Clash of the Titans! A Stars & Lasers battle.

I found that I had a little time last night for a game of something so decided to play a quick game of Stars & Lasers, I did really want a quick game so I thought that it would be fun to get out two big ships for this battle… and with just two main ships it should be quick!!

So one Dreadnought with its two Frigate escorts on each side, both are taking a Fighter base and a Fighter Bomber base.

This battle will be between two small forces from two factions… the Zeta Colony ( ZC )

And the United Eldronian Federation ( UEF )

I also just went with a simple set-up for this game, the three ships from each side facing each across the table, both dreadnoughts carrying their fighters ready to launch during the battle.

Turn one, saw the UEF ships moving forward heading straight at the ZC ships, but the ZC ships didn’t fancy just going headlong into the UEF ships, so they moved both frigates out and away from their dreadnought firing off two missiles each, their dreadnought then moved slowly forward and fired off three more missiles.

Neither side was in range for any shooting, and neither side launched any fighters.

Turn two saw all the ZC missiles move closer to the UEF ships, this meant they would now have to make a decision, would they risk trying to move through those missiles hoping that their PDS would be able to clear a path through or would they turn away from the missiles hoping that they would be able to miss them.

Both UEF frigates turned away from the ZC missiles, but found themselves being hit hard form the ZC frigates from close range, then the two dreadnoughts moved forward the UEF dreadnought moved steadily forward risking the ZC missiles and fired at one of the ZC frigates taking out a couple of shields then also fired at the ZC dreadnought taking a few of its shields down as well but again doing no damage!

Then the ZC dreadnought moved forward but unlike the UEF ship it turned towards one of the UEF frigates and hit the small ship with a huge broadside of heavy laser fire taking down the small ships shields and burning huge holes in its hull, it then hit it with its railgun doing even more damage.

The small ship held on but there was no escaping the big ships onslaught as it launched three missiles at the almost defenceless ship.

All three got past the little ships PDS and the UEF frigate took no further part in the battle, it spun off a lifeless hulk.

Both dreadnoughts launched their fighter bases.

Turn three and things were continuing to go wrong for the UEF dreadnought and its remaining escort frigate, the engineers on board these ships just cold not get their shields back up.

The UEF fighters tried to take out the remaining ZC missile that was heading towards their dreadnought, but the thing was going too fast for them to get a lock on it and the missile slipped past them and hit their dreadnought luckily only doing a small amount of damage to the ships thick armour, the rest of the missiles missed and sped past their target.

The UEF bombers were having a little more luck as they managed to get two of them in close to attack one of the ZC frigates, evading the small ships PDS… but they did huge amounts of damage to the small ship causing many internal explosions ripping it apart, several pieces of the ship’s hull collided with the small bombers destroying them.

The UEF frigate was also hit by flying wreckage, but it luckily survived.

The UEF dreadnought moved up close to the ZC dreadnought firing everything it had as it closed the gap between the two big ships… the ZC lost almost all of its shields but so far had survived the massed laser fire from the UEF dreadnought, the railgun didn’t miss though and ripped into the ZC dreadnought this time doing some damage, the ZC dreadnoughts PDS stopped two missiles launched by the UEF dreadnought but one got through blowing a large hole in the side of the ZC dreadnought.

The UEF frigate flew in behind the ZC dreadnought and launched two missiles into the rear of the now defenceless ZC dreadnought, those missiles rocket the big ship as their warheads tore into the ship’s hull.

The ZC dreadnought was not out of this fight though and moved around the UEF dreadnought coming in close behind the big ship and fired off a full broadside ripping huge chunks from the big ships hull, then it hit the ship with a shot from its railgun destroying the UEF ships shields!!

The remaining ZC frigate turned sharply towards the UEF dreadnought and hit it with more laser shots but its missiles were easily stopped by the dreadnoughts PDS.

Turn four and the engineers on the ZC dreadnought could not get the ships shields back up losing their advantage, if they survived this battle I am sure they will have to take more training.

The UEF dreadnought slowly moves around bringing as many lasers as it can on the now defenceless ZC dreadnought, ignoring the small ZC frigate.

The shots from the UEF dreadnought cause damage throughout the ZC ship and the railgun manages to hit a critical system and takes out many of the ships weapon control systems, that could be a disaster for the ZC dreadnought.

The UEF frigate puts a few more holes in the big ZC dreadnought, but the big ship, although badly damaged is still in this fight.

The ZC dreadnoughts Captain orders the ship to be turned hard and to hit the UEF dreadnought with everything they had left, every shot hit and ripped away chunks of hull, but it was still flying, so he ordered the weapons officer to fire their last missiles… but the UEF dreadnought’s PDS stopped them all.

The ZC frigate turned around and directed its laser fire at the UEF dreadnought finally stopping the big ship, the UEF Captain signalled he was surrendering, the battle was over.

Well that was great fun, I really was unsure which way that battle was going to go, after losing half of its lasers I thought the Zeta Colony dreadnought was going to be in real trouble, and with the UEF ships managing to get the initiative every turn ( they got the first dice on all four turns, and the first two dice on three of those turns! )

But having failed to get its shields back up for two turns and then to lose its shields altogether from a critical hit meant the UEF dreadnought really was up against it from the start.

And when they fired off seven PDS shots at one missile and missed!!!! I knew they were going to have trouble, oh and after destroying the ZC frigate the bombers were destroyed as well, lots of bad luck for the UEF force.

Still lots of fun and a nice change to get some spaceships on the table, rules writing and designing stuff has sort of taken over my actual gaming time, so it was good to get in a game.

You never know how a Stars & Lasers game will go and this battle was no exception, excitement right from the start, both dreadnoughts took a huge pounding from each other and at the end the ZC dreadnought was down to only two hull points left, so a really close battle.