ACTION NEAR THE PEGASUS WARP POINT
Our first game with Jim Pitts' space ships
and the "A Sky Full of Ships" rules

Jim was the game master for this space battle game played at Hobbytown on October 17, 2004. Photos by Ed Sansing.

Commanders, Bryan Thompson on left, Fred Diamond - issuing orders.

Jim Pitts, game-master - is at right. Notice asteroid field at bottom right. This was made by Jim Pitts from real rocks - pumice - on home-made stands.

Notes from the Game-Master:

• Our Games' Setting: "In the deepest reaches of space, the armada swiftly presses onwards towards its goal - the deep space warp point portal known as Pegasus. Standing on the flag bridge of the command dreadnaught, the Admiral gazes into the star sprinkled darkness..."
• For the second time, the Jackson Gamers have ventures into space (the final frontier). We used a (currently) free set of rules called "A Sky Full of Ships" which can be found at: A Sky full of ships - www.geocities.com/dan_055/.
• We will be using ship models from the Babylon 5 universe, courtesy of our friends at HOBBYTOWN USA, who generously sold them to me, years ago, at discount from the remainders bins. The ship characteristics will be fictional to my own "universe."
• There were enough commands for 11 players, plus I, as your venerable game master, will control the Pegasus warp point. Each command had have its own "victory" conditions, so this turn just a bit into a space-based "wild west shoot-out."

More Commanders!

This is showing the opposite side of the battle area. Jay Stribling, at left, yawns busily. Some-one was up too late in the flag quarters with Yeoman Rand last night!

Center - Sean Pitts, at right, John Murdaugh - in high spirts. John's forces were the freighters and their close escort. Sean commanded an ally-force trying to safeguard the freighters. Ed Sansing also commanded escort vessels.

Bryan Thompson, Fred Diamond, Rick Parks, and Jay Stribling were all "wolves" after the transports. Bill Estes arrived late and became the dread pirate "Roberts" moving stealthily to attack the freighters, out of the Asteroid field.

Star into the Abyss, and the Abyss stares back...

The pegasus warp point and the warp point control ship. The ship was a scratchbuilt model by Jim Pitts out of wood turnings. It looked great!

The Invasion fleet.

The large green freighters are carrying the invasion force aiming to enter the warp point and reach Alderaan before the defenders know that they are on the way. They are escorted by three squadrons of the Empire of Man.

The freighters had a problem. See the note below about thier excessive velocity which rendered a warp transit impossible.

Another view of the invaders

The defending "blue angels" coming from a clearer patch of space (note stars in backgroud) entering the murky space around the reddish asteroid field.

Hi-Tech Range Finders in use

The Green and Red squadrons, commanded by Jay Stribling, are about to fly right through the Yellow-birds commanded by Sean Pitts. Since we were on opposite sides, we shot as we went, but with curiously little effect.

The Brown squadron was commanded by Rick Parks who kept up a heavy supporting fire against the yellow-birds. Small 1/2" square counters represent flights of fighters.

You can see some of the stands visible under the ships. Navy censors have air-brushed out most of these. The "Yellow bird" ships look like they are moving toward the left, but the rde areas on the ships are the drives. These are moving toward the right, interpenetrating Jay Stribling's Green and Red ships which ARE moving towards the left.

Bryan's and Fred's ships close in on the Empire of Man

Bryan Thompson's and Fred Diamond's ships are in the "Blue Angel" paint scheme. The evil slave-trading "Empire of Man" ships are white, escorting the large green freighter/transports.

One of John's battlecruisers has lost engine control.

It heads into the asteroid field - streaming atmosphere from multiple hits. It never came out again!

The Dread Pirate Roberts!

A new player, Bill Estes, shows up. He assumes the role of the Dread Pirate Roberts and begins searching for his true love, Princess Buttercup who is a prisoner on one of the transports.

Rick Parks (on right) discusses with "Dread" the chances of finding the princess, undefiled, among the hordes of slaves packed on the transports.

On fire!

One of Bryan's ships takes a critical hit and its fuel and ammo catch fire. At the same time, one of the Empire of Man's ships is impacting an asteroid.

Some of Fred's ships perform the classic "crossing the T" maneuver.

Although the firing position was great, there were not enough of them to smash the convoy.

The overall view of the struggle

The 3 ships of the Dread Pirate Roberts are now visible in the asteroid field. They exited this and attempted - in vain - to rescue Pricess Buttercup.

The Princess being carried away

The convoy carrying Princess Buttercup crosses the boundary and is now under the guns of Pegasus Station.

The freighters had a slight velocity problem. In a largely successful attempt to stay away from those who wished them harm, they were going too fast to decelerate to zero and enter the warp point, so that they would have found it neccesary to loop around the point while being unable to bleed off enough speed. They would have re-entered the area in which all manner of space wolves awaited them. We ended the game after 4 (+ or -) hours of play, before the convoy even entered the "loop". To have finished the game out would have been at least 2 more hours - probably even more. We had lots of ships with little or no damage which could have fought on and ON.

And who won this titanic struggle?

Rick Parks and Jay Stribling had the most victory points. If the convoy had been able to come to rest at the warp point and make transit to Alderon...which was their victory condition

Ah, but why worry about "might have beens"?

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