Unboxing the Dystopian Wars EotBS Cruiser

[An example of the stunning alternative Stat cards that can be downloaded (here) from the Spartan Games Forum]

Hi,

After proxying my EotBS fleet with my mates Prussians I finaly got my ships in the post:

My first impressions were that they were very good value for money, and some of the ships, particularly the dreadnought and the sky fortress were bigger than I expected considering the price.

I got 3 cruisers in the starter box, and I had bought 3 more.  Although I could use them as two squadrons of 3, a full squadron is 4 models, and I was unlikely to buy more so I could use two full squadrons.  Therefore I thought two cruisers would be perfect models to try out some paint scheme ideas I had.

Taking the cruisers out of their blister I was impressed with the detail on the models:

[my picture doesn't really show the detail, so below is a picture from google which shows the model better]

[Picture taken via Google from Ant's Nest]

 
Resin models normally have more flash (well that's what I've experienced with GW forgeworld models), however with these models the flash was very minor, with only a slight amount near the prow, which will be easyily filed off.  You can see the slight flash at the front of the models:

Tomorrow I will quickly cut and/or file this flash off, and then clean the models with an old toothbrush and slightly warm water (definetely not hot, I don't want to warp my cruisers).  If the weather holds out I may even get the chance to undercoat them.

Rathstar

PS. My first Dystopian Wars battlereport will be coming shortly.

6th Edition Teaser - 23rd June Pre Order / Release Date

Well at last Games Workshop has put up a 6th Edition teaser:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=2700048

The 23rd June is probably the pre order date, with the actual release being 2 weeks later.

Update: I've had it confirmed that the 23rd is the preorder date.

I'll be spending my birthday money early this year :)
Excited, bored of all the hype, looking for to a shake up of the game; comment away below.
Rathstar

Friends introduce me to a new game...

Hi,

It's been a fun couple of weeks, however before I dive into the main subject of this post I wanted to give a quick update on my Dark Eldar.

I went to a 40k tournament in Tolworth last weekend, which was very enjoyable, and gave me the chance to try out my new 1750 point list..  I came 4th out of 26th, and my Dark Eldar put in a good performance, which included a strong win against Necrons, tabling the Dark Eldar player who came 2nd and losing narrowly to Deathwing.  A further blog post will follow on that.

The main point of this post is that my friends have convinced me to start up a new game.  It just happened that a friend mentioned he had the game, another friend then said he had some models as well, both shortly after I had seen a post about the game on the Sons of Sanguinius blog.  This new game is:

Dystopian Wars

One of my mates had both the original version 1.0, and the updated version 1.1 rulebooks.  He gave me the 1.0 rulebook, so with a free download from the Spartan Games website i was updated to the current version 1.1 of the ruleset.

Looking through the fluff and models I narrowed my choice of fleet to Empire of the Blazing Sun (EotBS) or the Covenant of Antarctica (CoA):

Empire of the Blazing Sun

VS

Covenant of Antarctica

I like both sets of models (especially the CoA's bombers), however I was worried that the elite background of the Cof A wouldn't suit my natural playstyle.  However after finding out another mate who recently bought some models already had Covenant of Antarctica made my choice easy; Empire of the Blazing Sun it was.

I looked round the web for the best prices.  10% with free P&P was easy to find from webstores and ebay Buy-It-Now auctions, however Triple Helix Wargames won out with 20% off RRP plus free P&P.  However it's always worth waiting for ebay normal auctions, and I was able to pick up the EotBS naval starter set of £21 (£32.50 RRP):

Winning some auctions for a dreadnought, some extra cruisers and bombers put me on £42 for a sizable fleet.  Unfortunately I got a bit carried away because I wanted some of the lovely flyer models and got a Sky Fortress (a flying aircraft carrier) and a War Gyro (the equivialnt of a flying battleship), plus some small Covettes to give me some options in my small ships.

Sky Fortress

War Gyro

I've made up a 1500 point force to play a mate this Sunday.  We'll probably play some much smaller battles to get a better grasp of the rules, before using out 1500 points forces.  I think my force has a bit of everything so should be good to learn the game with. Even if it's the the cruisers are as bad as I keep reading on every blog and forum :)

Regarding tactics I'm almost flying blind here, with no actual battle experience, however I have been scouring blogs and the Spartan Games forum.  From playing Battlefleet Gothic I know watching my approach angles to get the maximum firepower out of the various arcs on my ships will help.  Also looking at the rulebook it appears (to me anyway) that the EotBS has a strength in their tiny torpedo armed flyers (whose torpedoes are harder to stop), and incendiary rockets (which can cause fires to cause extra damage).  Bombs also seems quite good against capital ships (but obviously require me to get up close and personal with said capital ship).

Normal gunnery firepower is reduced by the amount of damage a ship has taken, while rockets and torpedoes firepower isn't, so maybe keeping my distance (gunnery firepower is better at short range, while rockets are better at longer ranges) and playing the attrition game may work.

Lastly using my small Corvettes and Frigates to strip away the opponents small ships and flyers who screen/protect the big ships will weaken the protection near big battleships/dreadnaughts hopefully leaving them weak in either anti air (rockets/bombers) or anti torpedoes.

I'm really looking forward to playing the game, as the mechanics seems simple, but everything can't be good at everything because of the number of ways to target ships; basic gunnery, torpedoes, rockets, short ranged anti air etc., so everything has a weakness.

I'll let you know how accurate my early guesses are, and how I get on at the weekend in a later post.  Below is the 1500 point fleet I hope to try out, and I'm looking at images on the web to give me inspiration for a paint scheme. There's a good gallary on the Spartan Games website, but just putting Empire of the Blazing Sun or Dystopian Wars into google and selecting images gives loads of inspiration.

Do you play Dystopian Wars ?  What do you think of the different fleets ?

Rathstar

Empire of the Blazing Sun 1500 point Naval & Air Fleet

Dreadnought - 235
Battleship - 180
4 Cruisers (with Incendiary Rockets) - 260
2 x 4 Frigates - 200
5 Corvettes - 100

Sky Fortress - 135
War Gyro - 150
2 x 2 Bombers - 240

Naval/Air Ratio: 65%:35%
Size Ratio (Massive/Large/Medium/Small): 9%/38%/33%/20%

Vehicle Saturation [Dark Eldar]

[My 1500 Point army at Rapid Strike
The Razorwing Flocks were borrowed from a friend while I paint mine up]

In the current meta of 5th edition, vehicles saturation is very good. Not only are vehicles hard to kill, due to the vehicle damage table, but they also protect squishy troops and give them better mobility.

If you have too many vehicles for the enemy’s anti tank guns, you ensure than some of them will survive till late in the game, regardless of how weak they are. This is particularly true of Dark Eldar.

However as you increase the number of vehicles you normally are taking points away from the rest of your troops making them weaker, so in terms of kill points you have an increase because you have more vehicles and your other troops are weaker and easier to kill.

Dark Eldar vehicles are notoriously fragile, and at one point I used 12 at 1750 pts. I have since gone down to 10, and I’m now considering using only 9. This was done by using less kill point intensive options, eq. beastmasters rather than incubi in a transport, reaver jetbikes rather than another troops choice in a transport, and even losing the transport for a unit of 3 wracks that mainly hides at the back on an objective. However sometimes I still lose all the vehicles early, in my last 2 games against Grey Knights there were taken out extremely quickly.

Now the question comes should I weaken my troops further to put another vehicle in, with the idea that my vehicles will last a bit longer, or should I settle with 9 vehicles. In all things it’s better to look at an actual list:

Haemonculus Nalix Soulseer - 55
  with Venom Blade

4 Trueborn with 4 Blasters - 108
  in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

4 Trueborn with 4 Blasters - 108
  in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

4 Trueborn with 4 Blasters - 108
  in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

10 Wracks with 2 Liquifier Guns - 120
  in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches incl. Hekatrix with Venom Blade - 105
  in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

3 Wracks - 30
  in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

3 Wracks - 30

4 Beastmasters - 198
  accompanied by 5 Krymerae and 6 Razorwing Flocks

6 Reaver Jetbikes with 2 Heat Lances - 156

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Razorwing Jetfighter - 145
  with 2 Dark Lances, twin-linked Spinter Rifle & 4 Monoscythe missiles

Total: 1748 Pts, 19 Kill Points


The last wrack squad is crying out for a raider or venom to hide in, and give them some mobility, however all the infantry squads are nearly cut to the bone already. I could lose: a trueborn with a blaster, the wrack’s liquefier guns, 2 krymera to get a raider (or a venom if I lose the haemonculus’ venom blade as well), however each change slightly reduces the effectiveness of the squads affected:

• I have found 4 model trueborn units to be much more effective, because they remain more of a threat when their vehicle blows up
• Krymerae are essential not just for their multiple str4 attacks, but to intercept str6 shots that would otherwise instant kill a razorwing flock
• Liquifier guns are helpful against hordes, and help the wracks flush out units in cover or at least weaken them before they charge, as the wracks have no grenades

So how far is too far in trying to put more vehicles in, I currently have 730 points tied up in very fragile vehicles, is this too much already ?  What do you think is a reasonable ratio between vehicles and infantry to get the vehicle saturation to work ?

For my next tournament I will look at the performance of the tweaks I can make to fit in another vehicle, and consider whether I think it’s worth it.  I'm itching to put my 4th Venom into the list, but will it hurt the list overall ?

Rathstar


A quick note on kill points: Having a list 1 or 2 kill points less would have little if non effect on the result of the Annihilation games I have played. Although my list is more resilience than I used to play (eq. Feel No Pain on all troop choices) it is still a glass cannon. To significantly reduce the kill point total would require a rewrite of the style of the list, probably to Baron with WWP, which unfortunately I do not have the models to do that at the moment.

A New Dawn ?

With a closer job and better weather, I'm writing this blog post in the lovely University grounds.

[My view as I write this post]

The university gaming club is not as competitive as my local club, so I didn't want to unleash my Dark Eldar tournament list, but then again I didn't to completely tone down my list, so instead I've decided to take my Tau.

I've been seeing a resergence in the Tau, only a minor one though. A few people have started playing them again, and a few are getting very good tournament placings with tbem. Whether that is lulling me into a false sense of security,but I have always liked the modes and the playstyle. The Tau's good performance may be due to tbe fact that they are very good against the top tier light vehicle spam lists such as grey knights or razorwolves. Alternatively it may be due to the few people still playing them are really good players who also know their army inside out.

With all this I'm sitting with my Tau army and they should be fighting on a battlefield in half an hour.  The list I'm using is below. A couple less railguns than my normal list, and one less crisis suit unit tban normal, plus 66% more firewarriors than I normally use at higher points values, however it's still my list so it's still optimised as much as I can with the units I've taken (no unnecessary wargear taken here), and a very healthy 75 models crammed into 1500 pts.

Have you seen any Tau resergence ? Or will my blue fish be turned into sushi against anything competitive ?
Rathstar

Uni Gaming Club Tau List

Shas'el "no plasma here" Rathstar
5 crisis suits, only 2 carry any plasma
10 firewarriors
3 units of 10 kroot, one unit has 7 hounds
8 pathfinders with devilfish
2 hammerheads, one with ion cannon
3 broadsides, for this game I thought I'd try out plasma rifles with multitrackers

Transistion - Vanquish to Rapid Strike

Hi,

It's been busy month, with me leaving one job and starting a new job tomorrow.  This month has also seem a transition in my Dark Eldar, they have gone from the nicer list I took to my last tournament Vanquish to a more toned list that will be ready to complete with the more cut throat tournaments I will be attending later in the year, the first of which being Rapid Strike in Reading.

Last time I blogged I left you at the end of day one of the Vanquish tournament with me on 3 wins.  Day two went well against Orks and Dark Eldar to leave me clear top on gaming points after with a total of 4 wins and a draw and maximum bonus objective points.  A 4 out of 8 painting score saw me drop to 2nd place overall.  Unlike most tournaments Vanquish went much further than the 3 colour painting requirements, but was fair to everyone, it just wasn't an area I paid much attention to in the rules pack, and to be fair there wasn't much else I could have done apart from finish my own razorwing flocks.  Although the ones I borrowed were much better painted than mine would be, they stood out as not matching the rest of the army, and lost me 2 painting points for consistant theme/style.

Following Vanquish I played agaist a mate's Grey Knights.  I lost the fluffy warriors that was in my Vanquish list for 3 wracks, which allowed me to try out upping the trueborn to 4 strong (all with blasters).  Although I liked the extra shots the game was a white wash with me conceeding turn 4 so we could get on with some games of magic with other mates who had arrived.  I suffered rubber lance syndrome.  I killed one dreadnought all game, and didn't touch any of the other 2 dreadnoughts or 3 stormravens.

The incubi also performed badly again.  They only seem to perform against units they should easily beat, such as a combat squad of marines.  With this in mine my list for rapid strike has transformed into:

Haemonculus (Venom blade)

3 x 4 Trueborn, all with blasters in Venoms

10 Wracks in a Raider

9 Wyches (incl Hekatrix with Venom blade) in a Raider

2 x 3 Wracks

4 Beastmasters with 4 Krymerae & 6 Razorwing Flocks

2 x Ravager

Razorwing Jetfighter

At 1500 points I'm packing 22 lances, 6 splinter cannons, and 3 assault units in the wyches, large wracks & the beastmaster unit.  I finding more and more that if I can't de-mech the enemy (through too many enemy vehicles or just bad luck) then I really struggle. Time will tell if I have gone too far (particularly with the few troops).

May should have more postings, as I settle into my new job (which is over an hour closer than my previous one), and I have less panic painting for tournaments to do.

Rathstar

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.4

Dark Eldar tournament bound again

Hi,

I've almost finshed the first battle report of the 1st game of the Planet OG tournament that I attended last week. I came 3rd with my Necrons, and for those of you that can't wait for the full battle reports here's a link to the OG Games forum where I have posted a quick summary of my games (The address is here until I get home and can do a proper link: http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2856.60 ).

This weekend I am at the Vanquish tournament in Bristol, and I am back to my Dark Eldar. Vanquish has Timmy comp which means the list I'm considering with 3 units of Trueborn will have to wait, plus you will probably be surprised that I only have 2 venoms and a unit of warriors on foot are in the list.  The list I'm using is:
Haemonoculus with Venom blade
2 x 3 Trurborn each with a Venom with 2nd splinter cannon
5 Incubi in a Raider
10 Wracks with 2 liquifier guns in a Raider
9 Wyches incl. Hekatrix with Venom blade in a Raider
10 Warriors with a Splinter Cannon
3 Wracks in Raider
4 Beastsmasters with 4 Krymera and 6 Razorwing Flocks
6 Reavers with 2 Heat lances
2 x Ravagers
Razorwing Jetfighter

Ideally I wanted to finish my forgeworld flying rippers to use as razorwing flocks, but after assembling annihilation barges last week everything got very busy, plus I had fo focus on prep for an interview. Very quickly I realised I would get the flying rippers done in time, but luckily my mate lend me his razorwing flocks (thanks Gav).

As I've been so busy it's now the evening of the first day, and the tournament has gone well so far with me getting maximum tournament points in my first three games with pretty high victory points. However I have had a very lucky draw so far, first game was against hybrid (mainly mech) blood angels who came at my army uncoordinated and were taken apart piecemeal. Second was against a Necron army without any vehicles and pretty mucb no anti tank (no lance crypteks, but it did have 4 tremorsave crypteks, a c'tan to make differcult terrain dangerous, lychguard & 5 necron lords with warscythes). He was tabled.  3rd game was against foot vanilla marines (with 2 multi melta attack bikes). A better player with a better list; getting rid of over 60+ marines/terminators/assault marines is always going to be hard.  I was able to use my greater maneuverability to create engagements on my terms, helped my a mostly refused flank (I love going 2nd in dawn of war).  My opponent was only left with a combat squad.

I am sure I wil face some tough armies for the last two games tomorrow. A quick update will follow tomorrow evening or early next week.

Rathstar