The Deadzone Proxy Project, Part I

There are currently seven factions in Deadzone, and as previously discussed, I am planning to use the TGITG range to act as proxies for them. Mantic's factions are somewhat uninspired, basically being stock fantasy races imported into the future, but I bought the game to give the Raging Heroes' miniatures a gaming base, not the other way around. This is a two year project for me, in order give me time to purchase, assemble, and paint all the minis. My end goal is to be able to roll up to a wargaming club and be able to play a pick-up game of Deadzone with any of the factions using nicely painted miniatures. This goal is also concurrent with my goal to finish painting my Mansions of Madness miniatures, as well as to flesh out and complete my Warhammer Quest collection. Not to mention continuing to chip away at my converted Kings of War armies.

Geez. I'm well back in it now. I thought I was done with this hobby.

Anyhow, these are my preliminary thoughts on the factions available in Deadzone, as well as what I'm going to use as proxies for each faction.

Asterians

Mantic Asterians.

Raging Heroes' Lust Elves. Not released to the general public yet, they are in the process of being distributed to their Kickstarter backers.

Elves in space, the Asterian aesthetic closely mirrors that of GW's 40K Eldar. I'm planning to use Void Elves or Lust Elves to act as proxies for them. Neither have been fully released as of yet so I will focus on acquiring and painting other minis before I turn my hand to these.

Enforcers

Mantic Enforcers.

Raging Heroes' Iron Empire Heavy Weapon team.

Humanity's super soldiers, I guess they're the Warpath universes equivalent of Space Marines. I already have quite a number of Mantic Enforcers because of the first and second edition starter sets, so there's no real need to replace them. Nonetheless if I have time and money to burn I'll be using the Iron Empire's rank and file to act as proxies for these guys. The Prussian looking troopers and snipers, along with their officers, look suitably totalitarian and regimented enough to fit the role of the Enforcers, while the cyberzombie division looks different enough to be painted up as the Plague. More on that below.

Forge Fathers

Mantic Forge Fathers, a.k.a. Squats, or Dwarves In Space.

Raging Heroes' Sisters of Eternal Mercy.

Dwarves in space. The GW universe used to have Squats, but those fellas were phased out some time ago and have no equivalent in the modern 40K game. Mantic, on the other hand, have embraced the little folk, and from what I've experienced with them, are designed to be a robust, shooty albeit expensive faction. The funny thing is that they kind of resemble short, classical space marines from their silhouette. Intentional? Who knows. I have a set of Forge Fathers from the second edition starter set as well as a few more models from a Brokkar Engineer booster pack, so I don't need proxies for this faction. Again, as with the Enforcers, if I have time and money to spare I can use the Sisters from the second TGITG Kickstarter as proxies.

Marauders

Orcs in space! Mantic's Marauders.

Raging Heroes' resident Communists, the KST.

Orcs in space. This is Mantic's modus operandi, taking stock fantasy races such as dwarves, elves and orcs, and putting them into sci-fi setting. In the case of the Orcs they've even been upgraded to having intelligence, problem solving and cunning in spades. I guess they had to, because the dumb, squabbling orcs of Warhammer stock would have never gotten off the ground otherwise. I'm thinking of using the KST rank and file as their proxies, even if I can't really see any similarities between the Greenskins and the Russian influenced, WW2 themed Kurganovs. Luckily the Marauder army list is quite flexible, which means any type of force can be built using their rules.

Plague

The Plague faction never grabbed me the way the Tyrannids of 40K did, but then again the Tyranids were piggybacking on the fear and notoriety generated by the xenomorphs of Alien fame. Nowadays the Zerg of StarCraft have appropriated the look and feel of the Tyrannids, making the flesh tearing hive creature somewhat ubiquitous in sci-fi lore. Mantic made a deliberate design decision to move away from this look and aesthetic, but their vision of a virus which turns people into zombies and monstrosities probably fits a contemporary universe better than a sci-fi world filled with power armor and laser rifles. To compete against high tech factions armed with sophisticated weaponry the designers have had to give victims different strains of the virus, some of which allow them to operate weaponry and machinery. Mindless flesh tearing zombies overwhelming soldiers through sheer weight of numbers I can visualize. Mindless flesh tearing zombies supported by zombies manning heavy weapons, artillery and piloting mechanical striders...not so much. 

The Plague, Mantic's most original faction. Based on a virus which turns people into zombies. OK, maybe it's not that original. But they're space zombies, and the virus itself is smart and has its own agenda, selectively turning people into what it needs to propagate itself. Almost like a Hive Mind, come to think of it...

Raging Heroes' Cyberzombies. These poor souls have been experimented on and turned into horrors.

I already have a starting force of Plague from the first edition starter. Nonetheless, as with the Enforcers and the Forge Fathers I'm planning to use the Iron Empire's cyberzombies to represent the Plague if I have time and money to waste. As I mentioned earlier, the necromantic division of the Iron Empire looks suitably different enough to be painted as a separate faction, and the look of the models gives the sense of an engineered undead faction, rather than by-product of a virus that infects people in different ways and creates "dumb" zombies, "smart" zombies, "big" scary zombies, and "leader" zombies. Perhaps I'm missing something from the fluff, or it hasn't been explained very well, but whatever the reason, I like the engineered look of TGITG's cyber zombies better than the hulking beasties that look like they've just escaped from the Resident Evil series. Having a mad scientist overlord provides a prime mover and gives a plausible explanation for the specializations in the engineered zombie strains.

Having said that, though, I have to say that the plague retrovirus is growing on me largely because the wonderful sci-fi series The Expanse. Mantic's alien virus reminds me of the proto-molecule from that series, and my inability to conceive of a whole menagerie of creatures evolving along predetermined lines from a simple virus might just be a failure of my imagination. I'm planning to paint the Plague I have in hand in the blue palette depicted in that series as a homage. There's also a whiff of John Carpenter's The Thing in the Plague faction, which was inspired in turn by John W. Campbell's short story titled Who Goes There?, published all the way back in 1938. So even though I hated the idea when I first saw it, I'm starting to come around.

Rebels

Mantic Rebels.

The rebels' eclectic and varied background gives them a clear Star Wars flavor. The variety of races and models available reminds me of the Mos Eisley cantina in the original Star Wars, where the camera pans around a watering hole filled with dozens of different species, all nonchalantly intermingling to provide a cosmopolitan setting where being "alien" is normal. Like in Star Wars and Star Trek, Mantic's aliens are anthropomorphic, more often than not being human-like bipeds with alien heads. I plan on using the Jailbirds to proxy for the Rebs. The biggest thing I like about the Warpath universe is that being a human doesn't automatically make you a religious zealot, dedicated to the worship of a God-Emperor who consumes thousands of souls daily in psyker furnaces akin to the Auschwitz and Treblinka extermination camps of the 20th century. 40K fluff has always been grim, dark and gothic. It's wonderfully dark, as befits a story whose source material comes from one of the greatest works of literature - Milton's Paradise Lost - but the relentless grimness can be a bit wearing. By contrast the humans of Warpath are still recognizably human, and the political structure of the GCPS is something that could plausibly develop in the far future. Corporate rapaciousness and the division of systems into first, second and third class worlds mirrors our own. Immigrants being used as cheap labor, rabid expansionism, corporate wars - there's scope for growth in Mantic's fluff and the potential for many stories to be told. I actually see echos of Joss Wheaton's Firefly in the Rebels - their uniform looks suspiciously like the outfit of Serenity's captain and crew, but it might be accidental. There's also the virus which creates a sub-race of human monsters called the Reapers, the discovery of which is one of the central plot elements of the movie spin-off from the television series. Sound familiar? Nevertheless, if that is the case then Mantic is in good company. Games Workshop has been plagiarizing stuff for years, and I don't hold that against them.

Raging Heroes' Jailbirds.

Veer-Myn

Veer-Myn, Mantic's Skaven in space.

Raging Heroes' massive Werewolves. They could proxy as Plague, or as a melee orientated Veer-Myn strike force.

Rats in space. You've got to give Mantic credit - when they decided to port the Warhammer fantasy world into space they didn't pull any punches and went all in. Even the Skaven are here. I'm planning to use the KST werewolves as proxies for the Veer-Min, maybe even use KST rank and file as well, ditching the background entirely and just using the rules. I find the GCPS background fluff pretty convincing, but Mantic really failed when it came to imagining the alien. Instead of coming up with truly bizarre, interesting alien beings, they just used fantasy tropes and gave them ray guns and space ships. 

Building a Sci-Fi Collection

In a way Mantic was constrained by earlier IP - Mantic built itself by providing cheap proxies for GW games, and so they had to include existing armies either to allow owners of such armies (i.e. Eldar and Orks) to make the switch to Mantic, or to give owners access to cheap minis to bulk up their existing armies in other game systems. By doing so they missed an opportunity to release something truly alien and original. They could have created a signature alien faction  (which is the Plague, I suppose) - could have had a few - but for now their Warpath universe - aside from the GCPS fluff, which I really like - remains somewhat derivative. But hey, that's why I use proxies! Re-imagine the background, pull from what looks good. Reshape the universe into something truly exotic. In a way I'm limited to what is currently out there in 28 mm - I can't sculpt miniatures - but I'm no longer bound by manufacturing lines or loyalty to a particular gaming system. If it looks cool, it's going in. Deadzone and Star Saga are going to provide the gaming base which will guide my future collection. The relatively early primordial shape of Mantic's fluff is also a boon, because it gives me license to spin my own tales in my Star Saga campaigns. The miniature sci-fi universe in my head was inspired first and foremost by Raging Heroes, but there's no reason why it can't incorporate models from Mantic, GW, Warlord Games, Infinity and the dozens of other manufacturers out there.

Next: The Deadzone Proxy Project, Part II