"Anti-Utopian Wars!" Topic

After being very inspired by the excellent miniatures from Spartan Games, yet a little disappointed with the rules, I have decided to make a thinly veiled knock-off of Dystopian Wars! These are just some house rules in the works so I can happily buy more and more and more models and still have fun playing with them now and then as well. I would love to hear what you all think, however… I have never designed a game for Victorian Sci-Fi, for World War 1 or for 1:1200 micro gaming. This is very much treading into uncharted territories for me, so your advice is greatly appreciated. Please tell me what you think!

link

Note, the rules are not complete as of yet. I have done a basic layout for the core rules (command, moving, shooting etc) to give you an idea of the direction I want to take it. Comments are more than welcome.

Looks nice

Building a better Dystopia today for another tomorrow, tomorrow?

Looking great so far! Was looking for something a bit more meaty than Aeronef to use with my DW stuff.

Nice! Look forward to more!

Thanks for the comments! A quick update, I finished the basic phases of the game and core rules. Next will be a section for Advanced Rules and finally a section for organizing your army. Or maybe it should be the other way around? The advanced rules essentially add more detail to the rules and fill in the blanks (especially for the differences of air combat). That section will also cover a number of unique weapons, including:

• Bombards
• Rocket Batteries
• The dreaded Heat Lance
• Tesla Cannons
• Torpedoes
• Ack Ack

Also included are critical damage tables for leviathans (i.e. "more ways to blow up spectacularly!"), special movement modes for certain vehicles (boring through the earth, perhaps?) and rules for carpet bombing, depth charges, minefields and so on.

The force organization section will have rules for:
• Different ranks of commanders, up to the vaunted Field Marshal
• Different kinds of military bases, including barracks, armories and fortresses
• Different army sizes, from mere divisions to field armies and army groups
• And, of course, a quote from President Mark Twain, 3rd President of the reconstituted Federated States of America

Make it President Samuel L. Clemens. Pretty sure the Feds would make him use his legal name.

I'm going to look this over. I too love the minis, have a lukewarm feeling for the rules.

@J Womack, aww that's no fun, what's the point!

OK, new update here! I think I finished all the things on the previous checklist and also added a convenient linking system for hopping around the document. Simply click on any Table of Contents entry and then click "Back to Table of Contents" when you are done to quickly navigate the rules (sorry, for some reason the latter button doesn't show on mobile operating systems… blame Google!). Comments are more than welcome! Sorry for the slight delay from my last post—playtesting showed me that I had to adjust a few things to make everything work perfectly.

HERE is the link to the new draft (the old draft has been removed!): link

Next up will be finishing the advanced rules (including rules for boarding enemy leviathans), a set of mission briefings for quick scenario design and a bidding system for the gentlemen generals of the Victorian Age to get along without a points system. Oh, and lots and lots of army lists! Please let me know what you think so far—my aim is for the game to be very quick and simple and let you play with tons of toys on the table (zeppelins, dreadnoughts, stormtroopers, supertanks, artillery trains, fortresses, radar stations… you name it!).

Excellent work so far!

Thanks, I'm actually trying to think of how to tweak infantry in the game… Playtests show they get wiped out very quickly and originally this is what I had in mind. I've been thinking lately however that they should become sticking forces that are hard to peel off the battlefield (that are still good at assaults, as in the current rules).

My current thinking is to reduce the cover value a little (maybe 3/4/5 for open, light and heavy cover) and then say that there cover value is equal to this or twice the number of hits they have (prior to the current attack), whichever is higher. That way, the more you dish out to infantry, the tougher they will get (while still being woefully pinned and weak with ranged attacks). It allows infantry to play more of a "securing battlefield areas" role.

Of course, the enemy can always just assault them and wipe them out that way, although this gives most infantry a good chance to deal damage before they are destroyed.

@J Womack, aww that's no fun, what's the point!

And, yours is obviously an alternate history; he could well be named Mark Twain here, or officially changed his name, or be so wildly popular the Congress (does FSA have a Congress?) decided to include in the President Samuel L. Clemens class a President Mark Twain.

They have become a rather wild and wooly bunch, right?

Haven't been following this closely, but just printed out a copy, and will give it a go over. Love that it's divisible by four, to print from PDF 'booklet' style.

Doug

Just a little preview of some of the rules I am working on! Nothing says the horrors of the Great Wars like chemical warfare, so now certain weapon types (mostly guns, bombards and bombs) will have the ability to take a special munition types (again, depending on national doctrine). A single armament may only be given one special munition.

Black Powder: Black powder is the basic ingredient in high grade explosives. This is the default munition that all weapons have and thus has no special rules.

Grey Powder: Devised by Blazing Sun chemists, this chalky powder plumes into the air when agitated and creates thick, billowing smoke that obscures line of sight. Instead of causing hits or doing damage, armaments with the grey powder special munition create a 6" long smoke cloud perpendicular to the line of fire. Attacks may not be made through the smoke screen. Remove the smoke from the table during the upkeep phase.

White Powder: Engineered by Russian Coalition scientists, white powder is a highly corrosive incendiary that burns hot and can burn holes through any armour. Units hit by an armament with the white powder special munition do not get an armour die save against the attack.

Blue Powder: Developed by scientists in the Republique, blue powder greatly improves on traditional artillery propellant charges. Nevertheless, the experimental substance remains highly unstable. When making an attack with this armament, you may reroll the attack dice (but you must keep the second result, even if it is worse).

Green Powder: A strange substance developed in the Federated States, green powder condenses into a thick, misty vapor when agitated. This damp, viridescent smog has the effect of both polluting any water supply it comes across as well as causing plague-like diseases, sickness and death to those who inhale it. If this armament attacks and causes casualties (or damage to a leviathan), reduce the battlegroup's discipline die by one die type (to a minimum of d4).

Yellow Powder: Discovered by Prussian chemists, yellow powder billows into thick, sulfurous smoke the rolls into trenches and bunkers, choking and searing any unfortunate victims within. Infantry, artillery and cavalry units that are hit by this armament are considered to have a cover value of 3, even if they are in better cover.

Orange Powder: Engineered within Covenantist laboratories, orange powder burns brightly and clearly, signaling the distance of an attack and illuminating the terrain below, even on the darkest nights. Target battlegroups hit by this armament are automatically considered to be spotted for the rest of the turn.

Red Powder: Invented by Britannian scientists, red powder is a powerful incendiary capable of firebombing entire cities. This armament may attack city centers instead of battlegroups. For each successful hit, remove one building. If there are no buildings remaining, the city no longer provides cover to infantry or artillery.

Purple Powder: Originally brought to Earth by the Invaders, purple powder resembles a strange fungus from another dimension. When agitated from an explosion, this fine dust (which can only be described as resembling an admixture of the colours jale and ulfire) floats in the air. As the sparkling particulates rub against each other, an unearthly chiming and ringing begins to resonate, bringing with it horrific visions and maddening thoughts. The strange reaction has even been known to throw off electronic systems and cause mass hysteria. Attacks from this weapon cause double the hits but do not calculate casualties or damage.

These will be available to different factions, depending on national doctrine. That is, grey powder will be available to everyone, while Covantists (for instance) will refuse to use Green, Yellow or Red powder. This will be spelled out in more detail in the army lists! Whadya think so far? Any suggestions?

Well no update for the main rules yet—after some excellent playlets sessions, some things are going under significant revision. I will have an update on all that in the future (after I take care of some real-life work!), but you can expect to see rules for naval and aerial close assaults, prizing leviathans and a whole host of new special rules (generators, chemical warfare, robots etc.).

For the moment, however, I do have a list of orders of battle to share! This should cover all the models and factions that are currently in Dystopian Wars (at the rate they come out with new releases, I'll have to update it soon as well!). You can find these orders of battle here:

link

At the end of that document are some of the conversion notes I used while coming up with these army lists, which will either (1) give insight into how I thought about converting stats and weapons or (2) confuse the heck out of you! Enjoy!

Thanks!