Recent CoA experience

Apologies for the lack of recent posts. Unfortunately life gets in the way of Hobby sometimes.

Aside from recently finishing off my 6 destroyers and another batch of frigates I have been playing some games using the new 1.1 Dystopian Wars rulebook.

I love the new rulebook...but I'm going to save that for another post. For now I want to talk about some game experiences.

I have been running in a 1000 points a core of:

2x Aristotle Battleships
2x Zeno Armored Cruisers
2x 3 Galen Escorts
1x Callimachus Time Orb

and been fiddling around with frigates, destroyers and corvettes (and more escorts for the orb).

So far it has been working really well. One of the real advantages is the compression of applicable force. Each of my major activations (medium and up) lets me unleash very large amounts of firepower in a single activation. Another time I will post some thoughts on how to build a list to take advantage of this and balance it with volume of activations.

Against armies that you want to get in close against:

1. The Callimachus Time Orb activates first and uses the Time Dilation Template to protect the Battleships which are submerged
2. Tiny fliers and small vessels activate
3. Last 2 activations are the Battleships moving forward 10 (8" submerged + 2" for the Time Dilation)

Next turn the orb moves forward and provides the same trick to the Battleships. This time when the battle ships activate though they tend to surface and begin merrily blasting away at my target priorities.

That is just the general game plan against armies where I want to get closer. The advantage being that the only things that get full shots against the Battleships is any number of squadrons my opponent has more than me plus up to two extra (one if he goes first and another if he goes first in the second turn before the orb rinses and repeats.

You also have the opportunity for opportunistic teleportation but beware as this more often than not leaves you very vulnerable. 

I find that the Zeno Armored Cruisers soak up a massive amount of damage. That higher Critical Rating and starting Hull Points mean that it takes very considerable firepower to destroy them.

I find that the Plato Cruiser doesn't put out significant firepower. Given this I would rather for the extra points be hard to kill. The particle accelerator tends to KO little ships and the broadsides are nice and beefy on the Zeno.

As far as little ships go I have not made up my mind 100%
I have reassessed my previous position about Plutarch Destroyers not being worth considering. I have used them very effectively in two games. I just am not yet convinced that they output the correct amount of fire for their points when compared to Frigates.

At present I am leaning towards using the Diogenes Frigate as my main small ship. Being cheaper and therefore more numerous than Destroyers in my list I find they put out good firepower at short range.

Being disposable I use them to block enemy assaults. By placing a screen of Frigates more than 4" out from your larger vessels you can prevent larger (therefore less maneuverable) enemy vessels from closing into boarding range. They usually also end up targeting small enemy vessels leaving my big ships to focus on theirs. As such I tend to run them in small squadrons to increase my number of activations per turn.

Since the Diogenes Frigate has broadsides this means they can zip out from behind your battleship, form a screen and then give a nasty broadside to anything trying to close with you.

Galan Escorts have been amazing. They neutralize the effect of rockets and torpedoes on my big ships and can double in to the role of screening that frigates do in a pinch. The extra AA against boarders also can mean the difference between a win and a lose. They really force you opponent to dedicate significant resources to eliminating them in order to attack your Battleships.