SPACE VOTING RESULTS:
Rules Regularly Played - Battlefleet Gothic

It was a 1500 point Battle Fleet Gothic Game between Imperial and Chaos fleets. Imperial won. [3 Nov 1999]

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]

My last game was a Starblazers FBS game against a relative newbie friend of mine. I am new to SBFBS myself, so we were evenly matched. We ran the Battle of Pluto Scenario out of the rulebook, with myself as the "Gammy" commander and my friend Ron as the EDF. We used the intoductory rules, and the fleets consisted of: EDF: SBB Yamato Gamillon: 1 Courageous (S-type) SBB, 4 Exterminator class SDD's

We started on opposite ends of the table, with speed 3. The Yamato had 4 pts of special energy accumulated.

Turn 1: Ron (EDF) won initiative, so I split off my destroyers and sent them screaming in, increasing speed to 9(?). My plan was to hurt the Yamato with the destroyers, then finish her with the battleship. The battleship closed slowly. Yamato increased speed to 5, and charged more special energy.

Turn 2: Ron again win the initiative roll, and so I bank the battleship slightly to the left, and send the destroyers ahead and to the right (to split his fire). The destoyers are now at speed 12, and my battleship at 7 or 8 ( I forget). Range is closing. He moves straight ahead, and opens fire on my destroyers. Like a white hot knife through butter, he drops 2 of 'em.

Turn 3: I win initiative, and close with the destroyers and and the battleship. He banks to the right, turning almost broadside to the destroyers. I fire my forward missle batteris on the SBB, and the guns on the destroyers are now in range. His SD and torpedoes stop most of my missles, but I get some hits, and some more from the destroyers, damaging a torpedo launcher. He blasts both the remaining destroyers to smithereens with his main guns, and hits my battleship with a smattering of missles, knocking out one of my main gun turrets and a missle launcher. He now has enough energy accumulated to use the Wave Motion Gun in the bow. I'm in trouble.

Turn 4: I lose initiative. He turns leftish (more towards me) and closes. I move my remaining ship (the battleship) straight or slightly right, I don't remember. We are nearly catty-corner to each other now. He lets loose with most everything, and do the same. He has hot dice, and my ship virtually comes apart. I'm down like 80%. I score hits with some missiles, and 1 of my main guns. He still has about 60 hull boxes left (down about 50%).

Turn 5: I get initiative, and although he turns towards me (trying to line up the WDF), I have already turned hard right, trying to put some distance between myself and the Yamato. He's hot on my heals, but out of position. I fire most of my remaining missles, and score a few more hits. My accuracy is suffering, with only 20% hull boxes remaining. I miss with my single rear-firing laser battery. He lets fly with the shock cannons again, and gets a lucky critical hit on my engine. KABOOM!

Commentary: I made a mistake splitting my forces. I should have held the escorts back to defend the battleship, and concentrated my fire better. He had hot dice, and turn 4 cost me badly. I swear revenge for the next time! [14 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]

Battlefleet Gothic. I showed a friend the introductory scenario and he was hooked after one game. Very evocative ruleset. [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]

BattleField Gothic...

4 Choas Cruisers with junior commander against imperial fleet with decoy. I accomplished my subplot by getting the young and promising commander "blooded" and managed to disengage with two ships of my four, while destroying one enemy ship and the decoy. [29 Mar 99]

Ongoing play-by-email Full Thrust 2.5 (fleet book); i'm running an Imperial squadron (well, a dreadnought, a strike cruiser and a detached escort cruiser) alongside three other players, trying to destroy a rebel fleet we trapped with an Interdictor`s gravity well generators. we're doing okay. it has some advantages over minis: it's more convenient (especially as most of the other players are in the US!), and the simultaneous fire is a lot more tense. otoh, minis are a lot more visual. anyway, FT 2.5 is handling it extremely well. [29 Mar 99]

It was a game of Battlefleet Gothic. I was playing Chaos against Imperials. On the second turn, I got one of his cruisers in the firing arcs of all my ships. Suffice to say, the rest of the battle was not pretty. [29 Mar 99]

I was playing Battlefleet Gothic

2 Lunar class cruisers against the retreating Chaos Battlecruiser Abomination. The battlecruiser had some minor damage (basically a hit missing) and the Lunars had to destroy the ship or risk a battle against the wounded dreadnought and a Starbase. The Imperials launched torpedoes and fired their Nova cannons but were successful in achieving only the loss of some lances on the enemy before the battlecruiser turned and launched a retributive strike. One Imperial ship was crippled on an (extremely) lucky die roll whilst the other ship emerged unscratched. The Battle ended with the Chaos ship reaching safety. We played a game immediately after with 1500 pts worth of Imperial ships attacking a mined and defended 'harbor' near a planet that Abomination had retreated to.

The Imperials dished it out and got an expecially lucky stroke when the Chaos Battlecruiser's warp drive imploded and took the station with it. Afterwords there was just mop up in terms of the Imperials survivng the next Chaos turn. Victory was achieved Praise the Emperor! [29 Mar 99]

My last game was a round of silent death. Just two even forces fighting it out around a planet and a moon. No capitol ships (mainly because we don't have them) allowed, just fighters. The battle was quick since we had many torpodoes and very little point defence. I sent my cheetahs (4 of them) with beam weapons screaming past the enemy and using the planets gravity (now far behind the enemy) to make a quick turn around and finish them from behind.

While my battered heavier fighters engaged them head on and basically just kept them busy. The cheetahs ended the game disabling or destroying all the remaining enemy fighers. Luckily i targeted the more mobile craft with my torpedoes even though less hit, he targeted my heavy craft. [28 Mar 99]

Essentially I ran an FT 2.0 demo at a local game store. I had a BDN (represented by a AoG Narn heavy cruiser) face two CAs (portrayed by two AoG Hyperions). Unfortunetly, I was only able to find only a single player who would play. After teaching him the basics, we were off! The game ended up with his BDN destroying one of my CAs. However, my other heavily damaged CA was able to take him over the second threshold check where he lost all of his fire cons to bad dice rolls. I won by default. [27 Mar 99]

Babylon 5 Wars by AoG is the most recent I have played. I played a loyalist EA fleet against a Minbari player. I look forward to the second edition rules, as this has promise to be a very good system. It would be much better as a campaign however (which I have written adhoc rules for that we use). I did just purchase Battlefleet Gothic today, and it looks very good, much better than the first rather lame version.

I really wish Fasa would bring back the Tactical combat simulator for another setting, as they lost the Trek license. Perhaps their Battlespace game setting which is NOT a very good game in itself. The Tactical Simulator is one of the best ever done. Pity it is so hard to find now. I do plan to convert a great deal of universes over to it in the future. [27 Mar 99]

Trying out Battlefleet gothic. The rules are okay, but perhaps a little too simple for my tastes. The driving motivation to get the game was to use the minis with the full thrust rules. [26 Mar 99]

My NSL BDN, Escort Cruiser, and BB against a friend's FSE fleet, both of approximately 1000 Full Thrust Fleet Book points. While closing, I was too predictable, kept my BDN's fighters screening the BDN instead of the leading BB, and watched two of my three ships evaporate in a flurry of FSE SML's. I guess we DO run too slow at start of battle.

I consider SFB a board game, though I own and have played figs and the table-top rule varient. I wish I had a way to update this; I know I'm going to get home and suddenly remember, or more likely, find in the basement, other systems I've played and want to again. ;->= Speaking of not remembering, the GZG ships for Full Thrust do have an approximate scale, but can't think of it right now. *blush* [26 Mar 99]

My last game was a Star Fleet Battles game from our ongoing campaign, pitting a Klingon C7 and a Gorn CA+ against a Hydran CHC and IRQ. The terrain was a planet with two moons. On Turn one the forces approached rapidly with both sides doing about Speed 24. Towards the end of the turn, the two sides were in range, and firing began. The C7 dropped a scatterpack and launched some drones, while the CA+ launched two plasma torpedoes and tried to turn off behind the planet. The Hydran fighters were shredded by Starfish drones from the C7, but not before they and the fire from the Hydran ships had combined to do about 30 internals on the Gorn. The retaliatory Gorn/Klingon fire did about 30 internals to the IRQ. On turn 2, the Gorn swung around the planet, The Hydrans headed behind one moon long enough to break the lockon of the scatter pack, then HET'd and headed for the Gorn. The IRQ was hit by one plasma torpedo which severely weakend the #5 shield. The C7 pursued and fired another Alpha strike at the IRQ through the already weak #5 shield, doing about another 30 internals and slowing it to speed 10. The C7 also dropped another scatterpack. The CHC, however, managed to overrun and blow up the Gorn CA+, while taking about 15 internals anmd losing two shields, and part of a third to the fire of the Gorn plus drones from the C7. On turn 3, the CHC ran for a board edge, pursued by the C7, which managed to get a shot in through a down shield as the turn ended and do about 35 internals. At this point, Hydran reinforcements appeared in the form of a Mongol CM, so the C7 (with a weak shield) and outnumbered 2-1, turned and headed for its board edge, pursued by the Mongol. The CHC made best speed to escape. ON Turn 5, a Gorn HDD towing a PF appeared as reinforcements fopr the Gorn/Klingon side, and the C7 turned back into the fight. The Mongol was badly damaged in the resulting exchange while the Gron PF was destroyed. When a Klingon D5FK appeared ! as further reinforcements at the start of he next turn, the Hydrans withdrew.

Very hard choice. I play SFB regularly and think it is the best pure tactical game in many respects. I've played Full Thrust for some time and think it's and excellent fleet game. However, I just got hold of Battlefleet Gothic and the models are so outstanding, combined with the clever rules, and the campaign integration, that I felt I had to vote for Battlefleet Gothic. However, I will probably continue to play all three games as often as I can. [26 Mar 99]