Revised Ningjing Renders

[Draco84oz]

I'm sorry, you had flying aircraft carriers, one of which was literally a runway bolted on top of a blimp (Imperium), or skimming ships that seemed to be built out of "failed" blimps (Polish Navy), and you talking about historically-based designs?

[RuleBritannia]

Those designs come out of the historically imagined designs that existed in the 19th century, the British landships are based on Belgian designs from the late 19th century.  By contrast the design of this vessel would literally tear itself apart if fired, because those main guns have nowhere to recoil to except the main deck and engine underneath.  Whilst the tech is silly, such as anti grav plating that allows skimming ships, or impractical like giant robots, it is never stupid, completely handwaves reality with the excuse of supertech.  By contrast, as we have seen above, WC want to fantasy setting, which is fine, but has three distinct problems, 1. Puts off fans of the steampunk as alt history crowd, 2. Means new models don't match the sensibility of the old one, 3. turns DWars from something almost unique to just another player in the competitive fantasy market.

[Covertwalrus]

I'm sorry, you had flying aircraft carriers, one of which was literally a runway bolted on top of a blimp (Imperium), or skimming ships that seemed to be built out of "failed" blimps (Polish Navy), and you talking about historically-based designs?

 That's cherry-picking the more outlandish designs I feel - RulelBritannia has it right in that the majority of DW designs were pretty much industrial steampunk style and/or closely based and contemporary speculation and art; I wish it was uploaded to the net sometime, but I can recall seeing a French illustration form around 1900 that showed a "battleship of the future" which would have fitted the DW Republic of France perfectly - All rounded hull, armored decks and guns and all.
 The stunning thing is, one of the artists at Warcradle now is the same person who did the much less Gothic and more hard-edged redesign of the latest Land Raider for GW, so he at least knows what he's about. And yet, the sketches that appeared then got moved away for the re-release of Uncharted Seas are absolutely in keeping with that style, so they must be able to maintain the design theme, it just seems WC would rather move DW into WWX or make the game into "just another player in the competitive fantasy market" simply because that market makes money.

[RuleBritannia]

I'm sorry, you had flying aircraft carriers, one of which was literally a runway bolted on top of a blimp (Imperium), or skimming ships that seemed to be built out of "failed" blimps (Polish Navy), and you talking about historically-based designs?

 That's cherry-picking the more outlandish designs I feel - RulelBritannia has it right in that the majority of DW designs were pretty much industrial steampunk style and/or closely based and contemporary speculation and art; I wish it was uploaded to the net sometime, but I can recall seeing a French illustration form around 1900 that showed a "battleship of the future" which would have fitted the DW Republic of France perfectly - All rounded hull, armored decks and guns and all.
 The stunning thing is, one of the artists at Warcradle now is the same person who did the much less Gothic and more hard-edged redesign of the latest Land Raider for GW, so he at least knows what he's about. And yet, the sketches that appeared then got moved away for the re-release of Uncharted Seas are absolutely in keeping with that style, so they must be able to maintain the design theme, it just seems WC would rather move DW into WWX or make the game into "just another player in the competitive fantasy market" simply because that market makes money.

The problem is that that fantasy market makes money for other people  who aren't so keen to share....  When steampunk made money for Spartan when promoted properly with only Brigade games competing.

As Covert Walrus has said it's not about skill, because we can see a lot of well designed stuff from the team, its the style and handling at the scale that concerns, and the fact the team at WC sees DWars as a fantasy game (I warned you about Fantasy bro).  Having read the WWX rulebook there are a lot of fluff problems that go with the fantasy setting too, that exaggerate the problems of a late 19th century wargame.  The 'Celestials' represent an extreme version of yellow peril, Sturginium is replaced by Alien blood, and everyone is being control by alien machinations. 

This approach in the round, whilst accepting that it will hopefully be changed for a wider international setting and marketing to a global audience, offers a lot of concerns where it mixes Fantasy and History, the same problem a lot of games like World of Darkness faces, where you ascribe historically human cruelty to Alien machinations, and play up the darker elements of history whilst making the setting make exaggeratedly fantastical. 

[gabbi]

A bit late to the party, but I'd like to add a few comments...


This is the original Ninjing design:



It is clearly noticeable that Spartan Games was already steering toward a more intricate design with its later stuff. KS vessels are way more fancier and less sober than previous models. This could be good or bad, mostly depending on individuals' tastes and opinions. I can say that a bit more variety in ship designs, with a bit more fancy stuff is good for me, but the later SG designs are fancy enough for me, sometimes already too much (like the giant sculpted balzing sun flag on Ninjing hull). The (very little) we've seen up to now from Warcradle push it a bit too forward for my tastes, I'd like DW to look more steampunk and less fantasy, but it's just my opinion and I'm still looking forward to see what WC will bring back as a complete game/setting. Chances are that while I will not recognize it as "the Dystopian Wars I used to know" I'll like it anyway, once I'll get used to the new design.

This said, the only thing that worries me a bit is the 'gigantification' of details, like the huge dragon head on the new design (as the two smaller ones above were not enough).
This is not for some sort of historical accuracy, or any aesthetic sense. This is because giant stuff like that fail to give a proper sense of scale to these kind of models, they look weird and somewhat "wrong" at a glance. This has been a major issue for me with all GW games of a similar scale (MoW, BFG) that had models with silly stuff like giant blades, shark heads, huge hammers and the like. Stuff like that make the model look smaller than it is supposed to be. It's a battery of tiny cannons on a broadside, that gives me a proper sense of scale, small windows, hatches and the like... a huge dragon head on the prow totally spoils the scale for me.

[Covertwalrus]

 gabbi, I find it hard to disagree with any of your conclusions; I only might add that some detail is good and that the line has definitely been crossed here and there on this, though that flamethrower is supposed to be large judging from the amount of damage the old Jian does to my capitals when I play one of my regular opponents