of this dungeon quest board game, complete with highly detailed tiles, plastic figures and several scenarios".

Hopefully see some of you guys on Saturday!

Hope this goes well for you.

..and I hope we see some nice pictures and a report of the day too.

@ Darksphere - And on the subject of pictures have you any of the new stores interior or have I missed them on your site?

yeah,
If it's ok with Dark Sphere I could pop down and take some photos of the demos and the new store.

Panic...

It's fine by us if you want to take photos of the store, I'd just need to check with Chris that you can take photos of the board game mock up but since it's being demoed to the public I shouldn't see why he would have an objection!

Yeah,
So I went to the first Mantic : Dwarf King’s Hold: Dead Rising ; preview demo.

I was disappointed that the demo was run on the game development tiles.
The Tile artwork is still work in progress, but it would have been nice to demo on preview tiles.
The game is still in development so the rules presented will be tweaked before release..
This left the demo with more of a PlayTesting feel to it, and several observations from my game were recorded to report back to Mantic HQ.





---

Models.
I asked what do you get in the box. from memory I believe you get;
10x basic skeletons
10x reavers? (better skeletons)
some undead skeleton dogs.
some catapult crew? (I think the guy said they have bits that let you make unique skeletons)

5 regular dwarfs
5 hammer dwarfs
Some Dwarf mastiffs (can stop piles of bones getting back up)
There was a dwarf king in the demo game I guess you get him too.

---

The game is very fast paced and fun. It strikes me as space hulk in a dungeon; which is no bad thing.

each turn you draw tokens to find out how many actions your side can make during the turn.
In the demo if the dwarfs run out of tokens they lose... This puts a turn limit on the game.
Each model can only recieve one action per turn except Some dwarf tokens marked F.O.A. (follow on actions) which allows a dwarf to make a extra action that turn.
Moving and attacking counts as a single action. which ment for most turns every model gets to move and attack, with some dwarfs being given F.O.A. to move again or attack twice.






You move then attack.
dwarfs move 6 squares. skeletons move 4 squares.
dwarfs have 4 attacks skeletons have 2 attacks
dwarfs have a armour value of 3, skeletons armour value is 2.

Combat in the game is decided by diceing off with a number of dice according to your WS
only the attacker does damage.
Attack dice that roll higher than the AV damage the defender, unless the defenders defence dice rolls equal to or higher than each successful attack.
Dwarfs WS4 vs skeletons WS2

this then hits a number of modifiers.
-1 dice if your injured
-1 dice if your being attacked from behind
-1 dice if your being attacked by multiple enemies

You can gang up and combine attack dice so;
3 skeletons fighting 1 dwarf would roll 6 attack dice (WS2 x3), the dwarf would defend with 3 dice (WS4 -1 for being outnumbered)
2 Dwarfs fighting 1 skeleton would roll 8 attack dice to the skeletons 1 defence dice...

Dwarfs have two wounds.

Skeletons dont have wounds but suffer various results depending on the number of hits it recieves
1 hit - ignored
2 hits - drops to a pile of bones (can get up again next turn for 1 action point)
3 hits - killed

---
I played a demo game against a guy called Kevin.
I was Dwarfs and started at the entrance with 3 warriors, my objective is to save the King in the last room lying on his side.
The undead player gets 10 skeletons.



by fighting at the choke points I held out and reduced kevin to 1 skeleton.


I was on my last turn- running out of tokens - but I drew 3 FOA tokens and just ran through to the last room and saved the king... yayy me!
But it seemed like a weird finish to the game, and probably disappointed Kevin.



---


Tile Design concept images from Beasts of War .
I was told the final version will be full colour with directional lighting effects on thick card.


video on the mantic website




In conclusion.
It seems like you'll get a good amount of stuff in the box.
I have high hopes for this game If they can iron out the bugs in the game.


Panic...

Thanks Panic! Sounds really interesting.

Sounds like it could be fun. I do like the sound of the dogs stopping the skeletons getting back up, that's a nice little touch.

I'll have to keep an eye on this

Thanks for sharing, I'm really looking forward to this one now.

yeah,
O h yeah almost forgot.
I took a couple of shots of the new dark sphere store.
Sorry they came out a little blurry. But they show the new space.




Panic...

Interesting store doesn't seem very big and the game is no different D&D and talisman to me !!!

Davros wrote:Interesting store doesn't seem very big and the game is no different D&D and talisman to me !!!

Not familiar with D&D later than AD&D 2nd edition so can't comment there, but Talisman? It bears absolutely no resemblance at all to that...

Possibly some resemblance to Advanced Heroquest, but that's no bad thing, I'd say...

Looks great and thanks for the photos, store looks interesting as well looks like they have put together a nice little hobby den!

Thanks for the pictures Panic.

Big improvement in the store size over the last one.

@ Slinky - looks more like an unadvanced Advanced Heroquest to me. @ Panic did they indicate that the rules as outlined would be the limit of those included or that there was more in the box. i.e. magic, traps, other bad guys/henchmen?

The shop looks great. Much easier to get to things than the old one

This is very exciting news. I plan to convert to Mantic 100% by the end of this year. I can't wait for their orcs - 15 in a troop box!