Warcradle introduce the Dystopian Age

Well, it's perhaps slightly coincidental that I manage to post on the blog only just to find out there's another reason for me to write moments later! Here's why;

Yes, Warcradle are "rebooting" the DW universe and integrating their existing WWX universe into it.

Now, there's been a mixed reaction to this, but for the life of me I can't really see why. I mean, two steampunkesque universes sold by the same company, who would have thought they'd merge them? For me, it makes perfect sense - it's exactly what I'd have done in the same situation. Now you have a scalable set of games (1:1200 fleet, 10mm  army and 32mm skirmish) all under the same roof. They have reasonable explanations of the differences apparent in WWX to the other SG-origin franchises. It seems to make good sense.

The other point to me is that Warcradle are doing two things here that Spartan were never good at;

1) They are world building on a grand scale.

For those who didn't know Neil at SG, DW was his baby, and it was his ideas, background (though often written by freelancers) and alterations - he talked them through sometimes, but essentially it was not a discussion, and there was never any grand over-arching strategy to the world, it was more what models could be made, so what games were needed and how did that fit it. To me it seems Warcradle are approaching it from the other direction, and building out the universe with an integrated team (always better) and fitting the games to that universe. This is what I think is the best way of creating seamless integrated games, and allowing a smooth flow and choice for players.

2) They are engaging the community and communicating effectively.

Warcradle have released a 20-odd minute long video explaining what they're doing, why they're doing it, explaining that they're not invalidating people's old armies for AC with scale change, promised clear PDFs and they're hosting a QnA session in a week's time. Oh, and they showed concept sketches and new models too. What more can people ask for??

Now I get it, right - some people are attached to the background as it is, and feel there are substantial differences, but Warcradle has made definite business decisions here in a planned way, and they're handling it as well as I've seen any company do this kind of thing. I'm not sure how they could have done this better other than preserve the settings in aspic, which helps no-one.

I think it's way too soon for anyone to cry "the sky is falling". From a business perspective, this seems an obvious move. It creates an integrated universe which could result in cross-pollination between two sets of steampunk games players. It's a "no-brainer". They're being open about it and up-front before they roll the changes out, and people are shooting it down before anything is released...come on guys, even I'm not THAT cynical!

Maybe it will be a clusterfuck, but give it a chance. Now some will think I'm being hypocritical here - "you wouldn't have cut SG that slack" I hear you cry...well, no, I wouldn't, but that's because SG retconned their own thin material several times and had a track record of messing stuff like this up. Here we have a new company rolling out something after a track record of pretty sensible and creative changes. Not everyone might like 100% of it, but maybe - just maybe - the changes will be positive and work well. If I were a DW player, I'd be quite excited.

Now I mentioned they showed some concept art, and here it is, this one of a really interesting ship with a whale launcher!;

And here are three versions of the whale construct;

They also showed some renders (in spin-around 3D) of three battleships for the Crown, Union and Celestials...

Not only that, but they showed us physical models - the first of the Union Battleship shown above;

This is a beast of a ship, but it retains many elements true to the original Spartan theme of the FSA. The last models shown were from Armoured Clash, and incorporated both DW and WWX elements;

Honestly, if Warcradle handle the Firestorm universe with half as much integrity and openness, it's looking to be a bright future for Armada and Planetfall in 2018. Let's see what next Friday brings!

Take a look at the video for a full explanation - it's well worth watching.

Note all images are taken from the video, and remain copyright of the original material.

Salute 2017

So another Salute show has come & gone - what did this one bring?

Well, for starters this was Oscar & my first Salute show in 4 years that we'd not been at the SG stand helping out, so it gave us a lot more time to look around, and that was a great thing - how much we'd missed out on in prior years! To start with, this year the bag had the Salute exclusive mini;

Also in the bag was another model, this time an injection moulded plastic figure for Wild West Exodus, which is another good thing! They actually had a stand at the show too, together with somone actually dressed as Captain Nimue - and no, I didn't take a picture!

Now having a look around Salute all day is (as many of you will know from any show) an exhausting experience. Gamers are a mixed bunch, and the amount of pretty rude and backpack-wearing blunderers in the show seems abnormally high! Still, that aside, most folks are pretty cool, and we got to meet face-to-face a fair few folks we'd had on the Hub Systems podcast, which was great.

Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves - what did we see at Salute? Well, let's run down our highlights;

1. Runewars
2. D&D Figures
3. Hawk Wargames
4. Dark Souls
5. Shattered Void
6. The Drowned Earth
7. Mierce Miniatures

I'll also talk a little bit about the Spartan Games stand, and some other random thoughts that come to me...

1. Runewars

So let's kick off with Runewars. This is Fantasy Flight's entry into the fantasy wargaming genre, and I've been thinking about it for a while, especially so after watching Sorastro's YouTube guides to painting (https://www.youtube.com/user/Sorastro). After watching a small part of a demo game, I decided to take the punge and buy the absolutely enormous box, at a discounted show price (though I later found it for slightly less elsewhere in the show....well, you can't win 'em all, can you?). I'm going to do a proper unboxing on this one in another post, so will leave those thoughts for then.

2. D&D Figures

Salute is a dream if you're looking for figures for D&D - there are so many manufacturers and traders selling appropriate items, from generic adventurers through very specific classes (Halfling Barbarian, anyone?) to monsters of all sizes and shapes (giant rats and beetles to enormous dragons). I picked up a couple of Wizard/Mage figures as they looked ideal for Red Wizards of Thay for the Rise of Tiamat campaign. Here they are:

3. Hawk Wargames

Hawk are easily identifiable at major events like salute because of the 10mm scale frigate that Dave and his team constructed and cart about as a central icon for their stand. This was as impressive as ever, and around it were demo tables with both Dropzone and Dropfleet. Behind it is the trade booth with product and display cases. I wanted to get an Athens for Oscar's UCM, and also another for a friend over in the US. Unfortunately we got to their booth after the first 30mins of the show in which all 150 they brought sold out. They did have Corvettes, launch assets, resin objectives and other pieces, which I was sorely tempted to buy, but also found them at a lower price through other traders (unsurprisingly!).

On display were the new casts for the Scourge and UCM Battlecruisers, which looked great - the Scourge one looking especially good. 

There were also the advanced sector tokens for display as well:

There were full display cases with fleets for all four races, looking as sexy as ever, this time with the Corvettes added to them. There were plenty of staff around, including Hawk Dave himself, and the stand felt like it was buzzing every time we went to it or past. In short, Hawk seemed to be having a really good day, and their games seem to be doing very well.

4. Dark Souls

We backed the Dark Souls Kickstarter, and this was the first time we got to see physical models and play first hand. The models are beautiful, and the gameplay is as brutal as in the video game. Oscar and I played the warrior and the herald against the Dancer, and actually did ok - getting it down to 6HP (from 34!) before I finally succumbed to a nasty attack (and when one of you dies, you all die!). The AI system is very good, and the models are incredibly detailed for board game items - something we all tend to expect nowadays. The chap who demoed the game was very good, and showed us all the models first hand. We had such a good time we forgot to take any pictures, so here's one borrowed from Beasts of War to show the Dancer in action

Really looking forward to getting this when it hits UK distribution!

5. Shattered Void

Meeting podcast guests in person is always a pleasure, and that was very true of the chaps at White Dragon which we covered in Episode 23. Oscar and I both backed their Kickstarter, and the ships shown at Salute this year still look great and the plastic games components and cards also look really nice - the stats slider is particularly good, and has a really nice feel to it when using the sliders - something like this for Firestorm would work really well, I think. Alan & Mark were pretty hoarse from talking most of the day by the time we met them, which is a good sign for the game, and we look forward to getting all of our goodies when they arrive soon!

6. The Drowned Earth

We covered The Drowned Earth in Episode 29, and met James to put a face to the name. We also got to play a demo game, where Oscar tried to crush my lizard dude with his hulking simian, jumping down a platform at him after taking three arrows from my leader...only to have his cold-blooded nerves of steel win for him, as he shot him squarely between the eyes as he sailed through the air at him, stepping aside as the lifeless body tumbled down the stairs behind him. He then bravely raced toward the objective to transmit the coordinates, only to be reduced to a flaming corpse by a dual hand-flamer wielding woman guarding the stairs. Oscars strange cross-dressing chap then successfully reached the transmitter, as my monkey-man couldn't shoot for crap.

Their Kickstarter is live, and I'd throughly recommend both listening to The Hub Systems episode where we talk to James and backing the game (we have!), as it's a very cinematic and fun game, with some really nice unique elements, such as the mixed factions (not "Apes vs Humans" or "Lizards vs Women" etc). I'm not sure how long we played (maybe 20 minutes?), but it felt like five minutes of complete fun - our thanks to Chris for that, he did a great job. The minis are very good, and seeing them cast when we were talking about initial concepts, art and renders back in December was a real treat. Also, although James was pointing out the unfinished bits of his boards for the game (you always see the flaws in your own work!), they actually looked great and really added to the experience.

7. Mierce Miniatures & Darklands

The Mierce Miniatures stand has drawn our attention over the past few Salute shows due to its incredibly detailed resin monsters, and this was no exception. This time they were also giving out free rules for their game Darklands. Their miniatures are absolutely A1+ grade, but they are pricey (though compared to GW, this makes more sense, and compared to Forgeworld there's no contest). Giving the rules and lore booklets out for free is a nice move, and I'll have cast a critical eye over them in the near future. For the time being, however, they remain as eye candy. If the prices were 20% or so less, they would be very desirable purchases, at the moment I think they're just too high-end to appeal to many beyond the exceptional display-piece painters out there.

Unfortunately Mierce's website is horrible, and really doesn't make it easy to showcase their beautiful sculpts, so the best place to see them is at shows. They organise models by factions, which unless you're already a Darklands player (unlikely) you've no idea where to look. This might make sense for the creators, but it doesn't help at all for new players to get into the game.

As an example, you have to go through about 4 screens before you get to see the mini above, which is a really nice sculpt and very nicely painted - yet hiding in the recesses of the site. Really the first thing you should see when you get onto their site are models like their Chimera, which is simply staggeringly beautiful. Unfortunately, even knowing what to look for, all they have on their website is this:

Now you can tell this is nice, but they have a painted mini, which shows the detail off beautifully and there's also absolutely nothing to show scale here - the actual model is massive, so why not have another stunning 28mm model paladin or something fighting it to show this? I mean, at the RRP of about £120, you need to see what you're getting! I think this is really limiting Mierce at the moment - they haven't really understood that their website is their shop window, and at the moment it looks like the outside of a German adult store.

Final Thoughts

Salute 2017 was a good show - it was great to see gameplay in person of games we've backed through Kickstarter, and good to meet the people we've chatted to over the ether for the Podcast, and see their labours come to fruition. It got me excited about mini games and painting, which is always a good sign. My main regret was not buying more Hawk stuff, but then I need to get more built and painted first, so that's probably a good thing!

Now of course I haven't mentioned Spartan Games here - something many of you may be glad about! Well, they were present, but with quite an underwhelming stand, with Halo being (perhaps predictably) the most predominant game. One could argue that there are good reasons for this, they're doing a lot behind the scenes etc, but let's face it - at a show, who cares about that? No one, that's who. Spartan need to improve their game dramatically or they're going to find it impossible to claw back any market share for their games beyond their status as a niche with a dedicated following. 

Having seen the leaps and bounds Hawk have made, and the abundance of fun, slick-looking games made out of people's attics (as Shattered Void is), then if they want to survive they need to do better, MUCH better. They've made a whole bunch of promises lately, but then Spartan's promises aren't even as good as GWs loose rumours, so we'll wait and see - it's not like  haven't got a whole lot of other shineys to look forward to right now!

Salute is a very particular kind of show, a real showcase exhibition point in the UK gaming calendar. It's a great show for looking at what's hot and upcoming, and you can bag a few bargains along the way (Terminator game for £10 anyone?...no, we didn't think so either....!). It's still a firm date for any gamer, though you need to get in early to grab those desirable show exclusives. If you're not concerned about that, its big enough and lasts for enough of the day that you can take it at a nice pace, though its still exhausting, and I still hate paying double for anything food or drink related "just because it's London". That's not enough to dissuade me from going, however, so I'll be looking forward to next year!

Wild West Exodus - Models & Build

Apologies for the delay to posting this up, but as we took the pictures to show, I thought it should go up even if it's a few months late! Back in the closing quarter of 2015 we did an unboxing of Wild West Exodus, and covered our first impressions both here and on the podcast. To give you all unfamiliar with the game an idea of the model quality, here are some pictures of a build of one of the figures, and a few other shots.

Firstly, here are the parts for one of the outlaws - the parts are nicely cast with good detail.

For the most part, sprue attachment points are on joints or hidden parts, showing thought has gone into assembly and final look of the model

There are some seams to clean up, and I deliberately chose this figure as it's probably the worst offender from the set - showing the worst you'll have to do...most don't have seam lines anything like this large. This guy's overcoat is the part that needs greatest cleanup, but it's nothing more than a few minutes work.

The legs join at the knee, using parts designed so you can't get them wrong, and largely hide their own joins

Next is the head, attaching via the neckerchief

The arms have positive pegs on the body to slot into, so again you can't really get assembly wrong

Finally the right arm with the gun moulded on goes in place, completing the assembly. Now I want to paint these parts before I do this (after cleaning up the seams etc), but the parts have a good enough fit that I could dry-fit them to show you what he looks like with it on.

In fact, the fit of the parts is well worth mentioning - here's the Outlaw specialist, complete with sniper rifle;

This mini has not had his gun/arm assembly glued on - it's just dry fitted...that's impressive...

You get some interesting poses in the set...like this cross-legged lawman

The mini I was least taken by on the box renders was the Outlaw bike. In reality, however, this is quite a nice little model and I think it looks good. I've not glued the guys hat on deliberately...he's not the subject of a horrible accident!

Now these are very different minis from anything else I possess, and painting them I wanted to give them a dirty, brown look similar to the raiders in Fallout 4. It has to be said that they take paint very well, and look great painted up. here's a Lawman I've used as a testbed...

Not finished - but you get the idea. I think he's coming up well, and seeing the painted minis makes me want to play the game, which is always a good sign!

The Hub Systems Podcast Episode 8 - Reading Warfare

Episode 8 is now live...

Wild West Exodus 2-player set unboxing

So back in September, after hearing good things several times on Jaded Gamercast about Wild West Exodus, I found myself in the possession of some excess funds (from selling a bunch of 40k stuff) which I decided to grab the 2-player starter set of WWE. Unfortunately it turned out there was some problem and it never arrived, as regular readers/listeners will know we moved and then, out of the blue, it arrived whilst Oscar and I were at Reading Warfare.

So, here's the box - the two-player set is using the age-old outlaws and lawmen matchup that I'm sure many of us played as kids;

The front of the box has some nice comic-style artwork whilst the rear of the box sports the contents;

Now this set cost £64, and you get 28 figures, so on models alone the set works out at around £2.30 each, which isn't bad. Moving onto the contents, the box is end-opening and contains the rulebook, construction guides for the models, stat cards and a bubble-wrap pack which has the templates and tokens in;

Looking into the bubble wrap more closely....

Here you can see three clear plastic templates, four silver and bronze coloured 10-sided dice and a sprue with the tokens in gold-bronze plastic. The templates are pretty thick and sturdy, seems like they'll last a long time and they have a real quality feel to them.

Now onto the minis - you get three main sprues plus two small ones (each with a single special support character)

Having a closer look here, these are very nicely sculpted and cast figures, and I can see why JG were keen on them.

Now I know pretty much nothing more about the game, so it will have to wait until a future post to talk in any way about that, but my original impression is pretty positive. Next I'll be building the minis and coming back to this when that's done...watch this space!