Memorial Day Weekend Batreps - part 1

Greetings fellow gamers and hobbyists and welcome to another semi-exciting post here at the Ramblings!  I hope you all have been doing well and experiencing success with your hobbies and games and today I’d like to bring you some more batreps and a couple of board game experiences.  I had a friend of mine come down for the Memorial Day weekend and we ended up playing a bunch of stuff.  So given the gaming bonanza, this will be another two-parter, with a wargame and a board game report for each post!  So pull up a chair, get your favorite drink, and relax for some batrep shenanigans!

So our first game to kick off the weekend was a hearty sized 1500pt game of Gates of Antares.  Wells and I had been chatting up the positives of this game some and so he was interested in giving it a shot.  I snagged some Concord (also known as C3) from Mike and so I made a couple of lists and tried to keep the Algoryn from being too flashy since I couldn’t do the same for the C3.  For those who would like to see the lists, I’ve included a quick link to them right here.  Wells took command of the C3 and I got to use my Algoryn for this game.  We decided on the basic “kill each other best” scenario so to get the rules accustomed to, with the scoring points being the dead unit’s order die. 

The first turn saw a good chunk of moving around the field on my part as the Algoryn forces tried to quickly close the gap between them and the C3.  Unfortunately, a common theme for this turn was that my soldiers apparently had run a marathon earlier in the week and so sprinting was not only tiring but quite exhausting with at least 3 units rolling 10’s and getting double-mint pins.  Meanwhile, Wells, who is adept at picking up new games relatively well, by the way, figured the best thing to do was to get into a nice firing position and start plinking away at my forces.  At this stage of the game, the casualties weren’t so much an issue as the fact I was getting more pins on top of the ones I had already acquired. 

The second turn is where things started to heat up a little bit on both sides.  My Algoryn started to toss out some mag shots to the C3 lines and managed to score a few hits here and there, though not doing well enough to take out any troopers.  This was my first game against C3 and I had sorely underestimated their resilience at the range.  Not only that, but my predisposition towards mortars also didn’t help my cause since their armor gives them a lovely extra +1 to their Res stat when hit by blast weaponry.  I continued to struggle with shrugging off pins but my right flank was effectively useless as I clogged up the lane with own Mag Light Support teams.  Meanwhile, my Mag Cannon Avenger and his C3M4 Drone with a Plasma Cannon started trading shots at each other, but with neither being able to do anything other than a pin marker or two.

Third turn Wells started to experience some difficulties with morale on his own, but not quite to the extent that I had with my Algoryn.  I moved my AI Assault Squad up to the building the turn prior as I was getting ready for that sweet charge into melee and I had hyped myself up with thoughts of plugging D-Spinners in places they should not go.  However…my Algoryn assault specialist…with 1 pin on them…failed their command test with a 10 and took a nap!  What a bunch of buggers!  Wells moved his C3T7 up the field and popped out his two squads, putting more pressure on my right flank that caused it to crumple easily.  He failed a couple of his command tests as well, granted not as momentously epic as I had, and so a couple of his Light Support Drones didn’t do a whole lot and one Strike Squad kept their heads down.

The fourth turn I was able to get my Command Squad and some AI Squads up the mid-field for a charge into his Command Squad and his downed Strike Squad.  I was able to wipe out the Strike Squad and did a couple of casualties to the Command but not enough to win the fight and so we broke it off as we both retreated into better cover.  My AI Assault Squad still kept their heads down and that nap was pretty spot on.  My Mag Mortar and X-Launcher continued to not do anything effective this whole game so no more mention of them eh?  My Avengers continued to trade fire with his C3 Drones, not only did we do any serious damage to each other.  Wells would hit my left Avenger with his Plasma Cannon with 1 die, then roll a 10 and get Plasma Fade.  I would make my Res save and then miss with one shot, sometimes both, and we’d sit there ready for the next turn.  The squad that braved the middle of the field and went into combat with his Command Squad ended up getting pinned off of the field as they were out of cover and in a bad shape, the combined crossfire left them running in the end.

The fifth turn was a bloodbath as the C3 effectively won this round.  His C3T7 rounded the side and with 2 successive order neutered my remaining AI Squad.  A Strike Squad in the back moved up and took out my last 2 gents in my Command Squad.  I finally got to launch an assault with my AI Assault Squad and I’m not sure I got the rules right but if I did then all the hits combined caused his Light Support Drone to take a 24 Strike Value hit, I know sounds awesome right? A -24 to his save, surely the results must have been spectacular! Nah it just took an extra pin and went immobile.  Good stuff.  However, it wasn’t able to score any casualties itself and so failed its command test and I guess teleported away.  So it ended up ok.  At this point, I conceded the game as I had nothing that could bring the gap between the score and so Wells came out the victor for this match!  Congrats Wells!

So before moving on to the post-match thoughts let’s go over how one of the board games went, and that is Twilight Imperium!  If you’ve not heard of this game then a quick explanation is that it is a 4X Strategy game where you command an inter-galactic race trying to vie for the conquest of the galaxy.  You’re trying to score 10 victory points using diplomacy, trade, technology, and warfare at your command.  Each of the 17 factions has unique spins on how they go about the game including faction specific technology, promissory notes (think strong diplomacy tools, like a powerful loan for favors), and other rules.  It’s a long game though and so with the 6 of us it ended up being an 8-hour game, so if you’re interested to make sure that everyone has at least read the rules prior to starting and plan for a long day.

So instead of going turn by turn, I’ll talk about the trends of how this game went down.  Participating we had a full complement of players including Mike, Wells, William, Sam, and Corey.  The first couple of turns were mostly spent getting used to the mechanics of the game and how the flow would proceed.  There wasn’t a lot of diplomatic dealing going on other than Sam making promises to help people replenish their money through trade.  Planets were absorbed into everyone’s respective empires.  William and I were neighbors and early on established a Cold War-esque truce while Mike and Sam (post-game information, aka PGI) had made some deal for supporting each other. 

The game didn’t really pick up until the third turn when Mike unlocked the Agenda phase, aka voting on laws, by unlocking the middle planet, Mecatol Rex.  The law came up where we nominated a player to essentially get to research technology for free when able to do so, and the deals and politicking took off!  Bribes for votes was coming hot and empty promises were made in the heat of the moment, it was glorious and possibly the defining moment of this game where it went from “hmm yeah I think I get this” to “aww yeah this game is awesome!”  Mike won the vote considering he had a lot of influence to spend and had secured some votes via promissory notes.

Meanwhile, Corey and Sam had some border disputes where Corey would go and secure some planets for his empire, and then Sam would go and take it from him.  Wells had been keeping quiet this game and stayed primarily within his own borders doing his own thing.  It wasn’t until a law came up for a vote that would limit the number of ships you can have in your fleet to 4.  Wells panicked and offered everything in his power except for sex to Mike, and then we noticed that Wells had positioned himself in a way where he was going to try and steamroll through the galaxy with a massive fleet!  It was like a ticking time bomb, however, everyone else wouldn’t have been affected by this law and so unfortunately for Wells, it passed and his fleet capability went from like 7 or 9 to 4.  Ouch.

As for myself and William, we kept our Cold War truce, building up until we couldn’t risk an invasion on the other without serious consequences.  Then Mike showed up on our borders with a pretty nasty fleet and then the pressure was on!  On the other side of the galaxy, Wells went through the wormhole with a fleet and started pressuring and conquering territories held by Sam, as he over-extended his fleet going into Corey’s territory.  William went into Mecatol Rex with his own fleet and conquering the planet, which then left his own borders exposed.  Taking advantage of this I moved my own fleet in and started conquering his unguarded flank, muahahaha!  Mike took his fleet and moved into Mecatol Rex and an epic battle ensued between him and William, but with Mike taking back the planet in the end.  Mike was able to score the last victory point through one of the public objectives and in doing so won the game and was the dominating force in the galaxy!

What a helluva game for sure, both of them were really fun and excellent.  In retrospect for Gates, I would not have taken so many blast weapons and would have gone for more shots on the field.  The few hits I did get were not heavy enough to go through his armor, a factor I underestimated with the C3, and so they were essential points wasted.  It was a good solid game, though I can’t help but wonder if using reactions more would have been the key to maybe not losing so hard?  I’m not sure.  Either way, it was a fun game and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking into it.  The rulebook is still janky though, but I think once you get used to where things are it might not be so bad.  Still had to look up a lot though because some things trigger on rolling 1’s and 10’s, but not every roll…and not every rule has a similar effect…so a lot of references.  Twilight Imperium was also a lot of fun and would definitely play again, just not anytime soon.  The length was appropriate especially for 6 players who have never played before, but now that I’ve played I might have done things differently.  Definitely more aggression with my forces and to not be so afraid of combat.  Also, technology can be pretty powerful so definitely need to consider adding more of that in my playstyle.

Well, that was a lot of batrepping going on there, stay tuned next time for the second half of the weekend.  In store, we have a game of Guild Ball to go over and also we tried out Aristeia as well.  Until next time folks stay busy and happy gaming!