The Basics

Dark Age: Genesis is a, fully scaleable, skirmish level wargame played in the 28-33mm scale. The Genesis Core Rulebook contains everything you will need to play Dark Age including 2 fully realized Forcelists, St. Mark and Ice Caste Dragyri. Each new Forcebook released will contain another 2 full Forcelists made up of 2 opposing factions. Every Forcebook will contain everything you need (Except the Core Rulebook) to play that particular Force, all special rules, counters and templates etc. will be included.

Dark Age Games is committed in it's intention to make this game the benchmark for overall quality in the industry. With art from the inimitable Brom and Dark Age's own in-house artists, premium quality miniatures from the world's top sculptors such as Werner Klocke, Kevin White, Steve Buddle and Gael Goumon painted by some of the best painters money can buy: Alexi Z, Arjay, Wappellious and more. A robust and well-tested game engine rounds off the package, developed and expanded over years of hard work and dedication.

All miniatures are pewter and range in size from 5mm to over 60mm, with the average human male coming in at around 32mm. Miniatures are shipped in clamshells with larger boxsets also available.

Gameplay and Mechanics

Dark Age is a fast paced, bloody skirmish game. Combat is strategic but intuitive and most definitely not for the faint-hearted with the edge normally given to aggressive play. The game utilizes many specific characteristics including...

• D20s: Dark Age only uses one dice type, the d20. High is bad and low is Good. There are many rules throughout the game to represent the "Law of 1 and 20" so special effects take place when rolling either of those 2 numbers.
  
• Action Points (AP): Every Unit has a specific number of Action Points (average is 2) which they can use to perform actions such as Move, Shoot, Make a Close Assault etc.
  
• Alternate Unit Activation (AUA): Rather than the usual IGOUGO method, Dark Age uses AUA. Each player moves one Individual or Squad then the next player moves one and so on. When moving a Squad each member within the Squad exhausts their APs before the player moves to the next member.
  
• Malfunctions (MAL) : Not everything works very well on the world of Samaria. To take this into account most technology has a MAL number and should you roll over it then are hit by the effects, some of which can be quite devastating.
  
• Special Abilities: Dark Age splits up Abilities into 3 categories; Weapon Abilities, Special Abilities and Force Specific Abilities.
  - Weapon Abilities are exactly what they sound like, abilities specific to a weapon rather than the wielder. These include such every day ones as Extreme Damage, Blast and Knock prone through to more unique ones such as Numb, Point Blank and Piercing.
  - Special Abilities are specific to Individuals themselves. Again they include such mainstays as Never Panic, Infiltrate and Hatred through to the more strategic or weird like Command, Nonliving Unit and Major Focus.
  - Force Specific Abilities are inherent abilities of each Faction. These will be expanded on in the Factions section below.
  
• Cowardice will not be Tolerated: Like Malfunctions this was a popular idea amongst playtesters. Surviving on Samaria is not for the yellow-bellied and should you show such weakness you are unlikely to be forgiven and tucked up warm in bed. Cowards are dealt with harshly during combat so should a Unit find itself fleeing they should really try hard not to go too near their fellow 'comrades'.
  

Factions

Forsaken - The Forsaken are the survivors of the Great Collapse and the central society of our story. Approximately 500yrs ago Samaria was known as Attr and was a little known fringe planet used by the various megacorps of the United Worlds for such *cough* almost legal *cough* activities as genetic engineering, weapons manufacturing etc. Then the United Worlds split apart and such fringe planets abandoned practically overnight. The millions abandoned were left to survive on a planet with very few resources and plenty of dangers. ~50 years ago religion swept through Forsaken society like a brushfire and today they are a full Theocracy with non-believers keeping very quiet about it.

The Forsaken are further split into sub-factions. The Saints are individual heroes, controlling a portion of the Forsaken army (normally dictated by geography) as well as their own unique troops while the Prevailers are the core army of the Church itself.

The Forsakens force specific abilities are Leaders and Mercenaries:

• Leaders: As a committed and trained army the Forsaken make great use of Squad Leaders and their relevant special rules.
• Mercs: Although most of the Individuals under this heading do not sell their services and are full servants under the great banner of the Church, they still possess a certain autonomy and may move between the various sub-factions and even refuse to work with some.
  

Dragyri - The Dragyri are an enigma to the Forsaken. An alien society living right under their noses (or rather their feet) for their entire planetary stay and only majorly encountered within the last year.
The Dragyri are themselves, like the Forsaken, survivors of a catastrophe but one more natural and much older. Approximately 5000 years ago the planet wasn't quite so hazardous to life and harbored an element very interesting to a passing alien vessel. The aliens decided to attempt mining of this crystalline element but were stopped short when an asteroid made an appearance and not only shook the planet but threw billions of tons of the now pulverized crystal into the atmosphere. The Dragyri retreated deep underground and stayed there. Until now.

The Dragyri are one society made up of two distinct races, simply known as Trueborn and Slaves. The Trueborn are huge ~10ft aliens with resemblances to varying animal types such as amphibians and reptiles. A warrior society deeply imbued with a strict, yet largely unintelligible to human eyes, code of honor. The Slaves are much, much smaller and more fragile but completely devoted to the Trueborn.

The Dragyri force specific abilities include the use of Focus and Slaves:

• Slaves: As mentioned above Slaves are devoted to the Trueborn and Trueborn are 'never' seen without at least a small complement of them (Slaves are a mandatory purchase in Dragyri forces). On the Trueborns' part their Honor system makes personal combat a great boon for an enemy and an opponent first must prove themselves worthy of facing a Trueborn in HtH, which is where the Slaves come in.
• Focus: Having spent millennia surrounded by the strange crystalline element throughout the planet, the Dragyri have come to both notice and start to make use of some of it's more unusual properties. Their spiritual leaders, the Soul Wardens, have found that they can use the crystal to enhance their minor elemental powers to greater extremes including summoning massive physical representations of the elements.

Skarrd - Coming Soon!

Brood - Coming Soon!

Support Structure

• An official playtester program with direct feedback into the development cycle.
• An official demo team program with extensive support and work-based incentives.
• A large website with an official and busy forum, downloads (including Army Builder files and spare templates and counters), an online store, event coverage, articles from the design staff and much more.
• Frequent releases of new products with numerous planned expansions (races, settings, war machines, etc).
• Planned global and downloadable campaigns and scenarios available to all directly from the Dark Age website.

Dark Age Games is a young and vibrant company striving to make the highest quality products, with the highest levels of customer, distributor and retail support available. With extensive backing and long term development plans, DAG is a strong player bringing an extremely strong product line to a hungry market.