![Great NEW Commander For Warcrow? Hegemony Mounted Hetman Review | Corvus Belli [7 Days Early Access]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/12/unboxing-corvus-belli-warcrow-hegemony-mounted-hetman-coverimage-225-127.jpg)
Warcradle Studios Acquires The Dystopian And Firestorm Settings
September 26, 2017 by thisisazrael
Warcradle Studios have just given a press release announcing that they have acquired the rights to Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada and Uncharted Seas. Read the full press release below.
"Warcradle Studios is proud to announce it has acquired all rights and materials relating to the Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada and Uncharted Seas settings.
Dystopian Wars, Dystopian Legions, Armoured Clash, Firestorm Armada, Firestorm Planetfall and Uncharted Seas were created by the team at Spartan Games and we are excited to now be able to explore those settings further. We will also be developing and expanding on a large number of exciting scenic products to support those ranges.
Who are Warcradle Studios?
Warcradle Studios has already successfully developed Wild West Exodus and is the creative studio for Wayland Games Limited, the largest independent tabletop hobby retailer in Europe. Warcradle Studios is able to draw on their considerable experience in the industry and partner that with a passionate and focused creative team keen to develop quality, innovative and exciting tabletop hobby experiences for a global audience.
Warcradle Studios are continuing to look for future exciting settings and ranges to develop.
Have Wayland Games purchased Rebel Publishing, the company that owned Spartan Games?
No, Rebel Publishing remains the company responsible for any Kickstarter or retail/trade activities that took place prior when they ceased trading.
I am owed products from Rebel Publishing. How can I get them or my money back?
Backers or customers of Rebel Publishing should get in contact with the Administrators for any issues relating to Kickstarters or purchases. Contacting Paypal or your credit card companies would be our recommendation for trying to getting any money back from anything relating to a transaction you may have had with Rebel Publishing.
While we are not liable to do so, if there are any Kickstarter custom items that have been produced (such as personalised rulebooks) we will endeavour to look at how best to pass these on to the relevant backer. We will contact the Kickstarter backers directly regarding any developments on this. However it is important to be clear that there are no miniatures to be sent out for backers and that the Kickstarter was by Rebel Publishing and any liability or queries relating to it remains with Rebel Publishing.
What about stock that Rebel Publishing held?
There has been very little stock given over to us by Rebel Publishing. We are not able to fulfil any pledges or orders given to Rebel Publishing.
Will you be making any of the exclusive miniatures from the Kickstarter available?
We believe that customers should have the chance to get all the miniatures for our games. Even if a miniature is made as a show exclusive (such as the Captain Nimue we released last year) we intend to then make it available at retail the following year. Miniatures such as the Ice Maiden and others will be released as part of the relaunched game in the new year.
Why purchase Dystopian Wars, Firestorm and Uncharted Seas?
We are huge fans of the games and settings. Early in our relationship with Spartan Games our MD Richard Lawford was keen to buy an entire print run of Dystopian Wars to give away to every gaming club in the world (that we could find!). We are thrilled to be able to help shape and secure an exciting future for these games.
What is going to happen to the Dystopian, Firestorm and Uncharted games?
We are actively looking to bring the games to a wide audience from next year. Through Warcradle Studios, Wayland Games is investing in all aspects of the design, development and supply. Retailers can look forward to an easy to use ordering system, clear communication on the availability of stock and direct support from Warcradle Studios to ensure they can make the most of these exciting ranges and deliver the same to their customers.
Warcradle Studios are committed to producing an exciting range of new plastic and resin miniatures to support the growth of our games. These will build on the established releases as well as introduce new narrative and competitive gaming opportunities.
Warcradle Studios are planning in-store organised play support for their games as well as a range of exciting events planned throughout 2018 and beyond.
Look out for our announcements of new products and show attendance in the coming weeks."
Read the full official Press Release (PDF)
What do you think about this news?
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
"Warcradle Studios are continuing to look for future exciting settings and ranges to develop"
Supported by (Turn Off)
![Warcradle Studios Reveal TINY New 10mm Festive Marker! [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/11/christmas-kyle-main-600-338.jpg)
It would be nice to see Uncharted Seas back again
I agree. It is a game i actually regret not looking into.
Yeah, by far my favourite Spartan concept and a game I wanted to try for ages but since it went unsupported by Spartan I never got round to it.
Second ex-Spartan game for me to pick up would be Firestorm Armada. Another game which I never got far into due to the lack of coherent release schedule. They would wow us with new ship concepts and then never release them and instead decide they needed yet another new faction rather than expanding the factions they already had.
Good stuff.
Like Torros, I think Uncharted Seas is the best of the IPs in that bunch, simply because its a unique game in the market today, whereas the others have plenty of competition.
Also, shout out for Stuart! Star of many of the early weekenders.
You’re too kind.
I really wonder how this will work out for them.
After all Legions and Firestorm, as well as Wild West exodus can be considered as “failed Systems”
Maybe its really about selling models to hobbyists rather than keeping a system relevant by people playing it, which probably is much harder to achieve.
Let’s find out!
I wish you well !
I mentioned this a few weeks ago, albeit with a far more positive spin. Warcradle/Wayland Games have now acquired Wild West Exodus, Dystopian Wars and Firestorm IPs. TT Combat have also acquired Carnivale and Relic as well as releasing their own original IP Rumbleslam.
I think that in a market that is getting much more competitive, this kind of consolidation will become more prevalent. I don’t think it was the IPs that failed as much as the businesses that owned them. That’s not even a criticism of the former owners either, just a statement of fact. But in their new homes, those games will benefit from much better distribution and marketing. I think, as sad as it is that we no longer have the likes of Vesperon, Spartan and Tor, this kind of move will be good for the games themselves.
I think did they simply happened to miss the opportunity to shine.
That resulted in a failure for the company that made them, but calling it a ‘failed system’ as a result seems a bit harsh.
If the games themselves were bad then the investment would be a waste of money.
As such I think they see potential.
Legions did fall into an odd spot, it would have needed as much support of Dystopian Wars it self or more. 28mm-35mm is a much more cut throat than 1:1200 primarily naval system.
The work Warcradle have done with WWX fills me with hope. I never actually got into Dystopian Wars (picked up a rulebook but got no further) so glad to see I’ll get another chance.
A good quality rule book would be great
I am hoping again to see my kickstarter pledge now!
Also looking forward for Planetfall 2.0.
Now word about Halo though.
Halo will be a more complicated process I’d imagine due to the involvement of Microsoft as the IP holder.
Also as it directly competes with other Spartan Games, I don’t think it would make much sense for Warcradle to try and pick it up.
We will not be continuing the Halo game.
Unfortunately, and I really hate saying this to a fellow backer, given the content of the press announcement and what they say in the video, you are still not going to see your Kickstarter Pledge. They make it abundantly clear they have no liability for items that Rebel Publishing (i.e. Spartan) failed to deliver to Kickstarter backers, and that there was virtually no stock (or at least not in meaningful quantities) to even send out. The simple fact of the matter is, Spartan probably worked as hard as they could before the end and got out everything they had and feasibly could send out…
There’s an order in which creditors are paid when administrators liquidite a company, which presumably will happen now Rebel no longer own the things that could make the company viable again. Unsecured creditors are last on that list are lucky to see anything. I’m not even sure KS backers count as unsecured creditors, so they could be even further down the list.
It sucks, but that’s basically where things are I’m afraid.
Mate , I am also a kickstarter backer and the facts of the matter is that our money is gone. Sad but true. Warcradle owe us nothing . The company which does owe us something is no more. Like bad relationship, best thing you can do is let it go, learn from it and move on.
The pdf says they have nothing to do with the Kickstarter as that was another company running it and people should contact the administrators
Good news!
I feel for the Kickstarter backers as this puts a strain on them to get the products that were promised. As to these games I am very happy that they will live on and expand.
I do see that many of the small studios are not fairing well out in the market. It seems as though you have to make a great game and get it funded so that you can sell it on to another studio. This isn’t the largest piece of the pie in the entertainment industry and there is only going to be so much growth to accommodate new games and systems.
I think there are plenty of small companies out there doing well. They just no the limitations and what they do well and create loyal followings because if it? It’s when companies start jumping from one thing to another and overstretch themselves that problems happen
Yes, the thing that frustrated me most about Spartan was their schizophrenic attention span. It made it hard for people who were only into one of their games (Planetfall for me) to feel like they were getting the support they needed – meanwhile no game system got the full support it needed either.
I’m glad Warcradle didn’t pick up Halo, cos’ it was a direct competitor to Planetfall, not only for customers but for Spartan’s attention.
It felt like the players who Spartan had drawn in to the big launch of Planetfall were almost immediately forgotten about when Spartan went chasing after the big shiny Halo IP. I don’t like Halo, so I wasn’t going to jump on the bandwagon with them, so ended up feeling like the money I’d invested in Planetfall was wasted and Spartan didn’t care.
I’m really looking forward to see what happens to Planetfall now though. 🙂
Heh, it’s starting to feel like an arms race between TT and Wayland, but honestly if it means preserving games and models that still have some mileage in them then this has to be a good thing for both the player base and the hobby as a whole.
So good on ya, Warcradle, for keeping the dream alive for those Firestorm and Dystopian fans 😀
Arms race? Nah. The TT guys are cool doing their thing. We’ll do ours. If we decide to release a wrestling game set in renaissance Venice then maybe there’s fuel to that fire, but really I think we’re in a golden age of gaming. Plenty of great games for everyone to explore.
I’m glad to see these properties find a new home. I just hope that Warcradle don’t bite off more than they can chew.
1) Choose one of the games
2) Get the work done to re-launch and support it.
3) Adequately staff the studio and manufacturing to maintain and expand the products.
4) Repeat as needed.
We’ve watched Spartan for many years. We are aware of the pitfalls!
We have been continuously adding to Studio capacity and Manufacturing staff for months. Coincidentally, we have just invested in significant prototyping and manufacturing facilities so seems a shame not to use them 🙂
Some little rule revamps, new minis for the games and yes please, bring Uncharted Seas back. I´ve minis for Dystopian Wars and Firestorm Armada, i need some Uncharted Seas… ^^
Thx guys for keeping those worlds alive!
You are very welcome.
Do people think Microsoft will pull the plug on the Halo Miniatures idea after all this even if another company approaches them?
It will likely be some time before we see anything Halo again – it would all need to be renegotiated from scratch and none of the previous work is likely to ever see the light of day again.
Spartan games couldn’t compete anymore because their games weren’t selling now why in the world would you want to buy these three games. Three games that didn’t have much of a following in the first place, I wouldn’t do anything with them till the time is right which will be never the steam punk nitch is like dieing GW’s 40k 8th edition is like 98% in everyone’s face right now alot of companies are taking a big hit at the moment from it. Wait about 3 years to release anything
If people thought like that back in the days of 4th and 5th edition we wouldn’t have any alternative games to play today 🙂
I’ve said this before, but Spartan’s biggest problem wasn’t that they couldn’t compete. It was that they gained, from very early in their public life as a games company, a not-undeserved reputation for having lots of big ideas with a decided lack of follow-through.
Things tended to get announced long before even initial concept work had been finalized. There was always a rush to do the next really cool thing before the most recent really cool thing had left the drawing board. They were a fountain of excellent ideas plagued by the worst case of collective shiny object syndrome ever documented.
Sure 8th edition is the 800 pound gorilla, but 40k always has been the game to beat, and even though I’m enjoying 40k more with this edition than I have since probably 4th, it’s a different experience than fielding an entire army’s worth of models in 10mm (Planetfall) or 1/1200 (Dystopian Wars). There is room in the market for these games, especially if Warcradle take the time and do them justice instead of rushing things out and putting out a half-edited rules document and having six months between releases for any given game.
Given how they’ve handled the re-launch of WWX, I’m (very) cautiously optimistic.
I agree that one of Spartans issues was their gamer ADHD – it is bad enough for us as consumers but very hard for a company
punctuation is your friend, use your friend.
MIdas, capital letters at the beginning of a sentence is your friend. Also, one shouldn’t use friends, unless they’re friends with benefits 😉
Generally I look at this as a good thing. Warcradle seems to be more open in being transparent about their plans than Spartan/Rebel publishing has been. Also the fact they don’t seem to want to deal with the Halo IP and concentrate on the original three Spartan IPs tells me someone at Warcradle was paying attention to some complaints being made on the Spartan forums and social groups. One thing I do hope they have access to is the data Spartan got from their annual surveys of players. It appeared that Spartan did not seem to pay attention to them much.
I’m really interested in what they do with Dystopian wars. I always thought it look interesting and was tempted a number of times to buy into it. Once they begin releases I think I’ll pick up a starter or something just to see how it is.
This is great news and I think the video is very clear. I also appreciate their take on “exclusives”.
And the mentioned ‘Armoured Clash’, my favourite but generally unloved parted of the Dystopian setting (have a ‘large’ EotBS force) – so colour me interested.
Great news – I played Dystopian not too long ago and really enjoyed it again. The system works, I just need the rest of my fleet.
I have HUGE fleets for both Dystopian (Prussians) and Armada (Multi). I have not played much of either of these in a couple years and would LOVE to see them back on the tabletop!!
Interesting news, uncharted seas always looked like the spiritual successor of Man o War
Interesting! I was more interested in the Spartan Scenics system though.. Hope someone picks that up!
I thought they said that they will have much of the scenics from Spartan Games. Which is something they look forward to developing and expanding.
We did!
Whoot, whoot! There was some mighty fine stuff there
Well this is great news and good luck to Warcradle with the new acquisition.
A couple of questions: are you taking on any of the Spartan design team to work for you? And will there be a return to selling models in blister packs? (I’d be interested to know how others feel but I picked up few of the boxed sets)
If there are ex Spartan staff that would like to have a chat about working for us they are welcome to contact us.
Warcradle Studios are tied with Wayland. In the past Wayland bought the dept of another company and immediately requested payment in full. That company had to close its doors. Is this a Repeat?
I think if anything like that had occured (by any company out there) it would have been plastered all over the internet. (Just as maelstrom did at the time)
I think all parties in this are on the right side of history in this one and keeping some great IP’s alive (and hopefully improve them!) 🙂
Goban… No.
For many reasons, no.
Just: No.
Great news – DW always been a favourite of mine but it lost me when it just became bigger and bigger robots all around
Nothing wrong with giant robots, though too many on the field may turn the battle into something resembling a grape pressing casket squeezing out people wine.
They lost me when the dreadnought robots came out
Your second point would stop me buying anything from them if that was going to be their business strategy
Amen to that
Please bring back Uncharted Seas… Please bring back Uncharted Seas….. *does optimistic whishy dance*
The biggest problem with uncharted is the 2 editions of ships. Shroud mages especially were screwed by this as pretty much each ship is now in 2 sizes. The flagship being the worst example of this. I have fleets of both editions and I dislike not being able to use all my ships.
As a burnt Kickstarter backer I’ve lost interest in DW. It will take a lot to bring me back to that game. As for charge backs it’s rare a backer would be getting one – only those with preorders have a chance. too much time has passed.
I would like a reason to paint my Dystopian Wars starter sets. Other players would help. 🙂
Great news. Best of luck guys. Looking forward to see what you do with these great games.
Are WWX and Dystopian Wars going to seperate settings? Or since they have very similar backgrounds (Alt 19th century/ RJ vs Element270) will they be merged?
That is a good question. And it would be rather bad form if Warcradle ignored you on this one.
they may not ignore it, but more likely not see it because I posted so late in the discussion
We’ll be announcing our plans soon.
I’m glad those properties will live on. But this kinda makes me mad. I lost a LOT on the Dystopian Wars KS campaign. Nearly $800 and received nothing.
I understand the sentiment that Warcradle/Wayland owe the KS backers nothing as they just acquired the intellectual property. But, that was a choice they decided to make. They deliberately chose to not take on any of those debts in acquiring those properties. And that to me feels like a kick in the teeth. They bought the IP, but decided the Dystopian Wars customers weren’t worth the additional cost.
I mean, the biggest Dystopian Wars fans, the most ardent supporters, those most likely to spend money on this property were likely to be involved in that KS campaign. And those fans got screwed. I’m not sure many of them will ever return. Dystopian Wars just means something really bitter for me now. Despite how interesting I used to think the models and setting were. Sorry.
It will take a miracle for me to expand my collection now. I can understand why they wouldn’t – it would be a lot of debt to take on. But the sour taste still remains
Assuming I ever get it my personalised rule book will be a very expensive doorstop and let’s face it that’s all it is good for
I understand the frustration with not getting the stuff you backed, but Warcradle are not responsible for it. That stuff was estimated to be delivered long before the closure of Spartan Games, and longer again before Warcradle picked up the settings. The KS raised over £130K. It’s unreasonable to expect any new company to pick up that level of liability.
No they’re not responsible for it, but Cryptozoic weren’t responsible for backers either when they stepped in and picked up The Doom That Came To Atlantic City after it turned out the original creator did a runner with the money, leaving the backers and the people who worked on it in the lurch. Cryptozoic made a decision to reach out to those backers, and although all the top pledge stuff like pewter figures and limited edition artwork were off the table, they provided all backers with a base copy of the game at their expense, as a gesture of good will. It’s something Wayland needs to think about – no custom rule books, busts, t shirts, dice towers, posters, or even any costly printed books at all, but make a gesture by providing all the fleet boxes people paid for, where the only expense is their machine time, and the necessary tubs of resin.
Genuine question, if being obligated to fulfill the outstanding KS pledges meant it wasn’t viable for Wayland to buy the IP, would it better if they just never bought it at all than buy it and not fulfill the outstanding KS?
And well done to Cryptozoic. Would it be nice if Wayland did the same? Of course. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a new venture like Warcradle to want to limit the risk and develop a proper strategy for their new acquisition without making excessive promises.
Add to that frustration that some did and some didn’t get stuff
The KS part might not have been for sale. It was the company Rebel Publishing that went into administration not Spartan Games . It’s up to the administration firm to decide what can and cannot be sold and to whom
Warcradle bought the IP not the company. The admjnistrators likely sold the IP as part of the liquidation process. Why on earth would Warcradle have decided to buy the company which had clearly failed?
Warcradle didn’t “just decide” that the Kickstarter backers weren’t worth the cost, they absolutely weren’t worth the cost to a company as small as Warcradle. I don’t know how much the IPs have been sold for but by way of an example Vesperon Games were selling their IPs (Carnevale, Home Raiders) for around €15k (not sure if that was each or for both). So, let’s assume, hypothetically, Warcradle paid a similar amount for the Spartan Games IPs, to take on the Kickstarter liability would be to add onto that another £135k. So Dystopian Wars would have to sell almost £150k before it started to turn a profit. That’s a significant risk and not particularly good business sense.
The worst you can accuse Warcradle of is opportunism and in this particular case that’s not a particularly bad thing. They saw an opportunity and they took it. It’s sad that backers are going to lose their money and it’s sad that Spartan have closed their doors, however I think it’s a positive that Warcradle have taken the reigns of Spartans original IPs
Anyone know if anyone brought PlanetFall? I thought it would be weird Firestorm and Planetfall going to different companies as it’s based on the same IP.
I think it’s included in this deal as it says “Firestorm setting”.
Glad to hear somebody picked up Dystopian Wars.
Woo hoo! Love the look of Firestorm Armada models. @warzan Do you think the Hawk DZC stuff was partially responsible for it tanking in the first place?
While I’m not warzan – the answer is no. FA has been around for ages and has a dedicated following – just not a huge one. Spartan would leave its IP’s fallow for years at a time while Neil was on one of his ‘Oh shiny’ journeys into something else. Every time the faithful shrunk when this happened. The failure of the FA kickstarter was twofold – not enough fanfare to tempt new players and the non delivery of the DW kickstarter gave enough people pause.
Ultimately Halo killed Spartan as it never delivered the return they were banking on.
Obviously you could only know by being in the management of Spartan (who cared very deeply for all their ranges)
But from the outside it looks like there is some truth to the above (but I believe other factors such as ill health took a toll too!)
And yes i would imagine DFC certainly had an influence on a shrinkage in playerbase for that particular range.
I’d say this is the best possible outcome and was the one I was waiting for. These games needed to be kept going, and it is a pleasant surprise to see UC picked up as well. My only worry, which has been talked about already is the design team and continuity of what’s to come. So thanks to Warcradle. I’m sure everything is in safe hands and what ever direction you move the games in will be the right one to keep them healthy.
So, are wayland pursuing an ‘own brand’ strategy with these acquisitions? I understand they are doing the biggest online retailer — if so it will become interesting for smaller brands getting squeezed between GW and strong retailers.
Very happy though, I love firestorm — better than xwing— and hav had my eye on dystopian wars forever.
No, we could have leveraged Wild West Exodus on our channels far more aggressively than we have. We want products we create to be available as widely as possible and we will work with retailers and distributors as partners.
As a long-term fan of Firestorm (and Dystopian Wars, until they…did things to it with the newest edition rules), I am happy someone bought the IP’s and actually plans to develop them. I look forward to seeing what they do with the setting and rules (hopefully not continuing down the path set by 3rd ed beta rules).
i understand that some people from the DW KS will be upset, but let’s be honest, realistically there was never a chance those pledges would be fulfilled, it’s not how real world works.
I’ve seen a few people say about the rules in second edition being a bit iffy. What do you mean specifically?
They added the colored dice, which I really didn’t like, they changed a bunch of small rules to somehow make it even more fiddly than it was. I quit right after the new edition hit, so the details are blurry tbh…
Great News, Looking Forward to uncharted & DW being supported. Uncharted Seas was an excellent game which I still play. Luckily I had all the Britannian models for DW before Spartan went Belly-up. Spartan lost interest in Uncharted despite being an excellent game.
They’ve said in the past that what happened to US was FA ate it. It was doing well until FA was released, and then its sales plummeted as peopled moved onto the new game. They tried a few times to relaunch it (in characterstic Spartan fashion) but it never worked and they eventually gave up.
I think you have to take the positives out of this. It looks like a game I love (Dystopian Wars has been saved so I’m just going to put the KIckstarte behind me and look to the future. Not worth the effort of sulking just get behind the new team and make the most of it.
Well it good to hear from them about what they are planning do to with all the stuff they got.
But I have to ask, why do they two people in the video? It seems that one person did all the talking and the other just nodded along.
IMHO Uncharted Seas suffered a little due to a lack of a coherent background story; also a few measly illustrations of what the races looked like hardly captured the imagination of swashbuckling fights on the high seas! Spartan always seemed more interested in churning out the models than any decent fluff (or rules in some cases!).
So this just appeared on Facebook to confuse people. Updated 1hr ago
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1606326342770573&id=148287971907758
We are working through all the online assets and reassigning admin rights. Facebook seems to see it as an update.
I know you guys have made it quite clear you didn’t pick up the Halo IP but do you have any information regarding it? I’ll take rumors at this point…I’m fearing trying to get Ground Commmand and Fleet Battles models will be akin to getting Games Workshop specialist games models price wise…..
Halo IP has been reclaimed by Microsoft. We have to destroy any Halo bits we find both physical and digital.
So it just gets erased?? 🙁 I wish I had picked up some when I had the chance…that’s just wrong though….”oh look awesome models *smash*”
I doubt any of you enjoy that and I feel bad for the ones who have to do it. I know I wouldn’t be able to…
I mean you guys can send it all to me I swear I won’t tell anyone.
The Kickstarter…how are we, the die hard Dystopian Wars fan base, supposed to move past that? The pledge levels for the campaign were unusually & in hindsight Shady AF! high and many of us have lost hundreds of dollars without recourse. (Thanks for the unfruitful contact your bank/cc advice not worth .02¢). It is unconscionable to buy the same miniatures twice after already getting burned for hundreds. Warcradle isn‘t liable but they have an uphill battle to resell product to an embittered player base. What is Warcradle’s strategy to win these customers back? How are you going to incentivize us to give this game another chance? Fail to do this and it’s far easier to forget Dystopian Wars & take up 40k or one of the many other game systems that haven’t stolen from us. Overcharged definitely, but at least got something in return for money spent. And let’s face it, it was theft on a massive scale, the Kickstarter backers were irredeemably Robbed.