Over the past ten years, Mantic games has caused quite a stir in the world of miniature wars Kings of war. The fantasy combat game has been praised for its clear and concise ruleset and some standout models. But the British company’s science fiction lines include Dead zone And Gunfight, have not seen the same level of critical or commercial acclaim in the US. A new crowdfunding campaign could change that – and further expose one of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise’s weakest flanks. It is called Warpathand it goes live on Kickstarter today.
Warpath is an epic-scale miniature game that you can compete head-to-head with Legions Imperialis, which Mantic down the street in Nottingham, England – a small company called Games Workshop – launched in November. Featuring small robots and tanks that fit on the front of a quarter, the game explores corporate-level strategy. That is a much smaller scope than a game RiskSure, but on the table Warpath will take up much more space than a traditional 28 or 32 millimeter war game. Infantry are just a little bigger than a grain of rice, and because the battles are fought on battlefields measuring five feet by two feet, there are probably hundreds of them in the game at any given time.
Early renderings of Mantic’s miniatures look excellent, but the real selling point for me is the ruleset, which was developed with the help of Alessio Cavatore. Cavatore is a veteran of Games Workshop, where he worked on all three of the company’s major titles, including Warhammer fantasy battles, Warhammer 40,000And Middle-earth strategy battle. In addition to co-authoring the rules for Mordheimhe is also the man behind the well-known rules for Mantic’s Kings of war.
In conversation with Cavatore and co-designer Matt Gilbert, the rules are clear Warpath are slightly more advanced than Legions, also. For example, the pair have built in a command and control simulation, meaning the quality and attitude of your battlefield commanders will be just as important as the number and caliber of your heavy weapons. But they’ve also come up with a new line of sight system, one inspired by other sci-fi franchises like Dead zone And Gunfight.
unlike Legions Imperialiswhere players have to get up to eye level with their little soldiers to literally see if they can shoot at a certain target, up Warpath will be abstracted. At the start of a game, players on both sides of a battle will examine the battlefield in detail, assigning numerical heights to various attributes. For example, a building may have a height of six, and a group of trees may have a height of four. Part of each individual unit’s profile also lists an altitude, so even before reaching their position, players will know whether or not a given piece of terrain will conceal certain units as they maneuver. There will even be interactions between units of different heights, meaning advancing infantry can use armored columns of tanks for cover.
But it’s the possibilities of exotic gaming tables that really get me excited. While the Legions Imperialis ruleset struggles to represent anything other than a perfectly flat, urban landscape, Warpath should be able to accommodate rolling hills and other even more exotic types of terrain with ease.
“There’s no friction there,” Gilbert told Polygon. “When you come to it, you look at it and say: Well, I’m six years old. You are height two. I can see over you. I don’t have to work this out (even)..”
The cool thing is that, unlike Games Workshop’s civil war battle, where it’s essentially just one faction fighting itself, Warpath launches with four different small boxed armies, each containing a total of 160 hard plastic miniatures and various extras. A single army will cost you about $75. All four will be closer to $190. The campaign starts today and runs until mid-March.