Wargame Night 03-13

On March 9th, Tim, Bob, Ross, Eric, Doug, Paul and myself got together for a 7-player Twilight Imperium game. The following races were randomly chosen:

Tim - The Mentak Coalition
Bruce - Clan of Saar
Bob - Yassiril Tribes
Ross - Barony of Letnev
Eric - The L1z1x Mindnet
Doug - Brotherhood of Yin
Paul - The Xxcha Kingdom

We built a 4-ring map with hexes face down for exploration. Players in the 1, 4 and 5 positions - Ross, Paul and Tim - received extra trade goods as their locations on the map were considered less than desirable per game rules.

As the game got started it was apparent to Bob that the alien races at the far south end of the map - the Yassiril Tribes, Barony of Letnev, and the L1z1x Mindnet - were going to have to align themselves strategically and if necessary, make an alliance (directly or indirectly), to go head to head with the more advantaged races sitting pretty comfortably in the center and north side of the map.

Needless to say, Ross, aka Chaos Monkey, couldn't come to grips with such a necessity as joining a regional alliance for the preservation of his race. It was his way or the highway and consequently neither Bob nor Eric could accept such a rogue player with delusions of grandeur to plague their foreign policy in their part of the galaxy. Tensions mounted thusly amid Ross' many prevarications regarding his intentions going forward. The other alien races applauded the Barony's bold moves and independent actions in defiance of his neighbors self-serving policy choices. A clash of arms was imminent.

In the meantime, Tim insisted on being confrontational as he led the Mentak Coaltion to position a fleet merely two hexes away from my homeworld in direct violation of alien protocol. Of course, as the Clan of Saar, it's not as much of a threat since we don't need our "homeworld" of asteroids because we can live amongst the stars with our floating space docks. That being said, clearly his militaristic breast beating could not be countenanced and thus a cold war standoff ensued with multiple ships and troops taking up positions opposite each other. An "accident" was just waiting to happen to set off a local war.

On the far side of the galaxy, Doug and Paul sat next to each other nervously eyeing the other's local area for opportunities to exploit. As the newbie's in the game, they took a cautious approach and ventured forth carefully not to arouse their neighbors ire. Paul as the Xxcha Kindom of turtle-backs had defense going for him, whereas, Doug as the Brotherhood of Yin had fanatical conversion going for him as his strong suit. Even though both Doug and Paul are Den Leaders in their local cub scout pack, a queasy feeling of distrust soon developed between them and their public discord became evident when Doug kept "marking" Paul's system for exploration much to Xxcha chagrin.

Meanwhile, back on the southside of the galaxy, Ross began a menacing buildup of dreadnaughts that neither Bob nor Eric could accept. Eric attacked first and seized one of Ross' colonies right outside the Barony's homeworld. Then came Bob with a direct attack on the Barony's homeworld utilizing the Warfare Strategy Agenda that gave the puny and very ugly Yassiril Tribes the upper hand. I then seized an ancient artifact from Bob which was precariously close to the battlefront between Bob and Ross. It should be said that the Yassiril Tribes did abandon this base and I had no opposition when we invested the planet with Clan Saar Troops. Nevertheless, it was a cynical plot by the Yassiril Tribes to sow envy and mutual recrimination between Ross  - aka Chaos Monkey - and myself which almost worked if I hadn't dropped space mines in a timely manner to protect my assets which in turn gave pause to the Barony on seizing this valuable artifact from me.

Back to the far side, Doug finally pulled the trigger and invaded Xxcha territory in spite of Paul's massive War Sun that was sure to block the Brotherhoods ambitions in that part of the galaxy. If I recall correctly, they both annihilated each other and Xxcha territory still remained in Paul's hands. Doug then invaded another sector of the Xxcha Kingdom and was able to take two planets from Paul. I'm quite positive that Paul will not let Doug forget what he did to him in the next game. As you may or may not know, we may forgive one's egregious and foolish actions but we never, ever forget!

On my side of the galaxy, Tim couldn't resist his impulse to push other people around and invaded my Clan Saar lands. Of course, we were waiting for him. Naturally, we failed miserably in stopping his invasion and lost one of our precious planets to his lesbian cohorts of thieving armies. This could not stand. In response, The Clan brilliantly executed a double envelopment that utilized both of my Space Docks as improvised war suns. Each space dock was the flagship for each fleet that counterattacked my lost territory and invaded one of his own. Both of his fleets were vaporized supporting his forces on the planets below and the Mentak armies became isolated and without hope as a result. They slowly began to starve which is the way we wolves of the Saar Clan like it! We prefer skin and bones to fat and flesh when we gnaw on our enemies! All hail the Clan of Saar!

Amazingly, the score was dominated by me as the Clan when we reached 8 points in a 10 point game but then suddenly lost all of our wind and was stuck right there for the duration of the game. Tim's inhuman ability of bouncing back when down, brought him back from 7th place to 2nd place overall.

Interestingly enough, in spite of being sandwiched between Eric and Bob and their rather testicular military policy of crushing someone in between, the Barony of Letnev under the tutelage of Ross was able to somehow eek out 3rd place! The final scores were - Bruce with 9 points (1st), Tim 9 points (2nd), Ross 6 points (3rd), Eric 6 points (4th), Bob 5 points (5th), Doug 4 points (6th) and Paul 4 points (7th). To be fair, I barely won this game and much credit should unfortunately be given to Tim for a great comeback.

And in the end, in a rather awkward and not so insignificant development, Mecatol Rex was left completely open and unmolested the entire 7 player game! How did that happen? May it never happen again.

Great game for our first ever 7-player Twilight Imperium slugfest. Or was it our second 7-player game? Can't remember. At any rate, cudo's to Doug and Paul for absorbing the arcane procedures and byzantine world of the Twilight Imperium universe and playing a very decent first time game for a bunch of newbies.