New EotBS player

[FastAsICan]

Hello! Me and a few friends have just picked up dystopian wars. We're having our first game tonight. I've chosen the blazing sun naval battle force.

I was hoping I could get some advice on how the EotBS play? And and general start up tips? do the faction have a particular play style? Anything I should watch out for?

We're playing casually, so I'm not trying to optimize, just interested in the new game style and want to make the most of it

[Nazduruk_Bugzappa]

Remember that rockets work best at longer range, and that the main duty of your bigger vessels is to provide "covering fire" for your smaller vessels, so that they can get in close and personal. Your medium sized ships are your best boarding units, and the Uwatsu is the best frigate ever

[Bunnahabhain]

Hi, and welcome to the game,

 

If you are a group of new players, and do not have someone who already knows it well to teach you the basics, I would strongly recommend starting with the basics. The Shadow-hunter  starter box has a set of simple scenarios introducing the rules  bit by bit.

 

If  you don't have Shadow-hunter, the basics  of the game are

 Move

Shoot

Fight

 

 Just put some models on a table - don't worry about points cost, just pick the same for each nation and it will be close enough.

If you have naval battle forces,  a squadron of 4 frigates and a squadron of 2 cruisers make good practice units.

 

Look at your unit statistics and the movement rules, and practice moving them about.

Then do the same for firing

Then try a boarding action

 

 

Then try a whole activation of move, shoot, fight.

 

Don't worry about bits outside of the core, for instance Support aircraft squadrons, or TAC cards yet. Get those three core bits right, and that is the most important thing. Once you understand them, it is much easier to add on the extra bits.

 

James

[Grand-Stone]

Simple advice: have fun!

[Grand-Stone]

... and yeay, kill your opponents units

[FastAsICan]

Hey, thanks for the advice! We each bought the new naval battle force set for a different faction. We'll keep the first few games simple, just shooting and floating.

Can anyone reccomend somewhere to find a simple easy paint scheme idea? Ideally with a tutorial, I don't have as much time to paint as I used to but the models are amazing! Want to do them justice

[irob41]

Hello and welcome!

I play against the the blazing Suns a lot and they have some good units like mentioned above. Your uwatsu's are nasty and you have tons of rockets spread throughout your fleet and like setting things on fire. Your larges have large pools of AD at close range besides long range rockets. The sharp turn ability is also very useful for setting up your fixed arc weapons. I find your tanuki armored cruisers are very beastly with rockets and faster torpedoes. They don't degrade with damage and the torpedoes prevent my ships from linking their defensive counter measures. You also have a decent gun that is secondary so no penalty to close range shooting.

As for painting here is the link to the Blazing sun paint section:

http://community.spartangames.co.uk/index.php?/topic/679-empire-of-the-blazing-sun-colour-scheme-database/#entry8251

My opponent has a very simple scheme for his fleet that looks good on the table but is lacks a lot of detail.

Prime with an olive drab green. Paint decking with a light tan, rockets are painted red. The center points are painted red. Broadsides are bolt gun silver. The main turrets are black with brass on the actual guns. The smoke stacks are black with a gold or red stripe. It is simple and quickly painted as he doesn't have much time to paint but still stands out on the blue table that we play on.

Good luck!

[FastAsICan]

First game was really fun. We did a 500pt just-kill-stuff game, eotbs vs Britannia. By the end of the game almost everything was sinking except my mizuchi! Really enjoyed the mechanics, and sharp turn is awesome for the new player!

[Fire@Will]

On the other hand, going from a fleet with Sharp Turn, to one without, can be a tricky proposition!

[FastAsICan]

I can imagine, a couple of friends played a 1000pt game and they spent a lot of time ramming cliffs!

[Thamoz]

Still smarting from that island eh, will?

[Fire@Will]

Funny thing is, it only critted that Chinese Battlecruiser... What we need are DR and CR stats for islands - I'd probably have sunk that instead!

[Hubcap]

Just need a few surface skimmers but sharp turn it a god send for island heavy maps. Maneuvering can win most battles

[Bunnahabhain]

Hey, thanks for the advice! We each bought the new naval battle force set for a different faction. We'll keep the first few games simple, just shooting and floating.

Can anyone reccomend somewhere to find a simple easy paint scheme idea? Ideally with a tutorial, I don't have as much time to paint as I used to but the models are amazing! Want to do them justice

 

The easiest paint scheme out goes like this:

 

1)Wash you models well to get rid of mould release agent- normal washing up liquid and a toothbrush works well.

 

2) Let them dry well

 

3) Pick a base colour, and get spray undercoat in that colour. 'Army painter' is a well known, good quality brand here. Spray undercoat the models. Do this outside, on a large bit of cardboard, so you don't have to handle them when wet.

 

4) Optional- pick out some important details, say weapons, decks etc  if you want to

 

5) Go over the whole model in a wash. This is a thin paint designed to settle in cracks, so will naturally go to patterns in the deck, joints between armour , etc.    You would normally use a brown wash on most darker colours, or if you base colour is a bright colour, a slightly darker shade of you base colour

 

6) Dry-Brush the model. Using a slightly lighter shade of your main colour, go over the model with a dry brush. This is a brush with a very tiny amount of paint on it, so it is almost dry. This will only go onto sticking out bits, edges, corners etc and not paint the rest of the model.

 

You will have a decent looking fleet in very little time, using few paints and tools. I know this is obvious for an experienced painter, but if people have not painted much before, simple is good!

 

James

[FastAsICan]

I've done some painting but always tend to spend ages on single models, and have never painted ships. Nor models at this scale. appreciate the advice dude

[Bunnahabhain]

I've done some painting but always tend to spend ages on single models, and have never painted ships. Nor models at this scale. appreciate the advice dude

What I  do wherever possible is quite simple. Batch painting!

 

Take strips of scrap wood.

 

Use blue-tac to fix   models down to them. Put models of the same type together, and all facing the same way.

 

You can now easily batch paint all your frigates in the same way very quickly and consistently- it is obvious if you have forgotten a turret or such like, as it looks different to the others.

 

Move onto the cruisers turrets

 

By the time you have finished all the turrets, the frigate turrets are dry, so you can do their decks/ bridges/ whatever.  You have also gone through your whole fleet without changing colour, so saving time washing brushes, and  it makes the fleet look uniform.

 

 

 Of course, there is lots of detail on the models, and it can be very satisfying making them look their best. However, you can spray,  block paint, wash and dry brush a full 1000-1500 point fleet in an evening, and have it on the table looking fairly good,  and then go back and add details, extra highlights, etc over

This to my mind is much better than having one very nicely painted battleship and a fleet of grey resin for a month!

 

James

[SvenEm]

Rockets are the most common weapon in the fleet.

When you activate a unit with several weapons and you can fire some or all of those weapons, try using your rockets last. A unit with both shields and ack ack is surprisingly hard to hit with rockets. Ack Ack, however, loses AD when the ship receives damage. So if you damage it with other weapons first, your rockets will have an easier time hitting the target.

 

And with Arashi's: split fire. Arashi's have 2 rocket launchers. if you split fire in two you can have 2 attacks of 12 AD on rangeband 4. Also, ack ack can be used only once in an activation and the ship that is targeting has to lead the attack. This means: if you attack the same ship twice, it can only counter attack one of the rocket attacks. If you target two ships in a unit of 3, for example. the two ships have to defend themselves against the rockets, and the other ship can only help one of them.

 

I find that both of these tactics really help me to land my rockets where they need to.

I'm a pretty new to the game though, so if someone has got better tactics for rockets, or if you think i've interpritted the rules wrong, please let me know

[Ungard]

 

When you activate a unit with several weapons and you can fire some or all of those weapons, try using your rockets last. A unit with both shields and ack ack is surprisingly hard to hit with rockets. Ack Ack, however, loses AD when the ship receives damage. So if you damage it with other weapons first, your rockets will have an easier time hitting the target.

That does not work. All attacks of a squad happen at the same time, So if you damage an enemy ship with your gunnery it still has its full ack-ack against the rockets.

[Fire@Will]

But, of course, shooting with another units' gunnery first to soften a target up before launching rockets remains very viable! Advanced deployed frigates, for instance, could be tricky to handle, albeit a short-lived nuisance!

[SvenEm]

@ Ungard

 

Just checked the rulebook, and you're right. But still, like fire@will said, using another unit first is still a viable option. I personally like corvettes a lot for this. They're dirty cheap, and just nasty in rangeband 1.

The arashi is still wonderfull as a first strike unit. Just let them hang back and go after anything that comes in rangeband 4. The only real problem the arashi has is the fixed forward firing arc, which makes aiming difficult sometimes, though sharp turn minimizes the problem. I especially like how adaptable the arashi weaponry is in terms of AD.

 

Assuming a full unit of 3 you can choose to fire 21 rockets against a singe target (6 leading dice and half of 5 times 6) OR spread it out across the same ship or several ships.

3 times 9 AD , 6 times 6 AD or one attack of 9 AD and one attack of 15 AD.

 

And remember: A model may only counter attack if it is either targeted itself OR if it links/combines fire with a model in its squadron that has been targeted.

Any target MUST lead a counter attack to defend itself

and lastly, each model may only make ONE counter attack with ack ack and CC. (all these rules can be found on page 58).

 

For example, you target one ship in a squadron of three with 3 rocket attacks of 9 AD. The target MUST lead a counter attack with it's ack ack. the other models may link fire.

if they do, they can counter one of the attacks. All ack ack has been activated, so they can't defend against the other rockets. And because the targetted model MUST lead and may only counter attack ONCE, the other two models in the squadron can't counterattack against the other attacks. In other words, they cant split the ack ack.

[Thamoz]

.. yes and no.

If you send 9 rockets at one ship, it must defend itself. If you send 15 rockets at another, that ship must defend itself also. The third ship can choose which of its mates it will help defend (and chooses before you roll any dice).

So each shot will have to get through some ack ack.

[Abakus]

I think Sven means if you split your attack against a single model into multiple waves (three, 9 AD attacks on 1 target in 1 activation)

 

The other ships can join into the one counter-attack that the target can use to defend itself, but they can't lead other counter-attacks to defend the targeted ship. IE, you can only roll a counterattack against one of the incoming attacks.

[Nazduruk_Bugzappa]

That's why I prefer to send both salvos of rockets into a single target. they can use their AA to defend against one of the salvos, but not the other, as you only get the one burst of defensive AA in an activation. against Russian vessels, it's a bit trickier, as they can use their AA against the first salvo, and their jammer generator against the second one

[BigRed]

That's why I prefer to send both salvos of rockets into a single target. they can use their AA to defend against one of the salvos, but not the other, as you only get the one burst of defensive AA in an activation. against Russian vessels, it's a bit trickier, as they can use their AA against the first salvo, and their jammer generator against the second one

 

I believe the jammer generators can be used against all salvos as they are listed as continuous effect.

[Fire@Will]

Only if they haven't already been switched off with a passing Node Projector... ;-)