Dystopian Wars -- Any Opinions?

I'm looking at Dystopian Wars in the local store as an alternative to WH40K. Has anybody given this a shot? I'd be curious to hear you impressions.

S.

It's a dice fest. Fun if you like that sort of thing and you don't care the game is run on massive swings of luck, but that's what it is. It's actually a pretty much identical system to Spartan's other games Uncharted Seas and Firestorm: Armada. I personally like Uncharted Seas best since it has some card play involved.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: WARMACHINE/Hordes is the _the best_ minis game on the market, especially for board gamers as it runs on the sort of mechanics and decision making that you usually only find in board games.

We are slowly working up to getting this on the table. I was slow getting on board having gotten a bit tire of the totaly wild swings of luck thier game engine requires, but with the addition of primary and secondary weps they seem to fixed this a bit.

For small investment you can get the rule book and within it has pages of paper ships you can cut out (know for sure uncharted does, can check my rule book when I get home to confirm for you) and see if you like the game engine. It is pretty solid. THe part that gets me is the 6 both counts as 2 hits and gets rerolled. I have lost games on the first toss of dice due to really wierd dice strings. This coupled with the way damage lessens your own dice pools made for some games where the first solid broadside to do 3 or so hits could swing the game.

I was looking at someone liquidating their Blazing Sun fleet (the one I'm interested in) for $45. Rulebook, cards, starter kit painted. I have yet to see what the cards do but I haven't gotten the chance to sit down with the rules. I imagine they'll have some examples.

Real life tends to favor that first guy to land a solid hit, but that doesn't necessarily make for good gaming. It's easy enough to change sixes to 1+reroll or just 2. That would even things out. Frankly, I tend to like smaller battles when I play SFB or WS&IM and I imagine this would be the same. So if someone rolls way over their head early you just rerack and start again.

Thanks for following up gents. I was hoping to hear half a dozen opinions but I don't think there's that many people playing it yet.

S.

Honestly, I am a big fan of Warmachine, although it is only slightly cheaper than GW stuff these days. THe only catch is the learning curve is harsh if your playing established players. Fun game though with great theme. It can have a good bit of the GOTCHA factor in play though.