Sunday Starships: Galactic Knights edition

I had a chance to teach Galactic Knights to a new player on Saturday, a friend's 10-year-old son.  He and I have played Heroscape together for some time, but I told him I had a spaceship game he might be interested in instead.  I showed him the miniatures and we practiced GK's vector movement before heading out for lunch.   

When we returned from our meal, I set out a basic scenario for our first game: two cruisers (each a Ranger-class, but while I took a Terran craft, the other player picked an Entomalian ship for his vessel), starting on opposite sides of the planet.  My friend, who has an inexplicable fondness for the University of Texas, christened his vessel the UT Rocks.  As a good Aggie, I responded by naming my ship the Death to Longhorns.  The first turn, we both accelerated toward each other, but missed with our long-range heavy particle beam batteries.  We coasted past each other, turning to face so that our double-shielded fronts kept facing each other.  We then circled around, with a few beams dinging each other's armor. 

However, amid all the beam shooting, I neglected to launch any missiles, while my young opponent did fire off his first salvo, which detonated behind me, shredding my rear armor and taking out one medium battery.  I did deploy missiles the next turn, striking the rear of the ship, but only two struck home.  Of course, my enemy shot off his second batch of missiles, which chewed up the rest of my armor and took out my heavy battery and an engine.  Subsequent beam fire eliminated more beams and my missile launcher.  In response, I just scratched the paint on the other ship.

With my maneuverability cut from 9 to 5, I couldn't get away without exposing my unarmored backside to his beams.  So I slowly attempted to back away from the planet and make my escape.  I was just delaying the inevitable, however.  Although we called the game because of time, it was obvious I was going to lose.  We had a good time playing, and I seem to have made a convert to spaceship gaming--my youthful protege wants to play again, with more ships.  And after seeing my homemade planet on the table, he even promised to construct a Mars-like planet for me, since he had made one of his own for a school report.  A successful day of gaming.