Dystopian Wars - Invaders on the Beach

On Saturday at Gnomecon, here in sunny Savannah, Mike and I put on an Invaders versus Earth Dystopian Wars participation game. We used two boxes of Invaders (roughly 1800 points) versus four 600-point Earth forces (2400 points). The earthlings were made up of French and British naval forces and Prussian and Japanese land forces.

The British force was about to surrender, having been surrounded, when the alarms sounded - whatever had taken out Moon Base Alpha a week prior was now here! The Invaders must be stopped! The four forces, with a common enemy, turned their guns on the monstrous walkers and flying machines.

Our layout. That's Ian, the Prussian commander, in red. I took command of the French, Mike helmed the Brits and James commanded the Japanese. I also made him the overall Earth Force commander - he'd select units to be activated. Mark and Brian commanded the Venusian and Martian forces, respectively.

The Earth forces were sandwiched between the two Invader armies.

The naval side.

And the land.

Things begin poorly for the Prussians. From the lower left, that's Mike, Mark, Ian, Brian's arm in the black shirt and James' arm in the white shirt.

Having faced them before, we knew how nasty the Predators were, the Magenta and Tribals combined to kill one quickly.

The Terrors and Scarab unleash some whoop-ass on my Magenta.

Dive Bombers make a run at my Cherbourg for a crit and engine damage.

Back on the other side of the table, the Japanese medium tanks blast a Predator out of the sky.

Turn two begins; Martian Terrrors open up on the Kagoshima.

The British carrier makes some noise, killing a Terror and heavily damaging a Sentinel.

The damned Predators get some revenge for the Venusians.

A bit more revenge was on the menu. The Scarab double-crits my Magenta and sinks it.

My Cherbourg takes a whack at the Scarab while the Terrors blast away at it.

Our replacement Martian player (Steve perhaps?)  moves the Martian Sentinels forward and smacks the Ryuo.

My "MOMENT OF THE MATCH." The Almas score a crit on the Venusian Scarab! Three Corrosion markers! HUZZAH! Never underestimate the little guys.

The lone Green Sentinel stalks the British Carrier. She's in big trouble,

This pretty well sums it up.

A similar story unfolds on the other side of the board.

The Chi Ris go bananas and destroy another Predator.

 The last Martian Sentinel stomps through the woods and finishes off the nav-locked Kagoshima.

All earthling big vessels are destroyed except the wounded hover squid. The Metzger, the Magenta, the Kagoshima, the Illustrious... We called the game there through four turns.

We had killed three Terrors, four Predators and two Sentinels. We'd also seriously damaged one Scarab. A beating if there ever was one.

What a terrific game! The result was never in question - the Invaders were going to win - we wanted to see how the meat-sacks would perform. The answer is "not so well!" I think for a competitive game, the human force needs double the points of the Invaders. This wasn't supposed to be a competitive game - it was a fun multi-player convention demo game and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. For a four-turn big game of DW, we got through pretty quickly - under four hours which was shocking. After turn 1 we started with double activations - one per table-side (naval and land) which kept everyone involved and burned clock. I spent a lot of time GMing because many of the players had never played DW before. I think we generated a lot of DW interest and we got a LOT of positive comments from onlookers.

Thank you to all of our players for making it a success!

Dystopian Wars - Lunar Edition

Mike and I got together for a rather special game of Dystopian Wars on Sunday afternoon. We've both got Invader armies and needed a bit of experience with them before Gnomecon so we had a Venus (me) verus Mars (him) bash amidst a human settlement on the Moon! Two identical forces - something unheard of in DW - this would be interesting.

Our set-ups. I think the Martians underestimated the staying power of their Scarab and kept it way back, whereas I put mine front and center - 10 hull points, shields out the yinyang and repair -it's a centerpiece alright!

A Martian Sentinel moves from behind the hill. The Martians kept their Sentinels as separate squadrons - the Venusian commander paired his together in a single squadron where they could LINK fire their Energy Arcs together.

 Martian Predator bombers make a run at Sentinel ZZ99 with their Energy Arcs.

And wreck it in short order. GAH!

A cluster of Venusian dive bombers finish off a Martian Terror small walker.

AA from the Venusian Scarab finishes off a Predator while they make a bomb run and blast my other Sentinel with their Energy Arcs.

Green forces coalesce around the stranded Martian Sentinel. I'd already finished off the smaller Terrors.

The final picture from the action. Both Martian Sentinels are damaged severely. I had just lost my second one.

We wrapped up after four turns. Neither of us had achieved our goal but I was a bit closer having killed off all smalls and killing the two Sentinels during a conjectural next turn would have put me over 50%. Mike was a long way off from killing 70%, having nabbed only two Sentinels and one Terror.

Thoughts - the Invaders are AWESOME. They are ridiculously overpowered but a lot of fun and very characterful. Initially we had trouble damaging eachother's stuff but by turn two we were tearing stuff apart with relative ease. Invader weapons are tremendously deadly, particularly the Energy Arcs which link fire instead of combining. Death Rays are fun since they have Incendiary and Lethal, but don't get too nasty until Range Band 1 or 2.

It was a great lead-up battle to our Gnomecon participation game, this Saturday, which will feature the Invaders descending to Earth!

Recently Painted - DW Invaders

I finished up the Invaders box set I got a few week's ago, minus one small Tripod whose legs I'm still waiting on.

I discarded the gold/bronze color palette right away - 95% of these models are painted the same way. After getting a good look at the models, they are very insectoid - the legs of the Tripods might as well have been pulled off a grasshopper. I went with the green grasshopper theme and it turned out very nicely I think.

Two swarms of little bugs. Some in green/orange, others in yellow/red-orange.

Small Tripods

Big Mama

 Predator fliers

Tallboy Tripods. I couldn't get the legs arranged to get these big mothers on their bases.

I'm looking forward to trying these things out on the tabletop. They're overpowered and nasty as hell - I'll have to give my opponent a bit of a points bump to keep it fair.

Boring Old Update...

I've just been doing some assembly and painting this week. I got really off task early when I traded in my Infinity figures to the LGS for store credit. I ended up with the Dystopian Wars Invaders box set and still have some credit. One thing led to another and now instead of being a good boy and working on the French Air Fleet, I'm working on DW alien ships.

That escalated quickly...

The box was missing legs for one of the small tripods - Spartan is sending replacements. Yay! Mike also has an Invader fleet; we're looking at a Invaders vs Earthling event for Gnomecon. We need to work out details but the idea sounds fun.

More 15mm Sci-Fi playtesting Saturday then X-Wing on Sunday. Be well!