Deadzone showed up today! It made shockingly good time: the tracking number was generated last week, hung around Nottingham until yesterday afternoon and then, bam, across the Atlantic and in Manassas this morning!
It’s an enormous box; over 22 lbs. Mrs. Rush gave me a bit of the stinkeye when she saw it, along with an (entirely fair) admonishment about the lack of room in the hobby junk closet.
Overall, the sculpts look alright. Better than the Kings of War disappointments by far, Some of the Plague guys are a mite dodgy, but that’s not entirely inappropriate. The Marauders actually pretty solid, as are the Enforcers.
(In fact, I’m about halfway through Enforcer, and the idea of doing Arbites with the Enforcers is something that’d occurred to me.)
They’re in restic, which makes me want to pants the chucklehead who put “DEADZONE CONTAINS ALL THESE STUNNING PLASTIC MODELS” along the side of the box along the side of the box. Restic ain’t plastic, it’s garbage. I’d like to say that if I’d known Deadzone was going to be in restic and not hard plastic I wouldn’t have backed it… but I don’t remember if I’d pledged Deadzone before Sedition Wars delivered. (Sedition Wars is the font of all of my restic hate.) Jake Thornton asserts that it’s not all that bad; Casey‘s already fiddled with some and says that it’s not great, but is better than the Sedition Wars trash, so I’m hopeful.
Certainly, I’m not feeling a lot of Kickstarter remorse over Deadzone yet.
That said: the box was a mess. Terrain sprues and model bags were tossed into the packing peanuts, which meant that fishing stuff out was non-trivial. All of one of the terrain sprues (Scenery 5.1) had stuff broken off of them (not catastrophically, but broken sprues < unbroken sprues). Then, I got to the packing slip.
I have to admit that I had a bit of a freakout: what I selected in the survey doesn’t look anything like what’s on the packing slip, and what was on the packing slip didn’t look anything like what was in the box. Although they’ve got a helpful “Here’s what should be in each bag” post, when it’s completely unclear what bags you’re supposed to have it’s not as helpful as it could be. Fortunately: if you end up in the same boat, I’ve got your back at the end of this post.
Here are some examples (this is not all of the inconsistencies):
- The packing slip says I’m supposed to get the Rebs Faction Deck and the Marauders Faction Deck. I’m supposed to get the Enforcer and Plague Faction Deck also, but they’re not on the packing slip. All four were in the box.
- It lists out all of the Rebs and Marauder bags I’m supposed to have. It also calls out one (just one) Plague bag, and none of the Enforcer bags. I got the Rebs and Marauders I’m supposed to have, all of the Plague Bags (and an extra of the one they listed), and the Warpath Enforcer bag (and not the Deadzone specific bag).
- Not everything’s supposed to be in this shipment. Some of those things (like the Forge Fathers Starter) are listed. Others (like the Forge Fathers Booster, or the Enforcers Booster) are not.
- Bonus Accessory sprues (from the extra Battlezones) are on the packing slip… but it’s been crossed out and “- Dwill ship 2014” is hand written next to it. They’re in the box, though.
You can see how confusing it was. Are Wave 2 contents listed? Or not? Are things baked into the Strike Team level listed? Or not? What about the add-ons I pledged for that should be in this shipment that aren’t listed? Or in the box?
I had to put together a freaking spreadsheet to get my bearings.
In the end, I’m missing a good couple of things.
- DZ Enforcers bag – missing entirely
- Hardcover rulebook – missing entirely
- Connector sprues – I’ve got 6 of the 14 I should have (57% missing)
- AI Deck – This might be for Wave 2
- Printed Compendium – Probably for Wave 2
- Resin Rebs Commander – I assume Wave 2
- Enforcers Booster – Wave 2
- Forge Fathers Starter & Booster – Wave 2
Some of these things I’m probably not supposed to have yet, sure. The flat-out missing stuff cheeses me: of all the minis, the Enforcers are the most interesting to me, I’d rather have the hardback, and I’ve got a lot of terrain that I can’t assemble ’cause I don’t have the connectors for it! Also, the stuff that I’m not supposed to have that isn’t on the packing slip makes me antsy.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to working through the rulebook tonight.
After the break, I break out my best reckoning of what bags constitute what starters / boosters. It might seem self-evident, but while I was trying to work through what I had and what I was supposed to have I really could have used this. Hopefully someone else will get some use out of it.
All of these use the names from The Great Unbagging, which will also appear on your packing slip (assuming the things show up on your packing slip).
Enforcer Starter
– 1x Warpath Enforcers
– 1x DZ Enforcers
Plague Starter
– 1x Plague 1
– 1x Plague Extra 1 (possibly 2x)
– 1x Plague Extra 2
Plague Booster
– 1x Plague 2
Rebs Starter
– 1x Rebs 1
– 1x Rebs Extra 1 (possibly 2x)
– 1x Rebs Extra 2
Rebs Booster
– 1x Rebs 2
Marauders Starter
– 1x Marauder 1
– 1x Marauder 3
– 2x Marauder Extra 1
– 1x Marauder Extra 2
– 1x Marauder Pyro
Marauders Booster
– 1x Marauder 2
– 1x Marauder Pyro
(According to this post, I might be wrong on some of these. I’ve noted them.)