Dreaball launch

  
  

I've been keeping an eye on how Mantic would deal with the Dreadball Kickstart campaign ever since a few of you who backed the campaign sent me emails asking what the hell was up with shops getting the product before those who had pledged on Kickstart to back it. Now I'll be honest, the majority of the complaints were from those who had backed the Kickstart campaign as part of the January release schedule. Many claimed they'd done so because the tone of the statement from Mantic was that they'd now in effect sold all their first batch to Kickstart backers and the next shipment would be in January. At the time I assumed that this would mean stores would be getting it in January too... because they'd run out of initial prints. Or that's certainly how I read it at the time. I think a lot of people who emailed me seemed to be slightly miffed at me as well as they'd pledged after reading my support for the project. However, as I had a steady stream of emails coming into me, asking if I'd heard anything about shops getting stock for the Christmas period.

Industry Talk: Jake Thornton and DreadBall

      

Right with Mantics successful Kickstarter winding down to a close over the next few days of so I decided I'd try to badger the games designer with a few questions about the game, and how the campaign has gone. Luckily for me Jake Thornton is an affable fellow who was more than happy to answer my inane and asinine questions! So here's my questions and his answers:

Dreadball Kickstarter update

   
  

I know I said I wouldn't be doing these sorts of articles again... and I reneged on that promise with a brief reminder for Relic Knights... and an article about Dreadball and its Kickstarter. Well as you can see I'm doing it again aren't I? Trust me though it is for your own good. The Dreadball Kickstarter is coming to an end. It has only 9 days left to run. Here's the important bit for you guys though... they've had to limit the number of Jake and Striker pledges they've made available to ensure they can produce enough to supply everyone with what they have ordered. That means not only is the time frame limited, but the actual chance to get the best deals is now highly limited! Currently as I type this out there are only 126 Jack level pledges left and 210 of the Striker level pledges left. Now I'm not so sure they'll sell out of them all, but if you've been sitting on the fence waiting to see what happens it might just be the incentive you need. We all know that the last 72 to 48 hours in crowd funding campaigns is when it starts to get a bit metal don't we?

Any way here's what you currently get in the excellent value $150 Striker deal:

I can talk about Dreadball now!!!

 

Huzzah! I can finally open my trap about Mantic's upcoming game Dreadball. You see up until yesterday I was operating under the assumption I was still gagged by an NDA that I'd signed when I agreed to play test the game for Jake Thornton... soooo... I sought a bit of clarity. Turns out they're now perfectly OK with me spilling the proverbial beans on this thing. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about follow this link to their Kickstarter campaign for their game, or just watch this video:

So as you can see it's a new sports game from Mantic... and... that brings it inevitable comparisons with the grand daddy of fantasy type board game sports, Games Workshops very own Blood Bowl. Now I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in the past that I'm a pretty big Blood Bowl fan, even if it didn't make it into the 10 games that defined me as a gamer article, it nevertheless has had a large impact on me as a gamer. I loved it as a game, and my father had me playing the game from the very first edition, although it was the second edition with the polystyrene board that really got me hooked. So any game wishing to muscle in on this turf is going to have to front up to this behemoth.

Who won my final Birthday Giveaway?

   
      

So I've made it through my mammoth Birthday giveaway in double quick time... and more importantly I seem to have survived! It's obviously taken over the Blog a bit this past month, as has the naval gazing about where to take my Blog next that this anniversary has triggered. However, I think this past week has proved I'm getting back on track with what I'm doing on here, and this past week has had no filler, and I think it's been all killer... and tomorrows Sunday Sermon will hopefully see me back to my thought provoking best... but for now you just want to know who has won the signed Dwarf Kings Hold boxed sets don't you? Well it's...

Review: Project Pandora Grim Cargo

Firstly you have my apologies for not posting this article last Thursday, something important came up and it needed my attention. It's also the reason I'll probably be taking some time in responding to your comments for the next few days. So sorry. Like my review of Dwarf Kings Hold: Ancient Grudge on Wednesday, I've held off reviewing this game for a few reasons. Firstly because I actually only got my copy a few weeks ago. Secondly because as with Ancient Grudge I playtested this game and thirdly because I wanted to make sure none of the above was biasing me. I accept the above facts will undoubtedly have an influence on me, I just wanted to make sure that what I wrote was as fair to the game as I could be. It is after all very easy to get swept up in new game syndrome, and potentially even more so if you've been close to the project. I also got given this copy of Project Pandora to review while I was at another playtesting event at Mantic, so it's a freebie in effect... except I'm taking it as payment for all the playtesting I've done for them over the past year!

Product Description

It's a game in a box... I haven't said that on this Blog in a while! If you've brought either of the first two Dwarf Kings Hold boxed sets you'll already have a pretty darn good idea of what to expect from Project Pandora as a product. There are 24 full colour floor tiles, that are very reminiscent in shape to those you find in the Dwarf Kings Hold games, indeed while I was playtesting the game I actually used my Dwarf Kings Hold tiles as proxies. Obviously the Project Pandora ones have a suitably sci-fi feel to them. There are also some 70 or so colour card chits representing various things from Action Tokens to status effects. There's also a decent sized black and white rules booklet, which handily contains all the rules and 6 missions to play, very much like the Dwarf Kings Hold books it's 21 pages long. There are 10 plastic resin Veer-myn and 10 plastic resin Corporation miniatures. The corporation miniatures are made of roughly 4 components each, while the Veer-myn are roughly 5 pieces on average. The game also comes with 9 white dice. I'm going to point two things out here though I wish Mantic would consider for any future releases. Firstly the boxes, they don't feel like great quality, because they're not, they're flimsy and will get battered about a bit over time and people have to find less attractive, alternative ways of storing your games. I've seen people dismiss your games in shops because of the boxes. Secondly please include some bases!!! Some of your miniatures are quite light or off balance in their pose, so it can make it difficult to keep the miniatures upright during games. Some of your plastic bases would solve this problem.

Time for my last Birthday prize draw!!!

   
   

And I think it's a bit of a doozie. First lets have a brief re-cap on what it is that I've already given away in my mammoth birthday giveaway and try through gritted teeth to congratulate those who have won them:

Review: Dwarf Kings Hold Ancient Grudge

   
    

Huzzah, I finally get around to reviewing the bloody game!!!

Before you read this review of Ancient Grudge, you might like to read and familiarise yourself with my other reviews and articles on Dwarf Kings Hold:

• Review: Dwarf Kings Hold Dead Rising
• Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising, a few weeks on...
• Review: Dwarf Kings Hold green Menace

OK so I have a confession to make here. Firstly I've had this boxed set sitting in my house for some time now, and I've promised a review of it for a fair old while... but... I felt there were some snags to me doing this review in the first place. Firstly it isn't a standalone game, it's an add on for two standalone games within the same series, as such it's a bit of a difficult one to review anyway. But it's also a bit of a game changer, because it's not just more of the same, it changes the games paradigm. Secondly I'm sort of invested in it personally. Inside the front cover of the rulebook you'll see my name under playtesters... so I wanted to be certain that what I was saying about the game wasn't being swung unfairly one way or the other by my involvement with its production, and that has taken some time to asses. Genuinely. Thirdly I really quite like Jake Thornton and I think he's a top bloke... and I wanted to make sure my 'mate' blinkers weren't on with this product review. So that's where I'm coming from, if you're are still interested in what I have to say about it then please read on...

Product Description

To the left you can see the view of the box as you open it to view the contents. I'm not going to lie to you here, there's not a lot of stuff compared to the other Dwarf Kings Hold games. There are 5 plastic spru's, these provide you with 2 Dwarf Ironwatch figures, 2 Elf Scout figures, 3 Zombie figures and 4 Ghouls, that's 11 plastic miniatures in total. That's obviously way down on the 30 or so miniatures you get in Dead Rising and the 28 miniatures you get with Green Manace! There is a 21 page black and white rulebook, which is the same size as all the other rulebooks in the series, and its the rules contained within it that is really what you are buying. You also get two floor tiles one 3 by 6 squares and a larger 6 by 6 square tile. Again these are significantly down on the amount of tiles you get in Both Dead Rising and Green Menace, which both contain 29 tiles each. There are also far fewer counters with Ancient Grudge having only 9, while its bigger brothers had 75 and 73 respectively for Dead Rising and Green Menace. There aren't any dice in Ancient Grudge, but given that you need the other games to make use of these rules, you'll have dice from those games... and almost certainly countless others too! Where Ancient Grudge scores a victory over the other two though is that it includes a very nice metal Dwarf Berserker. Result!

Industry Talk: Ronnie Renton Mantic Games

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that I've posted some rather swanky looking page buttons at the top of the page. Clicking on those page buttons takes you to a bit of background information about me, this Blog... and yeah OK, my bloody cats. Because we all know you only come here for the cats! However, if you've clicked on the about page you'll have noticed that I've listed lot's and lots of different articles that you might not have seen before on these very pages. That's because I haven't really started those article series's yet. Today that's sort of changing, here we have my first ever 'Industry Talk' article, where I'm chatting with Ronnie Renton from Mantic Games. Obviously I've interviewed people in the past, but now I'm aiming to be a bit more structured about it and a bit more regular. So read on and here what Ronnie's got to say for himself...

Mantic get serious about tournaments (plus a sneaky look at their Kickstarter)

    
    

Depending on who you talk to tournament are either the lifeblood of our hobby, or an infinitesimally small part of a much bigger picture. There is both truth and falsehood in equal measure within the two competing arguments. On the one hand Tournaments are a significant part of some hobbyists interaction within the hobby, so from that perspective it is important. There's also the fact that those who attend such tournaments can often pick up on weaknesses in design and issues with balance far quicker than most others. If listened too tournament gamers would probably be the best tool games designers have for hammering out problems with their games. On the flip side of that is the fact that the majority of hobbyists do not go to tournaments, and neither do they care about them, so why should games be designed with tournament goers in mind? My argument has always been why can't a game be both?

Unboxing 'Dwarf Kings Hold: Ancient Grudge'

  
  

The third in the much loved series

Well it turned up yesterday. But I was too busy erm... unboxing it to actually put anything up on the blog. Sorry. It won't happen again. I promise... well until the next time it happens. As I'm sure most of you are aware, I've got a little bit of a soft spot for this series of games. They inexpensive, not overly fussy or complex and quite frankly straight up fun. They're a good way to waste an evening if you ask me, and if you have kids a pretty good way to get them into the hobby. So the much anticipated third box is very welcome. Although my friends and I already pretty much knew what to expect from it as we'd all had a sneaky peak...

Review: 'Dwarf Kings Hold: Green Manace'

First things first I owe you lot a bit of an apology, this review should have gone live during early September and I'd just assumed it had. Turns out I'd scheduled it to go live during September of 22,011. Yeah, like I'll still be blogging then!!! Sorry.

It might be a smaller box but it still has stuff in it!

This is the second of the Dwarf Kings Hold games, and is therefore a sort of dungeon crawler... but not... ish... it's not like the co-operative ones you might be used to. I've heard people refer to Dwarf Kings Hold as fantasy Space Hulk and this winds me up no end, as the only similarities are the grided game board and that you play with toy soldiers! But, I guess as a quick, none qualified statement it's not totally lame... although I still don't like it as it's lazy. Jake Thornton didn't like me calling the game adversarial last time around, but I think it is adversarial, because it pits one player against another, and there can be only one winner, although obviously you both win if you're having fun!!! Although obviously the 'actual' winner is the real winner. However, the first game, which I thoroughly enjoyed playing was a fun game to play and easy to pick up, it also had a nice level of tactics hidden away. Dead Rising, had Dwarfs facing off against foul shambling skellies, and this latest version changes that dynamic by putting brutish Orcs and nimbly pimbly Elves together in a Dungeon of doom. To be honest with you I was intrigued to see how the dynamic between Elves and Orcs would be different to that between the Dwarfs and the living dead. Oh yeah did I mention the cave ins...

Product description

Right when I reviewed Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising I had someone PM me a complaint that I hadn't made it clear enough that the miniatures required assembly, even though I said they did... so let me say from the start that the miniatures in Dwarf Kings Hold: Green Menace require the use of clippers to cut them from the spru's, craft knives to clean up mould lines etc. and indeed plastic glue to stick them together. I'm going to assume that beyond that basic information most of you are good to go all by yourselves! However, it is a fair point, most board games come with the miniatures pre-made for you so I guess for some people it is something that does need to be made clear, although I honestly don't think Mantic's miniatures should tax even the most basic modeller. It would though, have been good if they'd included a little assembly guide to help things on their way. You get a host of card tokens, 9 dice, 5 green and 4 blue. There are also 28 floor tiles of varying shapes, sizes and complexity, If you own Dead Rising you'll know what to expect. Last and by no means least there are those miniatures, you get 20 Elves and 8 Orcs, these are wargaming standard miniatures not board game rubbery things.

I have more board games!!!

OK so I said I'd try and get back to writing about wargames on my blog, but for whatever reason I keep having these chuffing board games turn up to my house. So which games have turned up now?

Yeah my collection of stuff is getting bigger...

Dust Tactics

The world looks fun and the miniatures aren't too shabby.

Yep I wrote about it a few weeks back, and no I didn't plump for the revised box set but the big huge one as the picture shows. I was always very interested in getting into the Dust games simply because I love the alternative WWII vibe created by Paolo Parente... well in fact I just love alternative history stuff period, and the walkers looked absolutely ace. With the added news that the Dust Warfare rules would be coming out later this year it was pretty much a done deal for me. The idea of having two game systems I can use those lovely miniatures in just sealed the deal totally for me. I'm aware I've got the 'old' rules, what with the new revised core rules coming out later this year but I honestly wanted to grab the game and try the original mix first so I can give a proper comparison of the changes for you guys... see that's how much I care!!!

Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising, a few weeks on...

With any game really there is always the honeymoon period, and after you've got back from the Seychelles you realise your delicate little flower is the harridan from hell and not quite what you were hoping for... I'm not however speaking from experience!!! But we all understand the new rush of excitement a new game provides. We've yet to find its flaws and get upset about how broken it is or indeed get bored with it and start 'playing away'. So two months ago after having the original Dwarf Kings Hold for all of a week I actually gave it a bit of a glowing review. I'll admit it was my first board game in a long time and my rose tinted nostalgia spec's were definitely out in full force. Read the original review here.
 

So with the second Dwarf Kings Hold starter set (Green Menace) release date just round the corner I thought I'd revisit Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising to see how it stacks up after a few weeks or so have past. You see DKH:DR was the first real boxed board game I got during my recent stint of buying boxed board games. The majority of my hobby time to is and always will be spent I think on wargaming, so as a product the adversarial nature of the play definitely appealed to me and still does. More so at first than the co-operative games I knew were out there, like the D&D Adventure System Games, Mansions of Madness, Descent and Claustrophobia to name but a few... but is that still the case now?

Well its not a simple case of either or really. You see DKH:DR got me back into to board games... and it is still fun for me right now. However it is an adversarial game and that makes it quite different to many of the games I played growing up as a kid. In fact now I think about it, it was only really Games Workshops own board games I played, which were set up as antagonistic or adversarial games. Many of the others I played were co-operative based. Playing DKH:DR is what got me wanting to play more things and I have to be honest and say it hasn't seen many outings since my initial blitz of it...

War(path) huh what is it good for...

...well I'm not really sure yet, would be the truthful answer. However unless you've been in a wargaming cave for a few weeks locked away from the world, you can't have failed to hear the news that Mantic games, the purveyors of reasonably priced miniatures are planning on expanding into futuristic sci-fi wargaming, I guess it was inevitable really. It is however a brave move for such a relatively young company and the news was officially announced on Beasts of War Turn 8 show, give the video a watch as Ronnie and Alessio give some good info on what to expect. Also if you're a newly subscribed member to the Beasts of War 'Backstage' service you can get access to the Alpha rules to Mantics Warpath. I've signed up for a few reasons:

1. I find some of their video's entertaining
2. They do a good job promoting the hobby in a fair and balanced way 
3. After the great job they did on promoting Infinity I feel duty bound to support them back... I think its worth it.

But for now lets get back to Warpath and Mantic, what are they playing at? Well you see until 8th Edition I wasn't really sure there was a need for another large scale fantasy battle game on the market either, or even room for one. I could, however see a market for cheaper alternatives to Games Workshops own Citadel range of miniatures, especially as they started to continually ramp up the size of the game. However what the Games Workshop did with 8th Edition has left some people cold, me included and before people start waiving their arms in the air and reaching for their nearest flaming torch and pitch fork, I also know that the reality is the game is also liked by a fair few, and more power to you if you're one of them. However for me if I want a large scale fantasy game then their isn't anything for me, well apart from Mantic Games Kings of War. So was it planned or perfect timing on Mantics part? Only Ronnie really knows.

Review: Dwarf Kings Hold (Dead Rising)

A few days back I made a post about my love of board games.Well I decided to go out and do something about it, I've pre-ordered the Gears of War from OG Games and am really looking forward to getting my hands on it when it is finally released around Septemberish. However along with the other games I was keeping an eye on Kingdom Death and Super Dungeon Explore they're not out now and that's left me twiddling my thumbs somewhat, but there is currently a dungeon crawler of sorts out for you  to purchase right now and that's Mantic Games Dwarf Kings Hold. So I placed an order with Mantic on a Friday evening and on the Tuesday, after the bank holiday Monday, I had a nice new shiny box. I have to be honest and say this game had a hell of a lot to live up to for me because I used to pay things like this as a kid with my dad and I'm sure the rose tinted nostalgia glasses have elevated what were quite poor games into paragons of gaming excellence bar none. It was games very much like this that I first cut my teeth and that got me into this hobby in the first place. A lot to live up to then...

Product Description

It came in a box, with some artwork on it!!! The box isn't the shiny, shiny top of the line cardboard box you get with say a Fantasy Flight Game or Wizards of the Coast product, and to be fair the game isn't aimed at the same 'production values'. Nope the box does its job just fine and the art work does its job too, bringing back memories of 80's cartoon Dungeons and Dragons with the Eye of the Beholder and its single animation, ah good times, first nostalgia points. Inside the box you get a few plastic spru's containing 22 Skeletons, at least I think that's how many I counted and 7 Dwarfs, oh yeah and a dog. There is a load of card tiles and all the dice you'll need to play, in a lovely shade of green that brought memories of the original first edition Warhammer Fantasy dice, ah happy memories came flooding back, nostalgia points for that too! There's also a little black book (no not that type you dirty, dirty people) that contains the rules, nothing flashy just a nice quality functional book again designed at keeping the cost down.

The game itself is actually quite a concise little set of rules. As you'd expect from a grid tiled board game, movement and facing play a huge part in the balance of the game as does use of orders as the various scenarios limit such things to either side, that's called resource management kiddy winks and is something you'll need in later life when the bank managers on the phone and the bailiffs are at your door! Onto the scenarios, there are 6 in all and as you'd expect they range from the easy to learn intro game right the way up to the mammoth veteran slog fest. However I'd be a big fat liar if I said I'd played them all, although the ones I have played I found fun to play and it doesn't take too long to play through a game so I think its more than possible to rip through 3 or 4 games in an evening after work. I also think the more adventurous and experimental of us (no sniggering at the back) might be able to come up with our own scenarios, no not with whips, handcuffs and pony tails, what the hell is wrong with you people!!!