Battle report: Full Thrust furballs

Last month, I spent a weekend wargaming with Sting52jb, who came into town for some spaceship battles.  I played my first games of Full Thrust, which is a pretty fun buckets o' dice game.  We played a quick game Friday, three secorts against three escorts, just to learn the basics of the game.

I'd never played using preplotted movement, and I like how it forces you to think ahead, trying to anticipate where your opponent will be, instead of reacting to where your opponent is like in other games.

The first game was a little simplistic, in that we didn't use threshhold checks when the ships received a certain amount of damage.  The next day, we played a game using more ships and all the rules.  Threshhold checks proved an exciting way of simulating the randomness of combat damage, as you never know when a shot from a class 1 beam weapon might get through and damage a vital system.  Of course, my camera's battery decided to quit at that point, so I had to take pictures using my phone.  Still, the photos came out OK (if slightly fuzzy) with a little digital manipulation.

I used my Galactic Knights Terrans as proxies for a Federated Stats Europa fleet.  I was escorting transports to a planet defended by Sting52jb's New Anglian Confederation. 

We also used fighters and missiles.  As you can see from the photos, I now understand why some gamers refer to those rules as putting "crap on the map."  Although it makes the game table a little crowded, it also provides some excitement and shows how powerful attack craft and ship-to-ship projectiles can be.

Like I said, there's a lot of (six-sided) dice rolling in this game, similar to Warhammer or Flames of War.  It plays quickly, and the threshhold checks give the game a lot of flavor, as we had ships lose partial engine power or life support, as well as launch bays and weapons. 

My thanks go out to Sting52jb for teaching me how to play Full Thrust.  I had a good time learning this game, and I look forward to playing FT again sometime.