Sa'vasku

Enough of Kra'vak talk - they are far approaching the most over exposed
aliens in the Universe!
Has anybody tried some serious games using Sa'vasku fleets?  I saw the
pirate game on the UFTWS which looked like fun [I haven't tried it out
yet], however I've found Sa'vasku really hard [dare I say boring] to
play.

We have been tossing around some variations on the rules and have come
up
with something like a cross between Official Sa'vasku and our friendly
Aliens - we call them grubs and use lots of playdough/plactacine
[however
you spell it] to represent them - you will quickly see why...

A quick run down of what we have come up with:

1.  Ship point cost = [mass x 0.75] x 10.  Damage Points, PF and PP all
remain, as do treatment of Beam Attacks, Storing energy, Fighters, FTL,
PDF
and Thrust.  Classes are Lava, Drone, Warrior and Breeder [Supership
size -
good for campaigns etc].

2.  Ships can merge with one another to repair lost damage [imagine one
ship kind of absorbing another, including merging of fighters - however
it
doesn't work 100% of the time.

3.  A weapon like the human needler that can target systems however if
they
are hit then the Sa'vasku player can control that item.  In addition it
continues to spread throughout the ship over the course of the game
until
Dmg Control parties can kill it.  We call it the INFESTOR CANNON [pretty
nasty sounding].

4.  Another weapon option is SPINES which act as low grade railguns. 
However rather than relying souly on PP's the Sa'vasku vessel can use
damage points - basically they are shooting bits of themselves at the
enemy.

5.  Regeneration is possible - One damage point requires a PF worth of
power point spent.

6.  Rather than shields and armour another defense - that of SPORE
CLOUDS. 
The filthy slugs release clouds of organic muck into surounding space
making it difficult to lock on them.  The bigger the ship the harder it
is
to lock.  Also these can be used in conjunction with the whole fleet -
you
can have your Drones [Cruisers] screening your Warriors [Capitals]
forcing
the enemy to chop their way through the easy stuff before they can even
target the really problems.  Of course there are some limiting factors
but
that's what makes for a tactically challenging game.

The above seems to work pretty well - I was going to show some people at
MOAB, maybe run a short demo game, but I will be recovering from a week
interstate partying by then.  I'd like to see what ideas/comments people
have and next weekend I could mail actual rule details [in house] to
those
who are interested.  Maybe then we can talk about Kra'vak again [I have
got
some beauties for those bugs...].

Let the thread start,

Jason Berman
sigue@one.net.au