Those asteroids are mine!!

I had a Stars & Lasers game at the club this week and decided on a simple scenario involving a mining station close to an asteroid field.

A small independent mining company has set up a mining station on a large asteroid close by a large asteroid field rich in exotic ores and are claiming the mining rights as theirs.

But two nearby colonies have decided that the ores in this asteroid field will be useful to their colonies and so have each sent in a force to take control of the asteroid field.

And so the battle begins…

Well we went with 1500 points for the battle and would not have anything bigger than a battleship for the game, this still meant we could have some big ships on the table if we wanted.

I went with –

1x Battleship with turreted railgun

1x Fighter Carrier with turreted pulse laser and with three flights of bombers and three flights of fighters

2x Light Cruisers

3x Frigates

My opponent went with –

1x Battleship with two engineer teams

1x Fighter Carrier with four flights of bombers and two flights of fighters

1x Light Cruiser

2x Destroyers

3x Frigates

( My opponent went with an extra Destroyer rather than adding heavier weapons to his two big ships, this also gave him and extra dice in the bag )

The only other thing to worry about was the crew on the mining station didn’t like either side in this battle and would fire their double lasers at anything that was close… this was done at the end of each turn and they would target the closest ship to the station.

We did a rolling set up with the ships moving onto the table as they activated, this wasn’t great for me as I think I had put almost every ship I had on the table before my opponent had even put one!!

Turn two and I decided to move everything I had to the left off the mining station this would put me in close to the smaller part of his force, I was hoping that a numerical advantage would help.

Well the first long shots of the game just saw one or two shields being taken down and no ship taking any damage.

The crew on the mining station selected their target and fired hitting my opponent’s Battleship, but only managed to take down a shield.

Turn three and I moved my Frigates and Light Cruisers towards his ships and fired off a few missiles, I didn’t really expect them to do much just split his ships up a little, well one missile got through and did huge amounts of damage causing multiple explosions on board one of his frigates and ripped the little ship to bits!!!

I also managed to get two or three shots into one of his Destroyers, but not much else, but on the whole a good turn for me.

In reply my opponent took down the shields on three of my ships but didn’t manage to do any damage… I now just had to get those shields back up!!

The crew on the mining station selected their target and fired again hitting my opponent’s Battleship, but again only taking down a shield.

Turn four and my engineers did a good job reinstated all my shields but the ones on one of my Frigates, well that wasn’t too bad for me.

Also this turn saw some of the bombers from both sides making attack runs on enemy ships, the two flights of fighters I had already launched were starting to earn their keep and were starting to hit the enemy bombers, they didn’t manage to destroy them all so a few managed to get in close and damage a couple of my ships.

This turn saw lots of close-range shooting from both sides and plenty of missiles getting through, luckily my opponent’s dice rolling wasn’t being very kind to him as his missiles didn’t really do much damage to my ships.

With me moving all my ships to the left of the mining station slowed down my opponent’s attack slightly as he tried to get his Carrier and Battleship back around and into position to attack my ships.

My light cruisers both attacked an enemy Destroyer and between them blew the ship apart then flew on to chase the enemy Carrier, one of their missiles had managed to hit one of the Light Cruisers reactors causing huge explosion’s, they saw no escape pods leaving the ship as it spun off to be lost in the asteroid field.

The crew on the mining station selected their target and fired again hitting my opponent’s Carrier, actually doing a little damage on the big ship.

Turn five and none of my ships managed to get their shields back up!!! I had a feeling that this turn may be bad…

The bombers on both sides flew in to attack ships with most being destroyed either by PDS or fighters, the bombers that did manage to score hits again only managed small amounts of damage ( my opponent was having a bad day with his dice rolling! )

Then I moved my Battleship in to try and destroy a couple of the enemy ships, I fired off a full broadside plus my railgun at a close by Destroyer and only managed do inflict light damage on the very lucky ship, all my other shooting failed to do much either in this turn…

But my opponent was starting to find his luck ( or were the weapons officers finally settling down and doing their job properly ) shot after shot found their targets ripping huge holes in my ships, my Carrier was really suffering as it had taken huger amounts of damage this turn.

My Battleship, because of also having no shields was in real trouble, it had taken so much damage I was surprised it was still in one piece!!

Hey but the crew on the mining station obviously felt sorry for me and hit my opponents Carrier again doing more damage, if I survived this battle I would buy them all a beer.

Turn six and the last of the fighters from both sides fought it out with both sides losing several fighters, I had moved my remaining flight of bombers away slightly so that they might survive to attack again later ( if there was a later! )

More and more shots hit my Carrier it was now limping along with repair crews doing everything they could to keep the big ship flying and in this battle.

An enemy Frigate found itself in a bad position and had no option but to collide with my Carrier… the huge ship erupted in a massive explosion throwing large chunks of hull in all directions!!

My Battleship took damage from this flying debris along with three of the enemy ships.

The mining station crew watched this in shock and disbelief, they were so distracted that they fired at my opponent’s Carrier and missed.

Turn seven my opponent hit my Battleship with everything he had, finally moving in his Carrier in to finish the big ship off, as the dead hulk span slowly away the two remaining ships in my fleet decided that it was best that they were somewhere else rather than here and turned and left the sector.

I was robbed!!!

That was going my way for much of that battle with lots of early damage causing a silly number of critical hits, much to my opponent’s dismay, but then it all just slipped away over the last two turns.

I think that I must have got about eight or nine critical rolls during the game!! Compared to my opponent’s two or three, although the last critical hit that blew up my Carrier was pretty spectacular, I just wish he had done more damage to his own ships,  even the damn Frigate that caused the critical hit wasn’t destroyed!!!

It was a great fun game and my opponent played really well and had the luck just at the right time to get a convincing win, I did destroy three of his smaller ships but hadn’t really done much to worry his capital ships at all.

I think the game could have ended a lot sooner than it did, but my opponent could only roll ones for all his missile damage for most of the game, this I must admit I found amusing as I normally roll all the ones!

Anyway a well deserved victory for my opponent, this is a scenario that I will definitely play again, it was a fun little scenario and it was just right for a club night game.

Come on over to my Discord server to chat about your games of Stars & Lasers and show us some pictures of the battles, or show us some pictures of your ships, or just come and chat about the rules.

You will find the link to the server on the community tab at the top of the site.