How to donate ships to the Narns. My worst game ever.

[Banichi]

I wouldn't usually write about my least glorious moment in a game, but we have never had a game that has ended anything like this one.

Only three ACTA players turned up at the club today, so we thought, what the hey lets play a three player game, using the annihilation scenario. After a bit of a chat we decided to make it 3 pt raid each, as we have found that multiplayer games are best with small numbers of ships. To make things even (well, sort of) we decided to each take 1 battle level, and two skirmish level ships each.

The fleets we used were

Psi Corps. 1 hunter, 2 fighter carriers

Centauri (me). 1 primus, 2 vorchan

Narn. 1 g'lan, 2 rothan

We played on a 6 by four table, with a planet dead centre, and a few astroid fields.

The stage was set

The first few turns were pretty uneventful, we were all kind of stalling to see who was going to commit to battle first. Which is odd because we all charged in at the same time anyway.

First blood went to the psi corps, when the hunter did a one shot kill on one of the rothans. Across the table the centauri pounced on the two fighter carriers, which were quickly chewed to bits by ion cannon fire. But not before they, and their fighters, got some awesome shooting in, that reduced one vorchan to half damage. And crippled, and completely decrewed the other :shock: (I've never seen a ship take so many crew crits before)

To add insult to injury, next turn the decrewed vorchan drifted towards the rest of the narn fleet, who promptly boarded it as a prize. Meanwhile my primus went into orbit around the planet to try and get behind the g'lan, who was also in orbit. While the two big ships were chasing each other the second rothan shot up the remaining vorchan enough that the psi corp fighters could polish it off.

At the begining of the next turn I could see that I was going to end up in a pickle. The hunter was getting into position to hit me from the front, and the g'lan was orbiting behind me.

I had two choices

1. Break orbit, and attack the hunter while I could get it in my front arc. But this would let the narn get behind me, and leave me in a bad position in relation to the planet.

2. APTE orbit, and try and get behind the narns. But this would let the more manouverable hunter get right in behind my primus.

So, with typical centauri scorn for the capabilities of the narn I went for the hunter.

From here things went downhill faster than one of those speed skiers.

The poor old psi corp lost init and went first. I was able to get into his side arc and hit him with lasers, and ion cannon. The g'lan by this stage had got far enough around the planet to zap him with both laser and mag gun. The result of all this punishment was that the hunter was crippled, and like the vorchan completely decrewed.

Since the next turn saw my primus desperately trying (and failing) to come about to face the g'lan, the adrift hunter sailed past me. Only to end up by the narns who in the next turn managed to board it as a prize as well.

Things were looking bleak. The primus was in good shape, but horribly out of position. I was facing the planet, (as a result of my failed come about) and had to all stop to avoid hitting it. At which the g'lan cruised up to my side arc, and the remaining rothan cruised up in front of me, and both did 'Launch breaching pods and shuttles' with all their remaining troups. I suddenly had 9 squads of narns (both narn vessels had already used 1 unit of troups each to capture the adrift vessels) on my primus. My one remaining hope was that my 5 squads would get to shoot first. Alas, the drink must have been flowing previously because not a narn was killed. At which, in a show of complete barbarism that you would expect from a race like the narn, all my troups were prompty butchered.

In the last round of shooting I did manage to destroy the rothan. But it was too little, too late. In the end phase the rampaging narn troups killed all my crew, and yet another ship was added to their haul for the day.

The VPs worked out as such. It was a raid level game, so

Psi Corp Destroyed 1 rothan
Destroyed 1 vorchan
=10 vps

Centauri Destroyed 2 fighter carriers
Destroyed 1 rothan
= 15 vps

Narn Captured 1 primus
Captured 1 Hunter
Captured 1 vorchan
=(drumroll please) 90 vps !!!!!!!!!!!!

(Since you can only score vps for a ship once we played it that since the game ended with narn troups aboard the adrift hunter and vorchan, they counted as captured. It didn't matter who crippled them)

As ships that are 1 level above the level of the game played are worth 20 vps, and capturing a ship doubles the vps it is worth, this make the 2 battle level ships he captured worth 40 vps each :shock: And the vorchan worth 10.

I think this is a record number of victory points for a game in our group. Especially since we only had 3 points of raid to begin with.

So there you have it. How to get two out of three of your ships captured in one battle. And by the narns no less.

The shame, the shame. :wink:

 

[katadder]

for the record, you can fly over a planet, not right into it, space is 3D after all.

 

[Da Boss]

indeed -

My Good Dear Friend - perhaps less bravari next time you go into battle (and more for your gallent soldiers!)


fun report a good read (if depressing :wink: )

 

[Banichi]

for the record, you can fly over a planet, not right into it, space is 3D after all.

We tend to play it that planets have to be flown around. I know this makes the game a bit more like a wet navy game, (lets face it, it isn't that far from it anyway) but our group enjoy the extra consideration to your manouvering this causes. Even if our houserule does bite you in the bum sometimes. :lol:

@ Da Boss. I think, given how they performed that less bravari for my gallent soldiers may have been better.

 

[kalain76]

@ Da Boss. I think, given how they performed that less bravari for my gallent soldiers may have been better.

Or offer the brivari to them as an incentive... "If we win this battle, free drinks for everyone!"
Next campaign turn: "I have how many RR's left? HOW MUCH DID THOSE @&#%*$ DRINK???!!!!"
:lol:

(Yes, I know this was a one-off game. Still... :lol: )

 

[Da Boss]

see there was a good racial ability for P+P :wink:

 

[kitsune106]

what/ like pay such adn such RR for them to gain a plus one on their roll next battle?

 

[AdrianH]

(Since you can only score vps for a ship once we played it that since the game ended with narn troups aboard the adrift hunter and vorchan, they counted as captured. It didn't matter who crippled them)

In a normal two player game you can only score VP's for a ship once. In a multi-player game like this, I'd say that you can only score once,e.g. for crippling a ship, but if someone else then finishes it off, he scores separately for that. Neither of you scores more than once for the same ship but you are both rewarded for your achievements.

Something similar already happens with XP's. If one ship cripples an enemy and then finishes it off next turn, it only gets XP's for the kill. If one ship cripples an enemy and another ship finishes it off next turn, the first ship gets XP's for the cripple and the second gets XP's for the kill.

 

[katadder]

my opponent last night also donated ships to the narn. boresighted one t'loth with an omega, forgot about the other one hiding in the dust cloud which dashed out and launched breaching pods and shuttles undamaged omega with 9 narn bat squads aboard after the strugle with EA marines.

 

[Davesaint]

my opponent last night also donated ships to the narn. boresighted one t'loth with an omega, forgot about the other one hiding in the dust cloud which dashed out and launched breaching pods and shuttles undamaged omega with 9 narn bat squads aboard after the strugle with EA marines.

What, did the Omega move less than 1/2 it's movement? If it did, how did it manage to turn to boresight the other T'loth?


Dave

 

[katadder]

it moved exactly half.
the rule for LBP&S is the enemy ship may not have moved more than half.

 

[Banichi]

In a normal two player game you can only score VP's for a ship once. In a multi-player game like this, I'd say that you can only score once,e.g. for crippling a ship, but if someone else then finishes it off, he scores separately for that. Neither of you scores more than once for the same ship but you are both rewarded for your achievements.

Something similar already happens with XP's. If one ship cripples an enemy and then finishes it off next turn, it only gets XP's for the kill. If one ship cripples an enemy and another ship finishes it off next turn, the first ship gets XP's for the cripple and the second gets XP's for the kill.

We actually thought about that, but decided that since we were playing a battle to the death game that only the last person to do something to a ship would get the respective vps. It wouldn't have changed very much since the only ship the narns captured that wasn't decrewed or stormed by them was the vorchan. The hunter and the primus were all his own doing.

By the end of the game both myself, and the psi corp player could see that we were that far down the hole when it came to VPs that the points for decrewing one skirmish ship were not really going to matter.

One thing we did notice, and it suprised us, was how fast a decent number of borders can rip through the crew of a ship. To be honest we had pretty much all ignored boarding down here up til now. I think thats changed.

Now I'm going to try and cook up a scenario to get my ships back.

(Although, if I was a narn I'd be tempted to give the ships back. But first I'd nearly completey steal everything. All the centauri would find would be all the crews toothbrushes, and a roll of film/data crystal.)