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Hey guys, so I picked up some dystopian wars Free Australians, just the fleet, and I've got started on painting. But what next? A bloke at my store said the aerial battle group is a good next buy, and that I would have to pick up an airfield to go with it. Is he referring to these packs?

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/spartan-games/dystopian-wars/kingdom-of-britannia/kingdom-of-britannia-aerial-battle-group/prod_21131.html

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/spartan-games/dystopian-wars/rules-accessories/airfield-set/prod_14370.html

Or are they something else?

First off, you don't need an airfield. Australia don't have their own sky fortress, so their option if you want a carrier list is an airfield or an allied british Illustrious. It is not however required.

Secondly, those are indeed the right models. The Aussies use the same models as the british for their air, but you'l want to hit the spartan bitz store (they basically ram battleship turrets onto all their ships, crazy aussies). The stats cards for them as ever are free online, so a british air fleet can pull double duty as the aussies nicely enough.

Thanks for your help. Can I ask, why then bits store? Is that for the tiny fighters etc (may have used the wrong term)? Why not a discount dealer?

 motyak wrote:
Thanks for your help. Can I ask, why then bits store? Is that for the tiny fighters etc (may have used the wrong term)? Why not a discount dealer?

Simply for the turrets, as far as i'm aware spartan is keeping a leash on their bits, and while the british air box has all the ships needed for the aussies, it's missing some battleship turrets that replace the existing guns on things like the hawk's.

Ah right, makes sense. I thought the airbox was just planes, no ships. Woops

 motyak wrote:
Ah right, makes sense. I thought the airbox was just planes, no ships. Woops

Well it is; airships. It meets your small medium and large requirements for a core force. As I said, all it lacks is the turrets and the usual 2 wings of tiny flyers (which if i recall come with the naval fleets anyway)

Well I bought the Aussie fleet as opposed to a British fleet, so I didn't get any tiny flyers, but I'll have a look at spartan's bits store, I may be able to pick them up. How many would I need? Just 2 wings?

edit: Seems that I can't get them from the spartan site...dang.

double edit: Is there any way to run an Illustrious while still using Free Australia? Because I want one...and it says it comes with 'fighter tokens', are they the tiny flyers?

 motyak wrote:
Well I bought the Aussie fleet as opposed to a British fleet, so I didn't get any tiny flyers, but I'll have a look at spartan's bits store, I may be able to pick them up. How many would I need? Just 2 wings?

edit: Seems that I can't get them from the spartan site...dang.

double edit: Is there any way to run an Illustrious while still using Free Australia? Because I want one...and it says it comes with 'fighter tokens', are they the tiny flyers?

Ah right, forgot the aussies don't. You CAN use an illustrious by taking it allied out with the british (uses their profile). However i'm not 100% sure on the new ally rules, but I believe you'd need a small medium and large legal british force TO ally in now. Take that with a pinch of salt though, the latest books have rejigged things a little and i'm a little hazy. But short answer yes.

The illustrious comes with one wing due to it being a carrier. All forces have the OPTION of taking two wings free (they just can't refuel or rearm without the carrier). These aren't mandatory, just a nice thing to have.

http://shop.spartangames.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DWKB07

These however will solve the problem, pack 30 for £7.50. This will have you covered if you a) do end up wanting to try out airfields or b) want to paint your bombers, recons etc in specific colours to tell them apart.

Thanks for your help so far, I'll get into my store on Thursday (thats the main night for Dystopian Wars) and ask for a detailed rundown of just how I can take an Illustrious. I may pick it up in the meanwhile anyway

Keep in mind the Aussies come in regular and extra crispy flavors. Wait, I mean the 'loyalist' faction (the Dominion of Royal Australia and New Zealand) and the 'rebels' (Commonwealth of Free Australia). Both use the same hulls, but with slightly different stats (Free Aussies get energy weapons from the Covenant).

Ally rules in DW confuse me, but I'm looking at the excellent DW Fleet Organizer spreadsheet available from the Spartan Games forums and note the following:

For a CoFA force, you get the four Aussie ships (that are in your box set) and options for 3 flyers. These flyers are the Osprey, the Kestrel, and the Merlin. The Osprey and Kestral are both versions of the Brittanian rotors but should ideally be represented by different turrets. The Merlin is the standard model: I've heard this is a great unit if used properly as an interceptor for enemy aircraft.

Other than that, you've got a 'Floating Landing Field' and the Black Wolf (allied special character sub) and Titan (troop transport cruise ship) as options. The landing field does not have a model as far as I know: I've seen references on their forums to using the Landing Field set you link to on a 3" x 6" base as a 'standard' size. The main reason to take this is to augment the usual 2 wings (10 tokens) of Tiny Flyers everyone gets 'free' and provide a landing strip to refuel them.

The Dominion forces get a lot of the same stuff: the 4 Aussie ships (but slight variants with different turrets. Recommend keeping them loose and magnetizable), the same aircraft, the same allies. I do see two oddball options to take the Free Australia Pocket Battleship and Sub Tender as allies, but this may be a typo.

I believe these should be usable by KoB forces as allies in time.

Balance the landing field "model" is the scenery set on the 3"x6" square, it's basically fancy terrain. Depending on your group as long as the dimensions of the area are right you can use any airfield like terrain. You pretty much summed it all up nicely though. That and they really need to clean up the ally rules (not that I care, EotBS have never had to worry about 'em till recently )

 doc1234 wrote:
Balance the landing field "model" is the scenery set on the 3"x6" square, it's basically fancy terrain. Depending on your group as long as the dimensions of the area are right you can use any airfield like terrain. You pretty much summed it all up nicely though. That and they really need to clean up the ally rules (not that I care, EotBS have never had to worry about 'em till recently )

I've seen references to the 3x6 measurement on Spartan's forums. They've also suggested that you can probably get 2 landing fields out of one set of the terrain, along with adding some landing strips and such. I plan to do so, once I get a chance to chop some bases out of sheet acrylic.

EotBS is allies with China, right? And the Free Australians, as they're mercs to everyone.

 Balance wrote:

 doc1234 wrote:
Balance the landing field "model" is the scenery set on the 3"x6" square, it's basically fancy terrain. Depending on your group as long as the dimensions of the area are right you can use any airfield like terrain. You pretty much summed it all up nicely though. That and they really need to clean up the ally rules (not that I care, EotBS have never had to worry about 'em till recently )

I've seen references to the 3x6 measurement on Spartan's forums. They've also suggested that you can probably get 2 landing fields out of one set of the terrain, along with adding some landing strips and such. I plan to do so, once I get a chance to chop some bases out of sheet acrylic.

EotBS is allies with China, right? And the Free Australians, as they're mercs to everyone.

Now they are yeah, but that's a pretty recent thing. Considering we've been ally-less since allies came about, the new additions are nice but by now not overly an "auto-take" like some units seem to have become from the initial waves (huntsmen tanks for the British, or how the denmark gunships for the prussians often were before they got the new toys). Even then, the chinese are a nice slow and sturdy version of what we already have (fire up the wazoo), and the Free aussies are nice and interesting, but personally a bit hard pressed to find much to use them for. They don't really have anything that makes me think "These seem more fun to use than my Ika/wargyro/whatever".

I'm getting a box of aussies and plan to paint them in an 'inverse' pattern from my existing forces.I figure they'll be useful as an antagonist force or as allies dpending on my mood, and with magnetized turrets.