Steaming Again

Another trial of Matt's Steampunk Naval game at the club, based on the in-house DTS system.

Once more it's the Americans vs the Japanese, using Dystopian Wars models. Three small squadrons on each side, starting a couple of moves outside maximum artillery range.

More Dystopia

More shenanigans at sea, as the Steampunk navy's raise steam again. All figures are again from Spartan Games, who produce nice models for Dystopian Wars even if the club are not over keen on using their rules.

Matt's DTS variant rules have been streamlined a bit since last time, no more rolls for reloading the big guns, just a negative to hit to compensate instead.

Blazing Sun vs the Federated States again. In terms of the fleets the Federates have been up gunned a bit.

Steam Navy Punk

So a number of people at the club have the makings of some steampunk fleets. All we need now are some rules to play with.

Matt has discarded the idea of using Dystopian Wars (or its Fleet Action spinoff) despite having plenty of models, and has gone on to designing a heavily modified version of DTS, an in house set of rules that normally got used for Sci-Fi battles.

Oar Blimey

A mini ancient naval campaign based in an undisclosed place in the Aegian. Using a version of Paul's D.T.S. rules and his paper and velcro boats. A bigger version of this was played a few years back, over a month or so, when we were still at the Duke and had about 6\7 players and a more geographically accurate map; this one nighter had 4 players

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

Moonbase Alfalfa

Its big battle time as the heavyweights from various fleets move into the contested region, which is also currently being visited by a certain free-roaming moonbase.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Once again it's 'Good guys' vs 'Bad Guys'. All ships and terrain from Geordie Paul (not LaForge). Best of three capture, two planets and the base in between being the objectives.

The 'good guys' reach the moonbase first and enlist their help against the oncoming hoard. Not that it did the base much good as waves of Cylon Raiders destroyed nearly all the Eagles and Hawks newly launched from the base.

Even worse, The Borg Cube decides to do a bit of grazing, assimilating part of the base and repairing itself in the process. This damage was caused by the wave gun from the blue ship sent to protect the base.



The Blue Battlestar and friends suddenly work out that the Klingon is almost impossible to hit due to it's speed boost from its elite crew. Even combining weapons only gives a slight chance of doing light damage.



Both available versions of the Enterprise head to engage the Cube after easily dealing with the two Shadow craft.

The Wave Gun gets lucky and recharges straight off (a nice 6 on the die) and lines up for another closer ranged shot at the giant Oxo cube.



At this point the game was called, with the general agreement that the bad guys were going to lose, as the combined power of the ships present should take out the already chipped Borg, leaving only the Klingons and Cylons contesting a single planet.
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Battle for the Planets

An even larger battle then last week, as the combined collection of spacecraft from Paul's and Martin's fleet collide in combat.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Although the ships on both sides were numerous they are not very good, in fact they pretty much expendable dregs. The better ships from their respective fleets are due to turn up in a couple of weeks for an even bigger battle.

Planets are there to be captured, whoever captures the most of the three wins.

The combined Good Guy\Bad Guy fleets include a varied mix of races, and lead to some match ups that would never happen on TV or at the Movies.

Inner System


Middle Planet


Outer System


In the end the bad guys won, two planets to one; the inner planet being the only good guy capture.
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Final Front Ear

A bit of a Sci-Fi theme on Tuesday as two separate space games were being played out. Graeme, Colin and Co were trying out the Star Trek game Federation Commander by Amarillo Design Bureau. Their family of ST derived games are based upon the original series and has branched into a different universe history, normally refered to as the 'Star Fleet Universe' than the follow-on series\films due to IP rights\limitations.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

A simple get to know the rules style encounter saw the Federation come off worse as Klingon drones made and exploited large holes in the shields.

Paul was organising a five player (later to be six) game of DTS, using his original rules which differ quite a bit from Martin's version. The main one being that the whole ruleset fits on 1/3 of an A4 sheet of paper!



As can be seen there's quite a bit of difference in fleet sizes between the games, despite Federation Commander being a fast-play variant of the legendary Star Fleet Battles. The more cinematic DTS has ships flying (and being destroyed) everywhere.

Some of the ships in DTS look remarkably familiar to those in FC! Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. (or at least one letter been changed anyway.)

A big multi-player bash is planned for the near future.
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Bad case of the DTS

I didn't feel too hot so decided to sit out and watch a few games instead.

Martin had brought along his spaceships and was organising a game of his still unreleased DTS rules. These rules have been in various stages of development for over 5 years now and are based on an original idea by Paul.

From Furness Wargamers

Unfortunately he had forgotten the fleet record sheets so had to reuse some existing ones. There is actually over 20+ fleets to select from, but given that most are derived from well known TV shows it's doubtful that anything would get published.



A close game with Colin just being shaded out. A collision between his own ships might of been a deciding factor. The players were suitably impressed that they requested further games.

Also at the club a GQ3 WW1 game was under way with a battle between the German and Russian navies in the Baltic. A couple of games of 40K and a single WH fantasy game, plus the usual role-players and a table of Card gamers.
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