Back In Black

UNBOXING THE NEW BLACK WOLF MERCENARY AERIAL BATTLE GROUP

I thought I would try to limit my spending on new models for Dystopian Wars this year, especially given the numerous fleets I still have still in boxes, waiting their turn at the table. Progress has been slow - the Russian Coalition take their time to finish, but when Spartan announced the release of the new Aerial Battle Group for the Black Wolf Mercenaries, I knew the wallet would be suffering once more.

The Black Company have always been one of my favourite non-Core Factions in Dystopian Wars - their narrative background and the brutally sleek aesthetic made them seem violent and dangerous, and with a dark colour scheme of black and red they made for a sinister addition to the narrative campaigns run over the past few months. Blurring Russian technology with the Covenant of Antarctica, for a long time I considered them to be one of the most powerful fleets in the game, especially at small points values. They have been toned down somewhat since the new Edition was released, but still make an impression on the battlefield.

The Aerial Battle Group is the natural progression for the expanding mercenary group, giving the Black Company a threat radius beyond the ocean and the opportunity to stand up to the larger fleets without having to take multiples of the same naval vessel/class over and over again. My first impression of the Aerial Battle Group from the pictures released by Spartan was great - the Sky Fortress looked immense, but the reality is even better.

Onto the pictures...

The usual Spartan Games standard of packaging - never had any issues on that front!

The Retribution-class Sky Fortress is a three-piece monstrosity

All together it looks imposing, easily the size of the other Sky Fortress' available to the other Nations

The Wraith-class Airships, the Small squadron of the boxset. Each ship is roughly the same size as the Fury-class Corvettes that come with the Naval Battle Group

The Chimera-class Medium Airships - featuring some flash on the engine

The Chimera-class Medium Airship is a two-piece mode, needing the funnels to be cleaned and glued onto the top of the superstructure

Support Aircraft Squadrons - this box contained eighteen tokens, which was a nice bonus - it is only meant to have sixteen. The tokens have the usual amount of flash - nothing too much to worry about

The standard collection of templates and tokens, with the TAC Cards and small dice for the Support Aircraft Squadrons

A big bag of flying bases

So there we are! The Aerial Battle Group for the Black Wolf Company is a simple boxset that required very little assembly

At time of writing,we're still waiting on the rules - another post will follow with some discussion of those!

Thanks for reading,

George