Mantic Games

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KrakaJak

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I started looking into Mantic Games again with the Hellboy RPG kickstarter.

I first heard of them when they launched what were basically 3rd party, cheap-o Warhammer Fantasy figures, but it seems they've garnered a fanbase of their own now.

Anybody here played any of their stuff? Got any recommendations? I've been thinking hard about Dreadball and Deadzone.
 
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They used to be the cheapo alternative to GW with slightly suspect but serviceable minis (and some wonky elves)

When GW killed Warhammer Fantasy, Mantic stepped up bigtime with a rollout of the second edition of their Kings of War, and there was a pretty big mass exodus in the gaming community. Their miniature work has seriously advanced over the years, with their new stuff I'd say comparable to early aughts citadel (their Chaos dwarves I actually like better than Forge World's)

Kings of War third edition came out this last year and was really well recieved. It's currently the leading rank and file fantasy wargame.

They've got the Walking Dead license, and a well-supported minis game based around that that I havent looked into (I'm not into zombies)

Their Hellboy boardgame was a masterpiece, both in game design and miniatures. They are some seriously beautiful top of the line minis, and I went all in on that KS. Highly impressed.

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I haven't really explored Dreadball (their alternative to Bloodbowl from before GW resurrected it) or Deadzone (though I've grabbed some of the Vermyn minis for conversions).

What is best about Mantic is really the company itself. When GW was in full corporate dicks mode Mantic were the good guys, huge on customer service and community involvement. They have a ton of well-deserved goodwill in the gaming community, to the point many well-known recasters specifically refuse to offer Mantic stuff. They also have a great sense of humour.

In 2015,to celebrate Age of Sigmar's premier, GW unvieled a new statue outside Lenton Reichstag:

Photo 20150709081533748.jpg

The next day, Mantic posted this on their social media account:

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In 2015,to celebrate Age of Sigmar's premier, GW unvieled a new statue outside Lenton Reichstag:

View attachment 21668
It's, um, a little more complicated than that.

That particular building is GW's corporate HQ; games dev and Warhammer World are a bit up the road (You've probably already went past them. Look for the Rhino, you'll see). If you go inside, it's very bright and corporate and airy, and if you are leading a group of gamers into the building a very pleasant (But slightly exasperated-looking) woman will quickly get up from her desk and kindly inform you that you are in the wrong building.
 
They make good games. Deadzone is great, so is Vanguard. Walking Dead is too. Kings of War works well, and they're cool with you reducing minis on the base (units have standard base sizes) to make interesting dioramas. They have stats for lots of armies, even ones they don't produce, and are starting to move those armies away from the "GW proxy game" that KoW started out as.

On the other hand, in the past they have sometimes been a frustrating company to support. Every second release or so is genius but art direction was poor and they have produced more than their share of fuck-ugly models. They got into mixed plastics early, and produced some godawful models where the untrimmable mould lines were sometimes the only features on models' faces. Their kickstarters were often rushed and under-delivered. They still use mixed plastic and metal. Their vehicles had a tendency to replace technical details with... shapes, and whoever removes bits from their sprues sometimes mangles the parts so badly they're unusable. Some of their hard-plastic models didn't actually fit together.

HOWEVER, the last few years have seen a ton of high-quality models in hard plastic and resin. The quality of the softer "boardgame" plastics has improved vastly. They've re-made the worst stinkers into some very nice figure lines. Their lines cover a good range of options and, as I mentioned, they make fun games. Their modern kickstarters are focused and deliver what they promised.

Their vehicles are lovely, chunky pieces made with thick plastic. Easy to build and game with, whereas GW seem to be producing more and more delicate display pieces these days.

Their army sets are great value, and the games are very sensibly priced. Starter boxed games are very good value, and you often get the full rulebook included.

They re-jig ALL stats for Deadzone every year in an "Escalation" book, and then release the book for £15 (PDF too). Better, it's currently free with the boxed starter. The Deadzone starter and escalation sets give a good mixed force.

I love Mantic stuff,and have hundreds of their models. I'd recommend them 95 percent, with the slight reservation that there are still some tough to assemble horrors in their lines. Read reviews.
 
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I’m waiting on a redo of their Warpath Orx, I heard that’s in the pipeline somewhere.
 
I've got a small army of chaos dwarfs of the older variety, plastic dwarfs with metal hat extensions. It's the only time I've been thrilled with them moving to restic on something. Now they've got full on plastic chaos dwarfs. I've got armies of Ogres, Abyssal Dwarfs, Basiliens, and Abyssals. I haven't brought in Mantic for a couple years because it just sits on the shelf and people get into it a bit and then wander off to Warhammer again and again because Mantic's product quality just isn't uniform enough. When they did that first Kings of War Kickstarter I'm pretty sure they were on the edge of bankruptcy and for a while floundered on by doing frequent Kickstarters. I'm always a bit mad at them for their treatment of Warpath. Especially when they pushed back the release of the kickstarter stuff for two other kickstarters that happened after it. But yeah, good guys and I'll probably restock them this fall.

Also, as much as I'd love to see some support for Warpath Orx, they'll be the newer GW style figures like those from Dead Zone. I like the old fantasy ork based figures and have an army of them with purple skin and orange armour.
 
Yeah, even most KoW players that I know tend to use GW minis, I know that Mantic minis have sat for years on the shelf at one of my local gamestores. I picked up a Mantic elf army for pennies on the dollar, and even with enough heavy conversions to get them to the point I thought they were decent, I was still unimpressed. Mantic's Undead to be higher regarded.

They stepped up their A game with Hellboy though. Shows what they are capable of. But then I look at some of their other KoW stuff and they look like 80s action figures to me...

KoW-Trident-Realms-Army-2017-WEB.jpg


OTOH, they also do beautiful stuff like this:

KoW-Northern-Alliance-Mega-Army-Colour-Shot_WEB.jpg
 
Mantic’s problem is the lack of customisable poses. Look at all those yetis in the exact same 2 poses. You can get away with that with dreadnoughts, not something living. You need more static models or the ability at least to put the arms in different poses.

The perfect customisation I think was the old Space Marines. Head, torso, legs, r arm, l arm, pauldrons, backpack. A ton of different models you could make from basic plastic parts.
 
The problem is that they took their plastic production to China. The elves might not look how you think elves should look, but the moulds were made by Rendra and the detail is crisp and clean. The super bad goblins were the first Chinese set and the horrible Basilean men at arms the second. The goblins are usable because goblins aren't supposed to look like humans. I've got no idea what the Basileans were supposed to look like. The salamanders and naids shown above are passable if a bit soft on the detail. For some reason they decided to flatten the naid's breasts at the last moment.

The old GW multipart worked good for marines but never looked natural on organic stuff. Talk about looking like action figures.

Mantic's resin is usually pretty good but it shrinks and the excellent Basilean paladins are a head shorter than the old men at arms. The have redone the men at arms at long last. The sisterhood figures are awful. Anyhow, their newer stuff is usually pretty good though the halves of the restic horses are prone to warping and a pain to assemble when it happens.

I used to predict that Mantic would supercede Games Workshop in the end and go under due to a failed kickstarter a day later.
 
Mantic’s problem is the lack of customisable poses. Look at all those yetis in the exact same 2 poses. You can get away with that with dreadnoughts, not something living. You need more static models or the ability at least to put the arms in different poses.

The perfect customisation I think was the old Space Marines. Head, torso, legs, r arm, l arm, pauldrons, backpack. A ton of different models you could make from basic plastic parts.

The thing is, that's now GW's problem as well. If you've seen their new stuff, posing options and customization is out the door. You'r basically buying little plastic statues
 
Victrix got their Dark Ages plastics looking more natural by putting the arm join just above the elbow where the mail shirt sleeves end. So the shoulder is part of the torso without an obvious joint.
 
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The thing is, that's now GW's problem as well. If you've seen their new stuff, posing options and customization is out the door. You'r basically buying little plastic statues
Yeah, that's a problem with making models that can be done first as cheap push fits to stuff in a box and then putting those same minis chopped up differently on a sprue.

Also the mini artists and marketing guys are in charge, not the game designers. They don't design an Eldar Autarch to possess all the Exarch gifts they had over their centuries of fighting in the Aspect Shrines, then OH WELL, those options get written out of the next Codex.

It's a damn shame, the modeling part of the culture is being slowly eliminated except for painting.
 
Yeah, that's a problem with making models that can be done first as cheap push fits to stuff in a box and then putting those same minis chopped up differently on a sprue.

Also the mini artists and marketing guys are in charge, not the game designers. They don't design an Eldar Autarch to possess all the Exarch gifts they had over their centuries of fighting in the Aspect Shrines, then OH WELL, those options get written out of the next Codex.

It's a damn shame, the modeling part of the culture is being slowly eliminated except for painting.


Yeah, I remember way back in Fantasy 6th edition, where modelling was actually encouraged, the sprues would come with tons of extra little bitz and options, and White Dwarf regularly features customization galleries and tutorials.
 
It's a damn shame, the modeling part of the culture is being slowly eliminated except for painting.

No, it's pretty much all the personal creativity entirely. Only the studio can create cool things. Get back on your knees peasant!
 
It's the most pernicious thing about Age of Sigmar...only things with current models get warscrolls, with only those weapon options officially modelled on them. And if they let a model go out of print, the next year the warscroll is illegal.
 
One of the things I don't care for with Mantic's direction is the drift towards gimmicky dice and cards. It may be the huge stack of out dated Dead Zone cards on my shelf. I also really liked the activation mechanic from Warpath 1 (really it's Warpath 2 but for some reason they don't like to count the original free versions of their rules) so I was sad to see it go. It balanced out uneven numbers of units in alternating activation by letting you gamble on multiple activations. The second activation is 3+ on 1d6 and the third is 5+ on 1d6 with a reroll for an inspiring commander within 6". What this does in play is encourage the player with more units to balance the risk of failed activation with the risk of getting killed before they activate. It played out really nicely and balanced out one of the worst issues with alternating unit activation.
 
David Johansen David Johansen the cards and special dice thing is all over wargaming at the moment. Done well, it's can add to a game, but the cynic in me says it's a way to turn a £20 buy into £40.

Or record the special symbols on a simple table - I did this for the Deadzone and Vanguard dice. For Deadzone, allowing you to choose the special action each turn won't break the game.

Definitely don't print cards for your game until you've had at least a year of feedback, or you end up rewriting them before the ink is dry (Deadzone, Sedition Wars).

I do love Warpath. Now that Apocalypse 40k has unit removal, the mechanic may be more acceptable to gamers who moaned about it.

Rumour is that Firefight ("Warpath 40k") is going to be reworked, possibly merging with the semi-mythical Deadzone XL rules that Mantic apparently use internally for big games.
 
I loved the mixing and matching with different kits. I have a team of space skaven, and my militia and cultists are a mix of Cadians and various Empire kits from Fantasy - flagellants, militia, pistoliers.

Sadly my first Dark Mechanicus team - Stormvermin bodies and heads, AdMech Skitarii weapons arms and bobbins - had a spraying accident, and the fine AdMech details are not amenable to stripping and scrubbing. They were damn nice though - a future project to revisit. A spare Transuranic Arquebus makes a cheap jezzail too...

A lot of the finer GW kits (Admech Skitarii, Genestealer Neophytes) with options work well with the plastic Frostgrave and Oathmark kits, and some of the Warlord plastics. The Oathmark soldiers and cultists are clad in furs and rags rather than armour for post-apoc goodness, and the gnolls would make good alternative beastmen.

I'm lucky in that I game with friends, and the GW/FLGS rules churn don't really affect me.
 
Anybody here played any of their stuff? Got any recommendations? I've been thinking hard about Dreadball and Deadzone.

I have the rule books for Dreadball and Deadzone, but I've yet to give them a proper look.
 
My favorite Warpath story is a game where I was playing Orx against Enforcers and I had a raptor that rammed and killed two units and a captain in one game. A d6 pen 4 hits is brutal on small units.
 
I only have Dungeon Saga by Mantic. I haven't had a chance to play it but the minis look fine.
 
I loved the mixing and matching with different kits. I have a team of space skaven, and my militia and cultists are a mix of Cadians and various Empire kits from Fantasy - flagellants, militia, pistoliers.

Sadly my first Dark Mechanicus team - Stormvermin bodies and heads, AdMech Skitarii weapons arms and bobbins - had a spraying accident, and the fine AdMech details are not amenable to stripping and scrubbing. They were damn nice though - a future project to revisit. A spare Transuranic Arquebus makes a cheap jezzail too...

A lot of the finer GW kits (Admech Skitarii, Genestealer Neophytes) with options work well with the plastic Frostgrave and Oathmark kits, and some of the Warlord plastics. The Oathmark soldiers and cultists are clad in furs and rags rather than armour for post-apoc goodness, and the gnolls would make good alternative beastmen.

I'm lucky in that I game with friends, and the GW/FLGS rules churn don't really affect me.


I've seen some really beautiful Skaven/Admech conversions

Devoted one of my recent Blog Posts to one such army:

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I've been checking out a few of Mantic Games' lines over the past 18 months - as part of a general quest for skirmish wargaming options. Mainly have collected a few warbands and read KoW Vanguard and Deadzone rules. Not playing.... for obvious reasons. But, I think that's going to change this year; found some players in the area that play various Mantic wargames.

From what I've read - and the YouTube battle reports I've watched - the rules for a number of their lines are pretty intuitive and look like a good time. Far more digestible and logical, compared with older and newer wargames, from a specific manufacturer...
  • For Vanguard, I have a painted goblin warband. And I really like the models. A lot of character to their baseline plastic troops. I have mixed feelings about their older, metal goblins and may look into some alternate sculpts for the more elite troops.
  • For Deadzone, I've collected and started painting some GCPS. I tend towards baseline humans in Sci-Fi wargaming, and I like the ODST look of the GCPS. Been a lot of fun to assemble and paint so far.
  • And to the detriment of my wallet, I'm looking at picking up some models for Kings of War. I haven't played rank-n-flank in about 18 years (WFB 6e), and I'm feeling that pull again. I preordered a 'Salamander' army box - I do like Lizardmen - and am thinking of mixing up Mantic Salamanders, with GW Skinks, and maybe 3rd party options for more elite units.
Shit, I'm kind of getting into this neck-deep. But, it seems that my Rpg hobbying is on a bit of a downturn, so I'm trying to redirect hobby-energy in a different direction.
 
I haven't had a chance to try Kings of War 3e yet...I moved away from my old gaming group about 3 years ago. But I loved 2e, and hope to get to try 3e out after another move next month. I also really loved Deadzone, especially 2e. (For a while, Mantic had a problem where they contracted Jake Thornton to provide them a solid alpha version of a game as the release product, and they all required second editions edited in-house to really lock them into great games.) I even love Mars Attacks, and hate that Mantic let the license go. But, I've long been resolved to being a niche market with my Mars Attacks fandom...

I backed the Warpath kickstarter pretty hard, and was hoping to get into that like we'd gotten into Kings of War. But, alas, whereas KoW 2e came out at just the right time to benefit from GW abandoning rank n' flank, Warpath released right after 40K 8th edition hit the shelves. Unfortunately, most of the sci-fi gamers in my old group mistook a better 40K for a good game, and I never got the chance.
 
Yeah, if they hadn't delayed Warpath by a year or so that wouldn't have happened :sad:
 
Looks like there's a new edition of DeadZone coming. Mostly a clean-up of the rules (including errata and supplement rules, making sure a word means only one thing in the ruleset, etc) and a better organization to accommodate the yearly update book model. For one, they've pulled the faction lists into a separate book, so half the rulebook won't be useless after the first major update to a faction or two.

A new starter box, new minis, and new faction packs are releasing at launch next month.

Here's the announcement video, for anyone who enjoys it when the guy with the most information to convey leans way back from the microphone in an echo chamber:

 
Interesting, I'm a bit disappointed they went with Warhammer Ork style Maurauders as all of mine are the original slight modification from fantasy ones. Ah well, I've got around 40 painted and another box of 20 sitting around. How many do I really need?
 
Interesting, I'm a bit disappointed they went with Warhammer Ork style Maurauders as all of mine are the original slight modification from fantasy ones. Ah well, I've got around 40 painted and another box of 20 sitting around. How many do I really need?

Indeed. After getting in on the Deadzone 2 and Warpath kickstarters, I'm fine on models and terrain. I'm probably just going to snag the rulebook this go around. I hope the old tokens are compatible, and that if the additional terrain accessory is really cool, it'll be available separately.

I still haven't touched my Deadzone 2 KS industrial terrain...
 
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