By Gavin Dady
Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms moves into the second Chapter, Steam and Shadow with pre-orders staring next week (30th April 2021). The first two sets of releases introduce two new factions, some scuttling horrors and some beautiful but deadly Daedra. This week we will look at the first round of release, the deadly Dwemer and the venomous Frostbite Spiders.
Right up front we need to talk about shipping (again). We make best efforts to get product out to our retail partners as soon as we can. Most of our miniatures, and all of the Elder Scrolls resin figures, are manufactured here in the UK. We send them to our warehouse and fulfilment partner and they then get on-shipped to our distribution channels. Global shipping is in a terrible state at the moment, with shipments to our distribution partners from the UK that would normally take a month now taking up to two months in some cases. Where we have stock in our warehouse we can fulfil web orders almost straight away, but they are then at the whims of the shipping gods and the shipping or courier prices that are outside our control for direct shipping. Your FLGS also has to wait until their distribution channel has the product, which is where we come back to that two month delay to our distributors, even before they order it and it gets shipped from the distributor to the FLGS. The TL:DR version is that shipping is still a mess, and any dates I give you are subject to any sort of delay up to and including a Kraken attack.
So, on to the new releases. First up we have the two releases that form the Dwemer faction – the Spheres and Spiders and the Centurion and Ballista. The Dwemer are powerful models with a nice mix of ranged and melee attacks - the Ballista are particularly deadly at range. They all have good armour with some degree of Strong Armour too!
The heavy hitter for the Dwemer is the mighty Centurion. He introduces a new mechanic to the game with a template breath weapon for his Steam attack. We’ll be making some print and play templates available on the Modiphius website for this and any other creatures that will need them. In the Chapter 2 card pack you will also find the Aetherium Staff that allows a Hero to summon a Steadfast Dwemer Spider* or Sphere* to aid them in battle. The Dwemer will be available to pre-order in April and should ship from the webstore at the end of May/Early June.
Alongside the Dwemer we also have the ever present Frostbite Spiders. Individually they aren’t terribly dangerous to heroes, but they are certainly a match for many followers and they are rarely alone. The spiders are also fast and agile, and have the Wall Crawler ability, which means they automatically pass any Climb tests. Combined with the poisonous bite and spit, they are not to be underestimated.
Alongside the three figure sets that launch Chapter 2 we will also have the Chapter 2 Card pack. This is printing as I type this, so there may be a delay in actual delivery into June depending on the production process. All of these sets and the next three sets will also be included in some new Bundle Deals that we will be releasing on the Webstore next week. If you buy into the bundle deals you will get a chance to get some sets a little earlier than their general release, but all the sets in the bundle deals will be available individually in time (just in case you think spiders are the worst). There will also be a super-secret promo figure for the All-in bundle level that we will be releasing into general release later on.
Next time, we’ll take a look at the next three releases, the sinister Dark Brotherhood and the incandescent Flame Atronachs.