BatRep: Kingdom of Britannia vs Prussian Empire (Training Mission - Box Sets)

So, it’s been over a month since I’ve been able to play any games and a new player / old friend wanted to learn Dystopian Wars!  How could I disappoint him?

 

So, both fleets would consist of:

-          1 Battleship
-          1 Squadron of 3 Cruisers
-          1 Squadron of 2 Bombers
-          3 Squadrons of 3 Frigates
-          2 Squadrons of Tiny Fliers

“Commodore Higgins”  (Graham) would command the Kingdom of Britannia (KoB) whereas I would command the Prussian Empire (PE) once again!

 Prussian Deployment (Left to Right):

-          3 Frigates peeking out from behind the island on my left
-          3 Frigates by the island on my right
-          1 flight of Torpedo Bombers
-          2 Bombers with the Battleship (all 3 Turrets) behind the island, the ship pointing to the left of the map, presenting full broadsides
-          1 flight of Fighters
-          3 Frigates and 3 Cruisers peeking out on the far side of the island

My plan was simple – I thought.  The Battleship would act as bait, drawing the British towards it, while the Cruisers and Frigates on the right of the island would run around and catch the British Battleship in the flank.  That was the plan…

Britannia deployment (Left to Right)

-          3 Frigates on the left of the island
-          2 Bombers, a flight of Fighters and a flight of Dive Bombers hidden behind the island
-          3 Cruisers (2 Turrets each), with 3 Frigates behind, with the Battleship (with 3 turrets and an optional Shield Generator) behind the Frigates to the Right of the island!
-          The last 3 Frigates

 

We rolled for missions.  Britannia decided to go for the default 70% of the enemy fleet, whereas the Prussians decided to go for the Kill: Sink all Large and Massive Ships (in this case, just 1 Battleship)!  (I thought I was being a nice guy by taking a harder mission.  Last time I do that!)

 

Turn 1:
Prussians win the Initiative

Not wanting initiative, I had to try stalling.  PE Torpedo Planes moved ½ speed towards the table center.  The British Frigates on the Prussian left moved straight forward.  Sensing an opportunity, the Prussians Frigates in the center moved to attack the vulnerable British Frigates.  Laughing hysterically, we missed our shots…

 

British Cruisers moved forward and turned to the left, forming a Line Of Battle, and proceeded to show the Prussian Frigates how to shoot.  At least, the sole surviving Frigate learned – 2 frigates were sunk in the first British volley!  The surviving Frigate passed its Break Test.

 

Prussian Cruisers advanced next; targeting the last KoB Cruiser in the line around the island, but failed to hit!  Something was seriously wrong with the Prussian Dice!!!

 

British Dive Bombers moved forward at ½ speed.  Prussian Bombers flew over the island and targeted the last Cruiser again.  Failed to damage it, again.  Then failed to climb into the Obscured level.  British bombers, laughing at their Prussian Counterparts, managed to get Critical Hits on 2 Prussian Cruisers (1 Hard Pounding, 1 Chaos & Disarray).

 Prussian fighters moved forward, stalling for time.  British fighters countered.  Prussian frigates on the left moved forward minimum speed.  British Frigates in the center advanced and turned to form another Line of Battle behind their Cruisers. 

 

 

Prussian Frigates on the left advanced slowly around the island.  The British Frigates on the far right side of the island advanced, turned, formed another Line of Battle in front of the Prussian Cruisers, and proceeded to damage 2 Cruisers and sank a 3^rd!  The Prussian Cruiser squadron had enough and failed their Break Test!

 

The final activations had the Prussian Battleship cleared the island but failed to hit anything whereas the British Battleship turned to present its Broadsides to the Prussians, screened by the British Frigates.

 

In the repair phase, Prussians failed to repair any of the Critical damage, but did succeed in rallying!

 

Losses:
PE:          180
KoB:       0

 

Turn 2
Kingdom of Britannia wins Initiative

British Frigates on the far Left turned and fired turrets at the sole surviving Frigate in the center (sinking it), but their torpedoes failed to damage the Prussian Battleship.

 The Prussian Fighter squadron attacked the bombers, causing a Weapons Crit on 1. 

 

 

British Cruisers advanced slowly and fired all Turrets on the Prussian Battleship, causing an Engine Crit.  The Cruiser’s Torpedoes failed to cause any damage. 

 

 

Prussian bombers attacked the Damage British bomber, destroying it with a double-crit, the surviving Bomber failed its Break test!  The British Battleship moved forward and fired their turrets at the enemy Battleship, but failed to hit.  The Prussian Cruisers, staying in Range Band 2, managed to Crit the British Bomber (Engine Damage).

British Fighters attempted to shoot down the Prussian Bombers, but the Bombers shot down 3 tokens of Fighters for no damage in return! 

Forced to move at ½ speed due to the Engine Crit, the Prussian Battleship failed to damage either the Cruisers or Frigates it targeted.

British Bombers attacked the enemy Cruisers, sinking 1, but failed to do anything to the Prussian Fighters nearby.  The last Cruiser passed its Break Test.  Prussian Torpedo Bombers move forward, towards the enemy Battleship.  British Dive Bombers moved full speed across the center of the map. 

Prussian Frigates maneuvered around the left island, sinking 1 British Frigate, damaging another and capturing the third!

 

British Frigates on the other side of the map re-align their tubes and finally sink the last Prussian Cruiser with another Crit!

 

For the final moves, the Prussian Frigates on the left sped through the debris of their Cruisers, then sank 1 enemy Frigate and captured another as a Prize!  The British Frigates in the center turned and fired on the Prussian Bombers, but failed to damage them.

In the repair phase, the British failed to repair their critical damage on the bomber but did succeed in rallying.  The Prussians failed to repair the engines of the Battleship.

 

Losses:
KoB:       215
PE:          270

 

Turn 3:
British wins Initiative

British Bomber attacked and damaged a Frigate.  Prussian Torpedo Bombers approached the British Battleship at full speed and launched their Devastating Torpedo Attack, causing . . 1 hit – and lost one token to AA fire...

The remaining British Frigate on the left collided with the captured ship of his squadron, causing no damage to either ship, but also failed to board and recapture the lost ship.

 Prussian bombers manage to cause an HP of damage to the British Battleship from Range Band 2.

British Cruisers continued to shell and torpedo the Prussian Battleship, causing 2 more hits (bringing the total damage to 4).

Prussian Fighters attack and shot down 1 Dive Bomber and force them to use an extra fuel for the cost of 1 fighter.  The remaining Dive Bombers move towards the Prussian Battleship.  The Prussian Battleship continued its slow cruise across the table from Right to Left, failing to hit anything…

British Fighters jumped the Prussian Fighters, shooting down 2 for the loss of 1 fuel.

Prussian Frigates on the right boarded and captured the last British Frigate on the right, but didn’t have enough boarding parties left to keep it, so it was left a derelict.  British Frigates in the center managed to cause a Crit on a Prussian Bomber (Hard Pounding – 1 AP left). 

 

Prussian Frigates on the left had 2 collisions with British Frigates, 1 Prussian Frigate taking an HP of damage.  The Prussians sink the last British Frigate of the squadron.

Final move of the turn was the British Battleship, which failed to hit the enemy with either turrets or torpedoes.

The Prussian Battleship managed to repair its engines in the final phase.

Losses:
KoB:       290
PE:          407

 

Turn 4
British win Initiative (AGAIN!!!)

British start off by having their Dive Bombers go full speed and bomb the Prussian Battleship, causing another HP damage (5 HP damage total).

 

In an effort to save some Victory Points, Prussian Battleship moved at full speed, getting half behind the island on the left side of the table.  Unable to draw Line of Sight to the Battleship, the British Cruisers turned and boarded all 3 Prussian Frigates on the left! 

 

Prussian Bombers attacked the British Battleship, but the Battleship’s AA shot down the damaged Bomber.  The Survivor managed to climb back to the Obscured level, failing to have damaged the Battleship.  Fortunately, the Bomber passed the Break Test.

The British Battleship turned, and trained both forward guns and torpedoes on the Enemy Battleship, but missed with everything.

Trying to gain what honor was left, the Prussian Frigates on the right moved passed the British Bombers, firing their Teslas as the passed it and caused a crit that destroyed the British plane.  However, the forward turrets failed to do any damage to the closest British Frigate moving toward them.

British Fighters attempt to attack Prussian Fighters, but lost a token and an extra fuel.  Prussian Torpedo Bombers counterattack the British Fighters.  Though they didn’t get shot down, the British Fighters ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.  No Victory Points, but a Moral Victory, none the less.

British Frigates in the Center turn to attack the remaining Prussian Frigates, but failed to damage anything.  The Prussian Fighters moved towards the British Dive Bombers (hopelessly out of range…).

 

In the End Phase, the drifting Derelicts and Prize ships resulted in 2 British Frigates colliding with Islands and sinking (1 a Prized ship – costing the Prussians an extra 25 Victory Points).

Losses:
KoB:       295
PE:          610!

Britannia Rules the Waves Once More!!!

---

 

Well, that was UGLY!

As I said earlier, my “plan” was to flank the British around the Island   However that, obviously, didn’t happen.  I forgot how devastating the British Doncaster Bombers with their long ranged torpedoes.  The fact that the entire British fleet turned AWAY from the islands just made matters worse.  Prussians are fast but not THAT fast!  I ended up not having a “backup plan”, I lost a major portion of my strike before it could do anything, and ended up letting the British dictate the battle for the entire game.

Advancing with the Cruisers first left them vulnerable to attack from the Frigates as well, so the Cruisers were rendered useless way too soon.  The Battleship was then left to fight a long-distance duel but couldn’t hit anything!  That left the Frigates and Bombers to win the battle.  Though 1 squadron of Frigates died WAY too quickly for no gain, the other 2 squadrons did quite well.  In the end, the Frigates just couldn’t pull it off.  The only saving grace was that the Battleship survived my stupidity!

Looking at the British side of things, they didn’t really do anything wrong – which meant they had no mistakes to overcome!  By forming Lines of Battles right away, Graham was able to maximize his ships' firepower from turn 1 throughout the rest of the game.  The only "Mistake" that came up was that Graham had thought to place that central Squadron of Frigates to act as escorts for the British Battleship, to provide extra AA against air attacks.  Unfortunately, I thought he was just trying to screen the Battleship from other surface attacks.  Once that was dealt with mid game, he was more aggressive with the Frigates. 

The only other issue that came up was the traffic jam that occurred when all those ships started milling around each other in boarding range.  There were no collisions until we had uncontrolled drifting.  Then Frigates were running into each other everywhere in the last 2 turns!

 

Overall, it was a fun game.  It's nice to play a British Player that knows how to use the fleet (I know I wasn't using them correctly)!  Now that he's played a whole game, I worry about future battles!  Time to brush up on my Prussian Tactics!!!

 

Good Game Graham!