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Okay, so my brother and I play Dystopian Wars. He plays mostly prussian with a few other faction boats thrown in there (I don't care really), and I play FSA exclusively.

It seriously seems like the games take forever. A turn lasts like 2 hours. We only play like 1200 point games. It seems like a ton of hits miss (why is it so impossible to hit dreadnoughts? ugh!). I am guessing it's because it's so difficult to get a hit on a ship in this game. We have a pretty good grasp on the rules and don't really need to consult the rulebook much (mostly for crit table and occasional rulings). No joke we played for 4 hours the other night and only got to turn 2 and didn't even get close enough to do ANY boarding actions (the new boarding rules will definitely make the game faster when we get to that). We play on about a 6'x4' play area. There has hardly been any destruction at all and it takes so LONG, UGH! Any suggestions on what we're doing wrong? It's not like we sit there planning our out moves for 10 minutes at a time...

In general, I find that at 1200 points my local group can get through about 3-4 turns in a 3-hour session. It is a little hard to say why things seem to be taking longer for you and your brother without more details, but here are some theories based on what you told me:

-Deployment: How far apart are you starting from each other? Short table edge, long table edge, or diagonal? The longer the fleets are maneuvering, the less damage will be dealt.

-Movement: with small and medium sized models in a squadron, we tend to move one model using tape measures and templates, and then move its squadron mates without them based on where they were relative to the first model before the move. Some exceptions occur, but this in general is how we do it.

-Force composition: What kinds of fleets do you guys run? Let's of small ships? A few big ones? The more models and squadrons there are, the longer the games will take, of course.

As for dealing with Dreadnoughts, the only thing I've found that works reliably against one with two shields is another Dread! Reduce it from a distance with gunnery, and then swoop in and board it. Boarding is the only real weakness the Dreadnoughts have; their AP to points ratio is rather low. Compare the AP on one dread to the AP on the equivalent points of Cruisers or Frigates, and you'll see what I mean!

Also, mark out inches on the straight edges of your turn templates. Switching back and forth between tape measure (for straights ) and the template for turns was very irritating and a big waste of time when we were starting out.

And definitely deploy on the long board edges. Allow deployment up to 10" in. This means if you both deploy on the line, you'll be in RB 3 after your first move.

Also I noticed you seem to not be doing much shooting - as you say you did little damage but spent four hours, you must have lost your time moving. You can also make squadrons maxed size. Six squadrons of two frigates takes longer to move than 3 squadrons of 4, and they will do more damage too! Two frigates firing at close range is like maybe 9 dice. That won't get through a dreadnought. 13 has much better odds though!

We had an IG player at our local club who took an Ice age to make a turn for numerous reasons. Whilst most people were packing away, you'd be on turn 2. It got so bad, no one would play against him and the problem solved itself, ie. no one played him.

I play FSA and we speed up the game considerably. Make sure you've both got your own tape measure and templates. Another thing we do is simutanous movement. Say I've moved my Cruiser SQN, which is on the other side of the board to my opponents Battleship. "Are you going to fire at my Battleship?, No? OK then, I'll start moving this whilst your planning your attacks with your Cruisers".

It works for us. I second the measure properly for one unit, then move the others in the same SQN approximately into place.

I guess it also depends on the personality of the players.

Also, something to remember is Link Fire. When a ship has high DR as most Dreadnaughts do, you pretty much have to link fire with anything short of Capitol Main Guns, and even then, you'll want to link as many turrets as you can. You can link the shots of a squadron, and various other things. Remember this, and you'll have a better time cutting through DR and maybe getting CR.

Also, remember Exploding Sixes not only explode, but count for 2 'damage' as well.