Update from the frontlines! Thanks for Pathfinder Neil for this info:

The Mantic Pathfinders are running a series of Kings of War tournaments across the UK to raise money for charity. Entry is easy – your army doesn’t need to be painted and doesn’t even need to be Mantic models, which means almost anyone can play! 

Each event lasts a day and you’ll play 4 timed games of 1600 points (allies are permitted). The ticket price includes lunch and, as well as a winner’s trophy, Mantic have provided some great prize support: 

• 1st place – Winner’s trophy, signed copy of the Kings of War: Kings and Legends supplement and choice of an Ogre or Basilean army box when they’re released. The overall winner of the also chooses which charity receives the day’s proceeds! 
• 2nd place – Signed copy of the Kings of War: Kings and Legends supplement, plus an Ogre unit, when they’re released.
• 3rd place – Copy of the Kings of War: Kings and Legends supplement when it’s released. 

There are two regional Pathfinder Tournaments left (the first one, at Firestorm Games in Cardiff, was won by Chris Morris – well done, Chris!) followed by a national final later in the year. The remaining events are at: 

• Marauder Games, Stockport on 8th June 2013
• Tabletop Nation, Hockley on 29th June 2013. 

For more information, you can check the Mantic Forum, or download a tournament pack.  

There we have it! The Kings of War rules are ideally suited to tournament play, and they’re easy enough to master that even if you haven’t played many games yet, you could still learn them in time for either of these events! Whether you’re a serious Kings of War tournament fiend, a casual gamer who wants to raise some money for a good cause or someone with an existing fantasy army who wants to try a new set of rules, why not get involved?

No Comments | In: Events, Kings of War | |

We’ve unlocked not one but two brand new types of scenery over on the Deadzone Kickstarter, including:

Landing Pad BattleZone

Citizen Jael had read all of the reports – colossal abominations, mutated aliens and rumours of supersoldiers executing civilians. He had hoped that the Enforcers would quarantine the area in Nicorasi on the south coast but the disease was virulent and intel was coming in suggesting the outbreak was more widespread than first thought. Jael looked up at the Laser Cannon Engineer Talbot had installed and over to the defence lines being erected. He hoped it would be enough.

The Landing Pad is an awesome new kit that contains 135 degree connectors (allowing you to build angled connectors), triangular pieces for diagonal walkways and deflector pads. This kit can build a standalone landing pad and is fully compatible with the main Core Worlds Buildings Sprue.

Fortified Defence Line – Fortifications BattleZone

//91-Urilla on starting drop run.
//Eyes-on landing zone.
//Anti-air units sighted.
//Requesting instructions.
\\91-Urilla: Re-route to Outpost Epsilon.
\\Advance units secured an operational landing pad.
\\Drop at Epsilon and advance on foot.

//Acknowledged, command.
//91-Urilla out.

The Fortified Defence Line contains reinforcements for your buildings allowing you to secure your military compound with fortified walls, strengthened barricades, reinforced defence walls with a large blast gate and a mighty laser cannon. Once again this kit is fully compatible with the Core Words Buildings Sprue allowing you to customise your terrain further.

On BattleZones

Each type of scenery comes supplied in bundle packs known as BattleZones, each containing 3 sprues of approximately 6 tiles and 1 Connector Sprue.

Scenery Only Pledges

The One-Click Battlefield ($100) and One-Click Wargames Table ($285) pledge levels contain no miniatures and no rules – just the new terrain. They allow you to pick a number of BattleZones from the themes available, in any combination you want. For instance, the One-click Battlefield pledge allows you to choose 4 Battlezones, of which you could have all of the same BattleZone or a mixture of Core Worlds, Landing Pads and Fortifications.

Scenery Add-ons

Already got a pledge or wanting to pledge for the game? If you want extra scenery, we have 4 scenery packs available starting at $25, each allowing you a number of BattleZones in any combination you want.

What’s next?

We’ve still got more BattleZones to unlock including ideas such as Ruined Buildings, Alien Worlds and Industrial Sector.

There are still some scenery-only Early Birds available so please be quick and help us fund Deadzone on Kickstarter

No Comments | In: Deadzone | |

The Open Day at the weekend was a very special day for DreadBall fans – it marked the very first ManticBowl! This is going to be a yearly competition run by Mantic, and we hope that it will one day grow to be a fully international event. For now, we’re more than happy with the 30 entrants that we had!

Picture courtesy of Robert Smythe Sinclair on the Mantic Forums

It was an interesting day for everyone involved, as it was the first time that Season 2 teams appeared at a tournament. All eight teams were represented, with a definite bias towards the Corporation (11 teams out of 30). Whether this is because people prefer their play style, or because they’re in the main boxed game, remains to be seen!

The tournament consisted of four games, with teams starting fresh for each one – in effect, each one was a separate exhibition match. Each coach had to take a basic team, and was then given 20mc to spend on advancements, coaching dice, DreadBall cards, Coaches, Cheerleaders or extra players. Advancements were paid for in advance but rolled for (choosing from either the Season 1 or Season 2 table) at the start of each game. The games got underway with surprisingly few hitches, and there followed a great day of gaming fun!

Of course, at the end there could only be one winner (plus two runners up and two special prizes, of course!) It is my great pleasure to announce the ManticBowl 2013 DreadBall Champion to be Rich Jones with his Judwan team, The Wailers. Rich will be receiving an astonishingly pretty metal DreadBall pitch, engraved with his name and ManticBowl 2013; better than a trophy any day! He was followed up by Steve Wallace in second place, with his own Judwan team the Roswell Rangers. Third place was also taken by the Judwan – this time by Brian Clarke and the Pelgar Punchbags! (Looks like those bandy-limbed alien types are the one to beat in 2014…) We also awarded a prize for Most Bloody Coach, which went to Jona Littler, whose Marauder team the Hyson Green Smack Fiends managed to kill seven players across four games. Impressive work! Finally, the “Maybe You Should Try This Instead…” award (and a copy of Dwarf King’s Hold!) went to Jennifer Fullergreen, for her valiant efforts in clinging to the bottom table. Here are those of them that didn’t flee from my camera, along with some people who won prizes our Help for Heroes raffle (in which we raised £160)…

I said “hold up your prizes; “Rich Jones (centre) pointed out that he hasn’t got his yet!

An honourable mention should go to Steven Pretlove, who came and found me just before the winners were announced. In a stunning display of sportsmanship, he pointed out that he’d been using Coaches wrong throughout the day, giving himself a slight advantage. He suggested that his opponents should be retroactively awarded a Landslide victory in each case; this caused a bit of last-minute reworking, but I think he should be applauded for his honesty! That sort of behaviour is what DreadBall tournaments are made of!

If you’d like to know more details, here’s a full rundown of the final scores. I apologise in advance if anyone’s names or teams are spelt wrong…

If you’d like to run your own DreadBall event, drop us a line as we have plenty of resources you can use. If you want to see the full tournament rules that were used, they are available here as a download: DreadBall One-Day Tournament Pack V4.0.

1 Comment | In: DreadBall, Events | |

Phew! The Mantic Open Day 2013 has been and gone, and what a day it was! Over 150 people arrived in sunny* Nottingham to play games, see previews of new models and press Ronnie for all sorts of information that we were planning to keep under wraps for a while**. There was a great atmosphere on the day, especially at the ManticBowl tournament, and the studio room was constantly packed with people trying to get a good look at Deadzone and the new releases cabinet!

The ManticBowl was a huge success – roll on 2014!

The Mantic Seminars have always been a key part of our Open Days, and this year was no different. Ronnie, Jake and Alessio took turns chatting about all things Mantic and answering questions from the audience, and the experience was only enhanced by the mood lighting***! If you couldn’t make it, the Mantic Forums are brimming with information, photos and even the occasional video of what you missed!

Ronnie chose this moment to level up and become a being of pure light. (Possibly.)

Keep watching the blog today for more information about what happened this weekend – and if you were there let us know what you thought of the day in the comments below!

*Until the afternoon, when the heavens opened and the torrential downpour started! Yay, England. 
**It’s okay, we generally expect three out of every four Mantic secrets to get Ronnied at some point…
***Don’t worry – future Mantic events will have much more reliable lighting! 

No Comments | In: Events | |

Phew! After a couple of weeks of solid work in the warehouse, we’re proud to say that the last Kickstarter orders for DreadBall Season 2 shipped yesterday!

What a pile! This was less than half the bags…

This was an all-hands-to-pumps affair, with several of us heading to the warehouse from the office to help out. (Orcy was nowhere to be seen, but we’re fairly certain we haven’t accidentally posted him to Malaysia or anything…) Now that Kickstarter orders have gone, we can start shipping non-Kickstarter orders for DreadBall Season 2, so if you’ve ordered through our website you should expect your order to arrive very soon!

Here’s Ronnie, proudly displaying one of the boxes he packed!

In other news, tomorrow is the Mantic Open Day! I’ve posted about it repeatedly, so if you want to know more just scroll back through my previous posts – but the most important thing to know is that tickets will be available on the door! It’s going to be an awesome day, and it’ll be great to see the lot of you!

Head to the Facebook Event Page for full details!

No Comments | In: DreadBall, Events | |

By popular demand, Ronnie’s back in front of the camera – and this time he’s talking all about Deadzone terrain!

In this video, he shows some of the pieces that will be available, how they fit together, and shows off just how versatile the kit is. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below!

1 Comment | In: Deadzone, Terrain | |

If you’re not heading along to the Mantic Open Day this weekend, and you’re in the Chicago area, why not head down to Chicagoland Games on Saturday? They’re running a DreadBall tournament from 13:00 to 17:00, and will be running open games of DreadBall until they close! This is a great chance to try the game out if you haven’t already, or just check it out and watch some games in action.

If you want more information, check out the website!

No Comments | In: DreadBall | |

Today is an exciting day, not just for players of Mantic games, but for sci-fi wargamers, roleplayers and modellers across the world! Yes, we’ve just put out an update to our Deadzone Kickstarter campaign, making that lovely modular plastic terrain even more easy to get your hands on! Check out our awesome video below…

These new options really open things up for anyone who wants to get involved. Sci-fi wargamer looking for some awesome new terrain to fight over? Pledge at the Urban Wargames Table level, and you’ll get enough modular building sprues to fill a 6′x4′ gaming table. (It’s not just Warpath players that this is good for – we’ve already heard a lot of talk from players of Warhammer 40k, Mercs and Infinity who want to get their hands on this kit!) Want to let your roleplay group see what’s going on in-game? Order an Urban Battlefield and you’ll get enough pieces to make roughly four buildings, which you can take apart and re-use for different scenes! Modellers, get some awesome scenery for your next diorama by picking up a Battlezone or two!

Of course, there’s also plenty of scope for games of Deadzone. Why content yourself with the sprues you get in the box when the sky’s the limit? The Urban Battle and Urban War add-ons will let  you add even more buildings to your games – you could set the entire battle in a warehouse with mezzanines and walkways, or build a tower with multiple levels!

The Urban War add-on bundle

There are so many options available to you, and there will be even more as the Kickstarter campaign progresses! Check out the full story on Kickstarter and order yours today!

3 Comments | In: Deadzone, Terrain | |

The Mantic Open Day is less than a week away now, and it’s getting even more exciting every day!

We’ve just decided that everyone who comes along will get a Mantic Crazy Bag containing about £10 worth of models, plus something extra special! (I heard someone saying they might put Jotunn Hailstorm Cannons in a few of the bags, but I can confirm nothing!)

Also, we’ll be holding a raffle to win a Co-Prosperity Park Arena!

This acrylic DreadBall pitch normally retails at £74.99, but one lucky winner will get it for the price of a raffle ticket!

Proceeds from the raffle will go to Help for Heroes – more specifically, they will go towards supporting Amy Garland, who is doing a parachute jump (despite her fear of heights!) to raise some money for the charity. This all originated on a post in the Mantic forums – check it out here!

Finally, rumours of a growing undead threat in Nottingham are not unfounded, and you’ll have your chance to quell the zombie uprising if you come to our open day! Attendees will have the chance to suit up, get armed, and sweep the halls of our abandoned medical centre to rescue civilians from the rotten clutches of the undead! This is going to be great fun for all involved, and it’s not something we’re likely to do again, so get your tickets while you still have time!

Zombies not shown to scale. Actual zombies likely to be much larger and potentially more bitey.

1 Comment | In: DreadBall, Events | |

Many of you have been clamoring for scenery add-ons and a scenery-only pledge level. Well, we’ll be bringing them to you at 5pm BST/ 8am PST/ 11am EST on Wednesday 8th May – please spread the word!

Some of you have asked how many sprues it would require to build the building in the video. This assembly uses a couple of pieces from across the 3 different types of sprue, namely 3 floor tiles, 4 Half Tiles, 3 Barricades plus connectors – it doesn’t use any of the wall tiles or cross sections however!

New Stretch Goal!

To celebrate the impending launch of the scenery add-ons, we’re giving away a scenery sprue!

$375,000 – Scenery Sprue

If we hit this goal we will include one of our fantastic Building Sprues into all pledges of Recon ($100) and up!

Here’s a blueprint of the scenery tile designs you’re already getting! Though there’s nothing to say more aren’t coming

This Building Sprue will give you an extra 6 tiles and means that you’ll be getting a total of 5 sprues in Recon (4 Building Sprues + 1 Accessory Sprue) and 7 at Strike Team (6 Building Sprues + 1 Accessory Sprue) plus all of the connectors you need to assemble your buildings!

Whether you’re playing Deadzone or any other sci-fi game, these kits are perfect for filling your game table!

Deadzone – The sci-fi skirmish board game is being funded on Kickstarter – please pledge your support!

No Comments | In: Deadzone, Kickstart | |