'Looking For Water' Scenario Trial - the Planetoid Won!
This past Saturday, the boys got together to play... something. It ended up being BSG. After a warm-up match of two vs two (Shane [Skyguy001] and Mike took Vipers, Matt and I took Raiders), Shane suggested a scenario from the Ares web site. I looked it up, and pulled out my prototype Raptor to fill out the ship requirements.
“Looking for Water” Scenario available for download
Nikolas had arrived halfway through the warm-up, so the scenario having five ships would be perfect. Unfortunately, I, again, didn't take pictures of this match-up, as I was busy hosting and flying. Shane and Nikolas flew the Vipers, Mike flew the Raptor, while Matt and I stayed with the Raiders. We didn't use any pilot tokens or talents, keeping everything basic.
We faked the Orbiting Planetoid, using a small asteroid field for one of the stationary planetoids, and Mike quickly sketched out a copy of the movement template for the Orbiting Planetoid. It worked well enough. The Orbiting Planetoid ended up playing a bigger part in the scenario than everyone expected.
Without FTL options, this scenario required flying skill on all sides. Throughout this scenario, as in the warm-up, I was abysmal with my shooting rolls. It became a joke that whenever anybody rolled a three (yes, on two dice!), the guys started calling it a 'Mikey'. I was the first player to become an expanding field of spare parts, as I closed in on Mike's Raptor. Mike rotated to shoot me, and both Shane and Nikolas added their fire power into the mix.
I actually did hit the Raptor as I died, but didn't stop Mike from getting his second scan of the Orbiting Planetoid. There was a discussion about this, but there was nothing in the scenario, nor with my playtest Raptor gear, that said the Raptor couldn't shoot and scan in the same turn. Being that Mike was firing with the pilot, that left the second crewman to do the scan. Or so we all agreed.
This left Matt to face three ships on his own. He chased down the Raptor as it tried to make it to the exit zone, being shot at by two Vipers. We didn't have rules for the tailgunner in the Raptor, so that might have made a difference in the outcome, if available. Matt eventually took out the Raptor, but the Victory Conditions still gave a win to the Colonials if he didn't take out the Vipers, too.
Matt turned around and charged back toward the pursuing Vipers, firing as he went. Matt was hit several times, but unlike me, he didn't dig around in the chit bin for all the big, plus chits. He actually drew a disproportionate number of '0's.
I had been reduced to ensuring that the Orbiting Planetoid was kept moving as the game went on. Now, many turns later, that planetoid had made its way from the far side of the play mat to the Colonial entry/exit zone. And as Matt and Shane closed on each other, blazing away with their kinetic energy weapons, the Orbiting Planetoid smashed into them, crushing the heavily damaged fighters. Both Shane and Matt became tinfoil wrappers on the planetoid. This left Nikolas on the board, with an untouched Viper.
Re-reading the Victory Conditions, this gave us a 'Draw'! And the Orbiting Planetoid took top Ace of the game with the most kills.
Note: We used my damage record sheets, and everyone agreed to drawing damage individually, returning the chits after recording damage on the sheet. This meant that everyone had the full range of damage possibilities each and every time. So, my drawing big chits, without getting zeros, and Matt drawing lots of zeros, was just skewed luck.
Damage Record Example: Warm-up for PhenomaCon 2019
Way too much fun, and some excellent flying by all participants, if not the best shooting by some of us.
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