From Prussia with love.

Hi Guys

My usual opponent, Ed, and I have a good game of Dystopian Wars last night. He wanted to try out his new Russian fleet and I used my Prussians. This was my first time playing against the Russians and the learning curve was rather steep, practically vertical .... In Dystopian wars (DW), the Prussian fleet is faster than most of its counterparts, very good at close range gunnery and boarding attacks but weak at long range. They are very well balanced opponents for the British fleet, Eds' usual force for DW. The Russians are slower than the Prussians, have very little long range capability, but are very dangerous at close range. They also have ablative armour, which makes it very difficult to damage them. Once you score a point of damage, the armour is cracked and the advantage lost. It means that the first hit on them can only cause a single point of damage, where everyone else can take catastrophic damage in one strike. My usual tactic against the British is to charge through their long range fire, closing to close gunnery range and then launching boarding attacks as soon as possible. This would be suicide against the Russians as you would be just running onto their bigger guns.

We  went with the basic starter fleet, each having 1 battleship, 3 cruisers, 9 frigates, 2 bombers and 10 tiny flyers ( you have a choice of fighters, dive dombers, torpedoe bombers or spotters. We each choose 10 fighters.) When we deployed, I accidentally used 3 Battlecruiser models but used the stat profile for normal cruisers, so no cheating occured.

The Prussian fleet deploys



The evil Russian fleet deploys







  In turn 1 Ed won the initiative, and activated a squadron first ( in DW each player activates a single unit/squadron and it alternates back and forth so you are both involved, but getting the first punch in can be a big advantage. We both advanced toward each other at full speed. This was a bit dumb on my behalf but I wanted to see what the Russians could do, I just learned the hard way. There was very little firing in the first round, due to both of us having little long range firepower. The exception was my two bombers each have a forward tesla coil with a limited long range attack. I took pot shots at Eds bombers, both at the edge of effective range. My first attack was a lucky one, I scored a critical on a bomber, rolled on the crit table and got magazine explosion. It destroyed that model and damaged its companion, and sunk a nearby frigate, much to the dishumour of Ed.

Kerblamo !

Ed seeing the crit result

Turn 2, I took the initiative. We both advance, the Russian cruisers destroy a Prussian frigate, the frigates close on the cruisers but score no damage.  My bombers tesla his cruisers and crit one of them, and halving his speed with engine damage. The Russian frigates close on my frigates on the left flank, destroying one. The Prussian cruisers advance on their opposite numbers, damaging one and shooting down the remaining Russian bomber. The Russian battleship advances and deals out damage in all directions . It causes heavy damage to a Prussian bomber, taking its bombs temporarily off-line. A squadron of Russian fighters finish off the wounded bomber with some loses, finishing turn 2.

Turn 3. The Russians took the initiative and advanced his cruisers. The fire on the Prussian cruisers and destroy one, causing 26 points of damage ( It sinks after 4..). The remaining Prussian bomber straffes the Russian cruisers, damaging one in a rather feeble attack. The Russian battleship advances to close range, downing the last Prussian bomber, sinking a Prussian cruiser and leaving my options extremely limited. Given that most of my fleet had become one-way submarines,  I concede the game at this point for a fairly one-sided Russian victory. Next time I will cheat and use things like tactics and a plan, rather than just running forward like a goosed muppet.

Look at all the empty space where the Prussian fleet was.