Forbidden Stars
We got to try a fairly new game called Forbidden Stars last night, and it wound up being one of the crazier game plays I’ve ever seen. It’s a fairly heavy wargame set in the Warhammer 40K universe, with each player’s objective being to take three specific planets and hold them until the end of the round (it doesn’t have to be the same round). There’s a lot to like about the game - one of my favorite mechanics is the basic way you get things done during the game. In order to make something happen in a system (moving troops / attacking, upgrading, etc.), a player places an order token into the system. But then other players can put order tokens of their own on top of yours, and the tokens resolve from top to bottom. Also, you have to resolve orders that are available if you have any when your turn comes up, so if other people have covered some of your tokens they can force you to resolve your tokens in a certain order, which makes things really interesting. I didn’t manage that aspect of the game too well, and I’d like to give it another try to wrap my head around it. Another thing I liked is the combat system - at the beginning of a fight you roll dice based on your number of units in the battle. Each die has attack, defense, and morale sides. Once the dice are rolled, each player gets to draw five combat cards and play one - these cards add more attack, defense, and morale, and have special powers, and you also get to upgrade the cards during the game. If one side hasn’t wiped the other out by the end of three rounds of card play, the team with higher morale wins.
With this particular game, I was playing the regular Space Marines, Frank was playing Chaos Marines, and Greg was playing Orks. Greg launched out to a very early lead, picking up two of his objectives before Frank or I had any. His strategy was to pump out a bunch of cheap units and swarm them out quickly, and it started to pay off really fast. I left one of Greg’s objectives unguarded in order to get my first objective, and then Greg got really lucky and was able to drop a free unit right onto his last planet. The following turn he was able to build up a large defense force there, but Frank put together a powerful army, managed to win a space battle using morale in order to clear himself a path, and then barely defeated Greg’s force to keep the game going.
I managed to lurch out and grab my second objective, but overextended myself and Greg crushed most of my troops. Greg then attempted to take a fortress I had left alone on a planet, not realizing that the fortress was allowed to fight back against him. Thanks to a terrible combat roll on Greg’s part, my fortress held fast and I won the battle based on morale. This was really important, because without that building I would have been limited to basically only having one building. So I was just almost entirely screwed, rather than entirely screwed.
At this point, Frank was in really good shape. He had tons of forces, and was able to easily reach out and take his second objective. The only thing preventing him from grabbing his final one was Greg and me working together to manipulate warp storms (basically mobile walls between the systems) to block him from it. However, if the game ended in a tie, Frank would win based on his massive territory advantage. Greg was doing pretty well, with a lot of troops of his own, but he was blocked from his objectives by Frank’s forces and the same warp storms we had to use to block Frank. Meanwhile I wasn’t all that far from one of my last objectives, but I had been almost completely crushed in combat.
So since Greg hadn’t been able to take my fortress, I was able to build a massive battle cruiser, then move it over so that it was closer to my objective. I left some defenses on the world holding the fortress, which had Frank’s last objective, and he prepared to come over and orbitally bombard it, though he wouldn’t be able to put troops down in order to take it that turn.
Meanwhile, I brought my fleet of two ships next to the planet with my objective and began bombardment. I had a card that let me automatically hit with all of my (six) dice, which killed one of Greg’s two massive defenders but left the other intact. I had a second bombardment order, which would give me another crack at his badass unit. I also had a card that let me drop a unit onto a planet after bombardment for free, but the unit would be weak and I would have to spend two shield dice in order to make the move. Since Greg’s unit had four health, I needed four attack results on my second bombardment roll to kill it, otherwise my weak unit would have to go up against his strong one and would probably lose. So essentially I had six dice to bombard, and I needed four attack results and two defend results in order to win the game right there - and then I rolled it. Pandemonium.
tl;dr - Greg shot out to an early lead and came within a hair’s breadth of winning the game, but Frank was able to beat him in an incredibly close battle that had both of them swearing. Then Greg slapped me around and nearly completely eliminated me from the game, but a fortress held fast due to a terrible roll on Greg’s part, allowing me to hang on by my fingernails. Frank built up a juggernaut and looked ready to coast to a victory, but I attempted a Hail Mary that required me to roll six dice and have all of them come up with exactly what I needed, and somehow it paid off. So badass.
This is a session we'll remember for a long, long time.
With this particular game, I was playing the regular Space Marines, Frank was playing Chaos Marines, and Greg was playing Orks. Greg launched out to a very early lead, picking up two of his objectives before Frank or I had any. His strategy was to pump out a bunch of cheap units and swarm them out quickly, and it started to pay off really fast. I left one of Greg’s objectives unguarded in order to get my first objective, and then Greg got really lucky and was able to drop a free unit right onto his last planet. The following turn he was able to build up a large defense force there, but Frank put together a powerful army, managed to win a space battle using morale in order to clear himself a path, and then barely defeated Greg’s force to keep the game going.
I managed to lurch out and grab my second objective, but overextended myself and Greg crushed most of my troops. Greg then attempted to take a fortress I had left alone on a planet, not realizing that the fortress was allowed to fight back against him. Thanks to a terrible combat roll on Greg’s part, my fortress held fast and I won the battle based on morale. This was really important, because without that building I would have been limited to basically only having one building. So I was just almost entirely screwed, rather than entirely screwed.
At this point, Frank was in really good shape. He had tons of forces, and was able to easily reach out and take his second objective. The only thing preventing him from grabbing his final one was Greg and me working together to manipulate warp storms (basically mobile walls between the systems) to block him from it. However, if the game ended in a tie, Frank would win based on his massive territory advantage. Greg was doing pretty well, with a lot of troops of his own, but he was blocked from his objectives by Frank’s forces and the same warp storms we had to use to block Frank. Meanwhile I wasn’t all that far from one of my last objectives, but I had been almost completely crushed in combat.
So since Greg hadn’t been able to take my fortress, I was able to build a massive battle cruiser, then move it over so that it was closer to my objective. I left some defenses on the world holding the fortress, which had Frank’s last objective, and he prepared to come over and orbitally bombard it, though he wouldn’t be able to put troops down in order to take it that turn.
Meanwhile, I brought my fleet of two ships next to the planet with my objective and began bombardment. I had a card that let me automatically hit with all of my (six) dice, which killed one of Greg’s two massive defenders but left the other intact. I had a second bombardment order, which would give me another crack at his badass unit. I also had a card that let me drop a unit onto a planet after bombardment for free, but the unit would be weak and I would have to spend two shield dice in order to make the move. Since Greg’s unit had four health, I needed four attack results on my second bombardment roll to kill it, otherwise my weak unit would have to go up against his strong one and would probably lose. So essentially I had six dice to bombard, and I needed four attack results and two defend results in order to win the game right there - and then I rolled it. Pandemonium.
tl;dr - Greg shot out to an early lead and came within a hair’s breadth of winning the game, but Frank was able to beat him in an incredibly close battle that had both of them swearing. Then Greg slapped me around and nearly completely eliminated me from the game, but a fortress held fast due to a terrible roll on Greg’s part, allowing me to hang on by my fingernails. Frank built up a juggernaut and looked ready to coast to a victory, but I attempted a Hail Mary that required me to roll six dice and have all of them come up with exactly what I needed, and somehow it paid off. So badass.
This is a session we'll remember for a long, long time.