Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

Those who prefer to watch a summary of the battle report rather than to read it, see one here.

So this report is about my game in the Swiss DW Cup semifinals in Basel against a splendid French player (Seph) with an extremely well painted Russian Coalition fleet. Seph was the best gentleman one can possibly ask for and the game was fun and entertaining, yet my efforts seemed to evaporate just as if charging a fully equipped castle with a bare sword. ^^

Seph's Russian Coalition.

Once again my trusted Japanese list at 1'000pts.

This is how we set up.

After setting up, I felt very confident. I planned to put my three Tanuki Gunships on the very left or right to minimize the threat if his Field Order tells him to destroy my medium sized ships. However, when we went to get our Field Orders, Seph corrected me that you don't pick them, but you roll a D6 get them assigned. Ooops, I overread this with my opponents so far - we secretly picked them. o.O So we rolled our D6 and ended up with

Seph - destroy 70% of the enemy fleet.
Parcival - destroy all large and massive models of the enemy fleet

Here another mistake happened - I didn't read carefully and was under the impression I had to destroy *one* large or massive model. Hence I felt very confident that I could destroy his large ship in the upper center while he'd have hard time to get to 70% of my ships and therefore neglected his carrier in the upper right corner totally by thinking it's a smart move to just avoid it.

End of turn 1.

A the end of turn 1 I still felt very confident that I could win this game. He nicked some of my smaller ships (bye bye Fujin Corvettes), but due to pre-measuring I had positioned my ships in a way that his 16" (+Mv) threat range didn't or at least hardly bother me.

However, in turn 2 my biggest problem quickly became evident: Ablative Armor on all his medium, large, and massive ships.

My Uwatsus pumped three critical results into one of his medium ships...

...and didn't take off more than 1 hullpoint because of the Ablative Armor rule.

End of Turn 2.

The game went quickly downhill from this point. Due to Seph's high firing discipline and my inability to break through his Ablative Armor quickly enough my fleet started to disintegrate. My small ships were all but gone and the Dreadnought was heavily damaged where other gamers barely even scratched it. My remaining strong points where the Tanuki Gunships happily firing away their missiles in the lower left corner unchallenged while my Torpedo Bombers where flying rotations on the Sky Fortress.

End of Turn 3.

Turn 3 saw the end of the Dreadnought. The Sky Fortress dived and dropped her bombs, but got boarded right after and gave Seph double victory points.

The semi-finals and the pairing for the upcoming final game of the Swiss DW Cup.

So in the end I lost 885 : 295 against an opponent who definitely didn't steal his victory, but won graciously and even helped me with advice to improve my situation - without his help I would have lost even worse. o.O

However, despite me listing my mistakes above and despite the crushing result, I don't feel like it's doing justice to my performance. Instead I felt like I did reasonably well based on my skill level. A strong list in the hands of a strong player doesn't allow any mistakes and I think I was playing up to my best, so I give myself bonus points for having tried. :-D However, to be an effective threat against him, I'd have to play Seph and this list repeatedly until I am efficiently enough at taking advantages of his weak spots.

Well, I sign off for some "let's start a new fleet" therapy. ^^

FSA Introduction Game

Duh, spaceships? I take a nap.

Tonight was my first introduction game to Firestorm Armada (FSA). I knew it plays very similarly to Dystopian Wars, but like with a new car it takes a while to adjust.

Looking back I don't even know where the major differences are. For me it's that you can defend your ship against torpedoes only once per turn and, oh yes, flying through other models is quite nice, too. Movement can still be tricky because of asteroid fields, however.

Tonight I played the Terran Alliance, +Andre Suwanda the Sorylian Collective, +Tudor Stanescu the Dindrenzi Federation, and +Sven Emmert The Relthoza.

This is how we set up: Sorylian Collective (lower left), Terran Alliance (lower right), Relthoza (upper left), and the Dindrenzi Federation.

The Sorylian Collective.

The Dindrenzi Federation.

The Relthoza.

The Terran Alliance moves forward, but one Cruiser is being shot away by the Dindrenzi and one Frigate is already lost in the asteroid field. o.O

On the left side of the table, the Sorylian Collective moves out...

... and starts to target the Relthoza. (look 'ma, real lasers!)

Unfortunately, the Relthoza make a statement with a counterattack causing a magazine explosion.

On the other half of the table, the Terran Alliance desperately tries to pull the Dindrenzi into close combat so their long range weaponery can't use its full potential.

In the meantime, the Sorylian Collective seems to enter a stalemate with the Relthoza...

...while the Dindrenzi move up their ships on the Terrans and start boarding actions that can still be momentarily fought off.

The Sorylian Collective continues to suffer casualties while boarding the Relthoza in return...

...as the Terrans and the Dindrenzi fly past each other and are forced to do turn maneuvers.

On the other side, the remaining Sorylian have to turn as well...

...but two Relthoza ships escape their grip and fire at the last remaining Terran Cruiser to win the game. Voilà.

All in all this was a very enjoyable evening with the only downside that there were certain waiting times. However, I assume once we're more familiar with the ships and the rules, this will be much better. Also, I still believe this system is better where players alternate in moving units rather than players on one side move their entire army in one turn while the others wait and then they get to move their entire army. I am looking forward to the next game!

As a really nice surprise, +Tudor Stanescu gave me his leftover Terran Alliance starships, so I'll soon build my own fleet. :-)

DW Introduction Game

Tonight's GW game was an introduction game for +Sven Emmert who is always a great guy to have a relaxing game with - plus he's a great host. Because (or inspite?) of his heritage Sven couldn't do anything but picking up the Prussian Empire, so tonight it was the Japanese vs. the German starterbox.

After setting up for the game.

After explaining the Field Orders we both decided to destroy all medium sized ships and 50% of the opponent's flotilla. We played it openly and I helped him with tactic hints since this was supposed to be an introduction/learning game - and Sven is a quick learner.

While setting up, Sven made one mistake from my point of view - he had his large battleship on his right flank, which reduced its effectiveness. On the other hand, my two wings of torpedo bombers could easily swing in on my right flank and push towards his medium sized ships.

End of turn 1.

Turn 1 already was a heated bloody mess because the table was way shorter than a standard playing table. Pretty much every ship in turn 1 could either move and shoot in range band 2 or even range band 1, so at the end of the turn the medium sized ships on both sides were gone and it was just a matter who'd be racking up the remaining points more quickly. I was leading with an advantage in points because I had already killed Sven's Geier bombers which had a decent value pointswise.

Soon after the start of turn 2 the game ended already.

In turn 2 Sven started with his battleship trying to shoot down my DFA-170 bombers to tie on points. However, unlucky rolling on his part didn't even scratch them. In return, I moved my Sokotsu battleship six inches forward and unloaded everything I had onto his small ships on its starboard. I needed to destroy two more of his small ships and that was exactly what happened.

Looking back, I see two great points about this introduction game (on top of Sven's hospitality):

1. a smaller table is actually good for an introduction game because it gets the new person into the action quicker.
2. I never felt like I am after a decisive victory despite my longer experience with the game. I found the balance of power to be pretty even and I found that quite impressive for an introduction game.

BTW, the "sea cloth" comes from GW's game Dreadfleet. I have never played that game, its cloth is quite usable and visually appealing for Dystopian Wars. :-)