Wargame Night 08-10

On August 14th, Wayne, Bob, Tim and myself got together and played Twilight Imperium. The following races were randomly chosen as follows:

Bruce - Emirates of Hacan
Tim - L1Z1X Mindnet
Wayne - Yassiril Tribes
Bob - Naalu Collective

We decided to go for the "shorter" game of 10 points instead of 14 (after Bob arrived around 7:23pm for a 6'o clock gamenight...eh, hem) and distributed domain counters to each of the non-homeworld planets. Again, we did not include "leaders" in this game but someday they will be utilized.

Bob as the Naalu Collective went first on every turn since their special abilities allows them first play. Unfortunately for Bob he was located in a resource "desert" where there were only a few planets. So Bob decided to forgo a big buildup of huge dreadnoughts and instead invest in the lighter but more nimble cruisers. Tim as the Mindnet had huge military forces to start with and in addition had 4 tech upgrades to begin the game. But for some odd reason he kept his forces very thinly spread and no huge military buildup was to be had as is typical for the Mindnet player. Wayne was the weaselly Yassiril Tribes with their special ability to horde action cards but once again and uncharacteristically of the Yassiril player chose not to play his action cards that much nor to view other players action cards. Then I as the Emirates of Hacan was the trade leader in this game by generating lots of trade goods in a short amount of time but again for some odd reason I did not utilize a key attribute of the Emirates of Hacan by trading with other players for their action cards. I totally "spaced" on this special ability much to my chagrin as it only became noticeable to me by the end of the game.

The game progressed as usual by much reconnoitering of the nearby planetary systems, however Bob felt it necessary to occupy once again the jumpgates with his cruisers. I was very tempted to bribe the Yassiril Tribes to attack Bob near one of their jumpgates but alas I thought Wayne was going to do it anyway. Unfortunately, he didn't attack and Bob occupied all four jumpgates in the game and scored his secret objective of two points. As you know, in a 10 point game any single point derived is cause for alarm by all players...or should be.

In spite of Bob's trickery, Wayne managed to pull ahead from everyone else with a total score of 5 points and continued to forge ahead with a fleet stationed at the dread planet of Mecatol Rex. However, I deviously managed to literally stack the Political deck by passing a law forcing the first place player in the game (Wayne as the Yassiril Tribes) to give up one of his planets and allow the last player in the game (Bob as the Naalu Collective) to occupy that planet with 3 men. Now this posed a dilemma for Wayne as he had precious few planets to give up (who ever does?) and so he thought real hard which planet to give to Bob...and he thought...and he thought...then in one masterful stroke of madness Wayne decided to give Bob- Mecatol Rex! An outrage!

This got Tim's juices flowing and he revved up his Mindnet war machine and lumbered on over to Mecatol Rex with a massive armada. Naturally, Bob as the Naalu who recently took title of Mecatol Rex from Wayne now ran with his tail between his legs by mortgaging the planet and leaving the field of battle to the victorious Tim. Talk about "strategic default"! Very embarrassing! Well, retreating for the Naalu much like the French is a virtue not a vice. Still, Tim still had trouble with restless natives on his side of the galaxy and between Bob and Wayne rolling for the natives I believe Tim again lost somewhere between 10 - 13 infantry trying to take unfriendly planets.

I too decided to head on over to Mecatol Rex but alas Bob's retreating task force set their gunner sites on my task force and wiped them out in a duel between his cruisers and defenders and my fighter aircraft and their carriers. My secret objective was to take my neighbors planet that had their last space dock built on it. I kept asking Tim where his last space dock was built but he didn't seem to notice my line of questioning but alas his last space dock had dreadnoughts occupying their position. My forces were too weak to take them on. I was forced therefore to occupy Mecatol if only to prevent Tim from scoring his secret objective. But Bob destroyed any hope I had in that strategy. Thanks a yahoo, Naalu!

By 2am, we had finally wrapped up the game with a final score for Wayne of 10 points! Wayne's first win! Congratulations are in order for Wayne's World. I, your host, came in a very close second with 9 points. Bob and Tim came in third at 8 points. Interestingly enough, when putting everything away I noticed that 4 planets had yet to be reconned sitting between me and Bob. If I had taken my task force to recon this system instead of taking them in a fruitless effort to occupy Mecatol Rex then I would have discovered Lazax Survivors which would have given me 1 extra point and I could have won the game! Or Bob could have tied me for second place had he reconned the planet of Wellon. Yes, that's right, the Lazax Survivors were jellin' on Wellon! The only other player to discover Lazax Survivors was Wayne for the Yassiril Tribes on his side of the galaxy and thus he got his extra point. We'll be watching you, Wayne!

Finally, we flew the official and glorious Kriegspielnacht Flag for all to see and it shall be flown at all future Kriegspielnacht events, rain or shine. And no it's not a NAZI flag...just an Imperial WWI German Battle Flag...that's all!