 Hi folks, as you can see, we are back with 2024's first video with the Mantic team now. Yes, I can see Mantic team, the barge is on, the screen's on, yeah, so you're inside the tent. That's it now, I'm like a portrait turn gamekeeper now, so I can see what's going on behind the scenes and bring you all of the information and the hobby content that you've been asking for. So I thought Ronnie we would spend some time today and kind of go over a little bit about 2023, what's kind of the highlights from last year and then where we're going in this year because there's been a lot to talk about. Has it kind of fair exploded out the block because we're normally scratching around for those 12 days of Christmas and this year it was we didn't have enough space to cover everything. I mean I think the big things about 2023 was the vaults, the companion, there were two big steps into this digital space and the companion, the freemium model, I think he's so enabling and it's very relevant right now, there's a lot of people joining the Kings of War community, he's just gone crazy, I don't know what's happened in the last couple of weeks. Who knows? Who knows? All of a sudden, here's the rules, here's these ambush sets that we put out, 35 quid, have a little nibble, see if you like what's going on and they from use your models to get started through the free rules on the rulebook people can come and have a go. Invariably, oh I really like this, it's very clean, I'm enjoying it and you don't need with the companion spenders any money until you're a hardcore player that's building 27 different army lists, you sort of go around and you want the rules all searchable, that's down the way but that freemium getting started for free is very important to us and then when you double that up with the vaults where people are just going well for 10 or something a month, you can print your figures, you can have the rules, we've got a digital solution and I think we're pretty cutting edge on that, I think I'm very proud of the work that Clive and Elliot have done there that you know we forget if you're in Argentina, not easy to get on models, you know you want to play Armada, getting it imported from the UK, resin shipped halfway around the world or you can get a digistina where you go and there's your fleet printed. So we're trying to do a little bit of everything principally, we're a plastic storage company but we're also trying to live in the 21st century, I think that was one of the big successes and exciting things that happened then, advent calendars. Yeah, bar room brawl. That was it, that was the first and if you're lucky enough to get one of those you've done the pre-release version, you know that was the resin one, this year they're going to be all plastic but I just wanted to, I've been working on that for four years, it was really hard to get 24 dolls and a game with everything you needed manufactured, imported early enough anyway, so that was a good fun and we're going to do a sci-fi one this year and the bar room brawl plastic one but the plastic's the resins that you got last year which were the unique one off Christmas themed ones, this year they're just going to be all in plastic but they're just going to be you know regular pub goers. So yeah, so a few other things I think you're going to see repeating, 2GF for Kings of War Twilight King was massive back to the kind of halfling and reforged walks and the panaceous story, the campaign dwarfs flying on raven throwing hand grenades, ice hand grenades, so I think there was a real kind of return to form in that space, the tournament scene got back to pre-pandemic levels and bigger. Yeah definitely, I mean clash of kings biggest tournament ever. Having just beaten one three weeks earlier in the US was the biggest ever and 108, so 108 to 145 to 186 sold out in three hours and I'm sure the Masters will be bigger again this year in the US. So a really vibrant scene that in the early part of 2024 has just got bigger and more exciting. Yeah so I guess 2023 and good year for Manic, 2024 I would suggest is going to be an even better year because we really came out of the gates this year with lots of information. 12 days of Christmas as you said there was almost wasn't enough days in the 12 days to talk about everything and I thought today is a good opportunity to really kind of put a little meat on the bones of some of the things that we kind of revealed especially the big stuff. Yeah so starting with let's get the kind of the elephant in the room with halo, everybody's heard about it now but don't really know anything about it. I'm not going to say too much, so what we've done is we wanted to get it out there so we could start having the conversations and people could start getting excited about it. It's going to be a normal sized skirmish sci-fi, all I can tell you is I love the game it's based on and I love this even more I just think it's just such good fun it's tactical. So we wanted to announce it come back at the beginning of March and we are going to have painted minis, we're going to have unboxings, we're going to talk to you all about how it plays, what it is and why I think it's going to bring a whole new generation of people into playing with miniatures. Definitely. I think that's really the opportunity for it. So I need to get you know a few of the kind of distribution deals lined up so I had to get it out there I wanted the excitement building I know you'll be doing videos all the way through Feb and March on it and so please give us a couple of weeks get excited about it I promise you you are going to go crazy. Yeah there's going to be opportunities to be able to demo the game at events and different places I've already had a chance to play it so I can get excited about it I haven't had my hands on it and yeah we're going to be making loads of content so make sure that you do subscribe to the monthly YouTube channel and watch out of our socials as well as soon as we can tell you more stuff we'll be telling you don't worry about that. Like, subscribe and follow. A little bit more. So yeah just get on it's going to come and it's launching in September there's a lovely six months window we're going to take you from now nothing to being outfated games in stores to practice over summer. And then I guess moving on from something that was maybe a bit left field that people didn't expect to something that people have been screaming and shouting about for a long time now and that's the return of the walking dead. Yeah absolutely I mean this was something that I've been working on for two or three years you know since the the the licensing context changed and I just felt like we hadn't finished the story you know and and we weren't far away and it was really during a pandemic bizarrely at the end of the times we started selling the game that was all about the end of times so it got a second lease of life sorry guys I could they're coming thinking fast and it really found its stride again yeah you know it was launched brilliantly and I think the TV show really had an effect on it I'd never seen it before but that season just took it down and it slowly rebuilt itself and it was in a really good place and then obviously we lost the license and it just was one of those things but it I just didn't feel like we finished it and I think the community felt that way yeah definitely I think a lot of people came back people that had thought about it when it was ending kind of jumped in and so the two things were firstly you know I don't scalping I just I don't I like to try and not be there yeah so we don't do things that are limited edition to do the bits more we need to go and produce it and make it so wonderful there's going to be a whole website just dedicated to The Walking Dead yeah we are going to redo all the plastics so all the waves are going to be there but they're not going to be buying the booster at a time yeah you're just going to if you haven't got that wave by the way yeah one two three four or plastics five mostly plastics the later ones are resin we did look at going and doing new stuff in resin or going back and resin to plastic you're adding a year on to the release schedule because it's going to go through approvals it's then going to get cut it's going to get tooled it's going to get shipped you basically you do our kickstart if you do it tomorrow to get it so we said look people want this we've not had any releases for 18 months let's get it out there so the next wave is going to be the Commonwealth yeah that's that part of where we're up to in the story after whispers Commonwealth but I don't think I think there's still some gaps and I certainly saw people want some more survivors there's a few things what I said is look let's get this big one out let's get going again yeah let's unlock the plastics because we never reprinted those after 2017 2018 so there's a lot of people that haven't got those waves let's do that certain people are missing certain models so what we're going to do in around July August is just going a lot individuals yeah so if you need the wave by that we're going to bring that in and then when we've got those in we're going to unpack them spread them apart and say look if you've got 12 of those 16 in that way if you just need those four you're going to pick those four up yeah if you've got two just by the wave again because it's going to be far better by you're all bundled together but everything is going to be made available through this it's going to take us you know a few months we've got the models being sculpted so if you is it next week you and uh Clive we've given you some more meat on the bones a bit more details about what you can expect and when when it's going to be available to you I've always said and I can say this because it's there's evidence out there from years of me saying this kind of stuff the work and then I've always thought it's been one of the the best ways to introduce new people to miniature gaming you can play it solo you can play it co-op and help the friend out to kind of learn the game and you can play it player versus player and and with that as well we're also going to be launching a new way for new players to get into this as well so it's not just about rounding out your collection if you if you haven't managed to get into it or you found out about this down the line when it was no longer around there's going to be a way that new players can get into it on the collector's edition I think isn't it that's it yeah that's going to have the solo play in it from the Brian Blake pre-governor yeah plus the getting started you know the actual original starter set plus all the terrain so it's all going to be in there one big box if you're getting started that's where you go yeah you're filling in your collection you're going to have the waves we're going to get the resin all out manufactured all to order get that shit and then put the singles out alongside the retail release so people can just pick up little bits and bobs that they want so yeah again exciting yeah stay tuned more will come on that very very soon and then I guess the the next big thing as well that we talk we've been talking about for a little while now but we're really getting to the point now where people are going to be able to kind of see what this is all about now is epic warpath so epic warpath is launching on kickstarter on february the 14th specifically valentine's day for all you that you know yeah finally you get something for you know the love you love yourself you think what what can i get for my love one you can get them back in it for the epic warpath so yeah that's coming really soon there's been some great blogs where we've been talking about the rules and breaking them down it's chatting with the game's designers matt and i is going to be sitting here and we're going to be recording that stuff and yeah it's it's going great guns we've got the play test day at manik hq on the 20th of january so um yeah i'm going to be there as well so if if you're going along i'm going to be there with the camera and the microphone and chatting to you seeing what you think about it and it's going to be an opportunity for the first time to really get it on camera really and i think one of the things that charge we were saying before we chatted in the past when once we designed everything and done everything we'd come up here and and talk to people about it and i think having you on board for the first time means you're going to be doing painting videos you're going to be sharing stuff off how it gets ready you're going to be at that play test day recording videos so people that want to say look i will i'm quite intrigued about this every wall path but i want to see it played i want to have independent voices interviewing and showing and i want to get up close to it all of this stuff for the first time we're going to be able to show off normally it's been painted by engal it comes in here we are i don't behind the scenes behind the curtain is becoming a real thing and i think that's um it's really exciting so we've always been built on a community and that two-way chat and i think having you andy participating in a campaign before the campaign during the campaign after the campaign um you know we know the gameplay is beautiful it's got a great command and control and anything else but but what is it you want to know what is it that's going to hold you back from backing or not yeah get it asked and let's get it answered and we've got four racers coming at launch for that yeah so he's well i've got to test my knowledge now we've got the enforcers we've got the plague we've got the forge fathers of course she's based always got the asterians there you go i knew i knew i'd remember but we we're ready to go with more factions as well as long as there's a need there for it if people back this and people show the support for it that's what'll unlock and enable us to be able to kind of go and release those extra factions as well so and i think the the current plan is we love this daily unlocks which basically is yeah here's a great value offer we're not messing around things stuff out here's a great value offer on day one over the next 14 days whenever the campaign is every day is going to get better yeah we're going to add a few units we're going to add some other things plan them in but it's quite good without going you're not getting this miniature unless you hit this stretch goal yeah however you know we are already investing a frightening amount gray hair of money in the plastics which we're happy to do we love the product we love the concept we're going to do it if we want that fifth race if we want vermin and i think we're going to do a questionnaire say i think vermin might be less than them which which do you want the other three in we do need more money you know it is one of those where and then if you want us to tool the fifth and the sixth and the seventh we just need to hit some certain hurdles yeah and we can take so much of a of an expenditure on tooling but you know so watch the campaign we'd love to unlock all eight races similarly if we unlock four and then we put the fifth out as it comes to retail that works too but yeah if you can please do come and have a look think about backing us makes a huge difference and even get it all done and one and out what you're going to get is a whole lot more choice for which arm is you can pick and obviously the more arms there are the more different variants you are in your place so yeah and as Ronnie said there as well that the next four races that would come out we're going to put that out to you as well we see what order you want us to release them if everybody wants to play everybody wants um vermin next then vermin will be the fifth race and we'll kind of we'll see what the uh what the tooling and sculpting process we haven't scum to those four armies they're not done they're not up our sleeve we've done the first four they're going into tooling you know that's that's we're gonna we're gonna unlock those and that's we're gonna pick from everyone five six seven eight you know a we need your support we do need it and which order we do it in but we'd rather give you what the race you want most next yeah so yeah yeah so a lot's going on and this is just the tip of the iceberg there's more to come later in the year as well we've got more stuff coming for kings of war Trident realms is coming the ambush sets are out there you know and and if you thought about jumping in jumping you know now's a great time on that Trident realms coming down to your saga yeah is going to retail so um back as i've got their version that's it and then later in the year as well we've also got more stuff coming for firefighting dead zone as well so sci-fi we have we haven't forgotten about those those plastics done outside of Kickstarter for our 28 mil or whatever size millimetres i keep getting that size plastics as well as our warpath stuff yeah so yeah lots to look forward to as i mentioned before please do subscribe to this channel it you'd be surprised what a difference it makes having those um people subscribe click the little bell icon as well so that you get notified and then that tells youtube that you're interested in mantic stuff we can make sure that you get to hear about it as soon as it comes out so starting off 2024 with a bang i think there's a great way to start it no doubt we'll get back together as well on camera and a couple of months from now i'll get it down i'm showing you won't keep me off but that's it yeah but there'll be plenty more coming from me so stay tuned thank you very much for watching and we'll see you all very soon