Happiness is a Big Gun

Its impossible not to make the comparison - the Deadzone Defense Line is a fantastic alternative to the Agis Defense Line. It doesn't come with a quad-gun, but it does include an outlandishly large laser cannon. As well as suggesting vehicles and/or aircraft were definitely at least on the drawing board when the DZ Kickstarter was running, it makes a great piece of scenery for your tabletop.

It is not a complicated kit, but here's a quick guide to its parts and assembly.

Five pieces, one gun. you also get a two-part radar dish, but who wants that when you can have a big gun? You will need the piece in the bottom right, the one with the female sockets, and the gun itself for the next step.

This is the correct alignment of the two pieces. If you take the piece in the bottom left from the first picture, you will now find it slides in perfectly from the other side. If you line it up right. The fit on my gun was so good I could have left it at that, but I glued it just to make sure.

The plinth or mount fits into the square base. It only goes one way due to the shape. There is a sort of male/female peg and slot arrangement between the gun and the top of the plinth. I think it was intended to slide on and, again, not necessarily require glue. The fit on mine was not perfect though so I glued it. I've included a 28mm model for scale. And thats it!

Sprue Peter - Here's Some I Haven't Put Together Yet

I got back from the Mantic Open Day about an hour ago and I am, to say the least a bit tired. So tired in fact, that I could not make sense of the massive number of sprues I found in my awesomely large Deadzone Kickstarter box. Honestly, I got so much stuff I am grateful it is coming in two shipments. I could not cope with a larger injection of plastic crack at the moment.

As well as all the starter factions and mercs and whatnot, I also pledged for a large number of playmats and battlezones. Enough to put out a full 6x4 table of the stuff. This means I have literally dozens of sprues to sort and I was having trouble figuring out what sprue belonged to which battlezone and whether or not I had the right number of each.

I have figured it all out now. So, for your entertainment and edification, and possibly to help you if you're as confused as I was, here's some pics of what you get in a Core Worlds Battlezone, a Fortifications Battlezone, and a Landing Pad Battlezone. I haven't included any pictures of the Accessories or Connectors sprues though as they are pretty obvious.

Please note all the pics are poor quality as I've been up since 6am and driven for about 8 hours today. So I may get some of the numbers  mixed up but you should still be able to make out vague shapes through the gloom.

1. Core Worlds

Deadzone Core Worlds Sprues

For some reason, the Kickstarter updates refer to a single sprue when describing contents, but the actual delivery split each sprue they designed into two. So, you will get four of the top left sprue, and two of each of the other two (this is the one I may have got the count wrong on - I seem to have an extra set!). You also get a connector sprue and an accessory sprue.

2. Landing Pad Battlezone

Grrr, stairs.

 Apparently there was some controversy about this one. It was concepted as being slightly raised, like the helicopter landing pads the military deploys when it builds a base somewhere. I don't know why, but during production it got changed to being raised fairly significantly. So, you now get three each of the top left and bottom right sprues, including the bane of Daleks everywhere - stairs, plus one each of the other two. The two smaller sprues are the Defense Line sprues. These include the massive turbo-laser/AA gun mount, so you can let them land or shoot them down. Whatever you feel like.

3. Fortifications Battlezone

More Laser!

I really like this one. Partly because I saw some of it put together at the Open Day. You get three each of the top two sprues. At first glance they look the same. But if you look closer you can see some of the flat panels are smaller than their counterparts on the other sprue. This is because they are designed to clip on as extra armour. You also get another Defense Line so now you know if you play me at 40k there will be nowhere your fliers can hide from my Interceptors.

An Important Note

I've only been back a couple of hours and I've already seen forum posts where people complain the scenery is crap and Mantic deserve arson. Maybe they got a bad batch, I don't know. But there seems to be a lack of explanation in general of how to use the connectors. I don't know if this has been widely disseminated, but, just in case it hasn't, you need to push the connectors out from underneath. Don't try to prise them out of their sockets with your fingernails. This just puts stress on them, bends them, and stops them being reusable. I saw Ronnie pop them out and reapply them with a drawing pin and, frankly, I think they missed a beat by not adding in a branded pooping tool. I've copyrighted that idea by the way, so don't go stealing it.

Please do feel free to repost this page though or ask questions or whatever. No comments on my photography or flames of Mantic for not sending your stuff by courier/sending other people's stuff by courier/not sending you the dead birds. I've been awake far too long to be able to stand it ;)