Saucers Attack the Sleeping Dragon!

So another saturday and despite being a  bit unwell the night before in i go to my local game store The Sleeping Dragon to play War Rocket!

I was very pleased to see that Will was there already waiting for me, Will was one of those who first showed interest on the Sleeping Dragon’s facebook page in War rocket because of it’s Atom-Punk style but he wasn’t able to make it in last week. After a very quick rundown on the factions he decided to try the Zenithians! So the first battle of the day will be between the invading Saucers from another dimension vs the art-deco magnificence of the empire of Marduk! So we set up at opposite corners of the low table with the comfy couch so he’d get a couple turns of movement before we’d get in range with again a corsec planet and moon in the middle.

If i thought i had trouble with the Space Pirates manoeuverability before it was nothing compared to the saucers! While they only change the facing and so fire-arc at the end of their movement they can move in any direction and change direction constantly. Will likened this to drifting in car racing. This meant that the only times i had those zippy saucers in my sights was when i was on top in the rolls of the order phase and even then when Will knew i’d get the final move he’d zip his saucers to places it was hard to get my wheeling movement to. Despite the greater fragility of the Zenithians whose even class 3 and 4 saucers never get tougher than the imperial class 1’s it wasn’t easy to bring them down. At one point they ended up clustered against the table edge facing in every direction so i’d have to angle myself carefully to stay on the board and couldn’t attack without facing return fire. Gradually after several rounds of luckless fire on both sides my forces fell one after another until finally in the last turn my final remaining scorpion took the Class 2 saucer with it as they both destroyed the other leaving the 3 class 1 saucers alone in control of the planet!

Next up was Stuart keen to have a rematch from last Saturdays game. This time he brought his own d10 which had apparently been rolling well for him already today. Well what dark alien gods the Zenithians worship smiled upon Stuart and, coupled with better manoeuvering for fire arcs and my own rolls giving me great turn order but several key misses when i needed them, the imperials were taken out in record time! And like last week i lost a scorpion to the first round of firing! Perhaps there is some sabotage going on? Time to call in the secret police and investigate i think. One thing i am going to have to keep in mind in future skirmishes and battles with the Zenithians is that their class 2’s are the same speed as their class 1’s so they all act at the same time! This means my class 2 Raptors will always act first making it hard to get their guns to bear. Being so tough i really should try and get them to take a round of fire every so often to get them onto the delayed action phase the next turn so i can get to those zippy saucers before they zip away out of reach!

Then the third player of the day was my old friend Tim who i’ve known for many years from the miniature painting community but who i hadn’t had a chance to play against before. He had just finished a game of Hordes against Shane and was keen to give War Rocket a try. Space Pirates were his choice to try and so once again the Imperial fleet of Princess Taegan daughter of Emperor Marduk was employed to try and scour the spacelanes of those star-stalking scoundrels the Space Pirates! Tim was swiftly struck by how the simple rules but tactical depth meant that rather than trying to win using lots of special rules combinations it all comes down to the choices you make in game. I stunned one of his Class 1 Daggers and my Imperial rockets fell upon it like hungry golden-feathered vultures, i wasn’t going to allow an unlucky roll letting this one get away so all my rockets concentrated their fire to ensure that i wouldn’t need to roll, what would be an automatic stun was on an already stunned rocket instant automatic destruction!

Shortly after it as rockets spun in both directions in tight orbits around the planet my Raptor was stunned but through some fluke the broadside rays the pirates barraged it with failed to send it to oblivion and with the crew getting it back under control it was back in the action.  However I lost a Scorpion and things where evened out. Several more turns of rockets darting back and forth in a splintered fashion where neither side could bring enough hits about to any one rocket to take any out and Shane gave us the 10 minute warning for closing. Tim was keen on one last quick turn so we hurried through movement, he managed to get more hits on me than i on him but the damage roll decided otherwise and my rockets came through unscathed while his Class 2 Stiletto was stunned. So we called it a marginal Imperial victory and shook hands, packed up everything and he gave me a lift home.

So another great day introducing local gamers to the fun of War Rocket. With any luck The Sleeping Dragon will get some stock in soon. I’m after an Imperial  class 4 and couple class 3s as well as lots more class 1s and 2s and i’m hoping others who have enjoyed the game will buy fleets of their own. It will be interesting to play some larger games. Jimmy is hoping we can get a 4 player game together next week which should prove to be a lot of fun.