Ronnie introduces The Walking Dead: Call to Arms

Ronnie here and it gives me great pleasure to kick off our Call to Arms blog week. This project is extremely close to my heart, so I’m delighted to give you the low down on our exciting new Walking Dead game. All week we’ll have more details, but I wanted to give you a quick overview of why you, yes YOU, should be weak at the knees with excitement for Call to Arms.

I know skirmish games and low model count games are all the rage – I mean Mantic already have the big skirmish hits, with Vanguard for fantasy and Deadzone for sci-fi.

But while there are several choices for sci-fi and fantasy (well two really, Vanguard and Deadzone), nothing has dominated the contemporary/post-apocalyptic space. That was always where I saw The Walking Dead game offering its unique story to create a new style of larger-scale skirmish experience, which would make for very exciting games.

Let me explain why…

Firstly the IP…

It is so well known, on the back of the comics and the TV show. Meaning everyone instantly recognises the huge cast of characters – and therefore knows how they’ll act and fight, along with which side they’re rooting for.

Lots of characters and a long storyline…

This means there are so many different faction possibilities. Most IPs have 2 opposing forces but The Walking Dead has Rick’s group (or Shane’s… ahem), The Governor’s Woodbury, Negan and the Saviours, Hilltop, Alexandria, The Kingdom, the Whisperers, and – well no spoilers for those of you not up to date on the comics. All of these could easily have fallen out with each other at any time – so plenty of reasons for them to meet up and have a throw down!

On top of a rich character/faction base, the scarcity of resources means you cannot load everyone up with all the high class weapons (like sci-fi games) so you’ve got to make the most of the equipment you can scavenge. As a result, there are superb opportunities for intricate army list building, as you carefully balance our options.

Victory conditions make so much sense…

Be it collecting resources, taking out the enemy leader or raiding their base, the PvP scenarios write themselves! Well, designer Mark Latham might have something to say about that… but the background certainly helps to make it easier.

What’s more, interesting varied games with interesting victory conditions make replayability so much more compelling. Call to Arms has it in spades.

The models are fantastic…

Well, that goes without saying, I’ll let the pictures on this page do the talking…

…oh, and models are all cross compatible from across the range – so your existing All Out War minis will all be usable in Call to Arms.

The game play is slick, fresh and intuitive…

And even more streamlined with the Call to Arms developments.

The way Walkers act and the unique dice system (which works across the Walking Dead range – so once you can play one game – you know the basics for them all) makes getting new gamers involved easy. Yet the load outs and faction choices give you endless replayability.

The character cards also have a similar feel – but with unique touches, so each game plays in its own way.

So, what’s not to love?

All this week we’ll be delving further into Call to Arms and the first products will be going up for pre-order this Friday. Tune in tomorrow for a deeper look at some of the new gameplay elements.