Spartan Game Night

A couple days ago I hit Huzzah to play a couple games against Dan. They had a bunch of stuff I had special ordered in (thanks Chris and Ryan!) so I got to increase both of my miniature loves: three Gunships for Dindrenzi and two sets of the siblings and the Hooded Rider for Neverborn. I glued the Gunships together in preparation for facing down Dan.

Our first game was Uncharted Seas, my Imperial Navy against his Railguard. Once again, the wind started against me and I couldn't really maneuver that much. Our ships shot at each other a bunch with me getting an early advantage until he evened the playing field. Soon he was down to a badly damaged battleship and a couple of damaged cruisers against my barely damaged battleship. We sailed around an island for a couple turns as I tried to fight the wind and get an angle where I could hit him with my broadside but... well, frankly it got a bit boring and rather than play it out, we stopped the game there.

Besides, we both had three new Gunships ready to field in Firestorm.

So we hit the table with 1000 points each, each of us trying to destroy a target on the far side of a moon opposite us. That was really less important. More important was just seeing how many antics we could get in with our ships. He took a strong lead, blasting through five or so of my frigates as I downed only one of his cruisers. Then my Gunships went. Ohmigod. Blasted 10 dice into three different frigates on one side of me, and linked fore guns into one of Dan's Gunships, nearly killing it from full. Next turn, I won initiative (yay Dindrenzi tactics!) and my Gunships went again. Three frigates fell to their barrage, and Dan's Gunship was finally trashed. Good times! His responded in kind, and destroyed one of my Gunships, and the battle kept swinging back and forth. My Heavy Cruisers were putting a pounding in as well, and with my Battleship being the nice center of that attack, I was able to control the middle of the board while Dan took the flanks. A few well-timed boarding assaults, one by him that eliminated one of my Heavy Cruisers, and two by me that eliminated his Battleship, turned the tide. In the end, he had three cruisers left (one damaged, and split into two squads) and I had one Battleship (damaged slightly) with an Escort and a Heavy Cruiser left. We called it there since we were both just going to concentrate on getting our objectives at that point and it would take a while for our fleets to re-engage. I think I would have the advantage if I was able to destroy one of the cruisers from his squad of two - at that point he'd have trouble hurting my battleship, but it would take a while for that to happen.

Overall, good times! Dan's Heavy Cruisers are on their way. We'll have another match up then.

Dan and I agreed that Uncharted Seas is clearly the inferior game of the two. Granted we have more options in FSA, but the gameplay and the style just seems more... fun. We'll be sticking with that one.