Dystopian Wars Battle - loads of pics

So, having reviewed the fleet over the weekend, a 1000pt battle was organised with Pete for this evening. I debated at length what to put on the table, eventually deciding to leave the usual favourites (Mk.I Magenta, Marseilles) in the bag. Initially went with Tourbillon, Vauban, Couronne, Chevalier, Lyons, Ecuyers, and Voltaires. On a reflection I dropped the Tourbillon for the Mk.2 Magenta.

As it happened we timed out at the end of Turn 2 - neither myself or Pete play particularly quickly, and when throw in chatting, smoking, taking pics, and looking up rules we don't know, it's no surprise. I won, on points, because although Pete sunk the Couronne and a Chevalier, I'd stopped three of his destroyers, and a cruiser, and damaged one more. Both Pete and I are at an age now where finishing the game isn't that important - it's just nice to put our toys on the table and push them about.

Star of the show for me was the Ecuyers (again), and the Chevaliers (who throw out some serious firepower). The sheer number of TFTs gave me massive advantage, so I'll be doing that tactic again. Certainly going to get another squadron of Chevaliers - they're seriously good.

The bloody Time Dilation Orb of Pete's CoA proved a pain in the arse, as he teleported his carrier next to mine and absolutely hammered it. There's no way of combating it, just need to wait for the inevitable.

Anyway, here's the pics. Excuse the ones in portrait that aren't - using a different phone today, and it doesn't seem to auto-adjust

Republic of France Fleet Review (arms race)

A quiet day at Port du Tangent, so the Admiral de la Fleet Atlantique (moi) ordered Garlic, Cognac, and Baguettes stowed in their lockers and undertook a fleet review.

First past the bench are the Ecuyer class support cruisers. Despite only having been in combat once - against the British - they proved surprisingly tough.

Now we have the two Epaulard class submarines. Equipped with bombard mortar, they should be good, but have so far proven ineffective. They also have mine-laying capability, but the mines in question wouldn't sink a canoe, so they tend to stay in port.

Now the squadron of Lyon class frigates steam past. Cannon fodder basically.

Now the mighty Vauban class sky fortress. A sort of battleship/carrier/airship - packing huge firepower, huge amount of tiny flyers, and all sorts of gadgets. This ship's predecessor was famously shot down in action against the Covenant of Antartica. A magazine explosion ensured that she took almost everything else down with her too.

Tiny flyers. The Republique field huge numbers of these, but so far they've only proven to be a nuisance. A change in tactics beckons where they should be used against destroyers and corvettes.

The Furieux class scoutship. Used for ranging far ahead of the main fleet. Perhaps that's why they've been shot to ribbons in every battle without really hurting anything 

Voltaire class heavy interceptors - theoretically very good, but only two fielded so far. Expecting more results when used in bigger numbers (see Arms Race below)

Marseilles class cruisers. Stalwart ships of the line - have dished out some serious punishment in return for few losses. Almost always fitted with retardant armour, which usually helps longevity.

The ill-starred Magenta II class pocket battleship. She's been crippled twice, and boarded once. The heat lance is a powerful weapon, but also a powerful fire magnet. Nonetheless, her faithful crew struggle on, hoping one day to prove their worth.

Ah, the belle of the fleet; the Magenta I class pocket battleship. Unlike her later Mk.II cousin, the old girl leads a charmed life; having survived every encounter with nowt but a scratch here and the odd dent there. Repulsed and then counter-boarded the Convenant's battleship during the same engagement that saw the sky fortress explode.

Then the mighty Charlemagne class dreadnought. Slow, ponderous, and incredibly powerful. Sunk a lot of British ships in one encounter, but otherwise remained resolutely in port. 

Arms Race
Thanks to the dastardly machinations of the Convenant of Antarctica, and to a lesser extent the Kingdom of Britannia, the Republique has had to embark on a programme of ship building.

Although this is supposedly secret, some details have leaked out. A Tourbillion airship, a Couronne class battle carrier, another Magenta I, and some Chevalier Destroyers and Frelon small flyers.

More are in the works, and even more planned, especially on the airship front - the British preponderance of torpedoes will be thwarted by simply not being in the water. The Republique will know victory once more (eventually).

More French floaty bang

Wargaming friends, who needs 'em eh?

Pete, owner of the highest lead mountain in all Hove, regular gaming opponent, irregular Northerner, and - to his eternal regret - one of the inner circle of Tangent, had to head North this weekend.

In the grim North there is a grim town called Sheffield, which is full of grim people and grim things. (Foreign readers please note that in Britain, anywhere North of a place called Luton is considered 'the North', and everything up there is grim). Anyway, Pete messaged me using the combined magic of 3G and Facebook and asked whether I would like a Dystopian Wars Republic land battle group boxed set.


 Does the Pope kiss runways?

Of course I did, even from the grim North, toys is toys. I also requested a Mk.1 Magenta pocket battleship. I've already got one, but two pocket battleships are better.

Suppose I best get my airbrush back from Pete, as the list of stuff I need to paint is getting quite long.

Dystopian Wars mega battle: planning

In a rare moment of coherency, my gaming group has decided unanimously (well, two of us) to stagger slowly towards an all-group mega battle of Dystopian Wars. Whether it'll ever happen is irrelevant - it was my idea, so I'll be planning it, and no doubt driving the reluctant collective to a) all appearing in one place simultaneously, b) sticking to the scenario without trying to deconstruct it and c) actually constructively assist with said project.

It should be said that in the seven or so years our group has been in effect, I don't think this has ever been achieved. Still, lost cause or not, I shall persist.

So, here's the idea; 12' x 4' board, in the middle a Panama or Suez canal type running across from left to right, covering 3 or 4 foot. In effect this will create an Atlantic side and a Pacific side. Land objectives to be some factory installations, some bridges, an airfield or two, and some other stuff. Rest of board to be sea with scattered islands.

At 2000 - 2500 points per side, this should give plenty of points for land forces as well as naval and aerial compliments. Limited to six turns only, it'll be Take & Hold objectives based, I should think. At this points level, with potentially five or six players at the table, it's easily an entire afternoon's gaming.

Scenery-wise we have enough bits of green tiles to make sufficient landmass to fight over, although the 2x2' tiles will present a problem for the making of the canal. I've got some 4 x 2 pink foam boards which were from an abandoned project now lurking in the loft. Think it might be time to press them back into service and get some bags of static grass.

Playable forces are fine for the most part - Covenant and Britannia are very comprehensive with land forces as well, whilst my French can easily field 2000pts of navy, but lack any land presence. There is a smallish Prussian contingent, and there's threat of a new player entering with a yet to be purchased Russian fleet.

So, first stage is to construct two opposite banks of canal (fairly simple), paint up some objectives, get a land force boxed set, and make some hills/mountains. Then I can start to think about objectives and scenario conditions.

Hope to get some progress during the week.

Sir, your dreadnought is wrecking my fleet

So far I've thoroughly enjoyed every Dystopian Wars game I've played. Despite the moaning on the DW forum about the system having inherent imbalance, I've yet to really notice anything out of the ordinary. There is imbalance in any wargame, it's just part of it.

My happy illusion was shattered last night when the French fleet once again took to the Felt Seas to seek glory and victory for the Republic. A bit of chaos and disorganisation prevailed in our Tuesday evening group; first we were five, then four, then one of the group - who has only played DW once - needed an opponent. Deciding to leave my usual opponent to play against our other regular player, I took up the challenge of playing against a borrowed Prussian fleet.

The other player prefers skirmish games, so for the sake of brevity we went for 600pts, ignoring the usual minimum/maximums of points for the various classes of ship. This proved to be a mistake, for my opponent immediately spent 50% of his points on a Dreadnought. A further mistake was to not put my foot down, but it was getting late and I couldn't be bothered with the argument. The final mistake was to not get my own dread' out of the bag, instead electing for two pocket battleships and a big airship.

So, off we went. Opponent elected to move first, and played it safe, just moving up a trio of Frigates. I decided that my solitary Furieux scout airship was just the ticket to deal with these;

Opponent followed up on my right with his destroyer squadron, which I moved to counter with my Tourbillon airship (no photos, unpainted resin lump). Then the Metzger moved in and took up firing positions on a convenient rocky outcrop

 I decided that it was time for the Voltaires to move up and throw some torpedoes at the dreadnought, but it was to no effect.

The dastardly Prussian dread moved up, and fired some effective shots around, succeeding in damaging the Furieux and Voltaires. So, I countered with the Mk.2 Magenta and the potentially hideous (if you're a dreadnought) Heat Lance;

Alas, it was to no effect, as was the Mk.1 Magenta's salvo which followed it. Just couldn't get the sixes rolling tonight.

Turn 2 and the Prussian dread charges across the board with a 'stoke the engines' card, plus some onboard generator thing adding 1D3". It pummelled the Mk.1 Magenta and then successfully boarded her, capturing the ill-fated French pocket battleship for the glory of the Prussian Empire.

The Mk.1 Magenta moved into support her sister, but just couldn't bring enough fire to bear on the mighty dread, only scratching the paint. The Voltaires were now too close to drop torpedoes, so they moved over the battle raging beneath and went for the Metzger, but cumulative damage meant they had little dice to play with. The Furieux died without further affecting the battle. The Prussian frigates swung round the back of the captured Mk.2 Magenta, but didn't hit anything.

Turn 3, and the Mk.1 Magenta swung round the Prussian dread to give it another full salvo and broadside. A little better on the dice, with a critical, just missing a double crit, but with 13HP it's a tough nut to crack. I had been looking to board the dread, but the combination of movement and tough AA meant the moment never arrived.

The Voltaires died, and the Tourbillon continued to not really achieve anything, so I threw in the towel, knowing a Mk.1 Magenta just isn't capable of a 1-on-1 with a dreadnought. This little action cost the French a battleship, two Voltaires, and a Furieux. The Prussians lost a Frigate and some tiny flyers.

To be honest I really didn't enjoy the game - the dreadnought is 260pts (from memory), but it withstood concerted assault from 300pts of pocket battleship, 100pts of interceptor, and 140pts of airship. The flipside is that had I got my dread out of the bag, then it just would have been a very dull toe-to-toe pounding for several turns.

I do think the dreadnoughts are too tough in this game to be used in anything less than 1000pts - there's just not enough on the table to achieve the target saturation needed to overwhelm one.

On the bright side, the Mk.1 Magenta again proved to be both lucky and very hard to kill. The Tourbillon also looks promising with good fire arcs on the main turrets, and a rocket battery. Thinking about things, a Furieux squadron with a Tourbillon could be a good combo - spotting from the Furieux for the rocket battery on the Tourbillon.

Ah well, that's for next time...

Dystopian Wars - victory for the French

Bank Holiday Monday saw some gaming action in the form of Dystopian Wars Chez Pete

1000pts were the order of the day.

Amazingly enough, I won.

Setup, from right to left: Epaulard subs, Furieux scoutships, Vauban sky fortress, tiny flyers, Voltaire heavy interceptors, Lyon frigates flanking Marseille cruisers, and a Mk.1 Magenta pocket battleship on the far left.

Playing against Pete's Covenant of Antarctica, the Furieux died early trying to spot for the subs' mortar weapon and lay mines across the front of the CoA line. Frigates perished early too.

Then Pete pulls some surprise move involving teleporting his Battleship onto my left flank - it has some beam-mounted energy weapon and had the potential to wipe out my whole line in one go. Some supremely unlucky dice for Pete meant it did nothing. He then tried boarding my Magenta, and fluffed that too.

The Magenta counter-boarded the battleship and captured it.

As the lines moved forward, the balanced nature of my fleet meant I was concerned about it's ability to deliver a knock out blow. With six Icarus flying cruisers on the CoA side in the middle (seriously difficult things to kill), the Magenta delayed by dealing with the battleship, the Furieux shot down, the Epaulard subs doing nothing, and the Voltaires taking a hammering, I decided to move the very shooty Vauban into the middle to dish out some pain.

As the Vauban was moving in, the Voltaires tried to stem the CoA tide, but weren't packing enough punch

The Vauban closes up to support the Marseille cruisers (left) as the Voltaires also endeavour to bring down the Icarus flyers. By the end of turn 3 the Vauban was in the middle, over the top of 4 CoA destroyers, the two Marseilles, the Icaruses, and the Voltaires. The Magenta too far out to lend any significant weight.

Predictably the Vauban started taking damage, but overall was tipping the balance when... the as-yet unused CoA carrier moved up and threw a long range salvo at it. Some very good dice for Pete saw two critical hits and on the second crit roll he got snake eyes = catastrophic explosion! The Vauban died, in a big way, and took out everything within 4" (which was most of the remaining fleets of both sides)

Ironically, this kill assured me victory as Pete was basically left with a Carrier, and four frigates, whilst I was left with both subs, the pocket battleship, and a cruiser.
So, we called it a day. Totting up the points saw that I'd won, but only by capturing the CoA battleship (double VP) otherwise it would have been a drawn.

Another great Dystopian Wars game, and a rematch is expected soon.

First Game with DW French

Been a few weeks since said game, but one thing and other conspired to keep me away from the blog.

French had their first outing against the British faction a few weeks back. 1000pts, which for my part meant 6 cruisers, 2 pocket battleships, a dreadnought, and 3 frigates. Broadly the mission objective was to destroy 'core' units (i.e. things which come in the original starter box set for that faction). I got rather distracted by the British dreadnought and just concentrated on that instead. Consequently I lost, just.

Anyway, how do the French play? Remarkably tough actually; I had feared their technically marvellous boats would get hammered by the gun-heavy Brits. Instead they soaked up a lot of punishment, and dished out some good stuff too.

The Heat Lances are hugely powerful - assuming you can get into range soon enough to use them. The high proportion of surface skimmers really helped against the Torpedo keen British.

Itching for the next game. In preparation I bought some little Airships for use as fire observers for the submarines, hopefully giving some much needed ranged/indirect fire to the fleet.

Only other news in the wargaming world is that I'm thinking about getting Too Fat Lardies latest effort for my dark ages armies; Dux Britanniarum 

Sorry, no pics of the Dystopian Wars French - her indoors got to the camera before I'd loaded them onto the laptop.

Ecuyer Support Cruiser

Today saw a lot of listen-only conference calls at work, and seeing as my work is at home, I managed to slap some acrylic on some Dystopian Wars boats

These are Ecuyer class support cruisers - An AA Cruiser basically. Like their WW2 counterparts/inspiration, I do wonder how effective they'll be, but lovely looking models nonetheless. First outing will see them pitched in against the techno-fest Covenant of Antartica, but expecting them to do well against the Britannia fleet which is reliant on air assault.

After an abortive attempt  with Dazzle camo on the Carrier, I sat and thought about how a Victorian Ironclad would look. Decided that they wouldn't be battleship grey, or indeed camo, but should imitate the steam locos of the period. Hence, blue (it's more grey to the eye, bordering on turquoise) with lovely teak decking and brass and copper fixtures and fittings everywhere.

These are now awaiting ink and tidying up.

Dreadnought and Sky Fortress already WIP in the same scheme, just need to get some small fleur de lys transfers from somewhere.

The Nerf Within

I suspect like many gamers of my age (mid 30s), my introduction into the world of toy soldiers was through everyone's favourite object of hate; GW. A natural progression from the B/AD&D with the C-series and early slotta, onto WFB, Rogue Trader, Space Hulk, Space Marine, and all the rest.

Nerfed systems all. Every race/faction/unit/system had a Nerf unit - from the Assault Cannon terminator marine in Space Hulk, to the Reaver Titan in Space Marine; little objects of pain for your opponent. Being of that age where utterly crushing my opponent is important, I happily built armies around the most obscene units. WFB Bretonnians because they had a gazillion Knights, Imperial Guard in 40K and Epic because of the Shadowsword and Baneblade (and staggering array of artillery in Epic), and so on. 

Now I'm a bigger kid, I've always taken time to build armies either as historical representations, or as balanced 'interesting' (read; easy to lose with) units. Nerfed was for beardy tourney players, I'd never indulge in that sort of ultra-competitive nonsense.

All was right with the world until I got onto Splintered Lands. Whilst you couldn't say an Armoured Badger was truly nerf, in that system they're like little Tiger tanks. I'd forgotten just how much amusement could be had from recklessly wading into lesser opponents safe in the knowledge that it would probably be very messy for the other side.

Late this afternoon, Pete rang from the bowels of a gaming store in the City. Conversation was broadly thus;
Pete: "They've got Dystopian Wars French here, (reels off list of stuff)"
Me: "Ah, nice, just grab me one of the Battleships will you?"
Pete: "Okay"
Me: "No, wait, put it back... they've got the Sky Fortress thing? Yep, right, I'll have that. Text me when you're home and I'll pop down with the cash"

Several things then happened which I wasn't really expecting. Firstly, I became increasingly impatient as the afternoon wore into the evening; I wanted my new toy now dammit!

Then, when I finally got down to Pete's place, I tore open the blister pack like a complete kid, and then expressed delight at the a) the silly size of said toy, and b) the nerfed-to-hell stats and special rules for it through a series of cackles, and a  bit of gloating at the mighty victories this thing will give me.

The nerf within is reawakened, and in the manner of all things nerfed, I now thoroughly look forward to invoking the immortal gamer phrase;

"I'm gonna need a whole load more D6s for this one"

Dystopian Wars (at last, a tangent!)

Celebrate! After more than a year of consistency, I've found a new thing to latch onto, which means I won't have to rename the blog to Dunc's Endless Posts About SSL

Firstly, no apologies for the 6 week hiatus in posts. I couldn't be bothered to think much about wargaming and even less about painting the damn things. Partially this is down to a persistent inner ear/sinus infection - just can't shift it. Balance problems vary from day to day, but spending all day with mild vertigo doesn't half put one in a bad mood.

So, the tangent. Good mate Pete from down the road, and also of this blog has been collecting and playing much Dystopian Wars (by Spartan Games). Over the last six months or so he's been periodically - read weekly - showing me the latest resin 'n' pewter thing in a blister pack whilst I try to look interested.

 I'll happily admit I've never got into Steampunk / Victorian Sci-Fi, so always regarded the Dystopian Wars miniatures are rather silly and impractical, with the exception of the Metzger Robot/Walker thing. Despite Pete gamely banging on about the great games him and other pal Charlie were having, it simply stayed off the radar.

However, being at a loose end Friday evening before last, I suggested a wargames evening with Pete; I wanted to play SSL, and my concession to being allowed to push little animals around the board was that I'd give Dystopian a go. As it turned out, the afternoon was busy at work and I didn't manage to even think about SSL warbands, or rounding up the miniatures from their various places about the house and garage.

So we played Dystopian.

I rather enjoyed it, to be honest. It's not a particularly subtle system - grab some boats, and whole barrel load of D6, and you're away. Akin to other floaty-based systems, there's turning templates and looking at stats and an element of judging when to go broadside.

Thankfully the similarities stop there. Where historical dreadnought action quickly becomes very dull , Dystopian has all manner of fabulous weaponry and defensive things to fall back on. So instead of just hammering away at each other with big guns, you actually need to think about what is going on. On top of this, each faction is quite distinct in character, meaning different tactical approaches are needed.

A very enjoyable 2hrs of toy soldiers, so much so that I demanded a rematch this Friday just gone and subsequently decided to go 'all in'.

Why do I like it?

Well, along with the bits explained above, it plays fast, has no 'eh? do what?' moments with the rules, and most surprisingly for naval rules doesn't suffer from what I call the HMS Rodney Effect; where one ship is so utterly dominant on the table that the game is over before you've even rolled initiative.

(The Rodders and Nelson weren't great as ships of the line thanks to their inherently poor handling - due to them effectively being the front 2/3rds of the magnificent pre-Washington treaty N-Class. However, on paper, which is what matters in wargaming, they're not the sort of ship you'd want to get into a punch-up with; especially with those nine 15" up front. The nearest thing a German player can produce is either a Tirpitz or Bismarck, neither of which stand a chance... which, along with the mighty King George V, may explain why the Kreigsmarine spent the war going out of their way to not go anywhere near the Home Fleet)

I've also changed my mind on the miniatures; the French are especially good looking, which is handy, as they're going to be my faction.

Payday is this Friday. Painting follows shortly thereafter.