Mantic Games are delving deeper into Hellboy this week over on their blog. They are going to be discussing the game mechanics and more as things develop, giving you a taste of what's on the horizon.

The first thing we're going to look at is the character card here for one of the agents, in this case, Hellboy himself. Each character has four different skills that you'll see in the top cover representing Fight, Shoot, Defender & Examine. The colours indicated show the type of dice you'll roll for each check.

Each character also comes with special rules which augment them and make them different. For example, Hellboy can smash around his foes and stand up to some of the most dangerous foes with his Tenacious ability.

What I thought was very cool was the way threat is worked into the game. The higher threat brings more heat from enemies and while to begin with that's probably going to be Hellboy, it will change during gameplay.

Doom & Cases

Talking of threat, we also have this Doom Tracker which will be the gameboard governing pretty much everything you do in the game.

There are a lot of things going on here. You will need to get your hands on as much evidence and information as possible whilst also watching out for Doom and the eventual climax of the encounter. One of the other cool aspects of the game are the Case Files which will be unsealed and opened each time you sit down to play - almost legacy style.

Each time you sit down to play the game for the first time, you'll not know what's coming! You CAN replay all of these adventures in future so don't worry, it's not a one time deal.

Strange Encounters

You'll also find yourself running into interesting encounters thanks to the Doom Deck.

These start to mix things up during your games and throw a spanner in the works. As you can see they not only bring more enemies into the mix but can heal your foes at rather annoying times too!

This is just a quick overview of what we picked out from the blogs but you can delve in and check out Part One, Part Two and also their Agent Card reveal for more information.

Miniature Reveal

Yesterday also saw the team at Mantic Games reveal the model for Lobster Johnson.

I have no idea who this fellow is, but he seems like one of those old pulp heroes you might have seen in comic books. From a quick look online this fellow was a deadly vigilante who fought against mobsters and more, although he did also have some time after his death where he was a powerful ghost, still able to continue his work.

Will you be backing Hellboy?