ISA went to action once more to bring words of peace to others(with gun if need be 
). 5 point battle again. Opponent took out EA this time. Tournament lists again with new Sagittarius from the Sign&Portents in use. I opted for all white star fleet this time as I wanted to see how I could do without victory in bigger priority game. I did use one point for WSC-2 again(not that it's worthwhile choise in tournament list(thank god for improvements in armageddon) but it gives bit of colour to the list). So WSC-2 and 8 white stars.
Opponent took out shadow omega(eek!), 2 chronos, 2 sagittarius, 2 nova and artemis heavy frigate. That shadow omega gave me a slight pause(and made me hurry up to check up the stats! Got to keep away from that beast. That nasty minibeam weapon it carries will splat white star out of the sky if I get too close...
This time we put up some stellar objects as well. Around the center was 7" planet with 3 moons forming triangle. On south side moving north-west to south-east was total of 3 asteroid clouds with some gaps between them. For scenario we got space superiority so with good experience from last game I left 3 white stars(including upgraded version) in hyperspace.
EA deployed first and formed up column, as opposed to line he tried in previous 2 games. Guess he has thought up some new anti-white star tactics. Column(up from the planet) was led by nova, followed by chronos and sagittarius, then shadow omega, another pair of chronos and sagittarius, second nova and behind the whole lot artemis.
I put up 3 white stars north of middle asteroid group and 3 on the south of said asteroid group. And then the battle began!
Turn 1 was rather uneventfull. He moved forward and started turning south. I headed straight toward east edge. I didn't want to expose my ships, yet.
Turn 2 and things start to spice up. I continued to move fleet around south of the planet. One chronos came closeby and did get into range but I got multiple white stars in range of it. One sagittarius pulled all stop as side arc had nice amount of targets. Shadow omega came top of planet and boresighted one white star(gulp!). This turn I opened up three jump points(one on north-east, 2 on north-west).
Fighter duels started up in the middle as well with 4 nial flight engaging 3 starfuries(well actually it was more like 4 nials engaged one fury flight and 2 fury flight joined in the fun) and 2 nial flight fighting off another 4 fury flights. EA didn't stand a chance. Even when we were even dices fell in ISA's favour and ALL fury stands were lost without casualties for the ISA. Huzah!
In shooting phase saw white star damaging chronos before shadow omega fired and...SOMEHOW white star lived. First up beam caused mighty 5 hits but somehow second set needing 4+ failed to score anything. What's more no criticals were caused. Add to that adaptive armour and dodge saving 1 hit and white star was still hanging on. Chronos joined up though somehow dices failed him AGAIN. 1 stinking hit though did cause -4 speed critical. To further compound his "fun" sagittarius fired salvo toward same white star. 4 missiles nearly hit but somehow white star dodged them ALL(at this point opponent just sighed. And I certainly could sympathise. This luck was getting ridiculous). Chronos was finally destroyed after 5th(and last that could) white star had fired.
All in all crappy turn for earth and all due to luck. Maybe it gets bit better next turn?
Turn 3. Movement phase was rather complex with ships appearing out of jump point and whatnot but in the end situation was something like this:
On left chronos had moved around and now was behind 2 white stars that jumped out of the gate heading toward sagittarius pair which in turn were turning left. They had pair of white stars on their right side while the one that hadn't shot had third white star coming over the planet in aim as well. Shadow omega used gravity well(crap) to get boresight into white star and had 2 more on left flank. Nothing in range for minibeams nasty range for some comfort. One nova had moved around planet and had damaged white star right in front of it. Couldn't really move it anywhere safe anyway and this way was fastest way to safety(straight past the planet and away where shadow omega was moving).
When moving fighters 2 nial flights tagged fury flight each and 2 more tagged 2 thunderbolt flights. This time nials suffered casualties though as thunderbolt flight(of all things) splattered nial flight out of sky. Darn. Ah well. Earth fighter screen is almost dead and I have 8 flights of nials left. Heh.
Then to shooting. Damaged white star damaged nova and then sagittarius that could shoot to both direction fired. -2 speed to white star coming from jump point but even worse weapons shut down for white star crossing the planet! Eek! Not wishing to give second sagittarius chance to do anything similar second white star coming from left shot neutron laser against other sag and pulsars toward first sag. Pulsars did cause some slight damage but neutron laser...Well 3 hits and 2 crits(6-1 and 6-4) and sag was nearly crewless and almost blown apart. Take that!
Another white star suffered -1AD and -2 speed on the right as nova found three white stars to shoot(one of them WSC-2) Whoops! Thank god for dodge and adaptive armour! Then I nearly got screwed by overeager shooting as Artemis almost blew up with several nial flights next to it! Criticals can be TOO effective sometimes...
Shadow omega once again managed to fail destroying white star with front beam. Opponent was cursing adaptive armour to hell at this point(no wonder). Port beams also caused damage to second white star(inch from being able to target another damaged white star) and rear pulse shot at white star nearly destroyed by it last turn but dodge kept ship still on board.
Then came rather funny event. I decided to get rid of those sags(or cripple them. Or something). Pulsars against more intact sag(only one in range). Decrewed nicely with 6-5 crit. Then beam against near dead sag. Died nicely with 1HP over. So far so good. Except one crit caused. 6-6...Blew up BIG time and...Crit to the white star without weapon. 6-5. White star without crew...
LOL! One white star shot and removed 3 ships from the board just like that. Too bad 1 of them was white star...Rest of turn saw bit of minor damage to white stars and nova suffering from combined attention of couple of white stars. One missile from WSC-2 caused yet another 6-5 critical and now that nova was moving even slower than before. On the other hand it DOES allow him to turn in tighter spot...
Turn 4. Heavily damaged white star APTE'ed away from the fight though did end up in range of chronos on left side anyway. 2 white stars and WSC-2 moved in firing position against said chronos while 3 white stars concentrated against damaged nova. All nials(Except 2 that intercepted 2 thunderbolt squadrons) surrounded nova as well. One white star moved toward second nova that was along with shadow omega(that succesfully came about) were now managing to turn around.
In fighter shooting they ended up causing whopping 7 points of damage, including 3 criticals. Criticals were light movement slowing plus AD reduction but crucially it was now without effective interceptors. This in the end turned out to be its undoing and though it took 3 white stars(one was finally able to use neutron laser against second nova though) it was dead. Second nova took bit of damage as well and was slowed down while shadow omega and the novas damaged white stars all around. One white star was nearly taken out by shadow omegas molecular slicer beam(handy thing that gravity well!) but just about managed to dodge enough of those to avoid destruction. And on the left chronos soaked up firepower of 2 white stars and then WSC-2 got lucky critical(6-5 AGAIN) which blew it up in one shot.
7 white stars and bucketload of nials vs damaged nova and shadow omega...Hmmm.
Turn 5: Heavily damaged white star APTE'ed ahead with shadow omega tracking it down(darn). Nova came around as well. Rest of my fleet moved in against them big time. One white star out of range, one in only neutron laser range, rest could shoot with pulsars as well. Nials surrounded nova as I wanted white stars to concentrate on the bigger target. And nials did me proud. 5 solid hits and 1 critical hit. That despite rather succesfull interceptor fire. Too bad it was just another -2 speed. In a bid to silence nova before I have to concentrate anything REALLY important against it I decided to fire missile racks from WSC-2 as well at it but only caused 5-6 critical. Well can't have ALL the luck...Pulsars and laser from WSC-2 damaged the shadow omega slightly as well as blew the bridge out(no SA from now on).
Then the big shot. Shadow omega fired. It had target for front pulse, rear pulse, port phase cutter and of course the big bada boom beam...Too bad for him dodge saved most of the damage and his ability to roll criticals was as usual, extremely crappy. Atleast big bada boom beam blew up escaping white star for good. Nova fired up as well but didn't manage to destroy anything. Ship behind it did suffer quite a bit of damage though.
Trying to destroy nova without going overboard(those 8 nial flight were bit of a concern) one white star then tried to shoot it with pulsars. Not a single hit! Neutron laser caused further 2 crits(plus non crit hit) to shadow omega killing lots of crew, causing second no SA hit and slowing it a bit. Second white star repeated firing and damaged nova a bit and scored yet another hit toward shadow omega. This too was critical(much to my opponents annoyance. He's starting to REALLY hate these neutron lasers!) causing 3rd no-SA critical(and death of 9 more crew! Good! Crew is easiest part of shadow omega to kill if this take some turns due to self repair. At the moment it had 19 damage and 40 crew loss already...Guess which one it's going to run out first...). Final white star finally failed to hit shadow omega with neutron laser but pulsars almost took nova out.
Turn 6: Nova staid put, so did white star flanking it. Shadow omega moved fast ahead while remaining white stars flew around moving in for a kill(that shadow omega is MINE!). Then nials surrounded shadow omega(suprising my opponent. He thought they would finish up nova). Then nials stripped down shadow omega of its interceptors. Ready for some pulsar work. Heh. But first shadow omega would get to shoot(I actually lost initiave this turn. First time this game). This time however it had less of targets. One white star was BARELY out of range of light multi-phased cutter while one white star ahead was hit by couple of pulse shots. Nials got short end of stick though. 6 flights were shot out of the sky with 1 surviving due to stealth and 1 surviving due to double 1. Hmmm...Okay no big fighter support anymore then. WSC-2 then got to work but this time with not so impressive results. One crit but annoyingly one that doesn't affect crew and just slowed that thing down.
Nova had little problems as it could only shoot one weapon at this point. It opted for starboard pulses toward damaged white star. 3 hits and 1 was critical. 6-4! But once again adaptive armour saved white star captains skin and that ship too was barely alive. 1 point from crippled and skeleton crewed but still alive! White star then retaliated and blew up nova(though almost blew it up to his face!). Shadow omega got to taste neutron laser. 2 hits, 2 crits(at this point opponent cursed those neutron lasers straight to hell!). Yet another -1 speed(if these were cumulative ship would be dead in space by now...) and weapons shoot on 4+ only...Rest of white stars caused some serious damage to the shadow omega which was almost dead by now. Opponent was starting to plan to escape(though odds of succesfully surviving turn wasn't good...) but I remained that no SA means no jump point creation...Sometimes I'm too cruel...
Shadow omega fixed up one no SA but we didn't bother to continue playing it anymore. No point when result is quite obvious. Ship had only 5 crew left and I had 4 turns to blew it up and take up all the board sections I wish.
So yet another crushing defeat for my opponent. He IS new to game(well I'm not that experienced either but I do have more experience than him) so some newbie mistakes can be expected.
And oh my oh my. The more I use white stars the more I like their manouverability. It is just incredible! One moment fleet is here, next it's elsewhere. I'm also starting to get more of...trust...to their survivability so don't need to be quite so worried about being in the range. More usefull especially in these bigger battles where avoiding all fire is quite simply impossible. Also I'm starting to change my mind about my original worry about white star, their weapons. 1AD for main weapon seemed rather weak but atleast it's GOOD 1AD. And since 3-4+ white stars are concentrating on same target it's less of a problem. Pulsar meanwhile has been decent side weapon but until this games last turns where I had swarm of nials stripping interceptors they haven't been as good as neutron laser.
Next up we'll upgrade to armageddon. Worthwhile WSC-2! New point allocation system! White star fighter! Bloody impressive victory! (adaptive armour! YIKES! It's bad enough on white star. In victory? No wonder it was put to armageddon level!) New EA ships! This ought to be interesting.
). 5 point battle again. Opponent took out EA this time. Tournament lists again with new Sagittarius from the Sign&Portents in use. I opted for all white star fleet this time as I wanted to see how I could do without victory in bigger priority game. I did use one point for WSC-2 again(not that it's worthwhile choise in tournament list(thank god for improvements in armageddon) but it gives bit of colour to the list). So WSC-2 and 8 white stars.Opponent took out shadow omega(eek!), 2 chronos, 2 sagittarius, 2 nova and artemis heavy frigate. That shadow omega gave me a slight pause(and made me hurry up to check up the stats! Got to keep away from that beast. That nasty minibeam weapon it carries will splat white star out of the sky if I get too close...
This time we put up some stellar objects as well. Around the center was 7" planet with 3 moons forming triangle. On south side moving north-west to south-east was total of 3 asteroid clouds with some gaps between them. For scenario we got space superiority so with good experience from last game I left 3 white stars(including upgraded version) in hyperspace.
EA deployed first and formed up column, as opposed to line he tried in previous 2 games. Guess he has thought up some new anti-white star tactics. Column(up from the planet) was led by nova, followed by chronos and sagittarius, then shadow omega, another pair of chronos and sagittarius, second nova and behind the whole lot artemis.
I put up 3 white stars north of middle asteroid group and 3 on the south of said asteroid group. And then the battle began!
Turn 1 was rather uneventfull. He moved forward and started turning south. I headed straight toward east edge. I didn't want to expose my ships, yet.
Turn 2 and things start to spice up. I continued to move fleet around south of the planet. One chronos came closeby and did get into range but I got multiple white stars in range of it. One sagittarius pulled all stop as side arc had nice amount of targets. Shadow omega came top of planet and boresighted one white star(gulp!). This turn I opened up three jump points(one on north-east, 2 on north-west).
Fighter duels started up in the middle as well with 4 nial flight engaging 3 starfuries(well actually it was more like 4 nials engaged one fury flight and 2 fury flight joined in the fun) and 2 nial flight fighting off another 4 fury flights. EA didn't stand a chance. Even when we were even dices fell in ISA's favour and ALL fury stands were lost without casualties for the ISA. Huzah!
In shooting phase saw white star damaging chronos before shadow omega fired and...SOMEHOW white star lived. First up beam caused mighty 5 hits but somehow second set needing 4+ failed to score anything. What's more no criticals were caused. Add to that adaptive armour and dodge saving 1 hit and white star was still hanging on. Chronos joined up though somehow dices failed him AGAIN. 1 stinking hit though did cause -4 speed critical. To further compound his "fun" sagittarius fired salvo toward same white star. 4 missiles nearly hit but somehow white star dodged them ALL(at this point opponent just sighed. And I certainly could sympathise. This luck was getting ridiculous). Chronos was finally destroyed after 5th(and last that could) white star had fired.
All in all crappy turn for earth and all due to luck. Maybe it gets bit better next turn?
Turn 3. Movement phase was rather complex with ships appearing out of jump point and whatnot but in the end situation was something like this:
On left chronos had moved around and now was behind 2 white stars that jumped out of the gate heading toward sagittarius pair which in turn were turning left. They had pair of white stars on their right side while the one that hadn't shot had third white star coming over the planet in aim as well. Shadow omega used gravity well(crap) to get boresight into white star and had 2 more on left flank. Nothing in range for minibeams nasty range for some comfort. One nova had moved around planet and had damaged white star right in front of it. Couldn't really move it anywhere safe anyway and this way was fastest way to safety(straight past the planet and away where shadow omega was moving).
When moving fighters 2 nial flights tagged fury flight each and 2 more tagged 2 thunderbolt flights. This time nials suffered casualties though as thunderbolt flight(of all things) splattered nial flight out of sky. Darn. Ah well. Earth fighter screen is almost dead and I have 8 flights of nials left. Heh.
Then to shooting. Damaged white star damaged nova and then sagittarius that could shoot to both direction fired. -2 speed to white star coming from jump point but even worse weapons shut down for white star crossing the planet! Eek! Not wishing to give second sagittarius chance to do anything similar second white star coming from left shot neutron laser against other sag and pulsars toward first sag. Pulsars did cause some slight damage but neutron laser...Well 3 hits and 2 crits(6-1 and 6-4) and sag was nearly crewless and almost blown apart. Take that!
Another white star suffered -1AD and -2 speed on the right as nova found three white stars to shoot(one of them WSC-2) Whoops! Thank god for dodge and adaptive armour! Then I nearly got screwed by overeager shooting as Artemis almost blew up with several nial flights next to it! Criticals can be TOO effective sometimes...
Shadow omega once again managed to fail destroying white star with front beam. Opponent was cursing adaptive armour to hell at this point(no wonder
). Port beams also caused damage to second white star(inch from being able to target another damaged white star) and rear pulse shot at white star nearly destroyed by it last turn but dodge kept ship still on board.Then came rather funny event. I decided to get rid of those sags(or cripple them. Or something). Pulsars against more intact sag(only one in range). Decrewed nicely with 6-5 crit. Then beam against near dead sag. Died nicely with 1HP over. So far so good. Except one crit caused. 6-6...Blew up BIG time and...Crit to the white star without weapon. 6-5. White star without crew...
LOL! One white star shot and removed 3 ships from the board just like that. Too bad 1 of them was white star...Rest of turn saw bit of minor damage to white stars and nova suffering from combined attention of couple of white stars. One missile from WSC-2 caused yet another 6-5 critical and now that nova was moving even slower than before. On the other hand it DOES allow him to turn in tighter spot...
Turn 4. Heavily damaged white star APTE'ed away from the fight though did end up in range of chronos on left side anyway. 2 white stars and WSC-2 moved in firing position against said chronos while 3 white stars concentrated against damaged nova. All nials(Except 2 that intercepted 2 thunderbolt squadrons) surrounded nova as well. One white star moved toward second nova that was along with shadow omega(that succesfully came about) were now managing to turn around.
In fighter shooting they ended up causing whopping 7 points of damage, including 3 criticals. Criticals were light movement slowing plus AD reduction but crucially it was now without effective interceptors. This in the end turned out to be its undoing and though it took 3 white stars(one was finally able to use neutron laser against second nova though) it was dead. Second nova took bit of damage as well and was slowed down while shadow omega and the novas damaged white stars all around. One white star was nearly taken out by shadow omegas molecular slicer beam(handy thing that gravity well!) but just about managed to dodge enough of those to avoid destruction. And on the left chronos soaked up firepower of 2 white stars and then WSC-2 got lucky critical(6-5 AGAIN) which blew it up in one shot.
7 white stars and bucketload of nials vs damaged nova and shadow omega...Hmmm.
Turn 5: Heavily damaged white star APTE'ed ahead with shadow omega tracking it down(darn). Nova came around as well. Rest of my fleet moved in against them big time. One white star out of range, one in only neutron laser range, rest could shoot with pulsars as well. Nials surrounded nova as I wanted white stars to concentrate on the bigger target. And nials did me proud. 5 solid hits and 1 critical hit. That despite rather succesfull interceptor fire. Too bad it was just another -2 speed. In a bid to silence nova before I have to concentrate anything REALLY important against it I decided to fire missile racks from WSC-2 as well at it but only caused 5-6 critical. Well can't have ALL the luck...Pulsars and laser from WSC-2 damaged the shadow omega slightly as well as blew the bridge out(no SA from now on).
Then the big shot. Shadow omega fired. It had target for front pulse, rear pulse, port phase cutter and of course the big bada boom beam...Too bad for him dodge saved most of the damage and his ability to roll criticals was as usual, extremely crappy. Atleast big bada boom beam blew up escaping white star for good. Nova fired up as well but didn't manage to destroy anything. Ship behind it did suffer quite a bit of damage though.
Trying to destroy nova without going overboard(those 8 nial flight were bit of a concern) one white star then tried to shoot it with pulsars. Not a single hit! Neutron laser caused further 2 crits(plus non crit hit) to shadow omega killing lots of crew, causing second no SA hit and slowing it a bit. Second white star repeated firing and damaged nova a bit and scored yet another hit toward shadow omega. This too was critical(much to my opponents annoyance. He's starting to REALLY hate these neutron lasers!) causing 3rd no-SA critical(and death of 9 more crew! Good! Crew is easiest part of shadow omega to kill if this take some turns due to self repair. At the moment it had 19 damage and 40 crew loss already...Guess which one it's going to run out first...). Final white star finally failed to hit shadow omega with neutron laser but pulsars almost took nova out.
Turn 6: Nova staid put, so did white star flanking it. Shadow omega moved fast ahead while remaining white stars flew around moving in for a kill(that shadow omega is MINE!). Then nials surrounded shadow omega(suprising my opponent. He thought they would finish up nova). Then nials stripped down shadow omega of its interceptors. Ready for some pulsar work. Heh. But first shadow omega would get to shoot(I actually lost initiave this turn. First time this game). This time however it had less of targets. One white star was BARELY out of range of light multi-phased cutter while one white star ahead was hit by couple of pulse shots. Nials got short end of stick though. 6 flights were shot out of the sky with 1 surviving due to stealth and 1 surviving due to double 1. Hmmm...Okay no big fighter support anymore then. WSC-2 then got to work but this time with not so impressive results. One crit but annoyingly one that doesn't affect crew and just slowed that thing down.
Nova had little problems as it could only shoot one weapon at this point. It opted for starboard pulses toward damaged white star. 3 hits and 1 was critical. 6-4! But once again adaptive armour saved white star captains skin and that ship too was barely alive. 1 point from crippled and skeleton crewed but still alive! White star then retaliated and blew up nova(though almost blew it up to his face!). Shadow omega got to taste neutron laser. 2 hits, 2 crits(at this point opponent cursed those neutron lasers straight to hell!
). Yet another -1 speed(if these were cumulative ship would be dead in space by now...) and weapons shoot on 4+ only...Rest of white stars caused some serious damage to the shadow omega which was almost dead by now. Opponent was starting to plan to escape(though odds of succesfully surviving turn wasn't good...) but I remained that no SA means no jump point creation...Sometimes I'm too cruel...Shadow omega fixed up one no SA but we didn't bother to continue playing it anymore. No point when result is quite obvious. Ship had only 5 crew left and I had 4 turns to blew it up and take up all the board sections I wish.
So yet another crushing defeat for my opponent. He IS new to game(well I'm not that experienced either but I do have more experience than him) so some newbie mistakes can be expected.
And oh my oh my. The more I use white stars the more I like their manouverability. It is just incredible! One moment fleet is here, next it's elsewhere. I'm also starting to get more of...trust...to their survivability so don't need to be quite so worried about being in the range. More usefull especially in these bigger battles where avoiding all fire is quite simply impossible. Also I'm starting to change my mind about my original worry about white star, their weapons. 1AD for main weapon seemed rather weak but atleast it's GOOD 1AD. And since 3-4+ white stars are concentrating on same target it's less of a problem. Pulsar meanwhile has been decent side weapon but until this games last turns where I had swarm of nials stripping interceptors they haven't been as good as neutron laser.
Next up we'll upgrade to armageddon. Worthwhile WSC-2! New point allocation system! White star fighter! Bloody impressive victory! (adaptive armour! YIKES! It's bad enough on white star. In victory? No wonder it was put to armageddon level!) New EA ships! This ought to be interesting.
And with only 3.5 hits, there won't be many good crit effects either.
