Cadets at it again

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Another couple of Star Fleet Battles games, Scenarios 2 & 3 from the Cadet Manual. This Cadet manual is working really well for us. It's a programmed instruction, with just enough rules in each scenario to demonstrate an important mechanic in game play.

Game 3, Scenario 2: JC takes the Federation, I take the Klingon Drones. The setup was straightforward. We did make a mistake on the first turn, we forgot about the Impulse system, which was sort of the point of the scenario. We figured it out on Turn 2.

It's interesting that the Federation player can get a win from this by cleverly positioning shields, as a Drone will blow itself up on a shield, but may not do any other damage to the target. So some of the drones were eliminated by the Federation shields, and phasers and photon torpedoes get the rest. Federation win.

Game 4, Scenario 3

JC took the Klingon, I took the Freighters.

The Freighters managed to shoot down two of the Drones, which was super helpul. Then the Klingon ship managed to destroy two of the Freighters right at the map edeg, but the other two got off the map, one of which was completely undamaged.

We played this incorrectly though. My Freighters should have lost their Phaser at 5 points of internal damage. The obvious Klingon strategy here is to spend disrupters and phasers on disarming the freighters (which also slows them down), then launch the drones to finish them off. We should play this again.

Star Realms Frontiers 3

I got stomped, again! Just didn't get any synergy nor any base action going, and JC did get both bases and scrapping. He is making up for the absolute crushing I did to him the first couple of games we played.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.