Mantic Open Day



Today we got to visit Mantic Towers in Nottingham and meet the talent behind the toy solider company. The show was across two floors. The first floor had two gaming tables for learning to play Kings of War as well as tables to meet the sculptor and artists. The second floor was the store together with a couple of display cases. I got to see some work in progress on the Ork army (due out next spring) as well as seeing one of the new plastic-resin Knights and WWII Zombies!

Dwarf King


Plastic-resin Knight
I asked Ronnie about these. Apparently the resin plastic is a half way product between metal and normal plastic. Ten Knights should cost £20


WWII Zombies
Warlord plastic nazis with Mantic zombie parts. A new idea they are working on.


Lich King raising a minion


Ork Warrior - Work in progress


Ork boar rider - Work in progress


Skeleton Archers
These are half metal/half plastic figures to keep the cost down. They are using the same plastic legs as the other undead models with a metal body.


Kings of War(hammer)

Kings of War is Mantics own war-gaming rules system. It has been written by Alessio Cavatore (the man behind 5th Edition Warhammer 40k). I got to play one game with my friend; who was so impressed with both the figures and game he went and purchased the Dwarf army afterwards! The game design is very similar to its main rival - Warhammer Fantasy. It is a turn based system with each player having a Movement, Shooting and Melee phase. Troops are organised into ranked units with individual characters roaming around separately.

The main difference with the game is how damage is resolved. Instead of removing models as a unit takes damage you use tokens, or dice, to track the total damage. Then the unit takes a Nerve test (similar to a Warhammer morale test) with a modifier based on the total damage inflicted. This means that a unit could brake having only taken a couple of points of damage or it could stay steadfast with twenty wounds (and a roll of snake eyes). In our practice game it took my Elven King three turns to kill a regiment of Dwarfs, but my Knights crumbled with only three points of damage. The game took ten turns with the last couple of them being just the characters battling it out as all the troops, and war machines, were dead. The game was very fast paced and even with us learning as we played only took a half hour.

Comments

  1. Anonymous9 October 2010 at 17:37

    Awesome report, dude. I totally missed that you'd put the picture of the Orc on Dakka!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lyracian10 October 2010 at 04:10

    Thanks. There are a couple of other photos in the gallery but I thought the page was already looking a bit cluttered.

    The other ork - http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/146265-.html

    Dwarves painted on the Sprue -
    http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/146261-.html

    ReplyDelete

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