Club Night

Another cold and miserable journey to the club only to be met with a parking problem as it was a parent's evening at the school where we meet, how inconvenient, don't they realise Tuesdays are for wargaming.

Andrew had brought along his first attempt at a scenario, the Empire (me) had got wind of a Scum and Villainy, criminal/pirate base and decided to wipe it out as it was being used to raid the space lanes. In a surprise attack an Imperial force dropped in from hyper space and found themselves behind the enemy who were between them and the base. The S&V players each had forces of 100 points, Simon had taken two IG88 ships flown by assassin droids but had given them all sorts of upgrades, Andrew once again took the Hounds Tooth along with a Y-Wing and two Z95's. I fielded three Interceptors, two Defenders, one Phantom and brought along a Bounty Hunter, most of these ships had some kind of upgrade to give them target locks or defensive values.

The Imperials drop in.

 I kept my fleet in a tight formation but played loose with the Phantom as a flanker, keeping it cloaked as long as possible, this does not make it invulnerable, simply harder to hit. The enemy on seeing my approach scattered as they tried to turn around and put up a defence, Andrew was slow but Simon came on very quickly but left one IG88 sitting right in front of all my ships. I threw everything at it thinking it was a gift, although I managed to destroy her shields I did not do any real damage, Simon saved nearly all my hits. After this for a time I couldn't hit a barn door.
 

A very lucky IG88 attacks the fleet.

 At this point I wanted to turn on Simon and dogfight, Andrew was really too far away to help, I thought I stood a good chance of taking out the IG88's, but we were here to destroy the Scum base and I reluctantly drove my troops on, knowing Simon would get on my tail, but I needed all my firepower to take the station out.
 

The base comes into range.

 Sure enough I began to take losses, I could not hit back as nothing was in front of me and the Scum had a field day, before long I had lost four ships, however I could now fire at the base, I opened up and seemingly could not miss as one after another the four base modules spectacularly blew up. Game over.

Boom, game over.

 The scenario was a good idea but needs tweaking, we discussed several issues as the game unfolded, my concern was that originally the Imperials did not have enough points to make an attack, having to fend off the enemy and hit the base which had 20 hit points. I managed to get another 25 before the game started, I still think it should be more like 200 v 250. I initially thought dropping in behind the Scum would not be a big deal, but it did prove to be a nuisance for them as they fought for space to turn their ships around. Andrew took his Hounds Tooth and Y-Wing the long way around which helped me get in close to the base before they started shooting. I moaned about the 20 hit points for the base thinking it was too much, I countered this by saying the base should have at least one defence die. The guys agreed and we reduced the base to 12 hit points with a defence die. I then felt bad as when I did open up on it I could not miss and within two turns it had gone. I was prepared to call it a day but they gave me a minor win as I had lost more than 50% of my points in the attack.

It is a good premise for a scenario and I would like to play it again, it is also very hard to balance, the Scum could have taken more ships, smaller and more agile, my over the top shooting of the base could have gone the opposite way and I would only have managed a few hits before flying past the thing and having to turn back into the defenders. I on the other hand could have taken a bunch of Ties as escort for a few hard hitting ships. So a lot of different things to try out still.

 Elsewhere we had an AWI boardgame, another run at Cross of Iron and Frostgrave. Next week it is Muskets and Tomahawks, the week after I fancy taking along Dead Man's Hand as I have a neat idea for a scenario involving bounty hunters.
 

Cross of Iron, Eastern Front.

Brrrrr, Frostgrave.