Warhounds 2 Warmasters

A series following a collection of would-be Admirals taking on the challenge of building a fleet in an entirely new game system; Dystopian Wars by Warcradle

“Do you like boats?”

A seemingly simple question but one which, on saying yes, will give your wallet yet another reason to cry itself to sleep.

My introduction to Dystopian Wars was as follows: Jay and Cristina casually asking me “Do you like Boats?” and naturally I answered “Yes”. I was then promptly shown all of the available Factions of Dystopian Wars instead of playing the game of Titanicus that was on the table. My subsequent lack of impulse control  led me down the rabbit-hole of this game and it has already, potentially, become one of my new favourites.

But first of all, who am I?

Richard, Rich, Not-Bald Rick, I answer to many names. (Ed Note: the continuation of an in-joke among the Adeptus Titanicus Community and seeming ever-increasing Rick-variants continues to amuse me). Full-time engineer, part-time nerd and definitely a fan of being part of a secret high-tech society that makes it’s home in the Antarctic. I have been playing and painting war games, in one form or another, since 2020 (gotta love a lockdown hobby) but going back further I really cut my teeth in air-fix models from an early age.

Why this system?

After the initial shock of being ambushed by my friends armed with pretty boats (Ed Note: and an enthusiastic info-dump about a dozen aspects of the game 🙂), I was further taken with the system when it turned out one of the designers of Adeptus Titanicus was now involved in the design of this game too. Being a big fan of AT meant it seemed inevitable I would fall for this game too. My taste in games has been leaning to more of a larger scale setting, with a good blend of micro and macro tactics (namely Dropfleet Commander, Dropzone Commander and Adeptus Titanicus) whilst I have been moving away from the generic, heroic scale games. (Ed Note: a man of taste and culture)

The setting of this game also really tickled my fancy, normally I am a pure Sci-fi fan but I can be tickled by a compelling alt-history setting, especially around the Victorian super science era.

Stand out Factions

There were a fair few Factions competing for my attention after giving the game lore a deeper look. In this I was trying as much as possible to be a fan of the models and lore first, before looking into the rules of any particular faction. This would hopefully keep me at the hobby for the love of the game itself, rather than just playing it to power-game it. There was also a part of me that was aware of those Factions of the game that were already claimed by other Admirals and so I had at least a half-formed thought to try and pick one of the Factions not yet covered by the growing group. (Ed Note: I believe Rich took his place at the Admiral’s table as the 5th or 6th committed Admiral)

First of all was the Crown; who wouldn’t want to play as a steampunk/sci-fi/Victorian version of the Royal Navy? (Ed Note: I can definitely think of someone 🙂) The flagship sculpts from this faction are beautiful, in my opinion, particularly the Legends of the Crown box (this will become relevant later). However, the rank and file of this Faction seemed a bit off for my tastes and I feel like I would have struggled to enjoy painting the Line and Patrol craft.

Imperium was also a top contender, because PACIFIC RIM JAEGERS BABY!!! There is also the aspect of their good naval design and their cruisers also looked pretty good. On the flip side, the general aesthetic of the faction was not speaking to me and I was not a fan of some of the factions most important vessels (Ice maiden, Zeppelins and the generic flagships). The Scandinavian fleet did seem cool though (this too will be important later). Plus both the Imperium and Crown both already had representation in the group which was another point against.

Empire also had a good argument in my mind, because Dragons (Ed Note: Dragons and Squid are a huge draw). Enough said. But for me, the mainstay ships of the faction just seem a bit too goofy for me – perhaps too little consideration of good naval design in their appearance. (Ed Note: Not sure if you are referencing the China or Japan vessels as they are world’s apart in aesthetic – I’m going to presume China. I’m also not going to stand in the way when the Empire Admiral’s take offence at this and decide to feed your ships to their aforementioned Squid and Dragons)

Why Enlightened?

In the end it was the Enlightened that won out in my deliberations. If we are going for a game of alt history, I may as well lean fully into the Victorian super science Faction that also have ‘sharks with frikkin laser beams attached to their heads’ (yes, I know they are whales, please let me have my Dr. Evil moment…. Ok?). The character drip is also up there for me, who hasn’t wanted a robotic arm?

The Enlightened range appeals to me at pretty much all points, the flagships almost universally appeal to me. The weakest one might be the Icarus, but what it brings to the table more than makes up for that. The Line and Patrol vessels are also really unique, having a combination of turrets, superstructure weapons and torpedoes which all brings some interesting gameplay options. The concept of good naval design is present in this fleet too.

Now, if you’ve been reading this article, I am sure you have picked up on one of my interests in a Faction: Big mechs! Imperium aren’t the only choice as the Enlightened do not disappoint on this front, mecha centipedes and squid both get good marks from me and I can’t wait to use and paint these. I may need to learn effective use of the Reserve rules to get them in close enough, the one time I have used them thus far involved them walking slowly towards a bunch of torpedo boats which… did not go well.

In addition to the above, the Chione and Quintilian both really attracted me. I am a fan of the works of Jules Verne, so the Enlightened subs really tick the boxes there. As for the Quintilian bombardment cruisers, there is just something about them I really enjoy and the way that they play only the table only adds to their appeal.

As I looked more into the Faction I was pleased to find that the playstyle also seems to suit me. Whilst I maintain I am a “Timmy” gamer (Ed Note: a what??), I do have a streak of “Johnny” in me (Ed Note: a Who? This sounds painful!) that really likes the intricacies of the Enlightened ruleset. Being able to stack the odds in my favour and spring a “go turn” with teleports and advanced weapons really does… Float my boat… I’ll see myself out. (Ed Note: The Nautical Puns… where is that Star Wars Phantom Menace meme image…)

The combination of large capital ships backed up by drone ships is also a archetype I am keen to explore.

A final part of the Faction that appealed to me was that it seems like a good Faction with which to experiment with taking mercenary detachments with, namely the Scions of Jutland force from the Imperium and the Nautilus from the Crown (see, told you my liking of those factions would come up again). (Ed Note: Self-referencing call-back, nice)

List aims

In terms of how I am planning on building the boxes I have, I think flexibility is key, particularly with our abundance of weapon and generator options. Thankfully through my time with Titanicus and originally playing Tau and Knights in 40K, (Yes, I am aware I always seem to gravitate towards the mecha factions), I am experienced in magnetising these options.

This also allows me to utilise the box contents to the max, not only in weapon loadouts but also in ship designation. I have built 2 Copernicus, and 3 Lovelace. However, I have made my Antarcticas in such a way that they can be either outfitted with all weapons, or with 2 light weapon options and the scythe launchers on the Lovelace.

The collection thus far

Thus far I have managed to pick up a few copies of the hunt for the Prometheus half, so this got me a lot of good options for Flagship, Line and Patrol plus most of the gubbins I needed. The immediate next purchase was the advanced squadrons, which gave me access to more SRS launch to make our cetacean ops fleet and a pair of Ketos.

Unfortunately for my wallet, I recently played at a Dropfleet Commander event held at Firestorm Games in Cardiff… So decisions were made and I may have accidentally picked up the Chione fleet and a set of Aronnax. This gives me access to 3 of the units that initially caught my fancy.

Paint schemes

On to how to paint them. I am intending for a more traditional naval paint scheme, with a hazy striped pattern of black, light grey and blue/grey over a battleship grey base coat. I am currently experimenting with putting a thin coat of silver over the primed models to see what sort of texture that gives to the base colours to get an effect similar to the below.

Once the base colours are in, some weathering needs to be done, probably through some rust patches and maybe some highlights to show general wear and tear. It’s a long way from the Antarctic after all.

I am intending to finish up with an orange glow on the weapons in contrast to the traditional green glows of the box art.

First games

In terms of building, turning this collection of ships into a fleet was a bit of a learning curve, however some of the first ideas I had have actually proved to be nearly correct. Given that the current edition is fairly new, there weren’t that many videos of battle reports, however the general gist of the list building from other Factions was a good base.

The first demo games I played used the following list, which taught me a fair bit just through smashing things together:

Flagship: Hypatia

Line: 2 x Lovelace, 1 x Copernicus

Patrol: 6 x Merian, 1 x Ketos

This firstly taught me that running underwater units up the board at alliance ships is not good for their continued health.Torpedoes are a wonderful thing. A few iterations of this list also allowed me to figure out some early power combos that I need to investigate further. I’ve learned that larger groups of ships are better as they allow combined activations to overwhelm the defences of their targets, I will more than likely be leaning towards groups of 2 or 3 cruisers and large swarms of frigates. (Ed Note: Play philosophies aside, you might not want all of your units to be large – it’s worth considering what the role you want them to fulfil in your fleet is, just a thought) The ability for the Lovelace cruisers to take SRS launch also piqued my interest, as I had not seen the note before, so am keen to see what use I can get from that.

I found a lot of milage out of a group of frigates armed with pulse emitters running up behind cover and teleporting into the enemy fleet to do some serious up close damage which I will be looking into more with other weapons, perhaps the torrent weapons will also work here.

Finally this gave me a chance to figure out the Hypatia. As it’s a generator ship it has access to, unsurprisingly, generators and the more powerful versions of the standard weapons. Through a lot of theory crafting and a bit of practice I have settled on a loadout of 3 agitators for some serious mid range capital ship damage and the combo of heavy shield, shroud and magnetic generators. This has been influenced by a lot of early games against alliance ships on fairly open boards, so please feel free to berate me in the comments for my build and educate me in the correct ways.

List development and early learnings

As I am getting smoother with the rules and able to feasibly run larger fleets, the next obvious options are either to run the SRS group and automata group for more diversity of units and to experiment with some cool models.

(More educated admiral’s note: I have now learnt that the mothership rule is a little broken atm, this was a good gestimation for how to play the Euripides from reserve)

As our group is fairly spread out, a lot of us have been utilising TTS to play more games. I have had very little use of this system prior to now but am open to learning, as the smaller model count should make use of the game fairly slick.

Next steps.

Moving on from here, my main targets are for bigger games, probably sitting in the 1500 to 2000 point mark. This will allow me to reliably take 2 or 3 groups and experiment with all the units from the ORBAT. Plus, unlike some other systems, a 2000 point list doesn’t cost over £500, so is a very nice system to get into. (Ed Note: I’m pretty sure this is one of the cheapest systems I have seen to get to that amount of fleet – it’s entirely possible with only two Battlefleet purchases!)

The essential next purchases for me will be the Xenophon box for the following reasons; that flagship is beautiful, a flagship option that is cheap on points yet very tanky and it gives me access to amo carriers (a nice cheap source of SRS launch). The Icarus is also an option worth exploring to see what a more SRS skewed list would entail, however I think that is a prime opportunity for utilising TTS before making any purchases.

The other major consideration around my next steps is use of the mercenary fleets (see, look at that self referencing and actually remembering what I said earlier in the article). Introducing the Nautilus, Scions of Jutland force or even the Black Wolf are all options I am considering to get a taster of other Factions ships and just follow the rule of cool.

Thank you for your time, dearest reader, and remember, it’s totally appropriate to run away from the stupid people and head off to the Antarctic. Also; ALL HAIL THE WHALE.