Sunday 28 July 2024

Firefly - The Game

 Our friend Graham popped round again yesterday evening, bringing with him his new (to him) Firefly game.  Published in 2013, I remember looking at it at the Diceni games show, it definitely passed the "weight test", needing 2 handy to pick up the satisfyingly heavy box.  Graham got the base game plus several expansions for a good price earlier this week, so this was a chance to give it a try.  As the name suggests, it's a game based on the Sci-fi space western TV series Firefly.  Each player takes control of a ship, the objective being to "Find a job - find a crew - keep flying."  Story cards tell you what "Goals" you need to accomplish in order to achieve this.  We played the easy starting version, which meant becoming "solid" with 2 contacts (more on this later), earning 6000 currency, then delivering it to Niska.  This isn't really a proper review, it's just a very brief run through of our game and misses out various things that simply didn't happen in the short "learning game" story that we played.


The game includes a board of the "verse" (expandable at either side with some of the expansion sets), featuring Alliance space around the white sun in the centre (through which the Alliance Cruiser travels) and more dangerous Border space around the edges (in which the Reavers lurk).


There are 5 contacts marked on the board, each of whom will offer you different jobs.  Harken is based on the Alliance Cruiser and tends to offer legal, lower paying jobs.  The others are located on specific planets and offer more varied (and sometimes illegal) jobs.  When hunting for a job, you can look at 3 jobs and choose to keep 1, 2 or none of them.  You are limited in how many jobs you can be actively working and how many spare jobs you have.  The game also comes with some fantastic monopoly money style currency.  Some situations may require you to "misbehave", and you draw from the misbehaving deck to see what challenges you must overcome.


There are 5 supply planets that you can visit, each of which offers a slightly different variety/mix of crew, equipment and ship upgrades.


There are coloured ship models for the players, plus an Alliance cruiser and a Reaver ship.  It's a bit disappointing that all the ships are Firefly class.  Even if the ships have all the same stats, some extra variety might have been nice.


Each ship has a captain - I ended up with Nandi from the episode "Heart of Gold".  The ship has 8 cargo slots, each of which will hold a block of cargo/passengers (for completing jobs) or 2 sets of fuel (used for travelling) or ship parts (used for repairs when certain events occur).  There is also a "Stash" which is hidden compartments where you can smuggle contraband etc.  Along the bottom of the ship card are the main drive, everyone starts with a main drive of 5.  Movement is either a "mosey" where you move 1 space, or a "full burn" which uses 1 fuel but lets you travel up to 5 spaces.  When travelling on a full burn, you draw a card from the space decks each space you travel through.  Alliance space is safer than Border space.  The cards may be "Keep Flying" (continue on to the next space) or may reveal events such as salvage (stop here and try to collect it or carry on past), distress beacons, move the Alliance cruiser (and possibly remove any outlaws or contraband on any ship encountered), move the Reaver ship (might eat the crew and passengers of any ship it encounters), your ship breaks down (use some parts to repair it)... There are extra slots for any upgrades that you might buy.  On the right of the card are the crew.  Along the top you place the completed job cards which make you "solid" with that contact, granting some extra bonuses in certain situations.  On the left side you place your active jobs (up to 3).  I also have my stack of money visible, we all started with £3000.




The money is gorgeous and very satisfying to handle, and deserves a special mention!


This being the simple starting game, we didn't get as far as using any of the misbehave cards. They usually give you a couple of options, at least one of which often results in something unpleasant such as a crew member dying.  The ship captains and characters you can hire all have skills you can use.  Skill tests involve rolling a D6 and adding the relevant skills, i.e. "fight", "negitoate" or "tech".  Given that some skill tests require an 8+ on a D6 to succeed, getting crew members with the right skills can be vital.  Some jobs also require certain skills.


I picked up some low paid but very quick & easy jobs and concentrated on getting those finished rather than looking for extra ship parts/crew etc.  After completing my last job, on my way to see Niska, I passed through the supply world Regina, so picked up a couple of crew just so I could say I'd done it.  Thanks to my captain's special ability, I didn't have to pay any hire cost for them.


At the end of the game, I had amassed more than the required 6000 currency, so had some extra left after paying Niska his money.


The little Firefly ships are lovely little models, but as mentioned before, it might have been likely to have slightly different designs of ship, not just different colours.


My jobs gave me an obvious route to take.  Pick up a shipment of 3 ore from Motherlode near the Red Sun.  Deliver it (full burn, which cost an extra 1 fuel due to the "heavy load") to Bernadette orbiting the White Sun, earning 1,900 and making me "solid" with Amnon Duul.  Mosey 1 space to Londinium to pick up some cargo bound for Newhope, orbiting Georgia (top left).  Whilst at Londinium, I checked for jobs with Harken aboard the Alliance cruiser, I selected a couple of extra.  The first involved loading 2 cargo and delivering it to Sihnon in the next space.  The other was loading 1 cargo in Londinium and delivering to Kerry, quite close to my other objective at Newhome.  Although these 3 jobs were all lower paying, they were enough to put me well over the 6000 currency I needed.

The Reavers didn't have any effect on this game, but I expect that if you played some of the other, longer-running stories, they'd have time to get in amongst the Border world at Red Sun or Georgia and become a much bigger threat to the players.  Likewise, we didn't need much in the way of skills during this game, so there wasn't too great a need to pick up crew.  Again, in other stories, crew would be more important because of "misbehaving".

Despite a couple of minor niggles, we enjoyed the game and might get our own copy...


Monday 22 July 2024

"Robot War" - Delaying action

 "I think I'll have all the robots this time."

"OK, so I'll have all the Mega Force?"

"No, I have all of them too."

"But I need something..."

"You can have the baddie Mega Force, then."

Thus, our next game began.  Given that I had such a small force, we agreed that Number 2 son's objective would be to get half of his robots off my end of the table.  My delaying force would try to hold them and eliminate more than half.  Perhaps we should leave a few things off the table, the game might get a bit bogged down? No, I was told that they all needed to be used.

His V-Roc forces were bunched together on one corner of the board.


The robots were lined up along the entire end of the table.

My somewhat more modest Triax force was scattered across the other end.


VTOLs were ready to launch from an elevated observatino position.


We added a couple of larger Mega Force vehicles to bolster my forces.  These Tar Traks have 4 damage points (the same as the robots) and fire 3D8 when attacking.  They could transport 2 vehicles each if required, but I kept mine empty.


An overhead view of the board.  The robots would need at least 6 turns to cover the distance at maximum speed.  If they delayed by firing instead of double-moving each turn, it would be longer, but I couldn't see my small units lasting that long.


The mecha moved forwards between the rocky outcrops.


It wasn't worth firing yet... too far away for anything to hit.


Number 2 son's fighter-bombers tried to soften up my forces.  They destroyed the first Tar Traks.


A second strike on the other Tar Traks damaged it.


My suqdrons remained ready off-board, waiting for an opportune moment to strike...


A combination of my AA tanks and the VTOLs managed to knock out all attacking fighter-bombers.


... and with that, he decided that he just wanted to play with the Mega Force on his own, so we ended the game.  I had suggested that perhaps it was an overly ambitious idea to use so much, but some 5-year olds aren't wiling to take advice when offered!  It was a chance to find what was in some of my other scenery boxes anyway, so I didn't mind too much.


Sunday 21 July 2024

"Robot War" - Combined Arms City Fight

Saturday was the first day of the school summer holidays and another game of "Robot War" was demanded!  I got the Mega Force down from the loft and unrolled the Lidl wargames mat once more.  As well as the unpainted mecha, I pulled in my painted units.  This allowed us to have two combined arms forces facing each other.  My GW "Space Marine" box provided us with 3 complete sets of buildings from the game to form an excellent city through which to fight.  My super-cheap fir trees also put in an appearance to fill in a few gaps.

Number 2 son had the first turn.  He commenced a long-range bombardment from his mecha and inflicted serious damage on my missile mech.

Missile mech under attack.

His attacks on my other mech were less successful.

Light damage on another mech.

His VTOLs and helicopter gunships dished out some punishment to my anti-aircraft mecha, but not enough to take them out of the fight.

Anti-aircraft mecha also under attack.

The volume of return fire hosing from the AA mecha shredded the entire enemy air force.

Enemy air assets neutralised.

Missiles from my heavily damaged mech had limited effect on the enemy tank formations, only 2 hits achieved.

Lead MBTs destroyed.

At this point, I rummaged in my games bag to find the box of Litko "flaming wreckage" markers to add a bit more interest!

Flaming wreckage...

They add a great effect to the battle.

MBTs roll past their stricken comrades.

Return fire against the enemy mecha was almost entirely ineffective, only a single extreme range hit.

Only light damage sustained.

Turn 2.  Number 2 son's missile launchers open fire.  "But they can't see my mecha," I pointed out.  "But they're heat seekers," was the reply, and so they were...

Aaaaargh! Too many missiles!

Boom! Down goes my mech amidst a storm of missile explosions.

Boom!  Mech down!

More fire from his Mecha and tanks peppered one of my anti-aircraft mech with shrapnel.

Incoming!

The other 2 anti-aircraft mecha fared worse, succumbing to a determined bombardment from the enemy tank force.

Goodbye anti-aircraft units...

Number 2 son's tanks were surging forwards past the burning wreckage of their ill-fated companions.

Victorious MBTs surge forwards...

During my second turn, I was able to concentrate tank and Mech fire on one of his, to eventually destroy it.

First enemy mech down.

On the other flank, my missile launchers threw everything they had at the lead enemy mech, peppering it with explosions and eventually destroying it.

Second enemy mech quickly follows.

Turn 3 started with Number 2 son's 3 mecha attempting to continue their long-range duel with my 2 remaining mecha.  The first opted to fire twice, only needing 7s on 8D8.  No luck.

Can't aim straight.

The next fared just as badly.  At extreme range, it was needing 8s to hit... so, so close, but all the shots just grazed past.

 

5 near misses - so unlucky!

 With my units somehow surviving without further damage, my tank forces were ready to make their move.  First, my flanking force on one side was able to move forwards and engage the main enemy tank formation.

Targets front! Engage at will!

Needing only 6+, I had an exceedingly lucky set of rolls for my 7 MBTs' autocannon.

6 hits!

And in one fell swoop, over half the enemy tank force was destroyed.

One entire wing of the enemy formation is gone.

 On the other flank, I had 2 additional units of MBTs moving between the buildings.  From their vantage point, they could draw a bead on the enemy AA tanks that had deployed ready to defend against my as-yet unlaunched air forces.  3 hits out of 4 shots wiped out all but the enemy command tank.

Piling on the hurt...

...and with that, it was tea-time, and we had to pack everything away.

It was a shame we had to end there, the battle could have gone either way.  Number 2 son had various forces still in play:

A) Anti-aircraft mech
B) Multi-role mech
C) Anti-aircraft mech
D) Missile launchers (now unarmed)
E) MBTs (5 remaining)
F) AA tank (1 remaining)

 I had only 1 mech but a lot more conventional forces:

1) 7 MBTs
2) 3 AA tanks
3) AA Mech
4) 3 VTOLs & 1 helicopter gunship
5) 2 missile launchers (now unarmed)
6) 4 missile launchers (now unarmed)
7) 3 MBTs
8) 3 MBTs

 I've been told that we're having another game soon, so a rematch is definitely coming up!