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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