The game was a Federation vs. Klingon 1000pt game (I don't have any of my other SFU ships painted yet..it's only been about four years now). On the Fed side I had a Command Cruiser (CC) represented by the USS Constitution (I know, the Connie isn't a CC, but I don't have a proper CC and the other heavy cruiser doesn't have decals on it so it was the easiest way to distinguish), an as of yet to be named Heavy Cruiser (CA) that we'll imagine for now to be a certain ship that isn't to be named in the SFU, and two Old Light Cruisers (oCL). For the Klingons there were two of the iconic antagonists to the CA...the ever present D7 battlecruiser and two F5 frigates.
RAdm Micheal commanded the CC and an oCL and Capt Zachary commanded the CA and the other oCL. I commanded a D7 and an F5, whilst Phillip commanded the other pair. The first turn was closing and long range phaser-1 shots that amounted to minimal damage, though the CA did lose a number of weapons. Michael advanced his oCL while moving his CC only one hex forward. Zachary was a little more ambitious, moving forward as much as his ships would allow. Phillip, embracing his inner Klingon charged forward while I maneuvered around the edge for a little saber dancing. Phillip fired four drones and I added another one all targeted at the CC.
In the second turn Phillip charged head long into the oncoming cruisers which led to his brothers focusing fire on him. This led to one of the challenging aspects of playing with younger children who haven't developed a sense of sportsmanship yet. He got upset and stormed out because his brothers were obviously being unfair. Though to be honest, they weren't being very sportsmanlike either. This was addressed over the course of the next half hour before we could continue play.Michael advanced each of his ships one hex forward while Zachary cautiously advanced to within overload range. I continued to advance around the edge coming within overloaded disruptor range of Zachary's CA since he had already taken some damage. The drones were a few hexes outside of reaching the CC this turn. Phillip concentrated on Zachary's closer CA and I finished it off (despite some abysmal dice rolls on my part). Michael destroyed Phillip's F5 and put a hurt on his D7. My D7 weathered a few pot shots, but the F5 remained unscathed. In the end phase a new wave of was launched targeting Zachary's CA.
Turn three saw the continued rush of Phillip's D7, which didn't survive the turn. The The drones caused an amount of damage to be expected for five flights against an undamaged CC, though they did a good job of reducing the forward shields. The oCls continued to be pretty much ignored as killing the larger cruisers were sufficient to remove a player from the game from a victory condition point of view (destroy half or more of a player's total point value).
In turn four, I turned to get the CC into a broadside arc and Michael obliged by turning into a head on course to my ships, effectively crossing his own T...with severly depleted forward shields (they were at 1, meaning as long as I rolled a hit it was fairly certain to cause damage). The second wave of drones were spectacularly ineffective, and poor rolling on my part only barely destroyed the CC. However, it was a Pyrrhic victory as overloaded torpedoes rendered my D7 into so much space debris. Had we continued with the oCL and F5, the game would've gone to Michael as the F5 had lost too many weapons to cause any significant damage to the light cruiser. But victory conditions what they were, we called it a tie. (No photo, my chief of photography again ran off, I may need to request another person to fill the billet...)
Even using the simplified movement I think Starmada may be a bit overwhelming for the boys, especially Phillip, but they had fun. I think next time will be a three-way NSL vs FSE vs Mauridians in an effort to use some less complicated shielding rules. Or who knows, I might play a first game of Silent Death, having had that on the shelf for about two and half years now. One thing I do know is that I need to get some F6 Frignaughts and get my D5W done and on the table. Stinking F5s just irritate the heck out of me with their shorter ranged disruptors and laughable phaser-1 array. Speaking of Silent Death, I need to get some X-Wing and TIE Fighter models to use the Star Wars variant of those rules. I've pretty much given up on the idea of finding suitable Zentraedi fighters to do a Macross battle.
I've gotten a little bit of painting done on the GZG High Tech Grav Tank. The turret and top half of the hull are base coated.
Here's a look at the rest of table with a few projects in progress and a few waiting to enter spacedock.
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