StarDust Ground AAR: Robots, Go Home

Last Saturday Ziggy and I got together for a good-ol' 6x4 of StarDust Ground. After the recent rules updates, it was time to put it on the table.As an added element of "doing something different," I broadcast the game live with Gotomeeting and a webcam. Mark J joined and watched most of the game.

The game featured the Robot army (a personal favorite) versus the humans of the Red Guard. The set up had both forces advancing into the battlefield from opposite corners to capture and hold two objectives.

The objectives are the bridge and the ruins on the hill. My robots are entering the table from the bottom right, Zig's humans are at the upper left.

My starting forces were two squads of warbots, a squad of superbots and a the big repairbot.

The humans - two infantry squads and two Catapult rocket launcher tanks. They also had a sniper deployed further forward.

The forces start moving out. I sent the superbots over to the hill to contest that objective while the others gradually made their way toward the oasis. The repairbot has a smoke launcher and dropped a smoke screen in front of the superbots to give them some cover.

I based the Robot Army on common Fantasy Undead tropes, particularly slow movement, fearlessness and a lack of regard for their own lives. The do have some very fast elements (hoverbots, etc) which act like quick wolves or bats in an undead army.

Not really what I needed. The first of the Red Guard reinforcements arrive. Three Horseman light grav tanks.

The rocket tanks start pelting my troops and things have gotten urgent. The humans also have a squad on the bridge objective. They'll start scoring victory points soon. The superbots ascend the hill and take some shots at the squad on the bridge while the repair bot pushes forward to engage the tanks in fisticuffs!

Despite some very low-odds dice rolls, the Red Guard wipe out the superbots like they were nothing. GAH!

TK421 catches up with a Catapult tank and proceeds to embarrass itself. The grav tank is unscathed.

But just then, some robot reinforcements arrive! A large group of heavy hoverbots accompanied by a repair hoverbot zip in from behind the fishing village.

Some worthwhile shooting by the hoverbots results in a dead infantry stand on the bridge. The tanks retreat, not wanting to give my repairbot a chance to redeem itself.

Now we're talkin'! More help has arrived in the form of a squadron of bigbots. Railguns and machineguns are just what the doctor ordered.

Of course, things aren't all roses. The grav tanks start wrecking my robot infantry back in the other corner. Loads of small arms and an artillery uplink spells trouble for me.

My troops are wiped out, save the leader. The leaderbot calls in a spot of artillery on the light tanks! unfortunately, their armor holds up and no damage is done.

My heavy hoverbots sweep forward and mix it up with the grav tanks. Despite plenty of opportunities, they're unable to score any real damage. The Red Guard infantry on the bridge has been wiped out though!

But the situation on the hill just sucks for the robots. Infantry have captured that objective while reinforcements continue to arrive. Two heavy tanks are nothing I need to see.

The bigbots manage to smash a fire support tank with a railgun shot!

Large vehicle squadrons mean a group can really stretch out! The hoverbots hold the bridge objective while one of the team starts engaging the infantry on the hill. Too little, too late maybe, but a robot's got to have dreams. (of electric sheep?)

A gout of plasma from one of the Lancer heavy tanks blasts the brave little hoverbot. If it makes you feel better, the hoverbot was only programmed to be brave.

The bigbots managed a spite kill, finishing off the Catapults although the battle was over at this point.

Ziggy's Red Guard had won the battle, 7-2. A side scored a point for controlling an objective for a full player turn. Zig had the bridge for a few turns, then kept the meter running with the hill objective. We played until the one side had scored 7.

Zig played a good game, but the dice will have to take some of the blame for my crap performance. After playing the robots a handful of times, I need to buff them a little to make up for their movement restrictions. I have a couple of ideas.

Overall, the game ran very well and Mark rather enjoyed being able to watch it on his computer. Here's the hastily-assembled webcam rig I put together.

Since then, I've put together a rig that'll be a lot a) prettier  b) functional  c) stable. You can see Mark on the screen heckling us.

Be well everyone. I think I'm going to be showing future games on freeconferencecall.com It's indeed free and does not have the 40-minute timer that Zoom does. Gotomeeting is excellent but at $12 / month after the 14-day free trial, I'm not sure I want to use it that badly.