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Enlightened Beta ORBAT & Designer Notes For Armoured Clash
February 3, 2025 by brennon
Warcradle Studios has released some new digital documents for Armoured Clash players. The first of these is the Beta ORBAT for the Enlightened, who will join their 10mm miniature wargame very soon at the end of February.
Enlightened ORBAT // Armoured Clash
Get Your Armoured Clash Miniatures @ Wayland Games
As with the release of the Beta ORBAT for the Union, this is a chance for you to go through the rules for the Enlightened ahead of their release. You can playtest the rules using the existing miniatures from Armoured Clash (and maybe some proxies) and then feedback to the team at Warcradle if you find anything that needs tweaking or updating.
Launch Beta ORBAT Preview // Armoured Clash
As well as the new rules for using the Enlightened in your games of Armoured Clash, you'll also find background for the faction and how they fit into the wider Dystopian Age. Maybe this could end up being the catalyst for you diving in and getting your pre-orders in for the new Enlightened miniatures. You can check out those miniatures HERE.
If you do want to feedback to the designers, you can join The Storm Of Steel - Official Armoured Clash Facebook Group, and share your thoughts in the comments.
New Designers' Commentary
In addition to the new ORBAT for Armoured Clash's Enlightened, you can also download the latest Designers' Commentary which should answer some questions you might have about the rules for the game.
Designers' Commentary // Armoured Clash
As per Warcradle's announcement...
"Since the release of Armoured Clash, Generals have asked for clarification on certain aspects of the core rules. This commentary aims to answer some of the more common rules queries we have seen. We hope you find this useful in clearing up any questions you have!"
Take a look at the Designers' Commentary for yourself and I'm sure if you have more rules queries, the team will endeavour to expand on this. As more factions get added to the game, there will be more rules interactions so it's great that the team are taking the time to go over these.
Are you enjoying playing Armoured Clash and if so, which faction has taken your fancy?
Disclosure: OnTableTop and its companies are part of the group of companies owned and operated by Wayland Games Ltd since 12/10/2020
"In addition to the new ORBAT for Armoured Clash's Enlightened, you can also download the latest Designers' Commentary..."
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Sorry chaps these ARN’T an ORBAT. An ORBAT (or Order of Battle) is a FIXED army list to fight a battle (this can be fictional or historical although it’s usually historical). As soon as you add “points” and allow players to pick and choose the units it a normal army list.
I STRONGLY urge Warcradle to stop using the term ORBAT for an army list as it’s going to start confusing players about the difference between the two and consign the traditional ORBAT to the rubbish bin as the term gets hijacked. As a player who mostly plays games using historical ORBATs (where the forces you are given might not be the ones you would normally choose), there’s no reason why you couldn’t use ORBATs for Armoured Clash, but they would be a fixed army list for both sides to refight an fictional battle (a bit like those used in the Battle of Singapore Starter Set).
It might be better if Warcradle called them Tables of Organization and Equipment.
TOE doesn’t really sound as fancy XD
TOE is also the intended organisation, while ORBAT is actual. Still does it matter?
ORBAT doesn’t just have the traditional fixed context, in modern terms it quite often covers the entire organisation of a operation or campaign, something which often changes and is altered based on needs. In this context I dont see any issues with it, it could quite easily be the ORBAT of the in fiction campaign your forces are drawn from for the battle you are creating.
I’d much rather people get interest in gaming than discuss the details of terminology.
I personally believe it forms a distinct difference both in it’s “definition”, but more importantly how we as gamers play a game.
I’m always going on about how gamers should take a second look at playing games using the traditional ORBAT, and for game designers to also embrace the challenges and different ethos to mini wargames.
Too often we’ve seen companies steer gamers towards the tourney-esq style of game with free choice army list where the game can be decided more on how you construct your army list than what takes place on the table itself (although building these army lists is an art in itself, and shouldn’t be taken lightly).
What I’d like to see is wargame companies go back to the old ORBAT (fixed army lists) and maps with initial deployment for gamers to then take things forwards. Why even the old WFB “campaigns” (Bloodbath at Orcs Drift etc) were a fixed army list, with maps showing terrain and initial unit deployments. Perhaps a legacy from playing historical refights of famous battles (like Waterloo for example) as the games designers probably came from this background as the whole “fantasy” style of gaming first found it’s footing). The problem is that it takes a LOT more work from game designers to develop and publish this style of gaming supplement compared to just throwing out a pointed army list and letting the gamers go from there.
Armoured Clash could very easily (and possibly benefit) from breaking away from this “norm” and publish campaign books featuring two factions fighting out a series of linked narrative games (with fixed army lists or an ORBAT) in the style of the old WFB campaign series AND still publish this “living document” of a pointed army list that they’ve decided to call an ORBAT. Those old WFB campaign books not only featured some great games that pushed gamers out of their comfort zone of having a pointed army list, but also formed an “aim point” for gamers to collect and paint an army with the forces already fixed and no worries about “is my army list good enough” and what happens as they add new units to my faction later on.
So yes, ORBAT (when it comes to miniature wargaming) and it’s usage as a “traditional fixed context” forms a distinct different beast compared to a TOE or a pointed army list. I just worry that Warcradle is just going to muddy the waters by deciding to rename an army list to an ORBAT and trying to push the “new and innovative” bandwagon by renaming things when at it’s core it’s just a pointed army list that we are all used to (and nothing new and innovative at all about the concept, it’s a tried and tested format).
Plus, from a game design point of view, it can be better to have (near> fixed lists.
Sorry, but is there ever going to be enough playtesting to work out the real value of each unit especially when it is possible to have more than one?
However, and here’s where Warcradle could learn from that venerable old set of rules, “De Bellis Antiquitatis”. Each army list was nearly fixed and this is what gave each list its own ‘charms’ or limitations, depending on your POV.
Plus, of course, with fixed lists you can deliberately make a commander have to take some weaker units in order to have some stronger ones. Finally, IIRC, DBA allowed a few tweaks to the basic lists. Which made those few tweaks very important. ‘Less is More’, as they say.
Probably not as much as you would think. For historicals almost none at all, as the ORBAT was what you had on the day (no matter if the forces were unbalanced or not). For fantasy games where the players demand perhaps that the scenarios are a little more balanced I believe GW did two or three games after normal work hours in the design studio for the campaign books like Bloodbath. Sometime you do see campaign books for fantasy and sci-fi games come out, but with a “generic” points cost to allow every available faction in the game to fight each other. But I’ve always felt they are missing a trick here as usually these books are a bit bland as they can’t include any faction specific background/lore and units. Bloodbath had Orcs vs Dwarfs, the other campaign books were again just two factions featured…..and they still sold well. Warcradle could perhaps do similar (they did already in the starter set). But it means they would have to put more effort (and lets face it…money) into the pen and paper products. Would it pay off in this day and age? Not sure, but now we have internets as a form of distribution perhaps this could keep the costs down (although I still personally prefer hard copy, but now we also have Print on Demand available as well). Computer Games are now almost all digital distribution these days, perhaps we could see some form of hybrid distribution come out for mini games as well (core rules in hard copy and campaigns in a PDF/PoD format?). But I digress, Warcradle NEED to stop calling their Army Lists an ORBAT as it just muddies the waters and sows confusion between two different forms of playing with little toy soldiers on a table 😀
May just be me but I’m getting next-gen Martians vibes from this army