A Journey into Dark Age: The beginning

Back in August, I found myself at the greatest gaming convention in America, GenCon.  Among the hundreds and hundreds of games available for play and perusal I found myself at a 2'x2' demo table for a skirmish game set in a futuristic apocalypse world, called Dark Age.  Never one to turn down a demo of a game I've never played before, the friend I was with and I set about killing each other.




As I played the demo, the guy that was leading us, could see that my friend and I were not first time table toppers, and the conversation moved from basics of how the game works to the setting and rules mechanics.  At this point, out instructor divulged that he wasn't just someone who worked for Dark Age games, but was in fact the lead rules writer.  So here I was getting a rundown on how the game played from the guy that literally wrote the book.  During my demo I learned that Dark Age was a game that spent a good deal of time interacting with the community.  So much so that Dark Age has a competitive season that culminates at GenCon, with the winner of the tournament getting a model made around their image, with a good deal of input in the rules and story for the new character.  During my game I also learned that the models for the game are based on the artwork of one of the most acclaimed artists in the sci-fi/fantasy genres, Brom.  If you aren't familiar I encourage you to take a look.

I left my time at that demo game wanting to buy a starter set, and if I had known that I could have gotten regular opponents I probably would have.  Flash forward about 5 months and 2CE tells me he is looking at this game called Dark Age for a new experience.  I quickly retell my experience at GenCon, and within weeks we are buying models and planning to play this exciting game.

So now to the point of this semi-regular column.  A Journey to Dark Age will be a chronicle of my quest to get into the GenCon event.  The competitive season is called the March to Immortality and I've decided to begin the march.  In the next week or so I will be posting up a general review of the rule book and the models I have gotten, plus some first looks at my force as I paint them up.  I invite you to join me on my Journey, go to the Dark Age website, and learn about this wonderful place.

Until next time...