AAR - Dystopian Wars: Skirmish in the South China Sea

David and I got together on Sunday afternoon for a game of Dystopian Wars. It's been quite a while for David and at least a month or two for me. Since time was going to be an issue, we decided on 800 points and no SAWs.

My list:
1 Magenta Battleship with Cloud Generator
3 Marseille Cruisers
3 Furieux Scout Fliers
4 Alma Scout Ships
4 Lyon Frigates

David's List
1 Sokotsu Battleship
3 Tanuki Gunships
4 Uwatsu Frigates
5 Fujin Corvettes
2 Inari Gyros

We drew random orders - my target was the battleship (oh lovely) and David's was all of my smalls.

A blurry picture of our initial deployments. Since David hadn't played in ages, we skipped right past "Advance, Reserve and Flank" deployments.

Very pretty.

The battleship moved first and thrashed one of the Marseilles, which quickly tried to hide behind the island on my left, but the Inaris caught her and sunk her quickly.

I scooted forward with the Furieux, descended from the clouds, took some pot-shots at an Inari and promptly failed to get the sky ships back to the relative safety of the clouds. The Japanese gunships moved next and look some long-ranged shots at my fliers, damaging one. I've grown rusty. NEVER leave the clouds with the Furieux!

To start turn 2, I won the initiative and dropped a pile of mines ahead of the Japanese ships. The fliers also caused some minor damage to a Tanuki with gunfire.

Dramatic moment of the game: The Fujin squadron pounces on the troubled Marseilles, blasting one and attempting to board the other. The shooting was not impressive, scoring a crit (generator offline) and the boarding action was a miserable failure! The oft-maligned French light cruisers were still in the game - wow.

The Lyons claim an Uwatsu after losing one of their own shortly before.

Marseilles doing what they do best...

Towards the end of turn 2. My battleship may be on a collision course with one of my own mines. It had blasted the far gunship pretty soundly with its guns.

I began turn 3 by giving the gunships both barrels. Mines, bombs, some gunfire... F&$* you, gunships. Bombs and gunfire from one scout ship produce two crits on the center gunship.

The mines do the trick, killing off two gunships and crippling the third. One more person on earth hates Furieux scout ships. Huzzah!

My Almas repeat the crap performance of the Fujins earlier and get their boarding parties wiped trying to cause some AP casualties on the Sokotsu. I wish I'd boarded it with the Furieux first - BLAST!

The Lyons finish off the last gunship.

The Fujins blast away at my remaining Marseille.

I can't completely avoid my own mines and plow into an AD5 one with the Magenta. David promptly rolls what you see there - a damn crit from my own mine! Gah! The first crit doe to stop rolling was a "1" and the second dies spun a while, showed another "1" briefly then rested on a "3." Whew. A Mag Explosion would have been unthinkable. We both laughed long and loud at the turn of events. After the mine rocked my flagship, its guns reached out and put a big hole in the Japanese flagship. I can live with that.

David's battleship plowed through an Alma, turning it into confetti with little effort.

A bit of shooting from the Sokotsu and we called the game. David had hit hit 50% MFV requirement but had not killed my smalls and Istill had some work to do on David's flagship. We called it a well-fought draw.

Well that was a fun game! It was nice facing off against the ships I play with a lot of the time. My usual opponents despise the Blazing Sun fleet and now I know why! Luckily, the French AA was up to the task and the long-range rockets weren't too terrible. Those gunships did a lot of damage to my fleet so as much as they were irrelevant to my victory conditions, they could not be allowed to live.

The ROF guns-only force is very strong and I'd certainly field them again, without the heat lance wonder-weapons. The Furieux are absolute top-shelf awesome and I cannot recommend them enough. My Marseilles gave up 150 points but kept the 'vettes occupied all game - I can live with that; that they were still on the table after three turns was amazing! The Lyons and Almas performed as expected - perfectly fine frigates. The all-gun Magenta is a beast an once again lived up to its sterling reputation.

Thanks for the game, David! See you next weekend for Star Fleet Battles.