Mantic SciFi Games News and Rumours Roundup

[lord marcus]

About the "dog-tank": Considering the fact that we all don't know the real size of this thing: maybe it is an infantry-sized robot?

This thing doesn't necessarily have to be a huge tank, it would also work as a small hunter-robot (anybody remember the Doom movie and the demon with the wheelchair?).

In that case I would however reduce the size of the track-section significantly.

It could also be the sci-fi dwarven pet

[AlexHolker]

Some potential news from Dakka:

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere else so here goes; I emailed Mantic on sunday and happened to mention their supposed sci/fi range. The response was to checkout Mantic's website and Beasts of War at the weekend as they would be announcing something major.

I got a similar heads-up before the release of these sketches when I suggested taking advantage of GW's recent anti-marketing campaign, so I could definitely see this being true.

[Darsc Zacal]

Thanks for the heads-up, although I believe more than a few of us here check those sites out on a regular basis anyway.

[mattl]

So Ronnie and Alessio will be on Turn 8, Beasts of War's streaming video show tomorrow. Anyone planning on tuning in live and fancy updating a post of news here for those of us who can't watch it due to time zones or technological restrictions?

[Darsc Zacal]

So Ronnie and Alessio will be on Turn 8, Beasts of War's streaming video show tomorrow. Anyone planning on tuning in live and fancy updating a post of news here for those of us who can't watch it due to time zones or technological restrictions?

I'll second mattl's requests for updates to be posted here as I've never been able to view that show either.

[scarletsquig]

I'll post updates if my net connection behaves itself. It has issues with live streaming sometimes.

[AlexHolker]

Another tidbit: according to Slaaneshy, the new game is called "Warpath", and features Space Elves and Space Humans as well as the already known Space Orcs and Space Dwarves.

[mulkers]

Source:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=...025797447&ap=1

Hi all, just heard that Mantic may be releaseing there Sci-fi Rules called "Warpath" this weekend, which will include 4 army lists featuring Humans, Orks, Squats and eldar, and they should be free to download.
In the meantime, keep up the good work peeps, and you have the world behind you, and hopefully GW will pull there head out of there **** and have a reality check

[scarletsquig]

http://www.manticgames.com/Sci-fi/We...ng-sci-fi.html

"Warpath" confirmed.

[Idle Thought]

Looks like the rules will go beta this summer but BOW backstage pass members will be able to have some input on the alpha stage of the rules.

From the interview space orcs and dwarfs seem likely (well that or Ronnie has a very peculiar cough).

It also seems that the system will be unit based rather than skirmish level though Ronnie did emphasize the importance of the ruleset scaling up and down from a few units to the massive battles KOW is known for.

Also BOW is slated to have a Warpath Week at some point to show of the new sketches and sculpts.

regards,
IT

[Ivellis]

Man I am so excited for this. More than I ever was for Kings of War. Especially since they are releasing it after working out the kinks in their original models.

[bert n ernie]

I watched as long as I could, but being on mainland Europe made it impossible to watch past 23:45 their time on a week night.

There was a lot of alluding to the Sci-Fi game, including "confirmation" that Alessio Cavatori(sp?) will be writing the Sci-Fi rules too.
However it was done in the usual 'this won't be happening, because we'd need four months of down time to prepare, we'd need this that and the other, we'd need a world class game designer (and Alessio wanders into the background, looking about, winking at the camera, and 'pink panther' tip toeing) who can write a Sci-Fi rules set'.

There was no additional concept art that I saw beyond what's been floating about already.

I won't be signing up to backstage pass, just to get in on the Alpha, but will anyone else be doing that?

[mattjgilbert]

No. The backstage pass doesn't interest me at all. I only saw the first 30 minutes last night as I too needed to go to sleep and what I saw put me off BoW anyway.

I'm still excited by developments at Mantic though

[mrtn]

Alessio did come on later in the show, but he mostly talked about Kings of War. He will be writing Warpath however. They talked about how important scaleability was, that you can play both large and small games. They also mentioned round bases, space orcs and space elves.

[strewart]

I think its bizzare that BoW can potentially make money off the Mantic rules, but Mantic can't (won't). I definitely won't sign up, I don't mind waiting a few extra weeks.

[Max Jet]

Did I understand them right? They will use the Fantasy miniatures as a base for their new game?

Man I am dissapointed =(

However rules being written with KoW design guidelines? Yes please!

[mattl]

No, they're going to make new figures.

[rodmillard]

Hmmm. Has anyone else noticed that the scale on the right hand side of the logo goes up past 40,000?

[mattjgilbert]

Good spot

[scarletsquig]

Indeed, the top is 40,400 and the bottom is 39,600.

Which makes the middle point 40,000.

I'm still not sure that space dwarfs vs. space orcs will be as much of a success as mantic is hoping. Personally speaking I'm not at all interested in space dwarfs and while space orcs are more appealing, I think GW has far too much of a high-quality, established range of plastics to make it viable for mantic to compete with them. It's not just the pricing which is a factor, it's the sheer number of plastic kits that are available. GW has released over a dozen new ones in the last few years, and they're all top-quality too.

The difference between chaos dwarves and squats was - there was still an active fan community for chaos dwarves, people converting their own models, making up rules etc. There was definite interest for that race.

I have seen none of that for squats. The interest just isn't there because the concept isn't good.

Note, that doesn't mean I'm saying it'll fail or any other such hyperbole that people tend to attach to negative predictions.
Just that it won't be as much of a success as it would be with releasing it initially with Humans vs. Aliens, the classic sci-fi matchup.
Cheap plastic guard and 'nids... the 2 biggest horde armies in 40k (both of which have somewhat neglected model ranges).. would be a total win.