The Battle of Antares (Space Empires 4X)

 Communication to the loyal Bwendi Federation from President-for-Life Colonel Throckmorton P. Gladiolus XCVI:

People of the Bwendi Federation, today we gather to mourn the loss of the citizens of Vortigern and Sheldon. As you know, over a decade ago great alien doomsday machines first appeared from deep space and sought to destroy all life in our sector of the galaxy. The first encounter with one of these machines, which we called Weasels for their remorseless bloodthirstiness, was fought near the planet Essen. Brave battleship crews stood their ground and defended Essen even as we built up our naval capacity to counter this new attack.

We believed that this was a one-off occurrence until a second machine appeared several years later and also sought to destroy Essen. Our capabilities had been built up by then, but the machine had evolved too. We believe that the first machine communicated our capabilities even as our heroic naval crews gave their lives in aid of its destruction. This battle cost us dearly and we mourn every single crewperson lost in both of those battles.

Plenty of unexplored regions in deep space. Who knows what is out there?

We all hoped that this was it, but, as we know, all bad things come in threes, and the following year another Weasel appeared but from a different direction this time. Our scientists are convinced that it had decided to try a new approach because the previous two were destroyed at Essen. Alas for the people of Vortigern, our navy was not in position to stop it. The Weasel destroyed the whole planet and only a few refugees escaped. We mourn the people of Vortigern. Not content with that, the Weasel flew to Sheldon and destroyed that planet too. More escaped because they now had warning, but too many still died. We mourn the people of Sheldon. May the people of Vortigern and Sheldon forever live in our memories.

However, by this time our scouts had ascertained the Weasel's route. It was clear that it was heading for our capital Altair. We do not know why. We do know that we had just enough time to fortify Antares and to build up our fleet reserve there. It cost us half of our fleet, but our heroes fought well and valiantly on that day when they faced the Weasel, and they destroyed it.

The Doomsday Machine (bottom right of pic) has destroyed half the fleet but it has been destroyed

Praise to the heroes of Essen and Antares. To them, both living and dead, we award the Frog Star of Bwendi, the highest military award we have. On this tenth anniversary of the Battle of Antares, we honour those that saved us. We praise and mourn these heroes, and we declare that the Weasel menace is over. Our scouts have searched deep space and report no further signs of Weasels. Our scientists have modelled the behaviour of those that assaulted us and declared that there are unlikely to be more. We shall remain vigilant and maintain our defences, but we declare too that this day shall be a public holiday henceforth to honour our heroes. May the Great Frog bless them all.

The Game

I played the Doomsday Machines solo scenario from Space Empires 4X from GMT on Normal mode. You can make it more difficult by choosing a different level that will see the Doomsday Machines arriving earlier and being stronger. You can also play on Easy mode which does the reverse, giving you more time to prepare.

You start with a few scouts, a shipyard, some colony ships and a mining ship at your homeworld. You know the Doomsday Machines are coming and you have to prepare to defeat them. It's a race to maximise your resources available, build the right stuff to stop the Doomsday Machines and save the people of your galactic federation. Undefended planets in the machine's path will be destroyed.

I was quite lucky that the first two machines both came from the unpopulated side of my federation. It made it easier to meet them, and the proximity of Essen to my homeworld made it easier to reinforce the planet.

My maintenance costs were also conveniently reduced by my scoutships being lost to black holes and other navigation hazards in deep space. They did enough, but I needed those extra points to build cruisers, then battleships, then dreadnoughts.

The third Doomsday Machine came from the top left of the map where there was a straight line of four colonies between it and my homeworld. Rather than assault it with my cruiser flotilla that was in that area, I looked at how quickly the Doomsday Machine would move through and how quickly the rest of my fleet could gather there and chose to make my stand at Antares. That meant that I would lose two of my colonies, but that I would have time to assemble a force that stood a chance against the infernal machine. There was no point sending in my forces piecemeal, because the machine would heal damage with every planet it ate, so I would lose ships while gaining nothing.

The final battle was tough but I got lucky with the dice about halfway through. The Doomsday Machine missed five 50/50 shots in a row. Hurrah! My own troops were barely any better, but they scored the necessary hits and the machine was destroyed.

This was a tense game that I doubt I would have won on a more difficult level without a lot more practice. It was fun though. I probably got rules wrong, despite them being very short and straightforward. Next time I plan to get them all correct. We shall see.

Nothing Gained But Glory: Seven Battles of the Scanian War (GMT)

 Nothing Gained But Glory is part of the Musket and Pike Battles series from GMT. It covers seven battles fought between 1659 and 1678 with Sweden on one side and primarily Denmark and Brandenburg on the other, although other contingents do show their faces. Each battle has its own map and set of force counters. Set-up is easy because the counters are marked to show which battle they are part of, and the maps are pretty. Better yet, the battles are small, which means that games don't have to take a long time.

I decided to begin this year learning to play this game, so I have played through a couple of scenarios solo. The rules are not overly complicated, but there are quite a lot of moving parts, what with the possibility of preemption of initiative, reactions and interception, so the gameplay can require a bit of thought.

My first attempt was the Battle of Warksow, which took place on the island of Rügen in 1678. I managed to play this on the anniversary of the battle, which was nice. The battle involved the Swedes trying to cross a stream and drive off the Danish-Brandenburg army.

Set-up at the start of the Battle of Warksow

The Swedish army advanced to the stream, while its right wing attempted to loop around the enemy flank. The Danes redeployed their left flank to prevent this manoeuvre. Despite being disordered by the stream, the Swedish army made good headway and very quickly rolled up the enemy army for a decisive victory. It was fun, despite me getting the rules wrong a lot, so I moved on and set up Fehrbellin.

Set-up for the Battle of Fehrbellin

The Battle of Fehrbellin took place in June 1675 between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia. This is a very different battle because so much of the Brandenburg army was cavalry, and because the Brandenburg artillery bombardment was particularly effective. The Brandenburg left flank turned out to be impossible to attack effectively, and the other flank was impassable marsh, so neither side could be flanked. I made mistakes with the Brandenburgers that led to their cavalry getting shot to bits by the Swedish infantry, and it might have been better to form up the main body of Brandenburger cavalry and let the Swedes come to me. I'm not sure about that. This time, I did manage to get most of the rules right though.

Both games were fun, but I am not sure I shall follow through on my plan to play all the battles, because the opportunities for interrupting your opponent's move are too many, and that spoils the solo gameplay for me. I was tempted to use something like the Mythic GM Emulator as a semi-AI, but I think it would slow the gameplay down too much for this to be an enjoyable solo experience. Clearly I need to get myself an opponent who is also willing to learn these rules. It's a good game and I would love to play it face to face rather than solo.