Wargame Night 07-13

On July 13th, Tim, Bob, Ross and myself got together for our 7th Twilight Imperium game of the year.

This month we decided when randomly choosing alien races we would randomly pick two home-world hexes and place the one race we didn't want to play back into the pile. This way, we could have more options in choosing a new race or a race we wanted to play instead of playing the same alien race over and over again as has happened in the past.


The following races were thus randomly chosen:

Bruce - The Arborec
Ross - The Barony of Letnev
Bob - Embers of Muat
Tim - The Nekro Virus

We also decided to go with domain counters again as well as placing the ancient artifacts around and on Mecatol Rex just for the fun of it. One artifact was also placed on Malice in the Wormhole Nexus. We also received our "Preliminary Objective" cards which gives each player one victory point to achieve a semi-easy objective. Then once this is achieved, in theory, then the player may choose his "secret objective" card for two points. This gives the player a potential of 3 victory points if he is able to fulfill the stated objectives. Unfortunately for me, I misread my preliminary objective card! It said I needed to obtain 3 tech advances in the yellow color...I thought it read 3 yellow tech colored "planets"...of course, not sure why I placed planets in the objective when it wasn't even there but I did nevertheless. As a result, the entire game for me was lost even before it began! Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot.

In the meantime, the rest of the guys sallied forth uninhibited into the unknown. Bob as the Embers of Muat with his less than speedy War Sun ended up taking Mecatol Rex with ease. Naturally, Ross as my neighbor attacked me right outside my homeworld and destroyed my task force reconning the planets for Lazax survivors. I was momentarily crippled and hobbling about like a wounded animal when I decided to go ahead and annex the neighboring planet in another system without reconning the planet. Just so happens that the domain counter was indeed a Lazax survivor. So Ross deprived me of a victory point. Tells ya, it wasn't my night!

So I built up a number of fast attack cruisers and chased him out of my system. Of course, later on in the game as gamenight wound down he came back and attacked that same system again and took the planet from me thus costing me another victory point. So between fog-of-war and chaos monkey, I believe I shed about 5 victory points easy. Hmmm...gunna have to do something different next time. Must pay attention or take no-doz pills or something!

As for Bob on Mecatol Rex, I don't believe he gained anything for it but Tim did manage to attack it in full force and sadly came up empty handed. His fleet did destroy Bob's fleet but was unable to capitalize on this defeat with a ground invasion of the planet. Thus, Bob was able to hold on precariously in spite of his losses.

On the political front, I was able to secure from Bob a promissory note stating that if he attacked me then I could play the promissory note and belay the order to attack. This was important considering he starts the game with a War Sun but alas he never did attack me and the note was never cashed in for good use. Of course, I can't remember what law we were voting on that he felt he had to make such a concession to me but it apparently didn't matter in the end.

The game ended with Ross scoring his first ever "First Place" finish! Congratulations to Ross for a job well done! Tim came in Second Place and Bob came in third. Sadly, I came in Fourth Place. But I really have no one to blame but myself and a little monkey named Ross! I'll get you my pretty!!

Wargame NIght 06-13

On June 13th, Bob, Ross, Eric and myself got together for another Twilight Imperium game.

The following races were randomly chosen:

Eric - Mentak Coalition
Ross - Naalu Collective
Bob - The Barony of Letnev
Bruce - The Yssaril Tribes

I decided to allow domain counters in this particular game because Ross had never played with this type of variation before and I thought it would just be dandy if he experienced the wonders of deadly natives and lost treasure. Bob immediately cried foul but reluctantly went along with it. As a sop to Bob, we decided to set up the Ancient Artifacts in a circle around Mecatol Rex including placing one on the planet itself. The last remaining artifact was placed on the humble planet of Malice located in the Wormhole Nexus just for the heck of it.

Bob was feeling a bit catty wampus this night and began placing his beginning ships haphazardly upon his home world and leaving his fleet looking like a botched abortion! Just pathetic.

We all received our preliminary 1 point secret objectives and mine stated that I had to go to Mecatol Rex and occupy it with several dreadnaughts. I have to say, it was a rather difficult task with all the domain counters in the way as well as Chaos Monkey located right next to me. I went ahead and sent two task forces to the outskirts of Mecatol Rex with each TF outfitted with a carrier and troops for rapid deployment once Mecatol was reached. Unfortunately, my second task force discovered a supernovae in empty space and was destroyed immediately as a result. My first task force ended up getting mired in a Gravity Rift and was basically immobile until such time I upgraded my fleet with Gravity Rift tech to escape unharmed. Otherwise, without the tech upgrade I would have to roll a die for each ship and may lose one or all of my ships. Considering I lost one TF already, I surely wasn't going to risk another loss of this magnitude again. Unfortunately, this delay cost me dearly.

In the meantime, Eric as the Mentak Coalition was recon-ing his area of space and with domain counters in the game, if you recon with fighters in a system and find the "Lazax Survivors" then you immediately receive 1 victory point. Naturally, Eric found Lazax Survivors and there was much rejoicing in the Mentak camp. He also expanded in his sphere of influence quite easily and with no rejoinder from Bob or Ross he was able to seize large sections of outer space with relative impunity.

Back at my first task force, we were still trying to upgrade my fleet with Gravity Rift tech but Bob kept taking the Technology Agenda from me and with little or no funds to purchase the tech upgrade in the secondary phase of the Tech Agenda due to a lack of planets in my active inventory I was basically a sitting duck. Or should I say I was a "lame-duck". I was just waiting for the bears to start sniffing and growling in my direction and tear me to pieces but alas I was able to finally upgrade and remove my fleet unharmed from the Gravity Rift. But precious time had been lost.

With TF1 basically stuck and Eric basically holding back, Bob was able to expand easily in his sphere of influence and eventually was to creep up and occupy Mecatol Rex with ease. In addition to seizing Mecatol, Bob as the Barony of Letnev was able to secure his Preliminary Secret Objective as well as his Secret Objective of 2 points by fully occupying Mecatol Rex. I did make a belated attempt to stop Bob by preventing him from moving a Space Dock from his homeworld into Mecatol based on an action card. I used my agent to stop this maneuver and it cost Bob at least one turn before he did in fact claim his two points. In the interim, Ross as the Naalu Collective was slowly making his way over to me and by now I was able to purchase a decent fleet of ships to counter his growing and illicit threat to my area of influence. Most of my fleet was stationed directly opposite Ross in two mass strike forces but Chaos Monkey utilized a wormhole and ended up on my rear flank in one fell swoop much to my chagrin. Naturally, he took a planet from me which he needed for his secret objective. As a result, I decided to go "all the way" and drive my fleet directly to his homeworld and occupy it forthwith. This I did with ease and unexpectedly by utilizing the Warfare Agenda as well as utilizing my Gravity Rift technology which allows me to increase movement by 1 when I'm next to a wormhole or gravity rift to increase speed. Thus, I was able to move 4 spaces in one turn and took down Ross' proverbial grid thereby preventing him from obtaining any more victory points. If your homeworld is occupied, then you can't obtain any additional victory points per game rules. But, as everything in this game for me, it was just too little, too late.

Bob won the game in first place with 8pts, Ross was in 2nd place with 5pts, Eric in 3rd place with 4pts and leaving me way back in fourth with just 2 stinkin' points! I suppose in hindsight, it could have been much worse. The domain counters actually did me in. But amazingly and quite illogically, Bob actually now embraces domain counters which as you may or may not know he always refused to play them as they slow the game down according to Bob. Well, now he is a true believer. So perhaps, I did win after all? At least in the court of Bob's public opinion.