Mantic Fantasy Games & General News & Rumour Roundup

[lord marcus]

Hold on a sec... You're getting your badger cavalry and a werewolf unit?

Well I guess we know who's Ronnies favourite around here now don't we.




And congrats gaarew on your painting triumphs at the competition.

Considering he said, and I quote "There are always goodies for our best mantic fanatics" to me in an email, and that i'm getting a game with the man himself at gencon, i think we have a few fav's of Ronnies round these parts. Thine time shall come darsc.

[scarletsquig]

I like the new helmets. Not sold on the capes, though. What's the bit that sticks up above the collar called? That's the part I don't like. They should clasp over the shoulders, not have that ridiculous dracula bit above.

That collar part of the model is part of the elf plastics, there isn't a great deal they can do about it.

This will not be the final version of the twilight kin, just a get-you-by until they have the resources to make them a complete range in their own right. It's just a case of getting as many different models out of the door as possible at this point, the plan seems to be to want to have something out for all 8 of the KoW armies within the next 6 months, then expanding on that the year after.

Another thing I remember - Mantic games are the 3rd biggest wargaming company in the UK at the moment.

[mattjgilbert]

I thought Ronnie said the cavalry was neither bears nor badgers? I guess that means there us another cavalry unit coming in addition to those.

[lord marcus]

That collar part of the model is part of the elf plastics, there isn't a great deal they can do about it.

This will not be the final version of the twilight kin, just a get-you-by until they have the resources to make them a complete range in their own right. It's just a case of getting as many different models out of the door as possible at this point, the plan seems to be to want to have something out for all 8 of the KoW armies within the next 6 months, then expanding on that the year after.

Another thing I remember - Mantic games are the 3rd biggest wargaming company in the UK at the moment.

And dedicated fans and awesome use of internet support helped them to be that....I think.

[strewart]

Awesome, thanks for all the info and photos to all that went! Looks like it was a great day, very jealous of those that got white plastic dwarfs. Some very exciting looking stuff coming! Its all a lot to absorb at the moment really.

If Mantic is the third biggest in the UK, who is second? Spartan Games?

[BobtheInquisitor]

Dwarfs are getting 2 cavalry units...

One of which will be on bears or badgers.


And, more importantly, as was mentioned, they added Werewolves to the lists. Just to shut someone up...

Was it me? I'm so happy I could howl at the moon!

[scarletsquig]

Awesome, thanks for all the info and photos to all that went! Looks like it was a great day, very jealous of those that got white plastic dwarfs. Some very exciting looking stuff coming! Its all a lot to absorb at the moment really.

If Mantic is the third biggest in the UK, who is second? Spartan Games?

I'm not entirely sure if he was talking in terms of sales of product in the UK or in terms of the actual size of the company. If someone can remember more of that, they might want to clarify.

If it's the former, then privateer press is probably the second.

Oh, and forums like warseer do not get read as far as thoughts on rules go...you have to post either on the mantic forums or beasts of war. The reason for this is that they find it too hard to find the rules discussions on here jumbled in amongst all the other threads, it's just all in the one forum which they said makes it difficult to find interesting threads. Signal-to-noise was the main problem they said they had with online feedback in general, finding the good suggestions in amongst all the others.

A rules change suggested at the open day will be making it into both KoW and Warpath. Nerve values are being replaced with an "X+" value, so that we don't need a chart for it anymore.

[mattjgilbert]

I'm still not sure how that will work with a wavering result.

It was pesting by gaarew which resulted in the werewolves.

[mattjgilbert]

Brain dumping as I remember.

Demons*

Next year the KoW hardback (maybe softback) book will come out. This will be the core rules (which will always be available on their own to download for free) plus up to 20 pages of additional rules (magic*, seige, mass battles were all mentioned as possible) plus then all the army lists in full with fluff, artwork and photos.

*Magic. This will be fleshed out a fair bit. Ronnie mentioned heat (Abysall Dwarfs) and cold (Twilight Kin) and other elemental stuff (Elves). Demon units will come into the lists too (mirroring the heat/cold/elemental theme probably).

The elves will be expanded to encompass more of the classic elf archetype. The initial focus was on the more "haughty" elves but the army list will expand to cover "wood" elves so players can theme there armies better. There will not be a separate list though.
Ronnie was asked about making scenery and said they'd love to do that in the future. He got quite excited about the possibility of a castle set.

[AlexHolker]

The elves will be expanded to encompass more of the classic elf archetype. The initial focus was on the more "haughty" elves but the army list will expand to cover "wood" elves so players can theme there armies better.

So in other words, no hope of a not-Wood Elf faction that doesn't possess the flaws of the current Elves.

[gaarew]

It was pesting by gaarew which resulted in the werewolves.

Explain exactly how sending Ronnie a monthly email coinciding with the full moon demanding Werewolves counts as pestering?


It was also suggested (I expect the bruises will disapear soon) to Alessio that Ironwatch with crossbows should be allowed to move and fire, as it avoids static gunlines, and helps give the Rangers as a scouting unit.

[mrtn]

Thanks for the reports and photos everyone!

There's been pictures of grey (resin?) cavalry pieces lying in a glass cabinet, anyone know what those are?

[scarletsquig]

Those are the Gore Riders. Really nice looking kit, loads of different parts.

From the sounds of things, mantic really want to ramp up the releases of resin plastic kits, warpath especially will see major use of the material since it will be used for the vehicle kits.

Priority will go towards making new units rather than redoing old metals initially, first in line for a resin switch will probably be the abyssal dwarfs since they sell so well, but they are keeping the palace guard and dwarf berserkers in mind and they are likely to show up when mantic returns to make a new wave of releases for those armies in the same way that the undead got a redone resin-plastic kit with their recent set of releases.

All of the packaging seems to have been redone to match the style of the new orc boxes.. the dwarf ones have an orange lightning background, the undead have a purple one, with a pic picture of a single model on the front, and unit pics on the back. I like the design of these, they look quality and the bright colours should really stand out on store shelves.

There's a whole ton of other stuff I could mention, but it'll all be in the open day seminar video anyway.

[mattjgilbert]

Explain exactly how sending Ronnie a monthly email coinciding with the full moon demanding Werewolves counts as pestering?

Perhaps "badgering" would be a better description then?

It was also suggested (I expect the bruises will disapear soon) to Alessio that Ironwatch with crossbows should be allowed to move and fire, as it avoids static gunlines, and helps give the Rangers as a scouting unit.

What about swapping their stats too so they are Ra 4+ and Me 5+

[Chicken Pig]

Ahhh, the allowing cookies thing has worked for me now cheers. I quite like the look of the Twilight kin, but I assume that there is a lot more to come from them. The Morax add a great bit of variety to the Orcs as well, they do look really threatening.

When it comes to new units I am happy to hear of new undead units, but given on how they are selling there appears to have been little talk of fleshing out the Abyssal Dwarf list.

As for the 3rd biggest UK minatures company that is just amazing news, they should rightfully be very proud of themselves.

Finally amazing job by whoever painted those spectral Revenant Knights, Undeadtastic!

I have never really been a sci-fi wargamer but given that the Forgefathers have been described to me as "ice-cream worthy"* (edited on basis of common decency) there may be a fair bit to get excited about there. Just maybe no *that* excited.

[Baragash]

IIRC Ronnie said Golems were near the top of their list.

[rodmillard]

I'm not entirely sure if he was talking in terms of sales of product in the UK or in terms of the actual size of the company. If someone can remember more of that, they might want to clarify.

If it's the former, then privateer press is probably the second.

I wouldn't discount Warlord from the second place spot - the sheer ammount of historical periods they cover (and the fact that they have managed to get into pretty much every hobby store that isn't owned by one of their competitors *cough* GW *cough*) would put them pretty high on the list even if none of the individual kits can match the sales of, say, Mantic ghouls.

[Robert]

Warlord

That is who I immediately thought off.

Some great photos and news! Exciting times...really wished I had of went now...

[Gadge]

The open day looked great, thanks for the photos, am just so excited now, like a wee kid, is that normal for a 23 yr old? haha. I love what I am hearing, seems the Mantic Boys have been busy, cant wait to see what cav the dwarfs get. Think I need to start a new army as well not sure what to go for, to much nice stuff coming out for each, and then there is all the Warpath stuff to come as well what to do!!

Would love to see some more pics if anyone has anymore. And does anyone have, or know, where I can watch some bat reps of KoW?

Cheers

[MalusCalibur]

Brain dumping as I remember.

Demons*

This will be immeasurably awesome. I can't wait!