BatRep: Prussian Empire vs Kindom of Britannia (1k points – 2.5 hour timed game)

So, I’m contemplating some tournament / campaign stuff for our local group and decided to test a couple of theories that were tossed out by my brain-bucket and a few others.

First – there was some disagreement whether you could play a larger (1000+ points) game in 2.5 hours.  The “theory” was that more stuff means more casualties more quickly.  This game proved that idea won’t wash.  More stuff means more activations, meaning more time required per turn.  The only way to speed up a larger game would be to put time limits on turns, which isn’t practical in a game like Dystopian Wars where everything drifts…

So, in 2.5 hours, we only got 2 turns done. 

Second thing we tested was “Secret Orders” – missions were placed in envelopes and we drew random missions that way – not letting the opponent know what the objectives were until the end of the game (one player completing an objective).  The reason for this was that we have found if anyone chose anything other than the default “Cause 70% Casualties” – the opponent would “hide” the objective, making it that much harder.

The third thing we tested (we got a lot carried away) was to create some new objectives other than the standard defaults.  This failed as we needed 3+ turns to really test out a mission.  With only 2 turns completed – no one got to complete a mission.

(Actually, each mission we created was a Primary mission, backed by a secondary mission that was destroy all smalls or mediums – depending on which I added to the Primary mission.)

Finally (as if I didn’t have enough to test), some players are complaining about how unfair the Boarding/Prizing is for victory points.  So, I decided to calculate both VPs and “Campaign Points” from the 1st Campaign Book to see if there was a significant difference.  I’ll show those scores at the end of the report.

So, what did we bring to the table?

Prussian Empire (PE) (Top to Bottom):

3 Frigates
2 Cruisers
1 Battleship with 2 Escorts
1 Carrier with 2 Escorts
Recon and Dive Bombers deployed on either side of the Carrier
1 Squadron of Fighters
1 Squadron of Torpedo Bombers
2 Jaegers and 2 Speerwurf Zeppelin in a single squadron (Deployed Obscured)
3 Frigates
1 Battlecruiser
3 Frigates

Kingdom of Britannia (KoB) (Top to Bottom):

3 Frigates, 1 Squadron of Fighters behind
3 Cruisers with Battleship and Escorts behind
1 Squadron of Fighters with a Dreadnought and Escorts behind
2 Medium Gyros
3 Frigates

As the lists show, the Prussians had an advantage in number of Activations per turn. 

Both of us drew envelopes with our “Secret Orders” (I’ll reveal those at the end), then rolled for Initiative as we didn’t use STAR cards this time as a time-saving option.

Turn 1:
KoB won Initiative!

British Gyros advanced across the table at full speed, taking shots at the Prussian Zepps, but missed.  Prussian Frigates advanced in the center, and also failed to do any damage on the Gyros.  British Cruisers moved forward, then turned to form Line Of Battle, exposing all turrets but discovered they were all out of range.  Prussian Fighters advanced at full speed towards the British Gyros but were not in range to attack (5 fuel left).  Concerned, British fighters moved towards the Prussian Fighters, hoping to intercept next turn.  Prussian Frigates on the left move full speed, hoping to quickly get around the sandbar on their left.

The British Battleship advanced forward, turning to the left with its Escorts, then fired on the Prussian Carrier but failed to hit.  The Prussian Battleship advanced and fired on the British Battleship’s Escorts but failed to damage either.  The British Dreadnought advanced and turned right, but we realized the Cruisers in Line of Battle in front, blocked the Dreadnought’s Line of Sight!  The Dread is only a Large, and only a Massive ship can shoot over a Medium ship!  No shooting for the Dread!

The Prussian Carrier advanced at full speed then lobbed shells from its forward Bombard at a British Cruiser, damaging it!  The British moved a squadron of Frigates on the left to intercept the Prussian Frigates attempting to sneak around the sandbar.  The British Frigates formed Line of Battle, then sank 1 and damaged another enemy ship.  The Prussian survivors failed their Break Test!

Prussian Cruisers moved forward, but failed to hit the British Frigates they targeted.  British Fighters advanced.  With the threat of the Fighters gone, the Prussian Torpedo Bombers advanced across the table at full speed (5 fuel left).  British Frigates on the right moved up and sank another Prussian Frigate at maximum range! 

That ended the British Activations but the Prussians still had a number of squadrons to activate.  Prussian Frigates on the right moved forward and managed to Crit a British Skyship (Engine Failure).  Prussian Dive Bombers advanced at maximum speed (5 Fuel left), the Prussian Battlecruiser advanced and blasted the undamaged Skyship, causing a Crit (Hard Pounding – 1 AP left), and damaged the other (1 HP left), leaving a Lightning Rod stuck in its side.  Finally, the Prussian Zepps moved up maximum speed, but the Jaegers were out of range so the squadron held their fire.

In the End Phase, the British repaired the engine on one Skyship, but failed to remove the Lightning Rod.

Turn 2:
Kingdom of Britannia won initiative.

At this point we realized we would only get 1 more turn in our 2.5 hour time limit.  I knew I (the Prussians) couldn’t complete my Primary objective, so I went for the Secondary Objective – Sink or Capture all Mediums!  At this point, I didn’t know what the British Objectives were at this point.

The British start things off by having a squadron of fighters intercept Prussian Fighters, hoping to save the British Skyships from attack.  After a flurry of dice rolling, both sides lost 2 tokens and an extra fuel pip!  Prussian Torpedo Bombers, moving at max speed, attack the British Cruisers, causing a Crit (Hard Pounding – 3 AP left).  British Gyros stayed in the limited protection of the clouds and dropped mines.  Prussian Frigates on the right, turn their sterns towards a Gyro, but failed to hit it with their Teslas, though they did succeed sinking a British Frigate with their guns.

British cruisers in desperation, turned towards the Prussians, but all their guns and torpedoes failed to hit or damage anything they shot at.  The Prussian Battlecruiser advanced, did a crit on an undamaged Cruiser (Engine Damage), damaged another Cruiser, then Boarded and left a Gyro a derrilict!  (I had to recover all the boarding parties – it left the Battlecruiser with only 3 AP left to protect itself for the rest of the turn!)

The British Admiral, outraged at the damage that a single ship had caused, fired all 5 turrets that could bear from his Dreadnought onto the hapless Battlecruiser from Range Band 2!  When the smoke cleared, the Prussian ship suffered a double-crit (Fusion Leak & Engine Damage).  The Dread’s Broadsides then sank another Prussian Frigate.

Prussian fighters attacked the British Fighters for a loss of 1 token, but only made the British planes use up an extra fuel pip.  British Frigates on the right sank the last Prussian Frigate on that board side, but the British Torpedoes failed to damage the Prussian Battlecruiser.

Prussian Frigates in the center moved and successfully damaged the last British Gyro.  The British Battleship activated and turned its weapons on the Prussian Carrier, causing a Crit (Nav Lock).  This was important as it meant the Carrier could not turn to aim and fire its Bombard!  Prussian Cruisers ignored the Battleship as they charged towards their British Counterparts, firing as they closed.  The target suffered a Double Crit – sinking it immediately!  The British Cruiser squadron failed their Break Test!  Sadly, the British Commodore forced them to re-roll and they successfully passed the 2^nd test!

Un a flurry of activity to end the game before we ran out of time, the 2^nd squadron of British Fighters attacked the Torpedo Bombers, and lost 2 tokens to the 1 token the Prussians lost.  The Prussian Battleship turned all 3 turrets onto a damaged cruiser and sank it with a Crit!  As their final activation, the British Frigates on the left sank the last Frigate on the left. 

This left the Prussians with the problem: 2 Medium vessels left – the Damaged Cruiser and the damaged Gyro.  Unfortunately, the Prussian Dive Bombers were too far away, even at full speed to help.  The only thing close to both/either was the Prussian Light Zepps.  Neither British vessel was a candidate for boarding.  In the end, I had to attack both; assigning a Jaeger and a Speerwurf to each.  The Speerwurfs allowed for the Jaegers to use Combine Fire, plus Pack Hunter to maximize their dice.  Sadly, the gamble failed; the Prussians inflicted a hit on the Gyro (not enough to bring it down), and failed to damage the Cruiser at all.

In the end Phase, I was feeling pretty good, until Graham chuckled that sinister chuckle of his and announced he had dropped Magnetic Mines.  Sure enough, I had moved the Prussian Battlecruiser too close and both mines drifted into the hapless ship’s hull – sinking it in the End Phase!  DANG!!!

This ended the game with only 6 minutes remaining out of the original 2.5 hours allocated.

So we sat down and compared our orders:

Prussian Empire
Primary: Relief Force – get ½ the ships off the other table edge (not gonna happen with only 2 turns)
Secondary: Destroy or Capture all Mediums (1 Gyro and 1 Cruiser survived - Missed it by thaaaat much!)

Kingdom of Britannia:
Primary: Capture ¾ table Quarters (he managed to capture ½ with the sinking of the Battlecruiser)
Secondary: Destroy or Capture all Mediums (Prussians still had 2 Cruisers intact)

 As neither of us had accomplished either objective, we went to Victory Points and Campaign Points

Points Earned:

	Victory Points	Campaign Points
Prussia	280	5
Britannia	270	8

Using Victory Points, the game was a draw (less than 10% difference in points).  Using Campaign Points, the game was a British Victory!  

Dang!  If only the Battlecruiser had stayed a couple of inches back - it would have been safe from the mines!

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So we had the after-battle taunts and groans, then discussed what happened.

We decided 2.5 hours was a good time frame for a tournament (it would allow 3-4 games per day), but bigger is definitely not better in this case.  Checking the Spartan Forums and discussing with other players, we agreed 800 points would be the maximum for a timed game.  We also agreed with the general view that there shouldn’t be Dreadnaughts allowed in those games either.  Larger games should be allowed for Campaigns where time is not an issue.

We both liked the Secret Missions.  Not knowing what the other player was after left both of us with a true “Fog of war”, no idea what the other was up to.  While some thought needs to be given to some new unique Primary missions (worth 10 points each), keeping Secondary Missions (5 Points) as either simple Kill/Capture Mediums or Smalls makes it possible to complete 1 mission – no matter what fleets are in use.  By randomly choosing small or mediums, you don’t have one person hiding and protecting 1 group in the corner.

Comparing the use of Campaign Points was interesting.  While neither side had captured any ships, I can see where it makes Boarding less overwhelming - especially against smalls and mediums.  I might make Campaign Points the Tie Breaker instead of Victory Points.

Now, I need to finish painting and assembling my Battlecruisers – it was definitely one of the Heros of the match and deserves to be finished!