Adepticon 2024, the Beginnering

What is this, an Adepticon only blog? Sheesh! I haven't posted anything since the last one and guess what time of the year has already come to pass again? Oof!

Where to start? 

Ah yes, with food, naturally. The first thing we do every year is grab the sponsored Adepticon burger at Kuma's Corner. 

Not only is it always delicious, but it comes with dice!

I'm an avid dice collector, and these feature their bear symbol. I couldn't pass them up, as my familial nickname has always been the Bear. If you're in town, definitely hit them up for some metal burgers, as they're all pretty good.

After our meal we settled into the hotel (we stayed at the Hyatt as it was easier to get into and much quieter), and then it was off to the Ren to watch the madness unfold!

And unfold it did, but not in the way we were expecting. We got there and the line was all the way back down the longest hall, just like every year. We groaned at first, thinking it was all a lie and registration/badges would take as epically long as always. However, I spotted something and had a hunch. I said let's walk down and see what's up. So we started walking and I spotted more and more: people in the line already had their swag bags and were trading. I knew it! So it came to be that the epic long line was just for the bloody PREVIEW that was due to start in like 30 minutes. Yikes, considering they only had 7-800 chairs in there.

So we just strolled on by and picked up our badges and swag in less than 5 minutes, there was basically no line at all for that. There system/process this year was definitely much better than previous years and for that my applause was earned as it was a welcome change to the experience.

Since the Catalyst Games booth was open due to being in the hallway I snagged the limited edition loot I wanted to get nice and early, and then we waited for the line to shuffle into the preview hall. They didn't get all in until 30 minutes after it was supposed to start!!

The wait was worth it thought because then we could take some pictures with the event model: the terminator.

In all his chonky glory, I had to get more.

He tried to dissuade me.

But then he decided I was alright. Nice guy that guy.

Afterwards we wandered over to the GW booth, since they have that outside of the vendor hall so that it can be open later (makes sense, it's the titular sponsor of course), again getting any LE loot before it was picked over. Checked out the tables and livestream area, it all looked rather snazzy, and the tables looked quite solid with terrain for the first time!

After taking my wife to the room, I went back to "The Bits Guy" aka Toledo Game Room (again, because his booth is in a hallway and also because it's the emptiest on Wednesday night after midnight). I picked through the bins at my leisure, grabbing some choice bits of course. Then I dug into the Orks Vehicles bins because there are always winners in there, and this year was no exception. There was a bag with 6 Sentinels and a Leman Russ hull, no weapons or turret, for a mere $40. Score!

Nothing an extensive bits bin can't fix up!

And with that, I closed out my day and went to bed.

Adepticon! Part 3: BATTLEFLEET GOTHIC - the battle reports

Ahoy!

Once more I set sail the weekend of Adepticon, though not upon an ocean but in the merciless cold and dark of space. Battlefleet Gothic will probably always be my favorite Games Workshop game to play, for basically every reason. It's solid, unchanging, and just hits the right notes with gameplay. I could wax on and on, but I'll save it for another time. Today we are to talk about the tournament at Adepticon!

Once again it was a super awesome event. What was really cool was that there were originally 18 slots but it was sold out in under two hours! Eventually it was bumped up to 20 then 22 slots, and we were still sold out and with a waitlist, how ridiculously awesome is that! We definitely were not expecting these numbers but the excitement was real and people wanted to play, so hopefully we can keep the momentum for next year.

As it turned out, we ended up with 2 drops before the convention, then another 5 pulled a no-show, though to be fair since it happens on the Sunday of a long con, many will be addled or hungover because of poor choices, so I still think we had a good number of people for a total of 16 including the ringer.

So what did I use? Well, I was That Guy™ this year (but not the only one!) and returned to the event ready to win with my Space Marines crusade of Strike Cruisers.

My list (Space Marine Crusade Fleet List)

[50] Master of the Fleet

[160] Strike Cruiser - extra shield, prow bombardment cannon

[160] Strike Cruiser - extra shield, prow bombardment cannon

[160] Strike Cruiser - extra shield, prow bombardment cannon

[160] Strike Cruiser - extra shield, prow bombardment cannon

[160] Strike Cruiser - extra shield

[160] Strike Cruiser - extra shield

[145] Strike Cruiser

[145] Strike Cruiser

I know...I know. <Jaws music starts playing>

While I did choose the boomy bombardment option, I was wrestling with the choice all the way up til the day I submitted my list. In the recent past I'd played some games with all Thunderhawk variants and some including the torpedo variants, and doing a combo with either of those seemed pretty fun and interesting in their own ways (look for a tactica article in an upcoming issue of Warp Rift!). In the end I settled on the old standby of bombardment cannon because I like it, I'm known for it, and, well...

So anyhoo, we got everyone rounded up and after some leisurely chatter, we got on with it!

Round 1: Pitched Battle

I was paired with Mike Hagerty and his nicely painted Necron fleet:

His list:

1 reroll

Scythe Class Cruiser

Scythe Class Cruiser

Shroud Class Cruiser

Shroud Class Cruiser

3 Jackal Class Raiders

6 Dirge Class Raiders

I split my fleet into three squadrons, with the four bombardment cruisers together, the two double shield cruisers together, and lastly the two unupgraded cruisers together. These all deployed fairly centrally since I wasn't quite sure where he'd go. He decided to put all his Dirges on my right flank and the rest of his fleet on my left.

Turn 1

I took the first turn and cautiously moved forward in the vicinity of the dirges hoping to catch them off guard and destroy them before the rest of the Necrons showed up. I launched some thunderhawks to cover my flank and rear just in case he decided to All Ahead Full the Dirges and get behind me early on. One wave went toward the main group though for disruption.

People playing! Also, my table right in front.

He then went to hug the planet instead and hide where he could. The main thrust on the left flank moved forward but didn't push too hard.

Turn 2

He ended up being a little too exposed with the group behind the planet (well, more accurately the cruisers were just too fast and maneuverable to avoid), and they were wiped out in a storm of gunnery and bad saves. The thunderhawks moved to block off the avenue to sneak past me, hopefully forcing the remaining Dirges closer to me.

*dunnnn dun*

*dunnnn dun*

His dirges swept in and put a little bit of hurt on one of my carrier cruisers, while the left flank Necrons just plowed through my thunderhawks without issue. 

Turn 3

I a-spied an opportunity! Since one of the secondary conditions was to win a boarding action, I figured I'd see about guaranteeing it happened, just it case. I parked one strike cruiser on each of the Dirges that was real close and initiated three boarding actions! The large squadron pulled a Come to New Heading and came about nicely to face head-on the incoming Necron menace. In the end phase, the three strike cruisers predictably boarded and destroyed all three to score me some kills and tournament points.

On his turn he kept to the plan of similarly sticking together; unfortunately, due to a movement error one of the Shrouds ended up going through asteroids and failing the leadership test to navigate it, crippling itself with 2 damage. Dang!

Turn 4

Time for a Lock On! The shooty squadron prepared for bombardment while the other cruisers came about and reloaded again. In a devastating volley, and despite bracing, the nearest Shroud was pummeled into a drifting hulk. 

In return, the main fleet pushed right on close in to deliver the pain, and the space marines Braced for Impact! I then went on to fail nearly all of them, d'oh!

The good news is his dice were similarly repeatedly bad, so he crippled a strike cruiser and it was basically a waste they even went on the order in the first place. Oh well!

Turn 5

I disengaged the stricken Dark Angels cruiser, leaving 3 bombardment cruisers to...go boarding? I figured since they were half strength guns this turn then I may as well move in for a full strength boarding against his flagship. I'd say it was mostly a mistake in hindsight. Elsewhere, the remaining Shroud tanked all incoming fire like a champ.

The cruiser bottom center right is actually where the compass is, was just too fiddly to try and place it on there.

The boarding action was lackluster, resulting in just two damage on the flagship Scythe. Yep, shoulda shot it instead.

On his turn, both Scythes occupied the same spot right in between all four carrier cruisers, which was fun to try and deal with. They caused just some hits on the shields between them, with maybe a couple hits on the hulls but nothing to worry about. The shroud tried being sneaky but just ended up being too close, so it simply faded out. 

Turn 6

Didn't take a picture here, too messy. I wasn't positioned well enough to deal much pain to the Scythes this turn, so I set to come back in the next turn. Thunderhawks kept running sortie after sortie, with little gains.

As he had mostly zipped past me now, there was not much incoming fire on my end either this turn. 

Turn 7

I completed all my turns and reached some optimal positions, as you can see. This is the end result of the game, where he critically failed a Brace for Impact on his flagship. 21 bombardment cannon solidified the game for me, as it does.

With that, the VP totals were 1758 to 80...a massacre!

Round 2: The World

This scenario is always fun, and we made it a wee bit better for play this time around (I think!). Both players can touch the planet once and have the effects be cumulative. Fun stuff! I played against the Ringer/TO Alex Kasper, because apparently he did too well round 1 against a new player...sigh Alex. That's okay, I was fixin' to give a whoopin' to his themed "Mothballed reserve fleet."

His list:

Admiral - 1 reroll

Retribution Class Battleship

Vengeance Class Grand Cruiser

Exorcist Class Grand Cruiser

Endeavour Class Light Cruiser

Endeavour Class Light Cruiser

Endurance Class Light Cruiser

Endurance Class Light Cruiser

Talk about top heavy! That's okay it looked fun. I considered spreading out my deployment, but opted instead for a tighter wedge pointed right at the planet to best make use of cover. He did similar, and we predicted this would be a short game...

Turn 1

I tucked in right behind the planet but made sure to touch it of course, getting result number 3. Interesting indeed...I put a combined wave of Thunderhawks into the void, and they were sitting roughly where my cruisers were.

He decided to get what points he could, and sent an Endeavour/Endurance squadron up to touch it at AAF, causing everyone to gain +1 Ld, neat! This brought them over the horizon and to basically right in front of my two lead cruisers. Again, difficult to model appropriately so we made concessions.

The fun part was sending in a wave of 8 Thunderhawks to one of them...just because. Here are the results: 

So with at least one shut down completely, it was time to begin turn 2...

Turn 2

I sent up the bombardment squadron to go make a mess, and kept the carrier squadron behind to deal with the opposing light cruisers. Messes were made! The bombardiers poured it onto the battleship and grand cruisers, stripping shields and shooting away hull points from both, causing criticals along the way on the battleship, mostly guns out.

The four carrier cruisers opened up at the light cruisers and were WAY more effective than expected. This is definitely a mothballs fleet, because apparently safety standards were lax in maintenance and upkeep. Critical hits caused a bunch more damage, and the Endurance exploded violently. Between that and the additional spillover damage, the Endeavour also exploded something fierce. With my four ships right next to both.

All told I suffered some damage, with one cruiser in particular somehow taking all the damage and getting crippled. Still, it was alarming!

The aftermath:

He returned fire and I immediately braced the bombardiers. Pretty much all damage was blocked! I did suffer a port critical, but as it wasn't really needed for the upcoming turns. The thunderhawks swept in and took down weapons all over the Retribution, though he repaired a couple.

Turn 3

On this turn, the bombardiers got in even closer and behind his lines, firing in multiple directions again and really laying waste to good ships. One grand cruiser was crippled and the battleship sustained some light damage. I also started pecking away at the next set of light cruisers from my carrier cruisers in a move of crossing the T.

At this point, he saw the writing on the wall. His fleet was built mostly with gunnery in mind, and with me disabling most of the lances, plus lots of criticals and the losses, it was best to run away. The Retribution, Endeavour, and Exorcist managed to disengage, but the Vengeance and Endurance failed to slink away.

Turn 4

Surrounded and venting atmosphere, the two limping Navy ships were easy pickings for the Space Marine gunnery, and were used as target practice while I also had ships get into his deployment zone for the objectives.

End result: 720 to 40, victory! 

Round 3: Battle Around the Neutron Star

The final draw was against Matt Adami and his Chaos.

His list:

Warmaster

Despoiler Class Battleship

Murder Class Cruiser

Carnage Class Cruiser

Slaughter Class Cruiser

Slaughter Class Cruiser

4 Infidel Class Raiders

I set up to go left around the star while he went right, thinking I'd be able to swing around the rear, but definitely spaced (get it?? 😉) and forgot he has the same speed and, with the gravity well, similar maneuverability. It almost was my undoing. 

Turn 1

He took the first turn and moved to my right, but farther than expected. He launched fighters to provide cover from my Thunderhawks.

I went All Ahead Full to try and gain the rear-ward advantage. I was able to fire off a couple shots and caused a damage. Nothing exciting yet!

Turn 2

He pushed farther up and loosed some shots and torpedoes, plinking off some damage from my carrier cruiser.

Likewise, I kept pushing my flank, hoping to do more. My shooting was very poor though, adding another damage to the total.

Turn 3

He continued to take advantage of the massive gravity well here, coming around behind me just as I was coming around behind him. He launched more torpedoes and caused some more light damage on other ships unfortunately.

Seeing as circling the toilet bowl ad nauseum like this would end more in his favor than mine, I decided to pull another u-turn maneuver (hey I live in Wisconsin, it's legal here) and came about to face them head-on. And by head-on I mean allowing him to cross the T, but I still needed it to happen. I tasked two carriers with going to his deployment zone for the points. 

Turn 4

So that's exactly what he started doing. He came in to point blank range and raked my prows in a very good position. One bombardier cruiser was crippled and another took two damage. Unfortunately he also targeted my carrier cruisers with a pile of lances, resulting in a destroyed cruiser, nooo!

In return I passed through his fleet and turned to starboard, bringing me alongside for some shooting. It wasn't entirely effective, but I was tallying up some damage on his ships. Between guns and Thunderhawks, two Infidels were destroyed.

Turn 5

We were coming down to the wire on time, so it was getting intense! He maneuvered to get more shots on me while his remaining Infidels continued to flee. I was able to tank what he threw out because I had maneuvered my cruisers to protect the hurt ones, putting fresh ones on the frontline.

I was down in points now, it was looking kinda bleak. However, I spotted a hail mary opportunity: his battleship. I put my bombardier cruisers right off the bow of the Despoiler at close range. Counting it up, I had 25 dice to roll. Critically, he rolled box cars for his Brace check! 

I rolled and up came 16 hits, exactly enough to status change a Despoiler from full health to destroyed! Not only that, but it exploded and destroyed another chaos cruiser on the way out, and crippled another! 

The Despoiler was like, directly in front of the shoal of strike cruisers. We didn't put down blast markers because it was the end anyway.

Our reactions to the situation.

Phew, that last turn really was the game by itself. I was down until then, but we finished 660 VP to 185 VP for the victory!

3 games and 3 victories! The good news is they were all strong victories, so it pushed me to the top and 1st place wooo! What a fun day, playing 3 games of battlefleet gothic with some cool people. I always look forward to this event above all, and can't wait to try out something new next year!

There will be follow up posts about the fleets and discussion about the scenarios, so thanks for reading and stay tuned. Til next time!

Battle Report: Battlefleet Gothic on Vassal, "Raid on Kittery-804"

Greetings!

Time for another battle report! In the ongoing campaign for the Armus sub-sector, the Chaos fleet led by the Lord Kol Sarat takes on the Imperials once more, this time in a punitive raid on Kittery-804. Not participating in the raid himself, he sent the Warmonger, Agony, and Hellblade to reconnoiter in force. Patrolling the far flung penal colony system at that time fell to the Brazen, Valiant, and 711th Squadron.

Cruiser Clash

Chaos (subplot - Enemy Plans)
Hades Class Heavy Cruiser Warmonger
Slaughter Class Cruiser Agony
Slaughter Class Cruiser Hellblade

Imperial Navy (subplot - Experimental Ship)
Lunar Class Cruiser Valiant
Gothic Class Cruiser Brazen (+2 HP, -1 Ld)
5 Firestorm Class Frigates 711th Squadron

Turn 1: Chaos

The Agony's captain, fresh from repairs within the warp and eager to spill blood, ordered his squadron to close as fast as possible with the enemy. With gusto and blazing engines they shot ahead 57(!) cm (the roll was 6, 6, 6, 6, 3). The Warmonger followed along leisurely behind, coming into extreme range with its heavy lance armament. At long range the gunners showed their metal, scoring three hits on the Brazen. This is where I found out the ship actually had 10HP to start the game with, hoi!

Turn 1: Imperial Navy 

Holding their discipline in the face of the insane bravado of the Slaughter squadron, the Imperials took advantage of the close range to unleash their particular brand of hell on their enemy. Linking their fire, the 711th and cruisers bracketed the Agony, stripping shields, sundering the hull, and damaging the thrusters, resulting in several hull breaches. Torpedoes screamed into the Hellblade, and while the turrets took out an average number, they still scored a hit. A telling turn of events, and the Agony's captain was cowed...

Turn 2: Chaos

Bleeding heavily into space, the Agony attempted, and failed, to disengage. The Hellblade turned into the enemy's rear and peppered a weak broadside into the Brazen's aft quarter, taking down the shields and scoring a hit. The Warmonger locked on, bringing all guns to bear (as I'm writing this, I just realized I didn't reroll my misses due to lock on, gosh darn it!) on the Firestorms and the cruisers. Still, the weapons batteries scored three hits and the lances two, resulting in two destroyed frigates. The prow lances missed the Brazen, and since I forgot my orders, I passed the turn...

Turn 2: Imperial Navy

The remainder of the 711th squadron swung around to light up the Agony, while the cruisers were poised to make use of both broadsides. The Agony's captain suffered the final humiliation for his hubris, and his ship was rendered combat ineffective. It proceeded to drift out of the engagement area, and his fellow captains saw fit to not retrieve his hulk. Despite the weight of fire, only shields sustained hits during this turn, though the Hellblade was also crippled. The Emperor's light seemed to be shining on the Imperials now!

Turn 3: Chaos

While the Hellblade came about for another gunnery run, the Warmonger closed in on the Brazen for an exciting boarding action! The result was a crushing victory for Chaos (he rolled a 1, I rolled a 6), and it took a huge amount of damage! I also succeeded in uncovering the enemy's battle plans during the action (I was after his lucky charms!), completing my subplot.

Turn 3: Imperial Navy

Well, the 711th disengaged at high warp, while the cruisers unfortunately remained, due to low leadership values.

Turn 4: Chaos

The Warmonger continued her persecution of the Brazen, targeting her with available guns and hulking the ship, while the Valiant finally escaped. A fine prize indeed...



What a back and forth game! First he smashed me, then vice versa. I thought I was in trouble, early on. The Slaughters definitely overshot where I wanted them to go; they were supposed to be the ones to board an enemy ship, but they definitely got too close, then wreckfaced because I was thinking "I only need one to do what I need to...right?" Poor choice, as his Firestorms went bananas and scored a bucket ton of hits all at once. Oh well, live and learn right? The boarding action swung the game back in my favor, no questions there; a 1 to a 6 is always going to hurt. Just wasn't expecting it, though I can't complain about the result.

Would you have played it any different? Spot anything we missed? Let me know in the comments section!

Battle Report: Battlefleet Gothic on Vassal

Greetings!

Today I will be discussing a battle I played over Vassal, with my good man Ruckdog as the punching bag du jour.

I first met Ruckdog (one of the many Andrew's in attendance) at Adepticon during the BFG tournament, an event I strive to play every year because it's quite possibly my favorite game of all time. He's a pretty cool guy, and invited me to check out his forums called Man Battlestations, a site all about warship gaming. Pretty cool stuff!

Anyway, he's been running a BFG campaign, and while it has been a slow start, we've gotten the ball rolling and I actually recorded one of our games! Introducing the fleets:

Imperial Navy (Ruckdog's)
Exorcist Class Grand Cruiser Guardian
Dominator Class Cruiser Audacious
Lunar Class Cruiser Valiant
Lunar Class Cruiser Bellerophon
6 Sword Class Frigates 302nd Escort Squadron

Chaos (Me!)
Styx Class Heavy Cruiser Hateful Death
Devastation Class Cruiser Bearer of the Word
Devastation Class Cruiser Hellbringer
Slaughter Class Cruiser Torture
Slaughter Class Cruiser Hellblade

We played a Fleet Engagement, Deployment B. Here's how we deployed:

A few scattered gas clouds and a chunky asteroid field gave us some terrain to play around. I lost the roll for first turn, so it was on to him!

Turn 1: Imperial Navy

It was the start of the engagement, and already the Chaos fleet was approaching the rear quarter of the Imperials! Determined not to let that come to pass, the 302nd passed Come to New Heading and swiftly came about. The rest of the fleet kept to minimum speed, turning slowly to face. The first shot of the game was a snap shot Nova Cannon shell from the Audacious, which missed as such a long range.

Turn 1: Chaos

The Tyrant Kol Sarat (my fleet commander) ordered the squadron of Slaughters to swing about quickly, and they easily passed their Come to New Heading check (Ld 10 due to subplot, wooo!). All of the carriers dumped a lot of assault boats and bombers into the void, and that was pretty much my turn.

Here's what the board looked like at the end of turn 1:

Some more maneuvering will be in order!

Turn 2: Imperial Navy

You'll have to ignore those zigzaggy lines; at this point we had a connection issue, resulting in doubling and trebling ships and dice and everything else; needless to say we had some fixing to do. But once we did, it was on to the battle again! The cruisers completed their turns, rang out with another Nova Cannon shot (that missed again, seriously this is the most amount of shots I've let him had in a game and they're getting flummoxed with the generosity =P ). Two fighters took down two assault boats.

Turn 2: Chaos

Those red tokens were simply marking copy ships that he could see (but not me), so just ignore those...

The carrier squadron rearmed and refueled their squadrons, ready to send them into the void again later. In the meantime the Slaughter squadron went All Ahead Full and rolled a mighty 10 on five dice...le sigh. Still, 40cm is nothing to scoff at! The assault boats swept into the Audacious, causing a few swiftly repaired critical hits, while the bombers waited for the other cruisers to run them over.

Turn 3: Imperial Navy

The Imperials closed ranks, attempting to use their armored prows as a shield and their hulls as a knife to cut apart the Chaos fleet. The downside is that their firepower could not be brought to bear just yet. A nearly point blank Nova Cannon shot misses yet again!

Turn 3: Chaos

The leader of the Slaughter squadron grinned ferociously as he counted down the range. The Audacious would be at the extreme edge of his effective range, but that still meant it could be done...they Locked On. The carriers put up a small fighter screen to protect mainly against torpedoes, while also putting assault boats and bombers back into space.

Combined, the Slaughters put out an impressive FP28 and 4 lances; needless to say, the Audacious was rocked on its keel and suffered heavily.

Turn 4: Imperial Navy

(neglected to take a picture)

The crippled Audacious disengaged, and the rest of the squadron closed to torpedo range. The 302nd unleashed a fusillade into the Torture, scoring a few hits. More importantly, my turrets were wholly ineffective, resulting in multiple torpedo strikes on both the Torture and Hellblade. The Torture was crippled and the Hellblade's bridge was smashed away, leaving the second in command in charge. The Chaos bombers were swept away, but the assault boats completed their attack run and caused some critical hits to the Bellerophon. These were swiftly repaired.

Turn 4: Chaos

The captain of the Torture, no longer sporting a toothy grin, ordered his ship to disengage, vowing revenge on the cowards who struck from afar. The rest of the fleet continued about, with just a few lance shots streaking through the void to strike the Bellerophon, causing minor damage. Seeing the futility of bomber runs, the carriers simply launched all assault boats, hoping to silence the enemy guns through hit and run attacks than by outright destroying them.

Turn 5: Imperial

Seeing a lone ship vs a squadron of ships, the Imperials turned to pounce on the Hellblade. Luckily it was up to the task and shrugged off the shots that came its way. In a serious of miscommunications, the Lunar squadron did not reload their torpedoes; this would prove to be most unfortunate. Still, they fired their broadsides at the Hellbringer, scoring a couple hits.

Turn 5: Chaos

Seeing the perfect lineup unfolding before his eyes, Kol Sarat ordered all ships to turn to starboard and set their guns; they'd all be "crossing the T" now, and it's time to be effective! Without Lock On orders though, all I managed to do is bang a few shields. More importantly, he succeeded at Brace for Impact! with both squadrons, severely limiting their effectiveness next turn. At such close range, the assault boats from the carriers were launching and returning immediately, many swift sorties one after another. The Bellerophon was targeted heavily, resulting in all the guns being taken out (2-4 times with some of them!) and multiple engine damages. With the sustained casualties, repairs were not so forthcoming.

Turn 6: Imperial Navy

Reluctantly the Bellerophon disengaged, leaving the Valiant to cause more damage to the enemy. In a repeat of the previous turn, the patter of light return fire was swept aside by the void shields of the Chaos ships.

Turn 6: Chaos

Crossing the T once more, the carriers put some heavy duty broadsides into the poor Valiant, and combined with the assault boats brought it down quite a bit in hit points. Poorly maneuvered (they are without a bridge, after all), the Hellblade only scored a single frigate to its name.

After this, the Imperial Navy disengaged as a whole, leaving the Delphi system to the clutches of Kol Sarat! (243 VP to 42 VP, Chaos favor)



I think in this game we both deployed correctly. He has been subject to my use of squadroned firepower the last couple games, so he wanted to give it a try himself. I think if he had kept the Audacious by itself, it could have made better use of the Nova Cannon, allowing the Lunars to range ahead and distract, though they'd be lacking the heavy broadsides of the Dominator. I think the only maneuvering foibles would have been the too-early turns later in the game, allowing me to cross the T multiple times and rake him across the prow. Perhaps venturing further forward to get into my rear would have worked better, because my superior speed got the better of his turns.

Either way, another fun game! I was nervous every time he said "firing the Nova Cannon" and I chose not to BFI. Any one of those times it could have scored a nasty hit, but the dice were not behaving last night. On to the next!