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Battle Reports

Skirmish 2

After a long break (filled with a lot of Blood Bowl) we met again for another space battle. To get into the rules again, we only used 450 points on each side with no flagships. I played the Eldar, and my opponent played the Imperium. We rolled a D20 for a random scenario and got “Skirmish,” with the Eldar as the attacker. The attacker's goal is to escape from the opponent's edge of the game board. The defender's goal is to survive with as many ships as possible. For the subplots, the Eldar got “Vengeance”—where a randomly selected ship has to destroy an enemy ship. The Imperium got “War of Attrition” and had to keep at least half of their fleet's point value alive.

It started off not too bad for the Eldar. The fast Shadowhunters got very far into the battlefield and were easily capable of escaping. The Wraithships, on the other hand, were pretty slow and in danger of being destroyed by the superior firepower of the Imperium. The Gothic Battleships slowly moved nearer to the Wraithships and got a very lucky torpedo hit on one of them. It was destroyed with the help of the Emperor Capital Ship’s front lasers. That was a disadvantage for me, the Eldar player, because now I had to destroy at least two Gothic Battleships or the Emperor Capital Ship, or I would lose the scenario on victory points.

I tried to attack the Gothic Battleships from behind with the fast Shadowhunters but couldn’t do enough damage. At this point, all my Wraithships were in range of the deadly broadsides of the Gothics, and there was no way for them to escape. I retreated with the few remaining ships I had, but it was a defeat.

After a ramming took place, one Wraithship and one Gothic Battleship are destroyed.

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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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