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

Article by Hasan

So, while Jay, Princess, and Alex effectively dove headfirst into playing Dystopian Wars, I initially was rather skeptical. Despite being a historian myself, historical or alt-histories had never really grabbed me the in the same way that the Warhammer universe had, especially in regards to table top gaming.

I was therefore content to watch and wait for a little bit, and when the opportunity arose, I intended to observe a game or play an intro game with one of the others before making a decision.

Now, when this was going to happen, I had no idea. And how it would fit in around my very busy Titanicus and Battlefleet Gothic schedule, I also had no idea. But, I am a very firm believer in try before you buy. And while I’m definitely not hurting for cash, spending a few hundred pounds on a system I’m might hate didn’t seem like a smart idea. Why invest in boats if I could invest in another Titanicus maniple and know I’ll love it? So, I resigned to wait and eventually get into it.

Then one of the other Admirals, whose identity has not yet been revealed and so will be referred to as ‘Admiral Sommelier‘ decided to give me their two-cents after they played their first game. At this urging, I decided to take the plunge and therefore took a look at what boxes were available to a true American patriot such as myself. (Ed Note: Admiral Sommelier has been playing various games with Hasan for some time and is probably best placed to know whether or not Hasan might enjoy a system. I’m very much looking forward to their introduction article) (Auth Note: What!? I didn’t know we were doing code names! I want one!)

I quickly zeroed in on the Enterprise Battlefleet box. At this point, I had no idea what was good or even useful in the game, but… any scholar of naval history knows the name Enterprise, and I am no exception. (Ed Note: You went with the Enterprise because of a historical ship?? I honestly thought you were making a Star Trek reference!) At the moment I’m still unsure of what the Enterprise’s combat record is in Dystopian Wars as a ship. But if the ship of the same name is good enough to take on Japan by itself, I figure it’s a good enough place for me to start.

This announcement also led to quite a few spaceship jokes in the Dystopian Wars Admirals Table group chat we have. I was rather confused to start until I found out that there is also a USS Enterprise in this really old TV show called ‘Star Trek’. (Ed Note: Ahh, there it is. I sometimes forget the age gap that exists among the team)

With the box acquired, I then set about building it. The Enterprise itself was obvious, fairly easy to put together, and quite a nice modeling experience as far as resin goes. For the support ships, I took a moment to figure out how they were put together, double checked some YouTube videos, and saw that they were easily swappable. At the moment, they’re mostly built as Washingtons, but I retain the capability to swap them to Roanokes or any other support ship.

The Farraguts also were rather easy and my weapons are blue-tacked in for easy swapability. Same with the Akrons which just pop out of the screw essentially. My only bad experience building the Enterprise box was with the Patriot Automata. Firstly, I dislike how they look in general, secondly, the instructions are a bit unclear in my opinion – in comparison to both other Dystopian Wars ships and other systems, and thirdly, I found them too damn fiddly.

My frontline ships are permanently built as Lexingtons because even inexperienced as I was, I could tell by looking at the stats, those are the ships I would want, and this was confirmed by the Warcradle discord union thread. This is influenced in multiple parts by me being extremely lazy. I looked at what it would take to magnetize the Lexingtons and decided I’ll either just declare them as Yorktowns if my opponent is amenable or just buy more ships if I need Yorktowns or another front line ship for whatever reason.

With that sorted. I then set about booking my first game in with Jay.

Now, I don’t remember too much of the detail of my first game. But what I do remember stuck with me. First of all, positioning your ships is everything. My Enterprise got stuck within two inches of a bit of terrain, which wasn’t a rule where the importance had struck me yet (thanks Jay) (Ed Note: I believe the critical importance of positioning and the impact of Proximity was really set in stone for me in that intro game). And so, as the fighting got more close quarters, the disorder rapidly stacked up.

Another thing I found out was that Akrons are quite useful. Hypophone relay – excellent, amazing, love it. AWACs doctrine – perfect, even better. Buffs my torpedoes which every ship has anyway. And any rockets I have also get even better.

The big thing that I realized though, and perhaps the most important thing in my opinion so far about playing Union is, holy f*cking sh*t, I love the Lexington. (Ed Note: I’ve not had to make a decision on expletives within the blog-space before now… I guess this is something for me to think about…)

16 dice each at standard range? Strength five torpedoes at every range? Arc three for each ship to induce Systems Failures? Amazing. Perfect. I could not ask for a better ship. From now on, it is my goal to run as many of these as possible at a time. If anyone knows how to get more than six in the list, do let me know.

Any representative of Warcradle, if you’re reading this, give me a fleet for the Union that is just Lexingtons. I will buy another a four frontline squadron boxes to be able to run 12, if you let me. Just an FYI.

I have nothing else to add, to be honest. I’ll do another update once I’ve actually started to paint anything. I did buy an Independence box because it was rather cheap given the bundle it was coming in on eBay. The Independence is a good ship as well, but it’s not a Lexington. Thankfully the box comes with two.

You should also go out and buy a Lexington, or three, or six.