Rapier Con 2017

I had a great time at Rapier game con in Jacksonville Saturday. I only played two games, but both were a blast and I'm glad to have gone.

First up was Check Your 6: Jet Age, hosted by Mike Dubose. We played the "Gunfighter" Vietnam scenario out of the MRB. I drew a couple of NVA MiG-17s. My teammate also had a pair of 17s and a flight of 21s. Mike got the F-8s and his teammate drove the A-4s which were on a SAM suppression mission.

The setup. My Migs mead-on with the Crusaders and the Skyhawks very low. I liked the clear lego-peg stands, but they were a bit fiddly as things progressed.

We gave Mike the ol' Cincinnati-switch and left his Crusaders up in the clouds while taking advantage of the slow Skyhawks' predictable paths. One of the A-4s was down in short order, but there's photo of the drama.

Mike fires a Sidewinder at one of my planes. The nearby explosion hits my plane but the damage is superficial.

A good look at our firing opportunities for the turn. We managed to damage two of the Skyhawks.

A turn later and my rookie pilot takes another shot. A snake-eyes of sorts results in his plane being out of ammo. Nuts!

The MiG-21s fire a pair of Atolls and the Skyhwak trailing smoke is downed.

No pictures of our two Fishbeds getting shot down my Mike. My teammate's remaining 17 ran out of ammo and headed for home. My remaining plane chased and shot down another Skyhawk but was in turn taken out by a Sidewinder from the pursuing F-8s. Blast.

It was a very enjoyable game even though we got our butts kicked.

After lunch, I set up my game of Star Fleet Battles. The scenario was that a Tholian carrier is refueling when it is attacked by a Klingon PF tender. James and I ended up with the Tholians. I took the escort and fighters while James drove the tanker and the carrier. Mike Baker drove the PF Tender and new guy Mike drove the PF flotilla since he was new to the game and PFs have rather simple energy systems.

The carrier and tanker in the center while my escort heads over to meet the Klingons. The Tholians have two rows of web up forming walls astride the currently helpless carrier and tanker.

My disruptor fighters and escort put some pain on PF #3 early on. The PFs wise up and pull back a bit. My escort skulks away for a few moments.

My disruptor fighters continue their harassment of the PFs on turn 2, damaging another. The PFs had their way with the other fighters, using their ADDs to deadly effect. The Klingons eventually finished off the Spider-IIs but they served us very well.

A room chock-full of old men.

My escort grabbed one of the PFs (the phaser one) with a tractor to shut it down temporarily and break up the squadron. The carrier and tanker are making a run for it.

At the start of turn 3, we Tholians very generously allowed the Klingons a reinforcement in the form of an E4 escort. At this point, we'd really given them the business and the battle wasn't going to be terribly competitive.

The PFT and escort concentrated their fire on the Atom Heart Mother, knocking down the #2 and #3 shields and causing considerable damage, but critically, the E4's overloaded disruptor shots missed. The carrier still had enough power to get away!

The Black Widow-class carrier Atom Heart Mother, a few hexes from escaping on turn 4. I spun my escort back around into the Klingons to give them pause and buy my carrier some breathing room. The tanker is heading off the other way, tractoring a drone targeted on the carrier.

A good win for the Tholians. I think the Klingons could have coordinated attacks by the PFs and PFT a bit more closely. With a half-flotilla, the light PFT can be used as another strong source of firepower, especially against short-ranged stumps like the Tholians they were pitted against. I wasted my fighters, but was very happy with the performance of the disruptor fighters - those things are fun!

Rapier Saturday was a fun time and I'm looking forward to Gnomecon in a few weeks. Be well!