Trevor put on a fun Star Trek game at the War Room on Sunday. The Romulans (Neil, Brian and Phil) took on the Federation (Rob, Mal, Trevor and me) in three enjoyable scenarios.
Scenario One
This was a contest around a dilithium freighter, with the Federation ships aiming to escort it, whereas the Romulans were tasked with destroying its cargo.
The end result was a Romulan victory: they managed to board the freighter and caused it to self-destruct, leading to the loss of the cargo - but also the Romulan marines on board.
Scenario Two
This pitted the Federation fleet: a cruiser - the Enterprise (Mal), a frigate (me), and two scout ships (Rob and Trevor) against a Romulan cruiser, a science ship, and one scout ship.
The Romulans were attacking a large fortified space station on an asteroid, in a bid to lure the Federation fleet to its destruction.
In a prolonged pell mell fight, I managed to deal the death blow to Phil's Romulan ship, while Rob and I inflicted damage on Brian's ship, even though Brian scored some hits on mine.
Neil's Romulans tried to board Rob's scout ship but were repelled. The scenario ended in a Federation victory, with the space station saved and one in three Romulan ships destroyed.
Scenario Three
The final scenario consisted of a Klingon dreadnought (Mal) and scout ship (Trevor) as well as a Federation battleship (me) and an advanced Federation scout ship (Rob) taking on one Romulan battleship (Neil) and two cruisers (Brian and Phil).
The Federation side was meant to bait the Romulans into attacking my battleship, while the rest of the Federation ships converged to attack the Romulans. The Romulans were supposed to destroy the space station or my battleship (a Yamato class). In addition, Mal had to rescue fellow Klingon battle-brother - Whorf - from the space station.
All three Romulan ships immediately popped up from cloak and attacked my battleship at close quarters. A furious battle ensued, with all ships on both sides in proximity and near the space station, trading hits like nobody's business.
I took 45 cards worth of damage (mainly from Neil's Romulan battleship) which meant that while not crippled, I was effectively unable to move, but retained some shields and offensive capability. I did, however, deal a fair amount of damage to Neil's battleship in return.
Mal managed to beam Whorf on to his dreadnought, and repelled Phil's boarding attempt.
The third scenario ended in a draw, which meant that the Romulans and Federation had one victory apiece and one draw, resulting in an overall drawn game over the three scenarios.
Some... Thing for the weekend...
Overall a light-hearted game, with the Romulan ships having the advantage of cloaking (being undetectable unless they fired) and being somewhat better coordinated behind their screen than the Federation players proved to be.
Rules and Models
The rules were developed by Trevor with inspiration from Jim Wallman's Outer Worlds rules - which were themselves inspired by Blood and Thunder Napoleonic naval rules.
They are based around the mechanic of allocating a set amount of power to weapons systems, shields, and movement. Each turn, by design or necessity, each player could emphasize different functions depending on remaining capabilities, to fulfill their objectives.
Rob had produced the play-sheets and damage cards, acquired the ship models, and obtained a very nice galactic mat for the playing surface. He also has an impressive 'Borg Cube' model...
The whole set-up was user-friendly and intuitive, and looked great.
Thanks to Trevor, our cheerful umpire, for putting on this game - which has become a club favourite (even for those not keen on science fiction), and to Rob for setting up, hospitality, and rules guidance.
No account of the game would be complete without a group photo showing off emergency space-suit gear in the game - donned when 'life support' is lost...
