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Received email notice this morning:



Spartan Games is pleased to announce the release of Dystopian Wars 2.0

We kick off this release with news of the Dystopian Wars 2.0 Hardback Rulebook 'Commodore Edition'. This 320 page hardback book pulls together all aspects of a game that has, since its release in 2010, literally exploded onto gaming tables around the world.

Our exhilarating take on Victorian Super Science Fiction details a world at war, with the world's super powers waging a brutal war in the air, on land and at sea. Giant machines of war, often hundreds of feet tall, are called to action, with commanders across the globe battling for supremacy and the fate of their nation.

The key focus for the 2.0 book has been improved clarity of the rules, the speeding up of overall game play and to give gamers the ability to field, and therefore play, with larger forces on the tabletop. Our design team have worked to keep the game the 'same' for our customers, whilst simultaneously looking to improve on all aspects of the rules engine.

Inside the book players will find a comprehensive background section that covers the core seven nations of the Dystopian Wars world, along with statistics for 21 Battle Groups, encompassing Air, Land and Sea for each of them. These will be further supported by a series of free to download PDFs for each nation and all Alliance nations, allowing Dystopian Wars players to easily move to the new game mechanics.

Later in 2014 three new Alliance Hardback Books (Imperial Bond, Grand Coalition and Free Nations) will arrive for gamers to add to their collections. These books will further enhance the Dystopian Wars setting, allowing gamers to look ahead to even more exciting expansions to our world.

The Commodore Edition at a glance:
• 320 pages
• Faux Leather Cover with Gold Blocking Inlay
• Page Marker Ribbon
• Brand new design and layout
• Stacked full of full colour photography
• Enhanced game engine
• Comprehensive core nation backgrounds
• Multi-Player Rules
• Statistics for 21 Battle Groups: Air, Land And Sea

This release will be shipping from 14th May 2014.

EDIT:

But wait .......there's more!

In case the new rulebook wasn't enough excitement for you we also are pleased to announce the first Dystopian Wars Two Player Boxed Set

Here is a quick taster:

Ships are vanishing without a trace...
Rumours of a mysterious 'Ghost Ship' are whispered by merchant crews...

Set in the waters around South America, Operation Shadow Hunter pits two bitter enemies against each other: the Empire of the Blazing Sun and the Federated States of America.

In territory that once belonged to the Republic of Argentina, the forces of the Empire of the Blazing Sun are once again on the move. Their plan is complex, their overall objective still a secret, but the dice have already been rolled and the battle lines drawn. The eastern forces have a new and deadly ally. The infamous Wani have returned from exile, contributing never-before-seen technology to seal their new pact of service with the Empire.

To the north, the Federated States of America has responded with speed to the loss of its own vessels, both military and civilian. In a bid to counter the mysterious 'Ghost Ship' the chief scientists of this great nation have accelerated development of their own secret weapon - the Boston Class Submersible - and the American Admirals are eager to prove it in battle. Designed to engage and destroy even the most formidable enemy ships, the Boston Class comes armed with the latest advanced weaponry and a complement of Assault Subs.

The scene is set for lethal conflict as two of the deadliest naval forces on the planet clash in the once calm waters off the coast of Brazil.

Inside this packed Dystopian Wars Boxed Set you get:

1 x 128 Page 'Admiral Edition' 2.0 Rulebook (softback)
1 x 32 Page A5 Campaign Booklet
3 x A4 'Punch Out' Scenery Sheets
3 x A5 Tokens and Templates Sheets
15 x Standard Game Dice
6 x Micro Dice (each: Red, White and Green)
1 x Large Wani Forward Deployment Base

Empire of the Blazing Sun Forces
1 x Kaiju Class Heavy Battleship (new model!)
1 x Wani Terror Ship - Solid resin Model (new model!)
1 x Wani Terror Ship - Clear resin Model (new model!)
3 x Honshu Class Cruisers (each with three drop-ons) (new model!)
4 x Uwatsu Class Frigates
5 x Fujin Class Corvettes
5 x Support Aircraft Wings
1 x Support Aircraft Squadron Movement Tray (new model!)

Federated States of America
1 x Liberty Class Battleship (new model!)
1 x Boston Class Large Submarine (new model!)
1 x Boston Class Submarine (Submerged Base) (new model!)
6 x Turtle Class Assault Submarine Tokens (new model!)
3 x Georgetown Class Cruisers (new model!)
4 x Augusta Class Frigates
5 x Revere Class Corvettes
5 x Support Aircraft Wings
1 x Support Aircraft Squadron Movement Tray (new model!)

I'm not a DW player, but I am an FSA player. If DW 2.0 is anything as good as FSA 2.0, you'll be in for a treat. The sculpting/casting quality at Spartan has improved significantly since the models I bought in 2010, and the rules add a good amount of depth and fluff to differentiate the factions.

Awesome! I just thought about it yesterday and here it is! Looks good so far, 30 gbp for all the rules and armylists for the major factions sounds reasonable.

This is exciting. I picked up Ottoman and Italian fleets a while back, but the group I got them for dissipated. It'll be nice if these updated rules make DW more popular, the models are quite awesome!

Oh, is it that time of year again already?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Oh, is it that time of year again already?

latest newsletter also says:

If you are attending the Salute Wargames Show at the Excel Centre in London this Saturday (April 12th) come and say hi to one of our staff who you can find at the Troll Trader and Wayland Games stands.

Come and get a sneak peak at some of our upcoming releases including our exciting new Operation: Shadow Hunter Two Player Boxed Set. Check out our new top secret Wani Terror Ship and the stunning FSA Boston Class Submarine designed to send the Wani to a watery grave...

We'll have our latest Firestorm Armada spaceship models on display, and a batch of soon to be released Dystopian Wars core nations upgrades, including such ships as the Mighty Elbe Class Fleet Carrier, latest machine of war from the Prussian Empire, and the latest Kingdom of Britannia Heavy Battleship - the Monarch!

As a special treat for those attending the show we have put together a few fantastic Salute only deals.

The Bloody Rose Of Krakow

Ex-Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth Pilot Esmerelda Mieszka is a gun for hire with a grudge to bear. After the death of her family at the hands of Russian Coalition forces, this talented pilot took to the skies in the name of vengeance.Now the Commander of the Valkyrie's Fury Heavy Bomber is available to hire for your Dystopian Wars force. (slightly bizarely given her fluff the Russians can hire her............)

Anyone who pre-orders the new Dystopian Wars 2.0 Operation: Shadow Hunter Two player Box Set with Troll Trader at Salute, will receive a free Valkyrie's Fury Heavy Bomber to take away on the day.

As part of this fantastic Salute only deal you will receive:

1 x Super Heavy Bomber (100mm Wing Span!)
1 x Acrylic Flight Stand
3 x Acrylic Bomb Tokens
4 x Tiny Flyer Tokens
1 x A5 Sheet - with artwork on one side and rules and stats on the other.

I'm really interested in this. Dystopian Wars was close to being great as a ruleset, but never quite made it. Spartan have a good record of actually improving their rules with new editions, so I'm super hopeful for this.

I'll give the rules a look if I see it in store, but I'm kind of over their core mechanic of d6 pools and halving.

Certain imbalances between air other powers was also a problem. That's what broke the game for our group, shortly before everyone sold their stuff.

My friends got their copies of the rules.

The good:
1) The rules from all the various sources like the campaign books have all been integrated and presented together. For example, the deployment method from one of the campaign books (advance, flank, reserve, etc.,) is now the standard way to deploy.

2) When there's additional information you need in another part of the book, it says so. And has a page reference number. In the last rulebook, it just wouldn't say anything and you'd have to search the book for all the various exceptions and whatnot for every rule.

3) What dice you roll, when they explode, what target number you need and all that is a lot more collated and organized. It doesn't feel like you're hunting through the rules for exceptions.

4) Carriers and tiny fliers are easier to use and can do more things more easily. Including refitting them into different types during the game. So your dive bombers can go deliver their payload and then return to their carrier and be filled up with machine gun ammo and turned into fighters.

5) Boarding has a better defined resolution procedure. It's a bit like WFB where a close combat will have a result depending on the compared hits. You can end up repelling boarders and then getting another anti-aircraft shot on them as they flee with their jet packs.

The Bad:

1) It's still the same buckets of dice, but you have to seperate them and allocate them and some need 5s and some need 4s and some need 6s and some explode and some don't and in this situation this happens and in this situation that happens. The core mechanic is still a fiddly mess of modifiers and trying to figure out how many dice to roll against each target and what the results mean.

2) Boarding still has good rolls for the defender being wasted because they have to split their defenses while attackers do not. While I play a nation that likes to board, I know when a defender goes on a hot strike and gets tons of exploding 6s and they end up not counting at all, it provides a negative play experience. I play Japanese and Prussians and find that at least once every game some good roll my opponent makes will end up not counting because of this rule. It cast a shadow on pretty much every game I play.

3) Font and headers in the book are ugly and the pages look chaotic. And while it's cool that they use different colours when talking about dice based on whether or not sixes explode, the end result is a chaotic looking layout.

4) While the index is there, as well as page numbers, the index is about a third of the size it should be in a game with so many exceptions and special cases.

My verdict:

I'll play with my existing collection but I'm not buying the rules. I told my friends I'll show up with my ships and use the free 2.0 cards off the internet, but I'm not paying for Spartan's rules as they are simply a bad product in terms of being a rulebook.

I see the rules as being slightly worse than I can get for free for things like Infinity or In The Emperor's Name or FUBAR or many others. Those free rules are actually better because at least when I have to look something up in those rules, I can use a search function on my PDF reader. Given the sheer volume of special cases in Dystopian Wars, I expect the same, if not better, accessibility in a paid product and it's just not there.

The core mechanic of this game is still the fiddly allocation of dice in different numbers with different target numbers and rules and exceptions to those rules all needing to be taken into consideration.

No sale.

Thanks for the verdict, that's a "No sale" for me as well, then. I like the Spartan figures, but by all accounts, their rules are a lamentable mess.

Thanks for that, frozenwastes. I think I'll swerve this for the time being.

 frozenwastes wrote:
My friends got their copies of the rules.
1) It's still the same buckets of dice, but you have to seperate them and allocate them and some need 5s and some need 4s and some need 6s and some explode and some don't and in this situation this happens and in this situation that happens. The core mechanic is still a fiddly mess of modifiers and trying to figure out how many dice to roll against each target and what the results mean.

I find i have to disagree with everything in this except the bucket of dice. I find it simple and easy to understand an calculate what needs what to hit and what happens. Separate and allocate is as easy as for example my ship has 3 different guns, do i want to shot them at different target or link them to into one more powerful shot. finding out linking number is also easy, just ad it all up, divide it by two plus the first weapon. The to hit numbers is also really simple, all weapons hit on a 4+ then you modifiy it depending on what your target has for rule. It s the same as in Infinity where some units have minetism or TO, or som guns give you +3 in close and some dont. In this case its almost exclusively depending on ship size.
A single target will always have the same to hit number from the ship that is doing the shooting.
There are around 3 - 4 cases in the entire game that cause dice to not explode so its not that hard to learn.

 frozenwastes wrote:

2) Boarding still has good rolls for the defender being wasted because they have to split their defenses while attackers do not. While I play a nation that likes to board, I know when a defender goes on a hot strike and gets tons of exploding 6s and they end up not counting at all, it provides a negative play experience. I play Japanese and Prussians and find that at least once every game some good roll my opponent makes will end up not counting because of this rule. It cast a shadow on pretty much every game I play.

Only time you have to split is when you get boarded by a unit with multiple ships so the defender has to allocate what goes to what ship, its a game mechanic to make small and medium units better at boarding individual ships from multiple angles.
When a single ships boards something there is no splitting for the defender.

 frozenwastes wrote:

3) Font and headers in the book are ugly and the pages look chaotic. And while it's cool that they use different colours when talking about dice based on whether or not sixes explode, the end result is a chaotic looking layout.

I will agree that there are to much bold text in there that are unnecessary and draws the eye to it, that's the only part about the book that i really dont like (Might be what you mean with chaotic?) other then that i have no complaints.
Layout is about the same as in Firestom armada book except all the bold text in dystopian.. (dont play it, just have the book)

 frozenwastes wrote:

4) While the index is there, as well as page numbers, the index is about a third of the size it should be in a game with so many exceptions and special cases.

There are two pages at the end of the book that that tells have everything you need to know about what does what, to hit numbers and so on.

 frozenwastes wrote:

I see the rules as being slightly worse than I can get for free for things like Infinity or In The Emperor's Name or FUBAR or many others. Those free rules are actually better because at least when I have to look something up in those rules, I can use a search function on my PDF reader. Given the sheer volume of special cases in Dystopian Wars, I expect the same, if not better, accessibility in a paid product and it's just not there.
No sale.

i really dont get where this sheer volume of special cases case you say comes from. What special cases do you mean?
And its always easier to find things in a PDF then in a book, both have their pros and cons.

My prior to Dystopian 2.0 experience is that i have played about 3 - 4 games of 1.1 over a year ago. Dint play it for a long time because i forgot exactly about the rules and really didn't want to read that crap 1.1 book ever again.
Read through the 2.0 book once quickly and had a 1000 point game (about the size of the new fleet starter boxes), and the only thing we did wrong was using fighters and that was because i mixed them up with firestorm interceptors.
I find that the game will flow well when you played a couple of games and now what you are doing.
2.0 also has a lot more faction flavor then 1.1

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Thanks for the verdict, that's a "No sale" for me as well, then. I like the Spartan figures, but by all accounts, their rules are a lamentable mess.

Just wait six months and I'm sure they'll have the version 2.0 revised addition available...

Every other non-Spartan game I play just has me taking a stat, applying modifiers and going for a target number. Or opposed rolls. Or just flat to-hit numbers. Or one of a hundred other ways of simply and elegantly resolving the attack. if I wanted to build dice pools with differing target numbers and different special rules coming into play based on what the different targets might be, I'd play a bad 90s RPG.

2.0 is also pretty much a non-edition change. It's 1.1 with some minor tweaks. You get to pay for the same rules again. Yay.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Thanks for the verdict, that's a "No sale" for me as well, then. I like the Spartan figures, but by all accounts, their rules are a lamentable mess.

They're probably the company I have the lowest expectations from when it comes to rules. Even behind GW. i expect more from free rules people make up and put on their blogs than I do from Spartan.

At DW's core is a needlessly long process of forming and allocating dice pools (with potentially differing target numbers depending on what type of targets you split your fire onto) just to end up usually getting a result of either no damage, one point of damage or 2 points and a crit roll (and in very extreme rolls, an extra 2+crit or two).

The entire attack process is just a convoluted procedure that basically boils down to the same results as if you simply rolled d3 and added modifiers to determine which of the three most common results you get.

Now that I've given it some more thought, I realize I was pretty much only willing to keep my existing collection and play the occasional game for social reasons-- I have some friends that want to try playing again after it's been dead locally for the last year. I don't think that's good enough of a reason. So I think my ships are eBay bound.

To whom would I recommend Dystopian War 2.0? Those that love the miniatures and don't really care if the game is any good and just want to push some ships around and maybe talk in funny accents of the nationality of your fleet. And to those who bought 1.1 and don't really care that they're basically buying the same game over again.

.

Theres just so much nonsense in your post frosenwastes...

Actually, I'd tend to agree with him. But all the improvements everywhere else in the game is a bigger improvement than given credit for.

I thouroughly enjoy the core mechanics, dice pooling and all.

I'm still waiting on my copy of the rulebook to show up (I only preordered a week in advance so my name is at the bottom of what is apparently a very long list) but everything I have heard sounds good and other than this thread I haven't seen much negativity from people who do have their books.

Eh, the game isn't as elegant as the new version of Firestorm which seemed to streamline a lot but I haven't ever felt the bucket o' dice thing was the issue.

And they have streamlined a lot of the systems around said dice pools. Linking is now much simpler. Pick a gun to be the leader, add all other guns in to one pool, halve the pool (rounding up) and roll 'em. The rules no longer seem to mix and match concretely stated stated target numbers (i.e. hit on a 5 or 6) with modifiers (i.e. apply a -1 to your roll) which was a huge sticking point in previous editions. And the die colour mechanic finally standardizes a lot of concepts that were sort of half-arsed in old versions.

The biggest change is that there are no more capricious insta-kill criticals. Magazine explosion still exists but merely does HP damage thus allowing capital ships to survive it if it is the initial hit (so no more first turn lucky crit on a dreadnought making it impossible to win). Add to that a greater spread of weapons that degrade more slowly and the damage race issue of Dystopian Wars that saw long ranged factions dominate the table have fallen to the wayside (balance overall seems much improved).

Boarding has received a stealth nerf. Robots no longer damage AP directly and attack the vehicles themselves. So a squid or squad of USA-gundams wont derelict whatever they point at. And AP levels have been slashed in many vessles. The old 18AP pool you saw on a lot of medium squads is gone. The Prussian Arminius is no longer pushing 12AP out for 100 points. And differing crew types (which I love as a mechanic) are used more often. This means that it is harder to overwhelm by numbers alone as it previously was. The high-end of boarding pool is now 15AP in most cases. This means that some may get through the flak screen, but boarding vessels also become vulnerable much sooner and don't have the endurance they once had. This is a pretty important change to the boarding paradigm. No more robots dumping 18AP with no chance of having their pool reduced before the strike. No more 20AP Lee boarding bonanza. No more 100 point 12AP Prussian blender frigates. I think this was a huge improvement that managed to make boarding offensively good without making it risk free. The splitting thing is mostly in there so that the chance of a boarding attack becoming a damp squib is mitigated. But with boarding vessels having their AP dumped down to more sane levels and robots having their CQB roll changed to damage-dealing, this segment has seen a big change.

For the most part, I think the rules are a massive improvement over 1.1 DWars, but not as big an improvement as Firestorm 2.0 was to its previous version. Though I mostly only mean that in terms of organization and streamlining (and yeah, the bolding of text is kind of a bit overboard, but not something that is causing me to tear out my own eyes). I actually don't regret buying this version (whereas I actively regret buying 1.1, such a disappointment) and for once it looks like DWars will offer a fun and interesting game with some semblance of balance.

I'm not as impressed with it as FS 2.0, but that isn't saying much as FS 2.0 is a great piece of work by any standard. DWars 2.0 is a bit clunkier, but far better balanced and still clearer and easier to play than before. They removed a lot of extraneous MARs, tightened up various disparate systems that did similar things in different ways, streamlined the rules for various sub-systems and did a great job balancing things out. The worst I can say is that the index isn't great and they bold text too much, everything else is an improvement. I agree that releasing the rules as a PDF would be a great way to alleviate some of that (text search and bookmarks cover up a lot of organizational flaws in things like the Infinity core book; not to even speak about how necessary the Wiki is for fully understanding Infinity and all its various FAQ rulings).

Bottom line, I have a lot of reasons to be fed up with Spartan. I was an early adopter for DWars (was in the very first wave, got my Prussians that Christmas) and suffered through a lot of their early bungling about. I was ready to give up but decided to give them another chance with Firestorm 2.0 and they wowed me. While DW2.0 isn't as awesome as FS2.0, it is still a huge improvement and a good game in its own right. I was not disappointed dropping money on this and I'm glad Spartan finally dropped a set of rules that lived up to the sculpts they produce. DW2.0 will get a lot of play with my group.

Bubbalicious wrote:
Theres just so much nonsense in your post frosenwastes...

So is it not true that the entire combat process essentially boils down to the three most common results? If so, then the next time you play, log the process and results of every attack and I think you'll start to see it.

The question is whether or not a given individual likes the idea of pooling dice from turrets and weapons and allocating them in a way that gives the best odds of getting either the 1 damage or the 2 damage+crit result (or maybe even the rare spike up to the higher damage levels). If you enjoy that process, this game is for you. If you see it as needlessly convoluted, then it's not.

Pretty much every change in 2.0 is worthy of a free update PDF, not a purchase. They're all such minor tweaks. It just feels like a GW style edition change cash grab to me. it's just over 2 years since the last rulebook came out. So it's like the GW release of 7th ed 40k 2 years after 6th. If people will call BS on that from GW, I think it's fair for Spartan to get called out for it as well.

I think part of the reason people are happy to see 2.0 is that 1.1 was just so terrible as a rules document anything will look better. I don't think I would have bothered with 1.1 for as long as I did without the third party reference sheets people made. Random forum dudes were somehow way more effective at communicating how to play the game than so-called professional game designers. In that regard 2.0 is a step in the right direction. It's a step in the right direction in that it is less terrible.

I think Spartan will continue to grow and expand on the strength of their models and because there are a sufficient number of people who just want a set of rules that are good enough to push some ships around and make some pew pew noises and roll a bunch of dice and cheer when they see lots of 6s. There's nothing wrong with that approach to gaming. I just want more out of my games and certainly more out of being asked to buy a minor revision of the rules again after only 2 years. If GW does it, no sale. If Spartan does it, no sale.

.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Pretty much every change in 2.0 is worthy of a free update PDF, not a purchase. They're all such minor tweaks. It just feels like a GW style edition change cash grab to me.

They are updating the rules for literally every unit in the game, land air and sea, allied and core nations.....?

Like I said...

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Oh, is it that time of year again already?

Sounds like more of the usual from Spartan.

Actually, unlike all the other non-editions, this is the first update to feel like an actual, proper edition. Expanded background chapters (massively expanded actually), major tweaks to many core mechanics (just about nothing was left untouched) and every single unit in the game re-examined and tweaked. I'm sure we could do a line by line list of every little niggling thing that has changed, but it would be a waste of everyone's time. This wasn't a couple minor stat tweaks and an errata clean-up of the old rules. Outside of keeping the basic core dice-pool mechanic (which face it, isn't going anywhere; not that dice pool mechanics are super weird in naval games either) most of the rest of the rules have been changed, tweaked or updated in some way, shape or form.

All that said, a free basic rules PDF wouldn't go amiss now that they are publishing all the unit rules in living PDFs. They seem a lot more open to treating things as a living rule system these days and Firestorm 2.0 has been great about reacting to things players found after release (several price tweaks and a full-on errata of an overpowered TAC card to name a few). It would certainly help folks sitting on the fence get in to things if such a document were made available. I do like using PDFs as in-game reference books myself. The big hard cover can be a bit unwieldy at times (but it is damn pretty at least).

So, is it worth playing Britain now?

No idea how balanced it is. The starter box is nice, but the cut down rules omit all race profiles, so I think you've got to buy the Commodore edition to get the complete package in print form.

Commodore only has race profiles for the 2.0 fleet boxes iirc the fleet listing are available as free downloads on Spartans site atm and will be released as a bound volume At a later date.

Overall seems like a big improvement with all core races rebalanced and now more characterful.

Production quality on the boxset and the commodore book are excellent and good value for money.

Well that was fast. Given Spartan's ADD, I guess they're putting Firestorm Armada back on life support again.

 BrookM wrote:
So, is it worth playing Britain now?

The internal and external balance appears to have really improved. Britain now receive the Redoutable (weapons degrade at half speed) rules on their primary weapons. Combined with the new rules for linking (rounding up and weapons all link in to a communal pool instead of linking in each ship and linking again to the squadron's pool) they can put out a terrific amount of fire and don't end up degrading as quickly as they did before. Their torpedoes often also get the Piercing rule which means that when they cause damage they force a roll on the crit chart (though still only dealing 1HP). The only thing I've noticed that isn't perfect is that the Tribal (which was one of the few original cruisers to stay a cruiser instead of moving to a light cruiser) and the Agincourt do, basically, the same thing. So a full squadron of Agincourt is basically 30 points more for something that is indisputably better. But people have pointed this out quite a bit and Spartan have shown that they take the "living" part of living army lists seriously, so I expect some kind of cost tweak on that one (the Tribal would be fine at an addition 5-10 point discount). Smalls have seen a bunch of changes. Most frigates (which tended to be the main workhorse in a lot of 1.1 fleets) have come up in cost for the most part (30 points a piece average). They have had their boarding capacity dumped down quite a bit with many receiving 1AP. Corvettes have been re-imagined as swift CQB/Boarding vessels and most sit at 2AP now.

So overall thought to the vessels role seems to have been the primary driver behind the changes and it looks to have mostly worked. Outside of a few cases where mediums come a bit close in role while also being a bit close in price (which should be an easy fix), few things in the list are no longer not worth fielding. Of course, with all the little changes to every facet of play, it may be a few months before we figure out what kind of far-reaching consequences there are, but FS2.0 held up fairly well to long-term play and got the needed tweaks to maintain balance in its FAQ as well as when the fleet guides rolled around and had a few point/stat updates for various ships. But you can no longer just spot multiple, gross balance issues with a bit of comparative analysis and number crunching. The fleets now appear to have a lot more options than just spamming a handful of top-tier units and calling it a day. So Prussian, EotBS, and KoB players can breath a happy sigh. The philosophy they took in to FS2.0 of trying to make even the core factions play in a fun and distinctive manner is in full swing here and from my initial observations, it looks like it has largely worked.

The internal balance on most lists has improved. Large vessels have come up in price (but most got a bump to be actually effective, so expect to see Emperor, Ruler and Magenta BBs actually take to the field again) and mediums finally coming in to their own as the affordable, core workforce of the fleet. Most battleships are running 190-210 points now (dreads often over 300 when equipped with generators). Cruisers can range from 50 up to 90 points and most squad sizes have been smoothed out to being 1-3 models (though Battle Cruisers are now just a single model). When linking in cruiser squads can often rival or even trump a dread's firepower but their comparative fragility means they wont be able to do so quite as long, but for the cost they are finally worth fielding in every fleet.

So yeah, I'd say KoB are worth fielding after this update (as are Prussians for that matter).

Well, that's a relief, means I didn't get suckered into buying the wrong fleet starter when it was on sale a while ago.

Well, not this edition at least.