Mantic's Ronnie Renton on 'Now Games', Problem Solving, & Signing Jervis Johnson

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[SPEAKER_00]: brought to you by BedroomBattleField.com.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is the table top miniature movie podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On this episode of the table top miniature hobby podcast, I'm delighted to be joined by Mantick founder and industry veteran Ronnie Renton.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ronnie was last on the show exactly one year ago, but here is a long time at Mantick, so this conversation is long over due, since the last time we spoke of seen a new edition of Kings of War, recently revealed no boutime expansion for Halo Flashpoint, and the dreadball upstairs kickstarter has just launched.
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[SPEAKER_00]: too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Soroni, welcome back to the podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always hesitant to use the term industry veteran.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People could often take that the wrong way and just hear it is me calling them old.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know what?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Firstly, mentally, I'm still only 12 years old.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, I can't really be a veteran where I'm still, you know, not yet an adult.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's, you know, I've been doing up in a manic, manic's been going long and then I was at GW and I was a pretty long serving GW guy,
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's two things I'd be talking about there so that you can't to play the war hammer for longer than me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: because I had a pre-order for Warhammer for the very first black and white edition back in the 80s.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not bragging what that's saying is I'm on a journey and you can be all of them me have played it but you can't have started playing it earlier than me because I've started playing on day one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The pretty sleek did because he was designing it but as a customer and what it tells me is that if I'm first, if I'm patient zero,
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a whole load of people coming behind me that have had a similar journey where they've discovered fancy and science fiction toy soldiers, they've thoroughly enjoyed it, they've got super immersed in it, they've probably got plastic crack under the bed, I've got three tons of metal and probably could lead covered now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: then you go to school and university and discover day and day, which is, you know, drinking dames and you're going to do all of that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then you start, you could.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not an age where my kids are just just at university and I didn't have a game I could play with them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't have time to spend ages finessing loads of things if I just want to play on a Tuesday night.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what I'm able to do now with Mantic is address some of the things for the second generation of hobbyists for the ones that have done that first journey and there's terms of young lads right now and girls going out and playing 40k they're seeing it on Space Marine 2 and they're starting a journey but 20 years from now they'll want to go I loved worms here support game where I
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[SPEAKER_01]: I get the concepts quite quickly because I understand toy soldiers and rolling dice and moving from hex to hex and two wounds and things, but I can play with enough family and friends, I can play to taste them with, you know, I play with these to be with my family, I can, we were just talking about your dungeon saga.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Boxes just over you shoulder there, which is still the best packaging we've ever done.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and how your daughter's enjoying it, and we made Dungeons on our origins for dads and mums to play with their kids, or uncles and aunts to play with their nephews and nieces, because it's just funny enough and compelling enough, but you're just happy spending time with them that are not spying on their computer or on their phone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm able to now finally manage to go to a place where you can go, we can do this, we can go on, I think there's an audience.
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[SPEAKER_01]: for this and for this and until five years ago, whenever the problem was, my answer was Kings of War.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We had Kings of War, we had some terrain crate, but that's what we made.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And therefore, to get it or dead zone or firefight, but there were all the same thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of hobby building, even dead zone has robbed berm and used to say to me, I said, I hope dead zone's an interesting, easy skirmish game, it goes wrong, you paint 10 figures, yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, tanks of war, high welcome, come join Kings of War, 400 figures, 60 if you play in Ocas.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, see you in six months, the hunted quid is the easy bit.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The captain kept playing to do it together on the gaming table, that's a hard bit.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So things like Halo, I've changed who we are and what we're able to do, dead, dreadball.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and one side and crazy hardcore grog, not products like Epic Warp, with these a thousand figures on a gaming table on the other.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's, um, that's been the year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a fun one because we now certainly have a real array of, of, of things that are appropriate to different people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I think hopefully give you the same experience, which is unbridled joy,
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[SPEAKER_00]: That is a great response running, because my first question was actually going to be, what does a modern table top game need to do to survive in 2026, but you kind of got in a lot of that already.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You anything that's sort of added to that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think there's two.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's probably two games, I think there's the forever game.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the now game.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the forever game is Kings of War, and it's got literally thousands of players around the world, tens of thousands of players around the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: who quietly and enjoy building up their armies, coming together once every month, three months, once a year, a clash of kings or it's a lone war for it, you know, can come.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And spending a weekend, moving souls around rolling dice, and there's always one of those units, somewhere on your painting table, epic warpath is one of those as well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And these are long-term joyous,
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[SPEAKER_01]: hobby projects that you play the game is often as time allows and then there's now games and I think now games are things where me and the lads me and the club me and my mates are going to play for three months we're all going to do this for a while and I can paint you up quite quickly I can paint it up in a month or so get it on the gaming table so our
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's very, very rare that you can get something that people are playing all the time consistently.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But what I do think is if you fall in love with the game, like dreadball and now that I treble all stars and you play it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the company comes along and says, right, you've all got your teams, you all know how to play.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You've not played for six months.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a new arena.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a new thing with just a tweak.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You'll go, ooh, should we do that again?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and you kind of dip in and out, and I think you probably do two or three of those a year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, and I think most people nowadays have a couple of the skirmish games and one or two of the big forever games.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And our challenges of companies to make sure that we have the excitement and fun of the nails while still paying attention and respect to the forever's.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What if you learn about player behavior that surprised you over the years?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you give the keys to the asylum to the loonies, they'll make the game that they think they want, and actually you've got to be very careful, you need to refresh and renew and just as that pair of shoes is getting very comfortable, it starts getting holes in it and it starts not being waterproof anymore.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and people look at you, you don't like it like a tramp, and I think you need to actually when you do a new addition, you must stay true to it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but you must actually clean it up, make it welcoming to new players while the experience players relearn it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But you've got to keep investing and... and if you stop welcoming new players into your game, it will die.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and the very thing that people love about the game, their lose because it no longer gets supported or invested in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yet, often the rules that they want you to write are anti-nubies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not because they want, they can see one tiny thing that's wrong.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We want tiny part of the game in one tiny instance.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and they want to start writing rules to put that out as opposed to going all the four five or six when it happens because most of the time most of the things you need to talk about are actually perfect and brilliant and be careful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah keep it fresh keep it moving be humble and listen but at the same time have a vision for the type of game you want because that will allow you to bring your people into it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever followed community feedback and later
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think the danger is that most people most of the time are mostly happy and therefore don't go on the internet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And therefore you've got to be careful about what you read.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I've got a good example of this, and I won't embarrass the chap, it's sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But he's a long time fan of Mantic, comes up to our open days.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I love the lovely fellow, a grown-up, because I would call them, you know, as a good sense perspective, and we were launching our new Walking Dead STLs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we launched the Walking Dead game all out all about eight, ten years ago, made a beautiful range of plastics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lovely game where player versus player versus the environment, because the zombies are absolutely lethal.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then you start shooting guns, they'll just come over and mob you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what we did when we made the games, we made kind of two games, one game was the player versus player versus environment, but we also created a whole load of scenarios that follows the story up from the comics so you could recreate the scenes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we launched it over a few waves and that was 10 years ago and then later we'd been doing some resins for some of the factions that were in the later stages.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we've actually brought that to my mini factory right now, it's running and you can, you get a big welcome load download pack and then each month you're going to get a few more parts of the story and over time you're build up this cool collection and every month you get terrain the figures and the scenario to play so it's kind of like a part works for printers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of my big 10 phases, how am I going to get that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say, well, you're going to mount your games.com and you press the button that says send me this plastics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If I don't have a printer, send me this product and we'll send it to you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The same way you've been able to do for 12 years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what it says is sometimes we just lose our minds in the thing that we're being denied something when an actual fact that thing is right there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
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[SPEAKER_01]: The only time I'm conscious is when you get drawn into a conversation where you forget the first principles of what it is we're trying to do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We want Kings Award to be a fun, slick, quick, enjoyable three hours away, you're with your mates, rolling toy soldiers, rolling dice, moving toy soldiers around, trying to break their line, your heroes are supposed to be flavour, not the meat of it, your core units are what the games build around.
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[SPEAKER_01]: frenetic, you know, and if you capture those essences in the game, you're doing the right things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to ask you a wee bit about Kickstarter too, because obviously your Kickstarter launched time and record that was just yesterday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Kickstarter, I don't know that came to a lot of people have opinions on it, and it used to be this sort of scrappy startup too, but never really feels like a market and platform as much as it is.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'll fund them one what
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, good question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I, we, we were building up a global community in 2011 and 12 before it existed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And
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[SPEAKER_01]: in the early days for us when we did dreadball the first one who's fantastic because that was going to be a metal range with four teams because we couldn't afford to tool it and at the end of it it had 12 teams with with extra sculpts for each team and a and a prone figure and three seasons and he gave us the money to bring that game to it to a truly global audience.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but then we kind of got slightly addicted to the platform until what it was and it made us a little lazy and short-sighted perhaps.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I still regret dribbled extreme to this day, not because it wasn't a great idea, it was, but because it didn't need to be kickstarted, we needed to see some full book to come out for the community that were playing the game.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and I realised we were spending money on tools and we were never running those tools again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That was all it was and sometimes you get lucky or you planned well with dreadball and it had a very big life after the event, but sometimes the kick start was all it was.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was 2016 and it was literally Dungeon Saga that the time I said right, from now on, if what we're making doesn't align up with our long-term plans, we're not going to do it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And our long-term plans are, you know, we have wages every month, we have a sustainable business model, look, we want and we want to make products that end your and end your themselves over time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Kings of War hasn't been on Kickstarter for a very, very, very, very long time, more than 10 years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's never been stronger than it is, we've just done a fourth edition, as you said.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But we couldn't have afforded to do epic warpath without Kickstarter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on tooling that range.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I needed my funds to come in early to allow me to do it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: to the extent we wanted to then blew up and we ended up with eight factions is at a four as we planned on but find great look and that is a wonderful game system and now you've got all that you need it's all been sculpted it's all been done.
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[SPEAKER_01]: or worms, or dreadball extreme, dreadball that we're doing now, dreadball all stars, it's allowed us to go along to a big global audience and say, if you guys are ready to jump in with four teams and a couple of arenas or six teams, you can get in early, you can help us fund it because again we're going to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of tooling and to help bring this to life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But if you want the two players set, or you just want to play a by a team when it comes out, it's going to be in retail early next to early 2027, that's coming out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So wait for that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we've done with Epic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the first four teams came up, first four factions came up, and four Christmas.
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[SPEAKER_01]: the second four are coming out in a month or two's time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you just want to pick up or pick it up at retail, everything where it has a retail life, you know, the worms faction, the worms kickstarter, you've got a hundred bucks with the stuff.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not everything you needed and a few things you wanted.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you come to UK Games Expo, there's a retail edition, that's 50 quid and it's still one of our top selling lines because people just love worms.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 50 quid, but not 150 quid.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What makes are a campaign succeed?
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[SPEAKER_00]: On Kickstarter, beyond just having a good, I could say a man is on a non-IP.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I mean, I think being able to work with imagines like Javier Johnson, who prevented religious sports games helps.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think our enthusiasm, I think giving the rules away beforehand to show a look, this is what it is, you know, making informed choice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think ten years ago, and eight years ago, I think Kickstarter were all about intention and people were prepared to help back your intuition, you know, our dead zone campaign was phenomenally successful, dreadball, walls, dungeon saga walls, and they were backing kind of my word, my promise.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas now I think they want a little bit more, show us, show us what
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, particularly when it's an IP, I think people want to know that they're going to get a quality game experience that goes along that's reflective and we've always been selective.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We could have done tons more, been offered lots of IPs that we've turned down.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because unless we can do something unique that we think reflects it, you know, worms, yes, it's kind of a miniatures board game.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But when you roll that dice, you move things, it always goes wrong just like you did in the computer game.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You have laugh out loud moments.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we've been able to, to enable people to bring a thing they're very fond of and recreate it in a more social setting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think you have to get all of it right these days.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we're very modest, we want to fund the tooling, help we get off to a great start, get it to our own needs to get to with a view that has got long-evitably, are to rank, rank, rank, you know, that we did multiple times, the trees, the treasure chests, the dungeon doors.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they are still hugely popular with RPGs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you've got to know why you're using it all and I don't think this is us You've got to be truly unique and innovative and I think for some people where they've they've got an idea in their head And they can spend two or three or four years building up that idea into something I think you do see some some very cool things come along as well
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think he does still perform that purpose.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think for romanticists, far more about helping us get quickly to a place where we want to get to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We can see something, we can explain it, we can articulate it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We think there's people that want that help us get there quick.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned, did you ever think E.C.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Jarvis Johnston, a man-tick strip?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, I mean, I suppose I should probably should have done it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, obviously once we got a LSEO to write Kings of War, which I think was,
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[SPEAKER_01]: was the game he was born to write.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's in bolt action as a two other two games that he by this point he's a 15 year rules that and he got two blank sheets of paper.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And with Kings of War, I said, I write the rank and flank game that you've never had chance to write, because in the past all you could do was tinker with the existing system.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There were never given a blank sheet of paper to go and write the game that they were capable of doing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I probably should have been a bit more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as these legends are kind of retiring and moving into the next phase, I probably should have been a bit more aware of it, but you kind of just don't think about it, and then we were talking about dreadball coming back, how could we properly launch it to a whole new audience and to...
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think by the end of it, I loved it, I loved dreadball the game, I think it was just phenomenal and but we done the teams.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was ending up with 28 teams kind of vanishing under its own weight.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't appealing to new people to dive in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we were talking about how we could launch it and what we could do to reinvigorate it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when we started working out this was the All Stars version, this is the World Cup version as paid for by your corporate sponsors.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, why don't we go and get the guy that invented the genre to write it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And because he gets on well with the LSEL and with new and I think we've been for drink, the kind of I had that brain wave, which isn't really a brain wave, is it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of bleedin' obvious, but I just said, would he be interested?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, in other that point, we were ready to do something entirely new.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it had to pay homage to,
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[SPEAKER_01]: the dreadball that was, but it mustn't be a rewarned.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't the third edition.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was dreadball all stars.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is the World Cup rules.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is the OTT outrage of playing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But also the he's five players.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's the superstars and they play as they play.
20:33.383 --> 20:38.193
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you have listed was made loads of cool links and the team's style.
20:39.235 --> 20:39.756
[SPEAKER_01]: And
20:40.478 --> 20:48.350
[SPEAKER_01]: along with the way the players play, along with the event deck, creates just a very fast, fun game experience.
20:48.771 --> 20:51.976
[SPEAKER_01]: But once you know it, everything you need on the card, you only need to look at the book.
20:52.196 --> 20:54.520
[SPEAKER_01]: It's clever, it's been a very clever guy with it.
20:56.704 --> 21:02.132
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was a joy to work with someone who just knows how to do it from beginning to end.
21:03.158 --> 21:07.603
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people in the hobby who already feel like they've got everything you need.
21:07.623 --> 21:11.027
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you think about that kind of player when designing new games?
21:11.128 --> 21:16.294
[SPEAKER_00]: And what do you think actually make something worth adding to an already full hobby life?
21:17.836 --> 21:24.103
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's where I think we start now with the what problem am I going to solve?
21:25.298 --> 21:29.882
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll give you two examples of this, where I think we've done it pretty well in just in the last three months.
21:30.283 --> 21:37.950
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've just put a product, call one product, we've just made a box that's called the Kings of War fancy Battlefield set.
21:39.912 --> 21:51.643
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has, and it's gonna come out as a, yeah, it's Kings of War specific, but actually we're gonna launch it as a terrain crate, battlefield range in a couple of months, because it's got two hills in it.
21:51.910 --> 21:55.595
[SPEAKER_01]: And the hills are sturdy enough, you can put things on them.
21:56.457 --> 22:01.544
[SPEAKER_01]: The edge of them's quite steep, so there's not a lot where you've got a thing hanging over the edge and tilting over.
22:02.105 --> 22:05.931
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can be on the top of the hill very quickly.
22:05.951 --> 22:14.283
[SPEAKER_01]: At the bottom of the hills, or if you're playing a round-place game, you're either on or off, so it's very quick to transition one to the other.
22:14.323 --> 22:21.073
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're playing Kings of War, you can just put a little ladder underneath it to hold it exactly in place.
22:21.796 --> 22:23.999
[SPEAKER_01]: But you paint them up, they look fantastic.
22:24.019 --> 22:26.383
[SPEAKER_01]: The buildings are card assembled.
22:27.124 --> 22:31.790
[SPEAKER_01]: You can glue them if you want to, but you can also flat-pack them.
22:31.810 --> 22:36.758
[SPEAKER_01]: The trees have a near-pring template and then you put 3D hard plastic trees on them.
22:37.359 --> 22:43.427
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has the visual aesthetics of a lovely looking war game, but the precision that you know whether you're in or out of the woods.
22:45.050 --> 22:46.171
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem is solve with areas.
22:46.572 --> 22:50.858
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody buys a bit of scenery from different places, different times,
22:51.327 --> 23:07.530
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but what we're creating is actually that one box 75 grid or whatever it is, you've got a war games table that you can play games all on big play any game on exactly and specifically and it still looks great, it's thematic.
23:08.776 --> 23:13.141
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's solving that problem of one click, take my problem away.
23:13.421 --> 23:15.724
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to, I want to, and battery, roll that mat.
23:16.024 --> 23:20.009
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can play it on the kitchen table and at the end of it, you can clean it up and not get you in trouble.
23:20.309 --> 23:21.771
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've left the place looking like a tip.
23:23.513 --> 23:26.116
[SPEAKER_01]: And dead ball, extra ball stars.
23:27.117 --> 23:28.198
[SPEAKER_01]: I think people want fun.
23:29.399 --> 23:32.623
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want the rules to be the same when I play in three months as they are today.
23:33.532 --> 23:45.178
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to be able to know the core mechanics and me and Bob and Jack and Jane are going to come together and we're going to play this game, we're going to play three games of it on a Saturday night, we're going to start at 5 o'clock.
23:45.597 --> 23:50.403
[SPEAKER_01]: and the halfway through the first turn, I'll remember the rules again, and then I'm gonna have some fun.
23:51.024 --> 23:52.306
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to laugh out loud.
23:52.847 --> 23:58.314
[SPEAKER_01]: Rolling dice, drink it some beers, and I'm gonna pack it all away again, and I'm gonna say, that was great fun.
23:58.334 --> 24:05.243
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you in three months, and instead of playing on the normal pitch, we're gonna play the urban version, on the Anarchy version.
24:06.151 --> 24:14.320
[SPEAKER_01]: but don't worry about it because the picture set up, the Anarchy version has rules that change, but the rules changes are on the cards.
24:14.340 --> 24:16.282
[SPEAKER_01]: The event deck just entirely changes.
24:16.562 --> 24:19.165
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need to mess around, moving things around.
24:19.926 --> 24:27.154
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think what's the problem of solving is coming together and having fun with people who also like playing with toy soldiers.
24:27.755 --> 24:31.499
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the meantime, you can paint your soldiers at which is part of the hobby that we all love doing.
24:32.560 --> 24:33.441
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
24:33.961 --> 24:44.797
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to make it easy, fun, and solve, actually on Thursday I don't want to remember to have to do an army list, just turn up and give me a fully balanced army, I'll read my notes and I'll play it.
24:45.317 --> 24:46.479
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, what do that?
24:46.499 --> 24:48.201
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll take all that away for you.
24:48.222 --> 24:56.914
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm hookes are the obvious target for this is boardball players, like what hookes are the to get them a try in this game?
24:57.772 --> 24:59.536
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's a good place.
24:59.556 --> 25:04.165
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's any on the play's miniature games, because it's in as well as game, not an instead of game.
25:04.766 --> 25:08.514
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to play this instead of Blood Bowl, and I'll explain this instead of 40K.
25:09.135 --> 25:10.558
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't play instead of Kings of War.
25:10.859 --> 25:16.911
[SPEAKER_01]: You play as well as, because if I'm playing Kings of War, I know I'm going to play it.
25:17.532 --> 25:19.036
[SPEAKER_01]: a good chunk of time in advance.
25:19.497 --> 25:21.762
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to make sure I tell you, I'm going to tour them into them.
25:21.782 --> 25:25.110
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be going along for a, I'm going to meet Bob on a Thursday night.
25:26.573 --> 25:30.262
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is an hour game, not a three hour game.
25:31.364 --> 25:33.269
[SPEAKER_01]: The teams are built for you.
25:33.830 --> 25:35.895
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can literally read the cards.
25:36.314 --> 25:45.525
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually the first time you play you just use their stat line and then the second time you go, oh, if I'd used that skill I could have done that thing that I wanted to do, it was there.
25:46.046 --> 25:51.513
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the second and third time you play, you really start seeing all of the things that Joe is built in.
25:52.915 --> 26:00.364
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's fast, it's quick, it's 14 turns, it is very dynamic, it's far more ice-hockey and basketball.
26:00.952 --> 26:03.014
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I got my score, you got my score, I got my score.
26:03.315 --> 26:08.441
[SPEAKER_01]: But if I can stop you scoring, that's when I get the swing point, that's when I get the moments.
26:09.923 --> 26:12.025
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's as well as game often instead of game.
26:12.286 --> 26:15.049
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a game that you just can pop out and play.
26:15.550 --> 26:21.096
[SPEAKER_01]: And then because I've been doing this, I saw what I did wrong, I did wrong, we dreadball and how it withered.
26:22.178 --> 26:24.000
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time we were putting it right, it was too late.
26:25.001 --> 26:30.047
[SPEAKER_01]: I built these other tournament packs, where they're not only,
26:30.196 --> 26:31.965
[SPEAKER_01]: the Anakirina where the rules change.
26:32.789 --> 26:35.262
[SPEAKER_01]: During the game, the event deck changes, these things happen.
26:35.322 --> 26:38.518
[SPEAKER_01]: It's often cold, the scoring zones move around.
26:38.735 --> 27:05.805
[SPEAKER_01]: but also we've built a campaign element into it so if you're going to play three games that's all play three games tonight and whoever wins or have you got the best win ratio not gets the cup we think get to keep and a card and that card goes in their card deck and for everyone ever they've got that card now so there's a legacy angle that's taking from board games and said no there you are but we're going to give you three of those cards so you can play this tournament three times but there's only one cup
27:06.325 --> 27:13.899
[SPEAKER_01]: So when Bob loses it next time, to Jane, Jane gets the cup and the cup gives you a reroll in the game.
27:14.280 --> 27:16.324
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have that on your pitch on your side.
27:16.725 --> 27:26.443
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm this year's champion and so we've kind of going look, if you've visited an arena and played it three times with
27:27.115 --> 27:30.139
[SPEAKER_01]: your four or six or eight or twelve players.
27:30.981 --> 27:54.135
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you'd have had an enormous amount to fund there and you'd be ready for another tournament and in six months we'll pop a new one out and we might put one team out and so someone can go again in the other team or a couple of people picking you team up but I've thought about and we've worked with this team on a whole three year plan for supporting dreadball all stars for you to pop in and play it once every three or six months.
27:56.478 --> 27:57.580
[SPEAKER_01]: by us keeping it fresh.
27:58.080 --> 27:59.502
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can play it four times a year.
27:59.943 --> 28:04.550
[SPEAKER_01]: But once a year, twice a year, here's something new that just freshens it all up.
28:04.570 --> 28:05.972
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time doesn't change it.
28:05.992 --> 28:08.896
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't, doesn't mean you have to run out and buy this faction.
28:08.916 --> 28:15.546
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that everything you've learned, you've got to relearn because this book, if you don't have this book, you can't play it.
28:15.686 --> 28:17.910
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, that's not what we're doing.
28:17.930 --> 28:25.000
[SPEAKER_00]: Defined hobbyists and gamers hard or easier, please now compete to say 10 years ago.
28:26.482 --> 28:53.232
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's more choice, and I think that poses the challenge of getting to a critical mass of gamers, because I think one of the challenges I'd love to play this game, but I can't find anyone locally to play, and so a lot of our effort to, you know, Alex is currently running a slow-growth for Kings of War in Champions, because, you know, getting from purchase to gaming table, I think, is a hard journey, and it needs to be rewarded and supported.
28:53.768 --> 28:57.232
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think touchwood we're of a size where we can help people do that.
28:58.173 --> 29:04.421
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, while online tournaments and organized play packs for Halo have allowed that to kind of spring up.
29:04.441 --> 29:08.666
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and that is very much a younger audience for us than our traditional Mantic fan.
29:09.067 --> 29:12.912
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they are 10, 15, 20 years younger, but now we've got two audiences.
29:13.492 --> 29:16.536
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think there is more choice.
29:17.478 --> 29:26.592
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think if you can enable people to navigate that to deal with the issues that they have, quite likely, I can't find a game.
29:26.612 --> 29:29.858
[SPEAKER_01]: They've rock on play it, and so look, well, help you do that.
29:30.699 --> 29:33.523
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the rest do quests, they make a very reasonable.
29:34.725 --> 29:41.496
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're just going to be mindful of people like, oh, you've killed Red Bull.
29:41.516 --> 29:45.342
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, how is it exactly the same state as it was yesterday?
29:45.575 --> 30:01.609
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm hoping to do, and for example, last year we did the Epic Warpath 10 Mill, there was more people playing in the Warpath universe and painting and knowing what forge fathers were in a steering's were last year, the end of last year beginning of this than ever before.
30:02.956 --> 30:06.962
[SPEAKER_01]: And now when we come along and say, hey, here's dead zone, and here's forge for us.
30:07.202 --> 30:08.124
[SPEAKER_01]: I love dead dwarf.
30:08.424 --> 30:10.247
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I love those heavily armored dwarves in space.
30:10.627 --> 30:13.672
[SPEAKER_01]: I love those fast, you know, elves in space.
30:14.573 --> 30:26.230
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they backed a 10-mill game, then now involved in our, in our universe, and they've also understood what makes magic games so fun, so compelling, you know, exploding dice.
30:26.210 --> 30:35.546
[SPEAKER_01]: Quick slick rule systems that are designed to mean you never have to look at the rule book after you played a couple of times So now I don't think they're I think they but at the same time.
30:35.626 --> 30:50.833
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got to we've got to evolve and I think as long as we're evolving in a way that solves problems And I think people are in and are up for that journey How is the relationship between companies and players changed since you started out
30:51.539 --> 30:58.815
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if you pay attention to the community and set up a space to talk about it,
30:59.150 --> 31:02.035
[SPEAKER_01]: such as a discord channel or a forum.
31:02.476 --> 31:04.339
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's exactly the same.
31:04.419 --> 31:10.931
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you can have wonderful deep rich discussions and you know, we have asked me anything's now.
31:11.612 --> 31:23.773
[SPEAKER_01]: We've had it for Kings or whatever, it's a bit where we continue to have them and if you set up a space for an intelligent thought for conversation, I think you have magnificent feedback and you can hear
31:23.753 --> 31:36.830
[SPEAKER_01]: what have we done that's upset you and how can we put it right and it's our problem to put it right and Or And have we upset all of you we just took set one of you because if it's like oh, you made my army this you can We are yeah, but look at your army.
31:36.870 --> 31:38.152
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no blood of units in it.
31:38.172 --> 31:40.735
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's all a hero's and Well, he does a magician.
31:40.755 --> 31:43.679
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to put some you know the game was designed for core units.
31:43.699 --> 31:46.102
[SPEAKER_01]: He needs to put some inmate And you can have a sense of mission there.
31:46.182 --> 31:46.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
31:46.362 --> 31:46.963
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, fair enough.
31:47.003 --> 31:50.908
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and if you want a hero game play that one or
31:51.766 --> 31:58.320
[SPEAKER_01]: And similarly, you've just tweaked that and it just made this a bit too tough and therefore shooting's not fun anymore.
31:58.340 --> 31:59.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yeah, that's fair enough.
31:59.703 --> 32:01.967
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, every six months we've got a book, let's look at it.
32:02.308 --> 32:03.731
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got FAQs and the routers.
32:04.914 --> 32:09.403
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think the danger is if you go on to the,
32:09.383 --> 32:15.654
[SPEAKER_01]: social media and you put something up the joyous and someone's gotten a gender they get on there and start banging away.
32:16.135 --> 32:28.877
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you can then start thinking oh my god what have we done here you overreact or you worry about it and if you then say so then when we put kings of war up I said listen here's the things here it all is play a couple of rule games.
32:29.127 --> 32:40.838
[SPEAKER_01]: because what you're trying to do is you're trying to impose the army list from forth on the your understanding of the rules from third, but the rules from third have have changed in our fourth and the way that plays is different.
32:41.599 --> 32:45.243
[SPEAKER_01]: And certainly people go, yeah, I'm going to go play a couple of games and then they comes to ask me anything.
32:45.263 --> 32:50.188
[SPEAKER_01]: They come to the forum and you have powerful rich enjoyable two-way discussions.
32:50.968 --> 32:54.612
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think you've got to be very careful about believing what you read on the internet.
32:55.874 --> 33:07.400
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get a sense of it, but until you actually create a proper dialogue, you can either under or overreact or panic, or let yourself get confused.
33:07.720 --> 33:12.972
[SPEAKER_01]: So, by all means listen, by all means indulge, get more of the community, but do properly.
33:13.272 --> 33:36.867
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah i that's the thing about the internet two or three people could come across sometimes there's hundreds of people just because of how vocal they are so you need to always and we thought for that you know we'd be panicking and addressing things that was was a single person issue then if you'd kind of dialogue with them it's a well that's all but there go yeah yeah okay for a few we thought this was a you thought the sky was falling in our head
33:36.847 --> 33:43.355
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know any game ideas that you killed back in the day and you're still keen to think about them.
33:45.798 --> 34:05.402
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes all of the time, but at the same time, I mean when I first talked about Dead Zone, which was going to be a low figure count game, I was going to have it that you actually know you had your character sheet and it was quite a IRP, you know they've got 12 bullets in the
34:05.382 --> 34:31.828
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you've got to reload, you've got to take an action to reload, which in theory is really cool, because you know, in my head when you're playing dead zone or halo, you'll, it is not to fix models standing behind the square building, behind some plastic, some rubble, it is a guy with a gun, speed running and shooting and throwing grenades and interferes with someone guy you can see 30, 40, 60 meters away, who's doing the same back.
34:32.838 --> 34:52.686
[SPEAKER_01]: when I first played it however what you found out was all the time all you're doing is admin you know how many shots of a shot burst of three so it was kind of boring so then we got the mechanic where you you know your guns out of ammo when you rolled a certain roll but even that was just just meant that then you wasted a turn half a turn to reload
34:52.750 --> 34:58.740
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was streamlining the mechanics to reflect all of those things visually that are in my head.
34:59.261 --> 35:04.871
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we've built the rules set that if you can see any part of them you're shooting out and because they're in cover.
35:05.592 --> 35:09.720
[SPEAKER_01]: Because in actual fact, you would not be, they are not static and you are not static.
35:10.120 --> 35:12.885
[SPEAKER_01]: You've seen movement, you're going to pile a ton of shots into there.
35:13.777 --> 35:16.001
[SPEAKER_01]: good at knocks and shields off, I'm going to knock some armor down.
35:16.061 --> 35:20.028
[SPEAKER_01]: If I come round and I get a clear shot, in other words, I've surprised you.
35:20.389 --> 35:21.511
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I get bonus dice.
35:22.192 --> 35:28.984
[SPEAKER_01]: Much easier mechanics wise, visually, much more stunning, much more tactically challenging in the game.
35:28.964 --> 35:33.374
[SPEAKER_01]: and, and logically, a whole lot more, you know, resonates.
35:33.835 --> 35:45.681
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so, so, it's separating off what stars as a good idea, but actually ends up being a boring game experience from one that creates the game experience that's visually running in our heads.
35:46.162 --> 35:47.665
[SPEAKER_01]: What would happen
35:47.847 --> 36:05.886
[SPEAKER_01]: If a guy with a really a super trained professional with a whole real, very powerful gun comes real up real close to you, slightly above you and gets a clear shot because you're fighting your buddy and they've just finished killing him and you go, well my buddy's dead so now so are you buddy, man, here it's a bucket from a dice, have at it.
36:06.807 --> 36:12.893
[SPEAKER_00]: See what the guy's dice could say.
36:13.598 --> 36:23.848
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it was quite nice, as I was saying earlier, I finally made games that I can feed fit in between, you know, I've got the as well as games, not just the only games.
36:23.908 --> 36:29.112
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I'm waiting for dwarfs to come back for Kings of War before I started new army of that.
36:29.233 --> 36:34.417
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the meantime, that champion's project we did, which is a game fixed army list.
36:34.558 --> 36:38.061
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the champion, there's slightly OP versus Kings of War.
36:38.561 --> 36:40.483
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's their three units.
36:40.666 --> 36:42.609
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's done, it's set for you.
36:42.629 --> 36:44.292
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the box, there's a hobby project.
36:45.073 --> 36:46.776
[SPEAKER_01]: And they play this way.
36:47.537 --> 36:50.101
[SPEAKER_01]: It was real fun because it was like a one month hobby project.
36:50.381 --> 36:57.392
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did the thing, I've been meaning to do forever, which was I got the, I wanted to put the Northern Alliance on like a frozen lake.
36:57.372 --> 37:05.840
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was messing around with the frozen water effects and then burying bits of lichen that I picked up on various walks in it and then snow effects on top.
37:06.141 --> 37:09.624
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd quite put it off as quite as good in my head as I wanted to, but I did it.
37:10.004 --> 37:12.066
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's like, okay, slow grow.
37:12.106 --> 37:14.228
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing Zikaali, so I'm not doing the dog army.
37:14.248 --> 37:17.251
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're nice, kind of bite-sized hobby projects.
37:17.271 --> 37:26.080
[SPEAKER_01]: But things like worms, at Easter I took out last year and played with my nephew and brother-in-law, who are not gamers.
37:26.060 --> 37:31.507
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually for two hours the girls went and chatted and we all sat there and played well and the girls came and played with us.
37:31.527 --> 37:36.234
[SPEAKER_01]: But we sat there and we rolled dice and I could explain it to them in a way that they enjoyed it.
37:36.434 --> 37:38.237
[SPEAKER_01]: Would they do it to following week now?
37:38.297 --> 37:40.379
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not the not but but someone sets it up for them.
37:40.399 --> 37:42.342
[SPEAKER_01]: We had all the neoprene mats out.
37:42.362 --> 37:43.203
[SPEAKER_01]: We had all the different ones.
37:43.243 --> 37:45.667
[SPEAKER_01]: They picked their own worms and we had a great time.
37:45.987 --> 37:48.531
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think worms is doing that.
37:49.812 --> 37:54.058
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of those other games we've got now allowed me to just dip into the
37:54.916 --> 38:03.092
[SPEAKER_00]: What were the, what were 2,000, then he, Ronnie think of 20, 20, six, man, take, you know, crystal ball back then.
38:03.352 --> 38:04.975
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you doing still working, you old Duffy?
38:04.995 --> 38:09.444
[SPEAKER_01]: It's supposed to be retired by now, and the old 20, six, wanted to say, what else am I going to do?
38:09.604 --> 38:10.987
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is what I've done on my life.
38:11.067 --> 38:12.570
[SPEAKER_01]: It was my hobby from.
38:12.550 --> 38:42.321
[SPEAKER_01]: from forever when I had FIX 13 second scale figures at three I was selling toy soldiers in the playground at 12 and I think this is my journey and and and what else do I want to do I don't want to do anything but this and so I'm very happy we where we are work with great people our customers are great fun I literally traveled the world now and I was in Australia so I'm coming to Australia and we were like come here come and play with us let's go out for dinner went to Matt Codges for you
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, I saw, you know, as in Napa last week, because I was doing a play test with the new license, and, you know, Jeremy developed a big huge fan of ours.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a counter-trived podcast.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was up there, we went out for dinner.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, if I'm going to spend my life doing something, there's nothing I'd rather do than this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The kickstart, it looks like it's started well, it's certainly kickstarted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So is that exceeded the expectations?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's pretty and done.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's our best first day with adding ages, actually.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And considering it's our own IP, it's a kind of hardcore niche niche audience to bring it out there and talk about it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to run through a debt to come next week.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to be able to show it off to the some more Americans.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's stunning because really that that means that I just don't have to worry about the plastic tubing that's going into it You know covering that funding goal and and allowing us to bring that product out I just think that the whole load of joy and pleasure in there I think jewellery is getting to write a Rule set clean within some confines of this is the IP, but really having a deep dive on it has been brilliant
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that would, that, that amount of tooling and writing and development and art cost him a new Steffka Pinsky for the art, you know, who's another legend in the industry, that would have caused me sleepless nights and being able to go out early and say, listen, if you can jump in and help us support this, it's going to be an almost help for us, has done that, nothing is going to be out there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it gives it a marketing platform that when it comes to retail a year from now,
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[SPEAKER_01]: People are like, yeah, I'll pick that team up and I know those guys are playing that let's jump on board here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I think for it in our mind kickstart to get a start, so 80 or 100 quid and put the sweet spots just somewhere between there and 200 and actually retail the sweet spot is 25 to 75 quid.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And this way we're able to do both and the help that we get from kick from the kickstart to backers
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[SPEAKER_01]: helps me sleep better at night and know that we can produce a quality product right from the get-go that pays the studio and the tooling and I think they know that we're going to deliver it and it's going to be great and we can then bring it out to retail and double the audience at that point.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well of course put our link to the kickstart at initial notes, that's the episode we'll go in the 26th of the rest now and we'll still have sex days to get how you look on there and see what they want to do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much and yeah, yeah, go have a look at it the rules are up there for people to have a try out
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's still a bit more than funded by that, it should be bigger and better than ever, but we knew it would also, as we're all grog-nards, there's no stretch goals.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's where you're getting a box, it's great value, he's half the price, it's gonna be, and there's a couple of tears, including the lunatic, get scars and hats and big pointy fingers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But jumping whenever you feel comfortable at, thanks for your help.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We think you can have a whole heap of fun in here, but you can actually look at the game before you decide before you buy the sculptural done.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now you can see them, you can see what you're getting, we just need to make sure, you know, funding to help, tool it, make it, box in, deliver it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But thank you for sharing the link.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Huge thanks to Ronnie for taking the time there, I really enjoyed that chat, and I'm sure you did too, as promised all links are in the show notes, and if you're new to the podcast, please be sure to hit subscribe or follow on your list in the upper choice, then you'll get all the new episodes to live a right-tier door right here, smartphone machine automatically.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And next week we've got our question of the month episode 2, so please head on over to BedroomBattleField.com forward slash voicemail to tell us what you've been painting or playing during the month of March.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That link again is BedroomBattleField.com forward slash voicemail.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Alright that's enough from me, thanks as always for listening and we'll speak again on the next one.