Battle report: Friendly Fire Friday

So I had Friday off and wanted some PEW! PEW! PEW! action.  Luckily for me, ckutalik, the proprietor of the Hill Cantons blog and campaign, also had some free time that afternoon, so I invited him over for some starship combat.  Since he wanted a respite from working on his new project, he was happy for a momentary change of pace.



Entomolians accelerate to attack speed.



It was ckutalik's first time playing Galactic Knights (if I recall correctly, it was his first time playing any starship combat game), so I decided to keep it simple and give both sides the same forces.  We each took four starships: a cruiser, one destroyer leader, and a pair of destroyers.  Although I used Entomolians for my ships and ckutalik used Carnivorans for his vessels, we both used the stats for the Terran ships (the cruisers carried missiles only, none of the ships carried fighters).  No fancy scenario, just a general meeting engagement around a planet.  We started in opposite corners of the map, with the world between us.



Carnivorans maneuver in response.

 Thanks to the planet occupying several hexes in the middle of the board, maneuver became an important part of the game.  If it had just been empty space, we would have just lined up our forces and met in the middle, like when my friends and I played Warhammer back in the day.  Instead, I was able to capitalize on my opponent's mistake and keep the planet between us until I had local advantage.  He was also suprised by the speed at which ships can cross the map in this game.


Targets acquired!

 I won't get into a turn-by-turn recap, but I will say the game involved a lot of acceleration and deceleration, and turning back around, as the next two photos demonstrate.  We traded missile salvos, but I was able to shoot down all of his each time.  Because ckutalik made the mistake of separating his forces, I was able to get a couple of missiles through against his isolated destroyer leader, destroying one of its engines.  That, combined with its position on the other side of the planet, took it out of the game.



The fleets exchange fire as they drift past one another.

We traded plasma fire, and each fleet took out the engine of the other's destroyer and chewed up the armor on each other's cruiser.  By the time ckutalik had to leave and we ended the game, we each still had all our ships on the board--but one of my DDs would drift off in the next turn, and one of his was dead in the water motionless in space.  However, we both still had our CAs and DLs on the map, battered as they were, so I called it a draw.
 

The next turn saw them drifting apart, still exchanging fire.

ckutalik said he enjoyed the game and wants to play again, so it looks like we have another convert to starship gaming.  We even talked about the possibility of an ongoing campaign, where each player starts with a small ship and has a chance to capture or purchase larger craft as the game proceeds.  Not a bad way to start the weekend.