Mantic Games: Pläne für 2017
Ronnie und sein Team erklären ihre Pläne für das kommende Jahr.
Well, what a monster 2016 was! To give you some idea of the past 12 months:
- Kings of War continued to march on, with lots of tournaments, new armies and a historical book
- We struggled to keep Dungeon Saga in stock
- We launched The Walking Dead – All Out War – to much acclaim from first responses
- We have just finished shipping the Warpath KS – the only game in town for epic scale sci-fi battles (and Firefight for those who like smaller scale killing!)
- And, finally, we also did a couple of smaller Kickstarters to set up some of next year’s releases…
So what do we have next year… well the short answer is 2017 is shaping up to be a very exciting year, fuelled by gaming joy!
Kings of War
But, let’s do the ugly stuff first. Over the last 18 months we have been hit with a heap of price rises, and on top of that the dollar prices have risen too. We have soaked this up for as long as we can, and held the armies sets at £50 this year, even though the regiment sets all went up in price.
However, the current Kings of War army sets, and Dungeon Saga will be going up to £59.99 from Feb 1st. We will look at reconfiguring the sets to see if we can bring them back to £50, and offer a better starter force at the same time. However, that does still give you 30 days to pick them up at the existing price, so if you’ve been thinking of starting KoW or picking up a new army for the summer campaign, there’s no better time than now!
The year is starting with a ’new year, new army’ theme – because it always takes a while to get that army ready for the tabletop. Plus, if you want to be involved in the massive summer campaign you’d best get building and painting! If you want to give KoW a try, then you can find the new rules here and we have a special offer on the softback gamer’s edition of the rulebook right now too.
In the summer we have the global campaign, which we will be run alongside Beasts of War, and the outcome will move the storyline along. Then towards the end of the year we will have the Kings of War sourcebook (just like that beautiful edition that some of you will have in your Warpath pledges).
Warpath
Talking of Warpath, it will hit retail in April. First up will be Enforcers vs. ForgeFathers and the armies come thick and fast thereafter. Warpath is all about big battles – while the mechanics are all new, and themed strongly about taking key strategic points, and using the terrain well, we have tried to apply a lot of what we have learned from KoW about game length and clean, slick rules – so you can set up and play through in a couple of hours. If a mass battle is too much, there is the more skirmish-sized battles in Firefight.
If that’s too big you can play Deadzone for squad sized tactical actions (with some new releases planned, including a GCPS faction). And if even that is too much, then wait for Star Saga coming later in the year, where the Warpath universe gets its very own dungeon crawler-style board game.
Dreadball
And of course we have Dreadball 2nd edition hitting next year. This edition of Dreadball will rebalance the teams, make Jacks rock and make sure there is a very cool league system to tie your games together. If you want to jump in on the beta testing for DB2 then click here.
The Walking Dead: All Out War
And then we have The Walking Dead: All Out War rolling out throughout the year. January and February sees the individual release of the Atlanta Camp Survivors, with Rick on a Horse, The Governor and Morgan all available – and if you got the Kickstarter and want to add these, go here. May sees Hershel’s farm, and a host of new faces joining the game. Oh, and we have added a few BIG names as retail exclusives then too. We’ll have organised play packs coming out, paint sets and some game aids too.
And finally…
Ok, nearly finished. The plan for the future is to focus more and more on making our product available through your local hobby stores, rather than running lots of Kickstarter campaigns. This means we are making new organized play packs, as well as improving the existing ones.
We will also be attending more shows than ever next year – both in the UK and Europe. Plus, we’ll be back at PAX shows for the first time in five years!
We will still use Kickstarter to help us with the bigger projects, so we can go large and hard at launch, just as we did this year. But on some we might limit the pledges to exactly the funding needed.
And what’s coming up you ask…well far be it from me to say ;), but I have always been known for my love of a bit of 3D scenery, especially all the useful stuff that brings your wargames table, or dungeon to life, and I might have been testing a skirmish style game recently…
So, thank you for your fantastic support for Mantic over the last 12 months. Special thanks to everyone who introduced a friend or club to one of our games. It’s fantastic to see the community for each system growing and the fun and enjoyment the games bring. I hope and feel The Walking Dead will take us to a bigger and wider audience than ever, and many of those will then migrate on to other Mantic games.
Wishing you all a very happy hobby 2017 and hope to see you online, or even better at an Open Day, event or show sometime next year for a chat or a game.
May your dice rolls be lucky,
Ronnie
Zu einzelnen Spielen gibt es bereits weitere Ankündigungen:
Deadzone:
In May this year we officially launched the second edition of our sci-fi skirmish game, Deadzone. The idea behind the second edition was simple – we already had a great range of miniatures but the gameplay needed to be streamlined to make it more accessible, faster and, most importantly, more fun!
If you’ve played the second edition then you’ll hopefully agree that we’ve achieved all those three things. If you haven’t played the second edition, then we’re pleased to announce that you can currently pick up the hardback rulebook for half price, which means you can give it a go at home! Oh, and if you need a new Deadzone mat, the Exham IV Deluxe Gaming Mat is currently half price too!
But what does 2017 and beyond hold for Deadzone?
GCPS Faction
In 2017 we’ll be releasing brand new GCPS units as part of the wider Warpath launch. You’ll be able to pick up new, highly detailed, hard plastic GCPS troops with various weapon options.
So, it seemed only right that the GCPS should get their own faction in Deadzone too. This means that in the summer, we’ll be releasing a GCPS Faction Starter and Faction Booster containing everything you need to get your troops on the table.
In fact, earlier this year we released the beta rules for the GCPS faction, to ensure the Deadzone community can test them to destruction before release! If you’ve got some existing GCPS troops or you’re one of the lucky Warpath Kickstarter backers, then you can use the beta rules and take them for a test drive right now!
Nameless Faction
If you followed the Star Saga Kickstarter, you’ll know that during the campaign we funded new, pre-assembled, plastic Nameless miniatures. The Nameless have always been one of the most popular teams in Dreadball, while the enigmatic Project Oberon has remained a firm favourite in Deadzone.
Kings of War:
2017 is going to be a huuuuuuge year for Kings of War and we’ve got plenty of exciting miniatures and events lined up for all you KoW fans.
Kings of War Army Sets
But, let’s do the ugly stuff first. Over the last 18 months we have been hit with a heap of price rises, and on top of that the dollar prices have risen too. We have soaked this up for as long as we can, and held the armies sets at £50 this year, even though the regiment sets all went up in price.
However, the current Kings of War army sets will be going up to £59.99 from Feb 1st. We will look at reconfiguring the sets to see if we can bring them back to £50, and offer a better starter force at the same time. However, that does still give you 30 days to pick them up at the existing price, so if you’ve been thinking of starting KoW or picking up a new army for the summer campaign, there’s no better time than now! Plus, we’ve currently got a special offer on the softback Gamer’s Edition of the rulebook.
Tournament Book
Currently we’re busy putting the finishes touches to the Kings of War Tournament Book. Over the past year or so, the tournament scene for KoW has exploded. We organised the biggest Clash of Kings ever (with 74 players all coming together for a weekend of gaming) and next year’s event will be even bigger, with space for up to 120 players!
After numerous questions from the Kings of War community about tips for organising a tournament or suggestions about alternative scenarios, Rules Committee member Nick Williams has put together the ultimate Kings of War tournament guide. This great book will be released early next year and we’re sure it’ll become an indispensable go-to reference for the increasing amount of people that want to organise well-run, exciting and enjoyable tournaments in 2017 and beyond.
Trident Realms – Pre-order now!
In February we’ll be officially releasing the Trident Realms army, featuring a veritable tide of new miniatures. We’ll be producing new army sets for the Trident Realms of Neritica, so you can finally get your hands on some great units, like:
- Water Elementals (mini waves that will crash against the enemy)
- the awesome Riverguard (which look a little like ninja frogs)
- Thuul (a bizarre mix of Halfing and octopus… we’re not making that up)
- Gigas (large crustaceans with massive pincers)
As a special Christmas treat, we’re opening the pre-orders up for the Trident Realms Army and Trident Realms Mega Force early! Head over to the Mantic website to pre-order yours now! They will begin shipping from February 10th.
Summer Campaign
This is the big one for 2017 – a global summer campaign that will shape the fate of Mantica. We’ll be working with Beasts of War to create an online hub where you can upload your results, which will then affect the future of Mantica.
The studio is currently hard at work putting together some background for the summer campaign, including new named characters and details of the key battles that will take place as part of the campaign. There will be new heroes for all of the armies that we currently produce and depending upon how they perform in the campaign, they’ll live or die… so, if you’ve got a favourite, you’ll need to fight hard to keep them alive!
We’ll have more details about the summer campaign throughout the year and the Campaign Book is due for launch in the spring, so you can read all the background material before getting your army ready for battle! Mantica will never be the same again.
Mantic Games ist unter anderem bei unserem Partner Radaddel erhältlich.
Quelle: Mantic Games
Schön, dass sie das mit den Kickstartern mal raffen. Viele Produkte von Mantic bekomme ich im Einzelhandel nicht, weil der Ladeninhaber sich deren Sachen nicht ins Haus holt. Begründung: Die, die es haben wollten, haben es meist schon über KS. Dann steht es nur in den Regalen herum und nimmt Platz weg.
Das ist halt schon ein bisschen ärgerlich, weil ich z. B. das Geländeset von The Walking Dead eigentlich bei uns im Laden kaufen wollte. Dauert jetzt, weil es nur auf ausdrückliche Bestellung kommt.