Star Navy at MillCon

Friday night at Millenniumcon, I ran a game of 5150: Star Navy.  I'd prepared an eight-player scenario in which eight players each take two starships, a dreadnought and a cruiser. 

The setup has the players' admirals on the smaller ships docked with a space station in the middle of an asteroid field, with their larger vessel on the opposite side of the board.  Looking back, I probably should have started all the cruisers facing out, instead of in, to get the game moving a little quicker.

As it turned out, only three people showed up to play the game, and I gave them each two pairs of ships to handle.  Two of them, Joe and Coach K, had played Star Navy before.  The third player, Jesse, was new to the game.  While I could have taken the final four ships, I decided to instead concentrate on refereeing the battle.

When hostilities broke out (as they always seem to do in these situations), the players had to get their commander back to the flagship and escape.  We quickly saw our first casualties.  Once each force had a few fighters launched, we saw some more losses.

Eventually, a couple of admirals managed to return to their dreadnoughts as each side continued to launch as many fighters as they could.

The fighters proved dangerous in large numbers, but the larger vessels were hard to kill, soaking up a lot of damage from the small craft.

Eventually the fighters took their toll, but Joe's remaining dreadnought still kept taking hit after hit, limping slowly to the edge of the asteroid field.

Finally, unable to escape its tormentors, the DN exploded.  Still, it was a great run that almost succeeded.

As the game progressed, other capital ships bit the dust, and players' forces dwindled.  In the end, Jesse, the first-time Star Navy player, ended up accomplishing the most and had the most ships left on the board, so he was the winner.

The players all enjoyed the scenario, and I had a fun time running the game.  I hope to run another Star Navy scenario at next year's Millennium Con.