Upcoming battle...

[David]

This Friday I'm planning on a SFB get-together. My hope is to develop a core group of players such as I've seen mentioned here. I'm hoping for between 3-7 people showing up, so far its looking promising for a good turn out. Besides me, one player has some previous experience (probably a few games under his belt), one player has one game under his belt and the rest have never played.

Looking to keep the first game simple. Nothing fancy planned. I'm planning on having a cruiser (probably heavy) for each race available for everyone to take a look at prior to the game. They can choose which one takes their fancy. If more than one person wants the same type that is fine. Then simply making it a 'free-for-all' just to get their feet wet with the basic rules. This way they get a feel for the basics such as how to do the EA form, moving around, firing, taking damage etc.

I've made a cheat sheet on some basics such as weapons i.e. how many turns to arm, how much energy to charge and/or overload etc. I'd like to throw in how to HET perhaps???

Not sure if I should throw in the various shuttle roles i.e. SS, WW, SP on the first game???

Any thoughts or suggestions for the first game would be cheerfully accepted from your experience.

I plan on using the Klingon D6 or D7 myself because, well...its the best in the game

In all seriousness though, it doesn't matter and I'm more interested in them getting a good feel for the game than I am winning. And to be honest, I'm not going to try excessively hard to win because I'd like everyone to really get a good feel for the game and want to make this something they would like to get together and do often. So I see my role as helping each one (the best that I can) in commanding their own ships, even if it is against my own.

So that is the plan. Comments welcome

[Falconer]

I aired “Balance of Terror� for my friends to whet their appetite.

[David]

I aired “Balance of Terror� for my friends to whet their appetite.

Particularly if it is the remastered version.

[Mike]

The Doomsday Machine is a good one to show, too!

[David]

Well we had a blast. There were three of us that made it. One had the Fed CA, the other a Lyran CA and I had a Klingon D6. As I mentioned above, I felt my role was more teaching on this game as it was game one for one of them and the second for the other.

The game went 10 turns! We started at 7pm and finished up at 2:30am. We took our time with everything and at certain points I gave them my input as to what they might want to consider (even if it was against my own ship), they were free to choose their course though. They both did very well. In the end, my D6 was completely destroyed (excess damage was filled plus one). Funny thing is that they were both one hex away when I blew up and took some damage (they both ended up teaming up against me). I had blasted down the Lyrans shield and inflicted some good damage prior to being ripped apart, so after I was gone the Fed turned on the Lyran and he ended up blowing up as well (excess damage plus one).

We all had a great time and looks like we'll be getting together again, maybe in a couple of weeks or so. This time the plan is for them to have a Fed Ca, the other wants to try a Romulan CA. I'm going to make a switch and try the Hydrans to get some experience with them.

Looking forward to it because it will be...'no more Mr. Nice Guy'.

[RIS_Mace]

Thanks for the update, it sounds like a lot of fun :). What kind of Romulan CA were you thinking of?

[David]

Thanks for the update, it sounds like a lot of fun . What kind of Romulan CA were you thinking of?

It is a Heavy Cruiser designate the 'Fire Eagle'. Got it from another website (hope that is ok to mention, just really liked the look of it). Has 2xplasma S, 2xplasma F, 5xPh-1 and 3xPh-1. The other stuff is pretty much equivlent to other races CA's. One of my neighbors wants to try it out (the one that was the Lyran last time). Might get a few more players next game, so I'm leaning on sticking with the Klingons...D7.

[David]

We got together again tonight and played. One player was the same as last time so this is his third game total, one was brand new. Had hoped for two more but canceled at the last minute, maybe next time.

Returning player had his normal Fed CA which is his third time out with it. He likes it and is really getting it down pat. New guy wanted to be the Klingons so I gave him the ship I was going to use with my blessings which was a D7. This gave me a chance to use a ship/race I'd never used, the ISC light cruiser with two PPD's.

We added shuttles and a few new rules like TAC's. We started off about 30 hexes from each other. For the first two turns I had speed zero and just TAC'ed. This gave me the opportunity to work with the new guy one-on-one without getting to much into the fray of things. Well...both headed right for me of course

All I can say is I like the PPD. Fed got to range 10 so I fired both and I hit for 7 out of the 8 pulses (3 on the first and all 4 of the second). That ripped down his #1 shield and weakened #2 and #6. He returned the favor and hit me with 3 out of 4 OL photons so after the shield reinforcement he got some internals on me. Nothing drastic but several power and a phaser. The Klingon took some distance shots to little effect on me on a different shield. I launched a plasma F at each and when I started moving headed away for repair/recharge.

Well they regrouped and started coming towards me from about half the board away when the Klingon realized how close he actually was to the Fed...so he bushwacked him! They exchanged fire over a couple of turns at knife fighting distance. The Klingon came out worse as he mistimed is movements and his disruptors went out of arc. The Fed was hitting 3 out of 4 OL photons the whole game. So while I recharged and came around the Fed had taken a small number of internals but all his shields were shot up. The Klingon still had 4 good shields but two were blown away and he had pretty heavy damage. They separated with the Klingon running away at slow speed. Then I came in withe the PPD's again and hit the Fed with both on the first role for each. That damaged him pretty heavily. Once again, he returned the favor with 3 out of 4 phtoton shots, luckily on a fresh shield with reinforcements. I still took moderate internals losing some more power and phasers and a couple of plasmas which I managed to get off at him that he couldn't stop (out of shuttles and phasers had all fired). This gutted him ( he would probably have won if the Klingon hadn't turned on him). I then ran down the Klingon on his down shield and introduced him to 5 Ph-1's which sealed the deal.

So after 9 turns of play I managed to limp away the winner, yay me