Wargame Night 02-12

On February 11th, Eric, Bob, Tim, Ross and myself got together for a Twilight Imperium Shattered Empire extravaganza! The following alien races were randomly drawn:

Bruce- Embers of Muaat
Ross- Brotherhood of Yin
Eric- Emirates of Hacan
Tim- Yassiril Tribes
Bob- The Mentak Coalition

We played the 5 player game in which players who are situated in the 1, 4 and 5 spots on the board are allocated a certain number of resources to compensate, allegedly, for the poor geographical location they find themselves in. For player number 5, he gets 6 trade goods to start which fell to Eric. Players 1 and 4 each got 4 trade goods which fell to Ross and Tim. Bob and I were in prime locations and did not receive any trade goods. We left out domain counters again but included the notorious wormhole nexus and leaders for each alien race. 

Ross was a little late getting to game night so we set up his part of the board for him by "committee". And I have to say the committee did a wonderful job in selecting the proper locations for each of his planet hexes.  We also used the new Shattered Empire agenda cards which hide the public objectives from view until you choose the #8 Bureaucracy Agenda card and after looking at two of the objectives then reveal the one that best suits your interests, thus claiming a victory point, if you can, for that public agenda from the moment it is revealed rather than waiting until the status phase to claim a victory point.

Both Bob and I were in a planet rich zone, a "Goldilocks" zone if you will, with which to reap the bounty of our good fortune. Interestingly enough, Mecatol Rex, the old regnal planet that once ruled the entire known galaxy, was ringed on 3 sides by asteroids, nebula and supernova. Of course, with 3 "SPLOCs" Space Lanes Of Communication going into MR, none of us would have any trouble taking this venerable but important planet.

As the Embers of Muaat, I get the fine distinction of being the player no one wants to be close to and no it has nothing to do with how hot I am! I get start to the game with a War Sun which is the most powerful capital ship in existence. It also is very difficult to develop and takes time and money that must be spent in order to lay the keel of this monstrosity of a warship. The Embers get it from the start and gosh it is such a good feeling. However, the Embers don't start off with any carriers and must therefore build those to transport troops and other material and this causes unnecessary delays as I came to find out later.

As the game got going we all settled in for the long haul of planet invasion and development. As a result, no one chose the #8 Bureaucracy Card that reveals public objective cards with which to gain valuable and necessary victory points. As such we found ourselves with very little to show, at least in victory points, after a couple of hours. I know, very painful. Even though I had a War Sun, I was just unable to capitalize on its strengths. Sadly, Tim was able to sneak into Mecatol Rex and seize it with nary a protest from the rest of the alien clans.

Again, only one public objective could be seen (blockade another players space dock) and thus we could not know what Tim's intentions were on MR, other than to fulfill a Secret Objective, but alas, no one including myself challenged Tim to Mecatol. I did have an opportunity to attack with my War Sun on Mecatol with 4 fighters assigned to "WS1" however, my secret objective did not include MR and since I was way behind in points I could score 1 victory point by attacking Bob's space dock which was dangerously exposed to my War Sun. Thus, I chose the latter and did indeed gain one victory point. However, that left Tim unmolested. Of course, Tim beefed up Mecatol in the meantime and laid space mines in the Mecatol system for good measure.

Well, as the game progressed Tim indeed did claim his secret objective by occupying MR with 8 capitol ships plus a space dock (I believe) and scored his precious 2 victory points. On top of that, for awhile the Bureaucracy card was not chosen and thus chits were placed on it. As you know, once that card is picked up and there are chits sitting on it then the number of chits equals the number of public objective cards to be revealed in addition to the one that is revealed by the player to the rest of us. Alas, wouldn't you know it, three public objective cards dealt with Mecatol Rex and Tim was able to immediately score 3 additional victory points on top of the 2 points he received for his secret objective. There was much nashing of teeth by the other alien races when this was revealed because there simply was no way for the rest of us to secure Mecatol without a major military conflagration that certainly would be costly if not prohibitive in the short amount of time that was then available. On top of that, Tim chose the Diplomacy card which insured that Mecatol would not be invaded that turn. The end was nigh and by hook and by crook, Tim secured 1st place. Is this the time where I say "when good men do nothing evil triumphs"?

The final score was:

Tim - 7 points (1st)
Ross - 5 points (2nd)
Bob - 3 points (3rd)
Eric - 1 points (4th)
Bruce- 1 points (4th)

Long Live Mecatol Rex!