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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.