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I think there is a difference from plainness from necessity, and not overly adorning vessels so they look both warlike, realistic, and gives the design shape time to breathe.  Look at things like more recent 40k where overdoing in fiddly detail disrupts the shape and beauty of iconic designs, and how the less adorned Primaris designs have more detail but not more adornment that makes them feel fresh.  One of things that puts me off WWX and some of the British designs isn't the model per se, the basic designs are fine, but its the fact that Warcradle at times don't know when the step back and go, this is fine, this gives both an iconic design, beautiful curves, and a chance for the player to put their mark on the model, a chance to craft their dudes, and also means that even with the vagaries of Chinese plastic manufacture detail won't be lost, but will be stronger.  I think especially with the British, the risk is the over adorning makes the vessels look like something out of 40K rather than High Victorian.   

I think casting technology/skills have shifted. Early Spartan stuff was VERY spartan in design. Look at some early stuff like the old Dragonlords ships from Uncharted Seas and they were, honestly very boring ships for the most part. The hulls were very plain with, whilst good plank details, not much really going on. Now as they developed and grew we saw big strides on how they could achieve new things with new methods. Their designs got more gaudy and more ostentatious steadily. I think we saw it starting to happen with the newer fleets, whilst older ones retained their original design ethos.  Warcradle is clearly starting from a higher initial point of casting skill and technology so I think they get to put that more showy design into more of the core forces right from the launch.  For me I'll be interested to see how WC handles army variety, army size and also supermachines. I loved many of the bigger machine designs from Spartan so seeing them from WC will be very interesting.    So far the only WC choice I dislike is the change in scale of the ground game and the resulting removal of land assets from the sea game. Though I can see some logic in that - Spartan did have some issues balancing ships (which traditionally are very heavily armed) with regular tanks on the ground at times. And you could also see that some of the land and sea ships were mirrors of each other. Though I think the greatest loss is that the scale change means we won't see supersized land units appear in the game. We won't get thundering rolling mobile airfields, though we will at least get flying ones. Still we've not seen anything on that beyond the proposed ideas made a year or more back so things could always change and betewen the sea game; the legions (28mm) and then bringing back others like Firestorm - there's a LOT to keep WC busy before they have to commit to design choices on support/side games. 

any thing in the wind on the beta test , when , where  who , ect... it is getting twards the end of the year and  nothing has been  said  on way the other.

One of the interesting things to come out of Thursday's Warcradle Blog post is the shift in the background from Britain from just another jingoistic power to being the baddies of the setting. The hint were there from early on, both the characterisation of the 'Crown' in the Wild West Exodus pre-Dystopian Age as a corrupt and venal collapsing power meant to have never got over 1776. The Dystopian Age version kept the Crown name, and as you can see below the first British ship was given a command deck from a Star Wars Star Destroyer. The revealed commander for the Lost World Exodus game was Benedict Arnold. The Omens weren't great for the continuation of the British as a more grey faction. The update blog and conversation with Stuart has confirmed this new antagonistic role. Britain is the evil bad guy hiring mercenaries, is full of injustice and run by evil corporations. Its collapsing, venal, and hinted to be racist. Everyone hates it for its greed, and its collapse is a good thing for the world. What do people think? Would you want to play bad guy Brits?

Here is a more complete picture of the fleet 

Thanks   I'm not quite sure if I got the glow right :).  I think, either it is too dark, or too bright. But it's actually quite easy, even if time consuming a bit. After the ship is ready, I take thinned down VGC Livery Green and start applying that in several layers on an around the places I want to glow. The farther I get from the glowing point, the less layers I apply. That what you see on the last picture is like 3 layers. At the brightest points I also add a bit of white to it.

That is a stunning fleet.  I am in awe of the Camo on the TFTs, as a technical feat its stunning.  The whole fleet just looks fantastic.  What is your technique for getting the glow right?

Following on from our overview of the Imperium, we’ve had more than a few of you asking for a look at another of the Great Powers of the Dystopian Age. This time we thought it would be of interest to look at how military might and commerce have uniquely shaped the Imperial British Crown and her Dominions. One of the most venerable and dominant global powers of the past three hundred years, the Imperial British Crown spread from a small island grouping in the Atlantic Ocean. Establishing colonies and annexing nations as it grew in strength, at the height of its power at the dawn of the Eighteenth Century the Imperial British Crown claimed almost 25% of the population and landmass of the world. What was even more remarkable was that much of this dominance has been maintained despite losing control of the thirteen colonies that would later form the Union of Federated States. But the bitter cost of holding onto such power has defined much of how the Crown appears in the Dystopian Age. Vessels such as the Victory Class Carrier allow the Crown to project her military might across the oceans of the world. The major territories (known as Dominions) that comprise the Crown are the homelands of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, Australia, Canada, the Indian Raj, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papa New Guinea and over fifty islands, realms and colonies scattered across the globe. Because of this, the Crown enjoys the ability to project its military and economic might to an unparalleled degree across every region of the world. This has resulted in a series of alliances and agreements that hold the Great Powers of the Dystopian Age together in an uneasy and often fractious peace, known (often ironically) as Pax Britannia. For two hundred years Pax Britannia saw the Crown hold the expansive Russian-led Commonwealth, the wealthy Ottoman Sultanate and the isolationist Celestian Empire at bay. Between these four mighty blocks were consolidated the lives of almost a billion souls and the destiny of the world. The secession of the thirteen American colonies coupled with the subsequent rise of the Imperium and the Latin Alliance at the heart of Europe proved the Crown was no longer the unassailable power of the age. By the time the technologies of the emergent Covenant of the Enlightened began to proliferate the battlefields of the globe, Pax Britannia was over. From the view aboard an Avalon Skyfortress, the sun never sets over the Crown and her Dominions. The line between mercenary and soldier of the Crown is a blurred one. As the Crown’s power and control began to wane towards the end of the eighteenth century, a greater reliance was placed on the services and successes of enterprising military commanders. Nowhere was this more clearly seen than with the dominance of the East India Trading Company (EITC) in the Crown’s foreign affairs. During the seventeenth century, the focus of the EITC was establishing trade in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the EITC and the Crown forces deployed with them fought against their French equivalents, the Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales (CFIO). Battles between the two groups resulted in a victorious EITC in control of Bengal and a major military and political power in India. In the following decades, the Company gradually increased the extent of the territories under its control on behalf of the Crown, bringing the majority of the Indian subcontinent into the Crown Dominion of the Raj via local puppet rulers under the threat of force.       Though still reliant on the British Crown for naval support, by the dawn of the nineteenth century, the East India Trading Company had a private army almost twice the size of the Crown’s own land forces and was the de facto representative of Her Majesty’s interests around the globe. By acting as agents of the Crown in this matter, the EITC accumulated vast wealth and personal fortune for its officers and board members, such as the corpulent Benedict Arnold III (great-grandson of that famous Crown patriot).   This position continued to be enjoyed throughout the century, though the declining influence and fortunes of the British Crown has caused serious consideration by the British Government into passing an Act that might bring all the wealth and might of the EITC into Parliament’s direct control. There is a concern that this state of affairs has been allowed to continue for too long and that even Her Majesty may now lack the authority to bring the Company to heel. Elsewhere, this mix of nations, commerce and military prowess has legitimised groups such as Captain Rani Nimue’s band of privateers. Operating from the legendary submersible, Nautilus, this largely Indian crew raids shipping and settlements around the globe under license from the Crown. These exploits take them as far away as the streets of Lagos, the Gold Coast of Australia and even the Antarctic interior. In Wild West Exodus, a surprise attack from the Nautilus crew makes for exciting allies to the Outlaws and a thorn in the side of the Law and the Union.           Each of the Great Powers in the Dystopian Age has a unique character and structure to them. Hopefully, this gives a sense of how the Crown is represented across Dystopian Wars, Lost World Exodus and Wild West Exodus. But there is so much more to the Crown and future Studio Diaries will delve deeper into the nature of her Dominions as well as the other Great Powers of the Age.   Until next time! Stuart View the full article    

Here are a few pictures of my CoA fleet, I hope you like them: There has been a lot of time between painting the first and the last modell, therefore there are differences, mostly on how I experimented with the energy glow.