Wargame Night 08-13

On August 10th, Eric, Ross, Luke and myself got together for our 8th Twilight Imperium game of the year. Unbeknownst to me, Bob was going to be absent from game-night and so Luke was going to fill in until he arrived. However, Bob never made it and so Luke played in his stead all the way to the bitter end. The following races were randomly chosen:






Bruce - The Arborec
Luke - The Ghosts of Creuss
Eric - Emirates of Hiccan
Ross - Nekro Virus

We decided to include domain counters in the game as well as the ancient artifacts. Naturally, the Wormhole nexus was included in the initial map setup. We placed the artifacts in what I have dubbed  the "Herguth Circle" - one ancient artifact placed in each hex surrounding Mecatol Rex. And the last artifact placed on the planet of Malice in the Wormhole Nexus.

As the game got going, Eric decided to make a run for Mecatol Rex with his combined fleet of carrier - cruiser and fighter escorts only to discover a Gravity Rift right in his way. Not having any Gravity Rift tech to make it out unscathed, Eric as the Emirates of Hacan decided to bide his time and develop the technology to escape the rift unharmed.

In the meantime, Ross as the Nekro Virus and Luke as the Ghosts of Creuss began to carefully navigate out of their homeworld systems in a vain attempt at empire building. I as the wondrous Arborec began a steady campaign of "gentle colonization" of the surrounding planets. The advantage I have as the Arborec is that my troops can spawn other troops on colonized worlds without the use of space docks. One troop per planet each turn. Thus, I proceed with a steady troop build-up every turn, only growing stronger as time goes on.

Eric, in the meantime, finally purchased his Gravity Rift tech card and proceeded on to Mecatol Rex which he took with ease if I recall. Not sure if the Mecatol natives are doing their job protecting their homeworld. Seems that everyone is able to take the planet with ease. May have to reconsider their importance next game night.

Luke, as the Ghosts of Creuss, continued to move with caution in his part of the galaxy and as such played a rather conservative game up to this point. With everyone able to pick two Strategic Agendas, the Political Agenda was used every turn and Ross tried desperately to use his Nekro ability to acquire tech advancements by declaring a certain player would vote a certain way. If he was correct and the player voted the way he wanted then Ross could obtain a free tech upgrade through a Galactic Senate vote. He always picked me and 3 times in a row I purposely voted the opposite way to prevent him from obtaining additional tech advances, much to his chagrin. The laws passed were minor and not decisive in the outcome of the game, luckily for me.

Ross, aka Chaos Monkey, then proceeded to take Malice in the Wormhole Nexus in an attempt to seize an ancient artifact for 1 victory point. Fortunately for the rest of us, the artifact came up empty and Ross had nothing but the planet itself to invest in.

Ross also decided to invade my homeworld itself with a hefty taskforce of dreadnaughts and cruisers with a single solitary mech unit for good measure. Of course, by now, my homeworld was well stocked with infantry as well as two mech units myself including a PDS unit to prevent planetary bombardment. Did I mention I also mined my homeworld system as well? And yet, this rather formidable defense did not placate the bloodlust of the Nekro Virus. He still attacked! Fool! Surprisingly, not a single ship in his taskforce was hit by my mines. Curses!! However, I did fire my PDS unit and hit one of his ships which he chose the dreadnaught to take the hit. Thus, it became a smoldering hulk spooing gas and smoke in space. He still decided after this to continue with the planetary invasion and sent his SINGLE solitary mech unit down planet-side to its most certain death. And death it did meet. The mech unit can sustain damage and it indeed it took multiple hits before bursting in flames. There were no survivors.

After this, Ross limped back to his homeworld accomplishing absolutely nothing. By now, Eric had moved into Mecatol Rex and was now heavily invested on the planet. Clearly, this was a secret objective of the Emirates to take this planet by force and without mercy. The Ghosts of Creuss, on the other hand, barely showed themselves (much like ghosts I might add) and meekly ventured only out into the unknown barely one hex from their wormhole in their homeworld system. I had to remind Luke that he had better get the lead out if he wanted to seize the initiative and get victory points. So he decided to build his Flag Ship which can be expensive. We figured out that this ship can act as a wormhole all by itself and any ship in his homeworld system may then use this wormhole and show up at the end point where the flag ship is situated. Thus, in a single move he could theoretically move all ships and meet up at the destination of the flagship itself to form one massive battle fleet.

Well, as the game came to a close, Ross decided to build his Nekro Flagship and put it to good use. As you may or may not know, this particular flagship is rather nasty. It's primary purpose is that of a Kamikaze ship in that if the ship is destroyed in a space battle then all ships in the same hex with it are also destroyed! Naturally, this was music to Chaos Monkey's ears. He then proceeded to drive his flagship right into the heart of Mecatol Rex! Of course, Eric had no choice but to fire upon it and hope he misses. Naturally, he hit the Nekro Flagship and it exploded taking every vessel in the Mecatol Rex system down with it.

It was an orgy of flame and destruction that could only make a monkey smile! All that remained at Mecatol was a single troop and space dock. But Eric did hang on and was able to hold the planet.

By the end of the game, both Ross and I tied the game at 8 victory points. Ross got to the 8th point first and thus got to claim first place as I took second. This is now Ross' second first place finish in Twilight Imperium in a row! Good job Ross!! Both Eric and Luke got 4 victory points with Eric getting there before Luke. Thus, Eric got third place. Luke played a rather conservative game however, he earned all his points on his own without help from me or the other players if I recall correctly.

Overall, a very exciting game.