Second's Not Quite As Good As The First

Dan and I got a game of Firestorm Armada in over the weekend - his first game of the league and my second. To start out, I rolled up as the attacker, and then rolled to find I was trying to bust through a blockade. Not too shabby. He picked the blockading force, and I was trying to crack through. Checking out the rules, he got to play 450 points (his normal 500 points minus 10% for him not owning the system I was attacking) and I played 250 points (1/2 of the starting force) to try to break through.

Here's his force:



Not too unusual. A battleship, a couple units of Frigates, and some Cruisers lined up to take me out. I picked up my force, and was immediately disappointed.



Don't be misled. That battleship of mine is no battleship. It's a decoy, and actually worse than a Frigate in terms of capabilities. It did me no favors, and actually hindered me as the game will show.

Next, we rolled to see which third of the board each of Dan's ships would be deployed. Here's where I could have made up some ground. If his battleship or cruisers was set up poorly, I could take advantage of the deployment and make a run for it.



Unfortunately, his slowest ships deployed in the middle, and his fastest on the edges. No way for me to cut out any ships with fancy maneuvering.

The game went about as poorly as could be expected. I rushed the end line, trying to get ships off the edge, but things just weren't going my way. Rolling dice to get a boost in speed yielded me the lowest result - 1". Rolling dice to fix my ship's hull in the middle of the game yielded me the lowest result - 1 hull point fixed. I did have a great move where I blew up one of his Frigates and played the "Explosive Wreckage" card and blew up another of his Frigates from the explosion.

All in all, though, I tried to avoid his ships...



But he was able to come in fast enough...



Cut me off...



And surround me.



I was able to get two of my Frigates off the far end of the table, but everything else was rounded up and shot. I managed to take down five frigates with me, despite spending a couple of turns avoiding shooting and just trying to get the best movement I could manage. Even in defeat, though, it was a fun game. I didn't lose by that much - 100 to 133. Had just one more Frigate made it off the far end, I would have won the game.

Overall, I didn't lose any ships in the campaign. I was able to repair my lost Frigate, and called in reinforcements for my lost squadron of Cruisers. Now I'm ready for my next battle...