SPACE VOTING RESULTS:
Voters, By Period - Planetary Assault

Daring raid on a heavily protected space station. I succeeded in sneaking in a destroyer with 2 long range hitting gunboats with a very meager escort. After a heavy fight 3/4 of the defending ships were out, my escorts were halved and my destroyer was badly mauled. But the most important part; the space station was still allive (damn) I had to run as reinforcements would arrive soon. I managed to limp away with the expensive destroyer (phew) and I could rescue all ejected crew. I was driven off but my enemies paid a high price: many fighters destroyen and crew killed as they bravely defended the station and worse the station was hit hard, very hard. Probably 60% of the facilities were destroyed. We are playing a campaign and that damage will be very expensive and difficult to repair. A second fleet of mine is already gathering to finish the job now he is weak..... [04 Nov 1999]

I played Starmada about a month ago. I had a 500pt size fleet of Arcturan Federation ships, including one Seraphin Class Battlecarrier. A 3-sides battle ensued between friends.

The Arcturan fighters were able to create aerospace superiority, but could not stop the shields 5 transports of the Sssk (a lizard race with boarding parties). The two Ssk transports launched pods which penetrated the fighter defense screens and boarded the ship. I lost one of the escort frigates in a duel with an Imperial Invincible. However the Seraphin was able to diable the two lead imperial vessels with its ion cannons. Easy pickings for the anti-matter beams :)

I would have won the battle except for the valiant, but futile efforts of the crew to fend off the boarding parties. The seraphin was a ship designed from a more peaceful time with greater range weapons. Too bad they could not learn the lessons from Rome and Carthage. The Carthaginians might have won the Cold War. [28 Apr 99]

Played the Star Wars game at Historicon '98..lost of fun, the game used Full Thrust...the rules were simple and easy to use and rewarded good tactics...I like rules like that. [24 Apr 99]

We had a battle of two battlecruisers on 8 destroyers in a playtest for "Exordium Tactical". The chief designer managed to pilot one of his battlecruisers into a planet, and the destroyers were able to quickly put an end to the rampaging ruptors of the surviving BC. [19 Apr 99]

I only recently bought Battlefleet Gothic, so my most recent game was an "exploratory" to try out the rules. We used only the four Imperial and four Chaos cruisers included in the basic game, and played a fairly straightforward "head-on" engagement between the two squadrons. It was a fairly entertaining experiment, even given that we were VERY slow, as we were more or less learning the rules as we went. Both sides were considerably less than expert at their maneuvering (didn't have any familiarity with the nuances of maneuver in the system, as you'd expect), and we ended up pounding each other pretty severely: the Chaos ships' faster speed let them close faster, but this played into the Imperials' seemingly heavier weapons batteries (at least, for the ships we selected). The Imperials won, but just barely: there were two badly damaged Imperial cruisers against a single shot-up Chaos ship when we ended the game by mutual consent. I'm very interested to see what an engagement with escort squadrons (and the commanders' adaptations to the previous slugfest) will be like; we plan to use some Full Thrust ships to mimic the two fleet's escorts for our next match, as we won't have any of the proper GW escorts painted and ready to go for a little while yet. In all, an enjoyable game so far! [13 Apr 99]

My latest battle envolved a Gamilon carrier task force against an Earth Battle Group composed of several different battleship classes. The Gamilons were taken by surprise and launched a coordinated attack with battlecraft and destroyers to delay the Earth force, while the carriers made a run for it. Things were looking bleak for the Gamilons, until a critical hit took out one of the EDF Borodino class BBs. This event caused the EDF player to think twice about such a hasty pursuit, especially if it meant risking his heavy fleet units. The delay gave the Gamilons just enough edge to escape with their Carriers, but at the cost of sacrificing their destroyer escorts and a battleship. Emperor Desslok was not pleased and a punitive Gamilon task force was rushed to the area to seek revenge. [12 Apr 99]

Most recent was Star Fleet Battles; SFB is a great duel game but breaks down when more ships are involved. I prefer Full Thrust for groups of ships, and Jovian Chronicles for realistic space combat [6 Apr 99]

My last SF starship combat game was a B5 scenario I ran at our local club, set during the Narn-Centauri war and using the TBP variant of the Full Thrust rules. An EarthForce squadron was recovering a covert science team from a system in a backwater near the Narn-Centauri border (unspecified research was going on). A nasty three-way action ensued which saw the Earthers getting away largely undamagedbut with the CO of one of the cruisers facing a court martial for opening fire contrary to orders. [2 Apr 99]

My last game was a demo I ran for new Battlefleet Gothic players that used all the rules, not just the ones the Outrider used.

Four Imperial ships vs. four Chaos ships, but I used my Space Fleet minis instead of the plastic ones. ^_^

It was a long battle -- cruisers make a pass, then take *forever* to turn around -- and the turning moment was when a Chaos cruiser crippled itself ramming an Imperial cruiser! That gave the Imperials a definite edge... and it helped that, later, another Chaos cruiser tried again, with similar results. Moral: don't ram an Imperial cruiser with Chaos! [1 Apr 99]

Hmmm, last one was at the Ground Zero Games East Coast Convention 2 and there were 3! Most entertaining game I played there was using the EarthForce Source Book derivative of Full Thrust in which each player had a single ship and conflicting mission statements. Lots of role-playing in this one as the Centauri and EarthForce had a slight border mis-understanding (with help from the Shadows, of course).

My secret objective as commander of the EarthForce side was to try to get one of my own captain's killed! Unfortunately, the Centauri did not cooperate and although my side won decisevly I personally lost!

Canonize Jon Tuffley! [1 Apr 99]

I currently have a pbem game of Babylon 5 Wars going. I'm flying a Centauri squadron (BC, 3xCA, 3xDD) against a Narn squadron. Firepower is still in my favor, but I'm worried about having fewer, smaller fighters than the Narns do. [30 Mar 99]

It was a full Trust game based on our Nazi's in Space idea. Rocket ships look more like something out of the old buck rodgers/flash gordon films and a lot of daft stuff. I think in our last battle ReichsAdmiral Goering (great-grandson) beat Admiral Kennedy (the Hero of Dallas) in a close fight for the Pluto Waffen-ss colony !Told you it was mad ! [30 Mar 99]

Full Thrust, using rules from the Fleet Book. A much faster game than we had expected, and very entertaining. [29 Mar 99]

Competition: 2750 pts Full Thrust each side, My Star Fleet Battles Andromedans (masquerading as Neu Swabian League) vs New Anglian Confederation. The initial missile strikes were dissipated by my opponent's excellent temporary withdrawal of the anti-missile ships outside my beam-armed ships range, followed by a swift advance exactly at the time they were needed. Having shot my bolt, my opponent methodically dismantled my fleet in a war of attrition I couldn't win. Good game, I enjoyed it immensely. [29 Mar 99]

Last Space Game I played was a Star Fleet Battles tournament deul, played FtF with someone in our local gaming group. I was flying ISC vs his Hydran, who conceded after 4 turns, mostly due to his ship being more damaged than mine. [29 Mar 99]

Multi-player free-for-all using Full Thrust. No clear winner after horrendous casualties to all fleets. [28 Mar 99]

Well.. my last game was a game of B5 Wars -- I was introducing my friends to the game, so it was a plain vanilla point against point game of Minbari vs. Humans.. It got a bit bogged down when they started using theif fighters (I let them work together.. less for each to handle and a better chance of good ideas :)

In any case.. It was a stretched out game, but it came to a not-so decisive victory for the Minbari - Our main cruiser was taken out, but then the smaller ships harassed the Human's bigger vessels into running away with heavy damage.. [28 Mar 99]

Just added Fleet battles rules to normal game. My NSL fleet had a very bad time vs. FSE with SMLs. [27 Mar 99]

Earth Aliance vs Non-Aligned
Babylon-5 Wars

Roughly 1850 pts each
Earth Alliance starting forces
2 Artemis frigates, 625pts apiece
1 Olympus corvette, 600pts

Non-Aligned
2 Brakiri Avoiki class Heavy Cruisers, 680pts apiece
1 Drazi sunhawk Battlecruiser, 500pts

Turn 1

EA
Artemis 1&2
went turtle with EW
speed 6

Olympus
went turtle with EW
speed 6

NA
Avoiki 1&2
went turtle with EW
Speed 12

Drazi Sunhawk
went turtle with EW
speed 10

Both fleets moved to engage. The Non-aligned player was trying to close the gap between the fleets. He didn't realise he had the range advantage with his Avoiki's -1/4 hexes with his Graviton beams

The EA player railguns on all three ships were -1/2 hexes and had to close. Turn 2 didn't see much more manuevering the Sunhawk swung out and slowed down. With the Avoikis continuing at great speed, no fire exchanged yet. EA just kept plugging on.

Turn 3

Avoikis sped past the the lighter Earth ships while the Drazi Sunhawk engaged the three EA ships. Artemis 1 didn't allocate any EW onto locking on to the sunhawk so didn't fire. Artemis 2 fired on the sunhawk and with rear weapons on Avoiki. Olympus fired on sunhawk, scoring a hit onto the C&C - killing the ship. More minor damage occured. Sunhawk fired on the Artemis, destroying 1 railgun and forward interceptor Avoiki recieved a destroyed rear Graviton pulsar and major damage to rear thruster

Turn 4

Avoikis flew off map. EA declined to pursue (couldn't catch them if I tried). NA decided next time would not close with EA ships and feels the Artemis rail frigates may be under-pointed. [27 Mar 99]

I was playtesting a skirmish and retaliatory strike with Starfire rules between the Khanate of Orion Tax Patrol and heavily armed slaver ships lurking in an asteroid belt. I am writing some Starfire fiction and needed to fine tune the battle I was writing on for accuracy and make any adjustments necessary. Small KOTP Escort goes looking for it's missing companion and finds it's wreckage. Later gets attacked by two hostile Frigates while searching the outer system for hostiles with it's only remaining companion Escort. New KOTP squadron on maiden voyage hypers in just in time to catch the hostiles from behind and desdtroy them, no surrender, no survivors. (first 4 chapters summary)

While STARFIRE may be known to some oldies (like myself) as SFB's "other" game, it is still far superior and far simpler to use at both the tactical and strategic level. I really hope to see a BIG revival in it's play. See the computer game "Space Empires 3" on the internet for a very close adaptation of Starfire rules. [26 Mar 99]