Worlds at War 1: Dark Eden
STATS
96 pages plus 3 pages of card inserts, Stock #9407, Various (Design),
1997, ISBN 91-7898-488-2.
STYLE
Dark Eden is also a card game, and it shows. The Dark Eden book is filled
with chunks of artwork flying at you staccato, artwork no doubt originally
done for cards. This lends a somewhat chunky feel to the work, but it
ends up adding to the atmosphere of the book rather than detracting from
it.
VALUE
Dark Eden is the first Worlds at War book, each (one gathers) designed to
present a new environment to the players. This book is a must if you want
to play on Dark Eden, formerly Earth, and is useful even if you don't.
The book introduces a variety of new rules and special abilities as well
as details on how to bring Dark Eden troops into your regular force, or vice
versa, and rules on environmental effects on the toxic, hostile hellhole
from whence we came.
NEW STUFF
Four new armies unique to the European continent of the ruins of Earth are
introduced; the Sons of Rasputin, the Templars, the Lutherans and the
Crescentians. What are they like? Fun. Not up to fighting the Big Seven,
but we're starting up a 500 point Dark Eden Only league which is a lot of fun.
The armies are lower-tech, lacking a lot of range, but every army includes
mounted models, wierd abilities and unique style. The other big seven
armies get two or more units in this book (amazingly enough, Brotherhood
get more than most others for a change).
SUMMARY
Dark Eden is a book with a lot of style, influenced heavily by its CCG
origin. Playing on Dark Eden can be a diverting change; the units in this
book can be useful; playing exclusively Dark Eden games is a fun way to
freshen up the Warzone experience, so to speak. You can live without it,
of course, but it's a fun book to read.