For those of you that wanted to know a bit more about how the game works, here is a taste:
The introductory scenario is included to get you started and give you a flavour of what’s to come. This is just a start though. There’s loads of heroes, extra cards and new troops (and saucers and bugs) to add as we go on.
A gameplay video will be posted on the Kickstarter on monday.
Any questions, just comment below 🙂
Or should that be Mars Attacks vs Deadzone?
The most frequent question I’ve had about Mars Attacks is “what’s the difference between Mars Attacks and Deadzone?” Actually, “what’s the same¹” is a shorter list.
Game designs can be divided into two very broad camps: those that start with mechanics and slap a theme on later, and those that start with a theme and derive the rules from that. You can get great games with either method, though they do tend towards different styles. Personally, I almost always start from a theme and let the rules follow from there. It’s just what suits me. This was what happened with both MA and DZ, and this is the root of the differences.
Deadzone zooms into a tiny corner of the vast Warpath universe to concentrate on small groups of highly trained special forces. This is Blackhawk Down, Bravo Two Zero and the Cockleshell Heroes all rolled into one. Set in space. With monsters.
The tone of the background is serious – it is, after all, the end of humanity if the Enforcers get this wrong. That would probably be important.
DZ springs from this background of highly trained individuals, and so individual models are important and powerful. There’s a wealth of options in the tactical detail for the player to choose between, and the minutae of these choices can be critical. He can combine the moves of his various models to pull off complex, interlocking plans. Of course, you have to be aware of the overall progress of your force, but it’s in managing the detail of the individual actions that you will probably win the game.
Mars Attacks, on the other hand, is not serious. How could it be? It’s based on the larger than life comic style of the collectable cards and comics. It’s all slightly retro brash colours, dastardly aliens, buxom heroines, manly heroes and deadly ray guns in a style reminiscent of the covers of Astounding! and Amazing! magazines. Approaching this the same way as Deadzone just wouldn’t sit right in my brain.
So Mars Attacks is a much lighter game. It’s slightly more random and less “thinky” in a rules sense (though the better player will still win 95% of the games). To reflect the background, individual normal Martians and Humans die in droves. They are very much not important. Oh sure, one might get lucky, but they’d need to. Mostly it’s the heroes that will be winning the games for you. If the rank and file are getting anything done it’s because they turned up mob handed and outnumber you by lots.
Mars Attacks is replete with wacky events like wandering herds of burning cattle, distracting squirrels, thrown cars and loads more. It also has flying saucers and ray guns.
So, detailed and thinky, vs lighter and sillier.
DetailsBoth games share the same basic dice mechanic that you might have seen in DreadBall. It’s a nice, simple and very quick process that is both easy to explain and quickly becomes second nature. I’ve used it for a while now (it’s based on the one I used in God of Battles and was in development for another game before that). As I know it works and works well it seemed like reinventing the wheel to replace it with something else. Just as cars all use round wheels, I didn’t think replacing it for the sake of being different would help anyone. Square wheels? No thanks.
Both games are also action driven in the sense that you choose an action per model from a list. Again, this is the same as DreadBall (and a thousand other skirmish games). However, the list of possible actions is different in DZ and MA. DZ allows for a lot more detail and includes more modifiers on each of its larger list of actions. This means that Mars Attacks focuses less on the detail of individuals, and more on the overall movement of the force as a whole.
Another thing that underlines this difference is the fact that only heroes get injured. Normal Humans and Martians just get dead, and they do that pretty quickly. If you’re familiar with the background you’d be surprised at anything else. The stories have an impressive body count.
Overall, I’d say that the games look closer on paper than they feel in play. When you’ve got them on the table the difference in focus is clear. Deadzone wants you in the details. Mars Attacks wants you in the war².
So who is Mars Attacks for? Well, it’s for anyone who might want a lighter and sillier gaming session. In some cases this will be a group that loves the background and appreciates its black humour. This could be casual gamers or (in my case) veteran geeks who are looking for a light game to end or start a session of something else. It could be anyone that wants to fight their way through the narrative campaign to save or conquer Greenville. Mars Attacks is also a good way to introduce someone to gaming as it combines ready to go out of the box with simple rules and fun (pre-assembled) models.
Personally I expect to play DZ and MA with the same opponents. Just because someone likes the detail grit of Deadzone doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate disintegrating waves of the opposition with heat rays, chucking a car at the enemy or setting fire to a herd of cattle. It’s not so much one or the other – they’re both different sorts of fun 🙂
In The EndI’m sure we’ll come back to this question again. It is, like the DB/BB elephant, looking like a hardy perennial. However, for me the issue is simple. The points of similarity are like the same things that two cars have in common. Both a Maserati and a Humvee are good at what they’re designed for, and both have an engine, wheels and brakes, but you wouldn’t mistake one for the other. Would you? If you’re confused, the robust and practical Humvee is shown above, and the very shiny Maserati is shown below.
Similarly, DZ and MA both use dice, actions and fight over a gridded board, but that doesn’t make them the same thing. Far from it. I look forward to enjoying both, each for different reasons.
Can I have some Martians now Stew?
1: what’s important and the same. I’m ignoring the fact that both games use dice and models, have rules for movement and so on. If we count those then there are hundreds of games which are effectively the same, and that’s daft.
2: And making the sound effects. Obviously.
Hi folks.
Unfortunately the Foundry staff have been beset by illness and aren’t going to be able to open tomorrow. This means that the planned God of Battles campaign day won’t be able to go ahead on saturday the 5th of October as planned.Â
As we already have a rolling “first saturday of the month” GoB day booked at Foundry I suggest that we simply bump the campaign day to next time (2nd November). Any plans for interim games there should probably be on hold until we hear that Marcus and the rest of the Foundry crew are back on their feet.
Apologies for the late notice. I only just heard myself.
If you know anyone else who was coming and might not have heard, please pass the info on.
Thanks.
With less than four hours to go to the launch of Mars Attacks on Kickstarter I thought I’d let you know of another freebie on the topic.
Mantic have arranged a free digital issue of one of the Mars Attacks comics for everyone signing up to the Mantic newsletter.
If you’re already a subscriber you should have received your link in yesterday’s newsletter. If not, then all you need to do is scoot over to the Mars Attacks website and sign up there. They’ll be sending the link out in the next few days.
Ronnie showed me some of the pledge levels yesterday and I’m still not sure how the maths works. You’ll see what I mean when it goes live.
There is an Alpha set of rules being laid out for your amusement too, so the rules-hounds among you won’t be disappointed.
All told, Mars Attacks is looking pretty shiny 😉
Rhymes, eh? Where would advertising be without them?
Seriously though, I was at Mantic yesterday where it was all hands to the pumps packing  shiny DB3 boxes for despatch all over the world. Stacks and stacks of the things in great ziggurats filling the warehouse. Well they were before the postie turned up. When they weren’t doing that a few brave souls were still fighting the last battles in the Deadzone, fending off terrifying Stage 1P printers and other nasties. And, to add to the excitement, within mere hours of arriving is a vast fleet of invaders. Yup, the Mars Attacks Kickstarter goes live tomorrow, and I’ve seen the saucers they’re coming in.
Very nice 😉
Personally I’ve also got the God of Battles campaign day this saturday at Foundry in Nottingham  and have been quietly working on some campaign rules in general that can use it (in part) as a bit of a test. It’s all looking like being very free form and relaxed, which is always a fun challenge. If you’re able to, why not drop into Foundry and join in? The nature of the event means that it can accommodate all manner of later arrivals. That’s one of the common issues with running campaigns so it’ll be good to be able to test some ideas out with several gamers at once 🙂
I just got my paws on one of these and thought I’d drop some first impressions here.
For £60 RRP you get a heavy box with quite a bit in. It looks like a well thought out entry point for the game which should bring in new blood to their player base. I know a couple of people who’re dipping their toes into this game now that the entry cost has been lowered. That’s all good.
In the box you get all the models, rules, scenery, counters, dice and even a tape that you’d need to play. It’s fairly comprehensive.
The models in the box are equivalent to a Scourge and UCM starter, but in plastic instead of resin. How much difference does that make? Well, to start with each of those resin starters has an RRP of more than the whole box. That’s a very big difference. But do you sacrifice quality for that reduction? Well, I’ve got a starter set for each of them so I can do a comparison review later. For the moment, let me just say that they look fine on the sprues.
The rulebook is the 1.1 version, so no major changes there. It’s 4 pages longer than the v1.0, but is an instance of incorporating errata from the first edition rather than a wholesale reworking. Tweaks and clarifications are the order of the day here.
I’ll come back to look at this in more detail in a proper review later. For now, let me just say that anyone who thought DZC was too expensive to get into can’t use that argument any longer.
Well time does fly when you’re having fun, and I must have been really enjoying myself lately as the last month has roared past.
It seems like only a couple of days since I was talking about a God of Battles tournament coming up, and now we’re a month later and I’ve still not properly discussed my plans for a Campaign day on the 5th of October. Best do that now 😉
As regular readers will know, we have a God of Battles day over at Foundry on the first saturday of each month. I’ve told all the regulars that the next one will be a campaign day, but what exactly does that entail? Well, the basics are you guys coming along (ideally with your army) and playing a bunch of games. There’s an overall story that’s woven around these battles and each series of wins and losses will impact both the overall direction of the plot and the next games. Victors may have extra gold to hire mercenaries or bribe opponents, losers may have to resort to assassination to win fights. That sort of thing.
The games themselves will be normal battles with a spin. This will be a  mixture of bespoke things for the day plus bits of a campaign system I am writing for GoB. Seemed like an ideal time to try some bits out on live victims playtesters.
As always, taking part is free – all you have to do is get yourself to the Foundry site.
If you’d like to come along you don’t need to be familiar with the rules. I’m quite happy to show new players the ropes as we go along.
What would be really useful is for you to let me know if you are planning to come and what army you will be bringing (if any). This lets me set up the story to best fit the forces we have, which will be most entertaining.
The more folk we get, the more anarchic and fun it’s likely to be, so if you’ve got the time to spare do consider popping along.
Any questions or thoughts, let me know here or in email.
We spent some hours yesterday talking about the next steps for DreadBall and I managed to sneak a quick photo of Ronnie’s explanation of his vision. I don’t want you to get too excited yet, but I couldn’t keep this to myself.
I can’t say any more. A picture’s worth a thousand words so I may already have revealed too much.
A couple of tweaks in this section. Firstly, the strike force goes up to 140 points rather than 100. This gives a great deal more soak to the force and more choice to the player. Coupled with a change in the casualties (below) this will greatly reduce the likelihood of having to get green recruits from High Command to fill the ranks.
I’ve looked at the costs for improving models and they are already on the low side compared to the amount charged to models in their initial form. As the synergy of the extra stats and abilities is already an uncosted bonus for veteran models, I don’t feel that I can reduce these costs any further and pretend to stay balanced. As I said the other day, worth looking at again, but on closer inspection not a good idea to change it.
I have made some slight changes to the way casualties are dealt with that makes it a bit simpler and also removes some of the absenteeism. The easiest way to explain is to show you the whole section:
Models that were killed during the battle are removed from the roster unless you bought a resurrect model upgrade for them. You need to buy one such upgrade per model and may choose to resurrect some and not others. If you want to resurrect a model you must do so immediately after the battle in which they were killed. If you cannot afford to pay at that time they are removed from the roster permanently.
Models that are resurrected must roll one dice on the complications table below and apply that result.
Complications Table
| Dice roll | Result |
|
1 |
Bleeder: Despite every effort, the model cannot be saved and dies permanently on the operating table. Remove the model from your roster and bury them with full military honours. |
|
2 |
Brain damage: -1 Command value. The model’s cost is reduced by 1 point. |
|
3 |
Impaired reflexes: -1 Survive. The model’s cost is reduced by 1 point. |
|
4 |
Blurred vision: -1 Shoot. The model’s cost is reduced by 1 point. |
|
5 |
Muscle wasting: -1 Fight. The model’s cost is reduced by 1 point. |
|
6-7 |
Smooth operation: No complications. The model returns to active duty immediately. |
|
8 |
Surgical genius: the model is not only returned to active duty immediately, but they also retain any experience earned in this battle. |
Injured models will recover on their own given the normal medical attention available. However, this will take some time and they will be absent for a single battle. If you do not buy emergency medical care for a model then mark them as absent for the next battle. You need to buy one such upgrade per model and may choose to treat some and not others.
Models that receive emergency medical aid are not marked absent and may fight in the next battle.
Reductions in Shoot, Fight and Survive game values make the number rise by 1. So, a 3+ becomes a 4+, a 4+ becomes a 5+, and so on. If the model already has a game value of 7+ and is reduced further then they fall into a coma and cannot be revived. Treat this as a roll of a 1 instead
Reductions in Command value move down the hierarchy listed on page XXXX. If the model has a 1/1 command and is reduced further then they fall into a coma and cannot be revived. Treat this as a roll of a 1 instead.
As we’ve talked about before, it makes some sense that damage should be possible with Blaze Away attacks. I’ve tried a number of solutions to this and had abandoned all of them for various reasons. The main problems were that it was making BA a better option than Shooting in so many cases that it was clearly going to create an imbalance in weapons use.
There are a lot of different model types in Deadzone, and in several cases the main difference is the weapon the model carries. Now there’s simply no point in going to the trouble of making all these models and writing all these stat lines if we then introduce a rule that makes one type flat out better than the rest. That would be silly.
The force selection process is very open to allow you to pick what you like from the models you have, but the flip side of this is that the balance must be pretty good. If one type is better all round then that’s all anyone will use. We’re aiming here for a selection of differently armed troopers, each of which has their own niche. Whilst you may have a favourite, they should all have a situation when they are the best at what needs to be done.
Anyway…
After I posted this there were several rather disappointed comments, so I went back to have one final look. Now there are several ways this could be done, but I really didn’t want to stick in a completely new mechanic that had nothing to do with the rest of the way the game worked. Then I had a new idea and this is what I’ve gone with.
When someone uses Blaze Away to attack they may cause damage to their target. Work out the attack as before with the addition of a triples result that drops the target 3 steps of Aggression. If the target’s Aggression is reduced to Suppressed and it still has steps left to drop then it takes those additional steps in potential damage instead.
For example, a Pinned target that is doubled would lose 2 steps of Aggression. One takes it to Suppressed and the other becomes potential damage. If it had been tripled it would have taken 2 points of potential damage.
This fits the damage process into the existing drop in Aggression and allows AP cards to be used with Blaze Away. It also gives you more reason to stack supports onto a single BA attack. All in all I think it works very smoothly to introduce the possibility of damage without making it overpowering or requiring radical changes in mechanics.
So I’m quite pleased. Hope you like it too.
Quirkworthy 