Please read this major announcement from The Ion Age. Thank you.
'This galaxy has decided to gorge upon itself, to consume its vitality once more in pointless slaughter that will see those left afterwards little more than mono-planet atom burners. Well, its not going to happen, not again. My father, your king, died for the dream that Prydia held dear and in two decades of civil war we here also have nearly lost that promise of freedom we hold equally dear. We will all have that freedom again mark me, the Barons will pay and those beings not of mankind that are even now forcing open the doors will be thrown back to the Anwnn where they came from. Prydia will rise once more and I will, with the aid of the Starvaulters, make it happen.'
Princess Daphe Cyon address to the Council of Aeddans 4330IC
Back in July 2013 I was given the chance to take what existed of the space opera setting of The Ion Age and develop it as a free standing entity apart from Alternative Armies. In the near five years since then I feel that the little team I assembled has achieved some great things including a 15mm range which went from some thirty poses to many hundreds of poses, new factions, many vehicles and a terrain range. There was also the three books of the Patrol Angis game system. We also had four years of monthly free special miniatures. All great stuff.
The world changes as you all will know and I have reached an agreement with Alternative Armies to hand The Ion Age ranges back to the mother company. The reasons for this are several. Firstly the ranges have grown to a point where I no longer feel comfortable handling their expansion on my own. Secondly Alternative Armies has greater resources which I feel are needed as we continue onto a fourth book and more releases. Thirdly I realise that we are now in an age of social media (so much different from 2013) and that I am the public face of both Alternative Armies and The Ion Age; this tends to cause some confusion for gamers. With everything in one place this confusion vanishes and The Ion Age will be able also to take part in the big offers that Alternative Armies makes. Alternative Armies has increased its staff level and technical resources and is a very active company. It makes sense to have this return happen.
Do not fret. There are no staff changes and no miniatures will disappear from production. Alternative Armies and The Ion Age operate out of the same office.
So what will happen and when? Do you need to do anything?
In essence I will gradually close down The Ion Age website while transferring the miniatures and books to new pages on Alternative Armies. Across the next four weeks the 15mm range and the 28mm range as well as Publications and Free Downloads will gain their own pages under a main new heading on the Alternative Armies website. We will also shut down the ability to purchase from The Ion Age once the codes are moved. The Ion Age blog will remain in place and will continue to give you the latest news and be a source of content. Once all of the ranges are transferred The Ion Age website will be mothballed and then shut down in coming months. Our email address info@theionage.com will remain active going forward and do feel free to contact me with any questions.
A large part of the process of handing over will apply to the 'Reward Points' system powered by SLoyalty on The Ion Age. We have over one thousand customer accounts and several million points accumulated. It is vitally important to me and it has been agreed with Alternative Armies, that those reward points will be honoured. Right at the start of the process of range removal from The Ion Age website the Sloyalty programme will be closed down. When this occurs all customers will be exported and held in a master document with me. You will still be able to access your account on the site until the site is closed down. Here is how to claim your accumulated points.
Contact me (Gavin Syme) on sales@alternative-armies.com with your name, address and the email address you used with The Ion Age. I will confirm this with the master document and then reply to you. I will tell you the amount of points you have, its value in Sterling (GBP) and how to spend it. You will get the value of these points on anything on the Alternative Armies site (including Ion Age codes) and it can be used on shipping too. We ask you use it in one order (for my sanity) and it will be done by email with me directly. There is no time limit upon this offer so if you are reading this long after May 2019 just contact me.
Aside from this to gain your points you need do nothing more.
Alternative Armies has a lot planned for 2019 and beyond and its agreement with me to take back The Ion Age is only a part of that. I can tell you that there are more than a dozen new codes in development for the 15mm range as well as the 'Baron' book for Patrol Angis.
Here are links to the new collections for The Ion Age on the Alternative Armies website:
I want to take this moment to thank every one of you for the fun four year ride which we have taken. Its time to get off. Before we get back on again!
Thanks for Reading,
GBS
p.s. The images in this announcement are of a customised Magog mecha belonging to Sam Croes, the lead designer at Alternative Armies, painted in the colours of his baronial force 'Castella'. It is in his personal collection and we hope you like it. Contact me if you want to know the pieces used to create it and how you might do the same thing.
