Greetings!

The Donnerfaust support cruisers attempt to interject themselves between the FSA and the Sturmbringer in a brave, but ultimately futile, gesture.

Last weekend I had the chance to play a full game of Dystopian Wars Fleet Action (DWFA) against CDR-G. For those that may not be familiar, Fleet Action is the DW cousin of Firestorm Taskforce, both by Spartan Games. They are intended to be “fast-play” editions of Dystopian Wars and Firestorm Aramda, respectively. This was the first “full speed” game of DWFA that I have been able to play, and it was also the first time I’ve gotten a chance to play since discussing both DWFA and Taskforce on the podcast a couple of episodes back. So, having spent some more time with the game, is it “good”? Is it any faster than DW? Does it work as a fleet action version of DW (ie, DW with more models)? I’ll get to all that, but first I want to run you through how our game went and give you a few observations. Onward!

Forces and Scenario

CDR-G’s FSA are on the scene, ready to take the fight to my Prussians!

CDR-G played his FSA, while I brought out my Prussians. We were playing at 900 points, using the basic “line up and shoot” scenario form the rule book. He ran a list that included a fleet carrier, a squadron of Gunships, a squadron of heavy Destroyers, a squadron of Frigates, and a couple of Heavy Bombers all in a single battlegroup. For my PE, I put down a Sturmbringer submarine, a Battle Carrier, a squadron of Support Cruisers, a squadron of Frigates, and a squadron of Corvettes as my main battlegroup, while placing a Battlecruiser and another squadron of Frigates in a Recon group. I won the roll and had to deploy my lead battlegroup first, which as we will see turned out to be a bad thing as it allowed CDR-G to deploy into a corner and keep the range open for longer.

Here is the scene after deployment, but before the first turn.

The Game

As it turned out, for a number of reason which I will discuss in a bit more detail below, the game went poorly for my Prussians. I ended up getting tabled at the end of Turn 4, though I did manage to kill one of the American Gunships, a couple of the Heavy Destroyers, a couple of Frigates, and do some sundry damage to the rest of CDR-G’s fleet.

My poor Battlecruiser never had a chance! He was targeted right from the start on Turn 1 and was sunk before ever activating.

The Donnerfaust support cruisers attempt to interject themselves between the FSA and the Sturmbringer in a brave, but ultimately futile, gesture.

My carrier suddenly found herself very alone…she didn’t last much longer after this picture was taken!

Post-Game Musings

And now we get to the heart of the matter; what were our thoughts about DWFA after playing the game?! Here they are in no particular order:

• Indirect fire can be nasty! As you can see above, we had fairly good terrain coverage on the table. Unlike in DW, there is no need for spotters for indirect fire. As a result, CDR-G’s Heavy Destroyer squadron was laying down a withering 21 attack dice (AD) at Long Range, while his Gunships were putting out 18 AD of indirect fire. All this from relative safety due to my own fleet’s lack of range! On my side, my sources of indirect fire were the Sturmbringer and the Rhine assault carrier, which could muster 7 AD. One thing I figured out after the game was that we were playing it a bit wrong; we were using normal Exploding Dice for these attacks, when it should have been Basic Dice (6’s are only a single hit and do not explode) . That might have made a difference, but the fact remains that it appears it is easy to get a large amount of long-range firepower in DWFA! This leads me to my second point…
• Deployment is even more critical in DWFA than in DW. CDR-G, since he deployed second, was able to play keep-away with the bulk of his fleet and deny me use of a significant portion of my firepower due to me needing 2 or even 3 turns to get my ships into range. I had the opportunity to try and nullify this with my Recon battlegroup, but I didn’t have the right mix of ships in that group to really do much other than offer up a juicy target. Part of the reason deployment is so much more important in this game is how deadly it is, which leads me to point 3.
• 

  A Prussian frigate squadron takes heavy losses!

  Point 3: This game is very bloody! Essentially, what CDR-G and I found was that models, even sturdy medium models and squishier larges, tend to evaporate the first time an enemy squadron gets a good crack at them. Consequently, it becomes very important to control the positioning of your fleet to make sure they can get their shots off first before they get whacked by an enemy attack. This was my chief failing in the game I played last weekend with CDR-G. Part of that was due to me having to deploy my main battlegroup first, and part of it was me selecting ships with the parent game in mind, and not with the DWFA stats in mind. Which brings me to the next point:

• Ships have different roles and behave differently between DW and DWFA, so Admirals beware of what you are putting in your list! The key example of this is the Prussian Arminius-class frigate, of which I took 2 full squadrons. In DW, the Arminius is a terror at mid to short ranges, having strong firepower backed up by a considerable boarding threat. In DWFA, they are much reduced;their shooting has been reduced to Point Blank (8″) only, are more vulnerable with a DR of only 3, and they are down to a single Crew Point for boarding. In many respects, their shooting role in DW has been taken over by the Stolz destroyer in DWFA, while their boarding threat is picked up by the Saxony Corvette. Regardless, this is just one example. The overall point is that the stats between DW and DWFA are different enough that you can’t just use the same ships in FA the same way you would use in the parent game and expect to get the same results.
• Hoo boy. It’s time to talk about the Damage Table.  This aspect of DWFA and Firestorm TF has been one of the most talked about, with many folks saying they do not like it and that it does not add an overall benefit to the game. After having played a full-on game with it, I would like to say that we didn’t find it all that bad, but that would not be true. Or rather, it would only be half-true. I thought it was not too horrible; as I said on the podcast discussion with Landlubber, my main problem with the table is that it seems to work contrary to the stated purpose of these game varients, namely speeding up the gameplay. I do not have that much of an issue with the randomness that comes out of using them. CDR-G, on the other hand, felt that the Damage Table was a bit of a “bridge too far” in terms of loss of player agency; he felt that it tended to negate too much of a player’s tactical decisions during the course of a game. And to be honest, I kind of agree with him. It almost felt like we were playing a mini-game called Damage Table Roulette each time one of us hit the DR of a model and went to roll on the table. I think the difference here is that I wasn’t as bothered by this very beer & pretzels mechanic as much as CDR-G was. Both of us agree, though, that there could be some things done to the table (using different dice like D8s or D10s, changing the results, etc) to improve the feel of the game.
• Always board! There is very little down side to boarding in DWFA; you do not lose crew points like you do in DW, and you are not limited to boarding once per game like in Firestorm. Plus, the boarding range has been boosted to 8″, making it much easier to conduct a boarding assault. The worst that could happen is that you flub your boarding rolls badly enough that the models initiating the boarding get some Disorder tokens. However, that downside isn’t as bad given that these tokens are now exchanged for damage points at a 2:1 ratio instead of a 1:1 ratio.
• Carrier operations are quick and easy, so don’t leave port with out them! The way that Support Aircraft Squadrons (SAWs) work in DWFA is something that both CDR-G and I liked a lot; they gave a decent feel for carrier ops while keeping the game moving.
• The whole “use only the Medium template and only turn in one direction!” thing actually wasn’t that bad. CDR-G and I were both able to work with that mechanic without much difficulty.

Overall Thoughts

I think that it’s time to come back to the questions I asked at the opening part of this post. Keep in mind, the answers I have to these questions are based off of just one full game, and so I might change my mind if I end up playing a few more. That caveat out of the way, here we go!

First, is DWFA a “good” game? While the answer to that is a bit complex, I think I would have to come down on the side of it being OK in its current form. CDR-G and I both enjoyed our game, though I don’t think we can say that we enjoyed it more than we would have a game of vanilla DW. Fixing some things like the Damage Table would help with that. Second, does the game play any faster? I think that is a big Yes. Our game last weekend took a bit longer than it should have, I think, due to our unfamiliarity with the rules. I would have to estimate that you could play a one-hour game using about 500 points of models if both players have a good understanding of how the game works; it also depends on the Damage Table rolls, as it is very possible that models could last longer than expected due to lucky rolls for the defender. I also think the limiting component might be how many small  models you have to move around the table; since you have to move each one separately, it takes more time to complete their activations. On top of that, you have to target and kill each one separately, meaning that it can take more activations to kill a squadron of small ships. And finally, does DWFA live up to its name? Is it truly a “Fleet Action” version of DW that allows you to play with much larger forces? I think that it mostly does, though DWFA at times really does feel like a completely different game that just happens to use the same models, due to the way the stats have changed between DWFA and DW.

The Way Ahead

It appears that DWFA has stumbled a bit of late; the rule book, as of this writing, is still not available as a PDF download of the Spartan Games website. However, recent stat updates to the minor powers indicated that Spartan has not completely abandoned the game. Also, Spartan recently announced that DWFA will be included as an appendix to the new DW 2.5 edition rule book. I think that is a great idea, as it will greatly improve the number of folks in the DW community that have access to the DWFA rules. I do hope that a few tweaks are made, and I’d love to see some movement in the direction of finding ways to further streamline the game. As I see it right now, the biggest areas to target for that effort would be in the shooting mechanics; a new Damage Table to make damage more reliable, for example, and perhaps a revise mechanic that results in targeting squadrons of ships instead of individual models. I’m looking forward to seeing how this game develops!

Until next time…