I’m Baaaack… with a vengeance!

To continue from my previous post...

After my Battletech game, some guys were playing Dystopian Wars and I hung around to watch. Now, up to this time, I’d no interest in naval warfare games, but… steampunk, ya know? I figured, what could it hurt?

As it happened, plenty! The game was fun and engaging and due to alternating activations, very action packed. Due to the small number of models involved, each hit took on a greater meaning.

Long story short… at the end of the day I went home weighing both Battletech and Dystopian Wars in my mind. I went online to check out the latter game, and immediately got hooked. Checked out the factions, and settled on Sultanate.

The next day, I went back to my FLGS and… sigh… succumbed to temptation.

I also played a learning game between the Russians and Enlightened (humans with the backing of sneaky alien tech).

I had a Borodino class Heavy Cruiser as my flagship, supported by 3 Kutsov cruisers and 5 Rurik frigates.

My opponent (both of us newbies to Dystopian Wars) had an Archimedes Dreadnaught, 2 Copernicus Cruisers and 4 Merian Frigates. (I think).

In the first shot in the first round, thanks to exploding dice, one of my Kutsov cruisers was immediately sunk! Whatta blow! (After Action Report: my FLGS owner was teaching us the game and he was working off the old Ablative Armour rule. The new one just straight out negated exploding dice equal to the mass of the ships, is it would be highly likely my ship wouldn't have sunk so fast, although it was almost certainly crippled.)

But my cruisers got their revenge. After a savage round of firing from my Borodino and 2 surviving cruisers, the Enlightened Copernicus cruisers were left badly damaged, and 1 was crippled with only 1 Hull (HP) left. My cruisers then managed to destroy one Copernicus cruiser and the resulting damage caused the magazine to blow up, sinking the crippled cruiser next to it! 2 for the price of 1!

Anyway, there was firing, counter firing, manoeuvring for position, and the centrepiece of the battle was the clash of giants: a Dreadnaught vs a Heavy Cruiser (not even a battleship!)

Point blank fire, then an assault (the Enlightened attempted to board and attack my ship) and I suffered Havoc. Some damage. Not good, but could’ve been worse.

(Me with the unpainted ship on the right.)

My turn and my Borodino rammed the Dreadnaught but failed to cause damage. Then point blank fire. Then my turn to assault the Dreadnaught and it went better with my faithful crew causing more damage to the Dreadnaught (thanks to poor defensive rolls as well, which kind of made up for his lucky rolls right at the beginning of the battle.) I caused Carnage, leaving his Dreadnaught with 2 more hull points left.

The Enlightened Merian frigates basically sunk my Heavy Cruiser. My 2 crippled cruisers finished off the sinking Archimedes Dreadnaught. Then my Rurik frigates sank 2 of the Enlightened Merian frigates.

In the final round, the Enlighted frigates sank 1 of mine (a surprise, but he rolled poorly, should’ve been 2 sunk). And in the end, my remaining 4 Rurik frigates finished off the last of the Enlightened forces for a 5-1 victory. I had a severely crippled cruiser squadron and a reasonably intact frigate squadron left to rule the high seas!

TL; DR: Dysto Wars is fun, emergent stories through game play, memorable moments. I think, after watching more batreps on YouTube that slightly larger forces (1000pts) and more terrain will be even more interesting, challenging and exciting. I’ve not been this excited about a game in ages.

Coming Teaser: The Sultanate fleet getting ready to rule the high seas!