Spaceships. . . Red Alert

 

Red Alert - Commands and Colors "in space" - is a fun game scaled at the "fleet action" level. It is not dog-fighting in space. The game works at the fleet level; I envision it more like a computer display showing the relative positioning of the individual spacecraft while compressing the vast distances in which the actual ships operate. But with cool spaceship models instead of the computer.

 

The two factions in the game are very generic - the Commonwealth and the Confederation. I am buying/building spaceship models in 1/2500 scale from the early Star Trek universe, Star Trek: Enterprise to be more precise, to replace the faction resin models from the game. Pre-Federation, to start, centering on the Earth-Xindi War. The Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites join Earth (Federation, here we come!) when the Romulans are discovered behind the Xindi attacks. Later on we'll get the Klingons involved. Yeah, I'm playing fast and loose with canon.

 

One ship will represent one unit, instead of multiple ships per unit in the game as designed. Losses will be tracked with a D6 - "Moonstone" designs from Chessex that complement the stellar background - (think "shield strength") instead of removing multiple models. The clear model stands from Litko show off the stellar mat (fabric mat from the defunct Cor-Sec Engineering) while also enabling "template movement" a la Star Trek: Attack Wing if a hex-less version of the game is ever warranted. Or any other rules - like Star Trek: Attack Wing - that use individual ship models for that matter.

 

The Earth "Allies" start with the NX-01Enterprise, an AMT model kit I built. It is a Destroyer in the Red Alert world. The "Aztec" decals on the model really add to its appearance. You can see how well the unit markers from the Red Alert game display on the model stand.

 

 

The Vulcans provide the largest Allied fleet.

 

If you didn't want to use the game markers on the ship stands, it's pretty easy to see the difference in size of the various classes: Destroyer on the far left, Cruiser in the middle, Battleship/Dreadnought on the far right and Fighters at the bottom. You can see the NX-01 model at top for size comparison.

 

The Fighters are from Studio Bergstrom. They are inexpensive metal castings with good detail and come in a great variety of design styles.

 

The Surak class Cruiser is an Eaglemoss model I just adapted to fit onto the magnetized flight stands. I actually have 3 of these.

 

The Destroyers started life as Star Trek: Attack Wing models of the D'Kyr class starship; I removed the auxiliary craft docking and repainted. I have three of these, as well. Not canon at all, but the design works. . .

 

 

The actual D'kyr Battleship is a 1/2500-scale Bad-azz resin model I built. It's very large so will need a bigger mat - 5-inch hexes - to live comfortably among other models.

 

 

It is a beautiful model that assembles easily, if one knows how to build resin kits, and was fun to paint. I layered three different colors of spray paint to get the base color I wanted; Deep Red, Cinnamon and Copper. I then hand painted details, the warp ring lights and the raised paneling.

 

Next up is the fleet from Andor, the Planet of Ice. The Cruisers are Eaglemoss models of the Andorian Kumari. The Destroyers are a bit of an experiment using metal castings from Studio Bergstrom. The castings come from a line obviously designed with the Kumari in mind, but without any "Aztec" decals or stencils to exactly match the Eaglemoss "paint" I used decals salvaged from other 1/2500-scale aftermarket decal sheets. The Fighters are again from Studio Bergstrom. 

 

Last up are the Tellarites, from Tellar. The Cruisers are from Eaglemoss and the Fighters from Studio Bergstrom again.

 

There will be more updates as I build more spaceships. 

 

 

 

Paddle harder!

 

I know I said the next post would be about spaceships but we're going back to the French and Indian War instead. I got invited to play with a new (to me, not to the area) group of players who were play-testing a canoe race scenario for an upcoming con in Leavenworth, Kansas. I don't remember the name of the rules. The game featured two canoes of trappers who were trying to get their beaver pelts to the local trading post ahead of four canoes of Native warriors. Each canoe was controlled by a player. Each canoe was manned by two men with one musket per canoe. The trappers had two bundles of pelts in each canoe. Activation was controlled by hands of playing cards; trappers activating on black suit cards and Natives on red. Number cards were the number of inches moved per turn and face cards caused rolls against an opponent on Random Event tables. Aces were "wild" - either a move of ten inches or a cancellation of an event played against the player holding it.

 

I played the trappers in the blue and white hats; my team mate Grant had the blue and red. We would win a major victory if we got both canoes with the pelts to the Post and a minor victory if just one made it. Obviously the Natives wanted to stop us!

 

 

The trappers started out slightly ahead of the Natives but the first bend in the river also featured a sandbar that jammed us up and allowed the fastest Native canoe to catch up.

 

There was brief melee (paddle vs paddle!) and then a "9" played by me and Grant's gracious agreement to me moving first in our turn had me surge ahead out of the bottleneck while he traded musket shots with the closest Native canoe.

 

I was able to safely navigate the beaver lodges and dam while My Hero Grant fended off the Native canoes that piled into the bottleneck. 

 

 

Grant was wounded and his canoe "holed," but he and his Unbeatable D20 still managed to out-shoot and outfight and finally sink/kill 3 of the 4 Native teams!

 

At this point in the game I was well on my way to the Post; I just had to navigate the rapids or portage around them. I decided to slowly float the rapids since I was so far ahead of the last remaining Native player, who decided to leave Grant behind to make a last ditch effort to get to me.

 

 

But to no avail as I beached my canoe - loaded with pelts - in front of the post and received the minor victory along with the local parish priest's blessing. 

 

 Definitely a team win - Grant did all of the heavy lifting!

 

Battles & Brews

 

Last weekend Wiley Games hosted its annual summer Battles & Brews. Four games were played, and for a change I played in all four of them! No games outside this year; it was too damned hot.

 

The first game was "Tiny Triremes." We were play-testing a new fast-play ancient naval game, still in development with prototype models, for a friend of The Baron's. Six players, three per side (red and green), each commanding 4 galleys of 3 different sizes. Red and green dice tracked strength points, white dice tracked hull points and turns were controlled with the wooden "compass." I commanded 4 Red galleys on the right flank.

 

 

The small islands really constricted maneuver so the battle devolved into shooting and boarding actions which reduced crew strengths quickly.

 

On my flank I was finally able to ram and sink an enemy ship, but at the cost of two of my own captured and one sunk. The gods of the boarding action dice did not favor me. One of my captured ships was torched because my opponent didn't have the crew strength to hold on to it. A fun battle but Red lost.

 

Next up was the Battle for Endor using Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes. Two teams of two players: two units each of five Rebel scum attempting to infiltrate and blow up an Imperial Bunker defended by two units each of the Emperor's Stormtroopers. I commanded the Imperial Scouts sent into the forest to attempt to "spot" the Rebels, represented by hidden movement markers, some of which were dummies. This mission was critical because the second unit of Stormtoopers, in the bunker, could not deploy until the Rebels were spotted. AND I didn't realize until the battle was fully joined that my Scouts were only wielding pistols, as opposed to the rifles everyone else had. On top of that, I have never rolled so many "out of ammos" in one game!

 

Look! There's Han and Chewie!

 

Sadly, their stories end on Endor. I was able to hold them up long enough - mostly via melee due to being out of ammo so often - for the bigger guns deploying from the bunker to end their rebellious careers. The Scouts lost all but their commander.

 

 

Though I didn't get any photos of the final Rebel rush of the bunker that resulted in the "blood alley" typical of Fistful games, it happened right in front of the bunker with the Rebels all dead and the bunker saved. Long Live the Emperor!

 

The third game featured Mechs. I believe a "MechWars Lite" set of rules was used but not being up on Mech Lore and not intending to play - I was setting up my Red Alert game (you can see it at the top of some of the following photos) while this was going on - I can't say for sure. Maybe someone who knows will see this post and comment.

 

 

But play I did; I took over for another player who got got called home for dinner. I commanded the Red and Black Mechs facing the Green and White. I can tell you the green dice tracked movement and the red dice tracked heat generated by the Mechs' actions.

 

My Big Guy took out a Mech lurking at the edge of the woods and then I lost a Mech to a two-on-one "hand-to-hand" brawl. Our side lost (I believe) three destroyed Mechs to two.

 

Our final game of the day was Red Alert, a space fleet action game using the Commands and Colors system. There are three classes of ships - Fighter, Strike and Capital - and several sub-classes within each class. Each unit has a numerical value towards victory points ranging from one point for a Fighter Unit (Fighter Class) to eight points for a Flagship (Capital Class). Most units consist of three or four ships and each "hit" rolled against it eliminates one ship. I am in the process of converting this to hit points (shields, anyone?) using 1/2500-scale Star Trek models and a D6 die to track hits. I only had enough models completed for one complete side, so in this game you can see the green and red ships as provided in the game on one side and my new models opposite.

 

 

Game play is controlled by hands of cards and the use of Star Tokens. We had two players on each side; so one player acted as the Fleet Admiral and controlled the card play and the units in the center section while the second player controlled those units in the two flank zones. The first side to eliminate twenty-one points worth of units, or eight units regardless of points, would immediately win.

 

 

The Star Trek side won initiative and did some early damage with their Fighters. The Red/Green side (my side) played aggressively but was frustratingly countered at almost every attack by a Combat Card that seemed tailor-made for the situation.

 

On the last turn of the game, the score was closer than it seemed. We were behind on points but had eliminated 7 enemy units, so only needed to destroy one more unit. But the Trekkies only needed one more point, so any kill would win the game. And they got it.

 

Thanks to Wiley Games and the Basement Generals for a fun day of gaming!

 

My next post will be more about the Star Trek models and the Red Alert physical game conversions.