Monsters of Mantic

Evening all,

Another instalment of this weeks gaming down at Enfield Gamers which was all very much Mantic-tastic.

First up was another helping of Dreadball. With luck a number of us should be at the Mantic Day for Dreadball in Nottingham this Saturday, all dependant on reliable transport, i.e. Rich's rather sick car behaving. Sometime ago myself and Shado, aka other Rich, were awarded joint first at a Dreadball National qualifier and need to play off.

With a bonus 20MC I took Corp with an extra Gaurd and Coaching Dice whilst Shado took Sirens with an extra Gaurd and Card, a build he views as Corp with Run Interference. A more "competitive" game than I've played recently I went for the tactic of locking down the 3/4 zone with three Gaurds and, as the away team, flooding the midfield with three Strikers.

On a mild tangent I've never seen myself as an overly competitive type and read this the other day which struck a chord.

Back at the game Shado had real trouble shifting my backline and had to settle for 1/2 pointers while I had an open run for 3/4s. Shado's luck was pretty poor all game while I picked up plenty of useful cards and quickly stormed to 5 nil after four rushes.

Just as I was poised to take the game my own dice intervened and with a few sharp plays traded each way Shado clawed his way back into the game. Missing a number of 4 pointers I tried as hard as I could to snatch defeat but eventually ran out with a 1 point win...phew!

 Second helping was a quick run out of Deadzone with Rich. Taking Plague I merrily ate Rich's four Enforcers with my two Alphas whilst my other lads watched on for zero casualties. Didn't seem a massively balanced scenario but for an alpha set of rules everything worked and was slick enough if a little basic. Definitely happy to play further developed versions.

Have to admit that I've watched the Kickstarter somewhat warily. Many have commented on the KS phenomenon and its various issues including myself and I don't intend to rehash. Having said that I found it scary how many fellow geeks have thrown so much cash at an unknown product so quickly. I've read the blurb, watched the vid and read a number of Quickworthy posts. Now I've played a game and feel interestedly neutral about it.

However,...pause to roll sleeves and prepare wagging finger....

Apparently Deadzone is a sci-fi skirmish game. In my opinion it's a sci-fi board-game and at the moment a fairly vanilla one. A board-game on an oversized chess board in fact, sound familiar? Jake's posts allude to this but I do feel that Mantic, I do wish to make the distinction, themselves could have been more up front about this.

The vid tells is that Mantic have a reputation for delivering high quality Kickstarters. I feel that statement is questionable and that many feel similarly. Mantic probably have a reputation for delivering Kickstarters with shed loads of, apparently, free stuff. Again I wish to make the distinction.

I do feel I understand that the persuasive thread that Kickstarters allow Mantic, and others, to develop and deliver more product far quicker than they otherwise would.

I just get the feeling that the whole situation is becoming disturbingly disingenuous. I ended up having a bit of a rant Tuesday night. Why does anyone need she- loads of bonus figures and scenery add-ons, many that they'll pay cold hard cash for, for a two by two game of battle-chess? You wanna sell a butt-load of super cool 40K urban battlefields better and cheaper than GW then all power whilst priming the pump for your own sci-fi wargame then all power to you but can you just come out and do that please?

This is just my opinion and I can make my choices just as everyone else can. I have a very good mate who works for Mantic who I have no wish to offend. I can hardly throw mud as an ex GW manager of 6 years service. Dreadball has breathed new life into my personal hobby and I LOVE it.

However I do feel that the whole KS thing could get out of hand and that Mantic, along with others, are beginning to rip the absolute arse out of it. Us geeks seem to be getting KS blind / addicted and some could be taking advatage of that. Not asking for anyone to agree with me and i'll happily be proved wrong but I needed to get that off my chest.

Each to their own and I wish Mantic every success. I like an awful lot of their product but this one, or the manner in which it is being presented, is currently somehow leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and I find that disappointing. It's not going to stop me attending on Saturday if I can and if I'm a hypocrite for that then so be it. As I keep on saying each to their own.

Happy gaming to one and all :)