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Just arrived in the mail! Russian Coalition and the Federated States of America!

Man o man are these models awesome/amazing...definitely glad I purchased and will most likely play a game wed night.

P.S. Better pics later, these are the 'excited phone pictures'

So some views, not many replies or comments. I'll take that as needing to drum up support for Dystopian Wars.

Played my first game, Russian Coalition vs Federated States of America. Russia pretty much drives on up to you, weathers the storm, and then drops buckets o'shots in your face. I love it. Here's some pics of the ships basecoated.












I love love love these ships as they are insanely detailed. Dark grey base, thinking a dark red secondary color, and dirty gold trim. Some good ole soviet looking colors.

Also, I appropriated a GW piece to assist us...














And then Brother Fred, who has done duty as a military instructor to the Tau(Fireblade stand-in), done his duty as a Zoanthrope, and also as an Ork Weird boy......well now he surfs on the FSA to show size comparisons...

Oh I really enjoy the game. I have a decent sized FSA fleet land, sea, and air. As well as the old Russian starter box, and a danish/Italian fleet.

I've played many games of FSA vs Russia, especially initial demo ones. Although I have the FSA dreadnought I very rarely play with them.

And now onto the GAME!!!!!!!!!


Him:
Enterprise Dreadnought
3 Springfield Escorts
2 Princeton Gunships
4 Guilford Destroyers

Me:
Moskva Dreadnought
Peset Submarine
3 Tambov Gunships
4 Rostov Destroyers



I squadron-ed up like so(not sure if legal, still using the quick start rules).................(((After action, it was wrong to squadron that way)))

Moskva and Tambov
2 Tambovs
2 Squads of 2 Rostovs
Peset



I lost the Rostovs quickly, not sure if I just played them badly, but I think I left them forward and under supported. We didn't know about AA and CC vs Rockets/Torpedoes(oops). The Peset was fun and evil, need to experiment with it as a spotter for the Moskva maybe? The Moskva is a beast, but I lost it unluckily to a CR Roll where the sturginum explosion happened and I was just barely an inch of the board...ugh.


Overall I like the game and mechanics, need the rulebook though.

















Automatically Appended Next Post:

roadkizzle wrote:
Oh I really enjoy the game. I have a decent sized FSA fleet land, sea, and air. As well as the old Russian starter box, and a danish/Italian fleet.

I've played many games of FSA vs Russia, especially initial demo ones. Although I have the FSA dreadnought I very rarely play with them.

I love the Russians and have the other Naval boxed set and the Air set coming in the mail. Have to decide what to get for FSA to keep them semi-equal...so whoever I convince to play me has options

The airs fun, and if you feel like your running out of options take a look at the alliance and mercenary forces! May I recommend the John Henry's for your FSA?

 doc1234 wrote:
The airs fun, and if you feel like your running out of options take a look at the alliance and mercenary forces! May I recommend the John Henry's for your FSA?

That is actually what I was thinking of getting them. Great minds think alike lol

Though by the look of your batrep, you do know the pesets dont get the Echo generator any more right? The living statbooks available on spartans downloads page :V

 doc1234 wrote:
Though by the look of your batrep, you do know the pesets dont get the Echo generator any more right? The living statbooks available on spartans downloads page :V

I'm not sure what that means to even confirm or deny I did wrong... Can you explain?

 foto69man wrote:

 doc1234 wrote:
Though by the look of your batrep, you do know the pesets dont get the Echo generator any more right? The living statbooks available on spartans downloads page :V

I'm not sure what that means to even confirm or deny I did wrong... Can you explain?

The pesets acrylic templates pictured in your batrep, though I assume now you were using them as submerged markers? ^^;;

In the old 1.1 the pesets and the black wolf had a generator using them, its not in the new rules. Nevermind me I think I jumped to a conclusion

Yeah I used them as submerged. We did play it wrong and I was rolling to hit as if surfaced...ooops

 foto69man wrote:
So some views, not many replies or comments. I'll take that as needing to drum up support for Dystopian Wars.
Here's some pics of the ships basecoated.
Dark grey base, thinking a dark red secondary color, and dirty gold trim. Some good ole soviet looking colors.

If you hadn't already come across it elsewhere, as best I remember most painting tips mention using some shade of brown as being most workable under sections you want to finish in red.

The Russian ships don't look too bad at all, but I'm definitely not a fan of the FSA faction's "paddle wheel" sculpts.

Everybody always complains about the FSA paddlewheels, but those are directly inspired by many real world classes of American Civil War ironclads.

Specific examples:
USS Lafayette - sidewheel ironclad ram
http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/86/86081.htm

USS Choctaw - sidewheel ironclad
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Choctaw_(1856)

Confederate Nashville class sidewheel ironclad
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville-class_ironclad

CSS Baltic - sidewheel ironclad ram
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/csa-sh/csash-ag/baltic.htm

Now most of these were river or littoral craft, whose to say that with the advanced technology and Sturginium they didn't find a way to make the paddlewheels suited for oceanic travel.

Im still waiting to see them make a paddlewheel sub. Even their tanks have them...

Come on... Only the Washington land ship has any paddlewheels, and that's just because it is an amphibious ship. They are not even exposed as the naval ships.

That said, the single tracks through the central line of the tanks is probably the most absurd propulsion design in the game, but the paddlewheels are not absurd for ironclad warships, especially ones based on the ACW ironclads as the FSA are.

roadkizzle wrote:
Come on... Only the Washington land ship has any paddlewheels, and that's just because it is an amphibious ship. They are not even exposed as the naval ships.

That said, the single tracks through the central line of the tanks is probably the most absurd propulsion design in the game, but the paddlewheels are not absurd for ironclad warships, especially ones based on the ACW ironclads as the FSA are.

It's still a giant tank with paddlewheels Though I think every faction has something a little bit absurd minimum, its part of the charm of the game. The Chinese being floating buildings, the Japanese trains, the list kinda goes on but we love it anyway

The tank has to have some method of moving through water for it to be amphibious. I think the small and discreet paddlewheels look better than propellers hanging off the back would have.

To really see them you pretty much have to pick the model up and look at the underside of the hull.

It really is the Japanese train boats that I can't stand. The paddlewheel ironclads are easily shown to have historical inspiration. I've never seen any historical background.

I am stationed in Turkey right now, and my coworkers were amazed at the Ottoman EMpire ships. With the Mosques and such on them. Now hearing Ottoman Empire...well another matter

Roadkizzle, maybe you would explain the historical background of the Metzgar, or the Arronax perhaps?

roadkizzle wrote:
The tank has to have some method of moving through water for it to be amphibious. I think the small and discreet paddlewheels look better than propellers hanging off the back would have.

To really see them you pretty much have to pick the model up and look at the underside of the hull.

It really is the Japanese train boats that I can't stand. The paddlewheel ironclads are easily shown to have historical inspiration. I've never seen any historical background.

I, on the other hand, *love* the Japanese train boats.




The Japanese Helicarrier is pretty awesome as well.

Lets not forget the Japanese flying Squidadel.

 doc1234 wrote:
Roadkizzle, maybe you would explain the historical background of the Metzgar, or the Arronax perhaps?

Now, I was talking about the general overarching aesthetics of the factions... not their specific flavor units, which still normally follow the general aesthetic as well.

Except for the Blazing Suns, each nation really has a general aesthetic that takes inspiration from their respective histories, culture, or architecture.

Largely the aesthetics of all nations are designed so that people who are unfamiliar with the game can look at a fleet of models and have a good feel of which nation the fleet is supposed to represent.

I know you may point out that the Covenant of Antartica ships aren't based on any sort of historical, cultural, or architectural influences... But Antartica has only really been populated heavily by animals, and the CoA is the most organic faction with many ships that look like fish/whales/crabs.

FSA, KoB, PE, RC, RoF are all fairly clear.

The Blazing Suns general aesthetic is really the only one that seems to have no inspiration from anything remotely Japanese.

roadkizzle wrote:

The Blazing Suns general aesthetic is really the only one that seems to have no inspiration from anything remotely Japanese.

Except for the giant squid submarine. And possibly the helicarrier.

I suspect that the Blazing Suns aesthetic was driven by a desire to make them look sleek and somewhat modern for the era (perhaps inspired by the high-tech nature of modern Japan), which in a Victorian-era Steampunk setting means Art Deco.

But the squid robot doesn't maintain the general Blazing Sun aesthetic. It just looks like a robotic squid.

The carrier is better looking than the majority of the ships though because the train aspect is downplayed and it focuses on the flight deck and front turret section.

Those two and the new battlecruiser are the only models I really care for from them.

roadkizzle wrote:
But the squid robot doesn't maintain the general Blazing Sun aesthetic. It just looks like a robotic squid.

Sorry, was thinking culturally thematic.

I'm enjoying 2.0, though I have one huge gripe. Factions tend to be balanced as a whole. Does your FSA navy feel lacklustre? Don't worry, the FSA air units are some of the best in the game! Wait, you wanted just a naval force? Well, you play the game wrong! It gets a bit tired and leads to repetitive list building.

Zond are you literally complaining about there being too much balance?

 doc1234 wrote:
Zond are you literally complaining about there being too much balance?

No, I think he's complaining that the various "arms" aren't balanced with each other. So it makes more sense to build an FSA air fleet than it does to build an FSA naval fleet or an FSA fleet that's balanced between naval and air assets.

Eumerin wrote:

 doc1234 wrote:
Zond are you literally complaining about there being too much balance?

No, I think he's complaining that the various "arms" aren't balanced with each other. So it makes more sense to build an FSA air fleet than it does to build an FSA naval fleet or an FSA fleet that's balanced between naval and air assets.

Well right now we are only doing Naval till we get the hang of it. My buddy bought Kingdom of Britannia and I am sticking wiht my Russians. Eventually air will come. Thinking the Tunguska will be the first addition in that realm. Probably get a game in on Sat as well.

 doc1234 wrote:
Zond are you literally complaining about there being too much balance?

No, that would be dumb. I'm pointing out the factions are balanced against each other when you take into account the respective strengths of their Air, Land and Naval forces combined. Compare the individual parts, Navy vs Navy for example, and some Core Nations are distinctly lacking.

I'll withhold some judgement till i'v had more 2.0 games, but back in 1.1 the FSA naval got SM levels of flakk for being the "Easy starter button". Could be they dialed that back a little TOO much.