----- Original Message -----

From: mjtuell

To: battlestations@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 8:39 AM

Subject: [battlestations] 2nd Session Report (was: Some quick advice needed...)

Hey everybody,

I ran my second session of BS last night. It was just me and one of the players from the first session. As expected, things went a lot more smoothly this time and we actually successfully concluded the mission.

I chose to run "Assault Outpost" because of its similarity to the last mission ("Assault Lab"). I think this was a good call for my second time out, but I will definitely be ready for a different kind of scenario next time. I allowed my player (who happens to be my brother) to create three more characters and run a full crew without bots. After we finally got started, I believe it probably took us just under 5 hours to complete the mission. That's still on the long side, but it didn't really feel like a long time and I expect things to go even faster in the future.

Some observations...

This time around, my brother kept his ship moving at a very high speed for most of the time and the defensive advantage of doing so finally dawned on us. We had been so preoccupied with tracking how ships move on the big map that it took us a while to recognize the benefit of moving at a high speed even when you are not "moving" (specifically, that you are harder to hit). We also discovered a liability of maintaining such high speed when he just barely made a turn at the last minute to avoid running into a planet. :-D

Because of the mission specifics and the fact that my brother chose a Xeloxian ship, there were no missiles to deal with! This made the game feel very different and probably easier as well.

We had a lot of fun getting to know the Teleporter module and multi-barrel mode Cannon fire, the latter of which we were all rather skeptical the first time out. Between Teleporter bombs and rapid fire cannon hits (he even made his marine a multi-barrel expert), we were surprised how effectively you could whittle down an enemy ship -- death by thousand pin pricks, as it were.

I had the SixtySix pull away and try to program the Hyperdrive for an escape after the outpost went down. This made for a tight, fun ending as my brother's crew tried to chase it down for the overwhelming success. It came down to the wire, because the SixtySix had a good head start -- well out of normal cannon range -- and was running at a slightly faster speed when the chase commenced. It was also pumping shields on the way out, improving its defense against those pesky teleport bombs. It was looking like my brother probably had one more decent shot with a teleport bomb before the SixtySix could put itself out of reach, but he managed to connect and force a fatal hull check!

We had a lot of fun and more and more things were starting to click for us as we went along. We still haven't touched on personal combat in actual play, but sticking with ship-to-ship combat has probably helped keep things manageable for us while we are still learning.

QUESTION: I spent the last part of the game trying to get the SixtySix away from the planet to program the hyperdrive, but it occurred to me that perhaps it could have tried to "exit the mission" by entering the atmosphere of the planet -- am I right about that? Of course, that would have involved slowing the ship down considerably, perhaps fatally. How would you guys have handled that situation (assuming I've given you enough information to work with)?

I guess that brings me around to my last point. I feel that I will be fine with the rules eventually, but I feel so insecure about my skills at a tactician that I worry about providing my players with a good challenge on an ongoing basis. It's not so bad when I'm only playing against one player, but when I have to match wits with a table of four or five players again? I don't know... :-(

Matthew

--- In battlestations@yahoogroups.com, "mjtuell" <mjtuell@...> wrote:
>
> Well, I can't say our first session went very smoothly. I had read the book cover to cover twice, but my head was still spinning trying to keep everything straight. This game is definitely a solid notch or two above what we are used to in terms of complexity.
>
> We started around 5:30pm with going over rules and creating characters and we weren't really rolling with the mission ("Assault Lab") until a couple hours (and a few pizzas) later. Things were moving at a crawl for the first few hours. I lost a couple of my players around 11:00, but the rest of us kept going, at which point I realized that I definitely should have avoided such a large group in the first place. Things were finally beginning to click for us by the last hour, but we had to pack it in at about 1:00am without finishing the mission.
>
> I really like the game, but I had underestimated how difficult it would be to manage the session. Understanding all the rules when you are reading them alone and at a leisurely pace is obviously not the same as having them all straight and available in your head when you need them. I think I will stick to groups of three players (and one referee) until I feel like I've had a chance to really internalize most of the rules.
>
> And for the record, it was me and 5 other guys. I decided to go for the size 6 ship, although it was a toss up in my mind until the very last minute. In retrospect, maybe upgrading the life support might have kept things simpler.
>
> Thanks for all the advice!!
>
> Best,
>
> Matthew
>