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. ^^

Dystopian Wars MMBB I

This Yuletide hat had a "Magazine Explosion" label on its front and you got to wear it whenever you scored one. :-D

Since my last blog post I finished painting my EotBS starterbox and participated at the Dystopian Wars MMBB I today - without having played a single game first, so I guess that puts me on par with +Andre Suwanda and his adventures in wargaming, I guess. :-D It's at tournaments where you learn to play games. :-D

My list:

EotBS (Tora! Tora! Tora!)

1x Sokotsu Class Battleship

3x Nakatsu Class Cruiser
3x DFA-170 Class Bomber

4x Uwatsu Class Frigate
4x Uwatsu Class Frigate
3x Fujin Class Corvette

5Tft Torpedo Bombers
5Tft Torpedo Bombers

Game 1 vs. Stefan "Geddon" Werz (7th Shetland Patrol Squadron)

This is how we set up.

In his first turn, Stefan made sure to sink my small ships - I didn't know yet how good they really are and thought they are just canon fodder to protect the biggies. I didn't really do any damage in return.

In the second turn, Stefan methodically continued to tear my fleet apart while my Bombers went submarine hunting. :-D

In the third turn, Stefan took down my Bombers as I didn't wasn't aware yet one can shoot flyers with the main guns if near enough. My flyers in return were harassing his flyers and my Sokotsu Class started its main barrage fire.

At this point "Dice Down" was called and Stefan won an overwhelming victory - duh! :-D

Things I learned from this game:

• Don't run your large ships too far in the back - they wanna kill things.
• Small Torpedo Bombers are terrific against naval vessels.
• DFA-170 Bombers wanna stay either far away from ships or get really close to them - inbetween they are just canon fodder.
• Uwatsu Class frigates want to be the 2nd wave of attack.

Game 2 vs. Pascal "Sir Mauriac" Rüegge (казачий хор)

Forgot to take a picture at the very beginning, but one can still guess how we set up - and since I already knew that the Russian fleet races towards you, I simply had to hold the narrow between these two islands.

In turn 1, Pascal did only little damage and I just sneezed at one of his Novgorod Class frigates in return.

In turn 2, I put into practice what I learned game 1 and my Uwatsu broadsides all but eliminated the 8 Novgorod Class frigates. Pascal focused fire on my Bombers, took one down and severely crippled the other two.

In turn 3, Pascal's Rostov Class destroyers did an incredible turn to sink my Sokotsu Class battleship before Dice Down. He managed to damage the weapon systems and remove two hull points, but the Sokotsu was still going strong. On my side, everything - EVERYTHING - continued to fire into his Borodino Class battleship (because my mission was to sink it), but it survived with 1 hullpoint!

Things learned from this game:

• This game is fun! :-D
• Playing the mission helps. :-D Borodino Class is *heavily* armored and difficult to take down, but I could have done it with just a little more luck. Firing everything at the Borodino Class meant I neglected everything else, though.

Game 3 vs. Axel "Seph" Le Brize (черноморский флот)

Axel set up his evil Bunker in the center of the table so I had set up my entire fleet shifted to the left to avoid it as much as possible.

In turn 1, Axel's Bunker hit one of my Nakatsu Class. The Sokotsu Class answered with a volley from its main turrets.

Turn 2 was long fought and *very* bloody. Axel managed to score a "Magazine Explosion" on my Sokotsu Class battleship. The Sokotsu had 8 hullpoints so the explosion meant 16 dice against every ship within four inches - erasing three Uwatsu Class frigates, destroying one Nakatsu Class and seriously crippling the two others. At this moment I thought I had lost this game... but then I remembered that playing the mission helps. :-D I had to remove all his medium size ships as my mission and there were only two damaged ones left.

Turn 3 was my epic moment when my two small Uwatsu Class frigates indeed did kill his remaining two Suvorov and Tamboc Class with rolling hot on sixes. In return, his Borodino Class battleship and the Bunker sent everything I had left into a wet grave.

Things I learned from this game:

• Playing the mission helps!
• I am confident I'd have one this if my Sokotsu hadn't blown up in turn 2 because my fire power on the refused flank would have killed his medium sized ships much quicker.
• A mindset developed in Warmachine/Hordes definitely helps in Dystopian Wars games, but in the later movement is way more complex whereas in the former everyone just runs into a zone and you play a game of guessing millimeters. In Dystopian Wars you premeasure anything at any time and have your ships perform a ballet instead. I think that's way more entertaining.