Dystopian Wars - Game Setup Review



So on the back of my post about the Tiny Fliers... here is a quick review of the Game Setup PDF that Spartan Recently upload.

This lays it out very clearly exactly what you need to do when playing the game.

Previously the victory conditions were very scenario driven, which is great once you have your head into the game and know what you are doing, but for pickup games I think it is better to have some simpler win conditions and guidlines for how the game / force should be built.

First things first, the Fleet Commodore he has actually got a little better. He is your Fleet commander and basically YOU as the guy in charge.

He confers 4 bonuses to either his ship or his fleet within his command distance. This is a larger list than he used to have and the bonuses are very much based on his command distance. So this means smart play will be keeping your Commodore in with your fleet. I know some people (myself included from time to time) have run their Fleet Commodore at the enemy on their best warship to cause the most damage. Not saying this tactic now wont work, but it may not be the best use of him.

The next thing ups is Fleet Organisation this is again something that I am glad to have seen streamlined. Now when building a fleet you pick a Core Force this can be either Land, Naval or Air.

You then pick you points size, it gives you some guides for this, but you can pretty much play to any point size you want (your house/club, you decide!).

The next bit in here is on the game types, there are basically three suggested, either Open, Friendly or Tournament. The Open game has no restrictions you take whatever you want with as much of it as you want, although it advises you and your opponent agree a Core force prior to the game so it is a fun match up.

For the Friendly game, it introduces the idea of some restrictions, but they are very easy ones to build your force around. You basically have to include a Squadron of Small, Medium and Large (or Massive) ships in your Core force. After that you are free to spend your points where you want.

In the Tournament Games it goes in depth about the % break downs of how forces should be built, what your maximum allowance is on any given type / class.

I think its good that they have broken the three of these down as the Fleet breakdown % in the main rulebook were intimidating to say the least, and I enjoy maths and list building!

Finally we have Field Orders. These are basically your victory conditions. There is a table of 6 which you roll a D6 to decide what your field orders are. However you are always able to swap any Field Order rolled for the 1 result.

So basically you can always play to Destroy or Capture 70% of the Opposing Fleets maximum Fleet Value. Also having a chart means you can never be sure what your opponent needs to do to win the game.

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