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| The Deadzone rulebook is in print! |
As evidenced by Between the Bolter and Me’s
first blog post, I really enjoyed Mantic’s fantasy sports game Dreadball, largely for its simple-to-pick-up rules and fast pace. So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered that Jake Thornton (creator of Dreadball) was working on a skirmish game called Deadzone. The game was designed to emulate smaller scale battles between individual squads, set in Mantic’s Warpath universe, which is their primary science fiction wargame. Like Dreadball, Mantic used
Kickstarter to raise money to produce the models, terrain, and other supplies for the game. And while none of the models they previewed appealed to me too much, I still jumped at the opportunity to send some money their way to get the boxed game, primarily for the rules and the terrain that was to be included (after all, I figured I could use Warhammer 40k models to stand in for most of the Deadzone factions). Fast-forward six months, and Mantic is getting very close to being ready to send out the boxed games and the different faction starter sets. I must say that the speed at which Mantic was able to get everything produced surprised me a little and, admittedly, made me fear that perhaps things were a little rushed to meet the deadlines they placed on themselves with the Kickstarter. To help backers bide their time as they waited for their models to arrive, Mantic sent out digital copies of the finalized rulebook. After spending a couple days reading through the book, I wanted to provide my initial impressions and comment on whether my fears about the game feeling rushed have any merit.
