Wednesday 5 April 2017

Banzai, err, Doner und Blitzen

I had a great evening at the club last night, which was required after two days in the PO and another two and a half weeks to go. We were doing Dystopian Wars which had been put off the week before as the second edition rulebook had not turned up at Simon's, it still hasn't turned up but we went for the game anyway as three of us hadn't a clue. I have played it a couple of times but with long intervals in between.

This time I took the Prussian Empire with Ryan while Simon took the British with Julian, Simon has a huge collection of toys for this game and they are just lovely to look at, the Steampunk quirkiness is everywhere. The rules do seem a bit complex and we missed out a lot of the more intricate ones but Simon assured us that second edition is more player friendly, there is a lot of depth in this game and it is something you need to invest time in to get the full experience.

The Prussian fleet attacks.
 I decided to simply run my squadron at the enemy and hope to overwhelm them, there was no time for fancy manoeuvring and anyway I thought it a good plan for a club night. Yes, here it comes, a big mistake, my Krupp guns must have come from Kraft as they missed everything, but the returning fire of the British was deadly. Julian missed a couple at first and I responded with 'what a shame mate' which soon turned to 'give us a break' as he threw six after six for the rest of the night.

'Bloody RAF' was heard after this failed attack.

I lost four frigates in the opening turn and it was some time before I managed to sink a couple of destroyers, Ryan was trying to be a real admiral and was chuntering all over looking for the perfect position, it paid off and he made our first kill. Although we were taking a beating and quite a few of our ships were awash we were actually winning points wise, if only we could maintain this until the clock struck ten.

Things were desperate enough to send in the airships.
 Of course the British had no intention of letting this happen and there were some last gasp attacks from their fleet as they attempted to even the score, they succeeded despite some really good saves at one point from me. Why Banzai you ask, well when we got our first kill a huge cheer went through the Prussian fleet before being reminded we were Germans, so next up was Donner und Blitzen, although we still managed a few more Banzai's before the end, just for laughs.

Just before I lost two cruisers and lost the game.

Playing a simplified version we soon got the hang of shooting etc. and the game picked up, the best thing was we had some fun and a laugh, just what it's all about.

A quite night at the club this week, a Saga game and a boardgame and that was it. It is back to WAC next week and my third outing against the Seleucids as Simon and Julian are not present, Ryan has bought an elephant for this encounter, now that will be interesting.


4 comments:

  1. Not my sort of thing, but then again I don't do anything naval, May be to do with the last game I played, what 30 odd years ago, when I ran into my side's flagship :~0
    But as you say fun and a laugh, you can't beat that, not that the admiral wasn't laughing all those years ago.

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  2. Belay that I have played a War At Sea game since then, didn't harm my own side that time either.

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    1. In fact you sank my battleship I recall!

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    2. I have all the ships for Jutland but it is better with smaller and lighter forces in a mini campaign setting, however I have not played properly in years.

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