WarCradle: The Dystopian Age Q&A

WarCradle Studios haben auf ihrem Blog nochmal ein ausführliches Q&A zu Dystopian Age zusammengestellt, dem neuen Setting für Dystopian Wars und Wild West Exodus.

Following on from our live Q&A earlier this month, we have highlighted below some of the key questions and expanded on some answers in greater detail.

QUESTIONS ON THE DYSTOPIAN AGE:

What is the Dystopian Age?

The Dystopian Age takes place within a generation of the American Civil War. The ingenuity of humanity has unlocked secrets that they were unprepared for. Now mighty empires clash as super science and alien technologies bring the world perilously close to annihilation. In the Dystopian Age, the world is at war in all but name, but the awesome power of the technologies unleashed means that the fallout of a devastating global conflict has moderated some of the more apocalyptic ambitions of the powers. And so the various factions achieve their goals with a mix of subterfuge, diplomacy and military.

Under threat of domination or invasion many of the nations of the world have over time become affiliated with one of a number of power blocks (our factions). While there are times of uneasy alliance or peace between them, at other times there are clashes and conflicts over resources, territory and the actions of individual commanders in the field making the right (or wrong decision). It is an age where all it will take is the official declaration of war between any two of the faction for a chain reaction occur, and the world is plunged into a costly and ultimately unwinnable world war. Diplomacy is a fine art with a network of ambassadors, diplomats, bannermen, marshals and emissaries crisscrossing the globe smoothing over the countless brutal and bloody ‚misunderstandings‘, sabre rattling, land grabs, insurgencies and declarations that are a daily occurrence in the Dystopian Age.

Though each nation is part of one of a number of alliances and pacts across the globe, tensions and infighting frequently happens. For example, while the Emperor of China and Empress of Japan usually settle their differences politically (after all they have been allies for almost a thousand years), their generals and admirals might show less finesse and respond to the rivalry with bloodshed on occasion. Such conflict between allies is regrettable but, unfortunately in the Dystopian Age, unavoidable. The Dystopian Age is a tragic place for the average fighting man and woman as their actions and sacrifices can all too often be conveniently ignored or mischaracterised by their nation for the good of a greater objective.

To achieve a very real objective and secure greater glory for their people, the governments will use every tool at their disposal and while military is by far the most satisfying (as the vast armies around the globe in the Dystopian Age attest to), the factions can be pragmatic (and some would say downright cynical) at times. For the soldiers and citizens of the Dystopian Age there are very real and very motivating reasons to fight (fabricated or not by their governments if necessary). A loss in battle represents to the governments and monarchs a loss of face and prestige, which is far more troubling than the destruction of material or manpower.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the efforts of pan-global institutions such as the Covenant of the Enlightened and secret societies such as The Dark Council the status quo is maintained, albeit with a daily eruption of fighting on dozens of fronts. But how long those regional conflicts can continue until they escalate and the world is engulfed in a terrible all-consuming war is a question that haunts all the halls of power (and more than a few mess halls) as these powerful alliances battle each other looking for a decisive advantage in this Dystopian Age.

Regarding the miniatures will they be made of plastic, resin, metal or some combination of the three? Also, will flying models still use the same clear plastic bases, or will Warcradle be developing something different?“

Warcradle currently makes miniatures in resin and plastic. We are looking at how best to create new products and bring back existing ones.

Will the Japanese still be a major power or will they be rolled into the Chinese?    

The Immortal Celestial Empire is a powerful alliance that has lasted over a thousand years.  It was formed by the dynasties of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, Siam and Burma. Though each nation has its own proud traditions and aesthetics, there has been great prosperity and advancement in their Empire as they work closely on matters of trade and defence. It was the unwarranted invasion of Korea by the British Crown and the Russian Commonwealth a decade ago that caused the Empire to change its policy of isolation from the affairs of the rest of the world. We are looking to produce fleets and miniatures representing each of those nations over time.

Will Sturginium ore and characters from Dystopian Wars lore be appearing in the setting? 

As we detail the setting over the coming months we hope you will be pleased to see a number of familiar names appearing in the Dystopian Age. Lord Barnabas Draynes Sturgeon is one of the main leaders of the Covenant of the Enlightened and head of the Integritas Philosophy that operates out of Antarctica. Sturgeon’s Enlightened are obsessed with safeguarding the technologies of the Enlightened, especially those developed from the alien Vault that lies beneath Antarctica. One of these discoveries was the superconductive Element 270 that the wider world knows as Stirginium.

Will original DW background be rewritten? Is ‘X’ nation still around in the Dystopian Age? 

The nations of the world are all present, though the Dystopian Age places some in new and exciting factions. Narratively the background will change, so while a great deal will be familiar to you, there are bound to be some changes to how things tied together in second edition.

DW is a science-fiction based game, WWX is a science-fantasy based game, what was your overall reasoning on merging them both?

The two settings have a great number of similarities (more so than might at first be believed). It is important to keep in mind that much of Wild West Exodus is based on how those factions interpret the world they see around them. So where they might view it in mystical or supernatural terms, the Enlightened or the Teutonic Knight-Luminaries would have another, more scientific, interpretation.

Will there be available (either on webpage or purchase) more on the background of the Dystopian Age and how it relates to the world and how the new factions came to be?    

Definitely. What we did with WWX was to release short stories and blog posts during development and leading up to release. We will be doing the same for all games in the Dystopian Age. The new forum is a great source for the updated background material too.

Are there any plans to bring any of the Dystopian Legions troops or units back into Wild West Exodus?

While Wild West Exodus is part of the Dystopian Age, it is not intended to be the home for any additional factions. Rather than shoehorning factions like the Prussian Imperium into Wild West Exodus we are looking at a new game for those factions. It will not be called ‚Dystopian Legions‘ but will certainly be a home to many of the forces that would have featured in that game.  It will use similar rules to Wild West Exodus but will be focused on larger units and a more militarised structure (as would befit the factions within). As it uses similar rules as Wild West Exodus it will be compatible with factions from that game for tournaments and casual play.

There is no release date planned for this (as yet untitled) game.  As and when we have more news we will announce it. 

QUESTIONS ON ARMOURED CLASH:

With the scaling changes, will you be making any add on or upgrade packs?  

We are looking at all sorts of add ons and accessories for modelling that would be suitable for scenery building as well as detailing your miniatures in Armoured Clash.

With the land combat miniatures scale now becoming 10mm, would it be wiser to switch to 6mm scale?

10mm gives us a great scale for detailed armour miniatures and visually distinct infantry.

Will I still be able to use my models in the new system? Or will the new models and terrain be significantly bigger?

The physical size of the core models will remain similar to existing miniatures however their ‚real world‘ size will have reduced so that the common battle tank is roughly the size of a battle tank from the middle of the last century. There will of course be larger war machines such as land ships and battle automata in the game. We will have more to show on this next year.

As you can see from the renders below, many of the new models will be of a similar size as some miniatures players may already have in their collections.  Of course the new sculpts take advantage of the details we can add at 10mm scale but it does means that players can represent some units with models they already own when playing a game of Armoured Clash.

With a change of scale in the land game how will the air units cross the scale change?

There are different air units for Dystopian Wars and Armoured Clash. You could use existing models in your collection to count as air/robot units in Armoured Clash, but they will be representing a different unit. Sky Fortresses and the other truly gigantic flying/skimming machines will be only in Dystopian Wars, however. There will be equivalent (but representing smaller machines) in Armoured Clash that you can use them for. So the Vabaun in Dystopian Wars could be used to represent a Castellane Super-Heavy Skyship in Armoured Clash.

You stated that armoured clash is going to have a focus in Africa what about the factions that are not really involved in Africa?

Africa is a key narrative battleground for Armoured Clash, but it will feature land from battles all over the world. The land battles between the Union of Federated States and the fledgling Socialist Union of South America is another key narrative, especially as the other factions see the conflict as a way to leverage their own grab for power or territory on the South American continent.

Since Mobile Carriers have gone will SAS still be represented in Armoured Clash?    

There are no small aircraft tokens in Armoured Clash, however there will still be carrier type vehicles that can launch smaller craft such as gyrocopters and units like jetpack troops.

Will Armoured Clash be a new rule set, or will the old rules be adapted to the new scale?    

New rules for a new Dystopian Age! The game engine for Armoured Clash is in development but separately from Dystopian Wars. They don’t share rules, but will be developed by the same team in the studio so that factions behave in similar ways and feel like they are part of the same universe.

QUESTIONS ON DYSTOPIAN WARS:

Any plans to introduce bases for the Dystopian naval forces? Turning and establishing fire arcs always massively annoyed me due to the non-square edges.    

We are looking at it just as we are looking at a lot of possibilities. If we think it is justified by the rules we will include them but it won’t be an arbitrary decision.

Do you plan to rewrite the rulebook? Truth is, it’s hard to read, hard to get into the game and could be shorter. 

The rulebook will be laid out so that players can easily understand how to play. While we are not looking to reduce the game to a couple of sides of A4 there is still an aim to slim down the core rules of the game somewhat from 200+ pages.

Will there be Two Player starter Box?

Eventually, yes.

Is that Physeter Construct concept (the cybernetic whale) used by all of the Covenant? Has Sturgeon started dabbling in biotech?

One of the key tenets of the Enlightened is the sharing of knowledge within the Covenant. Obviously, there are some members who are less inclined to share  (such as the Traitor Tesla) or would rather make a quick buck off their innovations such as Edeson or the Traitor Markov. So within Philosophies you will find comparative technology, however, each tends to have a preferred method of achieving similar goals. Doctor Carpathian and his Praegressus Philosophy make more use of RJ-1027 fuelled Constructs and Creations whereas Lord Sturgeon’s Integritas instead would more likely use Automata to achieve the same result. Of course there are Constructs and Creations in the forces based out of Wells Chasm in Antarctica and Automata in service to the Praegressus Enlightened based out of Payson in North America too.

Quelle: WarCradle Studios