So, we started playing One Page Rules: Grimdark Future – FTL Fleets in our home. And it was quite cool. Let me tell you how it went down between me and my two sons (almost 9 and almost 4).
The Combatants
While I only had one of my projected three gamepunk-fleets finished, my older son had not been idle and had (inspired by what I was doing) made spaceships himself. His own fleet was the Blaze Fleet, consisting of four ships created from scrap parts that we had lying around the workshop. He does have an elaborate back story for his people (beaver-like aliens seeking Earth which they know from received transmissions) but let's not get too deep into the details. The fleet consisted of three heavy ships and one medium ship according to the OPR rules.
My younger son had watched me play Sword of the Stars and liked the ships of the Zuul. He asked his brother to make him some and the result was another fleet of three large and one medium ship cobbled together from stuff lying around (and lots of hot glue). The specialty of this fleet was ramming – every ship had the Reinforced Ram upgrade, which would definetly come in handy.
My own fleet was cardboard-printed. The ships were mantis ships from FTL. As I was trying to gauge, what works in the game and what doesn't (for when I need to battle real enemies, not my kids) and went for a somewhat rounded fleet composition with lots of smaller craft: One medium ship as a flagship, three light ships armed with rocket pods (which would rule against squadrons but my enemies had none ...), two light ships designed for ramming (love those!) and four squadrons of gunships (to be ready for anything).
The Battle
Our dinner table was the battlefield. In the center we placed a round container lid as a central planet. A large D20 was the moon. Some boxes and stones were an asteroid swarm. Four red D10 were objectives placed in orbit. In addition to these standard objectives according to the rules of OPR FTL, each fleet had their own-set goals for an extra victory point: The Blaze Fleet had to keep its flagship alive, the Zuul had to fire on the planet each turn, the mantis had to destroy at least one capital enemy ship.
Turn 1
As my ships were smaller than both enemies, it didn't matter to me that my older son won iniative and my younger son came in last. I split my force: The five small ships went to intercept the Blaze Fleet, firing a first volley of rockets and doing one point of damage to one of the capital ships. The gunship squadrons went ahead and charged into the smallest ship of the Zuul fleet and started harrying it with their light weaponry. My flagship made a beeline towards one of the objectives and fired its plasma cannon, the mightiest weapon in my fleet, at the Zuul formation. To no effect.
The other two fleets also split up: The Blaze Fleet sent two ships towards my formation of light ships, opening fire. Their other two ships went towards the Zuul fleet and the objectives.
The Zuul fleet attacked in two directions as well, sending one ship towards the Blaze Fleet and three ships towards my mantis fleet.
Turn 2
The two ramming ships were in ramming position! So they did their thing and dealt tremendous damage to the front ship of the Blaze Fleet coming towards them (a medium ship, the smallest of that fleet), ramming it into the ship that was following. The missile ships meanwhile swerved hard to the right in order to follow and hopefully support the embattled flag ship of the fleet that was all alone in the vicinity of a victory point.
The Blaze Fleet fired upon my ships and even sent a rocket barrage to my own rocket ships, dealing damage to one caught in the blast despite it being in cover behind an asteroid. The Blaze Fleet also engaged the foward ship of the Zuul, firing all they had. Their flagship collected a victory point
The Zuul gathered a victory point as well and fired on my flagship once again, dealing heavy damage.
Turn 3
Things were getting serious. My two ramming ships did their thing again, driving back the much larger enemy craft. My flagship broke apart when it was rammed by the slow but deadly Zuul ship that was coming towards it. The Zuul medium ship, still followed by my gunships, stopped to turn in order to get back into the fight. The clash of two of the Blaze Fleet's ships and one of the Zuul ships ended with said Zuul ship being destroyed and dropping an objective it had gathered before. My rocket ships got into the fray, hoping to regain the victory point that my destroyed flagship had lost and perhaps even conquer one from the enemy.
Turn 4
The last turn was deadly. My two ramming ships sacrificed themselves, killing their opposing ship and badly damaging the capital ship that was following. The other side of the Blaze Fleet killed off their Zuul opponent and collected its victory point, upping their score to two. Two of my rocket-armed ships kamikaze'd into the badly damaged Zuul heavy ship they were facing off against, destroying it and themselves. My gunships failed to destroy the badly damaged medium ship they were engaging though – my last rocket armed light ship could not risk gathering up the two floating objectives infront of itself because it would have been rammed apart by that ship. Thus, the Zuul flagship could slowly swoop in and gather up these two victory points.
The aftermath
The Blaze Fleet lost one medium ship and won. They collected two objectives and fulfilled their secondary objective of having the flagship survive. The Zuul fleet came in second, with two victory points from objectives. They lost two heavy ships. My mantis fleet came in last with one victory point from a secondary objective. Three squadrons and one light ship were the only survivors.
What I learned
Ramming is fun and very effective. If I had played for victory, my fleet composition would have been dramatically wrong: Had I taken bombers instead of gunships for swarms and had I not taken missile volleys but more punchy weaponry on my three light cannon ships, I would have dealt a lot more damage. Positioning is something you always have to keep up with: As ships have to move half their movement before pivoting, you have to be careful not bump into your own crafts.
The game was great fun. We will do this again. Probably soon. So I'll have to get the other two fleets ready...
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