It’s mine I tell you… A Stars & Lasers battle

I didn’t manage to get to the club this week so I decided to have a solo game of Stars & Lasers, I decided it would be a simple attack over a mining facility based in an asteroid field.

So two colonies have sent two fairly strong forces in to the asteroid field to decide the fate of the asteroid mining facility, all diplomatic attempts have failed…

I decided for this game to have both sides play solo and I would just roll their dice, both sides would be following the basic guides set out in my Stars & Lasers Solo Games supplement.

So I rolled to see which force would be the attacker and which would be the defender, the Red and White ships ended up being the attackers and the Dark ships would be the defenders.

I then rolled for both to see how they would play during the game, and both rolled as Neutral, so both sides would be cautious and wouldn’t be doing anything risky or crazy!

I also decided that I would use the Random Events table in the game, but decided against adding any of the Special Events, so I just shuffled up the remaining playing cards ( 2 – 10 ) and one card would be drawn at the beginning of each turn except the first turn ( the ships are not close enough to benefit from a lot of the random events )

I picked the forces for both sides using 1,200 points each, I tried to give a good mix of ships for both forces.

The Red & White ships ( Corellion Colony ) have –

1 x Battleship with turreted Rail Gun and 2 x Engineers to help with reinstating the shields.

2 x Light Cruisers

1 x Destroyer

2 x Frigates

1 x Corvette

The Dark ships ( Astraeus Colony ) have –

1 x Battlecruiser with turreted Rail Gun and 3 x Engineers

1 x Heavy Cruiser with turreted Rail Gun and 3 x Engineers

1 x Light Cruiser

2 x Destroyers

1 x Corvette

I set up the table with a few asteroids and the mining station on the centre asteroid, this would take no part in the game, it is there just as a piece of scenery and the thing both sides are fighting over.

Setup of the ships done and ready to start, I put all the Astraeus ships together giving the two bigger ships some protection, but I split the Corellion force slightly, with the Battleship getting a little protection from the Frigates and Corvette, I set the two Light Cruisers apart with the Destroyer backing them up.

Turn one and the Corllion ships all start to move forward heading for the gap to the left of the mining facility, this put them opposite the Astraeus ships.

The Corellion ships fired off a large salvo of missiles to try and break up the Astraeus force, but neither sides missiles got through the massed PDS fire.

The Astraeus force decide to move towards the left of the mining facility trying to get out of the way of those missiles.

Both sides tried some long-range fire but only a couple of shields were taken out on the small Corvettes, the Corellion Corvette failed to get it’s shields back up, that could cause the little ship a few problems next turn.

Turn two, one of the Corellion Light Cruisers got the chance to fire at the enemy Corvette taking down both of its shields!!

The Corellion Corvette saw an opportunity to get in behind the Astraeus Heavy Cruiser it took out two of its shields with its lasers and put a missile into its rear section!! The Heavy Cruiser’s PDS was recharging so it was defenceless against the missile, the Battlecruiser held off from using its PDS at the moment as there were likely to be more missiles coming their way this turn.

Both of the Corellion Light Cruisers moved in to support their Corvette and started stripping away shields from the Astraeus Heavy Cruiser, and managing to do some damage, only one of the cruisers managed to fire off missiles but the Astraeus Battlecruiser used its PDS this time to protect the Heavy Cruiser destroying the enemy missiles before they hit.

The Astraeus missiles were easily dealt with by the two Corellion Light Cruisers, which was annoying as they were meant to slow those ships down.

Three of the Corellion ships failed to get their shields back up, would this give the Astraeus ships an advantage this turn?

Turn three and the Captain of the Corellion Destroyer managed to get some extra speed from his ship and flew around a large asteroid and the Destroyer managed to get closer to the Astraeus ships.

The destroyer actually managed to get in next to the Astraeus Heavy Cruiser and fire off two missiles while taking down three shields from the Battlecruiser, the missiles were easily taken out by Astraeus PDS on the Heavy Cruiser and a nearby friendly Destroyer.

Then the Corellion Battleships moved slowly around and fired a broadside into the rear of the Astraeus Heavy Cruiser… ouch!! that almost cut the heavy ship in half!!

Then the Battleship fired its Rail gun finishing off the Heavy Cruiser, what was left of the big ship slowly drifted off deeper into the asteroid field.

After losing the Heavy Cruiser I rolled to see what effect if any this would have on the Astraeus force, and the force was obviously a little shaken by the loss of their ship, their aggression level has now changed to Defensive.

The Astraeus Light Cruiser moves in to support the Battlecruiser and fires off some long-range shots at the Corellion Destroyer, and one of the shots hit one of the Destroyers missiles which exploded ripping the Destroyer apart!!

After losing this ship I rolled for the Corellion aggression level and they were not happy, they aggression level has now changed to Aggressive!!

Both forces traded a lasers shots taking out a few shields, they tried firing a couple of missiles at each other but these was quickly destroyed by PDS.

Turn Four and one of the Astraeus Destroyers has had a malfunction and has lost power to some of its weapon systems, the ships engineers are doing their best to get the systems back up and running, but for now this ship will have to rely on its missiles.

The two Corellion Light Cruisers powered forward and headed for the Astraeus Battlecruiser, firing off missiles and their forward firing lasers, all the missiles were destroyed before they hit the Battlecruiser but the lasers did take out the big ships shields and managed to do a small amount of damage to the ship’s hull.

The Astraeus Battlecruiser moved slowly around a large asteroid and opened up with all its weapons on several Corellion targets, it hit the Frigate in front of it with lasers and it also manages to get two missiles past its PDS, causing the ship to lose life support, this caused panic on board the ship while the engineers tried desperately to get the system repaired.

It also put a Rail Gun shot into the Corellion Battleship hitting the ships bridge taking out comm’s, the Battlecruiser also manages to take down a Light Cruisers shields and doing light damage to the sleek Corellion ship.

This was really bad for the Corellion force, its ships were in disarray, because of the lost comm’s the Battleship couldn’t give any orders to its crew so it continued to moved forward ramming into one of its own Frigates almost destroying the smaller ship!!

And while out of control the other Corellion Frigate flew straight into an asteroid, escape pods could be seen leaving the small ship moments before it exploded…

One of the Astraeus Destroyers saw an opportunity to do what Destroyers do best, it moved in between two Corellion ships firing off missiles as it went.

Two missiles instantly vaporised the tiny Corvette as the small ships PDS system just couldn’t stop the deadly missiles.

The Corellion Battleship had more luck against the Destroyers missiles and its PDS took them out easily.

The second Astraeus Destroyer saw its opportunity also and moved in to fire missiles at the now defenceless Battleship, both missiles hit home doing considerable damage.

A few more laser shots were exchanged between the remaining ships with only a few shields being taken down, no more damage was taken by either side.

Well the Battlecruiser and its two supporting Destroyers were the stars of that turn, that has swung the battle round in favour of the Astraeus force, can the Corellion force do anything to bring them back into this fight?

Turn five and the Astraeus ships held onto their advantage at the beginning of this turn, the two Destroyers moved around the slowly approaching enemy battleship and fired off their last missiles, but only managed to get one through the big ship’s defences.

Then the Battlecruiser added its weight to the fight and stripped the Battleships shields and tore huge holes in its hull, with its Rail Gun easily punching through the Battleships armour.

And finally the Astraeus Light Cruiser hits one of the Battleships reactors and explosions rip through the big ship, seeing this the remaining Corellion ships turn and leave the asteroid field.

Wow ok that didn’t turn out the way I thought it would!

The Corellion ships were still in a fairly good position even after their bad turn four, but the Battleship took so many hits in turn five that it was reeling from them when the Astraeus Light Cruiser managed to get two critical hits and blew the big ship apart!!

During that game I rolled some of the best dice rolls I have ever had, the Astraeus Battlecruiser did nine hits on the Battleship in that last turn!!!!

And then the Light Cruiser getting two critical hits was very unexpected, the explosions from those two hits did another eight hits and that was the end of the Battleship.

Even my rolls for PDS for both sides was well above my normal levels, some missiles did still get through but not as many normal.

But hey it wasn’t all good, I did still manage to pull off a spectacular roll at one point in the game, my Heavy Cruiser needed 6’s or more on six dice to hit, the blue dice was for its Rail Gun… two 1’s two 2’s a 3 and a 5, yep that was not great 😢

With shooting like that the Heavy Cruiser really did deserve to be destroyed!!

The Astraeus ships won the day but I am sure the Corellion ships will be back some day to re-take the mining facility.

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7 Comments

  1. Vic

    Hi Mac,

    Great Batrep & an awesome battle – the read through was brilliant & I really thought the Astraeus Colony was a the way to defeat!

    I get runs on my dice like that – although I don’t think I’ve ever managed 9 hits in a row (I do tend to fight at greater distances though, typically 10-12″ and don’t get too close – too many collisions!).
    And my bad luck is the same!

    But it has given me a similar idea to try for myself …

    • Mac

      Hi Vic,

      Thanks I am glad you enjoyed the Batrep.

      It was a great fun game with lots of exciting moments… it didn’t go the way I thought it would though, the Battleship was looking like it was dominating the table until that last turn.
      Even the turn before when it was hit by the Rail Gun and it lost comm’s and it rammed the Frigate didn’t seem to worry it much.
      Good fun

      Mac

    • Mac

      Hi Zac,

      Thank you.

      I had great fun designing them but wasn’t sure how they would look when printed.
      Now they are printed and painted I really like how they turned out.

      Mac

    • Mac

      Hi Jack,

      Thanks.

      I do like to give a ‘reason’ for a battle as it gives a better feel to the game than just a straight up meeting engagement.
      Even if, like this battle, it is simply a fight over the control of a mining facility, a little backstory makes the game feel better… or is that just me being odd?

      Mac

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