Deadzone... Any Good? Any Pics of Finished Forces?

[Major_Gilbear]

I was a Mantic Deadzone backer, and after it's taken so long for all the items to be shipped, I was wondering how others had gotten on with the game so far.

I mean, I've played a few games myself, and I've seen a few bits and pieces around the web/forum, but otherwise I've heard surprisingly little about the game itself considering how many must have backed it.

I've also seen very few painted sets besides Enforcers and Plague, along with the odd set of Rebs and Marauders. Did many people get and paint the Asterians or Forge Fathers?

So, for anybody who's played and/or painted, please let me know what your thoughts are, and feel free to post up your painted forces here!

[carlos13th]

Not played it myself. Started cleaning and building some of the restic models when the first came through the door and that was mind numbing enough that it all went back in a the box and has sat under the bed pretty much since. I'll get around to it eventually but I have other stuff I am far more interested in painting before that.

I have heard good things about the rules though with them being not overly complex and quite simple and fun to play. However I have heard complaints about Rebs being massively underpowered and Melee being a too effective compared to shooting.

Here is a pretty decent collection of people's Deadzone paint jobs

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/566289.page

Similar thing but just asterians


http://manticforum.com/forum/deadzone/asterian-faction/195576-pictures-of-painted-asterians

[obsidian3d]

I went in very large on the Deadzone KS and have received all my pieces. When the first shipment showed up I built and primed all of my Enforcers and Plague, but didn't paint them because I knew there were more coming. While I waited I built all the Marauders I had and them primed all my scenery tiles. Since then the rest showed up, but I've not done anything with it, not even played a single game.

On the other hand I have played several games of Mars Attacks, which is the same engine minus the elevation rules I believe. They were good games and I enjoyed them. Every time we have finished a game of Mars Attacks I think to myself that I should play a game of Deadzone. The biggest thing slowing me down is cleaning up all those damned tiles!

[Vanvlak]

Backed, will pay my first game (with a remote player in the UK!) soon.
Have one Enforcer and one Plague type, one mercenary and one Dreadball player painted (the latter features in a scenario). Don't think I have pics of them, though, so far,barring this slightly blurry one with a Marauders trike (modified):


Scenery can be a bit of a pain due to erratic fits of connector pins - some excessively tight, or actually not-go and needing filing.  But they are admittedly quite useful: I am building a board with a blend of these and other parts, but it's not yet finished:

[fastolfrus]

What's the big grey dome-thing?

[Cherno]

It looks like the front shell of a hand vacuum device

[CLT40K]

It looks like the front shell of a hand vacuum device

It looks awesome... very MegaCity in it's feel... 

[Rhelyk]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/568703273169734/?ref=bookmarks

Containment Protocol is an active facebook group for Deadzone, mostly people posting pictures of their models and terrain with the occasional rules discussion or battle report. It's about as vapid as any social media site will be, but the pictures sure are pretty

For the game, I had high hopes for it and bought into the KS for quite a bit, but it never caught on with my group. We played some games, and it's a decent enough system with decent enough models, but it never really grabbed anybody and I wasn't interested in it enough to really push push push. The system is serviceable, but it feels very board-gamey and close combat is WAY too powerful compared to shooting. The opposed-roll system is OK, but you get a LOT of null-result dice rolls and can activate half your team and feel like you rolled a whole lot of dice that didn't accomplish anything. I think the system would be much more fun if attackers got a few extra dice and you had more hit points per model. There's some balance issues as well. Nothing major, but they're there and some of the factions are certainly more powerful than others.

I only ever finished painting the enforcers and the plague (the latter were sold to a friend)

[Major_Gilbear]

I'm not on Facebook, and combined with the Ad-blockers I use, trying to see anything posted there is basically a waste of time for me.

On the other hand, some nice stuff there Vanvlak and Rhelyk! 

I've played a few games myself, and... Well, I think it has some issues, but I wonder if that's just based on my own expectations.

Essentially, I found that the game has a very small model count for a number of factions which severely limits much in the way of tactics, very low lethality (except for close combat), and that the campaign system (whilst fair I suppose) is not rewarding enough to bother with.

I also think that the way the game mechanics are structured severely limits much scale between the relative power of different units, and the various special rules concocted to combat this are often somewhat clunky.

Combined with some factions being rather out of balance with each other, and with the very limited mission types, and the game is sadly a bit dull. I don't mind the more "boardgame" aspect of it, but I think it does need some core mechanics revising, and a proper list of equipment items for each faction to flavour them a bit more, and to allow a bit of flexibility in unit lists. (There are already a few items you can buy in campaigns, but it's not really developed).

Model-wise, I started to clean them up, and got some nice bases sorted out, and then... Sort of went off the boil with them. I'd like to return to finish them, but I've not been as inspired as I'd hoped. 

Anyway, given how "big" the KS was, I've seen relatively little about DZ beyond unboxing-type reviews online: hence my asking here for others' comments, feedback, and pictures! 

[Vanvlak]

It looks like the front shell of a hand vacuum device

It is 
But it's now a spaceship 
And the red thing is a float valve float (broken), and is now a cracked-open water tower.

[Rhelyk]

Yeah Major, that was pretty much exactly how my group saw it. It unfortunate about facebook, the facebook gaming groups are about 90% of what I use it for and are usually quite a bit more active than message boards, which have been falling out of popularity

I've got a 2nd enforcer faction unassembled that nobody local wanted, 20 plastic enforcers and 20 more plastic peacekeepers unnassembled, dwarves and asterians unassembled. Just haven't been inspired enough to bother with them, too much else on my workbench just to do them for funsies (although my marauders have slowly been getting paint on them a little at a time).

The game is hardly bad, and the people on FB and dakkadakka seem to love the system, but it just never took off locally for exactly why you said

[eilif]

Nice pics and links.   I've been wanting to see finished pics as well.

I recently went on a huge restic cleanup project and prepped 30 Rebs and 20 Sedition Wars Vangaurd.  Unfortunately I was sidetracked before painting by the need to prep for Adepticon, but I hope to finish them afterwards and this will give me some good ideas.

Some in the club will probably try the game eventually, but most of us have lost interest already and those who haven't are doing up the figs in anticipation of using them in other games.  I'm not particularly worried either way, the Rebs figs grabbed my attention for their nice take on a mixed-race faction not necessarily for the game they are a part of.  Also, I've heard from various reports that they're not a great race in the game anyway.

The pics aren't great, but here's my buddies Deadzone Plague and Sedition Wars Strain that he painted up as one big horde of radioactive mutants.
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2015/02/fully-painted-radioactive-space-mutants.html

[Momotaro]

Model-wise, I started to clean them up, and got some nice bases sorted out, and then... Sort of went off the boil with them. I'd like to return to finish them, but I've not been as inspired as I'd hoped. 

Pretty much the same with me - Sedition Wars put me off restic for a long time.  The hard plastics have rekindled my interest, and my Enforcers and Forge Fathers are on the list for this year.  Probably most of the Rebs too - I like their take on the aliens too.

Painted the Chovar psychic jellyfish - nice model, but it has what looks like a fingerprint cast onto the top of it...

The gaming mousemat is great.  The buildings are good - built several structures with them that you might catch in future battle reports. Thought about using them for a lot of projects like SF interiors.

Tip 1: buy more connectors - I used 2 more sprues for the pieces that came in the $150 pledge;

Tip 2: to clip the connectors in use a fine-nosed pair of pliers and a bit of pressure.  A bit tricky on those internal corners, but your hands won't be red raw afterwards...

Not played the game yet.
 

[obsidian3d]

Someone up there mentioned Sedition Wars. That is a game I've built everything but (I think) three of the models I have for it. Similarly to my Deadzone stuff, I haven't painted anything. However, I have actually played that game a few times. Folks give SW a lot of flak, but I actually quite enjoyed it.

I wonder if I should paint the Vanguard up similar or the same as the Enforcers...I'd have a pretty substantial army!

[eilif]

Someone up there mentioned Sedition Wars. That is a game I've built everything but (I think) three of the models I have for it. Similarly to my Deadzone stuff, I haven't painted anything. However, I have actually played that game a few times. Folks give SW a lot of flak, but I actually quite enjoyed it.

I wonder if I should paint the Vanguard up similar or the same as the Enforcers...I'd have a pretty substantial army!

It's not a bad idea. Strain and Plague work well together, why why not Enforcers and Vanguard?

On the other hand with the cost of the Sedition wars box being what it is, you can just buy more boxes of Vanguard.