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Luke Retallack, host of the World's End Radio podccast, brings his expert miniature knowledge back to the show from down under!

Up first we discuss the various aspects of miniature war gaming, what we look for, and which company does it best. Who, in our opinion, has the best skirmish game? The best vehicles? The best poses?
Later we dive into the hotness that is Malifaux 2e (second edition) from Wyrd Miniatures. What has changed? Is it better and more streamlined?

All that and our other not-too-horrible segments including:


- Total Fan Girl
- Do You Ever Notice
- The Hollywood Minute
- News
- & More

Link to episode:
http://www.thed6generation.com//d6g-ep-137-company-qualities-malifaux-v2-detailed-review

Please let us know what you thought of the show!

Thanks again for having me guys - it was a blast as always!

- Luke

WORLDS COLLIDE!!!

Nice to have my two favorite gaming podcasts merged for this episode. Extra nice to have a Malifaux 2nd edition review in the episode too.

DOUBLE WIN!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They've clarified what will happen with avatars recently.

They're going to end the playtest on Wave 2 models in January and then on February 10th they will release all the official rules for those models via pdf for free. Playtesting for the avatars will then start on February 11th and run until the end of April.

Once everything is finalized they hope to have the printed cards available slightly before Gen Con.

It was good to have a miniatures-focused episode at last after so much boardgaming goodness. I tend to spend a lot more time with miniatures games than board games, so that was appreciated by me.

You asked for some ideas and suggestions to be posted here, so here goes.

A company I was sad to find you missed out in your review was Mantic. I am not sure what your exposure to them is, as they are making it pretty big in the UK now, but are still not so exposed in the US, so maybe they just don't cross your path much? Anyhoo, can I say that for me they have been my number 1 gaming company this year? Don't get me wrong, they are not perfect, but they have had a cracking year with3 excellent kickstarters. Dreadball is now a fully mature and popular game and is becoming insanely popular in the space of "fantasy sports games". Kings of War has ramped up a notch after the kickstarter and has some very nicely crafted minis in the "plastic resin" category now and really is standing on its own two feet rather than being the Warhammer-knock-off somewhat random collection of minis it started as.

And of course just this month we have seen Deadzone land, which personally I think is the best thing to happen to sci-fi gaming in ages - lots of innovation in terms of terrain and components, and the gameplay is absolutely solid. But what really sells it to me is the models - the Rebs faction in particular has a real classic sci-fi vibe to it that is reminiscent of Firefly or Star Wars - a rag tag bunch of aliens and rebel humans fighting back against the Evil Empire. Classic stuff! And the quality of the models is very high, and extremely good given the relatively low price. So if you get a chance to review Deadzone next year, can I suggest you take it? I'm really enjoying everything about it right now, and really it has loads to recommend it. Definitely my personal top score for "best skirmish game" this year.

If you haven't looked at Mantic (http://www manticgames.com) for a while, or had written it off as being only a purveyor of GW-lite minis and games, than can I recommend you look again? They really have notched up a gear or two this year!

I have to add a comment here for small scale models. GHQ. Ok, I had to check that they do have rules (we don't use their rules with their models).

They have best quality metal models for the scale (at least the micro armour). I would say they are quite well on par if not better than Spartan Games (admit here I have none of Spartan models but I have handled them in real life). Also there is practically no issues in using them. I'd say 1 in 5 models have flash. Mold lines, not seen and I have bought some dozen or so blisters. I would like to ask whether any of the three hosts have seen GHQ models?

 Osbad wrote:
A company I was sad to find you missed out in your review was Mantic. I am not sure what your exposure to them is, as they are making it pretty big in the UK now, but are still not so exposed in the US, so maybe they just don't cross your path much? Anyhoo, can I say that for me they have been my number 1 gaming company this year? Don't get me wrong, they are not perfect, but they have had a cracking year with3 excellent kickstarters. Dreadball is now a fully mature and popular game and is becoming insanely popular in the space of "fantasy sports games". Kings of War has ramped up a notch after the kickstarter and has some very nicely crafted minis in the "plastic resin" category now and really is standing on its own two feet rather than being the Warhammer-knock-off somewhat random collection of minis it started as.

The omission of Mantic from the discussion during the Miniature Companies segment was actually intentional on my part at least. In truth, I have had plenty of exposure to Mantic's models, rules and marketing (including the various Kickstarters) and I'm sorry to say that in almost every area I find them to be quite lacking. Certainly not approaching the standard of the other lines that we did discuss. There are some individual models that I'm a fan of - but on the whole the Mantic aesthetic just doesn't do it for me. Obviously I can't speak for Craig & Russ though.

I don't mean to dump on your favourite mini company, but there's always going to be debate about things like this where ultimately there is some subjectivity involved!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it at any rate.

I think the quality of Mantic's minis is what kept them out of the discussion. Over time this may improve, but so far they haven't yet matched the companies that were discussed.

A really enjoyable episode so far, I'm not even all the way through and I'm moved to comment!

Good to hear discussion of a wide variety of companies and their miniatures, but I noticed that you didn't talk too much about Battlefront / Flames of War. Was that for the same reasons that Luke mentioned he didn't talk about Mantic?

Also - how could you mention Dust without talking about FFG's X-Wing - I think it's pretty hard to beat those bad boys straight out of the box.

I would have also enjoyed a discussion of miniatures companies with reference to the scenery they produce - I guess the field isn't that wide, GW and umm.......?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Hazrat

I get that Mantic's minis have been lacking a bit, but they are getting better and better.

What really sets Mantic apart are the RULES. Dreadball is a crazy good game. Easy to learn, hard to master, quick to play. Very robust league and tournament rules.

My Deadzone kickstarter just arrived, and the rules look great - they are by the same author.

On a different note - no love for SAGA? I get that the minis are fairly standard, but again - the gameplay is outstanding.

For me, it's all about the game. Nice minis are nice, but I really prefer a great game over great minis.

Don't worry about raining on my parade. I have been enjoying Mantic, but I'm no fanboi, and it has to be said that Mantic have some very mixed models over the years - they started very well with the plastic Elves and Undead, dipped with the Orx bottomed out with the plastic Goblins, rose a little again with the plastic Basileans, but are still below the likes of GW and Malifaux in terms of quality - although I would argue that the quality required for a skirmish game like Malifaux ahs got to be high - you only buy one of each model after all, whereas the quality for a ranked up big unit army-size game like KoW (which has bigger units even than WFB) does not need to be so high to still be impressive, as you are often building units of 40 or 60 and painting them with pretty basic army-painting techniques such as "the dip", rather than using individual character models and spending hours painting each one. But, that said, judging by the quality of their hard plastic models, I'd totally agree with you.

Also it has to be said that their "restic" formula has still a bit of an issue with mouldlines which are a lot more difficult to remove than for phard plastic or metal. But this is in common with all these plastic/resin type materials in my experience, whatever the manufacturer - even PP and in particular Reaper Bones), and it is my personal experience that the latest restic models (such as their Ogres and Werewolves from the KoW kickstarter, or the new Deadzone minis on my workbench right now) are up their with the industry standard for this material - as good as PP for instance which it comes to sculpts and casting. And their metals are just fine. Up there with any company still making making models such as Reaper I would say. Given of course that they have a distinct style - which tends to be slighter and more "realistic" in scale than the norm for fantasy. See, I personally have sworn never to buy any more PP plastic models. Over this side of the pond, their price really is expensive, and at the end of the day, for me, a plastic model (whether all plastic, or plastic-resin) will always feel like a "cheap" product compared to metal or "real" resin, even if it is sculpted incredibly well (and it has to be said, many PP sculpts these days are getting a bit silly silly looking for my tastes). So if I'm going to end up with something that feels a bit cheap, then I don't want to spend a lot of money on it!

So there are caveats. It is a matter of judgement whether the upside outweighs them. For me, price is a major factor, and you can't argue with that from Mantic. And as blooddave says gameplay for Dreadball, Deadzone and Kings of War are all pretty awesome (although of course, with any game that is a often a matter of personal taste).

However, I would challenge what seems to have become a bit of an easy internet meme that *all* mantic models are nasty, cheap, GW-lite, knock-offs. If you go to their website you will find lots of veyr nice models in there that are up there. Sure it isn't everything, but there are a lot of good things to be found if you look. The odds are improving!

Look at these from Deadzone, for instance:





What really sets Mantic out for me though is their attitude to their customers - they have excellent customer engagement. James Hewitt, Ronnie Renton, Jake Thornton and Alessio Cavatore are never off Youtube or some podcast somewhere, it seems and just witness their recent open day, (there are videos on Beasts of War) and contrast that with the woeful Games Day!

Now, that of course is not something that translates so well across the pond, as no doubt you see similar levels of engagement from the likes of Privateer Press and Wyrd Miniatures at Gencon etc. But this side of the pond, when us repressed Brits only have GW to measure against and a handful of garage companies producing fantasy/sci--fi stuff it pretty much stands out!

Anyhow, having been through Kings of War kickstarter, and the Deadzone one now as well, I can see how some things might grate, so I understand how you may hold them in a less than favourable light. My personal take is that it comes with the nature of a miniature games kickstarter (as opposed to a boardgame or card game one), but I totally accept that YMMV. I had a lot less trouble with them than I did with the Reaper Bones kickstarter for instance.

Which makes me think. Of course you are on the inside of the WWX game, which has also gone through a kickstarter. No doubt once it drops there will be many happy folks, and several disgruntled ones too. It sort of comes with the territory! Something I would love to hear from you and your connections within WWX/Battlefoam would be the inside story of running the kickstarter and the response to the "angry fan" syndrome that often gets an airing through them!

I'm sitting here doing my chores, emptying the cat box, listening to my podcasts. I start this ep up and I'm scooping away and they say "Luke Retallack in the third chair" and I audibly murmur "oh, snap!" and my transformation to utternerd was instantly complete.

Bought the book, Craig. Haven't been able to start reading it yet because I literally started listening to Leviathan Awakes the day it arrived and immediately went onto total 2x speed audiobook cone of silence mode and have nearly cut through book 2 and am now frothing for a new credit to roll in so I can snag the finale, but I'm set to settle in with some pulp and ink. High hopes! I was interested to see the print format for it. Very different from anything I've read. Looks literally ripped off the screen, with the spacing and the paragraph breaks. Is that a thing I've been missing out of print lately?

Thanks for the great feedback everyone!

Mantic: I agree with Luke, I've played many of the Mantic games, including Dreadball, and it hasn't grabbed me. Deadzone does have my interest, I'm watching it very carefully, and I might be picking it up soon. Fingers crossed for awesome!


Terrain: Great category idea! It is mostly GW at the moment, but there are others including Battlefront.

Battlefront: They should have made it into the army scale discussion for sure. That was an oversight!

This show got my interest with mention of Malifaux 2E. I was curious to listen to opinions on the new game. I hadn't played it yet.

It was somewhat annoying that much of the talk of Malifaux early in the show was polluted with bits and pieces of Wild West Exodus talk and comparisons.

The show was fun to listen to, but it was a bit disjointed to skip the WWE parts.

Additionally, as a newcomer to your site, it was difficult to find where the podcast itself is located. It took some searching to find the tiny .mp3 link all the way at the bottom of the post.

EDIT: Watching further into the show, I realized that the actual Malifaux content was later on. The first hour was "Achievements in Gaming".

Hi tre Manor from Red Box Games here....................I just wanted to Thank Craig for his compliments to the Red Box Games line of figures. I AM working on a game for the minis though so who knows what is to come??

Really enjoyed the episode. Luke was a great 3rd chair. I didn't realize what a magpie gamer he was. Really interesting.

4 quick points I wanted to make:
1- The discussion of game companies and their relative proficiencies was really interesting & enjoyable. I don't normally like trying to rate very subjective observations but the conversations were excellent. The tone was really positive and fair, as I really expected this to degenerate into GW vs PP. I think this served as more of an industry survey than a real "winner take all" rating/review. Really liked it.

2- Loved to see you focused back on the miniatures and wargaming. I understand the recent avalanche of boardgame love, but recent focus on Engelstein, Buonocore/Stronghold games is really way out of my area of interest (abstract general-audience games are not my cup of tea).

3- Speaking of my cup of tea, here are some ideas I'd like to see you cover:
* Choosing an army/Choosing a playstyle ( with examples from major game systems)
* Sound tactics for Army Size games ( with examples from major game systems)
* Sound tactics for Skirmish Size games ( with examples from major game systems)
* Terrain & Accessories Revolution (more good choices than ever before. 4Ground, Battlefront, Zuzzy Mats, Antenocitis WOrkshop, Micro Arts Studios, IMEX, Litko, Paper download stuff, etc...)
* Forge world (mysterious, ludicrously expensive, amazing models, controversial even among GW fans)
* WW2 gaming (You'll need a particular 3rd chair for this. Systems: FOW, Bolt action, Force on Force. Manufacturers: Warlord, Black Tree Designs, Artizan etc.)
* FFG and Mantic Games updates (lots coming out I want to know about - Battle Lore 2, Descent Expansions, Deadzone, Warpath)

4- Here are some people I'd love to see in the 3rd chair:
* John B or Luke M from WWPD podcast
* Carl or Geoff from Independent Characters Podcast (Why hasn't this happened yet?)
* More Luke from Worlds End
* Insert FFG staff member here
* Brad Morin, Dave or others from the LRDG Bolt Action podcast
* Tom Grant from I've been diced (while there is lots of hex & counter in his podcast, he discusses FFG [Ameritrash?] games quite often)
* Kip or Tom from the Infinity 0-12 Podcast (perhaps include Romeo?)

Looking forward to the next show, which I hope will have lots of mini-wargaming love!

 Absolutionis wrote:
This show got my interest with mention of Malifaux 2E. I was curious to listen to opinions on the new game. I hadn't played it yet.

It was somewhat annoying that much of the talk of Malifaux early in the show was polluted with bits and pieces of Wild West Exodus talk and comparisons.

The show was fun to listen to, but it was a bit disjointed to skip the WWE parts.

Additionally, as a newcomer to your site, it was difficult to find where the podcast itself is located. It took some searching to find the tiny .mp3 link all the way at the bottom of the post.

EDIT: Watching further into the show, I realized that the actual Malifaux content was later on. The first hour was "Achievements in Gaming".

Howdy Absolutionis: Thanks for giving us a try! The easiest way to listen to a podcast like ours is to click one of the links in the upper right corner of our webpage to use our RSS feed or iTunes. But it can be a bit confusing no doubt, esp to try and listen directly on a computer.

Hopefully you found the dedicated hour long Malifaux segment later in the show to your liking!!

-Russ


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sawtooth wrote:
Really enjoyed the episode. Luke was a great 3rd chair. I didn't realize what a magpie gamer he was. Really interesting.

4 quick points I wanted to make:
1- The discussion of game companies and their relative proficiencies was really interesting & enjoyable. I don't normally like trying to rate very subjective observations but the conversations were excellent. The tone was really positive and fair, as I really expected this to degenerate into GW vs PP. I think this served as more of an industry survey than a real "winner take all" rating/review. Really liked it.

2- Loved to see you focused back on the miniatures and wargaming. I understand the recent avalanche of boardgame love, but recent focus on Engelstein, Buonocore/Stronghold games is really way out of my area of interest (abstract general-audience games are not my cup of tea).

3- Speaking of my cup of tea, here are some ideas I'd like to see you cover:
* Choosing an army/Choosing a playstyle ( with examples from major game systems)
* Sound tactics for Army Size games ( with examples from major game systems)
* Sound tactics for Skirmish Size games ( with examples from major game systems)
* Terrain & Accessories Revolution (more good choices than ever before. 4Ground, Battlefront, Zuzzy Mats, Antenocitis WOrkshop, Micro Arts Studios, IMEX, Litko, Paper download stuff, etc...)
* Forge world (mysterious, ludicrously expensive, amazing models, controversial even among GW fans)
* WW2 gaming (You'll need a particular 3rd chair for this. Systems: FOW, Bolt action, Force on Force. Manufacturers: Warlord, Black Tree Designs, Artizan etc.)
* FFG and Mantic Games updates (lots coming out I want to know about - Battle Lore 2, Descent Expansions, Deadzone, Warpath)

4- Here are some people I'd love to see in the 3rd chair:
* John B or Luke M from WWPD podcast
* Carl or Geoff from Independent Characters Podcast (Why hasn't this happened yet?)
* More Luke from Worlds End
* Insert FFG staff member here
* Brad Morin, Dave or others from the LRDG Bolt Action podcast
* Tom Grant from I've been diced (while there is lots of hex & counter in his podcast, he discusses FFG [Ameritrash?] games quite often)
* Kip or Tom from the Infinity 0-12 Podcast (perhaps include Romeo?)

Looking forward to the next show, which I hope will have lots of mini-wargaming love!

1) Glad this didn't come across as a company bashing segment. We try to stick with "No Hate"

2) You'll love next episode as well then!

3) All fantastic ideas...I've added them to the hopper for future consideration!

4) Also a great pool of candidates!

Thanks for the feedback!

Great episode as usual, guys. I was never all that into Malifaux, but I'm pretty fired up to give it a shot now. Maybe get some use out of these models I never managed to get to the table the first time around.

Craig, I snagged a copy of your book but unfortunately you guys have put me off from reading it by so enthusiastically recommending the James Corey series and now I can't do anything but listen to that until it's done because it's so incredible. Next in the chute, though! Looking forward to it!

Russ, a quick tech question: what program are you using to edit the show?

Fix wrote:
Great episode as usual, guys. I was never all that into Malifaux, but I'm pretty fired up to give it a shot now. Maybe get some use out of these models I never managed to get to the table the first time around.

Craig, I snagged a copy of your book but unfortunately you guys have put me off from reading it by so enthusiastically recommending the James Corey series and now I can't do anything but listen to that until it's done because it's so incredible. Next in the chute, though! Looking forward to it!

Russ, a quick tech question: what program are you using to edit the show?

We use Audacity, a great freeware app.

 RussWakelin wrote:

Fix wrote:
Great episode as usual, guys. I was never all that into Malifaux, but I'm pretty fired up to give it a shot now. Maybe get some use out of these models I never managed to get to the table the first time around.

Craig, I snagged a copy of your book but unfortunately you guys have put me off from reading it by so enthusiastically recommending the James Corey series and now I can't do anything but listen to that until it's done because it's so incredible. Next in the chute, though! Looking forward to it!

Russ, a quick tech question: what program are you using to edit the show?

We use Audacity, a great freeware app.

I ... can't ... avoid ... my ... inner ... comp geek ... It's a great open source app or great free software app, not freeware app .

This was a great show -- a lot of indepth analysis. Definitely going to check out Malifaux. In your discussion of vehicular miniatures, however, I thought Dropzone Commander deserved at least a mention. Here it is in case you're not famlliar with it: http://www.hawkwargames.com/pages/dropzone-commander.

I have to second for Dropzone Commander. The detail on their resin is every bit as good as Spartan Games. The game can be played at different levels from a skirmish level all the way to an army scale game.

Battlefront also makes a great epic scale game Flames of War with both excellent resin vehicle models and now they are getting into plastics both for vehicles and troops..

Though I'm not a fan of Mantic's plastic formula, they have made significant gains in modeling. (an Russ, Dreadball has replaced Bloodbowl for me and Deadzone may be my next Sci-fi skirmish game)

I know you guys really don't play historical games, but Warlord Games is putting out some fine plastics for their Bolt Action, as well as for Black Powder, Pike & Shotte, and Hail Caesar.

Just wanted to express my gratitude for the great last 2 episodes. You guys are doing great and I'm glad you are back to discussing more miniatures games.

I echo your thoughts about watching Deadzone from Mantic. Models look cool, but the rules use true line of sight. Ugh. And I think single d6 dice rules. Double ugh.

It was mentioned briefly by Luke, but what are your thoughts about the Bushido models? They really have grabbed me. http://www.bushido-thegame.com/

Was this just an oversight, or were they considered but not part of the class of models that were discussed?

--Norbert