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So me and my wife have been looking into Dystopian wars and Legion. I believe we have both decided on or two factions that we want to play. I want to do Federated States of America and she wants the Prussian Empire. What I'm looking for here is any advice for either game for those two factions. I think we are going to start with DW first before adding Legion as well. I have it in my mind to do sea battles followed by land battles. I have a rule book for DW that I have slowly started reading through and I'm sure I will have forth coming questions once I've gotten further into it. But for now any advice, suggestions, comments would be much appreciated for those two factions.

Well, I think both games are very enjoyable. I play FSA in both, but have a Russian starter fleet and smallish Prussian platoon for demo games of DL.

One thing you should know is that in naval battles, the FSA are normally considered the most powerful faction (I personally think they're just newbie friendly, it just takes time to learn the other factions abilities while FSA has nothing to learn)

Then the Prussian fleet is considered to be the hardest to learn.

That said, how you should proceed will entirely depend on what type of gamer is your wife? Is she just a casual player who wants to spend time with you, or is she a hardcore competitive player?

If your wife is not a hardcore competitive player than I would shy away from fielding the FSA dreadnought, at least until it seems you are struggling to win without it.

Ya she is a casual gamer, mainly interested because it is something that we can do together and both enjoy.

I understand that. Therefore, she may very well get tired of playing if you continually curbstomp her in the games. Although if she just wants to roll dice and watch things explode like whenever my wife plays games.

Although that's why I don't really enjoy playing games with her either, my wife cares so little about the game and wants so much bloodshed she will often completely forego any pretense of attacking and just put her models in the most dangerous positions possible to try to keep the game as short as possible.

I assume your wife will try more than mine though.

I would work on keeping the games light and fun though.

The Prussians are designed to be a fast, close ranged and boarding faction. The Tesla coils are considered to be difficult to use. They seem to be planned for use combined with boarding, but alas ships are unable to initiate boarding actions against enemy ships they shoot.

Also, interestingly the FSA has the best long ranged turrets, but also they have decent AA and AP on most of their vessels. This can make them fairly resilient to boarding.

Luckily she does make an honest attempt at playing the games that we do. I'm thinking that we will start with the naval battle group boxes. So far any game we play I always try to keep our two armies equal or to give her a slight advantage to help make sure she keeps interest in the game.

That sounds good. Do you have any specific questions about how to go about this, the respective factions, or anything else?

I am not very knowledgeable about the current state of the DW Prussian fleet because my only friend with one bought it a year or two ago and has never played a game.

Welcome to the fold!

roadkizzle is correct, FSA tends to be considered "strong" because of them being straight forward and newbie friendly. Not much in the way of special rules and things to remember, strong armour and good shooting. And just as he said, the Prussian Empire tends to be seen as the faction with the toughest learning curve (though a little less so now with battlecruisers making tesla weapons stronger).

To help balance, may I recommend simply filling the table with a good amount of terrain? The game "recommends" 2-3 pieces, but get 4-5 down and it should help somewhat blocking FSA lines of fire and helping her PE get close.

The fleet boxes are a good starting point, and if you keep an eye on the spartan store in the following months they will be releasing more versions of the fleet boxes too.

As for my take on the two factions, again roadkizzle isn't far off. FSA have excelent shooting and even indirect fire on some vessels, as well as +1DR and a mix of shield and kinetic generators letting them get close fast or further protect themselves. However I'v always found their AA and AP to be about average (sticking to the newbie friendly theme).

The PE are a nice force, their mediums may want to be swapped out for Denmark gunships (though i guess thats a try and see what you think sort of thing for some). Also their battleship is a bit of a turkey, their carrier makes for a much better unit. They have easily some of the best frigates and corvettes in the game also.

Dont forget to pick up some battlecruisers for the PE also. If i recall they can only add themselves onto a PE medium squad (so not an allied denmark one), but doing so gives you a medium sized demi-battleship that works as a force multiplier too all the fleets tesla weapons thanks to its 360 degree...sperschlueder? I don't know the lightning lance anyway. A very helpful tool for them to bring with a good amount of gunnery and AP for boarding.

As for the tesla being hard to get a hang of, its about 50-50 i find going against them. They'r a little low on AD, but that stops mattering once they've stuck lightning rod tokens into my fleet, and their getting boarding into play has never been a problem given their speed and enough terrain to make it interesting. Just remember to commit the PE frigates quick to get in damage to enemy AA and use their rear teslas if you can, but don't forget they can easily board if they need to as well.

As for making things more interesting, I would say give some scenarios or mini campaign play a go. The campaign books are a good start but would require some tweaking to the scenarios as they are for several different fleets (good source of fluff though).

Anyway hope any of this helps, and further questions please don't hesitate to ask.

What can you all tell me about the other factions that are currently playable? Are there two factions that would be better suited to us for getting started? Now I'm not brand new to war gaming so I'm ok if a faction isn't the easiest to start with but I would like something that would be ok for my wife who isn't that familiar to war gaming. Just got her started into it all about a year ago or so. Although keep in mind I want to be able to play the same faction in Dystopian Wars, Dystopian Legion, and Armoured Clash so as to set up some kind of campaign for us that will utilize all three games and types of combat.

Playing in all three games isn't a problem. They're following the same release faction order for DL as they are DW, and the AC rules are fairly new and not been updated beyond the initial release yet.

All the factions are a "fine" matchup. Each on has their "shtick" and their own tactics. FSA are as has been said the "newbie" faction. Think of them as the space marines of the sea. Straightforward, no complicated rules and a few minor perks all round (Strong AD and +1DR being their BS4 3+save). But their (personally) boring but practical.

The real fun starts with the other factions. This isn't a tactical loadout of each fleet mind (read any other "thinking of starting" thread on here, i give roughly the same tactical speach in each one). This is the salesmen pitch seeing as your playing for fun with the better half.

PE are lightning fast boarders with tesla lightning guns, have zepplins up the wazzoo (and who doesn't like zepplins?). Oh, and lets not forget a giant steampowered mecha that just stomps through the waves and throws ships around (or if you get on land, an entire ARMY of giant robot knights).

The RC are giant cannons that just happen to float, they have the FSA's gun power compressed into range 1 and 2, and are slow but stupidly high armoured. Oh, and they can create frickin icebergs mid battle! Airforce is a little oddwith half of it themed around suicide runs, but they make up for it with the largest ships around and a land dreadnought. The thing is a beast. Oh and a giant tunneling worm that vomits forth tanks.

The french are art. AA power everywhere, and some of the coolest ships that fly. As in full on skimming boats that can go against tanks. A flying dreadnought and giant lazer heat blasts.

The japanese look like trains with their ships, i will admit. Because choo choo right? Don't take them lightly though, they can rocket spam the metric gak out of anything. Combined with giant robotic squids that will just eat enemy ships, and some of the coolest walking tanks around. Did i mention they have a flying robot squid coming? Versatile as hell too, very fast and good maneuverability.

The covenant are science and shenanigans. They can hide their battleship under the waves and get all kinds of fancy generators. They also have two of the more interesting units around, the Aronax worm (think the robot version of a Dune worm or graboid from tremors) that is good on sea and land (and comes with a partical accelerator!) and the time dilation orb. Whats that? Just a giant ball on legs that lets you teleport your fleet around the field. On the land they have some of the nicest looking units, just crab/spider themed mecha. They also get a near "infinite" amount of tiny flyers as their carriers just keep creating more of the damned things.

The british love two things. Shields and Torpedos. Think Imperial Guard if they could always get cover spread around anywhere they are. Whats worse, when you do eventually manage to bash through the shields and damage them, unlike other guns the torpedos are never getting weaker, while your own fleet on the other hand as it takes damage...

Anyway its a rough sales pitch, as i said you want tactical depth and points on how to play them look at some of the other threads. Hope it helps.

I recently got into Dystopian Wars myself. Totally blown away by the amount of detail (the tiny stairs the size of GW rivet, HOW???)
here is some of my Britannia fleet ( the larger ones not painted )