Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 3: The Wulfen, Frostgrave, and a Tribute to Wayne England

In memory of Wayne England, a visionary.

Deadzone (Mantic) Game Impressions

A vicious game of Deadzone is about to commence. 

Having assembled all of the terrain that I could from the Deadzone box and read through the rules, I figured it was time to put it to the test and play a few games. Afterall, it is easy to jump to conclusions by just reading through a rulebook, as you make comparisons to other systems. Often it can be difficult to see how everything fits together before you actually start rolling dice and pushing models around. As of writing this, I have played three games of Deadzone, and with each one I have come away with a much fuller appreciation of the ruleset. I admit that I am still learning some of the game’s finer points, but thought that I would write down a few impressions of the game, now that I have led a strike team of Enforcers to victory a few times.

Deadzone (Mantic) Modular Terrain Review

The assembled Deadzone terrain looks good at first glance.

In my last Deadzone unboxing post, I talked about how the modular terrain included in the box was a primary motivator in my decision to purchase the game, due to its ability to be used in a wide variety of miniature games that I currently play.  When I wrote that post I had not yet tried to assemble any of the terrain.  Over the last few days I was able to assemble the majority of what came in the box, only stopping when I ran out of connecting pieces.  I ran into quite a few snags along the way, and wanted to let everyone know about them in hopes it improves other peoples’ experience with the terrain or allows new buyers to be more informed of what they are getting themselves into.

Deadzone (Mantic) Unboxing

And Deadzone arrives!

On Monday, I was excited to get home to find that my Deadzone Kickstarter pledge was delivered. Ever since Mantic started to ship out copies of the game two weeks ago, the internet has been alive with activity surrounding it.  Although the overall impressions were largely high, an increasing number of comments on their Kickstarter comments page suggested that things were poorly packaged and confusing.  Reading all this only increased my anticipation to receive the game myself and to see how everything would turn out.

Deadzone (Mantic): Digital Rulebook Impressions

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.