Ronnie Looks Ahead at Events in 2018

It’s that exciting time of the year when event season begins in earnest, and we get out and about right up until Mantic Open Day in November brings another year to a gradual end!

And what a year we have planned. We are attending more shows, hosting more gaming weekends and supporting more tournaments than ever before – all told we’ll be at nearly double the events from previous years - so hopefully there will be something close by that you’ll want to get along to!

This year the team is bigger than ever – with Andy Meechan heading up the UK and European shows – and the head office tours and gaming weekends! Pat Lewis will be getting us to Adepticon, Gencon and our big US secret, and all the shows will be supported by Martin Thirlwell, Rob Burman, Dave Symonds, our fantastic Pathfinders… and occasionally me!

This weekend sees Mantic at Adepticon once again. There are big Kings of War events, and both Warpath and Deadzone have a very exciting tournament scene planned. We will also have our big 20x20 booth, with the first chance to get your 2018 shows exclusives – including a new Walking Dead booster – with a one-legged Dale and a Zombie Rick! There are also some great show deals too (which you can see above). We will also be hosting Mantic Night again, where we will be recording a live North America Podcast. We will have demos of Vanguard, a chance to get up close with the new Hellboy sculpts, a DreadBall league in an evening, a huge (20,000+ points) Kings of War battle – oh, and for a $30 ticket you get a $40 Warpath vehicle in your goodie bag! If you are at Adepticon, you can grab a ticket here.

Throughout the year we will be hosting frequent Gaming Weekends at Mantic HQ – this is a chance to spend a full day – sometimes even a whole weekend playing or learning more about your favourite game. We have just had a great Walking Dead gaming weekend, and we have events booked in for Kings of War Doubles, DreadBall Launch Celebration and DreadBall UK National Championships. To see the full schedule click here…and if testing out new games is more your bag, then look out for the secret weekend events, and discover what evil plans we are hatching!

And if a full day doesn’t fit the schedule then why don’t you come by and take the Mantic tour…you can see minis being cast, our new resin production facility, and have a game in our gaming hall. Read more about the whole experience here. As well as doing the tours, Andy and his team of merry Pathfinders will then be out and about in the Mantic Wagon most other weekends. To find out the shows we’re at please click here and see when the team will be closest to you.

After the huge success of the Edge of the Abyss event last summer, we’ve got another one planned. This time for the Warpath universe. There will be a big story arc, featuring the Nameless and while it will focus on a Deadzone narrative you’ll be able to participate with all the games set in the universe. From Star Saga through to mass Warpath battles. Keep an eye out on the newsletter and Mantic Blog for more information.

We’ve gone all high tech (well Ciaran who is a tech wizard has!) and he has brought the DreadBall ranking site up to scratch and ready for all those organised events just in time for DreadBall second edition - so now you’ll be able to find out the best player in your town, your country – even in the whole galaxy (well, maybe not).

And sticking with the organised play theme, we have the tournament scenes all around the world still going from strength to strength. There is a fantastic KoW community in Oz, across much of the USA, France, Spain and UK. We’ve also got a selection of organised play packs available for a few of the systems (which you can find here) so if you can’t get to someone else’s event then just get on and build your own!

And last but by no means least we host 2 Mantic Open days here at HQ in May and November, and we hire out a big venue to run UK/European Clash of Kings. This year it’ll be up in Stockport and tickets are available now.

But it hardly seems fair that the UK gets ALL that love, but the USA – already our biggest market – gets to run the whole scene without so little love and support from Mantic itself ☹. Well – no longer. I am very pleased to announce that the first annual MANTIC-CON will be happening in Chicago, at Crowne Plaza Rosemont (right next to the airport!) on September 28^th to 30^th.

This event will host the Kings of War: Clash of Kings USA 2018. We are going to try and get the winner from last year’s UK event across there – and hopefully we will be welcoming lots of Kings of War players from all around the states. I’m super pleased to announce that Shannon Shoemaker (a regular on the KoW scene) will be hosting this as his only event of the year so he can really focus on it and make it amazing. But that’s not all! We will also be hosting DreadBall tournaments, alongside Deadzone, Firefight and The Walking Dead.

We will have the Mantic team in attendance in depth and a Mantic night hangout – with lots of beer and fun! So pencil in the date and we will see you in Chicago! Tickets will be going on sale shortly, so keep an eye on the newsletter.

I really hope to see many of you at the various shows, events and gaming weekends in the months ahead – and as always – thank you to all the fantastic staff and pathfinders who make this happen – and you, the gamers for supporting us by coming along.

Best wishes,
Ronnie