A Billion Suns

A few months back Osprey released another set of wargame rules called A Billion Suns. It was by the same guy who did Gaslands (Mike Hutchinson) and promised to be a spaceship fleet battle game. I eagerly pre-ordered it and was quite excited when it arrived. The excitement dropped a bit as I started reading the rules and realized it wasn't "really" a fleet combat game. The game is model agnostic which is nice, but the object of the game isn't necessarily about combating the fleets of other players. In the game each player represents a corporation (it's like our species has an instinctual fear of future corporate power). Each corporation competes to complete various contracts using the fewest ship resources as possible. The contracts are actually more like bounties, which is a bit strange for some of the missions. There's no tender process in the game univers, a job is simply paid to anyone who completes the terms. This makes sense for contracts involving destroying rival corporate assets, but why would you pay a bounty for an escort or evacuation missions? Wouldn't you want everyone to cooperate to get the job done? If you want a rival corporation’s communication satellites hacked to steal their data, why would you want multiple factions competing to complete the job? Wouldn't you want as few people involved as possible? Anyway the game needs to happen, so don't think about it too much. In terms of game play, the contract system encourages players to use the least number of the smallest ships available. Ships like battleships are prohibitively expensive and likely won't see much game play in small games. This is a disappointment for fans of Full Thrust or Battle fleet Gothic who want to see big ships duke it out. This isn't to say that the rules are bad or the game isn’t fun, it's just different from my initial assumptions. Folks on YouTube speak highly of the game, so I persevered and tried to learn how to play. One thing that struck me is that the contracts require players to have a fair amount of "stuff" to represent freighters, satellites, space stations and other things for your ships to interact with. The game can scale to any size, but small games will only see players deploy fighters or frigates. If you want to use large capital ships, you need to play a bigger game to justify the expense. This then requires you to buy more "stuff" to represent the extra contracts. This is something I could see GW designing! I have lots of warships in my collection, but none of the non-combat assets needed for a game. Luckily, there are several companies on Etsy that make resin and 3d printed components for the game. I ended up getting some space stations and tokens from Etsy as well as some utility ships and satellites from Brigade Models. The paint jobs aren't fancy because these are really just glorified objective markers. Hopefully I can put on a game, though the list of games we would like to play is quite long already.

Thanks for visiting!

Clearing out the last of BFG

I've completed all the models I have for Battlefleet Gothic! These include some fighters / bombers, a space station, 4 defense platforms and 2 space marine strike cruisers from Shapeways. I also completed the 2 leftover transports from JohnC. The strike cruisers are noticeably different sizes and come from two different 3D print files. The smaller one has much more detail than the larger, but is a bit small compared to the other ships. I guess the Forgeworld it was built at uses metric.

Now I just need to put on a few games! Thanks for visiting.

Battlefleet Gothic Ordnance and Light Cruiser

I finished a set of ordnance markers for Battlefleet Gothic. In the game there is an entire phase dedicated to launching torpedoes, breaching pods, fighters, bombers and for space marines, Thunderhawk gunships. These allow you to land spacemarines on enemy ships and they proceed to wreak havoc all over the ship. All the models are from Vanguard Miniatures cast in pewter and they have excellent detail. I especially like the not-thunderhawks. I also added a light cruiser to the Imperial fleet. The model is also from Vanguard and comes with various weapon options including gun batteries, lances and fighter hangers. I magnetized for maximum customization!

I have plans to paint up some more fighter and bomber stands and add a 2nd strike cruiser to the space marine fleet. Thanks for visiting!

Battlefleet Gothic Game

 On Monday I had a friend over and I put on a Battlelfeet Gothic game. It's an old game that hasn't been supported by GW for over a decade. At the start of the pandemic I had bought a bunch of 3rd party ships to represent forces of the Space Marines and Imperial Navy to represent conflict during the Badab War. the game included 3 Imperial Cruisers against 3 light cruisers, 3 escorts and 1 space marine strike cruiser.

The Imperial Fleet started off by launching some torpedoes. The range was too far and they ended up flying off into space.

 

 

The space marine cobras launched torpedoes as well. Some of these managed to land a few hits resulting in further damage to an Imperial Cruiser which was already damaged form some weapon battery fire.

 

Further damage to the Imperial Fleet.

The space marine strike cruiser took a few turns to get into position, but once it did, it started taking a toll on the Imperial Ships. It launched some thunderhawk gunships which delivered a squad of space marines to the ship who proceeded to light fires and destroy my Port weapon batteries. By this point I was able to destroy on space marine light cruiser and a single cobra destroyer.

We danced around each other a bit and tried to avoid the ever expanding blast markers from the  damaged Imperial ships

The Imperial Cruisers finally got into position to rake the strike cruiser with lance and battery fire, but dismal dice rolling on my part resulted in only one shield being hit.

The return fire from the strike cruiser was devastating with the bombardment cannon scoring several critical hits resulting in fires throughout the ship and a destroyed bridge. Only one hull point remained, which was probably going to be lost to the fire.

My second cruiser fared little better and was bombarded by torpedoes from behind, resulting in massive damage.

My final functioning cruiser was hit in the side by the remaining space marine cobras who managed to let off a torpedo barrage which crippled the ship. With all 3 cruisers crippled and facing destruction, I conceded the game. 

Thanks for visiting.

More ships for the Executioners

 I posted some ships I painted for Battle fleet Gothic back in October. One of the fleets belonged to the Executioners Space Marine Chapter during the Badab War. In the background, the Executioners had a seized (stolen) cruiser called the "Night Hag." It's described as having an assortment of weapons including lance batteries, launch bays and Macrocannons! Whatever those are. I found an interesting model on Shapeways that had a fairly unique, yet still Imperial look. It also had this weird cannon on top of it. I also ordered a Strike Cruiser to make the fleet look more space marine-y. Once arrived I added a set of lance batteries to the Night Hag and painted it up using the blue gunmetal color scheme I used for the other ones. The chapter insignia was again borrowed from the double axe transfer from Imperial Fist Forgeworld transfer sheet.For rules I will probably make it one of the battleships from the Armada expansion. Rumors that GW may relaunch BFG may rendered my efforts here obsolete. It's definitely a game I would purchase despite what I'm sure will be at an eye-watering price. Hopefully they don't change the scale too much.

I have two fleets now and had anticipated that we would be playing games soon. However, Winnipeg is now now entering a second lockdown and authorities are promising to take a hard line on violators of the Public Health order. With news that the virus is surging all over Europe and North America, I am not hopeful that we will be gaming any time soon. In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away at my stockpile of models in anticipation of the day we can resume in person gaming.

The Night Hag - 3D printed

I love how it's absolutely covered in guns!

3D printed Space Marine Strike Cruiser

Battle Fleet Gothic

 When I was in high school, Games Workshop released Battlefleet Gothic. A friend and I went in on the box together. He kept the rules while I took the Imperial and Chaos ships. He ended up buying an Eldar fleet which resulted in all our games being one sided affairs and we soon abandoned the game and moved on. The two fleets I had, were cannibalized for conversions and ultimately went missing during one of my many moves between home and University. It has only been in the last few years of searching Ebay that I learned to appreciate how stupid I was for squandering those models. Oh well, if that's the stupidest thing of done, I guess I'm in good shape. However, nostalgia for the game persisted and after locating a digital copy of both the rules and Armada expansion I decided to "acquire" a few fleets. I found the Litko made the necessary templates and counters while the order dice used in BFG are nearly identical to Adeptus Titanicus.

Ships were obviously the hardest part since GW hasn't supported the game in years and Ebay is charging a fortune. Luckily, others have stepped in to fill the void. Many of the ships I purchased were from Vanguard Miniatures in the UK. They make great looking Imperial proxies complete with side mounted batteries and launch bays. I decided to make a Space Marine chapter fleet and Imperial Navy fleet. The chapter would be the Executioners who were on the side of the secessionists in the Badab War. During the conflict they specialized in attacks on Imperial shipping and used a modified cruiser named the Night Hag as their flag ship. The Imperials would represent Battlefleet Solar. 

For the more iconic ships like the Battlebarge and Retribution Battleship, I went with Shapeways. I'll rank those models as fair. They won't win any awards, but they're fine as game pieces. Here are some photos of the fleets. I still have two ships to go for the Executioners including the Night Hag!

Yet another gaming option once gaming resumes.

Shapeways Battlebarge

Vanguard Miniatures gothic ships

Vanguard Helian Dreadnought

Good proxy for a Mars Battlecruiser

Shapeways Retribution Battle Ship

"It's a - well, you know..." - PrairieCon Battle Report

As previously reported, Conscript Greg and I ran games at PrairieCon XXXIV, held last week in beautiful Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Greg brought out his excellent Tomorrow's War future skirmish game with a ton of terrain while I quite sensibly brought a few spaceships and a terrain mat for a Star Wars Starship Battles fleet-scale game.

The scenario I had designed was based on the Battle of Endor at the end of "Return of the Jedi" - the rebel fleet comes out of hyperspace ready to attack the defenseless Death Star II, when all of a sudden the Imperial fleet heaves into view and Ackbar utters the immortal words:

"IT'S A TRAP"

Yes, surrounded by the Imperial fleet (including a Super Star Destroyer on which the Rebels are repeatedly exhorted to concentrate their fire), the Rebels must hold out until Han Solo and his merry band can destroy the shield generator and allow the snub fighters to penetrate the space station.

The Rebel fleet turns hard about to face the Imperials. Models are repainted/converted Micro Machines (Mon Cals and Victory/Interdictor Star Destroyers), Titanium-Series Star Destroyers, and resin confections from the excellent range produced by Odyssey Slipways. The one-piece resin SSD Executor is an eBay random, I think it was originally produced by a modelmaker in Brazil. Fighters are the "stringvest" models from the Star Ranger forums, now produced by Studio Bergstrom.

Ackbar orders the fleet to move in for close action. The Rebels split their force, with one half attempting to screen the other from the worst of the fighting. The idea was to buy time for Han and friends to deactivate the shield generator - this would happen on a random turn. If there were Rebel fighters left (and/or the Millennium Falcon) these would then have a chance to blow up the Death Star.

The Rebels really mixed it up with the Imperial fleet but it became clear that they would be overwhelmed...

...especially once the "fully operational" battle station started laying waste to the fleet with its superlaser!

As the game wore on, the Headquarters Frigate finally got the signal that the shield was down - time for the fighters to move in!

The Millennium Falcon had been lurking in proximity to the Death Star since the beginning of the game; here at last was a chance for Lando and Nien Nunb to prove their value to the Alliance. The Falcon took some damage from the Death Star's anti-fighter defences but was able to make it all the way to the reactor core and... 

KA-BOOOM!!!

The Death Star went up with all hands on board (except Luke and his dad, naturally) and the Ewoks began to sing their song of victory:

Thanks to the guys (Greg, Mike F., Cam) for coming out to play, the other PrairieCon players who also played, and to PrairieCon for being, hands down, Brandon's best gaming convention for over 30 years ;-)