A Dystopian Wars Encounter

Howdy do folks, had a game of Dystopian Wars 2.0 today,  between myself and Sandy Dewer, just my second go at the new rules and Sandy's first, one thing I have noticed is that it flows a lot quicker, at we actually got to fight to a finish.


So I as is my usual went the Prussians in my usual guise of Vice Admiral Rudolf von Der Goltz on board his flagship SMS Bismark, Sandy the Russians as White Navy (And most of his ships were very white) Admiral Nikolai Kerzhakov on board their flagship the Gagnut.

The Order of Battle:

Prussian Imperial North Atlantic 7th Iron Fleet

SMS Bismark, a Blucher class dreadnought with escorts ESC-327, ESC-345 and ESC-351, Wachter class
SMS Brandenburg, an Emperor class Battleship
SMS Lützow, a Konigsbeg class Battle Cruiser
Cruiser Squadron 1 (Reiver class Light Cruisers)
SMS Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark, Prinz Aldebert
Cruiser Squadron 2 (Reiver class Light Cruisers)
 SMS Agir, Elbing, Falke
 Destroyer Squadron (Stolz class)
  SMS Viper, Stoltz-II, Sachesen, Wuttenberg
Frigate Squadron 1  (Arminius class attached to Graf Zepplin)
  SMS Borther, Berlin, Rothe Lowe
Frigate Squadron 2 (Arminius)
  SMS Morian, Chur Prinz, Kur Prinz
Corvette Squadron (Saxony Class)
  SMS Stoch, Biene, Eber,
 Air Contingent
  SMS Derflinger  Imperium Class Sky Fortress
  SMS Fritzjof Gewitterwolke class Airship.

Russian Coalition 23rd White fleet
RCS  Gagnut, a Moskova class Dreadnought with RCS Escort Squadron 87 (3 Veliky class escorts)
RCS Navarin, a Borodino class Battleship with RCS Escort Squadron 91
RCS Sevastopol, a Dudinka class Assault carrier with RCS Escort Squadron 121 (We used the Kostroma model but the Dudinka stats)
RCS Minin, Gerzog Edinburgski, Rurik, Tambov class Gunship Squadron
RCS  Pallada, Makarov, Varyag, a Suvorov class cruiser squadron.
RCS Askold, Kagul, Oleg
RCS Sokol, Havock, Yastreb, Gagara a Novgorod class frigate squadron
RCS Korshun, Voron, Nyrok, Sova, a Novgorod class frigate squadron


 

The opening moves of the battle were mostly jockeying for position from all but the Borther's Arminus squadron who battered the Sova to kindling and scrap, and the Agir, Elbring and Falke opened fire on the
Minin, damaging the ship but not able to break past the ablative armour.

The second turn, the initiative was seized by the Coalition and the Korshun, Voron, Nyrok,
opened fire killing the Stoch and Biene, Commander Von Hagen in command of the Eber saw his sister ships fall but held his nerve.

In return the Borther, Berlin and Rothe Lowe killed the Voron and Korshun and in boarding the Nyrok left it adrift at sea.

With all guns blazing the Sokol, Havock, Yastreb, Gagara killed the Chur Prinz and Kur Prinz  forcing the Morian into beating a hasty retreat.

The Agir and it's consorts flew through the water, turning their cannons once more into the Tambovs this time firing on the Gerzog Edinburgski, causing critical damage and then proceeded to board and derelict the Havoc and Yastreb.

In return the Minin, Gerzog Edinburgski and Rurik caused a Sturginium flare in the Agir's engines causing it to teleport almost back to the fleet starting lines, and shredded the Falke's defences.

In turn 3 the Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark, Prinz Aldebert opened fire on the cruisers Makarov & Varyag, causing both serious damage and engine failures.

The Russian cruisers returned fire and returned Prinz Heinrich the favour and taking a chunk out of the Furst Bismark's armour.

The next two rounds of firing saw the death of the Prinz Heinrich and Furst Bismark and the repairing of the Varyag only for the Brandenburg to open it's three main guns and hammering it to death much to the delight of Commodore Conrad Klose, it's captain, his broadside gunners gave the Pallada it's first Damage.

Vice Admiral von Der Goltz cackled in maniacal glee when the Bismark opened fire for the first time, three of the main turrets smashing the Navarin's hull to bits, as rounds exploded all over the place causing the fusion engine to leak all over it and killing Russian marines in the process, the final rear turret killing off the Pallada.

Admiral  Kerzhakov's own gunners got some semblance of their own back when the Lützow was blasted into scrap metal and the killing of the Stoch by the 87th Escort..

The Sevastopol annihilated the  Dive bombers that came screaming at it before they could cause any damage.

The Stolz squadron drove forward and blew chunks out of the Minin and Gerzog Edinburgski and the fusion leak burned away a vast majority of the rest of it's armour.

The fourth turn, the Initiative was seized by the Empire and the Vice Admirals cackles could be heard throughout the Bismark while he geed on the gunners of the Flagship as it went all out against the Gagnut, not before zapping the last of the Battleship's marines to death with it's fore tesla, when they did open up at the Russian flag it was a full barrage of all four main guns and the broadsides, blasting apart armour and locking the navigational controls down, with it's auxilliary weapons it put down a pair of bombers and it's escorts killed off one of the dreadnoughts escorts.

The Dive bombers of the Imperial Airforce killed off the Navarin in an act of precision bombing, as they exploded left right and centre sinking the already stricken ship.

The fire across the sea born ships was bloody and viscious, leaving just the Agir as the sole Prussian cruiser, all of the Russian Frigates dead and the only escorts left those attached to the carrier. The Rurik's engines malfunctioned with a Sturginium flare and teleported onto the small island, scrapping it.

Turn five was very short as the damage that the Gagnut took while repaired down was returned to it by the Bismark and the Bombing run conducted by the Fritzjof and while the Gagnut took yet more chunks of armour from the Brandenburg, it's Marines were the ones that took the Russian Flag as a Prize, and Admiral Kerzhakov as their prisoner. Commodore Rostovic on the Sevastopol ordered the remaining Russians (Not that there were many) into a hasty retreat.

Overall loses

Prussians

Battlecruiser

Squadron +2 Reivers

saxony squadron

4 arminus

Russians

Cruiser Squadron

2 Escort groups,

Battleship

Both Frigate squadrons and 3 as derelicts
Dreadnought as Prize.

It was a good game that lasted a good number of hours and it's the first game we've played at Glasgow where we have actually got it finished, which highlights the fact that the game plays faster, it probably would have run even faster if we hadn't stopped for a while and I hadn't stopped to take so many notes and pictures, plus looking for rules that I couldn't remember.

Long time gone.

        So, it's been about a month since I posted, been busy.

        At the beginning of the month I was at Carronade, the Falkirk Wargames show, for a display of Battletech, one of two at the show, nice to see the game getting a new breath of life. Pictures and a report will follow soon, just been busy with other things. It was a good game I think, didn't get any people into participate though the show was awash with a whole load of public participation games and the G3 battletech display was using the quick play Alpha Strike rules so it's no surprise we got no play. I did break the no buying more Dystopian Wars ships until the new rules come out rule, when I bought the Ottoman Battlegroup but the boxed set was over 30% off, and I was never likely to see that much of a discount, when you save almost twenty quid you aren't going to argue about it, also bought a blue mat for doing sea games.

       Planning on doing a Dystopian Wars game next year at Carronade, depends on whether or not I can get more assistance from members of the club next year, both GDWS' displays manned by two members a piece, would have been nice if we could have got some help.

         What's been keeping me busy is College which is nearing it's end, only got one exam to go  and that's me done, also got my conditional acceptance to Uni year three the other week which is great. I passed the second to last today with 96%, think I got the best grade in the class which just goes to show if I actually study for shit I pass it with flying colours, wish I had learned that twenty years ago.

          I've based a number of my Dystopian wars ships in lieu of the Display next year, and if I do say so myself it came out awesome, some of them better than others, and like the Falkirk Display pictures will be forth coming. I decided that the plain flight stands were kind of boring with the clear perspex so did some basing of them too, by no means is it a pro job but for my limited experience with basing (the only stuff I've ever done are the Battlemechs that I finished four years ago) they came out damn good.

          Also the writing constantly keeps me busy, more ideas keep flooding in, it's as always the discipline of stopping myself from letting my imagination run amok.

Prussian Empire Fleet

My Dystopian Wars Prussian Empire fleet, painted in two different versions of a grey paint scheme for the boats, a blue scheme for the bombers and tiny flyer tokens and a green scheme for the Airships, the two Metzger class robots are a lighter grey with red helmet.

All paints used were Vallejo and washes were either made from Vallejo paints or old Games Workshop washes that I've had since the mid 90's.

The ship basic hull base colour was medium sea grey, and either washed with neutral grey for shading and then dry brushed a light grey for highlight, or again medium sea grey, dry brushed neutral grey for shading and then a lighter grey for highlight.

I decided on the two different plank colours because the darker one was a massive pain in the rear end, and on the smaller ones it wasn't exactly a huge amount of fun. But there was also the fact that I wanted them painted as if they came from two different yards. The darker batch were painte first with German Camo black brown, and the individual planks were then painted Burnt Umber.

The second type of planking was easier due to the deck being painted light brown, then a wash of burnt umber mixed up and applied to the deck.

Most of the weaponry that isn't turreted is painted in a mix of Gold and Copper as are little details on the ships, like hatches and the little rings that are spaced about the ships, though some of them are mithril silver from the GW line from the mid 90's. The turrets are all painted similarly to the hull with bronze fittings and gun metal blue barrells.

 The two largest ships in the picture weren't painted by me, they were done by my dad as was the sea carrier, which anyone who knows him would be able to pick out since he painted the tiny flyers in Seattle Seahawk colours. He painted ships from my fleet until I got him Covenant of Antarctica ships and then he had his own to paint.

The Aerial section of my fleet was actually bought of ebay painted but the scheme didn't totally fit with the rest of the ships in the fleet, I made the piping the same bronze I used for the rest of the fleet, and the Tesla coils in the copper and gold of the rest of the ships Tesla parts. I also painted the tail fins like the fighters for the Imperium Sky Fortress, the deck of it painted like the second half of the fleet. Since I didn't know the colour used for the blimp sections I re-painted them since when I repainted the weapon sections to tie in with the rest of the fleet there had been too much splash onto the rest of it without repainting. 

 The tiny flyer bases for the Aerial section are in a different scheme from others they are a black dry brushed with silver. With the same tail fins as the Airships, the green wing tips are for Dive bombers and red tips are for fighters.

 The Metzger class robots were partially done by me and partially by my dad. The bases are actually cast that way, which is cool.

The Rhine class carrier has tiny flyers with the Seahawks colours and Torpedo bomber wingtips as do the fighter bases that came with it.

The chimney stacks are all black drybrushed with bronze then some are painted with the Prussian flag hoop colours. And the windows are painted white first then little drops of ink are put in each one. Most if not all the ships that I painted have their pipes picked out in bronze.

Both Blucher class Dreadnoughts along with the Konnigsberg class battlecruisers in the front. Some of the ships in the fleet have little Prussian Empire Flag decals and/or Iron Crosses, the ones that are on are the best from the batch I made up. Didn't leave the paint to dry long enough and the decal film made most of them run, and when I took them off the paper they went to crap. I need to go back to the clear Decal paper too and paint the white sections on the models, the white paper doest work as welol, especially when it means you have a big white section where there shouldn't be one.

 The Gewitterwolke class Airship and Geier class Bomber which like the tiny flyer tokens are painted a base deep sky blue, then washed in the GW blue wash to shade and dry brushed deep sky blue mixed withwhite to highlight, you can see the wing tips are painted dark green to signiy the are bombers and red tailfins for the Wing they belong to.

 The Prussian Empire flag on the airship is one of the homemade decals for my fleet, taking decal paper printed on an Inkjet allowed to dry and covered in decal film which I let dry.

 The whole Aerial group with the Gewitterwolke & Plicht class airships, Imperium Sky Fortress' and Geier class bombers, and one of the Metzger class robot 

There are two lots of regular Tiny flyer Wings one with red tailfins and one with orange tailfinns.
The yellow wing-tipped squadrons are recon fighters, light green is torpedo bombers. The bases were done by putting blots of blue wash the a drop of white paint and letting it swirl and mix so it's like they are lifting up and down through the clouds, though some of them are moving through grey clouds.

One of two squadrons of Reiver class cruisers.

One squadron of Arminus class frigates 

The Saxony class corvettes

The Stolz class Destroyer squadron

While I've still got the varnishing and the basing to do the whole experience has been fun, and it happens to be the first time I've ever finished painting a fleet or army in my twenty years of painting. I'm going to do the bases using plywood, covered in mastic and painted in sea colours.