I had a great game of Stars & Lasers at the club Monday, we decided to try a pirate attack on a convoy of heavy freighters.
I ran the pirates for this game, and was hoping to get some good cargo by the end of the battle, my opponent was going to do his best to stop me.
The forces in the battle were, on the convoy side were four heavy freighters and two medium escorts and two small escorts ( with another medium escort turning up later in the game )
And for the pirates, there was the main pirate ship which was a converted heavy freighter supported by two converted civilian liners and six pirate clippers ready for boarding actions.
Set-up saw the convoy come in from the right hand side of the table at full speed, and the pirates entered in from the lower edge using the debris field as cover.
Turn one saw all four freighters start to power across the table heading for safety, and their escorts started to move to intercept the pirate ships.
The plan of the pirates was to try and cut off the freighters while a couple ships, including half of the pirate clippers, slipped around the debris field to try and hit the convoy from behind.
Turn two saw lots of shots being exchanged with most bouncing harmlessly off shields, but a few hits got through to the clippers.
Two of the freighters started to pull away from the pirates heading for safety, while two others came a little closer to the pirate ships, the pirates that were trying to get behind the convoy moved in to hit one of the small escorts that was putting itself between them and the freighters… one of the civilian liners waited until it got very close then released one of its anti-ship missile packs, four of the pirate missiles were on target, but the escorts PDS took them all out!!
One of the pirate clippers move into range of a freighter, it fired it’s grapples…. and success the grapples hit their target and the pirates closed in for boarding.
This turn saw lots of shots get through the pirates defences, several hits got through into the pirates main ship ( the converted heavy freighter ) luckily not doing any critical damage.
The other pirate converted clippers started to attract the escorts attention as they neared the freighters, most taking light damage, but thankfully all managed to survive.
The beginning of turn three saw the pirates main ship fail it’s roll to bring back it’s shields, not a good thing to happen as the escort ships were all closing in.
It was time for the pirates that were locked in a boarding action to fight their way to the freighters bridge… and I rolled a two!!! The pirates were all killed… oh dear not a good start.
The pirates converted freighter slipped in between two of the escort ships, firing it’s missile packs… scratch one escort!! Debris from this ship hit one of the pirate clippers killing all the pirates onboard, both ships go spinning off into space.
Another pirate clipper manages to get into boarding actions with a heavy freighter, and I had another clipper closing in to help, it just had to survive another turn of the escorts shooting at it.
The beginning of turn four saw me fail every roll to try and reset my shields!! Oh dear this be a bad turn for me.
The second clipper manages to get close enough to board the freighter, so with two bands of angry pirates running through the freighter things were looking better for me.
The boarding actions starts really well for me with the pirates winning a fierce fight close to the freighters bridge, things were looking up.
The pirates heavy freighter takes a load more damage from the remaining escorts, and the last pirate clipper finally is destroyed before it can get close to a freighter, and one of the converted liners spins off into space never to be seen again.
Three of the convoys freighters were getting closer to the tables edge and safety, it was all down to the fighting on board the last freighter…
At the end of the turn my opponent rolls to see if his extra medium escort arrives… and no it is still too far away to help.
Turn five sees both the last converted liner and the pirates main ship fail to reinstate their shields, several hits from the escorts see the liner finally die and the pirate freighter lose its comms so it just flew on almost running into a debris field.
The three freighters were within a few inches of the table edge, next turn they would be off.
The pirates were still fighting on the last freighter but this time the fight was not going their way, they had lost ground and were being pushed back.
The end of the turn saw the medium escort arrive and it flew straight in to add its lasers to battle.
Turn six and the pirate ship again failed to reinstate its shields!! It was hit several times and exploded adding its dead hulk to the debris field.
Three of the convoys freighters flew off the table to safety, the last one following just behind them, the pirates just could not get to the bridge in time.
The remaining escorts regrouped and followed the freighters…
A solid victory to the convoy and its escorts, the pirates just messed with the wrong convoy.
Oh well that didn’t go as planned, I made a big mistake in flying three of my pirate clippers the long way around the debris field to try and hit the freighters from behind, they just could not get to them in time, I should have sent all six straight at them and the outcome may have been a bit different.
Although my dice rolling was not great throughout the whole battle, if I could have manged to get my shields back up at least once in the game it would have been good! The pirate heavy freighter can take a lot of punishment but without shields there was only one possible outcome.
And my rolls for the boarding actions were just as bad, I lost one lot on their first roll, and the other two just could not get to the freighters bridge.
My opponent managed to get several critical hits which really hurt my pirates, and I only managed to get one during the game and the effect of that was I killed one of my own ships!
Still, it was a great game with lots of fun moments, hopefully my pirates will manage to win next time.
