GenCant - Sunday Space-faring

For the last day of GenCant, I had arranged to spend the bulk of the day playing Forbidden Stars with Eric, Chris M, and Burke. Since we were meeting when the hall opened at 1pm, I was able to sleep in after Saturday's late-night long movie marathon. I got up & grabbed food on the way, ensuring that, by the time everyone arrived, I was caffeinated, fed & ready to go.


We started by picking factions - my opponents didn't have strong preferences, so I chose to play the Eldar again, having thoroughly enjoyed playing them in my first game. The next course of action was to set up the map; we chose not to play the introductory map but instead create the board randomly which turned out to be a neat pre-game game as we attempted to out-maneuver each other by creating some tricky conditions. Most of us consolidated our forces, but Burke's last tile play forced Eric to start with his divided.

The starting set-up

This game moved a decent rate allowing us to almost complete 7 of the 8 rounds before we had to pack up as the place was closing. Eric & Burke were the first to enter combat & for the first few rounds of the game, we were almost playing 2 separate 2-player games: Eric & Burke continued to tussle while Chris & I went back & forth vying for control of the system that separated our homeworlds. Eventuallly, however, the groups started to merge together as Burke made a strong, dangerous foray into Chris's territory to grab  his second & third objectives, while I sent my fleet screaming towards both his and Eric's forces in an effort to make progress on mine.

Eric & Burke start the fighting...

... while Cris & I tussle at our end of the map

In the end however, I was able to destroy a ton of units of all the other factions, but never actually established ground units successfully on a world containing one of my objectives. At the end of the 7th round, when we packed up, I was literally one order away from my first objective taken & had a really good shot at getting a second. I still wouldn't have been enough to win, but I'd have felt better for getting some of those damn tokens off of the board.

This was a very popular system all of a sudden.

I may be spread thin, but big things (like better ships) are coming

I love this game more and more, and it's getting harder and harder not to purchase my own copy.It's a game that I will spend a few hours after it ends, running scenarios and what-ifs in my head in an effort to analyze the experience (& my opponents). If only we'd gotten to play the last round, so I could have had at least 1, if not 2, objectives completed & made some progress!

The final result:

• Burke - Ultramarines chapter of Space Marines - 3 objectives
• Eric - Evil Sunz Ork clan - 2 objectives
• Chris - World Eaters Warband of the Chaos Space Marines - 1 objective
• Ruth - Eldar of Craftworld Iyanden - 0 objectives