SPACE VOTING RESULTS:
Rules Regularly Played - Full Thrust

Recently played the basic 3 on 2 fight out of the basic Full Thrust main book. A new FT player wanted to run the 3 FFs vrs my 2 CLs he did a emergency warp jump with his last FF on turn 4 [12 Jun 1999]

A past game of Full Thrust (2nd edition) took place around an unnamed planet, smack in the middle of two nebulas. My opponent and I chose 1000 point fleets, and set course to engage. My tactics were to overwhelm him with fighter squadrons; he concentrated on missiles and larger ships. Several turns later, I had missed with too many torpedoes, and he had destroyed the engines on an otherwise undamaged heavy cruiser with a well-timed pair of needle missiles. I finally conceded when his point defense batteries eliminated my last effective fighter squadron, and my lone carrier was about to appear around the planet in front of his 2 relatively unscathed cap. ships. Next time, I'll make sure to use torpedo fighters that can actually damage a ship through multiple layers of screens. Or maybe his missiles are the way to go... [27 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]

The last game I played was a six-way Full Thrust game pitting the forces of the NSL/OUDF against the might of the might of the ESU/FSE. The game was fun for all involved as we had small ships fighting to the bitter end, while much larger ships we "striking the colours" after only minor damage. Those smaller crew sure are brave! The highlight of the game was when our ESU Dreadnought came into range of the OUDF Heavy Cruiser. The cruiser fired a missile volley and then opened up with all the other weaponry it could. In the end, our brand-new Dreadnought had been reduced to a smoking hulk, with the threat of a reactor core breach and the crew running to the life-pods. A victory to the ESU in the end, but very, very close (only 2 ships left per side, out of a total of forty!). [15 Apr 99]

Last space game was starblazers. 2 ship on the Cometine side with a ton of fighters, versus Yamato, another Battleship, and three destroyers. EDF got vaporized, but not after causing a lot of damage to the incoming fighters. There were just too many, and the defenses got overwhelmed. The two Cometine capital ships took *very* little damage, and the mission was deemed a complete success. [13 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]

At Winter Fantasy in Chicago recently, I refereed/demoed several games of Star Blazers Fleet Battle Syetem. One of the more interesting was between the mighty Gamelons against the dastardly Earth "Defence" Force. The Players started by picking out their ships. They got a little coaching so that there was some balance, but mostly they just picked models they liked. play started with two players in dagonally opposite corners.The grain of the hexes favored direct movement. The Gamelons knew right away that they had to close quickly and engage before the EDF heated up their Wave Motion Guns. The EDF also had the advantage in range, the the noble Gamelons, in Samuri spirit, took a step closer to their enemy. The exterminator class destyroyers bypassed the earth destroyers and began scoring hits. The Earth player got emotional and loosed a cloud of missiles against the Gamelons, which, along with the superior EDF beam weapons pretty much wiped out the small ships, but, EDF player rolled cold dice and an attack that should have eliminated the escorts allowed two gamelon destroyers to survive, unscathed. The Gamelon gloated, because he had emptied the missile racks of his enemy, and, they all bunched together for mutual defence. He then used his rather nasty "smite" system to dump a minefield in the middle of the EDF formation. This time, the EDF player rolled well, and the mines were less effective than they could have been, but the Gamelon player got a lesson in EDF destroyers. A cloud of EDF Missiles concentrated on the "flagship" took it out, but, by now the capitol ships were in range. The Gamelon had decided to just charge in and there was no formation of any sort left on either side just bunch of individual engagements. The Gamelons let loose with missiles and beam weapons, and the dice were kind to the Gamelons. All the EDF ships had 3-4 critical hits on them. The Gamelons had more ships, and while the fleet took as much damage, it was spread out more. Most Gamelons had only one critical. Now I gloated as I rolled for the criticals. An Earth Battleship blew up in spectacular fashion! The EDF player knew he had lost, but, by agreement and mutual exaughtion, the players allowed the EDF to use the one operational Wave Motion Gun that was "hot." The result was a dead Gamelon Battleship. The EDF escort screen was intact, but the capitol ships had all been mauled, one destroyed outright and others that had critical hit results that were more than nuisences. The Gamelons had lost most of their escorts, and had lost two capitol ships, but the core of the fleet was in very good shape. The one battleship was really a "gimme" and the EDF commander knew he would have to withdraw. Both playes had fun. I would have enjoyed it more if the mine attack had been successful, as the Gamelons would have been able to envelope the EDF. As it was, the cluster-f*** that resulted could have gone either way. [12 Apr 99]

The last game that I participated in was a Babylon 5 EA vs EA Scenario (Using Babylon Project Rules) that I ran at Slug-A-Thon a few weeks ago. The Scenario featured 11 captiol ships on either side with the goal being the destruction of the other side. The high light of the game was when the comander of the Rebel faction Jumped his with one of his Whitestars, two of his Omega's and three squadrons of Thunderbolts into the middle of the opposing force. within in turn this raiding party was destroyed by the loyalist forces and after five more turns the Loyalist were victorious. [10 Apr 99]

Finally got my official NeuSwabian League superdreadnought assembled and painted and justHAD to play with it.

If I remember correctly my battle squadron (SDN and BB) took on Barry's green HCs and DN in a slugging match while my DDGs and LCs

tried swinging around the flank to pound him with missile salvoes. My BB and SDN survived but heavily damaged by a torpedo bomber attack, but I only lost a couple of DDs, whereas he lost a BB and a couple of HCs which ate a couple of good vollies of missiles (plus close range pounding from my SDN, :^) [10 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]

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]

Our last game was a Starmada battle between the S'ssk Nesting and the Border Worlds Union. The Nesting forces were a well balanced fleet - the Border Union deciding on a fighter/carrier heavy contingent. The battle was bloody and exciting. Each side was valued at 700 victory points, and as we've come to expect from Stamada, the point system works so well that most battles balanced by points are usually very close. This one was no different. The only unfortunate aspect of the game was that it was the second game of the night (games play very quickly), and since we were playing at one of the local shops, closing time did not allow us to finish the game.

Stamada is one of those space combat games that plays quickly without sacrificing depth. It's a great game! [30 Mar 99]

Currently running a FT PBeM set in the Star Wars universe. An ambush scenario in which a rebel fleet is brought out of hyperspace by an Interdictor & ISD taskforce. Situation after 3 turns: Turn 1:

Interdictor SD 'Impassable' is attacked by 12 squadrons of rebel fighters, taking major damage & losing the bridge for 5 turns. Carrack DDE 'Pandora' seems to have crack gunners, taking down 12 fighters with only 5 PDS.

Turn 2: 'Impassable' is attacked again, taking heavy damage & losing shields & all firecons, but more TIE/In squadrons arrive to assist, taking down a lot of rebel fighters. ISD 'Nemesis' takes a double threshold check as the entire rebel fleet concentrates it's forward firepower. It loses life support & both shields as well as most of it's secondary weaponry.

'Nemesis' TIE squadrons are freed up & attack Mon Cal cruiser 'Libertys Sword', dealing light damage. Disaster of the turn goes to the TIE/bomber squadron, which hits with 3 torpedos... and then only scores 3 points of damage (out of a possible 36)

Turn 3: 'Impassable' is finally finished off by rebel fighters, but not without a fight, as the rebels have now been reduced to 13 fighters (from 78), leaving the imperial forces with fighter superiority. They use this to advantage, heavily damaging the bulk carrier 'Hornet'. ISD 'Nemesis' loses the rest of its turbolaser batteries & hyperdrive in a point blank gunnery duel. It's now reduced to a single broadside turbolaser (class-3).

The Nebulan-B frigates 'Endor' & 'Morning Star' are destroyed. 'Endor' simply ceases to exist as it becomes possible to walk across the turbolaser fire targetted upon it (from 20 hits to -22 hits in one turn). [29 Mar 99]

Silent Death battle from the Siguard Archdiocese house book. The Sigurd ships completely destroyed the House Colosia's warhounds and the supporting fighters with only minor losses to their own forces. [29 Mar 99]

Full Thrust - 7-8 models aside. Made up navies, and I won!! [27 Mar 99]

The last game I took part in was actually more of a demonstration. I supplied the ships and taught the rules for 4 players to learn Full Thrust. This was approximately 4000 pts a side of NAC vs. Sa'Vasku. My last game as a player would have been in Keith Watts' Solar Thrust game at the Ground Zero Games East Coast Convention.

I expect some players will be updating their initial reports after Battlefleet Gothic becomes available. One thing you might want to look at (though it goes against the grain of the page) is whether people are playing by e-mail due to lack of local competition. Also, you might want to distinguish between last game played and last game GMed. I'm slowly assembling a Superior miniatures fleet. My mad friend Jim has even more obscure stuff. [26 Mar 99]

It was a hoot, but a long time ago. We never got much past the learning the rules phase before that old group split. [26 Mar 99]

A Full Thrust battle. A New Anglican Task force was shepherding a crippled dreadnaught to a repair base when it ran into a Federal Stats aggressor force ( who didn't know the dred was crippled ).

Lots of close in work with FSE destroyers closing to pulse torpedo range of the dred, as the NAC & FSE battlecruisers duked it out. In the end, the NAC dred was dead in space, and 5 of their 9 escorts were destroyed. THe FSE lost 7 ships, including a battlecriuser. The remaining 4 ships left the table rather than try to stay and finish off the dred. [26 Mar 99]

We have been introducing new players to the new Full Thrust movement & weapons systems (in the Full Thrust fleet book). To keep things easy for the new players, we use basic forces for each player, and the ships on each side are almost identical, so the emphasis of the game has been movement & maneuvering for position. IMO, this makes for a better game. [26 Mar 99]