Dystopian Wars Big Battle
Sunday afternoon, a group of local gamers met at Morningstar Games here in Savannah for an over-the-top combined forces game of DW. The scenario was the brain-child of Mike Baker. The forces were roughly 1200 points per side and featured a broad mix of nationalities.
The scenario was fairly straight-forward - the two Alliances were fighting over a group of islands. There were five objective markers on the islands, three on a large central island and one on each smaller island in the sides' deployment areas. There was also an Antarctican contingent in the mix as a neutral fleet with its own, secret, victory conditions.
You're wondering how the land units are supposed to travel between islands, right? Well each side was supplied with a large landing craft and the islands had portals on them allowing instant, if slightly unreliable, transportation between islands. Once a unit (full unit) had gone through a portal, subsequent units had to roll a die to see if the portal was still usable that turn. On a 1-3, the portal was temporarily down for the rest of the turn.
So, the "bad guys," consisted of me, David and Nathan using EOBS and Prussians. I brought land forces and ended up controlling both the Purssian and BS contingents. Dave had the BS Naval arm and Nathan had the Prussian Navy.
The "good guys" were Mike and his British land forces, Anson using KoB ships, Rich using FSA ships and flying robots and John pushing Italians.
Brian was our Antarctican representative and had a large force of the Snowmen of the South.
Being a big game, and give that DW is a rather slow game, we had semi-simultaneous activations. Its verbose to explain, but kept things moving at a reasonable pace at least until the shooting began in earnest. For what it's worth, this AAR is heavily biased towards MY activity. There was too much going on to keep track of every move.
The game ended late into turn 4. It was after 7:00pm and the store was closing. Not only had the Coalition taken 4 of 5 objectives, but we'd captured numerous Alliance and Antactican ships and caused considerable damage. I'd suffered the most on our side, mainly because my units were exposed to most but my aggressive attacks on the central island kept the Alliance in panic mode from the outset. I'm not sure why the Alliance took so little in the way of land forces, but it worked out well for us. Poor Brian got abused severely from both sides. His capital ships got captured without firing a shot. He did some damage with his fliers and destroyers but really, his group was just easy meat for the rest of us. In the end, the Coalition won handily.
The scenario was fairly straight-forward - the two Alliances were fighting over a group of islands. There were five objective markers on the islands, three on a large central island and one on each smaller island in the sides' deployment areas. There was also an Antarctican contingent in the mix as a neutral fleet with its own, secret, victory conditions.
You're wondering how the land units are supposed to travel between islands, right? Well each side was supplied with a large landing craft and the islands had portals on them allowing instant, if slightly unreliable, transportation between islands. Once a unit (full unit) had gone through a portal, subsequent units had to roll a die to see if the portal was still usable that turn. On a 1-3, the portal was temporarily down for the rest of the turn.
So, the "bad guys," consisted of me, David and Nathan using EOBS and Prussians. I brought land forces and ended up controlling both the Purssian and BS contingents. Dave had the BS Naval arm and Nathan had the Prussian Navy.
The "good guys" were Mike and his British land forces, Anson using KoB ships, Rich using FSA ships and flying robots and John pushing Italians.
Brian was our Antarctican representative and had a large force of the Snowmen of the South.
Being a big game, and give that DW is a rather slow game, we had semi-simultaneous activations. Its verbose to explain, but kept things moving at a reasonable pace at least until the shooting began in earnest. For what it's worth, this AAR is heavily biased towards MY activity. There was too much going on to keep track of every move.
A view of the 12 X 4 table from our end. Deployment zones were 36 inches deep, putting 6 feet of deep blue between opposing navies. The Antarticans were in-between along the near edge.
The Coalition land forces surround the portal at their island. The building with the blue button on it was an objective location. In hindsight, we should have sent the Prussian Airship through the breach first. It would have been absolutely unstoppable early on.
The central island and the Antartican forces. The three large buildings on the island were objective locations. We were a bit miffed that the Southerners were strongly arrayed towards us and not the other team.
The Alliance set up. The Italian Cruisers weren't yet deployed. The Alliance had a paucity of land forces.
The A6Vs were first through the breach, nabbing two objectives straight away and establishing a beachhead.
Two Mk. IIs arrived and shot up one of the Prussian tanks, but didn't destroy it.
The piece of junk portal shut down as I tried to move another unit through it. Fortunately, the Alliance portal jammed as well. The balance of the forces inched towards one another, but no other shots were fired.
Turn 2. The Panzers returned fire then three Chi-Ri tanks materialized from the portal, eliminating the British tanks. I had a solid lock on the central island now. I just needed my teammates to keep the Alliance vultures away from my prize!
The blasted portal shut down again. The Schildtragers wouldn't be going through to protect my tanks. There was a great deal more naval and aerial activity, but very little combat. I think two of Mike's bombards fired at and killed one of my Chi-Ris.
As the third turn opened, I happily marched the two Schildtragers through. Their Guardian generators covering all friendly units on the island. I was able to consolidate and take control of all three objectives in the center. The portal remained open and presently the Taka-Ashi emerged and immediately began firing its guns and rockets at British frigates and Italian cruisers.
Moments later, in an act of great treachery and cowardice, two legions of British assault marines leapt from the decks of their troop transports to the Antactican Drone Carrier and captured it. A truly savage and unprovoked act that would be a turning point for sure. That was 20AP assaulting the carrier. Brian, the Ant player rolled terribly with defensive AA but still killed 10 boarders in the ensuing combat. Mike left one boarding party on the carrier and nine went back to one of the transports.
The Taka-Ashi's damage to the Alliance fleet: a dead frigate, a damaged frigate and a heavily damaged cruiser which lost all of its marines.
Moments later, two massive flying robots burst through one of the portals and head towards the Schildtragers. AA fire damages "Captain America" whilst the John Henrys' own shots cause the steering mechanisms to jam on one of the Prussian walkers. The flying robots engaged the other walker in close assault and left it derelict. Blazing Suns fighters would engage and heavily damage the blue robot shortly thereafter.
To avenge our Antarctican friends, I sent the two remaining Chi-Ris to the beach and liberated the carrier, leaving three advisers aboard to discourage further Alliance meddling.
Early during turn four, I sent two Panzers through the portal to the Alliance home island, securing a fifth objective. Truly a dagger to the heart! The third Panzer's steering was damaged and could not steer into the portal, but happily shot up the British bombard which had just come through the same portal.
The Alliance attempted a similar maneuver with their remaining flybot, but confusingly didn't try to contest the objective. It got a minor hit on the Metzger which was defending our home island and was damaged in return.
The game ended late into turn 4. It was after 7:00pm and the store was closing. Not only had the Coalition taken 4 of 5 objectives, but we'd captured numerous Alliance and Antactican ships and caused considerable damage. I'd suffered the most on our side, mainly because my units were exposed to most but my aggressive attacks on the central island kept the Alliance in panic mode from the outset. I'm not sure why the Alliance took so little in the way of land forces, but it worked out well for us. Poor Brian got abused severely from both sides. His capital ships got captured without firing a shot. He did some damage with his fliers and destroyers but really, his group was just easy meat for the rest of us. In the end, the Coalition won handily.
The gang after the game
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