Trying new things

Well, my group finally got around to trying out Full
Thrust and Dirtside II last weekend, and I just wanted
to share my feelings on the games.

First of all (enter gratuitous sucking up mode), I
still can’t believe how simple and intuitive the
various FMA systems are. Seriously, I think Jon has
actually hit on how wargames are *supposed* to be.

Weve been playing Stargrunt II now for about a year.
We’ve had rules for FT and DS laying around, we just
haven’t had the gumption to go about playing them.

First off, we had a full-on Full Thrust engagement of
about 1,700 points. Force A was using Star Trek
micromachines while Force B was using a mixture of
Full Thrust  ships and AoG’s Babylon 5 ships.

We pointed out our ships separately with Force A
trying to be faithful to the Star Trek ideas while
Force B was put together pell mell from the core
rules. For our first game, we stayed strictly with the
Full Thrust basic and advanced rules. We’ll add on
More Thrust and Fleet Book as we go.

Force A had six cruisers and a battleship while Force
B fielded a dreadnought, a battleship, two cruisers
and a frigate.

Once the engagement got under way, we all made a few
errors in judging movement, some grievous, others
humorous. It’s not nice when your frigate misjudges
things and ends up with his back to three Klingon
cruisers.

The outcome of the battle was a close victory for
Force B. Force A lost every ship while Force B had the
battleship (on it’s last row of hull boxes) and the
dreadnought (with it’s last row plus three boxes left)
left in the aftermath.

It could have been much worse for Force B had things
gone a little better for Force A and the dice. Three
Klingon cruisers closed on the battleship and fired
torpedoes within 12 inches, yet all missed. Then their
beams managed to do a combined three points of damage.
But, that’s the way the winds of war blow sometimes.

Our DS game was much smaller, with each side taking
two platoons of tank destroyers and two platoons of
tanks. While each side suffered the collapse of a
flank, nifty maneuvering allowed Force B to take a
victory.

Overall, I thought DS did an excellent job of
simulating the difference between tank destroyers and
tanks, and with a quick read of the rules, I think it
will do just as good a job at simulating other aspects
of large-scale ground battles. I can’t wait to design
my own force.

Plus, very few things beat drawing a BOOM chit ... at
least when gaming :-)

Kevin
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