Fifth Frontier War concludes

At the beginning of the month, Joe and I finished playing the old Traveller universe wargame Fifth Frontier War. Picking up where we left off last time, turn 20 saw more Zhodani Consulate reinforcements begin to make their way toward the front: The 2nd and 3rd Assault Fleets and the 14th Colonial Fleet. Meanwhile, the Zho 1st Assault Fleet destroyed the last of Extalay's system defense boats and planetary militia and landed the psionic 2nd Guard regiment to defeat the Imperial colonial corps and capture the planet. However, despite heavy Zhodani bombardment from multiple fleets, the Imperial subsector capital of Regina held fast, and the Consulate ships moved on to other missions.

As the war progressed, the ZC captured Roup and held off Imperial fleets trying to retake Jewell (subsector capital) and Ruby. And in the Sword Worlds territory, at Joyuse, the Swords' low-tech 1st Infantry Corps and 7th Armored battled the Imperium's high-tech 823rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and several brigades of low-tech infantry levies--with neither side able to drive off the other.

Just across the border in Imperial space, the 18th Imperial Fleet tried to recapture Vilis from a Zhodani army supported by guerrilla units. At the two Sword Worlds fleets, Gram and Joyuse, accompanied by the ZC 35th Fleet, defeated the 18th Imperial Fleet, which lost its admiral in the battle. That success was short-lived, as the Imperial Corridor Fleet then eliminated the Zho 35th, including three battleship squadrons and an admiral, but the Imps could not retake the world. However, they did manage to keep the Zhodani from capturing the neighboring system of Garda-Vilis.

Battles continued as Zhodani fleets crept further and further into Imperial space:  Rech, Uakye, Frenzie, Pandrin, Ruie, Lyse, Inthe, Denotam, Enope, Arkadia. The naval squadrons were aided in their efforts by the elite Fulacin Battalion, which established a secret base to capture Kinorb, all the way in the Ryhlanor Sector (not to be confused with the system of Kinorb in the Regina subsector).

By this time, the Zhodani reinforcements were well on their way to reaching Imperial space, and the Sword Worlds and Vargr fleets were still active (although the Imperium had captured all the Vargr systems). We decided to call the game at this point and tallied up the score. My Zhodani forces had captured thirteen worlds, including a subsector capital (Jewell). Joe's Imperials had taken all four Vargr planets, along with one Sword World system (Gugnir) and one planet of the Zhodani Consulate (Farreach). Calculating the victory points based on tech levels of captured worlds, plus certain bonuses, the Zhodani eked out a marginal victory. However, I think the tide would have turned soon enough, once more Imperial reinforcements made their way to the front.

It was a good time, evocative of the space opera I devoured as a youth. However, with eyesight not as sharp as back in the day, the map was a little hard to read, and the stacks of counters sometimes difficult to handle. So Joe and I discussed making the map a little bigger, so we can fit more counters into a single hex, and so that all the information about each system is contained within the hex, instead of in the boxes on the map's edges. So yes, I want to take the lessons I learned here and play again (but maybe try out Invasion: Earth first!).