A Scenario playtest for Stars & Lasers!!

Well I have finally managed to find some time to get in a quick game of Stars & Lasers!! and it was time to test out one of the scenarios for this.

Free Scenarios No.11, yep two more great scenarios to test your Captain skills.

Set-up was simple with just one small cluster of asteroids close to one corner and the Mako ( the strange alien creature ) coming out from them towards UEF Magellanic Clouds.

The UEF Magellanic Clouds

( I am slightly annoyed as I folded my cloth after the last time I used it and the fold lines look horrible in these pictures, I am going to have to find a better way of storing it in the future )

The Mako, a space born creature.
The basic set up for the battle.

( I don’t have a ship model for the Mako so I am just using one of my Bio-ships, but I think it looks like a weird creature so it will do )

Turn one and things start to get really scary already as the Mako slides effortlessly towards the Magellanic Clouds.

But Captain Grant orders the Magellanic Clouds around and fires off one of his two MKI torpedoes, but the Mako spits out tiny shards of some bone like material which hit the torpedo and destroys it!!

( I was looking at getting some early damage on the Mako with that torpedo but the creature easily dealt with it, I only have one of those left so I will have to make sure the next one counts )

But the Mako must have been worried about that torpedo as its beam weapon missed the Magellanic Cloud.

The Mako effortlessly slides forward and bites the Magellanic Clouds causing minor damage, Captain Grant orders his helm to pull away from the creature, and the heavy cruiser swings hard about and tries to get in behind the Mako.

The big guns on the Magellanic Clouds open up and strip more armour from the creature, but not enough to actually hurt the thing.

Turn three and the Captain Grant orders the Magellanic Clouds to keep her position behind the creature, and again the ships weapons pound the Mako taking off more armour.

The Mako turns slowly around to chase the ship and fires its beam weapon and hits the heavy cruiser luckily causing no real damage.

Turn four and the Mako moves quickly towards the Magellanic Clouds, but doesn’t make contact so again fires its beam weapon, but again it causes no damage!

Captain Grant calls to this tactical station “fire all weapons and make them count!!”

Great chunks of the Mako’s armour falls away as the shots rip into the soft flesh underneath, one shot must have hit one of the creature’s nerve clusters as it reeled in pain, but then one shot found a way through to the creatures brain, killing the Mako instantly…

A huge cheer went up on the bridge of the Magellanic Clouds, and Captain Grant sat back and relaxed…

Well that was fun, very tense, even though the Mako was killed it didn’t really end the way I thought it was going to.

I rolled terrible for the Mako and its beam weapon, it did no damage at all, and once the Magellanic Clouds had stripped away all the Mako’s armour it hit it with six shots and got two critical hits one to a nerve cluster and one straight to the brain! And that was that.

The Magellanic Clouds was very very lucky, the Mako did some early damage and I thought that it was going to win really easily, but my dice were not being fair for the Mako.

I think the scenario worked ok, but I do need to try it again as it was a lucky shot that ended the battle, I believe if I had rolled better for the Mako it could have won that fight fairly easily… oh well we shall see how it goes next time.

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9 Comments

  1. Zac

    Okay seems to be in order
    So I was saying its not clear to me what the macos strategy was ,to come into contact with the other ship and then what? The cover shows a tetical wrapping around a ship or something?

    Also I think you should put the astroid’ on flight stands to give a more 3-D feel, also some smaller astroid’s attached to the larger one’s by toothpick’s or whatever some above and some below look especially nice. When i was playing silent death I made some and they really made a dull game board come to life especially when the ships are close.

    • Mac

      Hi Zac,

      Not sure what happened to your previous message, I can’t see any other than the two above.

      The scenario has been written for solo play ( although someone could run the Mako if they wanted ) and it has a set of rules on what it should do, and that is basically head straight for the Magellanic Clouds no matter what.
      If it does reach the Magellanic Clouds it will then take a bite out of it!!

      The Mako is not really a ship, it is some weird space creature that feeds off of ships, and it has tentacles!!!
      I will definitely make a creature for this game at some point as I think it would look cool, all I had for the game was one of my Bio-ships.

      I have some more asteroids that I want to put on flight stands to give the table that 3D effect that you mention, I just haven’t got around to doing them yet, also as my asteroids are made from bricks I need to find some fairly substantial flight stands!

      Mac

    • Vic

      Hi Zac,

      When I wrote the scenario, I wanted the Mako to behave, like its name suggests, a shark – close fast & attack, circle away, then close fast & attack again. So the Makos movement is set-up so that it attempts to close on the ship to conduct a bite attack before circling away & turning around. It also has a ranged attack (a bit like a stinger) that it uses to cripple or stun its prey from a distance, used either as its closing, or as its circling.

      But the main thing is, it’s a predatory animal, not a crewed ship – rather than combat tactics, it relies on primal hunting instincts, a nasty ranged ‘stinger’ & big teeth! 🙂

      Vic

  2. Zac

    Glue a nail to washer drill paint black a hole in the brick glue together if you really want to go with the brick method.
    I saw some nice astroid’s years ago made from polystyrene which were sprayed with a rattle can* the paint slightly melted the polystyrene which created an interesting texture which was dry brushed they looked great.
    *forgive the Americanism.
    I think you really should pay some atenshon to this part of your table, as their will be no other “terrain”.

    • Mac

      Hi Zac,

      I will put some of my asteroids on flight stands at some point, and they probably will have to be a nail and washer type because of the weight!!!
      I have been adding to my ‘Plasma Clouds’ scenery and even added a few more destroyed ships to my ‘Space Debris’ scenery, but the asteroids are somewhere in the middle of a very long painting / modelling queue, but they will get done one day.

      Mac

  3. Zac

    Argh
    Painting modeling queue
    I hear you bro.
    I’d like to see some of your other space scenery
    Possibly you could post something please?

    I’m looking at the c&c game red alert* in the January sale at the horrible shop
    (Picked up hellboy box full of evil the other day)
    man that place is a thef’s Paradise.
    *Would give me some ships to actually have a crack at stars and lasers
    😉

    • Mac

      Hi Zac,

      I will put up some pictures on here once I have finished the rest of the scenery.

      Both are ‘area’ effect terrain and work well in a game, they do add a little bit of the unknown / hazard to the battle.

      Trying to add more bits to the Debris field as that always looks a little ‘light’ on the table.

      Mac

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