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Battle Reports

Deep Space Raid

This time, we played our first scenario. In true old-school fashion, we let the dice determine which one and rolled on the scenario table. We rolled the scenario "Deep Space Raid." Here, one player is the attacker (me, with Eldar), who has to destroy at least half of the defender's ships. The other player, the defender (my opponent, with the Imperial Navy), gets a fleet twice the size of the attacker and has to eradicate all attacking ships.

We also rolled randomly for subplots. I got "Blood Feud": my Shadowhunter squadron and my opponent's Cobra Destroyers, again randomly rolled, hate each other. My opponent and I have to move those ships towards each other and always fire at each other if possible. I win the subplot when I destroy the Cobras. I got lucky there because Cobra Destroyers aren't that tough. The Imperium got "Capture the Flagship," which would be tricky, but destroying the flagship also works to win the scenario.

Right from the start, this didn't look good for my Eldar fleet. Facing a double-sized Imperial fleet is not manageable for my fragile Eldar. I tried to rush with the Shadowhunters at full speed, so the Holofield could do its work. This only worked for about two rounds; after that, they got shot mercilessly. My Wraithships did an okay job, though. I managed to destroy the Cobra Destroyers, so I won my subplot. But it was only a matter of time before the Wraithships, including my flagship, got crushed. Man, that really was a bloodbath.

Well, the rulebook says not all scenarios are fair, and that is true for this one. Going up against a double-sized Imperial fleet is very hard. Maybe the best strategy is to ram expensive Imperial ships early on and hope for the best.

(Played Tuesday, January 9th, 2024)

The Eldar facing the imperial might. They have to be fast to survive. Note, that the light side of the planets mark the direction of the solar wind.

One Wraithship suffered a critical damage on the solar sail. Because of that, it now moves only one square and is independent from the rest of the squadron.

The Wraithship on the right is in a bad spot, quickly accumulating damage. The other two destroyed the Cobras and cleared a path for their escape. However, this was thwarted by Imperial ships ramming the Eldar and annihilating them.

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Skirmish

We played a game of Space Fleet for the first time using the extended White Dwarf rules, but only the ships from the boxed game. Here are a few insights:

The rules from the boxed game are nice, but they become boring quickly. However, the extended rules are a lot of fun for smaller games! They can, however, become overwhelming at higher point values. Make sure to sort your counters beforehand and only bring the ones you need. We ended up being drowned in counters (figuratively speaking).

Some people mentioned that the Gothic Battleship is stronger than the Wraithship, but I disagree. In my opinion, these two ships are perfectly balanced against each other. I was pleasantly surprised because, based on theoretical knowledge alone, I also thought the Wraithship was weaker. However, that's not the case!

Both factions are played differently. The Eldar have the advantage of a wide fire arc directly forward, allowing them to take the Imperial fleet head-on. The Gothic Battleships, on the other hand, have very deadly broadsides with a somewhat short range. You have to turn your spaceships so that their sides face a nearby enemy, much like an old ship of the line in the age of sail.

This overall gives the game some tactical depth and is quite fun. However, it doesn’t scale up well to higher point values, possibly because there are only two different Eldar ship types.

(Played Monday, June 5th, 2023)

Two Eldar Wraithships are attacking the mighty Imperial fleet, taking advantage of their fire arcs. The Gothic Battleships can only fire torpedoes directly ahead, whereas the Eldar can fire all their laser batteries in this direction as well.

The Gothic Battleship in the foreground suffered heavy damage, with both laser broadsides destroyed. However, the other Gothic Battleship managed to turn its heavy laser batteries toward the Wraithships.

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