Hi, Ronnie here and I just thought a follow on from my last blog was worthwhile – partly because we are still looking for a Community Manager – and partly because there is so many great things to talk about and the last post got some really great debate going.

I am very excited about the terrain which will be hitting the shelves in May and before that I have a very personal interest in the 2 dwarf armies which get spotlighted next month in the ‘Hellfire and Stone’ book. It is so nice getting the opportunity to dig deeper into the Kings of War world with these books and slowly, piece by piece the world is building up. This time the Dwarven realms get looked at. There is lots of back story to go along side some new rules and heroes. I said we would warn you before release when a book is just 1 print before it goes digital – and the ‘Hellfire and Stone’ is one of those. There is just 1000 being printed so if you need one for your collection you need to get in quick. All the rules and army lists will of course stay valid via the digital route.

I will talk more in my next post about Mantic plans for our future Kickstarters and I am really keen to hear your views. However, it is not fair that we hog all the kickstarter fun for ourselves!!!

I have been approached several times by great people – sometimes developers and other times sculptors for advice and help with kickstarter. Many times I have offered what I hope is useful advice. At times we have seen great projects and given them a shout out. Occasionally, such as with Alessio we also took on the Kickstarter itself and helped him launch Loka.

As we get increasingly busy there is no capacity for us to run any more Kickstarters, other than ones that relate directly to the Mantic universes that we need help funding. In fact it is tough enough for some of our fans to keep up with our own campaigns!

However, there are many great projects that should benefit from the 1000’s of people on kickstarter who have such different tastes yet they all want to get behind projects that excite them. Whenever I see a great project (that is in some way sci-fi, fantasy or hobby related) and think we can help them I will try and give them a leg up. That is usually just a shout out at the start to get them noticed and advice about how to run a good campaign – both beforehand to share from our experience – and afterwards in help with delivering the product – something we usually get on time.

There is no way every Mantic fan will like every campaign, nor want to support them. However, it seems that with Kickstarter becoming such a big place having the support and advice from Mantic will let as many people as possible know about great projects and help them get funded. We obviously cannot give them support that we do with our own, but please if one of them tickles your fancy pop in and have a look.

Later this month we will we giving a shout out to a great little Spanish company called Ghost Train Games. They have a passion for an Alternative American Civil War game they have designed. We have seen the models. They are metal and are designed for a skirmish game. They are really nicely made and the game plays well.

For a sneak peek their website is here…

www.ghosttraingames.com

If you get excited by all things American Civil War and alternative histories this might get you in trouble.

Best wishes and next time I will open up the discussion about what you would like to see from Mantic in the year ahead.

Best wishes

Ronnie.