The Walking Dead: Interview with Ronnie Renton + FAQ

As we head into the weekend we've collated all of your questions on The Walking Dead: All Out War miniatures game and put together the following FAQ.

Before we get into that however, Ronnie took to Skype last weekend to chat to our friends over at Beasts of War to shed some light about The Walking Dead: All Out War miniatures game. Check out his Walking Dead interview at 49:25:

The Walking Dead: All Out War Miniatures Game FAQ

From Mike

Q: What materials will the figures be? Will they be hard plastic multi part kits or will they be the bendy plastic currently being used in Dungeon Saga?

A: The Walking Dead: All Out War miniatures game is designed to be very easy to get into.

They are single piece plastic miniatures made out of the same material as Dungeon Saga.

Stewart has spent a lot of time perfecting the sculpts and the material choice. They are bigger and chunkier than the Dungeon Saga miniatures, partly to prevent bending, partly to make them easier to paint. Other models of this size in this material that we’ve had through have excellent detail and are very solid.

Q: How big does the game scale up to? What is the projected model count per player and the amount of zombies needed?

A: The game will scale up as big as you want it to. It uses a simple points cost system for miniatures and equipment, and so if you want to play a 50 point game, 100 point game or 500 point game or beyond, you can.

You can add as many additional mats and walkers as you see fit.

A starter game will have 2-4 figures per side, and we reckon a standard game will be 6-10 figures per side.

Q: You have said that this is going to be available by the end of the year, how much of the game and figures have been completed ready for production?

A: The rules are all but complete and there will be a public playtest set released in February.

The miniature contents of the core game have been completed and approved by Skybound, and we hope to have renders of all the miniatures in the range released to the public by the end of February, with everything ready to go into tooling shortly after the Kickstarter.

We are finalising the graphic design and art with Skybound too.

Q: How many people have you got proof reading the rules?

A: A rigorous editing process will be undertaken with 5 internal editors, plus we will have a public playtest. Finally, our translation partners will also review the rules as they translate it – a process we found incredibly useful during Dungeon Saga.

Q: Is the game similar in play mechanics as Deadzone and Mars Attacks or is it a completely different system?

A: It is a completely different system.

From Andrew

Q: can’t wait for this game to come out, I know it’s based on the comic version, but with such great characters like Daryl being a TV character only, will he feature, will you be able to create your own character(s)?

A: We chose the comic license because of the incredible variety of characters it offered us. There are many interesting and exciting characters in the comic that do not appear in the TV show. This means that whilst we aren’t able to do fan favourites like Daryl from the TV show, we have plenty of cool characters, fun Walkers and exciting equipment that will more than compensate! Just wait until you see the comic version of the Governor!

We are currently working on some simple rules for making up your own characters to use in the game too.

Q: When is it coming to kickstarter?

A: February.

From Johann

Q: You mention ‘The game is played in and around Atlanta and the surrounding American suburbs, and contains a gaming mat and a selection of barricades, abandoned cars and supplies to give it that authentic The Walking Dead atmosphere.’. Will these be models (plastic or resin) or cardstock as depicted above? If so, do you have any plans on releasing actual scenery pieces to use in the game? And what about buildings? Do you have any plans for actual kits? Kind regards.

A: The scenery in the base game is very simple 2D cardstock with top-down art – all a gamer has to do is pop it out of the card sheet. We hope to release a separate scenery kit that will make these 3D.

Regarding buildings, we already have a range of suitable 21^st century buildings that can easily be put into the Walking Dead.

From Bookawar

Q: Is the “board” necessary to gameplay, like in Deadzone, or just for decoration? Also, what are the recommended dimensions of the playing area (e.g, Deadzone is 2′ x 2′; KOW is 6′ x 4′; TWD is ? x ?)?

A: The board is not necessary for gameplay and purely for decoration, although we were adamant that a mat needed to go into the game to define the boundaries for people who wanted it. It’ll stop you sneaking out of the player area without your opponent noticing! The artwork on it also enhances the game by giving it that Walking Dead atmosphere.

The mat in the boxed game is 20” x 20” (52cm by 52cm), so a little smaller than the 2’x2’ used for Deadzone. Like Deadzone however, you can add multiple mats and we hope to add different designs– so you can fight over the Green Farm or the prison in settings that make sense!

From International Man Of Mystery

Q: Who is the author of this rule set?

A; Mark Latham, who worked on the English language version of Batman: The Miniatures Game among others.

From Brence

Q: So will you always play as a band of survivors from the show or will these Characters only add to your own “generic” warband? In other words will you mostly build a group of characters starring in the show or will these be akin to special characters and add to your self made warband of “regular people”?

A: Every miniature that we create will be a named character from The Walking Dead comics – from famous faces like Rick and Shane to lesser known character such as Derek and his band of scavengers. You are however able to arm your miniatures with weapons and equipment however you like, meaning that you can customise your band so that they are truly yours. Of course, there’s stopping you renaming your miniatures either.

In addition, we will include rules for creating your own characters that you can drop into the story and fight alongside Rick and Michonne.

From Fomorion

Q: Will there be a campaign system with scenarios within the game, where the characters will gain XP, new skills and loot, after each battle?

A: We definitely want to include this in some way. First and foremost we will have a set of narrative scenarios that you can play if you don’t want a standard game, and these will take you through the story, with the characters changing and gaining new equipment as time goes on. As for a standard campaign system, we want to include one, but we will be keeping it as simple as possible to stick with the accessible theme of everything else in the game.

Most characters will have alternate character cards to represent them at different times in the story, so this will be a key way in which they progress.

[caption id="attachment_15001" align="aligncenter" width="599"] The Walking Dead - Glenn.[/caption]

From Hudson

Q: Soooo…no co op?

A: The game features rules for solo play, and there is no reason why you couldn’t split a band of survivors between you and a friend, or several friends, and try to beat the game co-op.

From Owesome

Q: Oooh, does the license also include the Telltale Games characters?

A: Who knows what the future may bring! If there is enough demand, we will talk to them about bringing Lee and Clementine into All Out War.

From Rikus

Q: only two players game or more?

A: Most people will play the game 1v1 but there’s nothing stopping you splitting the characters with a friend or friends to play the game!

On translations

From Ivan

Q: Great working by mantic. But you want to arrives for all público. Can you think to translate for more públic un the kickstarter? Spanish, French? If mantic translate it for the cwf Will be great and more and more spanish People come to baking the proyect.

From David

Q: Hello. A question about translations. ¿Have any plan for a spanish translation of the game? If the answers is “yes”, the translated game will be avalaible for backers or only when released to stores? Thank you for your time.

A: Regarding translations, the game will only be available on the Kickstarter in English.

We require a distribution partner to offer a translation of a game – we are working on French, Spanish and German distribution deals at the moment – and that means that the translated game will only be available at retail stores in those territories.

Final Question - please note that the next answer includes a spoiler for the early part of the comic series. Stop reading if you don't want to know more!

From Joe K

Q: I am not up to speed on the Comic series, but “All Out War” had 4 factions? Survivors, Hilltop, Kingdom and Saviors? Are those the ones we should expect to see in the game?

A: Further down the line, yes. For now we are sticking to the earlier parts of the story – there are almost 100 issues before you meet any of those groups. For our initial range we hope to cover the story opening in Atlanta, and then expand out to the farm, the prison, and Woodbury. The Governor is the first real antagonist and new “faction” that the characters encounter, but there are still changing loyalties and small skirmishes before that point, so there are plenty of ways to play.

For example, if ***SPOILER ALERT*** Shane hadn’t been killed so early in the story, the Atlanta group may have been split, and you could play battles pitting Rick against Shane. There will be very few true loyalties.

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