Star Wars RPG - beginnings - engagement beyond Mygeeto

Having had some very good RPG experience of late, I had decided to try and create one in the Star Wars universe, with the players taking the roles of Jedi. I tried to combine a normal questing party style RPG with a more tactical game, the players fighting on the ground, but also commanding fleets and armies. We have a big game planned, but as we could not assemble the whole party today, we decided to test out the game.

 

The Clone Wars have been raging for nearly two years, and the Republic's clone forces are again on the offensive. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has declared the triad of evil, three planets key to Separatist operations which the Republican forces are to focus on capturing. One of these, the outer rim world of Mygeeto, a place of crystals and storms, has been put to siege and blockade by the Republic.
Since the fall of Muunilist, their homeworld, in the early stages of the Galactic civil war, the Intergalactic Banking Clan, key members of the Separatist league, has taken up residence on one of their colony world, Mygeeto.
On the ground General Ki-Adi-Mundi, a Cerean Jedi Master, is leading the Galactic marines in an assault on Mygeeto's fortress cities, while beyond the atmosphere, Admiral Dubreton, a human Jedi Master of the Naboo, commands the tight blockade of the world.

Seeing the approach of a fleet of separatist blockade runners, he has dispatched two of the Jedi knights under his command, General B, a Wookiee knight, and General A, a Nautolan knight, with three venator class star destroyers to investigate and engage.
Their mission: to destroy the Lucrehulk class battle ship, which is doubtless carrying a large droid army, by shutting down its droid brain, and gathering information.

Both fleets approached, B taking the left flank, A the right. Towards them came each a Banking clan frigate with two light craft. As they came near the frigates launched their compliments of droid fighters, vulture droids and trifighters. In response A and B exited their star destroyers in their Starfighters with half of their ships' Arc170 fighter squadrons.

Both fleets engaged. The fighters engaged in a grand dogfight, with the rest of all the star destroyers' Arc170 squadrons exiting to join the fight. Having suffered broadsides from two sides one of the Banking clan light craft exploded when A strafed it's engines, blowing the entire thing up and sending his fighter spinning through space.
On the otherside of the action B, diving through two swarms of trifighters managed to land his Starfighter in the hanger of the nearest Banking Clan frigate.

He exited his fighter and, supported by his faithful astromech droid I-AN, fought his way deep inside the frigate. But after fighting his way through a host of battle droids he was surrounded by Super Battle droids and Security battle droids, shot in the foot, then shot in the hand and forced to drop his lightsabre. A droid picked it up and he was covered by their blasters before he could get it back. The droids marched him, captured, to the bridgehead.

Meanwhile A had crashed his smoking fighter into the hanger of the other Banking Clan frigate, right as the central star destroyer had moved to board it, and the ship's clones were fighting their way on board. A blasted all the security droids surrounding him into the barrels of fuel nearby, while his astromech droid, N1-M8, used his jets to ignite the oil and destroy all the droids in a ball of fire. Fighting off the newly arrived super battle droids, A ran through to the hanger where the clones were boarding. Once they had despatched all the battle droids, only 4 clones remained, as the frigate had managed to stop any more boarders by putting up its hanger shields.

On the otherside of the battle B was now in the bridgehead surrounded by droids. He was brought before a tall robed Muun, clearly commanding operations from the bridgehead.
"Ah Jedi!" sneered the Muun, "Watch your fleet fall!" there seemed no way out for B
However just then the nearby star destroyer opened fire with its gun turrets, hitting the frigate just below the bridgehead. The frigate shook, and in the bridgehead the droids were thrown across the room, giving B the perfect opportunity to recover his lightsabre. With his weapon back in his uninjured hand B leaped across the bundled droids and grabbed the startled Muun up. Dashing back to the door with him before the droids could stop him, the wookiee hurled his lightsabre at the glass window of the bridgehead, while I-AN started to close the door. B tried to pull his lightsabre back with the force, but the vacuum, pulling all the droids from the room, dragged his lightsabre out as well. Lightsabreless, but still with his astromech droid and now his prisoner, B dashed back towards the hanger.

Meanwhile the Arc170 fighters had cleared up all of the droids, while three of the separatists four light craft had also been blown up. However the stardestroyers had taken their own hits, various cannons knocked out, but most critically a swarm of trifighters, with their cannons and buzzdroids, had severely damaged the engines of the central star destroyer and it was at risk of conflagration.

A had found his way up to the bridgehead of the frigate which the clones had boarded, but all but one of the clones had been killed on their way up there. Arriving at the bridgehead, they found super battle droids and security droids exiting it. They destroyed them all and entered the bridgehead, but it was deserted. Looking to take control of the ship and perhaps pilot it into the separatist battleship. However in their search the clone trooper suddenly saw that the windows of the bridgehead were covered in mynocks which would break the glass at any moment. They left the bridgehead just in time as the next moment the glass broke and the room was filled with mynocks and vacuum.
They decided to head for the observation tower, containing the secondary control room. Discovering that two of the frigates escape pods had already been launched, A imagined that the sentient crew must have already left, taking control of the ship would not be too hard then.

Meanwhile the central star destroyer, its clones unable to break through the frigate's hanger shield, broke from the engagement and headed for the battleship.
The other frigate was very badly damaged, having come under fire from both the left flank star destroyer and the separatist light craft (no doubt warned of the commander's fall). With the damage to its steering, armour and bridgehead  making it vulnerable, and a final shot to its engines making it dangerous, B decided to head for the escape pods, rather than back to his fighter in the hanger.

A had now reached the observation tower, and found it surrounded by the usual compliment of battle droids. Hacking his way through them he was greeted by another Muun, perhaps the frigate's commander, but as he hacked and slashed his way through the super battle droids, lobbing a couple of clones' detonators, the Muun, quickly descended via a lift shaft, and soon A saw another escape pod launching. The controls had been damaged by his detonators, but with the help of N1 he was able to turn the frigate in the Battleship's direction.

The central star destroyer, overheating its engines, suddenly found its engines and bridgehead consumed, and then the rest of the ship. It exploded damaging all the surrounding vessels and ripping apart several droid fighters. With one of the frigates in enemy hands, and the other spiralling out of control, and with two star destroyers approaching it, the battleship launched its compliment of droid fighters, swarms of vulture droids and trifighters.
Heading again for the star destroyers two swarms of trifighters succeeded in taking out the left flank one's engines and bridgehead, and then its secondary control room, putting the ship out of action and making it dangerously unstable. B also succeeded in launching an escape pod, himself, his prisoner and astromech droid on board. Just after ejecting the frigate blew up.
Two of the three escape pods from the other frigate had also arrived safely at the battleship. However the third had been blown up by a broadside from the nearby stardestroyer.

The frigate's explosion had a knock on effect, hitting the nearby star destroyer in its engine and sending a conflagration through the ship. Luckily the Clones within had taken the precaution of evacuating the ship just before that, and their cloud of escape pods jetted away from the explosion, which had taken a good deal of droid fighters down, but not before some of them had had the chance to gun down some of the escape pods. The explosion had also damaged the frigate A was in, so rather than continuing piloting it, he sprinted to the escape pods with the surviving clone trooper, ejecting just before the frigate also exploded. These explosions also combined to blow up the last light craft, and so the space through which the last star destroyer approached was filled with debris, wreckage and escape pods.

B landed on the last star destroyer just as it made contact with the battleship, and joined its clone company as they boarded the great droid control ship. Meanwhile the clone escape pods had also landed on the battleship, and the majority of the surviving clones were now making their way through the battleship. With A landing on the other side of the battleship with his clone trooper and astromech, the two Jedi made their way towards the droid brain and bridgehead.
B and his clones found themselves cut off when the door behind them closed and their were fired on by turrets mounted in the ceiling. All but one of the clones were gunned down before B managed to take the turrets out. They journeyed on into the battleship's belly.

Fighting his way through the security droids and super battle droids, A at last met up with B, but in the corridor that they met they were assailed by more super battle droids and security droids and all but A's one long surviving trooper were gunned down before they had cleared the path. The two with their two astromech droids and clone troopers headed up to the bridge

Arriving at the brigde, they looked over the railings to see the droid brain. They dispatched their astromechs to disable to brain.
Suddenly they were greeted with ranks of super battle droids, security battle droids, and a horde of battle droids, who gunned down both the surviving clones. Working together to throw the super battle droids against the security droids and then over each other, they took out the super battle droids, and then B pulled the security droids onto A's lightsabre, while they worked to deflect the many shots, however they were too much, and B was again wounded by a shot.
They systematically destroyed the remaining battle droids, but in the confusion the Muun at their centre dashed for the escape pods. A dashed after him, but B caught him before he could close his pod, knocking him out with one great blow.

With the bridgehead cleared, they tried contacting their astromech droids, but there was no answer, they tried several more times, but then a patrol of super battle droids appeared, confirming that the astromechs had not yet succeeded to deactivating the droid brain.
Spotting a comlink in the Muun's hand, A quickly spoke down it - claiming that the jedi had been taken care of. the super battle droids ahead of them stopped in their tracks. With the super battle droids taken care of, they rushed back to find their astromech droids. Looking over the balustrade, they saw them, surrounded by super battle droids.
They jumped down and fought them, but the super battle droids proved harder than expected, and two managed to wind the jedi before finally being cut down. With the astromech droids released they at last managed to deactivate the droid brain, and thus the droid army, but it took them awhile and by the time they had, the clones later reported, an escape pod had already left the battleship, heading back into space...

to be continued!

The straits of Brscak and Golac, 394 BC

Apologies for the lack of blog posts recently but I've been doing allot of painting and not much gaming. Since painting my Ethiopian force for Baro Gorge I have been working on my Royalist-Rhinelander force for the ECW game in October as well as painting up the new Empire models that I bought in May, I've also finished off a large band of Boxer Rebels for a skirmish game I'm working on for tale of two gamers and I'm also trying to get the French forces finished before I start touring the clubs with Baro Gorge. To cap it all off I'm also working quite hard on getting my 8 ft by 4ft gaming Mediterranean style gaming board finished off. Any way as you can see I've got my hands full with allot of exciting gaming projects (did i mention the 2000 model re-enactment of Balaclava I'm working on) which will hopefully be gracing your screen soon. If you can stand my excuse making for a little longer I'll also say that my camera card broke and I currently have to beg, borrow or steal cameras to record my games.

Anyway on with the report. Today we were having a game of naval conflicts in the ancient world, using top down paper models and rules I had been given after a lareg Peloponessian war game at my house. The rules are fairly straight forwad.
Each ship moves 6" (losing 2" for each 90 degree or lower turn it makes). If you are over 3" away from an enemy ship you can choose to ram the ship or shear its oars (this is where the ship runs alongside another one ramming, off its oars as it goes). If sucessfully rammed (5+ on the rear or front 3+ on the sides) then the ship is sunk, if sucessfully sheared (5+, 4+ for Athenians) then the ship moves at half speed for the rest of the game, if sheared twice then it is removed. You can also choose to board an enemy ship from what ever range, in a boarding action both players roll off (with Spartans winning draws) and the player who rolls the highest boards the enemy ship and scuttles it (I have often thought it would be fun to allow the boarder to capture the enemy ship and treat both ships as having been sheared).

The story behind today's action was that a Corinthian fleet, leaving the safety Molat harbour (an island off the coast of Illyria in the Adriatic), was beset upon by a similar sized Spartan fleet whilst traversing the straits between the islands of Brscak and Golac. Having been at war with the Corinthians for a year now the Spartans were determined to crush this small force in the Adriatic.

Our normal band of gamers was today joined by a good many others. The Spartan fleet was split into two groups of six ships under the command of my Napoleonic gaming partner and another who was new to wargaming. The Corinthian fleet was split into three groups of four ships with us two from tale of two gamers and another who was new to wargaming in command of the fleet. I'm the four on the left.

As the Spartan fleet advanced I ordered my four ships to hold their positions and keep just out of range of a ram attack from the Spartan fleet in the hope that should the dare to approach more than 6" away from my ships we would ram em! The central Corinthian fleet on the other hand sent one of their ships charging off to ram the lead ship of the spearhead of Spartans who had split their fleet to deal with the central Corinthian ships and the blockade runners from Golac.

The Corinthian ship in the centre, who's captain had charged her straight for the Spartans, failed to pierce the Spartanman's hull and was boarded and scuttled by the Spartan crew as the other two sheared its oars along both sides.
The cautious Spartan fleet facing off against my ships threw caution to the wind and rowed full pelt for my line of ships, upon which there was many calls and shouts for the drums to start up their beat and fast! On the right however the blockade runners faced off the Spartan fleet with neither opponent making a move.

With the spartan fleet with in easy reach to ram or shear I let loose the oars and went speeding into the enemy vessels. Three of my ships tried to shear the spartan craft but in the confusion only one of the ships was successful. My last ships attempted to ram the Spartan adversary but failed to penetrate and prepared to counter the inevitable boarding party. In the centre the three remaining vessels rammed and sheared into the closest Spartanman, shearing and sinking.
And on the right there was nought but inactivity.

With my boat's charge having been avoided like a scythed chariot or an elephant upon a well drilled phalanx, being let through the open ranks unable to change course with the speed of the charge, I was now facing the prospect of a difficult manoeuvre to re-face the Spartan fleet and the possibility of being rammed whilst in the process. My one ship that had hit home however was boarded by the Spartan warriors on the vessel it had failed to hull, and they scuttled it. In the centre the remaining Spartan ships counter rammed the ships that had just sunk their companion vessel and hulled and sank them both leaving but one Corinthianman standing.
On the right the inactive Spartans, having seen the centre dealt with, decided to start up the offencive on that front and they rammed into one of the Corinthian craft, but they failed to pierce its bow and were, in their turn, boarded.

My three remaining vessels turned on the spot, two of them rammed the Spartans in the flank hulling and sinking two of them. My last ship rammed the sheared vessel in the stern but failed to penetrate it and so awaited the Spartan boarders.
In the centre the Corinthian about turned, ramming one of the Spartan vessels in the side, hulling and sinking it. And on the far right the inactivity seemed to be paying off as the Corinthian ships quickly overwhelmed all but one of the Spartan vessels with not a loss to their own fleet.

However the next phase began to see the Spartans superior fighters take their toll and all but one of my vessels were hulled and sunk by a side ram. The last remaining Corinthian vessel in the centre was also broken up, the blockade runners also lost a ship to the vessel they had failed to deal with last turn.

The Spartan ships on the right and centre flocked to my last remaining ship like vultures to carrion, three of the vessels ran up alongside her and the warriors from two of them ran on board and scuttled her whilst her warriors were scuttling the other Spartanman, the stranded warriors surrendered to the Atticans. The Golac fleet had by now scuttled the last Spartan in their midst and were setting out to try and brake through the remaining Spartan vessels on the shore of Brscak. The forces were evenly matched with the Spartans having an extra vessel which had been sheared.

As the boats began to approach each other one of the Spartan vessels was still facing the shore, so far the Spartans were outgunned if they could not turn their other vessel in time. Again the Corinthians sat their ships just out of range of the Spartans, waiting on the Spartan aggression to make the first move and gain the ram!

And true enough the Spartans moved just within ram range and found themselves all immediately rammed in their bows. The Sheared vessel's prow gave way and caved in upon the ram sending her to the bottom, whilst the other two ships withstood the ram and along with the third began their boarding actions.

One of the Corinthian vessels was overrun and scuttled but the other two both launch counter boarders and got across to the enemy vessels, sinking them. In the confusion that followed with the last four ships two more were also hulled and went to the bottom.

After being chased almost to the beach of Brscak the Corinthian vessel finally turned and rammed the Spartanman's prow, but the ram failed to breach the bow wood and the Spartan warriors surged upon the ship and accepted the Captain's surrender. Spartan victory

This game always proves an interesting one as the fleets are eact replicas of each other with neither having higher quality or quantity of vessels. The only differences are in that one side is better at boarding and the other shearing. However I can still remark that it would have been a clear Corinthian victory and not nearly by such a small margin had we employed better tactics and been a more unified force. The Golac blockade runners inactivity let the centre fall early and had they overwhelmed the Spartans earlier they could well have saved it, this would have led to the Centre being quite a resounding Corinthian victory (as it was it was only a marginal Spartan one) and this would probably have made up for my abysmal dice rolling on the left, however it was "the closest run thing you ever did see" when it came to the final showdown and the Spartan fleet escaped with but one vessel remaining, surly not enough to make it safely from the Adriatic to Sparta in war time!