Dystopian Wars: The British are back!

On Thursday night, I gave one of the locals at the club a game of Dystopian Wars. It was his first game, so I thought I would keep it simple and run the British (the French special rules are exceptions, and he might get confused). We were using the expected forthcoming TAGcon rules- 850 points, no Dreadnoughts. I ran...

Ruler Class Battleship Iron Duke
Agincourt Gunships Exeter, Valiant, London
Vanguard Submarines X-23, X-15
Swift Corvettes CV-21,22,23,24
Swift Corvettes CV-11,12,13,14,15
Orion Class Destroyers DD-27,28,29,30


The Iron Duke

My opponent was running Prussians, with a Battleship, 3 Cruisers, 2 squadrons of 4 Frigates, 3 Destroyers and 2 Bombers.

The game started unconvincingly, Turn One amounted to both fleets dashing forward, firing wildly, with my fleet causing an impressive ONE frigate kill, compared to his ZERO kills.


Corvettes just be vettin'

Turn two however, the game got a bit more exciting. Prussians had first initiative, so sent their destroyers headlong against the Blue Corvette Squadron. But, the combination of hitting on a 5+ and the dice didn't work out for my opponent, which left no casualties! The Corvettes however, were not so kind. By zipping rings around the destroyers, they were able to unleash crippling fire to the rear of the destroyers (not that it has any benefit in game terms, it is just a cooler picture)


What is missing is the floatsam from the other two Destroyers

In the centre of the battlefield, the bombers dropped out of obscured and unleashed some firepower onto the Iron Duke, only to have it bounced by shields. The enemy battleship unleashed a torrent of fire onto the Iron Duke, only to have it bounced by shields. Notice a theme?


So that is 25 hits, with no damage points then? Yes. Good.

All the while, the Iron Duke was firing relentlessly at whatever targets presented themselves, be they cruisers, bombers or frigates to great result.

A flight of bombers came screaming in onto the Iron Duke only to have them butchered by Ack-Ack, then for their bombs to fall ineffectually against the shields!


Weren't there five of us? Why do our bombs keep bouncing?

The lone destroyer had this point been set upon by a full squadron of British Swallow class dive bombers, and was dutifully sunk (with 22 plus hits, I couldn't be bothered rerolling all the 6's)

The enemy cruiser sitting in front of the Iron Duke was engaged with main gunnery from two turrets. The firepower was so great that it caused the forward magazine on the cruiser to explode! Which, sounds good for me right? Not so much. There were four corvettes nearby, three of which were swamped by either the explosion or the massive tide of water stemming from it! It did also cause some damage to another cruiser, so there is that I suppose.

By now, the two X craft were ready to make their attack runs, the first got a perfect rear attack onto the enemy battleship (who is on TWO damage points I might add)


This is what they are built for!

So, it revs the chainsaw, makes the attack and......... fluffs it. Not only does it do NO damage, it takes two points in return!

So surely the other X craft can do better.


With prey not quite so large...

So, X-15 revs the chainsaw, makes the attack and...... fluffs it. It doesn't damage itself this time, but it also doesn't sink a frigate! It does however sink it in the frigates activation, as the two collide into each other once again!

But it is a case of too little, too late. The Prussian Battleship makes a last ditch boarding attack against the Iron Duke, losing 3 of their boarders to Ack-Ack, then losing another 5 in the close assault. The Prussians were able to kill all but one of the Royal Marines, but one was enough to save the ship!

Because of all the lost Prussian luftjagers, the Battleship was ripe pickings for the Agincourts, who sent over a fresh boarding party of Royal Marines, capturing the enemy vessel.


Mainly so they could retrieve the stuck submarine

And with that, was the end of the game, and a crushing victory to the British.

The poor, poor Prussians. No matter what they did, they just couldn't do damage to the Iron Duke. The shields were performing exceptionally, the Ack-Ack was ruthless and it's gunnery was sublime.

So really, I made the critical error when introducing people to the game, I didn't let them kill enough stuff! Hopefully he enjoyed it, but for the game, I could do no wrong. Dice kept bailing me out when I stuffed things up, allowed me to do things which I shouldn't be able to get away with and were so atrociously good, I felt bad. If he is reading this, I apologise, and would love another game, and I promise to roll worse.

The other exciting thing at the club was that there was another game of Dystopian going on!


And they got there first, so they got the blue sheet, which is why we were on grey...

That's it from me. The 6mm counter keeps ticking on up, I am afraid if I stop painting tiny tanks that I would never start again, so I am pushing on through. Must get some sort of pictures of them sorted at some point too.

CP