Greater Space Battles Solo Campaign: 2nd Battle

I played the first battle using my solo campaign system to test out concepts for Greater Space Battles, establishing which rules needed fixing; the resulting current game resides on my downloads page.  Last week I replayed that first battle using the finalized rules and had a great time.

The Traughbo's Cluster Vassalry ended up coming out ahead by losing only their size 1 ship while destroying a Hilherndon League heavy cruiser (size 4), the Kesolgu.  I rolled 2d6 for each faction to see if these losses were significant enough to affect the next Sphere of Influence (SOI) roll.  Since the Vassalry lost only 1 size point of ships, their roll was an automatic success.  The League rolled an 8, exceeding the 4 points they lost in the battle, so they too did not record a negative modifier for the next SOI roll.

Next I rolled a d6 to determine if the campaign period would continue with more battles or end with an SOI roll.  The roll was a 3, which exceeded the number of battles already fought (just one) so that meant more fighting.  I rolled up an new battle, but after going through all the gyrations I only generated two single size 1 corvettes facing each other.  Not only boring but neither ship's loss would be of any significance, so I skipped this battle.  Rolling another d6 I got a 1.  The die score failed to exceed the number of battles fought (now two) so the campaign period ended with a SOI roll.  I rolled a single d6 for each faction; neither had any negative modifiers.  The Hilherndon League rolled a 1, but the Vassalry rolled a 4.  Since the Vassalry's roll exceeded its SOI of 1, the faction's sphere of influence increased to 2.  The poor Hilherndon League remains at 1.  So political infighting about an unpopular war has the League unfocused, while the Vassalry manages to sign a treaty with a neighboring group of systems and expands its power-base.

I rolled up the first battle in the second campaign period but again it was worthless.  The post-battle 1d6 roll showed another battle followed so I rolled up the next target system.  This one was interesting!  With coordinates of 2,5,6 this system was right next door to the Hilherndon League's home systems, and not too far from Traughbo's Cluster as well.  The system, Latham, has a metallic hydrogen mining operation on the second largest moon of the fourth planet, a ringed gas-giant.  Although the mining facility is tiny (I rolled a Strategic Significance of 2), its proximity to both home systems results in a nice handful of ships for each side.  The League gets 10 size points and I roll three size 1 frigates and cutters, a size 3 and a size 4 ship.  The Vassalry only gets 8 points but one is a size 5 dreadnought with a size 3 escort.

Space Campaign, Period 2, Battle 2

The picture above shows the readout discs for the ships participating.  I rolled experience points (XP) in a new way: I rolled a number of d6 equal to each ship's respective size, and took the largest die score as the XP.  Therefore each ship has a chance for 1 to 6 XP, with larger ships skewed towards 5 or 6 XP.  I think this is how I will randomly generate XP from now on, versus the method described in the Greater Space Battles rulebook.  Zero XP would therefore only be possible in ships which lose XP in battle, and represents a skeleton crew.

The game table shares space with  my model shop

Lots of tokens allow me to return later to a game in progress

The battle is on-going, but so far a heap of fun.  The Hilherndon League's heavy cruiser, the Xavinger, took three critical hits early in the battle, forcing it to keep its distance.  The Vassalry's dreadnought, the Thun-Baro, closed for the kill, but the Hilherndon light cruiser Vammala bravely interposed itself and gave the Xavinger enough time for damage control.  Many, many turns later both larger ships have repaired all their critical hits and the Vassalry light cruiser Lapeyrouse has just been vaporized.  Now the big Vassalry dreadnought stands alone against four League vessels (having mauled a size 1 frigate earlier).