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Hello
I fought my first battle of Dystopian Wars yesterday and as would be imagined I lost, not heavily but with enough frustration I wanted to post the conflict to organize my thoughts and get your advice. We played 1000 points EOBS vs. Russian Coalition. I fielded an Aerial core of 1 Tenkei Sky fortress (6 tiny flyers in 2 squadrons of 3 bombers, 1 Tsukuyomi War Gyro, 2 squadrons of 2 Onryo and 1 Inari Gyros, 1 Amaterasu bomber squadron (2 models), 1 Tetsubo Small flyer squadron (3 models), 1 squadron of 3 Nakatsu Cruisers and 2 squadrons of tiny flyers (fighters). He had 1 Borodino with 4 Velikey escorts and 5 tiny flyers in CAP, 1 Tunguska large skyship, 3 Suvorov Cruisers with 2 Tambov Gunships, 2 Saransk Medium Skyships, and a massive flying airbase (sorry I don’t know the name).
By the end of the game I had lost all of my medium Gyros, mostly to ACK ACK which hit me before I could attack his Borodino squadron. This did allow me to knock the Borodino down by half with my Cruisers’ port guns with little damage to the cruisers. My tiny fighters and bombers and a couple of early rocket salvos destroyed his Tunguska and Saranakas. I had done a little damage to his flying airbase, but my Tsukuyomi was at 1 HP remaining. I had barely damaged his cruiser squadron. My Onryos had sonic generators which I tried a few times with a little success but his rocket and torpedo blockers (and redirecting into my ships) prevented most of my early game damage.
Things I learned: Gyros die to ACK ACK, Tiny flyers are awesome vs. flyers. Russian defensive abilities (blockers, ACK ACK, escorts) stopped my rocket attacks. His armor which required I crit him before I can damage him slowed down my attrition game – especially against the cruiser squadron where I lacked any effective gunnery.
I learned to fire my rockets at distant targets (skyships so LOS wasn’t blocked) while engaging closer targets with guns – his defenses prevented most damage but it was a shift in my thinking – which was stay at long range as long as possible and wear him down.
My questions: was this just a bad match up? Obviously my opponent had more experience and was able to create a couple of defensive squadrons that rendered most of my offensive abilities mote. My plan was to damage his ships enough to render his ACK ACK worthless and board with my gyro squadrons. I might have been able to pull that off against his skyships but my gyros were not positioned to do that and I wasn’t able to damage his surface vessels enough to eliminate the ACK ACK so I never attempted to board.
Are sonic generators effective? I rolled reasonably well and perhaps slowed down his abilities but I had to get my gyros so close that they were blasted from the sky. I was lucky that I never affected my ships but that seems to be another big draw back from using them.
I had many more activations than he did (7-11). Is this an advantage? Dividing my tiny bombers into 2 squadrons of 3 was a mistake and I guess that they should be 5 and a recon. His few activations were more powerful than mine and power equals more AD and many of my activations (flyer) were still chewed up by his defensive fire.
One of the tactics I was trying was to damage his vessels so they were less effective while he totally destroyed mine. Was this a mistake? I took several turns to destroy his skyships by targeting different ones after I damaged them and he was most ineffective on that flank, but I was tied up. On the other flank vs. his Borodino, my cruisers had reduced his HP by half and he had barely damaged them while my gyros were totally destroyed, so he had more victory points.
Is CAP better than escorts? Since I’m limited to 16 tiny flyers I would think that they are more useful with the freedom to attack, but escorts cost points and have no offensive abilities.
How do you make boarding actions work? Even if I boarded his large skyship, wouldn’t he be able to board my whole squadron of gyros because I was weakened? Should I just keep my squadron of gyros in reserve until my surface ships do the damage and then try and board damaged ships on the flanks?
Old naval tactics had admirals create gun lines with their broadsides and blast away at each other. My cruisers tried it against his battleship, his cruisers tried it but my gyros were on him so fast that his line was disrupted. Then he shot them all down (Sigh).
What about ‘breaking the line’ can dreadnoughts do it with their Iron Ram or is ramming just a waste because your gunnery is halved, but then again you would get to shoot both sides.
For my next battle, should I just choose different vessels? I have the battle box in addition to my gyros. Should I just choose my targets better? I could have allowed the cruisers to face the Borodino alone, it probably would have destroyed them, but I could have used the gyros against his cruisers.

Thanks for your time reading and answering my questions.

Ok my grumbles at the post layout aside, lets see what i can do here.
First off, its not a bad match up. The RC AA is pretty terrible, and i mean bad. Which has me puzzled how his AA was killing anything 0.o Im assuming you ment 2 inari with 1 onryo tagging along rather than the other way around? Looks like you have halves of most the stuff, always go for 1 full squadron over 2 halves and they will fare alot better. As for boarding vsthe RC, its hit and miss. Think Orc shooting, either those conscripts are gonna fold, or they overwhelm you with dice.

The thing to remember is not all generators are "super duper continuously useful" like say a shield. The sonic/distruptor fall in the "fun if it works" category. hitting on a 5+ isnt something to rely on by any means, but its nice to have it go off. Just remember the main thing you bring the onryo for is the extra incediary turret for (if you had take 3 full inari) a 20AD secondary gun attack, and the extra bombs. The sonic is just occasional icing.

This is... no easy answer. On the one hand generaly if you have less, its due to pumping points into big units like reinforced squads and dreads. But on the other hand, more activations means you can see what the other guy is planning, and maybe even have a free run of a few activations at the end. That said, as i said above never bring half squadrons just for this. A carriers flyers (unless your more experianced and feeling confident) your better off going 5+1, or even keeping that 1 on board to help fix the wing up. Also as the EotBS, always go for Torpedo Bombers instead of regular bombers. The Fast Torpedo MAR outclasses the bombers easily, as does the 8" range,

The tactics depends. While you need a solid crit to crack the RC ablative armour ,meaning just throw the link in all your dice till you do, then do whatever as normal as after thats gone, their DR and CR arnt exactly amazing. If one things already damaged, your better off finishing it off though. Spreading the damage out only removes 1AD per HP, killing a whole ship suddenly gets rid of a LOT more. YMMV though.

The CAP vs Escorts again depends. They only really work for you vs other flyers, with other nations (like the RoF) theyr a LOT more usefull. As for EotBS escorts, those extra 9AA really arnt nothing to sniff at. And only the PE escorts get offensive fire with them, and neither do the TFs if theyr in CAP. They have to leave CAP to attack themselves.

Again, full squadrons. An extra Inari worth of AP can do wondedrs for an assualt. Also for boarding larges, remember you can Ram it with one of your vessels too, halving the AP of both rammed vessals (but not the squad )

Thats not a question, but old naval tactics are often used. look up Crossing the T and a few others for examples. Static gunlines though only really work for the FSA and "kind of" the CoA. And again how he was shooting down gyros in RB1 is beyond me 0.o The Nakatsu though is a pile of gank. Seriously, only has 2 uses and 1 is doorstop, the others with tanukis.

Gunnery isnt halved from ramming, AP is. And with the iron ram ramming from the dread it had damn well better hurt what it hits.

All solid ships, just the problem is again, you need to be stacking full squads of things. The Tetsubos will get swatted with just 3, but 5 will be eating a dreadnought. Same for the wings stacking up and what have you.

Anyway ask away if theres more

Thanks for your answers. I have ordered more models to fill out my squads. Like I said, it was my first game and I played with what I had.