Veteran Warhammer 40k designers Andy Chambers and Gav Thorpe previewed a spanking new mech wargame at Adepticon 2023. Zeo Genesis will be a “scalable skirmish sci-fi game… featuring armoured suits called Zeoforms”, according to publisher Best Hobby Games (BHG).
Thorpe is working on the setting for the game while Chambers is working on the rules, and illustrator Dan Morison – perhaps most famous among wargamers for his incredible Space Marine fan art – provides concept art for the mechs.
Thorpe and Chambers were present at Adepticon running playtests of Zeo Genesis, using 3D printed prototypes of new mech sculpts. According to BHG, the core of the game’s sculpts will be “multipart, hard plastic kits”. That’s the material Games Workshop uses to mass-produce models for its Warhammer 40k factions and Age of Sigmar armies. BHG does note that it will also use “some 3D printing and STL options” for other parts of the range.
BHG’s website states “we have our own milling and injection machines here in the US”, meaning that they have all the machines they need to make and produce plastic kits, provided they have the right staff.
Producing hard plastic kits is usually very difficult for start-ups, as both injection-moulding machines and the moulds themselves are extremely expensive – that’s why it’s so much more common to see new companies making models in resin, metal, SioCast, or simply release STLs.
Thorpe and Chambers were both long-time members of the Games Workshop design studio, working on core rulebooks, Warhammer 40k Codexes and Warhammer Army Books, and even taking the lead on several spin-off games.
We’re absolute suckers for mechs here at Wargamer, not to mention big fans of Chambers’ rules – his version of Necromunda is definitely one of the best miniature wargames from GW’s Specialist Games line of the ’90s and ’00s – and Thorpe, who wrote the Last Chancers series, some of our favourite Warhammer 40k books.