Club night 13th January

Steve and I decided to play a Dystopian wars game. I have not yet used my new Dreadnought, and the 1.1 version PDFs re-inspired us to play again. Steve had to knock out my big ships to win, while I had to destroy more than half of his fleet, including all the larger vessels. I started with most of my fleet on my right, with a small element on the left.

Above: Early moves

Both fleets moved forward and opened fire.My AA proved remarkably effective against the incoming rockets thanks to some jammy dice rolls that would continue for most of the game, while my return fire caused some serious damage to the FSA battleship. The fleets continued to close and I concentrated my fire on the enemies left, destroying all the support frigates and inflicting more damage on the battleship.

On the other flank I managed to bring my destroyers and frigates to bear in combination and destroyed the enemy frigates opposing them. They then began to sweep towards the centre, despite some heavy losses from enemy bombers.

I was then able to move most of my fleet towards the centre and bring my heavier short range fire-power onto the cruiser occupying the centre of the FSA fleet, destroying them and then turning my fire against the airships, bringing them down. I was then able to board and capture the severely battered enemy battleship.

Although my big ships were damaged they were not out of it, and all the FSA really had left was their dreadnought on their far left. I pulled my air fortress back as it was beginning to suffer against the rockets from the dreadnought.

At this point we called it a day as the FSA fleet was defeated and my Prussians managed to claim a victory, thanks to a bit of luck and a finally better grasp of how to use my fleet effectively and maximise its strengths.

Club Sunday 2nd October

As the club met for our usual Sunday I decided not to game but to take advantage of our Indian summer and the outside space to get some painting done in the sun so I sprayed the base colours on Steve K's infantry tanks and primed my next wave of Dystopian wars.

I managed to actually get the Dystopian wars ships not just primed but painted to completion and army painted then when I got home, ready for basing and flat-coated. They are looking good and I will bring some photos when they are finished.

Dystopian War Crosses

I have uploaded the PDF I printed out to make the decals for my Prussians. Please fell free to use on your own vessels. To get the white border I printed it on white laser jet paper (actually, I printed it on paper and had a local copy store, photo copy it onto the laser printer) and trimmed the decals very carefully to shape and then applied them.

Hope you find these as useful as I did.

Prussian Cross Decals PDF

General musings

I seem to have been a bit slack in posting the last month and a half. Some of this is because I haven't been gaming as regularly, and wont be for a couple of weeks. However I have finally got back into my painting and am working to complete enough of my Blood Angels for the first 400k league game at the beginning of August.

Other gaming coming up will be completing my Malifaux stuff before I end up ordering more stuff over Gencon as we are able to order the limited edition models from the web-store, which is a nice touch from the guys at Wyrd. I also have the latest Dystopian releases for my Prussians and the Helldorado rulebook on order so once these are released I will have some nice new releases turning up, and hopefully inspiring me.

Towards the end of this month I will try to get back in the swing of updating every week after Friday club night. Thanks for hanging in and still reading!We are not far off the 200th post now!

Club Night 27th May

Steve K and I headed up early to do some club maintenance. Once we were done we played a game of Dystopian wars game with Luke joining us using a scenario generator from the Spartan Games Forum.

We rolled up the caught at anchor scenario with my Prussians being caught. The FSA swept forward and then sped into range and unlashed a devastating opening salvo, destroying the majority of frigates.

Although some of my ships then managed to get under-way and a viscous fight started in the mouth of the harbour as my battleship demonstrated its awesome short range firepower by returning the favour and wiping out the enemy frigates, while the cruiser from both side suffered in a mutual exchange.

The enemy battle ship and its supporting scout airships bombarded my sky fortress from range with rockets leaving it badly damaged and aflame and as the game proceeded the situation did not improve and the Prussians were defeated.

In the evening we played a Napoleonic Naval game with Langton Miniatures Signal Close Action rules. The purpose was to try out proper squadron orders and the increased strategic movement,. With all this it was not massively exciting as there was little fire exchanged but I liked some of the rules mechanisms. The multiple dice rolls for the entire turn was nice, but I felt some of the tasks seemed overly complicated for something intended for multiple vessels, they would appear more appropriate for single ship actions. I'd like to play them again before I pass judgement now we know what we are doing properly.

Dystopian Prussians - Finishing Touches

I gave the Prussians their anti-shine varnish and I am really pleased with the finish. Hopefully I will get them out and use them soon.

Above: Cruisers and Frigates,
Below: battleship and Frigates

Above: Sky Fortress and Scout Ships,
Below: Bombers and Tiny Flyers

Dystopian Prussians - Decals

I have finally prepared my decals for my Prussians. I drew them up in AutoCAD as I use this professionally, so although it may not be designed for graphics I know I could draw them accurately and size them precisely. I then printed these out at best quality and had them copied onto white laser decal paper. I chose white as I needed the trim to the crosses and though it would be easier to cut them accurate than have to paint on the trim. I used laser paper since I managed to order the wrong stuff! However this worked out well as copying was cheap and I didn't need to use any kind of fixative spray.
I applied them using both Micro Set and Micro Sol to get these tiny decals into place accurately. They all went on perfect with the exception of one of the crosses on the cruisers which took three attempts, but that is exactly why I printed more then I needed. Just need to anti-shine spray these and they are all finished.

Above: The decals, Below: The fleet with decals applied

Dystopian Prussians - Continuing Progress

Having picked up some new Scout Zepplins for my Prussian Navy I found my self all inspired, and since I had my Airbush stuff out to do my Sanguinary Priests I decided to pant them and finish off the rest of the vessels. I started by painting the last two fighter stands and the planes of the Sky Fortress deck.
I then decided to base my sea going vessels. I have been trying to decide if I wanted to do this for a while, and went for it as some of my frigates has some slight chips so I felt needed more protection. I used some off cuts from the Citadel custom movement tray kits, nice and sturdy and easy to cut to size.
I then started on the newly released Pflicht class scoutships. Cleaned up and primed with Gesso, I then sprayed them and after changing the green a dozen times to match the larger sky fortress I painted them too.
I then added some medium grain texture gel to the bases, and painted them blue again, dry brushed the textured bow and stern wakes and added some blue ink to add some depth and tone to the bases. Now I just need to do Army Painter, and decide if I am putting ship names somewhere on the bases and source some decals for Maltese crosses on the vessels, especially the Zeppelins.

Salute Review 2011

Last weekend saw Salute 2011 at the Excel centre in London. This is by far the biggest wargames show in the UK and the highlight of most peoples show calendar. Although Crawley where attending the show with our new FoW game as there were plenty of members going and the theme was ACW I had been asked by the Skirmish Gamers to run the Battle for Culps hill again, which I immediately jumped at.



We all had good fun, and the Union narrowly claimed victory after a titanic struggle, that generated a lot of interest from the public. As I was so busy with the game I didn't actually get to see much of the show, but I managed to pick up some new Dystopian vessels for my Prussians and some Micro-Sol and Micro-Set to add decals to my Blood Angels.

If you are interested in seeing what Salute is all about you can visit the Salute website here, or see Joe's photo guide here.

Club Night 18th March

We decided to try out Steve K's new Federal States of America fleet against my Prussian navy. This time I had a better grasp on how to use my fleet and kept them closer together and had all the initial success by destroying a number of the enemy frigates.

However the long range rockets began to take their toll and I lost a number of my Cruisers. But as the fleets closed I got my major piece of luck as I hit the FSA battleship with some long range fire and shredded its defences. Taking advantage of its vulnerability I sent in waves of dive bombers on the defenceless ship, followed by boarder and took the battleship.

However my battleship was also heavily damaged by now and was struggling to defend itself against the surviving enemy frigates.

As the early hours of Saturday morning dawned we called it a day and after totting up the victory points it was a narrow victory to the Prussians. The FSA has lost all their support vessels, their carrier was damaged and the Prussians held their flagship, while the Prussians still had their Airship and 4 frigates left, and a heavily damaged, but still floating battleship.

Club Night 19th Janaury

Steve K, Luke and myself gathered down the club mid-week to have a try out of the Dystopian wars rules. Although my fleet is only half painted, Luke's isn't even started, but since no one else was about we didn't feel too embarrassed.

A simple sea scape with a few islands was all we needed. I started with my cruisers and some frigates on the right and my battleship, bombers, Zeppelin-carrier and a squadron of frigates on the left. As I steamed forward we quickly found the strength of the Britannians as their massed torpedoes devastated my frigates. On the other wing I smashed his frigates for slight loss.

My cruisers rushed up the centre towards his immensely powerful carrier. Consisting of two battleships side by side with a deck non top the amount of torpedoes this could fire was immense, but an opening salvo proved decisive as a lucky round penetrated the hull and exploded a magazine destroying the flagship in as single volley.

This was a major blow for te Britannia fleet, but they still had their battleship and were beginning to damage my cruisers. I quickly realised the secret was to close quickly and get too close for torpedo launches, so this I did, combined with a dive bomber strike and seriously damaged the battleship, but at hefty loss to my self, especially one the cruisers came up to support the enemy.

By this point it was getting very late, so we totted up victor points and found that the Britannia navy could claim a minor victory, which was probably fair, although they would have had really difficulties in attacking my Zeppelin.

The rules were really fun to play and I look forward to doing them again soon.

Dystopian Wars Prussain Navy 4

I have finished off my Prussian air fortress using the same techniques as the naval vessels, it now just needs army painter to complete it. The aircraft on its deck are just white for now until I decide on my colour schemes. I have painted some of the fighters in colour schemes inspired by the WW1 jastas but they seem a bit too busy so a rethink may be called for,

Dystopian Wars Prussain Navy 3

I have continued work on my Prussians, trying to make the most of the Bank Holiday before back to work tomorrow. I have painted all the metal work Vallejo Natural Steel with any gun barrels in Gunmetal. The engines, Tesla coils and any interesting bits of pipe got a coat of Old Gold. This has a bit more sparkle than any bronze colour I had, but is still dark enough not to look too shiny. The tops of the funnels got a coat of dark grey. Ultimately these will get some coloured stripes as well as I read about the Germans using this in WW1 to identify squadrons so I think this has a precedent and will be quite useful.

I also painted the windows. This was easier than I had feared. I painted the whole window with natural steel, then painted the centres with a thinned blue (about 2 paint to 1 water). As the window is recessed this worked well and left the raised trim in the steel. I am really pleased with how these are coming out. I have done the battleship, 2 cruisers and 6 frigates. I will complete the last cruiser, frigate squadron and the bombers. Once they are done I will look at doing the Zeppelin and the fighters.

Dystopian Wars Prussain Navy 2

I have continued working on the Prussians. I painted all the decks a mahogany sand from Vallejo. Already this has improved the look of the ships immensely.

After I had finished this I stepped away. When I came back I decided it was too dark, especially as I plan on using army painter which can darken the colours slightly so I gave it a rough dry-brush with a deck tan - mahogany sand mix, and then on the carrier down the flight paths a pure deck tan.

I then painted the dazzle pattern camouflage on First the black, then the white, covering a l0t of the back so it is just a fine edging to one side of the white. The think to remember about dazzle camouflage is unlike land camouflage the intention is never to hide the ship as this is virtually impossible at normal engagement ranges. Instead he aim is to make predicting speed and direction harder so targeting becomes more difficult and I think this succeeds quite well.

A final note is that you will notice that I have painted the bombers the same as the ships. Since they are essentially the same as the ships in design (a bow, decks, funnels) I decided they would use the same scheme and just do my fighters in the flying circus colours of WW1.

The whole lot is coming together quite quickly and I like the way the models look.

Dystopian Wars Prussian navy

For my Birthday and a thank-you for painting his extra Flames of War bits Luke got me a Dystopian wars Prussian fleet from Spartan game with an extra air fortress carrier. He has got some Britannian forces for himself. Apparently they are about 1/2000th scale which make the battleship about 144m long, which seems reasonable. They have a really nice look about them, steam-punk but realistic. The only really 'mad' bits is the carrier on a Zeppelin about the same size as a battleship and the bombers the size of frigates but it is supposed to be sci-fi so I guess its all OK. The casting are really crisp, although it will be interesting to see if the moulds are as sharp in a few years time.

I am going to try and keep you up to do date on my painting with some pictures so you can see how I do it. However I have failed already as got too excited and assembled them and base-coated them with white Gesso primer before I even remembered. I then got out my airbrush and my new spray booth (thanks mum and dad!) to lay down some base colours. I did everything a medium grey except for the Zeppelin body that is green. The plan is to stay quite close to the Spartan games own schema as I like the black and white dazzle patterns on them. However the aircraft are going to be more WW1 with each squadron having its own colours so I can distinguish them (and a Red Baron ace somewhere mixed in!) . The bombers I am still undecided about, I have sprayed them grey but might try and look for some pictures of Gotha bombers and go with their colour scheme. The only thing I had any problem with is the little frigates that are so light they kept taking off when I tried to spray them, even at low pressure!!

Above: The whole fleet,
Below: The battleship, with frigates in front and cruisers behind

Below: The Zeppelin flying one way and the bombers in the opposite direction