Dystopian Wars: Kingdom of Britannia vs Republique of France 1000pts

Concentrate all firepower
on that dreadnought!

Our plucky contestants; the largely undefeated Charles - once again fielding his largely undefeated KoB fleet. The relative newbie Dunc, in his very third game, but fielding for the first time his freshly-painted RoF force.

Look, Mum!
Skimming cruisers!

1000points each means both field dreadnoughts, but no air power other than the obligatory 10 tiny tiny flyers. Both KoB are CAPs, whereas RoF field a Torpedo bomber flight and a CAP.

The objective is to destroy core fleet. And they're off! Minimal terrain covers the Britannian right flank, but the French have a plan to skim over it. This plan is quickly abandoned when the heavy Brit left flank open fire.

Magenta mkI rear view

Here come the Ecuyers

Dunc is eager to try his heat lances and manoeuvres his heavy hitters toward Charlie's dreadnought and battleship.

A fierce exchange of fire over the first three turns bag a cruiser and three frigates for Britannia, but a more impressive four destroyers, a cruiser and a frigate fall under the French onslaught. There's serious damage to the Magenta mkII and the Ecuyers though.

Inexorably, they draw closer

Turn four and things start to get nasty. Two KoB cruisers attempt to board a RoF cruiser, and with a swift exchange of cards are repelled! Meanwhile a line of KoB frigates unleash 20 dice on the Magenta mkI.
The French are feeling the pressure as the Majesty class unleashes 25 dice on the beleaguered Magenta mkII, which miraculously survives on 1HP. This proves extremely fortunate on the next turn when it delivers a critical with its redoubtable heat lance! An unfortunate boarding attempt is easily massacred by the dreadnought's CAP, however.

Massed French

Damage abounds, but the
RoF fleet is holding up.

Dangerous boats

Magenta mkI
takes heavy damage

Th KoB frigates completing
their pincer movement

A final round or two of firing saw two French cruisers down and a KoB frigate but the hour was late. A largely disabled KoB dread (7 damage and two half AD counters) faced a ready-to sink pocket battleship and a RoF dread with one hit, so there was still life in the battle, but a marginal KoB victory was declared as he was much closer to the objective.

All parties had jolly good fun, hands were shaken and North duly faced.

I think there will be more painting of DW models in the near future.

Tutorial: 1:1200 island in 20 minutes

With the recent surge in interest in all things 1:1200, I fished out my polystyrene cutter and purchased a new 4.5v battery to power it. It was whilst I was doing this that I found an old bit of expanding foam that I knew would be useful some day.

The original piece of expanded foam

So, this tutorial assumes that you've either constructed or found something useful as a base - the techniques should work the same.

As this was just a trial, I started flocking one area first. As a rule, I'd usually paint first and flock later. If you do get flock in your brush, it needs cleaning immediately.

Size 8 Sceptre brush

The brush I used is an old size 8 'sceptre' - I believe it's nylon. I wouldn't recommend using a new one as it's going to get some wear.

Clump foliage

What you'll need;

PVA glue

• a suitable base to work on (in this case the expanding foam).
• PVA glue
• flock
• 'clumpy' flock for trees
• three tones of grey/brown paint
• water
• several sheets of old paper (a newspaper or magazine cut along the spine will do)

Glue on foam

Work in progress

So as I said, I went about it slightly the wrong way and flocked first. A blob of PVA on the newspaper was watered down and painted onto the areas to be flocked. Once the glue was on, I dipped it into my flocking trough (a large blister pack). Shaking off the excess, I then applied more glue to the areas that had been missed, and repeated with the clump flock.

Grey cliffs and rocks

More drybrushing

first drybrush

The painting aspect requires that you identify the rocky areas. Paint them all over with the darker grey shade. I used a bluey-grey. Once that's dry, the mid-grey should be drybrushed over it. Finally, a lighter drybrush with your lightest colour - in my case white - will bring out the detail.

I've been using this very cheap white for some years now. Not worth paying citadel prices when you get do much more at the art shop for your money.

Chromacryl white

Back to the flocking. You'll still probably find 'missing bits' even after a couple of rounds of flocking. This is where the sheets of paper come in. Re-glue those areas (by dripping or painting the glue on) and pour the flock over the remaining areas. Each time you do this, turn the island over to let the unstuck bits fall off, then move it onto a new sheet, using the remainder to pour again - if you put a crease in the edge of the paper at 90 degrees, you can use it to aim the flow. The old paper can then be thrown away.

Eventually, no more bits should drop off. Your island is complete. Mine took about 20 mins - yours may take longer.

Scatter your flock and clump foliage over glue, pour off excess and repeat

Just a final note - give that brush a clean with plenty of water again, even when you've cleaned it once. If that PVA hardens on the bristles, you can say goodbye to the brush.

Happy world-building, and please let me know if you make one of your own.

The bubbly rock from a lava flow

Cliffs

More cliffs

Final drybrush with white brings out the detail

Cliff detail

There it is, the finished island

Looking good

Here's an overhead view with ships for scale.

Dystopian wars: 1:1200 Covenant of Antarctica starter fleet

I've been beavering away at the starter box of CoA naval forces and finally have something to show.

To the rear of some of these shots, you'll see the island I made yesterday - I'll do a short post on that later.

'CVN Theatre', fleet designation Alpha 4 lies off the coast with accompanying  flotilla

 

More on this project...