A new smol-scale miniatures wargame is coming for those Space Marines’ tiny throats

polygon.com:

Over the last decade, Mantic Games has been causing quite a stir in the world of miniatures wargaming with Kings of War. The game of fantasy battles is praised for its clear and concise ruleset as well as some head-turning models. But the British company’s science fiction lines, which include Deadzoneand Firefight, haven’t seen the same level of critical or commercial acclaim in the U.S. A new crowdfunding campaign could help change that — and further expose one of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise’s weakest flanks. It’s called Warpath, and it goes live on Kickstarter today.

Warpath is an Epic-scale miniatures game that will directly compete with Legions Imperialis, which Mantic’s down the street neighbor in Nottingham, England — a little company called Games Workshop — launched in November. With tiny robots and tanks that can fit on the face of a quarter, the game explores company-level strategy. That’s a much smaller scope than a game of Risk, to be sure, but on the table Warpath will take up a lot more space than a traditional 28- or 32-millimeter wargame. Infantry are just a bit larger than a grain of rice, and with battles fought over four-foot-by-six-foot battlefields, there are likely to be hundreds of them in play at any moment.

Early renders of Mantic’s miniatures look excellent, but the real selling point for me is the ruleset, which was developed with the help of Alessio Cavatore. Cavatore is a veteran of Games Workshop, where he worked on all three of the company’s marquee titles, including Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Warhammer 40,000, and Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. In addition to co-authoring the rules for Mordheim, he’s also the man behind the well-regarded rules for Mantic’s Kings of War.

Speaking with Cavatore and co-designer Matt Gilbert, it’s clear the rules for Warpath are a bit more sophisticated than Legions, as well. The pair have baked in a simulation of command and control, for one, meaning that the quality and the disposition of your