Epic Warpath Needs You!
2nd Aug 2023
Jonny Mann
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+++ EPIC UPDATE +++
Hi, Matt here from the design studio at Mantic.
This is a bit of an unusual blog post, because it’s about a project we’ve been working on, yet haven’t finished – but certain things have happened that mean it’s a good time to tell you all about it!
Eighteen months or so ago, Ronnie asked me to start looking at Warpath again. For those of you with longer memories, Warpath was meant to be the “mass-battle” game set in the Warpath Universe. However, it competed with Firefight at the same scale, and always felt like those kinds of epic battles should be fought and played at a more…. epic scale.
Epic Warpath: Mass Battles On A New Scale
So, knowing that Firefight was going to play in the 28mm space for us for platoon/strike force sized games, I started to look at what a ruleset and scale would look like to play with big armies at a smaller model size. As usual with these things, I toyed and played with many ideas, and dragged people around my house for playtest games, using models scaled down and 3D printed to test things like base sizes and “feel”. I settled on round bases of 4 infantry/2 heavy infantry/1 walker, and oval bases for vehicles. Round bases felt right for sci-fi, and having bases for vehicles helped clean up some rules (and they look cool!).
Two of my main aims were to capture the flavour of previous small-scale sci-fi games from a nostalgic point of view, and also to blend that with the modern statlines, faction orders, D8s and command dice of what would be its “sister games” of Deadzone and Firefight. I was fairly happy with where I got to, and the game was playing well, but certain things still needed a polish (and probably some darlings murdering), so I engaged the services of the wonderful Alessio Cavatore to come and help me work out the last bits, and flesh out the armies and points values ready for playtesting.
On the non-rules side of things, we’ve worked out what we think is a nice scale for infantry and vehicles. With a view to a potential retail launch, we’ve sourced a plastic terrain range and sculpted new components for it to match the design of our 28mm sci-fi battlezones terrain. We’ve planned possible plastic frames and a 2-player set, as well as starting sculpting test models and getting new tank concepts made.
We’ve even had the logo made and art done for the 2-player box!
The picture gives away the two planned armies in the box – Enforcers and Plague, with plenty of infantry, tanks (Enforcer Panther tanks!) and walkers. These armies have had the most playtesting. The follow-up two are planned to be Forge Fathers and Asterians.
Hit The Brakes!
OK, so why the pause?
Well, we heard rumours that a rather large company down the road from us was planning something similar, and being the size we are, we couldn’t commit to a large amount of plastic tooling in a direct-to-retail product that would probably end up competing in the same space… and at exactly the same time!
So what’s next?
Well, that’s where you guys come in. Now the other company’s game has been announced, we’d like to hear what you think of our Epic Warpath project. You can see the rules in their current state below. We’d love to know how you think this game should be delivered to you, in what material, via what channels, and what else you’d like to see if you think it’s exciting! Yes, we had planned for large super-vehicles and monsters too!
Download the unedited draft and early layout manuscript Rulebook below!
I hope you are excited about the possibilities of this game as much as we are. As the direction of the project becomes defined, we would certainly love people to help with playtesting, including some events here at Mantic HQ with myself and Alessio.
So it’s over to you – let us know what you think by filling out this form.
Epic Warpath Community Vote Click Here
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