Pirates of the Uncharted Seas

The nations of the Old World send fleets of warships to expand their colonies and protect their interests in the New World, the islands scattered among the Uncharted Seas.

The Iron Dwarves establish mining colonies to increase their imperial treasure vault as well as fuel the research and development of new weapon and steam technologies.  Our campaign focuses around the Dwarven colonial city of El-Aron just southwest of Denonia (right-center of map).  Many minerals are mined and processed here, and each week a fleet arrives with new Dwarven colonists, returning to Kulloria with cargo holds filled with resources.

The Kullorian trade fleets must maintain safe passage, and the Uncharted Seas are too vast to be routinely patrolled by warships.  From the Darnak Cluster in the south come Orc Raiders to pirate and plunder; from the ancient Dragon Lords in the west come war flotillas intent on driving out the Iron Dwarves, and their cousins the Shroud Mages from the southwest want nothing better than to wrest control of Denonia and take posession of the city El-Aron for them own expansion; and the Thaniras Elves to the north are untrusted neighbors, keeping to themselves as they wait to see the other powers weaken the fleets around Denonia.

We will have two parts of this campaign.  The larger group of players in NOVA will conduct naval operations around El-Aron, the Dwarven player largely fighting off pirate raids by the Orcs, while the smaller southern group of players will conduct operations between the Dwarven and Human Imperial fleets maneuvering for control of the Boiling Seas to the east to secure trade routes with the Old World Kingdoms.

Confrontation at Suez

Our group had two teams on Sunday, two players in control of FSA forces versus a pair playing KoB.

Dawn breaks over the Sinai, and the British garrison wakes to find an American Armored regiment move to the crest of some dunes to the west of the Suez Canal.  An American fleet approaches from the south, heavy warships escorting a convoy of transport ships.  Farther to the south the KoB Suez Fleet makes full steam to intercept the American fleet.  The American Commodore demands passage through the canal, but the British garrison is under strict orders to block passage, resorting to gunfire if necessary to force the FSA fleet to circle back and around the Horn of Africa.

Each player started with 900 points.  Two 4x6 foot tables were used together to create the 4x9 playing space for the scenario.  We had 15 square feet of desert for the land forces to fight over and more than 20 square feet of pea green Suez Gulf waters for the naval squadrons to engage.

Suez Scenario

The scenario is set along the coast of Sinai, in the Suez Gulf. The British have a bunker and some landships protecting the canal, but FSA forces are moving in from both land and sea and the FSA fleet commander is demanding passage through the canal without paying tolls. Will this tense encounter lead to opening shots in a new war between KoB & FSA? And is that a KoB fleet approaching from the other side of the gulf?

Two tables will be used in the back room for a 4x9 foot playing space. There will be a defensive bunker (I'm working on modelling something to represent this) along with a canal lock. The attacking FSA team has a declared objective to pass transport ships through the canal to deliver arms to their tentative Italian allies. The British just need to stop the FSA transports and maintain control of the canal. But how much of the FSA fleet will support the ground attack with artillery while it also tries to protect the arriving transports against the approaching KoB fleet?  Also, the first faction to open fire will suffer -1 VP in scoring.  VP is not awarded for damaged, destroyed, or captured ships, only for completing both declared and secret objectives.  There is not much terrain, but those civilian ships waiting in the gulf for passage are subject to random movement and block LoS just like small islands.

Here is the planned layout for the 4x9 foot table for the 4-5 player combined operations battle on Sunday at the Game Vault.

Paper Steampunk Boats

I discovered paper miniatures.  More specifically, I discovered the Junior General site which offers a variety of historical simulations and paper miniatures in an effort to pull kids into the hobby.  In the teen gaming event at the local library last month my usual US opponent set up a demo game but didn't attract much attention.  I'm thinking now, however, that using ships from something like the old WizKids Pirates collectible card game or maybe some simple paper models and with simple rules (more simple than US?  well, it's possible) for the next event.  The paper models is also inspiring me to try my own hand at modelling some new designs for US and DW.

New Uncharted Seas Models!

A new range of ship models for Uncharted Seas has been announced, and I'm particularly interested in the new Elven designs:

And although the flagship still lacks sails, it still exudes that essense of speed:

Spartan Neil Interview

New episode of the D6 Generation podcast includes an interview with Spartan Neil about what is in store for both DW and Uncharted Seas:  D6G Episode 83

Americans meet Japanese, English Civil War on land, and a skirmish in the Uncharted Seas

Six players showed up on Sunday at the Game Vault.  We had limits on time, and half the players had limited experience, and two players had no DW fleets of their own, so we just played some casual games, 500 points in each force.

The start of the game beteen FSA & EBS, 500 points each.  My Imperial fleet was commanded by a junior commodore while I took pictures, hung flyers in the store, and helped some new players with questions.

Airships!  Landships!  Giant Robots!

Our informal association of players enjoys all aspects of tabletop gaming, meeting at the Game Vault on Sundays to play Dystopian Wars.  Register on our local forum to participate in the discussion of the game and events in the northern Virginia area:  http://www.etcinversus.com/dw/forum/ 

PIRATES!

This past weekend I discovered the old Pirates collectible card game from Wizkids.  Sure, I was aware of it to some degree, and I was even interested in a tabletop naval game using plastic card cut-out ships, but I never invested myself in the game until I found a box of 20 card packs on sale at Target for ten bucks.  What the hell, I picked up a box, brought it home, and started putting inexpensive little model ships together.  Incredible that they seem to be the equivalent scale to Uncharted Seas, and they will work in a pinch to play with the Trafalgar rules I bought last year but haven't found any models... until now.  Here is a comparison shot with some of my Elven ships.  The pirate ships are about the same size as a frigate or cruiser.

We tried to interest some kids in playing US or even DW during our last teen gaming event at our local public library, but I think Pirates is just the thing to get some of them moving model ships around on the table.  The rules are ridiculously simple, but all the elements of a game is there, and the ships are cheap.  And now I have some ships to use for playtesting the moderate naval rules I've been toying with writing.

Playing Actual Games

I met two DW players at the GV on Sunday.  One player is new to the area and still doesn't have his Britannia fleet shipped in, so I brought my Shroud Mages for him to try a game of US against my Elven fleet.

We had 600 points each, a submersible on his side and a dragon on mine so he could see how the flying and Defensive Fire rules worked compared to DW.  But my destroyer squadron was no match for those Dwarven frigates at ramming range, and he took two of mine as prizes.  I conceeded after five turns.