CMON – Join the Dark Age
Over the weekend I was able to catch up with Matt Devereux. I met Matt last year at SHO when he came along and ran some Dark Age demos to try and increase the awareness in the community for Dark Age. That is what SHO is all about, introducing gamers to new gaming systems, connecting them to fellow gamers and clubs as well as being a fun weekend. It must have worked because this year the Dark Age community is big enough to run an event at SHO. Matt is extremely active in the Dark Age community and is definitely a driving force to make this system grow and thrive here in WA. Here’s what he had to say:
What is the system you will be running?
Darkage by Cool Mini Or Not (CMON), you can find the rules and stat cards free to download at www.dark-age.com
Tell me a bit about yourself.
My name is Matt Devereux though a lot of people call me REX as my surname constantly got miss pronounced I’m a father with 3 daughters the eldest of which is 5, and I have a lovely wife who thankfully supports my various hobbies including tabletop gaming and paintballing. I’m an Arborist (a qualified tree surgeon cert 2,3,4 and diploma) and going back more than a decade I was as high school biology teacher. Within gaming I have a great setup in my workshop that we have had 2x 6’/4’ and 4x 4’/4’ tables set up with room to move where friends are always welcome to come for a game. Currently I’m involved in growing a few games in Perth including Batman/DC miniatures game, Wrath of Kings and, of course, my main one Dark Age. I also do the odd painting commission but like to keep lots of time for my own projects. In work and hobbies, I’m always trying to find more efficient ways of doing things and I love being challenged especially in painting and paintball.
What is your gaming history?
As a teenager I played lots of games with my cousins including Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Axis & Allies and Shogun. When I was studying at Uni I was introduced to games like Necromunda and Mordheim as well as a few less know games like Mage Knight though I never really painted any of my minis at this point. After Uni I caught the paintball bug and didn’t return to tabletop gaming till December 2016 after my eldest daughter jumped knees first onto my lower spine while we were playing, and I had to take a break from paintball (all better now). To find something to do I dug out my miniatures and started painting them, I dragged in my work and paintball mates to play a necromunda campaign. Since then our little group has grown and we have played lots of warband games since then including This Is Not A Test (one of our favourites), Scrappers, Legends Of The Old West, Dracula’s America, Frostgrave, Mordheim and Last Days Zombie Apocalypse. I’ve always preferred skirmish level games which led me to trying Dark Age and the polished rules and amazing miniatures have made it the main game we play.
Now I’ve read so much about Dark Age and constructed the players pack for the event at SHO I feel like I’m all over it but lets pretend I hadn’t done all that, tell me a bit about Dark Age.
Dark Age is a post-apocalyptic themed Skirmish game where units have a point value and availability you can choose characters or just plebs to build your force, leaders and heroes are optional. The game is set on a barely habitable planet on the outskirts of human space where the big corporations went to do all there illegal biological, AI and weapons research and testing. More than 100 years have passed since the central government collapsed and the corporations took all that was worth salvaging and abandoned the workers to their fate different factions have arisen from the survivors and to make it worse they aren’t alone. The game is d20 based with unit cards that have basically all the information you need to play that unit on them (which along with the rules are free to download at www.dark-age.com) the game has alternating activations where you can either activate a single unit or squad link several at a time. The game is easy to learn but has a lot of depth and variety to keep you playing not to mention the amazing miniatures. I think people will be able to find a group they like the look or style of from the many groups including the giant honour seeking aliens, the killer AI, abandoned biological experiments, religious fanatics, scavengers barely surviving in the wastelands and many more.
Tell me a bit about the local history of the game
While Dark Age is not a new game its really only started gaining momentum locally with in the last year and we now have almost every sub faction represented within the community. We have only had one 8 player tournament as a bit of a practice for me prior to SHO. We have weekly games at various private residences or gaming stores. *Emma’s note, there is a Facebook group where Matt is very active in driving the community growth where they organise games etc.
What kind of support is there for the game locally, here in WA?
We currently have weekly games at stratagem cards and games in Warwick at the moment its whatever night most people are free but we are going to try and lock in a set evening soon. We are always running demos around the place at clubs and stores. Alpha Strike is a Perth based retailer who carries the entire range as well as lots of other games, they are currently only online though Adam the owner hopes to have a physical store in the future. Both Adam and his wife also play dark age and kindly bring peoples orders to events when they are able.
I briefly touched on this already but what is the history of Dark Age at SHO?
Last year I ran demos all day on Saturday for Dark age which will be happening again this year before the tournament on the Sunday this year I will have some more people helping me and we have more of the factions to show off this year. So there will be demo and intro games on Saturday and players can join in on the event on Sunday.
How are you associated with the game?
Up until a month ago I was just a fan sharing my love of the game but im now a member of the Cool Mini Or Not Legion, which is the demo/ambassador program that they run similar to Wyrds Henchman program.
Whats special about this event at SHO?
Well this will be the first official Dark age tournament in WA, with our goal of holding it annually at SHO with others throughout the year. And we will be able to show off almost all the factions this year (not sure we will get everything painted for a couple of the sub factions). So if anyone is interested in playing at the tournament we have forces that people can borrow for the tournament and will be more than happy to teach people in the lead up or if you just want to have a try we have the demos on the Saturday.
Why should players come and play it at SHO?
My obvious answer is ‘it’s the first official WA DA tournament, who doesn’t want to be able to say they were at the first official tournament here in WA? But I’ll let Matt answer:
Why should you not come and play it! But if you still need convincing it’s a fun system with really polished rules that are easy to learn, the point costs of units are really well balanced and it has detailed miniatures that are bursting with character, with a variety of factions and sub factions that I’m sure people will find one that appeals to them. It has a great community that is steadily growing.
What else should we share with readers?
Every year in the US CMON holds the Dark Age Immortals tournament the winner of which gets to design their own miniature stats and all that is added to the game and written into the lore/fiction of the game hence the name of the tournament you get immortalised into the game. The winner of any tournament that has 16 or more verified players qualifies for entry into the Immortals, we are hoping that our annual tournaments at SHO will be able to Qualify for this prize so if this sounds good hit up the local community on Facebook at Dark-Age Western Australia to learn more if you cant wait till SHO.
Dark Age demo and intro games will be run on Saturday 22nd September and the formal event will be held on Sunday 23rd September. There will be models from a variety of factions and subfactions on display at the event so you can check them all out. Tickets are available from Humanitix and the Dark Age Event players pack is available now.
