Wargame Night 05-13

On May 11th, Tim, Bob, Ross and myself got together for another lovely Twilight game slugfest. However, we played with the latest expansion installment of Twilight Imperium called Twilight Imperium: Shards of the Throne.

The new expansion game comes with new ships such as the venerable Flagship - a much stronger ship than the Dreadnaught but not as powerful as the War Sun. The nice advantage to the Flagship is that no tech prerequisites are required to build this type of ship. But unlike the other vessels, only one ship of this type can be built.

Another twist to this game is the advent of mercenaries. You can now hire mercenaries that can either fight on land or in space. They have individual qualities that differ from each mercenary and thus gives them certain advantages that can be exploited by the player for personal gain.

In the realm of politics, Shards of the Throne allows for "Representatives" to be sent to the galactic council to vote on laws. There are three representatives the alien races can send: Councilor, Bodyguard and Assassin. If an assassin should kill one of the representatives sent to the galactic council then that player cannot vote in that round. Most unfortunate. However, a "Bodyguard" can kill an assassin and prevent such a event from transpiring against you.

There are also new races added to the game: The Lazax, The Nekro Virus, The Arborec and finally, the Ghosts of Creuss which have their very own wormhole - Wormhole D - that only they can use. Interestingly, their howeworld is off the map like the wormhole nexus and thus can only be accessed by going through the "D" wormhole. Their homeworld planet, Creuss, is worth 4 bucks and has 2 influence.

Finally, there are new space hexes to utilize such as the "Gravity Rift" as well as new planets. The gravity rift can be entered by ships but upon exiting you have to roll a die and a roll of 1-5 the ship is dragged into the rift and destroyed along with EVERYONE aboard.

Lest I forget, there are new tech upgrades as well that includes an upgrade to exit a gravity rift safely every time it's tried! In addition to tech upgrades, the game now comes with tanks that have a sustain damage ability for ground forces. You only get four tanks, so use them wisely. Each tank takes up a single compartment aboard a Carrier, War Sun or Flagship.

In addition to all the above, I did order my tin containers for all the pieces as well a Flagship tray for the 8 flagships in the game. I was also looking to repaint the grey/blue ships as well as the green/yellow ships in the game which I did once I received Shards of the Throne in the mail. So a lot of new additions to our usual Twilight Imperium game night and it seems it was a hit with the rest of the guys that made it to game night last month. And yes, there are MORE rules to memorize or forget depending on how you look at it. The "Fog Of War" is only getting more precarious with each expansion.

And now the game. The following races were randomly chosen:

Tim - The Nekro Virus
Ross - The Mentak Coalition
Bob - Federation of Sol
Bruce - Yassiril Tribes

Tim suggested we pick one of the Shard races just to test out their new capabilities. So he randomly chose the Nekro Virus. By the way, one of the advantages of the Nekro Virus is that their Flagship can be destroyed and once destroyed every ship in the hex, friend or foe, is also destroyed. It's good to be a Kamikaze! Thankfully, this ability did not fall in the hands of the notorious but lovable, Chaos Monkey. But someday it might and when it does, God help us.

I believe we rolled for seating arrangements. This is important because it may alter the outcome of a game depending on who sits where and I ended up sitting between Ross aka Chaos Monkey and Tim aka Lord Hiddieous with Bob aka Buzziel-Bob sitting diagonally across from me. Still trying to figure out a call-sign for myself. I was thinking Bruce "Obi Wan" McConnell since I have a lovely picture of myself from Disney Land photo-shopped with me in Star Wars garb which is strikingly handsome and gives me an impeccable likeness to a middle aged Obi Wan Kenobi. But I digress.

I surprisingly picked the Yassiril Tribes which is the first time I have played this alien race since getting Twilight Imperium nearly 3 years ago. So I had no known strategy to play this race but I did like its' ability to spy on other races "action" cards and to hold as many action cards as I want unlike the rest of the alien races which only hold a max of 7 cards. Again, this is a race that Ross might enjoy since he is a big believer in the efficacy of the action card.

It was Bob's idea to place every Ancient Artifact around Mecatol Rex to make it more "fair", whatever that means. Naturally, we had one left over and it was placed in the Wormhole Nexus. As the game got going I was lucky enough to have a trade station located near me and was able to utilize it immediately. Tim was lucky enough to discover another Ion Storm blocking his path to Mecatol Rex. Can't remember who placed it there but I was blamed nevertheless, if I recall correctly.

As I continued to explore around my homeworld system, suddenly and without provocation, Ross attacked a fleet of my ships right outside my homeworld. Since he was the Mentak Coaltion, they get a first shot capability with their cruisers of which he brought several and in addition, he decided to include a flagship with a tank battalion just for thrill of it! His b-line directly to me did destroy my fleet handily which resulted in my left flank being fully exposed to a merciless and gloating Chaos Monkey of the Mentak Coalition. This could not go unanswered.

It was at this time as well that Tim decided to move a fleet of his own near me and I had to decide with the remaining but limited forces at my disposal which foe to attack as either one could seize my homeworld within one turn. After asking Tim what his intentions were, I felt reasonably safe that he had no designs on my homeworld, I decided to attack Ross with every man, woman and child of the Yassiril Tribes. It was a glorious battle with every ship in his task force including his flagship destroyed by the Yassiril counterattack. Unfortunately, for me he did defend well and as a result I was completely depleted and had to rebuild my fleet from scratch. Most unfortunate.

In the meantime, Tim was able to seize Mecatol Rex with little trouble. The forces of the Nekro Virus then began a steady and sure buildup of Dreadnaughts. The Nekro Virus also dropped mines in the Mecatol Rex system just to make it nasty should anyone have a desire to tangle with them in this system. Eventually, Tim would grab the Diplomatic Agenda and force peace on us in Mecatol thus ensuring he collected the necessary 2 points from his secret objective. On top of this, he attacked the planet of Mallice in the Wormhole Nexus and seized an ancient artifact from me.

In the end, Tim was able to secure first place in the game. Bob took 2nd place, I came in 3rd place and Ross unfortunately settled for 4th place. Overall, it was a really fun game with the new rules, ships and alien races. Good job Tim for another first place finish!