Starfire

I had a brief discussion the other day on Reddit with someone who was chatting about the old Starfire spaceship game from Task Force Games. I remembered that I had a copy of this at one stage and wondered if it was still in my old games pile.

And it was. 

This was a pretty good game back in teh day. I don't recall that we played it a lot, but it was something we dragged out from tome to time. But I don't think I've had it out of the ziplock bag in 40 years. On Saturday I set it up and had another go.

The scenarios are quite well done (up to a point) in that they tell a continuing story of the first war between the Terrans (who are beginning to expand into space via the discovery of wormholes called Warp Points) and teh Khanate of Orion, the first hostile race they have come across. As the war continues the game introduces new weapons and new classes of ship and the battles get bigger. A third force joins in so the final scenario is a gigantic three-way fight using every counter.

However the first scenario is a simple first contact between a Terran exploration vessel (which the ever pragmatic Terrans have still ensured is armed) against a small Khanate escort vessel. The Terrans have popped through a wormhole and must scan both the enemy vessel and a planet before escaping. The Khanate is trying to stop them.

In this scenario the Terran vessel had a gun (literally a weapon firing an explosive shell) and some lasers, whilst the Khanate vessel has a gun and some missiles. Guns and missiles score low damage. Guns are effective at close range whilst missiles are better at long range. Laser (and other beam weapons) have variable ranges depending on how powerful they are, hit better at closer ranges and also score more damage at close ranges.

The key to Starfire is obviously engaging the enemy at the optimal range for your weapons. In this first scenario, for example, the Khanate can stand off and shoot missiles. However the Terran vessel is bigger and also faster, so can close the range to where its lasers can score some real damage. And, obviously, the victory conditions require a close approach in order to use the scan.

The damage system is pretty nice. Each ship is made up of a number of systems (shield, armour, weapons, engines and so forth). These are represented by a code letter, and listed in the order in which they will take damage. Shields are always first, then armour and then internal systems. A hit crosses off systems from the left (although some weapons systems modify this - lasers ignore Shields, for example)

So in the first scenario the Khanate ship is listed as: SSAIGIRII (4) 2

S is Shields, A is Armour, G is the Gun, R the Missile Launcher and I the Engines. Each undestroyed engine give 1 movement point, so this ship has a move of 4. The final number is based on hull size and is how many movement points must be expended between each turn.

It's a neat system.

Less good is movement which is pretty clunky. Player rolls for initiative. The side with initiative moves second and fires first. When it's your turn to move you have to expend 1 movement point for each of your ships. Then the other side does the same. And you alternate expending points for ships until all ships have expended all of their points. It's fiddly, but not unplayable. However since there's a minimum distance you have to move between turns, you have to remember how far each ship in play has moved when you want to turn. And you're allowed to carry over movement from the previous turn as well. This is really difficult to do with lots of ships in play. 

There is an optional rule for pre-plotted movement, and that really seems the only viable way to play, since you have a record of points expended from turn to turn.

Firing works OK. Players alternate firing ships until both run out. Any damage scored counts immediately, so you can take out weapons on an enemy before it can shoot back.

Anyway, I played that first scenario and the Khanate lost. Twice. It's really unbalanced. I can't see how the Terrans can't always win. They have a bigger ship that's as well armed as their opponent's and it's faster so it can close the range to bring its better weapons to bear.

Still, it got me back into the game.

I then tried the second scenario. In this the Terrans have beefed up some ships and returned to the system they had their first encounter. They have three ships, armed with a new weapons system, the Gun/Missile Launcher (you can choose whether to fire it as a Gun or Missile depending on the range).

The Khanate are waiting with a static armed base, three small ships and a light cruiser. 

This is a straight 'destroy the enemy' scenario, although you get VPs for damaging enemy ships. The Khanate outgun the Terrans, although not at long range. They got into close range and wiped the Terrans out.

Interestingly you get VPs for simply scoring damage, so a viable Terran strategy is to drop in via the Warp Point, fire off a load of missiles until you score some hits and then run away. You can outshoot the Khanate at long range, so should have more VPs, and can then end the scenario.

Anyway, I played a few games and it wasn't horrible, but somehow it didn't seem as good as I remember it. 

One other selling point it has is that it's possible to play a campaign in which you design and build your own ships. That would certainly be a way to play that offsets the imbalance of the scenarios provided. The ship-building system is really nice, although I haven't explored it a great deal.

Maschinen Krieger

Maschinen Krieger (Ma.K) is a science-fiction world created in the 1980s by artist Kow Yokoyama. It has a retro-future vibe, with the kit - initially battle-suits but then walkers, grav-tanks and aircraft - being based around components from plastic model kits. Ma.K has seen a range of kits and action figures, a comic and even a film or two.

There's a full history HERE.

Anyway, Slave 2 Gaming have the licence to produce miniatures for Ma.K in 15mm. And, to go with them, they are developing a set of rules. Last night Drew put on a game of Ma.K so that we could try out the latest iteration of the rules and have a look at some of the lovely figures.

Four of us played each running a force of infantry in battlesuits and a few support weapons and vehicles. Darren and I faced Ross and Drew.

I had a splendidly big tank that saw off one of Ross's units before it left the baseline. Combat is pretty simple and done with a single 2D6 roll. You determine a hit number, based on the attacker's quality, range, target size and cover, then look to roll over it. Excess pips over the roll add to teh damage you cause, and all damage in excess of the target's armour rating is recorded as hits. On a big thing like a tank that just whittles down hit-points. On squads you remove figures. It's similar to the Rampant idea of reduced model units.

Here's some of my units on the baseline. I had two squads of regular armoured suit guys, plus a support team, one squad of very heavily armoured suit guys, the big tank and a couple of floating drone things (like the probe in 'Empire Strikes Back), one armed with a rocket-launcher and the other a magnificent laser-pointer, which did no damage but made anything targetted a lot easier to hit.

Here's some action on the other flank where Darren and Drew were fighting it out in some ruins.

Here's my heavily armoured suit unit emerging from behind a wood to have a pop at some of Ross's troops. They also turned out to be heavily armoured, requiring us to get either very lucky or to close the range to get any effective hits.

Some of Darren's troops.

A floating drone. I'm not sure what this one was armed with.

One of the walkers.

The token next to the unit shows that it has activated; the rules use a Bolt Action activation system, with tokens being drawn from a bag to show who gets to activate a unit. Units can take two or three actions, depending on type, but no more than two actions of a type. So, for example, a unit cannot move three times, but it could move once, shoot and then move again.

You can engage in close combat. That's what I tried to do with my tank, in an attempt to overrun some of Ross's infantry. 

The reality; the tank is operated by an AI and was damaged. So it had to make a malfunction check before it moved and, typically, failed, so sputtered to a halt halfway to the target.

Some close quarter fighting in the ruins.

A walker skulks on the edge of some ruins.

You'll notice that I haven't posted much of a narrative. With four players and initiative switching from unit to unit it was hard to keep track of the overall flow of the battle, especially as it was a head to head encounter. We advanced, shot at the enemy and then tended to fall back as counter-strikes reduced the attacking units. Combat can be pretty brutal, and units retire if they hit half-strength. They can rally, and come back, but fight with less effect

It was an enjoyable game with a wonderful aesthetic; I like the big clunky Ma.K. battlesuits a lot. The rules were easy to follow, although we suggested a few tweaks. Certainly keen to give them another go, maybe in more of a mission-based scenario next time.

Dune Army Lists for 'Hordes of the Things'

These lists were originally compiled by Russ Jackson, and published on the old Stronghold. With a new film coming out, and us having watched the 1984 version this past weekend, I thought it would be fun to republish them. I have posted them exactly as written. To be honest I can see a few flaws or oddities in them, but they should provide a good base from which to start.

These lists are inspired by the battles which take place in Frank Herbert's novel Dune and to a lesser extent the wars of the Fremen conquest of the universe thereafter. Because of the nature of the Dune universe (E.G. shield technology and the Guild monopoly on space travel) wars are fought on planet without the benefit of most of the weapons technology usually associated with a Sci-fi universe. This means that warfare is primarily based on hand to hand combat. As such there is little discord to be found in notion of using the HOTT rules to fight battles in the Dune universe. I have assumed that the reader will have read the book or at least seen the film.

In order to capture the epic scale of Dune I would suggest using 6mm figures in conjunction with the mass battle optional rules. 6mm also allows ranges of space ships to be used as frigates, carryalls and ornithopters. Whilst sandworms can easily be made from milliput or be bought from Irregular Miniatures. I have deliberately restricted the use of technological assets to those armies which displayed use of them in the book (even though, in theory, all of these armies had access to such items). This has been done purely on the grounds of army characterisation.

House Atreides

This list covers Atreides armies during the period of their takeover of Arrakis and during the Harkonnen reconquest of the planet shortly after. It finishes with the Atreides defeat by the Harkonnens two standard years prior to the Battle for Arrakis itself.

Stronghold: City of Arakeen behind the Shield Wall.

Hero General	(Duke Leto Atreides)	@ 4 AP	1
Hero	(Duncan Idaho)	@ 4 AP	1
Spears	(Elite Atreides troopers)	@ 2 AP	4
Hordes	(Atreides troopers)	@ 1 AP	8

Alternatives: Sneaker (Thufir Hawat Master of Assassins) @ 3 AP, Flyers (Ornithopters) @ 2 AP, Hero (Gurney Halleck) @ 4 AP.

House Harkonnen

This list covers the Harkonnen armies which fought against the Atreides during the Harkonnen reconquest of Dune and also those armies during the two standard years that the Harkonnens fought the Fremen, prior to the Battle for Arrakis. For armies during the period of the Battle for Arrakis Rabban must be replaced by the Baron. This list finishes when Paul becomes emperor.

Stronghold: Sprawling industrial complex.

Spear General	(The Beast Rabban and bodyguard)	@ 2 AP	1
Flyers	(Ground attack ornithopters)	@ 2 AP	4
Hordes	(Harkonnen troops)	@ 1 AP	14

Alternatives: Artillery (Rocket launchers) @ 3 AP, Blades (Imperial Sardukar disguised as Harkonnen troopers) @ 2 AP, Flyer General (Baron Vladimer Harkonnen on suspensors) @ 2 AP, Shooters (Harkonnens with Las rifles) @ 2 AP.

Fremen of the Jihad

This list covers Fremen armies led by Paul Atreides during the two standard years that he fought the Harkonnens, prior to the Battle for Arrakis and also for the period of the battle itself. The Alia option is mainly for armies of the jihad after Paul has become emperor, offworld Fremen armies of this type must replace sandworms with Feydakin. Fremen armies in the period before Paul becomes their leader must use Stilgar as their general and may not use any Atreides options. The use of Atreides family atomics is restricted to attacks aginst enemy strongholds and can only be used during the period of the Battle for Arrakis. Gurney Halleck may only be used during the period of the Battle for Arrakis.

Stronghold: Sietch entrance disguised as a rock outcrop in the desert.

Cleric General	(Paul Muad'Dib and Feydakin guard)	@ 3 AP	1
Behemoths	(Fremen riding sandworms)	@ 4 AP	2
Warband	(Fremen jihad warriors)	@ 2 AP	4
Hordes	(Other Fremen warriors)	@ 1 AP	5

Alternatives: Hero (Stilgar or Gurney Halleck) @ 4 AP, Lurkers (Small sandworms in patches of soft sand) @ 1 AP, Shooters (Fremen with Maula pistols) @ 2 AP, Warband General (Saint Alia of the Knife) @ 2 AP, Sneakers (Fremen demolition teams using Atreides family atomics) @ 3 AP.

The Troops of Shaddam IV Emperor of the Known Universe

This list covers Imperial armies for the period up to and during the Battle for Arrakis. For the period after Paul has become emperor Sardukar legions must be replaced by hordes (though Sardukar commanders remain as blades). Feyd Rautha may only be used during the period of the Battle for Arrakis.

Stronghold: Landing zone covered with invasion ships.

Blade General	(Sardukar commander)	@ 2 AP	1
Blades	(Sardukar legions)	@ 2 AP	4
Hordes	(Troops from Great Houses of the Landsraad)	@ 1 AP	14

Alternatives: Spears (Feyd Rautha and elite Harkonnen bodyguard) @ 2 AP, Cleric (Reverend Mother Mohiam and Bene Geserit witches) @ 3 AP, Airboat (Imperial ground attack frigate) @ 3 AP.

Spice Smugglers

This list covers smuggler forces at any time before, during or after the Battle for Arrakis. Gurney Halleck and Atreides troopers may only be used for armies during the two standard years that Paul fought the Harkonnens, prior to the Battle for Arrakis.

Stronghold: Temporary base with tents, storage facilities and transport shuttles.

Airboat General	(Spacing Guild navigator piloting a Carryall)	@ 3 AP	1
Flyers	(Ornithopters with Guild pilots)	@ 2 AP	2
Behemoth	(Spice harvester and ground car escorts)	@ 4 AP	1
Hordes	(Smugglers and Fremen allies)	@ 1 AP	13

Alternatives: Hero General (Gurney Halleck) @ 4 AP, Spears (Atreides elite troopers disguised as smugglers) @ 2 AP.

A Billion Suns

'A Billion Suns' is the new game from the fertile mind of 'Gaslands' creator Mike Hutchinson. Whilst I never got as far as actually playing a game, I have followed the playtest and development stages online for the past couple of years, and decided that I'd have to get a copy when it was released. It arrived the other day.

Sadly my copy somehow got caught in the flooding our area has recently, and was partially waterlogged when it arrived. Obviously I have raised an issue about this with the shipping company (and Osprey, just to be sure), but over a day or so I did manage to dry the book out and make it readable. It looks like it's lived a fair bit, but there's no serious damage.

Anyway, I sat down and read it properly over the weekend.

I haven't played it, so I'm not going to attempt a lengthy review. Basically 'A Billion Suns' is a spaceship combat game. Or, at least, it's a game involving spaceships. How much combat there is is partially up to the players. Because unlike other spaceship games I've seen, ABS is heavily mission-driven. Each player (the game is designed for 2-4 players) is the CEO of a far-future corporation, and you win the game by either having the highest profit at the end or, if things go badly for everyone, the least deficit. The game is set up with three contracts; twelve are provided in the game, with the promise of more to come. The contracts will dictate what terrain and other items will be on the table. Or tables. Yes, you read that right. Some contracts require you to add an extra table to the game. To be fair a 'table' is simply a playing area distinct from the other playing area, or areas. So you can divide up your classic 6' x 4' table in some way to do it. Each contract is worth a number of credits, with different contracts delivering that revenue in different ways and at different rates. Some are time-limited, so have to be achieved against the clock.

And that's it. You will have one or more tables with objectives spread across them, and a bank account with 0 Credits in it. The game then begins.

A CEO has access to a list of ship types, from fighter wings and light utility vessels, to mighty carriers and battleships. Each ship type costs credits and, during the course of their turn, a CEO will requisition ships and jump them into play in order to take on the various missions. Obviously you want to spend no more on ships than you think you can reap in terms of revenue, so there's a delicate balancing act between selecting what you need and selecting what you can afford. And if you need more ships later in the game? You simply requisition them. There's no concept of building a fleet at the start of the game and using that; you adapt what you have in play to the changing circumstances. 

Once two of the three contracts have reached the point where they can generate no more revenue then the game ends, and the CEOs check their balance sheets and prepare to deliver the good or bad news to their shareholders.

What about the mechanics? Well, the game has a fairly daunting turn sequence, but it's broken down into fairly logical steps. CEOs first assign command tokens to their a Command Helm. These can be assigned to seize initiative, jump in more ships or used later to modify various game effects - give a group of ships a bonus move, or strengthen their shields against an attack, for example. The CEOs then take turns to activate ships or groups of ships, which move and then attack. Finally there is an end phase in which various admin tasks are performed.

Ships move in battlegroups, consisting of 1-5 ships of the same type. When a group is activated it is given an order. This allows the group to concentrate on movement, firing, damage control or jumping out of play. Movement is simple; a ship pivots by any amount, and then moves in a straight line up to its thrust value. A ship with Vector orders can move twice. Firing is performed by rolling a handful of dice, the type and number of which vary according to the weapon, looking to score less than the target's silhouette value. Each hit scores a fixed amount of damage, again according to weapon type. A ship may block hits with its shields. The shooting system is quite elegant; big guns score loads of damage, but are less effective against smaller ships because they roll bigger dice; a D6 blaster scoring 1 hit stands more chance of hitting a silhouette 3 fighter group than a torpedo rolling a D10 but scoring 3 hits. A ship's silhouette is also its damage value; the battlegroup accumulates hits until the value reaches a multiple of the silhouette, at which point a ship, or ships, are removed.

A nice feature of the game is Scale. This is a value from 1-10 which the players decide on at the start, and it is used to determine how many objectives a contract might have, which in turn affects the available revenue. Scale will therefore dictate how long and complex the game will be, and the available revenue will dictate, or limit, which ship classes will be viable. Deploying a battleship in a scale 3 game, for example, will cost more than the probable revenue you'll gain from the whole game; scale 3 games are the domain of fighters and light combat vessels. Scale basically allows you to pitch the game to your available time, miniatures and experience level.

This preview has really just scratched the surface of the game. There are lots of neat little rules and ideas tucked away in it, although I suspect that it is similar to games like Maurice and Saga, where there is something of a learning curve not just for the mechanisms themselves, but also how you actually play the game in order to achieve particular results. Some of the game is clever, but not immediately obvious, and a first time player has a lot to take in.

I'm not sure just yet when I will get a chance to play this game. I have a handful of scratchbuilt spaceships, but have put together some simple counters first in order to try it out and get a feel for the numbers of vessels I'll eventually require. You can see an example sheet here:

Challengers of the Great Beyond

If you've been following this blog you'll know that I did a little bit of playtesting for the sci-fi version of Ganesha Games' 'Battlesworn' fantasy skirmish rules. This has now been published as 'Challengers of the Great Beyond'.

Victor Jarmusz, the author, has written a post on his blog which outlines the mechanisms it has in common with Battlesworn, as well as the fairly major differences. It should give you an idea if the game will be to your tastes. You can read it here:

Challengers of the Great Beyond

If you like your sci-fi hard, crunchy and 'realistic' then this is not the set for you. It's pitched firmly at the pulp sci-fi audience, so get out your Star Wars figures and brush up on your Dan Dare and Flash Gordon, because that's the mindset you'll need. It does use more figures than Battlesworn, because it now has squads as a type as well as individual characters. Since a proportion of a force must be squads you'll need to allow for that; squads have four or six figures depending on their type, and a force could have three or four squads.

Disclaimer: I not only playtested the rules, but did some of the development, so I may be slightly biased about how good they are. They're worth a look, though. Really.

Steam Ogre

So I've been playing Ogre on my PC.

It's OK. Took me a few goes to get used to the interface and not end up moving units I didn't want to, or shoot at roads I was using. And it's noisier than a boardgame or miniatures game. But it's entertaining, and captures the feel of the original game. Although to play the original game I need to draft another player - the solo options are game-specific scenarios, although similar in style.

We've also downloaded and distributed Tabletop Simulator to all of the family, so five of us can play boardgames together. Not sure how that's going to work out, but I did manage to throw together a quick and dirty 'Munera Sine Missione' bout last night when I was trying out the Custom Game part of it.

What have you been up to?

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Victor and I did another playtest of 'Challengers of the Great Beyond' last night, using his 25mm Star Wars figures. The pictures are Victor's, and seem to be fairly low-res.

He ran a Droid force, with loads of expendable squads, backed up by support weapons and the decently powerful General Grievous. I had some Clone Troopers, supported by a Jedi and a rogue/pirate of some kind.

The game was pretty short. After a brief exchange of fire which saw a lot of my troopers cut down (Victor's dice-rolling was outstanding) I charged into combat where the droid troopers would be at a disadvantage. Clone troopers took down one squad ...

... whilst my Jedi (called a 'Psi Knight' in the game) attacked another squad ...

... and eliminated them in a single round of combat.

There's no more photos after that moment. General Grievous attacked the Jedi, and killed him. I laid down some fire on Victor's squads, noticing that a few more casualties would push his force over their breakpoint, but couldn't inflict any hits. My own force morale was getting a bit shaky, so I threw my pirate into combat with a squad, and got him killed straight away, breaking my force.

After that we spent a bit of time discussing how force morale needed to work. At present squads and characters are kind of equal in how much weight is given to them; we felt that perhaps more emphasis needs to be given to characters, so a player can't just break a force by killing the cannon-fodder and has to engage the personalities as well. A few ideas were thrown around and Victor's gone away to think about them. In addition we started discussing extra character classes, as the game needs a few more low value ones to add flavour and variety. Some good ideas came out of that discussion as well.

In Space No-one Can Hear You Scream

On Monday evening Mrs Kobold and I went to see a special presentation of 'Alien' at our local cinema. She'd seen it on the big-screen when it was first released, but I was too young, so have only ever seen it on TV. Suffice to say that it's well worth the effort on the big screen, even if you know exactly what's going to happen at each point.

Anyway, when I got home I unearthed my copy of this game:

Published in 1980, it's designed to give you that authentic, unlicensed 'Alien' experience, as the crew of the deep-space station 'Prometheus' (yes, really) attempt to track down and neutralise a rogue specimen from the nearby planet before it kills them all. It's designed as a solo game; you play the crew and the game plays the Intruder, although there are options for a player-controlled Intruder and another variant where the science officers are played by a third player and have a different scoring schedule than the rest of the crew.

Here's the space-station with the counters ready for play. There are nine crew-members, three each of command, engineering and science. Each specialism has their own unique abilities; for example engineers can improvise certain weapons, command can access restricted areas of the ship and science officers can deal with captured lab animals.

Scattered around the ship are nine face-down counters. These are a mix of dummy sensor readings, escaped lab-animals ('Jones! Jonesy!'*) and, of course, the Intruder. These move randomly around the ship whilst the crew have to track them down, removing the dummies and maybe recapturing the lab animals. In addition, of course, they have to find and deal with the Intruder.

As the game progresses the Intruders metamorphoses, becoming bigger and more powerful, so the crew are working against the clock. In its early stages it's not very aggressive, and the crew aren't allowed to simply kill it (except in self-defence). So initially the game is about getting hold of cages, sleep-dart guns and electric prods in order to capture the beastie. Once it gets bigger and more dangerous they can use the deadlier weapons they have access to, but the Intruder is tougher. As it metamorphoses it acquires powers, many of which are immunity to particular weapon effects.

Here you can see the crew grabbing cages from the lab. They have already revealed a dummy reading.

This team discovered an escaped lab animal and tried to catch it. They can be caged and taken back to the lab, where they can be permanently secured, so they don't re-enter the game. This makes it easier to track down the Intruder.

The crew were well kitted out by now, and were methodically searching the ship. I played a variant where you don't roll for the Intruder metamorphosis until the crew find it; you simply record how many rolls it would have made. Thus the crew have no real idea how dangerous it will be when they encounter it, nor whether it will be resistant to the weapons they have.

Their methodical searching bears fruit. One of these three counters is the Intruder.

It's not the one in the access shaft (thank goodness).

In fact it's this one ...

... which moves, and enters a compartment with two crew in it.

The Intruder turned out to be on the third of its six life-stages, and resistant to the flamethrowers and nerve gas the crew were kind of depending on to kill it.

The Intruder attacked the command officer, who was armed with a dart gun. The crewman fired, and put the Intruder to sleep.

And that was it really. The sleeping Intruder was caged, and the crew quickly rushed it to the ship's freezer. It could still metamorphose, and gain either immunity to being frozen, or become strong enough to break out of the cage. However it didn't.

Awake and angry, but trapped in the cage, the Intruder was frozen, for further study. Or return to Earth.

So, something of an anti-climax. However I recall that this is often the case with the game. At its lower life-stages the Intruder is fairly vulnerable, plus the nature of the game - one Intruder vs many crew, and a binary combat system where either something is neutralised or isn't, means that lucky rolls can take it out quite quickly. One of the powers allows the Intruder to clone, creating multiple threats, and it's fairly clear that unless the Intruder gains that power fairly quickly it's going to be in trouble. I confess, however, that the Clone power doesn't work for me; I rather like the idea of one Intruder vs the crew. I have found some alternate powers on the 'net, which I might try in the place of clones. These could beef up the Intruder even at the early life stages, and make a solo one harder to take down. Even in this game cloning wouldn't have saved the Intruder, since the situation where its clones are brought into play didn't happen.

It was fun getting the game out again. Those in the know will note that I wasn't using the original counters. There was an issue with the original game in that the Intruder counters were a different colour to the other face-down ones, and in the right light the colour reflected off the white map-board (seriously). I had a hand-drawn set from many years ago, but actually found a nice PDF set yesterday, and made them before I played the game. They are bigger and easier to handle than the original ones as well.

*In the game's blurb there's a tenth crew-member, killed by the Intruder when it escaped from the lab. Their name is Jones.

X-Wing

I played my first game of 'X-Wing' last night, courtesy of John and Damo, who provided ships, rules and the numerous components that the game seems to require.

We played two-a-side; Damo and I were the Rebels with an X-Wing (Damo) and a Y-Wing (Me) whilst John took two Tie-Fighters and Caesar took a Tie-Bomber. Damo's X-Wing and one of John's Tie-Fighter has character pilots with extra skills.

Here we are, ready to go!

My Y-Wing. It flies like a brick, but my gunner could shoot twice, once with the main guns to the front, and once with the ion-cannon turret.

We approached ...

... and the shooting started.

In terms of mechanisms, you can see where some of the basic ideas for Gaslands came from; ships use movement templates, with some of them putting stress on the ship and others allowing you to remove stress. The Action mechanism is quite interesting, with each ship having a menu of things it can do to select from, allowing it (for example) extra evasions, a better chance of hitting or (in my case) to rotate the turret. With only one action allowed there's always a tricky decision to be made.

Anyway, after the initial pass of ships (in which I took some damage), Damo and I got our ships into a nice lined-up shot on Caesar's Bomber. We didn't achieve much, though.

Meanwhile John's decent pilot was giving my ship a right hammering from behind. A fuel leak saw me in danger of exploding, so I had to dodge for a bit to avoid being finished off. I got in some shots with the ion-cannon in the turret, though, which kept the rookie Tie-Fighter out of the game for a couple of turns.

Damo chased after Caesar's Tie-Bomber. Caesar was desperately trying not fly off the table.

John brought his decent Tie-Fighter up in support, and soon Damo's X-Wing was in trouble.

Between us we finished off the Tie-Bomber.

And then I forgot to take any more pictures.

Basically my Y-Wing was the next to go, finished off by the rookie Tie-Fighter. The two Tie-Fighters then teamed up to finish off the X-Wing, so it was a win for the bad guys.

Although there's a lot of chrome and components to the game, the basic mechanisms are surprisingly simple once you get going. It's probably not a game I'd consider buying - it's quite a financial investment, and lacks the DIY aspect of Gaslands, for example - but it was fun to play.

If In Doubt ... Play HOTT

In my previous post I wrote that I was having a bit of a gaming block. So this evening I did the only sensible thing a person with gaming block should do. I played a game. And the best game to play when you don't know what else to do it HOTT*.

Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo were already sat out near my gaming table, so I grabbed a suitable opponent from my cupboard of HOTT armies - Daleks. Because who hasn't wanted to see Flash Gordon fight Daleks?

The Daleks defended, so I assumed that they had established a bridgehead on Mongo and that Flash and his chums had turned up to drive them away. The Daleks had a command saucer escorted by Daleks on flying disks (we only use old-school, pre-2005 Daleks here). They were supported by Daleks on the ground, and some human mercenaries.

Flash had a strong aerial contingent of Hawkmen, led by Vultan, along with Prince Thun's Lion Men, some Arboreans concealed in ambush and Zarkov and Dale.

The imposing Dalek line.

The Warriors of Mongo.

Flash's force is a bit of a command and control nightmare in HOTT; being made up of lots of aerials means that everything costs extra PIPs to move. Flash (accompanied by Barin), Vultan, Thun, Dale and Zarkov all set of as a group to rush the Dalek command saucer.

The Daleks advanced steadily, hoping to bring their Special-Weapons Dalek into range of the Mongo aerial force. Some Daleks and mercenaries moved to cover Flash's attack.

Meanwhile a flying Dalek flew over the advancing Mongo soldiers, and attacked the Hawkman reserve, inflicting the first casualty of the game.

Flash and Barin engaged the mercenaries, supported by the Lionmen. The mercenaries didn't last long. They never do.

Dale and Zarkov attempted to sneak past some Daleks, but were spotted and ran away.

Flash had now reached the command saucer, but first had to deal with more flying Daleks.

And what of the rest of the battle? Well, the Daleks were advancing slowly, but both sides were suffering from terrible PIP rolls, which meant all of their efforts were focused around Flash's attack. The Daleks were also hampered by the ridge, which blocked line of sight and therefore command.

Dale and Zarkov distracted a flying Dalek, preventing it from attacking the Hawkmen.

The forces of Mongo attacked in earnest. The Lionmen pinned the surviving mercenaries, Flash drove back the Dalek escort and Vultan took on the saucer, pinning it in place until Flash could turn and deal with it.

The main Dalek line advanced the Special-Weapons Dalek into range of the Mongo aerial reserve.

Flash destroyed the escort Dalek, but was stuck with a problem. He could turn onto the flank of the saucer, giving Vultan a good chance of a kill. But if Vultan failed, Flash would recoil, straight into the ongoing fight between the Lionmen and the mercenaries. and that would break the resolve of the Mongo army. He held off, hoping the Lionmen would finish off the mercenaries.

It was a fatal delay; the saucer shot down Vultan!

Unopposed, the Dalek command saucer turned on Flash, leaving him in exactly the position he was trying to avoid. Flash held off the attack!

The Lionmen finished off the mercenaries, and quickly moved to Flash's support. It was enough. Flash boarded the Dalek saucer, and destroyed it, disrupting the Dalek's command network and forcing them to evacuate their bridgehead.

The main Dalek line and the Mongo aerial reserve did little but watch each other.

It felt good to play a game, even if, to be honest, it wasn't the greatest game of HOTT I've ever played. And it's inspired me to try something else, if I get chance to set it up tomorrow.

*Your mileage may vary.