A Dystopian Wars Miscellany - First pieces of a "Lagoon" Naval Base (p.3)

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi all,

got bitten by the Dystopian Wars bug when I bought two blisters just to paint them, and a week and two games later, I have this 1500p fleet... speaks volumes for my resolve not to start new game systems, but the DW stuff is so lovely. I adore the cuddly (for lack of a better word) heft of the designs, and the casting quality is great to superb.

I went for Antarctica first, as I really, really liked the designs (a fleet, half of which looks like the Disney Nautilus' second cousin), and I may actually go for another, smaller one now that I now how the games play out; I'm leaning towards the Japanese due to the outrageously charming streamline locomotive style, but will wait for the Russians to come out. If those are as spot on as the recently-released French, stylewise, I may go for the Czar's fleet instead.

Also contemplating what kind of scenery to get. I built a quick 6x4 table out of MDF, paint and transparent adhesive foil, but I still wonder what kind of terrain would not look too out of place. You may recall my short foray earlier this year into Foochow 1884, and I'm still leaning to a naval yard and one or two coastal batteries, with maybe a coaling station thrown in, but I'm still unsure if they can actually be built in a reasonable size that looks proper but does not take up too much manoeuver space.



Battleship and Escorts:



Armoured Cruisers:



Cruisers:



Destroyers:



Torpedo Boats (actually they are called frigates, but I always refer to them otherwise):



Some more frigates, with a single bow chaser:



Some land-based air support:





Really love the little ships, and the game plays great.

[VSF Gamer]

Your fleet looks great, very daunting and definitely a fleet to contend with. I too enjoy Dystopian Wars, however my main complaint is whoever put the rule book together did a very poor job as far as organizing the rules in any particular order. 

[gamer Mac]

Great looking fleet, Chris.
We also dipped our toes in the water with this game.
We had our first game of this last weekend seemed like fun.
I am thinking of a prussian fleet with my brother going for the new french.
Not sure about scenery either. So will watch this thread for ideas.

[Sterling Moose]

Very nice.  I picked up a brand new set of the rules at Cold wars for $10 so I'm itching to give the game a try.

[Westfalia Chris]

I am thinking of a prussian fleet with my brother going for the new french.

That's going to be an interesting matchup. I really like where they went with the french, design-wise, and the Prussians are interesting to play, rules-wise, with their short-range and boarding potential.

Not sure about scenery either. So will watch this thread for ideas.

I was complaining to my brother (who plays an American fleet) that with the "official" forums still offline, there is only a handful of DW stuff to be found on the web. Now that you two are getting into the game, though, I'm sure that will change for the better! :-)

Anyway, in our games, we found that some LOS blockers are quite useful, plus some items to impede movement to some sizes of ships. I'm personally leaning to having bigger islands or port installations towards the board edges, which means they'll somewhat "funnel" movement towardsthe table center and serve as a visual backdrop rather than dwarving the ships. I'll try to upload pics of what I built so far later today.

[mattblackgod]

Very nice. I may be tempted to get into this game.

[Dr. The Viking]

The miniatures are astonishing and even perplexing in detail, but every time I hear anything about the rules it is utterly negative. 

[The_Beast]

We had limited success with a league here, but never heard serious complaints about the rule set.

Also contemplating what kind of scenery to get. I built a quick 6x4 table out of MDF, paint and transparent adhesive foil, but I still wonder what kind of terrain would not look too out of place. You may recall my short foray earlier this year into Foochow 1884, and I'm still leaning to a naval yard and one or two coastal batteries, with maybe a coaling station thrown in, but I'm still unsure if they can actually be built in a reasonable size that looks proper but does not take up too much manoeuver space.

Have you looked at the Amera stuff?
http://www.amera.co.uk/product.php?range=u

It's supposed to be for the Uncharted Seas, but I picked up the Island and Harbour set, and with the exception of the largest ships, looks like it'd work fine but leave plenty of space. Well, you sort of want challenges with 'terrain'.

Says volumes about my completion anxiety issues that it's neither mounted or painted yet, though.

Doug

[Westfalia Chris]

The miniatures are astonishing and even perplexing in detail, but every time I hear anything about the rules it is utterly negative. 

Well, you won't hear it from me. The rules themselves are perfectly solid and make for an extremely enjoyable game with lots of explosions, but the book's sequence of presenting them makes getting into it quite daunting for the beginner. In our first games, there was a lot of fore-and-backflipping involved, and the index, useful as it is, could be better as it is not strictly alphabetical, but topical.

But once you get into the game and make use of some of the playsheets (the new one that comes with the 1.1 rulebook and the firing matrix from the older one), it flows quite nicely. I hope to use flyers in our next game on Wednesday, and will be facing a French fleet tomorrow evening, so I'll hopefully get some idea how a substantial amount of aviation integrates with the rules.

Have you looked at the Amera stuff?
http://www.amera.co.uk/product.php?range=u

Yes, I have (but thanks for pointing it out) - not bad at all, and I had some Amera thingies in the past which I was rather happy with. That said, in the time it would take me to order (and receive) some of those items, I could build islands from styrofoam at a fraction of the price and with more haptic enjoyment (they are great though, and if I didn't have to order them but could get them in a store where I live, I would certainly get at least the island set).

Maybe I should clarify that I am not really stumped by the act of building the stuff, but rather deciding WHAT to build, and how - better to do them as islands or peninsulas, and/or as a four-part set that can either slot together to form a large-ish island or be placed on their own in corners... I tend to get caught up in the planning stages and then run out of time to actually build it.

But the main issue is the playing surface, and that is all done. The rest is window-dressing, and honestly I am not too fond of having naval scenery pieces unless they form part of the scenario. Looks a bit strange, IMHO. I'll admit, though, that in a game like Dystopian Wars, where you are not obliged to use "historical" formations and tactics, having LOS blockers is quite useful.

I'll probably go for flat-top islands which allow the placement of various items, so it could be an island fortress or a small settlement. Having lived in Hull for the last few years, I had thought about doing the north coast of the Humber estuary, but that would be a bit boring after a couple of games, even if one takes into account its stunning, entrancing natural beauty.

[ianh]

I love this game since I picked it up in Derby last October have been a complete addict.

For scenery I've played some great games with none at all where the onus is on manoevure and also some awesome ones betwen islands wher (as I am not a great modeller) hills and islands suffice as islands.  The key our group has found, though, is to create depths of water for naval battles.  That way the leviathans can't miss an island by a millimetre or so and plough on regardless.

So for example having areas small ships can cross but carriers can't adds some interesting dimensions to movement and means opponents have to worry about whether to take out the big capital ships or worry more about the corvettes and destroyers zooming over the board to close range where they are so hard to hit.

For the rules I think Spartan deserve a lot of credit for listening to gamers between the first and new rules.  Tiny flyers now work really well and the ordering of the rules is much better, in particular AA and boarding IMO.

I am especially fond of the new critical hits where last week my carrier was picked up and dropped on my dreadnought causing general mayhem and considerable laughter!

[Ray Rivers]

Lovely fleet, mate! 

Resisting this line is very, very difficult.

[ianh]

Ah Ray join us on the dark side of Dystopian you know you want to.

Our club (Burton, UK) is working on the first (that we know of) tournament for later this year...

IMO as an addict it works well as a tournament idea albeit an unpredicatble one.  Anyone else lost a battleship to two destroyers with torps

[Westfalia Chris]

Ah Ray join us on the dark side of Dystopian you know you want to.

Our club (Burton, UK) is working on the first (that we know of) tournament for later this year...

IMO as an addict it works well as a tournament idea albeit an unpredicatble one.  Anyone else lost a battleship to two destroyers with torps

Didn't have that much success with my torpedo boats, but I've used them primarily to go after cruisers so far. IMHO, the Diogenes is far more useful than the Thales, and I will be getting another pack so I can field three full squadrons, then see how that works out.

On the idea of tournaments, though, my brother noted during our last game (and I agree with him) that he wouldn't want to play Dystopian Wars in a competitive environment. I could see a multi-player campaign day working out quite nicely, but a tournament (depending on your local group composition) might not end well, especially when there are prizes involved. That said, I would like to hear how it turned out.

[artshiraz]

Greetings


aah .. another one bitten by the bug... I mean by the forces lurking beneath antartica.   It's interesting though as you are the first one (I know) who went for the antartica fleet. Most go, for whatever reasons, for the prussian fleet.
Have you seen the official Antartica Poster ? I love your's way better than our japanese one.  
I own an Empire of the Blazing Sun Fleet and stuff. And with those bunker pieces available next wave my wallet will be more than empty  

You have an interesting colourchoice.
Thank you for showing
Jo

[ianh]

i agree not an obvious tournament game but, and this is very much my opinion, I actually reckon it is a great tournament game.

My rationale?  Well basically have played too many tournaments where power forces rule whatever you do.  What I really love about DW is that however powerful your force is on paper there is a chance that an exploding dice will rip your strategy apart.  That (and again it's just me) is the beauty how do you react to losing your prize ship against two snivelling corvettes in turn three of six.  To me that's a real test.  But I recognise for many it is not an obvious tournament game because of that!