Ruckdog wrote:Eh, as others have pointed out, escorts and CAP can really help larger models with this problem. For smaller models, I've found that I can usually hold range long enough to whittle down the enemies smaller ships before they hit 4". The thing is, even cruisers die relatively easily in this game; getting 6 hits for a crit is not all that hard to do. The bigger problem, as I see it, are the airships. The can come in obscured and then board the pants off you! The best way to mitigate that factor that I've found is to limit the number of airships in the game.

Irregardless, there is no getting around the fact that boarding is a major part of DW. This makes the game closer in feel to an age of sail game than a WWI/WWII naval game, so if that kind of game is what you were hoping for, I can understand your disappointment. Still, I have found DW to be a fun game in it's own right, so YMMV.

Airships are unbalanced. It's obvious that they released the game way to soon. I would expect mk2 to be released in the near future.

The tiny fliers are such a clunky mechanic in the game it takes a lot away from 'smooth' game play.

I absolutely dislike a game mechanic/design flaw that forces you to have to take certain units, like escorts.

I could go on and on about how bad this game is, from basic game systems to unbalances, but...

imweasel wrote:Airships are unbalanced. It's obvious that they released the game way to soon. I would expect mk2 to be released in the near future.

In what way would you say they're imbalanced? Personally, I don't find them to be too powerful for their cost, but I'd be interested in hearing your thinking on this.

The tiny fliers are such a clunky mechanic in the game it takes a lot away from 'smooth' game play.

Agreed, I don't particularly like the fuel points system, would like to see it removed.

I absolutely dislike a game mechanic/design flaw that forces you to have to take certain units, like escorts.

You're not really forced to. If you want more air defence, you can go down the CAP route. I don't see a problem with having to build lists built on certain premises, myself, as it makes for less spamming.

htj wrote:In what way would you say they're imbalanced? Personally, I don't find them to be too powerful for their cost, but I'd be interested in hearing your thinking on this.

Flying obscured. I can basically ignore your fire, fly up in the clouds, swoop down and board you. Prussians are really, really, really, really good at this.

htj wrote:You're not really forced to. If you want more air defence, you can go down the CAP route. I don't see a problem with having to build lists built on certain premises, myself, as it makes for less spamming.

Yes you are. Try to defend your 250pt dreadnought vs the same number of points of airships WITHOUT escorts. CAP just doesn't cut it.

Obscured is OP, I'll admit. Bumping it down to 5+ or adding more long range AA attacks would take care of this. That being said, lower AA on airships would see them very vulnerable to TF fighters, and would serve the same.

Whilst I could just say 'don't take a Dreadnought' that would be facetious of me. But personally, I don't see needing some kind of anti-air defence as a bad thing. For example, you wouldn't field a 40K army without any AT. It'd be suicide. Same basic principle, as I see it. CAP fighters should be just as effective as escorts, looking at the numbers. What am I missing here?

htj wrote:Obscured is OP, I'll admit. Bumping it down to 5+ or adding more long range AA attacks would take care of this. That being said, lower AA on airships would see them very vulnerable to TF fighters, and would serve the same.

Whilst I could just say 'don't take a Dreadnought' that would be facetious of me. But personally, I don't see needing some kind of anti-air defence as a bad thing. For example, you wouldn't field a 40K army without any AT. It'd be suicide. Same basic principle, as I see it. CAP fighters should be just as effective as escorts, looking at the numbers. What am I missing here?

Airships have plenty of AA. If they are capital class, they get to take cap as well.

At least in 40k, my AT can be used against, well everything. Escorts are only good for defensive fire. Might as well make the DN/BB more costly and throw the escort capabilities in with them.

It's bad game design/decision that forces you to purchase models/play units to 'fix' the issue. Dystopian wars also has rules issues. It was poorly play tested by people that 'knew' how to play the game (and probably by 'fans').

Airships have plenty of AA. If they are capital class, they get to take cap as well.

Yeah, they do. I was suggesting a reduction would be a good thing, rather than claiming that they're OK as they are.

I see what you mean about the game design. For me, it feels like a 1st edition: there's a whole bunch of kinks and flaws in there that need to be worked out. I still find it thoroughly enjoyable, though. The balance issues aren't so bad as to make the game unplayable, but then, I've always been a narrative gamer rather than a competitive gamer. Perhaps that makes me more willing to turn a blind eye to this kind of thing.

My main gripe is with the rulebook. It's bloody awful.

I understand exactly where you are coming from.

We first started playing with starter boxes sans tiny fliers.

It was a blast. At first.

Then we started to play with more of the rules. Turns out the rules are not intuitive and I actually got some errata pushed through.

From a competitive stand point, it's a bad game.

Beer and pretzels? Not so bad and it's not too costly to get into.

I'm a competitive gamer, so I can't recommend it.

Makes sense to me, imweasel.

imweasel wrote:I understand exactly where you are coming from.

We first started playing with starter boxes sans tiny fliers.

It was a blast. At first.

Then we started to play with more of the rules. Turns out the rules are not intuitive and I actually got some errata pushed through.

From a competitive stand point, it's a bad game.

Beer and pretzels? Not so bad and it's not too costly to get into.

I'm a competitive gamer, so I can't recommend it.

Well said! This is pretty much the conclusion I've come too as well, especially after my "keeping people interested" thread last month. As for me, I'll keep on drinking my beer and eating my pretzels .

You can also still impose more limits. My LGS group was quite happy to accept my 50% hard cap on aerial models. We also don't solely use aerial units as obscured board/boarding rushers, we often leave 'em down and let them duke it out with all their weapon systems.

But if you made it so that the dreadnought didn't need any escroting/air support then instead we'd have thread about how it's overpowered and there's nothing you can do to take them down.
Even an airship flying up obscured will then trigger a responsive AA attack when it declares its attack on anything, no?

imweasel wrote:I absolutely dislike a game mechanic/design flaw that forces you to have to take certain units, like escorts.

The rules absolutely need tidying up, they're repetitive and confused. Something we'd noticed that could solve the escorts but needing AA thing was why would any other ship (as long as it was in range) not help out with its AA? Escorts have to remain with their parent vessel but you could have had a small unit of destroyers or frigates that could motor over to help out the dreadnought as and when it was needed. It joins its AA with the dreadnought and once the threat was gone is free to motor away.

I think the draw of the game for me is the setting and the models, these are the most important aspects for myself. Not beiung a competitive gamer I think for what is otherwise a very attractive game to play we'd make a rulebook that had our own corrections in it.

After all, how many people play Monopoly correctly?

Even an airship flying up obscured will then trigger a responsive AA attack when it declares its attack on anything, no?

It'd have to come out of obscured to attack a surface target. It is, however, your one shot against it when it comes in. Knocks out tiny flyers fairly well, but when you've got what is effectively a flying ship it's going to take a lot of AA to bring it down in one round.

Good point about the Monopoly thing. I don't see why wargames should be approached any differently. Personally, when I land on Free Parking, I want the damn money.

CPTPromotable wrote:You can also still impose more limits. My LGS group was quite happy to accept my 50% hard cap on aerial models. We also don't solely use aerial units as obscured board/boarding rushers, we often leave 'em down and let them duke it out with all their weapon systems.

So basically, you are agreeing with me on the fail of DW in the competitive gaming environment.

I suggest the company actually fixing the rules. Personally, they are worse than 40k.

Sattamassagana wrote:The rules absolutely need tidying up, they're repetitive and confused. Something we'd noticed that could solve the escorts but needing AA thing was why would any other ship (as long as it was in range) not help out with its AA? Escorts have to remain with their parent vessel but you could have had a small unit of destroyers or frigates that could motor over to help out the dreadnought as and when it was needed. It joins its AA with the dreadnought and once the threat was gone is free to motor away.

The AA "bubble" you are describing is actually how Point Defense works in Firestorm Armada. Point defense is a bit like a combination of CC and AA, as it works against torpedoes as well. Thus, you could extend the same principle to CC, although will make less of a difference to the overall game that the AA would. Be warned though, this would probably lead to the same tight clustering of ships for mutual defense that is commonly seen in Firestorm.

imweasel wrote:

CPTPromotable wrote:You can also still impose more limits. My LGS group was quite happy to accept my 50% hard cap on aerial models. We also don't solely use aerial units as obscured board/boarding rushers, we often leave 'em down and let them duke it out with all their weapon systems.

So basically, you are agreeing with me on the fail of DW in the competitive gaming environment.

I suggest the company actually fixing the rules. Personally, they are worse than 40k.

I dunno...I'm still of the mindset that they are not worse, just different. Spartan never intended DW, FA, or US to be anything other than beer & pretzels games, based on statements made by the company's founder during his interviews with the D6G. Unfortunately, the models they are making are getting so good that they have attracted the attention of players like yourself who just aren't a fan of that style of game. That seems to be leading to a phenomena where gamers are buying into DW expecting a tight, balanced game like Warmahordes or 40k, and being disappointed over time for the reasons already mentioned. None of that should be taken as saying the DW rules are good as-is, or that the company doesn't listen to its players doesn't appreciate feedback, and has no plans to improve its games (infact, Spartan's past actions have demonstrated the opposite). Rather, I am trying to express what I see as a difference in priority; right now, I think Spartan is more interested in trying to get more models out and keeping up with demand than completely overhauling the rules to be suitable for a highly competitive environment. Remember, this game has only been out for a whopping 9 months, and has resulted in explosive growth for the company.

What Ruckdog said. The 3 battlespace nature of DW makes any tournament attempt force restrictionsthat don't exist in the book. If we hosted a tournament at any conventionright now, and said 'bring 1000 points of Dystopian Wars following the requirements in the book' you will have people bring naval and air, land and air, and mixes of the three. If you intended it to be an all naval/air tourney you've just messed up, and that's not on the company.

Noone is saying they shouldn't fix stuff, I have a problem currently with certain stacking modifiers that can, given a perfect situaton, make indirect fire bombards hit better than direct fire. Spartan has been, and will continue to, fix things with the game, but the intent from the outset was never a megamazingly tight tournament capable ruleset out of the starting gate.

As to being a fail in the competitive gaming environment, as far as I'm concerned you only fail there if you are trying to make a tourney game and fail at it, they are making a game where I can have great battles where big ships, bigtanks, and big balloons all blast the tar out of each other on one table. Spartan didn't set out to make a tourney game, they set out to make pretty much what we've got now. It needs polish, and we'll see that with the mentioned expansion and the second 4 factions releases.

If I want to play hypercompetitively, I'll pull out the old WM/H stuff(which is actually what I've been ding on top of DW/US, since those two brought me back into tabletop games.) Although even those rules have issues.

Total cop-out in my opinion.

"We never intended our game to be anything but a bro-fisting tickle fight between dudes that want to push toys around".

The issue for me is not necessarily that it's not an ultra tight competitive rules set, although I dearly wish that it had been so. To be fair, the rules imbalances were terrible. KoB battleship was quantitatively terrible yet cost a points premium to other, better battleships, and then the hidden double-whammy of how stat degradation hammers multiple turret models moreso than single or double turret models made it impossible to be worse unless it was actually some sort of floating, battleship-shaped piece of hardened dung.

The big, game-breaking, made-me-sell-my-stuff-and-ragequit factor was twofold:

Disgusting intrafaction imbalance compounded by poor rules interactions.

Age-of-Sail playstyle. When conflict largely devolved into watching capital ships, both naval and air, attempting to get as close as possible to launch boarding parties onto each other, the game died for me. The aesthetic and marketing both suggest something more akin to Battle of Jutland than Battle of Trafalgar.

sourclams wrote:When conflict largely devolved into watching capital ships, both naval and air, attempting to get as close as possible to launch boarding parties onto each other, the game died for me. The aesthetic and marketing both suggest something more akin to Battle of Jutland than Battle of Trafalgar.

I'm using your quote as an example here, but several have mentioned about how it seems to be a rush for boarding. I would attribute this more to playstyle and tactics than the actual rules. In my limited experience I've only ever seen a single boarding action, If the opponent is trying to board, and your playstyle is hang back and fire at them, then you would need to adjust your tactics to keep away from the enemy and blast them out of the water.

Of course if all your opponents are prussians, then of course it's going to be a game of boarding, try playing against the more long ranged factions and see if you feel different. I play EotBS, (only own the starter box at the moment), although when I get serious money and regular opponents I will be running a 1500pt Ika spam list, so my focus will be on keeping opponents distracted while my 4 giant squids sneak up and beat face.

As an unrelated note, this is the list I came up with, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to swap the destroyers for escorts to keep my BBs alive for longer.
Sokotsu Battleship 1
Sokotsu Battleship 1

Tanuki Gunship 3
Tanuki Gunship 3

Ika Mechanical Squid 2
Ika Mechanical Squid 2

Uwatsu Frigate 4
Uwatsu Frigate 4

Yurgi Destroyer 2

Don't have enough experience to say whether the list is any good, nor do I have the models to make the list, but I think it might work.

@Zero. Rather than dropping the Destroyers for Escorts, I would suggest dropping some Frigates for Escorts.

As to the flaws of the ruleset, I'm still too green to go to work on them, but I can forsee working with my regular playing group to hammer out a modified rule system to balance it at some point in the future. I'd never rage-quit, as I'm in it for the models, and I want to use them!

Leigen_Zero wrote: I play EotBS, (only own the starter box at the moment), although when I get serious money and regular opponents I will be running a 1500pt Ika spam list, so my focus will be on keeping opponents distracted while my 4 giant squids sneak up and beat face.

So your tactic is primarily going to be...

Getting your forces in close and launching squids+boba fetts at the enemy?

This is the exact same approach as the Prussian blimp spam, except utilizing the even more powerful submerged rules.

Ruckdog wrote:

Sattamassagana wrote:The rules absolutely need tidying up, they're repetitive and confused. Something we'd noticed that could solve the escorts but needing AA thing was why would any other ship (as long as it was in range) not help out with its AA? Escorts have to remain with their parent vessel but you could have had a small unit of destroyers or frigates that could motor over to help out the dreadnought as and when it was needed. It joins its AA with the dreadnought and once the threat was gone is free to motor away.

The AA "bubble" you are describing is actually how Point Defense works in Firestorm Armada. Point defense is a bit like a combination of CC and AA, as it works against torpedoes as well. Thus, you could extend the same principle to CC, although will make less of a difference to the overall game that the AA would. Be warned though, this would probably lead to the same tight clustering of ships for mutual defense that is commonly seen in Firestorm.

But that would in itself give the advantage for fixed channel weapons. Swings and roundabouts.

Most comments on here seem to devolve into "damned Prussians, always boarding grumble grumble..." but with my Prussian fleet I only had one successful board, a load of marines killed and some ships left (almost) undefended. Seems far more sensible to me to just shoot the hell out of things.

sourclams wrote:

Leigen_Zero wrote: I play EotBS, (only own the starter box at the moment), although when I get serious money and regular opponents I will be running a 1500pt Ika spam list, so my focus will be on keeping opponents distracted while my 4 giant squids sneak up and beat face.

So your tactic is primarily going to be...

Getting your forces in close and launching squids+boba fetts at the enemy?

This is the exact same approach as the Prussian blimp spam, except utilizing the even more powerful submerged rules.

No only the squids will get up in your grill, the boats are going to hang back and provide longer ranged support without trying to get into boarding range. I know I'm disadvantaging myself by not boarding with my boats, but I'm using a tactic that makes me reminisce of the heady days of red alert 2 (pre Yuri's revenge) when you had a soviet naval force that consisted entirely of dreadnaughts lobbing missiles while giant squids pulled the opponents naval defence to the seabed!

Sattamassagana wrote:
But that would in itself give the advantage for fixed channel weapons. Swings and roundabouts.

Most comments on here seem to devolve into "damned Prussians, always boarding grumble grumble..." but with my Prussian fleet I only had one successful board, a load of marines killed and some ships left (almost) undefended. Seems far more sensible to me to just shoot the hell out of things.

Speaking of fixed channels, another dynamic that will change is that clustering ships together will cause LOS issues in DW that it wouldn't in FA, where ships don't block LOS. So you're right, there will be some interesting trade-offs involved with taking advantage of an AA/CC bubble. As for Prussians boarding, I think you have a point; if your opponent has good luck with AA and melee rolling, the Prussian player is in trouble. I had much the same experience playing my Prussians for the first time in my last game. That being said, on average the Prussians are a boarding threat to be reckoned with, and if the dice swing the other way they can wipe out an enemy with very little damage in return. That is exactly what happens when I play against Prussians with my FSA; I manage to kill 1 or 2 boarders with AA, and then kill only a few with my own marines before getting wiped out .

Leigen_Zero wrote:
No only the squids will get up in your grill, the boats are going to hang back and provide longer ranged support without trying to get into boarding range. I know I'm disadvantaging myself by not boarding with my boats, but I'm using a tactic that makes me reminisce of the heady days of red alert 2 (pre Yuri's revenge) when you had a soviet naval force that consisted entirely of dreadnaughts lobbing missiles while giant squids pulled the opponents naval defence to the seabed!

Great visual! Man, it has been a long time since I've played that game!

Anyway, this will probably be a pretty powerful force, but you will need to watch out for CC-sniping airships, as well as your opponent's larger ships focusing enough firepower on the squids as they close such that even only hitting on 's won't be enough to save them. An enemy dreadnought or battleship catching a squid at RB2 will be throwing a LOT of dice at it. A mark in your favor is that you will have 4 squids, while your opponent will not have 4 dreadnoughts .

Ruckdog wrote:
Anyway, this will probably be a pretty powerful force, but you will need to watch out for CC-sniping airships, as well as your opponent's larger ships focusing enough firepower on the squids as they close such that even only hitting on 's won't be enough to save them. An enemy dreadnought or battleship catching a squid at RB2 will be throwing a LOT of dice at it. A mark in your favor is that you will have 4 squids, while your opponent will not have 4 dreadnoughts .

This is kind of what I was going for, I can't remember if CC is reduced by damage (probably isn't, like ACK-ACK) but the purpose of the other boats is to soften up the boats and present a target saturation so that the opponent either concentrates on the boats and gets nommed by the squids, or concentrates on the squids and gets blasted by the boats.

For that to work, though, you will be better off having your BB's close with the squids; to be honest, I don't think a DN with two shield generators is going to be very scared of a BB's range band 3 or 4 shooting.

Ruckdog wrote:For that to work, though, you will be better off having your BB's close with the squids; to be honest, I don't think a DN with two shield generators is going to be very scared of a BB's range band 3 or 4 shooting.

I kind of like that idea, it sounds like a good tactic, and give me the image of some mad Japanese scientist in a lab-coat with some yuri-style mind-control helmet standing on the bridge of each battleship directing his 'pets' with wild arm-flailing gestures.

Hello all

Thought you may like this ...

Dystopian Wars France Magenta Battleship - Review



Full review here ...
http://colshofer.blogspot.com/2011/09/colonel-shoots-colonel-scores-part-3.html

CS

Nice! I'm looking forward to painting this one.

*sigh* I had somebody that was going to pick me up one of those beauties at gencon, but it fell through due to family emergency taking me away from anywhere internet-able(sic) before i could confirm with him/get him the money for it. Color me sufficiently jealous that you have one already!

They are available on eBay if your so inclined. You may want to be sitting down when you look at the pricing.

Hi folks,

@Ruckdog Long time before I paint it

@Sarge Yup. noticed that.

@CPT ... One day, my son, all that will be yours

CS

So just ordered my first fleet, Blazing Sun. Any tips or recommendations for starting out? Also I'm the only one in my area who is going to have a fleet so I'll have to buy a second one so I can have people to play with/ introduce to the game, any suggestions?

Well, it all depends on the tastes of the guys in your group, but the FSA are a good bet I would say since they are a pretty solid all-around fleet, and would give your friends the option of playing for the "home team" .

Other than that, the Antarcticans are really cool looking and can fight anyone.

The Antarctic fleet looked pretty awesome. Is there anywhere i can look to give me a quick overview of how each fleet plays? I looked on the spartan games page but it was more fluff oriented and didn't give me anything substantial to go on. I picked the blazing sun just because I liked the models. Also is there any info on the Republique of France, the page was up but there wasn't any info.

there are some general archetypes for each faction:

Empire of the Blazing Sun: eclectic mix of long and short range, focuses on higher CR(so harder for terrible things to happen to a ship like breaking the rudder or starting a fire) and tends to have some good speed. They move superfast and hit like a truck when they get there, while tossing out some long range love to the other side of the board.

Federated States of America: the good ol' boys, focusing on higher DR(so harder to put that first little bit of damage on) and long range engagements, these guys have a generator for every situation.

Prussian Empire: superfast, good at short range, terrifying boarders. with little defensive bonuses, the PE stock up on speed to get in your face fast and smash it when they arrive.

Kingdom of Britannia: mid range with lots of torpedoes and lots of mines for the fliers. focus on lots of weapon systems, so they put out more single damage as opposed to fewer bigger crits. can often swap turrets for shields.

Coveneant of Antarctica: well, i don't have the book for them(noone in the store has any yet) so Ruckdog's little blurb is all you have/ you can also look on the Spartan forums in the CoA tactics section, until such time as someone on dakkadakka puts up some good tactica for them.

Hopefully this helps!

That was was good. Thank you. So would you suggest standing back and shooting at the enemy or trying to get in their face. Also how effective are the bombers and fighters?

I assume that you are referring to the tiny flyers (as opposed to the medium-sized flyers that come with the fleet boxes). In my opinion, Not Very. True, 4 or 5 dive bombers or torpedo bombers can really put a hurt on a target, if they get through. The problem is that AA defenses are such that tiny flyers are going to die pretty easily against healthy targets. On top of that, tiny flyers add a bit of book keeping and fiddlyness to the game, slowing it down. For that reason, I've actually taken to leaving tiny flyers out of many of my games.

A couple weeks ago, while up at the FLGS playing some 40k I saw some guys playing a four-way battle of DW. I really liked the models and watched them play for a bit in between games of 40k. Ever since I've been reading about the game and looking around online to try and find the best prices for DW models.

I took the plunge tonight and ordered the FSA starter fleet for myself, the CoA fleet for my brother, along with the rulebook, and cards. I'm really psyched to get the models painted and on the table. I'm hoping that I'll be able to rope a few of my other gaming friends into DW as well. I'll update with some pictures once the models arrive and I begin painting them.

Cool, looking forward to seeing your ships, augustus5!

Got my DW package in the mail Friday. Got the rulebook, card deck and FSA & CoA starter fleets. I've sprayed them with primer but am wondering what my next move should be.

Since I have no real experience playing, I'm not sure what choice of turrets to take for my cruisers and battleships. I'd like to have the option to swap turrets, but haven't worked with resin before. I'm torn between trying to magnetize the turrets or drilling and pinning the turrets, but I'm not sure which method would be best when working with resin.

Does anybody have an opinion on how to best set up the ships for swapping the turrets, or is there a certain build I should go for and forego swapping turrets altogether?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I'm looking at getting into this.
I plan to pick up the 4 fleet mega bundle.
Does anyone know a store that'll ship internationally, I'm not looking for the cheapest, just the most reliable.
I've tried Spartan's own store, but their shopping cart isn't playing ball.

The only place I have seen the four fleet mega-bundle offered, besides at Spartan's store, has been on ebay, and they were asking more than Spartan's web site was. Spartan also offers free shipping worldwide with the mega-bundle, so hopefully you can get the shopping cart to work for you. I ordered through: miniaturemarket.com, which sells at 25% off retail and offers free shipping on orders over $99, so even though they don't have the mega-bundle in stock, you could order the individual components from them and still save some money.

They're working on the problem, it's looking like a paypal issue.
I've had the same problem with wayland and maelstrom.
Neither will send to a different delivery address than that of the invoice address.
As I work overseas, but my bank cards are registered in the UK, I need to invoice my UK address, but need the stuff sent out to Saudi, or wait 6 months to pick it up when I'm home.
The only wargaming company I never have any trouble ordering from is GW. Everyone else makes it hard to spend my money.

augustus5 wrote:The only place I have seen the four fleet mega-bundle offered, besides at Spartan's store, has been on ebay, and they were asking more than Spartan's web site was. Spartan also offers free shipping worldwide with the mega-bundle, so hopefully you can get the shopping cart to work for you. I ordered through: miniaturemarket.com, which sells at 25% off retail and offers free shipping on orders over $99, so even though they don't have the mega-bundle in stock, you could order the individual components from them and still save some money.

Yeah, that's been what I've seen too. The War Store also has pretty good prices on the individual boxes. Not sure what their overseas shipping is like, though.

Seems to be sorted out thanks to some very prompt customer service by Katie Bennett at Spartan.
These guys will be getting my business again.

I may go on to collect the full range for each fleet, they all look so good.

Try Waylandgames.co.uk

wayland won't ship to me, due to the delivery address being different to the shipping address.
Apparently someone took them for several thousand pounds worth of stock, so they won't do differing invoice/delivery any more.
It's a shame because I want to get a load of FoW as well.

augustus5 wrote:Got my DW package in the mail Friday. Got the rulebook, card deck and FSA & CoA starter fleets. I've sprayed them with primer but am wondering what my next move should be.

Since I have no real experience playing, I'm not sure what choice of turrets to take for my cruisers and battleships. I'd like to have the option to swap turrets, but haven't worked with resin before. I'm torn between trying to magnetize the turrets or drilling and pinning the turrets, but I'm not sure which method would be best when working with resin.

Does anybody have an opinion on how to best set up the ships for swapping the turrets, or is there a certain build I should go for and forego swapping turrets altogether?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Likewise.. I am also in the same boat. I have aquired the NSAmerican and the Prussian naval starters, and they are en-route. Once they get here I am torn between what to load out the boats with.. and swappable turrets sound key to me..

Advice would be very helpful..

I use magnets on mine, and it works great. For turrets, I actually trim and file the bottom flush first, as it gives the magnet more surface area to adhere to when I glue it on. I then drill out the small hole in the model to the appropriate diameter for the magnets I'm using, and glue one in. With one magnet in the hole on the model and one on the bottom of the turret, I can turn the model upside down without the turret falling out, yet it will still rotate freely.

I just got into this recently, using Empire of the Blazing Sun.

The models are fun to paint, and while the exploding dice mechanic can get irritating at times, the fact that you have to DOUBLE the enemy's CR to get 2x critical hits means that there's a huge gap between "lucky shot" and "one in a million shot". If something is CR 8 then yeah 8 hits gets a crit, but it's not until you get 16 that ANYTHING else happens, so it's pretty rare.

What's far, far more annoying is the "I got a crit, what is it....oh, magazine explosion!" Box cars and snake eyes both kill the enemy ship outright, which I find to be a tad bit irritating.


Tell you what though, I love my squid. Best damn model/unit in any game I've played so far.

Ruckdog wrote:I use magnets on mine, and it works great. For turrets, I actually trim and file the bottom flush first, as it gives the magnet more surface area to adhere to when I glue it on. I then drill out the small hole in the model to the appropriate diameter for the magnets I'm using, and glue one in. With one magnet in the hole on the model and one on the bottom of the turret, I can turn the model upside down without the turret falling out, yet it will still rotate freely.

won't it look a little odd being slightly raised? From what you wrote, it sounds like the hole in the hull is the only one you a drilling out, and the turret magnet will raise the turret itself...

Not quite; I make sure to drill out the hole in the model deep enough so that the turret will sit flush even with a magnet glued to the bottom of it .

My first batch of stuff arrived.
I'm now the proud owner of a Prussian and an EotBS fleet.
My Britannic and Federated States fleets are still en-route (along with my rule books)

I'll probably start painting at the weekend, I need to pick up a compressor for my airbrush.

I can't wait to see how they come out. I have been brush-painint all of my DW minis; I have never tried airbrushing anything that small!

The other stuff arrived today.
I'm loving the FSA stuff, it looks great.
I now need to pick a fleet to start on.
Might break out a D4 and leave it to chance...

I'm really thinking about jumping into this game, but...

So far the only ships I like the looks of are the French and they aren't out yet. Has anyone compared sizes to see if any of the other pre-1900 ship minis out there work scale wise?

I'd love to field Spanish-American war era USN ships (hate the goofy paddle wheelers like a vegan hates the Golden Arches) but wouldn't want to waste the money if the scales are way off.

Haven't looked at ships from other lines, but I'm sure if you find some ships that are in the same scale, they would work.

Built for Glory!!!

Here is the link for the rest.

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/built-for-glory

The Spartan blog has been essential viewing for the last few weeks. They've shown the Corvettes, Gunships, Carriers and the Britannian heavy flyer. It's been quite exciting.

The scenery pieces are due for release imminently too.

Yeah, it has been pretty interesting to see all these previews, I agree! The crazy part is that all of these models are due to be released over the next few months. Gives me plenty of ideas for the ol' Christmas list.

Ruckdog wrote:Yeah, it has been pretty interesting to see all these previews, I agree! The crazy part is that all of these models are due to be released over the next few months. Gives me plenty of ideas for the ol' Christmas list.

Am I on your christmas list, I could do with some Ika

I got myself a CoA-naval starter set. Been painting up the models lately. Going against the Eotbs this Wednesday. Starter VS starter. Anyone got any good suggestions? I think we're going to play on the dreadfleet mat, with 12X12 opposite corner deployment. Mission: killem alll.

Well, from what I have seen so far the CoA tends to be a close-range fleet with their standard weapons equipped. Standing off with your energy turrets might not be a bad strategy, although you will sacrifice a significant number of AD at RB 1 & 2. Against EoBS, though, your cruisers will have a decided advantage, as they all come with shield generators. This means that you will have a decent chance of being able to get into close range with your opponent in one piece!

Do anyone have any experience with the land based warfare in DW? I've just bought the starter set for CoA and I'm going to run some tank/walker action soon.

I've played a couple of games on land, and I think it is pretty fun. The only thing you have to be careful about is that air power dominates land units pretty badly, so you might want to institute order of battle rules to prevent that.

So, there have been some fairly major rules changes on the Spartan Games blog. Anyone had a look and have any thoughts about them?

Personally, I find the change to how Tiny Flyers work to be quite the breath of fresh air. We've house ruled flyers in my group to tidy them up a bit, and these new rules go even further, clarifying what I found to be a very muddy mechanic.

So....
Obscured units still cause hits on only a 6, but get hit on a 56?
When boarding, you keep going until someone is at 0 or do you just pull remaining boarders back after one go around?
Do you get cc against diving robots that board?
When you destroy a diving robot via boarding, do you bring your remaining men back?

Spartan has declared the crab-walk 45 degree turn abuse legal now, adding only that you take damage from doing so.

Tiny fliers are still hit on a 56? Do you get another roll from a 6 like normal?
Do you still get ackack counterattack against tiny fliers?
Does each token in a wing need to be in range to attack, or just any part of the wing? Vice-versa for shooting at the wing, can you kill models out of range?
A single abort result keeps the entire wing from attacking? Right...

So nobody can have a core aerial force, as there are no small fliers?

I think those are the biggest things I see right now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ahhh it says simultaneously resolve attacks from tiny fliers...does that mean that you can't prevent being shot by them at that moment, even if you can put some damage on them for the attempt?

Still working my way through all the PDFs, so I haven't gotten through the tiny flyer one yet. As for the others,

Spellbound wrote:
Obscured units still cause hits on only a 6, but get hit on a 56?

Looks like. Makes it less of a defensive bonus.

When boarding, you keep going until someone is at 0 or do you just pull remaining boarders back after one go around?

You now pull them back after one go around. This is a pretty big nerf to boarding, as now if you do not take the ship in the first try, you wind up having to face the defensive AA again on the second.

Do you get cc against diving robots that board?

I would say yes...I see nothing in the revised rules PDF that would prohibit it.

When you destroy a diving robot via boarding, do you bring your remaining men back?

Again, I would say so based on the PDFs not saying otherwise.

Spartan has declared the crab-walk 45 degree turn abuse legal now, adding only that you take damage from doing so.

I saw the movement clarification, but I'm not sure what you are referring to though...

Someone made a post on the spartan forums that the CoA crab, their large land unit, has to move 0" between each 45 degree turn. Since it is much wider than it is long, that 45 degree turn wheels the outside edge WAY far around. Alternate 45 degree turns and its 6" move now becomes like 12" of movement as it wheels its outside edge much further than normal with each inch of movement. People were debating how to go about this, since it was perfectly legal to make 6 45 degree turns, but it ended up moving much further. People house ruled it [or just didn't do it], but it seems Spartan Games noticed it as well.

Rather than say it's illegal, though, it appears like they've said you can go ahead and do it, but you WILL take damage if you try. The squid can do it too, but I suppose as long as you make an inch of forward movement between each turn, then you're safe.

I'm not that worried about cc against my squids when they board. Most ships have very little cc. A dreadnought would likely have like 6, maybe 2 more with escorts, and after rugged construction would be taken down to 7. It might get a point of damage, but that won't reduce my AP at all.

I'm sad that the squids can't derelict ships anymore by reducing them to 0 AP in a boarding action, though. It will however cause a crit, and then I can continue boarding every turn, automatically winning, and getting further critical hits.

Still, makes it more involved than just wrecking the thing.

Ahh...I had missed that whole discussion about the CoA walker. Interesting.

I wonder if there is supposed to be some exception for boarding by robots...it seems like you should still be able to derelict a ship with one in a boarding action.

Well with RAW, you can't at the moment. What I can do, though, is get my squid going 9" instead of 7 by doing two alternating 45 degree turns, moving an inch, then doing two more turns and moving two more inches forward.

I think my opponents will be guilting me into not going that, though, at risk of losing said opponents. Simple fact is, though, that if I make a single turn, I gain 1/2" of movement. I honestly see it as a bit of a trade-off for not being able to make a 180 degree spin and drop a mine on someone anymore, or line up nicely next to a ship I want to board so that I can fire my fixed channel forward guns at something else.

I'm just glad it's only 100 points still. The theme for the Japanese fleet seemed to be "Make it easier to kill, reduce its firepower, but up its point cost". At least the war gyro is finally here. I'm expecting good things from him, and the gunships should nicely replace my cruisers.

For all interested in this game, the models look great on the tt, the game has sensible rules (with the exception of the lack of balance of the antarctic army, time warp generator thing is SOOO OP) Check it out, its a real good game

Great to see some decent discussion of dystopian wars on this forum.
It really is a good game that I recommend people get into. I play with a small gaming group based at the Darksphere store in london.

amplebob wrote:Great to see some decent discussion of dystopian wars on this forum.
It really is a good game that I recommend people get into. I play with a small gaming group based at the Darksphere store in london.

Hey, I'm not so far from there and have some Dystopian stuff but haven't got in a game yet. I've not got my things with me as I've just moved house, but I'd like to try a game to get started.

amplebob wrote:Great to see some decent discussion of dystopian wars on this forum.
It really is a good game that I recommend people get into. I play with a small gaming group based at the Darksphere store in london.

Especially since the Spartan forum has degenerated into 5-6 players constantly making circle jerk threads about how unbalanced the game is and how you sacrifice orphans and puppies if you disagree with them or play FSA.

I am running a big demo/mega battle to gin up more interest this spring. I want to do a Blazing Sun raid on New York City during fleet week with about 3500-4000 points a side. I am curious to see if anyone has used instillation yet and how they fared.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

amplebob wrote:Great to see some decent discussion of dystopian wars on this forum.
It really is a good game that I recommend people get into. I play with a small gaming group based at the Darksphere store in london.

Hey, I'm not so far from there and have some Dystopian stuff but haven't got in a game yet. I've not got my things with me as I've just moved house, but I'd like to try a game to get started.

Hi, we're having some games down at darksphere this sunday from 12 till 6. Always good to have another player. If you're up for it, just pm me or reply on here.

Dice Monkey wrote:
Especially since the Spartan forum has degenerated into 5-6 players constantly making circle jerk threads about how unbalanced the game is and how you sacrifice orphans and puppies if you disagree with them or play FSA.

Hee hee,I think I know who you are talking about; I'm sure they mean well, but I can't help the fact that my experiences with the game just don't match theirs.

]I am running a big demo/mega battle to gin up more interest this spring. I want to do a Blazing Sun raid on New York City during fleet week with about 3500-4000 points a side. I am curious to see if anyone has used instillation yet and how they fared.

Awesome! I have used the airfield and coastal defenses in a couple of games, and they did OK. In one game, the coastal defenses got a critical from a DN at RB4, which then resulted in a double six insta-kill . Outside of flukes like that, they seem relatively hard to take down for their points.

Ruckdog wrote:
Hee hee,I think I know who you are talking about; I'm sure they mean well, but I can't help the fact that my experiences with the game just don't match theirs.

I was actually cursed out by one and accused of being a troll when one was trying to use his knowledge of 40K as a point for balanced games. It is usually two Prussian players that do 90% of the whining and it is like they can't grasp the concept of how nasty Prussia small ships are. Fast harder to hit and ridiculously nasty if they close into rang band one. The local player uses a horde of the smaller ones then mops up with his big capital ships and wins the majority of his games. They are so thick headed things like that never occur to them.

Ruckdog wrote:Awesome! I have used the airfield and coastal defenses in a couple of games, and they did OK. In one game, the coastal defenses got a critical from a DN at RB4, which then resulted in a double six insta-kill . Outside of flukes like that, they seem relatively hard to take down for their points.

Good to hear they are tough because my FSA fleet is going to be small with some Britannians on a diplomatic good will mission. The EoTBS will have 3 full Carrier groups (whenever they come out), an entire air division, and a land division basically trying to sink all the carriers, fortifications, landmarks, and what air and ground forces can scramble out. If it goes well we may do a Doolittle Raid this summer.

Sounds neat! I'm working on doing a D-Day style amphibious assault scenario to combine land, air, and sea games into one.

I just started dystopian wars and got a britanian and prussian starter set. The game seems like a lot of fun, but there are some rule stuff that confuses me, like damage. What exactly happens when ships get hit? from what i can get from the rule book, the ad, aa,and cc all get damaged, but what about the ap? Boarding actions also confuse me. I was playing my britanians and was mauling the prussian battleship with my battleship, and had him to 2 hp left, but he just boarded me and with his superior ap overwhelmed me. Is that how it should be? and im also confused of how boarding works with the melee dice and creating critical hits.

Albeezie,

AP is not reduced by damage, unless the model receives a critical hit that causes the loss of AP.

Boarding is quite powerful in the game; you need to be on the look out for it at all times, as it can bite you in the rear when you least expect it to (like the example you listed above).

The causing of critical hits by boarding is a bit different now under the latest rule book updates. Let's just walk through an example boarding action to see how it would work. these stats are just made up, so bear with me:

A battleship with 10 AP conducts a boarding action on another battleship that also has 10 AP. The defending battleship gets to roll its AA, in order to try and shoot down some or all of the attacking marines. These dice hit on a 5 or 6, with a 6 resulting in two hits and another roll.

The defending battleship only has 3 aa left due to damage, and rolls three D6, getting a 2, 4, and a 6. This gives an additional die roll, which results in a 5. This is a total of 3 hits, reducing the attacking AP from 10 to 7.

The two sides now roll their melee dice, which is a number of D6 equal to the AP of each side. So, the attacker rolls 7 D6, while the defender rolls 10D6. These dice will hit on a 4, 5, or 6, with the 6's counting as two hits and allowing another die to be rolled.

After the dice are rolled, both sides add up the total hits they achieved, and subtract that from the number of AP they had going in. So, if the attacker got a total of 8 hits, the defending ship would be left with 2 HP. There are 3 possible results from this:

1. The attacking model has 0 AP left, while the defending model has more than 0. This means the boarding action has failed.

2. The attacking model has more then 0 AP left, while the defending model has none. This means the boarding action has succeeded, and the defending model is now a derelict.

3. Both the attacking model and the defending model have and their AP reduced to 0. This means the boarding assault has failed.

The critical roll you refer to is a Sabotage roll, and that roll is made independent of the 3 results above. To go back to our example, if the attacker scored 8 hits while the defender rolled 7, the assault would have failed because the attacker now has 0 AP and the defender still has 2. However, because the attacker scored more hits than the defenders did, the defending model now suffers a critical hit.

Hope that clears it up for you!

I was sold by the british land ship there lol

thank you so much ruckdog! That cleared up all the questions I had. This makes my prussians so much better.

Hi guys, a load of freinds and i have started this game recently and we're loving it. SO i came on here to ask more experianced players a few questions. I picked up the CoA naval box and am loving how smexy the ships look.

First question: which turret option is the best for my cruisers, the standard or the energy tuirrets? from the few games i've played, energy seem more suited to to long distance fighting, while standard reward in your face tactics. My battleship rocks both, with energy weapons in the upper turrets so i can blaze away then surface at close range for more dakka.

Second: expeanding the fleet, i'm torn between a carrier and a handful of escorts (possibly throw in that medium flyer) and the smexy beast that is the CoA Dreadnaught, which would support the starter fleet better in larger games?

Not intimately familiar with CoA yet (our CoA player only started recently as well) so I will help as best I can.

Overall energy turrets tend to not be as good for one big reason. They usually only provide a bonus to firepower at range band 4, are usually equal at range band 3 and then quickly drop of in strength, CoA has good long ranged firepower as it is without the need to gimp their RB1/2 damage. Though getting early damage on the enemy is good (i.e. long range bombardment), if you can't keep the pressure up at close range then things can get a little harry since a lot of factions will be able to get under your guns quickly and put the hurt on.

So on your cruisers it is fair to ignore energy turrets since they only provide you a damage boost in RB4 which may mean a whole extra turn of fire that is later counteracted when you get to RB2 and are doing the exact same damage. General concensus from a good deal of CoA players seems to be to leave energy turrets at home unless you are playing larger games and can have a group of front line units to take the brunt of the attack and leave some fire support guys back at RB4 where they are at their best.

As for what to pick up next, each Faction's dreadnought is usually a good, solid bet. Dreadnoughts are very efficient choices for their cost and add a great deal of punch. This is mostly just general advice since I have yet to face down a CoA dread but unless something went very wrong it will likely be a nasty customer. I also hear that time dilation orbs are pretty nice to have around for quick fleet maneuvering. So I'd probably go for dread first and then fill it out with the orb and some escorts.

I too would take the dread over the carrier; they are pretty rock solid, and put out a lot of firepower. The carrier can be a good support unit, but it wont work as the centerpiece of a flee the way a dreadnought can.

'tis decided then, the Dreadnought will be purchased soon. I just need a name for her.

Danica

Hmm, always thought Bombastus would fit the CoA theme well.

Well, i named my Battleship "Clarity of Thought", so for the dreadnought i'm thinking either "Stalwart Mentor." or " Guardian of Knowledge."

I would have named them after philosophers, but all the good ones are taken by ship classes and the rest i can't pronounce.

Well, have you used "Bruce"?

Best philosophers from the University of Wallamaloo ...

Aristottle was a BLEEP fer the bottle

google translate is my best friend in this department, my daedalus is called torder regn (norweigan for thunder rain)

Played a few games with the dread and i must say i'm very impressed. In one four player battle it anilated two rival dreadnaughts, one with a first shot critical, while taking only a single point of hull damage from enemy fire during the fight.

Knowledge is power indeed.

Okay! After an aborted attempt last year because of family issues, I'm now trying to jump headfirst back into Dystopian Wars. Looking at the CoA. As I figure I may as well do a £100 order from Spartan Games to get the free shipping, any recommendations as to what to get ontop of the starter box and rulebook(Which I'm sad I've missed out on the Black Wolf model they were offering with that D: )?

I'd ask on the Spartan Games forums, but that's unfortunately impossible until they get their new forum up and running

I just checked the Republique of France book that came with the starter sets, and the sky fortress is a whooping 260 points (about twice the value of any other sky fortresses in the game)! Any idea if it's a typo or actual value?

mudster wrote:I just checked the Republique of France book that came with the starter sets, and the sky fortress is a whooping 260 points (about twice the value of any other sky fortresses in the game)! Any idea if it's a typo or actual value?

The thing is a beast though, 4 turrets, torpedoes, rockets, 12HP... It's a flying Dreadnought.

Picked up a fleet and cannot wait to try this game. I just hope it does not die out like so many smaller games do at my flgs.

Alairan wrote:Okay! After an aborted attempt last year because of family issues, I'm now trying to jump headfirst back into Dystopian Wars. Looking at the CoA. As I figure I may as well do a £100 order from Spartan Games to get the free shipping, any recommendations as to what to get ontop of the starter box and rulebook(Which I'm sad I've missed out on the Black Wolf model they were offering with that D: )?

I'd ask on the Spartan Games forums, but that's unfortunately impossible until they get their new forum up and running

I would start with the Dreadnought next, myself. Maybe start adding in some medium flyers or the airship from there.

Still have not primed mine just not sure what colour to paint them

I'm looking to get into DW, bought the rulebook first, to see how i'd like a new system. My only tabletop experience has been with Fantasy and 40k. Kinda curious as to how streamlined the rules are, pacing of a game, and i guess really how the game plays over all, before I buy models. Although I may buy some anyways, I love the concept and (for the scale) some of the mobile airfields are absolutely gigantic.

Im planning on getting two starter sets and the rulebook by making use of Maelstorms 25% off deal Then im going to 'introduce' (more like impose) the game onto my local club
Ive spent nearly a year trying to dispersuade myself..... mabye its about time I gave up

Give up! I've gotten two armored starter sets, two naval starter sets, and two rulebooks for what I would spend to get a 2000 point 40k army, if I bought used. Rules are intuitive once you read through them, and a lot of things just make sense which is refreshing. Models are tiny, but incredibly detailed. even the 2mm high small tanks have rivets. I got one of my 40k buddies to play a quick round, he loved the rules, and now we're about to introduce it to our FLGS, who nobody there really knows about it.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the game, too! I have noticed that the game tends to "sell itself" with the cool models and fun gameplay.

Alairan wrote:Okay! After an aborted attempt last year because of family issues, I'm now trying to jump headfirst back into Dystopian Wars. Looking at the CoA. As I figure I may as well do a £100 order from Spartan Games to get the free shipping, any recommendations as to what to get ontop of the starter box and rulebook(Which I'm sad I've missed out on the Black Wolf model they were offering with that D: )?

I'd ask on the Spartan Games forums, but that's unfortunately impossible until they get their new forum up and running

I'd say get two starter fleets in there, simply because that way you can get others who haven't invested in an army to play with you (and hopefully become equally interested).

Doesn't make it up to £100 but it's a good start, I have the EotBS starter fleet, haven't bothered with Dys Wars because I literally haven't played any games since I bought the starter box around the release time, no opponents, no gaming club etc etc. A friend bought the mega bundle at release and due to having multiple fleets, was able to rope a couple of friends into playing some games, who are now avid Dys Wars players

So, anyone seen the Russian pics? Two ships and a Land Dreadnaught!

Yeah, the and dreadnought is interesting, both because it is a new model and because it points to a new class of land unit.

I always figured they were going to add a massive capital class offensive model, to pair up with the massive capital carriers. Not too keen on the frigate, but the front of the battleship and the land dreadnought both look awesome.

I like the frigate myself, just because it harkens back to two circular ironclads that were actually built by the Russians in the 1870s. It sort of tickles my inner naval history geek .

I know, right? I'm hoping for some Tsar tanks for the land, myself.

I imagine there's probably going to be something interesting with the maneuverability of the Frigates.

I imagine they might get 360 degree movement, or perhaps that gun will have a 360 arc of fire.

Yeah... so I had avoided getting into this strictly because I didn't have people nearby that played, and if I can't buy models 'on-hand' I tend not to. I like being able to buy stuff in the store, not place orders.

Turns out the Family Game Store in Savage Mills decided to dive in feet-first on this game. They have a wall that has pretty much every model in the range on it.

Damnit.

So I was looking at all the stuff, waffling on what to get. I wanted ze Prussians, but was thinking there was a lot of hate on them and their boarding actions and so forth. Bah, I didn't care, I just want spiffy ships. Then this happened.



Nobody told me they had giant robots.

Sold.

Der Metzger! AKA "The Butcher". The one thing I miss is how there's precious little for actual close combat- it's all folded into boarding actions, with no ability to simply damage the enemy vehicle by punching it with a huge metal fist.

Yeah, but I can dream.

The FLGS had every single model ever... but no flippin' rulebooks. So I snagged the giant Prussian Robot and went on my merry way.

I think it looks great. Static, but great.

I'm more of a painter than a player anyway, so now that I've dipped my toe I'll likely end up falling overboard with a navy and an army in quick succession.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with! I personally have been enjoying my Prussians a lot; for whatever reason, I seem to have a lot better luck playing them than the interwebs suggest I'm supposed to have .

Yeah, I take the ranting with a grain of salt really. I play what I want, I play what looks cool, and I play for fun. I'm not competetive enough to get all worked up over stuff, and I'm not stranger to losing a match or twelve. I just like to hang out, talk, roll some dice and blow stuff up.

I'm really looking forward to painting stuff for sure.

I'm not sure what I'm missing going over the units, but are Xenophons (CoA tiny tanks) just arbitrarily bad, or is it just me? They have no compensation for only being able to fight in band 1 compared to other tiny tanks. People made them out like they were super lethal at band 1... but they're not. They have the exact same firepower at band 1 as Ke-hos and Terriers, which are loads better in other ways (and both of which have much more range, the Terrier especially). In fact, every tiny tank squadron can outfight Xenophons at every range band, either by being sturdier with the same firepower, or having a larger squadron size (so more total HP / dice), so not sure what I'm looking for on these guys and why I would ever want to take 2 of them over a single Atticus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, separate topic. Math behind exploding 6's.

I admit I'm not fond of them because they make "hard to hit" fairly low-value - in other words, a tiny tank gets hit by a considerable portion of the hits that a mobile airfield would be hit by. Only hitting on a 5 or 6, or only hitting on a 6, is barely a penalty at all in this setting.

If you need a 4, 5, or 6 to hit, each die you roll will generate an average of 0.8 hits (after all exploding/exploding chains are said and done). This is considerably higher than most games with dice (since without the double hit and roll again of exploding 6's, you'd expect 0.5 hits per dice), but isn't the problem as I see it.

If you need a 5 or 6 to hit, each die you roll will generate 0.6 hits average. If you need a 6 to hit, 0.4 hits is your expected average.


My issue is, on your initial roll of the dice, 6's generate 60% of your damage on a 4,5,6 to-hit, and 72% of the damage on a 5,6 to-hit (and naturally 100% on a 6-only hit). Having such a substantial amount of your damage riding a 1/6 chance means luck plays a considerably higher factor than in other games.

Or to put it in terms of damage per die result, if you need a 4, 5, or 6 to hit, on your INITIAL ROLL, 4's cause 1 hit, 5's cause 1 hit and 6's cause -4- hits average - on average it is 4 times better to roll a 6 than it is to roll a 4 or a 5. If you need a 5,6 to hit, then 5's cause 1 hit, and 6's cause 3 hits average, so on average, it's 3 times better to roll a 6 than a 5. That's a pretty big difference between rolls that are all successes. It's a problem to me because if I roll, say, 6 dice, I only can expect 3 hits out of 1,2,3,4,5,5 but 6 hits out of 1,2,3,4,5,6. Big swing.

Hey man, that's the way it goes. The lucky 2-dice roll that rolls box cars, then box cars, then box cars, then snake eyes. KABOOM!

Sucks when it happens, man, but it happens!

Corseth wrote:I'm not sure what I'm missing going over the units, but are Xenophons (CoA tiny tanks) just arbitrarily bad, or is it just me?

No, you are quite right, CoA small tanks are probably the weakest of all the small tanks out there. However, they are not horribly under-powered compared to the other factions; if the PE and FSA small tanks (these are the two best IMO) are a 10, the CoA are about a 7 I'd say. One other thing to keep in mind is that the strength of the other CoA land units more than make up for their small tank; CoA medium tanks, for example, are among the strongest.

My issue is, on your initial roll of the dice, 6's generate 60% of your damage on a 4,5,6 to-hit, and 72% of the damage on a 5,6 to-hit (and naturally 100% on a 6-only hit). Having such a substantial amount of your damage riding a 1/6 chance means luck plays a considerably higher factor than in other games.

Again, all true.This issue has come up before in this very thread, as a matter of fact; in the end, this is a matter of personal preference. Some gamers can't stand the fact that in DW it's possible (though unlikely) for a frigate to take out a battleship. I, on the other hand, find that aspect of the game a lot of fun as it adds a lot of unpredictability and can provide some great cinematic moments .

Ditto, there is always the remote possibility of the "Hood" scenario, lucky shot punches into the magazine, sending the whole ship up.

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:Yeah... so I had avoided getting into this strictly because I didn't have people nearby that played, and if I can't buy models 'on-hand' I tend not to. I like being able to buy stuff in the store, not place orders.

Turns out the Family Game Store in Savage Mills decided to dive in feet-first on this game. They have a wall that has pretty much every model in the range on it.

Damnit.

So I was looking at all the stuff, waffling on what to get. I wanted ze Prussians, but was thinking there was a lot of hate on them and their boarding actions and so forth. Bah, I didn't care, I just want spiffy ships. Then this happened.



Nobody told me they had giant robots.

Sold.

Now you need is the Doctor

What's Kingdom of Britannia like in this game?
Thinking of starting up and they'd be my force of choice...

From a naval aspect, KOB tends to fight best in range band 2-3, due to front/side channel torpedoes. The battleship in particular is a pain to fight if taken with two rear shield generators. Just point it at what it needs to shoot. Turrets aren't quite a powerful as my FSA, but that's where my fleet shines- long range hitting power. KoB tend to work best moving in mid-range and slugging it out with the enemy.

I'm assuming they have armour rather than speed from the way you describe them...

purplefood wrote:I'm assuming they have armour rather than speed from the way you describe them...

Not particularly, no. The Battleship has access to a lot of shielding rather than high armour, although it's in exchange for firepower. It could make a pretty good damage sink, though. The Britannian Dreadnought is a monster, though.

The major difference between the original four forces is the method in which they fight. Britannians schtick is fighting at mid-range, 8"-24" mainly, and using lots of torpedoes. Blazing Sun focus on rockets at long range, Americans focus on capable gunnery at all ranges, and the Prussians... well, they do their best. They've got good but not stellar gunnery and quite effective boarding troops, but they're probably the sick man of the group.

htj wrote:

purplefood wrote:I'm assuming they have armour rather than speed from the way you describe them...

Not particularly, no. The Battleship has access to a lot of shielding rather than high armour, although it's in exchange for firepower. It could make a pretty good damage sink, though. The Britannian Dreadnought is a monster, though.

The major difference between the original four forces is the method in which they fight. Britannians schtick is fighting at mid-range, 8"-24" mainly, and using lots of torpedoes. Blazing Sun focus on rockets at long range, Americans focus on capable gunnery at all ranges, and the Prussians... well, they do their best. They've got good but not stellar gunnery and quite effective boarding troops, but they're probably the sick man of the group.

8"-24"?
That sounds like what i'm used to playing.
Thanks for the info, i'll see if i can grab the rulebook after my exams and get started on the long road to conquering the piss out of everyone...

purplefood wrote:

htj wrote:

purplefood wrote:I'm assuming they have armour rather than speed from the way you describe them...

Not particularly, no. The Battleship has access to a lot of shielding rather than high armour, although it's in exchange for firepower. It could make a pretty good damage sink, though. The Britannian Dreadnought is a monster, though.

The major difference between the original four forces is the method in which they fight. Britannians schtick is fighting at mid-range, 8"-24" mainly, and using lots of torpedoes. Blazing Sun focus on rockets at long range, Americans focus on capable gunnery at all ranges, and the Prussians... well, they do their best. They've got good but not stellar gunnery and quite effective boarding troops, but they're probably the sick man of the group.

8"-24"?
That sounds like what i'm used to playing.
Thanks for the info, i'll see if i can grab the rulebook after my exams and get started on the long road to conquering the piss out of everyone...

As a Britannian player: Give 'em hell.

I think Prussia's thing is close range fighting- using Boarding actions and their unmodifiable Tesla guns to wreck face if you get too close.

Prussians can be devastating in close. Naval wise they tend to have the speed to do so, and higher than average AP values. That combined with some good tesla broadsides before the boarding action can result in some derelict ships.

Sigmundr wrote:Prussians can be devastating in close. Naval wise they tend to have the speed to do so, and higher than average AP values. That combined with some good tesla broadsides before the boarding action can result in some derelict ships.

But you can't board a ship you've fired upon. You can do some weird cross squadron firing then boarding another shenanigans, I suppose, but they're not super effective. Also: Tesla broadsides? Aren't most of the tesla weapons aft fixed channels?

Some of hte ships have tesla broadsides but with stats like 4/2/0/0 on the cruiser you've got to be right alongside, low dice, then cannot board what you've fired at, no shielding. You're better off using standard gunnery.

Even if you have damaged it, you send some guys over to board, some are killed by AA, some are killed in the HtH on the ship. You then have some cruisers with reduced AP contingent to defend against boarding themselves.

Boarding just ain't worth it.

So far I've got all of the fleets (barring the French, although I'll probably pick them up later)
My favourite is the FSA, which is the only one that I've expanded past the starting box.
I'm looking at 1500pts at the moment, and I'll probably add a land fleet at some point in the future.

marv335 wrote:So far I've got all of the fleets (barring the French, although I'll probably pick them up later)
My favourite is the FSA, which is the only one that I've expanded past the starting box.
I'm looking at 1500pts at the moment, and I'll probably add a land fleet at some point in the future.

How is the FSA? Sorry for the bump but GW has let me down to much :( I need a new game and this looks awesome! And for some reason I just love the good old FSA, so any thoughts on them?

FSA have it easy.
Their ships are harder to hit and have maneuver bonuses as standard and hit hard at long range. The longer the range the more advantage they have over anyone else. Furthermore FSA turrets have good arcs of fire, you rarely have to concern yourself over the exact position and facing of the ships. This makes FSA tactics a no brainer: hang back and shoot.

EotBS can also hit hard at range and have a defensive advantage too, harder to critical hit and now also have a maneuver bonus in the ammended rules, but their guns are ecclectic and often fire in narrow non-overlapping zones of fire. This means they are much harder to use despite comperable capabilities on paper. The KoB are a problem child, and benefitted most from the ammedned rules but still are rather lacklustre in general with a few stellar units as exceptions. Prussians have weaker firepower prefer short range engagements but have the best boarding troops.

All in all Prussians and FSA have their strategy mapped out and are easier to win with. However Prussians are generally weak while FSA are generally strong, consequently you can win easily and often with FSA and the faction is error resistant for the most part. Its a good faction therefore but also a crutch for tactical play. If you want a 'win button' play FSA if you want a tactical challenge pick a different fleet. The others can and do win, but need to think about it to do so.

Well I don't like "automatic win" armies but I just really like the FSA, any advice on how to paint these guys?

I would try with a grey or white undercoat and diluted brown for the decking so it shades itself.
Exposed gears in dark metal colour with heavy inkwash, metal panels any colour you wish.

Rust and staining is good, and you can also blacken from the soot if you like.

I started playing this about a year ago when it first came out, I picked Brits purely on aesthetics. Well several game against the Prussians and FSA later (we just had fleet boxes back then) and I was not happy. my ships seemed to be weaker for no discernible reason.

I'm getting back into it now, and it seems things have improved generally. Our defenses have gotten better, the battleship comes with a free guardian generator. We have some new toys to play with as well. So my first game in a little under a year will be at a tourney.

I was hoping for some comments on my list (dunno if this deserves it own thread or not)

Battleship 180
Fleet Carrier 155

3x Cruisers 180

3x Destroyers 105
3x Corvettes 60
3x Corvettes 60

4 tiny flyer wings (1 fighter, 2 torpedoes, 1 recon)

I think you would be fine starting your own thread!

As for the list, though, I think it seems pretty solid. What is your points limit? I'm guessing 750 since you are at 740 right now. From experience, the Britannian destroyers are quite deadly! If you can find a way to max out the squadron at 4, the more the better. I haven't seen the corvettes in action, but my experience with my PE ones seems to indicate larger squadrons are better here too. So, for your small ships, a squadron of 4 destroyers and a squadron of 4 or 5 corvettes could be a way to go.

Well I received my next instalment of DW stuff today.
I now own the Artarctican naval fleet, (to add to the collection, I intend to have a starter box for each faction painted up) and I've expanded my FSA fleet with a dreadnaught an fleet carrier, and some airships (two scout airships, the airborne carrier and the large airship)
Off all the fleets I like the aesthetics of the FSA fleet the best (barring the robots), the turrets are very pleasing, reminding me of a pistol I saw once (protector palm pistol).

How did they model such fantastic water?

What's everyones opinion on the French? I saw their fleet box in LFGS and am temped to pick the up.

Lord Harrab wrote:What's everyones opinion on the French? I saw their fleet box in LFGS and am temped to pick the up.

They look dead sexy, and their rules are top notch. It's a toss up between them and the Japanese for my next fleet, and I'd only pick the Japanese because of the Ika.

Well, had my first practice game with my list against PE, he had some gunships, some cruisers, corvettes, frigates and a battleship

Thoughts, the BB took a pounding (he literally focused everything o it and the cruisers) but failed to deliver mostly due to some spectacularly poor rolling. The cruisers did a little better, when I finally got a RB2 broadside off it was fun.

The carrier massacres cruisers and any range, even managed to land a refuel a tiny flier wing with it. The corvettes were interesting, they couldn't put out as much as the frigates but they took it like a champ, needing sixes to hit is brutal. Two squadrons gives me lots of activations to burn as well, very handy as I habitually out activation-ed my opponent every turn.

The men of the match were the destroyers and the tiny fliers (switched to dive bombers) killing between them two cruisers, a gunship, most of his tiny fliers (fighters no less), some corvettes and acing the battleship to win the game

Have the amended rules been put into print?

I heard Brittania got free shields on some of their ships; how much of this has rebalanced the factions?

KoB picked up a free guardian on the Battleship, and they can only exchange one turret for a shield gen.

Daba wrote:Have the amended rules been put into print?

I heard Brittania got free shields on some of their ships; how much of this has rebalanced the factions?

You are referring to the V 1.1 rules, which are now available. If you don't want to purchase the full new book, a PDF that has the changes only is available. I highly recommend the new book, though; the organization, artwork, and examples are all vastly improved!

Ruckdog wrote:

Daba wrote:Have the amended rules been put into print?

I heard Brittania got free shields on some of their ships; how much of this has rebalanced the factions?

You are referring to the V 1.1 rules, which are now available. If you don't want to purchase the full new book, a PDF that has the changes only is available. I highly recommend the new book, though; the organization, artwork, and examples are all vastly improved!

Also, there are minor changes to the rules that the 1.1pdf didn't catch. You're really better off getting the new book.

Ruckdog wrote:

Daba wrote:Have the amended rules been put into print?

I heard Brittania got free shields on some of their ships; how much of this has rebalanced the factions?

You are referring to the V 1.1 rules, which are now available. If you don't want to purchase the full new book, a PDF that has the changes only is available. I highly recommend the new book, though; the organization, artwork, and examples are all vastly improved!

And yet it already has a 2-page errata.

lord_blackfang wrote:

Ruckdog wrote:

Daba wrote:Have the amended rules been put into print?

I heard Brittania got free shields on some of their ships; how much of this has rebalanced the factions?

You are referring to the V 1.1 rules, which are now available. If you don't want to purchase the full new book, a PDF that has the changes only is available. I highly recommend the new book, though; the organization, artwork, and examples are all vastly improved!

And yet it already has a 2-page errata.

Which I look at as support, and therefore a good thing!

Considering it's the 5th iteration of essentially the same rules and still riddled with errors, I take it more as proof that Spartan can't proofread (let alone playtest) its way out of a wet paper bag.

Still pre-ordered me some Russians, though.