Now, first tip for young players. When planning to do blog posts with pictures, it really, really pays to bring home your camera cable from work, otherwise you will seem like a doofus as your blog post is over a day late!
Anyway, on with the story.
I made the trip down to Dunedin in two stages so was highly relaxed. I did however suffer a fair bit of mocking (perhaps deserved) for deserting the Historical Games for
playing the steam punk ships, but damnit, my Battleship can fly!
After a little bit of a delayed start (and more mocking from my travelling companions), it was time for Game One! Apologies for a lack of photos, the lighting was terrible for my little wee camera, too much light, not enough light, I think I may have given it a serious medical condition!
Game One against Bill with the Covenant of Antarctica
So one of the coolest parts of the weekend for me was that the umpire had created a series of scenarios for each table, and the mission for the first table was to destroy one model chosen from the enemy fleet. Naturally, both Bill and I chose the enemy Battleship!
The fleet arranged for battle!
The game went pretty well for the French, I engaged in a massive flanking maneuver over an island with my flying vessels, while the rest of my fleet tried to keep his busy. A few good rolls, and I was ahead through kills. The Cruiser's Retardant Armour was doing a stellar job in keeping them alive, while they kept the Antarcticans focused onto them, rather than onto my flanking Battleship!
The Antarctican Battleship, lurking under the waves, comes to grief on the reef, taking it down to one last Damage point, only to be boarded from the stern by the Magenta battleship!
One Battleship prized, 800 victory points earned! So a glorious game first up, Vive le France! The Antarcticans are a troublesome fleet, and if I didn't have to play them again, I would be a happy person. Lots of guns, and if they roll well, lots of very good shields!
But, there was no time to gloat about the successes, it was straight into Game Two.
Game Two against Ian and his FSA
Ian had taken a pretty cool FSA list- no shields but a whole load of Rockets! Luckily the French are pretty good at shooting those down, but it was a real concern! The mission was claiming table quarters, but Ian and I both knew that the fastest way to capture a table quarter was to destroy each other!
One one flank, we each put a squadron of frigates and a tiny token squadron, the other was our air power. In the middle, his fleet sailed side on (to maximise firepower) and mine sailed straight ahead (charge!)
Contact was made first in the centre of the map, the FSA cruisers steaming forward, attempting to cause damage onto the French Cruisers. Again, the Retardant Armour saved the day, and my return firepower was super effective! One squadron of cruisers was no longer bothering anyone...
On the left flank, the two Voltaire interceptors and a squadron of 3 Frigates were trying to take down three Lee Scoutships. A good first strike saw one blimp go down (I rolled really well with the Voltaires this game...) But the return fire was seriously damaging!
On the other flank, the frigates and tiny tokens dueled for the entire game, until only the one Frigate remained, and it was French!
Despite killing the Cruisers in the center, the enemy Battleship was more elusive, and was throwing out some serious damage to my fleet. I was unfortunately unable to sink the enemy Battleship by the end of the game. The last act of the game was a very damaged Voltaire interceptor was endeavoring to finish off the last Lee Scout ship, rolling 4 dice and getting 9 hits! Oh how fun the exploding dice mechanic is!
With only the enemy Battleship and one destroyer (who I just couldn't kill!) left on table, the French were in control of two table quarters, and contesting another. This meant another win to France! Vive le France!
Game Three against Bruce, with Brittanians
Bruce's Blog can be found here
This table came equipped with two bunkers, opposite each other in a nice narrow channel. The goal then? Not to lose your fleet!
This game went to show how it is good for your rules if you do go to a tournament, I know I get confused with rules sometimes, and Bruce and I had a few things we needed to work through! Not that there were arguments or anything, more that there were those moments of "Really? That's the rule?" on both of our parts. Which when it was the third game of Day One, we were probably both a bit too tired for!
At any rate, we only managed to get through 3 turns but I have no doubt that after more time, Bruce would have annihilated my entire fleet! It would be oh so easy to blame his dice (which to be fair were good), the fleet match up (French don't like torpedoes), but really, his few things he tried really worked!
Hawks with bombs zipped out, dropping them onto Cruisers and did crippling damage, then they turned and did more damage to the Battleship!
But the real kicker, was my Battleship losing no less than 5 Hull Points from getting hit by a Chainsaw Submarine! How does one of those even hit a skimming ship? Did it leap out "Free Willy" style?
At any rate, we both killed a fair bit of each other's stuff, but I am claiming the moral victory of the draw, because I was 5 points ahead!
So ended Day One, with two wins and one draw, apparently I was in the lead. More mocking ensued overnight about not playing a historical game, as well as a top notch dinner with a good group of people.
Day Two began auspiciously, in that it rained. Was this the turning of the tide of French fortunes? Or was I just being superstitious?
Game Four was against Jeremy with Brittanians (not again!)
The scenario on this table was to get ships near to the central point in the table, where they would score victory points. The only catch? The island was armed to the teeth with guns!
So, I planned to get as much stuff within 4" of the island, claim as many points and do as much damage as I could before the game ended (quickly), not wanting to repeat the previous near trouncing by the KoB!
The cruisers activated first to obliterate the nearby small bunker with turrets and broadsides (a LOT of hits), the smaller ships rolled forward and began bombarding the central island. Some good rolling meant damage points started appearing quickly on the bunker, my plan appeared to be working!
That was until the enemy destroyers zipped out and turned one cruiser into a burning hulk, that wasn't in the plan!
My counter fire from the Battleship and Voltaires was directed at the enemy Cruisers, as well as the Destroyers.
The Bunker in the centre fired, obliterating a frigate, but leaving everything else unscathed.
The next turn, I made sure to quickly finish off the Destroyers (I don't like facing them, so many dice of attacks!) and to keep my firepower directed at the enemy Cruisers. I lost half HP on the remaining two cruisers, but the key was that I was in control of the island, causing a victory in my favour!
The best thing for me was using my frigates to capture the bunker in the middle of the island. It had no benefit, but it was cool!
It was a very enjoyable game, and I get the feeling that had it kept going on for another turn or two, we would have simply annihilated each other, until there was nothing left!
So, 3 wins, one draw. On to game five! Vive le France!
Game Five against Nick with his Covenant.
Darn! Covenant again! I was hoping to avoid this fleet, because of a wave lurking Battleship and lots of destroyers, I was not confident at all of victory!
The mission was simple, pick up some tiny boats with valuable scouts on board, while also not letting the HMS Ocean smack into a nearby iceberg....
The game went pretty well for me, both Nick and my inability to roll a 4+ to pick up a coast watcher was highly comical, and led us to both believe that we might be able to sneak off with one of our opponents ones! It was not to be (because I couldn't roll a 4+)
The real fighting was all about the HMS Ocean. This ship had developed a reputation for not liking being boarded!
And it sure did live up to that reputation! First the Voltaires attempted to board, losing 4 AP to AA fire (from 4 dice, sigh), then they only killed ONE of the enemy AP (there is 3). Next, the Cruisers had a go, losing yet more AP, and not killing the enemy!
It was only when I used the die hard Epaulard submarine crew (with no AA fire!) that I was able to capture the Ocean. But the ordeal wasn't over, those 3 crew then had to fight off 7 boarders from the Antarctican Battleship that had just surfaced! So, AA kills 4 (from 4 dice again), then the Die Hard crew kill the remaining 3 for no losses!
We worked it out at around 18 AP points that the Ocean killed in our game alone, it had claimed all of the AP from a KoB carrier earlier, as well as having destroyed a Vanguard Submarine that rammed it!
Not a boat you want to mess with...
But back to the game, I had a 4+ dice roll to pick up the last coast watcher, which I failed. Which left the game at a draw!
So, 3 wins, 2 draws. Which was enough to leave me in First Place along with Jeremy (of game 4 fame). It was a most enjoyable weekend, I really liked the opportunity to play 5 games of Dystopian Wars in a row, without getting distracted by other games!
And a few more random pics from the weekend.
Now there is talk of Dystopian Wars at TAGcon later this year, so if you are keen, do come along for some sweet steampunky type action!
One of my favourite parts of tournaments has to be the swag that I bought over the weekend...
So many thanks to all involved, organisers, players, umpires, Hobby Hub, Richard for letting me stay. It all added up to a very good weekend!
Back to painting, tomorrow a "How to" guide for my French fleet I think...
CP
