I had a game at the club on Monday of Stars & Lasers, and played with my Alien Bio fleet, it was a real fun game again, and ending in a real close fought game.
( my apologies about the lack of pictures but I had left my camera at home and my phone was almost dead so I never took any photos during the game, the only picture I have was one taken by my opponent during the game )
The game was just a simple meeting engagement.
The two sides were about 1,000 points each.
For the non-bio Aliens ( he used some of his FSA ships, which do look very Alien as well )
1 x Battleship with Pulse Laser turret
2 x Battlecruisers
2 x Frigates
For the Alien Bio-ships ( I used my scratch built ships )
1 x Alien Battleship with Bio Spitter and Electropulse turret
2 x Alien Light Cruisers
4 x Alien Frigates
On the table were about eight or so asteroids just to give a little LOS blocking scenery, but it still left lots of room to manoeuvre.
Those two Battlecruisers were a worrying site on the table, them and the Battleship meant that my Aliens were going to be on the receiving end of a tons of laser shots during the game, and that meant lots of damage as of course my Aliens don’t have any shields to soak up the hits, it wouldn’t take long for them to strip away my armour and start to really hurt!!
Well turn one saw my worries becoming reality!! I lost lots of armour from several ships, if this amount of punishment kept up I could be losing this game on about turn three.
He took lots of hits on his shields but not much on any of his ships, which was how I had thought it would be.
There were some cagey manoeuvres from both fleets, but no casualties yet.
Turn two saw some more of the same from both sides I was fast losing armour and by the end of the turn I had also lost a Frigate and most of the hull of one Light Cruiser, he had taken a few more hits on a couple of his ships, but those damn shields were keeping the bulk of my shops at bay.
Oh dear things were not going well…
Turn three started better for me, I managed to concentrate a lot of firepower onto the Battleship and one Battlecruiser, both of their shields went down and a critical hit cause an internal explosion causing extra damage on the Battleship which was good, and my Alien ships seemed to have found a little bit of good fortune from somewhere as they didn’t take many hits this turn at all.
Turn four… His Battleship and one of his Battlecruisers failed to reinstate their shields, oh I did not laugh… ok maybe I did a little.
I saw the opportunity and jumped for it, I hit them with everything I had and really made a mess of them both, I think that I managed to get three critical hits this turn as well which saw an end to one Battlecruiser it’s lifeless hulk went spinning off into space never to be seen again ( ok we just moved it to the edge of the table! )
His Battleship needed to get it’s shields back next turn or it was going to be in big trouble.
I lost another Frigate, and my badly damaged Light Cruiser finally died, could I hold on for another turn or two or was the end in sight…
Turn five and the little alien gods must have been looking down at my fleet as my opponent again failed to get his Battleships shields back up, surely this was my chance!!
Well I went all out for my chance and got it, I managed to get loads of hits into the dying Battleship and finally took it out, along with his last Frigate, so that was it, his last Battlecruiser was heading for home leaving a victory for me…
That was such a good game, my fleet was struggling against so many shots and those damn shields that I thought it was not going to be my night, well I was wrong which was great.
It was such a close game that it could have gone either way right up until the very last turn.
I realised that I do need to actually make some more bigger alien bio-ships, a Heavy Cruiser or two and maybe a Carrier for some alien fighters, I have been given a few sprues of Tyranid stuff so I should have enough bits to make a few ships which will give me more options for the Alien Bio-ships.
Also, my opponent will, I think, take some extra engineers next time for his capital ships to help with repairs and reinstating his shields, because without his shields failing it would have been a much harder game for my Aliens.
For anyone interested in seeing what the rules are like, they are on sale here – http://www.wargamevault.com/product/210571/Stars–Lasers?src=latest_rule_sets
