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Post by brennall on May 22, 2015 9:42:50 GMT -5
We decided to record our first game of Colonial Battlefleet as a means to encourage other players at our wargaming club. The first encounter was a 2500 point Meeting Engagement using our newly designed ships, both players had lightly read the rules before play and had never played the game itself before. I had purchased a 6' x 4' Space Mat with a custom hex grid to my specification printed on it. The mat itself was made by Deep Cut Studios in Lithuania, we will be getting another mat as we were so pleased with how it turned out. The Martian Empire Red Fleet (MERF) was the my fleet for the engagement. It is using the Zenthian fleet from Hydra miniatures, mounted on Litko 1.375" bases and using "Dropzone Commander" Widgets so they ships were removable for transportation. The Martian Empire technology levels were TECH-5/3/1/4/3/4 with the heavier ships using a mix of Heavy Disruptors, Heavy Phasers and Grape shot. I fielded two Battleships (Defenders), a Battlecruiser flagship and four Light Cruiser screens as can be seen below. Cheekily I used the largest ship I had to represent the flagship (even though it is larger then the accompanying Battleships), but I wanted it to look good. The Royal Oguroo Space Force (ROSF) was my opponent the engagement. It is using the ScanFed fleet from Ground Zero Games, mounted on their normal ship bases. The fighter bases were custom made using straightened paper clips. The Royal Oguroo Space Force technology levels were TECH-3/1/5/4/4/3 with the heavier ships almost all carrying Heavy Phasers and LOTS of fighters. He fielded a Battleships (Carrier), two Battlecruisers (Carrier and Defender), two Light Cruisers and two Destroyers (not sure what they were). He also had about 22 fighter squadrons painted, split 50/50 Interceptors / Strike Fighters. Here are both fleets on parade before the battle, I suspect we were both proud to have actually finished painting our forces for once before the first game With the lack of a flagship for the ROSF forces, I managed to win the Initiative relatively easily. More to follow ..
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Post by brennall on May 26, 2015 4:27:13 GMT -5
The Martian fleet deployed at its warp point, holding a tight formation to get maximum use out of the screening ships. The ROSF deployed at the other end of the table, with a couple of fighter squadrons deployed in CAP. Holding a loose formation so they could deploy fighters quickly and easily. Easily winning the initiative, the MERF watched their opponents advance and deploy fighters. For some reason, a lone squadron of fighters were seen at the rear, obviously busy going nowhere. In traditional Martian style, the MERF accelerated towards the enemy broadcasting welcome messages of peace. As you can see, both fleets had a good distance to go till they meet!
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Post by brennall on May 26, 2015 5:01:46 GMT -5
Pushing its way through and disgorging more fighters the ROSF advanced towards the MERF At this time I was getting rather worried about the quantity of fighters I was facing. The gap had also narrowed considerably as the fighters rushed forward to meet me. The ROSF were looking particularly impressive at this point. The rather small group of Martians were clearly outnumbered by this obviously warlike approach. Rather than be overwhelmed the naturally peaceful Martian fleet advanced and deployed several cannisters of grape shot, purely defensively of course! Each counter was showed a number of cannisters (1-3) and the direction the grapeshot would go in when they detonated. With the exploding grapeshot moving in the missile phase next turn, it would be interesting to see the results.
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Post by brennall on May 26, 2015 6:03:32 GMT -5
Ohh .. that didn't go well for the fighters did it .. The remaining fighter squadrons and ships of the ROSF turned into the Martian fleet and enveloped them With the screening ships, reduced number of fighters and heavy point defence and flak, the fighters proved ineffective. After another turn of intense fire by the Martian fleet and the ROSF flew past, a shadow of their former strength. They struck their colours as soon as they realised their aft was exposed to further Martian fire. The lessons learned were many on both sides. The player of the ROSF had gone for a heavy fighter force assuming a WWII similarity of power (think Pacific theatre), while I had designed my Martians to be Big Gun heavy (WWI). He had grouped his fighters closely and paid the price when hit with area effect weaponry. Once the fighters were dismissed, the remaining ships in the ROSF were sadly lacking in power compared to their Martian counterparts. As a first game with little knowledge on either side about the rules, it was enjoyable. Both players have taken the opportunity to revise their designs ready for the next game on the 31st. I suspect there will be less fighters in play and a lot more of the Big guns, almost certainly both sides will have a flagship this time round. Two more players are finishing their fleets this week, so we should have more players / games soon. In the end we should have eight players and fleets ready for a Campaign.
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Post by TheDreadnought on May 26, 2015 8:46:46 GMT -5
Beautiful game! Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. It certainly looked like you guys had fun.
Yes, fighters are not WWII equivalent. In creating a balanced design system, I had to make sure somebody couldn't just spam fighters for an easy victory.
That said, some people prefer more lethal fighters. One suggestion that's been made in these forums is to allow fighters to attack from 2 hexes away. That allows you to group more fighters on a single target. There are other suggestions on the house rules board if you want to comb through there.
Anyway, loved the report and the "Peaceful Martian Fleet." Keep them coming!
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Post by brennall on May 26, 2015 10:07:45 GMT -5
Thanks, I think it is the first game we had scenery, counters and figures all done before the game. It made a big difference (something I had not expected to be honest), we also had 5 or 6 people at the club come up and comment and ask about the ruleset we were using.
Overall a good game and I am looking forward to this Sunday for the rematch.
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Post by warchariot on May 26, 2015 22:27:57 GMT -5
Very nice, love the color. thanks
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Post by cranbrookdave on Jun 2, 2015 4:41:27 GMT -5
Hi All
This is my first post, so please forgive my lack of Knowledge.
I was the unlucky opponent of Brennall. "My poor fighters!!!" - 22 bases of fighters demolished in one turn :-(
Any way I have a question on grapeshot: I understand that the canister is launched up to 3 hexes away in the batteries arc, and then it is rotated to any of the hex grid directions, and in the missile movement phase it moves 8 hexes, and any model is hit by it. Fighters are dealt with as flak (although 5 cannisters mean 5 rolls to hit per fighter!!) and ships automatically receive 10 points shield damage per canister. Our problem is that the rules text suggests that when the armour is hit by a canister, the penetration and damage is rolled on a 1pt per roll basis?? so 45pts of damage is 45 penetration rolls and possibly 45 critical hit rolls (if you are that unlucky or have only 1 armour rating). Could this be clarified. We quicky came up with a house rule of 1 roll per canister for penetration, with 1 critical hit roll and 10 pts of damage. and any non-penetration result would mean the canister dissolves into 10 x 1pt damages which halve to 0 damage.
Any clarification or correction would be appreciated.
Yours
Cranbrookdave, nemesis of Brennal :-)
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jun 2, 2015 13:43:28 GMT -5
Sure,
I think the problem is with the volume of grape shot used. With all his ships bunched up like that, its easy for him to stack grape shot counters on top of each other. It's kinda a one-trick pony though. You might want to consider forcing him to break up his formation with ASGMs or SDTs.
Once he's not stacking grape shot counters, the issue of resolving grape shot against ships is much less of a big deal. In any case, you should be armoring up your ships pretty well so that most grape shot strikes round down to zero.
You probably also want to try a skirmish line with your fighters instead of a big clump that allows multiple squadrons to get hit by single grape shot counters.
It's really just a tactics issue. Exploring all the different tactics and counters is part of what makes CBF fun!
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Post by brennall on Jun 2, 2015 14:48:27 GMT -5
I think Dave was asking just to check if we had got the procedure correct. Specifically the 45 rolls to penetrate part?
Amusingly, last Sunday, five of us played and almost everyone was busy throwing grapeshot around wiping out small ships at incredible rates. I don't think they realised that BC & BB are actually what they were there to fight in the main. However the main excuse was they were learning the rules. Three more people were interested by the game and I believe two went off to buy the rulebook and get some fleets. This should give us a group of about nine players all told with everyone in attendance who has a fleet.
What we could all do with now is a campaign context within which to structure the club games (as opposed to something like a tournament). Does anyone have any recommendations?
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jun 3, 2015 8:22:06 GMT -5
One is in the works. It's being published in partnership with another game company that does these things. They're saying they'll have it out yet this year.
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Post by captainquirk on Jun 3, 2015 14:08:22 GMT -5
There is a thread somewhere on the CBF section of the forum with some rough ideas.
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Post by shadowwarrior on Jun 12, 2015 2:27:53 GMT -5
One is in the works. It's being published in partnership with another game company that does these things. They're saying they'll have it out yet this year. I announce myself officially excited by this. I am always on the look out for good campaign systems, especially ones that tick these boxes... 1. Turn based. 2. Referee moderated game. Well, I mean, it doesn't have to have a referee but most of the requirements below pretty much dictate that one is necessary. 3. Fully PB(E)M compatible. No requirement for players to meet face to face at all and, if they do, it is happy circumstance. 4. No player decisions required during the turn. Once orders are submitted for the turn, that's it from the players until they've had the results and are ready to submit their next orders. The ref/moderator should be able to resolve everything based on the turn's orders without having to go back to the players. 5. Capability to play blind. It's not strictly necessary but it always adds a little frisson and makes PB(E)M easier. 6. An abstract strategic level combat resolution system to resolve battles that would be too dull or one-sided to play out on the tabletop (or simply because we are feeling lazy and want to keep the campaign moving). As per 4, it should require no player decisions to avoid breaking up and slowing down the flow.
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Post by warchariot on Jun 13, 2015 8:23:22 GMT -5
Never been a campaign fan, too many games I like to play to commit to something that could take months or years to finish.
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Post by brennall on Jun 13, 2015 16:20:23 GMT -5
I must admit I prefer campaigns because they give context to a battle, keeping forces intact to fight another day is something usually ignored in the normal wargame.
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Post by warchariot on Jun 15, 2015 9:56:35 GMT -5
I must admit I prefer campaigns because they give context to a battle, keeping forces intact to fight another day is something usually ignored in the normal wargame. I get that is the norm, but we play as if to fight another day. I just have never been a fan of using some other method to stage a battle. I would rather spend my time playing the battle than figuring who is fighting who and where. But that's just me.
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Post by cranbrookdave on Jun 22, 2015 7:33:34 GMT -5
The only problem with stand alone games is that everyone changes their faction and ship designs between battles, causing an arms race and deforming the game. A campaign would fix the faction stats, forcing the players to live with their decisions, and learn to play well with the ship designs they started with. In real life, it would take years to change the technology or ship types. Most of WW2 designs were created before WW2, and the lessons learnt only came apparent at the end or afterwords. Sherman vs Tiger anyone?
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Post by warchariot on Jun 22, 2015 8:25:18 GMT -5
We had that issue years ago with some players, so we play scenario style games, not everyone bring what they want, that way everything is set according to the scenario. Also, since we designed the ships in MvM, we use those, or a few that didn't make Dread's cut. But again, I get that people like campaign games, maybe because tournament gaming has ruined one off gaming? Where everyone tries to maximize there side to win the tournament. The last one of those I played in was when FOG had just come out and it was billed as a friendly get to know the rules tournament, well it was anything but that...
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Post by brennall on Jun 23, 2015 12:09:01 GMT -5
Being an old (50+ yrs) gamer, I find the completely competitive approach to games to be off putting. I would not attend another tournament, having experienced what you described with the FOG tournament personally (for a different game system obviously).
For me short campaign games seem to hit the right spot. They reinforce the belief that you need to keep your fleet/army intact and at the same time they don't take months to play. However this is situational, if you play one day a month for a few hours, it would not work well and something else would be needed.
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Post by warchariot on Jun 23, 2015 22:18:53 GMT -5
Yes, being an old gamer who plays twice a month at best and loves too many different games, makes campaigns a pain.
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