Mantic Open day round up

With the open day being such a great success I’d like to give you an overview of the day and everything that was going on to make the day the biggest thing on this year’s gaming calendar!

Right off the bat we had people waiting eagerly to get through the Mantic door, all with tickets in hand waiting for their bag of free treats on arrival!

Once people were through the door the fun could really begin. All around the edges of the room were demo tables set up for all of Mantic’s games, ranging from Mars Attacks to the yet to be release DreadBall Xtreme, as well as demo table set up running the beta rules for Kings of War 2nd edition.

In the centre of the room was were the 3 participation games were held. These tables were busy all day as these games brought a slightly different twist to Mantic’s games. This was brilliant to see that people were already comfortable with our gaming systems and ready to put their own twist on things!

Firstly we had the Mars Attacks Robot Rampage game. In this scenario players were thrown into a trailer park filled with civilians. You had 2 choices, Annihilate the human resistance and as many civilians as possible along the way with giant robots, or rescue as many civilians and return them to the extraction point with trucks and missile launchers! People really enjoyed getting their hands on the robot and truck models to see how great they were first hand.

Our other main participation game was the Deadzone Contagion game. Players were thrown into a sector heavily populated by zombies, having to fight their way through the hordes of shambling undead, into the spaceport and onto the landing pad for extraction! The space port and board were a sight to behold, all made from the Battlezone scenery kits and played on one of the Secret Weapon boards. Only at an open day can such an extravagant board truly shine and be used to its full potential.

Finally we had the wild card, “The Amazing Racing Game”. In this game players were to race across the board to the finish line using an ever growing or decreasing pool of dice to move or attack enemy players. Better played than explained, the rules are available here for you to try out for yourselves.

Not only was this day of gaming and demos, but there were also other tantalising treats to feast your eyes upon. The Mantic studio team were out in full force with unseen sculpts and concept art only available for your viewing pleasure at the open day. Our in house painting guru, as seen in “Dave’s Hobby Tips” was also there, sitting down and talking to anyone and everyone regarding his painting, as well as giving people tips on how to create the same painting quality as he does for yourself.

Mel “The Terrain Tutor” Bose also had a table set up on the day. Battlezone scenery kits, clippers and glue at hand, Mel was assembling terrain using our Battlezone kit and showing people the great things you can create from these kits.

Tucked away in the corner was Alessio, demo at hand, taking people through a demo of the magical world of Loka and Tarot of Loka. Sitting down with the game creator and learning a game is always a privilege and he even brought in some “skeleton” players to join in the fun.

Moving away from the main room and all its gaming excitement, we moved into the specially designated room for the other 3 main events of the day.

In the first room was the DreadBall tournament. The room was packed with the top players from around the UK as they battled it out to become the champion of the Mantic Open day tournament.

The next room along was possible the most busy, hot, crowded yet exciting room of the day. This room was where we held Mantic’s legendary seminars. What more could a fan of a game want more than to sit down with the man himself, Mr Ronnie Renton, as well Mantic’s games designers and pummel them with Q&A as well as hear them spill all the beans on what’s happening at Mantic in the future and throw a few spoilers out there! The seminars will always be a massive hit, as a community driven company this is why Mantic do this.

The final door was a very modest, ordinary brown door with the sign that simply said “Top secret. Entry by invite only”. What was inside this room was anything BUT ordinary. For the first time many people had the pleasure of sitting down with Jake Thornton and playing the wonderful alpha version of Dungeon Saga. This game has had nothing but praise, with a massive backing on Kickstarter it was great for fans of the game to see that not only did this game look amazing, but it played equally as well and even more fun!

One thing we had the pleasure of doing was to give out copies of DreadBall Xtreme to any of our Kickstarter backers! People came from all over the country to pick up their copy of this game on the day. It was great to see so much support for DreadBall Xtreme!

After a long day of gaming excitement and spoilers the doors to the Mantic HQ finally closed. Leaving the building were many happy faces, all gamed out and full of exciting ideas to take home from the event (as well as a few bags full of treats from the shop).

The Mantic Open Day was a great success. We do this as a company to give back to our community, to show them that we are just as excited about our products as they are and that without them our company wouldn’t be where it is today!

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