In September, Bob, Tim, Eric and myself got together for our 9th Twilight Imperium game of the season. The following races were carefully but randomly chosen:
Tim - Embers of Muaat
Bob - Clan of Saar
Bruce - the Arborec
Eric - the Naalu Collective
We decided to forego the domain counters but included everything else and completely randomized the Ancient Artifacts as seen in the photo. As the game got going, I knew I needed to position myself for maximum pointage so as keep my lead in the Kriegspiel Cup Tournament (KCT) secure so I made it my mission to keep Bob and Eric away from me and onto Tim like flys on $@*!. Unfortunately, I believe I stepped in it way before I realized it. What's new, right?
Bob immediately made a B-line towards my sphere of influence and threatened my homeworld early on. However, as time went on (turn 2) he wisely decided to move in the opposite direction and allow me to build and basically exist without being molested by the ravenous wolves of the Clan of Saar. I can't quite remember if we came to an "agreement" or if he decided to unilaterally move out but whatever the motivation he did indeed move away and avoided a massive ink-splot from the rather gelatinous mass that is the Arborec. In other words, I was very happy.
Tim began the game with a super-powerful War Sun as the Embers of Muaat. From the beginning, he was a menace and was to be watched closely. Eric as the all-wise Naalu Collective decided to ensnare his War Sun by secretly placing a Gravity Rift right next to Tim's homeworld and hope that he would clumsily be sucked into the rift and get stuck. And that indeed is exactly what happened! Then Tim whined and complained that he should be allowed to go around the rift because it had a red zone around the hex. This led the Naalu delegation to exclaim - "SUN of a bitch!". Now, I know this may be a family oriented blog but we all know that "bitch" is a female dog. So, clearly, the Naalu were referring to the Embers as female dogs and that is, of course, a racist comment coming from the Naalu. Sun intended!
Notwithstanding the verbal gesticulations emanating from the fan-heads, Tim as the Embers were able to pull ahead early in the game and take first place. At this phase in the game, Eric had now sauntered over to Mecatol Rex and taken it with ease, if I recall correctly. Thus, he was lining himself up to handsomely reap the coming rewards of owning Mecatol and earning more victory points, potentially, as the public objective cards were to be revealed one by one per turn. A lot of public objective cards reward points for occupying Mecatol Rex. However, Tim as the Embers would have none of it, especially since he was called a female dog and needed to show the Naalu what it was like to be on the "receiving" end of dog-love. Most distressing! Eric was firmly entrenched on Mecatol Rex with ships and troops, but Tim's War Sun mangled his fleet and then proceeded to bombard the planetary surface mercilessly leaving no survivors including, sadly, Eric's leader. I believe he was captured by the Embers, if I recall.
This immediately raised the hairs on the backs of the Clan of Saar. So, the inevitable ramp up of Dreadnought production took place at a heady pace in the Clan for the coming battle for control of Mecatol Rex. This provided the
cassus belli for Tim to increase his capitol ship production as well and by now we had a full fledged arms race going on between the Clan of Saar and Embers of Muaat. Again, most distressing. By now, Mecatol lay a smouldering ruin.
In the meantime, Tim built up his occupation force on Mecatol Rex and burned everything in sight. What do you expect from the fiery menace that is the Embers of Muaat? They simply can not be reasoned with.
Eventually, the battle-royale was reaching its climax with both sides completely invested in reducing the other to smithereens. Tim had two War Suns in orbit above Mecatol but Bob had a flagship join his fleet of Dreadnoughts including 6 fighter squadrons. Tim had his fighter squadrons including a mercenary to defend his possession. It was
mono-i-mono or should we say "many-i-many"? Bob opened fire first and the battle was on. Unfortunately for Tim, the War Suns could not sustain enough damage to hold off Bob's fleet and eventually, he too succumbed to all those who place their fate in Mecatol Rex. Sic transit gloria mundi!
As the game wound down I realized Tim was still in the lead and in spite of Bob's victory at Mecatol, Bob was in last place. I did pull the Imperium Rex Public Objective card but had the option of placing back in the deck. So I wanted Eric to pull it thinking he would gain more points and take first place from Tim but alas, my plan did not work and Eric waited too long. Amazingly, Bob pushed to first place leaving Tim in second and Eric in third. Sadly, I came in last! I just love being in fourth place, all the time!
Another great game at any rate.
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