Dytopian Wars: South Sea Cauldron and FSA reinforcements.

We swapped out WOTR for Dystopian Wars on Monday, since i get the sense that Jason was itching to try out his Prussians vs my FSA. How keen was he? Well the stealth paint job is dimly visible in the distance of these FSA perspective pics... First up we tried another go at the random deployment thing: Both fleets (being starter fleets with eight frigates each and Jason swapped his bombers for blimps) were divided into multiple groups and got to deploy Battleships with frigate escort while the rest were in reserve, arriving from a random table edge. 

Commodore Sheridan grimaced. CinCPac had directed him to see to some South Sea Oil-rig down below some land called Oz (were these guys for real?) He was a career soldier, and anything beat the civil wars, but when he signed on for this he'd been imagining the warm Pacific Islands, not the cold Southern Seas!

Worse, the Captains of FSS Cruisers - Congress, Virginia & New Orleans, had lost station in the night, no doubt due to lookouts bunked down with grog rather than 'looking out'. Sheridan spat the end of his Cigar overboard, he'd have to have a chat to his command staff about that one... The Navy fliers to be late to the party too, but you expect that. Then his day got worse, the looming dark shape of what looked distinctly like a Prussian battleship appeared around a frozen island just to port. Bells sounded and men ran to their stations, superior American engineering saw a regular stream of heavy shells go off in the direction of that ship, but none managed to find their mark.

 

 Out of the early morning mists, a pair of Prussian scout blimps appeared to support their ships. Then disaster struck, Constitution's magazine was hit by a lucky shell and she began to take on water fast.

 

To top off a bad morning, the Navy fly boys turned up before the Cruiser Captains made it to the fight. After the first torpedo salvo failed to be incredibly lucky, they decided to loop back for reinforcements. 

That was effectively over once Jason had his reserves massed up while I just had the starting force - then the starting force lost the battleship, while the lead reserves finally appeared. Since it is clear that Jason should not EVER be allowed to roll dice, modifying a scenario to allow him to dice for how many forces are on table, and where, does tend to add insult to injury. However, I do always say a short game is a good game and so a rematch was called for! 

Commodore Sheridan grimaced. CinCPac had directed him to see to some South Sea Oil-rig down below some land called Oz (were these guys for real?) He was a career soldier, and anything beat the civil wars, but when he signed on for this he'd been imagining the warm Pacific Islands, not the cold Southern Seas!

However, he took pride in the fine sight of precision American engineering, both beneath his feet and to his left as he looked out at the rest of his battle-group, all present accounted for, and ready for action.

They could see a sizable Prussian force in the distance, but they were ready with a plan, the right equipment for the job, and they'd teach those Krauts to challenge the Federated States of America. Sure the FSA was young, but with the South in charge we are always spoiling for a chance to show the bigger boys on the block who's boss!

Overconfident, the Prussians sent their Cruisers in a wide flanking move around to Port of the main FSA Battle group. Sheridan smiled, gave the command to fire all guns with the Constitution and landed a solid hit on the Kraut flagship. He sent a small force of frigates to give some appearance of spreading his force but kept to the plan laid out to his Captains around breakfast that morning. You don't swagger right up to the big bully, let him be over-confident and over-extend, then you have him.

 

It looked like they had bought it too, the Prussian mediums were a swift vanguard but had to break to the left and right of that island in their path.  Just like they'd planned, the A-17 Bombers joined the frigates in softening up the Prussian Cruisers with fire. The enemy ships had adopted a distinctly odd formation to get their strange Tesla weapons (must have the egg-heads salvage and take a look at some of those later...) into arc. While Prussian fire was ineffective, the combination of A-17s, frigates, then the FSA Cruiser squadron, took a heavy toll. The Prussian blimps also rounded that island but found that the FSA had planned a nasty surprise for them, Ack Ack to box them in from three sides. 

Then it was all chaos. Sheridan had had it drummed into him that 'no plan survives contact with the enemy' and this particular bully was bloody but definitely still swinging. FSA had got in the first licks but now it was their turn and they even got a taste of the Prussian penchant for boarding by means of rocket-pack marines! They held strong though, lined up the shots, and kept the fire coming. In the end, a brewing storm forced both sides to break off but Sheridan was well-satisfied, he'd downed a couple of cruisers and a blimp for no serious losses, aside for a number of frigates lost on both sides. 

Phew, that was much better than the previous game! Both were good, fun (cheers Jason!) and hard-fought affairs but I don't think I was really a player in the first. I like to mix the missions up a bit but the reserves were proving to be far too influential a factor so we will probably send that idea back to the drawing board. In other news, recon planes over the Cali Dockyards saw the following sight: