Armoured Clash and Dystopian Wars

As with some of my previous threads delving into various more niche games that tickle my fancy, I thought I'd chat about Warcradle's Dystopian Wars universe with my fellow Lizards.

Are any of you experienced Dystopian Wars gamers? I recall @Darnok @Neersh and @pendrake mentioning the game in the past, and was wondering if any others out there have any interest in it. Which faction(s) do you play if so?

While I have heard of the Dystopian Wars universe in the past, for whatever reason though the ships looked cool, they weren't entirely inspiring for me (perhaps I'm just generally not into sea battles or something?) and for a good while I have largely ignored the setting, mistakenly I will admit because upon reading about it now I really like the look of it. The thing though that really rekindled my interest in the setting is the new 10mm Epic-Scale land battle wargame set in that universe, called Armoured Clash:


And yes, it was the image of Steampunk British Empire troops with Mortal Engines-style traction-constructs alongside WW1 tanks that really hooked me. Absolutely gorgeous. You can tell which faction I'd be playing if I were to get into this game.

The first sets have been released for the British, i.e. the Crown (*Land of Hope and Glory intensifies*):

And the Orientals, AKA the Empire, who seem to be playing Skaven with Jezzails and Doomwheels aplenty with a dash of Ork Deff Rollas:



Gameplay seems to be a mix of rank-and-flank and sci-fi, with units of models on their square Epic 40K-style bases being organised into formed units, and vehicles rumbling forward in looser squadrons.

The thing that has really impressed me about this game is that Warcradle have really thought everything through - they've provided a variety of ways to get started (including the Battlegroup big sets shown above, a 2-player starter set and some smaller cheaper introductory sets that still have a lot of stuff in them), and a no-nonsense army-building system that puts a stop to players spamming specific units or bringing the massive landships or huge full-strength units into smaller-scale games where they would be especially difficult to beat. Plus, they have an organised roadmap for the next year, which will see all factions released and aircraft introduced into the game:


The only thing that worries me is how detailed the models are... which is great to look at them as bare plastic, but is a concerning issue for someone like me who is easily driven mad by painting .

Otherwise though this looks fantastic, and sorely tempting. Any views from other Dystopian Wars fans here?

Find out more about it here: https://www.armouredclash.com/ and here: https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/wargames-miniatures/wargames/armoured-clash

 

The first Union sets have been put on pre-order, and the bulk of their models have been previewed:
https://blog.warcradle.com/blog/november-releases-the-union-mobilise-their-troops











I of course, will be playing Crown (as is my duty and pleasure as a patriotic Briton ), but good to see Warcradle keeping up with their release roadmap, and I look forward to giving these insurgent rebels a good hammering on the field of battle .

 

It took me an embarrassing amount of time for it to click that this (and Dystopian Wars) are the same universe as Wild West Exodus. it kept nagging at the brain, why does this look so familiar? Then I was browsing webstores, thinking of all the miniatures I would buy if I only had moneys, when I noticed the Wild West Exodus logo and it finally dawned on me. Oh, THAT'S why it looked so familiar.

Are there any setting lore repositories I can peruse? I like the WWE (pfft ) models, but I never heard anything about the setting itself other than "well gee, it's the Wild West, but gone strange".

 

Yes indeed, the Wild West Exodus world is but a small part of the Dystopian Age universe, which is examined on a much more global scale by Dystopian Wars and, now, Armoured Clash (Dystopian Wars is a large scale sea battle game like Victory at Sea, Black Seas, KoW Armada e.t.c, while Armoured Clash is a 10mm mass land battle game). Here's a list of all the different stuff Warcradle makes on their website for reference:



Definitely the best lore repository for the Dystopian Age, certainly at this point, is specifically the Dystopian Wars side of the Warcradle website:
https://www.dystopianwars.com/

As Dystopian Wars was released quite a lot earlier than Armoured Clash, Warcradle have done a lot more to develop the forces of the eight Great Powers in that game, and each faction has a bespoke background guide that can be downloaded and perused at leisure:


Additionally, if you prefer land battles to sea battles, the equivalent forces in Armoured Clash have additional lore included inside their Orbat (Order of Battle)...though at this stage, with only two factions released and a third coming at the end of this month (and the last two not predicted to arrive until next Autumn), Warcradle have a way to go before they release those for all 8 Great Powers.

Enjoy! I'll be interested to hear which faction(s) take your fancy!

 

@Warden I recall you showed great interest in my In Her Majesty's Name thread a while back, and posted a good lot of great Steampunk pics that serve just as much as inspiration for Armoured Clash scenery... have you had any exposure of the Dystopian Age universe?

 

And this is why I love the Crown...

 

Most beautiful thing on 4 tracks...

 

Looks more like 12 tracks, but she is a beauty!

Grrr, !mrahil

 

How many tracks do you want to build your palace on?

Yes.

 

I wish I could like this twice.

Meanwhile, in the Empire, the Orientals prefer mounting their palaces on Clone Turbo Tank wheels and sticking Ork Deff-Rollas on the front:



This is one of many reasons why Armoured Clash is awesome...

 

Armoured Clash is getting even more exciting, with the Enlightened on the horizon... love those War of the Worlds-inspired Fighting Machines!

 

The Enlightened will arrive in their Cylinders during February coming up to March, whereupon after that, looks like the German-inspired Imperium is goose-stepping into battle:



Lots of exciting stuff coming to the Steampunk world of Armoured Clash!

 

In preparation for the approaching Enlightened release, one ingenious fellow has made a crashed Enlightened flying saucer scenery piece:










As well as a homage to the '50s UFO craze, it also harks back to certain depictions of Martian cylinders from War of the Worlds:

 

I'd have liked to see a 28mm version as well, especially as a couple of Wargames Atlantic sets would work really nicely for it (and the original company that established the Dystopian Age universe, the now-deceased Spartan Games, did begin working on one called Dystopian Legions before it folded), but yes, the 10mm scale of Armoured Clash adds another title to the growing new generation of Epic-scale games around, and the plastic regiment boxes are gorgeous as well as being pretty affordable.

Also, as Warcradle themselves say, the 10mm scale gives the opportunity to play some pretty big battles, especially those with the fantastic Landship models, on quite a small table (something which cannot be said for 28mm of course ). Not to mention that, because of the small scale of 10mm, slight differences in detail, uniform etc between Armoured Clash figures and their historical counterparts are much less of an issue, which opens up the opportunity to grab cheap third party models from a company like Pendraken to quickly boost specific units (£8 for 30 Zulu War British Infantry to add extra bases to a Rifle Platoon is very wallet-friendly).

To be quite honest this one looks the best of the Epic-scale games out there right now in my eye. Awesome largely-plastic models, a thrilling Steampunk world with a touch of grimdark, a clear plan to get the game's initial releases for all factions out and to provide enduring support, gameplay that is deceptively simple to get a grip with but has a lot of tactical options to master... yes please! I'm straining to resist temptation knowing I play quite a lot of games already, but if I had to succumb and get into one, this would be it. Hell, I've already succumbed given I'm drawing out designs for a load of scratch-built scenery for it...