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So me and some mates at my FLGS are getting into Dystopian Wars with the 4 naval starter boxes and based off nothing other than the name I have chosen Empire of the Blazing Sun.
All I know about the game is 6s are good and my fleet will be more manoeuvrable the the other guys, so I'm hoping someone here would be good enough to go ahead and give me the basics and a rundown of the EotBS

Welcome to the Imperial Navy my friend Your right, our naval units are swimming in Sharp turn MARs (though i will be the first to say, once you get used to it using units without it can be a little jarring >< bit of a crutch im afraid).

Mostly the EotBS is a...survival knife i suppose. A jack of all trades force. Were the 2nd best boarding force, can match the brits torpedo spam with rocket spam, were harder to bring to quickly with a general +1 to our critical rating. But, were not the BEST at anything, so it becomes a matter of altering your strategy depending on who your against, more so than other factions. We don't have the luxury of being able to sit back with long range fire like the FSA, or just throw our units forward like the PE or RC. Its why were generally know to have the hardest learning curve to play next to the PE.

On the bright side though, we dont actually have a single "bad" unit. Youl see a lot of slander against our cruisers and dreadnought, but they arnt really that bad, just...the cruisers happen to not be gunships. They work amazingly in conjunction with aforementioned gunships to finish units off. As for the dreadnought...well the jury IS out on that one atm XD more of a mixed review.

We also have one of the best frigates in the game, many a EotBS player has core naval forces with just frigates as our small choices, and the full 40% of them.

Anyway, always nice to see a new face on our little board here it does get rather silent, so if you have any questions then post away

Oh boy, a hard learning curve.. fun.

Alright so the other guys have picked Prussian and the British one so far so I will need to learn what they are good at and try to deny them those tactics then?

As for our ships frigate spam is the way to go then? What about our aircraft? I have heard they are good and me and the prussian player both like the look of the air battlegroups.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Oh boy, a hard learning curve.. fun.

Alright so the other guys have picked Prussian and the British one so far so I will need to learn what they are good at and try to deny them those tactics then?

As for our ships frigate spam is the way to go then? What about our aircraft? I have heard they are good and me and the prussian player both like the look of the air battlegroups.

Haha dont be hating the learning curve It pays off as i said, its just you cant swing them like a hammer like the others, more of a surgeons scalpel

Haha you can only have up to 40% of your points as frigates anyway, but they are never bad. At 750 points i bring 2 full squads. Your starter cruisers are fine to learn the ropes, but look into a squad of Tanuki gunships ASAP. Also my own group found when we were starting out, escorts. Seriously, invest in escorts for your battleship. They make taking secondary fire (rockets and torpedos) a joke.

Prussians you want to use your speed and manuverability. Play the dancing game the first few turns, get some raging fire tokens going on their larger ships with your rockets and try to thin the smalls out. After youv hurt their AP before they get to you, do a 180, swing round and start counter boarding.

As for the KOB, get close as you can. they can put out some torpedospam, and their battleship can load up on generators, depending on your day it can seriously screw with your game. Take that advantage away. They dont get shields VS boarding dice. To put it in terms, I prized a Ruler battleship with just a frigate squad and some luck, all that got thruogh gunwise was my tiny torpedoes (1 was a crit tho so i got lucky weakening his AA)

Cant go wrong with aircraft. Again, EotBS dont have any BAD air units, so we get lucky here (just ask about prussian Jagers, people only take a token amount for the core list). The tetsubos are the beatstick they're named after. Horrible RB2 only rockets, but get a full squad and thats 15AP for 150points, 10 of which is unkillable because Gas Attack occurs after AA. The bombers are good too, i still run the 2 from the starter occasionally even now. Rocket the smalls, bomb the large targets when your close (again dont get shields VS bombs). They can even put out the AA to stand up to some tinyfighters themselves.

The inari is a menace. I dont know wether it or the Tanuki is the scariest thing in our fleet. Altitude skimming means you move the minimum distance after obscuring, stop turn sideways and laugh as they cant be touched by anything except boarding and AA. And if your opponents played you before, well my group tries to avoid RB1 with me (i like boarding btw ). First 2 turns wipe out the smalls, then have it support whatever else. Same with the War Gyro tbh, though it lacks altitude skimming it can take the beating to operate as a gunplatform too. A good use is to stay obscured at the oppening and try to park it above the enemy fleet in RB1, rain gunnery and bombs on the biggest thing under it where it cant be retaliated againts and rocket the flanks.

As for the tiny flyers, only ones worth mentioning are torpedo and fighters. Fighters are slightly hardier with Swarm, and making the enemy reroll all successfull CC with your torpedos isnt gonna make him happy not when youv just rolled enough for a Crit.

Oh and we should be getting another medium flyer christmas/next year

Me and my mate (finally) got a game in proxying the EotBS and Prussian fleet boxes. I scared him with my long range cruisers (I got the first activation and with it sank an escort ), hes then sent his own cruisers to tear them apart but then I was free to send 6 frigates, 2 bombers and my battleship at his own battleship and by the time it was close enough to do anything it was below half HP.
I learnt a lot about the game (even if we were not playing proper rules) and have started looking at stuff to buy. I'm thinking both the air and naval battle groups, 2 boxes of Takuni (haven't used them but now that I understand what the stat lines mean they look fun) aaaand I don't know.
I figure aiming for 2000 points will give me a lot of versatility in smaller games and allow me to play bigger ones so I can take a dreadnought (bigger battleship, whats not to love), another box of bombers (they were probably my MVPs, they droped a pair of cruisers that got too close and did 3 damage to the battleship), I can't find the rules for the tetsubo but 5 seem better than 2, destroyers look nice on paper but.. we need versatility yea? all rockets doesn't seem too good there. Is another 9 frigates too many or should I be focusing less on the big things more on the little dudes? Also the sky fortress, I like the model and the stats seem pretty good on paper, is it useful?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Me and my mate (finally) got a game in proxying the EotBS and Prussian fleet boxes. I scared him with my long range cruisers (I got the first activation and with it sank an escort ), hes then sent his own cruisers to tear them apart but then I was free to send 6 frigates, 2 bombers and my battleship at his own battleship and by the time it was close enough to do anything it was below half HP.
I learnt a lot about the game (even if we were not playing proper rules) and have started looking at stuff to buy. I'm thinking both the air and naval battle groups, 2 boxes of Takuni (haven't used them but now that I understand what the stat lines mean they look fun) aaaand I don't know.
I figure aiming for 2000 points will give me a lot of versatility in smaller games and allow me to play bigger ones so I can take a dreadnought (bigger battleship, whats not to love), another box of bombers (they were probably my MVPs, they droped a pair of cruisers that got too close and did 3 damage to the battleship), I can't find the rules for the tetsubo but 5 seem better than 2, destroyers look nice on paper but.. we need versatility yea? all rockets doesn't seem too good there. Is another 9 frigates too many or should I be focusing less on the big things more on the little dudes? Also the sky fortress, I like the model and the stats seem pretty good on paper, is it useful?

Something i can contribute to!

Ok in no particular order; the destroyers are like corvettes, can try them out but ultimately people love them or hate them, personally i cant stand them when the frigates give you more for your points. And no, can never have too many frigates Just bare in mind you can only ever have a total of 40% of your points as smalls including escorts, so a 1000 points would give you 4 squads aat 400 points and no escorts, 16 little train boats total. Unless you plan on massive games no need other than to paint to get loads lol.

The tetsubos are tasty, can get all statcards off the spartan games forum, its stickied in general discussions. They have terrible rockets that only work at RB2, and 1 AP each. But gas attack gives EACH of them 2AP AFTER AA shots and before linking. Thats 10 unkillable AP per assualt in a full squad.

The hachiman isnt that great, its....a dreadnought in the same way the french get a "pocket battleship". Dont get it thinking it can take on other factions dreds, it CANT. ITs really more off a 55point upgrade to the sokotsu. If you want to kill dreadnoughts, then for now your best bet is a pair of Ikas (love they give you 2 in the box lol).

The Bombers are a solid unit, i love fielding my squad but however look at Inari sometime, 15 more points for altitude skimming, drops limited resources, adds a turret and swaps for rockets for rocket batter very nice.

The cruisers arnt as ba as people make out, however as you probably noticed the extra 10 points gets you the tanukis. Dont meen that you shouldnt use the cruisers though, if you look the tanukis have a blindspot at RB1 with just that secondary turret, so take a unit of 2 cruisers and 2 tanukis and it can nicely help patch that up (lose a turret, but can link x4 rockets and torps and get some broadsides for RB1.)

Also a nice tactic with that is to get close to the biggest thing down, ram it with a cruiser which will half that cruisers AP, and half the enemy battleship/dreads AP, and still leave you with 19AP to board with

Ok, this might be a real silly question but just what is the difference between EotBS and other factions turning? Our proper rulebook hasn't arrived yet so we are kinda playing bare bones rules wise for now and I think we have been doing it wrong. Am I supposed to be using the templates in a different way to other factions or can I just toss them and spin on the spot?

The only difference is that EotBS ships don't have to move the minimum distance before making their first heading change. Most ships have to move at least X" first, but not the japs.

Ok thanks.