Dystopian Wars: A Brief History (Part 3)

February 2015: The Italian Renaissance

After no releases for DW in January, Spartan essentially re-launched the Italians in February 2015. This would be the first releases since the initial Italian fleet box released back in the spring of 2013, and it featured a fairly extensive array of new models. Spartan released a total of three different Italian boxes in this wave; a Naval Battle Group, a Naval Support Group, and a Aerial Battle Group. The Naval group included new sculpts for the battleship, battle cruiser, and frigate. The Support Group included a new carrier, a larger flyer, and an escort. Finally, the aerial group included a new sky fortress, new airships, and light interceptors.

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Overall, this month’s releases amounted to a complete re-launch of the Italian faction, and greatly fleshed them out. This moved them up to the top-tier of minor factions in that regard. Interestingly, the models were entirely air and naval models, with no land units to be seen.

As an aside, there were two major announcements that Spartan made in February 2015; the first was for a Kickstarter campaign for 28mm terrain elements. This campaign seemed to come out of nowhere for much of the Spartan fanbase, and was unpopular to the point that Spartan canceled the campaign early (it was not on a trajectory to get funded). This was Spartan’s first foray into running Kickstarter campaigns, but as we shall see it would not be the last. The other major announcement Spartan made is that it would be releasing miniatures games based on the Halo franchise later that year. Like the Kickstarter campaign, this seemed to come out of nowhere, but it generated a lot more excitement. The first Halo game out the gate was a fleet battles game. A lot could be said (and, indeed, has been said) about Spartan’s Halo games, but this is not the place for that. I bring up these two developments simply because they would prove to have major impacts for Spartan in general and DW in particular over the next two years.

March 2015: Black Wolf Takes to the Skies

There was only a single release for DW this month, an aerial battle group set for the Black Wolf. This was the first DW release for this faction since the fleet box launched in January 2014. This box had 3 all-new designs in it, including a sky fortress, cruisers, and frigates. As an expansion to a mercenary faction, this release helped add a fair bit of depth to the Black Wolf, though not to the same extent that the previous month’s releases for the Italians did.

April 2015: Bombardment Groups

This month, each of the 7 core factions got what Spartan called a “Bombardment Group.” These boxes all contained between 4 and 6 models, split between two new sculpts. The Bombardment Groups were built around a new heavy flyer model, with a handful of supporting models. Most of those supporting models were naval, though the models in the French set were both flyers.

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The releases for this month represented the first major boost for the 7 core nations since their revised box sets were launched 10 months earlier in June 2014. While that was a significant drought, the Bombardment Groups featured two brand-new models that both looked great and were effective on the tabletop, which helped to soften the blow.

August 2015: Danish Expansion

The months of May, June, and July 2015 lacked any new DW products. Spartan’s release calendar during those months was dominated by new products for Firestorm Armada, Planetfall, and Halo Fleet Battles. August, however, saw the release of two new box sets for the Kingdom of Denmark. a revised Naval Battle Group and a “Surface Assault Group.” The naval group contained the same battleship, gunship, cruiser, and frigate models that were previously released, while the Surface Assault Group added a new carrier model and a new medium airship model.

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While there were only two brand-new sculpts in these sets, they did still expand the scope of the Danish fleet to a certain degree, and certainly provided an easier way for players to pick up the faction. Plus, the new carrier model for the Surface Assault box was a very sharp looking addition to the line!

September 2015: Fear God and Dreadbot

Next up were the first round of “Battle Robot” models. These models, because they had stat lines similar to dreadnought-class models in the game, were quickly nick-named “Dreadbots.” Spartan previewed a Dreadbot design for each of the 7 core factions, though the bots for the Blazing Sun, Covenant, and Prussians were the first to come out. The robots had configurable weapons loadouts, and players could generally field them either as ranged or close combat specialists. The models also came with the ability to be modeled as either “wading” through water for naval games, or standing on dry land for ground games.

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December 2015: More Bots Arrive

Spartan took a break from DW releases for October and November, focusing mainly on Halo Fleet Battles and FA during those two months. In December, the next two Dreadbots arrived, this time for the Britannians and Americans. In an interesting twist, the Britannian model was classified as a fortification rather than a robot, which really made it more of a Dreadfort than a Dreadbot (I’m sure the popularity of Game of Thrones had nothing to do with that!). This classification also had some interesting knock-on effects on the tabletop, due to the fact that it made it invulnerable to certain weapons such as torpedoes and rockets. These two releases would round out 2015!

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