Battlefront Valkyrie at the EWG

On Tuesday Dan brought out a demo run of Battlefront Valkyrie, a game designed for 3d printed space ship combat from Fat Dragon Games.

 

We had 4 of us at the table, with Jonathan & I playing the Kurgan, whilst Dan & Richard handled the human ships.

 

Each ship has its own 'board' to monitor its health & power. The better your engines, the more reserve power cubes you will have to use on the various boxes/abilities at the bottom. Shields are also based on the strength of the engines, as once your ship begins to take damage, the shields become less effective.

 

The combat is fairly straightforward. Roll a number of dice based on the weapon, with an added or subtracted die for close/long range. Hits occur on 4-6. The defending ship then rolls dice = to their shields, blocking hits on a 5 or 6.

 

The value on the dice rolled to hit also determine the hit type Hull 4-5 or Engine 6. The defenders shield rolls always reduce hull hits first.

 

The fun thing we discovered rather painfully was that when a ship pops, it causes a multi-inch explosion template that hits any other ships within it for damage. As several of the ships were quite battered, this caused a chain reaction where we saw numerous ships exploding.

 

Overall the first play of this game went well & everyone involved enjoyed it. The rules are fairly simple & easy to grasp. Looking forward to seeing more ships make it to the table for some larger battles! Thanks Dan for bringing this out!

Stargrave - Welcome Down to Cratertown!

 Today we dived into our 3rd scenario of the Lost Prospector Campaign. This time is was scenario #4 Welcome Down to Cratertown (but why does Bartertown keep ringing in my head?)

Cratertown is the largest Freeholders settlement in the system. Built within a crater, it is only reachable by ramps carved out from above to enter into the community. All spacecaft must be landed on the surface above due to space restrictions within the crater.

 

The settlers have rigged up a rudimentary atmospheric processing system to recycle oxygen & an airshield to hold the oxygen within the crater. Hopefully someone here has some info on the whereabouts of the Prospector.

 Alas, the crews arrive just in time to find a Molly raid in progress.

The crews emerge from the tunnel ramps.

Craigs gang arrives

The Molly Surfer Boys arrive & begin to strafe the crews.

Unfortunately for them, with all the return fire, it was bound to happen. A Critical destroys the Grav Sled!

 

Dans gang did a bit of damage to the one who strafed his gang.

With the crew spreadout, the push into the town continues. One of the things I added to the scenario, is that whenever a crew took down a Surfer, a Freelander would emerge & join their crew for the remainder of the game.

The streets sure are quiet. The Freelanders have locked down the town, this required anyone wishing to go within a building to unlock the doors (TN13)

Another Molly crashes & burns. This happened to about 5 of them, getting taken down by criticals.

The battle continues with the gangs gathering loot.

Dans crew snags another physical loot!

Things got heated between Chen's & my crews. Lots of Smoke & Walls of Force. I was able to get a wall of force into the ramp entrance, blocking Chen from using it. He spent most of the remainder of the game trying to shoot his way through it

Reese my Chiseler had been wounded & held out against Craig's gang for several turns before succumbing to an attack by both his Captain & First Mate. Reese succumbed to his numerous wounds...

So all got away with some loot, the Molly raid was repelled, however with most of the gangs using their supportive Freeholders as cannon fodder against rival gangs, most did not get any gains in faction with them. Craig again earned the most investigation & has chosed scenario 5 for the next game.

Some end notes we discussed for this scenario when we play it again is to have the surfer boys initially deploy at the center of the table, where the primary loot token is located. They would then fan out from there. I had set the game up where if anyone rolled a 1 for initiative, another surfer boy would arrive. Based on a suggestion by Craig, I think we would have the Mollys arrive using the Unwanted Attention rules. However whenever Shock Troops were rolled, they would instead arrive as Surfer Boys. Any foot troops for the raid would emerge down the ramps. This would likely cause the players to have a bit more hustle with gathering & getting away.

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Stargrave - Surfer Boys!

As we prepare to play Scenario 4 of the Lost Prospector campaign on Sunday, I have been trying to figure out how best to portray the Grav Sleds of the Surfer Boys who are in the scenario.

Just looking around, I quickly grabbed some unused calvary bases, some clear stands & blue tack. Whew glad this wasn't going to be them!

 

Well thankfully Chen found some files that were free on Myminifactory. Quickly getting them printed out on Tuesday night, I just finished getting them painted up.

 

There are 2 designs within, one with control tower & without. They are designed to fit 25mm bases. I will be using some of the old Star Wars figures to represent the Molly Gang riders.

 

The Files do come with a printable base, but it only lifts the grav sled slightly, so I will be again going with Blue Tack & the clear lifted bases.

 

Now we await to see how much mayhem they cause on Sunday! 

EWG Club Night - American Civil War

For our first club night of 2025, Richard ran a 28mm American Civil War game. This was in effect a meeting engagement using the Black Powder ruleset.

Jonathan & I were the Union, while Chen, Colin & at the start Dan played the Confederates.

Initially both sides had just their cavalry unit at the head of the columns.

 

And for the first couple turns, were matching actions & movements.

 

Things are getting ready to heat up with the mounted troops staring at one another. Screening the Infantry units who continued to march onto the field.

 

I prepared to charge the Confederate horse & Blundered! Followed immediately by the Confederates getting the exact same result.

 

My Cavalry advanced & got caught by a Confederate unit, but did manage to ride away with little injury. They did get shocked the following turn & spent the rest of the game just sitting on the hilltop. As for the Confederate horse, it withdrew & eventually broke & left the field without any contact.

 

With the horse now out of the battle, the infantry had pitched battles, with both sides suffering some whipped (combat ineffective) units, but no real winner, so it was called a draw.

 

Each side had a cannon, but neither made it into a position where it could be used. Thanks Richard for running the game & we will see everyone at the table again in 2 weeks!