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Wasn't Uncharted Seas' second version only like a year after the first as well?

 AduroT wrote:
Wasn't Uncharted Seas' second version only like a year after the first as well?

About that time frame.

there was version 1, 1.1 then they released a new rule book during the failed relaunch, not sure if it is called 2.0. I didn't buy the latest rule book as I felt all that would happen would be they release another one in a year.

Firestorm has 3 rule books. I own them all.

Spartan came out with 1.1 rules for DW about 6 months or after the initial launch. Didn't bother buying the initial rules set as I knew what was going to happen.

Gentleman got it right over at TMP. You pay to play test spartan products.

Great miniatures, but their rules are about as organized as my girlfriend's bins of shoes.

Also, non-english communities would grow much faster if they would translate their books. Would not be more expensive than printing slightly updated books every year and definitly get more gamers playing.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Spartan never announced it, but there were definite changes between the book that shipped to people in December and the one people found in game stores in early 2011).

So yeah, my facts are straight. But most of the discussions from back in those days died when the Spartan Games forums suffered unrecoverable death several years back. So I forgive you for not being able to properly research the progression. But in the future, you may want to ask for clarification on someone's claims before assuming they're wrong.

Actually, the original SMF Spartan forums died just over a year ago ( Feb 2012, IIRC). This is actually something interesting I've noticed; because Spartan has been a prolific model producer and has introduced a number of games in short order, it is easy to forget just how new the company actually is. Dystopian Wars is not quite 2 1/2 years old, and FA is barely a year older than that. "Several years back" takes us almost to the beginning of the company!

Me personally? I'm still a huge supporter of Spartan, and I've been enjoying the ride! Even with having to purchase a second rule book, the total amount of money that I've sunk into DW and FA vs. the amount of enjoyment I've gotten from the games is still quite a bit higher than most other games I've played. I think some of the comments above about mismanagement are pretty much right on the money, though. My impression is that Spartan Games is being run by a group of enthusiastic, well-meaning but inexperienced folks who are learning a lot of lessons the hard way. Unfortunately for them, they are in competition with many companies (GW, Battlefront, Mantic, PP, etc) which have been around for decades or have the involvement of people who have, causing them to look fairly amateurish in comparison. It seems that the expectation now for a new game or product line is for it to spring forth fully formed and flawlessly executed!

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
Also, non-english communities would grow much faster if they would translate their books. Would not be more expensive than printing slightly updated books every year and definitly get more gamers playing.

Dude, they can barely write functional English

Dystopian Wars and DBA (a short historical rules set) are the two games I can recall where getting the rulebook made things worse. I learned both by playing with people who already knew the game and had great fan made reference sheets. Then I got the actual rules and was like WTF?!

You know you failed at publishing a rulebook when reading it makes things less clear rather than more.

Well, there would be people out their that would love to help them with translations AND proof-reading their English boosk.

Well, you may want to get a GOOD spell-checker first..

And you need to playtest different language versions as different translations may mean the exact wording can change the rules. So you gotta be really careful.

Liking the look of that dropship, thinking it might go really well with a deadzone landing pad as a terrain piece/ really cool objective.

The terrain isn't my thing, everyone and their dog has already released MDF terrain that looks similar, but the drop ship is a great example of them taking the material and doing something more interesting with it, by using it to make large vehicles instead of just terrain.

Yeah, I feel the same way.

More MDF/HDF type terrain just doesn't get me excited - unless there's some other reason to, like significantly cheaper, more detailed, etc.

I think this does work out pretty cheap, or at least a measure less than the other MDF stuff about - Wayland Games are doing an offer on for the starter set, £72 for this lot:



For Infinity (or 40k or any other sci-fi game for that matter) that's a pretty impressive looking centre piece for your board. And, pretty much the same price as something like the Fortress of Redemption.

Some of their little accessory packs are pretty neat too (the 'barracks' and 'med bay' packs etc).. seriously thinking about starting a 3rd board for Infinity in fact!

If you say so, I'll believe you!

Hard to envision what that will look like on the table, with models next to it/on it/etc. though...

My issue with Spartan stems from their quality control. I got the Covenant starter fleet as a Christmas gift. When I went to actually start on it, I found that many of the ships had a 1mm layer of ugly miscast material/flash on the bottom. I requested replacements, which were sent out quickly, but with one slight problem: some of them were worse than the originals! After that, I've been reluctant to finish what I had and unwilling to purchase any more. Haven't even gotten to a game yet.

@Alph - check out the render of the rooms together that I posted in the terrain thread and find something nearbye that has about the same measurements given for the doorways. That should give you a pretty good idea of the scale... I think, I'm not sure how other people's brains work.

That's pretty damning, Guildsman, especially if it was the Christmas just past. Do you have pictures?

 Ronin_eX wrote:

Not to get all grognardy (as much as you can for a game that is only a couple years old), but I was an early adopter of Dystopian Wars, I got my first starter in the very first batch sent out in Novemeber/December of 2010. I was a long time fan and fairly active in the Spartan community back on the old forums. I remember each and every single revision that went through, I remember the flame wars incited by the the "secret" printing (only secret because Spartan never announced it, but there were definite changes between the book that shipped to people in December and the one people found in game stores in early 2011).

Boy, that comment you made about early adopters of Dystopian Wars ending up in the stealth-playtest-open-beta really resonates with me. I (and my friends) bought Dystopian Wars thinking that it would be like a more in-depth version of Axis and Allies Naval Miniatures with battleships and airplanes and stuff blowing up.

A very long story short, this elaborate WWI-esque battleship game had boarding mechanics that were so much more powerful than the shooting mechanics that opposing fleets would generally speed towards each other trying to launch Marines onto the other guy's ships. Toss in a clunky and largely useless 'tiny airplanes' mechanic, and then figure that several of the models were plain imbalanced. Like inanely so. The FSA battleship was cheaper, more powerful, more durable, and had better perks than a KoB battleship. When some of these glaring imbalances were pointed out (imagine a 16 pt Space Marine being compared to a veteran Imperial Guardsman ... now make the IG vet cost 17 points) the response was, I gak you not, 'roll better'. On the SG forums, 'rolling better' is valid 'tactics'. This is now a running gag at my FLGS; when somebody is doing abysmally poorly, they scream TAAAACTICS!!! as they roll the dice, praying that a bunch of sixes bails them out.

I really wanted to like Spartan Games, but the rules system was impossible and their development community had their heads in the same paper bag that apparently they grabbed their rules systems out of.

So it's a good thing I still don't own a Dystopian Wars rulebook then eh? I had been planning to ever since I bought my Kingdom of Britannia starter last year, but after been horribly beaten by the FSA and Antarctica starters.. Roll harder indeed!

When I went to actually start on it, I found that many of the ships had a 1mm layer of ugly miscast material/flash on the bottom. I requested replacements, which were sent out quickly, but with one slight problem: some of them were worse than the originals! After that, I've been reluctant to finish what I had and unwilling to purchase any more

Ahem, if that is what is suspect than that was a very stupid thing to do. The flash layer at the bottom of the ships is quite normal since that´s where they pour the resin in. Normally some sanding the bottom should do the job and can be expected from any customer. If it was something else we would need pictures to get an idea what exactly you mean.

@scenery
It´s quite a good value for the money in my opinion.

@DW
It´s not that bad, it has improved with 1.1, but it still could need some editor and some more external playtesting.

@translation
spelling and keeping the rules consistent over the different versions is no problem if you hire professionals to do it. Actually professionals are cheaper than fan-translations in the end.

Well, my wife must have done something to feel guilty, as she just let me buy the starter set from Wayland.

Now I'm wondering what she's done.... The car's still in one piece.

Cheers

Andrew

 BrookM wrote:
So it's a good thing I still don't own a Dystopian Wars rulebook then eh? I had been planning to ever since I bought my Kingdom of Britannia starter last year, but after been horribly beaten by the FSA and Antarctica starters.. Roll harder indeed!

Reading the SG forums KoB section is probably the biggest reason i lose interest in getting my KoB fleet painted. They seem to be in dire need of some attention as many of their 'special' units are of extremely limited use (The Vanguard, the submarine with a chainsaw-bladed prow, is too slow to catch up with targets it can actually take down without suiciding, for example).

I'm waiting to see the Australian rules coming soon. They can apparently either stay loyal (and have some KoB stuff that is 'improved' plus their own ships) or go their own way (and get energy weapons from the CoA). Cool either way, thouh I'm not thrilled that the answer to a limited list is to get allies.

Hehe, yeah when I bought my boxed set my friend was super motivated (probably because he wanted to sell that box and have someone to bash) but afterwards when I asked him what the special thing was of the KoB he couldn't tell me. I did find out that FSA can turn on the spot and has superior fire power, that Antarctica has particle cannons that can slice through multiple ships at once and that the KoB has more torpedoes? Yay I guess, just a shame that all those other fleets have such effective counter measures against those..

KoB: You specialize in a weapon that cannot shoot aircraft!

A brilliant evolutionary achievement considering that France has an entirely airborne navy!...

I knew I should've gone with the frogs!

Eh, feth it, I'll sit this out until decent rules and a fix for KoB hit the web.

 sourclams wrote:
KoB: You specialize in a weapon that cannot shoot aircraft!

A brilliant evolutionary achievement considering that France has an entirely airborne navy!...

Though the torpedoes can still hit the French skimmers, albeit at a slight disadvantage (5+) but it does bypass that pesky retardant armor (Though it makes no difference if they've got a cloud generator up, everything will hit on a 5+ anyways). They will be joined by the Ottomans who will also field quite a bit of skimmers.

The French Naval core is a bit average though, especially compared to its Aerial core (That damned Vauban is effectively an aerial dreadnought), France also lacks shields compared to Britain who can shield even their smalls under certain circumstances. The Battlecruiser Lord Hood is quite the bruiser though especially if attached to a unit of Agincourts.

Notably though, the first five Naval Starter boxes are pretty poorly planned overall. FSA and the CoA have very strong starter boxes, as their battleships are quite powerful, and the rest of ships are decent. The KoB has an average starter. The Empire of the Blazing Sun is average as well, with the battleship and bombers being alright, the cruisers being the worst of the bunch, and the frigates able to fire a staggeringly large amount of gunnery. The Prussians have a terrible starter box, as the Prussian Battleship is infamously poor, and the Cruiser isn't much better, slightly offset by its decent bomber and the best frigates in the game. Thankfully the new flotilla boxes their releasing this Spring/Summer should remedy some of this.

They do need to balance the cruisers somehow, since nearly everyone will agree that a gunship vastly outperforms a cruiser as a medium choice.

I do like how they use community involvement though, its quite refreshing. Though it was surprising when they decided to use YHLAN's unit cards for DW and plan to discontinue their own unit cards for newer models, granted the fanmade cards are arguably far better. The fanmade quick reference sheets are also quite good and makes far more sense than their rule-book. As long as they learn from their mistakes, Spartan has a good chance of growing into a fine company.

 Balance wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
So it's a good thing I still don't own a Dystopian Wars rulebook then eh? I had been planning to ever since I bought my Kingdom of Britannia starter last year, but after been horribly beaten by the FSA and Antarctica starters.. Roll harder indeed!

Reading the SG forums KoB section is probably the biggest reason i lose interest in getting my KoB fleet painted. They seem to be in dire need of some attention as many of their 'special' units are of extremely limited use (The Vanguard, the submarine with a chainsaw-bladed prow, is too slow to catch up with targets it can actually take down without suiciding, for example).

I'm waiting to see the Australian rules coming soon. They can apparently either stay loyal (and have some KoB stuff that is 'improved' plus their own ships) or go their own way (and get energy weapons from the CoA). Cool either way, thouh I'm not thrilled that the answer to a limited list is to get allies.

Ignore the forum, the KoB are a really good faction.

I, for one, really like dystopian wars (though rulebook design does leave something to be desired) and while the first version was terribly balanced in regards to boarding the game is changing and improving all the time. Spartan really listens to their player base is a very open and friendly company. No company is perfect but I like the asthetic of DW enough to see past the negatives.

EDIT: I agree with the poster above me however, the first thing people starting DW should do is get away from the starter boxes, they aren't balanced. Play equivalent points ASAP.

Yep, ignore the forum and play with your group.... the forum can get nasty-whiney at times.

Has Spartan already linked the fan-made cards on their website?

They have not on their main website, it is stickied in their community forum however.

Sigh.... Spartan... as organized as ever... Do you have a link?

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:


Ahem, if that is what is suspect than that was a very stupid thing to do. The flash layer at the bottom of the ships is quite normal since that´s where they pour the resin in. Normally some sanding the bottom should do the job and can be expected from any customer. If it was something else we would need pictures to get an idea what exactly you mean.

Sorry for the quality, but I think it illustrates the point. This one was the worst of the bunch. A thick layer of extra resin, which files and a hobby knife couldn't handle. Others had the same layer, which didn't extend to the edge, leaving it ragged and pitted. I fixed the ones I could with an electric sander, and asked for replacements for the rest. I also asked for a replacement for the tower on the battleship, but the replacement was worse, so I made do. In the end, I was unsatisfied with the quality of the models I received. Maybe it was the part where I had to use power tools on them. Stupid? Maybe, maybe not.

It´s very hard to tell whether it is an extra layer below the original cast, which can be easily be removed with some sanding paper and a few minutes of sanding or whether it is beside the original cast.