Greetings Admirals!
The pathway to victory is never a simple one, and in Dystopian Wars, the proverbial icebergs ahead of you are negative effects inflicted upon your units. The mononymous Parker from the studio expands further:
Parker: “Today, we’ll be discussing the various ways that units in Dystopian Wars can be negatively affected. This includes Damage, Crippled Models, Disorder and Critical Damage Effects. Those of you who have played Dystopian Wars in its current incarnation will be used to these terms, but I can assure you that there is still something for you here in the new edition.”
“Let’s begin with the simplest of these: Damage.
This is almost untouched from the previous edition of the game. When making an Attack Action, you make an Action Roll, deduct any Hits due to Counters from your opponent’s Resistance Roll and then group the remaining Hits according to the target’s Armour rating, with each full result inflicting 1 Damage. For example, if I score 12 Hits against a model with an Armour rating of 5, I’ll inflict 2 points of Damage.
If a model takes an amount of Damage equal to its Hull rating, it becomes Crippled. While in the Crippled state, models become slower than usual, may find it challenging to act, and provide Victory Points to the opponent. So far, so simple.
But note how I said almost untouched…
Grizzled admirals will probably have noticed that I have made no reference to a Citadel Value. This is because Citadel has been removed from the new edition, and in its place, there are other ways of inflicting Critical Damage Effects on enemy ships. Chiefly, Boarding actions and SRS Attack Run missions will be your main ways of inflicting these nasties.
Alternatively, you can simply cause enough Damage to Cripple a ship. When a Crippled ship would receive one Damage, it instead receives a Critical Damage Effect. Acquire too many of these, and you will soon find your prized flagship sinking to the bottom of the briny deep, or worse, exploding catastrophically.
Critical Damage Effects linger long after they have been dealt, negatively affecting your model in various ways. Perhaps your ship has suffered a Breach, dealing extra Damage every turn, or a System Failure, preventing you from using Generators and any of the other technological marvels on your precious ship. Add to this the fact that models can now suffer multiple instances of the same Critical Damage Effect, and your once pristine battlefleet can descend into total chaos.
Speaking of chaos, Disorder is another way that your models can have (to put it mildly) a bad time. This represents previously-disciplined crews panicking, fires spreading across multiple decks, and the chain of command fragmenting during the chaos of battle.
Disorder can arise from multiple sources, from coming under heavy fire or being attacked by weapons that throw literal flame, to colliding with other models or Terrain Features or suffering certain Critical Damage Effects such as Hazard. This will, in turn, make your models less effective, as they find it harder to perform Crew Checks and their attacks become less reliable. A prudent admiral may decide to forgo Attack and Maintenance actions in order to Rally and maintain discipline aboard ship.
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to wreak havoc on your opponent, and it will be your job to work out which one is best for each situation. Will you be the blunt hammer, inflicting as much Damage as you can until there is nothing left of your opponent’s fleet but wreckage adrift on blackened seas? Or will you be the knife that brings death by a thousand cuts, using your Faction’s full array of weapon qualities to inflict as many Critical Damage Effects as you can?
The choice is yours.
Safe sailing,”
Parker