Time for another round of fun and frolics!
A 5 player game this time, with the following teams:
Me : The Mentak Coalition – Yellow
Katelyn : The Ghosts of Creuss – Blue
Scott : The Barony of Letnev – Red
Jason : The Naalu Collective – Green
Ian : The Clan of Saar – Black
We decided to do a board layout with players placing tiles, but then randomise who had which homeworld location AFTER the board was built. We hope that this would force people to ‘spread the love’ rather than create themselves a Utopian paradise of a pie slice if they had a decent hand of systems.
Did it work out? Well for me it did; I dropped some quite powerful planets in one of the ‘easy slices’. Katelyn didn’t fare very well at all, and others were fairly average.
On with the game…
By the end of the first turn I’ve used Warfare to establish a strong starting spread of planets and manoeuvre ships to Mecatol, ready to take the an Objective next turn. Jason and Ian have already gone at it…
…A dispute over an equi-distant system sees Jason attack one of Ian’s early expeditionary fleets. Jason wins the space combat but Ian keeps the ground.
A turn later, and I’ve got my second VP from Mecatol adjacency (first from resource spend). I’m already farming Trade Goods from everyone like crazy, and the trade economy starts to shut down because of it. Katelyn has also scored adjacency and Jason is posed for Mecatol. Scott and Ian establish their resource supply planets but Katelyn is struggling a little.
Next turn, and Jason secures Mecatol. I build my flagship as I have the secret objective ‘Unviel Flagship’. Katelyn has pushed up to my border, but we agree that I’ll keep the system next to my homeworld. Scott puts threat on Mecatol as well.
Mecatol taken and a strong supply line… Jason is setting up for the long haul.
Later on and the board has turned into a bit of a minefield. I take Mecatol from Jason. Ian has taken one of my systems for a Secret Obj VP, and Katelyn has a forward outpost adjacent to Mecatol. Scott has built a very large fleet and is threatening Jason’s borders.
Close mid game! Jason has a 1 point lead on everyone else, who are all tied. There’s 2 very juicy 2VP objectives, one of which I can score easily due to my tech (mirror computing). The one one causes the usual suspect glances around the table!
With Jason threatening Mecatol, I move forward and hit his staging area. I secure the space at low losses, but the ground remains his. I’ll take a blockade… In the Agenda phase I win a VP for a holy planet in my space.
Easily scoring the public objective, I take the lead as most others score a single VP.
With home worlds being threatened I withdraw slightly to take stock. Jason forces my back off his staging area, and I retreat with light losses. Scott has a large fleet ready that an hit Mecatol or Jason’s home world. Ian attempts to take some of my space but comes in relatively light with ground troops; 1 troop each on the 2 planets – 1 I win, the other we wipe each other so I still hold it.
Scott drives my ships from Mecatol but brings no ground troops. Ian takes the system next to my Homworld so I counter with a tech 2 cruiser wolfpack fleet. With my ambush ability, assault cannon and very 1 sided rolling (in my favour!), I wipe out his fleet for almost no loss.
Next turn on, and Jason is 2pts from victory and will win in the end phase due to his snake initiative. No-one can take his homeworld due to Diplomacy. All I have is this hail mary secret objective, drawn thus turn in desperation!…
Only a lone cruiser is in range and strikes forward against Scott’s flagship. Maybe he can dodge 6 PDS shots and take down the Flagship…
Nah. The PDS blow the crap out of it….
Jason wins, scoring 2 techs in 4 colors to take it over the line!
Afterthoughts
Another awesome game; we actually finished at 130am this time! It was really close up to the end.
Katelyn had a tough time of it as her resource supply never really took off. Scott and Ian played well and scored consistently but in the end Jason played it extremely well, able to deal with a number of threats and keep his nerve to the end.
Top times 🙂
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