I spent today down at Mantic HQ with a bunch of 16 playtesters, battling through the Mars Attacks scenarios once more to see if there were any final tweaks and clarifications needed. As Mantic are overflowing their current office space the gamers had to cram themselves and their battlefields into every spare corner of the photography room, corridors and so on. Meanwhile, I clambered about over cases of figures and piles of photography equipment to make my rounds of the various games.
And what a lot of games!
Most folk managed 6 or more during the day, plus several briefing and de-briefing sessions and a final show and tell. So it was a busy day. It was also a very useful day in terms of finessing things, and I’d like to offer a hearty thank you to all who attended. The game will be better because of your efforts.
I won’t bother you with details, other than to say that there was nothing major to fix. It was, instead, a case of a slight tweak here and an extra line of explanation there. All these things will go to make things clearer in the final product, which is great. As ever, it was interesting to hear two groups tell me that the same scenario was unwinnable from both sides (so it was perfectly balanced ;P ).
After all the Mars Attacks was done for the day, we had a group of tired, but happy folk, who were still remarkably alert. That was intriguing in itself as the end of a day of normal tournament play (where you might play 3 or perhaps 4 games at a pinch) usually sees a room of zombies at the end of the day. Anyway, as people weren’t chafing at the bit to leave or so zonked they couldn’t speak, I ran one of the core concepts for DreadBall Xtreme past them to see how they coped while Stew did a show and tell with some cool models and art. A useful straw poll for us, and a nice little bonus for those that attended and helped out with MA.
And no, I can’t tell you what those things were. Not yet. But you don’t have long to wait now…
Quirkworthy 
Looks like it was a lot of fun! I really like that it’s a game that doesn’t take up much real estate and it seems to straddle the boardgame/mini skirmish game line well. Can’t wait to try it out. 🙂
Okay this is just stupid, I see some plastic army men on that terrain set and want immediately to make some sort of Jagged Alliance (or modern mercenary) mod for Deadzone. I assume that the Mars Attacks human Deadzone deck wil be enough for this kind of play.
I never played Jagged Alliance, but from what Google shows me those lists would be a pretty good starting point.
Do the missions have specific terrain set ups or just forces and objectives? Will that be the same for the Nexus Psi campaign? I’m asking as I want to have a set of DZ terrain just for the campaign so I was planning on gluing those bits into their shapes and giving them a bit more attention when painting.
A few scenarios in both MA and NP have a specific building or two on the map: bank vault, tower, etc. However, for the bulk of the time and the bulk of the battlefields you can assemble your scenery and lay it out as you choose. The guidelines are quite broad. This is deliberate as it seemed silly to give people such a flexible scenery system and then force them to put it together in one rigid way.
This leaves plenty of room for you to do something like building a bespoke set for the campaign, as you suggest. Do send us a link to some pictures when you’re done 😉
Cool. Thanks for the info, looking forward to playing both campaigns. All my stuff I’ve painted so far for Deadzone is on the mantic painting forum:
http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?6205-Jabbaa-does-Deadzone/page2&p=83382#post83382
Not going to win any prizes but I hope they inspire someone.
The spattery black on the scenery is an unusual look. Is that just spatter or is it something more cunning?
The black is my attempt at trying Salt Masking to give a chipped/worn effect.
Got the technique from this guy: http://whiteswolves.blogspot.co.uk
His stuff looks a lot better than mine though. Think he uses an airbrush through, I just used cheap undercoat spray from the hardware shop in town. Thats about 1/4 of the kickstarted stuff though so going to do different colour/finish on the rest befitting the cargo container origins.
Whitewolves’ stuff does look good. Yours looks like it just needs some more layers to tone down the contrast between the black and white. Layers of washes would mute that. I think it’s partly his understanding that these things are unlikely to stay a single, uniform colour for long which gives them character. Months or years of wear, tear and stains take a few layers and different colours to show. Keep at it!
How soon Jake. 🙂
For?
Till we hear more about Mars Attacks! You’ll be writing me rules soon, once I shell out for the Black Ops team.
“And no, I can’t tell you what those things were. Not yet. But you don’t have long to wait now…”
-Jake
Oh, that stuff. Most of that wasn’t MA 😉