Rapiercon 2019 - Saturday 2: Star Fleet Battles

My scenario "Jailbreak" was brought out of mothballs for Saturday afternoon's entertainment at Rapier. I made a few minor tweaks, based on the previous game's play, but nothing significant. The flavor text and setup.


Jalad, Orion captain of some renown had recently been captured by the Romulan police operating in the Bundag asteroid field. Jalad had a few inside contacts on the mining base in which he was being held until he could be transferred. They made arrangements to have a get-away vessel hidden nearby. Once it was in place, it was a matter of getting him out of his cell, to a skiff that conveniently was left with the engine running and on his way to the waiting ship!

Right on cue, the klaxons began blaring as soon as Jalad and his associates boarded the skiff. The base commander immediately requested that all nearby vessels assist with the apprehension of the crook. A few brave Romulans answered the call. This is what happened.

This go around, Mike got to assume the mantle of Jalad, beginning play in a fairly stock Security Skiff. Our other players were:

David D - Piloting a Small Prospecting Ship

Davis S - Piloting a Salvage Tug, an Admin Shuttle and a Gladiator SF fighter

Edward - Piloting a Free Trader

Tom - Piloting a Harbor Tug

With the exception of Tom, the other players have all played with us in Brunswick so it was great to have the gang all together. Tom hadn't played SFB in 20 years but it didn't take him much time to adjust and get his bearings - Mike would see to that!

The Orion starts on the blue hex. He needs to get to his cloaked Light Raider "get away vehicle" hidden in an asteroid hex of map sections B or E, and escape the map from the far map edge (the 01xx row). The civilians are fairly well scattered across the map.

The scenario gets under way! Energy Allocation is pretty easy given the scows our captains are flying today. Of course, in a sector of scows, the Light Raider is a real dreadnought.

The pirate immediately hits the thrusters and heads off starboard. Mike immediately starts Tom on a refresher course; a drone and phaser fire greet Tom's harbor tug which is plotting an intercept course. The harbor tug's phaser-3 knocks off a shield box or two from the skiff. Everyone else had begun moving to box in the pirate except David S! Has he turned traitor?

Here's a close up of that last shot. David's massive Salvage Tug is moving away from the action, perhaps he's going to play "goalie?" He is towing the admin shuttle atop the model.

A closer shot.

Turn 2. The pirate has made it to the Light Raider and fires up the engines. He surprises the entire table when he announces that he's going to plug along at speed 6. He's going through the asteroids!

The lumbering haulers slowly react to the changing situation. Fortunately for them, the situation is changing slowly because Mike didn't just gun the engine and run! This happens to be the final photograph featuring the Gladiator fighter. Mike would smite it with phaser fire shortly after this picture was taken. A moment of silence.

Mike's ship has emerged from the rocks and turn's David's Prospector into a canoe with an F-torp and phasers. Tom's Harbor Tug had also been savaged by the Orion. Keen eyes will reveal that David's big tug is honing in on the Orion position.

Turn 3... David hits a home run. He announces a tractor on Mike who hasn't got the juice to counter it. He's going to shove old mister "I plotted speed 16" into the asteroids. The pirate is now also dragging a heavy damn ship.

David did what we all wanted to see and let Mike go in the asteroids. Mike got lucky with the rolls and only took minor damage from bouncing off rocks. The anchor did give the others time to catch up though and you can Mike has some consternation going on. Also note that a Small Auxiliary Cruiser has arrived (controlled by David D whose first ship was most wrecked at the time). You can see it about five hexes into the map, up from those paired red counters.

Energy is plotted for turn 4. The noose is tightening but that Orion is a slippery customer!

David S slaps another tractor on the Orion, dropping him from the announced speed of 31 to a miserable 15! With no energy to counter the four that David dropped into tractors (he had very few systems left by now) Mike resigned himself to dragging the anchor around while the dealing with what the others had (which certainly wasn't much!).

The wannabe cruiser flings a type-F at the Orion. A game of "easily broken model Jenga" breaks out. Mike ends up having a shield crushed by the torpedo. Marines from the cruiser are beamed aboard the Orion vessel!

The situation at the end of turn 4. The boarding parties fought to a stalemate, no casualties on either side. Mike and David have a tractor auction. Mike wins with 8. He declares a high enough speed to get away if he can survive another round of shooting.

The Orion's rear shield is long gone. Two more boarding parties are sent over! The pirates are outnumbered on their own vessel 4:2! Shots continue to slam into the wrecked Orion ship.

But, it's got enough in the tank to make it out! Congratulations to Mike for toughing out a very difficult mission and getting the win. Those three and a half hours of Star Fleet were some of the best gaming I've ever been around. I was a "proud papa" in the GM seat watching my scenario unfold like a fantastic movie. The table was overflowing with humor, stress and great sportsmanship. I'd like to thank everyone who played for rising to the challenge of "when like gives you a Harbor Freighter, you may as well treat the enemy like freight."

We did roll the boarding party combat after the fact and indeed, both Orion BPs were killed, so the story's got a sad ending for the crooks, but it didn't diminish Mike's accomplishment.


We hung out for the Raffle. Tom won two prizes, as did David's son Anson. Mark and I split, both tired as hell. A great Con and looking forward to 2020!