Kaboom! Explosions Rock Sleeping Dragon

Another saturday battle report from my local game store the Sleeping Dragon.

Today i was given a lift to the store by Taphyl whose brother Brylan had played in a previous report using the Space Pirates. Before we left for the store I showed off some of my animation cels and we discussed the history of Filmation cartoons, then once at the store we commandeered the war room and prepared for battle.

Taphyl and i a couple years back both got into Monsterpocalypse and we have a great gaming dynamic, with fun being first and foremost at the gaming experience often giving each other advice as we get the hang of new rules with a friendliness that builds into developing close-matched skills and some of the best and most hard-fought fun games that always end in smiles. Not that any of my other war rocket opponents have been anything but truly great sports having a fun time, and the game lends itself to that atmosphere, but Taphyl deserves the extra credit as he often goes that extra step of good sportsmanship.

So we set up both my planets and the moon… it’s is a time where another world in the Draco system is close in it’s orbit with Dormientes Draco, and the battles for this MucGuffinite-rich world are intensifying.

Taphyl is quite interested in the Galacteers but as he was trying out the game with one of my small forces (The Galacteers being my sweethearts and so not for lending) he opted to try the Valkeeri.

Forces were a class 2 and three class 1 rockets each.
The rules as ever were a breeze to explain and we launched into action. My dice started off at a high point as the game began with order phases going my way and first blood for once was not one of my scorpions but instead a Valkeeri Class 1 Siren! Things continued my way when the Class2 Fury was destroyed. Having learned from the many turns in previous games where my Raptor ended up moving about to no effect i started often letting it stay still a turn so as to get a delayed action phase for the next turn which at least was giving me chances to hit.. ah but the dice rolls began to desert me and the single hit from the Raptor wasn’t resulting in damage. The tide of battle turned and first one and then another Scorpion fell to the Valkeeri as they gained initiative, as Taphyl better mastered their movement and range and as both our rolls went poorly (Taphyl even changed dice only for the new dice to fare worse than the first rolling a string of 2s where the other had got into a run of rolling 6s! And later would try my Valkeeri-themed pink and black swirl dice) but mine ended up missing more than Taphyl. I was sure i was headed for another loss though the battle went through a number of turns of stalemate with neither of us managing to get the rolls we needed to destroy the other and then a stun result on a Siren sealed the fate of the Valkeeri as one Siren and then the other fell to the might of the Imperium! All in all a great game.

Jimmy and Stewart had arrived while we were playing so once they finished a game of Yu-Gi-Oh we decided to then have a four-way free-for-all game. And worth noting during the game Jason managed to make it so he watched it play through, getting very excited about building a Galacteer force soon.
It was my Imperials, Taphyl with the Valkeeri, Jimmy using Space Pirates and Stewart with the Zenithians. Each with a class 2 and 3 class 1s.
Terrain was again the two planets and the moon.

I decided to shake things up a bit and so victory would be measured by the construction points worth of foe you defeated, but we also decided to use some of the advanced rules: boarding, ramming and shooting/ramming to stun. And if you boarded an enemy class2 rocket it was worth double its value. We also decided that if two people shot at the same target the one that put more hit counters on the foe would be the one to make the damage roll, to decide if it was a shoot-to-stun and that points for destruction would be split about 2/3rds to the one who put more hits on and the remaining 3rd to the assisting attacker. And in the order phase all 4 of us are rolling to determine in what order our rockets are moving.

For the first couple turns we all moved in from the four corners heading straight towards the centre, then the Zenithian class 1s headed towards me and the class 2 towards Jimmy’s pirates. But as i turned to intercept these Nth dimensional invaders the Valkeeri whizzed around the planet to blast at me! The Class2 that decided to move in behind the pirates was swiftly turned on and blasted to smithereens. Again i decided to try and use a delayed action, to ensure my Raptor would get to strike the tricky Valkeeri but the amazonian she-devil commander had other plans.. and rushed her class2 Fury headlong to crash into my Raptor! As it did so the three Sirens positioned themselves to blast into the Raptors sides and two of my Scorpions swept about to return fire into the Fury while the third’s pilot i imagine slammed his fist repeatedly into the elegant control console at being unable to reach the firefight. So, i asked Taphyl… are you shooting to stun or to kill?… He ummed and ahhh’d uncertain till the last moment considering his odds as 7 hit counters were placed! 2 for the ramming collision as the Fury crashed into the nose of the Raptor right beside it’s nose-cone spike, 2 for the shots of the Fury firing as it rammed and 3 from the 3 Sirens… while i had 5 counters being placed on his Fury, 2 from my side of the collision, 1 from the Raptors return fire and 2 from the Scorpions that could make it… stun.. or.. kill?

I can see the inside of the Rocket now, as the Valkeeri gunnery officer asks her Commander..
“Commander, shall we fire to disable or destroy the Imperial craft?”..
The Commander narrows her eyes as the Fury bears down on the Raptor at ever increasing speed.. again with a sense of the increasing urgency the gunnery officer asks again,
“Commander do we disable or destroy?”
But the Valkeeri commander holds silence as the red and gold of the Raptor is swiftly filling the view through the 3 oval bubble shaped viewports..
“Commander?” cries the alarmed officer and at the last possible effective moment the Valkeeri commander snatches up the steller-radio and orders to her patrol fleet,
“DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY!”

And the Imperium replies in kind…. we roll our dice…

KA-BOOM!

Both rockets are instantly annihilated in a huge catastrophic combination of high-speed collision and atomic fire. Such an awesome cinematic moment! We take a couple minutes to cheer and discuss tumbling debris. But I also point out now.. now there is only one Class 2 remaining on the field, the Class 2 Stiletto of Jimmy’s Space Pirates. If anyone is to claim the extra points from boarding an enemy rocket it will have to be his. The Zenithian Saucers try and escape back towards their corner, My Scorpions try and grab whatever targets they can manage as the order phase allows, the pirates sweep into the conflict and the Valkeeri press their attacks on my Scorpions.

In the bitter fighting to follow a Scorpion is blasted by Zenithian beams and the Valkeeri lose some Sirens as all sides start throwing shots in with each others attacks… One Scorpion looking under threat decides to make a beeline right for the Stiletto at the back of the field. Jimmy notes that he will be able to return fire (but with their 180 degree fire arcs it’s rare for the pirates to be unable to) however his attention is taken up by the Valkeeri who decide to take up the attack instead. The pirate rocket is stunned.. The Valkeeri get the initiative and so it will be the Valkeeri getting to attempt to board the rocket as only one rocket at a time may board a stunned rocket… i muse, not really entertaining the notion seriously, that i could try and prevent the rockets capture by shooting the stunned Stiletto while the Valkeeri are trying to board it, but Taphyl encourages me to do so, so my other Scorpion rushes across and while the poor Valkeeri are attempting to cut through the outer hatch with their lasers, or perhaps are just inside beginning the firefight with the pirates within, the atomic light of Imperial wrath lances through the drifting pirate craft leaving any survivors thankful they have their EVA suits on as the rockets precious atmosphere is vented into the cold void of space.

The remaining Pirates are not dettered however and wreak vengeance on Taphyl’s Valkeeri and my Imperial forces. While the remaining Zenithian saucer has been hanging back on delayed action letting the rest of the carnage whittle down it’s foes… but in the end once more the dreaded pirates are triumphant! One by one we fall to the Daggers of the scurvy star-dogs. Not only do they have the field but have destroyed such a wide array of everyone elses forces that Jimmy is the clear victor in points too!

Then we all shook hands and packed up, chatting and discussing the colour schemes we each intended for our fleets as we went our separate ways.

A particularly fun game. The huge collision and explosion between the Fury and the Raptor was truly memorable.