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July Release:

AREN AND HIS PLAYTHINGS UNIT BOX NOW AVAILABLE

Summer is here and it’s hot outside. No better time to head indoors and get some gaming in. For those Dark Age players out there, we’ve got a new box set available for you. Created in part with help from the 2017 Immortals winner, Aaron Bohm, we are pleased to bring you Aren and His Playthings.


Freed from a digital prison by the L1ghtbr1nger, the mind of Project: Aren now has an advanced bio-mechanical chassis and access to a host of interesting technology it uses to adapt to situational stimuli. This includes the pheremonal broadcaster that forces the creatures of the Brood to see Aren as one of their own, including his heavily modified “C.O.R.E.hound” monstrosities. Interested in hunting her enemies and also caught between two worlds is Irinya, a Brood-hybrid mutant that hears Helexa’s song and obeys what she asks – for a price.

So cool off at the gaming tables and check out Aren and His Playthings, available now.

A light month, but hopefully this means a good GenCon AND that CMON can get busy on restocks!

Is there any more news on this game, or is CMON shelving it? There are a bunch of miniatures I would love to get my hands on, but they are constantly out of stock.

RUMOR has it that it is shelved until next year - apparently the various snafus associated with their Song of Ice and Fire KS campaign and retail launch have created an 'all hands on deck' for that, at the expense of many things, including Dark Age.

I hope that's the case.

Unofficially?

It really does look like CMON is going to abandon it. (Like they already abandoned WoK?)

When you look at CMONs numbers, they make almost nothing on 'traditional' miniature based wargames and they make a ton on KS cashgrabs.

They're a public company now, so, accountability to shareholders may be 'forcing' their hand?

I can only hope that if they are stopping support for the game, that they sell off the rights and IP to someone who'll do this fantastic game justice.

 Mysterio wrote:
RUMOR has it that it is shelved until next year - apparently the various snafus associated with their Song of Ice and Fire KS campaign and retail launch have created an 'all hands on deck' for that, at the expense of many things, including Dark Age.

I hope that's the case.

Unofficially?

It really does look like CMON is going to abandon it. (Like they already abandoned WoK?)

When you look at CMONs numbers, they make almost nothing on 'traditional' miniature based wargames and they make a ton on KS cashgrabs.

They're a public company now, so, accountability to shareholders may be 'forcing' their hand?

I can only hope that if they are stopping support for the game, that they sell off the rights and IP to someone who'll do this fantastic game justice.

GOT seems to be their cash cow right now. I don't really see them dropping Dark age, especially after the time/money spent to do all these resculpts. Shelving it for a year makes sense. GW did the same thing for LOTR. They will keep it "instock" but not say its on the shelf as they don't want to loose sales from it. Dark age is one of the best designed skirmish games ive ever played, so here is hoping it gets going again at some point

I have this feeling that the Dark Age and WoK were lately being used to fill pre-booked production slots when they missed the deadline with one of their boardgame projects,

and now they're running more stuff (and becoming more focused on having everything done sculpt wise before they launch a KS) there just isn't that space in the schedule

so they're now at the point where they actually have to consider the cost/benefit of them and they're just not going to cut it, especially with Ice and Fire now taking the place on something that's meant to get ongoing support (and will be costing a bunch in licencing)

Forgot to mention that the same rumor says that there won't be any new releases OR restocks until next year.

With the ominous '...if at all' left unsaid but looming threateningly in the background.

This is rather depressing, as their new sculpts are absolutely fantastic. I was hoping to snag some of the Salt Nomads and others for Atreides and Fremen miniatures, but I might have missed the boat it seems.

I wouldn't be surprised to see stuff show up in the big holiday sale instead of WoK this year

as they could well have stuff in hand but just no time/staff/inclination to box it up and get it online just like WoK last year since they had planned on a gencon release so it would originally have been ordered

They'd have to seriously re-stock in order for a 'big holiday sale' to be anything to get excited about.

Shifting out what's left online and available is going to be very unimpressive.

It would just be yet another instance of confirmation bias for CMON, 'proving' that Dark Age isn't worth the effort - never mind that the real problem has its roots in CMON's botched past efforts, piss poor distribution (especially outside the USA) and inability to keep the game stocked, even on their own webstore.

I think that their boxing strategy is also a little bit lacklustre. In order to get one miniature I want, I need to buy a box of 5. Not to mention that, but their promotional photographs are terrible, even on their own website. I don't want to see a picture of the box itself, set at an angle, I would like clear, crisp images of the miniatures themselves. Having to google for a better picture is a pain. It also makes finding the ones you want on their store harder as it's even less easy to find when all their pictures are thumbnails of the box at an angle.

That's assuming there are even photos of just the mini out there on the net.

I had a hell of a time trying to find photos of individual figures during their last big sale.

I'm still miffed about Wrath of Kings seemingly getting dropped. At least Dark Age has been pretty half-assed for so long it doesn't really surprise me.

Dark Age has been anything but half-assed for the past 3 or 4 years - at least until about July of this year.

Regular releases of fantastic new and resculpted models, regular releases of new campaign books, regular updates online of the unit cards and rules.

Then all of a sudden - nothing, coupled with radio silence.

That's what's made this so frustrating.

They'd already clearly moved on from Wrath of Kings - again with no actual word or notice - nothing official.

And now Dark Age appears to be getting the "WoK Treatment" - not good.

 Mysterio wrote:
Dark Age has been anything but half-assed for the past 3 or 4 years - at least until about July of this year.

Regular releases of fantastic new and resculpted models, regular releases of new campaign books, regular updates online of the unit cards and rules.

Then all of a sudden - nothing, coupled with radio silence.

That's what's made this so frustrating.

They'd already clearly moved on from Wrath of Kings - again with no actual word or notice - nothing official.

And now Dark Age appears to be getting the "WoK Treatment" - not good.

Maybe the release schedule hasn't been half-assed, but everything else about the effort certainly has been.

I actually quite playing the game last year because of it. I couldn't find the product anywhere, and I had terrible experiences ordering from CMoN's store. The last order I placed for two boxed sets, waited about two weeks and saw that I had no shipping notification. I emailed them and waited a few days....and crickets. After the fourth email I sent them, someone finally got back to me essentially "Well those products are out of stock, duh." One of the boxes was listed as having five or some units in stock and the other had over 20. Needless to say after another few weeks of trying to get a refund, they finally issued me one two months after the original order. Had I not harassed them, they probably would have just kept my money and left it at that. My buddy had the same experience a few weeks later ordering from the Black Friday sale. After that happened I threw my stuff up on Ebay, I just can't support that company.

The new minis are great sculpts, and up until recently the release schedule was consistent (also the game is great), but the customer service, distribution, and really everything else is the worst I've encountered in the hobby business. And I backed the AvP KS. At least the Prodos customer service I dealt with attempted to be professional. I will mention Bryan from their Dark Age team seems to be like a really cool guy, and it's a shame he had to try to promote this game with no support.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm really not surprised at all this has happened, the Dark Age division of CMoN did a really poor job making their game available.

I'd agree with you on the distribution thing, and their online store's stock reporting leaves a lot to be desired, but I've had good experiences with their customer service (haven't had to use it in the last 6 months though!) and their support of the actual game has been fantastic online - but I guess by 'they' I do mean the lead designer on the line (Bryan Steele) is really quick to answer questions and *used* to have semi-regular live Facebook chats to talk about new releases and upcoming events.

Bryan is still readily available to offer advice and answer rules questions, but anything regarding the future of the line is met with a rather boilerplate and not good sounding "There's nothing I can officially say about that" type of line.

It boils down to CMON never really gave this line the commercial support or distribution it needed, and seems to have taken the slow/sluggish sales because of this and misinterpreted it.

I guess.

Yeah, I will agree Bryan did a really good job with what he was given. He was always very prompt to respond to questions on the FB page and his Facebook chats were pretty informative.

I'm guessing the customer service people I dealt with were probably just CMoN customer service reps and not Dark Age reps in particular, but I had really negative experiences with them.

I'm with that if CMoN give DA proper support I think it would have sold really well. If they were able to properly distribute it and keep things in stock I think a lot of people would pick it up. As a game it does so many things right. Just off the top of my head:
1) Really cool and unique models/factions
2) Actually interesting fluff that doesn't follow a billion tropes
3) Low model count and relatively low cost of entry
4) Very easy to learn, but very tactically deep rules.
5). Objective based scenarios that rotate regularly.

I do hope it ends up in more capable hands at some point.

Please allow myself to...

 Mysterio wrote:
CMON is going to make some sort of “announcement” about Wrath of Kings and Dark Age this Friday.

Hopefully it’s good news.

The hope is that CMON will reveal big plans to get everything back on track for 2019, after they get their GRRM...stuff...going.

Secondary hope is that they've sold the IP to a company that will actually carry on with the games.

Worst case scenario is that they're dead and buried.

Fingers crossed!

I'd be moderately hopeful that Dark Age would be saleable (as the folk involved seem really passionate), although whether it would prosper as an independent without switching to resin/metal i'm unsure

As for WoK (my favourite of the two) I fear not

Most Dark Age stuff is already metal or resin, yes?

Unless I'm not understanding you?

Was there an announcement then?

No - not yet!

I may have (ha!) misunderstood and the 'announcement' hasn't actually been given a date, other than "soon".

If they don’t can it, I’ve been considering getting the starter set. Some nice models, especially the newer sculpts.

And by newer sculpts, you mean just about everything from the past 4 years!

At this point, outside of the Brood - which was *next* on the list of resculpts - just about everything has been redone, and looks fantastic.

 Mysterio wrote:
At this point, outside of the Brood - which was *next* on the list of resculpts - just about everything has been redone, and looks fantastic.

BLOOD CULT
Whoa whoa whoa, they did redo the Blood Cult starter! Fakk me, I guess it's time to jump in! DA here I coooooome ...
*DA virtually unavailable on CMON store* Oh

It's been a joy to see all these resculpts for a game I've watched from afar for many, many years. Dark Age was finally gaining some momentum after languishing for a long while, really hoping somebody picks it up who can propel it forward / CMON figures its non-board game gak out.

Can anyone give a run-down of the factions playstyles/schticks? X is the tanky faction, Y is the glass cannons, Z is the debuff guys, etc? I have a box full of stuff I picked up at a massive clearance years ago but never got into the game.

 Bossk_Hogg wrote:
Can anyone give a run-down of the factions playstyles/schticks? X is the tanky faction, Y is the glass cannons, Z is the debuff guys, etc? I have a box full of stuff I picked up at a massive clearance years ago but never got into the game.

Ask here : https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/30.page

or check the facebook group

It is here, Orlando!

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'll drop this here as I can't find the Dark Age thread I though was around in N&R

all the remaining stock of Dark Age stuff is now up on Miniature Market (according to their account posting down in Misc. Other Miniature Games)

https://www.miniaturemarket.com/table-top-miniatures/dark-age.html

not much of a saving, but if you needed something now is the time to get it

Saw this earlier and was tempted to start a Kukulkani force but then figured I’d already spent enough on what is now almost certainly a dead game...

Well, here we go again ...

*reaches into pants, pulls out the ol' wallet one more time*

(I vowed not to buy more minis in 2019, with a caveat for MM's Dark Age purge )

EDIT1: Jeebus the CORE stuff is neat

EDIT2: Please, please, please somebody buy this game and its sculpts from CMON and revive it. So much work has already been done on DA 2.0, just needs a game company who cares to manage and fund it ...

 Boss Salvage wrote:

EDIT2: Please, please, please somebody buy this game and its sculpts from CMON and revive it. So much work has already been done on DA 2.0, just needs a game company who cares to manage and fund it ...

Exalted, Infinity + 1.

There are a lot of reasons to not really be a fan of CMON, but their f'd up bungling of this fantastic game is #1 with a bullet for me.

In case you didn't already know, MM has some DA and WoK available during its BF sale. Check the Product Tag: Black Friday box for the BF-only sales.

DA: https://www.miniaturemarket.com/searchresults?q=dark+age

WoK: https://www.miniaturemarket.com/searchresults?q=wrath+of+kings

I'd also like to add that according the the Adepticon event list preview, there will be a Dark Age tournament in 2020.

So, you know, maybe a reason to pick up anything you'd need to finish off the 'ol Dark Age forces...


Edit to add link:

https://adepticon.org/wpfiles/2020/AdeptiCon2020EventPreview.xlsx