Category Archives: Sci-Fi Gaming

Kickstarter: Mars Attacks – Mantic Games

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I’m not going to start to make a habit of pimping Kickstarters or anything like that, but I thought this one in particular might be worth sharing, since there’s only a day or two to go, and Mantic appear to have really pulled out all the stops for this one – right down to not using restic, renders of the models, and throwing an enormous amount of free stuff at it. I was originally in it just for the scenery, since I’m not a particular fan of the IP, but I’m now considering staying in for the scenery and getting a large set of the game’s stuff as well, since it’s written by Jake Thornton and looks like it would be quite a bit of fun.

Basically, it’s a boardgame, which is pretty much cross-compatible with DeadZone (Mantic’s Sci-Fi boardgame that’s about to come out in December) – so similar in style to Dust Tactics with miniatures and ground tiles, but they’re also doing things like a DeadZone team (Sci-Fi Bloodbowl to use a simple analogy, but actually much closer to the classic Amiga game Speedball.) They’re also going to put out rules to use the models in Warpath, which is their sci-fi miniatures skirmish game.

One of the main reasons I’m pimping it here is that they ran into a bit of trouble, with a lot of backers dropping out – so yesterday I sent in a suggestion for them to add in their excellent DeadZone scenery and talk to Guillotine Games/CMON (who they’re on friendly terms with) about some crossover using the MA survivors in Zombicide – since the survivors have a very similar stylistic look and feel. This morning, I got an email from Ronnie replying to my message and I see they’ve added the DZ scenery, a shout-out from CMON to their Zombicide backers in my inbox that also suggests the MA survivors would work in Zombicide and a new $500k stretch goals of Zombies vs Martians!

Oh, and they added a shitton of extra freebies as well.

Anyway, here’s the $100 “Sweet Spot” pledge level image, though they also have a giganton of stuff for those willing to go in for $300, which I’ve also added below.

More painted models soon! Hoping for some good natural light today…

Men In Black – Warzone “Corporation” Miniatures.

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Mark Copplestone's Warzone Corporation Figures.

So I finally got some small amount of painting done. I picked a couple of old figures that had been half- finished in a figure case for.. a decade? These three fine individuals are Warzone figures. And old miniatures game based on the Mutant Chronicles universe. They’re from the Corporation, and sculpted by Mark Copplestone. We actually had a really good Warzone campaign going at our Friday night FLGS hangout back then, right up until Target Games pushed out Warzone 2nd Edition, and things just fell apart. Good times…

My guys at the time were a Cybertronic force, but instead of painting them grey, I painted them based off of the WCW “nWo” (New World Order) wrestling faction. They were Tres’ cool back then with their black outfits and stylish T-shirt logo. I naturally painted my few Corp guys to match.

Mark Copplestone's Warzone Corporation Figures.

The photos aren’t especially brilliant (the shading on their clothing is both more noticable and more subtle in hand) and they haven’t yet been varnished, (hence the shiny ponytail). I’m in two minds as to whether or not I should add the typical “GW style” highlight/shade/light point to the sunglasses, or simply go over them with gloss once the figures are sealed. Actually, I’ll need to do that to the torch on Ponyboy’s pistol.

I’m overall happy with the simple act of getting them finished, though my fav of the three is the Maori-tattooed bouncer. I swapped the front of his Ghenna Puker (aka Warzone’s crap-looking flamethrower) with the main section of a GW Heavy flamer, probably off a Chimera or Russ kit. Makes the weapon a bit bigger and a lot nastier looking.

Bases are kept plain and pretty generic so they fit in with as many different settings as possible. I generally don’t go for overly-specific bases, though I have warmed to them in some cases these days.