From the back cover (as it stands at present) …

The dogs of war have been loosed – the world is facing down nuclear and biological Armageddon between the West and two ruthless power blocs aiming at nothing less than total victory and the complete emasculation and/or destruction of anyone who opposes their cultural dominance.

The struggle between these blocs has been going on for years, but has only recently become a hot war … normally called the Three Way War in the west, the Anti-Imperialist War in the Russo-Japanese alliance and the New Jihad in the Islamic states … and a nasty one.

Rationing is commonplace, consumer goods in short supply or, in some cases, completely unavailable … even the militaries of the nations involved have begun to suffer from the inability of their damaged national economies to build the needed equipment for their expanding war efforts (or, indeed, even to repair or replace damaged equipment).

It is against this background that your campaign will be set, and in which your players will be running the characters that they create using this rule booklet. They will have the opportunity to defend their nation and its allies and to oppose the fanatical plans of the opposition …

Can they do enough to make a difference?

The graphic? The current Front Cover for the first book, Background and Game System.

It depicts an Australian Infantryman in AUSCAM camo uniform wearing (atypically, in the field) the well known Aussie rabbit fur felt Slouch Hat (brim down, hiding the equally famous ‘Rising Sun’ badge of the Commonwealth Military Forces), wearing webbing and carrying a full pack, and armed with a Austeyr (Steyr AUG) Automatic Rifle with underslung M203 40mm Grenade Launcher

Most modern themed RPGs or campaign backgrounds emphases US or NATO forces, usually pretty close to the exclusion of all else – but Road to Armageddon occurs in a world where they’re going to end up involved in a nasty, brutish, devastating conflict that ultimately escalates into WW3 and a nuclear exchange (the Thirty Minute War) and continues well beyond, descending into the depths of crazy mutual annihilation (as best as reduced circumstances allow, anyway).

The core background units of RtA (though not of the multi-book Campaign that will be released with the Core Rules) consists of the last comb out of the US National Guard, some Canadian reservists (a mounted Infantry unit formed from RCMP and other SWAT units), a British Battalion returning from garrison duty in South America, a French Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade returning from the Pacific, USN, RCN, FRG and other Naval and Merchant vessels and, where the Aussie comes from, one of the world’s last fully mechanised Battalions from the (relatively less damaged) Commonwealth of Australia … in the Kickstarter there will be the chance (probably) to pay for some other nation specific cover artwork to replace him on a version of the Core Rules (if more than one nationality stumps up the cash, then there will be more than one version of the cover for that book!)

You’ll also encounter WW1 and WW2 naval and ground forces, American and German, mainly, plus (later on) some Hungarians … and maybe some other nationalities as well. Possibly some from other time periods. But they won’t be in the core books or the initial KickStarter release … they’ll be in the next tranche of material, likely a 2016 release.