Greetings! I finally managed to get in another game of Dystopian Wars with my friend Matt using the 3.0 beta rules. We were able to take advantage of the most recent revision of the Beta, which hit on 4 April 2019! Here is a brief write-up on how the game went, along with some of our thoughts.

Scenario

We once again decided to stick with one of the two scenarios that are currently available in the beta rules. The one we selected, “Pitched Battle,” is a fairly standard table quarter control scenario that most wargamers will probably be familiar with.

Lists

We decided to play the game at 1200 points. I would be playing an Imperium force, while Matt would be running his Union once again. Our two lists had some interesting similarities, but also some interesting differences. Here is what we took:

Matt

• Battleship w/Shield Generator & Prow Upgrade (245 pts)
• Carrier (220 pts)
• Heavy Submarine (150 pts)
• 2x Heavy Cruisers with Rockets (240 pts)
• 4x Destroyers (220 pts)
• 3x Frigates (120 pts)

Andy

• Battleship w/Storm Generator, Armored Deck, & Heavy Arc Guns (250 pts)
• Heavy Submarine (150 pts)
• 3x Heavy Cruisers w/Heavy Arc Guns (390 pts)
• 5x Frigates (200 pts)
• 5x Frigates (200 pts)

Looking at our lists, you can see our difference in approaches; Matt went for some under-strength squadrons in order to fit in a third Size 3 model, while I focused on maxing out my squadrons and adding upgrades where I could. This meant that I went without carrier support, which is what led me to purchase an Armored Deck for my battleship. That being said, you can see we both wanted to try out our heavy submarines this time around, with Matt using his Black Wolf as a proxy!

Setup

During the start of the deployment phase, I won the card-flip, and decided to let Matt deploy his first squadron. Our deployments were a bit different; Matt spread his forces a bit, with his submarine and Size 1 models on one flank, and the rest concentrated on the other. I placed everything much closer together towards the middle of the board, striving to maintain mutual support.

Andy’s deployment.

Matt’s deployment. Note the Tier 1 models on his right flank!

Turn 1

During the first turn, Matt did a good job hiding most of his fleet from my line of sight, which means that there wasn’t a lot of fire being exchanged. Matt managed to snipe one of my Frigates, while I put a point of damage on his carrier. Matt made an aggressive move with is Size 1 ships up my left flank, in a bid to capture that quarter. I shifted my Frigates to that flank in response.

End of turn 1. As you can see, one of my frigates has been taken out, while I managed a point of damage on Matt’s carrier.

Turn 2

Turn 2 was significantly bloodier. Matt’s push on the left met with great success, as his Destroyers chewed up my frigates. They killed a whole squadron in one round of shooting, netting Matt a VP thanks to a Victory card for destroying a small squadron. I managed to deal some damage to Matt’s cruisers in return, as well as continuing to degrade his carrier. In this role, my Battleship and Cruisers really shone. The Storm Generator and Arc Guns proved their worth, as I was able to increase Disorder as well as causing damage. I was also thankful for my Armored Deck, as my battleship became the focus of the SAS launched from Matt’s carrier. I managed to emerge from that attack with only one additional point of damage!

Better hope that Armored Deck holds up!

Turn 3

This would be the final turn of the game, due to time constraints. I finished off Matt’s cruisers, one of which exploded close aboard to my cruisers causing damage before it sank below the waves! This netted me a victory point thanks to the Destroy Medium Squadron Victory card. I also managed to cripple both his battleship and carrier. Meanwhile, our submarines traded torpedo salvos, to little effect thanks to the fact they are Obscured Units, meaning that Exploding results only count as one hit. Matt successfully finished off the rest of my frigates using his frigates and destroyers, netting him another victory point.

The shattered wreck of one of Matt’s cruisers begins to slip beneath the waves, having suffered a magazine explosion that damaged all three of my cruisers and my battleship!

Result

Matt pulled out a win with a final tally of 2 VPs to 1 VP! If we had finished the last two games of the turn, the results probably would have been the same; the loss of both of my frigate squadrons at the hands of Matt’s Size 1s was a blow I wasn’t likely to recover from given the board-control nature of the scenario. I had made the classic mistake of focusing on destroying my opponent’s most powerful units, without paying enough attention to the scenario!

Thoughts

From announcements made by Warcradle, the DW 3.0 beta will soon be drawing to a close. Overall, I think that is appropriate, as the rules are in a pretty strong position right now as far as play-ability and fun are concerned. The changes made to movement in this latest revision all seemed to work quite well, and we found the tying of Drift movement to the size rating of the model to be a very elegant design choice. We did identify a few rough edges from this game, though:

• Large Submarines seem to be hard to kill, but not very effective. This could have just been luck, but it seemed like both of our submarines had difficulty landing any blows. Of all the attacks attempted by our two subs, mine had the only success with landing a point of damage on Matt’s carrier early in the game. It seems like they need a bit more “juice” in the offense department!
• We found the Arc Generator is a tad OP; a generator that makes your ship Obscured (arguably better than Shields in this edition), and gives you a 15″ attack with 15 dice, for 20 points? Its a steal at twice the price! Matt and discussed what might be an appropriate toning down. His approach was to allow the generator to either provide Obscured to the model or to make a lighting attack (essentially a 2-mode generator where the player selects what mode is being used for that turn). I think that toning down the number of attack dice, to say, 10, might be a better option since it seems like this edition is moving away from the old paradigm of having 2-mode generators.
• Destroyers are deadly! For another 15 points per model, destroyer get so much more dakka than frigates that it makes the later seem like a questionable choice. I was honestly surprised by how easily Matt was able to roll up both of my full-strength frigate squadrons with his one Destroyer squadron (this of course had nothing to do with my positioning and activation order…nope, nothing at all!). Bottom line, Destroyers are nasty units in 3.0, and a great option for a dedicated Size 1 unit killer.
• At the start of our Beta experiences, we both went into the play-testing with the assumption that Carriers would be mandatory units. However, this game showed that isn’t necessarily true. My BB was able to absorb two full-strength attacks from Matt’s carrier, with only a point of damage from each attack. This suggests that Carriers are still optional, which is great as it allows for more flexibility with list building. However, if you don’t take a carrier, I do recommend looking into that Armored Deck upgrade!

Conclusion

Overall, Matt and I have been continuing to enjoy the DW 3.0 beta, and it seems to be on a good trajectory for its launch later this year. We are both looking forward to the final release!