Dystopian Legions Review

Dystopian Legions is Spartan Games’ new skirmish size game based on the popular steampunk alternate history universe of their earlier game Dystopian Wars. Unlike Dystopian Wars which has rules and models for sea, air, and land combat, Dystopian Legions covers land warfare on a much smaller scale than the battles from Dystopian Wars. Battles in Dystopian Legions are between squads of infantry and a few vehicles as opposed to the large scale fleet and army battles from Dystopian Wars.

 Dystopian Legions bills itself as using “heroic scale” miniatures, but the models are larger than most other 28mm lines—they are actually closer to 32mm in size. It isn’t an issue with me as I intend to play just Dystopian Legions, but others who play with other rules sets and have heroic scale models from other companies will not be able to fit these models into their existing armies.

 Like most miniatures games Dystopian Legions is points-based—all models and units have a point value and games are between players with the same or similar points level. The four starter boxes currently available: Empire of the Blazing Sun (Japan), Kingdom of Britannia (alternate history Victorian England), Prussian Empire (Prussians) and Federated States of America( a post-Civil War alternate history U.S.) all contain models that equal exactly 100 points so you can start playing after just purchasing one of the starter boxes. There have been some complaints about the cost of the starters, but they not only contain all the models for a beginning army, but also the rulebook, dice, rulers, and cards. The starter boxes cost around 60 dollars depending on where you buy it. Anyone who has played miniatures games will tell you that is very economical for a game that allows you to start playing immediately.

 Dystopian Legions platoons are assembled using a force structure chart similar to Warhammer.  A leader and one mainstay section (usually an infantry squad) is mandatory, but you can then add up to 2 veteran support units, 2 characters, and 2 units of battalion support. To start an additional platoon, you must add 2 more mainstay sections. This gives you some flexibility on how to build your army.  Each section is represented by an activation card. At the beginning of the turn after command points are allocated you place your cards in a small deck in order of how you want your sections to activate. On your turn you simply turn up the top card of the deck. I really like this mechanic as it provides unpredictability from turn to turn plus gives players more tactical choices in game.

Command points are the currency of the game and allow you to improve the chances of passing a command check, play a card, or make a charge move toward enemy units. You receive one command point per section in your army, plus each leader generates a number of command points equal to his “tier.” For example a FSA Lieutenant is a tier three officer so he generates three command points per turn. This mechanic also increases the decisions that players have to make as opposed to just charging the enemy unit lined up across the table from you.

 There is also a deck building aspect to the game. Each nationality has a set of game cards that can be played during the course of a game usually by spending command points. Some special characters and units have their own cards which you can add to your deck and remove other nationality cards. These cards can be used to provide bonuses to your units or penalize an enemy unit.   You can never have 5 game cards in your hand at any given time.

 Movement and terrain rules are fairly straight forward.  All units have a movement allowance expressed in inches that they cannot exceed. You can spend a command point to double your movement and charge an enemy unit.  Dystopian Legions uses Spartan’s “exploding dice” concept found in their other games.  All dice are D6 and come in three colors—black, blue, and red. Each 6 on a black die is one success, on a blue die a 6 is two successes. 6s on a red die count as two successes and you get to re-roll the die and attempt to get more successes. Ranged combat uses the range band concept from Dystopian Wars. Any target within 8 inches is range band 1, between 8 inches and 16 inches is range band 2 out to range band 4 in increments of 8 inches. Again the exploding dice rule is used to hit and inflict damage. Units can become shaken from combat losses and take morale and command checks which can benefit from having an officer or special character within command range—usually two inches.

 This is just a quick summary of the game, but another big positive is Spartan offers the rules for Dystopian Legions free in the download section of their website so anyone can read through them before they decide to play.

THE MODELS

 I absolutely love the models for this game. The Blazing Suns have ninjas, samurai on steam bikes, and a poison gas throwing alchemist. The Federated States of America feature scouts and buffalo hunters that can lay traps and ambush nearby enemy units. They have a special character with a mechanical alligator—how cool is that! The British have tanks, jet-pack equipped troops, and a character who rides around in a steam-powered wheelchair. The Prussians also have tanks and mechanical walkers along with their picklehaub-wearing infantry. And this is just the first wave of releases.  More tanks, bikes, and walkers will be released along with French, Russian, and Antarctica armies.