Sedition Wars vs Deadzone: We apologise for the delay.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlegamers.  It's with much regret and a heartfelt apology that we have to announce a delay to "Part 2: Gamplay & Verdict" of our Sedition Wars vs Deadzone comparison, due to an unprecedented lack of opponents for both systems!

 

Usually when we post the box contents of a game, we've already played at least a couple of rounds and so are ready to press straight on to the gameplay side of things.  With these two, on the other hand, we were so eager to get the ball rolling that we began the process before we'd even had a leaf through either rulebook!  The expectation was that whilst you lovely folk were taking a peek at the difference between the box contents we'd be up to our elbows in mutant skirmishes, and the gameplay review would be ready to put up without too much delay.  Unfortunatley as it's turned out we've been unable to find an opponent for a single game of either Sedition Wars or Deadzone, and so there's no immediate sign of this gameplay review on the horizon.

 

We did toy with the idea of taking down the previous two articles, but decided to leave them up as a box content breakdown may still be useful to anyone looking at buying one of the two box sets.  At this point though, we don't anticipate the gameplay analysis being available this side of the new year.

We are chalking this up as a learning experience, as we are still a fledgling blog, and will make sure we've actually played games in the future before starting up the review process!

 

On that note, just because Sedition Wars vs Deadzone is on hold it doesn't mean that Games & Tea is going to be shutting down over the festive season!  We've still got several games on the review pile which we have played thoroughly and are still yet to give our verdict on, so stay tuned for more excitable ramblings in the weeks to come!

Sedition Wars vs Deadzone, Part 1a: Assembly

A few days ago we posted Part 1  of a slightly different take on our usual review format; a direct comparison between Studio McVey's Sedition Wars and Mantic Games' new Deadzone.  Both are 28mm hard sci-fi skirmish games, and whilst both are heavily rooted in the tabletop side of hobbying, both are also advertised as being able to run straight out of the box.  To us, that allows them to be hit with the board game tag (even if only loosely), since the very nature of any board game is that you can open it up, play the game, and pack it all back into the box and shelve it when you're done.

 

As per usual with our board game reviews, Part 1 took a look at the box contents of both sets, comparing how the two of them shape up.  There wasn't a lot to choose from by the end of the article, with Sedition Wars scoring points for more miniatures and a more practical box, but Deadzone winning some back for miniatures of a slightly higher-looking quality and some nice terrain sprues.  We still haven't played games of either system yet, so Part 2 (gameplay & verdict) is still at least a week away, but due to the tabletop nature of these games we've decided to add in an extra article on how easily the models assemble (after all, model assembly is the very reason we haven't had a chance for a game yet!)

 

Sedition Wars

 

Sedition Wars contains a whopping 50 miniatures, which we mentioned in Part 1 may be a slight concern due to the inevitably long assembly time.  We were also a little concerned about the amount of unsightly flash and mould lines on the models, as these would only further add to this.  However, as it turned out, neither of these were particularly troublesome!  There were no assembly instructions for any of the minis, and most of the Vanguard (human) models consisted of 3 or more parts, but they were bagged up in small groups and it was fairly obvious which parts matched up with which models.

 

We should stress at this point that enthusiastically tearing open all of the bags and upending them into the box would be a very bad idea!  Open one bag at a time, assemble those models, and then move onto the next bag.

 

When it came to The Strain (mutants) on the other hand, many of the models were cast as a single piece, cutting assembly time down significantly.  The larger Strain models were a little more complex, but once again the parts matched up in a nice, clear way, and there were (almost) no real issues in putting them together.  Okay, we said "almost".  The only issue was on one of the larger Strain models (our favourite model, actually!) there was a pretty bad miscast, which meant that two of the parts didn't fit together properly.  We did the best we could with it and used modelling putty to hide the damage, so when painted up it should still look fine.  This will, sadly, be a mark against Sedition Wars when tallying the final scores, as the requirement of slightly more advanced modelling skills, tools and materials does defeat the point of a game which can be played straight out of the box.

 

As it appeared at first glance, there was a fairly decent chunk of flash on almost every model, but these were very quick and easy to remove with a pair of clippers, and the mould lines were easily removed by tracing a modelling knife around the edges.

 

All in all, the 50 models were quite a joy to build.  The level of detail is very nice on all miniatures (the large Strain models in particular), there were no issues with figuring out which parts go together.  There was a small degree of customisation in the models; having choices of male or female bodies with or without helmets, which the arms and weapons could then be attached to.  With the sheer number of models in the set it was inevitable that some would come out the same, but they are lost quite well in the throng and so this isn't a negative issue.  They took one full evening to build (we weren't clock-watching, but we're probably looking at around 6 hours), and the results can be seen below...

 

The only casting issue we had in Sedition Wars can be seen clearly on this model.  A touch of modelling putty from The Hobbynomicon's Citizen Williams managed to straighten him out though!

The Strain's lower-level grunts.

...and their higher levels.  These are particularly nice, with the two on either side having a very Resident Evil feel to them.

Two of The Vanguard's main characters - the sniper is our personal favourite out of the humans.

...and the other two main characters.

The Vanguards' grunts - with both standard and heavy weapons - and a handy little hovertank to bring some heavier firepower.

 

Deadzone

 

By comparison, Deadzone is fairly model light, containing only 23 miniatures in total (actually ours contained 24 as it included a limited edition not shown here, but the standard box will contain 23).  Once again, no assembly instructions were included with these miniatures, but they were bagged up in loose sets, so again we make the recommendation of assembling them in batches, rather than trying to tackle the whole set at once.  The Deadzone models were blighted with the same unsightly mould lines as their Sedition Wars counterparts, but were just as easily tidied up with a modelling knife.

 

Unlike Sedition Wars, all models in the Deadzone set consisted of several parts.  This allows for more dynamic posing on the miniatures, but the downside came in trying to match the parts up.  The Enforcer (human) faction was especially bad, with several arms being bodged together quite sloppily, and by the end of it we were left with more than one miniature which we'd be embarrassed to be seen playing with.  We have since learned that this is down to Mantic not being happy with the plastic Enforcer sprues and so issuing some of their old resin ones instead, with the intention of rolling out the plastic models next year.  This does mean that any Deadzone boxes bought in the initial wave will suffer from this same problem, so it might be worth talking to your FLGS as they may be able to secure you some complimentary replacement enforcers upon their release.  As with the miscast in Sedition Wars, this is going to be a mark against Deadzone, as it does effectively mean the box contains an imcomplete product.

 

The Plague (mutants) on the other hand, are a delight.  The pieces fit together nice and clearly, and the detail is exquisite.  One other nice thing about the Deadzone box is that whilst there is very little customisation available in the models, no two are alike.  All are designed to have their own unique poses which help to identify similar units on the battlefield, and also make your squad look as though it really is comprised of individuals.

Due to the assembly issue with The Enforcers, the Deadzone miniatures actually took longer to build.  Again, we weren't clock-watching, but with two entire evenings lost to assembly, it can be estimated that these 23 models took somewhere in the 10-12 hour region to put together.

 

The Enforcer leader, with a couple of additional special units and some gun turrets.

The troublesome grunts.

The rather delightful Plague leader.

Some of the Plague grunts.

The Plague's larger units, in various dynamic poses.

 

We have to say that on the assembly front, Sedition Wars does beat Deadzone by a small margin.  Both sets have some fantastic models, and both sets have flaws, but Deadzone more than Sedition Wars.  This results in a more enjoyable and quicker assembly process for Sedition Wars, even in spite of the greater number of miniatures.

So now that both sets are assembled, we can finally get onto playing some games!  We're hoping to have at least a couple of models on each side painted up before the final part of the review goes up, to make the photos look a little bit nicer if nothing else.  Come back in a week or two and see how the two systems fared!

Sedition Wars vs Deadzone, Part 1: Box Contents

Last weekend at Birmingham Comic Con we were lucky enough to secure a copy of Studio McVey's Sedition Wars for the bargain price of just £10.  It was an impulse purchase to be sure, but one that seemed too good to pass up.  It had the look about it of board-game-meets-tabletop-system, similar to the previously reviewed Puppet Wars from Wyrd Miniatures - which had received a favourable score - but set in a futuristic, hard sci-fi world.  Our first impulse was, of course, to tear open the box and start fawning all over our shiny new toys, but we hadn't forgotten that our copy of Mantic Games' Deadzone was due to fall into our laps in just one week, courtesy of our FLGS Titan Games, who had backed the game when it was still a Kickstarter project.  Deadzone is also a hard sci-fi skirmish game which touches on both the tabletop and board game genre, so we knew that if we started off with Sedition Wars straight away then one system would inevitably end up being neglected or - even worse - abandoned in favour of the other.

 

It was about this time that we had something of a brainwave...

 

 

Rather than taking on each system in turn, we decided to tackle them both together!  There are so many obvious similarities in styling that it made perfect sense to run their reviews as comparison articles, taking a look at box contents, material quality, casting quality and gameplay side-by-side.  Obviously this will prove something of a colossal task, so other reviews will most likely be put on hold until this is complete, but we think we're up to the challenge, and it will ensure that both games get a fair assessment.  Let it not be forgotten that we are first and foremost a board/card game review site!  Although on a personal level we do love our tabletop systems, we will be assessing both games from a board gamers' perspective, so out-of-the-box playability is key here.

 

So, this afternoon we finally got our hands on the long-awaited Deadzone, so the box contents part of the comparison is ready to go!  Seeing as we are looking at two games in one these articles will contain an awful lot of photos, so please bare with us as we spam your retinas with hobby goodness!

 

 

 

Both boxes are certainly eye-catching, featuring some gorgeous artwork.  They both show at a first glance that these are combat-based sci-fi games, and the hefty sizes of both boxes do leave players feeling like they've certainly been given their money's worth.

Both are two player game systems, with Sedition Wars seeing players take on either the human Vanguard faction or the mutated Strain in a self-proclaimed survival horror game set aboard the remote Alabaster Station.  In Deadzone players take on the roles of either the human Enforcers or the mutated Plague in a game advertised as "War in urban battlezones".  In both cases further factions can be bought at extra cost, but as we're addressing these as stand-alone games, we won't be delving into the details.

Out of the two, Deadzone is the slightly larger product, having a deeper box than Sedition Wars.  However, they both weigh a similar amount, so does that extra size mean more content, or does it just make the game more awkward to store?  We'll just have to find out!

One thing we did find interesting is that out of the two boxes, Sedition Wars does have more of a board game look to it than Deadzone.  It's a triviality which is not going to affect the final scores for either game, but it was an interesting point that from a board gamers' perspective we probably would have selected Sedition Wars if presented with an uninformed choice of the pair on a store shelf.

 

But enough with the boxes, it's time to find out what's inside them...

 

Sedition Wars' modular gaming boards.

 

Deadzone's 2'x2' gaming mat.

This may not be a standard review, but we'll still follow our usual process of showcasing the gaming board first of all, with Studio McVey and Mantic Games going down very different routes.  Sedition Wars has gone with more of a board game feel, with the box containing a set of 5 double-sided modular gaming board tiles, which can be arranged to create different scenarios.  These contain nice levels of detail and are printed onto thick, high quality card, much like standard game boards.  If any readers have had the pleasure of playing Zombicide, they'll know the kind of thing we're talking about.

Deadzone's approach has been to include a 2'x2' fold-out gaming mat to represent the war-torn urban battlefields on which players will be facing off.  Once again this is made of high quality material, and the level of detail on the business side is fantastic.  At first glance this may look like Sedition Wars has the advantage with regards to customisation of the gaming area, but Deadzone isn't quite done yet...

 

So... much... scenery!!!

Scenery!  Lots and lots of scenery!  The Deadzone box contains all of these scenery and accessory sprues as standard, allowing players to build a small city on their gaming mat and litter it with battlefield detritus and objectives.

 

 

 

Here's the finished product.  The fact that these can be stacked and moved around the gaming mat allows for full customisation of the playing area, and Deadzone certainly racks up points for immersiveness by giving players a full three-dimensional battlefield to wage war on.

An interesting point to note is that the images in the Sedition Wars rulebook do show games being played on boards augmented with similarly well-detailed terrain pieces, but these aren't included in the starter set, so any straight-from-the-box gamers like ourselves are just left to the imagination on that front, being left with a flat gaming board to play upon.  Of course this isn't a major objection as most board games are the same, but for comparison purposes it had to be said that Mantic scored some brownie points on this front.

 

 

Seeing as we just mentioned the Sedition Wars rulebook we might as well take a moment to look at the pair of them.  Straight away Mantic have thrown down the gauntlet, with Deadzone's rulebook being very much a bound book in its own right.  The Sedition Wars rulebook by comparison is still sizeable, but doesn't have that same feeling of opulence when flicking through its pages.

 

Sedition Wars: She'd better watch where she's pointing that thing!

 

Deadzone: Cor! Rules!

Inside, both are of a similar nature, containing exactly what you'd expect from a rulebook.  Both give a rundown on the games' warring factions as well as a brief background to their respective universes.  The rules are obviously covered, and both include details for running campaigns if you fancied something more in-depth than a simple one time game.

 

There are still a couple of elements to follow, but we'll move onto the big one now: gaming pieces!

 

The many and varies bags of Sedition Wars.

The less many bags of Deadzone.

From a first impression, Sedition Wars does seem to take a lead over Deadzone in this respect, with the box featuring 50 miniatures to Deadzone's 23.  With both games having that tabletop element, these are provided unassembled and unpainted, with players needing to rely on their hobby skills to get them ready for action.  This does make the higher model count something of a double-edged sword, as it's great to have more toys to play with, but obviously means more prep-time is needed before they're ready to go.  Of course, Deadzone's scenery sprues will go some way to balancing this out.

The level of details on both sets of models is certainly very nice, but Deadzone claws some points back from Sedition Wars with regards to casting quality.  Whilst both will need some filing before assembly to rid the models of unsightly mould lines, those in Sedition Wars do feature considerably more flash which needs to be clipped off  before assembly.  This might not sound like much, but with 50 models to trim back we can bet it's going to be a time-consuming process!.

 

One of the things which made the comparison between the two games easier to draw was the nature of the models.  In both cases the factions seem to be split into futuristic human military on one side, and zombie-like genetic mutations on the other.  At the time of writing this article we haven't finished any models on either side yet, but the following stock images from both manufacturers show the finished quality on their respective miniatures...

 

Sedition Wars' Vanguard.

 

Deadzone's Enforcers.

 

Sedition Wars' The Strain.

Deadzone's Plague.

 

Some lovely models here on both sides.  From a personal point of view, we have to say we prefer the humans of Deadzone's Enforcers over those of Sedition Wars' Vanguard.  The stylised oversized heads and hands of the models has never been something we're fans of, much preferring the normal human scaling favoured in the Deadzone range.  However when it comes to The Strain vs Plague it's a much closer run thing!  With no scaling standard when it comes to genetic abominations, these figure ranges boil entirely down to the detail level in the castings, and as you can see above there's not much between them!  At a push we'd probably say we just about favour The Strain, but again that's personal preference entirely.

There are two further points that must be raised here, both in favour of Sedition Wars.  First of all, the bases included with its models are scenic, making the miniatures look as though they are standing on the decking of a ship rather than the plain smooth bases of Deadzone.  Secondly, the bases have handy little slots underneath them for clipping in plastic markers to signify status changes in the characters.  This is a very nice touch, and makes a refreshing change from having to place tokens next to miniatures or beside their character cards.  Kudos to Studio McVey for this simple, yet innovative idea.

 

The character cards of Sedition Wars.

The faction decks of Deadzone.

With any kind of system like this, sets of cards are usually a given.  In the case of Sedition Wars, stat cards are provided for each miniature, giving players a quick-reference guide to their stats and abilities.  With Deadzone it's a little different.  Both sides have a 54-card Faction Deck.  As well as statistics for each miniature, this deck also contains actions and objectives, mixing things up a little and giving an extra level of depth to the game.

 

Sedition Wars certainly isn't shy on the token front.

...but neither is Deadzone, come to that.

Both games feature a plethora of tokens, to signify all kind of weird and wonderful things (we could go into detail, but that would probably require a whole article to itself!).  More isn't necessarily better when it comes to tokens, so there are no points to be dished out there, but in terms of quality the tokens from Sedition Wars are printed on higher quality card, and so will probably take more punishment before starting to go dog-eared.  However, they are only printed on one side, which is unusual for game tokens, and so unless players are incredibly well organised it may be a nuisance trying to find the one you're after in a hurry.

 

The only unmentioned aspect of the box contents is the dice, as there's nothing particularly special about dice!  Sedition Wars works on a D6 system, and so contains 8 standard D6's, whereas Deadzone is based on D8's, so contains 6 of these.

 

To end this box contents comparison we will make a quick note on the actual box interiors, as these can be something of a sticking point for us, as mentioned when we reviewed Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia.

 

 

Sedition Wars doesn't feature the greatest box insert in the world, but there's something there at least, and it features the same artwork as on the box cover.  The channel down the centre is enough to contain the tokens and cards, although doesn't really provide much protection for the miniatures (especially once they've been lovingly painted!).  The raised sections to the side allow the boards and rulebook to rest snugly on top, so all-in-all Sedition Wars is designed to be carried around as a self-contained unit.

Deadzone on the other hand, is a plain white box on the inside (hence us not bothering with a photo.  There are no sections for keeping the cards, the dice, the tokens... anything, basically.  It's a sizable box, and if you were to attempt to carry it around then we wouldn't like to imagine the state your various game components would be in when you reached your destination.  It seems very much as though it's been designed to be discarded after opening, requiring the additional purchase of some kind of carry-case to make transport feasible.  Again, looking at this from a board gamers' perspective, it's a notch in the negative column for Mantic's new release.

 

So that's the box contents of these two mammoth games!  At this point it's difficult to say which of the two is coming out on top.  Sedition Wars boasts more miniatures, and there's not a great deal between them in terms of quality.  Deadzone's scenery looks set to give a more immersive gameplay experience, but Sedition Wars' modular gaming board allows for a decent degree of customisation.  Deadzone has the nicer rulebook, but Sedition Wars score points for including a box which can transport the game as a whole.

From this initial comparison we'd probably say that neither games is shaping up to be a superior overall product, but Sedition Wars is in the lead as far as being a self-containted board game goes.  With both systems looking very intricate it may be a couple of weeks before Part 2 of this comparison hits your screens, as we want to make sure we do both games justice!  If you've been lucky enough to get your hands on an early copy of Deadzone though, or have played Sedition Wars in the past, we'd love to hear your opinions in the comments section.  For now, take care, and happy gaming!