At long last, the box containing my Dystopian Wars 2.0 book and starter set has arrived!

Here are just a few quick impressions after pawing over the contents for a few minutes.

The Commodore Edition Rule Book

First off, the Commodore Edition book is HUGE! It is quite the hefty volume, and compares rather favorably in size with the rulebooks from some of those “other” mini games:

As promised the first 50 pages are entirely devoted to fluff, with no rules content whatsoever. The rules proper are broken into lettered sections, “A” through “E.”

Unlike Firestorm Armada and Uncharted Seas, Dystopian Wars rule books have always featured a significant amount of artwork to accompany all the rules examples and pictures of excellently painted models. Each section of the rules, for example, is seperated by a beautiful full-page illustration, as are the stats for each faction in Section E:

Rounding out the book is a nicely detailed index, which seems to feature a much greater degree of division and detail than before:

The New Starter Box

Okay! Enough about the book. Lets get on to the fancy new Operation Shadow Hunter box set! First thing I noticed when I opened up the box was just how PACKED it was. There is barely any room to spare inside!

The Admiral’s Edition

At the bottom of the box was the “Admiral’s Edition” of the rulebook, which is about the same size as the first edition DW rule book. That does make it somewhat larger in size than the “pocket” rulebooks used in some games, though it is still much handier than the huge tome that is the Commodore’s Edition!

At first glance, it appears to have a similar layout and art to the Commodore’s Edition, except that the Admiral’s Edition only has Sections A, B, and C of the rules. This means that the optional rules and model stats, along with the fluff, were dropped in the condensed version:

Also included is a scenario book that includes the stats for the models, as well as a series of 7 scenarios that gradually increase in size and complexity, each one introducing different elements of the core rules into the mix. This is clearly a “crawl,walk, run” teaching approach, but my initial look seems like it is pretty well done and should still be interesting for most players. The booklet itself is in the smaller “A4” format that DW players are familiar with from the various fleet boxes:

The game also includes a set of the new tokens, as well as some punch-out card islands and shoals. I generally prefer 3-D terrain myself, but this printed terrain is well painted and doesn’t look too bad:

The New Models

Now for the starts of the show! The models. First up, the Boston-class sub for the FSA. As a submariner, this is the model I’ve been waiting for! It is an impressive model,too. The sculptor has taken a different approach to modeling the water on the Boston’s base; instead of the smooth ripples of earlier water bases (as seen on the Epulard subs for the RoF), the water on the Boston is very rough and choppy. Also, the partially submerged model seems to blend into its base much more than what I’ve seen from other Spartan sub models. It will be an interesting painting challenge!

The two battleships look very nice; they make their original box fleet box brethren from a few years ago look almost plain in comparison! The FSA model bears a closer resemblance to that faction’s dreadnought, while the EotBS ship’s homage to bullet trains has been toned down quite a bit:

And of course, we can’t forget the new “ghost ship” that is the star of the set. The clear version is just as sharply detailed as the resin version is, though it is hard to tell in the photos:

Overall, I’m both really impressed and really excited with the quality of these new offerings. The Commodore version of the rules is a handsome piece that has a lot of the crunchy details that were missing in the earlier edition. The new box set, on the other hand, strikes me as a FANTASTIC value, even given its fairly high price point. There is a lot of resin in this box; I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s in there!

Stay tuned for much more detailed reviews on both the new models and the rules! Until next time…