SPACE VOTING RESULTS:
Voters, By Scale - Generic

There I was with the rest of the Espan Reserve unit #127 "Dirtfarmers" patroling the fringes of our territory. We tore into those Kashmeri rats like a vrak worm on brreg rice. Our meager force of 4x Blood Hawks, 4x Stingers, 4x Saucer Shuttles keyed their attack pattern's by slotting in around our primary elements 2x Kosmos and 2x Stratta. No doubt we were out-gunned, we lined up against an impressive Kashmere force including 4x Helbenders, 4x Maruts a Varuna a dredded Black Widow, and who knows what else? Anyway, the whole assault was a calvacade of ineptitude. Don't get me wrong, the tactics we sound but nobody could hit anything, not even the Black Widow. Odds are the Kashmere would have comeout on top, if he had takent he time to think about it, but the battlefield does not give a man that time so he left the field in defeat. In all honesty, if they had not turned tail and fled it may have ground down to a tie, or those Kashmeri punks may have pulled it out. [03 Nov 1999]

At now I am playing with Starblazer/Battlefleet Gothic miniatures using Starmada rules. Nice miniatures, great and simple rules! [02 Aug 1999]

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]

Babylon 5 Wars. Fairly simple teaching scenario for a public demonstration. Narn raiding party vs. a small Centauri supply convoy. Nothing fancy, no special ships. The Centauri took heavy losses but managed to move to the edge of the map (defense perimeter). [20 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]

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]

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]

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]

Twilight Imperium - strategic simulation of a space 4x game participants - 4 general - everybody enjoyed it, one of the best space games we ever played with elegant and easy to understand rules, fine diplomacy and territorial system and very fun strategic combat.

starmada - prox centauri campaign - ongoing, 2 fleets (imperium and skree pirates), partially operational level,

hard fights with few surviving ships, additinal rules invented for tankers, supply ships and space stations. the BEST tactical space combat game ever. [10 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]

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]

Heh. We (CEGA BG69) ran down a "renegade" venusian convoy. Turned out their Ryus aren't THAT advanced....

Jovian Chronicles is the greatest b/c the limitless possibilites in vehicle construction and the fast-playing, yet "realistic" tactical system. 3D vectored space combat, plus it interlocks perfectly w/surface and skirmish scale... [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]

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]

Hosted a demo. game of FULL THRUST at a friend's Book/gaming store,had five peole show up,did the cruiser demolation derby.lasted 5 turns won by my 11y/o son because he started out all along on one end of the table,everybody else started out in weapons range and began to pound on each other so weaking themselves.And then one of then decided to try to engage his ftl drive making himselve a wounderful fireball.That's when my son moved in killing the cripples and winning the game. [28 Mar 99]

I ran Full Thrust for the first time the other week, and I thinkevery one was impressed. We are used to SFB games that take hours and end often thru bordome. The game took about 2 hours for 8-9 ships each side with novice players and GM. I recommend it! [28 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]

Six sided, 200pt Silent Death death match. Taught three miniature novices to play in under fifteen minutes. As usual, the cowards who stayed out of the fray picked off the bloodied sluggers for a cherry pick win. [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]