Battle of the Marianna trench

As promised the first battle report from Glasgow using Dystopian Wars fleets.

Facing off against each other were myself in the guise of Vice Admiral Rudolf von Der Goltz in charge of the main Prussian Fleet, Sandy Dewer as Air commodore Johan Müller in charge of the Prussian Air contingent and my younger brother Andrew in the character of Kaigun Shōshō Enomoto Sukeyuki of the Kappa Division of the Sword army of the Empire of the Blazing Sun, on the other side Bill Robertson in the as Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Northbury of the Brittannia Naval Armada and Ian Beal (Yes, that's really his name) playing the part of commodore Josiah Tattnal of the Federated States of America's Navy with attached units of the FSA air fleet.

The Prussian order of Battle:


IPNS Bismark a Blucher Class Dreadnought and Admiral Von der Goltz's flag ship
IPNS Graf Spee a Blucher Class DN
IPNS Graf Zepplin a Rhine class Fleet Carrier
IPNS Brandenburg an Emperor class Battleship
Cruiser Squadron 1 (Konigsberg class battlecruisers)
IPNS Moltke, Vonder Tann
Cruiser Squadron 2 (Reiver class Cruisers)
IPNS Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark, Prinz Aldebert
Cruiser Squadron 3 (Reiver class Cruisers)
IPNS Agir, Elbing, Falke
Destroyer Squadron (Stolz class)
IPNS Stoltz-II, Sachesen, Wuttenberg
Frigate Squadron 1  (Arminius class attached to Graf Zepplin)
IPNS Borther, Berlin, Rothe Lowe
Frigate Squadron 2 (Arminius)
IPNS Morian, Chur Prinz, Kur Prinz
Corvette Squadron (Saxony Class)
IPNS Stoch, Biene, Eber, Stien, Viper
A Metzger-B class Robot commanded by Brother Theodore Janus of the Teutonic order
Air Contingent
IPAS Derflinger  Imperium Class Sky Fortress
IPAS Fritzjof Gewitterwolke class Airship Air commodore Johan Müller Flagship
IPAS Geifon, Goeben, Pflicht class Scoutships
2 Geier Class Bombers

Kappa Division of the Sword army of the Empire of the Blazing Sun
EBSN Asahi a Sokutsu class BS and  Kaigun Shōshō Enomoto Sukeyuki's flag ship
Cruiser Squadron (Nakatsu class CR)
EBSN Furutaka, Kitakami, Mogami
Frigate Squadron (Uwatsu frigate)
EBSN Kaiyo Maru, Shohei Maru, Kaiten
2 DFA-17 Bombers

Brittannia Naval Armada
HMS Vanguard  a Majesty class DN and ice Admiral Sir Thomas Northbury's flagship
HMS  Courageous, Furious Avenger class Carriers
HMS Repulse, Superb Ruler class Battleships
Cruiser Squadron 1 (Tribal class CR)
HMS Cavendish, Hawking, Raleigh
 Cruiser Squadron 2 (Tribal Class CR)
HMS Trobisher, Effingham, Cumberland
Frigate Squadron 1 (Attacker class Frigates attached to Repulse)
HMS Heda, Pomone, Shannon, Leonidas
Frigate Squadron 2 (Attacker Class Frigates attached to Superb)
HMS Briton, Tenedos, Thetis, Lively
Corvette Squadron (Swift Class)
HMS High Flyer, Esk, Pylades, Cossack, Tartar
Frigate Squadron 3 (attached to Furious)
HMS Havock, Ferret, Hornet, Lynx
Frigate Squadron 4 (Attached to Courageous)
HMS Decoy, Boxer. Dasher, Haughty 
Frigate Squadron 5 (attached to Vanguard)
HMS Fearless, Nike, Harold, Hastings
Destroyer Squadron
HMS Lightening, Banshee, Dragon

 FSA Battlegroup
FSS Ranger a Saratoga class Fleet Carrier flagship of commodore Josiah Tattnal
FSS Indiana  an Independance class Battleship
Crusier Squadron (Lexington Class attached to the Indiana)
FSS Atlanta, Chicago, Harvard
Corvette Squadron (Revere class attached to the Ranger)

FSS Cayuga, Chippewa, Chocura
Air contingent
FSAS Polk Valley class Airship
FSAS Davis, Beuregard Lee class Scoutship
FSFR Huron, Kineo John Henry class robots
2 A-17 class Bombers

The fleets at the beginning of the game.

The first turn the Grand Coaliton won the roll (As they did the only two other turn we actually got in, note for next time, use less ships)

The Vanguard and CruRon 1 moved forward first  and along with the FSA Airships and were out of range when they stopped, next came the Prussian Destroyer squadron that fired and hit the Chippewa front scoring the armour,  the Geier's moved forward from the Air Contingent, and the Furutaka, Kitakami, Mogami moved forward and unleashed their rocket batteries at the Cavendish, Hawking, Raleigh hitting the Hawking's ammo hoppers blewing it to smitherines, the debris smashing into the Cavendish putting a hole in it and the Raleigh which survived intact, the squadron's morale didn't waver however..

The Vanguard battered the Mogami for a critical hit, damaging the engine.

The Graf Spee, Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark and Prinz Aldebert combined their turret fired on the Davis and battered a hole in it's side

The Graf Zepplin Bombard launched shells at one of the A-17's and sliced open it's armour.

The Brandenburg, Moltke and Vonder Tann fired their Main Batteries on the Polk slicing open it's frontal armour but missed with the  of the Battle cruisers.

This was it for the first turn

On turn 2 the Repulse and it's escorts pounded the Elbing to scrap and it's consort likewise sank the Falke forcing the Graf Spee and Agir into retreat before they could even fire a shot.

The Prussian's returned the favour however when the Brandenburg, Moltke and Vonder Tann's Main Batteries trained on the Polk hitting, the Prussian Capital ships mimicing their allies in their smashing of the ammo stores of the airship, it exploded taking with it the Beuregard and almost the already damaged Davis, the Moltke and Vonder Tann turned their Speerschleuders upon one of the US A-17's killing it and making it's brother run away.

Firing after this pretty much sucked as the Ranger's fighter wing was decimated from AA from the Brandenburg, Moltke and Vonder Tann as it prepared to launch torpedos at the Emperor class leaving just one squadron that broke off and headed back to the carrier. Eveything else couldn't hit the broadside of a Dreadnought, and they tried.

Turn three really turned the game against the Coaliton though started so well when the Huron and Kineo scored a hit on the Bismark, annoying Admiral Von der Goltz, his shields didn't even turn on.

The Corageous and it's escort took out the Kaiten though the squadron's morale held.

The Stoltz-II, Sachesen and Wuttenberg fired on the Thetis and their gunners jumped for joy when they landed a dozen shells on the poor ship until they realised the Superb's Guardian generator had stopped the lot.

This wasn't the only time in the turn where a Guardian saved a ships bacon it happened a few times and greatly annoyed the Prussians and Japanese.

Though the Cavendish was also saved from death by it's own shields as fire rained down from the EotBS cruisers rocket batteries, it set the ship on fire but it would survive. The targets of the Nakatsu class ships broadsides in the High Flyer, Esk, Pylades, Cossack, Tartar couldn't say that when the High Flyer, Pylades and Tartar were hulled, forcing the rest of the squadron into retreat. They fired their torpedos at the Vanguard's escort but did no damage.

The Furious and it's escorts fired upon the Geifon and Goeben killing Prussian Air Marines on the Geifon and setting fire to the Goeben in addition to almost hulling them and damaging the engines.

The land based fighters of the Coaliton took out the remaining Uwatsu's with torpedos and bombs.

The Superb and it's squadron managed to land another hit on the Bismark further infuriating the Vice Admiral though he got some measure of revenge on the Coaliton when he virutally hulled the Ranger as FSMC personnel were killed and the ship went on fire.

The Morian, Chur Prinz and Kur Prinz took down the Briton and damaged the Thetis and the final firing of the game came in from the Stoch, Biene, Eber, Stien and Viper who were deadly the Viper took the Heda, Stoch put a hole in the Repluse, Biene killed off the Pomone, Eber hulled the Shannon, the Leonidas was lost with all hands as the Stien beat it to death, forcing the Repulse into retreat

 The state of things at the end of play on turn three.

Essentially we of the Imperial Bond won the game because of the damage we had done versus what we had recieved, it would probably have continued to go our way because we had pretty much and intact centre barring the tremeandously lucky attacks on the Elbing and Falke and Bills Guardian generators constantly saving his behind, the Ranger was scrap metal in at most another turn and so were the FSA bomber and remaining airship, probably the John Henry too, the Prussian fleet would do a burly on the island and come into the side of the remaining American forces then pile down on the Brits.

The consensus of everybody was it was good fun but we had far too many ships on the board. We'll have to cut it down to probably about half the next time we play it, and it's going to take us a while to get the rules down, so hopefully by next year at Carronade we can do a display.

Next up me and Ian are going to have a game at the Falkirk club two weeks tomorrow and hopefully we can arrange something in March or April for the Glasgow club. Maybe by then I'll have some Russians too and have them painted.

Painting is fun.

Okay, so for my Christmas I got a whole load of new toys in a Dystopian Wars Prussian Empire fleet, something I decided after just one game of it, never done that before, normally takes a couple of games for me to buy even the rules.

So, my dad see's them and goes, oh I like them I'd like to paint some, and of course he pulls the Dreadnoughts, the aircraft carrier and my Metzger robots along with my Destroyer squadron to paint which was cool cause it means the centrepieces of the fleet are expertly painted.



I  let him decided on the paint scheme on the ships but I decided on what to do with the fighters bases and the bombers I went for a Vallejo Deep Sky Blue base, then inked them with Citadel Blue ink, then shaded them Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue then I used a darkened sky blue with grey to highlight.

The bases were a happy accident in that I was trying to figure out a way of getting the sea look without modelling the base didn't work out so well in that case but it does have a good look of dropping out of the clouds, some of them didn't come out so good ....

 Which is why I painted some of them grey so that they are going through grey clouds rather than white.

So, the tail fins show that they are of the same wing, the wing tips are to distinguish which squadron they are in, red for recon, yellow for fighters and dark green for Dive bombers. 

This is one of my two Geier bombers though it was in it's finishing stages it still has the front and tail turrets and the decking painted, along with the cockpit and a couple of details
 

This is all my flying stuff painted so far.

Next up were the ships I decided I'd paint before the senior Mr Muir could get anywhere near them, cause after all this was my own painting project for the year, though I think I might actually have them painted before I hit my birthday, which I'll be getting a Russian Fleet, nobody in the Glasgow club has ay of them and my dad's talking about getting a Covenant fleet for his birthday, and since I've got an Imperial bond fleet and I'm not a fan of the FSA ships or really the Brits, I decided on the Russians.

 So this is one of the Arminus class frigates like all the others I started with a black undercoat, then on the hull I painted Vallejo Dark Seagreen, shaded Dark sea grey, then highlighted Neutral grey. Then I painted the decking using German camouflage Black Brown from the Vallejo panzer range and then each plank was individually picked out with burnt umber..

 Painting the decks almost drove me to distraction, any way the gun barrel was painted Vallejo gunmetal blue.

 The Emperor class battleship was actually the easiest to paint the deck of the turrets were painted the same colour of the hull as was the bridge section. The aft and broadside guns are painted copper and the tesla coils are painted gunmetal blue.

 The Riever class cruisers are essentially painted the same as the Emperor except smaller, the funnels and the piping is bronze like everything else and I've started on covering them in the Prussian flag colours.

 On the Konigsberg class Battle cruiser I painted the Speerschleuder in gunmetal blue.

 The Saxony class was the hardest to paint, because it's so wee and there is very little room to do the shading and highlighting on the internal parts.

All of the ships together 

 Top views of the ships, better way of gauging the deck.

Looking forward to getting them onto the table next Sunday at the Glasgow club, My Prussians and an allied battlegroup of Empire of the Blazing Sun against a Kingdom of Britannia fleet with Federated States of America allies. Photo's and report will come afterwards.

Happy New Year

Howdy all,

A happy new year to you all.

Been a while since I posted so I thought I should probably hit one out today.


So, update on the writing, been writing a lot of back story for my Military Sci-fi series, along with all the characters, as well as working on all the armed forces. Been working on the actual books themselves but you need to put the work in too.

Also in the early process of work on a collaborative effort with my good friend Ferdinand, it's kind of a post apocalyptic Fantasy where we'll have two opposing forces of magic, in the very early stages of it working on the magic systems themselves.

My painting project this year is the Dystopian Wars Prussian fleet that I got  for Christmas, though only half of it has appeared, still waiting on Wayland Games even dispatching their half. The games a good laugh and hope to have the fleet painted in time to display it at Carronade next year for Glasgow District Wargamers Society.

Talking of displays at Carronade, this year alongside the club's Bannockburn display (Of course we're doing Bannockburn, it's the 700th anniversary this year) myself and Sandy Dewer will be pooling our Battletech collections and fighting the Battle of Bannockburn Bog on the Planet of Skye. Hoping to make it a mix of display and public participation. It's a massive switch of the regular displays by GDWS, apart from the occasional Very British Civil War display, everything I've ever seen in my many years as a member is Historical (or Semi-Historical), hopefully this switch is well received.

Apart from that College is going great, almost completed everything from the first semester of the HND, and looking forward to next year and entering the third year of UWS's Computer Networking degree, it will be delivered at Cumbernauld but it'll still a degree course.

Hoping to post more short stories up and finish off Return from the Empire but I had the plan to post a lot last year and it never materialized.

I'll sign off now and get back to doing something constructive.

Update

As it says on the title a little update.

Unsurprisingly NaNoWriMo didn't go too well, brilliant start but life and college got in the frakking way, not finished, no where near the finish and a day and a half to do it. Sucks cause I wanted Running out of Space finished this month so I could bounce it out to alpha readers, but that's life.

Don't get me wrong I have been writing, but it's not been RooS, it's been my High Fantasy series, which admittedly is in it's infancy and requires a whole lot of prep work, creating the world alone is huge, something a whole lot of writers just do as they go along, admittedly do it myself all the time, never really been the one for huge prep and planning, but this is one that you have to do hard and with deep thought.

Finished the planning part of my graded unit for my HND, and thank god it is, heavy of importance since hitting every mark is worth 40% of the project, might drop a few but hopefully not many.

Filling out my application for the degree year through UCAS, the fact that I have to pay for it is actually a pain in the ass, I don't remember having to the last time.

Anyway that's me done, update you again in a bit.

My Country

A little unusal for me in that I'm going to talk politics.

Anyone who known me for any amount of time is of the knowledge of that I am what you would class as a rampant Left-Wing Warhawk Nationalist Republican and I have no problem with articulating my views.

I consider myself Scottish, not British and have always felt this way.



I think that the current political set-up both North and South of the border are corrupt and out of control.

I think that far too many of the elite of England have a say in how my country is run.

I know my country pays more tax per person than we recieve back.

I know that the Oil of the North Sea won't sustain my country for as long as anyone claims, I also know that the Nationalist's projections are far closer to the truth than any Tory or Labour government has ever claimed.

I know that a disproportionate amount of Scottish blood has been spilled for the United Kingdom than the English.

The bullshit that's spilling from England about the shipyards if we become independant is a pure falicy, that the armed forces of the United Kingdom don't contract out to other countries to build their equipment is pure fiction, and as if it matters, if we become independant we're going to need 25 warships of our own, which will keep Scottish Shipyards in buisness for years to come, if we become independant there won't be English shipyards to pick up the slack, and again as if it matters, the yards are already using their knowledge for sustainable energy that no English led goverment would ever let us continue with if we didn't have our own devolved government that can tell them to go fuck themselves.

A lot of people say oh, we have a devolved goverment that does lots of things that we wouldn't get to do if it was purely up to the English, so why rock the boat. If you vote no, Whitehall and Westminster will take it as a sign that Holyrood isn't working and tear away the powers that it already has, the last time there was an Independace referendum the bastards took away every single thing they could get away with, we got Maggie Thatcher and two decades of Tory governments who stripped away every industry they could think of to try and kill us off, like every silver spoon fed government the English have ever had have tried to do to us.

Next year is the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, which is of significance but we weren't truly independant of English rule for another sixty odd years until we were sold up the river by James the VI in his power grab that's known as the Treaty of Union in 1707. That's right we've been getting sold up the river for over three hundred years.

I'll be honest I consider anyone, if you are born and bred in my country or have lived in my country your whole life, who have lived through successive Conservative and Labour governments that don't give a shit about my country, and have read all the papers and information written by both sides of the argument and those learned members of both camps who have written papers on the issues involved in the referendum, and still vote No, a Traitor.

But then that's my opinion, I was raised to be a proud Scotsman, and also believe I was raised to be a Proud Nationalist and Republican.

Oust the Queen
Oust Westminster
Get rid of the United Kingdom

And

Freedom for the Kingdom of Scotland

NaNoWriMo Update

Just a little update on the progress for NaNoWriMo

Wrote another two thousand odd words today, O'Hearn being a total asshole towards his enemies as is his norm, piss him off enough and he'll just kill you, piss him off too much he might actually just disable the spine.

Anyway my hand is killing me cause I did it with pen and paper, best way to be able to be able to prove that it's an original story. Now it needs to get typed up, hate having to type up notes, and I wouldn't subject anyone else to trying to read my handwriting. The fact I can't just dictate it onto the damn word processer is a pain in the ass, the fact that it costs a lot money to get a decent speach to text program is beyond ridiculous.

Anyway I'll update the end of week count on the 8th and see how far we have gotten to the total.

NaNoWriMo

Yes, I did it this year, committed Running Out of Space to NaNoWriMo, at least at this point I'm already halfway to the finish line before I even start, I know it's probably cheating a bit but here's the site.

http://nanowrimo.org/

You can sponser me doing it too, it's for charity so if you can please do.

Cheers

David