Mantic's rule set coming soon.

[Argonor]

I have been wondering a bit about this myself. Strange that they can get AC just like that - I would think that key personnel at GW have a competition clause in their contracts...?

I have one in mine, and I am not even really in a position to reveal anything crucial about our business, not being a developer of the company software.

Then again, their minis are so much different from GW's that some of them would look rather odd beside their GW counterparts.

I think, much of the buzz derives from the fact that Mantic puts out their plastics at about half the price of the equivalent GW products. And with the current GW prices, there surely is a large market for such a thing.

Now, if they can make a set of rules that captures the feel of large battles, without putting in too many supered up characters and show-stopper spells, then I might even be tempted to try painting up a small army. I am rather sure, I have enough old GW plastics from various box sets to do so... if I can only find the time...

[Mad Doc Morris]

Alessio Cavatore left GW only a couple of weeks before he reappeared as Mantic's rules designer. There were (actally still are) a lot of rumours, if/why he had been fired, left GW in anger or simply allowed his contract to expire. Honi soit qui mal y pense...

[Argonor]

Alessio Cavatore left GW only a couple weeks before he reappeared as Mantic's rules designer. There were (actally still are) a lot of rumours, if/why he had been fired, left GW in anger or simply allowed his contract to expire. Honi soit qui mal y pense...

OK, hadn't heard anything about that. But I've been busy redecorating a house, anyway...

[Viper]

However, the elves are just groteskly skinny

You mean like an elf is supposed to look, especially in 28mm true scale, as opposed to, for example, Games Workshops fat elves.
 


On Alessio I could be wrong but I'm sure many rules developers, like sculptors, are hired on contract so there wouldn't be any kind of competition clause as it would make their job unworkable.
Also the speed of Mantic getting him on board was most likely to do with Ronnie (the head of mantic) being Ex-GW, he was the main force behind Apocalypse which I think Alessio wrote or co-wrote the rules for.

More evidence of this would be Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson writing the historical rules set Black Powder for Warlord Games a few months ago, and as far as I know both of them are still doing the occasional wee bit here and there for the Evil Empire.

[white knight]

Give it a rest guys. Just agree to disagree and move on.

[Whiskyrat]

For those who subscribe to Mantic's newsletter the ruleset is now available.

12 pages of Beta rules and 3 pages of army lists available as a PDF download.

[Viper]

The rules seem like a very nice base for them to work from and expand on. Abstract in some places, realistic in others and all in all I'd say a lot more positives than negatives. Certainly a lot of interesting ideas.