AAR - Dystopian Wars in the South Seas

Ziggy has talked about running some Dystopian Wars narrative campaign games for a little while now so last evening we finally put resin to tabletop and made something happen. It'll be a series of battles between his British Empire forces and my Empire of the Blazing Sun forces. I'll be able to call on Eclipse Company mercenaries if we deem it necessary.

Our first battle was a small-scale surface action. In game terms, 800 points, mediums and smalls only. No SAS, no TAC, no special deployment.

We played on a 4 X 4 table. I have corvettes off to my left, frigates, gunships, destroyers and mini subs in the middle and light cruisers right. My newly minted "quick and easy islands" made their debut.

Captain Hamasaki started barking orders to his fleet. The Nakatsu squadron reacted quickly with a barrage of rockets easily sinking a British destroyer in the distance.

Attacker Sqn 512 pulled forward and concentrated fire on one of the Japanese cruisers damaging it, only to suffer return fire from the enemy destroyers.

Hamasaki's gunship group and Territorial Patrol Sqn 12 trade shots.

The British commodore, Admiral Hayes steams his personal Reinforced Cruiser Squadron forward and easily finishes off the Japanese gunship! Hamasaki would be picked up later, clinging to a length of timber.

So, after a turn, this is how the forces were arrayed. My snipers holding back with the brawler smalls quickly advancing. The fleet would carry on with Hamasaki's final transmitted orders.

The Uwatsu squadron pulls in close to the British command squadron and fires a mighty barrage, causing a fusion leak in the engine room!

The Nakatsu's get the jump on 512 Squadron, sinking a frigate and damaging another.

They are followed by a fine example of naval gun and rocket fire as the destroyers finish off British Torpedo Destroyer Squadron 1200.

And then things got very bloody indeed. My mini subs first surfaced and covered Hayes' Agincourt with corrosive fire. Fast Corvette Squadron Cricket with Hammer streaked in from the east and hit the lead Tribal hard, igniting the powder magazine. The ship was ripped apart from stem to stern. The massive explosion went on to sink several surfaced Zarigani subs, an Uwatsu frigate, two British frigates and caused further damage to the Agincourt!

At this point I had sunk more Japanese vessels than the British had!

 The remnants of the command group steer their ships into the corvettes which had caused so much trouble.

Both were sunk easily. They proceeded to blast away at the remaining Tanuki gunship.

A turn later, the gunship suffered a further round of heavy gunfire and went under.

The Nakatsus continue to perform well over on my right. Their assault marines boarding and derelicting the last of 512 Squadron.

The Blazing Sun frigate squadron takes the final shots of the battle, sinking commodore Hayes' Agincourt. The British hoisted the white flag and the two fleets began separating, looking for survivors amidst the wreckage.

Wow. That was a brutal and sad affair for the Brits. We didn't keep score - we agreed after three turns that the EBS had won handily. My dice were on fire and really made all the difference. I flat-out stopped at least three solid torpedo waves with amazing CC rolls and it seemed like every attack I made was a crit. Sometimes the dice just can't be stopped.


The next game will likely see a Japanese surface fleet being ambushed by British subs and/or aircraft, since the British surface forces in the Java sea have had to retreat  following this battle. It was nice to put DW back on the table - we haven't played in a few months and it really has felt like forever since I used the EBS ships.