Ronnie’s Ramblings – the year ahead and price changes

Hi everyone,

It’s Ronnie here and everyone has made the mistake of letting me take over the blog for a moment to give you an update on where we are and where we’re going! This year has started with a bang, and it is only going to get better from here.

This month we have seen the first wave releases for The Walking Dead: All Out War (TWD:AOW for short!!), and the hype surrounding this amazing game continues to grow. We are already placing our second print run – after just five weeks on sale – and it is already our top selling game of all time.

If you haven’t watched it played yet, then have a look here at our getting started videos – or if you are at PAX South this weekend get over to our stand (booth number 10460) and get a demo.

Save some money before the price rises!

Before moving on, let’s get some bad news out of the way. Last year we had some price rises on the plastic regiment sets, but we kept the army prices as they were to allow the maximum number of people to give Kings of War a go. Then Brexit happened and totally killed us on price! As mentioned in my previous blog last year, this means the army sets, the prices for shipping and Dungeon Saga, plus a few other lines, will be going up in price from February 1st.

I hate having to do this, but sometimes the world conspires against us, and we have to keep the lights on. For the shipping in particular we’ve kept it low for a very long time but eventually we’ve just had to increase the charges in line with our costs. However, in typical Mantic fashion we have lowered a few prices too – we cannot let the bank manager win out on every front – and we’ll be adding courier options to the shipping so you can track your packages! But I hope the warning will give you time to grab what you want this weekend before the price increase.

In fact, this weekend you can still pick up a Kings of War starter army for £49.99 before they go up to £59.99 and I’m delighted to say that with the third re-print of Dungeon Saga on the way next month, until February 1st you can pre-order Dungeon Saga for £49.99 (before it increases to £59.99 as well. The US and Euro price will remain the same, by the way)! Get them while you can!

Ok, with that out the way, let’s focus on the good stuff…

February

Feb has more Walking Dead, including the awesome Rick on a Horse and we have the Trident Realms army – who said a Fishman army would never happen?! Watch out on the blog as we feature the army and tactical tips. The Trident Realms of Neritica releases are coming out alongside the Clash of Kings Tournament book – with a how-to guide for running your own tournaments, lots of new scenarios, and a few new magic items and other clever trickery to keep your games of KoW fun and fresh.

March

March is possibly even sexier than Feb! For starters, we will have a very special limited edition resin gaming piece featuring Negan in close discussion with a few of Rick’s gang – and for some reason Rick’s team all seem to be on their knees. I have no idea why, but Glenn has two different heads, something about ‘before’ and ‘after’. What that can be all about? Absolutely no clue.

It may not look like much now but soon it’ll be full of awesome, highly detailed resin miniatures.

This will be among the first releases from our new in-house resin production unit, alongside some of the Trident Realms miniatures. That’s right everyone, we’re opening a brand new resin department, which will allow us to create some amazing miniatures… and perhaps some that aren’t so miniature. Good news for those who like BIG Kings of War units. Stay tuned!

Going back to Negan’s diorama though, it’ll be super high quality, limited in number and with a few unique character cards too! Watch for it online and in-store during March. That will be backed up with a few other useful and fun add-ons for TWD:AOW game – watch the blog in a couple of weeks for more on all the new items.

Coming soon…

And to sign-off, I mentioned last year that we are working on a Kings of War skirmish game, but I just want to let everyone know this will be way later in the year. With the Summer Campaign kicking off in July everyone is focused on getting their armies ready, so that would get in the way. Don’t worry, we’re busy in the background on making it as great as possible.

However, I do feel it would be terribly wrong of me to not keep you up to date with my latest madness, while I have you here 😉

Over the past year, we have been focusing less and less on Kickstarter, and more on getting our products widely available through bricks and mortar gaming stores (who do a big part to keep the hobby alive with their in-store gaming tables) and this will be the Mantic plan in the future too. But sometime an idea comes along that just suits Kickstarter rather than a standard retail release. It needs that close communication to the end user and requires that excitement and ‘I’ve got to have it all’ attitude that a truly monster campaign can generate.

If I say our latest Kickstarter is one of my tabletop passions, then any who knows me, or has watched several of our previous KS campaigns will be able to guess what we are crafting. Oh forget the teasing, I am pleased to say that it is… what do you mean that’s my word count? This isn’t print, we can’t run out of space. Oh, well then everyone will have to go looking for clues in the last paragraph and watch for more leaks on my Facebook page then won’t they!

Keep well, and keep gaming,

Ronnie

P.S. I am sorry I couldn’t be at PAX South or CAN Con this weekend. I hope they are both fantastic events, especially the KoW tournament going on in OZ. I will be at PAX EAST, Adepticon, Salute, our Open Day and probably more though…you can see our full list of events here… so come along and say hello.