PentaCon XII Results

Here's the results from running five games at PentaCon this year...

*Friday
- Slug Fest '96 (skilled) using macro ships
DESC: Individual ships battle for sole survivor.
RESULTS: No show. :(  Major bummer!  Next year myself and some friends
plan
to bring our own large scale ships to help gather interest.  I think
players
might be apprehensive about bringing their own models for this event.

*Saturday
- Helm: Full Thrust! (novice)
DESC: Fleet engagement with 4-5 ships per player of varying types.
RESULTS: Full attendance.  Everything went well.  Had one or two return
players from last year.  Several new players enjoyed their first
experience
with FT and went out to buy a copy of the game afterwards.

- Fire in the Sky (intermediate)
DESC: Planetary invasion scenario.
RESULTS: Full attendance.  Invasion force played a more defensive
posture
and did not send any transports into planet's atmosphere.  Next time I
will
try to place this game in a Friday night slot since they are 5 hours
long
vs. the normal 4 hour slots.  With more time, the attackers might have
successfully landed some transports.  I also plan to give the attackers
slightly higher starting velocities to prod them forward a bit.

*Sunday
- Helm: Full Thrust! (novice)
DESC: Fleet engagement with 4-5 ships per player of varying types.
RESULTS: Full attendance.  Everything went well as the one from Saturday
and
had some players from Sat play it again.

- Dark Star (intermediate)
DESC: Based on the movie "Dark Star" by John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon.
Earth forces send a battlegroup to investigate the disappearance of the
scout ship Dark Star.  They discover a large (somewhat
uninhabited)planet
that has a 1% chance of going unstable in the next 10 million years. 
They
start to complete the Dark Star's mission of vaporizing the planet with
Exponential Thermostellar bombs to make way for colonization ships.  As
the
attack starts, the Earth forces encounter some very p.o.'d aliens.  The
alien defenders have excellent beam weapon technology while the Earth
forces
have a heavy allotment of missile weapons.
RESULTS: The game started late since I mistook the start time by 1/2
hour.
Oops! my bad! :(  Once the game started it was great, in fact it ran
excellent. 8) Earth forces took heavy losses mainly due to the planets
gravity well making maneuvering difficult.  The alien defenders
successfully
stopped all missiles(bombs with booster assist) from nuking the planet. 
If
the Earth forces used their battle dreadnought with the Futik Cannon to
clear a path for the missiles, things might have turned out differently.
Adding the humor element to the game really created quite a few laughs
making the last game session of the Con a memorable one.  Everyone seem
to
really enjoy the game and asked if we would be back next year - most
definitely!

DS Highlights: An Earth force missile corvette passes into planet's
gravity
well during movement phase.  Gravity randomly knocks ship into path of
an
alien battle dreadnought.  During fire phase, ship is blown to bits.

We used a variant of the Wave Gun called the Futik Cannon orignally
created
by Jon as a joke.  When the cannon fires, the player must roll 1D6.  On
a 6,
the ship does not fire because the crew is temporarily incapacitated
from
laughing so hard when the captain issues the order to fire.  Something
like:
"Mr Rogers, please pull the trigger on the Futik Cannon."  The Earth
force
ship using this weapon, fired it once out of range generating an
impressive
light show.  The second time they went to fire it, a large group of
alien
ships were near the 12" 4D6 damage template, but the captain rolled a 6.
 As
the crew rolled over laughing, the same ship was hit by a barrage of
beam
fire with one hit damaging the FTL drive.  The captain rolled for the
damaged improbability drive, and the ship was sent in the opposite
direction
from the enemy, making a hasty retreat.

Mike Miserendino