Tonight, I playtested the Pirate supplement for Stars & Lasers again, this time I did an attack on a large convoy by a rag tag pirate fleet.
The convoy was made up of four heavy freighters and one light freighter, these were being protected by two medium and two small escorts.
The pirates had a large converted freighter supported by a converted light freighter and two converted civilian liners, they also had brought along four converted clippers with them for boarding actions.
The first turn saw the convoy moving flat out and running for the other end of the table, the pirates moved in, sending the four clippers towards the front freighter’s while the rest of the pirates raced in to attack the escorts.
The second turn the pirate clippers closed in on the freighter’s and used their grapples and started their boarding actions, three had made contact while the forth moved towards its target ( thanks to my rubbish dice rolling they all survived the hail of laser fire from the escort ships! )
The pirates were dishing out lots of laser hits most were being soaked up by the escorts shields, but a few were getting through, the escorts for their part were not having the same luck, most of their shots were missing their targets, so for the moment at least it was looking good for the pirates.
The third turn saw damage spread across both fleets, the pirate boarding parties were starting to fight their way through the freighters.
The two converted civilian liners were starting to suffer, they had lost over half of their hull points already, so they had to try and keep away from the escorts lasers for the next couple of turns.
The forth turn was an interesting turn, the pirate boarding parties managed to take control of two large freighters, but the crew of the small freighter had a different plan, they managed to kill all the pirates and head full speed for safety ( again because of my rubbish dice rolling )
The last pirate clipper was destroyed before it managed to reach any of the remaining two freighters.
This turn also saw one of the medium escorts spin off into space as a dead ship, and the two pirate controlled heavy freighters started to head for safety.
The last turn of the game saw one of the small escort destroyed and one of the converted civilian liners finally died, two heavy freighters headed for safety with a badly damaged medium escort, the last small escort put a few shots into the rear of the leaving pirate ships, but that was it the battle was over…
To sum up – the pirates had managed to capture two heavy freighters for the loss of one converted civilian liner and two converted clippers, the convoy managed to get two heavy freighters and a light freighter to safety for the loss of one medium escort and one light escort… so although it was a close fight I feel that the pirates would have been happy with the outcome, so I give them the victory this time.
The converted clippers and the boarding actions worked well, the clippers normally find it harder to get to their targets, but because of my bad rolling it was a little easier for them this time.
The pirates main ship ( the converted heavy freighter ) was a tough nut to crack, it took a pounding but stayed around and was still working fine at the end of the game, the converted civilian liners are fragile but played their part in the battle, the escorts worked well and if my dice rolling had been better they would have caused a lot more problems for the pirates, but for this game the luck was with the pirates.
