Reducing the sprue pile...

No brain tonight, after a long day at work, so I grabbed a couple of sprues out of a Mantic grab box I acquired a few years ago and had earmarked for painting for D&D/Battlesystem playtests, and also to try some fun and games with Contrast paints.

The Mantic Goblin Spitters have a reputation for not being among Mantic's best - they're very odd in that they have hunched shoulders and the face (not really the head) fits on a plug on the front of the torso. They look weird, but somewhat characterful.

Anyway, two sprues worth assembled, and undercoated with AP Greenskin. That'll do for today.

Catchup on a couple of days of stuff

Been tidying the storeroom a bit (as opposed to the workshop or the store garage... I really may have too many places to keep stuff :D), as a break from actually thinking since I've done far too much of that for work this week.

Yesterday (in my lunch break) I painted (since they arrived) some Reaper Bones rats, using various shades of Contrast paints... enough to be serviceable tokens for an RPG. They're now on the 'things to grab when I need a wandering monster' shelf :D

Today, as a break from shifting boxes and counting and sorting a big Really Useful Box of Mantic Elves (over 200 on their sprues, in case you were wondering!), I assembled 20 Mantic skeletons (actually from the original Dwarf Kings Hold game). They're the original plastic ones, with odd little tabs that essentially are where you glue the ribcage and upper body onto the spine and lower body. They actually go together surprisingly well, and I will probably undercoat them and paint them sometime next week. Undecided whether to go the Contrast route, or spray with AP Skeleton Bone, or even spray black and drybrush.... We shall see.

Tomorrow is a Compendium evening :D

Kickstarter Watch - Stagriders and Warbears

Picture © Dead Earth Games

To use that phrase that should end up in Meeples Bingo 2.0 - these are really really pretty, from the Dead Earth Games folks. I've pledged for 6 stagriders for my KoW elf army (yes, they're human figures, but you can't see the ears....)

The KS has just (as of the time of posting) passed its goal, so we're in :D

(See! Not everything I blog is historical :D)

Kings of War 2nd Ed core rules download

With perfect timing, if, say, you're looking for a new set of fantasy rules to play with your existing figures, Mantic have announced the new Kings of War core rules available for download....

Kickstarters: a small rant

There is something about Kickstarters that provokes me to rant on occasions.

From Mantic's latest update on the new Deadzone Kickstarter.

"We've noticed this morning that one or two backers have raised their pledges artificially to help us speed through a stretch goal and see what's next, only to drop it again - sometimes at quite high values. This damages the project and negatively effects momentum. We ask that backers only raise their pledge if there's something they genuinely want to add-on. Thanks for your understanding!"

Jeez, people. Really?

Whoever you are who thinks they're being oh-so-clever there - stop being selfish and gaming the system, for <deleted>'s sake. People like you are why we can't have nice things. Grow up.

[Last chance to vote in the poll if you haven't - results tomorrow.]

Mantic are at it again

Yup, it's Kickstarter time again. According to the gossip sites (am I turning into one?), the Deadzone: Infestation Kickstarter kicks off this coming week.

Looks like it'll be two new factions, some more terrain variations, a better laid out rulebook, and... no doubt lots more stretch goals. According to an interview in a rather (for want of a better word) off-piste location, the initial goal is $100,000, but (and here I rest my case as to how Mantic plan KS's) they're aiming for $3-500,000.

Home again, and Dungeon Saga.

'Well, I'm back,' he said.

No prizes for spotting the quote, as it's the last line of a book I'd be surprised to discover any of my followers haven't read (although not necessarily in English, I guess!)

A much needed week-and-a-bit off, to be honest. My prediction wasn't that inaccurate - not much German beer, but about ten hours over three days playing the Firefly board game, as well as excursions into Dominion and Legends of Andor. Other highspots were definitely a trip to see one of the world's largest model railways in Hamburg, which was inspiring in so many ways (and probably means some time off figure painting to build James' model railway!), and finally getting to meet someone I've known online for 17 years (which is remarkably weird).

Friday saw a 16 hour car journey home (with breaks, but still), which would have been even longer had we not been sensible enough to break the journey on Thursday night in Bielefeld (even though it doesn't exist), so I'm only just now about recovered enough to start catching up on the world.

Just in time really, as Mantic's Dungeon Saga Kickstarter, to which I am pledged, is about to finish today. It's gone off like the usual rocket, and is past $800k as I speak, and looks, to be honest, like a really fun investment if you want a sub-D&D dungeon crawl with RPG-lite elements (and I use that entire phrase in the nicest possible way - it does look to be perfect at what it aims to be, and I am, if nothing else, looking forward to using it to introduce my son to the genre). Closing date is tonight, midnight UK time.

Today sees one last stretch goal - they're aiming for about another $100k today, which is for another add-on scenario pack including a freakin' cool dragon, more doors, tiles, etc... That's an insane reach, in my book - I'll be very interested to see if they reach it - me, I'm pledged out, since I've added enough for all the scenario packs to date and enough, fortuitously for this one as well.

I've been watching online while on holiday, and it's very interesting, in an abstract way, to watch how Mantic run a Kickstarter. As I've said before, you don't have to like it, and you can argue that it's not, per se, in the spirit of how Kickstarters were meant to happen when the concept was invented. They could, I'm sure, produce all the stuff that they've had lined up (I'm equally sure that there's not a LOT of 'spontaneous' addition of stretch goals) without a Kickstarter, but by doing it with a Kickstarter a) they get funding up front, b) they generate masses of online advertising (look, here!), and c) they get to gauge demand and production run size ahead of having to make risky investments, and they can much better leverage economies of scale. Barring some dispatch and CS issues (mainly due to being short-staffed on responding to email, from what I gather) on previous Kickstarters, they have, at least, always delivered.

And sorry, Mantic - you're lovely people, but I don't buy "we had no idea where this campaign was going to finish." :D Certainly I bet you had it planned this far, just in case :D And do remember to take on enough people to handle the support load. :D :D

Kickstarter watch: Mantic - Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf King's Quest

Say what you like about whether its the way the Kickstarter team originally designed Kickstarter to be used; Mantic do seem to have pretty much nailed it as a presales and promotion system. That said, I do know some people have had a few issues with delivery etc with previous Kickstarters, and have decided to wait until things hit the shops.

Their latest kicked off on Monday - you do pretty much have to have been living under a rock to miss it, but just in case, the bare bones:

• 2-5 players - one plays the monsters, the rest the adventurers
• classic dungeon crawl
• comes with a set of 'advanced' rules that cover role-play as well
• Ronnie from Mantic talks about it here.
• And of course, it's a Jake Thornton designed game, so the first cut at the rules is already up here  (allegedly, but that link's 404ing for me - to quote Jake: "At least, they were briefly, then the demand crashed the servers". Whoops. Guys? Rent some Amazon S3 storage and stick it up there, huh? [Guess what, they did. See the comments to Jake's link above]). 
• I'll confidently expect, being a fan of Jake's designs, that this will include some elegantly simple mechanics and Just Work.

In short? Looks like a great introduction to RPGs for my son - so I've signed up, as for my money the lack of hassle beats the occasional issues.

It's a Mantic Kickstarter., so you should know what to expect. Reached its target ($50K) in 4 minutes,  already over $250K, add-ons a-go-go. There are now two pledge levels - one for the whole shebang at $100 (you're WAY too late for the $95 earlybird!) and a $1 if you just want to use the Kickstarter as a shopping cart for the add-ons.

And as for the add ons... to save my typing, here's how it stands...

Reviews and Mantic - a statement

In line with my statement on book reviews a while back (which reminds me, there's a couple of Pen and Sword reviews coming up :D), herewith another.

Being a fan of a number of the Mantic games, I have signed up to their bloggers' mailing list. And I quote:

"We are looking to build an exclusive list of podcasters, bloggers, communities and forums to share the best content with your readers.  It can be as low key as sharing our competitions, right up to our press releases.  We’ll also tailor content where we can to your sites, but for now we’re just looking for those who are interested."

 As before, I will continue to be impartial, and to be honest to my readers. So:

• Should I ever get to review a book, rule set, supplement, whatever, that Mantic send me, I will make it explicitly clear that it's a review copy and who the source is. 
• The fact that I was asked to review it will not affect what I think or say about it, be that here, on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, or on the Meeples podcast. I have (I trust and hope) a reputation for being honest and direct in my reviews on here, and I don't intend for that to change. 
• I won't regurgitate Mantic's copy verbatim without making it clear I'm doing so.

My Deadzone Kickstarter is shipping!

Not, of course, that I have time to paint it… well, I do, but it's down in the queue behind an undercoated Dreadball team, some 15mm WW2 Brits, a serious re-touch and tidy job on my Ancients, shedloads of 18mm Napoleon at War stuff and several boxes of Perry Wars of the Roses figures.

However, I note with some trepidation:

1. it's arriving tomorrow
2. it's coming via UPS
3. I'm required to be in the office all day tomorrow

What am I bid for the location of the parcel by 5pm tomorrow?

Friday news roundup

A few odds and sods that have filtered through during my rather mental week at work.

• Plastic Soldier Company's 15mm Churchill's are imminent - sufficiently so, you may see some at SELWG this coming Sunday. £19.50 for a box of 5.
• Neil Shuck's been busy
• A new episode of View From The Verandah with Henry Hyde - always good for a long journey, this one includes a tribute to the late Don Featherstone
• A new Meeples and Miniatures - I had no hand in this one, but it includes a review of Dead Man's Hand (which I saw and really liked at Partizan) and an interview with its creator Stuart McCorquadale from Great Escape Games.
• The Winter War Kickstarter has finished, raising over £50K. I foresee some serious painting in my future. 
• Mantic's Mars Attacks Kickstarter is doing what Mantic Kickstarters do. I'm resisting this one :D

Kickstarter Watch: Mantic's Deadzone

Mantic do rather seem to have got this Kickstarter thing sussed, don't they?

The rather effective Twitter teaser (as well as a presence at Salute) has lead to a Kickstarter for their Deadzone game. Set in the Warpath universe (which I have to admit, I find many orders of magnitude less depressing than the 40K 'verse), it follows the recent trend for skirmish games. It also follows the classic SciFi trope[1], the nasty alien that replicates by transforming or impregnating humans, as beloved of Alien, Space Hulk, Sedition Wars: The Battle For Alabaster...

...not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does seem to have cropped up more than once in gaming recently!

The game looks interesting - 2'x2' board, 3D scenery (Mantic are making sprues of SciFi looking buildings) and a range of (currently) 4 factions, and the usual (no doubt) selection of stretch goals.

It hit target in 34 minutes, and is currently at getting on for 5x that in two days. Kicktraq.com is currently projecting insane 7-figure results, but I suspect that its model goes a bit non-linear and wibbles a lot at this end of the Kickstarter range.

Which really just leaves me (having pledged) with one question:

Can Mantic afford a credit card machine for Salute 2014 now?

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[1] WARNING! This is a link to the fabulous TVTropes.org. I will not be responsible for the amount of time you lose on there following links[2], reading pages and laughing!

[2] WARNING! This is a link to the equally fabulous xkcd.com. Same warning applies!

Alternate Reality Games, and Mantic's upcoming skirmish SciFi game

Having just spent 11 hours fighting with a recalcitrant web framework at work, I'm going to postpone the posts I had in mind for tonight, as they all actually require some vague approximation to a brain, either to remember where my camera card-reader is, or to wax vaguely coherent and educationally about heraldic crosses.

Way back when, I used to work for the firm that is now producing the hit Moshi Monsters franchise. (If anyone with kids is cursing me for that? sorry - all I had to do with it before I left was one algorithm suggestion that didn't make it into the final game!) The game I was involved with, which some of you may have got hooked on, was the PerplexCity puzzle game.

PerplexCity was an attempt to commercialise a genre of games that were often used as tie ins to movies, etc, called alternate reality games or ARGs. To quote Wikipedia:

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by participants' ideas or actions.

Transmedia storytelling means across multiple platforms and formats, such as Twitter, Facebook, the web... as well as in some cases real-world events. (We had several in PerplexCity - one at Abbey Road, one involving a helicopter...)

I have to say, being involved with PerplexCity was great fun, and an interesting challenge, and I still keep in touch with a few of my ex-colleagues.

What's this got to do with wargaming?

Well. It appears that Mantic have started something kind of ARG-like to promote one of their upcoming releases (the Kickstarter for their DeathZone skirmish rules, apparently)... it's currently playing out on the Twitter accounts @six_alpha, @corp_central and @Recon_N32. Well worth following the story - it's rather neatly done within the constraints of 140 characters.