With eight factions depicting the Great Powers of the Dystopian Age, the studio is working hard to produce a range of exciting plastic and resin kits to expand your fleets. So what does March bring for the game and what does that mean for future releases? Stuart tells us more.
Dystopian Wars is a very special range for us, for several reasons. One of them is that it is the first to feature our own in-house plastic injection multi-part kits. These have been conceived, designed, sculpted, laid out and engineered completely by the Warcradle studio and manufacturing teams. This is a huge deal as it gives us complete control over every aspect of the product for the first time. We are investing millions in expanding our manufacturing and studio teams as well as additional CNC machines and plastic injection equipment to meet our ambitious release plans for the coming years.
March sees the first of the Battlefleet sets being released. Battlefleets are the building blocks of your Force. These are groups of Units that are always led by a Flagship. While they do not need to remain together during the game, there are benefits that can apply to all the units in the Battlefleet so your choices have a real impact on how the battle unfolds.
While the Commonwealth and Enlightened already have their first releases as part of The Hunt for the Prometheus, it is the Imperium who see the first of the Battlefleet sets released; the Elector.
This features the Elector Battleship as well as parts to build it alternatively as either a Kaiser Heavy Battleship or a Heidelberg Logistics Battlecruiser. These vessels showcase the versatile nature of the Prussian’s designs with components being easily changeable as the demands require it. Each of these classes is in reality the same ship hull, a day of refitting in the shipyard and structural changes can be effected as the fleet requires. So it is possible that the same vessel can be of multiple classes throughout its operational lifetime.
This Battlefleet also introduces another concept to the game, that of unique, named vessels. Unlike the Elector class which could be taken as many times as you like to represent one of the dozens of such vessels in the Prussian navy, unique ships represent a specific vessel with its own history, crew and reputation. For the three named vessels here, they represent alternate builds for your Battlefleet composition but have the limitation that you may only ever include one of each in your force, regardless of the size of the game. SMS Brandenburg and SMS Tirpitz are both Elector class vessels with different placement of the Gustav Heavy Bombard (and in the case of the Brandenburg, her captain has outfitted her with one fore and a second aft). SMS Holtzendorff is an infamous siege breaker and coastal raider. The British port of Scarborough famously being set ablaze with phosphor rounds by the Holtzendorf during the Tuna War of 1861.
The Elector (or one of her variants) is capably supported in the Battlefleet set by the first plastic miniatures for the Imperium. This multi-part plastic kit allows Prussian Commodores to bolster their fleets with two Blucher class Cruisers, Augustus class Bombardment Cruisers or Schaumburg class Logistics Cruisers. As with the Elector hull, these three designs are often the same vessel, outfitted for one of the various missions the navy undertakes in this rapidly changing Dystopian Age. The set also includes parts to make four Arminius class Frigates, fast and deadly pack hunters. Finally, the set includes Heavy Rocket Batteries and various esoteric Generators that can be added to the Elector, Kaiser, Heidelberg or Blucher.
As you can see the Battlefleet sets like this will give you the essential backbone of any force. Each of the coming months will see a Battlefleet released to further expand your force. The first half of the year will see Battlefleets for the Imperium, Empire, Commonwealth and Enlightened, with additional releases to complement those Factions. The second half of the year will see Battlefleets for the Union, Crown, Sultanate and Alliance, as well as additional Battlefleets and other sets for those Factions already released.
It is our intention for each of the Factions to receive a number of miniatures in the year ahead, with 2022 further fleshing out the ranges with all manner of exciting releases. We have big plans for Dystopian Wars and, while we can’t release everything at once, there’s plenty coming for people to get excited about.
I look forward to sharing the journey with you all…
Stuart
