With these easy to learn, yet rather detailed rules from One Page Rules on the horizon to play in the club, I decided to try a small scale solo game to give it a go.
And drawing on my rather big collection of vessels, I went for a small engagement on a small scale field of 3'x3', by flipping one of my mats upside down.
For the fleets, I decided to settle on 150 points per side, to give a bit of a feel of the rules without going in to much building yet, and have a fast and short game.
The Ferengi where represented using the Ratmen Clans list, due to their weasily nature of battle. Picking two D'Kora Marauders from Star Trek Attack Wing for this, the limited edition tournament pack one (aka, the shiny one) was a Rat King (heavy 4) with No-Escape Module, broadside Gnaw Guns, front Neutron Cannon and back Precision Laser systems and upgrades costing 80 points. The "regular" Marauder is a Nest ship (medium 3) with a Treachery Relay, front HE Rockets and broadside Predator cannons for 70 points, resulting in 150 points.
The Early Age Earth Alliance from Babylon 5 comes from my ACTA collection, and contained the following vessels drawn from the Human Defence Force list: a Princeps (medium 3 - Hyperion model) with Targeting Array, Iron Wing broadsides and a front Plasma Cannon modules for 50 points, 2 Vulpes's (light 2 - Thetys models) each with the Missile Cluster and Energy Cannon modules in the front (for easiness sake) at 40 points each, and a two squadrons of Myrmillo (Aurora Starfuries) for 10 pts, coming as well to 150 points.
Note: In hindsight I only forgot two things: 1. that the ratmen turret is 18" and not short range like the Human one's, and that the Human missiles had Blast. Guess that sort of cancels each other in numbers of hits...
The mission? A simple blast the other guy, with "my" fleet being the Earth Alliance. For solo AI purposes, the Ferengi will try to engage the smaller prey first, as they want to force those morale tests as soon as possible and being the cowards they are prefer to bully the little guys. The EA had to deploy first, and both sides faced off.
As the squadrons flew forward, one of the Vulpes fired it's Missile Cluster at the Nest ship, missing the vessel.
His sister ship however was in better luck, the Missile Cluster hitting true on the Rat King vessel, and damaging it's No-Escape Module as a result.
As the Earth Alliance medium cruiser, the Princeps, went first, he fired it's Plasma Cannon at the Rat King vessel as well, striking twice. But the thick armour of the vessel still blocked one of the heated blasts, yet this resulted in the No-Escape Module totally destroyed.
The Nest ship now came into range though, and loosened it's HE Rockets onto Vulpes nr 2, the hits destroying the Energy Cannon on the little ship.
The Rat King vessel in turn, making a Hold action, fired it's Neutron Cannon on one of the squadrons of Myrmillo, the only ships in range, and obliterating them to spacedust.
As the first turn came to close, initiative remained with the Earth Alliance, which in this fleet composition is only of importance for both Medium class vessels. But as the fleets got closer, it was a key moment.
The Myrmillo squadron darted behind the Nest, strafing it with it's guns and knocking the Treachery Relay out of commission.
Here I made a play mistake though with great consequences, as I hadn't paid attention it was actually this Vulpes's Energy Cannon that was offline instead of it's sister ship, and as a result blasted three hits throught the Nest cruiser, leaving it at a single wound... oops, my mistake, guess that's what you get when trying a game for the first time (in hindsight it didn't make that much of difference, the second one or the Medium cruiser would have resulted in the same in all probability).
The other weapons of the Vulpes missed or where blocked, leaving the Nest limping on a single wound.
Her sister ship turned towards the Nest cruiser, and unleasing it's Energy Cannon made short work of the Nest, blasting through the hull to take off the final hitpoint. With two weapon systems as such not used and the Medium cruiser of the Earth Alliance next to fire with it's turret as well so close, and a broadside if needed, the mistake above as said didn't change the outcome, only the moment of the demise of the Nest cruiser.
And a glorious demise it was, as fires erupted from the vessel, leaving it a broken hulk...
The Princeps closed in on the Rat King vessel, eager to finish the fight.
Opening fire with it's Energy Cannon, it smacked a gap in the vessel, damaging it's Precision Laser.
The Rat King vessel opted now to move, to bring it's Gnaw Gun broadsides to action.
Scoring only a single hit, the Vulpes armour plates withstood the shot.
While the Ratmen's turret plainly mist the little, nimble ship...
The Rat King vessel passed it's Morale test, and we went to the third turn. Due to the "levels" of the vessels, it was no longer needed to roll initiative as all the smaller Earth Alliance vessels would go first anyways, the Myrmillo squadron dashing in.
They managed to hit with all their shots (it's not like a 2+ lumbering heavy class is hard to miss), and one shot actually went through it's 2+ armour, causing a hit that destroyed the Precision Laser.
The Vulpes's darted round the big ship (here I remembered to not use the Energy Cannon), but the picture of the turret causing another damage unfortunatly was to blurred, the big ship's Neutron Cannon taking a point of damage from the little guns fire.
The other Vulpes had to move out of range though, but the Princeps was closing the gap with his broadside Iron Wing guns.
The shot punched through due to the massive strength of 4 from these mighty cannons, destroying the Neutron Cannon totally.
The turret shots however where blocked by the thick armour plating, which had led down the Rat King's vessel quite often during the battle unfortunatly.
And with only one functional system, the vessel needed to take a morale check, failing it duly.
Realising no loot was to be gained today, the mighty vessel charged up it's FTL drive, and jumped out of the system, leaving the sector to the Earth Alliance fleet, who stood victorious against the scavengers.
So, that was a first try of the Warfleets gamesystem, and this small sized battle, including "going through the rules as I went" took about half an hour to play out. Ideal for some small size home gaming for certain.
The mechanics are smooth, and it has more depth and tactics going on then it looks to have at first glance, so this will indeed be a good system to organise a spacebattle day with at the club and allow people to bring out their various gamesystem collections.
Good fun, and I'll defintily be playing quite a lot more of this game!
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten