Zenit Miniatures Releases New Game Last Saga
May 1, 2017 by stvitusdancern
Zenit Miniatures has released a new game, Last Saga. This is a 32mm Sci Fi skirmish game which will feature several different factions.
The initial two factions are the Empire and the Council. There is also a rulebook available for download, however, it is in Spanish only at this time.
Unfortunately, there is not much else known about it to this point.
I will let you make your own decisions on the visual style of the miniatures, but to me, they look very similar to another game out of Spain. Hopefully, we will learn more soon.
What do you think about Last Saga?
"The initial two factions are the Empire and the Council..."
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Those are really nice.
So based on that first two factions are pretty much typical humans and typical aliens.
looks like Tohaa and an Ariadna/Haqqislam copies. Very nice but very similar to Infinity.
Be interesting to see the rules.
Absolutely! I mean there’s close and then there’s CLOSE. I wonder just how close something has to be to be considered copyright infringement? Because I honestly think that this might just cross that line. They even used the same color basing! Zenit should be ashamed.
They used the same sculptor and painter, because, shocking, they’re spanish and available for freelance work. Also no, this is not copyright infringement because if it were, a wealthy company like CB would be calling a lawyer, not being salty on facebook about it.
They used the same sculptors CAD models and just changed the external armour and textures.
Its extremely lazy work.
I might just add that for one, I don’t know that they aren’t looking into legal action as we speak. Might not be something they would advertise. And two, even if they use some of the same freelance artists, there are contracts in place that control the selling of similar properties to multiple sources.
I’m not saying Zenit necessarily did anything wrong, I’m merely stating that based on the pictures, a very fine line seems to be in play here and that creatively they might have been better off going in a more unique direction.
I think the line is not really that fine, but given that CB fostered a rabid “can do no wrong” mentality in its fans that makes 40k fans seem sensible, I don’t really expect any other reaction.
There will always be fanboys somewhere. But I don’t see a “can do no wrong” attitude. CB has made some mistakes, they just haven’t made the same ones as GW. Being willing to learn from the failures of others is something their fans appreciate. It is something that we as mini gamers should all appreciate.
Rather nice to see these finally make it to the original Kickstarter’s backers and the general public.
There’s three more factions, all with new / expansion models coming out over the next few months. The Spanish rulebook is already out ( http://unusualcreative.net/last-saga/descargas/Last_Saga_Reglamento_Beta.pdf ), with the English version expected to follow in the near future.
The response to these has been an odd mix of praise and sarcasm, with quite a few people simply calling them pure Infinity plagiarism (which in and of itself hardly has a visually unique style boring pretty much its entire look from Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed, which makes Carlos stepping in there being sarcastic either funny or sad. Tough to tell, still glass houses and throwing with stones 😉 ).
Can’t help but feel though that adding in one of the other three factions with the initial launch, would have led to a different community reception. The Raiders of Saanar, the Guardian of Tan’Aor and the Uruhvel are most definitely the more visually unique factions of the range.
If anything the models have really sharp detail, while Zenit definitely know their business when it comes to casting metal models. Had a lot of fun painting up the Uruhvel faction, looking forward to finding out more about their rules and adding a few more models!
http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/painting/forum/topic/what-are-you-painting-now-1/?topic_page=370&num=15#post-199826
I’m so proud of Corvus Belli for inspiring imitations! It speaks volumes about their continued success!
It’s funny, cause CB’s whole design philosophy is “how close can we rip off Shirow without him noticing”
Funnily enough when I first saw Infinity, I thought to myself “all my wildest shiro Masamune dreams are coming true!”
I picked up most of the human faction off the KS, and fairplay to Zenit, when they took over production they sent me not just the stuff I was missing, but their casts of the stuff I already had as well, so my generic PMC crew is now very heavily manned 🙂
(and in all honesty part of the reason I backed was because sculpts looked like they would sit perfectly alongside my Infinity minis but still be identifiably different, so mission accomplished there)
imitation is the highest form of flattery they say.
it’s interesting that we don’t see negative reactions to classic fantasy copies. sci fi tends to be a little more setting specific and it stands out like a sore thumb. there is no doubt that the look like infinity miniatures mind.
it’s going to have to be some rule set to find themselves a foot hold though. infinity is very good at what it does and being a skirmish game with a similar look might make it tough.
I hope they find enough support as I can cherry pick my favourite miniatures for use the with the infinity RPG.
I personally really struggle with the Infinity rules, but love the idea behind the setting and what they are trying to simulate on the table… I’ll wait for an English translation of Last Saga and see if that grabs me!
They clearly took influence from Infinity in as much as Infinity heavily draws on manga/manhwa, but the game world and artwork are quite different’ I’d say a little grittier, maybe some Heavy Metal influences especially in the uruhvel. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1318212665/last-saga/description
I think where they really missteped is on the choice of a more generic alien faction to start with (humans are humans) AND on the paint jobs. Their studio painter was too successful at Infinity/Giraldez’ing those up 🙂 I get why, going after a pre-existing market makes sense and zenit is probably eager to recoup the expense of rescuing this line’s kickstarter. Huge shout-out to Zenit btw as a backer of this and to the original team for sticking with it to find some way to deliver.
Anyhow Carlos-Hot-Takes aside, and I understand with that paint job, I don’t really see it as a copy so much as a game influenced by one of the big dogs in the hobby.
They look really neat. Outside of infinity there weren’t that many models who were inspired by Mass Effect style, so this one is a refreshing change, and seems to have 0 tactical bikinis (and yes, I know it has a whole race of bug-chicks, but i’ll be honest, it’s easier to accept a whole race of cheesecake than random bikini babe in a army full of burly dudes)
What little I could piece together from the spanish rules, it seems like a fairly quick and easy system, again a welcome change from the other, extremely bloated sci-fi skirmishes available.
Yeah I see the rules are more of a ripoff of 40K, good to know these guys are consistent…
Oh god, why would they let themselves be influenced by that stone age ruleset?
D26+mods vs “armor” is 40k mechanic? News to me.
I foresee some humorous SAGA mixups as Vikings show up in space and aliens invade dark age Britain…
man this looks just like infinity.
I backed this kickstarter years ago, its great to see it finally make it out! I just hope I receive my pledge at some point 😉
they are fabulous looking figures.
Amazing minis !
Infanity.
These models are not infinity knockoffs. The first lot have different armour to ariadna, the second lot have different (minor but still different) face and amour design.
Ariadna are the most generic army in infinity, tohaa infantry are generic humanoid aliens with their faces being the most original feature. Of course other Si Fi ranges weill look similar. Especially when they have done a good job like CB.
Zenit do tons of original minis. Look at their fantastic Kensei range for example. As for rules taking second thought, thats another judgement in my mind. They have and still put a great deal of effort into making good rule sets (I know this as a member of the kensei community who they correspond with regularly).Sadly they have yet to find the magic and had one really take off. They have also been a fantastic company to interact with.
I would Love to see more stuff on par and comparable to the Infinity range because I love the stile.
People need to climb down off their high horse.
Again no issues with Zenit if they use original mini designs, their Kensei range for example is really top notch, it would be since they were taught how to spin cast high detail miniatures by CB.
The issue is that these are EXACT COPIES of Infinity sculpts, not inspired by, not similar too, exact copies taken from the CAD masters with very minor cosmetic changes. The same sculptor who did the original designs for CB and Infinity has reused the sculpts again.
Some of the human minis have the same hair and Berets as Infinity starter set minis, the aliens have has head quills replaced by hair. Its not even subtle, these are cloned miniatures.
Either Zenit know what they are doing making knockoff infinity miniatures or they asked the sculptor for some designs and he did the laziest job possible hoping nobody would notice.
Strange how most people are more than happy to see IP rip offs for GW (like the positive attention that the recent ‘not Tau’ have been getting) but when it comes to other companies they are up in arms.
Either you try to take the moral high ground and discourage such activities wholesale or be of the opinion that ‘all IPs seek inspiration from other sources’ and accept it as something that is a rather grey area.
This just shows the partisan nature of certain BoW members.
Personally, I think it’s something that BoW should be making a call on as to how far something is ‘artistic theft’ in their book and we all leave it at that.
It is interesting isn’t it? This is what I was saying. Homage, inspiration, plagiarism etc, its a fine line and the reasoning behind the community feedback is wildly different from one case to another.
I should imagine the first ever “not quite a space marine” miniature had a similar response as this has had.
Maybe it’s due to the gargantuan scale of GW as opposed to other miniature game manufacturers that we feel its ok, or perhaps it’s the amount of community members who have felt ripped off by GW with price hikes etc?
It could even be the scale of the game, with the constant purchasing necessary to keep up with the game, making it easier to forgive purchasing cheaper or more interesting proxys.
I’m sure I could churn out a whole host of (rather dubious) theories as to why this happens but hey…. it happens haha.
I think BoW generally take the stance of “this reminds us of a certain something” and that’s all they ever say. This is a news outlet afterall.
….did I mention they have fast panda’s XD
Oh I think it’s unfair to call it partisan nature (well for the most part, I can see that too, in both directions in this thread so far!)
I think its deeper than just “fanboy” nature