Weekender and New Goodies

Mike, Dave, Bill and I played a 4-player game of Dystopian Wars Sunday afternoon. Dave and I teamed up using Japanese and French versus the other two, both using Prussians. Each player used a 500-point force.

I'm not going to attempt a full AAR much of the game focused on 2nd edition mechanics - I took some pictures and we had a good time blowing stuff up.

Very little terrain was randomly generated. We deployed close to where out flanking force of Alma frigates would be arriving. The Prussians had some bomber and airships off as flankers as well.

Japanese gunships and the big French battlecruiser start lighting Prussian cruisers on fire.

Our goal of trying to set them all aflame is becoming realistic!

Japanese torpedo bombers kill a cruiser.

From the lower left, clockwise... French and Prussian fighters dogfight... the AA cruiser and battleship thrash the Prussian battleship and score a RAGING FIRE! The Prussian cruisers work on the Almas (barely visible on the right) and kill two. All Prussian ships were set on fire.

See, when you set a goal and focus on making it a reality, good things happen. Actually, there were still two destroyers skulking around the other side that were not yet on fire...

The Cherbourg's heat lances carve up the remaining two cruisers. The Cherbourg may be a bit overpowered. I'm sure some sort of correction is on the horizon.

The big Prussian Sky Fortress and battleship combine their powers to kill two of the Japanese gyros in the center.

We were pressed for time and I think playing another (fourth) turn would have been decisive or at least very destructive. As it was, the French/Japanese force came out a bit ahead points-wise but not by a wide margin. Thanks for the game guys!

In other news, my order from Critical Mass arrived yesterday:

The haul...

I put some of them together already. I want to get them usable for Gnomecon. I may try to get in a playtest early on Saturday - my son seemed interested in the new toys. I've got a handful of terrain in the pipe as well - buildings and ruins this time around.

Have a good week!

StarDust Ground Update and RP

I haven't done a whole lot of work on SDG recently - I've been working on other things. I did work up rules for vehicle close combat - attacking vehicles in CC, mecha-type vehicles that are proficient in CC and that sort of thing. I also made a slight tweak to the Close Combat mechanics in general to prevent an obvious loophole that I discovered during the last playtest.

I have ordered a bucketload of new toys for SDG - vehicles, infantry, stationary emplacements. I'm still waiting for them to arrive - they're coming from Critical Mass in Jolly Ol' so they may be another week out. I hope I can get them before GnomeCon - I want to run at least one "big game" with lots of tanks, walkers, fliers, etc.

I finished up a couple of models from Rebel in the last couple of days - a mech for the Red Guard and an AA vehicle for the Dogs.

 The pair. Thank Rebel Minis!

I've made this guy tremendously powerful - strong special abilities and good weapons. To this point, most units in the game have been sort of generic and one-dimensional. This walker is one bad mother.

I added the radar - it's just a sprue and bit of screen. Originally the vehicle was billed as an APC. The twin guns were very "anti-aircraft" which is what I was looking for.It'll make a good AA and anti-infantry platform.

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.

Star Fleet Battles - DANGER ZONE!

The Space Cadets gathered for their monthly Star Fleet Battles exercise on Sunday afternoon. We had an extra help out as well, James who I play Shipwreck and other games with from time to time. He assisted David when Dave had to run an errand mid-game.

Our theme for the day was "Fighter School." We each put together a good-sized fighter group and split into teams - Bill and Mike (Fed and Kzinti) versus David and me (Lyran and Orion).

A large planet - Omicron Persei VIII - dominated the center of the table. Bill and Mike, the red-shirts, plot evilly.

Some stolen F-18s launch drones right from the get-go.

The two sides close. Lots of drones in flight, lots of confusion.

A pair of Z-Ys watch drones go past towards the Kzinti swarm.

A trio of Orion F-18s fire off three dogfight drones then turn tail back behind the planet to break any lock-ons. Shifty bastards, those Orions. Meanwhile, the Lyrans were having a hell of a time with the Feddies and Kzintis.

At this time there was a massive table-quake when James' hands misfired. It was pretty fucking tense for a few minutes, but we were able to recover after about 15 minutes using photos. We all had a laugh once things were sorted back out.

The reds laugh and James was forced to keep his hands in his pockets for the rest of the afternoon.

Orion Z-Ys pop off some more drones - these were targeted on the Kzinti TAAS shuttles - their good ones.

More drones are sent towards the Fed F-18s bringing up the rear of the alliance formation.

This was the last "action" pic I took. The Lyrans were wiped out. I think I got two kills - a HAAS and a TAAS and David/James killed an F-14(!) and I think a HAAS. We got handled big as shit. My Orions didn't take any losses but gave us a great jump-off point for the next game. I do try to stay in character when I play Orions - skulk, take cheap-shots and get away with your ship intact if possible! Allies are only allies while they're in front of you...

Our Captains...

The battle was a hoot. Lots of paperwork, lots of accounting, lots of smack-talk and plenty of blow-up crap. As I said earlier, it gives us a great follow-up opportunity for a couple of scenarios. We're all familiar with the ins and outs of fighter play and drone combat now and I don't think any of us will be hesitant to use them in later games.

Dystopian Wars - Coconut Wars Continued

Ziggy just got his Australian fleet in the mail yesterday. He texted me with a taunt which I gladly accepted. I hadn't had much opportunity to sink Aussie ships and it seemed like a good idea at the time. We played 1000 points - I used my Blazing Suns, consisting of:
1 Battleship w/ Shield Generator and one escort
1 Carrier w/ 1 escort
2 Support Cruisers (rockets-a-go-go)
3 Gunships
4 Mini Robot Subs
4 Corvettes

The Royal Australian rabble:
1 Battleship w/ 3 escorts
2 Monitors
2 Sub Tenders
3 Merlins
4 Frigates
4 Hawk Rotors (or whatever the kangaroo farmers call them)

My mission was to sink 50% of the enemy fleet including all large and massive enemy vessels. Easy! He's only got one!

Deployment. At this point, things were going really well for both of us.

 The Monitors hit a support cruiser hit off the bat, fouling its rudder.

But the Japanese rocket cruisers are not impressed and proceed to rain fire down on one of the distant sub tenders. The stuck cruiser was fortunately pointing at a target.

The sub tender was having a terrible first few minutes.

The Frigates prove that it's better to be lucky than good and crit one of my gunships, causing a Weapons Damage crit.

The big fliers ease forward. Two of the Australian frigates have been knocked out and the other submarine tender takes a crit from the gunships' rockets. The other tender that was heavily damaged earlier was finished off by the battleship's rockets.

No explanation needed.

Some torpedo bombers make it through to the carrier. Solid AA and CC, combined with some very bad rolls from the Australian player results in only one damage on the big ship.

My corvettes shoot up the side of the board and show how it's done. Another crit to the beat up monitor.

The battleship gets a good crit on one of the scout rotors.

And then the Zariganis speed forward and hose down the two rotors which failed their attempts to get back into the clouds.

Merlins cruise around looking for targets.

My two remaining gunships (towards the left) were healed by a 60-point TAC card - Battlefield Repairs I think.

Those gunships sent a volley of rockets at the damaged monitor. Crit, magazine explosion, oh shit. The corvettes were wiped out and the healthy monitor took a double-crit. Hahaha! Best shot ever, except for the own-goal on my 'vettes.

The beat-up monitor was finished off by my carrier. The Australian pocket battleship "crossed the T" and unloaded on the Kiyohime. Call it a crit and a navigation lock. Feh.

The mini squidbots jump the almost dead sub tender and send it to meet Davy Jones'.

The photographer forgot what he was doing and missed some awesomeness. The first wave of Crocs boarded the carrier and were wiped out, but the carrier was left with only one AP. The second wave boarded and whiffed badly. My single AP held up and ran off the aquatic boarders!

I think this is the start of turn 4. The scout rotors would smash up my battleship pretty good, leaving it with 2 HP, a broken shield generator and damaged weapons. Feh.

The icing on the cake. The HMAS Botany Bay sent its assault marines to capture the Lucky Dragon and they successfully Prized it for a nice 360 points. Ugh.

We called the game there. I wasn't close to killing the Aussie battleship and Zig was very close to killing mine. Final score was 770 (AUS) to 560 (EBS).

Unusually, Zig's dice rolls were very good. He had bad rolls mind you, but not at critical times - four ones in a row for instance when trying to get his scout rotors to climb into the clouds after playing a card that let them succeed on 2+. His shields were reliable for a change. He won initiative every turn. The group of four scout rotors were a major bitch to deal with and as it turned out, I completely failed to deal with them. I spent too much effort on the sub tenders and monitors and no where near enough on the battleship which was my mission. I think I was mentally defeated at the outset - usually my rockets are totally ineffective against Zig's British battleship + escorts group. Australian escorts are nowhere near as good as their British counterparts and I probably could have scored some early hits to take some starch out of the ol' PBB.

We both had a good time and I'm looking forward to another go at the Australians. Ziggy likes them and I think they suit his play-style a bit more than the Brits he's been pushing for two years. He likes getting up-close and personal and I think the British are better-suited for a mid-range torpedo and gun fight.