Rémy Tremblay to Sculpt Warpath for Mantic?

January 29, 2013 2 Comments

It is no big news that Mantic Games is looking for the really big splash with their upcoming Warpath Kickstarter. First, to bring their game rules up to scratch with Warpath 2.0, Mantic Games hired former Games Workshop rules designer Alessio Cavatore. Now, to bring the miniature line up to speed, it seems they extended a full-time offer to Rémy Tremblay.

Rumours have it that Mr. Tremblay is working now for Mantic Games exclusively, assuring the overall visual coherency for Mantic’s flagship sci-fi miniatures line.

Via Scarletsquig of Dakkadakka:

Oh, btw, something else that will make a lot of people on here very happy which I forgot to mention earlier:

Remy Tremblay is not a freelancer anymore, he is now a full-time Mantic employee.

In addition to this, he is the *only* sculptor who is allowed to work on the Warpath range.

For anyone who doesn’t know who that guy is, click this link to his blog and start drooling. Basically if it’s from Mantic, was sculpted in the last year and looks amazing there’s good odds that it was one of his sculpts.

What is Warpath?

Warpath is Mantic Games’ science-fiction skirmish game. For better or worse, Mantic games has a reputation for producing the things Games Workshop let fall to the wayside. Warpath’s Forge Fathers are highly reminiscent of Games Workshop’s back-in-the-days Squats for Warhammer 40.000 (rumours have it the copyright for the Squats original concept art is now with Mantic) and the game’s Veer-Myn rat-race resembles Space-Skaven in many ways.

However, Mantic games worked to bring their games and miniatures more into their own. Once recent addition to Warpath (sculpted largely by Mr. Tremblay) were the elite Enforcers.

Mantic Games has also been very busy (and successful) on Kickstarter. Their latest Kickstarter-project, the futuristic sports-game DreadBall, clearly set the stage for Warpath by offering glimpses to many races and factions that may soon populate the Warpath sci-fi skirmish game.

DreadBall Miniatures

DreadBall miniatures sculpted by Rémy Tremblay

Who is Rémy Tremblay?

Rémy Tremblay is a French (?) miniature sculptor who, not least, made quite a career from the recent Kickstarter madness. He has sculpted miniatures for Paolo Parente’s Dust Tactics/Warfare, for Mike McVey’s Sedition Wars and worked extensively with Mantic Games already, sculpting for both their fantasy game Kings of War and – extensively – the Warpath “teaser-game” DreadBall.

Sedition Wars Miniatures Sci Fi Wargaming

Sedition Wars miniatures sculpted by Rémy Tremblay

He also worked extensively on the current Warpath range already. Arguably, to the point where he was leading the art direction on the game already in many ways. So this particular rumour seems eminently plausible.

What Does It Mean?

Well, clearly Mantic Games is signing up a lot of big names for their Warpath Kickstarter.

The sci-fi miniatures skirmish game niche is easily the most coveted in tabletop miniature war-gaming. It is also the most profitable. So is Rémy Tremblay as sculptor-in-chief a good thing?

Pro

  • It helps give the game visual coherence and distinctiveness 
  • He’s clearly a world-class sculptor with great range of work
  • His work fits (going by DreadBall) the not-so-grimdark tone of Mantic

Contra

  • Mantic might be crowding out some unique talent, especially for yet “un-visualized” factions
  • The quality of Tremblay’s work might be strained by the sheer quantity of this project
  • It risks feeling a bit too much like DreadBall re-loaded

What are your thoughts?

Z.

Filed Under: 28mm, 28mm Miniatures, Crowd-Funding, DakkaDakka, DreadBall, Kickstarter, Kings of War, Mantic Games, Miniature Painting, Miniature Wargaming, New Game, New Miniature, Rumours, Wargaming Industry, Warpath Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
About Zweischneid

Hi. I am Zweischneid. Wargame Addict. Miniature Connoisseur. Aspiring Blogger. Did you like this post? Follow me on Twitter or Facebook for more. And don't forget to share your favourite miniature pictures and wargaming videos at www.pinsofwar.net.

  • orlando the technicoloured

    First off I’m a big fan of Remey’s work,
    Having him as a full time Mantic employee is a good move for them (and presumably a good move for him too, as long as he’s still allowed to work at a pace he’s comfortable with)
    Whether he can cope with a full scale Warpath kickstarter by himself in a timely manner (in addidtion to any Dreadball stuff he’s line up for ?) I’m not sure.
    On the other hand one of the complaints leveled against Dreadball was that too much was scheduled for release at once, and that doing so would ‘burn out the game’. While I don’t agree with this, if you did subscribe to that view Remey doing everything leading to a much slower trickle out do stuff might sound a good idea
    (but would KS backers be happy with a much longer time frame, the biggest lead times I’ve seen for minis is Kingdom Death at about 9 months… A Remey only Warpath KS might need 12-18 months at the speed he seems to work)

    • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

      Cuts both ways with the release speed.

      First time I heard that DreadBall released too fast. Quite the opposite, I see a lot of reviews criticizing the low number of sculpts in most teams (which, in part, will change when the variant sculpts unlocked by the KS will release in March/April).

      And for the Kickstarter delivery, I think Mantic might not opt for the “long-delivery”. Their DreadBall KS was pretty much the exact opposite, with hardly 6-8 weeks between the end of the KS and the shipping of the boxes.

      That might have set the expectations among Mantic fans (who may or may not be following other KS closely).