TRANSITING THE FOMALHAUT CORRIDOR
Star Date 2583.001 (July 2, 2005)
We played this space battle game at HOBBYTOWN in North Jackson who are always generous and let us set up our table and fire space torpedoes throughout the back part of their store. Jim Pitts was the game-master and used as rules, an early (free!) edition of "A Sky Full of Ships." found on the web. The playing pieces were his own very nicely painted space ships.
"Remember, the enemy’s gate is always down!" said Bean to Ender.
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Commanders of The Empire of Man and their ally - The Star Kingdom of Altair. Ed Sansing was on this side but is not shown in the photos because he was taking them! Bryan Thompson (standing in blue shirt) looks on as Fred Diamond explains some of the rules to Mike Todd. Man in red shirt is not a gamer - but is a customer of HOBBYTOWN.
THE PLAYERS
and how to tell the ships apart
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
The leaders of The Star Republick of Orion and their allies The Confederation of the Sword (from left - Jay Stribling, Robert Whitfield, Sean Pitts and Mark Gilbert). Jay, looking remarkably confident in this photo, is playing "Admiral Grumpy", the self-styled Napoleon of Space. This battle, however, proved to be his Space-Waterloo.
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Ed Sansing's ships. The group of 3 ships in line are Ed's command and they face the enemy ships. Ed's ships formed the right wing of their force. Ed was "Admiral Teflon" in this action. Nothing would stick to him. Enemy blazer bolts just slid right around him!
|
SPECIAL SITUATION BRIEFING A small joint cruiser force has been put together and ordered to jump through the Fomalhaut warp point corridor. Three jumps down, you enter a region devoid of stars with just a few drifting rocks to mar the emptiness of space. You know that there is another warp point somewhere ahead of you where you can jump to the next system. This next system is inhabited and neutral. There you can rest your ships and crews before continuing your armed reconnaissance mission. As the senior partner in the alliance, the Empire’s officer is senior, even though the Altarians have provided the stronger force. The Imperials have three heavy cruisers and three escort light cruisers, while the Altarians have five heavy cruisers. This should be enough force to defeat other cruisers and fast enough to run from anything heavier. Victory conditions
|
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Fred Diamond and Bryan Thompson's ships, the left wing of the Empire of Man. Fred's ships are the battle cruisers in the foreground and Bryan has 3 Light Cruisers (with point defense weapons only).
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
From Ed's point of view - the enemy forces. In order, from the camera: ships of the The Confederation of the Sword - Mark's (green), Sean's (red) and Robert's (brown) and and Jay's ships of the Star Republic of Orion (Blue).
"Captain Kirk! There's Asteroids ahead, lots of them, all square in lots of colors!" "Those are dice Mr. Checkov. Why don't you go lie down in your cabin..."
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
The first look at the table after the deployment screen came down. Both sides had plotted their first 2 moves "blind" before the screen was taken down. It turns out that one of the objects of both sides required them to fly past each and try to exit off the table opposite where they entered. They ended up flying through each other's formations on the way across the table.
Admiral Grumpy and Commodore Whitfield can be seen at top of image.
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Sansing's squadron closes in on Sean's and Mark's. On the yellow ships, the "wings" are raked forward and the red area which looks like the cockpit is really the energy vents at the ships rear - so they always look like they are flying backwards!
|
SPECIAL SITUATION BRIEFING A small joint battle group has been put together and ordered to jump down the Fomalhaut warp point corridor. Several jumps down, you have entered a region devoid of stars. There are just a few drifting asteroids scannable in the void. You understand that there is another warp point somewhere ahead of you where you can transit to the next system. This next system should be inhabited and neutral. There you can find rest for your vessels and thier crews before your reconnaissance mission will continue. As the dominant partner in this force, the Republic has the senior officer in this group. The Confederates, however, have provided larger forces. The Republicans have two heavy cruisers and two light cruisers, while the Confederates have six light cruisers and five escort light cruisers cruisers. This should be enough force to defeat other, similar enemy units, and swift enough to run from anything that they cannot stand up to. Victory conditions
|
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Bryan Thompson's ships (the 3 white ones in the background), Fred Diamond's ships (the 3 white ones in the foreground), and other ships (the 2 yellow one in the foreground) of the Empire of man/Altair alliance, line up to take shots at Admiral Grumpy's ships. Somehow 3 forces of the Empire of man/Altair alliance alliance's ships ended up on one side of the table facing 2 opponents of the Orion/Sword forces, while Ed Sansing ended up alone with his Altairian vessels on the other side facing 2 Sword opponents.
The two balls of exploding plasma in the upper right hand of the image were previously Jay Stribling's light cruisers. Excellent long range gunnery by Fred Diamond destroyed them both.
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
From Ed: "A view of the table as we all go into the fight." The brown/red rock asteroids were made by Jim Pitts out of pumice, so they really are rocks.
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Another pithy comment from Ed Sansing: "My ships passing through the enemy lines."
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Fred, Bryan and Mike Todd take shots at Robert Whitfield's brown ships. Bryan has turned his white ships around to chase the enemy instead of heading straight to the jump point.
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Fred Diamond has gotten his ships turned around and close in on Whitfield's ships. Roberts vessels were armed with close range weapons only, but when he was close, they were quite effective. Two of Fred's ships were battered but not destroyed.
Photo taken by Ed Sansing
Fred's last effective ship chases "Admiral Grumpy's" cruisers who have had enought fighting for today and are accelerating to make the jump to hyper-speed.
SO WHO WON THIS SPACE BATTLE
The coalition of The Empire of Man and The Star Kingdom of Altair shot up the ships belonging to their opponents, The Star Republic of Orion and their allies, The Confederation of the Sword. Jay Stribling (Admiral Grumpy) lost two Light Cruisers, and Robert Whitfield had a light cruiser explode after a series of ferocious short-ranged fire fights.
Alas for the Empire of Man! Is it doomed to extenction? Or is this just one of thousands of small frontier skirmishes? Probably the latter.
QUOTABLE QUOTES
"It doesn't matter what I do - I should just move at random, I can't hit the enemy ships..." - Jay Stribling - On being asked why he was moving at slow speed one turn and then accelerating as fast as possible on the next turn.
"Hey, how come all of you guys are over there?" - Ed Sansing - on finding himself outnumbered 2-1 by enemy ships on the right flank.
There seems to be something wrong with my bloody light cruisers today! - Jay Stribling - upon seeing his two CLs blow up.
Return to the Jackson Gamers' Homepage
Angelfire - Free Home Pages
Free Web Building Help
Angelfire HTML Library
htmlGEAR - free polls, guestbooks, and more!
Thank you for visiting The Jackson Gamers' pages at Angelfire. Please come back and visit again!