Well now I am back at work I am finding it harder to get in a game but over the last few evenings I managed to get in a playtest of another Stars & Lasers scenario, this time using some simple solo rules mechanics.
So for this game the idea was that a local policing force finds a pirate fleet hiding within a the site of an old battle, the pirates were using the old wrecked ships to try and hide their location while they carried out their repairs.
The main pirate converted heavy freighter has to survive for seven turns while the engineers on board repair the ships FTL drive, until this is repaired they cannot escape.
The policing force has to try and destroy the big pirate ship before it can escape.
Forces are –
Pirates have one converted heavy freighter with three converted clippers, one converted light freighter and four converted civilian liners.
Military policing force have two light cruisers, one destroyer and five frigates.
Because of the scenario the Attackers were the Policing force and they rolled Aggressive while the Pirates were the Defending force and rolled Defensive, so no real surprises there.
The set-up was done with all the pirates within the centre of the debris field and all ships at zero speed, and the policing force was split into two and coming in at full speed.
The random event for the turn was that one random policing ship got to fire twice this turn, but it was so far away it didn’t hit anything.
Turn one saw every pirate ship react and start to move, the policing forces both flew at full speed towards the centre and the pirates, they released a couple of missiles to hopefully catch a few of the slow-moving pirate ships.
Turn two random event was again not very exciting and didn’t have any effect, the pirates again all pushed their engines gaining more speed and most moved or turned towards the debris scattered around them hoping that this would reduce the number of hits from the policing force.
None of the missiles from the first turn had reached the pirates yet this gave them plenty of time to either use their PDS on them or simply move out of the way.
The policing force managed to take out a few of the pirates shields with some long shots but other than that nothing much happened, the debris was making it very hard for the policing force to hit their targets.
Turn three and the random event gave one of the pirate liners a chance to move further into the debris field which helped protect it a while longer.
One group of policing ships started to move in on the big old pirate freighter they had managed to get in from the front and from behind, this could be a bad thing for the pirates.
The policing ships started to find their targets and lots of the pirates had lost their shields this turn a few took some damage but nothing too worrying.
Turn four and a single alien ship appeared out of nowhere and fired at one of the pirate clippers taking out its shield and lightly damaging it, but luckily its missile never hit it or that would have finished it for definite, the alien ship vanished as quickly as it had appeared!
Another one of the pirate clippers managed to start a boarding action against one of the policing force frigates, could these fearsome fighters take out the frigates crew or would the crew prove to strong for them and all die trying…
The big pirate freighter could not maneuver past one of the policing frigates and crashed into it, both ships suffered slight damage. But then the freighter fired off its rocket pack and that was the end of the frigate!
Lots of damage was taken on both sides as shot after shot found their targets, at this point apart from the loss of the frigate it was a very close game.
Turn five, oh dear I failed every roll to reinstate shields on every pirate ship! Not a great start to the turn for the pirates.
One of the pirates were so inspired by their Captain that they managed to fire an extra time this turn, and almost took out another policing frigate.
The pirates involved with the boarding action were still struggling to make any headway and were meeting heavy resistance.
The heavy freighter and the light freighter managed to get around a section of debris so used that for cover as they didn’t have any shields, even so the big ship was starting to take a bit of damage.
Turn six and I failed to regain any shields again for the pirates, oh dear that was really bad.
Another clipper managed to board another policing ship. Finally the crew of the first frigate fell to the pirates who immediately headed for safety with their prize.
All the smaller pirate ships left on the table were suffering from all the shots they took last turn so they headed back into the debris fields to try and get some relief from the lasers of the policing force.
Turn seven and the last turn of the game, and the policing force had to stop the big freighter this turn or it would be able to FTL off the board to safety, its engineers were almost ready.
Every policing ship that was close enough to fire at her did, and well somehow the big old freighter managed to survive!! It only had two more points of damage left but hey that is a win for the pirates.
That was such a close game, I thought the pirates were going to lose after I failed their shield rolls and then to fail again the next turn should have been the end, but the freighter just kept soaking up the damage.
The policing ships were in a bad way at the end as the pirates had put a lot of hurt on them as well, even though the pirates were out gunned from the start they did really well.
The pirate boarding actions were really hard and I was pleased that at least one managed to win, I gave every ship in the policing force three Marine Defence Squads to give them the edge in boarding actions as I took it that they would be ready for the pirates.
Well only one side was controlled freely by me the other was controlled by a simple set of instructions and guides to help play games solo, I was playing the pirates while the system guided the policing force.
I am still in the process of finishing off the simple solo rules, hopefully I can get them released fairly soon.
