Wargame Night 05-12

On May 12th, Bob, Eric, Tim, Wayne, Ross and myself got together for another rousing empire busting game of Twilight Imperium 3: Shattered Empire. This time we decided to add a little spice (Dune?) to the game by turning over the hexes we placed on the map so as to hide from other players what systems were placed where. Once a ship entered a "neutral" red hex then it would be turned over for everyone to see. The map was a beautiful sea of red with Mecatol Rex as the oasis awaiting its first visitors.

The following races were randomly chosen:

Bruce - The Clan of Sarr
Wayne - Emirates of Hacan
Ross - Universities of Jol Nar
Eric - The Mentak Coalition
Bob - The Naalu Collective
Tim - Barony of Letnev

As the game proceeded, Bob and I seemed to be veering towards one another quite early and by turn 2, I believe, we nearly came to logger heads as to who was going to relinquish their sphere to the other. In hindsight I should have simply blasted him out to kingdom come but alas, I decided caution was the better part of valor. And so Bob as the insufferable Naalu and I as the furry but lovable Clan Of Saar starred at each other between shifty and conniving eyes. A lack of trust was definitely thick in the air. I was trying to get to Mecatol Rex as fast as I could but unfortunately someone placed an Ion Storm right in the path to MR and thus I had to go around this hex thus depriving me of a quick advance to the middle of the known galaxy. As time went on, Bob's suspicious activities started to raise the hair on the back of my back and thus I dispatched a cruiser west of the Ion Storm and deployed space mines to thwart any attempt by the Naalu to seize my homeworld unawares. Naturally, the fan-heads (Naalu) felt slighted and threatened war.

In the meantime, Eric as the Mentak Coalition sent a fleet immediately to the center of the Galaxy in an attempt to seize Mecatol Rex. As noted before hand, I felt this was a bold move from the somewhat passive/aggressive Eric that has not been seen for sometime in Twilight Imperium. Was Eric going to take MR with nary an opposing voice in the Galactic Senate to alert the rest of the alien races to his agenda of conquest? Apparently so.

On the far side, Wayne as the Emirates of Hacan was slowly building up a fleet in a system not to far away from MR. Certainly, he could move within one turn to MR and take it if the other alien races were to be preoccupied in other systems. Eric on the other hand, finally made it to Mecatol Rex and clashed with the indigenous tribes and took out their fighter squadron. However, Eric had no men to land for a ground invasion. Or at least, men were on their way but had not yet arrived for a ground invasion. However, Eric could see Wayne making his buildup and decided that even if he did take the planet he as the Mentak Coalition would not be able to hold it for very long and thus departed MR for safer waters.

In the meantime, in spite of Bob's loitering in and around my sphere of influence, I was able to seize an ancient artifact in his sphere of influence that gave me 1 victory point, at least temporarily so. This really got the frills on the Naalu heads vibrating and so he in turn decided to occupy the hex right next to my homeworld with a small task force which of course was completely 100% unacceptable. I therefore engaged his forces and caused a rout from whence he fled back to another system closer to his homeworld. So I decided to cool things down a bit and convinced the nuckleheaded Naalu to just breathe in and accept a quid pro quo whereby my task force would vacate the planet holding the ancient artifact then he was to relinquish any claims near my homeworld. Wisely, he agreed. This set the stage for my attempt at seizing Mecatol Rex in one swift stroke!

As this was going on, Ross as the Universities of Jol-Nar and Tim as the Barony of Letnev slowly came around each other and kept a close eye on their respective SPLOCS - Space Lanes of Communication. Ross came late to the game and thus was a little behind in points. Tim as well was behind as he was no where near Mecatol and had not claimed any ancient artifacts for additional victory points. I was in the lead with 6 points at this time and had yet to claim Mecatol for my secret objective. It was at this time that I decided to strike Mecatol and make a planetary landing and hopefully build up enough forces to survive any attempt by Wayne as the Emirates to seize MR from me. I agree, it was a long shot but I felt there was a 50-50 chance of success in the short run. I only had 3 troops with me to land being led by a Saar General. Mecatol had 2 indigenous troops and as the battle erupted my troops ultimately performed poorly! In the end, I was not able to secure Mecatol since both sides killed each other leaving my General to barely escape certain death. He was the only one to tell the tale. This of course simply pleased the Emirates of Hacan as they now could invade MR unopposed. And this Wayne did as surely as the sun rose on Mecatol Rex that day.

As Wayne occupied Mecatol he continued to build up his forces on the planet with not a peep or a pipe from the other alien races. Of course, it was a formidable force of dreadnaughts but still someone needed to do something. But alas, he remained unmolested and as such was able to fulfill his secret objective. This gave Wayne a considerable lead as the game was winding down. All the rest of could do was simply fulfill lesser public objectives and hope for the best. As such, Wayne would come in 1st place as the Emirates of Hacan with Bob in 2nd as the Naalu and Tim in 3rd as the Barony of Letnev. Eric and I both got 4th place and Ross came in 5th.

Overall, I did pretty good in the first half of the game only to have the wind sucked out of my sails in the latter half. Guess, I'm going to need to revisit my strategy of seizing planets early without adequate backup. I think everyone liked the initial setup of not seeing each others hex placement which I believe adds another layer of volatility and unpredictability to the game. Another great gamenight.