Walsall Tournament Report
My thanks to Ken and all the boys at Walsall for sorting out a most enjoyable day – great games and great fun.
Thank you.
Having achieved success with my fleets in the previous tournament, I did not see the need to change my fleet – however I would find that such success would not be forthcoming this time!
Game One
My Fleet – Balvarin (4 Razik,, 4 Sentri) 2 Demos, 4 Haven
Andy – EA –2 Chronos, 2 Chronos Missile Frigates, 1 Mrymidon, 4 Thunderbolts
I was fairly confident to start with, I had a good balanced fleet, In sinks and hopefully fighter superiority. The two fleets cruise towards each other – with a large asteroid field concealing each other for the first two turns. The Chronos adopted a formation reminiscent of a World War II bomber formation and my Attack ships began to adopt a standard circling movement. Non plussed Andy maintained his cool and as the two Centauri gunships swung round met them with a pair of Chronos. The Centuairi unleashed a hail of torpedoes which to bounced off the tough Earthers armour or were shot down by its interceptors. The return fire damaged the lead Demos, despite its own defences and a Sentri (which exploded as it tried to intercept). One the next turn the Mrymidon swung round the fields other end and was jumped by several haven one of which was pounced on by the Thunderbolts, with the Raziks out of position. The Two Demos closed into close range and the Chronos circled. Having won initiative, The Thunderbolts vaporised a haven and the Missile frigates blasted the lead Demos, destroying its ability to fire and sending it within a few points of destruction. The return fire was again ineffectual and things began to go downhill. Despite a couple of small moments – the Raziks catching and killing the T-Bolts and the Balvarin obliterating the lone Mrymidon, the Chronos calmly and methodically picked the fleet apart, absorbing the return fire with aplomb. One Chronos was finally reduced to be within 1 pt of Crippling but at the cost of the remaining fighters and Havens. Battered and harassed by the other frigates – the Balvarin opened a jump point and fled.
Big loss to a fun opponent who played to his advantages extremely well – a big zero for my opening score !!
Game Two
My Fleet – Liati, Demos, Kutai, 2 Haven
Burger – 3 Ashinta
Much less confident – I seldom do well against Minbari with Centauri and this was to be no exception. We both moved cautiously down opposite sides of the table and burger quickly dived into the favourite place of any Minbari player – an Asteroid field. I promptly stopped out of range and made it very clear I was not following him in there! Obligingly he came out again, on CDB and I Charged – the Liati swinging round to the flank to line up on all the three Minbari frigates. I got a big stroke of luck with the Cruiser seeing two of them and hitting one frigate hard, a very lucky shot taking out its Stealth, again luckily – my Assassination target! B The Return fire – always scary from a squadron hammered the Liati just as hard, stripping it of most of its damage and crew. We continued to exchange fire, with the Centuari wilting under the accurate twin linked mini beams but battering the target even as the Liati fled into cover. Sadly an Ashinta is by no means fragile and by the time it was down to its last few damage points – most of the rest of the Centauri ships were heavily damaged. Desperate to get rid of it I moved the Laiti so it could see the damaged Minbari warship and lashed out with its turret. Of course I then hit with every dice, caused two criticals, both vitals and caused a massive explosion which killed the Demos, a Haven and one of the two Rutarians which had been doing sterling work chipping away at the other two frigates. So I had the kill but only put myself in a worse position (although to be fair the two ships may have been killed by the other Ashinata. We danced around each other a bit – and I only really succeeded in loosing my remain ships and my Rutarian, including one memorable turn where two ships faced each other – I failed to see the Ashinta, but dodged all the shots back! However my dodges were to fail me in the next two turns and although I managed to cripple one Ashinta – they seemed to have gained accurate guns and the Liati was finally destroyed!
Burger was, as always a skilled opponent and good fun – he ignored his bad luck at loosing his stealth early on and soldered on to give my a bloody nose and inflict another 20 –0 defeat – Oh Dear!
Game Three
I was now firmly established in last place – and was faced with fighting against a fellow Centauri player from the Kettering Games Club for my next game.
My Fleet – Balvarin, Elutarin, 3 Demos, 1 Corvan
Alex – Balvarin, 2 Elutarin, 2 Demos,
Hmm a little similar no? So there was not likely to be much subtlety here and so it proved!! We unleashed out fleets at each other – me risking it big time by forgoing CBD and charging at my opposite numbers. A Demos each was battered and my Elutarin nearly shattered by accurate fire from its two opposite numbers and been sent adrift and only being able to fire on a 4+. I forgot this and only remembered at the end of the turn after I had caused heavy damage with it – I rolled the 4+ failed and we erased the damage! Ships hammered at each other and fighters chased it other into the swirling melee but Alex’s ships emerged triumphant – winning a clear victory but I had fought enough to scrape 3 points and drag myself up to Paul (Clanger) as we both remained at the bottom of the table!
Getting better (well a bit) – 17 – 3 Loss
Two minds here – good to see Alex playing well and handing it out to his opponent – but I would have preferred it not to be me!! : Still at least the Centauri won!!!
Game Four
Hmm a bit embaressing this one………………..
My Fleet – 2 Shadow Ships, 1 Stalker, 2 Scouts
Richard – Adira, 2 Dargan
Oh dear, to be honest when Richard unveiled his fleet I thought he was always going to be hardpressed to even get shots at my ships and so it proved. The First Dargan was cut inhalf by a horribily powerful beam shot from one Shadow Ship and on the next turn, a scoend ship shimmered into far on the Adiras flank. The second Dargan lasted another turn before being chopped into pieces by the Stalker, Scout and Ship and the Aidra suffered a big movement crit with no hope of even firing back. We called it rather than play out numerous turns of the Adira being sliced at but with no chance of even firing back
A rather hollow 20 – 0 victory for me kept me off the bottom – Sorry Richard
Great Games – Great fun - once agin my sincere thanks for all everyone did to make it such a brilliant day
My thanks to Ken and all the boys at Walsall for sorting out a most enjoyable day – great games and great fun.
Thank you.
Having achieved success with my fleets in the previous tournament, I did not see the need to change my fleet – however I would find that such success would not be forthcoming this time!
Game One
My Fleet – Balvarin (4 Razik,, 4 Sentri) 2 Demos, 4 Haven
Andy – EA –2 Chronos, 2 Chronos Missile Frigates, 1 Mrymidon, 4 Thunderbolts
I was fairly confident to start with, I had a good balanced fleet, In sinks and hopefully fighter superiority. The two fleets cruise towards each other – with a large asteroid field concealing each other for the first two turns. The Chronos adopted a formation reminiscent of a World War II bomber formation and my Attack ships began to adopt a standard circling movement. Non plussed Andy maintained his cool and as the two Centauri gunships swung round met them with a pair of Chronos. The Centuairi unleashed a hail of torpedoes which to bounced off the tough Earthers armour or were shot down by its interceptors. The return fire damaged the lead Demos, despite its own defences and a Sentri (which exploded as it tried to intercept). One the next turn the Mrymidon swung round the fields other end and was jumped by several haven one of which was pounced on by the Thunderbolts, with the Raziks out of position. The Two Demos closed into close range and the Chronos circled. Having won initiative, The Thunderbolts vaporised a haven and the Missile frigates blasted the lead Demos, destroying its ability to fire and sending it within a few points of destruction. The return fire was again ineffectual and things began to go downhill. Despite a couple of small moments – the Raziks catching and killing the T-Bolts and the Balvarin obliterating the lone Mrymidon, the Chronos calmly and methodically picked the fleet apart, absorbing the return fire with aplomb. One Chronos was finally reduced to be within 1 pt of Crippling but at the cost of the remaining fighters and Havens. Battered and harassed by the other frigates – the Balvarin opened a jump point and fled.
Big loss to a fun opponent who played to his advantages extremely well – a big zero for my opening score !!
Game Two
My Fleet – Liati, Demos, Kutai, 2 Haven
Burger – 3 Ashinta
Much less confident – I seldom do well against Minbari with Centauri and this was to be no exception. We both moved cautiously down opposite sides of the table and burger quickly dived into the favourite place of any Minbari player – an Asteroid field. I promptly stopped out of range and made it very clear I was not following him in there! Obligingly he came out again, on CDB and I Charged – the Liati swinging round to the flank to line up on all the three Minbari frigates. I got a big stroke of luck with the Cruiser seeing two of them and hitting one frigate hard, a very lucky shot taking out its Stealth, again luckily – my Assassination target! B The Return fire – always scary from a squadron hammered the Liati just as hard, stripping it of most of its damage and crew. We continued to exchange fire, with the Centuari wilting under the accurate twin linked mini beams but battering the target even as the Liati fled into cover. Sadly an Ashinta is by no means fragile and by the time it was down to its last few damage points – most of the rest of the Centauri ships were heavily damaged. Desperate to get rid of it I moved the Laiti so it could see the damaged Minbari warship and lashed out with its turret. Of course I then hit with every dice, caused two criticals, both vitals and caused a massive explosion which killed the Demos, a Haven and one of the two Rutarians which had been doing sterling work chipping away at the other two frigates. So I had the kill but only put myself in a worse position (although to be fair the two ships may have been killed by the other Ashinata. We danced around each other a bit – and I only really succeeded in loosing my remain ships and my Rutarian, including one memorable turn where two ships faced each other – I failed to see the Ashinta, but dodged all the shots back! However my dodges were to fail me in the next two turns and although I managed to cripple one Ashinta – they seemed to have gained accurate guns and the Liati was finally destroyed!
Burger was, as always a skilled opponent and good fun – he ignored his bad luck at loosing his stealth early on and soldered on to give my a bloody nose and inflict another 20 –0 defeat – Oh Dear!
Game Three
I was now firmly established in last place – and was faced with fighting against a fellow Centauri player from the Kettering Games Club for my next game.
My Fleet – Balvarin, Elutarin, 3 Demos, 1 Corvan
Alex – Balvarin, 2 Elutarin, 2 Demos,
Hmm a little similar no? So there was not likely to be much subtlety here and so it proved!! We unleashed out fleets at each other – me risking it big time by forgoing CBD and charging at my opposite numbers. A Demos each was battered and my Elutarin nearly shattered by accurate fire from its two opposite numbers and been sent adrift and only being able to fire on a 4+. I forgot this and only remembered at the end of the turn after I had caused heavy damage with it – I rolled the 4+ failed and we erased the damage! Ships hammered at each other and fighters chased it other into the swirling melee but Alex’s ships emerged triumphant – winning a clear victory but I had fought enough to scrape 3 points and drag myself up to Paul (Clanger) as we both remained at the bottom of the table!
Getting better (well a bit) – 17 – 3 Loss
Two minds here – good to see Alex playing well and handing it out to his opponent – but I would have preferred it not to be me!! : Still at least the Centauri won!!!
Game Four
Hmm a bit embaressing this one………………..
My Fleet – 2 Shadow Ships, 1 Stalker, 2 Scouts
Richard – Adira, 2 Dargan
Oh dear, to be honest when Richard unveiled his fleet I thought he was always going to be hardpressed to even get shots at my ships and so it proved. The First Dargan was cut inhalf by a horribily powerful beam shot from one Shadow Ship and on the next turn, a scoend ship shimmered into far on the Adiras flank. The second Dargan lasted another turn before being chopped into pieces by the Stalker, Scout and Ship and the Aidra suffered a big movement crit with no hope of even firing back. We called it rather than play out numerous turns of the Adira being sliced at but with no chance of even firing back
A rather hollow 20 – 0 victory for me kept me off the bottom – Sorry Richard
Great Games – Great fun - once agin my sincere thanks for all everyone did to make it such a brilliant day
and some fighters.
