Sunday, November 6, 2011

First Dystopian Wars Game!

Hey Folks,

Pooch and I played our first game of Dystopian Wars and it was pretty brutal!

We each had 3 Cuisers and 6 Frigates (two squadrons of 3 each) with Pooch leading forth his Kingdom of Britannia Fleet while I fielded my partially painted Empire of the Blazing Sun train-boats that I scored in the Southern Sort Out buy/sell at Conquest.

I also managed to get the remaining three sections of the Board up to a playable standard.

We played two games, but I only got (bad flash) pics of the first one;

Japs to the left and Brits to the right...

A steamp punk Light House keeps watch

KoB Fleet deployed for battle, they may be stumpy but the look awesome and Pooch has painted them really well. 

Part painted EoBS. I'm still tinkering with a paint scheme as I can find one I really like.  Not sure about the Bands...

Fleets manoeuvre, initial salvos take a point off all my "Ichi" Squadron of frigates while I sink a KoB frigate and damage a Cruiser. 

Moving on here "San" squadron has destroyed a KoB Cruiser behind the Oil Derrick with some insane dice rolling while the KoB Frigate counter attack guts my Frigates...but then is smashed by the waiting EoBS 
Cruisers

KoB fleet mid game, its down to two Cruisers (one damaged) and a couple of frigates.  At the top of the photo "Ichi" Squadron burns.

Cruisers swing round with the top one being nailed by a "Hard Pounding" critical.  In a collision followed by boarding attempt Pooch's frigate killed off the marines from my frigate, but then I shot his marines down as well so we ended up in contact but unable to prize the other.  My Cruiser boarded to resolve the issue, but then had to All Stop so as not to ram the rocks!

And the Kob Cruisers take more of a pounding and use the Island for cover.
In the end I had sunk all of Pooch's fleet except a badly damaged Cruiser.

We played a second game which we didn't get to finish in which once again the Japanese frigates got the upper hand on their Pommy counterparts and my Cruisers had sunk a KoB Cruiser for minor damage.

What seems to be decisive is that my ships have a higher Critical Rating by one point, which means my Frigates  and Cruisers are really survivable compared to the British. I did tend to get some insane dice with the "exploding dice" mechanic (one chain of 4 "sixes" which was silly) and this lead to multiple critical hits which will kill any Cruiser. The KoB seem a bit weak in this department...so perhaps Shield Generators might be the way to go, even with the reduction in Firepower.  Air Power will add another element too...with KoB CAP Dive Bombers being particularly cool.

It is really hard to line up the fixed arcs of the EoBS ships though, so this will take some practice.

Overall its silly, fun and I get to roll lots of dice so I give DW a big thumbs up!

Cant wait for my Prussians to arrive!

Cheers
Jason

5 comments:

Vladdd309 said...

Great battle report with two nicely painted fleets! Those little Blazing Sun frigates are really dangerous, but I never seem to get much out of the cruisers. I'll be replacing them with the gunships as soon as they're available.

Jamie said...

(completely uninformed and baseless speculation on DW play interactions follows :P )

I think the relatively clear battlefield, with those cruisers able to turn and form line (from what I can see of those pics) didn't hurt any.

With more ships on the table, I can see how it might be trickier to get the fixed arc EoBS stuff to perform at maximum efficiency. With so few ships clamoring for the choice firing positions, the EoBS stuff actually does look - to me - to be pretty good on paper.

I know that I am pretty worried that I wont have the dice to get ahead using only Cruisers with shields. Pity the rockets aren't painted but then again, without the shield it looks like the low CR of FSA stuff would be my undoing - going by this mad batrep anyway!

Unknown said...

Hi Jamie,

You know we completely forgot you had shields last night...

Cheers
Jason

bikewrench said...

Great looking table and an awesome write up. Sounds and looks like fun.
Shields...hehe.

mikethefish said...

Can you give a lowdown on how you made that nifty looking oil Derrick? Looks like just the sort of terrain I want to make - something different than the usual islands and such