Starfighter! A quick review.

I blame "Blue Leader McGurk," although "Blue Two" ALeC was probably even more guilty.  Listening to the Blue Leader describe his games with "Starfighters!" and wondering about incorporating squadron first into his games started me down this slippery path.  

I started playing Fistful of Lead last year, a game I really rate for its innovative activation system, and one that works well as a solo.  I followed these dubious Gentlemens' assurances that "Starfighters!", an adaptation of those rules, was worth a look.  "Really enjoyable" was the phrase that stuck.  Well for £4.44 that seems worth a go.

I've never had much enthusiasm for space warfare, except for a brief fixation on Traveller back in the day.  Movement involving vectors seemed interesting if cumbersome, yawn, but the space combat rules were also a little cumbersome for me.  

Sci Fi settings are also something of an issue.  Being more than a little reluctant to rehash Star Wars, or anything else Hollywood inspired, I would need to come up with my own background, and that could be a huge unwieldy project.  Once I read through the starfighters rules I was quite keen to give them a go, so I started considering another route. 

 

The Sci Fi author Jack Campbell, a former US Navy "ship driver" points out the similarities between sea warfare and space, in terms of movement of mass, logistics and combat.  Well, one thing I do know a lot about is WW2 Naval.  A mini campaign loosely based on "carrier" warfare would resonate far better for me than making up alien races or rebel alliances.  

With that as it's basic premise the setting is quite deliberately a little vague on detail.  

Background

The Carrier "Glorious" has been involved in heavy fighting and is withdrawing back to base at Gibraltar Station with her escorts.  She is down to her last six "Gladiator" fighters, her engines require maintenance and overall, and she has battle damage sustained from an enemy battle cruiser attack in operation Alphabet.

Somewhere out there are the enemy, specifically the converted carrier "Aquila" carrying it's own "Falco" class starfighters.  Aquila is paired with the elderly battleship Cesare, and constitutes a real threat to Glorious' mission to reach her base.

The mini campaign will run through the scenarios in order, keeping track of resources and available pilots.  The Master Chief on Glorious must keep his starfighters flying, perhaps by cannibalising wrecks, as well as manage dwindling munitions.

The Aquila's fighters will be randomly generated to comprise a threat.

I have worked out more than just this basic campaign outline but since my main  focus here are the rules themselves I will expand on this for game two.

The build

It would be nice to buy off the shelf models, but I'm in Cyprus and that is unrealistic.  In any event I really like the idea of building my own ships from pieces of scrap.  Glorious' Gladiator fighters may owe their name to a WW2 Naval Aircraft but I really want to build my own squadron of personalised models.

I started with bamboo skewers.  Easy to work, de-laminating on the grain and thick enough to look correct in the (roughly) 1:600 scale I want.

Making the basic shape.  Artists card and bamboo roughly put together.

Getting there

The idea is for two flights of three starfighters, one in blue livery one in red, to denote my two flights. 

Flight stands use the core of an earbud mounted on a coin for the base, with a pin mounted on the model.  Its a prototype...

I have no plans to build the Glorious or her escorts, never say never I suppose.  The larger ships are offstage, and the starfighters here to gain the glory.

Terrain.

Initially I'm looking at a few pieces of polystyrene bashed about and painted in fifty shades of grey as asteroids.  That's really about all.  It's not a big project and it's not going to overtake my storage.

Scenarios

There are six scenarios in the rules.  These will form the "campaign" for Glorious return to her base, escalating from smaller to larger actions, with a much bigger battle as the climactic conclusion.  I will run through them in order, adding scratch built ships as I complete them.

1. Escort
2. Wounded Eagle
3. Headhunting
4. Attack Run
5. Attack on the shadow base
6. The last battle.

Rules review.

A reasonably priced pdf, with key features of commonality from the "parent" rules. The use of Star Wars micro machines in the illustrative pictures leaves me a little cold, frankly they look too big to me, but the rules themselves are straight forward and easy to grasp.

I liked the "design your own starfighter" idea, allowing me to make my Star Gladiator ships unique, and the character campaign element that assigns personalities to my pilots looks tailor made for solo games.

The best way to test a set of rules however is to get the toys down and roll some dice.

Scenario One

Escort

“Blue 3 to Blue Leader, could that old transport move any slower? This sector is crawling with the Enemy. We’re gonna get caught out here babysitting” 

One side has been tasked with escorting an unarmed supply transport back to the Carrier Group.  They must reach the other side of the playing area before the reach the designated Jump Point. 

Unfortunately, this part of space is full of unfriendly types. 

Size- 4 players, but easily scalable. 

Set Up- 6’  x 4’  table. 

Players start with their forces along the short side of the table playing lengthwise. 

Special Rules

The transport:  Transports. move up to 8” at the end of the turn.  This means they have the ability to Evade but means it will take 9 turns to cross the battlefield. Transports count as Heavy Fighters with 9 Damage Points and Heavy Shields but no weapons. 

Victory-  If the transport moves off the far end of the table it has reached the Jump Point and escapes. The escorting side receives  3 Renown and d6 supply Points if the transport ship escapes and 1 RP  for each enemy fighter destroyed. 

The attacking side receives  3 Renown Points if the transport ship is destroyed and 1 RP  for each enemy fighter destroyed. 

The game

Blue Flight come on table, 30 points.  The freighter they are escorting sticks close to Blue 2.

Blue three wins its first dogfight.  I had huge trouble building this model.  It just would not stick.  As a result its a bit wonky.  I took that to mean that it gets the "unreliable" rating with its engines likely to go offline during a game.  No sign of that here though.

Red 2 has its pilot gain shock as the dogfight ends and the ships are moved 2" apart.

Blue 2 gets a shot in and hits on that 5.

But I struggled to manoeuvre properly.  Turning up to 45 degrees at the start of the move means its difficult to sweep around.  

Blue Leader and the Transport slip past the Reds, who had to turn in pursuit,  Blue 2 is lost to enemy fire.

Wonky Blue 3 gets a hit in on an already damaged Red and kills it.

But with the Reds distracted Blue get the Freighter off table and win.

3 Renown and 4 supply Points for Blue, plus 1 RP  the enemy fighter destroyed.

2 Renown points for Red

A fast and fun game. I really need to sort out movement and have a plan rather than just reacting.  A few more games needed before I`m sold, but it was easy to play and the cards gave a run of luck to first one side then the other.  I used a smaller tabletop and centimetres rather than inches, but it played just as well.

Getting there...