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.